First To Fight

by David Sherman

  "Where?" another recruit asked, excited.

  "There," McNeal said, awed.

  As the pilot maneuvered the shuttle craft, the passengers got an excellent view of the starship where it hung silhouetted above the terminator.

  "My God," someone whispered.

  "Is it the Purdom?" another asked.

  "Yeah, I can see the name," his companion responded.

  "How can you see the name?"

  They'd all seen images of starships: trids, holos, even two-D's. But mere images couldn't do justice to what was floating before them. The ship was vaster and far more ugly than they'd imagined. The CNSS Private Thomas Purdom was an enormous ebony conglomeration of metal nearly two kilometers along its main axis and several hundred meters at its greatest girth. Dozens of tenders and service shuttles swarmed busily about her sides, doing maintenance or delivering passengers and supplies. On the shadow side, work parties encased in protective suits scuttled over her hull, laboring under lights as brilliant as tiny suns.

  As the Purdom loomed larger and larger through the ports, the recruits' exuberance turned gradually into awed silence. They were overwhelmed by the sense they were in the presence of a leviathan that could live only in deep space where it had been born, never to make planetfall. When the ship became outmoded or was damaged beyond repair in the unimaginable ferocity of battles fought in the farthest reaches of Human Space, she would be returned to an orbital port like this for salvage and her reusable components incorporated into another vessel.

  Gradually, as the shuttle entered the enormous shadow cast by the starship, it was engulfed in darkness. Closer up, the activity about the Purdom seemed to be even more frenetic. They passed by tenders shuttling back and forth, and Dean flinched at their passage, afraid they might crash into one of these other craft that so ponderously maneuvered about their mysterious business around the starship's hull. An enormous square of light loomed larger and larger in the hull as the shuttle neared, and almost before its passengers realized, they were inside an enormous berthing compartment.

  Guided by two silver-suited sailors, an accordion tube snaked out of a bulkhead forward of the shuttle's wing. A loud bang reverberated through the shuttle's hull as the tube made contact with the hatch's locking ring. Thunks and pings penetrated the hull as the tube was locked into place. A flight attendant undogged the hatch and a sailor inside the tube opened it from the outside.

  "Listen up, people," Corporal Singh called for their attention. "Stay in your places until someone comes to move you. I don't care how many times you've been to a disney, this is a navy ship. It's different. Very different. Stay where you are until I tell you to move."

  "I'll take over now, Marine," a khaki-clad navy chief petty officer said as he swam aboard during Singh's little speech. He gave a slight push against the hatch frame and drifted out of the way of two sailors who swam through behind him. Each pushed a large, spoollike object ahead of him. "Hook 'em up," the chief ordered.

  "Aye aye," replied one sailor. He hooked his spool to a stanchion and led the other sailor, who kept his spool, to the rear of the shuttle. Using well-practiced movements, the sailor with free hands pulled out the end of the thin cable wound around the spool. He attached a clip on the end of the cable to the man in the outermost portside seat. The sailor pulled out more cable. Two meters along was another clip, which he attached to the second man, and so on. The cable was studded with clips at two-meter intervals. In moments every recruit on the port side of the aisle was attached. Back in front, the sailors retrieved the other spool, took it to the rear of the cabin, and repeated the hooking process on the starboard side.

  "We're going to disembark in an orderly manner," the chief announced when the sailors had completed hooking up the recruits. "As you might have noticed when the shuttle was in final approach, this ship is big. It's easy to get lost if you don't know your way around—and you aren't going to be aboard long enough to learn. That's why the tether, so nobody gets separated on the way to the troop area. Now, when I give the word, you," he pointed to the recruit in the port-side aisle seat, "will go with this sailor," he indicated one of the two ratings who'd hooked the recruits together. "When the last man on the port side reaches me, you will all stop so the first man on the starboard side can be hooked to him." He looked at the chief flight attendant for the first time since boarding the shuttle. "They're ready to be unlocked, ma'am."

  The chief flight attendant did something outside the sight of anyone in the shuttle's seats and all the safety restraints unbuckled and retracted.

  "All right, you, move," the chief ordered the recruit in the first seat. The recruit gripped the arms of his acceleration seat to keep from drifting away. The chief gave him a hard look. "I said 'move.' That means now. Go." The recruit looked back over his shoulder at Corporal Singh.

  "Time to move out, people," Singh said. "Do it like the chief says." He grinned at the chief petty officer as the recruits started stringing out, floating not quite under control behind the sailor leading them.

  The chief glowered at Singh, then returned his grin. "Maybe you got yourself a good bunch here."

  Beyond the tube that connected the shuttle to the interior of the ship, they were immersed in the sounds and smells of a starship preparing for flight. The continuous stream of shuttles arriving and departing sent clanks echoing through the interior of the ship. Incoming cargo being shifted about in the airless loading bays clanged harshly through the metal bulkheads. The crews working on the ship's outer hull made a steady rain of pings. This exterior cacophony overlay the constant thrumming and thudding of machinery deep within the ship's bowels. Dollies, hoists, and monorails whined and screamed and whirred as they moved cargo and people about. Men at work shouted and chief petty officers barked a constant string of orders. The odor of fresh lubricants taxed the ship's air scrubbers. The body smells of sweaty deckhands wafted over the recruits as they rushed by them in their work.

  One of the sailors grabbed a downward-passing elevator cable and hauled the first recruit in line with him. The cable only went "down" in the sense that it ran perpendicular to the deck they were on, and as far as anyone could be sure, it went "down" according to how the shuttle was oriented in the docking deck. Singh helped the chief and his other sailor link the rest of the recruits onto the cable until the chief signaled him to grab hold and go.

  It seemed like a long time before the sailor in the lead stepped off the cable and started unlinking the following recruits and pulling them into a passageway that was empty of anything but them and a monorail car. Most of the noises that had assailed them on the loading deck were muted down here.

  Wasting no time, the chief and his men crowded the recruits into the waiting car. As soon as everyone was aboard, he pulled himself into the front of the car, grabbed a handhold, and picked up a microphone. The handhold wasn't for decoration—the car lurched forward immediately and the chief would have sailed down the car's length if he hadn't had a grip on it.

  "Listen up," he said into the mike. "This ship has twenty-five decks—that's 'levels' to you landlubbers. You're on Deck Twenty-three. You will not leave Deck Twenty-three for the duration. Remember that! Your training area for this flight is half a kilometer sternward, in Area Whiskey. Remember that! You will be confined to that area for the entire voyage. Don't worry, it'll be big enough for all of you. When we arrive there, I'll hand you back to your corporal and won't have to worry about you until it's time to jettison you on Asshole."

  The monorail disgorged the fifty-five recruits into a huge, well-lighted bay. To their surprise, at least 150 other recruits were already there, gripping handholds sticking out from what Dean thought of as the ceiling. They faced a raised dais behind which a group of Marines managed to hover without seeming to hold on to anything. They were dressed in green jackets and trousers with khaki-colored shirts. Each wore a brown-leather "Sam Browne" belt over the green jacket—the Class A uniform, as the recruits were soon to learn. That wa
s the only uniform they were to see, except for garrison utilities, until after they graduated from Boot Camp and were assigned to the Fleet. Each of the Marines on the dais wore a kaleidoscope of ribbons fastened above his left jacket pocket.

  Corporal Singh nudged and pushed his group into the rear rank of the bobbing recruits already holding on there and made sure each grabbed a handhold. He nodded toward an officer on the dais, a captain, judging by the gold orb that graced each shoulder strap on his jacket.

  "At ease!" the captain shouted. "That means, shut up and listen up, in civilian," he added. He spoke with a distinct but unfamiliar accent. Silence, punctuated only by the humming of the air ducts, the creak of expanding and contracting metal, and vast booming noises far within the hull—sounds that would accompany them all the way to Arsenault and soon go unnoticed—was immediate.

  The captain smiled and nodded approvingly. "You're learning. My name is Captain Tomasio and I am your company commander. Welcome to Company A, First Battalion, Fleet Training Regiment. These Marines up here with me are the company executive officer, the company first sergeant, and your drill instructors. Your squad leaders and fire team leaders—you'll learn what all those are very soon—will be selected from among you, once we get organized and get a few things straightened out. We are all going to get to know each other very well over the next six months. Now, painted on the deck in front of each bulkhead—that's 'wall' in civilian—you will see large yellow squares numbered one to four. When your name is called, you will move smartly, and I emphasize smartly," a ghost of a smile flickered across his lips, "to your designated number. That will be your platoon assignment. Later, you will be organized into squads and fire teams by your drill instructors." Captain Tomasio turned to one of the other Marines. "First Sergeant."

  The company first sergeant didn't appear to make any movements to direct himself, but still drifted sharply to the front of the platform. "When I give your name and platoon assignment, move sharply." He barely glanced at the clipboard in his hands when he began calling the names off: "Abercrombie, one . .."

  The Marines had an ancient expression they used to describe what happened when the first sergeant started giving platoon assignments to the recruits: Chinese fire drill. None of the recruits had much experience with movement in null-g, and most had none at all. There was chaos in the compartment for several moments until, at a soft command from Captain Tomasio, the drill instructors took over and started physically moving the recruits from their handholds to their designated platoon areas.

  Dean found himself assigned to the second platoon. Fred McNeal joined him there and the two shook hands happily.

  The following hours passed in a whirlwind of hurry-up-and-wait, punctuated by moments of frenzied activity and confusion. Before they were through, all the recruits streamed perspiration from every pore. First, all personal possessions, clothing, watches, rings, even toothpaste, were confiscated and locked away, to be returned when the recruits joined the Fleet; everything they would need over the next six months would be issued to them.

  Chapter Four

  Second platoon's chief drill instructor was a barrel-chested staff sergeant of about forty named Neeley. The first assistant D.I. was an older man, very slim and immaculate in his Class A uniform, named Staff Sergeant Pretty. No one dared laugh when he said his name, though. His embroidered red chevrons consisted of three bars with points up and a rocker underneath with a flaming-sun device in the center. These chevrons were much smaller and utilitarian than those worn on the dress uniform Dean had seen on Riley-Kwami at the recruiting office. Corporal Singh was the junior drill instructor. The three instructors quickly put them through their paces. At the double—which was quite a trick in null-g.

  "Line 'em up, line 'em up, line 'em up," Staff Sergeant Neeley cried out for what felt like the five hundredth time since Captain Tomasio turned the recruits over to the D.I.'s. "In alpha order." This time—in reality the sixth—it took only a fraction of the time it had the first; by now they knew whose names came before and after theirs.

  "Name," demanded the lance corporal seated at yet another battleship-gray desk.

  "Anderhalt, Shaqlim X," said the first recruit in line.

  The lance corporal typed the name into his computer, then glanced over the personnel display that popped up on his screen. "Date of birth?"

  "April eighth, 2427."

  The date of birth matched. "Mother's birth name."

  "Lahani Schwartz."

  That also matched. One last check for verification—or maybe it was just for the annoyance factor. "Blood type."

  "AB negative, N, Duffy," also matched.

  "Put your left wrist in there." The lance corporal pointed at a buff-colored ring on top of a box on the corner of his desk nearest where his subject gripped a handhold.

  Anderhalt put his wrist in the ring. The lance corporal pressed a large red button on the side of his keyboard. The ring contracted until it was in full contact with his skin. There was a muted click, then the ring expanded back to its original size.

  "Next."

  Anderhalt, not having been told to move, stayed where he was. The lance corporal looked at him for the first time. "You can go now. And take your wrist with you, I don't want it."

  Anderhalt flushed and hastily did what he was told.

  "Name," the lance corporal said to the next recruit in line.

  Everyone strained to see what the shrinking ring had done to Anderhalt, but Pretty and Singh were hustling him down the passageway, and they each had to wait their turn to find out what was happening.

  After his turn, Dean was still examining the featureless bracelet the ring had clamped onto his wrist when the chief D.I. called the platoon to attention.

  "You have just been issued your personnel record," Neeley said when all of his recruits were looking at him. "Right now it's just about blank, because you're blank. All it contains is your personal data, your medical history, and the results of the tests you took when you enlisted. Every company office and every personnel department from battalion or squadron on up in the Marine Corps has a reader for it. Every company, battery, and squadron first sergeant in the Corps controls a writer that will update your record as things happen that need to go into your record. Every time your company updates your record, the update will also relay to the next-higher command, which will relay it to the next-higher command, and so forth, until your record is completely updated in Central Data in Saint Louie.

  "You can't muck about with it. There is no way you can read the data it contains, and no way you can alter it. There are only two ways that bracelet will ever come off you. One is if you are released from active duty at the end of an enlistment, through retirement, or as the result of a court-martial that kicks your worthless hindquarters out of this man's Marine Corps. The other is if some felonious aggressor out there on some godforsaken planet you'd never set foot on if Mother Corps didn't say you had to blows your hand off.

  "If anyone tries to muck about with the data in that bracelet, the bracelet will erase. If you are the one who did it, stand by for a court-martial. More likely, though, anyone mucking about with it will be a scum-sucking aggressor who had the rare good luck to take you prisoner, something that doesn't happen very often, let me tell you. If that's the case, well now, that's why the data is programmed to erase in case of unauthorized entry. We don't want any rat-snorfing aggressors getting their sklit-licking fingers on that data.

  "By the way, if you should ever be taken POW, stand by for rescue. In the entire two and a quarter centuries of the Confederation Marine Corps, only one Marine has remained a live POW for more than ninety-six hours standard. In that instance, the Marine in question was on leave and it was seventy-three standard hours before anyone knew he'd been taken. A rescue mission was planned, mounted, and executed in under twenty-four hours. The only thing that went wrong with the mission was the Marine being rescued was in aggressor hands for nearly ninety-seven hours.

 
; "Enough grab-assing for now. You've got more processing-in to undergo. Corporal Singh, move them to the next station."

  McNeal wondered if he was the only one who thought it was ominous that Staff Sergeant Neeley had said only one Marine had ever remained a live POW for more than ninety-six hours.

  "Let's sidestep briskly through that line, people," Staff Sergeant Pretty said to the line of recruits clad only in whatever underwear they'd worn when they left home that morning. "The sooner you get through, the sooner you get to stop for chow. The longer you take to do everything, the longer it will be before you get to stop to sleep. I don't need much sleep, so it doesn't matter to me if you don't get any. And I don't have anywhere to go for the next month, so it doesn't matter to me if you want to spend all that time milling around when you could be moving briskly and getting your processing-in done with."

  That looks too much like a coffin, Dean thought as he approached the first position on the line. They didn't really sidestep; they pulled themselves along a chain of handholds standing out from the bulkhead. The contraption at the first position resembled a coffin only in general dimensions: a box seven feet by two feet by three feet. But it wasn't laid out flat, it stood up.

  "Remember to keep your eyes closed when you're inside," Corporal Singh said to each man as he moved into the box.

  Dean moved up to the box, glided into it, and flinched as the door closed behind him. He closed his eyes as instructed and didn't see the sensors as they measured him. Ground to crown. Toe to heel to ankle, height of arch and instep. Ground to crotch, ground to waist. Hip to armpit to shoulder. Neck. Shoulders, delt to delt. Chest width and depth. Waist width and depth. Hips width and depth. Chin to crown to nape. Temple to temple. Occipital bulge. Height and width of brow. Spacing of eyes. Length of nose, breadth of nostrils. Width of mouth. And more.

  It was over in less than a second.

  The door popped open. Dean pushed himself out of the box, handholded himself to the next station, held out his basket, and accepted the two pair of brilliant red sweatpants that were dropped onto it by the robot server. Handhold again and be issued two equally bright sweatshirts. Another handhold and receive three sets of underwear. Again, and get four pair of socks. Once more for cloth shoes, two pair. At the last position, robot hands fitted a Marine chameleon utility hat onto his head.