First To Fight

by David Sherman

  Back in line with the others who'd received their clothing issue, waiting for the rest of the platoon to go through the line, Dean examined his cache. The sweatshirts bore a large gold emblem on their fronts: an eagle rampant on a river of stars, the emblem of the Confederation Marine Corps—the same insignia worn on the collars of the dress uniform. The word MARINES ran down the outside of each sleeve. A gold stripe ran down the outside of each pant leg, with the word MARINES in red running its length. The underwear was utilitarian, the socks were thick, with cushioned soles. The white shoes were soft and flexible, and had rubber soles. Only the hat was different.

  It was drab, almost colorless. Dean snaked an arm through the basket's handle and used that hand to grip the handhold. With his free hand he took the hat off his head and examined it. It seemed to be sort of green, sort of gray, sort of—Dean blinked, sort of red. He moved his hand and held the hat against the side of his basket. It turned almost the same tan as the basket.

  "Hey, look at this," Anderhalt exclaimed.

  Dean looked at the other recruit, who held his hat against the bulkhead. The hat was distinctly gray. Anderhalt started looking around for a different color to hold his hat against.

  "Belay that, people!" Neeley roared. The drill instructor was suddenly in front of Anderhalt, glowering at him, then glared down the row of recruits who had already received their clothing issues. "Just hang where you are and wait. When everyone has their issue, I'll explain everything you've been issued—including the chameleon effect." He started to return to the line of recruits who hadn't yet received their clothing, then briefly turned back. "Don't just stand there in your skivvies, get dressed."

  Soon enough they all had their clothing issue and were standing in formation, each recruit a brilliant splash of red against the battleship gray of the compartment's bulkhead. Staff Sergeant Neeley stood front and center to address them.

  "You will not be issued proper uniforms until we reach Arsenault," he told them. "There are two reasons for that. The first is you will undergo a strenuous physical fitness program aboard this ship, and you will be eating a diet carefully calculated to help bring you to peak physical condition. That means you will change shape—for most of you, that means lose fat and replace it with muscle. Some of you will gain weight. Either way, the clothes that fit you today won't fit a month from now. Before you disembark this ship, you will step into the coffin again to be remeasured. These two measurements, today's and on your last day, will be one gauge of how your fitness has progressed.

  "The second reason is a very practical one. Shortly after you came aboard the Purdom, you were told that you would be restricted to this deck for the duration of the voyage." He paused to sweep his gaze across the faces of everyone in the platoon. "Let me assure you, no one else on board this ship is wearing scarlet sweat suits. Should you attempt to go to any other part of the ship, you will be seen and reported. Let's not find out what will happen to anyone who leaves Deck Twenty-three." He paused to consider for a moment, then continued.

  "A number of you have examined your headgear and wondered why they don't seem to have any particular color—or that they don't seem to stick to one color. Maybe you've heard of Marine chameleons. That's what we call our field uniform, chameleons. Chameleons are only worn on combat operations, except that the headgear is worn with the standard green garrison utility uniform. Within limits, chameleons pick up the color pattern of whatever they are closest to. That makes a fighting Marine very hard for an enemy to see. You may well wonder why you have chameleon headgear now. Again, there are two reasons. The first is so you will get used to the idea. The second is so you will look as empty-headed as you are at this time."

  Neeley looked at Singh. "Move them on to the next station."

  The recruits knew their day was nearing its end when they discovered they could hardly drag themselves any farther through the maze of corridors and compartments that constituted Area Whiskey. At last Staff Sergeant Pretty led them into a large compartment equipped with bunks and personal gear lockers.

  The bunks—called "racks," to the great mystification of the recruits—were fastened to the bulkheads or to vertical pipes running from overhead to deck, three high. There were just enough for the men of second platoon. Their spacing looked odd—there seemed to be exactly as much space below the bottom rack as there was above the top one.

  The recruits of second platoon were told for the time being just to stow their gear in the lockers as best they could and secure the lockers with the padlocks that were part of their issue. In the morning, Pretty promised, he would come around with Corporal Singh and show them how to do it properly, to be ready for the continuous round of inspections that would soon form a major part of the routine of their life aboard the starship. "If any of you must jerk off in the night, kindly see none of it gets on the guy on the bottom," Pretty announced just before he led them to the galley for their first starship meal.

  Sometime during all this rushing around, getting issued clothing, personal and hygienic supplies, personnel-record bracelets, and everything else they'd need during the one-month voyage, the starship pulled out of Earth orbit and headed for its first jump point. For this first phase of its movement, the Purdom rotated around its long axis. The rotation created centripetal force, which gradually restored an ersatz gravity. The transition was so gradual that the recruits were in the galley, eating solid food off plastic trays, before they realized they weren't floating anymore.

  The galley was enormous, more than big enough to hold the recruits of Company A. The food was plentiful and delicious and the recruits ate ravenously. Even McNeal was so hungry he finished his meal with hardly a word between mouthfuls.

  Back in the platoon bay, Pretty announced that the time was 22 hours. "Your day while on board this ship commences at zero six hours and lasts until twenty-two hours. On Arsenault you'll be lucky when your days don't last twenty-four hours. The training schedule for this voyage allows for half a day of free time once a week. That isn't for four more days. Hop into your racks, people, the lights will be doused in exactly five minutes!" And they were.

  The young men of second platoon strapped themselves into their racks. The ship's centripetal gravity kept them secure in their racks, and the straps were provided in case an inflight emergency caused the ship to cease its rotation. During the sleep period, the only light in the compartment came from small emergency lamps near the deck and the overhead to guide men in case of an emergency. Too tired even to talk with McNeal in the next bunk below his, Dean lay and listened to the ship as it groaned and cracked and hummed all about him in the darkness. From far, far away came the dim but incessant boom of the Purdom's many motors, engines, and machinery.

  Dean thought for the first time that day of his mother and wondered what she was doing. He thought about what he'd learned that day. The last thing he thought that first night was that he was just too excited to sleep.

  The Purdom reached jump point in the middle of the next afternoon, and the D.I.'s herded their charges back into their compartments.

  "Everybody, in your racks. Right now, right now. No dilly-dallying here. Believe me, you don't want to be standing when we make the jump. Move it now."

  Pretty and Singh swam through the compartment, hustling the recruits with staccato commands of "Move, move, move," and using their hands to rush them into the racks.

  "Everybody, lie supine." Singh saw someone on his stomach and shouted, "I said supine, dummy, not prone. Prone is a position for shooting and fucking. You aren't doing either right now. On your back. Everybody, on your backs and strap in."

  The three drill instructors made another pass through the compartment, making sure each man was properly strapped in.

  Once everyone was secured in his rack, the three D.I.'s went to the compartment hatch. "Stay where you are, as you are," Neeley said, "until we come back to let you out." He opened a small panel next to the hatch and pulled a lever concealed behind it, then hit
the light control as he followed the other two D.I.'s out of the compartment, plunging the compartment into darkness broken only by the emergency lights.

  "Hey, what's this?" Dean shouted as a webbing suddenly dropped from the bottom of the rack above him and secured itself to the frame of his own rack.

  He wasn't the only one asking that question, but nobody could answer it. They found out a moment later when the artificial gravity shut off and the ship jumped into hyperspace.

  With an abruptness so complete it seemed that it had always been this way, the universe went gray. Or was it black? Weight vanished; it wasn't a floating sensation like null-g had been, but a total absence of weight, as though mass had disappeared altogether. All the weight that ever was, was now, and ever would be, settled onto him. There was no sound. There was such a volume of sound, he thought the universe must be ending in the collapse of everything into a primordial speck that instantly exploded in the big bang.

  It ended as abruptly as it began, so suddenly that it was a few stunned seconds before anybody screamed. And only a few more seconds before everybody was yelling and struggling against the restraints that held them in their racks.

  The pandemonium lasted only until the three drill instructors entered the compartment and reactivated the lights. The three Marines went through the bay just as they had moments earlier, this time calming everyone down. They weren't totally successful; some of the recruits were upset by the unexpected experience, and would remain so for some time to come. When relative calm was restored, Neeley stood by the compartment hatch and spoke to the platoon.

  "I know that some of you think it was unfair of us to let you experience a jump into hyperspace without warning of what was about to happen. But this is an important lesson for you to learn. Marines are warriors. We fight battles. Sometimes we know a fight is coming; we set the time, the place, and the circumstances for it and are fully prepared. But sometimes we have only a few moments of warning—or no warning whatsoever. There's a big universe out there, with a lot of surprises. Most of those surprises are nasty, and can kill you if you aren't prepared to act immediately and decisively when they happen. What you just experienced was an unpleasant surprise, but nobody got hurt." He looked at them with mild disgust. "And every one of you panicked. Try to do better next time. The next time you get surprised, your lives may well depend on your reaction. The next surprise that jumps out at you just might kill you."

  Finished with his speech, Neeley turned and left the compartment.

  Pretty snorted and followed the senior D.I.

  Singh shook his head. He said one word, softly, but loud enough for all to hear: "Boots!" He pushed the lever that released the restraining webbing before he left, and dogged the hatch behind him, so the men of second platoon were left on their own to ponder what Neeley had said about surprises.

  Only then did they notice that gravity had returned. It took several more minutes for anyone to notice that what had been the compartment's overhead was now its deck. "Down" was now toward, rather than away from, the ship's core. The racks had rotated during the jump. Now they understood why there was as much space below the bottom rack as there was above the top one.

  Chapter Five

  Each day started with the shrill blare of a bugle over the public address system and the drill instructors' banging their batons against the bulkheads shouting an ancient chant: "Reveille! Reveille! Drop your cocks and grab your socks! Reveille!" Then, even before most of the recruits were fully awake, an hour of calisthenics, followed by showers, morning chow, and finally a thorough cleaning of the living compartments. After that, one hour of close-order drill.

  "Close-order drill hasn't changed much since the time of the Romans," Staff Sergeant Neeley announced, "and it hasn't gotten to be any more fun since then either, but we require all Marines to be able to march in matchless formations. After we land at Arsenault, you'll probably never use this skill, and it is a skill. So why do we teach it? This, recruits, is your introduction to following orders and working as a group, so pay attention! And don't ever anticipate a command!"

  Punishment for minor infractions of the rules on board the Purdom was to practice close-order drill between 22 and 06 hours and on the free half days. For those really recalcitrant offenders, kitchen duty—known for some unfathomable reason as kitchen police—was available.

  On the second day, Dean had a medical exam by a real doctor, the one he'd been promised back at the recruiting station. He sat in the womblike chair of the examination table in sick bay, fully clothed, waiting for the physician's instructions.

  The doctor sat at a desk, reading Dean's medical history, compiled back at New Rochester, on the monitor of his computer. After a moment he nodded and said, "You've been a pretty healthy lad." Dean didn't know if he was supposed to say something, so he didn't say anything. The doctor made some keystrokes and examined the screen again. Evidently satisfied with what he saw, he cleared the screen, then said, "Private Dean, did you know you have an ingrown toenail in your left big toe?"

  "No, sir."

  The doctor nodded and added a few keystrokes to his computer file. "Okay, Private, keep your eye on it. If it gets worse, report to sick bay and a corpsman will cut it out for you. Dismissed."

  Dean just sat there, unbelieving. He hadn't been examined yet. The doctor hadn't even looked at him other than a quick glance when he told him where to sit.

  "Did you hear me, Dean?"

  "Yes, sir. But aren't you going to examine me?"

  The doctor looked him in the eye. "What do you think I was doing with you in the examination table? You're in perfect health, anybody can see that. Report back to your platoon."

  As the days flowed into weeks, the recruits became used to the routine and to the minutiae of military training. They were issued weapons with which to practice the manual of arms, and which they were expected to field-strip and clean. And clean them they did—endlessly.

  "Always handle every weapon as if it were a loaded weapon, even when you personally know it's not," Corporal Singh told them the day they were issued the weapons. "This will be drilled into you once you're on the ranges and patrolling on Arsenault. Weapon safety will become second nature to you. 'Unloaded' weapons have killed more people than I care to think about. We really want to avoid having them kill Marines. Start learning that now."

  They learned both the fire capability and nomenclature of their weapons. The basic infantry weapon in the Confederation Marine Corps, they were told, was a miniaturized oxy-hydrogen plasma shooter, commonly called a "blaster," but in the manuals a "weapon."

  "These weapons are semiautomatic," Corporal Singh told them, "that is, they fire one bolt each time the trigger mechanism is activated. The 'basic load' for a Marine rifleman in combat," he went on, "is four hundred 'rounds,' or four power packs or 'magazines' capable of shooting up to a hundred bolts each.

  "There are also handheld versions of these weapons which are carried by officers, NCOs above squad leader, and the gunners on crew-served weapons," Singh continued. "An automatic weapon is also authorized for each assault team. This is what's called a 'crew-served' weapon, because it requires three men to operate it. It can fire up to a hundred bolts per trigger pull. The crew carries a bipod, a tripod, two extra barrels, and each man carries two extra power packs that contain six hundred bolts each. You gotta change the barrel on one of those babies every six hundred bolts or it'll crystallize on you." Corporal Singh always became very animated when he talked about weapons, moving his hands as if firing at an unseen enemy.

  During a break, several recruits pretended to shoot one another with the unloaded weapons. Singh was upon them instantly. The men had never seen him so angry.

  "You fools!" he shouted. "These weapons are not toys! They are the most deadly killing machines known to mankind!" The veins on Singh's neck stood out clearly as he shouted at the hapless recruits. Staff Sergeant Pretty came over, took Corporal Singh aside, and they talked quietly for a few mo
ments. When Singh came back he was calmer, but very firm, and there was no more horsing around with weapons.

  After the third day they carried their weapons everywhere, and at night they fixed them into slots beside their racks. "You'll get plenty of practice firing real ammunition when you get to Arsenault," Pretty announced, "and for the rest of the time you're in this Corps, your issue weapon will stay with you always, except when you go on liberty or if you wind up in the brig. I mean your weapon will always be with you, when you eat, when you sleep, when you shit, and if you're lucky enough to draw duty on an inhabited world where the people don't stink worse than kwangduks and the women aren't uglier, you'll keep your weapon handy when you fuck!"

  "Once, I pulled a month's duty on a place called Euskadi," Corporal Singh offered, apropos of the universal monosyllable just uttered by the normally strait-laced Staff Sergeant Pretty, "and all I had between me and the ground at night was one of their thin native girls." The men of second platoon had come to like Corporal Singh. He proved to be a very professional Marine, but easygoing in his manner and with a lively sense of humor that tended toward the bizarre and earthy.

  "Yes," Pretty replied, "and your weapon." And that was the only joke Pretty attempted to make during all the months he was second platoon's drill instructor.

  "All right, recruits," Neeley announced one day during a classroom training session, "I'm gonna give you Neeley's Thirteen Rules for Staying Alive in Combat. You listening?

  "One: Incoming fire always has the right-of-way.

  "Two: Keep it simple, stupid.