by Kal Spriggs
I hope this works, I thought. “Dawson, go!” I shouted. A moment later, he and the Zahler twins others opened fire, a racket of rapid shots aimed at the enemy in general, designed to shake them up and get their heads down.
At the same time, I popped up and sprinted to the right. Ahead of me I saw the two ambushers open up, but I and the rest of my squad fired from the hip as we ran up. It wasn't accurate fire, it wasn't even what the Cadet Instructors had taught us with an assault, but it was enough to cause both of them to hesitate.
Then we were on them. I saw a girl, my age and dressed like another candidate, only a few meters away. I raised my rifle and fired, just as she did. Her training round hissed past my ear while mine somehow caught her right in the throat. I saw her clutch at the hit and stumble back, then fall to one knee.
Behind me I heard more shots and I turned to see that Takenata had downed the other ambusher as he was about to shoot me in the back. “Forward,” I shouted and pointed up the ridge. We sprinted that way and a moment later we scrambled up to the top. Just down the way I saw the other three of the enemy, flat on their bellies just below the crest. They were still taking cover from Dawson's fire, so I took a moment to kneel and line up a shot.
I tagged one of them in the leg just as Takenata and Mikuluk caught the other two.
“Cease fire!” I shouted down to Dawson. We didn't have radios or communications of any kind. I moved down from the crest and waited as he and the others came up. “We win?”
“For now,” I said. “Let’s get going.” I saw a pair of white helmets headed up towards us. I figured they were going to arrange for the pickup of our attackers. I didn't want to stick around to see if they had any other agenda, so I formed up my squad and we moved out.
***
We didn't make it up north that day. We didn't even make it to our bunker area before we came under another ambush and were pinned down under fire. I tried to organize something, but the next thing I knew, I woke up in the field hospital again, just before dusk.
My squad and I moved back to our base at that point, after one of the white helmeted cadre told us our next mission awaited us there. Moving around in the dark, with nothing but the stars for light and the rattle of gunfire echoing around us was unreal This was simulated war... but it was real enough to disconcert me. It was nothing like the movies... it was chaos, it was exhausting and stressful, and it was random.
At one point, as we drew close to our base, we took fire. I shouted out orders and we counter attacked, but whoever had fired at us was gone. Mikuluk and Dawson were down and a pair of cadre picked them up before I could do much more than a headcount.
The rest of my squad made it back to the bunker, where we nearly were shot by Third Squad. Luckily, I recognized Josephic and shouted out his name. A moment later we were in the bunker again. I was exhausted. The drugged sleep that the training rounds put us into wasn't restful and whatever they gave us to wake us after left my heart racing.
Sashi and Karmazin were squatted over a map. “How's it going?” I asked.
Sashi scowled, “We completed one mission, bust on the next.”
“We're learning,” Alexander Karmazin said. “Cadre posts a chart with our standings every hour.” He pointed at a sheet of paper on the wall. “The missions are worth points, but there's other things too... how we react. Individuals are scored on their performance, they've got stats on everything. This whole place must be wired for sound and video.”
“Oh?” I asked nervously. I tried to think if I'd said anything derogatory about any of our instructors or cadre. I was so tired I couldn't tell.
“Yeah,” Sashi said. “There's fifty candidate platoons here, so we can't see everyone's individual ranking, but we can see where we stack up as far as performance so far.”
“How are you doing?” I asked, since I knew that was something Sashi really cared about.
“Not as bad as I thought,” she said with a slight smile. “Actually, all three of us are in the top twenty-five percent. Most of our platoon is up there too.”
“Really?” I asked in surprise.
“Yeah, and...” she broke off as someone called down that cadre were approaching.
“Next mission,” Karmazin muttered. He wasn't wrong.
“Candidates, your next mission...”
***
It was sometime the next day that I lay prone in a narrow gully while someone fired what sounded like a machine gun right above me. Half my squad was down, I could see Takenata prone only a few meters away, her arms loose and her helmet knocked askew from the round that had hit her in the side of the head. The spreading bruise would hurt, I figured, but not as much as the walk back to base. The machine-gun training rounds were bigger and I would bet that they hit harder.
I'm missing her help enough that I wish I was the one down right now, I thought. We were in a pile of rubble and burned out vehicles that might have once been a village. I crawled forward and squeezed between a boulder and a bit of ruined wall and then peaked my head up and over. I could see enemy movement, what looked like fortifications and sandbags, almost a hundred meters away, right at the maximum effective range of the training rounds.
I dropped back down and then looked around at my squad. I saw Ryan Zahler and Dawson, “Status?” I asked. Some part of me whispered that this was crazy. That I was only a kid. That I had no business being here... I wanted to be a civilian, to work in an office and never have a part in this. The rest of me was searching sight lines and wondering how to get my remaining people out of this while I wondered why I had a silly grin stretched across my face.
“Tyler Zahler and Conklin are down,” Dawson said. “I think Mikuluk is still up, but I'm not sure where.”
“I'm over by the burned out tank,” Mikuluk said, “but I slipped and my foot is caught in a crevice. I think my ankle is sprained.”
I bit back a curse at that. Wallace was already down with a broken arm from a night mission. It wasn't a severe fracture, so the cadre had told me that he might be coming back in the next couple days, but losing Mikuluk to an injury would mean I only had five people left in my squad. Still, first thing first, I needed to get my people out of this.
“Right,” I said, “we don't have the firepower to suppress them, but do you still have those smoke grenades, Dawson?” They'd given us a pair of them earlier in the day.
“Yeah,” he said.
I tried to remember what Sashi had said about using them. Wind was important, but right now, there was none. The smoke should just cloud up an area, maybe long enough for us to get to Mikuluk and pull him out. At least I didn't have to worry about retrieving the downed members of my squad.
I crawled over to him and held out my hand. “Give me them,” I said. “I'll throw them, you get Mikuluk. You're bigger than me, so you'll be more use at that.”
He gave me a nod and I waited a moment while he got ready.
I figured the enemy would probably shoot at me when they saw me pop up to throw the smoke, so I moved over to the side so they wouldn't be firing at where the others clustered to move. I popped up to throw the first smoke grenade and it let out cloud of dense black smoke. A moment later the enemy opened up with their machine gun again.
I crawled over to the side as training rounds impacted against the wall. I didn't know how the crumbling stone would hold up against a real machine gun, but at least it prevented me from getting hit just now.
“Go!” I shouted.
I rolled around another wall and then stood and threw the second grenade and then broke into a run for cover.
I almost made it when one of the training rounds caught me right in the backside and sent me tumbling.
Just before I lost consciousness, I realized that I was right about one thing: the big ones hurt more.
***
“Those stupid…” An angry voice woke me from where I’d somehow nodded off, propped standing against the bunker wall. I started and realized that I had my rifle u
p and aimed before my eyes were fully open.
Karmazin gave me a startled look even as he ducked away from the muzzle of my rifle.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “What’s wrong?”
Karmazin shook his head tiredly, “My squad. They don’t think, they don’t listen. Half the time I’m fighting them more than the enemy.”
I shook my head dully, “Have you tried, I dunno, talking with them?”
“What?” Karmazin frowned. “Of course I talk to them. We talk about battle plans, tactics, missions...”
I stared at him, tired to the point that I wasn’t certain this was real or just some hallucination. No, I thought, my bruises hurt too much for this to be a hallucination. “Look,” I said, “don’t take this the wrong way, but you can sometimes be…” I trailed off as I searched for the right words.
“Standoffish?” He asked, “I have been told that before– ”
“Well, I was going to say abrasive, know-it-all, robot, but that works too,” I said. I saw his face go blank with shock. “Look,” I said. “You know this military stuff.” I waved a hand vaguely at where the rest of our Section lay, most of them snoring. “And your squad knows that. But we’re all so tired, no one really cares anymore how well we do… we just want our lives to be a little less miserable.”
He nodded slowly, “I want this for them too, which is why I work so hard.” His gray eyes peered at me, as if he were seeing me for the first time. I felt suddenly reminded of how fifthly I was, covered in dirt, my blonde hair a mess and tied back. I didn’t want to think about how I must smell. Somehow, even with the dirt and grime, he still looked insufferably handsome. Despite that, despite how hideous I must look, I forced myself to match his gaze.
“Yeah,” I said, “but your squad is so wiped out, they don’t care,” I said. “Sure, you work hard, but they’re working hard… and you don’t know anything about them.” I barely knew anything about my squad, for that matter. There wasn’t time to get to know them all. I had no idea what time it was, but I’d be surprised if five minutes had passed since I fell asleep standing up while trying to eat… and my squad had only just returned from a mission.
“Look,” I said. “Crack some jokes, tell them a story, give them something personal or else they’ll just continue to think you’re a robot.” I shook my head tiredly, “People don’t like robots.”
Karmazin scowled a bit, “Fine, I will tell a joke or something.” His scowl turned thoughtful, “I’m not sure I know any jokes. Any recommendations?”
“Yeah,” I said with a tired chuckle, “me giving you advice is pretty funny.”
He snorted at that, “I suppose it is in a way… still, don’t short yourself, you’re doing well.” He pursed his lips and grudgingly said, “Thanks.”
“No problem,” I said. It felt disconcerting to be the one giving him help, but good too, like I had paid him back. For that matter, he seemed a lot more human to me now that I realized that he could get frustrated.
I saw him go over and lean against the wall. Everyone else was exhausted and asleep, but I couldn’t miss how his gray eyes rested on me. For some reason, that watchfulness made me feel oddly safe as I went back to sleep.
***
I lost track of time. Sometimes we went out to attack someone, sometimes someone attacked us during the rare bits of rest we had at the base. Everything became a blur of hot sand, broken terrain, and the sound of gunfire
Karmazin, Sashi, and I worked out a pattern where we shared information on what we saw while we were out. That shared information became a patchwork map, posted on the wall of our bunker. We couldn't begin to track all of the chaos of the Grinder, but we could keep an eye on the big units. The Reservists were the main ones to avoid. They had heavy weapons, machine guns and worse, and they moved in platoon or even company sized elements. Occasionally we had a mission to attack them, but most often we just tried to avoid them.
Everyone else was fair game. We'd identified the bases of a couple other nearby candidate platoons and now and then we would hit them while we were out on missions, just to keep them on the defensive.
I stopped asking Sashi about her ranking and as far as I knew, she didn't even care herself anymore. I remembered she had told me that the Grinder lasted a full month. I stopped caring about standing, stopped caring about even succeeding, I just focused on surviving.
The worst part was when I was shot. The pain and bruise wasn't bad. I gained plenty of aches and minor bruises from scrambling around. No, it was that walk back. That was precious time when I could be trying to get food and water for my squad or time I could be discussing sightings of the enemy with Sashi and Alexander Karmazin. Occasionally, in theory, that could even be time when I could sleep, but I don't ever remember catching more than a few minutes here or there, often when I was so exhausted that I simply passed out.
It was miserable, terrible, and at the same time, utterly exhilarating. I hated going out, each time wondering if this were some test, if the cadre were just sending me into an ambush... yet at the same time, I never felt as alive as when we did win, when we did accomplish a mission or when someone thought they had us dead to rights and my squad proved them wrong.
It was a simple life, living utterly in the moment, worried only about the things within my control. I didn't worry about my family's history, I didn't worry about my internship, I didn't worry about what my parents would think, I just focused on the tasks in front of me.
And then, one day, a skimmer dropped down and we all boarded it and we left the Grinder behind. It was an unreal moment, one which left me with a disconnected feeling. The entire skimmer ride back to the Academy, I half expected to wake up from a dream or that the pilot would turn us around and take us back.
Part of me, I could admit, even wanted just that.
***
Chapter Fifteen: I Rise to the Competition
I sat in the chair, back ramrod straight and eyes forward. Part of me resented the formality, but with how exhausted I felt, I was actually kind of grateful for it. It meant I didn’t need to try to be sociable or even to really think much about what I needed to do. I could sit there and let my brain zone out.
We'd been back for a couple days and things had slowed down quite a bit. Most of us were still in a state of shock. The classes had begun and most of our professors were far more relaxed than I had expected after Indoctrination... and even the Cadet Instructors had eased up quite a bit.
Our brief period of rest ended as the instructor entered the room. Everyone in my section stood to attention as Grainger called us to attention. “Take your seats,” our instructor said and waved absently. He waited as we settled. I took the moment to study him. He was an older man, slightly overweight, with a lined face. He wore his tan and brown uniform sloppily, though it looked more like he had dressed in a hurry than from any intent. His blue eyes had a distracted look, almost as if he had forgotten what he was about to say.
He gave us a slight nod and sheepish smile after the pause grew long, “Yes, well, I’m Commander Terrence. For my sins, I’ll be conducting your basic orientation on warp drive mechanics, especially with how they relate to tactical considerations.” He gave us another nod, and then moved over to the podium. “Now, this is an interactive discussion. The important part is that all of you both understand the mechanics and the implications of those mechanics.” He looked around the room at us, almost as if he expected some response. “Now, I understand we have varying levels of knowledge. I’ve looked over all of your previous course work and so the curriculum will be tailored to your individual needs to bring all of you up to speed. Sound good to everyone?”
I blinked at that. There was no way that he looked over all of our previous courses, I thought. There were over twenty candidates left in my section. Warp drive mechanics was a seriously complex subject, one that required a background in calculus, differential equations, advanced physics and a half dozen other disciplines. I had a barely rudimentary grasp of
it and I doubted any of the other candidates had covered the background material as well as I had… otherwise they would have applied for an internship at Champion Enterprises… they certainly wouldn’t be here, not if they were that proficient.
Commander Terrence took their silence for assent. “Excellent. We’ll begin with some of the basic principles. There are two types of standard warp drive, which are what, Candidate Karmazin?”
Karmazin sat up straighter, “Uh, standard drives and FTL?”
“Yes… and yet so rudimentary as to be incorrect,” Commander Terrence said in a chiding manner. “Standard drives, what we in the military call ‘tactical drives,’ are what we use to maneuver within a star system or in a tactical environment. The defining characteristics of them are that they allow rapid, effectively instantaneous acceleration to extremely high relative velocities, without any actual acceleration. This is helpful for a number of reasons… Candidate Drien, list three of those.”
Sashi sat up straight, “Lack of acceleration prevents the need for acceleration couches, allows for sharp changes in vector, and reduces stresses on the ship and crew.”
“Excellent. All good ways of saying that the crew of a ship with a tactical drive won’t be turned into raspberry jam upon the first maneuvers.” He looked around, “You may laugh, that was a joke.” I managed a fake laugh along with the others. “The important thing to remember about a tactical drive is that there is no acceleration to speak of and that the warp field allows you to maneuver as if your vessel has neither inertia nor any appreciable maneuverability envelope. The depth of the drive field is the only limit of maximum velocity with a tactical drive… which means what, Candidate Armstrong?”
I bit my lip and took a moment to phrase my statement, “A bigger drive allows a deeper drive field. So larger ships are typically able to attain higher relative velocities compared to smaller ships, because they can mount larger drives.”