by Allen Ivers
“Because he’s a little squirrel, sir?”
“And you are what, Capital? You ain’t a little squirrel. What’s your excuse?”
“I’m a workhorse, sir!”
“I don’t believe you! Show me that you work! Huah?!”
“Huah!” Jensen let out a shout and grimaced as he tried to haul himself up.
The boy sat at the top, stretching out the heel on his bad foot, “Come on, ugly! Be a hero!”
“Quinn…” the man grunted, “I catch you, I’m gonna—“
“So catch me!” Quinn jumped down the other side of the structure, rolling down the rope net like his injury was naught but inconvenient, “Workhorse! Whoo!”
Lo and behold, the big guy was pulling himself up faster. Competition was a fantastic motivator; resentment was better. Jensen hauled himself up, and practically dove over the other side after the 'squirrel.'
Riley felt it in his feet. But that wasn’t a human body impacting the ground. This was seismic, several miles away, rolling through. He felt it in his left before his right, as it passed by him, North to South.
It came from the Wall.
The whole training ground came to a hush. They all felt it too. Then together, they all felt it again. And again. The drumbeat of war.
The Thumpers had engaged, the titanic magnetic hammers slamming the ground. It meant only one thing.
The Jergad were attacking the Wall, just a dozen miles from where they stood.
The training grounds had frozen into a graveyard, scattered stony figures, all eyes turned to the North. Even Bray peered out at the horizon, and the dust cloud just beginning to rise up into view.
The murmur in his post fell to a hush as they all realized it at once. Riley spoke as clear and declarative as possible: “Get me a munitions and casualty report. Right now.”
They needed to feel the calm of someone in control of the situation, who knew the gravity of what this meant, and wasn’t frozen by it. His instructors had called it the Father Instinct — no matter how bad it was, a commander could be shaken but he never faltered.
The attack was repelled, but four Regulars had been killed and the Wall had been damaged — requiring additional security while it was repaired. They didn’t have any more time for these team-building exercises and Bray’s long-prepared tirades.
These reinforcements had to be deployed post-haste. Casualties wouldn’t be avoided; they were a prescribed part of the process.
Bray objected, but mostly to formally lodge the complaint — everyone knew these troops weren’t ready to see combat. But there was nothing to be done; they would see combat, or combat would soon see them.
Riley arrived at the training camp after the morning’s PT. Riley’s observation tower had a beautiful view of the base, with large pane glass windows to allow for maximum visibility. His view was obscured only by the mounted Repeater on the tower’s corner.
Make no mistake, this may be a barracks, but it was still a prison yard.
That sweet smell of human sweat and effort had been replaced with a noxious stench more akin to that of a meat-packing plant, as though farm animals had voided their bowels and died amongst the assembly. The more time this many people spent in close proximity, the worse it would get.
Desires for indoor plumbing in the base were well-warranted but the limited technicians available were already working over-time shoring up defenses and repairing the wear and tear to the Wall itself.
The Capitals were plainly not a priority.
Gasping for breath, some even bent over retching, the Capitals waited for their absent Drill Instructor. They shared glances back and forth but no one spoke a word, their energy too precious to them to spend on words.
The muted whine of Bray’s vehicle rose up from the motor pool, as a trio of loaded Maglev Cruisers approached the formation.
Bray hopped out of the lead car before it came to a complete stop. He cradled something in his hands, a design Riley had known only from textbooks back at Academy.
It may as well have been a museum artifact, to be treated with care.
“This,” Bray called out to the formation, “Is the JP-36 ballistic assault rifle. It is a gulaw relic, an unholy fusion of replaceable parts, consigned to the scrap heap. Much like all of you! Huah?”
The crowd snapped back a crisp “Huah!” Heard, understood, acknowledged.
These rifles had been phased out of Core World use decades ago, but so many had been supplied to Ministry reserves that melting down just half of the stock took nearly four years. Those that hadn’t been destroyed had been funneled to the border world colonies that couldn’t afford more current technology.
They had been collecting dust in a dark corner of the Inventory and discovered only during the primary military exodus. Bray refused to give the Capitals anything better. A slave doesn’t get his own whip.
“They are semi-automatic, firing thirty caliber steel jacketed rounds at over eight hundred meters per second,” Bray bellowed, “The barrels overheat, making them inaccurate the longer you fire. They need constant care and love, or the bolt will refuse to cycle. The magwell is steep and deep, making it hard to feed fresh magazines in. They are weak. They will jam. They will break. And they are the only thing standing between you and the wild.”
The crowd barked another “Huah” back like good little dogs.
With that, Bray shouldered the rifle as though he had been wielding the weapon since childhood. The shockwave from the gases escaping from the muzzle brake tossed the dirt around Bray like he was shaking off some invisible cloak.
Riley had forgotten the deafening sound a ballistic rifle could make, instinctively reaching to cover his ears. One Capital fell to their knees in shock and pain, their position markedly closer to the controlled explosion than Riley’s observation post.
However obsolete the weapon system may have become, gunpowder-fueled ballistic munitions still commanded attention.
Bray thumbed a switch, dropping the detachable magazine from the underside of the weapon and slapping a fresh one into place before the old one had even found its final rest in the dirt.
“Yesterday,” Bray shouted, “You learned to run. Today you learn to fight.”
Somehow, the rifles firing in unison felt quieter. Perhaps the shock of the initial gunshot had taken Riley by surprise, or perhaps one of his lieutenants had dropped a noise curtain around the post.
The thought behind the rifle was something out of the mind of an evil genius living inside an active volcano. Burning an explosive powder inside of a steel container - only one way out - using the compressed gases to expel a hunk of metal forward towards a meaty target. A civilized man would’ve used magnets, but this psychopath needed more explosions.
They had grown the design to be quite efficient, user-friendly, and safe over the centuries. Riley hoped the lunatic who first thought of this technique had been killed by his own creation before he willed any other technological monstrosities into the world. Humanity was not ready for the raw volume of brutality that twisted mind could have produced.
The Ministry had purchased these antiquated designs more for their price-tag than their effectiveness -- what happens when a spreadsheet calculation dictates procurement.
It was obvious who among the crowd had operated a weapon system before. There was a modicum of operational discipline, although not refined. The firing range had opted for steel silhouettes rather than typical holographic scorecards. The steel was to simulate the native beasts’ leathery hides.
Direct hits onto the targets dented and tore the metal, while anything askew glanced off. Capitals not on the line were put to use maintaining it. They hammered the damaged targets back into shape with large mallets and deployed them up from their berm for further abuse by their comrades.
It was a decent replication of real world results. The Jergad hides had a tendency to deflect most ballistic fire.
The Oskies preferred their weaponry battery-operated for
that reason. Natural armor lost its advantages against something cooking flesh to carbon in under half a second. Short-range effectiveness, be damned.
When Orbital wants a job done, they want it done on the first attempt. Under their operational requirements, there was never room for second chances.
The voice of Riley’s aide de camp broke Riley from his idyllic daydreams, “You have a visitor.”
“Don’t say it,” Riley whispered without even turning to see. He didn’t want to see. He prayed it wasn’t true.
He could almost hear Ilern smile behind him. Because it was her voice again, “Marcus Riley.” Talania sidled up next to him with two cups of black liquid, “Peace offering.”
He didn’t realize it until it hit him, but goddamn did that coffee smell good. He gingerly plucked the cup from her hands, “You don’t mind if I have my aide test it for poison?”
“Chock full of it,” Talania said, without a moment’s pause, “But your liver will do just fine.”
A quick second sniff confirmed the presence of a not-insubstantial amount of alcohol. A peace offering and a bribe all at once. “Isn’t it a little early in the morning for a drink?”
“It’s a little early for me to be seeing you, so I compromised.”
Riley passed the cup off to someone — anyone — nearby. He didn’t need to be dulling anything right now.
“How do they look?” She asked, slurping from her steaming cup of morning medicine.
“Is this your bleeding heart asking or is this a formal inquiry from the Governor?”
“Well, now it’s both. Should I be taking notes?”
Riley sighed, ‘Their training has been advanced to meet operational needs.”
“Do I need to be worried?”
Talania wasn’t watching the training below. She was watching him. Riley ground his teeth, barking the order, “Audio from Lane 29, please?”
The technician didn’t even acknowledge Riley’s words as he processed the request. He filtered the cracks of gunfire out and brought up the dialog below. Their chatter was muffled by the gunshots drowning them out, but they could at least be understood.
Riley pinched the window in front of him between two fingers, telescoping their view down to the lane in question. Capital Carmona had left his lane and was instructing a fellow, under careful supervision from the rangemasters.
Carmona popped the action open so as to safely instruct the technique, “Don’t tense up. Both eyes open.”
“But I can’t see down the sight right with both open.” A display ran through vocal recognition software, before popping the name and ID photo of Aaron Havenes. It was a good picture. Usually, the mugshots were on the worst days of their lives. This one almost had composition to it. Even Talania perked up at the sight, studying the narrow jaw and bright eyes.
Carmona tapped Aaron on his left shoulder, “You’re also blinding yourself over here, shortstack. Get practiced with ‘em open. Breathe in, hold it, then exhale… and squeeze on the exhale. It’ll loosen you up.”
Aaron settled in behind the rifle, taking his time and exhaling as his finger tightened on the trigger. Crisp, single shots were singing off the metal in no time.
“See? Look at that. Make a badass outta you yet. Remember: aim small, miss small.”
“What?” Talania blurted over the lip of her coffee cup.
Riley leaned over, a warm superiority filling his chest. He plucked at the lapel of her shirt, “If you aim for a man’s button, and you miss - you still hit him. Aim for the man… you just miss.”
Aaron rolled out his shoulder, stretching the bruises left by the unforgiving stock, “Newton’s Third is a bitch.”
“Ain’t it just? Muzzle downrange and let’s show off some, huh?”
Riley couldn’t help but laugh. Talania shook her head, as she picked his full coffee cup off an attendant’s desk, trading it with her empty one, “They need help operating their own gear.”
Couldn’t disagree with that, “Not all learning is theoretical, ma’am. I’m a firm believer in tactile education.”
“When are they posted?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
Talania almost spat out her coffee, “We’re sending them up there with bang sticks and a week’s worth of gym classes? Commander, due respect, are you high?”
“Oh, how I wish.”
Both Talania and Riley turned to glance at the source of those words, as Ilern looked up quizzically, “Dammit. That one came out, didn’t it?”
Riley pursed his lips, trying to not snort laugh at the blatant insubordination. Not of him; even he had lost his patience with Talania’s patronizing attitude. She didn’t have a proper solution to the dilemma; she was just there to shout at them from the moral high ground.
Riley drew attention back with a raise of his hand, dismissing Ilern’s interruption, “Yes, Talania. I have several pages of literature about how silly this whole program is. I can forward you the packet.”
Nobody saw the shot. Too lost in conversation or buried in their work. But the crack of glass and the snap of metal screaming past Riley’s ear at supersonic speeds quickened the blood like little else in the world. The steel jacketed slug snapped past him and into the wall before anyone could even register its presence.
But Riley wasn’t just anyone. The imminent threat kicked his senses wide awake. He could smell the sulfur that hung over the field. He could feel the tremors of a hundred gunshots tearing the air and rolling along the hairs of his forearm. But that was all background.
He could see the waves -- the cavitation -- as the air buffeted around the advancing bullet like ripples on a pond.
No naked human eye would never track something moving that fast. The magic trick of a steel trigger creating a hole in a target at distance was an illusion beyond the average person’s capability.
The various subdermal microchips embedded throughout Riley’s body elevated him far beyond average. He watched the bullet approach with such clarity he could identify it individually in a courtroom.
Talania was not so fast. The bullet was going to split her ribcage.
Riley slammed two hands into her shoulders, fast enough he might have dislocated something. But he was certain she’d appreciate his work. In the time allotted, she moved a scant two inches — the bullet passed by, her clothing billowing in the shockwave, sliding under her crooked elbow and shattering the coffee cup in her hands.
The crowd of aides, technicians, and civilian bureaucrats ducked behind whatever they could find long after the threat had passed. To a casual observer, Riley had to be a soothsayer to avoid that shot. And the collection of eyes around him reflected some version of that title.
Talania looked up at him pained and offended before her own senses caught the pattern of sounds she’d heard and spied the ceramic shards still clattering to the ground.
Without a word or order, all fire on the range ceased, as though the entire regiment was holding their breath.
Down below, a Capital held his rifle aloft by the lower receiver — no hand on a trigger, but the barrel pointed at Riley’s bleachers. It was not shouldered, nor braced in any way. Perhaps the rifle had a hangfire, or the boy had poor trigger discipline. This was just an accident, albeit a lethal one.
Riley snatched a radio from a paralyzed aide, “Single him out. I’m coming down.”
He stuffed the handset back into his aide’s hands and marched toward the ladder.
He had maybe thirty seconds to consider what he wanted to be done here. It was an act of violence toward a superior, worthy of a public flogging and a day out to be burnt under the sun.
But this was no Army Regular; it was a Capital, and one that hadn’t even served a full week. If a laborer had struck back at a prison guard, the warden had full authority to terminate the problem and requisition a replacement.
Who was Riley going to requisition from, with Minister Caldwell already spouting for Riley’s head and all the remaining Capitals shipp
ed off-planet in the exodus? This was blood meant to be spilt, but blood, in general, was in short supply.
As Riley stomped over, he could see Bray drop the Capital to his knees and draw his sidearm from his chest rig. Of the hundred men on the range, nobody dared move, but Riley could make out a dull hum from the crowd, as though they vibrated on a hundred dissonant frequencies.
He could hear their indecision. Good. The last thing he wanted right now was an angry mob with high caliber weaponry.
As he drew closer, his decision almost made itself. The Capital in question was Quinn Josimovic — the squirrel — the boy that had been all but dragged through his qualifier. Over the body odor and gunpowder, there was a scent so thick Riley could almost taste it: fear.
Riley settled next to the boy, giving a show of examining the subject. Quinn wouldn’t look at anything besides Riley’s boots.
No spine. No courage. No discipline. This child was already dead, just looking for his place to rest. The only open question was how many would die beside him and because of him.
Riley reached for Bray’s weapon and found it pressed to his palm. He thumbed the safety and it warmed in his hand as the capacitor charged.
Movement. Someone on the line. A flinch, nothing more. Riley looked over to identify the rebellious spirit that was so eager to die.
Aaron Havenes, brow furrowed and jaw tight. While neighboring Carmona was stiff as a board, Aaron would like nothing more than to rip that pistol from Riley’s hands. But without any interference, he had stopped himself.
Curious.
Riley smiled at the man, at that lit candle that so eagerly extinguished itself. Would that fire spark anew if confronted or challenged? Would he deign to flinch twice when given an opportunity? Riley held his gaze on that young soldier, waiting for the subservience he was owed.
Aaron dropped his eyes back to Riley’s boots, where he might study his proper place on this world.
A corporal somewhere was likely already pulling the prison files on today’s players for Riley’s perusal. Tonight’s reading had been set, at least.