They did so without hesitation, but Jones was still shaking his head.
“You’re awake a day, and you’re causing this much trouble. You know Watkins has never taken a punch in his life?”
“Yeah? Well, now he has. You learn through experience. Next time he’ll take it better.”
“Next time?”
“You get hit in combat and you aren’t conditioned for it, aren’t ready for it, you’ll go down like a cheap hooker. Train, fight, harden the fuck up, and you stay on your feet and keep going.”
Jones shook his head.
“You expect to pick up right where you were, but we aren’t that kind of people anymore, Taylor.”
“Bullshit. So you became pussies for a little while. You had no reason to be otherwise. My generation fought so that you didn’t have to, and you’ve slacked ever since. You think I don’t understand this, but I went through the same. You seem to know some of my history, but you don’t know what it was like to see an alien for the first time and realise you can barely hurt it. Line up a squad of marines with the finest hardware on offer and just bounce right off. I was scared shitless, and I won’t deny it, but do you know how that feels?”
Jones went silent for a moment, and Taylor could see the fear in his eyes as he flashed back to recent events. His expression seemed to change entirely.
“You do, don’t you?”
“First contact, I was there. Barely survived the experience.”
“Well, I’ll be damned, there is a fighter amongst you,” Taylor replied, smiling, “You kill one of them?”
Jones nodded, but there was still fear in his eyes.
“How’d you do it?”
“I…I drew it into an escape pod…and I…I jettisoned the pod with two grenades inside.”
“Woohoo! You might just be a real Jones yet!” Taylor hollered.
Jones couldn’t understand where his enthusiasm was coming from, and yet he was drawn to Taylor’s electrifying personality, nonetheless.
The twenty men and women formed up soon after. Taylor paced up and down looking at their equipment. They wore full body compression suits with slimline form fitting body armour plates over most key parts of the body.
“This armour, it any good?”
“It will withstand a Reitech 8.1mm round at ten metres. Shrapnel, blunt trauma, and abrasion,” replied Jones.
Taylor smiled; realising Reitech was still around as an entity.
“But will it stop whatever the enemy is firing at you?”
“Our shields can withstand a couple of shots at best, but our armour has done little to protect us.”
“These suits of yours, do they provide any boost in power or strength, speed?”
Jones shook his head.
“Close quarter weaponry?”
“We do not carry any. It serves no purpose today.”
“No purpose when you have nobody to fight!”
He paced up and down the line.
“I guess most of you would laugh to hear that in my day when the rifles failed, or we were in too close, we used small sword or spear-like weapons, and full shields, not retractable. And we fought in exoskeleton suits to boost the abilities of our bodies. What have you got? Minimal ballistic protection and a fancy folding shield?”
He stopped before the largest man in the unit. He stood ten centimetres taller than Taylor but was of similar build. His nametag read 'Antos.'
“Give me your rifle,” he ordered.
The man quickly complied, and Taylor took ten paces back before throwing the rifle behind him.
“Private Antos. I am the enemy. Your rifle has just been dropped. There is nowhere to run except through me. Are you up to the task?”
Antos looked to his comrades in shock.
“Private, you are a British Para. To me that means something; it means you are one of the toughest sons of bitches in the galaxy. Prove it. Get to that rifle.”
Taylor stood squarely in front of the weapon as the man approached. He looked cautious and as if he had never fought with his own hands before. Taylor shook his head in disbelief at the sight. Antos seemed wary of attacking, or scared to.
“Come on! Hit me!” Taylor ordered.
The man lunged forward with a quick but clumsy strike. Taylor parried the strike off to one side and drove his knee up into the man’s abdomen. The armour took much of the impact, but it still shocked him. Taylor then grabbed Antos’ lead arm and pulled him off balance, driving his elbow into the man’s shoulder blade as he was thrown face first onto the hard parade ground floor and pinned in position. Taylor pulled his arm back against the leverage of his elbow, just enough that he was wincing in pain, but not enough to dislocate it.
He let go, helped Antos up, and handed him his rifle.
“This won’t do at all. Not at all!” Taylor shouted, “I am going to make fighters out of all of you, and you are going to earn that uniform you wear!”
He looked back to Jones.
“Lieutenant, you have them. I want a ten klick run. Take a time.”
“In full combat equipment?”
“This is what you go to war in, is it not?” he yelled back.
The Lieutenant agreed.
“Right face! By the left, quick march!”
Taylor watched them trudge off into the distance and shook his head.
“This is gonna be a lot of work.”
Chapter 5
Taylor rode along through the base aboard one of the hover vehicles he had seen earlier. It was large enough for six personnel and their gear, and yet the compact engines and whatever provided the lift were concealed well beneath the framework. It resembled a flying sand rail buggy to him. His driver was a young Hispanic woman. She looked like she was barely out of school and yet held the rank of Lieutenant. She had told him her name, but he hadn't been paying attention.
They were passing along lines of houses now. Each one of them was cube shaped and appeared as though made from smoked glass. The buildings looked lavish in size and even had gardens.
"What rank do you have to be to get this life of luxury?" Taylor asked his driver.
"Each one of these properties is provided to all recruits who gain a commission, Sir," she said in surprise.
"All combat personnel are officers, and all officers live like this? Must be a pretty small Corps these days."
"Yes, Sir. We have been streamlined and rely heavily on automated and autonomous machines. It must be a far cry from the Marine Corps you once knew. We have a wealth of equipment to make our work easier today that I bet you could only dream of having access to, back when you could have done with it."
Taylor laughed.
"What is it, Colonel?"
"I could have done with all this junk? Coming from a society that has dug me out from storage and dusted me off because it can't cope when the shit hits the fan."
"I'm not sure what you mean, Colonel."
He wasn't sure if she was being politely oblivious or genuinely ignorant of their situation, but it brought a smile to his face anyway. They finally came to a standstill at house number 452.
“This is it,” she stated.
Taylor got out and approached the front door. The structure was spartan and uninspiring to look at, though highly functional. As he got a few metres away, the door slid open.
“Welcome home, Mitch,” said a voice from a hidden speaker near the doorway.
“What the hell is that?”
“Sir, the entrance is programmed to recognise your body language, voice, and retina. It will lock and unlock as necessary.”
“Great,” he added sarcastically, “Another useless piece of tech.”
“Is there anything more I can do for you, Colonel?”
He turned back and looked down at the name on her uniform. ‘Rocha.’
“Ever seen any action, Rocha?”
“Over one hundred combat simulations. A dozen zero G exercises, another…”
She stopped as she saw T
aylor shake his head.
“You can do all the training in the world, Lieutenant. In fact you should, but that isn’t what I asked. You want to do what a marine was born to do, you show up tomorrow and sign up with me.”
“I…I can’t.”
“Can’t? You are a Marine Lieutenant. I don’t want to hear you can’t do anything. Be there tomorrow morning. Lose that bar. Come and join me, Rocha, and I’ll make you a marine. Get you out from behind that wheel, ferrying around officers you don’t care about.”
“Sir, I like this job.”
“Goddamn it. You know how long women fought to get frontline duties in the Corps? And now you’re happy being a butler with a Corps uniform. Have a little pride, Rocha. Come with me. I can’t promise you safety, career advancement, or a great retirement package. But I can offer you the chance to be a marine, a real marine.”
“Sir, I can’t be part of your operation, not without authorisation, and that will never happen…I just…”
“Just turn up tomorrow morning and be ready to get to work. I’ll handle the rest.”
He turned and strode into his new accommodation. It was a spacious open plan lower floor with a small elevator on one wall being the only means of going up to the higher floor. He shook his head at it all.
“Lazy,” he said to himself.
The ground floor was laid out like a show house, but it was also stark. There was not a single item of his inside. As the door to the house closed behind him, his situation truly dawned on him. He had leapt right back into his life as a marine, but now he was finally alone without something to occupy his mind, it began to wander to all that was now missing in his life. He thought of Eli, even though she had been lost a long time before the end of the war. He remembered losing so many friends, to the level he thought he had lost everything. But now, alone, and with not a single recognisable face, he was starting to appreciate how much he truly had left before the end.
The room was completely silent, and that did not help with the emptiness Taylor now felt. He staggered over to the sofa in the middle of the room and slumped down into it with a sigh. As he came to a rest, a screen appeared. It was two metres wide by a metre high and projected just off the wall in front of him. On the display was merely the picture of an envelope, but a voice soon joined it.
"Mitch Taylor, you have fifty-seven messages in archive."
Taylor looked scornfully at the screen. He expected they would be nothing more than advertising and other crap he wasn't interested in dealing with. He looked around for something, anything to spark his imagination or give him something to do, but there was nothing. So he got up and went to the kitchen. He looked in the cupboards and only found prepared meals that looked far from appetising. He then opened up the fridge to find flavoured water and energy drinks.
"Where the hell do you get a beer around here?"
To his amazement the voice that had greeted him at the door answered his question.
"Alcoholic beverages are not permitted within the confines of the base."
"Fucking great," he muttered.
He grabbed a bottle of the flavoured water and scowled at it as he opened it and wandered back over to the sofa. To his surprise it actually tasted good, but he wasn't going to admit it. He was all too aware that he had no connection to this world. There was nobody he knew to talk to, and nothing for him to do until the next day of training commenced.
What the hell am I doing here?
He felt unsettled and a little sick. Last thing he remembered was dying and knowing everything that needed to be was resolved. He had defeated Erdogan, and he had nominated a successor that would see peace amongst the races. But that was all gone now. He felt completely lost in the world. He had nobody to turn to and nothing to occupy his mind. He was starting to wonder why he was even alive.
"Oh, what the hell, play the first message," he said.
The screen lit up, and he was amazed to see Coco standing in her full dress uniform. She was in front of some kind of monument, but he didn't recognise it, not until he noticed his name in the background. Tears rolled down her face, and she didn't speak for a moment. To Taylor it seemed like just a few days ago that he had seen the widow of his best friend. He remembered how she expressed her love for him after her husband, and his best friend, had died - Charlie Jones. She wept for a few more seconds, but it brought a smile to his face to see her.
"Here we are," she finally said, pointing to his tomb behind her. Her thick French accent was adorable as always, "Of all the people who died, I thought you would be one to make it through," she said as she wept once again. "You did it, Mitch. You saved us all," she said as she tried to wipe the tears from her face. "I know that one day you will return to us, but I fear it will not be in my lifetime. You were good to me, Mitch, and I just wanted to give something back. When you finally wake up, I want you to make the most of your life. You deserve it. You fought for it, and you gave everything so that we could live on. When you see this, know that it is your time. I cannot do anything more for you in life, but I will record a new message for you every year when I visit, I promise. Good luck, Mitch, and thank you."
The message ended and Taylor was frozen. He didn't know what to think or how to respond to that. His head was started to ache, trying to get his head around the time lapse between the video and where he was now. It was like a bad dream. Her words echoed in his mind until he was overwhelmed with a will to live. He could not bear to disappoint her even though she would never know.
"You thought we fought for this peace? Well it didn't last," he said quietly, "But that's why I'm here. I wasn't born to live in peace, no matter how much I want it. They locked me up for good. Might as well have put a sign on my tomb saying 'break and enter only in case of pending invasion.' Well they need me now, god help them, because they've got me for good now, and they're not gonna like it."
He smiled, knowing he had a purpose in life and a reason to go on living.
* * *
Taylor strode back to the drill square where he had left his new unit the day before, but this time he had one of the Krys at his side, who was also a member of the Marine Corps. They were formed up and waiting for him. He paced along the line, noting that every single one of them had removed their ranks except for Jones, as he had ordered. Many of them looked at the alien with suspicion, not because they were inherently suspicious of the Krys, but because of what Taylor might have them do. All were in full combat load out. He strode up to Jones who stood three metres in front of the troops.
"You're time?" Taylor asked.
"Sixty-seven minutes."
Taylor laughed.
"Over an hour for ten klicks? This isn't the Air Force, Lieutenant. I expect better."
"Sir, they are exhausted. We never run in full gear, and there is no need for it, anyway. We are a motorised force."
"Really? No need for it? You think I'm wasting your time here, don't you, Lieutenant?"
"I do, Sir. I respect what you did back in your day. But that was then, and this is now. I am needed up there for whatever we are about to face, and instead I'm stuck down here pandering to you, a relic of a bygone era."
Taylor smiled.
"Well at least you found the balls to speak plainly."
He turned around to address the rest of them when he saw a vehicle draw up nearby. Rocha leapt out and strode up towards him.
"Private Rocha reporting for duty, Sir."
“Your CO let you sign up with me just like that?”
“Sir, he said if I was foolish enough to go, and you were stupid enough to take me, yes."
"Then you're in for one hell of a ride, Private. Fall in."
He turned back to the unit as she joined their ranks. Many were still looking suspiciously at the Krys marine beside Taylor.
"I bet you all think you are serious bad asses. You're from two of the best fighting units the world has to offer, or certainly used to be."
"Antos? You're a big bastard. What
do you do when you meet an enemy who's bigger, stronger, and tougher than you are?"
Antos looked confused as Taylor looked over to the alien.
"This is Babacan," he said to introduce him, "As a training exercise, we are going to assume for a moment that Babacan here is an enemy combatant. Antos, step forward."
He did so without hesitation.
"An alien combatant stands before you. He wants to tear your head off, what do you do?"
"Shoot him, Sir."
A few of the others chuckled at the response, and even Taylor smiled. He stepped forward.
"Yes, and when you run out of ammunition. When your gun is lost or damaged in combat, what do you do then?"
Antos shrugged.
"Give me your rifle, Private," Taylor ordered.
The man begrudgingly obliged.
"In my day we learned two very important facts very quickly, one, the Human body is not strong enough when faced with such a powerful opponent, and two, only a fool goes into combat without a weapon he can depend on to save his life, when you're down in the dirt and having to fight with your own two hands. Antos, Babacan here is going to kill you unless you can stop him. Begin."
"But, Colonel, we don't fight the other races. We don't even compete with them in sport. It's not fair game."
"Fair? I haven't seen a fair fight in war, Private, and neither will you. Begin!"
Anton put his hands up into boxing stance. It was clear he had fighting knowledge, but he still looked terrified. Babacan rushed at him. The alien stood a head taller and substantially heavier in build. He swung a heavy hook for Antos' head, but he managed to just duck under and delivered an uppercut to the alien's stomach. The impact barely seemed to shake the creature, and he twisted back, smashing Antos' cheek with a backfist that sent him hurling several paces until gaining his balance.
Battle Beyond Earth - Box Set (Books 1-5) Page 8