by Richard Fox
“He was hesitant during the combatives assessment. Drop without prejudice. Let him try again after another term.” Gideon crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“I agree. He’ll get his envelope in the morning. Next.”
The holo jumped to Masako, Burke and Roland sitting in the mess hall.
“One has a high risk of plug rejection,” Gideon said.
“There’s always risk. We send them all to Knox for the next phase and Eeks can get a better neural workup. They all volunteered. They’ll all know the risk before they reach Mars. If any of them reach Mars.”
“None of them were as good as my old lance,” Gideon said.
“They’re un-tempered. It is our duty to forge them into armor.”
“They’re cherries, all three of them. You know the success rate compared to those that have done a term, that have experience.”
“And you know that some of the greatest of us went straight to Knox for the trials.” Tongea touched his forehead then crossed himself.
“I don’t keep to your faith. Just because one woman made it through against the odds doesn’t mean everyone else deserves the same chance. Don’t let the cross of yours cloud your judgement. We take these cherries to Knox, they’ll drop for loss of motivation. That’s a drop with prejudice, never get a shot again. We send them to the Marines or the Fleet for a few years, then one of them has a decent chance of making the cut.”
“The Saint’s path was as her own, just as these three will have their chance to prove themselves,” Tongea said.
“I’ll save an ‘I told you so’ for when the last of them drops. Send the notice. Let’s get out of Phoenix,” Gideon said.
Tongea tapped at a control pad and the three candidates on the screen looked down at their slates, and then at each other. They shrugged their shoulders and began eating as fast as they could.
Chapter 6
A miniature auto-bus pulled up next to a Mule transport ship, its ramp down and engines idling. Roland and a dozen other candidates piled out of the bus and stared at the Mule. He’d seen the plane in countless videos, played with them as toys, and even flown a small RC version during a Christmas when a foster family took him in for the holiday.
Roland had never been to the military terminal of the Phoenix spaceport, only ever caught glimpses through the outer fences while traveling through the city. Being so close to an actual Mule, feeling the hot exhaust from the jets and smelling the ozone from the anti-gravity thrusters was almost a dream come true. Larger Destrier transports and Eagle fighters flew overhead. A pair of the air/void supremacy fighters angled up and roared to the heavens.
Tongea came down the ramp. Not bothering to try to speak over the engines, he pointed at the candidates with a knife hand, then to the ramp.
Roland found his pack in the cargo compartment in the side of the bus then raced up the ramp. A long, thigh-high pallet with a top over it was secured to one side of the deck near a row of seats. Roland went to an open seat on the other side where a group of men and women in army and navy fatigues were already seated. Roland guessed there must have been a reason they were all on that side of the Mule and sat down next to a soldier in his early twenties.
“Hi,” Roland said. The soldier looked at him out of the corner of his eye.
“Put your pack under your seat.” The words sounded artificial, like they were coming from a speaker, and the soldier’s mouth hadn’t moved. He shoved his pack into webbing beneath his seat then stuck a fingertip into his ear and wiggled it.
Engine noise, or maybe getting my clock cleaned messed up my hearing, he thought.
The rest of the candidates boarded the Mule, and most ended up on the other side where the long pallet offered very little in the way of leg room.
“Guess you’re on to something,” Roland said. The soldier to his left ignored him.
A flight tech came from around a bulkhead separating the cockpit from the cargo bay.
“If this is your first flight in a Mule, then you’d better listen up,” she said. “The Terran Union builds these for form and function, never comfort. So if you think I’m going to bring you a bag of peanuts—or anything but the stink eye—you are wrong. Strap in. Our pilot is either incredibly talented or a maniac, depends who you ask. Either way, this won’t be a smooth trip. The restraints are so easy a child could figure them out. Tell me if you’re having trouble so I can come and mock you. My name is Fitzsimmons. Don’t bother me.”
Roland put his arms through the shoulder straps and buckled the two sides together and it tightened automatically against his chest.
“Waist strap,” came the speaker voice. Roland looked around for the source, then stretched a hand down the lip of his seat and found a third strap.
The soldier sitting next to him lifted his right hand, and the fingers snapped open with a click. He put his fingertips against his shoulder strap and his fingers clamped together, missing the strap. He tried again, his hands just as stiff and mechanical as the last time.
The engines whined louder.
“Can I help you?” Roland asked.
The soldier looked at him, his jaw set, then nodded quickly. Roland got out of his seat and got the other man buckled in. He looked up and saw a small speaker embedded in the base of his throat.
“Thank you,” the soldier said, his words natural, but dissociated.
Roland got back into his seat as Fitzsimmons glared at him from the edge of the ramp, her hands on her hips. She tapped a panel on her gauntlet, and a hatch opened on the ceiling. A short ladder descended from a ball turret. Gideon ran up the ramp and jumped onto the ladder. He climbed into the turret, and the hatch sealed him away from the rest of the Mule.
“Riding turret comes with the best view,” the soldier said, “unless you’re getting shot at, then the novelty wears off real quick.” He extended a fist to Roland and his hand popped open, ready to be shaken.
Roland gave the hand a gentle shake and felt servos beneath the plastic skin.
“Jonas Aignar,” the soldier said.
“Roland Shaw, sir,” he said.
“Don’t ‘sir’ me. I used to be a sergeant. Besides, the Armor Corps makes us all privates until we get our plugs or we wash out.” Aignar’s jaw never opened as he spoke, nor did his mouth move at all. “First time on a Mule? Same with all the others?”
“That’s right for me. Probably the others.” Roland shrugged.
A twinkle came to Aignar’s eye as Fitzsimmons raised the ramp.
“Something I should know?” Roland asked.
“Get sleep if you can.” Aignar rolled his shoulders forward, then snuggled his head against his seat.
The Mule lifted off suddenly, and Roland felt g-forces push him against the back of his seat, then slide him against the candidate to his right, who seemed to have missed his last three chances at a shower.
A few harrowing minutes later, the Mule levelled off. Fitzsimmons left her seat near the ramp, went to a hatch in the floor, pulled a lever and lifted it up. Roland watched as another turret descended and locked into place against the bottom hull. Through the turret glass, he made out city lights below.
Tongea came out from the cockpit and jumped into the turret.
“Think we’re in for trouble?” Roland asked Aignar, but he was fast asleep.
Catching Burke’s eye across the cargo bay, he gave him a wave. Burke waved back, then kicked his feet up on the pallet.
Roland tapped his fingers against his thighs, wondering just how long this flight would last. At least there was a good deal more to look at than the inside of a sensory-deprivation pod.
After a half hour, Fitzsimmons stumbled out of the cockpit, one hand against her stomach. She put a hand on Aignar’s knee to steady herself as she made her way back to her seat. Aignar sat up and rubbed sleep from his eyes.
“Who the hell…oh, I know,” Aignar said.
“What? Something wrong?” Roland asked.
Fitzsimmons
jammed an airsickness bag against her mouth and vomited. Loudly. Conversation died away and everyone stared at the flight tech as she threw up again. She wiped green liquid from her mouth, then sealed the bag with trembling fingers. She passed the bag to the candidate to her left, then gestured to the front of the cargo bay, shaking her head furiously.
The candidate held the bag with his fingertips, then passed it toward the front of the cargo bay.
The bag came to Roland, held by trembling fingers from the man to his right.
“Tell them to trash it. Hurry!” the other candidate said, nose pressed to his elbow.
Roland grimaced, took it and reached across Aignar’s chest to the woman in black navy fatigues.
Aignar laughed, a simple, robotic “Ha ha ha.”
“I think I’m going to be sick.” Roland swallowed hard as turbulence rattled the deck.
The sick bag made it to the last person on Roland’s side of the cargo bay, another flight tech. The tech got out of his chair, bag in hand, and went to a garbage chute in the middle of the forward bulkhead. He opened the chute, then sniffed at the bag.
“What is wrong with him?” Roland felt blood drain from his face.
The tech took a long-handled spoon from a pocket, opened the sick bag…and started eating.
Cries of shock and horror erupted from the candidates as the tech licked his fingers. The veterans began laughing hysterically.
Roland dry-heaved and looked away from the horror show.
“You puke on me and I will beat your ass,” Aignar said.
Roland put his hand to his mouth and clenched his stomach.
“Soup. It’s just pea soup, you damned cherry,” Aignar said. “Fitzsimmons dumped it in the bag. Other tech’s in on the joke. Calm down.”
Roland’s revulsion subsided. Across the cargo bay, Masako and another candidate both had sick bags to their mouths.
“You’re serious?” Roland asked.
“Yes.” Aignar looked at him, his jaw perfectly set, his eyes alight with mischief. “This is my serious face.”
“Who does this kind of thing? Pretending to eat—urk.” Roland squeezed his eyes shut.
“That joke’s almost as old as flight. They’ll be rolling for days if any of you actually puke.”
“Any other pranks I should know about?”
“No, that’s the only one there is.”
Roland gave Aignar a dirty look, not believing a word he had just said.
“Don’t suppose you know where we’re going?” Roland asked.
“Fort Knox, out in the wildlands that used to be Kentucky. Old home of the Atlantic Union Armor Corps. I heard Louisville was resettled. Maybe they’ll let us out for a pass, but I doubt it. You’ve been in the service for what, three days?”
“That’s right…what’s going to happen when we get there?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. I was infantry for three years; details on armor were few and far between. All the brass ever told us was to stay the hell out of their way and how to recover one of them out of a downed suit.” Aignar looked away, his gaze unfocused.
“Why all the secrets? Doesn’t that hurt their recruiting efforts?”
“If you knew the answer, would it matter?”
“Well…might help me figure out what they want from me.”
“And you’d act differently. It wouldn’t be the real you. Ranger selection is similar. Same with the Strike Marines. Stress and uncertainty will bring out what they’re looking for, or it’ll break you.”
“So I may not have it…great.”
“You’re on a bird to Knox, cherry. It means you’ve gone farther than sixty percent of other applicants. I think you’re doing all right.”
Roland felt a shift in his seat as the Mule began its descent. A few minutes later, the craft slowed to a stop midair and set down with a bone-jarring thump. Roland made out little more than darkness beyond the windows.
“Stay seated!” Fitzsimmons ordered as she lowered the ramp.
Gideon and Tongea emerged from the turrets and removed the tarp from the long pallet. Beneath was a long box of folded machinery and armor plating. With a cadre member on either side, the box rose on anti-grav suspensors and they carried it down the ramp and clear of the Mule.
Gears on the box came to life and mechanical arms unfolded from the sides. A fist slammed to the ground and a torso rose up. A helm fashioned after the knights of old emerged from the shoulders, optics flashing beneath a visor slit. The full suit stood up, dark panels of armor plating sliding into place over the entire fifteen-foot-tall frame and locking together with a click.
Roland’s jaw hung agape. The rest of the candidates stared on in silence.
The armor looked down at Tongea and Gideon, then slammed a fist against its breastplate with a ring of metal on metal. Tongea looked over his shoulder to Fitzsimmons.
“Up and out!” She lifted her hands over her shoulders several times for emphasis.
Roland hurried out of his seat, helped Aignar with his buckle, then raced down the ramp with his pack over his shoulder and fell into a line of candidates forming in front of Gideon. A dark forest surrounded the landing pad, and humid air enveloped him like a fist. The armor looked over each of the candidates, the massive helm turning from side to side.
“Which of you” —the words boomed from speakers embedded in the armor’s shoulders— “which of you maggots put your feet on me?”
Fear rose in Roland’s chest, even though he knew he was innocent.
The armor swung its helm to Tongea.
“They’re going to make me ask twice?”
“Me!” Burke squeaked. Roland’s fear grew, as Burke was standing right next to him. “It was me, sir…or ma’am. I didn’t know that you were—”
The armor stomped over to Burke’s place in line, growls emanating from the speakers. It leaned forward and slowly extended a fist the size of an engine block toward Burke’s face. A metal finger the thickness of Roland’s arm snapped open to the exact width of Burke’s head. The armor snapped his grip into a fist, earning a whimper from Burke.
“Find your iron.” The armor stepped back as its legs transformed into treads, and it rolled away toward a gap in the tree line.
“Candidates,” Gideon said, snapping on a flashlight and pointing it after the armor and into the forest, “follow me.”
****
Roland wasn’t sure which was worse—the high heat and humidity or the mosquitos that constantly attacked his exposed skin. They’d hiked up and down hills for the better part of an hour in the moonlit night without a word from the two cadre. He shifted his pack against his shoulder, surprised at just how heavy so little gear could get.
“Think I see some light,” Burke said from behind him. “Over the top of this hill, which is number nine thousand and twelve by my count.”
“Yeah, there’s a glow.” Roland wiped a sleeve across his forehead.
“Light at the end of the tunnel. You think it’s a train?” Burke asked.
“Shh!” Masako hissed. “You think maybe there’s a good reason no one else is talking?”
“Cadre have us wired up,” Burke said, tapping his monitor. “I don’t think idle conversation is something to keep hidden.”
“Talking…” Roland grimaced as a blister on the side of his foot sent a sting of pain up his leg, “talking makes these hills a little harder. Yes?”
“Navy doesn’t have to walk anywhere. Just sayin’, is all,” Burke muttered.
Gideon stopped just as he crested the hill. Down the slope, Fort Knox spread out along a valley. Rows and rows of warehouse-sized buildings were laid out in a grid, all lit by flood lamps. A perimeter of tall, reinforced fencing patrolled by small drones and armed security bots surrounded the base. Smaller, two-story buildings that looked like something out of a black-and-white video from the Second World War clustered next to a larger square building with a lit sign atop oversized doorways.
Gideon t
ook a deep breath through his nose. “Candidates, welcome to Fort Knox, the first home of the Armor Corps.”
He led them down the hill, which Roland found to somehow be worse on his knees, through the outer fence and down a roadway lined with tanks on either side, toward the large building Roland had seen from the hilltop. The tanks were re-creations—the Xaros had left nothing behind beyond a few cities in the American West—of armor from the turn of the twentieth century to the last version of the vaunted M1 Abrams, and they led to the glass doorway.
A soldier with an anti-grav pallet collected their packs as they came inside. The entrance was mercifully air-conditioned and another soldier passed out paper cups full of orange liquid.
A suit of armor stood motionless near the entrance, a brass plaque on a stand near its feet. The armor’s limbs were metal frames, the torso a cage around a mannequin sitting inside, holding controls in both hands, a sensory helmet over the top of its head.
“This is the Mark I,” Tongea said, holding up an open hand to the crude armor. “Ibarra Industries created the first suits during the early days of the Great Pacific War with China in 2058. The next version,” he said as he walked over to another suit fully enclosed in metal plates, a massive belt-fed rifle larger than Roland in its hands, “saw combat across Australia and the Pacific Isles. Designed solely for terrestrial combat.”
Across the hallway, Roland recognized the next model: a double-barreled gauss cannon mounted on one arm, the twin vanes of a rail cannon on its back, a Gatling gun on the other shoulder. One hand was withdrawn into the forearm casing, the tip of a spike in its place.
The suit was pockmarked, lines of welds and repair epoxy marring the armor like old scars. An iron-colored heart was below a stenciled name on the breastplate that read: ELIAS.
“The Mark III’s and IV’s fought in the Ember War. This is an earlier suit, before the aegis plating was implemented,” Tongea said and turned to face the gaggle of candidates hanging on his every word. “The latest models are on Mars or deployed.”
A set of double doors behind him opened to an auditorium. He led the candidates inside, where half the seats were already full of new recruits and a smattering of veterans.