The Conscripts: Fight or Die (Blood War Book 3)

by Rod Carstens

  Dasan was stunned. He had not felt an attraction to any woman since Aijuba’s death, but Kat seemed to have blown all of that aside.

  “I…I…don’t know…uh.” Dasan felt like a schoolboy in her presence.

  Kat stood and held out her hand. Dasan took it and let this beautiful woman lead him back into the penthouse.

  “Dear, I had you the moment you laid eyes on me. Since you say I remind you of Aijuba, then I can say she would approve of us. So don’t worry,” Kat said over her shoulder as she led him by the hand. Dasan stopped, not sure he liked being led around by someone who seemed to know so much about this game between men and women.

  “What about your husbands and wives?”

  Kat stopped and looked up at him. “Dear, I am not sure there is one of them even in this system. They are all away on business. We won’t be disturbed, if that is what you are worried about.”

  Now Dasan felt as if she were making fun of him. “Since you seemed to know when you ‘had me,’ as you said, when did I have you?”

  A small smile turned up the edges of that perfect mouth. “When I saw how you handled that little girl’s handkerchief.”

  When she said that, Dasan knew this was not some sophisticated woman looking for a new experience. This was someone who had actually listened and decided based on who he was. Suddenly he felt desire sweep over him. No more hesitation. He pulled Kat into his arms and kissed her. She seemed to melt into him. Her full breasts pressed against his chest and her hips gently moved against him as they kissed. Kissing Kat was like kissing his first girl all over again. He broke off the kiss and stared into the beautiful eyes that were now filled with desire for him. Without thinking he leaned down and swept her up in his arms.

  “Dear, I am too big a girl for you to.…” Kat said.

  Dasan swept her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing. Kat went limp, moaned, and buried her face in his neck. Dasan carried her over to the huge couch and laid her down. They tore at each other’s clothes until they were both nude. By then their desire was overwhelming and Dasan took her immediately. She cried out and clutched him to her, her fingernails raking his back. Much later they went into the bedroom.

  Rigel Kent System

  Intina

  Penal Training Camp Twelve

  1st Battalion

  Alpha Company

  Platoon Thirteen

  0500 HOURS

  Forty hours after his trial and sentencing, Dieter was standing with a group of other penal-battalion conscripts in the dark on an entirely different planet. They had been transported to Intina in the Rigel Kent system, where a facility had been established for training new penal-battalion members. It was barely five o’clock in the morning and they all were shivering from the predawn cold. Camp 12 was on a barren, windswept plain that Intina was famous for throughout the system. He was so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open. They had kept the new recruits up all night with an endless stream of bureaucratic details, physical exams, haircuts, and uniform issue. All the while Von Fleet guards looked for the slightest reason to stun or bludgeon anyone who stepped out of line or hesitated.

  There were close to forty recruits in four lines of ten. They wore black shirts, pants, and heavy boots with the Von Fleet patch on the left arm. Von Fleet guards stood on either end of the lines, watching for any talking or moving so they could use the weapons they all carried. Around them other platoons marched or ran with instructors screaming at them. Each platoon was wearing the colors of the corporation that was sponsoring the platoon. So there was the orange of Ecomcon. The yellow of SCIA. The green of KOCL. When a recruit fell behind, an instructor would beat them until they had caught up with the rest of the platoon.

  They stood facing a building. The lights were on, but the building appeared empty. Suddenly the door burst open and three people strode out of it, two men and a woman. They wore hats that had wide, round brims that were angled forward over their eyes. Their shirts and pants were perfectly fitted and pressed. Two had wide green belts around their waists while one had a black, highly polished belt. He was tall and heavily muscled. He stood in front of the other two, who took up positions on each side of him. Their faces were creased with age, but each was as heavily muscled as the one in the black belt. They all had a cascade of blue Legion tear tattoos down their faces.

  The man in front looked at the guards. “They’re mine now. You can go,” he growled.

  The four guards looked at each other. One smirked and said, “Who the fuck do you think you are? We have orders to stay and make sure you can control these fucking criminals.”

  “I am the senior drill instructor for this platoon, and we do not need any help controlling them.”

  “Well there, Mr. Senior Drill Instructor, you don’t give me orders and I think we will stay. Besides, who's going to make us disobey orders? This little bitch?”

  The huge Von Fleet security guard approached the much smaller female drill instructor. She looked over at the senior drill instructor. He nodded. She smiled and turned to face the guard.

  “This little bitch is about to put you in sick bay,” she said.

  The guard started to swing his billy club. He had only drawn it back when the female drill instructor jumped straight up in the air and kicked him full in the face with her boot. He dropped as if he had been shot. Out cold. His jaw obviously broken.

  The other guard rushed her, and she stood waiting for him. He tried to strike her with a blow instead of grabbing her. She ducked under his swing, grabbed his arm, and threw him to the ground with no effort. Instead of releasing the arm, she twisted it and stomped it with her foot.

  “Ahhhhhh!” the guard screamed. Fenes actually heard the arm snap with the sound piece of wood made when you broke it over your knee.

  She dropped his arm, and with a precisely aimed kick to the head, she knocked him unconscious. She walked over to the first guard, who was coming to and moaning. She picked up a billy club and with one swing broke his knee. He cried out. The female drill instructor only smirked.

  “Never call me a little bitch again. If you want a rematch, I’ll be around the base. Come and see me sometime, you kak.”

  She walked over and took up her position behind the senior drill instructor. Her uniform was not even out of place. She simply put her hands behind her back and stared at the platoon. Only then did Dieter look to the left and see that the other drill instructor had done the same to the other two guards. Dieter was more confused than ever. He had come to hate the Von Fleet security guards as sadistic animals who took pleasure in hurting and humiliating the members of the platoon. He had just watched these drill instructors, whom he had expected to not be much better, put all four of them on the ground with injuries that would land them in the hospital. What was going on?

  It didn’t take long before an ambulance came to take them away. The medics gave the drill instructors a wide berth and didn’t ask any questions. The drill instructors did not say a word the whole time. They just stood there as patient as statues. Once they were left alone, the senior drill instructor took one step forward and said, “Anybody want to try us?”

  Nobody moved or said a word.

  “Good. You’re not as dumb as you look. My name is Staff Sergeant Ura. I am your senior drill instructor. This is Sergeant Chucha. He is my assistant drill instructor. Finally, but not least, is Sergeant Mati. She is my other assistant drill instructor. You might notice that she has five red stripes on her belt. Each of those stripes stands for a hand-to-hand kill. She killed five hybrids on Rift by herself. Not many alive can say that, so our guard friend made a mistake that he will never forget. He is lucky to be alive.”

  Dieter noticed that they all had red stripes on their belts, but Mati had the most.

  “You will address us as sir or ma’am at all times. Not by our rank or any other way. Do it and pay the price.”

  The sergeant looked at the group for a long moment before he continued, “I am going to talk to yo
u like this once during your time here. If I were you I would listen up. Do you understand?”

  There was a ragged chorus of yeses.

  “No, you stupid kaks. When I ask this platoon a question, I expect every one of you to yell the answer at the top of your lungs. You will say, ‘Aye, aye sir!’ Do you understand?”

  Dieter and the rest of the platoon screamed, “Aye, aye sir!”

  “That still sucked, but it is a start. Now listen up. As you can see, the three of us are Legion veterans. Every one of us was a career Legionnaire. We all were on Rift. We got out because were too old to re-enlist and we don’t have the money for a rejuvenation. Instead we heard about the penal battalions they were forming. We decided that we might be able to give some of you kaks a chance to live through what is coming your way. You see, we were very much like you at one time. The three of us had a choice of service in the Legion or a jail sentence.”

  Dieter was stunned. He had heard those rumors about the Legionnaires but he had never heard it directly from one. Several others gasped.

  “The Legion saved us and gave us a new chance. So you are looking at yourselves not that many years ago. While the penal battalions are not the Legion, you will go into battle like a Legionnaire, and we intend to prepare you the way the Legion prepared us for war. Look at the man or woman on your right.”

  Dieter turned and saw a pasty-faced young man next to him.

  “Now turn and look at the person on your left.”

  Dieter turned and looked at a tall, skinny young woman next to him. She looked too young to be in enough trouble to be here.

  “Now, like them or not, your life depends on those two people and the rest of the men and women in the squad. It does not matter why they are here. The only thing that matters is if you can count on them. If you cannot, then they might just get you killed. Your life depends on everyone in this platoon doing their job no matter what. We are going to give you the opportunity to acquire the skills and toughness to keep you alive. We cannot guarantee everyone will make it. We will wash out anyone we feel does not live up to the standards we set. If you wash out you will be transferred to another penal platoon. Look at that Ecomcon platoon over there.”

  One of their instructors was beating a recruit on the ground until he didn’t move any more. A group of Ecomcon security guards came running up and dragged him away.

  “That will not happen in this platoon. If you don’t make our cut, we will just have you taken away. You cannot beat recruits into becoming the kind of warriors you will need to be to face the Xotolis and the hybrids. We know. We have seen many of our friends, true warriors, killed by those fucks. They will cut you up while you are still alive just for fun. No, you have to find it in yourself. You may think you are here unfairly or unjustly. That does not matter. You are here and you are not going to get out. You will be in a penal battalion and you will be in combat. Like it or not the best thing you can do is learn what we are going to teach you. It will not be easy. You will not like us. That is not our job. Our job is to transform you from lazy civilian fucks into warriors who can survive in combat no matter why you are there. Simply put will learn to fight or you will die."

  He paused letting the reality what he had just said sink in Fenes and the rest of the platoon.

  "Finally, understand that the corporations are keeping these platoons together so they can track you like inventory. They have to have a certain number of personnel deployed at all times. That means from now on the people around you are going to be with you in training and in combat. Like them or not, you are stuck with each other. Learn to work together or you will get each other killed.”

  Dieter stood there with the others, shivering with cold and fear, watching these three former Legionnaires lay out his future in no uncertain terms. He knew one thing after watching Sergeant Mati destroy the two guards without breaking a sweat: if he could learn even a piece of what she knew, he wanted in. He never wanted to feel helplessness again as he had when those guards had come for him. If he had been more like these three, he might not be in the situation he was in now. He didn’t know if he could make it, but he began to understand that he was very lucky to have been assigned to this platoon, no matter how tough it was going to be.

  “Any questions?”

  No one said a word.

  “Face to your right. That is called right face, but right now it’s time for a little run to get the day started. Do not fall out!”

  Sergeant Ura walked to the front of the platoon and began running. The other two drill instructors kept them in the four lines as they ran. Sergeant Ura began to chant.

  “If I die in a combat zone!”

  “Chant, you stupid fucks!” Sergeant Mati screamed.

  “If I die in a combat zone!” Dieter yelled.

  “Box me up and send me home!”

  “Box me up and send me home!” Dieter yelled as he ran on.

  #

  The next weeks were a blur of training and constant exercise. Their days began before dawn with one of the drill instructors throwing an empty metal trash can onto the squad bay’s concrete floors, screaming at the top of their lungs.

  “You have five minutes to have your bunks made and be on line fully dressed!”

  The first few mornings they never made it, which led to long and difficult punishment via physical training. Dieter and the other recruits soon learned to wake in the middle of the night, dress in everything except their boots, and make their racks. When they woke the next morning, all they had to do was pull on their boots and straighten the already-made bunk. Everyone started to be on line on time.

  It was one of many things he learned. He learned you can rest between push-ups by relaxing at the bottom for just a split second. He learned he could run farther than he had ever thought possible. He learned he could do more physical training than he had ever thought possible. He thought of quitting every day during the first weeks, but each time he didn’t think he could go on, he would look around at another recruit and say, “If they can do it, I can do it.” That kept him going until one day something changed. Something he had never expected. Suddenly he knew they could never make him quit. No matter what they did, he wouldn’t quit. He would die trying. From that day forward the days were not easier, but he managed them better. He knew he would make it no matter what.

  He also found out that the pasty-faced young man who stood next to him had been the one he heard screaming as the guards raped him. His name was Ardan and he was still standing beside Dieter. Only he was not pasty-faced anymore. His face had become tanned, lean, and hard over the last weeks of physical training. He also learned that the skinny girl on his right had been skinny because she had eaten little for much of her life. After weeks of high-calorie food and exercise, she had filled out with muscle. Her name was Minga and the three of them had become something of a team, helping one another when they could. Dieter had changed much in the last weeks too, and so had the others who were left. Some had disappeared from the platoon, those who could not or would not keep up. Others quit, saying they could not go on and would rather be in another platoon. The platoon was down to thirty men and women now, but they had not lost anyone in over two weeks. Dieter began to think that the rest would make it through the training.

  “School circle!” Sergeant Ura said.

  The platoon formed a half circle around Ura, standing at rigid attention.

  “Ready, seats.”

  As one the platoon sat on the ground. Rigel Kent was just beginning to come over the horizon and the morning was still freezing, but it no longer bothered Dieter or the others. They had become used to it.

  “Today you will begin to learn how to kill. Your instructor will be Sergeant Mati.”

  Sergeant Mati walked to the front of the platoon.

  “You may think that hand-to-hand combat is useless in a war with rail rifles, smart bullets, armor, and other thousands of other pieces of lethal pieces of technology. You would be wrong. The fucking
hybrids like to close and kill in hand-to-hand combat. They are willing to die trying to get close enough to kill you. They are as fast and strong as an armor-assisted human and they like to kill. They will try to incapacitate you so they can torture you. They like it. Unless you can defend yourself with nothing but your hands, you will end up being a plaything for those kaks.”

  Sergeant Mati held up her hands. “I killed five of them with these. I will teach you how to do the same. Now pair up.”

  Dieter stood and faced Ardan. The next hours were spent making the same moves again and again until they were automatic. They were all bruised, and some bloody, by the end of the session. Dieter was swaying after Ardan had caught him flush on the chin with a strike when Sergeant Mati said, “That was a good start. We will take it from there tomorrow.”

  And they did, day after day, until Dieter and the rest of the platoon began to get the moves right. They drilled until every move that Sergeant Mati taught them was instinct. They drilled until they had bruises on top of bruises and not one of them had not been bloodied. Occasionally someone was knocked unconscious. Mati would allow them five minutes to clear their head, then they were right back at it. Dieter reached the point where he actually began to feel competent enough to win a fight. That is when Mati introduced them to the fighting axe. They started from scratch with the axe and practiced the moves until their arms could no longer lift it. Ardan and Minga had turned out to be two of the best hand-to-hand fighters in the platoon. Dieter was good but not like them. After weeks of dusk-to-dawn practicing with axe and hand-to-hand fighting, the platoon began to look like soldiers. The next day, as if the drill instructors could read their collective minds, Sergeant Ura called for a school circle.

  He stood, looking down at them with a rail rifle in his hand.

  “Listen up. This is the rifle you will be given. It is the oldest model out there. I wasn’t sure any of these were left. Its optics are outdated, it will not connect to any armor, and it won’t fire smart rounds, but you will learn to kill with this weapon. Soldiers have killed millions of people with weapons that don’t have this weapon’s range, accuracy, or stopping power. So you will learn to use it, to love it, and to care for it. Your instructor will be Sergeant Chucha. He was one of the best snipers in the Legion. He will now show you how to become just as deadly. Listen up. Your life will depend on your skill with this weapon.”