"Terminal 7B. Go," said the soldier, and they drove onward, entering the spaceport.
Marco tried to ignore the horses stampeding through his stomach.
They drove between smaller rockets, heading toward 7B and the massive chrome rocket that rose there, twenty stories tall, the logo of the phoenix plastered across it. Technicians stood on scaffolds, and service cars zipped back and forth. A metal fence rose around the rocket, and a few hundred people stood in a courtyard by a car park. A sign stretched across a squat concrete building: HDF Recruit Terminal 7B.
They parked and emerged into the heat. A couple hundred youths stood here, carrying backpacks, their families and friends with them. A few girls were crying and hugging while a few boys stood together, chests puffed out, speaking of how many scum they'd kill. One boy stood on a platform outside the building, doing his best attempt at an Elvis impersonation, singing "Hound Dog" and swaying his hips. Several youths scoffed while watching the show. A few soldiers, looking bored, guarded the fence that surrounded the rocket. That metal edifice soared above them all, reflecting the sunlight.
We're not blasting into deep space yet, Marco reminded himself. This is just a suborbital rocket to take us to another place on Earth. They don't train soldiers in space. It won't be months until the darkness.
He had never been to space before. Space was dark and cold and dangerous, and few civilians lived out in the colonies. Millions of civilians had once lived across the solar system and the stars beyond. Millions had died in the scum attacks. Today there were still millions of humans in space, but they were now soldiers of the STC, the space corps of the Human Defense Force.
Most soldiers, blessedly, simply served on Earth. Marco wasn't sure if any gods existed, but right now he prayed that he'd end up serving Earthside. He looked at the soldiers guarding the fence—just boys and girls, probably not yet twenty. Maybe they'd let Marco serve here in Toronto, guarding some rocket or roadblock. Maybe on weekends they'd let him go home, back to his library to keep working on his novel. That wouldn't be too bad.
He turned toward Addy. She still wore her cargo pants and the white tank top that revealed her blue Maple Leafs tattoo, a fresh cigarette dangled from her lips, and her hockey stick still hung across her back.
"I don't think they'll let you take your stick," Marco said. "You better—"
A screech and smell of burnt rubber interrupted him. A blue sports car halted with a puff of smoke, and four hulking teenagers leaped from within, all wearing hockey jerseys.
"Addy, you scum-killing bitch!" one of them shouted. "You weren't going to go butcher aliens without saying goodbye, were you?"
All four boys leaped onto Addy, and soon they were laughing and swapping punches. One of the boys pulled out cigarettes and a pack of beers, and they cracked open bottles.
Marco sighed. Smaller and quieter, he had never felt comfortable among Addy's towering, drunken friends. Thankfully, the brutes ignored him, and when one of the boys—a beefy giant with shaggy brown hair—locked lips with Addy, Marco turned aside. He felt queasy. He knew that Addy had been dating a fellow hockey player this year, but the sight of them kissing disturbed him. Strangely, Marco felt jealous. He didn't have romantic feelings for Addy—the girl was like a sister to him, had been living in his home for seven years now. And Marco loved nobody but Kemi, wanted no other woman in his life. And yet . . . Yes, that kiss hurt him to see. He thought of how Addy had lain in his arms last night, how they had slept holding each other, and oddly, again he felt his heart cracking, like he had felt yesterday when Kemi had broken it.
He forced the thought out of his mind. In a few moments he would join a massive, galactic army dedicated to fighting vicious, superintelligent alien centipedes with claws like swords. He had greater worries than who Addy kissed.
He looked around him at the other recruits, seeking familiar faces. He knew a handful of these boys and girls from school, by face if not by name. A few girls stood in a circle, holding hands, praying softly. One boy was brandishing a plush scum doll, similar to the one Addy had at home. Another boy, scrawny and balding at eighteen, stood apart from the crowd, reading Lord of the Rings through massive spectacles. A few girls and larger boys were pointing at the bookworm and scoffing, and Marco felt both pity and relief—pity for the outcast, relief that he himself was not, perhaps, the most awkward recruit here.
They take everyone, he thought. Hockey brutes and bookworms. The strong. The scrawny. The brave. The frightened. Fighters and singers and nerds. If you can pull a trigger, you can kill the scum. If you can't, you're good fodder.
Marco stepped closer to his father. They both pointedly ignored Addy who still seemed determined to suck out her boyfriend's tonsils.
"Remember, the thriller and mystery shelves are still out of order," Marco said.
Father nodded. "They'll be sorted by the time you're back home."
Marco wanted to say so many more things. He wanted to tell his father that he loved him. To hug the old man. To talk about Mother. To talk about how he was scared. But the words all jammed in his throat. He could say nothing, only stand there, awkward and stiff, his stomach twisting. He tried to curb the instinct to run. You couldn't run from the HDF. If you tried to dodge your draft, they found you. They always found you, and you spent your five years rotting in a dungeon. If Marco had to rot away, he would prefer rotting in the belly of a scum. At least it would be warm.
"Nice Elvis," he finally said, and for a few moments father and son stood still, faces blank, watching the boy in the leather jacket who was still swaying his hips on stage. He was singing "Jailhouse Rock" now, largely ignored by the other recruits and their families.
"Hello, ladies and gentlemen!" A voice rang through a megaphone, and a soldier stepped onto the stage, shooing the Elvis impersonator back into the crowd. "Welcome to the HDF Recruit Terminal!"
The speaker was a young woman, perhaps in her early twenties, with dimples and a brown ponytail. She too wore olive fatigues and boots, and a handgun hung from her hip, similar to the one Addy kept at home. A golden pendant shaped like a butterfly hung around her neck. Scattered applause sounded as the crowd turned toward her.
"I'd like to give out a warm welcome and hug to our new recruits!" The soldier with the butterfly pendant reached out her arms, her smile growing. "Today you begin a new part of your lives. Today you begin a journey to become all that you can be, to make your planet proud. Thanks to your courage, your families and friends can sleep well tonight, knowing that you will protect them. Welcome to the HDF!" The soldier paused for more scattered applause. "At this time I ask all family and friends to take a moment, to part from your brave recruits, and to return home with the knowledge that your loved ones join the warm, loving family of the Human Defense Force."
Marco looked at his father. For the first time in his life, the rumpled librarian hugged him. And for the first time in his life, Marco saw tears in his father's eyes.
"It's not forever." Father's voice choked, and he held Marco close. "It's not forever. Remember that. It's not forever."
Marco blinked, overwhelmed, confused, unable to speak. Sniffing and drying his eyes, Father hugged Addy next, then left with the other families and friends. One by one, the cars left the parking lot, leaving only a couple hundred recruits on the pavement. The rocket loomed above them.
The pretty, smiling soldier with the megaphone retreated into the concrete building. Several tall, powerful men in uniform emerged to replace her, holding electric batons.
"All right, you sons and daughters of whores!" shouted one soldier, his arms massive, his eyes blazing with malicious amusement. "Your mothers are gone now. The HDF is the only mother you have now. Form three lines! Go!"
"That's more like it," Addy muttered, moving closer to Marco. "I was about to hurl when Ms. Butterflies gave us a hug."
"Move!" shouted another soldier, stepping toward the recruits. He raised his baton, and the tip crackled with electricity. "Three lines,
you fucking maggots!"
"Marco is more of a larva than a maggot!" Addy said.
Marco cringed. "Addy, shush."
A few recruits smirked. One was trembling and weeping. Most were silent and pale. Marco tried not to worry. He had seen enough drill sergeants in movies to realize this was just an act. The recruits formed three lines in the courtyard, facing the fence and the rocket beyond. A handful of recruits still lingered outside the formation, talking amongst themselves.
The soldiers moved in, batons raised.
A boy screamed as a baton drove into his stomach, crackling with electricity. Another soldier drove his baton into a girl outside the lines. She fell, and a boot slammed into her belly.
"Up!" a soldier shouted.
"Move, worm!" roared another, shoving a boy forward.
"Form the lines!" a third soldier roared, spraying saliva.
So much for it being an act, Marco thought.
"Do you think we are your teachers?" shouted a towering soldier with short red hair, swinging her baton. "Do you think we are your mothers? Your days of fun are over! You're soldiers now. Move! Move or we will shove these cattle prods so far up your asses your teeth will melt. Move!"
A soldier opened a gate in the fence around the rocket. Marco cringed as the three lines of recruits began to march, moving through the gate. A girl beside him was weeping. A few other recruits were still chuckling, trying to hide their laughter behind their palms. Behind Marco, Addy whispered, "I'm going to have fun here, I think."
"Silence!" shouted a soldier.
"Cry and we'll dry your tears with our shockers!" a soldier shouted in the face of a weeping girl.
The batons crackled, goading the recruits onward, shocking anyone who slowed down, spoke, laughed, wept, or did anything but march silently. The weapons weren't lethal, but when Marco lost his step and one drove into his side, he ground his teeth together so hard he thought they'd crack. It fucking hurt.
Addy was having the time of her life, judging by her smile and shining eyes, but Marco much preferred Ms. Butterfly's style.
They walked across the tarmac and climbed a staircase into the rocket. A vertical fuselage greeted them. Ring after ring of seats rose in many tiers, filling the rocket. Marco counted twenty stories before the seats faded into shadows far above. A ladder rose in the center of the rocket, allowing the recruits to climb. Marco climbed high, preferring to sit as far away from the engines as possible, finally finding a seat near the top of the rocket. Addy sat down to Marco's right. Marco imagined that his face was pale, his eyes sunken, but Addy positively beamed.
"Almost time to kick scum thoraxes," she whispered, eyes alight, but Marco didn't miss her fingers nervously clutching her pants, and he did not forget her tears and trembling last night.
More and more recruits came climbing up the ladder and taking their seats. Several girls sat across the rocket's fuselage ahead of Marco. Their eyes were red, and one was rubbing her side where her clothes were singed. That was a baton's mark, Marco realized. Another girl, tears on her cheeks, kept talking about how her father was wealthy and powerful, how he would save her, but she fell silent when a soldier glared at her from below.
The seat left of Marco creaked, and the entire tier of chairs jostled. Marco turned his head to see the oddest boy he'd ever seen settling down beside him. He barely looked human. The boy's brow slanted backward, his jaw thrust out in an underbite, he had no chin to speak of, his nose was squat and heavy, and thick eyebrows shadowed beady black eyes. His legs were stubby, but his torso and arms were massive. He looked, Marco thought, like a Neanderthal. The boy stared ahead with blank eyes, silent, lips tight.
Marco was about to introduce himself when soldiers came climbing the ladder.
"Silence!" one soldier shouted.
"Any one of you maggots talks, I bash out your teeth!" bellowed another.
The tall female soldier with the red hair smirked. "Fasten your seat belts, you pretty little whores, or we'll be mopping you off your friends' laps in about thirty seconds."
Marco and Addy fastened their seat belts. When Marco glanced to his left, he saw that the brutish boy with the heavy brow was still staring ahead, silent, hands clasped together.
"Your—" Marco began, then bit his lip as a soldier climbed toward them. Gulping, Marco reached over and silently fastened the Neanderthal's seat belt.
No sooner had Marco pulled his hands back when the engines roared.
The rocket trembled.
Marco inhaled deeply. Addy reached out and clasped his hand.
"I'll look after you, Marco," she whispered, squeezing his hand, blanching. "I promise."
With a deafening roar and screaming flames and shrieking metal, the rocket launched. Marco closed his eyes, jostling in his seat, and pressed his head as hard as he could against the headrest. He clenched his jaw and prayed to keep his breakfast down. As they soared through the atmosphere, as the rocket rattled and blazed, he clutched Addy's hand.
Goodbye, Father, he thought. Goodbye, Kemi. Goodbye. Goodbye.
CHAPTER FIVE
There was only one window in the rocket, a narrow slit above the rings of seats near the cockpit doors. Sitting at the top tier, Marco watched the blue sky fade to black and stars appear. His gut calmed as weightlessness filled the rocket. If not for their seat belts, the recruits would have floated out of their seats.
Personal items—cigarette packs, toothbrushes, travel-sized bottles of shampoo, even a dirty magazine—floated out from recruits' backpacks and filled the fuselage. Marco tightened his own backpack, mortified at the idea of his Loggerhead manuscript ending up in another recruit's hands. A hockey puck floated out of Addy's pocket. Marco caught it for her. A soldier climbed the ladder in the center of the rocket, collecting the floating items and stuffing them into a vacuum bin, eliciting groans from those recruits who lost their possessions. Addy elbowed Marco hard in the ribs, pointed, and grinned at a floating, elongated toy that made Marco blush.
When the last of the items was retrieved, silence fell, and for long moments the rocket floated above the atmosphere. When Marco craned his neck back, gazing toward the viewport, he could see the rocket turn, and the stars gave way to the curve of the earth, then patches of blue and white as they floated above the ocean. They were several hundred kilometers up, it seemed, somewhere among the satellites. This was not a starship. This rocket could not take them into deep space. It was far too small, far too simple a machine. Here was a suborbital carrier, designed to travel between continents, able to arrive anywhere on Earth within half an hour.
For a few moments they floated just above the sky.
The heavyset boy beside Marco, the one with the slanting brow and underbite, sat very still, stiff, and silent, his bushy eyebrows pushed over his beady eyes. Suddenly he whipped his head around toward Marco and grinned—a huge, joyous grin, full of crooked teeth. His hands pressed together in delight.
"If I were in the Amsterdam Floating Flower Market right now," the boy said, voice slurred, "I would buy such a bouquet!"
Marco smiled thinly. "That's ni—"
"Silence!" shouted a soldier, floating up toward them, electrical baton raised. Marco and the boy beside him shut their mouths.
After only a few moments in space, they began to descend, and incredible g-forces yanked at Marco. He gritted his teeth, struggling to remain conscious. Flames blazed outside the viewport as they reentered the atmosphere. Farther down the fuselage, a boy lost his breakfast, eliciting cries of disgust and laughter from the recruits as the goo floated up. The rocket rattled, screamed, blazed, spun, and the fire vanished, replaced with blue skies. They seemed to be slowing down, and Marco threw up a little in his mouth, gulped hard, and winced. He groaned, wanting to lie down, curl up, and shudder for hours. A few recruits seemed to have passed out.
A few moments later smoke covered the viewport, and the rocket shivered, swayed, and finally thumped down. Scattered applause rose through the fuselage. S
houting soldiers and buzzing batons silenced them. The entire trip couldn't have been longer than half an hour, Marco estimated, but with suborbital flight, that meant they could be anywhere from Africa to Fiji.
Or maybe, he thought, glancing at the boy at his side, Amsterdam.
They emerged from the rocket into chaos.
Hundreds of other rockets rose around them, and thousands of recruits—still in their civilian clothes—were spilling out onto the hot tarmac. Jungles rustled around the spaceport, and the caws and squawks of birds were so loud they nearly drowned the engines. Marco had thought the day warm back in Toronto, but the heat here pounded against him like blasts of air from a hot bellows. When he took a few steps, it felt like walking through soup, and sweat soaked him.
Addy stepped into formation ahead of him. The recruits formed three lines as the soldiers patrolled with their batons, shocking anyone who fell out of formation. Across the tarmac, other groups were doing the same. Fire blazed in the sky, and flame and smoke enveloped the world, and engines roared, and another rocket landed on the tarmac. More recruits spilled out.
"March!" shouted the red-haired soldier, the one who had shocked Marco back at Toronto. The recruits began to move.
A concrete wall rose ahead, topped with barbed wire. A sign above the gateway read: RASCOM.
As she marched, Addy looked over her shoulder at Marco. "RASCOM!" she said, eyes shining. "Reception and Sorting Command. We're in Chile!" She bit her lip, looked forward, and kept walking as the red-haired soldier moved closer.
Marco marched behind her in formation. He'd heard of RASCOM, but just snippets of hushed conversation back home. Veterans didn't like talking about this place. He had heard scarred, battle-hardened men say that RASCOM—where soldiers were first welcomed into the Human Defense Force—had been the toughest few days of their service.
The recruits marched through the gates, entering the sprawling military base. Marco's eyes widened. The base was massive. It spread for kilometers ahead, an entire city of barracks, towers, hangars, and armories. Jets streaked overhead, and armored vehicles clattered down the streets on caterpillar tracks. The flags of the HDF thudded in the hot wind, proudly displaying the phoenix. The recruits halted as lines of uniformed soldiers, several hundred strong, marched across an intersection before them. In a dusty field on the roadside, hundreds of recruits shouted "Yes, Commander!" at a soldier, faces red and chests thrust out. It felt even hotter in here, insects buzzed everywhere, and sweat stained Marco's clothes and dripped down his legs and back.
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