More shouts indicated understanding. Marco, however, doubted he could kill any scum. He thought back to those scum he had seen—the dead one here in RASCOM and the live ones that had slain his mother and Addy's parents. The aliens were terrifying, and while Sergeant Singh's gun was four feet long and impressive enough, it seemed like a mere slingshot by scum claws. Marco loathed the scum. He loathed them with every cell in his body capable of loathing. But perhaps killing them was best left for strong, wild warriors like Addy or intelligent, ambitious future officers like Kemi. Marco was just a writer, and not even a published one. Perhaps, he dared to hope, they'd let him be a war correspondent, and he could hone his writing skills reporting from battlefields rather than fighting in them.
Sergeant Singh pulled on augmented reality shades, tapped a button, and began calling out names.
"Recruit Peter Mack!"
Pinky—shorter than anyone else in the platoon—raised his hand. "Yes, Commander!" he cried out hoarsely, still smirking.
"Recruit Bruno Fabian!"
Caveman nodded. "Yes, Commander!" he rumbled.
"Recruit Benny Ray!"
This time Elvis—he had a real name after all—responded.
"Recruit Addy Linden! Recruit Marco Emery!"
Both replied, and Marco was relieved; he was in the right place after all. Two other recruits had ended up in the wrong platoon, and the sergeant sent them racing to another platoon in the field.
At least I'm not the only clueless bugger here, Marco thought.
Marco had counted forty-four names when the sergeant cried out one more: "Recruit Lailani Marita de la Rosa!" A pause. Nobody replied. The sergeant tried again. "Recruit Lailani Marita de la Rosa!"
"Now that's a mouthful," Addy muttered under her breath.
"Recruit Lailani Ma—"
"I'm here, Sergeant! I'm here!"
A recruit came jogging toward them. He was a young Asian boy with a buzz cut, a delicate face, and light brown skin, perhaps Indonesian or Thai. He seemed too small, too young for this army, a mere child. His green fatigues were extra small but still hung from his frame, and his duffel bag was larger than his body. The boy stood a couple of inches shorter than five feet, scrawny as a twig. Even Pinky seemed large by comparison.
"I'm here!" the recruit said again, and Marco realized that no, this wasn't a young boy. Lailani de la Rosa was a woman.
"Fucking dwarf," Pinky—himself barely taller than five feet—muttered. Marco gave him an incredulous look.
"Where the fuck were you, de la Rosa?" the sergeant said.
"Sorry, Sergeant!" Lailani shouted. For such a small woman, her voice was powerful. "Wrong brigade, Sergeant, but I'm here and ready to kill fucking scum."
The sergeant pointed at the ground. "You are here to drop and give me thirty for your tardiness."
"Yes, Commander!" Lailani dropped her duffel bag and gave thirty quick push-ups. She leaped back to her feet. "Now can I kill some fucking scum, Sergeant?"
"Oh, I like her," Addy whispered.
The bearded sergeant seemed to stifle a smile. "First you train, de la Rosa."
"Yes, Commander! I'll train to kill as many fucking scum as I can, and I'm happy to die for Earth." She grabbed her duffel bag and joined the ranks of recruits, standing in the column by Marco. The top of her head was shorter than his shoulders, which didn't stop her from raising her chin high and clenching her fists, a little warrior ready to fight . . . and die.
Marco's amusement faded when he saw Lailani's wrists.
Long, pale scars covered those wrists, crawling across the veins.
Fucking hell, he thought.
Lailani looked up at him, chin raised, eyebrow cocked. Marco quickly looked away.
Marco now thought the platoon complete: forty-five recruits and one sergeant. But the sergeant turned toward them, and he shouted, "Attention! Platoon Commander approaches!"
The recruits all stiffened, and the sergeant himself turned forward, slammed his heels together, and saluted.
Silence fell.
A new soldier approached the platoon.
She was a young woman, about twenty years old. Her blond hair was pulled into a ponytail, and a beret rested on her head. She too wore dusty olive fatigues, but she carried a different type of gun, this one shorter, slimmer, more elegant. This gun didn't fire bullets like the other weapons Marco had seen here. It was a costly plasma rifle, rarer and deadlier by far, able to blast holes through a tank. The woman had no insignia on her sleeves like the sergeant. Instead, a golden bar gleamed on each of her shoulder straps.
An officer, Marco thought. He didn't know much about the difference between regular soldiers and officers, but he remembered what Kemi had told him. Officers weren't just enlisted soldiers like him, like Addy, like the rest of the recruits here, even like Sergeant Singh. Officers had gone to a military academy, had trained for command. If regular, enlisted soldiers were the grunts of the HDF, the officers were the leaders.
If we're the peasants, Marco thought, she's nobility.
"Ensign Einav Ben-Ari!" Sergeant Singh said, facing her, still saluting.
The young officer turned her green eyes toward him. For a long time, she merely stared at the bearded sergeant. Finally the platoon commander returned the salute.
"At ease, soldier," she said, a faint accent to her voice.
Marco noticed that a Star of David pendant hung around her neck, and he recognized her accent. He had heard it before in Toronto.
She's Israeli, he thought, surprised. Few had suffered the brunt of the scum attacks like the Israelis. They had lost their entire country in the Cataclysm fifty years ago. Their surviving soldiers had scattered across the world, absorbed into the newly formed HDF. Some people still spoke of them in hushed wonder, these shadow warriors with no homeland. Many Israelis now lived for nothing but war, ubiquitous in military academies across the world, dedicating their lives to military careers. With their country gone, all they had was the HDF, the hope to someday find vengeance, to destroy the scum like the scum had destroyed them.
Ensign Ben-Ari stared at her platoon silently, passing her eyes over row by row. She made eye contact with Marco for a split second, and within that instant, years of pain, grief, determination, and bittersweet loss flooded him, all with just the glance of green eyes. Then the officer passed her eyes to the next recruit. Finally she turned away. Wordlessly, she left the field.
"Goddamn," Addy whispered over her shoulder to Marco. "That one is cold as polar bears fucking on winter solstice in a snowstorm."
Sergeant Singh walked toward her, fury twisting his bearded face. He pointed at Addy. "Kitchen duty tonight. One hour."
"What—?" Addy began. "I—"
"Three hours!" the sergeant barked. He pointed at Marco. "You too."
Marco gasped. What? It wasn't fair! He hadn't asked Addy to talk to him! He opened his mouth to object, but seeing the sergeant's fury, he just nodded. "Yes, Commander."
From the corner of his eye, he saw Pinky smirking. Marco was not a violent man, but if he had a plasma gun, he'd be very tempted to melt Pinky's head off.
Sergeant Singh began to walk across the field. "Platoon Four, follow! March in two lines. Silently!"
They formed two lines and marched after their sergeant. Other platoons began to leave the field too, following their own commanders. As they walked, Marco glared at Addy.
"Thanks," he mouthed at her.
She grumbled something under her breath and wouldn't meet his eyes.
Pinky marched ahead of him. The tiny recruit looked over his shoulder at Marco, that toothy smirk on his gaunt face. "Nice one, asshole."
Marco noticed that a handful of big, brutish recruits walked around Pinky, and he recognized a couple of the boys who had assisted Pinky back in the supply warehouse. Marco's heart sank. Addy was in this platoon with him, but right now she seemed more trouble than she was worth. As for the rest of them . . . Marco was stuck here with an Elvis impersonator,
a caveman, a Russian the size of a starship, a tiny firecracker with scars on her wrists, and a gang of hoodlums whom—Marco had to admit—he wouldn't mind seeing fed to scum. He sighed. It was already the longest day in his life, and when he glanced at a clock, he could barely believe it. It was only 3:00 p.m.
The sergeant marched them toward yet another concrete building, as square, squat, and ugly as the thousands that filled this base. He turned toward them in the dust.
"All right, soldiers," Singh said. "It's chow time. You eat with your bellies, not your eyes. You got fifteen minutes, so make 'em count. It's going to be a long day, and you're very, very lucky if you'll get any food or rest for twelve hours after this meal. Leave your duffel bags outside. Go."
The sergeant stepped aside, and the recruits entered the building, discovering a massive mess hall full of thousands of recruits.
And, blessedly, thousands of voices.
"Finally we can talk!" Addy said, then raised her voice to a shout. "We can talk!"
Heads turned toward her.
"We can talk quietly," Marco said.
She grinned at him, a huge grin, eyes alight. "I'm having fun here, Poet. Are you having fun?"
"I'm sure I'll have even more fun tonight at kitchen duty." Marco glanced toward the back of the hall. Past a counter, he could see soldiers toiling in the kitchen.
"That's the spirit!" Addy grabbed his hand. "Let's eat."
They lined up. The queues took them by plastic shelves, from which they took plastic trays, plastic plates, and plastic mugs. Marco cringed. He couldn't find a single mug which wasn't stained with old tea and coffee, and every plate displayed remnants of past meals. But the queue kept moving, so he resigned himself to a splotchy mug and a green plate coated with crumbs. He fished out oily cutlery from a bin.
Addy and he made their way toward a counter. A row of soldiers stood here, looking miserable, dumping food onto each recruit's tray. Marco received a sticky ball of rice, a slice of fried Spam as thick as his thumb, a scoop of corn, and something that might have been dessert but looked more like a sponge. Addy and he sought a table—many filled the hall—and finally sat near the back, where they recognized some faces from their platoon.
"Fucking shit!" Pinky was shouting at a nearby table, gesturing at his tray. "I can't eat this crap."
"What's wrong with it?" asked another soldier, one of Pinky's hulking henchmen.
"This ain't food." Pinky spat on his plate. "Give me pizza, give me French fries, give me some deep-fried chicken wings."
"Very healthy," said the henchman—the beast was easily thrice Pinky's size, which didn't stop the smaller soldier from slapping the brute.
Marco looked away from that table. It was bad enough he served in the same platoon as Pinky and his gang, he didn't have to look at them while eating. He reached across his own table for a loaf of bread and a packet of jam; they seemed more palatable than his Spam, sticky rice, and sponge. The recruits all ate with gusto, speaking between mouthfuls.
"Jesus H. Christ!" Elvis said, reaching for a tin of yogurt. "Did you see our lieutenant? Hot mama! I should show her my dance moves." He rose from his seat and swayed his hips.
"She's not a lieutenant," Marco said. "She's an ensign." He felt rather proud of himself for remembering that.
Addy nodded, pointing her butter knife at Elvis, and spoke through a mouthful of Spam. "This ain't the battlefield, Elvis. Lieutenants command soldiers in battle. Hot blondie is just a fucking recruit like us, fresh outta officer school. An ensign to officers is like a private to soldiers—fresh meat."
"Swallow before you talk," Marco said.
She stuck her Spam-covered tongue out at him. "Maybe you can write about Hot Blondie in your book, Poet."
Elvis looked at him, eyebrow raised. "You writing a book? What, poetry?"
"Not poetry," Marco said.
"It's about a turtle," Addy said. "Can you believe it? A fucking jarhead turtle—"
"A loggerhead," Marco said quietly. "And it's not about the turtle."
Elvis whistled appreciatively. "Turtle poetry. I dig it, man. Could make good lyrics. I ain't nothin' but a hound turtle . . ."
Marco felt his cheeks flush. He didn't like anyone talking about his novel here. He doubted that these were exactly the literary types.
"Addy plays hockey," Marco said, desperate to change the topic. "She dreams of playing for the Maple Leafs, even though they haven't won the Stanley Cup in almost two hundred years, not since 1967. She even has a Maple Leaf tattoo on her arm. Roll up your sleeve, Addy. Show 'em."
"They'll win this year," Addy said, displaying her tattoo and flexing her muscles.
"Hey, so what's that sergeant anyway?" Elvis said. "With his beard and turban. Is he a Muslim? I thought the Muslims served in the Eastern Command."
"He's Sikh," Marco said.
"The fuck is that?" said Elvis. "Like a Muslim sheik?"
Addy groaned. "You really are a retard." She leaned toward Marco and whispered, "What's a Sikh?"
Before Marco could explain, Elvis swallowed a last bite of food and rose to his feet. "All right, listen up, Poet and Maple, my fellow Canucks. Tips from my older brother; he went through this a few years back. You don't get many chances in the army to pee or take a shit. If you gotta do either one, you got . . ." He checked his watch. "Five minutes left. Once that sergeant grabs us again, he'll ride our asses for the next twelve hours. Say goodbye to your bladder if it's still full by then."
Marco was exhausted. He had barely sat down since dawn, and he couldn't imagine this day stretching on until three or four in the morning. But if Elvis was right, Marco had some business to attend to. Addy rose with them. The three Canadians began heading toward the door, seeking a latrine. Behind them, Caveman followed, lumbering between the tables, nearly knocking them over. They placed their empty trays on a rack, then headed toward the exit.
A bored-looking soldier stood there, leaning against the wall, an assault rifle slung across his back. "Where you going, recruits?"
"Got to go piss, Corporal," said Elvis. "Our sarge says we got five more minutes."
Corporal, Marco thought, taking a mental photograph of the soldier's insignia—two chevrons on the arm. If Sergeant Singh had three chevrons, that meant corporals were one rank lower. Marco hadn't yet seen anyone with a single chevron on their sleeve. None of the recruits wore any insignia yet.
The corporal yawned and pointed at a few outhouses in the yard. "Knock yourselves out."
"I got to pee so bad it's coming out of my nostrils!" Caveman announced—loud enough for a crowd of soldiers in the yard to hear—and raced toward one latrine. Marco himself had been holding it in for hours. He waited at another latrine until the wooden door opened with a blast of stench, and a wheezing, pink-cheeked soldier emerged, glasses fogged up.
Marco stepped inside and nearly fainted. He had seen scum up close. This was worse. There wasn't a toilet or sink, just a hole in the filthy floor. A roll of blue toilet paper hung on a roller. At least Marco thought it was toilet paper; it could easily pass for sandpaper. Flies buzzed. Holding his breath, Marco peed into the hole, trying not to look inside. He didn't even want to contemplate the next time nature called for something more serious than a piss.
He burst out of the latrine and finally inhaled, thanking Sergeant Singh with all his heart for assigning him kitchen duty that night. He pitied whatever poor soul got latrine duty. The only way to properly clean these facilities would be to nuke them from orbit.
By the time Addy, Caveman, and Elvis emerged from their latrines—green in the face—they were a minute late. They ran back to find their platoon already gathered outside the mess hall. Ensign Ben-Ari was nowhere in sight, but Sergeant Singh was waiting. Tardiness earned Elvis and Caveman kitchen duty that night as well, and all four of the latecomers ended up giving their sergeant thirty push-ups. While they strained, that bastard Pinky smirked down at them. Once, when the sergeant turned his head, Pinky spat, and the s
izzling globe landed between Marco's hands. He grimaced, fighting down the urge to leap onto Pinky, and finished his push-ups.
The day stretched on.
The sergeant had them work in a field for three sweaty hours, clearing out stones and thorns. As the sun set, he had them hauling boxes out of a warehouse, only to haul them back in once their work was done. The sergeant never tired of shouting, brandishing his baton, and commanding recruits to fall into the dust and give him thirty. Marco was constantly thirsty, sweaty, dizzy, and exhausted. At 8:00 p.m., they finally returned to the mess hall for another fifteen minutes.
"What's with this shit?" Elvis grumbled as he shoved a hard-boiled egg into his mouth. "We're sorted into our platoon already. Why are we hauling boxes and clearing vegetation in RASCOM instead of heading off to boot camp?"
"I thought this was boot camp already," Marco said, instantly regretting it. Gales of laughter assaulted him from across the table.
"Poet, you crack me up," said Elvis. "Crack. Me. Up. This ain't boot camp. Oh, once we're in boot camp, you'll miss RASCOM. This place is a whorehouse compared to boot camp. A whorehouse, I tell you. They're just killing time here with us, waiting for some boot camp base to become available, maybe for room on a rocket."
"If boot camp is so bad, why are you eager to go there?" Marco said.
"Because I want to get the fucking thing over with already! That, and boot camp will have actual toilets, I hope, and squatting once over a hole in the ground is enough for a lifetime." Elvis reached across the table for a pitcher of lukewarm tea. "Poet, dear old friend, boot camp ain't nothing like RASCOM. Here they're just processing us, giving us our X-rays and dog tags and shit. Once we hit the actual camp, they'll train us. Train us to kill scum, not just haul boxes and trim the hedges. Get ready for the ten toughest weeks of your life."
"I feel like just today has been ten weeks," Marco said. "I can't believe that just this morning—today, the same day!—we were back in Toronto." He sighed. "I'm homesick already."
Elvis seemed ready to snort, then nodded and lowered his head. "Me too."
Even Addy nodded. "Me too."
Earth Alone (Earthrise Book 1) Page 7