"So, cleaner than the plates in the mess?" Addy said.
"Watch it, Linden."
With that, the sergeant left, perhaps to join the rest of the platoon at dinner. Marco and Addy remained here, holding mops.
"Thanks a lot, Addy," Marco said. "You just had to talk while we were getting our guns. Was it so important to tell me Pinky will shoot off his balls?"
She nodded. "Yes! It was." She kicked open a toilet stall, covered her mouth, and grimaced. "Oh, God! It's like a scum took a shit here." She closed her eyes, blindly splashing ammonia.
As they worked, cleaning the stalls and showers, Marco looked at her—this girl he had known all his life, who had grown up with him, who infuriated him, yet whom he loved with all his heart.
"Addy," he said. "I want you to know something. This place is a nightmare. It's an absolute fucking nightmare. I thank God, Cthulhu, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster that you're here with me. I'd have gone mad here without you."
She winked at him. "Even if I got you latrine duty?"
"Well, not that part. Addy . . . how are you?"
She cocked her head at him, scrubbing a shower's floor. "What do you mean?"
"I mean—are you really having fun here? Like you said earlier?"
Addy put down her mop. She turned toward Marco and held his arms. "Marco, I'm fucking terrified, all right? There are about a million scum up in the sky, desperate to kill us, and we just spent hours talking to a corporal who got half his guts torn out, and I can't stop thinking about my parents, and I just want to go home. I just want to go home, Marco." Suddenly tears were flowing down her cheeks. "I'm scared and homesick and I hate this place. But . . ." She sniffed. "But I want to fight. Yes, I still want to fight. I want to kill the scum—all of them. So I'm glad I'm here. And I'm glad you're here with me." She smiled, tears on her cheeks. "You're just a silly little thing, but I can think of no better friend to fight aliens with."
When finally the place was clean, they washed ammonia off their hands. They walked back out into the desert to find it dark, a million stars above.
And it was cold.
It was damn cold.
All day, Marco had been sweating in the heat, but now he shivered. Addy's teeth chattered.
"Did we just spend six months cleaning and it's winter now?" she said.
"We're in a desert," Marco said. "It's like that here. Deserts are just dry emptiness, and they let all the heat escape into space at night. Sun goes bye-bye, so does the heat."
They spotted their platoon ahead in a field, assembling tents in the sand. Addy and Marco joined the work, stomachs growling and teeth chattering. They set up three tents, one for each squad, and a ring of stones to define the perimeter of their platoon. Around them, across the desert, several other platoons were setting up their own tents. When the tents were up, the recruits assembled rows of cots inside, each topped with a thin mattress. Each tent included fifteen cots, enough for a single squad.
When the tents and cots were finally up, Marco was yawning. He had barely slept his last night in Toronto, and he had only slept an hour overnight at RASCOM. He didn't expect to get a full eight hours of sleep in the military, but a decent, solid six hours would do him wonders.
Yet before he could hit the mattress, Ensign Ben-Ari returned to them. Sergeant Singh walked with her, carrying a projector.
"Attention!" the sergeant called. "March!"
Marco groaned, looking back longingly at the tents and cots within. They marched through the desert under fields of stars. When no commanders were looking, Marco glanced at his watch. It was 10:00 p.m.
I still haven't had time to even read my book, he thought. Let alone work on my novel.
They returned to the armory, and the soldiers stood in a semicircle outside, facing the armory's windowless wall. Ensign Ben-Ari switched on the projector, and a flickering image appeared on the wall. Good old Captain Butterflies walked into the frame, smiling her sweet, dimpled smile.
"Hello, soldiers of the HDF! Captain Edun reporting for duty!" She gave an adorable salute, her smile blinding, and her butterfly pendant gleamed. "Did you know that for fifty years Earth's scientists have been studying the anatomy of the scolopendra titaniae? In this video we'll review their basic structures, describing how they eat, mate, and . . ."
Marco yawned, his attention waning. His eyelids felt like weights. His T57 hung across his back. It weighed only nine pounds, but right now it seemed heavy enough to crush his spine.
"Soldier!" Sergeant Singh said, marching toward Marco. "Was that a yawn? Does this bore you?"
"No, Commander!"
The bearded sergeant stared at him, seeking conceit, then spun toward Elvis, who was scratching his side.
"Stand still, soldier!"
They all stood at attention, watching the video, as Sergeant Singh assigned various punishments—ranging from push-ups to kitchen or latrine duty—to anyone who yawned, swayed, so much as slouched or scratched. Meanwhile, on the armory wall, the projector was showing scientists in lab coats dissecting the scum. Marco tried to focus on footage of a mother scum coiled around her maggots, but the vision kept blurring. His eyelids kept closing on their own, and once—when they closed for too long—he earned an electrical shock from Singh's baton. He kept his eyes open after that, using all his willpower just to stare ahead, to absorb those images. A scientist was pulling entrails out of a scum, then testing a severed claw by plunging it into a hog carcass.
Finally, at eleven at night, they marched back to their tents and took formation.
"All right, soldiers," said Sergeant Singh. "In one hour—at midnight on the dot—you come back here and take formation. Anyone who's late lands in the brig. For the next hour—you're free. I suggest you use this hour to attend the toilets, to shower, to write home, to cry for mommy if you like. If you use the showers, you get a friend to guard your gun. Anything else you do—anything, even sleeping—that gun stays on you. Come back here in the fanciest pajamas you've brought from home. Go."
With sighs of relief, the soldiers broke formation. Some headed to their tents for a nap. Others ran toward the showers and toilets. Marco looked at Addy.
"A full, free hour," he said. "Damn, we haven't had a free hour since, well . . . that hour we slept back in RASCOM."
She nodded and stretched. "I'm going to shower. I didn't clean the showers just for Pinky to foul them up again. You coming with?"
Marco hesitated. There were stalls around the toilets—thank goodness—but the showers were public. To shower in front of Pinky and the others . . . and Addy? Marco had grown up with Addy in the same apartment, but he didn't even like her seeing him in his boxer shorts. Yet when he sniffed his armpits, he recoiled. After running around for a day in the Chilean jungle, then training for a day in the North African desert, he smelled like the innards of a scum.
"All right, let's go," he said, hoping for a whole lot of steam in those showers.
One recruit, the scrawny boy Marco had seen reading The Lord of the Rings back at the recruitment spaceport, volunteered to guard the guns while his comrades showered. Marco and Addy took spare clothes from their duffel bags and stepped into the showers. As they walked past the toilet stalls, Marco realized that he hadn't emptied his bowels since Toronto, two days ago. With the lack of toilet seats and lack of privacy, he wasn't quite ready to attempt the feat yet, deciding to hold off for as long as possible.
They reached the showers. Most of the platoon was already there, naked under the hot water, boys and girls alike. If anyone was too shy, they'd have to stink. There would be no privacy in the army. Few people seemed to mind. Even Caveman seemed happy now, smiling and whistling as he shampooed. Elvis was singing "Suspicious Minds" as he soaped up. Marco was just glad the boy hadn't chosen to sing "Love Me Tender."
Addy went first, stripping naked and stepping under a showerhead. Marco caught a glimpse of her body, then quickly looked away. He didn't like how Addy made him feel. She was like a sister
to him . . . wasn't she? He didn't want to think about her like that. Not here.
He removed his clothes and stepped into the shower too—thankful that he had brought flip-flops from home. A few soldiers were joining Elvis in song, and Marco noticed that Lailani was showering here too, singing along with the others. He hadn't noticed her before. She was so short she nearly vanished among the other soldiers. He looked at her, for just a second, unable to help but notice her slender, wet body, and—
Lailani looked at him, and he quickly looked away, his cheeks flushing. He finished washing quickly, toweled himself off, and dressed in his sweatpants and T-shirt. Clothes from home. Clothes that still smelled of his old apartment.
And suddenly, here in the showers, it all hit him.
Home. The library. His favorite books. His father in the kitchen, cooking a meal. Kemi smiling, hugging him, walking through the city with him. And suddenly there were tears on Marco's cheeks, and he was thankful for the steam that rose around him.
There was steam on the mirrors too, obscuring his reflection. He shaved by sense of touch, not wanting to risk Sergeant Singh's wrath. The sergeant, of course, had a full beard, but Marco imagined that he'd have to convert to one of the world's fine bearded religions before he could give up shaving in the military. After cutting himself in the steam, he wasn't sure that was a bad idea, and he was already trying to decide between joining the Amish or Orthodox Judaism.
"Get out of my way, Beast!" Lailani said, walking around the massive Russian. "Move it or I'll dunk your bald head into the toilet."
"In Russia," he began, "toilets so powerful they would rip off your head. Not like these silly American toilets."
Lailani groaned. "We're not in America!"
The towering Russian shrugged. "Not Russia. Close enough."
Groaning, Lailani came to stand at a bench near Marco, still naked and drying her short hair. Her dragon tattoo coiled from her navel up to her collarbone, and the rainbow shone on her other arm. As she dressed, she spoke.
"You're trying awfully hard to ignore me, Emery. Not like back in the shower."
He rummaged through his duffel bag. "I've got other things to worry about, de la Rosa."
Lailani snorted, looked down at his copy of Hard Times—he had placed it on the bench—then grabbed it. She tugged out the photo that peeked between the pages. The photo of Kemi.
"Hey, stop that!" Marco said.
Lailani's eyes widened. "This is your girlfriend?" She whistled. "She's hot. I'm jealous."
"Give it back!" Marco reached toward the photo, but before Lailani could return it, Beast grabbed it from the little Filipina. The Russian stared at Kemi, and his eyes widened too.
"That your girl?" he said. "She almost pretty like Russian woman!" He whistled. "Krasivaya. Beautiful. Here, wait a moment. Here picture of my girlfriend." He pulled a photo out from his duffel bag, and Marco found himself staring at a smiling woman with pigtails and a missing tooth. "She prettiest woman in Russia."
The other soldiers gathered around, passing the photos back and forth, and finally Marco managed to grab Kemi's photo and return it to his book.
"He fucked her, you know," Elvis was telling people. "Made her a woman." He patted Marco on the back. "My man."
"Stop saying that," Marco said. "I, we . . ."
We broke up, he wanted to tell them. Kemi was accepted to military academy. She's going to be an officer like Ensign Ben-Ari. And she has no more room for me in her life.
Yet he could say none of those things, so he simply stepped back outside into the night. His eyes stung again, and even with an assault rifle across his back, Marco felt weak as a child.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sergeant Singh met them outside their tents at midnight. Three tents rose here, low and olive green, for the platoon's three squads.
"Your first day at Fort Djemila is over," the bearded sergeant said. "Wake up call is at 4:30 a.m."
The recruits stood in formation in the sand, wearing sweatpants and T-shirts, and Marco cringed. After two sleepless nights, four and a half hours didn't seem like nearly enough. It would beat the single hour from last night, but Marco could imagine many yawns tomorrow.
"Your corporals will assign you guard duty for tonight," Sergeant Singh said. "That's right. You are soldiers now—soldiers with weapons. Every fifteen minutes, I want one guard outside each tent. When your shift is done, you return to your tent and wake up the next soldier. If you see anything suspicious at night—any strange lights in the sky, any giant centipedes crawling over the dunes—you raise the alarm. If you hear a siren blaring, everyone puts on their uniforms, grabs their weapons, and kneels between the cots—inside your tents, still and silent. Understood?"
"Yes, Commander!"
"When you sleep tonight," Singh said, "you keep your T57s under your pillows, your boots and uniforms beside your beds. If the scum attack, I need you uniformed and ready to fire your guns within seconds. For morning inspection, you present yourselves with polished boots, made beds, and oiled guns. You'll find oil and shoe polish in your duffel bags. Understood?"
"Yes, Commander!"
Sergeant Singh nodded, turned, and walked away, soon vanishing in the night.
The three corporals, commanders of the platoon's squads, approached and read out names, assigning guard duty to each tent. In his squad, Marco was set to guard fourth—right after Addy and before Pinky.
"Lovely," he muttered. "I get to have a crazy hockey player waking me up, then get to wake up a psychopathic jockey."
He stepped into his squad's tent and his heart sank. It was small. It was stifling. Fifteen crude, rusty cots spread here in two rows, barely any space between them, topped with narrow mattresses. If you could call them mattresses; they were no thicker than his thumb and barely wider than a coffin. At once, recruits rushed toward the four bunks at the edges of the tent, those with only one neighbor. Addy was one of the lucky four. Marco resigned himself to a cot beside hers. He was thankful that, at least, Pinky had chosen a cot on the other side of the tent.
Marco dropped his duffel bag between his and Addy's cots, slid his T57 under his pillow, and lay on the mattress. He could feel the cot's metal bars through the thin mattress, but after days of exhaustion, he couldn't complain. He closed his eyes.
He didn't remember falling asleep, but he found himself floating through a dream world, a black desert whose dunes rolled beneath him like waves. Kemi was there, naked in the night, beautiful and seductive like an Arabian princess in an old tale, and Marco kissed her, made love to her on a cot, but she became Lailani, and the steam of the showers rose around them, and Elvis was there, singing "Love Me Tender" and patting Marco on the back.
"Poet!" Through the darkness, Pinky approached, sneering, and the tiny recruit grew taller, sprouting claws, becoming a centipede.
"Scum attack!" Marco shouted, firing at the alien, but his bullets kept missing, and the scum grabbed him, shook him, called his name.
"Poet! Poet, damn it."
Marco opened his eyes. Addy was leaning above him, shaking him. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and checked his wristwatch. He'd been sleeping for half an hour.
"Your guard duty, little buddy." Addy yawned. "Go out and watch for scum. Fifteen minutes, then wake up . . . next . . . guard . . ." She yawned, landed on her cot, and snored.
Marco rose, shivering in the cold, and pulled on his fatigues and helmet. He slung his gun across his back and hung four magazines full of bullets from his belt. He stepped past the other recruits. Beast was mumbling in his sleep, something about a girl named Oxana, while Elvis was actually singing—singing in his sleep!
As Marco walked by Lailani, he paused for just a moment. He looked down at the young soldier. During the days, Lailani Marita de la Rosa was all grunts, growls, and guts, but at night she seemed so peaceful, a fragile doll. She seemed so young, so beautiful, and Marco remembered making love to her in his dream.
Shame filled him. This felt wrong. W
hy was he thinking about Lailani like this? Not here. Not now. He had a war to worry about. And he still had some hope of seeing Kemi again. He walked by Lailani, pulled open the tent flap, and stepped outside into the cold desert.
The stars shone, and Marco stuffed his hands into his armpits and circled the tent. Other recruits were patrolling around their own tents. When Corporal St-Pierre walked by in the distance, they all stood at attention, guns at their sides, then resumed their patrols. Marco looked up at the stars as he walked. He sought Antares, a star in the Scorpius constellation, the scum's star. Humanity had a few colonies in space—mostly military compounds these days—but the scum had spread across many star systems, destroying entire civilizations in their path.
And now they have their eyes on Earth, Marco thought. But so long as the HDF stands, Earth will stand too.
He looked across the other stars. There were other sentient civilizations out there, distant galactic empires. Some were barely more than myths, so distant humanity knew little about them. The Guramis, aquatic aliens who lived in a watery world with no land. The Silvans, dwellers of trees as tall as skyscrapers. Hundreds, maybe thousands of other civilizations, some of them predatory, others benevolent. But they were all far. Too far to help humanity. Earth alone would have to hold back the scum, or Earth would fall. Marco gripped his gun, wishing he could go back in time, could fire bullets into the scum that had killed his mother.
When his fifteen minutes were up, Marco returned into his tent.
He approached Pinky's bed.
Oh fuck, Marco thought.
Peter "Pinky" Mack was snoring, his gun's muzzle peeking out from under his pillow. His face was gaunt, the nose thin, the eyebrows sharp, his black hair spiky. His crooked teeth thrust out like a donkey's.
Who are you, Pinky? Marco thought. He knew nothing about the boy—where he had come from, how he had become this creature. Marco could almost imagine the boy growing up in some subterranean cavern, twisted with hatred, fearing the sunlight, changing year by year into a monster, perhaps obsessed with a precious ring.
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