"Two thirds of the way there!" Marco said. "I can see the mess hall. Come on, soldiers. We've got this."
They kept walking. Another platoon was doing their jumping jacks in the yard; they gazed at the Dragons with pity. As they trudged by the gates, a rocket roared and slammed down, and new recruits emerged, but everyone was too tired to even talk about fresh meat.
After ninety minutes of carrying the radios, with the pavilion already in sight in the distance, Lailani collapsed.
At first her knees buckled, then hit the sand. An instant later, her face followed her knees. The massive radio drove into her back, crushing her.
"Lailani!" Marco called. He removed his radio and ran toward her. "I need some help!"
Caveman was already grabbing the radio on Lailani's back. They had to cut through the strap to pull it off, then drop the heavy device into the sand. Lailani lay on her stomach, moaning.
"I'm all right," the tiny soldier muttered. "I just tripped on a rock. I'm fine."
She tried to rise, then groaned and fell back down.
"You're not all right, de la Rosa," said Marco. "They shouldn't make you carry the same weight as us. I'm twice your size, and Beast is twice my size, but the radios are all the same." He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Careful. Don't try to rise. Your back might be—"
"I can carry the same weight as anyone!" Glaring at him, Lailani sat up, wheezed for a moment, coughed, and then struggled to her feet. "You don't know what I've been through, Emery. I used to walk the slums of Manila for days without rest. I—" She turned green, leaned over, and vomited into the sand.
"She's dehydrated," Marco said. He looked at one of the cameras in the fence. It was staring at them. "She's dehydrated and hurt! We need a medic!"
The camera looked away. Marco cursed.
"Bastards," Addy muttered, gazing toward the distant, shady pavilion. It still lay a couple of kilometers away.
"Recruits, anyone got any water left in your canteens?" Marco said.
They stepped forward, radios still on their backs. Nobody had more than a few drops of water left, but they shared even these drops with Lailani. She drank and slowly the color returned to her cheeks.
"I'm going to finish this patrol," Lailani said. "I'm a soldier. Just like anyone else. I didn't join this army to die in basic in some godforsaken desert. If I'm going to die, it'll be shooting scum on their planet." She grabbed her radio and pulled it onto her back. "Let's march."
Marco walked at Lailani's side, close enough to let her lean against him.
"I need to lean on you," he said. "Will you help me?"
She leaned more heavily against him, panting now, sweat dripping from the tip of her nose. "Sure thing, Emery."
They trudged on, breathing heavily, the sun shimmering. Finally Marco spoke again.
"De la Rosa, I'm sorry for yesterday. If I insulted you in the mess."
She looked at him, snorted, and leaned back against him. "You didn't insult me. I'm crazy, Emery. You should know that. You don't want to be my friend. You certainly don't want to fall in love with me. I'm fucking crazy. Army shrink said so."
"They don't give guns to crazy people," Marco said.
"Crazy people make the best soldiers. What is war but madness?" She paused for a moment and looked into his eyes. "Emery. Understand something. I joined this army to die. I'm going to die in glory, like the heroes of the old war, blasting the scum apart. You don't want to get close to me. I'll just break your heart."
She turned and walked on, leaving him behind, and Marco thought about the scars on her wrists.
When they finally returned to the pavilion, having completed a patrol of Fort Djemila in two hours, they lowered their radios and all but collapsed onto the cots in the shade.
"Have fun, boys and girls," Addy said, covering her eyes with her arm, as the other half of the Dragons Platoon lifted the radios. Groaning, they headed off on their own patrol.
Marco panted for long moments, sleep creeping up on him, but forced himself to stand, to trudge two hundred meters to a tap that rose from the sand, and fill his canteen—a long process, drop by drop, as the other recruits lined up behind him and howled for their turns. Marco wanted to rinse out his canteen, but when the others began pelting him with pebbles, he just drank and let the others fill their own canteens.
I joined the army to die.
The words wouldn't leave him even as Marco lay on a cot in the pavilion, the propaganda reels flashing around him. He rolled aside and saw Lailani lying on another cot, curled up on her side. He wanted to go to her, to comfort her, to tell her that things would be better—but his weariness was too great.
He slept.
After two hours, another shift began.
Once more, Marco, Addy, and the others lifted the radios. They walked out, ready for another patrol under the devastating sun.
Two hours later they returned to the pavilion more weary, broken, and haunted than they had thought possible.
Marco collapsed onto his cot, gasping for breath, his back, legs, chest, and head screaming in agony.
"They say war is hell," he rasped. "War would be easy compared to boot camp."
"War's a whorehouse compared to this," Elvis agreed.
Whistling sounded, and Marco turned to see two recruits stepping into the pavilion, carrying plastic bags. Pinky walked at the lead, and behind him walked Nick "Dicky" Dickerson—a brute who idolized his little master, one of the bullies who had attacked Caveman back at RASCOM. Both delinquents opened their plastic bags.
"We've got lunch!" Pinky said. "We met Sergeant Singh on the way to the mess hall, and we got everyone some grub. Spam sandwiches galore!"
At that moment, Marco would have eaten scum sandwiches. With the others, he limped toward the food, his blisters protesting every step.
"Spam sandwich for you, Spam sandwich for you . . ." Pinky tossed them from the plastic bag toward the recruits, all the while munching on his own sandwich. "Here, have two sandwiches, Beast. One for you, one for you." He took another bite. "Hell, I'll even toss one to Tiny de la Rosa and Maple Syrup here." He lobbed sandwiches at Lailani and Addy. "And . . . I'll keep this last one for myself."
Marco stomped up to him. "Fuck you, Pinky. You already ate. Hand that sandwich over. That one's mine."
"Is that so?" Pinky swallowed the last bite of his own sandwich and unwrapped the last one. "Think I'll have two sandwiches today."
"Pinky, I don't want to fight you," Marco said. "But I'm taking that sandwich if I have to rip it out of your intestines."
Pinky bit into it and licked his lips. "You gonna fight me for the rest?"
"Knock his fucking teeth in!" Addy shouted.
"Kick his balls!" shouted Lailani.
"Kill the poet, Pinky!" chortled Dickerson.
The other recruits gathered around, laughing and shouting, and Marco made a lunge for the sandwich. Pinky pulled back, took another bite, and Marco—exhausted and in pain as he was—leaped forward and barreled into the smaller recruit.
Pinky landed punches and kicks. He was amazingly strong for his small size. Marco had seen him do a hundred push-ups before, a feat even Beast and Addy couldn't accomplish. The little bastard fought like a honey badger, but Marco was not letting this one slide. He took the punches, swung at Pinky's wrist, and knocked the sandwich out.
The sandwich flew through the air and landed in the sand.
Pinky brayed out laughter, spraying saliva. "You win, asshole. Go enjoy your sand sandwich."
Marco straightened, his face stinging from Pinky's blows, and salvaged what he could of the meal. He ate sullenly, not sure if he had lost pride or won it.
"Pinky," Marco said when they were all sitting on their cots, "what the fuck is your problem?"
Elvis nodded, coming to sit by Marco. "Yeah, what's your deal? Why are you, well, an asshole? Now don't come lunging at me! We all know you're an asshole. You know it. The commanders know it. Hell, the scum probably know it."
Sitting on his cot, Pinky stared at them all. The pavilion shaded the sun, but it was still blazing hot, and sand kept blowing in from the desert. For a long time Pinky just sucked on his crooked teeth, then he laughed.
"Hell, they tried everything with me," Pinky said. "My god, they tried. My grandmother. My teachers. My shrinks. Fuck, they spent a lot of hours on me, trying to save me. That's what they all called it. Saving me." He laughed bitterly. "Didn't work. When your dad's in prison, and your mom's a junkie and alcoholic, and you're more afraid of the gangs on your street than the scum, well . . . you turn into old Pinky here."
"Bullshit." Lailani rose to her feet and spat.
"It's true," said Pinky. "Granny thought the army could save me. See, now, normally they don't put kids like me here. Not when you've spent years in juvy. Nah. Usually they ship us off to special units in the army—where the criminals go, you know, the delinquents. But even the army shrink thought he could save me. They thought that if they could put me with normals—you know, normal sons of bitches like Poet here, college kids—that it would rub off. Hopeless. If my own dad's belt couldn't beat sense into me, this place sure as fuck can't."
They all stared at Pinky for a moment, silent, and Marco felt . . . It shocked him, but there it was.
He pitied Pinky.
The kid was a psychopath, a criminal, as loathsome as scum, but damn it, Pinky had lived the sort of life Marco—even after the loss of his mother—couldn't imagine.
But Lailani seemed to feel no such pity. The small recruit trembled, fists clenched, teeth bared. "That is a crock of shit," she said.
"Is it?" Pinky said.
Lailani nodded and pointed at him. "Shitty childhoods don't have to turn you into an asshole. Your sob story doesn't work on me. Your dad was in prison? At least you had a dad. My father was an American soldier who left me when I was still a fetus. Your mom was a junkie? My mom was a thirteen-year-old prostitute. You grew up in a tough hood? I grew up on a trash heap. I rummaged through landfills for bits of food, for chicken bones with some meat on them, for rotten fruit. You were scared of gangs? I was scared of adults raping me and rats infecting me with disease and starving every day when thousands of others rummaged through the trash. By the time my mother died, I was eating paper, and I did this." She raised her wrists, showing the scars, tears in her eyes. "So don't you talk to me about your fucked-up childhood, Pinky, because I'd have loved to have that life. And I didn't turn into a sick bully like you."
Tears now flowed down Lailani's cheeks. Lips trembling, she turned around, walked to the farthest cot, and lay down.
For a moment the recruits were all silent, and the only sound came from the propaganda reels. On the screens a quadruple amputee was talking about how the scum had taken his limbs but couldn't break the spirit of humanity. He gave a prosthetic thumbs-up.
"So, Corporal Pizza's got a nice ass, right?" Elvis said.
Beast groaned. "You no idea what nice ass is. Only in Russia you see nice ass." He pulled out the photo of his girlfriend. "Take my girlfriend Ludmila, for example."
"Her name was Oxana yesterday," Elvis said.
"What?" Beast shook his head, his cheeks flushing red. "No. No. She is Ludmila. Look. Let me show you. Look at Ludmila. I have more photos."
Marco rose from his cot and walked toward the back of the pavilion. From here he could see the rocky field spread toward the barbed wire fence and the rolling dunes beyond. He could just make out distant yellow mountains. Lailani lay on her cot, curled up into a ball, staring into the distance. Marco sat down beside her.
"Hey, de la Rosa," he said.
"What do you want, Emery?" she said, voice choked.
He fished through his duffel bag and pulled out a crumpled granola bar, its silvery wrapper bristly with dirt. "I brought this all the way from home. Beats Pinky's Spam sandwiches. Want to share it?"
She said nothing.
Marco wiggled both the limp bar and his eyebrows. "It's got raisins!"
Lailani said nothing, just stared ahead at the desert and barbed wire fence, eyes red. "I wish the scum would break in already," she said softly. "I keep waiting for them to come at that fence. For us to fight them. I want to fight. To die in battle—a heroine in a war. Not to die crushed under some radio. Not to die with slit wrists in an alleyway. That's why I didn't cut deep, you know. Because I didn't really want to die like that. I wanted a good death."
Marco hesitated, then touched her shoulder, surprised by how dainty that shoulder was, and he marveled again at how she had carried the massive radio. "How about this, de la Rosa? We become war heroes and survive, then die in eighty years, shriveled up like these raisins, rocking in some rocking chairs on some patio facing a duck pond, laughing about how Pinky got his balls chopped off by the scum."
Lailani finally cracked a smile. "I bet they're small and shriveled up like raisins too."
He peeled open the granola bar, broke it in two, and gave her the larger portion. "Mmm, Pinky balls, appetizing!"
They ate, and Lailani's eyelids drooped, and she leaned against him and slept. Gently, Marco lowered himself onto his back, and Lailani slept against him, her head on his chest. In an hour they would rise for another round of patrols, crushed under their radios, but for now—at this moment, for this hour—Marco felt peace for the first time since leaving home.
Before he drifted off to sleep, he turned his head, and he saw Addy standing in the pavilion, staring at him and Lailani, a strange look in her eyes. Then his tall, crazy foster sister turned away and lay on her own cot, and for an hour Marco knew nothing but the languorous heat and Lailani's breath against him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
After the longest, most painful twenty-four hours of Marco's life, the Dragon Platoon's recruits finally abandoned their rusty, antique radios and hobbled back toward their tents. Marco had never imagined that a tattered old military tent in the desert would ever seem beautiful, but right now it looked like an oasis. He yearned to lie on his old cot between Addy and Lailani, rest, and maybe finally—after days of this hell—get a chance to write a few paragraphs in Loggerhead.
When he saw the corporals standing outside the tents, he knew it was not to be.
All three of the Dragons' corporals were there: the slender and dark Webb, the stern St-Pierre, and the tough-as-old-leather Diaz. All three held their guns in hand.
"Attention!" Corporal Webb shouted, pacing on her bladed prosthetics. For somebody barely larger than Lailani, she had a voice that made even the mighty Beast stiffen and raise his chin.
"Formations!" St-Pierre shouted, and the recruits—blistered, sunburnt, parched, and famished—formed rank in the sand.
"All right, recruits!" Corporal Diaz said, stepping toward them. "Now that you're back from your little vacation, we've got a treat for you. You're about to fight some scum. March behind me! Emery—you call out time."
Marco could barely walk. His back screamed with every step. His feet felt shattered, not only blistered but crushed, the bones ground to shards. But he followed. After the pain of carrying the radios for a day, he would tolerate this too. The platoon formed two lines and marched behind the corporals. Marco walked by Corporal Diaz, calling out time.
"Three, two, one, march! Three, two, one, ma—"
"Louder!" Diaz said.
Marco shouted as loudly as he could—which wasn't, he thought, nearly as commanding as the corporals' voices. "Three, two, one . . ."
They marched on, leaving the tents behind. Many of the soldiers lagged, limped, and broke formation, only for the corporals to shout and goad them back in line. With every step, as his feet and back ached, Marco looked at Corporal Diaz. The veteran had suffered three scum claws ripping through him, shattering his spine. That spine was now bolted together. If the corporal could march here in the sand, Marco—who had never suffered an injury aside from Addy knuckling his head—certainly could.
Corporal Diaz survived the Appalachian Trail, one of the worst
battles of the decade, he thought. I can survive basic training.
They marched toward a sandy field, and Marco nearly lost his count.
"Fuck me," Addy whispered behind him.
Three scum—actual, real scum, not just wooden figures—rose in the sand ahead, balanced on their bottom segments.
Marco reached for his gun. A few other recruits did too. Curses rose across the platoon.
"Calm down, soldiers," rose a voice from ahead. "They're dead."
Ensign Ben-Ari emerged from behind the massive black centipedes. The officer's silver plasma gun hung on her hip. The weapon looked far more elegant than the crude, bullet-spraying machines the other soldiers carried. Ben-Ari wore her helmet, and dark shades hid her eyes.
"Attention!" Corporal Diaz shouted, and all three corporals saluted their commander. Ben-Ari nodded and returned the salute.
"We collected these buggers in the sands of the Algerian desert," Ben-Ari said, gesturing at the creatures. "These are just their exoskeletons. Their innards were sucked out and buried. Just a whiff of what's inside them can kill a soldier, and their blood and meat will melt the flesh off your bones." She tapped one of the claws. It thrust out like a scimitar. "There are tiny holes on the tips of these claws. They won't only slice you apart. They'll inject you with poison that'll have you screaming and begging for death."
Corporal Diaz nodded, rolled up his sleeve, and revealed a nasty scar. "She's right. I know."
Marco cringed, looking at the three exoskeletons. Each one dwarfed Ensign Ben-Ari. Eighteen hard black segments formed their bodies, each sprouting two claws. At the top of the creatures, mandibles—smaller but just as sharp as the claws—rose like horns.
"These aliens aren't just ugly," said Ensign Ben-Ari. "They're also intelligent. More intelligent than we humans are. We've colonized a handful of planets. They control dozens of star systems. They can build organic starships using biotechnology we can't even understand. They can clone humans from a single hair follicle, indoctrinate them, and send them to Earth as spies. We still can't communicate faster than light. They can communicate instantly at any distance using quantum entanglement technology beyond anything we have, making their communications impossible to intercept. In every way, they are superior to us humans. And you will learn to kill them—without even using bullets."
Earth Alone (Earthrise Book 1) Page 14