The Davis was a sophisticated tank, and the tank AIs would inform the crew of problems and would even shut her down to prevent further damage is something went wrong. But in the school, the AIs were toned down, only to kick in for a dire emergency. For the most part, it was up to the students to monitor their vehicles.
“I just removed the limit,” the instructor said. “I want you to give me a clockwise neutral steer.”
Noah complied, then slowly advanced power to the left track in forward, the right track in reverse. The 103 jerked into motion, but then pivoted in a clockwise circle. He was pretty sure he’d nailed it as he completed the entire rotation.
“Counterclockwise, neutral steer, do it.”
He reversed what he’d just done, and the tank started pivoting in the opposite direction. He drifted slightly forward this time, but he still managed to stay on the platform. The Davis had voice control, and Noah could have simply told the B103 to complete the neutral steer, but the voice control had been deactivated for the training session. He was supposed to be learning how to drive the tank, not simply to issue verbal commands to the tank’s AI.
“Very well,” Duval said. “Now, take us down the track.”
Noah felt a surge of excitement sweep through him. The “track” was a five-kilometer trail up the range and then back. They’d cover more difficult terrain later in the course, but at least he’d be doing real driving. He’d driven just about every real armor going back to WWI and more than a few fictional tanks in his gaming, and some of those games had seemed pretty realistic, but this was the real deal.
He edged the 103 off the platform and steered her to the starting flag. The trail was marked with orange flags on three-meter poles, but it was hard to miss the trail itself, carved by thousands of tanks tearing up the ground. Noah drove to the head of the trail, and without pause, started down it. The rutted soil left a chute, like those used for bobsleds, that he needed to follow. It had recently rained, and the ground was a little muddy, but the compensators kicked in, keeping slippage to a minimum as Noah took the first two turns, his confidence building.
Driving a tank takes into account many different factors, from yaw, to the slewing force required to overcome turning resistance, and all of those are different depending on the surface characteristics. It is not simply a matter of a one-size fits all application of the outer track, the driving force, and the inner track, the braking force. Speed is a major factor as well, and a driver has to look ahead at the ground and determine the correct inputs for the tank to follow the desired course. That is why despite all the advances in auto-driving technology, unless a tank was following a paved road, a trained human was still the best driver. Noah had just taken the first two turns without Mr. Duval interfering, and he was beginning to feel he had this driving thing figured out.
He powered up a small slope, adjusting his speed to minimize slippage, cresting the rise and tipping over to head back down. At the bottom, he could see brown standing water, collected from the recent rains. He blasted out a scan, and the return confirmed his initial impression he’d made from looking at the ground on either side of the trail that the water hole was shallow and with a somewhat level bottom. Noah goosed the 103 forward picking up speed. The depth of the water might be only a meter or so, but he wasn’t sure as to the condition of the ground under it, so the text book solution was to pick up speed.
With a feeling of joy, he hit the water hard—and was immediately drenched in a muddy torrent that flowed over the nose and flooded the driver’s hole. He was blinded, and he brought the tank to a stop on the slope on the other side of the hole.
“You might have wanted to close your hatch before hitting the water,” Mr. Duval told him.
Noah tried to wipe the muddy water from his eyes, doing a pretty poor job of it. Finally, he could see enough to get going, and he applied power to the treads again, slipping as the tank tried to gain purchase on the slope to make it back up to somewhat even terrain.
“Stop,” Mr. Duval said. “Check your medkit, take out a pad, and wipe your face.”
An embarrassed Noah fumbled around until he felt the kit and pulled it open. He pulled out a large pad pack, opened it, and extracted a pad which he used to wipe his face the best he could. It took three pads, but finally, his face was clear, and he could see again.
“OK, now get up this slope.”
Noah kept the power to the treads low, and the 103 made it up the slope to the top.
“Part of driving is a full comprehension of the terrain, Corporal. You don’t want to plunge into a river only to find out it’s five meters deep.”
Noah turned to tell Duval that he’d checked the depth when he saw a completely clean instructor, a tiny smirk on his face, looking at him from a mud-covered hatch. And it all clicked. Duval had known what would happen and had buttoned up. It was all part of a set-up and a lesson in driving.
Duly chastised, he didn’t say a word and continued his route. He’d gotten a little cocky, and it had bitten him in the butt. Still, he was driving a Davis, and within a few moments, he was back to being thrilled with the idea. It wasn’t as if anything drastic had happened. He’d just been doused with muddy water, and that was just a Marine shower, right?
On the return leg, the trail crossed the same low-lying area. Noah pulled his hatch closed, then hit the water, sending up another wave. Lesson learned.
He reached the end of the trail, then returned to the raised starting platform, shutting down the tank. Turning his body in the diver’s hole, he looked expectantly at Duval, who was entering some data on his PA.
“OK, Mr. Lysander,” the instructor said. “Not bad. I’m giving you a 93. You need to be more cognizant of your surrounding terrain, and you need to get a better feel of the necessary slewing forces for a given soil condition. We’ll work more on that later. No down-checks.”
Noah let a breath out that he hadn’t realized he was holding. He was positive that the muddy water incident was a set-up, and to hear that he hadn’t been given a down-check seemed to support that.
“Take us back to the stands. And Corporal Lysander, you are not to discuss your performance until after everyone else has driven.”
Noah took the B103 along the back of the range, bringing her to a stop where Skeets was waiting. He pulled himself out of the driver’s hole and clambered down to the ground.
“Hey, what happened to you?” Skeets asked, hands out to indicate Noah’s mud-covered body.
“It was grubbing awesome,” Noah said, realizing that it had been just that. He’d driven a Davis and acquitted himself well. “Have fun.”
As he walked back up to the bleachers, he caught sight of Sergeant Bester, her body covered in almost as much mud as his was. She gave him a smile and a thumbs up, which he returned.
He plopped down beside Brock and Killer, his heart still pounding with excitement.
“Hey, watch it,” Killer said, scooting to the side as Noah’s muddy shoulder touched her. “What’d you do, go mud-diving?”
“No, I just became a tank driver,” he said. “Not like you weak-ass Marines.”
“Oh, great, it’s gone to his head,” Brock said with a laugh.
Each of the first eight drivers came back with some degree of muddy clothes, as did most of the second, to include Pie. Marines aren’t totally idiots, though, even wanna-be tread-heads, and the remaining students started figuring it out. More and more were returning with only their backs and butts dirty from sitting in muddy tanks.
“Watch the first water hole,” Noah said to Brock after Killer left for her drive.
He wasn’t supposed to say anything, he knew, but he was pretty sure others were telling their crewmates.
Finally, everyone was done. The gunny conducted the after action. Two drivers had received down-checks. Noah looked around, trying to see who might have received them. Overall, the gunny told them their aggregate score was 86%.
They formed up for the march back. The i
nstructors drove the tanks—there were three tank crossings on the four-klick ride from the range to the ramp, and the students were not yet qualified yet to drive off a range. The students marched, going over their experiences, full of energy. Noah’s stomach was rumbling as they came around the last bend into the ramp. He wanted to shower, change clothes, and get to the chow hall. When he saw the tanks lined up, instructors standing in front of them, a sinking feeling hit him.
“Class, you got them dirty, now you’ll clean them,” the gunny announced as they fell into formation in front of him.
There was a collective, if mostly silent, moan. The tanks were caked with mud, and if the B103 was any indication, all of the other tanks had mud inside them as well.
Mr. Duval seemed to take glee in showing his crew the metal tools they’d use to peel off the slabs of heavy mud that had caked the road wheels and treads. They’d have to use them to take off the bulk of the mud before they could move on to the high-pressure wash racks. Noah wasn’t sure how long it would take them, but it wouldn’t be quick.
He may not have received a down-check today, but evidently, there was always some sort of price to pay for having such a kick-ass time.
Chapter 4
An exhausted Noah pushed open the door to his apartment.
“Finally!” Miriam said, as he stumbled in, which then turned to, “Oh, no! To the shower,” when he moved to their beat-up couch.
Noah had hosed himself down at the ramp, which had gotten rid of most of what was on him, but that had hardly made him clean. He let himself be steered away from the couch and into the tiny bathroom because the thought of a hot shower was enticing.
When Mr. Duval had told them they might come up with names for their tanks, nasty names, he hadn’t understood. Now, he did. They’d just spent six hours scraping, pulling, and extracting tons of heavy, sticky mud off the B103, and more than a few names had been suggested. Pie, in particular, had a wealth of suggestions, none that Noah could repeat in public.
He considered himself in good shape—he was a Marine, after all. But the work on the B103 had been exhausting. His body ached, and he’d considered just crashing at his quarters on base instead of coming home.
Miriam stripped him of his overalls, holding them up between her thumb and forefinger as if they were infected with some sort of contagious disease before dropping them on the floor and kicking them aside. She turned on the water, and Noah gratefully stepped in, the hot water jets pounding at his body.
“I thought we could go down to the Anchor tonight. Liquid Potash is playing there, no cover, and it’s still happy hour, and I thought, well, you know, maybe one beer apiece, that wouldn’t be so bad, right? Manuel and Dot are going, along with some other couples, and this can be, you know, we can socialize, get out and meet people.”
Manuel and Dot were in the same position as Miriam and him. Dot was a sergeant, but a student at the Aviation School, and she and Manuel were renting the next-door apartment. Noah had met them both, but despite both couples promising to get together sometime, it hadn’t happened yet.
And Noah didn’t really want it to happen tonight. All he wanted to do was to hit the rack.
He’d been so pumped earlier in the day after driving his Davis, only to crash down when faced with the reality of being a tanker. He knew that all of that was intended by the instructors. Being a tanker was not just driving around and firing weapons. There was maintenance that had to be done, more of that than Noah had expected. He should have realized it. Almost every time he’d gone to see Sergeant Phong, she been on the ramp working on her tank.
He didn’t regret making the transfer to tanks, and he realized that it wasn’t always going to be fun and games. But today, he was just dog-tired.
He was just about to tell Miriam that he didn’t want to go out, when she slipped out of her clothes and into the shower. She lathered up his back, going on and on about Liquid Potash and how they could make it big if they just caught a break. Noah knew he should stop her, to tell her he just wanted to stay at home, but her hands felt good on his back as she rubbed in the soap.
She turned him around and washed his front, his eyes closing as she ran her hands over his chest. Still, he didn’t say anything. It just felt good to have her taking care of him. She took down the shower head, rinsed him off, and turned off the water.
“OK, baby, you’re all clean,” she said, leaning up against him. “Now get ready. I’ve got your clothes laid out.”
She stepped out of the shower, grabbed a towel, and started drying herself, half-singing a song he recognized as from the recording she had of Liquid Potash. She really, wanted to go, he knew. She’d been stuck in the apartment every day since their arrival. They barely had enough money to survive, so they hadn’t had too many nights out on the town—or any time, for that matter.
Noah loved her. He was going to marry her, if he had his way. He just didn’t have the energy to go out tonight.
“Come on, lazy boy. Get your cute ass moving.”
With a sigh, he got out of the shower, taking the towel she offered him. He dried himself off, then sat on the edge of the bed where she’d laid out her clothes.
OK, OK, I can do this, he thought as he let himself fall onto his back. Just let me rest for a moment.
He awoke to a darkened room, under the covers. The clock on the wall was at 2314, the red LED blinking accusingly at him. He pushed off the covers and sat up.
What the heck happened?
The clothes Miriam had set out were gone. Noah pulled on a pair of underwear and a T, then padded out of the room. Miriam, in her fleeces, was sitting on the couch, watching a show on the holo.
“I’m sorry, Miriam,” he said, walking up behind her and putting his hand on her shoulder.
She tensed up at his touch.
“I was just so beat today. But you could have woken me up.”
“No, it’s OK,” she said, not turning around to look at him. “It wasn’t that important. You were tired, so I just let you sleep. We can do it another time.”
The words were fine, but the tone of her voice wasn’t. She was upset, but trying her best to hide the fact.
Noah felt horrible. He felt horrible because he’d let her down, but even more so because he was relieved, even now, that he hadn’t been dragged to the bar. Despite knowing how she’d felt, how much she’d wanted to go, he was happy that he had gotten his own way in the end.
“I love you,” he said, the standard get-out-of-jail phrase he used when he didn’t know what else to say.
Noah’s father had been the ultimate Marine, and there was no doubt that he loved his family, even to the point where he was willing to sacrifice his life for them, but the truth of the matter was that he hadn’t always been the best father, the best husband. Life as a Marine sometimes—well, often—got in the way. Noah had sworn to himself that he would never end up like that. Family came first.
Not going on a simple night out was not universe-shattering. It wouldn’t register to most people. But to Noah, it was an ill portent, a truth he didn’t want to acknowledge.
Maybe I’m not so different from Father after all, he told himself as he walked back into the bedroom to go to sleep, leaving Miriam alone on the couch.
Chapter 5
This was the day they’d all been waiting for. Driving the tanks had been fun—the daily maintenance maybe less so—but it had lost a little of its luster. They spent the last week attacking increasingly difficult terrains, and most of the class had been able to handle them with only two students dropped. They still had the mountain package to tackle after the three rotations were completed, but Noah and his three crewmates were confident that they could drive a tank wherever their commanders needed it.
But so far, they’d just been bus drivers, taking their 40 tons of armor from here to there. A tank’s treads were its mobility but not its raison d’être. A tank’s purpose was to put big bangs on the bad guys, and today, they were finally goi
ng to put that to the test.
Seven of the eight tanks were lined up at the firing line. B107 had frozen on the ride over, its AI shutting it down to prevent further damage from whatever the problem had been. A mobile tech team had been dispatched, but the 107’s three students had to fire, so they’d caught rides on the other seven tanks and would fire with them unless the tech team could get 107 up and running in time.
The instructors were back with the gunny, going over the training, but the four of them were looking at the eight M-309 Mobile Weapons Systems Loader and nine MGS modules lined up looking so dangerous. They’d spent a good portion of yesterday back on the ramp practicing installing and removing each of the three different modules, and by the end of the day, they had it down to slightly less than half an hour to make the switch.
At last, Duval and the other instructors broke away and headed out to their crews. The four Marines stood up straighter, waiting for their final instructions.
“We’ve got the Mad Mike first,” he told them. “I’d appreciate it if you weren’t the last ones ready to fire.”
It was to be expected that the installation would turn out to be a competition. Most things in the Corps were, whether who would come in first on a run to which ant would find the sugarpop some Marine had thrown onto the ground. Quite often, bets were made, and Noah was pretty sure the instructors had credits riding on this as well.
Mr. Duval went through the rest of the brief while Noah stood impatiently, trying to look attentive. If they hadn’t heard the same brief five times already, it might have made a difference. But the Corps never believed in a Marine’s ability to comprehend after hearing something once when they could instead hammer it in over and over again.
After he was finished, Duval joined the other instructors moving to the bleachers while the four of them walked over to stand behind one of the 309’s waiting for the word to go. Then they had to stand there while the range safety officer, a man who looked old enough to have fought in the old World Wars back on Earth, gave them the same brief, almost word for word. At long last, he was done, and he gave them the OK.
Noah's Story: Marine Tanker (The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins Book 3) Page 4