Star Strike

by Ian Douglas

  * * * *

  USMC Recruit Training Center

  Noctis Labyrinthus, Mars

  0455/24:20 local time, 1513 hrs GMT

  “Gods and goddesses, Jesus, Buddha, and fucking Lao Tse! Those fat-assed bastards up in Ring City are trying to fucking destroy my Corps!…”

  Gunnery Sergeant Michel Warhurst stopped his pacing in front of the ragged line of recruit trainees and shook his head sadly. “You maggots are trying to fucking destroy my Corps! My beloved Corps! And I am here this morning to let you know that I will not stand for that!”

  Recruit Private Aiden Garroway stood at a civilian’s approximation of attention, staring past the glowering drill instructor’s shoulder and off into the velvet, star-riddled blackness of the Martian night. After a brief flight down from the Arean Ring, he and his fellow recruits had been unceremoniously hustled off the shuttle, herded into line by screaming assistant DIs, and were now being formally inducted into Recruit Company 4102 by the man who would rule their lives for the next sixteen weeks.

  He was actually enjoying the show, as the drill instructor paraded back and forth in front of the line of recruits. Three assistant DIs stood a few meters away, two glowering, one grinning with what could only be described as evil anticipation.

  He’d been expecting this speech, of course, or something very close to it. For the past two years, ever since he’d decided to escape a dead-end jack-in and shallow friends by enlisting in the United Star Marines, he’d lived and breathed the Corps. Boot camp, he knew, would be rough, and it would begin with exactly this kind of heavy-handed polemics, a strategy honed over the centuries to break down the attitudes and preconceptions of a hundred-odd kids with civilian outlooks and build them back up into Marines. It was part of a tradition extending back over a thousand years…and it self-evidently worked.

  And getting through boot camp, he’d decided, wouldn’t be all that tough, not for him. After all, he knew what it was all about. He knew…

  “What the fuck are you daydreaming about, maggot!?”

  The DI’s face had appeared centimeters in front of his own as if out of nowhere, contorted by rage, eyes staring, mouth wide open, blasting into Garroway’s face with hurricane force. The sheer suddenness and volume forced him to take a step back….

  “And where the fuck do you think you’re going, you slimy excuse for an Ishtaran mudworm? Get back here and toe that line! I am not done with you, maggot, not by ten thousand fucking light-years, and when I am done you will know it! Drop to the sand! Give me fifty, right here!”

  Startled, Garroway swallowed, looked at Warhurst, and stammered out a “S-sorry, sir!”

  The senior drill instructor’s face blended fury with thunderstruck. “What did you say?”

  “I’m sorry, sir!”

  “What did you just call me? Gods and goddesses of the Eternal Void, I can’t believe what I just heard!” Warhurst brought one blunt finger up a hair’s breadth away from Garroway’s nose. “First of all, maggot, I did not give you permission to squeak! None of you will squeak unless I or one of the assistant drill instructors here gives your sorry ass permission to squeak! Is that understood?”

  Garroway wasn’t sure whether a response was called for, but suspected this was one of those cases where he would get into trouble whether he replied or not. He remained mute, eyes focused somewhere beyond Warhurst’s left shoulder.

  “Give me an answer, recruit!” Warhurst bellowed. “Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “What?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Second of all, for your information my name is not ‘Sorry.’ So far as you putrid escapees from a toilet bowl are concerned, I am sir!” He turned away from Garroway and strode up the line, bellowing. “In fact, so far as you mudworms are concerned, I am God, but you will always address me as ‘sir!’ If you have permission to address me or any of the other drill instructors behind me, the first word and the last word out of your miserable, sorry shit-hole mouths will be ‘sir!’ All of you! Do I make myself abundantly clear?”

  Several in the line of recruits chorused back with, “Sir, yes, sir!” A few, however, forgot to start with the honorific, and most said nothing at all, or else mumbled along.

  “What was that? I couldn’t hear that!”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  “What?!”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  Warhurst turned again to glower into Garroway’s face. “Third! Recruits will not refer to themselves as ‘I’! You are not an I! None of you rates an I! If for any reason you are required to refer to your miserable selves, you will not use the first person, but you will instead say ‘this recruit!’ That goes for all of you! Is that clear?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  “Fourth! If I give you an order, you will not say ‘sir, yes, sir!’ You will reply with the correct Marine response, and say ‘Sir, aye, aye, sir!’ You are not Marines and you may never be Marines, but by all the gods of the Corps you will sound like Marines! Is that clear?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!” came back, though it was made ragged by a few shouted “Sir, aye, aye, sirs.” The recruits were all looking a bit wild-eyed now, as confusion and sensory overload began to overwhelm them.

  Garroway thought Warhurst was going to explode at the company for using the wrong response. Reaching the left end of the line, he spun sharply and charged back to the right. “Idiots! I ask for recruits and they give me deaf, dumb, and blind idiots!” Turning again, he charged back to the left, raw power and fury embodied in a spotlessly crisp Marine dress black-C uniform. “Get the shit out of your ears! If I ask a question requiring a response of either ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ you will say ‘sir,’ then give me a ‘yes’ or a ‘no,’ as required, and then you will again say ‘sir!’” Stopping suddenly at the center of the line, he turned and bellowed, “Is that clear?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  “And when I give you an order, you will respond with ‘sir, aye, aye, sir!’ Remember that! ‘Aye, aye’ means ‘I understand and I will obey!’ Is that understood?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  Garroway was impressed. Under the DI’s unrelenting barrage, the line of recruits, until moments ago a chaotic mélange of individually mumbled responses, was actually starting to chorus together, and with considerable feeling…but then the DI was back in his face once again, eye to eye, screaming at him. “What the hell are you doing on your feet, maggot? I gave you a direct order! I told you to give me fifty! That’s fifty push-ups!”

  Damn! Garroway had been as confused as the rest, stunned into unthinking immobility by the DI’s performance. He dropped to the ground, legs back, arms holding his body stiffly above the sand, and started to perform the first push-up, but then Warhurst was hauling him upright by the scruff of his neck, dangling him one-handed above the sand, still screaming. “I did not hear you acknowledge the order I gave you, mudworm!”

  “Sir, yes, sir! Uh, I mean, aye, aye, sir!”

  “What was that?”

  “Sir! Aye, aye, sir!”

  Warhurst released him. “Gimme those fifty goddamn push-ups!”

  “Sir! Aye, aye, sir!”

  Garroway dropped again and began cranking out the push-ups. He’d worked out a lot over the past couple of years, knowing that this sort of thing would be routine. He’d also spent a lot of time recently working in the Recovery Projects back on Earth. There he massed a full 85 kilos, so he had a bit of an advantage of some of the other kids in the line. On Mars, he only weighed 32 kilos, compared to the 60 kilos he carried at his home level in the Ring.

  So right now he weighed half what he normally did, and was feeling pretty strong, even competent. The push-ups came swiftly and easily as Warhurst continued to parade up and down the line of recruits, finding fault everywhere, screaming invectives at the other recruits. Before long, Garroway wasn’t the only one doing push-ups. He completed his count and stood at attention once more, surprised to find he w
as breathing harder, now. In fact, his chest was burning.

  The Martian air was painfully thin, despite the nanochelates in his lungs that increased the efficiency of his breathing. The terraformers had been reshaping Mars for almost four centuries, now, hammering it with icebergs to begin with, but more recently using massive infusions of nanodecouplers to free oxygen from the planet-wide rust and restore the ancient Martian atmosphere. For the past two centuries, the air had been breathable, at least with nanotechnic augmentation, but it was still thin, cold, and carried a harsh taste of sand and chemicals.

  Abruptly, as if at the throw of a switch, Gunnery Sergeant Warhurst’s fury was gone. Instead, he seemed relaxed, almost paternal. “Very well, children,” he said, standing before them with his hands on his hips. “You have just had your first fifteen minutes of Marine indoctrination and training…an ancient and hallowed tradition we refer to as ‘boot camp.’ Each of you has volunteered for this. Presumably, that means each of you wants to be here. I certainly understand that desire. The Marines are the best there are, no question about it.

  “However, I want each and every one of you to take a moment and think very hard about this decision you’ve made. Behind you is the shuttle that brought you down from the Arean Ring. If for any reason you are having second thoughts, I want you to turn around right now and plant your ass back on board that shuttle. You will be flown back up to the Arean Ring, where you can retrieve your civilian clothing, have a nice hot meal, and make arrangements to go home. No questions asked. No one will think the less of you.” He paused. “How about it? Any takers?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Garroway sensed movement down the line to his left. Someone was wavering…and then he heard the sound of footsteps in the sand, moving toward the rear. He didn’t dare look, however. The formation was still at attention, and he had a feeling that if he turned his head to look, Warhurst’s sudden nice-guy persona would vanish as abruptly as it had begun.

  “Smart boy,” Warhurst said, nodding. “Anybody else? This will be your last chance. If you miss that shuttle…then for the next sixteen weeks you will be mine.”

  Garroway thought he heard someone else leave the line, but he wasn’t sure. He knew he wasn’t going to quit, not now. He was going to be a Marine….

  “Handley!” Warhurst snapped, addressing one of the recruits. “Eyes front!”

  “Sir! Aye, aye, sir!”

  A long silence passed. Warhurst stood before them, his head down, as if he were listening to something. Then he looked up. “I want each of you to open your primary inputs. Full immersion.”

  Garroway did so. His neurocranial link implants opened to a local feed coming down from the Martian Ring. It was coded, but each had received the appropriate clearances up at the receiving station.

  There was a moment’s mental static, followed by the always odd feeling of standing in two places at once…

  …and then Garroway was standing on another world.

  It was night there, as it was at Noctis Labyrinthus. It was also raining, though the link was not transmitting the feel of the rain on his skin, or the bluster of the wind.

  He could see, however, a formation of Marine landing vehicles skimming in a few meters above the surf and spray of a beach, their black hulls shimmering as they phased into full solidity, their variform shells unfolding into landing configuration. Lightning flared…or perhaps it was a plasma bolt fired from the shore. It was tough sorting out exactly what was happening, because there was a great deal of noise and movement.

  One of the landing vehicles crumpled with nightmare suddenness in midair, flame engulfing its gull-winged form, the wreckage tumbling out of the sky and slamming into the surf in a crashing fountain of spray and steam. Plasma bolt, Garroway thought. An instant later, a beam of dazzling incandescence struck down out of the black overcast, a white flash starkly illuminating the beach and the incoming formation as it lanced the squat building from which the plasma bolt had been fired. The explosion further lit the night, as the first of the shape-shifting landing craft began touching down.

  In his mind, Garroway turned, watching as other craft passed overhead. There was a city behind the beach…and what looked like a large and sprawling spaceport. Beams of light continued to spear out of the angry heavens, vaporizing enemy hardpoints.

  And now, individual Marines were appearing in their cumbersome combat armor, bounding through flame and smoldering wreckage and sand dunes to close with the enemy.

  “This,” Warhurst’s voice said in Garroway’s head, “is taking place on a world called Alighan, about four hundred light-years from where you’re standing right now. There’s a slight delay in the feed, but, within the uncertainties imposed by the physics of FTL simultaneity and the time lag down from the Arean Ring, it is happening more or less as you see it. The image is being relayed from our battlefleet straight back to HQ USMC. Colonel Peters thought you should see this.”

  More Marines surged across the beach, sweeping toward the outer Alighan beach defenses. Other landing craft had passed over those bunkers and gun emplacements and were settling to ground on the spaceport itself. Fire continued to lance out of the sky, pinpoint bombardments called down by Marine spotters. Garroway found he could hear some of the chatter in the background, a babble of call signs, orders, and acknowledgments.

  “The Islamic Theocracy,” Warhurst went on, “has blocked several key trade routes into their territory. Worse, they have supported terrorist incursions into Commonwealth Space, seized Commonwealth vessels, and are suspected of holding Commonwealth citizens as slaves.

  “As you should know by now, the sole purpose of the U.S. Marine Corps is to protect Commonwealth worlds and Commonwealth citizens. To that end, a naval battlefleet and a Marine Expeditionary Force have been dispatched to effect a change in the Theocrat government. Their first step is to capture the spaceport you see in the distance, so that Army troops can land and occupy the planet.

  “The politics of the situation are unimportant, however. Marines go where they’re sent. They do what they’re told to do. They do so at the behest of the United Star Commonwealth, and the Commonwealth Command Authority. All very nice, neat, and clean….

  “But this, children, is what modern combat really is.”

  The scene around Garroway was rapidly becoming a burning nightmare out of some primitive religion’s hell. With a mental command, his point of view drifted up from the beach toward the spaceport, where the heaviest fighting was now taking place. The landing craft all were down now—those that had survived the approach. Upon touching down, their fuselages had broken into sections, becoming automated mobile gun platforms; the wing, cockpit, and spine assemblies then each had lifted off once more, becoming airborne gunships that darted across the scene like immense, spindly insects, spewing plasma bolts and blazing streams of autocannon fire. And individual Marines, forty-eight to each LV, fanned out across the flame-tortured landscape, hunting down the enemy one gun position or hardpoint at a time. Overhead, Marine A-90 Cutlass sky-support attack craft darted and swooped like hideously visaged black hornets, locking in on ground targets and blasting them with devastating fire.

  Clouds of gray fog swept over the landscape from different directions—combat nano and counter-nano, waging their submicroscopic battles in the air and on the ground. Disassemblers released by the Muzzies were seeking out Marines and vehicles, while the counter-clouds roiling off Marine armor and vehicles sought to neutralize them. The result was a deadly balance; in places, the ground was melting, the rain hissing into steam.

  Almost in front of him, a Marine bounded in for a landing, his combat suit making him seem bulky and awkward, but the impression was belied by the grace of movement on the suit’s agrav packs. The Marine touched down lightly, aimed at an unseen target with the massive field-pulse rifle mounted beneath his right arm, then bounded again.

  The armor itself, Garroway saw, was mostly black, but the surface had a shimmering, illusive effect t
hat rendered it nearly invisible, an illusion due to the nanoflage coating which continually adapted to incoming light. In places, he saw blue sparks and flashes where enemy nano-D was trying to eat into the suit’s defenses, but was—so far—being successfully blocked by the suit’s counters.

  Neither near-invisibility nor nanotechnic defenses could help this Marine, however. As he grounded again, something flashed nearby, and the man’s midsection vanished in a flare of blue-white light. Legs collapsed to one side, head and torso to the others, the arms still, horribly, moving. Garroway thought he heard a spine-chilling shriek over the link, mercifully cut off as the armored suit died. Rain continued to drench the hot ruin of the combat suit, steaming in the flare-lit night, and the armor itself, exposed to the relentless embrace of airborne nano-disassemblers, began to soften, curdle, and dissolve.

  The arms had stopped moving. There was a great deal of blood on the ground, however, and slowly dissolving wet chunks of what might be…

  Gods….

  Garroway struggled not to be sick. He would not be sick. He wrenched his mental gaze away from the feed, and stood once more in the Martian night.

  “Being a Marine is one of the greatest honors, one of the greatest responsibilities available to the Commonwealth citizenry,” Warhurst said, his voice still speaking in his mind over the implant link. “But it is not for everyone. It requires the ultimate commitment. Fortitude. Courage. Character. Commitment to duty and to fellow Marines. Sometimes, it requires the ultimate sacrifice…for the Commonwealth. For your brother and sister Marines. For the Corps.

  “You’ve all just seen what modern combat is like…what it’s really like, not what the entertainment feeds would have you believe. Do any of you want to see this thing through?”

  Garroway heard others leaving the line; he didn’t know how many. He also heard someone retching off to his left.

  After a long pause, Warhurst nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Get ’em out of here.”

  With a whine, the agrav shuttle at Garroway’s back lifted into the Martian night. He felt the flutter of wind as it passed overhead, and he watched its drive field grow brighter as it accelerated back to orbit, back to the Arean Rings that stretched now across the zenith like a slender, taut-pulled thread of pure silver.