“Your father understood that.”
This was the first time during training that any DI had made direct reference to her dad.
“He ordered his own brother-in-law to his death.”
Esther dropped her gaze from the overhead to stare at the staff sergeant in shock. Although she had never discussed it with him, she knew the story well. In the first action against the capys, then Lieutenant Ryck Lysander had ordered her uncle, Staff Sergeant Joshua Hope-of-Life and two other Marines into a suicidal blocking position to hold the capys off long enough to load the civilians aboard aircraft and escape.
“You’ve shown some promise, Recruit, and we were holding out hope for you. But it’s now pretty evident that you are not your father’s daughter after all.”
Esther was stunned. She didn’t know how to respond.
“Your tab.”
Numbly, she reached up and pulled the red tab off of her collar, held it out, and dropped it into her seniors extended hand.
“You’re dismissed, Recruit.”
“Recruit,” not “Recruit Squad Leader.”
She performed a barely acceptable about-face and marched out of the office.
Chapter 7
Noah
“Hey, Noah, you want my pumpkin surprise?” Leto asked.
“Nah. Give it to Boris.”
Leto was a little overweight, and he made it a habit of offering Noah his desserts. Boris Franks, on the other hand, was skinny as a rail and constantly hungry. It made sense to give it to Boris, but Noah wasn’t even tempted this time. The dessert bar was a cloying, sickly sweet orange square, chock full of the calories and nutrients the dieticians thought recruits needed to function.
Leto, Boris, and a few others had started making it a habit to sit with Noah during chow, something that he appreciated. He’d tried to bring Fan into their little group, but there had seemed to be some tension, and Fan had drifted away.
Noah had never been an A-lister in school. He’d had friends, of course, mostly other gamers, but he’d been closer to Esther than anyone else, not surprisingly.
He looked over to where Esther was sitting with Uri and Tanya. She’d been pretty upset to lose her recruit squad leader’s tab two days ago, and Noah had tried to be supportive of her, but his sister had inexplicably cut him off. Esther didn’t take failure well, but she used to be able to confide in him when she was troubled. Now, she seemed almost angry at him.
She’ll get them back, he told himself.
Their father had lost his squad leader’s tab as well, for letting one of his recruits sink or swim on his own—sink, in this case. Noah even remembered the name of the recruit: Calderón, who had ended up graduating and having a successful career.
Taking care of his subordinates had been a lesson his father had learned and then passed it on to his children. And it hadn’t been too expensive a lesson. He’d been able to regain the billet before his class graduated. Esther could too. She was taking to recruit training as if she’d been born to it, which maybe she had. Their younger brother had graduated as the series honor-man, after all. The Lysanders had that Marine gene.
Hah! Except for me, he thought, almost laughing out loud.
“I can’t wait for tomorrow,” Leto said.
“Three hours free,” Wyllyam “Willy” Dodge said.
Sunday morning wasn’t technically free. There was early morning PT, then chow. But 0800 to 0900 was Sky-Six time, chaplain’s call. And it didn’t matter the religion, or if a recruit even was religious, all of them would be in the chapel, the first time during waking hours since their arrival that they wouldn’t have a DI standing over them. From 0900 to 1100, they’d have their first down time, where they could call home or just relax. It wasn’t completely their own time. They couldn’t get back into their racks, and they couldn’t wander the depot. But with only one DI overseeing, they could talk with others and basically decompress.
And Noah could use the decompression. He wasn’t at the bottom of the series hierarchy, but he was pretty close. He just wasn’t excelling, and in the Marines, excelling was a religion.
At least I have my friends, he told himself, watching Boris simply inhale the pumpkin bar. This is the brotherhood Dad always told us about.
Chapter 8
Esther
“What’s freaking wrong with your brain-housing group, Recruit?” the Chipmunk shouted at the hapless Ghost. “Did you just decide to ignore the small fact that it’s a squad leader’s job to make sure his recruits are ready, not just take care of himself?”
Corporal Chimond’s high-pitched voice left her with the “Chipmunk” moniker among the recruits in the platoon. Her voice was exacerbated with the substitute expletives the DIs employed to get around the recent crack-down of cursing in front of the recruits. “Freaking” didn’t cut it, Esther thought, especially when sounding like it was coming out of a children’s holo character.
What the Chipmunk was saying, though, mattered more. Ghost was one of the platoon’s four squad leaders (down from six when there were more recruits still in training), and if he was about to lose his tab, that was one more body gone from between her and her climb back to the top.
Ghost tried to stammer out a response, but the Chipmunk was having none of it. She tore him a new one, telling him just what she thought about his lack of, well, everything.
Beside her, Tanya half-smothered a laugh, and Esther, slid a foot forward to stomp on Tanya’s. Her friend grunted, but cut off her laugh.
Too late, though.
“So are you two under the impression that something’s funny?” Sergeant Hermanez asked from where he was inspecting Leto Smith’s junk-on-the-bunk.
“No, Drill Instructor,” Esther said, fuming.
She knew what was coming—she just hoped it wouldn’t be for the entire platoon, or worse, the series.
“Good. I’m glad you don’t think that another recruit’s troubles are humorous,” he said, his sarcasm evident. “But just because I’m in the mood, why don’t you two drop and give me 50.”
Esther managed to kick Tanya hard in the shin as she dropped to pump out the pushups. The girl just wouldn’t learn. She thought boot camp was a joke, and “just good enough to get by” was fine with her. She’d already taken quite a bit of shit from the DIs, but the problem was that the shit often splashed on the rest of them.
She whipped out 40 pushups, then slowed down slightly to get out the last 10. As she got up, she managed to make sure she stepped on Tanya’s hand as she got back into position.
“What was that for?” Tanya whispered when she finished and got back up.
Esther ignored her. She liked Tanya; she really did. As a friend. But she couldn’t afford to be tarred by association with Tanya’s happy-go-lucky attitude. She wondered if she’d have to distance herself from her, which hurt because Tanya was her best friend in the series. She’d been the one of the few to console her about losing her recruit squad leader billet, and she’d been the only one who’d given her moral support in working to get the billet back.
She brooded through the rest of the junk-on-the-bunk, not even mollified when Sergeant Hermanez hadn’t dinged a single item in her inspection.
It sure was easier, she noted, when it was just her. This was a cakewalk. It was more difficult when she’d been dealing with 15 other recruits, mother-henning them along. Still, she wanted that responsibility again.
Finally, the inspection was over.
“What was that all about?” Tanya asked as soon as the DI’s left.
“You really have to ask? Laughing at a DI?”
“Well, she’s pretty fucking funny,” Uri said as she came over, then in a high-pitched whine, “Recruit, you are so freaking in trouble. I’m going to tell your mommy!”
“Stop that!” Esther said, looking around to make sure no DI had snuck up within range to hear.
“What’s she even doing here?” Uri asked. “Chipmunk voice, and not much bigger than a chipmunk,
either. She’s supposed to train us?”
Esther looked at Uri in amazement, her mouth dropping open.
“Really, Uri? You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Have you looked at her blouse?”
“Yeah, kinda tight around here,” she said with a laugh, pointing at her belly.
“How the hell do you know enough to wipe your ass, Uri? I mean her ribbons.”
“So she’s got three of them. Big deal. Senior’s got six.”
Esther couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes.
“Hoteah’s got a BC2, which isn’t too shabby. But what’s Chimond’s got?”
“I don’t know.”
“Holy shit, Uri. You’re in the Corps now. You need to know this stuff. Chimond’s got a Silver Star. And that next one is a Purple Heart—with a silver “R” for regen.”
“Really?” Tanya asked. “The Chipmunk went through regen? I wonder what for?”
“For getting her ass in a sling, probably when she earned that Silver Star,” Esther said.
“What’d she do?” Uri asked.
“I don’t know. But something big. The Corps doesn’t give those out like candy. Chimond might be small, and she might have a weird voice, but she’s paid her dues.”
Sisterhood of the Ten or not, Esther could be more than a little frustrated with them.
How can they be so dense?
Part of her knew she was being a little tough on them. She’d been raised in a military family. Uri, Tanya, Rosalee—all of the remaining women except fellow military brat Kai-yen—had come from various backgrounds, half of them using the Corps to escape situations that offered little chance of improving their lives. Tanya had even been an indentured, using her enlistment to get her contract paid off by the government.
They’d already had two classes on Marine Corps history and three on customs and courtesies, but nothing yet on military awards, so maybe she needed to cut her friends a little slack. Or teach them.
“Recruit Squad Leader Hapshik, report to the DI shack!” the Chipmunk shouted out.
“Oh, shit. Ghost is getting busted!” Tanya said, not sounding at all sorry.
She was right, Esther knew, though. He’d just lost his billet. She felt a small degree of compassion for him—after all, she’d had hers taken only three days before. She watched Ghost take the long walk to the front of the barracks where the Chipmunk was waiting for him. The slump in his shoulders was proof enough that he knew his time as a squad leader had come to an end.
The compassion she’d felt for Ghost was still there, but it was now counterweighed by the satisfaction that she was one more step closer back to redemption.
Chapter 9
Noah
Noah wiped the last bit of water off the urinal. The thing positively shined. Absently, he wondered about the white porcelain fixture. It was function over form, barely changed over the centuries. Oh, this one had a molecular cushion and air flow that whisked away everything put into it, but still, anyone from four or five-hundred years ago who was thrust into today would have no problem recognizing its function.
“Hey, Noah, we need more Delta-Blue,” Kellen said.
Noah smiled. The urinal might whisk away every last drop, but the deck under it didn’t, and recruits didn’t always have the best aim. Delta-Blue was the disinfectant of choice at Camp Charles.
“No problem. I’ll get it.”
“Three bottles, OK?”
Kellen had been the recruit squad leader for five days now, which was a record—and which probably was driving Esther crazy. Noah knew his sister had taken losing the billet hard, but he also knew she was anxious to get another chance. She didn’t have to regain Third Squad’s billet—she could take over as squad leader for any of the four squads in the platoon, but to see Kellen last very long in the billet, someone who had seemingly no fire in his soul, would be frustrating for her.
He was still concerned that Esther was ignoring him. Maybe she wanted to get through boot camp on her own. But it wasn’t as if he was helping her with the DIs. They barely knew he was alive unless it was to yell at him for some screw-up.
Not for the first time, he wondered if he should have enlisted under an assumed name. Ben had used their mother’s maiden name, Hope-of-Life, to distance himself from their father’s legacy. Now, everyone knew who he was, and he was sure everyone knew of the CG’s interest in Esther’s and his training. It didn’t matter to his fellow recruits, he knew, but with the DIs, it could be good or bad—and he suspected bad.
He dropped his scrub-pad into the bucket and stood up, checking the urinal one last time. Most of the recruits hated head duty, but he didn’t mind it. The rote cleaning cleared his mind as well and gave him a brief reprieve from the stress of training.
The gear locker was up in the front of the barracks, across from the DI shack. With the heads in the back, he had to make his way up the length of the building. Other recruits were mopping the deck, though, so he scooted to the side and walked in the small gap between the racks and wall-lockers and the bulkhead.
“. . .always last in every run,” he heard as he reached his platoon area.
With the double bunks and the wall-lockers between each rack, he couldn’t see who was talking, but it sounded like Leto.
He’s not always last, he thought. And he’s getting in shape.
He didn’t think it was fair to make fun of Fan like that, and he was about to step out to where they were mopping the center of the barracks when the next statement stopped him in his tracks.
“Just because his father led the Evolution, he thinks he doesn’t have to give a shit,” Boris’ voice reached him.
With a shock, he realized that they were talking about him, not Fan.
Part of him rose in anger. He came in last because he was helping Fan, not because he wasn’t trying. He almost stepped out between the racks to tell them that, to force them to admit it, but he knew nothing good would come out of a confrontation, and he’d get blamed for it.
“Shit, he’s probably back there in the head now, happily licking the pissers. The guy has no heart,” Leto said, the scorn evident in his voice. “Who the hell volunteers for that?”
“Think he’d make it if he wasn’t the general’s son?” a voice Noah didn’t recognize asked.
“Hell, no. You saw what happened, on A-1, when he and his sister were called up to the CG. He’s going to graduate only because he’s General Lysander’s son. Otherwise, he’d be out already.”
“His sister, too?”
“Nah, she’s good-to-go. You’ve seen her. She’s a hard-ass.”
“A nice ass you mean,” someone said in a lower voice, as if trying not to be overheard.
“Yes indeedy, a nice one. But she’s like a cobra. Beautiful, but deadly. You don’t want to go be messing with that,” Leto said.
“So if he’s such a negat, why do you guys hang with him?”
“You have to ask? Like I said, he’s got the CG’s ear. What if I need some help? If any of us needs help? We just go to our best-buddy Noah and ask him to intercede for us. He calls up the CG, the CG waves his magic wand, and poof! Our troubles vanish.”
“Not just here, you said,” Boris reminded him.
“Oh, yeah. Once we get out in the fleet, who knows what Lysander can do to help us? So my advice to you, Donelle, is to befriend the guy. It’s not hard. He’s like a fucking puppy dog, I swear. Make him think he’s your best buddy, and then cash in when you need it.”
Noah felt betrayed. He’d opened himself up to these guys, and now he knew their motive. Once again, he almost stepped out from behind the wall-locker. He wanted to confront them; hell, he wanted to punch the smug Leto in the face.
Fuck them, he decided. It’s not worth the EI I’d get.
Instead, he quietly moved forward, hugging the bulkhead. With his head even with the top bunks, he knew that if they bothered to look up, they would be able to tell who he was.
He didn’t change his course when he reached the newly mopped area, walking straight through the wet deck.
“Hey, Noah! We’re mopping here!” Leto called out as Noah tracked through. “Can’t you see us?”
Noah ignored his erstwhile friend, and kept walking, breaking into a wry smile when behind him, Leto said, “Now we have to hit that section again.”
He gave Kellen two of the bottles and took the third with him. Dumping the highly concentrated blue disinfectant in his bucket, he waited for a second as the acrid fumes rose. Dipping his scrubbing pad into the liquid, he moved to the next urinal.
No matter his disappointment, the field-day still had to be completed.
Chapter 10
Esther
“Lysander, E. Lysander, N. You two are on deck!” Staff Sergeant Hoteah shouted out.
“Come on, Bester!” Vance Eatherd shouted, pounding on her shoulder pads. “Kick his ass!”
She ignored him. She was still amazed that he’d been given the squad leaders’ billet, but it didn’t matter. He’d be gone soon enough, she knew, taking with him the stupid nicknames that he’d given each of them. This was her fight, not his, and she didn’t need his “ooh-rah” excitement to motivate her.
She looked over to where Noah stood with Third Squad. His buddy, Fan, was already on his ass and being checked by the corpsman. Rosalee had put him down within 20 seconds. No one was paying Noah much attention. Part of that was because Lamont Jonas from Third was facing Eisner Kong from Fourth in the fight that was about to get underway, but still, Noah look, well, lonely.
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