by Richard Fox
****
Sweat ran down the back of Roland’s neck and into his soaked-through fatigues. Moisture collected around the edges of his Heads Up Display glasses. That he was unable to wipe them clean while in his rig was infuriating, like being pestered by a mosquito while his hands were tied behind his back.
Roland scanned the top of the tree line just beyond the last range markers of the firing range. A target drone sailed up, and he focused his vision on the spinning cube. His HUD locked on and the gauss cannons on his extended arm barked twice. The target cube bobbed in the air, untouched.
Other cubes over the tree line burst apart as the other candidates found better aim than he did.
“What is wrong with you, Shaw?” Cha’ril asked from the firing position to his left. “Your marksmanship has decreased our average by nine points. Nine points. Recalibrate your HUD and learn to function.”
“My HUD is fine. It’s not using manual aim that’s throwing me off,” Roland said.
“So the issue is talent, not technical.” Cha’ril blasted the next target a split second after it bobbed over the tree line. Roland fired three times and managed to clip his cube. The score tally on his HUD didn’t register the point.
“Cease-fire. Cease-fire,” Gideon’s voice boomed over a loudspeaker. “All candidates lock and clear your weapons and return to the base of the tower to be cleared from the range. Lane seven, you failed to qualify. Stand fast.”
Roland bit his lip in frustration. He was on lane seven.
Cha’ril let out a brief hiss as she strode past him in her rig. He kept his gaze downrange, avoiding looks from the rest of the more successful candidates as they made their way back to the wonderfully air-conditioned maintenance bay to drop their rigs and enjoy a few minutes of rest and relaxation.
The humid air felt more oppressive as Roland waited. He had grown up in Phoenix, where hot, dry air was the norm. The weather around Fort Knox was a special kind of misery for him. He would take the Arizona sun over this Kentucky soup any day of the week. Shifting in his rig, he felt his damp uniform pull away from his skin as he tried to scratch an itch on his back.
“Candidate,” Gideon said as he walked up to him, dressed in simple fatigues.
“Sir,” Roland said, swallowing hard.
“You were in the Scout Auxiliaries before enlisting, correct? You learned to shoot over iron and holographic sites?”
“That’s right, sir.” Roland squeezed his fist tighter, his hands essentially useless in the rig, buried in the metal frame’s forearms and bound shut.
“Your muscle memory is getting in the way,” Gideon said. “You see a target and your brain wants to press a rifle against your shoulder. Your fingers want to squeeze a trigger. You’re thinking about proper breath control. Rig and armor weapons don’t work this way. You mark the target with focus”—he tapped the side of his head—“and let the armor work out the firing solution. When you try to use your old training, you engage the manual fire controls and this throws off your targeting. Do you understand where you’re going wrong?”
“I understand the concept, sir, but the instincts of how I used to shoot are dying hard.”
“You dissociate when you’re in the sensory-deprivation pods. I know you do—I’ve seen your brain waves. Do the same here. Don’t aim and fire. Target and fire, all in your mind. It’s easier once you have the plugs and the HUD is in your visual cortex, but you can do it here,” Gideon said, and tapped his gauntlet.
“Engage.” Gideon slapped a pair of sound bafflers over his ears.
A round target snapped up downrange. Roland marked it with a moment’s concentration and his gauss cannons snapped. The target slid down, a hit marker on his HUD. He engaged the next two targets, then scanned the tree line for the pop-ups. Two cubes bobbed up. He marked them both and his weapon arm seemed to move on its own to adjust the aim.
“Cease-fire!” Gideon shouted and waved a hand up and down in front of his face.
Roland pulled his arm back and pinpricks of pain ran up his arm as his rig and his brain moved out of synch.
“Sir?” Roland asked.
Gideon took his bafflers off and pointed to the right. At the edge of the cleared range, a herd of deer trotted out and began nibbling the neatly trimmed grass.
“Perimeter drones should have scared them off.” Gideon tapped at his gauntlet. “Damn stupid animals. You’d think after a couple were ‘accidentally’ hit during a live fire, the rest would get the message, but range control frowns on that sort of thing, as they have to clean up the mess. Hold fast. They’ll be gone in a few minutes.”
Roland kept his smoking gauss cannon oriented downrange, but aimed at the dirt. Gideon crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head at the deer as they spread across the range.
Glancing at the fleur-de-lis patch on the cadre’s right shoulder, Roland said, “Sir, I’ve noticed fully qualified armor—like you—have very different shoulder patches. Why is that?”
“Back when the Armor Corps first formed, lances and platoons were formed from individual countries in the Atlantic Union. They kept a good deal of their own traditions and history. Smoking Snakes from Brazil. Hussars from Poland. Zoaves from France. Highlanders from Scotland. One of the American army lances took their colors from the old Second Cavalry, the Dragoons.”
Gideon’s heel ground into the dirt as he continued. “Records of the first Xaros attack are incomplete, but the Dragoons were at the last stand on Phoenix. Hale and his team came across their dead armor when they pulled Ibarra out from beneath Euskal Tower. Once recruitment started going again after the Toth invasion, Colonel Carius brought back the Dragoons, rechristened them Iron Dragoons in memory of their last battle.”
“Why do so many cadre have those red crosses, like Tongea?”
Gideon huffed. “Religion. Nothing I’ve ever cared for. Some armor choose to associate with their creed instead of their unit’s lineage.”
“If the Iron Dragoons came back as a unit, what about the armor from Memorial Square? Iron Hearts, right?”
“No…Colonel Martel, General Laran, they’ll never break out the Iron Hearts’ colors. No one can live up to their memory.” Gideon ran a finger down the wide scar on his face. “I saw them once, all three Iron Hearts. Was a Marine in the trenches around Mauna Kea on Hawaii when the Toth came crawling out of the ocean. Me and a bunch of doughboys were holding on by our fingernails, up to our knees in dead lizards, when Elias steps over our trench, cannons blazing. Saw him rip the head off a Toth warrior without missing a beat. Then Hale orders everyone over the top to push them back into the sea.
“I got about a hundred yards when a Toth warrior I thought was dead reaches up and rips me open from my hairline to my waist.” Gideon closed one eye, the right side of his face twitching.
“Put in for armor selection while I was in the hospital,” Gideon said. “I caught a glimpse of the Iron Hearts once or twice after I earned my plugs. Never had the guts to tell Elias he was the reason I joined…There we go. Deer are getting chased off. You’re staying here with me until you qualify, candidate.”
Aiming his weapon arm downrange, Roland let out a breath as he tried to clear his mind of Gideon’s story.
Chapter 9
Roland opened the door to his barracks room and walked in, bent under a rucksack bulging with gear. Sweat soaked through his fatigues and he groaned as he leaned back and hit a release on his straps. The pack slapped against the floor, and Roland rubbed his sore shoulders.
“There. Feels so much lighter now. Bad enough we’ve got classroom time, homework, rig training, then I get worked over by the DIs before and after the day’s other fun.” He pressed his hands against the small of his back and straightened up.
Aignar knelt beside his bed, his arms on the mattress, his head bowed in prayer, his metal feet creaking against the floor. A data slate with a picture of a smiling Aignar and a tallow-haired boy sat on the bed next to a small porcelain figure.
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br /> Roland quietly set his ruck into his closet, then went to the sink and rubbed water on his head and neck.
Aignar perked up, his eyes widening at Roland. The veteran grabbed at the small statue, but his cyborg fingers closed too quickly and sent it bouncing off the floor with a ring. Aignar let off a panicked grunt and lurched forward to catch the statue.
It bounced twice, then landed in Roland’s palm. He held it up in front of his face. The figure was of a woman in a wheelchair, her hands folded in her lap, her head tilted slightly to one side. A red Templar cross was painted on her chest.
“Give. It. Back!” Aignar clamped a hand onto Roland’s forearm and squeezed. Roland tried to pull his arm back, but Aignar held on like a vice.
“Ow! What the hell?” Roland held the figure up and Aignar carefully plucked it out of his fingers. The grip on Roland’s arm went away with a whine of servos.
“I’m…sorry, Roland.” Aignar clutched the figure to his chest and took it back to his desk, his bare metal feet clicking against the floor. “My hands are not my own. Controlling them is a struggle even on the best days.” He opened a drawer and put the woman’s statue into a felt-lined box.
“What’s the big deal? It’s not like that’s contraband. Is it?”
“You don’t have much in the way of faith, do you?” Aignar sank onto a chair.
“I soured on church after a priest tried to explain that my parents’ dying in the war was all part of God’s plan.” Roland shook out the hand Aignar had nearly crushed and drank from a canteen near the sink.
“That there are no atheists in a foxhole is mostly true,” Aignar said, “at least for me. I didn’t care for religion through most of my life. The night before the big drop on Cygnus, some of the armor held a vigil. The damnedest thing, seeing them outside their armor, kneeling against their swords. At the end, they swear an oath to not leave their armor until the battle is won. Death before dismount, an old tradition from the days of tracked tanks. They’ll let anyone join them in prayer…I thought about it, but was more focused on every last little detail before the drop.”
“Did you find them again after you went dirtside?”
“Not exactly. The first two weeks were a hard fight. Rangers and Marines started talking about…visions. Guys claiming they saw a woman in a wheelchair after they’d been wounded. Being told just when to duck before a Vish bombardment was about to hit. I thought it was just stress. Too much adrenaline and fear for too long does things to the mind, power of suggestion…then I got hit.”
Aignar rubbed a knuckle under an eye.
“I was lying there dying,” he said, looking at a hand, the fingers twitching of their own accord, “then I heard a voice telling me to hold on. I saw her face and she told me I wasn’t done yet…I was in a bad way for a while. When I finally came to on the Denver, that statue was beside my bed. Nurse said one of the armor mechanics brought it to me.”
“Who is she?”
“They just call her the Saint. Word was, she died fighting on Mars. Soldiers ask her for protection, courage. I hear most navy ships have little shrines to her. Most everyone thinks she was armor. How else was somebody supposed to take on the Xaros if they’re in a wheelchair?”
“All this started on Cygnus? No offense, but this seems a little…cult-y.”
“There’s nothing much in the way of organized religion anymore,” Aignar said. “All the church hierarchies were wiped out when the Xaros erased us from the solar system. Faith isn’t confined to dogma as much as it used to be. There are clergy out there, but they’re all derived from the old military chaplains. That was more about counseling and spiritual growth than ‘thou shall’ or ‘thou shall not’ before the war.”
“It’s your business.” Roland shrugged and pointed to the slate on Aignar’s bed. “You want your slate or will you feed me one of my fingers for touching it?”
“I said I was sorry.” Aignar looked away, his eyes filled with shame.
“Accident, I get it.” Roland picked up the slate. His thumb swiped against the screen and another photo came up—Aignar in uniform and the Ranger’s black beret and the same boy on his shoulders.
“That’s Joshua,” Aignar said. “He’s almost nine.”
“You’re married?”
“Was. Got hitched two weeks before I enlisted and I knocked her up with Joshua during the honeymoon. You make a lot of poor decisions when you’re eighteen and coming face-to-face with all the stress of serving. You seem smarter than a lot of privates I met in basic training. Anyway, Rangers aren’t home much, which takes a toll on spur-of-the-moment marriages. Josh and his mother live near San Diego, the air base on Coronado Island.”
“Get to see him much?”
“Only once since…” Aignar rubbed the back of his hand against his fake jaw.
“You’re like an old man compared to me,” Roland said. “Done everything and been everywhere.”
“Kid, you have yet to begin making stupid decisions. I’d give you shit about going armor, but here I am next to you. Why don’t you get your stanky ass into the showers so we can—”
Two loud knocks hit the door and they both snapped to the position of attention.
“Enter, sir or ma’am,” Roland said.
Tongea opened the door and pointed a knife hand at Roland’s chest.
“Candidates,” the cadre said as he shifted his hand to Aignar, “you will both come with me for sensory-deprivation exercise. Be outside this room in three minutes. Fatigues.” He closed the door.
“The fun never stops.” Roland grabbed a meal replacement bar from his desk and wolfed it down as he changed clothes.
Chapter 10
Roland’s mind drifted, his body floating in the amniosis and touching the tight confines of the pod when his limbs flexed. He’d cramped up a few weeks ago and found stretching and isometric exercise staved off the spasms of underutilized muscles.
He heard footsteps through the pod.
“Shaw…why are we still bothering with him?” Gideon’s voice came through the amniosis, low and muffled.
“His test scores and rig performance are marginal. If you and I both recommend cutting him at the next review, he’ll be gone,” Tongea said.
Roland’s eyes popped open and his heart began to pound. Did they think he couldn’t hear them in the pod? He moved a hand through the thick fluid to the transmitter on his neck, but didn’t activate it.
“We don’t have to wait until the next review. Pull him out now and we can focus more time on candidates with half a chance. Shaw will never wear the armor. He doesn’t have it in him,” Gideon said.
“We cut him, he can come back after his first tour. We wait for him to crack in the pod, he’ll be a loss-of-motivation drop. Barred from the Corps forever. What do you want to do?”
“Let him stew until he’s an LOM. It’s kinder to let an impossible dream die than string him along for years only to crush his hopes the next time he applies,” Gideon said.
“Agreed. His amniosis has eighty more hours of oxygen. I doubt he’ll last another twelve.”
“I’ll have his paperwork done before he gets out. Knew we should’ve left him back in Phoenix…” Gideon’s voice faded as the two walked away.
Roland felt a new weight in his chest. A swell of emotion threatened to rise up and overwhelm him, and he wished the pod had enough room that he could curl into a ball.
Screw them, he thought. I’ve done every last stupid Zen bullcrap thing they wanted and dealt with the drill instructors hounding my ass for every last detail. They think I’ll give up? I’ll stay right here. They’ll have to pry me out of this pod and then I’ll be back. Someone in the Marines knows what the armor wants of me. Maybe I’ll find an armor soldier that doesn’t have a stick so far up their…
He felt his clenched fists press against his sides. Blood rushed through his head as the anger grew.
If I spin myself into a frenzy, I’ll lose it. I am here. I’m not leaving.
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He let the rampant thoughts exhaust themselves and returned to the drift…until red lights flooded the pod and a buzzer went off so loud that it rattled Roland’s teeth.
EMERGENCY PURGE flashed on the inside of the pod. He felt a tug against his body as the amniosis exited through a valve near his feet. Blunt nozzles extended from the pod and air forced its way into Roland’s chamber. The fluid sank past his face and ears, and the buzzing grew more intense as freezing cold replaced the warm embrace of the hyper-oxygenated liquid.
A line of light traced around the interior of the pod, then the lid burst open and Roland fell into a world of light. He landed hard on his hands and knees, his eyes burning against the sudden bright onslaught. He punched himself in the stomach and a glut of amniosis exited his mouth. He heaved, spewing out more liquid.
Taking in a wet lungful of air, Roland fell onto his side, his shoulder and hip settling into coarse sand.
“Miserable…I know why they never mention that part…to candidates.” Roland blinked hard, and his eyes finally recovered from the long dark. He lay in dirt colored burnt-orange; he grabbed a handful, letting the parts that didn’t congeal into mud on his wet hands fall between his fingers.
A scrub desert stretched out around him, tufts of grass and a few low trees. Distant bald rock formations wavered in the haze of hot air.
He spat and pushed himself up onto his knees.
“What in the hell?”
He leaned back and bumped into something metal and unyielding.
A suit of armor knelt in the sand, one fist planted into the earth, its breastplate and inner womb wide open. One arm was missing, ripped away at the shoulder. Scorch marks and impact dents marred the surface, and the top half of the helm had been blown away.
“OK…this is…”—he touched the cold nubs on the back of his neck—“training. Has to be training. They wouldn’t kick me out and dump me in the middle of—” The bit of grass near him rustled and a small lizard the size of his hand scurried out. Its skin was covered in thorny protrusions, and lines of deep orange ran down its tan body. It ran over to the base of a tree shrouded in thin needles.