Sten

by Chris Bunch

"But first you best qualify. ‘Cause I hear they're jumpin’ those duty battalions into terraforming these days. I'd ruther be making a first-wave drop myself. Figure the chances are better.

  "Now. FIRST RANK, ‘TEN-HUT. ONE MAN PER POST. AT A RUN. MOVE OUT!"

  Ten recruits, in spite of extensive individual attention and minor batterings, failed to qualify. Their bunks were rolled and empty the next day.

  Sten couldn't understand why anybody had problems. Carruthers had been right. Point the willygun, and you hit. Every time.

  When the rifle course ended, Sten was qualified for the next stage: SNIPER-RATED.

  It got him ten more credits a month, his first ribbon, and more training.

  Carruthers thunked down beside him.

  "You got the target?"

  Sten peered through the sights of the rifle. “Yes, corporal."

  Carruthers touched the control box beside him. The target shot sideways, out of sight behind the stone wall a thousand meters from Sten.

  "Awright. Now. Focus on the wall. The crosshairs go out of focus, right? Use the first knob on your sight. Twist until you get the sight focused."

  Sten followed instructions.

  "Got it? Now use the knob below your sight, and turn until the crosshairs are about where you think that target is, even though you can't see it Got it? Fire one."

  Sten touched the trigger.

  Sten's fortieth-century sniper rifle was, in essence, quite simple. The round was still the AM2 shielded particle. But instead of using a laser as propellant, a modified linear accelerator hung around the barrel. The sight was used to give exact range to the target, then, when the scope was twisted to fix on the out-of-sight target, the accelerator “spun” the round so that it could execute up to a ninety-degree angle if necessary.

  A gun that could shoot around corners.

  Sten heard the explosion and saw the wall crumble.

  "Hit."

  Carruthers slammed Sten on the back.

  "Y'know, troop, you keep up like this and Guard's First may get themselves a trooper."

  And for some reason, Sten felt very proud of himself.

  Sten crashed the garbage bin down on the dump, then upended it. Clean enough. He shoved the nozzle of the ultrasonic cleaner to the bottom and touched the trigger. Then banged the can a few more times on the concrete and lugged it back into the messhall. Most of the Guard's menial jobs were handled either by civilians or by the time-servers of the duty battalions. Except for the real scutwork. The Guard reserved those chores for punishment detail. It didn't bother Sten that much. It was still better than any on-shift back on Vulcan.

  Besides, he didn't figure he could have gotten around the problem.

  He'd been quite happy, sitting there on the sand watching Halstead posture at Lanzotta's commands.

  "We are not building technicians,” Lanzotta had said. “I've told you that. We're building killers. We want people who want to listen to the sound of their enemies’ eyeballs pop, who want to see what happens when you rip somebody's throat out with your teeth."

  Sten looked around at the other trainees. Most of them looked mildly aghast. Sten blanked. He remembered quite well, thank you, sergeant.

  "We need a demonstrator."

  Silence. The company had learned by now what volunteering generally got you. And then somebody said, “Corp’ Sten."

  Sten had a pretty good idea it was Gregor, but didn't worry about it. He was seriously into being invisible. Lanzotta heard the voice.

  "Sten. Post."

  Sten grunted, snapped to his feet and ran forward.

  "Yes, corporal."

  Halstead did another fast one-two move. Fair, Sten analyzed. He's open down low, though.

  "Recruit Corporal Sten. That man is your most dangerous enemy. Your mission is to close with and destroy him!"

  Sten ambled in. Held up his hands in what he hoped would look like an offensive move and went airborne. Sten rolled in midair, recovered, and held back as his feet touched. Allowed himself to crumple forward, face first in the sand.

  That should do it. And he heard Lanzotta's whisper in his ear.

  "You are faking it, recruit corporal. You know how to do it better. Now I want you to get back up, without letting your fellow skinks know what you're doing, and attack Corporal Halstead."

  Sten didn't move.

  "The alternative is three days on garbage detail."

  Sten sighed and picked himself up.

  Halstead moved in, hands grabbing. Poor, Sten flashed, and rolled toward the ground. Legs in the air, scissored about Halstead's hips.

  Halstead crashed, Sten locked, using Halstead's momentum to bring him back up. Halstead rolling up, Sten incoming, shoulder under Halstead's waist.

  Halstead went straight up in a curving flight. Sten had time enough to consider if he'd put a cadre into sub-orbital, then he was moving. Halstead slammed back down, still moving, and Sten slammed two toe kicks into his ribs.

  Halstead stayed down. Sten recovered and turned.

  There was awed silence from the trainees. Sten looked at Lanzotta, who heaved a sigh and jerked a thumb.

  "Hup; sergeant!"

  Sten picked up his cap and double-tuned toward the messhall.

  There it was. Spaced if you did, spaced if you didn't. Sten grabbed the other garbage can and lugged them back into the messhall.

  The mess sergeant grinned at Sten as he came through the tiny office.

  "Guess you're glad to be goin’ back to trainin’ tomorrow, hey?"

  Sten shook his head.

  "Ya like it here?"

  "Negatory, sergeant."

  "What's the problem, ‘emit?"

  "Tomorrow we start knife training, sergeant."

  "So?"

  Yeah. So. Sten suddenly started laughing as he dragged the cans back toward their racks. So? It was still better than Vulcan.

  * * * *

  Even Sten felt a little sick as the medic worked swiftly on the gaping wounds. The body was riddled with shrapnel and gouting blood.

  "The procedure hasn't changed in thousands of years,” the medic instructor said. “First get the casualty breathing again. Second, stop the bleeding. Third, treat for shock."

  He finished, covered the humanoid simulacrum with an insublanket, and stood up. Looked around the class.

  "Then you yell as loud as you can for a medic. Assuming some bork hasn't decided we're the most important target he can hit and there's any of us left."

  "What then?” Pech, the fat recruit, asked.

  "If there's no professional treatment, use your belt medpak. If the bleeding's stopped and the insides are more or less together, the antis in the kit should keep your buddy from getting the creeping crud."

  He laughed.

  "'Course if you're on some world where we don't know anything about the bugs, best you can do is try to leave a good-looking corpse.” The medic looked over Pech's steadily diminishing chubbiness. “Which will be hard enough in your case, Pech."

  Sten and the others chuckled. The medic was the first instructor they'd had who'd treated them even vaguely like sentient beings.

  The medic opened a large cabinet and motioned to Sten, who helped him lift out another simulacrum. This one was dressed in a battle suit.

  "In a suit, things are different,” the medic said. “The medpak should already be hooked up inside the suit and work automatically. Sometimes it does.” Another snort of laughter from the medic.

  "But if the suit's holed, all you can do is seal it and get the casualty to a medshelter. You get more on that in suit drill. Now, I need a sucker—I mean a volunteer."

  He glanced around the audience, and his eyes lit on Pech. “Come on up, troop."

  Pech double-timed up to the stand and waited at attention. “Relax, relax. You make me nervous. Okay. This dummy here is your best buddy. You went through training together. You chased...” He pretended to study Pech closely, “...uh—ameboids together. Now his arm has just
been blown off. What are you going to do?"

  The medic stepped back. Pech shifted nervously.

  "Come on, soldier. Your best friend's bleeding to death. Move!"

  Pech took a tentative step forward as the medic pressed the switch concealed in his palm and the simulacrum's arm exploded. “Blood” sprayed across Pech and the stand.

  Pech froze. “Come on, man. Move."

  Pech fumbled for the medpak on his belt and moved closer. More pulsing “blood” dyed his face. Pech undipped the pak's base and took a pressure bandage off.

  "Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven ... forget it, soldier."

  Pech seemed not to hear him and fought to get the bandage in position. Finally, the gout of “blood” stopped.

  "Your friend just died,” the medic said harshly. “Now, on your feet."

  Pech clambered up, numb. The medic stared around at the trainees to make sure they got his point. Then he turned back to Pech.

  "The dye used in that blood won't wear off for two days. Maybe that'll help you think about how you'd feel if that dummy had really been your teammate."

  Pech never did recover from the incident. A few weeks later, after a series of foul-ups, he disappeared. Washed out.

  * * * *

  Sten blinked as the world came back into focus. He and the five other recruits stared at each other blankly. Halstead flipped up the flash visor on his shock helmet.

  "How long were you out?” he asked.

  Sten shrugged. “A second or two, corporal?"

  Halstead held out his watch finger. Two hours had passed. He undipped another of the tiny bester grenades from his pocket.

  "Instant time loss. You don't know what's happened to you, and you don't think anything's gone wrong. These are some of the most effective infiltration weapons you'll use.

  "The company's out on the dexterity courser. Report to Corporal Carruthers."

  Sten saluted and the recruits ran off.

  Sten couldn't get the man out of his mind. There had been nothing unusual about the incident, but for some reason the officer's image kept poking up from his brain at odd moments.

  It had been his day as company runner and he had been dozing at the desk. He didn't hear the door open or close.

  "You the only one here, guardsman?” Sten snapped awake and was on his feet

  The man standing in front of him was tall and slender. Sten blinked and found himself staring at the uniform. Almost imperceptibly, it was changing shade to match the paneled wall background. The man wore a soft hat of the same kind of strange material that Sten later learned was a beret. It was tilted rakishly over one eye.

  A winged dagger was pinned to the beret The only other insignia on the uniform were captain's stars on one shoulder and on the other the black outline of some kind of insect.

  For some reason, Sten found himself stammering. “Uh, yessir—they're—they're all out in the field.” The officer handed Sten a sealed envelope.

  "This is for Sergeant Lanzotta. It's personal, so see it's delivered directly to him."

  "Yessir."

  Then he was gone.

  * * * *

  A week later, Sten got a chance to ask Carruthers who the man was. The corporal whistled when Sten described the uniform.

  "That's Mantis Section!"

  Sten looked at her blankly.

  "You mean you ain't heard?"

  Sten shook his head, feeling like a pioneer-world idiot.

  "They're the nastiest bunch of soldiers in the Imperial Army,” Carruthers said. “Real elite. They work alone—humanoids, ETs. The Empire takes the best the Guard has and then disappears them into the Mercury Corps—Intelligence.” Sten remembered Mahoney and nodded.

  "Anyway. Mantis wears those fancy trop-camouflage uniforms when you see them. Mostly, you don't see ‘em at all and you'd better hope it stays that way."

  "Why is that?"

  "If you see one of those boys in the field you know you're about to be in deep trouble. Any one of ‘em's probably got about two thousand and three of the enemy on his butt."

  Carruthers smiled a rare smile. There was nothing she liked better than war stories. “I remember one time on Altair V. We were down with a regiment on a peacekeeping mission and somehow we'd got outselves surrounded.

  "We were screaming for help on every wavelength we could reach and tryin’ to hang on. We figured the next thing that'd happen is we'd have to die a lot."

  Carruthers laughed. Sten figured that she had just made some kind of a joke and laughed back.

  "So, one night this woman shows up at the command post. A Mantis Section troopie. She'd come through the enemy lines, through our pickets, through the support lines and first thing we know she's sitting down with our CO eating dinner. When she finished, she borrowed some AM2 tubes and bester grenades and disappeared again.

  "I dunno what she did, or how she did it, but about twelve G hours later six Imperial destroyers showed up and bailed our tails out."

  Carruthers glared at Sten, which made him feel a whole lot better. A smiling Carruthers was something he didn't think he wanted to get used to.

  "But that's not the way it usually works,” she told him. “You ever see one of those guys again, troop, you crawl under something. ‘Cause as sure as your tail is where your head ought to be, there's something big and nasty about to come screaming in—you just remember that, hear?"

  Sten heard her real well.

  "You will all learn about the fighting suit,” Lanzotta said. “Chances are, some of you will even die in one. And you will discover, as I did, that the suit will kill you faster than the enemy, more often than not."

  At that point, Sten and the others turned their minds to “doze.” They all thought they had Lanzotta figured now. All of his little lectures were structured the same. First, an introduction. Then—Lanzotta's favorite part—a history lesson. Followed by the informatipn they really needed to know. At which point they snapped awake again.

  "I am particularly fond of this subject,” Lanzotta continued. “In fact, I have made a personal study of the suit. Because it was with this piece of equipment that the technicians reached the absolute height of absurdity."

  Click. Snap. Every recruit mind instantly slipped into a deeper state of unconsciousness. Lanzotta motioned to Halstead, who walked to a terminal and rapped on a few keys. There was a loud clanking and grinding and all the recruits came awake as a long rack of fighting suits ratcheted out into the lecture area.

  Sten looked over the suits, and for once, he didn't have to fake interest. Many of them he recognized from the war feelies. They were huge, armored things shaped vaguely like humanoids. Some had what could pass for arms, but were track-based.

  The first thing he noticed was they all seemed to be graded by size. At the beginning of the rack, they were small and flimsy-looking. From there they got larger and larger and more complex-appearing, until about two-thirds of the way down the line. Then they got smaller again, but with a more durable look about them.

  Lanzotta paced along the line of suits, stopping at the largest one. “Now here, as I can personally attest, is where the Techs really outdid themselves. It was all so logical, you see. To anyone but a guardsman. They made bullets, therefore they made bulletproof vests."

  Lanzotta looked his captive group over, as if anticipating a question. No one was that dumb.

  "Now, I'm not going to explain what a bullet was,” Lanzotta said, “except to say it was a projectile that was capable of creating a hole in you as big as the willygun. In some ways, it was worse."

  The way Lanzotta grinned at that, Sten knew he meant worse.

  "The larger the antipersonnel weapon,” Lanzotta continued, “the more the Techs loaded on the armor. Until, finally, with this suit we could take anything. Lasers, nukes, bugs, null bombs, you name it, we were just about invulnerable."

  Sten was starting to get the drift of what was wrong with the suit.

  "About fifty years
ago, I had the great pleasure of testing this suit in action. Myself and about two thousand comrades in arms."

  Lanzotta laughed. And it was instant tension time for the recruits. Should they laugh? He obviously thought he had made a funny. But Carruthers and Halstead were stony-faced. They didn't think it was funny. Lanzotta ended their agony by not noticing anything and going on.

  "Our orders were to put down a rebellion on a godforsaken planet called Moros. Besides the troops, we were supplied with everything known to modern military science—including the latest fighting suit."

  Sten studied it more closely. It was the largest, non-tracked piece of equipment on the rack. There were tubes and wires, minividscreens, and knobs and bulges everywhere. It looked like it weighed about five hundred kilos and would take a whole battery of Techs to operate.

  "I love this suit,” Lanzotta said. “It can do anything. “It's AM2-powered and pseudomuscled. Anyone inside it would be equal to thirty beings in strength. A small company dressed in these could advance through any kind of fire the enemy threw at them. It's impervious to almost anything and you can live in it for months without outside support."

  Lanzotta shook his head with the wonder of it all. “Of course, no one thought to brief the natives on Moros. They weren't told what brave and fierce warriors we were. They didn't even know the word technology, so what could they think?

  "We landed and they ran into the jungle. We advanced under fire—mostly spears and blowguns—and burned their villages. Then one day they grew tired of running."

  Lanzotta laughed again. But this time, Sten and the others were too caught up with his story to notice.

  "What they discovered was this: Yes, we were big strong soldiers with the firepower of a small tank. But we couldn't maneuver. And we were cut off from our environment. So, they worked out this simple little trick.

  "They dug pits, camouflaged them, and then fled before our advance. Of course, many of us fell in. The pits were lined with nets that tangled us up.” Lanzotta wasn't laughing.

  "And while we were struggling out of the nets, they'd run up to the pit and stick a big long spear through the suit's waste vent. The spear made large holes in the trooper inside.

  "Naturally, the excrement was carried into the body. The wound festered so badly that the medpaks froze up—and many of us rotted to death.” Lanzotta shook his head.