by Jean Johnson
“Tcha . . . that much?” Spyder asked.
Rising, Ia smirked at him. “Yeah. That much. Raising food’s a priority on my homeworld. But if you think my appetite is bad, imagine two hungry, teenaged heavyworlder boys like my brothers are, and think of how much food it takes to keep them fed.”
He blinked. “Swaggin’ ey . . .”
“Exactly. And my older brother is bigger than me.” Nodding to her squad mates, Ia carried her tray to the scullery window. A quick, skimming probe of the waters crossing the timeplains told her she had navigated a good chunk of Arstoll’s antagonism successfully. Having Sung back her up on the duration of boot chevrons helped.
One of the recruits working in the scullery area brushed his fingers against her hand, taking the tray from her. A shock of awareness jolted up through her nerves—fire, pain, explosive cold—
Not now! Jerking back, she dropped her grip on the tray. Silverware tumbled from the unsupported corner as the other recruit tried to keep ahold of the metal. Stooping, Ia snatched the fork and knife out of the air before they could hit the ground. The scullery recruit gave her a wide-eyed look as she straightened and placed the implements back on the tray.
Afraid she had shown him that glimpse of his ugly potential future—which would be difficult to erase from his memory without touching him—she risked probing his mind. That much she could do without needing physical contact.
. . . Nothing. Thank God. He’s just shocked at how fast I moved. She lifted her weight-strapped arm and hand and gave him a weak smile. “Heavyworlder. Fast reflexes.”
He continued to stare at her. “Right.”
Turning away, Ia breathed deeply, letting go of her anxiety with a sigh. For most psis, there were penalties for hiding one’s abilities. Particularly if those abilities included any of the Pathies, telepathy, empathy, or even xenopathy, or any ability which was used to commit a crime. Most assuredly, there were severe penalties if an unregistered psi entered the military. She was registered, but it was hidden under the guise of her “official religion” being the Witan branch of Unigalactanism.
Membership in the Witan Order included automatic psychic training for all of its members, whether or not they had any registerable abilities to begin with—they did so because all Humans had the ability to develop certain sixth senses through effort to a small degree, though one had to be an actual psi genetically to develop anything stronger than their natural gut instincts and such.
Psis who were willing to enter the military were too precious a commodity for most of them to be permitted to stay in the three combat Branches. Because of that, the entire Sixth Cordon of the Special Forces was devoted to psychic abilities and their potential for military application, and attached as auxiliaries to various other groupings in all four Branches. The Space Force insisted on using their abilities to the utmost. At least, according to what the Space Force believed that utmost should be.
The only problem with that was that the Special Forces branch, the SF-SF, didn’t really train their psis to be combat warriors, never mind combat leaders. They were too rare, too valuable, and too wrapped up in cotton wool. What Ia needed to do, she needed to do as a combat leader, with combat experience. More to the point, she needed the experience of using her abilities in battle, so deeply in the thick of it that they became just one more weapon in her arsenal. Not safely wielded from a sheltered distance, as the military would have it done.
I am not a gun, to be aimed and pointed and fired from a safe distance. I am the wielder of the gun . . . and I also need to know how to turn my weapons into fists and knives when the enemy gets too close for guns.
Turning away from the window, she jumped back, startled at how close one of her squad mates had gotten without her noticing. Or would have, if her weight suit hadn’t kept her firmly on the ground. Nodding to Arstoll, she stepped around him. He handed his tray to the scullery staff, then caught her elbow. “Hey. Where did you learn all that stuff about boot chevrons and leadership? I’ve never heard it put quite that way.”
Turning to face him allowed her to subtly free her elbow from his touch. “I might not come from a military background, but I did realize I needed to go into the military. I spent the last three years reading and studying everything I could get my hands on that was related to fighting, tactics, strategy, logistics, motivation, and leadership—from Sun Tzu to War King Kah’el, the battle tactics of Napoleon to the Dlmvla war-poem ‘Room for the Dead.’ If you can set aside what you only think you know about me, you and I just might have a lot more in common than you’d think.”
He planted his hands on his hips. “Or we might have nothing in common at all.”
“Except that we already do, Arstoll. We’re both here, and we’re both not running away.” Nodding politely, Ia headed for the cafeteria counter. That’s the best I can do. The next move is up to him . . . but I think he won’t rock the percentages. If everything goes as I’ve foreseen, he’ll make a few more snide remarks, maybe grumble a bit when he doesn’t get the position of squad leader next . . . and then he’ll probably settle down. She snagged one of the apples from the fruit bin and bit into it, still hungry. If nothing else, Hell Week—assuming I can survive it myself—should settle him down.
Hell Week was her biggest immediate worry. While Ia could see most of the timestreams ahead of her, there were certain points that she just could not see clearly. The images in the waters were blurred, fogged over like a grey mist. Inscrutable. Nerve-wracking. As opaque as the flesh of the half-eaten apple in her hand.
Something would happen during Hell Week, something important. Either she would succeed and be able to move along with confidence, or she would sort of make it through, and have to work hard to regain lost ground. Which would be difficult, but not unattainable. But there was that one worrisome chance of failure. Of washing out of Basic Training.
Of failing the whole damn galaxy.
But that won’t happen. It’s too low a probability. I refuse to fail.
She didn’t have a lot of time to get herself and everything else in place. Getting it right the first time around was her biggest concern.
The sound of the buzzer cut through the chatter in the large cafeteria. Finishing off the apple in three large bites, she tossed the core in the trash and joined her fellow recruits in lining up for the march to their afternoon classes.
CHAPTER 5
People join the military with a skewed idea of what it’s actually like. We get fed images from vidshows and educational programs, but it’s all been sanitized. Sure, certain games will try to imitate as much of the gore and violence as possible—to the point of gratuitous excess—but all those electronic warriors are already trained. Or, if not trained, they can be trained in just a couple of hours, or however long it takes their players to get used to the game interface.
Real military training isn’t sanitized. They don’t leave out the warnings of dire injury, maiming, and death by any means. But people who join the military expect to hear that. It goes in one ear and out the other. They even expect the rigorous physical training. What they aren’t expecting is to be bored half to death by days and weeks of tedious, repetitive lectures and drills.
Unfortunately, it’s necessary. Real combat isn’t a game. You can’t hit the escape code and turn it off. It’d be nice if we could, but we can’t. So the military’s job is to pound as much information into its recruits’ heads as they can hold, and then pound it in even more, just to make sure it’s wedged in tightly enough to stick. Even if most of it is stultifyingly, mind-numbingly boring to endure.
~Ia
MARCH 20, 2490 T.S.
“Congratulations, Class 7157,” First Sergeant Tae drawled, surveying the men and women sitting, kneeling, and standing in an arc in front of him. They had been marched out to a new location this morning, the basic-level firing range. Sunlight angled in from the east, while clouds loomed to the north and west. “You have survived two whole weeks of the most basic, r
aw training. Despite my lingering reservations about the worthiness of most of you, the Marine Corps feels it is now time for you to learn how to shoot.”
Flicking out his baton, the Drill Instructor pointed at the hover sled being guided into position by a buck sergeant. The woman unlocked the chest-like sled and pulled out a black and white, somewhat bulky rifle. Tae accepted it from her. Lifting the rifle, muzzle pointed up, he addressed the patiently waiting recruits.
“This here is the first weapon you will learn how to handle, the 40-MA, affectionately known as the ‘Mama.’ It is a military-grade stunner rifle, and it is designed to knock out most known forms of life via an electrosonic pulse-shock, which disrupts anything with a nervous system capable of responding to electrical and sonic stimuli. These pulses do not normally cause damage to surrounding terrain or buildings, so you will find the Mama is the most-often issued weapon in peacetime conditions.
“The Mama is not a long-range weapon, however.” Lowering the weapon, he grasped a lever near the muzzle and ratcheted it, spiraling open the bulky white tip of the muzzle. Tae swept it slowly around, displaying the silvery interior. “Depending upon the width of the nosecone setting, at its widest, the Mama has an effective field width of 120 degrees, but the strength of the field at that width tapers off to uselessness after only ten meters at most.”
A twist of the lever closed the conelike tip.
“At its narrowest, it has a field width of fifteen degrees and an effective range of just fifty meters. Power settings can be set to knock out a humanoid-sized creature for as little as five minutes, or as long as a full Terran Standard hour. Because of these variations, do not make the mistake of thinking this is a simple weapon to operate. You may be able to point downrange and hit your assigned targets on your very first day, but the 40-MA has eight power settings and eight cone settings, for literally dozens of possible combinations. You will therefore learn how to gauge a situation and its appropriate settings accordingly over the length of your instruction.”
Handing back the weapon, he accepted a thin black, slightly curved box from the buck sergeant.
“The Mama is powered by a standard military energy pack, or e-clip for short. These e-clips are interchangeable with the power packs for the laser rifles.” He accepted another weapon from the sergeant, this one painted in shades of brown camouflage. Lifting the weapon so its muzzle pointed into the sky, Tae displayed it as well. “This is the HK-70, military issue standard-sized laser rifle, also known as the ‘Heck.’ Like the Mama, it is deceptively simple to use. You will encounter several variations later on in your training, but the HK-70 is the one you will first learn to use, and use with great caution. Unlike the Mama, the Heck is a lethal weapon.
“A sustained burn from a Heck rifle can cut through a bulkhead, and its effective range is two kilometers in the SAC—short for Standard Atmospheric Conditions. That means you can still light the wick of a candle from two klicks away, if you can aim it accurately that far—and if you can, expect to be transferred to the Special Forces Sharpshooters division,” he added bluntly. Handing back the laser rifle, Tae once again lifted the e-clip in his hand, displaying it to the waiting recruits. “The standard, interchangeable e-clip can power a Mama for roughly one hundred shots at maximum strength. It can power a Heck for one full Terran Standard minute at its highest setting of two kilocals. However, one kilocalorie per second is the normal operational setting, which will give you up to two minutes of pulsed laser fire, and of course longer in its normal operational capacity of short, carefully aimed bursts.
“Terran technology has managed to achieve a 67.19 percent energy conservation ratio in the HK-70, which is the highest crisp for your calorie you will find in a military-grade weapon this small. However, while you are still training in how to target and fire, you will be issued calorie-restricted weaponry. A full two minute’s burn at ten meters might set a candle on fire . . . but I wouldn’t count on it. The Heck also comes with a long-range scope, but constant use of the scope will drain the energy off your e-clip, so you will learn to target without it as well as with it.”
Handing over the e-clip, he accepted the all-black weapon the supply sergeant dug out of the hover sled’s depths. This weapon, Sgt. Tae made a visible production of checking over, first pointing it down at the ground and pulling back on the bolt lever to check the chamber, then pointing it just as carefully up in the air, never once aiming it at any particular person.
“This is the JL-39, affectionately called the ‘Jelly.’ Outside of your body and your wits—assuming you have any—it is the most versatile personal weapon you will ever use. Crafted from a composite of stainless steel and ceristeel, its gas-compression mechanism reduces the kick when firing even as it uses the force to auto-load the next cartridge, particularly during auto-fire. But it does not reduce the noise. When we get around to learning this one, you will be issued both earplugs and earphones to protect your hearing during practice sessions.
“The Jelly is also the most difficult weapon to learn, despite the fact that it has only two settings, single-shot and auto-fire, and thus is the simplest to operate mechanically of your three new best friends,” Tae reminded them, gesturing at the other two rifles sitting on top of the hover sled beside him. “This is because the Jelly is a projectile weapon.”
Handing it back, he accepted the handful of black boxes the buck sergeant passed to him. Lifting each one, their Drill Instructor displayed the symbols marked on each cartridge’s side.
“The versatility of the Jelly comes from its ammunition. There are thirteen basic types of ammunition which the SF-MC uses. Most of the Jelly’s cartridge clips, or c-clips for short, are preloaded at TUPSF munitions factories. The only kind that is not always found pre-loaded, though you will probably receive pre-loaded clips anyway, is what we like to call standards. The c-clips for standards have no designated markings to indicate their type.
“After that come the shotters, which are filled either with the larger buckshot or the smaller birdshot. These cartridges are modeled after shotgun ammunition and are used in a similar fashion. A laser beam or a standard bullet might hit or miss, depending on distance and aim, but a shotter shell gives you a broad range of attack which is guaranteed to put a serious crimp in the day of anything or anyone that isn’t heavily armored. Shotter cartridges are marked by a scattering of white dots, small ones for birdshot and large ones for buckshot.
“Their biggest advantage is that whatever they hit, it’ll hurt like a son-of-a-slag. Their biggest disadvantage is the SAC drag on each individual pellet, which reduces their effective range somewhat. Not by much, compared to the old shotguns of your ancestors, but enough to make a difference in a real fight.
“The next most common are the tracers, which can be found in any of the c-clip packets, as they are bullets treated with a phosphorescent coating which will flare up and illuminate the ‘trace’ or path of the bullets you are firing. These are usually used for nighttime activities, and the phosphorus bullets are spaced one in every four cartridges. Tracer c-clips are marked with a green diamond on the casing, which may be marked in conjunction with another identification mark for a particular type of ammunition. Once you are ready to start using the Jelly, you will be working with standard c-clips loaded with tracers so that you can see the flight-path of your shots. This means you will see a lot of these green diamonds on your clips.
“After tracers come the screamers, marked with concentric yellow arcs forming a cone shape,” he continued, lifting each c-clip in question, “which whistle at a high-frequency pitch during flight, and are most often used in conjunction with your mechsuits’ echolocation scanners to provide sonar guidance in poor visibility conditions. You will learn to use them after you have learned to use your mechsuits. Taggers, marked with two concentric white circles, fire tracking devices, which can also be used with your mechsuit and other scanner equipment. Tracers, taggers, and screamers are all used for target location and placement purp
oses.
“The next group involves content-based attacks. Trankers are special darts filled with an anesthetic compound that will work on most forms of carbon-based oxygen-breathing life. Their effective range is the shortest of all c-clip ammunition, but they work for distances up to four times the length of the Mama’s range, and their payload knocks their target unconscious for several hours at a time. They are marked with a blue feather. Stunners are like little beanbags crammed into a bullet cartridge; when fired, the cloth bag and its birdshot contents spread out and smacks into the body of your target for a nonlethal and usually non-bloody knockback attack. I repeat, this is a knockback but not a knockout attack. You will recognize them by their blue-dotted rectangle.
“Trankers and stunners are followed by gassers; like the trankers, they deliver a knockout punch to their targets at longer ranges than the Mama can, but instead of a single target dart, they fire capsules which break open and spread out as a cloud, knocking out small groups of targets at a time. Naturally, gassers are marked by the green outline of a cloud.
“The last in this group are gaggers. Like gassers, they break open and deliver a gaseous payload . . . but unlike gassers, gaggers are poisonous and are capable of killing anything in their field of effect, particularly if you lay down enough of them in a small area. If they are used in thin saturation, gaggers will simply make your targets very, very sick. Feel free to question your orders if you are issued gagger c-clips, which are marked by a red X on the cartridge case.
“Splatters are controlled-expansion bullets; when they strike a hard surface, they spread out and stop. When they strike a soft surface, such as living flesh . . . the size of their entry hole is disproportionately small compared to their exit-hole. Unlike standards and shotters, splatters are designed to do as much tissue damage to a single target as possible without endangering too many other targets. Look for the grey mushroom shape on a splatter c-clip.