by Jean Johnson
“For these combined offenses to the Terran United Planets Space Force and its Marine Corps, Recruit Kaimong is sentenced to five years imprisonment in the domeworld military penal colony of Sestus, in orbit around Proxima Gamma, deportation to take place upon recovery from the implementation of his assigned corporal punishment. This verdict was sustained and sealed by military tribunal at fifteen thirty-seven yesterday, local time Terran Standard. The sentence of a combined total of eleven strokes of the cane shall be carried out immediately, and carried out before the assembled Classes of Camp Nallibong, as an instructional reminder to all.
“The Terran United Planets Space Force will maintain discipline, and its soldiers, enlisted or officer, will abide by its rules, regulations, and laws.”
Snapping the lid of his wrist unit shut, General Tackett turned and strode to the side, moving far enough that everyone would be able to see. The caner had extracted his implement, which the woman at his side scanned. The doctor then stepped up and scanned Kaimong, who started struggling again. She nodded and stepped back, her voice projecting through the presentation screen speakers as the general’s had.
“The prisoner’s health is in a condition suitable to receive punishment,” she stated crisply, firmly.
“No!—No, I’m not!” Kaimong called out, his tone rising with increasing alarm. Compared to her, his voice was weak, but then it wasn’t being projected, either. The twin screens showed a close-up of his body writhing on the frame as he tried to free himself. “I’m not in any condition for this! No!”
“. . . All witnesses shall abide in respectful silence for the duration of the caning. Sergeant, are you ready?”
“Sir! I am ready, sir!”
“Is the prisoner ready?”
“Sir! The prisoner is ready, sir!”
“Administer stroke one, Sergeant,” she directed. Her brow furrowed and her mouth tightened, the signs of her distress enlarged and duplicated on the twin viewing screens, but the lieutenant did not rescind her order.
Stepping up, the sergeant raised the cane in both hands, gripping it at an angle across his chest. Muscles tensing, he drew in a deep breath, and swung. Knocking Ia deep into the waters ahead.
. . . Pain cracked across her back. Her buttocks were already a searing fire that made her legs shake with the strain of staying firmly in place. Arms crossed, braced on the padded board, she endured the twenty-seventh blow, one made all the more painful by the way her upper body lacked the natural padding found below. She didn’t dare bite her tongue, for fear of biting through it, but she could and did bite the sleeve of her shirt, hiding the urge to scream with each agonizing, slow-paced blow . . .
A chill up the back of her neck was her only warning—a welcome one, since it yanked her out of that all-too-vivid future possibility. Moving on sheer instinct, Ia stepped forward one pace, then to her side, moving in front of Mendez. A moment later, Casey doubled over onto the grass behind her, breaking his place in the B Squad line with the need to heave up the remnants of his breakfast. Right on the very spot she had just vacated.
He wasn’t the only one rendered physically ill from witnessing Kaimong’s punishment. Ia herself struggled with the fear, adrenaline, and stress churning in her stomach. The thick, muggy heat of the morning added to her distress, for there wasn’t any breeze to clear the accompanying stench from the air.
The doctor finished counting out the strokes and the sergeant finished administering them, ignoring the prisoner’s yelp at each blow. Stepping up to Kaimong, the lieutenant scanned him. Once again, the hovercameras focused in on her face, this time looking paler than before, and rather grim.
“General, the court-ordered eleven strokes have been administered. The prisoner has received several contusions and two minor lacerations. Damage is minimal, sir. Recovery time should be optimal,” she reported.
“Good. Transport Prisoner Kaimong to the Camp stockade medical bay and monitor his recovery, Lieutenant, Sergeants.” Moving back to center stage, General Tackett recaptured the attention of most of the recruits on the parade ground. “As vicious as this display of corporal punishment may have been, the rest of you must remember, he attacked some of you with the very same potentially lethal, and actually lethal, weapons you are being trained to use on our enemies . . . and to use only under the lawful orders of your superiors.
“He attacked one of you with a JL-39 loaded with High Explosive cartridges—not just a lethal weapon, but a viciously lethal weapon. Those cartridges are meant to be used in extreme circumstances, and are normally used against terrain and other nonliving obstacles. Not against his fellow soldiers. Former Recruit Kaimong blatantly attempted to kill one of his fellow recruits,” the general stressed. “The overall punishments assigned by yesterday’s tribunal were rather lenient in the face of that singular fact, for it is the grave responsibility of the Space Force to assign corporal and penal punishments to those who break the laws, rules, and regulations of this military body.
“It is also the solemn responsibility of the Space Force to notice and reward meritorious effort of courage and skill which are enacted within this military body. Recruit Ia, Nallibong Class 7157, front and center.”
Ia strode down the narrow gap between Class rows. She wasn’t the only person who had hastily moved out of the way of their fellow recruits; thankfully, the others cleared a path for her so she could reach the nearest aisle without stepping in anything awkward. Heading for the platform, Ia mounted the steps on the side and crossed it. She carefully kept her gaze on the Camp commander, not on the discipline frame, which was being lowered back into its storage hatch.
Now was not the time to let some future possibility drag her beneath the waters lurking in her mind.
Stopping a meter away, she saluted him. “Sir.”
He saluted back. Lowering his arm, he tucked it into the pocket of his dress uniform. “Recruit Ia, in the face of an unexpected attack by a presumed comrade, you displayed remarkable calm, clarity of thought, and levelheadedness. Furthermore, you assisted in implementing the location and capture of the fugitive Recruit Kaimong. You did so despite the blatant risk to your personal safety, you did so unflinchingly in the face of clearly superior firepower, and you did so with less than sixteen days’ worth of training. You did so by displaying levels of comprehension and skill worthy of someone with five times your current level of training.
“It is therefore my responsibility as the commanding officer of this base to acknowledge your outstanding efforts of courage, ability, and devotion to the principles and duties of a Space Force Marine throughout yesterday’s incident. In witness whereof, and with the concurrence of my fellow officers and instructors here at Camp Nallibong, I award Recruit Ia with the Honor Cross, in recognition of your outstanding acts of honor and service.”
Withdrawing a small box from his pocket, he opened the lid and presented its contents to her. The small bronze medal itself wasn’t much, just an equal-armed cross etched with her name and the Terran Standard date for the incident with Kaimong, wrapped in a circle with the words “Honor Cross” stamped around its rim. It hung on a short ribbon striped in shades of white and green, and came with a matching ribbon-bar, also pinned to the velvet-lined interior.
Her classes so far had glossed over honors and decorations; there were too many other things to learn first. Still, thanks to her foreknowledge, Ia knew the actual medal was meant for special occasions, such as wearing her full Dress Blacks like the general currently wore, while the ribbon-bar was for “casual” use, for those occasions when she was in any uniform requiring a jacket or a dress shirt, such as her Dress Browns. She also knew it would be highly inappropriate to wear either pin throughout most of her Basic Training.
“General, thank you, sir,” Ia told him, accepting the box and its contents. She closed the lid, clasped the hand he offered . . . and tried not to shudder at the glimpses she got of his future. They weren’t horrible images, just unwanted ones. Parting hands, she sal
uted him.
He saluted back. “Return to your Class, Recruit. Keep up the good work—but let’s hope it won’t be needed again while you’re still in training.”
“Sir, yes, sir.” Turning around, she tucked the box into her pocket and strode off the stage. One unexpected step closer to her goal, but still left with too many more to go.
CHAPTER 7
Hell Week. You want to know about Hell Week? My Hell Week?
Hell Week . . . is a foundry. Recruits are the raw ore which the Space Force scraped out of the ground in the first few weeks of Basic Training, washed and sorted out, and dumped into the crucible. Hell Week is all about turning on the heat, turning it up, and up, and up, and burning away all lies and façades. Hell Week is what makes the Department of Innovations, and the Field Commissions, and the promotions based on merit actually work in the Space Force.
Hell Week is giving everything you thought you had and then everything you didn’t even know you had, until you are broken and bleeding and lying in the dust . . . and then seeing if you can give ten times more.
~Ia
MAY 10, 2490 T.S.
Ia woke to the glare of lights and the banging of a baton on the metal rails of the bunk beds lining the barracks. Disoriented, she squinted and rubbed at her eyes, taking a precious moment to dip her senses into the timestreams. What she found made her grimace. Damn . . . they’re starting Hell Week a day early. I thought there was only a thirty-two percent chance of that . . .
“Rise and shine, Class 7157!” Sgt. Tae called out in an unnervingly cheerful tone. “Rise and shine!” Displaying far too many teeth, he smacked his baton against the top bunk rails and poked his head over the lower bunks, grinning at the men and women trying to wake up at the unexpectedly early hour. “Guess what, Class 7157? Today is the day we start separating the adults from the little kids!
“That’s right, this is Hell Week, and your actions and endurances over the next seven days will determine a large chunk of how far you rise in rank, and how much you will get in pay grade! The Department of Innovations is always watching, and this week—this week, they have their eyes on you!”
Bang whack clang!
“Wake up! You will dress in your full camouflage Browns from brims to boots, jackets to caps, you will pack a second change of camies and three of undies, and then you will shoulder your packs and get outside on the line, every last one of you little boys and girls, or you will all have one hundred pushups and one hundred sit-ups to pay for wasting my time! Move it! You have eight minutes to shakk ‘n shave—but not you, Recruit Ia,” Tae added, poking his baton at Ia as she slipped out of her bunk. “You have five. Weight up and move out!”
“Sergeant, yes, Sergeant!” Ia snapped back. When he didn’t move out of her way, allowing her access to the latrines, she dropped onto her bunk and rolled out the far side in a single smooth move. Hurrying past the others, she tapped one of the C Squad members on the shoulder, and darted past the other woman, slipping into the latrine stall.
“Hey! You’re not the only one who has to shova v’shakk!”
“Yeah, well, just wait twenty seconds, then you can blow it out yer rear!” Kumanei called out from somewhere further back in the quickly forming lines for the latrines.
Inside the stall, Ia bit her lip to keep from laughing. It really wasn’t a laughing matter; Hell Week was a frightening blank spot on the timeplains for her . . . but the way the woman from Tokyo Underside stood up for her was too amusing, and too encouraging, not to enjoy. Hurrying out again, she rushed through her morning routine, washing her hands and splashing water on her face, then raced back to her bunk.
“Move it, move it, move it, meioas!” Arstoll called out, voice piercing through the din of forty-four bodies rushing to get ready. “This is Hell Week! There is no slacking in Hell Week! There is no second chance in Hell Week! You want a great pay grade? You wanna be an officer? Move it, move it, move it!”
In the span of time it took him to say that, Ia had managed to shuck her nightclothes and don most of her camie uniform. She bent over to lace up her boots and snap on their weights—and broke a bootlace. Dammit . . . that’s going to take me a minute I don’t have to re-lace it! A furtive glance to either side showed the others scrambling to pack their gear. I’ll have to risk it.
Reaching into her locker, Ia pulled out one of her spare packs of laces, ripped it open, and dropped one of the coils on the plexcrete floor. Stuffing the other back into its place in the inner drawer, she paused, then took it back out and dropped it on the floor as well. If one lace broke, the other was liable to break as well, so she might as well replace it. Even as it landed on top of the first, Ia pulled out her kitbag and the indicated clothes with her hands, though only part of her attention stayed with the task of packing the bag. The other half of her mind focused inward, down, and out. Not for a journey onto the timeplains, but to use one of her other gifts.
A shift allowed her to hide the fronts of her boots between the shelter of the partially open locker door and the edge of the bed. Her hands packed, and her mind worked, pulling the laces out of their holes, slithering the ends free. Concentrating on both feet simultaneously wasn’t easy. Recruit Sung jumped up onto the far edge of Ia’s bunk, using the extra height to tidy her own bedding. Out of habit, Ia reached up to help the other woman. At least the task of pulling the covers straight was a familiar, easy one, though she almost missed getting the last bit of lacing free before slithering the next set into place.
“I can get it. You need to move,” Sung warned her.
“I got it covered,” Ia muttered, smoothing the blanket and sheet into place. There was no point in fixing her own bed until her weights were on, which were currently underneath the bottom bunk, tucked into the only spot available for storage.
Sung dropped to the floor as soon as her pillow was settled and reached under Ia’s bunk. “Then I’ll pull out your—ungh—stupid weight suit. What’s the point of you still wearing this thing, anyway?”
Her boots were now half-laced, with the tops of her feet and fronts of her shins feeling a little weird from the fast weaving of the corded laces through their holes. Thankfully, the noises of the others hid the rasping sounds the lacings made as they slithered into place. Ia shook her head. “Just leave it under the bed, you’ll never get it out in time.”
ZeeZee slapped Ia on the shoulder, startling her. She hadn’t heard him approach. “You heard Sergeant Tae! All of us get out there on time, or we all do two hundred demerits. You make up her bunk, Sung; I’ll drag out the load.”
There! That’s good enough to bend over and finish tightening them. Stepping back to give ZeeZee room, she scooped up the worn segments of the old laces and tossed them back into her locker to be recycled later, then bent over, tightened, and knotted the new ones in place. No sooner did she finish one boot than ZeeZee was there with the spat-like foot weights, ready to buckle it in place. He helped lift her weight suit pants into position as soon as her other boot was finished, snapping his way down the left leg while she caught the right. And by the time he was working on the left fitted sleeve of the tiled, web-like jacket, Sung had come over and batted Ia’s hands away from the snaps so she could fastened the right one.
Slapping her on her tile-covered back, Sung nodded. “You’re on your own, soldier.”
“Wrong,” Arstoll corrected her, hefting Sung’s bag on the far side of the double bunks. “You are never on your own when you’re in the Marines. Eyah?” he called out, twisting to look at the others.
“Hoo-rah!” several of the nearest recruits called back, some looking up from packing their own bags, others with their eyes still on their tasks.
“I said, you are never on your own,” Arstoll called out, raising his voice once again, “when you are in the Marines! Eyah?”
“Hoo-rah!” This time, the response came from all the recruits in the bunkhouse, though some of the voices echoed out of the latrine area.
The grin Arstol
l gave Ia was matched by a smile of her own. Shrugging her packed bag onto her shoulders, Ia settled her broad-brimmed hat over her weight-strapped head. “Keep that up, and you just might make officer yet.”
“If we can get through Hell Week,” he muttered. “Look, I may be racing you to see which of us can outlast the other . . . but only on an even start. Gimme your canteen. This one’s full.”
Grateful for his help, Ia nodded and swapped her empty bottle for his full one. Giving her bunk and locker a quick look to make sure everything was in order, Ia slammed the door shut and hustled outside. Sergeant Tae and Sergeant Linley waited on the far side of the exercise lawn, along with eight more drill and regimen instructors. Plus four hovercams humming quietly overhead. Twice as many as before.
Ia knew they would be watching her and her fellow recruits as much to guard against signs of severe injury and illness as to watch for the caliber of the Marine-wannabes in Class 7157. Caliber which would be revealed as Hell Week stripped away all of their bravado and false self-confidence. Trepidation twisted in her stomach.
It wasn’t a fear of how far she would get before hitting the wall, that as-yet undefined point where her skills and her body just didn’t want to give any more. Ia knew everyone hit that wall at some point during Hell Week, some earlier than others. Knowing that mental preparation was as important as physical, she hunted down and pinpointed her fear while the others scrambled out of their barracks in clumps of threes and fours, falling in around her on the lines of brickwork laid in the grass.
I fear not my own failure, nor any self-acknowledgment of failure, she thought, but the military’s admission of my failure. I don’t dare let myself fail. I won’t fail. I cannot fail, because I will go mad if I do. My failing is not an option . . . and is therefore not a problem. It was a strange sort of reverse psychology, but she dug into it and did her best to draw strength from it. I fear the Marines declaring me a failure, whether or not I actually am one. I will not try to win through Hell Week. I will win through Hell Week.