by Jean Johnson
Neither fire, nor flood, nor storm, not space, not Hellfire nor Damnation, shall stop me from what I will do. And no one, civilian, subordinate, or superior, will stop me from what I must do.
Sergeant Linley checked her stop-watch. “. . . On time. Every last one of you. Amazing.”
“Don’t worry. That will change.” Stepping forward, Tae raised his voice. “Good morning, girls and boys. You are about to endure the single most important challenge of your noncombat military careers. From this point on out, you are hereby given permission to address your superiors with direct language. You will finally get to answer questions in the first person . . . and you will be asked a lot of questions. Remember all that fancy in-class lecture time you’ve been sleeping your sorry, slagging ways through? This week will be your ongoing pop quiz.”
“You will do what we say, when we say it, and how we say it,” the next sergeant called out. The glow of the lights on their poles combined awkwardly with the shades-of-grey of his uniform, making it hard to read the name on his chest patch. “Failure will garner either your entire squad or your entire Class demerit training . . . not just you alone. From this moment forth, you will work as a team.”
“For the next seven days,” the fourth Drill Instructor stated briskly, “you will have the opportunity to back down, to say no more, to quit and walk away from the exercises awaiting your Class. However . . . if you quit at any point in time within the first twenty-four hours of Hell Week, you will be discharged from the Marines . . . and at this point in your training, your entire accumulated pay for the last eight weeks will total a lousy two hundred credits . . . and you will have over four thousand to pay back to the military to cover the cost of feeding, housing, clothing, and training you. Even if you choose to ‘cash out’ at twenty-three hours and fifty-nine point nine minutes Terran Standard into your very first day of Hell Week, you will be thrown out of the Corps, and given a bill for our services!”
“For every hour past that first twenty-four-hour mark,” Tae reminded them, picking up the thread of their lecture, “you will be evaluated on your performance. Your actions, questions, responses, and reactions will be judged by the Department of Innovations, and their evaluations will go on your permanent record. Those of you boys and girls who make it only as far as the second or third day will likely spend the rest of your military career with the ranks of Private, or maybe Corporal, if you shape up and show some strength out in the real military. Those of you who make it as far as day four or day five before calling it quits just might make it to noncom status. The rare few of you, if there are any, who make it to day six . . . you might have a shot at a commissioned career in the Space Force. But I wouldn’t count on it, if I were you.”
“Do not make the mistake of thinking this is a solo race,” Linley called out. “Most of what will be gauged and evaluated will lie within you, this is true, but a true Space Force Marine is not an individual. It is a group of soldiers filled with and fired by the spirit of the Corps. You are not competing against your fellow recruits. You are competing against yourself. Cooperation will get you higher rankings in your DoI evaluations than any contention would, and your teamwork will ensure your survival, both right here in Hell Week, and throughout your military career.”
“Those of you who do want to back out of the rigorous testing of Hell Week need only step out of formation and place both hands on top of your head at any point in time, like this,” the third sergeant called out, demonstrating by placing one hand on top of the other on the crown of his hat, his feet shoulder-width apart in a sort of modified Parade Rest. “If it is past the twenty-four-hour mark, you will remain in the Marine Corps, but do not make the mistake of thinking you will be allowed to sit on your slagging behinds,” the third drill sergeant asserted. “Those of you who step out after the first day will enter an accelerated program of remedial training, both physical and educational, until the end of this week.”
Chong, that’s his name, Ia discovered idly, dabbling her mental toes in the timestreams. He’s a member of the DoI, on permanent assignment to Camp Nallibong. That’s why his uniform is grey, not brown. He’s going to be watching me particularly carefully. I can’t foresee everything that’ll happen in Hell Week because of that damnable fog clouding the timestreams, but I know he’ll be watching me all the way to day three or four, which is when the damned mist in the streams obscures everything from view.
Tae barked at them to drop and give him ten. Ia dropped, kitbag still balanced on her weight suit-covered back, and started counting off the push-ups with the others.
At least I know I make it to the midpoint . . . in most of my probable futures. I just don’t think even day four will be enough to carve out the right streambed for my career.
They raised the wall on her. They literally raised the wall.
Between the incident with Kaimong and the start of Hell Week, Ia’s demerit punishments had been consistently doubled. Not only doubled, but if she wasn’t the only one being punished, she had been expected to do them twice as fast as her fellow sufferers, or garner more physical exercises. But now, from the very start of Hell Week, where every single one of the ten instructors supervising their deployment into the bush did his or her best to find any excuse to complain about Ia’s behavior, appearance, and performance, her punishments were quadrupled. And she didn’t dare complain about any of it.
Her limbs ached and her ears rang from the orders they barked, often changing commands midexecution to create as much chaos as possible. But through all of that, she was able to maintain her temper. Being picked on and singled out, pushed and pulled, tested and tormented, commanded and cajoled, was expected. That was their job; each yell, each demerit, each task was carefully gauged by the sergeants to toughen up the recruits in their care, while at the same time double-checking the approach of each recruit’s breaking point.
The object was to find that breaking point, and to get each recruit to see it coming and step down. Not to smash through it. Knowing all of this, Ia remained as calm as she could manage, whether the sergeants around her were yelling in her face, or sweetly reminding her that if she’d had enough, she could step aside. Phlegmatic was her watchword. Calm was her inner state of being.
Until they raised the damned force field wall.
Hell Week took place in a long stretch of bush running from the uplands down into the flats. It had been crafted like a combination of camping trail and obstacle course, with checkpoint stations of tents and showers, medical personnel, sonic cleaners, and clean water. Each checkpoint base was located far enough from the others that it literally took them hours to reach the next one—longer, if they lagged through the various exercises. But to get to each one, they had to navigate the obstacles in their path. Including leaping over two-meter-high force field walls.
The first time it raised on her, Ia didn’t realize what the pylons were doing. Instead of vaulting over the wall in a curling flip, with her loaded pack on her back and her laser rifle in her hands, she smacked into the wall. Like stunner fire, force fields were based on certain electrostatic principles developed two centuries earlier. Unlike stunner fire, the force fields didn’t stun their subjects. People who ran into them could experience a tingling shock, even some fuzzy numbness should they push up against a particularly strong field. So when she smacked into the wall, she simply bounced back as the field flexed and resisted the force of her weight. It didn’t actually harm her, though it did cause her to stumble and fall.
Caught by surprise, Ia rolled and righted herself. Shaking it off, she focused on the gap between the pylons, marked by the occasional, shimmering spark of energy zapping across the unseen surface. Bemused, she set herself at the wall again—and skidded to a stop the moment she saw the pylons beginning to rise up out of the ground. Scowling, Ia looked over at the next section of wall. The pylons covering her part of the fence couldn’t rise very high without warping the fields connected to either side beyond sustainability . . . but
they remained low enough that the other recruits were able to leap over them.
“What are you doing lagging behind, Recruit?” one of the sergeants barked at her. “You are holding up the line! Get over that wall!”
The way he pointed his baton at the troublesome force field in front of her left no doubt in her mind that if she chose a different path, she’d get in trouble for that, too. Setting her jaw, Ia backed away from the fence line. The pylons slid down. She darted toward the gap, and they shot up. Skidding to a stop, she backed up.
“Have you forgotten how to get over a simple, low force field, Recruit?” the sergeant demanded. “Move along, Q’iang! Use one of the other lanes, since this Recruit feels like she can take her stars-be-damned time!”
Ia ignored both men. Walking slowly up to the force field produced the same effect as running; her proximity, not the speed of her approach, triggered it. However, over the last half meter, the pylons didn’t rise any higher. Annoyed but not defeated, Ia backed up several meters, watching the pylons slide back down. The difference between their highest point and the normal height of the fence was only half a meter at most, but it was enough to present a challenge to her. If it had been a standard wooden or plexcrete wall, she could have “run” partway up the wall to reach the top, or even wrapped her hands around the top edge and pulled herself up, but force fields didn’t work that way. They weren’t quite solid enough to grasp.
They were the modern version of the proverbial greased pig, nearly frictionless and thus nearly impossible to grab hold of and climb. They were ideal for keeping out most intruders. They were also rather aggravating when they were just half a meter taller than usual.
A quick investigation into the timestreams gave her several options, but figuring out which would be the least damaging to her career would take too much time. The sergeant frowned at her as she stood there in thought. He frowned even more as Spyder broke out of the right-hand line. Her fellow recruit flashed Ia a grin and dropped to one knee in front of the middle field, cupping his fingers together.
“Ey, Ia! Choo wanna boost?”
His offer prompted the sergeant to yell at him. “You are not permitted to help this Recruit—drop and give me fifteen, then get back in line! Lackland, Shinukowa, move to the other lines! Recruit Ia, you will stay here and surmount that middle force field! I don’t care if it takes you all day, I don’t care what you have to do, you will get up and over it! Now!”
His phrasing gave her an idea. Glancing up briefly at one of the hovercameras, the one which seemed to be permanently assigned to follow her, Ia looked over at him. “Sergeant, is that your order, Sergeant? Am I to get over this middle force field by any means I deem necessary, Sergeant?”
His baton jabbed at the force field awaiting her. “Yes, that’s an order! Get over that force field now!”
“Sergeant, yes, Sergeant!” Just remember you ordered me to do this, she thought grimly, shrugging out of her backpack. He frowned again, then scowled even harder as she snapped out of her weight suit jacket, jury-rigging it so that it was instead snapped around her pack. She ignored him.
“What are you doing, Recruit? I did not give you permission to set down those weights!”
She didn’t even look at him. Her attention was on the wall, trying to gauge exactly where the top of it would reach once she was close. “Sergeant, I am not setting them down. They haven’t even touched the ground. I’m just redistributing the load for a moment, Sergeant.”
Letting the weight-wrapped bag dangle by its straps from one hand, she ran for the field. At the last moment, as she prepared her leap, Ia swung her kitbag back, up and around, so that the bag sailed up right along with the rest of her, rising along with the field. Her leap, even weighted down as she was, would have been enough to hook one elbow over the top edge, if it hadn’t been a flexible wall of electrostatic force. But there was no well-defined edge to grasp.
There was, however, the wall itself. She snatched at the strap with her left hand just as both the bag and her leap reached their apex, and used the downward swing of the bag to slide and hook her elbows over the fuzzy boundaries of that wall. The jolt of the weighted bag jerking to a halt on the other side combined with the static sting of the force field bending and warping beneath her body, attempting to numb her flesh from ribs to elbows. Static pzzzed and crackled between the two pylons as the force field struggled to accept her weight.
This wasn’t a starship-grade force field, designed to deflect projectile missiles and ward off the damage from micrometeors and other orbital flotsam. It was just a standard security force field fence, designed to hold back wild animals and trespassers. Using the grip of her arms where they curled over the sparking and sagging, invisible fence top, counterbalanced by her bag and its web-work of weights, Ia hitched herself higher.
Her intent was to swing one leg up and over, like straddling the back of some unseen riding animal. The force field had other ideas. Or rather, the pylons. Warped out of sustainable shape, they pzzzted and sparked in thin, lightning-like lines. Just as she got her leg up, boot skittering over the wall of repellant energy, the force field broke and shut off.
Yanking on the bag to make sure she moved forward rather than back, Ia thumped into the ground on the far side, rolling to take some of the impact. Behind her, the field pzzzted again, and flickered back to life, no longer stretched by excessive height, and no longer stressed by excessive weight. Regaining her feet, Ia turned to look back at the sergeant who had ordered her to climb the wall. He was just standing there. Staring at her.
Satisfied he wouldn’t complain—at least immediately—she moved far enough up the trail that she wouldn’t block the next recruit waiting in line to vault over it. Mindful of her orders, Ia unsnapped the jacket from her bag. Shrugging into her pack as soon as she was properly wrapped in the weights, she turned to head forward—and found Sgt. Linley blocking her way.
“You almost destroyed that force field, Recruit. That fence is valuable government property! What was going through your head?” the older woman demanded of her.
Ia met her dark brown glare steadily. Not calmly. Being cheated on like that, blatantly discriminated against in this, her most important phase of Basic Training made her too angry to entirely hold her tongue. But steadily, yes. “Sergeant. If you or any other officer puts an obstacle in my way, and then orders me to overcome it by any means necessary, do not fault me for doing so. Sergeant.”
Stepping around the blinking Regimen Trainer, Ia continued down the trail.
“Are you sure you don’t want to quit?”
“No, Sergeant.”
“Squat!”
Ia squatted.
“You know you can quit.”
“I know, Sergeant.”
“Feet!—Push-up!”
“It’s okay, nobody’s going to fault you if you quit.”
Ia rose halfway onto her feet, then dropped onto fingers and toes, following the commands she and her fellow recruits were being given. Her attention was mostly on Sergeant Linley, who was shouting orders for various positions and regimen exercises. But it was hard to hear her, thanks to Sergeant Takna, who was being overly helpful. To the point of being obnoxious.
“Bellies up!”
Ia flipped onto her back.
“You’ve already survived over two days,” Takna reminded her, stepping over her as Ia followed the next order to roll left. The sergeant’s voice rose loud enough, it threatened to drown out Linley’s commands. “You’ve got a good, solid career track already laid! You don’t want to jeopardize that!”
Ia struggled to hear the next position command, but couldn’t. She reacted instead to the movements of the front-most squad, who were scrambling to their feet. Dipping onto the timeplains wasn’t feasible anymore. She was now within that grey fog inside her mind, like a heavy mist obscuring the little valley her own timestream occupied. Too many possibilities, too many complications, not enough strength to penetrate the mist.
She tried doing jumping jacks, following orders, but Takna was being overly helpful by standing right by her side. “I think you would be perfect in the motor pool. Why, with those reflexes, you could easily make a great career for yourself as a shuttle pilot!”
“Sit-ups!” Linley ordered.
Ia was slow in getting down into position, because Takna was now behind her.
“Just think of it—Yeoman First Class Ia!”
“Feet! Parade Rest!” Linley snapped. Ia gave up trying to get down fully and pushed herself back up again.
“Oh, that has the most lovely ring to it!”
Ia shuddered. Not because it was outside the career path she needed to take—which it was—but because the sound of a Marine Corps sergeant gushing with enthusiasm offended her. In the next moment, she shuddered again, grunting under the impact of Sergeant Takna wrapping her arms around Ia’s chest in a hug.