And this was just one battleship…
I walked away with my mind whirling. Perhaps I shouldn’t have thought about the logistics of war at all—the lives sacrificed, the cost of it all—and just focused on my part of the war effort. We all had to do our bit, every last one of us. The geckos had to be stopped for mankind to flourish.
“Hey, Taylor’s looking for you,” someone said. I blinked, looked up. A marine was standing there, one I recognised from Taylor’s team.
“Huh?” I asked, blankly.
“Taylor—he’s looking for you.”
“Why is he looking for me?” I asked, instantly suspicious. Was Taylor planning the same for me as I was for him? After all, I was as big a thorn in his side as he was in mine. If I were dead, things would go a lot smoother for him.
“How should I know?” the marine shot back. “He just said he would be in the shower block for a few hours and if I see you to mention it. Don’t go for all I care—you two need to sort your shit. You’re marines, dammit, not children. Either kiss and make up or punch the shit out of each other and move on.”
“Thanks for the tip,” I said, but the marine was too pissed off to stop and chat, and had already disappeared down another corridor.
So… Taylor wanted to ‘talk’. I suspected a trap, but I would go and see him because what other choice did I have?
And if he wanted to take a shot at me… All the more reason to kill him. It would be self defence.
I was pumped. I was daunted. Excited and terrified, all at once.
I had planned this to be a surprise, but Taylor was forcing me to play my hand. Fine. I could deal with that. I had grown stronger and stronger, and my time in the infirmary had made me more powerful still. I could kill Taylor in a fight if I needed to. I could throttle him. I knew what it was like to be strangled, but how joyous would it be to be on the other side? How wonderful, to see his eyes bulging, feel his throat struggling like a dying fish, to squeeze tighter and tighter…
I almost ran to the shower block. I was giddy with excitement. To think that my moment of revenge had arrived was too much to contain. I was grinning.
The shower block was near the main training grounds. We only used them occasionally: usually because the entire training team was covered in something gross and we had a parade to prepare for, double-smart. Most of the time they sat idle, and now was no different. It was a dark, cavernous place that was always warm and damp. Steam hung in the air and water vapour covered everything. There were puddles everywhere, and the place smelled of bleach.
I could hear noises. Taylor—I must have been too early for him. He wasn’t ready for me. I could hear grunting and groaning, something slapping like wet leather.
Taylor was setting a trap for me.
I slowed, ever cautious. I didn’t need to be a fool. Whatever trap he was preparing I could use against him.
He was working hard. He must have been lifting something heavy.
I tensed, crept deeper into the showers. There was an alcove just in front. Taylor must be there, hiding in wait. There was more steam here. It was so hot that it was oppressive.
I heard a cry—not Taylor. A feminine cry. With a start I realised it was Beth. Horror ran down my spine as Taylor’s plan unravelled before me.
Taylor’s revenge wasn’t to kill me—it was to kill Beth. She had rejected him—and if he couldn’t have her, no-one could.
“Beth!” I shouted, and I ran towards the alcove.
I could see their shadows against the wall. They were struggling, their bodies entwined.
I rounded the corner and the truth hit me like a sledgehammer.
There was Taylor. There was Beth. They were both naked, both covered in sweat. They were entwined.
They weren’t fighting.
“Beth…” my voice was small, mouse-like. Taylor saw me and grinned like a crazy person. He started laughing, started pushing against Beth’s back even harder. Beth didn’t even look at me. She didn’t even care that I was watching her.
“Beth…” all thoughts of murder left me. I was stunned. I turned and ran—as fast as I could, as far as I could.
Taylor’s mocking laughter filled my ears, as did the sound of their love-making: like the universe clapping at me, celebrating my destruction.
Celebrating my torture.
SEVENTEEN
I must have gone insane. I certainly have no memory of the next few days. I didn’t turn up for training. I didn’t turn up for meals. I don’t even know if I slept.
Wilson found me staring at a wall.
“Hey, they have been looking all over for you,” he said. He didn’t elaborate on who they were. I could only imagine it was Taylor and Beth wanting to laugh at me. They would have told everyone. I was a fool. A laughing stock. Wilson just shook his head. He looked sad.
“Thought you might have spaced yourself.”
Spaced: that was a term for recruits that step out an open airlock. It happened so often that they no longer bothered with airlock alarms—the desperate would just find a way, and it was safer for everybody else if they could space themselves without risking the rest of the battleship.
“No,” I said, my voice like death. Wilson waited for me to say more, and when I didn’t he just shook his head.
“You want me to call someone? A steward? A medic?”
“No.” I had recovered somewhat by now. My voice had more life in it. Just. I must have warmed enough to appease Wilson as he nodded in acceptance.
“Okay. Harrod and I have been covering for you, but we can’t bullshit them forever. You’re a marine: snap out of your funk and get back to it. We’ll be called up soon. We need you.”
“Right,” I said. “You can count on me,” I managed to add, and it didn’t even sound like much of a lie. “I’ll be there. And Wilson…”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you,” I said. Perhaps I even meant it. Wilson smiled, abashed, and then we parted ways.
My mind was still broken, but at least I had direction now. Wilson’s words had spurred me on—perhaps not in the way my friend had intended.
I moved slowly, almost in a trance. My brain was still mulling over the details, such that they were.
It was the walking wounded that made up my mind. How could they go through so many missions without a single dead marine, but so many casualties? It wasn’t possible: someone must have been killed over there. And if nobody had died from the station yet… Well, there was always a first, wasn’t there?
Yes, I decided. Taylor would finally die.
There would be no more surprises. What else could he do to me that he hadn’t already done? He had taken the girl I loved and turned her memory into a burning shame of anger and hate.
I still had the stolen clip of live energy bullets in my locker. The plan was a simple one: when we were called to take part in the raid on board the space station, I would swap my blanks with live ammunition. Didn’t the drill sergeant tell us we would never train with live ammunition again? Taylor would be defenceless.
All I would have to do is discard the clip so they never found it—if they even bothered looking.
Nobody would ever know.
My hands started sweating at the thought of it all. I could feel my finger squeezing the trigger. It was so real that it might as well have been a memory, not a vision.
With renewed purpose came renewed enthusiasm. Now I was itching to get back into training. I was letting my muscles go to waste. Worse: my mind was failing when it should have been crystal clear.
But first, I needed rest.
I headed back to our quarters. I couldn’t even remember if it was my time to bunk down or not, but all of a sudden I was too tired to care.
I climbed the ladder to my bunk and scanned my wrist to open it. The bunk’s door opened.
My bunk mate was lying there. She was dead.
Claw marks covered her face,
her chest—pretty much everything. The claw marks were huge—she looked as though an ancient broad-sword had cut her open. Her eyes stared at nothing and then her head fell sideways just enough for her body to tumble onto the deck below.
Blood and other body fluids were all that remained.
I was too tired to care. I climbed into my bunk and shut the locker. The coffin-shaped cubicle stank of death. I shut my eyes and hoped for sleep.
No sooner had I rested my head when a message came over the loud-speaker.
“Theta team, prepare to engage… Theta team, prepare to engage…”
It was go time.
EIGHTEEN
It was time for vengeance.
“Theta team, prepare to engage,” the loud-speaker repeated.
I hurriedly opened my locker, grabbed the energy clip and shoved it into my pants. Nobody had even moved the corpse than had fallen from my bunk. It was almost comical, the way everybody just ignored it. The body was someone else’s problem. It certainly wasn’t mine. I hurried to the main hanger.
Theta team—fifty marines, all from different training units. We were a half-century of men and women. In the war, we would be combined with another unit to make a full century of combat personnel, but this was training: we needed a guiding hand, which meant less men to command.
I was one of the last to reach the hanger. We were lined up in two rows of twenty-five. I took my spot at the end.
Harrod was standing opposite me and gave me an annoyed glance, as though I had let him down. Wilson was further down the line. He turned and smiled at me, joyed that I had clearly taken our chat to heart.
All I could think of were the bullets in my pants. I couldn’t bring myself to look for Taylor, although I knew he would be there. He was probably making a face in my direction, happy that he had broken me.
Not broken… Rebuilt! I smiled at the thought.
The drill sergeant arrived and stared us down. He walked down the corridor our two lines had formed without saying a word. He lingered on each and every one of us. I felt as though he spent a longer time looking me up and down, trying to judge if I were fit enough for the mission. He didn’t say anything, just continued down the line.
Next came the stewards: a half dozen of them. They pushed three carts of assault rifles between them. The weapons were scuffed, scratched, well-used. Some had blood on them. The drill sergeant waited as the stewards loaded the carts onto the drop ship, then he barked his order: “Load up!”
We filed into the drop-ship—an ugly transport carrier with no care or attention afforded to styling or comfort. It existed purely to drop marines from one place to another.
There were four rows of seats; each line split in two so marines faced each other up and down the centre of the cabin. The stewards took a place on either end.
“Everybody, take your assigned weapon when it is handed to you. Take note of the number on that weapon: we want them back,” the drill sergeant said. The stewards worked wordlessly, handing out guns and ammo clips to all of us. There was nowhere to stow the rifle, we just had to cradle them in our laps.
“Make sure your guns are loaded,” the drill sergeant continued. “If you shoot the marine sitting next to you… Well, just make sure it is a clean shot or he might shoot you back. Respect your weapon at all times. Respect your fellow marines at all times. Today you will have blank ammunition, but tomorrow you will be marines and every energy clip you handle will be lethal. Do not kill your squad-mates by being clumsy. Now buckle up and prepare for the ride.”
We loaded our guns. I was acutely aware that my assault rifle was the only one that was loaded with live ammunition.
I could see the back of Taylor’s head in the row opposite me. I could see Beth, too. I hadn’t realised she would be assigned to our team.
We locked eyes and I turned away. The hatred in her face was too painful to bear. I flushed red at the thought of it, but then the weight of my rifle gave me calm.
Soon, Taylor would be dead. With him out of the way I could sort things out with Beth. With him out of the way, I would be whole again.
“Prepare to launch!” the drill sergeant said, and he reached up to hold onto one of the handles that dangled from the roof. “Launch!”
The engines fired up, started to roar. The drop-ship began to vibrate violently. The marine recruits looked at each other, some nervous some grinning like idiots.
It occurred to me that this was the first time we had left the Devastator since we had boarded. It was almost a vacation.
The drop-ship left the hanger. We passed through the gravity containment field and we started floating. There was always one that couldn’t follow instructions: a marine drifted from his seat, headed towards the roof.
“Pull him down,” the drill sergeant ordered. “And belt up—anyone that messes around again will be on triple garbage detail. We’re not messing around here: you’re marines. Act like it.”
The marine was pulled back to his seat, suitably chastised.
I pulled my attention from him, focused on Taylor and Beth. Beth looked uncomfortable, her perfect skin more pale than usual. I could only see that back of Taylor’s head, but I hoped he was just as uncomfortable. Knowing him, he was probably enjoying himself.
One of the marines moaned, and others joined him. The deep cold of space came through the hull of the drop-ship, and it was cold. I started shivering. I had never felt anything like it: it was like having my soul sucked out through my back. The drill sergeant was just laughing, clearly enjoying himself. The stewards were trying to make light of the situation, too, but they couldn’t pull it off—they just looked like bullies that were too stupid to understand what was going on.
I gritted my teeth. I could take it.
“How much longer?” Wilson moaned.
The universe must have heard him: the engines started to whine and we could feel the drop-ship slow down. A minute later and gravity returned. We groaned again: the gravity was a lot lighter than it was on a battleship. It felt unnatural.
Another monstrous roar and then the ship shook as we hit the deck. The drill sergeant stopped laughing.
“Move out!”
NINETEEN
We unloaded in the reverse order to how we boarded. I was one of the first out of the drop-ship. I paused when I saw the hanger before me.
The first thing that got my attention was the cloud of blood that floated near the ceiling. With the reduced gravity, the blood just floated there like a deep red storm cloud.
“You get used to it,” one of the stewards said, in a rare moment of candour. His face, however, betrayed the lie: he had gone pale, his eyes turned as big as saucers. Could you ever get over seeing such a thing? That blood had been inside people—marines like me. What were we training for that could spill so much?
The blood was the first thing I noticed; the wounded were the second.
They were lined up, eager and waiting to get back onto the drop-ship, get the hell off this asteroid. It didn’t look like there was a single marine waiting in the hanger that wasn’t injured. Worse, they were impatient to get onto the ship and off the station—to the point that discipline was breaking down and the stewards had to get involved, pushing the wounded out of the way so that we could get off the ship first.
“What the hell have we gotten involved with?” Wilson muttered into my ear as a marine missing an arm charged at speed and then bounced off the bigger man’s armour. The soldier didn’t look like a marine anymore. He looked like a refugee.
“What is this place?”
“Move out, soldier!” a steward barked, stifling the conversation before dissent could kick in. Wilson just shrugged and we marched away from the drop-ship to where another pair of stewards were waiting. It was more ordered here, but the clutter of the station was clear to see.
There were mining machines stacked in the far corner. There was no order: the machines looked like junk. Diggers a
nd loaders were thrown in a heap, cordoned off by black and yellow tape. Scorch marks were everywhere, black scars on the metal of the hanger. The bare rock of the asteroid showed through in places, red and grey and brown. There was dust in the air and on the ground. There was oil, too. The light was harsh, almost painful. There was nothing on display that indicated an appeal to comfort. Even the drop-ship had better accommodation than this asteroid station, and that had been the most uncomfortable ride of my life.
“Looks real,” Harrod said.
“Isn’t it?” I wondered. The wounded marines certainly looked real—I recognised some of them, and you couldn’t fake this kind of misery. These marines had suffered. We would suffer.
“Why not give us live rounds?” Wilson moaned. “Why let us get hurt like this?”
“It builds character.” That was Taylor. He was laughing, cocky as all hell. I glared at him, lusted for the live bullets in my gun.
“You hungry or something?” Taylor shot at me. “You’re licking your lips.”
“Just thinking,” was all I said to him. “Nothing to do with you.”
Beth stood a little away from us, not part of the group but not part of any other. Even though we stood in lines, there were clear breaks as friends stood with friends. The stewards weren’t enforcing much discipline. It was all they could do to make sure everyone was leaving the drop-ship and nobody lingered behind.
“The stewards look even more scared than the recruits,” Wilson said with a forced chuckle. Harrod nodded, his face more pale than usual.
“Maybe that’s because they know what’s in here? It must be geckos, right? What else could it be?”
“Could be my dad,” Wilson said, forced out another laugh. “He always threatened to rip my arm off if I didn’t do what he said.”
“I’m serious!” Harrod snapped. “What the hell is down here?”
“We’ll find out soon enough,” I said, still glaring at Taylor. In my head, the thought ran round and round: Death. Death is what’s down here.
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