*****
The wall-clock indicated that it was already quite late in the morning. Or at least late for the army, or for the farm, or for any other place where people might be expected to put in solid working hours.
But it happened to be a Sunday, and it also happened to be the first day the SIC’s sole platoon had gotten off in over a month, and all were currently dedicating themselves to lying on their beds in slumber. The violent femmes were nowhere to be seen, and were probably dedicating their morning to similar pursuits in their own casern.
The blackout boards had already been rudely pulled out of their fixtures from the high windows; yet another of Mason’s many fervent contributions to the platoon’s general mood. The bastard was a consummate morning person, and had apparently objected to his charges’ intention to remain indoors until lunchtime. No one had found the nerve to protest as he yanked the boards out, flooding the darkened compartment with painfully bright sunlight, everyone knowing all too well that the less they argued, the faster he would leave, and the faster some brave cadet might rise to the occasion and blanket the windows.
Toni wasn’t going to play the part. It wasn’t that he was afraid of Mason. His body simply ached too much for the effort it required.
They had gotten a brutal working over in the sims yesterday, their Lieutenant having tweaked the feedback interface so that all quicker movements required an unusual amount of physical exertion to induce the simulator to respond. The exercise objective had been to discover how to moderate one’s movements so as to reduce compressed air consumption. Smooth motion, extended range. That had been the maxim of the day. It had taken a while for them to get used to the change, but in the end it had been unavoidable, since it had been only a matter of time before their sapped limbs finally gave up fighting, slowing down to economize all by themselves.
At the exercise’s terminus, they had each received a final report displaying the rate of compressed air consumption over elapsed mission time. Toni had performed terribly; he’d been fighting his simul-Suit like a maniac, and by the end of the affair his legs had been shaking like saplings in the great winds.
That was nothing, however, compared to how he felt today.
He had it worst in his abdominal muscles, which seemed to have contracted painfully in the aftermath of yesterday’s training. He was following Gordie’s example, who had decided to lie on his back with a pillowcase underneath his thighs to reduce the muscular tension. At first it hadn’t appeared to help at all, until he had tried removing and felt the pain sharpen as his abdominals tautened. Finally giving up, Toni contented himself instead with simply lying there, allowing his troubled mind to wander freely, as it was prone to do.
The days following the April 21st attack on Leiben had been pregnant with barely-suppressed panic in the Armed Forces, a state that MEWAC itself had managed to shy away from only due to the professionalism it still managed to retain. On the other hand, there was no euphoria, the primary reason being that, overshadowing their outrage due to the assault on their capital, was the stark realization that they were the ones who were supposed to do something about it.
Baylen had aptly managed to put the mood into words. He reasoned that, had he been a civilian, he would have been outraged enough to join the forces and “get even” but, since he was already there and knew the full extent of what they might be in for, all that remained was to brood over their unknown enemy, and over what lay ahead.
Toni discovered that he was completely unafraid, and wondered whether that said something very good about his mental state, or something very bad. He suspected that he probably had yet to fully understand the scope of the crisis before them. Adding to that, his mind had recently begun to feel warped out of shape, and he had since found himself overreacting to the ever-more-frequent frictions between the cadets. Perhaps it was the excessive doses of nootropic medication, or perhaps the suffocating pressure, or perhaps there was something fundamentally wrong with him, but Toni was no longer able to get through a day without entertaining thoughts of killing someone. Sometimes a person in particular would be a target of the notion, but mostly a dark part of him had begun to feel that killing every single biped in his immediate vicinity would somehow make the pressure go away. He kept the fantasies to himself, despite having briefly toyed with the possibility of telling Ray about it.
The attack on Leiben had led Toni to make the first significant purchase of his life, his miserable current salary having been just enough to acquire a DigiSlab personal computer. Its performance was nothing to write home about, but at least he no longer needed to wait his turn at the Cadets’ Messe, as they called the computer-filled compartment reserved for their platoon. He had also begun to tune into all local broadcast systems, be they video, audio or net. At least until the blanket ban had come into effect, cutting most base personnel off from the outside world. Now the entire planet could be on fire, and he would only know about it when the skyline was aflame.
The ban had also denied him any prospect of reestablishing contact with his family.
He sometimes wondered about the enemy. Local speculation currently ranged from aquatic aliens in fishbowl helmets to the exceptionally rancorous inhabitants from the Terminator hub (All gave Rakaia a wider berth once that theory became airborne). All that was certain was that Leiben had come under missile attack twice on the same day, each salvo having been launched with enough force to completely annihilate it if not for the city’s defense grid. The few missiles that had managed to punch through devastated entire segments of the city. Not a whisper of enemy action had been picked up afterwards, although elements of the ASC had since begun reconnoitering eastern Thaumantias due to whisperings about lights in the sky and missing miners.
Baylen had been pulled from the SIC last week, a personnel deficit in the FIC having apparently been discovered, and they were once again stuck with Ian as liaison between the instructors and their cadets. Morale had subsequently taken a nose-dive. Ray hadn’t been helping things either. His father’s life had been extinguished in the second strike and the cadet’s once-entertaining tantrums had begun to take on a much nastier tone.
His performance in the sims, however, had suffered dramatic improvement.
Despite the brutal increase in the training load, the platoon was still only expected to graduate by the eve of September. The mid-course break had unsurprisingly been cancelled, but there appeared to be no wish from the brass to commit cadets to a fight before they were fully qualified. Toni felt both relieved and annoyed by the decision, although Ray had been furious when the platoon was informed. He had since had a look in his eyes that kept most cadets clear of his path, although Toni still counted him as a friend and therefore listened patiently to the cadet’s vengeful monologues.
“Cadets, time to get up!” Toni suddenly heard someone say.
He turned his throbbing head slowly, feeling every muscle in his neck strain as he did so. An already uniformed Ian stood beside his bed as if expecting his comrades to leap up eagerly from theirs. A few well-deployed blankets ensured that it was still quite dark, but Toni didn’t need the light to know that Ian’s boots were already shining.
Backside-kissing fire-stomper, he thought tiredly. He wondered whether he should inform medical of his persistent headaches.
All cadets remained where they were. When Ian realized that no one was going to move in the predictable future he finally gave up, exiting the casern quietly without a backward glance. Toni suspected the special one was about to inform on them, but he couldn’t have cared less; a day off was a day off in his book, and he was not alone in the thought.
“You guys thinking what I’m thinking?” Gordie croaked out loud. There were several answering grunts.
“If the Special One gives me grief today, I’m gonna fuck him up.” he declared throatily.
“About time,” someone groaned.
“Make it count,” someone else added supportively, and similar remarks made themselves he
ard over the following minutes.
“Choose the time and place carefully, mate ...” was about all Toni could say. There were several agreeing grunts to the somewhat obvious suggestion.
And just like that, Ian Templeton had once again been promoted to target status. There was no need for deep discussion among them; he had simply pissed off too many people too many times for a cadet to be willing to speak in his defense. Comforted by the prospect of justice, Toni found himself drifting towards sleep again.
The lunch-horn rudely woke him.
He had managed to fall deeply asleep, and time must have flown by over the course of his slumber. Glancing at the wall-clock, he found both hands pointing to the number twelve. Surprisingly, Toni didn’t feel hungry in the least, and even Gordie complained that he could have waited another hour or two before stuffing his face. The shift officer might have something to say to that, however, and so all reluctantly left their beds, some complaining loudly over the assortment of injuries they possessed.
There was little time. Within fifteen minutes the platoon would be expected to form up before the canteen, and so there was a hurried rush to the lavatories at the casern’s opposite end, although not without the customary laughing and shoving that normally accompanied the trip. Thirteen brief minutes later, the platoon’s male elements exited their casern at a swift jog and coursed towards the canteen. Something struck Toni as quite odd as he ran; no other platoons or companies were formed up inside the bright yellow rectangle at the canteen’s entrance, where a single blonde cadet awaited their arrival. He also noticed that the few observable soldiers remained at their own caserns’ entrances, some clearly showing surprise as they observed the cadets’ progress.
The inertia of habit causing them to continue, the platoon formed up hastily as a beefy shift officer and his sergeant-at-arms joined them from the canteen’s interior. Toni made no effort to remember their names.
“Well, well, just look at all those slumberous faces ...” the captain remarked with a smirk. He then turned towards Ian.
“Cadet, why are there five holes in the ranks?”
The cadet stood at attention and answered.
“Sir, there are only three missing cadets, the others have walked, sir.”
“I see, but where are –” the captain began, but then something at the parade’s opposite side caught his eye. His hardening features gave Toni the feeling the officer had just caught sight of the missing cadets.
Soldiers snorted and laughed as the three female cadets crossed the parade at a run. Each requested permission to join the ranks and hastily fell in, Rakaia occupying the empty space before Toni. As he waited for the storm to break, Toni glimpsed the sweaty outline of the Terminator’s neck and wondered briefly whether she had ever been kissed there.
“I patiently await the inadequate excuse for your tardiness. Please take your time,” the captain declared, a sardonic smile tugging at the corners of his almost lipless mouth. Rakaia snapped to attention.
“Captain, sir. We, um, had pressing sanitation issues to take care of, sir,” she answered, earning a quick grin from the officer’s stocky sidekick. The captain appeared unmoved by the explanation.
“I care not about the current state of your menstrual cycle, cadets! There is no justification for such a delay. This platoon is already well into its basic training and we’re still seeing day-one fuckups here! I have been told your sergeant ordered you to get your rears out of bed over an hour ago. Isn’t that correct? This is so far beyond disrespect, it borders on insubordination!” the captain roared.
A few silent moments passed by and the officer slowly regained his color, having apparently reached some sort of decision.
“Alright, so be it. I’d been pondering a simple chewing out and dismissal, but it seems we’ll be requiring more drastic correctives. This platoon will remain formed up until the lunch hour arrives. If in the meantime I happen to notice a single cadet twitch in formation, you’ll be spending the remainder of the afternoon in formation as well. That clear?” he finished, flashing them with a vicious grin before about-facing and returning to the canteen’s cool interior.
There was silence as all digested what had just been said. Toni required no explanation; only Ian was permitted to carry a watch, and the caserns’ wall-clocks were regulated by the shift officer from his office. He wondered idly what time it really was, and whether the stunt had been Ian’s idea or the captain’s.
In truth, it did not matter who the mastermind was. As the volume of whispering began to swell, all eyes became fixed on the blonde cadet standing rigidly at ease before them. Ian’s expression hadn’t changed over the last few minutes, but his eyes occasionally darted towards the cadets standing at ease before him. What he saw there probably didn’t please him, and instead he began to stare long and hard into the void directly over their heads.
The whispers died down after a while and the cadets settled in for the wait until the lunch horn, the sun slowly baking Toni’s ebony cap until he began to feel light-headed. He could usually bank on his unstoppable train-of-thought to entertain him in times like those, but today was a different matter. His body was in such discomfort that he couldn’t focus on anything but the pain, nor could he manage to keep from staring at Ian’s pale throat and imagining his hands wrapped around it.
After a while, base personnel began to loiter beneath the canteen building’s shadowy overhang, curious at the collection of cadets suffering under the blood-red sun. Through his discomfort, Toni noticed that a few had huddled together and were talking excitedly amongst themselves, and he saw several credit-notes passed between hands.
Toni suddenly felt himself sway and quickly righted himself, and there was a sudden flurry of excitement among the huddle of nearby soldiers. That was all he needed to know what they were betting on.
As the platoon’s discomfort began to peak, Toni once again heard dire mutterings from the cadets around him. Ray’s voice was particularly prolific among the renewed threats and insults being hissed at Ian. He remained quiet, however, preferring instead to focus his attention on the canteen door in case the captain were to make an unexpected appearance. Gordie was making a particularly nasty remark about Ian’s lineage when they heard a throat clearing noisily behind them.
“So this is how we treat each other when the brass isn’t looking, huh?” a familiar voice remarked. “It seems we must inform the platoon commander that his lessons of unity are failing, mustn’t we?”
The captain slowly stepped around the platoon from behind, his boots beating a slow and steady cadence against the concrete parade ground until he stood before them once more, smiling at their steadily reddening faces. Despite his embarrassment, Toni was quite impressed at the subterfuge. Impressed enough to take a brief glance at his nametag. ALBINO O -, it proudly declared.
Captain Albino had probably left the canteen’s rear entrance and circled around unnoticed between the double-rank of buildings that flanked the parade ground. The captain huffed indignantly, but didn’t waste his time with another scolding.
“As soon as each cadet has had his meal, this platoon is to form up again. And it will remain in formation for the ‘noon until it has become clear to me that you all understand the error of your ways. Are we clear?” he demanded, waiting for an answer that was reluctant to come.
“I SAID ARE WE CLEAR?” he bellowed. The answering affirmative was loud and angry.
“Good ...” he breathed, and promptly exchanged their company for the relatively cool canteen.
It was three quarters past infinity and Toni’s feet were numb when the proper lunch-horn finally sounded.
There was a smattering of applause from the base personnel as they quickly formed up beside them, not to mention a few disappointed faces, perhaps because no member of Toni’s platoon had managed to face-plank into the parade ground.
Serves the bastards right, he thought as the captain took his place before the soldiers to receive them.
<
br /> Lunch was a silent, tense and all-too-brief affair, and before they knew it the platoon was once again formed up on the ground for the remainder of the afternoon. The day loomed long before them.
It was Toni who came up with the idea. The “Sweet Laurinda” marching song was one that all had become quite familiar with; the LT had made sure of that over the last few months. If the song was sung at its intended tempo, from its first “O sweet Laurinda” to its last “bare your thighs once more”, approximately two minutes would have passed by. The idea was simple enough, and was quietly agreed upon by all members of the platoon (sans Ian) as they stood in formation; when the end-of-lunch horn resounded, the cadet to the front and left side of the formation would sing the marching song in his head until the last verse, which would be sung under his breath, thus signaling the cadet beside him to take up the tune. Once the song had made a full circuit in the formed platoon, they would by then know that about twenty six minutes had elapsed, thus providing them with a reliable measuring stick of time. A quick calculation also made it clear that each cadet would have to sing the “Sweet Laurinda” eight times before they could reasonably expect dismissal.
Toni had prepared for the afternoon in other ways, swiping several packets of sugar and stashing them in his breast pocket, and loosening his boots so as to provide more irrigation for his feet. It hadn’t been enough. By his second Sweet Laurinda, Toni’s toes were tingling.
“Bare your thighs once more ...” Rakaia breathed tonelessly before him.
The last verse had long ceased to have entertainment value, although Toni would still hear an occasional snort when one of the femmes sang it aloud. He began to carry the tune in his head for the third time, well aware that that meant over an hour had elapsed. As the song approached the part where the departing soldier was making indecent proposals to his fair neighbor, Rakaia began to sway dangerously.
“Knee to the ground, Tani,” Toni whispered urgently before continuing the song in his head, finding it odd that she was showing fatigue after only one standing hour.
“Kaia, put your knee down!” he heard Hannah whisper more forcefully from his left. As the tallest of the three femmes, she was situated in the same rank as Toni, allowing her to see the same thing he did.
“Silence in the ranks!” Ian snapped.
“Shut it, ya peacock!” Ray snapped back to the amusement of his comrades.
There was a sudden intake of breath from Hannah and Toni barely had time to snatch a handful of Rakaia’s uniform; she had begun to swing forward in a classic planking maneuver. Instead she crumpled to the ground like an inanimate puppet.
There was no need for drama. Hannah calmly broke rank to assist her prone comrade as Toni returned to his at ease position. He glanced expectantly at Ian, who didn’t seem too thrilled at the turn of events but had returned to his quiet contemplation of the void above.
“Yo, master and commander. Why don’t you make yourself useful and inform the brass about Tani?” Toni finally demanded. Ian stood where he was for a full minute before reluctantly abandoning formation in search of the shift officer.
The day was a whore, however, and it had only just begun to screw them.
Hirum went down in the sixth Sweet Laurinda. It was an unexpected event, and there had been nothing to warn of it. Toni had been resting his eyelids, a most risky endeavor under the circumstances, when he heard a heavy thump. Had Hirum been any taller than he was, he would have been luckier. Being, however, of shorter constitution than even Rakaia, he had found himself in the first rank and with no one in front of him to break his fall. He performed a ten-point face-plank against the concrete ground, knocking himself out in the process.
The unconscious cadet was carried away shortly afterwards by the shift orderlies, both of whom had been loitering nearby as if expecting another collapse. One of them whispered softly to Gordie before leaving with his new charge. Before a minute had passed, Hannah was whispering the news to Toni.
“Orderly said for us to stop being so damn proud and put a knee to the ground if we’re feeling sick. Otherwise they won’t know there’s something wrong until someone hits the concrete. He’s also saying that Rakaia’s anemic.”
“What? Why?” Toni asked, mystified as to how an illness had slipped through Medical’s fingers.
Hannah shook her head and faced forwards with a mysterious smile on her face, leaving Toni to ponder on the matter. He whispered the message to the cadet behind him, getting the same question asked in return. He shrugged his answer.
They were well into their ninth Sweet Laurinda, and Toni had begun to suspect they were singing it too fast, when they were once again visited by the shift officer. The captain gave the platoon a hard look and then chewed their ears out for good measure, before promptly dismissing the cadets for the remainder of the day.
Ian made it easy for Gordie by making his way directly back to the casern. He was followed by the entire platoon.
Toni hurried to keep up beside Gordie who, despite being a first ranker in formation himself, was maintaining a respectful pace for one with such short legs.
“Gordie, you thinking about doing it now?” he asked. Gordie didn’t bother to reply.
“Yeah, Gordie, Gordie, let’s take him out, yeah,” Ray blustered on Gordie’s other side, smacking his fist into his palm like a prizefighter.
“He’s mine ...” was all the answer they got from him. His tone was soft, but it brooked no argument. The last few meters were crossed in silence.
Hannah and Sueli, in direct violation of base policy, entered the compartment along with the rest of them. The group found Ian standing beside his bed as if awaiting their arrival, and they remained at the entrance as Gordie approached their senior.
Toni found it strange as he watched the pair speaking in low voices. Anyone unfamiliar with them would have been forgiven for believing that they were two friends in conversation, as outwardly pacific as the exchange appeared to be. Only Ian’s last remark, clearly audible to all those present, was enough to break the illusion.
“– in any case you might want to remember what happened to your mates, right, chum?”
At the last word, Gordie bunched himself together with a snap and ploughed both fists into Ian’s torso, driving the cadet back with enough force to lift his feet off the ground and slam him into an open locker with a deafening clang. Hands hurried to close the compartment doors before anyone heard the ruckus.
Gordie’s charge had managed to fit Ian neatly inside his own locker, with only his boots still sticking out. Gordie then began to rain right-handed blows into the locker’s interior, each shaking the metal structure more loudly than the one before. A boot suddenly connected with Gordie’s pelvis and he slid back a couple of meters over the polished floor. The locker was then tipped brusquely forwards, lifted up and then thrown towards him, clothes, books, snacks and a host of unidentified objects flying through the air. The locker collided against the muscle-bound cadet with a thunderclap. Ian counterattacked, kicking his adversary viciously in his middle as the locker thundered into the floor beside them, and then he grabbed a hold of his adversary’s head as it dipped low and began to repeatedly knee his torso, a mask of rage fixed on his bloodied face. He got as far as two knees before Gordie clamped onto his leg.
With the same ease with which the aluminum locker had flown in one direction, Toni saw a cart-wheeling Ian fly in the other to slam upright against the wall, the breath in his lungs being expelled with one explosive “HUMPH!”.
Gordie wasn’t far behind; he slammed the top of his skull against Ian’s face with a sickening thunk before, tearing a page from his adversary’s book, he pulled Ian’s dolmen upwards and over his head and wrapped his head with the cloth. Gordie avenged Ray’s beating, slamming his own knee repeatedly against the dolmen-covered head while holding it low.
He got as far as three knees.
In a blur of movement, Ian twisted himself around and shredded his uniform into
flying tatters, before quickly opening ground to the very center of the compartment, his arms still wearing their sleeves as he took a fighting stance, his sinewy upper body now bare. Gordie nonchalantly discarded the olive-green shreds in his hands and squared off with Ian.
Then he rushed in like a charging bull.
Ian spun in place and connected the heel of his boot against the top of Gordie’s head in a full-blown spinning kick. Inertia conspired to close the distance between the fighters and Gordie slammed heavily into Ian. Regaining his balance with unnatural agility, Ian then let loose an unbelievingly fast combination of blows against his adversary’s body and head.
It quickly became clear the fight was over.
“Enough!” Toni bellowed, but Ian only halted once the group had closed the distance, backing up against the wall as if in full expectation of a lynching.
“Leave him alone!” Toni hollered as some made to move towards their senior. He wasn’t alone in the thought, and others pulled at sleeves and dolmens to keep the more belligerent cadets away.
Toni sat Gordie carefully upon one of the beds. His comrade wasn’t bleeding much, nor had he fallen to the flurry, but his eyes were vacant and he was not answering questions. When Toni asked for the third time whether he was alright, Gordie vomited onto the pristine compartment floor, splattering a couple of beds along with Toni’s boots.
“Wonderful, just wonderful!” Ray wailed as he assessed his puke-stained sheets.
“Ray, shut it!” Toni barked. “Something’s wrong with Gordie. I’m gonna take him to the infirmary. See if you can clean up all the crap, alright? Ray, leave him alone, he’s had enough,” he added, since Ray had a look that suggested that he also wanted to try his luck with Ian.
“He has, has he?” a quiet voice inquired from the compartment’s entrance.
Lieutenant Templeton placidly observed the group from the doorway. It was the first time they’d ever seen him in civilian clothes, and he looked as smart as the devil himself. Black, neatly pressed suit, dentine white shirt and a honest-to-god black bow tie to top it all off. His ebony shoes squeaked as he shifted his lean weight about.
“And there I was in Leiben, attending my nephew’s baptismal, when I receive an odd message from the shift officer, cautioning me that my children are misbehaving on their day off, of all days. Who could have anticipated that?” he speculated as he casually paced along the room’s extension, avoiding some underclothes and biscuits spread across the floor.
“And so I thought I would leave the matter until tomorrow. Until I received a second message saying my cadets were now threatening each other with bodily harm. And in formation, no less,” he added pleasantly as he snapped his fingers before Gordie’s vacant eyes. Gordie didn’t flinch, nor did he blink until a full second had passed by.
The LT continued.
“So I decided to make a brief trip to MEWAC, the last place I’d want to be on a Sunday, by the way, about as soon as the festivities were well underway,” he looked up at a battered Ian, who was bleeding from his nose and several cuts on his brow, and who had taken up a posture that was somewhere between at ease and attention.
“And this is what I find ...” he breathed. There was no expression in the lieutenant’s eyes. For a brief moment commander and cadet appeared very similar.
“Very well, then,” he said, smiling once more, “Mr. Toni and Mr. Raymond will take Mr. Gordon to the infirmary. Mr. Ian will take himself there as well. The two female cadets will remove themselves from these quarters immediately, in full knowledge that their violation of MEWAC regulations will not go unpunished. The remaining cadets will now begin cleaning their compartment until it is impeccable, and they can expect their quarters to be subject to inspection by shift personnel in the next thirty minutes. And I will be informing the shift officer and your Company commander of these events. I guess that covers everything, unless there’s something else?” he asked, as if honestly expecting someone to say yes.
“No? Very well then, on the move. I will see you all tomorrow.”
The lieutenant calmly strolled out without a backward glance. A couple of seconds passed by without anyone moving at all, but when they finally did, it was with an ever mounting sense of urgency. One cadet began to wipe a substantial amount of vomit from the floor with his personal hand-towel.
Bad choice, Toni thought, I would have gone for Ian’s towel. It’s right there on the floor along with his other belongings.
He and Ray removed Gordie from the casern and grimly set off for the infirmary, Ian already well ahead of them on the parade ground.
“What do you think they’ll do to Gordie?” Ray asked.
“Don’t know, maybe they’ll take pity on him ...” Toni replied as he gazed at his mate’s defeated expression.