FEDERAL PLATFORM TENGA
MECHANIZED INFANTRY STATION
As soon as Justin reached his destination, his training began. A handful of angry, vocal sergeants verbally assaulted him, along with the several thousand other new recruits, herding them out of their separate transports and into a single, huddled mass of confusion in the previously empty hangar floor. Justin stood with the crowd, erratically doing one thing, then another, as he attempted in vain to follow the contradictory instructions of the yelling sergeants. Everyone else was behaving the same, a mob of independently acting individuals. The result was an intentional one, an example for the recruits to look back on later as stark contrast to the well-trained soldiers would become by the end of their training. Thus, the chaos was allowed to continue for several more minutes before an officer — a colonel — finally arrived to settle things down and begin the formal indoctrination. As the colonel stood in front of the assembly, the sergeants struck up harmonious commands and the recruits fell silent, doing their best to stand at attention.
"Gentlemen," the colonel began, "You have all volunteered for Federal service and that is certainly most admirable. More importantly, however, you have all come through on your commitment and arrived here today. For that, I commend you. The Mechanized Infantry is an elite group in the Federal service and should you complete your training, you will become a part of that group. It will not be easy and many of you will give up before that can happen. Some of you will be seriously injured or die before your goal can be realized. Sadly, this is only natural, in fact unavoidable, considering the nature of our service. But for those of you who do complete your training, it will be worth it, I guarantee you.
"There is no occupation more valuable to the Galactic Federation than the Mechanized Infantry. At any given moment there are twenty to thirty thousand large-scale military operations taking place somewhere in the Federation, and an innumerable number of smaller engagements. Contrary to what you may believe, the Federation is not at peace and has not been since its beginning. It was formed in war, by war, and it is perpetually at war, a war that will never, and can never end. What this means is that the Federation will always have a place for the Mechanized Infantry and the Mechanized Infantry will always have a place to put you. Where that place is, doesn't matter; you will be ready for it because we will make you ready for it. The Mechanized Infantry will train you for any situation in any environment no matter the conditions. You will not fail because we will not let you fail us. But you will still be in danger.
"You will be going to war," the colonel continued. "You will be going to a place where you will be expected to kill and protect yourself from being killed. The tools of war constantly change but for a soldier, war itself will always come down to these two aspects. You will be able to succeed at both when the time comes because, as I said, we will not allow you to be unprepared. For now, our sergeants will sort you out and assign which buildings at which you will stay."
He started to turn away, but seemed to remember something at that moment, and turned back.
"But allow me to say one other thing for those of you who might hail from isolated sections of this fine galaxy we call home. The Galactic Federation has many faults, all of them the fault of its citizens. In the Mechanized Infantry, there are no citizens, only soldiers, and therefore there will be no faults. If as a citizen you had prejudices against other races, then that is fine. Citizens are allowed the luxury of bigotry and isolation. Soldiers, however, are not. Though the MI intentionally planned it that everyone here would be Human and you will most likely be part of an all-Human squad in training and actual service, that does not mean you will not regularly meet and work alongside other races. You aren't required to love them, but you are required to be tolerant and respectful of your brothers in the service. This rule is strictly enforced, if not by the MI then it will be by the laws of nature. Keep that in mind. That is all."
The officer left and the recruits were organized shortly after, a process that was both simple and elegant in its execution. Justin was issued a number, sent to his assigned barracks to sleep in his assigned bunk with his assigned number at the foot of it, the nine-digit number that had become his new name. The only thing to distinguish his bunk — in the eyes of the Mechanized Infantry, his identity — from the 511 other ones just like it, was that nine-digit number. The first day it took him almost ten minutes to find his bunk. Between the confusion and novelty of the situation, it was a miracle it didn't take longer. For the first week, he needed the number to locate it and it required almost five minutes to do so. The second week, he found himself wandering throughout the barracks aimlessly until he finally broke out of his daze and discovered himself standing in front of his proper bunk, trying to remember how he'd done it. By the third, he thought nothing of it because most of the day had become a daze; his body functioned automatically while his mind was preoccupied elsewhere.
Most everything else Justin learned followed this pattern, though some things took slightly longer to adjust to and other things shorter. But for the first week — and especially that first day — when everything was new, he didn't think that he would ever be able to do anything right. Every task required intense concentration and often resulted in absolute failure in spite of it. He was told how to do something or what to do and just a few minutes later he couldn't remember it. The second day, he was sure that his mind had forgotten everything it had learned in the first, and perhaps it had. Perhaps his brain remembered none of it, but then it didn't really have to. It was his body's responsibility to do all of the remembering for him, muscles too impatient to involve the higher brain and its synapses.
Learning the standard issue rifle was one of the things Justin was sure he would never be able to master, but after a few weeks he could fire his rifle on one mode, switch out the ammunition to another, and fire again, all in less than two seconds, even if he was still having problems hitting the middle of target. It didn't really matter, though. Rifle work was mainly about getting down the fundamentals of live ammunition before the recruits suited up and had to move around in the various models of powered exoskeletons. Assault rifles were like popguns compared to those but a necessary part of the progression from civilian to walking arsenal, nonetheless.
Many different facets of warfare and combat techniques were being taught to him, and Justin wasn't exceptional at any of them yet. Likely, he never would be. But he was competent and — as his instructors drove into his head on a daily basis — one hundred competent soldiers working together were superior to the same number of elite soldiers acting independently. There were a few of those elite type in Justin's barracks, too, though. They were guys born to kill, with the temperament and abilities required for such an occupation. They weren't sadistic, didn't enjoy murder, but they were a different creature altogether from the normal recruits. In any other setting you might not know it, but here they were set apart as clearly as any division in nature. For these, this was an occupation in which they could thrive; it was their reason for existence.
For Justin and the rest of the recruits this was an occupation in which they could do, and at least in his case, a young man who knew he couldn't do much at all, that was good enough. He was average at being a soldier and didn't distinguish himself with failures or successes. He simply existed. But he had finally found his place in the galaxy, a place he could enjoy and belong. Despite his difficulties and the intentional difficulty of the training, Justin had never felt the temptation to drop out. Getting sent home was worse than anything that might happen here. His superiors yelled at him and punished him when he screwed up, but they were fair about it and only did it when he deserved it, more than he could say about his father. They appreciated his positive attitude, too, Justin figured, even if they weren't allowed to show it. Besides, he was well fed and clothed. The physical work he did was no more difficult than working all day under Kal'on's sun, and thanks to the nutrition provided and exertion regime required, he was actually getting into pretty good shape. Perhaps most importantly, there wasn't anyone or thing here he had to worry about taking care of except himself.
The only thing he really lacked was friends, but Dylan was pretty much the only friend he'd had on Kal'on so he was used to it. And he wasn't disliked. People gave him a hard time about his terrestrial dialect, and he couldn't speak for more than a sentence or two without someone saying, "Huh?", but that was often his own reaction to what they said. A few of the other boys in his squad were terrestrials, too, but they were from fully integrated planets and no one ever had a problem understanding them, leaving Justin pretty much left on his own. Thus, he spent the little personal time allotted by the Mechanize Infantry trying to catch up on his technological ignorance. He was behind most everyone else in this, but nothing they'd done had really exposed that yet. In fact, the only thing he was more ignorant about was other races, something he'd heard about before but only in the abstract; he'd never had a chance to actually meet another sentient species.
Justin didn't know why he'd never met another sentient species, he just hadn't. Of all creatures on Kal'on, both native and those brought by colonists, there just weren't any non-Human species considered citizens, or anything close for that matter. He didn't think poorly of any of other races, he just think about them period. But everyone expected him to be a superiorist anyway. Maybe he was and just didn't know it yet. Even now on the platform he didn't interact with non-Humans much. When he did, it was only for a moment and the interactions were always eventful for their strangeness to him.
Justin had actually stopped and stared the first time a Masul had walked by him on its way to the mess hall. It was about half as tall as he was and twice as wide, spines everywhere its skin was exposed. Later when he'd asked one of the other recruits in his barracks what the thing was, they'd all laughed and eventually told him. A Masul was just another citizen species in the Federation, they'd said, generally hard, capable workers, but not all that bright. Then someone had remarked that Justin had a lot in common with them. Everyone had had another good laugh and Justin had laughed a long with them. What else could he do?
It wasn't a great life, but it was an acceptable one. For Justin, that was reason enough to stay around.
SIX WEEKS LATER
It had been twenty-two days since they'd started training in the full exoskeletons, so Justin was comfortable with all of the normal maneuvers and functions by now, only tripped up when something out of the ordinary was called for. Thanks to the suit's gyroscope and automatically correcting A.I., "tripping up" was only a turn of phrase. There were a million things the suits could do, wonders of technology that they were. Everyone else considered the training suits to be low quality and outdated, but Justin was absolutely amazed by their abilities. The strength, the speed, the agility — all relatively limited and without of any activated weapons, but for Justin, just being in the mobile tank gave him a feeling of indescribable potency. The only thing that really detracted from this feeling were the full-service catheters that had to be connected for long-range assignments (and therefore all training), but with time and some local numbing agents, one got accustomed even to those.
The suit was enormous, basically a tank that was bipedal instead of running on treads, standing three and a half meters tall. Black with accents of dark blue, each arm terminated in weapon: the left, a wide-barreled cannon that discharged highly energized gas; the right, a rifle for large caliber solid ammunition, discharged in one or three-round bursts. Neither had any capability to fire right now, and all missile slots were left empty. Justin hadn't had an opportunity to fire the missiles at the firing range yet, and he wouldn't get to have live ammo anywhere else for a while yet.
Another eleven recruits were in the testing grounds with him, though spread out as much as possible across the wide, gray room. Except for the drill sergeant giving orders and corrections as necessary over the audio, Justin might have been alone. But even hearing the commands in his ear, he wasn't really listening.
He responded as he was supposed to, but his body did that on its own leaving him free to busy his mind with whatever he liked. He wasn't really driving the suit, he was living in it, like some hidden part of his genes had been awakened and for the first time in his life, he was fully alive. Yes, that's what the powered exoskeletons made him feel like every time he got inside one. The leg suits and personal armor were impressive, but there was something about being encased in armor like this that those just didn't provide, firepower and increased protection notwithstanding. It separated him from the rest of the world, made him feel invulnerable. He threw himself into mastering it, but just like everything else, he hadn't shown himself to be extraordinary. But that didn't dim his enthusiasm. It increased it. Only a few in the Mechanized Infantry actually used the full powered exoskeletons, or FPEs, because they were just so damn big and powerful. Even top of the line FPEs were too large and imprecise to operate en masse in most populated areas without destroying everything and during a lot of operations, the MI wanted the combat areas preserved as much as possible or else they'd just bomb them from orbit. FPEs were still utilized in almost every operation, but most of the infantrymen were stuck with just leg suits that augmented speed, and body armor stressing flexibility over protection. No matter how supposedly useful they were to the MI, Justin didn't want to be one of those guys. He wouldn't be.
"Private Bailey," the sergeant snapped in Justin's ear. The recruits were now worthy of being referred to by name. Progress, in its way.
"Sir," Justin responded after a moment's hesitation. He had no idea what he'd been doing, much less what he'd been doing wrong.
"You're moving too close to Private Warner. Stay in your area."
"Yassir."
Justin checked his blips and moved back toward the center of where he was supposed to be. He became aware of the exercises he was doing (running, jumping, firing simulated weapons at simulated targets), and had a feeling of pride at how well he was doing. He was as smooth as he'd ever been, and considering the A.I. wasn't assisting his aim, his accuracy was very decent. When they finally finished training a few weeks from now, he was sure to be rewarded with his own suit.
SIX MONTHS LATER
PSI-CLASS COSMIC NAVY TRANSPORT SHIP
EN ROUTE TO UNDEVELOPED TERRESTRIAL COLONY SB-522,687,13
According to Justin's superiors, all of the ships taking the Mechanized Infantrymen down to the planet were designed to maximize interior volume and streamlined for atmospheric entry. Another way of putting that is that they were incredibly small and cramped. This was even worse in the case of those ships transporting infantrymen with FPEs like Justin because all the soldiers were forced to crowd into the end of the ship not filled up by their suits, making the condition of being strapped down for planetary entry an even more uncomfortable one. But while they remained in space, it was still quite quiet and allowed the infantrymen to engage in some light conversation to pass the time. Justin Bailey didn't expect to be included in this activity, so he was surprised when one of the people next to him began talking with him.
"Hey Bailey, what is it going to be like down there?" the slender, pale young man with blond hair and pink eyes said.
"Oh, I don't really know ta' tell you the truth," Justin replied, taken somewhat off guard. "I don't imagine any of us does, 'cept for what was in the briefs. It's got a lotta' plants and water and stuff, which makes it good for smuggling and whatnot. Space Pirates came in, the Cosmic Navy set up in orbit and blasted all the pirate ships and major camps a few years ago. We're 'sposed ta' join the other MI units already on the planet to smoke out all the pirates who got trapped on the surface so the 'digenous population can resume trade with the rest of the Federation. I guess it's gonna' be mostly small squads and engagements for us 'til we finish the pirates off."
"Well yes," the infantryman said, obviously annoyed but doing his best to hide it. "I listened to briefs, too, but I'm asking you what it's like to be on a planet, period. I've never been. You see, I've spent my entire life in space as a Platformer."
"Right, right," Justin realized, stupidly. "That explains why you're so damn pale and your eyes are so funny."
"Ha ha, I suppose you could say that. But from my perspective, you're the peculiar-looking one. Not that I mean that as a pejorative," he added quickly.
"Yeah, well…" Justin could think of nothing to say back so he just changed the subject. "Hey, what was your name again?"
"I'm Private Ostro. Peter, rather."
"Were you from barracks 9IX-K, too?"
"No, I was in 4IV-L."
"Huh" Justin grunted. "So, how the hell did you know my name?"
He coughed. "I heard some of the other fellows talking about you."
"Oh," Justin said. He paused a moment, "What, uh, what were they sayin'?"
"Nothing important," said Peter, awkwardly. "Anyway, it appears you're the only colonial terrestrial on this transport so I wondered if you could tell me anything about what it's like to be in a natural sun and feel natural gravity on a wild planet like this. I experienced the simulations like everyone else, but I expect that there are some discrepancies…" he stopped once he saw the blank expression on Justin's face, "I expect that there are some… 'differences' between reality and simulation. You're the best source I have to get a heads up on what I'm getting myself in to."
Justin thought a moment.
"Well sure the stuff on Tenga didn't feel the same as Kal'on did, but I don't know what ta' tell you, honestly. Alright, real light feels heavier than the other stuff, if that makes sense. Like, you can actually feel it touching you. Same with gravity. It's just... thicker or somethin'. On Tenga, everything was so damn… clean. Stee-rile."
"'Stee-rile'?"
"Uh, stare- sterile? Yeah, sterile. Back on Kal'on, it was filthy. The air, the dirt, the smells—they just had more substance, more realness. You knew they were all there. Sure, Tenga was nice, but it was nice in a fake sorta way."
"So you're telling me that I'm about to get a crash-course in reality, then?"
"Hell, I don't know what I'm telling you. Boy, I-"
"Sorry?" Peter raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean by calling me 'boy' just now?"
"I don't mean nothin' by it. Goddamn, it's just somethin' people say some times. Shit. Can't even have a decent conversation with you guys, I swear."
"This is wonderful," Peter said, laughing. "Even though we're of the same species, speak the same language, and have the same basic society, occasionally our subtle discrep- our subtle differences in dialect, vocabulary and culture can cause complete misunderstandings."
"And that's wonderful, huh?"
"Well for me it is. You see, I'd like to be an author some day. Topics like this interest me immensely."
"If you want to write stuff, that's your own damn business but if that's the truth, what in the devil are you doin' in the MI? This is the pretty much best thing I could do with my own self but you're a pretty smart guy from the sound a' things. You could've found somethin' else for sure."
"Of course I could have. But what right would I have to write about wars and the service if I didn't experience it for myself? Writing about the military without being in it is disrespectful of those who actually serve."
"Whatever man, it's your life."
The infantryman named Peter didn't say anything back, but even if he'd tried, the roar of tearing into the atmosphere would have drowned it out. Justin was glad he didn't have to continue the conversation as he was trying his best to concentrate on not pissing himself. He'd gone out of a planet once before when he'd left Kal'on and traveled in both directions numerous times in simulation, but real entry was different from simulation. If the ship's A.I. didn't account for some sudden change and the pilot wasn't attentive enough to correct it, he wouldn't just get to go back to his bunk and try again. If that happened right now, there wouldn't even be ash left of him to identify. The realness of the situation added a whole new dynamic of fear that he'd never known before, one that threatened to make him physically ill. No longer was the environment a product of controlled variables where mistakes were learning opportunities. Now, a mistake was just a mistake, and there were consequences for it.
But the ship did eventually reach the ground safely at the place it was supposed to, near the edge of a base where the thick vegetation of the area had been cleared away for Naval landings. Justin breathed a deep sigh of relief, and the sergeant in the transport gave them all the okay to unstrap and depart. They eagerly complied and piled out of the narrow exits one by one, leaving the FPEs behind until the mechanics could get a chance to look them over for problems a last time. Mechanized Infantrymen would be expected to do that themselves in the field, but it was best to let specialists take care of it while on base.
Justin was right next to one of the Naval ship's exits and though he wanted to get outside as much as everyone else, he let Peter go in front of him as a courtesy for talking with him during the trip there. Peter smiled and nodded to acknowledge the kindness, then stepped out to his greet his first real direct sunlight.
His head burst as soon as the light touched him, and he fell limply back into the transport, suddenly no longer an infantryman or aspiring author but a heap of worthless flesh. For a moment Justin thought that the poor Platformer had actually fallen victim to the rays of the planet's sun. Then the report of a gunshot echoed in Justin ears, and he began to get an idea of what was going on. He threw himself on the floor, away from the exit, while he waited for it all to be over. His stomach, which had so bravely held its contents during the trip to the planet, now quivered and emptied itself on the floor in front of him. Justin didn't begrudge it in the slightest, and he didn't think anyone else would him.
Hours later in an assembly, Justin would be informed by a lieutenant that the sniper had managed to kill five infantrymen and wound three others before being successfully neutralized by return fire. Justin's squad was to move out first thing tomorrow in search of whatever larger enemy might be operating in the jungle, but for tonight, they were to get plenty of food and rest.
In all, it was a pretty quiet day for the Mechanized Infantry. It only recorded twenty-nine casualties on the colony, eighteen due to enemy attack, the rest due to friendly fire and accidents.
