"Semper Fidelis"
'Barrack Room Ballads'
- British Army saying
All Juraian military recruits, no matter their
branch, have to attend a twelve week basic training course at one of the
numerous 'Crash Camps' dotted across the Imperial planets.
Everything from proper cleanliness, marching, hand-to-hand and rifle training is
mastered there, under the tuition of soldiers whose one sole purpose in life is
to make their recruits' lives a living hell.
If the recruit manages to survive that, keep himself
from taking the 'Long Walk' back home, being kicked out, or being back-squaded
and thereby having to take the course again, he's shipped off to one of his
branch's special 'advanced' training establishments.
Army
has two training facilities, one on the lower Juraian steppes, the other a few
miles south of Capital City and in the only marsh on the entirety of
Jurai. It's just like the Army to do that. Always going for aesthetics over
substance. Their recruits train for eighteen years as a minimum, even more if
they take a specialist occupation, like medic or engineer.
The Navy has a lot of bases, most of them in the Bahn'i
Sector. You might have heard of it, it's an entire solar system that was bought
by Jurai simply for training Naval troops. Twenty years minimum training, pilots
even longer. 85% of pilots are female. That's because they've got better hand to
eye coordination and a better head for maths than their male counterparts. I
suppose if I'd been better at maths I'd be flying one of those nimble little
spaceship things. Naval Intelligence Directorate trainees - the navy's personal
reconnaissance and information collection unit - are trained at a 'secret
location' in International Space.
Anyway, the Royal
Bodyguards train for VIP protection and base security at a camp inside the Royal
Palace itself. Their Marines train with Army Commandos on a geo-stabilised
asteroid that circles a quad-star system on the outer rim. VIP Protection units
only train for sixteen months, followed by a total indoctrination of a further
eighteen. The Intelligence Bureau, the only branch totally attuned for
Intelligence collection and analysis, teaches recruits 'tradecraft' for however
long it needs to be drilled into their thick skulls.
And finally the SEOE does all of those courses, and more.
Consecutively. They never get to brag about this of course, because they don't
officially exist. And most of their operatives are legally dead anyway. I bet
you've got no idea what I'm talking about, do you? Neither did I...
I
wouldn't have believed what I'm about to say either. Because, everyone's heard
of the Intelligence Bureau at least, but no one's really heard of Special
Operations...
There's a reason for that.
No one wants to.
Basic Training Camp 040-32, situated two miles south west
of Dujiin Forest was a densely plotted collection of wood huts, shacks and tents
crowded around a single massive Juraian Holy Tree that's interior had been
hollowed into a command centre of sorts. In fact, the tree and its HQ innards
were the only permanent thing in the entire camp. Everything else could be
collapsed, moved or destroyed at a moments notice. It kept the trainees on the
bounce when they had to mobilise and transport the facility to a new area, as
the officers proved quite readily.
The entire camp seemed
to have been built on the principle of 'aesthetics breed complacency'. The grass
that usually grew so thick and tall had been concreted over, the buildings were
made of some alien wood, built using planks instead of being carved whole from a
trunk.
Jiro stepped off the bus just outside the wood mesh fence
of the camp. Hefting his bag across his shoulder, he looked around. About two
dozen other recruits had stepped off the bus with him, all looked to be as
worried as he was, if not more so. He was wearing his most comfortable pair of
trousers, with a knee-length over-shirt. Some of the others were wearing kimonos
or school uniforms. One man was wearing a J'haroia Dress. The black wool brushed
the ground and the man's eyes shone out from beneath the hood. Jiro didn't give
him a second glance. Any idiot wearing expensive clothes like that at a military
boot camp deserved anything he got. Where did he think he was? A
catwalk?
In front of them, the wood gate opened. Two
privates stood on either side of the gap, cradling rifles. A third man walked
through carrying a clipboard. He stopped before the group and, without a word,
looked at the clipboard's papers. The new recruits waited, until he began
calling out names, ticking off those who replied, and gathered the group up.
Leading them past the gate and around a maze of wood shanty buildings, they
stopped in a dusty courtyard, flanked by two long buildings. There the soldier
told them to line up.
A ragged, snake of a line stretched across the concrete. Thirty men stood, arms at sides, looking about themselves in moderate interest. Jiro sniffed loudly.
"SECTIONS! FALL IN!"
Every face suddenly snapped forward and Jiro jumped a good inch off the floor. A broad-shouldered, mean-looking man in battle dress was marching towards them. His uniform looked like it had been sewn that morning, completely at odds to the screwed up mess that the recruits were wearing. Jiro looked down at himself and wondered where he could get a trouser press. His face whipped back up when another voice bellowed;
"LOOK LIVELY, YOU MISERABLE LITTLE WORMS!"
The man stopped marching and standing a few yards in front of the line, gave a sharp nod to the Private who had told them to fall in. Up close he looked even more intimidating. Craggy faced and clean shaven, uniform's collar brace -or choker, as it was known- tightened to the point of perfection and the two pom-poms (one on either side of his lapel) stood out snow-white. He was tall as well, a little taller than Jiro himself and Jiro was a good five foot eleven; bigger than the average and quite a height in Juraian society.
The man swept the line with his gaze and then tapped the
swagger cane he was carrying against his calf. "I am Corporal Fukashimo, your
dual-section leader. However, you will simply call me, or anyone else with two
of these," He pointed to his pom-poms with his free hand, "Corporal. That is
because you are our personal property. When we tell you to do something you
will- WHAT THE HELL DO YOU FIND SO FUNNY?"
Jiro held his
breath. Somewhere to his left someone was sniggering. The Corporal looked off
down the line at the perpetrator and then marched toward him. Carefully, making
sure he wasn't noticed, Jiro turned his head a little to see what was going on.
A few others did the same.
The Corporal had stopped in front of the
recruit, the one who had been wearing the J'haroia Dress, and whose stomach was
now heaving under barely suppressed chuckles. "Do you have some kind of
problem?" the corporal asked.
"No," struggled the
man.
"'NO,' what?"
"No,
sir."
The Corporal practically went livid. His swagger
cane swung up to a point just beneath the man's nose. "No, SIR?!" His eyes
flashed. "NO, SIR?! I'M A SIR, NOW AM I? HOW MANY CHEVRONS DO YOU SEE HERE?" he
bellowed, his free hand once again going up to the white fluffy balls on his
tunic.
The man fumbled, his laughing long forgotten. "Two, si-
erm..."
"OF COURSE IT'S TWO! I'M A CORPORAL, NOT AN
OFFICER! DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?" The corporal turned to a private who had been
waiting off to the side, "Private, take this man's name. Have him put down for
extra duties." He turned back just in time to see the trainee's shadowed eyes
scowling at him. "Oho! And now you think you can eyeball me, eh? Do you fancy
me, is that it? You want to have sex with me, do you? You some kind of raving
homo?"
"No, corporal."
"I'll keep my
eye on you," snapped the Corporal. "One false move and I'll be down on you like a
ton of oak." He turned back to the private, "After you've taken his name, give
him six laps of the camp." He looked the no longer laughing recruit up and down
like he was something that had been walked into the carpet by accident. "We'll
make a soldier out of you yet. Boy." The last word was said with such spite,
such pure heartfelt rancour, that Jiro felt himself begin to sweat.
As the man was led away, the corporal marched back to the
front of the section.
"As I was saying before I was
so rudely interrupted, I am Corporal Fukashimo. You will be
divided in half into Four and Five Section of Basic Training Camp 040-32. Four
Section will be under the command of Lance Corporal Shin-zo, Five Section under
Lance Corporal Rio. You will call them corporal, unless specifically told to by
them."
He gave a spin of the swagger cane and pointed it
at the group. "You are here because you signed up for it. You are here because
you want to be here. Personally, me, my men and my captain couldn't care less.
Today, we'll give you a break. We will teach you how to make your beds and how
to wash. Once you begin to smell like soldiers and begin to look like soldiers,
then you can begin to act like soldiers. After we've done that, maybe we can get
onto actually using you for something. Like mine disposal. Or target
practice.
"Once you've wrapped your heads around those
complexities, you'll be doing drill. If you survive that, you might be allowed a
weapon. Though I doubt my Lances would allow you with anything more dangerous
than a butter-knife." The Corporal's lip curled back into a snarl. His eyes
moved across the men one by one. "By the King's beard," he muttered, but
perfectly loud, "I have never seen such an ugly bunch of grotesque, gobby,
putrid little street-urchin in all my years. How you scum are allowed into the
armed forces I have no idea. Perhaps the gene pool's becoming a little
cluttered; that's the only reason, if you're the best we can
have."
He shook his head, "Privates. Halve this rabble,
give them beds and get them out of my sight before they give me nightmares."
Two soldiers stepped from the sides of the courtyard. They
stormed up to the line, "Call out numbers," bellowed one of them. He pointed at
the man at the end of the line, "From you."
"One!" cried
the man at the end.
"Two!"
"Three!"
And so on, until the man near the middle cried out 'fifteen!' and
the two privates roughly moved the fifteen and sixteenth men apart. Jiro found
himself being led toward one of the larger shacks. On the outside of it, screwed
onto the wall near the door, was a brass plate with "IV" engraved on it. Jiro
had no idea what that meant, but before he could worry about it, he was in the
building.
The inside of the wooden billets were just as stark as the
outside. Floorboards and badly whitewashed walls. The beds were spaced evenly
along the walls, eight on one side, seven on the other with the space for the
eighth taken up by the door. Next to each bed was a metal locker, about five
foot eight high. The recruits stood by one of the metal bed frames, now their
personal one. A single white mattress sat on each bed frame. "Eyes front!
Attenshun!" roared the man who came in through the door. He was wearing the same
uniform as Corporal Fukashimo, but only had one pom-pom on his breast. He paced
up and down the centre of the room between the beds and the men. With each step,
his swagger cane clicked against the wooden floor. "I am Lance Corporal Shin-zo.
I will be in charge of your section, Four Section. You will answer everything
with Corporal. Do you understand?"
"Yes corporal," came
fifteen voices in reply.
"I can't hear
you."
"YES, CORPORAL," shouted the men.
Shin-zo stopped
walking. His cane shot out, prodding the closest man in the ribs. "Do you
understand?"
"YES, CORPORAL!" screamed the
man.
Apparently happy, the Lance Corporal restarted his marching. "I will not
be let down by you. If you do something wrong, that's a black mark against me
and a gold star for Five Section. And if Five Section gets more gold stars, I
get punished by my sergeant for letting you people slack off. And that means I
punish you."
Jiro's bed was the one farthest from the
door, and the Lance Corporal stopped suddenly in front of the man who owned the
bed to Jiro's left. "You!" he snapped, "What are you here
for?"
"R-R-Royal Mar-r-r-ines, corporal," stuttered the
man.
"R-R-R-R-R-R-R-Royal Mar-r-r-r-r-ines?" he imitated.
"Do you mean Royal Marines?"
"Y-y-yes, corporal." Sweat
stood out on the recruit's brow.
There was a pause. "Right. Well, see that
cupboard over there?" The Lance Corporal pointed at a cupboard at the furthest
point from the door and by the wall near Jiro's own bed. "Get out one of the
blankets in there and bring it over to me," he ordered. The man did as he was
told and brought a blanket out. Shin-zo took it off him and held it out. It was
a dark green and looked like it had been made from wire wool.
"This," said the Lance Corporal, "Is your bed blanket. It
goes on your bed box." He threw the blanket down on the mattress closest to him
and waved away the man standing next to it. "Now crowd around and watch
this."
The billet's occupants moved over to watch as he
spread it out, creased it down the centre and then folded the sides down into
the bed box's (as the bed was called) frame.
When he
was done he touched the head end of the bed with his swagger cane. "Note, the
blanket is laid and then is folded exactly eleven inches down from the top. The
outward points are exactly parallel, creases and all. Did you see how it was
done? Do you want me to show it again?"
There were a few nods and he repeated
the actions, talking the group through it. "Get it now?" he said when he was
done. All the men agreed.
"Good. Because I expect you to
do it exactly like this every morning. If it is wrong..." He left it hanging.
"Once you get your kit from the QM, I'll teach you how to lay that out along
with it." He looked at the group. "And just to stop Trainee Omitisha here from
sleeping on the floor tonight and leaving my good work on show for the morrow,"
He grabbed the underside of the bed box's frame, "I will do
this."
He lifted the entire bed box and tipped it over,
the mattress spilling out and lying in a mess along with the blanket. He wiped
his hands together. "Ten minutes, I'll be back. I expect beds to be made and
everyone ready to collect dress uniforms from the Quarter Master." He put his
swagger cane under his arm and sauntered to the door, opened it and then looked
back at the wide-eyed section. "Good afternoon, gentlemen."
Jiro's bed box lay upside down at the end of the room,
along with two others and a locker. The Lance Corporal had proved slightly upset
at the group's efforts. After throwing the worst bed box down the room, he had
picked two others randomly, and then when one of those random victims had
complained, grabbed the top of the man's locker, pulled it over and with a
series of pushes and pulls slammed it, repeatedly, into the far
wall.
Nobody had complained after that.
When he'd
finished his brazen display of annoyance, he left again. When the door closed
the fifteen men looked at each other and then silently set about working the
beds and lockers back into place.
When it was returned to its rightful position, Jiro sat on
his bed. There was a deep scratch running across the foot of the bed frame, the
paint chipped off and gun-bolt metal shone underneath. He'd need to find some
paint and set that right, he decided and then pulled his bag onto the mattress.
He took his reading book out and put it on the end of the bed. The novel,
'The Pirates of Fiñataz' and its cover, complete with blaster wielding
buxom space-pirate, stared at him. He didn't usually read and he didn't expect
to have the chance, but he'd prefer to read than do nothing, and so he put his
hand back in the bag. He took the photograph frame out and looked at it.
Blushing, he looked around him the other members of Four Section were putting
their possessions in their lockers and taking no notice of him, so he didn't
feel as self-conscious as he usually did in these
circumstances.
Glad no one was watching him, he stood up
and opened the locker, then put the novel in along with the
photograph.
It was nothing more than a cutting from a
magazine in a cheap wood frame, but he gave it pride of place, nicely stood up
at the back. He loved those eyes, the way they smiled along with the rest of the
face. What was that word? He thought about it for a second. Ruby?
Scarlet?
Ruby eyes. That would do. He ran his hand across
the photograph, letting his hands linger for a second, and then, realising
someone was behind him, slammed the door shut. He span around.
The man looked at him quizzically. "Sorry. Didn't mean to
scare you." The glimmer of a smile.
Jiro looked at him. He was wearing a
loose fitting kimono and appeared practically nondescript in ever way. Actually,
on second thought, he was quite old. Well, quite old compared to the rest of the
Section. He had to be at least eight-hundred years old. The man gave Jiro a
sidelong glance when he didn't continue the conversation. "Just because they
call it Basic Training doesn't mean it's going to be easy." he said, with that
same half smile and held out his hand. "Parishi Tahito."
Jiro looked around the room. All the other occupants were unpacking or trying to
fix their lockers. At the far end of the room was a single bed-box, its contents
laid out perfectly. Even from the distance, Jiro could see the blanket was
folded as near to the correct eleven inches as could be judged. He looked back
at Parishi and took the proffered limb. "Jiro. Just Jiro."
"Well, Just Jiro, welcome to hell. What are you in for?" The smile widened, all
the teeth showing.
Jiro said nothing. He turned back to his locker and
twisted its key, locking the door. The tumblers clicked.
"Oh. A quiet one," said Parishi. He stood there, silently
watching.
"Signals Intelligence," said Jiro
finally.
'Signals Intelligence,' he thought as he said it,
'What sort of lie's that?' For all intents and purposes, he was an
enlisted Signalman, it being written down on his application sheets and all. Not
even the base's officers knew the truth, although Jiro had been informed that
some people would put two and two together and come up with four and a half.
Close enough to get him seen as some kind of spy... but not hitting the nail on
the head and getting the full implications of what he was really
entering.
In fact, Jiro couldn't be sure he knew what he
was going in for anyway. "You'll find out when you need to know," as the the
Instructor had said. Whatever it was though, he knew full well that the normal
Intelligence services were pretty open about who their agents were during
training (one of them being six beds away), and didn't feel the need to hide
their men behind the facade of communications technicians.
Behind him, he
heard Parishi turn on his heel and start back toward his bed. "Signals, eh?" he
said before he did, "Me too."
Jiro let out a hoarse breath and waited a few seconds
before he unlocked his locker again. The photograph's smiling face made him feel
better, calmer. "Parishi," he muttered into the locker's metal innards. He
looked toward the other Signals trainee, who was talking to another recruit near
his bed box. If there was one thing Jiro had always been, it was paranoid. And
when your Instructor tells you trust no one, you generally listen. At least,
Jiro did.
"I'll be keeping my eye on you, Parishi," he said
quietly.
The locker slammed shut.
"What do you think of this?" asked Recruit Land
Mechanic Kittarn. Jiro looked at the hologram projected in the other man's
hands.
"Scrap?" he hazarded.
Kittarn snapped the
projector closed. "That was a picture of my girlfriend," uttered the man, "You
really know how to make a man feel happy, Jiro."
Jiro, who had been standing over the man's bed-box, shrugged absently and walked back over to his own bed. The settling in period of eight days had been reached, the point at which military psychologists believed a group of strangers would no longer feel compelled to keep away from each other. The rest of the section lounged around, either on their beds or on the floor. Some reading, others talking in hushed whispers.
However, the bonding between the group had failed to come for Jiro. He wasn't ignored as such, or even disliked, it was just that people seemed to prefer to keep out of his way. Not that he was bothered, there was something about personal freedom that made him feel better about himself.
Laying down on his mattress he reached under his pillow and took out his novel. He opened it where the bookmark had been placed, and continued from where he had left it.
"The space pirate stood over him, her sensuous curves accentuated by the emergency lights. She held the blaster in her well-manicured hands, and Lozzio felt a chill run through him as she languidly raised the weapon. 'Stand and deliver. Your money or your life.' the criminal decreed, with a flick of her head. Rich, red hair cascaded down to rest on her shoulders and around her ample bo-"
"SECTION! ATTENSHUN! SPOT INSPECTION!"
Jiro tossed the book onto the bed and leapt up, standing
by the side of his bed, arms tight against his sides. The other occupants of the
room stood where they had stopped, some even in the middle of the aisle. The
door on the other side of the room had banged open like a hurricane had hit it,
which it might well have been. Lance Corporal Shin-zo was standing to attention
by its frame, in a steadfast salute.
The two men who
walked through the door gave the billet a casual glance and moved in. Corporal
Fukashimo and the gruff Sergeant Maino marched in, the former a few steps behind
the latter.
"This is Four Section is it, Corporal?" asked the
sergeant. He moved over to the nearest bed box.
"That is
correct sir."
Maino stopped looking at the bed box and reached into his
pocket, removing a white glove. He slipped it on and, wiggling the fingers,
moved over to the nearby locker, brushing past the man standing in front of
it.
He ran his finger along the top and looked at the
digit. "What the hells?" He spun around to the recruit next to him. "Is this
your bed box and locker?"
"Yes, sergeant," came the
reply.
"THEN WHAT THE HELLS' THIS?" The sergeant shoved
his finger in front of the man's face.
"Dust,
sergeant."
"DUST?! YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT'S DUST?! RUDDY
DUST, IS IT?"
The recruit's lip quivered for a moment. "Yes,
sergeant."
"IT'S NOT DUST! IT'S SHIT! YOU'RE SHIT! FROM
NOW ON YOU'RE GOING TO CALL YOURSELF 'SHIT'! WHAT ARE
YOU?"
"Shit, sergeant."
The sergeant bent down and looked under the bed. Came up holding something.
"What's this?"
"My drinking mug,
sergeant."
"What's your mug doing under your bed
box?"
"I put it there, sergeant. For safe keeping."
The
sergeant looked at the mug for a second. Then wound up his arm and threw it
through the window over the bed, scattering glass across the concrete outside.
The mug bounced once, then landed splitting it in two. Those pieces ricocheted
across the courtyard, splintering. It came to rest in a hundred
fragments.
"Not very safe was it, Shit?"
He didn't wait
for an answer but continued down the aisle. "I will continue this examination
when I return. You will stand at attention until I do so... got
that?"
"YES, SERGEANT!" called out the billet's
recruits.
"Jiro. Major's Office. Now," the sergeant said. His swagger
cane had snapped out to point at Jiro, and had then whipped across to the
door.
"Yes, sergeant," squeaked Jiro. He walked all the
way to the Majors Office, legs feeling like they had been substituted for
rubber, and Maino tailing behind.
Major Fukaita carried, what was to Jiro, the
intolerable air of superiority that only officers and teachers seemed to have.
He looked, physically, no more different from his underlings than a queen bee
looks when compared to her subjects, although somewhere in his distinguished
military career he had taken a blaster shot across the side of his face, leaving
him with only one ear. There were a good number of witty puns about that, which
went around the Sections' ablutions when the NCOs weren't
listening.
Although he was the highest ranking officer in
the camp his office was just as sparse as the rest of the facility's rooms. No
carpet, no finish to the carved walls and only a desk and a pair of filing
cabinets made it look like anyone actually worked in it.
Jiro marched in through the office door, double pace, and
stood in the centre of the room, legs still pumping up and down as he marched on
the spot. Behind him he heard the sergeant move in and take a place beside one
of the dull walls.
"Thank you, Recruit. You can stop
marching now," came a voice from the desk over to his left. Jiro stopped
marching, coming to attention.
"Stand easy," came the
voice, "And wheel left."
Jiro twisted on the spot, his boots giving off a
squeak on the polished floor. The Major looked up at him. "You are Recruit
Jiro, 00-27638-254, of Section Four, Kam'Sara Platoon?"
"I
am sir," replied Jiro.
The Major cleared his throat. "Take a seat,
Jiro."
There was a single hard backed chair in front of the desk,
which Jiro sat down on. The Major flicked through the file of papers
sitting in front of him on the desk and looked up at Jiro. "Entering for Signals
Intelligence, are you?"
"Yes, sir."
"I don't think you are Jiro. I think you're going for something a little
more..." He paused for a moment, thinking, "Up market."
Jiro felt his knees
weaken even more. He knew! The Major knew! Even so, he tried to keep
himself calm, tried to ignore the throbbing of his heart in his throat. "No, I'm
afraid not sir. I'm Signals Intelligence. Nothing more."
"I don't care much for which agency you are working for," carried on the Major. If he had heard Jiro he made no sign of it. He looked up, "I despise
you for it."
Taken aback, Jiro opened his mouth to say ask why, and then
realised the trap he had nearly fallen into. Could see what was going on
here.
A test? Perhaps.
Or
maybe the officer really did know... And hated him for it...
Jiro licked his lips thoughtfully, wondered how to reply
to that. "I don't," he said slowly, "See how I can be persecuted for something
I'm not."
"I don't care," said the Major. "It's not my job to care about
you. I care about the real men down there. The ones who'll do something useful
with their lives, rather than skulking about in shadows."
"However, that doesn't involve me sir."
"Do you realise
how pathetic, how absolutely GUT-WRENCHINGLY pathetic, those Intelligence people
are?" continued the Major. "Messing about with spies and disguises while
the real men go out and die. Like to mess about and watch people die,
Jiro?"
"I am in no way affiliated with an Intelligence
branch, apart from my own Signals unit, sir."
"So you deny
it then, recruit?" The Major stared at him.
"That I
do, sir."
The officer looked over at the sergeant for a moment and moved his
eyes back to Jiro again. "If you tell me who you're working for, I can make your
life easier here Jiro." He leant forward, suddenly jovial. "You've got to see my
problem here. You can't just run people through basic training without the
correct papers. What if something happened? Disaster, war, anything? You'd be
shipped off to the wrong unit, with no knowledge, no understanding... Turn up
dead."
He steepled his hands. "So?"
"I am afraid I am unable to give any aid in this, sir, as
I am not a member of any Intelligence agency," replied Jiro. His ears were
burning and he hoped they didn't show.
"I could have you
arrested for lying to a superior officer," said the Major sharply, "Tell me
who you're training for."
"I regret-"
The Major held out his hand, shutting Jiro up. "And you've had no previous military experience." He shook his head, laughing. "Must have this ability for lying in your blood." The laughter vanished. "Now, you have one last chance. Tell me which agency you're working for, or your life here will be made a living hell. If you think it can get bad, I can make it worse. I could have you cleaning every single screw head in the entire camp if I want." He smiled grimly, "I can tell the officers you have after me that you are a liar, a braggart and a bad influence. If you tell me now, I can make your time here go like a wet-dream..." He shrugged. "Your call."
Jiro looked at him, blinked and opened his mouth. "That's very nice of you to offer, sir. But I am afraid that I am in no way affiliated with any Intelligence agency other than the one I am currently training for."
"You can leave recruit," said the Major, his face as blank and wooden as the office walls. Jiro rose and snapped off a salute before leaving, closing the door behind him. The office door led out onto the corridor directly, and as Jiro looked up and down it, he realised it was empty. He felt dreadful and his stomach was trying to escape up his throat. On one hand, if that had been some kind of test -a very basic one, compared to the sort of tests they showed in the movies- then he was fine. He'd proven he was able to keep his mouth shut. But what if the Major had really meant it... he shouldn't have known about his real being here and from what Jiro had seen (also in the movies) about spies, was that people, no matter how important, shouldn't be able to point them out.
He really felt ill now. He was going to be a spy... and he felt sick just being grilled by his superior officer.
Of course, there was one way of checking out whether he meant it or
not...
No. He shook the thought from his mind. It was
totally wrong, and he'd never done such a thing in his life.
But then
again, if he was to be a spy...
Quietly he knelt and pressed his ear against the wood. He could pick out the buzzing of conversation, but little more. Feeling a little guilty at his actions, he stood back up.
He got back to the billet just in time for Sergeant Maino to continue the examination and throw Jiro's novel through the, fortunately open, window.
Somehow, Jiro got the impression that he had made the right choice.
The first four weeks involved learning the ropes, the art
of discipline. The three 'P's; Punishment, parading and punishment. Those who
couldn't take the grueling regime walked, which included one man from Four
Section and another two from Five Section. Following the basic weeding, the next
four weeks started the military ideology proper. Weapons training, boxing,
ten-mile runs and more cold showers than could be handled. Live ammunition was
used for that realistic touch. One blast in four-hundred, and although
not strong enough to kill it would wind a victim up in the camp hospital for a
few weeks, and then he'd have to take the course over from the
beginning.
After two weeks many of the recruits began to
believe there was no outside. By the fourth week, most recruits denied there was
anything past the camp fence. At the end of the sixth week, not one man in the
entire platoon believed there was an outside. If there was, the NCOs weren't
saying.
Breakfast lasted fifty-minutes, although recruits had to
also make their beds, get their kit cleaned and pressed, get washed and shaved,
get changed, ready weapons and be at attention at their beds within that time
also. Jiro sat at the end of the long table inside the mess hall and prodded at
the noodles and porridge in his bowl. Apart from the chef and the two orderlies,
there were only a brace of other men apart from himself.
Gharnar, the Marine recruit who sleep in the bed-box next to Jiro's, was sitting
at the furthest end of the table. The other man was Ecnil, a back-squadded
trainee pilot, who Jiro had only come into close contact with twice before. Once
had been when he'd split the pilot's lip and eyebrow during boxing training, the
other when Jiro had been tackled and punched into unconsciousness during a
similar exercise. They picked at their bowls of food with the strange metal
'spoons' that had been given to them. Jiro scooped up a spoonful from his bowl
and ate the mess, deciding after the first moutful that it was probably the best
food in the world. He couldn't remember eating anything other than it.
"Taste good?" asked a voice beside
him.
"This is becoming a habit, Parishi," Jiro said, then
took another mouthful. He swallowed. "Why do you feel the need to keep sneaking
up behind me all the time?"
Parishi, standing next to him, put his bowl and
spoon on the table, then sat down. "Don't you like me sneaking
about?"
"I don't like you very much at all,"
replied Jiro.
"Is that why you've been ignoring me?"
Jiro nodded.
That was true. Since the Major's 'Queries' (which with every passing day appeared to have been some kind of test) he'd become part of the team, got to be friends with the rest of the Section. It had taken six weeks, longer than expected, but it had happened for everyone. Everyone, with one exception; Parishi. Not since that strange little conversation by his locker on the first day. From then, he had practically gone out of his way to not even stand next to this curious man. It wasn't simply the fact that he was older than the rest (as Jiro often got on better with people older than himself), but rather it was the way the man carried himself. He was always out of bed first, he always knew what to do, seemingly before it'd been shown to him, and there was some aura around him. Not to mention the fact he crept around silently, the only notice he was there being his snide voice in your ear. Jiro wasn't the only recruit in Four Section that kept out of his way.
"That's rude y'know," said Parishi matter-of-factly,
before picking up his own spoon.
Jiro glared at his food. "So's
sneaking about. I asked you before, why do you feel the need to keep appearing
behind me?"
"Practice." The other man gave a wry grin, "So
should you be."
"Enlisted Signalmen don't need to sneak
about."
Another grin. "Funny. Because I could have sworn that's what Signals
was all about. Sneaking. Watching." He leant closer to Jiro. "Spying," he
hissed.
"I don't think so," Jiro said. He dropped his
spoon into the half-empty bowl and got up.
The other man watched him rise.
"I'm with you, Jiro. I know you're wondering what the Goddess you're doing
here."
Jiro paused, half risen. Then he sat back down. "First off; I despise
blasphemy without reason. Second; what are you talking
about?"
"A better question is what am I doing
here."
"What am I doing here then, Mr. Clever?"
Parishi
bared his teeth in a devilish smile. "You're training for the SEOE. One of the
chosen few. The crème de la crème of the Intelligence organisations. The elite
class of the military profession. The men in the know, as it
were."
"Has anyone told you it's annoying to speak in
cryptic riddles?"
"Has anyone told you sarcasm is the
lowest form of wit?" Parishi shoveled another spoonful of porridge and noodles
into his maw, and then continued, "Anyway, cryptic riddles are my forte. I was a
code-breaker for Army Intelligence." He raised his hand to ward off a
non-existent outburst from Jiro, "I'm retraining for entrance into Special
Operations. Same as you. Except... I've heard some rumours that you were offered
the job without any prior military knowledge. Correct?"
"Yes."
The other man raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You must be one tough
bastard. Although I wouldn't say that just by looking at you." Another cheeky
grin. "In fact, you look like you should be a clerk. Or an accountant." Parishi
finished the bowl and stacked Jiro's and his own on top of one another. The pair
rose and walked over to the pile of dirty bowls by the
exit.
"What did you want to get in for, when you signed
up?" asked Parishi as he put the bowls down and went out through the door, Jiro
in tow.
As usual it was drizzling. A handful of other recruits
milled around as Jiro and Parishi stalked across the slick concrete to Billet
IV.
"Royal Bodyguard," answered Jiro.
The
ex-code-breaker grunted in affirmation. "Figures," he muttered. Then louder,
"The only people who try for Bodyguard are monarchists and boot-lickers.
Obviously, the monarchists are there because they're patriots. The boot-lickers
are just scum who want to be near the Royal family." He turned to Jiro.
"Boot-lickers make it into the Bodyguard.
"I guess
you're one of those rare monarchists I hear so much about." They stopped outside
the door to their billet. Parishi held open the door and waved Jiro through.
"Patriots first," he said smugly.
The eighth week in began the proper combat training.
Parishi, who had proved a goldmine of knowledge for most other things, came to
be a sort of mentor for Jiro. Although he didn't look it, at just 168 pounds and
five foot six in height the Code-Breaker was a formidable
skull-cracker.
Skull-cracking and man-handling was what
the Instructors lumped together any form of unarmed combat. Karate, Juraian
Basic, La Savate, Three Arms, Loparioso Jung-Ke, boxing; a galaxy's collection
of self-defence unceremoniously cobbled together into a lethal mish-mash of
styles. Throws, holds and other mostly non-lethal forms of combat were put under
man-handling. Skull-cracking catered for the other urge, reducing the target to
a quivering mass of snapped bones and bloodied flesh.
Parishi's skill lay in his skull-cracking technique. During the first combat
test, the P.T. Instructor made the mistake of putting Parishi up against a six
foot, 250 pound, wannabe Commando. When the small Code-Breaker had finished, the
Commando's arm was broken in six places and both his shins had been shattered.
It was quickly decided to put Parishi into an advanced course, which he brushed
through quickly enough to aid the only slightly above-average Jiro.
The pair would often skip Post Call (allowable if the man felt that he would rather leave his mail to the tender mercies of his billet members. Unsurprisingly, after demonstrating his combat prowess, Parishi's mail was never tampered with) going out to the roofed, dojo-like training hall for practice.
Once again Jiro picked himself up from the padded mats and
wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. "Tsunami. That hurt!" He limped
over to the wood bench that was set against one wall. Parishi rubbed his
knuckles painfully. Over on the other side of the hall, other groups of recruits
were practicing their own combat. Every so often there was a soft crump,
as someone hit the mats.
"You've got one hard jaw," he
said finally.
Jiro took the aforementioned body part in his hand and gently
waggled it. His jaw clicked. "I'm going to need to see the duty-med after
this."
"You're such a wimp," replied Parishi. He raised
his fist and blew on the knuckles in an attempt to stop the swelling. "You've
got to get angry. Get your emotions flowing."
"I don't get
angry."
Parishi looked at Jiro and nodded. "I know, 'Ice for blood'. Didn't
you fight at school?"
"Yes." Jiro rolled up his trouser
leg and looked at his ankle. A large, black bruise was beginning to
blossom.
"Did you win?"
Jiro gave a slight shrug and
grimaced at the pain in his shoulder. "Sometimes." He pulled down his collar and
tried to get a look at his shoulder. It looked like there was another bruise
there. He touched it gently and shrank back at the
soreness.
"I don't know why you bother Jiro. Why
don't you go and take up farming?"
"Buy a farm?"
The
Code-Breaker laughed. "You don't want to buy the farm, believe me. Come on. Have
another go."
Jiro got up off the bench and walked over to the centre
mat. He fell into the combat stance, right foot forward. "Any rules?"
Parishi
pondered for a moment. "Howsabout the winner buys the other a drink at the
NAAFI. Loser gets the right to be ribbed every time he's met in the
barracks."
"Fine."
The pair circled
each other around the mat. A tentative feint there, a snap-kick here. Then they
crashed together. There was a flurry of blows and they parted. Jiro wiped at the
split above his eyebrow. Parishi fell back, dropping into a lower stance. His
knuckles shone red raw. "Angry yet?"
"Not even
remotely."
There was another clash. This time Parishi jumped backwards, his
right eye shuttered and swelling from a quick jab. Jiro followed up with an
uppercut that missed entirely, leaving him open for two painful chops at his
unprotected stomach. He stumbled back, wheezing. Parishi lunged forward with a
heel-kick that connected quite satisfactorily with Jiro's chin. Jiro
toppled.
"You okay?" asked Parishi, standing over
him.
"Fine," came Jiro's reply. He pulled himself up to
standing and spat a red and shining tooth onto the mat. "Guess what."
Parishi
looked at him, "What?"
"I'm annoyed."
Parishi fell into a defensive stance as the other man
stepped forward and attacked, one fist coming under arm, one over in a Karate
'yama-zuki' or 'U-Punch'. Parishi managed to block the top most blow, but the
second one caught him under the ribs, knocking the wind from him. He bent over
double, his head coming down to meet Jiro's knee, which was coming up. There was
a vicious snap and his head whipped back, blood and mucus leaving a rainbow-like
arc in the air, and Jiro followed up with two more kicks, one to each side of
the head. Parishi fell over backwards to hit the floor. Nose oozing blood, he
tried to rise, pressing himself up on his elbows, and as he did Jiro stepped
forward. He brought his elbow down hard against Parishi's face. The Code-Breaker
dropped back down, eyes closed, nose buckled. Unmoving.
The other recruits stopped their training at the noise and turned to look at the
bleeding Jiro and the downed man. One of them ran for the door, probably to get
one of the NCOs or a medic. "Tsunami be damned!" shouted someone, "Someone got
Parishi down!" "That was Jiro!" "That can't be!" "Look!" "But no one-"
"I'm sorry." Jiro muttered as he limped back to the bench. He sat on it heavily, the feeling that he hated so much beginning to well up in him. "It just comes over me sometimes."
The PT Instructor and the the Lance Corporals from One and Seven Section found him curled up asleep on the bench when they arrived five minutes later.
Hearing the blood pounding in his ears, Jiro's breath came in ragged gasps, his feet hitting the mud with steady thuds. Ahead of him was the machinegun nest, behind him the rest of his team. He felt, rather than saw, the blaster fire racing around him.
Three yards to go until he hit it, and this close he could see the shock on the gunner's face. One, two, three! He leapt over the sandbags in front of him, rolling as he hit the ground, coming out of it laying prone. A blast plucked at his sleeve and he snapped off a round at the man aiming at him, who up until a few moments ago had been using the machinegun.
"DEAD!" shouted the man. He lay down on the floor, hands
behind head.
Two more men vaulted the sandbags behind Jiro, blasts flying
about them. Jiro grabbed another clip from his belt and slapped it into his
rifle.
Then the grenade that he hadn't even noticed went off by his
head. The three men stood up, coughing, gagging at the smoke from the
explosive.
Lance Corporal Shin-zo walked over to them, rifle slung
across his chest, face caked with mud. "How long have you been doing this
again?"
Jiro retched, held up five fingers. "Five... days..." he choked
through a throat that felt two sizes too small.
"Yes, I
thought it was," nodded the Corporal. He kicked the sputtering gas grenade over
the sandbags and away from the group, "But that doesn't really explain WHY THE
FUCK YOU CAN'T DO THIS BLOODY SIMPLE LITTLE EXERCISE! GET UP AND STAND TO
ATTENTION!"
The men snapped into perfect attention, their eyes still red and
streaming.
"By the Goddess, Jiro. You certainly showed
some spine there, for a signalman at least," said Shin-zo. He nodded to himself,
then leant on the sandbags. "But what the hell went
wrong?"
"I... think we failed... to notice the grenade...
Lance."
Behind them Lance Corporal Rio got up from the dirt and
removed his nose-plugs. "Jiro. Do you want to take it
again?"
"Would I get another chance in real
life?"
"Nope. What about you
others?"
The two men answered in the negative. "Black
marks all around then," sniffed Shin-zo. He pointed toward the way the three
trainees had come. "Clear off the lot of you. Get back to the dugout and tell
the next three to come up. Then wait there. Got it?"
"Lance!" replied the three men, and they broke off at a trot back towards the
dugout.
Brecknel Field was Basic Training Camp 040-32's main simulation site. When the recruits actually made it into their respective branches they'd get a taste of VR-combat, maybe even some in-depth hypnotic simulations. Until then it was simply a case of making mockups of buildings out of balsawood and sandbags and then letting the men loose on it. Totally insane under the circumstances Jiro had decided, after getting clipped with a live blaster round, although he knew he'd come off better than two others in Six Section. He didn't know if it was true - he'd never met any section apart from his own and Five - but there were some educated rumours that a pair of recruits had been caught in one of the live grenades that make up the four-hundred. Serious enough for hospitilisation of one, the other getting a medical discharge for shrapnel injuries. A rather sticky end.
The dugout was a simple trench dug across the width of the
field. It's base was planked and there was a step cut into its wall, giving
occupants somewhere to sit. Three other recruits were sitting there, when Jiro's
troop arrived, but they left as soon as they caught sight of the returnees. No
one wanted to feel the wrath of the Lance Corporals, especially when there was
the prospect of live ammunition.
Jiro's group sat on the
dugout's step. He undid his choker and propped his rifle against his knee.
Adrenaline was still going, but he felt perfectly calm. He always did after
combat training, although he was interested to see how it held in true action.
One of his teammates, Yahamoti, sat near him, his heel clicking against the
boardwalk rhythmically.
Jiro and Parishi, who still
brandished a large white plaster across the bridge of his nose, watched it with
sullen interest.
"I can't help it," said Yahamoti
eventually. "I always get the shakes after combat."
"Proves your alive, doesn't it?" replied Parishi. He looked away. "Be thankful
of that."
Yahamoti frowned at him, then pressed his hand down hard
against his knee, holding the foot to the ground. "I'm beginning to wish I
wasn't." He looked at Jiro, "Don't you wish you weren't?"
Off in the distance
there was the chatter of blaster fire.
"What's your
dream?" asked Parishi suddenly.
Jiro looked up,
"Sorry, were you asking me?"
"Yeah, why not? What's your
dream, Jiro?"
Jiro shrugged, "Ask Yahamito."
"I want to
be a billionaire," said Yahamito, without waiting to be asked, "With six wives.
And a mansion."
Parishi nodded, non-committal. "A dream as good as any.
Jiro?"
"I don't want to tell you my dream," said Jiro. He
stood up and stretched.
"Why not?"
"Because you'll laugh," Jiro said. He paced the trench for a few seconds letting
the circulation get back to his legs. "And because it's none of your
business."
It was Parishi's turn to shrug. He sat there and looked at the
sky. Yahamoti watched the pair of silent men for several minutes. Then went back
to tapping his heel against the boards.
There was a dull explosion over on the simulation field, and the sounds of someone screaming.
Jiro stepped into the billet, followed by the rest of Four Section. His uniform was caked with mud, he had the beginnings of a black eye and he was missing about six pints of blood, or so it felt. He trudged over to his bed, leaving a trail of muddy footprints that was added to by the feet of the other men. A sixteen mile run, followed by simulated base defence, then another sixteen mile run back, rounded off with standing in the billets' courtyard for six hours. Just a normal day...
He sat on his bed and pulled off his shoes. The sole of
his right sock was a vivid red from toes to heel. Without a word he slid off the
sticky woolen and checked his foot. Blood everywhere. If this had been just
under twelve weeks ago, he noted, he'd probably have started whining or moaning
about how much it hurt. Now, he was just too tired to complain. He opened his
locker, took a field-medical kit out and put a thick plaster over the cut
opposite his foot's arch.
He looked up and around the
room. Some of the other men (he couldn't see them as recruits anymore, even
though he and they still were) were getting changed. Others lay on their bed
boxes, still in their rain sodden clothes, reading. Since the ninth week, there
had been more leniency in how the beds were looked after. Sometimes they had
been let off for leaving their beds in a state, although it was still a rare
occurrence. Jiro felt a sudden pang of sadness.
Tomorrow left, he thought sadly. Tomorrow, then we go.
He stood up and reached into his locker for his photograph. He didn't hide it any longer, because, well, what was the point? There was no embarrassment in emotions. Each of them's got their own little trinket, his mind told him. Rama, he's got a fluffy toy that he keeps in his rucksack, and Gharnar, he's got a lucky strip of bark from a Holy Tree. I mean, it's perfectly normal to have-
"Right." He span around. "Which clever bastard thought
it'd be funny to take my photograph?"
Thirteen faces stared at him. He
hobbled into the aisle between the rows of bed boxes. "I want my photograph
back. Now."
"Why do you have a photograph of Princess
Ayeka in your locker?" asked a wannabe-tank gunner.
Jiro looked at him.
"Well, I don't at the moment. Because one of you has stolen
it."
"Well, yeah," smiled the man, "But why did you have
it?"
"Wha- What does it matter to you?" Jiro turned to the
others, "What is this? 'Let's laugh at Jiro day'?"
Thirteen heads nodded.
"So. Why did you have her picture?" asked the gunner again.
Jiro's mouth
opened to give some witty reply, and then thought better of it. "To remember why
I'm here," he stated simply. Parishi, sitting on his bed-box, looked down the
room at him.
"I don't think it's very fair to blame Ayeka
for your being stupid," he said blithely.
Jiro's face reddened. "Look, this
is not funny. Will whoever's got my photograph give it back, please.
NOW!"
"No one's got your photograph," somebody shouted
out. Somebody else giggled.
Jiro's fists clenched. "Then where in the name of
..." His mouth made to say a word which he knew he shouldn't. He changed it
something else, "In the name of all that is Holy, is it?"
Thirteen heads
turned slowly upwards to fix on the ceiling, at a point above Jiro's bed. Slowly
he felt his entire body freeze, his brain beginning to work on what was being
said.
He turned around and followed their gaze.
"Absolutely hilarious," he growled.
The picture of Ayeka he'd cut out of the
magazine, smiled down at his bed from where it had been
stapled.
"Catch!" shouted Parishi and Jiro just caught the
photograph frame that was thrown at him. He felt anger was slowly dissipating
into bemusement as he stared at the portrait on his ceiling. He shook his head.
"Why did you stick it up there?"
"We knew how much you
liked it, so we thought you'd like to get a good view every night before getting
to sleep. If you get what I mean!" Parishi called. There were laughs from the
others.
"And because you fancy her, an' all,"
guffawed Gharnar.
"I do not fancy her!" mumbled Jiro as he
climbed onto his bed. He reached up for the offending article, but found he was
still a few inches too short. "I'm the tallest one in here and even I can't
reach it! How'd you get it up there?" He bounced on the mattress, but even with
the extra height he still couldn't get it.
"Corporal
Shin-zo lent us a ladder," said Ecnil, beaming from ear to ear. "Anyway, why
take it down? She'll be the first thing you dream of tonight." He grinned at the
other men, "Not that he doesn't anyway."
"This has gone
far enough!" Jiro roared from the top of his bed. He made another leap for the
picture. "I do not want to get it on with Princess Ayeka. I have more decorum
than that." He pointed at the rest of the section, "And, I'll have you know, I
don't dream of her either."
One of the men, an Army Intelligence recruit, held up a
sound-recorder and pressed the play button. They all listened in silence to
the noises that came from it.
Finally Jiro looked at him. "You're dead," he
laughed, "You are so dead."
He lunged.
'The Virtue of the Vicious'
- SEOE Motto
Training moved by like a breeze; for me at least. I
woke up one morning to find eighty-five and a half years had passed.
There's
nothing more shocking than that. I passed out of Basic Training with no fanfare,
somebody from Five Section garnering the coveted Best Overall Trainee award at
the end of it all. One man from my Section got the Most Improved award. He was a
snub-nosed little fellow with big eyes. Never did get his
name.
He died during live grenade practice at the Army's
Advanced Training six weeks later. We were finding bits of him in our hair for
weeks afterwards, because Juraian grenades, they don't mess around. When they go
off, they explode good.
So I was moved off to an Army Training facility, where
I learnt the art of fighting like cannon fodder. No matter what anyone tells
you, the army's got no finesse, it's just a sledge hammer. The Commandos are
better, I trained with them for a good year... Oh, and as an equal opportunity
fighting force, Jurai allows women Commandos. I had the distinct fortune to
train under a woman who matched good looks and charm with the ability to kill a
man at three hundred feet with a .22 rifle.
That's
the other interesting thing. Although the basic weapon of the Juraian military
is the high powered blaster rifle (incorrectly called by the media a LASER
rifle), a soldier, especially a Commando, must be trained in the usage of the
more esoteric technology that can be scavenged or manufactured in the
field.
I've played with toys that could blow a
Galaxy-class starship to composite atoms, but nothing comes close to a basic
bolt action rifle with a non-slip butt. I can get off twenty rounds using a
bolt-action when a squaddie can get off twelve with his blaster. Plus, a
projectile launcher can be suppressed (not silenced. You can quiet it, but not
silence it) and its flash hidden. That's why Army snipers use a magnet powered -
or railgun - version of the rifle that backwater planets use.
Things were easier now than they ever had been before.
I sort of slipped between the cracks, as it were. Stole myself a 90% shot ratio
with all of my weapons (except the sniper rifle which I mentioned earlier, with
that I scraped up a measly 87.8%) but no one seemed to notice how well I
did.
A deliberate action on my new boss' part, it soon
transpired.
After the Army came the Navy. I learnt to fly
everything but those nimble little drone ships... The ones that buzz about at
around a million miles per hour. Of course, you don't man them, but sit in a
command booth back at base with a remote control. I crashed two of them before
they kicked me off the course.
Let's just say they weren't
best pleased.
I never met or trained with the NID, but then again, now that I
know what they're like I wouldn't have wanted to.
Royal Bodyguard proved to be the easiest course yet.
Marched through it like I was on the parade ground. I did the final examination
after eight weeks of being there. Not the fastest time I'll admit, as one of the
other guys (who was also a 'Signalman', if you catch my meaning) got
through in six weeks and two days. A record.
We didn't go
with the Marines, as we'd already trained with the Commandos and it was
essentially the same, but with more emphasis on hard and fast assault landings
against enemy held territory. Well, thank you very much, but if I wanted to
throw myself into the jaws of death I'd have joined the Death's Head
Battalion.
But I've said too much there already...
The final 'official' course was the Intelligence
Branch's training, and that was hard. Seriously hard. But Parishi was there, and
he'd had to do it to get into the Army Intelligence, so I had inside knowledge
of what to do. I learnt nearly everything I use today in that camp. Covert
tailing of a suspect; shaking a tail; establishing ongoing surveillance; spot
surveillance; surreptitious letter opening; bug placing; fumigating for those
bugs I hadn't placed but someone else had; concealment of items or documents;
basic forgery; conducting a hand-over; creating dead-letter drops and microdots;
searching for concealed equipment or weapons; using sniffers and stompers, those
little things that track down and stop tracking devices; and the big one,
methods of clandestine, covert and overt infiltration and exfiltration. It's all
very well knowing what to do, but it doesn't help if you can't actually get into
the place.
Tricks in how to threaten people; breaking and
entering - the so called Black Bag Jobs; kidnapping; how to incite revolution;
propaganda dispersal; collection of intelligence information; field
dissemination of collected intelligence; assault tactics; cleaning up a 'dirty'
site; denying assets to the enemy, which generally meant you took a sledgehammer
to the computer you were working on, tipped flammable liquid over it and then
torched it. Lots of funky stuff to be sure. We learnt everything apart from how
to assassinate a man (by assassinate I mean kill in a preordained way. Killing a
sentry or someone who gets in the way isn't called assassination. That's called
'murder'), because Jurai doesn't allow the killing of a man who hasn't been
arrested and tried by an impartial court.
Ironic, huh?
That's where the SEOE comes in. Up until I actually
went off to their training camp I'd managed to work my way through all the
military branches, with enough skill and aplomb to make a good living as a top
intelligence operative or high-ranking soldier. I had trained with weapons that
could devastate a planet at the press of a button (simulated of course); got to
grips with the basics of fighter-spacecraft. Well, okay, I could take off and
land one, although engaging in a dog-fight would probably end up with my being
dead. Unless the other guy was blind or green. I could B&E most mid-security
facilities...
I thought I was good.
I knew nothing.
Jiro's choker dug tightly into his Adam's apple as he stood by the entrance to Intelligence Training Camp 9. Behind him the half-a-dozen other SEOE recruits paced the roadside, standing alone or talking in groups. All wore their Signals uniforms, in a desperate bid to make a good impression. Not one of them hadn't been chewed out for turning up for a brief in entirely the wrong uniform and suffered the indignity of peeling potatoes in the mess hall or scrubbing the toilets with their toothbrushes.
If there was one thing Jiro had learnt, it was expect nothing, and it was why he was standing there impassively, looking at the fifteen feet wall, and the massive iron gate and the guard in his booth next to it with solemn indifference. There had been the usual rumours about the place, some of them true, some of them false. Most of them probably being the latter.
From what he had learnt, the Camp had been the property of
the Intelligence Bureau since the end of the Second Civil War, as a storage
facility. After the ill-fated coup d'état attempted by Duke Matsuue, it had been
turned over to the Prime Minister's newly formed Ministry of Communications
Security, which in turn collapsed under its own morass of political U-turns and
scandals. There it was handed over to the final group, the Central Information
Service, a government funded think-tank for helping in everything from new
anti-pollution methods to the development of
super-weapons.
It was they who still owned it. Officially
at least.
You couldn't get through training without hearing the snatches of conversation about what really went on behind closed CIS doors. Aside from its actions in aiding the government in designing new military applicable equipment, the CIS was also, supposedly, the collector and distributor of information that even the other intelligence departments couldn't get their hands on. There was even talk that their computers were more powerful than the other 'real' agencies', and so they were used to assist in those times when even the mighty Juraian intelligence machine was brought to a standstill.
Whatever the case, the CIS had a publicly available directory-listed holophone number, it wasn't hiring staff and it didn't need a sponsor.
Jiro picked up his gym bag. Three pairs of clothes, a
photograph and a novel were its only contents. He'd taken to carrying the last
two simply for old time's sake. He'd finished the book eighty-five years ago and
the photograph still had the staple marks in it, but he didn't really care. It
was his stuff damn it, and if they wanted it they'd have to fight him for
it!
He turned and looked at the small group of recruits
behind him. He knew none of them. Not a single one. Parishi had disappeared one
night, no answers given at breakfast the next morning. That had been six months
ago.
He turned back again when he heard the massive metal gates
begin to grind open. Past it he could see the camp itself, its buildings
standing in the synthesised sunlight, surrounded by grass and trees and winding
paths.
A woman walked out towards them smiling. She was
wearing a fashionable red and green skirt and shoulder-padded cloak, hair coming
down in a trio of bunches. "Gentlemen," she beamed, "I'm so glad you could all
make it."
The 'gentlemen' paid a good deal of attention to her. The woman (girl, thought Jiro, she wasn't that old at all. A few years out of school at most) didn't seem bothered by the looks she was being given, but instead motioned for them to follow her, like they were a bunch of pre-schoolers. "If you gentlemen wouldn't mind following me," she said politely, still smiling, "The Camp Commander will meet you in Lecture Hall 3. Refreshments will be available there."
"You mean refreshments, as in drinks?" asked someone
behind Jiro.
The girl nodded, "Tea, coffee, soft drinks, yes. So if you
wouldn't mind-" She repeated the motion and turned on her heel, the skirt riding
up to her calf and giving an appetising look at her leg before falling back down
again. The recruits stood there and looked at each other.
Refreshments? At a Training Facility? Jiro couldn't
hide his surprise. In nearly a century of training, he had never arrived at a
place to find himself being offered drinks. Let alone good looking women with
nice legs asking (not ordering but asking) them to come and meet the
Commander. It was unheard of! The other recruits were exchanging the same looks
of utter incomprehension. Up ahead the girl paused in her walk and turned to
look at the immobile men.
"Come on!" she called and set
back off again.
Never one to ignore a direct order, especially one from a
girl with good legs, Jiro cantered along behind her, the rest falling in
also.
The entire camp was inconceivable, and the recruits
followed the girl along the winding paths with their faces firmly set to
'stunned'. It looked, and felt, more like a University than a military facility.
The buildings were a mix of Juraian wood and modern-looking glass and iron.
Between which pathways ran, weaving in intricate junctions and throughways
across the neatly cut grass. There was no concrete to be seen covering the
ground anywhere. There were people walking, not running, just ambling along the
paths and across the grass, some in uniform, mostly out, but all calm. There was
no shouting, chanting or the stomp of drill. Just the sounds of mild
conversation, the birds and the dim sound of traffic over the outer wall. Some
people were lounging under the shade of firm trunked trees, reading or
talking.
Shade!
Jiro looked up. In no other camp
had he been had he needed shade before. There'd never been a need, as the camps
had never had a weather control system, or if they did had set them to
'continuous rain'. Here the sun was shining, and he was sweating without the
need for strenuous exercise.
Amazing.
As the group walked, the girl pointed out the various
buildings with honest enthusiasm. "That's the swimming pool and gymnasium," she
said, pointing at a bulky glass building a few thousand yards
away.
"How big is this place?" asked one of the
recruits.
"160 acres," came the cheerful reply, "We're
trying to buy another forty, but it might take another few years, oh, and that's
Dormitory C."
She continued pointing things out until they got to the lecture
hall.
The hall was laid out like a movie theatre, the podium and
holoscreen at the front, the aisles of seats going up a steep incline. The seven
recruits were directed to sit, the girl moving down to stand at base of the
stand and the podium atop it. She hadn't given her name, nor had she asked for
any, Jiro noted. Another difference from the norm.
Before he could ponder any
deeply on this wonder, the door at the bottom of the room opened and two
men stepped through. Both casually dressed, one moved up to the podium, the
other stood next to the door with his arms folded.
"Gentlemen," said the man at the podium, his voice resonant, "I am Commander Asashi of Training Camp 9. Those of you with a deeper grasping of antediluvian languages might get a kick out of its nickname, 'Camp Koroshiya'." He smiled, but none of the seven recruits in front of him made any movement of understanding. "Never mind. I'm sure someone will teach you it.
"You are, in all respects, the best. You have been poached
from the best the military has to offer, and all of you have suffered, and
survived, the rigorous training needed for entry here. Of the original sixteen
applicants all those years ago, you are the remainder, and it is with great
pride I tell you that you have all got what it takes to work under the banner of
the Special External Operations Executive." He looked across the group with
respect, his eyes taking each of the men in. "Here you will be trained to the
best of your abilities in order to safeguard the future of Jurai. Now, I wish
speak to you all individually, so please feel free to help yourself to drinks
and cakes. If you have any questions, please ask Emi." The girl by the stand
gave a pleasant nod of the head.
"I'd like to see Hisashi
Dakebata, please," continued the Commander. One of the group rose, and followed
Asashi out the door he had entered.
A table had been set up behind the the remainder of the
recruits while the short speech had been made. There were a few bowls of
biscuits and Juraian cakes, along with teapots and cups. The group helped
themselves to a mug of tea and returned to their seats in silence. What was
there to say?
If there was Jiro couldn't find it. He
sipped his tea in thought.
The girl, Emi, eventually gave up waiting for
questions and moved over to the man still standing, arms crossed, by the
door.
The recruit, Dakebata, returned a few minutes later,
grabbed the bag he had left on his seat and vanished out the door again. Emi
looked up the room at the remaining recruits.
"Mr.
Jiro?"
Jiro rose from his seat, putting down his tea and picking up his gym
bag. "That's me, ma'am."
The girl laughed. "I'm not a ma'am. No more than
you're a sir, Mr. Jiro." She gave a wayward glance at the man next to her, then
looked back at Jiro. "Follow me, please."
The Commander's office was a very formal thing. Although
its window overlooked the vivacious greenery and trees, the room had no real
life. The desk was neat and efficient, no clutter, with the computer given pride
of place over to the side. However, the room was entirely at odds with the man
who owned it. Commander Asashi wore civvies with a passion rarely seen, even
outside the military. A tall, wiry fellow, he had to be one of the best dressed
men Jiro had met in his life (although that said little, as the only time he had
been in the civilian population after joining up was during those exercises that
Intelligence sometimes ran or when he managed to lay his hands on a twenty-four
hour pass).
As the door closed behind Jiro, the Commander
waved him over. "Come in Jiro! Sit down! And please undo that choker. I'd hate
to have a man suffocate in my office."
The choker, the padded neck-brace that ran around the top
of all Juraian military uniforms, was particularly uncomfortable and was only
worn on parade or if the OC was a stickler for discipline. Such officers were
often called, 'Arseholes'. It was only fair.
Jiro sat
down, undoing the choker with pleasure. "Thank you sir."
"So, Jiro, you've been briefed on what your work here will
entail?"
Jiro, his throat now unrestricted, shook his head. "No sir. However,
I have heard rumours and hear-say, and from that I've deduced what could be
trained here."
"And that is?"
There was a slight pause,
as Jiro wondered whether to say it. "Assassination," he said finally.
The Commander see-sawed with his hand. "Close. Not our main aim, but yes, we
are the only Juraian organisation to engage in acts of... politically motivated
murder. Do you object to that?"
Jiro answered truthfully. "Not in the
slightest."
"Of course not. We wouldn't have picked you
otherwise." The Commander turned to the computer, its screen hidden from Jiro's
view. Typing up something, the Commander returned to Jiro. "You trained at BSC
040-32. Apparently you did well."
"No well enough to get
awards when I passed out, sir."
The Commander smiled. "No. But then again, we
wouldn't have let you. Draws too much attention. Your corporals liked
you."
"They did?" asked Jiro, taken
aback.
"One of the best they taught." The Commander looked
at him, "Didn't you think they liked you?"
"No more than
anyone else, sir."
"You passed our little loyalty test.
Was it easy?"
Jiro, his memory suddenly snapping back to the Major's
one-to-one talk all those years ago, allowed himself a wry smile and a nod.
"Easier than the rest."
Then the questions began to get snapped off. Quicker,
faster, less chance to think about the answer.
"Army
training," said the Commander, "You put your Instructor in hospital.
Why?"
"Erm... It was combat training,
sir."
"Unarmed?"
"Yes,
sir."
"How badly?"
Jiro had faced worse than this
before, been put under the microscope by professional Intelligence Branch
interrogators. "I believe his rib pierced his lung."
"Hmmmm... It says here you tried the new R-82 Blaster Rifle. What did you
think?"
"The barrel's too heavy and the sight tends to
wander."
"Prefer the old 78?"
"IM-60
actually. I prefer a firm, rounded butt." He froze as he realised the Freudian
slip he'd made.
The Commander raised an eyebrow and Jiro felt his face
redden. He couldn't control himself.
"Surprising,"
said the Commander eventually, "What about your naval course?"
Still
blushing, Jiro snapped back a little more forcefully than he should have done,
"What about it?"
"You failed the final VR-simulation.,"
said the Commander simply.
"Not technically failed. I won, I just didn't
survive."
The eyebrow, which had lowered, raised itself again in
question.
"Well," continued Jiro, a little bit calmer, "I
went kamikaze into the enemy's command ship."
"How very
heroic..." replied the Commander. He looked back at the computer screen. "Ah,
here's an interesting one. During Intelligence training the Instructor declared
that you'd never make a good HUMINT operative and so you, and I quote, 'hid
inside the facility for six weeks, evading capture by base personnel, all the
while collecting photo intelligence of the Instructor in question.'" He gave an
amused nod. "I'm impressed. A very novel idea."
"Thank
you, sir. Although I spent six weeks kept in isolation and had to retake the
twelve weeks I'd missed, so it was more of a moral victory."
Commander Asashi sat back in his chair and breathed a deep
sigh. "I'll tell you this now, Jiro. I usually can't stand characters, but I'll
make an exception for you. You're not a loose cannon, you're a point-maker, and
that I can handle. What I cannot handle is morons who go out of their way to try
and buck the system. I might not be able to handle those people, but the SEOE
does. Do you know how handle them, Jiro?"
"No
sir."
"We shoot them in the back of the head," said
Asashi. He looked at Jiro, as if willing for him to comment on
it.
"Well," Jiro said, "That usually works."
The
Commander smiled. "It hasn't failed yet. Not once. Now, here at Camp 9 we have
things a little different from how you're used to. People are not referred to by
rank. If the person wears a uniform, he's at the bottom of the ladder. If he, or
she, wears a scruffy uniform, that person is in the middle. If he wears civilian
clothes, he's at the top. Understand?"
"Yes
sir."
"Just 'yes' will do. You will attend a number of
classes and lectures every weekday. You will find the lesson timetable in your
apartment. All lessons will be arrived at punctually. Failure to do that, and
without sufficient reason, more than a couple of times will result in us
shooting you. If you tell anyone outside the SEOE about what it is we do, we'll
shoot you. If you attempt to escape from the camp, we'll shoot you. If you lie
to me from now on, I'll shoot you personally. Understand?"
"Crystal," answered Jiro, more calmly than he felt.
"I
shouldn't worry though. We don't make a habit of shooting people who screw up.
It'd get hard to hide all the bodies."
The Commander pressed a button on the desk's intercom,
bent his head down to the speaker, "Send in Mr. Hoshi, please."
He sat back
up. "While you're here, Agent Hoshi will be your guide. He's done all of this
before, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask
him."
"Actually," said Jiro, "I have a question to ask
you; There was a man, Parishi Tahito. What happened to
him?"
"He failed the test."
Jiro's eyebrows knitted in
surprise. "Failed?"
"It happens sometimes. He's back at
Army Intelligence now, breaking enemy codes. Anything
else?"
"No. No, I don't think so."
He turned around at the sound of the door being opened, and looked at the man
who stepped in.
"Mr. Jiro," said Commander Asashi, "This
is Agent Hoshi. Agent Hoshi-"
"We've already met," cut in
Jiro, "Although last time he was in fancy dress. An artilleryman, perhaps? In
the Palace. Eighty-six years ago, thereabouts."
"Sharp eyes and good memory, Mr. Jiro," said Hoshi, "Very
few people remember me." He gave a sharp grin. "But don't take it personal, we
have to keep an eye on our star pupil."
It was the same man who Jiro had met
in the Palace waiting room. A little bit older and without the uniform, but he
still had the cutting voice and the grin.
"As you know
each other so well," Asashi said patiently, "Perhaps Hoshi, you can take Mr.
Jiro around the camp. Show him his room, the classrooms, etcetera etcetera."
"It'll be my pleasure," smiled Hoshi. He turned to Jiro, "You'd better pay attention. I'll be asking questions at the end."
'Arrival'
- Sir Laurens Van der Post
"We will be landing at Gate 3 of North America's 'Maine' Space Centre in five minutes. Please have passports and hand luggage prepared before we begin descent. Due to the necessity of radar shielding on entry, we ask that all computers and electrical equipment be turned off."
Seiji looked at the P.A. speaker in the aisle next to his seat. It was from that the voice was being given off. The rest of the first class passengers began to get their bags ready from the overhead lockers. The fat man unclipped the headphones and turned off the language learner.
"On behalf of all the staff of TGS Services, we'd like to
say a large thank you for your custom." And your money. "And hope you
will travel again with us soon." Because we want even more of your money.
"We hope you've had a pleasant trip, and will enjoy your stay on Juraian
Colonial Planet 0-315."
There was a click as the pilot
turned off the tannoys. I will, thought Seiji. He crossed his hands on
his lap and waited.
And so, the craft hit the Earth's atmosphere, its nose glowing from yellow, to orange, to red and finally to a brilliant white as it made its final movement across the heavens. From the ground it would have looked like a shooting star, something becoming much more common in the nights' sky for reasons that are all to readily apparent. The American people slept quietly in their beds, only a handful knowing of the fleeting transports high above them, that came from some far-flung galaxy. Even fewer knowing the truth about the races that these ships carried.
The shuttle touched down, with the barest hiss, at Loring Air Force Base. The facility had officially been closed back in 1994 (as the Earthlings calendar called it) but its distance from local centres of habitation made it one of the most perfect places in the United States for landing extraterrestrials and their vehicles.
Seiji, his gym bag held in one hand, his passport clenched
in the other, traipsed the grey corridors toward Immigration. The sounds of work
echoed long and loud all around him. Baggage staff, Space Port personnel and
travelers bustling around, acting as if their lives had some importance. It
amused him no end.
'Immigration' looked exactly like every other Immigration
centre in the galaxy. Apart from the khaki-clad, stern-faced men clenching their
assault rifles. If there was one thing about backwater planets, decided
Seiji as he passed another helmeted US Marine with a combat shotgun, it was
that they took their security particularly seriously. You couldn't blame
them though. They were so panicky, like grazing animals.
Of course, if you had Ryoko sitting in a house on your little patch of land,
you'd probably be prepared to blow shit up too, said a quiet, grim little
voice in the back of his head.
He finally got out of the queue and up to one of the
multitude of booths in which the Immigration Officials worked. Unlike their more
terrestrially oriented counterparts these ones were also wearing the
standard camouflage slacks and a heavy caliber automatic at their
belt.
"Hello," said the Official, in polite but thickly
accented Juraian. It sounded like he was trying to talk with his mouth full of
oats.
"Good morning," replied Seiji in flawless
American.
The Official raised his eyebrows and took the passport that Seiji
handed him. He switched back to American. "That's amazing, Mister...
Kinatami?"
"Kin-I-tami," corrected
Seiji.
"Sorry, Mr. Kinitami," The man scanned the passport
through the computer next to him. "It's not every day we get to speak our native
language. I have to admit, you speak it very well. I'd never have guessed you
weren't American."
"Well, we live and learn," Seiji said,
as if it answered anything.
"So, business or pleasure?" asked the Official. He checked
the passport picture against Seiji's face, and finding nothing wrong, put it
down on the counter.
"Well, first time I came here was
pleasure. Second time business. And I know they say don't mix it, but I'm afraid
this time I'm going to."
The Official nodded. "Duration of
stay?"
"A month at most."
"Thank
you... that checks out." The Official looked up. "Not that I'm saying there was
any sign that you wouldn't, sir. But you know security."
"Oh, don't apologise," smiled Seji. "Where would we be without security?
It's the most important thing out there."
Nodding slowly, the Immigrations
man picked up the passport and checked it again. "Erm, sir. It says here you'll
be staying in Japan."
"Ye-e-es."
"Well, why didn't you land there?"
Seiji placed his hands on the counter, a very subconscious sign that the speaker was going to tell the truth. "That's the pleasure part." he lied, "I want to see the States properly. Then catch one of your..." He searched for a word, "Aeroplane? Yes, that's it. Aeroplane to Japan. Then get down to business."
"Do you speak Japanese, sir?" The man's voice had taken on
a hard edge.
What? Does this guy think he can scare
me?
"Nihongo wo hanashimasu ka?" asked Seiji. He leant
on the counter and smiled, raised an eyebrow in a manner that dripped
sarcasm.
The Official blinked.
"Kisama," Seiji muttered
when no words from the other man were forthcoming.
"Would
you mind explaining what you just said?"
Seiji nodded his head. "Yes. I
would."
The Immigration man coughed loudly and looked at the growing crowds behind
Seiji. "Do you know the rules sir?"
"No non-Earth clothes,
no non-Earth equipment and no talk of the big outside. I've done this
before."
"Are you carrying anything of that sort?" The
queue was beginning to grow even longer.
"Yes," replied
Seiji. "But I'll turn it in at Customs."
As if...
"Thank you Mister Kinitami," The man said quickly, handing
the passport over. "Have a pleasant stay."
"I'll try my
hardest."
As he walked away, Seiji couldn't help but smile. High
and dry...
And then he remembered why he was here. He pocketed the
passport, his body sagging.
"Why didn't they stop me?" he asked quietly.
- - - - - - - -
Chapter 4:- Ante Bellum
If you dance with the devil, you don't change the devil. But the devil
changes you.
The tender noose of insanity, be thankful it cuts off the
circulation.
- - - - - - - -
Disclaimer:- This is an act of fiction. All characters are owned by their respective companies (namely Pioneer and its affiliates). All characters, equipment and situations not owned by a company is the intellectual property of the author (Ministry Agent). Special thanks to Hospitaller for use of his Juraian Naval Intelligence Directorate. "Barrack Room Ballads" is from Rudyard Kipling's superb poetry. "The Virtue of the Vicious" is from a quote by Oscar Wilde. Loring Air Force base is real and its history is correct to the best of my knowledge.
