"So what have we got?"
The question evoked only silence that balanced in its deepness against the minuteness of the DI hut. Barely large enough to fit the requirements of one Instructor, all five were crammed into it now. It was the only way they all could assemble unobserved by the boots and still be in a position to keep an eye on them.
"Well... they know what to do with those Johnsons," Stone finally said. "A few have approached me with modifications—stress stuff, mainly. They know what century-old metal can do under stress. So at least we know they value their hides." Stone looked at his boss. The expression on his face reminded Christopher of a high school kid guessing at an algebra question. He looked at Sabott.
Sabott just looked up. "Don't look at me! I'm still impressed we got them past initial drill! But they still aren't thinking like Marines."
"Bullshit!" It was Maysfield. "They act like a unit, not as individuals. But pull one out of the herd and he's good to go. But I wouldn't go pattin' myself on the back for that. I think they did that before we got 'em. We just never noticed. What's taking the time is learning how to put it into our terms. You know how you can see it in a boot's eyes that he's pissed off when you march him to the quarterdeck for some little fuck-up? Well, after that little late-night fiasco, I had forty-five major league upset boots on my quarterdeck, and it wasn't me they were pissed at. Hell, Danny, you must be slippin' not to see that."
"Sorry, Master Sergeant, I'm not so sure."
"Me neither!" Christopher cut in. "It's hard to read these guys."
Maysfield searched the table for a new pen, his having died. "One thing I know for sure, Bobby. I don't think it was such a great idea to put Roach and Arnold in such close proximity. There's a genuine dislike between those two."
Christopher paused. "Well, they'd better get used to it. When was the last time the Corps let you pick who you wanted to work with?"
"Oh," drawled Abner, "I'd say about two months ago!"
"Good point!" responded Christopher, nodding affirmatively. "Oh, some good news from the home front. We can stop reading those manuals on hand‑to‑hand. We're getting a short crew of Instructors when we pull over at Sculptor, planet one. Some new-made Second Lieu and a couple of buddies. On occasion, try and remember to salute. It ain't worth a whole hell of a lot out here in the boonies, but it'll give the new kid a warm fuzzy. And don't count heavily on the fact that, for the last ten years or so, he was one of us. Give a jar a bar and you can't tell what's gonna happen." Christopher looked at his watch. "It's 20:58, let's wrap this up and put the kiddies to bed. Any questions?"
"Who's in charge, and are they staying for graduation?" Rojas asked.
"Good question! Nothing changes. No, we're heading for the orbiter in the Sculpter region for cargo, in about—"
"The orbiter? Little Boston?" Rojas eyes were as wide as half dollars. "Sir, the Sergeant requests leave—”
"Keep your pants on Rojas, I'll try and swing everybody an eighteen-hour pass if I can. Just remember—if I can! You’ve got the Army running that show. I don't care what you do, just don't get caught 'cause I can't help you!"
"Pistol quals, tactical weapons firing, night fire! Who, what, where?" Stone had a meagerly concerned look on.
"Ummmm, I was wondering when you'd get to that." Christopher frowned. "There are no working pistols except for Abner's and mine. Let's fudge it, just pass 'em around and give them the theories—those two old .45s ain't gonna cut 185 quals. What say you, oh Master of the indoor range?"
"Done!" Stone nodded. "I got another idea on how to break up the time too, but I'll need Scribbles from '31, Mayday and Home Sponge from '32, and Headspace from Abner to pull it off."
"Talk to me!"
"Every one of those guys helped with the inventory, and every one of them had an idea on how to correct the flaws on those old sniper weapons...”
"The Springfields? Those friggin' things are..."
"Two hundred years old almost. Yeah, I know. But if we can bring them up to specs, they can be more accurate at two or three thousand yards then even the Johnsons. I say we take the top ten or twelve high scores…"
"You think so?"
"I use to go to the ranges with a retired jarhead. One day he pulls an old Springfield out of a case. 'See this?' he says. 'This is the pride of my collection. Anything I can see, I can hit!' I called bullshit. 'Okay', he says, and he hands me the rear deflector from a bicycle and tells me to tack it up on a standard bull, some place where the sun'll hit it so he can see where it is. I go crossin' this field—had to be 1500-2000 yards maybe—and tacked the target and the reflector on a tree and go walkin' back. With no scope, just iron sights, the sunofabitch whacks the reflector on the first round! And then puts the next four rounds in the clip right into the bull. Iron sights!"
"Done! Tactical weapons."
"All kinds of BARs, the Grease Guns, .30 cals, and Reising guns, all refurbished by the team engineers. High Scores on the BARs and .30 cals get a shot at those fuckin' auto elephant-stoppers!"
"The .50 cals?"
"Why not! We got two that seem to be in perfect working order. We take the top six scores from each platoon, break 'em up into two teams for the .50s, and four teams for the .30s. Then we take the eight lowest scores to be ammo and gun carriers, same as we do with the 99s on the Island."
"I dunno, Stoney,” Christopher reflected. "That's a lot of firepower for those guys!"
"Hell, Bobby!" Maysfield shouted. "You want a bunch of Dress Blues bein' marched around at ceremonial events, or BY‑GOD Marines!"
"Done!"
* * *
"Place the safety on safe! You do this by moving it to the rear, into the locked position! Depress the barrel release latch, then slide the barrel forward away from you. If there is a round, used or unused, in the launcher it will eject when you do this. If something does come flying out, try to catch it before it hits the ground. We do this for a reason! We are treating anything in the weapon as a century's worth of live ammunition. And if you drop Mister Live Round, he will think you are a fuck‑up and may choose to blow you to pieces when he hits the deck! Are we clear!"
"Clear to starboard, Staff Sergeant Stone."
"Clear port side, sir. Clear on the line!"
Stone was doing just fine. He had found his own group of in‑house metallurgists and engineers, and refurbished almost every weapon on board except the M1s—which were pretty much shot‑out and had visible cracks inside the barrels. Recruit Headspace had also detected severe water exposure damage to the receivers of the Garands. Except for a handful, they were useless. They had obtained permission to use ship's metal labs and melted most on them down to create a fill and reprocessing alloy that could be used in the repair effort. Stone gave the wood stocks over to the ship in exchange.
Only the Marine Corps, Stone reflected, could wind up with fifty-two detachable grenade launchers without the weapons to attach them to, not to mention 3000 rather questionable .40mm rounds to put through them. He had jury-rigged one up for the Fourth of July and had to cut out about eighty percent of the detonation charge to get it to work, but his team had a better idea. Out of over seven hundred M1s, they saved about twenty, and fitted sixteen of those with the launchers. Since there was no real reason to detach the launcher from the Garand, they were set forever on a series of O‑fittings over the weapons' iron sights. They now had working launchers.
They also started x‑raying the rounds and remarking them. There was a certain irony to the effort as there was really no place to launch them from. As much as the gravities in the range area was tampered with, a frag grenade which had slipped by undetected could wipe the slate clean for whoever had released it. Stone passed around the launchers to the platoons for examination and dry firing, but actual usage would have to wait on an outdoor arena.
* * *
"You stupid, jit-eyed, no-necked moron! That's the second time this week you've tilted the sled over. Now we gotta stand through another of Maysfield's lectures!" Roach stood there in a pile of mess bags, several of which were split and oozing. "Ya' fuckin' muscle-brained, jar-headed creep! Who the hell do you think is going to clean this up? ME?"
"Fhugg hew, Ass'ole! You should 'ave kept your side up! And h'yes! I do dink you are going to gleen this up!"
For a tense moment the two stared at each other. Roach had hit the boiling point at last and he began to move menacingly at his larger adversary. He would have gone straight for his throat except for the hand that grabbed him by the collar and yanked him violently away from the fray.
"Now what the hell is this? Fighting in the ranks? You two little prick-pullers can't even throw garbage out right! Snap to, dick heads!" It was Maysfield. There was an evil glint in his eye that told both boots they were in for it.
"Let's see. Lewis is still packing slop in the scullery; he'll be there for at least two hours. Now how are we going to kill two hours? What? What have we here! Two split bags of... let's see! Well-ripened veggie peelings, rotting meat fat, and... Boy, is that gonna smell bad in here if we don't do something soon. Recruit ARNOLD!"
"Master Sergeant!"
"Front and center, lad! Reach in! Quick! Like a bunny! HAUL YOUR FAT DUMB ASS TO THE GARBAGE BAY AND DON'T STOP RUNNING TILL EVERY SPECK OF THIS SHIT IS GONE —FORGOTTEN—AND OUT OF MY SIGHT! CLEAR?"
"Master Sergeant!"
"NOW GET YOU ASS AND ELBOWS TOGETHER! NOW!"
Roach stood with his eyes riveted to the hallway. For the first time since he had known Arnold, the big oaf wasn’t lumbering—he was actually running! This was not a good sign. He hadn't seen the look in Maysfield's eyes, but he knew from the tone of the voice that he wasn't amused.
"If you think he's gonna be busy, you little butt-head," Maysfield half-whispered, half-hissed the words, "wait and see what I've got in store for you at 3030. Grab a handful... a pocketful... a cover full. And get your can movin', boot!"
* * *
Tactical Weapons Firing climaxed the Second Phase. Through the rain and insects they battled their way through the BARs, Reising, and Grease guns. The .30 and .50 caliber machine guns posed a few problems for the range and the amount of changing hands that operated them, but even that was gotten through. As Stone had promised, he had two .50 caliber units up and trained, comprised mainly of the Tall Ones, and they knew their weapon inside and out. They eased their fellow boots through the massive explosions that blew by them one right after another, as if thunder and rain had changed places for the experience.
For the DIs, the biggest surprise was the number of boots that handled the Winchester 1897 shotguns like they had been bird hunters their entire life. On a hunch, Maysfield had exacted loyalty to seniority and insisted the weapon be included in the course despite protests that the weapon was no longer part of the Marine arsenal. The ancient shotguns roared destruction at close range on an awesome scale, tearing gaping holes in the targets and splintering the backstops—and the Malacans ate it up. At least thirty-five of them seemed to have an instinct for the weapon that even surprised Stone.
Perhaps the most surprised of the DIs was Christopher himself. Little by little, his boots were changing from what he had believed the Malacans to be—non-aggressive merchant types given to taking orders—and were starting to look like Marines. Their capacity for learning what was completely foreign to them amazed Christopher. But it was their capacity to understand the importance of what they were learning that was beyond belief. If he didn't know any better, he'd have sworn they were turning human. Lately, his log entries had started looking more like a book of one-liners because he had not figured out what to say about the things he was seeing. Maybe Abner had been right. Maybe the skills they thought these people had been missing were there all along. Maybe his own prejudices had prevented him from seeing it.
* * *
The final event in the book for Phase II training was night fire. It is an experience no one passing through the grueling training of the Corps forgets. It is a hammering home of the sights and sounds of war. It is loud. It is violent. Yet there is a beauty to it that defies the object of the lesson. To distinguish a line of fire in the dark, most automatic weapons of the previous generations employed a tracer round. Usually the fourth or fifth round in the chain or belt feeding through the weapon, it was designated by a red tip. Upon its release from the weapon, they would glow with a phosphorescent light. As every fourth or fifth round flew from the weapon amongst its less illuminated brothers, a line of savage light told the gunner where he stood in relation to his target. And as the automatic weapons sang in harmony, the air was filled with streams of glowing arrows cutting back and forth until the entire night sky was alive with vicious, stinging fireflies.
Despite orders to maintain silence, each enter platoon produced a series of "ooos and ahhhs" that let the DIs know the effect hadn't gone unnoticed. One by one the platoons took their positions in the artificial night and, except for the beads of light spitting forth from the automatics and the burst of flame popping out of the end of a century-old weapon, one would have imagined that they had become part of the darkness itself.
The Drill Instructors were pleased, and the platoons knew it.
* * *
"It'll never fly with Griffen!" Maysfield's eyes were glued to the two-week-old newspaper he was reading.
"So who's gonna tell him! These little dick-draggers have busted their asses for us. When they graduate, we'll be a hundred light-years from the nearest place that could qualify as nowhere. What the hell are they gonna do with a ten-day pass? Have a marathon poker game? It means giving up our own eighteens, but...” Christopher slammed his palms down hard on the tabletop. Sabott and Rojas flinched by the audible eye-opener's suddenness.
Maysfield lowered his paper. "Now you're talkin' like a By-God Marine! I'll drink to that!"
"Not for nothing," interjected Stone, "We're gonna unleash 185 Marine boots loose with an eighteen hour? On an Army-run facility? At Little Boston? Forget the Court Martial, they'll send out a fire team and shoot us where they find us!"
"I hate to agree with Stoney, but I think he may have a point," Rojas added.
"Well, we'll never get all 185 through—"
"We'll do it by lottery!" the senior Marine cut his boss off. "Count 'em off by fours… like we did in the old Corps. First the ones, then the twos, and anyone left over goes the next time we hit port! But it's time to start letting them know they're becoming a part of the Corps. It'll let them know we take care of our own. Every Boot that goes through the Island knows that at the end of it all, he'll be a Marine. We don't have to show them that 'cause they already know what that means. What the fuck do these dick heads know?"
Stone looked up. "This mean we're gonna pay them? What are they gonna do without money?"
"Military script. We can sign for—"
"No can do! We still haven't got permission to go public," Christopher tossed out.
"Give 'em back their own cash. You know, the stuff we bagged up during formation with the rest of their civy stuff."
"Good idea, Maysfield. Let's call 'em together and give 'em the good news!"
* * *
Christopher stood there surveying the platoons. They had taken the news of a possible eighteen-hour pass smack in the middle of boot camp with all the joy of a nine-year-old being told the family dog had died. He wasn't certain, but he thought he saw the Tall Ones actually begin to tremble. From the corner of his eye, Christopher saw the Master Sergeant moving towards him.
"What the fuck's goin' on here, Bobby?"
"Damned if I know, Master Sergeant! But I know who does! Finish countin' them off and bring Roach back to my hut."
Maysfield turned in time to see Roach taking two steps forward. For the first time in his life, being the smallest guy in the line was paying off for him. The Master Sergeant walked towards him and as he passed grabbed Roach by the collar and dragged him back to the line.
"This ain't for you pecker head. At dismiss, get your ass to Sergeant Christopher's hut. Understood?"
"Aye aye, Master Sergeant!"
* * *
"Forget I'm your boss, Roach. Think of the old days, when we were partners."
Christopher could see this wasn't going to be easy. Roach was one phase short of being a Marine, and standing between three DIs was making him nervous. "And that's an order!" Christopher added hastily.
"Yes Sergeant!"
"Stand down Roach. Abner, get the lad a drink. Relax a minute or two."
Roach sank slowly into the chair Rojas had placed behind him. To see Maysfield approaching him with a beer was too much.
"What have I done now?" he blurted out. "Am I being Court Martialed? Whatever I did, I didn't mean it and I'll never do it again!"
Maysfield saw the panic in Roach's eyes. "Lad, you haven't done anything. We need some help. What the hell happened out there today? You'd think we shot your families instead of offering passes off this floating void."
There was a look of relief in Roach's eyes as his face sank to his chest. "You mean to tell me you don't know?" He looked up at Christopher. "Man, you guys with small ear openings don't know nothin', do you!" He looked over at Maysfield. "Master Sergeant, do you have any idea where we'll dock in two days?"
"The orbiter at Fort Bradley in the Sculptor sector."
"Uh-huh!" Roach rose from his seat and walked to a sky map on the wall behind Christopher. He studied the map for a few seconds and pushed a small plastic-headed pin in a location. "There! That's Bradley. And... there!" He slammed another pin into the map. "There's your problem. Not the eighteens. That!" He turned and went back to his seat.
As if on cue, all three DIs rushed at the map. Roach's second pin had hammered into a small, defunct black hole about half of a light-year from Bradley. Christopher turned at Roach.
"So?"
"So? Boy, you guys really don't know anything! You really don't know what a dead black hole does? The minute you open those hatches, you'd better take the four big kids and lock them in a vault. You're gonna have every Recruit on board looking for them—and they'll be looking for the Recruits! Thinking about it, 181 Boots may not be enough! You better talk to coHLI about borrowing one or two of his crews!" Roach began to rise from his seat to leave.
"At ease, Boot! What is it with those four guys—"
"GUYS! YOU THINK THEY'RE GUYS?" Roach dropped heavily back into his seat. "Boss man, those are women! And that Recruit, Sunday? Brother, has she got some set of hooters!"
The words were still hanging in the air as the beer cans slipped from two hands and splashed across the deck.
"Hooters?" The look of puzzlement on Stone's face defied description as he uttered the words.
"Hooters! And when the audial pulses from that dead hole starts hittin' her, she'll be struttin' them around like she was the Quean of the Universe. 'Course, we ain't gonna be much better off! Every neuron in our brains will be so frenzied, we'll be humping snakes if we can get someone to hold the tails! It's gonna be one hell of an eighteen-hour pass." Roach turned his glance to Christopher. "I thought you knew that. Scuttlebutt is, you're doing this to bust our balls some more. It goes hand in hand with the insects, humidity, and indoor rain showers!"
* * *
"So why didn't coHLI say anything?" Abner pushed back in his chair. He and Christopher had been studying the facts for almost three hours and had gotten nowhere near a solution.
"Why would he? He figures we know what we're doing. We need those supplies—and what's worse, we can't ask him for help. His crews are no better off then our Recruits!"
"Wanna humble pie it and bypass the zone? I'm startin' to get used to century-old biscuits again."
"No! There's gotta be a way around this! Maysfield, call the troops together and let's get straight with them. The last thing I want is to have them think we'd do something like this on purpose!"
* * *
"You mean to tell us, Doc, that in over 243 years of knowing about these things, you've developed zero research on how to bypass the effect?!"
"Lighten up, Jarhead! How many times do you think we have a reason to go to a dead hole? The minute we figured out what they did, we put a two-light-year quarantine on the areas we knew had them. End of problem! The only reason we're going at all is the block this ship has. We'll be sealed up tighter than a vacuum canister except for your departure bay." The acoustical engineer swung his chair away from the screen he had been working on and faced his inquisitors. "We always thought it was kind of stupid putting an orbiter there, but you guys didn't seem to mind. I suspected that your audio tracks and, uh… well, your timid hormones weren't bothered by it. Mainly the audio ducts, though. Dhari! I'm surprised you folks hear anything all!"
Sabott's head dropped, and to no one in particular he said, "We're fucked!”
For a moment, there was a stunned silence as the trio of Terrans sought another question. The three-quarter sized scientist they had counted on for help was shutting them down. Sensing their perplexity, he threw his hands up and calmly said, "Okay, let me show you what you're dealing with."
He rose and moved towards a glass cage holding two large-eared, hairless vermin-like creatures about the size of small dogs. "These little buggers have uncomfortably similar ear canals to us. Sort of the same way the structure of the animal you call 'pig' has a heart almost identical to yours." He reached inside the glass corral and placed his hand on the glass. Neither creature even took notice of it. "Now watch this." He swung a small cube on a mechanical arm around and fitted it into a slot in one of the sides. "This gizmo produces the same audial pulses and fluxes the hole does. As long as it's fitted into the chute, I'm protected. The glass was cut with an acid that leaves a clear residue, which acts as an acoustical block, same as the inner and outer hull of this vessel. 'Scuse me, can one of you guys cover the tank with that lid? Thanks! Now stand back. This gets rough."
He passed his hand over the cube, which made no sound or noise but left no doubt as to its effectiveness. Both creatures turned suddenly and charged each other, colliding in midair. At first it appeared that a vicious wrestling match was afoot… but within a few seconds it became obvious that just the opposite was occurring.
"That's the female on top! It's unheard of for this species. In fact, doing it in plain view is a thrill. They don't like it. We could never figure out how to breed those things in captivity. Now we know!" He turned to see the wide-eyed expressions on his visitor’s faces. "Now! Watch this! I introduce a little of your softer music and... presto! Instant submission!"
The Malacan induced a copy of an old Ray Charles ballad and before Ray had sung his second Georgia, the creature on top had slid off and rolled over on its back, making a sound roughly equated with purring. The other creature immediately pounced it upon. "This, gentleman, is what your Terran expression "Horizontal Tango" refers to, I believe." With that, the scientist began to return to his desk.
"Hey!" shouted Christopher. "Don't you think you ought to, you know, like, shut this thing off?"
The scientist turned and peered into the tank. "Nah! Let him finish his business. When it’s over, she's going to devour his internal organs. Let the poor slob die happy, that's my motto." He walked to his chair and sat, feet up on the computer desk with his hands clasped behind his head. "Know what amazes me? Your music's effect on the female! If I had pumped in, pardon the expression, an up-tempo tune like... ah, let's see, what's a good example... ah! Your Derreck Clapman's Crossroads, she would have gone berserk. Probably would have pushed his head out through his own asshole! Hey! Don't laugh! I'm not talking figuratively!"
"So there's absolutely nothing we can do?" Christopher said dejectedly.
"I never said that! I said there was no known research available. This is lousy duty for an acoustical engineer. We have months of nothing to do but putter around the lab. May as well putter with something interesting."
"Hell! You old letch!" Maysfield looked at the Malacan, who was grinning ear to ear. "You’ve been laboring in the forbidden field. You little devil!"
"Don't worry 'bout a thing," the grinning Malacan chuckled out. "Leave it to the ol' doctor. Now, leave! Go play Marine for a day or two. I’ve got an idea!"
* * *
Less than a day later, several condom-like earplugs were produced by the Marine-friendly scientist. "It's simple. The effects are all absorbed through the audial canals. This thing filters out those frequencies that affect the nervous system. So far today, I've already saved the life of six lab animals. I would suggest a volunteer, though, to try these things on a person."
Maysfield looked at Sabott. "Go find me Roach!"
For his effort, the good doctor was awarded a crate of canned meats and two six-packs. He was beside himself, and said so. The Marines felt they were getting off cheap and unanimously decided to invite the little prick for a hot meal every so often.
"So we're set,” muttered Christopher as the scientist disappeared down the corridors, struggling under the weight of his semi-ill-gotten gains. "Just one more Phase, a handful of days, and it’s over."
"Yup," articulated the Master Sergeant who had pulled up behind him. "It's all smooth sailing from here on in!"
Christopher turned his head over his shoulder and shot Maysfield a look of despair as if to say, Let's hope so!
