First to Fight (8 page)

CHAPTER

SIX

A persistent thrumming filled the humid air about the platoon as it sat in classroom formation in a jungle clearing. They had been on Arsenault a month by then. Every day it had rained, sometimes all day, sometimes day after day. Just then there was a temporary break in the monsoon and Arsenault’s sun poked through the clouds, driving up the humidity and heat in equally stifling proportions.

As the noise became louder and more insistent, the ground beneath the recruits began to tremble. The men could clearly hear small trees and bushes snapping and cracking as a large man-made object pushed its way inexorably toward them. Suddenly, a behemoth burst through a fringe of bushes and came rumbling to a stop about ten meters from the platoon.

“People, meet the vehicle the box kickers in procurement called the AASALCAC,” Neeley shouted over the thrumming, which gradually ceased as the driver powered down the engine on his armored vehicle. “AASALCAC stands for Armored All-Surface Assault Landing Craft, Air-Cushioned, which is far too much of a mouthful for you to try to memorize right now. Anyway, we aren’t box kickers, we’re warriors. We call our equipment by warlike names, not namby-pamby ones. We call this beast the Dragon.”

As the Dragon’s propulsion system cut off and the heavy machine dropped suddenly several inches to the ground, the NCOs briskly but unobtrusively walked to the rear of the platoon formation, where they were shielded from the wave of muddy water that gouted up from underneath the Dragon, drenching the unsuspecting recruits, drowning out their shocked screams and curses.

“You may remember that somewhere along the line I told you something about ‘unpleasant surprises,’ ” Neeley said calmly as he returned to the front of the formation. He blandly watched the recruits in their attempts to wipe the runny mud off their faces. “This is another lesson for you. Never assume that anything you’ve never seen before is benign. Especially not something big and mean-looking. Most particularly not something that says ‘Marines’ on it.”

The normally staid and straitlaced pretty even cracked a tiny smile as the recruits grumbled and muttered among themselves.

Three more of the vehicles roared into the clearing to join the first one. This time the recruits followed the example of their NCOs in getting behind something and avoided most of the mud bath. The machines measured eight feet high by twenty long and twelve wide. The paint on their armored sides possessed the same “chameleon” capability as the Marine field utilities, and the recruits watched, fascinated, while the vehicles quickly changed color to blend into the surrounding foliage before their eyes.

“These are the combat workhorses of the Corps,” Neeley announced. “Every FIST transportation company has twenty-four Dragons. Each Dragon can transport twenty fully-equipped and -armed Marines, or fifteen with crew-served weapons. They depend on their low profile and high maneuverability to avoid enemy fire, but each has an integral plasma shield and light armor to protect it against most infantry plasma weapons. A Dragon can do 175 kph on the open road, a hundred over broken ground, and seventy-five knots or more on the water. Each weighs thirty tons. A Dragon has a crew of two: a driver and a gunner/navigator. One out of six in the FIST combat configuration carries a heavy gun.

“Dragons are climate-controlled.” Neeley grinned and wiped away the perspiration dripping down the side of his face. “Now to go for a ride. Staff Sergeant Pretty?”

“Listen up now,” Pretty shouted. “You will mount through the rear ramp.” There was a whirring noise, and heavy armored doors lowered to form ramps. “One squad per vehicle. Once inside, fasten in. Squad leaders, pay close attention because after this morning you will be responsible for making sure your men and equipment are secure whenever you ride these things. No dukshit, people; if you are not properly secured when you hit rough terrain, you can be seriously injured, even killed. Yeah, they’re ‘air-cushioned,’ but watch out when you don’t got the air or the cushion. Now, mount up by squads as I call you out, left to right. Keep your communicators open to the platoon net. Fill up front to rear as you climb aboard.”

Ten high-backed jump seats lined each flank of the Dragons inside. Each man secured himself into his seat with two heavy shoulder belts secured by a fast-release device centered in the middle of his chest. The seats were called “mummy boxes” because once inside, the rider looked like a mummy in its sarcophagus, except that the seats provided extra protection against a crash or a hit by a heavy weapon or a mine. Weapons and other items of equipment locked securely into forms molded into the seats. Mass confusion reigned as the inexperienced squad leaders tried to sort out the unfamiliar conditions.

The NCOs watched their men in silent amusement for a while. “At ease!” Corporal Singh announced at last. He stepped into the interior of the Dragon that held Dean’s squad. “Now watch. I’m going to show you how all this stuff works.”

It was well after dark when the platoon was delivered back to the base camp. Dean limped down the ramp, kicking caked mud off his boots. A pain shot up into his right buttock. Now he knew what Pretty had meant about not having the air or the cushion. The platoon fell into formation beside the Dragon.

“All right,” Staff Sergeant Pretty shouted. “Now somebody tell me what he sees there.” He pointed vaguely toward the hulking Dragon. The men stared intensely but could see only the dim interior lights inside the vehicles. “Look!” Pretty shouted. “Mud!” he screamed. “Somebody’s gotta clean up those vehicles!”

McNeal groaned.

“McNeal! Front and center!”

On the shooting range, they saw their first dead man. A recruit in another platoon discharged his blaster into his own jaw. The bolt sizzled up through the man’s brain and burst out the top of his head, vaporizing his face. He died instantly. His trachea lay completely exposed to the goggle-eyed recruits who swarmed around his still-smoking corpse. Little bloody bubbles, the remnants of what was being expelled from the air left in his lungs when he died, mixed with the gooey gray matter of his brain and shredded skull fragments. Some of the men gagged, and all of them held hands to their noses because the man’s bowels had let loose. None had ever smelled anything so foul before.

“Whew! Closed-coffin ceremony for that boy,” McNeal muttered.

Corporal Singh wheeled about and glared at McNeal, as if he was going to launch into him, but he said nothing and after a moment turned back to the dead man. Singh knew his men were learning a hard but valuable lesson. When you live and breathe death and violence, you have to deal with it somehow. Denying death by making light of it is a safety valve by which those who must face it deal with the stress.

They marched all morning through the sopping jungles, alternately drenched by heavy downpours and then steamed like crabs when the sun came out and turned everything into a sauna. Thirty minutes before they saw the stream, they could hear it. Few of the recruits could identify he sound, a dull roar punctuated by heavy thumps, the sound of boulders and uprooted trees bouncing down the stream, which was in flood, as were all the streams and rivers in that part of Arsenault during the monsoon season.

Staff Sergeant Neeley halted the platoon on the lip of a steep gorge. Ten meters below the precipice the stream roared and surged, the water beaten into a froth of white foam by the force of the current. A heavy mist hung above the banks as far as they could see upand downstream. The air about them was redolent with the clean, bracing aroma of wet foliage and water spray. Combined with the roar of the flood below, the atmosphere was charged with the danger and excitement of nature unleashed. Most of the recruits were from the cities of Earth and had never seen such a display. All of them were awed by it.

Suddenly, the sun burst forth from behind the overcast for a few moments and a brilliant rainbow glowed and shimmered over the gorge. Several men gasped involuntarily at the sight. Few of them had ever seen a real rainbow before—the polluted air of Earth’s cities hid them from most people. In seconds the clouds rolled back over the face of the sun and the platoon was shrouded again in gray wetness, but the men remained dazzled by the display for several moments after it disappeared.

“People, this is one of the most dangerous operations you’ll perform while in training here,” Staff Sergeant Neeley said, shouting over the roar of the torrent. His words were punctuated by a heavy “bump-bump-bump” as a boulder bigger than a Dragon rolled by on the bottom of the streambed. Neeley nodded. “Yep, the force of that water is so strong it can roll an object weighing hundreds of kilos along like a child’s rubber ball.”

“You fall in there,” Staff Sergeant Pretty added, gesturing over the lip of the gorge, “and we’ll never find you again. Don’t get too close to the edge,” he warned.

“We have to get a man on the other side of that gorge,” Staff Sergeant Neeley shouted, pointing to the jungle forty meters on the other side of the raging stream. “Any volunteers?” He grinned.

Corporal Singh began to unpack the platoon’s single puddle jumper. Powered by energy cells and maneuvered by a system of tiny but powerful jets, it could lift a man a thousand meters straight up. The device permitted trained couriers and scouts to negotiate miles of rough terrain completely free from the restraints of gravity. Recruit training companies were never permitted more than one puddle jumper, and nobody except a man trained in its operation was ever permitted to strap it on. The recruits breathed a silent and collective sigh of relief as Corporal Singh began to climb into the harness.

“The object here,” Neeley was saying as Corporal Singh fastened the jumper harness, “is to get a line across the gorge. Then each man will cross—Get away from there!” Neeley started toward three recruits standing on the lip of the gorge who’d been staring down at the rushing water. He was too late. The ground upon which the men had been standing crumbled suddenly and sent them plummeting down into the foam. They dropped so quickly none even had a chance to let out a scream.

“Goddamnit, get the fuck back from there!” Neeley shouted at the other recruits as they instinctively surged in a group toward the bank to help their comrades. Staff Sergeant Pretty immediately began speaking into his headset while Staff Sergeant Neeley and Corporal Singh herded the platoon away from the stream and had the men sit among the trees. The three NCOs conferred hastily. “We stay here until help comes,” Staff Sergeant Neeley told them. Nobody suggested trying to rescue the three men; they hadn’t a chance in that torrent. Within minutes, it seemed, Captain Tomasio was alighting from a command-and-control hopper followed by several staff officers. Seconds later, personnel from the battalion medical staff arrived on another hopper, followed immediately by two more that carried other platoons from the company.

“We’re going to form search parties,” Staff Sergeant Neeley announced. “This stream empties into a larger one about sixteen kilometers downstream. The fourth platoon will be airlifted down there to form a cordon across the water, try to catch our people if their bodies make it that far down. We’ll take this side of the stream and first platoon the other and start looking right now.”

The search stopped after dark and resumed at first light the following morning. The first victim, a pimply lad from Philadelphia named Schwartzer, was found about mid-morning. His mangled remains were pulled from among the branches of a large tree bobbing in an eddy. The men gasped as his corpse was laid out on the bank. He was covered with huge gashes and abrasions, through which stuck the white ends of jagged bones.

Dean found the second man three days later. He was closest to the bank when the body suddenly rolled over in the middle of a raft of driftwood and the corpse’s booted foot stuck up above the water. The body was swollen to twice its natural size, and aquatic animals had been at it for some time before it surfaced. At first Dean hesitated to touch the thing rocking obscenely in among the flotsam. He knew the three men who had fallen in, but could not recognize which of the remaining two this one was. Dean stepped cautiously into the shallow water, hesitant to touch the swollen, discolored skin surface, looking for something to grab on to that wasn’t rotten flesh. Evidently all the man’s clothes had been ripped off by the force of the water, leaving only the boot on his left foot. He tried to drag the body closer to shore using a stick he’d picked up out of the water.

“Goddamnit, Dean, get in there and pull him out!” Corporal Singh snarled. Everyone was on edge by then, even the D.I.’s. Dean grabbed the booted foot and dragged at the body. Under Singh’s prodding, several other men jumped into the water and helped haul the body to shore. Once the corpse was fully exposed on the land, the stench of rotting waterlogged flesh was terrible. Worse, as it lay on its back, everyone could clearly see the damage done to the body by the animals. The man’s face had been destroyed and his genitals had been completely eaten away. The recruits stumbled into the nearby bushes and vomited. Dean heaved until there was nothing left in his stomach. Even Fred McNeal, the acknowledged joker and wise guy in the platoon, remained stoically silent and avoided looking at what had once been a friend.

Two days later the search was given up and training resumed. The third man was never found.

The weeks of training in the temperate zones and mountains came as a blessed relief from the tropics and the zero-gravity training on the larger of Arsenault’s two moons—the “Turd,” to the generations of soldiers and Marines who’d been there—and was an exciting challenge, all the more so because it marked the unofficial end of Boot Camp.