Homeworld: A Military Science Fiction Novel (5 page)

Warm Welcome

Dinah’s first day of Initial Training was a hell beyond even her wildest imaginings and fears.

As their transit glided inside the thick thirty foot tall plastisteel walls that surrounded the massive compound of the Infantry Training Facility, the enormous solid sliding gate clanged closed behind it with an almost bell like toll.

A sound that brought to Dinah’s mind a book she had read as a young child and she quietly whispered “For whom the bell…”

She became more apprehensive as the transport glided to a stop in a line behind several similar looking transits. Dinah thought, “What was about to happen? What have I gotten myself into?” She now realized that she shouldn’t have worried. That apprehension would soon be gone. fear, pain and exhaustion would replace it.

The driver of the transit didn’t say anything when he came to a stop; he just opened the door and pointed at it. The five occupants grabbed their belongings and stepped off.

Immediately outside the door of the transit was a rather tall, tanned skin man dressed in the crisp blue fatigues of the Earth Force Infantry. He smiled and greeted each of them cordially by name while tapping at his handheld vid.

He then politely asked them to line up next to the other ‘scripts and wait while he got a few things prepared for them. He then turned and walked towards a small grey plastisteel building nearby.

There were about twenty young men and woman waiting near the transits in a loose line. Looking down the line, she memorized the glazed and confused look on each of their faces. It reminded her of a vid that she had seen in her fifth year science class that explained how vat-grown meat was made and why.

A portion of the vid had shown cows waiting to be processed into packaged meat that had been sold in different cuts in neat little Styrofoam packages. The vid contained graphic images that had given her young mind nightmares for weeks. The cows would be lined up in single file with bemused faces and one by one, they were herded into the slaughterhouse. Her companion’s marked expressions reminded her of those cows.

The next man who walked out of the building, the same building that the man who had greeted them had just disappeared into, was soon to be the devil incarnate as far as she was concerned. She would remember one day that her first impression of him was that he was a rather handsome looking man. He was tan, in his mid-twenties, had a lean, muscular frame and was wearing the same blue fatigues as the man that had just greeted them, but his seemed brand new and looked as if they had been custom tailored to fit his physique.

He casually crossed the distance between them wearing a broad, welcoming smile as he looked them over. When he was about five feet from the group, he stopped and held his hands out to his side with his palms open towards them and said in a soft friendly voice, “Hello there, ‘scripts. I’m Training Sergeant Emanuel Turner but you can, for the next several weeks, consider me God. Now then, how y’all doing?”

This was not what anyone had expected as they had grown up their whole lives with their parents and grandparents who had served in the Earth Force Infantry telling them stories of the grueling experience of Initial Training.

Those assembled knew for a fact that a Training Sergeant was not supposed to act this way.

However, Sergeant Turner just stood there as if he was made of stone.

After about five seconds, one of the young men down the line from Dinah muttered, “Uh, doing fine, sir?” As if he had teleported through space and time, Sergeant Turner was in that man’s face, nose to nose.

“Did I give you permission to speak, ‘script!”, the Sergeant bellowed. Dinah recognized immediately that the way in which he said “script” made it sound as if it was the most detestable form of excrement in known space.

It would not be the last time throughout that day that she would hear the word pronounced with that particular inflection

The young man instinctively took a step back and the Sergeant barked, “Where are you going, ‘script! Unless you want to face the wrath of an unholy God, you better get your ass back here!”

The young man tentatively resumed his original position, pressing his nose to the Sergeant’s, which only caused the Sergeant to bellow, “’Script, are you trying to kiss me? You had best have a steak dinner tucked in your pocket if you are!”

The young man nervously laughed, which was the wrong thing to do, Dinah thought in immediate retrospect.

Sergeant Turner bellowed even louder, “You think that’s funny, ‘script! Well, if you’re looking for a date, I’m going to do you a favor! I’m going to introduce you to every insect on this base, as they are more within your league! In fact, by the time you’re done looking for a date down there, you are going to know each and every bug by name! Now drop to the ground and push!"

Dinah thought that fortunately for the young man, they had all learned how to do a proper pushup throughout their youth in their various elementary education centers.

As the young man wisely complied with the Sergeant’s wishes, Turner began walking up and down the line of the rest of the ‘scripts. The bellow that erupted from the Sergeant next made Dinah wonder if they hadn’t installed the plastisteel walls around this compound to keep the sound of his voice from bothering the surrounding urban center. “Perhaps I didn’t introduce myself properly, ‘scripts! I am going to be the man that you will wake up wishing was burning in the fires of hell for the rest of your natural lives!”

“If you want to speak, you will ask permission to do so first and the first and last words out of your filthy pie holes better be ‘Sir’! If you are spoken to, the first and last words out of your mouth better be ‘Sir’! In fact, when you pray to the almighty creator in your bunk at night the first and last words out of your mouth had better be ‘Sir’!” was the sergeant’s next lion like roar.

Sergeant Turner squared himself in front of the ‘scripts and roared, “’Scripts, am I mistaken, or were you told to form a line?”

As this was nothing other than more of what they were expecting, the young men and women fresh off the transit, all yelled in unison, “Sir, yes, Sir!”

“Well then, ‘scripts, you must have all failed Euclidean Geometry!” yelled Turner, as if out of nowhere, five other men and two women all wearing the blue fatigues of the Earth Force Infantry appeared from behind the transits.

What followed was a thumping of chests, a straightening of shoulders and yanking of their chins and kicks to their feet until they were in a perfect line and standing at attention. Except for the one young man who was still pushing against the ground, sweat dripping down from his nose and chin by this point.

Sergeant Turner slowly strode back over to the young man and placed a boot on his back between the shoulder blades. With a smile, he applied force every time the man on the ground pushed, which had made the unfortunate young man have to work that much harder.

“Now then, ‘script Simmons here has earned you all a very special treat! As a warm welcome to the Infantry Training Facility, we are going to tour all it has to offer by running! And we’re going to run till I’m tired!”

Dinah paid close attention to how the Sergeant placed special emphasis on the word “I’m.” Dinah and the rest of the ‘scripts learned, over the next several hours, that Sergeant Turner could easily run around the world if the oceans didn’t get in his way.

Dinah hoped that those first few hours would be the worst part of her day. Except for the hour in which they were issued their ‘script uniforms, it was the instead the best part of the day. During the brief respite of dinner, where they were allowed to cram as much food into their mouths without choking, Dinah wondered if Sergeant Turner was intentionally trying to kill them all before the Coalition ever got the chance.

As the sun went down and the moon came up, Dinah collapsed onto her bunk, wishing she could sleep for a month but knowing the good Sergeant would undoubtedly have them up and at it again in only a few miserably short hours. Every muscle in her exhausted body ached and a quiet moan escaped her lips. Never, in all her life, had her body ever been pushed this hard.

By chance, Abigail Rain, the silver haired and disgruntled fellow ‘script she had shared the transit to the base with, was bunked above her. As Dinah closed her eyes, she heard Abigail’s voice, which dragged her back from the edge of sleep.

“You heard the news yet?”

Wearily, Dinah rolled over to see Abigail’s head hanging upside down over the edge of the upper bunk, staring at her.

“I just want to sleep while I still can,” Dinah groaned.

“Reports are coming in that the Coalition armada is only a few jumps away from Mars,” Abigail told her, ignoring Dinah’s plea for rest.

Dinah’s eyes went wide. Everyone knew the Coalition was making a direct push for Earth, but for it to have happened this fast?

It did not bode well for Earth’s own chances against the massive enemy fleet that would soon be inbound to the Sol system.

She didn’t know how to respond to such news. At the same time, it made her feel sick and cold inside.

As surly as Abigail usually seemed, the girl did like to talk, at length, and at the most inopportune times, Dinah reflected as Abigail continued without waiting for a reply.

“Rumors say the fleet will be jumping into the Earth system within the next couple of weeks. You can damn well bet they’ll dump every piece of ordnance they have left onto Earth regardless of how well things go for them up there.” Abigail pointed at the barrack’s roof.

Dinah was too tired to give any kind of rational protest to Abigail’s prophecy of flames and death, so her words came from her heart, “Earth can’t fall, it’s Earth for Heaven’s sake.”

“Wanna bet?” Abigail’s smile was grim and filled with challenge.

Dinah scowled at the silver haired girl wanting to yank her off the top bunk by her hair and pommel her face into something similar to ground beef, but she was too exhausted even to raise her arm. “If you’re so sure we’re going to die, why don’t you slip away and put a round into your temple instead of hassling me?”

Abigail laughed. “I didn’t say I was gonna die. I feel like I have been waiting my whole life to get at those bastards, Dinah. I’m ready. . . But I don’t think you are. Don’t worry though. It will be okay. I can kill enough of them for the both of us.”

Relief washed over Dinah like a tidal wave as Abigail pulled herself back up onto her bunk and disappeared out of her sight. Rolling to her side, Abigail’s words lingered in her mind, haunting her.

Dinah certainly didn’t feel prepared for what was coming and she lacked Abigail’s burning hatred for the enemy. “Where did that come from by the way? Sure every citizen of the Earth Republic had plenty of reason to despise the Coalition but for Abigail the fire of hatred burned bright in her eyes.” As sleep claimed her, Dinah wondered if maybe she should have joined the Earth Republic Fleet after all.

Metamorphosis

Dinah sat in her crisp new Earth Republic Infantry ‘script uniform, her rifle a standard issue M-200, which now went everywhere with her, including the latrine and to her bunk. It was quickly becoming as much a part of her as her own right hand, and now rested with its stock on the floor and barrel leaning against the grey plastisteel desk she sat at with her back straight and eyes forward.

Since starting Initial Training, they had been allowed four hours of bunk time a night before reveille. From the time of the much hated, clarion call to rise she had 10 minutes to use the latrine, get dressed and eat the silver packaged M.R.E she always found placed on her side of the trunk she shared at the end of the bunk with Abigail.

Alongside the meal ready to eat or “vacuum sealed mush” as Abigail called it, was an injector which Sergeant Turner referred to as “their vitamins” but it had readily become apparent from the injectors effects that their “vitamins” were stimulants of some kind. Dinah had never heard from any of her family members who had gone through Initial Training about ‘scripts being issued stimulants before. She supposed that the Earth Republic Command wanted to cram as much training into their skulls and muscles as it could before the inbound Coalition armada arrived.

After their morning ritual, which consisted of a blistering berating on their sorry state of existence by their beloved Sergeant, they would begin the morning’s physical training. Immediately following the running, pushing, and pulling, all accompanied by the sweet sound of Sergeant Turner’s bellowing disappointment in their genetic stock, came the best part of the day.

They would double time over to the rifle range where Dinah had met her true best friend, an M-200 machine/rifle. She had always been an excellent shot during her elementary education but she had never had the opportunity to fire such a fine weapon as this. It was love at first trigger squeeze. The rest of their day was filled with as much activity as the Sergeant could dream up, everything from high explosives training to low crawls under a hail of active rounds fired directly overhead.

Yesterday's training session had started something new.

Yesterday, they had reported to a domed plastisteel medical building with the insignia of the Republic Armed Forces Medical Corps emblazoned near the double door entrance. Inside they had found a classroom filled with small gray metal desks and stiff-back chairs bolted to the floor in perfect alignment.

This would be where their “mentally deficient gray matter” would receive training in combat first aid as Sergeant Turner had informed them. The best part is that when a medical officer, traditional grey and white fatigues entered the room, the Sergeant snapped crisply to attention, gave a precision salute and informed the doctor that the ‘scripts were ready for instruction.

The medical officer, bearing the rank structure of Captain had returned the salute and advised the Sergeant that he was to wait outside. After the Sergeant closed the door to the small room behind him, the Doctor told the ‘scripts seated before him to use the injectors they would find on the upper right corner of their desks. Looking at the syringe in her hand, Dinah noted that the contents appeared to be nothing more than a pale blue solution.

The injector quickly calmed Dinah, but it left a buzzing sensation at the back of her neck where it met her skull. The medical officer, who had introduced himself as Senior Medical Officer Seys then talked to them in a calm soothing tone about the basics of combat first aid. After that first day, Dinah often awoke remembering dreams about what had been discussed in the classroom the previous day.

In some ways, these formal class sessions reminded her of her elementary education classes. However, Dinah, by day two of her Initial Training, had realized that the Earth Republic government had carefully planned her entire education curriculum to mold her into a citizen.

She now knew that a citizen was not just a human who happened to be born on a Republic world, but rather a citizen was someone charged with defending the spirit of the Earth Republic which was duty, freedom and opportunity.

Of course, every citizen was required to serve a compulsory four year tour with their choice of either the Earth Republic Infantry or the Earth Republic Fleet. Some talented few even got the opportunity to attend Earth Command officer training school, but that was also part of the well thought out education system of her government. It taught the individual citizen that the freedoms they enjoyed came at a cost and sometimes that cost was steep, but if they were not willing to pay the cost for their freedom, it would and could be taken away from them. Therefore, it was the duty of every citizen to defend the Republic.

Most citizens chose to live a civilian life after their compulsory tour, while some chose to be guardians at the gates, as the barbarians were always looking for ways to break through those gates and destroy the ideals that the Earth Republic stood for.

Those who chose to serve only the four years were well compensated for their time, not only in the lessons that they had learned through the experience of the tour, but with the funds necessary to attend the higher education institution of their choice or not to do so if they chose. They were also given a modest home on the planet of their choosing. At the age of 22, each citizen would be able to decide how they wanted to spend the rest of their years as they saw fit.

The final lesson of the whole process, as Dinah was finally beginning to realize, is that together every citizen was free to pursue the life they wanted under the self-governed Earth Republic.

United, their armed forces would be a mighty adversary to their foes, but if they were to stop performing their duty to support their system of governance and separate into individual colonies, they would be either dead or enslaved.

No one had told Dinah this, but in the rare quiet times of reflection she had when, collapsed into her bunk with muscles aching and her overtaxed brain attempting to understand and remember the lessons of the day, she had realized it. This is what she and everyone else in this bunkhouse would be fighting to defend all too soon. Dinah prayed that she was up to the challenge so that her own children could enjoy and understand the same freedom.