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  The TDI marched back out to the where the squad was still in a line. The whirling red lights changed to a steady green, and the loudspeakers announced a hot range.

  Finally, it was 1044’s turn. First Squad was ready, with Second on deck. When First stepped off, Third Squad left the bleachers to get its check. Ryck felt the excitement building as the TDI inspected each Marine, even tugging on every piece of bone. They were pretty foolproof, as far as Ryck could see, and he thought the degree of inspection was overkill. But it impressed upon him the fact that this really was a dangerous situation. If the TDIs were that cautious, maybe he should be, too.

  Ryck was ready to go, but there was still quite a bit of standing around and waiting. First had to finish, which it eventually did, and Second had to take off. Third Squad moved into position, and they could finally see downrange again. They watched Second maneuver down the range, eventually reaching the objective before coming back. It had been a long day, but it was finally Third Squad’s turn in the breach.

  The TDIs accompanying the recruit squads had been alternating between two teams. Third Squad had Training Drill Instructor Hyunh as the squad leader and TDIs Papagana and Rose to assist him.

  “Pay attention to me at all times,” Hyunh told them once more. “You’ve seen everyone else go through. Now it’s your turn, so let’s get it done.”

  The lights turned to green, and Hyunh gave the “Move out” order.

  With one step, Ryck was over the white line that was the boundary for the range. It was only half a meter, but it was a different world. One step back, and he was simply at Lympstone. One step forward, and he was in a live impact area, one in which death was falling from the sky.

  “Keep it even,” Hyunh intoned over the comms. “First team, you’re lagging.”

  Ryck was aware of Training Drill Instructor Papagana moving First Team forward, but he was concentrating on his own movement. He focused on keeping his position, but still looking forward, expecting the impact of the 60’s. Even though he was anticipating it, he jumped when the rounds landed. The explosions had to be closer than they were for the other squads! But nothing reached them.

  “Keep moving,” TDI Hyunh went on, his voice sounding calm and collected.

  There was a crack as the tank round went zipping by to their right, but the 60’s had grabbed their attention more. With the Davis round, there was a plume of dirt ahead at impact, and that was about it.

  “First Team, you are still lagging. Get on line.” Training Drill Instructor Hyunh said, his voice sounding a little harsher over the comms.

  Ryck risked a quick glance to his left where First Team was moving. They had curved back a bit, and the green shirt with them was physically pushing someone—Tad, it looked like--to get him back in line with the rest. Making a quick glance to the right, he could see that Second Team was even with his own Third Team.

  When the first of the 81s and the howitzer rounds impacted, Ryck could feel the concussion hitting his chest. His lungs actually compressed from the pressure waves. Clods of dirt followed the smoke into the air to come raining back down, a few clods reaching their line.

  “Last warning, First Team. Get online or I’m going to shut this down,” TDI Hyunh said.

  Ryck wondered if he was chewing out the other TDI, the one with First. Of course, that would never be on the open circuit.

  “Oh fuck! Too far!” Ryck heard, not over the circuit, but through the air as Hyunh started running to the left, coming right behind him. Then, on the open circuit, “Get back, that’s too far forward. Cease fire, cease fire! All hands freeze!”

  Ryck stopped in his tracks. Training Drill Instructor Hyunh had shut down the range, and he was running to the left to pull back First Team. Ryck expected an explosion of shouting, whether that was to the TDI who was with First or to the recruits, he wasn’t sure.

  The explosion he did see was not what he expected. Even though a cease fire had been called, there had been rounds in the air, and now they were impacting. The first couple were well ahead of them, as they had been so far. The third, though, was short, and it landed just in front of Mike Yount, who had stopped and was looking back at the TDI. Mike was violently blown forward, something that etched itself in Ryck’s mind before the blast reached him as well. Ryck was knocked down, and he felt the impact of the shrapnel or darts from the big round pepper him.

  Stunned, Ryck lay on the ground, vaguely aware of shouting through his ringing ears. He was sure he’d been killed. Hands grabbed him, turning him over.

  “You OK?” one of the TDIs asked him.

  Ryck looked at his left front, where he’d been hit. He didn’t see anything major. He flexed his left arm. It worked.

  “You’re OK,” the TDI told him before dashing off to someone else.

  Ryck was surprised. Looking closer as his bones, he could see a few faint marks. The armor had saved him. He got to his feet, looking around to see if he could help. The range corpsman had already opened someone’s armor and was working on him feverishly. From 20 meters away, the bright red blood stood out like a neon sign. Training Drill Instructor Rose stood over the corpsman, helmet off. It was only then that Ryck took in the bright green armor. It was Hyunh.

  Ryck took a faltering step forward when King Tong rushed by, shouting, “Get back to the bleachers, Lysander.”

  Ryck took one more look around, wanting to help. It looked like there were five prone bodies, all of whom had people around them. Several recruits were slowly moving back. A TDI was rounding up all the rest of the recruits, those who were not injured, and sending them back in a column. Ryck turned to join them. The walk back to the bleachers seemed to take forever. Halfway back, a field ambulance blew past them, bringing more corpsmen to the scene. Finally, Ryck got back and was told to sit. Yet another corpsman checked him out, giving him the OK. Ryck was relieved, but as he looked back downrange, and the Stork that had landed to casevac those hurt, he realized that there, but for the Grace of God, could have been him.

  The platoon had lost its first members.

  Chapter 13

  “Squad leaders, perform your

  EVA checks” King Tong shouted out.

  Ryck locked his weapon in the leg holster, a simple magnetic lock that kept the M99 out of the way while EVA, but readily available. The weapon could actually fire in the vacuum of open space, but there wouldn’t be any soft targets at which to fire.

  This was Ryck’s third time as recruit squad leader. At T288, there were only seven days left until graduation, and Ryck was determined to keep the billet until the end. Of course, two of the remaining days were The Crucible, the final test of a recruit’s mettle and worthiness to become a Marine. Ryck could easily lose the billet during that non-stop hell.

  He snapped back to the job at hand. This was the final practical app for Phase Four, space training. The first part of the training phase had been conducted back at Camp Charles, in classrooms and mock-ups. For such a modern setting, the mock-ups had been surprisingly basic. There was a hulk of a section of a cargo ship on its side in the dirt, then a simple model of an airlock. The recruits “cycled” through the airlock, then “flew” through the space to the hulk to perform forced entry procedures. It had been a bit surreal, seemingly floating through “space” in the bright sunlight, then “floating weightlessly” through the hulk’s corridors to rescue the ship’s crew (four hopelessly degraded dummies). All of that has been done in the skins and bones as the EVA suits were too valuable to use on the ground at Camp Charles. Each recruit had practiced getting in and out of an EVA, of course, and operating the suits’ systems, but that was with one of the three suits at the space training classroom.

  This final exercise was with the real thing, though. Marines would not be issued their own EVA suit unless they were assigned to a ship, so this was once more a bit of trying to make do with what was available. Recruit Dharma, a heavy-worlder in 1043, couldn’t even get a suit within the safety parameters, so he wasn’t
going to participate. The suits would not be perfect fits, of course, but unlike the training events back on Tarawa’s surface, a poorly fitting suit had more severe ramifications, and Dharma’s shoulders were just too broad and he was too short for any of the standard suits.

  Ryck called up his four fire team leaders. When he’d first been a recruit squad leader, he’d had four fire teams then, too, but now, 1044’s Fourth Squad had been merged with Third due to drops. Hodges and Wagons, from the old Fourth, were both fire team leaders, but the other two were No Initial and Raj from the old Third. Ryck was rather surprised that both Hodges and No Initial were still in the program, but he had to grudgingly give them their just due. Both had come along quite well, and if Ryck was to get fired again, he thought Hodges might actually get the nod as the new recruit squad leader.

  “Have you completed the suit checks?’ he asked them. All nodded back, so he continued, “Check each other, then I’ll be doing my check in three.”

  Ryck knew that there would be no sabotage by the DIs on this evolution. The inherent danger was too great. But that made it all the more reason to have a thorough check before they went out. He was nervous, even if one of the DIs did re-inspect each recruit after he did his inspection.

  There wasn’t much room in the prep hold aboard the Castor Wong, the navy corvette assigned to the training. Ryck was forced too close to each recruit as he inspected them, but he just repeated the inspection checklist as a mantra, checking each and every step. The recruits had no live ammo, but he checked the dummies and blanks as if they were live. Each recruit looked good, although he had Carl Kingsman reseat his M99.

  Usually, for this type of training evolution, it was only the TDIs who ran the show. This time, though, the platoon DIs, the series senior, and the series commander were there to assist as well. Even Captain Petrov, the company commander, was there to observe. After Ryck conducted his inspection, no less than three others re-inspected the squad. King Tong was one of the inspectors, then one of the TDIs conducted another. Captain Terzey, the series commander, inspected them one final time.

  The hold light went from red to amber. It was almost time. TDI Flores went over the procedure yet once more. Each squad would cycle out the lock, make the jump to the target ship, go through the forced entry (simulated, of course: the Wilma Pritchard was too valuable to actually blow holes in her), then conduct the movement to the bridge and rescue the hostages. There would be a safety officer at the Wong’s airlock and another at the airlock on the Pritchard. A TDI would handle the debarkation of the Wong, another would run the jump, and yet one more would lead each squad during the assault phase.

  Once the bridge was secured, the tactical phase would be over, and the squad would move to the forward airlock where they would cycle out, then take one of the EVA sleds back to the Wong. There were three types of sleds, and it would be basically first come, first served. Ryck wanted one of the single-man sleds, but with the graded part of the exercise completed, any sled should be a blast.

  The Castor Wong, as a corvette, was not a huge vessel, so only one platoon was embarked at a time. The cycle for a platoon was about two-and-a-half hours, so while there was time to get everyone through in the course of the day, the schedule had to be kept. 1043 had already completed its training, and the other two platoons were still down at the spaceport awaiting their turn.

  Ryck wanted to get it over with. First Squad, though, was, as usual, first to go. At least with them gone, there was more room in the hold. The series senior took that opportunity to inspect the squad again. That made six total inspections.

  The hold had ½ gravity, which made preparation and inspections easier than null grav. Even at ½ gravity, though, the suit was somewhat bulky, somewhat heavy, and quite uncomfortable. It would be better when they left the ship, Ryck knew. They had already spent one training day outside the Wong, tethered together, but enough to get the feel of weightlessness and maneuvering in it. But in the ship, the suit pulled down on the shoulders, hips, and knees. The fabric of the suit itself wasn’t bad, and the helmet was surprisingly light, but the thruster pack and ammunition magazines pulled down and back. The suits could be worn in gravity, either on a planet or aboard a ship, but they were designed for weightlessness. On a planet though, at least the thruster pack could be dropped.

  Second Squad, with its three fire teams, was next to go, and the hold became roomier still. He went to each fire team leader and went over the plan once again. This had to go without a hitch.

  “You ready, Lysander?” King Tong asked as he came up.

  “Yes, Drill Instructor Phantawisangtong, we are ready to kick some ass,” Ryck replied.

  “Don’t worry too much about that. Just make sure no one does anything stupid,” the DI told him.

  The DIs were still DIs, and incentive training was still on the menu. But either the recruits were getting used to the harassment or the DIs were mellowing a bit. Even King Tong could act like an actual human being—at least at times.

  The light finally changed to amber. They were up.

  “Lock them up,” the TDI told them.

  Each recruit closed his face shield and pressurized his suit. Ryck could feel it puff out slightly as the air circulated. This created one more degree of insulation, but it also allowed sweat to be whisked away.

  Before each recruit was allowed into the lock, one TDI and the safety officer conducted a final check of the integrity of each suit.

  With 15 recruits, a TDI, two DIs, a navy operator, and a safety officer, the airlock was crowded. The inner lock closing had a degree of finality. Each recruit and Marine had to report by name to the Navy airlock operator that he was ready before the air was pumped out. The red airlock light turned to green and the outer lock opened.

  Outside the lock, four Marines in their bright green suits waited for them. Ryck recognized SDI Despiri through his face shield, but he couldn’t make out the others. Thrusters were not to be initiated within the lock; each recruit stepped to the edge and pushed off with their legs. Still within the ship, gravity pulled them down. Looking out into to vastness of space, but still feeling a “down,” Ryck had to steel himself to push off. His mind told him he was about to fall to his death. It wasn’t until he cleared the lock and was in the weightlessness of open space that the vertigo disappeared.

  “Form it up,” a voice intoned over the comms.

  The jump would be done with four teams in a column with Ryck behind the first one. Each group of red-suited recruits would be accompanied by a green-suited DI.

  Ahead of them, about 300 meters away, was the Wilma Pritchard. Every recruit for the last 30 years, at least, had been aboard her. She was an old freighter that the Corps purchased for training. She stayed in a geosynchronous orbit, too fragile to make repeated landing and take offs. Each time she came in for her annual maintenance, people took bets on whether she would be deemed spaceworthy enough to take off again. Rumor had it that the Corps wanted to scrap her, but with anti-piracy as one of the Corps’ primary missions, they had to keep her up and running. Aside from a few fast Gulfstreams for the brass to use to get around, she was the only real spaceship in the Marine’s fleet. Many of the tactical aircraft could get into space of course, but not to travel across space to other solar systems.

  With small jets of the thrusters, the recruits got into position. In front of Ryck, two recruits collided with each other, one spinning off a good 10 meters before he could stop himself and edge back. Without a real working display, Ryck couldn’t tell who the two were, but he intended to have words with them when they got back.

  Finally in place, the DI with First Fire Team signaled them with a simple arm signal to move out. Ryck followed in trace, careful to keep far enough back not to run into the team. He felt naked without having the tether that had kept them together and around the Wong the day before.

  The thrusters had enough power to push Marines along at a healthy acceleration. There were rumors of lost Marines corpses t
ravelling between the galaxies at close to the speed of light. Ryck doubted that there was enough fuel to accelerate to those speeds, but he didn’t want to test that. Of course, being recruit training, the red training EVA suits had their thrusters modified to keep them slower. Any power, though, in weightlessness, had the mathematical capability to reach a high velocity. It would just take a recruit EVA suit much, much longer to reach such a speed.

  Their point of entry on the Wilma was facing them. A green-suited DI was clearly visible in the bright, harsh light of Tarawa’s sun. He seemed to grow larger as the recruits got closer.

  The DI with First made the cutting motion at what was about half-way to the ship. They had been moving under low acceleration, but even with only 300 meters, they had to reverse that to slow down again. Ryck had no sensation, really, of motion, but when he followed suit and began to decelerate, he was “pushed forward” slightly against the front of his suit. It took a moment of two, but he could sense his approach was slowing. He gave the tiny jets on his heels a spurt, bringing him around, but he hoped he would stop just at the lock without having to use his legs to halt on the Wilma’s skin.

  Ryck had just come to a halt a meter or so from the ship when the open circuit blared with “Recruit Thomas, reverse your thrust. You are too hot!”

  Grant Thomas was with Second Fire Team, one of the recruits originally with Third Squad. He was from Earth itself. Grant was one of the guys who was always just there. He didn’t make waves for good or bad.

  Ryck looked “up,” or at least away from the Wilma and back towards the Wong. A growing recruit in red was coming at him. One of the DIs lunged forward, but the distance was too great and he missed the recruit. Ryck reached out to stop Grant, who was coming in way too fast. That wasn’t the smartest thing to do in weightlessness. Grant hit Ryck, spinning him aside before the wayward recruit hit the side of the Wilma. He bounced off before being slammed back. A moment later, a DI reached him, manually turning off the thrusters at the feed valve.