The Infinity Brigade #1 Stone Cold Read online

  “HOLY MOTHER OF SAINT JUDE!” I bellowed in pain. It was the hand I held my toy-pointer with so I was forced to use my other hand instead.

  I grabbed a nanite squish-pack out of my belt pack and tore the top off with my teeth. I squeezed the contents into the wound. Fortunately the nanites I had received earlier as part of my time at the MEPS had already started to ease the pain and seal the wound. There was blood everywhere but such were the fortunes of war.

  “JJ Report!”

  “It seems to be run of the mill electric fence. We should be able to cut the wires and pull it down.”

  “Make it happen Sergeant. We are burning daylight here.”

  The rest of the day was a blur. We managed to get the bridge to its drop-off point but we were three minutes late. That cost us a hundred and fifty pushups. We got the entire platoon to medical in the required time… except for a guy named Ensign Stone.

  Drill Sergeant Baldwin started to verbally administer a dress down that could easily strip the paint off the walls when she noticed the blood on my arm… and leg… and chest. I had been so preoccupied with everything that was going on I hadn’t noticed the other shrapnel wounds I had received.

  Now to be fair, several of our guys got winged but they had gotten the nanite treatments. So they were good to go a few minutes after their nanites got to work. Senior Drill Sergeant Harris looked me up and down. I did my best to stand at attention but damn I was tired.

  “Ensign remove your BDU Blouse,” Harris ordered.

  I did although I had to admit I was somewhat stiff. It had been a rough day and there were still quite a few hours of daylight left to burn through. The shirt stuck where my blood had dried in a way that glued the fabric to my skin. I expected it to hurt when I pulled the fabric away but surprisingly it did not.

  Sergeant Harris examined the shirt. There were a number of holes where shrapnel had passed through it. The snipers had not been trying to hit us but ricochets were hard to fully control. He looked at my arm and side. The skin was unblemished save for the blood stains.

  “You say you did not process through medical yet?”

  “That is correct Senior Drill Sergeant,” I answered crisply.

  “Have you ever received military grade medical nanites?”

  “Affirmative Drill Sergeant. I was given a batch when I went through the MEPS. I had recently acquired a few torn ligaments after a heated discussion with a Master Gunny Sergeant.”

  Harris laughed. “That’s been known to happen. Well son it appears your entire platoon passed the challenge. But fear not son… the day is young.”

  Chapter 5: Boot Camp – The Wall

  By the time my platoon got to the end of week two, I was beginning to think I had this whole ‘Boot Camp’ thing in the bag. There was a technical term I had learned in grade school that defined such defective thinking… it was called hubris… that tendency towards excessive pride or self-confidence. Yup, that was me. Fortunately our Drill Sergeants were experts at spotting hubris and rooting it out at its source. It made for an interesting, if somewhat painful next several weeks.

  My platoon and I had developed a rhythm that we fell into each evening. We spent a few hours together as a team polishing everything that could be polished. Then we cleaned everything that could be cleaned. This included boots, brass, toilets, floors and most importantly our weapons. We had finally been issued real pointers and we learned real quickly that we were expected to treat them like favored children. Where we went… it went. When it needed cleaning… we cleaned it. If it didn’t need cleaning… we checked to make sure it was clean anyway.

  A pointer was an interesting weapon. It fired a plasma bolt that could be used to shock or kill depending on the strength that was dialed into the weapon. Ours were locked into mild stun but even in this mode they could be quite dangerous. They were called pointers because to fire one, you placed a low-powered red aiming laser on the target and pressed the trigger. A more powerful second laser would fire a specially tuned beam that was designed to create an ionized channel in the air that a powerful electric current could flow through. It was not unlike launching a bolt of lightning.

  What made the pointer the weapon of choice for space-based marines was the simple fact that it could be effective in a spaceship without risking the hull integrity of a ship in the way a kinetic round could. What made the pointer an ideal weapon for training was that it could be set to stun only.

  We were about to learn that the humble pointer was also an effective weapon for training in vacuum combat scenarios. Now this may seem counter-intuitive at first. After all, a pointer works by creating an ionized conduit through an atmosphere in order to do its job. The beauty of the pointer in an airless training scenario was that the ionizing laser could still be easily detected and thus ‘kills’ could be simulated without endangering the trainee. A special gas puffer was attached to the pointer itself to simulate a rifle recoil so the soldier firing the weapon learned to compensate for what he or she would experience in actual combat.

  Before the pointer had been developed Marines had trained with paintball guns. These did not represent a danger to the integrity of a soldier’s space suit but the paintball could impart momentum on the targeted soldier. Momentum, especially uncontrolled momentum in space, was every soldier’s worst nightmare while working in a weightless environment. The pointer solved this problem.

  One of the reasons I encouraged us to work as a team was because it became immediately obvious that those platoons that did not… ended up doing more pushups and running more laps. Also, it seemed different soldiers were better at different things. I needed everybody to be great at everything so I began to pair up recruits who could help one another. Sometimes this worked, and unfortunately sometimes it did not.

  Private McDullis was an example of the second. He would ultimately cost me my acting commission as an ensign but I did not know it at the time… and if I had, I honestly don’t think I could or would have done anything differently. In the end, he would be the second recruit to wash out.

  Sam McDullis should have had everything going for him. Physically he was middle of the road… not the strongest or fastest but solidly in the middle of the pack. From a marksmanship point of view he was one of the best distance people we had. He struggled with fast moving targets and he needed some work in that area but again he was in the mix with the rest of the platoon. Academically he was ahead of the game. He had managed to give me a run for my money on every written test that we had taken and I had the top grades across all four platoons in the company.

  As I said, Sam should have been a shoo-in. A common misperception is that Boot Camp is designed to weed out those that can’t cut it. The fact is, in the Marines, that job is done by the recruiter. Unlike many of the other branches of the service, the recruiter is evaluated on how successful his recruits are. If a man or woman is unlikely to make it through Boot Camp then the recruiter is unlikely to allow them to try because they would tarnish his recruiting record.

  I knew that the Drills would make our lives miserable but at the end of the day they would work with us to whip us into something worthy to be called a Marine. I don’t think Sam ever got this. I paired Sam with JJ Hammond. This two men were polar opposites. Where JJ was gregarious and outgoing… Sam was a recluse. JJ never failed to find the humor in a situation. Sam never failed to miss the potential downside. My hope was that they could balance each other out because both were headed for trouble if they didn’t find some way to mitigate their more extreme tendencies.

  The final day of our second week this had come to a head when Sam flatly refused to participate in an exercise designed to build co-dependent team work. The bottom line was he was too afraid to trust anyone but himself.

  We were scaling a wall in a two gravity field. A safety line was attached to each recruit. The line was attached to a pulley which had a grappling hook on it. The idea was to fold the rope in half with the grappling hook and pulley on the folde
d end. The hook would be tossed over the top of the wall. A soldier would secure one end of the free rope to his climbing belt and begin the accent. The other soldier would hold the second part of the line and remove slack as the first soldier ascended. Once they got to the top, the second soldier would make his or her way up while the soldier already at the top would take up the slack in their assist rope. The scheme worked best when you sent the strongest person up first.

  Because we were dealing with a 2G field it was essential that the each soldier assist the other whenever such assistance was requested. It was a tough climb and, with the exception of myself, Jesus Ramirez, and JJ Hammond, everyone needed several goes to make it the first time. I stood at the top of the wall and watched Sam and JJ struggle with the obstacle course.

  JJ muscled his way to the top but it was obvious that Sam wasn’t even tending the rope. Had JJ fallen it was unlikely Sam would have been able to arrest his fall. I was furious but yelling in the middle of JJ’s climb might well have gotten my friend hurt.

  Once JJ was at the top. I told the two of them to stand in place while I climbed back down and discussed the matter with McDullis. For this exercise, a tough-as-nails gal by the name of Gretchen Highmark was my partner. I had her loop our accent rope around a mooring at the top of the wall and hold it in place while I climbed the rope back down to the ground. My upper body strength had always been impressive but the last several weeks had taken it to the next level.

  In under a minute I was back down to the ground. I walked over to where Sam was standing. I could tell by the look on his face that he was in a mood to cop an attitude. I’m not sure what his upbringing was. Obviously it had been in an environment where he could get away with such things… mine had not been and I was not in a mood to put up with it.

  Aside from the Drills only three people in my platoon could discipline a recruit. I was one of them. That said, I was reluctant to do so because at any moment the Drills could strip my rank and give it to somebody else. Rather than ordering Sam to kiss the tarmac for deliberately risking the health and welfare of another recruit I decided to take a more open approach.

  “Sam, put the piss and vinegar look away. It doesn’t work with the Drills and it sure as hell is not going to work with me. You did damn near nothing to help JJ get his fat butt up that wall. Even worse, if he had slipped you were not in a position to save his sorry ass. So tell me why I shouldn’t be royally ticked off right now?”

  In response he turned his head to the side and spit a lugey at the ground between his front teeth. He turned back to look me straight in the eye… the tiniest of smirks on the edge of his lips.

  I have to admit, the temptation to rearrange his face with my fist was almost overwhelming. I was stronger and faster than he was and we both knew it… and that was the problem – we both knew it. What was his end-game here? Why was he deliberately taunting me into a fight neither of us could win? The Drills could sense a fight a mile away. I could already see Drill Sergeant Thomas and Baldwin watching us out of the corner of their eyes. If I allowed this to escalate too far they would be on us like fleas on a dog… and neither of us would like the flea bath they would use.

  Then it hit me. If the Drills broke up a fight, we would spend the next several hours running until we puked and then running some more. What we would not be doing is climbing this wall.

  “Sam, if your plan is to get into a fight so you draw a punishment detail instead of climbing that wall… it won’t work.”

  I could tell from the look on his face that I had hit pretty close to home.

  “I…” he started to say as he looked up at the wall. Whatever it was he didn’t finish. He clamped his mouth shut and went back to staring me down.

  I sighed. “Look Sam, here is the deal. You ARE going up that wall. Ramirez is as strong as an ox. He’ll have you on a short tether. Hell, he could pull you up if he had to. But he won’t. I’m going to be on your right side and Sergeant Hammond is going to be on your left. The three of us are going to get your through this together because that’s what Marines do. Are you game?”

  He took a moment but reluctantly nodded his head.

  “RAMIREZ! TOSS DOWN THE END OF THAT ROPE. HAMMOND GET YOU SORRY ASS DOWN HERE – NOW!”

  All told, it took all of us working together to coax McDullis up the wall but the man made it… barely. He was shaking like a leaf when he got to the top and he absolutely refused to look down… but he did it. I thought that would be the end of my problems with Sam McDullis. That just goes to show you what a bad judge of character I am.

  ***

  On Monday of week three we got fitted for Mark Two Tactical Combat Armor. These machines wrapped around a soldier like a coffin and if you were claustrophobic there could be some real issues. The thing was this… these powered suits were the most fun a man could have and still stay on the right side of the law! It was like being inside a Rock’m-Sock’m robot.

  The Mark Two was not the most current model of these suits… that was the Mark Three; but they were still awesome. For some reason that was not immediately clear to me these suits had acquired a nickname. They were called ‘Stark’ suits. It made little sense to me because these things had all the bells and whistles anyone could ask for… there was nothing stark about them.

  The Mark Two Stark had two interchangeable battery packs that could power the suit for up to four hours each. They could be hot-swapped so in a typical deployment scenario drained packs would be hooked up to a generator while the fresh packs juiced the suit.

  We spent the first day with the suits learning how to control them and how to help each other swap out battery packs. A Marine could even swap out his front pack on his own if he needed to… but only if there was a few percentage points left in the rear battery pack. That was because without juice these things were literally like being inside a coffin.

  There were manual latches that could be actuated from the inside but since these suits were intended to be used in hostile environments to include hard vacuums… cracking the suit open was not always an option.

  By the end of second day with the Mark Two’s the Drills decided we were ready for our first lunar bivouac. This would be the first time most of us had been out in a hard vacuum. Having grown up on Mars, I was used to pressure suit protocols. The average surface pressure on Mars is significantly less than one percent that of Earth.

  We were ordered into the sack early as the Drills wanted us sharp and on our game as we headed out onto the lunar surface the next day. We had a pleasant surprise waiting for us as we got back to the billets. There were now thirty one bunks. We were done pulling all night guard duties for the foreseeable future. I was delighted.

  The Stark suits were fun but the care you had to take in walking with them to avoid tripping yourself and falling was… wearing. I had chafe marks on areas of my body that did not enjoy being chafed. On top of that, the Stark suits required muscles that normally did not get much of a workout to strain. The bottom line was I was exhausted. Tomorrow would come all too soon. As soon as the lights went out… I was asleep.

  Sixty seconds later the lights came blaring on and the Drills were screaming at us to haul ass and move. Ok it was really six hours later but my mind does strange things when it’s tired. Six hours of sleep was more than we had gotten in several weeks but my body kept telling me that another five minutes would be all it would need. I ignored it because today was the day I was going to get to play with the Stark suit on full power mode.

  It took my platoon six minutes to dress, make our bunks and assemble in front of the billets. All three Drill Sergeants stood in front of us. This was in and of itself unusual. After the first day of Boot Camp we had only ever seen two Drills in the morning as they rotated turns babysitting us.

  Senior Drill Sergeant Harris walked the line of recruits. His eyes missed nothing. He stopped in front of JJ and my heart sunk. JJ was my friend but he had a mouth on him that did not know when to shut up. I had no idea
what was about to transpire but I knew that somehow JJ would find a way to crack a joke or slide in a subtle insult that would result in everyone getting to drop for fifty.

  “Acting Sergeant Hammond, would you…” Before the Senior Drill could finish his statement JJ dropped to the ground and started pumping out pushups.

  “Recruit what are you doing?”

  “Why, pushups Senior Drill!” JJ yelled while continuing to kiss the tarmac.

  “May I ask why?”

  “Certainly Senior Drill Sergeant! I was think’n to save you some time since every time you and I get into a discussion… I end up say’n something that doesn’t sit well with you. In as much as the platoon is anxious to go on our little field trip today, I thought I would speed up the process.”

  The senior drill shook his head and looked at the other two drills. I knew what was coming so I joined in the spirit of things and said in a calm but loud voice… “Platoon Drop!”

  ***

  As we marched out of the pressure dome in our shiny red training suits I was excited. Our plan was to march a little over a hundred and ten kilometers. At that point we would practice battery swaps. With fresh power packs in place we would begin arms training. At first it would be against stationary targets but towards the end of the day we would divide into teams. The losing team would split guard duty for the night while the rest would be allowed to enjoy the comforts of sleeping in their stark suits for five uninterrupted hours.

  For the first time since starting Boot camp I thought I knew what it felt like to BE a Marine. I was truly clueless. The feeling of excitement I was experiencing would soon transform into one of abject terror.

  Chapter 6: Boot Camp – The Dark Side of the Moon

  The third week of Boot Camp will easily go down as one of the worst weeks of my life. Considering I have literally had a world blown out from under me by heartless alien invaders hell-bent on eradicating my entire species… that was saying something.