War's Edge- Dead Heroes Read online

  Rumor had it that the Corps put anabolic steroid supplements in their food, though Rizer didn’t know whether to believe it. A lot of rumors circulated about the chow; some even claimed they put saltpeter in it to tamp down erections. Well, that much is bullshit. He knew for a fact that Phillipe fucked Cardozo just about every night after lights out. And Ward claimed that Melchor had sodomized Deezeman on at least one occasion. Bitch eyes probably enjoyed it. Deezeman surely wouldn’t last; Rizer couldn’t fathom how he still remained in training. He was no gray man, just a pathetic recruit, a liability to their squad.

  “Twenty-two,” Rizer shouted as Stubs grunted beneath the bar, which he then dropped to his chest for another rep. His massive arms quivered beneath the load as he tried for twenty-three.

  “Pathetic!” Bravo shouted, having arrived on scene at some point. The DIs moved like ghosts when the recruits weren’t looking, ensuring they always put out maximum effort, and startling the shit out of them when they least expected it. “Get off my bench, Stubneski!”

  Rizer helped him get the bar up on the rack, then took his place, banging out sixteen on his first set. Bravo bitched him out for his weak efforts yet didn’t award him a sticker.

  “Change over!” Mack barked.

  “Vertical climbers, first squad, move!” Bravo shouted. “Now, shitbag!”

  Deezeman, moving far too slowly for Bravo’s liking, stumbled and fell when the bot shoved him toward the machines thirty meters away. He grunted in agony as Bravo stunned him several times while ordering him to get up.

  There were enough vertical climber machines for the entire squad now that some of the deadwood had been sent packing to the janitor corps. Rizer’s efforts on this exercise had improved markedly as well, though his lungs and limbs still burned after five minutes of stationary climbing. Above the climber’s head, a large digital readout showed how many meters he’d climbed.

  “A hundred-and-ninety meters?” Mack shouted into Rizer’s ear. “Is that your fucking best, Rizer? Congrats, you’re damn near last in your squad! Get off my machine and push! You too, Deezeman! I’m sending your bitch asses home today!”

  The fuck you are!

  Mack dressed down Deezeman, booted him in the ribs, then slapped a sticker on his back. “You need to fucking go, bitch eyes. You’re not fit to serve in my beloved Corps!”

  Rizer pumped out as many pushups as he could on aching shoulders and arms.

  Mack took a knee next to him, ever unsatisfied. “I’ve read your file, Rizer. You should have stayed in school,” she said in a conversational tone. “You don’t belong here, so I’m gonna make you a deal: quit now, and I’ll see that your contract ends—no time in the service corps. You can leave this behind right now, go take a hot shower, and rack out for sixteen hours. And in a few days, you’ll be back home on the block, chasing fine-assed coeds. What do you say, college boy?”

  “No, ma’am!” He kept pushing.

  She made a noise, half chuckle and half growl. “You know you want to leave this behind. You never wanted to be a Marine; all you wanted was a taste of the action to see if you have what it takes. Well, you don’t, so why don’t you just go home? I’m only gonna ask one more time: are you ready to drop?”

  A voice in the back of his mind screamed for him to end this madness. Mack had offered him a deal that was practically unheard of if it were true. No! He’d given up too much already; damned if he would return home in disgrace.

  “No, ma’am!”

  “I see. Too bad some of Stubs’s street sense didn’t rub off on you. Good luck scrubbing shitters. Now push till you die!”

  She slapped a sticker on his back and moved on. His pushups slowed as he swiveled his head and watched her walk off. He remained in the up position, knowing full well that he would drop if he unlocked his elbows.

  A baton smashed him hard in the center of his back, driving him to the pavement. “Somebody tell you to stop?” Sgt Burrmaster asked, low and menacing.

  “No, sir!”

  “Squat thrusts, now.” Burrmaster transitioned Rizer through several different calisthenics in a merciless thrashing that continued until they again changed stations. First squad went to the climbing ropes, then on to sit-ups in the muddy sandpit.

  “That’s it, bang ’em out, Belzer!” Mack shouted, sounding positive and encouraging. Rizer doubted that Mack had a soft spot for Belzer; she praised her just to fuck with the rest of first squad. “How many, Coltin?”

  “A hundred sixteen, ma’am!”

  “You suck! You aren’t squad leader material! Stand up!” Mack nearly knocked him over slapping the sticker on his back.

  The sound of retching echoed across the Grinder from the vertical climber machines. DIs berated recruits for being weak if they puked during PT but didn’t punish them so long as they vomited in the shitcans provided for that purpose.

  “Who the fuck is that?” Mack demanded. “Who the fuck can’t find the puke can?”

  “It’s the puker again, staff sergeant,” Alpha said flatly. Norg. The kid had earned his nickname the moment he exited the bus, and he continued the tradition at some point every day. He must have had legitimate gastro problems, though nerves might have been to blame.

  “You wanna puke on my deck, Norg, you fuckin’ pussy?” She shook her head in disgust. “I’ve seen enough, Sergeant Burrmaster. Form it up, Eighty-Four!” After they fell into formation, she said, “Secure the guidon, Garwood; this platoon is a disgrace!”

  “Aye, ma’am!” Garwood rolled up the guidon on its pole, then secured the flag with a pair of trouser blousing bands from his pocket. Rarely did the guidon remain unfurled to identify 2084 for very long—such a nasty platoon of slackers didn’t rate to be recognized even as a recruit unit.

  “How many gray men, Sergeant Burrmaster?”

  “Sixteen, staff sergeant.”

  “I should put a sticker on all your backs! You are without question the stupidest, weakest, nastiest platoon I have ever seen!” She came to attention, ordered right face and forward march. “Double time… march!”

  “Marine Corps!” shouted the platoon.

  They ran half a kilometer to the black sand beach before the great lake that spread into infinite distance beneath Forge’s perpetually gray sky. The shoreline stretched left and right, likewise to the horizon. Meter-high waves crashed onto the shore. “You bitches look a little sweaty. Get in the water and cool off!”

  As always, the chill of the black water shocked Rizer, though it became somewhat bearable after about a minute in the surf. He knew what was coming next: Mack would order them to climb the Hill, then make them roll down the sandy slope to make ‘sugar cookies.’

  After about five minutes in the water, however, Rizer started to worry. He could feel the chill sapping the heat from deep within his bones. What’s she going to do, freeze us into quitting? Another five minutes in the icy water would bring the med bots calling for sure.

  “Gray men, remain in the water!” Sgt Burrmaster shouted over the waves. “Rest of you get your sorry asses out!”

  “This is bullshit!” Coltin muttered as he watched the rest of the platoon leave the waves.

  Stubs chortled. “Yeah, you can’t suck your way out of this one, Coltin.”

  “You’re a shitbag, Stubnes—”

  “Y’all wanna talk?” Burrmaster bellowed. “Go right ahead, I got nothin’ but time!”

  “Let ’em talk till their sucks freeze shut, Sergeant Burrmaster.” SSgt Mack turned to the rest of the platoon, formed up at attention on the beach. “Rest of you dumbasses prepare to attack the Hill!” She faced them right, then marched them away at double time.

  The gray men prudently closed their blue lips. Nevertheless, Sgt Burrmaster let them steep in the frigid waters for another few minutes before ordering them out. He formed them into two squads of eight. When Burrmaster ordered them to double time for the Hill, Rizer’s limbs protested, stiff and aching
from the cold.

  But Burrmaster had other plans for them and veered off the path as they approached the dunes, calling a halt before a long, writhing thing half buried in the sand, a rope about twelve meters long and thicker than his thigh. Rizer could only guess at its origin, though it was probably a section of a ship’s mooring rope, for he’d once seen the silhouette of a bulk cargo vessel far out in the lake.

  “You ladies could use some extra motivation,” Burrmaster said. “Dig it up now!” Time and tide hadn’t buried it deep; they uncovered it within a few moments. “Now get it to the Hill!”

  Holy fucking shit!

  Rizer attempted to shoulder his share of the burden. The waterlogged rope proved to be a soggy, sagging, unwieldy mess weighing over two hundred kilos. When they’d finally shouldered the rope, Burrmaster again ordered them to double time, but the gray men could barely run with the leaden rope on their shoulders, its drooping loops swinging between them. They were exhausted before they got it off the beach, and it was half a kilometer back to the Hill. Sgt Burrmaster and the two bots shuffled along beside them to provide motivation.

  Norg took a bad step and fell to the soggy earth, taking several gray men with him. Shouts and curses erupted from DIs and recruits both.

  “Get the fuck up now!” Burrmaster said as the others struggled under the rope. “Oh, you wanna move slow, Norg?”

  “N-n-no, sir!” he gasped, halfway to standing when he fell again.

  “Yeah, you do. You can’t even stand up! You ready to quit yet?”

  “No, sir!”

  “You’re fuckin’ your platoon over, you know that? They sure as shit do! Now why don’t you do the right thing and quit.”

  “No, sir!” He finally gained his feet.

  “Whatever… Get your asses movin’, gray men!”

  Norg fell again just a few meters further on, dragging Rizer and two others down with him. Jesus, just fucking quit already!

  “You’re wastin’ my fuckin’ time, Norg!” Burrmaster shouted into his face. “Now how about it, puke boy? You gonna quit, or you want me to stun your sorry ass?”

  “Yes… yes, sir!”

  “Yes, you wanna get stunned?” He depressed the button, showed him the spark.

  “No, sir! I quit!”

  “That’s about what I thought. Get this pussy the fuck outta my sight, Alpha. Rest of you fuck sticks, get that fuckin’ rope up and double time! Staff sergeant’s waitin’!”

  By the time the gray men reached the Hill, the rest of 2084 sat at the bottom, caked in sand after making several batches of sugar cookies. The DIs allowed them to watch their fucked-up, slacking brethren being goaded and beaten up the Hill by Burrmaster and Bravo, while Mack cursed the gray men from the summit for being slow and weak. Several times they attempted to haul the rope up the incline, only to fall back down in a flailing, disorganized heap after Burrmaster or Bravo tripped one of them or jabbed them with a stun baton.

  As they neared the top on what must have been their tenth attempt, Mack shouted, “Are you fucking crying, Deezeman?”

  He certainly was, and Mack’s bringing it to light sapped all the resolve from him. He collapsed. Rizer heard Deezeman slam into Abek and knock him down. The rope sagged, pulled Rizer back, and once again they rolled down the mountain in embarrassing failure.

  “Thanks, pussy!” Abek shouted into Deezeman’s face at the bottom and then backhanded him hard.

  “You’re weak fucking links, all of you!” Mack said as she bounded down the Hill. “Back to the beach now! Double time!”

  The gray men went to shoulder the rope again, but Sgt Burrmaster told them to leave it. “Don’t worry, ladies. You’ll be seein’ it again real soon,” he promised.

  Rizer just wanted to survive the next few minutes of barbaric torture, whatever it might be. Just make it to the next meal break. Thinking too far ahead was pointless. His mind didn’t want to quit; his body told him to fuck off, that it couldn’t take much more of this punishment.

  “Get in the water, gray men,” Mack ordered when they arrived at the beach.

  One of the non-grays muttered something a bit too loudly.

  “That right?” Burrmaster asked. “You go and join ’em, Perez.”

  “Aye aye, sir!”

  As he ran past, Burrmaster slapped a sticker on his back.

  “Know what? All of you get in the water!” Mack said. “Time for some surf torture. I want more drops, as many as I can get! You nasty fucks can float away like dead wood for all I care!”

  “Aw yeah, we gonna have us a beach party!” Burrmaster cheered as the non-grays ran by.

  All four squads soon sat neck deep in the lake, arms linked as they bobbed in the waves. Mack and Burrmaster weren’t about to get their uniforms soaked; they left that to Alpha and Bravo, who walked among the platoon making snide comments and slapping recruits for shivering.

  “You even twitch like a bitch!” Alpha said to Deezeman. He then shoved the man under the water with his metal foot and held him there, letting the recruit thrash for air before allowing him up to gag and cough.

  Burrmaster ordered several recruits out of the water to fetch some wood pallets that had been left stacked by the access road next to beach. The recruits placed the pallets in a pile at the DI’s feet and reluctantly returned to the water. Before long, Burrmaster had a massive bonfire raging in front of them. He and SSgt Mack stood in front of it, looking like hell’s tormentors as they taunted the recruits from the warmth of the fire.

  All the recruits shivered uncontrollably. Only insults and abuse marked the passage of time. Rizer had no idea how long they’d been in the water, but Burrmaster’s bonfire had died down to a moderate pyre. Stubneski’s lips were blue; Hagel’s teeth chattered like a busted machinegun. Bazz, one of the shortest recruits, slipped beneath the waves for a third time, came up coughing water.

  “Well, freak?” Bravo shouted at Bazz, shaking him by his collar.

  “I quit,” Bazz said, standing up.

  “Splash one!” Mack crowed as Bravo dragged him to the beach. “Who’s next?”

  “Me,” said recruit Patino, raising a blue hand from the water.

  Alpha pulled him away, leaving the platoon bobbing on its own.

  “We should all fucking quit,” Carelli said. “I wonder if that’s ever happened.” It must have been a joke, for he was one of the tougher recruits by Rizer’s estimation. Even now his teeth barely chattered.

  “Zip it, asshole!” Garwood growled. “Or she’ll leave us here all day.”

  The DOR recruits waiting for transport sat next to the warm fire, blankets draped over their shoulders. Defeated, they all avoided eye contact with the remainder of the platoon.

  “Look how warm these people are,” Mack taunted. “There is no shame in quitting. It is only recognition that this isn’t the life you were cut out for. Any more takers?”

  The platoon sat shivering, suffering in silence as they watched the fire crackle in warmth. SSgt Mack stared at them, looking for further weakness, but no additional recruits gave her the satisfaction of quitting.

  “That’s it! Get outta my lake now!” Mack ordered, and the platoon had never complied so quickly. “Three drops,” she said once they’d formed up. “Think I’ve got my groove back, Eighty-Four?”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  “Bet I’ll get three more before the day’s out. But for now you idiots are safe. Your reward is noon chow. Congratulations.”

  “Yippy skippy,” Abek muttered from behind Rizer. Somehow, none of the DIs heard him.

  And for once, Rizer agreed with the golden boy.

  ***

  Rizer jumped, grabbed the next and highest floor of the wooden tower with his right hand and swung his right leg up to catch the platform. Momentum and his ever-increasing strength pulled him up and over the edge onto the top floor.

  During his previous two weekly trips through the confidence course, o
ne of the few predictable events in bootcamp, the obstacles’ dizzying heights had unnerved him. This time he hardly registered the altitude nor feared the consequences of falling into the mud twenty meters below. The course had to be mastered, simple as that, and the DIs pushed the recruits to improve their times each week. These expected improvements weren’t always reasonable, however, for the DIs and bot instructors manning the course employed various methods to mercilessly harass recruits they deemed to be underperforming, a designation that might apply to any recruit at any time. And one that Rizer was fighting to avoid as he already was receiving a lot of extra unwanted attention from SSgt Mack. For a fighting force that thrived on discipline, the Corps incorporated a lot of inconsistency into its training, always keeping the recruits guessing and anticipating the worst.

  “Hit the hover disks now!” said the bot manning the tower roof.

  “Aye, sir!” Rizer jumped about two meters over nothingness to land on the first of nine metal hover disks, each two meters in diameter. The disk slowly tilted beneath his weight, the repulsor drive beneath set to maintain only a balanced load, forcing him to step quickly to the other side, which tilted downward as he jumped to the next disk floating about two meters lower. Negotiating the first five descending disks presented little problem; jumping and climbing onto the next four ascending disks proved more challenging. He leaped, grabbed the edge of the next one. The disk had tilted precariously by the time he pulled himself onto it. He crawled to the center, brought the disk back on an even keel, then jumped up to the next one.

  Ahead of Rizer, Ward struggled climbing onto the final disk. “Better move, Ward!” a bot instructor shouted.

  The bots could remotely read their microchip implants, and thus knew every recruit’s name. The chips also recorded their times through the course, as well as their vital signs and brain waves during every aspect of training.