First To Fight (The Empire's Corps Book 11) (11 page)

He shrugged.  “I shall be issuing live ammunition once we’re inside the range,” he added.  “I expect you to treat it with the respect it deserves.”

We nodded, hastily. 

“Take a set of earmuffs and goggles, unless you’re already protected,” Guptill ordered, once he’d finished telling us how to stand.  “Make sure your ears are completely covered.”

He checked our protections, then beckoned us through another metal door.  This chamber was larger, with a handful of paper targets hanging from the ceiling at the far end.  A red line had been painted on the ground, with a warning saying DO NOT CROSS THIS LINE.  Guptill walked forward as the door closed, then raised his voice.  I was mildly discomforted to discover that I could still hear him through the earmuffs.

“I’m putting a rest here so you can lean on it to take your first shots,” he said.  “Stalker, you’re up first.  The rest of you, stay back and watch carefully.”

I blinked - if he’d wanted someone to do well, Viper might have been the better choice - and then stepped up to the rest.  Guptill passed me a set of rounds, each one glinting gold under the light; I felt my fingers shaking as I took them, one by one, and carefully slotted them into the magazine.  It was simple enough, yet I was slow ... I had the feeling we’d be doing a great deal of practice with dummy ammunition ...

“Keep your hand away from the hammer,” Guptill warned.  “Point it at your target and then pull the trigger slowly.”

I peered down towards the target - a simple set of bull’s-eyes - and pulled the trigger.  It didn't go off.  For a crazy moment, I wondered if he’d given me dummy ammunition, then I realised I’d forgotten to take off the safety.  I clicked it off - my hands felt sweaty, all of a sudden - and pulled the trigger a second time.  There was a loud bang - I jumped, despite the ear muffs - and a small hole appeared in the paper target.  Something rattled down by my feet.  I glanced down and saw the cartridge spinning to a stop.

“You’ll be sweeping those up later,” Guptill warned.  “Go on.  Fire off the rest of the magazine.”

I pulled the trigger several times, slowly gaining in confidence.  I didn’t quite manage to hit dead centre, but I wasn't doing badly.  The final bullet proved to be a dud; I panicked, for a second, then cleared the chamber and discovered there was no more ammunition.  I slipped the safety back on, opened the chamber and held the gun out for inspection.

“Good enough,” Guptill said.  He pointed to the wall, then called Joker forward.  “Wait there.”

We rapidly formed a line and went through the shooting exercise three times, before Guptill finally called a halt and detailed us to pick up the cartridges and dump them in the recycling boxes.  None of us were entirely confident about picking them up after the horror story, but it turned out they cooled very quickly.  Guptill entertained us with a story about how the Marine Corps had sent a team to the Imperial Army’s sharpshooting contest and walked away with all the prizes.

“We don’t have to account for each and every piece of ammunition fired,” he explained, when we asked him how this had been achieved.  “How many bullets did you fire?”

I tried to calculate it in my head.  There were ten of us, the gun could hold nine rounds at a time and we’d each had three turns at shooting ...

“Two hundred and seventy,” Professor said.  Trust him to have the advantage when it came to calculation.  “More or less ...”

“Close enough,” Guptill agreed.  “The Imperial Army expects its NCOs to fill in a form for each round of ammunition they requisition, even if they don’t use it.  And then, they wonder why their sergeants find it so much easier not to have live-fire practice at all.”

He cleared his throat.  “Back to the classroom, recruits,” he added.  “You have papers to read.”

I didn't believe him at the time, not about the Imperial Army.  But, if anything, he understated the case. All marines have to be riflemen first, and ideally they have to have experience of combat, but it’s possible to rise quite high within the army without ever seeing the elephant.  And then you lose track of what is actually important and what can be safely ignored ...

And that, perhaps, explained just what went wrong with the Empire.

Chapter Eleven

As hard as it may seem to believe, Ed is also understating the case.  One could make a valid case that it was bureaucracy, not the Grand Senate, the Secessionists or anyone else, who actually killed the Empire.  If a crowd is only as smart as the stupidest person in it, a bureaucracy is pretty much a brain-dead beast.  On one hand, someone could survive a screw-up if that person could demonstrate that they’d followed procedure; on the other hand, someone using common sense could easily be fired
.

-Professor Leo Caesius

It really was astonishing, I discovered as we moved through phase one, just how much information the Drill Instructors crammed into our heads.  Every day started with inspection, then we did callisthenics, unarmed combat training, firearms training and water training ... and then we were introduced to everything from basic medical treatment to survival in the wilderness.  By the time we reached the first waypoint, the first set of exams to determine if we could proceed into phase two, we felt as if information was leaking out of our ears.

The Drill Instructors did not, of course, let up.  Things they would have let slide at the beginning were now the cause of endless push-ups, while they were happy - sometimes - to let us learn from painful experience.  I managed to slice my finger while firing a pistol when the slide rocketed backwards, teaching me a sharp lesson about holding weapons carefully.  It might have been smaller than my hand, making it difficult to fire properly, but that was no excuse.  The medics healed it up at once, yet I never forgot.  None of us did.

“Marines are
thinkers
,” Bainbridge bellowed, after we completed the shooting and unarmed combat tests.  I’d mastered the art of shooting at stationary targets, although their favourite trick for when one of us was getting a little overconfident was to have us shoot at moving targets instead, which was a great deal harder.  “
Why
are we thinkers?”

He jabbed a finger at Thug.  “This recruit thinks it is because marines” - we’d been seriously ticked off for calling ourselves marines - “have to fight with less than most, more than most.”

“True,” Bainbridge agreed.  “There hasn't been a battle in the last two centuries where marine units have not been outnumbered at least ten to one.  Sometimes, we have been backed up by the regulars; mostly, it's just us, surrounded on all sides by the enemy.  We have to learn to make the most of what we have.”

He paused.  “These exams will measure your intellectual development” - he spoke the words as if they were a curse - “and determine if you are allowed to proceed to the next phase or held back to join the newcomers.  These are not the pointless exams you might be familiar with from school.  I shall be severely displeased if I have any reason to think you are not giving your all.

“You will be shown to a private room inside the examination building.  You will sit down in front of the computer - paper and pencils have also been provided - and answer all the questions as best as you can.  You will not attempt to leave the room without an escort; if you need to take a piss, there’s a bucket at the rear.  When you have finished, we will be alerted and you will be collected and taken down to the training grounds.  We will make some good use of your time while the remainder of the platoon are completing their exams.”

I nodded, inwardly.  Exams at school had been pointless - and, when we were finished, we were expected to just sit quietly and wait for everyone else.  Needless to say, we hadn't done anything of the sort; I would have been surprised if
anyone
did very well on the exams, or even managed to finish them when there was no punishment for failure.  But here ... there wasn't one of us who would defy the Drill Instructors, not when they could assign us hundreds of push-ups.

Bainbridge scowled at us all.  “Do you understand me?”

“YES, SIR,” we shouted.

“Inside,” he ordered.

We walked into the building, past a desk manned by a grim-faced woman wearing a green uniform, and down a long corridor.  Our names were already written on the doors; I waved goodbye to Joker, when I found mine, and pushed it open carefully.  Inside, there was a computer terminal - like the one I’d taken the aptitude tests on, back on Earth - and a small selection of papers and pencils.  A water bottle stood next to it, full and sealed.  I knew from experience that we were expected to keep hydrated at all times and there might be some hard questions if I didn't.  Shaking my head, I sat down and braced myself, then tapped the switch to start the tests.  Moments later, the first question flashed up in front of me, a repeat - almost - of the original aptitude test.  I worked my way through the questions, one by one, then stopped as a far more complex question popped up.

“You have proof that your superior officer has been stealing supplies from the logistics centre and selling them on the black market,” I read out loud, parsing out every word.  “Do you report him, confront him or ignore him?”

It was a tricky question.  There wouldn't have been any real doubt at all in the Undercity.  A superior officer could be a deadly enemy - and he would be believed, not you, if you happened to report him.  Besides,
his
superiors might be in on the racket too.  But in the marines ...

I agonised for long seconds.  Would it be better to report him, in line with the instructions to uphold the ideals of the Marine Corps, or to ignore him, on the grounds that I would be snitching on my superior?  Who knew which way the chips would fall?  But if I was to be a marine, as I had been told often enough, I had to put the interests of the corps ahead of my personal interests.  I’d report him ... and handle whatever consequences came my way, when they came.  I tapped the answer into the machine, then read the next question.  It looked to run along the same lines, but had a far more complex problem.  I answered as best as I could, silently praying I never had to face such a problem in real life.  It would be damaging no matter what I did.

The third question threw me for a long moment.  “You have discovered that two of your platoon mates are having a sexual relationship,” I read.  “Do you report them, confront them or ignore them?”

I swore under my breath.  This was worse than the first question.  Loyalty to one’s superiors was important, but loyalty to one’s platoon was
vital
.  Did I betray them, thus undermining the glue holding us together, or ignore their affair, even though it too would be damaging to the platoon?  I knew - I thought I knew - the regulations.  Sexual affairs between marines were absolutely forbidden, with discharge the mildest punishment laid down in the books.  And yet ...

“I’d have to report them, if I couldn't talk them out of it,” I muttered.  Personally, I would have been astonished if anyone had had the
energy
for a sexual affair, not when we staggered into bunks each day feeling utterly shattered.  “What else could I do?”

It was a relief to discover that the next set of questions were tactical, focused around a number of scenarios the marines had encountered over the years.

“A marine platoon has taken up residence in a small village,” I read, “and has orders to defend the residents against enemy raiders.  Two people in the town are dickers - watching everything the platoon does and reporting them to the enemy.  Identify these people from the profiles and state your reasons.”

I groaned as I read through the seventy profiles.  The village seemed tiny compared to a CityBlock (nowhere else had the population density of a CityBlock) but there were still enough residents to make it hard to guess at the enemy agents.  I was tempted to blame the policeman - the police on Earth were hopelessly corrupt - but the file indicated that he’d been a decent man, despite his limitations.  It wasn't until I started looking at the relationships between the villages that one of the dickers jumped right out at me.  He was a complete stranger, as far as I could tell.  There were
no
ties between him and the rest of the villagers.

“Gotcha,” I said. 

My good mood didn't last.  Who was the
other
dicker?  The schoolmaster?  No, in my experience schoolmasters and teachers were too cowardly to do anything that might require taking a stand.  A housewife?  No, the enemy seemed to think that women should remain pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen ... although, if that were the case, having a housewife as a spy would seem unthinkable.  Someone we’d offended somehow ...

I glanced back through the files and smiled.  One of the villagers had had his daughter molested by the platoon’s predecessors.  He had an entirely understandable motive to want a little revenge.  It was an unfamiliar attitude to me - there were few fathers on Earth who could or would stand up for their children - but it made sense.  I tagged him as the second dicker and moved on. 

It felt like hours before I reached the final question and the exam came to an end.  The door clicked invitingly, offering me the chance to leave, but I knew better than to step through until the Drill Instructors arrived.  Instead, I drank the rest of the water and enjoyed an unaccustomed moment of sheer relaxation.  Johnston arrived, just after I’d finished, and beckoned me through the door.  I wanted to ask how well I’d done, as he led me down to the training grounds, but I knew I’d find out soon enough.  Instead, I joined Joker in running laps around the field.

“Bet Viper gets held back again,” Joker muttered.  Once, running several miles - even pacing ourselves, as we had been taught to do - would have left us both gasping for breath.  Now, it felt easy.  “We’d finally be rid of him.”

I nodded in agreement.  Everyone else was pulling their weight, to the best of their ability, but not Viper.  He should have been stronger than Professor, smarter than Thug - he’d had an entire month of training - yet he was still only doing the bare minimum.  It held us back in anything requiring teamwork, putting us at the bottom of the ranking system.  I knew it was only a matter of time before the Drill Instructors ‘counselled’ us to do better or someone took a swing at Viper outside the unarmed combat pit.

“Just think of the poor bastards who’ll get him next,” Joker added.  “Maybe we should have given him a thumping after Lights Out.”

“Better not,” I said.  “The Drills would kill us.”

Joker frowned, but nodded reluctantly.  One of the recruits - not in my squad, thankfully - had started to bully someone he thought wasn't doing very well.  Nordstrom had picked him up,
carried
him out of the barracks and then ... well, I don’t know what happened next, but we never saw the bully again.  (We joked that Nordstrom had eaten the bastard and we half-believed it.)  His victim might have started slowly, but he was doing very well now.

The whistle blew as the last of the recruits was escorted out of the examination hall.  We were marched down to the shooting range, where we fired off several hundred more rounds from our rifles in our endless quest for accuracy.  Guptill had taken to posting our scores on the walls, pushing the squad into competition with the rest of the platoon and the platoon into competition with the senior platoons.  The seniors
should
be well ahead of us; Guptill had told us, mischievously, that if we happened to beat them in a shooting match, they would be in deep shit with their Drill Instructors.  It was remarkably motivating.

“Pick up your brass, recruit,” Guptill snapped.  Somehow, I wasn't surprised to discover that it was Viper in trouble.  Again.  He must not have done well on the exams.  “You don’t want to spend your free hour cleaning this place, do you?”

“No, sir,” Viper said.

He bent over and started to pick up the shells, one by one.  I watched for a moment, then turned my attention back to the rifle and checked my sights, again.  Guptill had a habit of adjusting our sights, just to force us to reset them every time we fired.  It was a useful thing to learn, although I rather preferred the laser rangefinder.  But the Drill Instructors had explained, at some length, that we couldn't rely on being able to use them in the field.

“Laser rangefinders are not new pieces of technology,” Bainbridge had explained.  “They have been in use for longer than the Phase Drive.  A
smart
enemy could protect their installations with sensors intended to
detect
laser beams, even beams invisible to the naked eye, and call down artillery fire on your position.  Or even just shoot back in your general direction.”

I frowned, remembering.  We'd been told not to shoot off the whole magazine at once, as the odds of hitting something were surprisingly low, but there were times in the field when it came in handy.  If nothing else, spraying and praying in the enemy’s direction would force them to duck, upsetting them enough to let you get off a more accurate shot.  Or so we hoped.