Star Soldier

way of life.

Some men mutinied. They died. One man foolishly attempted to kill Captain Sigmir. He died, too. A few tried trekking across the desert to anywhere but Training Camp Ninety-three-C. Marten led the unit chasing the deserters. Turbo, Stick, Omi and three other slum dwellers cradled laser rifles as they jogged after Marten. He wore the infrared goggles that saw the fleeing footprints as easily as if they’d been painted in red. Perspiration poured. Their brown uniforms were dark with sweat. Marten especially hated how damp his socks had become.

“Why couldn’t they have just cut their own throats,” Stick muttered as he wiped his forehead. “I’m dying out here.”

“Yeah,” Turbo complained, “my feet are blistering.”

Marten’s gut churned. They were remaking him as a killer. In Sydney, it had been different. They tried to bend you. A brave man could resist. Back at the Sun Works, he’d only used a tangler, although his father had killed. Disobey a combat order here and you died.

The Highborn had lied, he decided. Sure, you could say what you wanted, and that was different than it was in Social Unity. But now he was becoming like Ngo Drang the red-suit, the personal butcher of Major Orlov. His gut churned and roiled. The Highborn had him trained like a good little boy. It was more blatant and subtler all at once.

Marten licked his lips, and he veered from the tracks.

“No!” came over the voice-link clipped to his ear. “Follow the track and slay the deserters or you will all be marked as AWOL and immediately eliminated.”

Marten glanced back. Omi and the others didn’t have the voice-link. But they would be killed just the same. Sure, they had these lasers. They’d all been shown how useless they were against battle armor.

“Warning number two has now been issued,” came over the voice-link.

Warning number three would be auto-cannon fire in their backs. Cursing under his breath, Marten veered back onto the track.

“What’s wrong with these guys?” asked Stick. “Are they drunk?”

Omi jogged faster until he was even with Marten.

“They earned this,” the ex-gunman said. “They knew the rules and they broke them.”

“Yeah?” asked Marten.

“Do not throw our lives away,” Omi said.

“Don’t worry.”

“Ah, you’re correct,” Omi said, as he spotted the fugitives.

Omi barked a command. The ragged hunters, with sweat pouring off them, their chests heaving, halted. One by one, they lifted their laser rifles.

“Do it,” Omi hissed at Marten.

Reluctantly Marten lifted his. He saw the four running shapes in his scope. His knuckles tightened. A harsh red beam stabbed across the desert. The others fired, and the beams touched the deserters. The four fell onto the sand, dead.

That’s how the days went. But not all of the training was practice. They also taught Marten a little theory. He found out why all the volunteer slum dwellers had been packed into the same camp, why Ball Busters, Kwon’s Gang and Red Blades went into platoons of their own kind. Men fought better with their buddies, with other men who knew and cared if they turned coward or not. No one loved the Highborn, but you might stick around and fight when things really got hot if it was your buddies who were on the line. So he, Stick, Omi and Turbo were left together. Nor were his exploits in the deep-core mine overlooked. It was one of the reasons they pumped him full of combat information. And made him an offer.

It happened on the desert target range, during mortar fire training. Captain Sigmir adjusted his scanscope as he looked into the distance.

Marten and his squad waited by their three mortars, two men to each. Marten stood behind them watching, correcting and calling ranges.

In the distance appeared three puffs of smoke, seconds later the sounds of their dull thuds reached them.

“Excellent!” said the captain. “Direct hit, direct hit, eighty-nine percent nearness. The best score so far.”

“Pack up,” Marten told his squad.

Efficiently, his squad dismantled the mortars, tube to one man, the tripod and base to another. Then they waited for directions. They didn’t wait standing at rigid attention, but slouched here or crouched on the ground over there.

Captain Sigmir looked up from his watch. “Marvelous. Marten, walk with me.”

Marten fell one step behind as the captain strode into the desert. Training Camp Ninety-three-C lay beyond the horizon in the other direction. Overhead the sun beat down, but Marten no longer noticed the heat—it had been five weeks since induction. He wore rumpled brown combat fatigues and well-worn boots, a helmet, a vibroknife and a simulation pistol. Spit and polish and other parade ground fetishes mattered not at all to the Highborn or to the drill instructors. The only questions that mattered were could you kill and how fast?

“Walk with me, Marten.”

Marten jogged beside the massive captain, trying to match his long strides. Perhaps the captain was a beta, much smaller than the superior Highborn, but compared to a normal man Captain Sigmir was still a giant.

“Your squads always perform well.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yet…. There is a lack in you, Marten.”

He said nothing to that.

“There, that’s exactly what I mean.”

“Sir?”

“You’re a brooder.”

“Yes, sir.”

“More than that, you’re a loner.”

The five weeks of training had taught Marten one thing, to control his temper, the rage that boiled within him, even as his sense of despair increased. He hated Captain Sigmir, but he felt he masked it so no one knew.

“You use your leadership skills for your own benefit, to think as you wish, to do what you want even if the crowd likes or dislikes it. What I mean is that you aren’t using your leadership skills to drive ahead, to make others march to your will.”

“Sir?”

“Marten, leadership is a gift. I believe you’re squandering yours in isolation. Yes, you are a rock. You stand and do whatever you think is right. Those are all good things, I suppose. But in this war you can rise high if you’ll learn to strive to make others obey your will.”

“Yes, sir.”

They exchanged glances.

Marten didn’t allow himself to shiver. Looking into that strange face, so filled with vitality and a strange lust, reminded him that the captain had been dead once. Marten felt it showed.

Captain Sigmir sighed. “I haven’t convinced you. But Marten, I’m still going to recommend you as the lieutenant of Second Platoon.”

“Sir, I…”

Captain Sigmir held up a powerful hand. “Kang will run First Platoon. Now there’s a preman who understands leadership. But you’re a much better tactician than Kang. Yes, you’re a splendid tactician. Oh, we’re quick to note such things. You lack something of Kang’s ferocity, or so the superiors believe. I’m not so certain, though. Your rage—” Captain Sigmir laughed. “Oh, yes, Lieutenant, I know very well that an inner rage seethes within you. I can feel it. At times I even think that it’s directed at me.”

“Sir, I ah—”

“But that’s neither here nor there, Lieutenant. Hate me all you wish just as long as you obey me.”

“Yes, sir.”