Chapter Fourteen

As for myself, my tongue was down at least to my feet, but I kept going, knowing what awaited stragglers.

—Legionnaire Eugene Amiable,
Mexican Campaign,
French Foreign Legion, 1863-1867

“Engaged Volunteer Wolf. Four weeks’ service. Delta Lance, Second Platoon, Training Company Odintsev. At your orders, Sergeant!”

As he went through the ritual recitation of name and unit, Wolf drew himself up to rigid attention beside the door to his cubicle. In thirty-four days the recruits had become accustomed to the routine. Twice each day, just before breakfast and before evening lights out, the NCOs held an inspection of the recruit quarters. A noncom in a bad mood could find plenty of things wrong during inspection. Even if the lockers and bunks were flawless, like as not Corporal Vanyek would tip a recruit’s belongings on the floor and then punish the luckless trainee and the rest of the lance as well. One night Vanyek had rescheduled evening roll call four times before finally letting them turn in at 2600 hours.

This morning, though, Gunnery Sergeant Ortega was conducting the inspection in person. Wolf hoped the senior NCO would be satisfied with what he saw.

Ortega prodded the contents of Wolf’s locker with his stun baton and gave a reluctant nod. “Better, nube. Better,” he said grudgingly. He started to turn away, then looked back at Wolf. “But I can still smell your perfume. Ten push-ups, nube.”

Ten push-ups, after the calisthenics program the Legion had put him through, was little enough. Wolf dropped to the floor.…

And Corporal Vanyek stepped nimbly onto his back. “Begin, nube,” he ordered harshly.

Wolf strained to lift the extra weight. Somehow, he got through the exercise as Ortega moved to the next cubicle. He was surprised when Vanyek held out a hand to help him up.

It was somehow typical of the training regimen, he thought as he snapped back to attention. Just when it seemed as if the instructors had finally gone too far, pushing a recruit beyond the limits of endurance, some little gesture like this one put everything back into perspective.

The company had spent a full two weeks at drills like the one with the simulated Ubrenfar pod, learning how to handle all sorts of special Legion-issue equipment. By the time it was all done with, Wolf knew how to handle a Fafnir or an onager, an MEK or a laser sniper’s rifle, all in addition to the basic FEK. The recruits had learned all the useful functions of their combat helmets and had discovered the effectiveness of the climate-controlled, chameleonweave battledress fatigues in constant practice maneuvers. They had even been exposed to some of the more exotic gear in the Legion arsenal, like the Galahad antipersonnel mine and the complex C3 communications backpacks. The program finished up with exposure to the APCs and AFVs that made up the Legion’s mechanized arm. Some of what they learned was intended only as an introduction, since many of the more advanced systems were properly the realm of Legion specialists who had completed their first five-year hitch and gone on to advanced training, but the recruits learned enough to get by with virtually anything they might encounter in the field. Between chip instruction and practical experience, the recruits developed their skills quickly, though their progress was far from uniform. Wolf found his efforts drawing grudging approval from Vanyek and the other NCOs by the time it was over, but it was Kern, and more surprisingly Lisa Scott, who earned most of the praise in the lance. Kern was a natural with virtually all heavy weapons, especially the onager, while the blond woman showed a genuine flair for handling magrep armored vehicles.

Antonelli, on the other hand, continued to struggle. Although Kern, at Corporal Vanyek’s direct order, devoted an hour of free time each night to extra tutoring, the Italian’s performance was still barely up to the minimum he needed to stay in Basic. That put him under even more pressure than the rest of the recruits. Wolf could wash out of the training, even choose to resign voluntarily, and would be no worse off than when he’d started. But if Antonelli failed, he would end up sweating out his five years in a penal battalion with no hope of seeing his Citizenship restored. Even after his sentence was finished he’d still be paying the penalty for his petty crime, cut off from the easy life of the dole and without any worthwhile skills to help him make a fresh start.

His case drew sympathy from the other recruits, and even some of the instructors seemed concerned for him, but all the goodwill in the world couldn’t make up for the simple fact that Antonelli wasn’t cut out for the soldier’s life. Five weeks of training had already seen twenty recruits dropped from the company, and it was clear to everyone that Antonelli wasn’t far from joining them.

More and more, Wolf was beginning to feel a certain kinship for the youngster. Though he was doing far better than Antonelli in training, deep down Wolf was still an outsider. The rituals that bound the Legion together didn’t reach him the way they did many of the others, and he was still conscious of the gulf that separated him culturally, socially, and intellectually from the rank and file around him. Sometimes the only thing that kept him going was pride. He was still determined to prove the doubters wrong and see the thing through, despite everything. But the knowledge that he didn’t face the dilemma that hovered over Antonelli tempted him sometimes.

Now they were finished with weapons and equipment orientation. Tomorrow the recruits would move on to a new phase of their training. For the past five weeks Basic had concentrated on teaching the essentials of soldiering, and as Captain Odintsev had pointed out during one of his infrequent appearances at morning assembly a few days earlier, the recruits were now at a point that would have qualified them for active service in any of the armies of Terra before the days of starflight. But they were only a third of the way through the Legion’s course, and what remained was a far more difficult curriculum than what had gone before.

He was roused from his reverie by Gunnery Sergeant Ortega. “You straks might be worth keeping after all,” he growled. “At least until we get some real legionnaires in here. Right, then, listen up! Tomorrow you begin the next phase of training, the first of a series of two-week tours for intensive specialized training in multienviron operations. Your first assignment is to the Archipel d’Aurore for practice in jungle and amphibious warfare ops and advanced recon.”

The soldier of the Commonwealth was expected to serve on a variety of different worlds, each as complex and diverse as Laut Besar or Old Terra. There was no way to prepare the recruits for every possibility, but according to the training chips this phase of Basic was designed to get them accustomed to as many different environments and situations as possible. As Kern had put it in a late-night bull session, the purpose of the multiple-environ portion of the program wasn’t so much to prepare them to serve in the specific conditions they would be exposed to, but rather to make the would-be soldiers aware of the range and diversity of their possible duty stations … and to drive home the simple but often overlooked fact that every new environment possessed its own unique properties, its own tactical realities. And its own individual dangers.

“For the rest of the day you’ll be getting ready to move out,” Ortega continued with the faint smile the recruits had come to associate with trouble on the horizon. “But I don’t want any of you to get the idea that you’ll be short of work to do. Corporal…?”

Vanyek consulted his compboard. “Delta Lance … you’ll be getting a workout down at the shuttle bay, loading platoon equipment onto the transport.”

“In addition, you will be responsible for packing up your own kits and policing the barracks here,” Ortega went on smoothly. “And each of you will be expected to draw the background chip on Fort Marchand to get acquainted with your new duty station before you leave the base tomorrow morning. Any questions?”

There were none. Ortega smiled again and checked his wristpiece. “Ah, yes. I almost forgot. Antonelli!”

“Yes, Sergeant!”

“Starting tonight, you will spend one hour of each free period working on a special project.”

“Yes, Sergeant!” Antonelli was learning that it was best to stick to the safe response, though he still forgot and talked back sometimes in the heat of drills or practice sessions. Wolf wondered, though, how the young Italian would handle yet another extra assignment. He was already spending most of his free time trying to keep up with his studies, and it was a rare week that didn’t see him pulling nighttime punishment details as well.

The sergeant smiled coldly. “Good attitude, nube,” he commented. Shifting his glance to take in the others, he went on. “Christmas comes in just under five weeks. One of our regular ways of observing the holiday is to hold competitions in the construction of cribs, Nativity scenes. Since you’ve shown special aptitude working with your hands, Antonelli, I thought you’d be a good candidate for your platoon’s team. Volunteer Mayzar is in charge of the proceedings. Report to him in the repbay tonight. The work will continue when you get settled into your new duty station, and up until the Christmas training break. Understood?”

“Yes, Sergeant!” Antonelli’s expression didn’t reveal if he was happy or unhappy with this added duty. Nor did anyone seem to find it odd that Volunteer Hosni Mayzar, a native of Mecca Gideed where over ninety percent of the population was made up of Moslem extremists, was in charge of preparing a Christian Nativity scene. Just as everyone attended Sunday services with a Catholic chaplain, so the entire unit was expected to follow the Legion line when it came to holidays and observances.

“If any of the rest of you can carry a tune, Corporal Vanyek will be in charge of the holiday music program,” Ortega went on. “You’re expected to teach the other singers at least one carol from your native culture … if, of course, your culture observes Christmas.” His eye rested on Myaighee, and it looked like he was trying to hide the ghost of a smile. Maybe even fanatics like Ortega realized the irony of some of their actions, at that.

“All right, that’s enough small talk. Fall in on the parade ground for the march to the mess hall. Mag it!”

Wolf thought he heard Kern humming some old Irish carol as they headed out the door.

Perhaps, he thought with a twinge of uncertainty, perhaps the Legion knew more than he did about involving recruits in the life of the unit.

* * *

The preparations that day took as much time and effort as a long training session, but eventually the work was done and Wolf and the others could tumble into their bunks for some much-needed rest. Reveille came an hour early the next morning, and all four platoons of the training company traveled by maglev tube to the shuttle port.

At Sergeant Konrad’s order Second Platoon filed aboard the TH-19 Pegasus hypersonic transport at Docking Bay Eight. Wolf already knew the sleek craft’s lines all too well from the loading duty the previous day. The Pegasus was an old shuttle design, no longer used much in frontline duty except by the Legion. It could reach any point on a Terrestrial-type planet in less than an hour, and performed ground-to-orbit service as well, but the design definitely emphasized rugged efficiency over comfort. Wolf stowed his field pack under the bench seat between Kern and Lisa Scott, then strapped in, but it was a long time before the shuttle received clearance to take off.

He spent the time reviewing the background on their new base, knowing they’d probably be quizzed by some of the NCOs before the trip was over. The Archipel d’Aurore was a scattering of large islands to the east of the primary continent which stretched in a loose arc right across the planet’s broad equatorial zone. Instead of the dry barrens around Fort Hunter, the recruits would now be coping with the tropical heat and humidity of a region popularly referred to by older legionnaires as the Devil’s Cauldron.

Although most of the islands were covered by dense jungle, they were far from uninhabited. The Archipel d’Aurore was the source of one of Devereaux’s most important exports, the sap of the arbebaril, and plantations raising the stubby, multitrunked trees dotted the island chain. The Legion outpost where Second Platoon would receive its jungle warfare training had been founded on the largest of the islands—actually more of a small continent—to protect the plantations. Its role in the training process was only secondary. For the first time the recruits would be facing actual field conditions.

That might mean a certain amount of danger. Although the region around Fort Hunter was thoroughly settled, civilized, the same couldn’t be said of the eastern island chain. Like most of the backwater areas of the planet, the Archipel d’Aurore was home to large numbers of Wynsarrysa, and many of them were hostile to the human colonists on Devereaux.

The Wynsarrysa were the original inhabitants of the world, not native to the planet but descendants of a Gwyrran colony planted there nearly a thousand years before the first visit by Terrans. The Gwyrrans had been a key client race in the old Semti Conclave, which had exercised rigorous control over its subjects in everything from interstellar movement to technology to social organization until they were finally overcome by vigorous, unpredictable humans.

Devereaux had been a major point of contention in the Semti War. The Gwyrrans—massive, ponderous, slow-thinking, but with a reputation as warriors that nearly matched the Ubrenfars—had proven unable to make their settlement flourish, and the colonists had lapsed into a state of barbarism which the calculating Semti had found entirely to their liking. When Terran explorers had first arrived, they found the locals to be few in number and too primitive to be a significant factor in planetary development, and promptly planted a human colony on the primary continent.

The new Devereaux colony had suffered during the war. The Semti, with their Gwyrran combat auxiliaries, reoccupied the planet and set out to put an end to human resistance. The struggle had seen the end of the Fourth Foreign Legion, which had been assigned to protect the world. Commandant Hunter’s band of guerrillas were the last to resist, but in the end they’d fallen almost to a man … but they had won the Commonwealth valuable time to organize a counterthrust that ultimately destroyed the artificial world that had formed the heart and soul of the Conclave.

The Wynsarrysa had flourished again for the brief months of the Semti occupation, only to be disarmed and dispossessed by the new waves of human colonists who arrived after the fighting was over. Most had been absorbed into society, but there were a stubborn few who refused to bow to the new masters. They continued an uneven guerrilla struggle, raiding settlements and living a marginal, outlaw existence. And the Fifth Foreign Legion remained on Devereaux to keep them in check, guarding the inhabited regions of the planet from outposts like Fort Marchand.

That meant that the recruits would be training in an area that could erupt into violence at any time. The dense jungles of the archipelago region were especially favorable to the rebels, who could use the cover to dodge orbital and aerial drone reconnaissance efforts. That meant that even though the Wynsarrysa were no match for legionnaires in a stand-up fight, anyone who strayed too far from the fort or straggled during a march would be fair game for guerrillas. The orientation chip had made that point abundantly clear.

As he’d expected, the assistant platoon leader, Sergeant Baram, spent most of the time they were in the air barking out names and questions about Fort Marchand, the Archipel d’Aurore, and the conditions they could expect to encounter in the region. The trip took less than half an hour, but it seemed three times as long in the face of Baram’s relentless interrogation. Fortunately, the one question that came Wolf’s way, regarding Chief-Sergeant Guy Marchand’s role in the last stand on Devereaux, was one he could answer. Antonelli was less fortunate, and earned himself another five hours of extra duty for failing to remember the percentage of the planetary export revenue attributable to arbebaril sap.

At last they grounded and the questioning ended. As Wolf and his lancemates filed down from the shuttle, he was struck first by the heat, so different from the arid climate around Fort Hunter. It had been hot there at the edge of the Great Desert, but this heat lay over everything like a heavy, soaking blanket. His first deep breath of outside air made him sputter and cough.

The other thing he noticed was Fort Marchand itself.

It was a compact base surrounded by a perimeter fence dotted by prefab watchtowers and presumably ringed by sensors and, perhaps, mines. The shuttle had grounded in the northwest corner of the compound, inside the fence, which helped drive home the danger of the region. Usually shuttle bays were kept at a discreet distance from inhabited areas in case of an engine failure, but that wasn’t the case here.

Looking around, Wolf couldn’t help but draw the comparisons with Fort Hunter. This was no ceremonial headquarters and training center. There was a functional feel to the camp … and to the grim-faced legionnaires who stood watch over the perimeter.

Fort Marchand was part of the real world.

“All right, you nubes!” Corporal Vanyek barked. “Enough gawking! Mag it! Mag it!”

They trotted across the parade ground, full kits hitched high on their backs, urged on by the noncoms. The block of transient barracks that served as the compound’s training center was cramped, and their new quarters made the facilities back at Fort Hunter look positively luxurious by comparison. But there wasn’t much time for grumbling. Less than fifteen minutes was allowed for stowing gear before the platoon was assembled in front of the building to sweat at attention while Konrad addressed them in ponderous, heavy-accented tones.

“Welcome to the Legion!” he began. “Up until now you nubes have lived the good life and thought it was hell. Now we’ll show you how legionnaires really live every day of their lives. You’ll soon think back to the easy days at Fort Hunter and feel wistful for the good life, I assure you.” He waved his stun baton, a gesture that took in the entire compound. “Fort Marchand is a real Legion post manned by real legionnaires, and you nubes will do well to stay out from underfoot except as your duties require. Remember that these men have jobs to do, and in the field the smallest disruption can cost lives.

“There have been reports of Wynsarrysa activity in this area in the last several weeks,” Konrad continued harshly, his gaze wandering over the ranks freely now. “It is probably nothing significant, and it will not interrupt the training schedule … but you must all be constantly aware of the fact that out here things are not the same as they were in Fort Hunter. Out here you must behave as if you were really in the field, where a mistake can be deadly not just to you but to all of your comrades.” The sergeant’s eyes seemed to be resting on Wolf. “Do not let your guard down. Not even for a moment. Because the legionnaire who lowers his guard is a dead man.”