“Fall in!” one of the noncoms ordered gruffly. “Make two formations of six ranks each with the tallest idiots in the back. Marines over here—swabbies over there.”
“I think they’ve done this before,” Harnack observed as the three of them fell in.
More orders were given and the first two ranks of swabbies were magically transformed into a column of twos. Once the fleet personnel were in motion, the marines followed.
“I have to take a piss,” Raynor muttered.
“Aim for Kydd,” Harnack responded, loud enough for the sniper to hear. “He’s on my nerves today.”
Kydd glanced back and grinned. “You’re a mean sonofabitch, you know that?”
“Oh, come on. You’ve seen Raynor shoot—you know he can’t aim worth shit.”
“Oh, wow. You are so going down.” Raynor stealthily planted a foot in Harnack’s path. After a quick stumble, Harnack regained his footing and the three recruits hid their smirks as the MPs led them out onto the street.
They might have been subjected to a long humiliating shuffle through the center of town, had it not been for a sergeant wearing a beer-stained uniform and sporting a black eye. He began to call cadence, the marines fell inot step, and the swabbies did likewise. As heads came up, shoulders went back, and the age-old command of “Your left, right, left,” echoed between the surrounding buildings as the troops marched through town.
Suddenly Raynor felt better. It was a bright, sunny morning, he could see distant contrails clawing the sky, and he was glad to be where he was—even if his head hurt each time he brought his left heel down hard. Somebody began to sing a marching ditty. More voices joined in, and the trip back to base was transformed from a retreat to a triumphant parade. The town of Braddock had been sacked and conquered.
Once Raynor, Harnack, Kydd, and the rest of their company were back on base, they were ordered to report to their quarters, where Gunnery Sergeant Red Murphy was waiting for them. The drill instructor had lost one arm, one leg, and one eye in battle, and having opted for electro-mechanical prostheses rather than the lab-grown limbs that most people preferred, he was more cyborg than man. And his replacement parts whirred and clicked whenever he moved.
But even though the replacement parts might not have been as pretty as their flesh-and-blood counterparts, they were very functional and granted Murphy a level of grim credibility he would not have had otherwise. Like most DIs, he was a pretty good actor, but his threats rang hollow, since the boots knew they were going to graduate at 1500 hours.
By that time it was clear that Macaby and the citizens of Braddock had been well aware of what would happen when the Marine Corps turned hundreds of recruits loose on the town. But appearances were important to discipline, so Murphy pretended to chew them out and the recruits pretended to listen.
Finally, when the speech was over, the noncom sent them off to “take showers, get some chow, and prepare for inspection at 1400 hours.”
Neither Raynor nor Harnack felt like eating, but Kydd did, much to their disgust. But what Raynor did want to do was call home. He had no idea what time it was for them on Shiloh, but figured his parents would be glad to hear from him regardless, especially on such an important day. It was going to cost several weeks’ pay to use the interplanetary fone, he knew that, but figured the sound of their voices would be worth it.
But before he could place the call, it was first necessary to wait through a fifteen-minute line before gaining access to one of the two dozen public comm units that were available for the boots to use. Finally, having been routed through an intricate series of signal boosters and relays, Raynor heard a series of beeps as the fone rang. Then, on the sixth ring, he heard his father’s voice. A vidfeed would have cost twice as much, so he had to settle for just audio. “I don’t know who this is,” Trace said, “but you’d better have one helluva good reason for calling at two in the morning.”
“It’s me, Dad,” Raynor said. “I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be a marine two hours from now. We’re about to graduate from boot camp.”
Raynor grinned as his father said, “Wake up, hon, it’s Jim!” Then, clearly awake by that time, Trace Raynor said, “Damn, it’s good to hear your voice, Son… . I wish we could be there to see the ceremony.”
“They’re going to give each one of us a vidsnap,” Jim replied. “I’ll send it along as soon as I get it. How are things going?”
“Fine,” Trace answered, “just fine. Hold on a sec… . Here’s your mother.”
Jim knew all of his father’s inflections, and the hesitancy in the older man’s voice made him wonder if things were going well, or if Trace Raynor was hiding something. So after his mother asked about his health, and where he was likely to be sent after boot camp, Jim put the same question to her. “So, Mom, Dad says everything is fine … but that’s what he would say even if the robo-harvester blew up. I’m counting on you to tell me the truth.”
“Well,” Karol Raynor said, “there’s a new regulation. Every farmer has to buy a business license. And they cost two thousand credits each. So that was something of a blow … but here’s the good news. Thanks to your signing bonus we were able to pay it! So in that sense everything is fine.”
What his mother hadn’t said was that the cost of the license had consumed two-thirds of the bonus, which meant they wouldn’t be able to pay their taxes as planned. Suddenly Jim wondered if joining the Marine Corps had been such a good idea after all. But it wouldn’t do to say that, so he told his mother that he was happy to hear it, and was careful to change the subject.
“You should see Tom now … he lost about ten pounds, he can do a hundred push-ups, and he claims to be good-looking. He says ‘Hi,’ by the way, and wants you to know that the cookies you sent me were really good. And he should know, ’cause he ate six of them.”
Karol laughed. “You tell Tom that another package is on the way!” Then, after some heartfelt good-byes, it was time for Raynor to surrender the fone to the next person in line. It was nice to know his parents were okay, but the conversation still left Raynor with an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Once the recruits had showered and shaved, it was time to put on the antiquated CMC-200 series armor that they’d been training in for weeks. Each suit had logged thousands of hours of use before being repurposed for use in boot camp, and smelled funky inside.
Only about twenty percent of the hardskins were fully combat-ready at any given time, but they looked good, thanks to the countless hours that each recruit was required to spend washing, polishing, and applying touch-up paint to them. And the attention to detail didn’t end there. Each gauss rifle had been cleaned, lubricated, and inspected to make sure that not so much as a tiny fleck of dirt or rust could be found on it.
Then, having checked one another for flaws, the recruits filtered out onto the grinder for the final inspection that would precede the trooping of the colors. During the ceremony each company would carry a flag that belonged to a serving battalion. This would honor the line units that many of the newly graduated marines would soon be part of.
Could the people on the reviewing stand actually see a ding from hundreds of feet away? Murphy claimed that they could, but Raynor knew that was absurd, not that it made any difference.
So they stood inspection, Murphy pronounced himself happy with the results, and was visibly proud as the flag for the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines was given to the company’s four-person color guard for safekeeping. Kydd, who had been chosen to march on the right side of the battalion’s flag with a gauss rifle on his shoulder, was beaming with pride.