He threw the pistol to the deck hard enough to make me wince. “You’ll see this again and again in your careers,” he added, icily. “Those of you who have been working off their demerits by doing the replacement work will have realised that all of the components on this ship have around half the lifespan we were promised. The soldiers down on the ground are meant to be able to communicate with one another with ease. Naturally, half the radios don’t link into the other half, which is why the ambush went off so well. The bastard in charge didn’t know that the convoy was under attack until it was almost too late.”
I shivered, remembering the brief… incident. The Captain hadn’t said anything to us about it, even during the brief pointless ceremony at Government House, but on the way back we’d been escorted by hundreds of soldiers. We’d also seen something of the city. It looked like a war zone…no, it was a war zone. The various factions fighting it out for control had somehow managed to learn the route of the convoy and plan an ambush in advance. They’d almost killed all of us.
“This is something a little different,” Herzog snapped, holding up a second weapon. Unlike the laser pistol, it was made of dark metal and gleamed in his hand. “This is as Standard-Issue Marine Automatic Pistol, based on a design hundreds of years old. It fires a clip of nine bullets” — he opened the weapon to reveal the clip stored inside the gun — “and is fucking difficult to fuck up, although knowing most spacer babies you’ll manage it somehow! You shoot someone with this, they’re going to be dead or seriously injured, if you hit them. The one advantage of the laser pistol is that it fires a beam in a straight line. This weapon…you jerk when you fire and you’ll miss.”
He looked from face to face, and then finally pushed the weapon, hilt first, at Roger. “Take it,” he ordered, nodding towards a target set up at the rear of the room. “Hit that target now and you’ll lose a demerit.”
Roger didn’t hesitate. He swung around, pointed the weapon towards the target, and pulled the trigger. It clicked, uselessly.
“First lesson of shooting,” Herzog said. He laughed as he held up his hand. “Never — ever — take anyone’s word about a weapon being loaded, or not. You can’t trust anyone, even me. The next person to make that mistake will be cleaning Marine Country until its completely spotless.”
“I didn’t see you do that,” Roger said, astonished. I hadn’t seen Herzog palm the clip either. “How did you…?”
“I’ll tell you one day,” Herzog promised. “It’s a very old trick. Now” — he took back the weapon and inserted the clip — “point and fire again.”
Roger checked the weapon this time, pointed and fired. It clicked again. “You also have to take the safety off,” Herzog explained, dryly. He demonstrated quickly. “The morons in charge of security at any surface base will probably make a fuss about you carrying a weapon, regardless of the regulations in effect. Always keep the safety on unless you want to use the weapon to kill someone, or to practice shooting. Take care of the weapon and it will take care of you.”
He smiled. “Now, shoot!”
The bang was much louder than I’d expected. “Ouch,” Roger said, with a hiss of pain. The gun had jerked in his hand. “I hit the target…”
“You hit the outer ring,” Herzog said. His tone wasn’t quite mocking. “My old grandmother could shoot better than you.” He took back the weapon and passed it to Muna, who checked it carefully, earning herself an approving look in the process. “Your turn.”
An hour later, we had all had a turn firing the pistol and learning how to use it. Herzog made it clear. It wasn’t just shooting that was important, but cleaning and preparing the weapon for use. Once we’d all been issued a pistol — although Herzog did warn us that we might not be allowed to keep them in the long run — we were told that they would be inspected regularly. A single weapon in bad condition would mean two demerits.
“In your free time, come here and practice shooting,” Herzog ordered, finally. We groaned. We barely had any free time on the ship. The First Lieutenant and the Senior Chief kept us working from dawn till dusk. I had never realised that I could be so grateful for sleep until they’d started to put us to work. The Academy had been far more routine, with hours allocated for the different courses well in advance, and none of us had been really challenged. “Now…”
He opened a box and revealed a third weapon. I’d seen something like it before, carried by the soldiers down on Terra Nova, but this one was gleaming. “Standard-Issue UN Assault Rifle, Mark Nine,” Herzog informed us. “These weapons are issued, without fail, to both Marines and Infantry troops down in the mud. Why is that?”
I hesitated, and then took a guess. “To allow compatibility?”
“Correct,” Herzog bellowed. “I can use their weapons; they can use ours. We can use their supplies; they can use ours, if they need them. The Infantry doesn’t know what it is like to be a Marine, but they know that they can use our weapons, if they need to do so. When you have all qualified with the pistol, we will move on to the rifle and qualify you on that as well.”
He glanced at his chronometer and smiled thinly. “Times up for the day,” he said, with a faint leer. It was an expression that promised pain…and lots of it. “Unarmed combat practice tomorrow, same time, same place.”
I didn’t — quite — groan again, but unarmed combat against trained Marines was a humiliating experience. I had a handful of lessons back at the Academy, but I hadn’t realised just how much more the Marines got, to say nothing of their constant practice against each other. The Doctor was forever complaining about repairing various Marines after sparring matches had broken bones and inflicted smaller injuries. We’d landed blows…but I was very aware that we’d been allowed to land those blows. The Marines were so controlled that they could absorb our blows without lashing back and knocking us out.
The next week went very slowly. The Captain had us running interception drills on the handful of freighters orbiting Terra Nova, or trying to set up exercises with some of the other starships. I spent some of my off-duty time reading about Terra Nova’s history in the ship’s library, but I found nothing to explain the ambush, or what I was coming to realise was incessant warfare. I asked Lieutenant Hatchet for an explanation, but she clammed up and assigned me other duties until I got the message. There were some questions I couldn’t ask even her.
“Perhaps they’re fighting over religion and the UN is caught in the middle,” Muna said, her dark eyes hooded. I knew little about her origins, apart from the fact that her presence at the Academy hadn’t been universally popular. I couldn’t understand why. She was good company, if sometimes shy and reserved. “Or perhaps they’re fighting against the UN itself. There were people back home who hated the UN and wanted to destroy all the peacekeepers…”
She shook her head. “The UN was the only force keeping the warring tribes apart,” she added. I realised, suddenly, that she could never go home again. The UNPF was her home now. “If it had withdrawn, they would have wiped each other out, but that didn’t stop them mounting attacks.”
“Perhaps,” Roger agreed. He seemed to hesitate. His family connections should have ensured that he had access to more information than anyone else, but on the starship he was cut off from anyone who might have shared information with him. “Or perhaps there’s something else going on. Were they shooting at us, or was it just a target of opportunity?”
I shrugged. “Would they have known or cared who we were?” I asked. It didn’t seem very possible, somehow. “How many Ensigns graduate from the Academy each year?”
Sally snorted. “Perhaps they were so scared when they heard that you three were on your way they decided to set up an ambush to welcome you,” she said. “They might even have intended to put your heads on poles…”