“Pipe down,” Aquino ordered. “If there’s anyone out there who’s better qualified, step up.” He glared at the trainees. The moaning abruptly ceased. No one came forward. “In combat,” Aquino continued, “there is no substitute for proper physical conditioning. Captain Thorella will ensure you are ready.”
Thorella smirked at his new victims. “See you at The Bridge tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen,” he announced to more groans and muffled curses before he stepped back into line. The Bridge was a log across a creek where Thorella “instructed” trainees in the arts of gravity and physical humiliation. It was well-known from its brutal reputation.
“You will have two instructors in common skills and small unit tactics,” Aquino went on. “Staff Sergeant Taylor and Gunnery Sergeant Walinskij.” The two stepped forward. “Common skills will be every other day for three hours during block one of your training. Small unit tactics will be on the remaining days during the same time period. Short duration deployments for field exercises to try out what you have learned will be announced later.
“Light weapons training will be by Gunnery Sergeant Grewal Singh.” Singh broke the tradition of the preceding cadre by smiling as he stepped forward. Singh was well versed in the fine art of being an asshole, but he preferred other, more palatable methods of getting his points across to his students whenever possible.
“And, a special guest to Quantico, Navy Lieutenant Jodi Mackenzie will see to your close combat needs.” She snapped to attention, stepped forward exactly seventy-five centimeters, and stomped her right foot down at her new posting. She did not smile, nor did she scowl. Her face bore the neutral calm of a complete professional. Someone in the audience whistled. Mackenzie paid them no attention. She would undoubtedly find out who it was during hand to hand exercises. They would not be whistling then. “While Lieutenant Mackenzie is by trade a fighter pilot, she has the benefit of recent experience during the Rutan campaign, where she fought with and eventually came to command the 373d Marine Assault Regiment.”
The sergeant major did not have to mention that Nicole Carré was a classroom instructor, whose instruction blocks included military history and battlefield automation. The recruits had already gotten a dose of her curriculum, and most of them were still reeling. She was sitting in the back row of the auditorium with the other instructors who had already been introduced to the recruits.
The sergeant major nodded, and Mackenzie resumed her place in line. “All of the instructors here have at least one full year of combat experience. Carré, Thorella and Mackenzie have received Silver Stars in the line of duty, and the rest have received citations for gallantry. Some of you out there have combat experience. I expect you to put it to use here. If there is a point of contention between you and an instructor, I will moderate it myself. If you have an idea to improve our tactics or training,” he paused and looked directly at Reza, “I want to hear it. We are training you not only to fight, but also to complete your mission, whatever it may be, and hopefully to survive. You are no good to the Confederation dead; make the Kreelans die for their Empire instead.
“But I don’t want any pissing contests,” he went on after a slight pause and a less-than-surreptitious glance at Reza to see if his earlier words had gotten any reaction, which – somewhat to his disappointment – they hadn’t. “You are here to train. If you knew it all you would be in the Fleet Admiral or Marine Commandant’s chair. You aren’t. Remember that. Are there any questions?” He looked about the auditorium. “No? Good. That concludes the morning brief. Drill sergeants,” he called to the DIs interspersed through the hall, “take charge of your platoons and get them to their training…”
The next day, at The Bridge, Eustus stood in a momentary daze as the blood from his broken nose pattered into the water that slowly passed under the log on which he and Thorella were standing. Each held a pugil stick, a pole about a meter long with a bulbous pad at one end and a padded hook at the other.
“Awww,” Thorella said theatrically, “what’s the matter, recruit? You need mommy to wipe your nose for you?” He laughed as the younger man’s face set itself into a mask of venomous ferocity. “That’s better, you queer,” Thorella sneered as Eustus came toward him. “It’s nice to see you show some balls for a change.”
Thorella had been the king of The Bridge since his arrival at Quantico. He loved it. He was a towering mountain of a man, his flexing biceps larger around than most of his contemporaries’ thighs. His face was molded in a permanent grin that would have made his face very attractive except for the black, darting eyes that were without depth, without feeling. He was cunning, intelligent. He was a killer, and he enjoyed his chosen profession. No matter what the prey.
This was the first day on The Bridge for this batch of recruits, the morning after Sergeant Major Aquino’s briefing. Thorella requested the cadre put Reza up first, but they had opted for tradition. Thorella took his place as King of the Bridge and waited for voluntary opponents. If no one came forward to challenge him, names were called alphabetically. Two of the recruits voluntarily came up to try their hand at knocking Thorella from his perch, but both wound up with soaking uniforms and splitting headaches.
In a short time he had worked his way through the trainees to Camden, who now stood on the opposite end of the bridge.
“Take it easy on me, kid,” he smiled, his little obsidian eyes glittering with anticipation. He had something special planned for this one.
“Fuck off, sir,” Camden hissed through his bloodstained teeth. He did not know how to swim, and even though he knew the water below was not deep and there were instructors standing by to pull people out, he was not thrilled with the prospect of being knocked down – semiconscious, undoubtedly – into the cold stream. He gripped his weapon tightly, hoping to anticipate Thorella’s moves.
Thorella waited casually for Eustus to come within range before feinting a blow to Eustus’s feet, then he hit him in the face just hard enough to split his lip, but not so hard as to send him spinning from the log. As Eustus fought to recover, his face now streaming with blood from his violated nose and now his mouth, Thorella slammed him hard in the stomach, driving the wind out of him.
Gagging and dripping blood, Eustus fell to his hands and knees, barely retaining his grip on his useless weapon.
“C’mon, recruit,” Thorella complained, “you’re disgracing my uniform by even wanting to call yourself a Marine. Some blue-skin is going to use you for a tampon if you fight like that. You’d probably like it, just like your buddy Gard.”
Eustus did not take Thorella’s last insult lightly. His family had been raised on a very small outpost settlement not far from Quantico 17. Too small to support even a single regiment, it more than made up for its small size by the devotion to duty of its inhabitants: the Camden name had appeared proudly on a succession of Marine uniforms. Eight gold stars now hung in his widowed mother’s house for his father and the sisters and brothers who had died in the line of duty. Only Eustus and his youngest brother, Galan, remained, and his little brother would volunteer for service when he turned seventeen. That was the way things were. And when Galan finally finished school and left to join the service, his mother intended to finish her days helping the sons and daughters of other families in the sector military hospital. She expected to outlive her two remaining sons, but that would not stop her from continuing her contributions to the war effort.
His heart in a cold rage now, Eustus lunged into a fierce but technically uninspired attack that the captain easily defeated. Drawing Eustus into the trap, Thorella moved very close to him, first driving the hooked end of the stick into Eustus’s crotch behind the screen of his body. As Eustus gagged and began to sag to his knees, Thorella hit him in the face again with the padded end, bruising his right cheek.