“What is wrong, captain?” Reza inquired politely. He began to increase the pressure on Thorella’s fist, simultaneously canting it at an angle that began to force the captain to lose his balance on the log or risk having his wrist broken.
“If you let me go now,” Thorella whispered threateningly, “I’ll let you off easy. Otherwise…”
“Do not threaten me, child,” Reza said contemptuously. “Your lack of honor and courage disgrace your bloodline, your peers. Were I not bound by my honor to the strange laws of your people, I would slay you as the beast that you are. Beware, captain.”
Thorella’s eyes bulged with outrage. “Why, you little motherfu–”
He did not have enough time to finish the sentence as Reza flicked him from the bridge as if he were no more substantial than a wad of paper. Howling obscenities, Thorella flew through the air until he hit the water, throwing up a tremendous splash that would be the subject of delightful recounting among the trainees for weeks.
There was another collective gasp among the recruits. Thorella had never been dropped by anybody, and Reza did it his first time on the bridge. With his bare hands. For a moment, there was total silence.
Eustus was the first to react, clapping and whistling his approval. “Way to go, Reza!” He was quickly joined by the rest of the trainees.
“What a belly-flop!” someone exclaimed amid the chorus of laughter from the trainees. Some of the instructors smiled. The little leather-faced Aquino nodded, impressed, and that did not happen very often.
“You mean to tell me that somebody finally got that asshole?” Reza heard a voice in the group ask, incredulous.
“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” said another.
Thorella suddenly burst from the water, sputtering with rage. He slapped at the surface in impotent fury at having been bested. When he finally contained himself, he looked up to where Reza stood on the bridge, silently watching him. Thorella put on his smile again, the lower half of his face smeared with blood from his tongue where he had bitten it as he hit the water. The blood made him look like the water had washed away the skin of his face to expose the red muscle tissue and ivory skull underneath. He pointed a finger at Reza in warning. “Watch your back, freak,” he hissed. “Watch your back.” He winked like they had a mutual secret, and then he moved off toward the shore.
The hatred Reza saw in the man’s eyes left little doubt as to the future. He knew that someday he would probably have to kill him.
“What’s the matter, Marine?” Thorella sneered. “Can’t you take it?”
Ever since Reza had tumbled him from the bridge, Thorella had made even more of an effort to make their lives completely miserable. Sometimes he enlisted other officers and NCOs – and even some trainees – to aid him in his mission, but mostly he preferred to administer his harassment personally. The post command staff, while conscious of his singling out Reza and Eustus for special attention, generally made no move to interfere as long as Thorella kept his actions within the unwritten limits of cadre deviltry. For the most part, he complied. Grudgingly.
Eustus cursed to himself as he tried to keep from collapsing into the gravel. He had been doing pushups now for five minutes straight after a grueling five kilometer full-pack run with the rest of his platoon, and his traitorous arms were shaking like the bass strings of a harp, about to give out. His hands were bleeding from the jagged rocks under him, the edges of the sharp granite shards of The Pit doing their best impersonation of razor blades. He looked up at Thorella’s square face.
“No pain, no gain, sir!” he huffed in a less than respectful voice.
“Yeah, Camden, but in your case it’s no brain, no pain.” Thorella got down, right into the younger man’s face, so close that a drop of sweat from Camden’s nose trickled onto Thorella’s. “You drop out on me, you start eating gravel, and we’re gonna take a nice long run through the bogs to warm up your legs, Camden. A nice long run.” The bogs were a notorious hell for the trainees, a series of ankle deep patches of soft ground and reeking standing water that made running more of an excruciating experience than it normally was. Thorella knew without a doubt that Camden wouldn’t be able to hack it after everything else he had been through that morning.
“Fuck off, sir!” Eustus hissed enthusiastically through clenched teeth.
“Keep it up, dickhead,” Thorella warned quietly, the ubiquitous smile etched onto his face. Eustus wanted to barf right between his eyes, but he didn’t have the strength to spare. “Let’s see how your buddy’s doing over here.”
Reza was as solid as stone, Thorella noted despairingly. The big captain looked around for some sandbags or something to pile on the smaller man’s back, but he could find nothing nearby, and it wasn’t worth the effort to go looking too far. He might miss something. “How do you feel, freak?” He tugged on Reza’s hair like he might an animal’s tail. Someday he was going to cut it off and put it with the other trophies in his collection, he thought smugly.
“I am well, Captain Thorella.” Reza refused to call him “sir”.
“That’s good, freak. Know why? Your buddy over here’s starting to look a little tired, and I was thinking you might want to help him out. Camden!” He barked. “Recover and get your ass over here!”
Eustus heaved himself up and staggered to attention in front of Thorella.
“Stand on his back,” Thorella ordered. Eustus just looked at him, his face a question mark. “I’m talking to you, trainee dickhead. Mount up. Now.”
Eustus opened his mouth to tell Thorella just where to take it when Reza interrupted.
“Go ahead, Eustus.”
“No way, Reza. This is totally–”
“Just do as I ask of you.” He looked up. “Go ahead.” Eustus shook his head and did as he was told, placing his booted feet carefully on Reza’s back. He threw a look at Thorella that left few doubts as to his thoughts. The captain only smiled more.
“All right, Marine. Start knocking ‘em out. I’ll count cadence, trainee dickhead here will count repetitions. In cadence, exercise! Ooooooooone…” Reza lowered himself to the ground, his arms like hydraulic pistons. “Two…” He raised himself back up. “Threeeeeeeee… four.”
“One,” Eustus spat, enraged that this kind of thing was allowed to go on. He looked around, careful not to upset Reza’s balance. No other instructors were in sight. Unless they wanted to fight Thorella – he had no doubt that Reza could hammer him to the ground, but they would both get tossed in prison – they were stuck.
The pushups were brutal, a slow count down, a pause at the bottom, and a fast push up to be in time for the next repetition. If you got behind, you found yourself starting from zero all over again.
“Thirty.” Eustus was amazed at Reza’s strength. He was lifting most of his own body weight, plus the additional eighty kilos Eustus boasted. He imagined that someone as big as Thorella could maybe do something like that, but Reza was almost half the larger man’s size.
Thorella was beginning to get impatient, but he reminded himself of the old adage that good things come to those who wait. His smile became a toothy grin in anticipation. “Ooooooooone… two… threeeeeee… four.”
Reza made it, but he was beginning to slow down. His pace was just slightly off. “Thirty-one.”
“Bullshit,” Thorella snapped viciously. “It’s zero, trainee. Zero.”
Eustus snarled and was about to leap for Thorella’s throat, damn the consequences, when another voice joined in.