Koban: Rise of the Kobani (42 page)

Not denying the truth of the comment, he said, “They’re almost ugly!”

“It isn’t as if you’ll be seeing them again.”

“You’re an ass sometimes, Jorl.”

“I get second dates, I must do something right.” He chuckled.

A small cheer sounded as the double gates swung open and gruff, loud voices told them, “Run over to the reception area. What the hell are you flabby morons doing standing there? Move! Move! Move!”

And so, a boring week began for the three TGs, pretending to be exhausted each night and having to flick water
surreptitiously
on their faces and shirts to simulate sweat. Heavyside was mildly warm at this early fall time, but there was nothing that the exercise could do to provoke heavy perspiration on any of the heat adapted young men.

They followed instructions and stayed just behind the fastest runners, did other calisthenics a bit slower, or collapsed at the same time as the best of the other candidates. Their goal was to be in the top five or ten percent, well above the
cutoff point, but not too noticeable or outstanding.

They actually did encounter one problem they had not considered. Even if not pushed hard, their metabolisms demanded a high calorie, high protein diet, and the food provided met that requirement, but it just wasn’t served in enough quantity to satisfy them. They discovered there were those that were on their way to dropping out, and the regimen was actually making them sick to their stomach, killing their appetites. In the guise of helping them, they sat with them, urged them on and boosted their spirits, and coincidentally helped them hide the fact they were unable to finish their portions, a sure sign that a hopeful was on a downhill slide. The extra food was enough to keep the TGs from being noticed by asking for seconds at every meal.

When the week ended, they were easily placed in the group that was directed to sit at a console to talk to an AI.  They gave it their name, real or phony didn’t matter to spec ops.  They provided scans of their hand and footprints for quick battlefield identification (parts could be blown off so they took all four), retinal scans for security access (eyes could be regrown but not duplicated), and a swab of DNA for graves registration (they were told). Then they tossed away the temporary and daily disposable exercise clothes they were issued each morning, and slipped into black jumpsuits with their name on the left chest. These fit remarkably well, proving their bodies had been scanned at some point to make the patterns.

Surprising all three of the TGs, was one of the now somewhat trimmed down women who had made it to this point. It made them wonder if Alyson should have come with them, as a second TG1. Only, it was obvious that her pretty face and shapely figure would have been the focus of far too much attention when she kept up with the best of the men. Because of that, her eating like a voracious bear would be noticed, simply by sitting with some lucky close-to-washing-out male that shared food with her.

At least one of them had been able to report in to Captain Renaldo nearly each day when she lowered the stealthed ship to seventy miles over Port Andropov, and often all three could Link at lunchtime. She told them the ship’s remote viewing system was able to identify them on many cloud free days. Alyson spoke to them one day and playfully told Yil he must have already asked the one remaining young lady out on a date.

He sounded defensive. “We don’t get any time away, besides, she started out butt ugly and muscled, and slimming down through running hasn’t helped her looks. What made you think I’d dated her?”

“We saw that she sat near you at breakfast this morning, and you didn’t even look her way. Ignoring old flames is your trademark, right, Yil?” Her laughter tinkled through his transducer and the transducers of the other two TGs. They grinned as his face turned red.

He had asked Alyson out once, even if she was a year older. She told him she had heard of his love-‘em and leave-‘em one-night stands. She kept reminding him of that reputation whenever the opportunity arose.

Jorl chimed in, “He won’t get another chance to ask her out either. We take a bus to SOB-1 after lunch. After hell week, she’ll be lost to his charms forever. She barely made it through this last week.”

The TGs were clustered at a bench in isolation, eating their rations and pretending to talk to one another to cover their transducer conversations with the Avenger. Normally one or two of them would be boosting the morale of a candidate that was on the verge of quitting, picking at their subject’s uneaten food as the exhausted man listened to their encouragement. Today, only the candidates that had passed this round of physical testing had the black jumpsuits. It was going to be a hungry bus trip for the three. 

They arrived at the first SOB after the normal dinner hour, spending four hours on jouncy dirt roads, which took the jubilant “jumpsuits” to their first actual Special Ops training base. The arrival time came after the normal meal service for the camp staff, so there was a help yourself chow line set up, and the TGs heavily loaded their trays and split up to sit with men whom they had established as casual acquaintances in the past week.

They learned the previous cycle of trainees had moved on to SOB-2 several days earlier. They would be here for six weeks, as their bodies were acclimated to Heavyside’s gravity.

The TGs wanted simply to blend in with the group. Nevertheless, they had unwittingly attracted some degree of attention from the spec ops NCOs that had put them through their paces this past week. They were looking for men that had demonstrated signs of teamwork, or team building attitudes, as well as physical ability. The three TGs, although deliberately not excelling at the exercise, and who had selfish motives for their encouragement of the poorly performing candidates, were identified as three potential squad leaders, two per platoon of the six platoons that would start training tomorrow.

This resulted in the TGs being separated and sent to different platoons, for what they were all told would be a very short night of sleep. The activities they expected to be conducting in the morning were apparent from the mile
oval track and practice courses laid out, which they saw in the fading light of their arrival. It appeared to be a larger version of the obstacle course in the crater on Poldark, built for the TGs in Captain Mirikami’s group. In short, it was a kindergarten playground. With the first full stomach’s they had experienced for a week, the TGs settled in for a comfortable nap.

They were assigned bunks, single level two-foot high narrow pallets, seven feet long, with an empty chest at the foot, and an equally empty wall locker several feet from the head, sixteen bunks total, and eight per side. Jorl was assigned the first billet inside the main entryway, on the left. They were told to strip to their skivvies, and slip between a slit in the fabric located a bit below the raised built in pillow at the head. It was surprisingly comfortable, and cozy. The fabric of the top could be pulled up to your neck or pushed down to your waist, and if you kicked for slack, it stretched to give it to you. This bunk was one of the best feeling beds Jorl had ever laid on, although a few gripes were heard about how narrow they were. He was asleep in minutes after the lights were out.

To their surprise, when they were awakened at a “late” hour, 0500, they were fed, and then led to an auditorium where they were told they would meet the base commander, their training staff, and then talk to some doctors. It sounded even more boring than the tame looking obstacle course.

Jorl saw Fred and Yil with their respective platoons as they filed in and sat in Living Plastic chairs, which rose from the malleable preprogramed floor, each row color-coded for the platoons and eight man squads. “So you morons won’t sit in the wrong sections,” an NCO told them as they entered.

Jorl was in the dark blue squad and their section was second row from the front, behind the light blue squad, and by virtue of his last name of Breaker, he found he was close to the center of his alphabetically sorted squad. He was seated near the center of the second row of seats, looking up at a three-foot elevated stage, with a podium to the left side, and a number of Living Plastic chairs up there as well. He noticed that the chairs the trainees used were hard and unyielding, something that had to be programmed into the plastic matrix to keep them rigid. This was a subtle object lesson that they wanted you uncomfortable and awake.

The introductions were done by a lieutenant, whose name Jorl forgot almost as soon as he said it. That process started after they were called to attention, which the new recruits performed raggedly, other than those that were already in the military. Next, they were listening to a litany of names and ranks, that had little meaning to the civilian candidates in the group (formerly civilian now, Jorl supposed), although some were straight from the regular PU Army or Navy.

When they were permitted to sit again it was after the base commander was introduced, a Colonel Michel Dearborn. He was in fatigues, and was a tall man, who seemed a bit bulky to be the commander of an ultra-physically fit Special Operations unit, until Jorl caught a glimpse of the black exomuscle suit he was wearing under the uniform. That was when a sleeve pulled back slightly, exposing the black Booster Suit at his wrist when he pointed to a holo screen that contained the layout of the camp.  There were two clearly marked areas, which trainees were not allowed to enter. Jorl assumed these were locations of interest for the TGs.

Before leaving the stage with the lieutenant and another officer that had not spoken after the introductions, Colonel Dearborn yielded the podium to an NCO he referred to as “Top”, also introduced earlier, First Sergeant William Crager. They were told they would be hearing a lot from him.

The first thing they heard from him as he reached the podium was, “Atten-Hut!” He bellowed, not needing the amplification of the extruded boom mike on the podium. The trainees bounded to their feet as the officers left the stage.

“At ease and be seated.” He looked around the room of ninety-six black jumpsuits. His eyes darted particularly to some faces in each row of eight, twelve in all, and he paused on each of those, for a second or two. One of the faces, Jorl was certain, was his.

Jorl had heard that the spec ops troops on Poldark had eye implants and IR detection capability. What he didn’t know was that his face, the other two TG’s faces, and thirteen or fourteen other men had been designated for Crager by his onboard AI, as men to watch for possible team leadership roles in the training unit. It was unlikely that even half of those present would make it through the entire course.

Crager thought three of the faces might be running a bit of a fever, which considering the typical immune systems of today shouldn’t last long. It was likely something they were recently exposed to, with so many people mixed from all over Human Space, and placed in crowded conditions, under physical stress for the last week at Port Andropov.

He started forthright, and blunt. “I know most of you are here to contribute to the fight against the Krall. A handful of you just want to become one of the alleged supermen of spec ops. That handful will not complete the training. They never do. If that’s your current motivation, your attitude will change or you
will
be weeded out. If you will not place the team’s goals first, and you try to go it alone, to excel as a superstar, then like a failed star, you will fizzle out like some sorry-assed brown dwarf. At some point, you will need help, and no team member will be willing to offer it to you because you will have been identified as a selfish loner.

“The Krall mostly fight that way, as loners, because they are physically superior to us in every way and distain teamwork. They seldom come to the aid of another warrior, and frankly seldom need to do so. No matter what you have heard about Special Operations troopers, and I‘ll tell you that many of the rumors you hear are true, we do have extraordinary capabilities that the typical soldier can’t match. However, we must normally team together to beat even one of the enemy warriors.”

He placed his hands on the sides of podium. “I doubt many of you have seen a Krall warrior up close, in detail. Or else you might not be alive to be here. Let me show you one of our opponents, we keep it in a stasis field for safety. Study him carefully.”

A humming sound came from the stage as a Krall warrior lifted on an elevator platform at front center stage, long knives in each taloned hand.  It was frozen in a shimmering charged stasis field, poised right at the front edge of the stage, as a fully red-skinned mature and massive warrior. The men in the front row, feeling almost under the forward leaning figure, actually pulled back a bit from the over two-meter tall alien. It was that tall despite its slightly crouched posture, appearing prepared to leap from the stage. The red pupils in black orbs were glaring, hate filled, down into the center of the mass of seated men and one woman, frozen in electronic stasis, yet ready to leap into them and cut their hearts out.

“Unarmed as you are, this single warrior, if released, could certainly kill everyone in this room if we were trapped in here with it, the unarmed spec ops training staff included. If there were a single door or window for escape, and a few of you made it out, you might think you had survived. Consider this. It can run much faster than you can, and its sense of smell can track you down, even days later, and find you in total darkness. It can react and move five times faster than you can, and tear you limb from limb without effort.”

The room was transfixed on the savage evil looking figure. Suddenly, the misty stasis field flickered, and went off. With a deafening roar, the warrior leaped from the stage into the midst of the front rows, slashing left and right with blood spattering high, and the men there screamed and recoiled, or fell to the floor. Those to the sides leaped to their feet to run when the sound and motion stopped instantly, The Krall stood frozen again, with a human body held aloft and impaled on one of the long knives. The victim was dressed in civilian clothing, not a black jumpsuit.