The Fight for Peace (11 page)

“Right, Captain. We will be fine here for a couple of weeks. Glad to hear you’ll be bringing supplies and some training officers back. I’ve been working on some defensive ditch work and walls here. When we have two dactyls in residence, I’d like to fly recon around the valley and northward a bit. But I’m not going to risk running into problems with just one on the continent.”

“Good call, Lieutenant. We still have satellites that cover that area. I’ll make sure Kehm keeps an eye on you down there to watch out for any unwanted company.”

Jared looked uncomfortable at the thoughts churning in his mind. Derrick could guess what they were. He’d felt rather alone ever since Jared’s dactyl had sped over the horizon. If he booked it straight home, it would still be over eight hours of flying. And that would be flying full out crazy, which he hadn’t actually tried yet.

“I’d appreciate that, Captain.”

“Yeah well, I already got an earful for leaving you down there without much support from Arinna. Shit, it’s like she’s fond of you or something. So watch out for yourself because if you get hurt I think she’ll take it out of my skin.”

Derrick smiled at that, making promises to keep things safe and prudent. When he signed off, he sat in the darkness of his plane and admitted to himself how happy that statement made him. Then he got up and organized the beginnings of a night watch, kicking himself for not having done it a week ago.

Chapter 12

CADET CORIANNE HEYLOR

BASIC TRAINING

“I am Lieutenant Kieren O’Dell and will be your lead officer here at basic training. You will also work under Lieutenants Farrak Assad, Gabriella Faronelli, and Derrick Eldridge. Both Captain Jared Vries and Arinna Prescot, whom you shall refer to properly as
Captain
Arinna Prescot and not the Lady Grey, will visit to test you and evaluate your performance. Good luck with that.

“As I’m sure you’ve heard, there is no marriage in the Guard while on active duty. What you might not have heard is there is no dating within your squad. And by dating, I mean having sex with another soldier. These are your brethren and will be protecting you like family. You don’t sleep with family. Keep it outside your unit.”

The new recruits were loosely rallied in a staging area where various means of transport had deposited them in the early hours. Corianne and Pyotr had been housed on the outskirts of the Guard base. For them this morning had consisted of grabbing their things, hopping into an old Jeep, and being driven across base. Considering the carriages and military vehicles leaving the area and the exhaustion on the faces of many of the recruits standing at slouched attention, Corianne felt lucky.

The week at the Guard training base in old Italy had also been more leisure time than actual duties. Both Pyotr and Cori had been called to Lieutenant O’Dell’s office. Pyotr for chats about the FLF and Crystal City. Corianne for information on the last days of David Eldridge’s life. Both had been told they’d receive no special attention once basic began. Which was fine with Corianne. She didn’t want to be singled out anymore.

The week had also given Corianne a chance to grow accustomed to seeing vehicles, actual gas powered machines, driving across base. She’d also gotten a glimpse of what she’d signed up for as she watched the final days of the group exiting basic. When she’d been warned that Guard life was not Prague, Corianne had been glad without thinking about what that entailed. It simply had been the choice that wasn’t a life stuck home with her mother nor one shunned by the aristocratic society that circled around Parliament. It held a chance to learn to defend herself. Watching other women wrestle Cadets, both male and female, to the ground in hand-to-hand combat exhilarated her. Watching them come back from the field drenched in sweat and carrying packs that looked unreasonably heavy turned her stomach. Basic training was not Prague.

Lieutenant O’Dell wrapped up her speech with a few further words of warning and instructions but she kept her time short, ending with a nod to the rank of officers behind her. “The Training Officers will now read out the names of Cadets assigned to them. Pay attention as they will tell you where their rally point is. After they finish, you will have five minutes to gather your duffle and report to your assigned rally location.”

“Well that was pretty frank,” Pyotr said under his breath. A man next to them chuckled, but before anyone could comment the first officer stepped forward.

“I am Sergeant Patrick Kiphart. My rally point is Red Alpha. Cadets Bransford...”

The list raced onwards. Corianne juggled rally points while listening for her name and trying not to listen for Pyotr’s. Next to her, Pyotr stiffened as his name was called by a woman who’d introduced herself as Sergeant Katerina Menendez. She had rally point Blue Romeo. Then Sergeant Menendez called Corianne’s name as well. Pyotr nudged her with his elbow. Cori smiled. It seemed impossible they’d end up together, but Corianne was happy to know at least one person in this new life she’d chosen.

Other Sergeants stepped up, reading off their list of names. The last one ended with the order, “Rally points five minutes!”

The group of Cadets broke at a run. Someone bumped Corianne as she picked up her duffle. Overbalancing, she nearly toppled. Pyotr’s quick grab kept her on her feet. “Good thing we’re together,” he quipped.

“Just remember, you are my cousin and not my brother. I don’t need you to protect me,” Cori said as she jogged at his side. “You do know where we are supposed to go, right?” she asked as she stopped. Pyotr glanced around. “I think it’s the other way.”

“We’ll see who ends up looking out for whom,” Pyotr said with a laugh as they ran toward their proper rally.

Sergeant Menendez waited at her station, stopwatch in hand. Twelve other breathless Cadets waited before her, the last two running up as the Sergeant depressed the timer. “You’re late. Ten pushups. Everyone.” The Cadets glanced at each other. “Now!” Menendez snapped. Corianne dropped to the ground and mimicked what she’d seen in the training the week before.

Stones pressed into her palms. What had looked like a simple task when watching troops who’d gone through ten weeks of training executing the same maneuver turned out to be excruciating by her eighth. Cori’s arms trembled on the ninth and she only completed the tenth by holding her breath to keep from groaning. But she wasn’t the last to her feet and hardly the only one brushing bruised palms against pants, even if she still wasn’t used to wearing them.

Sergeant Menendez regarded her assigned Cadets, finally shrugging. “Not bad actually. There is hope for you. Now before you are assigned training uniforms and beds, let’s make sure you deserve them.”

The next hour became instruction on how to stand at attention, especially without reaction while the Sergeant barked orders in a Cadet’s face. Duffels were left behind as the Sergeant marched her Cadets down the road screaming, “I’m not asking for left or right unity. Just stay in formation, God damn it!”

She stopped them and forced Cadets back into proper lines, squaring shoulders with tugs, and then yelled the order to walk forward, marking the steps. By the time the Blue Romeo squad had marched the length of the base twice, they managed to stay together and could almost turn as a unit. Corianne was feeling good until they arrived back at the original rally point to see the duffels now piled in a heap unlike how they’d left them.

“You have five minutes to find your duffle and return to attention. If you don’t manage, all of you will pay,” Menendez ordered. The Cadets raced forward.

It took until the second try when fellow soldiers stopped looking for their bag and instead started calling out the names of the ones they held for the platoon to manage the task within the time limit. Punishment this time was sit-ups.

“Pretty good,” Menendez said. “Now let’s gear up.”

By the end of the day, Corianne didn’t care that her cot was barely two feet from the next. She dropped onto her back, loving that she was on something other than the ground. Her new neighbor stood staring between his narrow cot and Corianne until he blushed scarlet. Cori started laughing. Within a minute, the rest of the platoon did as well, most sprawled in various poses of exhaustion.

“I see why Lieutenant O’Dell said we weren’t to have sex with each other and didn’t phrase it as ‘sleep together,’ cause we’re gonna be sleeping real close. I’m Tony Hussef,” Corianne’s neighbor said as he sat on his bunk and extended his hand.

Corianne went to rise, but her stomach muscles protested. “Cori Heylor,” she replied, offering her hand from a prone position. Tony chuckled as he shook it.

Introductions raced through the open dorm room, all names Cori had heard multiple times that day. Now she had the time to put faces with them. Sixteen total in the platoon, nine men and seven women. “I’m surprised about the ratio,” Iva Nicco said. “The main force is over half women.”

“What? Men can fight too,” Tony protested.

“I hope so,” Cori shot back. “Cause I don’t want to end up constantly doing pushups for falling short!”

Break didn’t last nearly long enough, especially with easy laughter between the group that had been strangers at daybreak. But they needed to go to mess and shower, which at least were separated by gender, and make sure uniforms were ready for the morning. Corianne fell asleep sore and exhausted; she woke up to banging and searing lights.

“Let’s get going. Ten minutes to rally!” Sergeant Menendez yelled from the door. It was only midnight.

The mistake, Blue Romeo learned, was that they hadn’t posted guards. The platoon hadn’t been bright enough to realize that if they’d organized guard duty on two-hour shifts, then the Sergeant wouldn’t have been able to walk in and wake them up.

Frustrated that she hadn’t heard anyone give that advice at all on the first day, Corianne fought unwanted tears spawned by tiredness and sore muscles, and wondered if anyone would explain the rules of this place to her. For their oversight, the platoon got to run for two hours in a cold drizzle. Muddy and damp when she saw her bed again, Corianne fell into it wearing the sweat pants and shirt she’d run in.

“How are you doing?” Pyotr asked her the next day at lunch. He’d kept his distance, as Corianne had insinuated she wanted. Cori shrugged at this question. “Hate it yet?”

“I’m too tired to hate it,” she admitted. “Was the Wasteland this bad?”

Pyotr chewed on a mouthful of stew. “It was hard in its own way. The cold was the worst. I think I prefer the running and pushups to weeks of cold.”

“You were in the Wasteland?” Iva asked. Pyotr coughed on the mouthful he’d swallowed. Iva whacked Pyotr across the back as the rest of the platoon pulled up to their table.

“You’re the one who walked to Crystal City, aren’t you?” Liisa asked. “Shit, that is why we aren’t with any of the Argentinian soldiers. You speak Russian. If we end up fighting, we’ll go there.”

“I hope it is spring,” Tony huffed.

“We are going through peace talks,” Corianne pointed out.

“Yeah, what do you know about that?” Tony asked, gaze intent on Corianne. “Oh come on,” he said, glancing at the Cadets around him. “You know she is the one who testified in Parliament, right? You saved the Prime Minister’s life.”

“I ...,” Corianne was at a loss until she caught Pyotr’s laughing glance. “Dammit. I didn’t save his life. I made a phone call and gave a warning to the Guard about the attack.”

“And then testified in Parliament and helped clear the Lady Grey,” Simmons pointed out.

“
Captain
Prescot,” Emery said with a quick jab of his elbow in Simmons’ side. “I’m really sick of pushups.”

“Heck, we got two celebrities,” Tony said with a grin. “We’re gonna have it easy.”

“Hah. More like explains why Menendez has been so hard on us.” Iva said. “I didn’t see anyone else running last night cause they didn’t post guards. Did you?”

“Maybe they all posted guards?” Corianne asked. Iva gave a doubtful lift to her eyebrow.

“Probably thought you should know that,” Emery said to Pyotr. “Crap. We’re gonna have to be smarter and better than everyone else to get through this.”

Corianne wanted to apologize. By the look on Pyotr’s face he did too. “Shit. There was just Derrick and I. We didn’t see anyone else for months. How was I supposed to know about posting guards while on base?”

“Derrick? Lieutenant Derrick Eldridge, right?” Simmons asked, drawing out the name. Pyotr’s blush grew deeper with every word. “You’re on a first name basis with the Guard’s newest Lieutenant?”

Pyotr groaned and put his head down into his arms. “Cori, help me.”

She laughed along with the rest of the platoon. Knowing who she and Pyotr were helped, rather than became the burden Corianne feared. The rest of the platoon snapped to attention that much faster, and worked harder to solve the puzzles placed before them. That every task had a logical as well as a physical element became apparent quickly. Running was to harden their bodies. If they ran like they were a team, swallowing the pain while keeping pace with the Cadet next to them, they ran a little less. If they acted like it was a piece of cake or the worst punishment in the world, they ran more.

Iva was gifted with strategy. She had a second sense for how the base ran, when inspections would occur, and what needed to be done to meet specifications. Cori learned she had a knack for details. When doors or windows were left ajar, or if something was nearly forgotten, she made certain the oversight was solved before Sergeant Menendez noticed.

Pyotr was good at the riding and marksmanship. At target practice half the platoon stared at Pyotr as he fired round after round dead center. Sergeant Kirkpatrick, the range master on duty, stopped everyone else, officially since everyone had already stopped, and had Pyotr fire off another ten shots. When all ten hit the same holes he’d already made, Sergeant Kirkpatrick shook his head.

“Who taught you to shoot?” Kirkpatrick asked.

“Lieutenant Eldridge, sir,” Pyotr answered.

Kirkpatrick snorted, glance falling on a smug Sergeant Menendez. “He teach you to sword fight too?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Shit. You knew that before you bet me,” Kirkpatrick said to Menendez, who answered with a cat’s smile. “Well this boot camp is going to get interesting.”

Kirkpatrick gave the order for open fire. Menendez pulled Pyotr aside. “Make sure you practice, but teach the rest of the platoon to shoot like that. You just made platoon leader. If you want to practice hand-to-hand, this is the key to the platoon’s exercise room. There are practice swords in there too, even though you won’t get them officially until next week.”