Old Man’s War Read online

  "Yes, Master Sergeant!"

  "Bullshit! Some of you are still thinking that I'm just going to hate the other guy." Ruiz shot out an arm and pointed out toward the plain and the rising sun. "Use your pretty new eyes to focus on that transmission tower out there; you can just barely see it. It is ten klicks away, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to find something about each of you that will piss me off, and when I do, you will sprint to that fucking tower. If you are not back in an hour, this entire platoon will run it again tomorrow morning. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, Master Sergeant!" I could see people trying to do the math in their heads; he was telling us to run five-minute miles all the way there and all the way back. I strongly suspected we'd be running it again tomorrow.

  "Which of you was in the military back on Earth? Step up, now," Ruiz asked. Seven recruits stepped forward.

  "God damn it," Ruiz said. "There is nothing I hate more in the entire fucking universe than a veteran recruit. We have to spend extra time and effort on you bastards, making you unlearn every single fucking thing you learned back home. All you sons of bitches had to do was fight humans! And even that you did badly! Oh, yes, we saw that whole Subcontinental War of yours. Shit. Six fucking years to beat an enemy that barely had firearms, and you had to cheat to win. Nukes are for pussies. Pussies. If the CDF fought like the U.S. forces fought, you know where humanity would be today? On an asteroid, scraping algae off the fucking tunnel walls. And which ones of you assholes are Marines?"

  Two recruits stepped forward. "You fuckers are the worst," Ruiz said, getting right in their faces. "You smug bastards have killed more CDF soldiers than any alien species—doing things that Marine fucking way instead of the way they're supposed to be done. You probably had 'Semper Fi' tattoos somewhere on your old body, didn't you? Didn't you?"

  "Yes, Master Sergeant!" they both replied.

  "You are so fucking lucky they were left behind, because I swear I would have held you down and sliced them off myself. Oh, and you don't think I wouldn't? Well, unlike your precious fucking Marines, or any other military branch down there, up here the drill instructor is God. I could turn your fucking intestines into a sausage pie and all that would happen to me is they'd tell me to get one of the other recruits to mop up the mess." Ruiz stepped back to glare at all the veteran recruits. "This is the real military, ladies and gentlemen. You're not in the army, navy, air force, or Marines now. You're one of us. And every time you forget it, I'm going to be there to step on your fucking head. Now start running!"

  They ran.

  "Who's homosexual?" Ruiz said. Four recruits stepped forward, including Alan, who was standing next to me. I saw his eyebrows arch as he stepped up.

  "Some of the finest soldiers in history were homosexual," Ruiz said. "Alexander the Great. Richard the Lionhearted. The Spartans had a special platoon of soldiers who were gay lovers, on the idea that a man would fight harder to protect his lover than he would for just another soldier. Some of the best fighters I ever knew personally were as queer as a three-dollar bill. Damn fine soldiers, all of them.

  "But I will tell you the one thing that pisses me off about you all: You pick the wrong fucking moments to get confessional. Three separate times I've been fighting alongside a gay man when things have gone sour, and each fucking time he chooses that moment to tell me how he's always loved me. Goddamn, that's inappropriate. Some alien is trying to suck out my fucking brains, and my squadmate wants to talk about our relationship! As if I wasn't already busy. Do your squadmates a fucking favor. You got the hots, deal with it on leave, not when some creature is trying to rip out your goddamn heart. Now run!" Off they went.

  "Who's a minority?" Ten recruits stepped forward. "Bullshit. Look around you, you assholes. Up here, everyone is green. There are no minorities. You want to be in a fucking minority? Fine. There are twenty billion humans in the universe. There are four trillion members of other sentient species, and they all want to turn you into a midday snack. And those are only the ones we know about! The first one of you who bitches about being a minority up here will get my green Latino foot squarely up your whiny ass. Move!" They heaved out toward the plain.

  On it went. Ruiz had specific complaints against Christians, Jews, Muslims and atheists, government workers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, blue-collar joes, pet owners, gun owners, practitioners of martial arts, wrestling fans and, weirdly (both for the fact it bothered him and the fact that there was someone in the platoon who fit the category), clog dancers. In groups, pairs, and singly, recruits were peeled off and forced to run.

  Eventually, I became aware that Ruiz was looking directly at me. I remained at attention.

  "I will be goddamned," Ruiz said. "One of you shitheads is left!"

  "Yes, Master Sergeant!" I yelled as loudly as I could.

  "I find it somewhat difficult to believe that you do not fit into any of the categories I have railed against!" Ruiz said. "I suspect that you are attempting to avoid a pleasant morning jog!"

  "No, Master Sergeant!" I bellowed.

  "I simply refuse to acknowledge that there is not something about you I despise," Ruiz said. "Where are you from?"

  "Ohio, Master Sergeant!"

  Ruiz grimaced. Nothing there. Ohio's utter inoffensiveness had finally worked to my advantage. "What did you do for a living, recruit?"

  "I was self-employed, Master Sergeant!"

  "As what?"

  "I was a writer, Master Sergeant!"

  Ruiz's feral grin was back; obviously he had it in for those who worked with words. "Tell me you wrote fiction, recruit," he said. "I have a bone to pick with novelists."

  "No, Master Sergeant!"

  "Christ, man! What did you write?"

  "I wrote advertising copy, Master Sergeant!"

  "Advertising! What sort of dumbass things did you advertise?"

  "My most famous advertising work involved Willie Wheelie, Master Sergeant!" Willie Wheelie had been the mascot for Nirvana Tires, who made tires for specialty vehicles. I'd developed the basic idea and his tagline; the company's graphic artists took it from there. Willie Wheelie's arrival coincided with the revival of motorcycles; the fad lasted for several years and Willie made a fair amount of money for Nirvana, both as an advertising mascot and through licensing for plush toys, T-shirts, shot glasses and so on. A children's entertainment show was planned but nothing came of it. It was a silly thing, but on the other hand Willie's success meant I never ran out of clients. It worked out pretty well. Until this very moment, it seemed.

  Ruiz suddenly lunged forward, directly into my face, and bellowed. "You are the mastermind behind Willie Wheelie, recruit?"

  "Yes, Master Sergeant!" There was a perverse pleasure in screaming at someone whose face was just millimeters away from your own.

  Ruiz hovered in my face for a few seconds, scanning it with his eyes, daring me to flinch. He actually snarled. Then he stepped back and began to unbutton his shirt. I remained at attention but suddenly I was very, very scared. He whipped off his shirt, turned his right shoulder to me, and stepped forward again. "Recruit, tell me what you see on my shoulder!"

  I glanced down, and thought, No fucking way. "It is a tattoo of Willie Wheelie, Master Sergeant!"

  "Goddamn right," snapped Ruiz. "I'm going to tell you a story, recruit. Back on Earth, I was married to an evil, vicious woman. A veritable pit viper. Such was her hold on me that even though being married to her was a slow death by paper cuts, I still felt suicidal when she demanded a divorce. At my lowest moment, I stood at a bus stand, contemplating hurling myself in front of the next bus that came along. Then I looked over and saw an advertisement with Willie Wheelie in it. And do you know what it said?"

  "'Sometimes You Just Gotta Hit the Road,' Master Sergeant!" That tagline had taken me all of fifteen seconds to write. What a world.

  "Exactly," he said. "And as I stared at that ad, I had what some would call a Moment of Clarity—I knew that what I needed was to just hit the fucking road
. I divorced the evil slug of a wife, sang a song of thanks, packed my belongings into a saddlebag and lit out. Ever since that blessed day, Willie Wheelie has been my avatar, the symbol of my desire for personal freedom and expression. He saved my life, recruit, and I am forever grateful."

  "You're welcome, Master Sergeant!" I bellowed.

  "Recruit, I am honored that I have had a chance to meet you; you are additionally the first recruit in the history of my tenure that I have not found immediate grounds to despise. I cannot tell you how much that disturbs and unnerves me. However, I bask in the almost certain knowledge that soon—possibly within the next few hours—you will undoubtedly do something to piss me off. To assure that you do, in fact, I assign to you the role of platoon leader. It is a thankless fucking job that has no upside, since you have to ride these sad-ass recruits twice as hard as I do, because for every one of the numerous fuckups that they perform, you will also share the blame. They will hate you, despise you, plot your downfall, and I will be there to give you an extra ration of shit when they succeed. What do you think about that, recruit? Speak freely!"

  "It sounds like I'm pretty fucked, Master Sergeant!" I yelled.

  "That you are, recruit," Ruiz said. "But you were fucked the moment you landed in my platoon. Now get running. Can't have the leader not run with his 'toon. Move!"

  "I don't know whether to congratulate you or be scared for you," Alan said to me as we headed toward the mess hall for breakfast.

  "You can do both," I said. "Although it probably makes more sense to be scared. I am. Ah, there they are." I pointed to a group of five recruits, three men, two women, who were milling about in front of the mess hall.

  Earlier in the day, as I was heading toward the communication tower on my run, my BrainPal almost caused me to collide with a tree by flashing a text message directly into my field of view. I managed to swerve, merely clipping a shoulder, and told Asshole to switch to voice navigation before I got myself killed. Asshole complied and started the message over.

  "Master Sergeant Antonio Ruiz's appointment of John Perry as leader of the 63rd Training Platoon has been processed. Congratulations on your advancement. You now have access to personnel files and BrainPal information relating to recruits within the 63rd Training Platoon. Be aware that this information is for official use only; access for nonmilitary use is cause for immediate termination of platoon leader position and a courtmartial trial at the base commander's discretion."

  "Swell," I said, leaping a small gully.

  "You will need to present Master Sergeant Ruiz with your selections for squad leaders by the end of your platoon's breakfast period," Asshole continued. "Would you like to review your platoon files to aid in your selection process?"

  I would. I did. Asshole spewed out details at high speed on each recruit as I ran. By the time I made it to the comm tower, I had narrowed the list to twenty candidates; by the time I was nearing the base, I'd parceled out the entire platoon among squad leaders and sent mail to each of the five new squad leaders to meet me at the mess hall. That BrainPal was certainly beginning to come in handy.

  I also noted that I managed to make it back to base in fifty-five minutes, and I hadn't passed any other recruits on the way back. I consulted Asshole and discovered that the slowest of the recruits (one of the former Marines, ironically) had clocked in at fifty-eight minutes thirteen seconds. We wouldn't be running to the comm tower tomorrow, or at least not because we were slow. I didn't doubt Sergeant Ruiz's ability to find another excuse, however. I was just hoping not to be the one to give it to him.

  The five recruits saw me and Alan coming and snapped, more or less, to attention. Three of them saluted immediately, followed somewhat sheepishly by the other two. I saluted back and smiled. "Don't fret it," I said to the two who lagged. "This is new to me, too. Come on, let's get in line and talk while we eat."

  "Do you want me to light out?" Alan asked me while we were in line. "You've probably got a lot to cover with these guys."

  "No," I said. "I'd like you there. I want your opinion on these guys. Also, I have news for you, you're my second in command in our own squad. And since I've got a whole platoon to babysit, that means you're really going to be in charge of it. Hope you don't mind."

  "I can handle it," Alan said, smiling. "Thanks for putting me in your squad."

  "Hey," I said. "What's the point of being in charge if you can't indulge in pointless favoritism. Besides, when I go down, you'll be there to cushion my fall."

  "That's me," Alan said. "Your military career air bag."

  The mess hall was packed but the seven of us managed to commandeer a table. "Introductions," I said. "Let's know each other's names. I'm John Perry, and for the moment at least I'm platoon leader. This is my squad's second in command, Alan Rosenthal."

  "Angela Merchant," said the woman immediately across from me. "Of Trenton, New Jersey."

  "Terry Duncan," said the fellow next to her. "Missoula, Montana."

  "Mark Jackson. St. Louis."

  "Sarah O'Connell. Boston."

  "Martin Garabedian. Sunny Fresno, California."

  "Well, aren't we geographically diverse," I said. That got a chuckle, which was good. "I'll be quick about this, since if I spend any amount of time on this it'll be clear that I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. Basically, you five got chosen because there's something in your history that suggests that you'd be able to handle being a squad leader. I chose Angela because she was a CEO. Terry ran a cattle ranch. Mark was a colonel in the army, and with all respect to Sergeant Ruiz, I actually do think that's an advantage."

  "That's nice to hear," Mark said.

  "Martin was on the Fresno city council. And Sarah here taught kindergarten for thirty years, which automatically makes her the most qualified of all of us." Another laugh. Man, I was on a roll.

  "I'm going to be honest," I said. "I'm not planning to be a hard-ass on you. Sergeant Ruiz has got that job covered, and I'd just be a pale imitation. It's not my style. I don't know what your command style will be, but I want you to do what you need to do to keep on top of your recruits and to get them through the next three months. I don't really care about being platoon leader, but I think I care very much about making sure every recruit in this platoon has the skills and training they're going to need to survive out there. Ruiz's little home movie got my attention and I hope it got yours."

  "Christ, did it ever," Terry said. "They dressed that poor bastard out like he was beef."

  "I wish they had shown us that before we signed up," Angela said. "I might have decided to stay old."

  "It's war," Mark said. "It's what happens."

  "Let's just do what we can to make sure our guys make it through things like that," I said. "Now, I've cut the platoon into six squads of ten. I'm top of A squad; Angela, you have B; Terry, C; Mark, D; Sarah, E; and Martin, F. I've given you permission to examine your recruit files with your BrainPal; choose your second in command and send me the details by lunch today. Between the two of you, keep discipline and training going smoothly; from my point of view, my whole reason for selecting you folks is so I don't have anything to do."

  "Except run your own squad," Martin said.

  "That's where I come in," Alan said.

  "Let's meet every day at lunch," I said. "We'll take other meals with our squads. If you have something that needs my attention, of course contact me immediately. But I do expect you to attempt to solve as many problems as you can by yourself. Like I said, I'm not planning on having a hard-ass style, but for better or worse, I am the platoon leader, so what I say goes. If I feel you're not measuring up, I'm going to let you know first, and then if that doesn't work I'm going to replace you. It's not personal, it's making sure we all get the training we need to live out here. Everyone good with that?" Nods all around.

  "Excellent," I said, and held up my tumbler. "Then let's toast to the 63rd Training Platoon. Here's to making it through in one piece." We clunked our tumblers together and t
hen got to eating and chatting. Things were looking up, I thought.

  It didn't take long to change that opinion.

  EIGHT

  The day on Beta Pyxis is twenty-two hours thirteen minutes twenty-four seconds long. We got two of those hours to sleep.

  I discovered this charming fact on our first night, when Asshole blasted me with a piercing siren that jolted me awake so quickly I fell out of my bunk, which was, of course, the top bunk. After checking to make sure my nose wasn't broken, I read the text floating in my skull.

  Platoon Leader Perry, this is to inform you that you have—and here there was a number, at that second being one minute and forty-eight seconds and counting down—until Master Sergeant Ruiz and his assistants enter your barracks. You are expected to have your platoon awake and at attention when they enter. Any recruits not at attention will be disciplined and noted against your record.

  I immediately forwarded the message to my squad leaders through the communication grouping I had created for them the day before, sent a general alarm signal to the platoon's BrainPals, and hit the barrack lights. There were a few amusing seconds as every recruit in the platoon jerked awake to a blast of noise that only he or she could hear. Most leaped out of bed, deeply disoriented; I and the squad leaders grabbed the ones still lying down and yanked them out onto the floor. Within a minute we had everyone up and at attention, and the remaining few seconds were spent convincing a few particularly slow recruits that now was not the time to pee or dress or do anything but stand there and not piss off Ruiz when he came through the door.

  Not that it mattered. "For fuck's sake," Ruiz declared. "Perry!"

  "Yes, Master Sergeant!"

  "What the hell were you doing for your two-minute warning? Jerking off? Your platoon is unready! They are not dressed for the exertions to which they will soon be tasked! What is your excuse?"

  "Master Sergeant, the message stated that the platoon was required to be at attention when you and your staff arrived! It did not specify the need to dress!"