0500: Lights On.
In an instant, pitch dark became bright as day in the Red Base barracks dormitory. Nic’s eyes eased open like clockwork. Eight days was more than enough time to acclimate to a new routine.
Perri’s feet hit the carpeted floor with catlike grace. She peered down into Nic’s bunk, waving good morning to him. “Morning,” he muttered with a grogginess that was already dissipating.
“Another day in paradise, eh?” Perri murmured with a fake cheesy smile.
“Stop talking like an old person,” Nic replied, but he smiled.
Jarek and Maqsud rose from the bunks beside them and they made their way toward the bathrooms. Thumbprints to open the lockers, toothbrush, chalky toothpaste, rinse, quick once-over in the mirror. Those look like bags under my eyes, Nic thought. I feel like I’m a little young to be getting those. Need a haircut soon.
0530: Breakfast.
Nic led the way to the mess hall, ready to choke down an unappetizing but technically nutritious meal to start his day. He actually missed the rehydrated eggs and meat-protein sheets that used to be part of his rations in the Wargame days. Remember the hunger, he thought, recalling how it felt when he skipped meals on a day-long exercise. It was only slightly worse than the food itself.
Every meal, Nic saw Danny somewhere in the mess hall.
Every time, Nic tried to approach Danny, knowing that as soon as he was able to strike up a conversation, get his attention—even just meet his gaze—Nic would apologize for what he’d done.
Danny never looked him in the eye again.
0700: Field Training Exercise.
“Dude, I hate all-dayers so much,” Jarek muttered. “Sorry for bringin’ the mood down, y’all. Just had to say somethin’.”
“Personally, I love them!” said Maqsud. “The more time we get to spend out in the field, the better.”
“You serious?”
“Jarek.” Max snorted at him through their private Team Scarlet chat. “You ought to know me better than that by now.”
“Nobody likes FTX,” said Nic. “But it’s gotta get done. Just like the real deal. I’d say it’s better to find a way to enjoy it, or at least grin and bear it.”
“No, you... you got a point, man,” Jarek agreed. “My bad.”
“Is that pep talk aimed at us, Nic?” Maqsud asked. “Or yourself?”
Nic didn’t answer.
They flew out to the day’s training field in Gryphons, ten-seater, tandem-rotor aerial vehicles built specially for the Contact War. They always had human pilots—in the case of field training, usually an NCO—and they were designed with sliding side doors for easy midair dispersal of Achilles-armored soldiers. When the door slid open, Nic was the first one to make the jump.
“Team Scarlet, jetpack function,” said Nic. “We want a smooth landing.” Ever since the start of the war, every armorsuit came equipped with many of the functions of the old Wargame Upgrade Paks, minus the performance enhancers that were automatically rolled into the suit’s baseline functionality. “Engage on my mark.”
“Really?” Perri joked with him. “Because I was just gonna tuck and roll once we hit the ground. It’ll make a nice crater, and then the Hexes will—”
“Scarlet,” Lieutenant Welch interrupted, “cut that chatter or you’ll be scrubbing toilets by hand until lights out. Scarlet One, keep a lid on your squad or that goes double for you. Understood?”
Nic gulped. “Yes, sir.”
“We’re at war, soldiers. Act like it!”
I forgot they can just spy on our private comms channels now, he thought. Hard-ass. Perri didn’t say anything, but he could only imagine what she was willing herself not to say.
They landed softly on the grayish-white, dusty surface of Telum thanks to their jetpacks. The terrain was flat in all directions, and the area was dotted with small pockmarks and shallow craters, the signatures of meteorite impacts in the planet’s distant past. The local sun was an F-type main sequence star, yellow-white in color; its intense radiation meant that generating a suitable atmosphere, and especially a magnetosphere, would take at least a couple of centuries. It was no Ayrus. There would certainly not be a single green thing growing here in his lifetime.
This planet will probably never be anything other than a weapons plant, he thought cynically. It was always hard to scrape together the motivation to defend something that wasn’t even a human habitat colony—Telum especially so. He could only go back to his one tried and true motivator. Just think of Shanti. Remember what they did. Remember how she suffered.
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RTIFIS fed them the mission details as usual.
Holographic overlays appeared in Nic’s HUD. They were far from realistic. Transparent, approximate outlines of gray-colored Commanders, bright yellow Fodders, and neon blue Sharpshooters materialized before his eyes. They flickered every now and then like an unstable holo would.
At the same time, his Achilles armorsuit automatically drew the SMG strapped to his back. All the weapon safeties were on—FTX bullets were all holographic as well—but the gun felt just as heavy in his hands.
“Tagging hostiles,” said Nic. “Engaging marked targets. Triage priority. Team Scarlet, open fire!”
These holos are real enough for me. I’ll show Welch how seriously I take this job. I’m getting the high score today!
The enemy had taken plenty from Nic, but not his love of victory.
***
1800: Dinner. The robotic arm fed Red Battalion chow that was similar in quality to breakfast but with a slightly different presentation, making it fit for dinnertime. Nic sat down with his squad at the end of a long bench and dug in out of pure animal hunger.
“Good work out there today, son,” said the voice of Lieutenant Welch behind him. Nic’s knee slammed the underside of the table, his instinct to stand up and salute—GDF officers almost never showed their faces in the mess hall at the same time as Red Battalion—but he was excused. “At ease, soldier, at ease. Just came to congratulate you on a great performance today.” Welch patted his shoulder entirely too roughly. “You took home 208 kills in the exercise all by yourself. Team Scarlet took home 530 in all. By far, you had the best score of any squad out there today. Fine work! You really turned the day around!”
“I bet it comes with the territory,” said Lieutenant Reeve, indulging in a reserved smile. The two officers stood with their hands on their hips at the end of the bench where Team Scarlet was eating. “I mean, you four are some of the oldest veterans of the entire war, after all. You set a proud example for the rest of Red Battalion.”
Don’t remind me, Nic thought. But what he said was, “Thank you, sir.”
“We have good intel to suggest the Hexadian invasion force will be here any day now,” Welch went on. “I’m sure you’ll bring that same passion, or even better, to the battlefield. And when you do...” It was the first time Nic had seen Welch so much as smirk. “Well, this bastion of human liberty will be just fine when the dust settles! Carry on with your meals, soldiers. Enjoy.” He and Reeve each gave them a curt nod and stomped off to wherever the officers ate their meals, some other part of the hab adjacent to the main mess hall.
“Good job,” Perri whispered to him, elbowing him gently. She gave him a smile that betrayed genuine pride in his accomplishments, a playful arch of her eyebrow. “You earned it.”
“You really did, boss,” said Jarek, poking at his protein chunks with a fork. “I was gunnin’ for that top score, too. There’s always the real battle, though. I’m comin’ for that score next time!”
Nic smiled at his squadmates politely. Then Maqsud offered, “Praise from Caesar is praise indeed. With glowing remarks like that, you might have a future as a commissioned officer, Nic. Is that an aspiration of yours?” Max winced after a sip of the nondescript “juice” from concentrate.
Nic shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Well, you’re the most adept at what we do. I think you have the most passion for it. You always have. Even since the Wargame days, you’ve always loved a good fight, haven’t you? Combat appears to be chief among your hobbies. Now, is that passion distinct from your compulsive need to be praised or is it more of a package deal?"
“Dude,” Perri said gently. “You’ve both been getting along so well. Can you not?”
Scarlet Four shrugged back, resting an arm behind his head. “Just an observation.”
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” said Nic, meeting his gaze. His fork clattered against his tray. “I don’t know how else you’re supposed to make it through a day of this without passion. It beats the alternative. Hearing that score tick up kill by kill drowns out the alternative.”
“Which is?”
“Hearing her voice. Her real voice. The sound she made when she was scared. When she knew she wouldn’t make it.” Even Maqsud’s cynical façade faltered momentarily. “When I’m not killing something, that’s all I hear.”
“I was there, too, Nicolas. We all were. No one can blame you for retaining that trauma. I just never thought it would make you lean so hard into this whole...” Max twirled his fork around the mess hall. “...schtick.”
“If you don’t like this whole schtick, you can go AWOL.”
“Nic,” Perri whispered pleadingly, glancing around the room. “I’m already on Welch’s radar for having a personality of my own. Be careful with talk like that...”
Max smiled wistfully and glanced at the viewscreen on the wall that displayed a view of Telum outside; locally, it was still bright daytime. “That’s not really an option for me, is it? If you want to talk about alternatives and the lesser of two evils.”
“Sounds like we agree, then,” said Nic. “All that’s left to do is put our heads down, shut up, and fight to see another day. Once our contract is up, our lives are ours again. Until then, we keep fighting.”
Maqsud chuckled at him amusedly. “Oh, Nicolas. You really were born for this war, wouldn’t you?”
Nic stood with his empty tray. “I wasn’t born for any of this. None of us were. We were made.” He stormed away from the table and didn’t look back.
2100: Lights Out.
Perri’s muffled voice reached him through the thin bunk bed overhead. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” he whispered back.
The holoclock read 21:02. Nic’s eyes eased shut like clockwork. He’d be dreaming by the time it read 21:04.
***
Nic’s eyes snapped open. The holoclock read 03:03. The lights in the barracks dormitory were all red and flashing, and the air filled with an earsplitting klaxon.