Jethro: First to Fight (55 page)

“There is a lot more for now but for the
moment, questions? Comments?”

There was a shuffling as the DI's looked
at each other and gathered their thoughts. The Doberman took the opportunity to
get a drink of water.

Jethro found the experience to be
different than when he went through boot. This time he was on the

 outside
looking in. The good thing was that they were using Gunny's method of training.
The bad news was it kept the DI's busy almost as much as the boots. Fortunately
the Gunny had tempered his methods with weekends off to rest, recover, and get
squared away with chores and demerits before the week started again. “You all
have the schedule. It's eleven weeks of hell for some, you and I both know the
real hell starts on the first day of week twelve,” the Gunny said. “Which is
another thing, some of us will have to work on preping for that next month.
We're going to tap an outside platoon to act as the op force.”

“A day, sometimes two days a week off?
Going soft in your old age Gunny?” Letanga teased.

“They need the downtime. I've been
advised that the downtime is critical to let them rest and recover. You know
the reasoning. But yes,” the Gunny said. “I suppose it is a way of spoiling
them. Them and you, since you get some of that time off as well.”

Letanga chuckled.

“At least those of you who aren't
babysitting the recruits during that time period. Which, since you just
volunteered, you can go first,” the Doberman said sweetly.

Letanga sobered instantly. The Doberman
flicked his ears and then nodded. “Right moving on...”

...*...*...*...*...

Jethro, Letanga, Kovu, and the sniper
teams built shoot houses with the other junior DI's and engineers. They used a
mix of prefabs, concrete, and wood structures. The buildings were crude, just
walls, no doors, windows, or in some cases, roofs. On a few of the buildings a
catwalk was constructed above to allow observers to watch and critique the
exercise. Some of the buildings were made by recruits, others by the Di's or a
local contractor and his team.

They didn't limit themselves to ground
buildings either. A half dozen buildings were dressed as ship or station
interiors, with knee knockers, hatches, and other things.

Each of the shoot houses also had
surprises built into them. Instructors who set an exercise up could program a
computer to shut off or turn on lights, activate pop up targets, or set off
small explosive flash bangs to disorient shooters.

...*...*...*...*...

Training with the other DI's was a new
experience. Jethro got a better feel for what they could only train for in VR
before. They hadn't had a lot of long sight line areas on the station to train
in. Training in atmo was definitely different then training for space too, not
only did you have to adjust for wind, but also temperature and other variables.
Sniping in space seemed to have its own set of rules, and on the ground as
well.

He'd known all those things in theory,
known them when he'd been on Agnosta before, but his implants had adjusted for
him. Now they had to learn the basics before they let the implants take the
lead.

One of the little things that cropped up
was sniper protocols. A sniper shot from a building had to be trained to shoot
from the back of the room, use a prop to steady the barrel, and cover the lens
to keep it from reflecting. The reason to shoot from back of the room was to
avoid giving yourself away visually and from sound from the report of the
rifle. Communicating that to his fellow DI's as well as to his trainees was
going to be fun he realized.

Jethro found new experiences in
training. Being on the trainers side alone was a new experience, as well as a
new set of headaches and things to learn. He had realized a long time ago that
there was always something new to learn. He never ever wanted to become
complacent and think that he knew everything... after all, then someone like
Gunny would come around and pin his ears back to prove how wrong he was! He
snorted at that thought.

There was so much in his implants to go
along with the college classes he had taken in Pyrax. But more as well, such as
recognizing when a trainee was done in and needed a break. Seeing the different
between physical exhaustion and mental in all the different species was tough.
Some like Veraxins didn't sweat or pant, they just teetered, walked around as
if they were drunk, their speech became slurred, and then they collapsed. Two
Veraxins had to be hauled to the infirmary. Collapse in the anthropods was a
serious thing, too much stress on some could cause their hearts to shut down
for good.

Recognizing issues with genders and
social roles was another fun thing to keep in the back of his mind. They
trained in mixed companies, no split between the genders. The Federation
Marines believed in equality of opportunity, not necessarily of outcome,
meaning you could step up, but if you couldn't handle it no one was going to throw
a stress card and give you a time out. You either learned to cope and do the
mission or you fell out.

Marine officers were run through boot as
well, so they knew what and where they stood with the enlisted. There was some
scuttlebutt that the Major was going to do away with the ROTC tract, or at
least change it to better reflect Marine tradition. Troops needed to know that
their officers could hang with them when it got tough, that they weren't a PX
store or desk jockey.

Jethro marched through the quad on the
path, turned smartly past the row of plaques and then paused at the list of
KIA. His eyes lingered on Miles and Chirby's names for a brief moment. Other
names were there, each listed their date of birth, date of death and serial
number. There were quite a few names, many from training. Many he recognized
from his own boot cycle.

His implant timer chimed. He turned,
adjusted his cover, and then moved on. He slowed near the flag poles, each were
in cement on a slight hill. There was the Federation flag, planetary flag, and
Marine flag. He saluted Captain Pendeckle in passing and then returned to his
path.

Someone had gotten smart, or in some
cases dumb, he wasn't sure. A few areas had signs or colored markings. In a
ship that was standard, that might be why they were there, to familiarize the
recruits with naval ship interior layouts. But in a training base, it was
contrary to what he had learned.

Trainees were deliberately kept off
balance, forced to ask for directions and for permission to do virtually
everything. That served several purposes, it broke down their civilian side,
and it forced them to become reliant on their instructors for directions.
Dumping recruits into an area and then giving them orders to get to a new
unfamiliar location was also a good way to shake them up and see which ones
adapted, and how quickly.

There were two types of boots, the ones
who knew it all, and the ones who kept their heads down and tried to just get
by. It was fun showing the know it all's up. Letting them boss the other
recruits around and then humiliating them might be fun for some, but for Clive
it took a little getting used to, he was still having trouble with the role.

Hitting on the followers was also fun.
Jethro realized with a slight smile that he had been a know it all, but the
Gunny had cut him a boat load of slack since he hadn't let his ego show, nor
had he thrown his weight around. Much.

Jethro nodded politely to privates as he
entered the DI staffing lounge. He removed his cover inside, tucked it under
his arm and then went to the lounge.

He was still having paperwork issues.
The military had discovered the joys of paperwork a year ago, and it had
finally caught up with the Marines. One of the things that kept getting kicked
back at him was his MOS, his Military Occupational Specialty. Apparently
because he filled so many roles he didn't fill the green bureaucrats ideal
slot. They kept nagging him to chose one specialty and stick to it exclusively.
The nagging e-mails were getting on his nerves. He made a note to talk to Gunny
about them then put the thought out of his mind and focused on the here and
now.

The meetings with the DI staff were
interesting and mostly informal. He poured himself a cup of coffee and then
took his normal seat. He hadn't always been loose, it had taken him a bit of
time to loosen up.

“All right, let's make this quick, I've
got work and the pups will be finishing chow soon. Who wants to start. Do we
have any issues to be aware of?” Gunny Schultz asked, coming into the room. He
stared about.

One by one they dumped incidents, most
of them minor to the group. It let them be aware of potential crisis in the
brewing, such as hostility between a Veraxin and human recruit.

“I was debating on having them work it
out in the ring Gunny, but we're a bit busy in this rotation.”

“Let's see if they get over it, or if
their squad leaders come forward to deal with it. Speaking of which, any
problems? Anyone rising to the occasion?”

Squad leaders had it hard, as did platoon
leaders. If anything went wrong, which frequently it did, they caught it in the
end. They had to keep their people moving and in line, get them ready for
inspection, and teach them how to fix issues. So far only two squad leaders had
managed to stay the course. Most were busted back into the ranks in less than a
week.

“It's a bit tough you know, I mean, here
it's all ground oriented Gunny,” Asazi said. “But in Pyrax, it was all space
based. That's really what we need to be focusing on. Class room crap is just
that, crap.”

“True. And I realize the space part of
our syllabus is a bit bare right now,” the Gunny replied. “There is no helping
that right now.”

“Too bad we couldn't get the navy to tow
a training ship here,” Corporal Bosco said.

“Why don't they make one here in orbit
or on the ground? I mean, we've got shoot houses, why not trainers? Ships and
such?” Jethro idly commented. That got the other DI's laughing.

“Jethro, in order to do that, they'd
have to build a power plant and drives. You can't do that on the ground. And
right now with the lock outs, they can't do it in space or on the ground
period.” Gunny Schultz explained patiently.

Jethro thought about it for a moment and
then shrugged. "So? We don't need them in a mock up right? It's a mock up
after all, it's not going anywhere. We don't build the entire house complete
with furniture for the shoot houses, we build the basics. What we need to get
the point across without wasting material. We don't
need
a hyperdrive in
a mock up, just something that
looks
like one. Or say, a control room
for one. I seem to recall drills being held in those films we watched. Fire
drills, so on and so forth. If they can drill for an emergency, why not for
regular activities? Same for the power plant and other things. Virtual sims are
great but not good enough. Sometimes it takes being there, seeing the scratched
paint, feeling the boredom to appreciate it. Like you taught us Gunny, real
world experience trumps virtual every time."

The other DI's look surprised. The Gunny
flicked his ears and gave a small tight lipped smile to his protégée, and then
to the other DI's. "Out of the mouths of newly minted sergeants,” he said,
then turned back to Jethro. “Good plan. Get me a more detailed
written
one we can present to the powers that be later today. Start with oh, a ship,
but also a station..."

"We can tow a rock or two into
orbit Gunny for that training," a DI interjected getting into the spirit
of the discussion. “Maybe bore it out or something? I mean, like they did with
the orbital forts in Pyrax.”

The Gunny nodded. "Good point. We
can have an orbital hab for training and temporary living. We can even sim
combat boarding and drops."

Jethro winced at that idea but nodded
dutifully with the others.

"What about power?"

Jethro shrugged. He'd already answered
that one with a suggestion to Lieutenant Commander Shelby Logan nearly a year
ago.

"We use solar. I believe you
mentioned that to Lieutenant Commander Logan?" the Gunny asked. Jethro
nodded. The Gunny turned to the others. "So we do that. We set up a solar
farm, or several of them. Or solar panels on stations and installations,
whatever works."

"Right. We meaning the squids,
since they've got nothing better to do," the sergeant said with a smirk.
The Doberman snorted.

“Can we use this to make an orbital
fort? Say in orbit or at the jump point?”

“Why bother? It leads to Pyrax dummy!”

“Not that one! The other one!”

“Ohhhh...”

“Yeah. Oh. I bet the powers that be
didn't think of that.”

“I don't see why they didn't but we can
buck it up the chain of command and let them think it over.”

...*...*...*...*...

"Easier said than done. Do they
have any idea what that plan entails?" Firefly demanded as the noncom
proposal reached the upper echelon of the chain of command a few days later.
They were already behind schedule with most of their priority projects. That
last storm ground side had shut down the space ports for nearly a week.