Warzone: Nemesis: A Novel of Mars (25 page)

We saw changes to the morning run on week eleven. The instructors put belts with metal clips on them on each of us and tied us all together with a rope on each side of the belt during our runs. We were already accustomed to it during rock climbing exercises, but this seemed to make it apparent that we had to all stay at the same pace. By midweek, they broke us into three groups of four. Each of us had to strap our sniper rifle over our back and placed an eight-foot pine log on each shoulder about five inches in diameter to do our runs. It was actually more of a quickstep than a run. The logs were fresh cut and oozing pinesap. Our t-shirts were examined periodically to determine if we were shouldering our load or ducking under it. Each group of four was grouped by height, to keep the shorter ones from being under the load. The sticky pinesap was nasty in the hot sun, but we knew better than to avoid letting some of it get on us.

By the end of week eleven, we were down to ten trainees. The most stubborn of us still remained. I couldn’t say we were the strongest. A bodybuilder left the first day and some of the more physically imposing specimens left as well. I’d say the only thing those of us who remained had in common was that we refused to quit. I was beginning to feel as though I would make it to the end. I was dying to know what the unit’s name was and where we’d serve. Ten trainees were left: Brown, Carter, Alvarez, Graham, Jones, Garrett, Wilson, Clark, Hunter and me (Smith). We were forbidden to ask anyone their real name. In truth, I’d never met any of these men before here. I thought it odd that a tour in Vietnam didn’t acquaint me with any of these men. It was only later that I found out that we’d been screened to keep from having men in the same camp with anyone they knew. I’m sure they couldn’t be absolutely certain. The way Carter and Jones regarded each other when they got here indicated they might have slipped up, though neither man said anything.

Week twelve started with ten trainees. We were to take our end-of-training test at the end of the week. The instructors were driving us harder than ever, and each step was a challenge to make it. Some of the other trainees and I took hot sauce from the breakfast table and rubbed it into our eyes to keep them open. Now we trained on teamwork courses. Each drill was designed so that if we didn’t work together, we could not complete them. On the day before graduation of this
evolution
, we were put through our qualifying test. It was a combination of strength, endurance and sheer stubbornness, combined with a need to show strong teamwork skills. If we graduated, there would be a banquet prepared for us. Afterward we’d be transported to the next evolution of training. The encourager hinted this phase of training would be more technical.

The qualifying test for graduation started at zero five hundred. We started running with a full pack and rifle, a log on each shoulder and tied to four other men. When it seemed it couldn’t get any worse, they made us run across loose, rocky terrain. Each man was tied to the others, and it took a maximum level of teamwork to keep from stumbling. We had to be careful to stop and allow a teammate to recover when he stumbled. Finally, after we ran for what seemed forever, we were able to cast off the accursed logs. Next we were to climb Diablo Point, a sheer rock face and the hardest climb we’d seen yet. We all made it up to the top alive and repelled down the other side. It was now noon. Usually we trained in the shade or inside, but not today. We were informed that the end of our course was twenty klicks across the desert. We had exactly four hours to make it, and we couldn’t leave anyone behind. SFC Ironsides issued us each a full canteen. With a full pack, sniper rifle and canteen in the hot sun, we started our quest. If anyone fell behind, the only way to finish the course was to drag or carry him with you. I was determined that if I had to drag all nine of them, I was going to finish. We made it just less than four hours. Thankfully I didn’t have to carry anyone.

At the finish of the course, SDI MSG Darkside begrudgingly admitted that we’d completed this phase of the course and didn’t make any disparaging remarks about us failing the next course. Then he gave us our first clue. “You men have completed the first phase of training for the ASDC, American Space Defense Corps. You’ll be briefed on the nature of your service in your next phase of training. A graduation banquet has been prepared for you inside. Lights out tonight will be at nineteen hundred. You may sleep in until zero six hundred tomorrow. After breakfast in the morning, you’ll pack your gear and the bus will take you to the ASDC Academy. Enjoy your meal.”

The first thing that I mentally calculated was that we were being offered eleven hours of sleep! My bunk’s siren call beckoned, but not before I ate my fill. We went inside to find a spread that would make any restaurant proud: roast beef, chicken, potatoes, rice, gravy, hot fresh baked bread laden with butter, vegetables of all sorts and fruit tarts, pies and cakes. And then I saw it—a pan with greasy cheeseburgers and grilled onions. The cheeseburgers called my name and my stomach rumbled a reply. My body obeyed the call with no conscious effort of my own. Like and animal snare, the cheeseburgers were set to take me prisoner. Inwardly a ravening wolf, I knew I’d be very sick if I didn’t eat slowly and stop when I got full. I shared that with the others, and some listened, some didn’t. It took all of my discipline to quit. Near starvation had given me a hoarding mentality. Taking an extra helping of roast beef, I made sandwiches out of some rolls. Wrapping them up in a napkin, I took them back to the barracks for later. No one seemed to notice, and the instructors seemed not to care. At least three men ate until they puked their guts out. I couldn’t wait until bedtime for the luxury of five precious hours of extra sleep.

I hit the sack at nineteen hundred and slept until midnight, woke up to use the head and finished off my stash of roast beef sandwiches. Afterward I slept like a dead man until zero six hundred. The mood was upbeat as we packed to leave. After a breakfast of eggs and sausage, biscuits, gravy and pancakes, with real maple syrup, we met the bus. I must confess that most of us shoved extra biscuits and sausages into our pockets. We’d all developed a concentration camp mentality about food.

Our driver was SGT Foster this time, but I was too tired to care. We loaded into a white panel truck with no passenger windows and were driven back into the desert. I dozed off as soon as we left the training center. How long I slept, I didn’t know. Since there were no side windows on the panel truck my only clue of the time of day was seeing the stages of the sun and night through the driver’s front windshield, and our breaking for meals. None of us had any watches. It didn’t matter. Most of us slept part, if not the whole trip. I awoke and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. I was hungry again and wolfed down the sausage and biscuits I’d hidden in my pockets earlier. Real strength was beginning to seep back into my body, not the reserve autopilot strength loaned to my sheer will, but real physical strength. I was beginning to feel like the worst was over, and I could handle whatever they threw at me. Even so, I was apprehensive about where we were going.

ASDC PILOT’S SCHOOL

How long we traveled into the desert or which direction, I didn’t know. We finally arrived at the mouth of a box canyon. The panel truck didn’t allow us any side view, but we could see through the front windshield. We passed two guard towers as we entered its mouth. I straightened up and looked over the dash to see a sign pass by that read,
PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO TRESPASSING
. As our van entered by a checkpoint, the guard examined our driver’s credentials and let him pass. Finally, we arrived at a large building and the van rolled to a stop. “Get out of the van, and wait here,” SGT Foster commanded as he walked off.

Ten minutes later we were greeted by Sergeant Major Lionheart. “Fall in,” he commanded.

After what seemed to be forever, an officer with a uniform I didn’t recognize arrived and addressed us. “My name is General Edwards. You’re all here because you’re the best, you love your country, and you don’t think the war should be over until the enemy is defeated. I’m giving you all a chance to finish some unfinished business. You’re now cadets in the ASDC and will be trained as pilots. When your training is complete, you’ll be given an officer’s rank and new orders. May God be with you.”

SGM Lionheart addressed us. “Follow me.” We were taken to our barracks and given a classroom schedule. It was more like officers training than the hell we’d just experienced.

The next six weeks were very similar to Naval Aviator School, but the ships were more like hovercraft with awesome weapons I didn’t think existed. The physical training here was different. The training facility had twelve floors. Every morning and afternoon we stretched and spent an hour climbing up and down stairs. Each session was followed up with a half an hour of aerobic training. We were allowed a full seven hours of sleep a night and fed better. Slowly I was beginning to regain my strength.

Each of us was issued an honest-to-God sniper rifle, which we practiced with an hour a day on the range. The rifle I was issued was a Winchester .308 caliber, bolt-action with a very expensive Leopold scope. We were warned to be very careful with that weapon and not to drop it. In class, we were taught to compensate for differences in atmospheric pressure, temperature, windage and gravity. Some of the atmospheric pressure readings and temperatures were off the charts.

We also had classes in both Russian language and Soviet tactics. Training also included maintaining and caring for a flight suit that was more like a space suit. Finally, in the last two weeks we were taught the terrain and particulars of Luna and Mars. We were informed we’d engage the enemy as an elite fighting unit, which was highly classified.

I couldn’t sleep for a while after hitting the rack the night before graduation.

“Brown,” I whispered.

“Yeah, Smith.”

“Are you apprehensive about tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” He was on the top bunk; I was on the bottom. He peeked over the side the bunk to see my face. “Graduation is tomorrow. We get our orders after the ceremony.”

“It doesn’t seem real. All this talk about fighting on Luna and Mars…”

“From what I hear, if you’re former Navy, you get assigned to Mars. The commander there is a former SEAL and seems to prefer sailors working for him.”

“Mars! This still seems like a dream. But it has to be real. Nobody would go through all this effort and trouble, to play a joke on us. Still, it’s hard to take it all in. By the way,” I whispered, “my name is LTJG Eugene J. Bordelon from Rapides Station, LA. If I die, I want somebody to know who I was.”

“Same here. LTJG Tobias R. Jackson, McComb, MS.”

“Joseph.”

“What?”

“My middle name is Joseph, what’s yours?”

“Romeo. If you tell anyone, you won’t have to worry about the Russians.” He paused for effect. “I’ll kill you, myself.”

The following day, dressed in our new class A uniforms, we graduated in a solemn ceremony and were presented with a sword. The MC of the graduation ceremony, BG Edwards informed us we were shoving off at zero nine hundred the next morning for our new duty station.

We were then stripped of our personal identity. BG Edwards instructed us that we were to drop our regular names and use call signs only. He explained that early in the solar conflicts the Soviets had learned of some of their names. The Soviets traced them back to the pilot’s families, and they suffered retribution. “For this purpose you’re officially dead. You’ll choose a name to be referred to from now on. If you select a name you later grow to dislike, you may change it with your CO’s permission, or at promotion time.” My fellow officers chose their names. My good friend from the Academy “Brown” became Ricochet. Other names like Phantom, Stone Cold, Hitchhiker, Joker, and Grim Reaper were chosen. When the colonel got to me I just replied “Cowboy, sir.”

“Your tour is four years. For Luna, you get two weeks leave a year. For Mars, you get one month’s leave on Earth every two years. You’ll be sent home at the end of your enlistment, depending on the distance from the Earth at the time. You don’t ship off when Earth’s orbit makes for a long trip home. If your service is over and you’re not re-enlisting, then you have the option of working as a noncombatant until the next transport leaves. Food is a precious commodity and all of us do something to earn their keep, even if they’re waiting on a transport home.”

Tobias and I packed our seabags that night and celebrated at the o-club with our graduating class with a few beers. The next morning after breakfast we were ushered to the transport freighter
Odyssey
. It looked different from anything I’d seen before. There were twelve graduates, young lieutenants that boarded the vessel. We were instructed to put on our spacesuits. I began to get an uneasy and at the same time exhilarated feeling. Just then the transport freighter pilot interrupted my thoughts. He was at least thirty-five years old. He seemed to have a confidence born from being past the new stage and settled into the familiar routine. His name was CPT Ripsnort, which I thought was unusual.