The Chaplain's War (9 page)

CHAPTER 14

Earth, 2153 A.D.

THEY CALLED IT RECEPTION.

As if I’d been invited to something you do after a wedding.

Only there was no cake.

And certainly no ice cream.

Sweat gradually trickled down into the small of my back, underneath my t-shirt. My arms and shoulders were on fire from being made to hold both of my stuffed-to-the-gills travel bags, while myself and five hundred other Fleet recruits stood at the position of attention outside the main processing hall of Armstrong Field.

If there was a hottest, most-humid, least-agreeable spot in North America, Armstrong Field seemed to have been built right in the middle of it. Sol’s yellow-white rays quietly baked the acres of concrete in front of the hall, and I had to grit my teeth against the heat on my brow and the agony of having stood completely still—in the exact same place—for what had seemed like thirty pointless minutes.

People patrolled the edges of the formation—each wearing green and brown pixelated camouflage uniforms and high-topped simulated brown leather boots. They answered to names like
Corporal
and
Sergeant
and they screamed at anyone who dared to address them in any other way. Literally screamed. Loud enough I was sure none of them would have a working larynx at the end of the day.

The victims—all of us gathered from across the globe—had all been rooted to the spot, immediately following our disembarkation from a flotilla of buses which had come from Armstrong’s busy aerospace field.

There had been no warning. One moment we’d all been on the buses, chattering and grab-assing, the next we’d been herded off and funneled into one of several gauntlets of very angry Fleet soldiers—men and women who seemed to have raised cursing to a high art. Men and women who looked as if they might literally burn a person to the ground, just from the raw hate in their steely eyes.

We recruits were demeaned, hollered at, cuffed, slapped, and even punched until everyone was arrayed in a huge rectangle, one hundred columns wide and five rows deep. We were not allowed to drop our bags. Anyone unfortunate enough to drop his or her bags—or anything else on his or her person—was promptly surrounded by several blister-tongued Fleet soldiers who verbally pummeled the perpetrator until he or she had secured his or her things, and returned to the proper state of being scared shitless.

For the first time, I wondered if I’d made a very serious mistake.

One of the main doors to the hall popped open, and a gorilla of a man walked out. He took his time, carefully walking down the steps, the tops of his boots gleaming like mirrors in the sun, and his hat—which I would later learn was technically called a
soft cap
—perched at a crisp forward angle on top of his nearly-shaved head.

A small brim shaded his Neanderthal brow from the sun, and in the center of the hat were three chevrons perched atop three concave half-circles, with a diamond in the middle. This insignia was replicated over the man’s name on his breast—KLAUSKI—and all of the other soldiers became immediately aware of his presence as he approached the mass formation.

The sergeants and corporals ceased movement, and ran to what seemed to be pre-designated positions around the outside of the rectangle of recruits.

The one named Klauski stopped dead-center before the rectangle, slowly scanned his head and eyes from left to right and back again, then clicked his heels together, raised his chin to the sky, and bellowed, “KUHMPAHNAAAAAYYY!”

At once, all the other soldiers flicked their heads towards the recruits and repeated the same yell.

“AHHTEN-
SHUN!
” Klauski bawled.

The sergeants and corporals snapped rigid.

Since I and the other recruits had already been standing at the position of attention for far too long, we did nothing.

“Good morning, recruits,” said the gorilla-man.

“GOOD MORNING, FIRST SERGEANT,” shouted the soldiers in unison.

When we recruits said nothing—heads and eyes looking frantically up and down the rows to determine what the eff it was we were supposed to do now—Klauski cleared his throat and tried again.

“I SAID, GOOD MORNING, RECRUITS!”

As a gaggle, our rectangle blurted, “GOOSHMOURNINFUSAGNT . . .”

Several disapproving whistles and
tsk-tsks
came from the sergeants and corporals around the formation—their heads shaking knowingly.

The first sergeant’s razor-straight, thin-lipped mouth curled up slightly at the corners.

“Now, recruits, that was just piss-poor. And I do mean piss, piss, piss-poor. Y’all gonna have to git’ with the program around here real fast, before I have to go and dirty my nice bright boots on your stinky little asses. Now effin’ sound the eff off like you mean it.
Good morning, recruits!
”

“GOOD MORNING, FIRST SERGEANT!”

“Okay, better. Can y’all hear me?”

“YESFUSAGINT . . .”

“Bull, try again. I said,
can you all hear me?
”

“
YES, FIRST SERGEANT!
”

“Right. Now that’s the kind of
volume
I should hear coming out of your effin’ mouths any time any noncommissioned officer is standing up in front of you like this. Doesn’t matter if she’s got two stripes or six. You render respect and you clear your skinny little throats with some gawtdamned articulation and uniformity. Is that understood, recruits?”

“YES, FIRST SERGEANT!”

“Good. Now, welcome to 69th Reception Battalion, Armstrong Field. Otherwise known as The Big Sixty-Nine. You all are gonna be here for the next six to eight days as we fill up in preparation for Pickup Day. During that time my NCOs and I will do everything in our power to properly prepare you for your entry into Induction Service Training, also known as Basic. But before we start I want to make something abundantly clear to you people.

“The moment you stepped on this installation, you ceased to be civilians. All those e-documents you signed with your recruiter? All that crap about standing in front of the flag before you left to come here? Well, now the rubber meets the road. You’re here for a specific purpose, and there is no time for second thoughts. You are committed. Most of you should have already realized that. But if you didn’t before, start thinking about that now. It will save you—and me—a lot of heartache and assache. Do I make myself clear, recruits?”

“YES, FIRST SERGEANT!”

“Your mamas and your daddies and your aunties and uncles and grampies and grannies ain’t here to rescue you anymore. And I don’t care if you’re eighteen or thirty-eight, it’s time to grow the eff up, grow an effin’ pair between your legs—females too—and learn how to walk, talk, act, shoot, fight, and be a soldier in the Fleet.”

“YES, FIRST SERGEANT!”

“Good. You’re starting to get the beat of things, a little. And believe me, there is a beat. And a rhythm. You’re gonna find that in virtually everything you do in the Fleet. Look for it. Use it. The harder you try to cling to the old you that showed up here today, the harder it’s going to be. But the more you let the rhythm take you—the more you let yourself mold to and grow with the change—the easier it will become and the less stressful this is all going to seem.

“Because make no mistake, recruits,
stress
is what Induction Service Training is all about. I can see it in your faces right now. It’s effin’ hot. Your arms are about to fall off. Your feet and legs are starting to get numb. You’re wondering why the hell you had to wait out here for so long just to listen to me jaw-jack. It’s part of the program, people. Part of the program. And you can either resist the program, or git’ with the program. Now what do you want to do, recruits?”

“GET WITH THE PROGRAM, FIRST SERGEANT!”

“Gawtdamn, now that’s what I want to hear! Okay, enough of me running my mouth. In front of you is the building you will call home until Pickup Day. As soon as you enter that building, at no time will you leave it unless told to do so by an NCO or an officer, is that understood?”

“YES, FIRST SERGEANT!”

“You will obey every command given to you, and if you do not understand the command given to you, you will request clarification in a proper and respectful manner, is
that
understood?”

“YES, FIRST SERGEANT!”

“Are there any questions for me at this time?”

The rectangle remained silent.

“No questions then? Alright. Time to whip a little training on your asses. You are now standing in what is called a mass formation. Most of the time you’ll be broken down by platoons, but once in a while it’s convenient for us to line you up like this as a large group. There are certain commands you will be given—whether in mass, or in platoon—and you must follow those commands in unison. Do you understand?”

“YES, FIRST SERGEANT,” shouted the formation.

The first sergeant laughed, and the other NCOs laughed with him.

“Ch’yeah right, we’ll see about that. Okay, here it comes . . .
Companaaaayyy!
”

The NCOs surrounding the formation snapped their heads towards the recruits and repeated the preparatory command.

“Right-FACE!”

I did my best to mechanically rotate ninety degrees to starboard, bringing me face-to-face with another recruit who had turned the wrong way. An immediate chorus of hoots, catcalls, and profanity issued from the surrounding pack of NCOs, as recruits who had turned left—or not turned at all—blushed and shuffled their feet until everyone was facing in the same direction.

“Jesus H,” said the first sergeant, shaking his head and smiling. “It’s gonna be a
real
fun group. Real fun. File from the left . . . column left . . . MARCH!”

None of the recruits moved.

“I said
march,
gawtdammit!”

Suddenly people were bumping into people as half the formation lurched forward and the other half stayed where it was. Like buzzsaws, the surrounding NCOs descended into the throng, screaming, insulting, kicking, hitting, and knocking bags to the ground. The recruit behind me barged into my back full-force and I dropped both bags, suddenly relieved to be rid of them but then regretting it as a female corporal appeared and slapped the back of my head.

“PICK UP THOSE EFFING BAGS RIGHT NOW, RECRUIT!”

“Okay, okay, I only dropped them because—” (slap)

“SHUT YOUR HOLE, RECRUIT, IS THAT HOW YOU SPEAK TO A NONCOMMISSIONED OFFICER?”

“No, ma’am, I—” (slap)

“
MA’AM?
MY HELL, RECRUIT, YOU’VE BEEN HERE LESS THAN ONE EARTH HOUR AND YOU’RE ALREADY EFFED UP BEYOND BELIEF!”

“Yes, ma—errr, yes, Corporal. I mean,
no, Corporal!
”

“I’M WAITING, RECRUIT! PICK UP YOUR BAGS AND GET BACK IN FORMATION!”

I quickly retrieved my bags—happy to not receive a fourth whack on the back of the head, and got back in line while others did likewise. In two minutes the entire mass formation was once again standing at attention, facing the first sergeant, who no longer seemed to be smiling.

“Wow,” he said. “That was just effin’ ugly. Y’all act like you just got out of the nursery. Am I gonna have to come around every day and wipe ass on y’all? Am I?”

“NO, FIRST SERGEANT!”

“I hope not, because from what I’ve seen in the last five minutes
none of you
has what it takes to ship out on Pickup Day. To be Fleet you have to
think.
And right now I can tell that not a gawtdamned single one of you is doing any thinking. You’re all just going along and pretending to do whatever the eff it seems like you’re supposed to do, and hoping nobody gets up in your ass about it. Listen, Fleet doesn’t want dummies in its ranks. I’m not a dummy, and none of these other NCOs is a dummy. Dummies get people killed, even in training. Or should I say,
especially
in training. We don’t need dummies. So I might as well just outprocess the whole effin’ five hundred of yah and put your butts back on the runway, right?”

“NO, FIRST SERGEANT!”

“Prove it. Someone raise their gawtdamned hand and tell me what was the first thing you all did wrong just now.”

A hand went up meekly, fifty down and third rank.

“You,” said the first sergeant.

“We didn’t follow the command correctly?”