Recruit

Chapter 9

Jack woke in his bunk, his cuts from the flogging covered in a sticky ointment that stuck to the rough bed sheets. It peeled away with a scratchy, scraping pain as he sat up. It was the start of a day of rest and recuperation for the squad. Hacker had delivered a stack of ration bars. Crippin had delivered the news that they were free for one day.

Torent stood at the side of Jack’s bed and pushed him back down. A group of Torent’s allies stood around.

“You are trouble, Forge,” Torent said.

“Give him another thrashing?” one of Torent’s gang said.

Torent stared at Jack with murder in his eye. “No,” Torent conceded reluctantly. “Give him a chance to recover. I need my squad fit if we are going to beat those Chitin scum tomorrow.”

“But he don’t want to kill no Chits,” the ally said. “He’s a coward.”

“He’s a good shot,” Torent said. “He can help us win.”

“If he decides to fight.”

“He will,” Torent said, pushing his fist against Jack’s shoulder and pressing him down to the rough bunk. “He will or I will snap his kraving fingers off.”

The bunkhouse was rowdy, the recruits inventing games and blowing off steam. Jack carefully pulled his recruit uniform on over his lacerated skin. He left the bunkhouse to wander around the complex.

Crossing the parade ground, Jack walked toward the hill. He climbed to the summit and looked around the entire camp for the first time. The training ground below was empty and still. The complex of buildings around the bunkhouse included the small buildings that served as Crippin’s residence. And the last building in the complex was covered in antenna and was most likely a communication office.

Jack spotted one other building set away from the training ground and the small complex. It was not far off. Jack could have made it in a few minutes at full sprint if he had been fit, but in his worn and battered condition, he knew it would be a long yet manageable walk.

The training moon was barren in every direction. In the hour it took Jack to wander over to the building, the terrain didn’t change at all. It was all rocks and dust, the same dark, barren rock. No life except for the recruits, Crippin and Hacker, and whatever other vermin the transport craft had brought to the small moon.

The building was rundown like everything else Jack had seen, apart from the brand-new pulse rifle he’d been fighting with the day before. The walls of the building were the same composite that the military spacecraft were made of but it was pitted and cracked. Jack rubbed his hand over it and its surface flaked off and crumbled away to dust.

Walking around the perimeter, Jack came across a window, a transparent section of the same composite material. It was also cracked and flaking away to the touch. Inside, Jack saw a series of workbenches. There were dust covers thrown over some hidden piles of what looked like machinery.

This had been a maintenance shed, or maybe a mechanic training shop once. Now it was a forgotten casualty of a war that had cost mankind everything except their tenuous existence. Jack moved around the building, looking for a way in.

The door was shut but unlocked. Whoever had mothballed and closed this facility had not expected anyone to come and interfere with it. Jack slid the door open.

The air inside was musty. It was dark and dusty, shards of light cutting through the dust that swirled about, kicked up by Jack’s boots.

Throwing aside one of the covers, Jack found a black military drone. He recognized the model from his brother’s virtual reality games. It was a weaponized reconnaissance drone used to scout ahead of the main force. Its hull was cracked and dusty. Similar drones had been used by university campus security and by local police forces, before they had all been requisitioned to assist in the fight against the Chitins.

Jack walked around the drone to the service hatch. He pressed and clawed at it. He knew this model of drone and it would be a moment of escape from his brutal military training to investigate this machine. The panel popped open.

The biomech circuitry was putrid. It spewed out over the side of the hull and onto the toes of Jack’s boots. It stank of rotten meat and sour milk.

Backing away from the drone and the stink, Jack threw aside more of the dust covers, looking for any abandoned equipment. There were several small surveillance drones, a supply delivery drone, and parts for the weaponized reconnaissance drone. Jack picked through the parts for anything usable. He realized that it was the remains of at least two other reconnaissance drones that had been stripped for parts. He found a section of hull that showed signs of energy weapon damage. The composite hull was blistered around the entry wound and the edge was bubbled to a brittle foam. It looked like the work of a Chitin plasma spear.

Jack found a collection of power cells for the drones. All were spent, but at least one was clean. Jack cracked open the seal and took a sniff. It was healthy, even though it was unpowered. Jack dug around and found some cleaning equipment and set about cleaning the putrid biomech circuitry of the military drone.

Sitting in the dust and debris of the workshop, Jack lost himself in the work. He cleaned and primed the reconnaissance drone. He studied his work in the failing light. It looked good. He’d found the parts he needed. He really wanted to check his work. All he needed was a power supply, and he knew where he could find one.

The door to the workshop slid open. The rattling noise and scrapping surprised Jack. He turned and jumped to his feet.

“Lieutenant Crippin, sir,” Jack said. He stood at attention. He was going to get tazed for this, at the very least.

“I guessed it would be you out here. Stand at ease, recruit.” Crippin looked around the workshop. “I had to flog you,” she said, walking around the cleaned and repaired drone. “You are right, of course, we attacked them first, but I can’t have you saying that stuff in front of everyone.” Crippin opened the service hatch on the drone and looked inside. “We used to be so sophisticated. We’ve thrown everything at these Chits. We’ve lost mech and manpower. We are falling back all the time. They are just too difficult to hit and they find it too easy to hit us. We lost the Destroyer Libra today.”

Crippin walked toward the door. She hesitated. “My last group of recruits was on that ship. Go to bed, Forge. Busy day tomorrow.”