John Scalzi - Old Man's War

Beta Pyxis III flickered momentarily and then disappeared, leaving Higgee as the sole focus of attention. "I hope you all took my advice to have fun in this last week," he said. "Now your work begins. In one hour, you will be transported off the Henry Hudson to begin your training. There are several training bases here; your assignments are being transmitted to your BrainPals. You may return to your rooms to pack your personal belongings; don't bother with clothing, it will be provided on base. Your BrainPal will inform you where to assemble for transport.

"Good luck, recruits. May God protect you, and may you serve humanity with distinction, and with pride."

And then Lieutenant Colonel Higgee saluted us. I didn't know what to do. Neither did anyone else.

"You have your orders," Lieutenant Colonel Higgee said. "You are dismissed."

The seven of us stood together, crowding around the seats in which we just sat.

"They certainly don't leave much time for good-byes," Jesse said.

"Check your computers," Harry said. "Maybe some of us are going to the same bases."

We checked. Harry and Susan were reporting to Alpha Base; Jesse to Beta. Maggie and Thomas were Gamma; Alan and I were Delta.

"They're breaking up the Old Farts," Thomas said.

"Don't get all misty," Susan said. "You knew it was coming."

"I'll get misty if I want," Thomas said. "I don't know anyone else. I'll even miss you, you old bag."

"We're forgetting something," Harry said. "We may not be together, but we can still keep in touch. We have our BrainPals. All we have to do is create a mailbox for each other. The 'Old Farts' clubhouse."

"That works here," Jesse said. "But I don't know about when we're in active duty. We could be on the other side of the galaxy from each other."

"The ships still communicate with each other through Phoenix," Alan said. "Each ship has skip drones that go to Phoenix to pick up orders and to communicate ship status. They carry mail, too. It might take a while for our news to reach each other, but it'll still reach us."

"Like sending messages in bottles," Maggie said. "Bottles with superior firepower."

"Let's do it," Harry said. "Let's be our own little family. Let's look out for each other, no matter where we are."

"Now you're getting misty, too," Susan said.

"I'm not worried about missing you, Susan," Harry said. "I'm taking you with me. It's the rest of these guys I'll miss."

"A pact, then," I said. "To stay the Old Farts, through thick and thin. Look out, universe." I held out my hand. One by one, each of the Old Farts put their hand on mine.

"Christ," Susan said as she put her hand on the pile. "Now I'm misty."

"It'll pass," Alan said. Susan hit him lightly with her other hand.

We stayed that way as long as we could.

On a far plain on Beta Pyxis III, Beta Pyxis, the local sun, was just beginning its eastward journey up the sky; the composition of the atmosphere gave the sky an aqua tint, greener than Earth's but still nominally blue. On the rolling plain, grasses waved purple and orange in the morning breeze; birdlike animals with two sets of wings could be seen playing the sky, testing out the currents and eddies with wild, chaotic swoops and dives. This was our first morning on a new world, the first I or any of my former shipmates had ever set upon. It was beautiful. If there hadn't been a large, angry master sergeant on it, bellowing in my ear, it would have been just about perfect.

Alas, there was.

"Christ on a Popsicle stick," Master Sergeant Antonio Ruiz declared after he had glared at the sixty of us in his recruit platoon, standing (we hoped) more or less at attention on the tarmac of Delta Base's shuttleport. "We have clearly just lost the battle for the goddamn universe. I look at you people and the words 'tremendously fucked' leap right out of my goddamned skull. If you're the best that the Earth has got to offer, it's time we bend over and get a tentacle right up the ass."

This got an involuntary chuckle from several recruits. Master Sergeant Antonio Ruiz could have come from central casting. He was exactly what you expected from a drill instructor—large, angry and colorfully abusive right from the get-go. No doubt in the next few seconds, he would get into one of the amused recruit's faces, hurl obscenities and demand one hundred push-ups. This is what you get from watching seventy-five years' worth of war dramas.

"Ha, ha, ha," Master Sergeant Antonio Ruiz said, back at us. "Don't think I don't know what you're thinking, you dumb shits. I know you're enjoying my performance at the moment. How delightful! I'm just like all those drill instructors you've seen in the movies! Aren't I just the fucking quaint one!"

The amused chuckles had come to a stop. That last bit was not in the script.

"You don't understand, " Master Sergeant Antonio Ruiz said. "You're under the impression that I'm talking like this because this is just something drill instructors are supposed to do. You're under the impression that after a few weeks of training, my gruff but fair façade will begin to slip and I will show some inkling of being impressed with the lot of you, and that at the end of your training, you'll have earned my grudging respect. You're under the impression I'll think fondly of you while you're off making the universe safe for humanity, secure in the knowledge I've made you better fighting men and women. Your impression, ladies and gentlemen, is completely and irrevocably fucked."

Master Sergeant Antonio Ruiz stepped forward and paced down the line. "Your impression is fucked, because unlike you, I have actually been out in the universe. I have seen what we're up against. I have seen men and women that I knew personally turned into hot fucking chunks of meat that could still manage to scream. On my first tour of duty, my commanding officer was turned into a goddamn alien lunch buffet. I watched as the fuckers grabbed him, pinned him to the ground, sliced out his internal organs, passed them out and gobbled them down—and slid back under the ground before any of us could do a goddamned thing."

A stifled giggle from somewhere behind me. Master Sergeant Antonio Ruiz stopped and cocked his head. "Oh. One of you thinks I'm kidding . One of you dumb motherfuckers always does. That's why I keep this around. Activate now," he said, and suddenly in front of each of us a video screen appeared; it took me a disorienting second before I realized Ruiz had somehow managed to activate my BrainPal remotely, switching on a video feed. The feed appeared to be taken from a small helmet camera. We saw several soldiers hunkered down in a foxhole, discussing plans for the next day's travel. Then one of the soldiers stopped talking for a second and slammed a palm down onto the dirt. He glanced up fearfully and yelled "incoming" a split second before the ground erupted beneath him.

What happened next happened so quickly that not even the instinctive, panicked turn of the camera's owner was fast enough to miss it all. It was not pleasant. In the real world, someone was vomiting, ironically matching the action of the camera's owner. Blessedly, the video feed switched off right after that.

"I'm not so funny now, am I?" Master Sergeant Antonio Ruiz said, mockingly. "I'm not that happy fucking stereotypical drill instructor anymore, am I? You're not in a military comedy anymore, are you? Welcome to the fucking universe! The universe is a fucked-up place, my friends. And I'm not talking to you like this because I'm putting on some amusing little drill instructor routine. That man who was sliced and diced was among the best fighting men I have ever had the privilege of knowing. None of you are his equal. And yet you see what happened to him . Think what will happen to you . I'm talking to you like this because I sincerely believe, from the bottom of my heart, that if you're the best humanity can do, we are magnificently and totally fucked. Do you believe me?"