T. McCarthy - The Legionnaires

I also learned that Jennifer and I were the only Americans in our group. Amy Tipton was from London, and had joined the Legion after doing time for prostitution, thought it would be a good way to finally do something worth bragging about. And there was Juliette (I can’t remember her last name), a Canadian whose boyfriend regularly beat the crap out of her—so badly that the last time out of the hospital she hadn’t bothered going home, and had had a friend bring her passport to the airport. There were a few others whose names have faded entirely, but they could be distilled into a few types: the ones who were crazy, the ones who were running from something and had no place left to go, and the ones who thought the Legion would be a romantic getaway. There weren’t many in this last group. The first day had cured most girls of any notion that Nimes would be fun.

Then there were the Russians, a type unto themselves. Whatever the corporal had said to them (we also learned that he was originally from Russia) kept them from retaliating, but they maintained their distance and refused to listen to me. In fact, it was for this very reason that the corporal called me to his office one day, where I stood in the heat and waited for his acknowledgment. It was easier now. Standing. Three weeks in two g’s had finally whittled down my weight and built up muscles so that an uneasy equilibrium had developed.

Five minutes passed before he looked up. “You are failing.”

“I don’t understand, Corporal.”

“I’ve given you three weeks to take over the platoon, to demonstrate your leadership skills. And you’ve shown me nothing.”

I didn’t argue because I knew he was right. The Russians had undermined my efforts at every chance, despite the fact that whenever they failed—refused to prepare for inspections, showed up late for mess, or moved just a little too slowly during training—it brought them punishment.

“You have until the end of the day to change things. If you don’t, I’m putting one of the Russian girls in charge. Dismissed.” I began to turn when he looked up again. “One last thing. Have the platoon assemble on the parade ground in ten minutes, we’re doing something new today, something happened on one of our far outposts so we’ll have to accelerate the schedule.”

“Corporal?” I saw it then, that he was preoccupied and that his ashtray had filled with cigarette butts. He never smoked.

“We’re at war. Chinese forces attacked the Korean Colony on Koryo, where we have an outpost. Dismissed.”

War. Suddenly it was too much and as I strode back to the barracks I felt light-headed, overwhelmed by the thought that we were four weeks through basic already and in eight more we’d be one step closer to a real conflict. But what conflict? How had it all started? Clouds gathered and jagged lightning playing over Nimes’s volcanic peaks, making me wonder what it would be like. Real fighting. None of us had been in it before, and the closest thing we had experienced was in a movie theater. Except for the Russians. Whatever had happened to us in our past lives, they had seen the hardest times, would be the most prepared—mentally, anyway—for what waited. I needed them. The problem was that by the end of the day, I suspected that they would be in charge, because I had all but failed as their leader.

Word traveled fast. When I pushed into the barracks Jennifer looked up and the other girls fell silent.

“Is it true?” she asked. “War?”

I nodded. “That’s what they say. Suit up. We’re to report to the parade ground in nine minutes.”

Everyone started moving except for the Russians. Their new leader, a short stocky girl named Toly, grinned at me, her teeth yellowed by nicotine. She sat on her bunk with two others and played cards, ignoring the order I had just given. I sensed the tension in the air— knew something was about to happen—and for a moment I considered repeating the order, but then shook my head, thinking to hell with it . I leaped at Toly before she could react.

The impact shook my jaw. Toly flew from the bed and slammed onto the concrete as I struggled to stay on top, suspecting that she was the better fighter—had to be. Whom had I ever fought? But it didn’t matter on Nimes, the planet itself had taught us this lesson during our training sessions: in higher g’s, all you had to do was get on top and stay there, letting gravity do most of the work. Toly grunted. One of her fists swung at me from the side, so wide that I didn’t see it until the moment of impact. Someone told me later what happened. As soon as I got my bearings again and found that I was still on top, I screamed, and slammed my forehead down onto her nose, not just once but again and again until blood squirted from both nostrils. I kept doing it. Finally Toly stopped moving and Jennifer pulled me off. At first I expected Toly’s friends to come at me, to defend one of their own, but instead they smiled.

“You’re tougher than we thought,” one of them said, extending her hand. “Francine.”

“What the Christ?” asked Jennifer. She was just as confused as me; neither of us grasped what just happened.

“My mother was French, not Russian,” the girl explained, clearly misunderstanding the source of our confusion. “So…Francine.”

The others picked up Toly and splashed water on her face as I checked my watch. Five minutes left. Toly came to and barked an order at them in Russian, and even though I didn’t know what she said, it was obvious that they were getting ready.

“Not bad,” she said. “Maybe we’ll listen to you for a while.”

I shook my head. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s just our way, from the camps. We won’t follow a coward, and you got lucky when you killed our friend, it wasn’t a real test. Now we know that you can fight, and it’s OK. Five minutes, Grandmother?”

“Four,” I said, and then caught myself. “What’s this Grandmother crap?’

The Russians all giggled and it sent chills down my spine—to see the toughness reflected in their tattoos and scars, their nicotine stains, and then to hear a girlish giggle as if they were really just a bunch of teenagers. “It’s what we call you. We’ve never seen a soldier so old.”

At first I shook my head, wondering if I needed to nip this one in the bud, but there wasn’t time and I still had to get suited. We barely made it. Grandmother, I thought. Well, they could’ve called me worse things…

By the time I climbed up the ladder and into the bunker, the bots had run out of ammunition. The first mine went off, sending a tremor through the floor, and a flash of bright light filled the room with a yellow glow. It wasn’t long before the children were all screaming.

“All of you,” I shouted. “Quiet!” When they had settled down I continued, my words punctuated by constant explosions in the minefields. “Hold hands. Good.” I pointed to two of my closest girls. “You and you, get them down the ladder now .”

One by one the children passed me on their way to the floor hatch, all of them tightly gripping the hands of their friends. I don’t know what came over me. When Phillip moved by I grabbed him and held the child against my armor, then unlocked my helmet so I could whisper in his ear. He smelled like kids’ shampoo, and the thought of my son nearly made me scream.

“It’s OK, Phillip, we’ll make it. I’ll take care of you, you won’t get hurt.”

“Grandmother?” One of the girls waited next to the hatch and by the time I looked up all of the other children had already gone, the other Legionnaire leading the way down. She called out every few seconds, “Nobody look down, move slowly, hand over hand. That’s it!”