Christopher Nuttall - A Learning Experience

But that might have gotten me killed , he thought. The last report from Saudi Arabia had suggested that a number of hired bodyguards had been slaughtered by the Saudi National Guard. No one was quite sure why. Or I might never have seen the starship .

He looked around the training complex, thoughtfully. The owners had designed it to simulate every possible field of combat, from house-to-house fighting to jungle or naval combat. It wasn’t too surprising, he knew. They’d supplied guards for freighters cruising near the coast of Africa as well as private security teams. The former Marines or SEALs who made up such teams wouldn’t want to let their skills slip. Besides, lacking the endless government bureaucracy, the company had been able to adapt, react and overcome quicker than some aspects of the Pentagon. Rumour had it that they even paid bonuses for soldiers who spoke foreign languages.

“So tell me,” he said. “Is this suitable for our purposes?”

“More or less,” Romford confirmed. “We can run basic medical checks here, give everyone a translation implant, then start running through training cycles until we get used to working as a team. We’ll probably run into problems when we start recruiting people from outside the United States, but we will overcome them. It will help, I think, that we won’t give a shit about political correctness.”

Steve nodded. The agreement with the President, which was currently being examined by a select group of American politicians, would effectively turn the training camp into a private fiefdom. As long as the soldiers entered willingly and signed the right contracts, they could be put through the most intensive training possible without worrying about bureaucratic rules and regulations. Knowing the dangers of abuse, Steve had been careful to hire training officers he knew and trusted… with the private thought that he could do almost anything to a training officer who failed his trust.

Something lingering in boiling oil, perhaps , he thought. Or maybe simple exposure to hard vacuum.

“Give us a couple of months, I think, with the first volunteers,” Romford added. “Then we can start recruiting others. But we’re going to have to experiment a bit with the training programs.”

“True,” Steve agreed. This wasn’t a standard military deployment, no matter what it looked like on the surface. The soldiers would be travelling to alien worlds and fighting there. “It wouldn’t do to recruit an xenophobe.”

“Or someone with a deathly fear of little blue men,” Romford agreed. He smiled, brightly. “Anyone who read Green Lantern will probably be very suspicious of our… noble benefactors.”

Steve gave him an odd look. “I would never have fingered you as a comics fan.”

“There was a kid who came to see his granddad in the damn residence,” Romford said. “I think he was bored out of his skull, so he used to show me the comics and try to read them to me. The last few issues had the Guardians creating a Borg rip-off and sending them to turn the entire universe into thoughtless monsters. And then they all died.”

“A likely story,” Steve said. It wasn’t uncommon for soldiers to enjoy reading comics as a form of escape from their lives. Hell, he’d been a great fan of Doctor Who for precisely that reason. The episodes were unrealistic, but that was the point. War movies would have been a bit too close to home. “I think you bought them for yourself.”

Romford looked away. “Anyway, we will be watching for people with an adverse fear reaction,” he continued, changing the subject rapidly. “Part of the training program will include holograms of many of the nastier-looking alien races, particularly the ones that look like spiders or movie monsters.”

“Exposure will probably help,” Steve said.

He winced at an old memory. He’d once been deathly scared of scorpions, to the point where he hadn’t even been able to look at the creatures. Iraq and its legions of deadly scorpions had cleared that right up, even though he still found them creepy. Hell, they’d spent the boring days before crossing the border capturing scorpions and watching them fight each other for entertainment. But what if there were soldiers who literally went to pieces when confronted with alien life forms?

“Let us hope so,” Romford said. He smiled, suddenly. “We’ve also started constructing a holographic training room, where we can test people to the limit. A few more days and we should be able to start offering training that is as close as possible to reality.”

“Good,” Steve said. He took one last look around the training field. “They’re willing to sell?”

“They’ve been having legal and financial problems lately,” Romford said. “There’s some problems with operating a mercenary company these days — and the UN really didn’t help, when it bitched and moaned about guards doing their damn jobs. And yet, everyone in an unstable place wants trained bodyguards to watch their backs.”

He shrugged. “They’re willing to fold themselves completely into us,” he added, “or continue to operate, as long as they can base themselves on the moon. Our taxes are lower and our regulations pretty much non-existent.”

“It will do,” Steve said. The more businesses that had interests on the moon, the harder it would be for Earth-bound politicians to interfere with the settlers. “What about recruitment?”

“I will be going,” Romford said, shortly. His tone didn’t invite disagreement. “I’m building an army here, sir. I’m damned if I won’t lead it into battle.”

“Or at least some elements of it into battle,” Steve commented. The aliens hadn’t been too clear on what they actually wanted from their human mercenaries. Reading between the lines, Steve had a feeling they didn’t know themselves. “We still don’t know precisely what they want from us.”

“Shock troops, I suspect,” Romford said. “I’ve studied recordings of enemy cyborgs in action, Steve. They’re hard to kill — they’re amazingly durable — but apart from that there doesn’t seem to be much about them that an unaugmented soldier with intensive training couldn’t duplicate.”

Steve frowned. “Implanted weapons and neural links?”

“The former we can match with handheld weapons, the latter we may not need,” Romford disagreed. “They also don’t seem to be long-term thinkers. I suspect they’re programmed to be instinctive fighters, but not to think past the current battle. Which could cause us problems, sir. They don’t seem to have any concern about committing small atrocities.”

Steve winced. “And we will get the blame?”

“Perhaps,” Romford said. He looked thoughtful for a long moment. “Or at least we will be considered tainted. But how much freedom of choice do they actually have?”

“Maybe too much,” Steve said, remembering just how close he’d come to committing genocide. “Or maybe they’re just not programmed to give a damn about civilians in their way.”

The thought made him shudder. Someone who grew up in a brutal and ruthless society would probably become brutal and ruthless himself, but there would always be an element of free will. The cyborgs, on the other hand, might have certain fundamentals hardwired into their heads. They might not be able to question their orders, or hold doubts about the justice — or even the expediency — of mass slaughter of innocent civilians. Did that make them guilty? Or was it the aliens who bore the guilt? How could one blame a gun for firing when it was its user who pulled the trigger?

Didn’t stop people being afraid of guns , he thought, cynically. Or trying to ban them… and hanging out their own people for slaughter.