Absolution
Posted By: Havok<detoxpunk@hotmail.com>
Date: 14 July 2004, 11:58 PM
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ABSOLUTION
"....I do hereby swear to uphold and protect the integrity of the human race, with my blood, valor and very life if it be necessary."
The oath finished, ten thousand hands lowered, and a solemn silence overtook the cavernous room. The tough looking marine at the podium drilled everyone in the face with a piercing gaze.
"Welcome to Hell, ladies."
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"WAKE UP YOU MISERABLE FOOLS!!!"
The shout was deafening in the concrete barracks, amplified by the bullhorn held to the drill sergeant's face. Men fell out of wistful sleep with a crash and lined up at the foot of their beds with crisp precision. The bull necked sergeant strode down the line with a miserable glare imprinted on his stern features. The plasma scars on the side of his shaved head glistened in the harsh lighting, reinforcing that the recruits had woken up to a terrible reality. War was waiting outside, just past graduation day. And that day was fast approaching.
The recruits mustered beneath the flag of the UNSC on the parade ground at 0400 hours. Despite the rude awakening, the men were rigid at attention, the sleep gone from their eyes. This was no time to screw around.
"FORM UP!"
The men turned and fell into a brisk jog behind the sergeant, and the column took off into the predawn darkness.
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"Ladies, from this day forth, you are sissies no more. Congratulations."
The loudspeaker blared into the cool mountain air, pronouncing the news to the vast ranks of men in combat fatigues. The large UNSC flag snapped in the breeze, augmenting the sergeant's words with its presence.
"You are now among the strong. The merciless. The brave. You are Marines." The sergeant never once cracked a smile, never shifted his feet. He was the paragon of discipline.
"On this, your graduation day, I leave you with only one word of advice: keep your heads and asses down and your gun on the enemy. Don't fight to win; Fight to survive. That is all."
The stolid drill sergeant saluted the assembled graduates, then turned, and left the podium. He would see very few of them again.
The grandstands were empty. There were no family members, no friends. No one watching, for they were all standing at attention on the parade grounds. Humanity was in the midst of the largest military mobilization in the history of civilization. However, there also one major difference from ever other major call to arms in history. There was no draft, no conscription act. Every able bodied man readily volunteered for the military. The women joined the air force and navy, for it was widely believed that women had faster reactions with a ship, and men were faster with guns. The disabled and elderly tended to that which robotics were unable to build and repair. In short, civilian population as it was once was known vanished. There were no anti-war protests, no picketing or second guessing the powers that be. It became very clear to everyone that the only options were fight or be destroyed. They chose survival.
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The tough drill sergeant sat outside in the moonlight. His grizzled jaw ground on the stub of a cigar. He exhaled, breathing thick white smoke out into the night. The smoke hung in a cloud around his face, shrouding his features. Absently, he reached over and peeled the nametag off of his breast pocket, held it up to his face. T. Heines. He snorted, sending tendrils of smoke over his name.
Heines stood up, slapping the nametag back over his shirt pocket. Tom Heines, meat grinder operator. Sending men off to the war machine. But he harbored no guilt. He was training men to survive, training them the best ways he knew how. The sergeant took a great deal of pride in his job, and felt it was his duty to make sure those boys had the best chance of coming back alive.
He dusted off the seat of his pants, and wandered back inside his hut. His home, way up here in the mountains. High altitude training for combat on low oxygen planets. There were thousands of other training bases set up in every climate zone on earth. And several other planets as well. The flat screen monitor in the corner of the hut beeped at him. He sat down in front of it, and a set of orders flashed up onto the screen. He expected them to detail another shipment of recruits. But he saw he was wrong in making that assumption. It detailed the arrival of a replacement drill instructor. Orders to pack his bags. He fingered the scars on the side of his head. He was returning to the fight.
***
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