CHAPTER EIGHT
Transcript of 20th Day Report, Sublieutenant Thom Sorakin, 28th September 2083
Report format: 1) Training, 2) Socio-functioning, 3) Personal Assessment, 4) Conclusions.
* * * *
1) Training. Shaping up well, perhaps the finest squad I’ve worked with. I expect a high Achievement Ratio over the coming months.
First, the mundane aspects. Weapons, tactics, basic fitness, communications, first aid. All acceptable, if not first class (have to watch Lohmann on the fitness). They’re adapting well to the gravity, although Lohmann needs pushing. We’re quartered on the Ground level of the Disc — one gee is higher than any of them have lived at before. Brindle is the strongest and it seems almost as if he’s been at Earth-gee all his life. We’re all finding it tough on the high-gee manoeuvres, but even as early as this I can see it starting to pull together.
As usual, it has been the manoeuvres that have pinpointed the various aspects of group functioning.
Our first real action was the first TV-Ret (Target eValuation and RETrieval). The Training General pulled a nasty on us and set the TV-Ret down below Ground level. I’d guess it was near two gees. It was a standard fifty square kay-em manoeuvre patch, twenty-five competing four-troop squads set to track and retrieve ten targets. It was dark and misty. Jacobi, being the experienced trooper, took point with the task-map shunted into his suboxy.
The squad clicked from the start. We’d been through a lot of the basics in our three days together, before this first TV-Ret, but when it comes to manoeuvres a new squad usually makes lots of mistakes. These boys didn’t need any reminding about the usuals like noise discipline, coordinated surveillance, formations. Towards the end Lohmann started to have trouble with the gees we were pulling but Brindle helped him through it. Brindle is a good man to have as corporal (see Personal Assessment).
Contact with other squads occurred on three occasions; we went to ground and none of them detected us, even as they blundered noisily through the undergrowth. We found our targets, avoided the booby traps and registered our presence at every target in a total of less than two hours. Twenty-seven and a half minutes ahead of the nearest opposition.
There have been six major manoeuvres since then, three of them combat. I won’t say much about them (except for the following report on Combat 3, as specified in Report Instruction 38/D20). The only relevant point, I think, is that we have consistently gained Top Three places in the major tactical and combat manoeuvres, winning on four occasions.
Combat 3, 26th and 27th of September 2083. With no prior warning we were roused from the squad dorm by three bursts of the squealer, the signal for something big. Barely into our clothes, we were called over to the prep block for drilling.
The prep for this one was thorough, bigger than any the squad has been through before. In retrospect, with the posthypnotic instructions wiped, I can look back on what went on, but during the ensuing thirty hours we thought it was the real thing. They shunted the hypno-programmers into our suboccipitals and downloaded enough prompts, suggestions and commands to make the simulation real for us.
Dumped in stupors in a drone personnel cart, we were taken down a level or two by elevator and dropped in our starting positions. About fifteen per cent over a gee, I’d put it at.
We woke up in the biggest training patch I’ve seen (we never found the edges and I don’t remember seeing the ceiling) and we knew that we were on Earth, routing guerrilla units somewhere in the Grand Union. It was dark and cold and there was a feeling of dampness in the air. Strange sounds of birds and animals appeared to come from all around us. Even now, I’m not clear on how much of it was genuine (or at least outside of my head) and how much was a hypnotic construct, framed by my chip.
We took up loose formation, intimate enough for Comtac. Brindle took point and we moved out. In retrospect it was a fairly standard TV-Ret, with other squads as the targets. But it was given a new dimension by the clarity of the simulation. (Note: This must be the direction for training in the future.)
Hearing sounds (bad noise discipline), we fanned out for a near-surround assault, using Comtac for coordination. Closing in, I heard the enemy discussing tactics, of all things — it’s too late for that, when you’re out there fighting, for Chrissake.
Night-shades in place, I found a good route and crawled closer. A slight clearing, ten metres by twenty, trees on three sides and a thick tangle of some vicious-looking thorn bush on the far side. Two of the guerrillas were on look-out and the two seniors stood at the centre of the clearing debating what they should do. Four targets; my chip picked mine and highlighted him in my night-shades.
It couldn’t have been a better set-up: the one angle we weren’t approaching from was cut off by the undergrowth. Move to viewpoint, I Comtacked my squad. A few slow breaths and the acknowledgements came in. No sign of detection. We were ready.
Then I Comtacked the command, Fire, waited a split second so that I wouldn’t be ahead of the others’ reactions. And fired at what I guessed was the second-in-command of the guerrillas.
The fire was silent — PTII laser rifles, for night work — and the enemy squad dropped like they’d been gassed or bioed.
Of course, now I know what really happened. The PTIIs were training weapons, low power. Just enough burn to register on sensors painted onto our uniforms. The hit was then relayed to a sublink of the Training General, which commanded the victim — via his or her suboccipital — to lapse into a hypnotic semi-coma. Sleep-a-byes until end of manoeuvre.
Four comatose soldiers, looking to us like four very dead CalTex guerrillas, lay in the clearing.
We moved on.
We knocked out six ‘enemy’ squads over the thirty hours of the manoeuvre. I’m not going to detail each hit.
I will, however, have a quick look at one or two aspects that I find important, things that I’ve noticed as a result of Combat 3.
The first point is how the squad reacted to the long hours and stressful nature of the manoeuvre. Towards the end we were all suffering from fatigue and over-stimulation. (I was pleased to note that Lohmann coped as well as any of us on this exercise; I think the group spirit is pulling him along.)
Our last hit was an assault on two fighting groups. We heard the commotion, acted on the situation and went in hard, wiping out what was left of both squads. We all went on overdrive, so tired that we weren’t really conscious of what was happening, we carried on like machines. It didn’t appear to affect our performance at all, we just went through the motions and knocked out the enemy troops. I guess that’s what happens anyway, to exhausted troops, but the fact that our performance remained so high must be down to the chip, feeding us with the moves, keeping us going.
After all, the present version of the chip is new to other than specialist use, so we keep learning new uses for it all the time. I know interfaces have been around for most of this century, but the actual chip itself — the availability of built-in cybernetic control — is an entirely modern military development.
The expansion of C-cubed is a great advantage of the system: Command, Communications and Control. And the improved man-machine interface coordination. But there are other uses that I find just as worthwhile.
I guess it’s the simple things that appeal to me. Like the mechanisation of hypnosis, the manipulation of Comtac (that has sure paid off in the manoeuvres), the control of the juices.
The Advance Warning system is one little gadget that I was initially sceptical about, but I was rapidly converted in practice. My understanding of it is that the body can detect danger before it is consciously recognised. I suppose the delay is to avoid false alarms. The stomach contracts, muscles tense, adrenalin is pumped. And then if the danger is confirmed you’re ready for action. With our chips spotting these changes we found that our detection of the enemy was exceptional. Faint sounds, sounds muffled by wind, movement in the periphery of vision. There were very few false alarms.
Another major use is endocrinal and nervous control. Chipping Juice, as the soldiers have taken to calling it, is the conscious pumping of adrenalin. A troop on the edge is often better than an over-relaxed one. And there’s that dangerous moment, perhaps the most dangerous of all, when you’ve just had some action. You get a few seconds of almost religious calm, like you’ve just fucked the Virgin Mary, as Jacobi put it. Even when you know there’s more danger, if you’ve just removed one source of risk you get this high. And then you might be shot. A kick of adrenalin keeps you on the edge right through a piece of action, takes away some of the danger.
Sometimes excitement can be a problem. Say an ambush, where you might find yourself sitting in the same position in some desolate jungle for hours on end. Chipping down, as they call it, cuts the juice, slows the heart, stills the mind.
Yeah, the new interface approach is a very productive one.
* * * *
2) Socio-functioning. Right from the start, only twenty days ago, we clicked as a squad. I waited for them at Transport Bay 6, at the narrow end of the Disc. The troops were sorted into squads as they left the ship and eventually I picked out my little threesome. Even though they’d all come from Mercator IV, they’d never met before. Considering the numbers, I suppose that must be how it usually works out.
Lohmann was full of himself. ‘Gonna have a wild time,’ I heard him say before he laid eyes on me and stopped his jaw. Brindle was looking around, like he was sizing up his new situation, seeing what was there. Jacobi hung slightly apart, sizing up his companions. “Bout as wild as we can make it,’ he said. ‘And I’ve been making it for years.’
Like I said, something sprang up between us right from the start. We drew sparks off each other. Of course it’s standard procedure to promote the bond with your squad, but we didn’t need any of that.
I took them on a buggy along to our dorm and then we went to the crew room. We dropped a few drinks and worked our jaws. I told Jacobi I was from New London and he said, ‘What sort of a place is that? Some mining rig?’ I told him it was near Plato on the Moon and from that moment the squad took to calling me ‘Plato’. ‘Plato, sir,’ In Jacobi’s case.
As the squad has settled in they’ve made new friends, but that’s secondary. Their primary social group is still the squad. We do most things together when we’re off duty. I’d say that’s the main reason for our early successes as a squad.
There have been differences, of course. Jacobi has rubbed up Lohmann the wrong way once or twice, particularly in the early days. Jacobi can be a little abrasive at times, sometimes he seems to enjoy kicking at people’s soft spots. (Of course, we’ve mostly gotten that out of him, by now.)
And Lohmann’s young and easily stirred.
Nothing ever came of it. Brindle has a calming influence — that boy is so laid back, it’s unbelievable.
Then I found them one time, moments away from each other’s throats. This was only the fifth day. ‘Okay, guys,’ I said. ‘We’re going to have this thing out in the open. What the fuck is eating at you?’
They didn’t know. When they sat down and thought they just couldn’t put a label on it. And there’s been no trouble since then. I guess if they ever come near to blows they just remember that they can’t think of any reason and it all calms down.
Competition with the other squads pulls us together too.
Especially as how we usually win. With the Army’s carrot and stick idea of training we’re getting a whole lot more carrot than stick, right now.
And in my objective evaluation, that is sure how it’s going to stay.
The boys are recognised wherever they go. Hey, that’s Plato’s squad, people say. Don’t cross ‘em.
We tend to work to a system, wherever it fits the circumstances. Like when we’re on a TV-Ret we have an ultimate goal, but we break the task down. With a series of smaller goals we get more instant feedback on how things are going.
Like writing this report. Shunting the report-formatted data bubble, I didn’t know how I’d get through it all. Then I decided to break it down into sections by the subjects I have to report on and somehow three short reports and a conclusion seem a much less formidable task.
It’s not just military situations, either. We’re one of the top slap teams this side of the Disc. Whenever we go to the zero-gee slap chamber we go in there with a system.
Goal: gain possession. Goal: gain territory, control as much volume as possible. Goal: get the ball to the man and hit the highest target possible. Of course the system isn’t everything, but it gives us an edge.
Jacobi has a tendency to mould the rules to his own belief system. Others call it cheating. Like he makes less than momentary contact with the ball and maybe he likes to get a little physical. But he’s a good man to have on the team, good for the high targets and the big defences. Lohmann is excitable but agile and very experienced in zero-gee. I tend to plug the holes, smooth things over. And who but solid-as-a-rock Brindle could make all the plays, squeeze up the pressure?
We’re a good squad.
And we’re going to get a whole lot better. I think this training period is going to be too long for us, we’ll be ready long before any of the other squads.
I’d like to think that if we weren’t thrown together by circumstance we would still be good friends, and I think that’s true.
* * * *
3) Personal Assessment. I’ll start from the bottom and work my way up.
Private Gilbert Lohmann. Gil’s the youngest member of the squad and I suppose that might account for some of his excitability. I’m working with him on his chipping technique and we seem to be getting somewhere. If he can just chip down on some of his excitement we could iron out that source of weakness.
Physically, Gil had problems at first. He’s got himself a good, strong-looking body and the only explanation for his problems could have been a mental one. Now that he’s settled into the squad, he has adjusted well.
Gil is a good prompt to the squad. Whenever there’s a lack of enthusiasm it’s Gil that makes up for it and fires the others up. He’s a real optimist, just wants to get on with every day that happens to him.
Problems that may develop? He has a girl back on Seneca and she’s just had a baby. But he was aware of the situation when he acknowledged. That would have been a legitimate reason for missing the draft but he has too much of the soldier in him to duck out. He’ll see his child at the end of next year, after his spell on Earth. The girl will understand.
Sometimes there seems to be something vacant in his eyes, like he’s not really here. I think he might be doing some drugs, but it can only be light. We’re with him too much of the time for us not to notice the effects of anything harder.
I’m turning a blind eye at the moment; it might make being away from his girl a little easier on him. We’ll see how it goes.
Private Leotan Jacobi. One hundred per cent soldier. The oldest and longest-serving squad member. He saw some action back in the early seventies when we snuffed the Manila-backed infiltration at L4. But despite his experience, he’s not cut out to climb the ranks. He’s an excellent private and he seems quite happy to stay that way.
Sometimes he reminds me of a hyena on one of those old nature films they show. The lion sits guarding its meal and then suddenly a hyena dashes in and runs off with a mouthful. Jacobi hangs back from the action and then when he sees an opportunity he darts in and makes a grab for something. He’s always the guy who makes the most cutting remark, twists the knife just that little bit further. But you have to admire the style that he does it with. A sharper wit there has never been; he always has the right phrase for a situation.
He has a cruel humour and he likes to goad people, lead them out into the open on some things that maybe they’d rather leave unsaid. But his wit has a diffusing effect. Put him in a tense situation and he’ll say something that breaks the moment, gives you a new perspective. He’s sharp.
Very popular. A hardened soldier, he has no problems with the military side of things, physical or psychological.
Corporal Jedburgh Brindle. There’s hardly much that needs saying about Jed. The star pupil from Mercator IV and I can easily see why. Physically there are no problems at all.
Technically, he has the greatest command over his chip that I have seen in a new recruit. Tremendous self-control.
Socially, he is the ideal foil for Lohmann and Jacobi. Any friction that remains between those two is greased by the influence of Brindle. He gives the impression of slowness, but that’s just how he appears. He is thorough, learns things and then never forgets them. He can be summed up in one word: solid.
People seem to be drawn to him, like he has a sort of magnetism. He could win anyone over if he wanted to try. He’s a solid source of support for anyone who needs him, he just seems to soak up everybody else’s problems and leave them clean and fresh. Anyone else would break under all that pressure, but Jed just sops it up.
Ironically, it’s his attitude that I think might be his number one weakness. He’s just so nice. Easy-going. When we’re on exercises he does begin to show something of a cutting edge. But it needs sharpening. When it comes to action he’s going to have to kill people, not listen to their problems. We need to give him something more of a killing edge, put some fire on his breath.
* * * *
4) Conclusions. Early success isn’t always a sign of things to come, but if that is the case with my new squad, I can only think that the reason is that things are going to get better. No major weakness, several major strengths. Just wait and see which squad is way ahead of the opposition at the end of the three months on the Disc. We’re going to wipe the floor with them.