Wild Space Pt. 02

"This is how the officers do it," Talessa told him. "You defeat someone in training or competition, and so forth, and you take them in the bedchamber. Or kill them, but I don't recommend you do that. That's how they do everything, from prisoners to promotions. You'd best learn now."

Estrella slapped Magdalena's big, round ass. Jules noted that it still had been spanked red, jiggling merrily but not in a loose way.

"Take him, youngster." The woman ordered. Helpfully, she aimed Kennan's still hard cock and expertly spread the lips of the younger woman's vagina. "It's getting late."

Magdalena planted her knees and leaned over, giving the Comfort Battalion man a face full of her large breasts. Jules had noticed them a time or two before: large, with wide brown nipples, so big that they had stretch marks. Jules didn't mind that, and neither did Kennan seem to. He buried his face between them as the young woman atop him began to writhe and buck.

Either she had already been close to her climax or Magdalena could only finish when she was on top, but the big rich girl was soon writhing and crying out. Kennan lifted his hips from the mat, slamming his cock into her from underneath her, using his powerful, toned midsection.

Her orgasm was drawn out, milked for all of the physical sensation, until she dismounted, trembling.

"Another pair of satisfied customers," Talessa sighed wistfully. "Thanks, kids."

"Yeah," Kennan said, drained, and had to be helped up.

"Thank you," Jules said, speaking for the first time in a few minutes.

"You won't be thanking us tomorrow." Estrella said.

****

She was right. Wake up call came at its usual time the next day, an immediate jolt of adrenaline to the heart, a blind panic. Jules was so drained and disoriented from his exercise late into the night that he nearly fell out of his bunk, and didn't make it to the line with the other recruits nearly in time.

"Oh-ho!" Brill said, narrowing his blue eyes so they disappeared even farther into his pale face. "Pretty Boy had fun last night. I'm glad. Everyone but Breeding Material and Pretty Boy...front leaning rest position...move!"

The division leaped to obey,and Jules nearly did, too,out of reflex. But he had been ordered to stand.

For twenty minutes, all but two of them were exercised to the point of exhaustion. Brill frequently checked his time piece, an old fashioned handheld unit. When he felt enough squats, push ups, sit ups, mountain climbers and eight count push ups had been performed, he ordered them all to police their barracks, beds, utilize the latrines and report outside in ten minutes.

Jules caught a lot of hard looks as he rushed about to make his bunk. A fist jabbed into his kidney, hard, sending him sprawling onto the bed. When he gathered himself up and turned, hands raised, his assailant had disappeared.

****

During morning formation, the opening day oaths and creeds were recited. Petty Officer Brill found their enthusiasm lacking, and dropped the entire division for push ups until he was forced to move them all onto the hard stone track they ran on.

"Thirty-sixties. For you mental defectives that's 30 seconds of sprinting, when the whistle blows 60 seconds of walking. If I see any bullshitting or grab assing on that minute walk you'll sprint until *I* am tired. Line up!"

Jules toed the line between a skinny, short haired woman named Mikella and a big, rawboned country boy named Garl. With 90 of them, it was hard to get to know anyone, but he had seen both of these two around. In fact, he had eaten besides Garl several times. Desperate for a friend but not knowing why, he glanced over and up at the larger man, but straightened his head when Senior Petty Officer Brill's whistle blew.

He took off running. To exercise the body, to gain stamina and strength and balance, these things were simply not done where Jules came from. There wasn't much room to run, and where could one run, anyway? There was never enough food to go around burning it off with exercise.

Garl quickly outpaced him, long legs stretching. Mikella was right beside him. He felt his lungs burn, and the hard impact of the ground beneath him on his feet. His arms pumped at his sides, and before he had gone ten paces he felt a stitch growing, hot and painful. The blow he had taken to his back this morning and his mostly sleepless night weren't helping, either. Just when it seemed that his breath had been ground down to nothing, a painful rasp that was being forced into his lungs, the whistle blew again. They all slowed.

For the first few torturous cycles, Jules did not have the wind to speak. Recruits passed him while running and Mikella was replaced with another woman, then a man. While he walked, Jules looked over to see a spiky haired, dark eyed and pale skinned man he hadn't spoken to you.

"Sorry about this morning," Jules managed to get out as they walked.

"Don't worry about it," The recruit said. "A lot of guys and girls were jealous. Not one of us would have done differently. I'd've been tired today too if I had done that last night."

The whistle blew again and they both took off running. The other recruit easily left him in the dust. Jules was reassured just a bit from the little talk. They were just jealous, that's all, sooner or later they'd get over it. He didn't want to go through the next six weeks having to watch his back.

When he slowed again, the recruit next to him didn't want to talk. Jules called out to her, twice, but she simply increased her speed and kept walking. He watched her go.

****

They actually were able to try on suits the next week. Brill did not seem to be a morning person: his punishments were meted out more harshly as they were just coming awake. Then, by lunch, 1300 or so, he'd calm. The big man would still lash out with his voice most often, less often his boot, or his fist. Worst of all and very seldom he'd strike someone with his chained batons when he got truly angry. But he seemed to settle into a teaching frame of mind as the day wore on. Jules was glad, because the suits were very interesting and fun to wear.

"Just the helmets." Brill ordered. 90 helmets were donned as the division stood in formation.

"Front leaning rest, move!" The Senior Petty Officer said.

They all smoothly got into position.

"Start pushing." Brill said.

After a handful of seconds, he bade them to get up. Why had they been made to do push ups? Jules didn't know. Sadism? Training? A mere impulse? He would never know.

"Alright, we're going to go around and the rest of these suits on. Do not do a goddamn thing until a petty officer gets to you. One wrong move with these and you'll all be jacking off with your weaker hand. No one wants that." Brill told them.

Jules stood ramrod straight, helmet on, as Linch and Sedrik and Petty Officer Morden and all the rest each picked a recruit to help them safely don their suits. He heard the air hissing and snapping, and a few recruits cry out as their skin was pinched here and there.

"Suck it in, Olliver, you massive sack of fat. Will you look at this specimen, Sedrik?" Linch was cackling.

"Definitely needs to lay off the chow line and do some more PT," The quiet man said. "Can he even fit into a suit?"

His own turn came. Linch glared up at him and discerned his features through the helmet's gauzy black glassed visor.

"Pretty Boy. Pretty, Pretty Boy." Linch said. "You enjoy yourself with the Comfort Battalion, Pretty Boy?"

"Yes, petty officer." He said, voice slightly muffled from the helmet.

"Was that an affirmative, Petty Officer Sedrik?" She asked her colleague, who was busily and not so gently hauling Jules's legs into the suit.

"I'd say he did. He's been dragging ass ever since. Sometimes when a woman takes your seed she takes your power." Sedrik sighed. "I know from experience."

"He has been dragging ass," Linch said as she wrestled his arms into his suit. "They got it pretty good these days, don't they?"

"I'd say so-stop moving your foot, asshole," Sedrik said with venom. There was a hiss and a sucking, pneumatic noise as the suit came together.

"There you are, done. Get back in formation. I've got my eye on you now, Pretty Boy. If you don't unfuck yourself by the end of the day you'll be wearing that suit out of your ass and marching to chow on a pair of stumps, you sad damn excuse for a sailor." The pair moved on.

Jules didn't know which one of them had threatened him, but it didn't matter. All in all, it was a fairly standard interaction.

"Everyone suited up? Don't touch that knob, sailor. You'll crush your own arm. Remember the demonstration? If you think your fellow recruits want to pull extra duty by mopping up your blood and bones you've got another thing coming." Brill sighed. "To think, some day lives will depend on all of you. It's scary. Alright, let's not focus on the impending deaths of your comrades. Notice how the electronics on your suit are not activated..."

***

After each endless day of training with their suits, ship functions, marksmanship, drill, and more classes, they spent most evenings cleaning their weapons starting that second week. The X1 Survival Carbine was the long arm of choice for the Capital Navy. Skeletal, stripped down to its bare essentials, it was a bare piece of mass fabricated metal with plastic fittings, and two actions with two different barrels and ammunition. It was usually powered by the survival suit and could fire uninterrupted for hours, drawing a bare minimum of charge from whatever power source it was attached to. It could be attached to any standard Capital power source and a conversion kit could be used to attach it to non-standard power sources as well. It could fire unattached, drawing a standard charge from its companion survival suit, usually, or whatever power source the Navy sailor happened to find. If no power was available, it had an internal magazine that could fire twelve high powered metal slugs. After a dozen were fired, the firearm action and separate barrel would have to replaced by the factory; it was primarily an energy weapon and firing metal slugs was considered a last resort function.

The X1 in Jules's hands was inert, uncharged, a hand me down weapon that had been in the hand of countless other recruits. He still liked it, though. He had never held a rifle before, and he hadn't thought he'd grow so enamored with one. The X1 was sleek and light and deadly, and even a pretty thing to look at. So he didn't mind disassembling it every night to clean it.

The petty officers were studying the 90 of them in a casual way, the one might an animal at a zoo that was faintly disgusting yet easily dismissed.

He was seated next to Leara, a willowy and blonde female recruit with a strange accent. Jules didn't even know what planet she came from, but he liked her. She was risking a punishment by talking to him, but they hadn't exactly been told to keep quiet.

"The plants here on Bulwark are so hardy," Leara was saying. She loved plants and her future career in the Navy was that of a military botanist, someone who could grow natural food on a ship or food crops on a conquered world, even an alien one. "Have you ever seen the tall purple ones with the big leaves by the mess hall?"

Jules seldom noticed plants at all and told her he had not. The X1 was easy to take apart: an indentation on the firearm action was pressed in and the weapon snapped open. The energy action was pristine as any bit of electronics, but firing the slugs tended to dirty the entire inside of the rifle. Luckily perhaps one sailor in a hundred would ever fire the slugs. Even though none of them had fired the weapon that day and the weapons were pristine, they were ordered to clean and did.

"They're immensely sturdy plants to grow in this fog and dark and cold. Even the days here are gloomy, aren't they?" Leara said in her endearing accent. "But I love it here anyway."

"You do?" He asked her incredulously.

"I do," She declared. "It's quite busy where I come from. My world is only a bit bigger than Bulwark but we have six times as many people. It's very cramped. Not many plants."

"So you'd sign up again and put yourself through this all over?"

"I would. It's the only way I could get work and do what I love. The Navy is my ticket off of my world and away...from certain things." Abruptly, Leara quieted and focused on her rifle.

Jules could sympathize. His home life had never been simple or easy. What would he be doing if he was home right now? Probably out with Esmond, or standing in a line to get some clean water or a bit of food. It was so much different than here. Here he only had to worry about being struck in the course of training, not because he was being robbed for a heel of bread or because his mother decided to take home some lowlife that night...

A kick to his seated buttock brought him out of his reverie. Jules grunted in pain but otherwise did not react.

"Get that moony look off of your face, Pretty Boy. Focus on your rifle." Senior Petty Officer Brill ordered. "We're going out into the field tomorrow on maneuvers. You going to be dreaming while you stand watch? Let the enemy roll over on us?"

"No, petty officer." Jules said. How had Brill figured out he'd been daydreaming? It was as if their training cadre could read thoughts.

"We'll see. You're a hood rat, Recruit Jules. A thief. Are you in this for yourself? You don't care about the lives of the men and women in your unit?"

"I care, petty officer."

"Like I said...we'll see. Now clean that damn weapon, Pretty Boy. If that action is dirty by lights out you will be getting some extra attention. You and I will have an experience together. For you it might be an out of body experience. You tracking me, recruit?"

"Yes, petty officer."

Jules could tell when Brill moved on by how Leara relaxed next to him. She softly apologized.

"Don't worry about it," He said, and it was true. None of them could avoid punishment, saying sorry seemed like a waste of time.

**

The final day of their sixth week they were only briefly dropped upon waking. A simple set of four push ups, a ritual at this point, tradition, like kissing one's aunt on the cheek.

"Police the barracks, your racks, utilize the latrine, put on your suits and ready your weapons. We're going to be in the field all day today, recruits, and sleeping outdoors. Don't leave any piece of gear here you think you'll need but make sure you can still march. 30 minutes! Move out!"

All of them hopped to as if they had been electroshocked. Despite himself, Jules was excited. An entire day in the outdoors was something he had never experienced. It simply did not exist where he had grown up. As he rapidly made his bunk and headed for the shower, he wondered what the weather was going to be like that day.

27 minutes and 48 seconds later, the entire division was assembled outside for morning formation. Jules had donned his suit safely and quickly: he was made to do so each and every day, and harshly punished if he did not. Now it was like a second skin. He wondered if they would be permitted to turn on the suit's onboard electronics today.

The march off to Bulwark's moors passed rapidly. The division sang. Very few of them "fell out" over the course of the march. They were all accustomed to wearing their rucksacks and suits and marching long distances with them, but even Jules had to admit that his feet and back ached from the terrain. Only one boy had to be carted off to sickbay: he had sharply twisted his ankle. The rest of the stragglers were able to be whipped into shape by the petty officers. Rarely nowadays was a chained baton needed. A quiet word or a shout would do.

"We're taking ten," Brill said to them all, and the petty officers passed down the word to them all.

Gratefully, Jules sank to his knees, then is butt. He was tired, but his body was warmed up from the long march and kept at a pleasant temperature inside his suit. Outside, it was raw and windy and foggy, but he felt invigorated despite the pain.

Very few of them spoke, only breathed deeply but evenly and gathered their strength for whatever was ahead. Before Jules could even think of something to say, some joke or bullshit or playful insult to call someone, Brill stood.

"Dig your foxholes. You, you, and you. Come help get chow for your comrades. The rest of you, I want to see shovels swinging and dirt flinging. Ten minutes."

Every tool on the suit and his rifle could be reached with one hand, even though the rucksack was on Jules's back. One handedly, he reached across his body to press a button, and a tiny metal arm flung itself out from the metal pack. When he removed it two more followed and finally the blade of an entrenchment tool. It took less than ten seconds to snap it all together and make sure it was secure, and finally he was digging.

"We have a fleet that can catapult itself through the far reaches of space in the blink of an eye, and we still have to dig our own holes?" A voice said next to him.

"Can't make it too easy on us," Jules countered, shovel swinging and dirt flinging.

Brill came back with the chow, or more accurately, with four recruits who were all loaded with rationpaks. The senior petty officer was surveying their foxholes, pointing out to one or another to change its shape or depth. As he was doing so, each recruit behind him would hand him an open pak, and the gorilla like man expertly flung a block from inside of it at a recruit. A few weren't looking to catch or deflect the solid blocks of nutrition and took hits to their helmets or rucksacks or legs, causing the big Navy man to cackle. Each pak had twelve such blocks inside, solid, wrapped squares of brownish white meat and plant slurry that could provide a day of a sailor's nutritional needs. Even with only thirteen or so rationpaks on hand, he had more than enough to feed all 90 of his division.

"Stop digging. Eat." Brill ordered them all. Then he disappeared.

The rationpak's contents could be eaten raw, but that was a prospect Jules had undergone before, and did not ever intend to do again. Instead, he flipped a small, portable combination cooking unit and chow station out of his rucksack. Within a minute, his block of slurry was ready to be consumed. He poked at it with a spork, having flipped the visor of his helmet up to eat. Like all Navy food, it wasn't anything to write home about but if you had grown up poor and hungry, it was a feast. It had kind of a meaty, pasty mouthfeel to it with chunks of colorless vegetables. As long as it was cooked, Jules didn't mind.

"Oh, if my mum could see me now," The same voice who had complained about digging said, and Jules peeked over the top of his hole to see that it was Magdalena, her visor also flipped up. "She'd spank my bum for eating this stuff."

"Who is your mom?"

"Cynthea, the Fourth Comtessa."

The name held vague significance for Jules. He knew a comtessa was a female noblewoman, but the name in particular. Cynthea, Cynthea...

"Is her symbol the three daggers?"

"Yes, that's our sigil. Three daggers, counterchanged, black on white. Why?" Magdalena asked.

"I live in your district, or I did." Jules told her. His food was done, and he squirted a bit of flat water from a tiny waterpik to clean out his cooking unit. "Near the square, the one with the fountain that never works?"

"I know of it," She told him, and paused. "Do you hate me now?"

"Why?" The cooking unit snapped back into his ruck.

"Because I grew up rich. I know your area. It's dangerous."

In response, Jules flung some dirt into her foxhole.

"You're shoveling the same shit I am, Mags. I don't think you're growing up rich matters here on Bulwark, do you?"

"No," She said quietly. "I suppose it doesn't. My friends call me 'Mags', you know."