A Jump To The Left
It was a hot day, on the heavy gravity of Earth, on Afghanistan. A place so very hot. Rather opressivly so. Ironic of course, considering that Liam was himself from what would be accuratly called a 'Desert World'.
Ah, but Mars had a lower gravity and was rather cool by Terrestrial desert standards.
So, he panted, chest heaving, feeling the pull of gravity at his body, sending his heart thumping in his chest. He had, had a brief couple of weeks to wear the exo-skeleton, allowing him to move with less difficulty in the environment, but not so here.
"Are you listening to me, you gape-mouthed bastard?!" was the screaming voice, of the scariest, and most imposing human ever to grace his sight. A man, like many humans, seemingly a mongrel composed of every race known to man, a turban covering his head, a turban covering his head, a fierce look in his eyes.
Grabbing the thylacine recom by his lapels, he brought his face nose-to-nose, and Liam had to resist the overwhelming urge to bite him...he was uncomfortably close, stinking obscenly of sweat. "Well, I asked you a question!"
Liam had done some homework, so he knew the correct response, knew the man's rank. "Yes, Sergeant, this Recruit is listening."
Correct, or not, Liam found himself, face ground into the dirt, knee on his back, arm held uncomfortably, in a position designed to make his shoulders ache. "Bollocks! You are lying to me. And there is nothing I despise more than liars."
The Sergeant's knee pressed..ground, into the spot where the shoulder blades met, he whimpered out in pain, trying with the barest of success to surpress the whimper.
"You may know the data, but you don't *know* anything, boy," the Sikh Sergeant kicked his legs out from under him, pressing him bodily into the scorching sand, "Fifty Push ups, Martian. Do not die on me, because you have not been given permission to die."
A gesture to one of the myriad of, what for reasosn only known to tradition were called 'Corporals' (although they ranged in ranks from Senior Spaceman to Spaceman) to keep an eye on Liam, counting down the push-ups.
Liam tried to push himself past, he had thought himself fit. But the gravity, the heat...the constant attempts to get him to screw up the count, all designed to make him sore, and tired.
Then, the inevitable beasting. Running, along with the others. Earthers, Martians like himself, Cylinder-babies from the O'Niell cylinders. And other brands of Colonist.
All the eccelectic groups put into the laborious task of becoming soldiers.
They would graduate steadily, those desiring to leave were let go, with nary a tear as the weeks went by.
The logic being, that if someone did not wish to be there, then who the hell wanted them?
There would, eventually be the training with weapons, then the standard parachute jumps, from practice-rigs, before graduating to jumping out of aerodynes, to...the eventual, sub-orbital jump.
The true test.
Even up to this point, there were failures. Staring down at the vast expanse of Earth, scared many, the eye and mind screaming at this insanity, desiring not to leap out into the void.
But Liam, passed. Through the wind, no achieving enough velocity to burn, but high enough to get some good air time.
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Senior Spaceman Corinnna thought back, on his experiances that lead him to this point. To his first combat, the 'Cherry Popping' moment. The places he'd been, the worlds he'd seen. The jumps, so many of them.
He was, by many accounts. A salty old bastard, coming up to thirty.
The world started glowing, at the corner of his eyes. The fan of the 'umbrella' behind him, hoping on the panels to keep him from frying and dying, whilst he watched the darkness receed, into daylight as he dropped like an asteroid into the planet, watching the counter tick it's way off as the altitude started getting closer to land.
Despite the daylight assault, and the chaff from the exploding umbrellas, or the dummy-ones designed to attract more fire, there were still explosions, and red spatters as real troopers died, turned into so much chunky salsa.
But what could he do, except drop, and hope his number wasn't in the Reaper's ticket-punch.
Releasing his own harness, the Umbrella exploding into chaff, designed in theory to confuse enemy sensors, spoofing it with multitude of signals as well, and Liam pasing through, plummmeting down...before pulling up at the last few seconds, the ribbon-chute deploying, and guiding himself down to land with a thud and a roll, the chute detaching and he brought his x-rayser rifle up to bare.
Arming the weapon, it vibrated against his body, with the capacitor charge. Switching the arming toggle, from safe to burst, he rose, from the kneel, moving cautiously towards the IFF signals (aware of the possibility of faked signals), towards what he hoped, were his squadmates.