Rift

  Chapter 3

  SUE

  “Move, you lazy bastards!” the tacticus yelled. Sue gritted her teeth and kept running, despite the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, her lungs screaming for air and her muscles begging for just a brief respite. She kept moving, because whatever she did, she would not be among the washouts. After just three weeks, many had already gone south, kicked out for failing to meet the rigorous standards of the Janissaries.

  Basic training was by far the toughest challenge she’d ever faced, except for dealing with the death of her father, of course. The tacticus in charge of her team of initiates was an imposing figure, a suntanned face with blue eyes and hard angular features, hair and mustache the color of sand. His name was Hordvik. She had begun to notice most of the officers were Moon people, and although tacticus wasn’t strictly an officer rank, she hadn’t seen too many English ranking above senior Janissary. Hordvik behaved as if used to command, even though he couldn’t be more than a few years older than she was. And indeed, those of Moon blood she had encountered so far all seemed bred to command, bred for war. She wondered if there were any English at all ranked above tacticus. It was difficult to think that way, without wondering how many of the initiates would last through basic, but as soon as the thought hit her, she forced it away. No use thinking about it. If it happened, it happened.

  “What the hell are you doing, Atlas? Move it!” she heard Tac Hordvik yelling. She picked up her pace, just to avoid being singled out. The punishment for not giving your everything was harsh enough, but finding yourself the mark of a bullying tacticus could break you. No more thinking now, she thought. Just keep moving.

  She was all spent when Tac Hordvik ordered them to halt. She had to exert herself just to keep standing, but through the fog of exhaustion, she saw another officer walking up to the tacticus.

  “Sir, Team One Three Charlie ready, sir!” Hordvik said, standing at attention. She saw the two silver stars of the other officer. Sub meridian, she rehearsed quietly. She still didn’t have the ranks all sorted out. She did know a sub meridian outranked the tacticus, though. She tried reciting the ranks. The initiates were the lowest of the low, at the bottom of the ladder, barely worth their boots. Then came the junior Janissaries. Nobody used the junior prefix, though, except a senior, if he meant to put down the former. Junior Janissaries were those who had passed basic, weapons, and tactical training. Once you gained the single JJ bar, you were deemed combat ready, if only for gunner duty. Meaning cannon fodder. For more skilled tasks, there were senior Janissaries, who had at least three months of JJ duty behind them. Next came the sub tacticus and the tacticus, team ranks still, but the only commanding ranks open to the English, it seemed.

  “I see you are driving them hard, Tac Hordvik,” the sub meridian stated. The tacticus puffed out his chest.

  “I do my best, sir,” he answered. The officer clearly liked the response, short and without any fluff, as he nodded.

  “Well, Tac, I see that. Keep doing what you’re doing, and you might actually make Janissaries out of this lot after all,” he said. Sue thought the two looked alike, but it was the same with so many of the Moon people. They even had similar names.

  They were given a short break, to hydrate and check for blisters on their feet. Five minutes later, they were up and running again, and Sue wondered if the break had actually made them more tired. She certainly felt that way. She began rehearsing the ranks system again.

  The teams were the smallest unit in the Janissaries, except for patrols, which were units put together for a specific mission, and didn’t have permanent members. Each team was usually headed by either a tacticus or a head tacticus, which was the lowest official officer rank. Three or four teams made up a squadron, which was led by a sub meridian or a meridian. Three or four squadrons made a battalion, usually led by a meridian or sometimes a head meridian. Altogether, the initiates in basic training had made up a battalion when they began, but now, just three weeks into it, she guessed there couldn’t be more than two squadrons left, tops.

  Once they finished their training, they would be assigned to one of the brigades, which were self-contained fighting units holding their particular sectors along with air or, in the far eastern sectors, sea support. Brigades were commanded by a sub strategos. And then there were the battle groups, which included at least two Janissary brigades, and commanded their own air and sea support. The battle group was commanded by a strategos, the highest rank found in the Janissaries, except for the First Janissary.

  She had wondered at first, whether she would be able to try out for Air or Sea Service, but quickly learned that these units were made up of pure Moon people only, and all their training was kept separate from the Janissaries. Air and Sea only submitted to Janissary command when part of a battle group, which meant that even the lowest airman never took orders from Janissaries below the rank of strategos. She found that curious, but after what happened to one of the initiates who asked too many questions, she had learned to keep her mouth shut. Albert she thought his name was, from Holstonhead. One day, he was gone, washed out, she heard someone say. Another said she heard one of the officers talking about this kid from Holstonhead, who was transferred to the Corpus. From that moment on, she made it a point not to get singled out, and so far so good.

  She had found, in the few spare moments between rigorous training sessions meant to harden them physically and mentally, that she was forming bonds with her teammates. None of her friends from Charlestown were on her team. She had seen Laurie once, while she was standing in line for breakfast, and he had seemed sullen and depressed. When she asked him, he told her of his sister, who had died in combat just a few weeks before their arrival. Sue knew he had hoped to connect with her, and she worried that the loss might hurt his morale enough to get him kicked out. There was nothing she could do for him, though, since the teams were generally kept separated. Sue hadn’t seen Laurie since, which was almost a week ago. She hoped he’d be able to pull himself together, or else he might end up in the Corpus.

  Still, there was Brad from Morrow, Keisha from Fort Winter, just southwest of here, and Julian from Bunkerville. All friends, growing tighter with every trial they faced together.

  On the opposite end, there was Quinn, a volunteer from Hodgeton who seemed to find great joy in the fact that Keisha struggled with keeping up from time to time. Also, she had learned that Julian had difficulty reading, and Quinn seemed to enjoy taunting him for it, telling him how difficult a time he would face, once they moved on to weapons training, and how much they were required to read in order to make it through.

  Still, even with the hardships, and despite scumbags such as Quinn, Sue found herself becoming part of something, and she was beginning to think that the Janissaries might, in time, become her family, as well.