NaNoWriMo novel: Stormfront

This is what I dreamed about doing growing up?
I remember that day, and thinking that, vividly. The concrete was burning my hands as I do push-ups, my entire basic training class in the same predicament around the grinder. The afternoon summer sun is beating down on us and the reflected heat is hitting us from the concrete.
This is my fault, I reminded myself. Not that I had to, the drill instructors are reminding everybody of the same thing from the shaded balcony where they are directing the punishment. I could feel the anger from my fellow cadets focusing on me, and all I could do is accept it as my due.
“Say 'Thank you, Cadet Brison for failing your test today.'” Chief Driscol calls out to the company. Only a few of them followed the instruction. I didn't know if I should feel grateful that not everyone is willing to throw me to the wolves or if I am disappointed because all that is going to do is mean we will be out here longer...
As the Chief exhorts the rest of the company to thank me for the various miseries that are going to be visited upon us for the rest of the afternoon I hear a sonic boom and a scream of engines overhead. I glance up and see a fighter screaming back into the atmosphere, vapor streaming off the fuselage as it brakes for a landing at the base. I smile - that is what I dreamed about growing up. The afternoon on the grinder doing penance with my company is just a step along the way.
I can feel the blisters starting to form on my palms and refocus on the situation I am in, wondering how long we have been out here. I can't recall the last few thank you messages the Chief has been calling out, but I do hear what he says next, and cringe.
“Cadet Brison has decided to purposely let this company down and you are all going to pay for it. You can thank him every day for the extra drills you will be getting for the next week. Thank him for the blisters and sore muscles you will have.”
“Don't listen to him!”
Surprised, I turned my head and saw Cadet Walker standing up and glaring at the Chief. He is certainly the last person I would have expected to stand up for me, especially considering the amount of pain and trouble he will get from it.
“You have beaten into our heads the need for teamwork. You have had us on our faces on this grinder when we falter in that, and now you have us out here to demand that we turn on one of our own company? Screw that, 'sir,' we are a team, we have been one for months now – you are not able to change that with any amount of afternoon beatings!” When he was finished, Walker remained standing, staring defiantly up at the Chief.
I am impressed at his defiance but know from experience that it is pointless. I start to shake my head and notice that others are standing up, then feel someone take my arm and pull me up.
“You may not be my Section Leader anymore,” Cadet Wilston tells me, “but I still think of you as my Section Leader. None of us are going to let this go on anymore.”
I shake my head as I look at her. “It really is my fault that we are out here. I failed that test on purpose and everyone knows that. The Chief has every right to be angry – that stunt of mine dropped the company to third...”
She doesn't reply, just turns her attention to the instructors above us and stands at attention. Confused by the reaction of my class mates, I do the same.
Chief Driscol is leaning on the railing, looking at each of us in turn, glaring. He stops when he gets to me and nods his head slightly. The Chief stands up straight, smiles and claps his hands together with a crack that echoes through the barracks courtyard.
“It's about time you pulled together as a team. As Cadet Wilston points out I have been trying to beat that into your heads over the last few months.” he surveys us, a sad smile on his face, and places his hands behind his back, seemingly unconsciously assuming parade rest – though now I am sure it was all calculated and done for show. “You all will be done with this training in three weeks and will go to your first commands. Teamwork here is required to pass tests, run the physicals, and to make it through the training. Out there you will need it to survive. You won't have months to decide to work as a team, you will need to figure out how to do so within weeks!”
When he finished Petty Officer Waugh steps up. “Company, atten-hut!” We all snap to attention at the same moment, a crisp slap of our shoes coming together on the pavement answers his command. “Fall out. Dress blues inspection at 1600.” It's 1550 now. The entire company races to the barracks stairwell entrance in a mad dash to get changed and pop tall beside their racks.
As I entered the building Wilston comes up behind me. “Brison.” I turn to look at him, neither of us slowing down as we go up the stairs. “What were you thinking? You didn't seriously think anyone would believe you just had a bad day on the test, did you?”
I pursed my lips and looked forward. “At the time it seemed plausible.” It hadn't, really, but I had managed to convince myself that it would be believed. Never mind that I never missed more than two questions on any of the previous tests. “I figured I could use the couple days I spent in the Zoo as an excuse. The test on top of the rest should have been enough to hold me back a week and get out of this fucking company.”
We were entering the barracks floor, everyone that was ahead of us was at their bunks changing out of their dungarees and into their dress uniforms. As Wilston split off to go to his rack he glared at me. “You can't be that stupid, can you? They're not going to let you out of this company. You are going to go too far for them to let someone else say you graduated from their class.”
I stopped and looked after him. That thought had never crossed my mind – Driscol and Waugh rode my ass hard the entire time I had been here. I had assumed they would jump at the chance to dump me on another group. Confused, I finally make it to my bunk and change as fast as I can into my blues.
Not fast enough.
As I snap to attention at the foot of my rack, Driscol and Waugh are standing at the front of the room, their permanent scowls passing over each of us. Waugh starts down the isle toward me. Driscol, as always, doing the talking.
“Cadet Brison, why am I not surprised to see that you were the last one ready for inspection?” This isn't true as I can see a couple stragglers finishing up the details of their uniform down the row a bit. “Haven't you caused enough trouble? I would think that after all the shit you caused over the last week you would make every attempt to become invisible!” As if that could ever happen. I had made myself too well known to ever be invisible in this class. Petty Officer Waugh is standing in front of me now. Chief Driscol is looking at me, directing the entire force of attention on me. “You stand in my barracks and tell me to my face that you will not do push-ups because you don't agree with my reason? You insult me by thinking your opinion is equal to mine? You stand in my office, where I am graciously not beating the shit out of you for it – and am, in fact, giving you a chance to redeem yourself – and essentially tell me to fuck off? I strip you of your Section and again refrain from knocking the crap out of you, ordering you back to your rack to take part in the physical training, and you refuse? You get arrested and sent to the Zoo, you face Captain's Mast, come back to my company, and through a test?”
Waugh is glaring up at me. Somehow this short, intense oriental man makes me feel as if he is looking down at me. As Chief Driscol pauses, Waugh speaks quietly. “Drop”
I immediately drop into the up push-up position. I hear the Chief coming closer now.
“I am beginning to think that you are purposely trying to fuck with my career, Brison. Down.” I lower myself to within a couple inches of the floor and hold, waiting. “Everything you do reflects on me. This little stunt today dropped the company from first to third. Up.” I push myself back up, holding, my face red and ears burning from embarrassment. “You will re-take this test and pass it this time. Do you know how much ass-kissing I had to do to get this for you. Down. And make no mistake, I am doing this as a favor to you. Up. I am offering you one final chance to redeem yourself. Down. If you fuck this up, you are mine for a very long time, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” I manage to grunt out, the strain of holding myself inches from the floor causing me to shake all over.
“Good. Stand at attention and get ready for inspection.” As I get to my feet and snap to attention, Driscol is moving off. Waugh just looks at me for another moment, shakes his head, and follows the Chief.
Fuming, I berate myself for my lifelong dream, the burning desire, to fly a fighter. If I hadn't pursued it so single- mindedly, I would have been spared this humiliation.
Other than retaking and passing the test I previously intentionally failed, I don't remember many details from the rest of that week. One day blends into the next when they consist of marching, drilling, exercise, and basic military instruction. The rest of that week wasn't as important as the next. The second to last week of training was work week.
Common lore had it that this was the week where cadets get to spend a week learning a bit about their real world job. The truth of the matter is that you got stuck doing what the drill instructors decided you should do – after all, there really isn't a rating devoted to kitchen scullery duty. Thus is was a surprise to me when my assignment came directing me to report to the flight line at the base across the bay to work with the fighter craft.
I went down the stairs to the street and found a base shuttle waiting. Apparently, because my assignment was on another base I didn't have to march there. I stepped into the bus and the doors closed behind me and it left the curb, taking us to it's programmed destination. I looked around to see how many other pilots there were aboard and saw that save for myself and Cadet Walker sitting in the back bench, it was empty.
Walker looked at me speculatively and nodded in response to my quizzical look. “Not who you expected to see on this bus, am I?”
Grinning ruefully, I shrugged and moved to the back to sit with him. As I did, I looked at him appraisingly because he was right – I would not have pegged him for a pilot. He stood about six foot, a bit tall for a fighter jock. When he first got to basic he was quite heavyset. The constant workouts we have gone through over the past few months took care of that, trimmed him down a lot. A little too fast for his body to catch up, apparently, as his skin sagged a little around the cheeks, arms, and belly. He had intelligent eyes and always seemed a step ahead of most of the rest of the company, though his test scores were never in the top percentile. In this he was smarter than myself, I suddenly realized, as this kept him out of the forefront of the drill instructors' attention. If I had followed his example, my test failure of last week would have gone over mostly unremarked. But, I conceded as I sat down next to him, that is a philosophy I would never be able to take as my own. For better or worse, I am driven to be the best in whatever I do.
“Honestly, no. I never pictured you as one. What is your secret? How did you manage to go through this entire time meeting the requirements for the flight program and maintain your relative anonymity in the company?”
He looked at me and smiled as if he knew what he was about to say was so obvious he shouldn't have to tell me. Looking me straight in the eyes he tells me “Self confidence.”
Confused, I wrinkle my brow and look right back at him and ask “How so?”
I can tell he is amused, though I couldn't figure out why. His smile gets slightly bigger as he turns his head back to the front of the bus and explains “I know what I am capable of. I know where I am going and how I am going to get there. I don't need to set myself up as a superstar performer in order to give myself an ego boost.”
Instantly I was offended. This mediocre performer has the gall to insinuate that me performing to the best of my ability is just a pathetic attempt to gain acceptance? Then I wonder at my reaction. Why react so strongly if what he said didn't have a kernel of truth. Brooding, I too turn toward the front of the bus and watch the city stream by.
Do I really see a bit of myself in what he just said, I wonder. Perplexed, I reflect on my motivations. Do I really make myself the top performer because I need the approval of others in order to validate my own sense of self-worth? Possibly, I concede. Or at least I can see where it would have started out that way. Every child craves attention, and in that I was no different. I went through the standard deviations on this theme – causing fights, theft, disobedience – and got my attention. Along with not a few spankings. I got my first taste of positive reinforcement in my primary education when, out of boredom, I excelled in some minor exam. The praise from my instructor and from my parents resulted in such a warm glow inside myself that I decided I would seek that out whenever possible.
From there it became habit, then second hand. Excelling is no longer an effort for me. In this I can echo Walker – I know what I can do and where I am going. The difference between us is that I don't have to hide this ability because I know I will always be capable of it.
I look over at Cadet Walker and come to the realization that his decision to hide his ability does not come from self confidence, but the lack of it. He doesn't under perform because he has nothing to prove, he does so because he is afraid that if he starts to be the best, one day he may find that he isn't. This is an idea he is not comfortable with, so he hides safely in his chosen mediocrity, smug in his conviction that he is better than those that out perform him without ever putting it to the test.
We rode out the rest of the trip wrapped in our personal thoughts, each admiring the city we have only been able to see in the distance from the training compound. All too soon we were past it, the majestic buildings replaced with lush greenery as we approached the bay. Coming around a final hill we both found ourselves leaning forward in anticipation, neither having ever seen the base up close. It sprawls next to the water, jungle giving way to buildings giving way to runways and landing pads. We see cargo ships lumbering up from the field, personnel shuttles coming down at a comfortable pace. There are atmospheric trainers circling in the airspace above the runways, true fighters near the hangers undergoing maintenance, and a couple taking test flights out over the ocean.
“Takes your breath away, doesn't it,” Walker asks without taking his eyes off the scene before us.
“Yes, it does,” I respond, nodding unconsciously in agreement. Not able to see the craft on maneuvers out at sea, my eyes latched hungrily on the sleek spacecraft in the maintenance cradles near the hangers. Even with hatches popped open and workers crawling over their skin they were majestic in their deadliness. “I can't wait to get inside one of those babies.”
Walker smiles and nods. “Oh, yeah. I wonder if they will take us up in one?”
“Don't we wish. There isn't a chance in hell they will take us up. Two cadets? No way.”
“Yeah, you're right. We will be seeing enough of the inside of them soon enough, I guess.”
I nodded in silent agreement. I suppose after a couple years of flight school qualifies as 'soon enough' after a lifetime of working toward that goal. After about ten minutes we reached the level of the base and lost sight of the objects of both our desire. We both let out a sigh and leaned back at the same time, glanced at each other, and chuckled slightly at our identical reactions.
A few minutes later the bus pulled up in front of the base quarterdeck and announced that we had reached our destination. We climbed out and saw a lieutenant that seemed to be waiting for us. We snapped to attention and gave her a crisp salute.
“Cadets Walker and Brison reporting as ordered, Ma'am!”