"Southern Command, Sergeant".
"Didn't know you were a habitual deserter, Valentine. Thought Pacific Command was your first. You desert PB and the only direction to go is to the Kurians, where they'll turn you right in to the Reapers".
Valentine looked at the ground.
"Why don't you give us all a big fuckin' shock, follow orders, and see something through for once ?"
He passed on.
"What's the thing about electrical tape?" Tuber whispered, as Kugel yelled at some other PB - the involuntary recruits insisted it stood for "poor bastard" - about his handwriting and spelling.
"You pull the pin and wrap some electrical tape around the handle of a grenade. Gasoline dissolves the sticky. The more loops, the longer it takes. Then it blows".
Valentine glanced back at Kugel, who passed out another test and winked. Ten days ago, Kugel would have had him and Tuber jogging around the fence perimeter holding hands for talking among themselves.
* * *
The ordnance-disposal training was the worst. They used real shells and demolition charges, with just enough dynamite hidden inside to knock you on your ass with your ears ringing. Worse, you had to work through thick gloves and plastic safety goggles that were more scratch than lens.
Tuber was clumsy, and set off a shell as he and Valentine worked. Valentine expelled a deep breath as he picked himself up, but Tuber went berserk.
"Goddamn goddamn goddamn!" he screamed, spinning, throwing off his gloves, goggles, and helmet like a whirligig expelling sparks.
"You're dead, dummies", Corporal Pope, the bomb expert at the training center, shouted, not that every man in the platoon didn't know.
Tuber charged the corporal. Half the men in the platoon, including Valentine, threw themselves at him. He tossed two men off one arm, sent another reeling with a blow, tossed a fourth through the window.
"Chill, man", Joho squeaked, Tuber's hand gripping at his throat.
Corporal Pope reached for his pistol.
"What the hell's going on in here?" Kugel yelled, poking his head in the door. "Pope, stand down".
Tuber charged at Kugel, hauling Valentine along like a backpack. Valentine couldn't say what happened next, only that he and Tuber went over like a tripped horse, knocking aside tables and classroom stools. He turned and saw Kugel with a club across the back of Tuber's neck.
"PeaBees, hold this cocksucker down!" Kugel grunted. "Pope, get your foot on his neck. Don't let him get leverage!"
Valentine threw himself across the small of Tuber's back. With two men on each limb and Pope bearing down on Tuber's neck, they just managed to keep him facedown on the floor.
Kugel hurried to the classroom slop sink and ran a pitcher of water. He returned and upended it on Tuber's head.
"Tubelow! Tubelow!" Kugel shouted. "Stand down!" Tuber continued to struggle and Kugel took out his pistol.
"No! He's giving", Valentine said, which wasn't quite true, but Valentine straddled the small of Tuber's back, putting himself between Kugel's pistol and the back of Tuber's head for a few seconds. Valentine reached up and caressed Tuber's cheek. "Take it easy, Tube. Take it easy. Itsy-bitsy spider climbed up the waterspout...".
Tuber relaxed.
"Fuckin' Bears", Pope said.
They chained Tuber in his bunk for the rest of the afternoon, just in case.
* * *
Graduation came, and they were pared down to 105. The 14 rejects, the perpetual screwups who were the kind that got other men killed, were taken away in a barred bus. Some said they were the smart ones; they'd spend the rest of their sentence in a mine or lumber camp. Others said they were being taken off to be quietly hung somewhere. The
rest got tiny tattoos on their right biceps, done quick and dirty by the corporals, a little Roman numeral V and 775 beneath.
"You're PeaBees now", Kugel said, addressing them from the front of the church as they sat in the pews. They'd spent the morning cleaning the barrack, hanging up and cleaning the bedding, making everything spotless for the next "class".