In Perpetuity Read online

  In Perpetuity

  Jake Bible

  One

  “What you are holding in your weak little hands is called an A6 plasma rifle! Also known as a scorcher!” Master Sergeant Lawrence Kim bellowed at the fifty rows of fresh cadets that packed the antechamber to the combat simulator. There were twenty-five cadets per row, but Kim focused his attention on just a handful in front of him. “You will only refer to your rifle as a scorcher! It will not be called an A6! It will not be called a plasma rifle! If I hear any of you motherfucking pieces of shit referring to a scorcher as anything other than a scorcher, I will personally turn you all into bottoms! Am I understood?”

  “Yes, sir!” the cadets yelled.

  “Holy fucking moron crap!” Kim yelled. “Did you taint flakes just call me sir? Are you all retarded in ways that had yet to be invented until this very second? Have you never watched a training video in your life? Did you not all just complete your written exams administered by Central Space Command’s most dedicated recruitment officers? My name is Master Sergeant Lawrence Kim! You will call me Master Sergeant or you will get my ten foot cock up your ass so fast that I’ll be coming from between your gums before you can even register the intense tearing sensation that is your insides! Now, what is my motherfucking name?”

  “Master Sergeant Lawrence Kim!” the cadets yelled.

  “Jesus jumping on a laser! You are the stupidest motherfuckers I have ever had to train! Did I not just tell you sperm shits to call me Master Sergeant? Did I not just say that?” Kim roared.

  He stomped up to a skinny young man, maybe twenty, maybe less, and thrust his chest against the cadet.

  “What the fuck is your name, cadet?”

  “Cadet Private Carlos DeSuezo!” the young man replied.

  “What did I ask to be called, Cadet Private DeSuezo?”

  “Master Sergeant!”

  “Did you call me that?”

  “I did not, Master Sergeant!”

  “And why the holy fuck did you not call me by the name I just ordered all of you cunt scrapings to call me by?”

  “It was confusing, Master Sergeant!”

  “Do you know the difference between a pussy and an asshole, Cadet Private DeSuezo?”

  “I do, Master Sergeant!”

  “Which do you prefer to ram your itsy bitsy cock into, Cadet Private DeSuezo?”

  “I prefer pussy, Master Sergeant!”

  “Then would you not be upset if you were to whip out that one inch of yours and find that you are jamming it into a shit-crusted asshole? Would that not upset you, Cadet Private DeSuezo?”

  “Yes, that would upset me, Master Sergeant!”

  “Then you can understand how I felt when you piss dribbles referred to me by something other than Master Sergeant, can you not Cadet Private DeSuezo?”

  “I can, Master Sergeant!”

  “So let us try this again, you fucking snot licking, spooge drinkers! What is my name?”

  “Master Sergeant!”

  “I cannot hear you over the cocks and twats that are jammed in your mouths! WHAT THE FUCK IS MY NAME?”

  “MASTER SERGEANT!”

  “Very good,” Kim grinned. “That’s exactly what my name is. Now, your job, if your tiny little fucksticks for brains can handle it, is to name your scorcher. Can you handle that, you sphincter nibblers?”

  “Yes, Master Sergeant!”

  Kim turned and stalked over to a tall woman, close to thirty with shoulder-length brown hair and deep black skin. He shoved himself against her, mashing his muscled chest into her breasts. The woman did not budge, but her bottom lip started to quiver.

  “What is the name of your scorcher, cadet private?”

  “Master Sergeant?” the woman asked.

  “You named your scorcher after me? I would be flattered if it wasn’t so goddamned sad! There are a trillion names out there and you have chosen to name your scorcher after me? Were you born an abortion, cadet private?”

  “No, Master Sergeant!”

  “Then why did you name your scorcher after me?”

  “I did not, Master Sergeant! I was asking a question!”

  “I did not hear a question, cadet private, I heard my motherfucking name! Why is your head shoved up your cunt, cadet private? Now, that’s a question!”

  “Yes, Master Sergeant!”

  “Yes? Yes what, you cum dumpster? At no point did I expect a response from that cock hole you speak with! What is your name, cadet private?”

  “Cadet Private Nola Vklogg!”

  “Cadet Private Nola Vklogg? You are not from Earth, Cadet Private Nola Vklogg, are you?”

  “No, Master Sergeant, I am not!”

  “Which piece of shit colony are you from, Cadet Private Nola Vklogg?”

  “I am from Grafe, Master Sergeant!”

  “Grafe? Grafe! Do you hear that, you pus bag whores? We have a Grafian here!” Kim shoved his face into Cadet Private Vklogg’s, pressing his nose against her nose. “I bet you think you’re better than all of us, don’t you Cadet Private Nola Vklogg? I bet you think you can buy us all out with your riches and make us your slaves, right? When you go to the can, you probably shit diamonds and corphia crystals? Each time you flush, you flush my year’s salary down the shitter. That make you feel special, Cadet Private Nola Vklogg?”

  “I do not feel special, Master Sergeant! I am here to serve Central Space Command and fight against the Estelian threat to Earth and all of her colonies!”

  “Is that so?” Kim laughed as he stepped back and looked Cadet Private Vklogg up and down. “A real patriot? Is that what we have here? Don’t tell me you volunteered. Please don’t tell me that.”

  Cadet Private Vklogg just stood there.

  “Well, I’ll be blown by a pack of wiccs,” Kim laughed. “You did volunteer! Your parents must be very proud.”

  Cadet Private Vklogg winced at the mention of her parents.

  “Uh-oh,” Kim grinned from ear to ear. “I smell trouble in rich people land. Your parents aren’t proud, are they? They’re actually disappointed that the bribes they paid when you were born went to waste, am I right? All those credits just gone because you want to do your duty and kill doublegangers. They probably won’t speak to you anymore, right? Am I right, Cadet Private Vklogg?”

  “No, Master Sergeant!”

  “I’m sorry, did you just say no?”

  “Yes, Master Sergeant!”

  “So your parents are speaking to you, Cadet Private Vklogg?”

  “No, Master Sergeant! My parents were killed last year during the assault on the Benesheer, Master Sergeant! Along with my entire family! I escaped in a lifepod and was picked up by a CSC cruiser, Master Sergeant!”

  “Well, fuck me standing on one leg,” Kim nodded. “I have been corrected. Your rich fucking family died while vacationing on the most expensive spaceliner in the galaxy, you escaped with your black skin intact, and now you want to go out and get your tits blown off by doublegangers? Is that what you are telling me?”

  “I want to do my duty and kill Estelians, Master Sergeant!”

  “You want revenge, is what you want,” Kim chuckled. “You know what revenge does to the mind, Cadet Private Vklogg? It warps it! It makes it do stupid things! Like fucking enlist in the CSC corps! That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard! You are a fucking moron, Cadet Private Vklogg! An A-one, prime moron!”

  “Yes, Master Sergeant!”

  “What is the name of your scorcher, Cadet Private Vklogg?”

  “Nastua, Master Sergeant!”

  “Was that your mother’s name?”

  “No, Master Sergeant!”

  “Was it your grandmother’s name?”

  “No, Master Sergeant! It was the name of my baby girl, M
aster Sergeant! She was vaporized in the nursery during the first wave of the attack!”

  “Now you want her to vaporize some doublegangers, is that it?”

  “Yes, Master Sergeant!”

  “Fucking-A right, you do! Now shut the fuck up and let me deal with these other shitstains! You! The fucking slant-eyed ginger! How in the perfect science of genetics did you end up with slant eyes and curly red hair?”

  “Good genes, Master Sergeant!” replied a short young man, looking exactly as Kim described him.

  “Do you see my eyes, you little mongrel?”

  “Yes, Master Sergeant!”

  “Are they slant eyed like yours?”

  “Yes, Master Sergeant!”

  “Is my hair jet black?”

  “Yes, Master Sergeant!”

  “That’s because my gene pool hasn’t been pissed in by some Celtic mongoloid! My blood is pure, you fucking freak of nature! Who the fuck let an abomination like you join this elite fighting machine?”

  “A recruiter outside of a bar, Master Sergeant!”

  “That explains everything then!” Kim yelled. He reached out and grabbed the young man by his curly red hair. “The next time you stand in front of me, I want this red shit shaved off! If you ever desecrate my heritage by showing up with some fucking leprechaun looking hair again, I will let Cadet Private Vklogg take her size twelve boot and insert it up your anus to her ankle, do you fucking hear me?”

  “Yes, Master Sergeant!”

  “What is the name of your scorcher?”

  “Mike, Master Sergeant!”

  “Mike? You gave your scorcher a boy’s name? Do you like boys, cadet private?”

  “Todd Norlini, Master Sergeant!”

  “What did you just fucking say to me?”

  “I told you my name, Master Sergeant!”

  “Jesus eating crackers, did I ask you for your fucking name?”

  “Well, no, Master Sergeant!”

  “Well no?” Kim asked. He shook his head. “Drop your trousers and bend over, Cadet Private Norlini.”

  “I’m sorry, Master Sergeant?”

  “Yes, you are about to be,” Kim smiled. “Cadet Private Vklogg?”

  “Yes, Master Sergeant?” Cadet Private Vklogg asked.

  “The second Cadet Private Norlini has exposed his anus, I want you to grip his tiny boy hips and shove your boot as far up his ass as you can. Are we understood?”

  “Yes, Master Sergeant!” Cadet Private Vklogg replied.

  “NORLINI! Why do I not see your brown eye?” Kim roared.

  Cadet Private Norlini looked around, but no one would meet his gaze. He swallowed hard then unbuckled his trousers and let them fall to his ankles.

  “Turn and spread them wide, Norlini,” Kim chuckled. “Give Cadet Private Vklogg an open shot. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

  Cadet Private Norlini slowly turned around, bent over, and spread his ass cheeks. Cadet Private Vklogg hesitated slightly then walked to the man, grabbed him by his hips and lifted her foot.

  “Master Sergeant Kim? Combat simulator is now open. Please escort the cadets into the simulator for combat training,” a voice said from a speaker above the cadets.

  “Well, looks like you have been saved by the voice above, Cadet Private Norlini,” Kim laughed. “NOW GET YOUR FUCKING ASSES INTO THAT SIMULATOR BEFORE I SCORCH RAPE EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU!”

  Two

  “Man, he loves his job way too much,” the tech said as he initiated the training protocol once the last cadet had entered the combat simulator. He turned from the digital images floating in the air in front of his station and looked at the tech to his right. “We sure he isn’t a doubleganger?”

  “Why do you ask that?” the other tech asked, his eyes locked onto the set of images that floated in front of his work station. He waved his hand across one set and brought up a second set then dismissed that set for a third. “Why the hell would you think Kim is a DG?”

  “Because he talks about assholes all the time,” the first tech replied. “And you know how DGs are.”

  “Please don’t tell me you believe that bullshit about DGs breathing from their asses,” the second tech sighed. “How did you get cleared for this job?”

  “No, I don’t believe that,” the first tech huffed. “I’ve just heard that they like to, well, violate their enemies in the ass.”

  “You are such an idiot,” the second tech said. “And you are about to be late starting the next sim. Linklater will fire you in a heartbeat if you slow down today’s schedule.”

  “Shit,” the first tech responded as he hurried to initiate the simulator training protocol hovering in front of him. “Now, he’s the DG. No way a human being can be wound so tight as Linklater.”

  “And yet I am,” a voice snapped from the hatchway of the combat simulator control room. “100% human. And you are 100% fired.”

  “Sir, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—,” the first tech blubbered.

  “You didn’t mean to stay gainfully employed? Good, because you aren’t anymore,” growled Lead Tech Officer Lieutenant Michael Linklater. He pointed towards the hatch behind him. “Out. Now. Report for cadet training. You blew your chance of staying out of combat, son. Too bad.”

  The tech started to argue then just lowered his head, stood up, and slinked past Linklater. The second tech kept his eyes glued to his station.

  “What is he running?” Linklater asked as he sat down in the fired tech’s seat.

  “Planetary assaults,” the second tech replied crisply.

  “Good,” Linklater said as he started whipping his hands back and forth in the air. “I prefer those to onboard fights. I get claustrophobic.”

  “Understood, sir,” the second tech replied.

  Linklater leaned forward into the image and spoke loudly, “Master Sergeant, your simulation is ready. Cadets may proceed at your discretion.”

  Three

  The cadet ran full out across the open field towards a large mound of burnt soil only a few meters ahead of him. He glanced to his left and saw six of his comrades get vaporized before his eyes, their bodies turning inside out and then to nothing in a blink. The cadet almost screamed, but forced himself to remember that it was all just a simulation; that the interface chip embedded in his brain only made it look like his fellow cadets had died.

  A bright green flash of light hit the dirt in front of him and he threw himself to the right as a six meter swathe of ground was turned into dust. He rolled a couple more meters then tried to get up, but was knocked down by the crush of cadets that were all heading for the same small patch of cover.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” a master sergeant screamed in the cadet’s face. “Are you taking a nap? Do you think you can fucking kill doublegangers while napping, is that it?”

  “No, Master Sergeant!” the cadet yelled as he was yanked to his feet.

  “Then get to running, you fucking worm!” the master sergeant shouted.

  “Yes, Master Sergeant!” the cadet shouted.

  He gripped his scorcher and ran as hard as he could to the mound of burnt soil. A few hundred of his other cadets joined him as he finally made it to cover, their bodies jostling for protection. One by one, two by two, three by three, they were picked off, vaporized until only a third of their ranks were left behind the mound.

  “You stupid fucknuts!” the master sergeant yelled as he stomped up to the pinned down group. “Look at you all! You think you’ll win this war by hiding? Well, guess fucking what? You will not!”

  The master sergeant pulled a pistol from his hip and aimed it at the frightened group of cadets.

  “This is not a sim weapon,” the master sergeant said. “There are only live rounds in this pistol. If I do not see every single one of you rush from this mound of coward dirt and take that DG bunker, then I will personally send the stragglers to meet their Makers! Am I understood?”

  The cadets stared at him until he thumbed the sa
fety off and the pistol let out a high-pitched whine. Then all of the cadets turned and bolted from the mound, their scorchers up and firing wildly.

  More than a few cadets fell to simulated friendly fire.

  Four

  “Buddha in a hammock eating tacos, these new recruits are stupid,” Linklater said as he watched them get annihilated in the simulation before him. “Six hundred dead and not a single Estelian hit. How the hell are we going to win anything when we have morons like this fighting for us?”

  “It’s what the Perpetuity is here for,” Chief Training Officer Major Bartram North said as he stepped into the simulation control room. Deeply tanned with a sharp nose and angular cheekbones, North looked wiry and fast, which he was. “We turn morons into killers.”

  “The problem is they are killing each other and themselves,” Linklater scoffed as he swiped away the simulation image and brought up two others. “Look at these numbers, North. See this one? Three thousand dead in less than ten minutes. And here? Two thousand dead in twenty minutes. At least these idiots here obtained their objective and took the bridge of the Estelian destroyer. But I’m pretty sure it was dumb luck.”

  “Most of war is dumb luck, Link,” North replied. “The brass just like to take the credit.”

  “Yeah, but we get the blame,” Linklater smirked. “Fuckers.”

  North leaned against the wall of the room, careful not to put his shoulder against anything important, and studied the dozens of techs as they ran multiple combat simulations.

  “What are you working on now?” North asked.

  “Finishing touches on the Stavroff simulation,” Linklater said.

  “Seriously?” North asked, pushing away from the wall.

  “Completely,” Linklater said. “I’m even putting the lake country in there. The cadets that make the mistake of getting close to that water are going to be shitting themselves.”

  “We almost didn’t make it out of there,” North said. “Do me a favor and don’t activate the wiltcha, okay? I want them focused on killing DGs, not fighting off a six-legged lake monster.”