Corpsman by Jonathan P. Brazee

adjacent plate.
    “Neves,” he acknowledged as his legs churned.
    Liege put her weapon beside the plate and gingerly stepped on.  She’d played a bit with ribbon-plates before, and so the weird, almost slimy feel of the plate’s surface wasn’t a surprise.  She carefully centered herself, and with hesitant baby steps, started a very slow jog.  She felt as if she was going to fall at any moment, but the plate’s surface adjusted to each stride, managing to give her a solid platform. 
    It felt as if she was running on a slightly giving surface, not the reality of her feet simply sliding over the plate. 
    Doctor X‘anto looked out of the corner of his eyes, and Liege could read his opinion of her slow jog.  She picked up the pace, her stride smoothing out.  The ribbon-plates worked better the faster the person ran on them.
    After only five minutes, Liege was breathing hard.  She slowed down slightly, but that didn’t do much good.  After another two minutes, she came to a stop.
    The doctor turned his head to look right at her, eyebrows raised.
    “I just warmed up here,” she gasped out.  “I’m with my friends there hitting the weights.”
    She tried to retain her composure as she walked over to the weight area.  All three of her squadmates were doing dumbbell lunges, so she grabbed two of the lighter-looking dumbbells and joined them.
    “Keep you back straight, Liege,” Fanny said in a low voice.  “Like this.”
    Liege watched her for a moment as Fanny stood straight, dumbbells at her side, then lunged forward, right leg bent at the knee, left extended behind before using the right to thrust herself back upright.  She nodded her understanding, then tried to copy her friend.
    “Better.  You don’t want to hurt your back in here.”
    For the next hour, she followed along with the other three.  If she didn’t lift as much as any of them, they didn’t seem to care nor look down upon her for that.
    HM2 Cal Zylanti even came up, watched her do a rep on the piece of plastiboard that served as an incline bench, and then nodded his approval.  Liege didn’t know why that mattered to her, but it did.
    “OK, children, if we’re going to shower and get chow before our gate brief, we’d better vamoose,” Vic said as Fanny finished her last bench press.
    Is it that late already? Liege wondered, checking her PA.
    She was tired, she might be a little stiff while on gate duty tonight, and she knew she would be sore in the morning, but she was happy. 
    Her boredom of the afternoon was a long-vanished memory.

Chapter 14
     
    Liege stood behind the Marine in the PICS, wondering what it would be like to fight from inside one of the combat suits.  She’d been in one at FMTB, and she’d even walked around in one for a few minutes, but that was merely an orientation.  It had to be different to be locked inside one for a day or more at a time.
    The addition of the PICS team to a routine checkpoint had been recent.  The battalion had gone in light.  Instead of five PICS platoons, the Fuzos only had two:  Golf’s Third Platoon and India’s Second.  The intent from on high was that the battalion was there to keep the peace, and having a “militaristic” footprint could send the wrong message.
    To a man, the Marines and sailors in the battalion thought that was utter hyena shit.  What was a Marine battalion but “militaristic?”  That was what they were designed to be. 
    But with the increased level of violence, and with one Marine from Hotel KIA, the battalion commander had thrown that guidance out the window, and she’d gone as heavy as she could.  Now, with the squad at Checkpoint 3, they had six PICS Marines reinforcing them.  Checkpoint 3 was on the south side of Route Wildebeest just as it entered the city, and it was the major, well, the only north-south highway connecting Svealand and Gran Chaco.  With almost all of the planet’s armor in the southern and eastern continents, Wildebeest