NationStates Jolt Archive

Fort Ezekiel, 50 km northeast of Riverson, Kahanistan

The base stood in a sandy area inland, excellent for desert combat training. Lieutenant General Itzhak Ben-Yehuda, commander of the 11th Corps, therefore thought it an ideal training ground for a guest he had invited to the base, a Doomani mercenary with substantial experience fighting his forces in battle.

General Ben-Yehuda had invited this mercenary commander to train his soldiers. While it might sound strange for a Kahanistanian general to willingly invite a Doomani into one of his bases, he had found one through his numerous connections who was willing to train his ground forces in advanced combat tactics. With the loss of many experienced veterans, and the use of many of those who were left as commanders, elite soldiers, or other roles, there was a shortage of qualified instructors. While the Praetonians, Allaneans, and others had made up some of the shortfall, someone with intimate knowledge of the Kahanistanian military would be required in this case.

The 11th Corps consisted of the 54th Infantry Division, 55th Infantry and 49th Armoured. Seventy-five thousand soldiers of various levels of skill, from soldiers still in basic (over half the corps, with slightly more than a third having just completed basic and most of the officers fresh graduates, in many cases, holding positions normally reserved for majors or lieutenant colonels) to elite veteran NCO's and a few ranking commissioned officers, required a lot of training, and though it had historically not been high on the Central Command's priorities, discipline.

Discipline. Almost a dirty word outside of elite units in a military whose barracks had co-ed showers, where drinking and drug use were common, and where until fairly recently soldiers trained in air-conditioned gyms - the rationale being they got just as physically fit as their counterparts who sweated like pigs in the sun totally ignoring the psychological discipline in such a hardship - discipline was seriously lacking in the average unit. It wasn't until they got to Advanced Individual Training for combat posts that soldiers sweated it out in the sun and were drilled to fanatically hold the line as they had fought at the Northford Line and Liberty Line in Haven or the Valens Line in the Negev.

If there was one thing the Doomani had, it was discipline. They were far more disciplined than most of their enemies. Even General Ben-Yehuda admitted that. This Doomani, and any staff he might have with him, Ben-Yehuda hoped, would be able to bring discipline to his corps, and maybe give the officer corps a good kick in the ass too. Many of them were no better disciplined, and the sheer incompetence that inexperience brought would only get worse unless something radical was done.

The commander waited in his office for the Doomani mercenary to contact him. He had several dozen special forces operatives, a significant portion of available troops, to protect the Doomani mercenary and his staff, should he bring any. Many in the base would love to kill him, and more than a handful would also want to kill General Ben-Yehuda for being a self-hating Jew. He'd brought Doomies into his base, for G-d's sake.

Legatus Legionis Tiberius Curtius Vex had, in fact, commanded a legion in the Negev, and was an old friend of Silvanus, the man who'd overseen the second downfall of Kahanistan. Retiring shortly after the final destruction of the Negev insurgency out in the mountains (in which his legion had accounted for over five thousand dead insurgents), he, like many Doomani soldiers who'd known no other life, simply could not comprehend civilian life, and within a year he'd begun selling his services as an advisor to the highest bidder. Doomani mercenaries were in very high demand; over the past years he'd served three different governments, not counting his own (at fifty-nine years old he'd technically been in the Exercitus for over forty years, considering that he'd been sent to the Academia Militum at a very young age). The Kahanistani government would be his fourth (and certainly most ironic) customer.

His transport (a Praetonian airliner) was en route to the airstrip nearest to the base; an hour away from landing, he sent Ben-Yehuda a text message stating that the flight was on time and would be landing within the hour. That would be his first test: to see how quickly he could get the airport secure if he had not done so already. Clad in desert BDUs, his aviator sunglasses hanging from his right brest pocket, Vex was in amazing shape for a man his age. His head was shaven, and in three places a small bolt protruded from his skull where an armored plate had been crudely applied in the middle of a firefight with the Questarians back in Damnatium. Several scars ran along his shaven head, one going down his nose and another across his chin. Like other Doomani, he had a Roman nose and sharp facial features, and dark skin developed from millenia of living in the desert. He'd gotten special permission to carry a loaded weapon on board the aircraft, and hanging off his left hip was a TDX officer's model with a 4 inch barrel custom made for him by Elysium Armory.

In the past, he'd used it to kill Questarians, Czardaians, Kahanistani, and Vizionarians. If anyone were to ask him here, he wouldn't deny the fact that he'd executed Kahanistani POWs with it. After all, it was standard practice, and probably the most painless way for a prisoner of the Doomani to go. In the overhead storage compartment was his gladius, which had killed more Czardaians than it had the other three nationalities, that particular crusade having dragged on for a good two years. He did recall using it to behead a few Kahanistani officers that had done something to irritate him.

The fact that he was now working for people that only a few years before he had been killing mercilessly did not bother him in the slightest; it was his profession. In Doomani culture, mercenary work was an entirely legitimate profession provided you did not take up arms against the Imperium. He was also well aware that there would be people on the ground that wanted him dead; this also did not bother him, as this was usually the case in his line of work. He would discipline these infidels, for he was being paid well; he would not consider his work complete until he'd molded them into a fighting force he himself would be willing to lead into combat.

While Fort Ezekiel was an army base, as opposed to an air force base, it did have a small airstrip for it to be supplied, protected from those who might wish to destroy the airstrip by a BARCAP in the air, a battery of medium-range Lyran-designed LY4031 surface-to-air missile launchers, some 40mm ETC flak cannons, and short-ranged portable missile defence (the Kahanistanian military did not use gender-specific terms such as "MAN-portable air defence" - even ranks such as "seaman" had been changed to "sailor" and the Air Force had "privates" instead of "airmen.") A company of light infantry patrolled the strip, more to hold it for reinforcements than to defend it themselves in a massive attack.

As soon as General Ben-Yehuda got the text message, he put his copy of Doomani Latin for Dummies in his drawer, right on top of his copy of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Doomani Culture. So that he would not be embarrassed by a guard snooping in his office, he covered both books with a Talmud and triple-locked the drawer, then hurried to his staff car with two of his aides.

The Praetonian airliner was able to land unmolested. Even the commander of the air defences around the strip did not know that a Doomani general was aboard the plane - the last thing Ben-Yehuda wanted was to have the plane shot down and millions of shekels flushed down the shitter. Vex and any staff (assistant instructors, bodyguards, et cetera) he may have brought with him would be greeted by a robust, well-muscled Jewish man in his late 40's, about six feet tall, with a massive acid burn on the top of his head. It didn't quite compare to having three bolts in the skull, but there were a few veterans with more impressive combat injuries back at the base.

"Salve," said the three-star general. "I am Lieutenant General Itzhak Ben-Yehuda." He extended his arm to Vex, expecting a Roman-style handshake. "This is my adjutant, Lieutenant Colonel Hassan Mohammed." He nodded in the direction of a thin, bookish Arabic man in his early 30's with Coke-bottle glasses and thick, bushy hair. "And the chief of base security, Colonel Avishai Avrahami. He will... ensure your safety on the base in coordination with any security you may have brought." Avrahami was a tall, burly man in his mid-30's whose left ear and nose were missing, most likely lost in battle.

"First things first. Despite the precautions I've taken, the media will probably find out about you... and when that happens, you'll have every other nationalist newscaster and Anti-Catholic senator demanding answers, from you about your war record, and from me for being enough of a self-hating Jew to bring a Doomani to train my troops. Secondly, and this is going to be damned controversial... you'll have full disciplinary authority during training. If someone steps out of line, you can whip him... or her. Just... fill me in a bit on discipline in Doomani units. Thirdly, and lastly... there will be a lot of things that are totally alien to your culture. I don't think the Doomani military even has female personnel. We have mixed-gender showers and women are allowed in the same roles as men - even our elite troops. We put our women through the same training as the men, they come out with the same skills."

Vex had brought with him ten assistant instructors; Drill Centurions as they were referred to in the Doomani military. He recieved Ben Yehuda's handshake, giving him the firm Roman-style one he'd been expecting. His first impressions of the man were certainly good; the Doomani as a whole loved when you made an effort at speaking their language. Still, Vex's face remained expressionless, his aviator sunglasses concealing his vicious stare. He immediately recognized the acid burn on Ben Yehuda's head as being the result of encountering Pestis Dei, a weapon Vex himself had employed on many occasions. In fact, his own legion's artillery had taken part in the gassing of Najaster, and Vex had been among the commanders to watch to festivities with the emperor.

He made a mental note: Pestis Dei most certainly does not have a 100% lethality rate.
"Legate Curtius Vex," he replied with the handshake, speaking, surprisingly, in Yiddish. He'd made a point of learning the language before deploying to the Negev, already being fluent in English and Arabic (the former being considered the language of barbarians and the later being considered Satan's preferred tounge, in Doomani culture).

"These are my instructors, they will assist me." he motioned with his right hand, his left remaining behind his back. "Yes...I've noticed that media always takes an interest of men of my sort," he said with a hint of amusement, although he still failed to smile, "I always have been amused with dealing with them. Not nearly as tame as those from where I come from." He eyed the base around him, and spoke in a business-like manner,

"Your assumptions that the Exercitus does not allow women to serve in its ranks are correct, General. In my country, it is considered...how you say...cowardly, for a man, no matter his age, to allow a woman to take up arms in his place. We prefer to keep our women out of harm's way, although in my time there have been a few instances where it was...unavoidable..." he referred, of course, to the Siege of Necropolis, in which there had actualy been female Imperial Guard units in action against the Questarians, primarily serving to evacuate the wounded. "Walk with me, if you please,"

He began to stroll about the airstrip, his detail at his heels, "Our discipline is the sort that produces men willing to walk headlong into a manned machinegun nest head on without hesitation. Many of your comrades will consider my methods...brutal, but they most certainly do work. Now, way I see it, first order of business will be to seperate the men from the women. Coed units in training are extremely detractive to unit discipline. Only when they've all had their fair shares of mockings, scornings, and beatings will they be ready to reintegrate," he spoke as if teaching an eager young student, sounding almost like a philosopher, "I'm not going to lie to you. It is almost garunteed that some of these men and women will most likely perish in the coming months, although I can further garuntee you that this will be a result of heat stroke. It is not always avoidable, you see," he peered thoughtfully into the bright desert sky before looking Ben Yehuda in the eye. "You must be prepared to deal with the consequences of such. I sincerely doubt that there will be a single one of your soldiers without scars from the lash by the time this is over, but it will make them stronger. I suggest you read this, it will put it all into perspective." he handed him a thick paperback book entitled Imperial Army Regulations and Discipline: English Translation.

Within that book, Ben Yehuda would learn every tiny detail and punishment:

Insobordinance: flogging (repeat offence, execution.) Dunkards: flogging (repeat offence, execution.) Individual cowardice: execution. Unit cowardice: decimation.

Desertion: crucifixion. The book even went on to detail the regulation methods (there were, in fact, more than one) to crucify someone.

"For our purposes, we will forgoe execution, as I'm almost certain we would end up with a rather high attrition rate..." he finally grinned in a slight, sardonic manner. "Indeed, in our basic training, we forgoe execution for the most part. We prefer to produce soldiers, not corpses."

For the most part.

There were tales among military science circles of Doomani recruits being brought to the point where they literally beg their instructors to execute them, which would usually be done with a slit of the throat or bullet to the back of the head on the spot. There were only two ways of exiting Legionary training: success, or death.

"Now, if you will show me to the barracks, I will begin immediately."

General Ben-Yehuda spoke Hebrew, but had enough command of Yiddish to understand the legate. He didn't want to correct him in front of his subordinates, so he played along, for now. "I hope you are amused when they come." And not offended... the last thing we need is a senatorial complaint, if he cracks someone's jaw. He considered it very important to keep Doomani presence on the base on the down-low to prevent such an incident. "I will make a note to have plenty of water available for the trainees."

Hassan wrote down a quick note on his pad, to separate the males from the females... and to have extra water available. The last thing the military needed was deaths in training. If more than usual died, a lot of irate parents would be calling their representatives in the Senate and General Ben-Yehuda would be called before a court of inquiry - and likely court-martialed for permitting such cruelty and maltreatment. This was likely anyway, given that he was allowing the lash to be brought into a military where sergeants weren't even allowed to strike recruits, let alone beat them. They might be pissed about that, but hopefully not pissed enough to write their representatives, or the President. She would absolutely shit a brick to hear about Doomani mass murderers training her troops.

"Hassan, take my staff car back to the base," said Ben-Yehuda. Colonel Avrahami unlocked a truck on the base with enough seats to hold him, the general, and all of the Doomani arrivals. The security chief then climbed into the driver's seat and started the troop truck while the general read over the Imperial field manual. He'd have to have copies made of it to be issued to each new recruit... maybe even incorporate parts of it into the next version of their own manual.

Good lord... how many ways are there to crucify someone? All he was familiar with was what he'd seen on crucifixes, and being a Jew, he didn't see a lot of crucifixes.

The truck went into gear, driving along a dirt road to the base barely two kilometres away. The first thing the visitors to the base saw was two sentries, one at each side, in desert camouflage, carrying Aequatian G100 rifles with 6.5x55mm 30-round magazines. The next thing they saw was that one of the two sentries was a woman, and a small one at that. She was probably less than five feet tall and appeared to be a sergeant. Ben-Yehuda wasn't kidding about the lack of gender segregation.

Hassan had apparently called ahead, as the base sub-commanders were hurriedly separating the men from the women into different units when the crew arrived. The units were further segregated into basic training, advanced infantry training, armoured, air defence, and other units for ease of instruction. There were, of course, more units than there were Doomani instructors, but priority lay on basic trainees and infantry, then armoured, then other units.

[OOC: I'm pretty bored and the thread's sat for over three weeks, so I'll put a bigass bump here. Hopefully, since the mercs are just training grunts they wouldn't be 'taking up arms against the Imperium' if things get nasty and if they do, a retrained officer corps would be essential. :)]

Recruit Yonatan Bloomenstein, age 17, retired to his barracks after a long, hard day of working out in the sun, sweating harder than he ever had in his life, and being lashed ten times for mouthing off to one of the Drill Centurions, who to his horror he learned had been given full authority to discipline recruits. He had showered before having the barracks medical staff put antibiotics on his wounds and bandage him up, and the idea of another four months of this fun made him want to vomit. Instead, he called his girlfriend back home in New New Sodom.

"Tamar, shit's real fucked up here. General Ben-Yehuda has... lost his marbles. I think that gas messed up his brain or something, he's hired a bunch of Doomies to train us up."

"Doomani?" asked the girl on the other end of the line. "In your base? I don't trust them, but if these mercs are being paid millions of shekelim to help train you, apparently someone in the government thinks it's a good idea..."

"Yeah, Ben-Yehuda. He gave these mercs full disciplinary authority, said it'll make us as tough as the Doomies." In Kahanistanian English, "Doomies" wasn't considered a racial slur as it might be in other places. It was simply a slang term for the Doomani and carried no more negative connotations than, for example, "Aussie" for "Australian." "Fish n****r," on the other hand, was a highly derogatory term in Kahanistanian English for the Doomani.

Yonatan continued to speak. "They whipped me when I cited the regulation against cruelty and maltreatment. Ten lashes on the bare back. Sergeants didn't used to even be able to slap us, unless something's changed that I don't know about. I've got no problem with being tough, but these guys want to make us outright psychotic or something, like what happens to a pit bull if you starve it and beat it for a few months... it's nuts. A few more weeks of this and I'll end up like that guy in Full Metal Jacket."

"Yoni, you want to talk to the general... or even write to your Senator. This can't be legal, and it's certainly not right..."

"Thanks," said Yonatan. "I'll... sleep on it." Sleeping on his lashing was not an option, but he wasn't sure right now that he wanted to risk being drummed out in disgrace. Ben-Yehuda had powerful allies, even if they didn't necessarily know he was consorting with Doomani. He could make a recruit's life hell even without having him flogged or sent into the front lines.