Doom
Fleet: The Boot Camp Years
Getting Physical
By Cheezey
The long afternoon spent in medical for midway physical evaluations was enjoyed by none of Force Captain Yurak’s unit. By fleet regulation, halfway through initiation training each of the new recruits had to have his physical condition assessed to ensure that they were shaping up properly. That Yurak and Lieutenant Vardash would not have minded, except that it was also protocol that those with direct supervisory duties of the boot camp units also had to take the extra physical. The reasoning was that as leaders they were to set an example. Yurak however felt that he had better things to do with his time than waste it in medical babysitting the recruits—that was Vardash’s job, after all—and be violated by the nurse, a robeast of a woman with a stern Gloomite accent and a build that would intimidate all but a seasoned bodybuilder or robeast. Had she not been Doomite, one might have compared her to the Nanny of the Arusian princess, with the exception that Nurse Urga’s immense thighs and arms were all muscle and she took sadistic joy in forcing fleet men to bend over in front of her while she donned her rubber glove of doom.
Yurak sat impatiently in a chair while he watched his unruly crew of privates line up and go back one by one. Privates Cossack and Yaklitz were near the front of the line, and Lieutenant Vardash hovered at the back. He had put forth a valiant effort to weasel out of the physical himself, not only because the fact that he had to endure the humiliation of it marred his joy in watching his subordinates suffer considerably, but the evaluator invariably lectured him about his weight every time. Last time they had even threatened to put him on a diet and limit his rations if he gained any more weight, and he just did not think it was fair that they might make him give up the mess hall’s yummy banana splits and puffed skull pastries if he could still do his job just fine.
Cossack and Yaklitz exchanged nervous looks knowing their time was that much closer when the private in front of them went back into the exam room with Nurse Urga. A moment later the pathetic yelp of a man being violated with cold hands filled the air through the closed door, followed by Urga’s stern voice admonishing him for his weakness, and Yaklitz shuddered knowing that he was in for it soon.
“Ah, Urga’s not that bad,” Cossack mused in an effort to bolster his spirits, and to convince himself as he did not quite believe his own words. “Just close your eyes and think of home. That Gloomite accent could probably sound a lot like your wife’s if you thought on it.”
Yaklitz took his advice, and whimpered just like the man behind the door was at that moment. Unfortunately Urga did sound a lot like his battle-ax of a wife, who was also Gloomite by birth. Suddenly the thought of being abused by the nurse was ten times worse, because now he also expected her to ask him if she looked fat in that uniform and nag him painfully for giving the wrong answer while she did the full physical evaluation.
A moment later Urga emerged, and the broken private in line before them stumbled out with his head down and his hand lamely clutching at the shorts around his waist. “Next,” the nurse barked.
Yaklitz elbowed Cossack, who faced Urga with a sheepish smile on his face that came to an unfortunate eye level with the tall woman’s breasts. “So… uh, you come here often?”
Much to his chagrin, Urga did not find his wisecracks any more amusing than his superiors did. “In, now, and no funny talk out of you, little man!” She accented her order with an unchallengeable point to the door.
“Yes sir—ma’am—robeast,” Cossack muttered obediently, and skittered inside while Urga followed with a disapproving grunt and closed the door behind them.
Oh man, and I’m next, the increasingly anxious Yaklitz thought, while Yurak tapped his foot impatiently from his chair and Vardash looked longingly at the door.
“Moons of Gloom!” they all heard Urga exclaim from the physical room. “Is zat real?”
Yurak’s foot tapping came to an abrupt halt, Vardash’s head whipped around, and Yaklitz snickered, guessing at what Urga had spotted.
“One hundred percent, baby!” was Cossack’s confident reply.
“Zat is shameful, sinful!” They heard another gasp. “But yet I cannot take my eyes from it…”
“Wanna make it squeak?”
Several of the men, Yaklitz included, laughed. Yurak however did not find Cossack’s lewdness funny, and after an exasperated roll of his natural eye he cast most of them a withering glare that stifled most of their snickers. Vardash on the other hand actively scowled at the outburst, partly because he had no desire to picture that toad pond born private naked, and furthermore because none of his men had any right enjoying the trip to medical when he was so miserable!
Apparently Urga was of a similar mindset to Vardash and Yurak. “Brash little man!” she exclaimed indignantly, and from the waiting area they could then hear the sound of flesh being struck and what sounded like a muffled whimper from Cossack, eliciting a cruel smile from Vardash. Eventually Cossack emerged, hair rumpled and walking just a little funny.
“She noticed your tattoo, huh?” Yaklitz murmured in a low tone as he passed.
Cossack gave a small nod in response. He did not like talking about his tattoo; it was a little embarrassing, as he had acquired it while utterly shitfaced in Yaklitz’s company. The tattoo itself was a tribute to Admiral Quackers, an evil whip-wielding duck in a pirate hat, located squarely on his left butt cheek. However, it had been his experience thus far that the chicks seemed to like it, so he kept it. “You got it.”
“She didn’t appreciate it?”
“I think she tried to pluck it.”
Urga stood in the doorway and beckoned to Yaklitz. “Your turn.”
He whimpered again. “I think I’d rather go to the arena.” Yaklitz then went in, and soon emerged an even more broken man, and slowly but surely Nurse Urga worked her way through the entire unit. When every private was done, it was Vardash’s turn, and although he looked longingly between the exit and imploringly at Yurak, he had no reprieve, and subsequently shuffled in for his turn to be manhandled. The unit save their force captain got a chuckle out of the indignant, high-pitched squeal that came from their loathed lieutenant behind the closed door shortly afterward, and when he finally came out, the first thing he did was order a private that had taken his seat to vacate now, so he could flop down in it and complain.
“I told you you’d be able to handle it,” Yurak remarked gruffly as Vardash’s large rear end filled the seat next to his.
Vardash was about to argue that point when Urga cut him off, her attention on Yurak. “Now we see if you can handle it. And get a move on, force captain; it’s a very busy day here. We still have all of Captain Mogor’s unit to go.” She snapped her fingers. With little more than a frown and a growl under his breath, Yurak submitted and went in.
A few moments later they heard her holler, “When I said to take it all off, it includes zat! Armor, pants, it all comes off! Disarm your arm right zis moment before I beat you with it!”
There was the sound of a grumbled protest—presumably Yurak’s response—some scuffling, something that sounded like a loud electrical discharge, and finally a yelp from the nurse that time. “Oooh! Fresh furry man! I felt zat! You watch those metal fingers around Urga!”
The men of his unit then heard another unintelligible outburst from their force captain followed by loud thump and another scuffle. Shortly afterward, Yurak emerged with an unreadable expression on his face clad in nothing but his standard fleet-issue boxer shorts and carrying his metal gauntlet, its fingers still twitching.
“That woman has incredible stamina,” was all he said as he strode out with a slight limp in his stride.
* * *
The next day the reports from medical were issued, and Yurak was not at all pleased. While his own results were fine, indicating that he was in the high percentiles of all the parameters and even showed minor improvements from his last, by and large the unit was not in nearly as good shape. Several fell below the fiftieth percentile and only four of the men had numbers that he considered good, and of them only two showed marked increases in muscle mass since enlistment. He was mildly surprised to learn that one was Private Cossack, but he supposed that the private did look a little beefier than when he had first enlisted, and theorized that running one’s mouth all day must do something to build muscle.
His bunkmate and cohort in idiocy Private Yaklitz on the other hand scored second lowest in the unit. It seemed for all the time he spent chewing the fat with his buddy when he was supposed to be on duty his waistline was showing it. Though Yaklitz had decent musculature, the report indicated that his cardiovascular fitness was woefully sub par and his body fat had increased by two point five percent in the weeks he had been in boot camp. Yurak surmised that was the result of all the beer and the tequila he had witnessed him consume while he had been a part of his unit.
But while that was shameful, it was unfortunately not the worst. At rock bottom of the fitness listings was none other than their superior Lieutenant Vardash. Since his last physical the year prior, the lieutenant had managed to gain thirteen pounds and given his body fat reading it was by no means all muscle. Disgusted by that, as there was proof positive in writing that the reason for his pants being too tight was indeed his thirds-on-dessert-every-night habit, Yurak frowned in heavy disapproval. Apparently abstaining from meatloaf under strict orders from him after the immovable trouser wedgie was not enough. No, something had to be done about that unacceptable evaluation of the unit right away, starting with their lieutenant.
The first thing he did was go straight to Vardash’s desk. Almost immediately Yurak noticed the giant banana milkshake and a candy dish full of sugared nuts sitting on it, while Vardash stood abruptly to salute as he approached. “Sir.”
“Do you know what this is?” Yurak waved the medical report in his face. “This is Nurse Urga’s evaluation of your unit, and do you know what it said?” Before Vardash could answer, he roared, “It said that this unit is in sad shape, and its lieutenant is in the saddest shape of all of them!”
“Oh, sir, I—”
Yurak cut him off, not in the mood to hear any excuses. “This is inexcusable, and it will be corrected! As of right now I order you to make sure every man in this unit shows no less than ten percent improvement by the end of training evaluation. I want you all in fit condition! No excuses!”
“Yes sir,” Vardash agreed with a vigorous nod. “I’ll run them ragged, I’ll whip them into shape personally!” Ordering the unit to do grueling exercise sounded promising especially considering how much he hated exercising himself. Maybe he would make Cossack do fifty pushups every time he opened his mouth. Oh yes, that sounded like oodles of fun!
“Well you could certainly use the cardio, but I’m going to whip you myself,” he pointed out sternly.
As luck would have it, just about then Captain Mogor came around the corner to use the copy machine on his own reports from medical. Though he could not see Yurak or Vardash as the copier was behind a large set of file cabinets in the area where Vardash’s desk was, he recognized their voices immediately, and cringed at what he heard. Yurak was too busy lambasting Vardash and Vardash too busy groveling to notice him there, however.
“But sir—”
“No arguments, lieutenant!” Yurak snapped sternly. “You’re going to comply and work up a sweat with my unit whether you like it or not. Understand?” He cast a disapproving look at his gut. “You could use the instruction anyway.”
Vardash pouted. “But I know how to work your unit, sir. I do it all the time.”
“You couldn’t prove it with how things went yesterday.” He shook his head. “And this is unacceptable.” He gestured to the junk food on Vardash’s desk. “Sitting here sucking on nuts while you’re on desk duty.”
“But they taste so good, sir! And you did give them to me,” he reminded him, pointing out that they had originally come from his office. Vardash had eaten about half the can of them in the course of a ten-minute briefing the week prior and Yurak figured at the time that if Vardash was that hungry he might as well let him finish them off.
“Well when I did that, I never thought you’d sit on your fat ass eating my nuts all day,” Yurak snapped irritably. “So it ends now.” He picked up the candy dish and the milkshake.
While the photocopying Mogor silently prayed for a brain-scrubber, Vardash panicked as Yurak snatched away all of his goodies—a good hour before lunch! “But—but sir!”
Staring back at him in challenge, Yurak held up the shake. “Do you even have any idea how fattening this stuff you swallow constantly is?”
“But it has nutrients, sir, and lots of protein.”
“And plenty of sugars that do nothing but pad your waistline,” Yurak argued. “I mean it. No more.”
Vardash whimpered that time, and so did Mogor, although for a different reason. “At least let me finish it off, sir! It’ll be the last, I promise.”
“No, I’ll take care of it myself.” He clenched it tightly in his gauntleted hand and took a sip. The sweet taste of creamy banana bliss filled his mouth, and he made a mental note to buy one for himself sometime when he wanted a treat.
“But sir, I already sucked on it!” Vardash protested. Though he found it oddly arousing that his favorite force captain was kissing him by proxy by drinking from his milkshake, he also deeply lamented the loss of said milkshake.
“Too late. You had your chance, and you blew it. And I’m cutting you off from any more, too.”
“Thank the gods,” Mogor muttered under his breath, both at Yurak’s bold declaration, and at the fact that his copying was done. More eager than ever to get out of there, he hastily scurried down the hall intent on finding some way to forget what he had heard… again.
Yurak meanwhile held up a hand as Vardash tried to voice more protests. “Not another word, Lieutenant! You’re going on a diet, you’re going to exercise with your men, and I’m going to be all over you as your trainer to see to it that you do it, and that’s final!” With that he dumped the sugar-coated nuts in the garbage and stormed out, milkshake still in hand. His next stop would be the mess hall to give the explicit order that Lieutenant Vardash was only to be served the reducing rations.
Vardash sighed and slumped in his chair in defeat. “This is terrible,” he groaned in anguish. “What do I do now?”
Two solutions immediately came to mind. The first was to put the rest of the unit on a diet as strict as would be foisted on him. Fair was fair, after all, and he had to lead by example. The other was simpler and more immediate. Once he was sure Yurak was gone, Vardash reached into the wastebasket, retrieved a handful of his lost nuts, and popped them in his mouth.
He felt better already.
The End
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