Rei sighed, leaning his head back to rest it with a dull thunk against the beam behind him. “Fine. I’ll still apply. But when I end up a cargo pilot delivering supplies to the developing colonies, you’re gonna owe me tickets to your SCT fights.”
Viv, at last, grinned.
“Deal,” she answered, standing up and brushing the knees of her dress off. “Even if you make it in, I’ll probably still have to get you tickets. Can’t imagine you’re going to get near the tournaments any other way.”
Rei appreciated her attempt to stroke his competitive streak, but in the situation he was in, he just couldn’t manage it.
“Recall,” he muttered, and Shido pulled itself back into the band around his right wrist again. He studied the clean black-and-white steel and blue vysetrium for a moment, possibly hoping to lose himself in the Stryon particle flickers.
It didn’t work.
“What do I do now?” he asked quietly, more to himself then any intended audience.
Viv, though was the one to answer, crossing her arms so that Gemela’s bands clinked against each other. “Rei, step away from this for a minute.” She gave him a stern frown. “You have Device stats and mathematics memorized better than anyone I know. Better than anyone on this damn planet, probably. Pulling yourself away from your situation for a second: if a new CAD assignee popped up and told you they had an S-Ranked spec and shit on everything else… What would you tell them?”
“That their NOED had gone haywire, and they should have it checked.” Rei snorted. “Maybe that’s what’s going on! Maybe—”
“Shut up and take this seriously. New User. New CAD. S-Ranked spec and trash stats in all other attributes.” Viv stared him down. “What would you tell them?”
Rei sobered up, settling and contemplating her question a moment.
“Low stats means fast advancement,” he answered eventually, staring blankly at the jugs of cleaner across from him again. “At least initially. Even with a terrible Growth Rank, F-Ranked stats can ramp quickly with enough work and training put into them.”
A spark flared in Rei, then, hearing his own words. He knew, too, what Viv was going to ask him next.
“And what if their Growth spec wasn’t tanked?” the question came. “What if—just theoretically—it happened to be the S-Ranked attribute?”
Still from his place on the floor, Rei felt a weird sensation in his cheeks. It took him a moment to place it, took him a moment to deduce what his face was trying to do.
After the turmoil of the last hour, it felt strange to find himself smiling.
“That’s what I thought,” Viv said, offering him her own crooked smile. “Now get your ass up, Mr. S-Rank. We’ve got more than two months before commencement ceremonies start, and I happen to know someone with unfettered admittance to a combat gym and brand-new access to the ISCM’s virtual training protocols.”
CHAPTER 8
Mid-May - One Week Later
Astra System – Astra-3 – Sector 9
In the case of child abandonment, separation by the state from any and all potentially claiming parties, orphaning, or related relevant causes, the state shall take full and complete responsibility for said child until they should achieve the age of 18 or request emancipation from the state with due cause and evidence.
Children under such responsibility who have not received a surname shall be assigned a common surname for the purposes of governmental identification and benefits claiming.
Said surname shall identify the involved child as a ward of the state.
- Bill C.P. 1077 of 2334
aka: “Minor’s Protection Act”
Section 42
“Now: applicant number… Where are we again? Oh yes. Number 1489.” From her seat a couple places to the man’s right, Captain Valera Dent watched Colonel Rama Guest swipe steadily through the files on the wide pad in his large hands. “Ah. A familiar name. Logan Grant, eighteen, from the Kanhurst School on Centauri-4. Mauler-Type and… an assigned Rank of D7? Very impressive.” The colonel looked up from his tablet to a narrow-shouldered man along the circular table to his left. “I believe he was on the list of likely candidates for our summer training course you sent out, correct, Major Reese?”
Across the table from Valera, Major Dyrk Reese—coordinator and principle arbiter of the Galens Institute’s Intra-School and public SCTs—nodded on cue, the stubble of his shaved head a dark crown above heavy-set eyes and loose cheeks.
“Of all our applicants thus far, Grant’s ranking places him as a top five potential to qualify for Sectionals as a first year student. His written test scores are decent, his physical assessment was top-tier, and—” the man tapped his own pad to expand some portion of the boy’s profile, his grey-and-green CAD shining on his wrist below the gold-trimmed sleeve of his regulars as he did “—he earned a ‘HIGH’ recommendation for recruitment from his final interview with the Mass Intellect.” Reese looked up from the tablet. “I would ask for his immediate acceptance. He would be an excellent addition to the school as a whole, with the potential of claiming our three first year squad-leader positions come Sectionals.”
“Agreed,” the colonel said without preamble, reading for a moment more before continuing. “All in favor of acceptance, please show by a vote of hands.”
Unanimously each of the eleven individuals around the table raised an arm in favor. Even Valera complied, not voicing some of the qualms she had about a few of the notes on temperament and family history the MIND had buried in the Logan Grant’s interview assessment. She’d been picking her battles carefully all day, keeping her mouth shut more than once in preparation.
But now—with the afternoon coming to a close, dusk reflecting off the rising faces of Castalon in the distance to bathe the meeting room in dim shades of orange and red through the window that made up the west wall—Valera’s fight was up next.
“Accepted.” Colonel Guest glanced over his shoulder at a slender woman with blonde hair, hazel eyes, and fair skin. Maddison Kent, his chief assistant, nodded in affirmation before marking Grant for approval.
“Good.” Guest returned his attention to his tablet, swiping over to the next profile. “Now: applicant number 1503. Reidon Ward, 18, from Grandcrest Preparatory here on Astra-3. A-Type, and—” the colonel frowned suddenly, the silvering brown of his beard twitching in disappointment “—F8? That can’t be right…”
There were several good-natured chuckles from a few of the committee members, as well as a snort from Dyrk Reese.
“Brave of him to have put in his application,” wheezed old Lieutenant Colonel Willem Mayd, Galens’ head doctor and chief medical officer. He was squinting at his pad through the glasses that supplemented the repeated corrective ocular surgeries that just hadn’t been able to keep up with his failing eyesight. “He did well on his written exams, I must say…”
“That he did…” the colonel acknowledged, eyeing Reidon Ward’s written results with a modicum of genuine interest. Then he made to swipe the profile aside as well. “Regardless, I’m surprised his application made it this far with a Rank like—”
“Just a moment, colonel. I’d like to recommend Cadet Ward for acceptance.”
Guest wasn’t the only one to pause at Valera’s words as she seized her chance. All around the table, every face turned to her, some curious—like Willem Mayd’s—others annoyed—like Reese’s.
Unpleasantly, it was the latter of the two who spoke up before anyone else.
“The boy is an F-Rank, Bishop,” the major said evenly, as though this was more than enough to settle the matter. “Galens is not a good fit for him.”
“This isn’t the circuits, major,” Valera answered with a fake smile, the synthetic skin over her artificial jaw ever a little too tight around her cheeks. “Address me by rank or name, if you please. As for getting stuck on Ward being an F… I think that just means Galens has an unhealthy attachment to assignment rank.”
She
could practically see Reese’s hackles rising at the comment, but before he could quip back, Colonel Guest raised a broad palm to stop him.
“I did think you’d been unusually subdued today, captain.” Guest addressed Valera with a steady gaze. “I’m assuming this application—” he tilted the pad in his hand slightly in indication “—is the reason?”
Valera turned her smile on the school’s commanding officer. “It would appear you’ve seen right through me, sir.” She let the smile drop. “Yes. Reidon Ward is an interest of mine. I personally requested his profile be added to today’s considerations.” She looked around at the rest of the table. “I’m not surprised anyone but me took note of him in the initial intake of applicants. I set a parameter-check for all incoming A-Types, so his name came across my desk nearly a week ago.”
“Being an A-Type is hardly a reason to consider an F-Ranked cadet for acceptance.” Captain Elean Samsus, head of Combat Theory Department, leaned over the table from Valera’s right. “Likely the opposite, in fact. I would expect you to know that you are one the few successful Users of that Type, captain. It takes a very particular wielder to effectively use a Device like that.”
“I am aware, captain, yes,” Valera acknowledged, picking her pad up from where it had spent most of the afternoon blank and ignored in front of her. With a tap she woke it up, Reidon Ward’s profile already pulled up at the ready. “His CAD-Type, however, is only what drew my initial eye. The reasons I am recommending him for acceptance—” with a swipe, she called the resume up to project over the center of the table before them “—are quite different, you’ll find.”
A few seconds passed as the other members of the committee humored her, studying the hologram as it spun slowly in place for them all to see. A half-sized simulation of the boy’s body scanned in the second portion of his CAD exam, it rotated alongside a list of values, including his height, weight, and the sub-markings of his physical assessment. Several lips pursed in annoyance as they took in these statistics, only then moving on to the other side of the body projection.
Reidon Ward’s CAD specifications.
“S? S-Rank?!”
Lieutenant Major John Markus’s chair scraped against the floor as he stood up so suddenly it was shoved backwards. Head of Galens’ Device Evolution Department, Valera had suspected he might be among the first to see reason in her presentation. At his exclamation, however, the others around the table looked for the source of his excitement, and eyes started to go wide as they found the data line.
“Yes,” she asserted, leaning back to cross one leg over the other, watching Reidon Ward’s metrics cycle before her. “Cadet Ward was assigned a CAD with S-Ranked Growth, something completely unheard of. That, though, is only the foundation of my recommendation.” She swept a hand across herself, and the information in the center of the table changed. “As some of you have noticed, Ward also scored a 99.5% on the written portion of the CAD exam—though notes from his final results say he was informed otherwise for testing purposes at the time. Out of more than two million applicants this year, he is one of less than a thousand to score in that percentile range.”
“So he’s a genius of theory,” Dyrk Reese said with a disgruntled grumble across from her, shrugging in an unconvinced manner. “I admit a CAD with an S-Rank is something rather unique, but the Galens Institute is founded on quality, not risk. Let him make a name for himself as a tactician. Maybe even a commander on the front lines, like Carmen Laurent.”
“What you mean to say, I believe, major, is that your Institute is founded on monotony, rather than potential.”
Valera hadn’t meant it as a barb—all right, maybe a little—but Reese’s pale complexion turned pink rather quickly, threatening at red.
Holding up a subduing hand before the man lashed out, however, she pressed on. “I do not mean to imply that Galens has suffered from that approach. It hasn’t, obviously. But nor has this Academy made a great progress in the advancement of User and CAD applications, despite considering itself a top military school within the Intersystem Collective.” She shifted her gaze to Rama Guest. “You’re aware of this, colonel. It’s the very reason you requested me for the post of chief combat instructor. To ‘shake things up’, if I might use your own words from my interview.”
In answer, the colonel nodded carefully. “True enough, captain, but my intention with those words was for you to find me a way to challenge this Institute’s approach to Users, not have us rebuild it from the ground up.” He gestured to the still rotating profile or Reidon Ward. “Can you give me a reason why this isn’t anything more than a testing shot into blind space?”
Valera almost smiled again. “I can. The Galens Institute’s incoming class sizes are limited to 128 cadets, a fourth of the average class size for military school across the ISCM. Is that correct?”
The colonel nodded.
“The reason for this is obvious,” Valera kept on. “It is this Institute’s intention to supply the ISCM and the SCT circuits—both collegiate and profession—with the best Users it can develop. It does this first by limiting its class sizes to only the most impressive applying cadets, and then using those small sizes to create focused programs. Limited curriculums, designed for the individual Users to maximize their growth and the evolution of their CADs over their three years at this school. Is that fair?”
Another nod.
“Keep that in mind, if you please,” Valera urged not only the colonel, but the other committee members, looking to each of them in turn while she spoke. When she had all of their attention, she waved at the projection of Reidon Ward’s specifications again. “These numbers are the values provided to us by the evaluators at Grandcrest, where Cadet Ward took his examination eight days ago.”
“F0s almost across the board,” Major Reese muttered in annoyance under his breath.
Valera, however, only nodded. “Indeed, major. However… You might be less dismissive if I told you that Reidon Ward has—in those eight days—evolved every one of his specs, with the obvious exception of Growth.”
“What?”
John Markus managed—barely—to maintain a bit more of his composure this time, keeping to his chair in favor of staring at Valera in disbelief.
“It’s the truth.” Valera waved at the tablet in front of the department head. “You can look it up yourself on the ISCM database. In just over a week, Cadet Ward has not only evolved each of his specifications to F1, but raised both his Speed and Cognition to F2.” She indicated the stats floating over the table. “Even his CAD-Rank is out of date. Reidon Ward is now an E0 User.”
“It’s true.”
All eyes turned to Major Hadish Barnes. An absolute bear of a man, the man’s black-and-gold uniform stretched and flexed over his muscular frame, as did the band of white stitched with the school emblem: a red griffin holding onto the four edges of tilted square border, wings outstretched beyond its outline. It labeled him as a staff of the Galens Institute—as did the identical markers each of the others around the table wore about their own arms—but the symbol of the school was at the moment half-creased as the chief of campus security bent over his pad, slowly scrolling through script.
“It’s true,” the man repeated after a second, and with a flick of his finger he sent the updated data out to float alongside the old. “These are Reidon Ward’s specs as of this afternoon, according to our systems.”
All around the table, more than a few whispered conversations started up as the new numbers were compared. Indeed, Cadet Ward was now an E0-Rank CAD-User, with all of his specs at F1 or higher.
Unfortunately, not every committee member was moved by this.
“Is this really so impressive?” Captain Sarah Takeshi, Head of the Tactical Studies Department, spoke up. “He’s starting essentially from nothing. With proper teaching and adequate training time, it’s hardly strange he would move through the lowest F-Ranks quickly.”
“And what, may
I ask—” Valera did smile this time, witnessing her trap close “—would you consider ‘proper teaching and adequate training’, captain?”
Takeshi seemed to sense that something was amiss, because she hesitated in answering.
Fortunately for all but himself, Major Reese wasn’t so quick to let go of an opportunity to get his point across.
“With the right instructors and enough time devoted to conditioning, most any User—even of this cadet’s level—” he indicated Reidon Ward's profile dismissively “—would be able to manage pushing from F0 into a few higher Ranks. As Captain Takeshi, just stated, I would not qualify this as impressive.”
Valera, for her part, only nodded with mock somberness, having listened to Reese while searching through the ISCM database. “I completely agree, major. With the right instructors and enough time, anyone could do it. Are you familiar, however,” another flick, and Ward’s profile disappeared, replaced by an altogether different series of projections, “with the nature of this boy’s last name?”
Video logs and projection selections settled into place, overlaying one another to show off a variety of options for combat technique learning, from offensive and defensive posturing to footwork and movement strategies.
“This is a basic simulation program,” Colonel Guest said with a frown, studying the scripts and item descriptions. “Why are you showing us this, captain?”
Valera crossed her arms and tilted her head towards the projections. “Ladies and gentlemen… meet Reidon Ward’s ‘instructors’.”
There was a moment of quiet, then, a true silence as all present processed what she had just said.
It was Guest who spoke again first.
“He’s learning through this?” he asked, his stoic composure finally cracking a little as what might have been astonishment crept through the slightest bit. “Through basic combat simulation?”
“These, and a dozen other similar programs we made accessible to him after his assignment.” Using her NOED, Valera had the table projection snap through several other selections in quick succession. “Hand to hand. Boxing. Martial arts of all kinds. He is aware that the ISCM bans simulated combat or sparring without an accredited supervisor present. Keeps our new Users from developing bad habits and forms we have to break them of later. In Ward’s case, however, he has no access to certified trainers. So—” she stopped on the final example, a simulation focused solely on disarming and disabling sword-wielding opponents “—he uses these.”
Iron Prince: A Progression Sci-Fi Epic (Warformed: Stormweaver Book 1) Page 10