Reaching the loop, Rei and Viv took the stairs one of the staffers had indicated to them, keeping their eyes on the cadets. Fortunately Catcher looked to have been watching out for them as well, because they found him waving them down near the middle of the third row, sitting between a pair of seats he’d managed to hold. Begging pardon to the dozen or so boys and girls they had to awkwardly slide by, the two of them reached their suitemate as he shifted over to let them sit next to one another.
“Did we miss anything?” Rei asked as he and Viv eased themselves down beside the blond Saber. The Arena seating looked like nothing more than cut lines of oversized marbled stairs with white cushions, but as they sat some hidden simulation unit in the stone projected a faint, curved support up to their shoulders, allowing them to lean back as though in a regular chair.
“Not yet,” Catcher answered, briefly waving hello to some other cadet he must have known. Gesturing towards the Arena he indicated the concentric rings of the Team Battle and Dueling fields set inside the south loop of the Wargames space. “My bet is a light show will tell us when things are about to start.”
Rei and Viv nodded together, watching the other first years trickle in. For a while they sat, chatting about the grounds and the surrounding city—Catcher had spent some time in Castalon before, apparently—Rei taking the time to show off his new NOED, though their suitemate was more intrigued that he had suffered a unilateral frame for as long as he had. Eventually Catcher greeted a third cadet, and Viv’s curiosity seemed to get the better of her.
“How do you know so many of these people?” she asked once the girl Catcher had exchanged a few polite words with moved on to find a seat.
“The combat circuits,” he answered, looking around as though in search of more familiar face. “My parents made me go to a ISCM-funded preparatory college. The tournaments for those schools are partitioned from the regular institutions, so it’s a much tighter knit group than your circuit teams, probably, even across systems. A lot of the kids who go to a military prep tend to attempt the CAD-Assignment Exam, and since a portion of the best of those end up at Galens…” He waved at the surrounded rows of cadets to finish his statement, then indicated at a boy climbing the stairs to their right, his flat-topped cap under one arm. “Like that guy. Kadness… Something Kadness.. I can’t remember his last name. He’s was just shy of a top sixteen finisher at the Wolf System’s championships last year. And that—” he pointed to a girl with a black tail of hair and narrow eyes “—is Lena Jiang. She’s actually from the Luhmnan too, so we’ve had a few bouts, none of which I won. Apparently she’s a Saber-Type like me, but got assigned a D8-Rank.”
“She might have been one of those invited to the summer training, then,” Rei said, recalling Jack Benaly had also been given a D8-Rank as he watched the slender girl peer around before settling on a seat higher up. “I wonder what kind of edge they’re going to have. two months of instruction before the rest of us is going to seriously make it tough for anyone hoping to qualify for the Sectionals to—”
“Rei.”
Viv’s muttered interruption cut him off, and he glanced around to find her dipping her head to draw his eyes to her left. Following the line of sight, it only took a moment for Rei to locate who she’d caught sight of. Only a few cadets were still arriving, reaching their seating in the nick of time.
Among them, a towering figure with dark hair and black-red eyes was climbing the steps with frightening grace.
“Catcher.” Rei caught Catcher’s attention, indicating the cadet—who fortunately hadn’t seen them—with his own subtle jerk of his head. “The tall guy with black hair. Any chance you know who that is?”
It took a second for Catcher to find who Rei meant as the boy climbed the stairs to a higher row, but when he did his face grew stony.
“I’m not a hundred percent positive, but I think so. Hair and eyes like that… That might be Logan Grant. Supposedly he competed on the Centauri team at the Intersystems last year.”
“The Intersystems?” Viv demanded, astonished as she leaned around Rei to gape at Catcher. “Seriously?!”
“Seriously.” Catcher nodded gravely, still peering back and up after the boy. “I’ve heard he’s bad news.”
“It’s him,” Rei confirmed with a groan. His new NOED hadn’t taken more than a few seconds to smoothly tap into the ISCM’s User registry to find the name “Logan Grant”. With a wave, Rei shared the profile with the two on either side of him. “And if he was bad news on the preparatory combat teams, he’s a hell of a handful now.”
Viv and Catcher frowned together, but it was the former that caught what Rei was stressing about.
“D9?!” she hissed, half-incredulous. “And a Mauler-Type! Dammit, Rei! You had to go and pick a fight with a guy who could probably rip our heads off with his bare hands!”
“You picked a fight with Logan Grant?” Catcher demanded before Rei could get a word in edgewise. “Dude…”
“It wasn’t my fault!” Rei whispered back. “I apologized! He was the one who—!”
“OFFICER ON THE FIELD!”
The shouted announcement cut across the mumbling conversation of the gathered cadets, and the response—at least from part of the group—was instantaneous. Just under half of the first years were on their feet in an instant, Catcher included, snapping up as a collected unit to assume a rigid salute. A handful of others—Rei and Viv among them—caught on to the expectation quickly, leaping up and assuming their best imitation of the others’ strict postures. From the rest of the new Users a roll of laughter rose, along with scattered whispers and questions about what they were supposed to be doing.
The two officers who’d been guiding them to their seats were standing at attention at the base of the stairs on either side of their small section, and it was from one of these men that the shout had come. Along the Arena floor below and beyond them, a procession of people in uniform were pacing quickly into view from an entrance the cadets couldn’t see. It didn’t take this group of some score of men and women—most of them bearing the red-on-white armband of Institute staff—to reach the 30 yards of the Dueling field set front and center, kissing the southern edge of the wider Team Battle ring. Spreading out across the space, the procession turned to face the cadets, a myriad of different colored eyes suddenly sweeping over the new students with sharp scrutiny. It took all of 20 seconds from start to finish, but in that time barely any of the saluting cadets so much as twitched, with the likes of Rei and Viv alone exchanging the occasional anxious glance.
Then the field under the feet of the officers below began to glow.
In a slow rise the projection built up from under the Galens Institute higher-ups, lifting them gracefully from the ground on a foot-thick disk of solid white light. The red griffin of the school appeared beneath them as the group rose, expanding in unison with their gaining altitude so that the tips of the emblem’s wings had barely touched the edges of the circle once it stopped at level with the gallery. When the physical projection was still, a black chair pixilated into being behind each of the officers, allowing them to sit together in practiced fashion.
All of them, that is, except one stiff, broad-shouldered figure with light-brown skin and a grey-black beard that matched the long tail of hair falling out the back of his cap.
“Those of you still sitting, take a look around you.” The man’s augmented voice rumbled like thunder as he stepped forward to claim a front-and-center position on the disk. “The students currently saluting myself and the officers seated behind me are the boys and girls who have spent the last four years in a ISCM college, or were smart enough to imitate the peers who clearly knew better than them in the moment.” His dark eyes, visible even under the brim of his cap, swept the stands. “Despite your laughter, despite what you might think of them, these are the cadets who you will be envious of in the coming weeks. No. Do not attempt to correct yourselves now.” His sharp words sent several in
dividuals who had started to stand back down to their seats quickly. “You are not expected to know these requirements and duties upon arrival at this school. You are not here to know things, after all. You are here to learn them, indeed far better even than those still at attention do now. Despite what many of you think—despite that most of you here likely believe you have come to Galens for a life of entertaining the masses—you are now a part of the Intersystem Collective Military. You are part of an organization who prides itself on order and rule, an organization who—though much of mankind is happy to perpetually forget—is at war with a constant enemy ever lingering at the edges of our furthest system.”
The man paused, letting his words weave their way into the silence a moment before saying anything more.
“Take your seats, cadets.”
Rei and Viv did a better job of matching their repose to the others’ this time, taking to sitting again almost at the same time as Catcher did beside them. Still, not a sound was made by the first years, every fiber of attention now trained on the single standing officer below.
“My name—” the man continued at last “—is Colonel Rama Guest. I am the commanding officer of the Galens Institute, and therefore in charge of both the broad and minute runnings of this school. While I understand that an illustrious career in the SCTs is the goal of most of you seated before me, the reality is that the majority of you will have a brief showing in the feeds, then spend the rest of your careers as Users on the front lines beyond the Sirius System. My task—and that of the department heads behind me—is to train you for the former, but prepare you for the latter. You, every one of you, are exceptional. You are among the best CAD-assignees this year has brought into the ISCM. You are among the most talented and capable, and the same drive, work-ethic, and will that allowed you entry into this institution will be that which carries you forward through the next three years and into whatever path you find yourself walking as a User. You should take pride in the fact that you are sitting here, but you should also prepare yourselves. There is a reason why enrollment at the Galens Institute is so sought after. There is a reason why nearly a tenth of all new assignees apply to this school each year, apply to be in the seat you are currently taking up. Of every one of those requests, one in a 500 make it to the desk of any member of our board of admissions. Of those thousands, 128 alone of you are now here.”
Without looking away from the stands, the colonel half-turned, casting an arm out to indicate the Arena that extended, empty and vast, behind him and the seated officers.
“Here, in this place, you will be given every opportunity to grow, to thrive. You will be given every chance to better yourselves, to become Users at the head of your generation. With that, however, comes a price. An expectation. This is only the starting line. This is only the place you have earned for yourself thus far. We of the Institute will build you a ladder to the heavens, cadets, but it will be your task to climb it, your responsibility to seek a higher rung every moment of every day of every year you spend with us. By being here today, you have already proven yourselves the carriers of a rare potential even among the limited numbers of those assigned a CAD. But starting tomorrow, it will be time to prove—additionally—that you have what it takes to bring that potential to fruition.”
Rama Guest paused stepped aside, making a smaller gesture towards the gathered officers on the disk with him.
“With that in mind, I would like to introduce you to the person who will be most directly involved in hammering you all into the combatants you have the ability to become. Having recently accepted a post here, she spent two very successful seasons in the SCT circuits before voluntarily joining the front lines, where she has been for the last seven years.” An individual stood up from the forward row of seated officers, stepping forward to join the colonel. “Cadets, meet your chief combat instructor: Captain Valera Dent.”
Rei felt his legs go cold beneath him.
“Wha… What did he just say?” Catcher wheezed from his right.
All around them, the rapt silence that held through the commanding officer’s speech shattered like a hammer taken to ice. Rei knew Catcher, too, would be gaping at the woman who was formally shaking hands with the colonel, while on his left Viv was probably trying to place where she’d heard the name before. He didn’t have time to look at either of them, so busy was he watching the exchange below with frozen disbelief.
Then the whispers started to reach them.
“Dent? Valera Dent?”
“Wait… The Bishop?”
“The Iron Bishop!”
The Iron Bishop… There it was. There was the name, the confirmation, and Rei’s thoughts fell into a tumbling drone of senselessness.
“Wait. Who is she?” The buzz of excitement had finally gotten to Viv, because she bent to look between Rei and Catcher. Their suitemate apparently couldn’t make a sound, however, so Rei took it upon himself to drag his mind out of its stunned limbo to answer.
“She’s a Knight-Class S-Rank,” he answered quietly. “Nowadays, anyway. One of the best to ever fight in the Astra professional circuit. She never earned a championship, but it was only a matter of time, especially since she has one of the highest win-loss ratios of any SCT User ever.”
“Ever.” Catcher managed to echo him numbly.
“She only fought in the circuits for two years. She was Bishop-Class, then, known for being impossible to take down. She was too fast, and even when she took a hit she usually just pushed past it despite her CAD not being designed for defense. People started calling her the Iron Bishop, and it eventually became her field name.”
“She would have pushed into the Intersystems given time. For sure.” Catcher appeared to have finally found his tongue just as the colonel stepped away from Valera Dent below them to take a seat in a chair that materialized for him as he approached the other officers. “But she retired from the fights to volunteer for the front lines. That’s where she earned her Knight-Class. And apparently—” the NOED blazed to life in his eyes “—had half her face blown off by the archons.”
That information was new to Rei, and he copied Catcher at once, focusing his frame on the captain’s features so that a sub-window of an up-close image—curtesy of the Arena—popped into the top corner of his vision. Studying the woman’s face, he swore under his breath.
Valera Dent had narrow, handsome proportions and pale skin, with a hawkish nose set between two vibrant brown eyes. Her easy smile was soothing, plain aside from the perfect balance of her complexion that was the eventual blessing of any CAD’s genetic correcting. At a glance, the woman’s face might have been considered unremarkable.
Unremarkable, that is, except for the thin, clean line of black that started at her right temple, trailing down just outside her eye before cutting vertically across her cheek, over the bridge of her nose, and all the way to her left ear.
A full-frame prosthetic, used only on the most devastating of injuries, ones where augmented tissue regeneration and all the other heights of modern medicine just couldn’t keep up with the damage.
“Cadets, welcome.” Dent’s voice was familiar to him, and Rei flushed a little as he considered just how many of the Iron Bishop’s interviews he must have seen over the years for that to happen. “As Colonel Guest has stated, I am Captain Valera Dent, formally of the 87th Combat Contingent outside of the Sirius System. I will not feign modesty—particularly after such a clear reaction.” She smiled brighter. “I am aware that many of you likely know of me, and I am honored by your enthusiasm. My time in the circuits is long past, but I can’t say I’m not pleased to be reminded that I left an impact.”
The smile fell away, and her brown eyes were scanning the stands slowly. “I find myself, standing before you, in need of repeating the colonel’s words. I am here to train you for success in the Simulated Combat Tournaments, but I am likewise here to prepare you for something altogether different, something altogether more fearsome
and brutal than any Wargame you can imagine. As I’m sure many NOEDs have confirmed among you, I am an example of what can happen on the front lines. It is the reason I am no longer there, truth be told. After my… uh… inadvertent makeover—” she gestured to her face humorously, earning a few nervous laughs from the stands “—I was awakened to the fact that my place was no longer battling the enemy directly. I was fortunate, not long after, to be accepted to the position of chief combat instructor here at Galens, and have been anticipating your arrival every moment since.” Her expression grew harder, and suddenly the kind, bright woman stood as rigid as the iron that was her namesake. “I do not wish to belittle the value those of you with a future spent in the circuits hold for the military. You will be essential—likely even more than I was on the front lines. But… While the SCTs will certainly be the means by which you prove yourself in the coming years, I will not be teaching you the skills necessary to beat your opponents. I will be teaching you to kill them. I will not be instructing you on the best tactics for outlasting an enemy. I will be instructing you how to survive their relentlessness. A foe who is stronger, or faster, or holds out longer in battle… Here, in the safety of the Intersystems, that means nothing more than a loss and a lesson to be learned. Out there, however…” She gestured up at the edged cutout of the sunny sky above them, framed by the Arena’s open roof. “Out there, there is no ‘loss’. Out there, there is no opportunity to seek the lesson of defeat, much less learn it. Here, at this school, I have a chance to turn you into the best fighters you can possibly be. I can only hope that for many of you, this will result in nothing more than a life of excitement and luxury. For some, however—for most, even—being the best you can be may one day be nothing less than the difference between your life… and your end.”
The silence that followed this was so absolute, time itself might have been holding its breath. The dark words weighed heavy, and Rei found himself suddenly considering the path he was walking on with a bit more scrutiny than ever before.
Iron Prince: A Progression Sci-Fi Epic (Warformed: Stormweaver Book 1) Page 17