by A. C. Ellas
“Three months to put it in, another three months to fully integrate with your body. It would be a month at least before we could start on you. I am authorized to tell you that because of your young age, you do have the option of returning in two years when you are eighteen.”
Nick was surprised and a little gratified. He knew that, once accepted to the Academy, if an inductee chose not to swear his service oath and left the Academy, there was no going back. The Space Corps didn’t give second chances. Apparently, being young had some advantage, but his mind was already made up. The thought of reaching full growth in a month didn’t displease him at all either. Nick lifted his chin a little and looked calmly into the doctor’s eyes. “I’ll do it. I’m in.”
An hour later, Nick was back in the auditorium. The size of the class didn’t appear to be much smaller. They’d lost maybe ten students at the most, not that Nick bothered with a head count. The Space Corps doubtlessly knew exactly how many inductees remained.
The oath they were about to take was ancient, modified only slightly for this modern era. When the time came, Nick spoke with a clear voice and heart, knowing that his words were being recorded. “I, Nicholas Steele, do solemnly swear, affirm and avow that I will support and defend the Republic of the United Planets against all enemies, foreign or domestic, human or alien, living or artificial; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the people of the United Republic; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties required of me by the Space Corps to the best of my abilities until death takes me or the Corps releases me.”
The next month wasn’t uncomfortable, it was excruciating. His entire body ached at a bone-deep level continuously. Long, hot soaks in the full-immersion tub helped, but Nick couldn’t live in a bathtub. One piece of hardware the doctors could, and did, install in him immediately had been a new data port. The Space Corps model was light years better than the nice, top-shelf civilian model Gilly had gotten him.
The data port let him access his lessons from anywhere, which was a good thing, because the pace of his studies was relentless and no quarter was given for physical maladies. His body lengthened every night, muscles developed a life of their own, he had to get new uniforms every other day, but he was still expected to deal with tensor equations, interstellar law briefs, the genetics of the three known alien races and several other courses besides.
When he finally stopped growing, Nick hardly recognized himself. He was tall, a full two meters in height and his muscles bulged like he was a body builder even though he’d done no sort of physical training while taking the growth medicine—it had been forbidden. When he asked about the muscles, the doctor said, “You were supremely fit when we started. I’m told you climb mountains, yes?”
Nick nodded.
“That’s why. The therapy extrapolates from what’s already there. If you had been a lounge lizard or a net head, you’d either be a fat blob or a skinny waif at this point. Don’t worry; you’re going to need those muscles.”
And so it proved. At first, the physical training came as a relief to Nick as a counterpoint to the grueling coursework. Then, the medical team descended on him as they were on the rest of his classmates. Once a week, at night, Nick was taken into surgery. He always woke up in his own bed, residually sore although he couldn’t find any incisions or even healing marks to show where they’d been working on him. The exercises he was taught were designed at first to integrate his new wiring with the rest of his body and then to teach him how to make full use of his expanded capabilities. At that point, the physical training was as grueling as the mental, but they did balance each other nicely.
More than one student cracked along the way, unable to complete the intense training course. Nick wondered what happened to them—and the answer turned out to be as cold as space.
“Where do you think the space marines come from? Or the gunners? Or the flyers? All of them, failed cadets. The end position depends on the cadet’s physical and mental ability once they wash out of the program. Nothing and nobody is wasted.”
Nick applied himself to his studies. He didn’t want to end up a marine, and both gunners and flyers were cyborgs, as much machine as man, tied to their equipment. If he had to choose, he’d rather be a flyer, at least that way he could see the stars up close, but no, he wouldn’t fail. He’d make it through the Academy and end up in command of a starship. That was his dream; it was the dream, the common dream of all who strove to meet the Space Corps’ exacting standards.
Chapter Fourteen: Cai
Cai reached out and touched his selection on the screen after a careful contemplation of his options. The screen immediately displayed a new question. Cai answered it after another pause to think, at which point, the screen went blank. He wasn’t sure why the Guild used such old-fashioned technology as a touch screen when the entire test could have been uploaded and answered via his data port, but he’d learned not to ask such questions in the year or more that he’d been here.
Ortat walked into the room and crossed his arms over his chest in the manner that told Cai he was very pleased but not keen to admit it. “Not bad, Cai, not bad at all. You got them all right, but too slowly. You’ll have to think much faster to control a ship.”
Cai inclined his head politely. “Yes, Trainer. I’ll work on it.” Excuses weren’t acceptable in the guild hall. The Guild cared about results, not reasons why the results couldn’t be achieved. Cai would have to meet their every requirement before the Guild would entrust a spaceship worth billions of credits to his care. So although he privately felt that accuracy was more important than speed, his opinion didn’t matter. He would try to learn to be accurate and fast, for that was what his trainer, and hence, the Guild, required.
Ortat nodded. “See that you do then. Today’s simulator will be different, Cai.”
Cai cocked his head, intrigued. “In what way, Trainer? Are you permitted to tell me?”
A touch of strain evident was evident in Ortat’s reply. “Every year, we entertain a series of visitors here in the Hall. They come to observe the simulator practice of some of our Astrogator-elects. You have been selected for this group. They won’t be permitted to actively participate, but they are permitted to ask questions.”
“What sort of visitors are they, Trainer? Are they vips?” Cai could hardly restrain his curiosity. Visitors were exceedingly rare, and Ortat was talking about whole groups of them. It had been six months since the last ones, some sort of delegation from the Senate, not that Cai had been allowed to see them; his shields hadn’t been deemed good enough. He’d spent a lot of time working on shielding since then, but it was still tiring.
Ortat grunted. “You and your questions. You’re as curious as a cat still. Anyway, no, they’re not vips, but cadets over from the Space Corps Academy. Of all the visitors we ever receive, these are the only ones who really need to learn what we can offer. Since there are over a hundred cadets, it’s not feasible to bring them all at once. You won’t be the only Astrogator-elect tapped for them to observe, but I warn you now, if your shields slip, you will be in trouble. How can you manage a ship if the crew is terrified that you’re reading their minds?”
It was a rhetorical question, he knew, and didn’t need a reply. Cai inclined his head to show that he’d heard. “When can I start, Trainer?”
“The cadets have just arrived and are touring the hall. Once they are done, then you can start. This will be in simulator room one, since that is the only simulator set up for visitors. Right now, you may work on your symbolic logic tree. Some of your ideograms don’t hold up to close examination.”
Cai grimaced and got to work. In time, Ortat called a halt to the fusion of calculus, philosophy and art and led him to simulator room one as if Cai wasn’t perfectly capable of locating it on his own.
Clustered in the room next to the simulator were ten young men,
all dressed in the grey uniforms of the Space Corps. Cai tried hard not to show his fascination with the cadets, but they were staring at him with at least equal intensity. He realized in a flash that their thoughts were pushing in on him, buckling his mental shields and he spent several long seconds mentally pushing them back, firming up the invisible, imaginary layer that kept their thoughts out of his head. Contrary to popular belief, humans were prone to broadcasting every stray thought and emotion they had, so it was a case of the cadets shoving their train of consciousnesses in Cai’s face rather than Cai exerting effort to read their minds. But still, people assumed it was the latter case whenever a telepath overheard something.
Ortat stepped into the room, indicating that Cai should follow but remain by the door.
Cai found that his eyes kept drifting to one of the young cadets…a tall, muscular young man with black hair and piercing grey eyes. The cadet saw him looking and smiled before he pointedly turned his attention to the front of the room, where Ortat stood with an older man.
Not at all perturbed, Cai shifted his own attention to Ortat, who was saying, “Welcome to the guild hall, Cadets. I know you’ve already had the basic tour, so I’ll get right to the point. You are going to be privileged to observe a jump simulation.”
Cai mentally cheered at the news that he’d get to simulate a full jump, causing Ortat’s eyes to flicker at him warningly. He clamped down on his shields immediately.
Ortat continued, “Now, we use the simulators to train our Astrogator-elects, much as you use the simulators to learn battle tactics. Cai, here,” and he gestured to his trainee, “is almost done with his training. Given his level of advancement, you will be permitted to ask questions of him once the simulation has begun. Don’t hold back, he must learn to deal with distractions, too.” Ortat grinned as several of the cadets chuckled and dropped the other shoe. “Oh, and Cai’s a level five telepath…so try not to get too close. He could read every thought and memory in your skull without actually intending to at this point. His control over his shields is still iffy at times.”
The cadets’ eyes all got very wide at this, and they backed away from Cai fractionally. He knew why Ortat had done it—he wanted the cadets on their guard against him, of course. Ortat was always looking for ways to make things more difficult for Cai. But still, almost done with training? He doubted that was the case. The Astrogator-elect inclined his head to Ortat. “I’ll try to behave myself, Trainer.” The twinkle in his eye gave the lie to the polite words, hopefully setting the cadets more at ease as they decided that he had a bit of fire, something they were all familiar with themselves.
The uniformed officer with Ortat asked, “Astrogator-elect Cai, if you don’t mind my asking, are you going into the Corps?”
Cai cocked his head and told the truth. “Yes, sir. The Space Corps is the only place where I’d be allowed to have fun.”
Ortat rolled his eyes heavenward. “Of course, Cai thinks that blowing things up is a lot of fun. That’s why I recommended him for this observation. He’s as bloodthirsty as your cadets!”
The general laughter that followed that remark relieved the last of the lingering tension and nervousness present in the room. Ortat nodded to Cai. “Time to begin.”
Cai inclined his head. “Yes, Trainer.” He walked out of the room and into the next one, the simulator room itself. Normally, there was only his chair, and Ortat stayed behind the glass where he could control the simulation from the computer console. But in simulator one, there were a dozen additional chairs set in a circle around the room for the use of visitors. This echoed the interior chamber of a starship, where the chairs would be filled by Cai’s eventual adjuncts. Cai plopped into the central chair and squirmed to get comfortable. He’d be in the chair and motionless for a long time, and muscle cramps were very annoying distractions.
He spent the eternity it took the cadets to find their seats to wonder when he’d get his first pair of adjuncts. If he was almost done with his studies, shouldn’t he have them already? The cadets all caome to a stop before a chair as if by some pre-arranged signal. Ortat brought Cai the extra dose of Synde needed to mate his neurologics to those of the simulator and he downed it in a long swallow. In the meantime, the cadets were sitting down and their instructor was showing them how to hook up the jacks and full headset the simulator used. It must be different from their own equipment, Cai thought as he patiently waited, his consciousness expanding on the familiar rush of astrogation drug.
Cai picked up the jack attached to his chair and inserted it into his data port. Ortat picked up the heavier headset and snugged it down across Cai’s head. Once everything was in place, Cai leaned back in the chair and expanded his mind into the computer around him.
Good luck, Cai, Ortat sent, as he always did, and the world spun away.
Cai looked out onto a field of stars, a planet beneath him. He was in a normal orbit around the fourth planet from the primary of the system. He took a reading of the primary’s spectrum and started searching his databases to determine his location. A voice asked, “What are you doing?”
Cai answered, “The first thing I must do is figure out where we are. We’re never told this; we have to determine it for ourselves.” He finished locating all the planets; this system had seven. He added that to his search parameters as he took readings on the larger star clusters he could see. The search only took moments after that. “We are in orbit around Flaviolus in the Mizar System,” he announced. He spun up the diagram of the Mizar system, the hardpoints glowing green at the edges. One began to blink as he calculated it to be the jump point he needed. He then plotted a course to that point, using the planets between him and it to sling him around the disk of the system. He showed all of this on the simulated screens so that the cadets could see what he was doing.
Another voice asked, “Why not just set a direct course out? Why all the curves?”
Cai replied dryly, “Cadet, the direct course out to that point would take us though the star. I prefer to avoid that.” As he spoke, he initiated orbit breakout, applying acceleration smoothly as he hurtled toward the next planet. “The curves are slingshots, designed to give us additional acceleration without using our own power. It also changes our vector, making it an ideal means for reaching a hardpoint that isn’t close by.”
“If you went in to the third planet,” a voice asked, the handsome cadet, Cai thought, “you could save a lot of time. Slinging around that planet could save you several hours’ transit.”
Cai threw the numbers up. “If we slingshot the third planet, it would be two hours faster, but we would use four times the total energy to escape the star’s gravity well.” Cai banked the ship into the first curve around the fifth planet, using the planet’s gravity to correct his course but going too fast to allow the planet’s gravity to capture him. He followed a narrow representational line, showing his margin to either side. The simulated ship was in optimum trajectory.
Cai wondered what was up; it was never this easy. While the ship sped toward the seventh planet on a tangent across the system, he began to do a full diagnostic of the ship’s systems, looking for the trap. “What are you doing now?” asked a cadet.
“Looking for surprises,” Cai replied. “My trainer is making this far too easy. So he either has something up his sleeve, or he’s being unusually nice to me because you cadets are observing.”
The cadets all laughed and the engines immediately went dead, causing Cai to sigh.
Ortat announced, “Ion engines are offline. Recompute on gravity slingshots alone.”
The cadets fell silent at this announcement.
Cai crunched the numbers with incredible speed, knowing how little time he had before the next maneuver. “Thrusters, too, Trainer? Or just the ion engines?”
“All of it, Cai. Be creative.”
Cai snorted, but he already had a solution. As he neared the seventh planet, he flexed his gravitational and magnetic fields,
altering how the ship responded to the gravitational pull of the planet to point him precisely at the hardpoint. It was hair raising and difficult and exhilarating at the same time, and the cadets remained stone silent as they watched the Astrogator-elect work to pull off something they’d have sworn was impossible up until today.
As the simulated ship pulled clear of the planet’s influence, they all burst out cheering. Ortat gave him back the engines, now that he didn’t need them.
“Accelerating to the hardpoint,” Ortat announced once it was clear that Cai’d set the course perfectly. The simulation flickered and now they were approaching the outer marker. “Cai, you are three minutes from the hardpoint.”
Cai didn’t even take the time to groan. “Prepare for immediate FTL transit!” he said, since someday, he’d have to warn the crew. “The clock is running at three minutes from mark. Mark.” Cai entered the number storm as the ship continued relentlessly to the hardpoint. The equations flashed with such speed that half the cadets had no idea what they were looking at. Cai arrived at his solution with five whole seconds to spare, so he reached out and touched the hardpoint and twisted.
The simulated ship plunged down the incline of subspace entry. Cai dodged large, looming masses, and then, he had to swerve hard to avoid a piercing bright area of danger, slewing the ship nearly sideways. Once clear of the singularity, he curved back into normal position, flying down the gradient with ever-increasing acceleration. The bottom of the hill was reached and now the whole ship shuddered as it was forced to climb steeply upward, the engines heaving as Cai pulled on them for the power to complete the run. Cai reached his exit point and twisted again, the simulated ship popping out into simulated normal space.
Cai checked his readings as the cadets whispered. “Sol System,” he announced. “One percent variance from predicted exit point. Setting course for Earth Orbit Control.” He lined his course in moments, and the simulator went dead. Cai pulled off the headset, suddenly tired and shaky. That had been a hard jump, and that singularity had been an unexpected hazard. He took a deep breath, realizing as he did so that he was soaked with sweat.