The Legacy of Earth (Mandate Book 2)

by J. S. Harbour

Always toward port.

  I wouldn’t say that incident with the Sarge made me popular in the barracks. I got a lot of what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-you and good-job-you-idiot remarks from most of the platoon, which I’d started to think of more as a marching band troupe than fellow soldiers or seamen. That’s always a big mistake in team cohesion, being one of the broken screws in the machine.

  Any day we had leave, most of us usually caught up on lost sleep. Leave, my ass! Those who did leave the base to party dragged us all down on the next forced march and were punished for it. That’s how things got done in a team, by dealing with problems swiftly and effectively. After the first few incidents, no one ever left the base again.

  Having mastered the physical and emotional demands of basic, and going through the motions, I couldn’t help but feel like we were a high school marching band in Backwater, USA, where the town’s greatest achievement is their single lonely high school winning the varsity regional championship. These small towns loved to come up with names for their divisions, to make their insignificance seem grander. The Great Seven. The Mighty Five. In the case of my fictional platoon-town, The Stupid Six. Sure, my platoon-town-football-team made it to the finals. They spent the whole season competing against five other teams, with an occasional match against a far-flung team—just for the humiliation, as if high school boys aren’t already fighting an uphill battle for confidence, the coach has to stick it to them with a bonus loss.

  That’s my platoon, and the Sarge is our coach. Of course he’s a former high school star from a big city who took a shot to the knee his senior year and lost his chance to get recruited into the NAACP. Wait, what is it? Oh, the NCAA (I can’t ever seem to remember that damn acronym). Whatever, coach, keep telling yourself that, it will make your small life feel bigger. The universe was against you; not your fault.

  Truth be told, I had no hatred for the Sarge. I knew he was following an age-old methodology. The insults were not personal. In fact, he truly did want us all to succeed, since that reflected back on him. Sadistic masochism training. That’s how I labeled boot camp, and I was taking notes since I got off on that shit. And, due to my surreal imagination and infatuation with Lena—who was (let me remind you again) not just any girl, but a scarlet emerald—my physique had become even leaner, with sharper muscle tone. She was responsible for my coasting through basic. Well, she and my GMO condition.

  Chapter 10

  Space Ops Training

  I got more flak for my apathy than from any fuckups. It’s not that I don’t care, I’m just not challenged and I can see through the programming.

  Stupid mistakes usually affected the entire platoon, bringing on everyone’s wrath when it cost us all another five miles. I can’t say any of this surprised me after being raised by Mom. I’ve heard the stories from her ten times over. I was one-half navy brat, after all. I coasted through basic because it was not physically challenging for me. Maybe I should thank the AI for that? Hence, the dichotomy.

  Maybe I would have chosen the DNA upgrade if given the choice. Maybe my parents would have chosen it for me. The point is, someone should have had that choice, allowed to make the call.

  I’m probably similar to most guys my age. To be honest with myself, I probably share similar tastes with most men with a similar social background and dominant racial heritage. We all have our quirks and tastes but generally like the same stuff.

  I’ll take that barbecue burger, but I don’t want to be told to eat it when there’s a bourbon burger with onions, red peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, and bacon available. I might prefer brunettes, but maybe, today, I’m in the mood for a blonde? We humans might choose the same thing most of the time, and our so-called free will might be a pipe dream, but we want to believe we have the choice and want the freedom to make it, real or not. That’s our pipe dream! No one else owns it. Owns us. I would rather die than be a slave—in all variations of the word.

  Which is why the draft is particularly heinous. We learned about that in class, among other things. Conscripts make terrible soldiers. That’s been known through the ages. Centuries ago, the conscripts were put on the front line because they never lasted long—they’d either die or bolt after the first clash of steel. Modern militaries re-discovered what the Romans learned millennia ago: they are better off with a volunteer army who take pride in their service. Roman centurions paid for their own armor and weapons. Brought honor to their family line.

  But, despite the angry backlashes over the years, I was giving the gas attack a second thought. The AI that rewired us—pulling out the libido, the aggression, replacing it with a heightened focus—maybe it was the right thing to do. Would any of us have agreed if it had asked? Hell no! I certainly wouldn’t have.

  So it just . . . did it. Without asking.

  Based on how I feel right now, I don’t know if that was quite as bad as I’ve been led to believe all my life. I kind of wish it had worked on me. Maybe we did have a serious problem with our human nature. A leftover instinct from a more barbaric era. A period when humans were few on the Earth and that instinct served us well.

  Today it’s a liability. Yeah, I’m having second thoughts. I’m not entirely anti-AI anymore.

  * * * *

  Two months later, three-fourths of us finished basic training. The platoon was disbanded as we were sent to different bases for Advanced Individual Training. I was sent to Newport News where a Ford-class carrier was being refit. I did a lot of cargo loading and formal departmental training. A few familiar faces ended up at the same place, but we weren’t on friendly terms. I was no good at teamwork and none of us had time to socialize. I was working such long shifts that the days began to blur.

  I was in the mix with regular US Navy recruits, despite being a UN snob, and my AIT schedule focused on ship operations. The UNSC recruited from every member nation, but it was expected that the five member nations train up personnel in their own regions using standardized methods. This just made sense. Why try to duplicate the best military training centers of the world for the UNSC when recruits could piggyback?

  Since I would be going to more training after this for space operations, I wasn’t to be given any wet training. A crash course in ship systems gave me a broader knowledge of how seamen work together to operate a warship, without any specialization. There was no more yelling; no more marching; no more pushups. Instead, we assembled for calisthenics bright-and-early, then spent the rest of the day in books and hands-on.

  AIT was a welcome change from boot. I learned how to repair bridge electronics while under general quarters. Repair is a bit of an exaggeration. I did have to diagnose which board was damaged, but those were just replaced with new stock. Everything on a modern ship is modular to keep the ship flexible, reduce downtime in battle conditions. Every system has redundant parallel systems and backups located far apart on the ship. If a vital system goes down, the secondary—located elsewhere—is still operational.

  By the time my three months were up, I had a good, broad knowledge of how a modern warship works, and could serve minimally in any department. My non-UN mates specialized in one department while I was passed from table to table like a dirty whiskey bottle.

  I coasted through AIT much as I had basic since I learned quickly and passed the departmental exams easily. I called Mom, Dad, Lena, and friends, from time to time, but was very much in the groove for three months. Before I realized the days had added up, it was over.

  I rushed home on a red-eye to surprise Lena after work one day, still wearing my fatigues. To my bitter disappointment, she wasn’t home—out of state training for a new job.

  Dad wasn’t home either; he’d gone to Seattle for a preacher’s convention.

  I was feeling pretty lonely. I hadn’t tried very hard to make any friends during AIT since it was a short-term gig. I thought of looking up Stephanie Milnes. I found her in the UNSC directory but didn’t call. It just was what it was and I didn’t want to mess with it.

  * *
* *

  News of my assignment to Space Operations Training Command was a holy shit moment a few days later. I got orders to report to Atlanta for a flight to Gagarin Center, Star City . . . in Russia. I don’t know, maybe I was expecting Cape Canaveral. I didn’t expect to leave the United States for a former enemy nation as part of my navy training. But, we aren’t enemies; my misconceptions were a relic of the past, picked up from Mom or Dad. The UN operates space ops training in Star City because it is the best training facility of its kind in the world.

  Star City was designed and built by the Russian Federation in the late 1990s before any other nation had considered training and arming a space combat division. The US Air Force hadn’t caught on. And NASA?—give me a break—civilian nerds? Can you imagine the type of soldier they would produce? I’d be playing video games to learn about strategy. Those rocket scientists wouldn’t know which way to point a 2011 let alone an M66 TAR. Probably shoot themselves in the foot.

  The US Air Force would get stuck with the task and have to develop it from scratch. But, do you think those jet jocks would ask the army for help? Hell no! Not that the army would know what to do. How do you train a space soldier? Like I said, the Russians started thinking about it back in the 1990s. Their nuclear arsenal was falling apart, and they needed international help to defuse most of them, but hell, they had their Space Spetsnaz troops!

  The Russians never had active space troops, but they did have rocket troops—without jet packs. Anyway, the facility was upgraded when the UNSC proposed the Illustrious program, which would need thousands of men and women ready for space duty. So, it started on a false premise but was utilized anyway.

  I arrived in an assembly building with about eighty other men and women from UNSC nations. No one had said anything about wearing a heavy coat, so there I was shivering in the snow, kit duffel on my shoulder, wearing my dress uniform and light Navy jacket. More of a blazer, really.

  We were briefed on what to expect over the next three months: zero-gee, multi-gee, and sub-gee environment training conducted inside warehouse-sized buildings. Seems like three months is about the standard length of time for each stage of training to enter the Defense Force. I was surprised that six months had already gone by; now I would be in for another three, for nine months total.

  This place had a good vibe; I was glad to be here. All of my old boot mates were scrubbing decks about now. We got the official tour, and I felt more like an officer than an enlisted man, which also felt good. Finally getting some respect.

  The complex was huge. Before we entered the primary training building, we walked down a large paved ramp adjacent to the building, down to a loading dock. Apparently, the building was even bigger than it seemed since half of it was underground. Picture one of those huge wholesale stores full of everything from TVs to toothpaste to bread, sold in bulk quantities. I’m talking, huge warehouse, very high ceiling. This place dwarfed one of those stores! Next, imagine the same amount of space also underground, doubling its height.

  Then, picture that large open space full of obstacles rather than products. Like barricades, rope ladders, vertical poles, barbed wire, balance beams, tunnels, bridges, bunkers, even trees—get the idea? Here’s the part that blew my mind: the walls and ceiling are also full of obstacles.

  At first, I thought the scene on the walls and ceiling was being projected—why, I couldn’t imagine, but my mind was trying to comprehend the impossible. Then, while I stared, I began to see people moving about. One trainee was running along the floor not far from us. He dove onto the wall in a deft ninety-degree leap, and landed on the wall! He did a quick somersault, came up on his feet, and continued running—up the wall!

  As I took in this reality-altering scene, I saw others running up the wall—up the damn wall?—to the ceiling, maybe fifty feet up—probably more. I saw others diving for cover, crossing bridges, ducking into tunnels, and all the while, firing at each other. Rubber bullets or lasers or something; I couldn’t tell at this range. They were upside down, straight up! I stared straight up, mouth gaping stupidly like I was trying to catch a grape.

  A full commander escorted us. She seemed to understand the need to pause here, because she let us watch without speaking, without urging us on, letting us take it all in.

  When soldiers fell, they fell . . . up. Or they fell left. Or right. Or down. Whichever direction was their ground, based on which surface they were on.

  I’d heard of this new technology but had no idea it was already working tech. Let alone being used in such a powerful, pragmatic manner. . . .

  The training possibilities in this one facility were astounding. And, I had to admit, this was the perfect environment for space ops training. I wondered what would happen if someone were to get stuck in the middle when our tour guide answered my question.

  “The gravity plates are good out to only about twenty feet, but we have the roof plates set to a much higher rate to prevent accidents. In other words, the ceiling is the high-gee floor. If you look carefully, you will see a square platform in the center, up there,” she said, pointing up and to the left of us. We all looked and some pointed. And, now that I knew where to look, I spotted narrow support beams attached to the rig from the ceiling. It was at least twenty feet to a side, forming a cube in the middle of the room.

  She continued, “If anyone breaches the upper gravity layer and misses the core, they’ll fall to the floor. We’ve had some close calls but no deaths due to falling. Since the core is also plated, it serves as a high-tech net.”

  A huge grin spread across my face as the commander led us on to the next building, to our barracks, and on to our first training exercise. I didn’t get a chance to ask my most pressing question: what happens if there’s a power outage while someone is on the ceiling? I guess it’s one of those possibilities you aren’t supposed to think about, like being below deck when your ship is going down.

  Our first experience in the Zero-Gee Training Facility (a.k.a. “the Cube”) was—big surprise—marching in formation. We stayed near the north wall, which was set up as a three-dimensional track, going across the floor, and then up the west wall—a terrifying experience, that first time. We marched up to the ceiling (known as the “skywall”), across the skywall (where up was the surface of the Earth), then onto the east wall, facing the ground.

  It never felt like the ground was above us or in front of us. When you take that step onto a new wall, your perspective changes and that becomes the ground under your feet, and looking back, the old floor then looks like a wall behind you.

  Once you take a step onto a new surface by making a ninety-degree shift, that becomes your new floor. It feels every bit like the ground to you at that moment. Somehow the Cube manipulated gravity in such a way that it overcame Earth’s pull to its occupants.

  We stayed away from the corners of the building because that led to extreme disorientation. I could already stand over a ninety-degree edge with my body pointing diagonally, and feel gravity’s tug in both directions at once. I didn’t want to know what would happen at a corner. Levitation?

  See, that’s backward thinking. Gravity is the same on every surface, so it pulls equally when you’re at the threshold, which just pulls you both ways evenly. In other words, they don’t counter-act each other. Is it just me or does that not seem right?

  As we jogged up the west wall, everyone fell at least once—everyone, no exceptions. There was no vertigo, no queasiness, no sense of being on a wall at all, but it was easy to get tripped up. Once the angle was jumped, that new floor felt every bit as solid underfoot as the actual ground we had been on minutes before.

  That whole first day—the first week, actually—was spent adjusting to training in this multi-faceted environment. Once I came to grips that I was literally training on the inside of a big box, then the name made sense and I was able to orient my mind with each floor change more quickly. The first day was tough, though.

  We finally reached the ceiling to
gether after numerous falls. The biggest problem was having the north wall right next to us. It was like jogging along the base of a huge hydroelectric damn rising high overhead. If you reached out and touched that wall, it would pull you over—you didn’t want to do that unless you really intended to make the jump. We learned quickly what the corner ramps were for—making it easier to get into a good run without pausing at every wall by stepping on the ramp to the next wall up.

  When I stood on the so-called skywall, I felt no pull upward—downward, that is, toward the actual ground. I don’t know how it works. Does it double the artificial gravity to compensate for Earth’s normal pull? I do know, however, that it’s a bitch trying to figure out where the exits are located. There are no windows and no signs on the walls to tell you where you’re at, where you’re going.

  We were forced to jog in formation at first, then we were each allowed to go at our own pace. I could run a good six-minute mile on a bad day without over-exerting myself. Based on the disorientation costing me a few seconds, I estimated a full circuit up and over to be about a quarter mile. They were preparing us for zero-gee maneuvers, not just running for exercise. We had to get up to speed on navigating the Cube during that first week. I learned later that my estimate had been right on. The inside dimensions were 330 feet per side. Four laps to a mile. Reminded me of high school track.

  The last day of our first week was an excursion to the Core—that’s what they called the island cube at the center, held in place by tri-beams. We had to climb ropes that were hanging down, which I hadn’t noticed before. The ropes are taught, not loose, and it was quite a climb, too—straight up, with nothing but your arms and feet clutching the knots keeping you from falling to your death. I couldn’t believe no one had ever fallen. It was a tough climb, and if you turned your head the wrong way, you could get disoriented and easily lose your grip.

  I almost lost my grip once. But, once is all it took, so maybe the very danger of the rope was why no one had ever fallen. Or, maybe the commander had lied.