He grabbed and wiped the sand off his fruit and raised it into the air to eclipse the sun.
The light shone through the fruit. Jaylen gasped. The light showed its insides. They were like frozen waves of flames, all swirled together in a frozen perfection with a single shining speck near its core. It was a consistent shine, it didn’t sputter or flicker.
It was its source.
He finally understood.
In the class, Niven was once again the first one up. The instructor had a fruit, floating, ready for him and handed him a razor thin knife. Niven held it without confidence.
“You sure you want to stand so close?” he asked, the instructor didn’t move.
Niven thrust the knife into the fruit, the blade made it halfway through before he stopped. He looked around the class and then tapped the blade. The fruit dissolved in a blue poof. He succeeded.
He bowed for the class. “Thank you, thank you.”
“Niven, there’s no room for showmanship when you’re not the best in class.”
Niven stiffened as the class laughed. As he sat down, the instructor called up the next person. Niven wasn’t anything special that day, neither was Jaylen as half of the people before him passed.
When Jaylen’s turn was up, he walked to the table. It was covered in blue dust from the successes and soot from the failures. The failures were forced to sit in class covered in black ash.
The instructor brought out another fruit and poured energy into it to make it float in front of him. To Jaylen, it shone as brightly as the turquoise seas and stars he often dreamed.
But its flows were forever frozen in its dance and its source cursed to shine forever. Jaylen swiftly cut through the source and it dissolved into a blue dust.
They had many similar test to find the source of this, to destroy the source of that. The hardest one to Jaylen was to destroy a cup of water but he still passed with flying colors. The second was reforming the object they had just destroyed.
But the major turning point for him was the end of his classes. The previous day, they weren’t given any assignment or anything to study, so he was curious over what they were going to do.
When he arrived, the instructor wasn’t there, nor was the usual table in front, but just a single chair.
Jaylen and the cadets sat in their desk as usual, waiting for the instructor.
“Maybe they’re going to give us a surprise party for passing everything,” Niven said.
“You wish,” Jaylen replied.
“Quiet!” Anu snapped.
The door opened. The instructor walked in with a person with a bag over his head, his limbs confined by chains. Two soldiers herded him to a chair and secured him to it.
The soldiers stood behind the instructor as he addressed the class. “It’s easy to end the existence of an inanimate object, but a living life is another matter. A traitor to our cause, a sympathizer of the heretic Jahum is in our midst. Your final lesson for this class is to take a life.”
The class gasped. Jaylen stared at the instructor, he almost didn’t believe it.
Jaylen knew they were training for something big, but to have that something in front of him was heart-wrecking.
“You will not fight them as this is not the class for that, but you will show your support for the cause.”
The prisoner didn’t move, but Jaylen could see the energy flowing through him. He was breathing, he was alive.
“First up, Har Delin.” Har froze as he called her name. “Har,” the instructor repeated. Slowly she walked up and stood in front of the man she was supposed to kill.
“You tested well. You can see the source, now end it.”
She didn’t move, she began trembling.
“End him, now.”
Tears fell from her eyes.“I…I…”
“You what?”
“I…can’t…” she cried. Her face slicked with tears.
“Are you saying you don’t support our cause?”
The soldiers snapped to attention.
“N…n…”
“After all the days and resources we used to train you? Do you sympathize with Jahum? Are you quitting?” The instructor didn’t yell, but the inflections of his words stung.
Har looked back at the class, all but Jaylen looked away from her. They knew what they were getting into when they signed up. They just chose to ignore it.
“I need a yes or no answer.”
“I…can’t…”
“Yes. Or. No.”
“Y..Yes.”
Before she could mutter out a scream, the instructor pierced her chest with his hand and she exploded into a blue light and into dust. Her clothes floated down onto a pile of ash that was now her body.
The instructor snapped his fingers and the soldiers cleaned up her remains.
The class looked on in shock as the instructor spoke, “From this point on there will be no turning back.”
Jaylen glanced at the door, looking for an escape.
“Jaylen,” the instructor called. Anu and Niven looked at him with a “what are you going to do” look. He stood and walked to the front.
“You know what to do.”
Jaylen stared at the man. He saw the beating of his heart, beating at a slow consistent rate, the man wasn’t afraid, so why should Jaylen be afraid? Whatever they did to the man made him wish for death. He’d be granting a wish to the man.
But to take a life… Jaylen had never even taken a life, or thought of the possibility of doing so. What kind of person would he be if he could take a person from this world without reason?
“Jay—“
“What did he do?” Jaylen interrupted the instructor.
“What?”
“Why do I have to take his life?”
The instructor looked at his soldiers and back to Jaylen. “He killed five innocent people, when he attempted to destroy a separatist emissary. He knew that there were innocents in the area but he detonated the bomb anyway.”
Jaylen’s hand pierced the man’s chest and severed his source. The man faded into dust.
Jaylen never cared for the cause like the others did, he never cared who won. There was bad blood on both sides. But to take a life without meaning, would have made his life not worth living.
He couldn’t escape the situation, but if he had some kind of meaning then maybe he could live on, to kill those who had a reason to die.
Jaylen was still a little naïve at this point in his life, in knowing that someone’s meaning didn’t have the same definition for somebody else, especially to the ones giving the orders.
Har was the only one to fail, everyone else in Jaylen’s class took a life that day. When one of them would end a life, they brought in another prisoner, a prisoner ready to die.
That same night, Anu cried herself to sleep while Jaylen comforted her. He couldn’t fall asleep, because of the horrors of taking a life racking in his mind and because the turquoise seas and turquoise skies weren’t there to protect him. Its warmth had gone cold with the roof over his head.
Jaylen had a final realization of what they were training for. They were going to become killers.
...
At 1000 every day, the cadets were ready for physical training. The class of understanding fried Jaylen’s mind, so he started to like the exercise.
It helped with the training somehow making it easier by running through the beaches and the forest, along whatever path Captain Bran thought up.
As Jaylen’s feet cracked the twigs on the ground, he stared ahead and mapped out his path and the path on which his formation ran.
As he went along, he deftly dodged twigs and obstacles, and twitched just the right muscle fiber as his foot landed and lifted off again, relieving the pressure on his knees.
It was because of his improvement of understanding, his path ahead was clearer. The pillars above were farther away from them, they must have been moved when the base became active. Allowing them to use the power of
the stars.
But nobody in the formation glowed blue or shone, nobody needed the power as with the improvement of their understanding, their physical training was far easier, no matter how many miles or push-ups Captain Bran added to their training.
At 1200 everyday, Jaylen made a point to eat quickly and to enjoy his hour of free time, usually spent with Anu, but what little time they had was cut short when they had to head back to their studies.
In that class, the teacher made it certain that they understood why they were being taught seemingly mundane things.
“Your job will be to blend in, no matter what planet or galaxy you’re in. You must be knowledgeable in every regard of politics and history. In our own race and cause and the enemies.”
Niven raised his hand.
“Yes.”
“Would it be better to claim ignorance?”
“No.”
Anu spoke, “What if you claim you just arrived on the planet for business?”
“I would expect you to know in which situation to lie or claim ignorance.”
And with that he went back to teaching the class.
After their studies, between 1600 and 1800, was their specialty training. They’d meet in a different location every day, the first days, they met on the beach, where they would run through hand to hand combat, taking turns sparring each other, to learning how to disarm an opponent, and how to use a multitude of weapons.
As the training went on, the stakes rose, for precision shot training, they practiced in the forest. The instructor called out names in pairs and said they will be working in groups for this exercise. Jaylen and Niven were paired together.
The instructor handed a cadet a piece of fruit and stood them against a tree and then called up his partner. He said, “I uncalibrated this rifle.” And fired a plasma round into the air.
“I hope you were paying attention, now hit the fruit off your partner’s head,” the instructor said.
“What?”
“Do it.”
The cadet turned to his partner who was fifty feet away. “Sorry if I miss.”
He fired and the fruit flung off his partner’s head. They both let out a sigh of relief. But as the day went on and the instructor recalibrated the gun after every shot. Not everyone was lucky.
Mij landed a shot right between the eyes of a cadet. As she fell dead. Mij dropped to her knees, “What have I done?”
The instructor grabbed the gun. “You’re done for the day, try not to make the same mistake tomorrow or you’re done.”
“I just killed my friend!”
“I paired you off based on your skill level, if one of you make a mistake then you could easily replace your partner in the ranking, but that means your one chance is up. If you fail again, then you’re done. Bran wouldn’t like it if I got you all killed. So don’t kill your partner.”
As the day went on, three more cadets died, but the instructor never showed any emotion. He simply moved the body and called up the next pair to go. Luckily for Jaylen, Niven put a round square in the middle of the fruit and Jaylen gave him the same honor.
For the next exercise, they worked on moving targets, just drones this time. Working in teams they systematically took them down.
The next series of trainings, they were trained in the use of their star power, learning how to create weapons made of energy with just a thought. Which came easy for Jaylen, because of his level of understanding.
They made shields, swords, knives, and balls of energy that could be used as lethal projectiles. All they did was learn about what they could do but not what they were capable of making.
Jaylen became infatuated with his new powers, wishing he could make use of it. He got his wish on the second to last day of entire training. The last day of his specialty training.
The class was ordered to meet at the beach. As Jaylen lined up in formation, he noticed a circular formation of pillars of serpents in the sand and what was in them. A sun fish.
It simply floated there, staring at them. Captain Bran, their two instructors and a woman stood in front of it.
Captain Bran spoke up first, “Welcome to the second to last day of your training.”
The cadets looked at each other. “These last two days will be supervised by your instructors and a person of high command, vice councilwoman Raisa. Don’t disappoint.”
Jaylen looked at the woman standing next to them. That must be the vice councilwoman. Raisa. He’d never seen her in person before.
He walked to the pillars. “Your test is to kill a sun fish by any means necessary, we have one for each of you and we agitated it just for fun. It has methods of defending itself and it will defend itself as it’s a beast trapped in a corner.” As Captain Bran approached the pillars, the sun fish lashed out, sparking back as it hit the pillars; it was trapped and angry. Thanks to the amount of star power a sun fish has, the pillars were effectively a prison. A single pillar floated close above to prevent it from flying out.
Bran called out a cadet’s name. The cadet walked up to the pillars and was let inside. The fish moved fast, its spikes pierced the cadet and he fell dead.
The cadets gasped. Jaylen stared at the fish, it was agitated. The cadet hadn’t lasted ten seconds.
“Jaylen,” Bran called his name. The dead cadet’s body was still in the circle. Jaylen glanced at Anu and she gave a reassuring smile, while Niven just stared at the ground.
As Jaylen stepped into the ring, his feet crunched on bloody sand. The fish hovered aggressively. The pillar closed behind him.
“Don’t die,” Captain Bran whispered as he walked away.
The beast had large retractable spear like fins, it could move them in front and behind it. It was how they hunted. The beast taunted him.
Jaylen stared into the eyes of the beast. They glowed blue, thousands of lights sparkled in them, its eyes had the swirls of a galaxy.
Everything clicked for Jaylen.
The beast noticed and lunged as Jaylen lunged for it. Its spikes shot for him and in a flash, Jaylen summoned a thin blade barely the width of his finger and stabbed into its body.
They both stopped.
A spike glazed Jaylen’s cheek. The only one that managed to land into him, while his blade hit the source.
The beast exploded into light and then dust.
The wind blew its remains back to where it came, the ocean.
Captain Bran gave a sly smile. “Jaylen, back into formation,” Bran ordered before commanding the next cadet up. As Jaylen made his way back, Anu brushed her hand against his.
“You did great!” she whispered.
Afterwards, Bran cleaned the last cadet’s remains from the circle.
Six more people were killed that day, when Anu went up, she was able to kill the fish in a somewhat efficient manner, coming out with only a few scrapes and bruises. But Niven had a long fight and had to pin the thing to the ground before cutting its source.
He was more bloodied than Anu.
After it was all said and done, there were twenty cadets left standing. The instructors and the Councilwoman simply left with a nod, while Bran gave the instructions for the rest of the training.
“At this point, you will be free to do what you want until 1800 tomorrow, where you will meet at building 21C at that time. I suggest that you pack your belongings and explore the island as you won’t be seeing much of this place any longer.”
The time before their final test was uneventful. The surviving twenty packed up their things and placed them at the foot of their beds. There were a few small casual conversations, but that was the end of the socializing, as nobody wanted to become acquainted with a dead person. It would hurt just that much more if they died. Nobody knew if they would survive the next test if it was more dangerous than fighting the sun fish.
Niven became the most closed off. Jaylen tried to have a word with him, trying to wish him luck and calm his nerves, like any comrade would do. But Jaylen was met with d
isinterest and a growl.
That night, Jaylen tried to sleep on the beach like he usually did. But his fears of what the next day would bring, maybe his death, kept him up. He made his way back to the barracks.
He couldn’t tell what time it was but most people were asleep, a few were crying.
This was one of the nights he remembered the most about his training. He heard the cries of Anu. He went to her bed, she was curled into a ball.
“Are you okay?” She obviously wasn’t. He wasn’t sure what to do. He climbed into the bed with her and just held her. He started to cry. “It’s going to be okay,” he mumbled.
“It’s not. I killed someone, I took a life, and I can’t escape it.”
“You don’t have to escape it.”
“I have to, I’m a killer… it’s not as easy as I thought… I still see the man I killed when I close my eyes… I’m a killer…” she sobbed louder.
Jaylen didn’t know what to say or what to do. So he just held her until she fell asleep. He was a coward, he didn’t even know why he was here, why he agreed to become a killer. He was a fool to ignore the obvious undertones of their training.
It was his choice to join. Not his parents, not the separatists.
To ignore what he wanted to do in life. As the gutless coward he was, he didn’t deserve to speak, nor to comfort Anu. How could he when he didn’t even have everything worked out for himself.
He didn’t deserve to hold Anu or to use her for his emotional baggage, but he didn’t let go until morning, until he cried out all his tears, until he could figure out just what he was doing with his life.
The final test came quickly the next day.
The cadets stood in a line. They stood at attention in an empty room. Jaylen stared forward, his nerves under control. Anu stood next to him without a shred of anxiety or sweat. She was cold as steel. Niven had the same indifferent look on his face.
Jaylen worried about him, he needed to talk to him before he did something rash.
Bran, their instructors and the Vice Councilwoman Raisa stood in front of them. Raisa whispered to Bran, “Are you sure this will work? I have put a lot into this program. I’m worried about the number of failures.”
Chaos in the Starless Nights (In A Universe Without Stars book 1.5) Page 6