Blue Sky Tomorrows

by L. J. Hachmeister

  Give the meal ration to the civilian.

  Split the meal ration.

  Kill the civilian and keep the meal ration for yourself.”

  Cam resisted the urge to look at the back door, worried he’d see Colin’s sheet-white face pressed against the barred glass.

  Survival means sacrifice.

  As he typed in his answer, he remembered the blue mint, the pieces of dried fruit that got him through the first rough days scavenging on his own. A sacrifice that kept him alive.

  Cam fought back the tears, biting on his tongue until the feeling melted into pain. If nothing else, even if he didn’t pass the intelligence exam, he’d show them what he was capable of, what monstrous deeds he’d do in the name of survival, of the fight.

  For you, Kara, he thought as the next series of questions populated on his desk. He flexed his damaged arm, his fingers and palms tingling, remembering the sound of the gunshot, the snap of a neck. For you, Kara, I’ll blacken the skies.

  Chapter 4

  Four hours later, as soon as Cam finished the test, he realized his error.

  The CCWF must have found Colin by now.

  Worry wrung his intestines into a knot. He stuck his thumbnail in his mouth and bit down hard, enough to split the skin. They’ll take me away for murder—I’ll never find Kara—

  STUPID. It’s all for nothing.

  He stayed at his desk, frozen in his seat, waiting for the rest of the students to finish their test. Some of the smaller kids had been taken away by CCWF soldiers after wandering away from their desks, not to return.

  “Attention!” the proctor barked after the last student closed out his exam. Two Dominion soldiers, dressed in battle armor, appeared at the front door and moved to a position behind the proctor. “Tomia Nosik, Iggie Prys, please report to my desk. The rest of you are dismissed.”

  “Dismissed?” The bully that had tormented Colin earlier slammed his fist on his desk. “I wanna blow up leeches!”

  “Dismissed. Or you’ll feel the end of my shockwand.”

  The bully gave the proctor the double-finger, but picked up his pace as soon as the proctor’s hand moved to the electrified wand at his hip.

  The rest of the kids shuffled out, some crying, others keeping their grief tied up inside them. Most, he guessed, were orphans like him, now stuck with the terrible choice of joining the dangerous ranks of the CCWF or returning to the streets.

  What am I going to do?

  Cam, too shocked to comprehend his own failure, kept his head down as he followed behind the last kid. He didn’t bother looking at the two girls, Iggie and Tomia, who had passed, who at least now had a chance to get off Cerka and find another home amongst the stars.

  “Ferros. Wait.”

  Cam stopped at the door as the soldiers escorted Iggie and Tomia out. He exchanged a brief glance with them, unsure of what their cool gazes meant, or their willingness to follow the armored soldiers out of the classroom.

  “Come here, candidate.”

  Cam approached the desk. Stuck at the far back of the room, he hadn’t been able to distinguish the proctor’s finer features. He didn’t like the way his angular face bore no hints of joy or gaiety, or how his eyes looked over him with a vicious cunning that made him feel naked and weak.

  “Your test scores are an issue for your acceptance into the program,” the proctor said, typing something with his left hand while keeping watch of Cam’s reaction. After a moment he diverted his eyes to the results that projected in holographics from his desk. Cam didn’t understand the cryptic language and numbers that raced across the projections, but he recognized his face and the squiggly vital signs that appeared at their side. “We don’t accept stupid children into the Academy.”

  The words stupid children punched him in the gut. He’d never been the brightest in his class, but stupid? He blushed and grit his teeth, unsure if he would cry or smash his fists into the projector.

  The proctor’s eyes widened, as if delighted by something he saw. “However, in some cases, eagerness and willingness can overcome such things. Are you disposed, young cadet, to become soldier of the Sovereign, to follow orders, to fight, to give your life for the Dominion?

  “Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes, Sir,” he corrected, keeping his eyes level with the proctor’s.

  “Are you willing to kill, to defy your peers, and do as your superiors ask?”

  Cam’s mouth went dry. “Yes.”

  “Are you willing to follow Commandant Rogman’s every command?”

  He didn’t know who Commandant Rogman was, or what that meant. Surely, it could be no worse than what he’d already done, or been through. Still, his injured ankle throbbed, and he shifted his weight onto his good leg.

  Something in his gut pulled down on his throat, as if to steal the answer he prepared to give the proctor. He didn’t understand the feelings roiling through his stomach, or squelching the blood from his extremities. Still, he sensed one thing: This is dangerous.

  This man, this military position, was nothing like he’d experienced.

  And there was no turning back. Not if he wanted to find Kara.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  The proctor sat back, something like a smile pinching up the corners of his mouth, distorting his militant face. “Then congratulations, Cadet Ferros. Welcome to the Dominion Military Academy.”

  Chapter 5

  “You’re sure?”

  Cold and naked except for the flimsy disposable cloth covering his crotch, Cam gripped the edge of the exam table, avoiding the eyes of the Dominion nurse holding the dermawand.

  “You don’t have to carry these scars…” she said, fixating on the bite wounds to his arm. “The other cadets, well, they might say something about them.”

  Her awkward phrasing, overglazed in false sincerity, made him angrier than the suggestion to get rid of his scars. No, they were his protection, the only thing that would keep the other kids away.

  “Alright then,” she sighed, interfacing with the holographic projection of his health report on her tablet. Trading out the dermawand for a hypo full of red solution from the nearby tray table, she grabbed his upper arm. “Kids can be mean.”

  Yeah, right, he thought, stiffening to her touch but not pulling away, what are a bunch of rich kids from the Homeworlds gonna do?

  He doubted there’d be many kids like him – well, except for Iggie and Tomia; street kids, orphans, who understood real pain, the cost of war. What survival meant.

  “You’re a tough one, aren’t you?” she said, depressing the solution into what little shoulder muscle clung to bone.

  He chanced looking her in the eye. She flinched, then diverted her attention to her tablet, making notes and appearing immersed in whatever documentation the Dominion required of his health status.

  Why’d she jerk away?

  “You’re cleared for transport, Cadet Ferros.”

  Curious and upset, he didn’t move, not understanding why she would no longer look at him. After an uncomfortable few seconds, she pointed at the bright yellow and blue uniform sealed in plastic on the tray table, and a pair of black boots. “Get dressed and follow the lighted signs to the transport.”

  Without another word, she left, the automatic door shutting behind her.

  Cam slid off the exam table, his bare feet touching on the icy tiles. For a second, he missed his own clothes, the awkward hand-me-downs from Kara and whatever his mom could adjust of his father’s old garments. But after ripping open the plastic packaging, the new-fabric smell wafting up to his nose as he ran his fingers along the tightly-woven synthetics, his longing turned to dread. The Dominion insignia, printed in reflective colors onto the yellow fibers, glinted in the light.

  I don’t deserve this.

  But the proctor saw something in him—something worth shipping him directly to a temporary Dominion camp on the outskirts of the city and performing a full medical workup and vaccinations. And now,
giving him a jumpsuit, and sending him into deep space to the highly competitive Dominion Military Academy.

  I can’t compete with those other kids.

  No, not with their genetic enhancements and their overpriced educations on elite homeworld boarding schools. At least that’s what the schoolyard rumors informed him long ago. The kids sent to the Dominion were bred for the military, and their ruthless hearts only understood rankings, grades, and, most importantly, the games.

  “…eagerness and willingness can overcome such things.”

  No, that didn’t matter. I’m not here to be the best soldier, he thought, sliding his legs into the jumpsuit. It seemed too big for him, at least until the smart-weave constricted down to a snug fit.

  I’ll climb the ranks, he determined. However possible. At least enough to hold some kind of station, a position that would allow him to search for his sister.

  Once suited, his left sleeve lit up and provided him with an interface. Directions to the transport and instructions for his conduct scrolled across in blue-light images hovering a few centimeters above his arm.

  Do not deviate from the path, flashed over the three-dimensional map of the interior of the base camp.

  Cam followed the green blips and arrows on his arm, passing by medical staff, patients, soldiers, and other adults that gave him no more than a cursory glance.

  “Move!” shouted a team of soldiers with medical armbands as they carted an injured pilot down the hall. Cam flattened against the wall as they passed by, averting his gaze as the bloodied man screamed in a foreign tongue, and flailed as they pushed him inside a set of double-doors marked RESTRICTED.

  The sight of his injuries didn’t upset him, not like it used to. But the smell did. Decay and rot touched his nose, much too pungent to be coming from just that man.

  His wounds were fresh.

  No, it wasn’t from that man. It’s from that room, he realized, staring at the doors marked RESTRICTED. Inside, though muffled, he heard the man’s screams silence, and the sound of—

  Gears?

  Rusted gears, metal, something grinding across the floor. Like the sounds he heard in his father’s old factory. All those big, heavy machines clanging and grating—

  His sleeve flashed and buzzed. Keep moving or a soldier will be sent to your location.

  Cam pinched his nostrils and kept going.

  Once outside the medical operations unit, Cam walked across the open swathe of bulldozed land teeming with Dominion personnel and vehicles. A congestion of brown clouds hid the midday sun and swallowed the gigantic transport ships that blazed into the sky. Groups of soldiers and pilots ran this way and that, making him stutter and stumble.

  “Watch it, kid!”

  “Out of the way!”

  Cam thought to run, to head back to the darkened city in the distance, to the only place he’d ever known. Back to—

  Nothing.

  “Hey!” A girl in a yellow and blue jumpsuit like his waved at him from across one of the transport pads. Is that Tomia, or Iggie? A handful of other kids, dressed in the same jumpsuit, lined up outside a black starship. He recognized only the two girls he’d seen earlier.

  “Tomia,” the first girl said, offering her name, but no other gesture of welcome. Tall, red-haired and freckled, she reminded Cam of the Czeks, the indigenous people that preferred the long winters and icefields of the northern continents. She looked at least twelve, or at least acted confident enough for him to believe she was older, crossing her arms over her chest and shifting her weight onto one foot. Still, she was skinny—too skinny—another victim of the war.

  “Cam,” he said, waiting for the second girl to introduce herself.

  Smaller, though just as confident, the frizzy blonde-haired girl glanced at Tomia before introducing herself with a head nod. “Iggie.”

  He couldn’t place her accent. The weird way she pronounced Iggie sounded more like Ig-gay.

  She’s not from the city, he determined. Probably neither of them was. Not that his family wasn’t a bunch of immigrants, either. Just they didn’t look as human as him, not with their studded ears and stronger jawlines. They probably came from pure Cerkan bloodlines, untainted by the human refugees that came centuries ago to their planet.

  They have faster reflexes. They’re probably better at math. Cam dug his toes into his boots, trying not to weigh his inadequacies against their strengths.

  “You from Calenthia?” Tomia asked.

  His answer came out rushed, defensive, and he didn’t know why. “Yeah. So?”

  Tomia sized him up with cool, cerulean eyes. “Tough. I thought Midra was bad.”

  Midra. A small, northern city. He remembered hearing about it from his father. “Those chakking leeches think they can hide out in Midra? We’ll find every last one of ‘em.”

  Two months later, only ashes remained, and a new wave of displaced people crowding Calenthia’s refugee camps.

  “Brehn is worse,” Iggie chimed in. Cam didn’t know the place, but recognized the pain she masked with a frown.

  He didn’t want to say any more, to make any more connections that might somehow hinder him later. But an older boy, about fourteen, in front of Iggie nosed his way in the conversation.

  “Chak the leeches, right?” he said, making a fist and expecting them to knock theirs against his. “Burn ‘em all.”

  Cam expected the two girls to feed into the boy’s sentiment, to add their own stories of hardship and hatred of telepaths, and the violent reasons they joined the Dominion. Instead, Tomia shrugged her shoulders and offered a flat, “whatever, mate.”

  Iggie hocked up something thick from her throat and spat it near the boy’s feet. “Mind your own business, right?”

  Red-cheeked, the boy turned back in line, striking up a conversation with the kids ahead of him.

  Cam didn’t understand their protocol. Everyone on Cerka hated leeches. They caused the civil unrest, blackened the skies with warships, divided families and friends. Why not damn them with the other kid, celebrate their demise under the Dominion banner?

  Tomia must have seen it in his eyes. “We’re not telepathic.”

  Cam didn’t know what to say. He’d never addressed his own feelings on the matter, only reacted to his ever-changing environment. In the moment, he didn’t care about leeches necessarily, only about his sole objective. “That doesn’t really matter.”

  “Don’t it?” Iggie said, her gaze piercing right through him.

  He didn’t want to tell them about Kara. Instead, he offered the obvious answer: “The Dominion would take you down if you were.”

  “Truth. Those military bastards have a way of finding out everything.”

  Colin’s face flashed through his mind. “Y-yeah?”

  Tomia combed her fingers through her long red hair and looked to the horizon. “Yeah. But I don’t have any secrets. My family’s dead. This world is dead. There’s nothing left for me here. This is my only way out.”

  Iggie stared down at her boots and grunted.

  “I suppose that’s everyone story here,” he mumbled, looking down the line. A total of seven kids, ranging from about eight to fourteen made the cut.

  “Just don’t get iced,” Tomia chuckled as a guard and the proctor for their test stepped down off the starship ramp and reviewed a roster.

  “Huh?” Cam said, fiddling with the tabs at the hips of his jumpsuit. He didn’t like seeing the proctor. It felt as if the whole world could see his secret.

  “They didn’t tell you?” she said, flipping over her arm and calling up the interface on her sleeve. Her stats and ranking, grayed out and not yet activated, showed in the top right corner of the holographic display. “Once the games start, you gotta maintain at least a 3.5 ranking, or they’ll boot you to the frontlines.”

  “Or worse. Back to Cerka,” Iggie muttered as some of the kids up front laughed and teased each other in some spontaneous competition.

  I’ve got to win half my b
attles. The thought twisted his stomach into a knot. I couldn’t pass the entrance exam—how can I beat these qualified kids?

  The kid that interjected into their conversation earlier turned around and directed his insult at Cam, bending over and making a knife motion across his neck. “Don’t unpack your bags, sweetheart.”

  “Chak off, Marten” Tomia said.

  The other kids at front of the line stopped and tuned into the rising tension.

  “What? You defending that rub?” Marten laughed. “What’d you score, mate? You even in the 50th percentile? How’d you hack your way in? You’re just gonna ice out up there.”

  Cam reacted before he could think, swinging his leg up, into the boy’s chin. The toe of his boot hit him squarely in the jaw. Teeth splintered against teeth. The boy dropped to the ground, screaming, holding his mouth in his hands, blood spilling through his fingers.

  “I’m not going back,” Cam whispered, frozen in place as the guard from the ramp ran over, gun in hand. After glancing at Cam, he spoke into his shoulder com and then grabbed the injured boy by the armpit and dragged him out of line.

  “Cadets! On board now!” the proctor barked. The rest of them hurried aboard, not looking back as the boy continued to cry.

  As Cam passed the proctor, the gray-haired man whispered to him, a glimmer in his eye. “Well done, cadet.”

  Chapter 6

  Cam had never been out of the Calenthia, let alone off the planet. And after the first jump, he discovered how much he didn’t like space travel. The jumps, folding space-time and punching through to another side of the galaxy, upset his stomach, frazzled his nerves.

  I can’t cut this, he thought, emptying the last of his watery stomach contents into the emesis bag as the ship lurched and resettled somewhere in a dark ocean of unfamiliar stars. Seated at the end of a row, he tried to hide his sickness, but the other kids couldn’t have missed his retching. Or the smell.