“Great, I guess, I placed second with my team,” Alice said.
“He said everyone took defeat well.”
“I guess it was defeat. To be honest, the tension was so high for so long for most of us that I think we were just burned out by the end. Our sensors were limited, we could see everything, but it all looked the same until there was a soldier in front of you. Most of them blasted out of fear or surprise because there weren’t many officers. I don’t know, I’ve been going over it in my head all day, and I keep finding things I could have done better, different. What Alaka said is right, I took more risks than I had to as an Officer, didn’t trust my group enough, so I put myself in jeopardy when I didn’t have to by doing as much by myself as I could. In the end, it was one of my guys who got Iruuk, not me.”
“Learned a lot, then?” Yawen asked. “Think it’ll help with the strategic testing in a couple weeks?”
“Definitely. I don’t think anyone will be able to pass without practicing with their team. Alaka’s first exercise was crazy hard.”
“I’m wondering, what if someone climbs up and looks at the maze from above?”
“Cheating was allowed,” Alice said, nodding. “But no one did. We weren’t told cheating was allowed at the beginning. How are you doing with the Lorander tech overview?”
“About eleven percent in. It’s like studying tech from some super-future, not multi-material printing and energy conversion. I haven’t gotten to the instrumentation section yet. How are you doing?”
Alice found the technology easy to grasp, and the instrumentation section that covered how to use the designing and building tools was intuitive. “I’ll be finished by the end of the week,” she said.
Yawen looked something up on her comm unit and chuckled. “By the end of the week, it says you’re past the seventy percent mark.”
“Okay, I’ll be finished tomorrow. I can help you out if you need it.”
“I’ll take you up on that.”
It took Alice a long time to get to sleep that night, and she let herself sleep in a half hour, leaving only twenty minutes to get ready for her second session with her soldiers. The next two mornings her team placed third, but she felt better about her performance each time, especially on day three.
No one cheated until thirty five minutes into the third day’s challenge, when Alice spotted Iruuk’s nose poking up over the edge of the other side of the maze wall. He was climbing the side to see the maze from a higher vantage point, and he learned his lesson when Alice pointed his muzzle out to her soldiers and five of them scored a direct hit, taking him out for the rest of that challenge. His team placed sixth. To everyone’s surprise, Yawen’s team placed first that morning on their first time out. Not only did she beat everyone else, but her team only lost one soldier.
“We have our leader,” Alaka said to her as the troops lined up in front of the maze. “I expect to see the most improvement from you, Officer Yawen Blake, this win must only be the beginning, especially since everyone here knows you’re the one to beat.”
“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir,” Yawen replied.
“Now, your fellow trainees are all being gathered up – that includes the Officer Candidates – because it is the beginning of what the training staff have decided will be called ‘Suit Week.’”
At the sound of the words, all of their vacsuits sealed completely. The catheter and cleaning system engaged in Alice’s suit, a painless process that still made her want to yank the suit off and run away from it. She knew she wouldn’t even feel it most of the time, but it wasn’t the most pleasant way to live.
“Suit Week is a phase of your training that takes place with your suit sealed completely, you are dependent on the long term survival equipment inside your vacsuit since your suit is not allowed to be opened at any time. No matter what conditions may arise, problems may occur, or condition changes your suit forces on you, it is up to you to resolve problems and cope until the week is over. Officers, you are encouraged to check in on the soldiers who have been assigned to you and assist them with any problems they may have. If one of them opens their suit during the week, you will lose five points. For the soldiers who don’t have Officers, you can appoint a leader amongst yourselves, I’ll go over the details of that process later. Are there any questions?”
“Sir? I don’t think my, er, plumbing connected right?” asked one of Alice’s soldiers. She remembered his name as soon as he stepped forward; Regan Xavier, a tall, muscled young man.
“Officer Valent, support your trooper,” Alaka told her. She could swear that she heard a note of amusement in the Nafalli’s tone.
Alice didn’t hesitate, but engaged private communication mode between him and Regan, stepping in front of him. “Okay, this is pretty simple. The worst that can go wrong is that something misses, the recycling system can’t hurt you.”
“Oh, I think it’s okay now,” he said, backing away and covering his crotch.
“If you had to go to the bathroom right now, would you have a puddle down there?” Alice asked. “I mean, once is a problem, but imagine what that’s going to be like a few days in, let alone a week? Don’t worry, we can fix this without me touching you or seeing anything.”
“It’s just embarrassing,” he said. “My first full support space suit, but as soon as you mentioned pissing, I realized I have to go, so what do I do?”
“Okay, relax as much as you can, take a deep breath,” Alice said. “This doesn’t hurt, it just feels like, well, you’ll see. Anyway, deep breath.” She led him through one slow, deep breath. “Now look at the control on your head’s up with the water drop symbol, then select the reset option in the submenu.”
“I got it, okay, done,” he said.
“Okay, now select the calibrate command,” she said.
“Gotcha, it gave me a status bar, then turned green.”
“Now select the command that says ‘Full Support’ and execute,” she said.
“Wait, what’s that going to feel like, because when it missed in the front it was fine in the back. If it works in the front, maybe it could screw up in the back? Maybe this plumbing isn’t the right size for my plumbing?”
“It’ll adapt, just execute, soldier,” Alice said, seeing that other Officers were finishing up with correcting whatever problems were arising with their soldiers.
“Aye,” Regan replied. “Executing, Ma’am.” He squeezed his eyes shut then opened them, surprised. “Hey, that wasn’t bad at all.”
“See, so much worse in your head. You’re all good.”
“Yeah, I am, and I’m going right now,” he sighed.
“Too much information, soldier,” Alice said with a chuckle as she took her place in front of her seven trainees.
“All connections secure, Regan?” asked a dark haired soldier beside him.
“Aye, all’s well below,” he replied.
After a few moments the last Officer, Iruuk, finished walking one of his female soldiers through the reset process and he took his place in front of his seven troops.
“Now that the wrinkles have been worked out,” Alaka said. “It’s time for you to transfer to the real training facility. The War Forge is going to be your home for the rest of your training session. It is top secret, and only twenty-one percent complete. The training facility aboard is ready, you have five minutes to get across.” He sealed his own suit and at his command broad doors opened, revealing their destination.
Their boots locked to the deck before they could be swept out with the air in the room. Across the void between the British ship they had used as a training base for the first few days awaited the hull of their destination. It was three kilometres away, but massive. So large, in fact, that only the A in the ship’s name was visible, and the plating looked like it was only a few metres away. Alice’s tactical display gave her the real reading, however.
“All right, my team, we’re going to join hands, run and leap across. Hold hands all the way across. I’
ll take middle anchor, I want to see two people who have experience with emergency cables on either end. We’re going to aim for a point that is a hundred metres above the open doors on the station across from us so we can stop from colliding with other groups.” She explained as she stepped back into her group, joining hands with Regan and Heather. Two of her soldiers shuffled to the ends of their line and checked in as anchors.
“Group one, go!” Alaka ordered. Yawen’s group ran across the deck and leapt towards the War Forge. They were not holding hands, but bound themselves to each other with emergency cables. Alice could already see them tangling up with each other.
“We’ll send a ship after them,” Alaka said, laughing. “Group two!”
Iruuk led his group of seven into space, running at a controlled pace with his team touching his back and waist. Their hands were temporarily affixed to his suit, so their fate depended on his ability to get across. It looked like it would work, and judging by his father’s approving nod, it had a good chance.
“Group three, go!” Alaka announced.
Alice looked down the line at the other officers. “That’s us, Ma’am,” Heather whispered with a tug on her hand.
“Right, let’s go, Team Three!” she said, leading her team into a run. After two dozen paces they were drifting in the void. At first it seemed like they weren’t moving much at all, and then the broad opening they had to get through started to loom. It was a small ship docking bay for shuttles, a mark they would have no problem hitting, but she followed her plan anyway, and marked a spot on the hull above it as a target for their cables. She transferred Regan’s hand to her belt so he could keep a grip and launched her emergency tether cable at the target. The anchors on the far right and left of their line did the same, scoring one hit and one miss. Between her shot and one of her soldier’s, they had two lines attached to the hull of the War Forge, and she still couldn’t see the end of the hull in any direction.
“We got this, now reel in at medium speed,” she ordered. The angle of the cables pulling them slowed their approach a little, redirecting the energy and they collided with the side of the station hard, but their suits protected them easily. Everyone was resting against the side of the station seventy-seven metres above the docking bay entry.
“Um, we missed a little?” said Ophelia, one of the older trainees.
“No, this was the plan so we would be out of the way when we arrived. Besides, I couldn’t get a reading on what we’ll find in that docking bay from our launch point, so I wasn’t sure if there was artificial gravity or some other complication.” Alice corrected. “Looks like there is, so we would have hit our mark then fallen onto the deck from who knows how far up. Now turn the adhesion of your suits up and start crawling. We’ll be there on time.”
“Makes sense,” Regan said as another group of soldiers collided with the side of the station several metres away and bounced off.
Chapter 36
Return To The Revenge
“I can’t believe we’re going to be landing back on the deck of the Revenge in a few minutes,” Hot Chow said from the sensor and sciences station in the small bridge of the Pursuer III.
“Shh,” Carnie said over his shoulder. “The fates might hear you. They have a funny sense of humour.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Minh-Chu guided the Pursuer III through the multitude of Nafalli ships. Their luck had turned drastically during the trip, and he wouldn’t trust their chances until they were on the deck of the ship and the Revenge was in transit away from the red tinted section of the nebula.
“Oh, man, what happened?” Hot Chow asked as the Revenge became visible in the distance.
Minh-Chu took a better look at the ship on the scanners and saw the severe damage it had taken. The vessel was actually many metres shorter thanks to more than one type of damage done to its nose, and scars marked the hull on all sides. He was no longer worried about any fallout from losing the Pursuer III’s weapons package, but hoped that the Revenge didn’t lose many people. “When we left that crew was new to the ship, now we’re returning to a crew of survivors,” Minh-Chu said. “Don’t ask too many questions when you get aboard, just let them tell you their stories. If you need to know what happened to the ship, just look at the combat logs yourself.”
“Why? I mean, what else would we ask about?” Hot Chow asked.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be hearing stories about what happened to them for weeks, just don’t distract them with questions,” Carnie said.
“Okay, yeah, I get it, they’re probably in perpetual damage control mode. From the damage I see here, wait. Wow, I’ve got something coming up here, twenty-eight wormhole emergence points, one of them is really big.”
“They’re on my display,” Minh-Chu said.
“Order of Eden identifiers coming in, at least thirty ships of destroyer class and larger,” Carnie said. “Our Nafalli friends are sending us a course that will take us to the Revenge.”
“Following it,” Minh-Chu said. His tactical screen lit up with hundreds of warnings. Every ship that could fire at the wormhole exit points above them were doing so, and for several seconds, he carefully piloted the Pursuer III along the path they had sent him as they moved through a storm of torpedoes, missiles and heavy munition packages that were the size of shuttles. “Oh my God, that’s more firepower than I’ve ever seen, even in my infantry days.”
“They did say they had tens of thousands of warriors,” Hot Chow said as he ducked in his seat.
The wormhole exit points two hundred thousand kilometres above them lit up as though several suns were igniting. When the first wave of munitions cleared, Minh-Chu’s tactical display populated with dozens of arriving ships. Many of the smaller vessels that were distinguishable from the wreckage were heavily damaged destroyers. A few of the battlecruisers sustained damage as well, but there were still five destroyers and two massive motherships unlike anything he’d ever seen. “Hang on,” he said as he pushed the thrusters to maximum, sending the ship along its trajectory towards the Revenge at an alarming speed. “They’re going to launch a second volley.”
“Not yet,” Hot Chow said. “Wait, they’re sending new navigational data, telling us to stay out of the way. They’re launching. How did you know?”
“Experience, and I’ve gotten to know a Nafalli warrior. This group will spend everything they have to make sure their families get away.”
“The Revenge has cleared us to land,” Carnie said.
“We should stay and help with the fight,” said Woone from behind them as she leaned into the cockpit.
“I have orders to get you and your fellow warriors to the Revenge in one piece.”
“I owe the Order a million deaths for everyone I’ve lost, and we have the advantage,” Woone insisted. “With my fleet there.”
“This is not a fight we chose,” Minh-Chu replied. “More allies are waiting for us, and we’re all set to go.”
The second wave of torpedoes, missiles, and weapons fire filled the space around the ship as the Order began to return fire across the vast distance. Minh-Chu’s tactical screen recorded eighteen hits from micro-missiles against their shields, and he rotated the ship so the bottom shields would take the next strike. To his surprise, their shields were only down seven percent and would be recharged to full within seconds. “That was the Order, this fight is too even and their main ships haven’t taken damage yet.”
“Come back to the passenger area, Woone,” said her older minder, a Nafalli named Caniili with white and light brown fur. “You remember the plan.”
“Yes, Minister,” Woone said witheringly.
“We’re taking hits,” Hot Chow said. “Finn says these micro missiles will get through our shields in another minute if we don’t get cover.”
“Almost there,” Minh-Chu replied as he began decelerating, the bay doors of the Revenge were looming larger by the second. “We’re in.” he sighed with relief as the control
field in the hangar stopped them from colliding with the closed rear doors.
“Reporting our arrival,” Hot Chow said. “The Nafalli ships are opening wormholes and bugging out, the Revenge is opening whatever it opens now into weird energy space and we’ll be clear in a few seconds.”
“That was one memorable taxi run,” Minh-Chu said.
Minh-Chu and the rest of his crew were off the Pursuer III as soon as it was taken up into the Revenge’s interior hangar. He couldn’t help but look at the battered hull before moving on. “I think I love this ship,” he said as he patted its hull then traced the outline of one of the newest scars, a burn mark from a high velocity micro-missile. It was purely cosmetic, the damage had been absorbed by the shields, but it was part of a tapestry drawn across the surface of the ship that told their story.
“It stood up to punishment that ships her class normally wouldn’t have been able to sustain without a lot more damage. Those micro-missiles are new, the Order is upping their game,” Finn said. “A lot of the tech I scanned today wasn’t built by Regent Galactic, there are ship yards on the other side of this nebula producing higher quality ships, I’d guess.”
“Take a breath, Finn,” Minh-Chu said, aware that the whole crew from the Pursuer III were gathering around. Past them he could see members of Samurai Squadron emerging from the transit cars. “We made it out alive after being left for dead. This crew did that. We need to take a minute before we get back in the fight just to acknowledge that, no matter what happens next, we were tested by this war once and we made it through. It was a little luck, a lot of work, and the right people. Even you, Ike.”
“Under your direction, Captain,” Carnie said. “We’ve got luck and cunning when Captain Buu is on the bridge.” He whistled shrilly and clapped.
Minh-Chu didn’t like being at the receiving end of applause, but he knew that his people needed to celebrate their arrival and they wouldn’t get much of a chance to do it. He reached out for Finn and dragged him to his side, raising his finger up high then pointing down at his head. “This man’s brain worked harder than all of us.”
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 10 Page 29