Spectres (Æthyrium Rising - Spectres Book 1)

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  “Well,” Juno said with a smile, her hair fluffed out like lion’s tail, “that was fun.”

  We walked over to our lockers as more warm and confident than we’d entered. Okay, so maybe I was the only one who was more confident, but that’s important too.

  I’ll argue anyone that says getting out of a shower and getting into track pants, warm socks and boots isn’t one of the best feelings in the universe. I was so much more ready to face the day walking out into that crisp air than if I’d had a cup of coffee or done my normal morning routine of tai chi and tea.

  Small groups of friends had already started to form, something that had happened a lot at school, except this time I had one too. Not saying I didn’t have friends, it was just that we weren’t the type who walked around talking, we were more like the sitting in the library and read together friends, or the kick each other’s arses at after school martial arts training type. Even back then I couldn’t remember all of their names.

  But with those guys? With that tight-knit group? I felt so welcomed and accepted. Juno had the occasional catty remark here and there, that was true, and I wasn’t looking forward to missions with her either, but as far as friendships go, she was our bitch friend.

  Every group needs a bitch friend.

  Chow Time

  Finding the mess hall in our area was easy enough, it was the large rectangle building made of what appeared to be brick and reinforced steel, and it was one of the only buildings that had glass doors, and plenty of them.

  The mess was filled with tables seemingly scattered randomly around the room, but then I saw someone dragging one over to create a larger one so he had room for his six friends and understood.

  Luckily we found a table with four seats, because pretty soon after we arrived, the building was packed with at least three hundred fresh-faced recruits all waiting for their meal. I must admit, I had no idea what the procedure was either, there didn’t appear to be a kitchen anywhere, and there wasn’t exactly a waiter that we could ask.

  The working theory that most of us shared was that devices would come from the ceiling that we used to fill up disposable bowls with the piles of slop that the AI had mentioned.

  Turned out though that was lie.

  After a few minutes of waiting, fifteen people in pristine white chef jackets and chequered pants came into the mess with trolleys of food. They put a plate with some cutlery in front of each us as they passed, each meal comprising of one sausage, two strips of bacon, a fried egg, and a grilled tomato, and there I was convinced that they didn’t care about how fed we were.

  The mess fell silent as we all dug in, devouring our meals as fast as we could. Some of the people there probably hadn’t eaten that well in years, if ever, and I was seriously concerned that they might overdo it and end up hurting themselves.

  But no one did, we got through the entire meal and didn’t suffer a single casualty. Once it was done and our plates cleared, some more people came around and gave us each a medium sized plastic cup of water, which we all promptly drained.

  “Now isn’t that some good eatin’!?” the AI’s voice shouted from somewhere above us, his disembodied and giant drill sergeant-esque head suspended in the air, looking over all of us.

  “Yes sir!” we shouted back.

  “There you go! You’re catchin’ on. Now on today’s schedule we’ve got dental hygiene to take care of, then it’s style cuts for everybody. Then after that you’ll be running drills for the rest of the day! Doesn’t that sound fun!?”

  “Yes sir!”

  “You’re just the best pile o’ maggots I’ve ever seen! Now get over to the J-Block req-officer and collect your teeth scrubbers, I can smell your breath from here!”

  “Yes sir!”

  I wasn’t sure why they had him yell everything he said, and I was even less sure why we got louder with each ‘Yes sir!’, but I was really starting to like it at the academy.

  Xario nudged me as we got up and whispered, “You got any idea where the J-Block is? I would’ve gotten lost on the way to the showers if it weren’t for everybody else.”

  I smiled and nodded, “I think I remember seeing it out by the field near B-Hanger.”

  Xario blinked confusedly with his head slightly tilted and I laughed, “Just follow me, I’ll get us there.”

  Nothing else was said, the group just kind of formed around me and we ran over to J-Block. Even then we ended up being about tenth in line at the requisition office, which was remarkably similar to a post office, right down to the red felt rope that divided the front of the building into a more spatially economic line.

  Initially I thought that our position made us the sluggish ones, but as the line built up well beyond the confines of the office I became a bit more confident that we weren’t the slowest people in the academy.

  The bench-wall that acted as the finish line for our snail race had six officers spaced evenly apart behind the safety of bulletproof glass that they seemingly opened and closed with their minds.

  None of them seemed particularly friendly, and four of them still had their coffee in their hands as they spoke to and handed various odds and ends to the people ahead of us and I realised that they weren’t recruits like us, they were just soldiers from around the academy, meaning we were the first lot of recruits in line. This seemed like a pretty big win for us.

  Eventually it was my turn to get called over by a particularly brusque man with what was obviously freshly poured coffee down his fatigues.

  “Recruit?” he said gruffly.

  I nodded, “Yes. Kurl-”

  “Kurleida Xiao, yeah, yeah, I got you right here,” he said as he pulled up a pile of folded army uniforms, a few of what looked like elastic-cotton blend white exercise shirts, a red toothbrush with a tube of toothpaste, and a pair of brand new boots and dumped them on the bench, “size eight, yeah?”

  “That’s amazing, how did yo-”

  “That’s a yes,” he said as the bulletproof glass disappeared and he pushed the pile onto my side of the desk, “go grab your stuff from the showers and dump it with this in your room. Next!”

  I struggled to keep the pile tidy and in my arms, “But what do I do with the dirty stuf-”

  “Figure it out. Next!”

  I accepted that I was going to have to work it out, and shuffled outside to wait for the others, Juno specifically. Again, this was totally out of character for me, I enjoyed walking on my own, loved it even, but the idea of being alone here just seemed sad.

  I think that was another reason I wanted to join, to find the sense of not just comradery, I got that at the station, but the sense of real friendship, that thing that keeps people together through thick and thin.

  Xario was the first out, soon followed by Juno and Jurol. “So it’s back to the showers then to our rooms, yeah?” Jurol asked.

  Xario nodded, “I think so. Once we get back there I reckon the AI’ll tell us where to go.”

  We all silently agreed and started walking over to the shower block, our arms filled with even more clothes than the morning’s run. It was about then that it occurred to me that we’d been up for less than an hour and had already gotten so much done, which was something that I really quite enjoyed when I was a civilian.

  Then another realisation dawned on me. That was probably the plan, get us through all the comfy stuff and then run drill after drill for the rest of the day.

  I wasn’t upset at this idea, I just wasn’t particularly excited either.

  We reached the showers without really talking, but when we walked in and grabbed our stuff Juno was reminded of our earlier conversation, “Hey, Jurol, you never got around to telling us why you were here.”

  Jurol sighed, “Do I have to?”

  The rest of us shared a look and Xario nodded, “Yes, yes you do.”

  “Alright, but you have to promise not to make fun of me.” he said as we stepped outside again and started walking toward the barracks.

  Jun
o shook her head, her still messy hair going all over the place, “Never made that promise before, never been made into a liar.”

  Jurol frowned, but gave in, I’m pretty sure he wanted to tell us anyway. “Well, it started when I was a kid, my mother left to meet the love of her life somewhere at the edge of the quadrant, which left my dad pretty messed up. He stopped going to work in the mines and they eventually replaced him. I was about seven or eight when this happened, but I had a pretty good idea of what money was, food on the table and a roof over my head. There was this kid at school, Kuli, he was a few years older than me and he was awesome. After a while he taught me how to jack cars, and then how to flip them on the black market. I loved it.”

  He must’ve noticed me silently seething, because he quickly added, “Because it meant my dad and I got to eat. Anyway, he got nabbed one day and I was forced to go it on my own. As I got older I learned how to hack and steal bigger and better things, even got a cruise ship, you know the big luxury ones? Took it right from the Starport and sold it to some pirates on the rim.”

  “That was you!?” I asked a little too loud and little too high-pitched. “That was you? I spent months tracking that case, everyone on world did.”

  He nodded and failed to hide his proud grin, “Yeah. But then I got stupid, thought I’d found an abandoned hi-tech battle cruiser floating around Greza. Wasn’t until I’d already flown all the way out there and boarded that I realised it was a trap. Turned out the Commonwealth were on to me and wanted me in. They turned me around and sent me home and told me when and where to wait for the shuttle and what to bring.”

  It made me feel weird that I shared a world with one of the most notorious thieves I’d ever heard about, we at the station, all the stations on Greza actually, figured that he’d just jumped planet, run off to join up with the pirates he had connections to.

  “How in the Hells was I supposed to make fun of you for that?” Juno almost shrieked, her jaw almost on the floor, “That is one of the most amazing origin stories I’ve ever heard, and I grew up on the Nordic ones which, let’s face it, are the best.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said with a smile as we arrived at our barracks, “what about the Asiatic ones I grew up with? I bet you a thousand creds that I can top any Nordic story with a Chinese one, because, you know, I don’t want to make it too easy.”

  “Aaand, I think that’s where we’ll leave you girls, come on Juri, later guys.” Xario said as he walked off with ‘Juri’ close behind.

  Juno and I continued our pointless ancestral argument all the way through dumping our clothes on the beds and brushing our teeth, before finally coming to the conclusion that neither of us was going to admit that the other was going to be right.

  After I spat out the water I used to rinse my mouth, I looked into the mirror that made up the back wall of the large restroom and, despite being surrounded by a lot of very chatty girls, felt at peace. The restroom was actually quite nice, cubicles lined the wall closest to the door, and sinks reflected each of them. It was all so… shiny.

  “Hey, what do you think we’re supposed to do with the dirty laundry?” Juno asked me when I turned around after rinsing my toothbrush.

  I shrugged, “I’m sure there’ll be something in the room.”

  After that we spent a solid ten minutes looking for a hamper of some kind in our room to no avail. I was about ready to give up when Juno cried out “Aha!”

  I spun on my feet to see her kneeled on her bed, her dirty laundry having vanished, “What? Where?”

  “Above your bed, look.” she said in a voice that was more excited than I’d expected.

  She ran over to my side of the room, well, hopped, there wasn’t enough space to run, jumped on my bed, and activated some sort of panel that turned into a handle. “Then you just pull this,” she said while doing it and grabbing up my dirty clothes, “and drop it down.”

  “No wait!” I shouted as she released it, the handle disappearing again into the wall.

  “Hmm?” she hummed innocently.

  “What if that’s the garbage chute?” I asked, the idea of my father’s shirt being converted into some kind of incinerated confetti tearing my soul into small pieces.

  Juno rolled her eyes and climbed off the bed, “It says laundry on it, it’s like one of those holographic cards, see for yourself.”

  I took some head movements, but eventually I did get a decent look and saw the word ‘Laundry’ in holographic multicolour printing across the cover.

  “See?” Juno said, seeing how relieved I was, “I’ve got your back.”

  I gave her a nod and we started getting dressed into our fatigues. It was funny, against all my baser instincts I was starting to think she really did, and not just because it was convenient. It was because she actually gave a damn.

  Haircut

  After we got dressed in our brand-spanking new orange and brown uniforms we spent a little time checking each other out. We looked good.

  “How’s the fit!?” the AI voice boomed in our room, making us instantly snap to attention.

  “Good sir!”

  “Fantastic! Now stop having yourselves a private fashion show and fall out! We got a lot to get done today and I won’t have you slowin’ us down! Understood!?”

  “Yes sir!”

  He hadn’t made a form that time around, but I was pretty sure I could hear him smiling, “That’s what I like to hear.”

  Once we were sure he was gone we left the room, as everyone else was, and went outside. The morning chill hadn’t quite passed yet, but it was getting there, and the uniform was certainly stopping me from freezing.

  Once we were all outside, Juno and I in the third row from the front, a soldier walked over to us, “Morning ladies!” she shouted over our heads, “Welcome to the Seros Academy. Today you will start some of the most intensive training the Commonwealth Armed Forces has to offer, but first it’s haircut time. So get moving! To the left! Quick… march!”

  We spun to face the left and started our march, and it wasn’t until we made our fifth left that we realised we were going in circles, but none of us said anything. Instead we just went right on marching, even when she gave the order to move at double time. As far as I was concerned the hard part was going to be stopping.

  A few more circuits went by and our leader finally decided to guide us somewhere new. I struggled not to look around, but it was like we were in a town what with the gaming cafés, clothing stores, and military shops. I wasn’t altogether surprised that the academy had a sort of main road like this, but it was still cool.

  We eventually reached out destination, a nice looking barbershop with large glass windows, and our leader gave us the order to stop. “You will go in, six at a time, and be given a buzz cut. This is nonnegotiable, and yes, you will be able to grow your hair throughout the course of your training provided you keep it neat. First six, go in, the rest of you wait here at ease until you’re called in, understood?”

  “Yes sir!” we shouted back, giving her a salute as she marched away.

  That’s when the pain of running for fifteen minutes straight without stretching beforehand hit me and my legs felt jiggly.

  “You right?” Juno asked without turning to me.

  “Yeah, just a bit sore, you?”

  She gave a slight nod, “Lungs or legs?”

  “Yes.”

  A smile spread across her face despite her very obvious attempts to keep it at bay, “Yes? Not both, but yes?”

  “I think it works as an answer.” I said with my own little smile.

  “That it does.” she said as we started moving forward, the first group already done.

  “They work fast here, don’t they?” I asked as we walked onto the black-and-white chequered linoleum floor of the barber.

  “It’s the military, everything’s efficient.” Juno said as we found two seats.

  It was just like a regular barber, mirrors, scissors and combs in a glass jar of blue ger
micide, the whole thing had a very ‘real world’ feel and a lot less like a training facility.

  An elderly man came up behind me in a white barber’s uniform, a warm smile forcing his wrinkles to tighten up as he draped the cape over me. After that he pulled out a comb and a set of clippers and went to work.

  I almost couldn’t believe it, I’d barely felt a thing as the clippers ran over my head and, not even ten seconds later, all of my hair was gone.

  He dusted me off without saying a word and pulled the cape off before tapping a button at the base of my chair that made the ground open up under it. All of my hair slipped into the dark space before it closed back up, then the barber gave me a light tap on the shoulder to indicate I should shuffle on.

  I nodded politely, got up, and left. It was by far the best haircut I’d ever had. Not in terms of style, of course, just the fact that I hadn’t been pressured into a conversation and it was all done before it could get awkward.

  Juno was right behind me as I went outside, running my fingers over my fuzzy head. “Feels lighter, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, cooler too.” I said, only just noticing that I’d sweat a good deal on the run.

  A few minutes passed as the other girls cycled through when I saw Xario and Jurol coming down the street, Xario not looking much different, but Jurol? Wow. Certainly looked a lot cleaner with a shaved head and a uniform.

  “Look at what we just picked up,” Xario said as he threw a military cap each at Juno and I, “our ‘guide’ noticed we didn’t have them and told us the req-office sometimes forgets to hand them out. Figured you guys could use them.”

  I pulled mine on, adjusting it so until it felt perfect, “Thank you, but what are you guys doing? Shouldn’t you be with your… squad?” I asked. I wasn’t actually sure what we were.

  Xario shook his head, “They haven’t assigned squads yet, they just divvy up the girls and guys to prevent… amorous activities.” he said as he shot Juno a wink.