by Aer-ki Jyr
“It will pass,” the female said reassuringly. “In tim…”
Esna didn’t let her finish speaking, reaching into her mind and surging as much of a Fornax field as she could. Both trainers dropped to the ground twitching uncontrollably as their bodies lost motor control. Esna held the field as long as she could, which amounted to 7 seconds of them banging around on the ground before her strength was exhausted and the nude trainee walked towards the pile of her clothes in the corner where she’d left them.
“Experience that,” she said icily as they got to their feet.
“What the hell did you do?”
Esna didn’t answer, getting dressed and walking towards the door. “Am I finished here?”
“What was that?” the male trainer demanded, but calmly so.
“Fornax,” she said firmly. “I am done here?”
“Yes you are.”
Esna spun around and walked out, meeting with the handler waiting outside that would take her to her next training assignment for the day.
“She has a psionic?” the female trainer asked after Esna had left.
“Obviously.”
“How is that possible?”
“I don’t know. I thought only Archons had psionics.”
“Is she an Arc Knight?”
“Her skills are too poor. Did an Archon get laid and have a youngling?”
“Surely not.”
“Then what else?”
“I don’t know, but we need to find out. If she’d done that to us next to open water we would drown.”
16
April 2, 4813
Tarric 3 System
Seda JOR
Esna ran up the stone stairs, taking them two at a time as the sound of footsteps behind her pushed the adrenaline running through her veins higher. Her pursuit was a pair of trainers operating robotic suits from a booth outside the combat park, allowing their minds to drive the movements of the machines while allowing Esna to damage them without worry of harming the trainers.
They moved like people in armored suits and could run faster than her. That was a problem out in the open like this, but once she got to the top of the stairs she turned a hard right and ran into a dense bit of forest, weaving between trees as she breathed hard then clamped down on it as she slid to a halt, dropping to a knee and spinning around. Esna raised her pistol and fired a pair of shots back, hitting one of her pursuers and burning a little bit of armor off the chest plate before it too ducked behind a tree. She fired one more shot, missing both, then sprang to her feet and took off again.
A stun blast shot through the air barely missing her shoulder with the tiny blue orb smashing into a tree trunk and harmlessly soaking in. Had it hit Esna a part of her body would have become numb, but it wouldn’t have knocked her out completely…even if it hit her in the head. The purpose of this challenge was to practice evasion and be punished for mistakes on the spot, not have one mistake result in a failure and reset that would waste valuable time.
Esna had already taken several hits, but if she could keep running and stay ahead of her pursuit the effect would wear off eventually, though right now her right shin was still half numb and that made stepping over roots and rocks problematic. She had to look down far too much to make sure she lifted her leg high enough to get over them, but soon she came out onto a concrete plain with no cover whatsoever with tripping no longer on her mind.
She stopped running, bending over and breathing heavily as the two machines caught up to her but didn’t step on the concrete. They didn’t fire either, for she had escaped their section of the park and was no longer a valid target. That didn’t mean she was safe though, for soon an aerial vehicle half her size flew in on silent engines that she managed to spot out of the corner of her eye. She fired several lethal rounds of Dre’mo’don energy at it from her pistol, missing with all of them as the disc-shaped device evaded and sprayed a shower of stun blasts so small Esna barely felt them, but they came down like raindrops over an area several meters wide and made it almost impossible for her to dodge.
She knew from previous runs that if she delayed the small numbing effect would add up, so she ignored the drone the sprinted across the concrete plain and hung a hard left, bypassing the river on the right and choosing to go through the heat zone instead. When she hit it she passed through an energy field that the drone didn’t, escaping it but being hit with air temperatures well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Her breathing immediately became more difficult, but it was her bare feet that were the biggest problem. Every step she took was hot, with some areas hotter than others almost to the scorching point. She’d had to lose her shoes in stage two of the course in order to make it through in time, and now it was coming back to hurt her…literally, but she didn’t want to go through the river and underwater tunnel to get to zone 18.
Taking the heat zone was stupid, but it was her choice and she made it through with only one hit in her right leg by an automated turret. Coming out the far side ran her into the cold zone with the snap transition between temperatures really hitting her hard as a waterfall of ice cold water smashed into her a few steps into the other side.
Esna hadn’t expected it to be there. She’d run through this course over a hundred times by now, but had only gotten this far 6 times and gone the cold route 5 of those times. It hadn’t been here before, and when it hit her the fraction of a second that felt like relief switched into traumatic shock as her body was thrown in temperature reverse and she fell along with the weight of the water as it continued to crash down on top of her and flow off across the ice that her bare hands and feet now pressed into.
Esna cringed, forcing herself to crawl forward enough to get out of the falling water and onto a snow bank, then she curled up in a ball trying to fight off the cold as her skin rapidly froze. After a few long seconds of not moving the challenge end siren blared and trainers appeared out of nowhere, hauling her out of the snow and carrying her to a nearby wall that opened up with a secret entrance and got her back into normal air tempts as they wrapped her up in a blanket that registered her skin temperature and input or sucked away as much heat as necessary to get her back to normal levels.
“Where…did that…damn…waterfall…come from?” she said through chattering teeth and shaking limbs.
“Randomization,” one of the trainers said. “You’ve got to learn to deal with it. In a real combat situation you’re not going to have the luxury of practice beforehand.”
“It wasn’t there…before.”
“It was, it just didn’t activate. Remember for next time,” he said as Esna’s feet hit the lukewarm floor as she fought for self-control. Wrapped up in the thermal blanket she took a few small steps that built into a normal stride as she shook off the cold. This wasn’t the first time Canderian training had blindsided her…in fact she thought they prided themselves on doing it just shy of causing serious damage. She had to complete this course to advance to the next stage of her training, and it was taking far too long. Each time she progressed into a new stage she had to learn the hard way what the threats were and find a way to escape or defeat them…then do it over and over again as she progressed further and further each time, though she didn’t always make it this far.
The trainers led her to a private room where they left her with a countdown clock active. It had 18 minutes and 8 seconds on it, meaning she had that much of a rest break to recover before moving on to her next challenge of the day. Esna knew what it was and did not want to go through it again, but she had no choice…other than to quit…and that wasn’t an option for her.
Huddling within the blanket as it quickly stabilized her, Esna’s mind blanked in a technique she’d developed in previous months. She didn’t fall asleep, but all extraneous thoughts were silenced and she focused on the moment…and right now she needed to recover as much as possible, so she focused her attention on that and let herself not worry about anything else. Once that clock ended she would have
to deal with it then, not now, and pointless worrying only diminished her healing rate, so Esna held her pose unmoving and feeling her body adjust. Her mind assisted mostly by not getting in the way, and when the door opened and her handler came for her with her shoes she was ready…more or less.
It was a short, but brisk walk to another training chamber that she dreaded, then she pulled her shoes back off again along with the rest of her clothes and put them in a small, neat pile next to the door before walking over to a circular hatch in the floor. She stood on it, then the trainers triggered the release and the floor dropped out from under her.
Esna fell through the air pointing her toes down and making her body as straight as possible while crossing her arms over her chest and clamping one hand over her nose and mouth before she hit the water, driving her body down deep before she reached her arms out and began forcing herself lower in the pool to get at the first seal. Closing it reduced the water flowing into the room a bit, and Esna stretched her oxygen enough to find and close another before frantically swimming back up to the foggy, dark surface and gasping for air.
She wasn’t going to be able to get two again, for her fall had gained her distance underwater, but Esna needed to trim a little time off each surface visit so she focused her mind into blankness and let her body calm down faster than normal as it recharged with steady breathing.
Sucking in another breath, she dove back down feet first and clawed for depth with her arms until she hit the bottom, then found a seal and closed it before coming back up. Over and over she repeated the process until the room filled up and only a few inches of air remained. Knowing she couldn’t make another run she stayed up top, breathing regularly until the air pocket disappeared and she was forced to hold her breath again.
Little lights appeared in a rectangle just above her, with one disappearing each half second as the 45 second countdown ran. Esna held onto her mouth and nose, making it easier to force her mind somewhere else to distract herself into waiting it out. When she got to 15 seconds elapsed her body started to object, with her lungs complaining so heavily at the end her body scrunched up in a ball as she clenched every muscle she had trying to keep control so to not involuntarily open her mouth. It was a tug of war between her conscious control and her autonomic safeguards, and the more need of oxygen she had the more powerful those safeguards became. They didn’t know there wasn’t air to breath, they just knew there wasn’t enough air in her lungs and that if she didn’t open her mouth she’d die from lack of oxygen.
Esna’s mind wanted to panic, but she clamped down on it as best she could not even looking at the lights, then the feeling of the force field washing over her and pulling the water down told her the challenge was over. Failed again, but not because of a safety override. Esna let go of her mouth and tried to take small breaths, but didn’t fully succeed. She started choking and coughing as her body tried to get as much air in as possible and she suffered through another adjustment fit before the heavy and steady heaves returned and her mind came out of its panic.
A few more seconds there she lingered, suspended in air by the force fields until they pulled her up through the hatch and deposited her up top with the trainers again. She didn’t punch or Fornax them, merely walking over and getting her clothes back on as her breathing gradually slowed, then her handler took her to her next assignment. It wasn’t a challenge, but rather sparring practice against robotic opponents so she could practice certain moves over and over again with precise repetition.
Esna put the thought of the water behind her and focused on living and persisting in the moment until the long list of daily activities ended, then the handler led her to an equipment room where she showered and got a fresh set of clothes and shoes. After that she went straight to a cafeteria and ate quickly, for if she didn’t Esna had learned her fatigued state would have her spending too much time here.
Forcing herself to eat as if it was another assignment, Esna didn’t talk to anyone and didn’t take time to watch the news feeds displayed on the ceiling. She filled up her stomach then walked off and back to her quarters where she slipped off her shoes then fell into bed, pulling the covers over her and blanking her mind again to ensure she got every minute of available sleep. Wasting those was stupid, and before long the next day’s alarm woke her all too soon.
Esna crawled out of bed and met her handler at the door, then she was off on another gauntlet of training assignments and challenges with the Human doing everything she could just to keep up until her next rest day came…and she was never told when those would pop up, meaning she just had to keep going indefinitely.
And that, Esna thought, was the point the Canderians were trying to instill. If not for Rammak’s previous training she never would have made it this far…and with each day that passed she didn’t know if she was going to be able to make it another hour, let alone a day. She wasn’t going to quit, but the possibility of there being a time when her body simply wouldn’t respond and she’d be forced to quit by default bounced around in the back of her mind those few times when she wasn’t successfully concentrating. That said, her fatigue was an ally in keeping it silent, for most of the time she was too tired to do anything other than the tasks assigned to her or fall into a deep, badly needed sleep.
17
May 15, 4813
Tarric 3 System
Seda JOR
Esna jumped at the end of her survival run, getting her fingertips on the upper edge of a stone wall and leveraging herself up on the power of her arms alone…which were now considerably thicker than they’d ever been before. Using her increased leverage, she got a foot up on the edge and rolled herself over with a jerk, then dropped down on the far side where she landed in a mud puddle, splashing her mostly clean uniform with dirty warm water.
This was as far as Esna had gotten. Previously she’d been shot down each time she tried to get over the wall, leaving her now in unfamiliar territory. There was a path ahead through the trees that seemed to be the only option so she stomped out of the water for a few strides then took off running slowly, knowing that whatever traps were ahead she’d probably have to spring by bumbling into them. Not many did she usually spot beforehand, and her accumulated knowledge and mastery of the course thus far was nothing more than the result of trying, failing, and learning a nauseating number of times…so many now that she’d lost count.
But to her surprise there was nothing to stop her as she ran a short distance on a curvy trail before the trees disappeared and there was a grassy clearing on the other end of which was the finish pedestal. Esna felt a surge of adrenaline along with a warning…there was no way it was going to end this easy.
Looking and listening she couldn’t spot any trouble, so she gritted her teeth and sprinted, hoping to get to the pedestal before anything could hit her. She ran through some 20 meters with no interference, hope surging in her all the way up to the pedestal…where she ran face first into an invisible shield wall.
Esna hit hard, bouncing off it with a bloody nose and some other minor injuries just a few meters short of the finish. Her head spun with disorientation as she scrambled to get to her feet, falling down once before she forced herself to take the time to recover, during which she placed a hand on the shield wall. It didn’t appear to her eyes aside from some small distortions around her fingertips, but…
Then she saw it. Off to the side behind a tree trunk on the edge of the grassy clearing was a sign, almost in comical form, with an arrow below it. The sign read ‘Off Switch’ and beneath the arrow was a big red button the size of her hand on the ground.
Esna crawled towards it a few steps before she managed to get to her feet, then a spray of stun blasts hit her along the spine and she fell again, forcing herself to crawl. She knew if she went down for too long the challenge would end, and she wasn’t going to let it go that easily. Esna crawled all the way over to the button, but her legs went numb two meters before it. She then crawled with her hands, dragging her
body inch by inch as the silent drones above her peppered her with hits.
She got within half a meter before her body left her control and her broken nose fell into the grass where it continued to bleed out.
Esna didn’t fully lose consciousness, but got so doped from all the stun blasts she didn’t realize the trainers were over her until a device latched onto the back of her neck and the pain suddenly went away. A few pops and twists later her nose realigned and healed, along with the other small injuries she’d suffered, then it disconnected and the numbing vanished…with her realizing that she was no longer on the course, but in a hallway outside the organic park.
“I hate you guys,” she whispered, sitting on the ground for a moment as she felt her nose that was now clean of blood and uninjured, but it still felt a little odd and her tongue seemed to taste metallic coconut…whatever that was.
“Close youngling, but not close enough. Live and learn,” the female trainer said, offering her a hand up. Esna ignored it and stood on her own, then walked off and back to the now familiar equipment room where she got out of her muddy clothes and into a new uniform before meeting her handler and getting shuffled to her next assignment for the day.
That was a sprinting workout on the track, but not one of the lazy oval tracks for beginners. At least she’d advanced far enough to get on the halo track that had no turns. Using artificial gravity it actually ran on the walls…or at least that’s how it looked until you stepped into the transition zone, for you felt that ‘down’ was the wall and everyone else was tipped sideways.
The halo track was 3 miles long and a giant loop that curved upwards slightly under your feet, but so slightly you didn’t feel it and the AG always kept you centered, so you were always running on ‘flat’ track. It’s where all the advanced Canderians went for their workouts, and Esna was glad that at least her sprinting workouts rated use of the track as a trainer took her to an outside lane and ran her guts out as others passed by on the inside lanes. Some of them were moving so fast Esna could hardly believe it, for they even made Rammak look slow, and Esna sprinting still couldn’t match their steady speed.