by Jack Hanson
Epsilon Team had gone from active animosity towards each other to a kind of benign neglect, and was finally warming up to some sort of acceptance. There was still a conflict between Salem and Jane that only other females could detect, or even understand. Paris’s dislike of his condition had not wavered under the disregard that Pairna subjected him to daily, and Sand’s tormentors hovered, waiting for the massive Rillik to drop his guard and leave the small cadet alone.
Yet the team was slowly bonding, to Sergeant Black’s approval. Their advisor had made himself scarce after that first day, yet he always seemed to be a presence, knowing what they had done, or not done, when they saw him in the morning for physical training. It was surprising to all of them when he had denied their request to stop marching, but allowed them to join in evening activities separately.
Jane joined the chess team, keeping an eye on her beloved Cadet Hailey, yet unable to find the words she wanted to say when he tried to talk to her. Salem continued to run, posting some of her best times yet. Sand went back to the boxing team, and began actively fighting more than one foe at a time, remembering that first evening. Paris lifted, parlaying his natural strength into a frightful respect even while he was ashamed of the source of it. Yet he finished early, still mindful of the edict that the senior soldier had placed on him about being there for Sand. He knew there were still cadets hungry for blood.
They were still denied passes to go into Alarius though, until the day of Salem’s competition. While the girl was warming up, stretching her long legs and preparing for her run, she had been surprised to look up and see her teammates there, sitting in the bleachers together and waving at her. She had not invited them, thinking that they wouldn’t be interested, but there they were. She looked over her shoulder, seeing she still had a few minutes before her heat, and jogged over to where they were.
“What are you guys doing here?” she asked.
“Did you want us to leave?” asked Paris.
Salem shook her head. “No, it’s not that. I just didn’t think you guys would…”
“Care?” Sand finished for her. “Well its Saturday, sure, but we figured you could use some cheering on.” He held up a big sign that said GO FASTER SALEM in massive letters. She slapped at his hands, a little annoyed but mostly amused.
“Put that down,” she hissed, smiling all the while.
“He worked on it all of last night,” Jane said. “You shouldn’t deny him it.”
“All of last night?” asked Paris, quirking an eyebrow at her. “It took him ten minutes before we walked out here.”
“Well it doesn’t sound as impressive if you put it like that,” Jane responded.
Salem rolled her eyes.
“Fine, hold up the sign, but if I don’t talk to you afterwards, you’ll know why,” she teased, and then ran off to join her heat. She got down in the runner’s blocks, forcing her muscles to relax and try to resist the adrenaline spike that would leave her exhausted by the middle of her run. When the starting pistol sounded, she bolted, watching her breathing and keeping pace. She started to pull ahead, the early morning runs with Sergeant Black paying off. Yet one more runner was keeping pace with her, and she started to doubt herself. The psychological side of running was just as important as the physical, and suddenly her muscles went from quicksilver to molten lead.
Gritting her teeth, Salem continued to struggle as the runner pulled ahead and another runner behind began to catch up. Straining, the girl tried to push the negative thoughts out of her head and felt her temper growing as they resisted, until she found herself furious. Suddenly, she felt something blooming behind her eyes, a flash of green filling her vision momentarily. She burst forwards with surprising speed, reserves from somewhere activating. Her long legs ate up the distance, and soon it was the other runner who was struggling, and failing, to keep up with Salem, taking deep breaths as she trailed behind.
Salem crossed the finish line several seconds before anyone else did, and found herself a little winded by her exertions. It was nothing like she usually felt after a run – drained to the point where she wanted to fall over. Epsilon Team ran over to her, Sand waving his sign in the air.
“That was impressive,” said Sand, nodding at Salem.
“You’re fast alright. Your hair was about horizontal,” Paris added.
Even Jane had something positive to say. “I thought you had lost it at the final bend, but you really dug deep there. Nicely done!”
Salem only nodded, taking a deep breath, and then felt her stomach twist in hunger. Not regular hunger, but deep hunger, almost like a knife wound. Her face twisted and Jane actually showed some concern.
“Cramp?” she asked.
Salem shook her head. “No I’m just… Do you guys have anything to eat? I’m really hungry,” she said. Her stomach rumbled surprisingly loud, and the other three began checking their pockets for a stray granola bar.
“Here,” said a new voice flanking them. Turning, the group saw Sergeant Black approaching, offering something in his hand. It was a chocolate ration bar, highly dense in calories but surprisingly edible. She took it eagerly and wolfed it down as opposed to her usual dainty eating. She was surprised to find she was still a little hungry afterwards. Generally when she ate one of those bars, she felt heavy and bloated.
“Sergeant Black,” the rest of the team said in chorus, coming to parade rest. He waved his hand at them.
“At ease, at ease,” he said good-naturedly. “I came to see Cadet Winchester compete. I’m surprised to see the rest of you here.” He noticed Sand’s giant sign, and looked over at Salem curiously. “Is this by request?”
“No, Sergeant, I didn’t ask for that,” said Salem hurriedly.
“Sergeant, I did it myself,” Sand supplied.
The corner of Black’s mouth quirked, threatening to smile for a moment, and he shook his head mirthfully.
“Well, I guess there is some method to my madness after all,” he said, more to himself than to them, and then looked them over. “I hear Alarius is beautiful this time of year. Why don’t you go check it out?” he said, and produced four signed passes from his cargo pocket.
Everyone gave a little gasp of surprise. Even Jane was beginning to get sick of wandering around the Academy on her off days. They took them gratefully, each with a “Thank you, Sergeant.”
Jane looked up at Black. “Do we have to go together, Sergeant?” she asked.
Black shrugged his shoulders. “Well, it’s your call, since technically you’ll be off duty, and I said you only had to be together on duty.”
Paris spoke up quickly.
“Of course we’ll go together, Sergeant,” he said eagerly, causing the other three to look at him strangely. Black only nodded his head.
“Okay. I think you guys can make breakfast still at The Rusty Spoon. The waffles there are pretty spectacular, and the omelets are the size of your head,” he advised.
“I think Salem still has another heat,” Sand said.
Salem shook her head. “I don’t know… I’m still hungry kind of,” she said. “I’d talk to Sergeant Watson, but I don’t know how she would take it.”
“I’ll talk to her,” offered Black. “You guys go ahead and change. I’ll deal with it.”
Surprised at their sergeant’s largess, they began to head back to the barracks. It was Salem who voiced what they were all thinking.
“Paris, why did you jump for us to be together? Not that I mind or anything, since I didn’t have something planned,” she said.
“Because, he was testing us,” Paris responded, smiling a little at his own wit.
“Testing us how?” asked Jane, looking over at the smug Rillik.
“Seeing if the moment we got freedom, if we would bolt for it and go our separate ways the first chance we got. He might even have thought that we were just coming out to
cheer Salem on for show,” Paris said.
“That’s pretty deep,” said Sand, with an impressed nod. Salem continued Paris’s line of thought.
“So we go together, and he doesn’t pull the passes?” asked Salem.
“Right, he doesn’t pull the passes, and maybe he decides that we don’t need to march or whatever anymore,” Paris said.
“I don’t know,” Jane said, “The marching is catching on with the other advisors.”
Since they had started marching and calling cadence, several other teams had followed suit.
“Okay, Sergeant Black’s motives aside, we have an entire weekend we can spend in Alarius. What should we do?” Sand asked.
“Shopping,” said Salem.
“I’d like a real burger,” said Paris.
“A movie?” offered Jane.
Sand walked ahead of them and then began walking backwards so he could face the group. “Okay, so it sounds like we have it planned out. Let’s start at that place Black mentioned and go from there. The Rusty Spoon, isn’t that what he called the diner?”
The team went back inside of the barracks and changed from their duty outfits into civilian clothes that had seen little use. Denim still carried the classic cool it had five hundred years earlier. Salem and Sand both took advantage of this by wearing jeans. Paris wore tailored slacks that had been pressed months ago, and still kept their crease. Paris and Sand were the first ones dressed. Paris wore a nice polo and letterman’s jacket, while Sand was keeping things casual with a green t-shirt that said ‘Hello!’ in retro-style font and a hooded zip up sweatshirt.
Salem had been humming since she left her room, several sources of happiness coming together in her life. She was glad she had won, she was pleased she was going out, and secretly she was tickled that her teammates had come out to see her. Laila and Petra had never done that, but to be fair she had never asked. The boys glanced over as Salem sashayed out in flared jeans, a sweater over a collared shirt, and a scarf. The sweater, they noticed, was of some sort of material that changed between blue and green. All three wore comfortable shoes – not even Salem would break out the heels except for special occasions, as the boots killed any chance she had at developing an arch.
“Okay, let’s go hit the… Where’s Jane?” asked Salem.
“Uh, I think she’s still getting ready?” offered Sand.
Frowning a little, as she had expected to be last, Salem knocked on Jane’s door, and it pushed open.
“Jane?” Salem asked, pushing her head in. She saw Jane’s back, and saw the girl had laid out several different outfits.
“I… I… You guys just go without me, I’ll catch up,” said the girl in a frazzled voice. Salem stepped in behind her and shut the door.
“Hey… Jane? Can I help?” Salem asked.
Jane’s shoulders bunched, suddenly tensing, and then released all at once.
“I’ve never had this problem before,” she admitted. “I just put on clothes and I went out, and now I’m not able to think!”
“Well,” said Salem, appraising Jane’s choices with a critical eye. “It’s not hopeless.”
“It’s not?” said Jane, and then repeated it more sternly. “Of course it’s not.”
Salem didn’t comment right away, looking at Jane’s choices. The skirt was nice, but why would you pair it with that hoodie, especially in that lime green shade? The slacks and the button up would make Jane look like a librarian, and she didn’t know what Jane was thinking with the shorts and tank top when it was chilly enough that she had worn a field jacket out this morning.
“Okay, do you have black stockings?” asked Salem after a minute.
Jane nodded and began to dig.
“Here, wear this,” Salem said to Jane when she turned back around, holding out the tank top, the skirt, and the button up. “Wear the stockings and skirt, put the tank top under the button up. You can look sexy without looking trashy if you open a few buttons with something underneath. Do you have cute shoes?”
Surprisingly eager, Jane nodded, digging again and coming out with a pair of shiny Mary Janes topped with cute white ribbons that made Salem give a low groan of surprise.
“Wear those,” she advised, sitting down on Jane’s bed.
“You’re going to watch me dress?” asked Jane as she started putting on her stockings.
Salem shook her head, skimming through her tablet. “No, because we still have to do your make up,” she said. Ten minutes later, and after going across the hall to lug her own makeup bag over, Salem led Jane out. With only a little bit of foundation, lipstick, and eyeliner, Salem knew how different the girl looked, especially with her hair split in pigtails.
The boys blinked and looked around awkwardly, and Salem took more than a little bit of glee in noting that they generally only got like that when she herself started acting ‘flirty.’
“Well? Are we ready?” asked Salem, purse over one shoulder. She took Jane’s hand to lead her out. The other girl almost tripped, but caught herself and allowed Salem to lead her. Paris and Sand followed through the faint wafts of perfume.
From the gates of the academy, which was literally surrounded by a wall that was manned by sentries, the team took a bus into town. It glided along silently. Lift technology had become much more common since being reverse engineered from captured Leitani war machines. As the bus proceeded along its stops, Sand pulled out his tablet and quickly figured out where they would have to stop.
“Right here,” he told them near the seashore, and the team exited the bus.
The diner didn’t look like much from the outside, as it could have used a good paint job and the sign seemed to be second generation holographs, but the inside was packed, and the food was as good as promised. The team ate outside, with Salem digging into the waffles, Jane an omelet, and Sand and Paris both ordering burgers.
Sated, the four walked the short distance into the city. Everything gleamed glass and metal above the first few stories, which were shop faces lined in stone and brick. Paris stopped at a kiosk to buy a fishing magazine, downloading it directly into his reader. Sand did the same thing with a game, and both sat peacefully while the girls spent the better part of an hour in a clothing shop, coming out later with a bag apiece.
All that was left was Jane’s movie, and they went to see an absurdist comedy about a sloppy human and a neat Bhae Chaw living together, and the clash of cultures that followed. The movie ended on a happy note, with the human repairing the damage to the Bhae Chaw’s courting ritual and smoothing everything over.
The four talked about the movie as they left the theatre, Sand popping bits of spun honey into his mouth.
“I don’t know, Paris,” began Jane, “I mean, why didn’t the Bhae Chaw just find another roommate?”
“Because, he took the offer to help Peter deal with his messy life very seriously, and Peter didn’t understand the culture. He wasn’t being a jerk, he was just being ignorant,” Paris responded.
Salem kept one ear on the argument, and then saw something that got a quick “OhmyGod!” and she managed to somehow yank all three of the group into an alleyway. “Do you see what I see?” she whispered.
The three craned around, and Paris was the first to spot what Salem was pointing at. “That’s Sergeant Watson, and… Oh wow, that’s Sergeant Black!”
“Shh! They’ll hear you!” Salem said.
Jane looked over her shoulder at the girl. “Why don’t we just go say hi?” she said.
The other three athletes looked at Jane as if she was spouting madness.
“You don’t just go say ‘Hello’ to Watson. She’s a total ballbuster,” Sand said, shuddering.
“She’s got her hair back, she’s wearing makeup… Knock me over with a feather,” declared Paris. The female sergeant had indeed done both, and was looking nothing like a janissary wh
o had done a decade of hard service in the field. Instead, she looked like a pretty, late-twenty to young thirty-something, having a night out with a friend.
Black, of course, still looked like a career janissary, even in civilian clothes, but he seemed more at ease in this persona than any of them had seen him. He talked expressively, even raising his voice and making wide gestures to punctuate a story. This got a laugh from Watson, and Salem was the first to declare what she thought the other two were feeling.
“Okay, this is just too weird. We’ve got to get out of here,” said Salem, heading for the street.
“Why?” asked Jane, following along.
“It’s like…” began Sand. “It’s like walking in on your mom and dad. Well maybe not that. More like Dad telling a dirty joke and Mom getting all flirty about it. It just makes you feel weird all over.” He shuddered.
Paris nodded as they waited on a bus to take them back to the Academy. “He’s right. There are just some things we shouldn’t see.”
Jane shrugged her shoulders noncommittally, but Salem was oddly silent. No one commented on it as they rode back, but she was thinking that it was nice that there was actual proof of life outside of all the marching and shooting when everything was said and done.
Chapter Nine—Archer’s Quiver
Two in the head/Make sure they’re dead
—Janissary saying
The day was delightfully cool and the leaves were falling all over the ranges. However, Sand wasn’t in the position to enjoy the sight of hundreds of leaves swirling through the air. He wasn’t even in a position to enjoy the coolness, as sweat slicked his face. Under the lowered visor of his helmet he watched a heads-up display filled with basic information like the location of his team member and the strength of his shield.
He’d taken cover behind a tree as robotic training droids fired shots, moving from target to target and trying to flank him and Jane. There was a squad of four out there, moving like Peace Federation soldiers would. Two ran forwards, firing while another two provided covering fire. Sand did like he’d been taught, popping out from behind a tree and putting the center of the dummy in his sights, pulling the trigger several times. The shield flared up twice before it shattered and the electronic training rounds deactivated the dummy.