by Aer-ki Jyr
1
May 12, 2136
Sara watched from the bridge of the Leo-class starship as it approached the spherical space station in Jupiter orbit. Unlike most Star Force constructs, the Canderian station was painted dark green, almost to the point of being black, which made it difficult to see save for the side that reflected the sunlight. It wasn’t the largest station every built, by far, but it was still massive. Designed to hold upwards of 100,000 colonists, the prototype station was the first semi-operational Canderian outpost.
Project Canderous had been in effect for several decades, first with stage 1 taking place in dedicated structures on the surface of Venus as various recycling measures were developed and tested in coordination with a small volunteer population. What they learned there, and the troubles that resulted, allowed Star Force to proceed to stage 2 whereupon a moderately sized group of colonists lived in smaller orbital stations, each tasked with testing a certain aspect of what was now all combined into a single stage 3 attempt to build a self-sufficient space station that could function as its own colony without the need to resupply for extended periods of time.
That included all food production and the industry necessary to manufacture space parts needed for station maintenance using a surplus of materials, plus recycling measures. At the heart of the spherical station were a series of gravity discs and cylinders suspended within the zero g sections of the giant ‘ball.’ Among them was a large water reservoir, built up through small shipments sent along with each cargo run. Even Sara’s Leo was bringing another load to add to that reservoir, which was currently at 43% capacity.
In addition to agriculture and industry, the Canderian station also had another critical component that hadn’t yet been fully integrated into a standing colony…the maturia.
It was the reason why Sara was arriving. She’d helped design it along with Paul and a few of the other Archons and now it needed some tweaking. Each maturia was grouped into orisects, which was shorthand for ‘section of origin,’ that contained 100 infants starting within a few days of birth. As a necessity all were roughly the same age and grouped as closely as possible, but given that this was the first operational Canderian maturia the gaps were longer than wanted, given the low population levels, and currently ran at +/- 3 months for the eldest orisect.
They were now 12 years old, having lived their entire lives on this one station. Sara had been monitoring their progress remotely, given that they were the first to go through a maturia in this fashion, and had spotted some troubling signs. Nothing major was wrong, but their track had gotten slightly off what the Archons and Davis had intended it to be, so she’d traveled out to Jupiter to make the corrections personally.
Her Leo eventually docked against the ‘equator’ of the static station and began offloading cargo. Sara crossed over with it, seeing the usual amount of personal items and novelties that the station couldn’t yet produce for itself. In the future there would be many Canderian stations that, while self-sufficient to a point, would be able to trade with each other for specialized items and equipment, but for now this lone station was still having to rely on Star Force for occasional shipments along with the material and water stockpiles that hadn’t been fully realized yet.
Sara transferred through the zero g cargo bay and moved her way into the gravity sections that ran down the polar spine of the station. There was an amicable amount of personnel traffic in the corridors, but the station wasn’t fully populated. It didn’t feel empty to her, but there was definitely a lot of elbow room to go around as she bypassed a visit to the command center and went straight to the maturia.
“Legionmaster,” she said, announcing herself as she walked in through his half open office door.
A trim man with short blonde hair rose out of his seat immediately upon recognizing her. “Archon,” he said with a nod of respect.
“Here to troubleshoot,” she said, closing the door behind her.
“Much appreciated,” he thanked her, sitting back down as she walked over to one of the three large windows that bracketed the maturia director’s office. She stopped in front of the far left one that gave her a view into the nearest of the infant wards. Small pods were arrayed in rows, 10 by 10, with a dozen or so handlers moving about attending to the needs of the recently born. After a few months this orisect would transfer to another chamber, taking 3/4ths of the handlers with them for the sake of familiarity for the children to the next age-zone.
When they reached approximately 1 year of age they would shift again, with 3/4ths of their handlers going with them, but only retaining 1/2 of their original staff. By the time they reached level 5 at age 3, all of their handlers that they had begun with at birth would have recycled back down to level 1 with a new orisect, allowing the older one to transition forward while retaining a specific age range for each handler to specialize in. All of them would be assigned 4 levels out of the 10 that comprised the maturia, allowing enough time for bonding to occur to facilitate their training, but at the same time rotating their handlers out a quarter at a time with each transfer so that the children would have access to progressively higher-rated instructors as they matured.
This was intended to aid the development process, whereas a single handler taking charge of their training through all the levels might not push them as hard as necessary, remembering them as infants or small children rather than assessing them for what they were in the here and now. With the higher end handlers not knowing their charges until they arrived in their age-specific window, they could offer an unbiased assessment and ‘tug’ the children on towards maturity faster than someone who would be sentimental. Also, the segmentation allowed the handlers to specialize in a specific age range of development rather than throwing the entire 20 year process at a single person and expecting them to master all the prerequisite training aspects.
The handlers also worked in groups that had ranks. The more experienced ones handled the most duties while the newer ones observed and assisted the primary handlers when needed, lending their eyes and hands while learning the ropes for a few hours each day before switching off with another group. In order to maintain the fitness and professionality of the handlers, they were only allowed to work a maximum 6 hour shift during their 30 hour Canderian days. This required a larger number of handlers, but kept the maturia from being the entirety of their lives.
“Any recent developments?” Sara asked as she watched the level 1 handlers go about their duties.
“The lethargy is growing fast in the first three orisects,” the Legionmaster said, frowning. “I can’t explain it, but they just don’t want to do anything. The laziness didn’t manifest itself till they hit level 8, but I can’t fault any of the trainers for it because I can’t see that they’re doing anything wrong.”
Sara turned around and leaned back against the window, crossing her arms over her chest. “They’re working on theoreticals. Archons don’t start training until they’re adults, so we have no experience with dealing with this developmental stage in a controlled setting.”
“I was only a year older than them when I entered the maturia,” the Legionmaster told her. “I was a bit gun shy at first, but as soon as I adapted I was extremely motivated. So were my brothers and sisters.”
Sara shook her head. “We’re dealing with an entirely different model here. You were an orphan, with knowledge of who your parents had been and of life outside the maturia. You could see how much cooler what we offered you was than what you had, thus you were motivated.”
“So you think this orisect’s problem is they’re ignorant of how good they’ve got it?”
“No, I think their lack of benchmarks is the problem. They’re th
e first ones to go through so they’re setting all the standards. They don’t have upper level orisects to look at and want to emulate. If we can get this first group on track, I think the problem will take care of itself.”
“How do you plan to tackle that one?”
“We’ll start with some meet and greet, then work our way up from there.”
The Legionmaster smiled. “Some ass-kicking always works wonders?”
“In so far as it lets them see their potential,” Sara explained. “Where are they now?”
“A001 should just be finishing up their sleep cycle.”
“Good,” Sara said with a smile. “Get them to the challenge zone.”
“I thought we were supposed to be running?” one of the girls asked the boy to her left as the entire orisect stood at attention in 5 rows of 20 waiting for their handlers to give them instructions.
“Me too,” the boy answered.
“I’m glad we’re not,” another one said. “I’m tired of stomping around that track.”
“Then pick up your feet, slacker,” someone else said, none of them turning their heads more than an inch or so as they whispered.
“Legionmaster,” someone else warned, with the whispering dying out.
The maturia commander walked out onto the wide promenade that separated various training zones used for structured challenges and stopped at the edge of the orisect formation, but the woman next to him, who was even more blonde than him, kept moving and strode out in front of all of them, beginning to speak as soon as she passed the first child.
“I am Archon Sara-012,” she said, seeing some of their little eyes go wide with surprise. “I helped create Canderous and I have been watching your progress very closely. Up until recently I’ve been pleased with the reports I saw…but not lately,” she said, stopping in front of the center of the formation and placing her hands on her hips as a frown found its way onto her face. “So what gives?”
She let the question hang there for a moment, but no one responded. “Your training scores suck. Someone tell me why.”
“It’s boring,” one extra small boy said from the second row.
“Boring?” Sara repeated, sounding as if his words were unbelievably close to treason. “Training is everything!”
She looked across the entire formation, making eye contact in all directions with one long sweep of her head. “Sit down, younglings,” she said, motioning with her hand.
As a group they sat, cross-legged, but still maintaining their rows.
“Do you want to grow old and die?” she asked, beginning to pace up and down the line but keeping a good two meters between her and them at all times so it didn’t feel like she was towering over them. “Do you want your body to slowly fall apart? Do you want it to malfunction and rot away while you’re still alive? Of course not, but then again you’ve never seen it happen. You’ve never seen old people. All your handlers are fit, and aside from me they’re probably the only other people you’ve met face to face.”
“But you have seen the pictures…I know, because I incorporated them into your studies. What the pictures don’t tell you is how much pain they’re in. People lie about growing old being a natural part of life, but what it really is is failure. Failure of your body hurts…a lot. Before I joined Star Force I knew a lot of old people, and they complained about aches and pains on a regular basis. Others tried to pretend there was nothing wrong, but every now and then you could see them hurting anyway. Old age is not pleasant. It is not fun. It is not funny. It is what will happen to you if you don’t learn to train and keep training. That’s why you’re here, in this maturia. That’s why I designed it. To teach you from the beginning how to maintain and improve your bodies so you never have to find out the hard way what old age is like.”
“Now, some of you are wondering why we call it ‘old age’ when it doesn’t have anything to do with how old you are. You’re right to wonder that, and if you read your studies closely you’ll remember that the name comes from a very common lie that most people cling to as an excuse for why their bodies are falling apart. They lie, saying it’s because of the years, but we know that’s not true.”
“Those old people you saw in the pictures…as far as the years are concerned, they’re younger than me! What’s the difference? Training. It’s all about the training.”
“I’m 118 years old. Almost every single person born the same year or before me is now dead. Why? They didn’t know how to train properly. They didn’t even have a clue that they could avoid old age. Most of them thought it was impossible, others were just plain lazy. I don’t want that to happen to any of you.”
“Remember, your bodies will take care of themselves in almost every way needed. Almost,” she repeated. “Now that small bit that your body can’t do on its own is up to you. There are three things you need to feed your body. Water, food, and workouts. Your body can’t get those things on its own, so you have to provide them.”
“Feed your body what it needs. It needs workouts, so don’t start skimping. You need to train to maintain the fitness you have. Look at you,” she said, pointing to them all. “None of you are fat or ugly.”
That remark brought some giggles with it.
“You know why?” Sara continued. “Because you’re fit. Fit people aren’t fat. Fit people aren’t ugly. You’re all in good condition because of the training you’ve done, so don’t stop now.”
Sara looked around, pausing for a moment. “Maybe some of you are thinking that since you’re already fit you can just do a little training and stay the same? Well, you’re probably right about that. It depends on what training you do and when. But there’s another reason to train, and that’s to improve yourself. To get stronger, faster, smarter.”
“Maybe you don’t really know what that is. You don’t have any older orisects around to look at, and your trainers don’t like showing off, but I can promise you that I don’t have that setback,” Sara said, snapping her fingers at the Legionmaster.
He likewise signaled to two handlers who were standing off to the side. They brought a stun sword and a training rifle forward and handed Sara the sword.
“Who’s the best shot here?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
Several hands shot up, but she looked around the tiny Canderians until she found the face she wanted. “Terry, get up here.”
The small boy smiled and leapt to his feet, stepping his way past the others and up to the handlers who gave him the training rifle.
“See that line on the floor,” Sara said, pointing back towards the door. “Go stand there.”
As he ran over to the mark lugging the large rifle, Sara backed up to another mark on the floor, giving them about 15 meters of separation.
“Alright,” she said, bringing her sword up in a guard position. “Try and shoot me.”
The boy raised the thick rifle, slid the safety off, then fired a blue blur at the Archon.
Sara whipped the training sword around one handed and easily knocked the compact foam ball out of the air, ricocheting it off into the seated younglings on purpose. “Again.”
The boy fired a second time, but she batted it away just as easily.
“Try three in a row.”
The boy did as instructed, but with a whip-like blade she batted them all out of the air.
“Hmmn, I think he needs some help. Two more volunteers.”
99 hands rose up, so she picked two seated in the front row.
“You…and you,” Sara said, pointing. “Get your weapons and stand behind your marks.”
The handlers brought two more training rifles up and showed them where their marks were, situated about 30 degrees to either side of the boy at the same 15 meter distance.
“Alright, when he says go you fire as many times as you can and try to hit me,” Sara said, slipping into a combat focus. This wasn’t going to be as easy.
“Ready…” one of the handlers prompted. “Go!”
Th
e three children fired off their rifles, not in sync, but close. The blue balls shot out quite fast and Sara had to fling her sword around in a Jedi-ish sequence to hit the first two, then ducked to the right and let a high third cross over her left shoulder.
“Again…and this time don’t stop until you run out of ammo!”
“Go!” the handler yelled.
Ball after ball shot out, with Sara quickly deflecting each one of them…but in random directions. They were coming in too fast for her to intentionally line up a rebound on the thin, round blade, making for a fireworks display of deflections flying every which way, including a few that hit hard enough to bounce all the way back over the shooters’ heads to the Legionmaster stood, who caught one of them barehanded out of the air without so much as budging from his straight line posture.
By the time the children had run out of ammo the floor was covered with spent ammunition. Sara finished off with a few roundhouse swings in a sort of cooldown flourish, then launched the sword through the air and back to the handler that’d given it to her. He caught it midair, then she walked back over to the group of seated younglings.
“Training gives you superpowers,” she told them in a lower voice, then looked at the child who’d spoken first. “And superpowers are not boring.”
2
At the end of a long day of ‘schooling’ the younglings and getting in her own workouts, Sara retreated into her temporary quarters within the maturia and found that she had a new message waiting from Clan Mantle. She clicked the play button and leaned back in her chair, massaging a kink in her neck.
“Status report on Clan activity,” the image of Katharine-422 said in a formal tone. “Two trials have been completed since your last update. Clan Saber has successfully claimed the firearms production facility in Charon orbit, while Clan Stark narrowly defeated Clan Croft for a micro-territory on Titania. In addition, Davis has announced three additional trials ranging from 3 to 7 months. The earliest is commando, followed by an aquatics and another commando. Prizes for the three are a micro-territory on Rhea, a foodstuff production facility on Europa, and a small shipyard orbiting Neptune.”