by Kal Spriggs
The classroom door opened and Commander Pannja stuck his head in the door, “Doctor Aisling, it seems there's an issue with the classroom sensors and recording devices, Admiral Armstrong asked me to check in and see if there's any problem.” The piloting instructor's voice was polite, but his normally cheerful smile was absent. Instead, his face was serious, his dark eyes intent. He was angry, I realized.
“Ah,” Doctor Aisling smiled, “I might have shut those off on accident when I dropped power to the lights.” The lights in the room came up, even as the displays cleared, “There, is that better?”
“One moment,” Commander Pannja said. A moment later, he nodded, “Yes, tech support says their systems are back online.”
“Ah, sorry about that, we'd gone a bit off topic, anyway,” Doctor Aisling smiled. The displays came live again, this time showing the biology topics we'd had on our course curriculum.
I felt a chill go down my spine as I realized that it hadn't been an accident. Doctor Aisling had turned off the Academy's security monitoring in order to tell us something that she didn't want the Admiral knowing. That probably meant that her “theoretical” technology wasn't theory, it was probably related to whatever testing she'd done on us.
In fact, it sounded an awful lot like what I'd experienced.
“Now, class,” Doctor Aisling said, “please go to page three in your notes...”
As we dove into the lecture, I didn't have any more time to think about it, but it was something that I needed to figure out.
***
“Hey, Jiden?” I looked up as Dawson stood at the door.
“Yeah, what's up?” I asked. Adam Dawson had been a huge help when I'd been stuck as the squad leader during Prep School. We were in a lot of the same classes, but I hadn't had time to talk with him other than in passing.
“I hear you're on the grav-shell team, and I was just wondering if you could put in a word for me,” Dawson said.
I stared at him, not understanding for a moment. “What do you mean?” I couldn't imagine why he hadn't applied himself.
“Well, normally plebes aren't allowed on the varsity teams, but me and Farmer from Tiger Company both did grav-shell racing back in high-school.... anyway, we were hoping to get on the team, but our applications were rejected since we're plebes. Anyway, you got accepted, so I figured you had enough experience in it that they'd probably take your word that we're qualified.”
“Oh,” I said. I hadn't realized that there were applications... and it suddenly made me feel really uncomfortable. I hadn't applied. In fact, I barely knew the basic concepts. The practices had been brutal for me, not just in trying to figure everything out but also the long hours. Four hours a day, every weekday had left me basically without free time.
“Farmer and I are pretty skilled. We qualified for our regional competition. In fact, we planned to come here as a team, with our coxswain, but she didn't make it through the Prep School, she broke her foot. She may come in next year, but...” He shrugged.
“I'll definitely talk with the team captain,” I said. I had no idea what weight that would carry, but I'd do it.
“Thanks, I appreciate it,” He gave me a relieved smile, “We were really worried that we wouldn't have a chance to get out there, and it's a sport we really love.”
“Yeah, I bet,” I replied. I didn't know what else to say. I barely knew the terms for the basic events. I wasn't anywhere near the level that Dawson obviously was as far as the sport.
“Well,” Dawson said, “have you heard that we're getting approved for a two hour pass next weekend?”
“Yeah, I hadn't planned on taking it,” I said. After the past couple of months at the Academy, I hadn't really had much time to think about taking a pass. Not that Plebes were allowed, normally, but I guess they thought we’d all been doing well. I was so busy that using two hours of my Sunday afternoon for anything besides studying or homework seemed ridiculous. From what I'd heard, the pass was only good to go to Bahta Town, which had a dubious reputation. It was where cadets and trainees from the nearby training facility got to go on pass. I didn't have much money to buy from the stores there and I wasn't interested in anything else the place had to offer.
“Probably smart of you. I heard they're going to stage it to trap plebes who violate regulations. Simple stuff, like drinking age or pass times. Anyone who leaves will only have one train that will get them back in time, so if they miss it...”
I nodded, “Yeah, that would be bad.” Rumor had it that breaking the terms of a pass led to restriction to post and a lot of demerits. That would be bad not just for the plebe in question, but for their company. Which meant any plebe that got in trouble would have even more attention from their upperclassmen as a result.
“Thanks for the heads up,” I said. “How’re classes going?” Dawson had always seemed to study with a different group than me, but since we shared a lot of the same classes, studying with him made sense.
“Good, I'm in a study group with Josephic. We just finished the engineering assignment for Commander Scarpitti. That was brutal.” He shook his head.
“Oh, yeah, I haven't started that yet,” I groaned a bit. I'd been working on editing my paper for Commander Bonnadonna. I'd almost convinced myself to scrap the whole paper and start over. Going back through my own paper after his class had actually made me feel a bit ashamed for the quality of what I'd turned in.
“Well, it's a beast.” Dawson nodded. He didn't offer to let me look at his assignment. I didn't ask, either. One of the things our instructors had told us was that they wanted to see our original work... and copying or even just using someone else's assignment as a starting point was considered cheating. They allowed study groups for most assignments, but they'd specified that meant the group worked together on problems, with each member doing their fair share of the work.
Since Dawson had already finished the assignment, I'd be violating the honor code if I even looked at his assignment. Since I'd already seen plenty of evidence that they monitored us, the last thing I wanted to do was get kicked out for cheating. Besides, I thought to myself, I need to figure out how to do it for myself so I can pass the exam and so that I learn the material.
I still hadn't decided whether to switch my track back to tactical or to stay technical. Engineering was what I was passionate about. I really didn't want to get away from it... but Alexander's warning stuck with me. “What track are you doing?” I asked.
Dawson grinned, “Oh, tactical, of course. Us winning top section didn't hurt our prospects for good assignments on graduation.”
“No thoughts about technical?” I asked.
“Are you kidding?” Dawson laughed. “Any of us from Sand Dragon would have to be using recreational drugs to select anything besides tactical. At best, I'd get pigeon-holed into some engineering lab. At worst, they'd think I lost my nerve and they wouldn't commission me. Of course, that goes double for people like you and Ashiri,” he nodded at my roommate's empty desk. “Between you two, Karmazin, myself and the wonder twins, I think we have a solid chance at locking out most of the top ten slots for our class at graduation.”
“You're looking that far ahead?” I asked in surprise.
“Got to be,” he nodded. “The only one who comes close to us in competition is Thorpe and Bolander from Ogre, and Drien, too, but she's out of the running with...” he trailed off. “Well, she's probably not competition now.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
Dawson looked down, “Well, she transferred companies. She probably won't get much help, if any, over at Ogre. That means she'll be on her own as far as studying and all that. Plus there's the whole fact that she selected technical track. That's going to be a big negative mark on her record if she stays with it.”
“She went technical?” I asked in surprise. “I thought she wanted to command a ship?”
“Yeah, that's what I thought too, but Farmer is dating Manning from Ogre, who's her roommate. She s
aid that she saw Drien's initial pick on her datapad, she requested technical track. Our instructors will think she's lost her nerve, they'll probably throw some heavy stuff at her to get her to quit. She's basically done for.”
“Oh,” I said. I had more than a few mixed feelings over that.
“Granted, it's not like she finished in the top three, so it's not as bad as it might have been if someone like you or Karmazin had listed technical track, but they're still going to hit her pretty hard. Odds are, if she did lose her nerve, she'll crack and either fail out or resign.” Dawson shrugged, “but I guess it's better that someone fail out here rather than failing when they're in a leadership position and lives are on the line.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I replied. I felt sick to my stomach. “Hey, I've got a lot of work to catch up on...”
“Yeah, no problem, and thanks for agreeing to put in a word for me about the grav-shell team,” Dawson stepped out into the hallway and left me to my thoughts. One thing at a time, I told myself, as I went back to my paper. I had to think about what I'd learned about Sashi, about the confirmation that the technical track wasn't the best idea, and all the rest... but I had to get my assignments done first.
Hopefully I'd have time to do all that.
***
Chapter Eight: I Ruin A Perfectly Good Dinner
As I collapsed face first onto my bed, I heard Ashiri stumble into our room. “I want to curl up and die,” she said from behind me.
I mumbled something into the mattress, half-asleep. The week had been killer. Between sports practice, homework, and classes, I felt like I had about three good hours of sleep. Then we'd hit Saturday...
“I think they shot me a few times that last drill,” Ashiri groaned.
I didn't respond. The day's drill had started with a warning about a full ground assault. We'd just gotten in position when a hundred or more attackers had swarmed over our squad's position. Most of us hadn't had time to do much more than fire off a couple shots and then we'd gone unconscious.
Then we'd reset and gone back to our barracks... then we'd heard the drill siren again. And we'd been hit again. Then we'd reset and repeated the process. I'd sprinted across the academy grounds six times. “The last time they didn't even wait for us to get in position,” I mumbled.
“We need to clean our gear,” Ashiri mumbled. Her voice would have held more conviction if she hadn't collapsed on the floor. I had thought I was tired at the Grinder. This wasn't just physical exhaustion, though, it was mental exhaustion. The classes we were taking were hard. Harder than I had expected my internship at Champion Enterprises to be, back when I'd thought that would be the most challenging program that Century had to offer.
Still, I rolled off my bed and more or less onto my feet and started pulling my gear off. My body armor protected me from hits by training rounds, but it didn't cover my arms or legs... and I was covered in welts from hits.
“Poor Alex caught one to the neck,” Ashiri shook her head, “he can barely talk.”
“Ouch,” I winced. Having been shot in the face, I had a deep understanding for that kind of hit. “Is he going to be okay?”
“Yeah, they gave him something to reduce the swelling and pain,” Ashiri nodded. We'd both sort of flopped on the floor, a pile of soiled gear on the ground around us. “He thinks he'll be good to take pass tomorrow.”
“Oh, you guys are going out?” I asked.
“Yeah, getting dinner,” Ashiri sat up. “You should come. It'll be nice to get out.”
“Uh...” I didn't know what to say to that. It sounded awkward to tag along on their outing. “I've got a ton of homework...”
“It'll be fun,” Ashiri said.
Sure it will, I thought. But I didn't know how to get out of it. Maybe I'd get lucky and they'd cancel our passes. “Okay, I'll go.”
“Great,” Ashiri started getting out cleaning supplies.
It was close to midnight. It would take us a couple of hours to get our gear cleaned and inspection ready. We'd have to be up around five hours after that. Then I can go to chapel services or spend three hours with Cadet Lieutenant Webster doing whatever tortures he thinks up... It wasn't too hard of a decision, especially since I actually liked the chapel.
It would have been great to have more than a few hours of sleep. But maybe if I caught up on all my studying and classwork and...
I woke up, face down on the floor, drooling a bit. The lights were still on and I looked over to see Ashiri passed out, snoring slightly. I put my gear up, shook Ashiri awake and then crawled into bed. I'd just have to find time to work on things in the morning.
***
I scanned my pass at the terminal and purchased my ticket to Bahta Town. That done, I wandered around the platform for a short time. It looked like I was one of the first to show up, and I took the time to check the train arrivals and departures. Just as Dawson had told me, there was only one train coming back in time. It looked like there was a second one, but while it departed at seventeen-fifty, it didn't arrive here at the terminal until eighteen-oh-five, which was five minutes after all plebes were supposed to be back.
“Jiden!” Ashiri shouted, “over here!” I looked over and saw her and Alexander Karmazin standing at the end of the platform. I walked down towards them, “Hey,” I said.
“Glad you decided to come,” Alexander said, though he looked more resigned than eager to see me. This is awkward, I thought to myself. “The last car will be the least packed. I figure we'd want some breathing room.”
“Great,” I said. We stood there. Ashiri and Alexander were hand in hand. I started to put my hands in my pockets and stopped. I was in uniform. So were they, but holding hands was sort of on the boundary of what was allowed in uniform.
“So, where are we going?” I asked.
“Oh, there's this neat little restaurant that my parents took me to in Bahta Town,” Ashiri said eagerly. “They do authentic chennai, I thought Alex would really like it.”
“Yep, sounds good,” Alexander said.
“Yeah,” I said. I had no idea if this ‘chennai’ stuff was a food or a place or a type of people.
The silence grew long. Thankfully, dozens of other plebes and even upperclassmen arrived before I had to think of something else to talk about. All of us plebes stood quietly, but most of the upperclassmen laughed and talked. Down the way, I recognized Sashi Drien, who stood with Bolander and Thorpe. Great, I thought to myself, well, maybe she'll go do something fun and hate me a little less for it. I'd thought that having demerits would have prevented her from taking pass, but maybe she'd worked those off already.
The train arrived and we all rushed aboard. Like Alexander had said, the car at the end was less crowded, I even had room to take a seat next to Ashiri and Alexander. Yet as I saw how close together they sat, I reflexively stood and grabbed onto a bar. Stop being stupid, I told myself, they're your friends. So what if you liked Karmazin, you missed your chance.
Our train arrived and cadets and plebes swarmed off. I followed my friends as they worked their way through the crowd. We had to work our way up the stairs, the crowd pressing against us. The stairs opened out and just sort of dumped us out onto the street. I looked around, not really sure what I expected, but Bahta Town certainly wasn't it.
About a dozen ships lay in the desert. Most of them were obviously old, little more than rusting hulls. Cords strung with lights ran from one to the next, glittering in the late afternoon sunlight. Walkways, roads and alleyways wound between the ships, while cloth curtains screened off some areas of the street and around the ships. A host of people in military and civilian clothing moved through the chaos. A man with glass jars of some amber liquid stepped in front of me, his accent thick, “Drakkus Aromatics, very nice for a pretty young lady...”
I pushed past him, trying not to get separated from Alexander and Ashiri. A young girl rushed up to me, trying to sell me some kind of jewelry. Before I could decline, Alexander reached back a hand and
pulled me along. “Just ignore them,” he shouted over the din.
It seemed rude, but I didn't argue. I felt like I couldn't breathe. I could barely move. I saw a couple of plebes stumble past, their feet unsteady as if they'd already been drinking. They'll get in trouble if they have. We weren't supposed to drink, even if any of us were old enough. Since the drinking age was eighteen, that wasn't likely.
“Isn't this great?” Ashiri shouted. She'd picked up a bouquet of flowers from a stand.
“Yeah,” I shouted back, “great...” I felt overwhelmed and uncomfortable, not great.
We finally wound out way off the main street and the noise level dropped a lot. We had room to walk side by side. Ashiri and Alex walked close, hand in hand. I kept a meter or so to the side. I saw all kinds of shops, some little more than a blanket on the ground, others were stalls or tables, while some were whole stores, with rooms cut out of the ship hulls.
“Bahta Town is where the Culmor landed during their invasion,” Ashiri said. “After they were defeated, the hulls were just sort of left in place, some stuff was salvaged, but the hulls stayed in place. I read that after Century established their military schools in the area, lots of people just sort of moved in.”
We passed by a stand where someone served barbecued lizards of some type. I wrinkled my nose at that. “Where did all these people come from?” I couldn't help a tone of distaste. I didn't like the crowds and I'd thought that most of Century's population was from Firsts, Seconds, or Thirds.
“Refugees, mostly,” Ashiri said. “Those applying for citizenship can speed the process up if one of their family members signs up for the Planetary Militia. Since there's recruiters here and it's close to the military bases, lots of families come down here. My dad worked in a shop down here for a few months.”