By Zero five hundred I was ready to fall. My stomach was clenched with hunger, and I felt chilled to the bone. I could no longer see the stars above me, and I struggled to find something to focus on, my thoughts becoming muggy with fatigue. I was relieved when my squad slowly formed around me, soft murmurs filling the air as they left the barracks. Their presence gave me a distraction and the comforting knowledge that my punishment was nearing its end.
Soon, Lt Moore stood before me once more. "Well, Cadet, it looks like you made it. Go rest, you’re excused from morning training. Be up and ready for your first class at zero nine hundred hours."
I didn't respond as I stumbled stiffly into the barracks, not even showering before I flopped on to the bed. I only had a few hours before class, and I would need every second of sleep. At exactly zero eight fifty-nine, I dashed into the classroom for my first class of the day and almost fell asleep during the hour-long lesson on protocols for ship communication. During our lunch break, Jetta finally saw her chance to pounce.
"Ris, you never told us you had a boyfriend," she said, her face filled with excitement at the prospect of fresh gossip. I stared at her, too tired to deal with her over-the-top personality right now, though I did feel a pang of joy at her use of my nickname. It was the first time in weeks she had called me Ris.
"Jetta, my private life is exactly that, private," I said, yawning as I laid my head on the table, pushing my empty tray to the side.
"Jetta, leave her be,” Fiona said with sympathy. “You can see she is tired. Honestly, Ris, I don't know how you managed to stay out there all night."
I gave a small moan of acknowledgment to her words but didn't speak any further. My head was still aching from the lack of sleep.
"He is in the command class, isn't he?” Jetta asked, unrelenting. “I saw the command course patch on his uniform. What year is he in? He was totally cute, how did you two meet? What's—" I groaned and covered my ears as Jetta babbled question after question at me.
There was a loud bang, and I jerked my head up to see Fiona staring at Jetta, her face fierce as she glared at the girl. "I told you to leave her alone, Jetta. She has already told you her relationship is private, if she doesn't want to tell you, then she doesn’t have to," Fiona said, voice hard.
Jetta cowered in her seat and nodded frantically while I stared in awe at the normally sweet and placid redhead.
"I'm sorry Ris, I won't ask any more questions. I was just curious," Jetta said, regret plain in her voice, and I sighed, feeling a little bad for the other girl.
"His name is Zander Altair, second year, and yes he is in the command program. That's all I'm saying," I told her and laid my head back on the table.
"Altair? As in the—" she started to ask before glancing at Fiona and closing her mouth.
The rest of the day seemed to move at a slow crawl, and I was relieved when I was finally able to return to the sweet and soft embrace of my bed. If only I had been able to stay there.
Lt Moore woke us at zero two hundred to play a round of killer drone. Similar to the drones he used in the gauntlet, the drone would shoot us using projectiles filled with colored liquid. We had to run the obstacle course in complete darkness while being hunted by said killer drone.
Though I did have the advantage of being able to use my optical lens to see better in the dark, it wasn't night-vision. It would outline objects for me so I could see them. After our late-night training, my exhausted squad trudged back to our dorm. We had just enough time to shower and change before we had to head back outside for our day’s standard training.
Our final week was the toughest yet. Every day, I felt more and more exhausted. Everyone was pushed to the breaking point, and several did break.
David Orson, the timid and scrawny cadet, had lasted until the day before our final test. We woke in the morning to find his bunk empty and locker cleared. He hadn't told anyone he was leaving, he simply disappeared during the night. Most of the cadets did that, not wanting the others to witness their departures. I didn't understand why he chose to leave now that he was so close to finishing the training program.
Our little group sat together as usual during breakfast on our final day of basic training. Jetta was excitedly telling us all about what new dramas had occurred. I was glad our squad had been relatively drama-free after the first two weeks. I don't think I would have been able to handle all the things that the other squads had. Apparently, there was an incident in yellow squad where one of the boys had decided he didn't like the way their squad leader had let power go to his head. The boy had led the squad in a mutiny, and they had tied the former squad leader up, before dragging him to the gates in the middle of the night.
Of the three hundred and forty-eight cadets who had entered basic training, only two hundred and fifty-eight remained. It was shocking just how many cadets had failed to pass basic training. I had asked Lt Moore about the high failure rate, and he told me it was normal. I had also found out that most of the cadets who had chosen to leave would be offered enlistment positions. The training was less intense, and many chose to give up on the officer's path to join the enlisted ranks, which was what Cadet Orson had done. Lt Moore told me that the commander had offered him the chance to move to enlistment, as opposed to completely dropping out. I was glad David hadn't completely given up on his dream of joining the fleet. He could still be a weapons engineer as enlisted crew, but he would not be able to head the department.
Today, we would undergo our final tests. It would also be the day I found out if I had done enough to gain a place in the gold squad. There were many other cadets who were also strong candidates for the gold squad, and I was anxious to see if I would join them. This morning, we had been given the morning off to rest and prepare for the day’s testing. Once we had finished breakfast, we would move to the obstacle course.
The squads were each tested in turn, and some had already run the course. Mo was hovering near the course, just out of sight, watching the testing. The current fastest was ten minutes forty-seven seconds for the entire course with all the obstacles now in place. My best time was currently ten minutes fifty-four seconds for the entire course, and there would only be one squad to run after us. Then there would be an academic test based on what we had been taught during training. The day would end with a presentation where the gold squad would be announced.
Checking the time on my optical lens, I stood and called for my squad of now only seventeen cadets to form up. We marched through the training complex and soon stood before the obstacle course. Today would be the last time I ran this course. It was an exciting thought because I knew that from here on out, we would be training in the gauntlet.
"Cadets, today marks your final day of basic training. It's time to see just how much you have learned over the past eight weeks. Kelras, go," Lt Moore said, and I bolted forwards, racing towards the obstacle course.
The first several obstacles proved no issue for me. It was only after I left the rotating tunnel that things got harder. I steadily climbed a tower of steel bars as it tilted back and forth. Gritting my teeth as my foot slipped slightly, I made it to the top, and latched my zip line handle to a wire above the platform, then flew towards the ground. Then it was the long corridor of sliding doors that would rapidly open and close at random intervals. Exiting the corridor, I had to run across a dozen small beams that connected to each other in a maze of metal. Blasts of steam shot out at me from the floor as I tried to maintain my balance and work my way to the far side.
Then I was on the final stretch, a fifteen-meter crawl through a small tunnel. The tunnel was rotating just like the large tube early in the course and would speed up every five seconds. Scrambling to my feet as I left the tunnel, I ran the last thirty meters, jumping over and sliding under large metal beams.
Reaching the finish line, I stood panting from exertion and checked my run time. Disappointment coursed through me as I saw my time of ten minutes twenty-two seconds. I had been slower th
an Cadet Marcelo, who had a final run time of nine minutes fifty-seven seconds. I was currently in second place overall, and I was sure I would not be able to keep that position. Very few had a run under ten minutes, though Luke Cormac in my own squad would no doubt be able to do so.
I watched as the cadets of my squad ran the course, and as I predicted, only Luke scored below ten minutes in our squad. He was grinning ear to ear as he saw his score of nine minutes and seventeen seconds. It was his best score yet. I congratulated him while we watched the girls finished their own runs.
"Moons above," Jetta panted as she bent over with her hands on her knees. "I am so glad we are never doing this again. I hate this course."
I raised a brow at her in response to her statement and shook my head, an amused smile playing across my lips as I thought about the girl’s reaction to seeing the gauntlet. "Jetta, you do realize the gauntlet is worse, right? This is just a warmup to give us a taste of what's to come," I told her, and she looked up at me with a look of horror.
"What gauntlet? What do you mean, worse? What could be worse than this?" her voice rose slightly in pitch as she spoke, waving her hands in a wide gesture towards the course.
Instead of answering, I sent a minute-long snippet of footage to her and the other two. The footage was of the run Zander had taken through the gauntlet two days ago. He had sent it to me in response to my complaints about how hard and tiring my training was.
What he sent was a twenty-minute clip of him running through the corridors of a spaceship, the walls and floor jerking and shaking, and at stages there was no gravity at all. Chunks of debris flew around, and he leapt over fallen beams and crawled through small access tunnels. He had a training gun in hand and on occasion he would cross paths with another cadet, and they would fire on each other until one was marked dead with their suit lighting up. I decided not to send the entire clip to the group, and just chose a small section from about halfway into the video.
"Blazing suns, are we going to be doing that?" Luke asked, as he stared in awe at the scene playing out on his wrist display.
"Not in the first year. We will just learn to run through it and on occasion fight with drones, like Lt Moore’s killer bot exercise. Second year is when we fight other cadet teams. Though we will be competing against the teams in a series of competitions this year, it won't be like this. The course doesn't stay the same each year either, they change it. It's about a kilometer long, it's about the size of a battle cruiser down there," I told him, and he nodded, eyes alight with excitement.
"Where is it? I haven't seen anything that big on campus," Jetta asked, looking confused.
"It's beneath the campus, same as the trainee ship hangars. The parts of the campus you can see are only about thirty percent of what there actually is. Aboveground is just the various barracks and the academic classrooms. It’s down below that the real training happens," I said and grinned in response to their looks of awe.
The last of our squad finished their runs, and we all formed up, making our way to the classroom for our academic testing. I was relieved that there were no psychological simulation scenarios during the test. It was just a basic test based on the last eight weeks of classes. I breezed through all the test questions and soon found myself exiting the simulation. Leaning back in my chair, I looked around the classroom, surprised to see I was one of only two who had finished. Fiona, who excelled in academic subjects, was sitting with a bored expression on her face, looking down at her datapad.
Chapter 32
Glancing at the time, I saw there was still an hour left of time before the testing was over, so I re-entered the simulator and accessed the pilot battle simulation. Selecting the escort ship and a random battle, I waited to be matched with an opponent. As I had chosen a random selection battle, the simulation AI would also choose the battle map.
When I loaded onto the bridge of the escort ship, I quickly moved to the helm. Taking my place in the pilot's chair, I worked quickly to set my preferred tactical protocols for the auto-generated TAC officer who would operate the guns. The system map was one I hadn't been on before; it was called S6793 and was an unpopulated system with no habitable planets.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw the small asteroid belt circling a large gas planet. I would need those for cover as I had been pitted against an assault cruiser. It was a bad match up as I was heavily outgunned. My ship flew on hard burn towards the belt, while I worked rapidly monitoring my scanners and inputting various flight plans into the navigational system. I liked to have several maneuvers set into the system for fast activation, depending on the actions of the other ship. I had only just reached the belt when the cruiser made it into range. The assault cruiser had a far longer range than my little escort, and they scored a hit to my port side. With a jerk, my ship darted down into the belt, alerts sounded, and I grimaced as I saw the hull integrity drop by five percent.
The assault cruiser fired into the asteroid belt in a careless fashion, just blowing up everything in its path. It would seem the opposing pilot was the trigger-happy sort. I inputted some quick changes to my ship’s navigational controls and flew low, leaving the belt from below. The assault cruiser's destruction of the asteroids had left our sensors a muddled mess with all the debris, and I would use that to my benefit. There were no view ports on the ship’s bridge, all our visual data was generated by the sensors. Aligning my ship on a flight path that would take me past the cruiser, I powered down my thrusters and cloaked my ship’s signals.
I would be playing dead, and I hoped that the other pilot would overlook my ship as just a piece of debris. Even with my ship’s engines powered down, the momentum of my ship didn't slow. There was no friction in space, and unless I counteracted my ships forward motion, I would simply keep flying forwards. My heart was pounding as I focused intently on the scanner, watching the other ship. He was still focused on the belt, shooting into it without a moment’s pause. He didn't seem to have realized I had left the belt, I had still been beneath it when I killed my engines, so that would be where he had last seen my signal.
Had there not been so much debris around from the destroyed asteroids, this tactic would never have worked. His sensors would pick up my ships mass and if he did direct a scan, I would be discovered. I was counting on him disregarding my small ship's mass, and it would seem it worked. A more focused pilot wouldn't have fallen for this trick, most pilots would know the specs of all fleet ships and should be able to see my size matched an escort.
My ship flew in a slow arch, passing just beneath the assault cruiser, and I set a targeting point for the TAC officer. The two turrets began firing rapidly on the rear thrusters of the assault cruiser. I powered up my own engines and as the cruiser began to move, I shifted with it. The assault cruiser was a Hunter class, which was an older model that had a tiny blind spot on their belly where its guns did not reach, as it was where the loading bay door was, and my little ship fit almost perfectly against it.
The cruiser’s thrusters started to break apart, and I had my guns focus on the ship’s hull. It didn't take long for me to whittle down my turret’s battery down to nothing. The assault cruiser was damaged but was not completely out of commission, thanks to its fortified hull. I flipped my ship and fired off all three missiles I had in the aft cannon. Thankfully it did the job and the assault cruiser was down. If those last three shots hadn't taken him out, I would have been in a tight spot with no ammo left.
Returning to the main screen of the simulator, I checked the pilots name and rank. Lt Volkner was one thousand two hundred eighty-sixth on the ranking and defeating him had moved my own rank to one thousand nine hundred seventy-third. Leaving the simulator, I was surprised to see everyone had finished their testing and were all staring at me in shock. I looked around and noticed the main screen was lit up. I frowned at Lt Moore with annoyance; he had been spying on my simulation again.
"Oh Moons, that was awesome, Ris," Luke said, grinning at me. I flushed slightl
y and gave a small nod in his direction. "That probably wouldn't work against a real pilot though, they would have noticed your ships mass and done a diagnostic scan."
"Yeah," I said distractedly, frowning, as I thought about the battle.
He really should have been able to notice me. I had honestly expected him too, I even had planned for it. If he flew that badly in a real battle, then it would end badly for his crew. Then again, on a real ship, there would be other bridge crew. Surely one of them would be smart enough to do a diagnostic scan.
‘@Lt Julian—He should have noticed me, even if he wasn’t taking the battle seriously due to it being a simulation.’
I decided to send the battle recording to my uncle, as something about the other pilot’s actions in the simulator just didn't feel right. The green squad members were all standing around me as they talked in excited murmurs about my battle on the simulator. I was a little annoyed that Lt Moore had played it on the large screen, he could have watched it from his datapad or wrist display. Luckily, the other cadets had not realized I was in the fleet battle simulation and thought that I had been using a training simulation instead.
‘@Aristeia Kelras—He is an enlisted orbital fighter pilot. Planetary and Orbital fighter pilots fly alone and lack much of instrumentation the more advanced cruisers have. It's a smart tactic but it would never work against a real Hunter-class cruiser pilot. They are well aware of their blind spot and guard it fiercely.’
‘@Lt Julian—You used a similar tactic a week ago against a Hunter-class cruiser and got through to the blind spot, it's where I got the tactic from.’
Striving for the stars (The Kelras Chronicles Book 1) Page 24