The Azophi Academy Complete Series Boxed Set: Unique Military Education

by TR Cameron

  Kenton raised his hand and wiggled it from side to side. “Sometimes, but not really. My division is working on implantable technologies.”

  That clicked immediately, and Jax turned to face Maarsen. “I see. Well, it’s true, I have a lot to learn where that field is concerned.” He hoped that the older man would fill in what he was supposed to be teaching the new student since that was an explicit part of the deal, but that desire went unfulfilled.

  Instead, Maarsen said, “You’ll have your chance, I’m sure. For now, you need to pull your team together and get ready to depart. We’re sending you all out to secure an item that will be of great use to the both of you.”

  Jax asked, “My arm and leg, you mean?”

  The older man nodded. “And it should be useful in the big picture effort you’re a part of here at the Academy. For Kenton, it’ll be a chance to see what some of his competitors have been up to.”

  His new teammate replied, “Sounds good to me.” His confidence struck Jax as more ego than earned. “When are we leaving?”

  “The plans won’t be finalized until tomorrow. In the meantime, I’m certain that Jackson can introduce you to the rest of the team and get you squared away.”

  Jax grinned. “Sure will.” Being the new guy in the training room ought to smack that attitude down a bit.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The first couple of hours after the meeting were spent preparing for a training session. He’d debated stopping by to see Juno, but as his inner voices fought to a standstill on the idea, had abandoned it. Don’t want to seem desperate. Plus, work before play. Maarsen had provided the name of a tech, and after a short discussion, Jax had seized on an option he thought would be valuable both as preparation for the mission ahead, whatever it might be, and increasing the bonds among his teammates.

  Long experience had taught him that shared hardship was the best way to strengthen those connections, and he’d put that philosophy to work in his planning. Now, as he stood in the yellow-lined ready area on the far end of the empty training room, he focused on suppressing his grin at the chaos about to ensue so he didn’t give away the surprise. The introductions had been taken care of. Gentle insults had flown back and forth as Kenton Marshall proved he could hold his own, and they’d donned their gear with a sense of positive anticipation.

  Such a shame I’m going to have to wreck that for them. Or not a shame in the least, he chuckled inwardly. He activated his comm and ordered, “Button up the helmets, people.” They complied, and he continued, “All right, let’s start the show.” Floor and ceiling panels moved aside, and objects ascended and descended to create a blocky street scene, if that street had been the location of a pitched battle between a pair of giants. Randomly placed cubes simulated rubble, light posts tilted at an angle instead of displaying proper verticality, and line of sight was limited to the few clear feet in between obstructions. The biggest obstacle rose to about ten feet high, the smallest only half a foot.

  Cia growled what Jax knew his whole team was thinking. “What the hell is this, Reese?”

  “We’re less informed than usual about our next mission, which given our normal cluelessness is saying something. It seemed like a good time to practice our ability to sneak around. The field in front of us is undoubtedly a security nightmare. I told the tech to make it as detection-heavy as possible, and by the way she laughed, I’m guessing she fully embraced the idea. Our goal is to get to the far end without getting spotted. As always, nothing in here is powerful enough to cause actual damage, but it’s entirely likely that setting off the defenses will put one or more of us into some moderate-to-severe pain.”

  The pilot countered, “You suck.”

  Jax laughed. “Perhaps so. Doesn’t change anything. Are you volunteering to take point?” He paused, but she didn’t reply. “Oh, that’s the other thing. I’m not leading this operation. No one is. We’ll come to decisions as a team and see what we can achieve. Every time we fail, the scenario resets and we start over with whatever knowledge we’ve gained.” That wasn’t a particularly real-world scenario. Effective target reconnaissance would accomplish the same objective without the pain and repetition cycles.

  The tech’s voice joined the comm conversation. “Training active in ten seconds. Good luck.” He heard the unspoken “You’re going to need it” in her tone.

  Ethan Kimmel’s helmet bobbed in a nod. “Okay, the first step will be to run a full sensor scan. I’ve got the strongest equipment for that, so I’ll do it as soon as we’re live.”

  Anton Sirenno replied, “And when you find a security device, what do we do with it? I mean, I’m happy to blast it, but I’m not sure if that’s the best plan.”

  Marshall’s voice sounded part confident and part hesitant, although the latter was fairly well concealed. Jax heard it because he’d been trained to search for people’s tells; he imagined Cia had undergone similar instruction during her lessons on trading and negotiation. “I’ve got military experience that includes deactivating explosives and stealth techniques. I can probably sneak up on things to take them out if they’re not too high up.”

  The timer expired, and Kimmel announced, “Scanning.” Jax activated his suit’s scanners, as he did at the start of any combat situation. He was confident his team would be doing the same. Only breathing sounded over the comms for almost twenty seconds before images began to appear in his helmet display, overlaid on the exterior view. The light posts all had cameras on them, now faintly glowing in red. Based on their computers’ calculations, the units operated in a 200-degree line of sight, and triangular shapes in the same color appeared to demarcate their detection zone.

  Audio detectors were highlighted in blue and seemed to be scattered mainly around the periphery. Again, the computer offered its best guess as to the devices’ area of influence. Simply avoiding the systems would be impossible, since they overlapped and covered all or most of the available territory. There goes Plan A.

  Purple spots appeared, and orange ones, and finally yellow. The computers didn’t fill in any additional details about those, meaning the sensor system could detect they existed but not figure out any other data about them. They could be anything from motion-sensing rocket launchers to tiny robots that would laugh at them if they made the ground vibrate near them. He muttered, “Well, that’s ugly, Kimmel. Way to go.”

  Nervous laughter followed the comment, and the technical wizard of the group replied, “Hey, I’ve only got the souped-up detectors. Not my fault that some jerk put together a wicked scenario.”

  Cia clarified, “Jerkwad. It’s jerkwad. Jerk isn’t quite descriptive enough.”

  The smile was audible in Kimmel’s voice. “I stand corrected.”

  Marshall said, “How about this? We can get in range to take a shot at the nearest camera, as long as we stay on the far side. If I blast it with a low power stun burst, maybe it’ll look like it broke if a human was tasked with watching it?” He started to move in that direction.

  “Hold up,” Verrand ordered, curt enough to make him stop as a reflex. “We need to think this through a little more before we go shooting things. Kimmel, any way to hack into their network?”

  “I’ve been trying. No dice. Whoever designed this thing didn’t want us taking the easy route.”

  Five helmets swiveled to face Jax, who held up his hands. “Wasn’t me. I said make it hard. Anything after that you can blame on the technician. Or the Professor. Whichever you prefer.”

  Marshall insisted, “I think we need to shoot the cameras. That will give us a path around the audio sensors, at least.”

  Jax replied, “Anyone have a better idea?”

  No one answered, so he gestured at the newest member of the team. “Have at it.”

  With a decisive nod of his helmet, Marshall hefted his rifle and exited the safe zone, moving over to the right wall. His route would keep him out of the cameras and away from any of the other sensors, that much was true. What would happen when
he shot it was an unknown. Unfortunately, Jax had to agree that without the benefit of being able to compromise the security system’s network, they needed to take out at least some of the actual devices. Whether the plan to disable it with a stun blast would be less noticeable than destroying it outright was another unknown. In my other gig, I’d have the Cronus raze the approach from orbit, then sprint for it.

  “Here we go.” Marshall pulled the trigger. Sparks shot from the camera above, and the field it had projected vanished from their displays. He pumped his rifle in the air in celebration of his success. “I’ll go after the next one.” The reappearance of the field two seconds later surprised all of them, indicated by gasps over the comm, but the biggest shock was reserved for the shooter who had advanced into the detection zone. An aerial combat robot swooped down from the ceiling and blasted him with a bolt of energy, locking up his suit and lighting up his nerves. The scream as he fell sounded exactly like the ones Jax always gave in those situations, a combination of frustration, surprise, and pain.

  The tech’s laughing voice came over their comms. “Scenario deactivated for one minute. You’ll have to drag him back to the safe zone before his suit will unlock.”

  Jax said, “Verrand, Sirenno, go get him. Kimmel, did we learn anything from that experiment?” He was hoping that like the robot they’d faced in the basement of the Confederacy building, blasting the thing would offer access to the network controlling them.

  “Nothing other than the fact that stun blasts are only a temporary reprieve. I can’t see a way forward other than taking out the camera with a full power burst, then moving on to the next. If we were doing this in the field, I’d say we’d be best off to blast it all and opt for speed, but somehow I don’t imagine that’s what you’re going for with this training session.”

  He nodded. “It’s not, and more than that, I bet our friend in the booth up there has enough security drones to make that a seriously unhappy experience for all of us. No, we’ll need to use finesse more than force.”

  They reset and tried it again. And again, several times more. Each of them made it a little farther before getting blasted and dragged back to the start. After forty-five minutes of experimentation, every one of them was tired and annoyed. But, for the first time, Jax thought they had a handle on what they needed to do. He discussed the plan with the group, then they put it into operation.

  In the end, the team had determined that a combination of speed and craftiness was required to win the day. Rather than destroying the cameras, which had resulted in the immediate dispatch of multiple drones, they’d come up with a new solution. Marshall got into position and nodded to indicate his readiness. Jax said, “Ready, set, go.” While the rest of them took off at a run, their designated camera gunner stepped out and stunned the camera. Repeated experiments revealed that it ran on a three-second cycle, so he would shoot it in two-second intervals until they were all through. Another was positioned further along their planned advance, and whoever reached it first would repeat the process.

  After those obstacles was a sonic sensor. They’d discovered that if all the sound detectors got a signal at once, the computer discounted it as a mistake. In the real world that would be entirely unlikely, but it made for effective training in problem-solving. Kimmel, now in the lead, and Sirenno, behind him, each threw a flash-bang grenade to a location where it would trigger multiple units. The purple devices had turned out to be thermal scanners, which their suits defeated by lowering their temperatures a couple of degrees. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was better than being blasted by the drones yet again.

  The motion detectors, in orange, they were able to weave through without activating. It involved a lot of parkour—vaulting over obstacles, crawling under others, and one particular spot where the lead person had to kneel so the rest of the team could use them as a jumping platform. Jax had chosen that role for himself, figuring that if someone was going to hurt from this, it might as well be him. His first inclination had been to assign it to the new guy, but that was too cruel, even for him. At the Academy, at least. If it were my Special Forces people, I’d do this enough times that they all had to be the step stool.

  The ones pulsing in yellow were the most annoying of the bunch. Several could be avoided, but a straight-line array of them entirely blocking their progress was the final barrier to their objective. They’d tried running through and going over, and neither had worked. Blasting them resulted in the shrill whine of another combat drone, followed by a scream and the thump of a locked-up suit hitting the floor. The only tactic they hadn’t yet investigated was to shut down the electronics in their suits, because only on the last run had they finally eliminated every option save one: the devices had to be reading electromagnetic emissions, given all their other failures to defeat them.

  Verrand had volunteered to test the theory, and she panted, “Shutting down now,” before her comm channel went down. She raced through the line of detectors and slid into the finish box marked on the floor in front of the far wall. He held his breath as he waited for another drone to emerge, but it didn’t. He broke into a grin and said, “All right. Everybody into the pool. We’ve beat this thing.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jax had secured permission to postpone their departure to the following morning so he could take them all out for a drink. At least, that was the announced reason. The actual purpose of the delay was so he could recover from the damage that being a launching platform had inflicted on him. A trip to the medical lab had been both good and bad. Good, because he’d gotten a shot of quick heal meds that would have him ready to go the next day. Bad, because Dr. Juno Cray hadn’t been present.

  Not that he’d gone there mainly to see her, with the injury as an excuse. Surely not.

  They’d all gathered at the castle entrance, their number requiring a large van for the ride to the airfield. Kenton Marshall held up his end of the conversation but didn’t quite seem to be gelling with the others the way that Jax would have liked. Maybe that’s what he needs to learn. How to trust. That would be ironic. And just like the Professor.

  Sighting the Grace was as spirit-lifting as always. Her logo at the bow of the ship, a musical note with a line through it, seemed freshly polished, as did the rest of Cia’s pride and joy. The pilot was the first out of the van and up the cargo ramp, her enthusiasm inspiring the others to increase their pace, probably without even realizing they’d done it. The familiar crates that usually accompanied them were secured inside the cargo section, filled with various pieces of equipment that might come in handy during the mission ahead.

  The mission that’s still mostly a bloody mystery. Since the Grace is wearing her normal identity, we’re either taking on a task that doesn’t need deniability or heading to a waypoint to change rides. When they’d left the Jigsaw behind, he’d hoped he would never have to see that ship again. He’d been half-convinced it would break apart during landing and would lay odds that something had at least bent during the process. Trianna had flown it off the rock where it had previously been stored, presumably for repairs. He couldn’t be sure, because the woman still hadn’t said a word to him. Apparently, I failed to prove myself a non-chucklehead.

  He tapped Marshall on the arm and pointed forward. “Quarters are toward the bow. Galley and rec area are above us. You’ll want to be strapped in somewhere when we’re ready to take off. The others can show you where.” He strode ahead, leaving the team’s most recent addition to find his way with the rest of the team. Gotta happen sometime. He slid into the right-hand seat in the pilot compartment next to Cia, and she laughed.

  “What, you assume that you’re always going to be my second? What if I preferred the new dude, who I might add is far cuter than you, up here to fly with me?” Her hands never stopped moving, performing the ship’s preflight routine with practiced confidence.

  He shrugged. “I figured you’d tell me to go away when you wanted me to. It’s not like you’re particularly retic
ent about sharing your opinions.”

  She frowned at him. “That’s a big word for you. Did you, like, get a dictionary as a gift or something?”

  Jax sighed. “You’re not as clever as you think you are, shorty.”

  Cia laughed. “Ooh, resorting to the short jokes. Definitely a sign of defeat. And at least I’m capable of it. Thinking, that is.” She lifted a hand to cut off his reply. “Yes, Tower, this is the Grace. Ready for a tow.” To him, she added, “Check to be sure the hatches are closed, please.”

  He peered down at his display screen and poked through the menu until he found the right information. “Confirmed. Sealed tight.”

  She nodded. “Good.” The next couple minutes were filled with her faux-flirtatious banter with the driver of the tow vehicle, which left her laughing and shaking her head. She toggled the ship-wide intercom. “All right, people, we’re taxiing to the runway. You have about a minute before the engines will do their best to smash you into jelly on the hull, and I do not want anyone getting my girl messy. Be sure you’re strapped in before then.”

  Jax tapped on his controls until the navigational images appeared again. He saw that they ended at the jump point out of the system. “You don’t know where we’re going either?”

  Cia shook her head. “No word yet. I mean, worst case we can loiter around until our supplies run out, but it’s not really something I’m jazzed about doing.”

  “Professor’s being unusually reticent about sharing information, don’t you think?”

  She scowled. “I think if you don’t quit saying reticent, I’m going to kick you out of the compartment. And yes, I agree. Not sure why. Maybe he doesn’t have it all yet?” She deftly steered the ship onto the end of a long runway and spoke to the passengers again. “You have ten seconds before we go. Shout now if you’re not ready.”