by Kal Spriggs
I was stunned that I hadn't been outed, but it seemed that no one even had Vars' biometrics on file. That made a certain amount of sense. He'd been a pirate, so he probably didn't want any potential information out there that evidence could be tied to in order to prompt charges. But it boggled my mind that a powerful, high technology society functioned without biometric identification on many of its people.
I had killed Vars and turned his body over to a blackmarket doctor, who had removed implants and put them inside me. For all intents and purposes, I was Vars.
The skimmer took off without any ceremony. We flew low over the spaceport, keeping out of the approaches of spacecraft, and then as we came to the far side, we started climbing one of the tallest spires on its edge. The Heart of Drakkus glittered below us as the combat skimmer spiraled upwards. It was a beautiful city, even to my jaded eyes, with tall spires, smooth, elegant architecture, and color and light everywhere.
The skimmer touched down and the crew shoved us out the back. A screaming drill instructor forced us into some semblance of order there on the landing pad, even as the skimmer's engines whined back into life and it lifted off, pelting us all with wind and rain.
“Entrants, welcome to First Screening,” A Drill Instructor bellowed. He walked around the group. I watched him from the corner of my eyes, keeping my face and eyes forward. Some of the others didn't and drill instructors grabbed them, physically shoving them to the ground and screaming and hitting them.
My Indoctrination Phase at Academy Prep School had been intense, but as they wailed on a couple of my fellow entrants, I had the feeling this was going to be worse.
“You are here because you have been chosen. You are the rarest of the rare. The elite, you might even think. You have been selected as having the potential to be officers in the Drakkus Imperial Space Korps. Truly, that is a rare privilege.” He put accent on those words, so it was almost a sing-song set of phrases, like he'd said it so many times that he didn't even consciously say the words anymore.
“Do you think you're worthy?” He asked.
Someone in the group started to say something in response.
A pair of drill instructors grabbed the speaker, shoving him to the ground, kicking and punching. The senior drill instructor smiled slightly. “I don't think so either. You will begin First Screening. You have medical exams first. If you fail, you will be returned to processing where we'll find a use for you.” I got the feeling that wouldn't be a pleasant use.
“Move out!” He snapped.
We ran. His drill instructors pursued us, slapping, kicking, and hitting anyone who fell behind. We were in a mad scramble as we reached the doors and more drill instructors pushed and shoved us into a line.
Medical screening was worse than at the Academy. They stripped our civilian clothing off us, ripping my shirt open and slicing a blade down the edges of my pants throwing them in a pile of similarly destroyed clothing, pulling the shoes right off my feet.
Then, still in line, young men and women all in the same group, they poked and prodded us. They took my blood, ran me through a scanner, and then gave me about thirty injections up and down my arm.
Don't worry, Shadow whispered in my mind, mostly vaccines and medicine to treat any parasites or diseases you might have picked up or be exposed to later. I also drew the quicksilver in so it's in tight around the implant, they won't even know it's there.
I didn't have time to think anything back at her. They shoved us into a warehouse area where they issued us black fatigues. It was made of some rough, scratchy material. We didn't get socks or underwear, but they gave us heavy black boots.
They issued me a bunch of other clothing in brown paper bags, with thin handles that cut into my hands as I picked them up.
I had about thirty seconds to get dressed. Then they had us running down the corridors to the next area. Here we stood in line while they split us off, one to a room.
I was near the front so I didn't have long to wait. It was just as well; my feet were hurting in the ill-fitting boots and my hands hurt where the bags cut into me. I went into the room, standing awkwardly. There was a short, dark-haired man seated across a table from me.
“Entrant Vars, please, set your things down, have a seat,” he said.
I did so, hesitating a bit as I made out the rank on the collar of his jet-black uniform, he was an officer. Shadow provided me with the rank that matched his insignia: Institor. That wasn’t a normal military rank, either. It’s assigned only to Imperial Intelligence, Shadow warned me, looks like they’re some kind of spies and counter-intelligence types.
Unlike my rough fatigues, his uniform was crisp, tailored perfection. He had no nametag or nametape. My implant, though, pinged with information: Institor Mikhail Dyer. I didn’t want to think about what someone from Intelligence was doing meeting with me. This did not bode well.
“Sir,” I sat on the edge of my seat, back straight.
“This is your initial intelligence screening,” he smiled at me, his expression friendly. He had pale, colorless eyes that I found more than a little creepy. Combined with his gaunt face and the dim lighting, he looked most like some kind of fiendish undead from an entertainment sim.
Be careful, he's scanning you with a bunch of lie-detector gear, she told me. I can try to use the implant to keep your reactions in line, but I don't know if I can do it well enough to fool all of them.
“First off, I want to say you present an interesting conundrum,” Institor Dyer smiled. “On the one hand, you and your father were pirates. Your father, in particular, well, we know he had his enemies. He betrayed House Mantis for Crown Prince Abrasax, which is a vote in his favor, but he was never quite successful enough to satisfy our Crown Prince.”
That seemed to warrant a response. “I don't know about that, sir.” I hoped that was a sufficiently neutral answer. It was true enough; I really didn't know anything about that.
“It's interesting to me, that when his failures at Century became critical, he had you set up a deal with House Mantis to buy back their good favor. And then you betrayed him.” Institor Dyer stared at me. “Now I've got to hand it to you, the recordings of that betrayal...” he shook his head, “masterful. House Mantis assumed it was his plan. His people assumed it was his plan. You made it out of there with his money, without having to worry about him.”
He leaned forward, his dark, intense gaze peering into mine. “Tell me, did you do that out of loyalty for the Crown Prince or to buy favor with him?”
“It seemed like the thing to do at the time,” I answered, putting a bit of Vars' confidence into my expression. After all, he'd just accused me of murdering my own father. I hadn't known Vars to back down from anything. “I thought I'd play the cards I was given and see how they fell.” I matched his smile with a leer of my own.
“Interesting,” Dyer sat back. “Your file had you pegged as more of a brute. But I detect a certain level of cunning that I can respect. That's good. Cunning is more useful than intelligence to me. Intelligent people think they're smart and that their smarts will let them solve all their problems. They think that right up until they're dead. Cunning people tend to realize when they're out of their depth, to understand their limits. I prefer the latter, as executing intelligent, ambitious people becomes tiresome.”
I swallowed as I realized he meant me.
“Loyalty is important to me. Yours. The loyalty of others in your Flight. The loyalty of those above and below you. You're about to be an entrant here at the Imperial Military Institute. Some people like to brag about their indiscretions in front of entrants.”
“Sir?” I asked.
“I'm offering you a job, or at least, the potential for a job as an informant,” he told me. “You would report to me. Anything you hear that could be construed as treasonous. Any activity that puts our Empire at risk. Because I think you understand loyalty. Your father was disloyal and you killed him. If you are that dedicated to the Empire, then I could
use you. Of course, you'll need to show me your loyalty.”
“How can I show you that?” I asked.
“Survive First Screening and we'll talk again,” he told me. “You are dismissed, Entrant Vars.”
***
It was both oddly like Academy Prep School and yet totally different. The method of instruction was to physically force compliance with their orders. Any misstep, any digression from the commands of the drill instructors was met first with blows and, if it continued, with a beating.
I got slapped, kicked, and punched so many times that I lost track. Some of my training helped, I knew how to stand at attention and parade rest, I knew how to keep my mouth shut and respond only when directed.
The First Screening period, we didn't warrant private quarters. We had an open bay barracks. But every detail of that barracks was managed. We made our beds to the instructors’ specifications, laid out our clothing to their specifications, we even hung our towels and soap in the wall lockers where they told us and how they told us.
“You will sleep on the floor until you earn that bed!” One of the instructors bellowed at us.
I hadn't been wrong about physical fitness, either. We ran everywhere we went. When it was indoors, we sprinted down the corridor. When it was outdoors, we ran in formations. The spire had a parade ground and we did sprints along the edges of it. Two sides of it were against the spire and weren't too bad, but the third was over the landing pads and had a ten-meter drop with no railing and the fourth side equally lacked a railing and ran along the edge of the spire.
Running along that edge, on the rain-soaked concrete in ill-fitting boots was nightmarish. Thunder rumbled almost constantly when a storm rolled in and with how high we were, there were lightning strikes higher up on the spire, too. It wasn't just the illusion of danger, either. People fell and stumbled all the time, often crashing into one another or tripping the runners behind them. At one point, I slipped and went flat near the entrance and a full ten or fifteen people ran over the top of me before I managed to get to my feet again.
We'd only done our third lap when someone slipped on the edge. He had time to scream and then he slid off over that terrible abyss and he was gone. A couple of entrants slowed their pace, looking in horror, but the instructors were on us right away, yelling at us to run faster.
There still hadn't been much formal drill instruction. I didn't know if that was coming up soon, if they just didn't put much weight into that sort of thing, or if they just didn't care if officers knew drills and commands.
Our formations were ad hoc things. They moved us from area to area as individuals and groups. I didn't know if they even tracked us as individuals or if we were just numbers or even just warm bodies. I didn't know how many of us there were, but I got the impression of many. We didn't go to a chow hall or any large areas. Sometime during that first day, one of the instructors threw down a box of rations in front of our current formation. He made a big deal of consulting his watch. “You now have five minutes for dinner. Any food not eaten by that time will be thrown away.” He gestured at the box. It was labeled as having twelve meals and there were twenty or more of us in the formation. “Your time starts now.”
Maybe if I hadn't lived on the streets for months, living hand-to-mouth, I would have hesitated to join that rush. I didn't. The box disintegrated as we piled onto it, ripping the plastic-wrapped packages open, fighting tooth and nail to get at the contents and to get something to eat.
I came away from it with a swelling eye and a packet of crackers, another labeled sausage and another of something labeled hot sauce. After not getting lunch and being worked so hard throughout the afternoon, I devoured all of it, not even tasting it, just eager to get some kind of calories. It took me thirty seconds or less to eat and after I licked the inside of the wrappers clean, I took a moment to actually look around at the group.
I was careful to keep my head down as I did so. I'd already learned that getting your head up and looking around during these brief down-times was grounds for getting slapped or kicked.
Most of the group were finishing their food, whatever they had managed to grab. A few lucky souls had got their hands on the main courses, but the rest of us made do with whatever we could get our hands on.
One of the entrants, a boy almost as tall as me, but thick with muscle, held onto an entire ration pack, which he was going through, eating parts of it, throwing out the bits he didn't like. The couple entrants who'd ended up with nothing watched with hollow eyes as he threw away food.
The instructors didn't intervene.
I marked him. He was tall, broad of shoulder, and if I remembered right, he'd been the one to elbow me in the eye. His name, Shadow whispered in my ear, is Jerral.
Jerral caught me looking at him and he squeezed a tube of something into his mouth, but he didn't finish it all. He met my eyes as he threw the half-full remainder off the side of the spire.
I clinched my fists, fighting an urge to attack him. I was sure that the instructors wouldn't tolerate that kind of thing. But I memorized his face.
Our five minutes ended and the instructors came at us, driving us to our feet, on to our next area. They had us run stairs. Floor after floor after floor. We went higher and higher, until we were all gasping for air, our legs wobbly. Then we ran along a narrow bridge, lightning crackling down just overhead, and into another stairwell and we ran downward.
I lost track of time, even with my implant. I couldn't tell if it was night or day, I couldn't even read the numbers. I was somewhat aware of Shadow whispering warnings in my ear now and again, prompting me to move or react to some unseen or unheard order or command. My brain more or less shut down.
Needless to say, we didn't get to lie in those beds that first night.
***
Chapter 3: On Reflection, I Think I Want Out
At some point, running along in the dark, wet rainy surface of the parade ground, stumbling with exhaustion, the instructors decided to give us another break. I didn't know how long it had been since the last meal. This time they threw out an open box, with several meals missing. “Five minutes,” our drill instructors barked.
I had no hesitation. I drove in at the box, dodging blows and kicks. I got a hold of a package at the same time as someone else and we struggled over it, the flimsy packaging ripping and the contents of the rations exploding outwards in individual packets. I grabbed at a full-sized meal, just as Jerral shoved his way through the mob, reaching for the same one. My fingers wrapped around it and he slammed his hand down on mine hard enough that my arm went numb all the way up to my elbow. I kicked out at him, hitting him a glancing blow and as he stumbled back, I pulled my prize away, my hand barely holding it, a huge bruise starting to swell on the back of my hand.
Jerral squared off, looking as if he were about to go after me, but the others were tearing through the rations box and he just scowled and waded into them, grabbing for what he could pull from other people's hands.
I retreated, barely able to hold the pouch with my right hand while I tore it open with my left. The inside was some kind of stew or curry, I wasn't sure which, and I squeezed the chunky mass into my mouth, barely taking the time to chew.
Our meal break ended and they drove us like cattle into our next set of exercises. Some of them made no sense. We loaded concrete blocks into heavy steel boxes, then we carried the boxes, two entrants to a box, down a hallway, running as we did so, to another room, where we unloaded the blocks. We did it over and over again, moving a small mountain of concrete blocks from one room to another. At the end of it, another group of entrants hurried in to move it all back, while we went back to running the corridors.
We ran a lot of stairs. The spire seemed to have more stairs than I wanted to think about. They seemed to go places, but we were never going inside. Some part of me noticed that. We circled the spire, going up and down different levels, but never across or through. We ran along narrow ledges, across bridges with ra
ilings that felt non-existent, and we kept coming back to that parade ground with its horrid drop.
They got to drills as we became more and more exhausted. That was where my Academy Prep School training really helped. It seemed like most of the other entrants had at least some form of military schooling already, everyone seemed to fall into ranks and know how to respond to commands. But when you were exhausted from lack of sleep and constant physical exercise, then being able to fall back on responding to commands, even when the commands were a bit different, was a life-saver.
They broke us into teams to practice marching, going in circles for hours, calling out commands in sequence, over and over again. They were always watching us. The slightest mistake, getting out of step, turning left instead of right, or even stumbling over the smooth parade ground's rough surface, and they would descend upon us, dragging the offending entrant out of formation for a motivational beating. The rest of us would have to march on, listening to their shouts and the sound of flesh striking flesh.
We went through proper protocol. It was similar enough to the Academy that I picked it up. But adopting the commands, responses, and the rest, all while adopting Vars' accent and tone, was just another added layer of difficulty.
We paused occasionally for water breaks. We each had a water bladder that we had the opportunity to fill and if that water bladder wasn't empty at the start of each water break, they'd beat us. We had a pair of plastic buckets for using the bathroom and any entrant who happened to irritate the drill instructors received the onerous duty of emptying it over the side of the spire when one got full. If this was how they treated their future officers, I didn't want to know how they treated their trainees.
