by Kal Spriggs
Firing the “marksman” rounds at paper targets was how they started us. With the automatic zero and the weapon being tied into my implants, I qualified for both the electronic sights and the iron sights in just twelve shots. Due to the different flight and propellant characteristics, it wasn't really designed to be fired with the iron sights, normally. There was too much variety of ballistics involved. The weapon calculated almost everything, painting a target in my vision for where it was aimed.
I didn't even have to squeeze the trigger. I could fire it from my implant or in my Kavacha Mark V. I could even fire it remotely. The crisp, smooth motion of it was addictive. The ancient M-11's from the Sand Dragons felt like kids' toys in comparison. They have history, Shadow argued in the back of my mind, Those eleven millimeter rounds hit pretty hard, too.
Sorry, but this thing is awesome, I told her as I ran through a functions check with it. I could fire as many as four hundred rounds off a single magazine. It selected and generated ammunition types on its own, though I could manually select one through my implant. The smart plastic material in the magazine simply conformed to pre-programmed parameters and fired the selected round. It had a built-in target-identifier that tracked what it was aimed at. Armored targets got armor piercing ammo. Soft targets would get hollow points. There were over seventeen variations between those, ranging from high explosive rounds to teardrop-shaped hyper-velocity sabot rounds designed to overpenetrate vehicle armor. The latter even had a warning seeing as the recoil was enough to dislocate shoulders.
“Good job, Vars,” a drill instructor grudgingly told me as I held up the weapon for inspection. “It almost makes up for how terrible you are in your exosuit.”
I took that as a compliment. I had to take my small victories where I could.
***
That night, stiff and sore from being bounced around in my armor, my muscles aching from the different activity, I stood lined up next to my bunk. A medic came through and I saw her injecting entrants, working her way down the line.
Quick heal.
I hadn't realized I spoke aloud until Kiyu, just on the other side of the bunk spoke, “Every night. They want to prevent stress injuries. It keeps us asleep, too, so they don't have to worry about us sneaking out or... anything else.” She coughed slightly as she said that last. I caught her meaning and I flushed. I didn't think anyone would have the energy for something like that.
I didn't know how much I was supposed to know about quick heal as Vars. He hadn't struck me as a very technical person, though, so I felt safe enough asking, “What about side effects?”
“Some will get addicted,” she said it as if it were of little consequence. “The ones weak enough to succumb to that sort of thing will be thinned out in the Third Screening.”
“Thinned out?” I asked.
“They cut our dosages back after Second Screening,” she told me. “The ones who can't shake any chemical or psychological addictions are identified and channeled to... other alignments.”
Alignments? I asked Shadow.
Seems to be like the tracks at school, she answered me, only instead of leader's track with some minor focus, they align each entrant with an area of focus. There is no ability to choose your alignment, it is assigned and they do it through constant evaluation... she trailed off. Okay, we need to find out more.
I'm open to ideas, I told her. It isn't like we get a lot of free time to socialize...
She didn't respond. As the medic came closer, I wondered if I could avoid the injection. The whole idea of being addicted to quick heal didn't appeal. Nor did trying to fight that addiction.
I didn't get an option, though. The medic injected Kiyu and then moved to me. Before I could even think of something to say, I'd been injected. Exhaustion had already made me weary. I barely managed to climb onto the top bunk before I passed out.
***
The next day, we had to get our rations once more. It was a very different scenario. There was no brawl, this time. The different flights came out, formed up, and then we sent one rep from each group forward. With the relatively orderly setting, I was able to get an impression of how many people there were... and that terrified me. Century's Academy Prep School had run about fifteen hundred candidates through, dropping down to about nine hundred graduates, of which eight hundred or so went on to attend the Academy. I knew that the Academy itself ran to graduating classes around six hundred, with somewhere less than two thousand total cadets in attendance at a time.
With Shadow's help, I counted upwards of six thousand entrants.
Assuming they had something similar to the twenty-five to thirty percent failure rate back at home, that still meant they were graduating somewhere around four thousand from the Imperial Military Institute a year.
They go by the standard year, too, Shadow reminded me, so they graduate around twenty thousand officers every four of our years.
I swallowed at that. That couldn't be right. Twenty thousand officers over five standard years? Even assuming half of them got out after their tours were complete, that was far, far more than anyone else graduated. From what I'd heard from my cousin Mel, the Guard Fleet Academy at Harlequin Station only graduated fifteen hundred officers each year. Life extension treatments meant that officers could stay in service far longer and that turn-over of highly trained and skilled personnel was far slower than any other time in history. Most military forces simply maintained numbers for losses due to resignations and accidents or the occasional skirmish.
Either Drakkus was building up forces far beyond anything anyone expected, or else they were losing officers so heavily that they were trying to replace them all. It might be the latter, but they only talked about an insurgency on Oberon, not some kind of ongoing major war.
Our representatives seemed to come to some kind of agreement and Kiyu waved forward a couple of us to come forward and grab boxes. This time it was orderly. I thought things were going relatively well until I moved forward to pick up a box just as another young man did so.
I recognized Jerral, just as he saw me. Apparently, Kiyu breaking his knee hadn't been as permanent a disqualifier as I might have hoped. Jerral didn't hesitate as he saw me. He backhanded me across the face.
It was a hit I hadn't seen coming. It knocked me back and the hard, angry part of me reacted pretty much how I'm sure Jerral expected. I dove in at him. He caught me by the arm, though, and slammed me down into the ground. The next thing I knew, his overly-large boot was coming right down at my face.
I couldn't say what happened after that.
***
I woke up back in Jade Flight's bay, laying on the floor. My face hurt. A lot.
A medic had just straightened up from leaning over me. I saw an injector in her hand. More quick heal. But I didn't feel sleepy. I hurt, a lot, but I felt awake, alert.
“What did you give me?” I demanded. My hand lashed out to catch her wrist, faster than I would have thought possible. I felt stronger, too. What is going on?
“In order to prevent you from missing training, you've been given a dose of quick heal with other medications,” Dekkas Richardson told me. I let go of the medic, who stepped back and I saw her move over to another unconscious entrant.
“What happened, sir?” I asked, trying to put as much respect as I could muster into my voice. I didn't feel respectful, though. I felt like I could bench-press a Kavacha exosuit. I felt like I could run up and down every stair well in the spire.
“You and Entrant Jerral... initiated hostilities. The initial truce between the various Flights fell apart,” Richardson gave me a humorless smile. “Your Flight dragged you and the other injured back here. I must say, I am impressed, normally we need to instigate something to trigger that kind of violence. You and Entrant Jerral did it quite well on your own.”
I flushed at that, but I didn't miss what he'd meant. “You instigate a fight, sir?”
“Of course we do,” he answered. There was an edge of irritation
in his voice. “The Flights are a part of Second Screening. Competition between the Flights is what drives you all to compete... unification of a Flight is what enables a Flight to complete the Screening. Which brings me to you, Entrant Vars.”
“Sir?” I asked. I stood up, realizing that sitting on the floor while he talked was probably disrespectful. Something flashed across his face as I rose and adopted a position of attention.
“At ease,” he told me, waving a hand. “This is an... informal counseling, you might call it.” He looked over at the medic, who was injecting others from my Flight. There were five more unconscious, a couple of them looking more battered than I felt.
“You present a problem for me, Vars,” Richardson told me. “On the one hand, you're a pirate. You come from the streets. Your father had quite the reputation, before he went to work for Crown Prince Abrasax. That might be something I could overlook, save that your father failed his service and then tried to make a deal with one of the Pirate Houses.”
I swallowed. All that was true, of course, except that I wasn't Vars. I'd only taken his place. I was William Alexander Armstrong, and I wasn’t even from this planet.
“And then you killed him for that, which normally would imply that you're ruthless enough to know that was the only way to get into Crown Prince Abrasax's good graces again,” Richardson told me. “But you didn't just kill him. There's also video of you shooting Kinabalu of House Mantis. Which led to your father's death by her security team.”
He shook his head. “Normally, House Mantis would have your head on a pole outside of their Spire within an hour. But you escaped. You killed a lot of their people in the process and you abandoned your father's people to House Mantis.”
I wasn't sure where this was going, but it did sort of paint Vars as a criminal mastermind.
“Generally, the type of person that could cold-bloodedly plan all of that would not end up in Jade Flight. This flight is fast-tracked for leadership alignments. We don't want venomous snakes as leaders, we want those who have at least some semblance of honor. But half the flight has heard of what you did and the other half picks up that they can't trust you. You're poisoning the flight.”
“Why am I here, then, sir?” I asked. I barely managed to add the honorific. Whatever it was they’d given me, it was singing through my veins and a crazy part of me wanted to admit who I was, do dare him to do something about it.
Woah, there, tiger, that’s not a good idea, Shadow whispered in my mind. I knew that and I didn’t need her telling me it, but my body seemed barely contained. I wanted to take on Jerral again. I wanted to fight his entire flight.
“That's a question that someone else would have to answer,” Richardson told me. I could hear the frustration in his voice as he said it. “I don't select entrants, they're assigned. Someone, somewhere, felt you had it in you to actually lead, and not just terrorize and betray.”
Part of me ached at his words. That was exactly what I wanted. I wasn't Vars. I had wanted to command a ship, to lead people. I didn't really want to do it in the Drakkus Imperial Space Korps, but I couldn't exactly say that, either.
For that matter, with whatever it was that they'd given me singing its way through my veins, it was all I could do not to proudly proclaim who I was. Don't trust it, whatever it is, I told myself. Still, I felt my hands jittering at my sides and it was all I could do not to bounce in place.
“Here is what I propose, Vars,” Richardson told me. “Show me that you have it in you to lead. To both be led and to lead. Do that and the other entrants will respond, you will find a place here.”
“How, sir?” I asked honestly.
“That, you will have to figure out,” he shrugged. “I will admit, I distrust any action you take. Your fellow entrants fear you are here simply to ensure they fail at Second Screening. With good reason. It is not unknown for Imperial Intelligence to determine that all entrants in a flight must fail, for the good of the Empire.” He gave me a cold smile. “Given that, it is likely that your fellow entrants will arrange a fatal accident for you.”
I swallowed, “I'll see what I can do, sir.”
“Excellent,” Richardson turned away. “Start with avoiding starting brawls that result in no food for your flight. That would be a good place.”
I flushed as I realized what that meant. In pulling their wounded back, my flight must have had to abandon any rations. It looked like we were going to go hungry. I'm sure they're going to love me for that.
***
Chapter 6: Sometimes What I Need Is To Hit Things
That morning we started training in earnest. It began with the Kavacha Mark V as a repeat of the previous day. But we didn't stop for lunch. There was nothing to eat, after all. Nor did we stop for bathrooms or water. Our exosuits took care of both. We jogged. We ran. We jumped. And then, as I started to feel I was getting the hang of things, we turned and ran into a new area.
The front of our line came to a halt, standing in silent ranks, the rest of us filing in behind them until the area was packed with hulking suits of powered armor. My suit sensors showed me that we stood on a platform. Beyond that platform was an obstacle course out of nightmare. Someone had used grav-plates to change the orientation of platforms. There were climbing walls that opened up onto tracks. Spiral running courses that fed into hurdles. Chain nets that I saw armored figures clambering up, while others crawled along vertical walls like spiders. It was a huge chamber, and even the interior was in use, with figures running along columns and bridges.
“This, entrants, is the Tangun’s Steps,” our drill instructor barked. “This is where you will discover the full capabilities of your Kavacha Mark Five, they will mold and shape you, just as some of our ancestors followed in the teachings of Tangun. From this point on, you will train for four hours a day or more in this chamber. Every time one of you fails an obstacle, we will add one minute to that time. Every time that one of you falls into the center like that poor soul,” he pointed at a flailing figure at the center of the chamber. As we watched, someone used a grapnel on him and pulled him to one of the surfaces. “Well, when that happens, we add one hour to all your times.”
He gave an evil laugh. “If that means that you run for three days straight, well, it means less competition for the other flights when it comes time to get rations, doesn't it?”
That didn't sound good. In fact, it sounded like a way for the rest of my flight to decide to kill me. How hard would it be? Some of those jumps and drops looked like they could hurt a lot, even in armor. The speeds that some of the suits were running...
They could do it. It would be easy enough to push me into a wall or column. Do it at the right time and I'd never even have a chance to know I was dead.
On that happy thought, the drill instructor bellowed, “Jade Flight, move out!”
***
The only saving grace about the Tangun’s Steps was that it started out relatively easy.
The green armor of Jade Flight mixed in with the different color armors of other flights as they lapped the course. The course channeled us. The path forward was always clear, even if it seemed impossible. One moment we were jumping from platform to platform over a dizzying drop, the next we were running along a wall.
It was all the worse for having other flights mixed in with us. The ones that we initially ran with were the ones that had fallen or failed already. Many of them were already exhausted or were less coordinated than even me, and we had to continuously dodge around them or jump over them.
Twice, I failed a jump, falling to the next level before I caught myself. One of those was because another entrant from a different flight ran into me. It happened again as I got back to that tricky area, and this time it was even more close a thing, I fell two levels and one of my flight caught me, just before I would have fallen out into the nothingness of the center. I could feel the animosity coming from some of the others. I wasn't adapting as quickly as them. I wasn't doing as good as them. I was put
ting them in real danger, too, because every minute on the Tangun’s Steps was another chance for further failures. If enough of those added up, sooner or later we'd be here for longer than a few extra hours, we'd be in here for days, until we were too weak to keep going. No food, no sleep, sooner or later we would all fail.
It was only as I caught up with one lumbering figure and Shadow identified it as Jerral that something occurred to me. I might not be able to ensure I didn't fail, but I could darn sure make sure that someone else did.
Jerral was pounding along, his suit rust red for Iron Flight. I could tell he was struggling, I'd seen him fall down to this level already. We were about to come onto an area I'd fallen once before: it was a series of long jumps, changing orientation of gravity along the way.
We had a long sprint as we came up to that first jump and I fell in behind him, looking around for any other rust red suits of armor. I didn't see any close-by. As we came into the last part of the run, I moved up right behind him and as he went to jump, I kicked him as hard as I could.
I might have misjudged the strength I put into it. Instead of overshooting his jump by a bit, he flew across half the obstacle and slammed into the edge of one of the platforms before tumbling limply down and away. Osmund from my Flight skidded to a halt, swinging to look at me, no doubt wondering if I'd lost my mind.
“Oops,” I said. Then I jumped to the first platform.
I landed next to a set of armor in bright green, Emerald Flight, if I remembered right. I threw an elbow in the other entrant's helmet. The impact rocked all the way up my arm, but the opposing entrant tumbled out into open space.
I looked over to see a white and red entrant mid leap, headed for the platform and as he descended, I kicked out hard, sending him spiraling off into the center.
