by Kal Spriggs
Mackenzie nodded, “Sure thing, sir, let me hit the head and I’ll be ready for the next cadet.”
I started walking towards the nearest entrance. Out in the bright desert sun and after my flight, I felt like I saw everything with new eyes. The squat bunkers seemed smaller. The Academy as a whole felt smaller. Or maybe I just felt taller.
I’d just traveled further, faster, than I’d ever gone in my life, and I’d been the one flying.
It was something to think about as I went to get changed out of my flight suit and head to my next class.
***
My cadet flight exams had drew up an enormous amount of time. With only twelve trainer Firebolts compared to over three hundred cadets who needed to be certified, I had flight sessions any time of day or night, whenever they could fit us in. When we weren’t flying, doing drill, or in another class, Commander Troyer and Commander Drien had us down at the maintenance bay where we assisted in the maintenance for the Mark Four-T’s. Those twelve Firebolts saw considerably more flight time than almost any other craft in the Militia’s inventory and so they had a lot more maintenance as a result. I got a look at the flight hours on the one I regularly flew in, and it was well over a million flight hours. That boggled my mind. The original Firebolts had seen service in the Culmor Second Sweep, over a hundred years earlier. It was easy to forget that the Firebolts we used in the Militia had originally been UN Star Guard vessels, sold as surplus after they’d upgraded to new fighters.
The maintenance wasn’t hard, but it was time-consuming and required a lot of attention to detail. Plus, as part of Commander Troyer’s class, we had to manufacture a lot of the parts we were replacing. So not only did it have to meet his exhaustive standards, but we had the added weight of responsibility in that we’d be flying with the parts we’d built. It was a bit of extra incentive to do good work and not just try for a passing grade.
At one point, Commander Troyer waved me over to look at something. “See that?” he pointed down at a metal stamp welded in place.
I frowned, staring at it for a long moment, “Property of the Harmony Protectorate?” That didn’t make any sense. The stamp had a big ‘x’ through it.
“We bought the Mark Four-T’s second-hand from Harmony back when I was a cadet,” he said. “Before that, we used Skyslider-class trainers, little two-seater commercial jobs from over two hundred years ago. I still remember getting excited when we got these in when I was a Cadet First Class, it was quite the event.” His face took on a distant look, “They made the decision to buy these after one of my classmates and his flight instructor were killed in a training accident. Hull support strut on their Skyslider gave out on reentry... too many flight hours.”
I swallowed. “We’re at a lot of flight hours on these trainers.”
He snorted, “Yeah, we are, but we’ve got better maintenance equipment now and the Firebolt is a much more rugged frame than the old Skysliders. We’ve probably got another twenty years with these before we need to either scrap them or go for a full refurbish.”
I went back to work on my fighter, thinking about time and the state of my planet. We had fighters that had been out of date long before I was born. We had little space-based industry, the exception being Century Station and the Valence Mining Station. With Directorate Thirteen, I’d been working on the design of a cutting-edge ship... but I wondered if we even had the infrastructure to build something like that.
I knew that Century was relatively poor by the standards of the rest of human space. We were out on the Periphery, we didn’t have any unique or special trade goods, we didn’t produce food in abundance, and the planet’s flora barely supported our population.
For all that, I’d sworn an oath to defend my homeworld and I couldn’t fight the feeling that our Militia didn’t have the right tools for it. We had thousands of near-obsolete fighters, hundreds of older or even obsolete corvettes and frigates, a handful of somewhat-newer destroyers, and a few hundred thousand ground-combat trained personnel. Relative to our population, it was a tiny number. The Harmony Protectorate had a population in the billions and had a Militia in the millions. But they also had a special charter from the Guard to have a force that size.
The Drakkus Empire had tens of thousands of fighters and a veritable armada, along with the patronage of the Guard’s Harlequin Sector Military Governor. They’d conquered several systems. So had Dalite, who’d taken over Fresca, though their ships were almost as old as ours.
We had just enough ships and personnel to defend ourselves, or at least, that was what the Guard allowed us. But we couldn’t afford new equipment. Our tactics were focused around mass attacks and fighting as defensively as possible, to delay an enemy and force them to examine the losses they’d take in trying to conquer our world.
But that only worked if an attacker didn’t want to risk losses. And while the Militia as a whole wasn’t aware of it and my planet remained oblivious, it was clear to me that we had enemies. Someone had been behind the theft of parts and equipment from the Militia stockpiles. Those parts were the most easily useable by other forces, interchangeable with newer ships. Taking them hurt us, but potentially helped an enemy. Someone had been behind Commander Scarpitti’s infiltration, someone with power and money who’d backed her and helped her to get into place. Someone was using Charterer Beckman, one of the most powerful people on the planet.
As I went back to replacing a thruster valve on my Firebolt, I wondered if this was a fight that we could win.
***
Chapter 14: I'm Always Living On The Edge
Finals hit like a whirlwind. I sort of moved from one test to the next in a dull haze, feeling like I didn’t possibly have time to study for everything but also strangely like I had things covered. Commander Barber’s class was the easiest, with a final presentation that I could have done in my sleep. The rest were combinations of real world, applied problems, and then some question and answer theory stuff. Engineering, military theory, flight operations, machine shop, they all blurred together, often with questions that overlapped from one subject to the next.
At the end of it, I got back to my room and sagged into my chair.
“How’d your last final go?” Sashi asked. She lay in her bed, wrapped in a blanket so that only her face showed.
“Okay,” I said dully. I wanted to sleep, but my brain was too stirred up. “They put out summer assignments yet?”
“Not yet,” she replied. We’d both put in for duty with Militia units, since we already had our “leadership” time crossed off. Sashi had been an Assistant Training Officer, I’d been assigned to a top secret research facility buried under the campus. I think they’d both counted though.
Most Cadets Second Class did their leadership positions, if they did them, their second-class years. But since we’d been ahead in our class year, we had a bit of an advantage there. With a Militia assignment this year, I hoped I’d be set up well for a good position my last year at the Academy.
Plus, a big part of me really wanted to get out there and see what things were like. It had all been talked up so much. Mackenzie had seemed happy to be graduated. The few more times I’d flown with him as my Flight Instructor, he’d mentioned a few details about his unit and assignment.
My implant pinged me to let me know I had a message. It wasn’t from the school network, though, it was from the Admiral. Come and see me on your way to your summer assignment, it would be nice to catch up.
I had no idea what that meant. The Admiral had taken an assignment to Century Station. The only reason I’d go there on my way to any assignment would be--
I didn’t finish the thought as my implant pinged. This time, it was a school memorandum, with a list of names and assignments. I didn’t read through it, not at first, my brain was trying to make sense of the timing. The Admiral, my grandmother, wasn’t managing the Academy anymore. She shouldn’t have any say in summer assignments. She shouldn’t even know my summer assignment. The school
handed them out internally and then pushed the list out to units where cadets were assigned.
But she’d known I would be coming through. She’d wanted me to know, because she’d messaged me before the list went out. As a matter of fact... I checked the time stamp of her message. It read a few minutes after the list had been published, which meant she’d set it up so that anyone checking would think she’d sent it after. It was a tiny, subtle thing, but it told me that somehow, my grandmother had rigged my summer assignment.
I didn’t know what to think about that. I didn’t think she’d do it to do me any favors. Now, if she needed something from me... that was a different thing altogether.
“Yes!” Sashi crowed, sitting up in bed and throwing off her blanket. “I got assignment to an active unit, the one-seventy-second... a fighter squadron out of Duncan City. This is great.” She looked over at me, “What about you?”
“Uh...” I scanned the list and found my name. “The nine-thirty-seventh, it’s a fighter squadron at... Summit Station?” I frowned. “It’s listed as an active unit.” Summit Station was one of the listening posts way out in the outer system.
“Huh,” Sashi said, “Nine-three-seven...” she frowned as she looked them up. “Firebolt Mark...Threes?!” She looked incredulous. “I thought all active duty had upgraded to Fives?”
“Yeah,” I scanned through what I could find out about the unit. There wasn’t much. They’d been a legacy unit, named for one of the combat skimmer companies that had flown air support during the Culmor ground invasion back during the Second Sweep. Their combat readiness was... well, it was bad. They were understrength on certified pilots and the available information I could see on their past few unit evaluations wasn’t great. Their last squadron commander had been relieved for unspecified causes.
I broadened my search, pulling out my datapad and searching there even as I split my focus with my implant. I knew there was something to this, something more. I wondered why I’d been assigned there. I couldn’t see anything as far as the unit, so I broadened my search, including Summit Station and even searching news forums. That’s when I found it.
Sources report that the pirate vessel that attacked Black Mesa Outpost slipped past the Century Planetary Militia outpost at Summit Station. While Militia spokesman Commander Cruz denied rumors that the pirate’s course was designed to evade patrol routes, analysts have confirmed that the course moving past the outpost and its patrol should have been detected unless they had inside support...
The Nine-Thirty-Seventh was the patrol force assigned to Summit Station. They were the ones who’d failed to detect the pirates who’d killed my family. For a moment, all I could see was the look on my mom’s face, the last time I’d ever see her alive. All I could think about was the anguish I’d felt as I kicked out that stanchion and collapsed thousands of tons of sand on my brother and the pirates who’d been trying to kidnap me.
“Jiden, you okay?” Sashi asked.
“What?” I looked over at her, “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You just cracked your datapad in half,” she noted, looking a bit nervous.
“What?” I looked down at my hands. The hard plastic case of my datapad had bent until it broke. The glass screen had shattered and little bits of glass and sparking bits of electronics lay in my lap. When I spoke, I felt like my voice came from a distance, “I guess I was a bit focused.”
“You broke your datapad,” Sashi got out of her bunk. “Look, what’s going on? One second you were fine and the next--”
“The Nine-Thirty-Seventh, they’re the ones who missed the pirates who killed my family,” I bit the words out. I scooped up the remains of my datapad and dropped it in the trash. I was going to have to get a new one. I didn’t care just now. I felt rage boil through me. If not for my assignment there, I could have given them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they’d done their best, maybe they’d done their jobs. The Admiral pulling strings so I was assigned there, that wiped out any doubts I might have had. Something was rotten at Summit Station, in the Nine-Thirty-Seventh. The Admiral was sending me there to ferret out what.
“Okay, Jiden, you need to calm down...”
“I am calm,” I said in a distracted fashion. I wondered if I could smuggle a weapon aboard Summit Station. A pistol, maybe. Perhaps the Admiral would give me one. I could find the person responsible and then...
“Jiden, you’re kind of freaking me out,” Sashi whispered.
“What?” I asked. I realized that I’d gone to my desk and started a functions check on my rifle. I set it down, wondering just what I’d been about to do.
“Maybe I should call Kyle?” Sashi asked.
I didn’t know if I wanted to see Kyle. He might say something reasonable. Something about me going to jail if I killed the person responsible for the deaths of Grandma Effy, Mom, Dad, and Will, or for the deaths of the other thirty people at Black Mesa Outpost.
I set the rifle down on the surface of my desk and slowly pushed it away. “Yeah, maybe you should call Kyle.”
***
Kyle’s response was to meet us at one of the sparring gyms. He brought one of the Dust Company cadets with him. He didn’t say anything, he just sort of waved at the other cadet. “Doug is on the Academy's competitive combatives team. Work your mad out, okay?”
I went after him. He was bigger than me, but he was just trying to defend himself. I didn’t use any techniques. I just came at him, punching, kicking, and occasionally throwing in elbows and knees. I don’t know how long I went, it could have been thirty seconds, it could have been an hour. At the end, I was panting, hands on my knees, barely able to see. My arms, shoulders, back, and legs all ached. Burning hot sweat dripped down in my eyes. Kyle came over, “You done?”
His friend was a few meters away. I tried to swing around and throw a punch at him, but I basically swayed and almost fell. Kyle caught me in his arms and held me, half support and half restraint. “Thanks, Doug,” he said, “I think we’re done here.”
Doug rubbed at a bruise swelling on his cheek where I sort of remembered throwing a flying punch. “Yeah, man, no problem. See you around, Biohazard.” He walked off while I trembled in Kyle’s arms.
“Feel better?” Kyle asked.
I focused inwards, wondering if the huge tide of rage was still there. It was, but it felt muted, temporarily sated. I felt as if it had burned through me a fire, and it had left nothing but emptiness and ashes in its place.
“So, care to tell me what that was about?” He asked in a conversational tone.
I reached out with a thought and turned off the monitors. I didn’t want this information getting out. “My summer assignment, the Admiral, she rigged it somehow. So I looked into it. I’m going to Summit Station.”
“I know,” Kyle said, “Me too.”
“You are?” I asked in shock.
“Yeah. Don’t forget, we both put in our assignment requests that we wanted to be each-other’s partners,” Kyle’s voice was amused. I had forgotten that. Normally when they sent Cadets out to units, they assigned them a ‘partner’ so they’d have someone to watch their back. That was in case a cadet found themselves in a hostile environment, they had another set of eyes there to watch out for them.
Kyle and I had talked about doing a dual assignment, but I’d forgotten about it. “So you’re assigned there too?” I felt weird about that. My half-formed fantasy of finding the person who’d doomed my family and gunning them down didn’t have room for Kyle in it. Somehow, that kind of revenge felt like something intensely personal.
“Yep, Nine-Thirty-Seventh, same as you,” he replied. “Their squadron commander already messaged me, maybe you too, just a few minutes after the list went out.”
I checked my implant. Sure enough, I had a message from Commander Arton. It was just a form letter, it didn’t even have my name in the text. It welcomed me to their unit for the duration of my orders and told me how to arrange for transportation to Summit Station and bille
ting upon arrival. There was a note at the end that Summit Station had limited space so they advised limiting personal possessions to less than five kilograms.
“Huh,” I still wasn’t sure how I felt about this. I was essentially going there as a spy, to find out who had betrayed the Militia, betrayed their oath. If Kyle came with me, knowing what he did, he was going to be at risk. I didn’t worry for a second about myself. I’d survived terrible things already. But Kyle...
“It will be fine,” he turned me around in his arms, facing me and meeting my gaze. I couldn’t meet his eyes. I didn’t want him to see the worry I felt.
I found myself speaking, “Kyle, maybe it would be better if--”
“Don’t you dare, Jiden,” He snapped, “don’t try to push me away.”
I buried my face in his chest. I felt suddenly ashamed. It just would have been so much easier, so much simpler, if I didn’t care so much about him. If I didn’t love him. “I love you,” I sobbed into his chest.
“I love you too, Jiden,” Kyle said gently. He tilted my chin up with one hand and then tilted his face down to meet mine. I felt ugly. I was covered in sweat, I stank, and my hair had come loose, falling around my face in a mess.
He didn’t seem to care and our lips met in a kiss that seemed to spread warmth all through my body. The aching of my muscles eased and my trembling stilled. I felt waves of emotion batter through me, like someone had let loose a sandstorm to blow through every corner of my being.
I found my hands tangled in his hair and his hands were elsewhere. I broke off the kiss, gasping for air for an altogether different reason. “We should probably stop,” I panted.
Kyle’s green eyes glittered, “Probably.”
We were in a public area. It wasn’t commonly frequented, especially not with finals being done and most people preparing for their summer assignments. But anyone could come in at any time. I thought about how embarrassed I might feel if someone walked in on us kissing. I weighed that against the way it felt to have my body pressed against his.
