by Aer-ki Jyr
“Where do I sign up?” he asked enthusiastically.
“Downstairs…but you can sign the papers later. Report back to the recruitment center on December 15th and don’t expect to see home again anytime soon. Where exactly you’re going I’m not allowed to know, but you have to leave everything behind. No phone, bag, clothes…nothing. From the time you ship out from here Star Force becomes your life.”
“Wow,” was all Paul could think to say.
“If you want in, that is. Think it over long and hard. If you decide that’s too much for you, just don’t show up the 15th and nothing further will be said. If you want in, show up, sign the contract, and ship out on the adventure of your life.”
“Oh, I’ll be here,” Paul said, grinning from ear to ear.
8
True to his word, Paul showed up at the Indy recruiting center on the 15th with his parents and sister, who watched him sign the paperwork and said their final goodbyes. A bit misty eyed, but eager to get underway with the promised adventure, Paul left his family in the lobby and entered the elevator…not realizing it would be the last time he’d ever see them face to face.
“You ready for this?” his handler asked. This was the third time he’d met the man, who had yet to give his name.
“Not sure what this is,” Paul noted, “but yeah, I’m ready.”
“Good,” he commented as the elevator doors opened. “First things first though. I need you to take a shower and get into a recruit’s uniform. Your clothes, shoes, watch and anything else on your person stay here. Do you have any piercings?”
“No.”
“In there,” the man pointed to a side room. “Various sizes of clothing have been laid out. Make sure it all fits before you leave.”
“Clean break…I get it,” Paul said, going inside the pristine locker room. Again, he was the only person present.
There were six booths, lined up two by three with a long bench in between the rows, on top of which his clothing options were laid out, along with a towel. He looked inside one of the booths and saw it was a mini-bathroom, including a shower. He grabbed the towel behind him and went inside.
A long ten minutes later he emerged from the booth clean as a whistle wearing nothing but the towel. The shower had a massage setting and he’d been tempted to stay in longer and soak up the warm water, but he didn’t want to keep his ride waiting. Paul sorted through the various sizes and styles of underwear, socks, and pants, grabbing what he thought would fit best and retreated into the booth to get dressed.
He came back out with pants on, but the socks had been too big. He changed them out for a tiny pair that looked far too small to fit him, but the material was stretchy enough that they ended up fitting just right.
The pants he wore were white with a blue stripe down the sides, and there were a number of matching jackets laid out, along with blue T-shirts made of some type of synthetic material that form fitted to his body as Paul wiggled one on. He tried on three of the jackets before again picking one that looked smaller than it fit, then went about trying on shoes.
Smooth covered with no laces, the shoes felt like his running shoes but had different size numbers than he was used to. Normally he wore a 9, but the ones labeled 3.2 fit him best. There was no way to tie or fasten the shoes, which felt odd, but the material also flexed enough to lightly grip his feet. While he would have classified the shoes as slip-ons, they didn’t wear like them and actually fit with the body-forming motif of the entire ensemble.
He took a few seconds to check his reflection in the wall length mirror then walked back over to the booth he’d used and grabbed his old clothing, which he deposited in an empty bin sitting on the table labeled as such.
Paul glanced around, taking in the moment.
“Here we go,” he whispered before heading back out the door.
“Looking better already,” the man commented, pointing him back towards the elevator. “You’re going to be flown down to Phoenix, then transferred to another flight that will take you to your final destination. And no, I don’t know where that is. From here on out you and the other A-7 recruits become ghosts as far as the rest of us are concerned.”
“Others?” Paul asked, entering the now familiar elevators.
“Everyone is being shipped out together, though you’re the only one from here. You’ll probably meet up with a few others at Phoenix, then the rest at your destination.”
“How many are there?”
“First recruiting class contains 100 slots,” the man said as the elevator opened onto the rooftop landing platform. “There’s your ride.”
Paul couldn’t help but smile as he saw the blocky VTOL Star Force transport sitting on the pad with its massive fan blade engines whining softly in preparation for launch. The design reminded him of the Pelican dropships from Halo, though this one looked a bit more robust. In fact, it looked too heavy altogether to leave the ground, but Paul had seen footage of the aircraft before and knew they were much more nimble than their fattish appearance allowed.
“Thanks,” Paul offered, leaving the man at the elevator hub and crossing the wide snowy rooftop pad to where another Star Force member was waiting for him at the aft boarding ramp.
“Welcome to the party,” she said jovially, motioning him inside. “Guess you’re the only customer today.”
“Looks like it,” Paul said, walking up the ramp and into the Mantis-class transport. There was an equipment/cargo bay directly aft, looking like the bottom half of a metallic box, but in front of that were a pair of rows of high backed seats underneath an overhead storage compartment.
“You need to strap in for takeoff, but after we get underway just relax, take a nap, or do some reading,” she said, handing him a small computer pad with internet access.
“Sweet,” Paul said, accepting the anti-boredom device as he sat down. There were no windows in the aft section of the Mantis, and the two rows of seats were facing each other over a small open section with the pilot’s compartment to his right, from which there was a steady stream of outside light in addition to that coming from the boarding ramp.
When the co-pilot closed it, the interior illumination panels lit up and kept the inside amicably cheery despite the Spartan design of the Star Force workhorse. Virtually all personnel and cargo transfers were accomplished via a fleet of these small aircraft, giving the space-focused corporation the 5th largest airborne cargo fleet on the planet.
After checking to make sure Paul’s straps were secure, the co-pilot retreated to the forward compartment and strapped herself in for takeoff. Though he couldn’t see it, he could both feel and hear the six fan blade engine pods on the Mantis’s exterior ramp up and shoot the transport into the sky.
It gained vertical altitude quickly, then extended four recessed wing blades and tipped the engine pods to begin lateral thrust. Within 10 seconds they were gaining speed and headed out of Indiana’s capitol city towards the southwest.
Paul quickly realized the necessity of the restraints, having dropped his pad during the abrupt takeoff. Once the flight settled out he unstrapped and retrieved the device from the floor, glad to see that it hadn’t broken. When he turned it on he realized it wasn’t just for internet access…it was also a link-in to Star Force’s own data network.
His attention immediately caught, he perused through historical records, schematics, data files, and even found the tracking program that showed his Mantis’s exact position and projected flight path along with hundreds of others currently in the air, as well as the ground to orbit traffic coming out of four Star Force spaceports at or near the equator.
The otherwise long flight passed quickly for Paul, who was devouring the newly accessible information as fast as he could retrieve it. Star Force had been in existence for nearly 15 years, and in that time they’d established quite an extensive database.
Paul had barely scratched the surface when the co-pilot stuck her head back into the passenger compartment.
/> “Hi. Need to strap in again, we’re about to land.”
“Got it,” Paul confirmed, grabbing the couplers and cinching himself back in. The co-pilot waited to make sure he was snug then disappeared back into the cockpit. A few moments later he heard the wing blades retract and the engine pods ramp up their thrust as their speed slowed and Paul’s head tilted right, his shoulders testing the strength of the restraints, but the violent acceleration that he’d felt on liftoff never manifested itself and the landing went much smoother than he’d anticipated.
The co-pilot reappeared and watched him unstrap. “I’ll need that back.”
“Thanks,” Paul said, handing it back to her.
“These trips can get pretty boring if you don’t have something to focus your mind on,” she said as the aft boarding ramp began to lower.
“Sweet ride though,” Paul offered.
“That it is,” she agreed with a smile as the ramp hit the ground. “Off you go.”
Paul nodded to her and walked down to meet another Star Force member, this one wearing a uniform much like his own, only without the blue stripes.
“You’re Paul?” he asked.
“I am.”
“Follow me,” the man said, heading off what Paul soon realized was an insanely large airfield, with dozens of Mantises parked on individual pads sprinkled throughout a sea of empty ones, along with some larger transports that he’d never seen before.
“What is this place?” he asked, catching up to the man and falling in step side by side with him.
“It’ll be our 5th spaceport when it’s completed next year. For our purposes it’s a staging area to assemble the trainees.”
“Our?”
“I’ve been assigned to the A-7 project as one of your handlers. Name’s Jenkins,” he said, extending his hand.
“Paul Taylor,” he said, accepting the gesture. “Can you tell me what A-7 actually is?”
“Not yet. It’ll be explained to all of you simultaneously once we reach the training site.”
“And where’s that?”
“Classified,” Jenkins said almost apologetically. “Don’t worry, you’ll get all the answers you want soon enough.”
9
Paul was led inside a commons area that was partially operational and got a bite to eat while he waited for the rest of the trainees to arrive, which took another two hours. Then he and five others boarded another Mantis and took off for locations unknown. Jenkins sat on one end of the twin rows of seats, next to the cargo section on Paul’s side while the trainees were seated three facing three with ample room to spare between them. The seating compartment was designed to hold a dozen.
Across from him sat three guys, each looking to be about 20 or so. Seated to Paul’s right was another guy that he guessed was his age, while on his left was, to his surprise, a girl that was probably older than them all, though he couldn’t be sure. All of them could easily have been college students, which was where Paul had been headed in a few months had he not tested out for Star Force.
None of them spoke much, and the first half hour of their trip was sat in silence with them seeming to size each other up then interest themselves in the computer pads they’d been given to pass the time, but after a while Paul couldn’t help himself and leaned over his shoulder and whispered to the girl.
“Did you really run sub 5:00?”
She looked back at him. “4:39 converted from a 1500.”
“College then?” Paul guessed, impressed.
“Duke, last year. You?”
“4:29 converted from a 1600,” he said, happy to have still been faster than her.
“Relay split?”
“Regional, actually.”
“High school?” she asked, frowning. “What state runs 1600?”
“Indiana.”
“Really?” she asked. Most states ran 1500 as their ‘mile.’ Colleges and pros too.
“Four laps makes more sense than three and three quarters,” he argued, sticking up a bit for his state. “And we don’t have the stupid classes either. Our state meet is a real state meet.”
“Relax, kid. I just didn’t realize anyone ran 1600.”
“Kid?” Paul asked disappointed, overacting the part. “Guess that means dating is out of the question.”
She laughed. “If I wanted a love life I’d already have one.”
“Hard to get, huh?”
“No, I just get tired of guys seeing a girl and thinking we have nothing better to do than fall in love,” she said with a mix of sarcasm and levity.
Paul smiled. “Fair enough.”
“I’m Sara, by the way,” she offered.
“Paul,” he answered her, then turned to the others. “We’re all A-7, right?”
He received four nods of agreement.
“Am I the youngest here?” he asked, glancing around. “I’m 17, just graduated from high school. She’s out of college,” he said, pointing at Sara, “and you guys?”
“22…name’s Scott,” the guy directly across from Paul said.
“18,” the guy on his right said. “I just graduated too. I’m Ryan.”
“Yori…21…and I was a sophomore at UNC before getting this gig.”
“How old are you?” the last guy, seated to Paul’s cattycorner left, asked Sara.
“23,” she answered.
“Guess that makes me the old man at 24. I’m Greg Statburn.”
“The Greg Statburn…” Ryan asked, doing a double take. “…from the Denver Broncos?”
“The same.”
“Actually,” Jenkins interrupted, “you’re Greg 073 now. Your last names got left behind along with all your other possessions. You’re Sara 012,” the handler continued. “Paul 024. Ryan 096. Scott 055. Yori 007.”
“Awesome,” Yori exclaimed at getting James Bond’s number.
“How many of us are there?” Sara asked.
“A hundred.”
“So does somebody have number 100 or 000?”
“All of your group start with numeral 0. Number 100 will be the first member of the second class,” Jenkins explained.
“Why not start everyone with number 1?” Paul asked. “That way it matches the group number.”
“No…” Yori muttered in protest.
“Not my decision,” Jenkins deferred. “But the identifiers are going to stick. Like it or not, that’s your name from now on.”
“Anything else we need to know?” Greg asked Jenkins.
“Not at the moment.”
“Well then,” Greg continued. “My background is obviously football, what about you?”
“Track,” Sara answered.
“Same here,” Paul chimed in.
“Soccer,” Ryan said, tossing a warning glance at Paul.
“Soccer?” he echoed dramatically. “Can’t believe I’m sitting next to you.”
“Same here,” Ryan said tongue in cheek. The two sports in high school didn’t mesh well.
Sara elbowed Paul in the ribs, but he could see she was cracking a smile.
“What’s wrong with soccer?” Scott asked.
“You too?” Paul accused.
“No, I’m Canadian…or was,” he said, glancing at Jenkins.
“Hockey?” Ryan asked.
“What else?”
“What about you 007?” Greg asked.
“Gymnastics,” he answered deadpan.
Paul glanced at Ryan, then back at Yori. “That’s even worse.”
“Na,” he said, laughing, “I’m just kidding…Triathlon.”
Paul had to laugh at that. Gymnasts’ builds were so ill suited to running that he doubted any of them could have run a sub 5:00 mile. In fact, he should have known better. “How fast?”
“4:20,” Yori answered.
Paul nodded once out of respect. Not quite as fast as Carter, but still well beyond him.
“Do any of you know what we’ll actually be doing?” Scott asked. “They wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“Me neither,” Greg echoed. The others all shook their heads no.
“A few more hours and that will all change,” Jenkins said calmly, but with a bit of eerie reverence in his voice. “I can promise you that.”
The six trainees exchanged glances, catching the odd sound in his voice.
“Guess we wait then,” Greg pronounced. “Anyone up for a game,” he said, hefting his computer pad.
“Bring it,” Paul responded, calling up the games subdirectory.
“I’m game,” Sara added.
“Sure, why not,” Ryan agreed.
“Jenkins, you want in?” Greg offered.
“I’m good,” the man said, leaning back fractionally and crossing his arms.
“I’m in,” Scott added.
“Mario Kart?” Yori suggested.
“I call Yoshi,” Paul said quickly.
“Mario Kart it is,” Greg declared, pulling up the game file. “But I have to warn you, I’m a wicked shot with a turtle shell.”
After many hours of gaming, talking, and napping the Mantis finally arrived at their destination with the copilot linking in their computer pads to the external cameras so they could watch their approach.
“What is that?” Sara asked, seeing a grey island in the middle of the ocean.
“It’s what will be Atlantis when it’s finished,” Jenkins said without needing to look at a screen. “It’ll be Star Force’s primary hub, as well as your new home for the foreseeable future. The training areas are complete, along with about half the interior. The rest will take another two years to complete.”
“Is it floating?” Ryan asked, studying his pad intently.
“We’re in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but there are no landmasses in the area. The city is built up from the sea floor.”
“How deep?” Paul asked.
“Should be in your data files,” Jenkins directed.
The six of them quickly located the ‘Atlantis’ file and pulled up the city’s schematics.
“Six kilometers wide?” Scott said in dismay.
