“Yes, sir!” he snapped and stood as stiff in attention as I had earlier, a somber expression on his face. I knew he felt bad, and he should.
“Thanks to you, no R&R until we hit the next simulation in three days. Not for you, not for Layla, and not for me. We’ll train, study, eat, sleep, and shit. That’s all we’re gonna do until we make it to the top ten rankings. And even when you’re taking a shit, I want to see your INAS turned on and your head in battle tactics, war strategy, nanite theory, and enemy analysis. Is that clear?”
“Sir, yes sir!” they answered in unison.
“I want a battle report of today’s simulation on my INAS by the end of the day. I want an analysis of our mistakes plus any suggestions and ideas on what could have been better. If you fail to hand in your report, I’ll have you juiced until you finish. Clear?”
“Sir, yes sir!”
“Good, we have lectures on conflict history in one hour. Before we go there, you hit the gym, both of you. I’ll join you soon in there.”
I knew I pissed off Layla for not reprimanding just him, but there was a classic army lesson there: everyone was responsible for their squadmates, as their mistakes were your mistakes. I knew she would be harder on him for a while, and I was counting on it. Perhaps she would drill a hole in his head wide enough for some sense to take root.
As soon as they were gone, I strode to the single facility where they allowed Technomancers to summon their familiars. When I got there and stopped in front of the door, I closed my eyes, remembering my first time in such a place. The joy and elation I felt at becoming more useful to my squad had been something that never left my system, at least not until I died.
“Are you going to keep standing out there, Sergeant?” a female voice said over a tiny speaker that sat concealed above the door, right next to a camera.
“Sorry. May I come in?”
The door buzzed open and I walked in, trying to keep my composure as best as I could. I strolled in and took in the sterile room. It was easily as large as a basketball field, with multiple chambers for summoning familiars and several vats filled with O-Nan.
“What can I do for you, Stavos?” the woman seated behind the desk asked.
“Lillian?” I almost yelled and caught myself. “You’ve been recalled as well?”
“Sure have. They said there would be a certain batch of old Technomancers present, among which a certain Stavos. I couldn’t pass up on the invitation, right?”
Lillian got up and walked around the desk, stopping in front of me. She pushed the door closed with one hand while using the other to pull me in for a hug. I wanted to protest and push her away, but I couldn’t. She was the first woman I’d ever been with and the woman I’d been with the longest.
“It’s good to see you,” I whispered as my hands made their way around her waist. “It really is.”
“It better be. I left my life behind to see you again, you know? Not that I blame you, but… I never was the same after we happened.”
“Yeah, we really did, huh? And got almost kicked out because of our fooling around with nanites back then. Don’t tell me you want to do it again.”
“And what if I did? They’re severely lacking in a certain department that has to deal with Technomancers, you know?”
I let out a sigh and let go of her, suddenly remembering there must be cameras all over this place.
“So, what now?”
“Now? Why don’t we summon that golem of yours? We can talk afterward.”
I nodded and approached the summoning chamber, then put my hands on the panel and waited for the scan to proceed. Lillian stayed quiet, knowing I was familiar with the process. The room lit up and millions of tiny O-Nans rose from the floor, gathered at the center, and started rising along with two columns. Or legs to be more precise.
A minute passed as the nanite golem finally took shape. It was a bipedal robot with thick legs and four powerful arms, of which two looked like power-fists, and two ended in hook-like hands. A red light glowed beneath its translucent egg-like head. It stood a head shorter than I, but it radiated strength from its bulky body.
The golem twitched and flinched several times as the nanites in my body and the ones he was made of synchronized. Sure, I would be just ordering it around, but the syncing really helped when making split-second decisions.
“So, what now?” I asked as the golem strode out and stopped in front of me, the gun-metal gray color shiny as the polished ceiling.
“Now you tell me if you’re interested in what we did years back. I’d like to do some more experiments with Technomancer familiars, but you can’t tell anyone.”
“Will I get to spend more time with you?”
She shrugged as a tiny smirk made its way up to her face and then disappeared.
“I don’t see how we can do it otherwise.”
“Yeah, how about I contact you over the INAS later? Add me while I’m here so we can chat later.”
I made my way to one of the other specialized rooms quickly after reminiscing for a short while about the last three years we spent doing ordinary and menial stuff. Like working for big companies that made weapons of war. I sighed, thinking back on it as I strode through the wide corridors.
I arrived at the holo-room several minutes later. Having a really big dislike for the rooms, I didn’t frequent them very often as I preferred to train as a team, not as a single unit. Still, I was too excited to wait for our next simulation. I had to try out my golem right away.
“Start holo-program,” I said as the door closed behind me.
Detera’s green skies spread above me, along with the ruined city in which I found myself. The simulation was a near-perfect representation of the super-planet. Ka tech allowed for such absurdly realistic landscapes and the AI of the enemy soldiers, though not as able to adapt and improvise as real Aloi soldiers, was still extremely impressive. Two more months and we would hit Alpha Station, then shortly after, planetfall; and I’d get to see the real thing. Not that I was looking forward to it.
The holo-rooms were one of the places you could get stats quite easily if you knew what you were going for, but it was still much slower than real life. They told us that nanites worked best when you faced a real enemy, because your consciousness, and hence your whole body, would never be at the same level of stress in a simulation as it would in real life. It made sense. But two months, that was still quite enough time for us to prepare and make the best of the holo-enemies they threw at us.
I focused. Feeling the nanites stream through my body and reach out for my golem. Before I started the fight, I quickly checked its abilities. The tank-bot had an ability that allowed it to cluster its nanites on certain parts of its body, rendering them harder to penetrate. It could also charge the enemy from a distance, and most importantly, it had a way of taunting Aloi soldiers into attacking them. It was almost funny how it accomplished that feat, namely the tank bot would utter horrendously offensive things to the fanatically religious Aloi soldiers. It didn’t always work but when it did, it was extremely effective.
I wasn’t able to keep the smile off my face, but still somehow felt angry and despised myself for not returning to the military. The familiars were a force to be reckoned with, and feeling a tiny slither of power I felt back then was intoxicating beyond words. A couple of years ago, my golem was the terror of the Aloi, this one…
I snapped out of it. Nothing was stopping me from becoming as powerful as I was. And to be honest, I shouldn’t even think about getting to where I was, I should be aiming higher. Much higher.
“Project Raintrooper.”
The hologram was perfect, just like always as it appeared there, created from the same nanites but configured to provide the same kind of power and resistance we’d face in the real world. The most common foot soldier of the Aloi Hegemony took up its battle stance and was ready to engage.
I focused my mind on the golem and ordered it in right away. Bucky used the ability Cha
rge right away and slammed into the trooper, stunning him for a second. All four of its powerful arms started slamming into the Aloi, ripping at the armor and dealing as much damage as possible before the target had a chance to recuperate.
Several seconds passed before the first crack was visible, and just in time as the Aloi shook the stun off him. Instead of tackling the golem, it turned its gaze on me and was ready to dash in my direction, but the golem’s taunt stopped it in its track.
The two erupted into a full-on brawl, fists flying in all directions as the spear slammed into its chest over and over again, causing damage to the golem. Although fairly sturdy, the Raintroopers silk-spear blows caused severe damage to my familiar. After some back and forth, my golem was almost incapacitated so I decided to call the thing off.
“Stop the program.” The whole simulation disappeared, leaving nothing but a small grey room in its wake. “My fat, little protector. Bucky the Buckler it is again, just like in our previous life. Now, how about we have a look at what the others are up to?”
4
A week had passed since we proved to Tailor that Squad 88 wasn’t going to make the same mistakes again. The last simulation was extremely successful, and since we had all moved past level ten, we pretty much steamrolled over those Raintroopers earning 240 points in one simulation which catapulted us to rank eight. It was beyond anyone’s expectations and I was on my way to the cantina for a bit of well-deserved R&R.
I’d been pressing hard on the two of them, but it paid off in the end. Making them wait for me in the cantina was my way of showing they still had to follow orders. At least I had somewhat of a celebratory gift to share with them: a bottle of black reindeer that I smuggled on board. I hid it in one of the standard grey army cups so nobody would notice. Drunk soldiers were nothing new, but smuggling stuff could earn you a week in solitary.
All of the hallways of the interstellar arc Knez’un were rather wide for a spaceship. The designers of the giant ship that carried entire human carriers in its cargo didn’t have tiny humans in mind when they made those hallways. Arc ships like Knez’un were made by Ka technology for the Ka and the Imminy, and the rest of the Commonwealth races had to adjust.
We usually stayed in our own carriers parked in the cargo hold during interstellar flight because they were, well, made for humans by humans. We took the day off and since we weren’t doing anything smart anyway, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for them to become accustomed to some of the other races in the Commonwealth Federation.
Just as I was about to turn a corner, six Orros in full Guardian-armor came about. They carried massive, human-sized shields in one hand and golden Nas-spears in the other. I immediately knew what was about to turn the corner next. The Orros were the Commonwealth Federation’s most backward race and yet they were the favorite bodyguards of the Imminies.
They were eight-foot-tall, stocky, brown beasts of war, and although they were stronger than any other race in the Federation, their use on modern battlefields was very limited because they had a hard time operating technology. Anything more complex than a weapon and a shield confused them endlessly. Still, in close quarters—like in that very instance I found myself in—they were extremely deadly. The main reason the Imminies preferred the Orros was their absolute and undying loyalty.
When the Imminies annexed their home world, the Orros’ home planet was locked in perpetual tribal warfare. To the Orros, the Imminies were nothing short of godlike beings who showed them a glimpse of the Galaxy, and once the primitives started believing in them like Gods, the entire race united behind the Federation banner, promising to forever worship and protect their new gods.
Finally, the Imminy pilot came about as I stood there with my head slightly bowed and to the side. I always thought they looked like the spawn of an octopus and a jellyfish. Behind the six Orros an anti-grav platform carried the Imminy’s water tank and, in it, the mysterious hyper-intelligent alien swam.
It was a colorful being that emitted soft blue light inside the water. Six long tentacles were the main appendages, but an array of shorter, thinner strings moved like grass in the wind bellow the bell-like head. It had no eyes or mouth that you could discern, and if it wasn’t for the translator boxes in their tanks, it couldn’t communicate directly with other races.
In military school, we were taught that the Imminy were the first race the Ka discovered. They evolved on a planet completely covered in a massive ocean. The particular circumstances of the planet gave way to beings so incredible in size that they easily put anything that evolved on Earth to shame.
Some of the greater animals grew to be as big as human battleships, almost a mile in diameter. This of course also meant an abundance of terrifying predators. As nature would have it, the Imminies had to evolve incredible intellectual abilities to compete for survival, and while their race hit the level of intelligence humans had millions of years ago, they never managed to increase in numbers.
True Imminy civilization was denied for eons as they hid from nightmarish predators. As natural selection continued, the Imminy’s main survival skill—their intellect—grew beyond anything a human could imagine. Eventually, their race prevailed and they conquered their ocean and exterminated their enemies. That is why only an Imminy could pilot an interstellar ship. And that is why humankind would forever be in their debt.
Every single… whatever we were as a collective of aliens, moved as the Imminy pilot passed along with his Orros escort. I felt the Imminy looking at me as it passed by, and yes, even without eyes. I kept my black reindeer behind my back with the unreasonable assumption that an Imminy would reprimand me for it. It wouldn’t, of course, and who knew if it even acknowledged my existence, but dealing with these beings was tiresome in itself. Alien races, even after all these years, were still very alien to me.
The cantina was packed to the brim with all sorts of Commonwealth races: The Shia, the Takkari, the Oolan Jan, and many more. Even a couple of Orros sat at a table eating some raw meat that smelled up the whole place. Nobody wanted to be the first to complain though, despite the number of glances thrown their way.
Layla and Leo waited and sipped the water as they sat there, looking around for me. Layla was explaining something to Leo in a very Layla type of way—swinging her arms, yelling, clenching her fists demonstratively, and generally being more of an Orros than a human.
Their annoyance at seeing me being so late was swept away into nothingness as they noticed the bottle of black reindeer.
“Kids,” I said as I sat down. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“All good, Boss,” Leo grinned.
“Nothing much. We’re just relaxing today. Here, take some.”
It didn’t take long for them to warm up to me. We didn’t talk much about the past week nor the lives we led lightyears away. Layla was constantly looking over her shoulder, staring at the other aliens. Well, we were alien to them as well, so it went both ways, I guessed.
Still, she seemed jumpy from all the faces around her. No wonder, as she grew up on Bella IV, one of humanity’s two farm planets. At least that’s what she told me.
Barely a hundred million people lived on Bella IV because most of the land was converted into giant farms. Almost all of her life was hard manual labor, so she dropped out of school at fourteen. Ever since it was her muscles that did all the thinking for her.
There were two casts of people on farm planets in general, she told me. Those who owned all the land and the farms, which weren’t even 1% of the population, and then there was the rest. Millions of people that tried to get by one way or the other. Most of the work was robotized anyway. A handful of people could work thousands of square miles of land, so there was no purpose for most young people there.
“See, I smuggled myself in on a Federation cargo ship that came once every six months to fill its belly with crops,” she said as the alcohol had already taken root inside her bloodstream. “After landing on Persei Prime, I lived a year all ove
r the place, but mostly on the streets. Most of my time was spent fighting and stealing, cheating, and fighting some more,” she muttered. “But then I applied to the military, and by the grace of… God, I was accepted.”
I could see why they did so. The girl showed promise, so they put her in for specialist training, and now she was here.
“You’re one tough bi—” Leo began but Layla grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.
“Don’t you call me that, sunny boy, or I’ll crack your teeny-weeny nuts!”
“All right, all right, calm down, big girl,” he laughed. “But you are.”
Layla smacked him on the back of his head. The chemistry between the two seemed to have improved in the last couple of weeks. Layla used to constantly belittle Leo in the beginning. She thought his quiet manners were a sign of weakness, but that soon changed when Leo had come through in the battle simulations. Not only was he very good with his rifle, but he was also quite quick with a knife.
When half the black reindeer was gone, I got up from the table.
“Sarge, you’re not leaving us, are you?” Leo asked.
“I am, Leo. It’s almost ten, so I’ll leave you with the rest of the drink.”
“Ahh!” Layla muttered. “Stay a little longer?”
I shook my head, remembering the first time she asked me to stay longer, and chuckled.
“Don’t be late tomorrow.”
“No, sir!” Layla said, saluting me a little too comfortably for my taste.
“And don’t you start nothing with any of the other races.”
“I wouldn’t talk to them even if they asked me to,” she whispered and looked over her shoulder as if searching for someone who might have overheard her.
I didn’t smile. I was fond of her. She did her job, and she did it well, but her hillbilly demeanor could get on one’s nerves quickly.
Starblood: A Military Space Opera Series (War Undying Book 1) Page 5
