by Lance Berry
Travis knocked on Marion’s door, but there was no answer. He wondered where she could be, and whether he should wait on one of the couches in the main lobby for her. Aboard a Heavy Cruiser, the ship’s smartware could track the locations of each and every individual at all times–but on a large campus facility with so much outdoors there was no such way to do something like that. He opted to head back to his room, then changed his mind and headed for the game room.
The game room was off a side corridor connected to the main lobby, and was equipped with several pool tables, chess and checkers sets, and virtual reality immersion systems containing different combat and recreation programs. Many students used the VR more for combat practice than actual recreation, but either way the system was on a timer, since some found it mildly addicting.
There were few people in the room, and Danielle was one of them. She was playing pool against a fellow upperclassman–Travis couldn’t remember his name–and beating him handily. “I play winner,” Travis announced as he came over to them. Danielle glanced up as she targeted the eight ball. “Hope you don’t mind hearing someone else say that right after you,” she said with a wry smile. She tapped her cue against the ball lightly, just enough to send it rolling across the table and neatly into the right corner pocket that she had called. The upperclassman shook his head and pulled out a dsp. “You’re killin’ me, Keys. You are actually killin’ me,” he said with a disgusted grunt. “What’s your code?”
“Seven-seven-five-seven-oh-nine,” she said giddily. He grumbled under his breath as he tabbed in commands to the small calculator-like device. “Funds transferred,” a synthesized female voice answered.
“Enjoy,” he said dryly as he handed his pool stick to Travis and walked away. Travis looked at her in shock. “You’re gambling? That’s illegal on campus! Hell, it’s illegal for any cadet off-campus!”
“Would you prefer I give him a lap dance to earn extra creds?” she said slyly. “Besides, it’s not much. Fifty credits a match.”
“Fifty,” he whispered in surprise. “That’s two meals for some people.”
“Boo-hoo,” she said with a false frown. “Everybody knows the rules coming into it. I’ve made five hundred and fifty credits in just the last two hours. If anyone asks, it was payment for study help, which is acceptable under UEF regs.”
“Barely,” Travis said with emphasis on the word.
“You gonna step up or what? Just ‘cause you can knock the eye out of an eagle with a Blastrifle doesn’t mean you can shoot pool worth a damn. I’ll bet I can beat you in five set-ups.”
Travis cocked his head to the side, taking her measure. He then walked over to the pool stick rack on the wall as he spoke. “First of all, I’m not going to bet. I have enough demerits as is.” He replaced the stick that had been handed to him with a fresh one. He quickly wiped his right hand–the one that had been holding that first stick–on his pants and then hefted the new one to judge its balance as he continued, “Secondly, my father was breaking the regs and taking money from dumbass cadets while you were still swimming around in your daddy’s left nut. And we didn’t always not get along every second while he was on shore leave. So who do you think he taught all his moves to?”
Danielle smiled widely, knowing that she was about to take down the mighty Travis Rand. “Oh, this is going to be fun. Okay, no money down– but I wanna bet something. What’s it gonna be?”
Travis considered the problem, deciding to tread lightly. He had an inkling of what Danielle might want should she win, and he did have a fiancée to think about. He glanced around the room at the other five cadets going about their business. He couldn’t resist. “All right. If I win, you have to go around to each one of these guys and tell them a sexual secret about yourself.”
Danielle’s mouth opened slightly in apprehension. “What do you mean?”
Travis smiled shrewdly. “I mean, you have to go around and totally out of the blue, tell each of them a different sexual thing about yourself. The first time you got laid, what you like to do in bed, what you like to have done to you, whatever. A different one for each guy in here.”
“I’ve got a boyfriend,” she hissed through her teeth as she leaned across the table, trying not to let anyone else hear her. “These guys are gonna think I want them!”
“Well…some stakes cost more than money.”
Danielle’s lip curled upwards, and she stood upright as she attempted to stare him down. “Fine. Then if I win, you have to go around to each one of these guys and ask them to spank you.”
“What?” Travis exclaimed loudly, which caused the other cadets to glance at him briefly. He lowered his tone significantly as he leaned across the table at Danielle. “These guys are gonna want to take me apart if I do that!”
“’Some stakes cost more than money’,” she said sarcastically in a whiny, nasally voice. Travis straightened back up. “All right, you’re on. But since you won last game, I break this time.”
“Fine by me.”
In retrospect, Danielle thought later, it was the dumbest move she could have made. With one break, almost half of Travis’ striped balls obediently went down into the table’s pockets. He immediately took control of the game, and Danielle didn’t get in a single shot. Three minutes later, when it was over, she could only stare at the striped ball-less table in mute disbelief.
Travis smiled broadly as he leaned on his pool cue. “I do believe you have a message for your public,” he said as he gestured to the other cadets. Danielle looked at them despairingly, and her lower lip trembled. She looked back to Travis. “Please, I can’t. You know it’ll be all over campus by supper. Tony will kill me.”
Travis felt bad as he observed his defeated friend, but he couldn’t resist a dig. “Sure, be all big and tough when you’re winning. But it’s okay to welsh when you’re on the losing end. Too bad we didn’t play for creds.”
Danielle set her stick down on the table and walked over to him. “I think I have a very fair compromise,” she said, and grasped the back of his neck, bending his head toward her. She leaned close, and whispered five different things in his ear. It took her almost two minutes to explain them all. When she was done, Travis felt very warm, and realized he was sweating lightly and his pants were suddenly very constrictive. She stepped back, gave his pants an appreciative once-over, then left the room with a knowing smile on her face.
Travis was about to leave the game room to try and find Marion again, when the lights dimmed just a bit. “All students, please pay attention to the viewscreen,” the synthetic voice calmly intoned. “All students, to your nearest viewscreen.” The vid-screen near the dart board on the rear wall activated, as always displaying the UEF standard.
Travis pushed aside everything on his mind–Danielle and her intimate proclivities, the conversation he wanted to have with Marion–and focused on the viewer as the A.N.N. logo appeared, followed by an anchorman in the central newsroom. “Good morning. I’m Tyler Jameson, bringing you news of an exciting victory for our forces in the Capella star-system! As our viewers know, a great loss occurred earlier today in the Castor system. However, even as that armada was in its death throes, reinforcements were on their way, led by Captain David Christenson of the Victory!”
Travis and the others cheered and clapped at the news. Jameson nodded happily, almost as if he could hear them and was waiting patiently for them to finish. “In an unprecedented move, United Earth Force has allowed A.N.N. to interview Captain Christenson live via transpace communication, while his fleet is on its way back to Earth space. Here now live…Captain David Christenson.”
Travis and the others watched in rapt attention as Jameson turned to a viewscreen positioned behind him. It activated, and Christenson appeared, seated on the bridge of his ship. The picture on Jameson’s viewscreen wavered for an instant, but then stabilized, only intermittently sprinkled with static.
“Captain Christenson, this is Tyler Jameson of Allied Network News. C
an you see and hear me alright?”
Christenson nodded. “You’re coming through just fine, Tyler. The Victory has just come out of light speed so that we can carry on our conversation. There may be some slight breakup, due to distance and transpace shockwaves carried out by our egress from hyperspace, but we’ll go as long as we can.”
“Thank you, Captain. If I may ask, how many of your task fleet is left?”
“Well, the exact number of our forces at the moment is classified. But after the battle, I would say a good eighty-five percent is still with us.”
“Eighty-five percent…” Travis repeated in awe. In the best engagements with Calvorian ships, it was a lucky thing if sixty-five or seventy percent were able to make it back. But eighty-five…
Jameson shook his head in wonder. “Amazing, Captain…absolutely amazing. Tell our audience, please: What were your thoughts going into combat? Your comrades in a task force dying, only hours earlier…how do you go into combat like that?”
Christenson didn’t even seem to truly ponder the question, as much as anticipate it. “When you’re going into combat, whether against a singular opponent or an armada, you can only think about how you’re going to achieve victory–not whether you will. Sun Tzu claimed that every battle is won before it’s ever fought. A more accurate statement would be that victory is brought about by a lack of doubt and certainty of purpose. The instant a soldier starts to doubt himself, the battle is lost.”
A short while later, Travis wandered out of the game room, walking on air. Although the interview was shorter than he had hoped, Travis was completely taken with David Christenson and his ideals on combat. He went back to his room to do Overnet research on Christenson’s career, and completely forgot about the conversation he wanted to have with Marion.
The rest of the semester seemed to race by. Before Travis knew it, he stood with his P.C. in Sensei Ling’s class and had to give his dissertation on his personal beliefs in the principles of Jeet Kune Do. The class stood in three neat rows, each at-attention as Ling went up and down each one, asking each student for their answer to the problem he had posed at the beginning of the year. Travis and the others listened, eager to hear what their peers had come up with as each gave their answer to Ling. Some of the answers were intriguing, some thought provoking, while a couple Travis found to be nearly laughable, although he didn’t show it outwardly.
Finally, Ling approached him. “Cadet Rand. What is your philosophy on the principles and use of Jeet Kune Do?”
As Travis had promised his sensei, it had taken him up until the last moments before class for him to come up with a unique philosophy all his own. But thinking back to the things he had read about David Christenson’s career and his tactical decisions in battle had helped. He looked Ling directly in the eyes, completely assured as he said, “Do not seek to use Jeet Kune Do. Do not expect to use Jeet Kune Do. In your unpreparedness, be prepared to use it.”
Ling stepped back an inch, and Travis could have sworn the sensei had to fight back a smile as he nodded in approval. “Very good, Cadet Rand.” He then moved to a position of optimal view, so all his students could see him as he spoke. “I am very proud of all of you. Over the course of four years, you have become true practitioners of an original art form which has survived for two centuries. As my apprentices, it is now your duty to continue your practice, and to one day carry on your teaching to the next generation, so that Sensei Lee’s legacy can live on.” Ling’s lips trembled unexpectedly, giving his pupils some concern. For an instant, it seemed as if he were on the verge of some type of emotional outlet, something his students had rarely seen in all the time they had known him. Ling paused a moment, seeming to center himself, to calm himself, before going on. “I have seen many students succeed and fail in the service over the years. By fail, I do not mean personally…I mean perish. It is my hope, my prayer,” and he looked meaningfully at Travis as he said that last, “that all of you will be cautious, be aware, and survive your tour of duty. I am fond of each of you, and hope that I will see you again one day, under more genial circumstances. Farewell.”
He bowed to them, and they returned his grace. Without another word, he turned and walked away. The students watched him go, then turned to one another to offer congratulations and chat a bit before heading off to their other classes.
As always, Travis returned to his dorm room to change into a fresh steel grey senior uniform before heading to his next course. Soon enough, he was on the firing range and blasting away with his classmates at targets up to four hundred yards away. As class came to an end, Macavee gathered the students around and tallied their firing results. “Skovarinov, very good …King, very good…Holmes, damn good…Cadet Rand. The only one in the class to hit every target dead-on ninety-six percent of the time. You’re going to be a regular killing machine.” Macavee nodded a few times as he re-read the scores to himself. Finally, he looked up at the class once more. “Proud of you folks. Damn good job. I’ll see you all at commencement.”
Although Travis was proud of his accomplishment in weapons class– Macavee was a hard man to impress–Professor Ivanston’s class was another matter altogether. Ivanston chose to keep the cadets waiting in the main classroom, then call them into the simulator room one at a time to let them know their final scores. When it was Travis’ turn, Ivanston had him stand at-ease while he himself half-sat on the wing of the mock Predator class DFC the school had received for flight training only the year before. “Cadet Rand, it is my sad duty to inform you that I cannot recommend that you be assigned as a DFC pilot.”
Travis was floored. “What? Why? What did I do wrong?”
Ivanston raised a hand for him to calm down. Travis fell silent, and the professor stood now, pacing slowly back-and-forth in front of the DFC as he explained: “Don’t get me wrong, Travis…you are a very competent pilot. You’re good at directionals, approach vectors and jumping into light speed. However, ‘competent’ just will not cut it during a high-stakes battle. It is in a moment like that that a pilot has to rely on an innate sense within them-selves, to make maneuvers which just can’t be taught in a flight class. I honestly do not believe that you possess such a skill.”
Travis huffed in exasperation, and a sudden lightheadedness briefly washed over him. He felt like he might throw up at any moment. “I don’t understand how you can make a call like that. If you’re talking about carrying out maneuvers that can’t be taught in class, what about my pulling out of a freefall at nearly forty thousand feet? I don’t remember being given a manual on how to do that! You put me in that first group to go up because I had finished near the top of the class!”
“Very true,” Ivanston replied, holding up a finger to still him. “But as I said, you are very technically proficient. And while I did take into account your handling of a critical situation, I had to balance that against the fact that had Cadet Keys not come to your aid, you might not have been able to pull out of your freefall. Technicalities are not enough to carry a pilot.”
“Technicalities seem to be what I’m getting graded on,” Travis snapped back, but then took a second to attempt to find a civil tone once more. “Being a DFC pilot is what I’ve been training for. It’s the main reason why I came into this institution!”
“I’m not unaware of that issue, Cadet. But the fact of the matter is, since you did come here in the hopes of being a pilot, that means that I assume the role of your primary teacher, just as Drill Sergeant Macavee would be your primary if you had chosen to go into infantry. This means that I make the final decision of where you go…and it will not be a pilot.”
Travis leaned against one of the holographic projection monitors for support. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing! Were the last four years of his life all for nothing? He had taken the required remedial course in theoretical physics and passed it (admittedly, just) in order to get into Sanderson so that he could specifically become a pilot–but for what? It seemed the universe was having one more
good laugh at his expense.
“I understand you’re upset,” Ivanston croaked in his puberty-stricken voice. “But there are many other specified fields to go into within the military. Looking over your grades and teachers’ comments in your other classes, I’ve decided to recommend you for infantry.”
“Infantry–!” Travis repeated, both shocked and out-raged. Ivanston couldn’t have put him farther away from possibly becoming a pilot unless he had recommended him for ship’s cook.
“You can still move up in rank–“
“I don’t care about moving up in rank, I want to be a pilot,” Travis cut him off sharply. “It’s what I’ve trained for, it’s all I’ve wanted to do in the four years I’ve been in this place!”
Ivanston sighed, trying to remain calm. “I’m sorry, Travis, but you simply are not cut out for it. However, your skills are adequate to potentially be a helmsman on a Heavy Cruiser. They don’t require much in the way of maneuvering, unless you find yourself in a combat situation. And even then, both Earth and Calvorian ships move so cumbersomely in a third-dimensional environ, that you won’t find yourself too challenged.”
“’Too challenged’,” Travis repeated disdainfully. “You make it sound like I’m an evolutionary throwback to the 20th Century. Infantry, huh?”
“Yes. I think that after a while, you’ll–“
But Travis was gone, slamming the door behind him as he left.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Travis snapped at his fellow students who waited in the main classroom, anxious to hear of their own fates from Ivanston. Travis stormed out of that room in like fashion, slamming the door once more as he headed onto the main quad. He was enraged, fuming, and humiliated all at the same time. Nothing! He had come so far for nothing! And soon, his story would be all over campus. It was a truism that the only thing which traveled faster than light was bad news; before long, the whole campus would know that he just wasn’t good enough to be a pilot. He would find himself consigned to the category of groundpounder, with nothing to look forward to than waiting for the next planetary engagement so that he could lie on his stomach and try to shoot across smoky terrain and hope not to get shot in return.
