Standish

by Donald B McFarlane

  The alien had off-white skin and wore a large pair of sunglasses, which Standish would have liked to have in the bright conditions. Walking over to the group, the alien quickly took charge of the recruits.

  “Form up, two lines.” He shouted.

  The one-hundred-thirty-two candidates quickly formed two lines as instructed.

  “I am going to call out your name. When I do, fall out of the formation, put your sports kit on, put your bag on the shuttle, then form back up.” He pulled out a small datapad from his trouser pocket and started reading out names. Standish was trying to figure out what order the figure was going in, because it wasn’t alphabetical, but eventually she heard her name mentioned, and quickly dropped out of the formation and went over to where everyone had laid their baggage down and promptly changed, dropped her bags at the shuttle, then returned to the formation.

  After another five minutes, all the candidates were changed and waiting for their next set of instructions.

  “Your camp is over there.” The figure pointed towards the horizon that was off to the groups right. “You will now jog there.” He tapped a button on the side of his belt, and a small flying drone appeared out of the shuttle and hovered next to the figure. “This drone will set the pace.” He said, and without giving any further instructions, the drone started moving off in the direction he had previously indicated at a rather slow pace.

  At first, no one moved. Everyone stayed in formation and watched as the little drone got farther and farther away, and when it was finally fifty metres away, one of the candidates broke out of the formation and started running after it. It didn’t take long for the rest of the recruits to do the same, and before she knew it, Standish was in the middle of the pack trying catch up with the little drone.

  Once the group caught the drone, they formed three loose files and started to casually trot behind the device. Standish was quick to realise that the pace they were going was rather slow, at most six kilometres per hour, but Standish suspected this was not going to be their cruising pace, and once they had jogged for what she calculated to be two full kilometres, the speed increased, and that’s when the three files opened up slightly as some candidates took longer than others to get accustomed to the new pace.

  The new pace was quicker, but not fast. It was also a pace that Standish knew she could maintain for a considerable distance, and over the flat hard-packed terrain that they were running over, she was confident that she had put enough focus on cardiovascular work in her training that she would be able to keep with this pace almost indefinitely.

  It could not be said for the others in the group because, after thirty minutes of chugging along the flatlands under the bright sun, a few candidates started to drop to the rear. No one said a word, runners just moved out of their position in the file and allowed the recruit that was dropping out to fall back, then slipped back into the file.

  Looking around, Standish started to wonder what backgrounds the other runners had. She was shocked that some of them had already dropped back, the pace wasn’t that fast, and the terrain was flat. Perhaps now that there was a war on, Dynamic Operations had cut standards. Either way, she was slightly regretting the amount of powerlifting she had done while neglecting her cardio. She wasn’t suffering, but the added muscle mass wasn’t helping her speed.

  The pace allowed Standish, who was in the middle file, the opportunity to look around and examine the near featureless environment that stretched around them in every direction. Looking in the direction they were moving, she could see nothing but the backs of the runners that were in front of her, and the small drone that hadn’t changed its pace since the beginning of the third kilometre.

  Focusing on her breathing, Standish tried to relax as much as possible as more and more kilometres clicked by. The farther they went at the same pace, the more candidates dropped out. The pace hadn’t quickened, it was just too far for some. Running some quickly estimates in her head, she reckoned that they were on pace for a low thirty-minutes for the first ten kilometres.

  Another five kilometres were ticked off, Standish could just start to make out the shape of mountains rising in the distance. She wasn’t sure how far away they were, but after another thirty minutes of running, she could tell that they were getting very close to the foothills in front of the vast mountain range which looked snow-covered at their highest peaks.

  Ten minutes later, Standish spotted a tall mast on the horizon, the kind used as a communications relay. As the group ran past the pole, Standish marvelled at its great height, stretching into the sky over one thousand metres. Dropping her gaze back down, Standish spotted a glint of something at the base of the foothills they were running towards. It was a structure. She couldn’t tell how large it was, but it was a building or a cluster of buildings in the distance.

  And it was at that exact moment that the drone picked up the pace. It wasn’t a dramatic increase at once, but it was noticeable, and that was the moment more of the candidates that were just barely holding on to the old pace started to drop off. The remaining group was almost cut in half once the speed was notched up again, just a minute later.

  Standish kept her eyes locked on the front, trying to calculate how far it was until they’d reach the structures that they were racing towards, which she hoped would be their final destination. After giving it some consideration, Standish decided they were five kilometres out.

  At the current pace, she estimated that they would reach the structures in roughly fifteen minutes, but that was assuming that the speed wouldn’t increase anymore. Looking around at the remaining runners, she only saw one other female, much leaner than Standish was at that point, which made her wonder if she had put on too much muscle before attending the course, but it was too late for second-guessing her preparation now, as the pace accelerated once again.

  They were three kilometres from the building now. The pace was blistering. The gravity on the Guhr 8-Nine was similar to Nadolo Prime, but after spending six months training on the station above Tekori in zero gravity, it felt heavy to Standish.

  With two kilometres to go, the pace kicked it up another notch, and at this point, it was an almost all-out sprint towards the buildings where she could see a group of figures standing, waiting for the runners to approach.

  Sixty-three had now become forty-eight. The other female was still with the group, but Standish was starting to slow. Her lungs were on fire, and her legs felt heavy. She was doing her best to stay in touch with the runners around her, but with a kilometre left to go, she started to lose contact with the pack leaders, and she started to drift back until she was running by herself in what had devolved into a line of nearly fifty runners spread over two hundred yards. She would still finish the run in the top thirty, but she wished she had done better.

  As she reached the half kilometre mark, she could clearly see the figures and droids at the finish line, along with the recruits that had already finished the run. Gritting her teeth, Standish continued to pump her legs as fast as she could, swinging her arms violently, she gave it one final kick and crossed the finish line at a steady pace.

  Slowing up, Standish put her head back and sucked in the warm air and put her hands on her hips as she walked towards the other finished runners who were standing away from the group of instructors. A service droid was handing out cold bottles of water and chilled jackets. Standish took one of the jackets from the droid and slipped it on. The sudden change in temperature made her shudder for a moment, but after the sensation past, it felt perfect after the run. Taking the bottle of water, Standish sipped it slowly, and tried to shake out her legs, she was worried about cramping, so kept moving so that she’d stay loose. Several of the other runners were stretching, and Standish joined them, looking out into the distance that they had come from as the slower stragglers finally crossed the line. It took some time until the last candidates walked over the line, and instead of joining the other recruits, they were directed to the staff, who then kep
t them separate from all the other runners. The Dynamic Operations course had just had its first failures.

  After being left to their own devices for ten minutes after the last runner had crossed the line, one of the instructors walked over to the group of one-hundred and five trainees and had them form a large circle around him.

  “Welcome to Guhr 8-Nine and Dynamic Operations training. I am Instructor Ka. You may refer to me as Instructor Ka or staff or sir.” He looked at a datapad in his hand. “As you know, things have changed since the war started. We used to conduct this process over two years on several worlds before the collapse of the Empire, now, the training process has been shortened to a twelve-month selection and training process. I do not care what you think you know about this course, it’s probably wrong. Every class, every training session, everything is a potential pass-fail exercise. We’ve already dismissed twenty-seven of your fellow candidates, so that should be lesson one, never fail any test. We have no quota to meet here. We might pass all of you, we might pass none of you.” Ka pointed at the enormous brutalist designed building they were standing in front of. “This is the Dazzlo Temple. It was built over eight hundred years ago. It is now the base of operations for all Dynamic Operations training and operations. You will be in the presence of D-O teams that come and go while you train here. You are not to speak to them unless they address you first.” He lowered the data-pad. “You’ll find that this course is more relaxed than the other training courses that you have completed, but that does not mean it is easy or should be taken lightly. We’re not going to try and kill you on this course, but at least one of you will likely do something stupid and get yourself killed.

  “Now, your kit has already been put inside the training wing, which is this side of the temple.” Ka pointed at the left side as they were facing the structure. “When you go inside, you’ll find a very easy to understand map of the structure, follow the directions to your billets, once there, the plan of the day is on the main view screen.” He turned around, looking at every face that was staring in at him. “Right, off you go.”

  As soon as he gave the signal, the candidates quickly turned to face the giant temple and rapidly moved towards the only entrance on the left side of the building. Standish was in the middle of the pack when she passed through the ornate passageway, and when she got inside, out of the sun, it took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the dimly lit interior. The building was made of giant stone blocks, with almost no decoration on the interior. Signs looked like they had been bolted into the rocks, and without giving it any second thought, Standish followed the leaders of the pack as they moved up a massive staircase that was made from the same stone as the rest of the structure.

  Reaching the second floor, Standish found herself in a massive hallway that had twenty-metre-high ceilings and ran the entire width of the building. In the distance, she could see figures walking around, but she quickly stepped off the hallway and into a massive room that had equally tall ceilings, two large windows overlooking the front of the building, and seventy-five double bunk beds along the left side of the room. On the opposite side were temporary washing and toiletry facilities that looked like they had been installed without too much thought for privacy. The entire room was almost fifty metres square and was lit almost entirely by natural lighting like the rest of the building.

  Looking for her kit, she found it at the bottom of a bunk, devoid of another candidate’s belongings. She looked around and noticed that everyone else had a bunkmate, leading Standish to suspect that her’s was one of the twenty-seven that had failed the run test.

  After emptying the contents of her bag into the under-bed locker, she looked around and noticed that a large group of candidates were standing next to a large view screen by the entrance to the chamber. Standing up, Standish walked over to see what everyone was looking at.

  Reaching the view screen, Standish could see it was a schedule for the next five days. It gave information on what the training block would contain, what uniform to wear along with any necessary kit, and the location of the training. It was all very straightforward. To Standish, it appeared that each day would start with physical exercise or a physically demanding block of training. That was followed by a morning meal, then a small chunk of personal time. After that there were classes on weapons training every day, then a mid-day meal. The afternoon and evenings were almost wholly devoted to field training, and that included some kind of nocturnal training. It was a lot to fit in, and that was only the first five days, and she had the next twelve months to survive.

  Checking the time, Standish knew that their next phase would be the morning meal, so she hurried back to her bunk, stripped down, grabbed her wash kit, and made her way over to the showers. She hadn’t used showers with water for some time, just the chem-sprays. It was a pleasant sensation to have the warm water running down her blue and white-skinned body.

  Finished, she returned to her bunk and quickly got herself dressed into a fleet issued set of coveralls, and then sat down on her bed, and waited. She had time until their morning meal and used the time to observe what other candidates. A few were already laying out their issued field kit for the training that was to be conducted later that afternoon. Thinking this was a good idea, Standish followed suit and pulled out her field boots and Rescue Tech skin suit.

  Eventually, the call for the first meal came, and Standish joined the rest of the candidates as they filed out of the billets and out into the long hallway. A recruit named Yolandi had appointed herself as a tour guide and led the group down the stairs, then down a hall towards the rear of the building where they found a massive dining facility. The chamber was almost sixty metres deep and twenty broad. There were stone tables and benches in neat rows all the way from one end of the room to the other. Nearly everything in the place was the same colour as the rest of the building, tan.

  A row of food dispenses lined the far wall from where they entered the room, and Yolandi was quick to make her way in that direction. Everyone grabbed a tray, took what food they needed, grabbed a juice or drink, then took over ten tables in the middle of the room, making sure not to sit at any table that was next to a table occupied by members of D-O.

  Standish was impressed with the selection of foods available. Much of what was on offer were things she’d never seen before. Luckily there were brief descriptions of everything in Universal above the dispensers. She had opted for live pul-crack worms from Tro-Vaco IX, and a large plate of Nev leaves from Mechcharga. She had never been a massive fan of eating live food before, but she knew that the worms were very nutritious, and helped with muscle sustainment and growth.

  Looking around at the other candidates, she could tell from the uniforms that several had been Imperial Fleet like herself, while others wore uniforms of the Core or the Etelainen fleets. She wondered how long it would take to get everyone in the same uniform now that the war was underway and the Empire was finished. Even the instructors and active duty personnel wore a mismatch of uniforms. All had served in Dynamic Operations, but they had served under different flags.

  After the meal was finished, the candidates got up, put their dirty items into auto-cleaners, then returned to the billets and waited fifteen minutes, then headed out to their first class. Following Yolandi in a neat file, the recruits arrived at a room at the rear of the building that had a massive terrace that was looking out over the vast mountain range that towered over the temple.

  The room was the same colour and look of every other chamber that Standish had seen since she had arrived. It was clear that whoever had built the temple all those years ago had no taste for the aesthetic. But what did she know? There was nothing like this back on Nadolo Prime.

  The room was filled with more stone tables and benches. The trainees quickly found a spot and sat down facing the balcony. At the front of the room was a long table with an array of weapons on it. Standish knew some of the standard-issue weapons that were present, but from where she was sit
ting, she could tell that several of the systems were entirely foreign to her. The class had arrived early, as they knew to do, and waited five minutes until an instructor walked in.

  “I am Instructor El Lawro. I am one of three weapons instructors at this facility.” He reached the front of the large room and climbed on the table that was covered with weapons. “There are two primary goals with Dynamic Operations weapon training. First is to identify and safely operate any weapon you find on the battlefield. There may come a time where you find yourself in need of arms, and the only weapons you can find are strange and foreign to you. We are going to teach you what to look for on a weapon so that you may use that implement as you see fit. The second thing that this course is going to teach you is how to shoot. You will learn to shoot using your eyes and your heads-up-displays in your armour.” He raised his hands in pre-emptive protest. “You will not be taught how to fire your weapons while diving through the air, or how to fire weapons in each hand at the same time, it’s just not done. You will be taught to shoot by the book.”

  That last comment suddenly reminded Standish of Reyn, the mysterious operative that helped Bender get down to the surface of Sandura 26G. He had pistols on each hip. Perhaps he just wore them for show.

  “I have only met one operator once who can dual wield pistols at the same time, and he is a rare breed.”

  Standish smiled. So maybe Reyn could use them both at the same time.

  “Now before we get to work with any of these exotic devices of death and destruction, we are going to go through basic training on what is now the standard issue weapon for all Alliance combat personnel, the Standard Energy Rifle. It isn’t sexy, but before you can play with the fancy stuff, I need to know that you can safely operate, maintain, and utilise the SER.” The instructor pulled out a datapad and tapped it once. A moment later, three droids rolled into the room, pulling three racks of SER rifles.