Spectres (Æthyrium Rising - Spectres Book 1)

by Zachariah Dracoulis

  Seeing as the Commonwealth army was a volunteer one, no one had a real problem with this, especially considering that the Warriors of the Seven had the highest volunteer rate of any religion.

  These two didn’t really match the ones who came strolling through town though. For one thing these ones were exceptionally younger, and happier. Don’t get me wrong, the recruiters were always smiling, these two just seemed genuinely happier. They also seemed to enjoy Boon Cards, a very odd activity for them to even partake in.

  After I was more or less certain that none of those ones were going to try anything stupid before we got to Seros, I moved on to Jurol who, as suspected, didn’t offer much more than the initial look over. He was the generic shut-in type that I expected, clearly volunteering because he didn’t have much else in the terms of skills. How he got in was beyond me at the time.

  The military wasn't overly selective, that much was true, but this kid had arms like asparagus stalks and his clothes were definitely not regulation. He was wearing sneakers for Gods’ sake.

  Eventually I got past him though, and moved onto Juno. The Yolarian. The unknown. The untrustworthy. I could not get a read on her, whether it had something to do with her bright blue eyes, or her unnaturally blonde hair, I didn’t know. What I did know was that I did not like her in the least.

  A fair few more hours past like that, them playing Boon Cards, me watching them play Boon Cards and occasionally stopping to eat. It was all very exciting.

  Then my father’s voice popped into my head. ‘So often we found ourselves waiting for something to happen, we let ourselves become bored and, as a result, yearned for the comfort of battle. That call to arms comes so quick though, that by the time your foot’s on that beach or storming that hill you realise that maybe it would’ve been better if you’d just enjoyed the quiet times.’

  With that I let the undeniable boredom that was trying to etch its way into my being wash away, and went to go play with the others. However, the universe had other plans, and I was suddenly in what felt like a crashing tin can.

  “Heh-heh,” the pilot said over the speakers, “oh yeah, forget to tell ya, you may wanna si’down. We’re in for a rough’un.”

  Immediately Jurol started to panic again, but this time he managed to refrain from screaming and successfully made it to his seat and strapped himself before he could have another breakdown.

  Before I knew it, the rest of us we were all strapped into our violently shaking seats and silently praying to our various deities, regardless of if we believed in them or not, for the oven with thrusters to get us on the ground safely. Specifying ‘safely’ seemed important to me, apparently the Gods were pretty pedantic about that sort of thing.

  Interesting Landing

  Creaking metal and the sounds of what I was pretty sure were pieces flying off the transport made my whole body tense. I was in a bus being driven by a drunken idiot off a cliff. I felt something building up in my nose and instinctively went to wipe it, but immediately grabbed back onto my chest straps and let the warm liquid somehow run both up and down my nose.

  To make matters a bit better, I noticed that most of the others, the exception being Xario, had all gotten nose bleeds. I’m not sure why, but for some reason that made me feel less conspicuous and, as a result, less embarrassed. And, based on his smile, Jurol was also grateful to not be the only one getting bloodied before training had even started.

  Thunderous roars ripped through the cabin and suddenly, with the sound of old hydraulics barely activating, we were on the ground.

  I had to get off the transport, I just couldn’t stand the idea of being on it another second and, when the transport’s door finally fell open, I quickly found out that it was a feeling we all shared. None of us could get out fast enough, even Xario.

  I took in the fresh air, but failed to take in the scenery as I struggled to stay on my feet, the sudden influx of oxygen going to my head like a kamikaze shot with absinthe and star miner's tonic instead of vodka. I was handling it better than some though, specifically Ryoku, who’d taken to vomiting on the side of the transport.

  “Classy,” I heard Kevin say with a laugh, “real classy.”

  “Leave me alone,” Ryoku groaned in response, “you don’t see me calling you out for wetting yourself.”

  “What? I didn’t- oof!” he let out as the sound of Ryoku punching him in the gut cut him short.

  I’d like to say the tussle ended there, but the brothers decided to keep hitting each other and exchanging the occasional less-than-witty quip. They got so into it, in fact, that they, and everyone watching, didn’t notice the four people showing up on the landing pad to greet us.

  I, of course, was not making a fool of myself by way of watching two people fighting each other. No, I was far too busy falling to my knees on the elevated concrete landing platform that I’d deduced we were on, and vomiting on someone’s boots, something about being so high in the air after thinking I was going to be on solid ground didn’t agree with me.

  If you’re going to do something embarrassing, at least make sure it’s spectacularly embarrassing, that’s what I think, and not just because that’s all that I’m capable of doing.

  One of the people, not the one with my sick on their barely polished boots, a terse sounding woman was stomping over to the boys, “You two break it up or I’ll do it for you!” she snapped.

  Meanwhile the poor man who’d had the luck of getting my half-digested PAVS on his boots started helping me to my feet, “You right there private?” he asked with genuine concern.

  Straightaway I fell for his voice, he sounded like a cowboy from a good family who’d attended a few years of higher class education and left after deciding he just liked ending his words with the letter ‘y’ and saying stuff like ‘creepifyin’ too damn much.

  “She’s not a private yet.” another, slightly gruffer, male voice argued. I couldn’t bear to look at their faces just yet, I was perfectly happy to just stare at my feet for the time being.

  “You really think she’s gonna be a recruit for more than a week Huk? You read her file. I’ll be gettin’ all of you to retake recruit training if she doesn’t cut it.”

  “Still, you shouldn’t be getting thei-”

  “Private, what’s the average falter rate of a standard armed forces pistol?”

  I looked up with confusion at the face of the man, who stood at a little over six foot to my 5’7, who’d asked the question. He was absolutely dashing, not to say that I was in any way attracted to him, he was just nice to look at.

  He had to be in his thirties, judging from the way he held himself and his middle-parted brown hair decorated with bits of grey, but he had the look of someone ten years younger. It was something to do with his rich brown eyes. They were still so soft and charming, almost as if they were holding the wonder of someone in their twenties visiting a new world.

  “Private?” he asked again, indicating I’d been staring for a bit too long.

  “Um… Yes, sorry. Um… Five hundred twenty metres?” I stammered, my mouth quivering as I started to taste another lot of vomit and swallowed, hiding it from the man right in front of me.

  The man either didn’t notice, or noticed and didn’t care, whichever it was he simply gave me a proud smile and brought a small yet practical knife with a slice of apple on it to his mouth, “See? I can’t even remember that, and I’m supposed to be training them.” he said with a laugh before eating the apple.

  He was wearing a washed-out red button up shirt and an almost ancient brown leather jacket, unlike the rest of his group, who were all, with the exception of the Warrior of the Seven, wearing the orange and brown fatigues and military caps of the Commonwealth army. At least he was wearing the fatigue pants and his combat boots, which, along with his shirt, which was sort of orange, made it so he almost was wearing regulation uniform.

  I was known for being kind of anal at the station, but for some reason found myself excusing him des
pite everything in the ‘rulebook’ that I’d made myself read before applying. What was even weirder was that it wasn’t making me anxious whatsoever, to me it just meant that the man standing in front of me had clearly earned the right to be excused from some of the less important military policies.

  After another few moments I heard the rest of those who were on the transport with me run over and fall in line with me.

  The man in the leather jacket smiled at me and ate another slice of apple before taking a big step back, “Floor’s yours Huk.”

  Huk sighed and rubbed his pale forehead, revealing just how wrinkly it was. He must’ve been at least fifty, but it appeared as if he hadn’t lost a bit of his athletic figure to the years of training new recruits like us.

  “Thank you Field Master Garrett.” he said in a half annoyed, half defeated tone, before straightening up to his full height of 6’2 and locking his arms behind his back. “My name is Field Master Feldon. You may hear some of the others call me Huk though, but don’t for a second think any of you can.”

  His voice was so powerful and charismatic as he took his long strides along our ‘ranks’, looking each of us up and down without belittling us in any way. It was like we were being judged by a proud lion on whether or not we were worth the trouble of chasing us down. And yes, that’s not where the comparison to a lion ended, he had a shoulder-length mane of dirty blonde hair, and it was gorgeous. “In two weeks’ time you will be assigned to either myself, Field Master Garrett, Field Master Janis, or Monk Ri’ath. There will be no favouritism, and there will be no changing to another Field Master simply because it’s ‘too tough’.”

  ‘Wow,’ I silently laughed to myself, ‘they really know how to roll out the welcome wagon.’

  Feldon continued on his long monologue about the importance of accepting we were going to be under the boot for a long time, while I started to finally take in my surroundings, and they were beautiful.

  I’d never seen anything like it, the massive crested peaks that made up the mountain range in the distance filled me with an overwhelming sense of peace, until I turned my gaze to the gargantuan facility, if you could call it that, it was closer to a large town if you ask me, and significantly shinier than anything back home. Freighters full of thousands of soldiers flew in and out while smaller ships zipped around, going every which way.

  Then I noticed something peculiar, the buildings all took up a large amount of ground, but none exceeded three or four storeys. I remember thinking they could’ve constructed a lot more Starports if they’d only think vertically.

  It was only then that I became embarrassed by my stupid thought, of course they wouldn’t build them upward, the buildings were meant to be hard to find and a skyscraper would be a dead giveaway.

  “Something you want to share with the rest of us Xiao?” I barely heard Feldon say.

  I snapped to attention once the words registered and caught most of those around me, including Field Master Garrett, having a snigger at me being called out. I shook my head, “No sir, just admiring the base.”

  I rightly thought that telling the truth seemed to be the best thing with authority figures, it let them know they could trust you.

  Feldon struggled to hide a smile, and then quickly returned to his speech, “Well, recruit,” he said as more of an attack to Garrett than to me, “you’ll get plenty of time to enjoy the scenery over the next few weeks. Should probably get used to calling it ‘home’ as well, closest thing you’re going to have to one until this war decides to pack in, or you do something stupid to get yourself killed.”

  “Isn’t that what the enemy’s meant to do sir?” Xario asked, brilliantly hiding his sarcasm.

  “What was that?” Feldon snapped.

  “The enemy, sir, isn’t it them who’re gonna get us killed?”

  Either he was brave, stupid, or inquisitive as to what they did to people who spoke out of turn here. My guess was the last one.

  Feldon marched over to the unwavering recruit, “Xario, is it?”

  Xario nodded, “Yes sir.”

  “Alright Xario,” he said kindly, before going into officer mode, “drop to the ground and start doing push-ups until I say stop. Understood?”

  “Yes sir.” Xario said calmly in response and, without a second’s hesitation, he was on the ground putting out push-ups like most people did breaths.

  Feldon went on with a rant about respect and how what Xario had just done, which was correct him, was unacceptable. I just tuned it out though, not because I didn’t respect him, it was just that I had grown a new level of respect for Xario, he tested the boundaries and, when he discovered them, he accepted the consequences.

  It was something that didn’t really make sense unless you’d done some kind of militaristic or police training. Sure, he was on all of their radars now, but I doubted he’d ever give them another excuse to punish him. He’d be the model recruit and eventually Feldon and the others would forget this insignificant discrepancy and, hopefully, come to respect and admire Xario’s character and prowess in battle.

  I’d seen it a hundred times before, and sure, I had the occasional one who continued on being a right tool, but Xario didn’t seem to fit the bill of troublemaker. Hells, he was still doing the push-ups even though Feldon was clearly constantly forgetting when he looked away.

  It wasn’t until Feldon crossed my path again and locked his eyes with mine that I tuned back in, “So, what do you think about all that Xiao? You think you got what it takes to survive?”

  “Yes sir. We survived the ride here in that thing, I’m sure we can survive anything.” I said, not trying to sound nearly as rude as I immediately thought it had come across.

  But Feldon took no offense and again smiled, “Too true. Xario, you can stop now.” he said without breaking eye-contact with me. “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Seros Academy.”

  A Tour

  Our first day at the Seros Academy was primarily spent finding our legs, especially considering we were carrying our bags for most of the day while the Field Masters showed us around, the Warrior of the Seven having taken the two other monks for another, more specific tour.

  For some ‘unknown’ reason our bodies were having a hard time getting used to the idea of solid ground beneath us. It wasn’t that we weren’t used to interstellar travel, though Jurol had fallen over sideways several times when trying to keep his feet in line with the pavement, it was that the ship was an absolute wreck.

  Literally.

  Shortly after we landed we found out that the ship had been taken accidently from a wrecker’s workshop after it’d been decommissioned. To me this was the equivalent of a doctor reusing an old syringe that was left on an operating table to me.

  At first I just kept thinking about what I’d gotten myself into, and that clearly the Commonwealth was far too lax in regards to the proper care I’d expect in a military environment. It wasn’t until I found out that all involved in the discrepancy were to be court martialled that I found my sense of ease.

  “And here’s where we’ll keep most of your extra belongings.” Feldon said at the end of his tour.

  We were in front of what looked like an airport hangar for freighter ships, a person sized door built into the giant, grey, freighter sized one was open to us, revealing a jolly looking man with rosy cheeks sitting behind a concierge-like desk wearing the Commonwealth uniform.

  “Aren’t we going to keep our stuff with us?” Jurol asked to the left of Feldon where I’m pretty sure is where he saw him.

  Feldon had long abandoned his ‘only speak when spoken to attitude’ since the start of the tour, and had instead returned to his slightly more defeated attitude. In a way, I felt sorry for him, but at the same time I knew that when training time came around whoever was in his class was going to be trained by a total hard-arse.

  “You’re allowed everything that the recruitment form requested, plus an additional two small items and some extra clothing. My sugge
stion? Don’t keep anything with glass. They have a tendency of making a literal bloody mess.”

  I had absolutely no problem with that, it made complete sense to me, but then I remembered how many personal items I had.

  “Is there any-”

  Feldon cut me off, “I’m sorry Xiao, but no. We put that rule in place so that everyone had it fair. Originally we had it based on weight, but the argument was made that if one person can bring a thousand photos, why’s it fair that another can’t bring their brother’s guitar?”

  That seemed like an oddly specific example to me, but I worked past it and kept listening, “We’d let people bring more, but then our barracks would start to fill up with random knick-knacks and precious memories would be destroyed and feelings would be hurt and-”

  “Broken guitars would become the focus of assault charges in court, yes Huk, I’m sure they get it.” Garrett said to get Feldon off the topic. He’d shown several signs of being bored throughout the day, but this was the first time he’d actually spoken up.

  I really hoped that I’d get Garrett as my Field Master, I just had the feeling that we’d get along, and our goals and practices would be the same.

  Boy was I wrong, but more on that later.

  I had no idea how I was going to choose as I walked over to the desk and pulled off my bag before anyone else even entered the building. Police work was my life, it defined me as who I was, I had no idea who I was without my badge and gun. But then I saw the ratty old kettle and the box of tea and the decision was already made.

  My hands flinched as I pulled out my gun and badge, and it was even harder to put them down on the desk.

  “Is it loaded?” the guy who ran the desk asked cheerfully.

  I struggled to remember, and decided to settle for “I’m not sure, sorry.”

  He shook his head, “It’s not a problem, believe you me, when I first got here I could barely remember where I kept my hat. Can you guess where it was?”