Olympus (Rise of the Empire Book 1)

by Ivan Kal

  “Well, that was interesting,” Adrian heard in his head.

  “Yeah, I don’t know what came over me.” Adrian replied.

  “At least you finally stood up for yourself,” Iris said.

  Adrian sighed. His brain and his implant had integrated fully in the past two years, and he no longer needed to vocalize his commands, nor did he need to speak out loud in order to speak with Iris.

  “I didn’t mean to blow up like that. It’s just that everything piled up, and I just…”

  “I know, Adrian, and you really needed to tell them how you felt,” Iris said.

  “I could have found a better way. I acted exactly like a kid,” Adrian said tiredly, and Iris didn’t offer anything else. Adrian thought about going back there, and a feeling of dread filled him. They would never accept him now. He would spend a year living with strangers.

  After a couple of minutes of gathering the nerve to go back out there, he was interrupted by Iris.

  “Do you plan on hiding here forever?”

  Adrian stood up and exited the cubicle. He left the bathroom and entered the main room, where some of his classmates were sitting on the couches, talking or watching the TVs, while others played pool. Adrian went towards his room. When he entered, he saw that there were only six of his roommates in the room, Paul, Helen, Sakura, Noah, Marcus, and Alexander. Adrian went and sat on his bunk. He noticed that Bethany’s bag was on the top bunk. He’d hoped that she would switch with someone, but it looked like he wasn’t that lucky.

  A minute later, Paul made his way to Adrian; he stopped in front of him and coughed uncomfortably, while Adrian just looked at him expectantly until he finally started talking. “Uh… Adrian, I just wanted to say that we—all of us”—he gestured with his hands to the others—“are really sorry about Bethany. I know that she is sorry as well, she didn’t mean anything with it. She might have been a bit put out for graduating second, but she didn’t really mean it.” He paused for a breath. “I—we just want you to know that we don’t consider you a kid. It’s just that…you are a bit hard to talk to. And, well…we just wanted you to know that,” Paul said.

  Adrian looked at him, bewildered. “It’s alright,” Adrian said. Paul smiled and went back to his bunk. Helen, Sakura, and Alexander were laying on their own bunks, reading from their datapads or playing games, while Noah and Marcus sat on the lower bed of their bunks and talked softly. Paul went to his bunk and lay down. Adrian sat on his own bed, leaning on the pillow.

  “Am I really hard to talk to?” Adrian asked Iris. He was the only one of his classmates that had an AI with his implant, and he wasn’t allowed to talk about it to anyone. Only those older than 24 were supposed to have implants.

  “I don’t have any difficulties talking to you. But then, I grew up with you,” Iris said jokingly. “But, you can be a bit intimidating to other humans,” she added.

  “Intimidating? What? I’m always keeping to myself. I’m the farthest thing from intimidating there is,” Adrian said.

  He heard Iris sigh. Over the years, she had taken up many little habits and complexions that made her sound more human. “Have you ever watched a recording of your simulation battles?” Iris asked.

  “No, why?” Adrian asked.

  “You should. If you saw the way you are when you are in command, it would be clear to you why they find you intimidating. When you are in command, you shut off everything else. You don’t let anything interfere with your mission, no emotion. You look rather impressive. And cold,” Iris said.

  Adrian thought back to the simulations; he knew that he could focus on the task at hand with the exclusion of everything else. It was one of the things that made him good at learning. During the simulations, he always tried to find the best possible path to accomplish his mission. He tried to emulate the way Laura looked when she was in command. He tried to mimic her presence.

  “Well, okay. I’m intimidating in the simulations. That doesn’t explain why they kept their distance from me.”

  “Well…you do project this serious air around you, even when you are not in simulations,” Iris said.

  “What? No I don’t,” Adrian said.

  “Sorry, but yes you do.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner, then?” he demanded.

  “You never asked,” Iris said.

  Adrian fumed at her. Iris had become very good at speaking and thinking like a human. But there were still moments when things just didn’t make logical sense to her, things that she just failed to notice. Adrian sighed. There was no point in being angry at her, and it was his fault. Adrian was so entranced in his conversation with Iris that he didn’t notice Bethany entering the room until she was standing just beside him. Startled, he looked at her. She looked at Adrian, and he could see several emotions pass over her face too quickly for him to discern them.

  “I’m sorry about before,” she said, and then quickly jumped up on the bed above him. Adrian was again struck stupid by the situation. Bethany had apologized to him. He had half convinced himself over the past two years that she was a soulless bitch, and now she apologized. Adrian rubbed his eyes for the moment, and then he undressed and pulled the covers over himself.

  “I guess that I will just need to try harder to make friends,” he said to Iris, who remained silent.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A loud noise interrupted Adrian’s sleep. He opened his eyes and stared into a pair of firm legs. As his eyes followed the legs upwards, they arrived at a shapely form wrapped in white underwear. A hand reached behind and adjusted one side of the underwear. Adrian’s admiring was interrupted by an angry, booming voice.

  “You aren’t dressed yet?! You have five minutes to get dressed and leave this room or I swear to all that I hold dear you will run the length of this base naked!”

  That brought Adrian back to reality and he was immediately awake. He threw the covers off and stood up, hitting his head on the upper bunk. He stood beside Bethany, looking at the man that was yelling. Adrian had never before seen the man, but he wore the army uniform with the rank insignia of a squad leader. Adrian and his roommates just stared at the man until he started yelling again.

  “Didn’t you hear me last time?! I said get your asses dressed and out of this room! You have four minutes! Move! Move! Move!”

  With that, everyone started moving at once. Adrian started moving left at the same moment Bethany moved right and they collided. Adrian looked at her and saw that she was dressed only in a white sports bra and panties. He flushed red and murmured, “Sorry.” Bethany was looking at Adrian, and when he realized that he was just in his boxers, he flushed even more and turned. But he could swear he saw a tint of red on Bethany’s cheeks before turning. He went around the bed to his locker and started dressing in Army uniform. He was dressed in three minutes and he went outside, quickly followed by the rest of his roommates. The man was waiting for them outside and instructed them to stand in a line in front of their room.

  Adrian ended up standing with Bethany on his left and Sakura on his right. The rest of their classmates were likewise exiting their rooms. After everyone left their rooms and formed a line, Platoon Leader Martinez, who was standing in the middle of the main room, looked around and said, “Eight minutes. That is just pathetic. Imagine if you were on a ship that was attacked. It would have taken you eight minutes just to get out of bed. Not to mention getting to your stations! In eight minutes, you could have all been dead!” he said.

  Everyone remained silent while P.L. Martinez glared around the room.

  “I see that we need to teach you a lot more than I previously thought. From now on, you will have two minutes after the alarm to get up, dress, and form a line in front of your rooms, and for every minute you go over that time limit, you will run an additional lap around the base. Now, since we gave you a five-minute time limit and you took eight, you will run thirteen laps around the base.” He nodded to one of the squad leaders that stood by one of the rooms; each
room had one squad leader.

  “Alright! You heard the P.L., everyone move!”

  The other squad leaders then ushered their recruits out of their dorm and into the hallway. Each of the ten squad leaders led a team of ten, divided by their rooms, as they jogged down the empty hallways of the base. Adrian had Iris measure the amount of ground they covered, as no one told them how long a lap around the base was. After they finished the first lap, Iris informed him that they had crossed roughly six hundred meters, meaning that with thirteen laps, they would cross about 7.8 km. Adrian knew that at the pace they set, he could easily finish it. He knew that those that finished military school could do it easily.

  Olympus has a strict physical exercise program mandatory for all of their citizens. But Adrian also knew that the army was much harder, and if they started their morning with an 8-km run, then it would only get harder from here on out. Adrian had been training for years both privately and as a part of his martial arts training. He knew that he was on par with at least the army personnel. After they finished their run some 40 minutes later, they were allowed to go to breakfast. They were again divided by their rooms, ten tables with ten recruits each. Trainers had started calling them recruits, even though all of them were cadets. After breakfast, they were ushered into a big classroom where they were drilled about army protocols and the dangers of operating in space. They were in classrooms until lunch at 1500.

  After lunch, they were taken to an obstacle course where they were evaluated. The scoreboard showed the scores of all the recruits. Adrian finished the obstacle course with the highest score, while the rest of his team was spread out in the first twenty places. Bethany was close behind in third place. After the course, they were taken to a class about weapons. They were given rifles and shown how to safely use them and care for them. After that, they ran another 8 km around the base, then they were sent to dinner and sleep.

  After reflecting on the day, Adrian wondered why the training was so easy, and his team wondered the same. The next morning, they formed in front of their rooms in three minutes, so they had to run eleven laps. After the first lap, Adrian noticed that the squad leaders increased the lap’s length by going through different hallways. So they ended up running more than the previous day. After breakfast, they were taken again to class. This time, it lasted only two hours, and then they started physical training in earnest.

  They ran different obstacle courses, which were all scored. They did pushups, crouches, and chin-ups, everything they’d expected to do the first day. After lunch, they went to weapons training. They were taught about all different kinds of ammunition, and which were less dangerous to use aboard a space station or a ship. Afterwards, they ran other obstacle courses in full gear. By the time dinner came, most were exhausted.

  The next two months passed in a blur.

  They ran in the mornings, and every few days, the trainers increased their lap length so that they never ran less than the first day, even when they finally managed to form the lines in two minutes. The mornings they passed in purely physical and martial training. The afternoons were reserved for weapons training and team movements. After the first month, they stopped running in full gear—after all, they were fleet, not the army. But they would still have that knowledge if they ever needed it. The second month they spent by doing different scenarios where teams were put against each other and their performance scored.

  Scenarios varied from capture the flag, defending a “deck” from boarders before reinforcements arrived, infiltration, boarding actions, team hand-to-hand combat, and speed courses. And Adrian had no choice but to reveal to his squad that he did have an implant, as most team communications were done through them. He got Laura’s permission to tell them that he had a new experimental implant (the same permission he got for his friend Sahib, although that had been asked for after the fact), and that the reason he didn’t tell them before was because it was top secret. He also instructed them that they weren’t allowed to tell anyone about it. He didn’t mention Iris. The third month had them starting training in zero gravity.

  They were instructed on how to move about without injuring themselves and others. How to operate weapons and fight in zero gravity. After a month of that, they were given more scenarios to participate in, these in zero gravity. By then, Adrian had grown closer to his roommates; they had formed a bond, and he now understood Sahib and his teammates’ bond. Though there was still some tension between Adrian and Bethany. They had become a sort of rivals without really being close. They didn’t have the same friendship that they had with the rest of the team.

  The atmosphere between the teams was competitive, with each team wanting to be on the top. The scores from individual scenarios were added to that of the team ones, to form a final score for the team. There were even scenarios where a few teams had to work together. When the fifth month of their training started, it brought a lot of changes to their training. They were informed that there would not be a final exam; instead, teams would pass if they had attained a high enough score. The problem was that they were not told what the passing score was, so every team had to work hard in order to increase their score.

  Also, their training stopped. The trainers were still available for advice, and were overseeing their overall progress, but they were left to manage their own training. And, more importantly, choose the scenarios they wanted to improve. Trainers told them that every month a new scenario would be available, and some decided to focus on attaining the highest scores in those new scenarios, while others focused more on those they were already familiar with. By the end of the fifth month, Adrian’s team hadn’t yet decided their path, and had focused on the individual challenges, but by the end of the month, they had lost their first place on the board, and had started falling behind rapidly.

  “We need to focus on team scenarios,” Helen said during one of their team meetings after dinner.

  “We are doing just fine with the individual challenges. Our team members are at the top of every individual scoreboard,” Marcus answered.

  “It doesn’t matter if we don’t graduate. We are falling behind the others, and we are in fifth place now,” Sakura said.

  “We just need to do better, it will add up,” Marcus retorted.

  Helen sighed. “The individual challenges give fewer points than the team ones,” she said.

  No one said anything for a moment, each sitting on the floor in the middle of the room mulling things over in their heads. They all knew that they had to change tactics if they were to retake their place at the top.

  “We suck as a team,” Paul said. No one said anything; they knew that he was right. Their teamwork lacked; they were able to get average scores in team challenges by relying on individual skills. The majority of their points came from individual challenges. Before, it had been enough to give them the top spot. But when the others started improving their scores, their team fell behind. The other teams had also each elected a team leader, while theirs hadn’t.

  Again, no one said anything. After a few minutes, Noah finally spoke.

  “We need a team leader, someone to direct us in team challenges,” he said.

  “And how do we choose?” Alexander asked.

  “We could vote,” Paul said hesitantly.

  “Not going to happen,” Ana said. “Face it, we would vote for ourselves.”

  They all nodded and then Adrian was struck with a thought.

  “That was their plan,” he said.

  “What?” Bethany asked.

  “Think about it. The other teams are all balanced, while ours is filled with people who have great individual talent—leaders. We don’t work well when we need to listen to others,” Adrian answered.

  The rest of them all looked surprised that they hadn’t seen it before.

  “So what? They want us to fail?” Sakura said angrily.

  “I don’t think so. I believe they want us to learn to work together and maybe learn how to follow,” Adrian
said.

  “So we got handicapped, and we are back at the start. We need to choose a leader amongst leaders,” Bethany said.

  “Or not…” Adrian said, a thought forming in his head.

  “What are you thinking?” Bethany asked.

  “Hm…I’m thinking that we were given a lot of freedom,” Adrian said.

  “So?” Helen asked.

  “So, the other teams chose leaders on their own. They weren’t told that they had to. The trainers only care about the scores, not how we get them.” Adrian paused.

  “And that means what, exactly?” Ana asked.

  Adrian smiled as his idea finally fully formed. “We don’t choose one leader, we choose ten,” he said, smiling.

  The others looked at each other, bewildered.

  “Uh, Adrian, that is the problem we are having now,” Tania said.

  “You misunderstand me. I don’t say we don’t change a thing. I say we literally choose ten leaders.”

  “I’m not following,” Marcus said.

  “I think that I am,” Bethany said, a smile forming on her face.

  Adrian turned to Bethany and asked. “In how many fields are scenarios divided?”

  “Obstacle courses, combat actions, hand-to-hand, zero gravity, and individual scenarios,” Bethany answered.

  “So?” Marcus asked.

  “We choose ten leaders, I get it now,” Sakura said.

  Adrian smiled at her. “Yes, we divide the scenarios. Ten leaders. Each one of us gets to lead in the area he is the best in,” he said.

  “That might work,” Tania said.

  “We would need to split our training time,” Sakura said. The rest of them eagerly joined in, their excitement rising. By the end of the hour, they had split scenarios amongst themselves. Paul would lead during scenarios that included ship boarding actions. Helen would lead the obstacle courses in gravity, while Marcus would lead obstacle courses in zero gravity. Noah would lead them in their training for individual challenges, as he had most of the top scores, while Sakura the station boarding courses, which why might sound similar to ship boarding were anything but. Alexander combat scenarios in zero g. Ana capture the flag courses. Tania hand-to-hand. And Adrian and Bethany would alternate in combat contests against other teams. They decided that rather than doing all scenarios at once like the other teams were doing, they would focus on one area first and then move on to the other.