Blazer prepared himself to fight back against any unfair decision to come. Admiral Sares had commended their performance in battle the annura before, and Blazer wouldn’t allow the academy to break them up without a fight.
Tadeh Qudas raised a hand to quell their fears. “As of four hects ago, I have taken command of the Monstero Nach.”
The sound of Mikle dropping his cup to the deck pulled Blazer’s attention in time to watch Acknit dribble a mouthful of juice back into his own cup.
“You, sir?” Blazer asked.
“Yes, me. I know it comes as a surprise to you, but it appears to be the best course of action, for the good of all involved. Don’t expect any special favors,” he continued, fixing each of them with that deathly cold stare of his. “In point of fact, I will have to rely on your team leaders to take on many of the squadron’s cyclic affairs because of my instruction schedule. As your commander, I will expect more from all of you. By the time you graduate, I will have turned you into warriors worthy of the Telshin. Now, I have a lot to get to work on with the incoming cadets this semester, so you will excuse me for not staying longer.”
“I’m not sure what to say, sir,” Blazer stammered.
“Save the speech for later, Vaughnt. I want all of you get some rest and be ready for class next cycle.”
UCSB DATE: 1001.273
Star System: Classified, UCSBA-13, Flight Instruction Room 514
Arion’s nose scrunched up as he resisted the urge to scratch at it for the umpteenth time since receiving his MiCOMM implant. Not that it helps.
“Like crazy, how long did yours?”
Arion looked back at Matt in his flightsuit and realized that he hadn’t said a word out loud. The MiCOMM link rang through so clear that he’d sworn he had. He still wasn’t entirely comfortable with the process even after Blazer had ordered the entire team to practice with them all the cycle before.
Arion considered that. The micomm offered Weapons and Systems Officers (WSOs) like them a level of interface with their fighters that they could otherwise never achieve.
Matt nodded.
he replied and scratched at his nose.
Zithe rang in over the link, Arion’s micomm accidentally inviting him into the conversation because he’d mentioned his name.
Arion looked around. Zithe’s voice seemed too clear for him to be across the academy, but he was.
“We’ve arrived,” Matt announced out loud as they reached their classroom.
“Effective,” Arion remarked and keyed the door open.
As soon as Arion stepped through the door, he saw why everyone had described it as an odd cross between a simulator bay and a standard classroom. Instead of rows of desks, it featured twenty-six fully functional WSO stations, enough for two squadrons.
He looked about the room. Arion and Matt, along with Telsh, Gokhead, Nash, Ller, Bichard, Gadcon, Rudjick, Roilin, Dosher, and Acknit had tested into the WSO category. While some still voiced concern that it was because their piloting skills did not rate high enough, he disagreed. The WSOs from the Nip Tails, a new squadron made up mostly of Special Operations wash outs and pushing to fly the Splicer 3000, joined them. I wonder if they intentionally paired us up after the battle last annura? We did the best we could to cover the Temblors in their three kays, we were just too inexperienced.
Arion noticed several of the others playing with their micomms as he headed to his seat, pushing about points in the air that only they could see. The micomms gave them access to the academy’s intraweave and even the hyperweave beyond. He shuddered at how they’d accepted the technology so readily. Do none of them remember their history? How hackers and luddites gained access to the old micomms and uploaded viruses that brought society to its knees? Or how about the time the Otlian Emperor Berhan used them to turn his populace into mindless drones?
It didn’t matter to him that modern micomms had greater limitations as a result, cutting off from all of the users’ motor functions. They had access only to the sensory and communications centers with firewalls preventing malicious code from creeping in. I’ll use mine for work only.
Arion sat down in the front row next to Gokhead, Matt in the row behind. All of them wore their flightsuits and carried their new special WSO helmets. These were different from the ones they’d worn the annura before, which their pilots still used. These contained special hardware for a deeper interface with their fighters through the micomm.
In the next seat, Gokhead used his micomm with practiced ease. Arion could only guess what he was doing—reading news, messaging colleagues parsecs away, maybe checking up on the syllabi for the rest of his classes.
Arion marveled at it. “You use that thing like you’ve had it forever.”
“I’ve had a micomm for five annura now.”
Arion gawked at that and his micomm brought up an article on Drashig use of micomms. Every time he had a stray thought, the micomm would give him a list of relevant stitches. It proved annoying. He’d already seen signs and notes in his syllabi in other classes that teachers would suppress his micomm in class.
He wished someone would suppress it now. Realizing that he’d forgotten what the doctor had told him about shutting it off, much to his chagrin, the micomm came to his aid and displayed the default procedure to shut it off and on again. He tapped his left temple and the display disappeared. He sighed in relief. “Why have you had a micomm all this time?”
Gokhead shrugged. “It made sense, given my chosen career path and the subjects I was taking in school. It made it that much easier to study for one class while in an easier one, where I’d already mastered the subject matter.”
Arion tapped the macomm in his shoulder pocket. “I get that, but I’m still more comfortable using the handheld.”
Gokhead nodded. “I was too, at first, but you’ll get used to it.”
I doubt that. I get why you guys like it, but this is a work-only tool for me. I’m not going to use it as a toy or rely on it for cyclic operations.
“Why are we in flightsuits for this?” Rudjick piped up as he adjusted his seat on the other side of Gokhead.
“Not sure,” Arion commented and looked back at Gokhead. For first time he noticed the design of the seat that the young Drashig sat in. Gokhead sat further forward in his seat than the rest of them, in a seat designed to let his thighs run under the backrest, so that his reverse-hinged knees could rest behind him. There, he grasped a pair of rudder handles with his thumbed feet. He’d had other classes with Gokhead in the past, but this was the first time that Arion had seen a seat custom-made for Drashigs. “Gok?”
“It’s to get us used to wearing them on a cyclic basis,” Gokhead replied, as he brought up another stitch on his micomm, Arion recognizing the motion. In an instant he realized what the nervous ticks he’d thought Gokhead had were ac
tually micomm commands.
“Room, ‘ten Hut!” Gadcon called from the back of the room as a dark skinned Drashig strode through the door. Out of the corner of his eye, Arion noticed the gray brown color of the Drashig’s Marine Corps uniform.
Stopping at the podium at the front of the room, the instructor turned to face the class, looking over the room with a quiet intensity. “Seats!” Before the cadets could sit, he called out once again, “On your feet!”
The cadets jumped back to a position of attention.
“No, no, no, much too slow. Seats!”
The cadets plopped down in their seats without ceremony.
“On your feet!”
Once again, the cadets jumped from their seats to full attention.
“Still too slow! If you were that slow in combat,” he said walking towards Gokhead. “You would be dead. Grab your seats.”
Most of the cadets dropped back into their chairs, but a handful, Arion among them, after a moment’s hesitation, reached back and grabbed hold of their chairs.
“Any of you who are seated are dead. Failure to follow simple instructions,” he yelled at the seated cadets. “The instruction was to grab your seats, not sit in your seats. Now everyone sit down.”
Arion and the rest resumed their seats as their instructor returned to the podium.
“I am Officer Phelp OssGrim, Confed Marines. You may call me Grunt. I am your Weapon and Systems Officer training instructor. Now, why you are here?”
A quiet comment from one of the Nip Tails echoed up from the back of the room.
Grunt’s face twisted in subdued anger. “You there, cadet. What did you say?”
The cadet’s boots echoed through the silent room when he jumped to his feet. “I said it’s because we failed the pilot aptitude tests, Sir!”
Arion cringed, sure that the cadet wished he’d kept his mouth shut.
Grunt growled, fixing him with a cold stare. “What is your name?”
“Cadet Tendish Valcain.”
Grunt’s eyes flashed for a moment. Arion recognized the movement—he was looking something up on his micomm. Gokhead often made the same flash before coming up with an answer from thin air. He looked at Gokhead and caught the subtle hint of a left-handed smile. Cocky little bastard.
“Cadet Valcain, get out of my sight, and send Cadet Heric to me!” Grunt ordered.
“But sir…”
“I said out, Cadet!”
Valcain gathered up his bag and helmet and rushed out of the room.
“The reason you are here is because you are superior to your pilots. The tests you took assisted us in deciding crew configurations, and to find out that you all are the best candidates for WSO training. Understand this…”
Cadet Heric scrambled into the room, interrupting Grunt. Clad in his standard duty uniform, he stood out amongst the flightsuit-clad cadets. He issued a clumsy cross chest salute. “Cadet Heric reporting as per your order, Sir!”
“Take a seat, cadet. You’ve just been promoted to WSO.”
Heric took Valcain’s empty seat, shrugging his shoulders in confusion as he exchanged nervous glances with his squadmates.
“Understand this. Your pilot is a chauffeur. You are in charge of that fighter. Pilots fly fighters, and WSOs fly pilots. The fighter is yours.
“Compared to your pilots, you are better able to take in, assimilate, process, and relay data. From your station, you control your craft’s systems, monitor all incoming communications traffic and sensor data, and can even override a pilot’s controls if necessary. According to our tests, the best WSO in this room is most likely Cadet Acknit. Cadet wake up!”
Acknit went rigid in his chair, eyes wide. “Sir! I wasn’t sleeping. I was only resting my eyes.”
Grunt stared at Acknit with a careful eye and then at the rest of them, clearly noting shocked reactions among the other cadets. “Does this news come as a surprise to the rest of you? Just because Cadet Acknit is tired this cycle doesn’t mean he’s some kind of slacker.”
“Actually sir,” Rudjick piped up from beside Arion. “This is his usual activity level. I’ve worked with him for an annura now, and I greatly respect him, but he earned the handle ‘Sloth’ for a reason.”
Grunt fixed the smaller elf in a fierce gaze. “And what might that reason be?”
Acknit stretched in his chair with a fierce yawn. “I’m a little slow on the uptake. But I do tend to get work done quickly, ‘cause otherwise it cuts into my nap time.”
Grunt stood dumbfounded for a moment, reviewing something through his micomm.
Acknit’s performance chart, maybe?
“The tests showed that you have an almost genius level IQ and your ability to manage onboard systems is almost uncanny. Your speed at relaying data and handling power management was in the top five percentile.”
“Like I said, Sir, I finish stuff quick because it cuts into my nap time.”
“Just how much do you sleep?”
“He doesn’t, Sir.” Gokhead responded on Acknit’s behalf. “He enters a pseudo-sleep state. To all outward appearances, he seems to be sleeping, almost comatose at times. In reality, his conscious mind is wide-awake and taking in everything. He tends to spend most of his cycles like that, just storing up energy. And, when he releases that energy he’s the exact opposite.”
“Explain,” Grunt ordered.
“Have you ever seen the levels of energy released by a cracked Photo Energizer Crystal that’s been fully charged?” Roilin asked from the Explosions’ row.
Grunt nodded in response, raising an eyebrow.
“That’s him.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Acknit yawned.
“Plus, he tends to downplay his abilities,” Arion added.
“Hey, I have an image to maintain,” Acknit said, kicking the back of Arion’s chair.
“Of course, there is one thing you can say that wakes him up faster than anything,” Gokhead commented, and in a voice just louder than a whisper he said, “Slamball.”
“Slamball!” Acknit replied, his eyes shooting open as he jerked up in his seat and came wide-awake. “Hey, no fair!” He stared at Gokhead, while the other cadets laughed.
“Interesting, but let’s get down to business,” Grunt announced, activating the wall-mounted holo-projector. The 3-D image of a WSO at his station coalesced beside the podium.
Arion had to suppress a grin as Acknit started to play with his fingers in an effort to drop down from his Slamball readiness state.
“This is the standard WSO station for all hominid races within the UCSB. Variations of it are aboard all multi-seat combat craft in active Confed service. The WSO station operates at five levels.”
A new hologram activated beside the first, showing a list of the five levels.
“Level One is basic. It’s the screens in front of you that display ship systems and sensor data. Level Two adds the standard holographic surrounding sensor display, much like what your pilots use, but with more sensor data. Most WSOs only use levels One and Two as backups, should Levels Three through Five become unavailable. Level Three is a virtual reality system that projects inside your helmet. It was an interim design, made available before the widespread disposition of micomms and before Level Four’s full development. Some WSOs and races still prefer it. Level Four is the direct neuroinput system that uses your micomm. It presents you a full omni-directional sensor picture and instant accessibility to all ship systems.”
Grunt paused for a moment to allow the cadets to assimilate the information.
Arion considered the implications. It’ll be almost godlike in a way to see everything the way he describes. He traded a glance with Rudjick, the elf’s eyes wide with fear. He’d never seen Rudjick nervous before. Is it the sheer amount of data, or the responsibility? I’ll ask him later.
“Level Four never proved entirely stable, or reliable, prior to micomms. Now, however, it has been surpassed by the Level Five interface. You will, of course,
notice that your helmets are different from the standard pilot’s helmet.”
Arion fingered the nodules on the back of the helmet in his lap and looked down at the twin sensor and eye tracking trails that sat above where his eyes would be. Similar eye-tracking tech was in a pilot’s helmet, but these were more precise and worked better with the micomm. On the whole, it made the helmet only a little bulkier than a pilot’s helmet, but also far more powerful.
“Don’t worry, Cadet Heric, we will get you a proper brain bucket before lights out. The helmets are a cross between standard flight helmets and the helmets used in the direct neuro-simulation bays that any of you who had Special Ops training should already be accustomed to.”
Arion and the others nodded. Thank God the faceplate isn’t opaque like those.
“Level Five is beyond anything you’ve ever experienced, and it’s the primary reason for the intense screening and tests. Level Five is full immersion. You, in essence, become one with the fighter. Doing so requires concentrated training to learn how to control all the systems, to the point that it’s second nature.”
“But sir, isn’t that dangerous? How do you tell where the craft stops and you begin?” Arion asked, trepidation in his voice.
“When you’re in Level Five, there is no border. You are the fighter. Early users of the system became addicted to the interface. Some would end up carrying around portable devices to emulate the effect through their micomms. Individuals whose psychological profile indicates that they will have withdrawal problems from the systems are eliminated. The system is safe, though, and there is an automatic cut-off in case of ejection. While using levels Three through Five you are said to be under the ‘Shroud.’ This comes from early pilot requests to their WSO using the system to cover themselves while using it because pilots found their odd movements while using the system disturbing.”
“Does it really look that odd, Sir?” Ller asked.
“In level Three and Four, it looks like someone playing with their micomm. In level Five, you don’t move much at all, but some pilots find that even more disturbing. We’ll progress slowly at first. You’ll learn to operate at every level. You may operate at Level Four or Five most of the time, but you must also know how to use the lower levels in case of equipment failure that denies you those levels. Now, let’s get started. Activate the lesson one tutorial at your stations.”
In Death's Shadow Page 26
