by TR Cameron
That was actually not okay. I was teaching myself that I don’t count quite as much, that others have a say over how I see myself and not to expect too much. I’ve always chosen to be #2 or even #32 when it was always okay to shoot for #1 and see how far I can go.
There’s a saying I really like. Nature does not know right or wrong, only consequences. The consequences of years of doing that is that I wasn’t taking in on a bone-deep level everything I have accomplished and celebrating them. The celebrations were more fleeting and shallower.
More than once I’ve had the weird experience of having someone recite back to me my thirty years’ worth of accomplishments as a writer (Washington Post stringer, national columnist, author of a book on US orphanages, best-selling indie author – and that’s just some of it) and I’ve had this wave of surprise wash over me. That really is a lot. But the feeling would pass.
I wasn’t willing to acknowledge my own milestones, greatness, achievements. It’s like I internally looked away because someone might disagree. Well, who cares? It was never a contest or a debate. I get to decide the value of what I’ve done and live with it. Old me put a low value on way too much and hid in the middle. New me is going to see how far this baby can go and stop looking around to see if there’s a consensus. If any of this rings true for you, let this weird year be the catalyst for your own retelling. It’s not even a transformation because I am already great, it’s more of an awakening to that fact and no longer caring if anyone agrees. More adventures to follow.
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Azophi Academy™ Book Three
Chapter One
The computerized voice rang through the Cronus’s corridors, echoing the one he’d heard through his comm thirty seconds before. “Set Condition One throughout the ship. Drop shuttles cleared for immediate launch.” UCCA Special Forces Captain Jackson Reese pelted toward the hangar that held his transport and his team while running through diagnostics in his helmet display to ensure his drop suit was fully operational for the mission ahead. His body dodged members of the Cronus’s crew without conscious instruction.
The hangar was a large rectangle with ships along the walls and an exit hatch positioned in the center of the floor. When the captain set the ship to its highest combat state, as it was now, vacuum filled the space to allow the craft held within to depart without constantly cycling atmosphere. He paused at the bulkhead door and watched as a black shuttle exited. The entrance opened at his command the instant the hatch was secure and closed automatically a second after he passed through.
His black shuttle was on the far wall, and he sprinted toward it at his top speed. As he neared the opening at the stern of the squat, boxy vessel, his people came into view. His display checked off his team members by placing a set of initials in the air above each helmeted figure. This would be their last mission together for an unknown amount of time, and it had kicked off a full hour earlier than planned, thanks to the unexpected arrival of several Confederacy battleships.
Beatrice “Wasp” O’Leary would take charge of the team while he was officially on leave, and unofficially on detached duty investigating a matter important to both the Special Forces and Azophi Academy. The thought of the castle in Scotland filled with high-fliers looking to take the next step forward brought a smile to his face, and he would have been hard-pressed to deny it was largely because that’s where Dr. Juno Cray made her home. She hadn’t yet requested a second date, but he was sure she would. Pretty sure. It’s likely, anyway.
The Artificial Intelligence that had finished its integration with his brain over the previous weeks made a noise that resembled a laugh. Shut up, no one asked you. Athena had proven to be far more sarcastic than he’d ever imagined a computer could be. But at least ten times a day, he wondered if he should have let the mission fail rather than have her implanted in his skull. At the time, it had seemed like a good idea.
Across from Wasp was Darius “Dare” Lyton and beside him Kyra “Books” Venn. The fourth and newest member of the team, Sebastian “Strings” Welker, was in the furthest seat. But when I leave, there will be a new newest member. He had every faith in Wasp’s ability to lead his team, but that still didn’t make it easy to step away, not by a long shot. And, since she’d probably move on to head a different squad when he returned, this would be his final mission with his most capable subordinate. She shifted aside so he could take the spot closest to the door.
Jax sat and grabbed the harness straps while announcing, “Stick, button up and let’s get the hell out of here.” An affirmative sounded from the pilot’s cabin, and he called up an exterior view on the display to watch the shuttle door close. Athena had quickly learned to integrate with his drop gear, and she populated his visual field with essential data. The bow-mounted camera was in one small square, vital sign information for each of his team members in another, and an external view of the space surrounding the Cronus in a larger one that took up a third of the available area.
Within its boundaries were eight capital ships and a host of smaller craft that flitted around them like furious wasps. Beams of energy connected one ship to the next on an almost constant basis, and torpedoes and projectile weapons increased the danger. He scowled and added unnecessarily, “And try not to get us shot down, okay?”
The pilot’s curse in response was inventive and appropriate and made him smile for the first time since the alarm went up. O’Leary asked, “So why the scramble?”
Jax shrugged. “Recon suggested the system wasn’t defended, only the planet, so we should have been able to drop secretly and soften up the target as usual. Turns out recon sucks.”
His team laughed at that, and Venn replied, “Far from the first time. They should hand that job over to SF.”
“We’re too busy to undertake that responsibility. And we can’t lower our standards to add recon people, right? I mean, we’re already scraping the bottom of the barrel with Strings over there.” Again, laughter came, but it was good-natured. A team rule was that no one was allowed to take offense at being made fun of, including him. Another reason I’ll miss Wasp. She has the best insults. “Anyway, that’s the deal. Once we spotted the Confederacy ships, ours jumped in to keep the other side distracted while the Cronus delivers us to the target.”
Lyton stated the obvious. “That doesn’t really explain why we’re bugging out.” The shuttle lifted and headed for the hatch in the center of the bay.
“Yeah. Turns out that we didn’t manage to distract them all, and one of the big ships is after the Cronus. So, to make sure we’re not here if it goes wrong, we’re heading out a little early.”
O’Leary sighed and observed happily, “Just another day in the Special Forces.”
Fate decided that such a tempting offer couldn’t stand without a response. The shuttle jerked suddenly, then began evasive maneuvers. The erratic moves threw them all against the harnesses that saved them from smashing into each other and the ship’s bulkheads. His external view showed a quartet of fighters chasing them. While their vessel could evade capital ships’ fire reasonably well, it had little chance of escaping the smaller craft despite Stick’s impressive piloting skills.
The yellow light that indicated imminent jump appeared on his display. Stick must be too busy flying to talk. Not a good sign. Jax called, “Everyone up, mag boots active, hold onto the rails. Double time.” They swatted their harness releases and obeyed his commands, then yanked rifles from their holders on the bulkheads and shoved them into the protective cases positioned on the back of their jumpsuits. The light switched to green, and instead of retracting normally, the rear panel of the shuttle flew off, detached from the ship by a series of small charges. Another really bad sign. He shouted, “Everyone out,” deactivated his mag boots, and jumped into space.
A blast struck the shuttle, and it caromed into his side and sent him spinning. Athena adjusted his display automatically to provide a static view of the exit he’d traversed. His people bailed in a surge and cleared
the craft before the next hit. The AI plotted an inbound missile, and he shouted, “Stick, eject!”
The pilot had other ideas, and rather than immediately abandoning ship, instead wrenched it to the side to collide with a fighter that had gotten a little too aggressive. Explosions went off all around the shuttle, one of them the rocket-propelled escape pod that was the pilot’s compartment flying free. It fell toward the planet below. Then Jax was out of time to worry about anything other than his plummet.
The fighters had lost sight of him and his team. Their small size, the shuttle’s last maneuver’s distraction, and their drop suits’ electronically camouflaged surface provided adequate concealment. A shield powered by heavy backpacks hovered an inch beyond the suit’s skin and absorbed the friction of their plunge into the atmosphere. Woven metal fabric connected arms to torso and spread between their legs to allow them all to get into proper position for the latter part of the drop.
The familiar rectangular wireframe pipe appeared in his display, and he steered into it. “Athena, what happened to the escape pod?”
The AI replied, “We are out of visual range. Its encoded beacon is still active. Also, you do not need to speak aloud for me to hear you.” She loved pointing that out to him, to judge by the number of times she’d done so.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He activated line-of-sight communication with his unit. “All right, Athena says Stick’s probably okay.” It was an exaggeration, but the team could use a boost, and there was every possibility it was also accurate. “Focus on your landing. Since they know we’re coming, we’ll go to Plan B.” Their usual approach was to try to penetrate an enemy facility separately, using stealth or disguise. That was far less viable when the bad guys were on the lookout.
Their suit computers directed them to the same landing zone, a clearing in a thick patch of trees. Despite being the first one out, he was the third to land. His parachute deployed at the proper moment, jerking him upward and providing the deeply uncomfortable sensation that his stomach had kept right on going without the rest of him. He landed cleanly and grabbed the lines as they split off from his suit to recover and bundle his chute. Less than five minutes later, they had all stripped out of their drop suits and left them carefully hidden under a tree at the edge of the clearing. It was standard practice where civilian presence was unknown to keep them out of sight. Anyone attempting to retrieve them who lacked the proper UCCA transponder would find them an impressively explosive surprise.
They’d opted for woodland camouflage since the trees provided cover right up to the edge of the town the Confederacy had selected as a base. Enemy forces had only been on the planet for a week, having taken it from the Alien Coalition in a brief but bloody struggle. The United Constitutional Corporate Alliance hoped to take it from them in turn and ideally put their time to better use in setting up stronger defenses. The Confederacy’s slow buildup had struck him as a potential trap, but UCCA intelligence claimed supply chain issues were at fault.
Of course, that was the same organization that was engaged in some backdoor arms deal with a pirate group, and probably also had its fingers in the development of the Artificial Intelligence he’d stolen on Professor Maarsen’s behalf. No one expected it would wind up in his head, nor that once it was in there, it would send out connective threads to ensure maximum efficiency—in Athena’s words—and simultaneously make it impossible to remove without killing him, in Juno’s estimation.
At the moment, none of that mattered. His team was kitted out in uniforms, body armor, helmets with transparent faceplates, and rifles in hand. Each of them also carried grenades and a pistol, although preferences differed. His gun was pure projectile, capable of shooting one explosive-tipped bullet at a time or a full magazine in under three seconds. His belt held grenades of lesser lethality: web, flashbang, and smoke. He nodded at the four faces staring at him. “Let’s do this. Dare point, then me, Books, and Strings. Wasp, you have rearguard.”
She scowled. “You’re only putting me in back because this is your last chance to be a jerk to me.”
Jax shook his head. “I’m completely certain I’ll have many more opportunities before the mission’s over. I’m doing it because I dislike you.” His team laughed, and he grinned. “Let’s go wreck some Confederacy troops’ days. Move out.”
Chapter Two
They made it to within a kilometer of the city before Lyton’s suit sensors detected trouble. Their gear communicated through line-of-sight data transfer, so as soon as one received useful information, it was instantly available to everyone. He didn’t have to order the team to stop. They all froze automatically as the heat signatures appeared at the edge of their scanning range.
Dare said, “I make it four,” and Books replied, “Four confirmed.”
Jax delayed responding as he watched to see what the figures would do. It quickly became apparent that they’d stumbled on a patrol, and the foursome was headed in their direction. Two options presented themselves. Hide and wait for them to pass, and hope that their foes’ ability to detect intruders was less effective than theirs. Or, take them out and hope they were only reporting in occasionally, and that his team would have some time before anyone noted the enemy patrol’s absence.
He mostly defaulted to action in such situations, and this sunny afternoon on planet Vermar was no different. “Dare and Books, circle right. Wasp, you and Strings circle in from the left. I’ll go straight ahead. Keep the noise down. Low power stun to start.” Projectiles and explosions could give them away. “But if they’re armored or that doesn’t work, do what you have to do. We can always use this as a diversion and go in on a different vector. Wasp kicks off the action.” His instructions made it likely that she’d be the first to be in range since their targets were headed in that direction. Plus, she’d be smart enough to observe the team’s positioning and make her decision on that basis. And finally, it’s one more chance for me to watch her in a leadership role and see if I can spot any problems. He’d reviewed all her after-action reports in the previous weeks and had found nothing concerning. That didn’t make his worry vanish, though. Major Anika Stephenson had patted him on the shoulder and told him that’s what leadership was like. It would have sounded condescending from almost anyone else, but not from her.
Jax approached the quartet cautiously, stepping heel to toe in a slow walk and staying near the trees he passed. The trunks were three times larger than he could reach around and rose at least forty or fifty feet into the air. The broad leaves blended into a canopy that filtered the illumination coming in. Of course, thermal detection doesn’t care too much about that, and you have to assume that if we have it, they have it.
He lowered himself to the ground and trained his rifle toward the approaching enemy soldiers. While there was no love lost between the fighters of each faction, neither was there any personal animosity. Jax and his team were professionals, and the others were the same, on a different side of the geopolitical divide. Where he could be nonlethal, he would be. Where he couldn’t, he wouldn’t lose sleep over it. Stephenson had discussed her philosophy on the matter over drinks with him one late night after a mission. “Jackson, it’s simple for me. We all make our choices, and we live with their consequences.”
So, here’s hoping the consequences of our decisions turn out better than theirs. Wasp whispered, “Going on three,” then counted up. When she reached the end, he pulled the trigger on the person in the front right of the enemy formation, which was a loose two-by-two. His audio pickups detected the electrical discharge of his team’s weapons, and the yellow and red thermal body-shapes in his display fell. No fire came in response, so presumably, they’d been rendered unconscious. He stayed in position as Wasp ordered Dare to meet her at the bodies, then rose when she announced, “Clear.”
The troops hadn’t been armored, which he could understand given the ambient heat. He’d been sweating since peeling off the jumpsuit and was certain his team felt the same. Still, it was a
n odd choice since they should have received a warning from the fighters ahead of time, if not sooner. But it was possible the timing might have worked out such that this group was already patrolling. A swift search of the bodies revealed no additional information, so they secured the prisoners to one another with ties at their wrists and ankles, tossed their comms and weapons beyond easy reach, and moved on.
An indicator pulsed to announce the creation of a private channel with O’Leary. “Something about this seem weird to you, Boss?”
“I was just thinking that. I mean, they might have already been out for a walkabout. But if they knew far enough in advance to reinforce with ships, how did that word not get down here?”
“Yeah. Like I said, weird.”
“Keep an eye out, Wasp.” He triggered the full team channel and warned the others to do the same, then added, “Let’s vector to our right, in case someone noticed that little encounter.” His squad reassembled itself into its former marching order and headed in the direction he’d indicated. They reached the edge of the trees without incident, and he peered ahead at the town, or at least what passed for one here. It was a collection of small buildings, none more than one story high. If they were arranged in any logical fashion, that mode of thinking wasn’t one he’d previously come across. No grid, no wheel pattern, only a bunch of squat structures that looked like a giant had tossed them as if they were dice and they’d stayed where they stopped.
Jax shook his head and waved at the rest of them to crouch in the cover of the thick trunks and abundant leaves. “This looks even stranger from ground level.” They’d discussed the oddness as they reviewed the recon materials from the spy satellite that had been inserted days before their arrival, and no one had been able to offer any reason at all behind it. “Let’s launch a drone, Books.”
