by Kal Spriggs
“So… he's a plebe?” Alexander's eyebrows went up.
“If their royal family goes through that kind of thing, I guess,” I answered. Century didn't have anything like royalty. I mean, we had some older families and all, which I guess included mine, but that hadn't really seemed to give me all that much of an advantage. In fact, it had painted more of a target on my back.
“Hmm, if they've got a military culture, they'd put their royal family through the same deal, I'd wager,” Alexander mused. “Like Dalite. It builds up trust in the higher caste officers when the lower castes see them going through the same pain.”
I didn't argue. Alexander came from Century's Enclave, which was made up of refugee military families from the Dalite Hegemony. “He's part-way through his plebe year, if they have that there.” It seemed a safe enough bet that they did have something similar. I brought up what little info we had on the Imperial Military Institute. “Looks like it's a four-year program, but they use the Earth calendar, so twelve months per year.”
“So...” Alexander frowned, doing the math, “what, twelve months shorter than our school?”
“Yeah, if you don't count the Academy Prep course, then it's seventeen months less,” I nodded slowly. “Which, in my humble opinion, makes them less qualified in general. But he's the equivalent of halfway through his plebe year, a third of the way through what would be our plebe year. In that case, he won't have had time to even get into the higher level study stuff.”
“What about the princess?” Alexander asked.
I went through the file, but I wasn't getting much, if anything. “She's sixteen Earth years old,” I told him. “There's a news article that mentioned some kind of birthday celebration, but no real details. Since her cousin, Prince Ladon, is a year older, I'd be surprised if she's started at IMI, yet.”
Alexander gnawed on his lip for a moment. “I don't like it. They wouldn't send these two if they weren't going to perform well. They have to know there will be a lot of high-level classes. Officer Training School is the final step in Erewhon's commissioning program. I mean, some of these courses we're taking are the equivalent of our final exams. I don't think we can safely assume these two are inexperienced. If they're like the Enclave —or like Dalite— then these two will have been training since they were toddlers.”
“You think they're at our level?” I asked in shock.
“I think that we'd be stupid to underestimate them,” Alexander's gray eyes met mine. “Think about it this way. Erewhon's going to know probably everything you do. And the Drakkus Empire is going to know we know, right? They put that info out in the media. Everyone is going to think these two are kids out of their depth... but what if they're not? I mean, they're the grand-children of their hocking Emperor, right? You think they couldn't afford to get them private tutors and lessons on all this?”
It was my turn to set back. That was scary. In fact, I could see exactly why they'd send those two. Part of our being here was to show our allies how capable our training program was and how valuable we could be to them as allies. What if Drakkus had sent two of their best who were here to do the same thing... only to show just how dangerous they could be as enemies?
***
I didn't have a lot of time to consider the presence of the Drakkus royalty. We started off with physical training. Defense Station Zulu had a full gymnasium, complete with a grav-plate lined track that ran along the walls of the room. It was a bit eerie, actually, to be working out on the floor and look up to see someone sprinting along the walls... and then look all the way up to see someone working out on the ceiling.
It was at once a strangely impressive use of space and almost a slap in the face with the wastefulness. Gravity plates weren't hard to make, but they were power-intensive. So this gym probably used a really impressive quantity of power, just like that impressive holographic display we'd seen earlier. It was also a huge use of space on a station, where space had to be at a premium.
I didn't have much time to wonder about it, though. The School Cadre, a mix of officers and enlisted, ran us through a quick warmup, and then we went through the agony of a full-body physical evaluation. It started easy enough, with upper body exercises. We did pushups, pullups, lifted weights, tossed weighted balls to one another. It went on, and on, though, one set after another after another. Through it all, Star Commandant Athena walked through, not saying a thing, her expression serene, her eyes watchful. Here or there, people hit muscle failure, collapsing with trembling arms or staggering back from an exercise. I stuck with it, my arms feeling like wet noodles, right up until only six of us remained of the thirty or so who'd started and Star Commandant Athena called a halt. Alexander Karmazin making it didn't surprise me in the slightest. He was sickeningly fit. He and my boyfriend Kyle would go for long distance runs and spend time in the gym back at the Academy for fun. One of the MCA cadets was with us still, along with one of the Erewhon midshipmen. The last, two, though, were Prince Ladon and Princess Kiyu, both of whom panted like the rest of us, but they hadn't given up.
I couldn't help but level a glare on them, but the two of them seemed oblivious. Their bodyguards didn't seem to miss my look, though, the two of them stared back at me, their faces hidden behind their visors, but their attention obvious.
The next stage was abdominal exercises and we didn't have much time to recover before we all went right back into it. We did crunches, we did some exercise called the “supine bicycle” which was constant motion that didn't give us any time to rest, before moving into the next, and the next. It was oddly like Indoctrination, back in my Academy Prep Course, but no one was yelling or screaming at us. Every exercise order was given crisply and we'd move into the next. No one urged us to move faster or stay with it, but sheer stubbornness kept me going.
Well... stubbornness and continued looks over at the Drakkus contingent, the Prince and Princess continued, so I wasn't about to be shown up by them.
They called a halt with eight of us left, this time. I had a painful feeling that I knew exactly what was going to come up next. Generally, in military training they emphasized running, and they had to have the track running along the walls for a reason.
Sure enough, after we'd had a few minutes to recuperate, they led us up a spiral ramp that fed out onto the track. “Wind sprints!” Someone called out, and the entire group broke into a dash.
Running along the wall was an experience in itself. The gym felt big enough, up until I was running along the walls. The track curved up at the corners and the gravity plates overlapped a bit there, so I had the strangest sensation of falling even as my feet ran along the curved surface. To my left and right, what had been the floor and ceiling were now walls... where people continued doing their exercises. The forty of us went through three or four sets of sprints, running straight down the center of the track, which I kept up with fairly well. I wasn't long-legged, but I could pump my short legs pretty fast.
It was after the sprints ended that things became harder.
They dialed up the grav plates and suddenly it wasn't just a normal jog, it was like running wearing weights. The Erewhon midshipman stumbled along with resigned expressions, as if they'd been through this before. It was a particularly evil twist, something I'd never even thought of, and it was absolutely brutal. We slogged along at little better than a fast walk. My feet, my back, and my legs trembled with exertion. After two laps, I was gasping, barely managing to stagger along. I saw one of the Erewhon midshipmen stumble to the side and his posture straighten. The sides of the track, then, must have less gravity. A moment later, he jogged down a ramp to the floor, signaling he was done.
More people started to stumble to the side, one after the other. I was about to do it myself when one of the two MCA cadets bailed out right in front of me... and right in front of him, still staggering along, was Princess Kiyu.
Hock that, I thought to myself. My knees throbbed in pain, my legs felt like rubber bands, my feet felt like some
one had been mashing them with hammers. But the tall, graceful Princess hadn't fallen out, so I wasn't about to either.
I dug down, flinging all my anger, all my rage at what had happened to my family, and somehow I found the strength not just to stagger on, but to take longer strides, to close the distance, and then to start to pass her. I didn't look over, didn't even acknowledge her presence as I passed. This close to her, I could hear her panting, hear her gasps as she struggled to draw breath.
Choke on it, I thought malevolently at her, even as I strained to take longer strides, to leave her behind. To my consternation, her stride lengthened. Her longer legs fell into a rhythm, two steps to my three, and side by side, we staggered along. I found myself snarling, too out of breath to curse at her, to angry to even contemplate giving up, letting her win.
Then, as smoothly as it had dialed up, the grav plates dialed back down and one of the Cadre blew on his whistle, “Alright, take it down.”
I fought the urge to keep running, to run my enemy into the ground, to show her, show them all that I was better than her. But I slowed my pace to a walk. To my discomfort, the Princess did the same. I looked around, eager to look anywhere but at her. Ahead of us, I saw Karmazin limping a bit, but still on the track. I saw a couple of the Erewhon midshipmen, too. Looking down at the wall, or floor, or whatever it was, I saw most of the others, including Prince Ladon who wore an angry scowl. I couldn't help but give him a smirk as his watery blue-green eyes bored into me.
His expression darkened.
“Taunting him is perhaps not the smartest move,” Princess Kiyu murmured quietly.
I blinked in surprise, glancing at her in shock.
She'd turned her body a bit, walking sideways as if to stretch sore muscles, and in the process she'd faced away from her cousin so he couldn't see her speak. “He already doesn't like you. You and your family managed to bring a great deal of embarrassment to his father.”
I barely kept control of my expression, “His father tried to conquer my planet, arranged for riots that killed dozens, and his pirate pal Wessek killed my family.”
Princess Kiyu gave me a slight smile, showing no surprise at what I had known and said, “I didn't say he doesn't deserve to be taunted, or worse, but doing so openly and in public will demand retaliation of some kind. Ladon is not the type to remember any slight, no matter how petty. Watch yourself.”
Before I could respond, she stepped to the edge of the track, flexed her knees, and then leapt forward, off the grav plates. She did an elaborate flip as she went from one gravity field to the other, and then landed lightly on her feet next to her bodyguard.
What the... I stared after her, wondering how she could have managed that kind of maneuver with so little apparent effort, when my entire body felt like it had been run over by multiple ground cars.
My gaze went back to Prince Ladon, whose glare was now leveled on, of all people, his own cousin. His gaze went from her to me, and then back. Apparently, as much as he might hate me, he wasn't too fond of Princess Kiyu.
It was something I filed away for later consideration.
***
The first exercise involved fighter strike tactics, with each of us controlling an entire squadron of fighters. The Erewhon O'Bannon-class fighters were bigger than the old Firebolt Mark V's back on Century. They were faster, too, and each of them mounted a heavier particle beam as well as eight antimatter bombs, each of which almost qualified as missiles in their own right. I'd read about Guard Fleet making use of accelerators on their bomber craft to launch their bombs at high speed, rather than dropping them in the path of an enemy ship. The Erewhon System Defense Force had mounted thrusters and an accelerator on the each of the bombs themselves, which gave them some ability to adjust course and move into position better after launch.
It was an impressive feat, but my first thought as I read over the capabilities was just how expensive that would make each of their bombs. I could see how they'd done it, it wasn't much beyond the adjustment of a tractor field that often saw use for cargo movement. But each bomb mounted one of those tractor fields, sufficiently compact that they took up little more space than the “dumb” bombs that we used on Century. That had to increase the cost of an already expensive antimatter bomb.
I wasn't sure that the improved accuracy and capability added enough to make that expense worthwhile. The whole point of fighters armed with the bombs was a numerical threat. Enough fighters dropping enough antimatter bombs in the path of an enemy capital ship would take down its drive field and either destroy the ship in the process, or leave it crippled so follow on forces could destroy it. Did guided munitions improve their capabilities by any substantial amount? It wasn't a question I could answer without seeing it in action.
Of course, the first thing we did after I read about it was play out a match, our team versus another. It was our five squadrons of fighters against another five squadrons.
Star Commandant Athena gave us our briefing, laying out our attack course and objectives. “The enemy fighter squadrons are approaching our defense station, you will engage and destroy, do not let any of them through to engage the station.”
That seemed simple enough, but it still left me with a lot of questions. I'd read the doctrine that they'd given me. All the same, reading versus experiencing it was a big difference. There wasn't time for questions, either, within a few minutes I was seated in my simulated fighter cockpit, familiarizing myself as well as I could with the controls.
“Armstrong,” one of my team called out on the net, “what's your callsign?” I recognized his voice, I thought. He was the short, dark-haired Erewhon boy, a little younger than me. The Erewhon officers and midshipmen seemed to make use of callsigns as often as names, and their callsigns were sewn into their nametags instead of last names like on Century. Gyrfalcon doesn't seem like a real name... it was what showed on the display, though, so I'd have to go with that. It wasn't like we'd had time to sit down and introduce ourselves.
“Biohazard,” I answered automatically. There was a bit of a pause, and I could almost hear the curiosity from my teammates.
“Roger... Biohazard,” Gyrfalcon said. A moment later, my callsign populated on the display.
“Simulation start in three, two, one,” Star Commandant Athena announced over our headsets.
My displays went active and suddenly I was flying. The droning hum of a warp-drive fighter surrounded me, entirely. Looking up, the ceiling of the room had disappeared, as had the appearance of anything outside my cockpit. I knew it had to be holographic projections, but it felt real. It was a full visual and audio experience. Even the air took on that reused and processed smell that was common aboard tiny spacecraft.
I didn't have time to wonder about it, though. I had to manage the courses of ten fighters, including my own. The Erewhonese used smaller squadrons, ten instead of twelve. The software of the other nine fighters in my squadron had them falling in behind me relatively flawlessly, but I still had to monitor them and the overall formation of our strike force.
The other four from my team had formed up similarly and Gyrfalcon, whose craft had been highlighted as the wing commander, took the lead, snapping out orders and lining us up in a formation.
“Target priorities inbound,” he said, his voice tight in concentration. The enemy force bobbed and spun, their drive fields moving in a weaving, spiral motion designed to make it harder for our craft to track individual targets.
Warp drive fighter engagements tended to be problematic. They didn't have the agility to dogfight like in entertainment vids. Even the most advanced warp drive fighters had only about a thirty degree turning arc. To make matters harder, the O'Bannon-class fighters that Erewhon used had a relative velocity of point seven five of light speed while using their warp envelopes. So the closure speed was such that the human brain couldn't even remotely register, and even the ship's automated systems would have difficulty.
With the closure rate, we would hav
e time to fire one shot from our particle beams before the enemy formation swept through ours. Then we'd have to make a long looping turn, while they accelerated away. Since we couldn't catch up, they'd reach their targets and drop their bombs before we could engage them a second time.
The attackers had the advantage in this kind of situation. They controlled the angle they came in on, they controlled when and where and how many of their force would come from what direction. Gyrfalcon started spreading us out, casting a wide but thin net. “Target priorities,” he called out, and icons of fighters flashed on my display as he allocated which ones for me to focus my squadron's fire on.
It was a broad, general defensive move, but it didn't feel all that brilliant to me. We were on the defensive against equal numbers. We were supposed to stop this entire wave, but with how spread out we were, I didn't see how we'd manage.
Gyrfalcon had dropped his own squadron back, presumably to act as a second screen. Even as I noticed that, he pushed my squadron ahead of the others, right into the main track of the enemy fighter squadrons. Hock, I'm the tripwire. The enemy fighters would see my squadron ahead of the others and their commander would have to chose whether to engage or bypass... and a single squadron in his path would look like a vulnerable target.
Even as I realized that, I saw that time was just about up. I split my attention, using my implant to allocate targets even as I worked up evasive maneuvers. It wasn't going to be enough for me, I knew. I was massively outgunned. My team had decided to use me as a sacrificial bait. I could see how they were lining up to sweep in on my attackers.
The enemy spiral formation opened a bit, as each of the squadrons cleared a path for their fire. My world seemed to slow down as the last seconds ticked away. I allocated my weapons fire even as my fighter fired and spun to evade.
Fifty other fighters engaged the ten in my squadron in the same heartbeat. It was a testament to how hard warp drive fighters were to hit more than anything else that only four of my fighters died in that burst. Mine wasn't one of them, and by the time my brain processed that, my fighters had swept past curving into looping turns in an effort to get back into the fight.
