Chương 10: Washout

Academy Hill, Vidako Imperium Stellarum August, 2847 To Arc's surprise, Cadet Iyer stayed until he was settled on a cot in the infirmary, sipping from a bottle of juice. Heat exhaustion and dehydration were, from the bored expression on the face of the corpsman who'd seen him, everyday occurrences at the academy.

"You need to be a bit smarter about pacing yourself," Iyer said, pulling a chair over next to the cot and taking a seat. It was, Arc realized, the closest thing to friendly he'd gotten from an upperclassman since he'd arrived.

"Vidako is a warm world, and we're on the equator. You're not used to the heat. You need to drink as much as you can and take advantage of any chance to rest Lieutenant Kekoa gives you." Arc frowned.

"I need those merits, though." Iyer was quiet a moment, then sighed and leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees.

"You're from Zurah V, right?"

"How'd you know?" Arc nodded and then flushed when he realized that he hadn't been addressing the older cadet appropriately. Something about Iyer's easy manner just encouraged a lack of formality, and it was difficult to put his finger on why.

"Sir." Iyer waved a hand dismissively.

"There's not all that many pilot cadets in each new class," he pointed out.

"You think we don't talk about who's coming from our home systems?"

"You're from Zurah, too?" Arc sat up from the thin pillow which the corpsman had used to cushion his back.

"Zurah IV," Iyer said.

"I have to admit, the first time I ever got over to Avataran Shahar was when I left for the academy. Before that, I'd never been off world. But there isn't enough traffic from Sargasso to the gate, so it's always a ship to the spaceport on Zurah V, and then I catch a ride from there out to L2."

"Well, I've never been to Sargasso," Arc admitted. He couldn't help but grin at the thought.

"Can you feel it? I mean, is it true the city moves when the waves come in?" Iyer chuckled.

"You only really notice when a storm blows through," he said.

"At least, once you've gotten your sea legs. I can always tell a tourist by the way they walk. The artificial reefs break up the worst of the waves, so it isn't as bad as you might be imagining. But Sargasso City's where I first saw a mech."

"I didn't think mechs would be safe on the platforms," Arc remarked. He wasn't an expert on Zurah IV's floating cities, even if he did live in the same system, but he was fairly certain that none of the individually linked pieces were more than a square kilometer in size.

"They can support houses, hospitals, and thousands of people just fine," Iyer said.

"So, it's safer than you might expect. But actually, it was Alu'kan industrial mechs going down to set up an oil well. There were half a dozen of them, and someone must have decided that for safety they were going to take along one Riptide, as an escort." Arc could feel his own eyes getting wide, and he didn't even try to stop it.

"Those things are supposed to be enormous."

"They are. Even bigger than a Leviathan," Iyer confirmed.

"I must have been about six standard years old, and I remember climbing up on the seawall with my friends to get a better look. I'm surprised none of us fell off. But I won't ever forget the sight. Not the sort of thing you'll find here."

"They could train in the bay though, couldn't they?" Arc pointed out.

"They could, but there isn't much of a point off one of the ringworlds," Iyer explained.

"They're just too specialized for fleet to put much of an effort into training pilots who're only going to operate underwater. Anyway—trust me when I tell you that there's going to be a lot more, and a lot better, opportunities for you to earn merits than killing yourself on an obstacle course." It was done so neatly that Arc couldn't help but be both surprised and impressed. Iyer hadn't ignored what he'd said; instead, with only a brief conversation about their homes, he'd somehow gotten Arc to relax.

Even though he saw what was being done, he couldn't bring himself to be upset.

"I don't know how long I can keep this up," Arc admitted. It wasn't something he'd said out loud to anyone—and only allowed himself to contemplate the thought when he crawled into his bunk each night.

"Everyone else in my dorm room only needs three or four hours of sleep," he explained, once it became clear that Iyer was settled in to listen, and that the older cadet wouldn't interrupt.

"They roll out of their bunks in the morning like it's nothing, while I drag myself along. I'm tired all the time. I feel like I can't even think straight."

"And you figure the right genetic retrovirus will fix that for you," Iyer said.

"You're not wrong. But a thousand merits is a long way off. A pat on the back for five or ten because you blew yourself out on the track isn't going to get you there any sooner. What you got from Lieutenant Kekoa today? That's only one percent of what you need." The bleak despair that Arc hadn't felt since the days just after his sister had died welled up inside him.

Iyer was right—even if he earned ten merits a day, every day, it would be more than half the school year before he could afford the advantage that Delvan Beck and Cal Madine had started with. Perfect grades could knock off as much as a quarter of that, but no matter how he thought about it, Arc was going to have to get through the entire first semester as he was.

"I don't know if I can make it," he confessed.

"When I think about being this tired for not just days, but months? I don't know how anyone survives."

"It eases up after Hard Burn," Iyer told him.

"Those first six weeks are really, really hard. I'm not going to tell you otherwise. But everyone who's an upperclassman right now has made it through, Sandhurst. We've all been where you are right now. And we survived."

"How?" Arc was embarrassed at how much it sounded like he was begging for something.

"One day at a time," Iyer said.

"Just do the next thing. They tell you to run a course, run the course. It's time to wake up, wake up and make your bed. Do the next thing, and don't think about what comes after. As long as you keep doing that, I promise, you will make it through." Arc nodded, but it was difficult to take much comfort from that. It didn't feel like the older cadet had actually offered him any solutions.

"One more thing." Iyer stood up from the chair.

"Don't get Blake Van Camp's attention."

"Sir?" Arc looked up and frowned. Iyer lowered his voice and glanced around to make certain that none of the corpsmen or patients were close enough to hear their conversation.

"He's not a good person, Sandhurst. He's mean—like a dog that's been kicked too much. He won't start trouble with anyone who outranks him, but helping Lieutenant Kekoa gives him an excuse. He will run you—or anyone else he can—into the ground, and he'll say it's because you can't hack it. Stay away from him."

"I'll try, sir," Arc said. But as he watched Cadet Second Class Iyer walk away, he couldn't help remembering how Van Camp had been humiliated by Cassie, in front of half the incoming class. He'd obviously been forced to apologize to her, and still he'd taken the first opportunity to shove Arc out of the way. Would it really be possible to just avoid the man? 𝝮 Do the next thing.

It was simple advice, but fiendishly difficult to put into practice, particularly when one was sunk deep into their own private pit of misery. As the days passed, Arc had no time, and no energy, to devote to anything except surviving each fresh new torture Lieutenant Kekoa subjected them to. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

There was the obstacle course, a perennial favorite; marching, jogging, sprints, and crawling beneath strung wire meant to represent mono-filaments capable of slicing a man's finger off before he'd even realized he'd touched it. Arc bumped up against the stuff enough times that he was grateful the academy only used practice wire, instead of the real thing, or he'd have been horrifically maimed. The only relief he found from the unending, nearly unendurable pressure came in two forms.

The first was, of course, the moment that Arc was finally able to put his head down on his pillow at the end of each day. He'd never fallen asleep so quickly or so easily, and he slept through every night until the moment the alarms rang out, from utter exhaustion. They'd all bowed to Cal Madine's wisdom, eventually, and set their own tablets to the same time. If sleep was a physical necessity, the three brief meals clustered around the end of their table in the mess hall were just as vital psychologically.

Stolen moments and snatched conversations in between shoveling food into his mouth were the only bright spots of Arc's day, and he couldn't imagine surviving Hard Burn without his friends. Vee's feathered crest drooped from exhaustion, but somehow she always found something to joke about. Her humor grew particularly dangerous when it came to their superior officer—because she, it turned out, had a talent for nearly pitch perfect imitations.

"It's the syrinx," Delvan Beck explained, as he used his fork to push around a lump of uneaten mashed potatoes on his plate.

"What Toreans have instead of a larynx. Let's them mimic just about any sound—even more than one at a time."

"Which is why we're such great singers," Vee butted in, getting half out of her seat to lean across the table and tussle her fingers through each cadet's hair. Again, Arc noticed the distinctive citrus scent of her body once she got close. Out of all of them, Vee was the only one who smelled better after a day's exercise.

"Now, clear that plate, cadet, or I'll smoke you so hard you'll wish your mother had never laid your egg!"

"I can't believe that," Pika said, shaking his head.

"My people can sing, but—you sound just like Lieutenant Kekoa."

"Don't let him hear it," Cassie warned.

"Or he really will smoke you, Vee."

"And sit down," Rain murmured quietly. She slipped her fingers through Vee's belt loops and yanked her roommate back onto the bench. By the third week, things had started to ease up, just as Iyer promised. Half a dozen empty seats had appeared around the mess hall by that time, and though they went unremarked upon, Arc had caught sight of one cadet, packed luggage rolling behind him, headed to the elevators. If Kekoa was determined to separate those who could hack it from those who couldn't, he was doing his job.

But fleet, and the academy, evidently needed them to be able to do more than run ten kilometers. Exercise began to be interspersed with actual training. Corpsmen from the infirmary taught basic first aid: how to make a stretcher with whatever you could find, how to tie a tourniquet, plug a bullet wound, or recognize that someone was going into shock. Those were about the only lessons at which Delvan excelled, and he earned something like seventy merits for himself during those days.

It might even have made up for how much difficulty he had in other ways, though Arc wasn't keeping a detailed tally. They were taught to throw a punch, to use an armbar, and to break a leg down. No one could hip-toss Pika, of course, and being paired off with the enormous Alu'kan was quickly taken as a sign that Lieutenant Kekoa had become displeased with a cadet, for some reason or other.

Given his size, it wasn't surprising that Arc's bunkmate excelled during unarmed combat training, and of course it was no shock that Cal Madine had trained—but no one had expected Rain to be nearly as good as she was. Arc was catching his breath not far away when it happened, in between going rounds with Cassie. Ever since Cadet Second Class Iyer had given him a talking to at the infirmary, he'd tried to be much more conscious of what his body needed.

As he raised a bottle of water to his lips, he watched the girl square off against Delvan. Beck hesitated to attack Rain, and Arc didn't blame him. She was so quiet most of the time, even when surrounded by her roommates, who seemed to be the only people that the Alu'kan girl was truly comfortable with. For a moment, she and Beck circled each other.

"Stop fucking around and hit her, mole rat!" Van Camp shouted, striding over to where the two faced off.

"A soldier isn't afraid to hurt a girl." Delvan flinched, glanced over to Van Camp, and then back to Rain. It was clear to everyone watching, including Arc, that he didn't want to.

"I'll make it simple for you, cadet," the upperclassman declared.

"If you don't throw a punch, or do something, by the time I count to ten, you're fighting me instead of her." Van Camp smiled, and the light in his eyes was cold as the edge of a blade.

"Come on Beck, do it," Cassie whispered from where she stood at Arc's side. Delvan must have realized just what a bad idea it would be to give Van Camp free rein to 'instruct' him, because he gave a shout, lunged forward, and threw a right cross at Rain's head. Her response was so fast that Arc could hardly track it. Rain brought her right hand up and used it to brush Delvan's punch off center, so that it went past her.

Once she had control of his arm, with her fingers wrapped around his wrist, she jammed the heel of her left hand into the back of his elbow. It wasn't hard enough to snap anything, but it clearly hurt, because Delvan cried out in pain. She followed up by kicking out the back of his knee, riding him down to the ground, and then scuttling behind him, quick as a spider, to put him into a chokehold. All around, the sparring cadets paused in their exertions.

Even Lieutenant Kekoa came over to watch Delvan Beck struggle futilely, and then frantically tap his hand against Rain's forearm. By the time she released him, his face was red. He rolled away and began sucking in great, heaving breaths.

"Cadet Makani, good work," Kekoa said.

"Thank you, sir." Rain got to her feet, where she stood at attention facing the lieutenant.

"I didn't teach you that," the Alu'kan officer admitted.

"Where did you learn it?"

"From Imperial Marines, sir," Rain answered.

"7th battalion, attached to the Nerva." Kekoa considered her for a long moment, as the entire group of cadets watched.

"Congratulations, cadet," he said at last.

"I don't usually offer this to first years, but I'm impressed. How would you like to assist our unarmed combat training as an instructor? You'll be awarded fifty merits for the work."

"Yes, sir!" Rain called back; it might have been the loudest that Arc had ever heard her voice.

"I mean, yes, I accept, sir!"

"Good. Come with me. Beck, you need a new partner—I'm sure Van Camp can help you. The rest of you lazy sacks of shit, get back to it! Move!" Lieutenant Kekoa slapped his palms together in a loud clap, which sent everyone hurrying to appear busy.

"Come on," Cassie said, and Arc followed her lead. The two of them set their water bottles down and squared off again. Cassie was, he'd not been surprised to find, both far better trained than he was—which was to say, she was trained at all—and stronger than him, though not by much. It was certainly enough to make up for whatever slight advantage he had in reach. But he'd also noticed that she had a tell.

Just before she lunged at him, threw a punch, or opened up with any kind of attack at all, she took a deep breath, as if she were jumping into a pool or the ocean. So, this time when she came in low for his legs, Arc was already scooting backward. The retreat left her out of position, stretched forward and off balance, so he simply let himself fall forward onto her back. Cassie gave an 'oof' as she collapsed under his weight, and then they were rolling across the dirt.

He tried to get a hold of her arm, but she wrapped her legs around him as she fought to keep him at a distance. When they fetched up, it was with Cassie on her back, their bodies pressed close together, and her thighs squeezing him like a vice. Arc was very suddenly aware of just how much their bodies were touching, how hot and sweat-soaked they were, and how it felt to have her legs wrapped around him. He froze, for just a moment, unable to do anything but look down into her blue eyes.

"I am sick of this!" Delvan Beck shouted, and the sudden exclamation rang across the field, once again drawing everyone's attention. Arc and Cassie rolled apart, by unspoken consent, and turned to see what was happening. Beck was red in the face, nursing a fat lip and what looked to be shaping up into a very nice black eye.

"This is so stupid!" he shouted, looking from Van Camp, who'd set his hands on his hips, to the audience of surprised cadets.

"What does any of this have to do with piloting a mech? Why do we have to learn to hit someone when we're going to be shooting lasers from a kilometer away?"

"You little shit–" Van Camp began, but before he could continue, Lieutenant Kekoa was right there.

"Your assessment of what is or is not required to pilot a mech in the Imperial Fleet is of precisely zero interest to me, mole rat," Kekoa shouted.

"In fact, you don't know the first thing about what it means to be a soldier."

"I was designed to pilot a mech!" Delvan ranted, his eyes wide and wild.

"I was built to be good at it! If you'd actually put us in the cockpit, I'd be the best one here. But you have us rolling around on the ground like—like grunts!" He drew himself up, as best he could.

"I won't do it anymore. I demand you put me in a simulator and let me do what I was meant to do." The rest of the cadets were utterly silent.

"If you think you're too good for fleet," Kekoa said, his voice utterly flat, "you may gather your things and depart, cadet." Don't do it. Arc tried to send the thought across the intervening space, somehow, so that Delvan would hear it. But Delvan Beck turned and walked away, in the direction of Tycho Hall. When Arc, Pika, and Cal reached their room that evening after mess, they found an empty bunk, and a missing suitcase.