Chương 27: By the Time the Leaves Hit the Ground

Academy Hill, Vidako Imperium Stellarum September 29, 2847 When Arc woke up on Sunday morning, without the need for an alarm, he began to understand how it might be possible to survive four years at the academy even without genetic modifications.

For the entire first six weeks, he'd had every moment of every day so tightly scheduled for him that, when he realized that he didn't actually have to rush to the showers to get to a class, or to present himself at attention for a morning run under the tender care of Lieutenant Kekoa, he just laid back against the pillow for a moment. It was, despite the fact he was sharing a dormitory room with two other cadets, an almost inconceivable luxury. Arc closed his eyes again and just lay there for a long moment.

Maybe I should get something other than a Hyper Efficient Brain Flush after all, he thought. If I can make up sleep on the weekends… Still, it would have been nice not to feel exhausted every morning when the alarms went off. Not to collapse onto his mattress each evening. Arc rolled to one side, opened his eyes, and scanned the room. Delvan Beck's bunk was, of course, empty, just as it had been since he'd washed out.

Being stuffed with every genetic modification possible hadn't, in the end, helped him get through Hard Burn. Arc wasn't surprised to see that Cal Madine had already left for the morning, and that his bed was made perfectly. When he leaned over the side of his bunk to check on Pika, he saw that, while the Alu'kan's sheets were still tousled, he himself was gone, along with his shower kit. For the moment, Arc was alone in the room.

"Iceni," he said, "Give me a list of every genetic modification the academy offers, sorted from most popular to least." He had the sensation that the AI was almost humming to herself in thought. If I simply sort by the most-requested modifications, there is going to be a bias introduced, she explained. You are aware that many students come to the academy already possessing modifications of their own.

It would be more accurate to include publicly available data on the prevalence of certain modifications in actively serving pilots, as a whole, and weigh that based on factors such as career longevity and performance evaluations. Of course, much of this information is subject to medical privacy laws or otherwise not available, but promotions are a matter of record, as is 'ace' status, and…

"I think you know what I'm going for, Iceni," Arc said, cutting her off before she dug even further into the details.

"Give me the best list you can." Very well. With the understanding that there are numerous factors I am estimating due to incomplete information…

"Yes." Arc nodded. The most common genetic modification is a retrovirus which alters the DNA such that interneurons and motor neurons more efficiently register and respond to threats as part of the withdrawal reflex, Iceni explained. There are some adjustments to the brain, as well. Enhanced Reflexes are one of the overwhelmingly common elements among ace pilots, and the presence of this modification is statistically correlated with surviving combat during active service.

Some of the DNA modifications are modelled on a Terran species known as the star-nosed mole, which is fascinating. Would you like to see an image? Arc chewed on that for a moment.

"Maybe later," he said.

"When I first got here I was just so desperate not to be exhausted all the time that cutting down on the amount of sleep I needed seemed like the absolute first priority," he admitted.

"I'm never going to have as many modifications as someone like Delvan—or Cassie," he admitted. At the cost of a thousand merits, most students don't get more than two from the academy during their time here, Iceni confirmed. A Hyper Efficient Brain flush might still not be the worst idea, Arc. It is common among serving pilots, as best I can tell from the data I have access to.

"I can see how it would be good in combat situations," Arc admitted.

"Anything that helps you to roll out of your bunk when your carrier sounds battle stations would help. Anything else on your list that stands out?" Enhanced NMDA Receptors are positively correlated with the proportion of cadets who successfully graduate the academy, Iceni explained, but less so with the measures of success I am tracking against pilots once they are actually serving in fleet.

"Meaning, it helps you to pass your classes, but it's not very useful in combat," Arc said. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bunk before climbing down and grabbing his own shower kit.

"If I'm only going to get two, they need to be the right two. Can you put a star or a note or something next to enhanced reflexes, on your list?" Consider it done. Arc opened the door and headed out into the hallway, and from there into the bathroom. He could hear several showers running, and he nodded to Jimmy Tierney, who was busily engaged in digging between his molars with a length of floss at one of the sinks.

Arc didn't say anything else out loud until he was standing under a hot shower head, amidst a cloud of steam.

"What's your other top pick?" he asked, as he set to soaping his body. It was still a bit odd to see actual muscles on his own frame—odd in a way that made him feel slightly proud. My own personal recommendation would be an enhanced adrenal gland, Iceni told him. If you weren't already scoring in the 99th percentile on cognitive processing speed, before the neural lace surgery, I might have considered a retrovirus designed to enhance your brain.

But in all honesty, Arc, you are already operating at the peak of unmodified human potential due to the cybernetics, and there's a practical limit to how many different ways we should try to modify different parts of your brain. Arc paused, bar of soap in his hand.

"Can we measure that? Where I am now, since the surgery?" he asked. Recipients of neural lace see an average improvement of five percentile points, Iceni explained, developing over the course of six months post operation, once patients have a chance to adapt to the hardware. Of course, the lower someone scored in the first place, the more of an effect. We would need to measure you against other highly intelligent humans with the same modification—which is a vanishingly small portion of the population.

We might be better off comparing you to the LeShaii, once the Imperium has better records on their capabilities.

"Put it aside for now, then," Arc said.

"Adrenal Gland." Yes. I am capable of manually activating your adrenal gland already, causing your body to flood with epinephrine. To maximize the effectiveness of this capability, it would be optimal to enhance your body's natural ability to produce and store that hormone. There is, however, a downside which might speak against such a recommendation on the basis of pure efficiency.

"What's that?" Arc asked. He wanted to run his hands through his hair—it was almost second nature. Instead, he continued to hold his head, and the bandages covering his scalp, out of the spray. Adrenaline surges affect the body's memory-forming functions. Specifically, it contributes to the development of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. 𝝮 Once he was dressed, Arc headed downstairs to get breakfast.

He knew that Cassie, Rain, and Pika had beat him down there, because he'd checked the group chat while he was getting dressed. Vee, apparently, was still snoring away in the girls' dorm. He was hurrying through the wide corridor, which served the dual purpose of lounge and passage between the foyer and the dining hall, when he spotted C'rise Bian, sitting absolutely alone in the middle of a loveseat meant for two.

On the coffee table at her knee, a plate heaped with breakfast food sat utterly untouched, while a tablet rested, forgotten, on the cushion at her side. At first glance, the LeShaii cadet's face appeared still and motionless, as if she'd been carved from some pink, glistening shell—like the nacreous deposits which rose from her skull. To Arc's surprise, she wasn't wearing bandages, and there was no sign of recent, still healing incisions anywhere on her skin.

Flopsy, RA Lynstan-Hanigata's shadow-rabbit, was nosing at the girl's leg from his place on the floor, though she didn't seem to notice it. What was even more striking was that he was almost certain her lips were trembling, and her eyes were wet. Arc almost walked right past her and into the dining hall. His friends were waiting for him, after all, and he really didn't know C'rise. While she theoretically roomed with Cassie, Rain, and Vee, the LeShaii never went anywhere with the other girls.

In fact, Arc couldn't recall ever seeing her sit with anyone in the dining hall or spend time with any of the small friend-groups which had grown among the class of 2851. I'll be along in a few minutes, Arc sent to the group chat. With the same sort of feeling one got just before ripping off a bandage, he sat down on a cushioned armchair across the table from C'rise Bian.

"Hey," he said, and almost winced at his own words.

"Are you alright, C'rise?" A tremor ran through her body, and the LeShaii's head twitched toward him. Arc had the sense that, until he'd spoken, she hadn't entirely been present.

"Yes," C'rise said.

"I am perfectly well." Arc frowned. Her Imperial Standard was still accented, and her voice was flat, almost entirely emotionless, but he was utterly certain that she was lying. While I have limited footage of LeShaii facial expressions to extrapolate from, I would agree with you, Iceni spoke up.

"Look, we don't really know each other," Arc said. He decided that he would make a single attempt, and then, if she definitely didn't want to talk to him, he wouldn't keep on hitting his head against a wall.

"And I get the impression things have been a little awkward in your dorm room. But when I walk by, and I see you sitting all by yourself, staring off into space with a plate of uneaten food—do you understand how that might worry someone?"

"And yet, you are the only one who bothered to approach me," C'rise said, taking a deep breath and blinking away the tears in her eyes.

"I don't think you particularly wanted to, but you're feeling some sort of—civic responsibility, perhaps?"

"I just feel like if someone's upset, it's worth at least checking on them," Arc admitted.

"Can you really feel what I'm feeling?"

"It's very loud, here," C'rise told him. She looked down at her plate of food, reached for her fork, and lifted it, but didn't begin eating.

"All of the time. None of your people know how to properly discipline their minds. It's like you all rush by, constantly shouting out to each other. I can hardly avoid hearing it, even when I try." Flopsy hopped up onto the loveseat and settled into C'rise's lap. Arc wasn't certain she'd noticed until her hands fell onto his fur and began to stroke the shadow-rabbit.

"The worst is at night," she admitted, and fixed Arc in place with those odd, pink-purple eyes.

"Do you think I enjoy sleeping in a room with one girl who can't stop her nightmares from coming, and another two whose fantasies play out, over and over, while I try to ignore them?" The nightmares will be Rain, Arc was certain. He decided not to comment on the rest, or even to think about it again. It seemed like even listening to vagaries would be an invasion of Cassie's privacy.

"I guess I can see why that would be upsetting," he said, trying to put himself in her place.

"Though, I have to be honest, if I was looking for someplace quiet to get away, it probably wouldn't be right outside the dining hall."

"No, I wasn't trying to get away," C'rise said. She lowered her fork and placed it back down on her plate.

"Have you seen the latest news, Arcturus Sandhurst? A Helium 3 tanker docked at Pinnacle Station last evening. It came in from Proxima." Arc blinked. The Vidako system didn't have its own gas giants, which meant they had to import from places like Proxima Centauri, which did. At just over four light years from Terra, Proxima was situated deep in the core of the Imperium—unlike systems like Vidako or Zurah, out toward the edges of explored space.

Any ship that came from Proxima would have much more recent news of what was happening in the Imperium, and the local media corporations, such as the San Teodoro Tribune, would purchase that data.

"I hadn't, yet," he admitted.

"I've just had time to grab a shower and come down for breakfast. Did something happen?"

"My people are dying as we speak," C'rise said, and even with her accent Arc could detect the bitterness.

"Billions of them, while I sit here, uselessly, among those who hate me. I find, Cadet Sandhurst, that I am not hungry." She snatched her tablet up, rose, and before Arc could say anything else hurried away, leaving her plate behind. The sudden motion dumped Flopsy out of her lap and sent the shadow-rabbit dashing off.

"Iceni," Arc began, but he didn't even have to finish the thought. Accessing local news media coverage, Iceni told him. By the time he'd made it into the dining hall, taken a plate, and began filling it with eggs, fruit, and sausage—he was still on double rations—she'd given him a summary. When he stepped out among the tables, he wasn't at all surprised that the voices of the other cadets were somewhat more subdued than he was used to.

"So," Arc said, as he put his plate down on the table and slid into his seat across from Cassie and the rest of the girls, "apparently we're at war?" His eyes caught on Jessica, only a table away, and positioned where Cassie would be within her sight. If Arc hadn't just learned what the woman's true role was, he'd never have noticed.

"As of a week ago," Cassie said. Her plate was already clear, and pushed toward the center of the table, giving her room to brace her elbows and rest her chin on her fists as she leaned forward. In fact, from the state of the plates all around, Arc suspected that his friends had deliberately waited for him.

"The senate vote was nearly unanimous." Arc could tell, from the way her eyes lost focus, that her own AI was sorting information for her.

"They had no choice," Pika said.

"We were attacked. Now is the time for warriors!"

"Some people might argue with that," Cassie pointed out.

"We've only just admitted the LeShaii to the Imperium, after all, and it was one of their worlds that got hit."

"LHS 1140," Vee broke in.

"I hope someone got word to the Void Skimmers—they were supposed to be heading out that way, to take a look around LeShaii space. I don't even want to think about how bad it could be if they came out of a gate into a battle." The Torean girl gave an exaggerated shudder, setting the feathers on the underside of her arms rustling.

"That isn't how fleet thinks, though," Rain said, her voice never rising above a low murmur.

"Not anyone that I've known. Not the marines—they wouldn't even hesitate to protect people. Even people who don't deserve it." Cassie sighed.

"It'll be easy to keep everyone together at the beginning," she said.

"We weren't the aggressors, so yes, it's a defensive war. Honestly, the senate vote was mostly a formality. If we run these people out of the system quickly –""The Na'xir Swarm," Arc said, reading it straight from the summary Iceni had prepared for him.

"Right." Cassie nodded.

"If we drive them off quick or get to a point we can negotiate with them after one battle, popular support won't be much of a problem. But if this drags on—I don't think we even know where these things come from."

"And if they want to find out, they'll pull more than one ark-fleet into it," Vee said.

"I hope it is quick. Do you think—do you think it'll still be going by the time we graduate?"

"Three and a half years?" Pika scoffed.

"No. Did you see who they're sending?" Before Arc even had a chance to ask for the information, Iceni was scrolling it along the left side of his vision in softly-glowing blue text. The details of military deployments were supposed to be secret, he knew, but when a large part of fleet was diverted, that made headlines. And he imagined that they weren't exactly subtle about making their way between gates.

"Fleet won't confirm, but everyone's reporting the Galerius," Arc said.

"Under Rear Admiral –""Wai the Ship-Breaker," Pika declared, his excitement clear from the way his volume increased.

"He's from Stellar Abyss! The only Alu'kan admiral—do you know what he said when the Council of Matriarchs tried to call him back to be mated?" Arc shook his head.

"He told them he was mated to his ship!" Pika grinned and pounded the table. It was clear to Arc that his friend had a small case of hero worship.

"You'll see. He'll beat them before the year is out. Even if they run, Wai the Ship-Breaker will hunt them down and crush them all. They don't know what kind of trouble they've gotten themselves into."

"At the beginning of the first world war, in the early twentieth century on Terra," Arc said, "Kaiser Wilhelm the Second was said to have promised that the war would be over 'before the leaves hit the ground."

"And?" Pika asked.

"How long did it last?"

"Over four years," Arc said.

"By the time it was done, Wilhelm's empire had fallen."