11. Xenobiology

Academy Hill, Vidako
Imperium Stellarum
August 17, 2847

Every morning when Arc woke, he couldn’t keep his eyes from drifting to the empty bunk where Delvan Beck had slept. He kept expecting that one evening he would walk in after eating in the dining hall to find that there’d been some sort of mistake, and that, having talked things over with the commandant, perhaps, Beck was back, and ready to join them in the morning.

At other times, though he knew it was uncharitable, Arc silently wondered why it couldn’t have been Cal Madine who threw a fit and quit the academy. He hadn’t known Beck long, but given the choice, Arc would have roomed with him over Madine in a heartbeat. Not that Cal had yelled at him since the day he’d arrived, not really, but he also hadn’t exactly been friendly.

The absence was even more obvious during meals, when Arc and his friends all deliberately avoided looking at the empty chair where Delvan Beck used to sit. The conversation would lag, suddenly and at unpredictable times, like some engine or machine trying to turn despite the absence of a missing part.

“I have a cousin,” Pika said, into one such silence, on the second day after Beck had left. “Graduated the academy five imperial years ago. He said they lost twelve cadets during Hard Burn.”

“Is that normal?” Vee asked, around a mouthful of some kind of fried insect which reminded Arc of a cricket or grasshopper.

“Between fifteen and twenty percent during Hard Burn is the average,” Cassie said, with a quiet certainty which spoke of just how much time she’d spent learning about the academy before ever stepping foot on Vidako. “Classes would have been a maximum of sixty-one five years ago, so twelve is on the high end, but yes. Within the bounds of normal.

Vee’s crest drooped for a minute, and then she perked up. “Well, there’s six of us. Or there were. So we’ve already lost sixteen percent. We paid our toll! No more wash outs, right?”

Arc wasn’t so certain, though he kept his thoughts to himself. He tried to keep what Cadet Iyer had said to him in mind—to just keep going, just do the next thing, and not think about what would come after. But he didn’t think that he’d ever been so tired in his life, and he knew for certain that he couldn’t go on for four years like this.

It was better to be learning, rather than simply pushed until they collapsed, and he comforted himself with that. The morning after that particular conversation, they were brought to an outdoor range, where Arc found himself learning how to strip, clean, re-assemble and fire the Broadleaf Arms .50 flechette rifle which was standard issue to all imperial marines.

“Before any of you mole-rats gets the bright idea of asking why a mech pilot needs to know how to fire a rifle,” Lieutenant Kekoa said, while they all sat around him on the grass, unloaded weapons on their laps, “I will tell you. First, you will almost certainly spend time attached to a fleet carrier. In the unlikely event that your ship is boarded, you may be required to take a weapon from the armory and help repel said boarding party. Now, if everything goes correctly, you will never be in that situation—but the first lesson you need to learn about plans is that they all go to shit the moment a soldier makes contact with the enemy.”

“Secondly,” Kekoa said, “Once you actually get into a cockpit, you will find that there is an emergency kit stored in each and every imperial mech. It has plenty of goodies that might keep you alive, and one of the things packed away is—you guessed it—a standard issue rifle like this. In the event that you are forced to eject, perhaps behind enemy lines or on some unexplored death-world, this piece of weaponry in your lap may save your life.”

Kekoa reached into his pocket, retrieved a bullet that looked to be at least ten centimeters long, and held it up. “I’m going to pass this around so that everyone can get a good look,” he said. “But for the moment just keep your eyes up here. In the nose of this bullet is an optical sensor. This sensor sends information to the guidance and control electronics, and those use actuators to move the fins along the sides. I’ve removed the sabots on this bullet so that you can see those; normally, they’re concealed until after you’ve fired, and the bullet is in flight.”

“At close ranges, you won’t notice much of a difference, because the bullet doesn’t have time to make course corrections,” the lieutenant explained. “So you still need to develop actual skill with your weapon. But once you pass a thousand meters or so, this bullet will get within two tenths of a meter of your target area, so long as you aim in the general direction of what you’re trying to hit.”

One of the cadets, a human girl with pale blonde hair, hard gray eyes, and the unfortunate name of Cieszyński, raised her hand. Once she’d been called on, she asked, “how does the bullet know what to target, sir?”

“It hooks into the neural lace you don’t have yet, and reads targeting information from your ocular nerve,” Kekoa explained. “Good question cadet. Take a look at this and then pass it along.” He handed the bullet to Cieszyński.

When it came to Arc’s turn—the bullet went to Cassie first, and then she passed it to him after a very brief glance—he turned it over in his fingers. He could actually make the fins wiggle, he found, with a bit of effort. He tried to imagine what those fins would do to a human body when they entered flesh, and couldn’t suppress a shudder of revulsion. No longer interested in holding the bullet, he passed it off to Vee, then turned his attention to the lieutenant again.

Arc knew that on some worlds hunting was a sport—but on Zurah, there weren’t any native animals which drew people to the hobby. In fact, there weren’t many native life forms more advanced than primitive flora at all, and the bombyx zurahis, genetically engineered silk moths which made their home in the mulberry trees introduced to the planet to provide a suitable habitat, were too important to the world’s economy to let people tramp around with firearms, anyway. As a result, this was the first time he’d ever handled a rifle, and his performance was predictably abysmal. He wasn’t at all surprised to find that Cadet Cieszyński was the top shot of their class.

Perhaps the best thing which could be said about weapons training—or the first aid and survival training which was introduced around the same time—was that it provided less opportunity for Blake Van Camp to take notice of either Arc, or his friends. Even that was a double edged sword, however, because when Van Camp was present, such as during the morning runs, the older cadet seemed even more irritable than usual—perhaps because Lieutenant Kekoa having less need for him meant that he’d be earning less merits, Arc speculated.

Arc had certainly never had the sort of instruction in the dangers of Vidako’s native ecosystem that the cadets were given as Hard Burn continued. For that, they were finally permitted into a classroom in the science building, where a severe-looking woman, with her blonde hair pulled back in such a tight bun that it seemed to be painted to her skull, presided over two long tables worth of crates, pelts, water-filled tanks, strange insects suspended in jars of fluid, and what Arc suspected were carcasses only barely covered by white sheets.

“Be seated, cadets,” Lieutenant Kekoa shouted, his deep voice filling the lecture hall easily. “I am going to leave you in the care of Doctor Vogel, head of the academy’s xenobiology department. If your behavior is anything less than the standard I have set for you, be assured that I will hear about it, and that there will be consequences. This is a change in setting, only—you are still my responsibility until Hard Burn is complete.”

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Arc, Cassie, Vee, Rain and Pika managed to find themselves a cluster of seats in the far front row of the lecture hall, though Pika had to sit behind the rest of them and on the outer aisle, so that those in the next row back could still see their instructor. To Arc’s surprise, no more than five minutes after the piloting program cadets had arrived, a crowd of technical students poured into the hall and began filling in the upper rows. It took a moment more for everyone to get settled, but when the woman at the front of the room tapped her ear piece, the ruckus reduced to only an occasional cough or muted shuffling of feet.

“Lieutenant Kekoa and Chief Jastrow instructed you all to bring your tablets, I hope?” Doctor Vogel said, looking over the filled seats.

Arc already had his unfolded and set on the half-desk which swung up from between the lecture seats, and had opened a note file, ready to type. There was a bit more shuffling, as those cadets who hadn’t thought that far ahead fetched their own tablets from pockets.

“Good,” Vogel declared, once she’d scanned the audience and, based on the nod of her head that Arc noticed, decided that they were all prepared. “I have you for a very limited time, and I have quite a bit of information to impart. You will begin each of our training sessions ready to take notes.”