13. The Long March

San Teodoro, Vidako
Imperium Stellarum
September 11, 2847

With every step the four mechs which marched ahead, behind, and to the sides of the cadets shook the ground. Arc could feel it in the soles of his feet, through his boots, and running up his bones.

The morning was cool for Vidako, which meant that the day hadn’t yet progressed to the point of baking hot beneath twin suns. A sea-scented breeze ruffled the brown leaves of the trees as they marched down the access road, which took them through the walls of the campus and to the southern outskirts of San Teodoro. The city fell away around them more quickly than Arc would have imagined. One moment it was there around them, and the next the cadets marched through fields of orange-tinged wheat, rippling in great waves before the ocean air off the bay. There were orchards, as well, growing lemons and limes, apples and peaches, oranges and bananas that had all been altered to not only survive, but thrive in the alien soil of this planet, and beneath the strange light of Vidako’s double star. Great metal frames extended above the fields, and they sprayed a mist of water out in every direction to drench the thirsty roots of each crop.

Arc saw no tractors in motion: it must not have quite been harvest time, yet. But there were grav-trucks, which floated carefully above the fields. Grav technology in general was still too new and expensive to be integrated into all but the most luxurious personal transportation—Cassie’s floating suitcase was an example of nearly unfathomable wealth. But one industry into which the nascent technology had quickly penetrated was agriculture, and from the dinner-table talk between his father and mother back home, Arc knew there had been subsidies from the Emperor himself to help farmers become early adopters. Grav-trucks could move far more easily about a farm or an orchard, without any fear of crushing or disturbing the crops. With less need for access roads that could handle wheeled vehicles, even more space could be added to the fields and planted.

He had a lot of time to think about things like that, while they were marching.

Placing one foot in front of the other, bearing the weight of that forty-five kilogram pack on his shoulders and the rifle in his hands, even maintaining his place in ranks—those were all physical things. They didn’t occupy his mind, and Arc’s mind had always been a restless, impatient thing. He knew that he was supposed to be watching for danger, and perhaps once they reached the jungle themselves, there would be enough of a tint of fear to the whole operation to keep him focused, but now—well, if it were really so dangerous this close to the city, would the farmers be out here by themselves? The upperclassmen made regular armed patrols for a reason, after all. Anything that got this close to the school would certainly be found and dispatched before it could wreak havoc through the streets and homes of San Teodoro.

Come to think of it, Arc mused, that’s really smart. It has to be on purpose—I wonder whose idea it was? The local duke would maintain his own planetary guard, of course, just like on Zurah V, but that was expensive, and Arc imagined that he’d base those troops out of the capital. With the academy here—an academy fully funded by fleet and the imperial family—the duke wouldn’t have to split his troops. The first and second class cadets were essentially a garrison of troops who could be counted on to protect not only the city, but the port and the orbital elevator, as well—and so far as the duke was concerned, they consumed absolutely no resources.

Best of all, in the event there actually was some crisis on Vidako, or even elsewhere in the system, the cadets and faculty would come under his command anyway. It was one of the powers granted to all ducal families by the constitution of the imperium: In Loco Imperatoris, the right to act in the place of the emperor during an emergency. A duke who abused his or her power under that clause would find themselves answering to the throne afterward, so it wasn’t something to be done lightly, but the law was clear: if Vidako was attacked, whether by pirates, the Singularity, or even something more strange, the cadets and their mechs would be immediately pressed into service as part of the planetary defense force.

Arc whiled away the first hour considering the strategic implications. By funding academies—not only the one here on Vidako, but also the marine academy on Morena and the fleet academy on Luna—the emperor both assured the quality of his officer corps, and also reinforced key locations. The only problem was that Arc couldn’t decide, right away, what made Vidako significant enough to warrant that kind of attention.

Luna was an obvious choice. The fleet academy and naval shipyards reinforced the very heart of the Imperium. Anything that fortified the original home of humanity was probably worth doing at a basic level, before even considering all of the permutations. Morena—well, Arc could see a couple of reasons there. The original research facilities which had developed gates, and the manufactories which still produced them, were just about the most important technology there was to the continued existence of the empire. Adding several thousand marines in system who would be personally loyal to the emperor went a long way toward making certain that technology would be kept safe—and it also probably kept the dukes of Morena in line, as a kind of threat to hold in the emperor’s back pocket.

But Vidako wasn’t nearly that important. So far as Arc knew, it was just one more deathworld in the rim, albeit a bit close to the Singularity border… and he was an idiot for not thinking of that in the first place. The academy was one more line of defense, one more resource, in the event that conflict started up again.

He nodded to himself, satisfied, and when Arc looked around, he was surprised to find that there was only one field running along the side of the road. It was full of corn, which had grown into tall, leafy black stalks higher than the head of even one of the Alu’kan cadets.

If this was only a troop of marching infantry, that would be a good place to set up an ambush, Arc noted. The presence of the four mechs, however, would make any kind of attempt like that something verging on suicide. Their sensors would tag any soldiers sneaking through the rows, and the crops wouldn’t provide even the slightest bit of cover from mech-scale weapons. Still, a tree-cat might not think that way, and he kept the possibility in mind until Lieutenant Kekoa called a halt.

The entire troop, over two hundred strong, moved off to the road into the brush opposite the cornfield, where they were given half a standard hour to rest and have something to eat. There wouldn’t be any fires, but imperial rations didn’t need something that primitive. Instead, they came with a plastic bag filled with magnesium, iron powder, and salt. Pouring a bit of water into the chemicals would trigger an exothermic reaction, and boil the water to heat whatever food you’d placed inside. It was an old technology, predating the exodus from humanity’s home planet, but still useful.

It was clear to Arc that this stopping point had been used by year after year of past cadets, for the otherwise unremarkable field was filled with rocks. Not a single one was of the same size and shape, but they were all good enough for leaning a bag of boiling water against.

Pika set his pack down next to one, claiming it by dint of his great size, and Arc, Cassie, Rain and Vee gathered around with him. A very careful bit of arranging things gave them just enough room to lean all five bags against the rock, like the petals of a flower. After sorting through the sealed meals in his pack, Arc had selected Imperial Standard Ration—or ISR—number ten: chili and pasta with artificial meat.

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“Number ten, is it?” Cassie asked, peeking over his shoulder. “That’s the one thing I never looked forward to about being in the military. The food.” She gave an exaggerated shudder.

“That’s because you’ve spent your whole life at state dinners, eating gourmet meals off priceless plates,” Vee teased. As Arc watched, the Torean girl tipped enough water into her pouch to reach the printed line, and kept going.

“I think that’s enough…” he said, hesitantly.

“Better more than you need than be a bit short!” Vee exclaimed, added just a bit more water, and then sat back, using her pack as a cushion.

“I’m not certain that’s true,” Pika said, with a frown. “Chemical reactions require very precise measurement.”

“It’ll be fine!” Vee said.

A moment later, her bag boiled over, slopping steaming water onto the ground and sending Vee scrambling backward, amidst a flurry of curses, to get out of the way.

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