39. Sareth Khan

San Teodoro Peninsula, Vidako

Imperium Stellarum
November 1, 2847

They’d camped at the top of a rocky bluff that overlooked the river valley, upstream from the lake and the waterfall where Lieutenant Kekoa had brought the cadets for the end of Hard Burn. The trees were stunted here, unable to find much purchase on the bare stone, and none of them grew higher than a Tyro’s waist. The open air, breeze at this height, and distance from the water helped to keep the zombie flies away

“You always want to make your camp on the high ground, if you can find any,” Vijay Iyer had explained over dinner the night before. “It gives your mech’s sensors better range, makes it more likely you see danger coming. Especially during the rainy season. Otherwise you could wake up to find the entire campsite washed away.”

As commander of the squad, Iyer had set the watches each night they were out on patrol. He always took the middle watch himself, but rotated the rest of them. Are suspected that the older cadet was going easy on him, but as it was his first patrol, neither of the other cadets seemed to mind yet.

Both of them were from the cohort just ahead of Arc, third class cadets who’d already been at the academy for a year and a half. Christina Fortin struck Arc as very capable, even if her laser focus was a bit unnerving at times. She’d qualified to pilot an Outrider, which he was certain was one of the reasons that Vijay had requested her for the squad. As the only one in a scouting mech, Fortin spent most of the day away from the other three, running spiraling circles around the group of mechs as they moved slowly through the jungle, giving her higher quality sensors a chance to pick up threats long before either of the Tyros or the Janissary would have been able to do so.

In fact, the only time Arc really saw her was when they settled in to camp for the night. When she’d taken her helmet off that first evening and unleashed a shock of hair as vibrantly red as the sharp leaves of a deathroot flower, he’d actually blinked in surprise. She was otherwise so quietly competent, so unobtrusive a pilot, that for some reason he hadn’t expected anything about her physical appearance to stand out so much. Any attempt to make conversation with her was met with a monosyllabic response, so he quickly stopped trying.

As a scout, however, she was everything a commander could want. She’d tagged a juvenile male cornibus ten klicks out from their patrol route on the first day, wounded from fighting and headed toward the city. It was the first time that Arc had ever been fed targeting data from an Outrider, and the experience was a revelation. Iyer had set up Arc and their fourth pilot, Sareth Khan, a hundred and fifty meters away from the cornibus’s projected path on a slight rise. On the squad commander’s word, all three of them had fired at once, letting their AIs guide the volley using data from Fortin’s sensors.

Two CO-4 mech grade laser rifles, each capable of firing twelve kilometers in atmosphere, and Iyer’s shorter range shoulder mounted IMT plasma accelerator, all lit up the jungle at the same time. The twin cerulean beams burned through dozens of trees, leaving a smoking ruin in their wake, while the accelerator shot a toroid of superheated plasma that followed along in their wake. The cornibus was left a smoking, scorched ruin on the jungle floor, and the patrol continued on their way.

That volley was, in Arc’s judgement, about the high point of Sareth Khan’s usefulness and competence as a pilot. The older cadet had not yet tested out on anything but a Tyro, which had taken Arc by surprise when he’d first seen the group of mechs waiting for them on the tarmac. In Iyer’s place, Arc would have wanted a Culverin, perhaps, to take full advantage of Fortin’s use as a spotter. Even a second Janissary would have given them more up-front power than a second Tyro.

But Arc tried to reserve judgement. It wasn’t even halfway through Khan’s second year, and he had plenty of time to test up from a training mech to a front line model, yet, without officially falling behind his class. But over their first two days in the jungle, it had rapidly become apparent to him that their fourth pilot was a sub-par soldier.

When Iyer set Arc and Khan to dig a latrine each evening—a task familiar from Hard Burn, and one which Arc couldn’t really object to, as he was the most junior cadet on the patrol—Khan did as little work as possible. For every shovel-full of dirt Khan moved, Arc dug three. In the end, it was easier to just send the older cadet for the roll of toilet paper and finish the last bit of trench himself, than it would have been to wait for him.

Arc had to wake Khan up for his watch once, on the second night. He’d expected the other pilot to do what Christina Fortin had done—snap awake quietly and without fuss at the first touch of her shoulder. She’d just nodded, once, grabbed her BA-50 rifle, and taken up a place next to their campfire, letting Arc crawl into his sleeping bag and pass out until morning. But when it had been Sareth Khan on watch after him, Arc had had to actually shake the man, hiss his name, and then shake him again before getting a response.

“Be up in a minute,” Khan mumbled, rolling over onto his other side.

“I can’t go to sleep until you’re up and on watch,” Arc hissed back. “Get up.” He actually had to prod the grumbling man with the butt of his rifle before Khan crawled out of his sleeping bag and stood up. Even then, Arc wasn’t very confident that the man wouldn’t just sleep through his watch.

Before closing his eyes, he put Khan out of his mind as best he could, and unfolded his tablet. The glow from the screen lit up the bluff around where he’d laid his sleeping bag, and the pad beneath it, out. The tarp overhead would keep the rain off them, if any came that night, and heavy netting would keep off the zombie fies. Arc used one finger to flick through his saved pictures, until he came to one that Rain had snapped of he and Cassie on one of the couches in Tycho Hall, slumped against each other and asleep, study notes forgotten on their laps.

He touched the screen with both fingers and spread them, zooming in on Cassie’s face. For just a moment, he considered replacing the tablet’s background with a picture of her—it would be nice to see her, every time he turned it on. But then he felt a stab of guilt in his gut at the idea of replacing Phoebe in any way—even if it was just taking down a picture. He turned the tablet off, folded it and tucked it in next to him, then rolled over on his side and closed his eyes.

The next morning, Arc took his breakfast rations over to sit, cross-legged on the jungle floor, next to Vijay Iyer, and lowered his voice. “What’s the deal with Khan?” he asked. “I could hardly get the guy to wake up last night.”

Iyer considered his answer for a moment, while Arc got a bite of pork sausage into his mouth. For some reason, fleet rations didn’t differentiate between breakfast and other meals, and there was only one pack that really contained something he considered appropriate for the time of day. He’d already resolved to pack extra, the next time he went out on patrol, so that he wouldn’t end up having to eat chili or ravioli in the morning.

“Last year, on his second patrol, Khan lost his best friend,” Vijay explained, after a moment. He kept his voice low, so that there was at least a chance it wouldn’t carry across the firepit. Not that Sareth, who looked to still be half asleep, was liable to notice anyway.

“I was part of the recovery party,” the older cadet continued. “Sareth had tied Malak’s leg off with a tourniquet, did everything right to try to keep the guy alive, but they were just too far out, and it took us too long to get there. No good place to set down a Saker nearby.” He sighed. “Anyway, it was in the second semester, and Sareth had good enough grades up until that point to scrape by. I was honestly surprised to see him back this fall, but he’s clearly just going through the motions. I was hoping that taking him out on a patrol—no one else wants him, you can guess why—might shake him out of it, help get him over his issues.”

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“It could also leave us down one effective pilot,” Arc pointed out.

“He took the shot when we needed him to,” Iyer said.

“Two klicks out, in a volley with the two of us,” Arc said. “I’m not sure that proves much, Vijay.”

Iyer nodded, took one last bite of his rations, and then stood. “I guess we’ll find out. But sometimes you’ve got to give people a chance to show you what they can do, Arc. I hope you’ll remember that, when it’s your turn to lead one of these patrols.” Once everyone had eaten and struck camp, they took the mechs west and then began to swing south. Arc had never been out this far before, and he’d never been in any part of the jungle except for the lake where they’d made camp during Hard Burn. His main batteries were at ninety-two percent, the plasma blade he’d brought to keep Cassie happy was untouched, and his rifle still had forty-nine shots left. On the one hand, that felt like a lot; but on the other, he’d never once, in any simulation, begun with less than full power and ammunition. I suppose I’ll get used to it.

Think of it this way, Iceni told him. You would have to go through another forty-nine volleys like the one on the first day before losing your primary armament. The odds of us encountering another forty-nine spiked terrors are exceptionally low.