The immediate future looked more stable to Alice after the first few days of the Apex Program. Her fears going into the training were that the classes and challenges would be as fast paced and as difficult as preparing for the qualifier tests. While the curriculum was quick, and Alice didn’t have more than an hour or so of spare time left at the end of the day, it wasn’t nearly as high pressure or as dense as what she had to tackle to cram for the qualifiers.
At least, that’s how it seemed to her and Iruuk. They met each other every day along with the soldiers that they were assigned to help supervise. That was the first time she saw Alaka, his father. The massive Nafalli made his son look small, and he demanded excellence of the hundreds of soldiers in training that were in his charge. They didn’t wince at his appraising gaze, but definitely showed that they didn’t want to draw his direct attention.
When Alice and Iruuk joined their few trainees along with the other Officers in training that could make it, there were only three that first day, the soldiers seemed relieved. Alice took charge immediately, using every scrap of experience she had to help them though a competitive maze where they stunned the opposing teams. The maze forced the teams to use their tactical heads’ up display. All the walls were flawlessly white and resisted markings. The floor and everything around them emitted light, so there wasn’t even a shadow to track. To make things even more challenging, there was sound dampening everywhere, so you couldn’t hear the other teams until you were nose to nose with them. The tactical systems were limited so only what you had directly seen was revealed, and the whole exercise was timed, they only had fifty one minutes to score as many points as they could. It was a short amount of time to navigate the maze, but a long time to stay alive for. From the look of it, the effect of the stunners they used seemed painful.
After thirty eight minutes of staying alive and stunning a dozen competitors, Alice’s team came in third after counting all the points for team work, strategy, kills and how far they managed to get through the maze before they were wiped out.
It was Iruuk’s team that somehow managed to outflank her when she was down to two soldiers, but it cost him. She managed to take out two of his people before she found out how painful the stunners were first hand. The electric impulses were intense enough to force her to the deck and twitch for several seconds before they relented and she laid there, playing dead for a minute before removing herself from the maze.
Alice did have the pleasure of seeing one of her soldiers take Iruuk out before he and the other team member she had left were gunned down. He was left with two of his own team left on their own. Nivee Izen’s team wiped them out only minutes later, and she took first place that day with three soldiers left. At the end of the exercise, the one hundred and forty soldiers and five officers in training stood in a line along the west side of the maze wall.
“I’m impressed,” Alaka said, addressing everyone there. “I did not expect anyone to make it through this maze the first time through, especially without cheating. Credit goes to all the groups who had an officer with them, you all performed well enough for a first attempt. The rest of you, the ones who had volunteer leaders from the training pool, disgraced yourselves. One hundred five of you were cut down as though you were frightened children. We’ll find leaders amongst you yet though. Your poor performance doesn’t reduce the shortcomings of the Officers, however. All of your victories are hollow, since no Officer survived this exercise. Your tactical skills are notable, and self-sacrifice is honourable, even necessary under some circumstances, but there was only one situation in this exercise where I feel it was warranted and it took place in the first thirteen minutes when Officer Ute Shulikeet nearly turned the tide by running along a wall as a distraction, taking down two enemy soldiers and allowing her team to break through when they were surrounded. I was astonished at your bravery, especially since amphibians feel the effects of stunners much more keenly. We’ll look at turning those effects down for you tomorrow if you show up.”
“That will not be necessary, Sir,” Ute chirped loudly. “And I will be here.” Judging from the smiles on her team’s faces, it was clear that they already liked their Officer Trainee.
“So heard,” Alaka replied, an eyebrow raised. “But please, hear me on this; you must work with your teams and adjust your tactics so your overall survivability is higher, especially for the Officers. Few of you have extensive leadership experience in the field, so you have to use your time here wisely so the right instincts are nurtured and you learn the right lessons before you begin active duty, otherwise your roles in the fleet will be adjusted. For anyone who finds that consequence vague, let me tell you what it means. If you cannot lead, you will be assigned to a technical position on a staff under strong leadership. While not an utter failure, that is not the kind of Officer we’re looking for. We are looking for leaders who can manage large departments, so make that your focus. Dismissed.”
Alice only had a brief moment to shake the hands of her seven recruits, four of which were young women, all of whom were human, before they were all called away to muster for their next training session elsewhere on the ship. She still had an entire unit on Lorander construction technology and instrumentation to study that day, so she attempted to clear her head and get to it. The unit was meant to be studied over the space of a week, but by the time her midnight alarm went off, she was over seventy percent finished. That was still short of her goal – she thought she would be finished that day – but it put her ahead. Alice knew she was distracted by the results in the maze. It slowed her down.
“How was the maze today? From what Iruuk told me over dinner it sounds like I missed out,” Yawen, the skinny blonde whose bunk was across from Alice’s asked.
“Great, I guess, I placed second with my team,” Alice said.
“He said everyone took defeat well.”
“I guess it was defeat. To be honest, the tension was so high for so long for most of us that I think we were just burned out by the end. Our sensors were limited, we could see everything, but it all looked the same until there was a soldier in front of you. Most of them blasted out of fear or surprise because there weren’t many officers. I don’t know, I’ve been going over it in my head all day, and I keep finding things I could have done better, different. What Alaka said is right, I took more risks than I had to as an Officer, didn’t trust my group enough, so I put myself in jeopardy when I didn’t have to by doing as much by myself as I could. In the end, it was one of my guys who got Iruuk, not me.”
“Learned a lot, then?” Yawen asked. “Think it’ll help with the strategic testing in a couple weeks?”
“Definitely. I don’t think anyone will be able to pass without practicing with their team. Alaka’s first exercise was crazy hard.”
“I’m wondering, what if someone climbs up and looks at the maze from above?”
“Cheating was allowed,” Alice said, nodding. “But no one did. We weren’t told cheating was allowed at the beginning. How are you doing with the Lorander tech overview?”
“About eleven percent in. It’s like studying tech from some super-future, not multi-material printing and energy conversion. I haven’t gotten to the instrumentation section yet. How are you doing?”
Alice found the technology easy to grasp, and the instrumentation section that covered how to use the designing and building tools was intuitive. “I’ll be finished by the end of the week,” she said.
Yawen looked something up on her comm unit and chuckled. “By the end of the week, it says you’re past the seventy percent mark.”
“Okay, I’ll be finished tomorrow. I can help you out if you need it.”
“I’ll take you up on that.”
It took Alice a long time to get to sleep that night, and she let herself sleep in a half hour, leaving only twenty minutes to get ready for her second session with her soldiers. The next two mornings her team placed third, but she felt better about her performance each time, especially on day three.
No one cheated until thirty five minutes into the third day’s challenge, when Alice spotted Iruuk’s nose poking up over the edge of the other side of the maze wall. He was climbing the side to see the maze from a higher vantage point, and he learned his lesson when Alice pointed his muzzle out to her soldiers and five of them scored a direct hit, taking him out for the rest of that challenge. His team placed sixth. To everyone’s surprise, Yawen’s team placed first that morning on their first time out. Not only did she beat everyone else, but her team only lost one soldier.
“We have our leader,” Alaka said to her as the troops lined up in front of the maze. “I expect to see the most improvement from you, Officer Yawen Blake, this win must only be the beginning, especially since everyone here knows you’re the one to beat.”
“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir,” Yawen replied.
“Now, your fellow trainees are all being gathered up – that includes the Officer Candidates – because it is the beginning of what the training staff have decided will be called ‘Suit Week.’”
At the sound of the words, all of their vacsuits sealed completely. The catheter and cleaning system engaged in Alice’s suit, a painless process that still made her want to yank the suit off and run away from it. She knew she wouldn’t even feel it most of the time, but it wasn’t the most pleasant way to live.
“Suit Week is a phase of your training that takes place with your suit sealed completely, you are dependent on the long term survival equipment inside your vacsuit since your suit is not allowed to be opened at any time. No matter what conditions may arise, problems may occur, or condition changes your suit forces on you, it is up to you to resolve problems and cope until the week is over. Officers, you are encouraged to check in on the soldiers who have been assigned to you and assist them with any problems they may have. If one of them opens their suit during the week, you will lose five points. For the soldiers who don’t have Officers, you can appoint a leader amongst yourselves, I’ll go over the details of that process later. Are there any questions?”
“Sir? I don’t think my, er, plumbing connected right?” asked one of Alice’s soldiers. She remembered his name as soon as he stepped forward; Regan Xavier, a tall, muscled young man.
“Officer Valent, support your trooper,” Alaka told her. She could swear that she heard a note of amusement in the Nafalli’s tone.
Alice didn’t hesitate, but engaged private communication mode between him and Regan, stepping in front of him. “Okay, this is pretty simple. The worst that can go wrong is that something misses, the recycling system can’t hurt you.”
“Oh, I think it’s okay now,” he said, backing away and covering his crotch.
“If you had to go to the bathroom right now, would you have a puddle down there?” Alice asked. “I mean, once is a problem, but imagine what that’s going to be like a few days in, let alone a week? Don’t worry, we can fix this without me touching you or seeing anything.”
“It’s just embarrassing,” he said. “My first full support space suit, but as soon as you mentioned pissing, I realized I have to go, so what do I do?”
“Okay, relax as much as you can, take a deep breath,” Alice said. “This doesn’t hurt, it just feels like, well, you’ll see. Anyway, deep breath.” She led him through one slow, deep breath. “Now look at the control on your head’s up with the water drop symbol, then select the reset option in the submenu.”
“I got it, okay, done,” he said.
“Okay, now select the calibrate command,” she said.
“Gotcha, it gave me a status bar, then turned green.”
“Now select the command that says ‘Full Support’ and execute,” she said.
“Wait, what’s that going to feel like, because when it missed in the front it was fine in the back. If it works in the front, maybe it could screw up in the back? Maybe this plumbing isn’t the right size for my plumbing?”
“It’ll adapt, just execute, soldier,” Alice said, seeing that other Officers were finishing up with correcting whatever problems were arising with their soldiers.
“Aye,” Regan replied. “Executing, Ma’am.” He squeezed his eyes shut then opened them, surprised. “Hey, that wasn’t bad at all.”
“See, so much worse in your head. You’re all good.”
“Yeah, I am, and I’m going right now,” he sighed.
“Too much information, soldier,” Alice said with a chuckle as she took her place in front of her seven trainees.
“All connections secure, Regan?” asked a dark haired soldier beside him.
“Aye, all’s well below,” he replied.
After a few moments the last Officer, Iruuk, finished walking one of his female soldiers through the reset process and he took his place in front of his seven troops.
“Now that the wrinkles have been worked out,” Alaka said. “It’s time for you to transfer to the real training facility. The War Forge is going to be your home for the rest of your training session. It is top secret, and only twenty-one percent complete. The training facility aboard is ready, you have five minutes to get across.” He sealed his own suit and at his command broad doors opened, revealing their destination.
Their boots locked to the deck before they could be swept out with the air in the room. Across the void between the British ship they had used as a training base for the first few days awaited the hull of their destination. It was three kilometres away, but massive. So large, in fact, that only the A in the ship’s name was visible, and the plating looked like it was only a few metres away. Alice’s tactical display gave her the real reading, however.
“All right, my team, we’re going to join hands, run and leap across. Hold hands all the way across. I’ll take middle anchor, I want to see two people who have experience with emergency cables on either end. We’re going to aim for a point that is a hundred metres above the open doors on the station across from us so we can stop from colliding with other groups.” She explained as she stepped back into her group, joining hands with Regan and Heather. Two of her soldiers shuffled to the ends of their line and checked in as anchors.
“Group one, go!” Alaka ordered. Yawen’s group ran across the deck and leapt towards the War Forge. They were not holding hands, but bound themselves to each other with emergency cables. Alice could already see them tangling up with each other.
“We’ll send a ship after them,” Alaka said, laughing. “Group two!”
Iruuk led his group of seven into space, running at a controlled pace with his team touching his back and waist. Their hands were temporarily affixed to his suit, so their fate depended on his ability to get across. It looked like it would work, and judging by his father’s approving nod, it had a good chance.
“Group three, go!” Alaka announced.
Alice looked down the line at the other officers. “That’s us, Ma’am,” Heather whispered with a tug on her hand.
“Right, let’s go, Team Three!” she said, leading her team into a run. After two dozen paces they were drifting in the void. At first it seemed like they weren’t moving much at all, and then the broad opening they had to get through started to loom. It was a small ship docking bay for shuttles, a mark they would have no problem hitting, but she followed her plan anyway, and marked a spot on the hull above it as a target for their cables. She transferred Regan’s hand to her belt so he could keep a grip and launched her emergency tether cable at the target. The anchors on the far right and left of their line did the same, scoring one hit and one miss. Between her shot and one of her soldier’s, they had two lines attached to the hull of the War Forge, and she still couldn’t see the end of the hull in any direction.
“We got this, now reel in at medium speed,” she ordered. The angle of the cables pulling them slowed their approach a little, redirecting the energy and they collided with the side of the station hard, but their suits protected them easily. Everyone was resting against the side of the station seventy-seven metres above the docking bay entry.
“Um, we missed a little?” said Ophelia, one of the older trainees.
“No, this was the plan so we would be out of the way when we arrived. Besides, I couldn’t get a reading on what we’ll find in that docking bay from our launch point, so I wasn’t sure if there was artificial gravity or some other complication.” Alice corrected. “Looks like there is, so we would have hit our mark then fallen onto the deck from who knows how far up. Now turn the adhesion of your suits up and start crawling. We’ll be there on time.”
“Makes sense,” Regan said as another group of soldiers collided with the side of the station several metres away and bounced off.