They had been on the Saltpetersburg spaceport for about two weeks now. Well, actually he had no clue how long they had been there exactly. The days had been long and the nights short. None of the recruits had ever seen a clock or window with outside view since stepping onto the spaceport. By now they had all long lost track of time and date. All Voss could depend on was counting the amount of times they had been allowed to go to bed, which was fourteen. So he just assumed it had been two weeks to help guard his sanity.
Voss suspected the sergeant and his instructors purposely didn’t adhere to a standard twenty-seven hour day structure. He couldn’t blame them. He’d do the same thing if he was them. Disorient the recruits in every conceivable manner and see who cracks. Hard to convey just how hard it is to never know where or when you are to someone who’s never experienced it. The old Voss would have laughed at you if you tried to tell him. The new Voss wasn’t laughing though. It worked. The recruits were living in a constant state of being uprooted and outside of their comfort zone. It was a state of being that not everyone could handle. Seventeen had made it past the initial trial of the Minoutar. One had been murdered. One had been hung. One had given up. Simply unable to keep up with the grueling schedule and constant uncertainty that he was subjected to. Voss had no idea what happened to the poor sod, but he doubted he would be punished harshly for his failure. Throughout his years of dealing with citizens, Voss had learned that they viewed residents as tools to be used. As long as you were in any way useful to them, they wouldn’t just throw you out. He was certain that on a spaceport this size, that was in such a rusty, deteriorating state, there were always jobs to be done.
It was a lesson Voss had learned at a young age. Always make sure you’re more useful than you are a nuisance. As long as you stayed on the right side of that balance, you’d be alright. Slip onto the wrong side of the balance just once… Well Voss and the others knew exactly what happened when you ended up on the wrong side of the ledger.
Training was a weird mixture of physical exertion, advanced skills training and monotonous repetition of basics like engine parts repairs. Very little order could be discovered in their program. They could be spending three days straight on physically and mentally draining advanced space suit training, only to find themselves cleaning out oily engine parts for the next two days. The only thing that seemed constant was the atrocious quality of the food. Today they had been guided to the damp mechanics room for the third day in a row. Yet more plasma electric battery packs to clean. It didn’t even feel like they were training anything, just doing the routine chores that nobody else was doing due to understaffing issues on the station.
The upside of it was that monotonous chores like these gave them a chance to get to know each other better. The sergeant and his instructors were usually nowhere to be seen during these “drills”. They’d give the recruits some instructions and then sod off. Usually Voss and Hiyo would end up acting as the instructors. Teaching the other recruits what they needed to know to handle the potentially explosive or corrosive objects they were working on.
Today was no different. Hiyo and him had given a fifteen minute masterclass on how to safely disassemble, clean and reassemble plasma electric battery packs before they all got to it. At some point the sergeant would walk back into the room and they’d all be in deep trouble if they hadn’t gone through the one hundred battery packs they were ordered to clean by then.
They had both taken one of the batteries out, performed the required steps and warned the recruits to be careful when connecting the kickstarter to the main battery cell. The older model plasma-electric batteries had a fatal flaw where the batteries became unstable and could explode if you pushed the kickstarter in too hard. It had been hundreds of years since newer models had come out. The newer models didn’t have this flaw, but plasma electric batteries could last for thousands of years and were extremely expensive. In most cases, the older models never got scrapped. Instead they were sent to the remote corners of Fosfat and beyond. To be used by the unfortunate souls not deemed important enough to be equipped with newer battery models. Voss and Hiyo placed their example batteries back in the box they had come in. There were ten batteries per box, neatly lined up. When you finished cleaning a battery, you pulled back a little lever on the top of the battery. That lever turned on a small meter. Each battery had to be cleaned at least once a year or every twenty charges. Whatever came first. When either condition was met, the lever would spring back automatically and the battery couldn’t be used again until it had been taken apart and reassembled.
Voss signalled to Hiyo that he could take the box with the two batteries that had already been cleaned. 'Don't worry about it, Hiyo. You got the most recruits that could use a little help. Two batteries less to clean isn't a luxury.'. Hiyo gratefully took the box of batteries they had used for their demonstration and Voss grabbed a new box. They both walked to the heads of a different table and sat down so that they both had half a dozen fellow recruits close to them. That way they could most efficiently provide further assistance where needed. The other recruits all got a box of batteries as well. Each man was supposed to be able to clean ten batteries in under an hour. Voss wasn’t too worried about the cut off time. He once cleaned thirty of those darned batteries within fifty minutes.
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To Voss’ left were Tick and Emil. Two gifted Assault Team players. Voss had never heard of Assault Team before he got forced into the Fifth. Apparently it was a sort of board game that you played with small, plastic soldiers. It was a game that was popular both amongst citizens and residents. Tick and Emil could never shut up about it and had made an improvised Assault Team set to play with during the sparing moments of free time the recruits had. Tick had made team Red out of bits of plastic and Emil had made team Blue out of pieces of cardboard. Each night as soon as the day’s tasks were done, they’d pull out their improvised board, made out of books, socks, glasses, cups and anything else they could get their hands on, and play a quick round. Voss liked watching them play. He learned the rules through observing them and could tell he was observing two masters at work.
Today they were discussing the pros and cons of the recently released team Green. It was difficult to follow some of the discussions revolving around the more niche rules, but it was still a welcome distraction from the monotonous chore of cleaning batteries. Emil was giving his opinion about team Green’s assault leader’s special abilities, when a sudden bright flash blinded them. A loud explosion burst their eardrums and was accompanied by a powerful blast that knocked everyone over. Something smashed into Voss’ forehead, nearly knocking him unconscious. He smacked onto the cold steel floor. A box filled with batteries fell onto his right leg and he felt something pop.
After a few seconds, when his eyes started working again and the worst of the shock and confusion had disappeared, Voss tried to get back up again. He found he couldn’t stand on his right leg anymore. ‘The box must have broken my tibia when it crashed into me.’ He thought to himself. He leaned on one of the tables that had toppled sideways and managed to get upright that way. His ears were ringing loudly, making it impossible for him to discern what the other recruits were yelling at each other. To his dismay, he saw that Tact, the recruit that had been sitting next to Hiyo, had been flung into the wall behind him with great force. Most of his face and chest had been blasted open by the explosion. One of the batteries must have had a damaged kickstarter and it exploded when Tact tried to disassemble it. Hoog, who had been sitting to Tact’s left, was rolling on the floor, writhing in pain. A large part of the kickstarter had punctured through his arm, and nested into Hoog’s side after the explosion had sent it flying. Hiyo was crawling back up, clearly dazed, but miraculously unscathed after such a violent explosion so closely to his left.
The sergeant came running into the room, followed by two of his instructors. He yelling even louder than usual, yet Voss could barely discern what he was shouting over his ears’ loud ringing. ‘Damnit, damnit, damnit, call in the medics right away. Tell them to prepare the critical care unit. All doctors on duty right now. This is not a drill. We’ve got fourteen, no scratch that, thirteen injured men needing urgent care.’. The sergeant ran over to Dane, who was smashed into a wall and sat down, hunched over, with blood spilling from his mouth.
Voss looked around him. The sight of Tact’s disfigured body and face had given him a twisted kind of tunnel vision. He only now realized that he was one of the few recruits standing. Most were either knocked unconscious, or too severely injured to get back up. Blood began to pour into his eyes. Voss felt his forehead and discovered a piece of metal was sticking out of it. It had been the thing that had nearly knocked him out. He had been extremely lucky. The shard had hit him where he had metal plates in his head. A little lower and it would have probably killed him. He pulled out the metal shard and sat back down. He took off his shirt and wrapped it around his head. He checked himself for further injuries, but fortunately he found none. It was just the gash on his forehead and a broken leg. It could have been much worse. He laid down on his back, waiting for the medics to show up and treat him.
The sergeant came to check on him. ‘A U A I?’. Voss looked at him with a confused face. ‘What did you say?’ he heard himself say as if his voice was inside a locked box. It sounded distant and muffled. ‘I SAID ARE YOU ALRIGHT?’ The sergeant yelled at him. No ringing could ever be loud enough to fully drown the sergeant’s hoarse voice when it was used at full strength. ‘Yeah I’m fine, go help the others, sergeant.’. The sergeant gave him a pat on the shoulder and moved onto the next recruit.
Voss saw the first two medics run into the room. The sergeant pointed them towards Hoog, who was by now laying in a pool of his own blood, barely moving. Voss admired how calm the sergeant was. Beneath his frantic appearance was a man who was making calculated, well thought through decisions. ‘Guess a man’s true character is revealed when under stress.’ Voss thought to himself. It was the first time he was glad they had the sergeant looking out for them.
More medics started pouring into the room. Each one of them was directed by the sergeant to the recruit most in need of medical assistance. Voss was one of the last to receive help. He didn’t mind though. His pain was bearable and he knew that he had been lucky compared to some of the others. ‘Those bastards.’ he thought to himself. ‘A broken kickstarter was one thing, could happen to anyone, but to have a battery with significant charge left in it sent to cleaning; that was a mistake that was unforgivable. Someone’s head was going to roll for this.’ he said softly to nobody in particular. Voss coughed a couple of times. Fortunately no blood came with it, just slime. ‘Who am I kidding’ he thought. ‘If it was a citizen who made the error, they’ll just sweep this whole fiasco under the rug.’. Voss grimaced. Nobody was going to look into this mess too deeply anyhow; not when all the victims were residents. He knew there was going to be no justice for this quagmire. He just hoped Hoog, Dane and some of the others that were worst hit, would make it through the night.