Rhodes led Thackery, Fuentes, and Lauer into a much larger training room.

“This is where our battalion will come to train from now on,” Rhodes told them. “This is where we’ll come to get used to our new implants and prepare ourselves to use them in battle.”

He went around the room and pointed out each recruit’s weapons, boosters, and Viper ports.

“This is great!” Thackery chortled.

“Shut up!” Fuentes shrieked. “It isn’t great! It’s a nightmare!”

“I’m just saying….” Thackery countered. “It beats the hell out of dying.”

“SHUT UP!!” Fuentes roared.

Rhodes raised his hands. “Take it easy, all of you. We have a lot of work to do and six more people to wake up. They all have to go through training before we can get out of here. Let’s try to concentrate on the job, okay? Fighting amongst ourselves won’t accomplish anything. Are you ready?”

Thackery looked around. “What are we doing here? There’s nothing here.”

“We’re about to enter our training grounds. I’ll take you there first and then we’ll activate your implants.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“I’m about to show you. I can’t explain it to you without showing you.”

“This is stupid,” Fuentes grumbled. He’d become surly and snappish ever since he found out about his family.

Lauer still didn’t talk unless he absolutely had to. He glared at everyone twice as menacingly.

Rhodes assumed Lauer had a family, too. This simmering hostility was his way of dealing with the loss.

Rhodes checked on Fisher. They’d discussed this beforehand. Fisher could interface with the station’s medical systems and access The Grid for Rhodes and his three recruits.

Rhodes gave Fisher a silent signal and all four dropped into The Grid. Thackery and Fuentes spun around to stare at everything. Lauer’s eyes darted from side to side and then up at the ceiling.

“This is The Grid,” Rhodes explained. “It’s the base layer for our training simulations. It also forms a matrix you’ll be able to use to manipulate your implants.”

“What does that mean?” Thackery asked.

Rhodes shrugged. “I’ll show you, but first, you need to meet your SAMs.”

“Whats?” Fuentes asked.

“It stands for Simulated Augmentation Matrix.” Rhodes waved that away. “That isn’t important. It’s a computer program in your head that rides around with you and helps you cope and process what you’re seeing and experiencing.”

“I don’t get it,” Thackery countered.

Rhodes signaled Fisher again. “You’re going to see some shapes in front of your eyes and then the shapes will form an image you can talk to. Consider this your inner companion whose only job is to help you.”

Fuentes stared at something in front of his eyes. “I see it! It’s forming!”

Fisher adjusted something else to give Rhodes an interface with each recruit’s Grid.

Fuentes’s SAM went through a rapid blur of changes before it settled into a face. This one looked more feline in nature, but it kept morphing into something more alien than a feline.

The cheeks stretched outward from both sides, twisted in gruesome shapes, and then settled back into something quasi-feline.

Thackery burst out laughing when she saw her SAM. It twisted and squiggled with messy lines….and it stayed that way.

The tangled grid lines kept knotting in different combined patterns, reworking themselves, and reforming in different configurations. They never settled into one shape.

Lauer’s SAM started as a bunch of different animal faces and eventually solidified into a robot head. It looked more like a skull with black eyes, no cheeks or lips, and a bony jaw and cheekbones.

Each recruit held a conversation with their SAM and then all six turned to Rhodes. They could see each other through the interface.

“This is Fisher,” Rhodes told the others. “He’s my SAM.”

Fuentes curled his lip at Fisher. “He’s ugly!”

“I’m sure each of us likes our own SAM the best,” Rhodes replied. “The important thing is that we each trust our own SAM. The SAMs are here to help us. Their lives depend on us so they have every reason to help us. You can trust your SAM to give you information and help you with your training.”

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“Are we supposed to get to know each other’s SAMs?” Thackery asked. “Will we interface with each other like this in battle?”

“I really don’t know,” Rhodes replied. “All of this is completely experimental. I was the first person the doctors woke up after receiving these implants—or I should say I’m the first person to survive waking up. None of this has ever been done before.”

Lauer snorted and grumbled, “Great.”

Rhodes chose to ignore the remark. “Assuming we will interface in battle, let’s get to know each other. Each of you can introduce the rest of us to your SAM.”

“This is Koenig,” Thackery began. “He’s a genius.”

A metallic, robotic voice came from the tangle of squiggles hovering in front of Thackery. The voice didn’t sound male or female. “I do my best,” Koenig murmured. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Captain.”

“None of the SAMs have ever been online before,” Rhodes explained to the three recruits. “They’re just learning all of this the same way we are.”

“I am Van,” Fuentes’s feline SAM rasped in a deep, throaty female voice. It echoed from far away. “I’m sure Rudy and I will get along famously.”

“And I am Wild,” Lauer’s robot skull croaked in a short, harsh voice. The voice really sounded like it belonged to a skull.

“Okay, now we all know each other,” Rhodes went on. “Let’s learn how to use The Grid and you can start using your implants in a battle scenario.”

“What do you mean by that?” Thackery asked.

“I’ll show you. Follow me.”

Rhodes set off walking through The Grid. He would have liked to talk to Fisher about the three subordinates, but Rhodes couldn’t do that while they interfaced. The recruits would be able to hear every word.

Fuentes and Thackery started talking to their SAMs anyway. Van and Koenig asked Fuentes and Thackery a million questions about their families, their previous lives, and the circumstances that brought them here.

“I came from Zoter continent on Preinea,” Fuentes told Van. “My mother and brothers and sisters still live there.” He started to choke up again. “I sent my mother my pay every week to help support my younger brothers and sisters. I don’t know what she’ll do without that money.”

“She’ll get your compensation package from the Legion,” Van replied in her deep, throaty voice. “The Legion will take care of your family. Don’t worry.”

“I just can’t believe I’ll never see them again!” he stammered.

“I was posted on the Thuzuno before this,” Thackery gushed to Koenig. “I died a horrible death when I got electrocuted. I never had any family. I’m an orphan so I guess I’m not missing anything. This is so great! I worked on military vessels and Legion space stations all my life. I never expected I could actually take part in any of the wars. This is a dream come true!”

“I’m happy for you,” Koenig murmured in that flat, distant tone. “I’m sure you’ll make an outstanding soldier.”

Wild didn’t say a word to Lauer. These SAMs certainly matched their behavior to the person carrying them. Wild seemed to sense intuitively that Lauer didn’t want to talk.

Maybe Wild would be the best thing for Lauer. Lauer didn’t have to worry about Wild expecting anything from him or prying into his thoughts and feelings. Rhodes almost envied Lauer for that.

Rhodes dismissed that thought right away. He didn’t want another SAM. Rhodes had gotten used to Fisher. They’d come to an understanding.

In a way, talking to Fisher did actually help Rhodes even when they disagreed. Even telling Fisher to butt out and mind his own business helped.

Rhodes distracted himself by concentrating on the three recruits. “Let’s pick up the pace a little bit. We’re going to run now.”

He started running. The other three followed and The Grid changed around them. The grid lines grew into a towering valley of cliffs rising to mountain peaks on both sides.

White clouds hung in the blue sky overhead and a river snaked through the deep valley bottom with trees growing on either side.

“Here we go!” Rhodes called and the landscape adjusted a little more.

His senses told him a split second before it happened that the training session was about to start. He raised both arms, but gunfire erupted from the high cliffs before Rhodes could do anything.

Fuentes screamed and threw his hands in front of his face. “Shoot back at them!” Rhodes called. “Target their positions and fire!”

Lauer reacted first. He raised his arms and blasted two enemy positions right away.

Rhodes heard Wild yelling information into Lauer’s ears the whole time. So much for them not talking.

“Four more coming up on your right—lasers this time!” Wild barked. “Fire your Vipers to take them out! Watch out for snipers behind that clump of trees! Use your thermal cannons! Set the trees on fire and you’ll finish them!”

They worked in a seamless rhythm. Lauer never once questioned Wild’s instructions.

Lauer reacted to all of Wild’s instructions instantly, unleashed his Vipers to smash the laser positions, and then incinerated the snipers by igniting the foliage around their hiding place.

Thackery took longer to get the hang of it. Koenig didn’t bark with the same commanding tone. Thackery wasn’t in the habit of taking orders from anyone. She didn’t respond to Koenig’s instructions fast enough.

A jet of fusion fire hammered into the ground near her. “Use your thermals to block their fire,” Koenig suggested.

“How?!” Thackery yelled back.

“Fire your thermal cannons at their fusion shots,” Koenig replied in the same unruffled undertone. “Fusion loads can’t penetrate thermal fields.”

“WHAT?!!” Thackery yelled back. “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!”

Fuentes kept screaming every time enemy fire came too close to him. Van tried to encourage him. “You can shoot back at them, Rudy! Your weapons are stronger than theirs.”

He didn’t respond until Rhodes fought his way over there. Rhodes dove in front of Fuentes and bombarded the enemy positions to protect Fuentes until he got his head clear.

“Come up here with me!” Rhodes yelled over his shoulder. “Join your scourge gun fire with mine! Come on, Rudy!”

Fuentes fought his way out of his terror, cast a helpless look around, and saw Van in front of him. “You can do this, Rudy,” she told him. “You can fight back. I’ll help you. Look.”

She adjusted the grid lines. Two targeting signals appeared on The Grid to show the enemy shooter’s position.

That one small change cleared the way for him to advance to Rhodes’s side. Fuentes’s expression hardened and he opened fire with his scourge guns.

Thackery finally got through to Koenig that he needed to talk louder. He floated closer to her ear and turned up his volume to yell directly into her ear.

She switched to thermals, fired into the fusion blasts, and blocked them until she could unload her Vipers on the enemy targets.

“Shut it down,” Rhodes told Fisher. “That’s enough for today.”

The hidden enemies in the cliffs stopped shooting. The three recruits lowered their weapons and the landscape vanished.

“Now you know what The Grid is,” Rhodes told them. “Tomorrow’s training session will be more complicated. Once you master that, we’ll be able to wake up the next three.”

End of Chapter 12.