Chapter 5

How the hell do you even get married before you’re eighteen in this day and age? That was old-fashioned, sometimes even frowned upon, back on my old earth.

That silly-seeming question kept me up for far too long on my first night on the Altar of Dawn. I highly doubted I was the only one still awake however, considering what our first day had been like.

We, Sapona and I, had spent the first day looking around the ship, inspecting the training grounds and the gym. Then we had taken up position at the window in our barracks for liftoff. Initially, I’d feared that the lack of seats with straps would throw us all against the ground and the wall once the thrusters kicked in and the Altar would speed into space at an oblique angle, but the on-board Graviton Manipulator had done its job. My brain was incredibly confused at watching Lior’s surface grow more and more distant at supersonic speed while my inner ears were telling me I was standing perfectly still. I had not seemed the only one feeling disturbed by this, as one of my human barrack buddies in front of me even turned away from the window with a pale face.

Moments later an announcement rang through the ship notifying the members of the martial branch to make their way to our mess hall by 1800 hours ship time, which left us slightly under half an hour to find it. We found it along with our barrack mates 2 levels higher on the ship. A large hall with rows of simple long tables, which seemed to be divided by seniority. We were new arrivals, and thus were placed at the tables near the far end of the hall according to the seating board at the front, closest to the orator’s stand in the back. The stand was backed by a large window spanning the width of the room, which was by now showing a dark expanse with thousands upon thousands of stars speckling the black canvas. Trails of dust passed by occasionally, showing themselves as glowing stripes that lasted for a fraction of a second. We sat down at a table near the end of the row, along with the rest of our new roommates, and passed the time talking and getting to know the others a little.

Close to 1800 hours, the other tables also started to fill in rapidly with the more experienced ensigns, and the murmur in the hall rose accordingly. I looked up from my conversation with an older blond human man, Rast, when a tall hybrid in a black uniform entered the hall. Conversation died down with every row of tables he passed. There was a dangerous dignity to him, and the dead silence in the hall by the time he stood behind the orator’s stand confirmed my suspicion that this was not someone to be slighted.

He rested his hands on the stand, and looked over the faces before him, paying special attention to our row of fresh recruits. He had short white hair, and yellow eyes like a predator’s. Most notably however, he had an aspect to the mark on his cheek that I’d only seen before on my grandfather. He was a survivor of Attion.

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My grandfather had not died of old age. Average life expectancy was very different in this world, with people living up to 200 years not being an all too uncommon sight. My grandfather was taken by the late after-effects of prolonged exposure to Cloud Zero, a bioweapon employed by T.O.R.I. that even in this day and age was a challenge for the medical community. Grandpa was the last of his old squad to succumb to the war.

This man obviously had no lasting physical handicaps from Attion. It was a rare sight to see a first-generation hybrid in such seemingly pristine health.

“Welcome to the Mission, rookies” the veteran growled in a near cartoonishly deep voice. “I will keep this brief: I am Colonel Tellan-three-eight, your commanding officer, and for the next three years I am the one who ultimately decides when you sleep, piss, and eat. You belong to me now, and whether you are worthy of that, is something you will decide for yourself. You are no longer on your backwater planet. You are on the Altar, and you will soon learn the differences.”

One of the new female human recruits a few tables over seemed to say something under her breath. Too soft to make out -something something “grumpy”?-, but deafening nonetheless in the silent hall. The Colonel did not even look at her while he drew a burster from his hip and shot her in the face. She slumped to the ground like a ragdoll, and lay there unmoving.

“Every new class gets three paralysing rounds before I switch to live. You are down to two. Enjoy your meal.“

When the Colonel had left the mess hall, silence still reigned among the recruits for a few moments. Eventually Rast, brown-haired human man from a few bunks over, whispered in a panicked voice, “He can’t just do that, can he?”

“He just did. Let’s help her to the med-bay.” Tyrna, my new crush, said, with wide eyes that betrayed her otherwise collected demeanor.

We didn’t need to however, as a few women at the victim’s table cautiously got up and lifted the woman off the ground to bring her to the infirmary. A paralysing round was, as the name implies, not a deadly weapon, but as a human, she would have a mean headache when she woke up in a few hours if left unattended.

The meals were served by independently moving carts with robotic arms a few moments later, but despite the decent taste, the food was hard to swallow.

When we came back to our barracks, there was a display on the window in the back telling us to be dressed in our uniforms tomorrow at 0600 hours. We would start the day with physical training, followed by a class on basic information about the ship and a lesson in weapon’s handling.

However, we all felt we’d learned our most important lesson already: stay the fuck away from Colonel Tellan-three-eight.