Kat stood to attention in the parade square outside the Camp Guard House. Three other cadets stood in line to her left, evenly spaced, facing the main door. She wondered what they'd done to deserve administrative punishment. Certainly not being caught in possession of a forbidden vehicle! Kat had received enough of these punishments in the last year to be too phased. Everyone had. The other members of 11 Platoon had come up with a theory that the Colour and Staff Sergeants had a list and made sure everyone 'took their turn' at being punished. Some times an incorrectly made bed was enough be sent for 9pm administrative duty, other times the trianing staff seemed to turn a blind eye (often the day before a major military skills exercise).
Today was different. The Sergeant Major was known was being a genuinely unreasonable, irrationally dangerous man. One who know full well that The Camp was permitted to lose up to 2 cadets per year to accident, injury, misadventure or death. Even the training staff appeared to hate him. Kat wondered if this was an act. So the cadets would fear disobedience greater than they would fear running at fortified gun position.
There was no clock on the wall, but none of the cadets dared break their stance to look at their timepieces.
The sound of steel on stone started quietly from behind, at an even pace. CLIP CLIP CLIP CLIP CLIP CLIP rang out as the Camp Sergeant Major marched across the parade square towards the Guard House and the awaiting remedial cadets.
Inwardly, Kat's mood sank. The telltale clip-clip of the approaching Sergeant Major had an extra note to it... a kind of squeeking, rubber sound... the sound of some kind of tyre... oh no. He must've had her bicycle seized.
Sergeant Major Bartain marched into view, placed the bicycle against the Guard House wall and turned to the cadets.
"Good evening cadets" his voice was cold and angry.
"Good evening, sir!" shouted the four remedials.
"Tonight's punishment duties! Cadet Walters and Cadet Cambra, you must report to the Guardhouse, they could use some extra patrolmen tonight. You'll be patrolling with them every night this week. In addition to your day duties."
The cadets were silent. Both cadets had gone white in the face, struggling to keep their composure. Losing that much sleep might cause Walters and Cambra to fail the MilSkills exam next weekend. And the Sergeant Major knew clearly knew that.
The Sergeant Major waited, hoping for a complaint, for any sign of weakness. He had further punishments ready in his mind for any cadet who showed weakness or disobedience. Nothing. Hmm. Maybe these cadets are finally maturing, he thought.
"Cadet Suzuki and Cadet Morrison, take this... vehicle" he indicated to the bicycle "take this contraband down to the mech shop tomorrow before 6am parade. Then you will be on mechanical reconditioning duties every weekend for the next 4 weeks."
"Yes, sir!" They shouted. The relief just visible on their faces.
"And Cadet Suzuki, you will be on flag duty every morning, until you either commission as an officer, or you wash out." There was no satisfaction on his face, just a slight relaxing of his posture showed the Sergeant Major enjoyed what he was saying.
"Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!" shouted Cadet Suzuki
"DISMISSED!" shouted Camp Sergeant Major Mark Bartain, and he turned and strode up into the guardhouse. Cadets Walters and Cambra marched up the polished marble steps behind him and went to start their punishment duties.
Kat was lost in thought. "Flag Duty" was famous. It was the punishment of choice when the training staff were trying to break a cadet. It was only ever given to first semester cadets! To weed out the lazy, incompetent or psychologically unsuitable. Kat knew she wasn't lazy or incompetent... which left...
"You okay, Kat?" Morrison asked, "he put you... on flag duty?!"
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
"Don't worry about it, Tom, it is more insulting than difficult."
"Yeah, but come on, I know they say no vehicles, no tech on base, but a bike is barely a machine! It is just some chain and..."
"No, it is because I was disobedient. I don't like the Sergeant Major, but if I take it personally, like he has, I lose. I'll eat his punishments, and still ace the MilSkills test every week, and be out in Orbit before Christmas. And this guy will still be here, getting his kicks by punishing cadets."
"We'd better get back, I promised my section I'd help them with some chartwork before lights out."
"Sure, let's get out of here, before that tyrant returns."
Kat grabbed her bike, and turned towards the senior cadet accommodation block, it was the other side of the parade square, past the shooting range. Tom joined her, also heading the same way. He was from 10 platoon, so he was pretty normal. Well, normal for a British officer cadet. It was 12 platoon that she was wary of.
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It had been a bright, clear sunny afternoon in Hamilton town centre. A week before starting her 4th year studying Chemistry at Strathclyde University. Chemistry with a focus on fuel science. Kat wasn't from money and didn't have any local connections in Scotland, so when it came to part time work and summer jobs she took what was available. This year, she had just spent 3 months labouring for a road engineering company. The government was paying for all of the roads to have mag-lev "sleeves" inserted. It was all part of the most recent environmentalism movement - Friction was the new enemy - nothing was too expensive or too difficult as long as it reduced friction. Friction causes breakdown, breakdowns needs repair and replacement. And that was wasteful and increased pollution. So now society was at war with Friction.
Just as luck would have it, two simultaneous inventions had sent the world economy into a tail spin - magnetoplastics and graphene dust. These promised to make a Frictionless world possible. Any object could be replaced with a similar one made from magnetoplastic, and any surface could be dusted with graphene and there you had it - contact without contact. The marvel of levitation was so normal now it had become banal. Everything from tea cups to buildings were held up by physical forces we could not see. It had driven more than few people mad, unable to grasp that just because you couldn't see the magnetic circuitry holding a skyscraper in place, just because you could walk through it, it didn't mean it wasn't there.
Hence the degree in chemistry. Kat thought that whoever found the cheapest and fastest way to mould, shape, manufacture and manipulate these new materials would certainly become rich, or so she had thought. Unfortunately, almost everybody else had the same thought too.
Now, to pay the bills and the university fees she found herself as a junior labourer renovating roads and streets with the very materials that she hoped to find some chemical or physical hack for, some clever trick of engineering or production that she could exploit and grow wealthy from.
"Y'alright? What's the hold up?" came the shout from the cabin of the small digger. It had a large pulse-drill mounted where its digging scoop would normally be.
"All good bossman" she called back. She took stood at the edge of the spray painted lines market down the middle of the road, ignoring the litter that gusted past. Kat glanced back at the drill-digger and gave a thumbs up while motioning for the drill operator to lower into place. She motioned him to stop as he reach the right marking.
"ALL CLEAR, DRILL AWAY!" she called, raising her thumbed hand skyward. The drill started up, noisily biting into the old tarmac.
Only one more mile of sleeve to lay and the road would be read for the maglev cars, cycles and scooters. No more friction. No more surface damage. No more parts to replace, or roads to repair. She wondered how many road workers would be out of a job permanently after finishing laying the national maglev sleeve network, and shrugged. They don't seem to enjoy the work anyway. It is always rainy and cold and my God, windy. Maybe being a maglev labourer would be pleasant in Texas or South Africa or anywhere warm frankly. But not in the west of Scotland!
After an hour of spraypainting, marking and digging, the drill man stopped for a break. Kat had the coffee and tea ready, as anyone working as the junior labourer was expected to do. Sipping her coffee, she wasn't really paying attention. The drillman, Alex, was doing his crossword back in his cabin, and she just had to find somewhere to sit against a wall, out of the wind.
A strange hush descended and Kat sensed something was wrong. She looked up and saw the drillman sitting looking at his personal commscreen with his mouth and eyes wide open. He wasn't moving, the few pedestrians making their way through the street had also stopped and were staring at their screens. Kat, lifted herself up and jogged over to the drill-digger's cabin, and saw it on the screen. The Object.
It was on every channel, news and otherwise. Every show had been interrupted. Live footage from the Indo-Pacific Alliance's new Orbital Station #7, of what looked like a large, perfectly white sphere in Ultra High Orbit.
Kat looked at Alex, and looked back at the screen. He mumbled... "They... they say it is the size of the moon."