Psychological corps of the K-SAF Academy have a sly trick, some sort of mind game if you wish: an already stationed cadet is sent to the spaceport to greet and meet new arrivals. Official files describe it like a wholesome and heartwarming operation: the new cadets will not be confused in a new, strange and unfamiliar environment, like, because they will get some guiding light. Also, the new cadet will immediately begin to build social connections and got some friends, which is very important. Plus, this trick relieves seniors from the everyday meet-and-greet duty. After all, new cadets arrive from all inhabited planets and the initial group assembles take a lot of time. Plus, it’s a sort of aptitude test. The grades are something like this: critical failure - cadet didn't meet anyone and lost somewhere; ok - cadets met, got drunk, arrival and report to the supervisor were late; not so good - sober cadets showed up on time (blind obedience is discouraged in the K-SAF).
Well, at the time, I know nothing about these tricky mind games. Also, I should know nothing about it, because the essential part of the K-SAF training is to throw a cadet into some mess and see how he will handle it. My initial instructions were short and a little bit worrisome: “Landing Site 32. Meeting has been arranged”.
And so, after a traumatic, but an interstellar journey, I’ve set my foot on another planet. After leaving spaceport's Clean Zone and planning to begin the search for the “Landing Site 32”, I immediately noticed two K-SAF cadets: drunk cadet-medic sitting on the deck and a partially dressed girl standing right next to him.
Imagine the classic protagonist from the Katz medical drama series, like, for example, Pierce from “Disaster Response Team”, the famous movie series: medium height, athletic, generally handsome, light-brown hair, cat ears with tufts, and, of course, an iconic piercing glare of bright augmented eyes. You got it, right? Now, shove him into a standard K-SAF uniform with a medic-cadet patch, cover his shoulders with a white lab coat, and sprinkle him around with confetti for some reason. And make him very drunk, very angry, and very sad.
The second person was also quite unique. A bright girl with short red hair, clear, nonaugmented green eyes, plush cat ears, sly face, and... a C-cup [D-cup :3 - Sanya] [A-cup without the bra - Resi] [Do you have a death wish? - Sanya] breasts. She did not care or did not read Wear and Appearance Regulations manual; she was topless with her uniform coat just freely hanging on her bare shoulders. At first, I didn’t even notice the cadet-pilot patch.
“Sup! I’m Sanya!”, the girl’s arms went up, her uniform coat went down, her breasts went forward.
“Vor. Just arrived too”, the guy looked up at me, and with a grim determination asked one fateful question, “Wanna drink?”
“I am Lis. Nice to meet you all. Do we have time?”
As you can see the powers of the true commodore are began to waken in me.
“Six standard hours”, answered Sanya.
“Ok, let’s go!”, I immediately agreed.
Well, of course, I agreed! What do you expect from a young male 20 planetary years old, with his head spinning around due to informational overload? Plus, over some light drinks (I had no idea I signed up for synthetic vodka) you can quickly make new friends! Nothing as scary as finding yourself all alone in an emotional vacuum. Except for times when you are all alone in a regular vacuum with the oxygen running short, or times when you are falling into a star, or times when you are falling into a planet, or times when you are finding yourself on the other side of the event horizon or having half of your vessel just cut off.
There was no problem finding a place to drink. All spaceports are surrounded by hundreds of establishments for everyone: bars, hotels, brothels, arcades, cinemas, swimming pools, and so on and so on. The one and the only advice I can give you is about bars: do not venture there. They all are feeding on astronauts who escaped from above for a couple of hours. Hence, they have crappy synthetic booze at huge prices. A regular military astronaut has zero to no ways to spend his salary. He is always up there somewhere, out of tune with the state of economy and current prices. The vacations are short and far between. So, he will pay “a lot” for a “little and bad” without batting an augmented eye.
At the nearest bar, Vor exchanged everything he had for a lot of vodkas. Like, A LOT of vodkas. He carefully placed every bottle on a small table, opened the first one, took a sip at the size of half of the bottle, and began telling his life story. This life story was told times and times again to everyone who didn’t make a swift retreat. Much later, he would get used to SAF and he would either participate in conversations or pick up on young and cute girls, telling heroic tales with little to no connections to reality. But, at the time being, I heard for the first-time heartbreaking story about a humble and unlucky medic.
“I am Vor. And I am a good medic. Not your regular medic operator. No! I am a real doctor of bloody medicine! I’m so bloody good, that I can reconstruct damaged bio-circuits with zero to no effort, with my eyes sealed. Can you believe that? Well, of course not. You are probably thinking that it is engineering, not a medical procedure. Oh, well. But, you know, I lived a nice, peaceful, and very good life. You just can’t live badly with my level of skills and knowledge. Everything was fine and dandy. But. Damn greed. I signed up for a practical course in Experimental Casualty Treatment and a theoretical course in Torture in Xenobiology. Very prestigious and elite courses! Very good reason to ask for a raise, maybe even change my title from a doctor to a researcher! Sounds, great but the cost of the courses is as high as to convert all of myself into bio-resource kits. But wait! SAF will pay for you! There is one small catch, you must participate in the draft lottery. There is a 32% chance of getting drafted. There is a 5% chance of getting drafted to the MID-type. And-and-and… and there you go. And here I am. Lucky as a cat on a landmine. Do you have any ideas about the average lifespan of the MID-type vessel? 16 operations! Are you shitting me? We do not have any wars going on! Where are they? Is there a secret war or something? What a good life I had. How beautiful everything was. Also. You know what? You know what? I can decline. Nice and easy. And go home, back to my civilian life. Or I can fail the exams. Or do something stupid. There is another catch: I must pay off courses and the contract termination fee. I don't have that kind of money! Do! Not! Have! That! Money!”
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As the story went on, so did vodkas. In the end, Vor managed to consume five bottles and with the last phrase, his face met up with a table. I was not so wasted, so my inner commodore showed up once more.
“Eeee… are you alive?”, I asked.“Yes. Stress. Alcohol intoxication. Swarm of nanomachines number 6 is started to work. I am with you. I can remove kidney. Should I?”, answered Vor.
“No.”
“Ok then.”
I looked at Sanya. The girl was drinking vodka like a seasoned astronaut, winked at me, hinting that it is my turn to speak up.
“Ookay. So. My name is Lis. I’m human as you can see, from Sol Sector, Earth. Due to the Rights of the Genetics Heritage, I was granted Katz citizenship. Father is human, mother is katz. Both are from SAF: A-SAF (Alliance Space Armored Forces) and K-SAF (Katz Space Armored Forces). With these kinds of parents, it is easy to guess, why I am here and why I don’t really like Secret Services. It is in my blood, ha-ha. At the planetary age of 20, I’ve applied to all the existing SAFs Academies. Well, the K-SAF Academy was the first one to give me a green light. I’ve decided not to wait for the replies from other facilities and rushed towards Katz Embassy. I gave up on my citizenship of the Rising Union and the past, handed in my personal belongings, received new personal belongings, and was shoved into the first KSV they could find. And here I am. Nothing to complain about so far.”
“Stupid idiot with a blind and burning passion. I'm so bloody done with all of you. My future rapidly becomes grimmer and grimmer”, said Vor.
“Why?”, asked I.
“Army feeds on passionate idiots like you, that’s why!“, said Vor and hit the table with his face a couple of times and resumed, “Army will eat you up, digest and shit out little cog. A little cog of a great war machine. It will do the job and die with a stupid smile. I do not care! Do you want it? Ok, have it! Go and die! But leave me alone! Well, why do I have to go with you?!”
“Are medics useless on MID-types?”, asked I.
“Yes! Exactly! Useless as… as… useless!”, Vor finally raised his head, so I can see his red face, “Well, look! Engagement! Direct hit! And what do we have?”
“What?”
“Nothing! There is no MID-type KSV in the space! It is gone! So, what there is for a medic to do? Where are the casualties? Only metal fragments and remnant emissions.”
”Well… I can see your point”, at the time my vocabulary was not that rich to hold a complicated discussion.
I wasn't offended for two reasons: first, he was a good katz having a bad day; second, I was pretty drunk and also happy, because my dream was coming true. Well, in fact, only my good mood, enhanced by alcohol, was at work here.
“Okay then!”, Sanya loudly announced herself by a scream and by hitting the table with an empty bottle, “It is time for dramatic revelations! Hold tight rookies! I’m drunk enough to not give a shit! Look at me! The best pilot of the three-dimensional and two-dimensional spaces! Bests of the best and even higher! 30 flying hours on small atmospheric cargo vehicles! 17 hours on atmospheric interceptors! 5 hours on suborbital civilian transports! 0.5 hours on orbital station-to-surface shuttles! I've piloted airplanes, rotorcraft, helicopters, autos! I can go on the edges of radars' location spheres in a 6-by-9 window! I can get away from interceptors with civilian transport! And I can do that so good, that not a single glass falls off a stewardess' tray! I'm an extra-class extra-specialist! I'm also a terrorist, demoted and sentenced to be converted into bio-resources!”Sanya suddenly lost her cool and start babbling indistinguishably.“I can't legally fly cars, planes, vehicles, and vessels! THE EYE AUGMENTATIONS ARE REJECTED BY MY EYES! BUT I WANT TO! AND I DID! AND I WILL! I DIDN'T KILL ANYONE! Just... just flew... it was... I was... they...”
Sanya spun down from “I'm the high and mighty. Ave, peasants!” point to the “I'm crying my eyes out, hug me, please” point. And I, of course, went to hug and soothe her. From my experience, it was better to stabilize a drunk person who changes mood so drastically, otherwise we could end up with so many troubles… Vor was swearing something into the table, and I was all around Sanya, trying to get her back in line by promising something, patting her, hugging her, and generally not realizing that by doing so, I was sealing my fate and choosing the weird path of a “Operation: Christmas tree” and a “Commodore of the Genocide” title.
The finale of the party was lost somewhere in the dark alcoholic mist. I've tried to recover the blind spots, but Sanya’s and Vor’s reports were diverged and contradicted each other every single time.
My first conscious and coherent memory: the image of the clock. And the first conscious and coherent thought: we will be late.
The second conscious and coherent memory: my left foot is on the step of the automatic taxi, my left hand is holding the taxi's hull, my right hand is holding the hinged-up door, my right foot is idle and dangling over the forest, so I am forming the right stabilization plane. The taxi flies faster than recommended maximum and lower than recommended minimum altitude, almost scratching the tops of the trees with its belly. Vor is responsible for the left improvised stabilization plane, and Sanya, covered with wires from the torn-up panel, sits in the probable center of mass. The counter-air currents rip off a poorly glued pyramid with the taxi company logo from the hood and sends it straight into my face. I was slow, so I got a big red minus all over my face as a penalty. The counter-air currents rip off the poorly secured hood and send it straight into my face. I was quick and managed to hide in the taxi. The loss of stabilization plane and disruption of mass distribution is bad for the flying qualities, so I stick myself outside once again and stabilize the taxi. Flight continues.
The third is conscious and coherent memory. Sanya is in my right hand, and Vor is in my left hand. Both are slightly conscious. I’m moving very slow and very carefully, so I will not cause damage to my astronauts and to the computers in the small room. Behind a huge deck with a bunch of displays sits a very surprised gray-haired katz (mentor Io). I’m standing right in from of him.
“Ca-a-de-t. L-i-s. At yours. Your.”
“Your mother is a cat in heat”, the gray-haired katz rubbed the tip of his ear, unable to believe his eyes, then turned to one of the monitors and commanded, "Cadet Lucky, to the mentor! Now!
We didn't just meet the deadline, we managed to show up early. In about an hour, the mentor will receive a report from the agents of the Absolute (the practice exam for the Secret Service cadets) who were responsible for surveillance. The report will be the usual: got drunk, got in a taxi, arrived late. Due to this report, the surveillance team got themselves into really deep shit and all the cadets of the class would have to do a long and tedious retake of the practice exam. And the police will be sluggishly looking for the missing cab [what could have happened to it? - Rise] but eventually they'll give up on it.
“Lucky! Get this shit out of here and put watch-bracelets on the commodore and the medic. They can't do that.”, said the mentor to someone behind me.
“Aye!”, said Lucky, and put a hand on my shoulder, “Ok! One step back! Right leg! Left leg! Good job! Right leg! Left leg!”
“Huh. Well, minus one problem”, muttered mentor, probably thinking that I couldn't hear him.
And if I could, I wouldn't remember it.
And if I did, I wouldn't understand it.