Only by applying all my willpower and remaining strength, Ian managed to wake up and turn the bracelet’s alarm off. I’ve unattached myself from the bunk, put on boots, and venture into the hallway to join other lethargic, half-sleep cadets.
We've all received our first reminder of the first lesson in the schedule.
“Time: 000:010:000
Name: PT
Location: D21-M55
In charge: NS Rise [NS stands for Network Specialist. - Rise]
Note: Under the command of cadet Rise, go to the D21-M55 for PT. Uniform: 2”
I had no idea who Rise was or where this section was, as I’ve missed the wonderful opportunity to hang around the Academy while waiting for the other cadets to arrive.
The time went on, but there was no sight of the Rise. It was quite unsettling, could it be some kind of tricky test? Or did someone screw up? And what is uniform 2?
I looked around for a solution or entertainment. On my right, just near the door with the sign “Rise, NS” stood a girl with an “NS” patch and a name “Rise” patch beneath it. She was petite, small (at the lower end of the allowed height) and somehow all incredibly fragile and painfully pale with bright turquoise, slightly glowing in the dark augmented eyes and short, titanium-black hair.
Rise stood quietly and pretended that she had nothing to do with anything. I decided to take matters into my own hands and approached the network specialist.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Let’s go!”
“To where?”
This conversation couldn't get any dumber.
“To PT”, said I and added a smile to the conversation, to appear more friendly.
[Provocateur, - Rise]
The girl crossed her arms over her chest a made a small side-step. It went against the plan in my head. At this moment I was at a loss. To be exact, I didn't know what to do at all. A cadet in charge is just standing in front of me and, for some reason, she is doing nothing at all. Other cadets were too at a loss and began to talk (60 cadets in the hollow narrow corridors create a tremendous noise, even if they are silent). Nobody understood what is going on, and what to do. My personal confusion was interrupted by Sanya - she went through the crowd like a kinetic projectile and jumped right into me.
“Damn! Almost overslept! Well?”, yelled Sanya.
“Well, what?”, asked I.
“Let’s go!”
“To where?”
This conversation couldn't get any dumber.
“To PT!”
“Ah, ok.”
I’ve opened the bracelet’s display, find D21-M55, and mapped out the route.
“Let’s go.”
Without any hesitation or thinking, we began to make our way through the crowd. Some followed us, some followed those who followed us, and someone was left behind. A disorganized, incoherent bunch of cadets were jamming in the narrow passageways and hallways. We’ve lost many on the way to the PT.
At 000:023:000, the 22 cadets arrived at the PT. In the center of the huge, brightly lit physical training bay sat an obvious space trooper in camouflage pants and a T-shirt. Our appearance slightly interested him but did not cause him to rise from the deck or distract him from his tablet. After some discussions and whispering, all 22 cadets concluded that we needed to get closer.
The space trooper seemed tired of waiting for something to happen, he stood up, spread his arms wide, and began yelling at us.
“Every bloody time! Just every bloody time! New group, same shit all over again. Where are the rest of the group, morons? Cadet Rise, report!”
Well, due to the absence of the cadet Rise nobody answered him. Also, it was a weird thing to demand to ask Rise to report, he already knew, that there was no Rice among us.
“Bloody awesome. So bloody awesome. Ok, which one of you morons knew where she is? You! Disabled one, without ears! Report!”
Well, the only one without cat ears was me. So, I did my best to frantically gather all available brainpower and facts.
“Well, Rise… cadet Rise. She decided not to do things. So, I came.”
“This accent and two-word vocabulary make my ears bleed. Ok. Okay.”, said the space trooper.
The space trooper pulled out his tablet and sent to all the cadets an order to report immediately to D21-M55. As an extra touch, he set our alarm on and set its mode to “vibration with an electric shock”. The bracelet can produce weak electric discharge, it’s perfectly safe but very unpleasant, civilian bracelets can do that too. He did it not for punishment, but for his amusement.
“We will wait for those pink bastards. I don’t feel like repeating my sincere speech twice. You all can lick your balls in the meantime.”
***
Even more pale Rise was facing the line. Between her and us, with his hands behind his back, stood a very disappointed space trooper.
“K-SAF. Ex Space Troopers. Instructor Tea. Yes, my name is Tea. Yes, it’s really funny. You can make jokes behind my back, I don’t care. I will be in charge of PT. But how can I be in charge, if the whole group are handicapped morons without a single brain cell? Cadet Rise!”
Rise flinched and bit her lip.
“Cadet Rise! Why did you not bring the group here? Were the orders unclear?”
“The orders were clear, sir!”
“Show that “sir” up into your ass, we are in the SAF. So, orders were clear. So, why?”
“I can't know!”
[I’ve come to the conclusion that it was a provocation, and I would get a penalty for following that order. - Rise]
“Cadet Lis!”
I had no idea, why he is calling me out, but a took a step out of the line.
“You, earless moron. Why the damn didn’t you bring everyone else with you?”
“I didn't have a clear authority”
Tea growled something inaudible, slapped me, and began yelling.
“You! Are! A military astronaut! Elite troops! You have such flexibility that you could have rough sex with the Absolute, take over the K-SAF HQ, and commit genocide in the meantime, and you'd clean! HQ will probably even give you a medal! And some extra vacation! Remember this once and for all, degenerates! The current situation was simple and clear: Rise shit herself. Obviously, because her brain was accidentally replaced with shit. Lis discovered this, and what he was supposed to do as only one with half of a brain? He should have yelled, "I am in charge! Flea food, line up! Follow me, march to the PT!”, and then he was supposed to walk all of you morons here. It’s sad that Lis has only half of the brain and he did only some work. Ok, Rise has shit in her head, Lis has half of the brain. But everyone else is bloody brainless. Which means… Cadet Lis! Cadet Rise! Pushup! Do as I count! Do one! Lis, lower your bloody ass. Do two! Do one! Do two! Do one and a half! It is not one! Hold the middle position! Cadet Lis, according to the scanners, you had 40 cadets following you. But only 22 arrived here! Where’d you lose others, asshole? There was no "do two" command! You became a commodore of the operation, you took full responsibility for the unit, and you’ve lost 18 astronauts! Do two! Do one! Do two! One and a half! Rise, you received a clear order. Nice, clear, and logical. Give me one bloody reason not to follow it! Just one reason! It can be as stupid as you are, but just one reason! SAF units have the right to disobey stupid orders! There was no "do one" command! Why didn’t I see the order execution? Why didn't I see a refusal? Why was the order ignored? The reason! Give me a reason! There was no "do one" command! Elite bloody troops! Do I have to chase you all over the space and wipe the shit off your asses? They can't organize themselves. What are you gonna do when our wonderful HQ disappears in a nice explosion? M? You will stand up tall and take over the whole K-SAF! You stand up and yell, "K-SAF! I'm in charge. Follow my command!" Instead of waiting for somebody smart to come along and solve all your problems! Do two! Do one! One and a half! One and a half! One and a half! Two!”
Tea kept scolding us and ordering push-ups. It was frustrating, I was angry. The fulfillment dream starts with a cascading clusterfuck. I should have done things differently. Yes, taking the command would be a better choice, but the passive observation was also a valid option. But I don’t really like to stand around a observe things…
[Ok, I will cut it here. His train of thought went places. - Rise]
At another "do two" my hands refused to participate in this crap and my face met with the floor. As a reward, I got a light kick in the kidney and permission to get back in line.
I was tired, hands were shaking, but Tea let me go, so I could catch my breath…
Tea grinned at us.
“We've done with the discipline phase. And now it's time for a PT. To the right! Forward! Move, move, move!”
And we move. Then ran.
A basic set of exercises is rough as follows (I borrowed the plan from Tea):
"PT Plan:
1) General development exercises: walking, running, set of exercises for arm, leg, and trunk muscles (paired/single).
2) Accelerated movement: running and jumping exercises, running.
3) Comprehensive training: exercises from previous sections, elementary techniques of hand-to-hand fighting.
4) Physical exercises of some type.
6) Something funny.
7) Something entertaining.
//NOTE: Depressing. Gotta add more stuff."
Something funny and something entertaining is not funny and entertaining for cadets, these parts are purely for Tea amusement. Well, I think Tea was joking around when he gave me that plan. Most of the basic PT was well planned and focused on cardio, muscle tone, and building endurance. [I don't think he was joking. - Rise]
The whole PT session took 40 standard minutes, and after that, we wanted to lie down and die. Tea waved “dismissed” at us and went off somewhere, not even paying attention to the fact that the whole group just collapsed on the floor. But we didn't lie down for long. The bracelets vibrated, notifying us about “Breakfast. In-charge: Cadet Chester”.
“Hey! I’m Chester! Follow me!”, some weak and trembling voice commanded us.
The group sluggishly crawled towards the exit, cramped in the passageways, but arrived for breakfast in full and almost on time.
***
In the messroom I found out that my hands stop operating for some oblivious reason, the tray was shaking, and I just can’t get my food and transferred it to some table. But the owner of the bright green non-augments eyes came to the rescue.
“Well, well, well. Have you decided to start hiding from me?”, asked Sanya.
“Help! Hands are not working.”, said I.
“With one condition! You will not hide from me anymore!”, demanded Sanya.
For some reason, she was only slightly worn out as if she skipped PT.
“Just don’t get lost and follow my lead.”
“Aye! Also, you promised to take me in your crew!”
“Don’t remember that, but don’t mind it either.”
“Well, and who just tried to save that insolent girl Rise by sharing her pain?”
“I don’t understand what you are talking about. Besides, she is a network specialist, and you are the pilot. I'd cover my face with my hand if I could put my hands up.”
“Ok! I’ll spoon-feed you!”
Sanya is very active and very lively. But at that time, she became even more lively. Quite a tiresome girl.
In the middle of an absurdly idiotic lunch, where I was unsuccessfully trying to eat and Sanya was laughing and trying to feed me, we’ve got company. A Chester, a tanned and little bit chubby katz with faded-out hair, came over to our table. He will be the second cadet who gets his red patch and build his crew. Operating only on pure intuition, he always managed to catch the rules of the game and adjust his tactics to them. But he always has trouble with unclear situations without rules, probably that's why we’ve lost him in Operation Harvest-90.
Chester came to me not just for fun, but with a brilliant logistics optimization idea. He suggested choosing several team leaders, who would lead parts of the group along different routes, so we will not interfere with each other or create traffic jams in the corridors. I approved of the idea, even though I got my ass kicked out for my initiative in the morning. Also, Chester's idea fits perfectly with my personal motto, stolen from some book: “The plot must move fast! And if it does not move, we will make it move!”, or something like that, I don’t remember the exact quote.
The discussion of the new tactics was interrupted by a new assignment: “initial briefing”. We instantly and almost successfully put our plan into action. One assigned and two extra commanders quickly found common ground, organized the cadets, and arrived at the auditorium bay by the deadline.
***
All lessons at the Academy are taught by active military astronauts with relatively fresh experience.
Usually, the instructors are military astronauts at the end of their contracts. SAF is evolving too rapidly, and at the time of “today” the manual written “yesterday” is criminally out of date. I highlighted the word "criminally" for a reason - it's one of the special K-SAF terms, from the category of "overspending resources". In a nutshell, "…whoever sent personnel on a knowingly suicidal operation, or put personnel on a knowingly suicidal situation, or created a situation leading to a knowingly suicidal operation, bears irrevocable, irreversible and instant retribution…". Of course, this article does not apply in the Last Line of Defense situation, when some alien invades our space and tries to destroy the home planet, you don't reason “is this or that order criminal/suicidal”, you give it or carry it out, trying your best to protect your home.
Yeah, SAF is weird.
Our mentor tried to clear things out a little with his initial briefing.