Noah - 22. Chapter 22

Date: 6th April 2395
Location: New Moscow Academy

“I think I’ve shot just about enough for today,” Lark complained from behind me as I fired another round to the side of the target. “I don’t think the Corporal likes me very much.” Behind him, the Corporal was muttering about why he was always the one who ended up with the newbies who can’t shoot straight.

Though I still remembered what had actually happened, I also remembered that I had shot terribly, barely being able to hit the target, despite my ‘insistence’ on trying out the sniper variant rifle and that the Corporal had spent most of the session trying to get Lark to shoot properly.

“Oh, don’t worry about him, he hates everyone who’s not a Marine,” I replied after ensuring he was out of earshot. “I’ve had enough too now, I think. You want to head back to our quarters for a while?” I looked over Lark’s shoulder to see Aiden give a small nod and begin to wind down his shooting.

“Yeah, sure. Hey, do you play any instruments?”

“No, Aiden plays the guitar though.”

“Oh, I play the violin; they don’t really work too well together.” Lark replied, looking a little disappointed.

“They can do sometimes.” Aiden added as he approached. “There are a few songs that either can lead or back the other on.”

“Really? I’ve never heard anyone play the two together before.”

“Oh yeah, I’ll try to dig through the database; I definitely remember a few that worked nicely.” Aiden began towards the door, both myself and Lark following.

We made our way through the Academy buildings, Lark and Aiden happily chatting about music and their instruments while I walked behind, still thinking about the Phoenix and how I was supposedly a member.

“…An original too, never sequenced.” Aiden finished as we stepped into our quarters, immediately, he walked over to his desk and showed Lark his original guitar, what he had called a ‘2011 Gibson Flying V’. Despite his claim, I couldn’t believe it was nearly 400 years old; if nothing else it was in far too good condition, and there is no way that an instrument that old could survive intact.

“Nice, I use this,” Lark sequenced an electric violin from our wall sequencer and showed it to Aiden, “The same style that I learned to play on.” The instrument was almost exactly the same shape and style as a Dagger fighter; with the strung ‘neck’ running along what would be the centre line. It was even detailed as a fighter.

“That’s nice.” I commented, examining the detail on it closely; it appeared that even the bolts that would hold a real Dagger together had been very accurately modelled.

“Yeah, my dad was a crewman in the ground crew and he designed it. I guess I was always going to end up either as a pilot or ground crew.” He glanced over to my desk, “What are you building?”

“It’s an Estonia class frigate. Nothing special,” I said, trying to draw attention away from it.

“MMV Tallinn?” He read the decoration plaque, “Isn’t that the ship that….”

“Yes.” I interrupted reluctantly. “I just thought that the people I met who died shouldn’t be forgotten. Every time I look at that, I’ll remember them. Maybe then they won’t have died pointlessly.” I closed my eyes and dropped my head to stop myself from breaking down. I may only have been aboard for a day or so, but I made friends with the other pilots and some of the crew; people who were dead just a short while later. Whatever Griff said, I always felt that if I had been there when they were attacked, instead of off on a shakedown because I’d managed to get my ship blown halfway to hell, I might have been able to do something.

“They didn’t die pointlessly.” Lark put his arm around my shoulder. “Last I heard, there’s a battle group rolling through that whole area, supposed to be some sort of secret Cannelli base. We’d never have known about it if you and the Tallinn hadn’t found it.”

Throughout this, Aiden had stood back watching on.

“I don’t know what happened out there after me and Larenko were killed, but you know it wasn’t a waste.” Lark finished with a hug.

“Thanks.” I said with a slight nod. It helped a little, knowing that the deaths of the people aboard the Tallinn had exposed a threat, but not much.

“Tell me when it’s done. I’d like to see its first flight,” he said, looking at the half-built ship. When completed it would be a fully functional and space-worthy ship, though at about a foot high, not many people would fit inside, and as everything was fully to scale, its weapons wouldn’t really do much damage to anything.

“Will do. It’s probably a couple of days away, depending how much time I get.” Walking over to the sequencer, I stood for a moment looking out of the window.

The window itself looked out upon a small courtyard and across the path leading towards the hangars. If I leant around I could just barely see the corner of the hangar in which the instructors’ and 2^nd Class Cadets’ fighters were housed. The sun had now set, leaving the current view made up of patches of light from spotlights mounted on the building and about fifty metres away, the tree line marking the edge of the compound. Along the tree line, the augmented gravity field keeping the Academy complex at 1.1G ended; upon crossing the boundary, the gravity abruptly fell to just under .3G.

“I wonder how Larenko’s doing with Fisher,” I mused, looking over the tree line.

“He’ll either be down her throat, or sitting in the bar, drinking alone.” Lark replied, in a very experienced tone. “That’s how most of his attempts end up.”

“Who’s Fisher?” Aiden asked, looking over from where he was sitting on his bed.

“She…” I began, not quite knowing how to tell him, “You kind of met her in the cave.”

“She didn’t die down there? I mean, properly die?” He asked, looking down to the floor for a moment, “What’s she like?”

“Fourth year Command cadet. She seems nice enough.”

“Nice enough for your friend to ask out.”

Lark laughed out loud for a few seconds, drawing a confused look from Aiden. “Larenko would ask anyone out if it had a chance of him getting his end away. Niceness doesn’t factor into it.”

“She does seem nice, though.” I repeated, “She was thankful that you found her. She wants to go back down to the cave; find out what killed her. How do you feel about going with her?”

“I’m not sure.” He shifted on his bed uncomfortably, “It just seems a bit weird.”

Sitting next to him, I put my arm around his shoulder and felt him relax just slightly.

“Hey, I think I’m going to go look at my fighter a bit. I’m sure I can upgrade the fire control system a bit.” Lark excused himself, leaving the room and the pair of us alone.

“I’ll ask her to come by some time in the morning. Maybe speaking to her will help you a bit.”

“I thought that whoever it was had died down there. How did she come back?”

“Her last map was still on the Academy’s system, she just couldn’t be revived until she was confirmed dead. Once her body was identified, she could be cloned. She doesn’t actually remember going down into the cave. Her last map was just before she lost contact.”

“Well, I guess I could meet her. It’s not like she’ll be the last body I see, and I’ll probably end up speaking to other freshly revived people anyway.” He agreed with a nod. He was silent for a moment, not moving from my side. “So, you’re one of us then.” He brightened up and looked at me.

“I suppose. I don’t remember anything about it.”

“Yeah, what was that your handler said? Something about Angels?”

“I collided with an Angel when I first flew with Griff. Then when we were heading back to Europa after the Tallinn was destroyed another one somehow saved me from running out of power.” I shrugged, “I don’t know why, or if It really is in my head now.”

“I’ve heard of Angels, but never seen one. I thought they were just some sort of legend.” Aiden asked wondrously.

“Nope, definitely real.”

“Well, I guess whatever the reason your handler couldn’t properly tell you the basics, it means we know what we both are now. Most Phoenix recruits never know each other outside of the specialised training, and you’re always fully armoured then. I guess that means we can train together and help each other,” he said happily.

“I suppose so. I certainly need help; I don’t know anything about it.”

Aiden grinned widely, “We’ll start at the beginning then. It’s not secure here, though,” He thought for a moment, “Come on, I know somewhere quiet. You know how to disable your link?”

“Yeah, but why?” I asked, following him to the door.

“We don’t want to be interrupted. If you disable your link, you can’t be tracked easily.” He opened the door and looked both ways, checking that the coast was clear. “Disable your link and come on.”

Under most circumstances, purposely disabling your neural link would be highly unadvisable and could even be cause for wiping, but Aiden assured me that it was fine. After changing quickly into flight suits, we made our way to the hangar, and a few minutes later we were airborne in our fighters and heading for the planet’s northern pole. Given the planet’s orbit, currently the pole was bathed in perpetual sunlight. The temperature was low, around –30 Celsius, but was nothing the flight suit couldn’t handle.

We set down at a completely nondescript area, many miles from any landmarks. Without my neural link, I would have no chance of finding my way back. I felt a sudden rush of nostalgia as my cockpit cracked open and the cold, dry air hit my face; it was almost like being back on Europa.

Aiden had already jumped out of his fighter and was walking slowly over to mine, examining the snow at his feet.

Jumping up, he climbed first onto Mjolnir’s right arm, then onto the hull behind the cockpit, beckoning me to follow him.

“I don’t think we’ll be bothered here,” he said, standing on the hull and looking around. As far as could be seen, there was just snow. A very light flurry was falling from a clear sky, causing a light dust to form on the cold arms of my fighter. It really was just like being back home.

“OK,” he announced, sitting cross-legged on the hull. “The Phoenix are kind of the M Military’s special forces division. We get highly advanced and experimental augs and technology, intensive training in pretty much everything, and virtual immunity from the law. Apart from us two, as far as I know, no two Phoenix know each other out of armour. We lead one life as a regular member of the M Military and a totally separate one as Phoenix. Unless it’s an emergency, we never use our more obvious advanced augs in view of any non-Phoenix member. Peoples’ memories can be altered, but the more times a person sees us doing something impossible, the harder it is to alter their memory. It’s vital nobody know of our existence; first to prevent the knowledge falling into enemy hands; and second to ensure we don’t become suspected when we have to go for training or other activities.”

He paused for a moment, looking over the scenery.

“I’m not completely sure how to teach you to use your augs. Because I knew about mine, I was able to learn to control them from the start. You seem to be able to operate them instinctively, so I think we’ll try to start there. You should have been given three augs by your handler: the temporal distortion, advanced combat, and your armour.” He jumped off the side of the fighter, walking a short distance away. “Let’s build some snowmen, we need something to kill.”

An hour later, a row of five snowmen stood in the space between our fighters, decorated with various items that we had sequenced.

Standing fifty metres away, Aiden made a snowball and threw it at the snowmen. Despite the wind and the poor projectile, the ball sailed through the air and hit the middle snowman square in the face, knocking off its nose.

“When I want to use my combat augs, I look at the target I want to hit and think about exactly where I want to hit it. The aug gives me an ideal trajectory and power and when I throw, I let it control my arm. You try it.”

Making a snowball, I tried to think about where I wanted to hit the far right snowman and threw. The ball sailed gracelessly for about twenty metres then landed in the soft snow.

“When I was shooting, I wasn’t really thinking about adjusting my aim or holding the gun any more than usual, it just came naturally.” I shrugged. Picking up some more snow, I packed it into a ball and just threw it without any thought. The ball embedded itself square in the target snowman’s left eye.

“How about this then; I tell you which part of which snowman to aim for and you hit it as fast as you can?” Aiden suggested, to which I nodded my agreement.

He called out ten more targets, each of which I hit with the first snowball by just letting myself throw without thinking too much about it.

“I think you’ve just about got that one worked out,” he commented with amazement as we inspected the snowmen, with snowballs accurately embedded in them. “How about we try this….” He suddenly turned to face me, throwing a snowball. As the snowball left his hand, everything took on a red tint and slowed to a crawl. My movements felt very sluggish, but I easily dodged the oncoming snowball, watching it closely as it passed by me, shedding small parts as it went. Instinctively, I picked a quantity of snow from the ground and threw it back to him. Just before the ball hit him, he alone appeared to lose his red tint and returned to normal, though the rest of the world was still red. After the first ball, I was unable to hit him, and he was unable to hit me. Though he appeared to be moving at normal speed, as soon as a ball left his hand it slowed down to a crawl, the same thing happening when I threw one.

After what felt like a few minutes, I began to feel light headed and stumbled, finding myself very suddenly sprawled in the snow.

“Are you alright?” A concerned Aiden asked from beside me. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let you stay shifted at that level for so long.”

“Don’t worry, I’m fine.” I assured him, trying to sit up but collapsing back down halfway up. My head felt like it was separate from my body and floating a mile up in the air.

“You’re able to shift to around 2 to 1, or 1 to 2 for as long as you like, but you were just at more like 20 to one. That sort of level is only safe for a minute, tops.”

“What’s the limit?” I asked, resting my head in the snow. My forehead was beginning to pound and I could feel blood rushing to my face.

“The augs can go up to something like 120 to 1, but at that sort of level, your mind would just stop working. Safe limit is 60, but only for about five seconds. Any more than that and parts of your mind start shutting down.”

I packed a little snow around my cheeks and forehead, the cold sensation rapidly stripping away the heat and thumping.

“Hopefully your handler will be able to teach you to control it properly; until then you should probably avoid time-shifting. If it just happens, try to control and drop out of it. I think your way has some advantages though, I have to think about everything first.”

“You’re not the one whose head is exploding,” I joked. “I’ll take control over instincts any day, thanks.”

“Are you really alright?” He asked, with concern still clear in his voice and expression.

“I’ll be fine. Tell me about this armour, that’s not dangerous is it?”

“No, that’s fine. The armour aug puts millions of tiny nanobots into your body. When they’re activated, they rapidly flow out through your sweat glands and form a sort of second skin. They’re hard enough to resist things like bullets and knives; flexible enough to let you move as normal and can distribute energy from things like plasma weapons. Antimatter will still fuck you up, but pretty much everything else is stopped. Certain areas have sensor systems built in, linked to both your neural link and the screens it creates in front of your eyes. It also activates some micro-sequencers in your lungs to let you breathe.”

“Sounds nice. How do I activate it?” I asked, slowly sitting upright. My head was spinning slightly but I was feeling much better.

“Close your eyes and think about being in danger; like something is about to hit you and you can’t avoid it,” he said, closing his eyes. A moment later, he was surrounded by an odd grey fluid which set into a solid armour, identical to that of the two Phoenix from the armoury. Standing up, he gave a twirl to show off the armour.

Closing my eyes, I thought back to the first fight in Mjolnir, when the dud missile was inbound. I felt the sense of dread and helplessness as the sound of the alert came back to me. A cold grasp gripped my body as the armour flowed from my skin, surrounding me. A sense of panic overtook me as I realised that the armour had flowed over my face, cutting off my air supply. I urgently began trying to pull away at the armour covering my mouth, trying to catch a breath.

“Relax. Let the sequencers breathe for you.” I heard an electronically distorted voice saying as Aiden held my wrists. “Calm down, you’ll be fine.”

I desperately tried to calm down, and it took a few moments for the panic to subside. It was a very odd sensation, not breathing. The sequencers maintained an optimal oxygen saturation in my lungs for respiration, removing carbon dioxide as it was deposited and creating more oxygen in its place.

“The armour is linked directly into your mind; similar to the neural link, but completely independent. Just think about speaking and the armour will speak for you.” He advised, releasing my wrists.

“How’s this?” I thought, hearing the words in an odd, distorted voice.

“That’s it. You’ve got it.” Aiden replied. His voice bore nearly no similarity to his normal voice, and if I were confronted with him without knowing who was in the suit, I’d never guess it was him.

Looking around, I could see much more detail than normal; almost as if the world were somehow being shown in a higher resolution. Everything was clearer and crisper. When I looked at Mjolnir, an outline formed around it and a box appeared containing its registry information, indicating the ship name and pilot. The same happened when I looked at Aiden’s ship, which had been named ‘Thunderbolt’. When I looked at Aiden himself, another information box appeared but only displayed his status as a Phoenix recruit and a serial number, different to his normal one.

I looked down, bringing my hand into view. Though it was the same shape as I expected, it was covered with a pale orange coloured armour. As I flexed my hand, the armour moved as if it were my own skin, stretching and contracting with each movement.

“You’ll love this.” Aiden said, sequencing a sidearm directly into his hand. “Inbuilt sequencer. Automatically reclaims material from around you to keep it’s Omni full. Here, shoot me.” He tossed the pistol to me.

“I’m not going to shoot you!” I replied, shocked that he wanted me to.

“It’s fine, just do it!” He insisted. Shaking my head, I pointed the pistol in his general direction and fired. The blue glob of plasma exited the pistol and flew towards Aiden, hitting him squarely in the chest and causing him to take a step back. A moment later, the plasma of the round was spread over a large area of the armour and vanished, not leaving so much as a mark.

“I told you! The armour absorbs pretty much anything.” The artificial voice held no emotion. “Here, let me shoot you!” He sequenced another pistol and before I could object, had fired. I felt the round hit me in the left bicep, the force of it pushing me around. A display on my armour appeared, showing the direction of the shot’s origin and where it hit. As the plasma dissipated, a message appeared stating that the Omni reserves were full and that the extra energy absorbed was vented as heat.

“Follow me,” Aiden called, taking off in a run towards my fighter. As he approached the side, he sprung up, leaping straight onto the hull, which would normally be far too high. “Just think about where you want to be and the armour will put you there.”

Following in his footsteps, I leapt and landed next to him on the top of Mjolnir.

“You can drop down a fair way too. The armour will absorb a lot of impact. Don’t drop too far, though. You can still break bones if you land badly or too hard.”

“How do I disable it?” I asked, wanting to feel the cool arctic air again.

“Close your eyes and think of being safe and comfortable,” he replied, his armour melting away and seemingly vanishing without a trace.

The feeling of the cool air washed over me as I thought of being back home. When I opened my eyes, what I saw now felt slightly odd. It felt like my eyes were blurred, as if I had just woken up, but rubbing them did nothing; my mind had gotten used to the enhanced vision from the suit.

“You’ll be able to see fine in a minute or two,” Aiden said, understanding what I felt. “Your mind just has to get used to normal vision again.”

I sat on the hull of Mjolnir, blinking, until slowly my vision felt like it was returning to normal.

“That’s about all I was shown, Green just said to practice them whenever I could, in private. I don’t think it’d be a very good idea to practice fighting until you learn to control the temporal distortion more, but we could practice getting used to movement and find out what the armour can and can’t do, if you like?” He asked hopefully.

“That sounds good,” I replied, eliciting a smile from Aiden, which I returned. “I like it here.” I commented, lying back on the ship. “It reminds me of home.”

“You were born on Europa, weren’t you?” Aiden asked, remaining sitting.

“Yup, lived there all my life. What about you?”

“The Yaponiya system. My parents were among the first colonists on New Yokohama.”

“I’ve never been there, what’s it like?” Coming to Rossiya was the first time I’d ever been to any system other than Sol. The Yaponiya system was located through a second wormhole from Rossiya, but other than that, I knew nothing of it.

“My dad always said it was kinda like Earth; lots of different environments. There were jungles like the rest of this planet, deserts, and snow fields like this. The first settlement was established on the boundary of a jungle and a big area of plains, right next to a river.”

“I’ve never seen a desert,” I said, “This place is the hottest place I’ve ever been.”

“My dad made sure that I experienced every environment on the planet. He’s a Marine Sergeant and wanted to make sure I knew how to survive virtually anywhere. The deserts on New Yokohama can go as high as sixty degrees in the day and drop to minus thirty at night. We spent two weeks out there once, living on the water we got from the trees and whatever animals we could catch.”

“Sounds rough,” I replied, dreading the thought of having to do that.

“Not really. It’s tough, but once you’re into the routine, it’s not too bad.” He shrugged. “I found it hardest living in this sort of environment.” He looked around, surveying the nothingness all around. “Water’s not too hard to get, but there’s hardly anything to eat in this sort of place.”

Looking around, I saw his point. Unless there were some form of arctic mammals, or maybe fish underneath the ice, there would be nothing to eat but snow and ice.

“What about the jungle?”

“Jungles are comparatively easy. There’s a lot of food about, and if you can find a stream or river, easy water. Biggest problem in the jungle are all the creatures; lots of insects and stuff that can carry disease, or if you cut yourself, it can get infected easily. When we get a break later in the year, maybe we can head out for a week or two.”

“I don’t know about that,” I laughed. “I wouldn’t last a day away from a sequencer.”

“You’d be surprised what you can do when you put your mind do it. You never know, you might enjoy it.”

“We’ll see,” I chuckled doubtfully. “You heard anything about when we actually start training here? I thought we were supposed to have been told by now.”

“I’ve not heard anything. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“You still want some help with your combat? We can head up in the morning, if you like.”

“Thanks,” Aiden nodded, before going quiet for a moment. “Y’know, I don’t think I’ve ever spent as much time with anyone else my age as I have with you.” His voice held a very slight tinge of sadness and regret.

“Really?” I asked incredulously. Compared to some others on Europa, I spent a lot of time with my dad, usually fixing up a ship, but I still spent a fair amount of time with classmates outside of school time.

“I was always busy doing something with my dad. I never really went out with classmates or anyone else.” There was a little more sadness creeping in.

“Well, you’re a good person to be around, I don’t mind hanging out with you like this,” I said reassuringly. “Plus, now we have a few things...in common, we’ll probably spend even more time together, training.”

“Yeah,” he replied happily. “You can’t really ever get enough practice in combat or getting used to your augs.”

We lay on the hull of Mjolnir for a few more minutes, enjoying the peace of the cold, barren environment. All that could be seen, aside from our fighters and collection of snowmen, was a crisp white horizon in all directions, the only sound coming from the wind howling over the ground until it was interrupted by the crackle of the ship’s radio.

“What is all this then?” A heavily accented female voice asked, “My little pilot, consorting with the evil Thor?”

“What are you two doing all the way out here?” Another voice, which I immediately recognised as Griff’s added a moment later.

Reluctantly, I stood up with a groan and jumped into the pilot’s seat, keying the radio as I did.

“Just showing Aiden some of the joys of home,” I quickly thought.

“Then why are both of your links offline? After a little ‘quality time’ together?” Griff replied with a laugh. In the distance, I could just make out the two small dots on the horizon of their fighters.

“No,” I replied with a sigh, rolling my eyes at Aiden, who had moved onto the starboard arm. “We’re being good boys, making snowmen and smashing them again.”

“Why is it that I have a hard time believing that two young teenagers alone in somewhere so secluded and with their links offline are being totally innocent?” The voice I now recognised as Aiden’s instructor, Commander Lionidovna asked rhetorically.

By now, the dots were closing quickly. We both looked over the area we had been practicing our augs, ensuring there was nothing that could be construed as out of the ordinary. Other than the army of snowmen with snowballs embedded over them, there was nothing.

“OK then, Nadya, you’re right. We’ve been having wild, passionate sex for the last four hours up here. I’ll give you a full, detailed account if you like?” Aiden ‘admitted’ with a laugh and a grin.

“I don’t think that will be necessary.” She replied quickly, “I believe you, totally innocent.”

“Files have come through on your new cadets,” Griff said more seriously. “Four each. We’ve already divided them up for you. From here on in, it’s up to you how you will teach them; outside the classroom, we’re just observers now.”

A panel on the left armrest next to the chair illuminated and began displaying details of a file upload.

“That’s all of them. You’ve got six weeks until they arrive,” he said, once the transfer had finished, “You can come to us for a little advice and guidance, but remember that the responsibility is to prepare you for leading a wing.” The two fighters were now hovering about twenty metres in the air above us.

“And no conferring! I don’t want Rostya’s rabble to get any of my group’s incredible ideas.” Lionidovna added jokingly. No doubt the traditional competition between instructors would take place as usual, but I knew already that Aiden and myself weren’t going to take much notice of it. We’d still try to better the other, but not as ravenously as many other wings would.