Ironwood

[Trigger]

19: Party
It’s the morning of the second day of the half-week. 5 Recruits line up on the exercise square. A batch of 3 new Recruits is making their run around the square, early in their Decomposition.
Curiosity about what we’ll be doing today makes way for deep unease as my intuition detects something is wrong. Our 5 instructors arrive, and line up in front of us.
“Good morning, Recruits,” Trench says.
“Good morning, Instructor.”
“I know it’s sudden, but, you’re done here.”
We await the punchline.
“Yesterdays medical examination shows all 5 of you are at where you should be, physically. Fundamental training is done. Congratulations, Recruits.”
I think he expects cheers. There are none. We are frozen.
Trench looks past us. “Are they always like this?”
“It depends.” Blood walks past us wit ha small bundle of flowers. “Hello, Recruits.”
“Hello, Patriarch.”
“Here.” He walks down the line, handing each of us a flower. It’s a single, giant, beautiful rose. “The fun part starts now, for all of you. And you should have fun. You’ve paid for it with plenty of sweat. Enjoy yourselves, alright?”
We stare at the old man in silence.
He smiles at us with an old man’s squint, shakes his head in amusement, and leaves.
We turn back to the Instructors, still awaiting orders.
“Here’s what’ll happen now. You will have no Instructor to answer to. You will not have an assignment either. You are not Legionnaires until some squad or team takes you in. And right now, you don’t have the skills to be taken in by anyone.
“So, until you are offered a position, and until you accept a position, you are Recruits in training. This training you have heard of before – the green, yellow, red certifications. There are only 3 required certifications before you can be accepted anywhere – Rifle, Armor, and Bio training. Rifle and Armor courses are green, and can be taken with any number of specialists and squads. Bio training will be performed with the trainer boxes on your belts, and verified by someone here, at the recruit center.
“However, with just those 3 certifications, you will be at the bare minimum. You will likely not be offered any positions with just that. It is up to you to continue taking other trainings until your value rises.
“Every week, a group of squad and team leaders will gather to review your status. They will be a those that have openings in their units. They will look at your progress. They will make anonymous suggestions as to which courses you should take. They will, eventually, give you an offer to join a squad. They are the faceless bidding floor you are performing for.
“There are three things you should avoid. First, avoid sloth and stagnation. If you waste too much time, I will find you, and I will hurt you. Second, do not overwork – there is no reason to work yourself into overload. Third, do not attempt to raise your physical strength beyond your current level. As you are now, each of you can and will destroy your own bodies if you exert yourself to you full strength. You will break your own bones and tear apart your own cords if you overdo it. Further bodybuilding will do nothing but make that easier.
“Finally. Right now, you are not Legionnaires. After your basic training, you will not be Legionnaires. After all the training in the world, you will not be Legionnaires. You will know when you stop being a Recruit and become a Legionnaire, but until that happens, you are forbidden to have an ego. You must think of yourself as dirt, as lower than low. Have no ego, and have no attitude. This is my wish for you all.
“Now, be gone, and let me be. Ironwood, with me.”
The line of instructors breaks as they grab their respective Recruits and drag them away into different corners of the Recruitment Center’s training square. I find myself pushed forward, still processing what’s happening.
I’ve been here for… 40 weeks. 6 weeks of Decomposition. 34 weeks of Recomposition. A total of 240 36-hour days. I barely remember anything other than sweat and my own heavy breathing. And now I’m done?
“Ironwood.”
“Yes, Instructor Trench.”
“Listen to me very carefully. It is my advice to you. Do not aspire to be a Charger.”
I frown at him. Aspire to be a Charger? Like Dance? Me?
I am filled with horror, because I realize that he’s right. I do aspire. Since I learned I was in the top 4 percent by Cord count. Since I became the first to manifest all 3 core drugs in my body, along with my vision. Since I saw Dance, and the way that woman moves.
“Oh, shit,” I mutter.
“Yeah. Do not go there, Ironwood. Do not let that be your goal, even in the long term. Avoid it. Become a Heavy. Become a battle tank driver. Become anything glorious and important that isn’t a Charger.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll die. You do not have the temperament, the mentality to survive as a charger. You made your fellow Recruits into your friends. You are polite to support personnel. You listen and learn. You have a sharp mind. This is all things a Charger is not.”
I nod, and close my mind. I purge the now conscious concept. “I understand, Instructor.”
“I hope so.”
“What else, Instructor?”
“That’s all.”
“Really?”
“I don’t need to tell you to not be an asshole. I don’t need to tell you to use your brain. I just want you to live.” He points at the new Recruits making their runs. “Those are the first Recruits we’ve seen since you. The Legions kill, but we rarely die. We pride ourselves in that. And so I only wish that you do not die, Ironwood.”
“Alright, Instructor.”
“Go. And maybe have a party.”
“Don’t have to tell me that,” I laugh.
I wait at the center of the square. As the other instructors end their conversations with their Recruits, the other 4 are left standing around in a daze.
“RECRUITS!” I yell. “TO ME!”
They move first in reaction to the command and tone, and only then process the order and its issuer. I get 4 angry stares.
“They fuck you want?” Smoke asks.
“Food! Go find some good takeout, and meet me at my place. We’re having a party.”
“We are?” Ash asks, ears twitching.
“I mean, unless you have something better to do.”
“I’ll take that party,” Dust agrees. “Food, drink, what else?”
“Be there at… Sunset, 27,00. I need to prepare. Only have 3 chairs in the whole house.”
“What address?”
“51, Sun Street. Here,” I offer my Card, transferring the address to them. “Where are you guys staying?”
“Those of us not suffering nepotism were issued apartment rooms.”
“Nepotism,” I laugh. “Post-morem nepotism. I like that. Make sure to find vases for the roses, these are clearly engineered, and I expect they’ll stay alive a long time.”
“How can you tell?”
“We’re in the mountains and these look fresh and unbothered by the… -20 degree weather.”
“Neither are we.”
“Exactly! 2 hours. See you.”
I watch them leave the square. I stay to watch them leave, then look up at the morning sky, and finally exhale.
Now what?
I don’t even know what my options are. Infantry, I thought. But of course, the Legions use more than Infantry. They use mechanized armor, and aircraft, and they have a navy that I have yet to see. They have drone controllers and artillery operators.
But I had sort of thought myself bound for infantry. And what is the peak of Infantry, if not Chargers?
Except Trench is right. I cannot have that be my goal.
So now I have no goal at all, other than the original, first dream – to see the world, and to become better.
So, I will become better. And the world will rue my presence.
I lower my head, brush the snow off of my face, and head out of the Recruitment Center.
Plan Clerk is there, at supply. He smiles and stands when he sees me enter. “Axeford!”
“Hello Plan, got a moment?”
“What do you need?”
“Two chairs, and some tableware. I have guests at sunset.”
“No… No no no. Guests? In your empty cave of a home? No.”
“I am open to suggestions, Plan.”
“Go get food, I’ll stop by your place.”
“Right.” I remember the first time I met the man. “Right. Just don’t pain the walls.”
“Would take too long to try. Go, I have work to do.”
I go. I go to get food, because I’ve yet to have breakfast, and when the others gather, food will disappear at an unprecedented rate.
I’ve had some time to explore around in the last 34 weeks. After a lot of experimentation, I know every food place within an hour’s travel. The one I go to now can only be reached via a very steep hike, which is an implication regarding its target customer base. It is a place that serves food that only Legionnaires, with our augmented stomachs, can enjoy.
It is a large wooden building atop a mountain ridge. I have to fight the wind and snow for the front door to get into the tambur. Shaking myself off, I go through the second door into the main space.
The two-in-one owner and cook leans out of the kitchen to glare at me.
“Axeford! You were just here yesterday.”
“Got kicked out!”
“Out of recruit training? What did you do?”
“Graduated.”
“Oh!” She drops something on the counter and runs out at me. I am less swept, and more enveloped into a hug.
I am not, in terms of volume, larger than when I was before joining the Legions. My height is the same, and my mass is now all cords, but I am not a massive man by any regard.
My fellow Recruit sisters, Ash and Smoke, are very attractive after their modifications and Recomposition… right down to the neck. Below the neck, they are nearly identical to me, if a little shorter. That is to say, they are weaves of muscle barely contained by skin. There are no other features to a Legionnaire other than our cords. And so the two women I worked closest with proved to be entirely unexciting to me – just as my form is undoubtedly unattractive to them.
After dozens of weeks surrounded by these cord hulks, I found myself entirely unprepared to meet Vent some weeks ago. I quickly learned that I could still blush, and could still get a hard-on.
Vent is a normal, unmodified human, one of the ‘support’ that feed and supply the Legion. It’s simply her nature that makes her a head taller and significantly vaster than me. As a consequence of a fairly physical profession, she has curves in all the right places. Quite importantly, she seems entirely undeterred by my post-Recomposition aesthetic. The quality of my days off improved significantly after meeting her.
“You here for me?” she asks.
“Not today, unless you’re free right this moment?”
“Nope, in the middle of a big order, sorry!” She gives me a kiss. “Whachu need?”
“A big order, as it happens. Having a party with the other Recruits at my place.”
“That’s a lot of food,” she considers, and lets me go. “You have breakfast?”
“Nope.”
“Sit, I’ll feed ya.”
Few people visit this place for breakfast, and Vent only starts the diner up fairly late in the morning. The issue is simple – Vent cooks for quantity. This is where I go when I want to eat once in a day, rather than eating the usual 4-5 meals my body demands. It’s a great place to get takeout, if the food is to last the next 3 days.
She has a lot of pride in what she does. Despite being a bit younger than me, she was invited to the Legions for her famed cooking. Leaving her family behind, she moved to the Blood Legion, and was given this house to set up in. The success of this establishment is a massive accomplishment for anyone, especially for someone as young as her.
By her own admission, she’s attracted to me simply because I’m her age, and blush when I see her. My own reasons are equally simple – she’s of objectively rare beauty, and I have few chances to interact with anyone who’s not a modified Legionnaire nowadays.
While I wait, I tap away at my Card.

Axe: Got kicked out of fundamental training, along with the rest of the batch. I’m freeeee.
Pan: Top 4 percent, last of 3 to graduate, something’s off, show me you medical files!
Lance: Axe, I have to tell you something very important.
Axe: What?
Lance: Do not attend a Charger’s training courses. Any of them.
Axe: Why not?
Lance: Your days off will become medical rest. Like mine.
Axe: Funny, my Instructor told me not to aim to be a Charger.
Pan: You were aiming to be a Charger???
Axe: You know what, I didn’t know I was until he said that.
Pan: Okay, do not.
Axe: I got that part.
Lance: I got punched today by one of them. Center mass, right in the breastplate.
Axe: And?
Lance: I went through a sandbag barricade. Actually through it, left a hole. Do you know how sturdy that shit is?
Pan: Yes but did you die?
Axe: I’m with her on this one Lance.

A platter lands before me on the table. I stare at it in awe, as I always do. In awe that so much food can be fed to a single person. In awe that I am capable of eating this much.
“Wow,” I say, as I always do.
Vent laughs as she leaves to continue her work.
It is a mountain of white rice and vegetables, covered in some kind of sauce, with a stack of three steaks beside it. It comes with half a loaf of black bread, a jug of some kind of juice, and a very big fork.
I loosen up my belt, and begin to eat. I’m not afraid of ruining my appetite. By the end of the day, my body will have processed all this. I won’t be hungry, but my body won’t refuse the food.
It takes a while, but when I’m done with the mountain before me, Vent brings out a box. It’s not something I’m meant to carry – it’s a backpack, with straps, that is much too large to wrap my hands around.
“This way up, you hear?”
“Wow,” I repeat, eyeing the massive box. “That’s… a lot.”
“It’s why you come here,” she laughs.
With effort, I put the backpack on. The weight is not an issue, but the balance is going to be a challenge.
Vent holds the tambur doors open for me, her blonde braid whipping me with the wind as I pass by. She steals a kiss, then lets the doors slam shut behind me.
I am in my uniform – the same cut and thickness as what was issued to me that first time in the gray building in Central. It’s not winter clothes. Yet in the morning blizzard, I am neither cold nor bothered by the weather. My skin has modulated thermal conductivity, and my body can produce heat better and longer than any natural animal of my size. I marvel at my own resistance to this storm as I make my way down, and wonder how Vent makes it up here in the morning.
Carefully, then with ease when I reach a tram station, I make my way home.
My home is swarmed. Supply are like ants, carrying a string of objects and tools into and out of my home. They make way as I come inside to drop off the box on my back. I go outside to give them room to work.
I begin to question what they’re doing. I asked for a few chairs. What I actually get includes that, but also seems to include a couch, a wardrobe, and a shelf. I’m certain some of this is not necessary for accepting guests. It’s hard to question them though, especially since I don’t see Plan anywhere.
Suddenly, they’re all done, and the small swarm of support files out, with the last one out mopping the floor behind himself. I give out as many thanks as I see people, and make my way inside.
Two couches. And two new, large shelves. The chairs are there, at least.
The house looks less empty. The shelves are all empty, of course, and I don’t have anything to put in the new dresser. The most interesting, most personal feature of the house are the deep scratches in the walls and ceiling, and the epoxy-filled scratches and holes in the floor. They are evidence of the Abomination that almost killed me, and to this day I am thankful to Plan for keeping them the way he did.
I climb a chair to make sure the two urns on the furnace are dust-free. Then I add fuel to the furnace, and collapse on my new living room couch. The food coma overtakes me, and I nap.
Recruits begin to arrive one after another. First Loom, then the sisters, then Dust. The bring food and drink.
I set the table at the center of the room, with my back to the fireplace. The table creaks under the weight of food.
“Axe! Are these scratched from the thing that attacked you?”
“Yep.” I go into the bedroom, dig through a drawer, and pull out my souvenir. Bringing it to the main room, I hand Ash the claw. “This one had my blood on it, so it’s probably the one that stabbed me through the heart.”
“They let you keep it?”
“Just the exoskeleton.” I take the spike back and set it on my new, empty living room shelf.
Ash is staring up at the fireplace. “Are those your parents?”
“Blood parents, yes.”
“Hah! Oh sorry. Pun.”
“I know.”
“You remember them?”
“I was a few weeks old.”
“Is it creepy having them around?”
I squint up at the urns. “Dance said they were assholes.”
“The Charger said this? Wow.”
“Axe, I’m hungry, and your mountain of rice is menacing at me, can we eat?”
“Where did you even get that much rice?”
“I won’t tell.”
“Why not?”
“You’ll hit on the place’s owner, and then we’ll have to duel to the death, and you won’t win that.”
“Oh, what’s she like?”
“She looks as she cooks.”
“…Good?”
“…A lot?”
“High in protein!”
“All of the above.”
“You meet any single guys, you give them our numbers, ok?”
“No-Legionnaires?”
“Eww, I am not interested in anyone who looks like I look right now.”
“What do you mean, ‘right now’? This is permanent!”
“Don’t remind me.”
The voices blur. We eat, drink, and the night fades out of memory.

[Trigger]

20: Armor
I take the day after the party off. Supply stops by to fix the window and the door through which someone was thrown, and to take back the one surviving spare chair. They also clean up – something I’m distinctly incapable of right then.
Only on the second day after my graduation from fundamental training do I decide to look at what’s waiting for me under the name ‘training’. I consider taking another day of, but frankly I’m bored, and have nothing better to do.
My Card tells me many things. Most important of all is the fact that both Armor and Rifle training require me to have armor. A query on where to get armor for the first time takes me to the Armory.
The Armory is one of the coolest places I’ve ever been. It’s a museum, a store front, and a workshop, all in one. I stand and gawk.
The walls, displays, tables and shelves are full of violence. Guns, grenades, drones, scopes, ammo, missiles, rocket launchers, armor, shields, warheads, swords. If it’s a tool of violence that a human can carry, it’s represented here.
“Recruit.”
“Good day,” I respond to the clerk. He sits behind the counter at the back, smiling at me as I wander around for a while.
Finally, I waddle up to the counter.
“Armor?” the clerk asks.
“Please.” I pull out my Card.
“Undress.” He pulls out a bundle and slaps it onto the table. I recognize what it, in part. It’s a bundle of connector caps, held together by a web of thin string. “Put it on.”
I strip to boxers, then begin to put on the jig. Starting from the bottom and going up, I lock the jig into my connector implants, all the way up to the head.
The result is odd. I am a monster in boxers, with a weird fishnet wrapped around me.
The boxers are colorful, with images of palm trees and the ocean engraved into them. My sense of humor was appreciated by doctors and Recruits alike.
The web tightens up at the connector plugs retract the string, until it presses into my skin.
“Good, good. Now, stretches please.”
I stretch, somewhat reluctantly given my observer. As I move, the strings connecting the connector plugs around my body barely resist, giving as needed for me to move. I can do something beyond splits, can put my legs behind my head. My shoulders, spine, hips and hands do things that seem horrifically unnatural. It scares even me.
The clerk watches with an expression of mild boredom. When I’m done, he gives me more specific instructions, forcing me to stretch the jig more.
It’s an interesting system of measurement. The connector plugs clearly measure their range of extension, building a model of my body and of the locations of connectors on it, simply by measuring the length of the strings between them as I move.
I’m made to walk, run, and sprint in the yard behind the Armory. Then come pullups, pushups, and good old mountain climbing. I have become quite good at that, thanks to the routes around the Recruit Center.
In the middle of a combination of a split and a side stretch, two Recruits enter the Armory.
Smoke and Ash take one look at me, and break down laughing.
I stand from my split, load my fists, and march forward. This ends with nothing – I find I am incapable of punching people who are too busy laughing at me to even try to fight back.
Calibration is done anyway. I take off the jig, forcing my body to unlock the connectors one by one. I make sure to stay long enough to watch one of the sisters do what I just had to, out of spite. I find little humor in it all – in the back of my mind, a voice tells me that watching two young women strip should be interesting, rather than anatomically uncanny.
Done with issuing snide comments and comedy, I leave. I’m told to come back tomorrow.
The rest of the day is spent in some degree of anticipation. There’s nothing left for me to do, not without armor, and so I go home. Reading, eating and sleep carry me to tomorrow.
I am finally issued my armor. And everything changes.
The armor is given to me in 5 pieces. The helmet, torso, arms, and legs – which is everything from the waist down. There’s another, separate element – a skinsuit with ports that match the connectors on my body. It’s the same matte black suit I see many Legionnaires wear pretty much all the time, even when they’re off duty.
That suit is the hardest part to put on. It’s surprisingly thick, and hard to climb into given it’s a single piece. I have to lock and unlock connectors as I roll it up and over myself. The suit even goes over my hands – there are no detachable gloves. There are, however, slots for waste disposal attachments that I’m told I’ll be issued later.
Putting on the rest of the armor is surprisingly simple. The leg set is seemingly too large, and quite easy to get into, right up until the leg connectors click into the armor.
The whole armored contraption suddenly flexes and contracts around me. Every single connector on my bossy is suddenly connected into the armor as it locks around my lower body. I force the connectors to close, and sift as the armor flexes further, settling in around me.
“What was that?”
“The contraction? You let a port connect, and your body supplied electricity to the suit. So it went active and closed up.”
“So I’m all that’s powering the armor?”
“You are, and you always will be. You are the battery and the generator. Your armor will use what you give it, but it will not store or generate it.”
“It really doesn’t do anything to improve my strength?”
“Absolutely not. You’ll understand why later. Just know this - no powered armor known to us can match a Legionnaire like you.”
“Why not?”
“What is powered armor?” the armorer asks. “You take a flimsy, weak human that is too weak to be useful on their own. You stick them into a robot that must perfectly match that human’s anatomy, and wrap itself around the human. This contraption must match the human’s motions, yet also not tear the user apart by moving too strongly. It must have a power source, or a lot of power capacity. It must have complex mechanical joints and motors.”
“Seems pretty stupid when you put it that way.”
“It is absolutely stupid. Now put on your armor.”
The torso is next. It goes over the head, and settles on my shoulders – at least at first. There’s a bit of manual work required in linking the torso to the leg armor. It amounts to connecting mechanical links hanging down from the armor, into the waist of the leg set.
The moment I permit the connectors of my body to lock into the torso armor, the armor collapses in around me. A chorus of clicks fills my body as my chest, back, shoulder, neck, side and stomach connectors link into the armor.
“Stay seated. Arms next.”
Putting one arm on is easy. I use the left hand to lock it into the torso, connect, and let it settle into my connectors. The other arm is a bit more challenging – I have to use my freshly armored right hand to perform the same mechanical connection to the torso before linking in.
And then it’s done, and I am clad in armor from the neck down.
The armorer hands me the helmet, and smiles.
I look at it – some kind of Old Earth medieval design, with a sloped forehead and face covering into a spike of straight edges. It settles easily onto the armor around my neck with no complications, and I lock my skill connectors into it.
I can see surprisingly well. The visor slots in the armor seem tiny from the outside, but the transparent slits are positioned just right to give me good forward and peripheral vision. I can see up, and down under my feet.
Finally, I stand from the bench.
It’s like I’m not wearing anything at all. I know how much the armor weighs – I’ve held the damn set in my hands. But the weight isn’t there. It’s not sitting on my shoulders. It’s not rattling around me, or pressing down on my hips. It’s just… not there.
No clattering of plates. No feeling of resistance of increased momentum capacity. I roll my head, and nothing prevents me from looking up or to the sides just as much as I could before.
I move more and more, into the extreme stretches I can now do, trying desperately to feel some limits of motion from the armored skin I’m wrapped in. Plates and segments shift – I can see them move. But nothing locks up. Nothing stops me when I go into a split, or when I clasp my hands behind my back. Even my fingers – armored from all sides – feel utterly unrestrained.
In fact, the unnatural gaps between my legs, arms and fingers are gone. I no longer feel like I have too much armpit space. Everything moves as I feel it should if I wore nothing at all.
“Holy shit,” I finally break, and begin to laugh. My voice does not echo in my helmet.
“Check this out.” The armorer offers me a hand. I take it.
I realize immediately what he means. Right now, metal-petrified wood is touching skin. But I feel skin, and warmth, and fleshy texture. Through the wood, through the undersuit, I can feel his skin.
“How?” I demand, looking at my fingers.
“There’s more. Give it some power, 1st level.”
‘1st level’ is about as abstract a unit as ‘1 unit of Crystal in blood’, as my bio-conditioning box often demands of me. It’s a personal measure, a shelf of electrical production my body settles into at my will.
My cords warm up as they begin to turn chemical fuel into electricity.
The room around me collapses in on me. I feel the shelves a meter behind me on my skin. I feel the ceiling on my shoulders and head. I feel the armorer on my chest, and the door to the armory on my shoulder.
I feel the room, despite not seeing it. The door is cold. The walls are wooden and soft. The armorer is a glowing beacon in an otherwise chilly room. I do not see this – my eyes are closed. I feel it, with my skin.
Except my skin is under a suit, under armor. All it should feel is the suit. Not... everything.
I open my eyes, but the feeling of the room remains. I turn to look behind me, and the feeling shifts as the room rolls on my back.
“What is happening?” I whisper.
“You armor is laminated with a compound sensor. You are one large, walking, passive and active sensor and scanner element. At this power you’re in passive mode – you’re collecting light and sound. Go to the next level.
I force my body to work as a generator, and it readily beys. Electrostatic potential builds, and current begins to flow in and out of my connector implants.
The room becomes crisp. I see around shelves. I see through the armorer. I see through the door, and into the street and chasm beyond. I see the other side of the chasm, where someone’s armor reflects my ping.
I see that with my back, without turning my head, without using my eyes.
Emotion feels me. It feels familiar. Like getting to hold a planar axe for the first time.
I open my eyes, look down at my arms, and flex. As my cords bulge, the plates on my arms shift – they’re linked directly into my muscles through the connectors, and moving a muscle group also moves the plates linked to that group.
“This is addicting,” I admit.
“Sure, and you can stay in there for a long time if you have the waste management units. I’ll give you those. I’ll be seeing you – every time you want to add a pouch or a holster, come to me so I can install that.” He points to my waist. “Put your knife there.”
I take the sheathed knife from my pile of uniform, and lock it onto my belt. It disappears, weightless and invisible as if one with me. My fingers wrap around the guarded handle, and for the first time, the handle isn’t a little large for my hand.
“Can I just… take the armor?”
“Literally no one but you can wear that. Here.” He goes behind the counter, and begins stuffing it with items. “Waste disposal units. 5 spare undersuits. Visor cleaning fluid. Connector cleaning brushes. Cleaning supplies. Some other stuff, you’ll figure it out.”
“What do I do for maintenance?”
“You’ll know. And my that I mean you’ll feel it.”
“That’s very cool,” I admit, taking the box.
“It is. I suggest you drop this off at home, and then go take a hike. Climb a mountain. Take a fall. Get armor training started as soon as possible.”
“I will. Thank you so much, armorer.”
“You’re welcome. Go.”
I go. My feet barely make a sound. The soles are wide and soft – nothing clanks against the stones as I walk.
The tram’s seats always felt a bit big. Now I settle into it, and realize what the seat size is for. I’m just a little bit larger, dimensionally, and fit perfectly into the Legion Home’s architecture.
I laugh as I realize that the strangely large doors in my house are now comfortably sized. I drop the box on the table, and head right back out.
Theres a trail leading down from the cliff I live on. It starts with a vertical rock climb, then turns into a steep hike. I stumble immediately on that first fight, slipping off the rocks and fall.
The fall lasts 4 or 5 seconds, and when I land, it’s on rocks.
There’s no pain. There’s not even shock. Nothing even approaching a concussion. The rocks beneath me look more damaged than I do.
I lay on the rocks, and laugh.

[Trigger]

21: Training
I finally have Legionnaire armor. A skin of metal-petrified Ironwood that locks into my muscles and wears like a second skin. It’s wildly pleasant to be in, but most importantly, I can finally start actual training.
The same day I receive my armor, I head for armor training. 3 days off was too much for me, and I’m bored enough to start the suffering.
I request attendance, and my Card directs me with an address and near time.
Another mountain climb takes me up to a firing range. There’s not a lot going on here. Someone’s sighting in their gun. One Legionnaire stands, unmoving, but I feel radiation wash over me in pulses as they do something with a module on their back.
“Recruit?”
“Here,” I greet the approaching Legionnaire. She is armored, and I doubt I’ll ever actually see her face.
“I’ll be your instructor. When did you get your armor?”
“2 hours ago.”
“What did you do since then?”
“Climbed a mountain to try it out.”
“How is it?”
“Odd. My fingertips and toes are a little wrong. Hard to climb.”
“Welcome to armor training. Here’s what you can expect. I will teach you everything your armor can do, and then I will make you practice it all until you can use it all as you can use your own muscles – without thought. So, a lot of practice.”
I nod. “Right.”
“Important detail: Passively, without your command, everything defaults to ‘locked’ state. You can only release holsters, unsheathe weapons, unsafety guns, and remove armor if you command it. Without command, everything is mechanically secured.”
I frown at that. “Wait. What if I suffer a lot of damage? Say, spinal nerve damage. Paralysis.”
“Then we will wire up your spine back to your brain long enough for you to send the unlock command.”
I frown deeper. “What about casualties? Corpses?”
She actually turns her helmet to me. Her helmet’s design is different from mine – rounded and smooth.
“Explain the question’s source.”
Source? I think back to what caused me to go down this path of thought.
Ah, there it is.
“I had to move my parent’s urns recently. They’re heavy, and don’t rattle.”
“Those urns don’t have ash in them. They’re ingots with ash and biomatter alloyed into them. We cremate corpses in armor, since it’s almost impossible to remove armor from a corpse without total dissection.”
“Why design it this way?”
“This way if you’re hit, pass out, fall asleep, or even just lose attention, your armor won’t fail you.”
I sense an encroaching discomfort. Something akin to being in a coffin that I’m not certain will open to release me.
No time to ponder.
“First, all the features. By the fault, your armor is nothing but protection and detection. You have radar-sensitive and emissive lamination. Phased radar, basically. You’ll feel radio, radar, heat, and ionizing radiation. That lamination will not hold up to getting shot, so as you take damage, you’ll lose that capability. But you won’t die. In that armor, you can take a near nuke, and live. Orbital bombardment will only kill you with a direct hit. Your biggest risk is sinking into molten metal or rock, in those cases. Shockwaves and radiated heat are not an issue – you have fantastic thermal insulation control, even in a fire you’ll last for a solid hour before feeling heat.
“Everything on top of those two functions is a modular addon. Here’s your first one.”
I’m handed a module of odd shape. It has a concave side with connectors. The other sides are all armored and sharp-edged, like an odd piece of flint. It’s the size of a small backpack.
“That goes on your left shoulder blade, on the back,” the Instructor explains.
I reach around and affix the module on the left side of my back. The armor readily locks into it. The thing’s weight and bulk seem to disappear from my perception.
“That’s your laser link, radio, flare gun, and transponder, all in one. Don’t leave home without it.”
A roll of the shoulders tells me the thing is doing nothing to obstruct my range of motion. I nod.
“Let’s start by finding your interface with the module.”
There’s an awkward moment when I find my flare gun controls. A spike of white like crashes off of my back, directly up. It’s like a second, white sun, and for half a minute, it rises and lingers overhead, before going on.
My radio wakes up.
<Oh boy, time to bomb the training site again!>
<Artillery here, we’re on lunch break.>
<Air here, too far for us, and also we don’t feel like it, sorry.>
<This is Black Fleet clipper ‘Overheat’, we’re seeing a call for fire, is that real?>
<Black Fleet, please do not beam our newbie.>
<Affirmative, firing for effect.>
My left side tingles. I twist to see a spear of white-yellow light spear down from the sky into some distant valley. Fire spills up over the ridges surrounding the valley. Smoke begins to rise, just as the beam cuts off.
I am in a deep squat, frozen in place, trying to figure out which way to dodge. My heartrate is through the roof, and entirely reflexive adrenalin and fear fill me.
A hand lands on my shoulder.
<Effect achieved,> I head my instructor call over the radio. <Thank you Black Fleet.>
<Always a pleasure.>
I twist back to my instructor.
“What-the-fuck-was-that?” I breath out.
“That was what happens when you fire a ‘fire on this position’ flare.”
I look up, trying to spot the spaceship that just nailed some poor chunk of the mountain range.
“I can summon orbital fire?”
“That particular flare will summon everyone and everything in range.”
“Is that mountain ok?”
“That’s our artillery range, there’s nothing there, ever. So, any questions?”
I slowly stand up. “Why, exactly, do we use flares for this?”
“Because in combat, under the effects of battlefield jamming, your laser and radio comms will not work. Quite often, flares are the only way to talk to anyone.”
“Flares. Really?”
“Why not? We’re already regularly devolving to using swords and shields in combat. Why not flares, if it works? Now, let me show you how to program the flares so you can signal something other than ‘shoot here’.”
Armor training lasts 3 hours. I am shown how to use my transponder, and how to read other transponders. I am shown my radio and laser link. The instructor explains basic radio protocol and mechanics.
Then I’m forced to practice. Quickly using the radio. Quickly using the flare gun. Quickly linking into local laser links.
Once I can do those basic things, I’m told to do them while running, climbing, or crawling.
Armor training quickly resolves in my mind as a matter of making armor operation a totally mindless, reflexive act. I need to learn where my new fingertips and toes are, and what my new proportions permit or limit me in. In the same way, I need to learn to talk on the radio with as much effort as it takes to use my voice.
The radio still needs me to speak into my helmet microphone. But there’s also another feature, one that lets me send basic signals by thought. ‘Yes’ and ‘no’ are radio pings that I can emit without opening my mouth, and that immediately fascinates me. I decide to see what other signals there are, that don’t require me to talk to use.
For 3 hours I practice using the armor and the comms module. There’s less tripping and misfires now, and I am utterly mentally exhausted.
The instructor approves of my progress, and tells me to come back tomorrow.
I am not given the chance to leave the range. Another instructor approaches, just as I consider where to go to eat.
“Recruit.”
“Instructor.”
“You need rifle training.”
“Uh, yes.”
He points. “That truck has rations to hand out. Eat, then go over there for rifle training.”
<Yes,> I ping with my radio.
I receive a response ping by radio as the armored man walks off.
Not recognizing that response, I pull out my card, and open the radio manual. It tells me that the signal he used is equivalent to a nod of the head. An acknowledgement, or a short ‘good’ response.
Interesting.
I head to the truck – a treaded, armored crawler of a vehicle with a large open cargo hold. A supply clerk I the back hands me a food packet, which I devour.
There’s a moment of awkwardness and panic as I try to remove my helmet, and fail. It takes a concentrated effort to release my head connectors, to free the helmet from my skull. I breath in fresh, cold air, trying to calm down my strike of claustrophobia. Then, I eat.
Rifle training is a different kind of challenge entirely. I’ve never fired or held a gun before. This one is a meter-and-a-half monster, a bland rectangle with a barrel on one end, a handle, a large box magazine, and iron sights on top. Its other features are basically null – just a long ray of ironwood armor, with somewhere to hold it, somewhere to feed ammo into, and a hole to emit death out of.
Its length and caliber are intimidating to say the least. The instructor explains that while technically a rifle, it’s more comparable in effect to a rocket or grenade launcher.
The first time I fire it, I stumble backwards. The shock smacks me not in the shoulder, but across the whole front of my body. I look down at the two trenches my boots dug into the ground, then at the straight line of fading fog connecting where I stand to somewhere downrange.
“Questions?”
There’s no safety on the gun. I hold it as I was instructed, barrel to the sky, as I turn to the instructor.
“Why is the trajectory so straight?”
“Rocket round, stabilized. While it has Remass, it’ll fly straight. That’s about a kilometer, and at the end of that range, the round is going about 3 kilometers per second.”
“This is… a normal gun? Not a heavy or something?”
“This is he bare minimum required to threaten peer armor,” the instructor explains. “You just fired a round in impact mode. When it hits, it explodes to project planar shrapnel into the target. Planar shrapnel, traveling at 5 kilometers per second, point blank. And you know what? You can take that hit without penetration. It takes dozens of direct hits to compromise your armor enough to deal damage to you. To kill you, a squad will need to isolate you and absolutely slather you in these rounds to even hurt you.”
“The armor is that good?”
“The armor is that good,” he confirms. “This is the smallest, lightest, most compact semi-effective gun we’ve managed to develop, that can handle our or peer opposition gear.”
“So it’s overkill against inferior armor?”
“Nope. You know how to program your flares? Do that with your gun. Your ammo has two modes. Impact, meant against armor, and proximity. Proximity will kill anything within 5 meters that doesn’t have armor. There are sub-modes too – you can have the impact ammo go off omnidirectionally after punching through a wall, or have a proximity round detonate with a delay to get it into a group of targets. We’ll be practicing that.”
And we practice. For 3 more hours, I struggle to learn how to control my ammo modes by mind. There is no mechanical backup. If my palm implants are destroyed enough for me not to be able to use this feature, then the gun won’t fire at all. Just like my knife, this weapon responds only to a Legionnaire with the correct implants.
The implants aren’t radio emitters, of course. They are near-field passive magnetic keys in my palms that the gun can read. I can change the key’s ‘shape’, and the gun can interpret that as a firing mode change.
When I can select the right ammo, I get target practice. My vision is impeccable – iron sights are all I need to nail human-sized targets a kilometer out.
Then the new set of targets appears, and I curse my vision for its clarity and range.
“What is that?” I gasp.
“Targets. Fire at will.”
They have two legs, and two hands. They have no heads. They’re flesh, and skin, and bone that I can see the flesh wrapped around.
The Abomination that attacked me in my home was a scary, but it resembled nothing in the world, save for a spider of a kind.
These… things… are too close to human. Bipeds, with fleshy human movement, but horrific to an indescribable degree.
They sprint up range, right at me. They weave, and sometimes trip and fall. Their fleshy red skin flickers in the snow.
I suffer a full body shudder as I discern these… features. Then I lower my rifle to my shoulder, aim, switch to proximity ammo, and fire.
After the first 3 horrors are vaporized – literally turned to red mist by the near detonations of my ammo – the instructor speaks up.
“Impact now, please.”
I switch my ammo to impact mode. This makes things harder - the things are more than 500 meters out, and dodging. I fumble 20 shots before the things get close enough for me to pick off.
When they’re all ‘dead’, I am left with a half-empty magazine and a pair of shaking hands.
“What was that?” I repeat.
“Targets. Bio-machines. Takes a week to grow one. Muscle, bone, and that’s it. Great for weapons practice.”
“They’re horrifying!”
“Yep. Makes shooting them easier. Unload the rifle, take a breather, then we go again.”
At the end of the 3 hours, I’m told to take the rifle with me. At the tap of a Card, I receive authorization to carry the thing around unloaded, and to receive a holder for it in the armory.
I check the time. It’s still before noon.
Fine. Let’s keep going, I decide.
Before anything else, I head back to the armory. I’m already sick and tired of carrying the gun around, and decide that getting that holster is paramount.
The holder turns out to be a mechanical mount on the back of my left shoulder, right beside the comms module. The rifle locks in, barrel up, grip and stock at my waist. Unholstering it is a matter of reaching across my chest with my right hand, and grabbing the stock or grip while releasing the shoulder lock.
It’s wildly comfortable, and entirely free of nonsense like slings.
Hands freed, I head in the direction of my home. A station short, I get off, and begin to climb.
Dance’s dojo is impeccably placed. It’s clearly a prestigious spot, right at the beak of a mountain, with nothing really nearby other than snowy slopes and stones. The way up is comparable to some of the more challenging hiking routes I’ve had to run.
I arrive in time for the afternoon warmups.
Dance is a giant of armor. She stands at the center of the roofed arena, with no weapons, and looms cross-armed over a small group of stretching, armored legionnaires.
I ping my transponder, and she turns her helmet to me.
“Ironwood, is that you?”
I ping <Yes>.
She crosses the room to me. “Hey kid, looking good. What’re you up to?”
“Just out of armor and rifle training,” I explain. “Figured I’d go here next.”
I hear a chuckle. “Hmm. You sure?”
“It’ll suck, huh?”
“Oh yeah, I guarantee it.”
I shrug. “Might as well.”
“Ok, here’s what’s going to happen. We’re doing warmups. Then we’re doing rocket training. Then melee weapon training. Then anti-armor grappling. I’ll give you a permit to get rocket mounts installed, then you can join that tomorrow. Today, I’ll catch you up on weapons and grapples, so you have an easier time in the other two classes. Good?”
I nod. “Good.”
She points. “Stretches. Go.”
We stretch for half an hour. Then the group around me gears up. Their armor has locks that I don’t, mounts for large, enveloping leg and arm modules. It makes them look like they have oversized calf, thighs, biceps and wrists. The modules are just as armored as the rest of their gear, and fuse seamlessly into the armor.
One by one, their legs and arms seem to catch fire.
“Route 3, then 2, then 1,” Dance orders.
I watch the group leave the dojo. Through the doors, I see flashes as they leap off the mountain ridge, using their rockets to accelerate their falls down.
Rocket training. Right. I remember how Dance appeared the night I killed the Abomination, moving with disrespect to gravity or momentum, enveloped in fire.
I turn to Dance.
“Ready?” she asks.
“Yes.”
She hands me what I can only call a sheathed sword.
“This is an active planar sword. We call it simply a planar. It’s your knife, but larger. Unsheathe it.”
I pull the planar out of its scabbard. It’s a terribly menacing thing, and the largest planar crystal I’ve ever seen. The blade is a long, narrow rectangle with barely any thickness. As I pull it out, it responds to my palm implant, and catches fire as it contacts air.
It’s not massive, not a greatsword by any measure. The grip has space for two and a half of my armored hands. The guard is a simple bar of petrified ironwood.
“A planar is a weapon we use against inferior targets. It’s great against masses, against under-armored opponents, and it’s particularly good against enemy mechanized units. No one armors their tanks against these, not from all directions. You cut treads, barrels, antenna, that kind of thing. But, against you or me and our armor, this thing is largely useless. Petrified ironwood armor jams and breaks planar crystals. The same thing that keeps us alive against planar frag rounds is also what keeps us impervious against planar swords.”
I sheathe the sword and hand it back. In return, I am handed another sword.
The handle and guard are identical. The size is also seemingly identical. But this one has no scabbard, and there is no planar crystal.
This sword is a spike with a tiny barrel at the tip. A cross-weaving set of edges runs up the spike from guard to tip.
“This is a direct feed accelerator. We call it an estoc. It’s the same fuel and principle as what rockets use, but instead of generating thrust, it generates a needle of particles and heat, in a very short pulse. Here.” She raises a slab – a rectangle of ironwood armor.
“Stab it,” she says, holding out the rectangle to her side.
I grip the weapon and carefully tap the rectangle with the tip of the spike.
My world fills with light. Fire splashes against the rectangle, enveloping Dance and washing off of her armor.
Fire turns to smoke, then clears out.
Dance shows me the rectangle.
There’s a glowing crater in the armor, a spot where a chunk of the incredible armor has been carved out. There is no penetration, no hole – just surface damage.
“An estoc is what you use against peer armor. That point goes into visors, weak spots, joints, connectors. It’s the only kind of weapon that has any real chance of penetrating hardened peer armor.”
I grip the estoc by the blade, and hand it back to her. She sets the weapon aside, along with the slab of armor.
“We’ll start with a quick rundown on application, and then I’ll show you the basics. Any questions?"
I glance at the glowing armor sample, and shake my head.
“None.”
“Good! This lesson will be ‘melee 101’!”
For an hour, she shows me the basics of planar and estoc combat. The logic behind both weapons, and the essence of how they should be used.
Then she switches to grapples, and my day becomes much, much worse.
I remember Instructor Trench, and thank him for going easy on me when he dislocated my every major joint.
By the end of the 2nd hour, the regulars begin to trickle back in. I am barely standing, full of pain and drugs as I recover from having joins dis- and re-located. Crystal permits me to pay attention as Dance continues her explanations.
I’m permitted rest as she talks to her regular class about their rocket-powered sprint around the mountains. I let my mind blank out as I recover, then lock back in as the second class – weapons training – begins.
2 hours of drills with planars and estocs disappear.
2 subsequent hours of grappling drag on longer than any 2 hours should.
At this point I’ve done 6 hours at the range, and 6 hours in Dance’s dojo. 12 hours, out of 36.
As the others file out, I slump against the wall.
Dance squats before me. She has yet to take off her helmet.
“You good?”
“I’m good,” I croak.
“I suggest you eat, and then go to electronic warfare training.”
I nod. I know why – she has repeatedly emphasized the point over the last 6 hours. Electronic warfare is the only thing that permits what she teaches. It’s what lets a Legionnaire get close enough to kill and destroy in melee, without getting shot to shit.
“See you tomorrow?” she asks.
I nod, again.
“Really?” she verifies.
“Really,” I confirm.
She steps away, and soon returns with 3 weapons – a planar sword, and estoc, and a dagger-sized estoc to compliment my planar knife.
“Here. I’ll send you the certifications for these, and for rocket mounts. Get yourself kitted up for tomorrow.”
I stand. “Will do. Thank you, Dance.”
She nods. “Go. Well done.”
I stumble out.

[Trigger]

22: Killing
The routine quickly settles.
Wake up at sunrise, 9,00. Breakfast. Armor training for 3 hours. Snack. Rifle training for 3 hours. Lunch. Rocket training for 2 hours, then melee weapons training for 2 hours, then grappling for 2 hours. Dinner. Electronic warfare training, 3 hours.
It is now 29,00, 2 hours after sunset. I have nothing left in me, physically or mentally. Usually, I end the day at home, or visiting Vent.
Half the time when I get home, someone from my cadre of recruits is there, passed out on the couch. My house is a quiet, secluded spot with a couch and a fire – which is more than the other 4 have.
I find myself shocked at my own willingness to permit my home’s use as our hangout area. My love for silence, solitude and privacy seems to have deformed – I’m happy to see signs that someone was home, and happier when I find a few of my friends hanging out in my living room when I get home.
To my utter shock, I reach the end of the week without feeling the need for a break. I’m exhausted, I am in pain, and I’m mentally overloaded, but sustainably so – the next day, I can do it all over again, and again, and again.
Armor training evolves quickly. I now wear two swords, two knives, a rifle, a comms module on the left shoulder blade, and an EWAR module on the right. Armor training becomes a matter of using all of it, fluently, without hitting walls or tripping. Can I sprint over difficult terrain, while signaling with flares, jamming targets, rifle in hand, without tripping my own swords? Yes, I can, but only with a lot of practice.
Perhaps the most unpleasant part of armor training is the addition of incoming fire. At random points in my training, I am subjected to attacks – rifle fire, mines, artillery shelling. Worst of all is the napalm – something deep inside of me screams in fear as unextinguishable fire clings onto me. Yet the heat is never felt, except by the destruction of my armor’s sensory outer layer – a layer that is re-applied at the end of armor training.
Rifle training progresses similarly. Shooting near at far, still and in motion, against ground or air… I throw tens of thousands of rounds of ammo down range, until my ability to snap-fire on half-kilometer-distant targets is uncanny. Predicting evasion, eyeballing how far I need to lead a target, all of it comes with hours and hours of high-intensity practice.
I kill hundreds of ‘targets’. Ghouls. Flesh and blood detonating no longer disgust or bothers me.
Occasionally, I lunch at Vent’s. I don’t visit too often. What we have is very chemical, but I begin to understand that she doesn’t like what I do. I am a killer in training, and that doesn’t sit right with her. And so we enjoy the benefits of each other’s company, and I don’t press on her emotional distance.
Dance is a menace upon my existence. For 6 hours, she forces onto me what I would never be able to do without her threats.
Rocket training is by far the most challenging thing I’ve had to master so far. It’s a combination of physical and mental control that brings me to my knees every time.
The direct-feed Remass ‘rockets’ I attach to my legs and arms every class are not continuous-thrust models. They pulse, like grenades. I have to flex my whole body before every pulse, lest my arms and legs tear themselves off of my body.
Even hovering in the air is hell. Every second I have to pulse just right, with just enough power and direction. There are many Axeford-shaped holes in the slopes now. But as will all things, even the most absurd skills can develop if you practice them enough. Weeks pass, and I become half-decent with the damned things.
Sword training, as I come to think of it, is absurdly fun. It’s a combination of endless repetition, technical complexity, and tactical thinking that surprises me. The key is being able to do the simple things very well, to be able to do complicated things just as cleanly, and to then have the mental cycles to tactically apply it all. It’s the most fun of the trainings, by far.
After that high note comes the lowest note of the day – grappling. I fail to find anything enjoyable about being thrown, arm-locked, and joint-broken day after day. These are skills that I appreciate, that will no doubt be useful, and which I regret trying to get.
Both weapons and grapple trainings with Dance involve a lot of ghouls. Engineered fleshy things that know only how to charge and dodge and tackle. I cut, stab, break and tear apart hundreds of the things over the weeks. The sight of burning flesh, blood and convulsing corpses no longer disgusts me.
After a dinner and a short break, the day ends with electronic warfare training. The module on the right side of my back drains as much power as my body can produce, and requires fast, fine mental control to operate. It connects to the larger, high-bandwidth connector on my spine, and has more control complexity and finesse than anything else I have on me.
I laser jam simulated missiles, electro-magnetically pulse drones, jam-out comms, radar-blind targets, and smoke-chaff guided munitions. Several targets at once. With jamming modes and patterns that drift and change. And all that has to be done on the run, reflexively, while focusing most of my attention on something else.
This training is technical, in that it requires understanding the mechanics of the different targets and guidance systems I am to disrupt. I have to identify, and correctly address threats in fractions of a second – again, all while focusing on something else.
EWAR training is the only ‘yellow’ training I have. Dance’s three classes are red, and armor and rifle trainings are green. EWAR is not red simply because mastering it is a matter of time and practice, and doesn’t require sustained willpower just to attend – unlike grappling.
Weeks roll by. I take rare days off. My goal is singular – to get through armor and rifle training, so I can switch to doing other, more interesting training.
I question why I attend Dance’s classes. I’ll never be a Charger, probably. But what she teaches is useful and sufficiently rare that having that training will, undoubtedly, make me valuable. And so I endure, in hopes that one day those skills prove useful.
The day of change comes suddenly. At the range, I am met by both my armor and rifle instructors. They issue me a route, and tell me to move.
It’s a route that lasts 6 hours. I sprint, climb, craw and fall while fending off drones and flesh targets. I navigate to and from navigation markers – marked spots with spare ammo.
Flying drones hit me with missiles and suicide runs. An artillery team catches my area in a shelling. I am forced into a minefield, then swarmed with flesh targets. A line of automated turrets blocks my route until I break through it. Tracking drones keep trying to follow me, and when they think they have me, more artillery fire falls through their targeting data.
None of the ammo used on me is specifically ‘training’ ammo – it’s just not anti-armor ammo. The slugs and shells and napalm will kill anyone and anything that isn’t clad in Legionnaire armor. But that’s all part of the training – learning to trust my armor.
6 hours late I erupt out of the forest and onto the range. I am on fire with remnants of napalm. My sensory lamination is almost gone. My flares are empty, used up marking mock fortifications as per the training’s mandate.
I’m empty too. I crash after 6 hours in a drug-high, running 3-3-0 Crystal-Fire-Necro doses just to stay ahead of the timer. My final sprint takes me to a ready standby stance before my instructors.
“5 hours, 40 minutes. 75% shooting accuracy. Everything else within passing grade. Congratulations, Recruit Axeford Ironwood, on your Armor and Rifle certifications. Go into the sand pit and put yourself out.”
I fall into the sandbox, and roll around until the neutralizing sand soaks up and puts out the napalm. Then I stand, and let myself get hosed off with hot water.
In the freezing cold, steam rises from my armor as the mountains cover me in frost. My mind is blank from exhaustion.
“Recruit.”
I turn to the instructors.
“I strongly – very strongly – recommend that you heed my words.”
I nod.
“I will be inviting you a new training. This training will happen today, as soon as you eat. Accept and complete it, and if you succeed, you will have a 3rd certification by the end of the day.”
A third cert? “Which training?”
“Kill training.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that you will be asked to kill people to pass. Humans.”
Exhaustion, adrenalin, hunger, excitement – all of it disappear as I am overcome by a barely controlled flood of fear.
I am a Legionnaire. I am in the Legion – a martial sect. My profession is war.
But I have never killed. And I never want to kill. A person, a life just like my own, must not be taken. Who could possible deserve that?
I’ve feared this moment since the moment I arrived at the Legion. I realized that I’m investing my time and effort into a skillset meant to snuff out life, and that I’d one day have to do the killing. And that looming prospect continued to haunt me.
The distance menace of that thought is suddenly material and before me.
“Now?”
“Right now. Do you agree?”
I close my eyes in my helmet, and hunch my shoulders.
I want to ask if this is necessary. But of course it is.
“How?” I ask.
“If you succeed today, you’ll get your cert today and be done with it. If you fail, it’ll take weeks of conditioning and a re-examination.”
Over the course of the weeks, my pride has been built on succeeding faster and better than others. I try, and I focus, and I manage in record time to catch up and progress. But does it makes sense to be successful at killing?
I immediately suspect a trap, and my mind focuses through the fear. Of course, they can’t possibly expect me to just kill on command. It’s a test, to see if I’m blindly obedient. Well, I’m not.
“I’ll go.”
After an exchange of Card orders, I’m given a ration bar and directed to a staging point.
I eat on the tram, thinking through the decision tree I’m likely to be put through next. What will they do to me, to test if I’m a blind killer.
Staging is an air base – a sight I’ve never seen before. It’s an incredible assembly of hangars and air strips. The traffic here is thundering – a constant series of landings and takeoffs, a parade of aircraft unlike anything I’ve seen before, despite the time I’ve spent in the Legion.
My card directs me, thankfully. I hop onto a little passenger car that navigates the air strips and hangars, and jump off as I pass my destination.
I stand be fore a construct that’s, at a glance, meant only for death. It’s a pitch-black prism of armor, covered with barrels and antenna, with a set of engines and nozzles on the top sides.
I walk around the aircraft, to the back. It’s some kind of cargo transport – the back is open, with a vast internal space that’s being loaded by support and machinery.
Someone approaches from behind – I feel them with my armor, and turn to give them attention.
<Recruit?> the Legionnaire asks by laser link.
<Yes.>
<I am team lead Temper. I’ll be overseeing your kill training.>
<Yes.> I nod to emphasize my agreement.
<No nodding. Do not accompany communications with physical gestures. We’re deploying to a combat zone. After me.>
He heads into the lifter, and I follow.
<Do you know what this aircraft is?>
<No.>
<It’s a ‘Backbone’. Our primary logistics vehicle. This one’s fit for hot drops, hence the guns. We always ride these to wherever we’re deploying, get familiar with it.>
We settle in the zone of the cargo bay that’s fitted with seats. There’s already of a group of 9 Legionnaires here. They immediately begin chatting.
<Who’s this?>
<Recruit. Kill training,> the team lead explains.
<Ah. Right.>
<What’s your name, Recruit?>
<Axeford.>
<Trainings completed?>
<Rifle and armor.>
<That’s it? Then what’s with the swords? And the rocket mounts on the armor?>
I am not authorized to wear rockets, so those mounts are empty. However, I have my 2 knives and 2 swords, along with the rifle. I have authorization to wear them, as long as I do not unsheathe them outside of training or without orders.
<I’m in weapons and rocket training,> I explain.
<Who’s the instructor?>
<Charger Dance.>
<Ay, lead, this one’s crazy?>
The lead seems to agree. <Recruit, why would you do that to yourself?>
<What do you mean?>
<There’s a lot of trainings you can do that are relatively quick, and show you a lot of different things. You should try armor driving, piloting, sniper school – all interesting things and skills. Why would you go into red training right away, and for something like a Charger’s melee?>
<Hey Recruit, you wanna be a Charger?> someone guesses.
I shake my head. <No. It just seems useful. And I’m there by the Charger’s invitation.>
<How do you know Charger Dance?>
<She’s a neighbor?>
I end up explain my situation – practically my life story. About the inherited cabin, about how I joined the Legion, about Dance, and about the Abomination that almost killed me.
<You killed the Abomination, yes?>
<Yes. With a trophy planar.>
<Tell me about that fight,> the team lead asks.
I tell them. About how my Card woke me up, about how my vision went rainbow for the first time. I tell them how I killed the Abomination, wearing nothing but my boxers, and about how the drug high drove me to burn it on my front yard, all with a hole through my heart.
As we talk, the Backbone closes up and lifts off. Some Legionaries take off their helmets, and I follow, switching to speech.
“Come by,” I offer the invitation. “I’ll show you the spike from that thing they let me keep.”
Some of them shake their heads.
“We’ve all seen too many of them.”
“Recruit, what’s your anger score?” the team lead asks.
“My what?”
“Open your medical files on your Card, look under psyche profile, and tell us the latest score.”
I feel like I’m being shown a new word. I had no idea this existed. My mentality is here as a set of numbers, and I am momentarily engrossed in it all. It’s like looking into a mirror for the first time – I soak in something I’ve lived with, yet never seen quite like this.
“Light to Fight, 9. Anger, 8. Control, 8. Social… 2 to 4?”
“Oh, a recovering introvert.”
“No kidding.”
The team lead is thoughtful. Then, he speaks with very careful, slow words.
“Okay. Recruit, listen well. You’re probably thinking this is a test, to make sure you don’t kill. Some reverse psychology thing. You are wrong. We will arrive. The fighting will be over. You will be presented with people to kill. You must kill them to pass. Do you understand?”
I am frozen in place, trying to control the cold crawling down my spine.
“You will,” he says, and leans back. “Flight time is another hour. Rest till then.”
The hour vanishes. Time seems to accelerate as thoughts torrent in my skull. I drive myself into a terror, then force myself out of it, over and over.
Suddenly, we land, and the cargo floods out of the Backbone. The team I’m attached to charges out, keeping me between them.
It’s early morning here. The sun has not yet risen. We’ve broken through several time zones, racing ahead of the sun, a place where the day has not yet begun.
I look around as we move across the silent battlefield.
Human corpses litter the pavement. The stone walls – genuine stone fortifications – are shattered and broken, with more corpses littering the ruins. Remnants of antique tanks and cannons quietly smoke near the walls.
The air is unfamiliar, with a taste of salt to it that I feel through my helmet’s filters. The ground is dry and hard – not the rich, wet soil of my homeland.
The Legionnaires are few. Small groups of them sit motionless behind ruins and fortifications, on overwatch.
The scene is silent.
We run up to an inner fortification – a short, wide castle of sorts. And here, I see what I immediately recognize as the subject of my training.
20 men are lined up on their knees, their legs and hands tied behind them. A squad of Legionnaires guards them.
<The Recruit?>
<Here.>
<Recruit, come here,> the guarding team’s leader calls. I approach, and so does the team leader that brought me here. He stays close beside and behind me.
<Recruit, these are survivors from our assault today,> the guarding team leader explains. <Take a look.>
I can do nothing but look. The thin men glare, spit and says something in a language I don’t understand. They’re wrapped in fabric to the neck. The have neither eyebrows, beards, nor any other visible hair. When they see my helmet turn to them, they begin to shout and spit at me.
<They were taken by force. Subdued. The only reason they’re still alive is so that you can kill them.>
<I won’t,> I say, suddenly accepting failure. <Sorry.>
<No?>
<No. Sorry.>
Embarrassment. Failure. The consequences of it all. It’s all slathered by the overwhelming feeling that I’m doing the right thing. That saying ‘no’ is the only correct answer.
I resign to failure.
<Come with me.>
I follow the guard team leader into the inner castle. I feel strangely lethargic. Whatever happens, I did the right thing.
We go inside, through the broken door, into the poorly lit stone corridors…
…I step outside, out of the dark corridors and through the broken door, and angle my head to stare up at the sky. The red sky, an unfamiliar shade of the pre-sunrise morning I’ve never seen before.
When I lower my head, I look into the visor slits of the guard team leader.
<Are you ready?>
I move my tongue in my mouth, tasting the remnants of vomit. Unable to answer, I walk around him and march for the prisoners.
Only as I stand beside the line of kneeling, tied people do I manage coherent conversation.
<Permission.>
<Granted.>
There’s nothing left to hold me back. Not even the lingering doubt that I’m doing something I’m not supposed to.
I punch the first man in the head. A thin spray of chunks covers the next few people down the line. I kick the headless corpse aside. Then I stumble back, take off my helmet, and vomit.
There’s almost nothing left in my stomach. I’m left to dry heave, then to scream at the sky in impotent rage.
Internal pressure released, I put my helmet back on, and return back to the line.
There’s no anger left, not really. I put all that anger into that first punch. Now I’m just doing something necessary. Hammering nails into boards. Cutting Ironwood trees. Un-dislocating my joins. It’s effort, not emotion.
This isn’t a battlefield, so I can’t unsheathe my swords. I am only permitted to use my rifle, and my planar knife.
The rifle is too much at this range, and against these targets. So I use my armored hands.
I kill 20 men. Willingly. With my fingers and hand. And then I force myself to look at the line of corpses.
For several minutes, I stand, and look.
The strangest thoughts fill my head.
I should write home, and tell them the truth about my relation to the Blood Legion.
I should take a few days off.
Vent won’t want me anymore, not after this.
The other Recruits from my cadre have yet to do this. Will they be able to?
I should do more interesting training. I bet I’d love driving a tank.
I don’t want to be a Charger.
<Recruit.>
<Yes, team lead.>
<I pass you. Congratulations on your kill training certification.
<Thank you.>
<You can go back to the Backbone. It’ll be heading home soon.>
<Can I look around?>
<What?>
<I’ve never been outside of the valley. I joined the Legion to see the world. Can I look around?>
He stares at me, then nods. <I’ll send one of mine to escort you. Nothing better to do anyway. Take an hour or so.>
<Thank you.>
I turn, and head for the wall, wondering what the world beyond these ruins looks like.

[Trigger]

23: Dealing
To Ironwood Estate, Ironwood Terr., Northern Reach, Valley.
Mother, Father, brothers and sisters, friend,
I’m sorry for my rare, short letters. I’ve been always tired, all the time, for a long time now.
I’m also sorry for some omissions I’ve made in my letters. I’d like to fix that now.
Cat. You once asked me if I can kill a person. I didn’t answer, but in my head, I thought ‘probably not’. I was wrong.
I got to travel very far yesterday. I finally got to leave the Valley. To see the world. Just as I’ve always wanted to. I climbed the walls of the fortress I was deployed to, and I looked around.
This was on an island, far west of the mainland. I can’t tell you exactly were. The skies were of a different color than back home. The plants were strange and unfamiliar. The air tasted like salt and seaweed, because we were beside the ocean. I got to see the ocean – an endless span of gleaming water.
While there, I killed 22 men. I killed 20 with my hands, executing captured enemies. I did so by my own will and want, because I saw what they were guilty of, and because they deserved death.
I then killed 2 more men, who attacked me while I wandered the shore.
This was yesterday. Today, I’ve decided that I want to right my wrongs.
So, this is the truth, without any omissions.
When I arrived at Central, I was told about my blood parents. They were Legionnaires, from the Blood Legion. They died several weeks after I was born.
This was news to me, all of it. I didn’t want to share this with you, because I feared inflicting that knowledge onto you. But now I consider omitting a worse crime. I’m also certain that no matter where the idea came from, I would end up here, in the Legions, in the end.
Mother, Father, I do not blame you for giving me the idea to come here. It was brilliant, and I am where I am meant to be, I think. Do not fear my death, for I am now in the Blood Legion, and I can bleed more than any other.
Due to the nature of my parents, I was born Refactored. I did not need to undergo Refactoring after recruitment – I went straight to the Legion home, and into decomposition and recomposition. I am sure our Guards have already explained what that is.
After 40 weeks of that, I have been in training for 30 weeks. I completed my first trainings yesterday. One of those completions was achieved by my killing those men.
I regret nothing.
I do not live in barracks or apartments. My blood parents - pun intended, never think I do not mean it – have left behind a house. It’s a 3-room log cabin on the slopes of the mountains. It has a large central furnace, and is impeccably comfortable compared to the eternal snow and cold outside.
I’ve made friends – fellow Recruits. They gather at my home sometimes, to rest, sleep, talk and play games. I don’t mind, for some reason. I also talk with 2 other Recruits that I met in Central, who went to the Night and Flame Legions.
I look very strange right now. I’m standing in armor, with 2 swords on my belt, and a rifle on my back. I’m writing with armor on my fingers, and it feels no different than wearing nothing at all. Underneath the Ironwood plates is a body I hate looking at in the mirror – it’s all strange muscles barely contained by skin.
But I’m much more handsome now, I think. My bones have changed. I look less like a hamster, now. I like that.
I don’t know if I’ll write more often. But I promise to tell you more when I do.
Congratulations to Chisel and Rampart. I can’t help but smile thinking of you two.
Forest, what you have taught me has become an irreplaceable tool in my arsenal.
Axeford Ironwood

“Recruit.”
I am distracted from contemplating the letter I just inked out, and look at the voice.
The mailing clerk lowers his card, and walks over to a printer. Out comes a colored picture – a photograph of me, standing behind the mailing counter. My expression is that of distracted attention, one raised eyebrow included. I am at armor and arms, just as I always am nowadays.
I look at the picture, and don’t recognize myself. But it’s unquestionably a good picture – not posed or prepared, and entirely natural. It even has the sheets of paper before me, clearly signifying when the picture was taken.
“Good composition,” I mutter.
“Thanks,” the clerk smiles.
I look over the letter again, stack the papers with the picture print, and hand it to the clerk. He scans it for informational security breaches, and seals it away.
“Thank you.”
“Well written. Good luck, Recruit.”
I step out, and breathe in the cold.
It’s the morning of the day after my first murders. I’ve slept, to my awe, though not due to a peace of mind. After the armor and rifle examination, I was too exhausted to wallow in the evening’s experiences.
I know the other Recruits haven’t had to do kill training yet, because I haven’t seen them crack like I have. And I know that they will crack, because they are not psychopaths.
As I contemplate my feelings, I realize there’s one thing left that’s bothering me. I’ve already resolved the main point of angst for my mind – my lying to my family. With that pressure gone, another remains.
I head up to Vent’s restaurant. The climb passes in contemplation – I need to figure out how to approach this. By the time I’m atop the ridge and entering the restaurant, I still lack a plan.
It’s too early for the regulars – Vent is still preparing the kitchen for the day. She leans out and smiles at me.
“Axe!”
“Hey,” I smile back.
She pauses and steps out of the kitchen. “What happened?”
“Do you have a minute?”
“Sure,” she wipes her hands on her apron and walks up to me. “What’s up?”
“I’m going to be a bit awkward now, ok?”
“You’re always a bit awkward, Axe, don’t start caring about that now.”
“Fair. Look, we didn’t really talk about this, but I know you really hate the whole idea of what I’m supposed to do. And it didn’t matter before. But now it does.”
“What happened?” she repeats.
“I killed people, Vent. Murdered people, with my hands.”
We stand in silence for a bit.
“Look, in addition to our chemistry, you’re my friend. Even if it turns you away from me, I figure telling you the truth is the only right thing I can do.”
Vent pulls out a nearby chair and sits on it, silent.
I stand, waiting.
“You’re a… biologist,” she mutters. “You read old books. You want to see the world. You’re a thoughtful, good person. How? How could you possibly kill anyone? Did they order you to?”
“Oh, no,” I correct. “I wanted to kill them. I really, genuinely wanted to murder them, and I’m relieved I had permission to do so.”
“Why?”
“They had to die,” I explain. “They needed to be killed. I… Look, I saw what they did. They had to die.”
She blinks up at me, then looks down.
A thought strikes me.
“I think I understand now,” I mutter.
“Understand what?”
“Why my blood parents kept working after I was born. Why they went off and died. I think I get why, now. It was to kill people like that.”
“What did you see?” Vent asks.
I shake my head. “No, no. Sorry Vent, it’s not lying or omission, I just don’t want to tell you.”
“But it was something that convinced you – made you want, even – to kill?”
I nod vigorously.
“You’re right about one thing. Since we started meeting, I dreaded this, Axe. I knew you’d eventually have to kill. I had no idea how you’d manage it. But you’ve managed just fine.”
She doesn’t look at me anymore, until suddenly she does.
“But you’re the same. You haven’t really changed. They didn’t drug you, or anything. You were just… capable of killing?”
“I don’t think I would’ve been able to join the Legion if I wasn’t psychologically capable of it. I would’ve been sent to the Guard, or something. So, yeah, I guess you’re right. This is just who I am.”
She nods, and stands.
“I hate it. Not you. The whole idea of what you do. This whole Legion exists to go out and kill people. And I hate that you fit in here so well.”
I nod. “I understand.”
“I don’t hate you, though. You’re my friend, too. Don’t stop being my friend. But also, give me some time. Ok?”
I nod again. “Ok.”
“Thank you.” She turns away. “Hungry?”
“Already had breakfast. Just wanted to stop by for this. I’ll head out now.”
“Stop by for dinner?” she invites.
I smile. “I’ll try.”
With that I turn, and leave.
I’m certain I’ve fucked that up. But self-doubt is hard to come by.
Yes, I did just drop my murdering nature on both my family and my girlfriend. Yes, I did it because I wanted to unburden myself from lying or omitting to them. Because I wanted to ease my own conscience about keeping them in the dark.
Does that make it wrong? Should I have instead endured in silence, lying to them all? ‘Yes mother and father, you son is in the Legions, no mother and father, he hasn’t killed nobody in his life, I swears’. What nonsense. And lying to Vent, who clearly despises the concept of our killing?
The Ironwood family does not let discomfort remain undiagnosed. We solve problems the moment they are detected.
Best get it over with right away. And so I have.
Now what?
I open my Card, and begin to scroll through available Trainings. A few are sorted to the top of the list. These are the trainings that are recommended by the faceless team leaders bidding on recruiting me. These are trainings they want me to undergo so they can see if I fit into their teams.
Triage. Piloting. Driving. Artillery. Heavy rifles. Guided weapons. All basic-tier trainings, fundamental certifications that would be followed by more in-depth, specialized training if I peruse them.
I focus on one. Piloting.
It seems… fun.
I apply for the nearest training opening – in 30 minutes.
Satisfied, I head to the specified address.
I half-expected to end up at the airbase I was at yesterday. But the Legion does not cluster critical infrastructure together. The airfield is far from where pilots stay – no matter that the two places are connected by a high-speed train. The training center is in yet another place, and that’s where I end up.
Deep under a mountain, I am greeted by a short Legionnaire.
“Recruit Ironwood?”
“Hello.”
“Basic pilot training, yes?”
I nod.
“Come on.” He turns away to lead me down the bunker’s spacious hallways. “Ever flown anything before?”
“No.”
“Ever driven a motorized vehicle?”
“No.”
“Good, you won’t have anything to unlearn.”
We enter a museum, and I halt to gape. I promptly take of my helmet, lock it on my belt, and look around with wide eyes.
It’s a museum of airplanes. And it’s amazing. Excitement sends shivers down my spine as I step up to one of the displays – the start of a grand row of aircraft models.
First are balloons, and kites. The first actual plane in line looks like it’s made of paper and toothpicks. Two wings, connected by thin straight structural elements. The plaque reads ‘1903 Wright Flyer, December 17, 1903 AC, Old Earth’.
I go down the line of airplanes, dates and plaques. The aircraft evolve, turning elegant, splitting off into military and civilian machines. Helicopters begin appearing, quickly evolving into sleek, optimized machines.
All the models are parked on miniature airfields, or hung above miniature battlefields and forests. A chunk of the models is on or over various aircraft carriers.
There’s a sudden, sharp technological change – suddenly most of the propeller planes are replaced by jet planes. Civilian and military planes alike are now pushed by turbines. Even the helicopters have turbines now, though it’s clear they’re used to generate mechanical force rather than direct exhaust thrust.
Fighter jets evolve a lot more than the civilian craft. Their forms sharpen and converge into some low-profile, low-signature, high-speed arrowhead design that varied only slightly by task and nation.
There’s a breakoff – a new branch of aircraft with hardened undersides. They’re orbital drop craft, meant to re-enter the atmosphere to make their strikes. These are set up near a model of a space siege ship. It’s the first spaceship on display, and it’s an ugly monster of thrusters, fuel tanks, hangar bays, weapons batteries, and sensor arrays.
Then the timeline ends, and an arrow at the end points to the row beside the first one. I read the ending plaque.
“2301: Colony ship departs for Forma. From here on out, Old Earth’s airspace developments are a mystery to us.”
The next row over starts quite close to where Earth left of. Our planet, Forma, has more gravity, more air density, and originally very little oxygen in the atmosphere. The first aircraft deployed seem to have been rocket gliders – scientific landing craft. The terrain they’re parked on changes as the planet is bombarded with comets and asteroids. The colonizers flood the world with space ice. Titanic asteroids bombard the planet, exciting tectonics and changing the planet’s rotational period into the perfect 36-hour day we have now.
Then comes the super-moss. Land and water turn green as engineered plants dig into the soil, digesting dead silicon and other basic elements. When the moss dies, it leaves behind fertile biological rot that other, more complex plants can feed off of. These are still engineered plants, meant to filter air and soil, to generate massive rainfall, to erode the hyper-abrasive dust covering the world into something Humans can breathe and live off of.
I studied this process, as a biochemist. Those days, when bio-engineering was a matter of or survival for the colonists, were the beginnings for the Ironwood my family grows, and the start of the science of Refactoring.
On display, various craft are set flying over and landing the early terraforming states of Forma. Science craft, meant to study the effects of the horrific asteroid strikes, of the all-consuming moss, and of the subsequent jungle.
In an absurd 50 years, the dead world is transformed into something Humans can walk on. It’s a world of nightmarish storms, with exactly 5 types of plant life, and suffering chronic earthquakes of apocalyptic scope. But it’s a world Humans can live on.
Slowly the world settles, and the aircraft on display simplify to reflect there. No longer needing to fight ash and storms, the aircraft become more normal air-breathing planes.
I know what happens then, of course. The formation of factions, religious groups, nations, states, corporations, breakaways. The population booms, and on Forma, Humanity splits.
War machines re-appear on the museum displays. Fighters. Bombers. Different from ones from Earth, by necessity of alien gravity and air.
Then there’s another change, just like the one that happened on Earth, when jet engines entered the scene. The Valley line of aircraft change, shrink, and sharpen.
The Remass revolution, the discovery and mass-production of an incredible fuel changes everything. Chemically and atomically complex, and with far more energy density than a simple burning fuel can provide. Suddenly the thrust and power of Valley aircraft spikes, and our designs change to match the new capabilities.
The display ends with a set of aircraft that I’ve seen yesterday on the airfield. One of them is the Backbone, in the process of deploying tanks.
Released from this incredibly artistic, detailed timeline, I drag my eyes to the other displays. There are cross-sections of planes, models of engines and guns and missiles. There’s a little practical display showing the effect of lift on a win cross-section.
I turn to the Legionnaire that led him here, and he breaks down laughing at my excited, wide-eyed look.
“This is the coolest place I’ve ever been in,” I confess.
“Yeah, you don’t see this kind of thing often. Questions?”
He walks talks me through many of the displays – the engines, battles, designs. I listen, captivated.
Then he takes me to the simulator room. It’s a hangar full of suspended chambers – pilot cockpits in full motion frames.
My mental preset for training fails me here. There is no rigidity here – the instructor has fun teaching me, and I find I’m having fun learning.
Flight mechanics, controls, basic concepts explained, and I’m sealed into the cockpit to have fun.
And I have fun. With minimal instructions, I’m given a simulated aircraft to roll off the airstrip. Then another aircraft that I manage to drive to the main takeoff lane. Then a third aircraft that I manage not to crash lifting off.
Then, I fly. The immersion is impeccable. The views outside the cockpit are unnaturally similar to reality, with no indication of the screens or displays projecting them.
I botch the landing, of course. The whole experience is wildly new to me – I’ve never done anything quite like flying an airplane.
After that last crash, the instructor pulls me out and asks if I want to continue. I do, of course. I’m feeling genuine excitement, as opposed to the physical grind of the other trainings I’ve done so far.
I almost forget I’m a murderer now.
What follows is less exciting, but still fascinating. 3 hours disappear in the instructor’s teachings.
For the first time in a while, I look forward to tomorrow – to coming back here, for more flying.
After lunch, it’s time to go back to Dance.
She takes one look at me, and reaches for her Card.
“Axe, did you finish Armor and Rifle training?”
“Yep.”
“And…”
“Yep.”
“You passed Kill training?”
“Yep.” I look down at the floor in inexplicable shame.
She walks up to me across the dojo floor.
“Axeford, take a day off.”
“Can’t.”
“Right. Ok. Come on, put your rockets on.”
Rocket training, followed by melee training, followed by grappling. It all flashes by. I find myself wielding a new kind of focus and resolve. I know what I need these skills for, now. I know how I’ll use them. I know what the end goal is, now. And so I perform like I never have before, damning exhaustion, and replacing internal motivation with rigid discipline. Now, I move with the understanding that what I learn here will help me kill again.
And so, normality returns. Except now, I look forward to my mornings.
When I get out of Dance’s dojo, my Card pings. I check my messages.
It’s from Vent.
“Waiting for you for dinner.”
I stare at my Card in confusion. I figured that Vent had written me off this morning. I resolved not to come back to her restaurant, to leave her alone and well clear of myself. Surely my violent profession materializing so suddenly had put her of. Surely that’s what she had meant when she said she needed time.
Now I don’t even hope for a continuation of romance - I’d just be happy to keep one of my few friends.
I check that none of the Recruits are partying at my house today, and head up the mountain towards Vent’s place.
Some deep weight lifts from my mind, finally. I’ll be ok. Probably.

[Trigger]

24: Pilot
I go into a comfortable routine. Wake up, eat, pilot training, eat, Dance training, eat, electronic warfare training, sleep.
It keeps me from thinking too much. It closes the gaps of idleness when my mind wanders.
Then someone rats me out. I’m summoned to medical. I’m summoned to therapy.
I go through my usual stages of rage - understanding, raging, calming down. Who? Probably Dance, who can read my moods by my movement. Why? She knows better. How dare she? How dare she! But of course she’s right – I’m keeping sane by distracting myself, because I can’t figure out how to process that I’m a killer.
So I go into therapy. My goal – to let them fix me as quickly as possible. My cooperation will be absolute.
The therapist is, shockingly, a legionnaire. He explains that it’s his job, his specialty, in the Legions – psychological diagnosis. I hear the meaning – interrogator, analyst, strategist-ancillary.
I answer whatever he asks of me. I engage with him as much as I can. The most difficult part of the entire event is reciting exactly what I saw that made me willing to kill. It’s nothing new for him, of course – he just wants me to talk through the event.
The process is pretty interesting. It’s more of that same philosophy my family so strictly maintains. Find what causes me pain, and work through it.
The therapist doesn’t focus on the large things.
How’s the house I’m living in? Uncomfortable? Anything at all? Yes, I guess I miss carpets. Get a carpet? Fine.
Sleep? It’s hard. I keep expecting to wake up to an Abomination in my room. I always sleep with my weapons. What can I do, though? What? There’s something I can do? Join a next clearing expedition? Fine.
Uncertainty? Yes, I do feel some. I don’t know where to go, as a Legionnaire. I like these pilot classes a lot, but can I really ever fly? What? The pilot core has a bid on me already?
He makes me consider the smallest things. The color of lights in my house. The fact that I have the old blankets from my blood parents, yet refuse to unpack them. The cold breeze that occasionally seeps into my house from somewhere.
It is a polishing, a scraping of uneasiness that lasts for weeks.
I got on an adventure – across the border, over the mountains, into the land of Abominations. Along with a few squads, we wander the hills, killing the biological weapons where we find them. I practice with my Planar sword throughout, forgoing the rifle and Estoc.
For days we roam, seeking out colonies.
Then we stumble into a bear.
“Squad leader.”
“Yes, Recruit?”
“Can you hold off killing that thing long enough for me to get out of my armor?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I need to kill it.”
I unlock and climb out of my armor, the sprint over to where a squad in gear is busy kiting a bear. It tries to charge and chase them one after another, and they simply displace enough to remain untouched.
It’s a large, brown bear. Larger than the one that had almost killed me when I was a child. It’s a creature I have nightmares about, sometimes. Even now. Especially now, after the Abomination broke into my home.
It’s no wonder the one that almost killed me in my childhood was so violent. It probably migrated from here, the land of Abominations, where almost everything is an enemy.
The bear turns on me as I charge in.
Something escapes me. It’s a thing that I did not know I had. It is a shout, a scream, a roar. And it’s full of unkind emotion in a quantity that scares even me.
I crash into the bear, left shoulder first, and punch upwards into its neck. Then I beat the confused, thrashing creature down with fits and hands, until it stops moving.
Then I scream at the sky again – I can’t stand to call the thing a roar, I am not an animal. After everything, I am left standing over the corpse of my fear, shaking with adrenalin.
Then I go to put my armor back on.
After the expedition, I go back to visiting the therapist once every few days, in the mornings. My days become repetitive once more – pilot training, Dance abuse, electronic warfare training.
My relationship with Vent changes. It’s no longer intimate. I understand – how can she be attracted to someone capable of murder? But the end result of the change is surprisingly positive – she begins to join me and the other Recruits in our frequent pow-wows at my cabin. Now that her only motivation to hang out with me is social, it’s a lot easier for her to slot into our small friend group.
The highlight of my days becomes pilot training. For weeks on end, I burn my evenings in the simulator.
It turns out, flying is more about protocol and communications than about, well, flying. Talk to ground control, talk to air control, talk to local air traffic, talk to command; When jammed, the process complicates into reading and writing with colored flares. Just like my armor, the aircraft has signal flares that are used when nothing else works.
Every day I get into the simulator, and go through the process from start to finish. Diagnostic, taxi, liftoff – all while talking. Flying with simulated squadmates, practicing talking to other squads with flares, practicing responding to orders sent by various signals.
The act of actually flying the plane is secondary to all this. It’s not difficult to go from waypoint to waypoint, or to stay in formation. Challenges come from reading and quickly responding to the flight leader’s flares right before a sharp turn or waypoint change.
It’s a lot more monotonous than I expected. Protocol and more protocol, with the complication that I have to fly a machine as I apply that protocol. Even manual landing proves less difficult than keeping all the rules and signals in my mind.
And then one day, this all changes.
“Good morning Instructor.”
“Good morning Recruit. This way.”
“Where are we going?”
“Airfield!”
Excitement fills me. It may be the time.
And it’s time, indeed. After a ride across the air base, we arrive before a line of trainer aircraft.
I know the model, of course. Part of the training was basic familiarization with all the aircraft in the Legion. These are Chicks, little more than flight trainers. They have no armor, no real combat capability other than pylons and bays for trainer weapons. They are massively overpowered by virtue of very low weight and a single direct freed air-breathing engine.
It’s also a single-seat plane. There is no room for a second pilot.
The pilot instructor grabs me by my armored shoulders and rotates me. My head stays pointed at the airplane, locked onto it, long enough to receive a smack on both shoulders.
“Recruit, listen now.”
“Yes, Instructor.” I can’t help but sound excited.
“You will get in there, run checks, properly and correctly taxi yourself to the airstrip, lift off, and fuck off for six hours. Go wherever you want, do whatever you want. You can go anywhere, except outside the Valley’s borders, or over Central. Other than that, go anywhere you want, and fly however you want. Everyone has been alerted about you, no one will bother you, and you don’t have to obey any rules or talk to anyone.”
“What?”
“Fly like there’s no tomorrow. Like you’ll die the moment your wheels touch the ground again. Fly like you’re a bird without a single human braincell in you. Let your heart direct you. Just this one. This once, and never again.”
I step away from the instructor, turn back to the aircraft, and forget about the man.
Slowly, I make my way over. After a circle around the craft – which I later will claim was a visual inspection, and not ogling – I approach the ladder.
I still have my two swords, two knives, rifle, and back modules. I’m still in full armor. The aircraft accounts for it all. I climb up the ladder, lean into the cockpit, secure the rifle inside, and climb in. The scabbards and back modules settle into the seat.
It’s no different from the simulator. In fact it’s identical, down to the details of stowing my gear. I’ve done this process hundreds of times now, repeating the flow several times a day. I do it all again today, except with hands shaking from excitement.
I close the cockpit over myself. There’s a little plaque in the frame. I read off the name.
“Ground, Little Yellow.”
“Little Yellow, go for ground.” The reply is instant and crisp. It routes directly into my helmet.
“Requesting taxi to strip.”
“Taxi is go for strip 7 street 1.”
“Little Yellow, taxi to strip 7, street 1.”
“Don’t fuck up my damn airfield, Chick.”
“No promises are made.”
I look out the windows, read the physical signs scattered across the airfield, spot my route, and begin to maneuver. Releasing the hand break, I tap the thrust, and roll forward.
I’m high on Crystal, of course. How could I not be, for this. I don’t want to make mistakes today of all days. And so with impeccable precision I roll my way down the street, to where street 1 connects to the start of air strip 7.
“Ground, Little Yellow, requesting uppies.”
“Little Yellow, up you go.”
“Going up.”
I roll onto the airstrip, align myself with the corridor, and drive the thrust forward.
The Chick has no armor, weapons, or any other complications that are necessary in a real combat aircraft. What it does have is a modern engine, and a 3-to-1 thrust-to-weight ratio.
I’m hit with several gravities of acceleration and a roaring that reaches through my spine to tickle my brain. Pushed by an obelisk of transparent fire, the plane accelerates to 200 kilometers per hour, and promptly detaches from the ground.
I fold up my gear, and pull on the stick. I keep pulling until the aircraft is pointing directly up.
And then, I go up. And up. And up.
As I boost upwards at full thrust, I slowly rotate to look around. It’s mountains in every direction, the familiar gray-white slopes of the Legion home. Only minutes later does the distant green come in around the horizon – the edge of the mountain range, and the start of the Valley.
The sky turns dark, then black. Despite the daylight, I see stars. The planet’s rings come into focus.
My engine begins to choke. I switch modes, letting the sparse air feed a smaller reaction. The acceleration lets up, until suddenly the engine goes silent, and I’m left in free-fall.
I note my impressive upward vector. I’ll be going up for a while longer it seems.
Our planet is large and massive, and our air dense. I’ve managed to keep accelerating up past 50 kilometers – in part because the only use a Remass engine like mine has for air is as ejected mass. The air isn’t ‘burned’ as in a jet engine, just heated for thrust.
I can no longer feel air resistance. Shaking fades away. I drift in silence, still ascending.
Below, the world curves away into clouds and greenery.
I pull out my Card and take a picture. Then I relax, enjoying the view.
Something flashes in the corner of my eye.
I twist my head, then rotate the plane for a better view. The Chick, like all Valley aircraft, has Remass thrusters that don’t need air to work, and let me maneuver the thing with disrespect to aerodynamics. It lets a good pilot do some wild maneuvers in the air, to a similar effect that a thrust vectoring nozzle might let a craft angle itself in way that air flaps would not. It lets me control the craft now, in a small way.
There’s a speck of light in the distance. It grows, and by the fact that it doesn’t shift, I realize that it’s coming at me.
I can’t really do anything. I have no weapons, an no main thrust. So I sit still, and I watch.
The light becomes blinding, and sifts away – down, to the planet. The plane shudders, awash in exhaust.
I twist the plane to track the light as it slides to a stop below me. The light points itself down at the planet, and approaches. More, smaller lights flash at the thing slows, matching my ballistic trajectory.
Then, the thrusters all go silent, and I am left to drift with my new friend.
It is a spacecraft. A Valley Black Fleet unit. A war machine. And it drifts a hundred meters away from me, letting me examine it in all the detail in the world.
The Black Fleet doesn’t employ anything that resembles an Old Earth navy-style composition. In space, this doesn’t make sense. There are no dreadnaughts, battleships, carriers, destroyers. There are no giant orbital fortresses or titanic asteroid warships.
The Black Fleet is composed entirely of Units.
A Unit is a small, fast, and incredibly mean craft. It’s not armored, not really – against the energy of space combat, any armor short of a planetary crust is useless. Instead, Units rely of small size, vast acceleration, incredible maneuverability, and unparalleled counter-tracking technology. Their application is simple – fire Direct Feed guns at maximum range, while using everything in their arsenal to remain untouched.
The Unit beside me is a black cone with a hammerhead at the front. There are no curves – only sharp edges and mean, flat angles. It’s perfectly black, with all its features consumed by this enveloping darkness. I can barely make out its profile, and the two massive Direct Feed cannons on the opposite sides of the main hull cone. In the afterglow of the atmosphere, the Unit bristles with the silhouettes of antenna and masts.
Suddenly, there’s flashing. Signal lights blink on the hull. Reflexively, I decode the message in my head.
“Hello. Are you lost?”
I reach for my light controls, and signal back.
“Hello. I am found.”
That’s not exactly what I say. The exact codes are use are “Hello, I am located”, since there’s no signal for ‘found’. What matters is the meaning.
“Friend close,” the Unit signals. Then it signals a code I do not recognize, followed by a “Proper information later.”
They don’t mean that – what they’re telling me is to look the code up later.
“Goodbye friend,” comes the light.
I signal back the same.
There are blinding flashes of light as the Unit pushes itself sideways, careful not to splash me with its maneuvering thrusters. Then it angles at me, and the backdrop turns to fire as its main torch pulses.
The Unit shoots past me, turning off its engine as it flies by. I watch it drift off, disappearing into the darkness. There’s another flash, and the Until rises up on a lance of light, escaping the planet’s pull.
I begin to fall back down.
Forma is a curve of green and white, with a backdrop of darkness. I stare at it as it slowly begins to grow again.
The aircraft angles as air resistance returns. I turn myself nose down, and take in the sparse atmosphere.
Slowly, as the air returns, I angle west-north-west. I don’t need my engine here – not yet. It’d be counterproductive to accelerate when the air is still too lacking to slow me.
I reach some absurd speed as I curve down and into the lower atmosphere. The clouds flash by as I fall below them, finally toggling my engine to maintain by hypersonic vector.
I’m over the Valley now, and greenery fills the horizons. I fly past towns and farms, over forests and rivers and lakes. It’s a sight I’m familiar with, yet also one I haven’t seen in over half a year.
Suddenly, a sea of silver appears on the mountain slopes to my left. I almost miss the tiny town below as I overshoot, enamored by the Ironwood forest from above.
Willingly enduring crushing g-forces, I turn around and come back in for a second pass. I drop to subsonic speeds, and descend for a slower pass.
The town is barely visible, I realize. Only the very center of it is really a ‘town’. Residential buildings, offices and workshops are all scattered and grown into the greenery to a point where they’re hard to pick out.
There’s a swarm of people outside though, all looking up. Of course – I just clipped overhead at an absurd hypersonic flight. I only hope I didn’t kill anyone with a heart attack.
I slow as I circle around. I let my signal flares burn in a greeting pattern as I look for my home. Only the Guards will be able to read the signals, but that’s ok.
The mansion. It’s on the edge of the forest, barely discernable from the sea of silver it borders. There’s a small group of people gathering outside.
With my engine carefully tuned down, I descend, and flip. In a slow glide, I overfly my home, scanning the crowd below as I pass. They flash by fast – too fast to tell apart the details.
When I’m past, I flip, angle up, and drive myself higher up.
I don’t know if I’ve inflicted joy or clueless fear, but I don’t want to terrorize the town longer. I consider flying past Hydro, but I decide I don’t want to risk the vast defenses surrounding that critical bit of infrastructure.
And so I angle myself over the forest, and into the mountains.
Now I fly low – as low as I dare, and lower by the minute. The mountains are monstrous things, unnatural in the most real sense – they are consequences of the same asteroid bombardment that gave Forma water, and the rotation for an exact 36 hour day.
I skim the slopes and canyons, focused on flying as well as I can. The onboard computer flashes warnings, telling me it’s on the edge of taking over and saving me from death. But it does not take over, and bit by bit, I get into the zone. I flow from range to range, practically crawling my way back to the Legion home.
Partway through I take a break, and boost my way closer to the base – I’m low on time and fuel. But I want to try this sneaking approach on the base, and so as I close in, I go back down into the mountains and skim my way into the base.
Before I even see the base, a signal flare nails the aircraft in the wing. I roll and wash the joker that shot me in my exhaust, then rise up and call for landing instructions.
When I’m landed, parked, and stowed, the Instructor climbs up the ladder to my cockpit. I have my helmet off, and open my eyes to smile at him.
“Well?” he asks.
I nod, grinning. “Thank you.”
“Are you in?”
“I’m in.”
He slaps me on the shoulder. “Come on, it’s lunch time. I’ll introduce you to some people.”

[0111narwhalz]

"You can be anything," they said, "except a Charger."

Little did they know I would be a kerbal.

[Trigger]

Apoapsis: 100 km.

[Trigger]

25: Legionnaire
The other Recruits complete their Kill Training. First Dust and Loom, then Smoke and Ash.
We have just one gathering to drink away our collective trauma socially. But that becomes a kind of ritual, and when Dust completes his EWAR training, we gather again in a much better mood.
Today we gather to celebrate my completing Pilot Training.
Vent is here. She never shows up without food in excessive quantity. This has earned her our undying loyalty – there is no doubt that we would go to war on her behalf, and her gifts are never taken for granted.
The gathering is interrupted in its early stages by a knock on the door.
With a frown, I open the tambur door and let the little old man inside.
“Patriarch.”
“Good evening Axeford. I’m sorry for the intrusion. May I impose myself onto your party?” He raises his hands to show me two bags.
“Please!” I hold the door open for him.
Vent and the Recruits stumble upwards as Blood enters, hands off the bags, and takes off his snow coat.
I drag out my one spare chair – one more than is required to host my regular friend group.
“Sit – to what do we owe the pleasure?”
He waves me down and plops down on the couch.
“Please excuse me,” he says again. “I assure you I’m here for good reason. May I impose on food and drink?”
Vent delivers what is requested while I answer whispered questions – no, I have no idea either.
Blood is under no illusion that we can party normally with him here, so as he eats, he begins to tell stories.
“…so they barge onto the bridge to ask the captain where the tank went. They don’t see me in the back, so they go at it like they normally would. Captain’s sweating, and they’re all yelling at each other accusing each other of losing the tank. And then one of the Legionnaires at the bridge window stands up from his station, points outside, and goes ‘hey there’s the tank!’. And we all go to the windows to see what the heck he’s talking about, because the only thing out those windows is the bow decks and guns, and all the tanks are in the holds below and in the back. And there that tank is, getting pulled up by the anchor chain, covered in seaweed and ocean bottom greenery and draining water from every crack. Turns out a Maxwell main battle tank weighs about as much as the ship’s anchor, and the had lost an anchor – so they asked to borrow a tank from the Legion armor onboard. So the Legion armor leader, captain, second, me, and the rest of the bridge crew are standing there, looking out the windows, as this tank is pulled back onto the deck, and a tanker runs up, climbs into it, and drives it down the deck back to the elevator like nothing happened!”
I lean back in the chair, quietly shaking with laughter as the room overwhelms Blood’s story with laughter. Listening to him is educational – he tells of things the Legion does, thinks I didn’t know it did before.
There’s a knock at the door.
My eyes bulge out in surprise, and I look straight at Blood.
He looks right back at me with a smile.
I go to open the door.
Dance barges in without ceremony or niceties. The tambur is momentarily tiny as her might passes through it.
“Go-o-o-o-od day kids! Oh hey Blood!”
“Dance,” Blood toasts to her with his beer.
“Nothing yet?”
“Not yet.”
Dance walks over to Vent and gives her a hug – this requires her to go down on one knee, but with her strength and dexterity, it’s a smooth and effortless gesture.
Without asking, Dance sets a huge bag beside the table, scoops up some food and beer, and sits on the couch beside Blood. The Recruits begin to dig through the bag, and then begin stuffing the priceless war-rated rations into the pockets of their coats hanging on the wall. It turns out that those rations that Dance brought to me early on were beyond valuable – they were the kind of premium food that Chargers eat before battle to polish their minds and bodies into a final state of perfection. I feel bad – it may have been the reason I managed as well as I did in Recomposition.
There’s more normal, casual food in the bags, and that goes on the table.
It’s Dance’s time to tell stories, and so she does.
“… I’m in position, so I order the anti-drone module I was issued to go live. And the module goes, ‘nuclear charge armed’, and I go ‘WHAT?’”
There’s a knock on the door.
I move to open it, but Dance is suddenly in motion and at the door. She looks directly at me, points at my chair, and goes into the tambur.
I sit down, confused.
I hear the front door open, followed by shouting.
“YOU SHITTER!”
“DAMN IT DANCE”
“WHAT’RE YOU DOING HERE?”
“NO WHAT’RE---”
“GO AWAY! OUT!”
“LET ME THROUGH YOU ASS!”
“DAMN IT YOU BRICK FACED—”
A Legionnaire I’ve never seen before breaks in through the tambur door, looks around, gives me a deep bow, and then gives a deeper bow to Blood.
“May I stay awhile?” he asks me.
“Sure!” Why not? I have no idea!
“React,” Blood says.
“Hello, Patriarch,” the brick-faced Legionnaire says.
Blood looks unusually serious. “What’re you doing here, React?”
“Enforcing fairness, boss. Just here to make sure Jet doesn’t try anything.”
“Not trying anything yourself?”
“I… well.”
“AHA!” Dance shouts from behind him. “YOU---”
There’s a knock at the door.
Dance and React twist on the door and force their way back into the tambur, closing the inner door behind them.
I sip my beer.
“I KNEW IT!”
“WHAT’RE YOU LOSERS DOING HERE?”
“NO WHAT’RE YOU---”
“DANCE I SWEAR TO YOU I WILL PERSONALLY BOMB YOU NEXT OP! GET OUT OF MY WAY!”
That seems to silence Dance because I don’t here more shouting from here. However, React pumps up.
“Do you not know shame?”
“YOU ARE MORE BOMBING SUCEPTIBLE THAN HER! SHUT UP!”
A person I’ve seen before breaks in through the door, followed closely by React and Dance. It’s Jet – the air fighter force leader. I’ve met him before, after pilot training.
I receive yet another bow, and wave at the still unused spare chair.
Jet’s momentum slows when he sees Blood.
I spot someone else – yet another guest, quietly sneaking in through the front door behind Dance and React. She silently shuffles sideways and leans on the wall.
Dance, React, Jet, and Blood all twist around to look at the stowaway.
“And who in the actual---” Dance begins.
“I’m Sway. I’m from the navy!” the woman smiles.
My living room has never been so crammed before.
“You’re not even on the recruitment committee,” Dance pleas.
“Not for him, though I’ll take him---”
“No you the fuck won’t!”
“---If no one else does. I’m actually here for her.” With that, the navy Legionnaire points at Ash.
Ash Baker chokes on her beer at that.
“For her?” Jet asks. “She hasn’t even completed basic naval training.”
“No, but she’s doing really well,” Sway explains. “I figured I’d visit and talk.”
“What about your recruitment committee?”
“They all deferred to me. She’s a really good fit. Seems things are a bit more exciting for you lot, though!” She keeps smiling, and I realize the navy is trolling the others.
The others, unphased, forget about her.
They instead turn on me.
“Axeford,” Jet begins.
“Unfortunately,” I acknowledge, setting my beer down.
“Since you finished basic Pilot Training, I figured I’d visit. The rest of your recruitment bidding pool agrees… AGREES! Shut up React! Your recruitment bidders agree that you’d be a very good fit in the air force. I came to see if you’re interested.”
“I am,” I say.
“Wait,” Dance interrupts. “You---”
“I am,” I interrupt. “I’d like to be a pilot.”
Dead silence reins.
Blood speaks first.
“Axeford, are you sure?”
I turn to him and nod. “Yes, Patriarch. I’ve never enjoyed anything as much as I enjoying flying. I want nothing more than to be a fighter pilot.”
A huge grin spreads across Blood’s face. He gestures to Jet, and I turn to the air leader.
Jet looks a bit perplexed.
“Absolutely certain?” he asks.
“Yes,” I confirm. “I know I have other options, but this is what I want.”
Jet glances to React and Dance. They step away from him, silent.
“Axeford Ironwood, I offer you commission with the Blood Legion Exterminator Division, with the position of a fighter pilot. Do you accept?”
“I accept.”
“It is a pleasure having you, Legionnaire. Report to Exterminator HQ tomorrow for orders.”
“Yes, Air Leader.”
Jet nods, and takes a step back.
Vent lunges forward with a plate. Jet slows to a stop, and accepts the plate.
My fellow Recruits break into cheer. Through their applause, I track React and Sway as the maneuver around the room towards the other Recruits. React sidles up to Dust, whose surprise is instant. Sway heads straight for Ash, who looks at the navy with wide and surprised eyes. Both Legionnaire-Recruits pairs begin to whisper.
Dance looks straight at Smoke and Loom. The older Baker sister pries her eyes away from Ash and Sway to meet the Charger’s gaze. Loom is already focused
Dance raises an eyebrow. Smoke nods. So does Loom. Dance gives them a thumbs up.
And so it goes. Five Recruits turn into five Legionnaires. Dust is recruited into the tank division. Smoke goes into infantry under Dance. Ash is scouted by the navy. Loom also goes into Dance’s infantry.
And I?
I join the Exterminator Division, the air fighter force of the Blood Legion.

[Trigger]

26: Introductions
The next day, I report to Jet. He looks beyond pleased with himself as he walks me to an office.
The office space is on an upper floor of one of the cliffside skyrises scattered across the Legion Home. The views out of the giant windows are mind-blowingly beautiful – snow, mountains, canyon, river, bridges…
The office itself has space for a dozen people. Eleven are present, and all stand to greet us.
“Wing Leader, Axeford Ironwood. Axe, this is Wing Leader Lathe, of Wing 80.”
I shake the man’s hand, then the others. The others of Wing 80 surround me – five Legionnaires, and six support personnel.
“Where are you from?” Lathe asks.
“Ironwood forest, on the north-west border.”
“Same Ironwood as our armor?”
“The very same.”
“Big family?”
“Six siblings.”
“You’re the oldest?”
“Sure am.”
“So, what, biologist by upbringing?”
“Biomechanic, yeah.”
“So how’d you end up here?”
I make a face. How to explain it quickly?
“I’d wake up. Go out. Cut down a tree. Bring it home. Sleep. Wake up. Cut down a tree, bring it home. Sleep. Wake up, cut a tree, sleep. Over and over, week after week, year after year.”
They all nod.
“And what did I have to look forward to? Getting married and anchored down so I can never leave again? The idea just scared the shit out of me. I wanted to…”
I pause. I remember killing. Remember punching heads off of bodies. This was the price of what I wanted.
“I wanted to see the world,” I finally continue. “To do and learn a lot of different things. And you know what, I did get that.”
I rub my forehead, and sigh, deciding that’s enough.
“You play anything?”
“As in?”
“Instruments. Music!”
“Not at all.”
“Then it’ll be one of those things you wanted to learn!”
“What for?”
“Trauma management. You got any trauma?”
“Not since my therapist convinced me to punch a bear to death.”
“You had bear trauma?”
“I worked in a forest since childhood, what other kind of trauma would I have?”
This goes on for a while. They bombard me with questions. Including the Wing Leader, they are 5 pilots, and 6 mechanics. They’re one short – one of theirs was killed in combat some years ago.
I’m buried by the rapid-fire questions, jokes, and jabs. In the end they suddenly relax and release, stepping away to give space.
Jet claps me on the shoulder. “I’ll join you outside in a moment.”
Relieved, I step out of the office.
Jet joins me a minute later, followed by Wing Leader Lathe.
Lathe offers me a hand.
“Are you in?”
“Your wing?”
He nods, closing his eyes for a moment.
I take the armored hand, and shake it.
“I’ll be in your care.”
“Good. Come one.”
“Good luck,” Jet says, and leaves.
I go back into the office.
“That’s yours,” Lathe says, pointing at an empty table and chair. The office arrangement is odd – the center is occupied by a row of 6 pairs of tables. One side is for the mechanics. The other is for the pilots. Each mechanic sits opposite to their pilot.
I sit by the window, furthest from the door.
A mechanic reaches over the table, offering a hand. He’s a wide, short, old man with a round face and beady eyes.
“Pressure,” he says. “Call me press. I’m with you.”
“Axe. A great pleasure.”
“You ever own a vehicle of any kind?” he asks.
I freeze up. “A… horse?”
“Hmm. The horse like you?”
“Judgy?” Someone down the row snorts at that, and I smile. “I swear, no matter what I did, that horse looked at me like I was mentally concussed. But we were good friends.”
“No car? Boat? Bicycle?” Pressure asks.
I shake my head. “Nope.”
He scratches his chin and sits down across from me. “Hmm.”
The mechanic beside him leans over and elbows him. “It means you can teach him from scratch!”
Pressure slowly nods. “I’ll have to, won’t I.”
Lathe looks up form his terminal. “Axe, with me.”
I pick my helmet up from the table and follow him out.
“Where to?” I ask.
“Medical. We’re going to get you started on mods.”
“What kind of mods?”
“G-force management, mental accelerants, and a maximum-bandwidth connector.”
“That last one sounds like major surgery,” I note.
“It is. They’ll have it grown next week, and then you’re going under and into rehab to make it work. It’ll be a rough few weeks.”
“Decomposition-style?”
“Nothing that major.”
“Good,” I decide.
Medical does a series of deep scans on my neck and spine, takes some flesh samples, gives me a pill, makes sure I eat it, and kicks me out.
“Tomorrow, and up until the surgery, you’ll be living in a centrifuge, or getting drilled by one of the pilots or mechanics. What other trainings do you have?”
“19,00, rocket and melee training for 6 hours.
“I want you here from 08,00 to 18,00… for now.”
“Got it.”
“I need to talk to medical, go back to the office and talk to Press. Have him show you hangar and the machine.”
“On it.”
“Go.”
Pressure awaits in the hall outside the office. He looks nervous until he sees me.
“Want to see the machine?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I nod.
“Let’s go. What’s your cord percentile?”
“4th,” I brag.
“Top? Whew. That’ll be fun to tune. When’re you getting your bandwidth?”
“Next week.”
“Got your mods?”
“Just ate the pill.”
“Enjoy this while it lasts, your next 4 weeks will be painful. You’re not touching this thing until your mods and bandwidth settle in. So look while you can.”
The elevator goes down, and right into the underground hangar. I realize why – this way, the pilots are about 100 seconds away from their planes.
The hangars are stacked – there are several wings parked on each level, and many levels pointing their launch corridors out in different directions. Assuming a simultaneous launch, a dozen or so fighter wings will erupt out of the mountainsides in every direction, supposedly from concealed entrances.
Wing 80’s machines are parked off to the side of the through launch corridor.
From Pilot training, I know what it is. From pictures, from diagrams.
But now I stand before the machine.
“Mother…” I mutter. “What is this aggregation?”
“This is a Mantis Shrimp.”
I snort.
“You know what that is?”
“I’m a biomechanic. Of course I know what a Rainbow Shrimp is. I know how that little beast works, too…”
There’s nothing that I understand about the machine before me now, though.
It sits on wheels, yes. It has an engine at the back, yes. It sort of has wings. But it’s unlike anything I’ve seen up close so far. In the museum, this thing was one strange oddity, a little model at the end of the timeline display. Before me, now?
It is a massive beast, a machine that needs two sets of 12-wheel landing legs near its center of mass to sit on the ground. Even the front wheel set is a four-wheel arrangement. Each of the wheels is over a meter across, and set on over-muscled landing struts.
The machine itself is a hedgehog of several – more than two – forward swept wings. Except none of the wings seem like they’re designed to generate lift. They are arrays, emitters, antennas, structural elements, but one are the thing, flat surfaces of an aerodynamic machine. Some wings are swept up, others down, at various degrees of forwardness. Their bases widen into the body of the craft, and end with the nozzle of a giant Remass rocket.
It's large. The cockpit is almost comically small, despite taking up the entire nosecone.
I realize in horror that it’s a single-seater. No gunner, no copilot. Just the pilot, in a transparent conical dome at the point of a massive rainbow construct.
And it is a rainbow of color. The flat panels and sharp edges are each of a seemingly different. Those colors shift, almost at random, as I walk around it. It’s hard to catch the full shape of it, since sometimes parts of it become hard to discern, while others stand out.
I look into the main engine exhaust. It’s strangely clean.
“Is this thing new?”
“Fresh from the factory,” Pressure says. “Haven’t seen the air yet. I’ve been preparing it for the last 4 weeks. I should be done by the time you’re ready.”
I walk around to the cockpit, and point at it. “Can I go in?”
Pressure takes out a rectangular metal brick on a strap, and throws it to me. I catch it, walk up to the front landing hear, and tap the metal.
A ladder glides down from somewhere above and further up the hull.
With a leap, I reach the lowest bar of the ladder, and pull myself up. There’s a hatch in the hull, and through it I sidestep into the cockpit. There’s a space behind the main dome, a dark place with no windows. It leads forward to the transparent dome. The pilot’s chair is there, hanging at the end of a narrow, structural-looking walkway. The chair faces backwards, so I can sit in it.
And sit I do. The chair will need adjusting, and I clearly lack the armor to actually lock into the seat. Still, I find the key, and order the chair around.
The chair spins, and I’m left floating over nothing, without a bulkhead or wall in sight.
In every direction is transparent canopy. Left, right, down, forward – all of it is my field of view. Even when I lean my head off to the side and look down, I see the tarmac, not the internals of the aircraft I’m in.
I am suspended at the end of a metal arm, strapped into a chair I barely feel, at the point of a 50-meter war machine. And all I feel is unusual, unyielding excitement.
I spot Lathe walking our way. He glances at me, then starts talking to Pressure.
I rotate the chair, climb out, and make my way back down to the tarmac.
Pressure takes my keys as I approach Lathe.
“Well?” the Wing Leader asks.
“4 weeks?” I ask, eager like never before.
“One for them to grow the implant and for you to get you mods developing, 3 for rehab.”
“So what’s the plan?”
Lathe nods. “The plan is that we’re going to run you through the centrifuge two times a day, until your connector operation, then after it settles in. That’ll get your acceleration management mods developing. Until you can handle the minimum acceleration requirements, you’re not flying shit.”
I nod.
“Between centrifuge time, you’ll be taking training. Protocol, tactics, comms, procedures. Focus there. You won’t be touching the craft until you have what you need in your head, be that implants or knowledge.”
He pauses, then continues. “One more thing, while it’s just us two. I’ve seen your psyche profile. I know you don’t really socialize all that much. But make an effort to be fucking excellent to 6 people in the world – your mechanic, and your five Wing members. We all need to like you. We all need to trust you. Otherwise, none of this is going to work. So save the energy, and pay attention, because the energy and attention you give us is the same energy and attention we’ll all give back. And that synergy is what defines if we’ll all live, or die, more than almost anything else.”
I glance to where Pressure disappeared off to. “How do you suggest I start with my mechanic?”
Lathe puts an armored finger to my chest. “That’s what I mean. Very good. With Press… You have your own place right?”
I nod. “Cabin.”
“You ever have guests?”
“Recruits from my group, and a cook.”
“Which cook?”
“Vent.”
“Never heard of her. Okay, I suggest you invite press over to one of those get-togethers, and drink him under the table.”
“Can do.”
“With the pilots, they’ll invite you for something – do not refuse.”
I nod.
“I know it’s weird to put that much emphasis on interpersonal relations. But it matters more than you can imagine.”
“I understand.”
“Then, it’s centrifuge time. Come on. You’ll hate it.”