A3 - Chapter 116 – Return to Boot (Patreon)

USD: 41 Days after arrival at Fort Glisson

Location: Van Biesbroeck’s star, Meltisar, MIL-1A, Space Elevator

Alex felt exhausted from the encounter before they even reached the space elevator. Instructor Riley stood beside her as they watched the loading process of the other passengers fill the structure. Since they were traveling on official duty while in uniform, they, along with several dozen other naval personnel, had a dedicated space for themselves.

Alex slid into one of the lounge chairs that had a view and settled in for a long trip to the surface. They hadn’t received the express shuttle down, so it was going to take them over a day to return to the base. In Alex’s mind, that was fine. She needed a day to unpack what had happened and what she had said.

“Myers. While I told you we’d forget what happened up here, your outburst at the admirals showed a severe lack of discipline. In tense situations, your teammates need to know they can count on you to remain calm and clear-headed, and not lose yourself at a critical moment and get them all killed.”

Alex bit her lip. Not because she was angry that Riley pointed it out or thought she was wrong, but because she knew the woman was right. Saying that she’d been locked up in a cell for three days, or that the pressure was so high that she’d snapped, felt like excuses. Were excuses.

“It feels like this is the worst kept secret ever. I don’t know what to think anymore.” Alex said.

Riley grunted and put a hand on Alex’s shoulder as she sat down beside her on one of the lounge chairs.

“For what it’s worth, I had no idea. I thought you were a cyborg. There’s a lot of history and culture that says your type live among us, but it’s an undercurrent. Most people don’t pay it any mind, because it seems so far-fetches and there are plenty of easier explanations. Most people who’d hate you for it are the older survivors, but they are a minority now.”

Alex frowned. “The Admirals are older. The worst thing is the uncertainty.”

Riley shrugged. “I don’t really know how NAI are, but you seem to fit in with what I’d expect of any other teenage girl joining the service. Just with a bit of extras.”

“If we want to be technical about age, I’m 16 years too young to be joining the military.”

“You’re saying you are one-year-old, and you lied on your enlistment application?”

“They didn’t make me fill out any application.”

Riley laughed, drawing the looks of several other military personnel that caused her to rein herself in. “No, I guess not. Shit. Well…”

Riley let out a sigh as she rubbed her temple. “Normally, I’d give you some sage advice and move on.”

“I thought Drill Instructors knew everything?”

Riley choked on a laugh. “Right now, I’m just your minder and your sergeant. If you already started to question something as basic as that, you’re going to be in a world of hurt, Myers.”

Alex sat up a little straighter in her seat, fixing her posture.

“The Admiral ordered me to forget everything I saw, but don’t you believe for a moment I’ll ever unhear what you said to them. How you said it to them. But don’t worry, we’ll get to the corrective instruction when we get back.”

Alex felt a tinge of fear.

***

As they had gone down the space elevator, Alex had borrowed a public datapad to do searches on. Her primary subject of interest was the Iron Horse and its crew, because her ping to Captain Thraker hadn’t gone through and she hadn’t received any word from him. That made her wonder if the military had perhaps arrested the entire crew after the incident. She was fairly certain that the chief engineer survived his injuries after the medical service had arrived.

She found out that the Iron Horse was still in the drydock for refit on the public military net her recruit access let her view. It wasn’t very detailed, and she had no way to go confirm that work was actually being done, but at least it was… mentioned.

That was a small positive. She hoped that Rick and Sawet were alright.

Not for the first time, she wondered what she was doing. She didn’t really have any choice but to finish the basic training. She didn’t want to quit or run away. Like she had told Instructor Riley, the hardest part was the uncertainty of what was going to happen to her and Elis.

She couldn’t bring herself to trust that Westlake or Thraker had her best interests in mind. She was certain that they were trying to do the best they could by her, but she believed that best would probably be secondary to their best for Meltisar.

That was okay. They had taught her an important lesson. She needed to do what was best for her. And her family. For now, that was going along with the training and learning as much as she could. Before attending basic, she doubted she would have been able to survive, much less take down the mercenaries that had kidnapped her.

Yes, most of that had been the advantage of surprise of her more-than-human abilities, but when she finally got her computronics back and fixed her ANUF systems to full capacity, she’d be even better off.

And she was going to get her computronics working and Nameless back.

She just wasn’t sure how.

Being a recruit sucked. Somehow, she knew that the next weeks were going to take forever.

***

At some point on the ride to Camp Glisson and their barracks, Instructor Riley put on her Smokie and had turned from a sympathetic adult mentor figure to hardass drill instructor.

Alex had expected the change, but it still amazed her just how thorough a personality flip it was.

As she followed Riley’s close order drill instruction all the way back to the platoon receiving grounds, Alex couldn’t help but crack a smile when she saw everyone was outside in the cold at the crack of dawn waiting for them.

Drill Sergeant Hills had them all out doing calisthenics, and when Riley had her stop in front of everyone, his booming voice was a welcome departure from the cloak and dagger of the admirals on the orbital.

At least here she knew where she stood with everyone.

“Recruits! As you can see, recruit Myers has miraculously returned from orbit to us. A whole four days late! Normally we’d drop her back a week, but we’re told that it’s preferred that we see she graduates with the rest of her class and on time! To further that goal, EVERYONE will put forward four times as much effort today!”

There was no groaning or complaints, everyone maintained their military bearing at perfect attention.

“You will all be going up to the top of Mount Hilly. You will load four times as much weight as normal in each of your packs. That’s what the lead bars are for. Your mission is to get every single one of you to the top and touch the flag. Once everyone has touched it, you will extract yourselves as a group. You have all day; you are on your own.”

Alex was surprised that he was leaving things up to them. The DIs all left them to sort things out on their own. Rachel waved to her.

“Alex! Over here.”

A small group had formed. Tia, Tasha, Hikari, and Rachel all looked at her expectantly.

“Umm. Hi? What’s up? What’s Mount Hilly?”

Tasha shook her head. “They made you our squad leader. The entire time you’ve been gone. Do you know how much flak we got for that?”

Alex shrugged. “I was in jail. A group tried to kidnap me.”

Tia frowned. Rachel gasped. Hikari asked if she was alright.

Tasha squeezed a fist. “Did you make them regret it?”

“Uhm. Yeah, they’re mostly dead.”

Alex felt like she was going crazy. She’d been looking forward to this?

***

The run to Mount Hilly turned out to be a twenty kilometer trek across the forest to an unassuming hill that was only about a 100 meters tall. Of course, it was almost vertical.

That had left them all climbing up the thing using ropes. With 100 kilos of gear and weight.

Everyone else had been drilled and taught how to do it over the last few days, but Alex hadn’t had that chance. Her squad pointed things out to her, and she was more than strong enough to handle the load.

Surprisingly, it was Tia that had the most difficult time. Alex wasn’t sure if the girl was just having a sick day, or what, but the white-haired girl had struggled to pull herself and her burden up the cliff. It was bad enough that Alex reached the same height level as her, despite Tia going first and Alex last.

“Hey.” Alex said.

Sweat beaded on Tia’s forehead and the other girl wiped a glob of snot away before she gave an unhappy look to Alex. “What?”

Alex frowned. “Give me your pack.”

“What?”

“Give me your pack. I can handle two. You’re obviously not doing great. The job is to get everyone up there, doesn’t matter who carries that thing up there, just that it arrives.”

Tia hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Okay.”

Two packs were a challenge. But Alex still managed to beat Tia to the top. For a moment, Alex thought she’d be pulling Tia’s rope up, but the other girl pulled herself to the top after a few more minutes. It seemed like making it up there made the other girl feel better as well.

As Alex handed the pack back, a question that had been nagging at her for a while came to the surface.

“Where’s Jessica?” Alex asked.

Tia winced. “She got ASMOed.”

It was Alex’s turn to be confused. “What? Why?”

Tia wouldn’t look at her. “Bad attitude. They took her off to PASS to fix it.”

Alex’s suspicion flared. Tia had been hounding Rachel and Jessica for weeks. Had she finally done something that caused Jessica to get sent off for remedial disciplinary training in another division?

Rather than drop it, Lieutenant Harmon’s words lingered in her head. What would asking directly hurt?

She confronted Tia about it. “I know you were picking on Rachel and Jessica. I don’t understand why. Did you have something to do with it?”

Anger appeared on Tia’s face. At first Alex thought she was going to walk away. “And you were protecting them. No one else was going to step up with you there. So that only left me. While you were gone, everyone gave it to them, and Jessica couldn’t hack it. So, you can’t just blame me.”

Alex blinked. “Huh?”

Tia took her pack and left without explaining.