Chapter 7: Back to War College

“I am excited to be back here again. But I also did enjoy the weekend very much Jason. It was very relaxing on the estate and I was surprised how pleasant the Destroyer women are. They are much older than I expected and very experienced.

“I don’t know how you managed to persuade Pleb to locate herself on Mars and manage her growing war academies colleges and universities from here,” said Ooryphyon.

“Many from the Collective are very bored and I don’t think it was difficult to persuade her working here will be the ultimate expression of her talents. The hard part was to convince Lauren it would be better for us all if Pleb based herself here rather than on Earth. Pleb was happy on Earth but she knows this University Complex spread between Porquenta and Mars will be epicenter of War Education of the Uzliumbax Empire.” Jason replied.

“Kreb is very intelligent and oh so amusing. I laughed at her stories of you and what happened when you competed at her elite College on Charassa,” said Ooryphyon bouncing along next to Jason as they walked from the gym to breakfast.

“Brecht told me that her sister was one of the most intelligent, but balanced individuals she had ever encountered. She felt her sister was getting stale and needed new challenges. She thought of Earth first but then so much has changed since I have reacquired the Uzliumbax Empire.” Jason observed.

“Jason, you should listen to yourself! You talk about acquiring the Uzliumbax Empire like someone says I went out and ‘acquired’ this dandy little shuttle, which is very sweet but it goes very fast!” Said Ooryphyon grinning.

“Oory, so much that happened feels so unreal. It has happened so quickly I haven’t had time to adjust. I was old and ready to die before I climbed onto the current roller coaster I am riding on. I had such a simple life and routines for many years. I would have never considered myself some sort of Emperor. At least I got used to Cassius as Emperor then Brecht as supreme leader. So many times, I climb carefully out of bed as I used to do and wait to feel the light headedness I had every day and my deteriorating balance. My hearing was not great and I was a wreck,” said Jason.

“Yup, both of us were old crocks. Now we are newly built and on top of the world!” Ooryphyon said skipping along next to Jason. “Tell me more about Kreb and the University.”

“This college is likely to become one of the most elite of the elite and most would consider the position of the University President the prize academic position of them all. Kreb has excellent staff who I’m sure can manage in Charassa very well without her overseeing them. It also helps to know that my mother-in-law felt she needed a change and was going to be supportive. Brecht felt Pleb’s College needed a major shakeup and she has encouraged some of the Uzliumbax War College Academics and AIs to relocate to Charassa for five years. She has invited senior academics from the Warriors, the Una, Coven, the Azayal, Ghouls, Orcs, Schlogg, Ordreg, and Zaos to spend time in Charassa and she has arranged to send many from her empire to do five to ten year sabbaticals with the allies or come to Mars.

“Pleb was very excited to be invited to lead this War University. She will set up major institutes to study our battles and recent wars and will help us plan for future conflicts. Many of the Destroyer women have offered to teach. I am delighted to have their contribution here. It is interesting they had a similar model of education, but with a different philosophical and religious bias. Mars and Kreb intend to build up this College until there are a million places for students this year. Mars has allocated enough land to handle ten million students in the future. Weapons and technical research will continue to be based on Porquenta,” Jason explained.

“I like them very much. I will look forward to class discussions with them. I wonder how they will get on?” Ooryphyon asked.

“They are very pleasant and personable and I am sure they will adapt easily. On Earth I encountered so many more nasty and difficult people at every level of society. The medical system has made a big difference I discovered. They tweak the genes so we don’t have many personality disordered people. I did discover some of the most powerful families kept some of their nasty characteristics in Cassius’ Empire. He told me the richest of the rich had their own medical care and they wanted to keep their idiosyncrasies. My conflicts in his Empire were with those kinds of people.

“Zafa told me the Destroyers do the same. When they got religion, they tried to make the women super compliant but it made them less effective and the women ensured they gained control of the medical AI programming and then AIs in general,” explained Jason.

“I asked Zafa for one of their simulations yesterday,” said Ooryphyon, “and I found it very hard. Jason, have you done any?”

“I did several of the Destroyer simulations after I got to know the Destroyer women. They are easily as advanced as the Uzliumbax ones are and many of them were incredibly complex and difficult. They do much more work on undermining their targets prior to their attacks.

“I am sure you noticed they use the same level of time condensation as do the Uzliumbax. Porquenta and the Uzliumbax AIs are equally impressed. The AIs are integrating some of the Destroyer simulations into the curriculum,” said Jason. He looked at Ooryphyon as they sat at the table and smiled.

“Ooryphyon, I was amused to see you are a ladybird in your insect form. You have very pleasant spots, but you definitely need to work on your flying.”

“Jason, I love flying. I am going to try and fly every day. I can’t yet use my powers to fly but I can feel my powers are growing and I practice every day. The children on the estate were very helpful and very patient with me.

“They wanted to see what my original form looked like and they were very interested to hear of our history. They are delightful, pleasant and are very curious. In my time many Uzliumbax children were precocious and self-preoccupied,” said Ooryphyon.

“Jason, do you know what we are going to be doing today?”

“Today we are in the hands of the Azayal teachers. That means we start combat training very seriously. They are pleasant but never easy going about anything. Nothing is more serious than war. They can be parochial and bombastic. When I was there the Azayal believed they were the greatest and no-one could be their equal.”

Jason went to fetch a bowl of oat porridge and a plate of bacon and eggs with an Empire yellow bean dish that he enjoyed with eggs. Julia joined them.

“Where are all the Gromelix? I thought they were going to be joining us here.”

“They were intending to start with us, but they were asked to help out in the War College on Gromelikine for a month or two. All the war colleges are restructuring to deal with the new curriculum and they need experienced people to help get it all going. They will join us either at three months or at six months,” said Jason.

“Will we have any Uzliumbax teachers?” Julia asked.

“We already have lots of AIs but we will have more Uzliumbax teachers and students soon. Some have already begun attending. Few of the young Uzliumbax have come out of stasis.

“I am going to make the Uzliumbax academics have sabbatical years teaching the allies and we will all exchange people actively. I think it is a good way to familiarize them with what has happened while they have been in stasis and they will help with the restructuring. They are all going to find it difficult since the academics will be adapting to new bodies as they have been poisoned. We will have a massive university on Porquenta researching basic sciences and weapons and a university dedicated to engineering and electronics on Venus. I want to make those planets central to education. Porquenta tells me that the Safion didn’t use any of those planets for their people so I am hoping we won’t need to move when the Safion return.

“How was the weekend for you Julia?”

“I enjoyed myself very much and I enjoyed spending time with the Destroyer women. They are great fun and very intelligent. When they saw us changing to insect form, they were thunderstruck. They were shocked when we changed into Gromelix. Brecht Chatzke was there, and she took them immediately to the hospital at Charassa and gave them the other forms. We are all trying to fly using our powers and slowly getting there. The children learned much faster than us. In the meantime, the Destroyers were having a whale of a time learning to fly as praying mantises. Oory was laughing and cackling and I think she had the most wonderful time of us all. The children loved her, and the estate children were thunderstruck when she changed into her natural Teokraeus form,” said Julia while she patted the grinning Oory on the shoulder.

“We are all up-to-date and ready for the day. Jason you are still looking a little tired and drawn. I guess you are facing the responsibilities of an Empire. Poor boy, how are you going to avoid leading but still leading all the same? Andrea told us some of what you guys discussed. It is hard to believe so many people were poisoned and how many great people would have died from being poisoned in the vaults. I wonder who the guilty parties in Uzliumbax society that were responsible for reprogramming the entire medical AIs, so they don’t recognize the poison are. It has to have been a massive organization,” replied Julia.

Razza shouted. “Jason, Julia and the rest of you lazy slobs let us make our way to assembly point B. Stop yakking and let’s see action, chop-chop. At least you horrible lot are correctly dressed. We will meet the instructors in five minutes. They instructed us to run there and told us not to use the portal. Let’s go, let’s go!” she commanded while running on the spot and stretching above her head.

They jogged quickly to the assembly point where they met two Azayal instructors. Jason noticed the Ordreg at an assembly point close to them.

The instructor led them towards a portal and they emerged underground near some wide stairs to the surface. They climbed the stairs and found themselves in a forest of very high trees.

“Great we are going to do tree climbing!” Sergei said excitedly, “I love climbing trees.”

“Pick a tree each after I demonstrate to you what I want you to do,” said the instructor. Razza put a finger to her lips to indicate no one was to say a word. He demonstrated how to climb the tree and to turn and face downwards. He began to take strap on claws out of his trans-dim backpack.

“Do you need artificial claws Ooryphyon?” Jason asked.

Ooryphyon shook her head. “The Uzliumbax gave us claws eons ago.”

None of them took the claws. Each individually shook their head at the instructor, rapidly climbed the trees and close to the top turned around with their assault rifles ready.

The instructor called them down.

“Where did your group learn to do this?” He asked Razza.

“We spent a year doing training with the Azayal, sir,” Razza answered in Azayal in the proper form while standing at attention the Azayal way.

“Why did you not say anything?”

“We were taught not to open our mouths unless invited to do so, sir,” replied Razza.

He laughed loudly. “You were obviously trained very well. We will move on quickly with this section. There is no point in continuing with more tree work tomorrow. We set up a series of ambushes today and I will test you out of this section as satisfactory and then we can go mountain climbing tomorrow. If you do that well enough, we will continuously move your troop through and if appropriate test you out of the sections of the course quickly. There is little point in relearning what you already know. I need to be sure you are all competent.

“Have all of you done the Azayal training?”

“No, but I did the same with the Uzliumbax at the War College,” said Ooryphyon.

“They influenced our training a lot. They looked like apes but were carnivorous apex predators. Few knew they had fangs and claws and other deadly weapons. Do you have claws and rapiers, may I see?” observed the Azayal Instructor.

Ooryphyon demonstrated her claws, fist and elbow rapiers as well as a fearsome war mask.

She showed her teeth lengthened and her canines extended some distance. She looked lethal.

“Excellent, now all of you show me how you set up a tree ambush. Everything you need is in my pack.”

They set up the ambush using half of the team setting up one variant and half another. Ooryphyon proved she was agile and competent.

“That was a superb time, well into top elite competition times. You all did well. You have saved four days. We will go rock climbing tomorrow. Dress appropriately. You can collect your equipment from supply warehouse 4.1.2 late this afternoon.

“Your first session this afternoon will be a group decision session where you will define how you will manage a newly conquered species of reptiles. You will finish the afternoon with time in the simulators. One piece of advice. Your training will be exhausting. Find a time you can tolerate in the simulators. Don’t be heroes. Don’t overdo your social activities in the evenings and weekends. Three years here is thirty years of old education prior to the machines. You are all going to live a long time. You don’t need to get it all into your heads at once. You can do enough doing a regular quarter hour in the simulators daily. Too much simulator time is the undoing of many.”

***

Jason found himself in a small conference room with a diverse group of several beings he had not met previously. Eight of them sat at a table waiting for the lecturer. Three were clearly humanoid with different colored skin, one was Ordreg, one was a lizard of some kind, one was an AI that looked like a Ghoul, and the final one looked like an Una. They introduced themselves.

The lecturer had the golden skin and the feel of the Warriors. She had honey blond hair and startling blue eyes.

She placed her brain on the table and began – “We evaluate everything you do or say, so consider your words carefully.

“You are to be the governor of a newly conquered planet that has been one of two hundred and seventeen enemy planets. The war is in its four-hundredth year. List five critical pieces of information you would want to know before you begin work the next day. Work in pairs. Not all the work you do will be in simulators or part of your educational content overnight. Yes, you will learn the theory, but we want to see how you work in real situations.

“You have ten minutes to prepare your list.”

Jason found himself facing a young woman with a blue skin.

“My name is Palatal Nulagor and I am from the Jumo Empire.”

“I am Jason Cannon and I am from Earth but live in the Empire of Cassius.”

“Let us spend five minutes and prepare our lists separately and then combine the list if we can,” suggested Palatal.

Jason nodded and started his list. Jason took a minute. Palatal finished a few seconds before him.

“Excellent, a fast worker, let us talk,” Palatal said.