Chapter 11: Sleeper

Martha stared at the small man standing in the door of her cabin, holding a small Neuro Ripper. Her former colleague had closed the door behind him and his face was graced by a smug and evil smile. “I am asking nicely, but only once: Where are you meeting the Experiment exactly?” Dr. Evans was quite assured of himself. She was helpless and he was in charge.

But the Martha he knew was not the same that stood before him. She had gone through quite an ordeal, an ordeal that had taught her a few lessons indeed. The most important lesson she had learned while she was with her friends, was the value of a weapon.

The small man never even contemplated her to be armed. The tight energy beam singed a black smoldering hole into the fabric of Martha’s coat and a similar hole into the chest of Mortimer.

She wanted to ask the man many more questions, but aiming a small pocket beamer while holding it concealed inside her coat pocket was still beyond her skills. Her shot had killed Dr. Evans who toppled to the carpeted floor with an utter surprise in his now lifeless face.

At the edge of her nerves and not knowing where to turn, whom to trust, and what to do next, Martha sat down across the door, holding her weapon.

Running after her friends to help them felt so right and the only logical thing to do, when she got the call from Martha, but she did so without a plan. The last words of the dead man that was lying on the floor before her still in her ears, and he was right. She should have asked many more questions.

That there were more men aboard this ship wanting her harm, there was no doubt.

This time she was in Union space and all she had to do was use her working Com Unit to call for help. She was a Union Citizen after all. However so was Mortimer Evans.

Oh, what a mess. Martha needed help, this was too big for her and making decisions based on emotions and misplaced loyalty was simply not working.

Geha wondered about the CITI and the sudden funds only for the briefest moment. Whatever blocked her thoughts and memories kicked back in and her mind simply accepted the new conditions. The last time she had talked to Martha, everything seemed clear. All she wanted was to escape Union space and return to her tribe.

She was aware of her origin, and the fact that she wasn’t Dai but the Tar and the Co tribe was her home and being back with Bas her only real desire. Geha had no real recollection regarding her parents or knew much about the Privileged or the reasons her parents decided to seek new shores.

She was raised among the Dai, found a home, respect, and love.

While she did not rise to become Than, something almost impossible for a Dayiee, she was the declared first among the Dayiee of the Co tribe. Despite her being a girl and of a different species, the Tar never treated her like a slave, not even like most Dai treated females, but gave her as much love and attention as a Dai Tribe lord could possibly give. The Tar declared her Path-Io, beloved daughter.

Dayiee were always allowed to practice the use of weapons, but a Path was also allowed to pilot a fighter and participate in raids and battles.

Young Geha was never far from the side of Bas, the firstborn of the Tar. From early on united in the closest friendship, Bas at first was like a beloved brother to her, but when they noticed their own gender he became more to her than a brother and Bas declared her to be his First among the Dayiee.

Never wanting to be anything less than a Path-Io, she never shied away from daring raids and risky things.

Nothing was riskier to the Dai then to cross deeply into Union space, but then nothing was as rewarding than to pluck a fat Union freighter.

The last such raid resulted in her ending up on Alvor’s Cove.

In order to catch a Union freighter, preferably the un-armed kind, Dai raiders had to push deeper and deeper into Union space, because the colonies closer to Freespace became increasingly better armed and the freighters frequenting the fringe regions relied on armed escorts. The more ships and assets the Dai had to use to crack a Union convoy the easier they were to detect.

Geha remembered how deep they penetrated into Union space, watching a shiny new Gulliver class freighter slowly gaining speed leaving Stay-Over, a wealthy Union system loaded to the brim with valuable resources the Tribe so desperately needed.

What appeared to be an easy raid turned out to be a nightmare. A Union frigate was close by and swooped in with cannons blazing. Two of the three Dai instantly disabled, the one with Geha aboard escaping in the proverbial last moment back across Freespace, where Union might could not follow. However other Freespace pirates and similar scum did not have the same limitations.

Geha could not explain how the pirates that sold her to an Alvor’s Cove slaver managed to capture her and the seventeen other Dai alive, but she suspected Kermac psionic weaponry.

While she was remembering this, she also recalled Sister and Martha and their relatively brief time together. During their shared ordeal, they all had been outcasts, united by necessity and circumstance. Once again, she told herself that she owed nothing to either. Yet, Martha left everything behind to come to her aid. Martha tells her about Sister was also affecting her more than she wanted to admit. This red-skinned monster represented the ultimate outcast, did she not deserve a chance like the one she received by the Dai?

As Geha focused on her surroundings once more, she had boarded a Space Train.

Again and for the briefest moment, she wondered why she knew where to go, but all her curiosity about her own actions melted away and she forgot to ask herself why she wanted to reach a place called Lorman’s Starbase, she had never heard of it.

Three weeks had passed since Roy had returned from Pluribus. While the training and the drill were as intense as could be, there was a sense of routine among the remaining recruits.

Even though there was a war going on and the military branches, including the marines needed more personnel, there was no draft. In one of the many academic classes, there were at least two hours of classroom studies every day, they were taught about Union and military history. While there was involuntary military service in many societies before the Union, it was never considered since the Union was created. Ever since the Union Citizen Act of 4000, everyone who wanted to become a citizen had to serve 22 months after the completion of Basic School, the decision was not forced and one could choose from a wide range of public services to fulfill that requirement, most of them were civilian in nature. Only the Union Border Guard and the Union Army offered 22 months service options, neither the Marines nor the Spatial Navy did, and the little talked and little advertised Space Force required a commitment of at least four standard years. However there was no draft, no one was forced or picked and Roy witnessed at least one or two recruits walking down the “Wash-Out” lane and take a step over the red line to quit.

While there were always eighty to a platoon, the number of platoons at least in Alpha Company had shrunk from eight to five.

By now, Roy knew the names of almost every recruit in Alpha company but the four he had met even before they officially arrived had become close friends.

He learned much about their respective species and societies. While they all were serious about their commitment and the Corps, in particular, the Petharian Dirmon took this to a religious fanatical level. By now he knew it was the same with almost all Petharians; certainly with all the ones he had met so far.

Becoming a Marine was the highest achievement in Petharian society. While not every Petharian decided to become a Marine, to those who did, giving up was not an option and failing a reason for suicide.

To Ken, the Triple Strong nothing was as important as Battle Hockey, you could wake Ken after an exhausting exercise and ask him for the game stats of a third-tier player of a regional league and he would know without fail.

Faragon, despite being a fierce Drach, was a practical joker and always knew a joke or a funny story and Mike the Sauronis, explained that his society did not use individual names before Union membership, but identified themselves by the number and shape of scale plates around their impressive, teeth filled jaws. Since this was a difficult concept to understand, the Sauronis adapted Human names whenever they interacted with other species. According to Mike, his family adopted the Trulli name now for almost eight hundred years.

The Union week had ten days and it officially ended in Leisure Day, for Marine recruits this meant optional religious services or Core Value Discussion for those who did not practice a religion that required any particular ritualistic participation. The rest of the day was spent the same as any of the other days.

Union Week had begun with One-Day, and in the case for Marine recruits at Oh-Three-fifty or in civilian terms at Fifty minutes into Three hour. Despite getting up at this time every day since he arrived at Camp Mattis, Roy secretly wished for just five minutes more. The previous day ended with Push PT, meaning they were pushed to their physical limits. The Drill Instructors figured out very fast that he was a Greenie, used to higher gravitation, and even using a Grav Adjuster ever since he could walk. A training regiment was implemented with his physiology in mind, as they did for everyone, designed to tax him to the very limits. Push PT was particularly intense and he still felt sore.