Chapter 10

After being released the next morning, I drove my hoverchair to the hangar first. Major Flowers was out but I wanted to take a good look at the mini-Mech that saved my life.

It was in worse shape than I thought. Sergeant Bell ended up next to me and I groaned. Thankfully, I had a good excuse to run off and not be subjected to her torturous tests. I had homework to do, an after-battle report to fill out and hundreds to read and evaluate. I didn’t have time for her ‘tests’.

“Buying two new ones will be cheaper than fixing that thing,” she pointed out.

“Probably. But that is up to Major Flowers to decide.”

“It’s nice to see you didn’t die.”

“Thanks...”

She wandered back to whatever she did when not subjecting me to hours on end of torture in the guise of experiments.

And the people here thought ‘I’ was insane.

Major Deering had the vids of yesterday’s battles waiting for me along with copies of the written battle reports.

From what I discerned last night from the commander’s overview reports, Amy and Lea made a silent pact after leaving the morning’s briefing and jointly attacked Marshal’s team, with Lea coming up on top with the 100 points after seeing to Marshal’s Mech’s destruction.

I had actually expected that result. But what I had not expected was that Marshal had been KO’d in less than a half an hour, leaving Amy free to chase after Josh, who was already bogged down in a slug-fest against Lorraine.

His side was doing very well until 90 minutes into the running combat, his rear forces were blindsided by Amy’s full team. Other than one squad, as a token, I believed, Amy had not sent anyone to chase after me.

Whereas Josh sent one of his five squads, Lorraine, one of hers and Lea everyone after Marshal’s side was destroyed.

Amy racked up the most single points, quite a few squad leaders and squad destruction points, but that was it.

Josh’s teams centered around him with him talking the worst of Lorraine’s troops. From the video I watched, I was sorely disappointed. The seniors under Ellie would have crushed these freshmen. And it wouldn’t even have been close.

As for the commanders, other than Lorraine by me and Marshal by Lea, no other commander was KO’d or even seriously shot at.

Lea, even if most of her forces were taken out, won by a large margin in points.

I too made my objectives and was given a win, but we weren’t fighting the same battle nor did we have the same battle conditions.

We just happened to be on the same playing field.

But I didn’t care much about that. What I really wanted to know was who the hell tried to kill me. I wanted names.

But what I wanted, I couldn’t have.

Major Deering played dumb and the vids I was given were carefully edited. The scenes which should have shown the attacks on me by those fuckers were missing.

But I did remember quite clearly one of the numbered Mechs. Since we all had our Mechs numbered by the Academy for ease of identification in such cases as these, finding him meant looking up his name from a ready made list.

Windsly Worth.

A fitting name for a soon to be dead rich kid.

After driving my hoverchair to a few errands, one which included the hangar, I spent my day in preparation and filling out reports.

And studying, of course.

At 03:24, the sirens went off in all of the dorms.

From the looks of it, Windsly Worth’s roommate threw him out of his dorm room window earlier that night. Falling seven floors and landing head first on the concrete path behind the dorm killed the cadet instantly.

His roommate pleaded innocent and ultimately accused cadet Worth for jumping out on his own.

Which no one believed.

All of us were made to stand around for the rest of the night and most of the morning. Except for me. I was still confined to my hoverchair.

Even General White got off his supercilious ass and glared at the cadets and staff, demanding to know who knew what.

There were quite a few cadets, including his roommate, who wanted to place the blame on me. But I had a broken foot, leg, and half of my ribs were cracked or worse.

That was an argument that they could never win, and they knew it.

As a result, no one was formally accused, and no one was charged.

Even if, by the end of the following morning, everyone thought that I was the one who killed him.

The best argument that they could find against me was that he didn’t like me. Not that I didn’t like him...

After fruitless interrogations, we were dismissed for a late breakfast. By then, of my dorm-mates, Josh was the only willing to still talk to me.

“Dude. That wasn’t cool,” he said in the elevator to our floor.

“Why would you say that? It’s still warm.” Winter, such as it was on this continent, was grievous when it came. But I knew what he meant.

I thought.

“Adams will be pissed. The Worths are their closest supporters.”

Ah.

“Glad I didn’t do it then. Hey Josh,” I teased, “you better be nicer to Marshal or you might be next.”

“Ass.” He wasn’t worried. Marshal needed Josh more than Josh needed his smarter but weaker cousin.

“Damnit,” Amy walking into my office in the student section of the Admin building during my office hours quite pissed.

“Something happened?” I looked up from my homework to see what Amy was irritated about.

Stopping one step past my door, she stated clearly, “My fucking largest supporter killed himself last night.”

Huh, I didn’t know that. But then there was pretty much everything I didn’t know about Amy’s activities. I did understand that she intentionally did not press for Marshal’s position so that she could work extensively behind the scenes. Not sitting behind a desk acting like an all-knowing android.

“I never met him,” I replied honestly. My first encounter with the dead man was when he tried to kill me on Saturday.

“I still don’t understand why he died though. If anyone is talking, no one is saying. Not even his useless roommate,” she continued as if I hadn’t said anything.

“Maybe someone wants to erode your support?” I redirected.

“No. That isn’t it. This was personal,” she said still keeping her attention focused on me. Amy finalized our impromptu meeting of the evening with, “I hope whoever did it, doesn’t do it again.” With that warning, she left.

I became irritated. She didn’t even say hi, or ask how my body was healing.

Although, no one other than Josh had. On top of everyone ignoring me, I still had not seen Major Flowers. Apparently, she went to Phobos, the capital city of Ares, for a few days.

Amy was too upset at me to even stop by for the next two evenings to study together.

On Wednesday, I held off mailing each leader their mission card with differing objectives for Saturday’s battle contrary to Major Deering’s command. I didn’t want a repeat of last weeks unbalanced sides and preplanned girls versus guys.

Marshal’s was to KO a commander.

Josh’s was to KO ten squad leaders.

Amy’s was to keep more than 75% of her force mobile and cross the complete width of the map in less than four hours.

Lorraine’s was to cross the map in a 90-degree direction from Amy and to KO more total Mechs than were KO by the opponents of her company.

Lea’s was to hold the center of the map without losing more than half of her force.

All five were warned not to divulge their orders. If found doing so, their team would suffer an automatic loss.

I had cut the map down to a square and placed the four teams at the corners.

The rest was on them.

“How are you healing?” Ellie asked after walking inside of my office and closing the door behind her.

“Better. I can’t wait to have the pressure casts off. That should happen Friday morning,” I volunteered.

“What possessed you to use a grappler to take out a medium Mech?” she asked curiously.

“My win objective was to take out a commander. The battlefield was going to be too ‘fluid’,” a new term that I learned in small tactics class, “to set up mines beforehand.

“A grapple and a personal EMP can be placed in two locations at the rear and one on the front of the Mech for complete destruction. The easiest was the neck junction,” I explained.

“Couldn’t you have...” Ellie sat and discussed the battle with me for an hour undisturbed. Granted, I was even less popular now than before cadet Worth’s suicide, but I didn’t think it would extend to me being outright hated to this degree.

“What were you looking at when I came in?” she asked. I had a table of hit percentages from all of the ranged Mechs that participated in last Saturday’s battle.

No one was over 30%.

“Twenty cadets never fired a shot. Twenty-seven never hit an opponent. Sixteen of those the snipers hit someone on their own team,” I laughed at that part. And even worse, none looked intentional.

“And those were just from the sniper-type Mechs. As you know, out of the two hundred and fifty freshmen, 190 are fielding sniper type Mechs this year. 51 are fielding swordsmen and 8 are in skirmishers and one is piloting a Knight. And he was probably forced to by his parents for some commercial reason.

I laughed. “ONE knight in our whole class.”

“We have two, and you put one in the hospital. Remember, no one here expects to fight after the second year in the Mech Corps. But they still have three more years that they will occasionally have to. Even if they are not on the front lines, failures and losses do happen,” Ellie added.

“Hell, I think some of them would prefer to hide behind the mess tent than go anywhere near the fighting. Even if it meant they were branded a coward,” I revealed my disgust towards the students from the last battle.

“What are you going to do about those?” she meant the ones that didn’t fire a shot.

“I sent a request to meet all of them. As for the twenty-seven, those are for Major Deering to handle. The ones that didn’t get a shot off, I get to deal with in a few minutes. They will get punishment duty of some sort.”

“I’ll go. Try and not get yourself killed, Leon. Some of us like you alive and unharmed.”

“Name four,” I grimaced. “Thanks for stopping by, Ellie. I know you are much busier than I am.”

“It’s cooling off. I’ll see you later and my door is always open,” she grinned at me. I had used those words before on her. It was one of dad’s sayings when I was in a funk.

The twenty cadets filled up the student waiting room at 18:55. Since they were here, I called out to Roxxanna Summers first.

“You can leave the door open; this won’t be long. Unlike some of them, you know why I called you here, right, cadet Summers?”

“Yes, cadet Captain.”

“Honestly, I admire your resolve. I’ve looked at your marksmanship scores and they are very good. Choosing not to shoot someone is tough. Even if it only is in training. I truly hope you are never near a Hive breakout or a Gray invasion. You will die if that happens.

“Send in cadet Chi.” I dismissed the confirmed pacifist. She was not one of my problems.

“Cadet Chi, which direction is north?” I asked once she was in my office.

“That way?” she guessed correctly, pointing to her left.

“And which way would be east then?”

She pointed at me. “What’s this about, sir?”

How did she ever get past screening?

“Which way is southeast then?”

“That way?” she guessed correctly again.

“So you do know which way is southeast. Then why did you lead your squad northwest when ordered to on Saturday?”

She bit the inside of her cheek and hesitated.

“Speak, cadet.”

“I went the wrong way,” she admitted.

“But you just correctly pointed out which was the correct way. Plus, your MECH has an internal compass on the overhead at all times!”

“Either you are an idiot or are lying, which is it?”

“I’m not an idiot. I just have problems when I get pressured,” she admitted.

Well, shit.

“This is a school to teach you judgment in combat. If you lose your mind every time someone shoots at you, are you at the right school?” I asked softly. I didn’t want anyone outside the still open door to hear, nor did I want the door closing to signify that there was a larger issue.

“Yes, captain Cadet Young, I am at the right Academy,” she suddenly straightened and answered smartly.

“You are to see the counselor, before midnight tonight,” I ordered. “Maybe she can help you, for I can’t, and if I ever hear of you leading your squad in the wrong direction again, it will be a demerit. Each and every time.

“Dismissed.”

She smartly turned and walked out, without saying another word.

That girl had issues. Even without the inexplicable attitude change.

“Cadet Punja,” I called next. According to his stats, he was the worst marksman in school and probably didn’t want to get laughed at. More simulator time was in his future. A great deal more...

Thankfully, seven of them had a good-ish reason for not firing a shot. They were all ambushed and KO’d before they even had a chance to take aim at the enemy. That still left a third who were either clueless or incompetent.

Or worse. Afraid.

Even after seeing the group, I had no idea why I was assigned these losers by Major Deering anyway.

Regardless of who they supposedly were, there was no way in hell I would want any of them in any platoon I was in when the real fighting started.

Or even worse, one of them in command of a unit that I belonged to.

...

Major Ingersol summoned me to his office after Thursday’s cadet officer’s hours.

“How are you feeling, Leon?”

“Better, sir. Even the itchiness is fading,” I replied. He was reclining in his custom leather chair and I sat straight as expected before an instructor or an officer.

“Major Deerling released your battle assignments for the five sides today,” he told me.

I wasn’t all that surprised. He released them early last time.

“I’m not surprised, sir.”

He nodded sagely. “That stunt on Sunday was dangerous. I hope to not see a repeat, is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” I believed that one warning was more than enough. I doubted that anyone else had the balls to try and kill me again.

“I received a request from Lady Rebecka Crimson to have a meeting with you. I denied it, of course. Cadets are prohibited from contacting the outside world for any reason other than a death in the family,” he clarified.

I, and everyone else, knew that. “But as you have already discovered, most of the major Clans and Houses have placed instructors at the Academy,” he paused. “And those instructors are not prohibited from contacting the outside world.

“But for you, it is too soon.” He added that hook.

“Yes, sir.” I wasn’t sure if it was or wasn’t, but I had no way of arguing.

“Leon, are you considering a House instead of a Clan to follow in the future?” he asked suddenly. Or maybe not. Lady Crimson had to have been from House Crimson and Ellie

“Considering, sir. But I don’t have enough information and everything on the Infonet is biased towards the Clans.” I had looked, but after reading through the history sites it became obvious, once I was shown the way.

“Let’s just say that they are both right and both wrong. The Houses needed credits and supplies and the Merchant Clans of old had the majority of that. The Clans bargained for power and monopolies and the Houses gave it to them. In exchange, the Houses were funded to fight the war and push back the Hive incursion.

“The tricky part is deciphering what happened after. My guess is that both sides used the other and still do,” Major Ingersol summed up.

I felt that he was hiding a lot, but wasn’t in a position to ask for more details.

“What about the five-year buyouts and the Clans Mercenary forces, sir? Why don’t they just stay in the Mech Corps for a few more years instead of splitting off?” There was a lot I didn’t understand. And that was a good place to start if he was willing to speak.

“The Houses occupy all of the top positions in the Mech Corps. The Clans rather not have their rivals above them,” he replied simply. Too simply, I thought.

“That doesn’t make sense, sir. The Clans are spending trillions of credits doing what the Federation Mech Corps are doing.”

“Why would they spend all that money when the government would pay for their battles, you ask?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If I give you a million credits to defend the school, you get to choose how best it could be done, correct?”

“Oh. So, they want the control.”

“Yes. The Clans want the control. As it is, the Federation Senate is debating another massive budget cut to the Mech Corps.”

“Let me guess, because they are fielding so many of their own Mercenary corps, then what need is there for them to support the Federation’s corps. Right, Major?”

“Who pays for the Armies and Navies of the Federation?”

“We all do through taxes, sir. But the Clans probably feel that they pay more than their share,” I guessed.

“Doesn’t everyone think they pay more than they should?” he asked and I nodded.

Major Ingersol lectured me on the grand politics of the Federation as it concerned the Mech Corps and the Mercenaries throughout human space for the next hour.

Without recommending either. But the more he spoke, the less he seemed to be affiliated with a Clan. Maybe not a House either. But the galactic landscape became a little clearer. And a whole lot messier.

He also did something which he hadn’t done before. He repeated himself. The budget cut that was looming over the Federation was not a simple issue. And if passed would have wide ranging consequences.

I wasn’t afraid to fight a Gray, even if he had a larger tonnage Mech. But I was afraid of what would happen if the Houses and the Clans split the Federation in two. Or worse, went to war.

He prevented me from asking any question regarding war. But he did suggest for me to look at a recent map of the galaxy.

That could wait. I had homework to do.

Amy did get over her mad and visited me that night. She wasn’t as friendly at first, but she tried.

...

For a surprise, Sergeant Bell met me at the infirmary Friday morning after getting my casts removed and the scans of my bones done.

The doctors insisted on a supplement-laden carefully controlled therapy for the next week. I had an appointment for the following Thursday and, if all went well, I would be cleared to participate in the following week’s battles.

I had sort of expected that Major Flowers would be there, but Sergeant Bell informed me that she hadn’t returned yet. She, unfortunately, took me straight back to the hangar for her own diagnostics.

Which took two more hours...

Saturday was a mess. With Major Deering leaking the battle plans to the girls on Wednesday night and the Pentecosts on Thursday afternoon, they had plenty of time to cooperate and ruin my planned wargame.

Needless to say, all three of the girls won and the Pentecosts lost.

Badly.

And there wasn’t anything I could do about it. There were supposed to be six leaders to balance the sides, but Major Deering was sticking to five. If he didn’t want me as one, he still could have used a different one of the men. Even if it was one of the other two assholes on the same floor as us.

I didn’t get it. I could see skewing one side or another in each battle. But not always the same sides.

It wasn’t until Monday that Josh clarified things for me.

“Leon, what are you so worked up about?”

“I just don’t like the way Major Deering is taking sides in the battles.”

“It’s expected. His brother married into the Che Clan. Their Clans have been close for hundreds of years,” he explained to the sole non-Clan related person in the Academy.

“Thanks for explaining that to me. I must seem stupid to you sometimes,” I bitterly complained.

“Not that often,” he mocked, before heading to his officer duties. Ones that he performed, unlike me.

After two and a half months, the only duties I had performed as the Captain of the freshmen cadets was arranging the battle scenarios.

Both of which Major Deering intentionally skewed in favor of his allies.

Ellie stopped by at the end of her office hours. She left her office earlier than usual, which was questionable, since Mondays were after battle days and she had to have a ream of paperwork to do. I knew that I spent long hours on Sundays, after Major Deering handed over the battle reports and vids for me to evaluate.

“Are you all healed up?” she asked.

Which made little sense, if that was the only reason she skipped out on her own work.

“Mostly better. A few more days of therapy, and I’ll be good,” I responded with a questioning look at her. We both knew that we couldn’t speak freely here, since all of these student offices were monitored. And mine more so than the rest.

Probably hers was too, since she wasn’t from a Clan, but a House.

“My aunt is in this system. After this trimester is over, will you come with me to meet her?”

“Sure.” I had no reason to say no. Besides, I thought she would give me more information at that time about what she wanted and expected from me.

Plus, the way Ellie asked that just now sent off an alarm in my senses.

“Thank you, Leon. I need to go back to my reports. Be careful,” she added as parting advice.

Her saying that meant that I needed to be careful of something specific. Too bad she couldn’t tell me what.

And I was really getting tired of everyone knowing what was going on and I knew nothing.

On Wednesday, I tried as best I could to make four diverse battle objectives. Each of them difficult but doable.

But I intentionally left a small bomb, in case Major Deering decided to fuck me over. He ordered me to be ready to be included in the battle. Even if I wasn’t completely healthy.

I assured him that I would be ready.

And I was.

As I expected, slightly hoped for and planned, Major Deering released the objectives early. By now all of the useless squad leaders were demoted and decent ones were elevated by their commanders.

That wasn’t a big deal. They might be decent with small unit tactics, but they still sucked as pilots. Except for maybe 10-15% which were decent or even good.

The goal was a capture the flag and pass it to their commander. Major Deering’s assigned task for me was to fight off two hundred and forty-eight cadets who wanted my blood and see that it didn’t happen.

I had learned my lesson in positioning. I set Lorraine and Lea on each side of Amy, to reduce their collusion abilities.

I strapped my shield to my back and activated all of my modules once I arrived at the headquarters. My arrival there was the gun to start the battle.

I destroyed my own HQ and snatched the flag. Then I did something despicable, I stuffed the flag into the sheath on my left arm.

Grinning, I dashed towards Lea’s team.

Josh and Marshal had been warned this morning by me to expect assistance. Even if none of us knew what my orders were.

‘Defend the flag from your enemies or die trying,’ were the stupidest orders he had issued so far. At least last time, I could have hidden the whole battle through.

By the time I arrived, Josh had already engaged her company of 50 Mechs.

I positioned myself behind a flanking platoon, in stealth, stabbed the closest squad leader and then veered off to attack the next one of Lea’s squad leaders. Both of whom were gloriously leading from the back.

A habit of all the cadet squad leaders in this school.

Within the first fifteen minutes of my attack, Lea had lost six of her ten squad leaders.

Knowing that Amy’s reinforcements weren’t far behind. I smacked Lea upside the head and called out ‘boo’, Stealthed and sought out new prey. Lea seriously swore up a storm at me.

Amy had brought fish to fry.

Knowing the names and numbers of all of the squad leaders made it easy to find them.

Knowing that they all preferred to lead from the rear in fixed formations, made it even easier.

After losing most of her squad leaders, Amy personally had to lead her troops to find me. I had done too much damage, both morally and in actual Mech costs, for her to allow me to play any longer.

Even with me encircled by almost one hundred Mechs, they still had to find me. With a heavy shield on my back, none of their attacks could penetrate my vulnerable back plate, only a lucky shot would do.

I played around for a bit, killing off sniper Mechs, who as a whole hated being charged and attacked by skirmisher Mechs. For them it was a death sentence at close range, unless a melee Mech on their own side intervened.

I broke out of Amy’s encirclement and ran to visit Lea again.

I had more sniper Mechs and a squad leader to hunt.

And Haunt.

Grin.

...

Lea entered the command center fuming. Between Josh and I, her team had nine Mechs left. All of which fled the field.

In a training mission where no one was hurt...

I made sure to note those cadets, place a nasty note in their files, and request a demerit for each for cowardice. Which would be denied, of course.

All five of them received a loss, but between Josh’s team and I, we had fun obliterating her whole team.

Lea included.

Yet, Lea only glared at Josh. As if thinking, ‘how dare he collaborate with the enemy’. ‘Me.’

Amy wasn’t all too pleased with me either, but not to the extent that her friend was.

“Hey, I was told that it didn’t matter if we won or lost. Isn’t that right, Josh?” Yes, I threw him under the Lea bus.

“We all lost. I heard that the flag was gone when Marshal arrived at your HQ,” Amy remarked before Major Deering entered.

“Yes, cadet Young. What happened to the flag you were supposed to protect?” Major Deering demanded upon entering the briefing room.

“I had it with me the whole time, sir. I placed the flag on the motor pool roof before piloting my Mech to the hangar.”

He placed a call to see if I was lying. I wasn’t and was not pleased that he thought I might be.

“Good work,” he said, with absolutely zero believability. “Cadet Young fulfilled his win condition, the rest of you earned a full loss.

Lorraine had heard of my antics during the three hours wait for me to finish my Calibration session and wasn’t as displeased with me as her sister was. And the one who liked me less of the sisters. Her attitude seemed odd, since she was the more emotional of the pair.

Marshal wasn’t all that happy with me either. And as Josh said earlier, he didn’t care if he won or lost. Another oddity.

Which I thought was a very dangerous belief while in training. If that attitude carried over to the wars, then people would die unnecessarily.

The following two-hour review was the new normal for me. Major Deering spoke of what they did wrong and what they could have done better.

They. No mention of me and how I could have improved in Major Deering’s post-battle review.

But then, maybe Ellie was right and none of the instructors here outside of Major Ingersol could teach me.

Which was sad.

Sunday, I worked my ass off on those stupid reports, having little enough time for my homework.

Monday morning on the way to my first class, physics, Josh accosted me.

“Leon, did you know about Major Ingersol leaving?”

“He’s what?” No, I did not know!

“Fuck, you’re useless.” He turned and half-ran to meet up with someone else.

That was a first. Until now, Josh had been friendly to me. Even going out of his way to explain Clan matters or their interactions.

I continued to physics. Major Ingersol’s imminent departure was on everyone’s tongue.

And I didn’t know why it was such a big deal. I cared because I liked him, but there were hundreds of instructors in this school. If he left, then another would love to take his place.

Or so I thought.

Other than cadets’ gossip, no one would tell me anything. But his leaving soured the atmosphere of the whole school. Instructors and upperclassmen included.

Ellie entered my office and closed the door precisely at 18:01. One minute after I sat down.

“What have you heard, Leon?” she asked with a smile in her eyes. The first one I had seen all day.

“Major Ingersol and his club are going on an excursion. That’s about it. No one has even mentioned who will replace him.”

“They can’t replace him. Did you forget that Major Ingersol is a Master Pilot?”

“Not really. But I’m still in the dark here,” I freely admitted.

“What happens to the prestige of this or any Academy if their sole Master Pilot leaves during the first trimester and has no one to replace him?” Ellie asked as if that meant something to me.