Chapter 9: Bad Day

Military training grounds haven’t changed that much from times past. They were places where recruits learn how to act under attack. For this, they had to shoot at dummy targets, invade buildings or practice any other situation that might be useful for the success of their unit. Other soldiers often play the ‘enemy’ in those role-play games. This was the natural way to do as long as any possible enemy would be human too.

Since the evacuation of Homo Sapiens Sapiens started, things have changed. The enemy is the Sa’arm, a race of three-legged lizards with swarm awareness. We need computers to calculate their reactions and we never found a way to communicate with them. Needless to say, the action area of our troops now varies a lot more than back on Earth. A good training ground must be able to take this into consideration.

Darjee technology and good old bulldozers allow us to create specialized training grounds. Technology can even create different atmospheres under force field domes. The facility controllers still have problems simulating the enemy for hand-to-hand combat situations, but for anything else we have solutions. One of the most successful solutions is advanced holographic technology. Joacim Zelle, a Marine scientist, asked his home AI to create a full animated holographic image for a more pleasant interaction between humans and the AI. After solving a few minor problems, this idea spread through the whole colony on Vandergast. It wasn’t a big move to get this technology to the training grounds and use high-tech variants of paintball rifles for the training. Nanite technology supports the training by turning body parts red and cause real pain when a trainee is hit. We are even able to make our soldiers feel the soft touch of a holographic plant by using the nanites those soldiers carry in their bodies. These are great improvements for the military training, even if it was only a minor hobby project for our small team of scientists.

A completely different improvement was invented by an over-worked Civil Service Centurion who had plenty of unassigned concubines with absolutely nothing to do. At one point he shouted at one of those concubines “Why don’t you play PITA at the training facility? I’m searching for more than just you for a new sponsor!” The concubine in question had asked him for the millionth time about his efforts on her case. Some other concubines heard this and after a while they asked if helping at the training ground would be a possibility. Their purpose was to fight boredom and avoid being shoved into the brothel. So a few days later, Centurion Mark Evans Benish asked Major Melanie Sanchez, the leader of the training facility on Vandergast, if civilians playing wounded or panicking mob or whatever could improve the training. Four weeks later, a group of six soldiers was confronted with a ‘panicking’ mob of one hundred concubines who were fleeing from the invading Sa’arm holograms. This might not sound like a big deal but this simple improvement taught the trainees more about their own mental capabilities than ten conventional training lessons. Since then, the Distraction Forces are a common part of the military training at Vandergast. Trainees have to learn to deal with wounded, panicking, hostile, hopeful or dead people no matter if their mission is intelligence, scouting or fighting the Sa’arm.

To be honest, the training facility is oversized for the colony Vandergast. The colony holds five thousand sponsors and around thirty thousand concubines and children. The training facility can easily deal with one thousand Marine trainees per quarter year. When the colony was founded, headquarters had great plans. But as they quickly found out, Vandergast was not at a strategic position. Marine missions lasted ten days longer just because of additional traveling time. Plans were rewritten when other planets were colonized. General Leroy Culhane, lifetime governor of Vandergast, tried to make the best out of this situation. He wanted to improve the qualities of Vandergast to make it attractive for further colonization. Istar, a planet with a deadly acidic atmosphere, was the first R and R colony with only a bowling center, a multi-functional hall and a stall full of rabbits (real rabbits, no bunnies). Their only advantage was the position behind the front line.

There was another point that was eating on the governor and his aides. The Confederacy was getting humans off Earth to defend the Confederacy. They won’t do anything to defend Earth. When headquarters doesn’t need the service of Vandergast, maybe Vandergast has to offer its services to somebody else. Those who want to stay at Earth to defend it might be interested. The million-dollar question is how to get the service to the people...

A call from the governor is not what Joacim expected when he entered his laboratory. He lived on Vandergast for three years now and had met Governor Culhane from time to time. He had no idea what the subject could be.

“Good morning Governor Culhane, how did I earn the honor of your call?” Joacim asked when the AI established the connection.

“Hello Mr. Zelle. I have here a list of potential Marines. As you know, the war isn’t going too well and it’s my personal mission to recruit all potential volunteers available on this planet.”

“I don’t know how I can help you there. Markus’ CAP is still below anything acceptable and I have no offspring near the age of adulthood, Joacim responded. He had a slight hunch who the governor was really talking about.

“I’m not talking about your kids. I’m talking about your black drone, Lilly, L’il ... Damn, how do you pronounce that?”

“Her name is L’ielith, Governor. I don’t see how...” Joacim tried to play innocent but the governor interrupted his speech.

“Of course you know. That woman was on the edge of being a volunteer at her first test. Her sub scores show that she’s a perfect Marine. Since then she has learned two languages at minimum, learned to read and write, learned to love sex as I was told. You treated her well, Mr. Zelle. She is expected to reach 7.2 or more if retested. So why do you hold her back?”

“Well,” Joacim sighed “you may have heard that she hadn’t a pleasant past. She’s happy to have reached a safe place. She’s the mother of two little children now and her world is centered on them. I expect that her battle related scores have dropped since her first test.”

“So why don’t you just shove her into a med tube and retest her to check that out?” the governor lurked for a gap in Joacim’s defense.

“Governor, do you want an unwilling fighter? Half her childhood she was forced to fight and as I understand it she hated it. She’s my property and as long as she shows no signs of a cosmopolitan view on the threat by the Sa’arm war, I won’t force a test on her that might force her out of my house and into that war. Sorry Governor, L’ielit is not available.”

“Well, well, it was worth a try,” the Governor sighed. “Have a nice day and give us some new evil gadgets then.” He chuckled and terminated the connection. “We have to work on that,” he told his aide, Major Melanie Sanchez. “Mr. Zelle doesn’t know half of the truth. I have a dozen reports here that show her skills. She’s aware of her surroundings up to a ridiculous radius without even thinking about it. The two times when she joined the ‘Distraction Forces’ in the training grounds, she had a far better overview what was going on than our trainees. I want her.”

“Maybe we should improve her view of the world and the war,” Major Sanchez commented. “As we talked earlier, we had the idea to improve TownTV by adding reports from Earth. Why not add some reports from other colonies and the war? Maybe that will awaken more than one concubine with potential. Our current TownTV is just cheap entertainment.”

“Melanie?” the Governor asked.

“Yes sir?” Major Sanchez asked back.

“Hand me the damn papers to sign. I know you had the whole plan ready before you tried to talk me into it.”

“You know me too well, sir,” Major Sanchez grinned and reached for her digital notepad.

“Sir, why didn’t you push more with Mr. Zelle? I know you did with a lot of Marines that had less promising candidates in their stables.” Major Sanchez asked.

“How could I force someone who improved our training facilities with advanced holographic technology like he did? He saved more lives than I’m willing to count with his work. His analytic skills have improved the work of our little scientific team by at least fifty percent. I wouldn’t argue with him too much if he had five drones like that Lilly ... Damn, how do you pronounce her name?”

“Sir, we still have to refill more than four hundred pods.” Major Sanchez changed the topic once again. “I’ve learned that we can ask for specialists if we like. I also have heard rumors about a huge history database of the Confederacy that contains lots of technical blueprints. Outdated stuff for the Confederacy but incredible advanced for Earth. The AI has told me that we get access to it if we like. The special database at Earth is a result of the consensus of the AI’s what they are willing to give to humans that are not sponsors. I also like to ask for a few industrial-sized replicators and a handful of engineers.”

The governor looked dubiously. “That would allow us to produce things. I see the benefit for our colony. But how can this help us to get involved in the defeat of the Sa’arm or planetary defense of Earth?”

Major Sanchez smiled. “Industrial-sized replicators are able to create factory-sized replicators. Factory-sized replicators can create spaceships. We could start with our colony replicators, but it would take us about three years to build our first factory-sized replicator.”

“And spaceships lead us where?” the governor asked.

“With spaceships we are no longer limited to this planet. I talked with our AI. If we use old Confederacy technology, we are not completely bound to the original contract. The contract only covers modern ships and AI’s and limits people with a CAP of 6.5 and above to use it. We can’t create AI controlled weapons. AI’s simply do not pull the trigger. But if we manage to get a big enough group of technology-affine geeks in our empty pods I’m sure we can come up with a few surprises.”

“I still don’t see where this is leading us to.” The governor said.

“Sir, we are bound to the contract to serve in the defense of the Confederacy with our 6.5 plus Marines. But we have five times more motivated concubines to man our own old-timer fleet and then we still have enough of them to support both the Marines and the space-ship crews. We can carry Earth defenders up here, train them and send them back without using bound resources. We can train them to use the best available equipment for non-Confederacy humans. Hell, we can tell them what’s available for them. While an AI needs only seconds to locate specific ancient machines, the computers back on Earth need days to search through the database. When we send them back they will take blueprints for all the modified ancient engines with them that we have modified into effective weapons or armory.”