Asphodel

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The scorching, merciless sun brushed towering red mountains of sand with tendrils of golden light, illuminating the cavernous valley below. Nestled between two sand dunes, a sprawling complex fitted with painstakingly-maintained grass, arching oak trees, and white marble reliefs caught the first rays of sunshine. Off to one side, a solar farm began to whir to life, panels straining towards the dawn light like wilting sunflowers. In the center, a landing pad flashed and beeped a warning to the surroundings to clear space.

A Pelican roared through the cloudless sky, dipping low over the sand and kicking up a spray as the low-flying craft stirred up the motionless landscape, sweeping in low for a landing. Behind it, higher up, a second stayed in a holding pattern, then a third joined it.

When the Pelican landed, a team of MPs stood off to the sides in two lines, weapons close. The Pelican’s doors opened, the ramp extended, and twenty assorted figures, all clad in orange jumpsuits and restraints, traipsed down the ramp onto the landing pad. When the last touched the ground, the ramp lifted back up, the doors shut, and the Pelican lurched off of the landing pad, arching back into the sky.

Lieutenant Marcelle Burns, naval instructor and professor at the academy, stood next to a line of fellow instructors, her hands crossed over her service dress blues. Shaking her head, she turned to her other instructors and sighed.

“How many this time?”

“A full complement,” the woman next to her said. “Two thousand, split between twenty instructors.”

Lieutenant Burns sighed, rubbing her forehead and squeezing her eyes shut. “So, each of us now have five classes? They do know we have other commitments, right?”

A man to her right clapped her between the shoulder blades with a grin. “Ah, come on. How many of them do you think are gonna make it? Go and great your first class of the day!” He hit her again and pushed her slightly forward. She took a second to shoot him a withering glance, before pulling down the hem of her service blues, and walking up to the line of prisoners.

Their restraints were being unfastened by the group of MPs, working down the line. A few of them glared at her, some of them were rubbing their wrists, and the others looked so disinterested that they were finding more use staring down at her chest than her face.

Andrew Vostok stared around at the architecture of the naval academy with something between awe and irritation. He remembered his bunk back at the Asphodel Detention Center, and thought about all the times he had sat there on a scratchy mattress, staring up at a crumbling limestone brick ceiling, wondering where all the planet’s money was going that they couldn’t afford even a basic patchwork.

Now, walking through a campus of sprawling marble towers and ornate fountains and intricate grassy verandas, he knew exactly where the UEG directed its funds. His hands made fists next to him as he and the rest of the inmates walked through the campus, following behind a woman and three MP lackies.

They took a right, down an alleyway between a mess hall and a lodging, emerging on the other side to a domed structure with steep steps and roman columns. The Lieutenant lead the inmates through, into parquet floored hallways and vaulted ceilings. They were ushered into an auditorium, and seated behind smart glass desks linked to holographic displays. The MPs exited the room, and the lights dimmed.

The Lieutenant took center stage at the foot of the desks, with her legs squared and her hands behind her back once more. She waited until everyone was seated, before she picked up a datapad, and motioned towards the desks.

“Welcome to the Naval Academy, ‘recruits’,” she said. “I am here to make your lives hell, so that you give up on this foolish dream of yours to be anything but a two-bit convict for the rest of your days!” She smiled a complete mirthless smile at them all, before she started to pace up and down their line.

“You will address me as Lieutenant, or ma’am,” she informed them. “I have drawn the short straw on running you plebs through the gauntlet, and seeing which of you will truly be worthy of looking at a starship, let alone walking on one,”

“As an initial litmus test,” she said, tapping a few keys on her datapad, “you will each now take command of a simulated UNSC battlegroup in orbit above a planet.”

The desks hummed to life. Andrew watched as a blue, lined sphere materialised in front of his face, surrounded by small triangular shapes.

“You will be engaged by an enemy Covenant flotilla,” the Lieutenant continued. Another set of triangles—this time a bright, fluorescent violet colour—appeared on the other side of the planet.

The Lieutenant put her datapad down. “Your objective is to defeat the Covenant. Although, if that becomes too much of a challenge, then remaining in orbit for long enough to die by plasma torpedo, rather than being caught in the gravity well, should be simplistic enough for you to handle. Naftis?”

Andrew looked up and away from the simulation, just in time to see a podium extend from the floor in the middle of the room. A hologram also appeared on it, this one of a middle-aged man with a greying beard and small, beady blue eyes. He smiled at the cadets.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

The woman opened her hands and motioned to the class. “Begin their preliminary simulations.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

The triangles began to move, and the planet began to spin. Andrew watched them for a while, eyes darting about and focused on the blue ones more than the red. If his goal was to engage and defeat the Covenant force, he would focus on keeping his battlegroup in the air, and the Covenant would take care of themselves.

A flash of memory worked its way into his head as he raised his hands and pinched his fingers, zooming in on the UNSC forces. Ships began to define themselves for him; a small, nimble frigate darted between two cyclopean carriers. Fighters danced here and there, and engines pulsed.

In their place he saw shapes. Circular shapes, with twin cameras and pronged manipulators, skirting over shallow lakes. He remembered sitting at a desk, much like this one, watching through each drone’s eyes as they skirted above water, picking and clawing at the red plants that grew on the surface.

He remembered tapping away at mechanical keys, because the detainment center couldn’t afford these fancy holographic displays. He remembered moving them all, formation by formation, setting their flight paths straight, hours flickering back and forth until they rattled around and ached in their sockets.

The Covenant triangles crested the edge of the planet, and Andrew began to move. He split the blue triangles into two groups, tapped in an order for the fighters to form a screen, and pushed engine speed up so the two newly-formed battlegroups arched away from one another.

The Lieutenant stepped up beside him, watching his simulation with crossed arms and a tilted head. He paid her no attention, letting the Covenant get closer, sandwiched in between his two groups of ships.

With a last push of a button their course was committed, and the Covenant responded by splitting their forces as well, and moving to engage. Before they got within weapons distance, Andrew keyed in another order. Each battlegroup angled so that they were aiming at the group of Covenant ships furthest away from their position, then he put in the order to fire.

Simulated flashes of light and explosions dotted the simulation. Covenant triangles began to wink out under the surprise alpha barrage of MAC rounds, coming from a direction they least expected.

“Naftis,” the Lieutenant called down to the AI. “Pause simulations.”

The simulation paused, and Andrew blinked, coming back to the room. His brow furrowed, looking up at the Lieutenant, who studied him closely.

“What’s your name, Cadet?” she asked.

He stood up, his hand acting like it wanted to salute. Instead, he clasped them behind his back and straightened his spine, keeping his eyes forward. He wasn’t about to make some sort of etiquette faux-pas by saluting when he wasn’t meant to. “Ma’am, Andrew Vostok, ma’am.”

She stepped around his desk and kept an eye on the simulated battle. “Ever had any military training before, Vostok?”

“Ma’am, no ma’am,” he replied.

She blinked and held up a palm. “At ease. What did you do before coming here?” she motioned a finger around the room.

“I worked the algae refinement drones, ma’am,” he replied.

One of her eyebrows arched in surprise. “All of them?”

Shaking his head, he cast his mind back to his workstation. “Section Five, The Narrows. Efficiency and Coordination specialist, ma’am.”

“They let a valuable worker like you take the Aptitude Test?” she asked.

He shrugged. “They had no choice,ma’am.”

She motioned a hand towards the simulation once more. “This must come as second nature to you, then.”

Andrew looked around at the others. There were a few who were doing well, some who were struggling to keep their ships from crashing down into the planet, and a handful watching him with steely eyes, who were doing just as well as he was.

He wondered why he was singled out.

“What made you choose this maneuver?” the Lieutenant asked, drumming the fingers of one hand onto the desk.

“Study of Vice Admiral Immaline Philips,” Andrew replied. “Above Lyricium, December, 2545.”

Her eyebrows fully arched now, but the rest of her face remained passive. “What was so special about that engagement, in particular?”

Andrew shut his eyes and remembered the book on the subject. “The Vice Admiral found that Covenant shields were weaker along the prows,” he surmised, tapping a few keys to bring up profiles of two ships. “CCS-Class Cruisers and CPV-Class Destroyers could be engaged with a higher probability of success when preparing a firing solution that exploited the weakness in shield strength along structurally weak segments of the Hulls,” he motioned to the areas; right behind the nose of the CCS, and where the teardrop-shape of the destroyer arched from a pronged engine mount.

“Interesting,” she replied, watching intently. “Where did you learn that?”

Andrew cleared his throat. “I called in some favours, and was allowed to have a collection of naval textbooks, ma’am.”

She tilted her head to study him. “Did you always want to be an Ensign?”

“Captain would be nice,” he replied.

She laughed. “I see. Ambitious. You know, the Vice Admirals findings on shield strength could never be replicated.”

He nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

“So, what makes you think you could win this fight using that tactic?” she asked.

Andrew took a breath and closed the display. “UNSC shield technology has several advantages over Covenant counterparts,” he began. “However, a direct frontal assault would lead to unacceptable casualties.” He motioned to the two assortments of shapes on the screen. “Separating the battlegroup would either force the enemy to engage in smaller groups, or commit all forces to one side, allowing the others to flank. Attack weakness, avoid strength, ma’am.”

The Lieutenant studied him for a while longer, her brown eyes unblinking. She turned her head to one side, not breaking eye contact. “Naftis? Resume simulations. I want this one’s playback saved to my personal datapad, as well as this conversation.”

“Aye, Lieutenant.” the AI replied.

“And Cadet Vostok,” drawing back, the Lieutenant smoothed down her uniform, and gave him a perfunctory smile. “If you would be so kind, I would like to speak with you in my office.” She turned to one side and motioned down the gangway.

“Yes, ma’am.” Andrew nodded, and stepped out from behind the desk.

The Lieutenant’s office was spartan, with few personal keepsakes dotted about. A stainless steel bookcase held academic texts, with small marble orbs on pedestals resting in front of one, and a picture alongside a medal on the next shelf down.

Her desk bore an etched plague, supporting the model of a UNSC Destroyer. The letters read ‘UNSC Primorski’.

The Lieutenant walked around her mahogany desk and sat down behind it, pushing away a stack of academical, single-use datapads no doubt containing various assignments, yet to be graded. She clasped her hands together, fingers interlaced, and smiled up at Andrew, making no move to motion for him to sit.

So,” she said, “what are you hoping to get out of this, Cadet?”

Andrew tilted his head to one side. “Ma’am?”

“Why did you take the Aptitude Test,” she reclined in her seat and motioned towards him. “What’s your goal? I assume the Asphodel administration approached you about reducing your sentence if you served in the military?” she asked, eyebrows arched.

Andrew nodded in reply.

“So, why the Navy?” she let the question hang there, before thumbing over her shoulder at the academy, sprawled out beneath them. “What do you want from this academy?”

“A way off of Asphodel, ma’am,” he answered, almost without thinking.

She nodded, chewing on her tongue in thought for a while, before standing up. “People usually say that,” she said. “And, usually, I would believe them.” She walked over to the bookcase and pulled a thick tome off of the shelf. Andrew craned his neck to watch her, and heard the clinking of glass. She turned around, bottle and two tumblers in hand, still smiling. “But in your case, I don’t.”

Andrew raised an eyebrow. “Ma’am?”

“People, when I ask, don’t normally have an answer to my follow up question of ‘why not the Marines’.” She walked over to him and placed the two glasses down, before cracking the lid off of the bottle and pouring generous helpings of amber liquid into both. “If you joined the Airborne,” she took a glass and held it, “they would ship you off to a base on one of the Inners for basic training.”

She took a sip of her drink and walked back around to her chair. “If you joined the Corps, you could be assigned to a ship and go wherever they go.” She sat down with a sigh, staring through the glass at him. “If you joined the Rangers, the marine pilots, maybe even the Air Force, they might slap you on a ship, and off you go.”

Another sip, and she put the glass on the desk. “Now, I know you know this. You’re a highly intelligent man, and I’d wager my pension that you have an answer to ‘why not anything else’.”

She had a little grin tugging at the corner of her lips, like she had just divulged some grand secret. “You can’t expect me to believe that you sat there, at your coordination station, or in your bunk, poring over naval engagements, gravity, or advanced maths equations just because they were fun.” Shaking her head, she drained half her drink in one gulp, still watching him. “You took the aptitude test specifically for Naval Academy because it was Naval Academy. You have an ambition to go somewhere, be something. You have a goal. You might even have an agenda, and on a penal colony like Asphodel, that makes me uncomfortable.”

Andrew sat down without asking, and picked up his glass. Staring down into it, he took a deep breath before chugging the whole thing. He felt the blissful sensation of alcohol slip down his throat, and closed his eyes, relishing it for a while.

He looked up at the Lieutenant, eyes hard, and gaze unmoving. “Are you asking, accusing, or airing concerns?”

“You intrigue me, Vostok,” she answered. “That’s not an easy thing to do. I want to make sure we understand one another.”

“All you need to understand, ma’am,” he stressed the word, and she arched a brow. “Is that I am here to join the Navy. I want a ship to command, I want a crew, and I want out of here.” He stood up, leaning over the desk so their faces were inches apart. “And I will move heaven and earth to get it.”

He slid the glass over to her side of the desk and straightened back up, smoothing down his orange prison jumpsuit. “Are we done?”

She sat there for a while, stroking a thumb over the lip of her glass, her eyes flicked between his, left and right, left and right. She nodded, putting her own glass down. “We’re done,” she said. “Should be about time for the MPs to escort you and the rest of the Plebs to Mess.”

Andrew nodded. “I’ll see you around, Lieutenant.” He turned, and walked out of the door.

Lieutenant Marcelle Burns watched him leave with a smile. “I look forward to it, Midshipman.”