Star Force: Divergent (SF74) (6 page)

“So chaos is our friend in this?”

“In the learning process, yes. The bulk of your
training over the next year, if you can handle it, will be split between
individual drills like this and a lot of co-op with one or two others. Arc
Commandos aren’t just soloist, we want you to excel in small team functions as
well, but do not get a team identity stuck in your head. You can share what you
learn with each other, and we encourage you to, but you have to be able to be a
rogue and a teammate at the same time with your peers. That’s not easy to do,
even harder to explain, and it’ll be your ultimate hurdle to completing your
training.”

“I have no idea how to do both simultaneously,” Jyra
admitted.

“Most don’t at this stage. You have to develop both
independently of each other before you can try and meld the two. It’s not
something you pick up quickly, but we’ll be giving you a lot of headaches to
learn from. Unless you gain the skills you won’t complete the final
missions…but how you go about doing it is always up to you. One thing that
you’re probably already aware of is that there are never any guarantees, and
the missions going forward are going to emphasize that.”

“Oh goodie,” Jyra said sarcastically.

“Reality can hit harder than you think, especially in
subtle ways. We’re giving you training sufficient enough to give you a taste of
that. Going easy on you wouldn’t do you much good.”

“When this is all done and over with I might agree
with you, but for right now I’m still pretty sure I hate you.”

San smiled. “That means the training is working.”

6

May 4, 2897

Epsilon Eridani
System

Corneria

Jyra held her inverted pose, hands steady on the floor
and the blood rushing to her head being kept in check by years of training and
prep to her body enough for her to actually be able to meditate while in the
handstand. Right now she was in a good place, having cleared her mind and
feeling the stress from the morning workouts and the mission the previous day
seeping out as only a mediation would allow.

The trick was to remain active on a low level
mentally, but not so deep that you fell asleep…which was why Jyra preferred the
handstand, which made it impossible to nod off while one was keeping their
balance, though at the moment it almost felt like she was anyway. If she stayed
like this more than 40 minutes her head would start to pound and the inverted
state would begin to get to her, but with each session that she did her elapsed
time would increase, and had been doing so ever since her third year as a
Commando when she finally learned to do a proper handstand that wasn’t
requiring her constant concentration to hold.

Since then it’d become natural, though gravity still
eventually won out and her insides would begin to complain at the inversion,
but right now she had just enough tension in her body to maintain her form and
simultaneously structure her mind enough that it gelled into a neutral state
where she was listening to what was around her without making any noise,
outside or inside her mind, and being an observer rather than a driver of
events.

After a few more minutes she heard someone else enter
the exclusive training area reserved for the Commandos invited to attempt the
program, of which she was very near to completing. A few more weeks and she’d
be at her final trial, but for today and tomorrow she was on a pure training
block that was her responsibility to fill. At this level no one told her what
workouts to do, for no one knew her body better than her and what it needed at
this moment. Training was a way to customize oneself into what you wanted, and
the only person that could truly do that for her was herself. Back in her
maturia days the workouts had been provided so they’d get the benefits even if
they didn’t understand what they were doing, but ever since entering this
program she’d never been told to do so much as a pushup…rather given blocks of
time such as this to work on her core fitness. The scheduled sessions were always
new skill related, or for testing.

Jyra heard someone else join the six of them that were
in the gymnasium, but this set of footsteps headed her way and seemed to stop
nearby her empty corner where she was paralleling a wall without touching it.
She opened her eyes slowly, then saw an upside down version of Keith standing
in front of her.

“Need something?” she asked, holding the pose but
mildly upset by the disturbance.

“You’re close to the end, aren’t you?”

“So I’m told.”

“How tough does it get?”

“Dude, I’ve told you before I can’t give away mission
secrets.”

“I know that…and that’s not what I’m asking.”

“Then what are you asking?”

“Do you think I’ll make it through?”

Jyra sighed and gave up on her meditation, extending a
foot back to the wall and kicking off and collapsing over into an upside down
‘V’ that she then stood up from, spinning around to face the slightly smaller
man that was one of the newer faces here. “I have no way of knowing that.”

“But do you see any weaknesses that I should address?”

“Honestly I don’t know you that well.”

“Bull shit. If you’re like the rest of us you’ve
studied the personnel files of everyone else here.”

Jyra raised an eyebrow. “That’s common practice?”

“You’re saying you didn’t?”

“No, it just didn’t come up in any of my previous
discussions. In fact, most of my friends have moved on already.”

“Passed or washed out?”

“I don’t know of anyone who has washed out.”

“Really? I know two who have in the past month.”

“Who?”

“Mark
Dalley
and Henry
Kirshner
.”

“Washed out or quit?”

“I…don’t know, for sure. Either way they’re gone and
they didn’t exactly stop by to state their reasons.”

“No one is allowed to talk upon departure. When
someone passes their final trial they’re immediately removed. We know this
going in.”

“What if they fail?”

“Then you wash out and don’t get a second chance.”

“Ouch,” Kevin said, realizing the implications of
that. “Even Archons get a second shot at it.”

“Do they? I never heard more than rumors about their
training.”

“I’ve got a few that are friends. One actually gave me
the referral to this program. She said that if you fail the final Archon trial
you have to start the program all over again with a new class…or quit.”

“Archons don’t quit.”

“I think that’s the point. Making them go through it
all over again to test their commitment. But why the line of no return for us?”

“It makes sense.”

“How so?”

“You’re new, but you’ll get the vibe later in your
training.”

“Vibe?”

“There’s an unofficial moto that’s been passed down
through trainees here. ‘Do or do not. There is no try.’ I’d recommend you keep
that in mind going forward.”

Kevin thought about it for a moment. “How does that
apply to no second chances?”

“You have to find a way to make it happen.”

“That’s counter to everything Star Force stands for,
training wise.”

“No.”

“No? What am I missing?”

“Arc Commandos are meant to be the elite, in ways that
even I’m still learning. None of us are rookies, and we didn’t earn our way
into this program, we were invited. I think the Archons are looking for people
with special aptitudes and this training is meant to confirm those picks and
enhance what we’re doing naturally. That’s pure speculation, but it’s been
echoed by a few others that have come before me.”

“I thought everything could be trained, eventually?
That’s why even the Archon tests can be taken an infinite number of times.”

“And yet those that do keep taking it over and over
again don’t seem to ever make it.”

“I have no idea. Where did you hear that?”

“San. I asked him why we were chosen rather than
tested, and he said they had an eye for talent that precluded the need for
public testing…which would also defeat the purpose of keeping us a
pseudo-secret. He said those who became Archons usually passed the test the
first time, then mentioned something about ingenuity being difficult to
measure, and if you can’t measure it you can’t train for it.”

“So why do they allow the extra testing?”

“I asked him that too. He said it was in case they
were wrong and missed someone the first time.”

“That could apply here as well.”

“We didn’t come here untrained. Archons typically go
in raw.”

“Some don’t.”

“And for some reason those late comers don’t end up
setting records.”

“San tell you that?”

“No. I did some checking of my own.”

“You have access to Archon records?”

Jyra winked at him as she turned to the right and
knelt down to pick up her water bottle. She stood up, took a long swig of it,
then
looked back at Kevin. “If you want some advice, I’d say
stop worrying about prepping for anything specific and just try to be as well
rounded in your skills as possible. They’re not going to tell you what’s
coming, so there’s no point in running the possibilities through your head
nonstop. Took me a while to learn that. Best to keep your mind empty until you
have something current to chew on.”

Kevin frowned. “Weren’t we trained as Commandos to
think ahead?”

“If you have something to work with. If you’re going
in blind the mental games are just a waste of time.”

“And they keep us blind this entire program?”

“As far as I’ve come, yes.”

“Why?”

“I know now…and you will too, at the end.”

“That’s not helpful, but it is enticing.”

“While you’re here, could I entice you into some
sparring?” Jyra asked, letting go her mediation and choosing to move on.

“Fair enough since I interrupted you.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Well if you put it
that way, never mind.”

“No, no…you misunderstand. I’m the rookie here,
obviously, and I’d like to help out the experienced ones if I can rather than
being a drag. San said I should ask for help and advice, but I’d prefer more of
a two way street.”

“We all do, so don’t sweat it. I usually end up
sparring with bots because everyone else is busy, so if you’ve got some time I
could use an opponent that can think.”

“Happy to. How hard do you want?”

“Don’t hold back,” she said, gesturing to an open ring
nearby and walking towards it.

“Um, don’t mean to brag, but my Commando ranking is 18
levels above yours.”

“I know.”

“So you want to get beat up?”

“If you want to help me, give me a challenge.”

“As you wish,” Kevin said, stepping into the ring and
flexing his shoulders a bit. “How do you want to do this?”

“I need some arm work.”

“Alright,” he said, mentally disconnecting most of his
movement options and leg attacks/defenses and prepping himself to go at it with
his upper body only in a series of drills that were competitive, but designed
to test and train reflexes more than determine a winner. “Ready when you are.”

Two weeks later Jyra met San at a door in the training
facility that she’d never seen the other side of and hadn’t been able to use
her codes to bypass. She’d spent several hours sneaking around trying to find
out what was behind all the locked doors and this was one of the few that she
could never access…but to her dismay it opened for San simply as he walked up
to it and motioned her to go inside.

She stepped through into darkness, walking into a room
that only had the angular slab of light coming in through the door to guide
her, then it disappeared plunging everything into darkness. A moment later the
lights came on and a solitary pillar stood at the center of the room some 30
meters in front of her in the circular chamber.

“Your final mission,” San said, staying in the small
tunnel between door and wall perimeter, “is to reach the top and retrieve the
object there. You pass when you bring it back and place it in my hand. Clear?”

“Clear as mud,” Jyra answered as she looked around for
potential hazards hidden in the open architecture. “Time limit?”

“Preferably sometime before lunch.”

Jyra rolled her eyes, but San was standing behind her
and couldn’t see. “Anything else you’d like to add?”

“Nope.”

“Wonderful,” she said, standing still and glad she
hadn’t already set off some sort of trap. The floor was solid and flat, or at
least appeared to be. Same went for the walls and ceiling, but the pillar had
grooves in it. Irregular pattern and easy to conceal crap in, but it was the
smoothness that truly concerned her, for she suspected there was something
beneath hidden doors or maybe even camouflaged via holograms out there…yeah,
with so much empty space holograms were probably in use.

Not liking this one bit and knowing that failure would
see her out of the program entirely, she took a small step forward and waited,
getting no response. She took another, again without any reaction and San being
totally silent only made the situation worse. Jyra had no idea where the attack
would come from, but multiple options were flowing through her head as she
thought about what
might
be here.
There was no proof either way, so all she had to work with was experimentation.

To that end she stood still and pulled her shirt off,
revealing the jog bra she had underneath as she wadded the garment up into a
ball, tying the sleeves together so it wouldn’t unravel in the air turbulence,
then threw it towards the pillar. It sailed in a clean arc and hit the side,
bouncing off lightly to hit the ground nearby where it rolled to a halt without
drawing any reaction whatsoever.

Jyra’s
lip curled to the
right in a curious frown. That left her with no option other than walking up to
the pillar and taking her chances, so she took another baby step and proceeded
with that tactic over the next few minutes, taking her precious time and trying
to play this safe…but at the same time knowing from all her training that there
usually wasn’t a ‘safe’ play to make and that she’d just have to wing this
given the lack of data for her to use in order to minimize what were as of now
unseen hazards.

Closer and closer she crept, with every step and lack
of response making her more nervous all the way up to the pillar. She refrained
from touching it and made a slow circle around it, inspecting the grooves
carefully and looking for clues. Nothing appeared to be there, aside from
useful finger and toe holds, but the lines and indents almost looked like a
form of writing. If it said ‘don’t do that’ and she went ahead and did Jyra
would be kicking herself for the rest of her life, so she took her time again
and tried to decipher what she was seeing.

But it was no use, which left her with two options:
keep trying and not rush into a bad situation…or rush into it and avoid
spending forever here looking at something that wasn’t actually text. Either
way it made sense as a way for her to display her stupidity and punish herself,
which was definitely this program’s mojo. One thing she could do was pick up
her shirt, so she walked around to it and retrieved her projectile, but before
putting it back on she stepped back and hurled it up to the top of the 8 meter
high pillar.