He pretended to understand and moved on, only hoping the lessons he’d take in the upcoming month would be more helpful. “What about this:
technomancy
. I know that word, but what does it mean in this context?”
“Technomancy is the ability Creux have that make them so valuable. We don’t know yet how it works or where it comes from, exactly—”
“
Shocker
,” Ezra whispered, but everyone heard it, and the cynical sarcasm was more embarrassing for him than anyone else in the room.
“So we don’t know how it works, but every Creux has come equipped with a core of naturally refreshing energy it can use in either offensive, defensive, or support techniques, all unique to each Creux. Nandi is a Tank class, which means it is heavily armored and can absorb great damage.”
“Is that what ‘T-Core Rate’ means?”
“No. Well, yes—well, no. They’re related. The
rate
is the speed at which Nandi re-charges and is able to fire again. That word there, T-Core, it’s short for Technomancy Core, the area in the Creux that stores the energy,” Lance explained, or tried to. “The efficiency of the Creux’s technomancy is measured in sparks per pulse, and the power is measured by the concentration of sparks per cubic foot of energy. The T-Core is
always
full of this energy, but a large part of that is useless, so the concentration of sparks per cubic feet is what matters. In other words, Nandi is a strong hitter but very slow to recharge. Are you following, sir?”
“No, not at all,” Ezra said, eyes on the information sheet, trying to puzzle out the numbers and terms, but finding it to be too complex for his exhausted mind.
Alice laughed. “It’s a lot of information, but that’s what the next month is for. You should study that file, Blanchard. You are expected to know all of those specs by heart by the end of the week.”
“If you have any questions, come to us,” Kat offered.
“Now.” Alice got up. “Are you ready to meet Nandi?”
Kat excused herself to attend to some business, and Ezra followed Alice and Lance down a long descending tunnel that made Ezra wonder just how big Zenith was.
They passed by a giant door labeled CREUX DOCKING CHAMBERS and entered an even longer hallway. On the wall to his right, there were numbered doors, each spaced at least twenty feet from the next. The group walked the length of the passage until they reached door 14, on which a decal with the Besoe Nandi crimson bull had been freshly applied.
The chamber was walled by screens and computers, all of which were currently dead. Right before him, opposite the door, there was a huge window overlooking the massive docking bay, wherein the Creux waited.
Ezra approached the window to set eyes on Besoe Nandi for the first time.
At the other side of the thick glass, there stood a monster. Though the document had said that Nandi was fifty-five feet in height, it seemed much bigger when beheld in person, even if the thing’s feet stood far below and it stretched up to look through the window.
It was decidedly humanoid in shape and well-deserving of its alias, The Minotaur. Its chest and shoulders were massive over its comparatively small waist. Most imposing of all were the two bull’s horns stretching sideways and up from the sides of its head. They looked too heavy to be supported even by its thickly armored neck.
A helmet-like structure stretched down over one central eye like an angry brow—a cycloptic scowl staring him down. Scattered around the main eye, there were many other smaller ones of varying sizes; Ezra could only imagine what technologies were behind its bizarre and terrifying gaze.
You,
it seemed to say with its mouthless face.
I don’t welcome you.
“I’m going to pilot that?” Ezra said, wide eyes on the iron monster.
“Don’t let it scare you,” Alice said, standing by his side and affectionately putting her hand on his lower back. “It is terrifying, I know. It looks like it could crush you, and it could. I know how scary it is to think about attempting to control a thing like this, but it’s in your blood to do it.”
Ezra was a million miles away, lost in Nandi’s blue eye, through which he’d soon be seeing.
Alice held his hand and Ezra looked down at the link, trying to understand its significance, or lack thereof. “You’ll do it. You were born to do it.”
“Is he the biggest?”
“Oh no,” Alice said. “Ares is bigger. Mine—Omega—is bigger. Milos Ravana, the one Kiva was sorted into, is more or less the same size, only not as . . .
bulky
, I guess is the word.”
Ezra looked away from the horrifying eye of the Minotaur and paid closer attention to the chamber. It was not very big: about fifteen feet by twelve feet and occupied mostly by computers and screens. A large, egg-shaped red capsule sat in one corner, connected by tubes and wires to the computers, floor, and walls. “What is that, ma’am?”
“It’s called a Creux Synchronization Capsule, but we call it the Cardinal’s Egg, or just Egg. The more pretentious ones call it the Womb,” she said, and her eyes regarded the Egg with a quality of fear Ezra didn’t understand. “This is the space your body will occupy when you pilot Nandi.”
Ezra frowned and looked at the Egg, which looked too small for it to be at all comfortable.
Lance approached the Egg and slid his hand over its smooth, polished surface. “Think of it as a remote cockpit, sir. Of course the Creux will be miniaturized, but it cannot happen if you are inside it; you would be crushed. It’s a safe alternative, as well. Even if you could be miniaturized along with it, this way nothing is likely to happen to the pilot if something happens to the suit.”
“That’s not very comforting,” Ezra said and gave the Minotaur one more look.
Why did it feel like the creature was looking back at him?
Classes began early the following day. Ezra woke up early, just after the dome’s simulated dawn, which appeared to function with the exact same technology as the one that protected Roue from the outside world, and its dwellers.
Groggy and still troubled by the memory of Nandi’s many eyes, Ezra showered and met with Jena outside his room, glancing at his crew’s bedroom on his way out—they had already left for the day, leaving their chambers tidier than Ezra ever could hope to leave his.
The group of newcomers, excluding Kiva, walked together towards the lecture halls. They were lucky Jena had remembered to bring her class program, because neither Ezra nor Poole had.
As he understood that first day, his classes would be divided into three categories: Entry Lectures, which would cover all the most basic knowledge a pilot is expected to completely understand and would be taken by all four of them, alone; Regular Lectures, which covered up-to-date data such as developing battle strategies, and they would take with all the other pilots; finally, Remedial Lectures, which he’d take by himself under the tutorship of Jena and Kiva.
The duration of the Entry and Remedial lessons would depend on the results of the tests he would take in four weeks, and could altogether end as soon as then.
Kiva joined the trio late for the first class: an Entry Lecture imparted by Alice herself. For two hours, she talked about Zenith’s history, peppered with details about The Fall of Terria, the event that had introduced the laani onto the planet and forced the surviving members of humanity into domed cities.
After Alice’s history lesson, the four of them moved to another classroom for another Entry Lecture: Basic Alien Virology, imparted by Dr. Mizrahi.
“The laani is often referred to as a virus, but that’s not what it actually is,” Dr. Mizrahi said. “The laani is an organism that found this planet in the Fall of Terria, arriving in many shapes: from the large monsters that roam the planet, quickly bullying their way into becoming a dominant species, to the microscopic organisms that are deadly to organic life,” she said and started writing on the board. The first word was VIRION, then LAANI BUBBLE, then lv-DNA, LAANPHAGE, GRIEVER’S POINT. None of these seemed to be connected to another. “The smallest independent form of the laani, the laanphage, is colloquially called a
Laani Fleck
; these are miniature, independent beings that work in large groups called Flashes. Most of your missions—your operations, missions—will involve battling these aggrupations which move from one organ to another, infecting their wake. We have mapped the manner the laani moves when infecting a body through the respiratory system, and we have defined one moment that marks the difference between a human body being salvageable from infection and when it’s lost to disease.”
Ezra took notes of every word, drawing and chart she put on the blackboard, but despite his efforts, it was during this class when Ezra understood that he was truly behind in his basic studies. Though Dr. Mizrahi was a good teacher (ignoring her bizarre way of speaking and reasoning), she was talking to him in terms that required a certain domain over chemistry and biology—a domain Ezra did not possess, however basic.
Being so lost in the lecture was troubling, but seeing Kiva, Jena, and Poole keeping up made it worse; it really was a problem that was only his.
His mother would be embarrassed.
Two hours later, they moved to a larger classroom for the first Regular Lecture, shared with the rest of the pilots. For this class, they were joined by the military member of their crew: in Ezra’s case, it was Kat.
Kat’s presence was both welcome and not; he appreciated the presence of someone who was there to support him. However, he was afraid of appearing too ignorant; she might lose any respect she had for him, and that could have terrible effects in their relationship and his performance as a student and a pilot.
The full roster of active pilots, which he hadn’t seen isolated until then, was a total of ten; this included Specialist Angela Howard-King, whose Creux was currently recovering from damage taken in battle.
The class, called On-Field Tactics, was imparted mostly by Garros with Alice’s support. Garros was a self-proclaimed tactical genius who understood the behavior of the laani Flecks and Flashes better than anyone else who remained active in Zenith. It was amazing how he could transform from the dumb, drunken monster Ezra had met two nights prior to a man of genuine intellectual authority.
After the lecture, which Ezra could follow without much of a problem, Garros assigned two short books to Ezra, Kiva, Jena, and Poole so they could familiarize themselves with the basic tactical theory. It was a good thing; seeing Garros and Alice explain the newly designed tactics made him feel like they were speaking a whole other language.
Ezra was happy he had followed Garros’ class better than he had followed Dr. Mizrahi’s or Alice’s, but that comfort vanished when Garros ended the class with: “Crescent, Blanchard, Poole, Davenport—you’re going to take a test at the end of the week covering the two books I assigned. Your military crewmember is very familiar with it, so feel free to ask for their help. We’re done for today; see you all on Wednesday.”
After Tactics, they were given an hour to have lunch, which they shared in the dining room with what seemed like the entirety of Zenith’s personnel. The crewmembers who had joined them for Tactics shared their table. Whereas Jena’s and Poole’s—a man and a woman respectively—were excited about their first days as official Creux crewmembers, Kat was yet to speak unless spoken to. She was very serious about her job and seemed to have no interest in anyone, not even Ezra, beyond her duties.
Kiva’s crew was missing. Much like Kat, he hadn’t spoken much outside of class. Ezra wondered exactly what was going on with him and his Creux, but when asked, he would dismiss the situation as nothing, saying “It’s just this whole thing.”
Everyone knew he was lying, and that something was deeply troubling him.
“How did you feel?” Jena asked Ezra. “In class.”
“I was okay in History, very okay in Tactics; hopelessly lost in Virology.”
“I thought you would be; it wasn’t very basic,” she said. “I couldn’t follow a word Garros said. Did you really understand all that about the orders and shifting patterns and queen-koonts, and—”
“Quincunx. It’s a pattern, like the ‘five’ face on dice,” Ezra corrected her, and looked at the ever-silent Kat for validation. She smiled and nodded; he thought she almost looked proud. “It’s just an attack formation.”
“I didn’t get much of that either,” Kiva admitted. “Good to know one of us kept up.”
“I got it,” Poole said, mouth full of breaded meat. “It’s not so hard.”
“Well maybe we can help each other out. I’ll help you with the biology stuff—I mean, we’ll help you,” she said and looked at Kiva with a smile. “And you can explain the stuff
we
don’t understand.”
“Why? You have one crewmember who is an expert on either field, science or tactics.
They
can be your support! It’s their job.” Poole said, trying to sound calm, but failing. “I don’t see why you need to rely on one another like that.”
“Actually,” Kat spoke up for the first time. “Though I’d be happy to help Second Private Blanchard with any help he needs, the instructors here generally prefer the pilots to support each other as an exercise. It helps develop listening skills, coaching techniques, and especially trust. These are things you cannot pick up in a classroom. If you can, Private First Class Poole, it’s my recommendation that you take part in it.”