Standish Read online

  “The chest will close faster if the button is kept suppressed.” The droid said. “The unit will take a moment to form to your torso. All suits are given factory re-sets before being reissued.”

  Once the suit was finally sealed, Standish moved her arms about, trying to get used to the armour, and felt a sudden rush of heat, then cold around her torso, before the feeling subsided.

  “Environmental controls?” She asked.

  “Automatic. The suit should run a test cycle.”

  Standish nodded, then noticed a large data-pad on her left and right forearms.

  “Ignore those panels for now. You’ll receive instruction on them at a later date.” The droid said. “Comfortable? The fitting of the suit is critical for maximum efficiency.”

  She nodded again before bending and twisting, trying to find the edge of the suit's mobility, but was pleasantly surprised that it moved as far as she needed it to.

  “Helmet.” The droid said sharply.

  Standish quickly bent over and picked her’s up.

  “Proceed to the airlock.” The droid spun around and moved to the nearest trainee that was looking for a suit for themselves.

  Rolling her shoulders one more time, Standish brought her right knee up, then rotated it out to the side before dropping it, then repeated the move with her left leg. The suit was light, flexible, and soft and rubbery to her touch.

  As she walked, she tried to get used to the armour. It was lighter than it looked, and not bulky at all. She had seen pictures of ground combat armour, and it looked very cumbersome and clumsy.

  Finally reaching the hatch out of the lounge they had been first waiting in, a single droid was handing out gloves of varying size. Standish took a small pair and quickly slipped them on and fastened the cuff to the armour.

  As the line she was in crept forward, she finally caught sight of an airlock on the far side of the room with a massive transparent front. Inside she could see an instructor, along with one of the trainees.

  Relax! You’re good. Just be confident.

  Emotions were bouncing around in her head. First day at a new training school. She knew the pressure was on. The instructors would be taking stock of the new arrivals. She didn’t want to embarrass herself.

  Watching, as were the rest of the trainees, Standish observed as the far side of the airlock opened, and a few seconds later, the trainee vanished out of sight. After a pause, the next in line entered the airlock, and the process repeated itself.

  “Helmets on.” Barked a tall instructor standing next to the airlock.

  Standish quickly donned her regulation helmet that all graduates from basic had received and waited as the suits auto environmental systems came on-line and started pumping fresh air into the helmet.

  When Standish finally reached the exterior hatch, she looked up at the instructor that was to her front, and marvelled over his armour, which was orange and light blue like all other Rescue Tech armour, but much more lavishly designed in its pattern.

  Moments later, she was being instructed to enter the airlock.

  Hatch open, she stepped in and looked at the instructor standing to her left.

  “Stand here.” The instructor pointed to a spot on the ground just to his side.

  Standish could tell that the instructor was hooked into the compartment, which explained why he hadn’t disappeared out of the hatch when it had opened.

  “Here’s the drill.” He said over his suits external speaker. “Grab that handrail and use the clamp system on your glove to secure yourself.”

  Standish did as she was told.

  “Good.” The instructor toggled a switch on the wall. “Hatch opening.”

  The air that was in the room was sucked into space in a blink of an eye, revealing the planet Tekori below the station and a ship five hundred metres away in front of the planet.

  “Here’s what’s happening. Drone extraction simulation.” As he was talking, Standish could see a line being brought into the airlock by a flying droid. “Use your free hand and take the line and clip it to your armour. On your sternum is a link point.” The instructor waited. “Good.” He nodded. “Put your free hand on the line. This is to simulate the speeds that you will exit ships on rescue missions. Your destination is that dropship.” He pointed to the ship in the distance. “On your ready, release your auto grip and immediately grasp the line. And enjoy the ride.”

  Standish looked down the line, which was ten metres long, at the end of the line was a small, red coloured drone hovering in space with quad thrusters pointing in Standish’s direction. Closing her eyes one last time, Standish let out a deep breath, then released the grip that she had with her left hand.

  The moment the drone had registered that the grip had been released, all for engines kicked into high gear and shot away from the large station and into open space at a remarkable rate.

  The strain on Standish’s body was suddenly terrific as more than 10 G’s of pressure as the droid covered the five hundred metres in just seven seconds. Once the droid stopped, the line was severed, allowing Standish to continue forward, only to be caught in a safety bubble deployed on the side of the ship.

  Slightly dizzy, Standish got her bearings. She was hovering in space a metre before an opened hangar bay on the dropship. Several instructors were floating around in the open bay, along with a few droids. At the end of the hangar was an airlock, where she could see the trainee that had gone before her waiting.

  Shaking her head, she looked at the closest instructor who was using his thrusters to close up the distance to Standish and unclip the cable from her armour.

  “Welcome to Rescue Tech.” He said in a dry voice.

  13

  The Past

  Tekori

  And so it began. A year and a half of training. Training more challenging than anything Standish had experienced at her basic on Bern 36. The first days of the program dealt with orientation on the armour, including maintenance, repair, and operations. The class started with one hundred twenty-five pupils almost lived in their armour for those first few days of the course, something that they’d do for the rest of their time as Rescue Tech in the fleet if they survived the course.

  At the beginning of the course, the instructors had a counselling session with all the new arrivals, and Standish had been surprised that her instructors were not offended that she planned to attend Dynamic Operations selection at the earliest date. In fact, they were proud that Rescue Technicians made up a sizeable portion of the D-O community and encouraged her in her future endeavours.

  After a standard of proficiency had been met with the armour, the trainees were issued Rescue Tech helmets that carried with them advanced communications, sensors and other systems that enabled the operator to fulfil mission needs. According to the instructors, nine times out of ten, their job was going to be crew recovery after someone gets separated from their ship through carelessness while working on the exterior.

  Once the trainees had mastered the suits and helmets, it was time to move on to learning about the mainstays of the Imperial Fleet. Everything from command ships and other warships to civilian cargo ships and pleasure boats. It was critical that the Rescue Tech’s understood emergency systems on as many varieties of vessels as possible. How to use all forms of airlocks, emergency escape procedures, along with all the necessary methods for fighting fires and other calamities on a ship, even if that wasn’t their primary mission. Their primary mission was to save lives, not saving ships.

  Medical training was a large portion of the course, but it was made clear to Standish and the other trainees that the priority of the Rescue Technician was not to be a doctor, but to retrieve patients for the doctors while administering first responder levels of care when needed. Nevertheless, the medical training was much more advanced than what she had received at initial training and included instruction on a wide variety of specialist equipment that was designed to get those in distress to safety as fast as possible.<
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  One of the most critical pieces of kit that they were taught to use was the Emergency Extra-Vessel Transport bag. The bag was a self-contained emergency transport device with internal life-support systems that could be used to move wounded or stranded personnel to safety and would keep the occupant alive for up to fifteen minutes. The EEVT allowed the Rescue Tech to move a victim through space and other hazardous environments, if necessary, under the operators own power or that of a drone. It was the perfect tool to be used during a mass casualty situation aboard a ship.

  As the training progressed, it got harder, both physically, and mentally. The trainees were expected to learn and remember how to operate on dozens of different types of ships in various conditions, which was perhaps more challenging than any other aspect of the training. It was a lot to remember.

  All the while, Standish measured herself against her peers, trying to find out who was the best.

  “The name is Num Blaz.”

  Standish wasn’t sure what to make of that. To her, it sounded ridiculous.

  The dining facility was crowded, and the big trainee had taken the last available seat across from Standish.

  “Val Standish.”

  Num smiled. “I know who you are.” He tucked into his meal. “Everyone knows who you are.”

  Standish sipped her drink. “And what do they know?”

  “That you’ve got courage.” His orange mohawk gave Num a slightly charming appeal. “You got decorated at your basic.”

  “Right place at the wrong time.” She shot back.

  “I also hear that you take a lot of chances.”

  Standish rocked her head from side to side.

  “You’re going for D-O, aren’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “Me too.”

  Another nod.

  “It’s nice to have some competition.”

  Standish gave him a questioning look.

  “Limited spots.” He replied. “But I think you might have what it takes.”

  Standish smiled. “Well, thanks for that vote of confidence.”

  After their first large-scale field exercise, the recruits were finally given a chance to try out the ultra-light Rescue Tech skin-suits, like the one she had seen Senior Instructor Marvax wear at basic. The suits were skin-tight units that had a built-in air filtration system that could feed enough breathable air to the micro helmet to supply the operator for up to an hour. Once assigned to the fleet, Rescue Techs were expected to wear the suits on the ship and were only supposed to remove them for fitness training, sleep and washing. Even when they weren’t on duty, they’d be able to react to a crisis in a limited manner in the suit, but without it, they’d be useless. They were also given instruction on the advanced Vidder-Mae helmet and were expected to keep them on their persons at all time.

  All through the training, Standish noticed that there was one major area that the rescue techs didn’t focus on that would play a significant part in the Dynamic Operations training she wanted to apply for: weapons training. She had limited exposure to weapons on Nadolo before joining up, mostly vintage weapons used for hunting, and the practice she had received with energy and ballistic weapons on Bern 36 had been very rudimentary. One of the instructors kept telling the class that all trainees accepted into D-O school would be given some courses on the primary weapons of the fleet as a refresher before Rescue Tech graduation, but she knew that any acceptance to D-O school was no guarantee that she would attend the course. All applicants, regardless of their branch, had to spend at least one entire year in the fleet after their advanced class before they could attend the next D-O course. That was half the reason she had chosen Rescue Tech, it was the fastest way onto a ship in the fleet, and then hopefully to D-O.

  The final phase of the Rescue Tech training focused on a variety of simulations on the station, and on various ships that the instructors could get their hands on to use as temporary training platforms. Everything from the most modern warships to ancient vessels, including a twenty-kilometre-long fleet command ship. The training also involved civilian ships, freighters, water transports, pleasure cruisers, the lot. Anything the instructors could get their hands on was used as a training platform. All results tabulated, and all scores averaged.

  A few days after each test, the scores would go up on a large board outside the senior instructor’s office with the average calculated at the bottom. Of the one hundred and twenty-five trainees that had started the course, ninety remained, and of that, Standish was one of five that wanted to go D-O as soon as possible. With three exercises remaining, the most recent list put all five of the D-O wannabees at the top of the list. Shortly after the third to last major training exercise, word came down that someone from the Dynamic Operations branch would be visiting Tekori to interview the trainees and review their applications. That got Standish’s attention.

  14

  The Present

  Mechcharga

  The rain was pounding down on the deserted platform when Standish stepped out from the hovercar. Puddles were already forming on the rarely used platform that was at the edge of the forest that surrounded the royal palace. There was a reason she had chosen this remote location for her jumping-off point.

  “Your kit is loaded, and the nav computer is already set for a jump to Porth.” The armour droid said.

  Standish looked up at the bot as cool rain fell on her face. “Wipe all droid memory banks after I depart.” She stuck her finger out towards the two-metre tall robot. “Including yours.”

  “It will be done.”

  Standish looked towards the ship. It was time for her final mission.

  15

  The Past

  Tekori

  Standish failed the first test at her basic course. The fitness test. She earned a trip to medical where she was dunked into a healing bath filled with green gloopy liquid from the Jemonds tree on Asiatana. It was just the beginning of a long period of screw-ups that ended with her hurt. When she got to Rescue Tech school, things ramped up several notches.

  “Recruit Standish, what the fuck are you doing?” The instructor was towering over her. “You can’t fire that weapon without taking the safety off first!”

  Standish stopped trying to squeeze the trigger on the weapon, exhaled loudly, then flipped the safety off.

  “Finally!” The instructor barked. “Now engage your targets!”

  “First.”

  Standish tried to nod, but she was out of breath.

  “Well done.” The instructor looked at his data-pad. “A bit quicker and you might get the course record.”

  Standish righted herself and watched as the rest of her class crossed the finish line. She was fitter now than ever before, and it was starting to get results.

  “You do know how to read, don’t you?”

  Standish looked up from her test sheet. “Yes.” It came out like a positive response.

  “Where are you from?” The instructor asked.

  “Nadolo Prime?”

  “Never heard of it.” There was a pause. “You need remedial reading and writing classes.”

  Standish had always thought she was smart. At least back home. She looked at the girl sitting next to her. She had passed her basic course without needing help.

  “Don’t worry.” The girl winked. “I’ll help you.”

  Her name was Zara Five.

  “Better.”

  Standish looked at the data-pad. She had scored a seventy percent.

  “Getting better.” Zara Five complemented.

  “I thought I could read.” Standish said meekly.

  “Well, you’re better at a lot of things than I am.”

  Standish nodded. It didn’t matter that she was one of the star athletes of the course. She was embarrassed that her reading and writing were well under par.

  “Well done on the medical.” The instructor was reading from a data-pad. “You worked well with all the equipment, made quick decisions.” He looked at
Standish. “Decisiveness.” He nodded. “Decisiveness is critical for a Rescue Tech.”

  Standish smiled as she walked away from the test room.

  “Ahhhhh!” Standish was grabbing her leg.

  “What hurts?” The medical droid asked.

  An hour later, she was out of the infirmary.

  “You take a lot of risks, Standish.” Num Blaz said with a smile on his face.

  She smiled back at her big friend. She was starting to hear that a lot.

  “We’re coming in too fast!” Kasser yelled.

  “We’re fine.” Standish replied calmly.

  “Val, we need to slow down!”

  “Stay on target. Maintain speed.”

  “We need to stop!” Kasser shouted over the comms net.

  “No.” Standish replied with a relaxed delivery.

  The pair were tearing through space towards a training vessel at over five hundred kilometres an hour on jet-packs. The mission was simple: get to the ship, treat or evacuate as much role-playing crew as possible in under thirty minutes. Standish knew that the only chance they had to cut any real corners was on their approach run.

  “Get ready to break.” Standish warned.

  “We need to break now!”

  “Stay on course.” Standish said.

  Two kilometres to go.

  “Maintain pace.” She repeated.

  She had done the math. Full reverse thrust at half a kilometre from the target, then a relaxed final approach.

  One klick to go.

  “Prepare to break.” Standish primed herself for the massive amount of G’s that were about to hit her body.

  “I’ve…..”

  “Kasser?”

  “Lost power to the jets!” Kasser screamed.

  At half a kilometre, Standish hit the breaks. She killed the thrust from the pack on her back and applied maximum thrust from her forward-facing jets. She stopped just in time, a nanosecond of G force straining her body, still in space, just hanging five hundred metres from a massive, dark grey hull of a ship in time to watch her training partner slam into the side at full speed.