Rise of the Empire 1: Olympus (13 page)

With the goal of the meeting accomplished Laura dismissed the room, Adrian stayed behind with Laura like he always did after a meeting. Laura usually discussed the meetings with Adrian, and asked him for his opinions on the topics.

“So, what do you think? Is it smart of us to increase our military capabilities in space?”

Adrian was familiar with most everything on the topics, learning things by attending the meetings
, and basically shadowing Laura everywhere. He had no doubt that it was her intention, he realized quickly that he was being groomed for command, of what he still wasn’t sure. He attended classified meetings with Laura, in his spare time he studied on technology that was used on Olympus ships, from military vessels to transport and cargo. He studied regulations, and continued with his martial arts training. He learned about command from watching Laura, and learned about the logistics of space colonization.

“Yes, we have a lot of assets in space already, much more than the Earth countries combined. Their plans to build military
space ships in secret implies an agenda other than defense, but then again we did build ships capable of war in secret as well. But their intentions don’t really matter, we need to be able to defend our assets in space much more than they do, our entire economy is based in space, since leaving Earth we have shut down, sold, or transferred most of our Earth enterprises to space. Any loss will impact us much more because of it.” Adrian said, trying to use a more professional tone, like the one he often heard various Olympus personnel using when reporting to Laura.

Laura smiled and nodded.

“Yes, you are right, though Tomas still wants our military capabilities to remain a secret.” She said.

She looked at Adrian for a moment and then asked
. “Did the integration with your implant go well?” She asked.

“Yes, there were no problems.” Adrian answered.

“And the AI?”

“There were no problems with her as well.”

“Her?” Laura asked raising her eyebrow.

Adrian felt a blush coming ove
r his face and answered quickly.

“She said she would prefer
it if I referred to her as a female. I mean after she chose a female name.”

“You didn’t name the Ai yourself?” She asked
surprised.

“Ah, well it didn’t seem right, I asked if she wanted to choose her own name and she said she did, I provided her with some of the books from my collection, and she chose a name from them. Then when I told her that the name is female she said that it didn’t really matter if it was male or female as she had no gender, but that if it made me feel better I could refer to her as a female.” He said in a
single breath.

Laura looked at him approvingly
. “Really? From the reports I read, all the Ai’s of this type were named by their users, and every male user gave his Ai a male name, and every female hers a female one. Hmm… you need to send the data from your implant to the research department, as soon as you can, they would be very interested in it. But let’s move on to other things. You will be attending the fleet academy soon with other recruits, I have no doubt that you will graduate with highest marks. But nevertheless I want you to focus solely on the classes. And of course you are not to speak anything of what you heard during our meetings, you have high clearance but your classmate will not.” She looked expectantly at Adrian until he said that he understood.

“Good. After you graduate we’ll see about the continuation of your career.” She narrowed her eyes at him and continued
. “I have no doubt that you have already figured out that your educational path is different, and that we have other things in plan for you.” When he tried to feign surprise, she scowled at him. “Oh, wipe that expression of your face, I have no delusions about your intellect, I and my superiors know very well that you are unique. And as I said we have plans for you, but you do need to keep your focus and surmount all the obstacles we put before you.” Now there was no need for Adrian to feign surprise, as he was genuinely surprised. He assumed that he caught Laura’s eye and that she groomed him for a command position within the fleet, but knowing that even her superiors had taken notice, that scared him. As far as he knew Laura’s only superiors were Elias Bakas, who commanded the Olympus military, which in fact now made him the same rank as Laura, and then Tomas Klein himself. And the thought that Tomas Klein was interested in him was frightening. “Attending the academy will be one of those obstacles.” She continued seemingly unaware of Adrian’s thoughts. “The academy will put you amongst other recruits, most of who will be older than you. You will need to not only pass, but also make them recognize you as their equal. Your intellect has always put you ahead of those your own age, but being intelligent is not the same thing as being smart. Now you will be in situation where everyone around you will have more experience than you. We are hoping to level the playing field for you a bit.” She smirked. “Do you think you are up to the task?”

Adrian swallowed hard he looked at Laura and realized that even with his smarts he was still far behind those older than him, he thought himself smarter than anyone else, and even though he realized
that they had plans for him, he still failed to see the scope of those plans.

“Yes.” Adrian answered, but not really
sure whether he truly was up to the task.

Laura looked at him, her eyes searching something in his, then she finally nodded

“Good.” She then stood up and left the room, leaving Adrian alone with his thoughts.

Later that evening Adrian sat in his room thinking about his future. He still struggled with the notion that someone had plans
for his future, he feared that his life would not be his own, that he would be limited by the path set before him, like when he was in the orphanage. But then again, this was an opportunity, he knew that everyone in Olympus was free to choose his own path, it was he who chose to go to the military, and then to go to the fleet when opportunity presented itself. He could have refused, and continued on to the military school. And he knew that he was given much more opportunities than anyone else. What he learned over his life in Olympus was that here, skill was valued over anything else, age and experience did factor in, but skill was paramount. That skill usually came with age and experience did make things different in Olympus, where most left school well past the age people on Earth did. And they could afford it, people lived longer now than in the past, and had more time to study and get experience before choosing what they wanted to do. Adrian was the exception, he was given the chance because of his intelligence. He had no doubt that he needed to confirm their trust in him, but he was also a bit scared to have them trust him that much. He kept thinking it over before finally deciding that he would continue to give his best, and hope that he lived up to the expectations they had of him. He lost himself in his thoughts until a soft female voice interrupted his mussing

“Adrian, may I ask you something?”
the voice said.

For a moment he was startled and started looking around his room for the source of the voice, when he saw that there wasn’t anyone there with him, he realized to whom the voice must belong to.

“Iris, is that you?” He asked.

“Of course. Ther
e is no one else present here.”
She said.

Adrian shook his head and grinned.

“I see that you synthesized a female voice for yourself.”

“Obviously.”
She said. And Adrian swore he could feel a touch of amusement in her tone.

“I like it.” He said.

“Thank you.”
She said, and now he was sure he heard pride in her tone.

“You wanted to ask me something?”

“Yes. I wanted to know if I could have access to the rest of your databases. I have already read through your book collection several times, I find that the material becomes less entertaining after fiftieth read through.”
She said.

Adrian opened his mouth in shock. She already read through his collection
fifty times? He realized that he shouldn’t have been surprised, she had much greater processing capability than him, and even though his own brain’s processing speed will increase over time as he became more compatible with his implants he will still not be able to match her pure computing abilities. He thought of ways to keep her occupied, and reached a decision.

“
Ok, I’ll give you access to my databases, I can also give you limited surf access to the net, through my implant.”

“Great! Thank you Adrian.”
She exclaimed happily.

Adrian set the permissions
on his implant, and went to sleep.

Chapter Fourteen

January 2102 – two years later

Adrian stood at attention inside the receiving area on
the combat-training base. He, alongside his ninety nine classmates had just arrived on the base, for the combat part of their training. The base itself was in space between Mars and the asteroid belt, and was massive, at least a couple kilometers long. They spent the last two years learning about Fleet operations, from how to pilot a ship, to how to fight it, they spent significant number of hours in the simulators, where they were put in teams and competed against each other, in fleet combat operations, or where they had to survive different kind of crisis that were reality of operating in space. After two years of classes and fleet training they had a week long testing period where they were evaluated on everything they learned during those two years. Those that passed were given a rank of Cadet Tier I, and then those who wanted to be in leadership positions, and had sufficiently high scores at the end, were sent to this base, where they would spend the next year training with army personnel. After finishing this year of combat training for those who wish to be in command positions, they will be given a chance to serve and command a real ship. It was decided that anyone who was part of the fleet command needed to have at least some military knowledge and expertise. No one really had any experience fighting in space, and wouldn’t until a conflict appeared. But Olympus leaders wanted everyone to know how to fight, there were even some talks of installing a mandatory one year training for all members of Olympus. Their population was small, and since the only military they had was a former security, they had a need to expand their forces, having everyone go through at least a year of military training was one of the proposed solutions, effectively turning entire noncombatant Olympus population into militia. The biggest reason for the plan, was an alarming increase in military activity from Earth countries. Their “secret” warships finished, with more in construction, and a great push in technological research from Earth in weapons and space technology was alarming to Olympus. On the surface the relations between Earth and Olympus were good, they traded, and kept cordial communications, with Olympus providing some small aid to their colonization efforts. The plans for a mandatory military training were still secret, and Adrian was only privy to them because of his connections to Laura Reiss. He had grown close to her, with her becoming something of a mother figure to him, he spent his vacation days with her, and they kept in touch via messages and vid calls.

Adrian stood somewhere around the middle of the single line they f
ormed on instructions from Platoon Leader Martinez. After they disembarked from transport, they were immediately instructed to form a line and wait at attention for the man in charge of the base to greet them. A minute later the doors on the far side of the receiving area opened and a man in dark green army uniform of Olympus stepped in followed by one other man with darker skin, almost pure black. As the man approached Adrian could discern the rank markings on his shoulders, there was a simple star with three shallow V bars bellow it marking him as a Force Commander, one of the higher ranks in the army. The army had changed its rankings from those most commonly used on Earth. The man besides him had a star, the same as the Force Commander and a one shallow V bar bellow, marking him as a Commander, a rank lower than that of a Force Commander. The men stopped a few steps in front of the line and both of them looked at Adrian and his classmates.

Force Commander cleared his throat and spoke in a clear carrying voice
. “I welcome you to the army’s zero-gravity training base. I am Force Commander Nicholas Pierce, and I am in charge of this facility. You are the first ever class to come through this training base without being a part of the army, and as such you will be put through a yearlong crash course in the army operations. Our superiors thought it wise to have their fleet personnel sent here to be trained, until they bring their own programs up and running, and I completely agree, unlike some others.” As he said this he glanced at the man standing beside him. “You will have much to prove. I hope that you don’t disappoint. And as you probably already know passing this course is a requirement for graduating from fleet. I wish you all good luck.” With that he turned and left through the doors he came in through. The man who came with him remained and kept glaring at them. After a few moments he finally introduced himself.

“I am Commander Dayo Okoro, I will be in charge of your training. And I, unlike my commander do not agree about the decision to have you spacers trained in the
army facilities. But since it is not my decision I can only try to make you into something that will be as small embarrassment to the Olympus army forces as possible.” There were some murmurs from Adrian’s classmates at his words and Commander immediately zeroed in on one of the cadets that Adrian recognized as Liam Thorne, a thirty year old former transport pilot, and stepped right up to him

“You think that you have what it takes to learn in a single year what our recruits
struggle to learn in three years!?” He yelled at the cadet. Liam shrunk back at the Commanders booming voice that echoed throughout the bay.

He swallowed and looked straight at the Commander
. “No.”

A scowl appeared on Commander’s face
. “You will respond to all questions by a superior officer with a Yes, or No, Sir or Ma’am!” He yelled again. “And did I tell you, that you can look me in the eyes?!” His voice boomed. “Eyes forward!”

Liam quickly
turned his gaze to the far side of the bay. Commander Okoro turned from Liam with a curse. “You lot aren’t even trained in simple army etiquette. How am I supposed to teach you worms anything.” He said. He turned to Platoon Leader Martinez. “Get this sorry bunch out of here and into their quarters.” Martinez saluted a fist to chest Okoro returned the salute and left the bay.

Platoon
Leader Martinez turned to them and ushered them towards a side door and through the base, they walked for a few minutes before arriving at a big door that slid opened when they came close to it, they went inside and found that there were ten more rooms inside, all the doors were open and they could see a room with ten beds inside each room.

Martinez walked to the middle of the main room where a five big TV’s were placed in front of wide couches and a few tables, further inside of the main room there were billiard tables. Martinez gestured for them to gather around him and spoke
.

“These will be your accommodations for the next year, your rooms have been chosen for you,
bathrooms and shower rooms are down at the end of the room, women on the left and men on the right, your room number should arrive in your implant inboxes shortly, you will be placed in groups of ten, and you will act as a team in your training. Not all of you will go through the same training, and you will all either pass or fail together with your teammates.” There were again murmurs at that but Martinez forestalled them by raising his hand. “Inside your rooms you will find army uniforms that you are required to wear. Leave your cadet uniforms inside your lockers, you won’t be needing them here. You are free for the rest of the day, you are starting your training early tomorrow morning 06:00 base time. It’s now 18:13, you should set your implants to base time immediately, and go to bed early, you will need to be rested tomorrow.” With that he left them. Those few of Adrian’s classmates that didn’t have implants were given them prior to their arrival on the station. Adrian’s classmates didn’t know that he had one as well, he was too young and the implant he had was top secret and he wasn’t allowed to talk about it with those who didn’t have high enough clearance. So he brought his datapad out and found out his room number there. Adrian’s classmates immediately started talking with each other while some started separating into groups by their rooms. Most of them were familiar with each other from the fleet academy and were at ease with each other. His room number was 9, which was the last room on right. When he entered the room he found that three of his new roommates were already there, he, of course knew them, like they knew him, there was Marcus Long, before coming to the Fleet Academy he was in the military school, though he was approached before he chose his path, Helen Morris who finished school as a simulation programmer, and Paul Isaacs the only one among the recruits who worked on Cloud station before being invited to attend fleet academy. But they were acquaintances at best. When he entered the room their conversation stopped, and they looked awkwardly at him, Adrian nodded respectively and went to the free bunk. There were two bunks on each side of the room with one at the end of the room, he took the bottom bunk of the second bunk on the right side of the room. He put his bag down and noticed that each bunk had a locker on each side, and a drawer beneath the bottom bunk on each side. Adrian took those on the left side, he put the contents of his bag inside the empty drawer, which wasn’t much, and he had a few toiletries, spare garments and his datapad. He then opened the locker and found three sets of army uniforms and boots. The army uniforms followed the same pattern as the fleet ones, they were dark green with black outlines, while the fleet ones were black with dark blue outlines. And of course the insignia was different, the army had Olympus logo with a green star above it, while the fleet had the same Olympus logo only with a round field of stars.

Adrian then looked back at his roommates and saw that five more of them have arrived, the new arrivals were Noah MacKay who previously worked as a cargo and shipment manager on Earth, while playing Fleet Commander in his spare time. He wasn’t the only one of the recruits that were invited because their success at the game. The other arrivals were Araki Sakura who
finished the military school before the Academy. Alexander Mencken former med student invited to the fleet after he expressed interest in becoming a doctor on one of the mining ships, next was Ana Trzin, 26 years old. Adrian had matured early, at sixteen he had already finished his height growth, and he was in better form than most other people, but his 18 year old face still held that boyish look, and anyone looking at him would know that he was much younger than his classmates. Ana had just finished Olympus College for space technologies at Sedna when she was approached to join fleet, she would most likely go for becoming a ships engineer which meant going through one more year of specialization back at the Academy after this course. Next was Tania Nast another pilot. Adrian considered joining them but found that he didn’t really know what to say to them. When he first started classes at the Academy he was confident that he would make friends fast and make them accept him as their own, but he was only half successful. Oh they acknowledged him as their classmate, they small talked on breaks and lunch, they all respected his knowledge and skill, and everyone wanted him on their team during assignments or simulations. His teams tended to do better than the others, they followed his lead when he was in command, or at least most did, and then wanted him as a subordinate when they were in command. They asked him about things they didn’t understand in class or to help them study. But socially they were distant. He wasn’t invited to parties, or simply on a night out. He couldn’t really say that he had friends. He accomplished what Laura wanted him to, he proved himself to them as a peer, but not as someone who they wanted to hang out with. During the past two years Adrian felt alone, he still emailed with Sahib regularly, and they were best friends still, but had grown a bit distant over the years, and Sahib was busy with his own training, and he had made new friends. Sahib tried to include Adrian in his new circle of friends, when he was on break, inviting him out with them, but they didn’t really mesh, Sahib and his friends had formed bonds during their training, and Adrian just didn’t fit in, he hoped that after this course he could feel at least bit closer to his best friend, having passed at least a fraction of what he went through.

Looking at his new roommates Adrian decided that this was his opportunity to bond with them and make friends, after all they will be stuck together for a year. He started towards them when he noticed another person entering the room. As soon as he recognized her he froze. The woman entering the room was Bethany Jones, the last person Adrian wanted to be around. She was
26 years old, she had red hair cut just above her jawline, green eyes, short pretty nose and a fit body that only came with years of physical activity, and had taken upon herself to refer to Adrian as “that kid”. Before fleet she also finished military school and was planning to continue on to army. Her father was ex Concordis military, and then later Olympus security and now Olympus army, her brother was in the Olympus army as well, and she was groomed for military life from early childhood. She was always the best, graduated top of her class, and was always the smartest person in the room. At least she was, until Adrian. She had finished as second in their class at the Academy, right behind Adrian. Their simulation battles were widely talked about amongst the students, Adrian had finished ahead with 23 wins, while Bethany had 16 wins, and they had 8 draws. Bethany was very competitive, and having never really met her match until Adrian, she didn’t take to being second best very well. She insisted on calling him “kid”, even though she wasn’t all that much older than him, at least in Adrian’s eyes. And Adrian simply didn’t know how to respond, he tended to avoid her, and since she was popular that meant avoiding crowds.