"Once you hear the click, you wait for confirmation. If the connection is successful, the red light will turn green." The man gestured toward the green light. "Then, and only then, do you open the flow line from the activation switch. Once pressed, the switch will lock," he went on, stepping back and releasing the handle for all the cadets to see.
Oz did his best to look engaged. You didn't get this far without having memorized the parts of a fuel injector, though. This was week two boot camp material. A few others leaned in, pretending to need a better look.
They worked their way from the lock clamp to the fuel cells beneath the ground, then they took turns clamping the practice connector in silence. There were only eleven in Oz's group. There were meant to be twelve. Someone hadn't made it to the fourth day.
Most of the cadets he didn't recognize. They were from other camps. Few from his own class had made the grades to become a pilot, and fewer still had wanted it. They had all chosen to sit on core worlds and pretend the human race wasn't on the brink. They wanted the rights and privileges of a soldier, without the actual sacrifice. The shame their parents must have felt.
When they were done with the fuel injector, their instructor, Corporal Plenge, quizzed them on the order of cleaning down the jets. They walked through the tools and chemicals, and then were sent off to service the ships in teams.
Oz was paired with a cadet that was taller, and lankier than him. He had an accent that was hard to place. They were directed to a ship called the Hellblazer. Oz climbed into the pod and his partner started the hose down below.
The pilot's pod wasn't what he had expected. The lines of it were different than the simulator's, and from his manual. This seemed cleaner, and newer. The inside was nearly spotless, but he scrubbed it cleaner and wiped it dry. He reached his hand into the side holster and pulled free the firearm last.
Dark lines traced around the last few inches of the barrel in a spiral. It weighed nearly nothing. He recognized it as an RM-91. Two modes of sonic burst, single fire and spray. Deadly up to ninety-five meters. Oz wiped it down, and slid it back into the holster. Then he went to help his partner polish the last of the frame down.
The cadets walked as a group back to the barracks twenty minutes later, rushing slightly to make their simulator time.
"Can't believe they had us working on fuel clamps again. They told us we'd be in the air by now. They've got techs to fuel that shit."
Oz shook his head, as his lanky partner continued to run his mouth. They weren't allowed to speak to each other outside of training. They all knew the rules.
"I was falling asleep," another cadet chimed in.
Oz grit his teeth and walked faster.
"Did you check out the gun?" someone in the back asked.
"Nah, he was hogging it," the lanky boy said, nodding to Oz. "Ya gotta learn to share next time, private," he grinned.
"Shut your fucking mouth," Oz growled.
The hallways finally went quiet for a moment. Then the other boys were laughing again. But not one of them spoke again as they entered the dormitory and split apart.
Amateurs, he thought.
Corporal Greaves was waiting for him in the room, reading a book. "All finished then?"
Oz nodded. They were off to the simulator room again half a breath later. Today, he faced an overwhelming swarm of enemy.
His ship was immediately ripped in half by gunfire. "If the odds are impossible, and you have command's approval, it's better to escape and fight again another day," Greaves told him. "There are fewer and fewer new ships making it to the front lines. Preserve what you can. And, if you can't, at least keep the enemy from getting any scrap of it intact."
"But I didn't have permission to escape, sir," Oz told him.
"And you still don't. Run it again."
Greaves' hand kept a steady beat against the Start button as Oz plummeted down to the virtual planet and died again and again beneath the crushing wave of fighters.
It was tedious, but Oz trusted in the system. He was certain that he was learning a lesson, at some level or another.
They broke for lunch, ate quickly, and hit the gym for two hours. By the end of it, the boy's hands were shaking and he couldn't uncurl his fingers again. Greaves sent him down to the fourth floor, where the cadet's shower room was stationed in an unused and unkempt corridor.
Oz stripped quickly, ambivalent to the other cadets chattering on behind him. He braced for the weak spray of icy water.
As the first burst spilled over his face, his air was cut off by a belt around his throat. The world exploded into white light as his head hit the tile floor. His hands went instinctively to his face just as the blows rained down across his body.
He rolled to his knees, but the belt held him in place and a flurry of kicks struck out against his belly and legs.
The belt pulled free and cracked against his back. Oz collapsed, cradling his head between his elbows. Someone tried to strike between his legs, and he rolled wildly, exposing his face and belly again. A kick to the side of his rips made him scream, and then the blows slowed, and then stopped.
"Remember private," a voice called over him. "If someone asks what happened to you, you shut your fucking mouth."
After a few minutes of a silence, he crawled up to his elbows, and found the room was empty and his shower had cut itself off. He tried to stand, but there was a sharp pain in his ribs, and he could hear his breath wheezing. He sat back down on the the drain, trying to think of what to do, and how he was going to get back up the steps. Every time he tried to think of a solution, his mind drifted off again.
Oz wiped away a dribble of blood that ran down his eye. They'd cut his scalp somehow. Thankfully, his attackers had been naked too, other than the belt. It would have been a lot worse if they had used their service boots.
The door to the bathroom opened and Greaves stepped inside. Oz saw a few other cadets behind him, peering in curiously. They weren't the ones that had attacked him, though.
