The Methuselan Circuit (22 page)

“Welcome to Luna,” Centurion Fjallheim told them, striding to the rear door. “Everybody check your suit. There should be a green bar in the lower right hemisphere of your visiplate. That means you have a good seal. If it is any other color pipe up now or you’re going to make quite the mess inside your suit—your squadron mates will be responsible for cleaning the suit up for your replacement!”

Alexander checked, but by the time he found what the Centurion was talking about he heard the unmistakable whine of hydraulic motors. The air hissed out of the troopship as the aft clamshell doors opened revealing a bright, stark moonscape. Alexander held his breath. His suit tightened around him, compensating for the loss of pressure. The controller announced, “Seal confirmed. Your suit is operating normally.”

“Now you tell me,” Alexander grumbled to himself. What if he or someone else had a problem? It would be too late now. The centurion’s non-descript attitude was shortly explained. He heard Centurion Fjallheim announce to Cadet Svenson, “Don’t worry, that sound you heard was the helmet seating itself correctly. You must’ve failed to seat it properly when you put it on. The clamps are automatic, but that doesn’t mean you can be sloppy! Take five demerits and pay attention to detail next time!”

Of course, the centurion must have had a display showing him any abnormality amongst the cadets suits. In all likelihood that comforting oversight would be missing when they graduated seven long years from now. The centurion strode to the opening in the rear. It was now yawning wide enough to get the biggest zank through without any problem. The vista beyond showed a bright gray lunar landscape with a black sky beyond. “Alright, in file by flight, everyone fall out! Alpha through Lima to the west side of the field; Mike through Zulu to the east side of the field, double time, move, move, move!”

They did so at a jump, and that created problems, even as Fjallheim and the other centurions so obviously expected. Alexander marched out the door and onto the dusty lunar plain, or so he tried, but it wasn’t nearly as easy as he expected. Moving around in low-G wasn’t natural. His steps took him too far, he bounded when he meant to walk and he couldn’t stop himself. Fortunately for Alexander’s pride, everyone else had the same problems—except for Treya. Still, aside from the Chem girl, everyone was vulnerable to the centurion’s rapid fire critiques and the resultant demerits.

“Nice dancing ladies, Cadet Doran stop bumping into your classmates—take two demerits for being clumsy. Cadet Thomas there will be no bouncing in formation; I don’t care how high you can go, take five for showing off. Ostenhausen, who gave you permission start taking soil samples (he’d fallen down); digging a latrine here will do you no good, take five demerits!”

Alexander recovered enough to take note of the flat expanse outside the troopship. The bottom of a shallow lunar crater was scraped level in an area one hundred and fifty meters long by fifty meters wide. At either end were tall white goal posts. Around the field the crater walls were terraced to form a perfectly round natural amphitheater. Alexander headed to the near sideline after checking his wrist compass, trying as best he could to keep an even measured pace. That was easy to think about but almost too much fun to accomplish. The feeling of bouncing along weighing only a sixth of what he did a few moments before was exhilarating. He couldn’t help but skip, jump and bounce toward the spot on the sidelines where he guessed “Kilo” flight belonged.

Sure enough, before too long Centurion Fjallheim’s red laser designator flashed on his visiplate. “Ca-det Wolfe, I expected a little bit more attention to regulation from you! Just for my high expectations, you can take ten demerits!”

Alexander gulped. Ten demerits, that was halfway to guard duty, and this was the first day of the week! He curtailed his enthusiasm, mechanically measuring his tread to the half speed one-two-three-hup the manual prescribed for low-G marching. It was with markedly less enthusiasm that he halted, skidding in the lunar soil, almost falling over, but catching himself at the last moment. Quickly and efficiently he lined up “Kilo” flight before everyone else. If he barked a bit louder than he needed to, that was O.k., everyone understood—ten demerits was a lot.

It took another few minutes for the gray dust to settle, falling slowly back to the lunar surface, the general thought was, “What next?” Centurion Fjallheim stalked the sideline, his bushy brows knit behind his transparent aluminum faceplate. “You darlings took long enough to get in line,” he said gruffly. That meant demerits were sure to follow. “India and Yankee flight were the last to form up—five demerits for each flight lead, two demerits for each flight member. Kilo and November were the first to form up—five merits for each flight lead and two for each flight member. Is that understood ladies!?”

“Sir, yes sir!” Alexander breathed a sigh of relief; five demerits was manageable.

“Parade rest!”

Now they just had to wait. It didn’t take long. The lunar base was south of them. Blue-white and silver domes, turrets and spires were all they could see of the lunar base. Most of it was hidden by a low ridge of gray material streaked with bright white ejecta. Over the ridge, marching toward the cadets in two single file lines were two squads of legionary troopers. The squads marched double-time, wearing full combat gear. It was eerily strange to watch the legionary’s ghostly march in low-G. Their strides were longer than normal, slower than normal, and they held them while bounding across the lunar landscape—but they were in perfect unison. The legionaries disappeared beneath the crater lip but then reappeared, bounding from the lip and into the crater in pairs. Each pair landed at precisely the same time, precisely aligned and on the same foot. They marched to the center of the field. On the command of their squad leaders, they came to a halt. It was more than just a little impressive. Each squad turned half away from the other at a barked command from their leaders. Now one squad faced half the cadets and the other squad faced the other group of cadets. A legionary centurion strode out from the end of the formation. “Squads take your sidelines and safety your weapons!” Each squad trotted to their respective sideline, placing their battle blasters in pre-placed racks and placing their integrated battle-armor weapons on safety.

“Hotel squad, armor to white!” the centurion shouted. The squad on Alexander’s side of the field roared in response and their mottled gray battle-armor turned white.

“Charlie squad, armor to red!” he ordered. The squad facing away responded with a similar shout and all at once their armor turned red.

“Red team defend the south goal, white team defend the north goal!” The legionaries took their positions on the field. As they did so, the legionary centurion addressed the cadets. “Cadets, I am Centurion Chambers-Smythe of the Ninth Legion, the Lionheart Legion. Our history goes back to the victories of Julius Caesar in Gaul, to the Battle for Terra with Alexander and the final subjugation of the Methuselan Homeworld. It was the Ninth Legion that annihilated the last pocket of Fanatics and closed the Caliphate Wars, bringing peace back to the Empire.” He paused for effect and it wasn’t lost on the cadets. The Legions and the Fleet were founded on tradition. Pride ran deep in the Service. “It is customary before every match to salute each other,” he thumped his fist on his chest and shouted, “To our honored dead!”

Alexander reacted reflexively, and his voice melded with those voices of every cadet, instructor and legionary as one, “To our honored dead!”

“Well done,” Centurion Chambers-Smythe replied dryly. “Now, what we have for you today is a common legionary low-G training regimen called
Lugby,
which of course is slang for low-G Rugby. You will see how this exercise effectively trains legionary troopers in low-G maneuvers as well as enhances the skills of teamwork, communication, toughness and competitiveness that are the core of the legionary trooper.” He removed a small object from his belt and plugged it into something at the wrist of his glove. The object inflated into a ball of roughly oblong shape. Without waiting, Centurion Chambers-Smythe threw the ball into the black sky and shouted, “Play ball!”

Neither Alexander nor his fellow cadets was prepared for what happened next.

CHAPTER 17: The Lugby Ball

The speed of the legionaries was matched only by the violence of the scrum. It wasn’t a normal scrum, either. Like some terrifying beetles, the armored legionaries formed a living pyramid of men reaching into the black lunar sky for the falling ball. The two masses clashed together with the unmistakable shock of Plasteel-on-Plasteel. Since there was no atmosphere on Luna, there was no air to transmit the sound, but the cadets heard the clash from the legionary transmitters. Also assaulting their ears were the grunts, orders and breathing of the legionaries—creating a confusion of sound all mixed up with the flurry of motion.

Alexander understood the importance of the lesson immediately. Like combat, the legionaries had to take in everything, all the confusing stimulus of the game, and tailor their actions toward a specific goal. It wasn’t a matter of reducing the stimulus so that a legionary could function; it was a matter of training the legionary to process everything and use it to win on the battlefield. That was the point of Z-Crosse and the other games they played, but to see it used on fully trained combat deadly legionaries gave Alexander a new appreciation for what the Academy put them through.

Lugby on Luna was fantastically fun to watch. It was fast and violent. When legionaries collided they flew farther than they did on Terra and they could obviously jump higher; so there were players flying all over the field, high and low. Alexander and his fellow cadets were soon caught up in the game, rooting for the white team. Back and forth the game went. First the reds scored and then the whites; then the whites and the reds. It was very even, but no one really thought about that, they were all enthralled by the action. About halfway through the first half one of the red players bounded toward Alexander’s sideline, he tried to turn the corner, using his jets to help him cut. Alexander was watching how he used his muscles in concert with his jets, trying to think of how to improve his own coordinated flying, when two white players hit the red ball carrier hard in mid leap. The red player was already ten meters in the airless space above the lunar surface when he was hit, but the force propelled him even higher and slung him around like a pinwheel. He lost the ball. It accelerated out of his hand and rocketed into the black sky. It didn’t start to descend until it flew over the rim of the crater. They lost sight of it behind the gray rocks.

Centurion Fjallheim sprang into action. “Cadet Wolfe and Cadet Khandar retrieve that ball—maximum effort! The one who returns the ball to me wins an extra day of shore leave on Terra for his entire flight; the loser wins a weekend of guard duty for his entire flight!” The centurion hadn’t finished his orders before Alexander bolted out of line. He bounded toward the crater rim, trying to run and bound at the same time, using his jets to accelerate while leaping through the vacuum. Puffs of gray soil marked his footsteps. He could hear his flight cheering him on, their voices echoing in his helmet, but he could also hear the cadets of Khandar’s flight.

Stealing a glance to his left, Alexander marked Khandar heading toward the same spot in the ridge. “Computer, can you locate the ball?” he gasped in mid bound, redoubling his effort. He had to beat Khandar!

“Computing trajectory and probable landing area,” the computer answered. It projected a blue dashed arc on his visor. Alexander noted the landing area and turned slightly right, heading toward the center. Unfortunately, a circle almost a hundred meters in radius surrounded the spot where the computer calculated the ball landed. Before Alexander could ask, the computer explained, “Without a micromap of the lunar surface of this area it is impossible to estimate which direction the ball bounced after landing. The circular area represents the maximum distance the ball could travel after impact.”

Hardly had the computer finished its explanation when Alexander saw he had something else to worry about, namely Khandar. The Golkos cadet was heading right for him, meaning to check Alexander off his flight path. He was already in mid leap, so all Alexander could do was throw his hands and feet forward and hit his jets. He slowed only slightly, but it was enough to send Khandar sailing in front of him. The Golkos was ready for a collision, and his miss threw him off balance. When he landed, he staggered, taking several extra steps before bounding into the airless heights again. Still, he laughed, “See you on the other side Terran!” He was in the lead.

That was true, Alexander thought, but only for the moment. Before Alexander landed he hit his jets again, hitting the lunar soil hard with his left foot and then his right, driving off the surface. Leaning forward he hit his jets, launching himself like a javelin, aiming straight for Khandar’s back. The Golkos looked around for him, but the helmet’s visibility wasn’t perfect. He never saw Alexander swing his legs forward and plant his boots squarely on the Golkos boy’s back. An exclamation of surprise from Khandar rang in Alexander’s helmet, but it didn’t dissuade him. As his momentum shoved Khandar forward and off balance, Alexander pushed off on the cadet’s shoulders, sending the lanky Golkos spinning down at the terrain and giving him extra impetus.

Alexander was giddy with glee as he soared ahead of the cursing Khandar. The roar of his classmates sent a thrill down his spine. His excitement was short lived, however. As he crested the top of the crater rim a pocked and pitted area of folds and cracks came into view—finding the ball was going to be tough, but his immediate concern was landing. This was not the smooth lunar plain they landed on but a narrow band of debris and shock rings from the formation of the crater. Alexander sighted a landing area and prepared for the impact. He struck it with both feet, not trying to stop, only to control his landing and launch himself toward another suitable landing area. His landing was good, and he bounded back up, but he soon discovered that he had virtually no time to scan the terrain for the ball before he had to think about landing again. Another landing, this time slightly off balance, so his bounce sent him off to the right and away from the center of his search area. It also made Alexander lean too far to the right. He used his jets to try and right himself, but all they did was stop his lean, there wasn’t enough time to correct it. Alexander was going to crash hard into a rocky area; this was going to hurt. Bam! Something hit him in mid air. It was Khandar. Now instead of Alexander crashing into the ground they both hit, bouncing, skidding and spinning out of control.