Intergalactic Wizard Scout Chronicles 1: Wizard Defiant (7 page)

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The initial week of Academy training went by quickly. Unfortunately, the following weekend dragged by. Without academic classes, they were once again under the full control of TAC Officer Myers. He ran them relentlessly from one fiendish torture to another. Regardless, things seemed better than they had been before. Richard doubted the TAC officers had slacked off just because they were officially Academy cadets. Rather, Richard figured it was because having Telsa, Jerad, and Tam to joke around with made the TAC officers’ tortures easier to take. Whatever the reason, they survived the weekend, and Richard found himself looking forward to another week of Academy classes. The previous week had been indoctrinations. The real training started now.

Once they were marched through the Academy gates, their platoon sergeants guided them into a large auditorium for a common-core class. Chief Instructor Winslow stood at the podium waiting patiently for all the cadets to take their seats. She was a civilian, but Richard liked her anyway.

“Now, cadets,” she said to the two hundred and sixteen students. “After your first week of wizard classes, what are your questions?”

A cadet a few seats to the left of Richard raised her hand.

“Yes, cadet 240? What is your question?”

The cadet, a female from the Kreptilia sector jumped out of her seat to a stiff attention and yelled, “Sir! Cadet 240 does not understand the difference between magic and Power. They both seem the same. Sir!”

“Ah, yes,” chuckled the chief instructor with a smile, “that’s a common point of confusion. And, you don’t have to say ‘Sir!’ twice when you talk to an Academy instructor, nor do you have to stand at attention and shout. You are here to learn.”

Chief Instructor Winslow was a nice woman. While Richard figured she thought she was doing the cadets a favor by trying to create a relaxed atmosphere, he thought she was really doing them a disservice. Although they had only started their official Academy classes last week, the two years of pre-Academy training with the 4th Training Brigade had taught him that you had to stay on your toes at all times. They had started with eight hundred and thirty-two cadets. They were now at two hundred and sixteen. The TAC officers were always looking for any little excuse to D.F.R. a cadet. Assuming he graduated in four more years, he would be one of less than a hundred cadets from their original cohort of eight hundred thirty-two who would have the golden-dragon insignia of a wizard scout pinned on their lapel.

“As you were told during your indoctrinations last week, the entire universe is composed of Power with a capital ‘P’. Everything has it, and when you get to some of your advanced classes in quantum relativity, it will be explained to you in mindboggling detail,” she said with a friendly laugh and smile. “But for now, just know everything radiates at least a small amount of Power. Most of that radiated Power is recycled back into other existing objects, but some of the Power finds its way into pools, or as they are more commonly called, reserves. The process is similar to the way water evaporates and is released back to earth as rain. Most of the rainwater is soaked back into the ground, but some of it winds up in lakes. Think of one of those lakes as your Power reserve. Each of you has access to one of those Power reserves. If you didn’t, you would not be at the Academy. Almost everyone shares a reserve with others. If your access is to one of the larger reserves, you may share it with hundreds of others. A few fortunate wizards have a reserve all to themselves, although that is rare. Once you get to your upper level classes, you will be trained how to use the Power in your reserve to energize your wizard abilities. By the end of your time at the Academy, you will be able to use your Power to perform active and passive scans, create stealth and defensive shields, perform heals and self-heals, tear holes in an opponent’s shields, and even use telekinesis to levitate objects including yourselves. A few of you may even be talented enough to manipulate Power links or do interdimensional shifts. In your final class at the Academy, you will learn how to dump the Power in your reserve as a last-ditch method of attack. But don’t let your egos swell too much,” she laughed. “Your opponents will have learned defenses against your wizard abilities, and hopefully, you will have learned defenses against theirs.”

She paused a few seconds to let the cadets ponder the information before continuing. “During your first two years as cadets, you were in pre-Academy training designed to weed out those unsuitable to be wizard scouts. As part of that pre-Academy training, your TACs introduced you to a lot of the Empire’s advanced-technology scout equipment. Almost every piece of Empire equipment uses power. That’s power with a lowercase ‘p’. Using nuclear sifters, technicians are able to gather radiated Power with a capital ‘P’ from objects and store that energy as power with a lowercase ‘p’ in isotopic batteries. The power with a lowercase ‘p’ in the isotopic batteries is then used as the energy source for your battle suits, weapons, etcetera. Larger isotopic batteries are used to run even the larger star cruisers. Any questions so far?”

Richard took a moment to glance around at two hundred and fifteen other faces as confused as his.

“Very well, I can see you’re all experts in quantum relativity, so you should do well in your third-year classes,” Chief Instructor Winslow said with a grin. “But to answer the rest of cadet 240’s question, magic is something the Empire’s military does not use. Some of the Empire’s races have the capability, but it’s too wild and unpredictable for large-scale military use. However, some of our enemies have used what you probably refer to as magic. Like wizard scouts, creatures that use magic have Power reserves. Unlike wizards, magic-using creatures cannot directly use the Power in their reserves to make things happen. Instead, they use verbal or visual spells to convert the Power in their reserve into a useable form of energy. That energy is then used to perform their
magic
. You will be trained to detect and defend against magic as well as standard Power attacks. Does anyone have any more questions?”

When no one raised their hand, she asked, “Then I have a question. Which of you is wizard scout cadet 832?”

Two hundred and fifteen sets of eyes turned to Richard.

“Ah, I see you have a fan club, 832,” she laughed. “Well, the reason I ask is because you have the dubious honor of having access to the smallest Power reserve of any scout cadet ever accepted to the Academy. Did you know that?”

Richard knew all too well. TAC Gaston Myers never allowed a spare moment to pass when he did not let Richard and everyone around him know that he had the smallest Power reserve of any past or existing cadet. Richard had a quick vision of TAC Officer Gaston Myers also informing him that he would never wear the golden-dragon insignia if he or any of the other TACs had anything to do with it.

“Sir! Yes, cadet 832 knows, sir!” Richard responded automatically as he jumped to his feet and stood at attention.

“Ah…, I see,” she said sympathetically, “and please don’t shout. I’m sure your TACs pointed that little feature of your profile out to you on your first day at pre-Academy. But, don’t let that bother you. The size of the reserve doesn’t matter. What matters is how efficiently you use the Power in your reserve. You’re lucky in that your reserve is a sole-access reserve. You alone are responsible for keeping your reserve as full as possible.”

Shifting her attention to the entire class, she said, “I mention the limited size of 832’s reserve to stress how important it is to be efficient with your Power usage. I don’t care if you have sole access to the largest Power reserve of any scout in the Empire. If you use it wastefully, you will eventually empty your reserve. Then you won’t be able to utilize any wizard ability until more radiated Power accumulates in your reserve. Do you understand?”

Chief Instructor Winslow looked slowly around the room. “No, I don’t think you do, because your TACs have turned you into little robots unable to think for themselves. We’ll change that given time, but for now, let me put it this way. Currently, the Empire has only six hundred and forty-two active wizard scouts. Even during the best of times, only a hundred cadets a year receive their golden dragons from the Academy. We are barely able to keep pace with wizard scout attrition.”

By attrition, Richard knew she meant combat deaths.

“Some politicians are under the impression that maintaining a force of wizard scouts is too costly,” said Chief Instructor Winslow. “They think tele-bots could be used to perform deep recon instead of wizard scouts at a much lower cost. Who can tell me why the Empire needs wizard scouts?”

Richard’s time in marine recon had made him very familiar with tele-bots. They were microscopic drones capable of gathering video and audio data. They could send their data through the Empire’s tele-network to a central intelligence computer for processing. Due to their small size, a hundred thousand tele-bots could be teleported light years behind enemy lines to a target location. Even if ninety-nine percent of the tele-bots were destroyed by enemy countermeasures, enough often remained to provide at least some useful information. Since the tele-network allowed data to be sent from one end of the galaxy to the other almost instantaneously, tele-bots were definitely useful tools when used correctly.

Silence enveloped the classroom for a full minute. When it became obvious Chief Instructor Winslow was not going to continue until someone answered her question, Richard did the unthinkable for a military soldier. He raised his hand and volunteered.

“Yes, 832?” said Chief Instructor Winslow.

Richard, who had sat back down, jumped to his feet again and hit a stiff brace. “Sir! It has been this cadet’s experience that the farther the tele-bots are from the receiving computers, the easier it is for the enemy to manipulate the data in order to feed our commanders false information. This decreases a tele-bot’s usefulness for deep recon. Additionally, except for short-range communications, tele-bots are unable to interact with their environment. They are too small to carry weapons or explosives. Wizard scouts on the other hand are connected to the tele-network via their battle computer, and they can wrap their data with Power to make it theoretically impervious to enemy manipulation. Additionally, while a wizard scout’s primary mission is observation only, they can, and have, won battles by being a force multiplier when they have been at the right place at the right time. The capture of the Carsoloian fleet three years ago is a classic example. Sir!”

“Very good, 832,” said Chief Instructor Winslow. “I always enjoy having cadets with prior military experience in my classroom.”

After a short pause to survey the classroom, Chief Instructor Winslow continued, “Most military commanders know the value of wizard scouts. When you consider the Empire is typically involved in two major wars and several dozen policing actions at any one time,” she continued, “it spreads the wizard scout corps mighty thin. Without wizard scouts to perform deep-recon missions, the Empire’s military would be strategically ineffective. Consequently, every wizard scout is as important, if not more so, than the most powerful star cruiser. But don’t let that go to your heads,” she cautioned. “Most of you will probably die within five years of graduation, and most of your deaths will occur because you needlessly wasted Power in your reserve.”

She paused to let that sink in before adding, “Remember the wizard scout priority mantra; ‘technology first, wizardry second’. So help me,” she said raising her voice for the first time, “I will embed those words in every brain cell you have before I am finished. I can’t stress enough the importance of only using your wizard ability when you can’t use technology to perform the same task. Even a single drop of Power with a capital ‘P’ can mean the difference between life and death.”

In spite of Chief Instructor Winslow’s somber warning about the life expectancy of a wizard scout, Richard enjoyed her class. She was knowledgeable and witty at the same time, and the two hours of her class sped by in no time. Richard found himself hoping his other classes would be just as interesting. They were. Richard did not have a single instructor he did not consider top notch. Whatever other faults the Empire had, a shortage of good wizard scout trainers was not one of them.

Two more weeks passed with blazing speed. The weekends still sucked, naturally, but to Richard’s amazement, TAC Officer Myers actually gave their cohort two hours of free time one afternoon. Of course, Richard didn’t get to enjoy the time. TAC Officer Myers decided Richard needed remedial training in hand to hand combat. So while his friends were enjoying two hours of relaxation, Richard was put in the pit with three TAC officers who basically took turns beating on him in the name of training. While it went against his grain, Richard reluctantly had to admit at the end of the two hours he was a lot better at blocking kicks than he’d been when he started.

When Richard got back to the barracks, he headed straight to his room to get his shower gear. He turned into his doorway and stopped short. Telsa and Tam were sitting on his bed with their backs against the wall. Jerad sat on a vacant bunk on the opposite side of the room.

“It’s about time you got back,” said Tam with a mischievous grin. “You know, 832, you should keep your room a little neater. The sheets on this bed are wrinkled. As your platoon sergeant, I may have to report you.”

“While you’re at it,” said Telsa with a grin of her own, “you should write him up for a sloppy uniform. Rick, you should really try to stay clean when you play with your friends.”