Xandrian Stone Book 1: Beginning of a Legend (3 page)

When we reached the quartermaster's office I was holding my contract in the left hand ("Keep your fighting hand free, cadet, or do you prefer that piece of paper to a sturdy stick you may find at a moment's notice to fight your enemies?!"), we thumped our right feet exactly in time with each other when we stopped and looked generally militaristic. I was a little proud, I have to admit.

"WHAT!!" The Lieutenant had turned to look at me. "Still grinning like you just je-" "Lieutenant!" The Lieutenant started a tiny little bit. "Ateeen-TION!" We both stood stock still, while the Quartermaster approached us. "Leave those dirty jokes at the door, this cadet is hardly of age yet." Out of the corner of my eye I did see an amused twinkle though. "At ease you two. Now, Cadet, follow me if you please. Lieutenant, carry on." The Lieutenant saluted smartly and marched away, thumping his foot like his life depended on it. "A good man, but from a long line of ground officers. Too much indoctrination I fear. Your service booklet and SNEC please." I handed him both. "Take a seat. Someone will be with you momentarily."

A little side note on the ground officer thing the Quartermaster mentioned: Up and until some fifty years before I entered the navy there were two sets of ranks: Ground and Naval. The ground ranks were intended to be some form of prolonged trial period for naval ranks, a way for cadets to be rewarded for distinguishing themselves. In principal, that worked well but there were all kinds of misunderstandings all the time. Naval lieutenants outranked ground generals, which had a tendency to cause unnecessary friction between ground and naval ranks. Add some alcohol into the mix and you end up with a rather epic bar fight that made the news across the colonies and caused the navy a lot of embarrassment.

It was too useful to have a way to reward distinguished cadets, so the rank of cadet was split into 8 tiers or levels: flat black, which I was about to get, and up to 7 white dots clustered in the center of the flat black cadet insignia. Those were officially all called "cadet", but unofficially they were called cadet-0 to cadet-7 or cadet-cadet (cadet squared) to cadet-general. There were of course also other less... civilized jokes and labels, like that you could easily see how many brain cells a cadet had and others. I personally have always found the brain cell thing to be greatly amusing.

The problem with that system was that one could guess early in their career if they were going to make it to lieutenant (or, earlier, naval lieutenant) by the speed at which the dots were being awarded. That created a culture of hard-ass cadets who had lost hope of promotion and instead of advancing their minds trained their bodies to be the best warriors they could be.

Physical close combat had its uses, but at the time it was thought that anyone with a weaponized staff could blow a close combatant away before they ever came into range. So, those hard-ass warriors were never met with much respect. Quite the contrary actually. They proved themselves right in the coming events though, and nowadays rigorous close combat training is a pre-requisite for promotion into officer ranks.

Actually, Rad was one of the first hard-ass heroes.

"Xandrian Stone?" "Um, yes?" "That will be a smart 'present!' And get to your feet, Cadet!" I jumped to my feet, yelling "present!" and tried to assume a posture that at least looked like I was standing at attention. It seems that I succeeded partially, because the "Follow me, Cadet. We'll get you your uniform." sounded less like my life was about to end in a most horrible fashion. So I followed the figure in front of me, still uncertain if that was a man or a woman - its voice could be both.

We reached a large room full with uniforms, shoes, rain gear and such. The thing in front of me turned and while it asked "Size?" I decided that it was probably a man. Maybe a woman. Certainly a lieutenant. Then it hit me: Hermaphrodite! "Well?" "Standard eleven." "Hm. You'll fit into a twelve soon enough, son! So take both." "Okay, thanks. May I ask a very personal question?" He/She sighed. "If it must be." That surprised me. After all, we were in a more or less tolerant society and the fear, suspicion and general not-wanting-to-have-to-do-anything-with-you Hermaphrodites had had to deal with in the past should have been over for centuries. He/She shifted his/her shoulder forward a little, calling my attention to the bright yellow band over her shoulder. It was about 1 or so centimeter wide and reached down about 4 or so centimeters and made of a sturdy fabric, made to endure obviously. On the top of her shoulder the band bore a little, square plate of a silver metal and along most of the band to its end, maybe 5 centimeters below the metal square, there was a long silver rectangle attached to the band, almost covering it. That must be a sensor ribbon! "Oh, you are a sensor wizard?" "Sensor instructor to be precise, son. And you are partially wrong - our society is only on the surface as tolerant as you believe. You'll see soon enough I am afraid."

Huh? "Um, may I kindly ask if you read my thoughts?" He/She chuckled. "Your thought was more to the point. And yes, I do. And to your question: What do you think?" "Well, I must confess that you are the first Hermaphrodite I have come in contact with so I know next to nothing about you guys. Do you want to be spoken to as either male of female? Do you have a preference in the first place?" He/She shook his/her head and nodded immediately after. He? shook his head. She nodded. "This is weird, but fun!" I grinned and felt amusement from her. Also, I got the distinctive feeling that she was impressed at my respecting her for what she was, even though I had shown a lot more curiosity than she was comfortable with.

Wait, what?

I focused on her and her feelings became much clearer immediately. "A little more, son. You're almost there." I focused a little more and suddenly knew that she was thinking 'There! Now tell me if you feel the need to peek around in my head and learn all my secrets?' I did not, much to my own surprise. 'This seems to be an in-built defense against temptation. Who-or whatever made existence has thought everything through it seems. We know of no better explanation.' That made much more sense to me than it should have. In fact, as I pulled back from her mind gently I realized that I had felt uneasy peeking around in her mind.

At the same time I felt her presence in mine and did not mind at all, which surprised me most of all. 'Some kind of telepathic familiarity link?' "As far as we can tell, that's as good an explanation as any." I felt a powerful presence closing and both the Lieutenant and I went stiff as the presence entered the room. Turning to it, I saw that it was in fact an elderly man in a pure white uniform, whose rank insignia showed the two thick horizontal bars of a commodore, with a golden rim and whose shoulders were brimming with ribbons of all colors. All those ribbons bore at least two pips, the yellow sensor ribbon the wide silver bar of an instructor and a weird green one bore three pips. That weird green was and still is commonly called yellow-green, it is the color of navigation. Some also call it navigreen – though that never really took hold.

"At ease, at ease. We are amongst ourselves here." I felt amusement from him and the Lieutenant who, as I realized, had just imitated my behavior. "Amongst ourselves?" 'Sensors.' I heard a loud thought from him. I was not in his mind, though - but both he and the Lieutenant were in mine. 'Is it not getting crowded in here?' They both snorted and left my mind. "So, we can also transmit our thoughts?" They looked at each other and ignored me.

Mkay, I took the challenge.

I focused inwards, analyzing myself. The outside world faded a little, as if a semi-transparent hood had been plucked over my mind. Deciding that that was the wrong way, but also probably a way of defense against hostile telepaths I focused outwards and everything became crispy clear. I could hear the thoughts and sense the feelings of everyone in a large circle - no, everything in a large circle. I listened to a bird flying overhead looking for a good place to nest, two lovers in a house across the street from the barracks making love (each thinking about someone else) or a worm directly underneath us among hundreds of others. Then I heard a murmuring deep underneath and all around us. Focusing on that I suddenly heard millions of thoughts. I had made contact to everything larger than a couple of cells and was surprised how much life there was all around (and inside) us.

I could identify each voice clearly and made contact with the Commodore who was beginning to look and feel concerned. 'Sending. Test, test, one, two, one two.' The Commodore looked astonished and both he and the Lieutenant, curious, entered my mind. Immediately I felt the Lieutenant jerking back in shock, loosing control of her mind. I focused on her, walling her mind in to reduce the noise that was overwhelming her. Then I helped her to focus inwards, to pluck the mental hood over her mind, shutting everything else out. When I felt her mind pulling itself together I eased out and pulled my own mind in as well.

"I take it that I'll need to throw up a block against accidental peeks like hers when I focus outwards like this?" "Yes, that will be wise. We omnis seem to have much more durable minds, probably to handle all the different magic at once. As you have not received any formal training I did not think you'd be able to do what you just did - my mistake. You present me with an unexpected situation: Your sensor strength is already beyond 'potential', most likely well into 'able'. I need you to open your mind again and feel everything around you. Don't feel what you expect, but what is." I would have done that anyway, because what was was much more interesting than what I expected. So, I opened and felt. Again, I heard the thoughts of everything in a radius of easily 20 meters - maybe 25. As I was watching the universe all around me, the smallest, blurry bits suddenly got clearer and my range expanded to 30 meters. Then everything flickered out and I came back into myself - tired, but happy. "Impressive. I have never seen an untrained sensor with this kind of resolution. Also, you may just have had a little spurt of growth. Very good! The final lesson is very unpleasant though and I ask you to not take it personal."

I had no idea wha-He attacked my mind. Automatically, I focused both inward and outward, throwing up a shield around my mind and entering his. In an instant I knew that the attack was the final lesson and that he felt truly sorry to have to hurt me. In the next instant I felt his realization that he had failed to enter my mind and that instead I was in his, pulling back gently. He relaxed, so did I.

"I truly hope that I'll never have to use this particular skill in real combat. Just now, I'd have lost badly. You just passed the final test. I have not heard of anything like this in years. Lieutenant, give Cadet Stone his sensors ribbon if you please."

"Are you okay?" I asked her. "Yeah, thanks for the help." "You said that you are an instructor. How come that I needed to help you?" "There are two ways to measure magic: Range and resolution. Your range is just about as far as mine, but your resolution is many times finer than mine. I was overwhelmed by all the thoughts you were listening to. Scary stuff."

She opened a drawer in her desk, got 2 yellow bands, a couple of metallic, silver squares and a couple of golden rectangles out. My own first ribbon! "Here you go, Sensor Wizard." "Thank you, lieutenant." The commodore spoke: "Cadet, as you now have a specialization, you'll need to put on your uniform and properly. An emergency might arise and then you need to be readily identifiable as sensors wizard who is off duty and thus available." The commodore pointed to a door in the far wall. "Use the bathroom for that." "How do I attach the ribbon to my shoulder?" "Just assemble it and press it to the shoulder of your uniform, it'll attach itself magically of course." Duh, I could have come up with that answer as well. Grinning, I went to the bathroom to suit up.

When I walked out of the bathroom, now in my dark gray everyday uniform with the pure white sleeves and the flat black rank insignia of Cadet and very conscious of the ribbon on each of my shoulders, I felt about twice as tall as before. "Feels good, eh?" I smiled at the Commodore. "Yes, sir, it does." The Lieutenant was holding something in her hand and looked a little excited. She had her strongest shield up, which I could have penetrated easily if I had wanted. She knew that too, so it was a sign to me that something was up, something good. Liking good surprises, I kept out of her mind. "Sirs?" The Commodore answered. "Well, when you helped the Lieutenant to keep herself together your eyes changed from yellow to white, occasionally with green flashes. Why was that?" "I don't know. I was unaware that my eyes glowed at the time." I really had no Idea. "You used sensor magic as well as healing and some combination. Pure sensors would never have been able to help the Lieutenant as you did. Pure healing neither."

"Add to that how you helped that classification officer out there and the only conclusion can be that you are also a very strong healing wizard already. Sensor and healing out of the door is somewhat rare though. Can you tell me why?" Feeling the Lieutenant's amusement about the term "somewhat rare" I answered: "Well, sensor magic requires me to open my mind, to get into a tranquil state. I need to look passively, without interfering. Healing magic, however, requires me to attack the pain of the patient, taking it unto myself and dealing with it. In a nutshell, sensor magic is mostly passive whereas healing magic is very active. That makes them very, very different kinds of magic. Maybe something like this, sir?"

The Commodore nodded. "Exactly like this. It is a very strong sign that your magic is indeed pure white, with no preference at all. Even I do not have such balance." He frowned. "In fact, there may not have been this kind of balance since the time of The Prophecy." I could hear the capital letters in there. "The Prophecy?" He looked a bit startled. "Ignore my ranting, son. I am an old man with too much interest in history." He smiled. "Anyway, your healing magic is very strong as well. Before you can be given your ribbon, you need to be formally tested though. This is where commander Eve Schuhmacher comes in." He turned to the door. "Commander?"