Valterion: The Space/Arch? Mage

Maja’s Adventures 3

Location: Magicon Empire; Armortec Duchy; Cintman System; Cintman 3; Peacekeeper Academy

Maja barely notices the shuttle entering the atmosphere. There is one slight rumble, but then it’s a smooth flight again.

Not sure why we had to buckle in… Probably legality stuff.

It takes only ten additional minutes until the shuttle slows down a lot and begins to hover above a landing pad. Seconds later it sets down and the door opens. A gruff voice calls from outside. “Cadets, out with you and line up!”

Of course, cadet Chen is the fastest one out, and everyone else quickly follows. They all line up in five neat rows and stand at attention. Before them is a bearded man wearing the same uniform the cadets are wearing. The only difference are the two stripes on his shoulder which mark him as a Lieutenant.

“Welcome on Cintman 3, cadets. My name is Lieutenant Dexter and I have the honor of giving you your first official orders.”

The shuttle’s engines spin back up and Lieutenant Dexter stops due to the noise.

“Overeager pilots,” he mutters, too silent for anyone to hear but Maja.

She takes the moment of silence to take a look around. Cintman 3 looks rough. Besides the sprawling military complex before her, everything around is a desert. As far as her eyes can see, there is nothing else besides sand.

Meanwhile, the shuttle is gone, and the noise has died down. “As I said, I’m about to give you your first orders as Peacekeeper cadets, so listen up.”

Now he’s probably going to tell us what boot camp is about.

“While you are part of the command track, everyone of you needs to learn the basics, just like any other Peacekeeper! That’s why you are here on Cintman 3 – probably the least habitable planet within the system. Here you learn one important lesson: Survival! What do you do when you crash-land somewhere? Even worse what do you do when you lose all your Mages? Your first order is to find out! I’ll send you a set of coordinates in a minute. You then have one week to reach them as a group. You may enter the building behind me and go through the storage rooms to get some supplies. Everything you might need, and more is there. But there is a twist. For every 100 kilograms of supplies you are taking as a group, you have to face one random challenge along the way. This doesn’t include the things you already carry with you. Now, are there any questions or shall we start?”

There are of course, and Lieutenant Dexter answers some of them. The cadets learn that someone will supervise them at all times, but they only take action if someone is about to die. Otherwise, the cadets are on their own. Unfortunately, the Lieutenant ignores every question about the random challenges they might face, and he also doesn’t tell them what supplies they might need.

Once all the questions are answered or ignored in most cases, the Lieutenant sends them a set of coordinates and a map of the planet. Then he leaves them on their own devices.

Maja looks around and sees a lot of uncertainty on the others’ faces.

This isn’t what I expected of boot camp… The others probably didn’t either.

Ellie nudges her side and Maja looks at her. “Yeah?”

“Look at Steven. He’s still confident. Do you think he already knew of all this? I mean his backpack almost bursts at the seams and the Lieutenant said what we already have with us doesn’t count to the 100 kilograms per challenge.”

She’s right. He looks like he’s ready to wander off toward our destination.

“You’re right, let’s go over and ask him. We do need a plan after all if we want to succeed.”

Maja and Ellie walk over to cadet Chen. He looks up when he notices them approaching.

Maja waves. “Hi there, I’m Maja, this is Ellie. You’re Steven, right?”

“Yeah, Steven Chen. How can I help you?”

This time it’s Ellie who speaks. “You look like you know what’s going on… How come? And what should we do now?”

He grins back at the two girls. “Yeah, you could say that. You see, I grew up with Bernd Schmidt… So I had a bit of an in on all the processes here. My knowledge pretty much ends here now, so for the survival mission we’re on our own.”

Ellie takes in a sharp breath and stares at cadet Chen. Maja immediately notices why but doesn’t show much of a reaction.

Schmidt. That’s Armortec. Bernd must be one of their children then. If he’s as old as Cadet Chen – I guess I can call him Steven now – he should be as old as Sara… Now it makes sense why Steven is so confident and seems to know so much.

“Hey, I’m just a normal bloke. So please chill. My connection to Armortec doesn’t matter. We’re all together here no matter our origin.”

Ellie still struggles a bit. Then she takes another breath. “Okay, I’ll try my best. It’s crazy I never imagined meeting someone so close to a Ducal family.”

Oh my, if only she knew. I’m practically part of a Ducal family. Good thing my body is artificial. I don’t think I could have suppressed a reaction to her comment otherwise.

“Yeah, don’t worry Steven,” Maja replies. “We’re good. Now do you have an idea what we should do now?”

Steven shrugs. “I’d say we take a look at the supplies and go from there. Well, we could take stock of the things we already have before that… Hey, you’re the one who called out in the shuttle,” He looks at Maja. “Can you do that again and call everyone over?”

“Yeah, sure.” Maja mimes taking a deep breath and lets out a shout. “Guys, can you all come over, please?! Steven and I think we should take a look at the things we have in our backpacks before we look at the supplies!”

Every single head turns to them, but almost everyone immediately follows her call and comes over. The stragglers quickly fall to peer pressure and join as well. Then Steven starts unpacking his backpack and the others quickly follow. At least those who have one with them.

Most people just have their normal clothes and some toiletries. A few others have a tablet or in one case even a paperback book. Steven is the only one who has a bit more stuff. His bursting backpack includes a small tent, a first aid kit, bottles of water, and some dried food bars.

How did all of this even fit into his backpack?

Overall, besides the things Steven brought, they don’t really have things of use for a trip through the desert.

“Let’s take a look at what they might give us for supplies,” Maja calls out and turns toward the warehouse.

“But remember, we have to keep our total weight as low as possible. Who knows what those random challenges are about,” Steven adds before he follows Maja. Ellie is the next one before all the others walk toward the warehouse as well.

When they arrive at the warehouse, the doors open automatically, and everyone besides Maja lets out a sigh of relief. Maja adds her own quickly after. The warehouse is climatized and a welcome change to the hot desert out there.

“We definitely need a lot of water!” One of the other cadets calls out after discovering a pallet of water bottles.

“Wasn’t there a tap just outside the door? That could save us a lot of weight if we just use empty canteens,” another one cuts in.

Steven raises his hand and snaps his fingers to get everyone’s attention. “Good ideas, guys. Why don’t we split up into small groups and just collect a few things? We can always leave things behind afterward… We need Food, water, tents, first aid stuff, and probably weapons. Go for it, we meet back here in fifteen minutes.”

To everyone’s surprise, small groups form without issue, and every group sets out to look for one of the things Steven just mentioned. Maja and Ellie decide to stay back and organize things with Steven. A few others stay as well, but they quickly swarm out once Ellie points out that they need backpacks for those who forgot to bring theirs from the space station.

It takes a bit longer than fifteen minutes until everyone is back. Someone even checked outside for the tap, so they went with the plan to only bring empty canteens. Other than that, the cadets found everything Steven said and went especially wild with the weapons. It now looks like they blundered a whole arsenal of them.

That’s definitely too much stuff. That gets us a challenge every hour or something. And who should carry all that?

Steven and Ellie seem to agree, as both of them wear thoughtful expressions.

“It’s too much,” Maja speaks up once everyone is back. That earns her a lot of grumbles but also agreement. Besides the challenges, no one wants to carry 50 kilograms on their back through a desert.

Maja stands next to Steven and calls out again. “Okay, first of all, grab a backpack if you haven’t already. Then line up, we start with food and water, as those are the most important things.”

“Who made you two our leaders?” Calls out an annoyed voice from the back, while everyone else follows Maja’s orders.

Ellie comes to the rescue and immediately calls back. “You’ve got a better idea? … No? Then shut up!”

Maja stifles a laugh and starts handing out survival rations. They have to pack for seven days at least.

Better plan for one day extra… Who knows what happens along the way?

Steven follows her with the empty water bottles. He hands everyone two of them, which should easily bring a person through a day as they are quite big.

Maja and Steven studied the map while the others were getting supplies and noticed that there are several locations where they can get fresh water along the way which means that they don’t have to carry water for seven days, which would be way too much to carry.

Ellie follows after Steven and hands out first aid kits. After that, they divide the rest of the supplies. Every other person gets a small tent that fits two people. The tents have an inflatable floor, which allows them to leave out the bedrolls. Next, everyone gets a few toiletries and a hat. They also include a few shovels and other tools among the group, just in case.

Now there’s only one thing that’s missing: Weapons. Well, practice weapons, technically, but that doesn’t matter.

The other cadets collected a wide variety of them, and now the hard part is to decide which ones to take.

Maja insists on getting a standard knife for everyone. Alone the utility a knife brings is invaluable in her opinion. Others, including Steven, disagree with her.

“We should take energy blades instead… They are just better in everything while weighing the same,” he says, and Maja shakes her head.

“They are, but I think we should still take the knives. What if the batteries run out? Or if one of the challenges is an EMP or something? Knives are reliable.”

The argument goes back and forth until Ellie has enough and steps in. “Stop it, you two! You are both right, so why don’t we take both? Or do a fifty-fifty split?”

Oh!

Maja and Steven look at each other, then they burst out laughing. They were both too stubborn to find an easy solution. Ellie's proposal is quickly implemented, and now the group carries a mixture of knives and energy blades. Maja looks at Steven a second time and they nod in understanding.

“Hey Ellie, why don’t you take care of the remaining weapons?” Maja asks and she and Steven both take a step back.

Ellie shoots them a short glare but quickly steps into her role and expertly hands out the remaining weapons. People with some experience get the bigger rifles, while the rest of the cadets get a simple laser gun.

This also finishes their preparations, and the group exits the warehouse. Outside, Lieutenant Dexter is already waiting right beside a giant scale. “Alright, cadets, line up and we do a quick round of weighing your things. Don’t worry, we have already weighed the things you had with you on the way down. It will be subtracted from the total.”

Turns out everyone carries around 20 kilograms with them which totals just over 1000 kilos. This means the group has to face ten random challenges during the next seven days.

The Lieutenant wishes them good luck, then all the cadets fill up their bottles and set out into the desert.

Maja, Steven, and Ellie are in the lead and set a brisk pace. The others follow behind and their survival boot camp begins for real.

Let’s see what the desert and the Peacekeepers have in mind for us.