Chapter 4: Gravity Is a Lie
0400 Hours – Olympus Mons Naval Academy
"Get up, dirtbloods!"
The voice wasn't the academy's automated reveille system this time—it belonged to Instructor Baretz, a towering slab of flesh and fury, ex-Groundbreaker Marine and two-time recipient of the Iron Rift Cross. His voice rattled the steel beams of the barracks like an orbital collision.
"On your feet! Boots on, beds sealed, formation in sixty seconds. If you're late, I will personally sign your deployment orders to Vaux-Delta where the xenos gut you like fish in zero-g!"
Kale's eyes snapped open.
He was already dressed.
---
In the hallway, boots slammed the metal deck. Dozens of cadets sprinted from their pods, uniforms half-worn, groggy and breathless. A few fell in step with robotic precision—Kora among them. Others stumbled, barked curses, or whispered silent prayers.
Cassian Dorne adjusted his collar like it mattered, scowling as Kale fell into step beside him.
"You think this is a game, slummer?" Cassian muttered, low enough not to draw Baretz's wrath. "You're here by charity. One wrong step and they'll flush you back to Earth in a bodybag."
"Then I'll make sure my steps are perfect," Kale replied without looking at him.
Cassian's jaw twitched, but Baretz bellowed again before he could retort.
---
Black Garden – Zero-G Rotation Chamber
The chamber spun slowly, artificial gravity flickering at programmed intervals. Floating platforms, mock bulkheads, and magnetic anchor points made up a maze designed to disorient, challenge, and humiliate.
"Today," Baretz roared, "you learn a basic lesson about space warfare—gravity is a lie. It will betray you. Your lungs, your blood, your instincts—they're all Earthbound nonsense. In vacuum, instinct gets you killed."
He tossed a baton to the nearest cadet—Lie Cadence.
"You're squad lead. Squad A, simulate a breach defense. Squad B—breach and kill. The rest of you, watch and learn."
Kale leaned closer to Ox, his voice a low whisper. "She's going to run a Trojan sync on the hull diagnostics, use the magnetic pulse from the anchor grid to fake a breach in quadrant six."
Ox raised a brow. "How do you know?"
"Because she asked me last night how long the pulse delay was on malfunctioning grav rings."
A beat passed.
Then a shriek sounded across the chamber—alarms blaring, emergency lights pulsing red.
The squad scrambled, but Lie Cadence already had her team redirecting to the opposite quadrant, ambushing the attackers mid-charge.
It was brutal.
Efficient.
Beautiful.
Even Baretz grunted in approval.
"Someone promote that girl before she rewires your skulls."
---
Observation Deck – Command Level
Commander Lucian Vale, Director of the First Cadet Regiment, sipped his recaff slowly as he watched the feed. He stood alone in the glass-panelled chamber overlooking the Garden.
A second figure approached, lean, in an officer's coat etched with the sigil of Section Black—Captain Selene Ryker, intelligence liaison and resident academy spook.
"Interesting batch," Selene said without greeting.
Lucian didn't look at her. "They always are."
"That boy, Kale Stroud. From Sector 9. Off the grid for most of his life, no parental entries, no school records, not even a bio-scan until he showed up at the Luna checkpoint. And yet… look at him."
Lucian finally turned. "He sees patterns. Knows how to wait. Not unlike a minefield—quiet, until you step wrong."
Selene smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.
"We're keeping an eye on him."
Lucian nodded. "Keep both."
---
0500 Hours – Academy Cafeteria
The food was synthetic paste—brown, vaguely meat-flavored, and rumored to be recycled protein matter. Kale didn't care. He ate quickly, sparing glances across the room.
Rell Varik sat with his usual circle: three other elite cadets from Titan and Europa. They laughed like they weren't being monitored, like they hadn't grown up in glass towers with servants wiping their shoes.
Kale hated them.
Not with anger. With precision.
Across the table, Kora poked at her tray, silent as usual.
"You don't talk much," Kale said.
She shrugged.
"Can't or won't?"
Kora glanced up, one eye milky white from old scar tissue. "Can. Just don't waste words."
Ox dropped his tray with a clatter. "Speak of the void and it appears," he said, jerking a thumb toward the entrance.
Cassian had entered, flanked by two new cadets—Iris Vael, a sharp-eyed girl from the corporate moons, and Hagan Brim, a barrel-chested brute who looked more like a raider than a recruit.
Kale recognized the move instantly.
Cassian was forming his own squad. His own little empire.
Let him.
He'd build it. Feed it. Lean on it.
And Kale would be the knife under the table.
---
Scene Break – Frontier Combat Report (Classified Transmission)
> TRANSMISSION: FLEET INTEL SECTOR 7 TO: HIGHCOM BLACK STATION FROM: CRV "WINTER'S BLADE" – XO REPORT
"We lost Engine Core B. Xeno boarding parties cut through Deck 3 in under five minutes. Plasma resistance ineffective. We thought they were mindless. We were wrong. They coordinated. Ambushed.
Captain Idris is dead. I'm sealing this report and initiating self-destruct. If anyone gets this: they adapt. Fast.
We are not ready."
---
Later – Tactical Wargames Simulation Room
Instructor Nia Shalen, former fleet tactical officer, stood at the center of a holographic warboard.
Her uniform was crisp. Her tone, razor-sharp.
"You're each assigned a cruiser and a strike team. Objective: prevent a xeno raid from breaching a mining outpost on the Belt. You fail, the colony dies."
The cadets spread across the board.
Kale examined his setup—minimal defenses, one outdated gunship, two marine units.
Deliberately unbalanced.
Cassian immediately launched a full-frontal assault, overwhelming the enemy ships but leaving his colony exposed to flanking drones.
Fail.
Kora reinforced weak points and played defensive.
Lasted longer, still failed.
Kale didn't attack at all.
He waited.
Re-routed power to shield decoys. Simulated a reactor meltdown. Sent fake distress signals using redirected comms from his second ship.
When the xenos approached?
They broke formation.
Confused.
Kale's gunship didn't attack.
It detonated, taking half the enemy fleet with it.
Only then did he move—using his last squad to sweep the scattered raiders.
Simulation ended.
Shalen looked at him, impressed—and wary.
"That was dirty."
Kale met her gaze. "So is war."
---
Midnight – Barracks
Kale lay in his pod, hands behind his head.
The academy had already started breaking cadets—mentally, physically. The simulations weren't just tests; they were exposure therapy to death.
The instructors were ruthless.
The system, colder than vacuum.
And every face Kale passed in the hall was another piece in the game.
Cassian.
Rell.
Iris.
Kora.
Lie Cadence.
He didn't know which ones would last.
Which ones would betray.
But he knew one thing:
He wasn't here to pass.
He was here to win.
Even if he had to burn everything else down to do it.
---