-Turian Armada Academy, 11:45 Turo Standard Time-
"…And as we can see here, the thrusters employed on the pursuer-class cruisers give them a significant advantage over most light cruisers of a similar build. Can anyone tell me how Galaxy-Defense Industries managed to optimize the craft like this?"
It made sense in hindsight, when 626 thought about it: a month ago, he'd been surprised to learn that before he could formally join the Armada he'd first have to go through military school and receive proper training. At the time he'd been outraged, thinking that he already knew enough as is to skip that stage and join the fleet, but since joining the academy he actually HAD learned a fair bit of information.
Like today's lesson about the police cruisers, for example. "By removing the hood cannons." One of the other cadets responded. "Doing so allowed them to streamline it and reduce the drag in atmospheric flights, as well as make it so it was lighter when traveling in space."
"Correct. Can anyone tell me of a design flaw?"
No one could think of anything, so 626 decided to enter his two cents. "It forced all the firepower into the underside cannon, which is more at risk of snapping off."
"Also correct. Can you think of any possible solutions?"
Were there any? The most logical one would be to break the cannon up into smaller ones on the sides or something, but that had it's own set of problems.
"Not that I can think of, sir."
"Anyone else have a solution? No? Then now we'll move on to the engines…"
Fifteen minutes later, it was time for lunch. 626 was relieved to see that upon entering the cafeteria the amount of stares and whispers were down to perhaps a handful. When he'd first entered the academy he was the center of attention wherever he went, which was quite annoying and also rather isolating. Now, though, he'd become enough of a familiar figure that he mostly didn't warrant attention.
Suddenly, 626 felt a whisper over his right shoulder. "Day 30…the locals have accepted me as one of their own." Then a green arm whipped by him and grabbed the last gorgyr rind. He sighed. "You know, I was gunning for that."
The owner of the green arm in question, an Amuan named Spon Jofford, smiled at him. "Then stop looking around to see how many people still think you're a zoo exhibit and focus on the food. C'mon – let's go sit by the window."
626 had met Spon a couple days into training when they'd gotten into a heated in-class debate over whether or not the Federation's obsessive love of round things had a detrimental effect on the design of sidearms, and since then 626 had decided that he rather liked the other cadet. He was a bit irreverent at times, maybe, but as it turned out that really wasn't a bad thing as it meant that the Amuan had absolutely no reservations about befriending an illegal bioweapon.
Not that he didn't enjoy ribbing 626 for it every now and again. "Question about the drills – aren't you kind of cheating with your nice, anti-gun skin?"
"How so?"
"Well considering that you're Mr. Bulletproof over there it seems like you have a biiit of an advantage over the rest of us."
"Yeah, but it still looks bad if I get shot half a million times.."
"Fair enough. Anyways, we should probably hurry up and finish eating."
After lunch was done, the two reported to the testing range: they'd been scheduled for a live-fire test to see which cadet gelled with who and what their individual strengths were. Thankfully, today 626 and Spon were in the same squad, along with a Catonian named Mikkk, a Zavin named Sheral, and a raptrian 626 had never seen before but looked kind of like Obrea.
When he went over to introduce himself, the raptrian turned away. "Piss off, trog. Bad enough I have to work with you. We're not getting all buddy-buddy."
Hurt but undaunted, 626 tried to continue. "I'm sorry, but seeing as we're squad mates today, should we at least –" He couldn't think of anything else to say to say.
"At least what? Say 'hi, how do you do'? Like hell! Things like you should stay in the lab where they belong."
626 clenched his fists and tried to walk away. He's just an idiot, he tried to tell himself, I can't change that. I shouldn't care. I don't care.
Then why did it feel like he'd been punched in the gut?
This had been another lesson he'd learned since he'd arrived here, one a lot harder to learn then what was the best shape for a gun or standard Armada codes of conduct. After Clarxine's outburst back in the Council chamber 626 had expected some distrust and bigotry from the less open-minded, but not the sheer vitriol some of his fellow cadets had lobbed at him. True, most of them had more or less accepted him as one of them and a few like Spon had even befriended the experiment, but no matter what there as always a few in each group that thought of him as Jumba's abomination. He imagined some of it was jealousy at the new creation who had just been plopped in their midst and suddenly began excelling at everything, but still, these were all adults; he'd expected them to be a bit more mature about it.
Not so, and since he'd come here 626 had lost count of the amount of glares, curses, and mutterings he'd been subjected to. None of them went so far as to physically harm him, unlike other targets, but as this was more due to a shared revulsion at the idea of being in contact with the body of an illegal genetic experiment it wasn't exactly that much of a relief to think about.
Still, it was time to get going, so 626 put on his gear and forced himself to pay attention to the instructor.
"Alright men, your goal today is to descend to the bottom of that ravine." He gestured to the training space, which had been configured to look like a deep pit with a small path down. Guarding the path was what appeared to be a mobile gunnery platform, and at the bottom of the pit there was a small, glowing object.
"You'll all have to make your way past that platform and into the bottom. Once there, proceed to the other side while carrying the data core. You drop it, you all fail. Any questions?"
They all nodded.
"Good. Now get to it!"
The five cadets divvied up their roles: Sheral would take point, the raptrian (whose name, it turned out, was Dixon) would follow behind and watch his back, 626 and Spon would guard the sides, and Mikkk would guard the rear. Then, they were off.
At first, the path was relatively easy by training standards: the training room itself was roughly a thousand feet across, and as the gunnery platform was nestled right towards the middle there was little opposition. The few dummy soldiers that did pop up were easily dispatched by Sheral and Dixon, leaving everyone else little to do.
Unfortunately, free of distractions 626 couldn't help but dwell on him and Dixon's first meeting and all the other ones of the same ilk. Why do they hate me like this? I mean, this is beyond jealousy. On Obrea's advice he'd tried to keep his head down a bit; he wasn't showing off, he let everyone else answer questions, and generally tried to be as supportive as he could. It's been a month. Why do they still care? I'm not any different from them. Can't they see that. Is it something I'm –
A bolt of plasma cut into his thoughts. They'd run straight into the platform while he was daydreaming, and as he tried to gather himself a massive cannon launched an equally massive hit of payload at the five cadets.
"Everyone, scatter!" He heard Mikkk shout. Looking around, 626 just barely had time to see Sheral and Dixon dive behind a rock before Spon grabbed his lower arms and yanked him into a ditch.
"Well, this is just WONDERFUL." the Amuan muttered. "Any chance you have some mystical ability coded into you like laser shields are something?" He gazed at 626, who was still trying to gather himself. "Helooooooo, Turo to 626."
"Hmmm? Uh, no. Maybe we could outrun it?"
"What, run a hundred miles per hour? Wait – can you actually do that?"
626 shook his head.
"Then why bring it up?"
"Because I have no idea what to do."
Spon rolled his eyes. "Fine. Let's…just shimmy down the ditch or something."
They did, and fortunately it eventually ran up with another ditch near the rock Sheral and Dixon had gone behind, reuniting the four.
"Any ideas?" Spon asked. "626 and I are out."
Dixon stopped tending to a burn on Shural's arm long enough to fire off a sarcastic comment.
"Oh, shut up, asshole." Spon glared at the raptrian.
Sheral lurched to his feet and stepped between the two. "Guys, stay focused. We need to figure out how to stop that cannon ASAP. Now, from what we noticed earlier it seems like this ditch runs up to the side of it, giving us a clear way to get up and deactivate it. The only niggle is that for a good fifty feet we'll be sitting avians."
"Any way to distract it?" Spon asked.
"Not from here. Now, depending on where Mikkk is maybe he could do something, but as of yet we don't have a clue – save that, as the simulation's still going, he hasn't been shot yet."
626 looked around. Where was he? He had to be somewhere, and there weren't that many places to hide. 626 thought for a moment – he'd been behind them all, so he'd probably gone for a hiding spot some ways away from the rest of them. He looked up. Of course! There had been an artificial land bridge about twenty feet back from the spot they'd all scattered, and from here it looked reasonably sturdy. Now, if only he could get a good enough angle to look…
626 snuck about a yard back through the ditch. It wasn't much, but he thought he saw the sensory tendrils hanging down from the side of the Catonian's head. 626 crawled back to the others.
"I'm pretty sure that Mikkk's under the bridge we crossed. It looks sturdy enough to hide behind, and from where he was when the path went kaboom it was pretty close."
Sheral crawled out and looked over. "Seems so. Now: any idea how to get his attention? Don't think yelling'll work and we can't just waltz over."
"Can we do Morse or something?" Spon asked.
"With what?"
626 had an idea. "Sidearms. We fire off blasts with our gun in the right pattern, and that could work. We'll have to be brief, though."
Sheral and Spon nodded. "Might do the trick." They handed him their weapons, and 626 turned to Dixon. The raptrian just glared.
"You're not getting your mitts on my gun, trog."
626 clenched his fists and tried to ignore him. Then, going back to the task at hand, he fired.
Blast Blast M? Blast Blast M?
Blast Blastblast Blast Blast Y?
626 grinned. It was working! Plan.
What?
626 thought. How to get it across in a brief manner? He switched to Kuhio's gun. Dist.
W?
Trick. Y. Run. We. Hide. Cut.
Cut?
Cannon.
Roger.
From there, it was just a simple matter of Mikkk running out and shouting at the top of his lungs while the rest of them crawled through the ditch. Spon shot the cannon's power pack and deactivated it while Sheral and Dixon cleared out everything else, and 626 grabbed the 'data core'. Mikk then joined them on the pacified platform, and the reunited squad made their way out. It was a pass. Not exactly with flying colors and their instructor made sure to point out that their little morse trick would probably have given away their positions in a fight with other sentients, but it worked well enough.
626 made his way to the bathroom, and cried.
A couple minutes later he heard the door open and tried to wipe the tears away, but before he could Spon grabbed him and whirled him around. The Amuan's face immediately softened.
"What happened in there wasn't your fault, buddy. You had an off day. Everyone has those." Then he smiled. "Besides, you still saved our asses with that Morse-via-gun trick of yours."
626 fought to keep it together. "It's not – it's not that. It's Dixon. Before we went down he…" He explained their talk.
"Gods, man, what a douche. Well, he's just one guy."
626 shook his head. "It's not just him. There's others."
"Like?"
That opened the floodgates, and before 626 knew it he was back in Spon's room reciting the litany of abuse he'd accrued over the past month while desperately trying to keep himself composed.
Spon, to his credit, just sat and listened and tried not to think about how awkward the situation was. After 626 had calmed down a bit, he grabbed both of the experiment's upper arms.
"626, I'm going to be very clear with you. Screw them. Screw all of them. Most of us here? We like you just fine. You're smart, and badass, and actually pretty nice, and I'm glad I met you."
"Thanks. I mean it."
"No problem. Now, let's get dinner."
The two got up, exited the room, and then promptly ran into Dixon halfway down the hallway, who 626 noticed that he was still heavily burned from the training exercise. Spon stepped up to him.
"So, I here that you got into it with my little friend here."
"What of it? It's not like you should care."
"Oh? And why is that?"
"Because that...thing… is an abomination? Why else?."
"Ah. That makes sense." Spon smiled, winked at Dixon, and punched him right on the burn. Twice.