Dreadnaught’s Child

The AI, known simply as the Commandant, moved purposefully down the line of his 3rd Generation Cadets. His meticulous 3-dimensional eyes scanned, literally, each young soldier’s form, biometric feed, and cerebral nerolink, reading their very being as intimately as possible.

“Belial, focus on your breathing. Your current heart rate is 156 beats per minute; the ideal marksman heart rate for a 3rd Gen is 109 to 130… improve or get off my firing line.” The voice was as commanding and intimidating as any drill sergeant. A deep baritone that would accept no response other than complete obeyance.

“As you command, Commandant!” Was the acceptable and swiftly shouted reply. Followed by the juvenile warrior steading himself, taking long, controlled breaths through his nose and out his mouth.

The watchful virtual instructor moved on, a luminous form of projected light and force fields, clad in a sharp, pristine dark grey uniform.

“Isaac, since you can’t manage your time efficiently and make the most out of your bathroom breaks, go ahead and relieve yourself so you can steady that support arm.”

“Thank you, Commandant!” replied the youth as he started to rise from his seated cradle position.

“I didn’t say get up. I said relieve yourself.” The 3-dimensional form barked as it towered over the young man. The Commandant’s face was a hardened mask of dire consequences, should his order not be obeyed. To reinforce his intent the AI’s holographic gaze took on a dark red menacing glow. There was a hesitation in the cadet, but understanding came quickly. The marksman returned to his seated position, laying his rifle over his left arm to peer down its optics as a small pool of urine formed at his base.

“There… nice and steady.” Came the approving voice.

“As you command… Commandant!” Isaac’s voice wavered, as it was laced with a mix of shame and simmering anger.

If the AI noticed, it didn’t seem to care. It moved on with its survey of the remaining 3rd Generation Cadets, all sitting in identical seated postures, futuristic sniper rifles pointed down range at the ready.

“This will be a graded event.” The Commandant informed. “I expect nothing less than perfection as is warranted by your Generation. Yet should you be unable to live up to your purpose… you’ll be allowed one, and only one mistake.”

All in attendance understood the expectation and the actual mortal risk of failure. They were the 3rd Generation, genetically engineered to be the greatest warriors humanity could have conceived. Flawless in their execution of the art of war, even at this young age. To miss once would be a drastic loss in standing. To miss twice… could very well mean death.

“Ready yourselves.” Was all the warning the 3-dimensional projection gave before his form faded from existence and the live fire exercise began.

The range was a long corridor with a curved overhead, wide enough that 12 young cadets could sit a man apart. Each preteen warrior held a lower-powered mock-up of a sniper rail gun. An electromagnetic projectile launcher that uses powerful magnetic fields to propel a depleted uranium slug at destructive speeds. This version they currently held was explicitly designed for training only as it lacked the truly fantastic potential of its war purpose equivalent. This was simply because, in their current form, the 3rd Generation soldiers couldn’t physically handle the weapon. They were too young.

Without further warning, a small shimmering disc materialized down each firing lane. Hovering at different heights with respect to each other. Their arrival was heralded by a cacophony of electromagnetic rifles erupting in deafening repetition. Each slug fired broke the sound barrier multiple times as it raced toward its target. Upon impact, the disc would come apart in a shower of green sparks as a second target would form, moments behind, but farther away, at a completely different height and position. If a disc happened to be missed, it would last only for a second longer and then come apart in red sparks, indicating a failure. As the cadets unleashed hell upon the exercise, no one target in the proficient range category turned red.

The training room and its associated exercise were broken into range categories and graded utilizing several metrics. Speed was evaluated in response time; measured from when the target appeared to how fast the marksman could hit it.

Accuracy was determined by where the target was hit, with a bullseye scoring the highest. The distance between the disc and the marksman was the final measured parameter. The physical range was divided into three distance categories: proficient, exceptional, and mastery. Each category had increasing difficulty and distance which was graded accordingly.

Every 3rd Generation Cadet had to be proficient without fail and exceptional as a norm. So, within the proficient range categories not one target went red. A soldier was expected to hit the last target in exceptional range and receive a perfect score, thus keeping their standing without risk. Many young warriors in attendance aimed for this outcome because continuing into mastery and then missing a target had the same consequence as a miss in proficiency or exceptional. Cadets were expected to know their limits and weigh risks versus rewards. Yet each cadet knew that continuing into the mastery category without missing was the only way to distinguish oneself from peers and achieve elite status.

Most sniper rail guns went silent as cadets, satisfied with their perfect scores, stopped firing. However, four cadets continued. Targets at the mastery level not only appeared and lasted for shorter times but moved sporadically, increasing the difficulty level tenfold. Here, the first target went red, as a marksman thinking he had the object dead to rights, watched in horror as it zipped out of the way at the last possible second. Belial cursed as his slug flew past the mark, and his misstep caused two more rifles to go silent as the fear of joining the young cadet became too great for the others to continue… the others, except one.

All eyes turned to the last cadet in the 11th spot on the firing line, who seemed to effortlessly take down target after target in the master’s category. With what appeared to be inhuman precision, the young man fired depleted round after round, never missing the now elusive disklike targets that tried vainly to confuse his senses with their erratic movements. At times, the marksmen’s fantastic display of skill brought audible responses from his ordinarily stoic and militarily trained from birth, peers. Even the Commandant, with his all-seeing presence, chose to manifest in his 3-dimensional avatar to observe the nearly godlike hand-eye coordination on display. The last target in the mastery range category appeared for a millisecond at the edge of what might be the limits of human vision even for a 3rd Generation, then split into two targets that moved in impossible patterns, which the skillful cadet observed for a moment before firing one shot that hit both as they pass one behind the other. A roar of approval and disbelief erupted from the other cadets but was immediately crushed by the Commandant’s wraithlike voice.

“Silence!”

All eyes fell on the young cadet who seemingly had performed a miracle in today’s exercise. Yet the young man was still sitting in his sniper’s cradle, rifle pointed down range.

“Gabriel.” The Commandant inquired. “What are you aiming at?”

“The last target. The one beyond the master’s range.” Came a voice calm and confident.

The virtual AI looked down the length of the range at what appeared to be empty darkness. Others followed their instructor’s prompt, and no one seemed to be able to identify this phantom object. Yet the confirmation that one was there came from the Commandant himself.

“There is no possible way you could see that.”

“I don’t,” Gabriel replied. “I feel it.” The young soldier takes a long breath, then pulls the trigger, his rifle erupting. The slug moved so fast that its distortion waves ripples through the Dreadnaught’s internal atmosphere. Somewhere, far off in the distance, there’s a momentary glow, an almost imperceivable blink as something flashes green, then is gone.

This time, there was only awed silence from the other cadets in attendance and the inscrutable expression of the Artificial Intelligence as it turned from the flash to the cadet and reads his being in every way possible.

“To each his gifts.” Said the Commandant. A saying common among the Children of the Dreadnaught. An acknowledgment that one has exceeded their genetic purpose in ways that others could not.

“To each his gifts.” The other 3rd Generation Cadets echoed in a chorus.

Gabriel rose from his sniper cradle, holding the training railgun at parade rest, the butt of the weapon resting against the floor and its barrel almost painfully hot in the palm of his hand.

Author's Note

Dreadnaught's Child has been a work in progress for sometime. Originally it was to be the flagship story for Black Spyder Publishing - www.blkspyder.com. Yet, I haven't been able to finish it in over a year. I have 13 Chapters down, and I plan on releasing it this fall.