Ten Thousand Fleets Chapter 13: 13. The Long March

Read chapter 13 of Ten Thousand Fleets by DavidNiemitz on NovelPedia.

13. The Long March San Teodoro, Vidako Imperium Stellarum September 11, 2847 With every step the four mechs which marched ahead, behind, and to the sides of the cadets shook the ground. Arc could feel it in the soles of his feet, through his boots, and running up his bones. The morning was cool for Vidako, which meant that the day hadn’t yet progressed to the point of baking hot beneath twin suns. A sea-scented breeze ruffled the brown leaves of the trees as they marched down the access road, which took them through the walls of the campus and to the southern outskirts of San Teodoro. The city fell away around them more quickly than Arc would have imagined. One moment it was there around them, and the next the cadets marched through fields of orange-tinged wheat, rippling in great waves before the ocean air off the bay. There were orchards, as well, growing lemons and limes, apples and peaches, oranges and bananas that had all been altered to not only survive, but thrive in the alien soil of this planet, and beneath the strange light of Vidako’s double star. Great metal frames extended above the fields, and they sprayed a mist of water out in every direction to drench the thirsty roots of each crop. Arc saw no tractors in motion: it must not have quite been harvest time, yet. But there were grav-trucks, which floated carefully above the fields. Grav technology in general was still too new and expensive to be integrated into all but the most luxurious personal transportation—Cassie’s floating suitcase was an example of nearly unfathomable wealth. But one industry into which the nascent technology had quickly penetrated was agriculture, and from the dinner-table talk between his father and mother back home, Arc knew there had been subsidies from the Emperor himself to help farmers become early adopters. Grav-trucks could move far more easily about a farm or an orchard, without any fear of crushing or disturbing the crops. With less need for access roads that could handle wheeled vehicles, even more space could be added to the fields and planted. He had a lot of time to think about things like that, while they were marching. Placing one foot in front of the other, bearing the weight of that forty-five kilogram pack on his shoulders and the rifle in his hands, even maintaining his place in ranks—those were all physical things. They didn’t occupy his mind, and Arc’s mind had always been a restless, impatient thing. He knew that he was supposed to be watching for danger, and perhaps once they reached the jungle themselves, there would be enough of a tint of fear to the whole operation to keep him focused, but now—well, if it were really so dangerous this close to the city, would the farmers be out here by themselves? The upperclassmen made regular armed patrols for a reason, after all. Anything that got this close to the school would certainly be found and dispatched before it could wreak havoc through the streets and homes of San Teodoro. Come to think of it , Arc mused, that’s really smart. It has to be on purpose—I wonder whose idea it was ? The local duke would maintain his own planetary guard, of course, just like on Zurah V, but that was expensive, and Arc imagined that he’d base those troops out of the capital. With the academy here—an academy fully funded by fleet and the imperial family—the duke wouldn’t have to split his troops. The first and second class cadets were essentially a garrison of troops who could be counted on to protect not only the city, but the port and the orbital elevator, as well—and so far as the duke was concerned, they consumed absolutely no resources. Best of all, in the event there actually was some crisis on Vidako, or even elsewhere in the system, the cadets and faculty would come under his command anyway. It was one of the powers granted to all ducal families by the constitution of the imperium: In Loco Imperatoris, the right to act in the place of the emperor during an emergency. A duke who abus