Chapter 9 -- School Daze

The next morning, Samantha escorted the older children in her care to the school. On the previous day the AI had processed the paperwork to enrol them, now she just needed to introduce them to the Principal, a once-again-young woman who went by the unfortunate name of Winnifred.

Winnie had been a principal in her past life, of first an elementary and then a middle school, and had been picked up with her husband, her daughter Jolene and two sons back at the same Sault Ste. Marie hockey tournament that Samantha's family had attended. Like most of the hockey moms at that infamous pickup, her husband was now her sponsor. Now looking as she did when she was twenty years younger, Winnie was also pregnant with her fourth. To her delight, her daughter was pregnant with Winnie's first grandchild, offspring of a Fleet Auxiliary sailor from the ship that had brought them here -- Daddy not being all that attracted to incest with his own daughter.

Schooling in the Diaspora was quite different than schooling on Earth, Winnie had quickly discovered. Kids ran through their academic subjects much more quickly than on Earth, for one thing, as the sleep-learning fed the information more-or-less directly into their cerebral cortex. In order for the book learning to "stick", though, it was found that you still needed to do homework, lectures and labs to back that up. Half the student's day was typically taken up with sleep learning at their home pod, while the second half alternated between lectures and labs at the school, and homework in their home pod's computer terminal. A typical student would, therefore, spend about a quarter of their time actually in the physical school itself.

This meant that she could stretch her teachers to cover four times their Earth counterparts' load -- and that load was still absorbing instruction at an insanely higher rate. It also meant that the school needed no cafeteria, merely classrooms, labs and fitness facilities, although a handful of picnic tables were scattered around the playground's perimeter. The most popular fitness facility was the swimming pool, so far the only such facility on the entire planet.

Still, the school's total enrolment was at the moment north of 4,000 students. And three more kilopod ships were scheduled to arrive in the not-too-distant future. The Navy was on its way, too, which would add even more students to her total enrolment.

Winnie greeted the four school-age dependants fulsomely. Samantha beamed as each child introduced him or herself to the attractive and deceptively young-looking concubine principal, who was unselfconsciously wearing a potentially embarrassingly short, dark-blue concubine's shift with "Winnie" emblazoned above the pocket. The older woman brought in the children's instructors who whisked each youthful charge off to meet their classmates.

As the last of them left Winnie's office, she turned to her boss. "Sam, a few of the kids that should be here aren't -- their sponsors are apparently forbidding them from attending school."

"What the hell?" Samantha was furious. The last thing she wanted -- or needed, for that matter -- was to have untutored, untrained concubines simply because Daddy didn't want the young'uns to get uppity by learning stuff. "AI, I want a list immediately of all those school-age dependants not registered for school. Copy Colonel Deschenes and the sponsors' superior officers and NCO's."

The list was eight names long -- and connected to three newly-arrived sponsors.

Samantha had a quick word with all three sponsors. One was a simple screwup by the sponsor. He sent instructions to the AI to allow Samantha to proceed with the paperwork, and the child in his pod was immediately registered and set up for her first classes right after lunch. Problem solved, no class time lost. The man was quite apologetic for the oversight, and even asked his sergeant for loan of his straw-boss concubine to escort the mother and child to the school so both would know the route. Request granted, and everyone breathed a little easier.

The other two were a little more hard-assed. Instead of sharing a single word with each, Samantha received two words: "Fuck" and "Off", and in precisely that order. They turned out to be immigrants from a certain misogynistic Middle Eastern culture where educating females was not considered the thing to do. While living in the West they'd been forced to send their daughters to elementary school much against their own better instincts. They had the chance now to stop that Western nonsense on their own dependants and intended to take full advantage.

Both recruits were now about to be abruptly brought short in their efforts to enlighten the Great Unwashed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which had some line in it about disobeying lawful commands by a superior officer. Not only was Samantha a superior officer, which made it an offence to be so rude to her, but her orders for all dependants were backed up by every officer, commissioned or not, in the chain of command right up to the Old Man himself.

As smartly as she'd been trained, Optio Samantha Redburn marched to the parade square where Sergeant Kowalski and Corporal Redburn were putting the mixed platoon of new recruits and slightly more advanced privates through their paces in foot drill with the RLI-1 standard issue laser rifle. Escorting her a step behind was the impressive figure of Sergeant-Major Butch Blondell, there more as physical than psychological security. Everyone stared stiffly ahead, so they failed to notice the RS-1 stinger rifle the Sergeant Major carried. Unlike the rifles in the hands of the privates, Butch's weapon was armed and ready.

Already warned via their subvocal links, neither sergeant nor corporal were surprised at the Optio's arrival. Kowalski quickly ordered Shoulder Arms when the AI warned him she was steps away from the parade square.

As planned, the Sergeant Major stopped behind and to the left of the platoon, checking her weapon to ensure the safety was off and the charge set to maximum -- an enraged man with the standard Marine enhancement package would be difficult to stop. To the side, a nervous Corporal Redburn prepared to defend his daughter should it prove necessary.

As the cadet approached, Kowalski bellowed, "Paraaade! Preeeeesent ARMS!"

With a mental "ONE-two-three-ONE," the platoon crisply presented arms in salute to the 13-year-old as Kowalski pivoted on his heel, his back to the platoon. She came to a halt in front of the massive Pole and returned his salute.

"Shouldeeer -- ARMS!" Samantha ordered in her best imitation of the booming Kowalski. "Private Al Ghamdi! Front and centre!"

Kowalski added his own impressive set of lungs, augmented by the AI. "Private Al Ghamdi! Front and centre! RIGHT FUCKING NOW."

"Sergeant!" called a voice from the middle of the pack of privates. A swarthy man in the standard Marine package squeezed through his fellow soldiers and approached the tiny slip of a girl dressed in CS grey. He came to attention dangerously close to the vulnerable girl.

"Salute, Private!" Kowalski growled, angered at the young man's insolence.

Al Ghamdi glanced around.

"Her. The officer on parade." He gestured at Samantha with his thumb.

Grudgingly the private saluted the optio.

"Now," Samantha demanded, thoroughly irate but dangerously under control, "why are you keeping your dependants from school?"

He glanced at his sergeant. Did he really have to answer that?

"They are females, weak, only good as concubines. Females need no education, it is a waste of resources." His face took on a look of contemptuous triumph.

Oh-oh, thought Sergeant Kowalski. 'Sergeant-Major, I think we need some more help.'

'I'm keeping my eye on him, you call in the cavalry,' responded Butch as she brought the stun rifle to the ready position.

To the subvocalized call to arms, several sergeants began to converge on the parade square. One sergeant and his crew from the 1204th Armoured had been busy getting ready to move the de Gaulle from its "gate guard" position back out to the tank range. Swiftly, they mounted up and charged its turret and weapons.

"Sergeant Kowalski," Samantha asked, "would you call Sergeant-Major Blondell 'weak'?"

"Sir, no Sir. I do NOT have a death wish."

"I do not need to answer this child's questions," the private spat. "She is not a Marine; she is not even a man."

"Neither are you," Samantha spat back, perhaps unwisely. The colour drained from the face of every NCO on the parade square, as it rose in the face of the man being addressed. "A man would recognize his obligation to the future of his species. A man would see to it that every one of his dependants, male or female, were trained to the utmost he could arrange. A man would realize we do not have a single life to spare as a mere drone." She paused, partially for effect and partially as she'd rendered herself somewhat out-of-breath. "We need as many of our offspring to become volunteer-status as we can possibly get. Otherwise, the Swarm outbreed us and we lose. Men recognize that. Boys don't."

That last sentence did it. With a speed that startled everyone, Al Ghamdi lunged, dropping his rifle and pulling out his K1 combat knife. The fact that he had switched weapons indicated how he wasn't thinking: the rifle would have made for a dandy club and gotten him better range, but the knife, by forcing him to come in close, made it more personal.

Despite the Marine's impressive bulk, his opponent enjoyed four advantages over him. One: she had had a full month of martial arts training with Butch, while he had never had more than a schoolyard fight in his life. Two: she was used to her size while he'd only recently bulked up. Three: she was reasonably calm and able to use her mind whereas he was blinded by fury and not thinking rationally, not that "thinking rationally" was one of his strong suits. And finally: she had backup mere feet away.

As he lunged at her, she allowed the energy of his attack to flow over her. She fell to the ground backwards, placed her feet on his chest and grabbed onto his shirt. In a classic martial arts move, he discovered he'd just joined the Airborne as he flew over top of the girl. In an unplanned, unpractised and untaught move, she added to his discomfiture (and pain level) by giving him a kick to the gonads as he passed by.

Bellowing like a mad bull, the recruit staggered to his feet, to discover his target was now about six feet away and standing in the defensive pose that her sensei had taught her. Butch was still trying to get a clear shot, but was now being blocked by a number of friendlies.

A shot came from the platoon's right, across the parade square, hitting the enraged Al Ghamdi square in the chest and knocking him down for the count. At a subvocalized command, the rest of the platoon rushed him and held him down as duty NCO's rushed over to secure wrist restraints on the man. The source of the shot was the coaxially-mounted RLA-20 machine gun on the Charles de Gaulle. The corporal manning the gun popped his head from the gunner's hatch, white-faced. Even with the output dialled down to stun instead of kill, the weapon's noise was impressive and none of that tank crew wanted to fire it in anger against a human target again.

"Get out! Get out!" came the cry from within the tank. "Back away, everyone! That crystal is still loaded with energy, it's gonna blow!"

The crew did an impressively quick example of the Bail-Out Drill. Smoke began boiling out from inside.

As the last trooper scampered to safety, the tank rumbled and exploded. The charge wasn't enough to blow the tank to pieces, but it was enough to shred the interior.