Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 42861 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 214(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42861 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 214(@200wpm)___ 171(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
Actually, I don’t really need to imagine it, I can just remember the last thing he said to me before I was assigned here.
Six months ago…
“What. The. Fuck. Is WRONG WITH YOU!?”
Little bits of spittle land on my face. I’m being yelled at. This is not a rare occurrence. It has happened basically every day since I arrived at EET training. Whatever the opposite of a teacher’s pet is, that’s what I am. We’re on Earth, camping out on what used to be the central American plateau. Most of the radiation has burned off here, leaving desert, and in the distance, jungle. Our white dome tents here are the same as the ones we will inhabit on alien worlds. We each have one to ourselves, because we’ll be living in one by ourselves.
I do have the honor of being yelled at by a legend. Mike Boltz was the first person to ever settle a planet by himself. I had a Mike Boltz poster in my room my entire childhood and fan art of him through my teenage years. I wrote a couple fics that got blacklisted from the net for, uhm, reasons. I worshipped this guy, and now he hates me.
Instructor Mike is huge and old. Well, maybe fifty-five. He’s not actually that old, but he carries himself like a muscular Father Time. Every single hopeful is afraid of him, wants to be him, and needs his approval like they need oxygen. Suffice to say, I do not have his approval. Everything that could go wrong, has gone wrong.
Day one, I forgot my uniform.
Day two, I accidentally knocked the instructor’s water into a cesspit.
Day three, we went on a training run and in the effort to try to keep up with him, I ended up standing on the back of his shoe on three separate occasions, which I discovered is about the worst thing you can do to anybody ever. Until I did what I did on day four.
Day four, I ate his fucking sandwich. It was in the community refrigerator, and he didn’t have any kind of note on it. It was just there, waiting for me. What else was I going to do? Not eat it? Suffice to say, I was nearly kicked out of the program then and there. Stealing food, is, apparently, a big no no. Very bad for team morale, etcetera.
Instructor Mike would have bounced me out of the program there and then, but someone higher up suggested that the sort of person who would eat a sandwich opportunistically was probably the sort of person who would survive in the wild on their own rather well, so I got to stay. But I’ve been on his shit list ever since, and that’s why I’m getting my ass chewed out for the thousandth time. This is the last day of the course, and everybody is getting their final debriefing from the instructor. One at a time we’ve filed into his dome and received personal feedback and encouraging words. Well, everybody else has. As I walk into the dome, his expression shifts from pleasant to furious.
I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. This doesn’t seem like the time to make that statement, though. As the screaming continues, it becomes apparent that I’m late. That would explain everybody else being here already. Oh. And they’re all in their best uniforms. Holy shit did I not get the memo. This is graduation. I’m late for graduation, and I’ve shown up in fatigues rather than dress uniform. Oopsie. Wonder how I missed that. I’m starting to think that they’ve been feeding me incorrect information just so they can yell at me and make me look more incompetent than I truly am. Again, not the time to share that suspicion. Mike is still yelling.
“You’re foolish and reckless. You follow your instincts at the expense of common sense. I’m not recommending you for exploratory missions. You’re better suited to a support role where you can be supervised. Fortunately for you, and unfortunately for EET, we need every body we can get. So you’re in.”
“I’m in! You’re passing me?”
“Reluctantly,” he says.
“Fuck yes!” I pump my fist and grin. Nobody else seems particularly happy for me, but I figure someone has to be the black sheep of the training party. May as well be me. A pass is as good as a commendation in the EET. This means I’m going to get to leave my poky little space station and explore an entire planet alone. I’m never going to be packed into a crowded hellscape again. Instead, I’m going to spend my life seeing all the wonders of the universe — and I’m not going to be doing it alone.
It’s time for the graduates to be assigned their support animals. These won’t just be creatures to cuddle. They’ll be animal allies helping us survive in the wild. They’re hunters, protectors, and best friends. I can’t wait to get mine.