Cartlidge: Rise of the Imperfect Flame Read Online Free PDF Page B

day, then broadened our knowledge of the universe in the evening.
Most of the soldiers focused on learning to operate the many vehicles available
to Rovanekrens, from the mainline tank-walker to the small scale fighters and
bombers. I however, focused on understanding this new world.
    Towards the end of the month I would find myself skipping
lunches to learn all the different things about this seemingly foreign
universe. Aside from humans, Rovanekrens, and Clawtrodons, there were five
other sentient species, two of which were on entirely different planes of
existence. There were hundreds of known colonized planets and a great many more
waiting to be discovered and colonized. There were more species of alien
creature and plant than I could ever hope to learn. One creature, the Rov Wyrm,
was a rare, large, worm-like creature that would use secreted acids from glands
in its mouth to burrow through large areas of rock. The wyrm had four
appendages on the upper segment which each resembled that of a crab’s pincers.
Its maw was filled with serrated teeth that shredded just about anything in its
path.
    Rovanekren technology was equally as fascinating. Nearly all
window systems had a build in camera that analyzed data and used it to improve
the user’s abilities. A good watcher using a window system is capable of
pinpoint accuracy far beyond the abilities of an unaugmented soldier. This
accuracy enables watchers to eliminate targets through non-lethal methods,
including limb crippling or disarming shots. Each day I would go to bed and
have images of these new life forms and technology swimming through my mind as
I slumbered.
     
    The third month, nicknamed the “testing month”, was our
final month of training. We would learn any last minute lessons and then be put
through a variety of tests. Anyone who did not pass, or was maimed in the
attempt, would not be allowed to continue for another year. I never found
another human recruit, due in part to my lack of time
to search, and the singer I had seen on my first day disappeared after that
moment. She eventually faded from my mind, crowded out by all the new
information I had learned in the past two months.
    Our first day of the testing month was spent accustoming
ourselves to Rovanekren weapons. Rovanekren firearms were much different than
human ones. Nearly all Rovanekren small arms fired small, radioactive shards of
superheated metal from a cylindrical canister. The size and velocity of the
shard depended on the rifle that fired it, but generally, any canister could be
used by any rifle. The metal itself, however, could not be manually removed
from the canister. The radiation of the shards was not entirely dangerous, but if
applied to a target internally, the radiation would cause poisoning and
eventual death. While there were slight variations in model and design, there
were three basic types of firearm. The pistol was the smallest and easiest to
carry or conceal. The rifle was the general term for the standard firearm, and
the watcher’s cannon rifle, or more commonly branded the WCR, was an elongated
form of rifle that filled the niche of a human sniper rifle. We were each
handed an unloaded rifle.
    I could not help but feel that the rifle designs were
incredibly unusual. The rifle was composed of a single large pipe with a curved
second attached to the bottom. A rectangular piece was fixed to the center,
covering the connection between the two pipes. A third piece curved between the
two pipes, acting like a handle. The trigger was in the center of the triangle.
The muzzle end of the first pipe separated into several teeth like edges while
the other end supported the stock of the rifle. The canister was connected at
the end of the second pipe. A small green gauge on the canister kept count of
the amount of available shots that were left. The pistol and WCR were of the
same design as the rifle, but with significant changes to size and barrel
length. None of these weapons