Freedom, Humanity, and Other Delusions (Death's Handmaiden Book 3) by Niall Teasdale (best summer reads txt) 📕

236/1/14.

Barring unforeseen circumstances, classes at SAS2 kept the same homeroom teacher for the first four years. Hence, Luca Newton Kinnari registered class 22C, just as she had done with class 12C. This maintained a sense of continuity for the students until they moved on to the advanced courses in the fifth year. The same could not be said for the combat instructor assigned to the class.

‘Good morning, class two-two-C,’ the new instructor said as she paced in front of her seated students. They were sitting on the floor in one of the combat instruction rooms and the new face had been a little surprising to many. ‘I am Captain Sienna Acker Fosse. I will be teaching you for the next three years, so get used to calling me Captain Sienna Acker. For those of you who happen to be interested in my credentials, I served ten years in the ASF’s marines.’

Nava considered that statement. Ten years and she had made captain. Nava’s second lieutenant rank was informal, but it was only two ranks below captain. Sienna Acker had either been uninterested in advancement – unlikely, given that she stressed her rank so much – or she had annoyed the hell out of her superiors. Or she had done something sufficiently bad that it had stunted her advancement. Nava hoped the latter was not the case.

The woman was built like a tank. A supermodel tank, but still a tank. There had been little appreciative whimpers from most of the male students when she had walked into the room and Nava could understand the point. Sienna Acker was a very attractive woman. However, it was her musculature which Nava picked up on. Her arm muscles were well defined, but her thighs… She looked like she did five hundred squat thrusts every morning without fail. She could probably crush a man’s skull between those thighs. He might even die happy. She was shorter than Mitsuko by maybe three centimetres: tall, but not aggressively so. If she was ex-military, then she had taken to civilian life since her hair was long and straight. Chestnut waves fell from a centre parting to the upper slopes of moderate-to-large breasts. Her nose was a little flat, but her lips were very full, and she had a sharp, firm jawline and high cheekbones. Nava suspected that her leadership style had been ‘ballbuster.’

‘You will be learning combat tactics,’ Sienna went on, ‘because even support specialists may be called on to lead other soldiers. You will be taught the best use of support magic in combat situations. You will continue to improve your marksmanship. This will assist you in correctly targeting support spells. It is not simply because we instructors like making you do the drills.’ That sounded like a sore point from previous years. ‘Now there is just one thing I want to know at this point, and that is: what are you wearing, Nava Greyling?’

‘The new combat training uniform, Captain Sienna Acker,’ Nava replied.

‘Why?’

‘Familiarisation. Familiarising oneself with one’s equipment is important. I confirmed with the administration that, if I had one of the new suits, I could wear it. I’d like to get fully up to speed on all its functions as soon as possible and I’ve only had time to achieve a basic familiarity.’

‘And how is it that you have one when the first batch through have only been made available to combat students?’

‘I’m a Greyling.’

‘Huh.’ Sienna favoured Nava with a frown. ‘Since we have an example and you’ll all be getting the new suits next term, let’s take a moment to go over what you’re getting. Nava Greyling, would you come to the front and regale us with the specifications of the Mercury MagiSystems Personal Defence System suits?’

It was probably meant to be an exercise in humiliation. Nava would step up to the front and give a poor presentation on the new equipment. Sienna would call her out. Hilarity would ensue. Nava’s class knew better, and they all settled down to listen as Nava got to her feet and walked out to stand beside the teacher.

The PDS-101 was quite a change from the suits the rest of the class were wearing. The design had been created exclusively for the use of magicians and, compared to the standard armour worn by ASF personnel, it was quite impressive. The suit itself was a form-fitting garment with panels of denser materials mounted on a highly flexible base material. The SAS2 version had blue panels mounted over a grey base and the SAS2 logo printed over the left breast. Normally anyway. In addition to the suit, the helmet could be sealed to the suit to provide resistance to biochemical weapons. There was no faceplate, so with the helmet on you were presented with something which looked like a highly realistic, humanoid robot. A pair of light bands marked the location of the optical sensor system and gave the ‘robot’ something of a menacing appearance.

‘Okay,’ Nava said, ‘this is the PDS one-oh-one. It comes in two basic variants, M for military and C for civilian. We will actually be getting the S variant, but the only difference between the C and S versions is that the S has the option of displaying this school colour scheme. Mercury MagiSystems got the contract to supply the ASF by agreeing to make the S version available to the school at a significant discount.’

‘It was, however, all finalised at rather short notice,’ Sienna said, ‘which is why we’re getting our first supply in two batches.’

‘The existing suits are quite satisfactory for our purposes,’ Nava said. ‘The ASF made the arrangement so that students from the school would be basically familiar with them should they continue on to join the ASF. The suit itself is magically active. It utilises a magician’s natural ability to accumulate quintessence, filtering some of that energy off to repair itself. This will only happen while you’re wearing it, but it’s very useful. The material is resistant