Kepler woke up at exactly the same time as the rest of his platoon. A group of 8 young looking people, getting out of their bunk beds. For once, they were actually young in appearance and age. Most were between 21 and 25, so they all had upgraded their body to a mechanical one some years ago. Most did it on their 18th birthday.

The room was small with just enough space to have 8 bunk beds, a small locker each and room for 2 to walk in the middle. The walls had the classical Martian color, a mix of brown and red that was on the grayer scale, so nothing vivid and a more subdued color. There was nothing else really, no small trinkets lying around, or anything personal. It was the rules.

The group of people, more specifically, soldiers were getting up for their day. No one talked and simply put on their uniform, equipped their training gear and started to walk out in an orderly fashion, soon standing at the ready in the common hallway. Their sergeant would pick them up soon, he would simply walk past them and expect them to follow. It was an ingrained routine for all of them now. They had been late, once, when they first started out, but it never happened again after the hell they had to go through after that mistake.

More groups of soldiers could be seen in the large hallway. For a moment it became eerily still as they all stood ready and at attention. Mechanical bodies tended to do nothing very well, compared to a body of flesh and blood. No ticks, no movement. It wasn’t anything special on Mars, you got used to it, but an Earther would definitely be uncomfortable from the complete stillness of so many people.

Their sergeant finally came into view and they fell in line behind him as he went. Even if they were mostly robots, it wasn’t perfectly synced or anything and it felt a lot more organic than before. No one talked yet tho, the sergeant was not a morning person and apparently needed, even demanded, the walk to be silent.

All the people present were of course Brots as they call them on Earth. A diminutive of brain bots. It used to be offensive as a word but slowly got integrated in the language over the years. It might seem weird for an Earther why they needed training. There was no muscle to develop. But training was important, as combat AI was strictly forbidden to use in battle.

After a few minute, they arrived at the training area. It was a large square room with enough space to have several platoons doing exercises with room to spare between the groups. Kepler, as the rest of his platoon, stood at attention, waiting for their sergeant to speak.

“Got a nice nap you turds?” He asks loudly.

“Sir, yes sir” they yelled in unison.

“This morning is sword practice, and you know what that means !”

“Sir, yes sir” they yelled back yet again.

“Are you sure you know? Because just yesterday I saw one of you use an AI instead of honing his skills” Oh, that must be why Sam isn’t here today, Kepler thought. The idiot. The sergeant continued his rant while Kepler yet again adjusted the hearing output in his brain so his screaming came down to an acceptable level.

“Not only did he not follow orders, the idiot don’t even seem to understand why we NEVER use AI in battle, anyone of you maggots care to explain it back to me?” Kyle raised her hand, as usual the teachers pet wanting to show off. Kepler rolled his eyes, we get it Kyle, you like to suck up to our superiors. Not one to miss anything the sergeant honed in on him the instant he finished rolling his eye. Fuck.

“You got something to say Kepler?” He yelled right in front of him.

“Sir, no sir” Kepler quickly yelled back, carefully keeping his face blank from emotions.

“As usual then!” After a pause he backed up and pointed at Kyle to pick up from before.

“We do not use AI in battle because of the possibilities of AI interference from the enemy, making them able to hamper or even freeze the AI in the heat of battle. It has become harder but the possibility always exist. AI is only used in training against us to hone our skills to match theirs as closely as possible, sir” She yelled, in the same manner as the sergeant usually spoke.

Kepler never understood why they had to be yelling all the time with the sergeant. Sam always told him it was to train them at volume control, but he didn’t buy it. He thought the sergeant simply liked yelling at them, as his sergeant had yelled at him once upon a time.

They soon picked up training swords and the training dummies came out to greet them. The sword were made of metal, dull edges and nothing else.

“Before we start the massacre on your poor asses” The sergeant started. “I want you all to have your sensibility cranked to the max this morning.” Oof, one could visibly see the platoon as a whole deflate at that.

Kepler reluctantly cranked up the sensibility to max and quickly started sensing even the light air flows around him. It was an amazing feeling, until you got hit. Then it suddenly was the worst feeling ever, and god knows they were going to get hit a lot.

“Pain is good you little shits, pain will make you learn faster, make you more focused, but most importantly, if you ever get hit on your nerve endings or even on some part of your brain you need to be able to withstand it. This training is harsh, but I’ll be damned if my platoon is weak!” He seemed able to physically hurl the words at them. Once again Kepler felt mildly impressed by his ability to literally spit words.

The training bots slowly came towards the group of 8, spreading out to allow a one on one spar with each soldier.

A whistle could be heard, and the training robots started to move. The first blow was a standard probing horizontal slash, not meant to actually cut them but see where one went from there. Kepler simply stepped back as always, focusing on what was to come. The real fight started here.

He parried the following 4 blows perfectly but soon heard someone scream out in pain to his left, the momentary distraction was enough for the AI to get in an attack, which he barely managed to parry, but the strike put him in an awkward position which was slowly exploited, forcing him to parry while being more and more off balance. Kepler hated these combat AI, always thirty fucking steps ahead.

He decided he’d have to take a blow eventually to recover his posture and steeled himself for the incoming pain. The blow hit his left leg and the pain raced through his body in a mind numbing manner, all rational thoughts blown out of his head as he reacted on instinct. Kepler managed to parry the next blow, his balance recovered and posture reset with a frown on his face.

There was no real wound, and the pain quickly faded while their duel continued. The machine in front of him devoid of sympathy as it simply continued its task to inflict merciless pain on him.

Suddenly a whistle could be heart and all the robots froze. The first five minutes were up. If he could sweat, Kepler would probably be dripping right now. The sergeant yelled at them for a minute, explaining this was the warm up and you were not supposed to get hit in such a short amount of time.

The training continued against the bots for 2 hours, each round becoming longer and longer to strain their focus, to get to them beyond their limits. No one ever got a hit in on any of the bots. It was known they were not perfect, but damn were they close to it. The last time someone got a hit on one was 3 years ago, it used to be more often but the damn researchers always patched the damn things to eliminate all errors. It was no wonder most people simply wanted to use the AI to fight for them.

But that did not end well at all. As reliable as robots were when not tampered with, there was a lot of tampering to go around in the real world, and their use had been steadily going down, and not only in the military. Everything in this day and age had some kind of connection one could exploit to get in from a distance.

The day continued with robot repair, where they had to repair different kind of equipment with minimal or no tools available. It was crucial to be adaptable, and it was possible to reshape parts of their bodies, fingers for example, to become small tools they could use. The day crawled on with the usual activities until, finally, lunch break. Lunch was more of a traditional break than a necessary one, as they only needed nutrients for the brain, and everyone stored enough to last two weeks minimum.

The lunch area was more of a leisure spot for the soldiers. It was a huge dome with view of the sky. It had the lunch part, but other smaller areas to take it easy at the end of the day, even a sparring area for those who wanted to hone their skills.

During lunch Kepler received a mail from his Dad about something amazing he discovered. What. The. Hell. Kepler thought. He hadn’t had any news for more than 2 years and this is what he sent? Not even a fucking ‘Hello, How are you’. That lunatic had some nerve. He quickly dismissed the message and resumed chatting with the table, his mood visibly worse than before.

In Kepler’s vision, a notification appeared with a message from Nox, sitting in front of him:

You alright there ? Nox sent.

My fucking dad just sent me a mail. He responded using the same message system.

“Hey, no PMing (Private messaging) between us you two.” Sarah said looking at them sharply.

“Sorry” Kepler responded, trying to regain a neutral expression.

“His Dad sent him an email.” Nox added, with a grin while Kepler turned to glare at him.

“Isn’t he some crazy scientist?” Sarah asked. Kepler didn’t miss a beat.

“He isn’t crazy, he just has some… unconventional theories. Also tends to get lost in his research. This was the first message he sent me in 2 years.” He said, while asking himself why he was so quick to defend his selfish dad.

“Aren’t you happy to get news from your dad then?” Sarah said, eyebrows raised. “Why the long face?” she added.

“It’s hard to explain. The message is about some breakthrough, he doesn’t even start with a ‘Hello how are you’. It’s just frustrating I guess. It’s like he doesn’t care about us at all, only his research.” I answer, brows furrowed.

Everyone was looking sympathetically at him. He hated it. Could someone else just please change the subject now? Kepler looked around the faces of the others. It was easy to see they didn’t know what else to say and after an awkward pause, the conversation slowly resumed with mundane matters. Like what an ass the sergeant was.

The day went on, and he was soon off, lazying off in the lunch area. Kepler started to wonder how his family got so split up. His Mom was off on some freighter ship to transport ice back to Mars from god knows where. His Dad in his lab to the east of Tharsis, probably jumping in joy over something only he could understand. And he here, in the MDI (Martian Defense Initiative) getting his ass yelled at day in and day out.

Weirdly, Kepler liked it here in the MDI and felt at home with his platoon. It did help that there was no real war threatening or something. He looked up through a huge dome and looked up at the light brown sky. Maybe he should send his dad a message back, maybe even one to mom while he was at it.

As if on cue, he received a call from his mother. He mentally accepted the incoming call.

“Hello dear” He heard her say. “How are things?”

“Hello Mom, are you back on Mars?” He asked back.

“Almost son, I’d thought it would be nice to catch up. You didn’t answer my question though.”

“It’s ok I guess, and I even got a message from Dad today, something about a breakthrough in his research.” He had a hard time keeping a frown from his face, still sour about the situation.

“That’s good, no? Maybe you should pay your Dad a visit. I know he doesn’t show it, but he loves you. You know that right?” She said, he had heard it all before but wasn’t sure he agreed. He did, when he was younger, now? Hard to tell.

“He didn’t send me one you know, meaning he does think of you, maybe more than you think.” Damn she knows me well, he thought. But at the same time the argument wasn’t that convincing seeing as they weren’t together anymore.

“Maybe.” He finally conceded, after a silent pause.

“I for one think it’s high time you visit your father. You haven’t seen him in more than 3 years. Isn’t it time you tried to make up?” Not really, but it had been a long time. Maybe.

“I’ll think about it. How long are you back?” She didn’t respond back immediately, taking her time to think about something.

“I’m not sure actually, but I’ll let you know. I’m not going to be on Mars for another week though, so you have time to see your father before I come back, and we can talk about it together?” She asked hopefully. It was typical of her, trying to discreetly force him to do something. Fine, he thought.

“Alright, alright, I’ll go see Dad, then come back to Elon. You are landing in Elon right?” He was happy to change the conversation, and he had a good relationship with his mother, even though they didn’t see each other very much.

“Yes, I’ll send you a text with more details when I know the exact timetables.” She said and he could hear she was happy about her win.

His parents never seemed close, but he knew she loved him, back then at least.

“I’ll see you soon then.” Kepler said, then they bid their farewells and hung up.

“I guess I’ll have to buy a ticket to Tharsis for this weekend.” Kepler muttered to himself.