by Z D Dean
“I’m headed back to you now. We should be on the ground in five minutes.” Samix said through Zade’s interface.
Zade leaned against the protective suit and waited for Samix to arrive in the cargo bay. Recently Zade had begun getting the pre-mission jitters, a feeling he hadn’t experienced since his first deployment. It felt like an hour, but Samix finally arrived at the cargo bay, sporting her own personal kit for exploration. To Zade’s surprise she was only wearing the winter version of the ship’s uniform and a small sidearm. As she neared, Zade ordered the suit open and began climbing in. As Samix looked at the equipment laid out around the suit she said,
“First off, you’re not taking that arsenal with you. Sidearm only, and I don’t even think we are going to need those, the planet doesn’t have any observable lifeforms. Second, how did you get the suit to accept that backpack, we never…”
Before she could finish her though, Zade yanked his leg out of the suit and shot to her side to cover her mouth.
“I convinced the AI in the suit that it was approved equipment. If you finish what you were saying, we are carrying this stuff by hand.” Zade whispered in her ear as he removed his hand from over her mouth.
“Since when does an environmental suit have an AI?” She asked
“Not sure, the damn thing started talking to me as soon as I finished the familiarization. Said the AI was only accessible to users who finished the program.”
“You finished the familiarization! I have never met anyone, in my life, who had finished that program. Most just do the motor skills then end it. Is it worth it?”
“Not sure yet, haven’t worked with it enough. EPSI wave to the captain.” Zade ordered.
On cue, after Zade finished his sentence the suit turned to Samix and waved. With Samix watching Zade cleared the railgun and detached the vest from his belt. After carrying them back into his lab where he could secure them, Zade closed the large doors to his lab and started getting back into his suit. As the suit closed the display lit and EPSI’s voice emanated through the small helmet.
“Welcome Zade. Thank you for using Argyle Industries…”
“Stop. When I enter the suit do not start the canned greeting. Just start running a systems’ check.”
As EPSI worked through the systems check, Zade dawned his thigh holster and load. Zade ordered EPSI to adjust the suit’s center of gravity so he didn’t feel like he was constantly fighting the weight of the equipment on his back. Confident that he could comfortably move, Zade grabbed his sidearm, curious to see how it felt with the protective gauntlets. The first thing he noticed was how much tactile sensation he had when he picked up his pistol. If he didn’t know he was in a protective suit he wouldn’t have been able to tell that there was a protective layer between his hand and the weapon. As he drew the weapon, Zade could see the small red targeting reticle propagate on his display.
“EPSI, would information prior to entering a hostile environment help perform your duties?”
“I am capable of conducting hundreds of millions of adjustments per second, but if it makes you comfortable, I could use a situation report.”
“It would make me feel better, so here goes; we are going out to an ice planet with an average surface temperature of negative three hundred degrees. Expecting high winds, due to the completely flat topography.”
“Very well, I will double check the suits temperature regulators, and cleats.”
Zade could feel the slight shift in gravity as the ship settled onto its landing feet. After giving her the thumbs up, Samix opened the ramp. The blinding white landscape outside the ship, caused the protective suit’s visor to darken. Zade walked to the end of the ramp, just before stepping onto the planet’s surface, Zade marked the location of the ship on his map. In the event of white out conditions, Zade wanted to be able to make it back. Samix stepped onto the planet next to him.
“Pick a direction and start walking.” She ordered.
Sounds like she’s marching me out into the empty desert to execute me.
“We can run it. With both of us we should be able to make it to the site in twelve minutes or so. You’ll just have to cut me some slack, I do have a quarter ton on my back.”
“Sounds good to me. Being able to handle these temperatures, doesn’t mean I like them.”
Zade did a quick turn to survey the area surrounding the ship. Every direction was the same, nothingness as far as the eye could see. Everything was pure white, and with the clouds it was hard to tell where the horizon was in some directions. After picking a direction at random, but before setting off Zade instructed EPSI to lock onto Samix’s interface signal, and keep it displayed on his map. If she were going to leave him behind, he would know as soon as she set off towards the ship. After ensuring that he could see Samix on his map, Zade set off at a dead sprint. An odometer in his display, brought up by EPSI as Samix explained how the team needed to be five kilometers from the ship, was rolling over alarmingly fast. Samix was able to keep pace for the first kilometer or so, but by the third she had fallen behind, far enough that Zade could no longer see her. As he realized this, Zade slowed to a walk and watched his map. Her indicator was stationary, which meant that she was lost, winded or injured.
Zade turned and headed back to her location to make sure everything was alright. As he got closer, he started seeing her, blurry at first the image cleared to reveal that she was sitting on the icy ground holding her left leg. The confusion that took hold of Zade was born from the inability to understand why he felt the need to help the woman that he was sure was trying to kill him. As soon as he realized she might be hurt, Zade hustled towards her covering the last bit of distance in seconds.
“Shit, what happened? Are you ok?”
“I’ll be fine. I stepped on a chunk of ice and rolled my ankle. My nanites should have it fixed in a couple of minutes.” She answered.
“You have a first aid kit?” Zade asked
“Why would I? I’m not medical.”
The Unity focused so heavily on position specialization that no one role in the Unity military or exploration corps cross trained on any different role. Even though Samix was the captain of an exploration ship that spent most of its time outside of settled space, no one on the ship was versed in first aid. After taking a knee, Zade propped up Samix’s foot and took off her boot to examine the damage. Without the nanites Zade would have left the boot on and just cinched it tight, to prevent swelling. With the nanites Zade knew he would have to tape Samix up. The nanites would take care of any physical damage, but the newly repaired tendons would be weak, and without extra support Samix would just continue to roll the ankle again and again.
Zade had taken some basic supplies from the medical bay to make himself a first aid kit. One of which was athletic tape for just such injuries. To keep the pack light, Zade didn’t carry enough to spat a boot, meaning that he would have to tape the ankle directly. As he worked on Samix, Zade explained that during a ruck march for training, he had rolled an ankle. Since he didn’t want to fall behind by stopping to take care of the injury, by the end of the march every time he put weight on the foot the ankle would roll increasing the damage to the joint. Confident that the tape would hold until the end of the mission, Zade had Samix put her boot back on, instructing her to tie it as tight as she could stand.
“Thank you. How did you know what to do?” Samix asked as she stood to test the newly supported joint.
“In my military everyone has to have some first aid training. I’ve had to do everything from applying a tourniquet on an amputation to fixing a collapsed lung while in combat.”
“That’s a more practical approach than what the Unity does. Only the medical officer on a ship has medical training.”
“Sounds inefficient, causing more casualties then necessary. Let’s get to the site, the sooner we get started the sooner we can get off this ball of ice.”
The two walked the last two kilometers in silence. The limp Samix
started with had almost completely disappeared by the time they got to the site. As the pair closed with their objective, Samix unloaded the crate of sensors before Zade dropped the backpack frame. After lining up the crates, Samix used her interface to unlock them. While assembling the ice drill, she instructed Zade to start constructing the small shelter which would provide some protection from the elements. The shelter was small, no larger than an ice fishing shack back on earth. Made from a lightweight plastic, it was easy to assemble, Zade had it constructed just as Samix started drilling the ice cores. Perched on the now empty crates inside the shelter the two sat silently and watched the drill work. Samix was the first to break the silence.
“So, what’s your real story? At first, I thought you were going to be some useless lower lifeform. After the repair stop, I read through your files and realized that you would probably be a good trooper; now I don’t know what to think.”
Zade thought for a while before starting in on the canned speech he gave while in the isolation chamber. After a few sentences Samix realized that it was the same story she had already heard and cut him off.
“Look I know about your skills and training already. I want to know what kind of person I brought onto my crew”
After weighing his options, and the effects of opening up to Samix, Zade began.
∆∆∆
I was born and bred in small town USA. Bored with the small-town culture and people, I decided when I was very young, to join the military. I never had any ambition to become an officer, I just wanted the excitement that came with combat. As I got older, I realized that I had the capacity to be a good leader and felt that if I could it was my responsibility to lead troops. As I left for my country’s prestigious military academy, I still just wanted to be in the infantry but, as luck would have it, I was sent to be an artillery officer. One day after I graduated my officer specialty school, I was on a plane to Iraq. Like everyone going on their first deployment I was scared as hell. After a couple of weeks in country, the fear subsided and, I found myself trying to go out on every dangerous mission I could. I was again searching for the excitement that had eluded me my whole life.
My second deployment came shortly after I returned from the first. The operation tempo was incredible even for seasoned warriors. This deployment was spent seeking out the enemy and destroying them with air support. Unlike my first deployment, as this one started I felt no fear only excitement. Like my first, the excitement soon faded to boredom, and I began hunting for the elusive adrenaline rush again. Number two was both better and worse than the first. It was better because every day was a new adventure. Worse because I got to see into the black abyss that was man’s cruelty. It never ceases to amaze me how creative man was when finding new ways to hurt each other.
During a particularly nasty firefight on the second deployment I realized that I had never been happier than I was at that moment, with enemy rounds flying over my head. I knew then that I no longer fought because I was told to, I fought because I wanted to, because I needed to. I needed to fight to prove that I was the best that ever lived. After the fight I realized that, to salvage what was left of my humanity, I needed to establish a personal code. I would always fight, but never against the innocent. Although I enjoyed besting an opponent, to kill innocents would make me nothing more than an animal.
After number two, I came home both bored with life, and disgusted with my fellow man. Disgusted at the cruelty of their actions and disgusted at my country’s citizenry for their apathy and ignorance of such cruelties. As soon as I got back, I petitioned my commanders for another deployment; I had to get back to combat where I felt at home. They initially said it was unhealthy to spend so much time in combat but, after some mental testing to show I was not psychologically imbalanced, I pulled orders for a third deployment. The wars were closing down and I knew that this deployment would be my last. Mankind never stays at peace long, just long enough for the willing warriors seasoned in previous combat to age and never again be called up to fight.
Knowing this I spent the last deployment pushing myself, I had to find my limit. I had to know just how good of a warrior I was. I spent the deployment putting myself into harder and harder situations to see at which point I would fail. Up until I came aboard your ship, I was undefeated back home. It was a bittersweet feeling; I was happy that I was the best, but sad that I still had not found my limit. To be honest, I don’t know what I would have done if you guys didn’t pick me up. The only regret I have from this adventure, is that I will never again see my family, dog or cars.
I could have stayed in the military or become a civilian. The military was full of bureaucracy and leaders who only cared about their next promotion. The society I would have been thrust back into if I didn’t hook up with you, wasn’t any better, it could never truely be home. The people in my country either viewed me with fear, thinking I was an animal who enjoyed combat and the act of killing. Or they viewed me with pity, as a broken man forever haunted by actions he was forced to commit. The first is probably closer to the truth, but the worse of the two.
∆∆∆
Samix sat quietly looking at Zade, completely absorbed by his story. Mistaking her silent admiration for the pity and fear he had hoped to escape, Zade hung his head and waited. Just as the silence in the shack became unbearable, the drill began beeping to signal that it had drilled through the ice and completed its analysis of the core. Stirred from her thoughts, Samix began disassembling the drilling rig. As she put the drill back in its case, Zade began removing the three-hundred-foot-long core from the hole. As he pulled it out, Zade broke off chunks and threw them outside the shack. It had no scientific significance, it only needed removed to provide access for the sensors. Samix assembled the sensors that would be lowered into the ice and scan the ecosystem of the ocean below.
As Samix started the scan, Zade asked, “How long is this going to take?”
“Should take about four hours.”
“Plenty of time for a story. You wanted to know what kind of crewmember I was, it’s only fair that I learn what kind of captain I’m being led by.”
After checking to see that the sensor was functioning properly, Samix sat back down inside the shack. She knew that it was against Unity protocol for a captain to become too familiar with her crew. Zade however wasn’t technically a Unity commissioned crewmember, and thus didn’t meet the fraternization guidelines. After thinking for a while, Samix decided that opening up couldn’t hurt and might even improve the relationship between the two of them.
∆∆∆
Well first I think it would help to explain some basics. My species, the Xi’Ga, live to be incredibly old compared to yours. Where a member of your species would be considered old if they reached one hundred, my species regularly live to nine hundred years old. As a reference, the Unity was formed by the Xi’Ga and thus Unity time is the standard time for our home world. Our home world is, from what I can tell, almost exactly the same as Earth. Therefore, Unity time denominations must be very close to those of earth. With that out of the way, here goes.
My story started two hundred years ago, when I was just a child. When I was very young, before the Unity was as established as it is today, my parents had decided to move to a planet in the outer reaches of Unity space to make their fortune farming. I don’t remember much about the planet because I was so young, but I have searched through every piece of Unity data on its location and the colony’s establishment. We took a colony ship with fifteen other families to the planet. Even though intragalatic travel had been perfected, as a poor family we couldn’t afford a fast ship. The journey took almost nine months, but we eventually reached our new home.
Following protocol, the families of the new colony disassembled the ship to make a protective wall for the colony. After the wall was completed each family built a homestead. The crop that we were sent to farm had to grow for five years before it could be harvested, thus the first transport from Unity space wasn
’t scheduled to arrive until six years after the colony was scheduled to land. It gave us one year to build the colony and five to grow the first crop, during which time we were completely on our own.
The first two years went well but, one night in year three, our colony was visited by a group of slavers. The slave trade in the outer reaches of civilized space flourished because colonies constantly needed more labor. The slavers landed in the middle of the night, and began sweeping through the village killing the men, and rounding up the children and women. The children were to be sold to other colonies as labor, and the women were to be sold into a less appealing profession. We were rounded up in the center of the colony. As a frightened girl I could only cry and cling to my mother.
When my mother couldn’t quiet me down, the slavers came by to do it for her. As they approached, she picked me up and started to run away. Just as she separated from the group, they shot her in the back; she was gone before she hit the ground. They grabbed me and put me with the other children. The leader of the slavers came over to see what had happened, and to inform his crew that there weren’t enough supplies to take everyone. After executing the women, the slavers took me and five other small children to their ship. The surviving children were left at the dead colony to fend for themselves.
Aboard their ship, we were all thrown into a tiny cage in the cargo bay for the flight back to the stage two planets. The Unity is broken into three distinct areas; the core, stage two, and outer rim. Core planets are in the interior of the Unity and are made up of Unity species’ home worlds. Just outside of the core are stage two planets; planets not yet developed enough to be considered core, but more trafficked than the outer rim. These planets were the first to be settled after the formation of the Unity and have regular merchant traffic. They also regularly benefited from slave labor as they made money from their crops but weren’t developed enough to have automation. Outside of the stage twos was the outer rim. The outer rim consists of newly colonized planets, and due to their remote locations rarely have any kind of law or protections.