“Private Halbert?” a voice came from behind me.
I turned to find Captain Wilson standing there in his dress uniform. I saluted. “Yes, sir?” Even though we’d spent three rough, long days training with the man, I kept my distance.
“At ease, Private,” he said, returning the salute. “I wanted to speak to you about your plans after graduation. Do you have any?”
“I was focused first on getting through basic training,” I replied. “I figured I would determine my specialty after that.”
He nodded. “Good, that’s good. Because I have an offer for you that I think you’ll find hard to refuse.”
I stood there, waiting. I didn’t want to sound disinterested or appear too eager.
“I want to offer you a position in the 7th Ranger Battalion,” he said.
I felt my eyes widen. “An army Ranger?” I asked.
“Of course. We were watching you throughout basic training and you’re quite impressive. That, coupled with your unique physiology makes you an ideal candidate for the Rangers.”
Of course, it came down to my powers. I was surprised the entire planet of Galatia IV hadn’t been forcefully recruited in to the Federation. If the planet had been in Imperial territory I’m sure they would have been.
“I would be honored, sir,” I replied, unable to reasonably say no without revealing myself. An ordinary recruit would jump at the honor to join the Rangers. “When do I start?”
“Right away. Report to Fort Helen near the city of San Rivel one week hence. Fort Helen is about three hundred and fifty miles north of here.”
Here I was thinking Ranger training would have its own planet. But then I remembered Avylon II was the training planet of the Federation and that meant every branch of the military would call this their headquarters. It therefore stood to reason that the special operations teams would too. “Of course, sir,” I said, saluting.
He nodded as if he’d expected nothing less than my complete obedience, then turned to walk away.
“Sir?” I said, a thought coming to me. “I have a special request?”
He turned and raised an eyebrow. “A special request? You already agreed. Now you want to negotiate?”
My face warmed, an unusual feat for an undead person, but I kept my cool. “I only just thought of it, sir. I would like my fellow recruit Julianna Severstein to also be recruited into the Seventh. She’s undead too,” I hurriedly added.
“Yes, I remember who she is. She was in the silo with you when it exploded.” He contemplated for a long moment, stroking his chin. “Fine, she’ll be accepted too.”
“Thank you,” I said. Only then did I realize I hadn’t asked Julianna what she wanted to do with her career in the military. For all I knew, she could have already planned a career in communications or some other branch. But I crossed my fingers mentally that she would agree to follow me into the Rangers.
“YOU WANT me to join the Rangers with you?” Julianna asked, incredulous.
“Yes. I know, I should have asked you first but...”
“I’d be honored,” she cut in.
To the side, Terrence nodded, seeming to approve of my choice of group to join. I think the only group he would approve of more was the Shadow Watch Guard. I’d have to ask him sometime how one joined their elite ranks.
“It’s settled then,” I said, excited. “We have a week leave before we report to Fort Helen. Want to have some fun first?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” my friend said, offering a wicked grin.
Chapter 20
“Prepare to jump!” Captain Wilson shouted over the sound of the wind as the H-1000 gunship cut through the atmosphere.
I clutched the strap of my parachute and avoided looking down. Granted, I was the last person who should fear heights, considering I could literally fly, but I still felt slight discomfort contemplating the dizzying height. It’s only training, I thought, and it’s only my first time.
Three other Rangers stood in front of me in line. They gave me confidence to know I wasn’t going to be the first out of the gunship.
“Go, go, go!” Captain Wilson shouted.
One by one the three Rangers preceded me out into the expanse of atmosphere, disappearing from sight. When it was my turn, I felt the chilly air whipping me wildly and for a moment I panicked. But then I remembered the lesson Captain Wilson had hammered into our heads and focused on the ground, orienting myself. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the other Rangers ahead of me in their descent.
Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, I counted. At twenty, I pulled the rip cord and felt a tug as the parachute deployed, slowing my descent. That wasn’t so bad, I thought.
HAVING MASTERED JUMPING out of a gunship, I now faced off against Julianna on the training mat.
“Begin!” Captain Wilson shouted.
Julianna moved first, charging at me and preparing to bull me over and tackle me to the ground. I side-stepped her charge, pushing her head down, but instead of sliding into the ground, she twisted and swept a leg out, tripping me and sending me into the air.
In that timeless moment before I fell, I surrounded myself with anti-gravity and halted my descent, floating there weightless. Then I summoned a ball of gravity above me to orient myself perpendicular with the ground, standing up, and immediately canceled both spells, landing on my feet.
My friend stood there, arms crossed. “You done showboating? While you were floating like a possessed person, I could have strangled you, cut your throat or shot you in the head.”
“Gee, thanks for the descriptive ways of killing me. Do you think about that a lot?” I asked.
“She’s right, Private,” Captain Wilson said. “If you’re going to show off with fancy tricks, you need to do it faster than your opponent can react.”
I sighed. So much for trying to fight smart. “Yes, sir,” I replied, setting my feet for the next round of sparring.
BODY SORE FROM DOZENS of rounds of hand-to-hand combat, I stood with a dozen other Rangers-in-training watching as one Dr. Hervera demonstrated the use of an injector.
“As you can see, the injector is light-weight and straightforward to use. You simply press to the skin and pull back on the trigger.” She demonstrated on one of my fellow trainees. A hiss emanated from it. “Each standard dosage contains one thousand nanites programmed to spread out and cluster near any wounds, infections or damaged organs. Obviously, more severe wounds will take more nanites, and several severe wounds will need many doses, otherwise a single dose will focus on one wound at a time, which may be too slow to save a dying person. The nanites are also only active for about thirty minutes before they die and are absorbed into the bloodstream. They’re later flushed out when the patient urinates.”
“Are we allowed to use more than one dose at a time?” one trainee asked.
“While not recommended when there are several wounded, if there is a single severely wounded soldier you may use up to three without overly taxing their system. More than that could start clogging up their arteries and cause cardiac issues.
“When nanites are not available, or when there are more wounds than nanites, you have to go old-school and bandage the wound.” She held up a roll of white bandages. “Now pay attention to how...”
I yawned. This was going to be a long day.
“THREE ASSAILANTS,” Julianna whispered from half a foot away. “Two o’clock. Wind speed, ten kilometers per hour.”
Happy to be away from learning how to use injectors and bandage wounds, I lined up the shot, taking wind speed into account. I then released my breath and steadied my sniper rifle, preparing to pull the trigger. It was easy to release my breath considering my kind didn’t need to breathe like the living. I pulled the trigger and the ground next to one dummy target flew into the air. Damn, I missed. Without missing a beat, I adjusted and fired again. This time the chest of the dummy exploded from the impact of the coilgun shell.
“That’s better,” I said.
/> “Keep shooting,” Captain Wilson said through the squad comm. “One shot, one kill. In a real situation, by the time you lined up the second shot your target would be diving for cover or you’d be receiving counter-fire, most likely both.”
“Yes sir,” I replied, sighing.
“THIS,” CAPTAIN WILSON began, “is a rocket propelled grenade launcher, or RPG. Unlike traditional rifles, which were improved by adding electromagnets, the mechanism of this weapon has remained the same for centuries. However, the grenades it launches have improved as armor has increased. For instance,” he turned and launched a grenade toward a metal shack in the distance. It landed a few feet from it and then exploded a moment later, peppering the metal shack with dozens of holes. “This specific grenade is known as an armor-buster grenade. It contains dozens of titanium balls and double the explosive material than an ordinary grenade. This makes it weigh more, but it does more damage to armored opponents.
“Then there are EMP, or electromagnetic pulse, grenades. They disrupt electronics for a brief period of time. This can include internal comm devices if the EMP is strong enough or if the internal device is not shielded. Most military-grade implants are shielded from all but the strongest EMPs.”
Are you shielding, Jarvis? I asked.
Of course, miss. I can withstand everything below a class 6 EMP wave.
How many classes are there?
Six.
Oh. So that’s pretty good.
Yes, miss.
“This next weapon is a heavy machine gun,” Captain Wilson hefted a long-barreled weapon with holes along the barrel. “It uses coilgun mechanisms...”
This training session held my attention.
SIXTY-ONE DAYS. SIXTY-one days of nineteen point five hours of instruction per day. I’d jumped out of a gunship, become an expert in hand-to-hand combat, become a competent marksman, learned to mend the wounded under pressure, learned about heavy weapons and infiltration and so much more.
Now I stood graduating once again – this time from Ranger school. There were noticeably fewer Rangers than had graduated basic training, which made sense considering there were many specialties to go into. I also only recognized a few of them, because the undead and living had generally been kept separate. Captain Wilson said it was because the living were jealous, or perhaps scared, of us. I could believe it, after what I’d witnessed, though I thought soldiers would be more willing to accept different people.
Julianna stood at my side. It filled me with confidence to see my friend there. We’d been through Hell together but we’d come out on top.
Now on to the real missions.
Chapter 21
I looked through the viewport as the Daedalus shifted from shadow space into real space. A set of three rings spun perpendicular to the central axis. A large ship sat docked to one of the rings, while two smaller ships, about the size of the Daedalus, also lay docked, though they were detaching themselves as I watched.
Captain Wilson had explained the Daedalus was an assault corvette. It boasted a “stealth” suite of sensor-jamming and sensor minimizing arrays while also being combat capable against ships of its own class. Two dozen starfighters sat in its hangar while four gunships waited, unable to be used for long in the vacuum of space. They were designed to be dropped into low planetary orbit, near where the atmosphere began, and descend from there, if the Daedalus was unable to enter atmosphere itself or time was of the essence.
“Pirates,” I grumbled to Julianna. “Looks like they’ve spotted us.”
“No, not us,” Julianna said with a grin, pointing. “Look, beyond the station.” She tapped on the viewport and the smart display zoomed in to where she tapped. A cruiser and two frigates had emerged from shadow space and were deploying fighters.
“Bait?” I asked. “Why do they need us?”
“Because we want the hostages alive,” Captain Wilson answered tersely, having overheard me. “While our colleagues in the navy hold their attention and drain their station of every available spacecraft, we will slip in, dock and get the hostages out before anyone notices.”
A favorite saying of my father came to mind just then. No plan survives contact with the enemy. Would our plan?
“What kind of hostages are they, sir?” Julianna asked with a modicum of respect. She’d learned, the hard way, to speak respectfully to commanding officers or she’d earn latrine duty or some other menial punishment.
“Hostages with rich families,” he replied. “The Federation doesn’t negotiate with terrorists, but their families are happy to pay the Federation to risk our lives to save them.”
“Oh,” I said. So it wasn’t an altruistic mission? Not that I regretted saving innocent civilians, but the exchange of money suggested we were putting the lives of the rich above the lives of more deserving citizens with fewer resources.
The Daedalus streaked rapidly through space as the battle began in earnest on the far side. Streaks from tracer shells, laser beams and missile exhaust trails filled the void. Colonel Schattler had yet to deploy our own starfighters - probably to maintain the element of surprise. If the enemy had seen us approaching, they didn’t show it. The anti-starcraft defenses remained inactive on the side facing us.
“Intel suggests the hostages are being held in the second ring,” Captain Wilson relayed.
“Makes sense,” Julianna said. “Considering the cruise ship is docked there.”
“Cut the chatter,” Sergeant Reynolds, our squad leader, ordered. “Check your gear, ready your weapons and prepare to breach.”
While the colonel oversaw the entire battalion, Captain Wilson oversaw Delta Company. I’d heard some of the other soldier refer to it as “dead” company, considering it consisted of undead soldiers. Twenty Rangers under the captain’s command, with four sergeants acting as squad leaders.
The second ring of the space station neared and the Daedalus jolted as it slowed. It drifted toward the hull of the pirate base and then the maneuvering thrusters kicked in to bring it close enough.
“Latching complete,” a voice announced over the intercom. “Commencing laser cutting.”
I knew from talking to the other Rangers that the latching procedure involved powerful magnets surrounding an outer airlock of the Daedalus drawing the two ships together. Once close enough, the laser drills would pop out and begin drilling a hole in the target ship or station. They said the ideal place to drill was by an enemy airlock, because once we pulled away the inner airlock would close and the enemy ship would not lose hull integrity like it would if we drilled through an outer wall.
A zapping sound reverberated through the ship as the lasers engaged. There was no sound in space, true, but energy coils lay inside the ship and were loud.
All five companies in the seventh Ranger battalion stood ready, in separate holds so that if one were breached the others would survive. When the breaching completed, we would each leave our separate holds and funnel into the ship. The Daedalus did feature multiple outer airlocks on each side, allowing for up to two points of entry at a time, but today it was only one breach.
The problem with breaching was the enemy could create bottlenecks if they had enough time to prepare. Or if we breached at the wrong location.
For one reason or the other, they were ready for us.
“Enemy airlock breached, enemy airlock breached,” the voice announced. The door to our compartment slid open and we activated our helmets, sealed them and headed into the hallway. Remaining sealed against vacuum and hazardous or noxious gases was standard protocol until the air was confirmed to be breathable. Plus, it was always a good idea to wear a helmet when going into combat.
Two other companies had reached the breach ahead of us. We heard the zap of enemy laser fire meeting the crackle bam of our coilguns. No screams, yet, but the global battalion comms had devolved into a cacophony of voices updating the status at once.
“Enemy on both sides, I repeat, enemy on both...agh” the warning turned to
static as the Ranger was hit.
“Grenade, grenade!” a voice shouted, though it was unclear where the grenade was. I wasn’t even in the airlock leading to the enemy ship - there was no threat of a grenade here.
“All non-company commanders, switch to company comms,” a gruff voice barked.
I obeyed and the noise faded the instant the channel switched. Our company captain, in this case Captain Wilson, would tell us of any global orders. That’s how it was meant to work, anyway. Though if he fell our sergeant would join the global channel and if he fell then one of us would join the global channel to report the loss of the sergeant.
“Alpha and Charlie company are taking heavy fire,” Captain Wilson said, calm as if he were reporting that it was raining, as we neared the seared door leading to the enemy station. “We’re up next, Delta. Don’t let me down.”
“Halbert, you’re up,” Sergeant Reynolds ordered.
I groaned inwardly, though I knew showing fear or cowardice in front of the enemy was a good way to end up in the brig, or worse. Deserters ended up dead, one way or the other.
I stepped through the charred hole and then through the inner door which had been opened by an emergency manual release lever. I immediately stepped over a fellow Ranger, helmet retracted, which only happened when they were dead. The nanites in the body of a Ranger and in their suit would deactivate and retract into the dispenser on their back upon death. Then, if the dispenser were removed without proper codes, it would self-destruct. It was a fail-safe designed to keep Federation tech out of the hands of less-than-savory factions.
Lasers flashed above the heads of the remaining Rangers, while shrapnel lay in a heap on the floor, along with three more Rangers.
I raced to an open spot and ducked down behind a glowing pink portable energy barrier. They were designed to project a shield upward when the projector was deployed. They had a limited lifespan, of course, both in time and capacity. Too much damage would overwhelm the generator and cause it to fail, sometimes explosively. I opened my voice comm to speak to those around me. “How many are there?”
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