I walked into the squad pod, as we’d come to call it, as bowls of goop on a floating metal sheet announced breakfast. People stirred, waking up the others. I saw most of them were awake or getting there as I knew I couldn’t contain myself.
“This is how we’re going to do it,” I said, loud enough that everyone listened to me. Their sleepiness disappeared. It was one trick we’d all learned after more than one rude awakening.
“Everyone line up against the wall.”
They did so, giving confused looks to one another.
I walked along the line, giving them a number from one to five. “All right, everyone get with your like numbers: ones with ones, twos with twos—you get the idea.” With the translator implants, everyone was quickly collected into five groups. There was no such thing as lost in translation anymore.
“This is your team—this is your family. You will be with one another at all times: you will fight together, you will sleep together and you will work together.”
“What makes you the boss of us? You’re the one who lost us the damned fight.” Wiry seemed to ponder. His eyes looked to see whether his barb had struck home.
“Taleel did.”
This made his eyes widen and then narrow in what looked like angry righteousness, as if he should’ve had the position, but he didn’t say anything more.
Let’s see what schemes you can come up with. I shook my head at the absurdity of it. How could he still be quibbling over something so small when we were fighting for our damned lives? How can people be so narrow-minded? I looked around. Just as I was about to speak, he interrupted me—I had no doubt on purpose. I let an exasperated sigh go. For some reason, he had a chip on his shoulder, a chip that I seemed to be the root of. I replayed what he’d just said in my mind as he walked toward me.
“At least I didn’t get everyone punished for my fuck-up. I think we should see what my fist says about him being leader, seeing as you can’t even defeat a girl.”
I rolled my eyes, putting my hands on my hips as I looked at him. He had bragged about his Tae Kwon Do training, and he was also smaller than me now.
He didn’t know my fighting style or how I had denser muscle tissue than a normal person, thanks to legal synthetic enhancement. It made my muscle mass four times more powerful, pound for pound, than another person, which had only increased with whatever growth drugs and such we were given. I emotionlessly took this into consideration, as well as applying the same possibilities on to him and adding a few foreseeable additional factors. Though I had to stop myself from grinning. He’d just dishonored Yasu Ono, not the best move—even if I lost, Yasu would have a few choice words with him. Well, what bloody lump was left of him.
“C’mon, pretty boy, winner leads.”
“A leader only resorts to force when he needs to. Why do you want to fight me when we have other squads we need to fight?” I said easily as we circled each other.
“Enough of your damn words.” He lunged at me as I danced backward, putting my hands in my pockets.
I could see Yasu as she watched, studying me, looking for a weakness to exploit.
“Running already, are you, pussy?”
“Watch what you say,” I said, my voice cold as I locked eyes with him.
“What are you going to do, asshole? Cry for mommy and daddy?” He sneered.
I saw more than one person’s eyes light up at his words.
The light didn’t enter mine; coldness did. Emotion slipped away and I truly became Salchar. I felt my face change into a mask as cold rage filled me.
“Looks like they aren’t coming,” he said in a light, condescending tone. “Nobody loves you.” His eyes bore into me, his voice normal, which made it hurt all the more, as if his statement was common fact. He must’ve seen something twitch behind my mask, as he had the gall to grin at his shot landing home.
My fist snaked out and hit him in the Adam’s apple. He rolled back, his eyes bulging as he found himself unable to breathe. I lunged forward. My next hit landed on his sternum, forcing any air he had left in his lungs out. The third hit connected with his face as he curled inward on himself. His head snapped upward in a fountain of blood as his nose broke before he landed in a pile on the floor. His face rapidly went blue from lack of oxygen.
“Don’t talk about my family.” My voice was as cold as frozen nitrogen as I stepped over him.
“Rick, have a look at him.” I didn’t look back.
“Yes, boss.” His voice was cold and professional as he rushed to Wiry’s side.
The door opened as Taleel walked in. Everyone rushed into formation without thought, forgetting Wiry.
“He got what he deserved and will have ten rotations added to his service,” he said. A floating cart came in, picking up Wiry as black instruments emerged from the cart, already working on him as it floated back through the door.
“From now on, fighting will be taught by Salchar and he will be the leader of this squad.” His voice got colder as his jaw tightened. “You will win your fights or I will test the boundaries of how long humans last with level eight.”
A chill ran down my spine as I saw more than one person’s face drained of blood.
Without another word, he left me and the terrified remains of my squad behind.
Now was time to give them purpose and show them how we could win and stave off punishment, though it wouldn’t be easy.
“Get in your teams!” I demanded as they jumped to it.
I looked at the other members of Wiry’s team, including Yasu. “Look after him when he comes back. I probably took it too far but I have something about bullies and people talking about my family like that.” I didn’t have a family in the legal sense, but Mecha Tail had filled the void and then some in my life.
I raised my voice so everyone could hear me.
“Within your teams, start going over fighting techniques, building up to fights. I will be evaluating you all to see who will be team leaders. Go.” Groups formed as teams came together; a few high-fived others, getting better acquainted than they had already. My own converged on me.
I was paired with a medium-built guy called Charles. He was twelve and loved video games. He’d kept mostly to himself. I’d wanted to be paired with Rick, but I’d made Rick the leader of another team. I needed to at least know that two-thirds of my people would listen to me.
Cassie and the final member, Rob, joined us, the other pair of my team.
“It wasn’t your fault that we lost. Now, with these teams, we’ll win!” An infectious smile was on her face.
Charles looked at me with hooded eyes and Rob shrugged, his hands in his pockets.
“Hopefully, though Wiry was right about one thing—I did lose it for us.”
They looked taken aback by my acceptance.
“It’s not your fault Yasu jumped you.” Rob grinned. “I wouldn’t mind getting jumped by her myself!”
“Robbie!” the blonde complained, hitting him on the shoulder and glaring at the unrepentant man, who continued to grin, which I couldn’t help but respond in kind to.
“All right, so let’s go around and talk a little about ourselves so we can get more familiarized before we begin training. Charles?”
He studied his hands as he talked and fidgeted, which was quite an odd look for a two hundred and sixty pound man.
“I’m Charles and I like fish.” He looked as if he were waiting for some harsh remarks.
“What kind of fish?”
“Sturgeon,” he said, again bracing himself for something.
“Why?” Cassie sounded perplexed but interested.
“Uhh...’cause they’re interesting, how they’ve been around for nearly a hundred a fifty million years. They can live for a hundred and fifty years. Some can travel—others will live near their birthplace for the majority of their life. I also like other fish, but I like them the most.” He looked at the ground, waiting to be made fun of.
“I never knew that much about
sturgeon. Rob?” I said in a light tone.
“You’re not going to make fun of me?” Charles looked at me in shock.
“Why should I? You just taught me something I never knew about,” I said as he went back to admiring the floor.
“Well, it’s weird.”
“It’s different. I don’t have the same interests but that’s cool. People are different.” I shrugged as the others nodded in agreement.
Rob turned red and I thought I saw his eyes water up as he went back to fiddling with his fingers at an increased pace. “I’m Rob and I like skateboarding. Oh, and I really want to ride that damned food trolley.”
“Why?” My eyebrow cocked in interest.
“Well, think about it—skateboarding without having to push with my feet. Plus the tricks you could do with antigravity and space would be awesome!”
“Remind me to not let you go near the food cart without supervision.”
He grinned; Cassie and I grinned along with him. Charles showed a small smile as he continued to look down.
“I’m Cassie and I like fencing.”
“How’d you get into that?”
“My dad was a professor. On take-your-kid-to-school day when I was nine or so, I wandered into an open fencing tournament. I was mesmerized by the elegance of the movements, the competitiveness, and the outfits probably. It was a hassle for my parents to get me out of my fencing outfit. Anyway, I started getting lessons, been doing it ever since. I just passed nationals and I was picked up to train for the Olympics in a few years.” A note of sadness mixed with her excitement.
“Damn, that is impressive.” I tried to pull her thoughts away from what she’d lost.
Her cheeks colored as she looked at the floor shyly.
“Well then, I’m James and I like video games, though you can call me Salchar.”
“I didn’t realize your name was James,” Cassie said, a look in her eyes that reminded me of one too many groupies I’d seen.
“Salchar’s my gamer tag.”
“Ahh.”
“So, shall we get started with some fighting?”
Rob and Cassie both agreed verbally as Charles nodded into the floor.
Charles and I fought lightly. I gave him a few pointers while I watched Cassie and Rob out of the corner of my eye. All the teams were fighting by the time meals came, which we devoured in no time, ready for further training. Wiry returned once the meal was done. He found a wall and sat against it as he stared at me, his anger palpable. Yasu didn’t fight with her team as well; instead, she leaned against a wall, watching.
“What’s your favorite meal, Salchar?” Rob asked, breaking me out of my thought process.
“Spaghetti bolognaise with extra meat.” I half-remembered the dish, the slime that we ate instead replacing it in taste.
“Roast beef with all the fixings,” Charles said.
I thought that he might lick his lips at the thought.
“Bacon cheeseburger with potato wedges,” Rob added.
“Ice cream.” Cassie grinned.
“That’s not a meal,” Rob said.
“It’s a dessert,” Charles added.
“Well, I like it!” She half pouted and crossed her arms to emphasize the point. It was hard to think that she was only fourteen when she looked like a model and could kick some serious ass if she wanted to.
“Yeah, but you have to name a meal, not a dessert!” Rob was exasperated.
For liking ice cream, she does cut a fine figure. I looked around the squad pod. The women looked like Playboy models, their bodies lithe and strong, while the men looked like body builders.
I wondered whether the rest of the squad realized how good everyone looked or whether they were feeling the effects of having their bodies rush through puberty with no hormonal cooldown into adulthood.
I didn’t like where the stream of my thoughts were going. An eight-year-old easily gave in to their desires. They were more adult than most eight-year-olds—they had the bodies of adults, which would be very hard to fight off, especially with the training I was going to give them.
“Representative from each team here.”
There was a furious discussion for a few minutes, deciding who the representative would be. They came to me over the space of a few minutes.
My team moved to the side so that the leaders could be closer but that they could still easily hear.
“A new rule: no one is to make unwanted sexual moves on another, or they will be dealt with by us. That said, sex is not allowed—we don’t need a girl getting pregnant.”
Horrified and uneasy eyes looked back at me as Rick raised his hand.
“Yes?” I looked to him.
“They’re kids—why do you think they’d do anything like that?” Rick said, his outrage clear.
“They’re just becoming teenagers. Do you remember how horny you were when you hit puberty?” All of them went red; only Chung Hoi and Rick met my eyes. Sex and sexuality was a highly talked about subject in their previous trades.
“They haven’t set up any way to stop people having sex. With everyone at peak health, with all the hormones that come with being at that state, it’s best we look to stop such a situation arising,” I continued. “Unless someone else gets picked, then you’re going to be the leaders of your team—look after them.”
The leaders nodded and went back to their groups. Wiry and his bigger sidekick looked over at me briefly as I related the rules to my team, all of them looking mildly disgusted.
“It’s just in case.” I shrugged.
“You’re Salchar,” Charles said, as if that was the end of it.
“So what will we be doing for training?” Rob said, moving past it.
“Defense and using a person’s force against them.”
All of them leaned forward in interest.
“How?”
“Well, we’ll get Yasu to help us.”
I turned to the other groups. “All right everyone—into formation. One to the right; five to the left.” Everyone lined up in a block in front of me except for Wiry and Yasu.
“You’re in need of training. Thankfully, we have one of the best trained fighters in the world.” I heard Yasu snort as a grin spread across my face. “Yasu Ono.” I gestured to her with an open palm as she looked at me in confusion.
“Everyone, please turn and bow to Yasu, asking her to teach you to defend yourself.” I did so, asking her as the others followed. I stood upright first, seeing the look of anger on her face.
She bowed to us. “I will accept you all as students.” Her fighting style held onto the belief that no one should be without protection; if a person asked to learn, then they had to be taught, unless they were to use their talents to cowardly murder someone instead of a fair fight.
Plus, now she can’t attack any of us except Wiry, who didn’t ask her for training.
“Now it is time to turn you into something useful.”
I saw the glimmer of a smile in her eyes as she began to truly train us. I had thought the physical training before had been bad—this was body-shattering. Every exercise was made to inflict pain, in such a way as it was negligible in a fight. It was surprising how much the pain implants had numbed us to pain. Our muscles quivered with exertion as they remembered the movements Yasu had ingrained in us with simple words. We ate, we slept, and we repeated. I had the movements down and could see how they combined into the complex movements that Yasu performed at her own level.
I didn’t know how long we’d been awake and training when Taleel walked into the room. Everyone scrambled to get into formation. Wiry, showing he didn’t care for the arrangement I had made, purposefully took another’s position.
“That’s my spot,” Yang pleaded.
“That’s my spot,” Wiry mock-whined as Yang rushed to another spot.
“Fuck head,” Yang muttered.
We had moved past trying to get the kids to not swear. They had grown up enough to have the right.
The door opened again, and again I walked through it without pause like the others, already shaking themselves into their own teams. We would worry about training later; we needed to focus on winning today.
We walked in this time to face a new team. This one sported vicious cuts and bruises, unlike my own team.
I walked to the center. “Clean fight, no low blows, gouging, biting or scratching? My rules.” I put my hand out.
One walked forward with a cocky swagger and gripped my hand. “No fucking way.” He smirked as he pulled me forward, his left fist cocked.
I dropped my weight, yanking him to me. As I dropped on my back, he lost his balance and fell toward me. I had my legs between me and him. His weight fell on them as I pushed, using his own momentum to throw him up and over me. He windmilled for less than a second as his head cracked off the floor. Blood instantly welled up from the wound.
I picked myself up and gave the man a glance. I wiped my hands and turned to the other squad. “Anyone else want to fight dirty?” My voice was cold.
“We’ll fight fair.” Another large man came forward, shaking my hand before he stepped back a few steps as I did the same.
Looks like most teams are just going for the biggest guys to be their leaders. The younger ones of the group shook visibly.
“All right, let’s get ’em!” This time, I rolled back as they advanced on us and my squad on them. I quickly found Yasu. I breathed a sigh of relief as she and Wiry were as far from me as possible.
After a few seconds, Charles found me and we joined the fight beside Rick. He was a ground technique guy. A lot of his holds were like those I’d seen in MMA tournaments. He would wait till an opponent hit the floor and wrap them up, either making them tap, knock them out, or were left with painful injuries. Then he’d push them aside and wait for another to fall.
I was a brawler. I punched, kicked, and charged at every opportunity, my body taking a pounding as I got in close and laid a series of rapid blows on my opponents. My techniques used my opponent’s momentum, allowing me to land vicious hits, or throw them—like I had their first leader.
Free Fleet Box Set 1 Page 7