Free Fleet Box Set 1

by Michael Chatfield

  My go-to move in Mecha Assault Two was a punch that would knock off the enemy’s visor and then kill them in the gas of the habitat or allow me to hit them in the face. In reality, it had gotten me a few knockouts.

  I caught a fist to the face. I spun backward out of reach, spitting blood from my cut lip as I saw my attacker, the second big guy who had accepted my terms. He was grinning.

  I grinned back; a laugh came from me as we came back together. I got my arms up as he pummeled me with shots. I came down low, striking upward underneath his guard and catching him in the ribs. He pulled back, more surprised than hurt. A new attacker swung a wild roundhouse at my head. I ducked under, twisting my body, and hammered him on the chin as he dropped to the ground.

  I turned to look at my first attacker, seeing him and Charles exchanging blows. The boy glanced to make sure I was okay.

  I advanced to help him as a voice came through the walls.

  “Time’s up. Move to separate walls.”

  I gave the man a two-finger salute; he repeated the gesture.

  We retreated to our side, dragging those who couldn’t get there themselves.

  “We’ll fight according to Salchar’s Rules,” the new leader of the opposing squad said, nodding to me as I nodded back.

  “You aren’t going to win against us, we’re too strong together!” I said in a singsong voice, riling them up, but hopefully they’d do just as my group had. I needed people to be able to work together after this if I had any chance of pulling one over on the Planetary Defense Force.

  “Return to your pods.” We did so, not having to wait long before Taleel showed up.

  Taleel came in, a grin on his hellish face.

  “Good stuff, squad. You’ll have another fight today. Use the med facilities as you need them.” After so many fights, we’d grown into a routine, which Taleel had accepted. He must have been making a killing betting on us. Which made our losses that much worse as he usually lost a lot of credits, taking every last one of them out on us.

  He also allowed us to use the medical facilities. Using them was nearly as bad as getting the original injury but being weak in the fights meant you might fail, that the squad might fail. Most would take the pain over losing a fight.

  Our food cart floated in as I went to the med room, the arms awaiting me as I braced myself.

  It seemed that the Planetary Defense Force didn’t believe in such things as anesthesia, meaning you were awake for whatever work the arms did on you unless you gracefully passed out. Then it would wake you up afterward.

  The restraints came together around me and the chair leveled out as the arms began to move. Thankfully, the med machine was quick. I was finished in a few minutes, my body back to normal as I walked out, rubbing my gums. I’d only had Hellfire added to my system. The drug worked as a combat healer, though as its namesake, it hurt like all hell with any wounds. It made my gums painful and itchy as my teeth went back into place as their connective tissue reconnected.

  Rob motioned me over, handing me my food and chopsticks. The usual goop was replaced by purple-looking noodles and blue pieces of something chewy and the added smell of vinegar to the previous play dough. Even with the different looks and smells, it still tasted like the metallic, sour stuff we’d had since we’d been recruits. I didn’t know why it was noodles instead of the lumpy soup, but those with experience with chopsticks helped those who didn’t know which was the right end, with some downright hilarious results. I still don’t know how Rick managed to send his chopsticks flying and end up wearing his meal. The man might be smart, but he was somewhat clumsy.

  I wolfed down some of it, nodding to myself before I turned to everyone. “Leaders on me.”

  The representatives quickly gathered around with their own meals.

  “Wish I could use these damned things.” Rick held them in a fist and scooped the food into his mouth.

  “After living in Korea for so long, I was bound to pick it up,” I said before diving in again.

  “Much prefer a knife and fork,” Marleen, one of the women I’d consented to being leader, said. She had a hardness to her that I knew would give her team and the squad a rock to stand on and would keep people in line, once she knew what the line was.

  “What did you do before, Marleen?”

  “I was a mechanic.”

  From her physique, I didn’t doubt it. I did wonder whether she had a jack in her shop or whether she just preferred to lift the car as she worked on it by herself.

  “Ah.”

  I looked to the other leaders of the groups. Rick was mostly the brains behind it, and it had worked miracles. In the first ten or so fights after the new organization, we did okay, but once people started to rely on it, we had gotten progressively better. We must have had one or two fights between every sleep period, which made up our rough estimate of days we had been training since fighting—which I guessed to be seventy.

  The first was Hoi. He was a largish brute and had been a cop before being recruited. Despite his outward appearance, he was gentle and polite and had the unenviable task of corralling Wiry and Yasu. Abella was Latina and one hell of a looker; she’d been training to become a bikini model.

  After talking for a bit, eating our new food and getting a better feel for them, I looked to them all. The mood changed from a light one to one of people ready and waiting for orders in a second.

  “All right, we’ll be fighting soon. Get your people ready.”

  They nodded. All of the leaders had been in fights before; they knew how to look after themselves. I could tell from watching them.

  “Yasu! Could you come here please?” I asked sweetly, smiling at her. She looked as if the food had gone bad as she slowly stalked over.

  “Yes?” Yasu ground out, as if the words physically hurt her.

  “For basic training, do you want to split people up into groups based upon their skill, the most advanced being instructors?” I looked to Yasu, extending my olive branch of working together.

  “I’ll sort it out myself.”

  Olive branch tossed in the wind.

  She stalked away as she began to tell people to move to different parts of the pod, splitting them up as I had suggested.

  Some people just can’t play nice.

  Time to Get Suited Up!

  Shrift looked at the humans he’d heard about as they walked through his sacred armory, looking at his perfect nine-foot Mechas lined up on their racks.

  They’d been recruits for five and a half months. They had moved from basic technology to knowing of all current technology. They knew every race that made up the Union. They could disassemble and reassemble any weapon in record time. They knew battle history. They knew how to kill with their bare hands and they had nearly reached their bodies’ maximum efficiency, which had been modified by the PDF’s supplements, drugs, training, and implants.

  Although they knew all of these things, it was in general terms and they didn’t know how to put most of these things into practice in the real world. They knew the purpose of a Mecha, how to turn it on and such, but they didn’t know how to use it, how the specific sciences or technologies worked together to get it working.

  Shrift was happy he wouldn’t be dealing with the recruits after training. It was the period when the most deaths and injuries occurred. Recruits weren’t shown how to handle weapons and any other vital equipment other than the Mecha. The PDF believed that if a recruit made it past four months of being a Mecha in the Mecha Corps, then they were worth something. Otherwise, they were just useful cannon fodder. Which was why recruits got the worst jobs.

  These humans had been given the special privilege of being introduced to their Mechas first because they held the current record for wins during training. They’d been in close to a hundred fights—one to three a day, every day—and still they kept up a six-to-one record. Shrift watched them closely. There was something scarier about them than the Sarenmenti. Sure, the Sarenmenti were deadly, and
they looked like what Shrift imagined engine demons would look like. If they couldn’t get something to work, they were more likely to shoot the damn thing for some insult than work on it!

  But these humans seemed to have an edge to them. Instead of laziness and only doing what they had been told, these ones had initiative; they thought further than what they were told. That act of thinking made Shrift take a second glance at them.

  It wasn’t just that they thought, though. It was that they had purpose; they had drive. Shrift compared them to Taleel.

  Taleel was already wearing his Mecha as he brought his squad into Shrift’s armory. His plasmid daggers in their scabbards gave off a greenish-blue hue as the plasma, which made the blades so deadly, was held within an electrostatic field. He had his rail gun strapped across his back, with a pistol in his drop leg holster. It painted the picture of a deadly Mecha, yet there was no drive in Taleel’s eyes. Instead, there was a dullness to them. The only emotion that showed was sadness hidden behind joy as he hurt his recruits.

  Shrift banged on the knee joint as he looked away, frustration at the system he found himself in and how he and Taleel had to do what they were told. Otherwise, they and their recruits would get punished more.

  Shrift pushed that thought aside as he focused on working on the knee joint of one of the Mechas. The bugger’s magnetic bearing was off-kilter and caused the whole thing to lock up.

  “Shrift!”

  “What you want, Taleel! Some of us have to work!” Shrift twirled, waving a crowbar at the officer.

  Taleel recoiled as Shrift moved toward him. The Sarenmenti might be big and deadly looking, but the Kuruvians were known for their strength and smarts. It was the basic reason none of the Sarenmenti ever picked fights with them.

  “You want someone, ask for them with a damn hello, or are you busy! Especially if it’s the Kuruvian looking after your own armor!” He advanced until he was meters away from the humans he was to train.

  “That goes for you all too!” He brandished his crowbar and brought himself to his full height of four foot. His upper limbs wielded the crowbar as he crossed his lowers. Their eyes popped from their heads at the sight. Heh, they look kind of cute. Shrift caught one not looking at him in surprise but studying the Mechas instead.

  “What’re you looking at?” he demanded as the boy looked straight ahead.

  “Mechas, sir!”

  A look of disgust crossed Shrift’s face. “I’m no officer. I am just Shrift,” he said, making sure all of them got the message.

  “Be easier to work on that with a jack than trying to crowbar it out,” the human continued.

  “Oh, would it?” Shrift brandished the crowbar in front of the man’s face. To his credit, the man didn’t flinch at all as he took the crowbar and walked over to the Mecha.

  “Yes.” He turned to the tools locker and opened the drawers.

  “Shrift,” Taleel said in warning.

  Shrift silenced Taleel with a motion as the human got another tool from the drawers. Shrift recognized it as an expanding wrench. He shrugged and looked to the other humans.

  “George, give me a hand.” Another human went, holding the wrench in position as the first opened it.

  The opening jaws pushed the magnetic fields acting on the joint out of position. Shrift grinned. His mentor would be pleased, and it seemed that these humans at least had a few more brain cells to rub together than their Sarenmenti trainers. The second held the wrench as the first applied the crowbar.

  “Smart,” Shrift said approvingly as he came up to observe the work. The human used the crowbar to pop out the magnetic bearing from its counteracting upper and lower leg rings, catching it as it came out.

  Shrift pulled the new one off his belt and slotted it in place.

  “Release the clamp.” The second human did so as Shrift pulled a universal jack cord from his belt and attached to his own in the palm of his hand, and to the Mecha as reams of information passed across his eyes, symbolizing the Mecha’s.

  “She’s all aligned.” Shrift grinned. “What’s your name?”

  “Salchar.” The human put his hand forward, obviously wanting a returning gesture.

  “Shrift, the armorer and the guy who puts everything back together after you’ve broken it,” he said pointedly. His three-fingered hand clasped the human’s, who shook it briefly before releasing it.

  Shrift thought it an odd gesture. “And George?”

  “Yes, Mr. Shrift.”

  Shrift repeated the arm pumping gesture. “No need for that mister stuff here.” He turned to the Sarenmenti. “Leave them with me, Taleel.”

  The Sarenmenti officer made a show of taking the pain implant control off his belt and giving it to Shrift. “I will expect a report on their actions as I retrieve them.”

  “Certainly.” Shrift took the remote, just able to hide his disgust as his carapace shifted in anger and annoyance.

  Taleel turned and stomped out of the room. The hatch sealed behind him.

  “Thank God that voshuna’s gone,” Shrift swore as he threw the remote by his tool drawers like the garbage it was.

  The squad looked at him with curiosity, probably trying to see if his throwing away the remote was a ruse or not.

  “I’m not going to use that thing,” he said at the accusatory stares. None of them believed him. He was going to have to build their trust, it seemed. He huffed. They had time to get acquainted. Soon they’d be fighting with Mechas, which meant that they would be spending increasingly more time with him, putting back together what they broke, or in the medical chairs, getting put back together themselves.

  He was going to give them the tools that they’d need to stay out of that dammed chair and tell death to take a hike.

  Salchar joined the squad, staying at the front as they became a half circle, Shrift able to see them all. He studied them and their hands as well as their eyes. Most of them looked as if they worked with their hands and there was a spark of something in their eyes. Hopefully it was intelligence! Realizing how long he and the humans had been studying one another, he gritted his vocal sacks.

  “All right, humans! Listen up as I’ll say this once. LOOK AFTER YOUR DAMNED MECHAS!” he yelled at everyone, hiding a grin as they looked shocked at the volume he was able to produce from such a small frame. Shrift mentally patted himself and thanked his mentor Eddie. Now that was a Kuruvian who could shout! This might even be interesting, he thought, even after the way his teacher had practically forced him to take the armorer’s position, instead of remaining an engine tech on the Golden Refuge.

  “Gather around.” Shrift jacked in with his universal port/finger to a control panel as a Mecha rotated down from one of the racks. He stood in front of it as the humans stared at it. Most with blind awe at its deadly lines—just a handful actually tried to glean the secrets the dark-gray Mecha held.

  “A Mecha will keep you alive and your enemy dead. Without it, you will die in most habitats—like, say, space. Your Mecha is your second skin. You keep it working or you will DIE! Saying that, it’s not your personal damned bumper car!

  “Seeing as your testing says you are smart enough to comprehend more than a Sarenmenti, I’m going to put you on your own suit maintenance. Any damage you do to scrap bots while you’re fighting with them, you’ll fix!” Shrift said with a happy smile. The humans’ faces turned from confusion to unhappiness at the new job they faced.

  “As your basic physical training, hand-to-hand, and weapon identification is complete, your sleep training will now consist of Mecha maintenance and repair!” A few faces showed interest. Who knows—maybe I can turn some of these humans into engineers! He hid a shiver of excitement. If Kuruvians liked anything more than taking something apart and putting it back together to understand how it works, they liked to share information. Shrift accessed their training schedule through his implants and removed some garbage, slotting in the maintenance and repair.

  “Now gather around and liste
n up! I won’t say this again!”

  He pressed a button on a panel that brought forward a Mecha from the racks behind it. It looked like a human made from metal sheeting. There were no flourishes or accents. It was built to keep its user alive and their enemies dead. Its visor was a blackened material.

  Although it was deadly, it was also exciting. It gave everyone who saw it a sense of power. Everyone who wasn’t in its way.

  “Your Mecha enhances your strength and agility. It’s also armored and can work in any damned environment you can find, including space. Its internal batteries will give you two days’ worth of power fighting full out. The Mechas also connect directly with your nerve ports to coordinate to your movements. Which means if your organics become compromised, say a breach in space on your arm, your nerve ports will turn your normal movement into action as if the Mecha wasn’t breached and your arm wasn’t expanding massively. It will take some time to map your neural pathways and what mitigates a response, but once we have that then we can upload it to every Mecha you’re in.” He paused to let them absorb this.

  “Now each of you will be getting a Mecha as well as the battle suit you’re wearing. The battle suit has an auto-tourniquet feature, which also works when the Mecha is breached and in a medical emergency capability. Now, make an orderly line, smallest first!” He jacked in again as he guessed the humans’ sizes in front of him and a Mecha rotated down.

  “Follow it.” The Mecha went to the bay, the human following it diligently. Shrift repeated the process for all of them.

  “Now time to put the Mecha on. I want to make sure that it fits, though through your training you will change so I will not be making any solid changes.”

  He then used Salchar as a demonstration for getting the Mecha on. Once they’d done it for the first time, he had them repeat it for hours until he was pleased for the day. He passed out the extra battle suits, which they put with their Mechas in their assigned lockers they’d come to call “coffins.”