Free Fleet Box Set 1

by Michael Chatfield

  “Now, there are also mono-blade weapons within the Planetary Defense Force. They are as expensive as some ships because they are so rare and hard to create. They can also dull with repeated use and fighting when they have gone from hot to cold areas, or vice versa, such as space to ship environments. Plasmid-tipped melee weapons are much cheaper and easier to make and maintain. Get used to them.

  “They are also the only weapon that you will be allowed to have custom made. Shrift has various designs for you to decide upon.” He looked around the room. “You have seven minutes to be in the Mecha sparring arena.”

  We waited. We had run off before he had told us to before; that had gotten us all threes.

  “Go,” he barked, and we scrambled to the Mecha room. We pressed the identity chips implanted in our hands to the consoles as our Mechas rotated forward, getting into them in minutes.

  “Come on, move it!” I barked. I was behind George, the last person to get into a Mecha and into the training area. Before, getting in our Mechas in seven minutes would have been unfathomable. Now it seemed as if we were taking our time if we were over four minutes.

  Shrift was waiting with Taleel in front of an array of weaponry. There was everything from daggers to swords, katanas, hatchets and every kind of bladed weapon I could imagine.

  “These are based off the human weaponry we have found. Your backward people, being the primates they are, do not have the refined melee weaponry that Sarenmenti have—though it is to be expected with your low evolutionary level.”

  We had been told and shown in our sleep how humans were so far behind compared to the Sarenmenti and Kuruvians, with technology, medical practices, education and other main factors of a species.

  “Test them out.”

  “Team leaders,” I barked as one through five, including myself, filed through with our groups and picked up what we felt was best. We got into practicing with the weapons, moving with them, fighting one another with them. We switched and played with them as we went. Taleel watched us with bored interest as Shrift disappeared into his armory after a short time.

  “Submit your decisions to Shrift. Food. Five minutes. Every minute you’re over, you get a hundred push-ups. Go.”

  We put our weapons back on the rack as we rushed to get out of the Mechas. Julie, another ten-year-old, was the last. We were a minute behind.

  “One hundred,” Taleel said, as if examining a flea. Julie and I did push-ups as the rest ate. Once we were done, we slurped down the food that our teammates had gotten us. So far, the teams were working. We were the best squad and we knew it. We absorbed everything that was thrown at us and we won every fight even though we were down an older member. Our young had adapted well, learning how to use their new, larger bodies quicker than others. We all trained and worked our hardest now. Though it didn’t mean we weren’t without our infighting.

  Thankfully, the majority were working together. It seemed that the other squads were also learning. It was good and bad. Good in the fact that people were working together; bad that they had their own leaders and that they were getting better at the fights. Again, good because it gave us better training; bad because there was a higher chance of losing and getting punishment.

  Once our meals were finished, Taleel put us in stress positions for so long our muscles spasmed and went numb, and then ran us so much that our bodies tried to dredge up our meals. Thankfully, many of ours stayed down. Then there was the endless push-ups and drill, Taleel’s new favorite pastime.

  Sure, it looked good and all, but looking good is one hell of a pain in the ass. The first thing you have to realize when you drill is to turn off your brain. This sounds counterintuitive, seeing as, first of all, there’s timings that you have to follow for every coordinated foot, or hand and foot, or hand and foot and rifle and head movement or any combination of body part that some sadistic bastard who thought parade was a good idea had thought of. I hated doing movement drills.

  Now, all of this is also thrown off if you’re nervous, and we were all nervous. We knew what happened when we failed.

  We’d be on our faces, doing push-ups or lapping the track. Sometimes it was a relief to actually have movement in your limbs and the freedom of movement. I think Taleel caught on, so he started making the others do the physical work while we repeated the movement we messed up until we got it perfect.

  So to combat this, we started doing drill in our downtime. Joy.

  As we started to understand and actually become soldiers, we gained more free time, which was spent cleaning our battle suits, squad room, armory, as well as fixing and maintaining the weaponry we’d been given. We didn’t need much sleep anymore. As long as we ate, we only needed a few hours of shut-eye. We still didn’t know what time it was or whether it was day or night. The weird lighting was always the same.

  That wasn’t the only thing that had changed. I had gained any mass I was lacking and then some. Without mirrors, I couldn’t see myself but I knew I was bigger and stronger than ever before. So much so that two hundred push-ups were an easy task for me and the others. The children had grown alarmingly too; they were all at their adult height, with the massive muscles that the older squad members had gained early on.

  Our bodies had also become accustomed to the extra gravity on them. We moved normally and were even able to run without coughing profusely. The atmosphere was still uncomfortable with its density and scratchy attributes, though we had adapted to it as well.

  The food stopped being disgusting as we forgot the taste of what real food was. Most of the children were forgetting their parents’ names and faces; the older ones were not that far behind. The nightly talks of what we had done when we lived on Earth helped us feel some connection with Earth, but it mainly cemented our connection to one another more than anything.

  We were becoming soldiers in thought and body, leaving our attachments to Earth behind.

  Honestly, I didn’t care. Now hear me out, it’s not that I don’t like Earth—sure, it’s a very nice place, been living there for close to twenty years at this point. Yet there wasn’t anything I really cared for there. Mecha Tail was my family and I was going to do everything in my power to get them free and back to their actual families on Earth. I didn’t care I was forgetting my roots. Honestly, forgetting about my past was a nice thought. Also, as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I was becoming attached to my squad. We had grown together and gone through shit together we didn’t think it was possible to go through and survive. That creates a special bond that is inexplicable. Instead of them being the tools I wanted to use to get MT free, they were my friends. I knew I could trust the majority of them with my life and that they would do the same.

  Now I had an issue, because my squad wasn’t the only one. There were hundreds of others, and if I thought that my squad was worth saving, then they all were. I was cleaning a rail gun while I argued with myself over what to do.

  “Watch my rifle,” I said as I saw Yasu working on her Mecha. I walked straight over to her, stopping ten feet away from her.

  “What do you want?” she asked as soon as I stopped. Obviously she’d know about my approach, but that was not the first thing on my mind.

  “Say you have to make a choice: fight to save a few you hold dear, losing many. Or possibly lose those dearest to you and a few of the many for the majority to survive—what would you do?”

  “Why are you asking me?” A puzzled expression was on her face as she turned to me.

  “I need for someone to give me a straight answer.”

  “Save as many as you can. More will die because of your attempt, but we must give our all for the others. If we are to sacrifice our lives, it should be for victory, and if that means we must die for a few who will change a battle later on then it is acceptable. But we should not sacrifice our lives pointlessly. We will make the enemy pay and attempt to save as many as possible.”

  “Thank you.” The path I was going to tread was a difficult one, but I
would walk it in hope that I could reach my goals, or another might. The human race would be free, and we would pay back the Planetary Defense Force in spades. First of all, I needed to find out my obstacles.

  Problems and Solutions

  I’d been studying the Mecha while I worked in the armory when an idea struck me. Why not just ask? Again, my celebrity training came into use as I attempted to sound uninterested. “Hey Shrift, is it possible to make the ring around the neck thinner?”

  “Of course you can’t. It’s the Mecha’s kill switch,” Shrift said, offhandedly.

  “How is it put there?”

  Shrift still worked as he answered, my heartbeat in my throat as I expected him to be annoyed or wonder why I was asking.

  “It’s built into the original structure.”

  “How does it work?” I asked, going against every instinct that told me to shut up.

  “Small gas charge fires bolts into the main cavity.”

  “Hmm, what do you think about this new design?” I quickly changed the subject, trying not to shake as I held up my data pad. Shrift turned away from the Mecha he was adjusting the harness of, grabbed the data pad and studied it.

  “Interesting. Yeah, we can do this. It’s going to take awhile; just getting the materials is going to be a pain. I still have some friends in engineering though, even after my departure. We’ll make it eventually. Don’t think that the first series of humans will be getting it, though—it’s all the universal Mecha for you lot.”

  “In the meantime, can we do this to my Mecha?” I swiped the page and brought up the new specs on my Mecha.

  “This would be easy. Yeah, we can get started right away.”

  Engineers Up to Their Tricks

  Eddie watched James from another maintenance terminal.

  “I picked a good one, didn’t I, girl? Now as long as he keeps himself alive and has an open enough mind, we’ll be in business and we’ll have you roaming the stars! You’re running just perfectly.” He tapped on the surrounding structure as he pulled up a training schedule as well as supply timetable.

  “Just another month to go!” he said excitedly to himself as he accessed the biological supplies needed.

  “Then just find Mecha, units, full complement for a battleship, add in the necessary James Cook and his partner... Done,” he said out loud and happily to himself as he followed his own instructions on the terminal. “Now all we need is time, isn’t it?”

  There was not a sound in the ship, but Eddie grinned as if his invisible and silent talking partner was as real as the bulkheads he touched.

  Marriage?

  “Second and third team, swing over. Everyone else, keep it up!” I yelled as in front of me I saw my words become actions.

  The second and third team jumped over the enemy squad, landing on the opposition’s rearguard of Mechas. Working in teams and with their now ingrained hand-to-hand, second and third had half of the opposing squad out and were advancing.

  “TAKE THEM!” I rushed forward, bobbing and weaving, landing rapid-fire hits on the confused oncoming Mechas. Apparently we’d taken out their squad leader and they didn’t know what to do as they were unsure which direction they should be fighting in.

  The Mecha deserving my attention dropped like a sack of potatoes as two more of my Mechas automatically used the opening to force their way through, widening it.

  “You, get in there.” A trooper identified the position as I jumped in my battle computer, adding me to their network. In our training, I had harped on the fact a soldier is a soldier first; no matter what their rank, they are to work for the best of their unit. If that means they go on the front lines, then they’ll be on the front lines. I had forced all of them to take over my role at some point; it was hazardous as they got to know how I operated. Yet for them to work the best in the field, I needed them to have the confidence to take over the positions that needed to be filled.

  I could tell the enemy’s confusion was leading to panic as communications completely broke down. Within minutes, it was over as Yasu kicked the last enemy Mecha five feet.

  My team cheered as we popped Mecha catches so that the enemy could at least get out of their Mechas while we picked up our own disabled.

  “Good fight,” I yelled happily at the subdued Mechas. One of them was able to raise a single-finger salute in my direction from their cart as they were piled with others to be pulled back to their pod.

  “Guess this is what we get for fighting Salchar’s squad,” the other squad commander said.

  I turned to look at him, my mouth open as my squad erupted in cheers.

  “Let’s get the Mechas back,” I said as my squad continued to laugh. I hid my smile behind my Mecha’s visor lip as we moved back to our squad bay.

  “Eat up. Get your wounds sorted and check your armor. Tomorrow we’ll be having the wedding fight,” Taleel said as we were pulling everyone out of their armor. All work stopped as we stared at him in confusion.

  “Wedding fight?” I asked, honestly perplexed.

  “A male and a female of your species will fight in Mechas with plasmid weapons till one submits. This is either because they give up, are unconscious, or dead.” He sounded almost bored.

  I felt as if I had been dunked in a cold bath.

  “Tomorrow we will fight one another. The winner chooses if they marry the loser or not? What if they don’t want to marry?” My mouth worked before my brain caught up with it. I could already see that people were separating themselves.

  “They have to kill their opponent in order to stay single. Your opponent will be announced tomorrow.”

  “Why?”

  “We need more soldiers.” He looked at me as if I’d grown a third eye.

  I looked at him the same way.

  “Best to breed soldiers from soldiers instead of from breeders. Otherwise, you would all be in a breeding program.”

  We fell into stunned silence as he marched out of the room, leaving us looking at one another in confusion and moving apart, our victory already forgotten.

  “Let’s get the maintenance done and then hand-to-hand,” I said. He can’t be serious. They want us to have children who they can enslave from birth and send into battle like us? The Planetary Defense Force could then use these children born into slavery for anything; they could make them servants or send them to kill other humans, to kill people on Earth.

  As we drifted sedately into the armory, I looked at George and all of the young children. They looked to be twenty or so years old, but they still had the brains of young teenagers. They would be parents to children they would never see, who could be fighting right beside them and they would never know.

  “Why are we working on our Mechas? Tomorrow we’ll be married,” one of the guys in Marleen’s team said, desperation in his voice.

  “Yes, we might be married by this time tomorrow, but we will also be part of the Mecha Corps. As such, we will need our equipment. Don’t think of it as marriage; just think of it as you’re getting a permanent partner. It’s marriage—you can get it annulled when we get back to Earth.”

  “It’s still marriage! I had a fiancé back on Earth!” a woman cried.

  “They’re going to understand. With this, yes, it is marriage, but it will be between you and the one you’re to marry to decide how you want to act. The bottom line is, married or not, it doesn’t matter. We need to work together to survive and return to Earth or keep the human race alive.”

  “What if we want to be single?” the woman with a fiancé said.

  I whipped around on her, marching as I talked. “If you kill one of us, I won’t show you any mercy.” My voice was cold and hard in a way it hadn’t been before I’d killed Wiry—Arthur had been his real name. She tried to melt into the wall behind her as I turned away, facing the others.

  “No one in this squad will kill another. You will get matched up and you will deal with it. That said, no talks of untoward actions on either part or those a rank h
igher will deal with it. Anyone who forced another will not be allowed to use their battle suit, even in their Mecha, for nine periods between sleep. False accusations, and the accused and accuser will spend a night in the showers with each other.”

  They looked away from my gaze as I looked around the room. Only Yasu held it.

  Dear God, I hope I don’t get that woman. I turned back to my Mecha.

  “Teams, begin your rotation into medical,” I said, putting them into action, the leaders naturally coming to me after a few minutes. I left my maintenance as I addressed them.

  “All right, we need to establish a chain of responsibility. If I die, you take over, Rick. If he dies, Marleen; then Hoi and finally Abella.”

  They nodded agreement. Uncertainty at what was going to happen tomorrow filled their faces as my training for cameras and media came to the front.

  “Don’t worry—we’ll get through this.” I smiled reassuringly. Some of them were still unsure, but they seemed to believe in me as they moved back to their groups.

  “What about making Yasu a leader?” Rick asked.

  I studied him; she’d obviously sunk her claws in him, which made my guard come up.

  “Yes, I’ll think about that in the future. I don’t want to split up the teams right now,” I mused, rubbing my chin. “For now, let’s just treat this as a normal day—the less shock the better.” They nodded as they dispersed back to their Mechas. I turned to my own, completing the maintenance.

  In Sook is going to kill me. In Sook was Psycho Cheerleader’s real name. I thought about how Psycho Cheerleader from MT was probably going through the same situation as me. Might be a sweet mercy to actually marry her. My smile became real as I let a chuckle go and left the armory for the food cart in our pod.

  Images of the rambunctious Bok Soo and forever calm Monk filled my mind—the other two remaining members of MT.

  Cowards wait for fate. I mentally geared myself up.