Some people talked as they sat, saying how they were happy to not have training anymore and talking about how their marriage fights went. Most of them even talked about how they wanted to become soldiers. I couldn’t say that I blamed them. The majority of the younger kids in my squad, once I had told them to actually focus on learning, had found military subjects easy and interesting, and they found soldiering fun. They liked being able to see what they could do. They wanted to be like Taleel and the enforcers, able to run for hours without seeming out of breath or knowing everything there seemed to be on military knowledge. The Sarenmenti had become their idols and they clung to them. Their parents had been weak, letting them go without a fight or didn’t love them enough to save them. So they would be able to do what their parents couldn’t. In other squads, it seemed that this was the accepted truth. I slumped unhappily in my harness as I continued to look around the shuttle’s inner bay.
Others slapped others on the shoulders as they noticed people from their old squads or people they’d fought against before; making a little small talk before settling in their seats. Everyone was trying to find their bearings. They would come with time, but for now we were strangers.
I caught the eye of a large man as he walked into the shuttle. As he walked over to me, he stiffened.
“Fair fight, Salchar.”
I felt all the eyes in the shuttle turn toward me as it became instantly quiet.
“As always...Henry,” I said in recognition and astonishment as I remembered Henry being the leader of the first squad I’d gone up against. I offered my hand, which he grasped.
He grinned. “Let me introduce Catherine.” An athletically built woman stood beside him, her body language and her eyes bright and nervous, looking for threats.
“You’re Salchar,” she said with an appraising look.
I stood to put us on even footing. “The one and only,” I said with a winning smile, offering her my hand.
She took it. “Thought you’d be taller.” She looked as if she could kill everyone on this ship with her fists. The heck, I only played one game with them. I kept my confusion off my face as my voice worked.
“Well, definitely not as tall as Henry, no.” I grinned before I gestured to Yasu. “This is my...partner, Yasu.” I waved to Yasu, who stood with her own winning smile.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both.” Even as she smiled, she was sizing the two up, I could see. My grin fell.
“Blade Mistress from Samurai’s Revenge?” Henry asked as she held his hand.
Her eyes went cold. “Yes, I was known by that title.”
Henry burst out laughing and stopped himself. “Well, fate is a strange thing, isn’t it?” He pat me on the back as I grinned. I liked this man; he had the qualities of a good commander.
“Didn’t know that she was in your squad. Isn’t she the one who attacked you?” Catherine looked at Yasu as lights came on, signaling the shuttle was going to be releasing from the training complex.
“Well, let’s take a seat before we’re flying without a damn harness,” Henry said.
“Good idea.” Catherine gave Henry a look that caused him to smile at the intended rebuke as he fell into the chair.
“Excuse me, but you’re Salchar, the one who made the fair fight rules?” someone asked, seemingly having built up the courage to talk to me by being egged on by their newfound comrades.
I looked to Henry, who nodded slightly.
“I guess I am. I didn’t know how far my rules had gone. It’s good to meet you.” I offered them a hand, which they took, not willing to get up from my seat for the second time.
Questions filled the air as people even to the rear of the shuttle began yelling questions. Just who knew of me and my rules? I sat there, a smile on my face, answering a select few. I hoped I could use this to bring them together into one unit as I had with my squad.
Some asked what my plans were for the Golden Refuge. As if I know. Though they think that I do.
I was shocked by the last question so much that I couldn’t come up with an answer to it. The speakers in the shuttle came to life.
“Take your seats and lock your harnesses. Lift in ten.”
The questions stopped as everyone checked their harnesses with the now ingrained habit of completing what had to be done as fast and as soon as possible.
I checked the harness that crossed my body. The seat conformed to my size. When it expanded, it was big enough to fit a person in a Mecha but for now it only fit a single human.
The air lock closed in a rush of air then the clamps disengaged. The shuttle’s thrusters turned us away from the structure we’d been living in for the past few months. The engines kicked as the pilot put us into full burn.
Across the surface of the shuttle, screens came to life as we were able to see into space on one wall and the gray surface of what we had called home on the other. We moved away with a puff of maneuvering thrusters. The main engines kicked in as we were freed. It seemed as if we were headed for space except for the flashing, moving lights that looked like ants moving in the same direction. I looked back, seeing what I had called home over the past few months. We sped out into space. It was an elongated scaffold frame that looked similar to a large, uniformly sized wing other than a lump three-quarters down its length. Massive ships were attached to four points and the central band. It had to be at least two or three kilometers in diameter at the bulge. The length I didn’t know as the scaffolding was still being placed. It quickly disappeared as we moved away.
“Holy shit,” someone said as I turned to look through the projected windows toward the direction where the shuttle was going. The Imperial Dreadnought Golden Refuge swelled before my eyes. Panels of interlocking armor covered the hull; arrays of antennas used for communications and electronic jamming sprouted randomly from the ship. Batteries of deadly looking weaponry waited in their storage positions, as if asking for a reason to be deployed. Missile tubes and Protection Defense Systems—or PDS—were also visible in their clusters. Long, ragged scars in the ship’s hull and armor were visible even from this distance. Scars that would have meant a lesser ship would have not survived.
Close to the ship’s prow were a series of rounded protrusions with PDS crammed around them. Must be the wormhole generators. I looked at the other structural oddities of the ship. A third of the ship back from the prow the hull belled; weapons batteries lined the sides as thousands of lights like fireflies signaled windows, hangars, and air locks. It was an image of power and strength.
She looked like a ship that refused to die. The Golden Refuge had clearly seen some fierce battles and had lived to tell of it. She wasn’t flashy or pretty—she was dirty and grimy and gritty. I grinned. Just the kind of ship you’d use to strike fear into the hearts of your enemies. We followed other shuttles. The Golden Refuge deserved a crew who were as hard as her and would make it through whatever was thrown at them, even if it was the ones who practically owned them like slaves. She needed juggernauts—no, she needed commandos, unrelenting commandos who struck fear into their most stalwart enemies: never stopping, never giving up. My dark thoughts cleared as I noticed the shuttles that had left before my own, their engines’ sparks against the sea of stars.
My awe increased as the ship just seemed to get bigger. Lights turned to hangars and hatches.
We passed under one of the guns stored away. What had looked like a toothpick was now bigger than the shuttle I was on. The hangar doors appeared before the shuttle and we taxied in. The Golden Refuge was two and a half kilometers long. At the belled out section, she was a kilometer wide and eight hundred meters tall. She held a crew of twenty thousand and four thousand Mechas.
We never stood a chance. It probably had something to do with the fact that with all of our telescopes and technology, we couldn’t see more than a tiny fraction of space in any detail. Wherever it had come from, it had done its job: it had taken us from soft, civilian humans and turned us into Mecha fighting
bad asses who could go out into the universe and spit in any enemy’s eye. As long as we were fighting hand-to-hand. We still hadn’t used melee or firearms yet.
“Docking,” the pilot said in the same bored voice of the boarding announcer.
Ramps lowered from the rear and sides of the shuttles as an officer walked in. “Follow the blue and then purple lighting strips through the armories to your rooms.”
I slapped my harness. It released me so I could walk down the ramp. A rush of fresh air and bright lighting met me as I relaxed. I felt my whole diaphragm relax as I didn’t have to take the massive breaths I needed to at the training station to get enough oxygen. And I could see clearly for thirty feet and my eyes didn’t hurt. It felt odd as I finally had an atmosphere that wasn’t made to specifically break me and make me stronger. I felt an alertness and lightness fill my body as I sucked in the raw air as if it were ambrosia. The strength I felt was incredible; I saw a seat and wondered whether I could rip it up with this newfound strength. I felt alive for the first time in a long time. For the first time, I was thankful for the soupy atmosphere and heavy gravity. It had taught my body how to live in an environment that wanted to kill it. Remembering where I was, I continued on, finding the blue strip with ease. I turned around, seeing that the others in my shuttle were falling in behind me, each stepping lightly as they continued with grins on their faces.
It looked as if the Mecha training had been more than a little useful as some people who didn’t notice the reduced gravity stomped the ground, falling over as they looked around, dumbfounded.
Shaking my head, I grinned as I continued on. Other shuttles disgorged human Mechas, who all flowed along the blue light strips that led directly to four armories. The shuttle bay had painted strips showing where shuttles should land, and places where to walk. Even as the remaining shuttles came in, the hangar didn’t explosively decompress. An electrostatic field like that on our plasmid blades held the atmosphere of the ship so that we weren’t suffocating. It still made me speed up my walking, not wanting to be in a room only protected from depressurization by an electrical field invisible except for the random particle interfering with its pathway.
The blue strip split into four: red, green, purple, and yellow. I followed the purple, heading for armory three. Inside it was like the armory back on the training sphere, except for the first fifteen feet there was shuttered and locked weapon racks. After that, there were lockers filled with Mechas, row upon row. I continued through the armory into what appeared to be a living quarters. I could see people from the other armories following their lights to their rooms.
Everything was bigger, with enough room to fit two—even three Mechas, at a squeeze—abreast. On the training structure, it had been just big enough for a single Mecha, probably in case we tried to fight our officers. I grinned as I saw the looks of rust, scratches, and signs of life. Finally, something I could understand and at least looked human, instead of the perfect walls and doors that looked as if they were part of the wall.
Again, I looked at everyone following me. They looked to me, their eyes asking for me to tell them what to do.
“All right, everyone grab quarters and get used to it. Just relax for now. Get to know the area. You—find me the mess, bathrooms and all the facilities we can access. Take people as needed.” I picked out a random person, who nodded their head, grabbing three others as they ran away from the armories, their heads on a swivel as they looked for my mess.
I walked up to the first room that I saw, waving the door open as I walked in. The first thing I did was code the door to my DNA. Yasu did the same as she came in, and I finally looked around the room.
The pod was rectangular; the head was at one end. The left side had two lockers with battle suits and a view screen. The right side had a bed identical to the one I had slept on last night extending from it. In the lockers was also a data pad. I picked it up, my sleep training and know-how coming into use as I pinged the tag I’d placed on my armor. I let my breath out in a rush as I found it in the armory I’d just walked through. I wandered out the door, now queued to my DNA and my Identification, Friendly or Foe or as the PDF called it, an IFF chip. The armory was likely programmed; it seemed so as I walked in, working on the data pad.
I scanned the room, finding my Mecha the only one in a work dock with someone next to it, bent over in a box of parts.
“Who is it?” an annoyed, yet familiar tone said.
“Shrift!?” Sure enough, the Kuruvian’s head bopped out of the box, a smile on his face as he saw me.
“Oh, James, I thought I’d see you around, though I wasn’t sure looking at the state of your armor. I hear those marriage fights can become brutal.”
“That they can be,” I said, feeling my unhealed stomach. “How’s my Mecha?” I said, moving on as I looked over his handiwork.
“Broken to all hell. It’s going to take me a few cycles to fix it!” he said, frustrated, turning on the Mecha armor that was already being torn apart, a nerve port relay in his hand.
“Need a hand?” I asked as he shoved the unit into its place, running a start-up test.
“What, don’t want to be staying with your lady love tonight?” His tone was dry.
“Well, you’ve seen what she can do to a man when she’s being...passionate, shall we say,” I said, equally as dry.
Shrift gave a clicking laugh. “You may hide in my cave if you wish. It’s warm and I have cookies!” he said excitedly, bringing forth both human and Kuruvian equivalents on a plate.
“Me, hiding? No, just seeking wise refuge and council.” I winked and bit into the warm cookie.
“Wise indeed. I have, after all, seen what state your Mechas are in. Well, let’s get rid of these armor plates. Your helmet, visor, and the swivel bearings are shot. Your left arm will have to be replaced. Some of the lower back nerve ports will need to be replaced as well.” He rattled off the list of repairs as I mentally figured out the parts to use.
“Is there some kind of better medical systems we can add?”
A shine came to Shrift’s eye. “Well, there is this new drug called H17E23. It’s a nanite-biological hybrid first-aid drug to keep you humans alive. Though it is rare and production is limited, I’ve been able to persuade some manufacturers on the ship to keep us supplied with it.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s also known as Hellfire.” He quirked his head to the side with a Kuruvian grin.
“Ah yes, never mind. I know it quite well,” I said with a pained look as I scratched my head.
“Thought you might. A new introduction system is needed; all of the other species take it orally. Humans, with their outer bloodstream, can take it through the bloodstream to get it to the area of injury faster.”
“Add an automatic injecting system that goes into the major arteries of the human body?” I said, beginning to think on the problem.
“Why not manual? Be safer if there is a misfire,” Shrift asked.
“With an auto-injector, we can have the same system, but instead of having to inject it yourself, the system will take over and do it for you. Be easier in battle, or if say you don’t have a hand to inject it,” I replied.
“This is why I am happy to be here with you—so many new ideas! Yes, yes, let’s begin, from the bottom up as you humans say?” His manipulators moved in excitement.
“Indeed. Might as well do it on my battle suit and modify it for my...wife’s,” I said, as if I had a bad taste in my mouth.
Shrift stared at me oddly.
“I thought I was going to be single for the rest of my life,” I said in answer to his gaze. “We should also work on connecting the battle suit to the Mecha if it’s holding extra supplies of the Hellfire. How long do you think it would take to modify everyone’s suit when we’re done with the prototypes?”
“Not too long, though Kuruvians don’t know much about clothing. We just make them large so as to fit. If we want ones with needles over th
e veins, we’re going to need to get better, which might take some time.”
“There might be some humans who know their way around clothes,” I interjected. I hope Rick has an idea to get the humans organized. I noticed some force pushing me back and I gave Shrift a questioning look.
“We’re underway, seems all of the ships have been loaded,” Shrift said to my confused expression.
“Salchar, sir!” The woman I’d sent to go and find the mess said breathlessly as she entered the armory.
“Yes?”
“I found the messes. There are three of them. Henry also told me to tell you that there are thirty-two hundred Mechas onboard, bringing us to eighteen platoons and a hundred and eighty squads.”
“Thank you. Get three others to tell everyone to find out the location of their Mecha and familiarize themselves with its location, also the messes. Are there any training facilities?”
“Training occurs in the shuttle bay,” Shrift supplied. I nodded my thanks before I turned back to the woman.
“All right, thank you.” I gave her a lazy two-finger salute, like I had given my squad; she quickly returned it as she left. I turned back to the Mecha. Shrift gave me his data pad, which showed the schematic for the stand-alone injector.
“Instead of having these channels, we should make self-containing packs so that if one’s broken, another will fire and hopefully cover the area. It’ll be slower but still effective. It will also store more of the drug for us. We should add an external activator so that if it doesn’t fire and the person’s got the ability, they can still fire the drug,” Shrift said, adding to our brainstorm.
“All good points. I think we’re going to have to work on the programming of when the drug will fire into an injured person’s system.” I gnawed my lip in thought.
“Why?”
“The drug is extremely painful, caused by the entire musculature of the person contracting as the drug tries to reach as much of the human system possible. It feels as if your body is trying to pull itself apart.”
“How long does it last?”
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