He did so.
“All right, now access the logs of all personnel and parse it out among your people. Read them. Also, upload the sleep training files you find needed for helms, navigator sensors, tactical and weapons bays.”
“Doing so.” His voice was all business now.
“All right, I’m going to set up a forum turned chat room like we had on Mecha Assault Two, running through the low-level communications. We’ll run it like a buffer system. Whenever we have contact, we’ll upload information to those connected until it reaches its destination.”
“Same codes?”
“Yes. I have it on my visor chip which I kept so I can pull it all from there. Get everyone linked in. I’m going to make it your job to work with Rick and get in contact with everyone, including those not on just our ships.”
“Understood. Rick?” he said with a questioning stare before he returned back to his work.
“We were in the same squad on the training station. Good guy, military, American Air Force Reservist.”
“Sounds like you’ve been busy.”
“Just surviving.”
“Look after yourself, Salchar.” His voice was dead serious as he looked me in the eye.
“You too, hyung. Good luck, Eun Hee.” I nodded to the impromptu communication officer as she cut the feeds. I turned to the group working on the sensor array. “What have you got on sensors?”
“Confirmed ten ships. They’re classed as two massive troop carriers, four small corvettes, two cruisers, a battleship, and the Golden Refuge.”
“All right, pull all of the sensor data. I want full scans of everything on the hull; pinpoint anything useful like sensors or weapon systems. Use your universal ports.”
“Yes, Commander.”
I put my helmet back on. As it locked, I pulled up my communications suites. “Henry, you cleared the ship yet?”
“Yes, Commander. Just coming back to your position.”
“All right. Good job, Henry.”
“Return to the shuttle,” Officer Turek said through everyone’s helmets with almost a bored tone. It seemed that whatever interference Eddie and Resilient had run had worked.
“All right, you two take point.” I remembered my broken rifle, bringing my plasmid sword to bear and reloading my pistol as I followed the two I’d pointed to. Yasu and the others fell in behind me.
Even with the ship reported as clear, I didn’t want to find out it wasn’t as we walked slowly. Henry quickly met up with us, combining our force with his as we filed through the ship and to the shuttle. The interior of the ship where the fighting had happened was left pockmarked and burnt from fire, with the green aliens and their blood creating a vivid contrast. We piled in the shuttle as fast as possible and secured ourselves in our harnesses. The wounded were eerily silent, either unconscious or asleep from their wounds and Hellfire in their systems. Twelve hadn’t made it back to the shuttle.
The air locks quickly sealed as the pilots unclamped from the hull and accelerated for the Golden Refuge.
I could see another, larger shuttle used by the crew slide into place over the air lock we left behind before I started reading more into the information we’d scrounged from the ship.
We disembarked from the shuttle, people telling their battle stories already. I stayed quiet the entire time as I kept reading through the information we’d gotten from the other ship. I numbly gave back my broken rifle and put my weaponry away before removing my Mecha.
I sat on the seat Shrift had left from when we’d been working on my Mecha, not noticing the glare from my wife as she practically slammed her Mecha into its spot and stormed out of the bay. Or Henry as he shooed others back to their rooms instead of bothering me, casting me a look. As I thought and read, anger grew within me. I put down the pad, my fists white from being clenched so hard.
“Something on your mind?” Shrift asked as the armory doors locked on each side.
“Could say that,” I hissed. “I have my confirmation. Now how can you, Eddie, and Resilient help me?”
“We can disable and destroy the internal kill switches. The ones on your Mecha is another problem.”
So we have a piece of a solution.
“How in the hell am I going to convince the others,” I said to myself more than Shrift.
“There’s a documentary.” He pulled out his data pad and a movie file waited on my data pad.
“That’ll help some,” I said as I jumped through the video.
“Now go and take a damned shower,” Shrift said after a few minutes, bringing me back to reality.
I smelled myself, not liking the result as my stomach reminded me that it required food. “Sounds like a good idea.” I stretched as I walked out of the armory, typing a message to Henry.
Meet in the mess.
I followed a map that someone had created of the Resilient, quickly getting to the mess as I joined the line for food. I returned a few nods and a few grins before I took my seat, eating and checking the data pad.
Five minutes later, Henry appeared. I waved to the food as he went and grabbed a bowl and joined me.
“I outlined on there the things I think we should go through; from basic fire arms drills and handling to using them in close quarters and everything in between.”
I flipped through a few very detailed pages as he ate. The man certainly didn’t waste any time; he had already picked out people to be trainers.
“I take it you’ve looked into these trainers?” I said as Henry cleared his throat.
“I checked all of their skills first. I also only picked people who are willing to teach and not order about. It’s why the list is so small,” he said in his no-nonsense way. I knew anything that he said would be as if written in stone. If he said the sky was purple, it was purple and I could trust it.
“Very well. I’d like to meet them if possible.”
Henry took back his pad and typed something out as I ate and he joined me after he was done typing.
They appeared in a few minutes.
“Well, grab some food and explain to me your plans. I want every detail.”
They nearly all seemed to grin as they grabbed food and clustered around Henry and myself.
Looks like I might have the beginnings of a chain of command. I was going to need to build an army and I needed the most experienced at the center of it, pushing the less experienced forward. If I played my cards right, I could make something that was a halfway decent group on the Refuge. I could only show the other ships how to do it.
I asked them one by one how they knew what they knew about the areas they were to be training others in. Their answers left no doubts in my mind that Henry had picked well. As they talked, I glanced around the room, looking for anyone paying us more attention than I would like to see, or whether anyone had any qualms with what we were doing. By now, the crew and the Sarenmenti must know what we were doing with their random observations.
It didn’t seem as if anyone cared as we had our discussion. I did, however, study the other occupants in the room, mainly the Kuruvians and Sarenmenti. The few Kuruvians in the room constantly mingled with the humans, asking them questions. All Kuruvians had one major similarity: they were curious as hell, much more than humans. I didn’t doubt that most of them were recording us eating and interacting with one another to study it later on.
The Sarenmenti with us were all officers who kept to themselves. I watched as they grabbed the food in their four jaws, tossing their heads back and cutting the hard rations to shreds. It was hard not to stare at such a bizarre eating method.
After everyone had finished their food and Henry had outlined the training program in detail, they all looked to me.
“You’ve convinced me. You’ve got my go-ahead. Based on your performance, which Henry will record, you will all be allotted a rank, from squad leader to company commander.”
They all nodded seriously. Henry sat back, already evaluating them and looking at them
as if he was going to give them people to command.
“Otherwise, Henry, I want you to get started tomorrow. People still need to get accustomed to the Golden Refuge. We don’t want to throw too much at them. Also, have a talk with Shrift and the other armorers about the weapons.”
“Sir.”
“Now I’m going to take a shower and get some sleep.” I stood and nodded to them. The majority of them gave me lazy two-finger salutes as I moved to put my tray in the retrieval bay and pulled out my data pad.
Following it to my own quarters, I found a hand reader, which I put my hand over. My identity chip unlocked the door as I looked up to see an irate Yasu coming out of the shower, wearing nothing but towels.
“I didn’t see anything!” I said immediately, turning away—and into the traitorous door, which had closed on me.
“Baka!” she said. Noises came from behind me as I heard a closet being pulled open viciously.
“You dressed?” I received an infuriated pillow to the head in way of response.
“I am dressed, you baka,” she said moments later.
Great, Japanese swear words. Swear words and certain phrases from different cultures hadn’t been translated yet, though I hope they would be soon. Not knowing what Yasu was calling me would play on my mind.
“All right, I’m going to take a shower and then sleep for a few hours.” I edged toward the shower.
She made a noise that made it clear it didn’t matter to her as I turned and walked briskly into the bathroom.
I breathed a sigh of relief as the door closed behind me. I peeled off my battle suit as I got in the shower, letting the battery acid-like cleaning solution wash over me, studying my still mostly healed stomach before toweling off. Even when it seemed that my possible problems would be lessened, instead they’d grown even more. I put on my battle suit, feeling drained as I walked back out into the main room, finding it pitch black.
“Salchar.”
“Yes?” I grabbed the pillow she’d thrown at me as I made myself as comfortable as possible on the floor, thankful for the battle suit’s internal temperature adjustment feature which kept me warm as I lay there.
“As we are married, we shall have a truce for now.” She looked at me, as if expecting something.
“What?”
“You said we would talk.” Her expression became darker.
“Ah, yes. I will leave you alone. Don’t worry,” I said, feeling nervous as she looked more annoyed than happy.
“Is that what you think of me? As a woman not worthy of you? Is it why you have not had a minute for me? You think you bested me with your cheap trickery in the marriage battle that I am no longer worth your time?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Now you show pity, as if I am some feeble girl who needs to be coddled!” She was clearly furious. “I hope that you’re comfortable, husband.” She flopped into bed, clearly not wanting to talk any more.
The way she said husband sounded more like traitor to my ears.
Marrying your nemesis—this universe loves me. I got comfortable and fell asleep. I’d wake up to the sound of any movement after training.
Engineer’s Territory
Shrift entered the middle ring, as it was called; it housed sections important to keeping the ship running. It was mainly controlled by engineering.
The outer ring was filled with weapons, armor, and shuttle bays. The central ring was the command center and mostly sleeping quarters for the commanders.
He walked up to an engineer working on a panel. “Where’s Eddie?”
“He’s looking over reactor four.”
“Thank you.” Shrift went off. A grin appeared on his face; he felt at home in the mechanical areas of the ship. A small shiver ran through his exoskeleton as he rubbed his prosthetic arm. His thoughts of his accident melted away as he heard the telltale calls of Eddie.
“You! Yes—you. What in the Kresh do you think you’re doing. Hey! Even I can see from here with my eyes that the plasma output is building pressure! There’s a damned kink!”
A cowboy boot sailed through the air.
“OW!”
“Well, if you were dealing with the damned plasma conduit instead of staring at it like a damned idiot, you wouldn’t have been hit by my boot, now would you!” Shrift saw the Kuruvian’s mouth close before they tried to argue the logic of that statement as Eddie continued on.
“You two help him, and you better be helping him, not skiving off!” Eddie yelled as three engineers beat a hasty retreat, running past Shrift as he walked into the room, a grin on his face.
“What are you doing here, armorer?” Eddie said as he caught sight of Shrift.
“You made me take the job!” That made the other Kuruvians move away, no doubt expecting the other cowboy boot still attached to the chief engineer’s foot to sail through the air.
Instead, he took a seat on a chair, pointing to the other as Shrift took it. “So, what do you think of Salchar?” he asked, as if Shrift hadn’t said anything.
“He’s a lot more interesting than the Sarenmenti. He’s smart and he knows how to get people working together. He always has a plan, and those who follow him will succeed. I’ve seen it on the fights and even with his first raid. He’s made to be a leader.”
“Yes he is, and we’re going to do all we can to help him.”
“I didn’t think that you’d like him this quick.”
“I see potential in him. Though we just need him to realize it.”
“Realize what?”
“That he needs to play this just like he did his game. Once he realizes that, then he’ll be great.”
“How can we help him do that?”
“Support him; he needs to trust in others. I can see he doesn’t. He’s paranoid about everything and that will wear away his ability to lead.”
Shrift nodded.
“We need to get him working with his crew. Resilient tells me that the chat forum is online but no one’s used it.”
“He hasn’t slept since he got here.”
“Give him a shot of this.” Eddie produced a bag of Wake-Up vials.
“But—”
“Do it, Shrift. He has work to do. Don’t want a slacker leading us.” With that, he stood, hefting his belt as he went to sort out some problem.
Shrift stood and walked back to his armories.
***
I woke with a start as a data pad hit me in the stomach. Cursing and leaning to one side from the pain that curled my toes, I eyed Yasu’s face. Anger was evident on my distorted face. Any emotion on her face turned to stone before I could understand it. With a breath, my posture returned. I couldn’t do anything but pick myself up and slowly go to the head. Every movement made me call out in pain.
I pressed the tab of the battle suit, finding that my stomach’s scar had opened. I breathed rapidly, feeling shock coming on. In my haze, I saw Shrift had sent the message.
I splashed water on my face in an attempt to cool myself, seeing my white, clammy face in the mirror. I pressed the tab on my battle suit again, moaning in pain. After a few seconds, I started to move. Yasu watched me, sitting bolt upright as I swayed through the doorway and used the walls to hold myself up as I got to the armory. Thankfully no one saw me as I found Shrift inside.
“I’m sorry I woke you. I—”
I fell to my knees and rolled on my back.
“James!”
“Get me a Hellfire!” I yelled as I pressed the tab on my battle suit. Yeah it’s open and bleeding and I don’t even want to know what that is.
Shrift pushed it to me, his hands shaking.
“You’re going to have to stick me. I can’t do it. Just put it as close to the wound as possible.” I lay there, looking at the ceiling as Shrift looked at my stomach. “Do it!”
Startled, he stabbed my stomach. The injector pushed its contents out as the Hellfire took control of my muscles. I went as stiff as a board, unable to cry out, tears in
my eyes as my veins and body felt as if it were on fire.
“Hold the sides together,” I was able to grunt out as the pain was focusing around it. My body was slowly unclenching other than the wounded area. I felt even more tired than when I had gone to sleep.
Shrift did so as the skin came back together as if it were two sides of a zipper.
I laid there, looking at the ceiling for a few minutes. “Thanks, Shrift.”
“N...no problem.” He sat back, leaning against a Mecha rack, and looked at my stomach.
I breathed a few times, feeling good enough to sit as I pressed the battle suit’s tabs, sealing me up. I stayed on the floor as I talked. “So what did you want to tell me?”
“In eight Earth days, we will make planet fall, a full planetary invasion. Your people need to be ready.”
“Shit. Can I have my data pad with a calendar and a clock on it, Earth style?”
My data pad beeped. Resilient had heard me.
“Why haven’t you done something before now?” I asked, looking at Shrift, who finally looked back at me instead of my stomach.
“The Sarenmenti have been doing this for so long that they’re mostly born into the service; they live to serve and fight. They’ve been accustomed to this life. We aren’t fighters by any stretch of the imagination. We can fire weapon systems and the like but we don’t have the build or the inclination to fight in hand-to-hand. No matter what information the Sarenmenti are given, they will fight for the Planetary Defense Force, no matter what.
“Humans can fight and can fight well. Plus, in this force, there are more of you than there are Sarenmenti, which puts things to our advantage.”
“What are your plans afterward if this is true and we win?”
“Well, then, I’m not sure.” He looked rather stumped.
“I think I can help with that.”
“What are you thinking of?”
“Making them pay,” I said coldly.
Shrift shivered at my tone. “Indeed.”
***
She didn’t know what Salchar had been up to the past few days that kept him away from her so often. Training had started again and in a big way. There was weapons training, boarding and disembarking shuttles, and anything else we could think of, or learn through sleep training. People were wearing Mechas all the time. There was now a clock on the data pads and people could communicate to one another through a forum chat room that was filled with information about training and allowed people to ask questions or talk to people on the ship, or even on the carrier War Drop and the battleship Sun Blazer. She knew that Salchar was behind it somehow, and the others talked about him in revered tones.
Free Fleet Box Set 1 Page 18