“What?” I ask, irked by his levity.
“You realize what happens if a pilot gets hurt or misses their mission for whatever reason?”
“No.”
“Someone has to take their spot. Navigator and munitions are too important to be reassigned. It’s the communications officer who drives. Not saying you’re going to get a chance with me piloting, but don’t knock the position.”
“Trying not to,” I reply.
“Getting to be a pilot is more about politics than skill, man. If some high-ranking officer likes you, your chances are better than if you’re the best pilot in the universe. If you want to get anywhere, you got to learn that part of the business.”
“This isn’t a business. We’re soldiers.”
“We’re not soldiers. We’re glorified security guards,” Spider says. “Not trying to burst your bubble, but you got to be real with yourself.”
Spider is a good pilot. The first steps on the Crab mecha feel very stable, and he has an intuitive knack for the controls. They’ve built up several obstacle courses a few kilometers from camp. The largest is an urban environment full of empty houses we have to pilot through. There are about fifty buildings in total. Many of them are hollow and could be easily knocked over. The whole purpose is not to.
The Crab mechas use a smaller Bradlium Particle Generator (BPG) for power and, like most mechas, have solar panels that are hidden under the armor and can be used in emergencies. I wait by my communications post for messages that don’t come. The only thing that gives me motivation is that at night, anyone can pilot the Crab mecha for training purposes.
I take full advantage of that.
Spider agrees to be my “chaperone.” “The weight takes some getting used to, and you can adjust sensitivity,” Spider tells me. “Some people like it light and easy. I like it a little heavier.”
I take the pilot’s seat. It is fully adjustable and spins in all degrees. It even turns into an ejection pod if needed. I put on the goggles, try to fit the gloves and boots, which are tight but grow to my proportions once I’m in position. The goggles, using the visual data from the exterior of the mecha, make the walls of the bridge disappear. I am floating in the air. The interface is simplified compared to the bigger bipedal mechas. Motion can be controlled through a digitized wheel, tank controls, or directional pad, depending on preference. I select the directional pad, which shows arrow keys I command for motion.
“Take a few steps forward,” Spider tells me. “Just put your hands out in front of you.”
I do, causing the Crab to take steps. I increase speed and play with the acceleration. Depending on how I move my gloves, it will step in that direction. If I move both my arms left, then the crab will veer left. Sensors will automatically avoid collisions with any objects.
“Visuals can be deceiving, kid,” Spider tells me. “All the pros rely on the GLS.” The geographic location service. “No matter how good your eyes are, up in the bridge, you might measure size and distance wrong. That means death out there, or worse, civilian property damage. Nothing gets you kicked out faster than costing the RAMs extra money.”
The GLS creates a 3D representation of the surrounding terrain and displays it interactively on a first-person grid. It’s not perfect, and you still require a navigator to analyze best courses, but, because you can adjust the angles in real time, it’s the most accurate way of judging the layout of the land. I have the option of overlaying the GLS on the actual view. Any discrepancies are relayed to the camera, and I can change focal length and aperture manually, though auto adjustments generally tend to work the best. The camera’s metadata is automatically accounted for.
I crawl around the buildings several times. I get a feel for the independent elbow control between the leg and tip, as well as the ability to adjust the limb length, which causes an increase (or decrease) in speed. The neural interface has a one-to-one correspondence with the simulations. The biggest difference is that in sims, you don’t feel resistance or the sudden twists and turns rocking your head. The internal stabilizer does a good job keeping it steady, and no matter how bumpy the ride, it tries to keep everything level. Even when I climb a hill at a forty-five-degree angle, the bridge rotates to stay straight. But that doesn’t take away the g-force when I hit the acceleration and the massive Crab uses all six legs to sprint.
Two hours later, I’m still experimenting with different configurations when Spider says, “Let’s call it a night, kid.”
“I’m not tired.”
“It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Don’t burn yourself out.”
He’s right. It’s exhausting work to continually adjust controls as well as stay mentally focused. Even with all the training we’ve done, my legs and arms are fatigued. He leaves me on board. Against his advice, I practice until the sun rises.
* * *
• • •
It’s a race. Our five Crabs stand in a line on a field. The finish line is twelve kilometers ahead. “Losers run thirty kilometers,” Sensei announces before we board. “Anyone who touches the mecha next to them is automatically disqualified.”
“Who you betting on?” Wren asks Botan.
“Chieko,” Botan replies. “Want to wager?”
Wren, Olympia, and I say, “Spider.”
“This is on future wages,” Botan reminds us.
“Don’t make us lose money,” Wren says to Spider.
“I put ten thousand yen on Chieko,” Spider jokes in response.
“Oh c’mon!” Wren protests.
Sensei signals for the race to start. Spider moves his hands forward, accelerating our Crab. But Chieko has already taken the lead. Spider pushes the accelerator, shifting armor plates, adjusting individual lengths of the limbs, trying his best to catch up. But no matter what he does, Chieko just keeps on increasing her distance from the four other Crabs. Spider curses, pushes the accelerator even farther, doing quick hand motions. We decrease the gap for a bit.
“Our BPG is overheating,” Botan warns him. “If we continue at this rate—”
Spider shuts the engine down. Ahead of us, Chieko has won.
“How was she so much faster than us?” Wren asks.
Spider appears baffled. “I have no idea.” He turns to Botan. “Do you know?”
She shrugs with a facetious grin for victory. “No idea.”
“How’d you know she’d win?”
“Intuition.”
When we assemble on the ground, Sensei congratulates Chieko while the rest of us run thirty kilometers. I notice Spider holding his forearms, massaging them.
After the run, a bunch of us approach Chieko.
“How were you so much faster than the rest of us?”
“I manually controlled each of the legs,” she replies. “And I used boosters.”
“How’d you learn to do that?”
“In the sim.”
“Can you teach us?”
“Of course,” she replies.
Spider isn’t in the group, so I go to look for him in case he’s interested. He’s back in our bunk and has wrapped his hands in ice packs.
“You okay?” I ask him.
He startles and initially tries to hide the ice packs. When he sees it’s me, he says, “I’m good. My hands just ain’t as good as they used to be.” He opens his hands, flexes his fingers. “Our bodies can handle only so much, and then they just don’t work anymore. I know you’re eager to learn. You’re young and excited, I get it. But there’s a reason why you don’t see many older mecha pilots. Take care of your health, kid, ’cause no one else will.”
* * *
• • •
Back aboard the Crab, eight of us stuff ourselves into the bridge. Chieko gives us a quick demonstration, turning off the manual inverse kinematics on the legs and controlling them directly. There’s a lot mo
re involved than the simple glove controls that we’re used to, continually rotating, counter-rotating, and using boosters to increase distance and speed. It’s much harder than any of us anticipated, though the speed edge makes sense since the manual structure is optimized in a way the automated one isn’t.
What’s surprising to me is that the controls remind me an awful lot of Cat Odyssey, which I point out to the group.
My comment elicits groans.
“Portical games are not like controlling mechas.”
“I’m not saying it’s identical, but they’re similar,” I state.
Chieko tells me, “You’re right. I used to play Cat Odyssey all the time. Escape mode. That’s how I figured this method out.”
This surprises everyone.
“Rogue199 designed the controls for Odyssey and the mecha interfaces too, so it makes sense,” I reply. It’s not an exact match, but it’s close enough. It makes sense too as the military and the gaming divisions are so closely connected. I realize portical games are a way of training a populace how to use weapons of war without their even being aware of it. “I didn’t know you were into Cat Odyssey,” I say.
“My ex-boyfriend and I played all the time. He sucked, though, which I have to admit, was a deal breaker.”
“I’m learning how to play Cat Odyssey on my free time,” Wren suddenly volunteers.
We all laugh.
* * *
• • •
I practice Chieko’s technique over the next two weeks. The Crab’s specialty is mobility, which is why they’ve gained favor over tanks. Tanks are limited in their ability to change direction. With the Crab, I can be going max speed in one direction, then do a one-eighty turn right away, just by changing the limb direction, which is easily done with the reversible joints.
“The one-eighty is tricky until you get the hang of it,” Spider says on one of our evening training sessions. “The mistake most pilots make is that they slow down before they activate the reverse. You lose energy and time that way. Let me show you.”
He pilots the mecha straight into a building and I swear we’re going to crash. But just a second before we do, he swirls his arms around on the controls, and in a smooth motion, we’re running the opposite way. The Crab legs, bending one direction, are now bending the other way. The bridge is still facing the same direction, but the visual interface in the goggles are pointing forward, so his actual position on the bridge is irrelevant. Eventually, the hull rotates to match but so casually for it not to be noticeable.
“How’d you do that?” I ask.
“It’s all about anticipation and timing. You have to trigger the inverse kinematics at the right time. Try it slowly first.”
I march the Crab forward and trigger the inverse. But rather than the fluid steps I’m hoping for, the Crab stalls and comes to a halt, the elbows locking in place. If not for the autostabilizers, I would have tumbled.
Spider laughs. “You’ll get the hang of it. Things like this are important. I know the RAMs, and one of their most important functions is rescue ops. A good Crab pilot can get in and out before anyone even knows what hit them. My brother’s a RAM out in the Russian Territories. He’s always rescuing knuckleheads who get in trouble.”
“Didn’t know you had a brother.”
“He’s a knucklehead too. A damn good pilot. But he liked drinking too much, got into too many brawls. He joined the RAMs hoping he’d get another shot at entering one of the military academies.”
Just like me. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s been at it seven years and still hasn’t had his shot.”
“Seven years?” I say, astounded and disappointed.
“He’s wasting his time,” Spider replies. “He believes if you have spirit, you can overcome all obstacles. But he doesn’t get that sometimes, you can want something desperately and still fail.”
“You want to get into one of the academies and become a pilot?”
“Hell no. I just want a decent-paying job that doesn’t have me sitting at a desk all day. Plus, we get to travel all over the world. What about you, kid?”
“I want to get into BEMA.”
He laughs, then sees my intent expression and apologizes. “You’re serious?”
“Yes,” I say, chagrined.
“You’re a fast learner, but getting into BEMA is more than just skills.”
“You said it needs politics.”
Spider nods. “My brother is a good man. But he punched out a sergeant over beers. He’s never going to get into the mecha corps.”
He reminds me I’ve done worse. “I—I broke the arm of the lieutenant who was testing me for my exam.”
“A lieutenant?” he asks. I explain what happened during my exam. “There you go,” Spider says.
“You think I have no chance?”
Spider shakes his head. “Probably not. But you never know.” His tone in that last part isn’t convincing.
* * *
• • •
We spend the next few weeks practicing movement. Sensei teaches us how to use a leash program on our porticals to drive the Crab.
“This is useful in instances where the bridge may be inaccessible. The auxiliary portical can control the Crab, and if that’s not damaged, the leash can be effectively used. The only problem is the interface is hard to use because it’s a much smaller screen,” she says.
Ironically, while others struggle, Chieko and I excel. The UI is a more complicated version of the one we played on Cat Odyssey. We even race via the porticals after hours, and though she beats me, I come in a few seconds behind her.
“Not bad,” Chieko tells me.
When Sensei sees a few of us enjoying the controls, she warns us, “Don’t treat this like a game. Right now you’re relaxed, but under fire, everything changes.”
Weapon tests are minimal, and we fire only blank shells from the Crab mechas. Even that’s handled by munitions, and despite my hopes, we never get to try the heat gun. We do get personal pistol practice on the ranges, but it’s nothing we haven’t done in high school for the basic military training everyone gets their junior year.
Sensei shows us the self-destruct mechanism, which requires three layers of coding and approval from the entire crew. If they’re not available, there are overrides, but they’re to be used only in extreme situations.
“Technically, you can use the leash, set off the self-destruct, and control it from afar,” Sensei says. “This is for extreme cases only, so you can use the Crab in a type of kamikaze run without having to sacrifice the people inside.”
I get very little sleep, practicing on the Crab mecha every chance I get. The only other people I see out there at night are Chieko and Wren, who are both practicing as well. We often meet afterward and share notes. Wren has uncovered a trick where, “You can start on the wheels, build up acceleration, then jump, which’ll give you a short burst.”
“What good is that?” Chieko asks.
“What if you had to use the bathroom really badly and that minute makes all the difference?” Wren postulates.
“I do agree they need potty pots on board.”
“You don’t know how badly I had to pee yesterday,” Wren confesses.
“Did not want to know that,” I say.
“One of the guys farted during training, and we couldn’t get the smell out of the Crab for an hour,” Chieko says.
“I actually farted today, but no one noticed,” Wren says.
“Thank you for sharing that,” I tell him.
“Good night!” Chieko says.
Wren and I head for our barracks.
“It’s finally graduation time,” he says.
“What?”
“Did you forget what tomorrow is? Our training is done.”
I can’t believe it.
> “We survived,” he says, expressing my sentiment perfectly.
* * *
• • •
We do basic exercises for the first half of the day. In the evening, we get called into the mess hall. Sensei is standing in front. There are barrels to either side of her. I wonder if we’re going to have to haul those around all day for our parting exercise. Her arms are crossed behind her back.
“I’ve pushed all twenty-six of you hard. You may dislike me. Hell, you may hate me. But it’s because I know what it takes to be a soldier and survive. I barely survived San Diego. I don’t want any of you to suffer the way I did.” I think back on Minako’s story about Sensei’s being kept alive as bait by the GWs. “The only way is preparation, and even that sometimes won’t be enough. I’ve lost compatriots who were much worthier than I.” There’s a vulnerability in her voice that surprises all of us. “We have one training mission to go on, followed by a final mock battle between the Crab tanks. The weapons will be digitized, but you’ll be aboard the Crabs for the fight. Think of it as a final exam before you officially graduate and complete your basic training. After that, you’ll be deployed throughout the world. For my part, it was an honor to train all of you,” she says, and bows to us.
It’s a moving gesture, and everyone starts clapping.
She puts her hand up to belay us. “We’ll have a chance for a bigger celebration following your official graduation ceremony. I’ve brought beers for everyone. Don’t overdo it. Take tomorrow to rest. The day after, we’ll head to Texarkana Fortress for the training mission. It’s simple convoy duty. I don’t anticipate any difficulties. For anyone traveling to the German Americas for the first time, do not be surprised by anything you see. Do not, and I repeat, do not apply your moral and ethical standards to them.”
We’ve all heard the tales of how inhumanely the Nazis treat their people and the massive prison complexes they have—there’s even one the size of a city—but I don’t know much about what it’s actually like living there. I try to imagine what Griselda’s life must have been like in the Reich.
Mecha Samurai Empire (A United States of Japan Novel) Page 14