by Korza, Jay
The first team of six Force Recon soldiers placed their piston loaded piton devices to the ground two meters back from the edge of the hole. In unison, they triggered the devices, which shot a twenty-centimeter long piton spike into the hard rock. Then they attached a two hundred meter static line to each anchor and walked to the edge and threw the line out twenty-five meters, allowing it to drop to its full length along the crater’s wall.
The precision in which they operated gave Daria confidence in the team. She knew she had to rethink her underlying feelings about their sergeant. He may be a bad drunk but he sure knew how to train and command his troops.
The advance team carried twenty pitons each, along with extra rope and hanging devices. They would descend one hundred and fifty meters and then set up a breaking station at which point they, and the teams that followed, could switch to the next line. This would continue until they reached the bottom of the hole.
The six members turned to one another to recheck their descent gear and with that complete, casually walked to the edge and continued walking straight down. An advantage of descending in a forward position was that you could have your weapon drawn and engage any target that came from below. Not that anyone thought there were any targets in the hole to engage, but better safe than sorry.
“Team one is at one hundred and fifty meters”, the lead corporal reported. “Breaking pitons and slings are set. Secondary line set. Team one is on secondary line. Team two, proceed with descent on line one.”
“Team two copies”, Daria said, motioning to Wilks and Davies. Wilks picked out three more of his unit to join team two. One of them was a Trizite. His name was, well, unpronounceable. Almost every non-human language was impossible for a human to speak properly without years of formal training. As a result, most soldiers from other races got nicknames or human names that came somewhat close to sounding like their given ones.
This Trizite was called “Scan.” He was empathic, which meant that he could read emotions of the people around him. Full-blown telepaths were almost unheard of. Empaths seemed to be common in many aquatic-based species throughout the Coalition.
Several races that humans encountered did not use sound-produced speech as much as humans did. Much more posturing and visual cues were used for communications. Most other species could usually tell the exact emotional make-up of a human just by watching them for a minute or two. They said that human emotions were too plain and stood out like a sore thumb. Scan was an actual empath, so he could tell your emotions just by being within a certain physical range of a subject. This range varied depending on the species he was scanning and how strong their mental output was.
Daria was glad to have him along because he would be able to act like an early warning device if anything was still alive down there. A lot of empaths could detect presence of life even before a scanner could.
Scan was short, even by human standards, standing at one point six meters tall. He had a much denser molecular structure that brought him to an even two hundred pounds. He was almost as thin as Daria but his densely packed muscle made him about five times as strong.
Small spikes surrounded both his eyes. Although they looked incredibly hard and jagged, they were very soft if touched. Of course, if you touched them, that meant you were about to mate with the owner of the spikes. It was quite an erogenous zone for the Trizites, which also made an easy target during a bar fight. A black eye for them would ball them up as though you had hit a human right in the nuts with a sledgehammer.
Scan wore clear goggles that protected his spikes from any unwanted contact. His green skin was smooth and adapted for swimming as eighty percent of his home planet was water. Some Trizite soldiers’ webbing on both hands were surgically reduced so they could use a variety of human weapons with greater ease. In Daria’s short glimpse of Scan’s hands, she noticed his webbing looked like it had been traumatically removed. There was a lot of scar tissue that wouldn’t be present if it had been done correctly.
“Team two, attach rigging and prepare for descent”, Daria continued. She felt odd giving orders, especially because team one performed their task without saying a single word to one another. She guessed that had the Recon team been completing this mission alone, no words would have been spoken at all. “Team two, descend.”
With that, all six soldiers walked over the edge with weapons and scanners drawn. The outer two men had weapons and the inner four used handheld scanners to map the hole and to keep an eye on the lead team. When team one reached three hundred meters, they repeated the drill and set up the third line. After they switched to the third line, team two switched to the second line and called for team three to begin their descent.
“Team three, attach rigging and prepare for descent”, Emily said, hoping she got it right. The remaining two Force Recon soldiers saddled up and doubled-checked Emily’s rigging. “Team three, descend.” The last team all had weapons drawn upon descent. If anything happened, team one and team three would protect team two, who didn’t have immediate access to their weapons. They also had equipment stowed on the three empty lines for the descent into the hole. The trading off of descent lines continued until they all reached the bottom, two kilometers down.
Once on the ground, six soldiers set up a perimeter defense while supplies were lowered and put into position. The hole was close to one kilometer across. Until they had all the supplies down and they performed a preliminary search, they wouldn’t know whether they descended into just an empty hole or something else entirely. The smoothness of the rock had reflected almost all scanning attempts. No one was sure of what they would find once on the bottom.
Once the main scanning equipment was unloaded, Daria called Emily and Wilks over to her. “We’ll separate into three, five-man squads. El-tee will take her team through the center of the hole, Wilks and I will take our teams around the two edges, and we’ll all meet up directly on the other side.”
Daria knew that she had to let the sergeant save some face in front of his men, so this she said a little louder for everyone to hear, “Wilks, you know your men. Please put together three teams in whatever way you feel is the best deployment of personnel.”
“Aye, aye, Doc”, he said with a thin smile of gratitude. “Scan, you go with Doc and Davies on team one. Take Bloom and Fang with you.” Bloom was already holding a scanning device while Fang was armed to the teeth with weaponry. As a Shirka, he could hold almost as much inventory as two human soldiers. “Hood, Martinez, Snyder, and Patz, go with the el-tee on team two. You other slugs are with me, team three.”
Daria recognized Hood and Martinez as being the other two marines who were with Wilks that night on Clandestine. “Everyone will have their comlinks on an open channel so we don’t lose track of anyone. Team one will take the perimeter to the right and team three will circle to the left.”
“Team two,” Emily began, “will wait at the far end for everyone to catch up. If the need arises, be careful of what you shoot at. We still don’t know exactly what happened here. If anything seems unusual, anything at all, call it in to the rest of the teams.”
“You mean something like a two-kilometer deep hole that appeared out of nowhere?” Fang grunted. A Shirka’s nature always challenged those around him, especially those in authority.
“Yeah, or maybe even a Shirka with a good sense of humor. Of course I don’t think that’s possible, but it would be more unusual than this hole.” Fang gave Emily a slight nod and a toothy grin; it was his way of showing respect. “Move out, marines.”
Daria was surprised with the depth and tone of Emily’s voice but inwardly smiled at her friend, who was really starting to cut her teeth on this planet.
Chapter 10
Deeper Into Unknown Space aboard the Vanguard
Seth wandered into the mess hall and picked up a tray from the food line. He saw Beast sitting with a couple of other trainees and walked towards their table. Seth mused silently to himself about the word “trainee”
. He was the only one in the group without actual combat experience; everyone else was a very seasoned veteran. The instructors were really just mentors, soldiers with the most combat and special operations deployments. They led the training sessions and worked with the trainees in a one-on-one fashion to help them reach their full potential.
Seth had become accustomed to eating his meals with Surgeon but he was nowhere to be seen. In fact, Seth thought, none of the instructors were anywhere in the room. Odd. He also found it strange that for the first time in nine months, the ship had dropped out of warp.
“Where’s Joker?” Seth asked Beast.
“As far as I know, I’m not his babysitter”, Beast almost growled. “This is the first time we’ve been able to eat without watching our backs for instructors. Take advantage of it, newbie.”
That’s exactly what worried Seth. All of the trainees were assembled in the mess hall without a single instructor around. Usually the training was on a schedule set by the instructors of the fifteen teams. This meant that there had never been a time before when every single student was eating a meal at the same time. People would straggle in as their training evolutions ended and then leave to their next evolution.
“Doesn’t that seem odd to you?” Seth persisted. “Why are we all here together for the first time without a single instructor? The tables are arranged slightly different from normal to allow better access through the port hatch but less access through the starboard hatch.” Or maybe a slower escape, Seth thought.
Beast looked up for the first time. “You are right.” The warriors’ eyes locked in realization of what was about to happen. They both whispered, “Ambush.”
“If they’re watching us right now, we shouldn’t tip our hand. The question is, should we retreat into the ship now and take up defensive positioning somewhere more fortified? Or should we alert everyone else and be prepared to fight here?”
Beast continued to eat his leg of something, and gestured Seth to start on his meal. He wanted their conversation to look natural to any eyes that might be prying into the mess hall. “Hey everyone! This rookie is going to tell us that story the general was talking about. Get your asses over here.” His tone was jovial but no one refused his request to come and listen to a story. Storytelling was a time-honored custom to Shirkas. It was a warrior’s bond with others when he shared a story of conquest and victory.
Seth took his cue. “Well, first off there was an AMBUSH set up for my platoon. We had to get out of that MESS as quickly as possible.” He hoped that his eyes were telling the true story and the hidden meanings in his words were clear. He made eye contact with several of those nearest him and received a slight nod that seemed to say they understood. He felt as though there wasn’t much time left. “We were pinned down so I gave orders to leave on my MARK.”
Seth placed both his hands on the underside of the table, following Beast’s lead. “Mark!” Seth tried not to yell his command. With that, Beast and Seth jumped out of their seat and flipped the table on its side, giving them some cover from the port hatch way. All of the other soldiers began to exit through the starboard hatch when the first one went down from a stun gun in the starboard entrance way.
“Port hatch now!” Beast ordered as he turned over the nearest table in the opposite direction of the first. The swift-acting students jumped the newest obstacle and headed for the hatch. The instructors were laying down a covering fire from the starboard hatch and had already caught two students with their stunners.
Thirteen left, Seth thought. Possibly enough to take the fifteen instructors somewhere on this ship. He doubted that all fifteen would have been posted at a single hatch but he took the lead anyway, knowing that he’d be the first to run into problems.
It was clever of them to set up the mess hall that way. It made it seem that the ambush would come from one side and everyone would herd themselves right into the trap. They must have figured that at least one disciple would think it odd that no instructors were around and that same person might realize that the mess hall had been altered slightly. They had played right into the instructors’ hands. It was something that Surgeon would think of and made Seth believe that their chance of successfully beating their mentors had just dropped about twenty-five percent.
Beast had already split the students up into five teams of two and one team of three. He and Seth were with Blanch, heading towards the weapons locker. “All right, the weapons locker is up one deck and around that corridor. We’ll use the maintenance tubes to get to the locker and scope out the site. Once we know it’s secure, we’ll make a plan of attack.” Beast had a hungry look in his eye. This was his chance to prove himself to his instructor.
“Wait,” Seth interjected, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Joker will know that you will be the first to try for the weapons locker. It’s in your nature. He knows how you think by now and I’m sure that he’s the one who will have set up security for it.”
This made sense to Beast. “What do you suggest, Cadet? Should we just walk up and say ‘please’?”
Shirka sarcasm, there just seemed to be no way around it. “Holobay four is across from the weapons locker. We can get to it from the deck below us by the water main. That room used to hold a water tank for combat simulations. The tank isn’t there anymore but the fill tubes for the water are. They’re big enough for us to get through. I found them by accident while training one day.”
The trio headed for the lift shaft at the end of the hall and pried its doors open. If they didn’t trigger the lift, then no one should know where they were. Luckily the lift was several decks above them so they would be able to climb down to the next level without a problem. Just as long as no one came down the lift. As they climbed down to the next level and began to pry the doors, Seth wondered aloud to Beast, “How come you didn’t hear them coming?”
Beast bared his teeth at no one in particular. “I don’t know.” At the age of fourteen, Beast was too young to already have sensory deprivation. What trick had the instructors used on him? It would have to be answered later. The door was open and they were on the move.
Rounding a corner, they came to the water main control room. The door was locked. “No problem.” Seth stepped up and went to work. After several small shocks, they were in. “Make sure that the cutoff valve is off so we don’t drown in there”, Seth said to Blanch.
Blanch went to the console, checked the readout and then went to the valve and manually checked its position. “We’re all set here. Which tube do we enter?”
Seth walked to a large pipe and tried to orient himself to the deck above. “This one, I think.” He climbed up on top and opened an inspection hatch. It would be tight, especially for Beast, but it would work. As the other two soldiers stepped up to the hatch, Beast took the lead.
“I’ll go first”, Beast said without giving time for discussion as he started into the hatch.
“Wait a minute”, Seth called, but it was too late. So he started in after Beast with Blanch close in tow. Once they got into the holobay, Seth approached Beast. “I told you to wait.” A stare as penetrating as lasers cut through Seth. “There’s something on your lapel”, he said, gesturing to Beast’s back. Beast turned to let Seth get at it.
“That’s a sonic disrupter”, Beast said with anger. “It is used by my people to impair young warriors during the hunt so they will use their other senses. It is a training device.” He placed it in his palm and drove his fist into his open hand, shattering the device. “Joker!” was all he could say through his anger and respect for the man. “Now what?”
“Blanch, how are you at being a decoy?” Seth asked their so-far silent partner.
Blanch crossed the hallway and began to work on the electronic lock of the armory. He had his comlink set to the transport ship frequency in hopes that it wouldn’t be a monitored channel. If it was, then this display was all for naught. In his head, he heard Beast say, “There are two contacts coming from your right. Approxi
mately ten meters out.” With the sonic disrupter removed, Beast could again use his hearing to its fullest capacity. “Start on my mark. Three, two, one, mark.”
Blanch purposely touched a low-voltage wire and jumped back with the surge of the shock. He tapped his comlink. “This is three. I can’t get the door. I’m returning to your position.” He got up and began to walk back towards holobay four. He looked over his shoulder several times and then sped up his pace.
The instructors knew he was on to them, although they didn’t know how. Time to get their quarry. The chase was on. Only fifteen meters to the holobay and Blanch was losing ground. Joker was fast.
Once inside the holobay, Blanch ran towards the rear of the room. A sudden flash of caution went through Joker’s mind. There was nowhere to go and yet Blanch was running as though there was.
Too late. He saw Blanch leap into the air and almost simultaneously the artificial gravity in the simulation room was cut off. Blanch had used his momentum to reach a strut at the corner of the room and now shimmied towards the command booth.
Joker and the other instructor were caught off guard so when the gravity was cut, their forward momentum slammed them into the far wall that they were running toward. Joker heard a crack as his face hit the wall.
Apparently so did Seth because his voice came over the PA system. “Now we’re even.”
The two instructors, suspended in air with blood floating in droplets all around them, positioned themselves for a leap at the command console. Realizing their second mistake as they were already five meters off the ground, Seth turned the artificial gravity back on.
Luckily he was in a generous mood and only had it set at half a G so the fall wasn’t too hard. Nonetheless, it hurt badly to hit the deck. Once the two instructors were down, Seth turned the gravity to six Gs, which effectively pinned the instructors to the ground with their own weight.