by D. Rus
I brought the knife down. The sternum crunched, and I heard Ilya exhale in relief.
Status alert! XP received for killing enemy. Record card balance: +1.
Chapter Seven
Ilya respawned the next minute – the standard time interval. All this time, the two groups on either side of the battle arena had stayed separate. They gave each other hostile looks as they felt the moss for heavy objects, anticipating the outcome of the spontaneous conflict. Battle implants whispered insults, urging the group members to deal a warning blow.
The people were wary of Lina and me. They perceived us as aliens imposed upon them by the higher-ups because we haven’t languished in the recreation gel pool like the rest, nor had we slept around in the barracks – yes, girls were also in demand. We stayed close to each other while remaining separate. Because we had conversed with the monstrous Cornelia, the others had no doubt that we had achieved the Corporal rank through the back door. No one likes such upstarts.
The infantry was ready to support one of their own, especially considering that I could probably be finished off with a single stab at that moment. My HP was down in the red, my face was busted and bleeding severely, my nose twisted to one side. I could barely inhale. I had to breathe like a fish out of water, gulping moist air through my mouth.
I looked every bit like an assault and battery victim, a visual example of how to beat someone to death with a hundred non-deadly blows. I had no deep wounds, but my whole body was like minced meat, my insides injured.
Should I do as Ilya had and ask Lina to grant me a quick respawn? I wondered. I was in so much pain that tears streamed down my face. The phlegmatic implant was ready to shut down my nerves, warning me of the sluggishness and subsidence of reflexes that such a solution entailed. The drug effect would last for eight hours. The physical limitation of the spinal column would make that 16. After that, I was on my own. Suck it up, freeman, else you’re in for a heavy overdose or fatal tissue necrosis.
The saddest part was that the body’s regeneration speed was almost equal to the rate of HP loss due to the corrosive environment. The seesaw of life; tic – one way, tic – the other…
Thus, I was stuck with the swollen face of a beekeeper until my next death; we simply had no medicine available.
“Need help?” Lina had crept up behind me.
She was having an adrenaline rush and therefore slightly inadequate. Her male had won the ritual fight for leadership, and a good portion of my hormonal agitation passed to her through the channel connecting us.
She held a bent pipe in her hand, a piece of what used to be a rackmount cabinet. The broken fixture could still be seen on one end.
The group bustled around us, digging through the moss and arming themselves with pieces of porcelain insulators, strips of jagged metal, and other such junk which was abundant in our starting location.
I paused to think, assessing Lina’s offer to kill me. But I didn’t have much of a say; a cold war is possible only when the opposing sides are more or less equal in strength. And I was definitely in a bad shape.
Ilya’s voice broke off my thoughts, “Don’t, sugar.” He drew her hand aside slowly and carefully to avoid being perceived as an aggressor. Then, he announced, “The system message displayed upon respawning read that only the first three deaths won’t be penalized. After that, RC points will be deducted, respawn time will increase, and we will be forced to endure pain. So, don’t hurry, hold on to life with all your might. I have a gut feeling that that’s one of the most important factors on our record cards.”
I nodded gratefully, holding out my hand, “Happy respawn. No hard feelings?”
The big fellow looked at me intently, then carefully shook my hand with his mighty paw. “Yeah, forget it. I’m with you as long as you don’t do anything stupid. I’m not after power, I just want this group to succeed, and giving the reins to an internet geek proficient at camping bots in shooter games isn’t the way to go."
I smiled, “That terminology sounds familiar. Former Counter-Strike player?”
Ilya merely chuckled, “We were all children once… Well, Corporal, what are your orders?”
I assessed how much work lay ahead of us, estimated the modest manpower, quickly exchanged some mental images with Lina, then gave myself the go-ahead: Let’s start from the beginning.
Raising my voice like a commander, I rattled off orders: “Corporal Ilya, your new nickname is Muromets, your combat call sign is Mur!”
Someone in the group suppressed a chuckle and hurriedly retreated to the back of the crowd, hiding behind those with more self-control.
Following the blond jokester with a stern gaze, I continued: “You will be in charge of the infantry section. Twenty heavy infantry officers, four bot masters, a work team of technicians, gunsmiths, and the currently useless male nurse. A total of 32 persons against the list.”
Ilya squinted, looking me in the eyes intently and assessing his options. I had given him real power and confirmed his rank by appointing him a commander. He tried to determine whether I was weak, blindly self-confident, or truly so strong that I feared no competition.
Think, Muromets, think, I thought. I’ve managed to surprise you once. You’ll be observing for some time. If I don’t mess up, you’ll become my right-hand man one day. You’re very strong, but strength isn’t always the deciding factor.
In order to understand that, one has to go through an experience like mine and lose everything in a blink: his health, mobility, he girlfriend, and future. The loss has to be instantaneous so as to leave the patient no time to prepare emotionally as soon as doctors state the diagnosis.
You would just have to wake up one night in a hospital bed, when your amputated legs are already buried in a numbered container with a plate that reads “surgical waste.” The last thing you would remember doing would be digging up grass with a shovel on the breastwork of an old trench. After that, provided that you manage to preserve your sanity, you’ll start using your head more and more without relying on primitive strength.
Taking advantage of the short pause, I made modifications in personal RCs and granted limited rights via the commander panel on my interface.
Corporal was no officer, not even a sergeant. According to the local table of ranks, a corporal was a senior soldier, a private first class, or a Pfc. A single modest dot on the shoulder strap. Or, as I saw on my avatar, a single annulet on the chevron. You had to collect the entire Olympic set of five annulets to climb to the top of the sergeant hierarchy and achieve the senior sergeant rank. The senior sergeant was our leader.
“Corporal Lina, your call sign is Levant Viper,” I announced, instantly getting a furious gaze of her green eyes. A wave of mental indignation and a deadly dose of poison swept over me from head to toe.
I'll live, I thought. I had to lower her sense of self-importance from time to time, else she quickly went wild or started playing princess. Already I noticed an alarming sign; none of the men dared to laugh as I announced her new nickname. Lina had already established a certain reputation for herself with her venomous tongue and painful psi-blows.
I continued, “You’ll be in charge of… hmm… the female unit.”
Now the guys smiled, lustfully studying the girls from group 13 huddled together. Lina alone towered over them like an indestructible breakwater despite her small height.
But what else could I call a dozen girls imposed on us with questionable intentions? Fine, there were a few quality professionals among them: two mechanics, a battalion-level staff analyst, and expert servobot driver, and even an air squadron navigator. But the rest, their palms pressed together, practically had “stress relief officer” written on their foreheads.
Lina corrected acridly: “Logistic services unit. That’ll be our title. Why the hell are you grinning, you dogs? The sniper girls didn't give you enough up the ass? Let me know if you want more. There are 15 snipers on staff in the squad, vacancies available. I’ll order your transfer!”
A most epic fail for the guys; they immediately lost their grins and tried to hide, diving behind each other’s backs.
I hurriedly took back the reins of conversation and accepted the suggested title without reservations, “Right! Peacetime logistic unit. You are responsible for the everyday life needs of group 13. In the event of training or a skirmish, all female soldiers must join their groups as per the staff list. Including you, Lina. You still have the duties of my second pilot.”
“Yessir!” Lina stood to attention in a sarcastic manner, clearly copying the girls from porn movies: chest and butt stuck out, her eyes digging into mine, betraying the willingness to carry out any order, even the most inappropriate one.
I shook my head disapprovingly, although my gaze wandered over her attractive body. Her short doctor-style tank top, which was really no more than a wide ribbon, barely concealed her full breasts, which made them seductively bulge out on the bottom, enticing with their prominent curves.
Lina snorted, turned away from me, and clapped loudly, summoning her overly intimidated fledglings: “Logistics officers, group meeting by burned capsule number 8144! What’re you gawking at? Don’t look at me, look at the map. Azimuth 240. Buncha dimwits! That far corner, over there, covered in purple mold. Look where I’m pointing my finger. Dammit, Paul, what kind of soldiers are they?”
I smiled gloatingly. Eat, sweetie, eat the bitter bread of leadership. The corporal rank added a scanty coefficient to the record card points, yet gave you a huge pain in the rear.
Well, that was everybody. It was time for me to introduce myself. I had been putting off this moment after what that damn Cornelia had said…
Spitting out another lump of blood, I looked with hatred at my own marker on the mini map and finished establishing the chain of command: “I, Paul, will have the call sign… ahem… Lucky. Your primary leader and squadron commander. Pilots, you obey me directly. The rest obey their group leaders.”
Looking around, I saw everyone looking at me intently. I noticed no hatred in their eyes, but no respect either. I would have to conquer authority.
My victory over Muromets had given me some credibility, but the group would still talk a lot behind my back. We had a general and a national soccer team offense player in every kitchen. But few were the wild types, as the immortal Vysotsky used to say. Mostly goody-two-shoes. None of them would jump out of the trench to attack. They felt safer in the third row, behind the backs of their comrades. Not in the first.
It was all right though, as the commander interface provided me with certain tools; more specifically, whips and freebies. The group wasn’t aware of that yet…
Cyber-mods, digital record cards, external controls, and internal tabs – all this turned sentients into tiny, easily-controlled elements of a harsh totalitarian system. All dissidents were ostracized and cut off from government benefitssuch as commodity-money relations, education, healthcare, and law and order services. Dig into your freedom! Just don’t whine and complain.
I chuckled. The knowledge that entered my head was part of an officer course titled “Real history for citizens with an alpha-prime level of trustworthiness.” I wondered if this was one of the perks of an imperial implant or an authorized data packet for guard crew corporals. Either way, it was elite. It made me one of the blue bloods bearing the best devices of inhabited space. Be proud, suicide bombers! I thought. Life for us is like the flight of a meteor through a planet’s atmosphere – short and beautiful. Our ultimate goal is to go out with the loudest bang possible.
Oh, the evil statistics of war. Everything has its price. For example, a heavy Botfly with top external gear and a commissioned human crew was priced at 40 million credits. No one would exchange it for a production version gunboat worth 16 million. But many would consider trading it for a destroyer, depending on the situation displayed on the strategic map. And of course, anybody would trade a Botfly for a ship of a higher class without a second thought, and would drink to the great bargain afterward.
My interface buzzer went off, distracting me from my thoughts. I read the message; my body temperature had dropped even lower. Blood loss and overcooling went hand in hand; we were ankle-deep in freezing water like Vietnamese peasants in a rice field during a rain season. Water also trickled off the ceiling, huge drops occasionally splattering against our shoulders. Water streamed down the walls blackened with smoke and the bloated blanking plates. The dying Marat was crying. On the ship’s every turn, the approaching surface of New Sevastopol could be seen through the broken portholes.
The heat insulation system had clearly malfunctioned somewhere. The oxygen-filled rooms were freezing one by one. The ice spread to the above-zero temperature objects, and voila – those on the lower decks were in for an unpleasant surprise. It was time to get that barn of a ship in order.
“Ilya!” I called. “I approve your rough plan. Get your group clearing the premises. Drag the capsules over here.” I put a marker on the map, forwarding its coordinates to Ilya’s group, then proceeded to add other markers, explaining, “This will be the storage space for any loot we find. And this spot seems to be elevated, so it must be a bit drier. Let’s make it a rest zone and a working place for our crafters. We’ll put a mechanic there to handle iron and plastic. We need everything, especially weapons and tools. My group will strip moss off the walls and taste it. We’re mighty hungry.”
Twelve hours later…
“Blechhh!” a shortish pilot threw up, doubling over and convulsing. His stomach was empty. An odd-looking gray foam came out of his mouth.
“Minus six HP per minute,” said the male nurse phlegmatically, standing by him. “Let's record this; blue moss with yellow streaks is moderately toxic with no established positive effects.”
Blue with cold, the nurse squinted for a second, entering the data into the virtual herbarium. He barely forced his eyes open again; we were all getting pulled into salutary sleep that would restore our strength.
The male nurse wearily said to the sufferer, “Why are you writhing, bud? Look at your logs; what does it say? Something odd happening?”
Our next moss tester who was in line right behind him shifted from foot to foot and said compassionately, “Come on, Alex, eat another one, that black, slippery one. You can do it! You’re dying anyway, right? I will eat something for you afterward, I swear!”
The male nurse immediately cut off the enterprising fellow, “I forbid it! No jeopardizing the validity of the experiment! We will test mixtures after classifying primary specimen.”
I stepped aside, shaking my head. We were out of luck in regards to food, having found only two types of relatively edible plants. One tasted like hay, merely dulling hunger. The second had a ginger aftertaste and restored 2 HP per serving. Our other nurse was working with it, trying to increase the efficiency of the medicinal herb. He dried it, ground it, steamed it, made tea out of it. Judging by the maniacal look in his eyes, the poor fellow had already inhaled plenty of lab fumes. Or maybe the process itself made him high? Perhaps he had always dreamed of becoming an alchemist?
The problem was that our raw materials were extremely limited. We had enough for three to four days of rations, depending on our appetite and the moss’s growth rate. After that, we’d start dying of starvation. And that wasn’t cool; our death counters were already on the third round for some. The heavy infantryman who lay on a platform had already tasted his fourth death. Now, he was recovering from pain shock and a post mortal debuff.
A girl from the psychological support group was massaging his cramped shoulders. Nothing sexual that time, but a real, professional massage, a light hypnosis, and aura restoration using psi-abilities.
Those girls weren’t so simple; psychology skills, Tantric and Buddhist knowledge, empathy, and psychic abilities were quickly being extracted from the archives in their brains.
I was satisfied to see the infantryman’s HP increase by a point; the logistics unit could prove much more useful than we had
initially thought.
Macarius, who sat nearby, kept stealing glances at the girl’s curves with a childlike curiosity. The future mechanic was sorting the junk dragged to him from all around, fishing out the more interesting loot.
He was getting creative. He wasn’t churning out wide-brimmed hats, nor weaving ropes out of optical fibers, nor taking apart random components to obtain thin strips with sharp edges for cutting. He was making tools.
So far, he had a few hammers for the crafters. Not combat sledgehammers for bringing down walls, but rather elegant instruments indicative of fine craftsmanship. Macarius had also made neat scalpels and clamps for first aid kits to help extract shards from flesh without enlarging the exit perforations. Blood loss increased HP loss significantly.
But his best creation – what he called “like, pliers” – was an all-purpose tool designed on the basis of something completely incomprehensible. Everyone lined up to get these pliers. We lived a communal life now; most things were collectively owned.
I splashed unhurriedly through the shallow water. I wore plastic wraps on my feet bound with optical fibers – a homemade invention of our crafters, already being mass produced, so to speak. It had an armor class of one, absorbing any damage of up to three HP. Pitiful, no doubt, but better than tearing shrapnel shards out of your soles.
“Whoa!” I froze with one foot raised, wondering what was that unfamiliar herb that tried to crawl away from under my heel.
I poked the swift thing with a finger, very cautiously, as it was easy to get poisoned. Sometimes, all it took was breathing in toxic spores.
The plant felt my touch. It closed its tiny leaves and played dead by floating in the black water like a dry tree branch.
Well, well, I thought. I had no game inventory; they didn’t want us getting used to magical perks and made our training conditions as realistic as possible. So, I called over a tester, showed him the herb that was to be “number 19” in our space herbarium, and resumed walking.