Gateway To The Universe: In Bad Company

by Craig Martelle

  “I surrender to you, dear lady. You are my better. Have mercy on my old soul.” Valerie smirked, looked at the referee who declared her the winner, and walked from the ring.

  She’d already fought and beaten Robin. In her mind, there was only one fight left.

  Colonel Terry Henry Walton.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The mechs danced and cavorted on the hangar deck until TH asked Smedley to open the doors and disengage the field. As soon as Cory put her hood on and grabbed onto a ring at the side of the bay, the EI sealed the bay from the rest of the ship and slid the great door open. Smedley turned the forcefield and artificial gravity off.

  Terry jumped upward, executed a somersault, and planted his feet on the ceiling when he hit. The mechs had magnetic grappling as well as claws on their boots. They also had jets that resembled micro-thrusters. Terry pushed off slightly and tapped the pneumatic jets located in the back of the suit.

  The colonel led the way, but the others soon followed him into space. They cruised along the outside of the hull, exploring, and practicing flying and bouncing.

  “Follow me,” Terry said playfully as he angled toward the aft island that contained the bridge. The six suits lined up and flew past the bridge monitors, one by one, showing off for the captain and bridge crew.

  “Back inside,” Terry ordered. The others maxxed their jets in a race to be first onto the hangar deck. Terry let them get ahead as they tried to outdo each other. He turned and decelerated as he approached the upper frame of the entrance to the bay. The others overshot it while Terry slipped smoothly inside, maneuvering close to Cory before settling to the deck and clamping himself down.

  When the others joined him, he asked Smedley to close the doors. The forcefield flickered into place and the doors slid shut.

  “We need to return the suits to the forward armory where the bots can conduct a maintenance check on them. Seems they’ve not been driven about before,” Kae told them.

  When the air returned, the hatches opened and the mechs walked easily down the passages and back to their shed. They parked them where they found them, and climbed out.

  Marcie was the most excited, jumping up and down with Kaeden like a little kid.

  Terry’s smile disappeared as he watched. “As much as I’d love to take one of these into combat, these aren’t for us. Marcie, Kim, Kae, and Ramses, please select wisely. The people in these are going to be force multipliers and they are also going to be targets, taking all the incoming fire of the biggest weapon systems the enemy has. These need to be used wisely, and it can’t be us. We need to be on the ground and ready to talk, should an enemy decide they’ve had enough of fighting a losing battle. If they decide to keep fighting, we bring in the heavies.”

  Kaeden was crushed. The others were disappointed, too. But it was different. Kae had taken a liking to being the FDG’s weapon specialist.

  Terry pulled his son close and whispered in his ear. “I’ll need someone I know well to lead the mechs, interested?”

  Kae brightened. “I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do to contribute to the success of the next mission.”

  ***

  Over the next three days, Terry ran the FDG through constant drills loading and unloading the drop ships. They trained. They studied. They worked long hours.

  All the while, Valerie bided her time.

  Garcia was up against the reigning hand-to-hand champion from San Francisco. But that match kept getting delayed as the colonel was unhappy with response times.

  People weren’t moving quickly enough or in sync. He wasn’t a fan of the mob approach. The Force was broken into six landing parties, one for each pod with every warrior carrying their full combat load, weapons, rations, explosives, and other combat gear.

  Terry, Marcie, Kae, and Auburn had a field day with the gear available on the War Axe, and ended up cutting the load in half from their initial eyes-bigger-than-their-stomachs approach. Terry and Marcie were getting too excited for combat. Auburn became the voice of reason.

  “Remember what you used to say? It’s best to win without fighting, or something like that.”

  The colonels appreciated the sanity check. “Indeed, Auburn, but look at this stuff! Plasma rifles, selectable handguns, railguns, and then this baby!” Terry patted the Jean Dukes Special at his side. The others wondered if he slept with it as they hadn’t seen him without it since Kae had given it to him.

  “Loading up!” Terry declared, and they separated out the tactical teams.

  Terry and Char led one. Sue and Timmons, Marcie and Kaeden, Ramses, Cory, Shonna, and Merrit, Joseph and Petricia, and Kimber, Auburn, Aaron, and Yanmei.

  Valerie expected to lead one, but Terry refused because she hadn’t trained or operated with the FDG before. He put her on his own pod for two reasons: He and Char always took the most difficult part of all operations and he felt that he could control the Vampire.

  He knew that she was faster and stronger than he was, but wasn’t sure she could be the teammate that he wanted her to be. As soon as she proved herself to him, he knew that he would put her in charge of her own tactical team, despite everyone else’s objections.

  She wasn’t an insider like Terry and Char’s pack and family.

  Maybe someday. Terry was torn. If he lost the fight to her, he suspected he wouldn’t be able to bring her into the fold. If he didn’t fight her, he expected the same result.

  He had to fight her and he had to win. In the brief periods that he allotted for sleep, he studied her fighting techniques, but he only had three bouts to watch, each lasting only a short time. Each time, she used slightly different tactics, but always she counted on her superior strength and speed to overwhelm her opponent.

  He watched, studied, and planned. He put it off until he couldn’t put it off any longer. TH designated a time and place for the final two bouts of the contest they’d called Bloodsport.

  “I can’t put this off any longer. I have to fight her,” Terry told Char.

  “I know,” she replied simply. “And I know you’re going to win. She may be as fast and strong as Akio, but she’s not trained like Akio. Don’t worry. Get your sleep and fight with a fresh mind.”

  “Two days after the fight, sooner if no one is beat up too badly, we will jump away from Earth. For some reason, I don’t think we’ll return. It’s gnawing at the pit of my stomach and I don’t know why.”

  “You’re leaving home. As fucked up as the world’s worst day ever made it, it was and will always be our home. Others have built this ship and given us a purpose. Until you’ve made that your own, you won’t be comfortable.” Char stretched luxuriously. The bed was smaller than they were used to, but Terry was okay with that.

  They’d been married a long time and he had gotten used to his Werewolf wife’s heat. Her body temperature was much higher than an average human’s. He had gotten heat rashes when they first spent the night together, but after they shared nanocytes, it became natural to sleep next to a roaring furnace.

  “What would I do without you?” Terry asked as he traced a finger down her naked body.

  “Be miserable, lonely, and probably grossly misguided,” she teased, as her eyes sparkled and her smile drew him to her.

  “Probably. I know that I’m supposed to conserve my energy, but…”

  ***

  Garcia wore only shorts, just like his opponent, Flynn, who they called the Mighty Flynn. Once TH had called him that, it stuck.

  The sergeant bowed to Corporal Flynn, who dutifully and respectfully bowed back. They took their stances and Colonel Marcie Walton dropped her arm to signal the start of the bout.

  They darted in and out, circled, and darted again. Kicks, punches, and leg sweeps. Nothing hit home. They danced away and started circling again. It seemed like they had taken forever to accomplish nothing except tire themselves out. Marcie signaled an end to the round, which surprised them. None of the bouts in the Bloodsport contest had gone more than
one round.

  “I guess this makes us special,” Flynn said.

  “Yeah. Don’t expect another break,” Garcia growled. When the colonel started round two, Garcia charged. Flynn axe-kicked him in the middle of his back, driving him to the mat. The corporal followed with a stomp, but Garcia rolled away, coming back to his feet in one smooth motion.

  He stretched his back, but the bruise was there and his muscles already sore. He shook off the pain and crouched low as he approached. Flynn was slightly taller with better reach and Garcia decided to grapple to limit his opponent’s advantage.

  The four Pricolici knew Garcia fairly well and taunted him mercilessly from the crowd. They hadn’t been allowed to participate because they were not yet in control of their abilities. If they changed during a rage, they would kill their opponents.

  That was a non-starter, so they were on ice and practiced in a closed, strictly-controlled environment. Char expected that it would take months for them to gain control over their nanocytes to work with them and not let them take over.

  Garcia smirked and flicked his head at his old friends. They took physical fitness to the extreme. He was glad they weren’t in the contest because he knew that he could only beat them one out of three times before their change.

  A blow hammered into his eye, driving him backwards. His momentary distraction had left him open. Garcia tried to cover up, but Flynn rained the blows into every opening that Garcia gave. In a desperate move, the sergeant dove to the mat, rolled, and jumped upward into a flying roundhouse kick. Flynn had followed, expecting to deliver the knockout punch. He was caught by surprise and took the full force of the kick on the side of his head.

  Stunned, he stayed upright, but his hands fell to his side. Garcia landed and rotated his hips and shoulders into an uppercut that lifted Flynn off his feet. The corporal flopped to the ground, bouncing once, before lying still. Marcie jumped into the ring to check on the Mighty Flynn.

  Alive, but not kicking. Someone delivered smelling salts and that jerked him back to the present.

  “Fuck me,” the man mumbled.

  Garcia dropped to his knees, took two deep breaths, and puked his guts out.

  Marcie pointed to him. “You’re the winner! Congratulations, Sergeant Garcia. I’d raise your hand but I’m not coming over there.”

  He waved her off. “Very funny, Colonel,” he said softly, but he was smiling. He looked for Valerie and Robin. They both golf-clapped for him with a slight nod.

  Terry Henry stepped into the ring and helped Garcia to his feet. “Well done, Garcia. Way to keep your wits about you even after that beating you took.” He helped the man from the ring and delivered him into the arms of his fellows. He looked for a chair so he could sit down.

  He had taken a beating and his nanocytes had a lot of work to do.

  A bot appeared from somewhere and cleaned the ring.

  Terry stepped into it and Valerie joined him. He bowed deeply. She bowed in return. Terry smiled, appreciating her efforts.

  He didn’t bother with feints. He had no intention of offering an opening because he knew that she could take advantage of it more quickly than he could cover up.

  He started to swirl his hands as if conjuring a magic spell. He’d learned that as part of his Kung Fu training at the monastery as a way to deal with a quicker opponent.

  Valerie balanced, knees slightly bent as she stalked TH. She watched his hand-swirling, timing when best to strike. She lunged forward and jabbed. Terry deflected the majority of the blow, but it still clipped his chin.

  He danced away and continued his arm swirls. She came in again, slightly overextended. He grabbed her hand and pulled it to his chest as he turned. Valerie punched him in the back, breaking two ribs and driving one of them through Terry’s kidney.

  TH felt the pain, but had already committed. He wrenched her fingers sideways, pulling with both hands until every finger was broken. He dropped with the second punch to his back, but kicked out, catching Valerie in the knee.

  He rolled to his back, sending a lightning bolt of pain through his body. Terry kicked again, driving the Vampire’s kneecap upward. She staggered away.

  The colonel stood up as fast as he could, which was still slow. Valerie hopped on one leg, trying to block with her bad hand while punching with her good hand. Terry caught the broken fingers and twisted, pulling himself toward her.

  He rotated at the waist to put more power behind the elbow strike that caught her in the mouth. Her teeth cut the hell out of his elbow, but her head snapped back.

  She wasn’t finished. She pounded his ribs with rapid blows. Although they would have felled a normal person, they weren’t with as much power as her previous strikes. Valerie was on her heels.

  Terry was almost ready to go down. Stars were shooting before his eyes. He dodged backward, spun, and kicked through Valerie’s bad knee. The leg buckled and she went down. Terry staggered away.

  She was furious. Her hand and knee were ruined, but she was fully conscious. The Vampire urged her nanocytes to work more quickly. But she couldn’t stand. Marcie stepped in and declared the match over.

  Terry had won, but there was no cheering. He was badly injured, blowing pink frothy bubbles with each wheezing breath. He stumbled to Valerie. She was furious. She was in better condition than him. Her injuries were only superficial while his were life-threatening.

  But she had lost.

  The colonel offered a hand. “We have a date with the Pod Doc,” he told her.

  “What, that’s considered a win?” she asked. “I wasn’t dead yet.”

  “Here it’s a win, yes. Those were the rules. For FDG purposes, a disabled opponent can almost be as good as a dead opponent. If we can disable them, then we can kill them at our leisure. Assuming they need to be killed, of course. All depends on the ROE, the rules of engagement. On Earth, when we fought, it was important to keep as many people alive as possible, because Earth needed to repopulate to survive. Out here? Who knows?”

  Terry helped her to her feet and she hopped on one leg, wincing as her ruined leg flopped with each bounce. “Well done, Valerie. Know that I won’t fight you again. There’s no need. We both proved our points. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get to the Pod Doc.”

  “Stop right there!” Char insisted, motioning to someone outside the ring. “After that, you both think you’re just going to walk up a flight of stairs? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Two stretchers appeared. Terry didn’t feel like arguing. Although his nanocytes were performing heroically, he was feeling worse by the minute. Poisons from his destroyed kidney were flooding his body. One lung had collapsed and the second was in danger. The injuries were internal, which meant that Cory couldn’t fix them.

  Kim and Char took Terry’s stretcher while Marcie and Robin carried Valerie. The warriors ran ahead of the procession to clear the way.

  When they arrived at the room, they found it locked with Ted inside. Char was incensed and pounded on the door while the stretcher lay in the corridor. “TED!” she screamed. “Smedley, you better open this door and fire up the Pod Doc right now. I will rip your electronic guts from this ship and launch them into space. OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!”

  It finally slid to the side. Ted stood, upset with the interruption, but became confused when he saw Terry as they hurried in and helped him into the Pod Doc.

  “Is the ship under attack?” Ted asked.

  Char ignored him. “No,” Marcie replied. “Just us doing what we do.”

  “Do it somewhere else next time,” Ted said matter-of-factly.

  Char closed the door and jabbed a finger into Ted’s face. “Fix him,” she demanded.

  “Just like a dog, one fixing coming right up,” Ted chuckled. Char grabbed him around the neck.

  “You know that I will fucking kill you,” she snarled.

  “I know, I know. Relax. Let me finish this so you can leave.”

  “Just do it,” Char said as th
e Pod Doc started working its magic.

  Garcia and Flynn showed up. They both looked gray. “While we’re here, if we could get a few minutes in that thing, we’d appreciate it,” Garcia said. Flynn winced as he tried to smile.

  Marcie looked at the mob in the corridor. “HOODS!” she yelled. The response was instantaneous. Even Char pulled her helmet on in one smooth motion.

  “Four seconds to the last one of you,” Marcie declared. “Well done, people. We gate out of here in two days. Say your good-byes to Earth and get yourselves ready. Go on now. I think we’re good here.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Micky looked at the stars, knowing that in moments they would change. The gate drives were active. The FDG were secure in the shuttle pods. The crew was locked down and ready.

  The captain tapped his controls. “All hands, helmets on. We will activate the gate in ten seconds. Ten seconds, people. Count us down, Smedley.”

  The EI dutifully counted down, changing crew status from red to green when three seconds remained. Had there been someone who had not put their helmet on, Smedley would have stopped the countdown at one and contacted the crew member and anyone near that person to help them out.

  It was the standard operating procedure, the SOP, for all gate travel. If the ship jumped into the middle of a meteor swarm, the ship could lose atmospheric containment instantly. Micro-meteors could be catastrophic for ships. The War Axe was better armored than most vessels, but they complied because it made sense to have the damage control teams standing by.

  It was better to have them and not need them, than the alternative.

  “Gate forming,” Smedley reported.

  In front of the ship, a large ring appeared. It gave Micky goosebumps, and he shivered in anticipation. The ship eased across the event horizon, which was where the majority of the gate engine energy was directed.

  It had turned out that establishing the wormhole was the easy part. It took the Kurtherians a long time to figure out how to manage the travel across the event horizon in such a way that kept the ship from getting crushed. Once that was solved, it made travel throughout the universe possible, broadening the reach of the alien species. And then the humans found their way to the stars by way of Kurtherian technology.