“Dinner!” called Aunt Glory from upstairs.
“Oh man!” Sven blurted out. “I was just about to level up! I guess I’ll have to try again later.” He hit pause and the chaos on the screen halted. His sparrow flitted from side to side anxiously as the leaves rustled lightly in the breeze, then the screen went dark as he shut off the game. The boys ran upstairs to see what was for dinner.
Chapter 3 “The Mine” –––––––––––––––––––
Jake spent the next few days adjusting to the Langer household, what time everyone got up, when meals were ready, which cat bit you and which one didn’t, those sorts of things. Overall he was pretty happy settling into a routine. Bjorn and Sven usually got going about 7:30 AM, ready for breakfast at 8:00. Aunt Glory had a helper named Petunia who came in and started breakfast for everyone. She was a quiet woman, medium length chestnut brown hair, fat cheeks, and a shy smile. Her husband had also worked for the Langers until his untimely death in one of the pirate raids a few years earlier. She didn’t have any children, but she helped keep track of Bjorn, Sven, and Christina. Little Christina was her favorite.
“Hey Jake, how good are you with a rifle?” Bjorn asked. “We’re headed over to Hai’s mine this morning so you can meet him and get the lay of the land. We need to pick up some more metal powder for the fabricators. On the way back we’re going Bant hunting, can you handle a propellant rifle?”
“Uuhh, I’ve never shot one of those” Jake answered slowly. “I’ve fired my Dad’s big carbine back on Lahti. It used bullet cartridges, not liquid propellant. I could hit a small target at 100 meters, though.”
“Hmm, you’re going to have to do better than 100 meters, more like 400. A propellant rifle is a bit different, but not by much” Sven stated, as he walked around the kitchen table and sat down for breakfast. Jake picked the chair opposite to him so he could see Sven, who used his hands a lot when he talked. “You hold it and aim it the same way” he said shooting at an imaginary target out the kitchen window, “but you have to check the propellant tank once in a while to make sure you have enough in there if you intend on firing a lot of shots. That’s a critical thing to make a habit of, so when you’re fighting pirates you don’t run out when you’re in rapid fire mode.”
“Oh, right.” Jake said thoughtfully. “How often does that happen?”
“Bjorn has shot TWO pirates and Sven hasn’t shot any!” Christina blurted out. Sven stuck his tongue out at her and glared, but all she did was smirk at him.
“Yah, well I’ll get a couple pirates the next time.” Sven said. “We’re bound to get attacked again sometime. The pirates only come around when they think we’re not ready for ‘em. We haven’t seen any since Dad put up the missile battery last summer.”
“More likely, one of our neighbors will get raided before we do.” stated Uncle Helmut. “The last pirate raid happened a month ago on the other side of the Areoport. They hit a ranch and made off with about a half dozen cattle before the hired hands drove them off with a forestry mech. Those pirates weren’t well armed like the ones we’ve heard stories about on the news.”
“Yah” Sven piped in, “Those bastards have full fledged battle mechs and are wiping the settlers out before making off with everything on the ranches! They had a Loki, a Commando scout mech, a Vulture, and a bunch of trucks to carry off their loot. Nothin’ our missile battery can’t take care of.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Sven” uncle Helmut said in a measured tone. “One good anti-missile battery on one of their mechs and our defenses wouldn’t hold up for very long. We could slow them down, but we’d still have to fight them off with hand held launchers and our two utility mechs. I’ve contacted the authorities in Port Canaveral about getting authorization for some heavier weapons to mount on our construction mech, and I think we can rig something up for the agro-mech as well. You can help with that can’t you Jake? It will give you something to do to show off the fabricator skills you’ve talked about.”
“Sure! I can handle that!” Jake said enthusiastically. Cool! Jake thought with a big grin taking a bite of a roll. I was hoping all those 3D models I practiced on would come in handy. Jake had never actually fabricated anything really big yet. Almost everything he’d made himself were smaller hand held metal tools and parts with his Dad, toys for the neighborhood kids back on Lahti, and plastic kitchen items for his Mom. Jake’s eyes sparkled at the prospect of fabricating weapon mounts for the ranch’s two mechs.
Aunt Glory pointed at the eggs and ham and said “Get busy guys, the eggs won’t stay hot forever. You can’t kill anything on an empty stomach.” Jake smiled with a mouthful of crescent roll with ham stuffed into it and helped himself to some eggs. “Porkchop tastes pretty good!” he chimed in as the family helped themselves to the breakfast Petunia and Aunt Glory had prepared. “Where are the cats?” he asked looking around expectantly.
“Oh, we make sure the two little monsters are outside before we start breakfast” Petunia added in. “We don’t need their help.”
Bjorn finished eating first and headed out the side door a few minutes later and off to the vehicle garage. Jake wondered what type of transportation they would be taking, the verticopter again? A few minutes later he heard a high pitched whine wind up outside, then the engine rumbled louder as Bjorn pulled a tracked vehicle out of the garage and drove up to the house outside the kitchen. It had the low pitched rumble of a diesel engine with the high pitched whistle of a large turbocharger. The vehicle was pulling a small trailer behind it with two pair of balloon style tires since the guys were supposed to come back with metal powder from the mine’s smelter for the fabricator to use.
“What the heck is that!” Jake exclaimed and he bolted up from his chair to get a better look. The vehicle looked like nothing Jake had ever seen… It had a low, wide, mean look to it, with wide exposed tracks on either side and very hefty suspension. The cockpit had a sharp nose that slanted up to point, allowing brush and obstacles to slide cleanly underneath the body, and a back-slanted window peering out from between the substantial roll bars that made up most of the internal structure of the vehicle. A heavy combustion engine was located somewhere behind the four-man passenger compartment. The windows barely cleared the tracks, giving the vehicle a kind of chopped bad-ass look. It was painted a dark tan military color, with the family crest on the sides of the engine compartment. Bjorn’s head popped up out the hatch, he had a tanker driving helmet on and a huge grin on his face.
Picture Pack: Ripsaw
“That’s the Ripsaw!” Sven said loudly, as Jake’s uncle smiled slyly and continued eating his toast, shaking his head. “It’s the fastest thing around! Wait until we get it out on the straightaway out on the main road, then you’ll see.”
Sven and Jake hurried through the last of their breakfast, tossed the plates into the sink and were headed towards the door when Aunt Glory grabbed Sven by the collar. “All right young man, take care of those dishes or you’re not going anywhere!” Sven slinked back to the kitchen sink and rinsed off the dishes like he was told and put them in the dishwasher. Jake followed his lead, then both of the boys looked expectantly at Aunt Glory. When she nodded they both bolted for the door, as all the adults started laughing.
Jake followed Sven, climbing up the back of the track and then forward to climb up on the roof of the vehicle. It was a tight fit, but both boys managed to get down through the hatch and into the cockpit. Sven took shotgun, so Jake had to sit in one of the two back seats. The rear seats were slightly higher than the two front ones, so Jake could actually see pretty good out the front window. “Strap in” said Bjorn. It took Jake a minute or two, but he figured out how to fasten the five-point harness, the large round buckle was attached to the strap that came up between his legs, then the other four straps snapped into the sides. The seats were heavily padded black leather and held Jake’s hips in securely from both sides.
Jake noticed the two
rifles clipped into racks on the sides up at the top of the window line, and there was a shotgun clamped in up against the dash in between the two front seats. Just then Jake noticed that both Bjorn and Sven had strapped on waist belts with pistols and ammo packs before they belted in. “Hey, where’s my pistol?” Jake asked.
“Sorry old bean” said Bjorn, “you have to pass a shooting course from my Dad and qualify before he’ll issue you your own pistol.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll protect you from any pirates.” Sven stated with a grin. Jake wasn’t amused, but he was too excited to care. He’d never ridden in anything like this hot rod tank before. Bjorn pressed down carefully on the accelerator and started the Ripsaw up, heading around the circular driveway and down the dusty dirt road towards the entry gate. He kept the speed slow and steady since he knew he was being watched out the window by the adults, he didn’t want to lose his driving privileges.
The ride was a bit rough because of the cleats on the tracks, but Jake didn’t mind one bit. He looked out the side window and noticed the alignment of the rows of crops change like a mollier diagram as they maneuvered down the main access road through the fields. Most of the native trees in the ranch clearing were up near the house, but he also noticed fruit trees here and there along the edges of some of the fields, and there appeared to be a stand of trees around a pond halfway to the rock barrier surrounding the entire ranch. A hired hand was throwing out food for the chickens and ducks alongside the pond as they sped off down the road raising a cloud of dust behind them.
Sven pressed a big blue button on the dash, “That’s the remote for the gate.” Jake looked out ahead but he couldn’t really see much, the gate was still too far away. “If we press the button early we don’t have to stop and wait for it to open.” The locking bars had retracted and Jake could see the huge gate was starting to swing inwards towards them. Bjorn didn’t even have to slow down, he’d timed it so well. As they passed out through the gate Sven mashed the button again to shut the gate. The gate was made from large welded steel tubes and was a good five meters high and six meters wide. The spikes on the outside looked rather menacing from up close.
“Hey, what are those spikes for anyway?” Jake asked.
“They’re to keep pirates from ramming the gate with a vehicle or a mech” said Sven. He was exaggerating, but Jake didn’t know the difference. He’d figure out later just about everything had to do with pirates where Sven was concerned.
Bjorn piloted the Ripsaw down to where their access road met the main road and turned North heading away from town. “Almost clear…” Bjorn said under his breath. The ranch was surrounded outside the rock barrier by heavy stands of trees interspersed with open areas of tall grass and scrub brush. Once the vehicle was well out of view of the ranch, Bjorn slowed down almost to a stop and said “hang on to something, and watch this…” Bjorn pulled the Ripsaw off to the side of the road onto the grass, revved the engine up and slammed the Ripsaw back into gear harshly. The vehicle leaped forwards, smacked Jake’s head into the head rest, and roared to life kicking up a huge rooster tail of dirt and weeds as they rocketed off into the clearing next to the road.
“Holy crap!” Jake swore under his breath. The Ripsaw roared as Bjorn kept shifting gears, snapping Jakes head every time he pressed the shift paddle on the steering yoke. All of a sudden Bjorn stabbed the brakes and threw Jake forwards into the harness straps taking his breath away and rocking the vehicle forward. Laughing, Bjorn stabbed the accelerator and slammed Jake back into the seat again. Sven banged his arm on the dashboard as Bjorn slammed on the brakes again and yelled “hey cut that out, you maniac!” Bjorn slowed the vehicle down and settled on a more reasonable speed and stopped jerking the guys around so much. He’d cut quite a distinctive pair of furrows into the clearing. Jake could see these weren’t the only furrows in the vegetation, apparently this wasn’t the first time Bjorn had torn up the landscape like this.
Pointing the vehicle back into the general direction of North, Bjorn maneuvered back towards the road and resumed their trip at a more reasonable pace, but not until after he had flattened a few small trees just for good measure. “You’re crazy.” Jake muttered after getting centered back in his seat again.
“Oh, just having some fun.” Bjorn commented.
“Does he always do this?” Jake asked Sven.
“No, just when he wants to show off. He’s worse when there’s a girl around.”
“Girls? What girls?” Jake asked expectantly.
“Well, there’s Ariel Bjorn’s sweetheart” teased Sven.
“She’s NOT my girl friend!” Bjorn yelled over the noise of the engine just a bit too quickly, as his cheeks flushed.
“Then there’s Tarra” said Sven “but she’s not his girl friend either.” he said grinning widely. Bjorn glared at Sven, but let the comment go as he focused back on the road again. “Tarra’s really cute, always has her hair in a pony tail and she’s a good climber. She’s almost always in the top of a tree somewhere, if you can find her. Ariel and Tarra are the two that are close by.”
“Only two girls in the whole area?”
“Nah, there are a lot more in town. We only see them once in a while though, when we go to town for a dance or a holiday or something. Well, except for online. You can meet girls from all over online once you set up your own Pennant Page.”
“Oh, I wasn’t sure if you guys had that here on Wayfarer. It was all the rage back home on Lahti.”
“Yah, well we’re not THAT backward out here. We’re just all spread out.”
Jake looked out the window as the vehicle topped another rolling hill. He could see the land was a mixture of heavily forested areas with an occasional open clearing, filled with the tall pampas grass. Ahead he could see the landscape opening up into a savannah where there was more grass than trees, and he could see large rocky outcroppings sticking up hear and there. Off in the distance was a black rocky ridge, jutting up like the spine of a large animal.
“How far is it to the mine?”
“It’s about another ten kilometers” Bjorn added in. “It’s at the base of that black ridge up ahead. Can you see that big triangle sticking up off to the right? That’s where we’re headed.”
It took another twenty minutes to reach the ridge, then the road teed. Bjorn took the right branch along the base of Black Rock Ridge, winding along a narrower one lane road where the trees were right up close to the edges. Every now and then an errant tree branch would slap the side of the Ripsaw up against the windows. The windows weren’t open, but Jake found he could open a vent slot that ran along the bottom of the side window for some fresh air. It was starting to get hot in the vehicle since it didn’t have any climate controls. He had to stay strapped in since the road wasn’t really very smooth, there were a lot of ruts in the dirt road and pools of stagnant water to splash through in the bottoms of every dip. The area was semi tropical in nature and received massive amounts of rain during the summer like it was now. It took another five minutes of winding road to reach the mine.
The road opened up out of the trees into a dusty gravel clearing up next to the base of the ridge. There were a half a dozen large steel sided buildings arranged around the clearing and up against the black rock where a large mouthed tunnel led back into the rock wall. A couple of low, flat mining trucks with large tires were parked up next to the largest building which had a large sign on it that said “Kintaro Mining Co.” Jake could hear a lot of machinery noise coming from that building, and a stream of gray smoke could be seen curling up into the air from a tall smokestack. Bjorn pulled the vehicle through a set of tall beams that supported some kind of vertical silo in front of the machinery building, stopping so the trailer was directly under the center chute. The silo was labeled “Fe26 Mix”, whatever that meant. There were silos in front of several of the other buildings as well, with conveyers running from the largest building out to each one of the smaller structures.
&
nbsp; “OK everybody, dismount” Bjorn said as he shut down the Ripsaw and unbuckled his harness. Sven was already up and reaching to open the top hatch. Jake figured out the harness buckle and stood up as much as he could, waiting until Sven had exited the vehicle. Jake couldn’t wait to get out and stand up straight for a change, the confines of the Ripsaw had gotten to him after sitting for almost an entire hour without moving much. His ears were still ringing from the noise of the engine that had been droning away right behind his ears for the last hour.
Jake climbed up and out of the hatch, then jumped down off the vehicle and was back on the ground again. “Wow, I didn’t think that ride’d ever end.” Jake exclaimed, stretching his arms over his head and doing a few neck rolls.
“All right guys, let’s go find Hai.” Sven said stretching. Hai was the same age as Sven and liked the same games Sven did. “Hai ought to be up in the control room monitoring the crusher.” he said as he started walking towards the main building with Bjorn and Jake in tow. The guys entered the wide truck doorway into the main building and met Hai walking out to meet them. Hai was wearing blue coveralls with the company logo on them and a pair of black leather athletic shoes.
“Hi guys! I saw your text. I got the foreman to take over for a while, hey, who’s this?” Hai asked.
“This is our cousin Jake from Lahti. Remember? I said we might have someone coming to live with us?” Sven piped in. “This is him.”
The Styx Strikers Page 3