The Styx Strikers

by Thor Zollinger

  Bjorn came in from the pantry with his plate and sat down at the end of the wardroom table with seconds. “Well, guys. What do you think, can we get that mech up and running today or what? If we can’t we’ll have to talk Ben into coming out, and then probably everyone will know, we’ll lose our base to my Dad. We don’t want that to happen.”

  “No Way! We’ll figure it out. We’ve almost got it now.” Zane was indignant. “We need to keep this a secret, otherwise the Local Guard will take over and we’ll never get to drive the mechs.”

  “As long as no more big problems show up during the startup…” Sven was skeptical, but hopeful. “We just have to work through them one at a time. We can even make spare parts back at the ranch if we need to.”

  Jake chimed in “I’ll bet there’s a fabricator or two around here somewhere. We just haven’t found them yet. Aren’t the repair bays equipped to repair armor plating?”

  Hai had the answer to that, he’d been digging around in the manuals. “Yup, there is. One of the manipulator arms in each bay has a metal powder feed and a huge laser welding tip on it, it’s preprogrammed to scan the armor plating and make repairs using the CAD files in the database. I found CAD files on all of the mechs when I was digging around in the database yesterday.”

  Jake looked pensive, then asked “Has anyone seen anything like an armory? If we get in a fire fight with any pirates we’re going to need to reload the gun magazines. There have got to be some missiles and shells stored around here somewhere.”

  Dan looked up from his sausage patty and answered. “Oh. Zane and I found that yesterday. We got bored when we couldn’t get into the Demolisher. There’s a hallway behind the repair bays where you can drive a forklift and stuff pallets of ammo into a machine that reloads the mechs. All the ammo is stored on the other side of the hallway from the mechs. There are stacks and stacks of it down there. The forklift batteries are all dead, though. Hey Zane, now that we have the key cards maybe we can get that tank runnin’!”

  “Sweet!” Dan and Zane high fived over the table.

  “So what do we do when pirates do show up again?” Sven’s interest was piqued now that the topic had been brought up. “We need some kind of system where we can alert everyone so we can meet here and move out. There are only four pirate mechs. We can kick their butts all the way out of the solar system with the ones we have now.”

  “We don’t know how many run quite yet, Sven. We haven’t even gotten the first mech up and running.” Bjorn frowned.

  “Yah, but we will. How about a code word? We call each other just like we do for Safaris, we just use the code word so nobody that hears knows what we’re up to.”

  “How about meet at the ‘River Styx’?” Ariel had been studying ancient myths and legends recently. “That’s what Tarra and I have renamed the river in the tunnels.”

  “Sounds good to me.” Bjorn supported that idea. “The River Styx it is. Ok, men. We’ve got work to do. Let’s get goin’.” He swallowed the last of his juice and headed into the pantry to take his plate to the sink.

  After a few more small glitches had been solved, Bjorn was in the cockpit of the Mad Cat Mark II yet again going through the startup sequence. “Ok, here goes…” He pressed the flashing orange button again. There was a big rumble from the back of the mech, then the whine of turbines spinning up and beeps as electronic systems fired up inside the cockpit. Lights on the status boards flashed on and off in sequence as different systems came online. Bjorn put on the neuro-helmet and watched the virtual displays come up in his view screen.

  “Reactor Online. Sensors Online. Weapons Online. All Systems Nominal.”

  “Recommend Disconnecting From Shore Power.”

  “Alright! We got it this time! Yahoo!” Sven was really excited. Hollering down the repair bay stairs, “Jake, disconnect the power cable!”

  “Roger, pressing the retract button! It’s disconnected!”

  “Shore Power, Disconnected.” Bjorn loved hearing that female voice in his ear.

  Sven slammed the cockpit hatch shut and ran back down the pilot bridge and pressed the retract button, causing the bridge to rotate out and away from the mech.

  Bjorn took two small steps forward with the mech out into the center of the hanger and stopped, then carefully rotated the mech to the left and right and up and down just to make sure he had a good feel for the controls and that all the joints were moving, then took several steps forwards. The joints all creaked and groaned as he moved, they needed lubrication badly.

  Reaching up over his head, Bjorn pressed the remote button they’d found earlier, the one that accidentally opened the main door to the hanger earlier. There were diagrams in the mech riveted to the inner wall right above each joystick which detailed which buttons did what. Pressing a few buttons, he quickly learned which one scrolled through his weapons selection, which one selected Single Fire/Group Fire, and which one selected the different targets on the sensors. He didn’t have any right now, that would come later. He didn’t try any of the comm systems buttons either, he didn’t have anyone to talk to yet.

  With the door fully open, Bjorn took the mech out into the tunnel and headed south towards the ‘Y’ tunnel entrance. The Mad Cat’s footsteps boomed and the joints screeched and echoed inside the confines of the wide tunnel. Bjorn passed the Ripsaw and Hai’s truck which were parked further north out of the way. It only took a few minutes to traverse the tunnel south back to the ‘Y’ intersection and the exit tunnel. The Mad Cat was pretty wide, with the arms out to the sides, he had to be careful and stay in the center of the smaller exit tunnel so he wouldn’t scrape the walls as he went out. “Wow, this is so cool! It’s a lot rougher than I imagined, though.” The cockpit of the mech bobbed up and down significantly with each step, an effect the guys didn’t feel in their simulator back at the ranch. The ranch mechs weren’t this large and didn’t bob this much either.

  Heading out into the sunshine the view screen darkened automatically making it easy to see the trailer through the glare as he passed it and headed towards the mouth of the ravine. Slowing gradually, Bjorn decided to try out one of the weapons to see if the systems still worked. Picking a tree in the distance, Bjorn selected one of the gauss rifles and pulled the main trigger. Shooom!! The gauss rifle round shot out of the barrel with a twisting green discharge and obliterated the trees in a flash of green fire. “Whoh, that was really rad!”

  Selecting the medium lasers, Bjorn decided to fire them off all at the same time. The onboard computer replied, “Group Fire, Engaged.”

  Bjorn targeted a huge boulder off the ravine to one side under the reticule and thumbed the group-2 weapons trigger… Shhhrang!! Four blinding stabs of ruby red energy lanced the boulder into molten slag. “Wow, I’ve never seen a boulder smokin’ like that before, Dang! That’s Radical!” Bjorn slagged a couple more boulders just for good measure. “It’s getting hot in here, though.” he mused. “And I don’t have a cooling vest on.”

  “Ok, fire control testing completed satisfactory. Time to head back in and get mech number two running.” Bjorn turned the mech back down the ravine and started walking the mech back towards the tunnels. Nearing the trailer, he decided to at least give the missile fire control radar a quick check. He didn’t want to waste any missiles, but he turned and locked the missile radar onto the trailer just to make sure it worked. It did.

  Bjorn tried jogging the mech this time, rounding the corner, smashing through a few more of those pesky trees that blocked the creek’s ravine just for fun. Bjorn slowed down before carefully entering the black open maw of the tunnel. “The entrance doesn’t look so big from three stories up. Man this thing is huge!” The front view out of the mech was enhanced with colored lines, outlining objects in his view as he passed indoors into the dimmer light inside the tunnel. As the tunnel got darker and darker he found the view screen display to be particularly helpful, it was easy to see where he was going with everything outlin
ed. “This is a LOT better than the night vision goggles we’ve been using.”

  Bjorn negotiated the tunnel to the north and was back at the hanger doors in less than a minute, the mech was particularly fast across the mostly even floor of the tunnel, now that he was used to the controls. With the width of a football field to work with in the river tunnel, it was a piece of cake to jog back to the base. Stepping inside the hanger, Bjorn walked to the end of the hanger and stopped, rotated back around, and started to back slowly into the repair bay. As he backed up, the reverse view came up on the front view screen. He could tell exactly how he was lined up to the repair bay as a target display came up, showing him he was a little to the right of center and still four meters out from his parking spot. With a few adjustments, Bjorn centered the mech and backed into place. Reaching over, Bjorn pushed the reactor power button to power down.

  “Shutting Down.”

  What a nice voice she has, Bjorn thought. He pulled the neuro-helmet off and shook his head. He had a little bit of a headache from the interface, but he seemed mostly Ok. The machine was easier to drive than the two mechs at the ranch, less physical anyway.

  Sven swung the pilot bridge back into place and knocked on the window. “Hey, you in there. How was it? Open the hatch.”

  Bjorn popped the hatch open after unlatching the harness and climbed out. “Not bad. We need to find the cooling vests, I forgot all about it. It started to get pretty hot in here after firing the lasers and the gauss rifle. The mech handles really smoothly, the interface is almost totally unnoticeable after a few minutes. Targeting is really easy. The reticule snaps onto the nearest potential target without even thinking about it and tracks where your eyes are looking. Speed control is pretty natural using the pedals, it’s just like the mechs at the ranch. And all it takes is a little pressure on the stick to change direction. The buttons on the stick will take a little getting used to, the group two and three fire buttons are different. We should change the button mapping around at home on the sim so it matches the buttons on the real thing here. What’re you guys up to?”

  “We tried to get into the Deimos, but key card interface isn’t working. It’s dead. The onboard battery is probably dead, the shore power cable was unplugged. It might work once the onboard reserve battery recharges. We moved on to the Vulture II, at least it was still plugged in to shore power. It looks like they drained the reactor coolant out of ALL the machines before they left, we’re in the process of fillin’ her back up.”

  “What about the danger twins, what’re they up to?”

  “Oh, they’ve just about got one of the Demolisher tanks running. I think they’re playing racquetball in the lower hanger while the batteries recharge. They got it fueled up, but it wouldn’t start. It made a lot of smoke when they tried to fire it up the first time. Ventilation took care of it. They’re recharging a couple of the smaller 4x4 sand rails too. All the vehicle batteries are dead.”

  “Backup a minute. Did you say racquetball?”

  “Dan found a pair of racquets and some balls in one of the smaller garages. The crew painted lines on the floor and walls and were using it as a racquetball court.”

  “Wow, you can trust those two to find ways to goof off even in a military base.”

  The two guys had walked around the mezzanine back towards the cafeteria, Bjorn wanted to get something to drink. The refrigerators were working again, so they had brought most of the food inside out of the coolers. The girls had cleaned the dirt off two of the tables and were busy peeling and eating some fruit and talking as the guys walked in. Bjorn and Sven picked out chairs and sat down at the girl’s table. Ariel smiled and winked at Bjorn, “So, how was it to pilot a real battle mech for a change?”

  “Not bad. It was a little hot in there after I test fired the lasers. You two wouldn’t happen to have seen any cooling vests in your snooping around, would yah?”

  Tarra spoke up, “Well, the pilot’s locker room is on the other side of the briefing room. You might try looking in there. There might still be some clothes in there. Is there anything else you need us to figure out while you’re out getting dirty?”

  “Well, now that you mention it” Bjorn said pensively, “we need to find the communications gear and figure out how to talk to each other. There must be a radio room around here somewhere. If the Mad Cat had died, it would have taken me over an hour to walk all the way back in here to the hanger to get help.”

  “Hmmm. I think we can work on that one, don’t you Ariel?”

  “Oh sure. We can handle that. I need to check in with my Mom anyway, my zipPhone isn’t working in here and I don’t want her to get worried or anything.” Ariel handed a peach to Bjorn and stood up. “Come on, girl friend. Let’s go find us a nice little radio room and call home.” Ariel kissed Bjorn on the top of the head before she and Tarra walked towards the entrance, leaving the guys to snack on the fruit and juice. “Put the food back in the cooler when you’re done.”

  Chapter 14 “On The Air” –––––––––––––––––––

  Ariel and Tarra found the communications center, it was in one of the locked offices across from the Mad Cat at the bottom of the ‘U’ of the mezzanine. One wall was filled with video displays, with the radio controls mounted in racks just below the monitors above the height of the work benches. The racks continued below the level of the bench tops, but the control modules were in the racks up where you could access them easily. The bench tops folded up out of the way if you needed to work on the equipment underneath. The opposite wall was covered with printouts and posters detailing all of the communications frequencies and protocols. There were racks set up to hold the communications traffic with labels on the boxes for each of the officers and all of the different departments in the command. It was an old style of operating, downloading the messages for each different destination onto separate tablets, but it kept the messages more secure than simply uploading everything onto a general server. None of the comms equipment was connected to a network, networks were too easy to hack into.

  Ariel looked at the amount of wear on the work bench top and figured out where the communications tech spent most of his time. “Look, you can see right where the guy on duty sat. I’ll bet this panel is the one we need to turn on first. Here’s the power switch down here.” ’Snap.’

  “I’ll get the monitors and we’ll see what happens.” Tarra could see the equipment diagnostics flying past on the monitor as the system booted up. “There’s a big button here where the most wear on the panel is, this must be where you press when you want to talk.”

  “Look, there are three rows of numbered buttons on the panel. When I push one it stays lit up. That must be how we talk to each mech. What was the number on that keycard for the Mad Cat? Didn’t it have a big number two on it? Oh look. A little video picture came on up on the monitor. It’s blank, though.”

  “Yah, I think it was a number two. I’ll go out and have one of the guys fire the mech up for me so we can try and talk to it. Give me a few minutes.” Tarra exited the comms center and grabbed Bjorn in the passageway, he still had the keycard for the Mad Cat in his pocket. “Hey Bjorn, we need the keycard to the Mad Cat so we can test the radios out.”

  “Here you go, I’m busy right now or I’d help. The radio should work without firing up the reactor, just turn on the overhead panel, punch one of the buttons to select a channel, and put the helmet on and it should work. Don’t touch anything else, especially not any of the yellow and black striped handles. Those are for the ejection capsule. The movement controls don’t work with the reactor shut down, but try not to bump them anyway. It’s a good habit to get into if you ever want to drive one.”

  “Ok, I’ll be careful.” Tarra bit her lip lightly as she walked back to the Mad Cat, the three story metal beast could easily demolish the entire repair bay. One inadvertent twist of the waist would put one of the arms right through the concrete wall, not to mention smash any
equipment in between.

  Tarra inserted the keycard and heard the familiar voice say, “Access Granted. Please Stand Clear.” The hatch unlatched and opened part way with a hiss. Pushing the thick, heavily armored hatch the rest of the way up, Tarra clambered in and sat down in the command chair. She felt small in the cockpit of the huge machine. Her feet just barely touched the floor. She felt like she was ten years old again, sitting in her Dad’s truck trying to see out the window over the dashboard.

  “Don’t touch the black and yellow striped handles.” she said to herself softly. Looking around, she could see yellow and black striped bars and handles all around the edges of the seat, and a large stirrup shaped handle right between her legs. “Holy cow! How in the world are you supposed to do that? Those suckers are everywhere!” There was even one up in the overhead right next to the communications panel.

  Nervously, Tarra flicked the power switch on the comms panel and saw the lights come on in the dials and buttons. This panel only had ten buttons on it, so she pushed number one and heard a crackle as the channel came on. Putting the helmet on, “Ariel? Can you hear me? Yoohoo, is there anybody out there?” Silence, at least for a minute anyway. “Hello? Ariel? Dang, I don’t think we’ve got this working right.”

  Ariel’s face popped up in a small window on the bottom edge of the front view screen. “Hey girlfriend! Sorry about that, it took me a minute to figure out how to select the right channel so I could answer back.”

  “Whew. That’s a relief. I though we were going to have to find Hai and read the manual or somethin’. The inside of this thing looks like my Dad’s airplane, there are buttons and switches everywhere. Your lipstick looks good, what’cha been doin’ in there, primping?”

  “Maybe... There are boys around, you know. I’ve gotta look my best.”