The Styx Strikers

by Thor Zollinger

  “That’s affirmative. Bjorn’s sure warming up. What brought on that surge of passion?”

  “I don’t know! It must be all the heavy metal around us down here. He’s practically glowing. A few more days of this and maybe I can get him to take me dancing when we get back home.” Ariel was grinning from ear to ear.

  “Wouldn’t that be dreamy. Then maybe I could get Jake to go too and take me along as his date! Ooooooh, that sounds really good. Let’s do that. Promise me you’ll ask Bjorn?”

  “Alright, just keep it between us until I ask him. I’ll have to do it at just the right time and if you tip him off it might not work.”

  “Ok, I’ll be good.”

  “Well, we figured this one out. Girl power triumphs again. Why don’t you come back in here and help me figure out how to call home now?”

  “Righteo. I’ll be back in a jiffy. Sheera, Queen of the Jungle over and out.”

  Tarra took off the over-sized helmet, flicked off the radio and climbed back out of the mech. She did it very carefully, nervously avoiding all of the yellow and black striped handles and even managed not to bump the joysticks on the way out. With a smile of success, she walked more confidently down the bridge onto the landing and walked back to the communications center.

  Jake was watching her out of the corner of his eye from down the corridor. “Wow, she’s cute. I really lucked out this time. Uh, huh.” He couldn’t take his eyes off Tarra’s hips as she sauntered down the corridor and went around the corner.

  Back in the comms center with Ariel, the two fired up two more banks of equipment. The one on the left end of the bench held all of the voice-only radios, next to it was the video channel gear. The Audio equipment displayed wiggly line graphs of each of the signals cued up on the system. Fifty audio channels could be displayed on the monitors at any given time. Ariel found she could tap the touch screen on any of the signal graphs to bring each signal up on the speakers. Activating more than two at a time was an aural mess, though. The video channel equipment operated similarly, Tarra could display up to ten channels on each monitor at a time. Tapping an image turned the audio on and off just like the other system. She could change any of the displayed channels by selecting it and pressing the search button on the control panel. Stats on each channel were displayed on the bottom edge of the video image.

  “Look at this, I’ve got a nice strong video signal from this one.” As she selected the channel, all ten video feeds on the monitor changed. Tarra pointed at one showing the video of a man in a space suit with his hands inside a large electrical cabinet. A vast field of stars could be seen above him in the blackness.

  “Hey, that guy’s in space. I think you’ve got video of the shuttle station at the le Grange point between here and Ceazar.” Tarra tapped the image and the audio came on.

  “Yes Control. Try querying module 56, it’s showing a fault light on the status indicator.”

  “Ok Maintenance-3, querying it now.”

  “It reset, it’s green now Control. That wasn’t the problem. Try number 57. If that doesn’t work we need to pull the signal modulator again.”

  “Querying number 57. Status Maintenance-3?”

  “It’s reset to green now Control. We’re going to have to move on to the signal modulator. Pull up the schematic and tell me which card slot it’s in.”

  Ariel got a gleam in her eye and turned to Tarra, “Should we try to talk to him?”

  “What, do you think we can?” Tarra’s eyes were open wide.

  “I don’t know, but I’m guessing we can. Wanna try?”

  “Uhmmmm. You do it. I don’t know if I dare…” Tarra pursed her lips and looked a bit worried at the thought.

  “Ok, I’ll do it. Here goes.” Ariel pushed the transmit button on the workbench below the video monitor. “Maintenance-3, this is Styx Base. Radio Check, Over.”

  “Styx Base, this is Maintenance-3. Radio Check Sat. Styx Base, this is a private maintenance communications channel. Why are you on this channel, Over?”

  “Maintenance-3 this is Styx Base, we have a trainee in Ops today who doesn’t know the comms system yet. Sorry for the intrusion. Styx Out.”

  “Roger Styx. Control, do you have that card slot number yet?...”

  Tarra was aghast at Ariel’s boldness and laughed as she released the transmit button. “Whoh! That was so rad! Do you realize what you just did?”

  “Yah, I just talked to the space shuttle station above Wayfarer in outer space!”

  “Yah, but no, that’s not what I meant. Didn’t you notice there was NO time delay?”

  “Uh, what do you mean…”

  “There should have been a two second time delay between your signal and his answer. There wasn’t.” Ariel looked puzzled, she didn’t have a clue what Tarra was talking about. “Your signal went through the military quantum bridge relay, not direct path.”

  “Is that bad?” Ariel was getting worried now.

  “Well, no. It means our gear is military and can access military channels regular people can’t use.”

  “Oh, Ok. I guess that’s good, right? Let’s call home now so I can talk to my Mom.”

  Meanwhile, halfway around the moon at the Wayfarer Central Communications Complex, Lieutenant Nelson saw an alert pop up on his monitoring station. The technician on watch piped up, “Sir, we have an unidentified transmitter that just appeared.”

  “Roger, I see it on the alert log. Where is it located?”

  “It’s north-north-east of Port Canaveral. The call sign used was Sticks Base, sir. There isn’t a Sticks Base in the database.”

  “Isn’t that in the same general area where the pirates hit last month?”

  “Yes sir, it is. They’re using Full-Octoplex military encryption. They just radio’d the space station through the military relays, sir.”

  “They must be setting up another covert monitoring station. That’s probably why the Local Guard hasn’t inform us of it’s location.”

  “The signal strength is really high, sir. It’s most likely a permanent installation. Should I log in the location and flag it for other types of comms, Sir?”

  “Yes, and label it as a covert military monitoring station so it doesn’t raise any more alerts and so the next time they’re on the air our operator doesn’t flag it. The Local Guard commander hates it when we call him while they’re conducting what they call ‘covert operations’. He doesn’t like it that we can track him even when he doesn’t want us to see what he’s up to. I just wish we could track the pirates for him, but they don’t broadcast at all during ops. They know what the word covert means. Sometimes they use a smart location jammer, but that’s all we have to go on.”

  “Roger. Sticks Base is in the database now. They’re back on the air again, sir, broadcasting on a short wave general use channel now. They must be checking their equipment out, sir.”

  “Not very smart about it, are they. They’ll reduce power and go quiet after the equipment checks are done. That’s what they did the last time. We’re really the only ones that can hear them anyway.”

  The girls didn’t know it, but they had just done everyone a favor by accidentally using the encrypted equipment first. Otherwise they would have been under scrutiny almost immediately, compromising the existence of the base. Everyone on Wayfarer was doing their best to catch the pirates, it was just that no one knew quite where to look.

  The guys had been busy all day, reviving the mechs and vehicles from hibernation. They had managed to get the Vulture, the Rifleman, and the two large Demolisher tanks moving again after the Mad Cat. The big Deimos mech was still dead electrically, Bjorn surmised the onboard batteries were shot and needed to be replaced. The other three mechs, the Chimera, the Shadow Cat and the smaller Panther were still in hibernation, as were the two smaller Myrmidon tanks. The guys hadn’t had time to really look all the machines over yet. One of the light weight sand rails was on the charger and looked pr
omising, and Zane had one of the forklifts running. Dan and Zane were determined to re-arm the Demolisher tanks and take them out on a test run with live ammunition now that they had them both moving.

  Sven was inside the cockpit of the Rifleman taking it through the startup sequence one more time. The Rifleman-7M had dual light gauss rifles as it’s main weapons, one in each of the arms, and a six-pack of medium lasers in the body. It was a much older design than the rest of the mechs, but the weaponry and electronics suites had been upgraded to bring it up to speed. It wasn’t as fast as the others, but what it lacked in speed it made up for in armor. It could really take a pounding in battle.

  “Ok here goes nothin’. I’m pushing the big orange button again…” The mech rumbled behind the cockpit and the whine of the turbines could be felt throughout the hanger as the reactor finally came up to full power. “Wahoo! We got it this time! I’m taking this sucker out, anybody want to go out with me?”

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

  “Recommend Disconnecting From Shore Power.”

  “Shore Power, Disconnected.” Hai had already retracted the shore power connection.

  Bjorn swung the pilot bridge out of the way and bolted up the half flight of stairs two at a time to the mezzanine. He yelled at Hai as he exited the maintenance bay and headed for the Mad Cat, “Hai, come retract the bridge for me, I’m going out with Sven!”

  Dan and Zane already had the Demolishers started up and ready to go. They had even figured out the reloading mechanism and had filled the magazines up with standard AC-20 shells. The heavy machine guns were also loaded up most of the way with ammunition. The tanks were pretty standard in design, with a heavily armored base and tracks running along the entire length on both sides. The turret was dome shaped, with large staggered double barrels extending out the front. One barrel held a rapid-fire gun, firing twenty round bursts, the longer barrel held a long range gun which also fired twenty round bursts. The longer range gun recycled much more slowly in battle. The controls for the Demolisher tanks were very similar to the controls for the mechs. They were operable as one-man machines, though there was seating for two more men inside. The tanks held an additional gunner/commander station and a machine gun operator for the two front anti-personnel weapons. Dan and Zane opted to each drive their own tank rather than team up in one.

  Jake jogged down the corridor and keyed his way into the Vulture, he was going out too. He fired up his mech and strapped in, but had to wait for Hai to come retract the pilot’s bridge before he could follow Bjorn and Sven out of the hanger. “Come on, come on, come on…” Jake muttered impatiently as he waited in the vulture’s cockpit for his turn. He could see Hai standing now on the mezzanine watching calmly over the railing. Keying the external speaker, “Hai, I could use some help over here.”

  “Oh yah! Sorry about that!” Hai jogged over to the Vulture and retracted the bridge so Jake could head out too. Jake followed the two tanks out of the hanger and jogged down the Styx River tunnel to catch up to his friends. Hai wandered back to the radio room to listen in on the action with Ariel and Tarra. Everyone was using channel one on the secure comm links and the girls had the video feeds from each machine up on the monitors.

  “Hi Hai.” Ariel chirped with a smile. Hai responded with a shy grin.

  The three watched the action on the monitors as the guys tested out their weapons systems and hollered back and forth on the comm systems. The mechs were able to pass targeting and sensor information back and forth, and had been preloaded with topographical maps of the entire area. Bjorn figured out how to access information stored in the mech’s computer and pulled up a series of preplanned training exercises. He knew he’d have to study those later, to see what he could learn about how the prior owners had deployed their equipment. The IFF systems were also on-line, allowing them to quickly identify friend from foe, which was what the system was designed for. After watching the guys sortie for a while, Hai got bored and started poking around the communications room.

  “What’s in there?” Hai asked, pointing at the door in the poster wall of the communications center.

  “I don’t know.” Tarra replied handing Hai the wad of keys she had in her pocket. “Why don’t you go in there and find out? It’s probably another storage room.” Tarra was kneeling on the padded chair in front of the video work station watching the action in the little video windows on the monitors. She was leaning in with her arms supporting her from the table top so she could get a closer view of the small video images. Ariel was more relaxed, watching the videos alongside Tarra.

  Hai went through key after key until he finally found the right one. He pushed the door into the darkened room open, then the door automatically swung shut softly behind him as he entered. Track lights near the floor came on as he walked in. Stepping further inside, he found himself in a room not unlike a mini theatre or conference room, with a large wide glass display screen down in front. Curved risers faced the display and had simple rounded grey desks and dark blue chairs arranged facing the display. There were headsets on the desks in front of each seat, along with a smaller remote control. Flicking on the light switch by the door, soft red lights came on around the room.

  Off to the side of the large glass display screen down in front Hai found a pendant control pad attached to the main display on a long coiled chord. Pushing the ON button, the glass display screen lit up with a topographical map of the area outside the base. “Whoh, this must be a command and control center.” Hai’s mouth was open in astonishment as he slowly wandered around the front part of the room watching the data come up on the display screen. Green icons popped up on the screen showing the locations of each of the mechs the guys were piloting, and yellow icons showed up for each of the tanks. The round icons had pointers on one side, indicating the direction the machine was headed. The length of the arrow showed the speed. Pressing the speaker icon button, audio from next door came in on the speakers in the room. The pendant allowed Hai to select each audio channel and he found he could pull up each mech’s video channel in windows on the sides of the glass display. He could see what each of the guys were seeing out the front of their mechs, including the status and targeting indicators. He could also zoom the map view in or out, and scroll the map in any direction with a knob on the pendant.

  “Whoh, this is awesome.” Sticking his head back into the radio room, “You two need to come in here.”

  “Oh yah? What’d you find in there?” Tarra queried without looking away from the monitors.

  “Come in here, you’ve gotta see this.” Hai held the door open and beaconed for the girls to follow him into the theatre next door.

  Ariel followed Hai inside first, followed by Tarra. “Wow, check this out! There’s Bjorn and the guys on the big screen. Can we talk to them from here too?”

  “I think that’s what the headsets are for.” Hai pointed at the nearest desk.

  Picture Pack: Command Center

  Tarra put one on, but it didn’t work. Neither did the companion remote. “Batteries are dead. Check in the cabinet at the back of the room, there might be some more batteries up there.” Tarra rummaged through the supply cabinet and found the batteries for the remotes and headsets. The remote allowed her to select which communication channel she could speak to and hear with the headset. “I got it working.” Selecting ‘ALL’ on the remote, “Hi guys, can you hear me? This is Tarra in the command center.”

  “Roger, we can hear you.”

  “You’re overheating a bit there, Jake. Just how many times have you been firing those lasers?”

  “You can see that from in there? How can you possibly see that on that tiny screen?”

  “I’m not in radio, I’m in the command center. You’re life sized in here. Hai found a command center next door to radio with cushy theatre seats and a massive viewing screen. It’s got a nice big map in the center. We can see all of you big as lif
e, right down to your pupils, and we can see what you see out the front of your mechs.”

  Bjorn looked up at his cockpit camera and waved. “Hi Sweetie.”

  “Having fun?” Ariel had a headset on now too. Bjorn just grinned wider. “It’s getting dark out there. Are you guys about ready to come back indoors yet?”

  “Ahh, Mom! Do we have too?!” Dan was being sarcastic and started laughing. “Tell me what’s fer dinner and I might come back to the ranch.”

  “It’s always food with you, isn’t it Dan.” Ariel sniped back.

  “Yup, an army travels on it’s stomach.”

  Bjorn spoke up, “Yah, we’re about done. We’ve got most of the equipment checked out. So far everything is working, it’s not 100% but it’s pretty close. My viewport needs a good cleaning, and the leg joints are a bit stiff and noisy. It could use some lubrication, and Sven’s guns jammed a couple of times. Jake’s had problems with his cooling vest we need to get on top of. I’m getting hungry too, and a hot shower sounds real good. I’ve got grease all over the place.”

  “Good, because I think dinner and a movie in the wardroom would be nice tonight.”

  “That sounds great!” Jake liked the sound of that, curling up on the couch with Tarra. “I’m in!”

  “Roger that. Securing the exercise. Let’s head back to the barn, men.”

  At the Wayfarer Central Communications Complex, Lieutenant Nelson’s technician was monitoring the new Sticks Base location. “Sir, Sticks Base is back online. They’ve got a training exercise underway, I count five mobile platforms. The comms are encrypted so we can’t listen in, but we can track their positions.”

  “Acknowledged. I see them too, make a note in the logs. It seems like an odd place to stage that many assets, out in the middle of nowhere. I hope they know something we don’t. I’d sure like to see those pirates taken down.”

  “Yes sir, we all would.”

  “Do you have their comm equipment id’s? I’d like to be able to contact them in the future if we need to.”

  “Yes sir, I have the id’s logged in the data file.”