“Good. Carry on.”
Chapter 15 “Back at the Ranch” –––––––––––––––––––
Jake found himself outdoors that afternoon at the ranch walking across the fields towards the greenhouse out by the duck pond. This time he had his boots on, no more dirt in his socks like before, he’d learned that lesson. He’d finished working on the fabricators that morning making parts to repair a tractor Ben was working on. He liked 3D modeling on the computer, but he found that he liked working on the ranch with the animals just as well. That surprised him. He never would have believed he’d like farm work while he was living with his parents on Lahti in the city. With all of the events recently, that world seemed so far away. He missed his family back on Lahti, but the sting was fading more and more as he acclimated to life on Wayfarer. And the mechs! “Wow, I have my own Vulture-II to pilot!” That was even harder to believe than anything else.
Jake opened the screen door to the greenhouse and went inside. He had to feed the rabbits. The rabbits were in a large cage on one side of the greenhouse under the plant starter bench. In the winter their warm bodies kept all of the vegetables from freezing at night. He liked feeding the rabbits. They were always glad to see him, and never complained about anything. “Nice warm silent balls of soft fur. Hi guys! How’s it going? I’ve got some nice wormy carrots and some buggy lettuce just for you guys. Oh, I see you’ve tipped your water dish over again. We’ll have to fix that. Maybe I should glue a board to the bottom of that so you don’t tip that over again. How would that be? Yah? Oh, you like the carrots best do yah. I’ll dig some more of those up for you tomorrow, that’s all I’ve got today.” Jake filled up the food bowl with pellets made from the greens of one of the farm crops, mixed with potatoes, some beans, and other crops grown on the ranch. Then he refilled the water bowl and went out the other end of the greenhouse past the water pumps and off towards the pond. The pumps circulated the fish wastes through the greenhouse plants, then the cleaner water went back into the pond.
The pond was filled with medium sized cold water fish which had to be fed. The ducks didn’t seem to mind the fish, which nipped at their feet as they paddled around in the pond. The fish got the same pellets he fed the rabbits. They weren’t very discriminating, they ate just about anything you threw in there. Jake had even thrown an old dead Rocker in there which disappeared rapidly. The water seemed to boil when he threw scoops of feed or anything else out into the water. The fish tasted really good deep fried in Aunt Glory’s special batter. Add some chips and some thick seasoned cream for the chips and Jake was in heaven. One thing about living on a farm, all the food was really fresh and really good.
The guys rotated through the jobs at the ranch and had a different set of jobs every couple of weeks. The rotation made it less tedious than having the same job over and over. Uncle Helmut posted a chart in the mud room and let the guys take care of things pretty much on their own. He didn’t get after them too much about when they did their chores, as long as they got them done sometime during the day. Jake learned really quick if you didn’t do your share you ended up with the worst job ever, mucking out the corral, or even worse, cleaning out the grease pit after Ben finished working on one of the big machines. Even after a long hot shower you still stunk like diesel and axle grease.
Sometimes the Servals tagged along. Somehow the two cats knew which animals they could eat and which ones to leave alone. They pretty much left the farm animals alone most of the time and went after Rockers and the other rodents they found around the out buildings. Most of the time Jake found them out on the perimeter of the ranch hunting Rockers out by the rock barriers. They would always come running though, if Aunt Glory whistled for them. She had a special whistle she used. She held onto scraps of meat just for the two of them. She pretended not to like them as much as she really did.
Picture Pack: Frick & Frack
Jake finished his rounds and headed out behind the machine garage where the guys had a set of targets set up. The thick rock wall of the building served as a backdrop for the shooting range they’d set up. The dirt piled high up the side of the building stopped the bullets behind the metal targets, and caught any arrows from their bows if they missed the square foam targets. The range had a berm of soil piled up high down each side of the range, forming a nice safe location for shooting practice. The guys had also added a table fifty meters back to set guns and ammo on. One hundred meters was out in the field amongst the crops, not exactly a good place to put a table.
“It’s about time you showed up, Dad said you passed your hunter’s safety test yesterday. Now all you have to do is shoot a perfect score and we’ll let you have your side arm!” Bjorn was joking around, he already knew Jake knew how to handle the pistols and rifles safely. They’d been out shooting almost every day for the last two weeks.
“Yah, well I had to feed the rabbits and the fish first.”
“Let’s see how well you do with a crossbow today.” Bjorn had two compound crossbows out on the table and a couple dozen arrows. “This is a little different, the way you cock the bow is almost as important as aiming.”
Sven took one of the bows off the table and proceeded to show Jake how to cock it properly. Putting his foot in the stirrup on a board on the ground, “You have to take a hold of the bow string with both hands right here, equal spacing on either side of the center. Then you pull it all the way up and under the latch. If you latch it off to one side or the other from center, it shoves the tail of the arrow a little off center when you fire it and that makes the arrow wobble in flight.”
“If you want to be accurate you have to cock it exactly the same way every time. Firing is easy, just put the red dot on the target and pull the trigger. Well, after you take the safety off. The safety goes on automatically when you cock it.” Sven placed an arrow in the slot, pointed the bow at the target and pulled the trigger. ‘Thonk.’ He hit in the first ring out from the bullseye.
Taking the other bow off the table, Jake cocked it the same way Sven did, took aim through the reflexive sight and pulled the trigger, ‘Thonk’. Jake hit on the opposite side from Sven, but about the same distance from the bullseye. It was lower down, so Jake knew he needed to compensate for distance and aim higher up.
“Not bad. Both of you need more practice though.” Bjorn grinned and continued, “Ariel is going to kick your butts, and she uses a regular bow, not even a crossbow.”
Sven nodded. “Yah, but you can’t compare us to her! Jake, I’ve seen her pick off things Bjorn throws in the air for her. That girl’s spooky with a bow. And fast.”
Jake picked up another arrow and did a little better the second time around. After a while, Sven turned the shooting practice into another points contest. It was always more fun with a little competition going on. Sometimes the contest ended up in a wager, with doing the other guy’s chores for a week as the penalty for losing. Sven and Jake were pretty evenly matched, so it could go either way. Neither of them would bet Bjorn, he usually won when it involved a wager.
After shooting for a while, the guys decided to head in and get the barbeque pit fired up. The crew were coming over for dinner to barbecue the Bant Jake had shot. Aunt Glory had the meat marinating in the frig in her special seasonings and Uncle Helmut had some fiery sauce he wanted to try out.
The fire pit was on the back side of the manor house under a stand of huge pine trees. Bjorn and Sven worked with Jake to split and cut up some select wood for the pit. The taste of the wood smoke in the meat sometimes made all the difference. The guys had collected some wood from the countryside outside the ranch which they knew would make the meat taste just perfect. The pit consisted of a ring of large rocks set down into the ground, with a long iron grate to bridge across the rocks in the center to cook the meat on. A set of split log benches were arranged in a circle around the pit about a meter back from the rock ring. The area behind the house was mostly lawn grass and shade trees, which
made it a great place for outdoor get togethers.
“No, not that way Jake.” Bjorn said a bit disgusted. “If you want the fire to burn all night you have to stack the split logs tightly together into a square stack. You’ve got it all backwards. Big stuff goes on the bottom, then medium sized branches, then the small stuff on top.”
“Oh, so now you’re the authority on building a fire too?” Jake was getting a bit fed up with Bjorn bossing him around all the time.
“Well, he is right Jake.” Sven added apologetically. “Dad showed us how to build fires a long time ago. You’ve been on campouts before haven’t you?”
“Yah, plenty of times. We always started the fire with a loose stack of logs, with the little stuff in the bottom so it would funnel the flames up into the other logs. You get a nice big fire really quick that way.”
“Yes, that works for a big fire, but we don’t want a big fire.” Bjorn tried to soften his attitude, he really hadn’t wanted to tick Jake off. “We want a low, slow burning fire so we can cook the meat evenly. If we do it with a big fire the meat gets burnt on the outside and is still raw in the middle. You like your meat cooked all the way through, right?”
“Oh. Yah, I guess so. I don’t really like it raw.”
“Here, let me stack the wood. I’ll do it like our Dad does and you’ll see what I mean later when the Bant is roasting nicely over the fire. Thick steaks and briskets take longer to cook all the way through, a hot fire doesn’t work that well. Slow cooking is better.”
Sven helped and put the small sticks and dry leaves on the top. “It takes longer to get the fire started this way, but I’ve seen it burn all night long. We won’t have to keep stoking it to keep it going when it gets cold later on. We’ll be throwing meat on the grate all evening, Mom likes to make plenty so we can eat off of it all next week.” Sven cupped his hand to keep the breeze from blowing out his flame, and managed to get the fire started on the top of the thick stack of wood. The guys had to keep tending the flames for a while, until the fire worked it’s way down into the tight upper layer of branches.
“Is the front gate open?” Sven asked. “Tarra just texted me, she’s almost at the front gate.”
Jake got up and started walking towards the kitchen door. “I’ll check.” Inside the mud room Jake checked the front gate camera on the monitor. It was closed, so he pushed the button on the remote to open it.
“Jake, can you carry some of the condiments out to the picnic table for me?”
“Sure Aunt Glory.”
She handed him a tub with a couple dozen bottles of sauce, a bowl of water, and a couple of wet dishcloths in it. “Send Sven and Bjorn in too, I need more hands to carry the salads and meat outside.”
By the time the guys had all of the items out on the picnic table Tarra and Ariel had arrived. Ariel picked Tarra up in a small truck on her way over to the ranch. A few minutes later Hai drove down the lane in the mine truck with Dan and Zane and parked out in front of the machine garage. Christina popped out of the house as soon as the girls arrived, she liked Tarra and Ariel. Uncle Helmut had an Adirondack chair out for himself near the fire pit, he was sitting back in the setting sun with his shades on, with a big mug in his hand as usual. Ben showed up after a while when he smelled the meat cooking on the barbeque, as foreman he was always invited. Bjorn was in charge of the meat, under Petunia’s watchful eye while Aunt Glory relaxed and talked to the girls.
“So what are we going to call ourselves?” Jake asked the guys sitting around the fire. “We need to come up with a good name for our mech lance.”
“How about the Rough Riders?” Dan was all about the old west, since their lives were very close to the archetypal characters he read about in novels.
“Nah, how about the Langer Lancers? Technically Mr. Langer owns the base and everything in it.” That was Hai’s suggestion.
“Well, since we’re calling it the Styx Base shouldn’t we tie it into that? How about the Styx Rangers? Or what’s the name of that three headed dog Ariel was talking about that guarded the River Styx in mythology?” Bjorn asked.
“Uhh, I think it’s name was Cerebus.” Zane added in.
“No, it’s Cerberus dummy, get your deadly dogs right.”
“That doesn’t work, how about the Hades Hounds?” Sven piped in.
“That’s too close to the Hell Hounds and we don’t have any of those mechs in our lance. I like the Styx Strikers, how does that sound?” Jake was more supportive of a more consistent name.
“Ok, I second the Styx Strikers, and I think we should use the three headed dog as our mascot. Painted on the side of our mechs.” Bjorn liked Jake’s option and added to it.
“Hey, that sounds good.” Sven smiled, but blinked when a piece of ash from the fire almost got in his eye. “The Styx Strikers it is. I’ll go into the database on the computer and see if I can come up with a good logo with the three headed dog on it. We can print out the graphic in the shop on the flexi sticker stock we’ve got and take it with us on the next Safari.”
Picture Pack: Cerberus – Styx Strikers Logo
Mr. Langer had been listening in, “So what are you guys up to anyway?”
Sven looked surprised, so Bjorn took over answering the question, “Oh we’re just forming a lance of mechs for our sim downstairs. Can we put our logo on the side of the Ripsaw?”
“Yah, that’s a good idea.” Sven recovered quickly. “Can we Dad? That would be so rad!”
“Oh, I suppose. You guys are the ones driving that thing all the time anyway. I guess I don’t mind if you put a sticker on the side. A three headed dog, huh. Interesting mascot.”
Ben had walked over by the fire, “My unit in the military was called the Iron Cobras. Our symbol was a black snake head on a silver shield with a dagger in it’s mouth. I always liked that one.”
“Well, we’re going for a link to mythology. We call the river in the tunnels the River Styx, ‘S-T-Y-X’. Ariel came up with that.” Bjorn liked it that Ariel was both cute and smart.
“Interesting name, since it’s underground like the river in the myth. Not bad.” Mr. Langer approved.
“When I was in the military it was pretty rough,” Ben said as he started into a story. “Why we had to go down that road towards that missile launch facility I’ll never know. We lost so many men…”
The rest of the evening the guys listened to war stories from the two older men, ate a lot of barbequed Bant, and enjoyed the evening long after it made sense to stay outdoors. The girls quietly helped Aunt Glory and Petunia pick up, then said their goodbyes. Ariel kissed Bjorn on the back of the head and patted him on the back before she left, she had to drive Tarra home and it was getting late. She knew the boys were probably going to stay overnight anyway and she had things to do the next day. She and Tarra were headed into Port Canaveral to go shopping with her Mom. She didn’t want to miss that!
The next day Jake and the guys were headed out to the garage to test out the two farm mechs and test fire the guns. Ben had finally finished mounting the guns and wiring up the targeting controls with the techs in the shop and had the software interface installed. Slipping on the control jacket, gloves, and head tracker Sven was first up. His safety glasses were tinted so he could see the targeting laser properly.
“Alright guys, here goes nothin’.” Saluting Ben smartly, Sven nodded and trotted over to the farm mech. Climbing up the ladder up the side of the construction mech, he clambered over the sill and into the cockpit. Sven turned on the computer, logged into the machine, “Operator Recognized” and pressed the start button. The turbines rumbled and came up to speed, then the computer responded “All Systems Ready.” Assuming the body position the mech was in Sven pressed the enable button with his foot and took control of the upper torso.
Ben waved everyone else out of the way, “Alright you guys, stand clear.”
Sven walked the mech out of the garage and across the driveway and lumbered do
wn to the edge of the fields. On the radio he heard Ben’s voice, “Ok, lets see if we’ve got the laser and targeting computer calibrated properly. Put your laser on the hillside past the rock barricade and let’s see if you can hit anything with it.”
“Roger. Commencing live fire. I’ve got the reticule on the big white circle you painted on the hill. Firing the right gun.” ‘Booom!’ The cannon spat out a round, which hit the hill low and to the left. The deep low explosion rebounded off the hills around the ranch like thunder. A flock of tan birds erupted from the fields in panic as the shot echoed off the hills to the west of the fields.
Ben made some adjustments on his tablet, “Ok. Try it again.” The targeting laser doubled as a range finder, which was used to adjust the gun to compensate for the ballistics of the shell.
“Firing.” ‘Booom!’ echoed around the entire ranch. This time the round hit a little to the right of the target.
Ben made a few more adjustments. “Ok, this should do it. Try it again.”
“Firing.” ‘Booom!’ This time the round was more or less on target.
The two repeated the process for the left gun and had it within the circle in short order. Aunt Glory slammed shut the kitchen door ominously and shut the windows in the kitchen, she was a bit miffed the guys were firing just down the driveway. “I’ll have a talk with those boys later on.” she said to Petunia. “You’d think they’d know better than to fire those things off so close to the house.”
Bjorn leaned over to Zane and whispered, “Not quite as nice as your Demolisher is it.”
Zane snapped into a huge grin. “Nope. Not even close. That AC-20 is deafening when it goes off. This is just a pop gun in comparison.”
Ben was proud of his handy work. He was puzzled why the boys were so laid back. He thought they’d be more excited at firing live rounds with a real mech. Oh well, the machine was working properly, he’d done his job. “Ok, Bjorn. Let’s go get the other mech and get it calibrated too. Then the two of you can take the mechs out of the compound and do some shooting farther away from here. I can see Mrs. Langer isn’t very happy with us right now.”
The Styx Strikers Page 18