The Redwood Trilogy Box Set

by Jaxon Reed

  “Awright, creampuffs, buckle up!”

  Our plane waited its turn on the tarmac as the two RSTs in front of us took off. Finally it was our turn, and we trundled down the runway picking up speed.

  I sat between Jacob and Dee Dee. Jacob turned to me with a toothy grin.

  “This is the best Christmas ever!”

  -+-

  The RST kept ascending until we reached the edge of the atmosphere, then some sort of supplemental rocket accelerator kicked in and we really picked up speed. I presumed the craft could circle the globe in a matter of hours.

  Once we leveled out, Sergeant Sledge let us unbuckle. People wandered around the cabin, which was quite spacious for an airplane. Several came up to introduce themselves to us. I couldn’t keep track of all the names. Most of them said something along the lines of, “Nice to serve with you.”

  “Well, everybody seems polite, so far,” Dee Dee said.

  Sledge happened to be strolling by while she said it. He stopped and turned to us.

  “The ‘Vampire Detail’ is an all volunteer unit, ma’am. No one’s here who doesn’t want to be.”

  He walked away, crisp steps and back straight, the way soldiers walk.

  A cute young girl with long brown hair and hazel eyes plopped down in a seat near us.

  “Don’t mind Sarge. He’s a no-smiling, no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is type, but he’ll have your back in a gunfight. I fought with him at New Dallas, along with most of the rest of us here. I’m Andrea, by the way. Andrea Rose.”

  We all shook hands and introduced ourselves, although she knew who we were already.

  “Is his name really Sledge?” Jacob asked. “I mean, ‘Sergeant Sledge.’ Really?”

  Andrea nodded. “Yep. That’s his real name. And he lives up to it, too. We call him the ‘Sledge Hammer.’ Behind his back, of course.”

  “Sounds like an aptonym.”

  We all turned and looked at Jeremy.

  “You know. A name that’s particularly appropriate for someone. Like a dentist named Pain, or something.”

  Jacob turned to Andrea and said in a stage whisper, “He can’t decide if he wants to major in English or history.”

  She giggled. Jeremy’s ears turned red.

  As the hours peeled away, I noted Andrea spending more time with Jacob. They seemed to hit it off, and became deeply engrossed in conversation. She appeared to be enjoying herself. At one point, Jacob took off his leg armor, rolled up his pants leg and showed her the scar from where he’d been shot in the Battle of Redwood. He told the story of jumping off our synthetic bird just a little too late, and how the bots defending the loading dock below were shooting up at us. A bullet hit his leg right before the bird went down.

  She seemed duly impressed. Then she rolled up her sleeves and showed him where a bullet grazed her forearm in the fighting around New Dallas. That impressed Jacob. They basked for a while in mutual gunshot admiration.

  Dee Dee and I talked a little, but she soon fell asleep to the motion of the aircraft. Charlie and Jason carried on their own conversation. That left Jeremy as the odd man out. But he didn’t seem to mind. He pulled out a vid sheet from one of his pockets and passed the time reading.

  I got up to move seats and sat near him.

  “So. The ‘Corps of Cadets,’ huh? What’s that all about?”

  Jeremy looked up from his vid sheet.

  “In the old days, officers were chosen from the nobility. The United States had no nobility, to speak of. So, they typically gathered their officers from University graduates.

  “The branches of the military had their own war colleges, too. Westpoint for the Army, for instance. These couldn’t produce enough officers for wartime, though. So the military also maintained a ‘Reserve Officer Training Corps,’ or ROTC, at various Universities around the country. Students trained as cadets and received a commission upon graduation.

  “A handful of Universities were designated ‘senior military colleges.’ These included The Citadel, Virginia Tech, Virginia Military Institute, and of course Texas A and M which became the biggest. When A and M dropped the requirement that all students be part of the Corps, they grew to become one of the largest Universities in the country. They still maintained a Corps of Cadets, though, along with several traditions acknowledging their military history.”

  He paused to stretch a bit in the airplane seat, then continued.

  “On the middle and outer planets, where they usually only established one University on each world, officer training typically continued through ROTC programs. Here on New Texas, when the University Revolution came, most of the cadets sided with the University instead of the State.”

  “So, here we are?”

  He shrugged.

  “So here we are.”

  His head dipped back down to the vid sheet.

  “What’re you reading that’s so interesting?”

  He looked up.

  “It’s a history of Kingsley Hall, established in London’s East End during the early twentieth century by radical theologians. It later became an experimental psych ward, of sorts. Crazy stuff!”

  “What, is that an over-the-break assignment or something?”

  “No.”

  He poked his head back in the vid sheet. I gave up and moved back to my original seat.

  -+-

  A buzzer sounded in the cabin as the supplemental rockets switched off. The floor dipped downwards as we began our descent into thicker atmosphere.

  Sergeant Sledge stood up near the front of the cabin.

  “Awright, children! Time to get your butterfly wings on!”

  People scrambled to get their equipment out of storage, strapped down armor, and holstered pistols. We all put our helmets on, which activated them. With the visors down, small holograms relayed details to us, showing virtual maps and other info displayed over our field of vision.

  Sledge volunteered someone to hand out the Personal Helicopter Units, or PHUs, also called “butterfly wings.” The dual blade flying kits strapped on our backs, with controls that fitted underarm, jutting out in front. The edges of the blades were protected with carbon fiber rings.

  We lined up in two columns facing the ramp door as the RST dipped lower. We had to stand back a few feet from those in front of us since the rotor rings on the PHUs stuck out horizontally, the blades facing the floor.

  Finally, the plane leveled out and slowed precipitously. A warning buzzer sounded as Sergeant Sledge made his way to the front of the lines.

  “Make sure your PHU is working before you jump or you’ll go ‘splat’ when you hit the ground! Everybody lock and load, but do not handle your weapons until you are on the ground!”

  Everybody checked their firearms one more time. I made sure my pistol felt securely holstered, and adjusted the straps on my rifle.

  Jacob stood to my side, in the other line. He handed me his pistol.

  “Look at this.”

  I examined the gun where he pointed. Some sort of logo, or corporate design. Two frogs. One was thin and tall, the other short and fat. Both appeared to be sitting on a lily pad.

  I smiled. “Frogg and Tode.”

  He smiled back and holstered the gun.

  “Anybody can make gun designs if they have three-dimensional printers,” Jacob said. “But those purchased by the University from Frogg and Tode get an official logo stamped on them to show they’ve passed QC.”

  The aircraft slowed even more. Another buzzer sounded, and the rear ramp slowly went down, dipping to an angle below the aircraft’s belly. Sergeant Sledge turned toward us.

  “Walk to the edge of the ramp and jump! The rendezvous point will show up on your visor! Now let’s go kick some Statist ass! Go, go, go!”

  In pairs, we each fired up our PHUs, marched to the edge of the ramp and jumped off, descending quickly through the swirling airstream.

  After jumping I looked around in the open air, watching identical paired lines of maroon-clad
student soldiers jumping from the other RSTs in front of us. Twin spirals spinning downwards. Together, hundreds of us dropped on the island below.

  Chapter Eight

  I flew downward in a spiral toward the point flashing on my visor. Several landed before me, and others came down shortly after I touched the ground. I unholstered my pistol and looked around, trying to get my bearings. We were in a jungle clearing, with knee-high grass. Trees and green leafy vegetation surrounded us. I couldn’t see the other two groups from the first RSTs, but cadets from our plane landed all around me.

  In the distance, I heard the distinctive notes of a machine gun shooting on full auto.

  Budabudabudabudabudabudabudabudabudabuda!

  Budabudabudabudabudabudabudabudabudabuda!

  Sergeant Sledge floated down last, landing in the clearing nearest the sound of gunfire.

  “Proceed on foot! We’re playing mop up action today.”

  Several audible groans.

  “That sucks, Sarge!”

  Andrea tromped through the grass to speak with Sledge.

  “Why are we on mop up action? We’ve got the best fighters right here in this group! We should be leading the assault.”

  “I don’t make the rules, Nancy, I just follow them. The rest of you Nancies follow me!”

  We filed into line and jogged after him deeper into the vegetation, heading toward the sound of fighting.

  Dee Dee jogged beside me. She said in a low voice, “Nancies?”

  I hazarded a guess. “Negative Nancies?”

  She nodded in agreement. “That must be it.”

  -+-

  The Corps offered formal military training, and jogging in formation through thick brush didn’t seem to bother the cadets. They were cohesive, like a well-oiled machine made of individual soldiers. They followed the sergeant without hesitation, and maintained a semblance of order while moving.

  We six civilians tried to blend in as best we could, and the group seemed to take us under their wing. Literally. I noted cadets stayed to our left and right as well as behind and in front of us. We were surrounded, so to speak. Jacob noticed it, too.

  When Andrea dropped back to us, he jogged up beside her.

  “We’re being babysat.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  He nodded in the general direction of our cover.

  “No matter how slow or fast we go, we’re always in the middle of the group.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Nancy! We’re the Vampire Detail.”

  She ran faster and broke away from the conversation. Jacob looked over at me, saw that I’d been listening.

  “That’s too bad,” he said. “I’d hoped to do some real fighting.”

  “Give it time. You never know what’ll happen when things get messy.”

  We found the fighting soon enough.

  A few minutes later we broke into a much larger clearing. Up on a slight hill stood the entrance to a fenced-off compound. A guard with a machine gun in a watchtower fired down on a group of Aggies taking cover in a freshly-dug trench.

  We left the trees and took cover in the trench with them, ducking down behind its protective berm. The machine gunner kept firing in our direction.

  Budabudabudabuda!

  Budabuda!

  Everybody kept their heads down. Jason took his helmet off, put it on a stick he’d found and raised it above the edge of the dirt.

  Budubudabuda!

  The bullets knocked his helmet off the stick.

  He frowned.

  “Whose idea was it to give us maroon armor for a jungle mission?”

  Several of us laughed.

  “I mean, we stick out like sore thumbs!”

  Somebody said, “Aw shut up, ya Nancy!”

  And just like that, the tension eased, even with a machine gun firing at us.

  Another sergeant scrambled over to Sledge to report. He had dark skin, black hair. His nametag read, “Aguilar.” Younger than Sledge, he looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties.

  “We managed to get a flash trench dug before they opened fire and shot up our energy beam.”

  He pointed to a damaged piece of equipment. It looked kind of like a flame thrower, with a long barrel attached to a hose that in turn connected to an energy pack. It lay in pieces on the ground, riddled with bullets.

  The Aggie who’d evidently been using the energy beam lay in the grass nearby, shot up several times himself. He moaned in pain. I thought it miraculous he was still breathing, and found myself respecting our maroon armor a bit more.

  Charlie hurried over to see if she could help the other two Medics tending to him.

  “We’re completely pinned down by that SOB. As long he’s up there, we can’t move forward.”

  Sledge nodded, mulling over the problem.

  “Any way we can get some kind of explosive up into that tower?”

  Aguilar shook his head. “We’ve tried. It’s too far.”

  The machine gun kept firing at random.

  Budabudabudabudabuda!

  “Can we circle around and approach the compound somewhere else?”

  “Alpha Company is taking the main entrance. This is the backdoor, so to speak. We’d be exposed to other towers trying to break through the fence somewhere else. This is going to be our best bet on getting in.”

  Budabuda!

  A thought occurred to me.

  “Hey Sarge, does that thing use magazines or is it belt fed?”

  Aguilar looked at me, his eyebrows shooting up.

  “It’s belt fed.”

  “When’s the last time he changed out a belt?”

  “I dunno. It’s been a while, though.”

  “How long does it take to load a new one?”

  He shrugged. “A few seconds.”

  He turned to Sledge. “Who is this kid?”

  Sledge smiled. “Sergeant Aguilar, meet Marcus Savitch.”

  Aguilar’s eyes grew wide. “Oh.”

  I started taking off my armor.

  “Now what’s he doing?”

  I took off all my armor and bundled it up. The leg pieces connected to the back and torso pieces, which connected to the arms. I folded everything in, making a rough ball, interlocking the pieces together.

  I kept my helmet on. It seemed useful, and I didn’t want it to get shot up.

  “I dunno. Whatcha doin’, Savitch? This ain’t no time to strip.”

  “I’m giving him something to shoot at.”

  By now, pretty much everybody behind the berm had noticed my actions, and all eyes were turned toward me.

  “Listen up! When he stops to reload with a fresh belt, we go over the top and take him out!”

  Several people nodded, catching on to my plan immediately. I didn’t stop to explain it to the rest of them. I grabbed the ball of armor, stood up, and threw it over the berm hard as I could. It rolled toward the guard tower.

  The machine gunner took the bait and started firing on the man-sized maroon ball rolling his way.

  Budabudabudabudabudabudabudabudabuda!

  From behind the trench I watched as the armor bounced up in the air from gunshots hitting it.

  Budabudabudabudabudabudabudabudabuda-Click!

  The sound I was waiting for!

  “Now!”

  With a collective scream, a solid “Whoooooop!” that would have made any Aggie football fan in Chang Field proud, we ran over the top of the trench, opening fire on the guard tower. The machine gunner fell to the ground in a hail of bullets, and we reached the compound gate.

  I stopped to retrieve my armor, and hurriedly snapped it back on while everybody else swarmed through the gate. Three cadets stopped with me, taking positions around me, guns at the ready. They must be my security detail, I thought.

  “You know, guys, I think I can take of myself.”

  They didn’t respond, maintaining their positions and postures.

  I sighed, snapping the last of my armor back i
n place. Remarkably, it was still in good shape for having taken so many bullets. It was scuffed all over, but intact.

  “Come on, let’s go find some bad guys.”

  I ran through the gate with a cadet on either side, and one behind me.

  Inside the compound, chaos reigned. Tattered black-clad GPs flitted from building to building, shooting at cadets. Other statists in civilian dress ran screaming, ducking, hiding, or shooting. Several one-story buildings offered plenty of cover for both sides. Pallets of supplies, barrels, and old motor vehicles littered the grounds.

  Ahead I saw the tail end of our group, rushing closer toward the center of the compound. A last flash of maroon disappeared behind a building about a hundred yards away.

  Suddenly I realized why maroon had been chosen as the color for our armor. Not a single statist in the compound wore a stitch of Aggie maroon. The bad guys were easy to distinguish. Somebody knew what they were doing back in New Bryan, I thought.

  Glass tinkled as somebody kicked out a window in a building near us when we ran by. They opened fire. Several bullets thunked off our armor.

  We stopped, hitting the ground, turned around and returned fire at the window, all four of our guns blazing at once.

  We heard a rifle clatter to the ground. A bloody arm and hand flopped out the window, motionless.

  More gunfire chattered several yards away.

  “Come on,” I waved at my bodyguards.

  If they’re going to stick to me no matter what, I might as well lead them where I want to go, I thought.

  We turned the corner of a building and ran into a shootout between four GPs and three Aggies. We opened fire on the GPs and finished the fight quickly.

  One of the cadets lifted her visor. It was Andrea.

  “Thanks, guys! The main fighting is that way, at the compound’s nerve center.”

  I looked in confusion at Andrea and the other two cadets, a guy and a girl I didn’t know.

  “What are y’all doing?”

  “Mop up!”

  All three of them grinned like kids on Christmas morning. Which, come to think of it, it was Christmas morning.

  “Uh huh. Looks to me like you’re hunting GPs.”

  Andrea waved us off.

  “Go! They could probably use you over there.”