Landfall: The Ship Series // Book One

by Jerry Aubin

  “What was all that jumping around about? You trying to get yourself shot?”

  Kalare grinned maniacally. “What are you complaining about? You got here in one piece, didn’t you? I knew the bot expected you to do the same thing I’d done, so I figured I needed to create a little misdirection. Here—help me get this SAW set up so we can start shooting back more effectively.”

  “No—that isn’t going to work. Think about it. The SAW is a lot more powerful than our rifles, but the bot has the high ground on us. You can also bet it’s shooting from behind cover that’s at least as good as ours. I’ve got an idea though.” Zax pointed to the tree next to them. “If I can get near the top of that tree, then I’ll have the angle for a great shot.”

  Kalare shook her head. “No, it has to be me, not you. I was a way better shot with the SAW during training than you were. Whoever is up there will only be able to get off a couple shots before the bot reacts. If we don’t hit it immediately, the bot will light up that tree and whoever’s up there will be an easy target.”

  “I agree you’re the better shot, but there’s no way you can climb and carry the SAW. You could barely lift it the other day at regular gravity. How’re you going to get it up the tree when it weighs even more now?”

  Kalare appeared stumped and stared blankly at their blasters for a few moments. “Hold on! Let’s get the straps off our weapons. We can use them to create a harness which will let me carry the SAW!” Zax nodded in agreement and a few mins later Kalare was poised to scale the tree with the SAW strapped to her back.

  “You have to keep the bot engaged until I get high enough. I’ve got a couple small rocks in my pocket I’ll use to get your attention once I’m in position. When I give you the signal, I need you to do something super crazy to distract the bot and give me enough time to hit it.”

  She turned to climb but hesitated. “You probably don’t want to be down here when I start firing. If I miss, that bot is going to nail me good and my body will come crashing down. No sense both of us winding up in the medbay. Or dead.”

  Zax choked up as he considered the magnitude of the risk Kalare took by going up the tree. He gave her a thumbs up and replied with a thick voice, “I guarantee you’re going to take it out with your first shot. Good luck.”

  Kalare worked her way up the tree and Zax developed his plan. He worried most about tricking the bot into believing there were still two of them actively returning its fire. Otherwise, it might get suspicious and seek out a second target. If the bot caught a glimpse of Kalare making her way up the tree, she would be picked off immediately.

  Zax popped up from behind the log, fired off a barrage of shots, and ducked down. He then scrambled along the ground until he reached the tree. He peeked his blaster around the trunk and started shooting again. He repeated similar patterns of running between widely-spaced positions and shooting until his stamina started to fade. All of the concentrated activity with both increased gravity and decreased oxygen took a heavy toll, even after all of their training.

  Zax’s stress about maintaining the distraction was finally interrupted by the sharp pain of a rock bouncing off his cheek. He looked up and Kalare wore a contrite expression in acknowledgement of having hit him in the face. She had located a roost near the top of the tree and the SAW was positioned for her shot. Kalare flashed five fingers and started a countdown.

  When the five count was up, Zax ran out from behind the log back towards the original tree where they had first sought cover. He yelled “Wait up!” in the desperate hope of drawing the bot’s attention far away from the tree where Kalare was perched. Zax smelled ozone when a laser bolt came within centimeters of his face, but then three shots from the SAW were followed by a loud cheer from Kalare.

  A moment later Kalare had the SAW strapped to her back and she grinned over her shoulder as she made her way down. “Your guarantee was wrong about one shot, but I’m sure happy I hit it with my third. Wait—there’s an arrow over there.”

  Sure enough, a green arrow pointed the way towards their third and final challenge. Zax waited until Kalare was almost on the ground and then ran ahead. He had reached the point where a second arrow lit up when all of a sudden it changed from green to red. He turned and saw Kalare had reached the ground and was following behind him.

  “Wait—I think there’s a problem. Back up to the tree again.” When Kalare did so, the arrow in front of Zax switched back to green. “OK, now walk towards me again.” Immediately the arrow turned red.

  “Hmmm—maybe I’m not supposed to keep the SAW.” Kalare backed up and dropped the large weapon. She walked towards Zax and this time the arrow remained green and they both sprinted ahead. “Sure would have been nice to have known that before I lugged it all the way down the tree!”

  They chased the green arrows for a few mins until they reached the edge of the jungle. They stopped to catch their breath and surveyed the situation. Arrayed before them was an expanse of sand dunes with a large rectangular object perched upon a dune fifty meters away.

  “I don’t like this.” Zax sucked in a deep breath. “The arrows are clearly leading us to that object, but the idea of running across all of that open terrain blows.”

  Kalare nodded in agreement. “Yep. I’m guessing as soon as we get out of this jungle we’re going to get blasted. It doesn’t seem like we have any choice, though. I just wish the bots had laser eyes instead of rifles. At least that would be a much cooler way of getting shot.”

  Zax couldn’t help but smile. “OK—are you ready? Go!”

  A hail of laser fire erupted once they were out in the open. They scrambled behind the object without being hurt just as the rate of fire increased. Zax peeked out and saw his last footprint had been hit. The bolt had fused the sand into glass which still smoldered. “Holy crap! If those lasers can melt sand, I really don’t think we want to find out what they’ll do if they hit skin. What is this thing we’re hiding behind?”

  Kalare and Zax stood behind a smooth, black, rectangular block. It was three meters tall by two meters deep by ten meters wide. It must have been made of some pretty strong material because a steady rain of laser fire slammed into the side which faced the jungle without any visible effect. The sand had collected in drifts all around the object as if there had been a windstorm. A circular panel, on the verge of being buried by sand, glowed red near one edge of the block. Kalare shrugged her shoulders at Zax. He grinned as the sight of the circle triggered his recognition.

  “I know what this is! I read about it in that weapons manual you showed me. It’s a mecha. This is how they get shipped to the battlefield so they can be packed into troop carriers as efficiently as possible.”

  Kalare pounced without waiting for further explanation and slammed her palm against the red circle. “I bet this will activate it somehow!” The panel flashed from red to yellow and back, but nothing else happened.

  “No, wait—there are supposed to be two control panels.”

  She gaped at him in disbelief. “Huh? I left you alone with my slate for ninety secs. How do you remember that?”

  Zax tapped the side of his head. “Eidetic memory. I can recall almost any image after seeing it for only a few secs. One of these caught my eye in the manual that morning.” He studied the block for a moment. The second control panel must be covered by a drift! He flung sand away and revealed its circular edge. “I think I’ve found it—help me clear this sand!”

  Their furious digging uncovered a second panel identical to the first. Zax placed his palm upon the circle. “Go activate the other one.”

  Kalare ran back to the opposite end of the block and placed her palm against the first circle. As she did so, both of the panels flashed green and a soft whirring emanated from within the block.

  “Back away and find some cover!”

  Zax flopped next to Kalare in a sand depression five meters behind the block. It transformed similarly to the double-arm pack Sergeant Quentor wore their first day of tr
aining. Instead of becoming a simple pair of arms, the block unfolded into a massive battle robot with a humanoid form.

  The mecha posed before them crouched on one knee once it completed its metamorphosis. Two hatches were visible for the Crew—one for the WSO was located in the left leg and the other for the pilot was in the torso. The battle robot was positioned so Zax and Kalare were mostly shielded from incoming rounds, but the intensity of the laser fire had increased and bolts peppered the sand around them.

  “We better get inside before we get hit. Which one of us is going to pilot it?”

  She phrased it as a question, but the desperate excitement in Kalare’s voice over the prospect of piloting a fifteen-meter tall mecha was obvious. “You should do it,” he said. “We’d still just be cowering behind it if you hadn’t brought your weapons manual to breakfast that time.”

  Kalare sprang up without a further word. The mecha’s pose in its deactivated state allowed the pilot to climb on its knee, and Kalare used it to reach the torso hatch. Zax followed and accessed the WSO cockpit in the calf.

  Zax marveled at the relative spaciousness of the interior once he squeezed his way through the hatch. He strapped into his harness and the workstation for the Weapons System Officer came alive with flashing lights and flickering displays. The threat board was most pressing as it revealed how the incoming laser fire originated from not one, but three different bots which were widely dispersed at the jungle’s edge. Zax grabbed a subvoc unit hanging next to his seat just as Kalare’s voice flooded it.

  “Holy crap this is amazing! I think I’ve figured out how to get all strapped into the controls.”

  “OK, I’m good too.” Zax checked the threat board again. “There’s no way those three bots are any match for this mecha so this should be easy. I’ve got a firing solution set up for each arm cannon. Once you’re ready, stand up and rotate and we’ll take out two of them at once.”

  Kalare brought the mecha to life and spun it around to face the aggressors. She exclaimed “Suck it!” as she pulled the triggers and the massive cannons showered the bots with ordnance. Once the first two targets were pulverized, the third bot ran deeper into the jungle and Zax called out to Kalare.

  “Number three is trying to get away. Follow him!”

  Kalare set the mecha off into the tress at a gallop. The WSO cockpit was stabilized so Zax did not feel any motion, but his external display revealed how they advanced at a furious clip and left a broad swath of flattened jungle in their wake. The mecha narrowed the gap and was almost within cannon range of the fleeing bot. Then they entered a clearing where the lack of trees in their path would allow them to accelerate and get close enough to fire.

  “Kalare—speed up! We can get him!”

  The words had barely left Zax’s lips when a massive explosion rang in his ears and the displays went dark. Simultaneously, the mecha’s stabilization system failed and he suffered every jolt and crash as they tumbled across the ground until they impacted with something solid. The violent thrashing knocked Zax dizzy for a few secs until he regained his senses. Kalare screamed over the subvoc.

  “I’ve lost all controls, Zax! I’ve got no visuals and can’t get the mecha to move! Zax? Can you hear me? Can you see anything out there? Zax?”

  Sergeant Bailee’s voice cut in over the subvoc. “Cadets—the exercise is complete. Please exit the mecha and follow the arrows out of the simulation. Eat some lunch and meet us back in the combat dojo in 117 mins. Bailee out.”

  Zax stumbled out of his hatch and shielded his eyes against the lights which had returned to daytime brightness. Once his eyes adjusted, he surveyed the wreckage and deduced what had transpired.

  The mecha’s trail through the jungle was obvious thanks to the crushed brush and downed trees it left behind. Equally obvious was the massive hole in the ground where they must have triggered a land mine. The explosion sent them flying into a massive tree where the mecha’s crushed hull had come to rest. The clearing was a trap and they ran into it at full speed.

  Kalare clambered out of the pilot hatch and Zax turned to check her condition. Her uniform was shredded and blood oozed from a scratch on her forehead, but she beamed from ear to ear. “That was awesome! Let’s do it again!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  You may go first.

  Zax fumed about how time seemed to crawl during lunch. Part of the reason was the lack of any real food to help distract him since he had followed Mikedo’s advice and ate only nutripellets. Bleh. His body sat across from Kalare and her (overflowing) tray of food, but his mind could process nothing except dreams of first visiting the planet and then being mentored by the Flight Boss. These visions were interspersed with worries about whether getting blown up at the end of the last exercise might disqualify him from reaching those goals. Kalare’s excited retelling of their mecha adventure may as well have been running on a vidscreen clear across the room.

  “Zax! Are you listening to me?”

  Zax snapped back to attention at the sound of his name. “I’m sorry, but truth be told I wasn’t.” He smiled sheepishly. “It’s hard to hear over my grumbling stomach.”

  “That’s OK. I understand. Though, actually, I don’t. I wouldn’t survive if I had to eat those dry, tasteless nutripellets as often as you do. I’m sure you’re sitting there getting super jealous about all of the yummy stuff on my plate.”

  Zax sighed at her reminder, but Kalare did not notice as she continued.

  “Anyway, what was I saying? You weren’t listening to me and apparently I wasn’t either. Oh wait—I got it! I said that Sergeant Bailee and Mikedo just walked out of the mess hall. We should probably do the same.”

  Kalare dropped her tray off at the disposal station and Zax tossed his forlorn nutripellet wrappers into a recycler. They trekked once more across Marine Country and reached their destination exactly on time. The dojo was only half full as the Marines appeared to be off doing something else. The group of Culled cadets from Flight stood around the sparring circle. Sergeant Bailee and Mikedo stood off to the side.

  Sergeant Quentor turned to them with a grin. “Well done, cadets. Perfectly punctual when you’re on your own reveals that Lieutenant Mikedo is the bad influence who makes you late. I should have known.” He turned to the rest of the group. “As for the rest of you Flight pukes, I need your help today. I’m stuck with all of you for another three days of training, but these two are finishing up today. I’ve been asked to have each of them spar against a few of you. Who wants to be the first to face off against Cadet Zax?”

  A few of the cadets raised their hands, but none more eagerly than Cyrus. Of course, that was who Quentor picked. Zax gulped in nervous anticipation, but Kalare stepped forward before he was able to do so.

  “Sergeant—I request to show what I can do first!”

  “Well, well, well—look at you, Cadet Kalare. Initiative. I didn’t know you had it in you. Far be it from me to get in the way of this new eagerness. You may go first.”

  Zax was flooded with conflicting emotions and confusing questions. He was relieved to avoid a match with Cyrus but found himself worried about Kalare’s motives. If it was anyone else he would have been certain they were working an angle for a Leaderboard edge, but Kalare always said she didn’t care about that sort of thing. Right?

  But what if she wasn’t being truthful? Kalare said she didn’t want the Flight Boss’s offer, but maybe she really felt otherwise. He thought back to that morning’s evaluation exercise and considered how eager she had been to take the lead role. She’d not only been insistent about climbing the tree and shooting the bot with the SAW but also made it clear she wanted to pilot the mecha. And now here she was volunteering to spar first. Maybe she had actually been playing him all of this time and was now sweeping in at the last min to grab the spotlight and win the mentorship. He couldn’t imagine it was true, but couldn’t help himself from worrying otherwise.

  Kalare and Cyrus donned their pads and face
d off across the sparring circle. Quentor signaled for the match to start. Kalare stood taller than Zax, but she was dwarfed by Cyrus. She had the edge in speed, but the older boy’s reach kept her at bay and allowed him to avoid many of her quick blows.

  After a min of ineffective jabs, Kalare surprised Cyrus with a flying scissor kick which connected with his midsection and left him doubled over. She attempted to follow up with a toe kick to the face, but his hand darted out at the last possible moment to deflect her foot and then grab her ankle. His other hand snatched her knee and a sec later Kalare swung in a tall arc which ended with her head crashing violently onto the deck. From the way her body crumbled it was obvious she was unconscious. Quentor called “Halt!” and turned to confer with Mikedo and Bailee.

  When the instructor turned away, Cyrus stared at Zax with a mischievous smile. He grabbed Kalare’s foot and lifted her leg off the deck. He then raised his foot to stomp his heel and deliver a crippling blow to the back of Kalare’s knee.

  Without thinking Zax screamed “Stop!” and charged across the sparring circle. He was not quick enough to prevent the initial blow and instead watched Kalare’s leg twist grotesquely under the force of Cyrus’s kick. He was fast enough, however, to catch the older cadet by surprise. Zax’s foot reached its intended target—Cyrus’s testicles—with full force. The air left Cyrus’s mouth with a whoosh and he dropped to the deck in the fetal position. Zax cocked his leg for a follow-up kick to the face and then both of his feet left the deck. Quentor had materialized behind him and lifted Zax by the back of his shirt a meter into the air with one arm.

  “What do you two think you are doing in my dojo!” The instructor bellowed as he hurled Zax to the ground. Quentor first towered over Cyrus. “Cadet—you clearly heard me halt the match. What would possess you to keep beating an unconscious classmate!” The instructor punctuated his sentence with a vicious kick to Cyrus’ belly. He then spun around and yanked Zax’s torso up off the deck by the front of his shirt. “And you—did someone steal my sergeant’s stripes and give them to you when I wasn’t looking? What makes you think you get to be in charge of punishing this cheating scumbag?”