He looked down at his feet and wiggled his toes, sighing with relief that they were still attached. Everything else seemed to be in place, too. He turned slightly and winced at the soreness along his left side where the grenade had exploded, and the skin there was red as if sunburned. The only other thing he could feel was a dull throbbing pain in the back of his head, and it hurt when he touched it enough to make him woozy and want to vomit.
Frank swung his legs down from the bed and braced himself to stand up, just in case his legs gave out. He heard someone coming down the hall and called out, "Hello?"
A nurse dressed in a white jumpsuit poked her head inside the room and said, "You're up? Took you long enough."
"How long was I out?" Frank said.
She looked down at her chart and said, "A day or so. Looks like you whacked your head pretty good when the grenade went off. The same cannot be said for the poor dummies."
Frank looked at her, "What happened to the dummies?"
"I'll let the General explain it," she said. She turned around and said, "Put on your uniform and follow me. I'm under orders to bring you directly to General Milner when you wake up."
"General?" Frank said. "There's a General who wants to see me?"
"He flew in this morning. I wouldn't keep him waiting much longer if I were you. They're already pretty pissed about your little stunt."
Frank grabbed his uniform from the side of the bed where it was folded and hopped into it, wondering if maybe it wasn't such a good thing that he hadn't had his legs blown off after all.
"I thought it was brave, though," she said, looking back at him from the doorway. "I've been here a few years and nobody has ever solved their final exam like that."
She led him into an office area above the Academy, following a long line of glass windows that overlooked the massive stadium where he'd taken the test. Without all the smoke and fog, Frank could see that the walls and ceiling and floor were all white and there were multiple cameras positioned all around to catch every angle. The nurse stopped at the end of the hallway and said, "Go ahead in."
"Thanks," Frank said dryly. "You aren't giving me much confidence, to be honest."
She walked away and he watched her, deciding he needed one last good thing to focus on before going into the room. Once she vanished around a corner, he let out a long, slow breath, then knocked twice on the door and turned the knob to let himself in.
There was a man with light gray hair sitting at a large desk across the room from the door, dressed in dark Unification fatigues that were decorated with so many colored ribbons and gold pins that every inch of his lapels, breast pockets, and shoulders were covered. Frank saw the stars decorating the man's color and snapped to salute and said, "General Milner, sir. I was told to report to you."
There was another man sitting near the desk, who stood up and closed on Frank, looking him up and down with disdain, sneering like he was smelling something foul. The man was taller than Frank and thin, with closely-cut, reddish-blonde hair. His face was angled and drawn to a point like someone had grabbed him by the nose and pulled it forward at birth. "This is it?" the man said. "This is the idiot who blew up our HUGO supply?"
Frank did not move.
This other was also Unification military, with Lieutenant's bars on his collars, but his uniform was strange and something Frank had never seen before. All of his patches were blacked out. He stood in front of Frank and squinted at him, "Well, soldier? What do you have to say for yourself?"
"I'm not sure, sir," Frank said.
"What do you mean you're not sure?" the lieutenant said.
"I mean I don't know what I'm here for. I just woke up in sickbay and they brought me down here, sir."
"Do you remember taking the test?"
"Yes, sir," Frank said.
"Do you remember activating an electrostatic grenade in the midst of twenty HUGO training dummies?"
"Yes, sir."
"Do you remember blowing half of them up so badly they were rendered unusable? We have a dumpster full of exploded torsos in the back lot that we had to incinerate just to shut them up!"
Frank looked at the Lieutenant and said, "I don't remember that part."
The Lieutenant got close enough to Frank that their noses were almost touching. "The test had to be canceled for the rest of the class because of what you did. Did you intend to destroy Unification Military Academy property, or are you just talented at vandalism, soldier?"
"Neither, sir," Frank said.
"Neither?"
"Neither," Frank said. "My only objective was to rescue my patient and eliminate as many of the enemy as possible. Did my patient survive sir?"
The Lieutenant laughed, "Do you really think that matters right now, soldier?"
Frank looked at him evenly and said, "No offense, sir, but that is the only thing that matters. So did my patient survive or not?"
General Milner got up from his desk and folded his hands behind his back. He came around the desk slowly, carefully assessing Frank as he walked around the front and said, "Actually, he did survive." The General nodded toward his lieutenant and said, "Lieutenant Hill is a little overzealous, but I take that as a sign of his passion and commitment."
"Yes, sir," Frank said, keeping his eyes locked directly in front of him. "Can I ask you a question, sir?"
Lt. Hill jumped into Frank's face telling him he would be silent until he was spoken to, but General Milner stopped the man from speaking with the wave of his hand and said, "What is it?"
"How did the grenade destroy the HUGOs and not me, sir?"
"There are safety protocols built into the test's equipment," the General said. "The dummies react as if the weapons were real, but you are only exposed to light skin abrasions. A little bit of discomfort to keep the test honest, if you will."
Frank thought of the grazing strike against his leg and said, "I understand, sir."
The General squared up with Frank and said, "Do you know why I asked to see you, Frank?"
Frank shook his head and said, "If it's something other than kicking me out of the Academy and putting me in jail for ruining Unification property, I have no idea, sir."
"Do you know who I am? What unit I supervise?"
Frank thought of the conversation he'd had with Victor Cojo so long ago and said, "Yes, sir. You run Grendel Unit."
"And what is Grendel Unit, Frank? Do you have any clue?"
Frank took a deep breath and said, "It is the only unit worth being a part of in this entire service, sir. Do you have an opening for a tactical medic willing to do anything to accomplish the mission?"
The general smiled softly and said, "In fact, I do."
Frank stood on the observation deck outside of the General's office, looking up at the sky. He only had two bags. One contained the limited amount of clothing and personal items he'd brought to the academy, and the other was his black medic kit with a subdued red cross stitched across the front. They were the only things in life that he owned, and he was okay with that.
"So you didn't wimp out. I guess I owe the General a beer," someone called out from behind him.
Frank turned to see Lt. Hill walking up to the platform, dressed in Unification informal attire. It was the kind of thing Frank had seen the slimier Academy instructors wear on a Friday night at the bar, thinking they'd squeeze free drinks out of the bartenders and maybe pick up a few girls. Hill's shirt was a tight-fitting short sleeved, collared, shirt, buttoned all the way up to his neck. He wore it tucked into a pair of tan tactical pants, and the pants were stuffed into his tall black combat boots. The boots weren't brand new, Frank decided. They just didn't look like they'd ever been worn in the field.
Hill must have seen Frank looking him over and returned the favor by saying, "So much for representing Unification. Is this a joke or is that really all you brought to wear?"
Frank looked down at his faded jeans and Knobgoblin concert t-shirt and said, "Nobody mentioned anything about attire. I
don't have a uniform yet."
"Did you ask?" Hill said. "Or did you just decide for yourself?"
Considering I've been deciding what to wear since I was five years old, yeah, jackhole, that's exactly what I did, Frank thought. The words were bouncing around the tip of his tongue, but he somehow managed to keep them from spilling out. He bit his lower lip and waited a moment. Hill was a Lieutenant and Frank was still just a Specialist. Furthermore, Hill appeared to be in tight with General Milner, the commander of Grendel Unit. There had to be more to the guy than he was seeing, Frank decided. Frank sucked it up and said, "Do you need me to get changed, El-tee?"
"No," Hill sighed. He looked upwards and lifted his hand over his eyes, saying, "The ship should be here any second. Just remember, you are a representative of Unification anywhere you go and in anything you do. We have standards, even if some people don't seem to think so."
Frank was about to ask who didn't seem to think so when he heard the pop of engine thrusters kicking on from above and saw four jets of flame lowering through the clouds, coming down directly in front of the edge of the platform.
The ship was smaller than Frank expected. It had a long neck and two wings that were cocked back like a hawk positioned to swoop down on unsuspecting prey. The cockpit looked big enough for just a few people, and there didn't seem to be many cannons equipped to the underside. There were guns, a few missile bays, but nothing Frank expected for a field unit in one of the most elite special ops units in existence. "What is this, the shuttle?" Frank said, watching the ship's airlock door open several feet from the edge of the platform.
"I wish," Hill grunted.
There was nothing but empty air between the platform and the ship. "Why is he hovering out there when he can just land here?"
Hill scowled and said, "And mess up the General's flight deck? Are you nuts?"
"Stupid me," Frank said. "They couldn't get us a bigger ship?"
"You're quickly going to discover that things aren't exactly done the way they ought to be in this unit. General Milner is a great man, but he's stretching himself too thin by trying to run Grendel and still attend to all his other responsibilities. I don't want to say anything to jinx myself, but if everything goes according to plan, someone else will be running this unit in the near future. And then you are going to see some major changes.
"Major changes," Frank said. "Those are always just the kind everyone always hopes for." He tossed his bags across the divide, into the airlock with a crashing thud. Frank leaned back and took a running leap, jumping off the edge of the platform and hurling himself through the opening to land on top of his bags.
"Make some space," Hill shouted, waving for Frank to clear out of the way. When he ran, his tall, perfectly shined boots squeaked across the deck's surface. Hill leapt awkwardly into the ship and grabbed for the side of the door, but his hand slipped. For one brief moment, he teetered on the airlock's edge with his hands flapping in the wind, just inches from a thousand foot drop to the bottom of the academy's entrance. There wouldn't be enough of him left to fill a trash bag. Frank stepped in front of him and reached forward, grabbing Hill by the belt. He held him there for a few seconds before pulling him in.
Hill knocked Frank's hand away and gasped as he clutched his stomach, wobbling as he reached for the wall. "I-I slipped on something before I jumped. Some stupid bastard forgot to mop the damn deck."
Frank peeked over the edge of the ship to look down at the steep drop and thought, If you fell they'd have more than enough mopping to do.
Hill waved him on and panted, "Go ahead, I'll catch up to you. Tell that idiot Buehl to get us out of here."
Frank picked up his bags and headed into the ship, frowning at the narrow corridors and tight doorways. The engines were a low, steady rumble that vibrated up through his boots as he followed the main corridor toward the cockpit. He couldn't see anyone in the pilot's seat, but there was someone, or something, grunting on the floor below.
Frank listened for a second at the animalistic noises and said, "If this is some kind of weird initiation ritual, I'm really not into that kind of thing. I mean, I'll watch, I guess, but I'm not going to jump in. Probably."
The grunting continued, followed by the sound of a man counting rapidly in between breaths. Frank leaned forward and saw the pilot lying face down on the floor next to his chair, racing through a series of pushups. Sergeant Bob Buehl was wiry, but strong, built more like a long-distance runner than a bodybuilder, but he wore a too-tight t-shirt with the sleeves cut high in order to show off his thick biceps.
Frank watched the man crank out a dozen more pushups and said, "Is this how you get the ship going again? I mean, it doesn't look like much, but I figured it at least had engines that didn't have to use our collective kinetic energy to get started."
Buehl finished his last pushup and bounced off the floor, looking up and down at Frank's skinny, wiry frame, and said, "You work out?"
"Sometimes. Normally only before I have to pose for that swimsuit calendar they always bug me about."
Buehl grabbed a baseball cap off the center console and pulled it over his sweaty head. The center of the cap was emblazoned with a pair of sergeant's stripes. An enlisted man flying a covert black ops unit ship? Frank thought. Unusual.
"Well you better get workouts in when you can around here," Buehl said. "Our bodies weren't meant to be going in and out of orbit like this all the time. You'll get the space bends and your muscles will atrophy to nothing."
Lt. Hill came up behind Frank and said, "Space bends is a myth, Bob. I told you that. It only affects a few alien species, but humans are safe."
Buehl glanced at Frank and muttered, "If that's the case, maybe we ought to start carrying as many sludgesuckers around as we can find."
The word struck Frank like a bullet, but Hill had him by the arm and was pulling on him before he could work up a response. "Don't mind Bob," Hill said. "He's a techno-wizard but he grew up on one of the backwater planets where people still marry their cousins and think aliens are subspecies. Come on, I'll show you sick bay and your quarters."
"He sounds a little Sapienist to me," Frank said, looking back at the cockpit.
Hill waved his hand dismissively, "He just talks tough. Don't worry about it. I mean, I'm a Unificationist as much as the next guy, but I don't necessarily want any sludgesuckers coming around my sisters if you know what I'm saying. Right?"
Hill had stopped and was looking back at Frank, waiting for an answer. "Right," Frank finally said. It was the only thing he could think to say.
Hill leaned closer to Frank and whispered, "Actually, one of my cousins got involved with some slick-talking Ligtorp, the ones with the long, skinny arms and sloped-ears? He got her pregnant somehow. She's carrying this half-breed, slope-eared, long-armed demon baby right now. Can you believe that? My own gene pool fouled by this little Liglet bastard. It's a disgrace."
"Sounds rough," Frank said. "I wonder why she didn't stop to think about your feelings before she went and did that."
"It's not my feelings, per se, but the rest of the families. It's selfish, is what it is," Hill said.
Frank nodded slowly, trying his best to play it cool. "Listen, not for nothing, but I always thought Grendel was at the tip of the spear in the fight against terrorists like the Sapienists who want to stop Unification."
"That's what we are," Hill said.
"No offense, but don't you find it a little strange to be out here putting your lives on the line for a cause you don't believe in?"
Hill's eyes widened, "Who said I don't believe in it? Are you accusing me of harboring anti-Unification feelings, soldier?"
"No, Lieutenant," Frank said quickly. He was going to have to do some quick thinking. "I was asking how you reconcile the work we are asked to do…given the reality of the situation."
"Oh," Hill said, nodding. The ship lurched forward into motion, shifting Hill sideways enough that he instinctively stuck his hand against the wa
ll to brace himself until he got his bearings. Frank was used to the movement and rocked back and forth to compensate, using what the old soldiers had called their 'sea legs.' Apparently, Hill had skipped that part of training, or he simply wasn't accustomed to space flight, because he kept his hand pressed against the wall as he made his way down the corridor. "The general doesn't expect us to go win the war single-handedly, Frank. We take on specialized assignments that involve enemies of the State."
"Terrorists, you mean," Frank said.
Hill shrugged and said, "Yeah. Mostly."
Before Frank could ask what that meant, the intercom buzzed with the pilot's voice, saying, "Lieutenant, we're on course for Iscariot-Four. We should arrive within the hour."
"Excellent, Bob. We'll be up after I show the F.N.G. around."
F.N.G.? Frank thought, looking at the way Hill wobbled as he walked. Instead, he said, "What's on Iscariot-Four?"
"The jackhole hotshot," Hill said. "He smooth-talked the General into letting him run some ridiculous surveillance operation in a bar down there. I say it's all some big excuse to spend Unification money on booze and women. Since we're in the area I figured I'd pay him a little visit and prove once and for all that Victor Cojo is nothing but a glorified mercenary."
"Cojo?" Frank said, thinking about the Unification investigator he'd met all those years ago.
"Yeah," Hill said, looking back at Frank. "Why? Do you know him?"
Frank studied the nervous look in Hill's eyes and said, "Nope. His name sounds like something I read in the archives awhile back. Some horror book about a mad dog, I think."
"Mad dog," Hill sniffed. "That sounds about right."
The engines groaned as they downshifted from interstellar drive to an approach speed for the Iscariot system. The ship lurched back and forth and Frank's stomach flopped sideways, making him have to take a deep breath to keep himself from getting queasy. Space travel was going to take some getting used to. He shook his head and was about to make a comment to Hill, when he saw the other man's face had turned a sickening shade of green. "Are you all right, Lieutenant?" Frank said.
Grendel Unit 2: Ignition Sequence Page 5