Making the Grade (Omnia Online Series Book 2)

by Christopher Booth

  Drake had been up to the station once. Before he began the six weeks of intensive training, he bought a round-trip ticket to the station. It wasn’t too expensive, but the 300 credits he spent just to see what a space station was like could have housed and fed a family for a month.

  When he thought of credits these days, he added another zero and thought in terms of dollars. It wasn’t a perfect match, but it helped him get a closer feel for how much something should cost.

  Space lift was still expensive, but with Imperial level technology, it wasn’t the 10 to 20 thousand dollars a kilogram that it cost on Earth to lift stuff just too low orbit. But the cost of lift to the space station meant that the people working there could not afford to return ground side very often, so the station had to have room for them to live. And with people living there, there had to be food, and entertainment. The space station wasn’t just a mini-city, but a mini-world, since they had to grow and recycle as much as they could. On the space station, the cost of food from the planet of Hassan was at least half due to the cost of delivery.

  For Drake, who had trained as an engineer, the trip was fantastic and fruitful. He now had a much better idea about what served as the lifeblood of the Imperium. While farming, mining, and manufacturing provided for the life of the Imperium, it was trade; the exchange of goods, materials, and services, that brought this life to its parts. He understood that there were whole planets that focused on food production, with elevators to lift the food into space cheaply. He could imagine what would happen to a world like that if it was cut off from trade, or the space stations and mining outposts who depended on that food supply to live.

  Well, trade wasn’t his problem today; he needed to get his armor repaired.

  By the time Drake had finished his run to the terminal, his mind had switched from thinking about space traffic, to getting to his destination.

  Drake thought the tube-ways were a marvel of efficiency. The station under the spaceport was made of two levels, the upper level was where passengers would get out of the capsules that transported them through the superconductive high-speed tube system. Once unloaded the capsule was released, and gravity would pull it down a ramp leading down to the lower level, where they would stack up waiting for passengers. The capsules would then separate out to loading zones, where passengers would then take a seat and the capsule top would close, sealing the passenger inside. Next, the capsules would be released to slide down a slight grade, picking up speed on the superconductive rails until it entered a tube. Then a combination of vacuum and compressed air would accelerate the capsule away.

  It was this system that Drake used to make the trip to the Guild Hall. This was Drakes preferred tube stop when going to Balsdif’s Open Arms and Armor, and Cairbre’s repair shop.

  After reaching the Hall, he had another half kilometer walk to Balsdif’s.

  Balsdif’s Open Arms and Armor was an arms bazaar or mall, that seemed to offer anything a mercenary could desire in the way of combat equipment. Cairbre’s Weapon and Armor Smithy was located on the second floor. So instead of shopping around, Drake went right up the first lift to visit his old boss.

  Cairbre was behind the counter, just like the first time Drake had met him.

  “Give up on the life of adventure?” He grumbled to Drake. The Half-Dwarf always seemed to grumble, even when he seemed happy.

  “Nah, I got my armor shot up pretty bad and was hoping you could fix it.” said Drake.

  He took the armor out of the duffle bag he was carrying it in, and presented it to the Half-Dwarf to look at.

  “Hmm, this took some blaster shots. I imagine you were wearing it at the time?” He asked.

  “Yep, the body piece caught two shots to the chest and one to the back, as you can see here.” said Drake as he pointed to the damaged areas.

  “I received the whole set used, as part of a deal I made with someone, and it could all use a little care. But the torso armor and the left leg piece took the most damage from the last fight.”

  Drake continued, “Remember I said I had some trouble with pirates. Well, this happened on the rematch, and since I made it out alive, I now have to pay the price for the protection this armor provided.”

  “Humpf,” Cairbre picked up the torso armor and looked at it. “Ah, I think I remember you wearing this stuff the last week you worked here. It’s Crezidine Scout Armor, right? That active camo they build into their suits is tricky and expensive to repair; you should try to take better care of it.”

  “Let see,” he said as he continued to examine the armor Drake had laid out on the counter. “I think I can get this stuff back into new condition for 1550 credits, and that price includes a 10% discount, so don’t try to bargain. This could take a couple days to get fixed properly.”

  “Why is the price so high? I understood that this armor could sell for almost that price used,” said Drake.

  “Maybe, but not used and in like new condition. The real cost here is the materials. They built these suits with lightweight materials like carbon allotropes that are real hard to patch. In fact, I’ll have to re-weave a lot of the armor. Then there’s active camouflage build into the outer skin, that’s going to take re-weaving the organic light emitting fibers and making sure they connect right to the suits controls. Repairing armor of this type is more like rebuilding then patching. So the material costs are high, and there’s a lot of labor. To get this done in two days will take at least two of my techs working on this project alone.” said the Half-Dwarf. Drake was sure that this was the longest speech he’d ever heard from the man.

  “Ok, deal; I need the armor working, so two days?” Drake asked.

  “No, it’s the weekend remember. I can try having it ready by Tuesday afternoon, I’ll send you a note if there’s any delay,” said Cairbre.

  Drake nodded, “See you on Tuesday then.” And he left the shop.

  He still had about an hour to kill before his psionic training at the Guild Hall. But the shops in Balsdif’s were all closing, so he headed back to the Hall.

  “Samantha, what can you tell me about the rank E mercenary work on offer at the Guild?” asked Drake as he walked back in the direction of the Hall. He wasn’t in a hurry, since he had so much time, for a change.

  “Well, some jobs are long-term, like mercenary companies hiring to fill their roster, or people looking for security guards and personal protection. Since most of these jobs are long term I thought you’d want me to remove them from consideration?” asked Samantha.

  “Yes, I don’t want to get tied down. Remember we don’t know when Aggressive Solutions might call on us for the assistance I promised in finding Sid’s sister. Then there’s the data cube Sidonia is supposed to crack, and we don’t know when we might need to leave to follow up on either.” replied Drake.

  “Well, that leaves us with jobs like tracking down bothersome animals, finding stolen goods, missing people, and one item listed as a short-term protection assignment.”

  “Some of that sounds more like private investigator work then mercenary.” responded Drake.

  “There’s some overlap, but if they’re hiring a mercenary, they usually have a good idea who they thing stole their stuff, or where the person is. Take this one for example… A family would like to hire a mercenary to get their son out of a cult compound, where he disappeared with a girl he likes. The cultists are refusing his family access. Because the son is over sixteen years old, the police are reluctant to get involved, since they have no proof he’s there against his will.”

  “Where the law is involved, this falls into a gray area, if you took a job like this, you could get into trouble if someone got badly hurt. I would suggest a less risky assignment for a first job,” said Samantha.

  “There’s one here, it’s almost a bounty type job. Someone has been poaching Narack. They’re kind of like a cross between a cow and a goat, with swept back horns and fleece like sheep have. Ok, they’re nothing like any animal on Earth. Anyway, t
he co-op of Narack ranchers has posted a request for a mercenary to track them down. It’s a little short on detail, but they appear to have enough weight with the local government to get whoever takes up the job a temporary deputation. So you’d be acting as a police officer of a sort.” said Samantha.

  “It’s a little strange since this should be something the local law enforcement should deal with. I think there’s more to the story then we’re hearing up front. Sam, could you do a search through the local news and public sources for more information?” asked Drake. “For now, we’ll pass on that one.”

  While Drake continued to explore the guild job offerings, something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention.

  He saw a short Karura approach the information desk near the Guild Hall entrance. What caught his attention was the size of the avian-like humanoid. Most Karurian were just a little shorter than the Human average. But this one stood at about 130 cm, and this made it the shortest Karurian Drake had seen who wasn’t accompanied by an adult. This caused Drake to suspect that he was looking at a child or teenage Karurian.

  After talking to the receptionist for a few minutes, the receptionist shook her head at something the short Karura said. The little avian humanoid then took a looked around the Hall after a moment and paused while looking at Drake, as if it recognized him. It then started to walk over to where Drake was standing beside one of the information booths.

  Drake was trying not to stare at this scene, but he did look up as the seemingly young Karura approached him.

  “You're him, aren’t you? You’re the man that saved all those girls from the pirates… Drake right?” it asked Drake in its song like voice, which Drake found the most appealing feature of the avian race.

  The question didn’t surprise him. When the news of the rescue of the captives from the pirates and their plight hit Hassan, it was the primary cause of local news on Hassan for weeks. Made even greater by the fact the Navy and the bounty hunters involved voted to give up some of their prizes for a fundraiser for the free slaves.

  While Drake tried to keep clear of the press, his name had become involved in some of the news articles.

  What he did find surprising is that this young person recognized his face on sight, since Drake was able to at least avoid the cameras at the time, or he thought he had anyway.

  “How do you know who I am? I don’t think my image was ever posted in any articles,” asked Drake.

  The young Karura seemed embarrassed, Drake guessed since he’d so little experience dealing with any one of the race except the strange bounty hunter Tredido.

  “Well, yeah, you can find stuff on the net, if you know how to look.” Drake took this to mean that she’d hacked into some system to find more information than was on the data-net news feeds.

  “Why would you be so interested in me, that you’d risk getting caught snooping where you didn’t belong.” asked Drake.

  “Hey, you could hardly call it snooping or hacking if they use such poor security. And I didn’t hurt anyone. It’s just that real hero’s are rare, and you’re real. I just couldn’t resist trying to find out more about you. Like where did you come from before you crash landed on Hassan anyway?”

  Drake didn’t want to explain to what he was sure was an NPC, that he’d just started playing this game at the time. So he gave a vague answer and switch to the verbal offensive.

  “My background isn’t something I like to talk about, and certainly not something I would discuss with a child I don’t even know. But accessing non-public information is hacking, no matter the justification, so you should try to be more careful about who you let know,” said Drake.

  “I’m not a child, I’m 13 years old, and that’s old enough in Karurian society for a girl to be able to take care of herself! And my name is Sul-Fiona Windloom!” the young lady insisted.

  Drake found the girl to be amusing but tried to keep a straight face. What was it about young teenagers insisting that they can take care of themselves, then before you knew it they’d be asking for help.

  “So why did you come looking for me? I don’t consider what happened back six weeks ago to be heroism, any ordinary man would have stepped up to help those people,” said Drake.

  “I knew it! I was right, you are a hero… And I need your help. Can you find my mom and bring her back to me?” the young girl asked, suddenly going from enthusiasm and determination to tear-filled eyes.

  One of the features Drake liked about the Avian race, besides their song like voices were their large expressive eyes. She had those eyes, and they were filled with tears, and their hurt went straight to Drake's heart.

  It didn’t help that the young girl's request reminded him of how he felt when he lost his mother. He’d blamed himself for her death for a long time after. She was driving to pick him up from football practice when her car was broadsided. He kept telling himself that if he’d just walked home, she would still be alive. It didn’t help when his dad started drinking and held Kevin to blamed too.

  He remembered the pain, it was like emotional shards of broken glass filled his stomach at the time, and no amount of crying could ease the hurt.

  He could see that same pain in this younglings eyes, the big expressive eyes, that should be forbidden by law.

  Damn, he was trapped.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Chapter 5 – Earning His Wings

  Drake was late getting to his psionic training class with Allacia.

  Sul-Fiona filled him in on how her mother, a research biologist studying the local fauna, had gone into the forest like she had on so many other days, and hadn’t returned, this was about three days ago. There had been a search around the area where she did most of her sampling and used to observe the local wildlife. There had been no sign to be found, and after a few days, the search had been called off.

  Sul-Fiona’s father was sure that his wife had died, and had gone into a deep depression, leaving Fiona to take care of herself. Drake learned from the girl that Karura mated for life and rarely did one outlive the death of its mate by long. Her father had stopped eating, and Fiona was certain that she would lose him too if she could not find her mother.

  This is why Fiona had come to the city looking for help. Coming to the Guild Hall was her last hope and not much of one since she could offer no reward.

  Drake knew he needed to find a real paying job, but there was just no way he could not at least try helping this girl. Even though he was sure, they would now be looking for a body.

  It was getting too late that day to start a search, so Drake told Fiona that she could stay on his ship that night and that he would rent an air-car in the morning to take her home, and see if there was anything he could do to help her.

  She took him up on his offer.

  Drake told her that he had a class meeting on the top floor of the building, but she was welcome to come up and remain in the garden area until his class was over.

  He then accompanied the young avian girl to the top floor.

  Drake wasn’t surprised at her expression when they got off the lift.

  Most of the middle of the top floor of the Guild Hall was dedicated to a one hundred meter square indoor garden, covered by a massive glass skylight. This garden room was where Allacia’s beginner psionic training group met, except they were not the beginners they once were. They had all advance to the point where they could reach and make some sort of use of the inner energy hidden within each of them, the energy Allacia called ruah. But none of them had moved as far ahead as Drake since he could now tap that same energy without having to go into a deep meditation.

  Drake was more advanced in a few areas, but he still lacked the clarity of vision some of the other students possessed. He could reach out with his psionic senses up to 6 meters now and do so without meditating. In both of these area’s, he was more advanced than the rest, mostly due to the time he spent practicing in his training room. Yet most of the other students had a more
refined sense of what they could ‘see’ using their psionic ability. Even at one meter, Drake had trouble determining if someone was holding up three fingers or four. The rest of this group could make out much finer detail than Drake could, and this was causing him some frustration.

  Today, he was the last student to arrive, and he quietly went to a training mat at the back of the group, trying not to disturb any of the other five students.

  Drake wasn’t able to do his pre-class stretching. It was his regular practice since the first class he attended. He felt that the stretching helped him to focus on meditation since his muscles felt loose and relaxed.

  The day’s instruction turned out to be another of the modules Samantha had downloaded. The instruction covered mind-body control, which was just a fancy way of saying the class focused on encouraging their blood and ruah, as Allacia called psionic energy, to flow to specific parts of their body. The purpose of this training was to either help the body recover from an injury or encourage muscles to recover energy from hard use. The example Allacia used was that of a person running, a distance runner when growing fatigued could focus the blood and ruah to their legs, by doing so, their legs could gain the energy they needed to run, or could run faster as long as they maintained the proper mind-body focus. Drake understood it to be a method of directing his ruah to reinforce the body, which sounded very useful after experiencing the last eight weeks of physical training. He kind of wished he had this ability from the start.

  Drake made only a little progress with this new skill. To start using it, he had to go back to meditation, so that he could sense his blood flowing throughout his body. That took most of the two hours of class time, just following his blood flow and detecting how it was moved and channeled throughout his body. It seemed to be a pattern with psionic skills he was learning, that they sounded cool, and then turned out to be hard as hell to learn.