Grendel Unit

by Bernard Schaffer

  "Hooah!" Frank cried out as he raced head first into the arena. He stopped just as the doors slammed shut behind him, seeing nothing but swirling orange dust and smoke in front of him. He turned around to look back for the door he'd just come through, but it was already too obscured to see.

  His heart hammered against his chest and he bent down as low as he could get, gripping the rifle in his hands so tightly the shoulder strap rings were rattling. He tried to breathe, telling himself he needed to take long, deep, breaths and hold them in his stomach as long as he could. He knew from his training that he could use his breathing to slow his heart down and keep himself calm. He told himself that the heavy clouds of dust and smoke were just effects meant immerse him in the scenario.

  It's working, he thought. Consider me immersed.

  He lifted his rifle and peered through the scope, hoping its optics would cut through the fog. It was useless. He couldn't see a damn thing. He checked the sides of the scope for any variable switches and found one, flipped it, and grinned slightly. The world inside the scope changed to a bright thermal image of dark yellow, with a few faint glimmers of red in the distance. Those glimmers were heat signatures, and were either his fallen commanding officer or his enemies. Frank crept forward with the rifle raised, trying to get a clearer picture, when a rifle blasted in the distance and a hot bolt of fire scored sizzled past the tip of his left elbow.

  Frank cried out in pain and instinctively rolled sideways.

  He looked down at the rifle's scope and saw that the thermal setting made the scope lens glow bright blue, a perfect signal to hostile forces of his exact position. Frank cut off the setting and looked down at his arm, seeing it was just a slight burn. He could keep fighting without addressing it. He thought about moving in the same direction where he'd seen the red signatures, then changed his mind.

  Whoever shot me is still out there, and he's probably looking for me.

  Frank set the rifle down on the ground where he'd been standing before and turned the scope on before scurrying to get out of the way. Several shots immediately rang out, sizzling through the air in the direction of the rifle. If Frank had been standing there, they would have punched him directly in the chest.

  He kept low and waited, trying to keep his breathing steady. He saw two black shapes coming through the funnels of dust, making them both out to be human. They were holding older model rifles and dressed in ragtag suits of cobbled-together body armor.

  Sapienists, Frank thought.

  They were getting closer to the rifle's glowing blue lens and Frank reached down to the grenade on his belt, but decided the explosion would be too loud and draw too many reinforcements. He decided he needed something quieter and drew out the knife.

  He watched both figures walk past him and he crept up behind them with the knife ready. He grabbed the closest one and plunged his knife's blade deep into its neck, hearing a familiar, "Ow!" before it collapsed to the ground.

  The second HUGO unit spun around with its gun ready and Frank flung the knife into the exposed section of its vest just below the training dummy's chin. "Ow!" it said, just before it fell.

  Frank snatched up his rifle and flicked on the scope, quickly scanning for more heat signatures. There weren't any. He switched the setting off and kept moving deeper into the smoke. The cut across his arm was red and stinging and sweat was leaking down his face and dripping off his chin, but he kept moving and he kept it together. With every deep breath and every second he stayed in the fight without losing, he kept it together.

  He got down on the floor and pressed himself as flat as he could in order to raise the rifle and activate the thermal scope. No shots came. He swung the rifle around in a wide circle, just trying to quick scope the surrounding area and check for heat signatures. As he turned over to check to his right, he finally found one, and it was alone.

  Frank clicked off the scope and pressed himself up, keeping to a low crouch as he made his way toward the place he'd seen the flash on his display. He kept the rifle tucked under his arm and his trigger finger flat against the gun's frame, ready to fire.

  There was something several feet ahead of him, lying flat in the swirl of brightly-colored dust and smoke. As Frank inched toward it, he heard its voice softly repeating, "Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow."

  He hurried forward and threw up his face shield to inspect his patient. It was a HUGO unit, dressed in a Unification soldier's uniform. Frank shook the thing's shoulders and said, "It's going to be all right, I'm here." He did a visual inspection of the injuries and winced. They were horrific. Both of the HUGO's legs had been blown off at the knees and it had suffered two laser shots to the chest.

  Frank ripped open his medical kit and dug through the contents until he found two emergency compression bags. He fit each end of the bags over the unit's leg stumps and they constricted immediately around the wound, forming air tight seals that stopped the flow of blood and prevented any infections. Frank tore open the kit's left flap and ran his finger along the devices and packages there without having to look at them. He'd studied the kit so thoroughly that he knew its contents by touch. He found the jar of wound putty and pulled it free, twisting off the lid and scooping it out with his finger, before packing the putty into both of the HUGO's laser shots.

  "There you go," Frank whispered reassuringly. "Now let's get you out of here."

  He reached down and wrapped both of his hands around the unit's vest to pull him up and hoist him over his shoulder, when he saw them coming through the swirling mist.

  It was a long line of HUGO units carrying rifles, their baggy, worn clothing and strangely-assembled armor rattling in the vortex of light and dust and smoke as they advanced. Frank cursed under his breath and grabbed his injured patient by the back of his collar and started to drag him backwards, trying to vanish into the cover of swirling fog.

  It didn't work.

  The Sapienist units turned toward him and kept coming. Frank flipped his medic kit back open and stuck his hand down to the very bottom, finding the thick tube secured there. It was his last piece of equipment, only meant to be used after every other option had been exhausted, and he had to wrench it free. "You're going for a ride, buddy," he told the injured HUGO.

  He quickly twisted the lower half of the tube and it snapped open, releasing a length of black cable that was stronger than steel. Frank looped the cable under the front of the figure's Unification vest and hooked it back to the tube. Once it was fastened, he twisted the top and held his breath.

  The end cap shot off and a heavy black balloon hissed and swelled to life, filling until it was larger than a beach ball and immediately began rising into the air. The balloon's material was thick and powerful enough to carry a single person.

  "Ow, Ow, Ow, Ow…" the Unification HUGO unit said as the balloon dragged him up into the air, his ruined legs dangling and twitching over Frank's head for a moment, before it vanished into the strangely-colored mist.

  The Sapienists were now close enough that Frank could see their faces and make out the multiple rifles aimed directly at him. The enemies were all the same. All of them, bearing the same creepy expression that was even more menacing because it revealed no emotion. There were too many to outrun, Frank thought.

  They'd shoot me down the moment I tried.

  He looked into the air over his shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of his patient. The HUGO had safely floated away, vanishing into the foggy sky to wait until he was eventually picked up by a recovery craft. Or, left bouncing against the arena's ceiling rafters until they ended the scenario and let him down, Frank thought.

  The enemy line had stopped in front of him, rifles raised, waiting for him to make a move. Frank did the only thing he could think of. He fumbled on his gear belt for a moment before he raised his hands and said, "I surrender."

  There was a metal ring dangling from his thumb as he lifted his hands. The activated grenade on his belt started vibrating and humming, getting ready to explode. Fra
nk took a deep breath as he walked toward the Sapienists, smiling the entire time.

  10. You Can't Fade Me

  Frank came to, slowly, in a hospital bed, rolling back and forth until he finally opened his eyes. He winced in the harsh sunlight pouring through the sickbay windows. He looked around at the room's blinking machines and ventilators and plasma dispensers and thought, "Another explosion has left me in yet another hospital bed. I've had about enough of waking up like this."

  He pushed up on his elbows and looked down, visually inspecting himself to make sure all of his body parts were still there. He recalled a vivid dream where he'd activated the grenade and it had blown off both his legs. He remembered lying there on the arena floor, trying to pull the plastic compression bags over the remaining stumps like a man trying to put on his socks. There were body parts of dozens of HUGO training dummies scattered on the ground around him, a dozen severed heads all repeating "Owowowowowowowowowow" in unison.

  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.