Mike's War: Sequel to Jesse's Starship (5 page)

Hetzel held up a hand and said, “I can put three of them in my palm.”

Anotoly smiled, “Can they be used to power electro-magnets?” Hetzel nodded.

Sharper said, “You’re right, Anotoly.”

Mike looked at them, “I need the two of you to design a gun that will safely fire these projectiles and I need it yesterday. I also need training weapons to get our troops ready to use the real thing.”

Sharper looked at Hetzel, “Take us to your scientists that developed this.”

Hetzel nodded and Mike said, “I’m going back to getting things organized on the planet. Let me know what you come up with.” Mike left Hetzel’s ship and hoped things could be done quickly. He had an army with no weapons. All they could do at the moment was to go through conditioning training. That was going to grow old fast if weapons were brought in quickly.

D
erek waited with the other members of his platoon fighting the exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm his legs. The Training Sergeant stared at them waiting and knew the platoon was on the edge of falling where they stood. He stared at them for another four minutes and dismissed them. He turned but saw out of the corner of his eye that half of them fell to their knees and suffered with cases of dry heaves. Good; they learned last time that if anyone fell the entire platoon would run another mile.

Derek put his hands on his knees and fought to catch his breath. This training was sadistic. All of the women had already failed and were sent to work in the factories building the weapons needed to fight the aliens. Some of them were good…well, as good as most he had seen. He fought his fatigue and then turned and walked out to the quarter mile track and started jogging. The only way to stay ahead of this curve was to push himself harder than the Sergeant. The other members of the platoon saw him and shook their heads; he had to be crazy. They went inside and fell into their bunks for the short time before they had to go to the evening meal.

Derek completed three laps and thought about Halley. She had been the last woman to fail physical training and she was heartbroken at being forced to leave. He remembered her standing by his bunk saying goodbye, “I’m going to miss our mealtime, Derek.”

Derek stared at Halley. She was only an inch shorter than he was and was in terrific shape. He shook his head, “This is ridiculous; you can run further than me.”

Halley nodded, “He’s organized the training so all the women would fail.”

Derek’s eyes narrowed, “What?”

“Unlike all the other platoons, he has the women doing all the strength exercises before we run. Women actually have greater running endurance than the majority of men. However, we lack men’s strength. By having us exhaust ourselves in the heavy lifting exercises, he ensures we’ll not have endurance to complete the runs. If we don’t fail one day, he’ll double the weight in the strength regimen until we do. If we ran first, we’d have been ok. That’s the way the rest of the recruits are trained.”

Derek shook his head; Halley was right. “You can reenlist in six months.”

“That is exactly what I’m going to do.” She leaned down and kissed Derek on the cheek, “If you get any time off, come see me.”

Derek smiled and nodded. Halley walked out of the barracks and Chetzen reversed the training regimen the next day. She was right. He wanted the women out.

• • •

Derek came in as the others were getting out of bed. He went straight to the showers and stood under the hot spray for three minutes before he picked up the soap and began cleaning the day’s dirt off. He finished and stepped out.

Brandon watched him walk past and said, “Hey, Gung Ho.” Derek ignored the big man and continued to his bunk. Brandon motioned to go and teach the recruit the danger of ignoring him but shook his head. Beating an exhausted soldier held no satisfaction. He’d give him the lesson later.

Aman walked up with a scowl, “Why do you do this?”

Derek looked at the Indian and shrugged, “What do you think is going to happen tomorrow?”

Aman shook his head, “The Sadist is going to add another mile to our load.”

“Better to prepare in advance than take the hit later.”

“You know there will be some that fall tomorrow. That will add another mile.”

Derek looked up and said, “I ran two miles after dismissal.”

Aman stared at Derek and looked around the barracks at the others watching him talk with Gung Ho. He thought for a moment and said, “Would you mind if I join you.”

Derek looked at Aman and smiled, “I thought you were of the opinion that I’m crazy.”

“You just showed me the reason for your madness.”

“The worse that could happen is you will have to work in the factories, Aman.”

“I don’t choose to make that my occupation. I’d go crazy stuck in a building all day.”

Derek stared at Aman and stuck out his hand, “Welcome to my little slice of hell.”

“Glad to be here; let’s go eat.”

Brandon stood up from his bunk but saw Aman was walking out with Gung Ho. He decided taking on two was not a good idea. He turned and left the barracks ahead of them.

• • •

The platoon that had started with a hundred members was down to forty eight when the training weapons arrived. They all knew that many of them would have failed if the physical training had continued. The platoon was not happy with their Training Sergeant. None of the other platoons endured the hardships they had forced on them. One recruit had mentioned it to Sergeant Chetzen and the Sergeant had made it his mission to remove the troublemaker from his unit; he was successful. However, now more than two thirds of the day was spent learning the new armaments and the only run was in the morning before meal time. Every other platoon ran five miles while Chetzen’s ran ten.

The training arms were interesting. They fired electronic slivers at the training screen. They would hit electronic creatures coming at them on the huge screen and an explosion would appear; mastering them was not easy. Selecting the rate of fire while keeping the oncoming enemy in their sights was next to impossible.

The platoon saw that each evening after chow, Derek and Aman would go back to the electronic armory and put in more time. They all thought it was incredibly stupid to do so. A week after weapons training had started they forgot all about them when Sergeant Chetzen opened the day’s weapons training with an announcement.

“All right, everyone take a seat.” The forty eight recruits sat down on the chairs in front of the giant screen and wondered why the Sergeant was smiling. “So far, you’ve been training on electronic programs of charging Gracken Warriors at training speed. You have not seen them at their actual speed. I am going to show you a recording of a Gracken attack on a city located on one of the planets they invaded.” Chetzen said, “Computer.”

“Yes.”

“Play the recording of the Gracken attack.”

“Video is loaded.”

“Start it.”

• • •

Derek stared at the overhead view of the thousands of Gracken in their ranks outside the city and saw the creatures were much larger in real life compared to the training images of them. MUCH LARGER! When the force field failed the speed of the creatures shocked the recruits. They were all inside the city in less than sixty seconds and their leaping ability was just not believable. They ran through every defense the city had set up for them and killed any inhabitant that offered the slightest resistance. Heck, they killed many that offered no resistance but were accidently standing in their way. The video finally stopped and Chetzen stood up, “From now on, the computer will send the enemy charges at full speed. Any of you that are overrun will have a mile to run for each time you fail. Is that clear?”

“SIR! YES SIR!”

“Let’s have the first four up on the line.” Four members of the platoon stepped up to the activation strip and raised their shoulder weapons. Chetzen said, “Computer, load four.”

“Program loaded.”

“Begin.”

The Gracken came flashing up at an incredible speed and the program ended in ten seconds.

“One mile. Let’s have the next four.”

Every member of the platoon failed. Derek and Aman lasted twenty four seconds but were considered dead due to the failure of their personal force fields. Sergeant Chetzen told them after the exercise that if the oncoming Gracken could hit their force fields for twenty seconds, they would fail and the beams would disintegrate them. Most of the platoon was overrun as they attempted to reload the empty magazines they exhausted. Since every group had failed multiple times during the training, they all had to run eight miles carrying the training weapons. Another end to another exhausting day.

• • •

The frustration continued for a week with no improvement on stopping the electronic Gracken. Chetzen rode the platoon unmercifully and stress was starting to take hold of the forty eight members of Training Platoon Twenty One. Derek requested permission to work in the Armory after hours and Chetzen approved it. They were allowed to use the armory until nine pm.

Derek and Aman were once again overrun by the computer program and Derek stepped off the activation pad swearing. Aman walked back to the chairs and sat down. “Derek, let’s really take a look at why we’re failing. Most of the time we get killed by the Gracken blasters. We’re able to hold them off on full automatic but once we’re inside their beam range for more than twenty seconds. If we use full auto while they’re outside the range of their blasters, we empty our magazines and they’re on us before we can reload. If one of us fires while the other reloads, they’re still able to advance inside the range of their blasters.”

Derek blew out a breath and nodded, “If there was some way to extend the time of our force fields, I really think one of us could hold them off using full auto.”

“Not for very long; we’d be out of rounds in no time.”

Derek thought a moment and said, “I guess one of us could stand behind the other and use the one in front to stop their beams.”

Aman smiled, “You go first.” Derek laughed and then his laughter suddenly stopped and his face took on a faraway look. “What?”

Derek looked at Aman, “What if one of us steps behind the other and stays in the shadow of the force field long enough for their force field to recharge.”

“Say what?”

“Ok, you continue firing and I step behind you for eight seconds. My force field would recharge and then I step up and you step behind me. Whenever one of us is behind the other, we reload a new magazine.”

“You’re bigger than I am, Derek.”

“Yes, but you could extend your force field slightly to cover me. The small extension would not reduce the field’s strength or the time it takes to fail. The one that is firing will go to full auto and sweep the charging Gracken until they step back and reload.”

Aman shrugged and said, “Let’s give it a go.”

They stepped up to the activation pad and were overrun four consecutive times faster than before. Derek said, “I think I know what the problem is.”

“What?”

The one stepping up has to be firing with the one about to step back. You can’t stop firing until I have the Gracken Charge covered.”

“So how do we do this?”

“Set the alarm in our helmets to start the moment we stop firing our weapon. After eight seconds, you tell me you’re stepping up and I’ll wait for you to say clear before I step back.”

“The first one to step back will have to do it within eight seconds of being hit by the Gracken blasters.”

Derek nodded, “Have your combat computer in your helmet to start a countdown the moment it detects your force field being hit. Step back at the eight second mark and I’ll continue firing until you say, ‘Stepping up.’ That would give us about three seconds for you to take control of the charge before I step back behind you. We’ll keep stepping back, reloading, and stepping forward until we’re overrun.”

Aman shrugged, “Let’s practice this without the computer first.”

“Good idea; you step back first.” Aman nodded and said, “How do we extend the force field?”

Derek looked at the force field settings in his helmet’s set up program, “It has a menu to set the size of the field when in contact with another field. Set the normal width to four feet side to side and three when not touching another field. It should be done automatically as long as we stay within two feet of each other.”

Aman changed the settings and stepped up to the pad. They went through the pattern more than twenty times before they began to feel the rhythm. Derek looked at the time in his helmet display and said, “We only have time for one more charge before the armory computer shuts down. Are you ready?”

Aman nodded and said, “Computer.”

“Yes.”

“Force of two.”

“Program is entered.”

Aman looked at Derek and smiled, “Begin Program.”

The Gracken came in at an incredible speed and the two were knocking them down at long distance but hundreds were rushing closer. Their helmets sensed their force fields being hit by Gracken blasters and Aman said, “Stepping back.” Derek went to full auto and began sweeping the charging mass of Gracken. He saw he was down to less than a thousand rounds when Aman said, “Stepping up.”

The two of them swept the electronic Gracken and knocked their charge back twenty yards when Derek said, “Stepping back.”

They lost track of everything but the pattern and firing at full auto at the horde coming at them. Suddenly, the charge stopped and the computer said, “Program complete. Completed successfully.”

Derek looked at Aman and dropped the training rifle. They grabbed each other’s hands and jumped up and down while turning a circle. The lights began dimming and they rushed out of the armory and back to the barracks. Derek knocked on Sergeant Chetzen door and he opened it and looked at them, “Sergeant, we’ve found a way to stop a Gracken Charge…”

Chetzen sneered as he interrupted Derek, “Is it different from the way you’re being trained?”

Derek looked at Aman and said, “Yes Sergeant.”

“You two get down and give me fifty. You will follow the specified training and there will be no deviation; do you read me.”