The Recruitment: Rise of the Free Fleet (11 page)

“Now each of you will be getting a Mecha as well as the battle suit you’re wearing. The battle suit has an auto tourniquet feature, which also works when the Mecha is breached, and a medical emergency capability. Now make an orderly line, smallest first!” He jacked in again as he guessed the humans sizes in front of him and a Mecha rotated down.

“Follow it.” The Mecha went to the bay, the human following it diligently. Shrift repeated the process for all of them.

“Now time to put the Mecha on, I want to make sure that it fits, though through your training you will change so I will not be making any solid changes.”

He then used Salchar as a demonstration for getting the Mecha on. Once they’d done it for the first time he had then repeat it for hours until he was pleased for the day. He passed out the extra battle suits which they put with their Mechas in their assigned lockers they’d come to call ‘coffins’

“Alright tomorrow we’ll begin with Mecha training. It’s mostly to get you acquainted with the machines, and to map your neural pathways.” Salchar guided them out as another squad came in a few minutes later.

He ran through the same things as they left. Shrift was able to get in a small nap, taking wake-up before Salchar’s squad returned. Taleel stayed this time, which agitated Shrift.

Shrift watched them get suited up with now semi-proficient hands. In fifteen minutes they were ready. He felt proud even as he knew what coming.

“We’re going to need to make that faster.” Taleel said, Shrift couldn’t miss the pleased tone in Taleel’s voice at their speed. Sarenmenti’s took hours to suit up on their first day. Shrift remembered all too well. He had no doubt that the officer would be bragging to his fellows as soon as possible.

Shrift watched as Taleel had them go through the process for hours, smiling as the pain implants were activated. Soon the humans were too tired and numb to do anything but suit up and down.

“They are yours Kuruvian.” Taleel said giving him the pain implant remote. Shrift took at, and as soon as he was gone deposited it behind his workbench. He ordered food for the squad, with added stimulants which was delivered minutes later by other Kuruvians.

The anti-grav pallet could’ve taken the food, but the Kuruvians were a curious race, something as interesting as another race turned them into excited children.

Shrift turned off his translator happily conversing with them as they discussed the humans and passed out food tubes. The humans drank them hungrily. A few Kuruvians put sensors on the squad members, who ripped them off as the entire squad reacted as one, they grouped together in two’s which looked out for another pair, and that four another four and so on.

The group was highly protective Shrift saw, they also had a solid command structure, unlike the mess the Sarenmenti called one, and they were fighters. Whatever Taleel had taught them, they’ taken up fighting easily.

“What is he doing?’ Salchar asked; his voice calm but Shrift knew that with a command Salchar’s people would beat the Kuruvians in the room to pulps, no matter their strength difference. He saw the way their eyes moved, as if he could see the mental gears behind those eyes turning. They were already seeing how best to win. They’d spent months fighting other groups of humans who were bigger and stronger than them, beating whoever faced them.

Shrift wondered for a second if Salchar knew that the Sarenmenti had started wearing power amplifying gauntlets because the humans were now stronger than the Sarenmenti and could take a beating better. Also the captains and their personal crews of the higher status planets had been so delighted with the news they had made sleep and food mandatory, as well as daily physical training. Shrift realized his mind was wandering as he returned to Salchar’s question.

“They are trying to test to see what you need for your optimal growth.” Shrift said. “It also helps me see how I should modify my Mechas to suit your needs.”
 
Maybe I can make a new series, just for humans to amplify your power.
 
He thought with glee, he was an engineer through and through, the idea of tackling something new and interesting gave him new energy.

The humans relaxed slightly.

“Truly?” Salchar looked at Shrift, his eyes pleading for truth, there was so much pain. Even after all the human had gone through, he was extending himself out,
 
expecting
 
to be cut off Shrift saw.

“Yes, truly Salchar.” Shrift’s eyes never moved a fraction as Salchar smiled tiredly.

“Get that grub down you. I have a feeling we’re going to have all kinds of fun with our Mecha training today.” Salchar said as a few smiles appeared as people reclaimed their food tubes. The Kuruvians were already trying to analyze what had happened as Shrift looked at where Salchar’s eyes had been.

He watched as the human looked after his own, he truly
 
cared
 
and he was willing to trust another alien race, even when he had been treated so badly by the first. Hope grew in Shrift.
 
Maybe Relentless and Eddie were right?
 
Though now is not the time or the place.
 
He reminded himself as he rotated down the scrap Mechas and gathered the tools he would need for the humans to put their Mechas back together once they broke them, as well as a few injectors of hell fire—Mechas were a whole other game compared to normal hand to hand.

Ten minutes later Shrift beckoned to the humans as the Kuruvians stepped aside, watching.

“In each of your berths there is a scrap Mecha, you will be using these for the fights. The ones in your ‘coffins’—as you say—will only be used during non-combat training and once you graduate for real combat.

“Well get in them, then we can go and train.” Quickly the humans rushed to obey and in five minutes they were walking out of their berths in the odd jerky motion that came with uncoupling the Mecha from the charging harness.

“Follow me.” He pushed a grav cart with his tools into a large open training area, this one four times the size of their pod.

“Now spar.” He said as he got out a seat and sat down.

“Then we’ll damage the Mechas.” One of the humans said—a smaller one.

“Yes, and then you’ll learn to fix it. I’ve put you on a quarter power, move around get acquainted with them. You can just move around in them if that’s all you care to do, but I would suggest you spar so that you can defeat the other teams that you come up against.”

All of them looked to Salchar.

“Get moving! Once I think everyone has a grasp of their Mecha, we’ll all be under Yasu.

“Work through the motions with your half-squad, first walking then simple jabs and counters.” Salchar said as the Mecha’s split into two groups one fighting one another as the second moved around cautiously and then more steadily as they watched the first group and commented on their movements.

Salchar came to stand next to Shrift, becoming confident in his ability to walk with every step.

“armourer Shrift, are we able to upgrade our Mechas?” Salchar asked moving side to side, moving his arms and squatting as well.

“What do you have in mind?”

Salchar paused looking over Shrift for a few seconds before continuing.

“I just want to do some minor modifications to the armour and the joints are based on a magnetic bearing which is supposed to move in every direction, we could optimize the power by customizing the joints to the human body.”

Shrift felt his eyes widen in pleasure.
 
Finally someone interested in Mechas!

“I’ve had that thought before but I haven’t been able to get medical records of the users bodies.”

“I could just tell or show you, and then you wouldn’t need to get medical records.”

“I would be very interested if you did that. See I make Mechas they’re my joy right now but if they aren’t doing the best possible then well. I think of it as a failure on my part.” Salchar and Shrift made eye contact.

“Thank you armourer Shrift.” Salchar said simply, bowing his head as much as his Mecha would allow before walking away.

Shrift had the distinct feeling Salchar was thanking him for much more than just saying he might be able to change his Mecha.

All he’d done was give him a meal, let him train his people and taken away the threat of the pain implant.
 
Maybe I have done more than just give him hope to change his Mecha.

I was on last watch as the screeching announced our rest was over. We got up quickly and nervously, we’d been in the Mechas for three days now and were wearing neural mappers, it was a cable like thing which directly connected with our nerve ports; it saw how different actions caused our nerves to fire in different ways which would help translate our normal movements into synchronous Mecha movements.

That goal seemed a long way off, especially after our abysmal attempts at fighting so far.

“File through and get your scrap Mechas.” Taleel said through the squad pods speakers as the door to the track and armoury opened. We filed through shortest to tallest as Shrift was there waiting for us.

We all enjoyed our time with Shrift, well most of us did. He was nice, he wouldn’t yell unless it was necessary and he taught us more than Taleel ever had. There was a sense of mutual respect between Shrift and us, with him not using pain to motivate us. While we doing the best to impress. With Taleel we just worked to meet his standards.

Where our battle-ready Mechas were minimally dented and had no rust on them, the scrap Mechas were busted up worse than some cars I’d seen after accidents and there was more rust on them than metal. Under Shrift’s constant guidance we were able to get our mechas into fighting trim. It felt
 
good
 
to be building something instead of being constantly scared and fighting.

He handed out food packets, a plastic like module that could insert into our food reservoirs on our lower back under our armour. Then using their finger balls and HUD access the food command. When the user took a pull of their water hose they got delicious goop—minus the delicious part.

As we took food packets Shrift scowled at the recipient of the packet good-naturedly, telling them about something they’d missed or some issue with their suit. We quickly got to work fixing whatever he found to be an issue, before he was satisfied enough for us to get into them.

These scrap Mechas also didn’t fit right like our battle-ready ones. The padding was woefully inadequate and warnings flashed onto our screens, telling us of limited mobility as we ran our start ups.

I dropped down and forward as I came out of the charging harness, as soon as my foot touched the ground I flew into the ceiling, crashing back down to the floor. I didn’t feel a thing as the rest of my squad laughed. Only my pride was hurt. I inserted my food packet, looking to Shrift.

“Oh yes, I put them to one hundred percent, seeing as you have two days left you’re going to need to get pretty accustomed to them.” I could swear I saw a grin on the Kuruvians face as I picked myself up gingerly.

“Shit, this is going to be a problem.” I said inside of my visor.
 
If we could fight in these we could fight in anything
 
I resolved.

Wiry made it look like he was helping me as he whispered viciously in my ear.

“Have to watch out for these new Mecha’s it seems that with one slip you could accidentally kill someone.”

I could see the maliciousness that lay behind his eyes as he slapped down his face plate. He moved into the training area, he wasn’t wasting any time as he was quickly adapting to the new power output of the Mecha. A few others were gingerly walking trying to get used to the Mechas full power.

We had found out earlier that we could sync power output with nerve responses. Another thing that took time. Thankfully I had nothing but time

Some people were sparring, others walking around to try and get a feel of their new power output, I was with the latter group. Tomorrow we would be fighting and controlling the power output would make a world of difference. I felt an itch on my back, right where the nerve ports connected with the Mecha through the battle-suit. I jiggled to try and abate the itch before an idea made me forget it all together.

Itch forgotten I walked over to Shrift.

“Shrift you say that my spine is essentially part of the Mecha right?”

“Yes.”

“Instead of having to use coordinating hand and feet gestures to move different areas could I do it with the nerve taps?”

Shrift looked to the ceiling in thought.

“Yes though control is hard to retain unless you train a lot.”

So I spent the rest of the day trying to forget my body and use my arms and legs, without actually using them. It was a pain in the ass and yielded a few interesting results.