The Recruitment: Rise of the Free Fleet (14 page)

“Attack me Rick.”

He came at me in a controlled flurry of fist. He was damn good. I was on the defence as I rolled from his punches. My leg snaked out hitting his knee causing him to buckle. Three punches and his elbows were locked out.

“First Rick you need to change up just hitting with fists. Second with a Mecha it’s not like your body, you can’t override a joint that doesn’t work like with a human. Nor do you feel it, and when you’re in the black you aren’t going to know a joint is out until it doesn’t work.
 
Always
 
know what joints are working and not.”

We learned as we went through more fights. We learned the basics of plasma, laser and rail guns; everything seemed to be waiting in my head for the words to unleash the information. We took apart weapons, put them back together, cleaned them and moved on. There was always something else to learn and my squad soaked it up like sponges.

“Projectile weaponry within the planetary defence force are used for forty percent of engagements. For the other sixty percent we use melee weaponry.” Taleel unsheathed his blue-green glowing daggers displaying them in front of the squad room.

“All melee weapons are edged in static encapsulated plasmid.” He sheathed one blade grabbing a piece of metal.

“When the blade comes into physical contact with something the electrostatic field is pushed away allowing the plasmid to come into contact with the object and cut through it.” He lowered the blade, cutting the metal as if it was butter.

“Now there are also mono-blade weapons within the defence force. They are as expensive as some ships as they are so rare and hard to create. They can also dull with repeated use and fighting when they have gone from hot to cold areas, or vice versa, such as space to ship environments. Plasmid tipped melee weapons are much cheaper and easier to make and maintain. Get used to them.”

“They are also the only weapon that you will be allowed to have custom made. Shrift has various designs for you to decide upon.” He looked around the room. “You have seven minutes to be in the Mecha sparring arena.” We waited; we had run off before he had told us to before that had gotten us all threes.

“Go.” He barked as we scrambled to the Mecha room. We pressed the identity chips implanted in our hands to the consoles as our Mechas rotated forward, getting into them in minutes.

“Come on, move it!” I barked as I was behind George the last person to get into Mecha and into the training area. Whereas before getting in our Mechas in seven minutes would have been unfathomable. Now it seemed as if we were taking our time if we were over four minutes.

Shrift was waiting with Taleel in front of an array of weaponry. There was everything from daggers, to swords, katanas, hatchets and every kind of bladed weapon I could imagine.

“These are based off of human weaponry we have found. Your backwards people being the primates they are do not have the refined melee weaponry that Sarenmenti have, though it is to be expected with your low evolutionary level.”

We had been told and shown in our sleep how humans were so far behind compared to the Sarenmenti and Kuruvians, with technology, medical practices, education and other main factors of a species.

“Test them out.”

“Team leaders.” I barked as one through five including myself filed through with our groups and picked up what we felt was best. We got into practising with the weapons, moving with them, fighting one another with them. We switched and played with them as we went. Taleel watching us with bored interest as Shrift disappeared into his armoury after a short time.

“Submit your decisions to Shrift. Food. Five minutes. Every minute you’re over you get a hundred push ups. Go.” We put our weapons back on the rack as we rushed to get out of the Mechas. Julie another ten year old was the last. We were a minute behind.

“One hundred.” Taleel said as if examining a flea. Me and Julie did push ups as the rest ate. Once we were done we slurped down the food that our teammates had gotten us. So far the teams were working. We were the best squad and we knew it. We absorbed everything that was thrown at us and we won every fight even though we were down an older member. Our young had adapted well, learning how to use their new, larger, bodies quicker than others. We all trained and worked our hardest now. Though it didn’t mean we weren’t without our infighting.

Thankfully the majority were working together. It seemed that the other squads were also learning. It was good and bad. Good in the fact that people were working together, bad that they had their own leaders and that they were getting better at the fights, again good because it gave us better training—bad because there was a higher chance of losing and getting punishment.

Once our meals were finished Taleel put us in stress positions for so long our muscles spasmed and went numb, and then ran us so much that our bodies tried to dredge up our meals. Thankfully many of ours stayed down. Then there was the endless push ups and drill, Taleels new favourite past-time.

Sure it looked good and all, but looking good is one hell of a pain in the ass, The first thing you have to realize when you do drill is to turn off your brain. This sounds counter-intuitive seeing as first of all there’s timings that you have to follow for every coordinated foot, or hand and foot or hand and foot and rifle and head movement or any combination of body part that some sadistic bastard that thought parade was a good idea thought of. I hate drill.

Now all of this is also thrown off if you’re nervous, and we were all nervous We knew what happened when we failed.

We’d be on our faces doing push ups or lapping the track, sometimes it was a relief to actually have movement in your limbs and the freedom of movement. I think Taleel caught on, so he started making the others do the physical work while we repeated the movement we messed up until we got it perfect.

So to combat this, we started doing drill in our downtime. Joy.

As we started to understand and actually become soldiers we gained more free time, which was spent cleaning our battle suits, squad room, armoury, as well as fixing and maintaining the weaponry we’d been given. We didn’t need much sleep anymore as long as we ate, we only needed a few hours of shut eye. We still didn’t know what time it was, or if it was day or night. The weird lighting was always the same.

That wasn’t the only thing that had changed. I had gained any mass I was lacking and then some. Without mirrors I couldn’t see myself but I knew I was bigger and stronger than ever before. So much so that two hundred push ups were an easy task for me and the others. The children had grown alarmingly too; they were all at their adult height with the massive muscles that the older squad members had gained early on.

Our bodies had also become accustomed the extra gravities on them. We moved normally and were even able to run without coughing profusely. The atmosphere was still uncomfortable with it’s density and scratchy attributes. Though we had adapted to it as well.

The food stopped being disgusting, as we forgot the taste of what real food was. Most of the children were forgetting their parents names and faces, the older ones not that far behind. The nightly talks of what we had done when we lived on Earth helped us feel some connection with Earth, but it mainly cemented our connection to one another more than anything.

We were becoming soldiers in thought and body, leaving our attachments for Earth behind.

Honestly I didn’t care. Now hear me out, it’s not that I don’t like Earth-sure it’s a very nice place, been living there for twenty years at this point. Yet there wasn’t anything I really cared for there. Mecha Tail was my family and I was going to do everything in my power to get them free and back to their actual families on Earth. I didn’t care I was forgetting my roots. Honestly forgetting about my past was a nice thought. Also as much as I didn’t want to admit it, I was becoming attached with my squad. We had grown together and gone through shit together we didn’t think it was possible to go through and survive. That creates a special bond that is inexplicable. Instead of them being the tools I wanted to use to get MT free they were my friends. I knew I could trust the majority of them with my life and that they would do the same.

Now I had an issue, because my squad wasn’t the only one. There were hundreds of others, and if I thought that my squad was worth saving, then they all were. I was cleaning a rail gun while I argued with myself over what to do.

“Watch my rifle.” I said as I saw Yasu working on her Mecha. I walked straight over to her, stopping ten feet away from her.

“What do you want?” She asked as soon as I stopped, obviously she’d know about my approach but that was not the first thing on my mind.

“Say you have to make a choice; fight to save a few you hold dear, losing many. Or possibly lose those dearest to you and a few of the many for the majority to survive-what would you do?”

“Why are you asking me?” A puzzled expression on her face as she faced me.

“I need for someone to give me a straight answer.”

“Save as many as you can. More will die because of your attempt but we must give our all for the others. If we are to sacrifice our lives it should be for victory, and if that means we must die for a few that will change a battle later on then it is acceptable, but we should not sacrifice our lives willingly. We will make the enemy pay and attempt to save as many as possible.”

“Thank you.”The path I was going to tread was a difficult one, but I would walk it in hope that I could reach my goals, or another might. The Human race would be free, and we would pay back the planetary defence force back in spades. First of all I needed to find out my obstacles.

I’d been studying the Mecha while I worked in the armoury when an idea struck me.
 
Why not just ask?
 
I thought. Again my celebrity training came into use as I attempted to sound uninterested “Hey Shrift, is it possible to make the ring around the neck thinner.”

“Of course you can’t it’s the Mecha’s kill switch.” Shrift said off hand.

“How is it put there?” Shrift still worked as he answered. My heartbeat in my throat as I expected him to be annoyed, or wonder why I was asking
.

“It’s built into the original structure.”

“How does it work?” I asked going against every instinct that told me to shut up.

“Small gas charge fires bolts into the main cavity.”

“Hmm, what do you think about this new design?” I said, quickly changing the subject as I tried not to shake as I held up my data pad. Shrift turned away from the Mecha he was adjusting the harness of, grabbing the data pad and studying it.

“Interesting, yeah we can do this. It’s going to take a while; just getting the materials is going to be a pain. I still have some friends in engineering though even after my departure. We’ll make it eventually. Don’t think that the first series of humans will be getting it though, it’s all the universal Mecha for you lot.”

“In the meantime can we do this to my Mecha?” I swiped the page bringing up the new specs on my Mecha.

“This would be easy. Yeah we can get started right away.”

***

Engineers up to their tricks

Eddie watched James from another maintenance terminal.

“I picked a good one didn’t I girl, now as long as he keeps himself alive and has an open enough mind we’ll be in business and we’ll have you roaming the stars!”

“You’re running just perfectly.” He tapped on the surrounding structure as he pulled up a training schedule as well as supply timetable.

“Just another month to go!” He said excitedly to himself as he accessed the biological supplies needed.

“Then just find Mecha, units, full complement for a battleship, add in the necessary James Cook and his partner… Done.” He said out loud and happily to himself as he followed his own instructions on the terminal.

“Now all we need is time isn’t it.”

There was not a sound in the ship, but Eddie grinned as if his invisible and silent talking partner was as real as the bulkheads he touched.

***