The Recruitment: Rise of the Free Fleet (6 page)

I looked around the room, everyone in my squad was watching even Taleel who watched with what looked like slight interest; hopefully it would be enough for me to say what I needed to.

I needed to rein them in or they were going to kill one another, and any good will between them would be lost. I needed them to trust one another to have one another’s backs, not to kill each other. I felt shamed by the thoughts that I had. No matter how they looked with their full adult builds and muscle that made them look like Olympians they were for the majority, children.

Taleel was making us into Mecha pilots well then I was going to make them my Mecha pilots, I wouldn’t see them tear one another apart.

I felt anger well up inside me, at myself for letting it get this far, at them for letting themselves being, but above all I blamed Taleel and the PDF that had spawned him, I vowed revenge upon them again using that fire as I yelled at everyone.

“Alright fuck heads, this is our squad, the group that we need to trust, to have our backs no matter what, with people in it that would be willing to take a round for any other. We’re more likely to kill one another, then we are to kill the enemy!

Get it through your fucking skulls, we need to work together, or we will fucking die.”

I let my anger show as I looked around the room, all of them lowering their gaze in understanding and anger at themselves. The children looked away in shame, the older squad members following suit.

Taleel and the universe won’t pull any punches.
 
I thought as cold resolve filled me.
 
Neither will I, but I’ll work with them to make us ready for what this universe throws at us. I won’t turn them into automatons.

“Working together will let us survive; working separate by ourselves is not only lonely but will make us weaker. You want to make it back to Earth, you work the fuck together.”

“Yeah, but that’s in a game.” Someone scoffed. I whirled, finding Wiry—he’d filled out his frame now, but there was still his subdued cockiness. It was obvious in his fights that he had some training, which he used with brutal efficiency.

I turned to him, my eyes cold as the space outside of whatever we were in.

“This isn’t.” I ground out. “This is life and death, you fail here and you will not survive.
 
You
 
have to be the damned best you can be or you are only killing yourself.” I looked around the room to encompass everyone in my statement.

“Who here has played on a team?” The majority of hands went up.

“Would any of you have succeeded without your teammates?”

There were grumbles of ‘no’.

“Louder!” I growled, something seeming to possess me. I felt fire inside me, it was more than purpose, it was a belonging, this was where I was meant to be, and with these people I might be able to make something. Right then and there I forgot my fairytale dream of escaping with MT back to Earth. Since then I started to have a real plan, and it involved every damned person the PDF had taken.

“No!” They yelled as I felt pride stoke the fire inside of me as I pointed to each and every one of them.

“This is your fucking team, more than you’ve had one ever before. We eat, sleep, train and live together and we might possibly die together. Look at one another.” They did so.

“This is your family; this is all we have now. We either trust one another and work together, or we don’t and end up dead.” I saw it got across to most of them, thankfully. Now I had to put my leadership on my line, either they would accept me or reject me.

“Now I’m not from the military, or the government or anything like that, I’m a simple gamer. I know how to destroy those that go up against me. Now we have a choice to make. Either we work together, or we don’t and stop sleeping, for fear of a shank in the back. The way we’re going it would be better if the human race was completely wiped out if we’re all that remains.”

I saw that had some impact as I turned to Annette.

“Take him to the chair and watch.” I growled, looking to Rick, he nodded, following Annette; he’d make sure she did as I said.

“Then what do we do about the fights?” Taylor, the young girl that I’d taken a beating for on the first day, asked.

“We still fight; bruises and cuts are fine, broken bones will sometimes happen, but no purposefully deadly or injuring hits. If we injure someone badly, then how can they tell you to improve when they’re in the medical chair? We need to ramp down the violence and think. Think about ways to kill your opponent and then try it out on your partner, but in a controlled manner. Anyone who doesn’t, well, I’ll tell Yasu to have fun with you, and see if Taleel likes your effort.”

I saw Yasu’s eyes flash as she stood silently at the back.

I watched Taleel from the corner of my eye, wary of the black box in his hand.

“I’m with Salchar, we need to work together to survive.” Yasu said in a voice that sounded as if she would rather gargle battery acid than agree with me. It also made me wary as I began cataloging her allies, I would have to see how they were planning to take over. It wouldn’t take much, I was pretty sure Yasu was able to beat me in a fight easily.

I looked around the room as people silently agreed with nods.

“Good, now back to training, we won’t survive by just working together; we need to learn how being the best at our jobs. Once we’re done training we’ll be fighting side by side with the Sarenmenti, are we going to prove Taleel right in letting them think of us as useless scum? Or will we make them question themselves for ever thinking that Humans could be lesser warriors?” This got a few growls as I continued. “Good, then we will train ourselves the best ways we know how, we will make our enemies tremble when they hear the humans have been sent to them.” My voice had taken on a throaty tone as more growls came from them,
 
my
 
squad.

“Get back with your sparring partners, and work to improve one another. We are humans, we work together to get our goals, if we leave one behind then we have failed. We will fail and succeed as one.” I looked over them again as most nodded while others vocalized their agreement.

“Then let’s get back to it.” I said as I moved towards them. They dispersed and I found Hoi.

I turned from the others feeling the air rush out of me as I felt oddly refreshed even in the crap atmosphere; Hoi looked at me with a gentle smile on his face.

“You did a good thing Salchar; I think the next thing would be ranks, to give structure.”

“Rick said that too, though I’m not going to announce myself as a leader.” I said and I meant it-I wasn’t going to appoint myself to anything, I didn’t want power, I just wanted us to survive.

“You already are.” Hoi gave me a serious look before turning away. I saw Annette past him walking behind Rick and Marco out of the chair room.

I walked up to her as Rick and Marco walked past me.

“With the pain implants and the fighting, I just…” She started, looking at the floor, shame written on her face. She looked close to tears.

“I know, you lost yourself.” I said sympathetically, stopping her and raising her head with a finger as she fought to avoid my eyes. “We have to remember where we came from and that to survive we have to work together, not try to kill one another.”

She nodded mutely looking at my chest.

“You can do it; I see that fire in you. Now you have some training to do. Teach Marco how to block, he’s all about attacking.”

She looked down, stubbing her toe on the ground.

“But he’s bigger than me, what would he want to learn from me. It was just luck.”

“You put his ass on the ground didn’t you?”

Her stare became pensive.

“Yes, but…”

“You read him, and you used what skills you knew to win. You went overboard for a sparring match, but sometime in the future you might need to do what you just did.”

She nodded mutely, seeing my logic, I hoped.

“Doesn’t matter your size here, what matters is how you can win.”

“Yes Salchar.” She walked past me and began talking to Marco. After a few moments they shook hands.

“Enough messing around, back to fighting.” Taleel said, tapping a finger on his remote.

I looked to Rick, who walked next to me as we started sparring lightly.

“So how does Sergeant Salchar sound?” He grinned as I shook my head and grinned back as he lightly jabbed my shoulder.

“Sounds much too lofty to me, I’m much more of a Commander.”

“And that’s not loftier?” He said with a laugh as I laughed with him.

“How does Sub Commander sound?”

“I shouldn’t have asked.” He said, pasting a disgusted look on his face as I laughed slightly. I felt better than I had in weeks. It felt as if a weight had been lifted, as if I had freedom once again. At the time it was an alarming thought that if it felt I had freedom that I must have had it taken away. It was only much later in a maintenance closet with a crazed Kuruvian I learned the truth of my dismissive thoughts.

Instead, I looked over my squad.

Thankfully, I’d been able to stop my group from killing one another, but if it had been much longer before I talked to them. I didn’t want to think what would have happened to them. Taleel didn’t say anything as we continued on.

Rick was a good friend and listener, plus his knowledge on technology, tactics and most of the stuff we were learning gave me someone to talk to with utter confidence. Plus he had been right, we did need structure and stability.
 
Why hadn’t he stepped up though? Or Hoi?
 
I thought as I reflected on the future.

Maybe Rick was right? If I’m going to pull everyone through this then I need to be ready to do what needs to be done. If they need me to be a leader then I will. To get them to survive I need to be ready to sacrifice everything in order for them to be ready to do the same for me.
 
It was a somber thought, but I knew if I wanted to keep these kids alive, I couldn’t sit back and be a zombie anymore. I had to actively motivate and lead them.

For the remaining week and a half we improved in leaps and bounds with our fighting classes which went from a few hours a day to taking up the entire day. We fought in groups against one another, and could fight by ourselves against multiple opponents. What my talk hadn’t driven home, the fights did.

Since the beginning I hadn’t trusted anyone, even Rick I kept at an arms distance, though no one would know it. We had three military members in the group, twelve athletes and the rest becoming fighters. I was waiting for one of the military people to take control. Surprisingly, no one did. Wiry and his friend kept to themselves, but nothing really changed.

Though scarier than the military people and the rest of the squad was Yasu. Whenever I looked in her direction I would find her looking at me. I knew by her movements and my memories of her battles that she was trying to appear weaker than she was. Her body couldn’t hide the training that she’d undergone, the way she positioned herself for a fight or studied a person’s stance.

I didn’t know how much later it was when I was talking about how to use a person’s power against them between shoveling food down my throat when Taleel strode through the door as we rushed into two lines. He was pushing a cart of perfectly white folded things. He stopped in front of us as he walked up and down our lines, his jaws snapping in pleasure.

“Alright, today we’ll start actually training, you will participate in fights. This will happen between squads; those that don’t fight or lose
 
 
 
will be treated to a cycle of remedial training.”
 
Whatever a cycle is in this place.
 
I silently questioned.