Mako (The Mako Saga: Book 1) (37 page)

Danny turned a cautious eye to Lee. “Okay, this guy’s starting to freak me out a little.”

“Ah, excellent!” Noll beamed, spinning on his heels to stand nose to nose with Danny. “I see we have our first volunteer of the day. Outstanding!”

“Volunteer?” Danny gulped.

“That’s right, Mr. Tucker, and please allow me to express my sincere joy that it would be you.”

“Me, sir?”

“That’s right. According to your file, this was your area of expertise in Dr. Reiser’s simulation. Plus, by virtue of your occupation, you’ve had similar training, which makes you the perfect candidate to assist me in our first drill.” Noll returned to the mat and assumed a lazy stance beside one of two hash marks in a circle. “Please join me on the mat.”

Reluctant to move, Danny surveyed the anxious faces of his friends before taking his position on the opposing hash mark.

“Now, attack me,” Noll instructed, maintaining his casual stance with no obvious sign of a defense.

“Seriously, sir?” Danny smirked. “We both know how this ends. I come at you, and you plant me. Do we really have to go through the charade?”

Noll frowned and squared himself. “Son… if I have to come off of this mark to initialize contact, you can rest assured that being planted will be the least of your concerns. Now, grow a pair and attack me!”

Danny resumed his sheepish stance on the mat and tried to shake out his nerves as he formulated an attack in his mind. Then, acting on what he believed to be a fairly well-conceived plan, Danny charged at his instructor, swinging a left-handed blow at Noll’s head in the hopes of distracting him from the right he’d hoped to land on his body.

A collective gasp later, Reiser’s med monitor spiked hard as Danny crumpled to the floor with bruised ribs and a busted lip.

“Bloody brilliant move, Danny,” Hamish chuckled.

“I’m glad you find that so amusing, Lunley,” Noll snarled. “How about we see if you—and all your cute little body pictures—can do any better. To the mat,
now
!”

A thunderous thud later, a dazed Hamish lay flat on his back, gasping for the breath that had just been so effortlessly slammed from his chest.

“Get your big ass up and back on the line!” Noll seethed, sending Hamish wheezing to his feet. “The fact that you’re the size of a wall means crap to me! Tucker came closer to hitting me than you did, and he’s half your weight, but at least he had some semblance of a plan! Now, for the rest of the day we’re gonna work on some basic sparring techniques that’ll hopefully serve to help you look more like trained soldiers, and less like infantile buffoons. As Dr. Reiser has told you, the trick here is to lead with your mind, not your limbs… because we all know how that ends, don’t we?” He snorted a laugh. “At the conclusion of every day, I’ll select which one of you has shown the least amount of progress throughout that session, and he or she will get the dubious honor of a little personal tutoring time with me back here on the mat.”

The group winced at the thought.

“Alright,” barked the sergeant major. “Once more… Ruah?”

“
Ruah!
” they shouted in unison.

“That’s a good way to start, Renegades. Now let’s begin.”

Chapter 19: Range Hot

For the purposes of orientation, phase two opened with four days of casual, non-contact sparring drills designed to expand the group’s knowledge of the various kicking, punching, blocking, and combination techniques they’d need to know before advancing to padded contact drills; and as before, their learning curve seemed to steepen with each passing day. By day five, having moved on to pads, they were still taking their fair share of lumps, but whereas they’d initially managed one, maybe two blocks before taking a shot, now they were managing 10 and 12 if, in fact, they took one at all.

As time went on, their progress was undeniable, a fact which was particularly noticeable in the case of Danny, whose virtual expertise with Auran martial arts gradually began to show in the speed of his response times and his diminishing need for the M-suit’s assistance. During one particular sparring session, while Lee and the others continued to battle the awkwardness of their suits to work on basic defenses, Lee glanced off to the side to see Danny—dressed only in a tank top, fatigues, and protective gear—completely immersed in a heated, full-contact match with the same opponent who, just two days ago, had pinned him in six moves. Watching him closely, Lee marveled at the speed, precision, and grace with which Danny now fought—spinning, ducking, and sliding away from his adversary’s attack, while mounting one of his own with a near-seamless fluidity. It was almost as if he’d been doing it his whole life, and yet it’d barely been a week. Some three and a half exhaustive minutes later, the frantic exchange came to an abrupt end as Danny, having sidestepped yet another kick to his head, caught his opponent’s leg in a joint lock and swept the other out from under him, slamming the young man to the mat with a bone-jarring thud.

“Excellent adaptability, Mr. Tucker,” Noll applauded. “You’re starting to blend elements of both the Eastern and Western styles into a hybrid of your own. That’s good, very good.”

“Thank you, sir,” Danny said breathlessly, as he leaned down to offer a hand to his defeated partner. “I can’t explain it,” he panted. “It’s just… instinct. I don’t even think about it anymore. I just move.”

“That’s what you want,” said Noll, a decorated amateur boxer back in his day. “Now go grab some water and let’s run through it again.”

Following another week in the Praetorian’s gym, the group finally got a break from the dim, gray surroundings of the ship’s interior when they were deployed to the planet’s surface to begin their weapons and urban tactics training at Fort Manning, a coastal base just outside of the Auran capital city of Retaun. During the first week, the group spent the bulk of their time on the base’s firing range, learning the proper use and operation of the Auran forces’ two primary weapons—the short barreled A-90 assault rifle and the 40-caliber sidearm—before eventually seguing to a variety of other weapons and artillery, the latter of which was of particular interest to Hamish who’d long since craved a chance to handle something with a little more juice.

For Link, meanwhile, the exhilaration of spraying a target with a fully automatic weapon was nothing short of addicting, though that thrill was soon eclipsed by the introduction of the S-29 sniper rifle—without a doubt his gun of choice back home. On the day that Noll had returned from the armory, holding the weapon, Link’s eyes had practically glowed with excitement at the chance to handle its sleek black frame and long-range firepower.

“Now we’re in business,” Link beamed, inspecting the rifle’s elegantly crafted design as he cradled it in his hands. Then, wasting no time, Link turned to an open lane on the range, placed the butt of the stock to his shoulder, and took hold of the rifle’s bolt action slide to rack in a round. With a long, deep breath—his expression filled with intensity—Link leaned into the high-powered scope and took aim.

****

BLAMMMM!!!

“
AWW, SHIIIITT!”

“Yeah, about that recoil…” said Danny, spotting the massive bruise under Link’s left eye while the others giggled around him.

“Oh, like that wouldn’t have happened to any of you fools,” Link defended, massaging his face and ejecting the empty casing that jingled to the pavement below.

In the days that followed, Link was all but a resident on the range, running through magazines as if they were kid-sized TV dinners and cursing like a sailor with every off-target shot, meanwhile everyone else rotated from A-90s to sidearms, though not without the occasional demo of a new piece here and there.

For Lee, however, there was just something about the simplicity and deadly accuracy of the sidearm that appealed to him. Maybe it was the challenge of making a single, calculated shot count under adverse conditions that intrigued him. On the other hand, it might just as easily have been his childhood love of westerns—films which were often times defined by their classic, street-side showdown scenes involving two men, standing alone, with nothing but their revolver skills to settle a dispute. Whatever the reason, when given his choice on the range of what to use, the sidearm was usually Lee’s first option, though he kept his quick-draw practicing to himself, wanting no part of the ribbings and Doc Holliday jokes that he knew he’d get for it.

On the final day of range training, as each of them returned to the armory to relinquish their weapons, protective goggles, and earmuffs for the evening, their eyes caught sight of two soldiers walking across the gravel toward the far end of the course, accompanied by a thinly built third man who struggled beneath the weight of the rather bulky weapon strapped to his back. Eying the boxy receiver assembly and long, cylindrical barrel saddled in the man’s right arm, Lee followed the thick, gray cable that connected them to a large, oversized backpack which hung on his shoulders like a sandbag. Not exactly sure what to make of it all, he guessed from their note-taking that this was a test-firing of some sort.

“
Range Hot
!” the third soldier shouted, lifting the colossal barrel toward an abandoned truck, some eighty yards down the course and shifting his weight to counter the recoil.

With a high-pitched, electric hum, the gargantuan tube spun to life in a fiery blaze of blue, sending a massive volley of explosive projectiles ripping across the range and straight through the vehicle’s armored plating which offered about as much protection as a raincoat in a rock slide. Once the noisy, spark-filled cascade had subsided, Lee’s stare bolted straight for Hamish, whose giddy expression all but trembled with anticipation.

“What… the bloody hell… was that?” he stammered, all but glowing as he turned to Noll.

This brought an uncharacteristic grin from the sergeant major. “That, Mr. Lunley, is the first working prototype of the ERG-212 anti-aircraft weapon—or as we all call it, The Harbinger. In short, it’s an electrically powered, miniature railgun capable of dispersing up to 8,000 rounds per minute, with a sustained rate of fire of 2,500 rounds per uninterrupted burst, allowing it to penetrate virtually any surface—armored or otherwise—at or up to 200 yards under maximum projectile velocity.”

Hamish was speechless as Noll continued.

“The main barrel that you see is actually a housing module that consists of seven individual rotating barrels, all fueled by the AEC-87 power supply which is housed in the operator’s backpack, along with the munitions reserve, secondary power source, and the targeting computer which offers the user a number of visual options, including night vision and thermal, through the eyewear you see here.”

“It’s a mini-gun,” Lee deduced aloud. “We’ve got something like that back home, but some folks shy away from usin’ ‘em because they’ve historically got a nasty reputation for jammin’ up or overheatin’. Plus, it’s all but impossible to carry enough ammo in the pack to sustain the weapon’s viability for more than a minute or so.”

“Yes, I read about that when I was in your world,” said Noll. “But your version made use of conventional weapons tech, whereas the 212 utilizes railgun technology.”

“And that does, what?” inquired Lee.

“Rail guns use magnetic energy to discharge their rounds, as opposed to a powder and or a charge. This makes the firing process itself significantly more efficient, thereby eliminating the problems you just spoke of while also solving the payload problem because the projectiles themselves are so incredibly small.”

“How small?” Mac asked.

“Roughly the size of a pebble.”

This drew an objection from Link. “Hold on… how exactly does a friggin’ pebble do
that
to a truck?” he said, pointing to the obliterated heap of scrap metal that, up until a few moments ago, had been a vehicle.

Always a fan of a good demonstration, Noll picked up a pebble from the ground at his feet and hurled it at Link, striking him in the right temple.

“
Ouch!
...
Douchebag!!... sir!
”

“Now, Mr. Baxter, think about how that pebble would’ve felt had it hit you moving at Mach Two? Not only would it have gone straight through your skull, but it would’ve continued through damn near every wall of every building in its path before it even came close to running out of steam. Furthermore, multiply that sensation by 500 because in reality, that’s how many pebbles would have just shredded your pitiful little frame which, I might add, is far from armored.”

Suddenly self-conscious, Link stepped aside and sucked in his gut.

“I thought railguns were capable of firing shots up to Mach Five or Six?” Lee asked.

“In the cases of the larger models with the adequate power supply, like the Praetorian’s main batteries, then yes, that’s true. However as you can see, the Harbinger is a significantly scaled down version of that same design, and even now, we still don’t have the portability issue solved to a point where the average-sized soldier can operate it without being burdened by its size and weight.”

“
Please
, sir,” Hamish begged. “
Pleeeeaaaasssseeee
tell me I get to—”

“No promises, Mr. Lunley,” Noll cut him off. “The Harbinger isn’t exactly part of your training as it pertains to this project, and we have a lot to do yet. If we have time later, then I’ll connect with the R&D guys and see what we can do. If not, they’re taking it up to their lab on the Praetorian for space testing when they’re done here, so maybe when we get back.”

His blank stare still fixated on the three soldiers while they readied for another test fire, Hamish gazed in wonder at the Harbinger’s awesome spectacle and firepower as Lee laughed under his breath beside him. He’d never been much of a believer in “love at first sight.” However, given Lunley’s smitten expression, Lee wondered if maybe he’d been wrong all this time.

****

During the next leg of phase two, the group was run through a series of drills and orientations with several of the Auran Infantry’s ground vehicles. These ranged from light-armored machines (trucks, cargo haulers, etc.) to heavier ones like the Sand Tiger Assault Vehicle, a fully armored troop and resource transporter that Danny had always likened to a Bradley on steroids. Sporting a wide, boxy frame, towering knobby tires, a fortress-like exterior, and a roof-mounted weapons turret, the Tiger was nothing short of a menacing force to behold, though in spite of its size, the vehicle was surprisingly fast and nimble, boasting a top, straightaway speed of 85 kph with a full load of cargo.