Path of Ranger: Volume 1 (43 page)

A broad black device that reminded a fridge was in the kitchen corner. Bridgers walked straight to it to find something to snack on. The list of contents appeared as soon as the resident came closer. Most of those names were unfamiliar to him, so he decided to play it safe and picked ‘chicken.’ His first try of opening the door via force failed, then JB tapped on the item on the panel. A ‘size’ serving menu popped up. Big size for a big fellow. A stream of steam came out of the socket. It was cold. A cubic pack fell in that socket. Surprisingly it appeared to be about half kilogram of weight.

It had to be a chicken, at least the writing on the pack promised that. The last thing to figure out had left was how to turn that cold silvery brick into a hot, golden-skinned delicious treat. The instruction consisted of two steps: ‘open’ and ‘put into steamer.’

Da hell is ‘steamer?’

JB looked around confusedly. There was another kitchen device, next to the refrigerator. It reminded him of a microwave, but a bit larger. ‘Steamer GL5’ was written on the sticker label. Just now the mutant noticed that the apartment was full of those small stickers with tips, some kind of ‘idiot’s guide to the future.’ Nea had to be the one who had arranged that, JB thought. When the search for the device was done, he opened up the package and put that pale yellowish cube on a dish inside. Another screen lit up, it indicated the type of food automatically and the cooking started. The timer showed five minutes to wait.

Meanwhile, the man kept looking around. There was more information on the screen, besides the food. JB noticed his own avatar photo in the corner and a meter counting down next to it. Apparently it was his water credits. The meal cost him three hundred grams out of the sixty-four thousand total that he owned. Bridgers felt a bit offended at first, as if he was mistreated somehow. But after reading a description he found out that ‘sixty-four thousand grams’ of water was the daily limit of each Atlantis resident.

The next thing that interested JB was the flat screen. It might be a good idea to check the local news, he thought. There was no remote around, so he came closer to the TV and tried to talk to it:

“So? How do I turn you on?” he asked.

The light beamed out of crystal projectors immediately. The picture looked very crisp. There were a couple of odd creatures hosting the show that was on, seemed like clomtueens, from the description.

“News channel?” JB said out loud.

A whole array of small windows was tiled across the screen, all of those were different kinds of news transmissions. JB picked one of those. The woman anchor there was talking about the war. The mutant watched it for about thirty seconds, then he got bored.

Leaving TV on, JB came to the info-terminal. Eventually he started grasping around these techs, developing his thinking of using futuristic stuff. He waved the left hand over the surface of the terminal’s platform. The projectors built a volumetric picture to interact with. The projection wouldn’t react at once to JB’s motion. Then he remembered what Nea had told him about being unable to use techs entirely without proper registration. He spotted a small box with a fingertip patches for interaction.

The first message that popped up was an offer to register. A large text document appeared next to it with the terms and conditions. JB was tempted to rush to sign up at once so he wouldn’t need those external patches anymore, but he didn’t want to sign up without studying that document carefully. He didn’t trust the future people yet. JB put aside the registration message for the time being.

The interface felt odd, all those floating objects were icons for programs, files, messages and other stuff, which had cluttered the area pretty quickly. The most irritating was an animation of a brown box with a yellow tape on it. It jumped up and down all the time, distracting him from everything else. So he tapped on it to make it stop.

It appeared to be a mailbox. The desktop cleared out and the mail letters covered all of the space. The box itself got squashed and trashed away. The mutant tapped on the first letter in the spreadsheet. It was a ‘Ranger’s Manual.’ Those probably were the things that Nea had left for him. JB left them open to read soon, but first he got back to his meal.

The beep signal called JB for dinner. He opened the steamer to find a large piece of white meat lying on the plate, surrounded by salad leaves. The weight of the product had increased. Once the hungry mutant took the dish out, a shell with the flavorings revealed. The bottles were transparent, but not labeled. JB picked the one with a red substance inside, which reminded him of ketchup.

When the food was served, the man decided to give the TV another chance. He sat on the couch and put the plate on the coffee table in front of him. Nostalgia for the old times came on him suddenly. JB wanted to see something that could remind him of the old fashioned TV.

“HBO,” he called. Nothing happened. “Fox?” Still nothing. “CNN?”

The program switched to another news channel. The layout was familiar: two anchors behind the desk, talking. But the setup was completely different. Apparently it wasn’t local news, but global Galaxy news, and the hosts weren’t humans. Grey-skinned aliens of large size and with cat-like eyes. The acleemans. The topic was the war, just like on the previous channel. JB decided to watch it this time. If there indeed was such an important war, he should better know something about it.

After half a night of sitting in front of the TV and surfing the web, JB found out quite a few things about that war. The conflict was ongoing between the GU and another, non-ally species. A hostile one.

It all started during the expedition of one of the scout groups beyond the edge of the local galaxy sleeve. They found a solar system there, which was called ‘Funtox.’ There were two stars in that system: Funtox-Alpha and Funtox-Beta, surrounded by five planets. The scouts were led by the legendary Captain Crumus, a rahtiong. They landed on Funtox-2. That was where an unknown kind was found.

The information about that event wasn’t consistent, at least those public sources weren’t. It didn't surprise Bridgers, though, since every at least half-meaningful event gets flooded with trash by anyone up to it. Yet, JB found some documents that interested to him. A part of the captain’s personal log. It contained a description of the hostiles, their machines, locations and other things.

It all had started when the team camped up on the planet. They weren’t expecting it to be inhabited, so no permissions were asked for. After a few days of research, the equipment went glitchy, soon it broke down all the way. Unknown creatures showed up next. Each of them seemed to have its own force field. They could move objects without touching them, or dissolve them. Crumus took them for the reason of equipment malfunctions.

The aliens seemed as humanoids at first. Their body structure and size looked alike. But with a closer look, scouts noticed the differences. There was thick dark purple skin, large dark-blue eyes, long pointy ears, a flat, pressed-in nose. They were hairless but had lots of skin tails growing from the head’s top. Strong arms and legs, wiry bodies. The joints were penetrated with outgoing spikes. They also had double wrists, with the halves opposite one to another, each had two fingers on it. As outfits, they used compact space suits. Their faces were half covered with the masks.

The first encounter ended with the attack. The aliens destroyed all of the data from that expedition. All that was left was a short signal from the black box. When the attack started, Crumus managed to switch the black box to transmission mode. But he had no time to send a message. Just a short piece of video footage was transmitted. Those five minutes showed enough: the destruction of the camp, the coldblooded murder of the crew and its captain. Those images showed exactly how hostile that race was.

One of the strangest things in Jerry's opinion was that the enemies had known the human language even before the first encounter, which was proven by that very same record. After the first event, there were many more following, the hostile fleet raided Galaxy Union’s solar systems and never got in contact. Several GU systems were occupied by the enemy within first few years of the war. They were far more advanced in technology, combat experience, physical strength, and intelligence. A rumor was spread that they called themselves ‘frolls.’

In the first years of the war the government took that hostility as a misunderstanding. Many tries to contact the enemy had taken place, but they were useless. Frolls not only didn’t care for a peaceful resolution of the conflict but cruelly murdered all of the delegates.

The last straw was the attack on Procyon and Gamma-Theta solar systems, which was the primary energy source of the GU. The human space fleet came close to being destroyed in the process until acleemans and rahtiongs came to help. It was the first win for the GU’s side over frolls. After that event the escalation got worse, frolls went on the path of total intergalactic war.

When finished studying modern history, JB got on his primary task for the night – looking through the materials left by Nea. He had never left his virtual space once for the last four hours. The thirst tormented him. The mutant returned to the kitchen side. There was no sink or any kind of water source. Then he tried a new trick, which he could add to his cooking skills. He pronounced out loud:

“Drink!”

The screen on the fridge turned on to show a spreadsheet with different beverages. Once again, JB was faced against bunch of unfamiliar names, so he picked  one by the picture, that one reminded him of Coke. After the button had been tapped, a glass bottle dropped out into the fridge socket. It was full of dark brownish fluid inside. The water meter had taken another five hundred grams from his account.

JB tried it. The taste was indeed Coke-like. A thought of wonder flashed through his mind how they hadn't changed the flavor over a thousand years.

The mutant got back to his work area. The “Space Ranger Craft” instructions were already opened for him to read.

The Preface.

Welcome, Cadet. Today you have taken a step forward. The Republic is proud of you. By joining the rows of rangers, you shall make a valuable contribution to our civilization’s struggle against the times of sorrow and change them to better days. The experience and knowledge gained by you shall be an important part of your future skills, and shall provide great aid to your life. We have shown that the Galaxy Union is a prospering civilization during a time of peace. Now we need to prove ourselves as adamant to war, even if facing the most dangerous enemy. Today you are fighting for yourself, for your family, for each and every one of your comrades, no matter where they are: near you, or on the other end of the galaxy!

A ranger is a free-will pilot operating in cosmos space, providing activity and services with the prime purpose of contributing to the Galaxy Union’s prosperity.

JB kept on reading. Being a bit dulled by all of the ceremony parts, he started scanning the documents faster, to get just the essentials.

The Rangers Association’s structure was more flexible than a regular army’s and its field of activity was wider. Yet, JB recognized a military basis in it. The main purpose of the program was to assist the GU in its resistance against the enemy.

Rangers weren’t obligated to serve as a soldier and to take a part in battles. There were three main directions established within ranger’s craft; military, civil entrepreneurship, and piracy. None of them had been made by law but shaped historically.

The first one meant that a ranger would join the fleet during tactical combat operations against frolls. This type of activity covered a broad range of actions, from space and planetary battles to providing medical services on the battlefield. A special status was granted for such volunteers as supernumerary soldiers. It was the riskiest type of ranger craft. Therefore, it had the larger compensation values.

The second direction meant a free entrepreneurship. Rangers weren’t bound there in what activity they would want to conduct, trade operations or asteroid mining, or anything else that fell within the law. This kind of craft was the most common one.

The last type of rangers’ activity was covert. It wasn’t regulated by law. In fact, it was illegal. The piracy. Along with possibilities opened to free-will pilots, it unbarred a way for criminal minds to abuse the program for their dark purposes. The pirates robbed, raided, killed and terrorized the residents of the Galaxy Union. They were fierce and dangerous. The government had zero-tolerance for such individuals.

Soon JB passed the introductory part and got the pages of the craft’s history.

As it appeared, the ranger’s craft had been established since the first success in space scouting. It took a rare character to venture for a mission of conquering far space, putting one’s own life on the line. The first brave men who managed not just to step forward, but also to prove that free pilots could contribute irreplaceable aid to the civilization were Sean and Steven Gellard. The brothers plowed through space in times when the GU was still in the beginning stage.

The legendary feat by Gellar brothers was a rescue of Bellatrix solar system from the pirates’ raid. The namiamificans that lived there were peaceful race, without their own fleet or an army of any kind. They were attacked by the famous pirate Boonbumtor, with his fifty ship group. The system was powerless at the time. When Gellar brothers showed up, they destroyed Boombumtor’s crew with only two small B-class ships at their disposal. That was the beginning of the movement.