The Recruitment: Rise of the Free Fleet (13 page)

Shrift could see something was wrong by our faces but caught on as he saw my fist and the missing Mecha.

“What happened?” He demanded.

“Wiry tried to kill me; broke my visor and locked up my collar so I couldn’t see anything when I countered.” I paused gathering my thoughts.

“Smashed right through his visor and killed him.” I said in a monotone voice as I slowly stripped out of my Mecha, my body numbly doing as it was trained.
 
This is what they’re training us to do, to kill.
 
I thought as I fought to get out of the Mecha slowly.

When I had first seen a Mecha I had been ecstatic. I would have a real Mecha. Now I wanted nothing to do with it. I stood in front of it in my battle suit looking at its feet.

I killed Wiry. Not the aliens or the planetary Force I killed him. He was fifteen and I ended his life.
 
Anger burnt through me as I looked up at the chest of my Mecha.

“Everyone into the sparring room.” Taleel said as talking stopped immediately and we filed into the room, creating a formation in front of where Taleel stopped.

“Salchar.” I stepped forwards as Shrift walked up and whispered something in Taleel’s ear. He grunted in agreement as his face looked even happy as he brought out the pain implant remote.

“Remove your clothing.” I did so; I knew what happened if someone didn’t.

“Let’s see how long you’ll last at eight.” There wasn’t time to register the gasps behind me as my body betrayed me and I crumpled to the ground in agony, I lost muscle control as nerve endings were set alight and seemed to be pulled from my body with pliers. Someone was screaming I noticed as the pain stopped.

I felt a new expanding pain jolt me as I came back to the harsh world. Fire rushing through my body.

“You just had another lifetime added to your service.” Taleel said as he walked away. My body writhed in pain as it set to fixing the damage caused by pain implant over-use. My mind was on another plane as I stared blankly at the hell fire tube in front of me.

“Rick, Charles, get him showered.” I heard Shrift’s voice as I was hauled upright. I made to complain as pain lanced through me, my nerve endings still raw, but found my voice was gone. I surmised it must’ve been me screaming as Rick and Charles carried me to the noxious showers, cleaning off my own waste I’d collapsed into.

They dressed me as I felt my body returning to normal. I stood tentatively as Charles and Rick made sure I was okay.

“Shit man, you just died.” Rick said as I got back control of my own body.

“Huh, looks like death doesn’t want me just yet.” I said as I felt mentally and physically drained.

“Shrift will want us back.” Charles said.

I nodded as I stood by myself.

“Let’s go then.” I said, determination driving me forward. I didn’t need my people scared of their own leader and unsure at a time like this.

Rick led the way, Charles undoubtedly waiting to catch me if I fell as we made our way back into the armoury.

I’m going to make the planetary defence force wish they never visited Earth.
 
I vowed.

Until then I would take all of the training the planetary defence had to offer me and more. I would be their slave, the best slave they had, and then I would destroy them. I remembered the sleep-taught lecture on the controlled systems of the defence force, there were thousands of planets. Quintillions of sentient creatures that populated those systems, protected by trillions of defence force members.

They were bigger than anything I could imagine I knew. Though it didn’t matter, I would rip it down, with sheer will if I had to.

I nodded to my squad mates, trying to look confident and energetic even though I didn’t feel.

Taleel marched in, seeing me his eyes seemed to squint in annoyance. He punched me in the gut, I was too drained to do anything as he kicked me.

“Get up! You owe me eight hundred laps.” He yelled as I fought to get up. He hit me in the face.

“Move it!” He barked as I started running for the track. Bile rising in my throat. I was barely walking when I got to eight hundred laps. My body had given me better endurance, but it had also added a lot of weight.

“armoury.” Taleel said, behind me as I blindly walked to the armoury.

I hid the anger welling up inside of me as I continuing through a full maintenance schedule.

The rest of my squad gave me looks as if to say it was alright, but there was no hiding the fear in their eyes as I focused entirely on my Mecha.

“Feel big Salchar?” Yasu said in a light tone as I gripped my wrench harder.

“Go away Yasu.” I said calmly as I could.

“Why? You are going to kill me if I don’t.”

“Stop acting like a petulant child! Yes back on Earth we played a game, a game that at least to me was my life. Now we’re being trained to die. That’s it. They’re showing us how to use these Mechas so that we might do something useful before we die for them. It doesn’t matter if we die, they can just pluck another person from Earth, train them and replace us.” I hit my Mecha, she was for once thankfully silent.

“We’re parts Yasu, just parts in the planetary defences’ machine. You want to keep on threatening me, sure go ahead. But think about this. If you threaten us and isolate yourself who’s going to help you when you need it?”

“I don’t need help.” She barked, turning away and stomping back to her Mecha with her fists so tight her fingers turned white. Yet there was no mistaking the fear or loneliness that were in those eyes.
 
Maybe she wasn’t trying to not be one of us, maybe I was driving her away.

“Everyone needs help.” My voice soft, filled with my exhaustion and anguish. I saw her flinch as all of the squad looked at me, none of them cried anymore I realized, they’d figured out how useless it was.

“We all have to adapt to our new reality.” I continued, not liking my own words, but believing them nonetheless. I got a bit of energy as I talked to them.

“Stop slacking, we need to learn as much as possible, the more we do the better chance we have surviving.” I saw acknowledgement in the older squad members eyes, the younger ones still upset. I was still surprised that when they were straight up told about their situation they couldn’t handle it. It was still a game to them.

I finished the maintenance schedule and I began helping Shrift with the movement calibrations for the Mechas. The rest of the squad were doing hand to hand combat with their Mechas under the guidance of Yasu. I knew I should be too but I didn’t trust myself to stay calm making excuses to stay in the armouries.

“It wasn’t your fault James.” Rick said as I was staring at a data pad blankly. Breaking me out of my reverie by using my name for the first time without being prompted to by me. As he put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

“I know. It’s the fault of the damned free planets defence force that put us in this position. If it wasn’t for them then Wiry would’ve never tried to kill me. It still doesn’t make it any easier.” I said as I fought down the need to throw up as the image of his headless Mecha appeared in my mind, instead focusing on the data pad.

I studied Yasu.

“She’s better than me.” I said as she worked to adjust her students, she truly was a master of her trade. She was respected by all; she was as fast as I was in sleep training I bet she even knew how to use her Mecha better than me.

“Why do you say that?”

“She should be squad leader; they need someone strong and good at this stuff to lead them.”

“James you are too.”

“Yes, and I’m also the person that just killed one of them. I’m soft; they need someone that will force them through training.”

Rick didn’t say anything as we silently watched Yasu. After a few minutes he looked back down at me.

“What’re you up to?” He asked as if he could read my thoughts looking at the lines of code before me.

“Making a Mecha builder.”

“Mecha builder?”

“Instead of having to put a Mecha together and then testing how it works, this’ll allow us to see what modifications will do without having to build the thing first, just having to input the data.”

“I think your time would be better spent reassuring them. After your outburst they’re scared.”

“I should talk to the others.” I said getting the idea as he kept looking at me expectantly.

“Something like that.”

“Alright, get the leaders.” I said as I got up.

Quickly the others grouped around making me think that Rick had been planning on having the meeting whether I wanted to or not. “Alright enough moping around on my part—how is the hand to hand training going?”

“It’s going really well, Yasu is a great teacher, but she’s only one person. We need someone else with hand to hand experience to help her out.” Hoi said looking at me expectantly.

“Anything else?”

“Do you really want us to stop slacking?” Abella asked.

“Yes, we need to learn all we can, I don’t know how long we’re going to spend training, but we need to use it. Once we leave here we’re going to be fighting, I want us to survive.” They were quiet in thought.

I broke the silence after a few moments.

“Alright I’ll see if Yasu will allow me to train. The rest of you do confirmations your squads sleep training. Get though the first aid and start on the firearms course—dismissed.” They rose, going about their tasks as I went back in my Mecha, someone had thankfully cleaned off the blood. I fixed the collar and got a replacement helmet checking my work before I got into it. Once inside I powered it up and moved towards the training room.

It became quiet as people stopped fighting to see what I was doing.

“What do you think this is a yoga class? Get back to work.” I barked, walking to Yasu.

“Look over the advanced hand to hand combatants.” She said without looking at me, moving away to fix a beginners positioning.

I winced internally. I was out but working with the higher level hand to hand groups would mean I would have to show them more of my moves. Thus her too, giving her an advantage in my eyes. I shrugged; she’d seen enough of my fighting skills already. I turned to my group.

“Alright.” I said getting myself some time as I remembered their previous fights and their different skills categorizing them in my mind.

“Higher hand to hands here.” They came in a rush grouping around me.
 
They’re afraid I’ll have another outburst
 
I thought sadly.

“Okay today we’re going to work on hitting vital points in your opponent’s armour to immobilize them.” Someone raised a hand at the back of the group.

“Yes?”

“Yasu already showed us how to rapidly hit the nerve points of a person.”

“That’s a person, seeing as there’s only one planet of humans that we know of we can deem that human nerve endings won’t be universal to every alien race. Mecha’s on the other hand are used by both Sarenmenti and human. Probably quite a few more races than that, with these classes you can learn how to stop any Mecha moving.” Now I had their attention as I had Rick come forward as a test subject.

“You on test mode?”

“Yeah.”

“Now everyone pay close attention.”