The Recruitment: Rise of the Free Fleet (53 page)

“I got challenged.” I replied without looking back.

“And you thought it was a great idea to accept it.” There was anger but also something else in her voice.

“Uhh yeah.”

“Who are you?” Krom asked as he could see her behind me.

“I’m Yasu Masami Ono Cook. His wife.” She said without hesitation and raw anger at the questioner, not the question. I wanted to look back at her but I knew Krom would use the opening.

He caught sight of her glancing between me and her, his eyes widened as he fully focused on me.

“And I…” I rushed Krom with a roar I felt inside of me cutting off what she was going to say. Krom focused on me entirely blotting out the rest of the room as he turned his sword glancing off mine as I went past him his fist smashing into my back causing me to stumble and fall. I slapped the floor and then kicked it, doing a back flip over him as he came at me again driving my fist into his unguarded ribs. He winced as I felt something crack I did so too knowing all too well the feeling of broken ribs. I dropped to the floor using my servo assisted legs to kick out his. He controlled his fall landing on top of me.

His elbow found my face with a crunch as blood welled up. Enraged I grabbed his armpit amping my Mecha to full power as I tossed him off of me and into another battle masters chair.

“Why is it always the damned face?” I said as I picked myself up I wasn’t the poster boy I’d been now as blood fell from my face. If I’d been wearing my helmet I would’ve been fine but it would have probably locked up from the hit.

With the upgraded implants I could see that my armour was heavily damaged and I was a walking bruise. Thankfully painkillers and touches of hell fire were keeping the wounds at bay.

Krom picked himself up a bloody gash across his chest from the battle masters chair. He came barreling at me again this time swinging his sword as I parried him dancing his skill with a sword rivaled Yasu’s I would guess as I had a hard time stopping all of his attacks from coming through. His blade darted down cutting my lower thigh, pain lancing through me as the auto tourniquet of the battle suit activated and painkillers rushed to make me forget.

He cut my right forearm the armour causing his blows to pause as his blade had to force its way through the high density armour.

I forgot thinking about how to fight and let myself react as hours of sleep training came to the fore. I blanked out the rest of the room as we clashed again. We traded blows evenly my speed matching his as I let myself react. I didn’t know what I was doing, I felt as if I was on another plane, like I was playing MAT all over again.

For once in the fight I got the upper hand.

I saw an opening as he turned away from me. I lunged forward as he quickened his turn, giving me enough time to recoil. He missed my head and I caught a blow of his sword with my shoulder. It was slow going through the dense material as he continued to try and cut off my arm. Unable to bring my sword to bear I dropped it as I picked him up my tortured servos whining as he now tried to pull the blade free struggling to try and get me to release my Mechas grip on him. I started running with him raised above my head he let go of his sword his fist connecting with my jaw as I felt my Mecha throw him as I dropped to the floor unconscious. hell fire brought me back immediately as I watched him crash into a wall rolling to the floor in a heap as I looked to my side his sword still in my shoulder.

“I hate getting stabbed.” I wanted to say to the approaching female figure as I realized my jaw was broken and my face felt weird and more of the weird liquid was coming down from my bleeding nose.

I looked up at Yasu before the floor met my face.

I heard the unsheathing of swords and Yasu. “What the hell are you doing, put him down.” I felt myself being lifted as a calm serene voice that reminded me of Monks spoke.

“He has proved himself, he will be awakened.”

“I so Vouch for him and swear my fealty to him.” Krom’s voice carried.

“You may come as his wife, but the rest must stay, this is our way and not for outsiders.” I passed out. I faintly realized I was awake, but unable to do anything except listen.

“How can it not be for outsiders when you want me and him to do it?” Yasu demanded.

“You are our battle mistress and master; we will follow you into battle and listen to your commands.”

“Then why will you not leave him when I say so.”

“The awakening is something beyond even a battle master and mistress, they cannot tell one to be awakened. Only the priests of the awakening can choose….”

“What is this place?”

“It was left by the Planner to awaken the true abilities of the Avarian.” The serene voice said as I was put on a table which moved underneath me.

“Can you release him?”

After a few seconds I felt the familiar catches being opened as I was pulled out of my Mecha. I opened my eyes looking at Yasu.

“Don’t I need that?” I said my voice slurred as my body threatened to put me back under. The tourniquets weren’t tight enough and the resulting blood loss kept putting me under. I came back in a few minutes, now out of my Mecha

I coughed as blood came from a wound in my chest; Krom had hit me more times than I thought.

“It has to be done.” She said as she hit the uncompressing feature of the battle suit pulling it off of me rapidly. The table swarmed around the wounds covering them.

I coughed as I felt my lungs fill with liquid I thrashed against restrains that had formed over my arms as I tried to turn to cough out the liquid. Then everything turned to inky darkness.

I woke up slowly for the first time I could remember after being fixed up as a nurse came in.

“They said you’d be awake at this time.” She said as I felt my eyes adjust nearly instantly to the bright light that would’ve taken me a few minutes usually.

I rubbed my head with my right hand feeling my skin was rougher than before.

“Fuck.” I said while I recognized the naturally tough skin of the Avarian on my hand and arm.

“Get me a mirror.” I hissed barely able to hold in my rage as my mind worked over the information it had.

She looked about to protest before she saw my face and quickly rushed out.

A doctor replaced her asking some questions I ignored while the first nurse appeared with a view screen.

“Try not to be too alarmed.” The doctor said as the nurse turned the view screen on. Red eyes and the lack of a scar across my face looked back at me. I stood up from my bed moving with ease as if I didn’t weigh a thing as I studied myself. My skin was thicker and tougher; it had the same restrictive feeling that the armour in my prototype battle suit had. My feet weren’t cold, even against the bare metal of the deck.

I felt stronger, for the first time in a long time I didn’t feel the pain and aches of my body. The scars were gone as well as all of the injuries I once had, including my melted arm. Which only served to highlight the changes someone had done to me; making me feel less human than ever before. I had been taken from my body, put into a new, completely alien one, without my permission.

I felt violated, I felt helpless and I felt angry.

“Who did this to me?” I growled as I looked at the doctor, the nurse having already retreated. I noticed that before where I’d have been probably looking right at her I was now two heads taller making her crane her neck. Putting me at eight feet, the size I would be if I was in a Mecha.
 
Fucking great.

“An awakening priest. It seems that when you defeated Krom you passed a test to lead the awakened. With that they in turn, awoke you. If they didn’t then you would have died from the head trauma, you were leaking cranial fluid.”

Explains that weird liquid.

Your wife went with you and was with you when Krom brought you back. We have no idea where you went, Krom wouldn’t say. Your wife doesn’t know either.”
 
Of course she doesn’t she just stood there and watched me be turned into. Something!

“Where is my esteemed wife now?”

“She’s in your quarters.” This caused me to furrow my brow as we didn’t have quarters that we shared.

“Thank you.” I said dismissively as I began storming out.

“Commander.”

“Yes?” Furious she was stopping me.

“Some clothes might be in order? We got your spare battle suit.” She moved to a stow bin along the wall pulling it out.

“Thank you.”
 
Control yourself damn it! It’s not her fault.
 
I quickly donned it, finding it strange my new body made me feel as if I was clothed already. With the battle suit on I felt better with the additional armour both my battle suit and my strange body getting acquainted.

“I’m sorry about being so rude.” I said nodding to the doctor before I walked out. No one tried to stop me as I walked straight to the Captains quarters the Sato sisters crossing swords in front of the door.

“Move I’m not in the mood.” Flexing my hands as my claws sprouted from my battle suit. One of them quickly said something into their collar moving her blade aside as the other did too. I couldn’t tell which one was which as the door opened and I stormed in.

“What did you let them do to me?” I demanded hotly as I looked down; Yasu in her own battle suit with her painfully normal human features.

“They called it the awakening. They said it would keep you alive, your head had been smashed in, the medics didn’t think even you would make it. Even with the medical machines we have, the awakening gave me another option so I took it.”

“So they turned me into an Avarian. You let them change me from a human into an alien race. Without my permission you changed the very things that made me James Cook! Look at these eyes! Or the claws that come out of my hands or the fact that my bare skin blends into everything!”

“I thought it would help you.” She looked at the ground; even this odd display of emotion wasn’t enough to stop my rolling anger.

“If this is how you want to help me forget trying to do so anymore in the future!”

Anger and hurt simmered on her face. She threw a data pad at my chest my new reactions making me catch it.

“Do it all yourself. Put yourself in the line of fire. Command thousands of people, put everyone before yourself and be too paranoid to accept help, or to trust anyone! Who knows one of these days when you finally sit down I will come up from behind and take your place, or some nameless idiot interested in power instead of actually doing some damned good in this fucked up galaxy!” She yelled at me storming past me in my stunned state—as like an idiot I stood there trying to figure out what she was saying as the hatch closed.

Annoyed, agitated and like countless men before me completely confused by the female mind I looked at the data pad.

On it there was a map of a raised flat area. Overtop of it had wire buildings placed over the surface. Lines were laid underneath for water and electricity. There was a wireless hub and all the necessities including a nearby space port connected by a wire diagram of a maglev transport.

It was titled;

Asul city,

Commander Salchar and his mistress Yasu’s hold

Stunned I went through the other files that were open. To my surprise in the three days I’d been unconscious she’d put herself in charge of the development.

She’d placed Ursht in charge of the city administration as she’d dropped colony buildings which could be set up within weeks and then reinforced with the materials of the area. Avarians from across the planet had flocked to my banner at the promise of water, work and prosperity. The mines had been shut down but the stockpiles we’d found on the planet had been impressive.

Including not only the materials from the Avarian Battle master I had killed, but the one third tithe from the other two Battle masters.

Eddie and the Kuruvians as well as everyone involved with engineering were having rabbits as they happily filled their low stores which had been minimal to give Parnmal the most raw materials for the ongoing projects. They were pumping out parts for everything they could replace them and recycling anything old. The majority though they were purifying and making ingots to be transferred back to Parnmal, or to be used in projects on Chaleel.

With the materials from the Battle Master I’d killed also came his sworn warriors and a large chunk of his people. Most of his people hadn’t accepted the change and instead chose to defect to other Battle Masters.

Yet there were still a few pertinent problems it looked like I saw highlighted on the data pad.

It seemed that ships that had traded for reactor fuel and waste water in most cases had been charging extortionist rates. With no other sources of fuel or knowledge of the accurate value for their materials the Avarian had paid twenty times the regular price for premium reactor mass for waste water.

The engineering crews had then been whipped up in a storm of building; they’d created storage tanks so large they had to be made in sections then transported to the ground and assembled. Shrift had the armourers making protective suits for the Avarians in the mines. It didn’t go without my notice that the suits were rated to be used in space mining. Or that there was a side project on a planetary elevator that would be able to transport people and resources up from Asul city directly—instead of relying on shuttles from the space port.

There was already a large asteroid in semi-stable orbit. Again there were plans for thrusters to be placed on the asteroid to keep it centreed to create the platform of the elevator.

There were plans for the development into the asteroid with Avarians digging it out and using the resources to create what they needed.

Yasu had gone so far as to identify possible other asteroids to have the main elevator platform to connect to or to mine afterwards.
 
She thought I was the one with plans within plans!
 
I thought as I read the detailed outlines.

“Comet water bomb inbound.” The comms officer said over the general channel as I tucked away Yasu’s data pad, still thinking about how far Yasu had pushed forward. I found myself on the bridge garnering strange stares as I saluted Rick who didn’t bat an eye as he returned the gesture. I guess he’d seen me do enough crazy things in the past that this wasn’t all that strange.

“Comet water bomb?” I asked him quizzically.

“Yes Min Hae found a comet consisting of around eighty percent of water in the outer asteroid belts, we sent corvettes to go and pick it up, remember how you ordered us to scan for them?”

“Ah yes.” I didn’t remember much from the meeting with the other battle masters other than shooting the one and getting roughed up by Krom.

“What’s its progress?”

“It will be entering the atmosphere in five minutes.” I nodded watching the main screen as the labeled water bomb passed the grouped fleet around AIH.

It slowly entered the atmosphere using the temperature to melt the ice as two corvettes attached to the five square kilometre comet held onto it, rotating around the planet as for the first time in generations it rained on AIH. I cut to a feed from Asul city as Avarians were on the streets stopping their work as they opened their arms rain pouring down on them as they luxuriated in the feeling. It was odd to think these people hadn’t seen rain in their lifetime while on Earth it was cursed at times.

“The water systems are working!” An excited voice said as I ripped my eyes off of my command screen looking at Eddie in surprise at the old Kuruvian doing a jig at the engineering station. He wasn’t sitting in the seat but a liaison of his. I couldn’t remember ever seeing the Kuruvian on the bridge raising the priority of what was going on up a few notches.

I slaved my screen to his seeing as he watched the buildings with their collection systems gathering the rain, the same as the streets dropping it into the massive tanks installed underground which passed it on to be purified the detriments being put into growing towers to be used as fertilizer as the clean water was supplied to drinking fountains, fossets and to critical systems for the city.

Shuttles flew up to the melting comet which was going along at a sedated pace. Using their onboard laser systems, or if they didn’t have them, gun teams they cut out and pulled huge chunks out of the comet taking them to the highest mountain ranges of the planet.

I could see it’s all been planned as the cut out blocks were rotated around the mountains raining down on the lower sections, the higher ones too cold to melt the ice. As the blocks melted water found old streams and other water ways.

It took four hours for the asteroid to melt as chunks were ripped out of it by shuttles and placed around the planet.

“Environmental, how many asteroids will it take to return the planet to a balance?” I asked.

“It will take ten more of that size to get a minimal balance. Fifty would be optimal.”

I thankfully checked my command screen instead of ordering more ships to start getting more comets. I could see that half of the fleet were gathering asteroids and shipping them back to the planet.

I knew that I was going to need to apologize to Yasu at some time but the fact that she’d allowed someone to change my body without my permission, was still too new. I busied myself with her data pad seeing what had been going on with the fleet and the planet below us.