Forty Two
The Krendor
Sah Lee walked into the training area the following morning with her left hand strapped up and a dressing on a cut that ran down her face from the side of her right eye to the point of her chin.
“Good morning Sah Lee. You’re not required to practice your fighting skill in your own time.” Sergeant Si’ir Monnen Dak greeted her.
“You heard?”
“If I hadn’t, I think the dressings on your hand and face might have given me a clue. I have the Peacekeepers report.”
“I didn’t see any Peacekeepers.”
“They saw you.”
“Look Si’ir Monn, we didn’t start it. We went in there for a quiet drink.”
“The report doesn’t say who started it. All it says is a number of named people, including you, and a larger number of unnamed were involved in a brawl. No one was killed, so no action will be taken. I’d like to see how you got on though, would you ask your AI to make the recording of the fight available to me, please?”
“It recorded it? Why?
“For your protection and for training purposes. Don’t worry, if you did start it, you won’t get punished. I really do only want to see how you performed in a fight.”
Sah Lee looked down. “I didn’t use much of what I was taught yesterday.”
Si’ir Monn laughed. “I would be surprised if you had, after one session. You don’t have to let me have it. I won’t hold it against you if you don’t.”
Sah Lee spoke to her AI “Would you give him the recording please, but only starting when we got to the bar, just before the reptiles spoke. I don’t want him seeing what happened before.”
“Of course, Sah Lee. I have negotiated a transfer with his AI and he has it now.”
“Already? Did you do it before I asked?”
“No Sah Lee, we AI’s work much faster than you organics. I wouldn’t do that without your instructions.”
Si’ir Monn stood silently while he reviewed the recording of what Sah Lee saw. “Shit!” he said suddenly. “That big reptile that joined in just before it ended. Do you know him?”
“No, I don’t even know what it is. Why do you ask?”
“It’s only a fucking Krendor! They are mean, nasty, dangerous bastards. He ended that fight in moments and came to clear a path round you. Why did he do that?”
“He did? Do you know him?” Sah Lee asked.
“No, I don’t. Anyone who’s got any sense keeps well away from them.”
“How do you know it’s a male?”
“Only the males fight. The females are smaller and docile. Ask your AI his name?”
“It says his name is Kar Fen.”
Si’ir Monn paused. “I’ve sent him an order to report to me. My AI has checked his assignments, his unit is just back from a mission, so he should be here soon. I’d like to know what was going on there. Are you sure you haven’t met him before?”
“I’d have remembered if I had. Am I in trouble about this? I really don’t know him, I’ve never even heard of a Krendor before.”
“You’re not in trouble Sah Lee. It’s just a bit weird. He’ll take some time to get here, so until he does we’ll continue. I saw how you performed last night. You tried out some moves and were executing them with all the grace of a one-legged unicorn. You did much better when you started fighting by instinct. The way you were going for people’s throats I’m surprised no one was killed.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill anyone. I don’t know if it is frowned on in the army.”
“Well, that depends. If it’s an enemy, we encourage it. If it’s one of our own troops, we discourage it. And I’ve now seen what happened. You didn’t start it so even if you had killed someone it would have been considered self-defense. Do me a favor, next time you’re going out for a quiet drink, tell me. I haven’t been in a good bar brawl for ages.”
“It might seem funny to you, but I went out with Touren to make friends. She’s the only one I’ve got now that Bekkreshan’s gone off on an exercise.”
“What about your other roommates, haven’t you made friends with them yet?”
“I’ve only met two of them. Ranesh Ett, she threatened me and told me to keep out of her way and Robbie, a reptile that never speaks. The other one is an insect called Teknor, but I haven’t seen him. I’m not even sure if he really exists.”
“I know them. Teknor is friendly, everyone gets on with him. Your AI has given me Robbie’s real name. He’s harmless, a good fighter, but he’s not right in the head. He should be invalided out. Ranesh Ett. She’s a miserable bastard. She doesn’t like anyone, and no one likes her. She’s a good fighter but don’t ever fight next to her. She doesn’t care who she hurts. You will make friends Sah Lee. There is something about you. There must be, or I’d spend all day shouting at you and kicking your ass. I meant what I said about when you go for a drink. I’d like to join you. If I’d been there, those little reptiles would’ve kept quiet.”
“Don’t you have any friends either?”
Si’ir Monnen Dak laughed surprisingly loudly. “I’ve got plenty of friends Sah Lee, but they’re mostly too rough to expose you to yet. Now, what’s wrong with your hand?”
“Medical said I’ve dislocated a finger. I think it happened when I got a claw stuck in someone’s chest. It came out, but with a bit of their chest attached to it.”
“I saw that in the recording. She’ll be sore this morning. You can’t fight with that. We’ll finish up here and I’ll tell medical you’ll be staying with them until it’s fully healed. I know your background. In your society it would take thirty-five to forty days to heal and it can take up to a year and a half before all the pain goes. With our medical technology it will take no more than a day and a half. If it’s bad enough to take more than that, they’ll cut it off and grow you a new one which will be a perfect replacement. If you’ve got old injuries to that finger, you might want to go for a new one anyway.”
“No thanks, I’m rather attached to the one I’ve got.”
“The Krendor is on its way. This should be interesting.” Si’ir Monnen Dak said.
They stood in silence while waiting, each lost in their own thoughts. Sah Lee was wondering what was going on, Si’ir Monnen Dak was wondering why the Krendor got involved, why no one got killed and why it had acted to protect Sah Lee.
The Krendor strode in. It stood over a meter taller than Sah Lee and even towered over Si’ir Monnen Dak.
“What do you want?” the Krendor asked.
“What do you want, Sir! Address me properly soldier.” Sergeant Si’ir Monnen Dak barked at the great beast.
The Krendor snorted noisily, then after a pause said: “What do you want, Sir?”
“I’ve seen Private Sah Lee’s view of the fight last night. Tell me about your involvement.”
“I didn’t start it. I didn’t kill anyone. Can I go now?” He paused. “Sir.”
“I’d like to know, Private Kar Fen, why you got involved and why you acted to protect Private Sah Lee. I’ve fought with enough Krendor to know you are undisciplined and violent killers. I’ve seen your career record which shows a cycle of promotions for valor in battle and demotions for refusing to obey orders, destruction of army property and generally being a pain in the ass. So tell me about last night.”
“I went to the bar for a quiet drink. I’ve just had word that my best friend was killed in an ambush and I wanted some time to think. I saw those reptiles starting to give this little mammal and her reptile friend a hard time. The mammal - Sah Lee? She seemed to be upset when she arrived. The mammal and her reptile friend didn’t react but others in the bar did. It got out of hand and a brawl broke out. The mammal, Sah Lee was fighting like a hunter, not a soldier and I could see she was going to get badly hurt and possibly killed, so I intervened to stop it. That’s it.”
“So, you were feeling down and sentimental because your friend got killed and you just happened to see someone in troub
le who couldn’t defend themselves and, in your grief, you decided to rescue them. That makes sense. OK, you can go now.” Si’ir Monnen Dak said.
The Krendor stood looking at the Si’ir Monnen Dak silently for some time. Sah Lee didn’t know what to make of the prolonged silence. She wasn’t sure if it was threatening or not, but she was uncomfortable with it. At last the Krendor spoke. “No Sergeant that’s not it at all. Our minds work very differently from mammals. If I was grieving, I would have killed everyone in the bar and then torn it to bits. I saw the mammal, out of its depth, in peril through no fault of its own and unable to defend itself, so I rescued it. That’s what we do as an army. It's why I joined.”
“Uh huh.” Si’ir Monnen Dak said. “What unit are you with Kar Fen?”
“The First Spearhead. Why?”
“Next time I’m going into action I’m going to request your transfer to my unit. That OK with you?”
The Krendor slowly nodded. “I’ve seen your record Sergeant. That would be OK with me.” Turning to Sah Lee, the Krendor bent down until his muzzle was ten centimeters from her face. “You’re not safe out by yourself mammal. Message me next time you are going to a bar. If I’m not on duty, I’ll come along and keep you out of trouble.”
Sah Lee took half a step forward so that her face almost touched the Krendor’s scaly, tooth filled muzzle and looking up at him said: “Would you mind calling me Sah Lee, Krendor. Then I’ll call you Kar Fen.”
The Krendor abruptly stood up straight, tilted its head back and made a series of short, sharp and very loud roars.
“Laughing.” Her AI told her.
“You’ve got spirit, Sah Lee.” he said. “Message me.” He nodded at Si’ir Monnen Dak, turned and left.
“I told you you’d make friends.” Si’ir Monnen Dak said.
“That isn’t the sort of friend I was thinking of.” she replied.
“You could do worse. I’ve changed my mind about you spending a day and a half in medical. Tell them to fix you up as quickly as possible so you can handle KE and pulsed particle beam weapons. Go now, I’m going to fight a golem to keep me sane until you get back,”
“Why have you changed your mind?”
“I’m going to drive you hard Sah Lee. I want you trained up to mission capability as soon as possible. You’ve got determination and guts. I want you in my unit next time I go into action, I’d like you alongside the Krendor. What are you waiting for? Get out of here!”
“Yes Sir!” she replied.
Chapter Forty Three
Weapons Training
Sah Lee returned two hours later with fresh dressings on her hand and face. Sergeant Si’ir Monnen Dak tossed a lightweight weapon at her as soon as she entered. She caught it and said “Thanks, what do I do with this?”
“That is a pulsed particle beam weapon, usually referred to as a beam or a pulse weapon. It works by sending a pulse of sub-atomic particles which will make a hole in virtually anything. It’s light, reliable, easy to use and doesn’t need reloading. Its weakness is that it is easily deflected by field based armor. Got it?”
“Yes. What’s field based armor?”
“You’re wearing body armor, that is a physical barrier that will protect you from bullets, stabbing and most hand to hand unarmed attacks. A beam weapon will go through it as if it wasn’t there, so we also wear another type of armor which is energy field based. It’s contained in your helmet, which you haven’t got yet, and powered from a power pack you carry on your back as part of your body armor.”
“I’ve learnt about energy fields, electromagnetic, gravitic, telleratic and some others, which I can’t remember. What kind of field does the armor use?” Sah Lee asked.
“No idea. The important thing is, it works against beam weapons and bullets, but field armor can be overloaded and collapsed, then the wearer is vulnerable to a pulsed beam weapon.”
“OK, and what are bullets?”
“I was coming to that. A KE weapon works by sending a projectile at high velocity to its target. You’ve studied physics, so you know that kinetic energy is the energy that a mass in motion has. The higher the velocity, the higher the kinetic energy, so even a small projectile can carry a lot of energy if it is moving very fast. Our KE weapons use bullets, which are small, aerodynamically shaped pieces of a very dense metal which are given their energy by a small chemical explosive. That sends it out of the barrel at high speed, carrying a lot of kinetic energy. When it hits something, like a body, it transfers that energy to the body and it causes a lot of damage. Got it.”
Sah Lee grinned at him. “You’re kidding. How do they really work?”
Si’ir Monnen Dak rolled his eyes. “We’re going to run to the firing range and you can have a go with the beam weapon. You need to get used to running. We do a lot of it on the ground.”
“Suits me, I like running.” Sah Lee said, but he had already started and probably hadn’t heard her. She followed until they got to a row of small cubicles with a bar across them. Beyond the open back of the cubicle were a series of targets at increasing distances.
“You need to bond your AI to your weapon. Just tell it to do it, your AI will know what to do. When it’s bonded, your AI should show you a dot on the target and will fire the weapon when you tell it. Have you ever fired a weapon before?”
“No, but I’ve handled them in virtual reality training.”
“OK. I’m going to show you how I want to you to hold it. Stand with your left foot forward, pointing in the direction you want to fire. Put your right foot behind you, turned out a bit to brace yourself with. Bend your left arm and hold your upper arm tight to your chest, your forearm bent out so that your hand forms a platform for the weapon to rest on.” Si’ir Monnen Dak demonstrated the stance and Sah Lee copied him. “Hold your weapon so that the bit underneath the beam generator - the thick bit at in the middle the barrel, rests on your left hand while pulling the butt - that’s the flat bit at the end, hard into your shoulder, on the edge of your anterior deltoid where it meets your pectoral muscle.”
“Huh?”
“You need to know where your muscles are Sah Lee. That’s some homework for you, learn where your major functional muscles are and what they are called. Your language will have names for them all and your AI will translate them into my language. Hold it like this.” He put the weapon in position for her. “You are now standing in a stable position with your weapon held solidly. This works for a KE weapon too. This is good for target shooting while standing and you can use it sometimes in a fire fight, if you’ve got adequate cover. Don’t try to use this stance when you are running and firing. We’ll come to that later. Is your AI bonded?”
“It says it is.”
“Have you got a targeting dot showing?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Take six shots at each of the first six targets, staring with the closest. Try to hit the target as close to the middle as possible.”
Sah Lee did as instructed, the weapon firing silently without any recoil. When she finished, she relaxed and pulled the gun down, barrel pointed at the ground.
“Let’s see how you got on.” Si’ir Monnen Dak told his AI to send an instruction, and the targets moved towards them. He pulled them off one at a time as they arrived and looked closely at them. “You’re spot on Sah Lee, but I said to fire six shots at each of them.”
“I did,” she replied, “six shots at each target in the center.”
“In that case you hit each target once and missed with your other five shots.” He showed her the targets. Each had a single hole dead in the center.
“No Si’ir Monn, I shot each target six times, as close to the center as possible, just like you told me.”
“Sah Lee, you might have thought you hit the targets with all of your shots, but look, there’s only one hole in each of them.”
“Of course, they all hit the target in the same place.”
Si’ir Monnen Dak smirked. “Yes, of course
they did. We’ll try something different this time.” He paused for a moment, then said “These targets will be slightly different. They each have six dots around the center of the target. Get as close as you can to each of the dots. So, same as before, six shots at each of the first six targets, starting with the closest and working your way back. Take your time, there’s no hurry.”
Sah Lee pulled the weapon into the position he had shown her and took her shots. Si’ir Monnen Dak couldn’t hear or see the weapon firing. After a few moments she dropped the weapon down. Si’ir Monnen Dak looked disappointed.
“Don’t worry Sah Lee. It takes some time to get used to a weapon when you’ve never used one before. Relax for a moment and see if you can fire all the shots when you are ready.”
“I’ve taken all the shots. Six at each of the first six targets.”
“You fired thirty-six shots so quickly? OK, we’ll have a look and see if you hit any of the targets.” The targets moved swiftly towards them and he plucked them off as they arrived. He looked carefully at the targets and then at Sah Lee. He shook his head and looked at the targets again.
“How the fuck did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Hit all the dots!”
“That’s what you told me to do. Have I done something wrong?”
Without answering her, he said: “OK, I’ll get you a lightweight KE assault rifle.”
He returned a few minutes later, took the pulse rifle from her and handed her a slightly bigger and heavier weapon. “This one is different. You control the firing by pressing this lever here.” He showed her the trigger. “The metal cover over it is to stop it catching on something and going off accidentally. There are two other safety features which stop it from firing accidentally. There is a safety catch here,” he showed her, “and your AI can stop it from firing if it thinks it could be dangerous.”
Hunter, Warrior, Commander Page 17
