by Korza, Jay
With that, Daria began to spin the staff in a smooth motion that carried it around her back and behind her arms and even through her legs and out in front of her again. She continued to dazzle Emily with spins and arcing slashes of the staff in the air and pretend strikes towards her opponent, which unsettled Emily because it was her.
Finally, after an extremely impressive display of movement, Daria stopped the weapon and held it horizontally at waist level and stood staring at Emily. She had used the display to close the distance between her and her opponent and was now a mere two meters away. Just out of striking distance of the weapon.
“Now what you want to do is…” Daria started, and with that, she tossed the weapon at Emily. Emily started to flinch but realized that the weapon was coming at her in a soft arc. It hadn’t been thrown; it hadn’t been meant to strike. It was as though Daria was tossing her a ball in a game of catch. As the weapon closed to within grabbing distance, Emily’s reflexes took over and she dropped her staff and reached for the one presently being offered to her through the air. As it touched down in her hands, she felt a padded fist sink deep into her forehead and was all of a sudden flat on her back against the soft mat.
Her scientific mind quickly kicked in and analyzed the attack. While her attention was focused on the approaching weapon, Daria had closed the two meters between them and attacked while Emily’s reflexes were busy trying to stop the incoming object. Very smart, she thought; also very painful.
“Now, you can do that little trick with an empty pistol, a knife, or your tank keys. Just about anything will work.” She helped Emily back on her feet. “Almost every species we know of has an instinctive defensive reflex to grab anything that comes at them. Even if you threw something as harmless as a pillow, their reflexes usually take over. Don’t try it on the Shirkas, though; they’ll just ignore it and then rip you to shreds.” And then as an afterthought, she added, “I won’t fall for it, either.”
For the next two hours, the two soldiers trained and Daria showed Emily fighting stances and moves with the staff that appeared impressive. Emily would be beat to a pulp in a fight if she tried to use the staff, but it didn’t look that way to anyone passing by. Yes, Daria thought, she is a very quick study. Happy with the day’s results, Daria ended the session and the two women headed for the showers and then off to dinner where Davies was waiting for them.
“Good evening, ladies. Nice bruise, Lieutenant.” Davies was the only one allowed to call Emily by her rank. At one point before joining the Corps, Davies had been engaged to a woman named Emily who had run off with his best friend the day of the wedding. Consequently, he refused to call her by that name.
Emily agreed to Davies calling her el-tee. She, too, was in love with someone who abruptly left without a trace and so she understood his feelings. She still couldn’t find out where that young lieutenant had gotten himself shipped off to after that night at graduation.
“Tomorrow you need to come and train with us”, Emily began. “Daria’s been teaching me how to use a staff.”
“Oh no, you don’t! I’ve had my share of forehead bruises, too. You’re not going to get me with that ‘toss your weapon’ trick.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Daria chimed in. “He still falls for it once in a while.”
Blushing, Davies changed the subject. “I haven’t been out to the site in a few days. Anything new out there?”
“Well, we’ve found some new and interesting artifacts. But now I’ve got more questions to answer. Speaking of which, Daria, you still owe me an answer to my question. And I think I deserve it after that forehead thing today.” She rolled her eyes up, pointing to the bruise.
“I’ve been thinking about that and I have another possibility in mind. Humans have always basically been in charge of the Coalition and we’re so self-centered, so this thought hadn’t come to me immediately. I mean, when we bring new species into the Coalition, we make them adapt to our ways. Oh sure, we may take and use their technology but we configure it to our specifications, our hand sizes, our heights, our display configurations and then expect all of the other species to use it as is. What if a similar Coalition existed but instead of converting technology into their specifications, they manufactured alien technology but kept it in its original configuration? This would allow the original species to be integrated with the Coalition but not have to adapt too much and make them more productive members of the society.”
Emily just stared at Daria for a moment. That was not even close to what she was trying to lead Daria towards, but it was a good theory regardless. “But why would they want to go through all that trouble? They would have so many different configurations in their systems that it would almost be impossible to be productive as a whole. I mean, say a datapad was configured for a species that had four fingers on each of his three hands. Then you have another species with two fingers on two hands. How could the second guy use the datapad from the first guy?”
“What if not everyone used the same stuff? What if one species was good at engineering so that’s all they did and so no one else had to know how to use that equipment?” This was from Davies.
“You may not be quick on your feet but you’re sure not slow where it counts.” Emily continued, “So each time they brought a new species into their Coalition, they assigned it a task and that’s all they did. And the artifacts were made by one species who’s good with manufacturing and that’s why they all share the same elements and processing features.”
“It sounds good, but now there’s more questions.” Daria took her turn in the round. “Not all species can live in the same atmosphere. What happens when you’re on a planet that doesn’t support your engineers? Or what if you find a species that is also good at engineering? That position is already filled, so what happens to them? And lastly, isn’t that bad management to have such specialized departments? I mean, I know how to operate a tank, communications tower, plus a lot of other things in addition to my specialty as a corpsman. If I didn’t, there’d be many times that I’d have been dead because that particular operator got put out of commission and I had to take over.”
“Every good answer leads to more questions in this field.” Emily knew that Daria was being nice by saying “out of commission” rather than killed in light of her brother’s death. “But I think that we have something here. Davies, I’m putting you on rotation at the site instead of compound duty. It’s good to have non-scientific thinkers out there. Wildly different perspectives often lend themselves to the making of a good brainstorming pool.”
The conversation slipped into lighter subject matter but each of them was still thinking about the previous conversation and trying to draw conclusions. Emily was excited about the possibility that their theory was correct. If so, that meant that there were possibly dozens of species for her to catalog at one site alone! That presented problems in and of itself by trying to determine what artifact belonged to whom and so forth, but it sure would be fun.
And above all, she had two new friends who had already become dear to her. It was a nice departure from the other lab geeks she worked with. No social abilities and always just interested in work and more work. Although her peers looked at these two marines as grunts and mindless soldiers, Emily knew better. They both had a vast amount of intelligence but enjoyed getting down in the trenches and getting dirty.
They also craved excitement and adventure, and contrary to who Emily thought she was, she was also getting the itch for some action. Just let one of those bugs try to sneak up on me again, she thought wistfully.
Chapter 6
Onboard the Vanguard – Training Day
Heavy gravity planets were generally a pain in the ass to perform operations on and training for those operations was usually an even greater pain.
Seth’s legs felt like lead weights in the 1.5G training room. He had been running for almost an hour now and his lungs burned with every breath and his heart seemed to cry out to him for mercy
with every beat. He was heading up a hill when a target appeared to his right; diving behind a tree, he drew his weapon.
The experimental handgun was designed to fire a pulse wave of compressed sound that could disrupt almost any molecular structure. He checked its charge and peered around the tree. His would-be assailant was nowhere to be seen.
And then from beneath his feet, the ground moved and two arms came out from the soil to reach up and grab Seth by the ankles. Using a twisting motion, he freed one foot and fired at the now empty hand. The hand disintegrated, and with a scream of pain the creature pulled himself the rest of the way out of the ground. Still holding Seth’s left ankle, the three-meter tall beast pulled Seth off the ground, leaving him in the air suspended by one leg.
Seth saw that the creature had four arms, two powerful upper ones and two that were sort of in the middle of his torso. It also had some sort of natural body armor that was scattered around his body in no discernible pattern. The creature was huge, strong, and determined.
He tried to maneuver his body around to get a clear shot at the creature but couldn’t. He began receiving blows to his back as the beast pummeled him. In this gravity and after almost an hour of constant strain, Seth’s abdominal muscles just wouldn’t obey his brain’s commands to contract and allow him to face his attacker. He decided that if he twisted around fast enough, his ankle would break but his body would continue rotating so he could face the beast and fire his weapon.
He began to torque his body when Surgeon hit a button on his console in the control room, which ended the scenario. Seth’s body dropped when the hologram figure disappeared, releasing his hold on the ankle. With a thud, Seth landed on the deck of the room. Luckily the artificial gravity had been reduced to normal and he didn’t hit as hard as he had expected to.
“Good thought”, Surgeon said as he came down from the booth. “But that action would have left you with a broken ankle and no ability to continue the mission. Why didn’t you seek out other options before going to such extremes?”
“As far as I could tell, I was out of options. I couldn’t get a bead on whatever that was, and his arms were too long, so I couldn’t even hit him from where I was.” He paused for a long drink of water. “Besides, what creature could burrow through the dense soil of a 1.5G planet? That was a little unrealistic, don’t you think?”
“What creature does burrow through ground on a heavy planet? That’s a good question and one we can’t answer. We don’t know if these adversaries are six centimeters high but with incredibly awesome intellect that allowed them to be so formidable. Or possibly, they’re stupid grunts who stole technology from other races but know how to fight.
“And as far as this guy goes, you can thank Shar'tuk for that one. He has come up with some of the nastiest constructs I've seen so far. He must not sleep well at night.”
Surgeon paused, and then without warning reached out to Seth’s neck for a chokehold. Seth blocked and countered, bringing Surgeon’s arm back behind his own head and placing his elbow and shoulder into a joint lock.
“I’m getting real tired of that”, Seth said through clenched teeth.
“The point is,” Surgeon continued, with his arm still locked behind his head, “we have to be ready for anything. Not just what we know exists but anything else that we can think of, no matter how unbelievable it might be.”
His eyes pointed towards Seth’s neck and for the first time Seth noticed that Surgeon’s left hand was holding a dagger just next to his jugular vein.
For the past two months, Seth had been training relentlessly, as had the rest of the crew. The instructors were obliged to attack anyone at any time just to check their preparedness at the unexpected. You learned quickly that if you tried to prepare yourself for an attack every time an instructor walked by you, he would call another instructor on a secure frequency to ambush you further along on your journey. They wanted everyone to be alert but relaxed at the same time. If you kept yourself constantly on the lookout, the stress would kill you. You had to become used to being aware but not conscious of it. When the moment arrived, your unconscious mind took over and saved your butt, at least in theory.
Seth let go of his instructor’s arm and lay on his back. “What could I have done, oh masterful one?” Sarcasm filled his tone.
“I didn’t say you were wrong; I just wanted your reasons for what you did. If you can justify your actions, then you probably weren’t wrong. Just because you don’t win doesn’t mean that you were wrong. You can do absolutely everything right in a fight, or even life for that matter, and just not win. Remember that. The point is, always evaluate your actions and think about what else could’ve been done. And if you’re alive to evaluate your actions, you couldn’t have done that much wrong.”
“How come everything is always ‘the point’ and almost all of the points are ‘the most important thing to remember’?” Seth queried.
“Because, everything I say is golden and it’s all the most important thing to remember”, Surgeon said smugly but with an honest trace of humbleness in his voice.
“Now don’t go saying that ‘Back when I was your age’ crap, all right, old-timer!” Seth challenged.
“How about a little live one-on-one action? I’ll skin your hide. Back when I was your age, the corps taught us soldiers how to fight!” Surgeon said, accepting the challenge.
Seth didn’t mind being called Cadet by Surgeon because he really was compared to this master. It also didn’t bother him that Surgeon was an enlisted man and was giving him orders. He clearly knew what he was doing and had more up top than most officers Seth knew. That’s how he was positive that this guy had been enlisted before this operation took place; he was just more down to earth than most officers. In fact, Seth guessed that most of the soldiers on this mission were enlisted men.
“Why was I chosen?” Seth had wondered about this from day one. “I am about the only officer in the group, aren’t I?”
“There are a couple of you ‘high and mighties’ in the group but not many.” Surgeon’s eyes twinkled a little. “It’s not that we excluded officers purposely; it’s just that most of the field operators are enlisted. Good instinct, though.” This statement showed some admiration. “I reviewed the recordings from your final training mission. Very impressive. We need people who can think on their feet and defeat the overwhelming odds. Don’t let it go to your head, though. Speaking of which, it’s about time I knocked that melon of yours around a little, let some of that ego out!”
Surgeon pulled up a training scenario that brought the holo-emitters on line and created a tropical setting that was thankfully on a 1G world. Seth knew that he was a better hand-to-hand fighter than Surgeon but the fifteen plus years that the veteran had on him made all the difference in the world. Where some speed and agility had diminished, knowledge and cunning took over to make Surgeon a better all-around fighter. Seth respected that greatly and also admired how the man could shoot any weapon and always have an almost perfect score. He was amazing at his job.
And now this guy was stalking him. At home in any setting, both hunters tried to get the advantage on their prospective prey before making a strike. The two had found out early on that they thought very much alike. Both being unconventional tacticians, they had several times ended up almost face to face when unknowingly trying to reach the same vantage point. Seth decided the best way to avoid this was to think in terms of hunting himself and then trying to get the upper hand. It didn’t work too often. Surgeon was always one step ahead.
After a brutal hour and a half had elapsed, Seth emerged from the training room with two out of five victories. Not bad considering his opponent, and he was getting a lot better. Not wanting to miss chow, they forwent the showers and headed directly to the mess hall.
The spread of food was always impressive and that unsettled Seth a little. He felt it was sort of a “last meal” type of thing. Those in command figured that these soldiers weren’t going to make it
so they deserve proper meals before the end.
Surgeon told him not to worry and assured him that it was because there was a high-ranking flag officer aboard who brought his personal chef along. This officer had not shown his face to anyone yet and even Surgeon didn’t know who he was, though he had a pretty good idea. It was all very unsettling in the end.
“I still don’t understand why we don’t know more about our enemy. We do have corpses, right? Why can’t we get any information from those?” Seth asked between bites.
“We don’t think that the bodies we found are the enemy. They might have worked for them or been slaves, but not them. The weapons they had were oversized for their bodies and the firing mechanism was much too large for their hands. They would’ve made terrible combatants with those weapons.” With a smile he added, “Of course, they could probably still be able to take you out.”
“Hey, they’re letting me use a knife and fork now—you better watch it.” More seriously he added, “I wonder where all the bodies from the battle went. I guess the attackers could’ve taken them for trophies or something.”
“We’re still hoping that they were “‘defenders”’ and not attackers. That would increase our chances of having an ally if we find them. Which better be soon. We’re not sure why the mystery force hasn’t continued their invasion but I’m sure that they won’t hold off too much longer.” Surgeon let that one hang for a moment. “We think that they’re studying our people. We sent out a Force Recon team on a scouting mission to our destroyed outposts. They couldn’t find hardly any bodies. We don’t know if the colonists were killed or taken alive.”
If they were still alive, neither man wanted to think about that possibility. It was better to be dead than studied by someone who wanted to find out the best way to kill you. That could mean hours, days, even weeks of torture or experimentation. All the better reason to get on with their mission.
