Carthage Prime

by Toby Neighbors

  He dropped into his chair. His mouth was dry, and his hands felt shaky. He wanted a drink—perhaps needed a drink—but he couldn’t take the chance. Alcohol in company headquarters was forbidden. It was his rule, and he was in charge of enforcing the rules. If he broke one and Zan Fordham found out, he would be finished. Instead of a drink, he picked up a stress ball, squeezed it tight in his fist, and did his best to ignore the pain in his side.

  “Give me a status update for the Republic,” Loman ordered his computer.

  A chime sounded and the robotic voice replied, “the CDF carrier Republic is in transit to leave the Helena system.”

  “What’s their travel time to Carthage system?”

  “Eight days and seventeen hours into the system. They are following the free trade route but will not need to stop in transit.”

  A week, Loman thought. Just enough time for the struggle with Faulk and her minion Zan Fordham to really get underway.

  “Is Echo Company on board?”

  “That is correct. Echo Company is the junior squad and will be assigned reserve duties.”

  Reserves—Alex Evans won’t be too happy about that, Loman thought. But it was probably all for the best. There was a chance that the prospectors on Carthage Prime wouldn’t come under attack. He could always hope for that, but the odds weren’t in Loman’s favor. If there was fighting, no one wanted to be in the reserves, forced to watch others face the dangers head-on.

  “Keep up with their progress,” Loman ordered the AI. “I want to know if they encounter anything that might keep them from reaching the system.”

  The computer replied with a single chime. Loman wished all his employees could be so agreeable. Lately it seemed like they all were all trying to kill him.

  Chapter 7

  Dinner on the Republic was a strange culinary experience. The food was issued from automated dispensers. They had a choice of three options: goulash, Salisbury steak, and vegetarian enchiladas. Alex chose steak and was given a tray with a protein patty, runny instant potatoes, a vegetable medley, and a stale dinner roll. The protein and potatoes were covered with a spicy, dark gravy.

  “This is disgusting,” Newt said as he flicked at his food with a fork.

  “The goulash isn’t bad,” Sly said.

  “The enchiladas don’t have much taste to them,” Ash said. “It’s just sort of warm and pasty.”

  “Fuel for the body,” Alex said.

  He didn’t enjoy the taste of his food. It was nothing like the fresh meals they were served on Helena Prime, but he was accustomed to bad food, air that would kill you, and little to no sunlight.

  “Easy for you to say,” Sly said. “I can’t eat this.”

  “You get hungry enough, you’ll eat anything,” Alex said

  “You know, when it’s just us around, you don’t have to defend the CDF at every turn,” Sly said. “You can admit the food is bad.”

  “I never said it tasted good,” Alex said, swallowing down the chunk of protein he had been chewing. It was mushy and more like paste than meat. The gravy had spices that were almost shocking to the taste buds. “I just said you should eat it.”

  “At least you don’t have to worry about getting fat,” Ash said.

  “Funny, real funny,” Sly said. “I’m beginning to think this was an epic mistake. I could have gone to university on the Oxford station. I hear the food there is incredible.”

  “And I’m guessing no one would ever shoot at you, either,” Ash said. “You did make a mistake.”

  “Come on, this is a tiny inconvenience,” Alex said. “So the food’s bad. Big deal. You get to fly a Titan, man. What else in the universe compares with that?”

  “He’s right. Eyes on the prize, Sly,” Newt added.

  “Fine, whatever,” Sly grumbled. “I just have standards, you know? I’m putting my neck on the line, and the least the CDF can do is give us a decent meal.”

  They didn’t waste time eating. As soon as his hunger was sated, Alex tossed the remainder of the highly processed meal into the garbage bin.

  “What do you bet they’re recycling the food we don’t eat?” Sly said. “That Salisbury steak tasted like it was made up of other stuff.”

  “Then you should eat it all,” Ash said. “That way, you’re not contributing to the poor food quality.”

  “You didn’t eat all of yours,” he argued.

  “A lady always leaves some food on her plate,” Ashton said. “That’s what my mother always said.”

  “Did they say that ladies drive like maniacs with their hair on fire?” Newt asked.

  “Very funny, but you all wish you had my skills,” Ash replied.

  “Speaking of,” Alex said as he looked at his Flex PIL, “have you guys seen the schedule Master Sergeant Gellar posted?”

  “No, and I don’t like the way you’re talking about it,” Sly said.

  They all looked at their Personal Information Links. The schedule was the first thing that popped up when they powered their devices on.

  “Physical training at 0600?” Sly said. “That’s insane.”

  “Simulators from 0830 until lunch,” Ash said.

  “What’s Strategy and Tactics?” Newt asked.

  “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow,” Alex said.

  “Hand-to-hand combat sounds fun,” Ash said. “So does zero-gravity training.”

  “What do we need that for?” Newt wondered.

  “In case the ship comes under fire, you dolt,” Sly said. “One hit and we could lose artificial gravity. You have to be able to make your way to an escape pod in zero-G.”

  “Wow, Master Sergeant Gellar wasn’t kidding,” Alex said. “Three sim exercises a day?”

  “I guess we’ll learn how to use the weapons systems,” Ash said. “Can’t wait.”

  After dinner they headed to their quarters. The four Titan operators sat in Alex’s room, talking and joking, but knowing they had an early start in the morning, they decided to call it a day after about an hour.

  Alex lay on his bed, staring up at the low ceiling and wondering why it seemed like he was consistently receiving special treatment. It wasn’t that he was ungrateful, and he understood that he had saved the head of the entire CDF division of a mega-company from being murdered, but it still seemed odd to him. Nothing in his life had prepared him for the good fortune he had enjoyed since the attack on NP8261. The entire course of his life and the lives of his family had been altered when Alex had climbed into that MP Defender battle suit.

  At some point he drifted off to sleep, but his Flex PIL, which was wrapped around his forearm like a long cuff, woke him at a quarter till six. After a quick trip to the bathroom, he was standing at attention beside his friends when Master Sergeant Gellar stepped from her private quarters.

  “You’re all up,” she said. “Wonders will never cease. I hope you all slept well because you’re in for a treat. A battle suit is only as good as the operator inside. As long as we’re on this ship, we will strive to reach and maintain optimal physical fitness. Follow me.”

  The hallway outside their berth was quiet and empty. The recreation room was also empty. It felt like Echo Company were the only people on the ship. Master Sergeant Gellar led the squad of thirteen operators across the grappling mats to the exercise equipment. There were enough stations for each person, including Gellar. She used a master control panel to lock in the routine.

  “This is the circuit training center,” she announced. “Once we begin, each of your machines will lead you through a series of exercises. You will work the machine for forty-five seconds, followed by a thirty-second rest period. Today, you’ll do two sets of all ten exercises. A set is considered at least eight repetitions of each exercise. If you don’t complete a set in the forty-five second time limit, that exercise will start over. Any questions?”

  Alex had questions, but he remained silent. No one wanted to appear weak.

  “All right, everyone at their stations,” Master Se
rgeant Gellar shouted. “Begin!”

  The first few exercises Alex completed without problems. They weren’t easy. The machine began with low resistance that increased until it sensed that the user was struggling, at which point it began to decrease the difficulty. After ten minutes, Alex was sweating and his muscles were trembling.

  “This is killing me,” Newt said.

  “Just wait until tomorrow,” Ash said. “We’re going to be so sore we won’t be able to move.”

  On his fifth exercise, Alex failed to get all eight repetitions in the time allotted. The machine beeped at him, and he saw that it was resetting. After that, he went all out, and managed to finish with only one other failure. The total workout lasted only half an hour, but when it ended Alex could barely stand.

  “What kind of cruel punishment is this?” Newt said when he saw that Alex was finished. “Are you done?”

  “Yeah,” Alex said, bending over and propping himself on his knees.

  Sly walked by, looking like the circuit workout was a breeze.

  “You guys aren’t done yet?” Sly asked.

  “Shut him up,” Ash said, just as her machine chimed to indicate she had finished the workout.

  “I’m hitting the showers,” Sly said.

  “Go ahead, I’ll wait on Newt,” Alex said, trying to cover up the fact that he could barely stand.

  “Didn’t you guys play ball in high school?” Sly asked. “We worked out harder than this every day.”

  “That’s what’s wrong with you,” Ash said. “You’re a jock.”

  “Hey, I was a good student, too,” Sly said.

  “We’ll meet you in the chow hall,” Alex said.

  Ash and Sly headed out. Alex gave Newt some encouragement, and he soon finished. When they left, there were only a few members of the squad still working on the machines. They looked miserable. Master Sergeant Gellar was still working, too. She was pushing and pulling as if the resistance was of no concern. Alex could see a look of total concentration on her face, and he made up his mind to give the physical training more effort the next day.

  Showered, changed, and ravenous, they made their way to the chow hall. Breakfast was a pile of scrambled eggs reconstituted from powder, sausage links made of protein powder, dehydrated fruit, and juice from a mix. They all ate without complaining and actually went back for second helpings. Once they were refueled, they headed for the simulator bay. Master Sergeant Gellar wasn’t there, but another master sergeant assigned them to simulators in the FA Titan section. Most of their squad mates were getting settled into the other sim stations. There were plenty of other operators running the machines, but no one else was in the Titan section.

  “Looks like it’s just us,” Ash said.

  “Maybe the others have a different training schedule,” Alex said.

  The four Echo Company fliers climbed into the machines and let their INC sync with the system. The low hum of the unit’s electromagnetic waves was like music in Alex’s mind as his INC chip connected to the simulator’s computer. The device closed up around him.

  Morning, Alex.

  “Hey Nyx, good morning. Are you on board the Republic?”

  I am. We’re being kept on a short leash, though. No fraternizing with operators.

  “Yeah, we’re confined to a small area too. Any idea what’s going on?”

  Just the general call to action. Running security on a new planet.

  “Well, if you hear anything different, let me know. Master Sergeant Gellar has us on a busy schedule. We’ve got no downtime.”

  Sounds brutal.

  “So far it has been, but at least we’re being deployed. That’s good news, right? Maybe after we get adjusted to life on the ship, they’ll let us mingle with the rest of the crew.”

  I hope so. You ready to fly?

  “Always. What are we doing today?”

  Looks like a weapons sim. I’ll run the systems and navigate. You keep us in the air and shoot the bad guys.

  “Sounds like fun. Let’s do it.”

  Chapter 8

  The FA Titan was a heavily armed, multi-environment, mechanized battle suit. It had quickly become the workhorse of the CDF’s combat operations. There were four classes of MBS’s: military & police, all-terrain, asset recovery, and fast-attack. The Minotaur was a fast-moving, ground-based battle suit. The Titan was for airborne attacks and was armed appropriately with shortwave laser cannons, air-to-air missiles, air-to-ground missiles, defensive measures, and a multi-purpose projectile repeater that could fire a wide range of bullets from dart-shaped flechettes to armor-piercing, depleted uranium rounds.

  The Titan was terrifying because of its speed and maneuverability. Ground units had trouble targeting the Titan, which could fly in atmosphere, hard vacuum, and even underwater. Alex had not been trained on the latter, but he knew the suits were capable. Only the most talented operators were allowed to fly the FA Titan, and Alex took pride in that fact. But the Titan also required nearly twice as much training. While every other member of Echo Company had several blocks of free time in their schedule, Alex and his team of Titan operators had no time off. Their days were packed from the time they woke up at 0600 ship time until they dropped into bed, exhausted, exactly sixteen hours later. Other than mealtimes, they were in a constant state of activity, including two sessions of simulator training that lasted four hours each.

  It was grueling, and by the fifth day Alex was feeling the strain. His mind was filled with information, and while the simulators gave him some degree of experience with the ideas and theories he was presented each day, especially in the Strategy and Tactics class they were assigned to take, it wasn’t the same as actually flying a battle suit in a combat situation. The computer’s unyielding adherence to its preprogrammed parameters didn’t allow for improvisation on the operator’s part. The simulation had one right response to every obstacle presented. In that way, it felt more like memorizing answers to a test rather than learning the information that Alex was being tested on.

  The morning PT sessions were getting harder, too. Master Sergeant Gellar had increased the sets for each exercise. It was now taking the operators forty-five to sixty minutes each morning to complete their sessions, and rumors had begun to circulate that Gellar planned on adding time on the cardio machines, as well.

  Alex didn’t mind the PT or the classes or even having no time off, but he was beginning to wonder how much he could take. In comparison, his basic training and operator training on Helena Prime seemed like breeze. He felt as though Master Sergeant Gellar and Chief Landry were trying to squeeze in weeks worth of training in only a few days.

  “I checked,” Ash said. “Every chance I get between other training sessions I go into the simulator bay. There’s never anyone else on the Titans.”

  “So we’re the only ones?” Newt asked.

  “The only ones so far,” Alex said. “And who knows, there could be a dozen veteran companies on a different part of the ship.”

  “Yeah, but it’s kind of cool,” Sly said. They were eating dinner, and no one was complaining about the food anymore. It was just as tasteless as their first meal on the ship, but their rigorous schedule made them appreciate the downtime, and their need for calories was way up.

  “We’re the elite, you know,” Sly went on. “The best of the best.”

  “Yeah, but if they don’t let up soon, we’ll all be too exhausted to fight,” Ash said.

  “We haven’t even reached the Carthage system,” Alex pointed out. “I don’t see them giving us a break until we do.”

  “Nothing lasts forever,” Newt said. “My mother always said a person can endure anything if they know it will end at some point.”

  “What did you mother do?” Sly asked.

  “She was a clerical worker,” Newt said, “but that’s beside the point.”

  “At least we’re too busy to worry about Oggy,” Alex said as his nemesis entered the chow hall.

  “You think we’l
l be doing squad exercises or simulations soon?” Ash asked. “I talked to Lav, and they’re segregated, too. Everyone’s working in groups depending on their MBS.”

  “That would be my guess, but who can say for sure?” Alex said. “It just seems like they’re expecting real trouble.”

  “New planet,” Sly said. “It must have something they want pretty bad. Five squads are a lot of firepower.”

  “Or maybe it’s all part of the training,” Alex said. “A staged combat op just to see how the new operators respond sounds like something they would do.”

  “Maybe,” Ash said. “But it seems a little extreme for a training exercise.”

  “It’s not like we can treat it differently,” Newt said. “We have to assume it’s real, no matter what we believe.”

  After dinner they returned to the simulation bay for the second training exercise of the day. Alex dropped into his simulator and powered it on. The machine closed in around him like a snug cocoon. He was beginning to enjoy the feeling of being enclosed. In many ways, it was the only privacy he had during his waking hours. Even the showers were communal. There were separate facilities for men and women, but no privacy.

  Welcome back, Alex. How are you feeling?

  “Tired,” he replied truthfully. “You?”

  Would you be upset to know I sneak in a nap in the afternoons?

  “Jealous, maybe, but not upset,” Alex said.

  Our training is different. I’ve been working as a controller for almost a year already. And most of that was spent on board a training ship. We have a little more freedom than the rest of you.

  “Is it always that way for operators?”

  Negative. Veterans have freedom to access all the enlisted spaces on the ship. The officers have their own spaces, but for the most part it’s like being in a small, self-contained community. There are a couple of enlisted bars on the ship with a two-drink limit, a holo-film theater, and even a library.