Battle On The Marathon

by John Thornton

  Mister Fisher’s voice replied, “How do you know there are no enemies lurking in the dark recesses of this chamber? Have any of you been here before?”

  There were a few chuckles in the group, but I recognized that Mister Fisher was not making one of his rare jests. I asked, “Do we have permission to shoot the enemy if we see one?”

  “An excellent question, Kalju. Yes, if you identify an enemy, you may engage that enemy with your training handgun. However, be aware that in these exercises, the enemy will have the ability to inflict pain upon you. Additionally, should you fire and hit one of your fellow seniors, that person will experience pain.”

  I looked over to Radha and wondered how she was feeling about this whole exercise. She had just returned from her convalesce after being shot by Everett and here we were in some kind of situation where someone might get shot.

  She met my look, and then stepped over and picked up a red handgun and six bullets. She had it loaded and pointed at the ceiling before any of the rest of us had acted.

  “How can a low intensity laser hurt someone?” Jane asked.

  “I can think of about a dozen different ways. The easiest would be to have it activate something in our suits. Sort-of an on-off switch. I think there must be sensors in our suits,” Kulm said. “Strike the suit with a laser, and the suit could inflict pain, if there are sensors and stimulators in the suit.”

  “There are,” Radha said without further explanation.

  Somehow, I knew she was right, and that she was speaking from experience. I wondered again what all she had gone through before returning to us. The time she had been gone was far longer than what had been needed for mere physical healing. I reached out and picked up a red colored training handgun. It was nearly exactly like my gimp, but lacked the customized grip. I tabbed the release, folding the barrel and cylinder down and open. I inserted the six training bullets. They too were red colored. As I closed the cylinder on my training handgun, the others were arming themselves.

  As the last cylinder was snapped into place, Mister Fisher voice came again from the wristwatches. “Your mission is to walk to the other side of the chamber.”

  The lighting decreased. A gloom settled over the entire area. It was not as dark as night, being a bit brighter than on those nights when the sky tube was in full-moon mode. However, it was dim enough to make the place spooky and filled with shadows.

  I could just make out the side walls, as the blue lit hand-shaped symbol by the elevator still glowed. So, I stepped forward, the newly acquired training handgun held up.

  “What did he mean by enemies?” Jane asked. “Criminals?”

  “We did read a lot about pirates and kidnappers,” Brett added. “But I thought the militia was not military.”

  “Militia can serve as military,” Matkaja stepped next to me. “If there is some tyrant who took over a habitat, would she or he have thugs as bodyguards?”

  Kulm just huffed and marched forward. As he did, something swung down from the ceiling. It was a long, ropelike thing, and as it neared him, I saw it sparking with blue shimmers.

  “Duck!” I yelled, but it was too late.

  Kulm screamed out and fell down to the deck. I rushed over to him, but several more of the dangling things dropped. They were sparking and dancing about, so I dove underneath them. As I scrambled over, I saw that Kulm was rubbing his shoulder as he crawled away.

  “It is not a real injury,” Mister Fisher’s voice stated from all of our wristwatches.

  “It feels real enough!” Kulm yelled out.

  “Certainly, it does. But it is just a shock from your suit. No permanent damage is done, unless you fall and break something,” Mister Fisher stated. “I advise you to be especially careful about faulty equipment, or damaged machinery. Broken technology can be your enemy as well.”

  “But why hurt us?” Bartlet asked. “That seems cruel.”

  “Kulm will not forget what a live energy conduit can do,” Mister Fisher answered. “Pain is not always a negative. Pain can be a very effective teacher, and I remind you, the choices in here are yours to make.”

  “Realistic simulations,” Carol said. “We all learned about avoiding those dangling wires. I am not surprised. Simulation training is a technique for practice and learning that has been employed since back after the Great Event, maybe even before. It was in our readings of applied educational techniques. It amplifies our real experiences with immersive and guided ones.”

  “I remember that,” Pilliroog said. Then he recited something from memory, “Realistic immersive simulations evoke faster and better learning in various areas. Using substantial aspects of the real world in a fully interactive fashion, enhances student responses. These training techniques, tools, and strategies are targeted to enhance teamwork, competencies, and learning objectives. It is conducted in some simulated environment as an additive to the traditional didactic instruction, enhancing performance, and possibly also helping to reduce errors.”

  “It is painful and is barbaric!” Kulm cried out. He was still rubbing his shoulder.

  “It works,” Radha stated coldly. She walked carefully around where the dangling wires were sparking and jumping about.

  “So, watch out for more wires!” Bartlet added.

  I helped Kulm get to his feet. His eyes were angry, and his lips drawn into a tight line. He spat out the words, “Well, we know this is about engineering failures and mechanical malfunctions.”

  As I looked ahead, I said, “Handguns would not defeat electrical problems. There must be other things in here as well.”

  Timofei was standing near the wall, and he called over, “I found a diversion power switch next to an Emergency Storage Rescue Cabinet. I have shut down the fake damaged area here. It is an interesting way around the problem. I just shut it down.”

  “ESRCs often have energy controls, or instruments behind them,” Bartlet commended. Good thinking! Everyone, remember to think about common everyday items as part of our inventory. ESRCs might be key someday.”

  I had learned about ESRC, and heard those initials defined in various ways. One of the jokes was that they were the reason for the militia, as we had to fight the Extra Stupid Ridiculous Criminals. I smiled remembering that joke.

  Then something else happened. On the wall near Timofei a door opened and a man rushed out. He was wearing camouflaged fatigues. “You cannot proceed!” The man said and raised a weapon.

  Radha dropped to her knee, fired her training handgun, and the camouflaged man was struck. As he fell to the floor, his body fuzzed and sparkled. Then it, and the door which he had use, disappeared.

  Timofei was still trying to aim his own training handgun.

  “A projected simulation,” Bartlet called out.

  “Fully operative simulacrum. A modern version of what used to be called holograms,” Brett added. “Impressive.”

  “He sure looked real to me. I thought I was going to get shot,” Timofei whined a bit. “I mean, this is intense.” His eyes darted around the chamber.

  “If you had been shot, it would hurt like a spear in the leg,” Kulm called out. He was still rubbing his shoulder. He looked at me. “Sorry Kalju, but this really hurts.”

  “No blood, right?” I asked.

  “Nope, but I sure thought I would see burned flesh or some charred skin,” Kulm replied. “Seriously, this hurts!”

  “While we are all babbling here, we are not moving forward,” Bartlet said. “If that gunman had friends, we might have all been shot. I think we better stop talking and start learning. I have a feeling this is just a very low level simulation.”

  “Bartlet is right!” Pilliroog added. “Except for Radha, none of us were ready for this.” He then turned at winked at Bartlet.

  That was when another simulacrum appeared. It looked like it was rising up from a shaft out of the floor. This one was not really a human shape, but more robotic and mechanical looking. Its weapons fired quickly.

  Bang!r />
  Pilliroog cried in anguish as he was hit in the back. His red training handgun flew out of his hands as he crashed down.

  I tried to fire my own trainer, but I guess I missed.

  Bang! The simulacrum robot rotated and fired at someone else.

  Blam! Blam! Radha was prone on the floor firing her own handgun. Her aim was good and two hits registered on the simulacrum robot. Its arm came flying off and before it struck the floor its disappeared by winking out of the projection.

  Bartlet then fired her own trainer and also struck the simulacrum robot. It was not destroyed, but instead looked like it dropped down to the floor. I rushed over there, not knowing for sure what I was going to do. I stood over the permalloy where I expected to see some shaft that the robot had descended. The deck was solid, and I stomped my feet around, trying to find where it had gone. It looked so real.

  “Get everyone moving!” Bartlet called. “Someone pick up Pilliroog with me.” She was trying to lift him, but he was about fifteen kilograms heavier than she. Timofei rushed to aid her.

  “Oh, it hurts so bad!” Pilliroog said.

  Radha nodded at me, and I took up a position on one side of our group, and she picked up Pilliroog’s dropped training handgun. She then stepped to the other side of the group and had both weapons aimed around. Her eyes were intense and alert.

  Kulm was still rubbing his shoulder, but was trying to watch out as well. The others were huddled in the middle as we all moved across the way toward the far side of the chamber. As we got to about half way across, some parts of the floor retracted. They revealed a five-meter-wide trench of water. Light reflected a bit off the water, and shimmered. It looked very realistic.

  “A good illusion, but a simulacrum of a pool should not stop us,” I said. I then boldly stepped out onto the projection of the water.

  Only, it was not a projection.

  I sank down into the water, like a rock. I gasped and water went in my nose, and made me cough, sputter, and spit. I kicked my legs, but the water was deeper than I was tall. It also was not particularly clean. It reminded me of Dale’s stupid lake, as there was a slightly slimy feeling to the water. Snot was running down my face, my eyes were stinging, and I was floundering, even though I had become an expert swimmer due to all the training we had in the river. As I was splashing about, I heard someone above me firing one of their red training handguns.

  Blam!

  “Over there!”

  “More on this side!”

  “I am hit.”

  That last was Kulm, who I actually felt badly for, since he had been struck by the electrical wire trap. I finally got to my senses and stroked over to the far side of the pool. My training handgun was missing, dropped somewhere in that murky pool. I grabbed the side and pulled my head up. I could not see any other enemies, be they broken mechanical devices, simulacrum of humans, robots, or whatnot. Pulling myself out of the water was easy, but I remained prone on the floor.

  “Kalju? What is in the pool?” Bartlet called.

  “Yucky water,” I relied.

  “Nothing else? No snakes, or alligators, or sharks?” Jane asked. “I would expect anything now.”

  “Just water, as far as I could tell.”

  I heard several controlled splashes and soon everyone was lying next to me. We were all wet, cold, and weary. Kulm was moaning in pain, and Pilliroog was muttering about the muscle spasms in his back.

  “The simulation is too real,” Carol said between clenched teeth as she was rubbing her right thigh and wincing with the pain.

  “Just crawl over to the end, there cannot be much more,” Bartlet commanded.

  We all crawled to the edge of the room, where we found a white line illuminated on the floor about a quarter meter away from the wall.

  “A trap or a goal?” Bartlet asked.

  “Either way, we need to know.” I stuck my hand in and touched the wall.

  The lights came up.

  Mister Fisher’s voice came from the wristwatches, “Seniors, you completed your initial training exercise. Had this been an actual encounter in real life, four of you would be dead. Others would be gravely wounded. Additionally, your team lost three of your weapons, and the rest of you are nearly out of ammunition. Your chance of continued survival would be low, were this a real encounter. Consider those facts.”

  “Where would we ever meet some gunman, broken equipment, a hidden moat, a weird robotic guard, and giant spiders with ray guns?” Matkaja asked.

  “I did not see any giant spiders,” I stated and looked around.

  “I think they were supposed to be arachnids from that trooper book,” Timofei stated.

  “I thought they were the Formics, or Martians,” Bartlet said.

  “Me too,” Pilliroog affirmed.

  “Who cares what they were supposed to be? I just asked where we would ever encounter something like this is a real, actual, life situation!” Matkaja slapped the side wall.

  “Where indeed?” Mister Fisher’s voice answered. “Where indeed.”

  That was my first training exercise as a senior. They seemed to get harder from there on. At the time, I agreed with Matkaja, as the scenarios seemed farfetched, invented, and sometimes just downright silly. Nonetheless, I pressed on, as did everyone else.

  The underground levels were all basically just big training grounds. We always wore the special suits, which we dubbed “pain pants” even though they were jumpsuits which covered most of our bodies. The four levels all had some time of water obstacle which was about the only constant. The first level down had the water trench which stretched across the whole width of the chamber. The contents of that trench varied tremendously. The second level down had a raging rapids which cut diagonally across from one corner to another. The rate and flow of that raging rapids varied from scenario to scenario, but it was always there. Sometimes we had to go with the flow, other times up against it. The third level down had a twenty-meter-deep hole in the center. We called it the black hole, even though that water was more of a deep green color. On that level, we learned to do diving with equipment and stayed underwater for some extended periods. The fourth level down, had a moat of water all around the perimeter of the chamber. That water level varied, and we sometimes were in over our heads, and other times we were only in ankle deep. That fourth level was also the hardest as the temperature varied there from well below zero, to scaldingly hot.

  Through it all, we had imitation mechanical breakdowns, simulacrum enemies of countless types, and strange puzzles to work out. Every mission was evaluated when completed, and as the months wore on, our survival rates increased, even as the scenarios got more complex, difficult, and tricky.

  Through them all, water was about the only constant. A huge percentage of the training exercises involved swimming of one type or the other. The consistency of the water varied, everything from crystal clear, to murky and brackish. Yet, water was that one universal in all the training.

  We also had our classroom lectures, and education. Those involved even more reading, discussing, and debating. Mister Fisher also revealed what was at the end of the lodge near the elevator. Built into that section of the building were more simulators. There was a tube transport simulator, a shuttle simulator, a funicular vehicle simulator, and a whole chamber which could depressurize which served as a pretend, but functional airlock. That meant we used spacesuits for those training periods, and except for actually being outside of the Marathon, it sure seemed real. I once asked Mister Fisher in class about the extent of the simulator training.

  “Excuse me, but I have a question before we yet again put on the spacesuits and enter the depressurized chamber.”

  “Yes, Kalju, what is your question,” Mister Fisher replied.

  “With all the automacubes which can easily maneuver to the exterior hulls of the Marathon, and with Machine Maintenance overseeing all the repairs and upkeep out there, well, why do we need to know how to use spacesuits?” He was looking a
t me with his encouraging face, and so I sputtered on. “I know what the answer will probably be. Oh sure, you can tell me it is for us to be prepared for any eventuality, and we are training to be ready to meet whatever needs there are, or might be, or can be imagined. But seriously, we are generations away from reaching the destination planet, and I just do not see what practical purpose there is for training in vacuum. Bulkhead doors, emergency containment curtains, and lockdowns, make significant pressure or atmospheric loss inside the Marathon almost an impossibility. I guess, I do not understand it all.”

  “That was quite a nebulous statement surrounding the seed of a question,” Mister Fisher replied. “Kalju, let me try to slice out the core question you are asking. May I?”

  I nodded, and everyone was intently watching.