Unwilling From Earth

by Andrew Maclure

  “I need tea.” Mark said. “Do you want a drink, Simon?” He asked.

  “Oh, er, yes, thanks.” Simon replied.

  Mark walked over to the synthesiser and collected the drinks. He looked around for somewhere to sit by himself to drink it but his bunk looked like it was too high to climb on to while holding a mug of tea and the table was the only alternative. He took a seat and handed Simon his drink.

  “Cheer up Mark, we’ll be on the ground soon. It gets much more exciting then.” Mike said.

  Mark grunted, and said, “Where’s Ti’rrk?”

  “Back in the comms centre. She wants to see you before we hit the ground.” Orange told him.

  “Just us guys here then.” Mark mumbled, taking a sip from his tea.

  “Just you guys.” Said Mike. “And me.”

  Mark looked up, startled. “Why? What are you?.”

  “I’m just a girly.” Mike replied sarcastically. “When I spent a couple of months on the orbiter around Earth, I noticed that your civilisation is male-dominated and misogynistic. I can tell you that I am more than a match for any ten of your best male soldiers, armed or unarmed. Half the soldiers in this army are females and most of them would take exception if you assumed they were men. And remember, they are trained to kill, with weapons and in close quarters hand to hand so be careful what you say.”

  “Oh god, I’m really sorry.” Mark spluttered. “I didn’t mean to, I mean I didn’t realise, but you’ve got no, you’ve got no - you know, things.”

  “You mean mammary glands?” Mike asked.

  “Yes, that’s it - you’ve got no boobs.”

  “What type of species am I Mark?” Mike asked, dryly.

  “You’re a reptile.” Mark answered.

  “And you’re a mammal. What are the distinguishing features of mammals Mark?”

  “Oh. I see. Mammary glands.”

  “Correct. So it would be a bit surprising if a reptilian female had tits, wouldn’t it?”

  Simon and Orange were trying to stifle their laughter during this exchange, but not very successfully.

  “Talking of tits,” Simon said, “I bet you feel like one now!”

  With that, neither he or Orange could hold their laughter in anymore. Orange leant back in his seat roaring with laughter and pounding the table with his fist. It said a lot about the construction of the table that it didn’t buckle under the assault.

  Mark gulped. “Er, yes. I’m sorry. But - Mike is a man's name. Why have you got a man's name.?”

  “I guess the name your translator gives you for me is a common man's name on Earth?” Mike asked.

  “Fairly common, but what’s that got to do with it.”

  “When Ti’rrk first joined us she assumed that as we are all warriors, we must all be females. When she was told that we weren’t, she assumed that we were all male. As a joke those two idiots,” She gestured towards Orange and Simon “decided to call me by a common man's name, which your translator gives you as Mike.”

  Mike leant back in her chair and made the rapid high pitched metallic sounding chirps that Mark knew was her way of laughing.

  “Don’t worry Mark, I’m not offended, I think it’s quite funny. Anyway, half of the people who have seen you since we’ve been on board Mother think that you are a female.” Mike chirped again.

  “Huh! At least the other half of them realised that I am a man.”

  “No, most of them said they didn’t know what you were.”

  “Fuck this.” Mark thought. “I should have shot myself when I was on the firing range.”

  “Come on, drink your tea. I’ve got to give you an introduction to unarmed combat.”

  “But I’ve just finished weapons training with Simon. I’m completely knackered, I thought we were coming back to sleep!”

  “Yeah, I’m tired too.” Said Simon. “I’m going to bed. Enjoy your training.”

  Mike stood up. “Come on, let's go!”

  Mark stood up wearily and walked slowly to the door.

  “Run!” Shouted Mike. She grabbed his arm and pulled him along with her.

  Mike wasn’t big, slightly shorter than Mark and lightly built but she had a vice-like grip on Mark's arm and he had little choice but to keep up with her. She ran faster than Simon had and by the time they reached the room where the firing range was Mark was out of breath and panting. Mike led the way to a clear area before they got to the firing range. Mark could see several groups practising what looked like unarmed combat.

  “Have you ever done any form of unarmed combat?” Mike asked.

  “No.” Mark gasped, completely out of breath, “I used to fancy learning aikido when I was at school to protect myself from the bullies, but when I found out that they all went to karate lessons I reckoned it was better to concentrate on running.”

  “From what I’ve just seen, you didn’t do very well at that.” Mike wasn’t even breathing heavily.

  Mark noticed the group closest to him, going through movements and stretching. He pointed at them and said “They’re not doing unarmed combat it’s pilates. I saw Sally doing that when she was supposed to be working for me in the document archive at IFG.”

  “I think you’ll find that Sally doesn’t even know what pilates is. They are doing stretching, balance and control exercises for our unarmed combat. You won’t be learning those for a while. We are just going to spend an hour and ten minutes for you to learn the basics of the art.”

  “An hour and ten minutes? That’s an odd amount of time - why not just an hour?”

  “That’s because I measure time differently than you do and your AI has translated my nice round familiar time unit into yours.” Mike replied with a big grin, which Mark thought should look a bit scary as she had a wide mouth with thin bloodless lips and it exposed what looked like far too many sharp pointed teeth, but somehow, it looked warm and friendly.

  “OK, that sounds cool but I am so tired I don’t know how much I’ll remember. What do you call this unarmed combat?”

  “I don’t want to sound like the People, they never give a name to anything, but we don’t have a name for this. It’s just our form of unarmed and close quarters combat. Eventually, you will learn to fight with knives, chains, clubs - anything that comes to hand.”

  “That sounds dangerous.” Mark said.

  “It’s supposed to be. We don’t do this for fun. You’re going to learn this so that when you are in a battle and things get up front and personal with the enemy, you’ll be the one walking away and not the one laying on the ground with your guts spread out around you.”

  Mark could feel the blood draining out of his face. “You make it sound very appealing.” He said weakly

  Mike grinned again, missing the irony. “Yes, OK, it is fun, but that’s not the reason we do it.”

  Mark told his AI to give him a countdown in quarter hour intervals and a final five-minute alarm. This was mostly to try out the timer function but also because he felt so drained that he thought he would struggle to keep on his feet. A regular countdown might spur him on.

  “Before we get into any real training, I need to understand your limits of movement. I don’t want to break anything or kill you on the first lesson. I have had done an analysis of your physiology with Alan’s medical AI - I wish we had one as good as his, but I need to get a feeling for what you can actually achieve. This shouldn’t hurt too much, if it does, let me know.”

  “Don’t worry, I will! Does it have to hurt at all?”

  “No, not really. I forgot you’re not a soldier.”

  Mike started off by getting Mark to do simple and easy stretches and moved up to getting him to move his body and limbs in a variety of poses to the point of pain before moving on to the next one.

  The next hour passed with Mike showing Mark how to keep his balance while looking for when his opponent was either off balance or moving to a point where they would be off balance. He learnt that his opponent was most vulnerable when they wer
e off balance and that he was at his most vulnerable when he was off balance. This was most of the time and was demonstrated by Mike repeatedly flinging, or just pushing him to the floor. Toward the end of the lesson, he once caught Mike off balance and pushed her over. Mike was really pleased with his achievement.

  Mark’s AI counted off the quarter hours and had just announced that only five minutes remained when Mike froze for a moment.

  “Did you get that?” She asked Mark.

  “Get what?”

  “Right, I need to find out what you know about military comms quickly and fill you in with what you need to know. We’re going to walk back so you can concentrate.” Mike told him.

  “That’s OK thanks, Orange said Ti’rrk is going to do that before we go down to the planet.”

  “We’ve run out of time. The reinforcements are all here and ready to go. We’re going down now.”

  As they started walking towards the exit Mark felt like the ground was moving under his feet. He had been kept so busy by Simon in the last firing range session and then by Mike that he had put the thought of going into a war zone for real completely out of his mind. Apart from anything else, he knew the training that he had been given was completely inadequate and he couldn’t see how, even if he was eager to join in, he could possibly be of any use to an experienced, organised and tight-knit elite team of soldiers. As the last place he wanted to be in the whole universe was on the surface of a strange planet where they were outnumbered and outgunned by murderous savages who wanted to kill and possibly eat him - he would only be a liability.

  “I hope it’s a quick and painless death.” Mark thought.

  “Mark! Pay attention!” Mike snapped at him. “This is important. You haven’t connected to our units comm link. Tell your AI to connect into Sally’s personal staff comm link and confirm. Tell me when that’s done.”

  Mark concentrated and gave his AI the order as instructed by Mike.

  “Good.” Mark heard Mikes voice in his head, but he could see she hadn’t spoken. Mike grinned at him.

  “You look like a Brekkan has just jumped out at you” Mark heard Mikes voice again, but she was still grinning.

  “What the… What’s a Brekkan?” Mark said.

  “You are connected to the unit’s comm net now.” Mark heard. “Concentrate. When you want to speak to one of us, just think of who you want to speak to and sub-vocalise what you want to say. If you don’t select the person or people that you want to speak to everyone in the unit will hear you - including Sally. It’s unlikely you’ll have anything to say that all of us will want to hear until you are much more experienced - if we live that long, so always select the recipients. Try it out now and speak to me.”

  Mark concentrated on speaking to Mike and sub-vocalised “What is a Brekkan?”

  “Good.” He heard Mike say. “Although I could see your lips moving.” She grinned again. “A Brekkan is an arachnid on my home world. They are about fifty centimetres wide. They lay in wait on a tree branch for a suitable victim and when one comes along they drop on you and bite you. It a has a paralysing venom which is extremely painful. When you stop moving, it lays its eggs in you. When they hatch out the larvae eat you alive. We try to avoid them.”

  Mark concentrated again though it wasn’t that difficult. “Remind me not to visit you at home.”

  Mike chirped briefly and said “That’s good, I hardly saw your lips move that time. Has Ti’rrk covered uploading data packages yet?”

  “Er, no.”

  “OK, the only one we need to do right now is the field medical package. With this, if you need to treat any wounded, your AI will give you detailed instructions on what to do. Don’t question it or try to do anything else, just do exactly what it tells you. You have a medical kit in your backpack. Request upload of the army field medical pack. Your AI will probably offer you multiple choices, select the one which matches Sally’s army. I can’t tell you what it’s called because your translator will give a name which is meaningful to you. Do it now.”

  Mark requested the data file as instructed and his AI only offered one, helpfully labelled ‘Sally’s Army Field Medical Package - Latest Revision’. He told his AI to upload it and thanked it for making it so easy. He jumped when he heard a voice saying “You’re welcome.”

  He told Mike about this and she chirped again. “Hasn’t it spoken to you before? I bet you haven’t even given it a name yet.”

  “I’ve been working with IT kit all my life and I’ve never given any of it a name yet.”

  “You will, it’s a matter of time.” Mike replied, smiling. “Have you bonded with your Mark Seven?” She asked.

  “Yes, and the field attenuator.”

  “What about your energy field armour?”

  “No, do I need to do that to make it work?” Mark asked anxiously.

  “It will work just fine if you don’t, but it will provide you with status information if you do. It’s always good to know if it’s about to collapse. Do you know what your role is on the ground?”

  “Simon said that he, Orange and Sally will be overloading the enemies shields with their KE weapons, you and I shoot them when their energy fields collapse. I presume Ti’rrk will do her own thing.”

  “That’s about it. I’m surprised you got that much out of Simon, he doesn’t talk much. There is just one other thing, and it’s pretty important.”

  “What’s that?” Asked Mark.

  “Can you do exactly what you are told without question or any hesitation?”

  “I’m not sure. I was never very good at that.”

  “You need to learn to quickly, otherwise it may be difficult to keep you alive.”

  Mark swallowed hard. “That’s quite an incentive to learn.”

  “Make sure you don’t get separated from the unit. If you’re struggling, get close to me, I’ll look after you.”

  Mark thought that was a bit curious, it was almost exactly what Simon had said to him.

  Mike broke into a run back to their quarters and Mark did his best to keep up with her.

  Offers Of Protection

  When they got back to their quarters Simon and Orange were waiting with body armour on, ready to leave. They both wore backpacks with Mark Sevens clipped to the sides. They also carried large weapons with long barrels, their KE guns.

  “Get your backpack.” Mike told him. “I had planned to go through the contents with you before we left, but we haven’t got time now.”

  “And use the toilet before we leave.” Orange told him. “It’s unlikely you’ll have time to piss when we hit the ground and once we engage you definitely won’t. If you need to go while we are in action, piss down your leg. It’s not great but it’s better than getting shot while you’re standing against a tree.”

  “We’ll go ahead.” Mike said. "Orange, you wait for Mark and bring him with you.”

  Mark rushed into the toilet. When he came out Orange was waiting patiently for him. Mark pulled on his backpack and picked up his Mark Seven and helmet. His field attenuator was still attached to his left arm.

  “Come on.” Orange said and walked out into the corridor. “Look, it’s tough on all of us when we go into action, Sally never finds easy missions for us. If it’s hard for us, it’s going to be really hard for you. You’ve got no experience, virtually no training, you’re unfit and weak. But if you follow orders you should be OK. Stick close to me, I’ll look after you. I’m going to transport us into the main docking bay right next to the lander, once we’re off Mother we won’t have Alan’s transport available anymore, you’ll have to go on foot.”

  “I thought we’d be running to the landers.” Mark said, a bit surprised, and relieved.

  “It’s nearly thirty miles away across Mother, so I think we’ll take the transport this time. Stand still.”

  Mark blinked and they were standing next to a blocky looking space ship that rested on four large articulated legs. The whole thing was in matte black, which seem
ed to be the fashionable colour for spaceships. A ramp led from a door in the side to the floor. Mark looked around him. The main docking bay was dimly lit but he couldn’t see where the light came from. The docking bay was so big that he couldn’t see the ceiling or any of the walls. While he was looking around another of the landers took off and headed off to what Mark hoped was the exit.

  Orange said. “Ti’rrk is over there talking to one of the Ant commanders, she’ll join us shortly. The others will be on board, I’m going to join them. You wait here for Ti’rrk, she wants to speak to you before we leave.”

  Orange turned and walked up the ramp into the lander. Mark felt almost as though he was in a dream, it was as though his mind had realised what was happening, but didn’t want to take part in it. He had a passing thought that this is what it might be like for someone who is condemned to death, but is able to walk calmly to the scaffold. The thought didn’t linger. Mark stood for a while, idly looking around watching distant landers taking off and leaving while others appeared and landed next to groups of distant figures who he guessed must be the reinforcements being taken down to the planet below. After a while, which to Mark could have been minutes or an hour or more, an Ant started walking towards him. He smiled to himself. It was only a few days ago that he had overcome his fear of insects enough to squash a cockroach in his kitchen, though it had made him retch when he wiped up the resulting mess, and now he was pleased to see a huge ant-like creature lumbering toward him.

  Mark focused on Ti’rrk and sub vocalised “Hello Ti’rrk.”

  “Hello Mark.” He heard Ti’rrk’s low pitched voice coming from his AI. “Mike told me that she had got you connected to the unit’s communications. I am sorry that I wasn’t there to teach you more. Events rather overtook me. She told me you picked it up immediately.”

  “She told me how to get the field medical pack uploaded to my AI too. I haven’t tried accessing it yet and I hope I don’t need to. I can put a plaster on a graze but wouldn’t know what to do for anything more severe.”

  “Don’t worry, your AI will know when you need it and will tell you exactly what to do. Mark, you have had no military experience. You are going to find it very hard on the ground even before we engage the enemy. We will all be frightened, which is good when you are in combat. If you’re not frightened you won’t last long. It will be especially hard for you, you will be extremely vulnerable. Stay close to me and I will protect you.