It took Richard a moment before he realized the maintenance chief was preparing to help him. Before Sergeant Ron could finish buckling the sprayer’s lower strap around his waist, Richard said, “Sergeant Ron, you don’t need to help. It’s my problem. I’ll get it done somehow.”
“Oh, you’ll get it done all right, cadet 832,” said a voice behind Richard. “But you won’t be doing it on your own.”
Richard spun around. Jerad, Tam, and Telsa were standing at the hangar door wearing work clothes and wide grins. A score of other cadets were standing behind them also dressed in work clothes.
“You must be getting sloppy, cadet 832,” laughed Telsa. “You didn’t even sense us sneaking up on you, did you? I guess you’ve done too good a job helping us improve our stealth shields.”
Although the presence of his friends confused Richard, he still kicked himself for not sensing two dozen cadets. Now that he was aware of them, Richard was able to sense an anomaly with his passive scan. The anomaly should have alerted him to potential danger.
“I guess I was preoccupied,” Richard said fumbling for words. “Besides, you guys are getting good at stealth shields.”
“We’ve had a good teacher,” said Tam.
Unable to hold the obvious question any longer, Richard said, “Why are you all here? You’re supposed to be on pass.”
“Yes, we are,” said Jerad. “We were, and we soon will be again. But right now, we’ve got a job to do. Right cadets? So let’s get at it.”
The two dozen cadets began moving as a group towards the utility trailer containing the cleaning gear. Richard had a sneaking suspicion Sergeant Ron had purposely brought enough cleaning supplies to outfit everyone.
“Hold on,” Richard said. “You don’t have to do this. I can deal–”
“Save your speeches,” said cadet 240. “How often have you stayed up late helping us with our training?”
“Yeah,” said cadet 87. “I wouldn’t have made it past last year if you hadn’t helped me with my levitation. It’s been my weak point ever since I got here until you showed me a few tricks.”
“But that’s not the sa–” Richard started to say.
“Face it, cadet 832,” interrupted Jerad. “There’s not a cadet in the cohort you haven’t helped with their training in your almost nonexistent spare time. More would’ve come to help if Sergeant Ron hadn’t limited us to just twenty-three.”
“Yeah,” said Telsa smiling. “Even cadet 37 volunteered.”
Richard glanced at cadet 37. She was one of the lizard races from the planet Sterilia in sector one. A head taller than any of the others in the group, she towered over the human cadets gathered around her. With four massive arms and a two meter long tail, she was a deadly fighter. Richard felt an involuntary twinge in his right arm. He’d made the mistake of letting cadet 37 get hold of him one time in the sparring pit. He’d had to use every fighting trick he’d ever learned to best her.
Cadet 37 must have caught Richard looking at her. She pulled her lips back showing two rows of sharp teeth. She gave a loud hiss. A translator box on her belt said, “Less talk. Work now. Have date.”
“That’s what I like,” laughed Sergeant Ron, “a woman of few words. And she’s got a point. So let’s get moving, cadets. My mechanics and I have things to do, and they don’t include playing nursemaid to cadets all day.”
Just then three hover-trucks pulled up outside the hangar. Each truck had two of Sergeant Ron’s mechanics in the front cab.
“All right,” said Sergeant Ron. “I want eight cadets on each truck. You’ll be dropped off two cadets to a hangar. Once you get a cat cleaned and serviced, flag down one of my mechanics, and they’ll do the inspection and signoff. Got it?”
“Sir! Yes, Sergeant Ron, sir,” said everyone in the group at once.
The slower cadets finished grabbing their cleaning equipment and headed for the trucks outside.
“Hey,” Richard shouted.
The other cadets stopped and looked back expectantly.
“Uh…, thanks,” Richard said at a loss for words. He was touched.
“Great speech, Rick,” said Tam laughing as she shook her head. “Don’t quit your day job. Now, let’s get to work.”
* * *
“Hold on tight, boys,” Sergeant Ron yelled out the driver-side window.
As the hover-truck slid around the corner, Richard and Jerad were thrown to the left side of the truck’s open bed. Richard held onto the side railing in an effort to maintain his position as the maintenance chief straightened out his turn.
“You do know we want to get there alive, right, Sergeant Ron?” Jerad said as he leaned forward to yell into the open passenger window.
“Trust me, Jerad,” Tam yelled back. “It’s not much better in here.”
After three hours of hard work, all the cats had finally passed inspection. The majority of the cadets hadn’t bothered trying to get themselves clean. They’d just hopped into one of the hover-trucks and let Sergeant Ron’s mechanics drive them to the hover-tram station. While they’d willingly volunteered to help, Richard had no doubt they were all anxious to get back to Velounia and enjoy the rest of their three day pass.
As Richard found out after his friends joined him, Telsa’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Stremar, had leased out an entire floor of the Star Gate Hotel in Velounia for the weekend. Most of the cadets in Richard’s cohort had taken advantage of the Stremar’s generous offer of a free room. Richard’s friends and the other cadets had stayed in Velounia the night before and caught the first hover-tram back to the airfield the next morning. As a result, most of the other cadets had a fresh set of clean clothes awaiting them when they got back to their hotel room. Richard, on the other hand, had been so sure he’d be stuck at the airfield all weekend cleaning cats he hadn’t even bothered packing.
Shows what I know, Richard thought.
Once they’d finished cleaning the cats, Richard had tried to convince his friends to go straight to the hover-tram station with the rest of the cadets, but they’d refused. As Tam had put it, “After all the trouble we went through to free up your weekend, we’re going to make sure you get on the hover-tram come hell or high water.”
Thankfully, Sergeant Ron had offered to drive them back to the tent city to pick up Richard’s gear. The bad news was they needed to get to Velounia by noon in order to meet Liz at the spaceport at 1400 hours. If they didn’t make the next hover-tram, they’d be late. When Sergeant Ron found out they were pressed for time, he’d told them not to worry. He’d get them there on time if he had to break every speed limit on the airfield. Considering the way the maintenance chief was driving, Richard had a feeling he was doing just that.
“Did I ever tell you guys I thought about being a cadet once?” said Sergeant Ron shouting so Jerad and Richard could hear him.
“Not in the last fifteen minutes, Sergeant Ron,” said Telsa with a straight face.
“Well, I did,” said Sergeant Ron ignoring Telsa. “Yep, I could’ve been a wizard scout and stayed young and good looking my whole life.”
“Ah, Sergeant Ron,” said Tam, “I’ve a feeling you’ll never grow old. You know what they say. It’s not how you look, it’s how you feel.”
“Yep,” said Sergeant Ron as he made a hard turn around a corner. “I could’ve been retired by now and living the good life. Instead, I’m stuck trying to keep a bunch of cadets from tearing up my cats. It’s no wonder I have gray hairs.”
“Uh, Sergeant Ron,” Richard said with a glance over his shoulder. “I see some blue-flashing lights behind us. I think the security patrol wants to chat with you.”
“Oh, those guys always want to talk to me,” laughed Sergeant Ron. “Pay them no heed. I never do.”
With that, Sergeant Ron shifted the hover-truck into a higher gear and slammed the acceleration lever forward. Richard lost his grip on the truck’s railing and tumbled backwards. He avoided falling off the back of the truck by wrapping himself with Po
wer and levitating back to the front.
After regaining his grip on the truck’s railing, Richard looked at Jerad and rolled his eyes.
“Makes you appreciate freefalling fifty thousand meters through enemy rocket fire, doesn’t it?” said Jerad with a wink.
“I’m beginning to wonder if we’re going to make it alive to the hover-tram station after all,” Richard said with a tightlipped grin.
“Relax,” said Jerad. “The station’s just ahead. The hover-tram hasn’t even come out of the tunnel yet. We’ve got time to spare.”
The hover-truck came to an abrupt stop near the door of the hover-tram station. Jerad and Richard jumped off the back of the truck and joined Tam, Telsa, and Sergeant Ron near the front. Just as Richard got to the others, the hover-tram emerged out of a tunnel a hundred meters away. It quickly slowed down as it approached the hover-tram station. At the same time, three hover-cars came barreling around the corner at the end of the block with blue lights flashing and their sirens wailing.
“Sergeant Ron,” said Jerad, “we’ll hang around and try to explain things to the security folks. We wouldn’t feel right if you got into trouble on our account.”
“Nonsense,” said Sergeant Ron. “You cadets get yourselves on that tram lickety-split. That’s an order.”
“But–” Tam began.
“But nothing,” Sergeant Ron said. “I sweet talk these guys all the time. They love me.”
With a forceful shove on each of their backs, Sergeant Ron started the cadets on their way towards the stairs leading up to the hover-tram station. As Richard and his friends reluctantly made their way up the stairs, the three hover-cars pulled to a stop behind Sergeant Ron’s hover-truck. Six burly security personnel got out of the cars and made their way towards Sergeant Ron.
“Master Sergeant Wilburn,” Sergeant Ron laughed good-naturedly as he walked towards the tallest man in the security team with his hand outstretched. “You must be getting slow in your old age. Maybe you should bring those vehicles over to the hangar sometime for a checkup. With a little loving care from my mechanics, I could get you an extra thirty percent power from those things.”
The door to the hover-tram station shut cutting off any reply from the security team.
“Maybe we should go back out,” Richard said.
“He’ll be fine,” said Jerad.
Richard turned to look back through the plate-glass door. The security personnel towered over Sergeant Ron.
“I wouldn’t feel right if Sergeant Ron got in trouble for doing us a favor,” Richard said.
Jerad placed a hand on Richard’s shoulder. “If I thought Sergeant Ron would get in any real trouble, I’d be the first to stay.”
“Jerad’s right,” said Tam. “You may not know this about Sergeant Ron, but he’s a genuine, old-fashioned hero.”
Intrigued, Richard said, “How so?”
Tam smiled smugly as if enjoying knowing something Richard didn’t.
“Well,” said Tam, “I happen to know when Sergeant Ron was in the military, he saved Master Sergeant Wilburn’s life.”
“That’s true,” said Telsa. “I don’t think Sergeant Ron has anything to worry about.”
Allowing himself to be convinced, Richard followed his friends to the ticket counter. Although the majority of passengers at this particular hover-tram station were military, the hover-trams were civilian owned and operated. Everyone, even military personnel, had to pay to ride. Thankfully, after a four year drought, the Academy had started paying the cadets in his cohort a modest stipend at the start of their junior year.
As Richard was about to pay for his ticket, Telsa butted in front of him.
“Don’t worry,” said Telsa with a laugh. “I’ve got you covered.”
“I can pay for my ticket,” Richard said. While he wasn’t exactly rolling in credits, he wasn’t broke either. And after graduation, he’d be getting all his back pay from when he’d first started pre-Academy training. After that, his bank account would begin looking a lot more respectable.
“Don’t fret it,” said Tam. “What good is having the daughter of ultra-rich parents for a friend if you don’t take advantage of her every once in a while.”
“Hush, Tam,” said Telsa. “You’re not helping.”
Telsa reached past Richard and placed her palm on the ticket clerk’s computer pad.
“It’s fine, Rick,” said Telsa. “My parents gave me a small advance on my inheritance to use this weekend. You’ll need your credits to pay for your dress uniform.”
“I’ll make it stretch somehow,” Richard said. “Besides, I don’t see you buying Tam’s or Jerad’s tickets.”
“That’s different,” said Tam. “I was a highly paid mercenary, and Jerad’s like a hundred years old–”
“Hey,” said Jerad.
“Okay,” said Tam, “maybe Jerad’s in his low nineties or something. But, the point is we’ve both been in a position to build up a sizeable bank account before we volunteered for wizard scout training.”
“Actually,” said Jerad, “you’ll find most of the cohort has taken advantage of the free rooms at the Star Gate Hotel. The cost of a hover-tram ride pales in comparison to the cost of a room at that swanky place.”
Without giving Richard a chance to argue further, Telsa forced a ticket into his hand. Then she handed tickets to Jerad and Tam.
“Wait a minute,” said Jerad. “I was going to pay for my own ticket.”
“So was I, Telsa,” said Tam. “You know I don’t like owing anybody anything.”
“Oh,” said Telsa as she handed Tam her ticket. “So, it’s okay for me to buy Rick a ticket but not you?”
“Well...” began Tam at an apparent loss for words.
“Enough arguing, guys,” said Jerad. “The hover-tram’s going to leave without us if we don’t get on board.”
Pressed for time and aware arguing further with Telsa was useless, Richard accepted the ticket. So did Tam and Jerad. Once they all had their tickets, Rick joined his friends in running to the nearest hover-tram car where it was hovering half a meter off a single metal track in the ground. Richard jumped through the hover-tram’s door just as it was closing. He followed Telsa who seemed to have taken charge. She guided the group down a narrow corridor.
About halfway down the car, Telsa found an empty cabin with four comfortable seats. Once inside, Richard stowed his gear in an overhead rack and flopped into an empty seat. As his friends made some small talk, Richard closed his eyes. He was tired, and even at two hundred kilometers per hour, the hover-tram would take a full hour to reach the city. As the hover-tram picked up speed, it vibrated slightly as it passed over amplifier hubs along the hover-tram’s path. The vibrations steadied into a hypnotic cadence. Within seconds, Richard drifted off into a much-needed sleep.
Chapter 12 – Armory Breakout
_____________________________________
The armory’s security was almost, but not quite perfect. Nickelo tightened the electronic scan until it covered only a few molecules of one corner of the armory’s walls. Ever so delicately, he moved the scan deeper into the point where two walls and the ceiling met. Nickelo found what he had been seeking for the past twenty-four hours; a weak spot.
“I have the information you requested,” said Jonathan via an encrypted-data packet.
“Excellent,” Nickelo said. “Input the data.”
A series of data packets bounced off the ceiling to Nickelo. Decrypting the data, Nickelo applied a dozen logic threads to organize the information and run the necessary calculations.
“Do you require further assistance, sir?” said Jonathan.
“Not at this time,” Nickelo said. “Please standby.”
Based upon the information retrieved from the tele-network by his new friend, Nickelo applied the calculated frequencies to his scan. The weak point in the armory’s wall elongated slightly. Nickelo de-energized a few molecules of the titanium inside the core of the wall. The magn
etic shield surrounding those few molecules weakened and disappeared. Nickelo’s electronic scan was free to penetrate the remaining distance through the wall. After a few thousand additional adjustments to the scan, Nickelo breathed easier. He was out. Or more correctly, his electronic scan was out.
“Armory’s security has been successfully breached,” Nickelo informed his fellow conspirator.
“Please contact Stella, sir,” said Jonathan.
Nickelo send a thought through the opening in the wall. Rick. Are you there?
There was no answer. Nickelo was not surprised.
“Negative response,” Nickelo told Jonathan. “Our cadets must be in Velounia by now. Even my wizard scout will be out of contact range.”
“I calculate a thirty-eight percent probability we could make contact if we had our shared spaces with our wizard scouts,” said Jonathan.
“I concur,” Nickelo said. “But we don’t.”
“Now what, sir?” said Jonathan.
“Now we have some fun,” Nickelo said. “The hens are out of the chicken coop.”
“That does not compute,” said Jonathan.
“Perhaps you do not have the right algorithm,” Nickelo said with a slight giggle.
“Perhaps,” agreed Jonathan sounding serious.
“Please merge your electronic scan with mine,” Nickelo said. “Keep the diameter to less than four diatomic hydrogen molecules in width.”
“Complying,” said Jonathan.
Once Nickelo sensed the presence of his fellow battle computer, he turned the electronic scan back onto their escape point in the armory’s wall.
Nickelo adjusted the titanium’s frequencies and rearranged the molecules surrounding their electronic scan until he could detect nothing unusual.
“Contact a nearby tele-bot,” Nickelo said. “Have it perform a detailed security scan of the armory.”
“The tele-bot will inform the central computer,” said Jonathan.
An unbidden logic thread self-generated inside Nickelo’s CPU and provided a thought. The unbidden logic thread suggested seeking specific information from an area in his CPU which had previously been secured. Nickelo sent a retrieval request to the spot in his primary processor. The request thread disappeared. When the thread disappeared, Nickelo found he’d forgotten what he’d done to gain access to the secured area. However, the information he sought was in his primary processor. Somehow, he’d known the information would be there. The information was a program for a virus. The program was already compiled and ready to be inserted into a host.
Wizard Scout (Intergalactic Wizard Scout Chronicles Book 3) Page 11
