by Adam Sampson
Peter nodded and said, “Let’s do it. We can crouch around in a circle above the hole and at least one of us will have a good angle on a weak point.
Dima went and grabbed Samantha’s pike before following the group up to the top. Shortly after he got to the top, a zergling started crawling up the tunnel. Jonas gave them a silent countdown, and they all stabbed at once as the zergling’s head poked up from the hole. Dima got lucky with the kill, stabbing it up through the soft part of the chin with the pike, and the zergling gurgled for a short moment before going still. Everyone backed away from the zergling except Lola. The orb appeared and after a flash, the entire group of five was glowing at the top of the mound of dirt.
Dima slid the zergling off the pike and said, “I think we should go.”
Just then a rumble and a fountain of dirt appeared in the middle of the field. They couldn't see what it was, but it was clearly something larger than a regular zergling.
“Yep, time to run; let's go,” Peter said in a panicky voice.
The five of them broke out in a sprint, heading for the Troll and the transports while avoiding other mounds. Some of them had teams still fighting zerglings, and some of them had zergling groups chewing on remains. It was a gruesome sight and they gave the monsters a wide berth. They sprinted around those hills, slowing to a jog as they got farther away and felt safer.
Just as they were about to leave the field, Peter said, “Should we,” pant, pant, “help them?” as he gestured to the fighting team closest to them.
“No, we must run,” Dima said, also out of breath.
More rumbling and showers of dirt from the middle of the field helped emphasize his point.
Peter didn’t answer, he just put his head down and ran with the team to the Troll and escape. There was a short line as they got there, the Troll waiving most of them right through so they could board the transport. As Peter’s team waited in the swiftly moving line, the Troll stepped forward and grabbed a non-glowing young man by his collar and threw him back towards the mounds. He soared in the air for maybe sixty feet before rolling to a stop. It looked like he was still alive, but he was not moving quickly after that.
Peter wondered if there were other people that were trying to sneak aboard the transport to escape the fighting. It was madness out there and he wouldn’t blame anyone for trying to avoid it.
Shortly before Peter's team was allowed to pass, the Troll whipped around and pointed his hand at someone sneaking by, perhaps three hundred feet away in the bushes. A flash of light later and the bushes were smoking. That answered that question.
Peter’s team loaded without incident, dropped off their weapons in a crate as instructed, and sat together in the middle of the transport. They could see most of the valley from where they sat, and they saw the explosions of dirt slowly expanding from the middle. They still couldn't see what was doing that because of the dust that hung in the air, but it was obviously deadly since nothing was leaving the clouds of dirt and dust in the middle.
Peter tried not to pay attention, staring at the floor of the flatbed, and tracing the pentagonal scales with his eyes. Dima and Yoon kept a watch out, but Peter refused to look up.
Perhaps twenty more minutes passed, less than forty-five minutes from when they got here, and the whole field was covered in dust. People had stopped arriving at the transport and there weren’t any roars of zerglings or screams of people anymore. The Troll said something to the guards in that gravelly voice of his, and the transport rose into the air.
The Troll strode into the dust and disappeared. There were distant thwomps and crunches, and a few lights shone. The Troll strolled out of the dust and jumped the thirty feet up to the hovering transport. He landed lightly and said something to the driver.
Four empty transports flew back the way they had come, and their transport flew forward. It was the same breakneck acceleration and dangerous wind as before.
Peter ducked his head down and tried not to think about how a train of seven hundred and fifty people had been reduced to just under a hundred. He tried to ignore the sharp tang of the blood he smelled. He tried to focus on other things and not cry.
He was unsuccessful.
Chapter 4
This trip lasted longer than the previous one, the wind rushing by loudly the entire time. Peter didn’t want to look around, he kept his head down and focused on breathing, so he only knew they were at their destination when the sound lessened. He sat up as the transport slowed further and looked around.
They had left the mountain range behind them, this was a region of rolling hills. There was much more plant life here, the majority of it a shade of blue or violet. There was a small mountain in the distance ahead, but most of the land was small hills or flat grassland. He didn’t see any rivers or lakes anywhere around. As they drew closer to their destination he could make out what looked like blue trees in a forest. The vegetation looked like a collection of spears, sapphire blue leaves stabbing at the charcoal red sky.
Soon he could see what was almost certainly their destination, a series of buildings, low to the ground, spread out over a large complex. Surrounding the complex was a huge metal fence, probably 15-20 feet high. Peter and most of his team wondered if this place acted as a prison. Dima wondered about the quality of the food there.
Shortly they were landing, or at least hovering much closer to the ground. The Troll left them without a backward glance, but two guards herded them off the flatbed and set them up in front of the closest building. Unlike the transports, these buildings looked like they belonged on Earth, they could pass for a warehouse in any major Earth city. A few people tried walking off, but the Chinese guards motioned them back to the group. It did not take much convincing to get them to obey, they had all seen what happened when someone didn’t follow instructions.
After perhaps 5 minutes Peter thought to tap his glasses to check the time. He was surprised to find that he didn’t have them anymore. He must have lost them somewhere along the way. He did still have his watch and looked at it next. It took him a bit to figure out what time it was, normally it was a fashion statement. Each time he used it for its intended purpose, he had to remember again how it worked. It had been two hours since he left, afternoon in Lubbock, TX. He looked up at the sun to see if it was afternoon here too. The sun was near the horizon now, and so he guessed it was close to evening here and Peter couldn’t help but wonder how long the days were here.
Just then, a small group came out of a side door in the building, two men and three women, all in green military uniform and wearing a bronze armband on their right forearm. They spread in a line in front of the group, large gaps between them. They looked across the assembled group and yelled at them to line up.
Once they were in position, the man on the far right took a step forward and loudly said, “If you understand English well, come with me,” then he took a few more steps away from the rest of the group.
“Wenn du gut Deutsch verstehst, komm mit mir,” said the next one in line.
“Si tu comprends bien le français, viens avec moi,” said the next.
“Yadi aap hindee achchhee tarah se samajhate hain, to mere saath aao,” said the next.
“Rúguǒ nǐ shuō zhōngwén, nǐ de wèizhì jiù zài wǒ shēnbiān,” said the last one.
Slowly people started separating themselves according to the languages they understood. Most went to the first two groups, and a few to the final three.
Peter turned to Lola and Jonas and said, “I guess this is goodbye?”
“No, I think I will stick with the group that kept me alive. At least for a little longer,” the beautiful redhead said.
“Yeah, we understand English just fine, no need to split the group,” enjoined Jonas.
“We are with you,” said Yoon. The large Russian man said nothing but nodded and stayed put.
“Ok, good,” said Peter.
They joined the English speaking group and followed the guy in unifo
rm. There were about forty people in their group. They walked across the complex, passing several buildings in their walk. Every so often they would be passed by a group of five to six people, all in green uniforms and a bronze armband. The only markings on the uniforms were above the right breast, sometimes a red star, sometimes yellow or blue. Peter guessed that this must have something to do with their rank. Based on the uniforms and the attitude of the guy leading them, he assumed that they were in a military installation, not a jail.
Soon they got to a building like any other, the only distinguishing mark was a blue star on the door. Unlike the chinese star, this blue star was more like a compass. Peter guessed that the English speaking group had to find their own symbol since they all had come from different countries. The guy in uniform waved them in and said, “Have a seat in the chairs in the first room.” Everyone filed in slowly and took a seat. The last few had to stand in the back.
The guy in uniform stood at the front of the room and said, “Howdy everybody. My name is Rex Jennings. Welcome to Orientation. Sorry about those standing in the back, we usually don’t have this many recruits at once. Speaking of which, congrats to your group. Y’all had the highest survival rate so far this year.”
Rex said this obviously expecting them to be happy, but the thought of even more people dying put most of the group in a somber mood. A few people openly sobbed at the thought. To his credit, Rex immediately changed tactics.
“Listen, I know today was a rough day. None of you expected your day to end like this. But it gets better, and it is likely that most of you here will survive boot camp and get to see your families again one day,” Rex said. The prospect of seeing their families again did put them in a better mood.
“Let's get back on track. My name is Rex Jennings and you are recruits for the Protectorate war against the Klaxon. You didn’t volunteer, but your sacrifice will help keep Earth safe. This planet is Omicron, and this is where you will be doing your boot camp. You will be practicing your skills and talents by killing zerglings and other creepy crawlies around here. After you graduate from boot camp in a year or two, you will be deployed to the front lines. The Protectorate has been at war with the Klaxon for decades, and if the Protectorate were ever to fall, our planet would be next. So although the war is fought far from the Milky Way, it is your job as soldiers to protect Earth.
“Each of you will be assigned a team and given daily training to improve your body and skills. The teams are led by group leaders, they will direct your days and guide your progression. The group leaders’ word is law. In addition to your training, you will be sent out every so often to cull the native wildlife population and harvest orbs. Once a week you will report in to central command and they will evaluate you and see if you have progressed far enough to be eligible to move on to the next base.
“Although we are an army base, the English barracks are fairly informal. We expect you to attend classes and get your work done, but we don’t stand too much on protocol. Just be nice to everyone and things will work out just fine. Be glad that you are not in the Chinese or Indian barracks, they are all about discipline, they spend hours drilling each day. You are still expected to follow the orders of anyone above you in rank though, which right now is everyone on base.
“We know you didn’t volunteer for this, and so we try not to force military structure on you. You will have trainers to help you, not drill sergeants to punish you. Your trainers will call you by your first name because we care about you as a person. No latrine duty, no kitchen duty, just focus on bettering yourself. We want you to survive and do well on base, so we will help you in any way we can.
“As you grow in skill and rank, you may notice that the English speaking forces are not the leaders. It is a fact of life here that Chinese and Indian forces have been here for years longer than us, and the Trolls favor them more than us. Despite what the movies predicted, the Trolls have never learned English because not enough humans speak it. Chinese is the dominant culture on Earth despite the American’s delusions of grandeur. I bring that up to mention that you should always respect and honor any Chinese or Indian officer, regardless of the command structure. Omicron is their world, we just get to live in it.
“All countries on Earth donate something, most donate soldiers like yourself, some donate manufacturing capacity or support. We need to eat and the barracks here had to be built by someone after all. You won’t see the trolls much, humans do almost everything. Trolls give us the technology and we carry out the plan.”
Just then, two Chinese women in red uniforms came in carrying crates full of something metal. They clinked softly as they were set down at the front of the room. Rex strode over to them and signed a clipboard they were holding. They left without a word.
“But none of that really matters. All that really matters is this,” Rex said and held up his right arm to show off his bronze armband on his forearm. It glinted, flush with his forearm, slightly below where he would wear a watch. “This little baby here is the key to success, power, and your continued survival. It is called a Protectorate Orb Mechanical Cuff, but everyone just calls it a cuff. This will allow you to use the blue orb energy you have absorbed and apply it to improve your body and gain skills and talents. It is the best thing to ever happen to you, and your first task as a soldier is to treat it with respect. Do not play around with the cuff. It is a tool, not a toy. When used properly, this cuff can use orb energy to make you stronger, faster, more resilient, or even heal wounds in hours instead of weeks. Later you will be able to improve skills like sword fighting or sharpshooting, or even,” Rex paused and said the next word with a hand flourish, “Magic!” A fireball shot out of his hand and raced across the room to explode against the back wall. There were gasps of surprise and everyone moved back away from the slightly smoldering impact site. Most people had heard about the fantastic abilities the aliens granted but it was something else to see it for yourself.
Three soldiers raced into the room looking for the cause of the explosion. Each of them had weapons out, and one of them had a tall shield in his left hand. After a moment they realized there was no danger. A tall man with long blond hair turned to Rex and said, “Dammit Rex, I told you that you can't shoot fireballs indoors. Not even during orientations.”
Rex shrugged and smiled, obviously not repentant.
The handsome blond man waved him away from the front of the room and said, “Shoo, you are done here, I will finish up. You get to hand out the cuffs.” He turned to the room and said, “Forget what he said. He is nuts and if you are lucky he won’t end up being your group leader.” The new guy and Rex flipped each other off.
“What he should have said, and probably didn’t, is that we are sorry. Today was probably traumatic for all of you. Most of us had it just as bad or worse on our first day. This was certainly the worst day of your life, but it will only get better from here. The trolls are in charge of the first day, they insist on all the death and mayhem, but we are in charge from here on out. There are a lot of good people here and we all want you to survive and do well. I can’t promise that this is a safe place, but I can promise that it is as safe as we can make it.”
Turning back to Rex he asked, “Did you go over the cuffs?”
“I was in the middle of my presentation,” Rex replied.
“Figures,” the man said. He turned back to the crowd and said, “Ok, folks. My name is Thor Laufeyson and I am going to teach you about the most important thing in your life, the Protectorate Cuff.” Thor held up his right hand and showed off the bronze armband on his forearm.
“This cuff uses the energy you harvest from zerglings and other monsters to improve yourself. It makes more sense if I walk you through it. Earlier today I went out and killed 12 zerglings, and I got some orbs out of it. Instead of my body glowing like yours is now, the orbs get sucked into the cuff so I can use their power. When I want to use it, I mentally pull up the interface screen.”
As he said this, Thor
held out his arm with the cuff in front of his body. Suddenly a semi-translucent screen appeared and hovered above the cuff. The blue screen had writing on it and looked a lot like a computer screen. It was obviously projected from the cuff since it moved with his arm, but there was no light between the two.
Thor walked around the room to show off his screen, and started talking as he did, “This is my interface, with it I can tell my cuff to make improvements to my body. The first thing you will notice is that you don’t understand a word of this language. That is because everything on the cuff is written in the same language the trolls speak, galactic standard. Lucky for you, people smarter than you have determined which buttons to press to make the right improvements. So they told me that if I want to improve my strength skill, I have to press this button right here,” he said and pointed to a spot on the left of the screen. He moved his hand an inch and said, “but if I hit the button right next to it, my nose gets bigger. Over here, I get stronger and live to fight another day, over here and Pinocchio gets a run for his money. This one helps me kill zerglings and the one right next to it lets me smell them better as they tear up my entrails. So, whatever you do, don’t hit the wrong button. So I hit this button now,” Thor demonstrated by actually pressing the button on the mid-air screen. Although it seemed like a projection, his finger met some resistance and a button was pressed. “In about an hour or so, I will be able to lift about 300 pounds more than I could before. The cuff can improve your skills in many areas, but it doesn’t give you training on how to use this new power, you still have to practice to get better. So that is how it works, we go out and kill the monsters, collect their orbs, upgrade ourselves, and then practice to get better. Once we get good enough, we head off to war. But that is a long time from now.”
“In a moment we are going to hand out the cuffs to everyone. You will hit the button we tell you to hit, and not any other button. Almost everyone who follows the program survives to the end of boot camp. If you hit the wrong button enough times... well let’s just say idiots don’t last long around here,”
