Chapter Three

Aaron

Normally, the under workings of Space Security Services is a highly guarded secret that only lifer’s ever see. One thing he didn’t mention, is that those rats that stole from him, never made it out with their lives. Right now, he’s already counting Valerie and the others as integral to their mission. He may be well ahead of himself at this point, but his make-it-or break-it plans won’t happen without them.

The group hasn’t really moved with the motivation he was expecting since offering to show them around the place, so he decides now is a good time to set the tone, much more firmly this time.

“Alright folks, count yourselves as on the clock from here on out. Now get off you’re dead asses. It’s time you learn the ropes around here.”

He leads them all out of the room and towards the hallway most of the other guards disappeared down, but go down the opposite end of the hall from where the gunshots were coming from. They step in through another set of double doors into what looks like a machine shop, but only for a moment. Inside he gathers them all onto a huge steel plate that’s part of the floor. It’s bordered in striped red tape, and broad enough for a couple of cars to fit on. He puts his foot into a covered foot pocket on the corner of the deck and holds down the lever that’s inside of it.

With a heavy clunk and then whirring sound of a big electric motor, the entire platform they’re on starts raising up through the ceiling, where it slides open into another room above them. When the platform stops at the top, they’re standing in the main ground-level hanger. Even though it’s basically an indoor parking lot for most of their equipment, it’s often considered the most awesome amongst the crew. He figures it’s probably because it’s above ground and the air is fresher. Even though it has lost its pizazz on him, he still presents it in the usual way, as if it were grandiose.

Valerie has worked in both of Welan City’s most massive and state-of-the-art robot factories. She’s seen the most cutting edge developments at both places, and the immense manufacturing forces behind them, but this place is something else entirely. She had no idea what SSS was before. On the outside, they’re considered to be nothing more than some kind of space cartel. She wasn’t expecting this. Her mouth hangs open at what has so simply been hidden under a steel roof.

She can’t quite judge how big the hanger is, but it’s at least too large to shout across. The spread of huge combat style vehicles everywhere is worrisome. They are not simply some kind of security agency. She had no idea any single private company could be wielding such military might on their own. It looks like they could storm Welan city and take it by force all on their own. There are trucks so big, she didn’t even know such things existed, armored personnel carriers, something that looks like the sports car version of a small tank, and tons of other crazy shit.

As Sy briskly strides through the room, she tries her best to keep pace with him without tripping on herself while gawking at everything. At the end of the long bay, he stops and lets them all look about a little bit more. The place isn’t all that big or sophisticated, compared to what she’s used to, but what is shocking, is the ambient level of aggression coming from everything. She expected Sy picked them up for being capable killers or something, but now she’s not sure if they can deliver.

Sy can see the hesitation on all of their faces. “I usually show people this room first, to kind of, you know, get that point across that we’re not fucking around here. You will see combat, I promise you that. Not many slip through the cracks on that part.” He looks at Clarice. “You probably won’t. That’s kind of a tough sell there, but you’ll play you’re part nonetheless.”

He starts walking again, but now starts to point things mounted on display across the big back wall. “As a security company, we cover everything between satellite orbit disputes, outright piracy, and even military sanctioned combat. We will serve pretty much anyone who pays us, anywhere on earth, in orbit, and even on the moon. With your help, maybe even farther out than that someday.”

He turns around again and backs up alongside the larger of two enormous black four-axled flatbed trucks everyone has been so focused on. Each of its eight wheels are taller than he is, and a good three feet wide at the tread. The thing would have to take up two lanes out on the road for sure. She can’t imagine what they could possibly be used for, maybe open-pit mining or something.

Sy’s looks at them with all seriousness. “Hardly anyone understands how chaotic it is up in space, even these days. For the last thirty years, it’s been the real battlefield while everything looks all quiet down here. There was a lot of stuff abandoned up there during the war. While the world restarted on the leftover scraps down here, the real mind-blowing stuff was still up there, untouched. There’s still way more old shit up there than new. It’s the largest goldmine ever conceivable, and we’re all fighting over it.”

Aaron has always been as fascinated about space, at least as much as he is about robots. It is really all hush hush though. His mind is going a mile a minute in realization that he is now working for one of the most prolific space adventurers on the planet. He hardly knows anything about space exploration from before the war. He hadn’t thought about what happened to all the old stuff before the war. If there are hundred foot tall mechs from back then, he can only imagine what might be out there in space.

“You said on the moon, have you been to the lunar base from back then? Is it as big as they say it is?”

Sy pauses in recollection, shaking his head. “Heh, yeah, it is. Guess who the first person to step back in there after over a hundred years was?”

“No way. Now you’re fuckin with us.”

“We thought we were big shit back then. Had our big dogfight, us versus the damn rest of the world up there, and then landed on the moon. What we saw really put us in our places, I’ll tell you that much.” He puffs his cheeks out and then a smug smile returns to his face.

Aaron can’t not ask. “Well… what was it like?”

“It was big, real big. I promise you could damn near fit Welan City inside the main cavern.” He spreads his arms out wide and turns from side to side. “It’s how we got all this.” Once America started showing interest in sending some people up there to check things out, both Africa and Asia tried to beat us there. They sent up what they had, but we had the draw on them, and we didn’t wait a second to shoot. There was no negotiating, or sharing the moon. No. It was a slaughter. Don’t get me wrong, they put up a good damn fight, shot us all to hell too, but we smoked every one of em.”

“Shit… I didn’t even know that happened.”

“Not many do. It would’ve sparked another global war otherwise. There’s bad blood over it for sure, but the moon was kind of…” He raises his eyebrows. “No one had the deed to the place, right.” He pauses, considering whether he can tell them this in confidence yet or not, but continues. “Three of us kind of winged it. We had to be the first ones to blast off. It was our very first ship, a hand-me-down from General Quincy. Still, it was good enough to turn all three of the other guy’s ships into Swiss cheese. No one could do a damn thing about it as we sent two of their shuttles plummeting to the surface of the moon, and the third drifting out into the great beyond. We massacred a dozen crewmen and basically smoked everyone else’s space programs.”

“There was no retaliation?”

“No one had the stomach to risk sending more billions of dollars our way after what they found we were capable of. Besides, no one was all that upset that Africa didn’t manage to claim the moon either. Imagine how that would have gone. We looked bad ass, but in truth, it was a one-way mission the day we left, and we knew it. No one had been to that base in over two generations. When we landed, we had no idea what the hell we were gonna do or find. I swear each of us weighed about a hundred pounds when we finally made it back home.”

“You were there, before anyone else. That’s crazy. Was there anyone left there, like from the war? You know, like old bodies?”

“It was… grizzly. Had to have been at least a hundred or so folks left up there to stretch out the last of their days while it all went down. You hear the stories about what happened to the first Mars colony? This was… uh, worse. These were soldiers. But yeah, that’s why we pretty much get away with whatever the hell we want. The American continental government owes us in a big way, forever. What we found up there was insane. It’s a fortress. If anyone else had gotten there first, they would be the ones who own the moon forever, not us.”

As they all move along down the length of the main hanger, they find that all along the walls are signed posters of astronauts that they have worked with over the years. There are also panels from miscellaneous vessels that have been shelled by the cannons they use too, trophies of their past campaigns. The whole place is a testament to the SSS barbaric style of work.

When they take another one of the platform elevators down at least another forty feet they stop on what looks like the upper level of another underground structure. They all step out onto a large grate steel balcony that wraps all the way around and above four more large open bunkers below. Each bay is divided by tall concrete walls, but they’re completely open from above. Each one has its own platform elevator that raises up through the floor of the main level hanger, like the ones they’ve been using but way way bigger. It’s dim, a bit colder, and maybe even a little musty compared to the main floor.

“These are the setup bays, used for equipment maintenance, mission preparation, mission return, and supply staging. There are at least a hundred of us dedicated to this floor alone. Round the clock.”

All along the catwalk, are dozens of what looks like tiny apartments. The living quarters appear to encircle the entire upper level above the lower bays. After they follow Sy all the way back around to the elevator, they take it even farther down to another level below the four bay areas. That faint sound of gunfire returns as soon as they hit the bottom and the motor shuts off. The second Sy opens the heavy metal door in the wall, they all cringe at the overbearing sound of what is going on inside. He hands them all earplugs and safety glasses from bins inside on the wall.

Men in one area are running about, training in spacesuits and carrying ridiculously oversized heavy weapons. Some others are working on their aim while hanging in the air from cables. One man is learning to lead his shots on a target after he is sent spinning around on his cable by another woman who is instructing him. He manages to get himself to nearly stop spinning by changing the angle at which his rifle is held while he shoots. Another the man on a different cable is able to stay on target the whole time with repeated alternating shot positions, keeping himself from spinning almost at all.

“That’s my main man right there, Vaun. He’s been my best bud since the day I took my first breath, and at fifty, still our most advanced combatant by far. He is the bar that everyone strives to reach. Most of my men never truly learn how to master the use of a firearm in space like he has, but they still get the job done more than well enough. Some have to use the lasers, or other easy energy weapons to not get themselves in too much trouble though.

He yells over to Tony, the big guy with the beard from earlier, over at the weapons rack. “Hey, lets show off some of the stuff for the newbies, eh.”

Even as big as the man is, it takes him some effort to lug one of the behemoth energy weapon platforms over to the firing line for them He plops it on one of the shooting tables and puts it in a safe mode. It looks like an artillery piece for sure, with a massive magazine hanging out the bottom of it. It doesn’t have a typical barrel though, or even appear to have a bore in it at all. He hefts it back up, shouldering it, and aims the thing at an armored dummy about thirty yards downrange.

Aaron is a little confused by the size of the thing. He figured anything related to combat, or space, would be lightweight. “Why’s the thing so damn big?”

Sy shouts a little, having earplugs in. “It’s not that bad without gravity. It kinda feels nice actually.”

With an incredible big deep “boom” and a ferociously loud snap, a flash of bright lightning strikes the dummy downrange. Sparks burp out the front of the armor while the rest of the dummy starts to catch on fire. A large smoking cartridge drops out of the bottom of the gun and makes a ringing sound when it hits the floor.

Marek is the one most excited about it. “Holy shit, ha ha. Its got a flux generator in it doesn’t it?”

Sy actually looks at Marek with approval this time. “There might be a use for you after all kid. No one else is using anything like this in the field. It’s a crude two hundred year old technology but it has its perks don’t it?”

Alexis is quite interested in the thing too. She picks the shell up off the floor and sniffs the end of it, wrinkling her nose. “It’s just a gunpowder charge? You’re what, compressing the magnetic field, but without destroying the coil?”

Sy is quite impressed with her as well. Especially when Tony plops the gun in her arms and she doesn’t fall over. “Yep, it’s heavy, but I suppose it’s’ a little friendlier to use than a full-on bomb. In an atmosphere, like we’re in now, the lightning arc will follow the ion trail created by its laser. Wherever it’s pointed, the arc will follow. In space though, it’s a little different. You get this crazy purple arc. The same platform is used for powering lasers, magnetrons, or simply to melt the crap out of something with a short-circuit.”

When a few of the other guards open up a spot for them down in the rifle range pit, Sy shows them all down to the weapon racks to describes each of the weapons to them. He makes sure to show them how to safely handle each and every one properly, to always treat every weapon as if it has a round chambered in it, and is ready to fire.

Arma, having been mostly quiet the whole time, decides to chime in with some awkward advice. “If you shoot someone in the head, you won’t have to worry about them being brought back later.”

Embarrassed, Valerie puts her hand on her back and quietly says “yes Arma, that is true.”

Vaun comes over and assists Sy in teaching them all how to operate the company’s standard rifle, the one all the guards were carrying. They all look at the man in bewilderment. He’s only six foot one or so, a little shorter than Marek, but downright mean looking. His short buzz cut is sweaty, and his greying stubble beard follows his sharp jawline to a point at his chin. The set of his eyes is like that of a rattlesnake’s, making it look like he might strike at any moment. She tries to not look at the numerous knife scars all over him, but they’re hard to not stare at.

The standard rifle is far too heavy for her to hold out at arm’s length, let alone well enough to use either of the optics on top of it. With the thirty round magazine stuffed into the back of the gun, it weighs over twenty pounds. Arma takes it form her and is more than eager to show that she can muscle it around no problem. She’s never even held a rifle, or any kind of gun before, but she mimics the others almost perfectly, shouldering it downrange in an aggressive stance.

After the first rifle gets passed all the way down to Mikel, Vaun hands one to each of them from out of the rack so that they can all hold one while he demonstrates their functions. In a mood to test their nerves, Sy asks Mikel to volunteer to be the first to shoot. “He’ll be the first, but I expect every one of you to shoot.

“Mikel, I feel it’s pretty safe to assume you know your way around a firearm. Go ahead and put three shots in each target, starting with the closest one there. Keep going till the end.” He points to the red firing line on the floor, for him to stand at it, and then to one of the round white steel targets up front. “Don’t move on to the next target until you’ve landed all your shots.”

Tony sets the timer box on the little podium aside the first shooting stall Mikel is standing at. On the mark of the buzzer, Mikel hurries up to draw on his first target. Surprising most of them, he looks like he actually knows what he’s doing. The four closest targets are loaded up without any misses, and done so fairly quickly. It still takes him a second to regain his footing after the unexpectedly heavy recoil. As he moves on, he makes a few misses, but quickly recovers. Sy is quick to hand him a fresh magazine as soon as the bolt is held open.

The farther targets, reaching from one hundred fifty feet to eventually three hundred, are getting much more difficult for him to hit. The weight of the gun, and the power of the rounds, have started getting to him. He starts having difficulty not flinching in anticipation of the recoil. The heavy long gun is becoming harder to hold up every second. He misses nearly a third of his shots by the time he places his last one. Sy holds his hands out for Mikel to return the hot weapon to him and congratulates him on a valiant first try. She never though Mikel looked any what like a scrawny guy until they showed up to this place.

Knowing it’s his turn, Aaron steps up to the firing line with his rifle poised and ready. He hasn’t shot a rifle since he left his home so many years ago. The feel of the rifle is not like what he remembers. The way his muscles handle it is different too. His arms don’t waiver at all. His first shot is a bit low, having pulled the trigger too quickly on the draw. When he misses the second shot for no damn reason, he gets pissed. The anger he’s been trying to hold back abruptly tears free, pitching him into a heated focus. Sy is already annoyingly holding out a spare magazine at his side. That pisses him off too.

As if he were built with servo motors he jerks to each target, one after the next, with abrupt stops dead on target. Each three shots marks damn near overlap as if he were shooting from a bench rest. Getting caught up in the moment, he begins to move much more quickly than a human could even think to. All of the guards nearby stop what they’re doing to watch.

Every shot he makes is made in such quick procession that it sounds like the rifle is in full auto. There are only brief pauses in the storm of muzzle fire while he takes mere seconds to swap magazines. Sy, and even tony, keep handing them to him, so he keeps shooting. He finishes up with only headshots on the last targets. Cleaning off a good amount of the fresh white paint on them.

Sy looks at Valerie with disbelief all over his face. She has a little bit of a concerned look on her face too, and tries to swallow against her dry mouth. “It’s what you wanted. Better pay him what he’s worth.”

Mikel thought he had done pretty well himself, but now, even the excitement of shooting the gun has passed. He feels like he’s getting in over his head. “Well, I mean, he’s pretty much cheating anyway.” He holds his palms out and shrugs.