0300 Book 1 - 6. Chapter 6: Supersoakers

Chapter 6
Supersoakers

The shuttle from the Enterprise dropped us off at the spaceport. One of the tactical officers was waiting, and herded us onto the maglev for the short ride back to campus. “Report to your element leaders,” was all he said.

My element leader was puzzled; I had to push before he remembered me. He didn’t seem interested in where I’d been, and just told me that I was back on duty, and to check the schedule. He didn’t notice the battle ribbon I wore on my jump suit. Someone in some Fleet office in Geneva had decided that the Battle of Jamnagar was important enough to award a unit battle ribbon and that since the kids from Edmonton had participated at GQ stations, we should get the ribbon, too.

My iPad had automatically linked to the school’s computer network as soon as I’d reached the spaceport. I scanned the iPad while I walked to my room. I wasn’t scheduled for any duties other than my regular classes. I guessed I’d been taken off the roster when I left, and wondered how long it would be before the element leader remembered to put me back in the pool. I’d better push him to do that or someone is likely to become suspicious. Not that I’m anxious to do KP!

“How did you—” Dmitri’s question of how I could open the door to our room—supposedly keyed only to the occupants biometrics—was interrupted when I pushed him and held out a plastic baggie.

“I got 30 Enterprise patches for your Potemkin patch,” I said. That must have triggered the memories of the other boys, too. They all accepted the patches I’d gotten for them, but none of them seemed interested in what I’d done while I was away. They would have known about the battle: it had been reported in All Hands and Navy Times and on the Fleet news channel. They just didn’t seem to connect me with it, even though I wore the ribbon.

The rest of the boys in my element had forgotten me, too. I pushed a little, and passed out the patches I’d gotten for them, and they started to remember. It took a few days before things got back to normal, if normal was the right word.

* * * * *

In September, shortly after we’d arrived at Edmonton, and while the weather was still warm, all the junior cadets had been issued weapons. Not real ones—we were, after all, only between six and eight years old—but super soaker water rifles. They were plastic, but looked a lot like an overweight version of the Fleet standard MK-7 rifle. They were even colored olive drab. Most of our physical training was done with our element, so we were on teams, and competed with teams, that had kids within a couple of years of our age. That included water sports, and battles with the super soakers.

“The arena covers ten acres,” the element leader said. “The floor as well as the walls of the blinds and conceals are padded and covered with waterproof plastic. Drains are in the floor at the edges of the walls. There’s nothing sharp, hard, or unpadded. You can still get hurt, though. Remember what you learned about how to fall, and don’t get carried away and hit someone with your weapon . . . other than with the water, that is.”

The school was very conscious of safety. Our shoes were slip-ons, but tight, made of rubber with knobbed soles for traction, and even the little boys wore cups under our brief swimsuits. My roommates and I had giggled and blushed when we saw what we looked like.

Dmitri had threatened to pull off his jumpsuit to prove to the supply sergeant that he needed a large cup, but the sergeant didn’t fall for it. Somehow Dmitri managed to get a large, though and strutted around the room until we ganged up on him, pulled off his swimsuit, and replaced the large cup with a small—which was adequate.

“Questions?” the element leader asked.

“What about reloading?” Colin said.

“Reload ports are built into the walls and are marked with a red circle. They’re recessed and automatic. Just stick the butt of the weapon in the hole, with the fill facing up. They’ll reload in about six seconds, and shut off. Good question. Any others?”

“How do we know if we’re dead?” Dmitri asked. Dmitri, Colin, Hans, and I were the only first-year cadets in our element. The others had done this, before, and the element leader seemed to forget that we would not know the details. Well, at least Dmitri, Colin, and Hans. I’d done the mind-vacuum thing, and had a pretty good idea what to expect. I wondered if my invisibility were affecting my roommates, or if the element leader was just forgetful.

“If you’re shot anywhere above the waist, you’re dead. Fall down, stay down for at least a couple of minutes, then resume play. Don’t shoot anyone who’s down, and give the person who shot you at least enough time to get out of your sight. Okay?”

A whistle blew, signaling the beginning of the game. We ran toward our designated entrance. I think some of the elements tried to use strategy, and a couple of the older cadets in my element paired up to protect one another when they reloaded. For the little boys, however, it was all pell-mell.

“Ha! You’re dead!” a boy from another element called.

“Nuh uh!” I replied. “You only got my leg.” I fell as if my leg had collapsed, firing as I did so—a burst of water that caught him in the chest.

“You’re dead!” I called, and then giggled.

He looked at his chest and at the water that streamed down his tummy. “Good shot! Pooh! I’ll get you, next time!” He collapsed onto the ground.

I felt water hit my back, and spun. It was Dmitri. He grinned, and grabbed his crotch as if to say he’d gotten me back. I sensed that he wasn’t angry, so I saluted him, fell to the ground, groaned, and twitched a few times for effect. Dmitry laughed and ran away.

I had fallen only inches from the boy I’d just shot. “Hey! What’s your name?” he asked.

“Paul,” I said. “Element Oscar 225. You?”

“Ike, Delta 060. If I hadn’t forgotten to pump up the pressure, I’d have gotten you.”

“Yeah, I did that a couple of times.”

“The guy who shot you—you know him?”

“He’s one of my roommates.”

“Are you boyfriends?”

I understood Ike was wondering about Dmitri’s gesture, so I told him about Dmitri and the cup.

He giggled and then said, “We’ve been dead long enough. Truce to reload?”

I agreed, and covered him while he reloaded; then he did the same for me. We saluted one another, and ran in opposite directions.

I was happy with these games. Although I was faster than the other boys and could usually sense them in time to avoid ambushes, there was enough—I guess the best word is chaos—in the games, that I couldn’t excel too often. Some of the other boys, even those not in my element, seemed to remember who I was, at least during the games, when we made temporary alliances. I sometimes felt a bonding from others, but was afraid to pursue it. Now, as I write this from my teens, I rather wish I’d been a little less—shy? Yeah, I guess that’s the right word. Sounds better than afraid.

After a few weeks it got too cold for outdoor water sports. We were issued new weapons: another version of the MK-7. The MK-7 was an over-and-under rifle. The “over” fired bullets or flechettes, the “under” fired grenades. The ones we got were modified for laser tag in the “over” part. The “under” could be modified for paint ball. They said we’d do that in the spring. After some additional safety training, we were certified to participate in laser tag.

Before the first game, our tactical officer briefed us on strategy and tactics. In fact, he briefed us before every game. I had read Sun Tsu’s The Art of War, and realized that he was taking us through it, one principle at a time. What he said didn’t always apply to the game that followed; but after a while, things seemed to come together. I watched my element begin to function cohesively, and I watched us start winning consistently.

I guess I was partly responsible for that. I could usually tell where all the enemy forces were, and sometimes what their strategy would be. I wanted us to win, but I believed that using my knowledge was, somehow, cheating. I wanted to talk to someone about that, but was afraid to confide in anyone.

“We made it!” Dmitri crowed as he pushed his way into the room. “We’re in the top 10 elements!”

Dmitri always seemed to know important things before anyone else, including me. “Top ten in what?” I asked, even though by now I knew.

“In laser tag,” he said. “We get to fire real MK-7s! We go to the range tomorrow.”

The other thought it was way cool. I grinned, thinking of the Gatlings, 32-inchers, and cannons I’d fired while on Enterprise.

Our graduation exercise was to be a war game in the mountains northwest of Lake Louise. By now, it was nearly December, so we were fitted with winter gear, and given light-weight oil and heavy-duty batteries for the MK-7s, the ones with laser tag lasers.

The mountains of western Alberta and eastern British Columbia were classic “basin and range” topography—rows of mountains running roughly south-east-by-north-west separated by valleys, usually holding a river or lake. According to our intel, the Green Forces were on the other side of the next range. The terrain was too rough for ground vehicles, and there was no place large enough for a shuttle to land. My element, part of the Blue Force, was walking single file down a rugged trail on a western slope when the boy in front of me jerked, and fell backwards. About three seconds later, I heard the shot. I triggered my comm. “Take cover!” I called. We’re under attack.”

The rest of the boys dropped. I had unconsciously pushed, and hoped that the element leader wouldn’t realize it. I crawled toward the boy in front of me. I heard the sharp ping of a bullet ricocheting off rock, and then the sound of another shot.

There was a hole in the chest of the boy’s parka, and blood. I grabbed the zipper and pulled on it. It jammed about half-way up where it had been torn by the bullet. I pulled the survival knife from my boot, and started cutting.

More blood. Lots of blood. The element leader had reached us. He saw what was happening, and reacted quickly.

“Good. Get his parka off so I can see the wound,” he ordered, and then activated his command-net radio.

“Element Oscar 225 under attack by persons unknown. One cadet has been shot. This is not a drill, this is real.”

He handed me the radio, and pulled out a first aid kit. “I don’t think they had this in mind when they designed this kit,” he said. “Use my radio. Call for medevac and close air support. Tell them there’s a bad guy with a rifle out there, somewhere.”

I relayed those words while he put a pressure bandage on the hole in the boy’s chest. Now that his parka was off, I knew who it was: Cadet j.g. Gareth LaCombe, one of the Canadians. His teeth were clenched, and his eyes were open. He was still alive.

The assistant element leader had crawled to us by this time. “Everyone’s well under cover,” he said.

“Any idea where the shot came from?”

I knew. I felt the mind behind the shots. “I saw a muzzle flash from there,” I said, and pointed.

“Take a bearing,” the element leader said to his assistant. “Radio that in,” he told me.

At that moment, the radio squawked. “Oscar 225, update.”

The element leader nodded to me. “One cadet shot in the chest,” I reported. “Alive. All others under cover. Two shots fired from 200 degrees magnetic from this position. Probable sniper rifle, probable range 3,000 feet.”

The radio acknowledged, then added, “Angel Flight 2 minutes away. Close air support 5 minutes away.” There was a pause, and then, “Angel Flight will accept the risk of recovery without cover. Out.”

“How did you know the range?” the Assistant Element Leader asked.

“Counted three seconds between muzzle flash and report, sir,” I said. “It’s a guess, ’cause I didn’t compensate for temperature or altitude when considering the speed of sound, but it’s probably close.”

The Element Leader touched his throat mike to activate the system that connected him to the element. “Oscar 225, this is command. Baby Huey for medevac inbound. As soon as you see him, initiate laser fire 200 degrees 3000 yards. Keep your heads down. He’s got a real gun. I want to flush him out or blind him but I don’t want any of you hurt.”

The Baby Huey hovered a foot off the ground between us and the bad guy, shielding us from any additional fire. Medics wearing safety harnesses leaped from a hatch, and gathered up Colin. They didn’t bother with a stretcher. The Huey made its pickup and was gone in less than 30 seconds. Minutes later, two Guns-a-Go-Go arrived. I still held the tactical radio, so I heard their chatter. They located the source of the shots by infrared sensors. Apparently the shooter was an idiot: he popped off a round at one of the craft. That was sufficient under the rules of engagement. Four Gatlings from each of the Guns-a-Go-Go returned fire. We could see them tearing into the vegetation, and blasting away rock!

“Who was he?”

The exercise had gone on without my element. We were released from the exercise and evacuated to the school. Colin was going to be fine. The laser-tag sensor plate on his chest had robbed the bullet of some of its energy, the thick parka, more, and his Kevlar long johns, more. The bullet had damaged one lobe of his lung, but that had been replaced. He’d be on light duty while ribs healed. We—his element—were gathered around his bed when he asked that question.

“It was kind of hard to identify him,” our Element Leader said. “After taking seventy, one-inch slugs from the Gatling guns, there wasn’t much left but hamburger. He was traced through the serial number on the rifle, and then his ID confirmed by DNA testing of a couple of his relatives. He was a member of an Idaho survivalist group. They knew we did exercises in the mountains each year.”

He paused to allow that to sink in, and then continued. “It would be easy to blame the opsec guys for not seeing this; however, that wouldn’t be fair.”

He grinned. “The opsec—operations security—guys are the ones who are supposed to be paranoid. And Fleet’s are the best. There’s no way, however, they or anyone can predict a random threat like that.”

* * * * *

The Survivalists were unique to the United States of America and were mostly clustered in some northwestern states: Montana, Idaho, and the Dakotas. Some of them had decided that Armageddon was going to be a human-caused event. Even though Fleet was the only entity known to possess nuclear weapons (although Israel and South Africa were suspect), many of the Survivalists were preparing for nuclear war—wrapping two-way radios in aluminum foil to protect them from an electromagnetic pulse, for example. They were—in their own minds, at least—prepared to survive the chaos and emerge if not as leaders at least as key members of a new anarchist world order. Others claimed that Fleet had no jurisdiction in the USA, despite the clear treaties that put Fleet in control while preserving the original constitutional protections. There were a few similarly radical folks scattered in the Old South states of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, relics of the Ku Klux Klan and other White Supremacist movements. They seldom posed a real threat, and were usually dealt with by local authorities.

* * * * *

The New Year was an important festival, and it was customary to give gifts to family and friends. I didn’t have any family to shop for, nor did I have friends. To be safe, I peeked into the minds of my roommates, and then the rest of the boys in the element. They all had plans for simple gifts for each other, but my name wasn’t on any of their lists.

That didn’t stop me from joining them—well, riding in the same maglev—for a shopping trip in Edmonton. The second maglev stop was a huge, indoor shopping mall. The 1,500 or so boys in the train boiled into the shopping center. I followed, more slowly.

I had money to spend. Actually, I had quite a bit. Even though people didn’t remember me, computers did. When Fleet set up a bank account to hold my salary as a cadet, money that had been held in trust for me from my parents’ estates was automatically deposited. I had money, but no one to spend it on.

I thought of sending gifts to the boys in the element, but knew the gifts from me would probably trigger a memory of me, and remind them that they’d not gotten me anything. I thought of sending gifts anonymously to the entire element, including myself, but didn’t think that would be a good idea, either. So, I wandered the mall, looking in store windows, occasionally entering a store for a closer look at something. At noon, I went to the food court, and bought pizza and lemonade, and sat alone at an otherwise empty table in an overcrowded space, and felt sorry for myself.

After lunch, I took the maglev back to the school. There was nothing for me at the mall. There wasn’t much for me at the school, either, but at least I had my iPad.

My roommates hadn’t returned by 1700. I thought maybe they’d gone straight to the mess hall, so I put on a jumpsuit and went there. I could hear the babble of voices long before I arrived.

It took a while to sort out what people were saying, but I cornered one of the tactical officers, and pushed.

“Students at the mall, mostly cadets, were attacked by a mob. Fists, only. None of the boys were killed although several were seriously hurt and taken to hospital in Edmonton. The mall was locked down until just a few minutes ago. The first maglev should be here with injured in 10 minutes. They all should be back by 1900 hours. The mess hall will remain open and taps will be delayed. Tomorrow’s schedule will be revised and nothing will start before 1000 hours.”

He looked at me and furrowed his brows. I thanked him, and disappeared as fast as I could get away. After getting a supper tray, I logged into the school computer using my iPad. I used a backdoor into the personnel system I’d created a few days after I got here. My roommates were all safe and relatively uninjured, although Dmitri would have a wonderful black eye. I’d have to ask about that! One of the boys in my element was in hospital at Edmonton, but was in good condition, and would be released, tomorrow. He’d been hit in the face, and the paramedics saw him covered with blood from a nosebleed, and triaged him as “serious.”

When I sensed my roommates arrive, I pushed, and they joined me at my table. It didn’t take much to get Dmitri to talk.

“Черт луддитов!”

I read what he said, but the others pestered him into speaking English.

“Damned Luddites!” he said.

* * * * *

The Luddites didn’t have a national border; they lived everywhere. However, they were few and disorganized. They were people who thought their golden goose had been killed by Fleet. Anyone who thought they or their ancestors had been left worse off when Fleet took over might become a Luddite. Fleet, which has a monopoly on spaceflight, anti-gravity, and maglev technology, slowly put most aircraft manufacturers and airlines, and later, the automobile manufacturers out of business. When Fleet started operating solar power satellites, they put the coal and shale oil companies out of business. The process took years; people had ample warning and ample opportunity to adapt to the change. Some refused, and they and embittered descendants still tried to cause trouble.

* * * * *

“I hit him сильно — hard!” Dmitri said when we returned to our room. He showed the abraded flesh on his knuckles.

“You’ll have bruises, there. And you must put antibiotic on your hands,” Colin said.

“I did not bleed,” Dmitri said, “therefore I need no antibiotic!”

Colin, Hans, and I exchanged glances. Hans and I tackled Dmitri, and held him down while Colin applied alcohol and antibiotic cream to Dmitri’s knuckles. The alcohol was probably unnecessary, actually.