Chapter 11

You’re Going to Shoot Me

“That’s my command,” Uzik said.

“What’s going on?” I said.

Uzik filled me in on everything so far. He’d sent a request through Captain Silas and the Captain’s diplomats, requesting permission to enter the Solodon ship by Cymech means. Captain Silas was currently meeting with the world leaders of both planets and we’d been hearing back within the hour.

“This is going to waste so much time,” Dani said through gritted teeth. “We know what the answer is going to be.”

As we ate, I listened to everyone argue over the ramifications of not just busting in ourselves. Frankie was quiet and hardly looked at me. Nikola asked a lot of questions but never took a side or revealed a preference of action. Siam was on Dani’s side. Halfway through our meal, Uzik took a signal from Captain Silas and we all respectfully listened in without commenting.

“Uzik and the FreeWheel team,” Captain Silas said. “I’ve spoken with both world leaders and submitted a formal request to Solodon. They’re currently considering the request, and I’ve asked them to provide a reasonable response in the next few hours.”

“We’ll keep scouting the ship in the meantime,” Uzik said. “This may be a matter of life and death for any Solodon trapped inside the ship. Without intelligence, it’s hard to say.”

“I have to say, your request came at the right time,” Captain Silas said. “Tensions are high between the two planets. Miconian civilians are protesting the orbital invasion of Solodons. Solodon expatriates have been warned to keep a low profile while this all blows over. Miconia is receiving a lot of public pressure to defend their orbital sovereignty.”

“There’s no attack,” Uzik said.

“An invasion of orbital sovereignty is an attack,” Captain Silas said. “It is an act of aggression. The Miconian government does not want to engage their military. They want to handle things diplomatically. That’s why your request came at a good time. The busier we can keep both worlds with objective goals, the more time we can buy to solve this border conflict.”

Uzik gave Dani a meaningful look. Dani just folded her arms and leaned over to whisper something to Frankie. Frankie snorted.

“Just a moment, FreeWheel,” Captain Silas said.

We waited patiently while we ate. Uzik had his elbows on the table and his hands clasped together beneath his chin. I went to make some more coffee, certain that I shouldn’t, because I must have been up for at least twenty hours now. I wasn’t the only one thinking of coffee. Frankie swooped in ahead of me and put on a new pot of coffee.

“Listen Frankie,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry if what I said earlier rubbed you the wrong way.”

“Caught me off guard, that’s all,” she said. “You can make up for it tomorrow morning. We’re going to do some training. Then we’ll talk about weapons, and you’ll show me some respect, Capeesh?”

Captain Silas returned to the signal while I leaned against the counter, waiting for the coffee to brew.

“We’ve got an update on our request,” the captain said. “The only thing I’m pleased about is how fast they answered. They’re sending technicians to let you in.”

Dani made a fist and scanned the area around her to punch something. Uzik grimaced.

“How long until they arrive?” Uzik said.

“Two weeks,” Captain Silas said. “Two weeks that we cannot afford. We’ll talk again soon. Have a good night’s rest and we’ll pick up in the morning.”

The signal ended and we let out a collective groan. Dani was even more livid than before, if that were possible. Unable to contain herself anymore, she stood and left the mess hall, slamming the door on her way out.

“Nikola, be sure she doesn’t leave the ship please,” Uzik said.

“Ah, I’ll see to that,” Siam said. “Commander.”

Uzik nodded.

The rest of us cleaned up and retired to our rooms for the night. Though the stress was beginning to mount, I still slept like a rock.

I met with Frankie the next morning, and it seemed that a night’s rest did some good for her. She was back to her old self, complaining over how slow I was at things. The enemy tag training and spatial awareness had done a lot to help me improve my maneuverability in space.

“Alright,” Frankie said, “We’re going to go over some weapons and mech addons after we inspect your mech. Are you ready?”

We took a look at my mech in the habitation. It seemed different to me. Less blocky. Frankie explained that as I used my mech, its form would adjust to my influence on how it's used. She used Uzick’s mech as an example. He’s been known to push top speed with his mech, so it has been self shaping to be more aerodynamic in atmospheres.

“You’ll start to see more drastic changes in your mech as you use it.”

“So the metal armor self-adjusts?”

“Yeap. Lasers heat, bend, and shape the metals. Mana keeps the armor hardened and the armor rating as high as the mech is equipped to have it. For anything else, I get requests when each mech needs to have major changes done. For example, your mech keeps sending me notifications for armament. So after today, I won’t be bothered by those as often.”

“What weapons am I getting?”

“Depends on your style of fighting. Dani is relentlessly close combat, and I’ve had to design her mech so that she could abandon swords if she needed to. Uzik is a flying explosive. Siam specializes in multi barrel rapid fire.”

“My style of fighting has so far been running and sniping.”

“We’re going to start you off with a Frankie’s Basics package. You’re going to be difficult to figure out, so I might as well do something to make it a little easier on my part. You’ll deal with what I give you.”

Frankie’s Basic package consisted of bomb pelt shotguns, a laser slime shield, a double start percussive auger drill, and a laser send blaster sniper rifle. All of which were already installed in my mech.

We suited up and left the FreeWheel to begin training. We hovered beneath the FreeWheel and I spent a few minutes with my rocket engines engaged, blasting around for fun and practice. Frankie let me indulge for a few minutes before calling me back so she could guide me through every weapon, one at a time.

“We’re going to use the drill last. First thing you’re going to try is the laser slime shield. It’s called a slime shield because a tight grid of terawatt lasers overlap at varied femtosecond bursts to allow for one of the most effective shields Mira’s Domain has ever produced. The gridwork alternates every burst, giving the illusion of melting slime. Your Vox is going to guide you on how to engage it. I’m going to engage mine too.”

[Engage Laser Slime Shield using the 47th mana circuit,] Pipper said.

I sent mana into the small mana circuit to my right and my mech was suddenly trapped inside a sphere of neon green slime. The laser slime shield stat showed an armor rating of 300,000. The drawback was that my mana was depleting rapidly. It didn’t seem like I’d be able to keep it up for long. Given the armor rating, I’m guessing it should be used in dire circumstances.

[Adjusting polarization to filter shield light,] Pipper said. [Polarization complete. Polarization chemicals successfully adjusted to filter shield light.]

I could see the shield up around my peripheral and a very dim glow appeared before me, but it didn’t detract from my focus very much. I could barely see a ring of blue around Frankie. She was smiling genuinely.

“Pretty cool hunh?” she said.

“Yea. So what next?”

“Now you’re going to shoot me with the bomb pellet shotguns. Hurry up, because the shield is draining my mana.”