Zed Space Chapter 2

 

Chapter 2

“I cannot morally allow my men out there,” I said, to the woman whose son was missing. “It’s suicide. We barely made it as it is.”

The woman got onto her knees. “Please, please,” she said. “I know he’s still alive. I know it.”

I looked to the civilians. “Does anyone want to volunteer for a possibly suicidal rescue mission?” I said.

No one stepped forward. I turned to the woman. “I apologize,” I said. “We can’t go back out there.”

The woman broke down into tears. I turned away, unsure of how to console her. To keep my mind from that I began the integration process. We had just acquired two hundred more civilians who needed to be tested for the virus. Alice and Jacob took care of that while I surveyed the fifty or so civvies who had been chosen to be part of our militia while we were gone.

“You lot are not soldiers,” I said, “And I do not expect you to perform like you are. But I do expect a certain level of competence from all of you. If you fail, you die. Do you understand?”

The militia members attempted a salute. It was crude, but I wasn’t going to push that, as all we needed were bodies with guns.

I could hear the woman who lost her son wailing in the background. I tuned it out.

“We are going to have to defend against major attacks,” I said. “This planet is level one infected,” I said. “There are five levels. If we get to three before rescue arrives, we’re toast no matter how many guns we have.” I walked up to my pod and tapped it. “In here, spatially stored, is everything we need to survive for the next month. It’s possible that we may get a resupply. But until then this is what we got.”

I turned to Garret. “Find everyone who is a mechanic or has mechanical expertise.” I turned back to the civilians. “If everything goes well, we may be able to retake some of the city. There are doubtless hundreds of pockets of survivors who are awaiting rescue by us. This particular city has been seeded with fifteen drop trooper squads.”

Orange, the leader of Salamander squad, approached me. He saluted. “Salamander squad is all accounted for. We are beginning rescue of Ms. Liber’s son.”

I paused. “You’re doing it?” I said.

Orange nodded. “We have a duty to save as many people as possible.”

“He’s most likely already dead,” I said.

“We don’t know that,” said Orange. “But it’s beside the point. This current situation is bad for morale.”

“I’m not your commander,” I said, “So you go ahead. I’ll be supporting you. I’ll get my sniper on point to keep overwatch.” I waved at Jacob. “Hey, private,” I said.

Jacob saluted. “Need me, Lieutenant?”

“I need you to provide overwatch for Salamander squad’s rescue attempt.”

“Sure thing,” said Jacob. He shouldered his high power sniper rifle.

“Your priority is mutants,” I said. “Salamander squad can handle any regular dorks that come their way.”

“Yes sir,” said Jacob. He turned. “I think I see the best vantage point.” He pointed towards the VIP lounges. “They have a good line of sight over the surrounding city.”

“Get to it,” I said.

Jacob saluted and started walking towards the suites. Salamander squad, with Orange at the front, went towards an entrance on the other side of the stadium. Since the truck entrance we had used before was surrounded by the zombies we attracted with our rescue mission, this was the most logical way to proceed.

“Good luck,” I said. “You’ll need it.”

Orange saluted and started towards the exit. I watched them go and then turned to the civvies who had been selected for militia duty.

“You’re going to have to become fit,” I said. “It takes a lot of speed and endurance to outrun a sprinter.” I began walking back and forth along the line of militia members. “There are three mutants we will have to worry about in the near future,” I said. “Jumpers are the least dangerous. If you spot them first it’s usually easy to take them down. However, if they catch you unprepared, you’ll surely get bit. Jumpers hold you down while the ordinary folk bite you to pieces. They are rather stupid and not nearly as scary as hunters. But we won’t have to worry about those boys until we hit level three infection.” I continued walking. “Sprinters. These zed heads can move fast, like their name suggests. They also have a lot of stamina and endurance. The best thing to do when you see a sprinter is to run and gun. That means you run while simultaneously firing your weapon. Eventually they will go down. Aim not for their head but for their limbs. Sprinters are too fast moving for you to reliably get a head shot, and the best bet is to disable them instead.” I stopped, and performed an about face. “And then we have fats. A fat is a zombie that has secreted a special tissue that absorbs kinetic energy. They are almost impossible to take down with small arms fire, but are very slow. The best way to deal with these is an anti-tank weapon. Thankfully for you, we have a couple. And by a couple I mean over a thousand rounds.” I tapped my feet together. “Any questions?”

A militia member raised his hand. “What about armor?” he said.

“Meaning?” I said. “Vehicles or personal?”

“Personal,” said the man.

“We’ve brought enough,” I said. “Even spatial packing has a limit, however, so we have to be sparing about it. I will issue armor to every second member of this militia. If you want to be one of those people, work hard during training.” I clapped my hands. “All of you. We’re doing a hundred laps around the stadium.”

There was less resistance than I had expected for that. I suppose everyone realized that their lives were on the line. We needed to be fit to fight this war.

I led the jog. This first one would be without equipment, but eventually we would do twice this distance with a backpack full of equipment.

Alice joined me along the run.

“You don’t have to be here,” I said. “Don’t you have other things to do?”

“It’s been a day since my last good run,” said Alice. “There’s not much running space on a ship.”

“I don’t mind,” I said. Alice and I continued to run in silence.

After fifty laps I could tell that the militia was having a hard time. This was nothing for me, of course, but I decided to cut it short.

“You lot have no endurance,” I said, as I ended the run. “You’re zed bait, all of you.”

The militia looked as if it had been pushed to its limit. I had probably set the bar too high with a hundred laps to start.

But it was time for me to be evil. “Two hundred pushups, all of you! Then two hundred squats and two hundred crunches!”

I watched as the militia strove to do what I had told them to do. When they were done, they were exhausted down to the man. I strutted around in front of them. “In an hour we are going to practice our shooting. Don’t worry about ammunition usage. We have brought plenty.”

The hour passed without much fanfare. When my stopwatch beeped I ushered the militia onto the less inhabited side of the grass field. During the break hour my squad had assembled.

Just before the practice began, Salamander squad returned.

Orange jogged up to me. When I tilted my head he shook his.

“He didn’t make it?” I said.

Orange frowned. “We couldn’t save him. He had already turned by the time we found him.”

The mother’s wailing echoed in my mind. I sighed. “There’s nothing we can do.”

Orange saluted and so did I. I returned to my militia members. “If you want to be able to save people like that,” I said, “Then you had better become good marksmen. I expect all of you to become experts before the month is up.”

“Sir!” shouted the militia.

The shooting practice began. The guns were loud, and would probably attract many zed heads to our position, but there was no substitute for live fire training. I walked along the line of men and women, correcting the posture of the people who were doing it wrong. When half an hour had passed I stopped the practice.

“You’re done for today,” I said. “Go home and be with your families.” I chuckled. “Well, there’s not much home here anymore.”

There was a huge rumbling and the ground began to shake. I stabilized myself, but a lot of the militia members stumbled and fell.

“That was probably the West Tarthing fusion plant,” I said, shielding my vision against the sudden flash of bright light that enveloped the city.

When the light receded, a pillar of black smoke rose from across the city.

“Who knows how many people died in that explosion,” I said.

I turned away. “It’s dinner time.”

The line for the evening meal had already formed. We were rationed a small amount of real food, but most of our nutrition for the next month or so would be Soylent, a super-rich energy paste. Thankfully the designers of the stuff had come up with over a hundred flavors, but even so it was tough to subsist on mush.

The real food today was a bowl of rice and a small piece of dried meat. For my Soylent flavor I chose Red Cherry Surprise, ™. It was one of my favorites.

The Soylent machine resembled a self-service soda fountain that you would find in a civilian fast food restaurant. You chose a flavor from the digital panel up top and placed your cup beneath it. It took thirty seconds to fill and then you had a fully balanced nutritional food substitute to keep you going for the next twelve hours.

I savored my rice and meat before sucking up the tube of Soylent.

It looked like the civvies did not like the idea of Soylent. Since I was a soldier, I was conditioned to eat this stuff, but to a civilian used to McFanks and such, it was a huge step down.

But food is food, and over a Hundred Wonderful Flavors ™ was not something to snuff at.

I sucked down my Red Cherry Surprise ™ and placed the cup inside my personal cube storage for reuse next meal time.

Alice came by me and sat down with her food. She took a small bite of rice and then a large swig of Chocolate Moon ™. Sighing, she leaned back on the astroturf.

“Another mission, another city lost,” she said. “I know this mission is worth something but I can’t help remembering Anelise.”

“Yeah, that was a disaster,” I said. I ate my last grain of rice. “But I think we’re going to do well this time around. The militia is looking good and we have the speedmakers.”

“It’s experimental equipment,” said Alice. “We’re the navy’s guinea pigs.”

“And I couldn’t be happier,” I said. “We have the good stuff and because of that we may be able to survive until the navy comes.”

“Hey, I have something to tell you,” said Alice. She looked around to make sure we were far enough separated from the others. “I think this planet may be progressing in infection level a lot faster than normal.”

I looked up at the smoke from the fusion power plant. “May be,” I said. “But our job is to survive despite that.” I stood up. “And that’s what we’re going to do.”