The Lord of the Plains (27 page)

‘Ok, I want you to load it and fire it as
you do with the Order-1. Mind you don’t drop it, the recoil’s
vicious.’

Jann wasn’t as strong as Major Malais and
couldn’t hold with one arm. He had to crouch down and struggle with
it before he managed to load it. He stood up, dragging the Breaker
with him.

He hefted it, aimed. A bright beam shot from
the nozzle. But that wasn’t what anyone was paying attention to.
Jann swore as he nearly dropped it. The light arced towards the
ceiling, leaving scorch marks. Riley noticed those weren’t the only
scorch marks up there. Jann caught it and then fell to the ground,
just stopping it from crashing.

‘We have to use this thing?!’ Jann said,
horrified, as he rubbed his arm.

‘I thought heavier energy weapons generally
had less recoil.’ One of the human girls, Leili Fleras, said.

Malais was momentarily disconcerted. ‘Who
told you that?’ He asked.

‘Major Berdis.’

‘Well, someone’s been paying attention.’ And
he left it at that. ‘We’ll be using this weapon for the next few
weeks, or until you are all proficient with it.’

By the end of the day everyone was aching
and burnt from struggling with the Breaker. Not only was it heavy
and lively, it became uncomfortably hot when used. They were
advised not to touch the loading mechanism or barrel until a few
hours after they were done. Even so, some people ended up with
burnt fingers. Even if you managed not to bump the burning hot
metal, just standing near it was torture. By the end of the day,
the room was as hot as an oven.

Holding it did not have the same effect on
Riley as holding the Order-1. It was when it fired and that oh so
familiar beam of light appeared that she had a problem and nearly
dropped the thing. Still, as far as Riley was concerned it was a
vast improvement over the Order-1.

She was perhaps the only person in that
class pleased with the day’s work.

The next few weeks were hellish for most of
the students in the class while for Riley they were like a pleasant
holiday.

The other students were determined to master
the monstrosity and then never use it again. Riley would have been
happy to keep using it forever.

Two weeks later, Malais, looking a little
bit put out, announced that they would no longer be using the
Breaker. There was a round of cheering. Riley felt her stomach
drop. Would it be the Order-1 again? She didn’t want to go back to
that. She didn’t think she could.

‘We will begin work with the weapon used by
most patrols, the Standard Issue High-Grade Personal Energy Weapon,
the SIGPEW. I assume you are all familiar with this weapon?’

There was a round of ‘yes sir’s. This had
been covered extensively in theory some time ago.

The SIGPEW was like a dream. It had a
cooling system, so you couldn’t accidently burn yourself while
handling it, and it was

light as a feather compared to the Breaker
(though much heavier than the Order-1). But most importantly for
Riley it was a large weapon that was closer to the Breaker in
appearance than the Order-1, so she was able to use it with far
more ease than the Order-1.

‘Now, some of you have been asking some
questions about the Breaker.’ Major Malais said to the gathered
group after all the weapons were packed away. He smiled. ‘The
Breaker is the original SIGPEW. It was taken out of active use
around…’ he frowned, ‘three hundred years ago… It has… also been
modified for training purposes.’ he grinned evilly. ‘I imagine the
original Astar Home Defence Patrol didn’t have as much trouble with
this beast as you children did.’

‘So it’s not actually used?’ Jann asked,
‘ever?’

‘Never ever. Just to break in new students.’
he smirked. ‘Don’t go telling any new students that though.’

Over the next few weeks they worked with the
SIGPEW. As it took high-grade charge, they also learnt how to set
their weapons. The settings on the SIGPEW were located on the side
of the weapon under a protective cover. There was a switch to
change from low to medium response and a dial to change the
settings within the response. However due to the possibility of
accidentally using the wrong settings, the SIGPEWs they used had
been modified, so the combat settings couldn’t be used. After
Malais was satisfied with their performance however, they began
using the SIGPEWs with full capabilities. Having to reload an
energy weapon wasn’t likely to be a problem in combat very often,
as the charges could last over two hours if used carefully. There
hadn’t been a drawn out battle with gemengs near Astar in a long
time. Some of the students decided to test just
how
long the
high-grade charge could last by setting the SIGPEW to max and
letting out a continuous stream of raw power at the practice room
wall. After draining the SIGPEW in less than ten minutes and
burning a hole most of the way through the very thick, heavily
reinforced wall, those students were banned from practicing for a
month. Despite the low likelihood of getting into a drawn out
battle with gemengs, Malais had his students learn to reload and
fire in under three seconds and they learnt to change the settings
with their eyes closed.

Despite the SIGPEW being easier for Riley to
use than the Order-1, she still returned home tired. It was a
struggle at first but she did start her park runs again, which
improved her mood markedly. Eventually, it got easier. Her shoulder
still throbbed whenever she saw or touched a personal energy
weapon, known as PEWs. They made her uneasy and she was never
comfortable around them, but she no longer had to struggle to
control her shaking.

Moving on to MEWs-mounted energy weapons and
RAWs- remotely activated weapons, was not any easier than using the
PEWs. They bore no resemblance to the weapon used in the testing
centre, but the light was the same. And that was enough.

In fact, the MEWs terrified her. They did
not use them, just saw demonstrations of them being handled by
teams of three or more people. They saw weapons with barrels as
wide as her forearm was long, that shot a beam of what looked like
a river of molten gold. It terrified her to think of what that
thing could do, knowing what a weapon she could hold in one hand
could do to her.

The RAWs had heavy wheels and treads. They
moved by themselves and had energy weapons as large as the MEWs
fixed to them.

Chapter 18

At the end of the first year the group split
further. Those who were staying in the infantry and wanted a chance
of an early promotion, or wanted to get into the air force, were
very stressed about their exams. There were very few who wanted to
be transferred to Coastside, though you had to be exceptional for
that, as Coastside trained their own submariners.

For Riley and the other gemengs the exams
weren’t as worrisome. They were staying in the infantry and weren’t
going to get promoted very far.

When the exams were over the units were
rearranged into groups of five. Some people had left for other
paths, others were moved into other groups for reasons of group
cohesion and so on.

On the first day back Riley looked around at
the group she was now a part of, Training Unit 4, or TU-4. Jann
Geggis greeted her with a smile. Leili Fleras was also there as was
Batar Krope. Maztar Lemnar was in another unit, Gasann Hulin had
joined the air force. The only other gemeng in their group, Geilar
Thres, had not been part of their exercise group but had been in
their theory class.

Standing in front of the large hall of 2nd
year infantry students, where last year they had been first broken
up into exercise groups, was a hard-nosed man who introduced
himself as Colonel Hamnar.

He told the students what to expect in the
coming year. By now, he said, they should be familiar with weaponry
and the theory of unit tactics. Now they would begin putting that
into practice. The unit they were in would be the unit they stayed
with when they graduated, unless there was a problem. They would
also go on patrol with the Internal Defence and Internal Order
Forces as part of their training, as well as with the Astar Home
Defence Patrol. They would spend less scheduled time on exercise
routines and unarmed combat training, however they were expected to
keep that up in their spare time.

Today, he said, would be the first day of
combat training.

‘The rules are simple. Capture the opposing
unit’s base. One shot and you’re out. You’ll have twenty minutes to
discuss the plan and then the game will begin.’

And as quick as that the units split up and
headed in different directions. The unit Riley was in and Maztar’s
unit, TU-5, were paired against each other.

The combat training area was a large space
with obstacles, barriers and fortifications. They were given
SIGPEWs modified for training. They would sting, but they wouldn’t
be able to do any real damage.

To begin with they weren’t really sure how
to start. There was no real leader among them and no one had been
put in charge.

Jann cleared his throat and looked around
nervously, ‘um, so how should we do this?’ he looked at Leili.

‘Uh…well I guess we need to leave some
people to defend the base and some others should go capture their
base.’

She looked around at their group
expectantly. ‘Who wants to go capture their base?’

There was silence.

Everyone looked at each other. Riley was
looking at what she could see of the area from their position. No
area was elevated above any other, so it was difficult to get a
good idea of the space. Their base was located in a rather poor
position. They were in a clear space, so an attack was possible
from all sides. On the up side, at least sneaking up on them should
be difficult.

‘Ok, I’ll close my eyes and point. Whoever I
point to stays here, alright?’ Leili said.