“I still can’t believe you did that to a perfectly good set of armor.” Elyria said, from over Ronin’s shoulder. She was hovering above him in her customary position while they were in the field. The elf hadn’t let Ronin’s redesign of the suit’s armor go for a second, in the hour they’d been out of the ship.
“Will you let it go already?” Ronin grumbled quietly, not wanting Elyria to hear him, and started even harder. It had been a constant stream of abuse since he’d fallen while taking his first step earlier in the day. K3 and Elyria had rushed into the compartment at the loud noise he’d made, only to find him struggling to his feet. Once they’d learned he was ok and had just fallen down, the ribbing had started in earnest.
“What was that White Flame, I missed it.” Elyria said, clutching her belly with laughter. How she flew curled in on herself like that, Ronin had no idea. It would have been cute if she wasn’t being such a pain.
“I asked if we’d reached the road already?” He said quickly, changing the subject.
“Uh-huh,” Elyria said with a snort, but allowed the subject to change. “Yea, this is it. Dandelion said it was the big brick building with the giant helicopter statue in the parking lot.” Ronin nodded, looking up at the huge building. He’d read about them but had never seen one before.
“It’s an interesting concept. We never had anything like this back on Kaldarr.” K3 said from beside Ronin. He turned to look at the kaldarr, and met his eyes, now on a level with his own. It was weird, being on eye level with the eight-foot giant. The suit was nine feet tall, so to onlookers he must seem bigger than K3, but his head didn’t actually enter the helmet, being safely contained within the suit’s chest.
“I’ve read about them, but I’d never hoped to see one before.” Ronin said, turning back to the building. “My understanding is pre-fall, museums like this were a common part of our community. Displaying exhibits of our past, so we wouldn’t forget where we came from.”
“We had something similar on our ancestral ship.” Elyria tossed in, taking in the plain looking building with interest. “Sculptures and images of all the races that used to inhabit our moon before it was rendered uninhabitable. So many people died back then, and so many plants. Only the barest percent could be saved when we fled on our dryad-built home ship.” Ronin wasn’t sure if it made him feel better, or just sadder, that he wasn’t the only one in the group whose home had been killed by an outside force they had no control over.
“Let’s go check it out.” He said at last, slowly making his way up the stone steps outside the building. He was having a lot of trouble moving freely in the suit. It wasn’t like in the comics that had mecha suits he’d used to read. There was quite a bit of lag with each movement, and he had to fight the urge to overcompensate and send himself tumbling again. Ronin moved his hands and feet slowly and smoothly, waiting for the suit to catch up before he took the next action. It moved well, and to anyone on the outside, he probably didn’t look like he was struggling at all. Still, if he was going to fight in this thing, he would need to anticipate his enemies’ every move. Otherwise, he risked the suit’s leg putting him too off balance to deal with an incoming blow.
“Looks like it’s locked.” Elyria said, reaching for the door first. “I guess that’s a good thing. It means the place shouldn’t be disturbed.” She added, looking down at the large rusty chain and padlock that kept the metal and glass doors closed.
“I’ll get it.” K3 said, pulling his hammer from his equipment harness. Ronin raised a slow hand to stop him.
“Let me try,” he said, gripping the lock and a fistful of chain in his suit’s large hand. Squeezing it tightly, he pulled the chain taut. He could feel resistance, but not as much as he expected. He pulled until the door handles popped free entirely, clattering to the dusty cement steps below.
“I’m not sure if the suit is that strong, or if the doors were just that old.” Elyria said, obviously surprised at how easily the door had given way to Ronin’s attempt to open it.
“Now if I could only make this thing do more than walk in a straight line,” Ronin grumbled. Stepping back, slowly, to let K3 open the door, since he couldn’t control the suit well enough to open them without handles.
“Quit complaining, White Flame.” Elyria said, slapping him on the shoulder. “Ouch, dang it… Hey, don’t you laugh at me.” Ronin hadn’t even felt the blow, only catching the motion out of the corner of his eye. The elf felt it though by the looks of it. Since she was shaking her hand vigorously after hitting his armored suit.
“Ha-ha, don’t worry about it, boss.” K3 said, holding the door open. “The longer you wear it, the better at controlling it you’ll be. Besides, with the number you did on the plates, I have a feeling you could get it running a little smoother if you really wanted too.” That suggestion sparked no end to ideas in Ronin’s head. Driving him into another daydream, until Elyria kicked him in the chest plate, to get him moving again.
“Sorry, I’m coming.” He mumbled, entering the multistory building ahead of the others. Normally, K3 would lead the way, but Ronin was safe in his suit. Besides, this place was abandoned. A sentiment he regretted thinking as soon as he walked through the door.
“Gah,” Ronin said, backpedaling and bringing his gatling gun to bear on the huge monster right in front of the doorway. He’d fired off a half dozen rounds before he realized what he had mistaken for a monster was actually one of the exhibits.
“Oh my gosh,” Elyria said bursting into laughter. “Did you really just freak out and shoot a stuffed mammoth?” Ronin frowned at her, not for the first time, recognizing how young the elf acted sometimes. He wondered just how long she could have been married, and if her husband had been as young as she was. It seemed unlikely, or he wouldn’t have been the leader of the moon elf detachment on Ronin’s pocket world.
“Yes, it’s hilarious. Come on, let’s check this place out.” Thankfully, the place really did seem abandoned, leaving the trio free to explore the museum. The exhibits were all in remarkably decent shape. The lack of windows helped keep sun and wind damage at bay, and the lack of anything living kept plants and animals from ruining anything.
“Why is there such a huge museum in this small mining town?” Elyria asked, several hours later. Standing in front of an exhibit showing the pharaohs of Egypt. “This town doesn’t look big enough to support this place.”
“They opened it after the government closed the mine.” Ronin said, having read it on a sign. “They were trying to recoup their lost income from the mine. I don’t know how well it wor… Hey, I can read that.” He said, interrupting himself as he realized he was reading the hieroglyphs placed around the Egyptian display. “Wait a minute…” he said, turning to the sign he’d been reading a little bit ago. “This isn’t in English… I shouldn’t be able to read this.”
“Why not?” Elyria asked in confusion. “I can read it just fine,” she added with a shrug.
“So can I. What’s the matter boss?” K3 asked, worriedly.
“Guys, I don’t know why I never noticed before, but these exhibits, heck even the signs and the brochures are all in different languages. From various parts and eras of my world. I never learned how to speak or read anything other than my native language.”
“Oh, really?” Elyria asked, shrugging off his concerns. “White Flame, my ship got pulled out of hyper, and got stuck in the atmosphere of your world. Since I’ve landed here, I’ve met wood elves, goblins, bugbears, humans, kaldarr, hobats, hobgoblins and oni… know what I haven’t met?” She asked, putting her thumb and index finger to her chin as if in thought. “Someone I couldn’t understand.” She finished, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“She has a point boss.” K3 said with a shrug. “I’ve never met another intelligent form of life I couldn’t communicate with on some level. Are you saying your one species, on your one planet had more than one way to speak?... That seems weird. How did you communicate with one another? If I met a kaldarr who spoke differently than I did and didn’t understand my words… I’d wonder if they were even of my own race.”
Ronin thought back on all his interactions with all the various races he’d met along the way. It was strange, but he never had any issues with understanding anyone. Then, he thought about all the books he’d read about earth’s history. The misunderstandings and the wars that had happened, simply because people couldn’t understand one another or saw the world differently.
“I think that was a problem for us too,” he said, sadly. “But I’m assuming the ship set my pocket world up so I could read and understand everyone there… it must have carried over here somehow. It’s strange, but I’m not going to complain.” He decided to let it go. No point thinking about it too hard, but he did file the thought away to talk with Leo about it some time.
“Terracotta soldiers? Hey boss are these the armored statues you were talking about. The ones the standing kaldarr armor reminded you of?” Sometime after exiting the Egyptian exhibit, they’d entered one depicting ancient China. Several time periods were displayed here, this exhibit taking up the entire top floor. Ronin wondered about that, until he realized they were in what had once been China.
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“Yea, these are it. Though I’ve only ever seen them in books… it’s really something.” Ronin said, his breath getting caught in his throat as he stared at the ancient soldiers made from clay. They were outfitted in lamellar armor, like the locust lamellar his people had taken to wearing in the year he’d been gone. K3 had filled him in on many details from that time, but he was still missing a large chunk of the picture. Ronin, so caught up in his memories, barely noticed K3 begin talking into his radio, or the hand his friend placed on his shoulder.
“Come on boss,” he said quietly. “Let’s finish up here and make a plan on what we do for the next few days while we wait for Leo.”
“No need,” Ronin said. He shook himself mentally to clear the daydreams that could take him away if he wasn’t careful. “There’s a pair of crystal trees just outside of town. They are so close together their branches are intertwined… I want to get the next batch of armored plates printing to fix up another suit. Then, I’m heading out to strip farm those trees. I need some practice with this suit if I ever want to use it in combat, and now’s as good a time as any.”
“Works for me,” Elyria said, getting a nod from K3, and a surprised look from Ronin. “What, expect us to argue with you?” She asked with a snicker. “You’re right, you need all the practice you can get. Besides, what else are we going to do for two more days?” She turned to K3, “make sure you get Jackson on his team.” She said with a wicked smile, “we can’t let his training slip after all.” K3 nodded again, and Ronin groaned.
* * *
Ronin hauled himself up the tree in slow motion. Each hand and foot hold took seconds longer than it would have if he’d been climbing outside the armored suit. Ronin still couldn’t get over how slow the thing reacted. He had his arms and legs inside the suit’s limbs, so he figured it would be instantaneous. The sensors that captured his body movement and translated that into suit movement, however, just weren’t that good. He chalked it up to being a human design because nothing the beetles had brought with them was this awkward.
“Slow down boss,” K3 said from beside him. “Jaya isn’t as familiar with the suits as you are, and Jackson is already getting tired.” Ronin looked down, a tricky feat in the suit. Sure enough, Jaya was fumbling her way up the tree some twenty feet below. Just from watching her move, Ronin could tell she wasn’t waiting for the suit to catch up with her movements before she tried to move again. As for Jackson, Ronin couldn’t see her at all. He cracked a grin; not sorry his tormentor was having a tough time with the climb.
“Alright,” he said, turning his attention back to the tree. “We’re almost to the first branch, we can rest there for a bit before we clear the bugs.” His original plan had been to get right to clearing the tree of life. His people on the other hand, had disagreed. They wanted to wait the few hours it would take to print out new armored plates and fix a second suit. Thankfully, Ronin had done it once before, and with Jaya helping for operator’s experience, the process went much faster this time.
She’d still not said anything Ronin could hear, so he’d asked K3 about it when they had a quiet moment. Turned out the woman was mute, from an accident in her youth. Something Ronin hadn’t expected at all. Why would they put someone on his team who couldn’t communicate over the coms? Of course, that had been his initial reaction. After thinking about it for only a few moments he remembered just how competent Jaya was in combat. Her not being able to speak wasn’t an insurmountable problem, not when compared to the utility she brought to the team.
Reaching the first branch of the tree, Ronin walked to the middle of the village sized limb and leaned his back against the main trunk, while he waited for the rest of the team to catch up.
“You’re getting a lot better with the suit.” K3 said with an approving nod. “I didn’t see you miss a single handhold in the last hundred yards of the climb.”
“Maybe,” Ronin said with a frown. “But it isn’t good enough for combat. I’m going to be a slightly mobile turret during any fighting. A detriment more than anything in tight quarters, since the gatling gun is way too big and unwieldy for precision work.”
“That’s why you made that custom PCP .50,” Elyria said. Ronin looked up… to find the damned elf was standing on his shoulder. Copying his pose by leaning her back against the tree. “That should fill the accuracy gap, right.”
“I need to figure out someway to tell when people are touching me.” Ronin said, craning his neck to eye the smirking elf. “I can’t feel anything unless it hits me hard enough to rock the suit. One of the scouts could take me out from behind without my ever noticing…. But yea, it should help.” He said, addressing her point, by pulling out the massive rifle.
It wasn’t any more powerful than the PCP .50’s the scouts carried. Ronin had made several modifications however, since the original rifle was too small for him to use. Apart from increasing its size several times over, Ronin increased the ammunition count to a whopping two hundred rounds. He’d wanted to copy the gatling gun’s concept of using two air tanks. So, one could be charging while he shot from the other one. The batteries that powered the compressors required too many rare ingredients though, so he’d settled on just using a bigger tank, which was easy enough to manufacture.
“I should be able to take down the aphids easily enough. With two hundred shots it will hold up for a while… but I can’t reload the dang thing inside the suit.” He’d tried, several times. He just wasn’t able to make the armored hands make fine enough movements.
“That’s the truth.” Elyria said, hopping off his shoulder and landing lightly on the ground, with a flutter of her wings. “You crushed an air tank trying to screw it on… At least the thing is powerful. If anyone gets too close just swing at them. Nearly anyone will be crushed, assuming you connect.” Ronin shuddered at the memory. He didn’t think he was squeezing it that hard, but feeling was something that just didn’t translate through the sensors.
He’d gotten out of the suit to squeeze one of the tanks, even had K3 and K6 try it too. Ronin and K3 hadn’t been able to even dent the thing. K6 had been able to put a small dent in it, but nothing like what Ronin had done to the twisted and crushed tank with his suit.
That was another thing that had confused Ronin, at least until he looked it up. How did the tree produce items so similar to metal? Short answer is they acted similarly to the stone carver rats. As their roots quested further and further into the earth, they sucked up all the minerals to fuel their rapid growth. Those minerals were then incorporated into the tree’s trunk to reinforce its giant size and gave them a crystalline appearance.
“Hey boss,” K3 said, bringing Ronin out of his reflections. He cursed silently, knowing he wasn’t doing too well with that. He was finding it hard to break the habit, after more than twenty years of having only himself for company. His mind would wander away on paths all its own. “Boss,” K3 repeated. Ronin cursed, having done it again, and turned his attention to the kaldarr.
“What’s up?” He asked, shifting his attention to his surroundings. That’s when he noticed Jaya and Jackson had arrived. Looking up, he found Stone flying overhead. He couldn’t see her from here, but he knew Whisper would be circling the other tree, being overwatch for yokai team 01 as they cleared it.
“Everyone is here now, so why don’t you and Jaya practice with the new rifles? There are hundreds of aphids on this branch. Try to take them out from here. Don’t worry if you miss it at first. We have plenty of ammunition.” That proved to be a good thing, because neither Ronin nor Jaya could hit anything at all. Jaya broke her rifle by squeezing the trigger too hard after a few dozen missed shots.
“Alright, this isn’t working,” Ronin said when the rifle crunched next to him. “We’ve learned something though. The rifles need bigger sights, and stronger construction. Give me a minute…” Slipping free from the armored suit, Ronin pulled out his tablet and reworked the rifle file for half an hour before turning to Elyria.
“Would you mind flying this down to the ship please? Give it to Karr to get the new rifles printing, then bring it back with you.” He would have asked one of the scouts to do it, had they both been there. Since there was only Stone, he wanted to keep her on overwatch duty. That only left Elyria who could do the job with any kind of speed.
“I see how it is,” she said with a snort, but she still accepted the tablet. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, don’t go falling off the tree without me now.” She said it jokingly, but there was real concern in Elyria’s eyes as she flew away.
“Da pair of ya are off the cob,” Jackson said snidely. Causing Ronin to notice how out of breath and shaky the brawler was. He smirked, realizing something after she spoke.
“Excellent, Jackson. Thanks for the reminder.” He said with a huge grin.
“What are you on about, Crumb?” She asked, glaring at him suspiciously.
“It’s been three hours since our last practice session. And look at that, I’m already out of my armor. Why don’t we set to it? We need to kill some time until the new guns are done printing anyway.” K3 let out a deep, rolling belly laugh at Ronin’s statement.
“Right, you are boss, guess it is that time.” Jackson was now glaring at both of them with equal fierceness, but she’d brought it on herself as far as Ronin was concerned. So, he didn’t have any sympathy for her.
The fight started about as good as he could hope for. He didn’t dominate the fight, but he did much better than at any time before. Even getting in several hits on the angrily cursing woman. The taunts, now easy for Ronin to ignore, since he didn’t understand the 1930’s slang she was throwing at him anyway, went ignored as they fought.
“Well, aren’t you just having a ball,” Elyria said when she returned some fifteen minutes into the fight. “New rifles should be done in just under two hours, so enjoy your spar. I’ll ask Stone to grab them though, and I’ll take overwatch… the damn things are too big for me to carry in the air.” Ronin looked up at her words, losing concentration for just long enough to be taken to the ground by an aggressively cackling Jackson. “Oops, sorry.” Elyria said, not sounding sorry at all to Ronin, who was getting his face pounded in. Thankfully, Jackson really was tired from the climb, and he was able to regain the high ground. The whole fight went like that, and Ronin was happy with how much he’d learned about her fighting style while she was too tired to move at full speed.
“Sorry for the delay boss.” Stone said, some time later, dropping off the newly printed rifles. “Karr took a few minutes to test fire them before he let me bring them up. Wanted to make sure they were sighted correctly. He said if you had any trouble shooting now, at least you’d know it was the suit making things difficult and not the rifle being off.”
That was very thoughtful of the sergeant, and Ronin made a mental note to thank the man for it. When doing any experiments, one wanted to eliminate as many variables as one could. Otherwise, they wouldn’t know what change had caused the problem, or the fix. Changing more than one thing at a time was only confusing. Ronin smirked again at the thought of himself spending his days inside a lab, instead of on the battlefield.
“Ok then,” he said at last, climbing back into his suit and gripping the newly reenforced and sighted rifle. “You ready to try again Jaya?” He asked the woman wearing an identical suit to his own. She didn’t answer in words, but the poorly articulated thumbs up she made was answer enough for Ronin. “Alright then, let’s do this.”
The changes to the rifles made all the difference. It still took them several shots to hit anything, but without needing to worry about breaking the trigger by pulling it too hard, they were able to focus solely on aiming. After finishing off the branch’s aphid population, Ronin waited while K3 reloaded both his and Jaya’s rifles, before heading up towards the next branch. He had a feeling this was going to be easy… at least until they reached the wasp hive at the top of the tree.