System of the Damned
Chapter 5 - Roderick
Monster Storm
The “experiment” as some called it, caused Xavier and I to end up being very busy for a few weeks. Especially since we’d figured out that handling unshielded electronics could end in battery failure or in the case of one poor tablet...explosive overcharging. This got more worries shared by the science teams and Captain Rowland said that Xavier and I were just the first to end up like this. Though I have to admit that I was politely told not to do any more foolish experiments without safety gear or warning anyone about it. Even if one marine tradition was to break things.
The mimics had seemed to have taken a liking to hanging around the strange new aliens visitors to their world and cleaning up piles of grasses, tree limbs, stumps, and the occasional creature that charged the working area of the valley. It was a casual buffet for them, the only issue was getting them not to eat some things, or take the place of some things. Mimics seemed far from stupid creatures, but they were as curious as a toddler, and loved to hide in plain sight. We understood they were predators, but unlike any other predator we’d dealt with, these creatures literally hid in the open.
One of the solid tire tractors ended up losing all four of its tires and getting an upgrade when the mimics who’d eaten said tires took their places. Though getting the civilian workers to not panic when something suddenly had eyes, licked them, or poked them, was a small issue that the security teams were always busy handling. It left me with the fun of handling the steady flow of paperwork dealing with those incidents.
One group of mimics ended up becoming beloved by the vehicle maintenance teams after Chief petty officer Li Wei got one to understand how to clean up metal parts...and not eat them whole. The boulder of that mimic group earned the name Rusty after it cleaned out the rust and gunk that’d built up in a scout’s turbines. Li was less happy when Rusty and its spawn proceeded to eat his personal toolbox, but the spawn earned their place when they turned themselves into tools.
I ended up going between the occasional meeting with Captain Rowland and team leads, to the medical ward, to the finished vehicle bays, and back at random times. In between all of those things, I had paperwork, and as luck and an inventive tech would have it, Xavier ended up helping me with the paperwork. He now had a two inch wide keyboard and touchpad setup that hooked up wirelessly. The kicker was the exoskeleton they were refitting to use the new mineral in its power supply was also being refit so that Xavier could pilot it. The ship’s Ai was thankfully helping crunch numbers for the eggheads that were having shiny moments with the new mineral.
I knew he and I were being used as lab rats and testers for things, and on occasion someone would stop me or him and have us hold something or use it. Which is how I ended up outside the ship and standing far from it with a weapon in hand. A hundred yards from me was an exoskeleton that had a new type of metal armor, it had a pale glow in the evening’s light. “About to take testing shots.”
The techs were off in a sheltered side building that’d been finished a week before. “Roger that Major, we’ve done lesser impact tests, the frame and armor seems to be several times stronger than the previous alloys used.” They always had that cute chinese girl talk to me over the com, she was cute, and they knew my weakness was a cute woman, it’s how they’d talked me into this test.
As she spoke, I looked around to make sure the new crop fields were clear of people and that no one was in a risky place where they might catch a stray round. “Copy that, proceeding with the test.” I got to pick the weapon to test the armor with and I grinned as I lifted the Terra-tech remake of the M134 minigun. I’d gotten some looks when I’d chosen this weapon to test the armor, but I’d only brought a thousand round belt with me.
After planting my feet, I braced the back of the minigun to my thigh and held on tight as I squeezed the trigger. The chainsaw blast of gunfire flowed over the valley as slugs and tracers stitched a line up to the new exoskeleton and washed over it. It was slightly hard to hold the gun on target and bullets washed over the entire exoskeleton before my belt ran out and I set the gun down. I’d seen bullets and tracers exploding over the armored shell and it was glowing brightly inside the haze of destruction.
“Good work Major, we’re reading zero damage to the exo or the armor.” There was a pause and then. “Xavier, how was it inside?”
“Wait what?” I said startled, Xavier had been inside that thing!? “Why the hell didn’t you tell me he was inside of it!?” I shouted over the com.
And then in the blink of an eye, the exo that was about a hundred yards from me and glowing bright, was sprinting toward me faster than anything I’d seen before. “Yes, you can move on to phase two of the test.” The tech was apparently getting text messages from Xaiver. “Major this is a hand to hand test.”
About the time I heard “Test” I was blocking a roundhouse kick with my arm, quickly finding the foot of the machine grabbing me. It was a damned manipulator! The machine gripped my forearm with it’s foot and I coughed as four punches landed across my ribs in less than a second. I swung and my fist smashed into armor plates hard enough to shatter a normal man’s bones, body twisting as I tried to sling off the exo, instead it twisted in a way that was impossible for one with a human inside. Metal hands planted into the ground and I became airborne, hurled away like a doll thrown by an angry child.
What I didn’t know was that Captain Roland, Commander Wulf, and Evans were all in the tech’s building watching the data flow across the screens. When Xavier charged me in the exo, I managed to take his kick to my side and this time grabbed the leg, pulling the armor in to punch at the chest and head. The leg twisted in my grip and bent at the knee and ankle to grab my shoulder, the other grabbed my thigh with that odd manipulator foot. Next thing I knew it’s arms bound my arms to my sides.
I fought against the exo’s mechanical strength, grunting and fighting hard enough to hear a joint whine in protest. “End phase two.” Came over the com and the exo was suddenly a few feet away from me. “Looks like we’re going to have to reinforce the joints more. Not that bad of a job, you did well Major. We didn’t think you’d be able to damage the suit.”
“Marines can break anything, just give us time.” I said as I caught my breath. “And where are you at in there, you little shit?” I growled the last bit out and the chest armor opened out, revealing Xavier peeking out from a heavily reinforced pilot compartment. He squeaked at me and waved an ear in greeting. “Oh don’t even try to play innocent with me you little shit. You scared me and then beat the hell out of me.” He was in a cradle that used his movements to tell the suit to move, something that was oddly enough, very well tested.
Xavier squeaked and the exo shrugged when he did. “Yes he did Major.” Came from Captain Rowland over the com. “I approved it, if anyone could break the armor, you could. But they made sure he’d be safe. Now get back down here, the satelite crew has just sent us some disturbing news and I need to call a meeting.”
****************
It was actually a couple of hours later when I sat down with Xavier on my shoulder in the Yangtze’s primary meeting room. It was set up like most standard military rooms with a decently long table in the middle of the room and screens on the far end. Evans sat across from me with Anderson and Hussein on either side of her. Several of the tech team leads were also in the room, and Captain Rowland entered, then without a word he turned on the screens.
The main screen came to life and displayed a hurricane moving across the planet from one of the larger ocean sized lakes to another. The image zoomed in to show it coming across one of the mimic forests, the swirling cloud seeming to flare to life with bright flashes. The image froze as the Captain looked at us from where he stood. “That storm is coming here, and it has not just that forest, but at least one, possibly up to three to rip that mineral up from. When it pulls up the mineral with wind, it seems to like to spawn tornados as well as heavy lightning.” His voice was controlled, but agitated as well.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
There were a few gasps from around the table and I heard Evans mutter something before raising her head. “What effect does it have on the mimic forests, other than pulling up the mineral from around the giants?” She was petting her shoulder as she spoke, which we’d gotten used to since Bubbles had taken a liking to her. The mimic was watching the screens with a few eyestalks, he was also her shirt. Literally a mimic and then skin, since he seemed to have adopted her and was her new living top.
He fast forwarded the video to where the eye was over the forest. The mimics had all turned to giant stone towers braced on each other, or seemed to have curled in their branches like a protective shell. “The ones that turn to stone do not have any nests or native life in them, the others seem to be protecting wildlife that have nested within them.”
A hand half raised from one of the tech leads, a rather pale and half bald asian man with thick glasses and a chubbiness to him. “From what we’ve been able to figure out, the mimics are able to soak up heat and light to use for energy. We think that those giants are deeply rooted into geologically active areas. Tests from the volcanoes on the southern shelf show a large amount of radioactive elements. These creatures were found moving into cooled lava flow areas...we…”
The Xo raised his hand just a little off the table, waving a finger. “You’re getting off topic Doctor, that is on the docket for after this crisis and more analysis.” His rumbling tone flowed evenly and calmly, his eyes moving from the Doctor to Evans. “Aside from no doubt being annoyed, they seem to be relatively fine after the storm has passed. Our issue is what is going to happen to us.”
I sighed and leaned back, the Xo nodding to me. “Our issue is going to be the wind, heavy rain, and lightning.” I looked around the table. “We’re going to need to seal up and reinforce the buildings we have up and bring the vehicles into the Yangtze that can’t be lifted off and sent to wait out the storm in a safe area.”
The Captain smiled and nodded. “The local mimics are also sensing the storm. That one atop the ship has been brought mineral by the smaller ones. They’re actually quite smart, watch…” He pointed to the screen as he played a grainy zoomed in clip of a thick bolt of lightning striking a mimic. It froze showing the bright glow of the alien mineral for only a single frame, it ran in lines along the skin of the giant. “We will need to get that mimic atop the ship a grounding cable or two.”
Chief Li Wei raised his hand. “I can see about getting Rusty and crew to help me do that. He’s starting to learn when I want him to put something in a spot and not eat it.” The weathered man said with a grin and got some chuckles from around the table. “It just cost me most of my tools to get him there.” That got a few snorts since some of us had gotten quite used to being very careful in what you might seem to be offering a mimic. I had to admit they’d stopped stealing as many “tasty” things lately.
Captain Rowland nodded and looked to Evans. “You get the teams ready and emergency gear stowed in the shuttles. I’ve already got the scouts and fighters being loaded and ready. We haven’t heard or seen anything of the other people living on this world. I’d hate to be caught by a surprise raid during or after a storm like this.”
Commander Wulf looked around and nodded to Li Wei. “Have one of your teams double check the finished buildings. The construction lead is out there right now trying to get the primary storage building finished and reinforced. They should hold up to the storm, but we can never be too sure.”
I drummed my fingers and Xavier hopped down from my shoulder and pulled his keyboard from my vest pocket. He chittered and started to type away, the text coming up on a smaller screen. “Use dirt and bury the walls of the buildings you silly furless humans.” The Captain read aloud and snorted. “Bury some of the vehicles as well. The ship is too large to bury, but you can push up dirt to funnel wind to flow over it.” He squeaked as he looked around at all of us and I grinned, scritching a finger between his ears as the Captain read it aloud.
“We can’t fully bury some of the buildings, but we can do a good portion of that, especially the berms and building up the dirt around the sides of the building. We could get welders up to weld the roof sections to the walls.” I snorted as I finished, Xavier was getting passed a cup of coffee with a straw, his ears batting my finger so he could sip.
Captain Rowland smiled and nodded to Li Wei and two other men, the trio grabbing their tablets and moving from the room. He flopped into his chair and sighed. “Captain Evans, you’re in charge of the teams going up in the shuttles to wait out the storm and make sure the others don’t get any bright ideas.” He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “We’ve had a few drones fly over or near our valley in the last month, but they seem to be waiting to see what we’re going to do.”
“Yes sir. It does seem to be what they’re doing, and we’ve seen signs of a few of the groups fighting each other. We’ve seen another group attacking mimics, and only one other settlement seems to be truly friendly with the mimics.” Evans shrugged. “And they’ve seen us working with them and getting them to do things for us or move so we can do things.” She said and smiled as Bubbles pet her atop the head.
Captain Rowland smiled softly and shook his head. “I know...and some of them are so oddly friendly, but I’m also going to need a ground team commander for emergencies.” His eyes moved to lock onto mine. “And that’s you, Major. You’re in charge of the teams that will be handling emergencies during the storm and the teams I want stationed in the outer buildings. Gunny Anderson, you and your heavy crews are going to be making sure what can’t be put inside the Yangtze or a building...is buried. Including your two babies if need be. Cover them with tarps if you need to, but bury them before the storm gets here.”
Gunny Anderson got a sad look and then nodded. “Are we expecting it to get that bad?”
Commander Wulf sighed. “Yes...It is a category five storm, the tornados it spawns are stronger than those on earth, and the lightning will be intense.” He sipped his coffee and shrugged. “At least we’re expecting both the tornadoes and severe lightning during the first half of the storm. Maybe during the latter half as well, but the lightning will fry the vehicles if we don’t cover them.”
My eyes shifted over to Gunny Anderson and I sighed. “Bury every one of them that we can’t stuff into the ship.” I raised a finger. “But I want Miss Piggy and Kermit to have their air tanks topped off, ammo bins loaded, and crewed. We bury them and make it look like they aren’t crewed. So as annoying as it will be, they need to be moved into place with extra people, and the spares exit.”
He gave me a nod and I looked at the Captain, who was smiling. “You expect us to get attacked during or after the storm?” It came out as more of a statement than a question.
Xavier went to typing away, fuzzy fingers flying over his keyboard, this time I read it aloud. “Yes, this is why no settlements other than ours and a few wrecks are in the storm path. They most likely saw the storm paths, or moved after a storm.” He chittered and his ears sagged. “We cannot move though, the engines were only built to make one landing. I have read this in the system design logs.”
Evans giggled and shook her head as she blushed. “Sorry sirs.” She took a breath and composed herself. “It’s just that Xavier is proving to be much more technically inclined than his person. And there is something else you two should know.” She tapped her tablet and files came up on the screen. “You two are taking to the mineral the best, we have had some issues with a few people showing signs like heavy metal poisoning, others just are having bad reactions as well.”
Prophet raised a finger. “But all of the crew who have gotten more than the spacer’s mods are showing that they’re holding the mineral. Neither sex, nor race seems to affect it, only gene mods. It seems the more mods, the better the mineral settles in.” He looked up at the ceiling for a second and shook his head. “Which has proven to be interesting with some of my people, more for religious reasons. There is worry among all groups though, my most promising is a Lance Corporal who’s taken to testing himself for the good of his people....” He trailed off.
It took me a moment to realize who he was talking about and I blinked. “Wait, you mean Honey? That crazy one that we had to get out of jail to join the teams?” I asked and thought for a moment. “Wait...where did his mods come from?”
“A honey badger, he’s got first generation mods like you do, sir.” Prophet stated bluntly. “His pet honey badger.” His eyes moved to Xavier. “Who, someone slipped a handful of mineral, and then hit with a stun stick a few hours later. Not that I have any idea who would do such a thing.” His eyes didn’t leave Xavier as he spoke, but his eyes finally moved back to me. “But yes, Honey, he’s been very protective of our people, and has behaved well.”
The Captain shook his head. “We have less than a planetary day to prepare for the storm.” He stood. “Everyone is dismissed, get things ready and cycle teams so everyone that can get some kip...I mean sleep.” We all moved for the door, Xavier hopping to my shoulder and holding onto the collar of my fatigues. “Major.”
I paused and turned to face him. “Sir?”
“Xavier’s right on the engines, we’d have to do a full rebuild on them. Take him back to his suit, we need all hands on deck.” He gave a wry smile. “And that suit would have cost an unholy amount of dosh back home. Try not to break it Xavier…”
I nodded and Xavier chittered and saluted. “No rest for the wicked.” He just grinned and shook his head.
******************
Thirty one hours later, I stood watching the wind roll across the grasses as the storm rolled close. My eyes moved over the large mounds where some of our heavy vehicles were buried, on to the mostly buried buildings. Crashing and rumbling of thunder sounded and brought my eyes back to the storm. I focused out on the giant mimics at the edge of the distant horizon and could see the rolling waves of dust flowing from around them. My hand moved to my radio. “This is Major O’Connell, all hands to stations!”
I saw the valley’s mimics rolling, bouncing, or in a rare case walking on too many legs as they moved for safety under the Yangtze. My booted feet thudded across the packed soil for the largest maintenance building they’d managed to get built, the floor still lighting up from last minute welds to the roofing. I couldn’t help but chuckle as I saw who was doing the welding, Xavier.
The armored exo had a backpack welding unit hanging from its waist, manipulator feet and a hand holding it to a beam. Arcs flashed across the warehouse style building as he welded in the last length of rebar, then he sprang to another beam and another till he reached a ladder and slid down. The chest opened and he gave me a thumbs up.
“Main building is finished and ready.” I called over the radio and moved to guzzle down water from a canteen, till it was stolen by Xaiver. He plopped a tube down into it and started to guzzle up water. “Drink up, then plug in your suit. We’ll leave the main power on till it get