Gray Panthers: Earths Revenge (5 page)

Gray Panther Space Academy, Arizona

9 August 2128

Carlos Diego was in a good mood, something the other instructors, had not believed possible. The old marine had been getting more and more vexed with the way his latest group of cadets had always seemed to be one step ahead of him. Friends had complimented him on how well his cadets had done over the weekend at the sims and how they were probably ready to retire from the Gray Panthers after all the money they had won. Diego figured that it’s part of life in the military to gamble, but it’s bad form to get caught and he would express his displeasure with the flight. Walking across the parade ground to the flights dormitory, the operations officer for the academy stopped Diego to congratulate him for his flight donating the most money to the student welfare fund, more than any other ten flights combined, and wanted to make sure they had not been coerced in their donations. The raw look of shock on the instructors face seemed to answer the initial question, but the congratulations was still heartfelt from the officer as he went on his way cheerily, after stating it would be a good bullet in the instructors performance report.

Instructor Bailey knew the look when he saw Diego getting ready to enter the dormitory. “Hey Carlos someone eat your dessert for you?” Ray quipped.

“You could say that. I finally got these guys cold for breaking regs, and the damn Ops officer is ecstatic about it and going to mention it in my performance report!” Diego bemoaned. “The kids went and seemed to run the sims the entire weekend beating every challenger and made a shit load from it. Now I got them dead to rights busted, except the sneaky bastards turned around and gave it to the student welfare fund. Now I can either look stupid or inept as they think they got one over on me.”

“Carlos remember they told us this was a special project, hell they were already one of the best flights as far as the simulators went in the entire world, now with their additional speed and reflexes from the nanites, they could be the best flight in the world! Pretty obvious they are going to be honor flight for graduation, another bullet for your performance report, ha ha ha. Life is rough mi amigo,” Ray said laughingly.

“I’ll still have them until graduation in September, they will work to earn that title if it kills me." Diego was still fuming when he went into his office in the bay after doing a quick walk through finding nothing out of regulation. The training schedule had the flight in academics until 1300 hrs, then it was instructor's discretion until 1800 hrs, then it would be small arms training until 1900 hrs. Getting up and looking out the window he noticed it was one of those very rare days when it actually looked like it may rain, that sealed his plans for the day. On the bulletin board he attached the note that the flight would form up in front of the dormitory with full field gear. A smile came to his face as he imagined a nice stroll through the desert with the flight, especially as they would be returning from lunch figuring it would be a cushy afternoon of studying. Looking at the clock he saw it was already 1230hrs and he would still need to go to the armory to get the flights weapons for small arms training. He quickly sat down at his desk and submitted the request for weapons for the flight and included combat load for ammunition when he was filling in the form online. The noise of the flight returning distracted him as he selected “confirm and send” as he got up to welcome the flight.

“All right ladies and gentlemen I see we have been remiss in letting you get a little sun as I see how pale many of you are getting by being cooped up in class and the dormitory all day. We are going for a little stroll today so be out front of the dorm in full field gear, and I highly recommend that all water packs are full, at 1300hrs. Now move it!” After double timing it the entire way to the armory, Diego gave the order for everyone to line up, sign for their weapon, and get back into formation. Going into the armory, Carlos withdrew his personal .45 auto with a loaded magazine. After getting back outside and seeing each member of the flight had an additional bandolier, he quickly realized his flight was now a potential hazard. “Ladies and gentlemen if I see anyone load a battery pack into their beamer they will be carrying the weapon hands free devoid of sunlight until we can have a surgeon remove it from your possession, do you hear me?” The loud chorus of “Yes Sir” did not calm him as he started the flight off on their hike.

Fifteen miles later in a small canyon he decided it would be a good time to teach the flight the importance of field sanitation as he ordered each member of the flight to find an area a minimum of 20 feet from their nearest neighbor and demonstrate what they thought a correct field sanitation hole should be. Cadet Hagen apprehensively double timed over to Instructor Diego. “Sir, Cadet Hagen reports ready for inspection of sanitation hole.”

Uncharacteristically of him, Diego smiled as he looked down at the cadet, as he began to speak he felt the slam against his legs as he fell and heard himself hollering “Incoming get your asses down” as he only then heard the rip of automatic weapons fire. He looked down at his knees, both of which he could see the red of his blood seeping through the material of his uniform pants in shock as the little cadet grabbed him by his collar trying to drag him into cover under scrub brush. Diego was screaming not to even try as he felt himself suddenly being moved. Suzy then threw herself over Diego as he tried to get up while at the same time she tore at the first aid kit on his web belt. Everything seemed to go in slow motion, the cadet was hollering at him to stop moving around as she tried to tear his pants above the wounds.

“God damn it Diego stop your fucking squirming around and let me get these wounds dressed before you kill yourself!” Suzy felt the adrenalin coursing through her body as she forced the instructor down again. The same time she felt the zing of bullets going through the air where her head had just been as she felt the tug of her uniform pull from the shoulder.

From the top of the hill overlooking the little valley, a half dozen of the drug gang Gray Lobos watched in amusement. The Zapata brothers laughed as they saw that they had taken out the drill instructor, who they could see was the only one armed. The cadets had the beamers but the Gray Lobos knew from past stories that the cadets were not trusted with ammo, it would be like taking candy from a baby, and the women even from the distance looked like the Gray Lobos were going to have fun tonight. The brothers started to charge down the hill towards the cadets, before they could run off, when the two running side by side felt a quick tug at their midsections followed by the smell of burnt meat, they fell dissected from the blast from a beamer set on level two. The rest of the gang had stayed in place to observe.

“Everyone stay down and find an area to cover in case those assholes have any friends, I’m going to check on Instructor Diego and Suzy.” Andrews shouted to the flight, assuming command. When he got to Diego, Suzy was just finishing the last of the bandages.

“Diego took a hit in each knee but there’s not much blood, I’m afraid he’s going into shock,” Suzy reported as she searched his unconscious body. “Here’s his cell, you call the base as I look over my work,” Suzy ordered.

Opening the phone Matt thought for a second then said, “call Instructor Bailey.” Nothing happened then he tried again, “call Ray” the phone soon connected.

Instructor Bailey answered the call he heard, “Instructor Bailey we need help ASAP, Instructor Diego has been shot and is going into shock. I killed two attackers but there maybe more. I don’t know our location but believe we are about twelve miles south east of the academy in a small canyon.”

Disbelief turned to action as he pressed his comm button on his neck and tried to call Diego without any luck. He pressed again, “Comm command post. This is Instructor Bailey; we have an incident. Instructor Diego is down and needs immediate dust off. His flight is under fire from unknown enemy forces.”

The duty officer immediately motioned for the security force officer repeating what he had been told as he coordinated for two armed shuttles that the maintenance operations center said were mission ready as he then contacted operations to scrub the training mission and instead turn it into a rescue mission. The security officer had twenty Gray Panthers headed for the flight line while the pilots raced for their shuttles. A third shuttle was already taking off from the hospital and would join in flight as the artificial intelligence Grub gave them the location of the flight based on the information from the comm implant in Diego.

Ten minutes later the emergency shuttle landed near the group. Running towards the instructor, the first medic took a huge needle and plunged it into Diego's thigh as the second dropped a transportation board down. They quickly rolled him onto the board as the medic grabbed the transportation boards handle and the board lifted itself up to waist height as both medics moved the instructor towards the shuttle.

Matt hollered at Suzy to go with the medics as overhead a pair of shuttles took station over the flight noisily. The emergency shuttle launched on its return trip as one of the shuttles landed. The shuttle door opened for a minute then took back off as a NCO materialized in front of Matt. It took only a minute to realize that an entire team must have disembarked and was wearing their optical deflection combat suits.

“What’s the situation son?” the old looking sergeant asked. Matt described what had happened as the shuttles reported no activity. The NCO had Matt follow him to the enemy bodies. Once they were standing over them the stench from the bodies had Matt bent over puking like never before.

The NCO slapped him on the back. “Just keep hacking until you feel something hairy then be sure to stop, cause that’ll be your asshole son,” the NCO said as he ordered the security to push up to the top of the hill set up a perimeter until an investigation team could come in. Part of the security team seemed to materialize as they turned off their optical deflection combat suits; each one was near a cadet. “Alright all cadets safe and shoulder your beamers, and join me where your instructor was wounded. I want each of you to get out your tablets and write out exactly what happened. No one compares notes with each other.”

The sound of gunfire once again commenced as the security team pushed the cadets back down then disappeared as they activated their optical deflection combat suits. The Gray Lobos had tried to leave their hiding places on the hill and get to their truck when the security detail, already on the hilltop, had spotted them. The gang only got off a few shots as the security team quickly picked them off.

Matt fell on his ass and reached for his water as he began to shake unable to open his water. The NCO just walked up and opened it for him saying nothing. It took another few minutes before he could start to make his verbal report into his tablet.

Instructor Bailey was at the hospital and was able to get close when the crew brought Diego in; close by Cadet Hagen was following carrying his field gear as well as her own. He stopped her and she started to pull away from him until she recognized him and began to come to attention. “At ease Hagen, are you OK?” he asked as he looked over her seeing that she was covered in blood. Reaching for her shoulder she initially flinched as he stuck his fingers through three holes in her uniforms shoulder. “You know how many demerits you have coming for a dirty uniform and unserviceable one at that?" he said with a smile and then made sure she had no holes of her own. “Let’s go in and get you checked out, I’ll take his gear, you report to the emergency room and explain what just happened, stay there until I come for you,” he said.

Bailey saw one of the medics and stopped him to get an initial report. “The nanites had already started clotting, stopping the bleeding. The additional nanites I injected was speeding the recovery. Both bullets had gone through almost clean, there was a chip taken out of the bone in the left leg but the nanites would have that repaired in short order. The muscle damage should be healed by morning also,” The medic reported before moving off.

The flight just sat in the ready room quietly reflecting on what they had just gone through when Instructor Bailey entered with Cadet Hagen. All immediately rose as Matt ordered them to attention.

“At ease, everyone get into the ready room and grab some floor. Instructor Diego should recover without any complications. Cadets’ Hagen and Andrews are the heroes of the day. Cadet Andrews to my knowledge you have the privilege of the first kill using a personal beamer. Any comments, and or thoughts about that?”

“Sir, I left my lunch back in the field when I saw what I did to those two men, I...”

“Stop right there cadet, those were not men. They were the enemy, an enemy that drew first blood in an ambush at that. Regardless of what you think you are in hero status, because of you no one from your flight is going home in a bag. I would recommend everyone just try to relax. I will be spending the night in my office here so anyone that wants to talk, please do not hesitate. Tomorrow will be a regular duty day.”

Arizona Space Ship Bia High Earth Orbit

10 August 2128

“Crew, this is the Captain. We have arranged to test all weapons in conjunction with ground control. Our targets for today will be orbital debris in high orbit. At 0900 hrs live fire testing of all weapons will commence. The effectiveness of port versus starboard shall be tallied through hit and miss ratio as well as time from acquiring target to destruction of target. Targets that break into smaller debris will have points deducted. Captain out.”

Sitting in his cabin, a headache starting because he was sure something very relative and simple was being overlooked, Red admitted to himself he needed help. “Bia, please report to me,” he commed, as the ships AI avatar appeared before him.

“Reporting as ordered Captain,” Bia replied as she stood before the Captain. The six foot tall brunette wore only a toga draped over her shoulder.

“Bia, do you detect any problems if we destroy some of the orbital debris?” Red asked.

“Sir, there is always the potential for weapons failure. The highest and most likely danger is if we shoot ourselves.

“Please elaborate, Bia,” Red replied feeling his headache begin a crescendo.

“Sir, there is a very high probability that any shots missed by the phalanx cannons, would enter orbit and hit the ship upon completing that orbit around the Earth. Request final authorization for every shot fired during the target practice.”

“Permission granted, inform all gunners and Combat Information Center.” His temple continued to throb even more as he fathomed the chances of getting hit by their own ordinance of one hundred phalanx guns along with the forty rail guns left a lot of room for damage. At least the eighty beamers would not be a threat back at them.