Chapter 3 – Touchdown

Sun!

I jumped out of the craft to the glorious sign that hovered above the ground: “Welcome to Caplyso”. The only thing missing now was an Oscar Meyer truck. As the plane started to unload the passengers, they looked up to the sky. Blue sky, light breeze, and even the faint sound of what sounded like birds flying overhead. This was just like home. Perhaps this was just a run of bad luck…

“Everyone gather around!” Someone yelled into a microphone. The place got surprisingly quiet. “As I speak for all of the people here and back at home, welcome to the planet Calypso!” The whole place erupted in celebration. We finally did it. What our fathers and their fathers always dreamed about, we had finally made it. Even those who were quiet most of the time couldn’t help but smile.

“Yes ladies and gentlemen, we are all standing on history today. I’ll keep my words short so we can get unpacked.”

After a short time the speaker announced “We need two groups of people…we need strong bodies to carry the cargo to the different locations, and…” he stopped with a short pause. “We will need a group of brave colonist to help protect the cargo carriers from what we consider to call be monsters, or ‘mob’ in our terms.”

Hmmm…carry cargo or shoot mob…tough choice…

Soon I was on the way to a nearby ‘container’, which were supposedly spread throughout Calypso. As I walked up a short ramp the room was full of little machines hung around the wall. As I got near one it flipped open automatically, sending me back as a bit of surprise. I would have to learn to expect stuff like that…mental note to self. There were about 20 of us there, all looking around with our orange suits. Then we were each given a card with some symbol on it.

“I’m caption Thunder, and I will be your CO. What these cards are for is to store your PED on. Just put those into any of these machines and it will let you get equipment essential for your jobs. They have 10 PED each. Spend them well. And…before you ask…they do not dispense beverages.” He added with a stern look. Some of the bigger guys in the group laughed.

So, casually walking up to one, it opened as it did before and a screen popped up in the air as if there was a second screen there. A few buttons on the side of the machine let me pick out chest plate armor. Tried it on, perfect fit. Not bad. Then it spat out a big gun.

“Sweet…” I whispered under my breath. As a child I never had anything like this. A friend of mine had a pellet air rifle but nothing like this. As I got the feel of it down I almost forgot to get some ammo. Got some cell packs, then put a magazine in and loaded it. It felt satisfying hearing the click of the loading process. I was still thinking about it when a loud burst crack was heard from one of the nearby terminals. Apparently one of the hunters decided to pre-test his weapon before anyone else. The shot left a nice dent in the wall of the container.

His action was of course noticed by the CO. “Son, what’s your name?”

“Jason.”

“Well, not anymore. It’s now is now Trigger finger.” Everyone chuckled. “Oh, and by the way, you’ll have to fix that.” The CO reminded him.

“Damn. Just want to shoot something, sir.” Jason said.

“Don’t worry son, you’ll get your chance. Now, if everyone is done, come outside the room.” Doing as we were told, we split into four teams: two riflemen and two handguns.

It was me along with the other rifleman with the guy I met at the station, Hans, and the two pistol packers, Sean and Jared. “This is smaller than most I operated with back home.” Hans said. Hmm…had hard enough time trying to get around mine.

“Know your comrades. They are your only support in the open field. Never leave a man behind. Shall you find yourself with no ammo left get some from someone else. You will also be given a survival blade, in case. All else fails, call for backup. Team alpha, your assignment…”

After a day of training and rest at the port, our group, team delta, was assigned to cargo company C to transport medical supplies to a nearby camp. Go, escort them, drop off supplies, and come back to Port Atlantis…how hard could it be…

Chapter 4 – conflict