Cynthia had also downloaded the history of the Stars Realm and her eyes grew wide, “Are they still alive?”
“Yes.”
Jake opened his eyes and saw Manny looking into his faceplate, “I feel like eight miles of washed out bad terrain.” Every part of Jake’s body was screaming pain.
Manny sighed and said, “I told the Royal Family that I wouldn’t put my worst enemy through what you’ve just endured, followed by what happens next. However, you must get up and start moving now. The pain will start to diminish over the next few hours. You’ve got to use your systems immediately after they’ve been connected. We have a set up a course for you to use your armor.”
“Manny, I don’t think I can move.”
“Just tell your armor to get up.”
Jake was in torment, but he thought, “Get up.” His armor stood and held him erect. Jake couldn’t do much but just lean on it from the inside. Jake noticed his legs began to hurt slightly less as he took two stumbling steps.
Manny pressed his bracelet and the two of them were teleported to a valley filled with a forest and lush vegetation. Manny noticed that Jake was swaying and he activated his armor and helped Jake stand. “Now listen to me, Jake. We set this valley up for you to trial your weapons. It is very much like the valley in which those three communities are located, and the landscape is almost identical. I can’t offer you any suggestions on how to use the various systems you now have because you don’t have enough time for me to go through all of them with you. Your downloads should allow you to pick the most appropriate tool, but you must find them quickly on your own. We have set up various ambushes and you’ve got to get through them and arrive at that peak on the other side of the valley in less than an hour.”
Jake looked across the valley and saw the peak Manny indicated, and immediately saw on his display that it was forty miles away. “Manny, I can barely move.”
Manny looked at Jake and slowly shook his head, “I’m honestly shocked that you stood up. I know that some of our warriors, not many of them, have an affinity for their systems and they use them almost like they were born to it. If you try to think your way to that peak you will not make it. You must quit thinking and just react to whatever you encounter. You almost have to become a passenger and let your armor’s download make your decisions. Do you understand?”
Jake nodded.
“No warrior has made it through this simulation the first time and they had six weeks to learn their systems, something which you do not have to help you. It is a just a simulation and all the weapons are designed not to kill or injure, but if one of the ambushers hits your armor with a solid strike your system will stop you wherever you are. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“I will be following you keeping track of your actions to offer feedback afterwards. My armor will not be seen by the various devices in the valley. Are you ready?”
“Of course not, but that isn’t going to stop this from happening.”
Manny nodded and said, “You will start in ten seconds.”
Jake looked out at the valley and decided to go down the peak he was standing on by jumping off the cliff into the trees below. It was only about two thousand feet. Jake wondered how he had come up with that plan, then he heard Manny say, “Go!” Jake turned on his armor’s weapons mode, jumped off the peak, and fell toward the ground far below.
Manny watched him fall, “Now that’s unexpected.” He knew there were several ambushers in the trees below but it would be difficult, if not impossible, to see Jake through the tree’s canopy. His armor had been set to see Jake’s armor through the dense foliage and he watched as Jake picked up speed as he fell.
As Jake started falling, something happened to his perceptions. He felt a small shock and everything slowed down. He felt like he was falling very slowly toward the ground and he noticed a bird flying over the trees below him that appeared to be almost stationary. He looked at the ground below and saw eight thin black lines extending from his faceplate into the trees below. Without thinking he raised his right arm and activated his arm projector, which immediately fired a small wasp at each of those black lines. He watched as the wasps took off at normal speed as he continued to fall slowly. Each of the small projectiles followed the black line straight into the trees without veering. As they struck, a bright red light appeared. He heard Manny say over his com, “Each time you hit an ambusher, a red strobe light will go off indicating that they have been eliminated from the simulation.”
Manny had jumped behind Jake and had used his armors jets to fall slowly to the ground. He saw Jake, falling quickly and picking up speed, fire the small wasps and was amazed at his accuracy. He also noticed that he could not see those ambushers; he wondered how Jake could.
Jake saw the ground coming up, so he pushed his armor’s jets to max power and came to a halt on the ground. Jake was wondering just how he had timed that jet burst so exactly. He suddenly turned sideways and watched as a small wasp went by his right shoulder. He saw it coming. It was moving so slowly that he could have reached out and plucked it out of the air. “This is not part of the armor’s systems,” he thought. He began moving to the left at a fast pace, then realized this must be part of his psychic ability which had come out due to the stress he was experiencing. Valerie said that some of his skills may emerge if he was stressed enough. He also noticed that he no longer felt any pain.
His sensors tracked the wasp back to its source and saw the ambusher standing behind a tree. He saw another black line between him and the attacker and fired another wasp. He looked away from the wasp he had fired and began running. He saw nine more black lines going out into the forest in front of him. He heard his sensor unit announce, “Attacker hit,” as he raised his left arm and fired nine rounds out of his auto cannon; one for each black line. He saw numerous rounds of projectiles coming towards him, along with twenty wasps. He moved to the right quickly and saw a dark shadow coming up to about three feet off the ground. He dove and rolled into the shadow. The projectiles and wasps all passed overhead; he came to his feet running.
Manny followed Jake and saw the ambusher’s red lights going off so fast that it was hard to keep track of them. He was amazed at the speed Jake was making and he knew that Armor was not designed to travel that fast. What was going on here?
Jake saw a black line over his head and he fired a hornet at it. An armed floater came roaring up and the hornet hit it, causing a bright red flash. The floater stopped and moved away from the exercise, having been deemed destroyed.
Jake saw ambushers on all sides, but no black lines. He felt like he was moving at normal speed, but their motions seemed to be taking place in extremely slow motion. He saw that he had passed those on either side before they could target their weapons.
Jake saw another black shadow ahead six feet off the ground. He jumped and entered the shadow just as a volley of slugs passed under it. He grabbed a light grenade off his armor as it rose up out of his chest plate and tossed it at the weapons platform hidden in the trees to his left.
The ambushers manning the platform fired at the approaching target, but it was moving faster than their sensors could track. The gunner tried to sight visually but could not keep up with the speed of the approaching figure. He decided to fire a spray of projectiles in front of the oncoming target. Suddenly an object came at them and hit at the base of the platform, covering it in red light. The platform’s red light activated and they were out of the exercise. The gunner commed, “Platform Alpha is out.”
Manny commed, “What happened?”
“I don’t know Colonel. Whoever that warrior is, he’s moving faster than any armor I’ve ever seen. He somehow sensed our targeting and moved out of our sights faster than we could fire. He just hit us with a light grenade and then passed us before the grenade went off.”
Manny tried to keep up with Jake, but he could see red lights being activated more than four miles in front of him. This was impossible.
Jake moved through the forest and fired his weapons every time a black line appeared. If he saw a shadow he moved into it, then ran toward the shadows ahead of him. He knew his armor could run at sixty miles per hour on open ground, but he saw that he was moving much faster than sixty in dense forest. He finally emerged from the forest and climbed the peak. He covered the forty miles in less than twenty minutes. He realized that he had traveled faster than a hundred miles per hour, but to his senses he was moving normal speed. He saw everything
