Chapter 4: Basic Training
A thin line of dull light cut into the darkness. The wall of light quickly widened as the door was opened. The entire enclosure lit up with the flick of a switch, revealing a rather pitiful human curled up in a dark green sleeping bag on the floor.
"Good morning, Mr. Skellington. It is time to wake up." The voice was authoritative and robotic.
Zack opened his eyes to see one of the worker bots standing in the open doorway to his closet. In the confines of the bomb shelter it was impossible to tell what time it was so Zack had to take the robot's word for it. It's not like he had much of a choice anyway. It was entirely possible these people might throw him back out into the junkyard if he didn't do as he was told. In that respect it really wasn't that much different from his old life. He was always taking orders and had his life structured according to the will of others: his bosses at work, the arrangements he had with his roommates, the overall general laws of society. No matter where he ended up it always seemed like someone else was there to tell him what to do. It wouldn't really have bothered Zack all that much if the people in positions of power weren't always assholes.
"Alright, I'm gettin' up." Zack snorted. He was congested and cold. Standing up elicited a few snaps from his spine. His muscles were sore. He did not sleep well at all and intended to talk to Xandra about better sleeping arrangements. His current setup was unacceptable. They could have at least let him sleep on the couch in the rec room.
The bot followed Zack as he went about his morning routine. He figured the robot was there more to watch over him than offer any real assistance. It was easy to navigate the bathroom. The one useful thing the bot did provide was a toothbrush Zack could claim as his very own.
Once he was done in the bathroom Zack was glad the bot was around. The bomb shelter was a labyrinthine maze. He couldn't remember where anything was from the day before, not that he had seen much of the complex anyway. There was no signage or any hint of where anything was. Zack figured the shelter's inhabitants knew the place by memory and made sure any intruders couldn't find their way by identifying signs or posted maps. That was his thought, anyway. A few occasional scorch marks and bullet holes on the walls attested to his theory that the Last Remnant's base had to deal with the occasional invader or two. It was either that or they shot at each other for fun.
When they made it to the kitchen Zack was given a long, clear glass of full of something pink. Zack tried it… it tasted like a fruit smoothie. He doubted that's what it really was but it tasted a lot better than the soup he had been given last night for dinner. As long as it tasted good was all that mattered.
Xandra and the sleg Silvac entered. They didn't get anything to eat or drink. Everyone had eaten breakfast already and Zack was the last to eat.
"Do you have any military training?" Silvac asked.
"No."
"This is going to make things more difficult. Do you at least know how to shoot a gun?"
"Sort of."
"Explain," the sleg demanded.
"My dad and grandfather taught me how to handle firearms when I was younger but it's not a skill I kept up with."
"Ugh, you're killin' me here, Zack," Xandra groaned.
"We'll have to take you down to the shooting range to see what you can do."
"Okay." When Zack finished his meal he followed Xandra and Silvac down a couple floors until they reached a room that was set up as a firing range. Commander ZG-83 and the EV-97 were waiting for them.
"He says he has no military experience but he knows how to pull a trigger," Silvac informed the biobot and the elite. ZG-83 turned and gave Xandra a brief stare before turning to Zack.
"Let's see what you can do with a rifle."
Silvac handed Zack a long-barreled rifle, the same kind he had seen the sleg carry the day before. The sleg pointed the human in the direction of a paper target with the silhouette of a human and was told he could fire when ready. Zack fumbled with the rifle for a moment.
"What are you doing?" Silvac asked.
"Looking for the safety switch."
"It doesn't have one. Shoot the damn gun."
"Oh."
"This is on you," Silvac whispered to Xandra.
"I know." She face-palmed.
The rifle was heavier than it looked and it was too long. Zack had trouble keeping it level from a standing position so he went down into a prone position. The weapon lacked a scope and the banana magazine was inserted on the top of the rifle, so it was slightly in the way when he tried to aim. Zack wondered how anyone was supposed to shoot with this awkward firearm.
He finally managed to line up his shot and fired. He hit south of the head, hitting the human silhouette in the neck. Zack couldn't help but feel a burst of pride. He hadn't fired a gun in ages yet he was able to hit the target with an exotic rifle he had never even seen before yesterday.
"Not bad," Silvac said.
"I knew you could do it." Xandra was rather happy Zack turned out to not be completely worthless.
"You took too long," ZG-83 said, "try shooting from a kneeling position."
Zack got up from the floor and went into a kneeling position and fired again, this time trying to not take so long to aim. He still hit the silhouette, but it was in the body this time.
"Fire from a standing position," the biobot ordered.
Zack did as he was told and this time he missed the target entirely.
"You're going to need to do better than that."
"How's he gonna handle running and gunning if he can't even stand and shoot straight?" Silvac asked.
"Practice," ZG-83 said.
Zack spent the next half hour practicing with the rifle. He was able to hit the silhouette from a standing position but his shooting was nowhere near good enough. Zack knew what his problem was; he was too weak to keep the gun steady from a standing position.
"Alright, that's enough," ZG-83 said. Silvac took the rifle from Zack. "What do you know about melee weapons?"
"Nothing much."
"Since you're not physically adept…" ZG-83 towered over Zack. "I'm going to start you off with a warhammer." The biobot showed the human a large, silver-colored hammer. "It will do most of the work for you. All you have to do is make sure you don't drop it."
Zack spent the next half-hour learning about the futuristic combat hammer. It was capable of being charged up for an extra powerful swing and had a rechargeable battery that would never need to be replaced. Overall it was an incredibly dangerous weapon, but wasn't the best idea to use if your enemies were equipped with guns.
Next Zack was taught about ballistic weaponry by Silvac and Xandra. They went over the basics of pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, and miniguns. Zack was only given a basic overview with no hands-on practice.
ZG-83 and EV-97 then taught Zack about energy weapons. More than anything else, these futuristic weapons blew Zack's mind. There was a plasma rifle, the weapon ZG-83 had used on the slavers the day before. There was a radioactive flare gun (Zack was really uncomfortable with a weapon specifically designed to attack with radiation). Zack was shown a freeze gun that was designed to incapacitate enemies without killing them. The two most shocking weapons were the emaciator and the inflator. The emaciator was designed to make the target wither away and decay until they were nothing more than a stick figure that was too weak to survive. The inflator was the opposite; it pumped up a target until it burst. Zack could only guess what sick mind came up with these cruel weapons.
After the energy weapon overview was completed the slegs Venom and Meakrous came in and went over some of the basics of explosive weapons. It was made clear to Zack that he wouldn't be using those anytime soon.
"Enough practice." ZG-83 ended the session. "Real world experience is the best teacher."
"What?" Zack was tired. They hadn't given him and break and had unloaded way too much information on him all at once. He needed time to absorb it all.
"We're going out into the junkyard." ZG-83 handed Zack a warhammer.
"It's only my second day here. Don't you think I should practice just a little more?"
"The Lost Land will not sit still and wait for you to become proficient. We've wasted far too much time already."
They left the shooting range and regrouped with the others at the front door to the bomb shelter. Zack didn't like this one bit. He thought there was a lot more he needed to learn, and not just about firearms. Another thing that bothered him so much was how fast the weapons training had come. It was the first thing they threw at him after breakfast. He hadn't even had lunch yet and they were already ready to march out the door and go to war.
The Lost Land must be a lot more violent than I'm thinking. I'm going to die here… probably today. Zack gulped as the doors to the bomb shelter slid open. The two massive attack robots, GR-12 and RR-17, left the bomb shelter first. The loud mechanical whirring of their huge frames announced their presence to the entire junkyard.
Silvac, Meakrous, Venom, and CS-33 stuck together as a group. ZG-83 and EV-97 traveled as a pair. The massive cyborg Zoran Zlatko kept to himself.
"Stay close to me," Xandra whispered to Zack.
"Okay." Zack couldn't recognize the weapon Xandra carried. They hadn't shown it to him during the weapons overview. It was made out of black metal and was dotted with a few glowing green lights. It looked like an energy weapon. Whatever it was, Zack ended up not asking about it.
The entire gang that comprised the Last Remnant (with the exception of the worker bots) had left the bomb shelter.
Zack had no idea where they were going or what they were supposed to do. No one had told him anything, though he suspected they did that on purpose. He wasn't exactly a real member of the group and they obviously didn't trust him enough to tell him what was going on. Zack just hoped they wouldn't come across any enemies.
Hours went by as they traversed the junkyard. Zack was starting to get bored. At first fear had gripped his heart. He thought they were going to be marching into battle within the first few minutes of leaving the safety of the bomb shelter. The slavers had caught him right after he exited out of the portal. He figured today would have hit as fast and hard as the previous day had… he turned out to be wrong. There was no great battle, nothing came out to attack them.
Zack was starting to get really hungry. He didn't know what time it was but his stomach was telling him that he had missed lunch hours ago.
"When do we eat?" Zack asked.
"When we get back, shush," Xandra quieted him.
Zack's stomach growled as he looked on at his surroundings. The junkyard was devoid of animals; there weren't even any birds in the sky. A casual glance and one might think no organic life could possibly be found amidst the ruins and refuse of countless dimensions. But if one were to stop and observe the area around them, they would find it was anything but barren.
Hordes of tiny insects and arachnids scurried over, under and around the garbage that littered the ground. Over time Zack started to become aware of just how alive the junkyard really was. There was nothing grand or fantastical about the bugs, they paled in comparison to the group of beings Zack was traveling with. But Zack couldn't help thinking that at least some of the bugs he saw were venomous. And considering the Last Remnant's primitive way of dealing with lice and fleas, Zack worried that if he were stung or bitten by a venomous bug the Last Remnant might not have any medicine that could help him—why would they even keep any around? Half the group were robots or constructs and for all Zack knew the cyborgs and slegs could very well be immune to any venom. That left Zack on his own. He was nothing more than a poor, generic human being who might very well die a horrible death from a simple bug bite.
But there were other things lurking in the junkyard, roaming groups of slavers, for one thing. The slavers had been armed, and so was the Last Remnant. Zack knew there was definitely something dangerous lurking about and he doubted he would be able to kill it with his warhammer.
A rumbling behind one of the scrap piles indicated that there was indeed something around other than a bunch of tiny insects. A frog-like being ambled around the pile of scrap and growled at them.
It was a large creature roughly the size of a truck. It had massive arms and stubby legs, forcing it to walk on all fours in a manner similar to a gorilla. Its shoulders and forearms were covered in bony spikes. Its eyes gave off a terrible green glow that in no way seemed natural.
"What is that thing?"
"Mummite," Venom said.
This was different from before. The slavers were hostile but they were human. The most intimating beings Zack had seen were on his side. But now he saw that there really were hostile monsters that would kill him if given the chance.
"I'll take care of this." Zoran Zlatko charged forward with astonishing speed. Zack couldn't believe how fast the overweight cyborg was. Zlatko's skinny legs didn't even look like they could hold him upright, yet he moved with astonishing speed.
Zlatko was upon the mummite in seconds, the green monster tried to swipe at the cyborg with a large paw—only to have to effortlessly knocked away by one of the cyborg's massive metal arms. Zlatko followed up with a strike of his own. His gargantuan metal fist smashed straight into the mummite's face, breaking teeth, fracturing its jaw, and sending it stumbling backward in a daze. Zlatko then brought up his other arm and smashed it down on the thing's head. It was a bloody mess of skin and broken bones. The pulpy mess that was once the mummite's head had been cut clear of the body—that was ambling about unaware that its head had been crushed. A few more seconds of stumbling around and the headless body fell down with a great thump.
Zack Skellington was dumbfounded by the vicious display; he had never seen anything like what had just happened. Zlatko had been casual about the entire act; he looked like he even enjoyed it. The mummite never stood a chance. Zack had no clue how Zlatko wasn't already king of the Lost Land.
"Impressive, no?" Xandra asked Zack.
"Very. He killed that thing like it was nothing." Zack's voice was quiet; as if he was afraid Zlatko would turn around and come after him if he were too noisy.
"Just another walk in the junkyard."
"Are there worse things out there?"
"Worse than mummites? Oh yeah. There are much worse things…"
"I might have a problem. I wouldn't be able to fight a mummite, let alone something worse."
"Don't worry about it. That's just Zoran. Nobody can beat him. We don't expect you to be able to kill a mummite on your own. That's why he killed it."
"Right."
Silvac scouted out ahead. "It's over there." The sleg pointed.
"What's up ahead? What are we doing, exactly?" Zack asked.
"You'll see when we get there," Meakrous said.
"Do you guys even know what you're doing?"
"Uhhh… sorta." The sleg fiddle with his blaster rifle.
The rest of the group caught up to Silvac. Before them was a massive metal structure five stories tall. It was made out of some sort of pristine grey metal. It looked a lot nicer than most of the things Zack had seen lying around the junkyard thus far. It even looked nicer than the exterior of the bomb shelter the Last Remnant called home. Though there was something else peculiar about the building—it looked like it had been dropped right out of the sky. There was crushed scrap sticking out from beneath it.
"This is what we are here for," ZG-83 announced. "Silvac discovered this structure a few days while on a scouting mission. We're here to find out what's inside."
"I think someone beat us to it," EV-97 pointed at a gaping hole in the wall large enough to let a truck pass. It looked like someone had decided to create their own entrance with a missile launcher.
"CS-33, go check it out."
"Yes, Commander." The cyborg left the group to investigate the hole.
"Why didn't you check out the interior when you first found it?" Zack asked.
"It's locked up tight and I didn't have the firepower at the time to blow it open," Silvac answered.
"That's what I was here for," Zoran Zlatko said.
"You were gonna smash through that metal wall? You can do that?"
"Of course."
"The bunker is empty." CS-33 left the building and returned to the group. "Whatever was in there is gone now. Or the building could have been empty when it arrived in the Lost Land."
Everyone went down to see for themselves. It wasn't that they didn't believe the slender cyborg, the slegs were just didn't want to have come out all this way to not even see the inside with their own eyes. The robots, cyborgs and constructs followed only to keep the group together.
The whole structure was indeed empty. The interior was one big room with a few ladders and catwalks. It did look like it was used for storage. Whatever had been in there must have been useful enough that it was all taken. They left the dark building for the dusty air outside.
"What a waste. We came all this way for nothing," Meakrous whined, "how are we ever going to win when we can barely keep the bomb shelter up and running."
"It's always one step forward and three steps back," Silvac said.
"It hasn't been a total loss," Xandra said, "we do have a new member."
"That has yet to be decided," ZG-83 warned the cyborg.
"Hey, he didn't die on the way over here. What more do you want?"
"I didn't really do anything," Zack spoke up. They all turned to look at the human.
"At least he's honest." Zlatko flexed one of his metal arms.
"He didn't die, that's something," Xandra said.
"He might on the way back," Venom said. "Look," the sleg sniper pointed.
In a clearing not far away there were four mummites. The monstrous frog-creatures growled and started making their way over. They had definitely spotted the group.
"I guess they miss their buddy." Silvac shot at the mummite furthest on the right. The gunshot signaled the creatures to begin their charge.
The mummites were fast, not as fast as Zlatko but still way faster than their size should have allowed.
ZG-83 fired his plasma rifle, hitting one of the mummites in the eye. The creature staggered back and howled in pain. EV-97 brought up his large, blunt, beige weapon—a radioactive flare gun. The gun charged for a moment and let loose a blinding violet ball of radioactive death that struck right near the wounded monster. The mummite couldn't focus enough to flee from the radioactive flare and soon collapsed. Its corpse slowly started to melt away as the purple light continued to burn.
The two attack robots GR-12 and RR-17 fired their weapon arms, revealing them to be machine guns. The remaining three mummites were hit with a hail of bullets but didn't go down. GR-12 then made a robotic sound and fired a rocket from his gun-arm. The projectile flew in a gentle spiral and impacted on the center mummite, ending its life in an orange haze.
The trio of slegs focused their fire on a single mummite, with Xandra joining in with her weird weapon. When she fired, green rings shot out from her black firearm. When the rings of plasma hit the mummite, they detonated in an explosion that took the form of a neat green sphere. Zack remembered that was one of the weapons going off when the slavers had been ambushed. The mummite finally succumbed to the combined firepower. The final mummite had its skull crushed by Zlatko just as the one earlier had.
The area reeked of blood and explosives. Yet again Zack found he hadn't had to do any fighting.
"I might be more help if I had a ranged weapon," Zack offered. He didn't really want to be part of the fighting but he wasn't making himself useful. He figured if he just kept standing around all the time every time an enemy showed up, the Last Remnant might just decide to leave his sorry ass behind.
"You did fine." Xandra patted him on the shoulder. "You didn't run into our line of fire. You'd be surprised how many people will do that."
"Anyone that does that must be a real moron."
"We're leaving," ZG-83 said. The two attack robots led the way with the rest following.
"Hey, Xandra."
"What is it, Zack?"
"That weapon you use, where did you get it? It wasn't one of the weapons you guys showed me earlier. I've never seen anything like it."
"It's not from my home dimension, I'll tell you that. I got it off some dead alien. Don't really know where it's from. I just call it the alien weapon."
"Alien? As in from outer space alien?"
"I don't really know. There's a few of 'em around. Probably they're from another dimension though. I'm not really sure. Does it really matter?"
"No, I was just curious."
"You humans always are," Venom said.
"So are the aliens hostile?"
"Huh?" Xandra didn't follow Zack's line of thinking.
"The ones that use that weapon you have. Are they our enemies?"
"We don't see them too much anymore. I didn't kill one, I just looted a corpse I came across."
"The aliens you refer to used to work for the Campaigner," CS-33 said, "they suffered heavy losses. They have little power left. They would most likely join us rather than fight us… if there are any even left."
With the mummites dead the trek back to the bomb shelter was just as boring as the journey from the bomb shelter. The sun had begun to set by the time the reached their base.
Zack found he stank and despite not having an extra set of clothes, he allowed the worker bots to take his to be washed. He'd never get to sleep if he was stuck in the ripe-smelling clothes. While the bots cleaned his clothes Zack took an extra long shower. Soon Zack had his clothes again and was led to the mess hall. Other than the fighting and weirdness of the Lost Land, Zack's new life wasn't completely horrible. The worker robots took care of the more mundane servile tasks and made life in the bomb shelter look like a utopian fantasy. Life was simple when robots did most of the work.
What was served for dinner came as a surprise to Zack, not because he was served some fantastical creature but because it was normal and mundane (to him at least). Those that required food ate chicken for dinner. Zack was expecting some sort of soup or smoothie but it was nice to eat solid food again. The food was served with some sort of beverage that tasted like grape soda to Zack.
Unlike during breakfast, Zack now ate in the bomb shelter's small mess hall rather than by himself in the kitchen.
"So, how'd you guys start up?" Zack asked as they ate.
"Didn't we go over this already?" Venom asked.
"I was wondering if you guys could be more specific."
"Right…" Xandra thought for a second as she chewed on a chicken leg. "So you know Dr. Zoid—what did you call him again?"
"Dr. Zoidberg?"
"Yeah, that. That was pretty funny, Zack. So anyway, Dr. Zoidberg—"
"The commander wouldn't appreciate you callin' him that, Xandra," Silvac said.
"Well he ain't here right now, is he? Anyway, Dr. Z is our boss and founder. He and EV-97 used to be slaves of an advanced alien known as the Primagen. The Primagen tried to conquer the Lost Land, much in the same way the Campaigner tried before him. The results were the same. The Primagen ended up dead and his armies were thrown into disarray. Now, the Primagen had a bunch of different factions working under him but the bio-bots were actually the Primagen's property. They came with him on his Lightship. When the Primagen died, all the bio-bots had their pre-programmed berserker program activated. Basically they went on a bloody rampage destroying all life that they found, a last act of revenge by the Primagen. The problem is the bio-bots are constructs, not pure robots, so their programming isn't absolute. When everyone fights back against you, it's kind of hard to wage a full genocide against all living things in the Lost Land. Eventually the bio-bots became too few. That's when ZG-83 broke from his primary programming and decided that survival was his first goal. You know, live another day to fight later."
"The goal of the Last Remnant is to kill everybody?" Zack didn't want to be part of genocide. He suddenly felt like he had fallen in with the wrong crowd.
"No, just certain groups. We're not monsters. But back to the story. So, it was hard for ZG-83 and EV-97 to find any allies. Who would work with a group that tried to kill everyone and everything, after all? So they started picking through the junkyards to make some allies. That's when they found and fixed up those two big bruisers GR-12 and RR-17."
"How did you join, Xandra?"
"They didn't shoot at me when they saw me."
"That's it?"
"Yeah. Tons of people take shots at me based solely off my appearance. Cyborgs aren't too popular in the Lost Land, I guess. The rest of us joined up basically because no one else will take us."
"You make us sound like a bunch of rejects," Meakrous said.
"We are a bunch of rejects, Meakrous." Xandra learned in closer to the sleg.
"Just how many meals a day do you guys typically eat?" Zack asked once he was finished eating.
"Two. Three if things are going well," Xandra said. "Why? What are you used to?"
"I normally eat three meals a day."
"It doesn't look like we'll be eatin' that good for a while." Zack couldn't believe it, especially considering Zlatko's immense size. He would have thought they were following the eating schedule of hobbits rather than the bare bones two-meal-a-day plan. Zack had skipped meals plenty of times back in his home dimension, he was sure he could adapt as long as two meals a day wasn't going to be a permanent trend.
"So, am I going back to the closet again?"
"For now, yes," Zlatko said. "You done eating?"
"Yeah, I'm done." Zack didn't want to be stuck in that miserable closet again but there was no way in hell he was going to complain about it to someone like Zlatko.
"Come on, I'll take you there." The huge man got up from the table.
"Okay." Zack followed him out of the mess hall. Zack still had no idea how to get around the innards of the bomb shelter, but at least the members of the Last Remnant acknowledged that fact. The place was a maze and Zack could spend half the night trying to find his closet if he were on his own.
When they were far enough from the hearing range of the others Zlatko turned around to Zack. "Look, Skellington, we need to talk."
Zack did not like the sound of that at all. Zlatko was the last person he wanted to piss off. The massive cyborg could easily crush him with one hand. "What can I do for you?"
"We don't normally take in people of your skill level. The only reason you're here with us is because Xandra wants you. It is in your best interest to keep her as happy as possible. I recommend you pay her a late-night visit no later than tomorrow night if you want to stay on her good side. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"Yeah… I get it."
"Good. At least you're not stupid. If you learn to shoot straight you might actually have a future here."
"I'll try my best. I didn't actually get a lot of practice today. I'm sure I'll improve with time."
"Indeed. Either that or you'll die." They arrived at the door to Zack's closet. "Good night, Mr. Skellington."
"Goodnight." I hope it will be a good night, Zack thought. But since he was sleeping on the floor again Zack doubted his night would be all that good. Considering what Zlatko had told him Zack figured his next night would be much better.
Author's Note: This chapter has the same name as one of the multiplayer maps from Turok: Rage Wars.
Silvac, Meakrous and Venom appeared as multiplayer characters in Turok: Evolution. Silvac is the sleg scout, Meakrous is the sleg worker and Venom is the sleg sniper.
Mummites appeared in Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion.