by Jack Colrain
When they reached the APC and the standing suits of armor, Barnett made introductions. “Daniel, Hope, meet Sergeant James Cole and Corporal Malik Stewart.” Cole was a lithe and wiry red-haired guy with a buzz-cut; in his light gray fatigues, he looked like a matchstick. Stewart was black and burly, and looked vaguely familiar to Daniel, though he couldn’t place why. Stewart saved him the trouble of wondering. “Good to meet you. I heard a lot about you, Lieutenant West.
From my big brother, Jax. He worked with you at Camp Peary.”
Now Daniel got it. “Jackson Stewart, of course. I hope he’s looking after the place well while I’m away.”
“I don’t doubt he is.”
“So,” Daniel asked, “what’s your MOS? 19Ks? Drivers?”
“12B,” Stewart said. “Combat engineers.”
“Engineers?” Daniel echoed, surprised. He’d thought the armored suits surely must be run by armor crews.
“At first we were unsure whether the mechanized suits were more appropriate for the 19 Field MOS or the 12. On the one hand, it’s an armored fighting vehicle of sorts, but on the other hand, its more something we expect to find useful for demolitions, clearance, and construction under combat conditions.”
Daniel understood at once. “So, it’s designed for heavy lifting? ‘Get away from her, you bitch,’ kind of thing? Not a Transformer.”
“Well, it won’t turn into a truck, but we figure it can punch out aliens and smash up other vehicles pretty well.”
Barnett said, “Cole and Stewart will be operating the mechanized suits on the mission, but I want them to give you and Hope an orientation on them before we leave. The flight deck is large enough that they can do that here.” He gave them a quick salute, which all four returned, and then he departed for other duties.
Daniel and Hope examined the mechanized suits closely as Cole and Stewart pointed out the different features. Cole, in particular, had a used car salesman’s gift of the gab. “This is the new Exo-suit Mechanized,” he said, and Daniel could hear the capitalization. “Since they’re bigger and have the M-tag in the paperwork for Mechanized, we call them Big Mikes. Here’s the thing. You’re used to wearing the Mozari Exo-suits, right? And they make you kind of like—”
“A superhero?” Daniel suggested.
Cole nodded. “One of the X-Men or something, yeah. They’re snug-fitting, auto-repairing, make you faster and more agile, and protect against bullets and some radiation…. Yeah, they make you a minor superhero.” He patted the side of the armored colossus. “This doesn’t make you a superhero. This makes you a tank.”
“Not just a construction vehicle?”
Cole grinned. “Partly, but it’s also been developed to enhance its wearer’s combat effectiveness exponentially. Each arm has one of two dozen modular weapons systems from the Mozari factory ship files, mounted beneath the forearm.”
“What sort of weapons modules are we talking about?” Hope asked.
“Upscaled railguns, nanocharge launchers, homing missiles, that kind of thing.”
“And a surprisingly wide range of crowd-control non-lethals,” Stewart added. “There’s a grenade set-up that releases a noxious but harmless gas that’ll disperse crowds, and there’s this weird glue gel that can gum up a roadway and screw up any wheeled traffic. For the purposes of the current mission, we’ve gone with a straightforward combat load-out for a fast assault. That means a combination of the upscaled railguns and grenade launchers. We’ll carry a mix of concussive, hi-ex, and flechette.”
“Smokers?” Daniel asked.
Stewart shook his head. “From the bits and pieces of Gresian gear we’ve picked up, we figure smoke won’t inhibit their target acquisition any more than it does our optics when wearing Exo-suits.”
“Which we now know were back-engineered from Gresian gear by the Mozari in the first place...” Daniel understood well enough.
“Yeah,” Cole broke in. “The Big Mikes here are designed to work in concert with the Exo-suits while providing some additional functionality and protection. You’re going to find the controls work through the Exo-suits; you still need to wear an Exo-suit to wear one of these.”
“Some protection against fire would be useful,” Hope said with a shiver.
“That’s definitely one of the improved protections we’ve engineered in,” Cole reassured her. “It’s also faster than a human can run with the assistance of an Exo-suit, and as well as various types of projectile and energy weapon impacts, it will withstand greater blunt force trauma. No need to worry about a building falling on you.”
Daniel bristled, thinking of Chief Hammond. He forced himself to calm down, reminding himself that this asshole probably had no idea that such a casualty had occurred—or, if he did, it had been a matter of sentences on paper versus experiencing the reality.
“Now, what’s the catch?”
“Catch?” Stewart echoed.
Daniel nodded. “There’s always a catch. OK, at least a downside. What are the downsides?”
Stewart thought for a second. “Well… the Exo-suits would be God’s gift to free-runners and parkour types. These, not so much—they’re just too heavy. No leaping from branch to branch or rooftop to rooftop.”
“OK.”
“A fit and athletic human can run maybe twelve to fifteen miles an hour for an extended period, and get up to maybe thirty as an absolute top-end, like an Olympic sprinter or something like that. How fast do you figure you can run in an Exo-suit?”
Daniel tried to remember what his records showed. “Thirty-five miles an hour for an hour or two. Maybe forty-five to fifty in a short burst.”
“Right,” Stewart said. “Suited up as Big Mike here, it’s more like sixty for a good hour and more. Seventy-plus at a short sprint.” Daniel did a quick double-take. “Yeah,” Stewart said with a grin. “It’s also got better seals and more life-support facility than the Exo-suits. We can go double the time underwater or in vacuum, and because it needs a suit-wearer to operate it, that makes for a total of three times the duration if needed. And the Exo-suit nanites can still filter from an atmosphere that’s present but not so breathable.”
“Let’s hope the Gresians’ planet has breathable air,” Hope said, “or you and Cole might find yourselves doing the mission on your own.”
Cole chuckled. “Obviously, the increased size means increased ordnance and ammo capacity. Plus, signals and cyber effectiveness are boosted, with direct surface to orbit communications gear and signal jamming capability.”
As Cole was speaking, Daniel walked round to look at the APC. “What about the Bradley’s big brother here?”
“Well, as you figured, it’s basically a scaled-up Bradley, with a few differences. We’re calling it a Super-Bradley even though it isn’t really.”
“Wasn’t there are a Super-Bradley project before?”
“It got canned at the beginning of 2019,” Stewart said, “so we just stole the name. Unofficially.” We got road wheels coated in an active nanoform material that alters its properties according to the terrain they’re in contact with.”
“So, we don’t need tracks,” Cole added. “The hull and turret are hardened against both our own railguns and Gresian plasma rifles. And that’s at point-blank range.”
“How was that achieved?” Daniel asked.
“It’s made of the same dwarf star alloy the Sydney herself is made of. Dwarf star alloy is extremely dense, so we can actually make it a lot thinner and still have more protection than any terrestrial element or alloy would allow. This baby’s as agile as a good 4x4 or pickup truck.”
“All this and indestructible, too,” Daniel said approvingly, only half-believing the latter part.
“Well, it ain’t indestructible or invulnerable,” Cole admitted. “If there’s enough concentration of firepower on one area, that part of the armor will become damaged. There’s also an issue with heat conductivity.”
“Heat conductivity?” Hope asked warily.
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br /> “The biggest problem for spacecraft is the danger of heat build-up cooking everyone inside. So, the most important thing outside the hull is radiators. That’s why all of our ships are painted white, so as not to absorb more heat.”
Daniel nodded. “That’s what I gathered when I first came up to the Shenzhen.”
“Right. So, the dwarf star alloy is a good conductor to radiate off heat generated inside the Sydney, but that conductance works both ways: If a straight-up heat source is applied—a powerful laser, say—that will be conducted through to the inside pretty quickly.”
“And cook everyone inside?”
“Pretty much, sir,” Cole said sadly.
Daniel sighed, feeling Hope’s revulsion. “Well, how are we doing for camo? This will work OK at night, but—”
Cole brightened immediately, now that they were off such an uncomfortable subject. “The Big Mike suits and the Super-Bradleys have limited stealth capabilities. They’re radar and EM-scattering, and, though the tech can’t make itself invisible, it can bend light around itself for short periods of time.”
“Drains power cores like shit through a goose, though,” Stewart grumbled.
“OK, I’ll figure out which of my troops are best-suited to be APC drivers and gunners,” Daniel said. He already knew Erik Palmer, his platoon sergeant, would command his team from one of those positions, as he’d been involved with Abrams tanks prior to joining the Hardcases. “And you two will be operating the Big Mikes?”
“We’ve been fully trained up on these, sir,” Cole said, “and it’s a pretty specialized job.”
“That said,” Stewart added, “you want to take one of them for a spin?”
Daniel figured that it might be useful to have at least one extra person who knew how to operate these things, just in case…. “I don’t mind if I do.”
Stewart grinned and walked Daniel to the farther of the two Big Mikes. “This is my Mike. Just climb aboard.” Daniel climbed up to put his foot on the top edge of the Big Mike’s shin and then twisted himself around so that he was stepping backwards into the open cavity of the oversized armor. Stewart reached up to press a control on the open chestplate, which then folded shut, the thighs closing around Daniel’s legs and the faceplate sliding down over his head.
Daniel could feel strands of nanites connecting between his suit and the interior of the armor, and could see perfectly clearly through the transparent faceplate. He switched through his suit’s vision modes and found that they were all clearer through the Big Mike’s faceplate, and he could zoom his vision a lot further, as promised. “How do I start it moving?” he asked.
Stewart retired to a safe distance and said, “Just move as you normally would. It’s basically a pumped-up Exo-suit, so it works the same way.”
Daniel nodded, and, to his surprise and Hope’s amusement, the Big Mike nodded its head. The Big Mike—Daniel—turned and stepped carefully to one side. Daniel didn’t want to accidentally overdo things or unbalance the heavy armor, and so he moved tentatively at first, but was relieved to find that this tech felt as normal to move around in as his Exo-suit did. He shook his limbs, the Big Mike doing likewise, and then walked around the flight deck.
He flexed its arms as he went, and then tried to reach out and pick up a weapon. The suit’s fingers fumbled it, first bending the rifle and then dropping it. “Sorry,” Daniel said, beginning to see why using one of these things required special training, particularly in a combat engineering context. You didn’t want to go dropping or crushing protacabins or demolitions charges. He decided to try a light jog, which felt effortless, and then suddenly he was at the atmosphere shield, back-pedaling frantically to avoid running clear out of the ship like a cartoon character off the edge of a cliff.
His heart pounded in his chest and he almost yelled, sure he couldn’t stop in time. But he did, and there stopped to recover the breath that he’d been holding. He walked back to the other end of the flight deck, checking the Big Mike’s weapons systems and trying out various calisthenics as he went. The machine’s neural interface was impressively intuitive. “It’s an elegant piece of equipment,” he said as he returned to Hope, Cole, and Stewart. “How do I get out?”
“Just think your way to the command menu and—yeah, there you go.” As he emerged from the machine with a grin, Daniel thought to Hope. ‘That was actually….’
‘Fun? Cool? Perhaps I should try it.’
‘Go right ahead; it was fun and cool. But I was going to say—well, think, you know what I mean—that was actually pretty positive.’
‘Apart from almost falling off the edge of the flight deck and out of the ship??’ Hope sent with a note of concern.
‘Yeah. Sorry; considering the mass of the thing, it moves more lightly and easily than I expected. You might want to watch out for that. Slow and stop a few seconds before you think you’ll have to.’
‘Right. And what about their usefulness to the mission?’
‘I think our chances of success might have climbed up just a couple of percentile points.’
‘Impressive. You’re right. I’ll try one out.’
Nine
UES Sydney, Orbit of Saturn
Daniel had secured the use of a briefing room from the Sydney’s XO, Tom Wells, so, three days after he had checked out the Big Mikes and Super-Bradley APCs, he was laying out tablet readers on every chair in the simple presentation room. There were several screen viewers on the widest wall also.
He nodded to Erik Palmer, who was waiting by the door. “Show them in.”
Palmer opened the door and a line of soldiers entered. There were several familiar faces: the Czech sniper Mili Svoboda, Kevin Bailey, Kate Kinsella, the diminutive but deadly Thai Buapueak, the bearded Englishman Marty Beswick, Wilkes, Collins, Kenji, Carter, a medic called Kit Gregory, and a recently graduated from Camp Peary Mary Jefferson. There were several strangers among the group, too, along with Sergeants James Cole and Malik Stewart. Hope had come along with the team’s pilots, as well—Bella Torres, a slightly-built man called Andrews, and another lieutenant named Steffen. Doug Wilson came in last, clearly trying to keep out of Daniel’s way, for which Daniel considered feeling grateful, but that was as far as his charitable feelings went.
The Hardcases had been given three days to get reacquainted, drill, exercise, study the intel they had been given regarding the Gresians and the planet codenamed Firebird, and
familiarize themselves with the new equipment. At this point, Daniel was pretty sure that everyone in the platoon had had a try at wearing a Big Mike.
For his own part, Daniel and Hope had spent as much time in each other’s company as could legitimately be managed. Even when they were working or studying or planning together, Daniel still somehow found it more fulfilling just for the fact of her presence. When he’d said as much, she’d of course proved to feel the same way.
“OK, in a couple of days, we’ll be going through the gate, and I’ve now received our mission orders from Colonel Barnett. This is coded Operation Stravinsky, and if we’re all seated comfortably, I’ll give you the final mission details—details I’ve just received myself.
“Here’s how the mission will work. The Hardcases will be splitting into two teams under my command for an incursion onto enemy territory. Fireteam Alpha will be under the command of Master Sergeant Kinsella. Team Bravo will be under Sergeant Palmer’s command.” Daniel turned to his platoon sergeant, Erik Palmer. “Erik, you’ll also be my executive officer, of course.”
“We’ll be taking two Landing Craft Mechanized shuttles down to the LZ, because we’re carrying the ground transports and Big Mike units down with us. Captain Ying will pilot Alpha Team’s LCM, and Lieutenant Andrews will be Bravo Team’s chauffeur. Each shuttle will carry one Super-Bradley troop transport vehicle and one Big Mike unit.”
Daniel turned and brought up a satellite image on the screen. “This is our landing zone,” Daniel said, pointing to an area of the image that showe
d a clearing of rolling hills with buildings scattered throughout. The buildings were strange, with many residential-looking units in trees, both real and artificial, and towers acting as junctions for pathways between the arboreal domiciles. “It’s a park, part of a greenbelt area between groupings of what intel analysis says are residential areas.” He scrolled the image, showing a rolling parkland. “Space Command has sent stealth drones to reconnoiter the planet, but they don’t have any closer eyes on the LZ than this.” The image showed a small piece of parkland not too far from what was just about large enough for them to make it out as a very regular square hill, like the base of a pyramid. “The LZ is approximately two kilometers from our—or, more accurately, Professor Wilson’s—final objective.”
“It looks like the ruins we found on Lyonesse,” Erik Palmer said.
“There’s a difference between those ruins and these ones.” Daniel pressed a switch, and a variety of colored areas and symbols appeared over a wide area of the map, layered on the hologram to indicate that they represented things beneath the surface level where the park, ruins, and modern buildings were. They looked like the floorplan of a tower block, sinking into the ground rather than reaching up from it. “Beneath these ruins lies an intact, underground Shaldine gateway engineering and research facility, of which we believe the Gresians to be either entirely unaware or at least unconcerned with.”
Daniel paused for a sip of water before continuing. “The Hardcases’ mission is to get Professor Douglas Wilson into this facility, and then provide cover as he uses the equipment inside to exploit a function of the gate system that will allow us to kill every Gresian, everywhere in the galaxy.” He paused to let that sink in as the Hardcases looked to each other in astonishment and disbelief.