by Knyte,Peter
It was a very similar effect when we finally reached the bridge; I swear half the people around the room were ready to bolt for the opposite door until they recognised me.
Fraser, who was standing in for the still hospitalised Jenkins, was the first to find his voice.
‘Is that you Hall?’ He joked, through his shock. ‘You look different somehow, but I can’t quite put my finger on why!’
His humour broke the ice nicely, after which the Captain formally introduced me to the room, which I noticed had a few new faces in, including a couple of obviously more senior military men in uniform who I’d definitely not met before.
‘We’ll be over the demonstration ground in just a few minutes now gentlemen,’ the Captain explained. ‘But each of these suits has a two way radio link built into the helmet, so you will be able to pose questions directly to Lieutenant Commander Hall while the demonstration is underway, or afterward if you prefer.’
‘Captain Hughes, I have a few questions I’d like to ask before we get to the demonstration ground, if that would be alright?’ One of the two military men asked.
‘Of course General, please feel free.’ The Captain replied without reservation.
‘Thank you Captain,’ he said graciously before turning back to me. ‘Son, I wonder if you could tell me how many hours you’ve got under your belt using one of these suits?’
‘Yes sir, of course.’ I replied. ‘In total I’ve spent about twenty hours learning the basics of the suit usage, but I should stress that’s purely training time, I’ve never used the suit in any kind of combat situation.’
‘I see . . . well thank you for your honesty son. My next question might be somewhat difficult for you to answer then, I appreciate this. . . suit as you call it might well be a powerful weapon, but if you’ve never engaged the enemy with it, then how confident are you that you could take this creature on if you had to?’
I felt the smouldering embers of my anger flicker into momentary life at the thought of facing the creature again, and it was all I could do to keep the menace from my voice as I answered.
‘Well, General, although I’ve not yet faced one of these creatures while wearing one of these armoured suits, I have unfortunately been in combat with these creatures on numerous occasions without the suit or any other form of armour.’
‘General,’ broke in Captain Platt, still looking rather bruised but otherwise back to being his normal self. ‘Mr Hall is perhaps understating his experience of combating these creatures. He was the individual responsible for driving the creature off the ship during its most recent attack, which if I recall correctly Ashton you did bare handed and in just your normal attire.’
‘Yes sir, that’s right,’ I had to admit. ‘Although both Agent Fraser and I had emptied the contents of our pistols into it before I was forced to close with it hand to hand.’
‘Well, in that case I apologise for the question son,’ replied the General, sincerely. ‘I was under the impression the person responsible for that been hospitalised after their encounter with the creature.’
‘Yes, sir, that’s right though I’m pleased to say it was just for some rest and recuperation, while a couple of torn muscles healed.’
‘Well I’m glad to see you fit and healthy,’ the General continued. ‘Perhaps you wouldn’t mind just one or two slightly more mundane questions.’
‘Your suit certainly looks like a very powerful and capable weapon, but how long can you use it for before you need to charge it up or refuel it again.’
‘Well, aboard ship, there is no practical limit as the capacitors on the suit along with many of our other technologies are being constantly recharged wirelessly by the ships generators, which themselves have an almost endless amount of fuel.
‘In real terms,’ I continued. ‘As long as the suit remains within a hundred yards or so it will run off the ships power, if it goes beyond that range then the capacitors can last for between four and six weeks depending entirely upon what the suit is being used for, the Arc cannons in particular are very energy hungry, and the suits power supply could be drained by just a few minutes of constant usage.’
With that the Captain announced our arrival at the demonstration area, which I was pleased to see was the railyard where we’d encountered the creature before, and where Fraser had very nearly caught it with the ship’s main Arc cannons.
I hadn’t planned what would be included in the demonstration, but I decided to start things off with a bang, so after walking over to one of the emergency exits built into the walls of the bridge, I asked the Captain’s permission to proceed, and upon receiving his nod of approval, along with the faintest trace of a smile, I unlatched the emergency door and flung it wide open.
After carefully setting my visor in place, I spoke into the communications system in the helmet and heard my own voice sounding around the bridge from the various speakers.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I would encourage you to stay clear of this exit while the demonstration is in progress as we’re currently about ninety feet from the ground, so a fall from this height would be quite uncomfortable.’
As I was saying this I casually stepped out into the open air and dropped like a rock to the ground, trusting the miniature thrusters built into the chest and back plates of the suit to slow me down enough for the suits skeleton to reduce the impact to something similar to stepping off a kerb, the trick here was of course to bend the legs and then completely relax in order to avoid any of the force being felt in your own limbs.
By chance, I overcooked the thrusters just a touch, so the skeleton had almost nothing to absorb when I hit the ground, and my landing barely even made a sound.
I continued to address the personnel on the bridge as I walked out in front of the ship to where everyone would be able to seem me more easily.
It was odd to be back at the railyard again, and to see even after several days that it still looked exactly the same as it had when we’d been winched up by the ship after being besieged by the creature. Even the oil drums and pallets that the men had used to construct a barricade were still exactly where they’d left them, against the backdrop of the melted railway carriages and now entirely cold pools of previously molten metal and glass.
‘I’ll begin with a demonstration of the medium and long range weapons system,’ I casually commentated, lifting one of the empty oil drums from the barricade, and then casually tossing it forty or fifty feet into the air before opening fire with the two light machine guns attached to the forearms of the suit, hitting the drum a good sixty or seventy times while it was in mid-air, with just a couple of short sub second bursts from each weapon.
Once the now see-through barrel had clattered back to the ground and broken into a couple of good sized bits, I proceeded with my description.
‘While they may not look familiar in their cut down modular suit configuration, these guns are actually a variant on the popular Bren machine gun, which is capable of firing just over five hundred rounds per minute at an effective range of seven hundred and fifty yards. For this demonstration I’ve selected an earlier barrel form which allows for a surprising level of accuracy, but other barrel forms are available to the marines if a wider field of fire is preferred.
‘If there are no questions I’ll show you the effect of the mini Arc cannon next,’ I said selecting another empty oil barrel, before crushing it down to the size of a basketball using the power of the suite and its power gauntlets.
‘Now I know most of you gentlemen may not be familiar with the game of soccer, but if you’ll bear with me, this should allow me to demonstrate the range of the cannon a little better.’
I knew I’d made a mistake the second my foot hit the improvised ball. I’d forgotten about the increased speed and strength of the suit, so even with the cannon built into the forearm of my suit I kicked the oil barrel ball so hard it had disappeared beyond the boundary of the rail yard before I’d even got my foot back on the ground.
&nb
sp; ‘That’s a very impressive kick Mr Hall,’ the Captain commented over the radio. ‘But if we could please try to limit the damage to the railyard.’
I apologised for my lack of footballing prowess as I created another ball out of another oil drum, and this time just tapped the thing with my foot, aiming for a high slow arc rather than distance. The thing still sailed an impressive distance over the yard before I hit it with the suit mounted Arc Cannon, and turned it instantly into molten steel rain.
‘Just to hark back to your earlier question general,’ I commented, after describing the firing rate and effective range of the cannon. ‘While this weapon is quite energy hungry, because I’m still quite close to the ship the suits energy status is still showing as maximum.’
I went on to demonstrate the mortar, and the sword and mace attachments for close quarters fighting, as well as the suits ability to jump the wearer well above the height of the ships bridge. Then showed of its sheer strength by simply picking up one end of a passenger carriage from the rails on which it sat and then placing it carefully back down again.
It had all gone without a hitch, barring the football incident, so while I’d originally been tempted to simply jump back up to the bridge, once I’d answered all the questions I decided not to push my luck. Instead I used the suit to call down one of the cradles to carry me back up to the ship.
It was clear that the assembled dignitaries were very impressed with the capabilities of the suit, but it was Platt who had the most challenging question by far.
‘Well thank you for the demonstration Mr Hall, Captain Hughes, but there’s one thing I’d still like to understand,’ he commented neutrally. ‘If these suits are as good as they seem to be, why haven’t you used them to hunt this creature down before now.’
‘That’s a very good question,’ the Captain replied. ‘In a nutshell, these suits are too powerful and too dangerous a weapon to consider deploying in a civilian environment. One mistake on the part of its operator and a building could be brought down, or a string of motor vehicles reduced to liquid metal. What I’m suggesting to you all is that one of these suits could be used to defend my ship should the creature decide to launch another attack, it should not and will not be used on the city streets, in the sewers, or anywhere else near large populations of people.’
This answer seemed to satisfy them, albeit slightly grudgingly so in the case of the military gentlemen whose names I still hadn’t been given, but it was enough to convince the officials that we could defend the ship properly, should we need to.
My body was beginning to ache again by this point, so I was hoping the meeting was done and that I’d soon be excused so that I could go and get the suit off. But I’d forgotten that the Captain still needed to brief the assembled officials on our discovery of the missing suits.
‘Now that you’ve seen what one of these suits is capable of, I have some unfortunate news I need to share with you before we finish,’ the Captain began in neutral, business-like terms. ‘As many of you will already know, one of the reasons for our appearance above this city was a betrayal and attempted mutiny by a section of my crew who wished to take over my ship for their own purposes.
‘Unfortunately, when Lieutenant Commander Hall went to prepare a marine suit for today’s demonstration, he discovered that forty three of the hundred suits on our inventory were missing and unaccounted for, along with a substantial amount of emergency supplies, armaments, emergency shelters and medical equipment.
‘Now we can’t say for sure that these items were taken by those same traitors, but it is the most logical explanation.’
‘Captain Hughes, this is very grave news,’ replied Platt, looking concerned. ‘Is there any possibility that these individuals could have come through with your ship and be hiding somewhere in the city?’
‘Yes, it is possible, though we don’t consider it likely,’ the Captain replied. ‘If we were talking about several squads of highly trained marine reconnaissance and infiltration specialists, who were adept in the use of these suits and the associated equipment, then I’d suggest it would be very easy for a force of that size to disappear within a city of this scale without anyone noticing.
‘But these traitors are not expert users, they will not have had time to properly adjust and calibrate the suits before putting them on, and they will not have had a lot of time in which to either plan or affect their escape. As such I would suggest the possibility of forty individuals using unfamiliar equipment disappearing and remaining hidden in your city is remote.
‘It is in our estimation much more likely they abandoned the ship in the Expanse, and were subsequently marooned there.’
‘So you’re informing us of this purely as a precaution-ary measure?’ Platt asked.
‘That’s exactly right,’ confirmed the Captain. ‘I wouldn’t suggest your officers shouldn’t even be asked to be on the lookout for anything more specific than a large group of strangers suddenly appearing in an area, which I suspect they would notice anyway.’
There was still some unease at the prospect of so many heavily armed and armoured individuals potentially being on the loose in the city, but everyone seemed to accept the assessment that in all probability these individuals had been marooned in the Expanse, so with minimal extra discussion the meeting finished and I was finally able to excuse myself to go and remove the suit.
CHAPTER 39 – OUT OF THE SHADOWS
Finally getting the marine suit off was a blessed relief, and being able to simply step into the Esquire and have all the fastenings and fixing undone and released at the same time was doubly so. I still had a few minutes afterward where I caught myself moving my arms very carefully until my mind adjusted to not being in the suit again, but otherwise it was trouble free.
Ariel had come with me to lend a hand on the off chance it was needed, but now the meeting with the city officials was out of the way and they were re-assured the Captain could properly safeguard his ship again, we both knew that would mean there’d be a renewed focus on finding the creature and killing it, which in turn would mean asking Ariel to try and sense it again.
After popping in to see how the two technicians were getting on with the assembly of the simplified lensing rigs, we found a quiet corner of the lab where Ariel could brief me on all the progress that had been made, just to double check everything before we met the Captain later on that evening.
‘Okay,’ Ariel began, holding up four fingers ready to count them off as she covered them. ‘We’ve now received and checked all the parts which the local supplier has been manufacturing for the simplified lensing rigs. And it has to be said their quality control and precision has been excellent. The tolerances aren’t close enough to allow us to start using anything they’ve produced in our own rigs, but they’ve been much better than we thought they would be, so . . .’
She folds her forefinger down to count off the first point.
‘The final treatment and coating of the lenses that needed to be done aboard ship has now also been completed. Again no hitches or issues, we were beginning to get a little low on some of the chemicals, but Mr Hughes has managed to sort out a supply for us.’
Her middle finger follows the first.
‘Assembly, this is the bit that you’ve seen me and the two technicians completing. There’s no denying it’s a dull job, but we’re practically there, the last few units should be assembled and ready to be charged up before the end of the day. Making two hundred fully operational if simplified lensing rigs.’
Her third finger is folded into her palm.
‘Volunteers, we’ve screened and trained enough people to be able to put all the new lensing rigs to immediate use, in total we’ve got fourteen potential Lensmen in the making who could probably tolerate wearing the rigs for a whole day at a time, provided we keep the lens cycling rate down to a reasonable level. On top of that we’ve got over two hundred capable users who can easily tolerate using the rigs for well over an hour at a time
, again provided the cycle rate isn’t too high.’
The final pinkie finger is folded neatly away.
‘I haven’t sorted anything out to recharge the rigs yet, but the capacitors in each should last at least a month, so we’ve got plenty of time to sort something should we need to.
‘Sounds perfect,’ I replied. ‘Even if we can just give the Police officers guarding the ship a fighting chance of spotting the thing, then our security will improve enormously from that alone.’
‘Well you know Ash, I think we should be able to do a little better than that, we’ve got enough lensing rigs and enough capable volunteers to create twenty five maybe thirty search teams, while still leaving a few spares to cover the security of the ship and some of the nearest hospitals or other civic buildings.’
‘That’s a distinct relief, I must say,’ I said, genuinely meaning it, and feeling the ever present anger within me calm just a little more at the thought.
She gazed at me for a moment, looking both quizzical and more serious at the same time.
‘You know you really shouldn’t blame yourself for what this creature has done, it’s . . .’ she cut herself off, before she continued. ‘Ok out with it Lieutenant Commander, why are you so relieved just because we’ve got these lensing rigs and could-be Lensmen sorted out.’
‘Well, the city has been more vulnerable to this thing than anyone has realised for a long time . . .’ I began, but she was clearly having none of it.