by Mark Wandrey
At first he thought there was no way. No matter what he did, it was as if his right arm was caught in a giant, mechanized Chinese finger puzzle – he simply could not get it out without more room inside the suit. He didn’t give up, though. He kept twisting, and pulling, and twisting, and pulling. His face was jammed up against the left side of the cockpit so hard it hurt. He pushed even harder against the side and pulled with all his might.
“Arrrrrrrggghhh!” he screamed, and his arm moved! He was so surprised he almost lost the little bit of progress he’d made. He held his position, though, and pulled again. His arm moved another couple of inches. “Damn,” he said and pulled more. He rotated his body to the left while pulling and his arm suddenly jerked free. He cried in pain – the angle and the swiftness of the motion almost dislocated his shoulder. He clutched his right arm tight against his chest and fell back into the center of the cockpit with a sigh. “Ouch,” he said to his throbbing shoulder. “Let’s never do that again!”
With his arm finally free, he wiggled it around behind him and felt his back. There was still a lot of wetness, and then pain! “Hssss,” he gasped as he delicately probed the contours of his wounds. There were a half a dozen punctures of some kind. He felt the rear of his cockpit where his back had rested against the padding and found it torn and wet with his blood. Shrapnel? The missile couldn’t have exploded; he was still alive. The CASPer was tough. Damned tough, but not against an anti-armor missile. If it had exploded he wouldn’t have shrapnel damage to his back, he simply wouldn’t have a back.
The radiation alarm was getting shrill, and that brought him back to the moment. He got his hand back around his front and slid it around to his left side, finding the haptic cable for his left arm and, tracing it down to the plug, yanked it free.
“Yes,” he said, pulling his left arm in. The suit servos grated in protest, and he could hear and feel dirt dragged up under the suit. He made his hand flat against the ground and tried yet again for the one-handed pushup. Free of the limiting haptic system, he was at last able to maneuver the suit into a weird, one-sided pushup. His right arm was locked out to the side so it wasn’t perfect, but he was up a foot or two, and that was enough. He had room under the cockpit now.
Jim entered a sequence with his left hand in the suit glove, and prayed. An instant later he was rewarded with a wailing alarm. He gritted his teeth and entered the sequence again triggering the miniature explosive bolts on the cockpit. Only it didn’t fall off.
“Uhm…” Jim said, and reached out his right to push against the line which split the cockpit, and jumped when it screeched and fell away with a bang. “Fuck!” he gasped. He gasped again as bitterly cold air and swirling smoke rushed in. The frigid bite of the planet’s cold air hit him in his thin haptic uniform like a two-by-four to the face. “Oh...” he breathed and coughed, “oh my.” He got the harness’ quick releases and pulled, dropping him less than a foot to land on the inside of the cockpit hatch, which was now lying on the ground. As he fell, his other arm came loose.
Jim caught himself rather un-gracefully and began sliding forward, pulling his legs free, the haptic plugs pulling out as he moved. His hands landed in snow and dirt, making him hiss at the pain the extreme cold caused. It felt like needles in his fingertips.
“I need to get the survival gear,” he said to the wind outside. He’d never set foot outside on the planet since they’d arrived without having his CASPer around him. He didn’t realize it was this windy. Or so goddamned cold! He was about to crawl toward the lower part of his now crippled suit when he remembered something. He turned around and lay on his back, slipping an arm back inside. It was still a little warmer in there. “Maybe I’d be better off staying in the suit?” he wondered as he searched. The wailing of the radiation alarm told him that was a bad idea.
As he felt around, his knees got steadily colder, even though there were two inches of metallic spun carbon fiber between them and the ground. The wind blew on his feet, covered only in the thin boots with haptic sensors, it made him shudder from head to toe almost uncontrollably. He felt something furry. “There you are,” he said, and pulled out Dash. She looked a bit worse for wear.
The cold bit at his flabby chest as he unbuttoned the top of his uniform and slipped the toy inside, then he turned around and crawled off the fallen cockpit hatch and onto the snow-covered ground.
“Oh this is just great,” he cried as he moved. In seconds his hands were numb from the cold. He reached his destination, the thigh of the dead suit and reached for the release. His fingers wouldn’t respond. “Come on,” he implored the shaking digits to no avail. He cursed and rolled onto his back, and the cold ground hit the blood soaked into his uniform back and bottom. It was many times worse than the air.
Jim curled up as best he could in the space available, tucking his hands under his armpits and shivering almost uncontrollably. As he curled up, he could feel the uniform tear at the wounds on his back. The blood was freezing his uniform to his skin.
He sat as long as he could, rocking and moaning from the pain in his back, his feet, his face, the wind whipping across the desolate terrain that surrounded him.
What time was it? Late afternoon? No, early afternoon. Where was the rest of his company? Did they stop the attack? Were they looking for him?
His fingers were working again. He reached up to the latching assembly and worked the release quickly. For the first time since the battle began, something worked perfectly. The hatch popped and the contents fell onto his chest in a cascade.
Jim almost cried with happiness as he pulled the pack open hastily and yanked out the cold weather survival suit. Working quickly in the cramped space, his movements jerky with near panic, Jim slid into the clothes. He had to fight for a bit to get them over his belly and his arms into the sleeves. It was custom fit to him, but he wasn’t custom fit to wear these kinds of clothes. Finally, gratefully, he zipped the front up, shoved a hand into the pocket and found the control. His fingers were stiff again, and he was thankful the control was simple. Within a second of turning it on he felt the warmth flood over his body as the power system energized heating coils woven into the suit.
From another pocket, he donned the gloves, being sure to click them into the power grid on the survival suit’s sleeve. They got warm quickly as well. He stripped off his helmet and dropped it in the snow, then reached up and pulled the hood over his head and snugged it around his face, completely wrapping himself in its almost smothering warmth. It was so intense, so much of a relief, that he lay there for several long moments and just sighed, until a noise tugged at his consciousness.
“Jesus,” he hissed, “the radiation alarm!” Jim grabbed the survival pack and reached into the storage space inside the suit’s thigh. He unsnapped the rifle there and unceremoniously rolled/dug his way out from under the suit and into the planetary afternoon. The wind was still blowing, and now it was starting to snow.
As he pulled out the clear face shield for the suit from its storage place in the collar and attached it, he saw the tank that he’d had such an intense battle with. The last snap in place, his eyes went wide with terror when he realized where the radiation was coming from. The tank had only gone another hundred yards or so before hitting a big boulder and grinding to a stop. It was in ruins, and flames were licking out of the turret as well as another hatch he could see to the side. That one had a body dangling out as well. The body was burning, and even through the arctic bite of the planet’s wind, he thought he could feel a touch of the heat coming off the tank.
It wasn’t the cold that sent shivers of fear up his spine. It was the twin plumes of superheated air blasting from the rear deck. The vents for the fusion drive. The air was nearly on fire coming out of those vents. And was the fucking hull starting to glow?
Jim didn’t think; he turned and ran. The tank’s fusion plant was obviously in melt down. The crazy fucking Zuul had either overridden the safeties, or the explosion that had crippled it h
ad jacked the system up. It was burning all its fuel as fast as it could and, based on the radiation his dying suit had picked up, the F11 in its core had reached saturation and was no longer dampening the reaction. Inside the tank, a tiny sun was struggling to be set free.
He ran like he’d never run before, his feet taking any path he could find as he crashed through the frozen underbrush, nearly tripping a dozen times over limbs or hollows in the ravine. He wished his suit had survived so he could have just bounded away, but he was also grateful he hadn’t decided to stick with the stricken CASPer. It could have protected him from the radiation, for a while, but not from what was about to happen.
It seemed like hours, though it was likely only a few minutes of running before he began to slow. His chest rose and fell as he gasped for breath and searched for a place to hide. He stopped for a second to fit the pack over his back and set the rifle on its sling. He ran onward, now turning upwards as the hill rose. He saw a little gap in the hill to his left and made for it.
“It...will...have...to...do...” he choked between breaths. God, it had to do! Behind him he could hear a rushing scream, like Hell’s own kettle boiling away for Satan’s morning tea. It couldn’t be much longer, he knew. The gap was getting closer. Either he’d make it, or...
He made the last few steps and lunged more than climbed through the gap. He lay there on the rocks just over the ridge, trying to catch his breath and not puke at the same time. He knew if he threw up, he’d pass out. And he needed to keep going. After a minute, he looked over the top. The tank was down there, glowing like some crazy Christmas ornament. The heat plumes made the air shimmer like Texas asphalt in July.
He got to his feet and started going down the other side. Every foot farther away he got increased the probability he’d survive. Jim reached a level spot and stopped again, leaning against the gnarled stump of a tree and breathing as hard as he could. Little lights floated before his eyes. Wait, he was casting a second shadow? Booooooom! The ground rolled, and he flew through the air. Someone was screaming, then the world seemed to go dark.
* * * * *
Chapter 19
“Cavalier Actual, report!” Murdock yelled into the radio. It was over half an hour since they lost contact with Jim, and fifteen minutes since they got the suit’s distress signal. It only lasted a second, but it was unmistakable. They’d mopped up the raiders when the last two tanks surrendered and then moved as quickly as possible to Jim’s last known location. “Jim, respond!” He cursed and switched channels. “Simmons,” he called to the squad’s scout, “you got anything?” The man’s CASPer had more advanced sensors.
“I’ve got his suit transponder,” Simmons replied. “Power seems low. It must be really jacked up.”
“Hurry,” Murdock told his squad, “switch to bound.” They’d used a fair amount of jump juice during the fight; this would use up the rest. Murdock took five troopers plus himself to look for Jim. They had two suits damaged, though the troopers were unhurt. He’d left the other three under Buddha to guard the captured raiders. Hargrave had his squad split between security back at the facility and running down the raiders’ landing spot. Second Platoon had remained on board Traveler.
The squad began using their jumpjets to bound forward in huge leaps – hundreds of yards at a time, eating up the distance to their commander much faster.
“I am picking up more data on his suit,” Simmons said. Murdock grounded and jumped before replying.
“Go ahead.”
“His suit is disabled, main radio is out.” Simmons examined the readouts. “He tried to eject, but the system was too badly damaged. The cockpit is compromised.” Murdock gritted his teeth and pushed even harder. Just before they’d landed, he’d promised Captain Winslow and Hargrave to protect the kid. Leaving him dangling on that wall appeared to fit that bill during the beginning of the attack. Who knew the boy would come across a heavy tank and try to attack it single-handedly? They’d been tracking the tank. It was obvious by the bits and pieces they kept finding that the kid had caused them a great deal of grief. Fuck, the crazy path through the frozen woods was proof enough of that. “Wait!” Simmons suddenly yelled. “Everyone stop!”
“What?” Murdock demanded. “They can’t be more than two miles ahead of us.”
“I’m getting a radiation warning.” The squad landed next to the scout who took a moment while they were stationary to deploy his suit’s sensor mast. It rose from the back of his pack like a long whip antenna. “Neutron radiation, and it’s climbing.”
“Where?” Murdock asked, landing next to the scout with a precise gust from his jumpjets, creating a swirl of snow around his knees. The scout, Simmons, looked at his sensor data and pointed in the direction the tank tracks led. “Neutron radiation? What do you think?”
“Either a neutron cannon, which is unlikely or we would have seen a starship come down, or it’s an overloading reactor.”
“If it’s a reactor, how long?”
“Hard to say right—” All their radiation alarms blared at once. It meant a powerful burst of radiation was upon them.
“Blast protocol!” Murdock yelled. As a unit they spun around so their backs were to the radiation source and dropped down on one knee with their suit’s hands dug into the ground. A second later, the explosion lit up the ravine and the blast wave rolled over them.
“Murdock!” Jane Wheeler cried out over the command channel. She rocked the dropship around into the blast wave as it hit. She’d been flying a few miles away when the reactor blew. Even though the mushroom cloud wasn’t very big, it was well-developed and climbing into the sky. “Phoenix 1 to Traveler, we have a nuclear detonation on the planet’s surface!”
“Traveler, Winslow here,” the captain came back. “We’re scanning the detonation. It is not, I repeat, it is not a high-order nuclear explosion. We estimate it was a reactor overload.”
“Acknowledged, Traveler,” Jane said as she tried to calm herself. The blast wave was past and the mushroom cloud already dissipating. She set the dropship into a long, low glide path.
“Phoenix 1, are you okay?” Prescott in Phoenix 2 called from his support of the group searching for the raider’s landing spot.
“No problem,” Jane replied. She tapped the radiation monitor and saw she’d taken a few rads, but not much. “Stay on mission.” Prescott acknowledged the order. “Topovich,” she called to her gunner sitting above and behind her. “Sweep for anything moving below. I’m hoping we didn’t just lose six men in a nuclear explosion.”
“Too much interference at ground level right now,” he said from his seat. “I think I’m getting suit transponders, but it keeps fading in and out. That was quite an explosion.” They knew from their commander’s last report that he’d spotted a heavy tank, so that meant a fusion reactor. Small reactors like that could get out of hand fast, but they rarely blew up!
“Phoenix 1, this is First Sergeant.” The transmission was somewhat garbled, but clear enough to understand.
Jane managed to not cry out in relief.
“There you are,” she said. “Report.”
“We think the explosion was from the tank Jim was messing with.”
“Winslow concurs with that theory,” Jane replied.
“Radiation is dropping down here, but we still took a real hit. Our suit shielding handled it. I’d rather not hop us into that cloud at the present moment, however. You’re sealed – can you do a flyby?”
“Roger that,” she said. “Topovich?”
“Verifying seal,” he said, and a second later confirmed they were trimmed for space, which meant the external air chargers were closed. “We’re good.”
“Phoenix 1, going down for a look.”
“Secure from blast,” Murdock ordered and his team all stood. “Report?” Everyone called out. No damage. “Give me your radiation levels.” He checked his own, and found they’d taken very little. There was a low hill between them and the explosion, and that had
probably shielded them from the worst of it. The dropship screamed by a few miles overhead.
Jane leveled off and began a low and slow bank around the site of the blast. The winds had already dispersed most of the mushroom cloud. The forest for half a mile in all directions was aflame, and the snow and ice within the blast radius was completely melted.
“You have anything?” she asked her gunner, who, having nothing that needed shooting at present, could spend his time concentrating on instruments.
“There’s a shitload of debris down there,” he said. “Here’s something.” On her HUD a picture came up. It was a tank turret, mostly melted yet still recognizable. “That’s about a mile from the blast. It was the tank’s reactor all right.”
“Any sign of the boss’ CASPer?”
“No signals,” Topovich said, “and the interference has cleared.”
“Hargrave here,” her radio called, “you find him?” Another image appeared on her HUD, sent by the gunner.
“Yes,” Jane said as she looked at the melted remains of a CASPer crushed into the side of a rock outcropping, “the commander appears to be KIA.”
* * * * *
Chapter 20
Jim didn’t think he ever actually lost consciousness. The blast threw him at least a hundred yards into a massive snowdrift. He climbed out in a twilight fog of half wakefulness; the survival suit’s plastic face mask kept him from being instantly smothered by the snow. It was still a close thing by the time he reached clear air; his vision was narrowing, and he saw spots floating in his vision.
He half-crawled, half-swam out of the drift until he could put his feet down again, at which point he began to move on hands and knees. He had to get away from the blast! The suit provided no protection from radiation to speak of, so as soon as he could get to his feet, he did. As he walked, he got the respirator mask out of the survival pack and pulled it over his face shield. They were designed to integrate. His feet were cold, despite the heater, and sore from all the walking. Now that the blood on his back had thawed, being thrown in the explosion had reopened the wounds on his back. The blood flowed down his back and into his ass crack. It was both painful and distinctly unpleasant, but at least it gave him something else to think about.