AL:ICE-9

by Charles Lamb

  Once they were all comfortable in the suits, he had ALICE take him and the fire team, all fully suited, out into the world after dark. His first instinct was to have her take them to LA, but his better judgement won out and he picked an unoccupied town near Las Vegas.

  He had ALICE create some training rounds that, while still lethal to the unprotected, would act like paint palls to a suited soldier. He had her drop the fire team off on one side of town and him on the other. The game was catch Jake.

  Each side had the same capabilities for scanning and tracking, minus the IFF contained within the suits. Like fighter planes of old, each of the combat suits contained Identification Friend or Foe systems that allowed command and control tracking. It permitted commanders to identify their units and prevented friendly fire incidents.

  In a real engagement, Jake or other commanders would use those signals to identify and direct their teams. For this exercise, you needed to use heat, movement and sound to help identify your opponent beyond the visual. Unfortunately, the suits design helped to mask or minimize those very telltale signatures, making it more difficult for both sides.

  Once ALICE dropped him, Jake immediately went high, jumping on the nearest rooftop and then jumping from building to building to move away from his drop point. He wasn’t sure if his opponent knew of his abilities, so sad for them if they didn’t.

  Once he was in position, he went prone with just his head visible over the edge of the building. He closed his eyes and turned up the audio on his helmet. Sitting quietly, he listened for the slightest sound that might give away his opponents location.

  Sure enough, after a few minutes, he heard a scraping to his right. Turning his head slowing to minimize any significant movement, he watched as first one pair, and then another of the fire team members moved along the street. Each pair was on one side, insuring they exposed themselves as little as possible.

  Lifting his rifle very slowly, Jake fire two quick bursts, taking out the two on the far side of the street from him. He then immediately retreated to his rear, giving the near side pair nothing to shoot at. Two down.

  Leaping to the nearest rooftop, he saw the brick to his right shatter as he took fire from below. “Good move,” he thought to himself, as the team had correctly guessed his position and had tried to flank him.

  Making a quick turn to his right, away from their position, he dropped between two buildings and then took refuge behind a pile of rubble. Again listening for any sound, he waited. After five minutes, he began to creep away from the spot he took fire from, intending to circle back from the far side.

  Stopping in mid motion, he caught the slightest movement in the dark, on the far side of the street. His adversaries had planned the same move, and they were in the process of heading straight for him. Retreating deeper into the shadows, he was able to slip into an open doorway, its door long gone.

  He waited, sensing more than hearing the pair slip past him. Their silent movement made him proud. Giving them a 10 count, he quietly stepped out and said, “Hi guys.”

  As both spun, he nailed them squarely.

  “Damn!” one said, while the other swore in a most un-ladylike fashion.

  Jake had ALICE come pick them up, and they debriefed as they rode home. All agreed that Jake cheated, not because he did anything illegal, they just hated to lose. Jake queried them on what attempts they made to duplicate his approach. None had even tried to stress the exoskeletons enhanced abilities.

  Jake actually considered the exercise a success. The team had truly performed remarkably well. Their tactics were sound, for traditional adversaries. However, he needed to include additional training, pressing the troops to test the limits of their suits. Who knew what alien forces they might encounter in the future?

  Once back, he had everyone service the suits, declining the offer ALICE made to perform the task for them. Jake was adamant that his people learn to care for the equipment that might save their lives. Their work completed, he released them for the night while he went to the command center to check on everyone else.

  ----*----

  Revenge was sitting on the far side of the moon from earth, hanging in a lunar orbit. Brian was in the command chair, watching his crew as they maneuvered to allow the bridge windows to face outward and into space. The word was the battleship was complete, finished early, and the Wawobash had programed it to return home. As was usually the custom, a tender ship accompanying it, to insure delivery and collect payment upon receipt.

  Everyone knew Jake had provided incentives for the aliens to finish early, but no one expected a ship that large to be ready for another two months. As it was, one of the transports in Lanai was being prepared to meet it in orbit, to complete the stasis shield installation. Unlike all the other ships, this one would never land.

  There was a running bet on board as to where the ship would appear. All three astronavigators on board had calculated the jump and each termination point had been marked in the tactical display. Brian was the odds on favorite, although his actual navigator was pretty darn good.

  Brian had promised a three-day pass for the one who was closest, while he was to receive a case of his favorite sipping whisky should he win. It was a pre-fall brand and was only available via an ALICE request. While the ALICEs had significant stocks of alcoholic beverages, Jake was somewhat stingy about releasing large quantities of anything that couldn’t be easily replicated. That meant the other two in the bet had to go to Jake to get special permission.

  Suddenly, appearing to be out of nowhere was a huge shape. The battleship had arrived at the edge of the solar system. After a flurry of activity, the navigator announced, “Right between me and the captain.”

  That announcement made Brian laugh. Though it was a tie, it demonstrated the abilities of himself and his crew. Were they targeting incoming hostiles, they would have been close enough to destroy them.

  After a few seconds, the tender ship appeared. In three days’ time, it was Brian’s responsibility to assist in bringing in the battleship, working with ALICE of course.

  ----*----

  Jake was in his room when he got word of the battleships arrival at the edge of the solar system. He knew it was almost four days from there to earth via repulser drives. He felt it was both a blessing and a curse that it took so long. Should any hostiles arrive on scene, it was a wonderful heads up, allowing time to prepare. However, should they need to respond to a call for help, they were four days away from faster than light, or FTL. He needed to work on that problem. Maybe they needed to build a space station near Pluto for staging ships and troops.

  Bringing up his display and patching into the video feed, he could make out the ship even from this distance. It helped that he had seen the designs before approving the modifications, but it was just that large to begin with. He was anxious to get it home. He had ALICE teed up to begin his additional upgrades once in orbit.

  The new ship design was dramatically different looking than the original battleship design. The NeHaw had preferred a cylindrical look that Jake considered cigar shaped. It had no real imagination to it. It was just big enough to absorb a pounding, with lots of firepower.

  This design had removed a lot of that exterior structure, stripping it to the core and then reshaping it into a more innovative configuration. At its nose, Jake could see the rectangular cross section with guns running along the spine on top and more guns at the sides and below.

  At the mid-section was the hangar opening, the hangar operations station visible above it. Rather than having the hangar open above or below the body, this opened in the center at the sides. This configuration allowed entrance or exit from any angle from either side of the body of the ship.

  Past the hangar opening, the body flared out even more, providing additional mounts for more guns. Finally, at the stern, the ship branched out forming a T. This change to the original shape provided additional drive functions, as well as adding to the overall stability of the vessel.
The bridge sat on top of the hull at the rear, giving a good view down the entire length of the ship. In many ways, the configuration mimicked the patrol ships in Lanai. It was just far larger.

  The most exciting thing for Jake was the size of the hangar itself. Due to the overall height and width of the ship, the hangar could accommodate their entire fighter production to date. On the other hand, three of the cruisers, with a couple of destroyers, if packed right, would also fit. While not a real aircraft type carrier, it had a lot to offer.

  While the design was originally Wawobash, Jake had reworked enough of the externals to consider it unique. That’s what Jake really liked about the look. It just looked human.

  Dismissing that for now, Jake turned his attention back to the troop training updates. He had others doing the basic training, putting all the recruits for his platoons through the same courses no matter what their backgrounds. Raw recruits and former community patrol all suffered together.

  The US Marines had a tradition of running all enlisted personnel through a 3 month basic school, or boot camp, before they went on to their specialty schools. Officers were required to do 12 weeks of Officer Candidate School, commonly known as OCS. That preceded another 6 months of TBS or The Basic School, where all officers learned to lead the Marine Corps way.

  Jake had restructured the training plans to have everyone do a compressed 10-week boot camp. During that time, all the recruits are torn down, rebuilding them in the process and taking them from individuals to cohesive units. They would become teams that would work together in small numbers or larger groups.

  Jake had borrowed something directly from OCS, where he had various individuals assume temporary rank. This helped evaluate potential leaders in the groups, and augmented his meager staff of trainers. Today you might be a private tomorrow a sergeant then back to lance corporal a few days later.

  He had assigned all of 10th Cavalry as trainers, as they had received the most intensive training Jake had provided for anyone to date. In some ways, it was like having Special Forces training basic recruits, but he certainly did not see the harm in that.

  His overall plan was to get these recruits trained and tested before a need arose. Once he felt they were ready, he had outlined some advanced programs to implement, including advanced heavy weapons and jump school.

  The jump school idea came from Jake’s realization that, at the moment, they had no real troop delivery ships. His Lanai transports would fit the bill, but they could not leave the solar system and the cruisers and destroyers did not have the capacity to handle large numbers. The heavy transports they had on order were actually made for commercial transport, not combat delivery.

  Jake’s thought was to deliver small units from multiple destroyers, similar to airdrops of World War 2. The C-47 aircraft of the day would only hold 18 paratroopers, so for large deployments multiple aircraft would be required. Late in the war, for one operation dropping over 13,000 men, they utilized 821 aircraft.

  While he had nowhere near that many troops, the destroyer hangars could accommodate just over two squads. With his 10 destroyers currently in inventory, that equated to just short of seven platoons, while he only had three in training now. The added advantage of the destroyer’s guns gave them cover fire during the drop, something the C-47 never had.

  As for the jumpers themselves, Jake went to the tried and true repulser motors. Working with ALICE, they came up with a small unit that was no larger than a toaster. Inside was a repulser motor, about the size of a can of spray paint, some controls and its battery power pack. Once activated, it made the jumper only partially weightless. The jumper would fall with the repulser increasing in intensity as it sensed the ground below, with a proximity sensor.

  The unit could either be worn either with a harness, or attached to the ridged combat suits exoskeleton. The controls for the thing were really quite simple as it was either on or off and could be steered by leaning to the right or left. It allowed for free fall from a high altitude and then slowed the decent as the unit closed with the ground. Jake could have had the unit slow the entire decent, but he wanted to minimize the amount of time the jumper sat exposed. This allowed for a fast decent, while providing for a reasonable deceleration just before landing.

  Jake tested the unit in the hangar, first dropping dead loads from the trusses supporting the ceiling. Once he was satisfied the thing worked, he strapped one on, and with everyone watching, jumped from the same height.

  At first, he fell quickly, but within 20 feet of the floor, he felt the unit brake dramatically until he all but floated to the ground at the last minute. With that experience under his belt, he tuned the unit until he was satisfied with its performance.

  He also tinkered with a combat mode, one that allowed the soldier to operate at a diminished body weight. It acted similar to the exoskeleton, in that it made the wearer feel lighter, jump higher and run faster, all without the need of the ridged suit. After his experience with the suit testing outside, he needed his people to start thinking in 3D, not just 2D.

  Wearing the backpack version, he was currently running around the hangar, jumping over vehicles and onto the upper frameworks of the hanger. That option would have to wait though, as he wanted to work on it. He felt more field-testing was needed, as it might prove unruly for the wearer. For now, it was strictly a drop support unit.

  Satisfied all was proceeding at a reasonable pace, he shut down for the night and went to bed, alone for once.

  ----*----

  Sara’s last set of tasks had been setting up the initial training schedules and organizing the transfers of personnel for basic training. That included both the newly acquired patrol members and other internal recruits. Once she was able to start everything in motion, she passed on the care and feeding to others.

  That left her free to investigate Sandy’s latest excursion to the continent down under. How she managed to pull that off without tipping her hand, to even Jake, was beyond her. Still it had proven a solid mission with tangible results.

  She went over all the data, thankfully recorded by ALICE and not Sandy. The first contact communities were all costal and reasonably sized. Once they established a more permanent relationship, the recruiting there looked promising. Usually the responsibility of all recruiting in an area was up to the closest ALICE location.

  As it turned out, the Lanai facility was the closest, covering about 5,000 miles of ocean between the two. Technically, that made recruiting there Jacob’s task, but she figured that was more of a guideline.

  Besides, if it meant she had the opportunity to spend some quality time on the island retreat Sandy had established, she was sure she could justify her involvement. As she flipped through all the images ALICE had captured while supporting Sandy’s group, the clear water and white sand mesmerized her. San Nicolas had been nice, but this was pure paradise. Jake didn’t know what he had started when he introduced the idea of tropical vacations.

  Chapter 25

  Chris had been getting that feeling that trouble was brewing in the neighborhood. Ever since their adoption into Jake’s earth recovery program, there had been very few disturbances for them to deal with. The destruction of the stadium, with its troublesome occupants, had dissuaded any hostile activity by the lesser gangs in the area.

  However, nothing ever lasts, and memories are short. The latest group of refugees Chris had processed for transport to the farming communities indicated a large group of rowdies were gathering in the south. Evidently, they were painting Chris’s compound as a treasure trove of advanced weapons and supplies.

  That description wasn’t actually too far from the truth. With all the support from Jake’s crew, they had stabilized their dietary needs and equipped them with enough advanced firepower to repel all but a modern army. That’s what worried Chris, as the reports indicated the southerners had breached a military armory near San Diego.

  The word was it was mainly small arms, but they were all functional and ther
e was enough to arm several hundred fighters. That was trouble in anybody’s world. He needed to get a little more information and then confer with Jake’s people.

  ----*----

  Sitting in the control room for ALICE-1, Jake sat working his way through the morning’s reports. He had been trying to get out of his room more as the isolation was making him feel more removed from the general staff. At least if people saw him performing similar tasks, they might find him approachable.

  As he read, he was more than satisfied with the training reports he had seen from their boot camp. Both the patrol and internal recruits were progressing nicely. They were all coming up on graduation and so far, no one had either dropped or been found to be unfit.

  Once graduated, he would have enough trained personnel to populate three full platoons. He thought it was unusual that not all the patrol recently recruited were found suitable for boot camp. Several were redirected to security work, and for future re-evaluation. Jake trusted ALICE’s opinion on this.

  Separately Jake had been working with Patti and Sara on military combat operations support. Combat operations require a lot of careful planning and coordination of combat resources. His goal was to lead from the front, so he needed combat mission support officers to ensure that everything was in the right place at the right time.

  As mission support officers, Sara and Patti would provide battle management from an ALICE location while Jake led the troops on the ground. They, including ALICE, would feed him all the information he needed to make accurate decisions.

  One odd development in the assignments was Patti refused to accept rank. She insisted that she continue as a civilian, working outside of the traditional rank structure. Jake pushed for an explanation, but all she would say was, no rank could trump being Jake’s granddaughter.