“Hello, gorgeous,” Sam breathed as the truck pulled noisily alongside, its brakes squeaking.
“Wow, you’re really excited about this AWES suit, aren’t you?”
“Screw the suit! Have you seen the two babes driving that rig?”
Oh, hell no . . .
“Oh, yeah. Check out the saucy redhead with the nice rack,” Sam said as Lara hopped nimbly down from the truck and headed toward them. As Dragunova climbed out from the driver’s side of the flatbed and rose to her full height, however, the former LifeGiver’s eyes became the size of ostrich eggs.
“Ouch!” Garm winced as one of his friend’s bionic hands involuntarily dug deep into his biceps.
“Holy . . . fucking . . . shit!” Sam breathed as he ogled the voluptuous sub commander. “Look at that pulchritudinous mountain of womanhood heading our way!”
“Sam--”
“Fuck off! I saw her first!”
“But, Sam . . .”
“Can it! I got dibs on Babezilla. You get the tasty-looking ginger pie.”
Garm sighed and resigned himself to the horror-comedy about to unfold. He could tell from their body language there was no animosity between Nat and the petite lieutenant. Both women were focused entirely on Sam, sitting in his chair. Their expressions were sympathetic with a hint of apprehension, as most were when they first laid eyes on the quadruple amputee.
They had no idea what they were in for.
“Hello tall, blonde, and oh-my-god-you’re hot!” Sam opened up. He gave Lara a wink and a friendly nod and then ignored her entirely. Surging forward to meet Dragunova, he willed his seat to rise up on its suspension system until he matched her six-foot-two stature. Then he extended one hand. “I’m--”
“Meester Sam Mot,” Dragunova finished with forced pleasantry, taking and shaking his mechanical hand. As he pulled hers gently toward him and leaned down to kiss the back of it, she wore an amused expression.
“Love the accent,” Sam said, his warm lips still pressed against her flesh.
“Spasiba,” she replied, retrieving her hand and fighting down what looked like an urge to count her fingers. She glanced down at a tablet she carried. “I am Captain Natalya Dragunova, commander of the ORION-Class AB-Submarine Antrodemus. You are Garm’s friend, da?”
“That’s right,” Sam replied. He puffed up his chest, then reached over with a bionic arm and patted the ex-heavyweight’s broad shoulder. “In fact, I saved his life once, back in the day.” He gave her a knowing look. “I’ll be happy to regale you with the tale if you’ve got time for a drink in your quarters. You know, before we . . . shove off.”
Dragunova grinned as she continued reading. “You are obviously not married.”
“Nah, I’m divorced.”
Divorced . . . what? As the bullshit started to fly, Garm contemplated Gryphon’s nearest boarding ramp. It would be far safer onboard. And judging by her paleness, Lieutenant McEwan looked like she was thinking the same thing.
“Nyet, what woman could possibly geev you up?”
“I used to be a gynecologist, but my wife couldn’t deal with me bringing my work home with me.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Dragunova countered. “Weeth a man like you, a woman would want all the help she can get.”
Unfazed, Sam continued his assault. “Now, don’t sell me ‘short,’ girl. You know, once you’ve had a man with no legs, everything else just begs.”
As Nat spread a predatory smile and moved closer to Sam, Garm started looking for a hole to crawl into. His foul-tempered Russian fuck-buddy was rising to his friend’s challenge and he had a feeling the awkwardness factor was about to go through Tartarus’s thick granite roof.
“Tell me, Meester Sam. If I were to, how you say, ‘geev you a shot?’ How do you plan on making up for your . . . shortcomings?”
Sam pretended to flinch from the deprecating barb, but then grinned amusedly. “Ain’t nothing short over here, baby. But I’m more an orator.”
“How so?”
“I’ve got some serious oral skills.”
Dragunova’s eyebrows pricked up as if he had piqued her curiosity. “Oh, really? Such as?”
Sam smirked. “Are you kidding? You remember the rock group KISS?”
“I have heard of them.”
“Well, I’ve got a tongue like Gene Simmons!”
Her brows lowered and she smirked back as she studied his lips and mouth. “Looks like more like Reechard Seemons, if you ask me.”
As Sam’s jaw dropped and he fought to regain his composure, Garm decided to put a stop to their banter. “Okay, guys--”
“Stay out of this, pal-o-mine,” Sam advised. His willed his chair forward, pursuing Dragunova as she turned back to the nearby flatbed. “C’mon, Amazon-dot-com, how about it? One drink, before I leave your lovely port.”
To Garm’s confusion, Dragunova started to shake with laughter. She knew his history with Sam, so she was obviously cutting him some slack. But what came next was anyone’s guess.
“Perhaps you’re right,” she said, turning back and looking him up and down with those sharkskin eyes of hers. “Perhaps, after I have satiated myself upon you, I put you eenside one of my dresser drawers and leave you there, unteel the next time I am een the mood.”
Sam’s eyes lit up. “Just remember to feed me and change me, baby, and we’re good to go!”
“Jesus, Sam!” Garm shouted in exasperation. Then he wheeled on Dragunova. “You know, Nat, from him I expect this. But from you?”
As Sam’s eyes ping-ponged back and forth between the two of them, and an “a-ha” followed by an “uh-oh” look came over him, the big submariner realized he’d dropped his guard.
“Shit, Big G,” Sam started. “I had no idea--”
“Stow it. Can we get to work, please? We’re going to lose the tide.”
“Da,” Dragunova replied. She gave Sam a look then gestured for a doe-eyed Lieutenant McEwan to take over. “Commence with debriefing.”
“Okay . . .” the CDF officer began, stepping tentatively forward. “I’m glad all the introductions are over.”
Garm exhaled as Dragunova hauled out the heavy steel loading ramp from the back of the flatbed, then walked up it and moved around the big crate. As she systematically unhooked the thick nylon belts locking it to the truck bed, she pulled a radio from her waist. There was a brief exchange, then a hydraulic lift suspended overhead lowered with a hum, stopping right above the crate. With impressive agility, she sprang up and gripped the crate’s wooden edge, then hoisted herself atop it. She had its ratcheting belts wrapped around the lift and was back down to signal an “all clear” in record time.
McEwan cleared her throat. “If you’ll be so kind as to follow me, Mr. Mot,” she said, walking alongside the truck’s thirty-foot pneumatic-reinforced bed. “I’ll introduce you to your hardware.”
“Right behind you,” Sam said. The blue LEDs on the back of his chair lit up as he powered after her.
Garm followed, trying to pretend he wasn’t noticing Sam checking out Lara’s backside.
Poor bastard must be making up for lost opportunities . . .
McEwan stopped next to the truck’s tailgate ramp, waiting on Dragunova. A moment later, the hydraulic lift rose toward the sky, the thick webbing belts attached to the crate slithering upward and hoisting the huge wooden box up and away, to reveal what lay within.
Without looking up, McEwan started reading from her screen. “Lady and gentlemen, I present JAW Robotics Division’s latest underwater AWES combat suit, the TALOS Mark VII.”
“Holy fucking shit!” Sam spouted.
“Is that the only curse you know?” Garm asked.
Standing before them like some steel colossus was a massively built, vaguely humanoid-shaped robot. It was a battleship gray in color, with black and chrome highlights at the joints, and had enormous arms. It was bent forward from the hip and, with its metal knuckles resting on the truck bed, looked like a giant g
orilla. As it was, it stood nearly seven feet in height. Fully upright, Garm figured it must have been eight feet tall and five feet across. Its torso was thickly armored, with a mirrored oval panel at the top, where the driver’s head would be. The arms were weaponized, with the right ending in thick, titanium-steel talons and the left in some sort of cannon-like weapon. The legs were columnar and incredibly powerful-looking, with oversize “feet” that looked vaguely like the base of an old-fashioned Saturn lunar rocket.
“Wow . . . this is what I get to pilot?” Sam breathed.
Garm’s head swiveled in his direction. “Wait, you’re not familiar with--”
“Oh, I am. Relax. I worked on it on the simulator hundreds of times. I just didn’t realize it would be so . . . big.”
Dragunova smirked and called down from the truck bed. “I bet you don’t hear that very often. Lieutenant, please continue.”
Sam stared in a daze as McEwan resumed.
“Mr. Mot, any questions?”
“Uh, yeah,” Sam finally managed. “I, uh . . . I know AWES is an acronym for Armored Weaponized Exoskeleton System, but what does the ‘JAWS’ in JAWS Robotics stand for? Some sort of shark metaphor or something?”
McEwan smiled. “No. It stands for Jake, Amara, and Willie. Named in honor of the three founding partners, one posthumously,” she said, giving Garm a polite nod.
“Gotcha. Thanks, Red,” Sam said. He licked his lips and shifted in his chair. “Go on and give me the initial run-down.”
“Will do. The TALOS Mark VII is a heavily armored and fully articulated underwater combat chassis,” McEwan began. “The unit stands exactly 100 inches in height and, sans operator, weighs just over six tons.”
“What can I say? Size matters!” Sam chuckled. He started to shoot Dragunova a look, but then chastised himself and averted his eyes.
“This suit and its variants represent the future of both underwater and terrestrial warfare,” McEwan continued. “Over the last six months, JAW has produced both the TALOS Mark VII, for underwater excursions, and its cousin, the larger and more heavily armed Mark VIII, as a bunker-buster and an anti-tank/anti-material platform. The suits will save many lives. I’m sure the founding partners would be proud.”
Garm frowned. He doubted very much his mother would approve of the company she built around the precepts of using robotics for underwater exploration, construction, and limb replacements, being converted into weapons of war to kill or maim other human beings.
As Dragunova padded her way to ground level, McEwan walked up the flatbed’s heavy steel loading ramp until she stood beside the towering metal exoskeleton. She thumped its hard chest as she read from her tablet.
“The unit is powered by an AMS-2409 High Yield Mini-Nuclear Reactor,” she said. “Power reserves enable it to operate at peak efficiency for six months nonstop, with occasional prerequisite system checks and updates. Should the reactor need to be brought offline, the suit is equipped with emergency power, rated for twelve hours at fifty percent output.”
As Dragunova walked over and stood next to him, Garm studied Sam’s face. He was curious how he would handle the notion he’d be walking around with a nuclear bomb strapped on his back – literally. To his credit, although his tan did assume a sudden pallor, he didn’t flinch.
“Oxygen is filtrated directly from the surrounding seawater, eliminating the need for bulky rebreathers,” McEwan announced. “Barring the need for rest or nourishment, you can operate this thing underwater, indefinitely.”
Sam raised a bionic hand. “Uh . . . bathroom breaks?”
“Like an astronaut. You go in the suit.”
“I’m sorry I asked.”
Garm and Dragunova both grinned as McEwan rattled along.
“Mobility is, predictably, greater on land than in the water,” she read, “With traveling along the seabed rated at plus or minus eight miles an hour, depending upon terrain.”
Garm scoffed. “He’s supposed to help us kill pliosaurs while waddling around on the bottom? That’s ridiculous.”
“Let her finish,” Sam said.
McEwan pushed some stray hairs back from her face. “However, the Mark VII is equipped with a Mako M65 Pump Jet Propulsor in each foot, as well as stabilizing thruster valves at key points in the outer armor. Total horsepower is 600, with a top submerged speed of 45 knots.”
Garm nodded. “Now that’s more like it.”
Sam turned to him and grinned. “Jealous yet?”
“No, but I’m getting there,” Garm replied. “Lieutenant McEwan: what are the suit’s offensive and defensive capabilities?”
She licked her lips as she scrolled to the tablet’s next page. “Defensive capabilities . . . With reduced threats from shaped charge munitions and kinetic energy penetrators, the Mark VII utilizes ‘smart-technology’ enhanced, non-explosive reactive armor on the outside to redirect impacts, backed by a secondary layer of titanium-steel/ceramic composite armor six inches thick. The reserve armor is designed to flex inward under heavy impact, as opposed to shattering, and, combined with the suit’s integrated ‘crumple zones,’ increases the pilot’s capacity to weather prolonged assaults.”
Sam waved his bionic arms to draw attention to himself before he commenced driving his wheelchair up the steep steel gangplank. “Okay, enough foreplay. I want to try this thing out.”
McEwan looked confused. “Don’t you want to know about the weapons systems first?”
“I’ve read the manuals and done every virtual scenario you can think of,” Sam remarked. He reached the truck’s bed and gazed wide-eyed up at the technological monstrosity that peered down at him like some metallic ogre. “But keep on reading, Red. I know the captains are interested.”
“Uh, okay,” McEwan appeared flustered as Sam reached up with his robotic arms and started flipping the external releases that allowed access to the top section of the TALOS’s plastron. “Taking advantage of the operator being . . . limbless, the Mark VII incorporates industrial-caliber actuators in both arms and legs, making it more robot than exoskeleton in terms of power. Under ideal conditions, and at nominal load, the unit is capable of hoisting five times its overall mass, i.e. thirty-plus tons.”
There was a loud whooshing sound of escaping air as the suit’s top section, including its mirrored titanium visor, popped open on heavy hydraulic hinges.
“You hear that, Garm?” Sam yelled down. “I’m gonna be like ‘Ironman!’”
Garm shook his head and chuckled, then turned to Dragunova. “Thank God Admiral Callahan isn’t here. Can you imagine how aroused he’d be by this thing? He’d have wood!”
The tall Russian wore a disgusted look. “That man ees a complete peeg. I cannot stand heem.”
“I can tell,” he said. “By the way, I’m sorry about Sam’s remarks, earlier. He’s a bit of a clown.”
She snorted in amusement. “Forget about eet. He ees what he ees – a horny guy who needs to get laid. He’s just lucky he’s your friend and that we’re leaving.”
“Why?”
“Because otherwise, I would be tempted to do what I said, just to teach heem a lesson!”
“He might like it . . .”
“Ugh.”
They stopped talking as Sam, his cybernetic headband still in place, turned his chair around and backed it up until he was right in front of the TALOS suit. He unlocked his torso’s restraining belts using his bionic arms, then had the LJ-3000 grip him under his arm stumps and lift him straight up, lowering him into the Mark VII’s high-tech cockpit.
A look of annoyance came over him as he looked around the interior.
“Uh, Garm? A little help over here, buddy?”
“Coming.”
With Dragunova following, Garm loped up the ramp. After rolling Sam’s wheelchair out of the way, he peered inside the suit’s compact interior from the right side, with Natalya leaning in from the left. It was heavily reinforced, with huge integral shock absorbers, and had a padded restraining har
ness to hold the driver in place. There was also what looked like a slimmed down version of Dirk’s cybernetic helmet, complete with a chin strap, waiting to be put on.
Garm reached inside. “Okay. I’ll get you strapped in . . .” He looked at Dragunova. “Nat, you wanna give me a hand?”
As the well-built sub commander leaned forward and took hold of him, Sam looked her in the eye and smirked. “I knew you couldn’t keep your hands off me.”
Ignoring the vulgar Russian expletive that came out of Dragunova’s mouth, Garm focused on getting Sam secured. Once his harness and helmet were in place and nothing else stood out, he leaned back. “Okay, now what?”
“I don’t know.”
Garm looked at him like he had two heads. “What do you mean ‘you don’t know?’ I thought you knew this thing inside-out and backwards?”
“On the simulator,” Sam emphasized. “But the initial connectivity outside the virtual mock-up is supposed to be different.”
Garm turned to McEwan. “Lieutenant?”
“Uh, it says he’s supposed to power up the suit by willing it to life. If he focuses hard it should just happen.”
“Sounds good to--”
“Oh, and it also says, when it powers up, the cybernetic connection through the neural-cranial transmitter is more intense than that of the simulator.”
Sam looked at her. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning it’s going to feel like hungry ants crawling all over your body, inside it too, but the sensation goes away after a bit.”
“Sounds wonderful,” Sam said. He closed his green eyes and concentrated. “Okay, here goes . . .”
In an instant, a low hum and the smell of burning ozone permeated the air and, as the truck bed beneath their feet started to vibrate, Garm and Dragunova stepped quickly back. Moving down the metal loading ramp, they took up position next to McEwan.
A series of bright red LEDs lit up along the Mark VII’s periphery and the hum increased in volume until you could feel it in your teeth. Then the exoskeleton’s huge arms lifted off the floor and, like a giant waking up from a long slumber, it raised itself stiffly erect.
“Okay, I think I feel that sub-dermal sensation you mentioned,” Sam said, leaning back in his harness. His eyes hardened and his jaw muscles bunched. “Yeah, there it is. It’s . . . ow! Oh, shit! Motherfucker, that goddamn hurts! Argh!”
Kronos Rising: Kraken (vol.1): The battle for Earth's oceans has just begun. Page 59