Exodus: Empires at War: Book 05 - Ranger

by Doug Dandridge

  “Move out,” came the command over the squad link. “And stay low. No flying.”

  Cornelius sent his acknowledgement through the link, disappointed in one respect, as he enjoyed flying the suits. But being up in the air after contact was just the way to become an easy target. Now it was time for the grunt work for which the soldiers were named.

  At two more points during the maneuver Cornelius launched drones. As team leader he was the only one carrying them. Both times they gave him a good look at what was ahead before they were shot down. The last time the view was clear, but he did not like the look of the chewed up ground and maneuvered his men to the side.

  “What are you doing, Walborski?” asked the squad leader.

  Cornelius sent his reasoning over the link and got approval, then an override from above that told him to go through that ground. He shook his head as he sent his acknowledgement, pretty sure he knew what was happening. The OPFOR had set up an ambush, and the Drill Sergeants wanted them to set it off and see how they did. Well, we’ll do it up right, he thought, arraying his team as best as he could. He knew the OPFOR were trained soldiers, and the trainees really weren’t expected to beat them, so any victories they did get were like money in the bank as far as respect from the sergeants was concerned.

  The ambush went off as expected. The remaining three men in Walborski’s team went down without a shot, while he used his grabbers to rocket ahead while he shot down three of the OPFOR. He was still shot down, but with the satisfaction that he had proven himself against trained medium infantry.

  That night he had a dream about Katlyn. Again he was in the jungle. Again she had been shot down by the Cacas, and he had killed those who had done it, then left her body where it lay to go hunting through that jungle. And again her body was gone when he returned to say goodbye. And then she was there, standing in the woods, pointing an accusing finger at him. He woke up in a cold sweat. She’s dead, he thought, lying there in his rack, shivering. She had to be dead. He remembered the feel of her lifeless body, the glazed look in her eyes. Of course she was dead, and the predators of the jungle had taken her. Or had they? Now he wasn’t so sure. And there’s nothing I can do about it now, he thought, turning back over and trying to get back to sleep.

  * * *

  “You sure this is the kind of man you want in your school?” asked Drill Sergeant Ferguson, looking at the vid of the PFC waking up from his sleep to stare into space, sweat on his face. “The boy has some problems.”

  “But you’re willing to put him in the infantry,” said the Master Sergeant that sat next to him.

  “Hell yeah,” said Ferguson, nodding. “The boy’s a killer. And that’s what we need at this point in our history. Killers. And he is also a born leader.”

  “That’s not what his evaluation in the Militia said.” The Master Sergeant looked at a flat comp screen that had Walborski’s face on it. “They called him a slacker.”

  “He might have been, at that time,” said Ferguson. “And obviously you’re still interested in him.”

  “I have more faith in the evaluation of the Preacher than I do any puke ass militia officer,” said the Master Sergeant. “Plus, the Emperor himself is interested in the career of this boy. So I guess the next question is, how are you going to evaluate him?”

  “We still have another five weeks,” said Ferguson, looking back at the screen that showed the now sleeping trooper.

  “And?”

  “And in another five weeks he will most likely be our honor graduate,” said Ferguson. “And then he can do anything damn thing he wants, as long as it involves killing Cacas.”

  “And I think we can guarantee him that,” said the Master Sergeant with a smile. “We’re going to make him into a hunter, and make those big fuckers fear the night. Especially the ones that he can’t sleep through.”

  * * *

  Heavy armor really upped the game. Cornelius looked at the suit he was going to wear for the week’s training in awe. It was over a ton of armor, servos and electronics, a deadly weapon even without the attachments or carried guns of the infantry trooper. He ran a hand over the armor, thinking of all the mayhem he could cause wearing the behemoth.

  “I bet nothing can get through this,” said one of the trainees in his squad.

  “There’s nothing that’s invulnerable,” said Walborski, looking away from the armor and at the man. He recalled seeing the Marine heavy armor suits on Sestius that had been ripped open by enemy weapon’s fire. They were much better than the crap militia suit he had been wearing. They were also bigger targets, with all the liabilities that entailed.

  “PFC Walborski is correct,” said an amplified voice, and one of the three meter tall suits came stomping onto the field. “These suits give the infantryman unparalleled destructive power, and unprecedented defensive capabilities. And if you get too cocky while in one you can take advantage of its large capacity to hold your smoking meat.” The head of the suit rotated until the faceplate was looking at Cornelius. “Did you see these suits in action on Sestius?”

  “Hell, he saw everything else,” muttered one of the other trainees, to the laughter of his fellows.

  “There was a Marine battalion stationed on the planet,” said Cornelius, looking back at the suit he had been examining. “Their suits were much like these. I didn’t really see any in action, but I did see some suits lying around with holes burned through them. And yes, Drill Sergeant, there was smoking meat inside.”

  “If you learn how to employ these suits well they will take you through most situations,” said the Drill Sergeant, walking up to one of the empty suits and lifting it into the air. “But they definitely don’t make you invulnerable.”

  The next several hours were spent with the Drill Sergeant showing the troops how to use the suit. Ferguson jumped in the suit, clearing a twenty meter high barrier. He ran the suit at a hundred kilometers and hour, then flew it at two hundred. He low crawled it, using the powerful suit to dig quickly under a wall. Cornelius thought the camouflage function was the coolest thing. The suit changed colors, blending into its surroundings. Then the instructor took it to the next level, and the chameleon function made it truly invisible.

  “The suits will maintain power for up to six days,” said the Drill Sergeant, raising his visor with a thought so he could look at the trainees face to face. “Unfortunately, in a combat situation, you can use up your entire charge of power in less than a day. In intense combat six hours is not unheard of. You have to be careful with your energy level. The suit will warn you if it is about to run out. That warning is worth shit if you happen to be in the middle of combat and all your shields are on the verge of failure.”

  Next came the weapons demonstration, as the Platoon Sergeant first let loose with the built in weaponry, then the kind of arms a heavy infantry trooper would carry. The mag pistols built into both forearms sent off a projectile that was on the same velocity level as a heavy sniper rifle carried by light infantry. On auto fire they sent out hundreds of rounds in seconds, then came to a stop as they exhausted their ammo stores. The lasers were also of the same power level as the rifles carried by medium infantry. The suit hurled grenades from over the shoulder launchers, one at a time or a score in a second, and the miniature blasts sounded like the firecrackers children played with, only the same volume at five hundred meters distance that the child’s toy produced at ten.

  The Drill Sergeant took apart a life sized dummy with his hands, then fought a human sized robot and punched it into scrap. What Cornelius liked the most were the monomolecular blades that sprang from the forearms of the suit. Each forearm deployed one fifty centimeter long blade, which the instructor proceeded to thrust and slice through various objects. Cornelius closed his eyes for a moment and visualized himself doing that to an armored Caca, his blade pushing through the armor to skewer the creature. Then swinging another blade into the throat of an oncoming Caca, trying desperately to save his comrade and only accomplishing
his own death.

  “Wake up, trainee,” yelled the Drill Sergeant, and Cornelius opened his eyes to see the huge suit towering over him.

  Walborski jumped to his feet, knowing what was coming. “Drop and give me a hundred, trainee,” yelled the Drill Sergeant, who turned and walked away, then restarted his lecture.

  Cornelius went through the pushups, still listening to the Drill Sergeant telling the other troops the secrets of the armor. As soon as he finished the push ups he jumped back to his feet, then sat back with the other troops, aware of the frowns of the other instructors as they watched him. A hundred is just too easy, he thought, fighting to keep the smile off his face. He looked down at his bulging arms for a moment, still having a hard time believing how much muscle he had put on, even on this lighter than normal gravity planet. He had easily been the best runner in the company, and the extra bulk had not decreased his speed in the least.

  “Go to the suit that is lit up in your implant and wait by it,” ordered Ferguson. “Move like you’ve got a pair,” he roared when some of the trainees hesitated.

  Cornelius was not one of those who hesitated. He was on his feet in an instant, running to the field behind the demonstration area, where over two hundred of the large suits were standing. One of the suits was covered in blinking light on the trainee’s implant, and he headed for that unit. The armor normally had to be fitted to each wearer, within limits. The training suits were built to a dozen standard sizes, and would adjust to a wearer that was in that size range.

  “Walborski,” said the Drill Sergeant walking up. “Stay alert, because this thing can fuck you up if you don’t pay attention.” The Drill Sergeant sent out a cast on his link, meshing with Walborski’s and giving him control of the suit. “You will control the suit through your implant and the muscle actuators of the armor. There is no hard port in this suit. If you are issued a suit for deployment you will have a jack to physically link you. Now open her up and get in.”

  “Yes, Drill Sergeant,” yelled Cornelius as he sent out the command. Where they hadn’t existed before there were now seams, and the suit opened up, splitting into two halves. The back half rotated away, the bottoms of the boots remaining in one piece and accepting his feet as he stepped into it. In many ways it was like mounting a medium suit, though he had to move up much higher to step onto the soles. The suit swung shut, and he could feel the actuators touch onto the undergarment he was wearing that went along with the heavy suit.

  As soon as it closed everything came online. His hearing acuity increased and he was able to zoom in on distant objects with the visual system. And as he took a step forward the suit moved like it was part of him, or he of it. It moved smoothly, like it was organic, and not a construct of metal alloys and carbon fibers that he knew it to be.

  “The suits are set to one quarter strength,” said the Drill Sergeant, walking from trainee to trainee. “We want you to get a feel for them today without causing too much damage. Now split into your squads and take the obstacle course.”

  Cornelius had done this before in the light and medium suits. It had been no sweat. It was different with the heavy suits. Even though they had more than enough strength to move themselves, they were still added mass, almost ten times his own. He kept missing handholds, taking missteps, jumping too high, then not enough. He cursed as he landed on his face, then fell on his back as he tried to get up.

  It took the rest of the morning to get a grip on the use of the suit. Most of the other trainees were still having trouble about the time Cornelius felt he had control. It was still exhausting work. He had thought it would be easy, with the suit servos doing all the work. He found that he still did a lot of the work to make everything function properly.

  The afternoon was more of the same, with a couple of hours at the firing range. Then a long run back to the barracks in the suits, which spent the night in the armory recharging. Cornelius was exhausted that night, and fell into a dreamless sleep. When he woke it was back into the suits for more training, this time at half strength.

  That afternoon they were working on tactical exercises, with the weapons systems at their lowest setting. Cornelius swore through the afternoon as he took hit after hit. It seem impossible to move without becoming a target, and almost every minute the suit buzzed as contact alarms indicated laser strikes, or rang with the impact of low velocity pellets. Each time the suit froze in place for several seconds to let him know he was dead.

  After the fiftieth hit the suit locked into place for minutes, and Cornelius tried to control his breathing as he hyperventilated on the edge of panic. He was trapped, and the Drill Sergeant was soon there to let him know it.

  “You may have been a super trooper in the militia, trainee. But you’re just a fucking target here. About the only thing I can say that you accomplish is you take a hit so a better soldier doesn’t. Not a very good return for a twenty million imperial investment.”

  The Drill Sergeant bounded away in his suit, and more time went by before Cornelius’ armor unlocked. This isn’t what I wanted, thought the Private First Class. Most of us won’t be assigned to these damned things anyway, so why all the fuss.

  Things got better as the day went on, and he gained more control of the suit. The next day they were at full power, and the suit really proved its worth as he negotiated the obstacle course like it wasn’t there, leaping over obstacles, engaging flight to zip through pipes. And the range was also a treat, as they fired their full power weapons at the targets the government spent so much on to be destroyed.

  There was another demonstration, intended to show them the power of their weapons against their own protection. The suit mag weapons and lasers cut through the medium armor mock ups on the range, though they didn’t do much to their fellow heavies. The carried mag weapons, particle beams and lasers were much more effective against heavy armor, and so were the suit launched and weapon fired grenades. Mag pellets could penetrate at full velocity, at least partially. Multiple rounds to the same area could blow through. Lasers took several seconds to eat through, and this was against armor without built in electromag fields. Particle beams ripped through like the suits were paper, though a demonstration of a pistol sized weapon left them with the impression that it took a very powerful beam to damage the armor. Microgrenades damaged the armor, without blasting through, until there were several hits in a restricted area.

  The next day was spent in suits that didn’t go anywhere, hung from moving scaffolding while the sensors ran simulations. They got to test out the tactical abilities of the suits, firing all their weapons, running, flying. Cornelius even got a shot at an aerial vehicle with a missile, then a tank with a hyper velocity projectile. The simulated aircraft went down, but the tank shrugged off the hit and took Cornelius out of the simulation. Moments later he was back.

  The last day of the week was time to play with real tanks. Thousand ton monsters that might have been the last generation, but still looked impressive as hell. A dozen of the monsters came roaring toward them, their treads on the ground creating a terrifying rumbling that froze everyone in place for a moment. Tank fear it was called, Panzershrek, the overwhelming terror of seeing something too damned big coming to crush you. Cornelius got his suit out of the way. Some didn’t, and were crushed into the ground by the tanks. Cornelius cried out and stared at what looked like a disaster. Within moments the suits were pulling themselves out of the ground, another demonstration of how tough the things were.

  “I bet nothing could hurt those things,” said one of the trainees.

  Cornelius shook his head, recalling that there were many heavy weapons made especially to destroy those huge vehicles.

  They had a demonstration of mecha that day, six meter tall two hundred ton manned suits that were once used as heavy support weapons. The Empire no longer used them, tanks had taken their job, being harder to destroy and harder to hit. Some alien powers still did, and so the human soldiers had exposure to the systems.

 
Cornelius watched the what looked like large robots move across the field. They were fast and agile, and deployed some fairly powerful weaponry. They also made very large targets that were hard to miss. And during a demonstration it was shown that they weren’t that hard to destroy. A dozen suits putting concentrated weapons fire on the same spot took out the drone.

  The night they were allowed weekend liberty. Most of the platoon went out on the town. There were women in the town that serviced this part of the base, and establishments made to separate soldiers from their money. They didn’t have to be back until Sunday afternoon, and all were ready to blow off some steam. All but Walborski. He sat in the local rec center and watched the news.

  We’re getting our asses kicked, thought the PFC, watching reports about planet after planet falling to the enemy.

  “You coming, Walborski,” said Private MacArthur, his training squad leader. “Come on man, you need to have some fun.”

  “I’m cool,” he told the man, shaking his head while pointing at the trivee. “This is important.”

  “There ain’t a damned thing we can do about the war right now, Walborski,” said the other man. “And until the Fleet gets some invasions going there really isn’t much we’ll be able to do. Except wait on isolated planets until we get overrun.”

  “Have fun,” said Cornelius, his eyes riveted to the trivee, if not his mind. He was already thinking about some things he could do tomorrow to make himself a better soldier. Lessons he could study, equipment he could practice with. Not weapons or suits, but there was other equipment used by soldiers that he could use to perfect his skills with.

  Moments later Platoon Sergeant Ferguson came into the center. The man frowned as he saw Walborski, then he came over and plopped down on the couch next to the young man.