First of my Kind

by Stevens, Marc

  It was nice to know we had a secure location to store supplies and artifacts without worrying about the consequences of leaving them with someone else. We were far enough out towards the fringe that pursuit by Eiger was not a likely scenario. It was time to start training on our new hardware and the idea of using the freighter was an excellent idea.

  “Justice have you integrated yourself with the crew armor.”

  “Affirmative Commander, all armor suits are now operated by my subsystems.”

  “Go ahead and give the crew an update on the new suit capabilities. I think it would be a good idea to take a quick tour of our new base then get ready for the training exercises”

  “Commander, I now have access to the lift tubes that will take you down to the crew quarters and assembly areas. This facility is capable of housing two hundred personnel with mixed race capability. I have noted we were not given access to the bottom three floors which are the A.I. systems, the weapons systems and the power generators.”

  I smiled at the thought of what my granddad always said about trust not being given but earned. It was a universal maxim.

  25

  “I have the training locations the Overseer has mapped. We can move to those locations on your order or you can plan an excursion. The data has been transferred to your battle suits. All armor suit weapons packs have a mixed load out of all of the available munitions. I will work up assault scenarios for training exercises aboard the derelict freighter. It will be a simple matter to project hostile avatars on your HUD systems to give you simulated targets. I will also use your targeting designators to simulate live fire on the projected enemy combatants.”

  We took the fifty cent tour of the complex, which amounted to looking at two separate vacant floors laid out in a clover leaf pattern. The first floor below the hanger was the cafeteria dispensary and two large common areas. The next floor was all bunking and restroom facilities. We made our way back to the launch bay and did a quick walk around of the massive chamber. Aside from the fact you could put a dozen Legacies in it and there were huge atmospheric generators hanging from the large domed ceiling, there was nothing of particular interest to spend more than a few minutes contemplating. My crew stood quietly talking among themselves about the new updates to their armor. I could tell they were getting anxious.

  “OK everyone listen up! I want you to suit up because we are going to spend the next eight hours practicing assault training on the derelict freighter the overseer told us about. By the time we get there Justice will have simulated hostile forces that will appear in our HUDS and will resist our boarding attempts. We will be using our weapons designators for simulated weapons fire. Tria you told me you were well versed in anti-boarding operations. I want input from you on the methods hostiles use to board ships and how they plan for it.

  Tria and Klutch were conversing between themselves. They now turned and approached me.

  “Commander, there was only three occasions when hostiles gained access to the ships I was aboard. All three were very well planned elaborately laid traps. The ships in question were docked or had landed in a place of the enemies choosing. They covertly or by brute force gained access through the hulls by entering a blast hole or the use of chemical compounds that burned access holes. Both methods caused a large amount of casualties for both sides.”

  Klutch quickly added, “Commander, the deck layout of most warships force hostile boarders into narrow corridors that are easily defended. There are exceptions that can shift the advantage to the assault teams. Two that come to mine are having intimate knowledge of the ship they are assaulting or having a large follow on force to reinforce the breaching team.”

  Being schooled by my military veterans was something I took seriously and I kept my mouth shut and listened. Their real world experience could very well keep me from making a catastrophic mistake and getting us all killed.

  Tria started speaking again. “In my experience while in the military we always started with the most accurate intelligence available on the target ship. Once the entry points were established and the order of battle determined we would use multiple teams breaching in several critical locations at the same time. We always went for engineering, life support, weapons systems and the bridge. Multiple squads of heavily armed shock troops always backed up the heavily armored breach teams. If an atmosphere was present we would introduce noxious gases or chemical agents depending on the hostile species environmental systems. The insertion of invasive A.I.s to vulnerable computer systems was also a common practice. Casualties are an unavoidable consequence of hostile boarding actions and contingencies were always in the mission briefs.”

  I could tell by the faraway look in Tria’s eyes she had been there and done that. She suddenly closed her eyes and turned away from me. I knew by her presence here the outcome for her had always been victory but the price tag was the lost lives of friends and comrades.

  It was not hard to comprehend they were letting me know we should avoid boarding any hostile ship unless we had a serious advantage. We geared up and headed for the large passage that gave us access to the outside world.

  “Commander, I now have overseer access to the main entrance and a newly identified emergency escape tunnel that is below this facility. The tunnel leads to a shuttle size hanger one point eight miles from this location. The exit appears to be in a narrow fissure that is a natural geological formation.”

  “Justice momentarily superimposed the diagram of the escape tunnel on my H.U.D.s current map screen. I had hopes we would never have to use it but decided it would be smart to investigate it when we were done with our training cycles.

  We hit our thrusters and gained a little altitude then took off down the tunnel towards the large clam shell doors that were quickly opening. When we cleared the entrance and made a hard course correction to the northeast. We climbed to five hundred feet and aligned our flight path with the blinking yellow cursor in our heads up displays.

  I called out to my team. “Now that all of our systems have been upgraded, I trust I will no longer have to be on the lookout for death defying maneuvers and unexpected collisions.”

  Tria came back with a quick, “Unknown at this time Commander Throgg, Sir!”

  I heard the laughter of my crew as their comms clicked off. My cheeks burned a little but a warm feeling quickly filled me and I could do nothing but laugh myself. This was a bonding ritual that was commonplace on my planet and it was taking place tens of thousands of light years away from my home world. While this was common behavior among humans, I had no idea if this was normal for other races.

  I dropped my altitude lower and as I did, a thick green arrow extended from my heading marker to a spot directly in front of me on the low horizon. I had another fine white line that extended beyond the green arrow and connected directly to my yellow blinking destination cursor. As I increased my forward velocity the green arrow extended and if I decreased my velocity it shortened. If the arrow intersected a collision point, it rapidly turned to a blinking red and I could feel my forward velocity decrease as the arrow became shorter. This was easy enough for a child to understand and I was now wondering if Justice had set my H.U.D. up this way or if it was part of the original intuitive design. I decided I did not care to know.

  “Let’s see if we can tighten up our formation so we will appear as one target. I got three rapid acknowledgements from my crew.

  “Justice, can you lock our flight paths together so we don’t collide when we get in as close as possible?”

  “Affirmative Commander, increase your altitude to seven hundred feet so you are not masked by the terrain. I will alert you when my scans record you as a single target.”

  I started to say I’ll take the lead but Klutch’s stubby figure bulled into the lead position. I smiled and then looked over at Tria as we both slowly started moving in to positions just over Klutch’s shoulders. I extended my arm towards Tria. When she noticed what I was doing she did the same. As our
hands touched she smiled at me and we moved them back to our sides. I glanced up into my helmet and got a one hundred and eighty degree view behind me. Coonts was increasing his velocity to center himself just below and directly between Tria and me. I saw Tria spread her legs slightly so I followed suit and saw Coonts reach out and touch our legs then pull his hands back down to his sides. Off to the side of my H.U.D the pale green letters of the word LOCK flashed twice then took its place in the bottom corner of my display.

  “Scans show one target Commander.”

  “Thanks Justice, I know you’re driving this train, so take us in low and fast to the freighter so we can take a look around.

  “Acknowledged Commander!”

  Justice rapidly took us from seven hundred to just twenty feet of altitude. The sudden dive had me testing one of the basic functions of my suit waste disposal system. He then increased our velocity to four hundred feet per second. Our low altitude was kicking up a dust storm in the trace atmosphere behind us. The blindingly fast terrain following maneuvers managed to get me to test the other function of the suits disposal system. When the thin white line connected to our destination indicator became so short that our heading indicator was on the verge of touching it, we suddenly nosed up to about fifty feet. The pale green LOCK letters climbed up the side of my H.U.D. and flashed twice then disappeared.

  We gave ourselves some separation then circled the gigantic wreck of the freighter. It was partially buried in the side of a mountain. The aft section had broken off and made an impressive debris field stretching for almost a quarter of a mile. We set down just behind the forward section sticking out of the mountain. I looked up at the bewildering amount of openings and the large storage area that was now exposed to us.

  “What do you think Tria?”

  “Commander, it looks like that opening close to the top of the hull is wide enough to be the main corridor that runs to the bridge. I don’t think we will have to worry about it collapsing if we use it to simulate attacks on the bridge.”

  Klutch added, “Commander it has been my experience there is usually a large number of defensive anti-boarding weaponry in the corridors leading to the command center. Tibor assault doctrine always bypassed the most direct routes because they tend to be kill boxes. If it was necessary to take the command center, we usually did so by breaching through the walls, ceiling or floor. The strategy holds casualties to a more acceptable level but destroys a large amount of critical ship systems.

  It didn’t take much thinking on my part to accept Tria’s and Klutch’s gloomy pessimism as fact. I looked down at Coonts and I could see through the visor on his helmet, the negative shake of his head.

  OK, Tria, Klutch, if you had to take the control room how would you go about it?

  Tria and Klutch looked at each other and Klutch made a slight bowing motion to Tria then she turned back to me.

  “Commander, what you ask is rarely possible with only a four member assault squad. We would need at least forty shielded shock troops. Even then, your aura would have to shine like a star to survive long enough to make a successful breach once you have made it to the bridge. The only scenario I can think of, which gives you a chance at all, is to disable the ships star drives then nullify its shields and weapons systems. Once those mission critical goals have been achieved, you must determine which systems control life support and shut them down. IF, you survived long enough to do all of those things, I would make it a point to set tamper proof charges on the bridge doors and let the opposition know you have done so. Then I would leave their fate up to them and make a hasty retreat. Most pirates and a small percentage of military races might surrender under such conditions. All else will go to their makers knowing your failure was a small victory for them.

  My grandmother was right about using the IF word!

  To emphasize Tria and Klutch’s point of view about seventy red diamonds appeared in the myriad of openings on the wrecked freighter. I suddenly had seventy fine red lines leap out from the diamonds and intersect with my exact location. My H.U.D. flashed a bright white then went black. Even the evil robot was on my crew’s side! Being naive about sound military doctrine could easily get you labeled mentally deficient. I decided training for death was counterproductive and changed topics to something I was sure would help me collect some of my lost dignity.

  “Alright since training on the freighter was not one of my better choices. Why don’t we go back over to the fissure and do some live fire exercises with our new weapons. Let’s see how fast we can get into formation and lock up.” That got me an enthusiastic round of confirmations.

  “Justice when we achieve formation, lock us up and take us in low to simulate a covert insertion.”

  “Affirmative Commander.”

  I knew Justice could quickly put our suits in formation. I preferred to do it manually so we could master the maneuver in case Justice was not available.

  Klutch immediately blasted off in a cloud of dust and the rest of us quickly followed suit. We over took Klutch and both Tria and I extended one of our hands down to his large wide shoulders and then reached out to each other with our free hands. Coonts came up behind us and reached out and touched our legs. Justice locked us up as we dropped to about forty feet to keep from kicking up a dust tail behind us.

  I could see the monstrous dark crevasse leap into view. Justice decided it wasn’t necessary to slow our breakneck pace and nosed us over into the pitch black void. As we cleared the rim Justice enhanced our H.U.D.s for the low light conditions. The terrain and rocky features were outlined with faint glowing lines. The lines gave definition to rocky formations that were at a considerable distance even in the pitch black shadows. We dropped down to fifteen feet and Justice rotated and unlocked us simultaneously. We cut our thrust as one and came thumping down to a minimal dust cloud landing. Tria, Klutch, and I instinctively turned our backs to each other and extended one of our arms pointing the forearm mounted weapons tubes towards any potential targets. Coonts looked at us and quickly assumed the same position.

  I used my helmets god’s eye view and saw there had been a partial cave in on one of the sheer sidewalls. It made a natural partition to the crevasse roughly a thousand yards from our position. It was one hundred and twenty three feet tall on the high side and seventy-one on the low side. The natural geological fault line was reading four hundred and fifty two feet wide at the large rocky barrier. It was surprisingly level from countless years of dust settling into the massive canyon.

  I was going to tell Justice to work up a training scenario when fifty red diamonds appeared spread out all over the rocky partition.

  Klutch called out first, “CONTACT!”

  “Tria you and Coonts take cover to the right of our position. Klutch, you’re with me. Full stealth and be careful to not stir up to much dust. Let’s move a little closer and take a good look at what Justice, has waiting for us.”

  Three Blue circles appeared on the left side of my helmet display with a small box around it. Each circle had one of my team mate’s names in it. Each one blinked once in recognition of my order. I wondered if Justice was making this up as he goes or if everybody’s H.U.D. was set up the same way.

  Klutch took the lead and started moving carefully to our left as Tria and Coonts went the other way. The terrain started going slightly up hill and Klutch worked us slowly forward till we came to a small rise and he hunkered down just below the top. My god’s eye view showed the two blue dots designated as Tria and Coonts slowly making their way to the canyon wall and higher ground. I slide in next to Klutch and he gave me a tilt uphill with his shoulders. He was going to sit tight as my rear security. I belly crawled to the top and peeked over. In the distance just below the rocky barrier, Justice gave us the images of three assault shuttles. They were the spitting image of Klutch’s now destroyed assault shuttle so I quickly assumed we were up against Tibor pirates. There were ten additional troops standing guard around the shuttles. Tria and Coonts fi
nally became stationary and I heard Tria report in.

  “In position Commander, I count sixty hostiles and three shuttles. The pilots are most probably in the shuttles on standby.”

  “I sent a quick acknowledgement then Klutch gave me a warning.”

  “Commander, if we are discovered they will get the shuttles up and send them in to attack us. We do not want that to happen. I suggest we take out the shuttles as soon as possible then take the remaining troops under fire as targets present themselves.”

  Tria came over the comms with a quick, “I concur Commander.”

  “OK, let’s hit the shuttles with two rounds of anti-matter and hit the remaining troops with anti-personnel rounds till no targets remain.”

  I got three quick single blinks from my crew’s icons. My helmet gave me two sets of cross hairs. I peeked back over the top of the ridge and consciously placed each crosshair on the first two shuttles then moved them both to the last one giving each a mental double click. Anti-matter came up in the bottom of my helmet display and a little slide bar for yield appeared above it. I thought since we were going to attack shuttles that we had better give them a full dose. I mentally slid the marker to the fat end of the yield bar and the arc that appeared from our position to the targets immediately turned red and was flashing. Justice did not have to say a word. I knew a no-no when I saw one. I dialed back on the yield and the targeting arc turned solid and changed to orange. I dialed it back until I got green then for the hell of it, slid it up until I got yellow. All of the sudden Klutch yells out.

  COMMANDER! THE SHUTTLES ARE PREPPING FOR TAKE OFF!

  I jumped so hard at his exclamation I nearly slid backwards down the hillside. Justice was up to his old tricks again and decided I must have been messing around too much. I was so preoccupied with what was going on in my H.U.D. I did not take notice of the guards running into the shuttles. I pushed myself back up on the rise, extended both my arms, and yelled louder than I really needed to.