by Mark Wandrey
“Is he serious?” Sonya asked.
“You ever known Tucker to not be serious?” Rex asked in reply.
Drake grunted, and Ripley nodded.
“I dreamed we were going to space,” Shadow said. Rex’s ears pricked to attention. “I wasn’t sure what it meant.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Until now.”
Rex knew there was something he wasn’t saying. However, asking Shadow did no good until Shadow was ready to speak. “Let’s get brekky cleaned up and over there,” he said, and everyone nodded in agreement.
In a few minutes, the five crossed the open space between their quarters and the armory. As they walked, they passed a pair of techs working on an old, slightly smoking Mk 6 CASPer. Its cockpit was open, and the trooper stood inside smoking a cigarette and cursing profusely.
“Doesn’t do no right to chuck a wobbly,” the tech said, running an attached slate. “It’s fair dinkum bolloxed and will stay that way until I run the diagnostics.”
“I bloody know that,” the driver said. “But I need to go to the dunny, and the suit won’t let my legs out!”
Rex chuckled as they left the scene behind, glad they wouldn’t have to see how it played out. Inside they found their father talking with Edgar Smithers, Silent Night’s head armorer. Rex noted five of the company’s youngest members, roughly the same age as he and his siblings, being fitted with their own Mk 6 surplus CASPers. If they were equipping the young cadre members, it must be a deployment.
One of the young Humans was Jack Hewers. Rex knew he and Sonya were good friends. She’d always been the one of the group to strike up friendships with Humans the easiest. Rex had more fun beating them up.
“There you are,” Alan said and moved over to the pups. Edgar followed, leaving several assistants to work with the kids. “I’m sure you realize what’s going on?”
“You’re deploying,” Ripley answered first.
Alan nodded and gestured for them to follow. “Yes, in five days we’ll be riding up to meet a ship in orbit. We think we know where Starbright and the rest of the company are.”
“That’s great news,” Sonya said.
“Yes,” Rex agreed, “but what about us?”
“It looks like everyone’s going,” Drake said. Everywhere they walked in the armory showed signs of people packing up everything. “Are we being left here alone?”
Alan gestured to follow him. The young Zuul exchanged looks, but fell in behind him and Edgar. They went through a door into the main receiving dock, were five crates were being attended to by assistant armorers.
“I hadn’t planned to do this for another year or so; your mother didn’t approve. However, you’ve trained hard over the years, I need you to go with us, and I can’t do it without taking the next step.”
“What next step?” Rex’s ears turned to the side, and his tail straightened behind him.
“Got it,” one of the assistants said, and undogged the heavy strapping on the crate. Rex belatedly registered the crate was marked “Binnig Industries” when the front fell open, revealing a CASPer.
It wasn’t new, maybe reconditioned. It was clearly a Mk 7, though its proportions didn’t match the others. It had a taller torso area, and as he scanned along its length, he couldn’t help but notice the knees were reversed.
“I had these modified for you over a year ago. Binnig shipped them, and I kept them in a warehouse in Sydney. Only delivered a couple days ago.”
“It was meant to happen this way.” Shadow’s voice, nothing more than a whisper, sent a twitch through Rex’s ears.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Drake said, bouncing up on his toes.
“The first CASPers ever made for a non-Human,” Edgar said, sounding satisfied. “Let’s try ‘em on for size.”
* * *
Sonya adjusted her haptic suit for the seventh time, though it fit perfectly. She listened to Edgar, but couldn’t tear her eyes from the sleek gleam of the CASPer.
She’d worked on several with Dailey over the years, but this…
This.
This gorgeous thing was as good as new. Was hers.
“You gonna get in, or you gonna make eyes at it all day?” Dailey fell into position next to her, exchanging a nod with Edgar.
“We aren’t—they have to check the systems and—”
“And the easiest way for us to do that is for you to get in the bloody thing.” Dailey waved his slate at her. “Already gonna take extra time without pinplants, so if you’d move your furry behind into the open and waiting set of armor expressly made for you, there’s a good girl.”
Sonya flattened her ears and stared at him for a long moment, but he shook the slate again, unrepentant. Given she had no appropriately snappy comeback, she tilted her head back toward the CASPer and considered its height. Though she’d likely make the leap, she’d also likely scrabble a bit and probably hit something she didn’t want to inside the armor. She pushed aside the temptation to show off and climbed up properly, not deigning to glare at the mechanic who so richly deserved such an expression.
He climbed up behind her, and she also restrained herself from slipping a foot and delivering a glancing blow to his face.
“Left foot in,” he said, and nearly did get a kick in reply.
“I’ve been in CASPers before, Dailey. Helping your old arse get work done.”
“Then stop nancying about and get in the bloody thing, she-wolf.”
Sonya growled, barely audible, annoyed because he wasn’t entirely wrong to push her. She’d been in and out of all the Silent Night CASPers and knew her way around them, but without pinplants or the appropriate physiology for the very Human machines, she’d never been properly hooked up to one.
The fact that their father had done this reminded her how seriously he took the family business and their role in it. No matter how he’d delayed, treating them as children even after they’d been declared ‘adults’…he’d done this. The warmth in her gut was at least partially nerves, but not entirely.
“All right, Sun?” Ripley called from the next suit, excitement making her words run together.
“Wishing we’d gotten pinplants in Sidney?” Drake added, actual amusement in his tone.
If Drake was making jokes, she really needed to clear her head and focus. Sonya grunted a reply to them both, then eased herself officially into her—her—CASPer.
“Check the connections in your legs before you get too comfortable. The right clips used to take finagling in my old ride,” Edgar said, standing back and observing each of them.
Sonya glanced over the edge of the open suit and nodded at him, then turned to take in the young humans in their CASPers, a bit ahead and already sealed into their rigs.
“What was that song you used to sing, Dailey?” Sonya asked, looking at her crotchety mechanic and pitching her voice to carry. “‘Left leggy gets three peggies, then clip the right extra tight?’ You make that one up yourself?”
“Settle down, cheek. Imagine me, singing.” He glared back at her, but even out of the corner of her eye she could see the hint of a smile breaking through.
“You do hum to yourself when you’re doing diagnostics,” Ripley called before ducking into her CASPer.
“You’re all furry monsters, and I’m gonna make sure you go to space with blanks.”
Space?
Sonya froze in the middle of connecting the last links to her legs. Deployment. Her father had said it, though the revelation of CASPers designed for her and her siblings had chased the thought right out of her head.
Hewers and the younger cadre were suiting up, and so were her and her siblings, their mother didn’t approve, and—
“We’re going?” she breathed, not meaning to say the words aloud.
“Of course you’re going.” Seeing the shock on her face, Dailey quite obviously bit back whatever additional ridiculous insult he was going to add. “Think we’re laying out all this capital for you to wander around a
n empty base? Though I’d like to see Drake take it on the water.” He raised his voice on the last, earning himself a laugh from Rex, and an actual snort of amusement from Drake.
“CASPer surfing,” Ripley mused, popping back out of her suit. “You know if you get the jets properly balanced and—”
“How about you stop wasting time with jokes and get hooked up so you can actually, maybe, take it for a walk?” Edgar said, not quite yelling.
Sonya shook her head sharply—exasperating Edgar, while entertaining, was definitely not the goal today. Chiding herself to focus, she made all the appropriate links between her suit and the CASPer, fumbling only twice, and instead of the all-clear, gave Dailey her best impression of Hewers’ double finger-guns.
“Check,” the mechanic muttered, then verified all the connections on his slate. Giving her one more glare for good measure, he straightened out of the way and thumped the shoulder of her suit.
The controls were familiar from both of the courses her father had made them run and the long stretches of evenings she’d spent with the techs helping bring the Human suits back to fighting shape after contracts. Pleased, she closed herself in, waiting for the thunk and flash of green confirming she’d been properly sealed.
“Well done, Sonya. Don’t try to move anything yet, we’re going to sync your readings first.” Now that the CASPer was locked, Dailey was all professional. Sonya both appreciated the quick shift and wished she had a tech who wouldn’t give her an absolute metric ton of shit if she messed up. When, she corrected herself ruefully, thinking of all the training sessions she’d watched over the years.
“This would be easier if I had pinplants,” she pointed out.
“Take the win you have,” her father cut into the channel, a hint of amusement under his command voice. “And don’t make excuses.”
She mouthed the last words along with him, knowing them by heart.
“Aye, Dad, no excuses.”
“Colonel, trooper.”
“Aye, Colonel.” She smiled to herself and ran through the connection confirmations with Dailey.
“All green,” Dailey answered. “You’ve got enough room between suits if you don’t go flailing. Let’s calibrate. Left arm.”
Sonya lifted her left arm slowly and felt the CASPer answer, matching her gesture and pace perfectly. Keeping her jaw clenched tight, she obeyed every motion check Dailey called for, not straining for more. Shadow, furthest down the line from her, balanced his armor perfectly on one leg, his enormous mechanical arms stretched above. Each of the rest of her siblings held the line, all of them following commands, no one pushing it. The idea of an actual deployment bounced through her thoughts, making everything weightier.
“All right, let’s move that metal arse. Five steps, left, right!”
Sonya startled out of her own head, stepping forward so quickly, the entire CASPer leaned too far forward. She overcompensated, throwing herself back in her supports, then caught herself on the third step of her stagger. Breathing heavily, she waited for Dailey’s snide comment, but nothing came.
Right, the command was five steps forward. Careful. Deliberate.
By the time they got to running, she was grinning.
* * *
After a single stumble, Drake had the balance down. Surfing had served him well, and he idly considered Ripley’s point about taking a CASPer on the waves. Impossible to get further from a shark biscuit, and so easy to crush the smug skin-smiles of the human pups who heckled him all too often.
He lifted his arm and squeezed his hand, firing without targeting. They’d started with lasers, but quickly moved on to training blanks to learn the recoil and reload factors. Rex was a better shot than him, but not for long.
“You’d get a tighter cluster if you use the targeting,” Salerson interjected over comms.
“I’ve heard the targeting system goes out more than anything, so I’m not going to get used to it.” He’d rather ignore the tiny Human entirely, but Drake couldn’t risk access to this marvelous machine now that it was his. He’d listen and respond and put all his feet right, and before long, he’d be off Earth and shooting this for real, somewhere far, far away.
Plenty of planets out there had sizable oceans. He wondered how many would be good for surfing. How many could he land this CASPer on, run its paces, lose himself learning alien tides?
“There’ll be times accuracy will matter just as much, so get used to it. Not the same as relying on it.”
Drake wrinkled his muzzle, impressed. Salerson had some wisdom in him after all. He supposed he didn’t often see the Humans in their actual element, and of course his father wouldn’t surround himself with incompetent minions. Fair enough.
He flipped on the targeting system, and indeed it took a few bursts before he got the hang of it. As he opened his mouth to ask if they could take the show to the range, his father cut in.
“Team Alpha: Rex, Ripley, Drake, Sonya, Shadow. Team Omega: Hewers, Paulson, Dyffid, Meyll, Gibbs. Omega has a green flag on their side of the bay. Alpha has a purple flag. Load your secondary weapons, aim only for CASPers. Friendly fire loses you points. You know the drill. Get it.” The unarmored Humans jogged to the nearest door, retreating to a safe observation area. They could take cover behind some of the crated stores, but everyone was aware how half-trained this group was—better to be safe than pulped.
Drake lifted his arms, clenched fists, and jerked down. A hefty thunk and a quick flash on the control panel confirmed the weapons switch, and he immediately sent a spray across the bay, catching Hewers in the arm. The arm splattered purple and clunked dead against the CASPer’s side.
“We got some tiny EMPs,” he said over his siblings’ channel.
“Knowing Dad, they’re temporary. Drake, you up for a charge?” Rex asked, hunger for the hunt carrying clearly through comms.
“You know it.”
“Sunny and I have the flank,” Ripley announced.
The Humans in their CASPers had already scattered, and the Zuul began to move. Alongside his siblings’ sounds of assent came a long, slow chuckle.
“I’m going high,” Shadow announced, just before the roar of his jets kicked in.
True to Shadow, he seesawed a bit, but caught himself and flew low and fast toward the two Humans who’d broken right.
Sonya and Ripley laid covering fire and sidled to the sides, and Drake committed to the charge, moving fast beside Rex.
“Go for their legs!” Ripley called, and Drake grinned. Of course the legs. The Humans had a little more training than they did, but not much—though they could keep shooting if downed, losing their legs and freezing in place or crashing to the ground should throw them enough to take advantage.
“Arm for an arm, Drake!” Hewers crowed, getting off a shot from behind a pile of crates. Drake’s left arm became unresponsive, warning lights flashing across his screen, and Hewers nearly howled in glee.
“I can do twice as much with half, Human!” he replied, tucking himself into an almost perfect roll and shooting just over Hewers’ head, causing the other young merc to duck long enough to lose sight of his attackers, giving Sonya the opportunity to get around the corner and shoot him into full shutdown.
Shadow, with the high ground, took out Paulson and Meyll’s arms, and Dyffid charged, getting Sonya in the back with enough green splatter to freeze her in place.
Sonya cursed, then cut herself off.
“I still got eyes, boys. Ripley, Paulson’s making a run for it—guess he’s hoping he has arms back by the time he finds the flag.”
“You putting me on fetch duty, Sunny?” Ripley laughed, shooting another volley toward Meyll and then turning back to get eyes on Gibbs. The Human used his jets, not quite as well as Shadow, but gave himself big, unpredictable jumps that kept Rex from hitting him.
With Sonya serving as eyes for the Zuul who’d worked together as a pack since they were tiny pups, it didn’t take long for Drake to spot the green flag and sc
oop it into his one working hand.
“Cover me,” he called, jumping out of the stack of crates and wobbling only slightly on the landing. Unfortunately, Hewers’ arm had come back online, and Drake jumped right into his line of fire. “Shit. Shadow!” Without looking, Drake balled up the flag and threw it into the air, trusting his littlest brother to be ready.
Shadow caught the flag and executed a near perfect turn in the air above Drake, shooting down at Hewers at the same moment Rex got the Human dead to rights.
“Take your time, Shadow.” Drake shot Paulson’s frozen form to keep him safely frozen. Maybe not exactly sporting, but good practice for the field. Only safe enemy was a downed one.
“For all we know, time is part of the points,” Ripley replied, standing over Gibbs. Even the posture of her CASPer showed her content pride. “Get us those points, Shadow!”
Shadow landed with too much heat, but caught himself after a short, stumbling run. Not bad at all.
“Safe your weapons and open up,” Colonel Porter sent over all channels.
He must have toggled a reset, because suddenly Drake’s arm responded again, and Hewers and Paulson climbed to their feet.
Drake checked the panel, lingering over it possessively as he confirmed the greens, then opened to the mildly fresher air of the training bay.
“Take a breath, get some water, and get ready. We’re going again in five with new teams.” Edgar strode out of the door, looking over each of them. “Each of you send your tech a report on what you did well and where you shat the bed, and yes, boys and girls, this is a test. You don’t take my CASPers off this planet until I can trust you with them, and we’ve got a way to go for that.”
“Get it,” Drake muttered to himself, jaw dropped in a grin.
* * *
Rex slid back into his CASPer and connected the haptic suit leads with ease. It felt routine and simple, where it had been tricky the first few times. It felt great to master the movements.