by Greig Beck
“I know, I know.” The young scientist stuck out his hand again and Casey gripped it. Quartermain grinned. “I know all about you too, read all of your files. It’s a –”
Casey squeezed his hand until he winced, and then let him go. “I wasn’t joking when I said we were in a hurry. We got a flying bus to catch.”
Quartermain rubbed his hand. “Of course.” He turned. “This way.” He led them along the gleaming corridor and half-turned to Casey. “I’m not that young.”
“Uh-huh.” Casey continued to look straight ahead.
He went on. “But I was the youngest ever person to graduate from Harvard with multiple doctorates.”
Casey glanced at him.
“Laser technology, physics, mathematics, robotics, and later specialized in high-velocity weapons tech, which brought me to the attention of the military. And then here I am.” He smiled. “Plus –”
Casey glanced at him. “I kill people for a living. Especially ones that talk too much.”
Quartermain stared for a moment and then nodded. “Yep.” He faced forward. “Got it.” He laughed softly. “But my job is to make you a more efficient killer.”
Casey smiled. “Then I think we’re gonna work out just fine.”
“I’ve got a job for you,” Alex interjected.
“Yes?” The young scientist lifted his head.
“After we’re done here, I want you to interrogate every file, document, and message that Walter Gray had in relation to Sophia.”
“Okay, sure. What am I looking for?”
“Something about her we don’t know. Something that Sophia thought was important enough for her to want to silence Gray forever.”
“Really?” The scientist’s eyebrows shot up. “You think that’s why she killed him?”
“Maybe,” Alex replied. “It was either something he was hiding, or a flaw he didn’t even realise we could exploit. I need fresh eyes on it.”
Quartermain nodded. “Interesting theory. Yeah, I can do that.” He held an arm out as they approached a door. “Here we are.” He held his hand up to a pad on the wall. A glowing ring appeared around his hand, and the door slid back.The lights came on and the trio entered. Quartermain stood aside.
“I’ve been briefed on your mission, and there are a number of things we have for you.” He smiled proudly. “Some I designed personally.”
Alex took in the room, seeing racks of sidearms, some he recognized, some he didn’t. Also, some suits on mannequins.
“Colonel Hammerson’s briefing notes were very broad in what sort of armaments you’d require. The primary expectation was human-form adversaries, meaning simple projectile weapons would be sufficient as the low gravity and near-zero atmosphere actually makes even the lowest caliber weapon much more compelling.”
“And if it’s not a human adversary?” Alex asked.
Quartermain raised a finger, waggling it in the air. “Ah, that was an interesting footnote in the report – ‘lifeform’.” He turned, his hands clasped together. “Think about it: something that could survive on the moon, without an atmosphere, under that intense, raw solar and cosmic radiation, plus potentially being battered by micrometeor strikes. It’d have to be one tough organism, wouldn’t it?” He raised his eyebrows. “One tough and formidable organism.”
“Unless it’s just a microbe,” Casey said.
“Yes, and I’ll get to that form of threat mitigation in a moment. But first things first, so let’s assemble our mission armory, shall we?” Quartermain moved to the rack of weapons. “I suggest a simple handgun, but with laser sighting on a slide rail. Even the lower caliber will travel for miles with little deviation. But the smaller round will be safer if it is fired inside the base – there will be only a small puncture and the base is self-sufficient in the repair of those. Any larger and we might create a bigger hole, potentially resulting in atmospheric evacuation or even explosive decompression – not good.”
Casey shook her head. “Boring.”
Quartermain’s brows knitted for a second. “Okay, to bolster your armament, I have a weapon that discharges heat rounds that can penetrate a hardened surface, biological or other, and then detonate, creating a thermal surge of up to a thousand degrees – like being pierced with a little bit of sunshine.” He grinned and shrugged. “Will totally destabilize and incinerate any known cell type.”
“And the unknown ones?” Casey asked.
“I can only work on theoretical weaknesses right now. But heat has always been a good biological disinfectant.” He turned back, took a plastic box from one of the shelves, and opened it to show them a set of disks about three inches in size. “Interesting little device.” He looked up and grinned. “One of mine.”
He held one of the disks on the flat of his hand. “Shock limpet – delivers up to two thousand volts of electricity in a single massive discharge.”
Quartermain walked toward the firing range where the target dummy had been set up. He turned back to them. “You can dial the device up to full lethality or keep it low as just a little incentive.”
He flicked his hand, flinging the small device at the dummy. Alex saw tiny, spiked legs emerge from its sides that it used to grab onto its target. There was a crack of electricity and the dummy flared with light, before smoking where the device had stuck to its torso, also leaving a plate-sized burn.
“Nice.” Quartermain waggled his eyebrows. “The disk’s grips ensure it sticks to what you throw it at. But you can adhere it to walls and metallics via magnetism and suction – works just great as a form of claymore. Someone or something passes by, the device leaps, can attach itself and then release its charge. Game over.”
“Okay, better.” Casey nodded.
“We’re not sure what you’ll be encountering, but most animals flee from fire and react to electrocution. Fair assumption that our lifeform will too.”
“Good work,” Alex said.
“But wait, there’s more.” Quartermain slid out a drawer. Inside was a steel box and he flipped the lid, exposing several tubes. He lifted one out – on one end it had a red tip and on the other a blue tip; he held it by the blue tip.
“A little something we found useful when we did some experimentation on the last of the Silicoids your team captured.”
“That damned bone-eating, extinction plague of bugs,” Casey spat.
Quartermain nodded. “Yes, and the closest thing to a living, non-terrestrial lifeform we have had the chance to work with. They were uniquely impervious to heat, projectiles, and most forms of armor penetration. We know that they were susceptible to certain strong acids, but we also learned they could be affected by powerful neurotoxins.”
He waved the small wand. “This is a delivery mechanism for the most powerful neurotoxin on the planet. It fires a dart containing 50 micrograms of an enhanced tetrodotoxin – just 2 micrograms is lethal to an adult human being.”
“The same as in pufferfish?” Alex asked.
“Yes and no.” The scientist grinned. “It’s certainly from that biological base, but it has been genetically altered to increase its toxicity, speed of reaction, and also to make it on-contact. This toxin doesn’t just prevent the nervous system from carrying messages and thus muscles from contracting in response to nervous stimulation, this toxin will render all muscles and the brain rigid. Dial it up to full strength, and it necrotizes – everything simply collapses into biological soup.”
Casey chuckled. “Okay, we’ll take a set of those for the kids as well.”
“Want to try?” Quartermain held it out.
“Oh, yeah.” She took the wand, and he pointed at the small stud that had to be slid down into a firing slot first to ensure no accidental misfires.
“I got it, I got it.” She held the wand out toward the still smoking target dummy, and then pressed the stud.
The dart hit the orange-colored gel torso of the dummy dead center, and immediately a small smudge appeared inside it.
“The d
art acts like a hypodermic. It is laser sharpened and made from titanium for high penetration. Setting number one, and anything that has a muscle and nervous system should be significantly affected and will become immobile.” He smiled. “Setting two and it’s dead.”
He took the stick back from Casey and took her by the forearm. “Now let’s look at some EMUs.”
“Say what?” She pulled her arm free.
Quartermain rubbed his hands together, looking like a boy on the verge of telling a secret. “It’s all in the suits.” He paused. “Or EMUs.”
“Isn’t that some sort of long-legged turkey from Australia?” Casey asked.
Quartermain turned and placed his hands in his lab coat pockets. “If by turkey you mean a bird standing over six feet tall that can disembowel you, then, yes, something like that.” He grinned. “But it also refers to Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or EMU.”
“Oh, a spacesuit. Why didn’t you just say that?” Casey asked.
“Where’s the fun in that?” He took them into the next room and paused without yet allowing the lights to come up. “Today, the suits used on the space shuttle and International Space Station are top of the line and designed to be a fully equipped one-person spacecraft.” He brought up the lights. “They consist of several pieces – a hard but padded upper body segment covering the astronaut’s chest, also an arm assembly that connects to the gloves. The helmet and visor are designed to protect the astronaut’s head while still allowing an excellent view. Then there’s the lower body assembly, a single-piece unit that covers the astronaut’s legs, groin, and feet.”
The scientist approached one of the walls and turned. “The EMUs our astronauts wear are the closest thing to an off-world suit of armor we’ve got. Or were. You’ll still need something that can perform different functions, from keeping oxygen within the spacesuit, to cooling or warming, to protecting the wearer from space dust impacts. But we’ve made some modifications.”
“What about the pack?” Alex asked. “That’s still external, right?”
“That’s right.” Quartermain nodded. “On the back of the spacesuit is a backpack called the Primary Life Support Subsystem. It’s unfortunately still rather large and bulky because it contains the oxygen used during a spacewalk, and a power source for the suit, plus a water tank. And last but not least, it also has what is termed the Simplified Aid for Extravehicular Rescue, or SAFER, that has several small thruster jets. If an astronaut became separated from the space station, they could use SAFER to fly back.”
“A lot of kit just to stay alive,” Casey observed.
“It is.” He bobbed his head. “Good technology, and each suit costs around twenty-two million dollars.”
Casey whistled.
Quartermain held up a finger. “Money well spent. And good technology, for what was required of it. However, not great technology if you need to move quickly, be manoeuvrable, or perhaps even fight for your life. But then again, no one expected our astronauts would ever need to fight for their life, right?” He smiled. “So, we made some improvements, some modernizations, and miniaturizations.”
He pressed a button on a touch pad and the walls slid out, showing a range of full-body suits on mannequins.
“Oh, fuck yeah.” Casey nodded her approval and walked toward them.
“We already do a range of armored suits, and they’re also designed for underwater activities. It wasn’t a great leap for us to create a lunar version of the full-body armor.”
Alex approached them; the suits were silver but retained a gold visor over the face. However, where the modern spacesuits were heavily bulked up to give padded protection against the elements and contained all the technology inside, these looked like a closer fit, and were covered in a form of armor plating that looked like large scales.
He lifted one of the suit arms and examined the gloves. His lips curved into a smile. “Armored and MECH assisted.”
“That’s right, down to the fingertips.” Quartermain chuckled. “Better for reaction times on the lunar surface. Will also give you boosted speed and strength. Though I know that isn’t a priority for your, ah, different physiology, Captain Hunter.”
Alex walked around the back of the suit and ran a hand up it. “Power, oxygen, coolants, all in there?”
“Yep, all there,” the scientist replied. “Just miniaturized.”
“Why is it silver?” Casey asked, but then turned and grinned. “Don’t get me wrong – I like it.”
“Better reflective capabilities,” Quartermain replied as he touched the suit’s arm. “And the biological ballistic aspects of the armor we use even give a higher quality protection from micrometeorite strike, and other projectiles. Extremely reflective, which means we don’t need all the padding.”
“Well done,” Alex said, and then turned. “Limitations?”
Quartermain pulled at his chin for a moment. “The weight, of course. Each suit still weighs in at 150 pounds. That’s still a lot less than a standard EMU, and it’s only a problem in normal gravity. But as these are your primary wear in and out of a vacuum, you’ll feel it in normal gravity. You have onboard water, oxygen, rocket propellant …”
“Say what?” Casey exclaimed.
“Normal suits have the SAFER system, so do these, but I gave it a little tweak.” He returned the smile. “You wanted to fly, right?”
“Yep.” Casey clapped her hands together.
Quartermain went on. “The oxygen canisters will give you four hours air, less if you’re in high-activity times. Once used, you’ll need to return for recharging or a new canister, same as the power packs for your MECH assistance.”
Casey snorted. “So, bottom line, don’t be away from home too long.”
“Four hours should be enough time for any external activities. Your suit will warn you when you’re running down. It’ll self-recharge when idle, but exertion will drain it.” Quartermain turned to them. “So will the shockwave.”
“Shockwave? Yeah, I like the sound of that already.”
The scientist held his arms wide. “In the event you are in close quarter combat and in a constricted situation, you can create a single discharge of up to 800 volts all over the suit’s exterior. Another reason for the reflective surface – the charge is expelled outwards.” He held up a finger. “But only for short bursts. Any more than that and the charge will eventually be reabsorbed, and seep back inside. Then you’ll wear it.” He turned to them. “Let’s call it a break-glass defense only.”
Alex nodded. “Got it. Anything else?”
Quartermain shrugged. “That’s all I can think of. I don’t know what you’ll be facing, but hopefully, the offensive and defensive kit will allow you to prevail.”
“It’ll do, and we will prevail.” Alex nodded and headed for the door.
“Wait!” Quartermain pointed at the silver suit’s chest plating. He grinned. “We can do logos. Only takes minutes to laser-cut.”
Alex smiled. “American eagle.”
Quartermain looked back at the suit. “Yeah, that’ll work.”
Alex continued to the door. “Get the suits sent to the kit-out area. We’ve got a rocket to catch.”
Casey loitered for a moment. “I want something a little different.”
CHAPTER 20
Launch Complex 39, John F Kennedy Space Center, Merritt Island, Florida
The eight passengers were being strapped into seats that had been reclined flat to deal with the initial acceleration. Sam Reid, a former test pilot, would operate the lander, but in reality, there was little to do as most of the voyage was automated through the software and overseen by the NASA ground crew. Operational control was only ever handed over to the pilot on touchdown and again on lunar lift-off.
The six HAWCs and two scientists were fussed over like lab animals, and Alex watched each of his team be given several injections into their necks, and tablets to metabolize. The beta blockers, anaesthetics, and muscle relaxants would create a suppleness in
their muscles and their frames for up to ten hours, plus the painkillers and doxepin sleeping tablets would render them unconscious so they would sleep through most of the acceleration trauma. In addition, breathing apparatus would force oxygen into their lungs to ensure the pressure on their chests didn’t suffocate them.
However, even though the chemistry, biology, and biomechanics were the best science could offer to defray the smashing effects of the high and constant G-forces, they would still all feel like they’d been beaten to a pulp when it was over – especially the scientists, who weren’t as physically robust as the HAWC soldiers.
Alex watched as one by one the passengers slid into unconsciousness. He gave his team one last look over – Quartermain had moulded the eagle onto the front of their chest plates, and Alex smiled at the result. It didn’t hurt to remember where you came from and what you fought for.
He turned to Casey, and she grinned back at him. He laughed softly and shook his head – her armor had a skull motif hammered into it. She bumped it with her fist, and then eased back and closed her eyes.
Big Sam Reid turned to give Alex the thumbs-up, before he too leaned back into his chair and shut his eyes.
The ground crew gave them a final check over and then exited the craft. The oval door was pushed shut and locked, and a hiss of hydraulics created a total seal.
Alex turned his head; there was a small porthole window, many inches thick in the door that, for now, just showed some of the gantry infrastructure.
The countdown began and Alex stared straight ahead. He half-smiled, feeling the presence of Joshua lingering in his mind, wanting to keep an eye on him, and also perhaps wanting to experience the rocket blast-off – what kid wouldn’t? He sighed as he remembered saying goodbye to Aimee, and how she wouldn’t meet his eyes. He just hoped she would give him the chance to make it up to her. He tried to picture her face, but for some reason when he did, it fragmented and wouldn’t fully resolve, as if there was something blocking it.
He frowned as, instead of Aimee, there came an image of floating red eyes, and a soft, calming voice telling him to relax. He blinked it away as the countdown reached its climax.