Outcast Marines series Boxed Set 2

by James David Victor

  Power armor was mechanistically the same stuff as Solomon’s old shoulder-pads, power gauntlets, and power boots, but it was made of thicker materials, with more cushioning material between alternating plates of metal, metal wire, and mesh materials. Ultra-fine cables that moved water and liquid oxygen around his body in both a coolant and hydration system snaked through the underside of the plates, along with fine threading of connectors that meant that the suit could be ‘powered.’ It could generate its own electricity from light or heat, and its tiny servo mechanisms, pistons, and compressors meant that Solomon would feel only a fraction of the weight of all that metal.

  Over the shield plated went the shoulder-pads, magnetically clicking into place, and finally came the plates greaves, the power gauntlets, and the power boots.

  By the time they had finished, Solomon Cready now stood five inches taller from the heavy boots, and a good few inches wider as well.

  And yet it still feels remarkably agile. Solomon tried swiveling his hips, to hear the tiny hum and whirr of internal motors from his new suit.

  “Marine,” one of the helpers murmured, snapping Solomon’s focus back to the moment, where a helmet was being lowered over his head, connecting to the mantle and with an automated hiss, inflating a snug rubber seal with the shield plates.

  Solomon was plunged into darkness for the briefest moment, but then a friendly digital-green light washed over his face, and Solomon was looking out of the helmet’s faceplate, with the holographic display of the power armor’s commands and readouts scrolling down one side of his vision.

  In front of him stood Colonel Faraday and Warden Coates, and somehow, the bullet-proof crystal lenses of the helmet seemed to make the figures appear clearer than even Solomon’s natural eyesight would have allowed.

  POWER ARMOR… Active.

  USER ID: 1LT Cready.

  COMPANY: Outcasts, Rapid Response Fleet.

  SQUAD IDENTIFIER: Gold.

  SQUAD TELEMETRIES… Active.

  Bio-Signatures: GOOD.

  Atmospheric Seals: GOOD.

  Chemical, Biological, Radiological Sensors: ACTIVE

  Oxygen Tanks: FULL (6hrs).

  Oxygen Recycle System: WORKING (1hr).

  The power armor had better sensors and better protection than the light tacticals had, Solomon saw. There was even a hazy green wash of color every few seconds, as the suit’s internal scanners registered the assembled lifeforms of the Marines all around him.

  It’s like wearing a top-of-the-range battleship, Solomon thought in awe.

  “You are clothed anew, Marine,” Faraday’s voice came over the suit’s internal speakers loud and clear. “But there is still something that we have to take away from you…”

  Solomon watched as the older man gestured for his old shoulder-pad to be brought toward him and held in the hands of the Marine as Faraday reached down with a small handheld device, and there was a fizz of steam and escaping gas as he plucked something from the top edge.

  It was Solomon’s specialist commander star—a tiny golden star that had been magnet-sealed to his old suit.

  “You no longer need this, solider.” Faraday gestured for Solomon to open his gauntleted hand, and he dropped the tiny bronze star into his hand with a chink. Solomon felt a moment of sadness at that, but he promised himself that he would keep it. He would never throw away the first symbol he had that others had trusted him.

  “But instead, we give you this.” Faraday held up a hand, and one of the Marine helpers placed into it a small black metal box, which flipped open in the man’s hands and revealed a small foam bed, with a slightly larger gold-looking star over a sword. The insignia of a first lieutenant, over the sword of the Marine Corps.

  And if I survive long enough, I’ll add another sword under that first one, and then a third, and then… Solomon almost shook his head, inwardly laughing at his own enthusiasm. After the star and four swords came the silver eagle over a star, the insignia of a colonel of the Marine Corps and probably the highest ever practical “field rank” that a man like Solomon knew he could ever hope to achieve.

  After that comes the generals, he knew. Officer classes like Colonel Faraday here probably required extensive re-training at some elite Marine Corps academy somewhere…

  FZZT! Using the same tool, the colonel sealed Solomon’s new rank onto the upper dome of his new right shoulder-pad.

  “Welcome to the Marine Corps, First Lieutenant Cready.” Faraday nodded. “Although you have the same duty as before, to command your Gold Squad in times of battle, you are also now empowered to command squads of full Marines in times of battle, both those of your own named color squad, and those of others.” Faraday raised an empty hand once again.

  “Bring forth the flag,” he intoned, and one of the Marine helpers disappeared behind him to return with a folded triangle of what looked to be a very ancient material in red and white.

  “Place your hand on the flag, Lieutenant, and repeat after me the Marine Oath…” Faraday said, and Solomon did so.

  “Through blood and fire, I will still stand strong.

  “I will stand at the borders and the crossroads, I will stand strong.

  “Even with the eternal night before me, I will be the flame!”

  As the words died in Solomon’s throat, he found himself looking at Colonel Faraday for a short moment, and then across to Warden Coates to see the man give him the tiniest nod of recognition. It was a small act, but Solomon felt as if it was titanic. Does this mean that Warden Coates respects me now? That he won’t work to have me banished and exiled anymore?

  With his head still reeling from the ceremony, Solomon was dismissed, walking lightly on a suit that aided and supported every movement of his battle-hardened body back to the line, as the next adjunct was called up to be stripped of their old self and transformed.

  By the end of the ceremony, every one of them would be made anew.

  13

  You won’t be Coming Back

  Mission ID: PROXIMA

  Strike Group ID: Outcasts Company, Rapid Response Fleet

  Parent Fleet ID: Rapid Response 2, Confederate Marine Corps.

  Squad Commander: Cready (Gold)

  GROUP-WIDE ORDERS:

  Select weapons module components

  Make planetfall

  Await activation order

  Isolate target (NeuroTech HQ)

  Eliminate target’s ability to produce Ru’at technology

  The commands flickered over the inside of Solomon’s helmet as he sat in the webbing seat of the Oregon, in the same hold as he had been inducted into the Marines in, funnily enough.

  But the last sixteen hours had seen the hold and the Oregon itself transform from an emergency rescue vehicle to a battle-ready strike command. The banners and crates had been cleared away and replaced by the webbing seats and the racks of weaponry that each Marine would be expected to carry.

  Service knife.

  Small service pistol.

  Solomon ran down his inventory on his internal holo-controls, activated by simple hand gestures on the sensor pads on his mesh gloves inside their gauntlets.

  6 meters micro-rope—an ultra-fine coiled cable of metal wires that would be strong enough to hold him and two other Marines, securely wound from its deployment port inside his belt harness. This matched the piton attachments that he could kick out from his heel and toecap of the boot, should he have to do any climbing.

  The power armor that they now wore was incredible, Solomon and the other Outcasts had marveled. They were fitted with a variety of equipment, suitable to a wide variety of terrains and challenges that they might face.

  A standard medical kit was in place inside its modular compartment on his belt, complete with wound sprays, bandages, surgical kit, and fixatives. No medicines in the module, however, as the suit’s arms and torso had in-built injectors that could be triggered to release stimulants, painkillers, or tranquilizers should they be needed. Solomon had alr
eady been shot once, and he didn’t want to go back to having to rely on a cocktail of drugs to keep him alive ever again.

  Flak system. He noted the small pods on either side of his shoulders that could spray metal-foil fragments into the air around him to confuse weapons’ targeting systems for a brief moment.

  But the real fun stuff came up next: the weapons racks. He saw Combat Specialist-turned-full-Marine Sergeant Wen unhitch herself from the webbing to be the first to approach the weapons rack.

  “Okay to continue, sir?” Jezzy paused, one hand hovering over a set of short, curving energy blades. She spoke formally, in a more controlled tone than she’d used to before, and Solomon wondered if she felt different by their new status as well.

  “Please do, Sergeant.” Solomon nodded. He thought it was unsurprising if Jezzy felt different in her new suit, he certainly did, and not the least because he was now First Lieutenant Cready, in charge of an Outcast squad.

  But can I live up to it? Solomon had a moment of doubt. He had grown into commanding three or four friends, after all, as the Gold Squad Commander. But this was different. His squad had swelled to include the survivors of Ganymede, and he had been promoted on top of that. Could he pull it off? Could he make them believe in him, he wondered.

  And it’s not like my last command went all that well, with one adjunct dying and another becoming the most wanted traitor in the Confederacy, he thought wryly.

  But what was done was done. Solomon looked around at the new and expanded Gold Squad.

  Sergeant Jezebel Wen, his suit telemetries read as he turned to regard each of them. A very small readout of her basic vital signs and suit telemetries read everything normal and active.

  Corporal Malady. The walking man-golem hadn’t received any new power armor, Solomon saw, which was a blessing in many ways, as the full tactical suit was still probably the most dangerous thing they had.

  Corporal Karamov, whose medical specialism had now been upgraded so that he carried a full battlefield surgery module along with a host of more arcane bio-chemical devices that Solomon had never learned to use.

  Lance Corporal Ratko—a small, tough ex-Green Squad woman who was a technical specialist and the woman who had re-engineered the distress beacon to call in the Oregon back on Ganymede.

  Lance Corporal Willoughby—another woman, taller than Ratko and also from the ex-Green Squad of the old adjunct-Marines.

  And finally, the very last of his new arrivals and the one Marine that Solomon was the most wary of: Lance Corporal Menier, his suit readouts said, whose life-signs were all perfectly normal, for a man currently asleep and snoring slightly behind his own helmet.

  The man had been a giant even before the addition of power armor, and now he stood almost as tall as Malady, and almost as impressive. Solomon hoped that their new-found truce would last. Last time, their argument had started when Solomon had been promoted over him. Did that mean that Menier, who hadn’t even been given a specialism yet, would once again be resentful? Would try to undermine him?

  Solomon didn’t know. But he hoped not as he looked at the sleeping man. He was the only one of them so relaxed about what they were going to do that he could sleep through the multiple jumps it had taken to get them all the way out to the system of Alpha Centauri.

  A squad of seven… Will it be enough? The rest of the Outcasts—those who had still been engaged on Mars and who hadn’t been cycled back to Ganymede just prior to its destruction—had also been upgraded to full Marine status, but it was only his squad who had been selected for this mission. It was an honor, Solomon knew, but then why did he feel so nervous? Perhaps because he suspected this very well might be a one-way trip.

  “Squad, select your weapons modules,” Solomon breathed to take his mind off of his nerves. Everything seemed so terribly real now. But the stakes have always been the same, haven’t they? He argued with himself. Don’t die. Don’t let anyone else die.

  Jezzy predictably selected the energy blade, a selection of throwing knives, as well as the trusty Jackhammer, slinging its strap over her shoulder before slotting the weapons into their relevant holders about her belt.

  “Ah…” Karamov said a little uncomfortably as he was the next up, selecting the rifle as well as a belt of flash-bang grenades before returning to his seat.

  Ratko and Willoughby approached the weapons stands next, selecting a mixture of firearms and, surprisingly, a sniper rifle for Ratko.

  “Someone wake Menier up,” Solomon said in frustration.

  “Hgnh? What?” Solomon heard the large Frenchman loud and clear over his suit’s gold channel. “Ah! My favorite part!” Menier saw the stand and understood what he had to do, selecting—of all things—a set of combat claws that retracted into a wristband, as well as a Jackhammer, grenades, and two extra service pistols. “You can never have too many guns!” Arlo announced cheerily to the others as he sat back down, playing with his combat claws by flicking his wrists and sending the sharpened, reinforced steel blades scissoring out over her power gauntlet and back again.

  “Lieutenant, sir?” Malady was the next to stand up, gesturing for his commander to join him.

  “Choices, choices…” Solomon looked at the array of firearms both large and small, as well a whole host of close-combat weapons, grenades, and thrown weapons. He didn’t want anything complicated, and he wanted the freedom to move and think about what was happening around him. Best to stick to what you know, he thought as he selected the trusty Jackhammer alone and sat back down.

  “That’s what I like to see, ladies and gentlemen!” Menier guffawed loudly a few seats down from Solomon. “A man who knows he doesn’t need anything else!”

  Solomon frowned, wondering if he should take that as a compliment or one of the big man’s many acerbic criticisms, but when he shot a sharp look over at Menier, he found the man merely grinning as if he hadn’t said anything wrong.

  Maybe it’s going to take me a long time to trust him, Solomon considered as Malady chose.

  Micro-missile deployment unit, Solomon’s telemetries registered as Malady lifted two metal pods shaped like bubbles with flattened sides, carefully lowering them onto his shoulders where they locked into place. Solomon knew that those pods would burst open to reveal a nest of tiny weapons ports, each bearing an in-built micro-missile, targeted by the wearer’s hands. Malady was probably one of the few people here who would be able to wear and fire two of them, and still use the Jackhammer rifle he selected at the same time.

  “Well, if we’re all suited, locked, and loaded,” Solomon called out, “then I guess we’d better get this show on the road!” He hit the call button on his belt. “Oregon Command, this is Lieutenant Cready and Gold Squad. We’re good to go.”

  “Very well, Lieutenant Cready. Initiating Mission Proxima now,” replied the functionary tones of a Marine clerk somewhere far above them. A few minutes later, the doors down into the hold hissed open and in walked a tall, Nordic-looking woman dressed in white robes whom Solomon had met before.

  She was the ‘personal assistant’ of… Solomon thought, just as the flame-haired Ambassador Ochrie, still dressed in white encounter robes and still looking just as irritated by existence as before, stalked in above them.

  “Outcasts,” she greeted them—a tad coldly, Solomon thought, “I am Ambassador Ochrie, and you will be making planetfall on Proxima with me, under the pretense of my personal guard as I conduct talks with the Proximian Imprimatur…” She paused, her eyes finding the members of the old Gold Squad in the hold below her, and Solomon wondered if that was a look of disdain that passed over her features.

  Well, the last time we were acting as her bodyguards, we almost got her killed and were involved in a major terrorist incident that arguably started the colonial conflict… Solomon reasoned. He knew that he would probably be less than pleased if he were asked to do it all over again, and this time, the stakes were much higher…

  “When a window of opportunity arises, I sha
ll activate you and you will have to make your interception of the NeuroTech production facilities,” she stated. “As much as I hate this level of subterfuge that we have to employ, it would quite simply be impossible to dropship you through Proximian-held space and expect you to survive long enough to actually make planetfall.” She sighed, as it was apparently a necessary evil that even she didn’t want to entertain.

  All of Gold Squad watched as the ambassador’s mouth fell even more into a serious, straight line. “I am afraid that, once activated, there will be little hiding our true intentions to the Proximian military,” she stammered a little over the words, and Solomon realized that the hard-edged women was afraid. “My mission is to deliver you to Proxima, and then, if any of us survive, to escape.” She paused for a moment, before saying the next awful truth.

  “I will be leaving Proxima on my ambassadorial craft and, depending on how your mission goes, it is very likely that I will leave as soon as you make first contact with the enemy. You will have to make your way to one of our agents on Proxima, there to leave the planet’s surface on your own, to rendezvous with a jump-craft that will be dispatched to pick you up…”

  All of this sounded very good, Solomon read between the lines, but now at least he knew why the ambassador was so nervous. What she was saying was this: ‘I’m just here to deliver you and get the frack out of there. Once you’re on Proxima, you won’t be coming back.’

  “Understood, Ambassador Ochrie, ma’am.” Solomon nodded, once, up at the woman. It wasn’t just him who understood the subtext to her words, however. Each of the Outcasts exchanged frank and gloomy looks between each other before the ambassador spoke again.

  “Good. Well then, that’s…good.” It was easy to see how hard these orders were for her as well. “Then we shall disembark. Please command your men to follow me, Lieutenant Cready,” she said, making her way down the metal stairs with her beautiful and deadly personal assistant at her side, towards the airlock doors.