COMMANDER

“We will stay behind the third planet and monitor,” he responded firmly. “There is little else we can do until we know more.”

“Very well,” I said in response. “It would appear we still have a few days before anything might actually happen. Would it be possible to have the IDAG in a couple of the hangar bays turned off so I can run some weightless suit drills with my troopers in that time?”

“So long as your people stay away from anything producing emissions which would give away our presence here, I have no problem with your proposal,” Lewellyn answered. “You can work out a schedule with the duty officer. Our engineers will, um, modify the IDAG coverage fields appropriately.”

Well, at least he hadn’t frowned and said, “Well, no, Billy, it’s not like just turning off a light switch.” Okay. I take clear corrections much better than condescension.

“Thank you, Captain. We will play out some war games with low-intensity laser tags. I will have our comms master work out the frequencies of internal traffic with the duty officer to ensure transmissions cannot escape the shielding.”

“Accepted, Commander,” the captain said with a nod of satisfaction. He then looked around the room. “Is there anything else?”

There was not. On the way back I stepped into the hospital.

“Doctor, is there any problem with you giving my team the same nanos for nerves and muscle response you gave to me?”

She pondered a moment before replying, “I suppose not. It’s a little early in the experiment schedule but . . .”

“Experiment? Experiment!” I said quickly, a little loudly.

She chuckled at me. “Don’t get your shorts in a twist, big boy. It’s only an experiment in terms of how much improvement would actually occur and how long it would take to manifest. Your results are a little more and a little faster than predicted by the AI but not outside of safety parameters.”

“Oh. Um, okay.”

“Send your people up one at a time. I’d like to take a new baseline for each of them due to the new training regimen you have them on. They are probably in much better shape than they used to be, and that could affect results.”

“Thanks!”

I moved to give her a quick kiss and a pat on her luscious rear but she spun artfully, as if on some other urgent mission, and walked away. I frowned just a little and headed for my office. Maybe she had had enough of me and found other interests.

Over the next few days we stayed quite busy putting the repaired suits and the new suits through their paces to ensure performance and fit was as it should be for each one. Several had to receive some tweaking but nothing unexpected.

The current Armored Battle Suit is a marvel. It is many times more advanced than the first suits developed. Those first suits were little more than articulated ceramo-carbon fiber plates over Kevlar and nanotube fabric, with helmet visors fitted with a HUD which worked through a mini-computer, and decent networked communications to other battlefield resources and mobile command. There was no AI, no integral weapons, no shielding, nothing more.

Our current model was essentially a personal spaceship with armor, weapons, and shielding built in. The shielding was amazing considering the size of the power pack, and plenty good for the normal dust, radiation, and micrometeorites which might seek to ruin your day while in space. It was also good enough to deflect or significantly slow many types of projectile and some energy weapons when dirtside. A built-in mini-AI ran the sensors, the exo-relays and servos, and life-support. It had a supply of nutrient bars and water, and most of the waste produced by the human body was recycled into something useful. What was not was ejected by the suit.

The armor is outstanding, formed of incredibly dense layers of exotic alloys and ceramic sandwiched with carbon fiber and nanotube fabric in several layers. The outermost layer was a stack of small overlapping and scale-like plates, riding over a layer of reactive polymer. This reactive polymer was semi-solid at rest, as flexible as a fabric, but acted as a highly viscous liquid under impact. Whatever got past the shields to hit the suit would transfer impact energy through the scales to the underlying polymer, which would then react to absorb and dissipate the energy away from the impact site like ripples in a pond.

If the energy transmitted was too much to dissipate, the scales/polymer layers would be forced apart and the object would impact the base layer of solid alloy armor plating. Inside a Gen5D suit, a trooper could take a direct hit of 300 kilo-joules energy transfer and survive. At the upper end of that spectrum they would most likely be out of the fight, but they would live to fight another day.

The helmet was fully enclosed now, and contained a wraparound internal HUD screen which gave the impression the trooper was looking directly at the landscape, like through a clear polycarb porthole. Readouts for internal and external sensors, life support, weapons status, targeting graphics, and information displays presented much like a desktop vidscreen. The mini-AI was interfaced via direct neural connection with the operator, and with all other suits and ship AIs via subspace comms. All internal electronics were EMP hardened. Each suit had an emergency override so Command could operate the suit like a remote drone if the trooper inside was unable to continue, whatever the reason.

For weapons, this thing was second to none for its size. It carried fifty mini-missiles in compartments across the back and over the shoulder blades, auto-fed to a launcher on top of the right shoulder which deployed or retracted on command. On each forearm was a 10GW red or green laser, red on the right, green on the left, giving the trooper different frequencies for different types of targets. The left shoulder had a set point for a small sixty megajoule plasma cannon. This was integrated on track assemblies which deployed the PC from a rest/safety position over the left shoulder blade area to the top of the shoulder and ready to fire in 1.3 seconds.

The missile launchers and plasma cannons were slaved to the HUD for range-finding and fire control, and could be operated by the AI in defensive mode or manually by the trooper in offensive mode.

Each suit had 10mm rifle and 5mm handgun attachments at the thighs. Both fit into specially designed pods sized up for the suit gloves to handle, and each suit could be configured for right-handers or left-handers. If the suit became unusable for some reason or the trooper needed to dismount, the rifle and handgun would dismount from the suit pods to become standard weapons carried by hand. The computer controls for both weapons were linked to Marines-only via RF transmitters embedded in the forearms of troopers, short-range and EM hardened to prevent enemy jamming. This meant any trooper could grab a weapon from a downed comrade if their own was damaged beyond use, but no enemy could fire a Marine weapon.

Each rifle and handgun was mounted with lasers and optics for range-finding and auto-fire. While mounted in the pods, the optics were slaved to the HUD for sighting. When hand-held, our eye implants were able to see the normally invisible laser sighting and range-finding beam. Software did the ballistic calculations with the range-finder and the external conditions, so all we had to do was put the laser on the target and press the firing stud. Local gravity, weather conditions, and Coreolis thresholds for wherever we were deployed were fed to the weapons logic platforms automatically by the Combat AI in the ship prior to deployment, and updated in real time as necessary during deployment. Basically, suited or unsuited, all a trooper had to do was place the sight-dot on target and press the firing pad. The projectile always hit exactly on the sight dot.

Each foot tread of the suit had a fifty kilojoule repulsor built into it which could be activated to help us to “jump” incredible distances. With the strength built into the exo-relays and servos we could easily jump a ten-meter wall or fortification. For anything bigger we used the boosters. With the glove repulsors, one could point and fire a force wave which could push an AV sideways two meters when under 1G. One should be well braced for such a strike, though, as a repulsor wave worked via Newton’s first law of motion—every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In Basic, this principle was often learned the hard way, much to the delight of the other recruits and the chagrin of the lesson recipient.

Finally, each suit had mounting points on the back at the sides of the AI and power pack pods. These were for a power lance and katana, each about a meter in length when stored. When a trooper pulled the lance and powered it, the lance staff doubled in length with a sixty centimeter blade springing from one end and a cylindrical fifty centimeter end-piece of super-dense alloy club from the other. The blade was powered from a power cell in the center section which caused the blade to vibrate at a molecular level. You couldn’t feel it working but the blade would slice through plas-steel like butter, it worked quite well on armor, too. Lastly, there was the katana, which mounted on the other side.

Not bad for a mere 250 kilograms, fully outfitted and ready to deploy!

Pressure sensors throughout the inner gel-skin picked up muscle contraction signals while the neural port connections fed commands from the brain. The suit AI synchronized and smoothed those multiple signals to servos and exo-relays which provided the suit with mobility. When I saw my first Gen5 suit, I thought it looked bulky and clumsy. Then I was fitted for one and climbed inside. As the suit closed and sealed, the gel-skin was pressurized to be completely form-fitting like a second skin. This not only kept our bodies from being tossed to and fro inside the suit under the enormous external pressures we underwent, it also helped to ensure our organs were more protected from inertial compressions as the AI would raise or lower gel-skin pressures to counter G-forces as necessary.

Once my brainwave patterns were synced into the AI and locked, moving around in the suit was no more difficult than moving around without one. They were surprisingly agile and bent in every direction the human body could bend. It was sort of like having eight-centimeter-thick armored skin with twenty or more times your normal strength.

Yeah, it was a kick-ass machine. Way better than having all that shit grafted into or onto your body like the bad old days!

Then, there were our Armored Assault Vehicles. Each one could hold two full Troops plus five, all in suits, which is forty-seven armored troopers, so ten AVs to a clan. Besides the suited troopers, they will also hold a trauma bot with full field kit, 1,000 kilograms of various types of explosives, a thousand each of anti-personnel and HE grenades, and five thousand mini-missiles spread over five launchers. There were two 100mm grenade launchers in a central pod on the roof which could fire out to nearly two kilometers. Two front and two rear 10TW lasers and matching plasma cannon rounded out the external fire capability. All four lasers and plasma cannon, the rocket launchers, and the two grenade launchers could be individually controlled by troopers, or they could each be slaved to the pilot’s HUD, or slaved over to the AI or a gunnery master for either offensive or defensive modes. To round out the package, each AV had a PDP battery mounted on each side and on top strictly for defensive action.

The gravity-field and shield generators took up fully one-third of the interior space of the AVs, which could maneuver in space by gravity manipulation as an extension of the artificial gravity with which each was equipped. This allowed them to land on planetary bodies and return to the ship, as well. For surface travel, they could either use the gravitics to float, balanced in the planetary gravity well, or deploy a series of wheels with hugely treaded surfaces powered by electric motors which worked equally well for land or water travel. Being sealed and self-contained, it didn’t make much difference.

Armor was based on the same formation as on the suits, only heavier and thicker, as was the shielding. In an AV a trooper could theoretically survive being stranded in space for up to six months. No trooper had ever tried it, though, volunteers were in short supply. AVs were thirteen meters wide and thirty-six meters long, massing right at 200 tons, so there really wasn’t a lot of extra room inside one when loaded.

The Marine Landing Craft rounded out our normal equipment roster. LCs could hold three AVs each on the inside and had the option of mounting two more on the exterior of the hull. An LC was essentially a small and bulky spaceship. They had great shielding, good engines and IDAG, excellent defensive weaponry, but no offensive weapons. Everything about the LC was meant for one purpose. They transported multiple AVs as quickly and efficiently as possible to the field of battle and back out. The normal LC had ten PDP batteries studded around the hull and massive amounts of projectile ammunition for each of them.

We could not use either the LC or AVs for our exercises inside the Rontar, but I did have four simulator trainers with training programs for both. I had Lt. Timmons work up a schedule to put every trooper, including me, through basic piloting of both, and half the troopers through advanced training on both. Those who weren’t in the simulators were in suits doing battle exercises and practicing tactics. We managed to save a little time out of each day for PT and chow, and occasionally some sleep.

I wanted the troopers to get back to the battlefield mindset. In ship over the last several months, we had gotten much too used to a routine which included a solid eight hours of sleep every cycle. On the battlefield, you slept and ate where you could and when you could.

I worked them until they were staggering and bumping into each other, then raged at the officers when their troopers made mistakes. I didn’t care whether they liked it or not, because I was out there with them every minute. I pushed myself just as hard, or harder, than I pushed any of them. If I could do it, they could do it. I was unyielding in the idea I would turn my clan into troopers of solid stone, with minds and muscles which would not tire, would never give up, never stop. Stones are much more difficult to crush than cupcakes.

I stated this fact out loud one afternoon. From that moment forward, if one trooper wanted to really, truly, insult another trooper, they would call the other a “cupcake.” Non-comms would use the moniker to motivate their fire teams or troops when on a run or in PT. Although, they did learn to use it sparingly, as one day a corporal was left behind on a 10K when his fire team got pissed. He called them all cupcakes and they, as a group, began sprinting. The corporal had tried to keep up and had staggered across the finish line two full minutes behind the last of the troopers to cross, and they were already recovered. When the troop sergeant heard about this, a discipline was called and the corporal, the sergeant, Lt. Timmons, and I ran a marathon the very next day, with the whole Troop watching from deck chairs, eating snacks, and drinking non-alcohol beer just as though they were at a football game. When I asked about the deck chairs and the goodies, the troop sergeant answered me.

“My decision and my treat, sir. Any trooper who can sprint nearly 4K and recover within two minutes has earned their reward. I also felt this would help to motivate my fire team leader,” she stated, snapping a quick glare at her shame-faced corporal. Then she growled fiercely, “Ain’t no one in my Troop gonna be no fuckin’ cupcake, sir.”

Hoo-rah! I tried to keep my face neutral but, inside I was fist pumping like a teenager who just got laid.

We remained in the shadow behind the third planet for a week waiting for something noteworthy to happen. The Shaquaree ship orbited the second planet and took non-stop sensor readings. Lt. Cmdr. Dotes and his team were certain this meant they were geo-mapping the continents and determining the mineral deposit structures. No shuttles made the trip to the surface although several very small craft were sent into the atmosphere, probably for optical mapping.

The denizens of the planet remained watchful and alert, yet not panicked at all according to the news programs we intercepted. The central government was keeping all the citizenry fully informed. The apparent anomaly of the planet being “surprised” at the appearance of the aliens, yet remaining calm throughout the visit, was quite confusing to us. There was clearly more going on here than met the eye.

At the end of the week, the Shaquaree ship fired engines and left orbit. They headed for the far side of the star, opposite the second planet, and then T-jumped out of the system. We were in a flag officer update meeting when a Navy lieutenant rushed from the bridge into the Ready Room and headed toward the comm panel.

As he was reaching for the controls, he shouted, “You really need to hear this, Captain!”

The comm and vidscreen came to life without a flicker and suddenly we were looking at a newscaster on the primary network of the planet and hearing his words.

“. . . repeating the story that we have become aware of yet another starship within our system, of different configuration than the previous. This ship is now behind our third planet, Cresis, and remains there quietly, probably watching. It is the hope of our government leaders this ship, whoever they are, will accept our invitation to come and introduce themselves to us. We assume they can pick up and translate our signals.”