“This is really going to protect us?” asked Nierny, turning the breastplate of his suit around in his hands.
“I thought we shouldn’t ask questions,” said Tamika nudging him.
“Your bad habits are rubbing off on me, I guess.”
“I’m wondering why it even needs to be a suit at all. If the real protection is energy-based, couldn’t it just be a backpack or a belt, or something?”
“Because, Cadet,” said the chief armorer, coming up behind them, “the suit needs to have a sufficiently large sink-mass to disperse incoming fire. Yes, we could theoretically put that all in a backpack, but distributing it on your body is more comfortable and convenient. And this material is stronger than it looks. Even unpowered, it will give some protection.”
“And the suit can give us a strength boost that way, too, right, Chief?” said Nierny.
“Yes, the armor can act as a powered exo-skeleton, effectively doubling or even tripling your strength. But enough talk! Put it on!”
Tamika did as she was told, although she privately thought that since the strength enhancement was also energy-based rather than through some sort of mechanical musculature, her backpack idea would probably work for that, too. Oh well, she wasn’t going to give the poor chief a hard time about it and get Marc all upset again by asking questions. All that really mattered was that it worked. Her suit was made up of about a twenty separate pieces, but was surprisingly quick and easy to put on. They were all wearing a one-piece undersuit and all she had to do was hold a piece of the armor near the proper location, give the mental command, and it would automatically grab hold and firmly but comfortably wrap itself around the limb or torso and fix itself in place. Only the boots, gloves, and helmet had to be put on in a conventional fashion.
And that was about it. Once activated, the suit would provide her with air to breath and could manufacture water and food as needed. It could even relieve her of the need to, uh… relieve herself. Waste products just… vanished. Actually, the waste products were probably reconstituted into that food and water, but she didn’t want to think about that. The suit was comfortable enough to sleep in, although it could supply her with drugs to keep her alert for days on end. Troops in combat were completely self-sufficient and could operate for weeks inside their suits. It could even scratch an itch on command!
“Everyone ready?” demanded the chief. The cadets all answered in the affirmative. “Right. Power up your suits.” Tamika gave the mental command and the armor, which had just been dead weight, suddenly came to life. The weight seemed to vanish and the inside of the helmet lit up with a half-dozen information displays. She tried moving around, and it was like she wasn’t wearing anything at all. Which was odd… Even powered, the mass still has to be there, doesn’t it? But it sure didn’t feel like it. Weird.
“Okay, the suit has a lot of features you are going to need to learn how to use,” said the chief. “First I want you to…”
They worked all day and Tamika learned dozens of different things, but each feature seemed to lead to two more and the chief armorer confirmed that it would probably take them months of practice to be able to achieve full proficiency. One feature of the suit, its strength enhancement, had worried Tamika, but she quickly learned her fears were groundless. She’d been afraid that she’d accidentally hurt people or damage things, but the suit had an array of safety features to prevent that sort of thing. Apparently the IMTel was able to understand her intentions rather than simply turn the nerve impulses from her brain to her muscles into commands to her armor. So she could smash down a door or pick up an egg without crushing it with equal ease.
The one other main feature of the armor was also going to take practice to adjust to. The IMTel links in the armor allowed them to form combat shards. The great conglomeration of people and machines which made up the PanHuman Concord was called a shard. The word implied that it was just a fragment of a larger whole, and this was in fact the case. Due to events which occurred during the last Collapse, the Isori had split into two great and competing civilizations, the Concord and the Isorian Senatex. Their respective IMTels had become incompatible, forming two distinct and separate shards.
Within the Concord (and presumably within the Senatex) there were subgroups, also called shards. The Concord Combined Command was a shard within the PanHuman Concord’s greater shard. The two were connected, but distinct. And within the C3 shard there were further sub-units which formed their own shards. Fleets, ships within the fleet, armies, and smaller military units, all the way down to squad level, had their own shards. Tamika and the seven other members of her squad had their very own shard—while wearing their armor.
It was true that the IMTel connected everything and everyone in some fashion, but it was not the same as a combat shard. Ordinary people did not read each others’ minds, but then ordinary people weren’t normally in combat situation where quick communications and perfect coordination was the difference between survival and destruction. Combat shards allowed this perfect coordination—with practice.
The first time they linked up, Tamika and several of the others became so disoriented they nearly passed out. The sudden influx of thoughts and emotions not her own was terribly disorienting and confusing. But with practice it was possible to filter out most of the extraneous stuff and focus on what really mattered. There was also a growing ability by all of them to not generate the extraneous stuff in the first place. They learned to focus on their job and nothing else. The ability to put everything else aside—even the rather scatterbrained Marc Nierny was able to do it—was a bit frightening to Tamika. It made them all a little less human.
Even with their increased ability to focus, there was a certain ‘seepage’ of thoughts and emotions which couldn’t be completely eliminated, and mostly this was at a subconscious level. Tamika began to have some very strange dreams and she could tell the others were, too. The nighttime pairings seemed less frequent and it was rare for them to occur outside the squads anymore. They were all… changing.
But there was no denying the advantages of it. As their training progressed, they were able to act not just as a team, but almost as a single entity. Each one knew exactly what the others were doing or going to do. They were getting really good at it. And as they became more and more a single unit, the section leaders could combine the squads into a larger section shard and the force commanders could combine the sections in the same manner. Coordination from bottom to top would eventually become nearly perfect. Tamika could see why the C3 forces were so damn good. No wonder her own home planet had been beaten so easily.
They learned to work with the drones, too. Buddy drones attached to the squad were integrated into their shard. They could look through the ‘eyes’ of a targeter drone or shelter behind a batter drone as easily as they could use the plasma carbine in their hands. Cooperating with independent combat drones was just as easy. It multiplied their capabilities.
They began to do combat exercises using simulations. The IMTel could project completely realistic simulations right into their brains. Battles which felt absolutely real could be fought even though Tamika and the others were all just standing motionless in their armor. Moving, shooting, fighting… dying, it all seemed real. At first their computer-generated opponents were all drones. Mechanical targets they could blast to pieces—or which could blast them. It was exciting and even fun. Every victory left them exhilarated and every defeat left them determined to do better the next time.
From drones they advanced to other opponents. At first it was non-humanoid creatures like the Vorl, or barely-human ones like the Boromites. The fights became more intense—and more realistic. Organic bodies burned or blown apart looked (and smelled) exactly like what they were supposed to be. It was a hard to handle for some of them at first. Dara Beltran vomited in her helmet the first time. Tamika didn’t like it, but managed to control herself. After a while it was just another thing to be filtered out—even when their opponents look
ed like them. Bit by bit they were being desensitized. Tamika was proud of her squad, but even after sharing thoughts and feelings, there was still that space between her and the others. It was a narrower space than it had been, but it was still there. The camaraderie and unity that appeared rock-solid in the other squads had a certain… fragility in Tamika’s. They all sensed it—there was no way they couldn’t.
It all came to a head one day during a sim. They were advancing through the ruins of a city. It was some unnamed city on some unnamed planet, occupied by an unnamed enemy. Humanoids but generic humanoids. And not terribly advanced ones, it seemed. They were beating the hell out of them with no trouble at all. The enemy’s weapons could scarcely scratch their armor, and their own weapons were blowing them away with ease.
“Shard Tamika, clear structure at mark oh-one-nine,” commanded the section leader.
“Acknowledged,” she replied. The building in question was about fifty yan away. The upper stories had been heavily damaged, leaving the first story half buried in rubble. She studied it for a moment, adding the viewpoints of her squad and several nearby drones to her own, and created her plan of attack. As that plan materialized it was instantly shared with the squad and she didn’t need to issue any orders at all—they knew what to do. All she had to do was say: “Go.”
Half the squad started forward while the other half, including Tamika, put their carbines on scatter mode and sprayed windows and openings with plasma fire. The first four found cover halfway across the open space and provided covering fire for Tamika and the remaining three to make their dash into the building. A couple of random shots came back at them, proving there was someone inside, but they hit nothing. Tamika’s armor let her move faster than any unassisted person could possibly move; she covered the distance and threw herself into an opening in seconds.
She rolled, spun about, and halted when she found no immediate targets. A moment later Nierny joined her. The other six members of the squad and their accompanying drones were all inside now, too. Tamika sent drones ahead to map out the place and look for trouble while the humans followed. They swept the remains of the upper floors and killed two snipers. It was easy.
That left the basement.
Tamika had noticed the way down when they’d explored the first floor and left a light support drone there to prevent any surprise attack from that direction. Now, down they went. It was dark, but only to unaided eyes. The visual display in her helmet was as clear as if the place had been in the noon sun. But the place was a warren of narrow corridors and tiny rooms. Plenty of places for ambushers to lurk.
“Shard Tamika, hurry it up,” ordered the section leader.
“Acknowledged.” Her people moved faster without her saying a thing. They split up again, she working with Nierny and a drone. They checked out a number of rooms and while they found supplies and evidence of habitation, they found no one. The others reported similar results. But then she found a way down to another level, some sort of sub-basement. She and Niery forced open the door to one room, but while letting him and the support drone check it out, she heard a strange noise from behind her. She spun around and saw another door on the opposite side of the corridor. Marc heard it, too, through the shard link.
“Wait up, Tam. I’ll be through here in a second.”
But she heard the noise again, clearer, and then suddenly cut off. It sounded like…
She pushed the door open.
Inside there were a dozen people huddled in a corner. A couple of women with a bunch of children, a few just babies. The noise had been one of the babies crying. They were all obviously terrified. Tamika lowered her weapon and raised a hand to try and reassure them that they wouldn’t be harmed.
A moment later the drone moved through the door. It was in full combat mode… its targeter was locking on…
“Check fire!” shouted Tamika, both aloud and in her mind. “Stand down!” She stepped in front of the machine to block its line of fire.
“Tam! What’s going on?” demanded Nierny, following the drone into the room. “Tam! Look out!”
She spun around and saw that one of the women had a small pistol in her hand. But there was no energy signature. A primitive slug thrower and no possible threat.
“Get out of the way!” cried Nierny bringing up his carbine.
“Marc! No!”
But it was too late. He had his weapon on scatter mode and he sprayed a shower of energy bolts across the group. Unshielded and unarmored, the people had no chance. Flame and smoke billowed up as their clothing and flesh burned. Their screams were mercifully short.
Tamika looked at the smoldering bodies and then at Marc. He shrugged and said: “Oops.”
A memory of her, wandering through the shattered streets of her home and watching bodies being pulled out of the rubble, flashed into her mind and suddenly she was filled with an all-consuming rage.
“Damn you! Damn you!” She was screaming, and suddenly she grabbed Nierny and flung him across the room with every bit of strength her armor could generate. He bounced off a wall and fell to the floor.
“Tam! What the hell are you…?!”
She picked him up and smashed him to the floor again.
“Tam! Stop! It’s not real! It’s just a sim! Ow!” It wasn’t real, but the sim supplied pain for wounds or injuries to make it seem real. And at that moment she wanted to hurt someone. She threw him again. And again.
“Tam! What are you doing? Stop it!” New voices were added to Marc’s and she realized that her whole squad was there. She froze and slowly looked around. They were all there looking at her and she could feel their shock through the link. Her rage drained away to be replaced with… she had no words for what she felt just then.
“Shard Tamika, report your status.” It was the section leader.
She didn’t answer. Instead she gave the mental command: Emergency sim termination.
The basement, her squad, and the smoldering bodies faded away to reveal her back in the armory where their armor was stored. The rest of her squad were all standing there, but their minds were still in the sim. She gave the command to disengage her armor and it fell to pieces around her, clattering to the floor. She took off the helmet, gloves, and boots and left them lying there with the rest and walked away.
* * * *
She went down to the harbor as she often did when she wanted to be alone. She sat on a bench and stared at the sky and the water without really seeing either. Message after message arrived through the IMTel, but she refused to answer them, or even listen to them.
I guess I’m finished.
Was she? She had no idea how many rules she had broken or what sort of trouble she was in. Captain Krissa had once told her that she was free to quit C3. She could just quit and go home any time she wanted and that no one would stop her. Was that really true?
And if it was, was that what she really wanted? She’d feel homesickness at times, but home seemed very far away and dim in her memory now. Could she go back?
She sat there, watching the sun slowly sinking toward the ocean. Other people, ordinary civilians, walked by, but she ignored them.
“You can’t sit here forever, Cadet.”
Someone was standing behind her. She turned her head and saw a tall woman in a C3 uniform. An officer’s uniform. Tamika automatically got to her feet and faced the woman. It was no one she’d ever seen before. What did she want? Had she come to arrest her?
“Sir?”
“So what are you going to do?” asked the woman. She was very beautiful—like most Concord citizens—but there was something about her voice… Tamika started at her for a moment and then suddenly she knew.
“Captain Krissa?”
“In the flesh. Or perhaps I should say: ‘back in the flesh’.” The woman grinned slightly and made a small gesture with her hands that was uncannily like what the machine-woman used to do.
“You… you have your body back!”
“Yes, and I mu
st say it does feel good. That metal can I was stored in wasn’t much fun. Sorry I had to be away to get switched over.” She stared at Tamika and raised an eyebrow. “It seems I can’t take my eyes off you for a minute, Cadet Gatchnall.”
“Am I still a cadet?”
“That’s entirely up to you.”
“Really? I… I expected to be kicked out. Or thrown in jail.”
“Well, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be thrown out. Only the IMTel can do that, and it was the IMTel that brought you here in the first place, and as we all know…”
“…the IMTel doesn’t make mistakes,” they both said in unison. Tamika almost smiled. Almost.
“As for jail, we really don’t have such things here, Cadet.”
“Well, of course not!” she replied angrily. “With everyone being so damn… perfect, why would you need one?!”
“Hardly perfect, Cadet. We all have flaws.”
“Yeah, right!”
Captain Krissa came around and sat down on the bench where Tamika had been. After a moment’s hesitation, she sat down next to her.
“Do you want to talk about it?” asked the captain.
“No. But we both know I’m going to.”
“Yes.”
Tamika looked down at the ground and clasped her hands together. “It… I… I knew it was just a sim, but when Marc killed all those civilians, I got so angry and all I could think about was when the Concord conquered my world. How many times did that very thing happen? How many helpless people got massacred? And… and…” She sucked in her breath and looked right at Krissa.
“And why the hell did the sim even have something like that?!” Her voice rose to a near-shriek and several passing people stopped to stare.
“I don’t know,” replied Krissa.
Beyond Antares Dimensional Gates Page 7
