Cartwright's Cavaliers (The Revelations Cycle Book 1)

by Mark Wandrey

  * * * * *

  Chapter 16

  Jim checked the spreadsheet floating over his desk for the sixth time before he realized he’d read the same page of data yet again without absorbing a single bit of it. He looked at the clock display floating in the corner. It read 23:00 hours. Still two hours before his rack time. He yawned hugely and picked up the small, tawny-colored plush pony sitting next to the lamp and looked at it.

  “Applejack, I’m crashing, dude.” The toy had no response. Hargrave had pushed him to grab a small nap on afternoons when he was in the middle of his shift, to avoid this late crash, and at lunch time, 15:00, he’d been doing fine. Now eight hours later, he admitted to himself he’d made a mistake. Worse, he hated coffee, and they were already out of the generic cola he’d brought along. At least all that had made it. Buried in the logistics report was a note that Mr. Sommerkorn had failed to order the ten cases as instructed, but instead ordered only one. Thus, Jim had been hitting it hard, not realizing there wasn’t anymore. A cup of tea sat next to his Tri-V display, cold and untouched. He yawned again. “Fuck.”

  The office had a desk, two chairs for guests, a set of Tri-V displays for planning meetings, a tiny bathroom with a shower, a dressing cabinet where he kept uniforms, and a couch where he slept most nights. Hargrave bunked in the next barracks with Second Squad, minimizing the possibility that both the CO and XO might be taken out in a single attack. Jim hardly ever seemed to make it into his bunk. He’d spent more than a few nights passed out on the couch in his little office. Luckily his age helped him there, and it was good enough. Most days.

  He got out for an hour or so of exercise every day after lunch with the squad, and that helped, but he’d been too busy with the unit’s organizational roster. It was twelve days in, and the rotation was coming up, so he’d begun planning for when the transport arrived in three days. Worse, as commander, he’d have to stay down on the planet. It was beginning to look like the next six months were going to be the longest of his life.

  There was a shrill buzz from his company computer, and a Tri-V screen lit up showing a topographical map of the valley. At the end of the valley, channeled to a narrow point of a scant mile between a pair of mountains, was the Duplato settlement and the industrial complex. It was surprisingly defensible since anything coming in from the south would have to skim the mountains and present themselves as handy targets at over ten miles in altitude so according to Union law, they couldn’t fire back. However, to the north, the valley spread out to more than eight miles wide until it ended at the shore of a frozen inland sea. It was the obvious approach. On the map, the zone was now flashing red.

  Jim sat up, put the pony down, and gestured at the map, blowing up the area. He was examining the lay of the land when his office door burst open. Hargrave angled for the couch, realized Jim was at his desk, and altered course. Jim could see the older man looked pleased to find him at his desk.

  “You get the alert?” Hargrave asked.

  “Yeah, was just checking it out.” When they’d arrived they’d seeded the area with hundreds of little sensor robots. No bigger than grasshoppers, the robots were solar powered and moved every few hours at random times and directions. You could find them if you looked carefully, but it was almost impossible to find them all. One of those sensor bots had made contact with a vehicle coming through the frozen waste of an ancient forest nine miles northeast of the facility. “I’m moving some of the other sensors to get a better look.”

  “Shouldn’t we maybe launch a few more?” Jim shook his head and grabbed a pair of connectors, snapping them directly to the pins behind his ear. Hargrave always gritted his teeth when Jim did that. It just looked painful.

  “If I can get another nearby I’ll have enough. That one robot saw a vehicle doing about fifty mph. It can be in weapons range in only five minutes. It would take that long to get more out there, and by then it would be too late.” Hargrave nodded, deciding to trust this young man who actually had computers implanted in his brain – he probably better understood what they could do.

  Tapping directly into the company Aethernet, he took full control of the hundreds of robots in the field. He balanced half in and half out of the virtual world the computer created, able to feel input from all the robots at once and interpret the data in more detail than the simple program they’d been using. Of course, now the vehicle was way past the robot that had initially detected it. However, the sensor had still been able to provide him with a direction and rate of travel, and that was enough for Jim to build a theoretical cone, just like aboard Traveler weeks ago.

  Using his pinplants, he woke up every robot within a mile of that theoretical area and set them to active mode. The little machines couldn’t operate long when using IR sensors like that, but it didn’t matter as he had his results in only a few seconds.

  “Got ‘em,” Jim said and the map updated with six new red targets. “I have six tanks, coming in on the indicated plot.” Quickly the display resolved the six tanks and then began to fill in more detail as additional robots flew in to examine them. “Looks like about five troopers riding each tank.”

  “Sounds a lot like that last raid,” Hargrave nodded. “I’ll sound the alarm. Get First Squad up and out the door.”

  “Yes,” Jim agreed. He sent a flash message to orbit as well to warm up Second Platoon. They’d been maintaining overwatch in space, so another full squad would be racing to get in their suits already locked in Phoenix 3, the pilot sitting in his bird ready to go. The order given, he detached his connection and stood. “Let’s go,” he said, with more determination than he felt.

  In the hall, the ten men in his squad were already running by. Murdock was bellowing for them to run faster. Jim threw his jacket at his locker as he left the office and crossed the hall at a fast jog. In the garage, all ten suits were already swinging open, heat shimmers rising from the interiors. The maintenance teams under Adayn were running from suit to suit, detaching power and data cables.

  “How do we look?” Jim asked Adayn as he huffed across the bay. He was stronger than he’d been and had better endurance, but he still couldn’t run to save his life.

  “First Squad is powered up and ready,” she said with a big smile and a thumbs up. “You’re good to go, Commander!”

  “Thanks,” Jim said and flashed her a thumbs up in reply.

  “Need help, sir?”

  “No,” he barked. “Get Second Squad powered up. They’ll be out in a few minutes after they wake up. We might need them if the raiders have air support.”

  “Roger that,” she said and gave a shrill whistle. “You heard the boss, let’s go!” The dozen techs under her finished the last power-up of Jim’s squad and ran as a group to the next garage.

  Jim climbed the metal gantry and spun around, fairly jamming his leg into the suit. He reached back and found the haptic cables and connected them in order by feel. He’d done it dozens of times now and it went quickly. Grab the cable, snap it in place, and slide a leg in. Grab the next one, snap it in place, and slide the other leg down. PUSH until you felt your feet seated. Next, adjust and seal the torso, etc., until completely connected and enclosed.

  It always seemed to take forever, but as he grabbed the helmet off the hook and slid it on, snapping the specially made cables into place on his implants, he heard Buddha’s voice shout out.

  “Squad all online. You there, Jim?”

  “You bet,” Jim said as he snapped the last connection in place. A field of green relays showed on his status board under the rainbow tailed pony. “Good to go,” he said.

  “Button up!” Murdock barked. Jim slid both arms into the suit and felt the control studs under his fingers. He pushed them in the preset sequences, and the protective cockpit cover began to pivot down. A second later, it latched into place with a THUNK, THUNK, HISSSsss of the suit pressurizing around him. The air blowing on his face was warm and slightly metallic smelling.

  Unlike all the other suits
in his squad, his CASPer fed data directly into his brain. Jim felt the suit come alive as he took control of it. Just like before, he could see the status reports on his weapons, only this time they were loaded with live ammo. Oh boy, he thought. Oh boy.

  “Opening doors,” Hargrave said from the next garage where he was buttoning into his own CASPer. The XO would be with Second Squad, just in case something went wrong. He’d wanted to stay with First Squad, to keep an eye on Jim, but Jim wouldn’t hear of it.

  “We stick to the normal command structure,” Jim insisted. “I have the First Sergeant and Buddha with me. If I fuck something up, they’ll be there.”

  The doors swung open to show the system’s yellow star low on the horizon and about half the size of the one he grew up with. The suit said it was about 12 degrees Fahrenheit outside. A fine Kash-Kah spring evening, in other words.

  “Take them out, First Sergeant!” he ordered.

  “Yes, sir!” Murdock replied. “Let’s move, shovelheads.” In formation, all ten CASPers pushed their gantries away to the side and stepped out into the garage, turned, and walked toward the now fully-open doors. The Sergeant held back and Jim fell in with him. The ten-foot-tall suit he controlled with his arms, legs, and mind walked smoothly down the concrete floor. The twelve of them clomping forward at once made the walls reverberate until they’d cleared the entrance to where the huge, squat APC was waiting, its cavernous doors open for their arrival. Most of the squad was already aboard and settling in as Jim and Murdock joined them. With twelve CASPers crowded in, the transport was packed.

  “Buttoning up,” Razor, the driver, announced as the doors slid closed quickly and the interior glowed with reddish illumination.

  “Check the fresh coordinates,” Jim told Razor. Inside his suit, he’d once again started getting fresh feeds from the sensor robots. The tanks were now only four miles out and were slowing. The enemy had just destroyed a sensor bot. “They know we’ve made them.” Jim updated the enemy location once again and fed it to Buddha and Murdock. “Where do you suggest we deploy?”

  The APC roared to life. An older model that rode on eight huge, solid, synthetic rubber tires, it didn’t have great ground clearance. It did have dual hydrogen fuel cell-powered engines that could operate in a vacuum if necessary, and it managed almost 120 mph on roads, or 50 mph over broken terrain. The tanks were faster, but the APC was more maneuverable and had excellent forward armor. A spot on the terrain map just to the west of the line of approach lit up. It was a point almost fifteen hundred feet above the dry riverbed the tanks were moving along.

  “Here, sir,” Murdock said. “Unless they stop and climb here,” another spot flashed, “they’ll be fully exposed there. It’s not the best ambush spot, but it’s a damned good one with our CASPers’ superior jump ability. Plus, Second Squad will be coming up in another ten minutes.” He flashed a spot a mile further along the river bed closer to the installation. “Have them leapfrog on jets in this direction to provide a cutoff in case any of the tanks get past us.” Another spot along the enemy’s route that they’d already passed appeared. “Have Phoenix 3 prepare to deploy Second Platoon First Squad there, and keep Phoenix 4 with Second Platoon Second Squad in the other APC on standby. If we can route them toward their drop off, and hopefully put guns on the enemy’s own dropship, we may be able to clean up the whole nest.”

  “Sound plan,” Buddha sounded off.

  “I agree,” Jim said, nodding in his suit. “Razor, go for the indicated coordinates. Once we deploy, go hot and prepare to provide fire support.”

  “Will do, boss,” the APC driver replied.

  The APC raced down the tarmac and off the end onto a barely improved road, racing along at over eighty mph. Jim watched the data on the enemy positions, keeping them in sight even though he lost two more robots because another six now had them in sight. The little machines weren’t cheap at almost two hundred credits each, but the intel was far more valuable. Besides, unless the raiders turned tail, he was about to get one of those five percent combat bonuses in the contract, and that was a cool five-hundred thousand credits. As long as they didn’t have any casualties...

  “Deployment site in one minute,” Razor barked. A second later, the roof in the rear of the APC over their heads split and opened like the doors of a toolbox, revealing the clear sky overhead. Shortly thereafter, the APC’s wheels ground to a stop. “Go, go, go!” Razor barked.

  “Jump now!” Murdock ordered. In almost perfect unison, all twelve CASPers fired their jumpjets and roared out of the compartment of the APC. Now empty, the doors began to fold in on themselves, while the floor split open and the vehicle’s main gun, a five-barrel Gatling accelerator gun, popped out and locked into place with two missile pods joining it on either side, former roof now serving as armored sides. The APC had transformed into a formidable gun and missile platform. Razor steered the APC off the road and up the ridge opposite the direction the troopers were taking.

  Jim managed a halfway decent jump to clear the troop compartment, though his aim was less than perfect. He came down in the center of a copse of old trees, firing his jumpjets moments before impact. The brittle, frozen trees exploded with a resounding crash as he fell through their canopy. He almost managed to stay on his feet, grabbing the half-shattered trunk of a medium-sized sapling to catch himself. Of course, the suit was unhurt; it took more than a few trees to damage a half ton of alloy and woven ceramics.

  “You okay?” Buddha asked over the command channel that only he, Hargrave, and the sergeants shared.

  “Yeah,” Jim growled, using his pinplants to push the suit’s muscle boost and break free without wasting more jump juice and looking even more foolish. “Still getting the hang of jumping.”

  “Two more jumps up the hill,” Murdock said. “We gotta move.” Already he could see the troopers lifting off with hissing puffs of rocket power. The powerful armor soared with remarkable grace when driven by a skilled operator who could manage the interwoven gyros and stabilizer thrusters. Jim was mad at himself as he’d mastered games in Aethernet far more complicated than these suits. Why would physical skill be so much more complicated than mental?

  He finished clearing the trees, looked up the hill, and picked a spot. Flexing his knees, he jumped while triggering his jumpjets. He held the thrust this time and bullied the suit into behaving. It was one-third dance, one-third martial art, and one-third mental gymnastics to make the fucking thing do what he wanted. Mostly it was like his worst day in gym class back in fifth grade, when all the kids were learning to do vaults, and he almost broke his neck. Twice.

  He stuck the first landing pretty well, actually. Since it wasn’t a horizontal jump, he didn’t need the jets to break his landing – he just set down nice and easy on the shelf halfway up the ridge. He waited until his pinplants told him the jets had cooled down to green, found his target, and hit them again. He had a small amount of confidence after the last jump, but that turned to shit as he realized he’d overshot.

  Jim tried to break his forward momentum and failed utterly. He plowed face-first into the ridge almost twenty feet above the rest of the squad. Luckily, the CASPer was designed to take a beating, just like his ego. When he realized he’d screwed the pooch, he spread his arms and grasped as he hit.

  “Oof!” Jim grunted and dug his fingers into the rock. Surprisingly, he held on!

  “Jim, don’t move!” Buddha called from below, “I’ll come up for you.”

  “Belay that,” Jim barked.

  “It will only take a minute.”

  “I said no, those tanks will be in ambush position in two minutes. Proceed, I’ll catch up.”

  “Murdock can take the squad,” Buddha persisted.

  “No,” Murdock agreed with Jim, “he’s right. Can you handle this?”

  “Yes,” Jim lied.

  “Good,” Murdock said and addressed the squadnet. “Everyone jump.” And with a whoosh, eleven suits rocketed by him toward the ridgeline a
bove.

  He used his pinplant sensors to evaluate his situation. It could be worse. The rock face was somewhat crumbly, which provided possible handholds, but it also meant it could give way. If it did, he still had his jumpjets. And as long as he didn’t fall the whole 150 feet and land on his head, the suit would keep him alive.

  “All right,” he said inside the suit, radio off, “get your shit together...” Dash swung a foot away. She seemed to be shaking her head. “I didn’t ask you.” Jim pushed power into the legs and swung first one, then the other in a hard kick, digging the toes into the rock. They stuck, allowing him to free a hand. The rock face was about twelve degrees off vertical. Still too much to easily jump. His jets would wash off the face and fling him backwards, and then he’d be fucked. “I guess I do this the old-fashioned way,” he said and reached up to grab rock. Once he had a grip, he pulled a foot out and moved it up.

  His entire body pushed away from the wall a bit as the knee ground off dirt and rock. Jim swallowed his heart and dug the foot in, unhooked the other foot and opposite hand and went...up.

  “A hundred thousand credit combat suit,” he mumbled as he climbed, “and I’m going up a rock wall like a fucking kid on a jungle gym.” Still, it was working, if too slowly. The angle decreased to about twenty degrees off vertical and he increased his pace. One hundred feet above him, the squad had reached the ambush point.

  “We’re in position,” Murdock reported.

  “Roger that,” Jim grunted as he climbed. “Deploy two-on-two for cover, and watch for potential flankers.” He stopped climbing for a minute so he could give the sensor robot data his full attention. “They may have left a tank behind or sent it on a different route. I only count five tanks now.”

  “Got it,” Murdock confirmed.

  “Second Squad is moving out,” Hargrave said from his position with Corporal Akido and Second Squad. “ETA ten minutes.”