by Randal Sloan
Julie turned toward the group of techs that had entered the room. “These guys are here to help you with the training. Train hard but have fun. Hernando and Chris, I’ll plan to meet with you two in the morning to finalize the mission. The rest of the final team, I’ll see you in the briefing room tomorrow afternoon. Good luck, everyone.”
#
The next morning Julie met with her two majors in their private conference room. Zeke tagged along since he was very much invested in the decisions the three would make. Plus, he suspected that Hernando would want to ride in the corvette with him.
Julie looked intently at the two majors. She immediately knew the answer to her first question, but she had to ask it. “I’m assuming that not a single one has withdrawn from the original team?” When both men nodded, she went on, “Ok, I didn’t expect anyone would, but I had to make sure everyone knew it was an option. I also assume that all of the team members, especially you two, are completely comfortable with the new armor and its capabilities.” Once again the two men nodded.
Good. It was time to get down to business. “Ok, we have a mission to plan. I’m going to give you the high level overview and then I’m going to depend on your expertise to tell me what will and won’t work.”
She pulled up her VR, giving them a detailed map with overlays showing the Organization stronghold, all the defenses they had been able to locate, and the approximate deployment of their men. She also displayed the designated landing site for the Space Forces. “The basic plan is to jump into the indicated location, take out the insurgents, and rally back to a final location for extraction. DHS will be surrounding the area at all the accessible ingress and egress points, just in case we somehow miss one of them. Zeke will be flying the corvette and will target all the known defenses with missiles or rail gun rounds as appropriate. After we complete our mission, by using the anti-gravity plates, Zeke will be able to land the corvette to pick us up, many times safer than a helicopter.”
Both men stared intently at the display. Neither would admit it, but they were spoiled to the technology and information that Space Tech could bring to the table. None of their missions in the past would had anywhere near the level of detail they saw before them, or the ability to display so clearly.
Julie smiled at their reactions. “I need you two to walk through the mission with me. You have all the experience, and I know full well that I have none. I do know what our armor can do, and I know what I myself am capable of doing. For example, I need to be the one to take out the overwatch, which I can do from this location here.”
Hernando looked at the location on the map and then turned to look at her intently. “I know you’re a good sniper, but that’s well over a mile. Are you sure you can do that?”
Julie nodded. “I’m sure. I’m also sure they won’t be able to see me from there if I have my camouflage enabled. Any closer and they might spot the rifle, which won’t be under the cover of the suit. I won’t miss.” She might have said the last with just a little bit of emphasis.
Hernando held his hand up. “Sorry, I keep forgetting who we’re dealing with. Just forget the question.”
She went on, “So let me run through what I have one time all the way. Then we’ll go back through it, so you tell me what won’t work and what needs a backup plan.” When they nodded, she went on.
“All six of the team will jump in from the corvette at a low orbit distance using the halo abilities of the suit. Each will be assigned coordinates in the landing area designated here, and with the halo suits we’ll plan to land a minimum of three feet apart. Once everyone is down, I’ll move to the sniper position as I indicated to take out the overwatch, with one man to assist with range finding. The rest of the team will move to the primary assault point, here, where they will wait until I have taken out the overwatch.
“Immediately after I take out the overwatch, Zeke will begin his attack run on the stronghold’s defenses, first taking out their missile launchers, but immediately afterward taking out the two artillery positions covering the main entrance. He’ll then blow open the main entrance with a missile of his own, leaving the way for the primary team to move into the relative cover just inside the main entrance, where they’ll engage and take down the soldiers in the compound.
“While this is occurring, the two of us at the sniper position will move to block the two potential exits, here and here, and engage anyone attempting to exit the compound. If instead of engaging the main force, they attempt to exit at either location, either of us will engage in a delaying tactic allowing the main force to catch them from behind while the one of us not engaged moves to support the other.
“During all of this, Zeke will be overhead providing intel, and if necessary, air support. Specifically, if they have hidden heavy weapons in the camp, which I very well expect they might have, seeing as they’ve had lots of experience avoiding satellite coverage, Zeke will need to take them out if he can do so without risk to the ground teams. When all hostiles are eliminated or surrender, not that these men are ever likely to surrender, we’ll move to the rally point for pickup, where Zeke will be waiting.”
Julie smiled at them. “I saw a couple of not-so-subtile grimaces there a time or two, so tell me where I’ve got it wrong.”
Chris decided he would go first this time. “You’re assuming that they will act as a single force or that they will attempt the back exits in singles. What if they split their forces, sending two equal size forces to both of the rear exits?”
“Our main team would have to split in two also. Because of the restricted nature of the back trails, that would still enable each of us to sufficiently delay the groups for the assault teams to catch them from behind. With our armor, it actually increases our differential over them.”
Chris couldn’t argue with that. “I’m assuming I’ll be with the primary assault team?” At Julie’s nod, he went on. “I believe that I’ll be able to manage our team to handle either of those or some level in between.”
Julie smiled at him. “That’s why I left you in charge of the assault group. I know they’ll do something we don’t expect, and I need your expertise with the main group to handle whatever they do.”
Hernando put out the second one. “What about Zeke overhead? What if they have something they are able to get off against his ship, either damaging it or causing it to crash?”
Zeke answered that one. “Short of a nuke, there isn’t a weapon that can touch that ship. In the battle with the pirates, Julie flew through two near misses with nukes, without any damage. It looks like a large fighter plane, but it’s much, much more. Everyone keeps underestimating it or they would run away. No, they just have to worry about me.”
Chris took the next one. “Ok, that brings me to one of mine. You said something about taking out stuff from the air if it isn’t a risk to my team. Just what did you mean by that? I’m not sure I like the idea of you taking shots inside that compound with us there. One miss and it would just be too bad.”
Zeke took that one too. “I won’t miss, I promise you. What she meant by risk was, if it’s too close to you, you might get caught in the resulting explosion. And she is being ultra conservative there. Your armor should be able to handle any conventional explosion. Any! But if there’s anything that looks borderline, we’ll discuss it first, weighing the risk of leaving the weapon untouched to the risk of the secondary explosion. You’ll be in the command circuit, as well as Hernando.”
They continued for several more minutes, both men bringing up good points but nothing that changed the overall plan. They all knew that something would happen that they didn’t expect and they would have to deal with it. With the armor, there just was nothing the other side could do to neutralize their assault.
Finally, Chris asked the one question no one else had. “We keep saying, short of a nuke, or that no conventional weapon should be a problem. What if the idiots really do have a nuke and they set it off, rather than giving in to our assault?”
Julie nodded. “That’s the question I’ve been waiting for you to ask. I’ve actually considered that quite seriously. I’ll tell you what I know to help you with that question, although I can’t give you a guarantee. First, we have absolutely no intel suggesting that they have enough material to make such a weapon. Second, we’ve gone over that area with every detector we have on satellite, and nothing gives the signature we would expect from a nuke. Third, just in case they have one shielded enough that we’ve missed it, one of the things Zeke will be doing in his overflight is scanning for just such a signature. That should be enough to give anyone in the field time to get to one of several designated points that we believe would be able to serve, in combination with the suit, as a safe haven to ride out a nuclear explosion. The rugged terrain helps in that regard tremendously. Our suits themselves are strongly resistant to the potential radioactive materials, so we can rest easy on that level. But we’ll have to keep that in mind and adjust our plans accordingly.”
Finally, they ran out of questions. “Ok, gentlemen,” Julie told them. “Let’s discuss the load out for our teams.” By the time Julie had finished, Hernando was even more sorry that he had drawn the short straw. Man, what a difference that armor made.
“You know,” he told Chris. “Each of your men will be loaded out with nearly as many weapons as we often had for the whole team in the past. It’s just not fair.”
Chris smiled. “Look at it this way. At least Julie won’t be able to have her knives!”
#
Early afternoon, Julie and Chris met with the mission team in the briefing room. Zeke had abandoned her, telling her he was going to the corvette with Hernando to go over some of their tasks. He was going to enlist Hernando in running the scanners and other aspects not directly related to the flight.
Before she started, Julie walked around the room, speaking to each one of them. She was glad to see Jazz there. Because of her expertise as spotter for their sniper team, Julie had decided to allot her the task of being her spotter. She had enjoyed working with her before and expected this time to go just as well.
Finally coming back around to the front of the room, Julie told them, “Welcome, guys, to the new Space Forces assault team. I expect we’ll be making history this evening. Let’s make sure that history includes the safe return of this entire team. You’ve all had your training and you all passed it with flying colors. But we have one thing to clear up before we start the mission.”
Julie gave them all a glare. “It has come to my attention that you guys have come up with a descriptive name for the new armor. You’re calling it PSCH armor.” She pronounced the PSCH as ‘psych’. “Is that correct?”
A couple of the group swallowed nervously. But they all nodded. Unfortunately for Julie, she couldn’t maintain the glare, instead breaking out in a huge grin. “I really like that, as in we’re going to psych out the enemy. You guys are going to do that without a doubt.”
She pulled up the VR overlay, basically the same as she had shown the two majors, although it was simplified by the number of targets shown. It was not their job to be concerned with Zeke’s targets, so those were eliminated. Other icons were also hidden, again not germane to their part of the mission. “You all have been given your mission assignments, so I’m not going into detail about how you should do your assignment. As you all know, we’ll halo jump in to keep the attack a total surprise to the target. Not to make them less a threat, but to lessen the likelihood one of them is able to escape. As you learned in your training, the capabilities of our armor so exceed everything they have, they don’t have a chance to stand up to you.”
Julie couldn’t resist smiling at them. “Each of you has your load outs. Let me know if you think you have too many weapons and I’ll take some out.” They all laughed. Every soldier wanted the biggest and baddest weapons he could carry and lots of them. They would have them in spades this time.
Pointing to the men, Julie said, “Chris and you three will be the primary assault team, and you’ll have the boring job of leading the main assault through the front gate. Boring, because all you have to do is run in there and shoot them. Jazz and I will be the secondary team and we get to kick things off by taking out their overwatch. Then we get the fun job of covering an entire back exit each by ourselves, much more fun.
“Of course, neither of those jobs is quite that simple, but you’ll all be linked in the command circuit, and your AI will be giving you much more up-to-the-minute information than I can possibly guess, so I’m not going to tell you how to do your part. We’ll all be working together as the situation develops, whether it’s for Jazz or I as required to move to support the other, or for the primary team to move en masse or in part to support one or the other or both of us.
“You guys are the best of the best, and lucky too, as you all drew the straw you wanted to get here. So use that expertise, and use that luck, because I need to see all of you back here when this thing is over.” Julie knew there were tears in her eyes, which broke all military tradition, but she didn’t care. “You guys are all my family, so you’d better do it too.” She turned and walked out the door, leaving Chris to answer any questions.
Of course there weren’t any questions, each of them very much the professional who knew how to do his job. But each did leave a little more thoughtful than usual. None of them wanted to disappoint any of their family, but especially not their newly adopted younger sister, who they knew had to face things way beyond someone of her young years should have to face.
Julie took some time for herself to unwind, spending time with Brian, who helped remind her just why she was doing what she was doing. Brian and his irresistible smile made it all worthwhile to her; that and all of her family and friends.
#
The mission began quietly, as most missions do. Everyone assembled in the hangar in front of Julie and Zeke’s corvette. Everyone already had their armor on and had checked and double checked all of at least twice, each paring up with another to check each other’s for the third time. That’s just how you did it on their teams and it worked.
Zeke had already pre-flighted the ship and had it ready to go. He and Hernando both had on the older version of the Space Force armor, as they would dump the air from the cabin when they reached the launch point for the halo jumpers and the armor was the best spacesuit they could have. Plus they would use their own upgraded helmets to tap into the control circuit for the mission.
At the appointed time, Zeke eased their ship out from the station, letting the AI fly them down to the scheduled drop zone. He was monitoring the live satellite feed the entire time and had the option to abort the mission if something popped up. Nothing happened, the men on the ground blithely going about their business, many of them sleeping or playing cards. None were sitting around thinking good thoughts, many of them fanatically planning their actions for the next night.
As they neared the drop point, Zeke announced over the circuit, “Thirty seconds, mission is still a Go. I repeat, mission is a Go.” None of that was really necessary, the AI perfectly aware of the time left, but with all his work with the AI systems, he had learned it was important to keep the human element in place. He wouldn’t announce the final countdown, that would be the AI’s job to do.
Of course, the six were already in position in the stairwell leading to the open hatch. They had worked out their sequences so that one would leave every three seconds. Each suit’s AI would put his or her wearer in the proper position for the drop, a rough extended hexagon shape.
Then it was time. Everyone had done this in practice hundreds of times, so each did his jump at precisely his appointed time, the AI controlling the speed and angle of the jump to the tiniest degree. No stopping now, each dealing with his or her own thoughts. To Julie, it was as if she was floating in the air. She knew that they were really falling at a high rate of speed, but with nothing to judge against, it didn’t feel that way. She sent Zeke a private mental message
, “I’m fine, the team feels ok. You’re going to have to try this one day. It’s actually quite relaxing.”
Zeke sent her back a mental smile. “You say that now. Just give it a little longer. You’ll probably start experiencing turbulence in about twenty seconds.”
Zeke’s mental point was quickly reinforced as Hernando announced over the control circuit, “Jumpers, prepare for shield transformation in ten.” That warning meant that their shield configuration would start to change, forming the air brake that would start slowing them down. Everyone mentally braced himself. This was the part the simulators couldn’t possibly make feel real.
At first, the change was barely perceptible. Just a tiny bump or two, nothing visible to their eyes although the AI displayed an accurate interpretation of the interaction of the shield with the air. That didn’t last long. The next section of the drop was the most tremendous experience any of them had ever had. The flow of heated air became obvious below as the air began to shoot past them in glowing red steams. Soon those streams became torrents, so that the eyes could not see and each AI had to darken the view. The turbulence was obvious, but none of them felt anything but the tiniest amount of it in their cushioned ride. They were each inside his own protective cocoon.
After what seemed like an eternity, the stream below began to fade, until suddenly it was gone. It was still dark, the jump into the dead of night, but the air around them seemed to be just a little less black. Julie’s AI showed everyone was still in perfect position, not that she expected otherwise, and Zeke in the corvette above them, the first part of his flight made to mimic theirs, just another set of meteorites in the upper atmosphere, one a little larger than the others. He would now follow his own path, circling above the possible radar detection range of the target until Julie sent him the “Go” signal.
