East of the Sun, West of the Moon

by John Ringo

  "Not a problem, ma'am," the Blood Lord replied, grinning. "We're rotating out of here to Blackbeard."

  "Fun in the sun," Herzer said. "Guard stands are hell down there, but the rest of the accommodations are first rate."

  "And the mergirls like the guards," the private added, grinning then looking stricken at joking about that subject with the council woman present. "Sorry, ma'am!"

  "Not a problem," Megan replied.

  "The rest of the rooms are singles," the guard continued, gesturing the others out of the room. "You share bathrooms."

  Herzer's room was adjacent to Megan's, but not adjoining. He figured he could find someone to put in a door.

  "We need to go by base security," Vaston said when they'd been shown their quarters. "Are you going to have more luggage following?" he asked, noting that they'd brought nothing with them.

  "Lieutenant Tao is going to be bringing it," Herzer said. "We came on ahead. Let's get the rest of the details over with, we're on short time."

  "Yes, sir," the private said, leading them out of the building.

  "What's on the top floor of the building?" Herzer asked as they were walking across the base.

  "More rooms, sir," Vaston replied. "For others on the team."

  "That was one of the buildings that got hit, wasn't it?" Megan asked.

  "Yes, ma'am," the private said.

  "No stains on the floor," Herzer noted.

  "We had a bit of cleaning when we arrived, sir," Vaston said. "Replaced some of the wood on the floor. Sanded the rest. And the walls."

  "I could have done without that image," Megan said.

  "Sorry, ma'am," the private replied. "I'll try to watch it in the future."

  "It's okay," Megan said, quietly. "I've seen bad enough things in my life. Do you know who was in my room before?"

  "Colonel Carson, ma'am," Vaston said as they reached another two story building.

  The room on the interior was filled with desks but the only person in it was a Blood Lord officer manning the a counter that barred passage to the rest of the room.

  "Countess Travante," the lieutenant said, standing to attention as Megan entered. "Good to see you, ma'am."

  "We need to get our badges, apparently," Megan said, smiling charmingly.

  "Yes, ma'am, I have them right here," the officer said, pulling out a clipboard, printed pages and a handful of badges. "Please sign beside your name," he added, handing out the badges along with sheets of paper. "This is a map of the facilities. The badges are color coded. Yellow is restricted to only yellow areas. Purple can move in purple or yellow. Blue in those two and blue. Red has full access."

  Shanea and Mirta's badges were in yellow, Van Krief's in blue. Only Megan and Herzer were issued red badges.

  "What if we're in a red area and we need one of our aides?" Megan asked, frowning.

  "They can be given special access, ma'am, of course," the lieutenant said, swallowing nervously. "They'll require an escort. If they're with you, of course..."

  "Okay," Megan said. "We're supposed to report to an initial in-brief..."

  "It's in Building Seventeen, ma'am," the lieutenant said, sliding over a map and pointing to the building in question. "That's a blue zone."

  "Mirta and Shanea are not on the mission," Herzer noted.

  "I know," Megan said. "Mirta, I'm not even sure why I asked you to come along."

  "To be a helper bee and not get in the way," Mirta said, taking the clipboard out of Shanea's hand, turning it over and signing Shanea's name. "Just put an X here, dear."

  "Thanks," Shanea said, brightly.

  Herzer looked at the clock on the wall and shrugged.

  "I guess you guys can go explore the yellow areas," he said. "Megan, Van Krief and I need to get over to the briefing."

  "Private Vaston," the lieutenant said. "Why don't you show the Council Woman's aides around?"

  "Sir," Vaston said, woodenly. "I'm detailed to gate guard."

  "I'll send a runner over," the lieutenant noted.

  "And we're out of here," Herzer said, grabbing Megan's arm.

  Building Seventeen was only two doors down and, unlike the majority of the buildings, was a low, one story, building, made entirely out of concrete. The main door was heavy steel and, as it turned out, locked. Herzer knocked on it, furiously, bruising his knuckles, but there was no response.

  "What the hell?" he asked the sky.

  "Maybe nobody's home?" Megan asked, humorously. "I can open it easily enough..."

  "No, let me take a look around," Herzer said, walking around the side of the building. Near the far end was another door on which he also bruised his knuckles. It was eventually opened by a dwarf. Herzer had seen a few prior to the Fall but the only ones he'd seen since were at Raven's Mill. Dwarfs were a Change, not a genegineered race like the elves, but they tended to reproduce as families. And, even before the war, they were considered odd.

  "Yes?" the dwarf asked, suspiciously. He had a heavy accent.

  "You've got a Council Member cooling her heels at your front door," Herzer noted, angrily.

  "Well what in hell is she doing at the front door?" the dwarf asked. "I'll go open it. Who're you?"

  "Herrick," Herzer said, waving the badge.

  "Right, the new meat," the dwarf said, stepping back and closing the door in his face.

  Herzer opened his mouth to retort, realized it was pointless and walked back around to the front.

  "There's apparently..." he said as the door opened.

  "Council Woman Travante," a different dwarf said, holding out his hand. "Angus McCullough, Chairman of Dwarven Mining Consolidated. A pleasure to make your acquaintance at last."

  "Dwarf McCullough," Megan replied, shaking his hand and stepping in the room. It was small, with only the door to the outside and an equally heavy interior door. There was a dwarf manning a desk by the door and two more, in armor, holding large axes, guarding it. The day outside was hot but the room was pleasantly cool.

  "Sorry," the dwarf at the desk said. "Gotta check the badges."

  When the badges had been duly presented and checked the dwarf opened up a communications tube and whistled in it.

  "Travante, Megan. Herrick, Herzer. Van Krief, Amosis. His Nibs."

  There was a muttered response from the tube and the door opened from the inside.

  "Sorry about all this," McCullough said. "But this was one of the few buildings that the damned scorps didn't penetrate, so there's that for it."

  "I can see why," Herzer replied. The door led only to a small room with another door.

  "Man-trap," McCullough noted. "The inner door can't be opened unless the outer door is closed. Interlocks and such."

  "Very heavy security," Megan said.

  "Well, it's where we've got all the plans for our systems," McCullough said. "We insisted, built the thing ourselves. Not because of the mission, mind, although that's important. But these are dwarf systems. We don't let just anyone look at them. Primary production's at the mines, of course, but the security's tighter there. Nobody but dwarfs allowed."

  "And if I wanted to see it?" Megan asked, jokingly.

  "We would, with all due respect, tell you to go to hell," McCullough said, gruffly.

  "I see," Megan replied, dryly. "You and my father would get along splendidly."

  Finally, they were in the building proper, but there wasn't much to see. The corridor they were led down had doors to either side but they were all had locks on them. Near the end, McCullough pulled out a ring of keys, fumbled through them, and opened up a door like any other.

  The room was oval and had several chairs around a table. At one end was a dais with some covered equipment. At least two of the pieces had to be a man shaped statues but the rest were a mystery.

  "Right," McCullough said, taking the head of the table and gesturing for them to take seats. "You've seen the plans for the ship and you're finding new techs and cannon-fodder. You've a plan to take the ship, yes?"<
br />
  "Yes," Herzer said, raising one eyebrow.

  "And you're ready to start training, eh?" McCullough continued. "You've got the mission licked, right? You're bloody screwed, lad."

  "Why?" Megan said, sharply.

  "I'll show you why," McCullough said, standing up and going over to the covered statues. Removing the cloths over them revealed two space suits on manikins. One was a suit something like an ancient wetsuit with a bulbous, clear, helmet. It was mostly bright silver with bands of blue. The other was a complicated set of armor, somewhat close fitting, with odd joints and broad fins on the shoulder and back. It was a dull bronze in color.

  "This is what we made for the first team," McCullough said, gesturing at the armored suit. "The fighters and commanders. The skin-suit was for the techies, eh? Well do you know how many dwarf hours went into making those bloody armored monstrosities? We'd just completed the last suit. Making forty of them took us two bloody years!"

  "Ouch," Herzer said.

  "And all the people they were fitted for are six feet under," McCullough continued, angrily. "Two bloody years of hard work by the best dwarven wrights and it's down the drain!"

  "So you're saying no armor?" Herzer asked.

  "Not good bloody armor," McCullough said. "We're brainstorming ideas. Have been since the team went down. The skin-suits are semi-armored themselves; we've thought about throwing standard armor on top. But there's heat regulation problems, bloody bad ones. And we need armor now so your team can start training now."

  "How fast to produce the skinsuits?" Herzer asked.

  "Slow enough," McCullough noted. "Some of the ones we've stored can be cut down and restitched, although that's going to take long enough. We're gathering more fabric; the goats are damned pissed, I'll tell you."

  "Goats?" Megan asked, biting her lip to keep from laughing. "They're made from wool?"

  "Spider silk," McCullough snapped. "It's a bloody ancient technology, but it's still around. The goat milk has spider silk strands in it. Milk 'em, extract the silk, spin it, weave it and you've got spider silk cloth. Six layers of thin spider silk cloth bonded with a sealant then a plasteen insulator layer. Six more layers of silk and the heat transfer layer. Had another bit of luck there, there's an old tech that's basically a giant tree leaf mod. Bond that in, hook up to the vascular system and run liquid through it for heat transfer. You understand the problem, there?"

  "No clue," Herzer said, shaking his head. "I spent the last couple of weeks reading up on the damned ship. I saw the armor design specs and the skinsuits, but it didn't cover how they were made."

  "Space ranges from bloody hot to bloody cold and naught between," McCullough said. "And I'm talking three hundred degrees Celsius in the sun and damned near zero in the shade. Those suits are made from beryllium bronze modified so it's not particularly heat reactive and they were still going to expand and contract like mad. We'd worked around that, especially at the joints. But you can't let that hit the human body. So the suits have the plasteen insulator, just about as close to a zero transfer insulator as you're going to find. With me?"

  "So far," Herzer said.

  "Problem is, the human body generates one hell of a lot of heat," McCullough pointed out. "Enough that you'll drown in your own heat in no more than fifteen minutes if you don't get rid of it. Can't sweat, can you? Not and not blast yourself into space."

  "Okay," Herzer said. "Thus the leaf thing."

  "Right," McCullough said. "Run fluid through it and it carries away the heat. Actually absorbs a bit of the sweat as well so you're not drenched all the time. Problem, space is a lousy conductor itself. Air carries heat away on earth. Ain't none in space, soldier boy. Getting rid of heat is the A-Number-One problem in space."

  "What about air?" Megan asked.

  "Air's easy," McCullough said, shortly. "There's these things called air-bottles. Recirculate it through scrubbers to get out the CO2 and your golden. Heat's the problem."

  "Thus the big vanes on the armor," Herzer said, gesturing.

  "Right," McCullough said. "That would allow the heat to escape. If you were in shade. System had a thermometer system that shut it down automatically when it got too hot on the surface. There was a heat sink that would carry you over. Very damned complex system and one we hadn't actually been able to test very well."

  "How did the skinsuits handle it?" Megan asked, looking at the suit which was vaneless.

  "Well, they actually sort of used sweat," McCullough admitted. "A certain amount of water is gathered from the vascular system and it was released in measured amounts. Evaporating water is great for carrying off heat, lots of caloric transfer in evaporation. But it won't work with armor, even appliquéd armor."

  "Appliquéd?" Herzer said.

  "Slapped on the outside," McCullough said.

  "Don't tell me you don't have an answer," Megan said.

  "We have one, but it's not a good one," McCullough said. "Ice packs."

  "Ice?" Herzer asked.

  "Yeah," McCullough said, sighing. "We'll hook up a system to run the water through ice packs. The ice packs will melt and turn to water. Eventually, you'll get damned hot and have to change the packs. We're looking at some of the problems with it right now, but it will probably work. But you're going to generate the most heat when you're most active, like when you're fighting. You're not going to be able to say 'Excuse me, Mr. Orc, could we pause a moment while I change my ice pack?'"

  Herzer laughed at that and shook his head.

  "Right, safety tip; keep your pack changed."

  "You think it's funny now," the dwarf said, shaking his head. "They'll only last about fifteen minutes!"

  "Oh, hell," Herzer said. "That's bad."

  "Why?" Megan asked.

  "Most fights last longer than that," Herzer replied. "Okay, this is part of your design. We're going to need some way to...turn a switch or something, and switch to a new pack. That will be a training item, but the fighter will switch to a new pack when we're about to engage in combat or as soon as possible after. And back if that one gets used up. Three or four would be nice."

  "Two or three is the most we'll be able to do," McCullough said, picking up a note pad and making a note.

  "Okay, you're going with appliquéd armor?" Herzer asked.

  "Have to," McCullough said. "We looked at all sorts of possibilities, laminar, scale, but your fighters already have their own damned armor. Fittings will have to be replaced but there's no reason not to use it. Some...expansion and contraction issues, but lorica will flex for that and the light carbon steel they're made of is actually pretty resistant to thermal cracking. They'll tend to be...brittle in the shaded areas, though. Keep that in mind. Have to be careful about the collar area as well. Might put a bronze ring in to prevent it contracting too much. Have to put an insulator layer on the inside or when it heats up in the sun it'll burn away your suit. By the way, did I mention radiation?"

  "No," Herzer said, sighing. "You did not."

  "Forgot that layer," McCullough admitted. "The skinsuits have an outer layer of xatanium. Very dense material developed in the 23rd century specifically for suits. We've scrounged up enough of it over the years that we had a decent stock. At least for one thin layer. Very rad resistant but not totally. You're only going to be good for about an hour exposed to the sun. That's up where you'll be working, mind. In closer to Earth, don't get out of your vehicle if you can avoid it. Van Allen belt will have you making two headed kids in about five minutes."

  "Got it," Herzer said, sighing.

  "The armored boyos will be a bit better off," the dwarf admitted. "But not much."

  "How long for us to have minimal training gear?" Herzer asked.

  "Years," McCullough laughed. "You'll have most of your team fitted in a few weeks, if I can find seamstresses we can trust. I've got six right now, all dwarfs. They can only work so fast, even with powered sewing machines."

  "I've got one," Megan said. "A very good seamstress. And t
rustworthy; one of my aides."

  "Seven," McCullough said, nodding. "Everyone on the team will have to be carefully measured. The armor will have to be refitted, helmets refitted, we can mostly use those from the last team except for the locks. The packs for the armor suits will have to go outside the armor and we'll have to run support from the suits to the armor."

  "Megan gets armor," Herzer said. "Council Woman Travante is not expendable and she'll have the best you can get her in the time available."

  "Absolutely," the dwarf said. "There's a set of armor that will probably be the right size to modify and I'll get my wrights to work on that right away."

  "Okay," Herzer said. "There was nothing in the briefing materials about fighting in zero g. Thoughts?"

  "Don't if you can avoid it," McCullough said with a bitter chuckle. "If you're free-floating, especially on the surface of the ship, you're totally screwed. You can grapple, maybe, if you can even get near your opponent. And we've got some devices for that," he added, pulling aside one of the other cloths to reveal a selection of devices. One of them was a large pick-axe but the rest were a mystery.

  "Right, this is a punch-stiletto," McCullough said, picking up one of the devices that was a long tube with metal spikes sticking out to either side. "If you're grappling, you can press it against your opponent and..." he touched a stud and a spike slammed out of the end of the tube. "Penetrate a soft suit easy enough, a hard suit if you're at a joint, maybe. But if you don't have a good hold, it will just spin you off into oblivion, got it?"

  "Got it," Herzer said, holding up his hand.

  "Hold on," McCullough said, picking up another tube and sliding the spike into it. There were cut-outs for the spikes on the side and he pressed the assembly down on the table, grunting in effort as the weapon was reset. "Cocking one of these things is a bloody beast," he noted. "Safety," he added, pointing to a switch. "Release," he said, pointing at the stud.

  "It's safe if it's on green?" Herzer asked, handling the weapon carefully.

  "Yes."

  Herzer took it off safe and pressed the stud. He was surprised by the recoil of the thing; it nearly flew out of his hand without being pressed against anything. "Hard to use."