by J. N. Chaney
Colonel Tolouse stood there for a moment, and Rev heard Jewell say, “I told them to go . . . yes, sir. It’s . . . it’s coming now.”
From the left side of the range, a paladin emerged, and the eyes in the stands craned to take it in. Rev leaned over, trying to see through the stands. He had to admit, the colonel’s team had done a pretty amazing job. The “paladin” looked pretty good—if you ignored the fact that it had wheels instead of articulated legs—far better than the mock-ups used in routine training. The pedestal was deployed, and the beamer searching for a target as it moved across the range, 150 meters out.
The major waited until the paladin was a third of the way across when she removed her hand and said, “Go!”
Rev took a deep breath, then started sprinting forward, praying he wasn’t going to trip and land on his face. He’d only done this three times before and never in front of someone new. He bolted between the doctor and her staff—with her beaming like a proud mother—and the bleachers. A collective gasp rang, then a few shouts, but he tuned everything out. His mission was that hunk of machinery in front of him.
As he passed the colonel, the paladin picked him up, and the pedestal started tracking him. The paladin was programmed to defend itself, and the beamer was active. It might be shooting what amounted to hi-tech paintballs, and Doctor Chakrabarti had convinced the colonel to slow down the paladin by fifteen percent, but this was a real test. Rev had failed the first two times, and the third was essentially a draw.
He was not going to fail this time.
Rev had a grid implanted in his vision, which centered on the pedestal. The grid helped him determine the thing’s aim, and Punch helped monitor it for him.
Rev dodged, pushing with his legs to change direction. He had a lot of mass to shift, and his legs screamed as he pushed them to his limit. The paladin fired, but Rev was already out of the cone, and the paintball flew harmlessly by.
Now Rev increased his straight-line speed, not at the paladin, but at an angle to its rear. The pedestal started traversing again, but with Rev’s speed, that allowed him to stay ahead for almost three seconds. Rev could cover a lot of ground in three seconds, and he closed the distance.
Not close enough, though. He was still too far.
He conjured up Coach Kirkpatrick, his secondary school flipball coach, and his flop and roll drills. Rev planted his left leg, flung Pashu across his body, and darted back through the paladin’s line of fire. He went low, rolling once before coming to his feet in one smooth move. Rev wasn’t a fan of the maneuver, but the numbers types assured him that by going low, he was increasing his chances of success by fourteen percent. It hadn’t worked the first time. He’d stumbled getting back to his feet, Pashu’s mass throwing him off balance, and gotten nailed.
This time, by some miracle, he was back on his feet and charging. He hadn’t seen if the paladin fired, but it didn’t matter. He had to get within range.
The paladin started accelerating away. Even at eighty-five percent, the AI had correctly determined that it needed to create distance between them.
Seventy meters. I need fifty!
Rev strained, his mouth open as he gulped air to fuel his muscles. His joints jolted with each step, Pashu ramming down on his shoulder as each foot hit the ground. His harness tightened around his chest as they strained to keep Pashu and him in one piece.
“Let me know when I can fire,” he shouted aloud.
He gained with each stride, but the paladin kept the gains in check as it brought around the pedestal to take Rev out.
Which would bring Rev behind the paladin. But he didn’t argue. He pushed off with his right foot, moving him farther away from the beamer’s aim. And it bought him a few precious seconds.
The paladin started to turn to protect its rear, which had less armor. Normally, it would have been a good move, but Rev didn’t want the rear. He wasn’t firing a Moray or Yellowjacket. He wanted one of the two heat-exchanger ports, either the one on the starboard side or the one on the port side.
And by turning, the paladin was letting him close the distance.
But turning also brought around the beamer quicker. The grid was still locked on as it kept calculating the point-of-aim. It flashed red, meaning Rev was about to be dead meat. Still, nothing from Punch. He wanted to fire, but he knew he had to trust his battle buddy.
The flashing red went steady, just as Punch said,
Rev was running, jolting his arm. It didn’t matter. He might as well have just thought of firing, it was that easy. Pashu came up and fired, and this wasn’t a training round.
The intertwined strings of energy twisted and sparked as they covered the distance in a pico-second, and the paladin exploded in a fiery ball of flame that shot thirty meters into the air. The concussion wave hit Rev hard, but it was a glorious feeling, a wondrous feeling. Debris rained down in seemingly slow motion . . . until Rev had to dodge to keep from getting hit by two wheels that bounced by.
Brought back to reality, he slowly turned to face the bleachers, where his entire platoon was on their feet, jumping up and down and screaming like fans at a platinum-rock concert.
“Nice of you to keep me out of the loop,” Tomiko whispered. She’d claimed a spot next to him with Yazzie claiming the other. He was the next bright and shiny thing, and being in their element, they were taking ownership.
Doctor Chakrabarti was debriefing the observers on a portable easel, but from the looks of it, not many of his platoon, at least, were paying much attention. They’d seen Rev run up with a BFG—a Big Fucking Gun—and the paladin go boom. That pretty much explained the situation.
Sure, Colonel Tolouse had rigged the paladin with a little extra explosive for effect, but that didn’t matter. They’d just seen that a Marine Raider could take on, face-to-face, a paladin and defeat it. Maybe it was a TS-40 chassis with a paladin shell on top, maybe it was shooting paintballs, and maybe it was operating at eighty-five percent, but the mere potential . . .
Colonel Destafney was listening intently. Unlike the two generals, this was the first he’d heard about the project, and unlike the platoon, he wasn’t taking a dog-and-pony show at face value.
He interrupted the doctor with, “That’s all well and good to be able to get to fifty meters. With training, I think we could develop the techniques. But tin-asses are remarkably resilient to energy weapons. What makes you think that this braided beam weapon will be any different?”
Colonel Tolouse motioned to the Krueger rep. Krueger was a weapons company, a subsidiary of Sieben.
“I’m Doctor Willinghouse, and I’m the project head for the cannon at Kreuger.”
He must have known the question would pop up, and he was prepared. He downloaded his brief into the easel and turned to the observers.
“The BEC-1 is the first practical application of chaos-physics, as I’m sure you are aware.”
OK, maybe he isn’t as prepared, Rev thought, seeing all the blank faces.
But the rest of his little brief was slick, professional, and best of all, you didn’t need to have five PhDs to understand it. Rev wished he’d seen it before instead of having it explained in terms he didn’t understand. In this case, the animation was really helpful.
If Rev now had it right, Pashu’s beamer didn’t have one projector but rather twenty-one in the nozzle. A random generator created beams of energy at different strengths and different wavelengths, pushing them out through the projectors. Not only were they all different, but they each changed every three microseconds.
As the beams shot forward, they were attracted to each other, creating a “bending” that twisted them around each other, hence the “braiding.” As they braided, they bounced against each other, which sent off tiny tendrils (and created the sparks visible to the naked eye), which further changed the nature of each beam.
With so much
going on, it was nigh on impossible—theoretically—for a Centaur to counteract them all. Throw even more power, and they’d created a BFG—Doctor Willinghouse used the Marine term with more than a little glee.
Of course, those little tendrils bled the power of the combined beam and caused beam dispersion, which was the reason the range was so short, especially in any kind of atmosphere. But that limited range was more than compensated by the immense punch.
Again, theoretically.
And that was why all of them had been gathered. It was time to prove the theory.
Colonel Tolouse took the easel again and put up an image of Rev attacking a paladin. Arrayed around him were Marines.
“Hell, you look pretty studly in that,” Tomiko whispered.
“This is what you’re going to be doing. Sergeant Pelletier will be testing the IBHU against a live target. First Raider platoon will be tasked as his security detail to get him to the objective, then get him back.”
“And where will this be taking place. I don’t suppose you’ve got a paladin stashed away somewhere.”
“Maybe the Frisians think we do, but no, unfortunately,” the colonel said, eliciting a nice chuckle from the Marines in the bleachers. “No, we don’t have a pet tin-ass. But we do have a few who are, shall we say, stuck somewhere. We know where they are, and we’ve kept back from them for just such a need.
“But for now, your mission is to put together an op order, then rehearse the living shit out of it.”
There was a low murmur of voices, and Colonel Tolouse waited for it to calm down.
“And you don’t have much time to get this done. You’ll be deploying in six days.”
33
Rev planted his left foot, pushing him to the right as the riever reacted, spinning around.
You’ve got this, Reverent. Just a few more seconds . . .
Rev wasn’t sure why he couldn’t just fire. The rievers were quicker targets, but they didn’t have the armor of the paladins or coursers. But he was told he needed fifty-five meters before engaging, which was coincidentally—or not so coincidentally—about five meters beyond the Effective Casualty Radius of a Centaur’s shredder anti-personnel weapon.
The riever reversed the spin, darting to the left, which served to bring its pedestal around quicker.
No problem. Rev could reverse as well, dodging to the left and closing the distance in two steps before the Centaur could fire. He stuck out his right foot, and his heel skidded on a spot of loose ground. Pashu’s mass wasn’t a help as he flailed to keep his balance, but he fought through it—just in time for the riever to fire. An instant later, red paint exploded against his chest.
Crap!
“Endex, endex. All hands return to the range line.”
“What happened?”
“No shit, Sherlock. I mean, that was just a small stumble. I slipped more against the courser.”
Rev shook his head. Unless Colonel Tolouse ordered another run, this was the last one before they took off at zero-dark-thirty the next morning. Rev had been feeling pretty confident about his abilities, but this . . . he just hated to leave New Hope on a fail.
He slowly jogged down the range to the line. Around him, the other Raiders were appearing from their positions. Gunny Lupe, the Fifth Team leader, glared at Rev, but no one said anything. The gunny was one of those who didn’t seem enthused about their roles in the mission.
Sergeant Nix jogged up, slapped Rev on the back, and said, “What happened?”
“Slipped. Nothing more.”
“Tough luck on that. But you’ve been on a roll.”
You can be on a roll, but one mistake and your mother gets an official visit from the chaplain.
The colonel and Major Jewell were poring over the feeds as Rev came up.
“Go and dismount, then take fifteen. We’ll do the debrief after,” the colonel ordered.
“See you in a few,” Rev told Nix, jogging back to the trailer.
Daryll raised his eyebrows at the paint, but he didn’t say anything. He opened the door and motioned for Rev to go inside. Rev made his way to his chair and sat while Daryll pulled over the hoist.
As usual, Daryll went about his work without much in the way of conversation. But Rev had overheard something earlier in the day, and it was bothering him. Except for Doctor Chakrabarti—and he surely wasn’t going to ask her—Daryll was the only Sieben employee with whom he spent any time. That didn’t mean they were friends. Heck, Rev didn’t even know his full name.
Something easy enough to fix.
“Hey, Daryll. All you Sieben folks seem to have PhDs. Do you? Are you Doctor . . . ?”
“I’m just a tech.”
That didn’t work. Just ask.
“Not just a tech. But I just realized that you’ve never told me your last name.”
Daryll seemed to think for a moment, then he said, “I don’t think I ever did.”
Rev waited, but when nothing was forthcoming, he said, “Since we’re working so closely together, can you tell me it?”
Daryll fastened the straps to Pashu, then disconnected it from Rev. As always, there was a ghost-whisper, Rev was calling it, like something was wisped away from him.
“Begay.”
It took a moment to realize that Daryll was answering the question.
“Begay? We’ve got a General Begay. He’s in charge of all of New Hope’s Marines. You related?”
There were probably millions of Begays, but Rev just wanted small talk.
“He’s my uncle,” Daryll said as he swung Pashu out of the way and pointed to Rev’s social arm on the shelf.
“Your uncle? Wow, what a small world.”
“Not really. That’s how I got this job. Doctor C wanted certain, uh, concessions, and the general wanted his brother’s boy gainfully employed. That’s the way the galaxy works.” He waited a moment, then added, “But I am qualified, I guess I should tell you.”
That set Rev back, however. If Daryll was connected, maybe he wasn’t the one to ask.
Screw it. Just ask. What are they going to do?
“Hey, I was wondering. Today, I overheard something some of your Sieben guys were saying. I don’t think they wanted me to hear it, though.”
Daryll grunted. “I keep telling them you Marines have all been augmented, including your hearing. For a bunch of smart dudes, it just doesn’t seem to take.”
Ooh. That’s good. He doesn’t act like he considers himself one of them.
“Yeah, we can hear pretty well. But what I heard, it surprised me. They were talking about volunteers.”
With Rev not picking up his social arm, Daryll grabbed it and handed it over. He had no visible reaction to what Rev had said.
“I mean, I’m a volunteer. And there are certainly others in my position, you know, as in missing an arm. But I get the feeling they were talking about, well, Marines who have all their arms. Like maybe they’ll have one cut off?”
Daryll just stared at him.
“I mean, that’s pretty extreme, right?”
“I’m just a tech, and I’m not in a decision-making capacity. I don’t get told much. But sometimes when people talk, when there’re rumors, well, there could be a kernel of truth to that.”
Which was not what Rev wanted to hear. He wanted Daryll to laugh and blow him off.
Before he could ask for clarification, however, the door blew open, and Staff Sergeant Delacrie leaned in.
“Get your arm on and get on the truck, now!”
“What about the debrief?”
“Later. There’s something going on back at camp. Something with the Fries.”
The bus stopped in front of the barracks, and the Raiders poured out. Frisians from the Raiders and recon were straggling out and placing their seabags in
formation in front of the building.
“Stand by. Let me find out what’s going on and where we’ll go for today’s hot wash,” the lieutenant shouted out.
“What the hell’s happening?” Tomiko asked.
Ting-a-ling came down the steps carrying two seabags, one on each shoulder. He plopped them down in front of the line of his soldiers.
“What’s going on?” Rev asked him.
The Frisian turned around with a glare that forced Rev to take a step back. When he saw who it was, his countenance relaxed, but only a bit.
“What’s going on is we’re getting evicted.”
“What? Who?”
“‘Who’ is your Union directorate. All of a sudden, we’re persona non grata. Enemy personnel.”
Rev stared at him, dumbfounded. “Enemy? The tin-asses are the enemy.”
“You’d think, huh?”
“So, what . . . you have to leave?”
“Gave us two hours. Won’t even let us take our weapons. We’ve got to march out like skippy-do prisoners of war, not like warriors.”
“But—”
“I’d like to stand and chat, Rev, but I’m kinda busy at the moment.” He turned away from Rev and faced his soldiers. “Stand tall with your heads held high. Let’s show these Marines what a real warrior is like.”
“Raiders, gather around,” Top Thapa shouted.
Rev gave Ting-a-ling one more look, then joined the rest of the team.
“As you probably guessed, we’re losing our Fries. All of them are being sent back to Fry-land. Our Marines with them, they’re coming back, too.”
“What is this? That tin-ass body we supposedly have?” Nix asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine. But yeah, I’d say so.”
Tomiko pulled Rev’s head down to her and whispered in his ear, “Did we really do this? You and me?”
Rev just shrugged. He knew the two of them hadn’t done anything wrong, but he couldn’t help but feel a little guilty.
“The lieutenant’s locking on a space for our hot wash. Let’s get our weapons turned in and meet back here.”
