“Spit it out. Match what?”
“I say personally, my onboard AI says, and even Karp agrees, that the indentations match that of a Krall single ship.”
Crager whistled as a comment for his surprise. “I think the weird factor has just cubed. The footprints. What do they tell you?”
“The print size is an average sized boot of standard trainee issue, not the custom spec ops foot gear anyone with a Booster Suit would normally own. Three-quarters of any of your volunteers could leave these size prints. I don’t have an exact boot size yet. Average weight is suggested, but I’ll be able to do better when we make casts, measure depth, and test soil compaction. They appear to have crouched on the ball of their right boot to step into the low hatch on that single ship. Either it was opened for them from the inside, or they could key it open on their own. I have never met anyone that could do it on their own unless they had a freshly dead Krall draped over their shoulder.”
“I don't think we’ll find a dead warrior nearby, and I have not heard any rumors that we cracked the Krall equipment codes, but our scientists have been at it for years. Someone must have been inside to open the hatch, and then departed stealthed when the patrol arrived.”
“Right. My supposition as well. Once alerted by the vibrations on the road, the patrol spotted the faint IR footstep signatures leading to the gully. It appears our sneaky one caught a rabbit, barehanded apparently, and threw it over and well past the patrol, apparently to use the rabbit’s noise and heat signature to distract them when he ran back to the fence. The strides on the dirt road, when he started to run for the return jump were very long, and also suggest a Booster Suit was helping.”
“Thanks, Claude. Keep looking. I have someone that I suspect for this caper, but he doesn’t have a Booster Suit on right now. I can’t see how or even why the Krall would possibly be involved. This is not at all like them, so my guess is we have some operational single ships in human hands. It’s still good and dark out there isn’t it?” He had an idea.
“I need my implants to see, but the faint glow on the horizon and my implant clock shows we have sunrise in less than two hours.”
“OK. I may head out in that direction shortly with my suspect. I’ll contact you if I have more questions.”
“Roger, Top. If we find anything really interesting, I’ll Link to you.”
When the Link closed, he gave the AI instructions. “Karp, monitor the unusual transducer frequency we talked about a few minutes ago, and block any outgoing signals on that frequency and notify me.”
“Yes Sir.”
It was unfortunate, but Breaker, on the surface a nice kid and outwardly a patriot, was going to have a fatal training accident before daybreak. Even if he somehow survived, this “accident” would permanently remove him from the training program. The other two men would have some sort of “slip and fall” in the next day or week. Fatal if the evidence supported a need for that result, as he presumed it would. After that, there would be some new prescreening put in place, based on what Crager could find out about these three young men. At a minimum, there would never be another “walk on” allowed.
Breaker appeared to have concealed a Booster Suit somewhere in the camp. How he got one of the tremendously expensive custom-made items was a question for later. If he had one hidden in the camp then the other two probably had them as well. The carbon fiber suits could be folded up into a relatively compact size. Something like a medium tote bag could hold one of them, and they weighed only about forty-five pounds for a man of Breaker’s medium size. Crager’s suit, on his large frame, was fifty-four pounds of very powerful synthetic surface muscle.
Winning the war was vastly more important than following paranoid laws passed two generations ago, when the human race was recovering from the brink of self-induced near extinction. Humanity was on a different brink today, more difficult for non-experts to sense because it approached so slowly. Their fear of the last racial disaster was preventing the implementation of our best possible defense in time for it to be useful. Crager was prepared to make his opponents suffer the ultimate sacrifice, on behalf of this must-win war. A sacrifice he was perfectly willing to make himself.
From the comments made by the six scientists on the spec ops program that were part of the budding genetic development project, even the best humanity had ever done genetically to enhance clones was not enough to turn the tide against the Krall. However, genetic enhancements, combined with a new generation of Booster Suits and other hoped for technology were necessary steps that had to be taken. Moving forward, a future next step could be figured out after this step was taken.
Crager gave the camp AI instructions to continuously monitor the location of Jastrov and Saber, and when possible, record anything they said or did. They would likely discover soon that their transducers no longer worked. He then stepped out of his interrogation cube and released the remaining men back to their barracks, telling them (for the sake of cover) that he would talk to them later.
He released the three door guards and used the auditorium’s configuration menu to lower the walls and desk, and flow away the top of his temporary interrogation room, leaving only the four men locked in the remaining cube room.
Walking to the holding room, Crager used his retinal pattern and thumbprint to open the single door.
Standing at the door, he said, “Everyone but Breaker return to their barracks. I’ll have more discussions with each of you in the morning. Candidate Breaker here has some extra punitive training to complete tonight. It seems he climbed the fence and left camp, and lied about it to me.”
He looked directly at Breaker, and delivered his cover story. “I don’t care if it was a girlfriend you met, or why you did it, but you were not authorized to leave my compound. I’ll work your ass ragged for that infraction, and more so for lying to me.”
The others started out, with a curious look at Breaker, and a nervous nod to Crager, avoiding his glare.
Jorl didn’t know how he had been found out, but he wasn’t going to waste time denying it just to avoid some easy extra exercise. He spoke so the others would hear. “Top, you asked me if I had climbed the fence. I did not climb over it, so I technically did not lie to you about that. I wasn’t asked if I had gone outside the camp, which I admit I did.”
“Well, that’s confirmation enough for me, Breaker. You knew what I wanted to know, and you hid it from me by dodging behind the words you carefully selected in your hair splitting replies.”
“Yes, I also admit I did that.”
Good. He knew the other men had heard him say that, making the discipline he mentioned justified. “The front door is open men, return to your barracks. Breaker and I will spend some fun time on the obstacle course through breakfast, since he has so much energy to spare.” It sounded innocuous enough. He’d stage the accident to look like the tragic result of a candidate trying hard to appease his Top sergeant after violating a rule. Breaker didn’t suspect that he had figured out what the snooping was really after.
“Breaker, let’s jog over to the track, shall we?”
The two of them left the auditorium, and Crager immediately broke into a trot, and waved Jorl to move ahead of him. “Keep ahead of me as I pick up the pace.” He told him gruffly.
Whoever Breaker really was, and wherever he’d been trained, he was able to use a Booster Suit, which demanded a high level of physical ability to master. As he watched him run now, he noted how smooth and lightly he seemed to cover the ground. He didn’t even hear that slap of his feet that most runners made here on Heavyside.
Crager wasn’t surprised. Breaker’s fifteen-foot vertical leap over the fence, plus the horizontal distance covered proved he was even stronger than many of his spec ops instructors. That leap, on Heavyside, was one that Crager would be hard pressed to match due to his recent reduced level of physical activity. That was caused by the needs of the job of running this camp.
However, Breaker was entirely on his
own now, and Crager had the only suit. He was going to push him hard at the start, to judge how fit he really was. He wasn’t going to let him stay on the middle of that bell curve any longer.
He picked the pace up to a run, shoving Breaker’s left shoulder to go faster. They were only a half mile from the track, so he repeatedly increased the pace, forcing Breaker to run all out, taking long strides that matched Crager’s. By the time they reached the edge of the track around the obstacle course, they were nearly in a sprint.
Jorl had easily stayed just a step ahead of Crager, matching every increase he heard in the Top sergeant’s feet striking the ground. This was faster than he’d had to run in training, but not his best speed by any means. It also didn’t seem like Crager had fully peaked either, but they were at the track now. He started around the course clockwise, and suddenly Crager put on a showy burst and passed him, and turned in front and placed a hand on his chest to slow him, as he too slowed while trotting backwards.
He looked at the slightly shorter and smaller built young man. “You have speed, I’ll grant you that. Your nightly practice wasn’t entirely to cover your deception, I suspect, since you don’t seem winded.”
Jorl wasn’t breathing hard, although neither was Crager.
“You seem comfortable in this gravity, Breaker. I know you have been pacing yourself, to stay in the middle of the pack all the way to this point. Your lack of early effort and ability to pick up your performance when necessary was a giveaway when I started looking. Where are you from kid?”
“The requirements to volunteer for this opportunity did not require me to tell you that, First Sergeant. I still choose not to do so.”
“That was the offer.” He agreed with a nod. “However, have you spent time in a heavy gravity orbital station? I’m not asking where, I’m curious how you managed to grow acclimated before you arrived here.”
“Heavyside isn’t the only high gravity planet, Sergeant.”
“It’s the highest one we’ve ever settled,” he countered.
“This sparsely populated, half-empty world is not exactly settled, First Sergeant.”
“Shifting direction again, are we? You do that a lot. The heavier planets are not considered livable, and need environmental suits because there is too little oxygen generation on those even more barren planets. I doubt if you got that healthy tan you arrived here with from inside an environment suit.”
“You are correct. I got my tan the natural way, under a bright hot sun.” Jorl knew this cat and mouse byplay was leading to something more than exercise. He wasn’t being called “candidate” any more. He wondered if he was about to be cut from the program.
Crager shifted subjects this time, back to his stated purpose of exercise. “Why don’t we race to the top of Everest? On my mark.”
Everest was a one hundred twenty-foot high steel and wood framework, with four steeply sloping sides, and a twelve-foot square platform at the top. There were six-inch diameter rough wood poles lashed to a four-sided metal support frame, and squads were timed for which ones could get all eight members to the top in the shortest time. Jorl had heard the apparatus was named after some mountain on Earth, supposedly its highest peak. It was certainly the highest point on the physical training course, located at its center. The candidates had not been permitted to climb that for the first two days; to be certain they had adjusted to the gravity. The next highest obstacle on the main course was a seventy-five-foot latticed rope covered wall.
Jorl was suddenly suspicious. They had never done the highest climbing parts of the course without lights, in the dark as they were now, and never Everest even with floodlights, because shadows made good handholds harder to identify when you were in a rush to win the race. A fall from near the top in 1.41 g’s would be fatal to most people. Crager had night vision implants and he knew Jorl did not, making it safer for him.
However, was that really what Crager thought? Jorl’s high-speed thoughts raced over what Crager had said and heard tonight. He had not asked what Jorl meant when he said he had not climbed the fence. Tunneling under or tearing through the fence had obviously not happened, so if it was not climbed, jumped over was the remaining logical conclusion. His identification as a Kobani wasn’t possible by Crager, no one on Heavyside knew Koban existed, or of its new breed of soldiers. The Avenger came here directly from Poldark, so no word of what was happening there could have reached here.
Only spec ops troops in their Booster Suits had the potential strength to jump that fence. In a flash of insight, Jorl decided Crager suspected him of being trained like the spec ops troops were, and perhaps even had their nerve and eye implants. That would explain Crager’s apparent assumption of Jorl’s night vision and physical ability.
“Hold on, Top. You asked me where I’m from, but who do you think I really am? You know I must have jumped over the fence if I didn’t climb over, and you just challenged me to a dangerous climb in the dark. I’m obviously not wearing a bulky Booster Suit like you have right now, but do you think I also have your IR eye implants?”
Facing towards him, the camp lights were reflected in Crager’s eyes, giving him a sinister look. “Breaker, if that is your name, I don't know where you’re from, or who sent you here. However, if you don’t start climbing when I say go, I’ll drag your helpless ass up there myself.”
Jorl smiled in the darkness, aware that Crager could see his face in infrared. “My name really is Jorl Breaker, and I was sent down here to find a way to help you. Not help you personally, but your Special Operations Branch in general. Although I’m confident you are not about to believe me when I say that. Not yet anyway. I’ll turn you into a believer.”
He’s certainly acting cool and confident right now, Crager thought. I wonder if that smug look will last all the way down, when I toss his ass off the top.
“Start moving, Breaker or I’ll carry you, unconscious if necessary.”
Jorl laughed. “You certainly couldn’t force me to go, but out of simple curiosity, I plan to beat you to the top. I’d even give you a head start, but you would never trust me to follow after you.”
“Go!” was Crager’s only reply.
Jorl, turned towards the obstacle course in the center of the track, and in a smooth burst of his maximum speed, he left Crager briefly gape jawed, believing he was trying to escape. Crager reacted and started after him, his Booster Suit failing to close that widening initial gap and he fell farther behind.
Jorl reached the base of the tower, and in a graceful leap landed fully twenty feet up its side, and in a flurry of hands and feet, found the inch-wide gaps between the six-inch thick horizontal rough logs in the dark. He swarmed up as if on a shallow flight of steps, glancing back to see Crager just reaching the base when he was over half way to the top.
He made an easy one-handed flip up and over the top, to stand and look down at Crager, making his best speed trying to catch up. He saw the man glance up frequently, watching for some trick. It was too dark for Jorl to make out his features, but he assumed the man was pissed. When Crager was within ten feet, Jorl turned and walked to the center of the platform when he knew he was being watched. It permitted Crager to complete an unchallenged spring over the edge, landing in a crouched defensive posture.
His starlit expression up close was confirmed for Jorl. Definitely a pissed off look.
“You’re fast you little shit, I’ll grant you that. You must have on some sort of skin colored slim-line suit.” Spec ops had never done a skin color match on the black carbon fiber Booster Suits. In combat, they always wore Chameleon Skin flexible armor, or more rarely, a hard suit that covered the Booster Suit as well as their uniform.
Crager assumed Breaker had a lighter version of a Booster Suit, which had been colored to blend with his skin. It would have to be a thin version, because the kid didn’t display the thicker body build or the heavier looking muscles, which the standard suit gave a wearer. That implied to Crager that the display of speed was the
primary advantage this lighter suit could provide. The standard suit had a thicker mix of overlaid fibers, some at various angles, to produce strength as well as speed. It could be configured to increase running speed at the expense of strength, and thus forming a slimmer looking body suit.
Crager studied the younger man’s unconcerned expression. Up here, on a twelve-by- twelve platform a hundred twenty feet high, there was no room for Breaker to run, fast or not. He should have used that speed to try to get away. As analytical as Crager thought he was being, he’d forgotten the jump Breaker had made over the fence, which had been more than a result of mere speed.
“Top, the advantage I brought with me is under my skin. It isn’t anything I can remove. I suspect you think you lured me here, to eliminate me as a threat of some kind to your organization, or to the plans for spec ops in the future. Actually, I’ve drawn you up here to prove to you that you have greatly underestimated what I represent. You will have no choice but to listen to and believe what I’m about to tell you. I am already what I believe you want spec ops troops to become.”
“Lying spies? I think not. You can’t call for help either. I have your transducer blocked, and those of your two friends.”
“Ahh ha. You know I didn’t come alone. Are Yil and Fred being confronted the same way right now?”
“I’ll take care of them later, myself. I won’t let you three, or who sent you get in the way of our trying to win this war.”
“Top, we are part of a group that has the best chance to turn the war around, and we came back to Human Space to seek help from interested parties, and to offer them biotechnology they don’t have. We had reason to believe there were interested parties on Heavyside. That’s why we’re here.”
“I know why you’re here, and you won’t take anything you’ve learned with you.”
Crager had been sizing Breaker up as they talked, considering the ramifications of his opponent wearing a limited Booster Suit. There was a trace of lighter sky to the east, so his own night vision advantage, if Breaker didn’t have eye implants, would be gone soon. He didn’t have time to draw out more information from him if the “accidental” neck-breaking fall was to happen unobserved. He lowered his hands and acted as if he were about to relax, but had not straightened from his partial crouch.
Koban: Rise of the Kobani Page 50
