by Randy Dyess
She didn’t understand, though; she thought the presentation had been great. She’d worked hard on it all week, and Bill had never said he didn’t like it any of the times he’d seen it in the past. Skylar was afraid that arguing would jeopardize her chance at the new position, though, so she just bowed her head and said, “Yes, sir. Sorry. I’ll get it fixed before anyone goes home.”
“You’ll find my notes in that mess. If you can’t understand them or can’t remember how to make a proper presentation, come to me before you screw it up again. Understood?”
Trying not to show the fear and frustration she felt, Skylar responded, “Yes, sir.”
As soon as Bill stormed out of the room and Skylar closed the door, her team groaned, wishing they were on another team. No one ever liked any of the presentations created on Candus. They might have been exactly like ones made on Metros, but because they came from a team on Candus, they were automatically rejected. Everybody in the conference room knew it and all the other team managers knew it. Everyone knew it, except for Skylar.
She turned around and glared at her team. She was angry, thinking she was the only one who had given one hundred percent. None of these outer-rimmers had the drive and attitude necessary to make it off this dirt ball; generations of their family members living and dying on the same planet had washed the ambition right out of them. After all, when you don’t know of a single person whose dreams had ever come true, you tended not to have dreams of your own. Skylar had seen the other side of life when she was living on Metros, however, and her dreams were big. None of her team members had ever even been off Candus, as far as she knew. They could never imagine what it took to work at a real job on a real planet.
“Happy?” Skylar asked them. “Now you understand why we have to put in more hours. We are going to fix this—I don’t care how long it takes. No one is leaving this conference room until we are done.”
No one responded, because they all knew the presentation was fine and that there was nothing they could do to make it better, other than lying and saying that it came from Metros. All they could do was move pieces of the presentation around to make it look like they were doing something different. They would spend hours doing fake work to satisfy Skylar and Bill, because it was about hours spent and not about quality. Candus teams had to spend at least ten hours for every hour a Metros team spent just to make a presentation acceptable. Outer-rim worlds were inferior to core worlds, period.
“It’s not like anyone has anything else to do on this backward planet,” Skylar said.
Just because she doesn’t have a family doesn’t mean I don’t, thought Sandy as she smiled at Skylar. I can’t wait until she leaves—none of us can. The joke in the cafeteria was that everyone should get together and forge a comm packet from some Metros-based manager to inform them of a need for someone like Skylar—something to speed up the process of getting her out of their hair, so they could spend the rest of their lives in peace.
Skylar told her AI to interface with the main viewer and to bring up all the material they had worked on. Once it was on the viewer, she walked up to it, making a show of grabbing the files and throwing them into a virtual trash can.
“Now, let’s start over,” she grunted, “and this time, we do it the right way.”
Chapter 10
Sergeant Major McCoons felt every bit of his fifty years as he tightened up his jump harness and looked over his team. After thirty years in the Terran Marines, he was still trying to keep up with the young and dumb. He knew he should have retired a decade ago, but after seeing his men die in the battle at Pirate’s Bay, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He couldn’t leave his young marines without developing the new tactics they would need the next time they had to take on a whole fleet of pirates. No one else had the experience to prepare a whole new generation for the rigors of life as a Terran Marine.
During the last five years, Sergeant Major McCoons had worked hard to develop, test, and train a new marine assault unit. Today’s training group consisted of twenty-four young men and women, and even though none of them were over twenty-one, they were considered the best the marines had to offer. Every one of them had fought in at least one major battle with pirates, and the oldest three had fought with McCoons at Pirate’s Bay. Sergeant Major McCoons and his veterans knew the dangers faced by an untrained and unequipped assault force. The group of marines assembled in front of him included uneducated outer-rim marines with the brains and toughness needed for the task they’d been asked to do, and it was his job to make sure they were trained.
He paced the narrow aisle of the jump ship while looking over the team. Today, they were testing a new jump suit, and marines would die if anything went wrong. McCoons’ critical eye scanned each marine, looking for any piece of equipment that might be out of place or damaged. Suits built to allow a marine to survive re-entry heat were complicated and required each marine to be sealed, or they would boil during re-entry.
“Mendez!” McCoons shouted. “Tighten up your primary arm motor assembly.”
“Aye, Sergeant Major.”
Each suit was over two and a half meters tall and weighed hundreds of kilograms. Without motors, the marines would not be able to move. The primary arm motor allowed each arm to move in the armor while giving the wearer great strength; it often became misaligned during the hard landing they faced during a space jump. Sergeant Major McCoons knew jumping with a misaligned suit could mean disaster for the young marine. You needed to control your movements during the jump or you would lose control and start a fatal spin.
“Bumpers,” McCoons said, “run a diagnostic; your suit is showing red on my display.”
“Aye, Sergeant Major. Running diagnostic now.”
His display screen showed the icon for Private Bumpers go from red to green. Although the front of the helmet was solid, a display screen was incorporated. Tiny cameras were mounted on the exterior of the suit to provide a three-hundred and sixty-degree view. Each marine could monitor everything around them and everything above them, as well. This new display system was still in the testing phase, and Sergeant Major McCoons had high hopes the marines would adopt them. The display would also function as a battle screen for the suit’s AI system while allowing each marine to see the location of his team mates and monitoring his vital statistics and the status of his weapons. McCoons was currently the designated team leader, and he had the ability to monitor each team member’s suit status, as well as his own.
The display wasn’t just for information, though. When a marine switched his display to show the front head camera, the camera could interact with other suits and project the other marine’s faces. Testing had shown that giving the suit the ability to simulate a transparent face plate prevented the young marines from becoming claustrophobic when wearing the suits for a long period, or when they were training in environments not suited for humans.
“Listen up! Today, we are going to do a little space jump. Get it right and we’ll only jump twice. Screw it up and we’ll keep jumping all day, until you get it right. Weapons are mounted, but not active. Candus has a thicker atmosphere than you’re used to, and re-entry will be bumpier than normal. All of you have done this before, so there’s no reason to screw this up just because of a little turbulence. I want a second diagnostic check on all electronics.”
‘Aye, Sergeant Major,” the team shouted back while starting their checks.
The status of each of the team members went from green to amber as their suits performed a complete check of all electronics and motors. Free-falling from space to ground was not something you wanted to do with failing electronics. When all the icons turned back to green and he was satisfied, Sergeant Major McCoons ran his own diagnostic check.
“Thruster check by the numbers,” he commanded a minute later. The jump ship’s bay was over three meters high, but having twenty-four marines flying around, checking their thrusters, was a recipe for disaster. Sergeant Major McCoons had learne
d to have each marine test their thrusters while everyone else remained on the deck. A bad thruster could cause the marine to lose control and not only damage their suit, but also others around them. It was better to be knocked down to the deck than slammed into a wall, which was Sergeant Major McCoons’ favorite saying.
One by one, the marines rose a few meters into the air as they checked the thrusters. They were essential during the jump and would allow the suit’s wearer to maintain control during the fall and slow down enough to survive the landing. A bad thruster would cause the suit’s occupant to spin during the descent, and spinning at the speeds they would achieve during the jump would turn a human into jelly. All the marines on the team had witnessed this during their last training exercise, when Private Luceno lost control. What had once been Private Luceno oozed out of the suit when Sergeant Major McCoons hit the emergency release button.
“Team test,” Sergeant Major McCoons shouted as the last marine completed their individual thruster test. A space jump or a battle in today’s world was too complex for a marine to perform without help, and each suit was outfitted with a small combat AI, which would constantly judge the position of the marine and provide micro-thrusts to keep them in jump position and on course. Marines would drift hundreds of kilometers during a jump, if the AI didn’t keep them together.
“We’re green,” he instructed the pilot as the marine assault team landed in unison, once their AIs finished linking during the final thruster test.
“Over target. Green to go,” the pilot replied back.
“Load up and count off!” McCoons commanded as their drop ship opened its main cargo hatch.
“Aye, Sergeant Major,” the team yelled as the young men lined up for the jump. McCoons leaned out of the open hatch; he always enjoyed the view at the edge of a planet’s atmosphere, where the daylight below contrasted with the blackness of space.
“One,” Tech Sergeant Chen shouted as he stepped into the blackness.
The other marines followed him, leaving Sergeant Major McCoons as the last marine aboard the jump ship. “Twenty-five and final,” he said to the pilot as he stepped through the open hatch.
*****
As he jumped out of the drop ship and started his long fall to the planet’s surface, Sergeant Major McCoons wondered how something could be both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. As team leader and the last to jump; he could see all twenty-four marines of his team free-falling below him. He, alone, would see if any of his young marines developed a problem serious enough to cause their death, and he, alone, would have to watch as they died.
Since starting the space jump program, forty-five marines had met their end before all the bugs were worked out of the suits. Sergeant Major McCoons hated that the Terran government felt it was cheaper to perform live tests, instead of building a testing laboratory, but they had an endless supply of desperate outer-rim youth to fill the ranks when training accidents happened.
“Formation view,” he commanded his AI. The view in front of him switched from his front camera to a representation of his team’s formation and their flight paths. To land in a defensive pattern, McCoons often needed his AI to override a team member’s individual AI flight path. When he saw a small deviation in the formation, he adjusted one of the team member’s flight paths. He watched the small circle representing Private Meltzer change slightly, turning it from a blinking green to a solid green that indicated the path was now correct.
“Re-entry in five seconds,” the suit’s AI warned. “Final position.” Although the motors in his suit did all the work, Sergeant Major McCoons couldn’t help but lock his muscles as the suit stiffened. Re-entry required a marine to drop feet-first with a locked form. Shield generators on the boots created a small bubble, and any movement could break the heat shield’s bubble, causing heat to build up inside the suit and cook the marine.
“Re-entry,” the AI said. McCoons knew it was all in his head, but he swore he could feel the warmth of re-entry radiating through his suit. He had configured his display to show both the internal and external temperatures during re-entry, but he had never seen the internal temperature rise during previous jumps. He had even downloaded and gone over the suit’s log to confirm that there had been no rise in internal temperature during re-entry, but he always got hot and started sweating.
“Re-entry complete,” the AI said. Four seconds later, McCoons’ suit had refreshed his team’s formation, and he saw that all of his men were in the correct positions. It was a good jump.
“Project landing zone path and warn me five-thousand meters out,” McCoons commanded his AI. His display changed from his team’s formation to a view of the landing zone on the planet. A solid green line projected from each member of the jump team and came together into a solid green mass right over their target: a small rooftop in Candus City. So far, so good, McCoons thought as he watched the planet and their target get closer and closer. Twenty-thousand meters out, he could see the streets of the city and air cars moving about. Ten-thousand meters out, he could see the outlines of the buildings surrounding his target and individual citizens of Candus City during their normal morning commutes, not knowing that twenty-five marines were speeding through the sky toward them.
“Five-thousand meters,” his AI said.
“Switch to formation view,” McCoons commanded. He wanted one last look at the team’s position before the thrusters kicked in for the landing.
“One-thousand meters,” his AI said. “Landing pattern initiated.”
After re-entry, the AI had positioned Sergeant Major McCoons’ body perpendicular to the planet. Falling belly-down, arms out and bent at the elbow, and legs bent up at the knees provided better control during the turbulence experienced in thick atmospheres. Landing, however, was different: the feet had to be down and the knees slightly bent, or Sergeant Major McCoons would crash upon landing.
If the thrusters fired incorrectly, crashing might not kill him, but it would be considered a failed jump. Too many crashes, and you would be washed out of the assault team. Some people just couldn’t take the mental control it took to fall through the sky and trust an AI to control your landing.
McCoons’ display changed from the formation view to a view looking directly down at his target. Even with all the advanced electronics and a suit’s powerful thrusters, testing had showed that a marine needed to see the ground coming up toward him to land correctly. Something about seeing your feet slowly coming into contact with the ground centered the marine and allowed them to make a solid landing without falling over.
“Jump terminated,” Sergeant Major McCoons’ AI said before switching the view to his front camera. He looked around at the circle of marines surrounding him: all of them had made the jump successfully and were in the correct defensive pattern. McCoons let them stay in the pattern for a few minutes while he replayed the jump—he needed to see if he had missed any deviations from the jump plan, because landing in the correct pattern was not the only factor contributing to a successful jump.
“Form up!” McCoons commanded his team after he finished replaying their jump and making notes for corrections. “I’m calling this a successful jump. One more and we’ll call it a day and head back to base.”
“Oorah!” the team shouted in unison. Almost a thousand years had passed since the Marines were first formed, but the old saying wouldn’t go away.
“Oorah!” McCoons shouted back. “Now, give me a complete system check.” The marines all started their diagnostic checks while Sergeant Major McCoons watched the status for each one on his display. The tech nerds always wanted a complete run-down of the team’s diagnostics after they landed to compare to the diagnostics taken before the jump.
He kept an eye out on this team’s status while his own AI performed a check. His second in command, Tech Sergeant Chen, would be responsible for making sure Sergeant Major McCoons’ suit showed green. One by one, the color of his team’s status went from system check amber t
o green.
“You’re green, Sergeant Major,” Tech Sergeant Chen called out.
“All green,” McCoons said. “Get ready to practice a combat load.”
“Aye, Sergeant Major,” the team shouted. The twenty-four marines started moving into a V pattern for the combat load, which normally started with the team leader at the head with the sergeant major in the center. Each marine would turn slightly to their right or left, forming a complete defensive fire pattern with the two anchors protecting the rear. The senior marine would call out the go signals once the drop ship landed and opened its cargo hatch, at which point, the team leader at the head of the V would step backward, and each marine would follow suit until the pattern melted into the drop ship.
“Pattern secured,” Tech Sergeant Chen called out as the last marine formed up. “Ready for load.”
“Aye, Tech Sergeant,” Sergeant Major McCoons responded. “Calling in the drop ship.” Before McCoons could command his AI, he noticed a flash in orbit. “Why the hell are they dropping in before I call?” he yelled. “Team, get ready, the ship’s already coming in hot!” I’m going to fry me one pilot, he thought as he positioned himself for the combat load.
Just then, a sonic boom blasted through their speakers. “What the hell?” Tech Sergeant Chen said. “Sergeant Major, did you authorize a hot entry over town?”
“I did not. I’m going to report this idiot; he’ll never fly another drop ship if I have any say in the matter,” McCoons replied angrily. Three times McCoons tried to contact the drop ship pilot, but the pilot never responded. “Am I transmitting?” he asked Tech Sergeant Chen.
