With Your Shield

by Chris Kennedy

  “How have your sims been going?”

  Markus nodded. “Not as good as when I was doing it every week, of course, but still fair.”

  “Fair? I heard you scored a 94 on your live-fire.”

  Markus smirked. “Okay, sir. Fine. Yes, I’ve still got it when it comes to shooting targets.”

  “Good. Your CASPer is coming along on the contract.”

  Markus stopped in his tracks. “Sir…”

  Major Good held up his hand, and Markus stopped talking. “Spartan, let me finish…”

  Markus nodded, and they resumed walking.

  “As I was saying,” Good continued, “your CASPer is coming along, as well as a spare.”

  “A spare, sir?”

  “Yes. The colonel wants you to start working on your super-scout idea.”

  Markus glanced sidelong at Good. “I won’t ask how anyone even knew about that…it’s just an idea I’ve been messing with.”

  “We know, but there’s no time like the present to see if it will really work. Look, Spartan, I don’t know all the details, but the colonel is worried about something, and she wants every tool we can get. This is one possible tool we might be able to use.”

  Markus pondered, staring off at the distant mountains which surrounded the area. “This won’t be cheap, sir.”

  “She knows that too, Spartan. We’re giving you a budget and a team. I have a few recommendations, and Major King threw in some recommendations as well. I have the list back in my office. We’ll go over it there.”

  They walked in silence for a few moments, then Major Good snapped his fingers. “One more thing I forgot…”

  “There’s more?” Markus asked.

  He reached into his vest pocket and tossed a box to Markus, who caught it easily. “What’s this, Major?”

  “Open it and find out.”

  Markus opened the box and looked at the contents. “Ohhh nooo.” He shook his head.

  “Non-negotiable, Spartan. Not to mention, you’ve earned it, probably several times over.”

  Markus looked at the lieutenant’s insignia in the box and sighed. “Me? An officer?”

  Major Good nodded. “Welcome to the dark side, Spartan. Sorry there wasn’t a big ceremony or anything, but the colonel doesn’t want to bring a lot of attention to your project, especially while we’re still on Earth.”

  Markus tucked the box into one of the chest pockets on his uniform. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate the confidence.”

  “We’re all confident in you, Spartan.” Major Good opened the door to computer ops and held it for Markus. “Now you need to be confident in yourself. Let’s talk more in my office. Go ahead; I’ll meet you there.”

  Markus nodded and walked into the building, heading straight for Major Good’s office, while Good peeled off and headed over to the communications section.

  * * *

  Major Good approached Sergeant Baker’s station and said, “How’s it going, Sergeant?”

  She looked up and smiled. “Just fine, sir. What can I do for you?”

  “I need you and your team looking for the planet Kelfor-6 in any communications. Spartan mentioned in the briefing today he’d seen it.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell, sir, but we’ll start digging for anything we can find.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant.” He turned to walk away but then stopped and turned back around. “Have you ever been off planet?”

  She shook her head. “No, sir.”

  “Well, I think we’ll be bringing you and some of your team along this time. We’ll probably also bring Sergeant Clark and some of his team.”

  “Um…okay.” She looked confused.

  “The comm traffic lately has us more than a little concerned, and we want people familiar with the latest encryptions with us, just in case. You can probably also help Spartan with some of his tasking on-planet.”

  “Anything I can do to help, sir.”

  “Good. You have two weeks to prepare and pick who you want to bring. Let’s say three people.”

  She nodded. “Can do.”

  * * *

  Markus stood waiting in Major Good’s office. He thought about the contract to come and the idea of actually getting to build his CASPer concept. He started mentally making notes on the things he would need. He was pulled from his thoughts as Major Good came in and closed the door behind him.

  “Have a seat, Spartan. I have Sergeant Baker working on that comm traffic, so we’ll see what she finds.”

  Good sat behind his desk as Markus took a seat in one of the two chairs opposite him. Good picked up a slate from his desk. “Here’s what I’ve got…Sergeant O’Borne and Specialist Stephanie Volk will be along, since that company is coming along on the mission, and I’m putting them on your team for their expertise. We’ll also have Specialist Burke; she’s one of our counter-intelligence people. She can assist with drones, and she’ll be bringing a few folks with her.”

  Markus leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “You really do keep an eye on everything.”

  Major Good glanced up and grinned. “Yes, Lieutenant, we do. That’s one of the tasks given to Special Projects.”

  Markus chuckled. “Okay, who else?”

  “Next, we have Specialist Kawa. He’s one of our Binnig-trained personnel from Maintenance Control. He’ll be bringing a few of his team along as well to help on that end.”

  Markus nodded thoughtfully.

  “Beyond that, you’ll have the same maintenance crew that works on Alpha Company’s CASPers to assist. We want you working on this, Spartan…but don’t let it get in the way of the contract’s goals. That said, we’d like to see a working prototype by the time we arrive on planet.”

  Markus’ jaw dropped. “Sir…”

  “Spartan, we’re looking at two jumps, plus some extra time. The colonel wants us to stop by and investigate that system you found with the beacon, so you’ll have at least two weeks.”

  Markus let out a heavy breath. “Okay. We’ll do our best, sir.”

  “Never a doubt, Spartan. You’ll meet with your team in an hour over in the conference room here in the operations center. Until then, go get your uniform fixed. You’ve got the wrong rank on it, Lieutenant. Then get your team started on the software.”

  Markus stood and headed for the door, somewhat overwhelmed. “Yes, sir. And uh…thanks.”

  * * *

  After correcting his uniform, Markus still had 15 minutes until his new staff came together, so he headed over to the Special Projects group in computer ops. He had reviewed the full mission brief, which he had downloaded to his pinplants while he worked on his uniforms. He gathered Sergeant Christine Russell and Staff Sergeant Albert Le to handle assignments.

  “Okay, you’ve both seen the brief, I assume?”

  “Yes, sir.” They answered almost as one.

  He shook his head and smiled at the new salutation. “This is going to take some getting used to. Anyway, as I’m not yet familiar with your teams’ strengths, I’ll ask your input. I need one team working on modifying our automated weapon mount software and the other team on the structure and software for their command and control.”

  Staff Sergeant Le spoke first. “Sir, my team can handle the weapons. I was actually on the team when it was first written, so I’m very familiar with it. I assume we want to take out some of our more…custom aspects, but give them something better than off-the-shelf?”

  Markus nodded. “Exactly. It represents us, after all, so it’s got to be better than shelf-ware, but we don’t want to give away all our tricks.”

  “Can do, sir. It’s pretty well layered, so we should be able to remove the tweaks from our custom software without too many problems.”

  “Okay, Sergeant Russell, that leaves your team with the command and control. Same thing there but remember that it will be communicating with a station in orbit and coordinating the landing of large trading vessels.”

  She nodded. “No problem,
sir. The modifications won’t take too long. All of our best custom code is in subroutines that can be easily removed, and the rest will work just fine without it. I’d say give us a week, and we can test it.”

  “Thanks. It’ll be a pleasure working with both of you.”

  “Glad to serve with you, sir,” Le said, as they both saluted.

  “That’s going to take getting used to too…” He returned the salute and headed off to his other meeting.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Nine

  Conference Room, Computer Operations, Golden Horde HQ, Uzbekistan, Earth

  Markus walked into the conference room and sat at the large table. Four personnel were already there. Hobo and Volk grinned when they saw the new insignia on Markus’ uniform.

  “Congratulations, sir,” Volk said.

  Hobo grinned. “So, you joined the dark side, Spartan? I swear I thought you’d be a career NCO like me.”

  Markus chuckled and waved everyone down. “Have a seat everyone. Before we start, let’s get acquainted. As you can probably tell, Hobo—that’s Sergeant O’Borne—and Specialist Volk already know me. They’re on the crew that maintains my CASPer.”

  The other two enlisted personnel raised their eyebrows.

  Markus grinned. “That’s right; I used to be a trooper, but now I’m in intel. You would be Specialists Burke and Kawa?”

  “Yes, sir,” they answered in unison.

  “Wait,” Burke said. “You’re Spartan? The intel guy that writes some of the sims?”

  Markus nodded. “That would be me.”

  Burke nodded. “Well, now things are starting to make sense.”

  Markus grinned. “Okay, as to why we’re all here. Did the major brief you on our little project?”

  They collectively shook their heads. “All I know,” Kawa said, “is that I was told to report for a briefing on a new special project, and that some of my team would be coming along on the next contract. I have a brief on the contract, but nothing on this.”

  “Same here,” Burke added.

  “Okay then…the project is a modification of our scout CASPer. The idea is to make it even more sensor heavy. This is all highly classified and speculative. The first aspect deals with what happened to my squad back when I was in a CASPer. Better sensor intel. The scout mechs already have decent sensors, but they could be better. The only thing standing in the way is we typically don’t want to lose weapon and storage space for a better sensor suite, but in this case, that’s exactly what we’ll do.”

  Eyebrows rose around the table, and Hobo let out a low whistle. “Spartan, you know I’m with you no matter what, but what you’re talking about here…”

  Markus raised a hand to stop him. “I know…it’s a lot of work; that’s why we have this team. Specialist Kawa is one of our techs from Maintenance Control, and Specialist Burke is from counter-intel.” They each nodded when they were introduced.

  Hobo grinned. “Okay, sir. Keep telling me how you’re going to make my life more miserable.”

  “So far, we already have one big piece of the puzzle…Colonel Enkh has given us one of our current, brand new, scout CASPers to work with.”

  “Holy shit, Spartan,” Hobo nearly jumped out of his chair.

  Markus nodded. “We’ve also got a basic list of equipment based on my general ideas…but it’s going to be up to you folks to put the final requisition together and get it handed in to me within the week. I’ll approve it and forward it to Lieutenant Alimova in logistics, then make sure everything we need is on War Pony, rather than the second hauler we’ll be contracting. We have a budget, but it’s pretty generous, so I doubt you’ll run into any problems.”

  Everyone leaned back in their chairs, the collective weight of the project taking hold. For the first time, Markus really considered just how many credits he was going to spend on an idea he wasn’t even sure would work. The CASPer alone was worth around half a million Galactic Union credits. It was fun to think about possibilities like this, but when the bills started coming due, it got very real, very fast.

  “Well, sir, tell us what else you want. We know you want more sensors…but to come up with a list we’ll need a lot more info,” Kawa said.

  “The goal is to be able to detect even small electronics.”

  Kawa leaned forward in his chair. “How small are you going to want to detect?”

  “As small as one of our stealth drones.” Markus looked between Kawa and Burke. He knew what he was asking was going to be difficult.

  “Well, shit…” Kawa leaned back and scratched his head. “You’re serious about this being a sensor heavy mech, aren’t you?”

  “You have no idea. You give me the hardware and capability, and I can write the interface to process it. Next, let’s talk about exterior and deployable equipment. Based on things I’ve recently seen, and things I experienced in the past, I’m concerned about comms. Would it be possible to take the same premise we use for our laser shields on the CASPers, and use it for detection?”

  “What?” It was Burke’s turn to lean forward.

  Markus nodded. “Here’s what I’m thinking. If we take the same kind of material, put it on a sensor platform in a very thin layer, we could use it to detect laser communications instead of deflecting lasers.”

  “Okay, let’s say we could figure that out,” Burke responded. “You do know how small and tight those lasers are don’t you? The odds of coming across one with, I’m assuming you mean to put this on a drone, are infinitesimal!”

  “Yep,” Markus responded. “That’s why we shoulder-mount a converted launcher to put, say, a hundred of them into the air at once. The idea isn’t to stop the transmissions, but to find them so that we can guide a CASPer squad or air assets to the location. Is it possible? I have no idea, but that’s what I want to find out.”

  Burke’s look became thoughtful, and she rubbed her chin. “That’s interesting. They would have to be micro—we’ve never considered that before…but it sounds like it could be useful if it works.”

  Volk furrowed her brows. “A converted micro-drone launcher? Okay, we can try.”

  Markus nodded. Volk seemed to like taking things apart, to the point it drove Hobo crazy, and now Markus was telling her to do it. He grinned at Hobo.

  “Think that’s enough to come up with an equipment list? Remember, we’re going to be on contract for a while, so if we don’t bring it, we won’t have it.”

  Kawa looked thoughtful, “I think so, sir. I’ll let you know if I have any questions.”

  Markus nodded. “Burke?”

  Burke shrugged. “That should be enough to start with. I’ll get the list together by the end of the day tomorrow.”

  “Hobo…Steph?”

  Volk nodded, and Hobo spoke up. “Sounds like we need to bring a little bit extra of everything.”

  Markus chuckled. “Don’t go overboard, Hobo.”

  “We’ll get it figured out, sir. I’ll talk to the other folks in the company and have them handle getting the company ready for transport. Steph and I will put our heads together for a day or two and get the list to you.”

  Markus nodded. “Okay, folks. Dismissed.”

  Hobo lingered behind and closed the door behind the last person out.

  “What’s on your mind, Hobo?”

  “You know…” He turned to face Markus. “We’re also bringing your regular CASPer along.”

  “Yeah, I know, but I won’t be leading a squad into combat this time.”

  “You hope. You know how it goes on a contract. Things happen to fuck up the best of plans.”

  Markus looked down at the table and nodded. “I know…and I know what could end up happening. I need you on this one. Let’s take my crazy ideas and make them happen so no one else goes through what I did. Oh, and I might as well try to schedule some sim time before we leave.”

  “So no one goes through what we did, Spartan…” Hobo said as Markus nodded. “Anyway, you got it. We’ll get
started stripping down the prototype once we’re past the first transition. Just shout if you need anything else.”

  Markus nodded as Hobo left and closed the door behind him. Markus was alone with his thoughts and memories for a few moments, then he headed back to his new team to see how he could help get the software ready for the contract.

  * * *

  In computer ops, Carrie and her team were doing their usual tasking—reading every communication message they could intercept, which was a lot. Carrie frowned when she had a message pushed to her queue from one of her team, with ‘Kelfor-6’ specifically mentioned.

  She commed Major Good immediately. “Sir, we’ve got another hit on Kelfor—the planet name specifically—and we’ve found a few others in historic traffic.”

  “Okay,” he responded. “What do we have so far?”

  “Nothing specific, sir, but we did trace the latest one to a Bakulu trading vessel, transmitting to, get this, a MinSha trading vessel. The Bakulu was just arriving from Karma it looks like, and the MinSha was on the way out.”

  “Any idea where the MinSha vessel was headed?” Major Good asked.

  “No idea, sir. The MinSha had done some offloading at the starport in Houston, but beyond that, we’re not sure. Probably a safe bet their first stop will be Karma, though.”

  Major Good nodded. “Okay, Carrie, keep an eye on that Bakulu trader. Let’s see what they do. I’ll let the boss know what’s going on.”

  * * *

  Downtown Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Earth

  Markus and Carrie sat at a dark table in the back corner of a small bar not frequented by the Horde’s members, for obvious reasons. Only Markus’ size, and possibly the gun on his hip, kept them from being victims of one type of crime or another. Both were dressed in normal local clothing, with no indicator of their affiliation with the Golden Horde, aside from not looking like the locals. Markus took a drink of a local beer from a bottle and leaned back in his chair, which groaned in protest.