With Your Shield

by Chris Kennedy

  Panot, who was operating one of the heavy lifting machines, ducked his head. “Oops.”

  Thankfully, there was no one under the slab when it dropped, but it would take hours to clear up the mess so that construction could continue. Terax made his way over to Panot, who was shivering as he sat in the cab of the lifting machine.

  “Ummm…maybe you should go help clean up the mess you made?”

  Panot nodded, reaching for the levers in the cab.

  Terax waved his arms over his head. “No no no! No more! Go pick up the small pieces with your hands. Someone else will take over here.”

  Panot chittered and dropped his jaw. “By hand?! That’ll take forever!”

  Terax nodded. “Yes. You could have killed someone! Now get out of the machine!”

  Panot complied and slunk over toward the mess with his tail wrapped around his leg. The rest of the crew slowly rose from the ground, glaring at Panot as he tried to go invisible. Another member of the crew jumped into the machine and used it to bring over a large container for trash, which was set safely down beside the broken concrete slab…but everyone stayed clear of it, just in case.

  Terax shook his head and chittered to himself. Zuparti were not construction workers. Perhaps he could use some of the physical credits he had in the safe on the ship to pay the Humans to help them build their base, lest some of his crew get killed.

  * * *

  After several hours of labor, the mess was finally cleaned up and construction resumed. Terax had hoped to have the building complete by the end of the day, but that was not to be. He decided to check on Suret’s progress and headed over to a tented area where he was set up.

  As he did not want to send Suret into a panic, Terax walked around so he approached from the front and could be seen. Suret looked up as he drew near and put down the piece of metal he had been examining.

  Terax trilled a greeting. “What news, Suret?”

  “Well, the bugs haven’t touched the shuttles, so it has to be something with the heat shielding…or maybe the different metal…or maybe—”

  Terax cut him off with an annoyed chitter. “So, you’re saying you still don’t know.”

  Suret shrugged uncomfortably. “Pretty much. We can kill them with chemicals, but…well that combination of chemicals would probably kill us, too, eventually.”

  Terax stared at him expressionlessly. “Then I suppose that’s not the optimal solution, hmm?” he asked. “Wait, I’m not breathing that stuff now am I?!” His eyes grew wide, and he held his breath and backed away.

  “Well, no. Of course not!” Suret shook his head, chittering in annoyance. “I’m not that stupid.”

  Terax let out the breath he had held. “Okay, so basically you’re telling me these damn things are going to keep eating our buildings?”

  Suret nodded and pointed to a container where a dozen or so of the flying bugs were flitting around a piece of metal. “I’ve coated it with a resin to see if that will stop them; we should know in a day or two. If it does, we can patch and spray it over our structures to protect them for now. There’s another batch of them with an unprotected piece so I can track how long it takes them to eat through it.”

  He pointed to another container, which held more of the bugs, and a thicker piece of metal. “That’s what our permanent structures are made of. They’ve been in there for a few days, and as far as we can tell, they haven’t even scratched it.”

  Terax nodded. “Keep at it then. I’d really hate to see our permanent structures collapse around us after a year or two.”

  Suret nodded emphatically. “That would be bad.”

  * * *

  Horde Transport Ship EMS War Pony, Hyperspace

  Carrie got up from her workstation and stretched as the next shift came in. Her team had found nothing more about the cryptic message they had decoded, nor had they seen anything they couldn’t crack.

  Sergeant Aaron Clark came up to her. “Evening, Sergeant Baker. I took a quick look at the brief. We’ve got something new to look for?”

  Carrie rolled her shoulders and nodded. “Yeah. We’re scouring for those key phrases and trying to find something to link it to, but nothing yet. Keep going through the traffic and see if anything else of interest pops up.”

  Clark nodded and took the seat she had just vacated. “Will do, Carrie. Go get some rest.”

  Carrie nodded and filed out with the rest of her team. Like most stations on board, the room was at least minimally staffed around the clock, in case something came up that needed them. She floated down the corridor, enjoying the zero gravity near the center of the ship. It was her first time in space, and it was fun if you didn’t think about the vacuum outside the ship’s hull.

  She followed her team, who all seemed ready to eat; she was as well. After she made her selection and sat down, she looked around at the gathered crew; the grouping was large since it was a standard shift change time. She had sat in her cubicle on Earth for years, knowing what she did was important, but this really put it into perspective, and she now understood Markus’ passion for the work. Find the right piece of comm traffic, and you could save lives. Or take them, depending on what you intercepted. She knew, elsewhere in the ship, two companies of CASPer troopers were training, resting, or working on their mechs, getting ready to put their lives on the line for the contract.

  She was also starting to understand Markus’ concerns about them both being here. They were both doing important work, and they couldn’t afford to be distracted. She reflected that she had looked forward to spending time with him after her shift was over but realized it probably wasn’t the best idea. Whatever it was, it would have to wait until they got back to Earth.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Thirteen

  Horde Transport Ship EMS War Pony, Hyperspace

  Markus woke early so he could hit the gym. It had been a few days, and it was the part of his routine from being a trooper he really missed when he didn’t get it. He made his way to the gym and got through most of his workout before an incoming comm request caught his attention. It was Carrie, and he accepted.

  “Hey Carrie, what’s up? Just finishing up my workout.”

  “Good morning. Just wondering if we could meet up for a few minutes before you started your day?”

  He considered, sighing slightly as he headed out of the gym toward his quarters. “Sure, I’m about to clean up then go grab some breakfast. Meet me at the main galley in twenty?”

  “You got it.”

  The channel closed, and he continued to his cabin to clean up. Dressed for the day and ready, he grabbed his slate and headed to the galley, wondering what he was about to walk into. He was busier than he’d figured already, and he knew it was only going to get worse. There just wasn’t time for anything personal on contract.

  He arrived in the galley and looked around as he grabbed some water and something quick to eat. He saw that Carrie had beat him there and had her hand in the air to get his attention. He nodded and walked over.

  She smiled as he sat. “Thanks for joining me.”

  “Of course.” He tilted his head, a bit confused. “What’s up?”

  She sighed. “You were right. Things are a lot different out here on ship on a contract.”

  He nodded as he started to eat. Having conversations while he ate looked to be the new norm.

  “I get it now. Why you were concerned back on Earth. Why you said you weren’t sure—”

  He cut her off with a hand wave. “Carrie, I—”

  She groaned. “Would you let me finish?”

  He blinked and nodded, figuring his best course was to continue to eat.

  “Thanks. Look, I just wanted to let you know that I get it, and…whatever this is between us, well, it’ll have to wait until we get back to Earth, right?”

  He considered her for a moment and then smiled a bit sadly. “Didn’t take long for it to get to you, did it?”

  It was her turn to look confused. �
��What to get to me?”

  “The work. What we actually do. It’s one thing sitting in a room on Earth, but it’s another thing when you’re out here, isn’t it?”

  She looked down at the table for a moment, then looked back up at Markus and nodded. “I always knew what we did was important, but out here…”

  “I know.” He smiled. “Trust me, I know.”

  “And you’re going to have to be out there, aren’t you? In a CASPer?”

  He considered for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, I am.”

  She took a deep breath and nodded. “Then you’d better get to work, and so should I.”

  Markus finished the last bite of his breakfast and chugged the last of his water before nodding. “Indeed so, Sergeant. We’re counting on you. I’m counting on both you and your team.”

  She smiled, nodded, and left the table without another word, then headed out of the galley.

  Markus let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d held and policed up his trash before he also headed out.

  * * *

  Markus walked into the conference room beside the CASPer hangar and got right to business. “Okay, status reports?”

  Specialist Kawa spoke up first. “Sir. I’ve fit in all the new sensors I can without losing anything or risking the integrity of its structure. I estimate we’ve doubled the sensor capacity and increased the sensitivity by several factors. I’m not sure if it’ll get up to the levels you want, but that’s the best we can do without removing things or putting arrays on the outside of the armor, which I highly recommend against.”

  A model of the CASPer appeared on the Tri-V projection in the middle of the table, slowly turning. Several areas of the mech were highlighted in red. “The red areas indicate where I’ve added sensor receivers.”

  Markus leaned back in his chair. “I’m impressed, Kawa. What’s the down side? I assume there has to be one, or we’d put these sensors on every CASPer we have.”

  “Yes, sir, there is. Power. The additional draw of these will cut the operational time and range of the mech by about seven percent. It’s exponential with each new receiver we put in, and that accounts for any extra power the computers might draw. We might be able to get away with it on the other scout models, but I doubt it. There’s no way we’d want to try it on the heavier combat models. There’s also a bit of a weight difference. I know it might not seem like it, but sensors are actually pretty heavy when you start to add this many and then network them all together. This will also affect how it flies, too.”

  “Fair enough. Good work, Specialist. How much more does that get us?”

  Kawa shrugged. “Honestly, sir, we don’t know for sure. The only way we’ll know is to turn it on and try it. Hell, it might even be too much, and the signals might interfere with each other, but we think that’s unlikely. We do know you won’t want someone standing in close proximity to this particular CASPer without some kind of shielding, though. The emissions from this thing could very well cause some problems.”

  Markus arched a brow. “Problems?”

  “Well sir, not only does it generate a strong electromagnetic field, but it also uses radio frequency radiation. At these levels, it may be dangerous with long-term exposure.”

  “May be?”

  Kawa had to shrug again. “Again, this is new. We’ve never had so many sensors on a single mobile platform like this.”

  “So basically, it’s something else we won’t know until we button the suit back up and turn them all on.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Fair enough. Specialist Burke, how does it look on the drones?” He turned his gaze to her.

  She leaned forward. “We did some testing yesterday. Most of our stock drones, even without modification, can detect a laser communication if they’re directly in the line of it; they just don’t know it because they’re not programmed to look for it. They’re built for visual surveillance; nothing else.”

  Markus rubbed his chin and nodded. “Can I get to the code?”

  “Well, that’ll have to be cleared by the boss. I know I don’t have access to it.”

  “Okay, noted. I’ll see what I can do about that…but you think that, given modifications, they could be used to report back that they’d detected a laser transmission?”

  She nodded. “I don’t see why not.”

  “Okay, well that’s something at least…though I don’t look forward to the idea of trying to figure that out.”

  The entire group chuckled at the look on Markus’ face.

  “Okay, okay. Steph, launching system?”

  She shook her head, and her black-braided hair swung back and forth behind her head. “It’s all too much. Anything we could use to launch the drones would likely destroy or at least compromise the drones or the electronics in them. They’re small, sensitive platforms, and they’re not meant to be projected that fast. We could try modifying the hardware, but I think it would be a waste of time.”

  “Understood. So that idea is basically dead.” Markus sighed, clenching his jaws for a moment.

  “Not necessarily…” Volk said absently as she stared off into space.

  Hobo squinted at her. “I know that voice…what’s the brainstorm?”

  She seemed startled, and her eyes focused again. “Oh…I just.” She took a deep breath. “What if we adjust the bracket, and just mount the entire crate to the CASPer?”

  Hobo blinked, and Markus sat back to let the crew work it out. Hobo said what everyone was probably thinking. “What?”

  “Seriously…The drones pretty much launch themselves, don’t they?” She looked over at Burke.

  Burke nodded. “Sure. Give them a job, and they go do it.”

  “Okay, so we just mount the crate, give you a way to pop it open, and let the drones fly out to where you want them to go.”

  Hobo leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “Hell, why not just make the whole crate so you can just grab it off your shoulder, set it down, and open it up? That way we could technically still have a MAC on the shoulder to spring up and wouldn’t have to do any fancy wiring to the crate itself.”

  Volk quickly followed. “And put small explosive bolts to jettison it if things really went to shit. A few might break on impact, but most of the drones would still be useable. It could be triggered by the same signal that rotates the MAC into place in case of emergency.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Kawa said. “You’re saying you want to put a mounting bracket on the bottom of a crate of drones, and just pop it up on the shoulder of the mech?”

  Volk and Hobo both nodded.

  “And also have a MAC on the same shoulder, and if the trooper sends a signal to bring the MAC up, it jettisons the crate, or the trooper is able to pull the crate down manually and just open it?”

  Volk and Hobo nodded in unison again.

  “You’re nuts!”

  Markus grinned. “I take it you’ve never worked with Hobo or Volk before…”

  Kawa shook his head.

  “Well. They’re both certifiable, but they’ve been working on my CASPers for a while, so if they have an idea, I want it tried out.”

  Kawa ran his hand through his close-cropped hair. “Yes, sir…we’ll take a look at the specs and see what we can do. No promises though.”

  Markus raised his hands in surrender. “That’s all I can ask. Take a look, give it a try, and see where we go from there.”

  Burke cleared her throat, and everyone turned their heads to look at her.

  “There’s one thing to consider, sir. Well, several I’m sure.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that, but go ahead.” Markus frowned slightly.

  “The cost, sir…These drones are, well, pretty expensive, and we only have one crate each of two different models for testing purposes. There are more, of course, for use planet-side…but…” She shrugged.

  Hobo laughed. “Oh, don’t worry. We’ll be testing with empty crates and load them down with something to
make up the weight. If,” he glanced at Kawa, who nodded, “we get the system to work, only then would we try it with real drones. None of us want the major or the colonel coming down to visit. But consider this. We’ve already been given a CASPer to play with. I think the boss wants this to work.”

  Everyone at the table seemed to sober a bit with that thought. Markus used the silence to wrap things up. “Okay, so we have a few things to look at. It should come as no surprise that I was told yesterday that I’ll be the person taking this particular CASPer out for testing.”

  Hobo and Volk both nodded and looked worried.

  He turned his focus to them. “It was Hazard I talked to. He’s got some new squad leader he’s going to send me out with named Brandon Johnston. Either of you heard of him?”

  Volk and Hobo both nodded. Volk spoke up. “We used to work on his CASPer. He came in from some small outfit that folded. Based on the handling I’ve seen, he seems pretty competent. Maybe not as good as you, but still pretty good.” She grinned at the last.

  “Yeah, yeah. Flattery still won’t get you a bonus.”

  She and Hobo both chuckled as Markus stood to end the meeting.

  “Okay folks get to it. I think we all have plenty to do. Let’s say…three days, and we’ll meet up again. If you need me in the meantime, just let me know. Otherwise, I’ll be holed up in here or in my cabin working on the sensor interface code and seeing if I can get my hands on the drone code.”

  * * *

  Back in his quarters after he ate lunch, Markus sat down and opened a comm channel to Major Megetu Enkh, who accepted.

  “What can I do for you, Spartan?”

  “Good afternoon, Major. I need to get access to the source code for the surveillance drones my team has.”