Blind into the Breach (The Hunter Imperium Book 4), page 13
"Orion?"
"Yes?"
"Is there any chance of getting a connection with Captain Murdock?"
"I'll see."
There was a short pause, and the wall opposite me came on, showing him in his command chair.
"Sorry," he said. "Been a bit busy. But I have a few minutes. What were you after again?"
"Some way of seeing while the suit is a belt."
"It's not impossible, just damn hard. The problem is something around the face, while there's no connection to the belt itself."
"Any reason why it has to be a belt?"
He hesitated.
"What did you have in mind?"
"I was wandering if one of these armbands could instead be made into a set of dark glasses, or even an eyes emulation, and be worn as an accessory, instead of clothing."
"Any reason for needing this?"
"Several."
There was a pause, during which his smile widened.
"Such as?"
"Showering for one. Swimming." I paused. "Sex."
He grinned.
"Anyone I know?"
"Just a crazy chick I met."
"That narrows it down a lot."
He was laughing now, and it was apparent he knew a lot of crazy chicks.
"Not one of the alpha team, if that’s who you're referring to."
"No? Hmmm. Could be done I guess. Give me a moment."
His hands started moving like he was using a hollo screen I couldn’t see. I waited for what seemed like ages, but was only a few minutes. A file pulsed in, and his hands went back to the chair arms.
There were a number of suit definitions, which I moved to the correct place in my PC, and activated the first of them.
One of my armbands dropped off, and turned into a face contoured mask, for just a little more than the width of my scar, and about two centimeters above and below my eyes. I pulled up a mirror, shifted back into a normal suit leaving me blind for a moment, pushed the mask against my face, and looked at myself. Very super hero, but my eyes appeared to be staring straight ahead all the time, even when they moved from side to side under the mask.
The next one was what I had with the full suit now, and another armband dropped off and shifted. I swapped them over. Now my eyes were not visible at all, and neither was most of my upper face. But it was pretty much what I’d been using the last few days.
A third armband dropped off, turning into what I recognized as antique shades from old flat screens I’d watched as a kid. I removed the wrap around glasses, and put these on instead. My eyes could be seen from the sides, since these were not fully wraparound, as could some of my scar on each side, but the dark nature of the lenses hid most of the eyes themselves.
All of them gave me the same sight.
Another pulse came in, this time with what looked like the tools for doing suit programming.
"I like the shades," said Captain Murdock. "Try them. Use the super mask for the shower and maybe sex. If you want to tweak them, Jane can help you, but the tools are fairly straight forward. Gotta go. Duty calls."
He threw me a sort of salute, and vanished, without giving me time to say thanks.
Thirty
"Nice shades," said Rockmonster.
"Thanks. Giving them a try."
We'd both just sat down for lunch in the squadron mess. I was now in uniform, with the normal six armbands everyone was wearing now, plus a seventh which was the removable shades. Except there was no point removing them, as then I'd be blind again. But unlike the shades of old, these had to be told to come off, and couldn’t just fall off on their own. I’d tried to make sure.
"Are those scars?"
"Yes." I showed her both sides, by turning my head. "Some sort of shrapnel cut right across my face."
"Why not get them fixed?"
"Never needed to. I've always been wearing something which covered them over."
"You're not now."
"Is it that bad?"
I had actually checked, and it really was the first time I could. After seven years, the scars had healed as much as they were going to, and were not hideous. At least to my sight. Grace hadn't said anything either, although I hadn't asked her.
"No." It was a long no, as if she wasn’t sure. "Not exactly a beauty mark though. Or a traditional hero scar. And it is your choice. Although you might want to stay away from kids."
I frowned at her, and she laughed.
"Noted. You want hero?"
She nodded, smiling. I shifted into the hero mask, and she laughed hard enough to attract the attention of most of the squadron.
"That is freaky," said Watershed. "Your eyes never move. Can you make your eyes move?"
I moved them.
"How was that?"
"Nope, no movement."
I shifted back to the shades, and pinged Jane asking if she could figure out a way to make the hero mask eyes move as mine did underneath it. She had to do something similar herself after all.
When the rest of the squadron had stopped looking at my scar, and Kat put some food in front of me, I started eating, which was an easier form of ignoring them all.
"So," said Rockmonster, resting a fork on her plate. "What was that peeing standing up thing all about?"
"Dude, we're eating!" exclaimed Watershed, now sitting on the other side of her.
"Dudette," I muttered, causing several others to laugh. "Later."
She didn’t look happy, but went back to forking food into her mouth.
"What did you do with your morning?" she asked me a short time later, as we were both waiting for desserts.
"Gym and ground guns, followed by a discussion with Captain Murdock about eye wear, and some time tweaking how they looked."
"Lucky you. I spent all morning after the dawn patrol first doing training, then being bored shitless with quote, officer instruction materials, unquote."
"Oh? Officer Etiquette 101?"
"Something like that. I guess you’ve forgotten it all?"
"Pretty much." I grinned at her. "Actually no, you never forget any of it. The trick is just to soak it in, and use it all immediately."
"Saluting I can understand. Except no-one seems to do much of it here."
"This is a front line warship on detached duty," said Falcon, from down the table. "Always going to be a looser structure, especially for pilots. But the Imperium is still working on adapting the training materials of older services, so a lot of what you have to learn may seem a little…"
He floundered for the right word.
"Obsolete?" suggested Hawk.
"No. Well maybe yes. But since cadets could end up doing anything in the future, they need to get the full training in."
Rockmonster rolled her eyes.
"You may think you're always going to be a fighter pilot," he went on, "but so did most of the captains of our ships. The whole nature of 'navy' has changed with what the Imperator has done over the last two years. Especially considering he never had any military training himself. While cadet training is totally new, it's being structured so a cadet can go on to do anything."
"Even your job?" she asked, smirking.
"Even squadron or wing commanding. Assuming it is decided squadrons of fighters are the way to go, give it a year and we could all be commanding our own squadrons. We do now have a decent population base across the Imperium for recruiting cadets."
"So I'm the Guinea pig?"
About half the squadron laughed.
"Damned straight," said Watershed, and bopped her lightly on the arm.
She ignored it and him, and started into the bowl of custard now sitting in front of her. Mine was an apple crumble, and it went down faster than her custard did. She frowned when my spoon hit the empty plate, and kept eating. I started to get up.
"Don’t you move, mister."
"Yes ma'am," I said while grinning, and settled down again.
She waited out the rest of the squadron heading for the simulators.
"Now," she said earnestly. "What's this peeing thing about?"
"You really want to know?"
"Would I be asking if I didn’t?"
"You could be winding me up."
"Does this look like my winding you up face?"
I made a complete examination of her face.
"I don’t know. Is it?"
She shook her head a few times.
"Just tell me."
"Fine. When you can't see, you can't stand and pee, like men usually do. So the very first time I had to pee sitting down after I lost my eyes, I noticed when I got up again that I still felt the need to pee. It was like sitting only allowed the bladder to half empty, and after I stood again, it was still telling me I needed to keep peeing. Only while sitting, I couldn’t. It took me nearly a year to get past that feeling, and only because I stayed seated for twice as long as I'd previously normally stood, so the whole process could restart until the bladder was empty."
She nodded.
"Too much detail?"
"No. But why did you notice it only then?"
I thought about it.
"Oh. Yeah I’d always sort of known it, but when you just lose your sight, a lot of things change, and it's all depressing. I mean, it didn’t matter how long it took to pee, but was bloody annoying it took longer all the same."
"So now you're back to normal?"
"Yeah. I guess that was a stupid thing to say."
"No, I understand. When something gets reversed in such a major way, it's always going to be something really off beam which highlights itself when you get asked that sort of question."
"Really?"
"I don’t know! It just sounded profound."
"Are you two joining us any time soon?" yelled Vulture from the simulator room.
Thirty One
The HUD was different.
No, it was the same, but there was more on it. Four auto-turret icons were showing, the missile icon showed fifty instead of ten, there was a second missile icon also showing fifty, the torpedo icon showed a hundred, and all three showed available magazine replacements. There were also four fewer guns showing, but they were heavier weapons than I was used to.
"Is this an Excalibur simulation?"
"Yes," answered Jane. "The powers that be decided you were ready to try a step up."
"Okay!"
Even I knew I sounded smug, but I'd been dying to try one of these birds.
The next few hours went past like a blur. I started alone as I had with the Brawler, getting the hang of having point defense turrets, which I configured for missiles first, and protecting the ship from other threats second.
Having front and rear missile launchers was also different, and with the rear auto-turrets, allowed you to fight both in front of you and behind you at the same time. While difficult in the simulator, I was looking forward to being able to use missiles on ships trying to get behind me when I had my full sight out in space.
The front guns cycled a bit slower, but a full hit from them was much more likely to result in a one shot kill. But I also programmed in options for firing four at a time, and one at a time. Sometimes gatling fire was better than salvo fire. With more missiles, I was able to load the magazines half and half. With more torpedoes, I was able to expend more with less worry about them not hitting.
Overall, I spent the first hour on my own, just getting used to the ship with trees to shoot at. The shielding was better, but not significantly better. The handling was almost the same, but the ship itself was significantly bigger, and so there was a little difference in handling, but not enough to change the overall feel.
When I felt ready, I went into the main tree arena, and found Falcon waiting for me. He formed up on my wing, and we dived into the melee. An hour later, he pulled us both out, and we sat down for a drink.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"I want one."
"I thought you might," he grinned. "You're getting one. Are you aware of how effective you were in there?"
"I thought I did alright."
"Alright? You didn’t leave me much to fire at. How did you pick up using the rear launcher so fast?"
"Fast? I thought I was using it pretty slowly. Once I get out into space, I should be able to pick that up a notch."
"I seriously doubt that, but by all means try. It's not looking like we'll be in combat today, so Jane has some time to prepare your new bird for you. Just remember we're not carrying all that many spares at the moment." I nodded. "Anyway, the marines want you for the rest of the afternoon. You better head over there now."
"Aye sir."
My arrow took me to another simulator room, where I was surprised to find the Colonels Peck.
"Are you up to another ship simulation?" asked Amanda.
"What sort?"
"Dropship," said Aleesha, "but a larger one."
"Seems to be my afternoon for larger ships. I didn’t know there was a larger dropship."
"Cobra class," said Amanda. "It's essentially a corvette class ship, but gutted to provide enough armoury space for a company of troops, or for us, five teams of twenty, and has four ramps for rapid exit. The rest of the space is weaponry for the pilot."
"The simulator has a combat drop like the one we did the other day, but using the bigger ship. So the object is to put the teams on the grass, and then fly cover for them."
"Think you can handle that?"
They were still alternating, so I figured that was their default mode.
"Let's see, shall we?"
I sat in the simulator, it closed around me, and the HUD came up. All of my settings for the Excalibur were already there. The ship had the same missile and torpedo setup, but with a lot more spare magazines. There were twelve guns instead of eight, and they were heavier again than what the Excalibur had. Down the middle of each side in a line were twenty mosquito launchers, and there was also twenty four gun point defense auto-turrets, although all the ones capable of firing straight forward could be linked up to the front guns if you wanted to.
"Nice," I said. "Ready to drop."
And drop I did. Like Fearless had, the Cobra dropped clear from one of the rear underside docks. The mission plot showed a direct drop, so while we were going down, I tried firing the main guns several times to gauge how fast the recharge was, and tweaked the firing options for sixes, fours, and single.
I also tried the strafe, and found it identical to the Excalibur handling. With no actual forward thrust, I also tried flipping the bird end for end, and also found it exactly like both the Brawler and the Excalibur. The handling similarity was uncanny, and I was beginning to understand why the CAG was flying something bigger than this, and why Chaos seemed to revel in flying Fearless.
With some experience behind me now, and more than a lot of confidence I hadn't had before, the drop went off as it was supposed to, with the doors opening and the ramps extending about a thousand meters up, and the Cobra touching down lightly. The virtual teams started jumping out before the ramps touched ground, and I had pop-ups showing me their exits.
When the teams were all out, I lifted the Cobra off again, closed her up, and started looking for targets. Not far away, a column of plants was doing their street hedge thing, and I headed that way. The first strafing run was not very effective, as while the fixed guns did a lot of damage, their slow fire meant there wasn’t enough of it. I thought for a moment as I took the Cobra up and pulled it around for another run.
The thought which popped in had me grinning. I pulled up turret options, and reset them to missiles first, ship second, and moving plants third. The whole concept of moving plants actually being an option was funny in itself, but I figured the AI could tell the difference now between a Trixone and a real tree.
The really funny thing though was me inverting the ship, so as I passed along the street, every point defense turret could fire down. It meant the underside was under protected, something to keep in mind, but this was a dropship, not a fighter.
In one pass, the entire mass of plants stopped moving.
Almost immediately red dots appeared on the navmap, and I rolled upright and pulled the bird up and towards them. They turned out to be a squadron of fighter trees, and they all fired their cruiser guns at me together. I juked madly, but still took several hits, but the shields on this bird were significantly better than the Excalibur, and the loss was not significant enough to make me break off.
Knowing they took longer to recharge, I locked up the lead tree, and fired six quick IR's at it. Shifting target to the next closest, I waited until the first tree came apart, and the next one was in gun range, before giving it the full twelve. The next one received four torpedoes, with a similar result. And then I was passed them, firing FF's out the rear launcher.
There were only six left, so I assumed the point defense had taken out two more, and I pulled the slider back to stop, flipped the Cobra end to end, and pushed in the speed to close on the rear tree. They attempted to scatter, but between FF's, guns, and torpedoes, they were all destroyed very quickly. When I checked, I found fifteen mosquito missiles had been fired as well.
With nothing else to target, I flew back to the drop point. Shields had held very well, and were quickly recharging. Over the landing point, I could see the teams waiting, so I dropped the Cobra gently onto the grass again, and waited while the teams all walked back on board.
With no-one left to collect, I toggled the ramps to retract and the doors close, and boosted for space. Back under Orion, I let the AI dock the Cobra.
The simulation ended, the simulator opened, and I found no-one there. An arrow pointed me to the door, and led me to a marine armoury.
Along the wall was a line of combat suits.
BA was standing next to one of them.
She was grinning at me.
Thirty Two
By the time I'd checked out on the marine combat suit, I was exhausted.
BA made the point stick. In a combat drop situation, I might have to do all I’d done in the simulation, and then step into the back of a combat suit and fight with the team on the ground. And that might be after a space battle. And I needed to be fit enough so when I flew back to Orion, I was still ready for another round in space if necessary.
