Asbaran Solutions (The Revelations Cycle Book 2) Read online

  “So what are you planning on doing with me? Why haven’t you killed me like you did my father and brother?”

  “I’ll bet you’d like to know, wouldn’t you?”

  “Well, it’s obvious I won’t be allowed to leave. I know you used banshee bombs to capture the outpost here. Those bombs are illegal; I doubt you’re going to let me tell everyone about it.”

  “Aren’t you the smart one?” Tranayl asked. “Of course you’re to be killed, but right now, you are the bait we need to get your brother to come.”

  “But why? Why do you have to kill him here? Can’t you just shoot him back in Houston and be done with it?”

  “Ah, nothing is ever as simple as it seems, and the answer to your question is no different. The point of this isn’t just to have your family dead.”

  “Could have fooled me. It looks like you’re doing a pretty good job of it.”

  “Oh, we want you dead, make no mistake about that, but that is only part of the plan. We want your family totally discredited first. Not only are you all going to die, but you’re going to do so while failing to complete this contract. It is perfectly timed for him to die as the contract expires. Not only are you discredited, but we get paid for the contract in your place. The officer who thought up this plan was a genius.”

  “My family isn’t finished yet.”

  “From what I hear about your brother’s ineptitude, it soon will be.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Fourteen

  Houston Starport, Houston, Texas, USA

  Nigel slid into the CASPer shell, finding it easier to don this time. The only problem—he couldn’t stop staring at the suit’s armament while he mated his leads to the suit. An autocannon hung from the outside of his left arm and a coil gun from his right. A giant knife blade, bigger than the blade on a medieval polearm was also mounted to his left arm, but was retracted back into its sheath. Every time his eyes strayed to the missile pack on his right shoulder, a grin split his face. Nigel had seen armed soldiers go off to war a number of times, and off to the firing range more times than he could count, but this was the first time he had strapped on an armed suit. He had to fight the urge to giggle.

  “How’s it fit, sir?” Sergeant First Class William Mackenzie called up. Nigel couldn’t remember a time the tall, broad-shouldered armorer hadn’t worked for the company, first as a trooper and then, after losing his legs during a mission, as the chief armorer. “I had a couple of minutes to update the interior of the suit after you left last time.”

  “Like a glove,” Nigel replied. The CASPer suit interior was adjusted via moveable padding and straps after a detailed laser scan; Mackenzie had set his up perfectly.

  Nigel finished strapping in and closed the canopy. This time, as his reticles came alive, the weapons’ status readouts were different; not only were there weapons attached, but the ammo indicators were green and showed 100%. Cool.

  “Check all weapons safe?” Mason asked from the cockpit of his CASPer.

  “All green and safe,” Nigel agreed, checking his readouts.

  “That’s more weapons than you’re likely to ever have mounted on your suit at one time, especially with the autocannon,” Mason added, “but we wanted you to get the feel for as many as possible today, since our time is short.”

  “Ready to release?” Mackenzie asked.

  Nigel flexed all of his extremities; he had a full range of motion. “Ready.”

  The suit fell to the ground and Nigel flexed his knees to absorb the shock, foregoing the superhero landing. If Mason didn’t understand it the first time, Nigel doubted that most of the old-timers standing around would appreciate it now that the suit was armed. Too bad; he really was ready to rock.

  Nigel went through the rest of his checks and nodded. After a couple of seconds he realized Mason couldn’t see him. “I’m ready.”

  Mason led him to the end of the runway then down the path to the weapons range. The area was a square 1,000 feet per side that had been dug 20 feet down into the ground, with all the excavated earth pushed up to the sides in a massive berm that encircled the range. A variety of targets were scattered throughout the pit, with the hulk of an ancient Jivool tank at the far end.

  “Initiate range mode,” Mason said.

  ‘Range mode enabled’ scrawled across Nigel’s head’s-up display for three seconds, indicating the suit’s safety interlocks would prevent its weapons from firing if the suit calculated the rounds would leave the confines of the training grounds.

  “Range mode confirmed,” Nigel said.

  “Good,” Mason replied. “The Houston officials get pissy if you start lobbing missiles into the city. Okay, one at a time, we’re going to cycle through your weapons and try them out. Chain gun first. Let me know when you’re ready.”

  “Chain gun first,” Nigel repeated, arming the 25mm autocannon. A derivative of the venerable M242 Bushmaster, the weapon was mounted to his left arm with a metallic link belt that ran back to the storage drum mounted on his back. General purpose in nature, the gun was hell on troops in the open and could also be used on lightly-armored vehicles and aerial targets. Although it could also fire high-explosive incendiary rounds, Nigel’s suit was currently armed with armor-piercing shells.

  “Arm chain gun,” Nigel said inside the suit, and the targeting reticle in front of his left eye switched to red, indicating the weapon was ready to be fired. “Normal rate of fire.” An ‘N’ appeared next to the symbol for his left arm weapon, signaling that the cannon would fire at 500 rounds per minute rather than its lower rate of 200.

  “I’m ready,” Nigel reported over the external speaker. “Chain gun armed, normal rate of fire.”

  Mason surveyed the range to make sure it was clear. “Clear to fire!”

  Nigel picked an old hovercar in the center of the range and enabled the laser rangefinder. Holding the reticle on a hole in the driver’s door, he flexed his index finger as if pulling a trigger.

  “Brrrrrrrp!” The suit safed itself as Nigel was thrown over onto his back. “What the hell?” Nigel asked as Mason helped him back to his feet.

  “That’s a lot of gun for a suit,” Mason advised with a chuckle, “especially at its normal rate of fire. You’ve really got to lean into the shot or it’s going to…well, as you saw, it’s going to knock you on your ass.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” Nigel muttered inside his suit. “Asshole.” He bent his knees and leaned into the shot. “Brrrrrrrp!”

  Holy crap! Even though he only held the trigger for a little more than a second, the ammo remaining dropped by nine. 1,500 rounds seemed like a lot…until you realized it could be expended in three minutes. And his rounds had hit two feet low and to the left.

  “Low rate of fire,” Nigel said as he made the adjustment necessary to the targeting system. An ‘L’ appeared briefly. “Firing,” he broadcast.

  Nigel fired at the hovercar again and the rounds hit where he had aimed. He shifted his aim and put five rounds into the control section of a large, unmanned aerial vehicle. He switched again and hit just outside the bullseye of a target at the far end of the range. Although 1,000 feet away, it was well within the weapon’s 10,000 foot effective range. He used the suit’s optical zoom and put the next three rounds into the target’s bullseye.

  “This is fun,” Nigel said, cycling between targets as fast as he could. Once it was adjusted, the laser targeting system made it deadly accurate.

  “All right,” Mason said. “Let’s see the MAC.”

  “You got it,” Nigel said, arming the magnetic accelerator cannon on his right arm. His right reticle turned red as the coil gun powered up. The weapon used magnetic force to accelerate a projectile down its barrel by switching 17 electromagnetic coils on and off in a precisely-timed sequence. As the ammo had no need for propellant, more rounds could be stored in a magazine the size of the autocannon’s; however, the MAC fired at a substantially slower rate. Its 2,100 rounds could only be delivered at 15
0 rounds per minute.

  “Pop, pop, pop, pop,” The rounds fired with much less noise, and slowly enough that Nigel could count the individual shots. He adjusted the targeting system then began plinking the objects on the range. Although it didn’t have the same visceral thrill of firing a 25mm autocannon, the MAC was a good weapon for extended battles where you didn’t need the overwhelming force of a rapid-fire rifle.

  “Ok, safe up,” Mason said after a few minutes. “Mackenzie and I wanted you to get the feel for the autocannon and the MAC, but I also want to at least show you the laser. This is the other main weapon that can be mounted to your arms. It’s a 13.7 megawatt laser that gets its energy from a chemical reaction, so the magazines work by injecting the active materials. Set your suit to show lasers.”

  “Show all lasers,” Nigel said inside his suit and received the ‘Show Lasers – All’ message on his heads-up display. Although a laser beam travelled faster than a human could see, the suit registered laser fire and could slow the image down, allowing the user to ‘see’ the laser beam’s path.

  “These work better in space, where they aren’t attenuated by air, humidity, and smoke, but they can also have applications in atmosphere. Watch.”

  Mason fired the laser several times, cutting through some of the thinner skinned vehicles where it left a burning metal hole in its passing. He fired at the Jivool tank several times; the weapon was far less effective against it.

  “The laser’s good for people and thin-skinned vehicles,” Mason said, “but that’s about it. You’re just wasting your charge if you shoot it at a tank, especially a main battle tank. On the good side, it’s a technology we can shrink down enough to give you as a personal weapon for when you’re not in the suit.”

  Mason moved back behind Nigel. “Okay, enough standing around,” Mason added. “Try firing your weapons while you’re moving around. You’re going to have to get used to doing it that way; standing still in battle is a good way to eat an incoming round and get yourself killed.”

  Nigel ran sideways across the end of the range, firing at the hovercar. Although he succeeded in hitting it a few times, any time he went faster than a slow walk he also hit everything around it. When he ran, he mostly succeeded in hitting things that weren’t even particularly close to the intended target, and several times the suit automatically safed itself.

  “Fuck, that’s hard!” Nigel exclaimed.

  “It just comes with practice. It’s a matter of judging how fast to move your arms, based on your speed and how close the target is. Sometimes, you can get by with spraying bullets everywhere, but generally you don’t want to waste ammo like that. Once your ammo is gone, you’ll be down to fighting with your knife…and there are few things worse than bringing a knife to a gun fight.”

  Nigel commanded his knife blade to extend and it locked into place with a loud snapping noise. With the blade fully extended, he could reach out at least seven feet…but bullets, lasers, and autocannon rounds could travel much farther. He retracted the knife back to its stowed position. Gotta watch my ammo, he admonished himself.

  “Okay, I sucked at that,” Nigel said. “How about showing me how it’s done?”

  “Sure,” Mason said.

  He walked 150 feet to the left, turned, and sprinted back toward Nigel. Mason’s laser and MAC fired nearly continuously, and Nigel could see hits on all of the targets he passed, with strikes on targets at the other end of the range in between. As he got within 30 feet of Nigel, he threw himself forward into a roll. He came out of the roll firing downrange, and as he went vertical, he triggered his suit’s jets, launching himself over Nigel, somersaulting in midair as he passed. Nigel turned around to find Mason behind him with his sword blade extended. It rested on the joint where his neck armor was fastened to the suit’s torso.

  Nigel reached up and pushed the blade off to the side with a metal finger. “Okay,” he said; “You’ve made your point; I’ve got some work to do.”

  “A bit,” Mason agreed, “but you have to remember I’ve been doing it a lot longer than you. Take your time, practice, and you’ll be able to do all that, too, eventually. It’s really not as hard as it looks.”

  “Riiiiight.”

  “Last thing,” Mason instructed. “You’ve got three missiles in your launcher; take out the tank.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, sir. Kill it.”

  Nigel activated the missile system. Unlike the rifles, where the targeting reticle moved depending on where he pointed his arm, the reticle for the missiles followed wherever he looked. The missiles had two settings, IR and Video. If a target had a heat source, you used the infrared system; if not, the video system worked pretty well by grabbing onto a piece of digital video and homing in on it all the way to the target.

  The Jivool tank didn’t have an operating engine, so Nigel didn’t have an IR heat source to lock the missiles onto. He switched to video mode, and designated spots in the front, center and aft section of the tank.

  “Ready,” Nigel noted when his targeting was complete.

  “Fire!” Mason ordered.

  The missiles streaked across the ‘battlefield’ and struck the Jivool tank. The center missile blew off the turret, while the other two missiles ripped jagged holes in its main body. The turret slammed to the ground on the far side of the vehicle while several small fires danced around it.

  Mason slapped him on the back. “Not bad,” Mason said. “What do you think? Still ready to rock?”

  “Hell, yeah!” Nigel exclaimed. “Even more so!” Maybe old folks did get it, after all.

  Houston Starport, Houston, Texas, USA

  “Did your mother have any children who weren’t born brain-dead?” Mason roared, his voice augmented by the speakers in his Mark 6 CASPer as he helped lift Private Parker from the concrete floor. “What are you trying to do? Commit suicide in my combat suit?”

  “No, sir, I—”

  “I’m not a fucking ‘sir!’ I work for a living!”

  “Yes, Top! I mean, no Top, I’m not trying to commit suicide! I just mis-timed my landing.”

  “If you do that in combat, you’re going to be dead! Now try that again, and don’t mis-time the landing!”

  Mason stomped away from the trooper and saw the Jehas approaching. Great, now what?

  “We have figured out how to mount two dropships to the ship,” one of them announced. “It will not be pretty, but it should be functional. We do not believe it will affect our performance in hyperspace.”

  “You don’t believe it will, or it won’t?”

  “We have never attempted something of this design before,” the other replied, “so we don’t believe it will. The only way to know for sure is to try it. We will either survive or we won’t.”

  “But you think it will work?”

  “Our calculations indicate a 97.2% likelihood of success,” the first replied.

  “Which leaves a 2.8% chance of total gravitic separation,” the other concluded.

  “What the hell is that?” Mason hated talking to the Jehas. They gave him an almost-immediate headache.

  “It’s a complete reversal of gravity,” the first replied.

  “Imagine if the forces holding hour body together immediately switched and start pushing it apart,” added the second. “Your body will explode at nearly the speed of light.”

  “But it’s a really small chance?”

  “2.8%, which is unlikely.”

  “But not insignificant.”

  “Good, go ahead and do it,” Mason ordered. And get the hell away from me, he added to himself.

  “Oh, one other thing,” the first Jeha said. “Several of the troops will have to live in each of the dropships while we are enroute to Karma.”

  “There isn’t enough room in the ship, otherwise,” the second added.

  “Of course there isn’t. Just. Fucking. Do. It!”

  Mason thought about living in one of the tiny dropships for a week. It was goin
g to suck for those troopers, but at least they’d be away from the Jehas. On second thought, maybe he’d volunteer for the duty, just to be away from them. He shook his head. Stupid bugs.

  Chairman’s Office, Asbaran Solutions, Houston, Texas, USA

  “The platoon is getting the last few pieces of gear stowed as we speak,” Mason said as he entered the office with a man and woman in tow. “It was tough getting all the suits in, but we made them fit. We will be ready to leave this afternoon as planned.”

  “Good,” Nigel replied. “We’ve taken longer than I wanted getting everything assembled and loaded; our time is running short.”

  “Well, the only thing worse than getting there late is getting there early without the right equipment. Then we’d be dead too, and would have done their work for them.”

  “Intellectually, I know that,” Nigel said, “but here,” he tapped his chest over his heart, “I want to go now, do something now, and save my sister now.”

  “One of the hardest skills for youth to learn is patience,” Mason replied, “but being prepared for battle is halfway toward winning it. Speaking of which, I wanted to bring by the new lead dropship pilots so you had a chance to meet them.”

  He nodded to the woman. Nigel had never seen someone who was able to pull off looking both tough and sexy at the same time; she did. Just the way she stood said, “badass.” “This is Lieutenant KC ‘Mama’ Seville,” Mason said. “She will be the senior dropship pilot and will be flying with Lieutenant Junior Grade (LTJG) Jonny ‘Dark’ Minion.” He nodded to the man, who stood almost a foot taller than the diminutive lead pilot. “This is Lieutenant Tom ‘Harv’ Walsh. He’ll be piloting the second dropship, with LTJG Michael ‘Salty’ Morton as his copilot.”