The Golden Horde (The Revelations Cycle Book 4) Page 8

  “I can see that,” Walker said.

  They walked down the tunnel, which opened into a large cavern after about 50 yards. As they approached the opening, he could hear the cacophony inside. The clamor was overwhelming; it was an almost physical wall of noise. CASPers operating. Machinery moving. A variety of maintenance functions going on at the same time. Overtop it all, someone was playing music at a level that would have made most old-school metal bands from 150 years ago extremely proud. He involuntarily took a step back as the wall of sound hit him. A message popped up in his in-head display. Auto dimming sound pick-ups. Click here to restore. He felt a tickle in his ears, and the level of noise dropped to a manageable level.

  Mun took him by the arm, and he looked at the first sergeant. Her lips were moving, but he could barely hear her. Her picture popped back up in the comm system, and he enabled it after only a couple of tries.

  “See what I mean?” she asked. “It’s much easier to talk this way.”

  Walker nodded.

  “Did your sound-blanking system come on?”

  Walker nodded again, almost overwhelmed by everything going on around him.

  “Good. That will protect your ears while we’re in here. Welcome to the maintenance bay.”

  She stepped to the side so he could take it all in. The cavern was an enormous pentagon, with each wall almost 300 feet long. Operational CASPers stood suspended from their lifters along four of the walls, and disassembled CASPers ran along the fifth. It was hard to see all the way to the opposite end of the bay—not only because of the distance, but also because of the supports holding up the ceiling 30 feet above him. He looked up and saw a series of runs across the overhead for cranes and other lifting/carrying equipment.

  “We try not to have more than four companies here at any given time,” Mun explained; “that way, each of the companies has one of the walls for their gear. Behind the walls, there are spaces for the ground crews, company briefing spaces and offices, and other crew rest and barracks facilities.”

  Walker could see the walls weren’t completely blank; doors led to additional spaces inside the walls, and large passageways spurred off periodically.

  “The fifth wall is for the Horde’s Maintenance Control,” Mun continued. “The companies do their own routine maintenance, and any intermediate- or depot-level maintenance is conducted by Maintenance Control.”

  “You don’t send them back to the company for that?”

  “No, we don’t. Our CASPers are modified by us, and we don’t want anyone else getting their hands, or claws, or anything else on them. Once we take possession of them, they’re ours until we melt them down.”

  “How do you find people qualified to do the depot stuff?” Walker asked. “Some of that’s pretty complicated.”

  Mun smiled. “We let Binning train them up for us, then we hire them away at about twice what they pay. Most of the techs would probably come for less, as the opportunity to work on state-of-the-art technology is exciting to them, but we usually need an incentive to get Westerners to come to Tashkent. We also give them a sub-orbital flight back to their country of origin once a year for vacation, so nearly all of them stay long-term.”

  She turned and began walking along the leftmost wall. “This is Bravo Company,” she said as she walked past the row of CASPers. Nearly all the suits had someone working on them; in some cases, two or three people were adjusting the suits or running diagnostics. Some wore the haptic undersuits of CASPers drivers, although without any of the cabling, while others wore uniforms in the standard dark woodland camouflage pattern of The Golden Horde. Nearly all the people she passed turned and waved, or at least acknowledged her presence. He couldn’t hear anything any of them said, though, so they must have been on a private circuit.

  As they reached the second wall, Mun stopped. “This is Alpha Company,” she said. “You are Alpha Company’s Fourth Squad leader, which is the second squad in Second Platoon.” She made a hand motion to the CASPers at the end of the wall. “These first 10 are yours.”

  Like Bravo Company, the troopers of Alpha Company were also in evidence working on their CASPers. Ten other images joined the first sergeant’s icon in his display, although two of them were grayed out.

  “These are the other members of your squad,” Mun said, as a number of troopers stopped what they were doing and came over. All of them wore the suits of CASPer drivers. “Your first fire team is made up of Sergeant John ‘Kiwi’ Kane, Sergeant Collyn Loftis, Corporal Donald Toth, Corporal Mike Burke, and Private Vineet ‘VVR’ Vijayaraghavan.”

  As each of the troopers welcomed him, Walker noticed their image was highlighted when they spoke. That would be helpful until he learned to recognize their voices.

  “Your second fire team,” Mun continued, “is made up of Sergeant Mark Morgan, Corporal Mike Smith, Private Mark DeWayne, Private Berkelun Enkh, and Sergeant Mark Polanis, whom you’ve already met. The medic is an add-on to your squad.” The icons for Private Enkh and Sergeant Polanis were the two grayed out images. “Where’s Berke?” the first sergeant asked.

  “She’s up in Medical with Sergeant Polanis,” Sergeant Morgan replied. “A piece of gear detached and sliced open her arm. We treated it, but I sent her up to get checked out.”

  Mun shook her head. “Private Enkh is not known for her grace.”

  “She’s damn clumsy,” Sergeant Morgan said. “She’s a good kid with a good heart, but she’s accident-prone beyond belief.”

  “Have you done your simulators yet?” Sergeant Kane asked. From the thick accent, Walker could tell where he got the call sign ‘Kiwi.’

  “No, I haven’t,” Walker replied.

  “Well, make sure you ask for the ‘Black Death’ scenario when you do,” Kiwi said. “That’s one we do a lot. You’ll love it.” Everyone seemed to find the comment funny, and the squad all laughed. As Walker didn’t understand the joke, he figured it was probably at his expense.

  He shrugged it off. No sense coming across as an asshole on his first day with the squad. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll check it out.”

  The squad broke out laughing again, and he looked at Mun for guidance.

  “We do use that scenario frequently,” Mun said, “but it’s complicated. You’ll see it soon enough.”

  Several of the squad asked questions at the same time, but Mun waved them off. “That’s it for now,” she replied. “You’ll have plenty of time to meet Staff Sergeant Walker and ask him all your questions, but for now you need to get back to work. I’m just giving him a quick familiarization of the company’s spaces, and then he’s going to need to get some rest.” She turned and began walking down the line of CASPers, shooing off the squad, who returned to their suits. Their icons dropped off his display.

  Walker could feel himself droop when the first sergeant mentioned “rest.” He hadn’t thought about it, but he could feel the surgery and the aftereffects of the drugs catching up with him; he really could use some down time.

  Mun stopped in front of a CASPer with a squad leader’s stripe on the sleeve. “This one’s yours,” she said.

  In an instant, the fatigue vanished. His suit. His opportunity to kill aliens. To get even with the aliens who had killed all his people. “Can I try it on?” he asked.

  “You’re not too tired?”

  “I think I just got my second wind,” he said. “If there’s a spare haptic undersuit around, I’d love to get a look at my new ride.”

  “The suit’s not needed,” she scoffed. “This is the Horde. The CASPer will get everything it needs from your new pinplants.”

  “But I didn’t think CASPers were designed to be run from inside pinplants,” Walker replied, “and I’ve never seen aetherware customized for that purpose. Even the CASPers the pinheads in my other units drove just got basic biometric data from a user’s pinplants; actual control was accomplished via the normal haptic skin sensors.”

  “These aren’t normal suits,” Mun said, “and our pr
ogrammers are the best in the world. Several other worlds, too.”

  “So what do I do?”

  A young woman came running up to join them, and a second window opened. “Hi,” said the junior technician. An Uzbek by appearance, she was short and had dark hair and eyes. She was also young enough to be his daughter. “I’m Corporal Dasha Nabiyev. I’m your suit mech.”

  “This is my first time in a Horde suit,” Walker told the tech. “What do I need to do?”

  “Just climb aboard, and I’ll get you situated,” the tech said. “You were scanned when you had your implants put in, and I’ve already made the adjustments to have the suit fit you. Do you need a ladder to climb aboard?”

  “No, I’ve been doing this…a while.” Walker climbed up the exterior of the CASPer and slid into the suit. It fit like a glove. Nothing pinching, nothing binding. Awesome.

  “How’s it fit?” she asked from her position on the left leg. The first sergeant had climbed up the right leg to watch, too, Walker noted.

  “It fits great,” Walker replied. “Well done.”

  “Thank you,” the tech said. She handed him a helmet, which he put on. The helmet was also custom made, he saw; it had four holes that matched up with his pinplants. “If you would lean forward a little?” the tech asked.

  Walker leaned forward, and the tech reached behind him to grab a set of wires. She clipped one to each of his pinplants, and he was immediately overcome by a feeling of vertigo as half his vision went out of focus. “Whoa,” he said feeling woozy. “Everything just got blurry.”

  “Of course it did,” Mun said; “your brain is now getting two sets of input, and they’re both fighting for supremacy. Close your eyes; they’re just a distraction when you’re wearing the suit. Don’t worry—you won’t get sleepy.”

  Walker shut his eyes and found the first sergeant was correct. Without the input from his eyes, the suit’s input sharpened, except for the part straight in front of him that was blank. “Um, the sides are good now, but I lost the front portion of my vision.”

  “Yes sir,” the tech replied. “That’s because the front of the suit is still open. Once we button you up, you’ll have your full 360-degree vision back.”

  “360-degree vision?” Walker asked. “My old suit didn’t have that.”

  “That’s because your brain wasn’t able to process that much information before,” Mun explained. “Now it is. The default setting is to have one strip where the left end is 180 degrees behind you to the left. The center of the strip is in front of you and then the far right end is 180 behind you to the right. You can also make two vision strips, where one is everything to the forward hemisphere of the suit and the other is everything behind you, but I always found that to be too confusing.”

  “So I literally will have eyes in the back of my head?” Walker asked.

  Mun nodded. “You’ll also have better peripheral vision both above and below you, too. Something could drop straight down on you without coming into one of your cameras, but that’s about it. If you’re paying attention, you’ll be hard to sneak up on.”

  “Can I start it up and move around a little?”

  “Yes,” Mun replied, “but I have to warn you—the suit has less lag than any other suit you’ve ever worn. At first, it will seem like the suit’s moving before you even tell it to, but it’s really just responding to your thoughts, without having to go through the loop of thinking the movement, having your body start moving, and then having the suit follow your body’s movement.”

  Mun and the tech climbed down, and Walker closed the front of the CASPer. As it sealed, the cameras on the front of the suit came to life, and he had vision across all 360 degrees. That would take some getting used to. He turned his head, and what appeared at the center of his vision turned with it. Walker had wondered if it tracked his head motion or the suit’s.

  “Suit Controls,” he thought, and a menu appeared. Along with settings for things like armament, life support, and movement control, there was a setting for “Vision.” He thought-clicked on it and was impressed with the number of settings he could control. He could make his vision track either where his head was facing or lock it to where the suit was facing; he could also limit the view screen from a 90-degree cone up to the full 360-degree coverage, and could open the azimuth up to 170 degrees. He selected that option and found that almost half of his vision window was filled with a picture of the floor. Okay, that wasn’t so helpful. He flipped it back to the default setting. He could explore the rest of the options later.

  “Ready for start-up,” he said to the tech. That part was neat; he no longer had to work external speakers. The rest of the start-up went the same as it always had. Once the CASPer was operational, he went through the alignment drills, and he found it was just as the first sergeant had indicated—things happened at the speed of thought…and it was too fast. The commanded movement was noticeably faster than what he was used to.

  He brought up the “Movement Control” menu and nudged the controls with his mind. He started with the sliding scale labeled, “Feedback.” The cursor was in the middle of the bar at the neutral point between “No Delay” and “More Delay.” He moved it over five percent toward the “More Delay” end and tried the movement again. The leg functioned almost like he was used to, but now was just a little too slow. He clicked it back one percent toward the middle, and the suit performed the way he was used to. There was just one problem; although it no longer felt like it was going too fast, he was now four percent slower than everyone else in the squad. While he knew his experience could make up for some of that delay, it was never a good idea to give any advantage to an adversary; he’d have to get used to the suit at its normal setting.

  “What do folks normally run their feedback settings at?” he asked.

  “Most people take all the delay out,” Mun said. “Why? Feel bad for the enemy and want to fight them on their terms?”

  “Nope,” Walker said. “I want to go as fast as I can. I’ll just need to get used to it.”

  Rather than try it now, when his reflexes were off and a little sluggish, he decided it would be better to get some rest and try it in the simulator first. There was nothing that lost you the trust and admiration of your followers like taking your first step in a CASPer and falling flat on your face. Definitely—simulators first.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 6

  CASPer Training Building, Golden Horde HQ, Uzbekistan, Earth

  Staff Sergeant Walker stood on the simulator platform while a technician connected the leads to him. Fifteen feet in diameter, the original platforms had been several feet high, but had been lowered to where the virtual reality platform was only raised a couple of inches off the main floor. Although the surface of the platform was supposed to move, keeping the trainee in the middle, there had been times when it stopped working, and the person in the simulation had run off the edge and fallen. Bad juju. The leads here didn’t transmit haptic signals like they did in the other simulators he’d used; in The Golden Horde simulator, they were just there to keep him from running off the platform.

  After getting him positioned on the platform, the technician connected the four leads that ran through his helmet. As the fourth one was attached, he had the full view he would have had from his suit, although the simulation was currently frozen.

  “I heard I’m supposed to ask for the ‘Black Death’ scenario,” Walker said.

  “Oh yeah?” the technician asked. “What, someone doesn’t like you very much?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “No one has beaten that scenario.”

  “No one?” Walker asked. “You mean, no one has beaten it…ever? How hard can it be?”

  “You ever snow skied?” the technician asked. Walker nodded. “Imagine a triple black diamond slope,” the tech continued, “then multiply it by 100. It’s like that.”

  “Really? Well still, someone ought to be able to beat it.”

  The te
ch laughed. “That’s just the first five minutes; then it gets hard.”

  Walker laughed a little, awkwardly, not sure if the tech was pulling his leg or not.

  “How about we just start out with the ‘Great Marianas MinSha Shoot?’” the tech asked. “They’ll come flying toward you, and all you have to do is shoot them before they cut you to pieces. Pretty easy, eh?”

  “Sounds good,” Walker replied.

  “Okay,” the tech said. “Here comes the simulation.”

  The lights came down and went back up again, and Walker was standing on a beach. Only, this wasn’t like any simulation he’d ever seen. Usually, the simulator didn’t replicate the actual suit with 100 percent fidelity. The Golden Horde’s simulator did. And then some.

  He wasn’t looking at himself on a beach or looking at a screen with a projection of a beach on it; he was at the beach. It was as if he’d been physically transported there, and he could hear the distant cries of seagulls and smell the salt water. A moderate surf rolled in, and could feel the spray hit him in the face.

  He wiped his face in response, and his hand came away wet.

  “Holy shit…” he muttered. Louder, he added, “This is the most realistic simulator I’ve ever seen. Do you have misters on the ceiling to spray me?”

  The technician laughed. “No, that’s all in your mind. Wipe your face again.”

  Walker wiped his face and his hand came away red. He was bleeding!

  “Do it again,” the tech encouraged. This time, his hand came away blue. “Looks like you bagged one of the MinSha,” the tech said, still laughing.

  “How is that possible?” Walker asked.

  “I control the input your eyes are sending to your brain. Whatever I want you to see, I can make you see.”

  A thought ran through Walker’s mind.