AMP The Core (11 page)

I raised my hand with a helmet in it. "We first put this on. And I then show you how everything works."

I clicked the helmet into place, and the internal heads-up display flashed different-color lights against her face as the systems came online.

I spoke. "You can control the parameters of the suit using eye control or audio. I haven’t mastered the eye thing yet, but just speak the commands you see on the HUD in front of you. Select Skin and Activate to turn on the active skin. Oh, and I would advise using that judiciously until you get the hang of it. When it first comes on, you will be floating in air. No gravity, no inertia, no interaction with any of your surroundings. A sensor on the exterior of the suit allows you to see everything around you on your helmet screen as if you were looking at it."

I continued, "Let’s try to activate it for a couple seconds and then deactivate. And when you get ready to deactivate, raise your feet just a hair and prepare to drop back down onto them. After you have done it a few times, it gets much easier."

I stepped back as York disappeared and then reappeared several seconds later. "Now, do it again, only this time, stick your hand through the side of the ship and then pull it back. It will go straight through. Just make sure to pull it back out before you blink back in. It seems that if you occupy the same physical space as something else when you come back, whatever else it is gets severely trashed. It will fold around that suit and stay like that. So, please don’t be punching any holes in the Swift."

The next two hours were spent in and around the quad getting used to the suits. York was quick to master the BHD on the end of her glove and was soon flying through the buildings that surrounded us.

York landed beside me and spoke. "Sir, I am eager to try out these weapons. Where can we go for some practice?"

I looked around. "Practice on whatever you like, York. This is all ours now. How about that concrete table over there? See what an ion bolt from that glove will do to it."

York blinked out, and I was startled as the table fifteen meters from my position was nearly vaporized. Small bits of shrapnel from the explosion peppered my suit.

As York blinked back in, I stretched out my hand and took hold of her shoulder. "Before you proceed in destroying this quad, let me activate the Swift and my suit so they don’t take damage in the melee that is sure to come."

York nodded and then waited for my sodium skin to go active. Using my glove BHD, I moved myself to a position thirty meters up in the air. The BGS suits allowed each of us to see each other as well as the Swift. York was soon flying about and firing her weapons at every structure in the quad. One explosion after another reverberated between the four buildings that surrounded us.

I received an incoming comm call from the Colonel. "Grange! What is going on over there?"

I replied, "Sorry, Colonel, we should have let you know. That is just York practicing. Give us a couple more minutes, and I will fly us out to a remote location. And Colonel, still no mention of this tech to anyone."

The Colonel spoke. "I’m keeping my trap shut, Grange. It makes planning a raid a bit difficult, but we’ll manage."

When York had finished with the complete destruction of the quad, she turned and shot across underneath me and, with a beautiful arcing move, ended up floating by my side.

York spoke. "Wow, Sir. Just wow. The toys you keep giving me are just getting better and better. What I wouldn’t have given for all this back in the forty-second Milgari. When do we get to use this on the Durians?"

I replied, "Fly yourself back down to the Swift. I’ll go over a few more things regarding the BGS and the Swift, and then we’ll take a short ride out to get in a bit more practice. After that, we will see if we can put your new toys into action."

When we landed back on the ground and blinked back in, York grabbed my arm. "Sir, I am honored that you selected me for this. How are we going to hit them, Sir?"

I smiled as we stepped up into the Swift and the hatch slowly closed. "You and I are going to pay a visit to the Duke, York. We are going to kill off his current body and any of the clone replicas he has stashed on his ship. Mostly just to buy us some extra time while he flies a new body out. You know he loves to be involved in the action. He would likely halt the assault that is coming until he could physically return."

York grinned. "Oh, that would just piss him off, Sir. You have my juices flowing with that one."

I half smiled. "OK, I’m not sure what that means, but I’ll take it as a positive. Have a seat, Sergeant, and I’ll show you what this ship can do."

We lifted off, and I immediately dove towards the ground. The active skin and the BHD allowed the ship, at slow speeds, to slip through the physical properties of Tresha as if it wasn’t there. The dirt and rock that made up the outer layers of Tresha went zipping by as the BHD dug a tunnel the exact dimensions of the Swift. I pulled back on the controls and was soon popping out of the ground back into the atmosphere of Tresha.

Within seconds we had gone from below the surface to the darkness of space. I zipped outward and made a wide arc around the Orienta and the other Carion stations before returning to an isolated sector on Tresha’s surface where York and I could continue our practice. An abandoned mining station, five hundred kilometers from the nearest Gonta city, would be our playground for the next two hours.

York spoke over the comm as she flew between two buildings and fired a tungsten round into a mound of ore. "Scratch one Duke, Sir. I’m heading into that warehouse for some boots-on-the-ground practice, so please refrain from blowing it up, if you would."

I replied, "Roger that, Sergeant. I’ll take the warehouse with the big lightning symbol on it. Looks like it must be an ore cracker. Will be interesting to see how it compares to what we used to do with the Tantric ore back on Bullwort."

I entered the warehouse on foot and was immediately shaken by an explosion from the warehouse York had just entered. "York? You OK?"

The sergeant replied, "Couldn’t be better, Sir. How’s it going over there?"

I laughed. "Well, I haven’t blown anything up yet, if that’s what you were wondering. Just be careful over there, OK? I need you sharp as ever if we are going to pull this off."

As I walked up to the control panel that ran the machinery for the ore cracker, York spoke. "Sir, you showed me the video of your prior encounter with the Durian and Colossun ships; why aren’t we just using that tactic on all of them?"

I replied, "Well, because I don’t know that it will work every time. What if they figure out some countermeasure? This is the only ship we have capable of doing what it does until we get more online. They are coming, but that won’t be for several more weeks. For this outing, we are only trying to turn back the fleet, if we can."

I continued, "With the number of ships they have, it would take us a week to put a dent in their numbers with just one ship. Meanwhile, the rest of them would be either chasing off the Carions or savaging our people on Tresha. Give me a couple dozen Wrens with this tech, and we can send them on to their makers and end this whole thing."

York replied, "Gotcha, Sir."

Booom!

I was almost knocked from my feet by a massive explosion. "York?"

York chuckled. "Sorry, Sir. One of those tungsten rounds found its way into a barrel of explosive material. I’ll try to be more careful, Sir!"

I turned on the ore conveyor that was across the warehouse from me. The next twenty minutes were spent practicing my jumps from the floor of one side of the warehouse up and onto the conveyor on the other. During the jumps, I practiced spinning and twirling while aiming at various items in the warehouse. My goal was to become comfortable with my orientation while there was no gravitational pull on my body. Without the latter, it was sometimes easy to become disoriented. There was nothing I liked less than the dreaded nausea that came with motion sickness.

When our practice time was up, I signaled York. "Sergeant, how you feeling about an assault?"

York replied, "I believe I am ready, Sir. Did you realize that you could set the level of activation on the skin?"

I floated into York’s warehouse and set down beside her. "The what?"

York smiled. "On your HUD, Sir. See the symbol just below the activation button?"

I replied, "The orange triangle?"

York nodded. "Yes. Slide it to the left about 75 percent of the way, then activate your skin."

After I did so, York lifted her blaster glove and fired a bolt at me from point-blank range. For only an instant, I felt slight pressure and a mild shock to my abdomen.

I yelled, "What the... don’t be shooting me straight up like that, York! I almost soiled my suit!"

York laughed. "Wouldn’t have mattered, Sir. That gel would take care of it. Now, try walking around. You have to take it a little easy, but I think you will get what I’m showing you, Sir."

I took several steps across the ground and then turned. "Ah, nice! At the lower activation levels, you can still interact with the environment without putting yourself at extreme risk. Nice find, York!"

The sergeant placed her hand on my shoulder. "So, the question, Sir. Are you ready?"

I blinked in full. "I’m ready; let’s go pay the Duke a visit!"

I raised the Colonel on the comm. "Colonel, we are heading out to meet the fleet. If something should happen to us, the ship will automatically come to pick you up. I would suggest bringing Sergeant Frost with you if that should happen. She can figure out how to fly the Swift in a pinch. I’ll program it to take you both out to Molov to pick up Frig, Ashley, and Dr. Touchstone. After that, you four can decide what you want to do in defense of our people."

The Colonel replied, "You’ll be coming back, Grange. You always do."

I laughed. "Let’s hope that luck still holds, Colonel!"

I took off my helmet and sat back in my chair. The holo-display was brought online and the BHD activated.

As we lifted off, I continued to explain the technologies on the Swift to York. "See this little lump on the side of my neck? It’s an implant. It translates thoughts into commands for my BGS, the ship, or just about anything else that can receive commands from elsewhere. I’ve only trained myself to use a handful of them, but the list is growing."

York looked over the lump and spoke. "Sir, I know it may not be important, but how did we get all this technology? Where did it come from?"

I reached up and slapped myself in the forehead. "Crap! Sorry about that, Sergeant! I just haven’t had the chance to tell you, but we found the location of our origin, before the Grid, I mean. We know where we came from originally. It’s a planet in a nearby galaxy called the Milky Way. Our home planet, Earth. Welcome home, York!"

I brought the image of the blue-green planet up on the holo-display.

York stared for several seconds. "Is this real, Sir? You aren’t just jerking me around with some sick joke?"

I shook my head. "If I could show you my arm right now, York, you would know I was telling you the truth because the hairs on it are standing on end. That is our home, York. Drink it in, because when all this conflict is over, we are going home."

I could see a tear forming in the corner of the eye of one of the toughest people I had ever known. "Let it out, York. I did when I first saw it."

York touched the corner of her eye with her glove and looked at the tear. "I’m going to save that image in my head, Sir. If I find I need inspiration for anything, that image will be it."

I went on to give a brief history of our people before they came to the Grid, and of that final day when all Humans were transported to a distant galaxy and dropped on a strange set of space stations.

I spoke. "On their way out here, Frig found a planet with a mystery signal being broadcast from it. It would have been ignored except that the signal was sent out in English. A single ship had landed there centuries ago with the only Human to not be transported. Seems her DNA had been altered, and because of that, she and a few billion clones built with her DNA were left behind."

York replied, "A few billion clones?"

I nodded. "Yeah, it seems our ancestors had figured out a property of particle physics called quantum entanglement. From that they were able to make a comm device that could be implanted into a Human and a modified clone of them that had been grown from the one Human, Sarah Rogers’s, DNA. Get this, they would sit at home, all safe and secure, while their clone went into battle. If the clone died, another one could be grown and a new comm implanted. Oh, and they had to train their clones, just like we have had to do with these prosthetics. It’s all crazy when you think about it."

York furrowed her brow. "Crazy, Sir?"

I again nodded. "Well, yeah. Think about it. Our ancestors, a thousand years ago, had all this tech available to them that would have let us kick ass all over this sector. And here we are, a thousand years after its invention, getting to use it for the first time. I mean, think about it. Had we been brought into this galaxy with all of our tech, the Torrians and Milgari wouldn’t have even been a threat."

After accelerating for thirty-three minutes, the Swift began to decelerate.

I spoke. "OK, we are going to first fly by the fleet and then reverse course until we catch up to them from behind. We should be able to catch up and then fly this thing right up inside of them. We will look for an empty space to perform a scan and then move to another space to exit the ship. A scan coming from internally should leave them thoroughly confused."

York smiled. "That sounds good to me, Sir."

As York turned away, she had an odd look on her face.

"OK, you don’t have much of a poker face, Sergeant. Tell me what’s on your mind."

York hesitated, then spoke. "It’s just all this, Sir. It’s a bit much to take in, and you seem to be right on top of all of it."

I replied, "I’ve had a few weeks to soak it in, that’s all."

York shook her head. "No, Sir. It’s not that. I’ve been around you long enough to see how you operate. You seem a little more together than usual, that’s all. I’m not used to seeing you do all the thinking. It has me a little off balance."

I sighed. "OK, spit it out, York. You always thought I was a dumbass. I got the same story from Dr. Touchstone the other day, and he was very strategic in his answer."

York again shook her head. "No offense intended, Mr. Grange. But you have always been a charge-in-first-and-ask-questions-later kind of guy. All this planning I see you doing, it’s a good thing, Sir. It just makes you all the better of a leader."

I rolled my eyes. "OK, you people are going to give me a complex. Let’s just turn our focus back to the Colossun ship. When we get aboard, I want us to take the Duke out as fast as we can. The rest of his troops will be a joke without him there giving orders, and his new clone will take a good five to ten minutes to come online. If we already have the androids identified, we should be able to get to them and destroy them before he can activate."

York looked at me and grinned.

"What? What is it now, Sergeant?"

York replied, "I’m just in a happy place right now, Mr. Grange. Waiting for the action so I can kick it up a notch!"

I shook my head as we passed the Colossun fleet and reversed course. I worked hard to keep the grin from my face as we approached the Duke’s ship. It was grand in scale and impressive in its armaments. All of which would be useless against our active sodium skin.

As we drifted through the outer hull of the mega-ship, I was fascinated with our view. Each room, each bulkhead, and even the Colossuns running the ship slipped easily by as we encountered them.

When we reached a large central warehouse of sorts, I stopped the Swift. "OK, York. Hit that scan and tell us where the Duke and the other androids are."

The scan was over in only a few seconds, and data began to fill the holo-display in front of the copilot’s seat. "Sir, we have a hit on the androids. I count six of them, Sir. And we are sitting right on top of them. Send a few rounds through that bulkhead in front of us, and you take them out all at once!"

I replied, "OK, but where’s the Duke? We have to know where he is before we make a move. If he lives, this fleet keeps going forward."

York spoke. "Fore data is complete. As far as the scan goes, Sir, he is not in the front half of the ship."

My voice grew anxious. "Tell me he is in the back, York. If he’s not here, that means he is on another ship, and our mission just got a lot more complicated."

York replied, "Data almost done. Sorry, Sir. No Duke."

I balled up my fist in anger, but refrained from striking any of the console panels in front of me. "Change of plans, York. I’m going to have to drop you off here and find the ship the Duke is on. It has to be one of these big Colossun boats. I’m popping the hatch, and I’ll be back to pick you up after I find him. Just camp out by his replacements and wait for my word before shutting them down."

York replied as she stood, "Yes, Sir. Just give the word, and I will look for you back in this same room."

With York deployed on the Colossun ship, I activated the Swift’s skin and slowly moved back out into the fleet. I took solace in the fact that no course changes had taken place, which I took to mean that they had yet to discover our presence.

After a visual scan of the ships that were nearest the mega-ship, I came away with four candidates that looked just ornate enough for the Duke to populate. I entered the first ship, and after a much shorter scan than what we had used on the mega-ship, it was determined that once again, the Duke was not a passenger.

The second ship yielded the same result. Then as the data rolled in for the third, I got a hit. Three decks up and four bulkheads over. I exited the Swift, and using my glove BHD, I moved up through the floors and walls until I had entered another very ornate room.