Jasleen smiled at the contents of the storage container. General Steen had indeed sent them a real gift. Packed inside a layer of form-fitting aerogel cushioning was a Curtiss Sawyer Mark II powered exoskeleton. Experimental prototype. What her fellow soldiers back at the Fifth Brigade had nicknamed a tanksuit. Lacking the power and heat dissipation limitations of the Mark I, the Mark II was rated for hard vacuum and built to withstand over two thousand microsieverts of radiation, and having been designed for the Marine Corps it was built to withstand gauss rounds and came fitted with a two-hundred-megajoule railgun. Before she left the Corps, Jasleen had been on the small, classified team that tested them.
She stared at it for a long moment. Its nanocarbon carapace was black and shiny, making it look like some strange alien insect. She saw her reflection in the armor’s chest plate, an obsidian fun-house mirror. A distant scream snapped her out of her reverie, and she began pulling out each section, starting with the arms. She realized that she had never put one of these on without help, and wondered if it could even be done. If they had had time, of course, she could have brought it to show Commander Teague and get some help trying it out. But there was no time for a field test. She’d have to rely on her past experience with this equipment. This was no battle simulation. This was the real thing.
It took her a few minutes to remember how everything worked, but she got the hang of it fast, opening up the chest plate and then climbing down inside, her legs sliding into the legs of the armor as easily as she slid into her jumpsuit at the start of each shift. She snaked her arms in next and thumbed a switch inside the right gauntlet that made the large black, opaque dome of a helmet come down over her face. Lights came on inside as the suit powered up, pumping in air from the suit’s oxygen bottles.
The tanksuit’s HUD flashed to life, showing her the warehouse through cameras mounted on the helmet’s surface. A series of filters let her select from enhanced daytime vision to night vision to infrared. A no network error flashed in the bottom right corner of the display. Luna 1‘s feed was still down, which would make things a challenge. Even though she was inside a walking fortress she was still flying blind, with no way of knowing where the danger lurked until it was right in front of her.
A medical alert flashed on her display, helpfully informing her that she had been injured and offering to medicate her. She selected the lowest dose of painkillers possible and winced as the suit injected her. In moments her headache was completely gone.
She took a cautious step forward, testing the armor’s mobility. The last time she had ridden one of these she’d been in the badlands of California under Earth-normal gravity. Now she was on the Moon. The danger the armor posed was even more pronounced.
On Luna 1 the weapons they used, even the lethal ones, were not of a high enough caliber to puncture one of the domes. But now she was driving something designed to stop tanks and even level buildings if the situation called for it. She’d have to be very careful not only using the railgun but walking as well. A casual leap could send her flying out the top of Aldrin Dome, bringing Luna 1‘s pumped-in atmosphere with it.
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Jasleen stood there for a long moment, flexing her arms and legs, checking her readouts, and getting a feel for the suit. If the feed was up she could call Commander Teague and let him know what Steen had sent them. But she was cut off, impregnable but alone. She needed a sitrep, but she’d have to settle for following the screams.
Jasleen marched out of the storage bay and turned left toward the sound of small arms fire.
She started off at a comfortable jog, servos in the armor’s legs doing most of the work. The armor wasn’t exactly light, but the powered exoskeleton and lesser gravity made moving around in it almost effortless, no more strenuous than wearing a firesuit and a heavy pack on Earth, and much more comfortable. As she neared the source of the noise the armor ran threat analysis, tagging friend and foe with red or yellow circles.
Her security team was hunkered down in a bend in the corridor behind a bulky storage locker dumped onto its side. A line of hostiles stood before them, covered in quivering, silvery tendrils and armed with assault rifles. Whether the invaders brought them along or stole them from a weapons locker Jasleen didn’t know, but they sent the clear message that the hostiles intended to kill, despite what Leneski had told her.
Jasleen had the element of surprise, so she used it. She told the armor to target each of the hostiles, enabled auto-targeting, and then opened up with the railgun, sending a single, well-placed titanium-jacketed spike into the base of six skulls. The men, creatures, whatever they were, went limp and fell like marionettes with severed strings. She glanced at each one in turn, allowing the armor enough time to scan for vitals. They were dead. And she hoped that by severing their brainstems they would stay that way.
Her three-man security team stared up at her, their faces a mixture of fear and disbelief, unsure whether this menacing mechanical monster was a savior or a brand new threat.
“Don’t worry,” she said, the armor’s external speaker making her sound robotic. “It’s me.”
Briggs blinked his eyes. “Chief? Is that you?” His body seemed to shrink into itself as he relaxed. “Jesus. I almost crapped my pants.”
“Where the hell did you get that thing?” asked Taylor. “And are there any more?”
“It’s a long story,” Jasleen said, “and no, I’m afraid not. What’s our situation?”
“Completely fucked,” said Villalobos. “Those things control this half of the base, but they haven’t killed anyone else, as far as we can tell, unless they resist.”
“What about the Commander?” Jasleen asked.
Briggs shook his head. “Hell if we know. If he put up a fight he’s dead. The feed’s down, and we haven’t been able to get to Command, but it’s already been compromised. What the hell is going on, Chief?”
Jasleen frowned inside her armor. She felt guilty about not telling them what happened with Morrison. They were her security team; they should have been briefed no matter what else was going on.
“I wish I knew, and I promise I’ll explain what little I do know. But now we have a base to save.”
“Ah hell, Chief,” said Villalobos, looking tearful and crestfallen. “What’s the point? That CME fried our comms. We can’t call for help, and we’re getting killed up here. There’s nothing left to save.”
Jasleen took a menacing step closer. “You stow that talk, Enrique. We’re still alive. That is the point. And as long as just a few of us are still alive we have a fighting chance. Now are you with us, or do you want to surrender and become a hostage?”
The fire returned to his eyes and he cocked his tactical shotgun and said, “No, Chief. I wanna go kick some ass.”
“Then let’s go end this thing.” She stepped around him, crushing the storage locker under the armor’s massive feet. “Everyone on me. We’re going to breach command.”