It was a bright summer day. The sky was clear and not a cloud was to be seen. Delta Squad 5 was standing out on the tarmac of Alpha base, a nice and well kept tarmac. Something that they never had a chance of experiencing at Echo Base. Along with Head Engineer Meeks who was holding an oversized tablet in her hands.
“I can tell from the way that Barten is practically humming. But I take it that you guys are ready?” Meeks asked as she looked from person to person. “These are the training suits. So not only do you need to be careful not to mess the insides up too badly. But also try not to damage the tarmac or any of the buildings. Really just walk away towards the mountains.” She pointed off into the distance. “If I catch anyone trying to spar today, they’ll be on dish duty for at least a week. Clear?” There was a chorus of “Yes Ma’am” in answer.
Meeks clapped her hands. “Alright. Get into the suits like I showed you.”
Barten waited for someone else to move before he did. Only no one seemed to be taking the initiative to do so. When he looked around they were all looking at him with a smirk on their faces.
“After you princess,” Smith said. Monroe stifled a giggle, Jamieson chuckled, and Conners outright laughed.
Barten shook his head and approached the closest dav suit. It wasn’t as armored as the blue ones that he had first seen. Which lead to it having a less blocky appearance. What little it had, on the knees, elbows, and face, were painted green instead.
The suits were set in a kneeling position and already aimed away from the base. At the back of the suit was a ladder that he used to climb up onto its back. As Barten climbed inside he marveled at the level of technology that they must have used to create such a thing. The level was much higher than anything he had seen in the other forces or even in consumer products.
Inside of the cockpit was a single chair, several screens were suspended in front of it along with two banks of controls. Sitting down in the chair he found that there were a pair of pedals by his feet along with two control sticks by his hands.
“Alright. If Barten would get a move on we’ll start things up,” Meeks voice came from a speaker somewhere. Not even knowing how to respond Barten simply shook his head. There was a central touch panel that he reached out and placed his hand on it. A beam of light appeared at the top and slowly scanned his hand.
“Welcome Kyle Barten.” Appeared on the screen above the touch panel. “Close doors?”
“Yes,” Barten said. There was a hiss as the hydraulics came alive and the cockpit slowly darkened as the sunlight was cut off. One by one the screens flicked on and he could see the outside.
“Alright. Then,” Meeks said, “we got a combo system in place. The pedals are there to get you started. But you can also move the legs with mental commands. The suits can interact with the chip in order to link with the pilots. But it’s something that will come with time. And don’t expect it to work right now. I’m looking at you Conners. Put your damned feet on the pedals and stop trying to be special.” Barten shook his head again and smiled.
“Now. Push down both feet on the pedals, that will make the suit rise into a standing position. Then it’s as simple as pushing one after the other. There are a lot of AI and programs running to help correct things. So you really have to try hard in order to crash the training units. If you crash one of the combat ones it'll be hell to pay. And I’m not talking about washing dishes.”
Barten pushed down on both of the pedals as instructed and the suit slowly stood. Next he put one foot down and as soon as he touched the pedal the dav suit took its first lurching step forward. “That’s good,” Meeks said. “And gods dammit Conners, use the gas pedal and not your thick head.”
“Finally found the comms, screw you Meeks! I’ve already taken two steps. I don’t know who’s the one still behind,” Conners voice came over the speakers.
“Fine. Oh, there they go. Slow. So slow. Whoever you are.”
Barten chuckled to himself and instead of engaging in banter he pressed his other foot down. The suit lurched forward again and took another step. With a quick look around he saw that the others, except for that one person, was also taking their time.
A thought came to mind and Barten continued walking forwards. As he did so a warning would appear if he tried to take another step mid step, or if he tried too soon. When he tried to put both pedals down at once the suit crouched down instead of taking another step.
“As Barten has demonstrated to us, putting both your feet down will return the suit to the kneeling position,” Meeks said. “Now if the rest of you would stop screwing around with the arms and get to walking. Then I can get back to dealing with adults.”
Placing both of his feet onto the pedals brought the suit back to standing. Since he was in the lead he couldn't tell what antics the others were up to. But Barten kind of wondered if Meeks was messing around with him. When he finally found the back camera the others were screwing around just as much as she called them out on.
With a bit of exploration he found the comms and sent a message, “Last one to the mountain has to play a punishment game,” he said and started pumping the foot pedals. Barten had already gotten the hang of it, so that there was little delay in between his steps.
“Damn it Barten!” Conners shouted. “Just why did you have to do that!?”
The back camera showed that another two suits had started moving forward. “I’m not going to turn down a challenge, not going to lose either,” Smith said.
Monroe laughed. “I may be number 2 on the assault course, but I’ll be number one today. I got some frillies that the loser has to wear for a day.”
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“What if you lose?” Conners asked.
“Then I get to feel sexy for the day.”
“Ugh. Ruthless.”
“You idiots,” Meeks said and then sighed. “I don’t even care anymore.”
***
Barten pushed the training suit to the best of his abilities. Walking had gotten easier the more that they trained. And he had gotten to the point where he felt like a link had grown between him and the hunk of machinery. He still needed the foot pedals, but the steps came smoother and faster.
It would have been a triumph for him, had the others not gone through the same attunement. Smith had better accuracy than the rest of the squad since he focused more on using the twin stocks to control the arms of the davs.
“You may be fast,” Smith said over comms. “But that doesn’t mean that I can’t shoot you.”
“Come one guys. Stop screwing around and let's get some food,” Conners said.
“The dead don’t tell tails,” Smith said and leveled his gun towards the bunker that Barten was hiding behind.
For some reason Alpha Base had created a dav sized paintball field in the mountains where soldiers could train with them. They had been running 2 vs 2 games all day and were well past the supper bell. But there was always one more game being called by the losers.
“We’ll just leave them,” Monroe said. “Might as well since they are the worst for calling one more.”
“I’ll shoot you if you get up Conners,” Smith said.
“What? I was on your team!” Conners said.
“Zombie rule.”
“Can’t fight that,” Barten said.
“Ugh. Fine. Barten, just charge in and get shot already.”
Instead of listening to Conners, Barten instead tried to fake out the right of the cover. Once he heard the sound of Smith’s shots he jumped out the left instead and started firing his own. Only Smith wasn’t where he should have been. And not only had Smith already left the cover he was behind, he had charged the right side of Barten’s bunker. In the time that it took for Barten to find Smith again he had already been struck with paint several times.
Barten looked at the giant “You’re out!” message that was flashing over top of his main screen. “I mean, I thought that it was a good enough plan.”
“It was. But you always need to consider where your opponent could be moving, and not just where they were last,” Smith said. “Combat is ever evolving. And just one mistake is enough to run the risk of your life.”
“Enough philosophical crap. Food time,” Conners said. He had already stood his dav suit back up and was walking towards the hanger.
“Remember that you need to wash them off first,” Monroe said with a singsong voice. “I’ll see you guys at mess and be sure to save a seat for you.”
“They need to have bigger hoses for these things. It takes forever with just the human sized ones they have,” Conners said. “Though I guess that I’m first- Damn it. How did you losers get in front of me!”
***
“That was dirty pool,” Conners said as he finally sat down with his meal. He started shoveling it into his mouth while shooting glares at the others.
“Hey, we helped you hose yours off. If anything it would have gone faster if you had helped us as well,” Jamieson said. “Instead you sulked inside until one of the hoses were free.”
“I mean. I was first.”
“And you probably would have left without us,” Smith said.
“That’s slander and I’ll not stand for it. See who's getting paint in their optics next time. Even if I get you out with a glance.”
“Ugh. You wouldn’t dare. Cleaning out the optics is a pain. Plus Meeks already gets down our asses about that,” Monroe said. She had already finished eating by the time the others had gotten there. But waited for them.
“Think that we will be seeing combat soon?” Jamieson asked. He was wearing the hat that the techs had whipped up for him. It just looked like a full material baseball cap. Only there was a silver foil around the back where the mesh would have been.
“Who can say,” Smith said.
“Sargent Myles probably,” Conners said. “He’s going to be the first to know when we are going out. Though from what I heard stomping on beetles gets tiring pretty quick. I don’t know why we don’t just raid the g object itself.”
“Automated defenses. At least what I heard,” Jamieson said. “One of the guys on squad 4 said they heard about it from a vet. Seems like if you get too close an energy beam will come and cut the dav in half. Only took about a dozen for command to give up.”
“Well of course that’s a thing. I don’t see why I could have thought that it ever wasn’t.” Conners said and rubbed at his temple with the back of his fork. “Just bloody lovely.”
“Could be worse,” Barten said.
“””We know,””” everyone but Jamieson responded.
“I didn’t even say anything. Why all the side eyes?”
“Cause the only thing that could be worse for you is if you didn’t get to pilot a dav. So it was probably something like that you were going to say,” Smith said.
“Well. That. And we could have never woken up from the psychic attack,” Barten said.
“That’s not funny,” Jamieson said. “Though I wasn't even awake for it in the first place.” He adjusted his hat. “But now I’m armored. So you weak flesh bags with your unshielded meatheads should be ready for me to rescue you all next time.”
“It’s just a hat with some tinfoil on the inside,” Conners said. “Hate to be the one to spoil it for you.”
“No you’re not,” Monroe said. “If anything you relish it.”
“What? Why don't you ketchup me on why?” The table groaned. As did the next two tables over. “Hey! You jerks! My jokes pass the mustard.” The groans that came were even louder.
“Sttaaap!” Dean said from another table. “You’ll be punished if you continue.”
“That sucked Dean! At least say something like ‘Mayo you stop’ or something. Come on, try a little harder.”
“Aioli you guys suck with your puns,” Jamieson said.
“Ugh. Don’t you start,” Monroe said. “All of these puns are giving me a headache.”
“I uh…” Conners said. He scrunched his eyes. Tilted his head to the side. And then shrugged. “That’s all I got folks.” There was a cheer from the other tables. “Ain't got no respect.”