January 2205 part 3
January 6th 1500 hours/Training Range 3, Surface of Titan
Li Xue felt the lander begin to pitch and rattle as it entered the atmosphere. Even with her suit locking into the brackets on the side of the lander it was a rough ride. They had spent the last week with weapon drills in the morning and drops and landings in the afternoons. Evening was spent cleaning the equipment.
"I hope it isn't raining this time. That sticky crap always coats my optics."
"Mae, you certainly have a bright, cheery outlook today." Li looked over at the form beside her. "You realize that suit makes your butt look fat."
"Jeng likes it. You seem to be staring at my backside a lot lately Li. Is there something I should know about?" Mae put a hand on one of the twin drums mounted on the back of her hips, just below the maneuver pack. Li had decided some time back that although the new suits were a vast improvement over the Mantis Suits she had trained with, the new suits definitely didn't look very flattering.
Li looked over Mae's suit. It was a standard Salamander Combat Suit. Li had heard that it was based off of captured Euro suits, and from lessons learned at Triton. The old 6.5mm pulse rifle had proved inadequate against both power armor and the alien battle suits. It had also been dropped or lost on too many occasions. It was now mounted on the outside of the right arm as a back-up weapon. The new main combat weapon was the Type 4. It was a 14.5mm semi-bullpup design, with an enclosed dual belt feed. One belt contained solid tungsten rounds designed to penetrate both power armor, alien suits, and light vehicles. The second belt contained HE-I rounds with a prefragmented copper body wrapped around a small explosive/incendiary charge. The Type 4 also mounted a 30mm under barrel grenade launcher that was supposedly an exact copy of those used by the Euro. The weapon was synchronized with the maneuver pack for micro-g operation and fired in four round bursts. 'Mae calls the thing the dentist. Swears it tries to pull her teeth every time she fires it.'
On the left shoulder was mounted a highly modified Type 63. It was now known as the Type 67. It had changed from an antiquated support weapon to a suit portable system. It still fired the 37mm APHE rounds that had been so effective on Triton, but now fired from a four round cassette loaded into the weapon. Gone were the spring loaded magazines prone to failure in the extreme cold. The Type 67 rode on a gyro stabilized mount attached to the suit and could track and engage targets through the suits HUD. It could also be removed from the mount for situations which required it.
"Why did they ever stick those drums right on the suit's butt?"
"Quiet Li, get ready. We are close to drop." Mae was powering up the maneuver pack and locking her weapon into its drop mount.
Li began to lock her weapon into its drop mount. She didn't carry a Type 4. She still wore the standard Salamander Combat Suit, but had been designated as the support weapon member of her squad. She carried a Type 15. It was a 23mm tapered bore with a barrel over two meters long. It fired round with fins up to 37mm wide that were swaged down to 23mm as it passed down the bore. Much like water passing through the nozzle of a garden hose, the tapered barrel increased the velocity of the round. The AP round was capable of penetrating light armored vehicles and obstacles. It was also synchronized with the maneuver pack, but only fired single shots from six round cassettes. Where the Type 4 came with two one hundred round belts, Li only carried 6 of the cassettes. She had to make her shots count.
"TOUCH DOWN IN FIVE, FOUR, READY, SET, GOOOO!"
Li heard the shuttle commander screaming as the lander heaved. Braking thrusters fired and skids crashed into the surface outside. Side ports and ramps flew open as troops began to rush out. Li snapped her brackets open and pulled her weapon from its drop mount. She exited the lander two meters behind Mae into a thick cloud of brown methane fog and blowing ethane sleet. A hail of water ice pebbles scoured the outside of her suit as Mae activated her jump jets. A heartbeat later and Li fired hers trying to both follow Mae and still keep her spacing. Through the grime on her optics and fog she could see her company fanning out. She watched Mae begin her descent and fired her maneuver pack to follow her. A heartbeat later she crashed into a thick puddle of methane syrup and sent sheets of is splashing. She could barely make out Mae crouching just a few meters away. Li pulled the covers off of her Type 15's optics as she activated the chin switch in her helmet. A moment later half of her HUD was a crystal clear display from the sights on her weapon.
"Ok people. Hold your positions for a minute. We will need to get fixes on you so we can evaluate the drop. Next time we will practice deployment from the troopship."
Li heard the battalion commander on her radio. They had practiced drops and landing from shuttles dozens of times, but only twice from the troopships. Landing the habitat sized vessels on the surface was an ordeal in itself. The thrusters tended to melt the surface wherever they came down. Getting onto one was messy. Getting off was downright dangerous. It was easy to end up in several feet of rapidly freezing liquid.
Li looked up to see Mae kneeling down in front of her. Mae leaned forward and touched helmets with LI. Li turned off her radio. "Mae, you’re going to get us both in trouble. You’re out of position and I'm too close."
Li heard the buzz of Mae's voice as it carried between the touching helmets. "Li, I'm sorry for getting you into this."
"Why. I agreed to join. You didn't force me, and this isn't any worse than factory work. Factory work hasn't much of a future. At least with this I could get promoted and have a retirement. Now finding a boy like you did, well..." Li was concerned. Mae wasn't normally the apologetic type, and Li wasn't sorry she had joined. She was actually enjoying parts of it.
"I was talking to Jeng, Li. He said the only time they practiced assaults like this, especially from the troopships, was right before they shipped out to fight the aliens. Jeng said he thinks we are getting ready to go into combat." Mae was talking slowly. Thinking about what she was saying. Even muffled by the helmets Li could hear the worry in Mae's voice. Li had always seen Mae as fearless, but began to realize perhaps it wasn't that she had seen, just youth. 'Mae is still in her teens. She just found a boyfriend. She never thought about dying.'
"Mae, I'm not a kid. I knew we were at war with the aliens when I agreed to do this." Li stopped for a moment and thought. "Mae, we're going to be alright. I'll look out for you, and you for me. Just like we have been."
Li stood up and waited for Mae. As Li turned on her radio she could hear the call for all troops to return to the landing area. Mae stood up and walked beside her slowly. No race or taunts this time. Li reached out and took the hand of Mae's suit. Mae didn't pull away as they walked back, hidden in the thick fog.
January 9th 1240 hours/University of Cambridge, England
Henk Leering scrambled from his seat trying to brush the hot coffee out of his pants. Thomas O'Connell couldn't understand most of the German the man was yelling, but had a fair idea what it meant and that there was no way the coffee could actually be or do the things he was calling it..
"Henk! Sit down for a moment !" Thomas grabbed Henk's shirt sleeve and tried to restrain his flailing. It took a few moments before Henk settled down enough to look at Thomas.
"We did it ! Look at the readings. The calibrations must be off slightly to have caused the oscillations we experienced, but it worked !" Thomas pointed at the readouts scrolling across the monitors as Henk finally began to understand.
His burned legs forgotten, Henk rushed to the terminals and began to scroll back through the data. "Here. Right here. We adjust the amplitude and frequency like this..." Henk began to type on the keyboard and then began moving fields on the monitor. Moments later he turned to look at Thomas again. "Thomas, I think we may be on to something. We definitely generated gravitons, but far more than we had anticipated. And we only had the system at a fraction of the power that it was designed to operate at."
Thomas came closer to the terminal and looked at Henk's figures. "You're right. That little oscillation is going to look like a small earthquake to the rest of the world. And we were at only two percent of full power on a single generator bank. We could make this a great deal smaller, increase the power to the generator, and create a very powerful field. It could create an engine much more powerful than the nuclear drives with a fraction of the size."
Henk sat down at the terminal and looked at the data. "I'm not so sure. We will need more tests, but if the data we have is accurate..." Data plots began to scroll across the monitor. Power versus output projections. Amplitude and frequency. Henk pointed to the graphs that began to form on another nearby monitor. "See this. As the graviton generator decreases in size, we need to decrease the amplitude with a corresponding increase in the frequency. It will generate a great deal of emissions, but..." Suddenly the graph shot off the top of the scale.
Henk pointed to a part of the graph. "It looks like the best return for the power supplied is in this range. It will require almost four times the mass in generators to create the same acceleration as a bank of particle accelerators on a standard nuclear drive. And it looks to be rather size sensitive. To large of an array or two small of a power supply and you get destructive oscillations due to the frequency modulation of the system. To small, and it requires a great deal of power with a geometric increase in emissions resulting in this." Henk pointed at the end of the scale that had went off the top of the monitor.
Thomas looked at the projections. "Would that...."
Henk picked up his broken coffee cup. "Yes, I think so."
"The military will be pleased to hear this."
"Um, Thomas?" Henk looked a little sheepish.
"What is it?"
"How shall we explain this? I mean, does England generally have earthquakes?"
January 12th 0900 hours/Interceptor MkIIb JFK, Mars orbit
Rear Admiral (Lower Half) James Gauld looked at the visual feed on his monitor. The framework in the slip at Mars Station was nearly complete. Soon they would begin installing the internal components and fitting the outer skin. It was going to become Mars Defense Base 1 when completed. Only slightly smaller that an Interceptor, it would be armed and shielded identically to a MkIIb. 'It will just be a lot cheaper to take care of with no drive. If it doesn't spend all its time riding a nuclear plume it shouldn't need quite so much upkeep.'
'They put the thing under my command, but it sounds like they plan on building enough of the things to require their own admiral eventually. For being the most junior admiral, I seem to have acquired the largest command.' Jamie went over the list of ships in his head. First was his own Task Force 1 with three Interceptor MkIIb's, the JFK, the J Madison, and the A Jackson. Next were the four ships in the Q Ship Group. They included the Steadfast, Vigilance, Resolute, and Defiant. Last, although only under his direction in the case of attack on Mars were the six Defense Modules of the Mars Station. All told his group included 13 launch bays and 9 laser arrays.
'Hopefully that will be enough if the aliens come back. After Earth, we are the biggest target out here. Four and a half million colonists, a shipyard, an orbital transfer station, plus nine ships if you include Survey Tenders 1 and 2.' Jamie shut down the visual feed and pulled up the training plan for the day. 'Of course the best reason I can see to be building those bases isn't helping to protect Mars. It’s freeing us up to move out system again. With a new division training on the surface and the four Q Ships quite capable of transporting it, it can only be a matter of time before ships begin moving out system again. After what the Taylor did at Triton, I doubt they will leave the MkIIb's at Mars a second time.'
