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"Now, get your squad back out in line to eat, get her down and on her way, without any fucking around, and report to me when you're done, is that clear?"
"As crystal, Gu
"From now on I am off duty," Pappas said and smiled inwardly at the sudden confusion Stewart revealed. "If anything goes wrong," he continued, "it is your responsibility," a rock-hard forefinger drove into a breastbone again. "I am totally hands off, got it? When you fuck up," finger, "I am taking a stripe. You're a PFC, so you've got two to lose. When they fuck up, you," finger, "are losing a stripe. You are in charge of all activities as of when we reach the hotel, I'll a
"Clear, Gu
"Me and Ampele we're going to relax the rest of the trip 'cause you have all the responsibility. If anything goes wrong, public drunke
"Yes, Gu
"Good." The NCO smiled broadly, his white teeth bright against his wide brown face. "Have a nice day."
And the rest of the trip was a picnic.
26
Andata Province, Diess IV
2059 GMT May 18th, 2002 AD
Lieutenant O'Neal stripped the box magazine from his M-200 grav rifle and stared unseeing at the thousands of teardrop-shaped pellets within. Then he reinserted the magazine and did the same with his grav pistol.
"Would you please quit doing that?" asked Lieutenant Eamons. Both of them waited by windows on the northwest corner of Qualtren. The angle was even greater than the FSO indicated and they had a clear view of the 1.145 miles to the next intersection. There the Naltrev megascraper cut back and blocked the view. Naltrev and its sister megascraper Naltren held the battalion scout platoon and the upper part of O'Neal's vision systems were slaved to the view from the scout platoon leader's.
"Where are your people, Tom?" Mike asked.
"Downstairs."
"Are they tasked?" O'Neal continued to watch the view from the scout leader. It was unsettling because of the flicker of a personal area force-screen—the PAF set up in the anticipated direction of attack—and because Lieutenant Smith had a nasty tendency to occasionally toss his head like a horse throwing a fly. The movement would swing the viewpoint right and up. I doubt he even notices that he's doing it, thought Mike, stripping out the magazine and reinserting it, but I wish he'd quit.
"Would you please quit doing that, Mike! And why do you want to know? No, they're sitting around with their thumbs up their butts."
"Quit what?" Mike asked, his attention focused like a medical laser on the view from his helmet. "Start having them emplace cratering charges across Anosimo and Sisalav at the Sal Line and then start placing C-9 charges at the locations I'll slave to their AIDs."
"Whoa, Mike. You're a nice guy and outrank me by a whole grade, but the hell if I'll piss my career away for you. The colonel will have my bar if I do that." The lieutenant tried to shake his head and stopped when he had to force it against the biotic gel filling the helmet.
The Jell-O-like material completely filled the helmet and the interior of the suit. It was responsible for more than a third of the cost of the armor and the only major part that was not, at bottom, O'Neal's concept.
Putting on the helmet of a combat suit was something like putting your head in a bucket full of jam. However, the material completely cushioned the wearer against the most extreme shocks and had a series of other important functions. It read the user's movement intentions through their own neural net and drove the suit accordingly. It recycled waste into potable water, edible food and breathable air. And it had enough medical technology and ability to keep its "ProtoPlasmic Intelligence System" alive as long as they did not take a direct hit to the heart, brain or upper spine.
All that did not make troopers any happier about do
The underlayer also acted as an ersatz sensory deprivation device, another negative that led to occasional mishaps. The weapons and equipment of the units had to be specially modified all around. With no feedback from contacts, the suits had a tendency to destroy anything they touched.
Since there was no way to actually see through the underlayer, the helmet was totally opaque. What the user saw was a high-quality representation cast by tiny laser diodes that threaded out of the helmet wall. Instead of turning his head, when a trooper made a movement to look from side to side the viewpoint shifted. It was somewhat like controlling a point of view with a joystick. Again, it took getting used to. There was no feeling of motion, so it could induce motion sickness, and a trooper could suddenly find himself looking backwards by overdriving the viewpoint controls. Similar leads tapped the mastoid bone for sound conduction.
For comfort, the suit would let the users move their heads side to side, but only slowly. However, since the diodes could do all sorts of neat tricks with vision, the peripheral vision was actually superior to normal and far and near sighting were enhanced. That was before any special requests like "heads up" displays, weaponry displays, distant viewing, split screen viewing or sixty-seven other abilities.
"Lieutenant Colonel Youngman is currently busy and he won't notice unless we detonate them. When we detonate them, you will be a hero for taking the initiative because it will be the only thing that saves the right flank of the Corp from being rolled up."
"Is it that bad?" asked the engineer, wondering how much his friend's moroseness was justified. Although he would have preferred to lay out a full reception for the Posleen, the firepower of the battalion was massive.
"Tom, we're about to be corncobbed and there ain't a fuckin' thing I can do about it. After this day the name Youngman will be right up there with Custer, except George Armstrong had a brilliant career before he pissed it away. Now get rigging the charges. Make the cratering charges big ones. I want them to tear the faces right off the megascrapers; they've got forty minutes max."
"Fuck it," said the officer with an attempted shrug. "You're right, nobody will notice unless we have to blow 'em. You want both Boulevards mined? What about 7th Cav?"
"Yeah, if Cav falls back they'll want the cover," he paused. "There's the gust front."
"Huh?" asked the lieutenant, looking out the window toward where the enemy could be expected to appear.
"A bunch, a real shit pot full of Indowy are headed this way," said Mike, slaved to the distant view of the scout leader. "Get your guys to work, Tom. Now!"
Lieutenant Eamons gave his friend an unseen nod of farewell and casually blasted a hole in the wall with his M-200. Stepping into thin air, his command suit floated him, gentle as a feather, the ten stories to ground level. With the fusion bottles of the megascrapers to draw on there was no lack of energy and it was the quickest and most fun way down. Because it was "untactical" it was forbidden by the battalion but the unit was going to open up the minute they saw the Posleen, so what was one more hole? It made as much sense as not having his people prepare hard defenses because they would "reveal the MLR." Like the whole battalion opening up on them wouldn't reveal the MLR to the Posleen? Mike was right, they were going to get corncobbed.