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The Tchpth and Indowy considered this purely efficient. The humans initially considered it magic.
However, after staying up for several days, smoking a large amount of an illicit substance and taking a very long shower, a research grad at GalTech suddenly realized that if you took some of the things that the Tchpth were saying and turned them on their sides . . . sort of, it was a lot of very good stuff . . . it made a certain amount of sense. Then she wrote them down and slept for three days.
After deciphering what she wrote, which, as far as anyone but her mother was concerned was apparently Sanskrit, she created a little box that when thrown at a wall "threw back." The energy usage involved was no more than that of a small sensor and it always threw back, even when fired from a low velocity pneumatic ca
There was a current upper limit on the device, that is, when fired at very high velocity it tended to break the windshield, and it was better at stopping itself than it was at stopping stuff coming at it. So there was no "personal forcefield."
In other words, it was a very fast way to get to the ground in relative safety.
The device was modified and adjusted until it didn't just stop itself, but created a "static repulsion zone" which, when there was a situation of sudden kinetic change, damped that change. Then it was turned over to TRW for manufacturing purposes. The device was being installed on every vehicle still on the roads and in other places where sudden stops happened in a bad way. And it was issued to all the LRRP teams.
Mosovich looked down at the rapidly approaching ground and swore he was never, ever going to do this again. "It's not the fall that kills you," he whispered.
Generally, if you're going down a cliff or the face of a building, the best way is to rappel. Tie off a rope, hook up any number of devices and lower yourself on the rope. However, there are any number of cases where this is impractical; ropes are not infinitely lengthy. There was another device available that used a very thin wire for the same purpose. And Mosovich really wished he had one with him. But they were much harder to construct than the static repulsion boxes and weren't standard issue. Given the number of times this sort of thing came up, he was definitely getting one for everyone in the team and keeping them.
The problem was that static repulsion systems didn't slow your fall at all until they came nearsolid materials. For example, this system was going to completely ignore the trees he was just about to hit.
* * *
"Fuscirto uut!" Orostan shouted, jumping over the corpse of the last oolt'os and darting to the edge. His talons scrabbled on the rock as he almost slid over the side then he looked down the cliff face just in time to see the human disappear into the trees below.
"You ca
Orostan looked out over the valley below and screamed in rage. The sun was sinking to the northwest and before anyone could get to the landing area the human, if it was alive, and he doubted that it had just committed suicide, would be kilometers away. In any of three directions.
Cholosta'an came up beside him and looked down. After a moment he pointed downwards with a flap of his crest.
"Yes," Orostan ground out.
"Alive?" the younger Kessentai asked.
"Probably," Orostan snarled. "And there was only one."
Cholosta'an thought about that for a moment. "The last time we had a good count it was over by the town of Seed. There were four."
"Yes," Orostan said. "Four."
"And now there was only one," Cholosta'an said. "One. And no bodies."
"No."
"Oh. Fuscirto uut."
"I'll send someone around to look for a corpse," Orostan said after a few moments' contemplation. "But I doubt they'll find anything." He looked at his tenaral and started to wonder who. Finally he turned away and started back down the hill. The human might have escaped today, but it undoubtedly was "based" beyond the Gap. Its time would come. Soon.
* * *
As the last Posleen normal faded out of sight, the "rock" that Mosovich had been standing on shifted and rippled, revealing something that looked very much like a four-eyed, blotchy, purple frog. The creature, if it was stretched out, would have been about eight feet from four-fingered foot-hand to foot-hand and was perfectly symmetrical; it had two hands and two eyes on either end with a complex something in the area where a nose might be.
The Himmit scout leaned out from the rock, its rear two foot-hands spreading out over the surface for purchase, and noted the faint heat signature moving away that was probably the human. He then levered himself back and looked towards the retreating Posleen. Such decisions. Human/Posleen, Human/Posleen? Finally, deciding that humans were always more interesting than Posleen—who basically ate, killed and reproduced and who could make a story from that?—it leaned sideways and started flowing from handhold to handhold down the cliff.
Such exciting times.
CHAPTER 14
Rochester, NY, United States, Sol III
0928 EDT Tuesday September 15, 2009 ad
Mike looked around the room and then undogged his helmet. The command and staff of the 1st /555th was grouped in a kindergarten schoolroom, sitting on the floor to use the undersized tables. The battlescarred combat suits made an unpleasant contrast to the colored drawings on the walls and the prominent poster of the five food groups.
"Well, we've had worse meetings." He chuckled as the last of the gel underlayer from his suit streamed off into his helmet. "Much worse."
"Yep," Duncan agreed as he set his helmet carefully on the desk in front of him. The plasteel was still heavy and hard enough to mar the stick drawing of a little girl with "Ashley" written below it. "At least nobody is shooting at us."
"We'll get back to that pretty soon," Mike said. He worked the ball of tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other and spit into his helmet. The na
"We've got barracks?" Stewart asked with a chuckle. "I mean, like, real barracks that are ours and everything? Or are we going to a 'rest and recreation' barracks?" he asked with a grimace. The facilities were run by Ground Forces and varied wildly.
"They're ours," O'Neal said with a grin. "They've been on my books the whole damned time. They're in the mountains in Pe
"We do?" Duncan asked, bemusedly. "I would have thought the S-3 would know about that sort of thing."
"It's not all that big," Mike said. "And they're all seconded from Ground Forces. But there's a supply officer and a perso
"And barracks?" Captain Slight said with a light chuckle. "With beds and stuff?"
"The same," O'Neal said with another grin. "I'm not sure I'll be able to sleep in one; the last time I tried I was up all night tossing and turning."