Smuggler's Dilemma (30 page)

"Okay, wait one. Both suits are coming online. You should see a prompt in your HUD. That's me asking for command control. You need to agree."

I saw the prompt and agreed to it. He continued to walk us through a customization process. We set up security protocols and finally closed the suits by clenching our fists. As the suit closed, a membrane surrounded me, shrinking tightly over my vac-suit, fitting the interior to my body. It was a little intimate and I had to remind myself that the membrane was just an inanimate object.

"Before you stand up, you need to verbally ask the suit to report weapon status, then report that status back to me," Dad ordered. After another fifteen minutes of instruction and status checks he finally announced that we were ready to take our first steps.

Standing up turned out to be more difficult that you might imagine. While the suit bent neatly at the waist, the normal mechanism of pulling my legs beneath me or rolling over to my knees didn't work well from the crate I was in.

"Lesson number one. The suit is capable of doing a lot of work - let it. Push your arms back and keep your waist stiff, the suit will recognize your desire to come to a standing position. Your AI has a lot of learning to do, might as well get started now. You first, Marny." Pete positioned himself at the end of her crate.

She popped up a little too quickly and started to over-rotate. Dad had anticipated this and gave her a little nudge backward. "Good. You do that next time and I guarantee you'll catch yourself just fine."

He stood in front of my crate and nodded at me. I pushed my arms back to get a feeling for how much power I had available. The feedback made me feel like I was pushing on something very light. I popped my hands down and came flying up out of the crate, clean over the top of Big Pete. Having flown a lot in a vac-suit, it didn't concern me too much, but I knew I needed to adjust. I tucked into a ball, straightened out behind him and landed on my bent knees.

"Sorry," I said, as I turned around to face him.

"You mean to do that?" he asked.

"Not initially, but once I was up and going, I just kind of rolled with it," I said.

"That was quite a maneuver, for a maggot." He sounded a little impressed. "How about you take it easy on that sort of thing for a while?"

Now that we were upright, walking was possible. Nick identified crates he wanted us to place in the container. To start out, walking was difficult, mostly because my legs were used to a particular stride. In the suit, my legs were now about half a meter longer.

We took two hours to load the container, a task that could have been accomplished by stevedore bots in twenty minutes or less. It had been a good exercise, though. The maneuvers involved had helped us learn to control the suit for basic tasks.

"Believe it or not," Big Pete said. "The mechanized infantry probably still spend more time moving equipment than fighting. In my day, the extraordinary power of the suit, combined with the fine controls of a skilled Marine made us invaluable in relocating camps."

"We need to get going and I don't think there's enough room to bring the suits down to the surface with us this time," Nick said. "Maybe tomorrow?"

"Unnecessary," Big Pete said, "we can do a high altitude insertion."

"Are you nuts?" I asked.

"Not at all. While the first time is a little exhilarating, the suit actually does all the work. We'll bring it in nice and easy. We can even follow Nick in," he said. I could tell he was loving every moment of being in charge.

"Marny?" I asked.

"Aye. I'm in, Cap. It's something I've always wanted to try," she said.

"Every Marine has suit envy. It's to be expected." Pete was smiling widely.

We formed up on the pod-jumper, holding onto the container as Nick sailed towards Mars. At an altitude of two hundred kilometers, our suits disengaged from the pod-jumper and we spread out, separating by a kilometer. At ninety kilometers, the suit started to shake and I noticed that the external surface was starting to glow red, but I kept falling directly at the planet, head first.

Exhilarating was the wrong word. Terrifying was the right word. It looked like the entire forward surface of my suit was on fire. I kept expecting the heat to reach into my suit and burn me up, which of course it didn't.

At fifty kilometers the suit flipped over so that I was falling with my chest pointed toward the surface of the planet. If I hadn't been so terrified, I might have found the view to be amazing. I tried to express this to Nick. As it turned out, Big Pete had muted me because, apparently, I was screaming all the way down. When I reached eight kilometers the suit rotated again, feet down. Arc-jets started firing and my descent finally slowed to a reasonable rate.

The ground came up toward us unbelievably fast. I couldn't imagine how I wasn't going to smash into the surface and bury myself twenty meters beneath the dirt.

Incoming emergency hail
, my AI announced.

Accept
, I heard Big Pete say. He was in command of our suits and would need to answer for the three of us. We were all falling within fifty meters of each other.

"Unidentified craft. You're about to enter a secure area, alter trajectory or you will be considered hostile."

I saw a grid outlining our landing location. I didn't think we had a lot of choice about the matter until my suit rotated forward and small foils appeared between my legs and in the space between my arms and chest. We veered violently off to the side. In my opinion, we were too close to the ground to execute such a maneuver and live. The ground rushed up to meet me and at the last moment the suit forced me to curl up into a ball just before impact. Since I had a significant amount of horizontal movement, I skipped across the ground, finally rolling to a stop.

"Liam. What happened," Nick's panicked voice asked. He was behind us considerably, but I had no doubt he'd been tracking us.

"We didn't let Tali know we were coming and tripped one of her security protocols," I said.

"Everyone okay?" Big Pete asked on the squad's channel.

"Aye," Marny replied.

"Roger that." I rolled over and popped my hands back with less force than I had in the warehouse. I came up with only a little over rotation and caught myself easily.

"I'm afraid I must have entered the wrong coordinates," Big Pete said. "Sorry about the landing, but it's better than being fired on."

"Good news and bad news Dad," I said. "That was the right location, we just neglected to tell our landlady that we'd be dropping in on her."

"Form up, shoulder to shoulder. We've got incoming. I'm not unlocking your weapons unless we're fired upon, but something's coming in fast," he said.

A riderless grav-bike roared over the top of us at twenty five meters.

"What in the…" Big Pete started.

Incoming communication request
, I heard on the squad comm channel.

Accept
, Big Pete replied.

"Identify yourselves. You're trespassing." It was Tali's voice.

"Dad, that's Tali. Give me an open comm," I said. The squad controls didn't allow me to communicate as long as Big Pete was in charge.

"You're open. Go," he replied.

"Tali," I said quickly. "Don't shoot, it's Liam and Marny."

"Who's the third?" she asked.

My HUD outlined her as she walked up over the hill. She was carrying a large blaster rifle.

"It's my Dad," I said. By now she'd have received my ident signal.

"You might let a girl know you're going to practice high altitude drops. That was a heck of a maneuver you all took there at the end. Anyone hurt?" she asked.

"Do you count being queasy?" Marny asked.

"Sorry, my friend. Where in the world did you get these suits?" she asked.

I exhaled a sigh. "Long story."

"Always is with you, Liam. Sorry about all that, I thought we were under attack," she said.

I introduced her to Big Pete, who'd been watching the exchange dumbfounded.

"Nice to meet you, Miss Liszt," he said. He'd opened up the suit and reached down to shake her hand. I wasn't sure I could do the same without falling over. "What is it with you boys and all these beautiful women?" He looked at me, genuinely baffled.

"Don't let her fool you, Dad, Tali's every bit the fighter Marny is," I said.

"That'd be an understatement, Cap," Marny added quickly.

We accompanied Tali over to where her grav-bike had landed. Apparently, she'd jumped off early and used it to cause a distraction.

Big Pete wasn't about to miss a training opportunity and challenged us to jog back to the habitation domes. His superior skill was evident, as Marny and I both fell several times when we misjudged the uneven terrain. Each time we got back up, however, it was a little bit easier. I could see how it would take a Marine several months to excel in the suit, but it also seemed to me that we were learning the basics quickly.

Nick and Tali were waiting for us at the habitation domes. We stepped out of the mech suits and I grabbed my civvies from the pod-jumper. For several minutes I found it difficult to walk with my now, overly short-feeling legs.

"I think we should have a barbeque," Tali said. "Any chance you could talk Tabby into coming over for that?"

"She's not overly mobile yet," I said.

She tilted her head and gave me a look that I could only interpret as sympathy. "She will be. They'll kick her out of that hospital sooner than you'd think."

"I'm seeing her tonight. I'll ask."

"Be patient, it's a big adjustment. I've a lot of friends who've made it through. It's too early, but when she's ready, I'd like to introduce her to them," she said.

"Thank you," I said. It was time to go see her. "Nick, any chance I could get a ride.

"Actually, I'm going that way. I can drop you at the MAG-L if you like," Tali said.

DEAL WITH THE DEVIL

For the next week, days pretty much repeated themselves. I'd spend nights with Tabby, only to get kicked out in the morning by the physical therapist. During the days, I spent time playing mech-warrior with Marny and Tali. We'd even been able to convince Nick to train with us. Originally, I'd been worried about causing the suits to lose value, but Nick reminded me that we'd likely be giving them back to Mars Protectorate once someone actually read through the inventory.

I discovered that a person's personality outside of the suits translated directly to their personality within them. Marny was just as undefeatable in hand-to-hand combat with a suit as she was without it. She easily anticipated my moves and more often than not, it turned into a lesson in combat. Similarly, she had a difficult time keeping up with Tali.

"Tomorrow, I'm starting on the arc-jet chair," Tabby announced at the end of the week. She sounded upbeat, which made sense since she'd be gaining a substantial amount of mobility.

"Have you looked into different models?" I asked.

"Of chairs? I guess I hadn't thought about it. The Navy will supply one for me."

"Maybe they're all the same," I said, not believing it for a minute.

"One thing at a time," she said.

"Speaking of… Mom and Ada will be back on Tuesday and Tali invited us out for a bonfire and barbeque. Would you be willing?" I asked.

The color drained from Tabby's face and her eyes opened wide. "I… I… I'm… I don't think I'll be ready for that."

"No pressure, if it doesn't work out, no big deal. Let's talk on Tuesday and if you're not in for that, I won't push you. Sound reasonable?"

"I suppose." She looked down at the back of her prosthetic hand. I was impressed with how much mobility she'd gained with the arm and hand. It wasn't as good as her normal arm, but she'd become proficient.

"Cards?" I asked.

"Sure," she said.

The next morning started earlier than most. Tabby woke me up and said, "Liam. Patricia's going to be here early today and I don't think she likes you very much."

"I don't care," I said sleepily.

"Get up," she said. "I asked her if she could start early today. Did you know she stays late every day and doesn't even get paid for it?"

"Why is she so grumpy?"

A familiar harrumph came from the doorway. "Because
she
has important work to accomplish and boyfriends just get in the way. Now off with you."

I rolled out of the bed, put on my prosthetic, grabbed my holster from the chair and swung it over my shoulders. I gave Tabby a warm kiss and refused to make eye contact with troll breath. It was a no win situation and I knew when I was beaten.

I stopped at a corner coffee shop and pulled up my queue. A priority comm from Mars Protectorate was at the top. I opened the message and discovered that Nick and I had been summoned to a meeting in Coolidge at 1400 this afternoon. The location wasn't very far from where I was drinking coffee.

"Nick, you up?" I asked. It was 0600 local time.

"Am now," he said.

"And he's not getting out of running this morning," Marny said into his comm unit.

"Check your queue," I said.

"Okay, give me a second," he said. After a few minutes he summarized, "It didn't say much, did it?"

"Any ideas?" I asked.

"Sounds like I'm coming your way this afternoon," he said.

"Do you think we need a lawyer?" I asked.

"No. There's no legalese in the message. If they were charging us with something, we'd have received a much different type of summons and it would have come from the judiciary," he explained.

I found myself oddly frozen in time, not wanting to trek all the way over to our compound just to come back in the middle of the afternoon. I met Nick at the MAG-L terminal an hour before our meeting.

A four-seater shuttle dropped us off in front of a twenty story white building. Stone steps led up to a wide apron. The lofty atrium was separated from the elements by soaring transparent panels. Initially I didn't think there were doors, but when we crossed over the threshold it was clear we'd passed through an energy barrier.