The Heart of Matter: Odyssey One (24 page)

All eyes were on the skies as the radio chatter filled the observation area with the sound of the incoming soldiers.
Colonel Reed carefully split his attention, paying some mind to the exercise, but he was really more interested in the reactions of the Priminae observers.

“Troops clear!”

“Cav Flight, this is Cav One. We are clear!”

Reed and the others watched as the shuttles twisted in the air and pulled immediately out of the LZ, staying low as they pulled away toward a predetermined rendezvous.

“They’ll hide themselves well away from the battle, taking their air wing with them,” he explained to Nero and Tanner as four of the Archangels stayed close to the retreating shuttles. “But they won’t be far.”

The dance of the battle was intricate, almost pure chaos to the untrained eye, but Reed saw the patterns under the surface of that chaos, and he liked what he saw.

Mostly.

“They’re a little late on the drop,” he said idly a moment later, speaking to Captain Weston now. “Shuttle Four was a good minute over their allotted time.”

Eric nodded. “I noticed. I’ll have a word with the major about it.”

Reed just nodded in response, not needing to say anything more. A minute in battle was a long time, and the entire point of air cavalry operations was to get in fast, hit hard, and be able to get back out.

PRIMINAE COLONY, THEORA DEICE
Orbital Station

▸“WE’VE LOST ANOTHER pod!”

Lora nodded, her face set in a grim rigor as she watched the
Heralc
take out another of the enemy ships. They were down to fifteen Drasin now, but the wave of fighters from the lead cruisers were in among the laser pods now, and they were going up one by one.

“Keep firing,” she ordered calmly.

Too calmly
, part of her mind whispered to her. She couldn’t feel much besides this strange detached sensation that made her feel as if she weren’t really there, like she was just watching.

That was true, in a way. She was sitting safely in the orbital command station, and they had yet to be fired upon. There was no indication that the Drasin had even noticed them yet; they were too occupied with the
Heralc
and the laser pods, so the command center was entirely untouched by battle.

A light flickered on the screen, and someone groaned as another laser pod vanished from the screen.

Well, perhaps not entirely untouched
.

PLANET RANQUIL

▸“THEY’RE ON THE ground, Colonel Reed. Defenses are active and engaging the assault force.”

“Thank you, Chief,” Reed said, eyeing the battle through the projected enhancement of the field. “Increase the attack power of the field defenses by 40 percent.”

“You got it, Colonel,” Wilson said, tapping a command into his computer control.

Through their computer-enhanced view of the battle, Reed and the others could see the figures through the smoke and flames that obscured their direct line of sight. The system added in generated images of each of the soldiers as they moved in shallow leaps and fast-paced sprints across the field. Even the beams of lasers and return fire from the soldiers was added in using a real-time algorithm, making the entire thing look very much like a Hollywood movie.

“Most impressive,” Rael Tanner said quietly, watching the madness of destruction as it was echoed to the screen in front of him. Oddly, though, he had to admit that it was the distant smoke and thunder that was somehow more impressive.

“Actually, it’s not,” Reed said, frowning.

“Pardon?” Nero asked then, speaking for the first time since the exercise had begun.

“He means that the assault team is rusty,” Captain Weston said, stepping closer to look at the numbers. “They’ve lost too many people for this level of defense, and they’re behind schedule by almost two minutes now.”

Reed nodded. “That’s the problem with a newly formed team, Commander. These men haven’t yet learned to work together properly, and it’s telling. Wilson?”

“Yes, Colonel?”

“Double the attack force.”

“Aye, Colonel,” the former Navy SEAL replied automatically, then increased the numbers on his system.

Behind him, he noticed the Priminae observers exchanging glances that were a decided mix of confusion and apprehension. Milla, a little more used to the Terrans, leaned closer to Nero and Rael to whisper to them.

“They seem to enjoy making things harder for each other, Admiral, Commander,” she said softly.

Tanner and Jehan shrugged, but couldn’t find the words to comment as they focused once more on the action unfolding.

“We’re getting hammered here!” someone screamed over the tactical network, causing Lt. Jackson Crowley to wince in annoyance.

He didn’t know why anyone was yelling; it wasn’t like that would actually help anyone hear them. He adjusted his computer to regulate the volume of the comm chatter as he
bounded the EXO-12 across the terrain, keeping lower and moving slower than his suited companions.

“Keep up, Lieutenant!” Brinks snarled, an image of the major appearing in the corner of Crowley’s HUD. “We aren’t coming back for you!”

“Yes, sir!” Jackson said, tapping in a command sequence. “Initiating NICS interface, Major. I’ll be with you in a second.”

The major grumbled something and signed off, but Jackson ignored it and flipped up the shielded switch that protected the NICS activation sequence. The metal shield locked the switch in place, and the suit flashed a brief warning over his HUD as the NICS molecular needles slid from his helmet and right into the back of his neck.

“Ahhh…” Jackson grimaced, though the pain fled a moment later.

“NICS engaged,” he said over the command band, adjusting his grip on the control wands in each hand as his feet worked the pedals that controlled his steps. “Engaging maneuvering thrusters.”

The EXO-12 hard suit was designed as a medium armor intended originally to provide a strong armor support to urban operations in hostile territory. Its twelve-foot stature was a little too big for clearing out most buildings, but it could move through city streets with a level of skill and efficiency that even the most nimble and fleet of conventional armor couldn’t match.

One of its primary design considerations was that it be able to keep up physically, not only with foot soldiers equipped with powered armor, but also with the high-speed APCs that had seen more and more use as the previous battlefield mainstay, the main battle tank, fell into disfavor.

Powered and supplemented by the NICS interface, the EXO-12 was capable of running at speeds in excess of fifty miles per hour over relatively level ground. Impressive as that may be when compared to an unpowered human, it wasn’t the equal of the high-speed attack APCs used in modern urban warfare, nor was it the equal of the jumping speed of a soldier using the latest in powered armor.

So the designers had added a few things to make up for its bulk.

The twin thrusters on the back of the tactical armor were one part of that solution, a part that came into play as Crowley jumped his armor off the ground and engaged the thrust for a powered leap that reached just over 120 miles per hour at its peak.

Jackson had purposely kept the arc low, which made things harder for the local defenses to find and kill him but also made the landing a lot trickier on him. He threw himself back, bringing the armor with him, and landed at better than a forty-five degree angle to the ground.

The “feet” of the armor dug in as he landed, digging deep furrows as Jackson brought the armor to a stop almost two hundred meters from where he started, and right in the midst of the formation of soldiers led by Major Brinks.

PRIMINAE COLONY, THEORA DEICE
Orbital Station