Descent into Mayhem (Capicua Chronicles Book 1) (35 page)

Base Fido, Nature’s Night, 21
st
of June, 2771

Toni gave the Hammerhead a long, hard look, the problem before him having finally presented itself. There was no orifice for opening the titan’s breastplate, and its large and heavy frame made plain to him what he hadn’t considered when accepting the colonel’s proposal; the Hammerhead was an entirely different species from the Moca Suit, and he simply hadn’t the training or experience to operate it. He didn’t, in fact, even know how to access its interface cavity.

“You gonna keep screwing it with your eyes? Get in, rook.” Jonah ordered as she stowed her gear in a plastic duffel bag, her travel pack’s fate having already been tragically sealed.

“There’s just one problem, corporal. How do I get inside?”

She paused in the midst of her activities and remained there for a while, taking the remark in and slowly realizing what it implied. She had been on the juice for a while, and her jaw bulged before it met her ears in a very masculine way, a trait in stark contrast to her full lips and feminine pose.

“How in the hell
wouldn’t
you know?” She asked bitingly.

“I’ve only ever been trained in the Moca. Never drove a Hammerhead before.”

“So the Suit you faced the Unmil with ...”

“... Was a Moca, yes.”

“Fucking rooks!” She exclaimed angrily as she shook her shaved skull, “You’re missing an arm and haven’t the slightest idea of how to get into a Hammerhead, much less dri–”

“He has a very good idea how to drive a hammer ...” Park interrupted, oblivious to the drama, “That’s what the Moca’s for, don’t you remember?”

The man had enough muscle on him to make Jonah look scrawny, but Toni had quickly realized that he possessed the more moderate disposition between the two EWAC corporals. Toni had also become conscious of the fact that his being a sergeant-cadet carried absolutely no weight with either, his unofficial rank of “rook” having promptly relegated him to a category below human.

“You need the appropriate pen-key, rook, yours just won’t do.” Park informed the cadet levelly. There was something about the man, probably the wide lion-like interval between his Korean eyes, that made Toni want to turn away. But he didn’t, giving him a firm nod instead.

“How do I get one?”

The corporal smiled.

“You simply use the one your predecessor left behind when he stroked out.” He replied, tossing the device to a surprised Toni.

“Sorry ‘bout that. Didn’t know he was dead.”

“Dead? Oh no, the dickhead’s alive enough, but he’s probably not going to have it easy for a while. You better learn from his mistake. If you tighten your straps too much and keep hard at it for long enough without rest, once you loosen them again you might be sending a blood clot on its way to your thinker. Understood?”

“Yes, sir. Where do I insert it?”

“Up its ass, of course. No, no, I’m just kidding, cadet, leave that alone. There’s no insert for your pen-key; you just touch the stick against one of its oculars and infrared comms will do the rest. The user-manual’s in a compartment in the cavity’s left flank. Give it a quick read-through, but focus on the customizable settings, ‘cause you’re probably going to have to make some in-stride adjustments.”

The moment Toni touched the pen-key against the bowed helm’s left ocular there was a swoosh of hydraulics, and the thorax’s access doors opened before him like twin petals, exposing what was by his standards a very spacious interior.

His view of its hydraulic interface was partly obscured by a wide sternum the access doors locked into when they shut, and as he clambered onto the titan’s kneepad he became aware of its impressive thickness. The doors themselves, which when closed constituted about the only frontal armor he could reasonably expect to protect him, proved to be of even greater thickness, and a side view made it clear to him that they were laminated, spaced and well-backed. Awesome.

“Your diapers, rook!” Toni heard from behind.

Expecting literal diapers, he turned to find Jonah offering him several new Scopolamine patches. Taking them from her outstretched hand, he thanked her, only to have her sniff disapprovingly and turn away. The patches were thicker than he was used to, and he realized they were meant for five-day jaunts. He almost wished they
had
been diapers.

Almost.

The Hydraulic interface appeared much sleeker than that of the Mocas’, with its wires and piping conveniently secured and protected in adhesive cable organizers, and the suit’s strapping system was much sturdier, having apparently been conceived for aggressive maneuvering. And so the old problem arose once more; the tighter the fit, the more precise the interface was, but the greater the chances of constriction of the circulatory system. Toni remembered Kaiser’s uniform, and of how it had appeared to possess a thin layer of some protective liquid beneath it. They seemed to be on the right track there.

Finding his predecessor’s spare uniform jammed into the compartment Park had referred to, Toni pulled it on over his own in the hope that the straps’ constrictive effect would somehow lessen that way, feeling only stiffness in his arm where days ago he had felt pain. He then removed the pristine user-manual from its plastic wrapping, leaning against the cavity’s tilted floor to do some heavy reading.

It wasn’t long before he realized his initial impressions of the Suit had been wrong; the Hammerhead had apparently been conceived to more closely emulate human maneuverability, and as a result it relied on more than just germane as its pneumatic gas of choice. Germane was apparently also known as germanium hydride, and above a certain temperature it decomposed into amorphous germanium and hydrogen gas. The hydrogen was then recycled and stored in a separate tank for use in powering a significant portion of the Suit’s artificial muscles.

Thus germane was employed in slow-twitch PAMs for greater power due to its high gaseous density, while hydrogen was employed in fast-twitch PAMs for greater speed due to its high fluidity, and the ratio of G to H could be decreased by passing the gas through a resistance and storing the resulting solid. The Suit possessed two different types of CAT, as well as a specialized compartment between them intended to store all excess germanium. Also within that compartment was an apparatus that manufactured germane gas by extracting Hydrogen from one tank, heating it in the presence of the amassed solid, and depositing the final product in the other. It was known as a GH reactor, and its activity was closely linked to the battery of compressors that partly encircled it. Among the first in-stride adjustments he would soon be expected to make was to follow the OS’s instructions, maneuvering the Suit until the ideal ratio of slow-to-fast twitch PAMs could be calculated, as well as their precise locations in the general muscle structure.

It was all fairly impressive, but Toni could only remember how easily the MEWAC Suits had exploded into crimson flames that day at the mines.
Germane burns with a bright red flame
, he reminded himself.

Peering once more at the interface cavity above and around him, Toni tried to memorize its interior. Its almost spherical wall was well-padded with square panels of beige-colored foam and, aside from reinforced tubing that snaked up the HINT’s articulated support crane and into the roof, was entirely devoid of the innards he’d become accustomed to seeing inside the Moca. The crane itself possessed some padding of its own around its sharper corners, although its hydraulic cylinders, much more robust in section and length than their equivalents in the Moca, were still plainly visible to his admiring eyes. A few panels were bordered in bright orange, and their centers were covered in writing that explained what could be accessed behind it; RIGHT DOOR HYDRAULIC NODE – DO NOT CUT, GENERAL ELECTRICAL GRID – RISK OF ELECTROCUTION, DANGER – LIVE WEAPON INSIDE, among others. The only exception consisted of a small transparent panel inside of which was a pen-key insert and the door controls.

“Hey there, Mr. Tardy!” An ecstatic voice sounded from below, causing Toni to smile.

“Hey there yourself, Happyface! So, do you like your new partner?”

True to her handle, Hannah beamed up at him from between the titan’s kneepads, clearly exhilarated at the state-of-the-art war-maker she had just been handed.

“
You’re
my new partner. Didn’t you know?” She quipped, causing him to blush.

Her happy face momentarily became serious.

“Toni, I know what the colonel said about sorting out that business with Ian, but that’s no reason to go berserk out there. Remember what Baylen keeps saying ...”

“The Pair is the army’s smallest unit, I know.” He replied seriously, “I don’t have any plans to die today, Hannah.”

Hannah was about to say something else, but an EWAC captain’s sudden arrival cut her short.

“Cadet Miura? Please come down.” He ordered curtly.

Toni clambered down from his unit and approached the captain uneasily. Not bothering to salute due to not having donned an appropriate head-covering, he stood instead at attention before the officer and awaited recognition.

“At ease, cadet, let’s leave formalities aside. And, Arakaki, you stay too. I have a few questions to ask, and I need them answered within the hour.”

“Uh, sir, I’ve been doing a lot of that today, I don’t know what else to say.”

“Listen. These Unmils, they’re humans, right? What are they like? What are they here for?”

Before Toni could answer, Park appeared and warned the captain that Command was waiting on them to deploy. Irritably waving the corporal away, the perspiring captain focused on the cadet before him once more, apparently not caring in the least for his superiors’ order-of-operations. The senior corporal gave his commanding officer a long, expressionless stare before finally departing for his unit.

“Sir, they are definitely human. One of them is already dead, so they can most definitely be killed, and they’re not adapted to our planet’s gravity or atmosphere like we are. And if I didn’t get it wrong, they’re basically here to annex Capicua to Earth, and they’ve no problem in wiping out our capital to get it done, sir.”

“They’re not willing to compromise, then? At all?” He asked tensely.

“I don’t think they really need to, sir ...” he replied, beginning to doubt the officer’s nerve.

“Right ...” the captain declared with a skyward glance.

Toni tried to reassure the captain, but the officer cut him short and ordered them to Suit up and run through the setup sequence. He could see the alarm on Hannah’s face as they turned to their units, but he suddenly remembered something that caused him to turn once more.

“Sir? We don’t know our call-signs yet ...”

The captain took a long while to think on it before finally answering.

“Right, you’re Digger Three and the other’s is Digger Five. You’ll stay paired up with Park like your predecessor was, and Five will be with Jonah.”

“Sir, I’d prefer to –”

“You’d prefer nothing, cadet! I’m not pairing up a couple of rookies with no walking experience an hour before combat! Get to your Suits!” He roared, scaring the idea out of Toni’s mind like a bat from a twilit cave.

“Yessir!” He hollered and snapped about smartly, earning himself a stifled snort of laughter from his fellow cadet.

Accelerating to a jog, Toni leapt upon a buckled kneepad and into the cavity’s lobby, pausing to hurriedly insert the pen-key into its slot, seal the doors and stow the manual before finally laying his back snugly against the HINT. He then carefully inserted one leg at a time into the device, strapping both securely in before doing the same with his arms, and lastly with his abdominal and thoracic bindings. After checking his straps carefully for their tightness, he pulled down and donned the light-weight helmet and facemask.

“Activate Suit!” He ordered.

The graphic display made him feel like he had just fast-forwarded a full century, and when he ordered outside-visual the image quality left Toni almost immersed in his surroundings. The foreground display prompts were comparatively streamlined, but their organization greatly resembled the Mocas’ and he quickly initiated the customization process. Hannah’s Digger Five, which had only moments ago been kneeling on his left side, was already beginning to move and, not wishing to retain his notorious handle, Toni rushed through the ocular calibration and ordered biomechanical diagnostics to initiate.

“Initiating bio-diagnostics,” his sister’s sweet voice began, “your full cooperation is fundamental for successful calibration. Please stand!”

Armored gauntlets pressed against Digger Three’s left kneepad as he heaved upwards, and he felt the HINT straps pressing against his extremities and shoulders as the device’s hydraulic interface fought his effort to stand. Moments later he was ordered to return to position one and then, once again, to stand. The second effort proved easier. He followed the computer’s instructions very diligently over the entire process, fully aware that, although the OS was conceived to keep a running diagnostic on its driver and update its settings accordingly, he would probably find himself in the midst of battle before his ideal ratio had been reached.

“Here Digger Prime, Diggers inform romeo conditions, over.”