Grunt Traitor (26 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

W
E STOOD INSIDE
a hangar-sized building in an old OPFOR motor pool. Insignia and dates told the tale of who’d been the opposing forces from the 1970s on, including a special section for the Tarantulas, a small, special elite force designed to capture and kill the enemy’s senior leaders. The crest was of a black tarantula with knives at the end of every hand. The same crest was on the chests of the twelve EXOs that stood before us in two lines of six.

I remember back when the Faraday Suit was revealed. Its invention had been a logical response to the threat of the Cray. We’d all read Scalzi and Steakley and knew how they’d portrayed power armor and powered exoskeletons. Borrowed from Heinlein’s
Starship Troopers
, which were in turn borrowed from E. E. Doc Smith’s Lensman novels; it wasn’t as if there was a copyright on the idea. When mere humans were forced to fight creatures so much larger than themselves, they needed mechanical assistance to survive, which was why the Electromagnetic Faraday Xeno-combat suit, or EXO, was invented by OMBRA technicians. To keep us alive, and to foil the Cray’s inherent EMP capability.

The problem was that EMP hardening caused immense problems with communications. Fortunately, OMBRA devised a method using Extremely Low Frequencies (ELF) with a ground dipole antenna established through the soles of the EXO’s feet. Since the majority of EMP energy is seen in the microwave frequencies, the system was capable of operating on a battlefield in which EMPs had been brought into play. Advanced digital modulation techniques allowed them to compress data on the signal, allowing real-time feeds between team members and back to base. A backup, transmit-only communications system resided in an armored blister atop the helmet. Called the Rotating Burst Transmission Module (RBTM), it was comprised of a one-inch rotating sphere inside of the blister with its own battery power. One side of the sphere was able to pick up a packet of data when rotated ‘inside’ the Faraday cage of the EXO; when rotated ‘outside’ this protection, it transmitted the packet as a burst.

The EXO itself was an armored and EMP-hardened powered exoskeleton suit that stood about nine feet tall and had about double the bulk of a strong human. The outer covering alternated layers of Kevlar and titanium, bonded together to protect both the wearer and the grounding web. Internally the suit had hardened electronics for video feeds, voice communication, targeting, night vision, sound amplification/dampening and vital sign monitoring, along with heating, cooling and an air rebreather system with CO2 scrubbers, all powered by extremely light, high-energy rechargeable batteries. All systems were controlled by eye movements, through an internal HUD system with Gaze technology, or remotely from base as a backup.

The techs had succeeded in improving the HUD system from the previous generation and had also been able to improve on the batteries. I could remember when an entire EXO had seized, leaving me locked inside and dying. That was a wonderful moment in my personal history.

Each Recon EXO had three primary weapon systems.

The integral rocket launcher (IRL) was mounted over the left shoulder on rails, so as to rotate it back out of the way or bring it forward to firing position when needed. The standard payload was thirty Hydra rockets with air-burst warheads set to detonate at a range determined before launch by the suit’s internal targeting system. Missiles were free-flight after launch, with a hardened internal timer for detonation. This system was designed to engage alien drones at maximum to medium targeting range.

Pulled out of mothballs at Aberdeen Proving Ground before the invasion, the XM214 was the EXO’s primary attack armament, a six-barreled rotating minigun fed from a backpack ammo supply through an ammo feed arm. OMBRA modified the original 1970s General Electric design, giving the system three backpack-mounted 500-round ammo boxes linked together, for a total of 1500 rounds. The original 1970s electronic controls, which could modify the rate of fire on the fly, were micronized, hardened against EMP, and incorporated into the ammo boxes. The servo that spun the barrels only engaged when the automatic harness system that pulled the weapon back out of the way was released.

When all else failed, a grunt needed a blade. A meter long and sixteen centimeters wide, TF OMBRA’s harmonic blade vibrated at ultrasonic frequencies, making it thousands of times more effective at slicing through armored opponents than a normal blade. The weapon was made from Stellite to help withstand the vibrational forces as well as any environmental extremes an OMBRA grunt might encounter, and the vibration was generated in the hilt by an electrically isolated system powered by a high energy battery.

We reviewed the improvements to the new model against the model I’d previously worn. Most of the advancements were in electronics, shielding, and battery power. OMBRA technicians had raided an abandoned Siemens plant outside of Munich and found the plans for the next generation batteries. Those plans had been incorporated into the new EXOs, extending the range from ninety minutes of activity to a startling twenty-four hours.

Wearing the EXOs sure beat returning to L.A. in an environmental suit. Not only would we be secure from spores, but we’d be able to rip through any fungees who’d go against us. Even as I thought this, it gave me pause. I remembered that while my body was controlled by the spore, I was a mute, helpless audience to what it was doing. Part of me wanted to explain this to my soldiers, but another part of me, that pragmatic part which needed them to survive, promised that telling them would do absolutely no good, and could get them killed. There was no way to get a cure to the infected prior to our mission. If they came at us, we’d have to take them down, pure and simple. I let the reality of that wash over me and knew it was a responsibility I was going to have to bear all by myself. Then with utter horror, I remembered the children who’d attacked Dupree, Sandi and me in the gravel pit. We’d taken them down like mindless zombies. It was only now that I realized that they were probably crying in their own minds, wondering what the world had done to them, screaming for us not to hurt them. I frowned. Not what the
world
had done to them, but what the Hypocrealiacs had done. I was suddenly grimly determined to take a version of hell to the aliens that they’d never imagined.

They finally released us to our own EXOs. Everyone had been rated to wear them. EXO practice had been a general part of their training. Sula’s had to be retrofitted for her small stature: a sort of booster seat was created for her legs and the internal arm actuators were extended for her hands. We climbed inside and began the process of getting to know our battlesuits. We were going to have a day to practice in the mock village of Ertebat Shar, then we’d go into L.A.. Our mission timeline was to hit our target in ninety-six hours. Not a large window.

We were designated Tarantula One, because Dewhurst was with us. He was in charge of the overall mission, which we’d still not been briefed on. He’d promised to let me and Olivares in on the secret this evening. All hush-hush; it wasn’t as if the enemy had anyone nearby to steal the plans. In the meantime, I was designated the battle captain for combat operations, making Dewhurst one of the members of Team One.

I called them to form behind me. When the great doors of the hangar opened, I began jogging and watched in my HUD as each of them fell in line behind me. We exited as a disorganized mob and stayed that way for a good while. I ordered us into single file and yelled at the team for not keeping distance between each other. They tried to get it by sight and couldn’t do it. After I told them to use their front and rear laser targeting nodes, they were able to calibrate their machines to stay within parameters. I was trying to teach them that it was less about what they could make the EXO do and more about what the EXO could do for them.

When they got to the point where they could keep an equal distance, I had them flow into a V formation. At first they were all over the place. Again I advised them how to use the EXOs, and they were soon programming the machines to do the work for them. After switching from a single file to a V and back several dozen times, we then worked on overwatch and bounding overwatch.

Twice Stranz complained about the drills, wanting instead to shoot something, and twice Sula shut him down.

Dewhurst was silent throughout the exercise, as were Ohirra and Macabre. And for good reason. By the time we were done, we were huffing and puffing with exertion. The suits took on much of the effort for us, but we were still using our muscles and bones to actuate the movement. I drove them hard and wanted them to feel the effort. So as we stood in a circle and faced each other, gasping for breath, I checked everyone’s life signs. Dewhurst’s were the worst. His heart rate was at ninety percent of his max, while everyone else’s was at seventy percent.

“This was nothing, ladies and gents,” I said to one and all. “If you’re breathing hard, it’s because you’ve gotten soft.”

“We’re not soft. It’s just we’ve never been in combat with these before,” Macabre said.

“Felt more like band practice,” Stranz said, laughing. “I think we made some hearts, maybe stars.”

“Funny,” I said. “Going to be even funnier when you fail to move into the correct formation and you find yourself all alone as Craybait. We looked like shit out there, but at least we got better. You need to learn to trust your suits. Use them, don’t force them. Like any tool, they’re only as good as the operator. We’re going to practice again in four hours. Meanwhile, I want you to find a tech and get them to show you how to field strip the ammo accelerators. I want you to know the parts inside and out. If you need to, make that tech your best friend. Stranz, help them out.”

Sula and Mal groaned, but didn’t argue.

They needed to know how close to death they were. “I’m going to break it down for you, Barney-style. Back at Kilimanjaro, we didn’t know what we didn’t know. We went out and fought and were picked apart. We were
lucky
to win. That’s right. You heard me. Lucky. Since then we’ve improved our TTPs. When we go into L.A., we’re not going to go in as a group of individuals. We’re going in as a team, with interlocking fields of fire. My goal, and yours as well, is to assure that we all survive whatever shenanigans Major Dewhurst has up his sleeve.”

As if on cue, Dewhurst, whose heart rate was lowering slower than the rest, said, “After this evening’s exercise, I’ll be able to brief everyone. The final pieces are being put in place. I just want to make sure everything is safe and secure.”

“You heard the man,” I said. “Park your EXOs and get them ready. You have four hours.”

Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.

Thomas Jones

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

D
EWHURST HAD QUARTERS
near ours. He took a shower, then came into our hooch and sat down on one of the chairs. He looked his age, which was the problem. He sucked down one bottle of water, then another. I clocked him at about forty. He shouldn’t be in as bad a shape as he was.

“You were a reservist,” I said, rather than asked.

He nodded. “I was. My day job was as a GS14 civilian at the Department of Energy Research Lab. I was assigned to National Falls, Idaho.”

“Long way away from here,” Olivares said.

“Long way away from anywhere, now.” Dewhurst leaned back and took a deep breath. Then he looked at me with his penetrating eyes. “I audited your feed and saw you watching me.”

I wasn’t aware that a feed could be audited. I knew now. “What’d you come up with?”

“That I’m in questionable shape.”

“I concur,” I said. “What are we going to do about it?”

“Nothing. I’m going on the mission.”

I raised an eyebrow.

He glanced at me and shook his head. “Seriously. I’m in charge of the mission.”

I glanced at Olivares, who nodded imperceptibly.

“You’ll be in charge of nothing if you don’t take this seriously.”

“I am.”

Sighing, I said, “You’re not. You’re too invested. I’ve seen too many grunts die and I’ll be damned if I lead some of them just so you can get your rocks off on a suicide mission.”

Dewhurst stared at me, then looked to Olivares for support. He gave him a cold blank stare; there would be no help there. Dewhurst returned his gaze to me. I saw a sadness there, but then this was the end of the world, and sadness was on all of our faces.

He started to speak, hesitated, then lowered his head so I couldn’t see his eyes. “I have a stent.”

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“My heart is at about seventy percent.”

“Then what the hell are you doing out here with my grunts?”

He closed his eyes, fighting against himself. “I was TDY to Washington D.C. for a conference when they attacked. They put a hive down on Idaho Falls and wiped everyone out within hours. My wife, my son, my two daughters. Everyone. You want to know why they put a hive on such a backwater place as Idaho Falls? Because almost our entire inventory of W84s are contained there. Seven hundred and fifty-two backpack-sized nuclear warheads, each capable of delivering a fifteen-kiloton nuclear explosion.”