FALLEN DRAGON (25 page)

"Well, now, Mr. Board Representative, as president of the independent planet of Thallspring I am telling you that we do not recognize the jurisdiction of Earth or any of its courts out here. However, I will surrender to a military invasion fleet that threatens our well-being, and allow your soldiers to loot our cities."

"Good enough." Simon smiled brightly. "I will post lists of the assets we require. My subordinates will transfer down to the planet's surface to supervise their shipment. We'll also help reinforce your police force in case of any civil disturbance. I'm sure both of us want this to go as smoothly as possible. The quicker it's done, the quicker we leave." He canceled his link to Edgar Strauss and issued the general landing order.

"We have a go authorization," Captain Bryant informed Lawrence. "Get your platoon suited up. We'll embark the drop gliders in two hours' time."

"Yes, sir. Have we got the updated ground cartography yet?"

"Tactical support is processing the surveillance satellite data at this moment. Don't worry, Sergeant, you'll have it before you fly down. Now carry on."

"Sir." He turned to face the platoon. They were all hanging on the edges of their bunks, facing him expectantly. "Okay, we're on."

Hal let out a loud whoop of satisfaction and jacked out of his bunk. The rest followed, keen for any end to the voyage, even one that pitched them into a hostile environment.

Lawrence was first into their suit armory. One of the rea
s
ons
Koribu's
life support wheels were so cramped was the amount of space the Skin suits took up in transit. Each one was stored in a bulky glass-fronted sustainer cabinet, which fed it a regulated supply of nutrients and oxygen. He walked down to the cabinet with his own suit inside and opened the small drawer on the bottom. It was empty apart from a plastic capsule containing a pair of full-spectrum optronic membranes. He slipped them onto his eyes and began to undress.

There was plenty of joshing and derisory comments as the platoon put in their own membranes and stripped off their one-piece tunics. Lawrence didn't join in; the banter had an edge to it as the reality of Thallspring crept toward them— their way of riding over the jitters.

He stripped naked except for a slim necklace with a cheap hologram crystal pendant. His thumb stroked the scuffed surface, and a seventeen-year-old Roselyn smiled brightly at him. Technically, even the necklace was against regulations, but Lawrence hadn't taken it off in twenty years. He pumped the small dispenser button next to the sustainer cabinet's drawer. The metal nozzle squirted out globs of pale blue dermalez gel, which he began to smear over his body. It took a good five minutes to cover himself completely, slicking down his short-cropped hair, rubbing it into his armpits and crotch. He and Amersy did each other's backs and shoulders. Only then was he ready to put his suit on.

His cabinet door opened with a quiet wheeze of cool air. He put his palm on the scan panel inside for a bone and blood review. The suit AS compared them to the patterns contained within its e-alpha section and agreed he was Lawrence Newton, the designated wearer. He waited for the disengage sequence to run, cycling the sustainer fluids out of the suit before disconnecting the umbilicals. Indigo script from the suit's AS scrolled down his optronic membranes, showing him its status. Bracing himself on the floor, he lifted the flac
c
id suit out. In the
Koribu's
low gravity it didn't weigh much, but it had roughly the same inertia as his own body.

From the outside, it looked no different from any of the other Skin suits his platoon was struggling to remove from their cabinets. The flexible carapace was a dark gray color, without any visible seams or ridges. Its fingers had hardened, slightly pointed tips; while the feet were boots with toughened soles. To touch, it had a texture similar to human skin, although the outer layer was the one part that wasn't biological. A smart polycarbon with an external sheet of chameleon molecules, and woven with thermal fibers capable of redirecting its infrared signature. Even if a hostile did manage to locate it, the carapace was tough enough to protect him from all handheld projectile weapons, and a fair percentage of small artillery pieces.

Lawrence gave it the order to egress him, and it split open smoothly across the chest from crotch to neck. Inside the carapace was a stratum of synthetic muscle up to five centimeters thick. He pushed his foot into the right leg, feeling the gel ooze against his skin as the limb slithered deeper into the suit. Like squeezing into whale blubber, he always thought. The left leg followed; then the arms were inserted into their sleeves. He tilted his head back and reached round for the helmet, which was hanging loosely. Moving his arms through even a small arc was hard, as if he were trying to shove a gym bar that was on maximum resistance. Slowly, though, the helmet section came up, and he pushed his head up inside. The grille was open and inactive, allowing him to suck down some air. As always, he felt a quick chill of claustrophobia: it was difficult to move, he could see nothing and hear nothing through the helmet.

Indigo script blinked up as the AS reported it was ready for full integration. Lawrence gave it permission. The carapace sealed up. A ripple moved along the suit as the synthetic muscle adjusted itself to grip him correctly. The optronic mem
b
ranes flashed elaborate visual test patterns at him, then began feeding him the picture from sensors mounted around the helmet. He swiveled his eyeballs from side to side, a motion picked up by the suit, which altered the sensor angle accordingly. Audio plugs wriggled into his ears, and he heard the grumbles and complaints of the platoon as they clambered into their own suits.

"Phase two," he told the suit AS.

With his legs held tight by the synthetic muscle, small nozzles extended into the valves on the top of his thighs, which had been surgically spliced into his femoral arteries and veins. A second set of nozzles coupled with the subclavian valves on his wrists; the last set were on his neck, plugging his carotid artery and jugular vein into the suit's own circulatory system. With the connections physically secure, the suit AS interfaced with the integral e-alpha guards governing the valves, enabling them. They opened, and his blood began to circulate round the suit muscle, blending with the artificial blood that the suit had been hibernating on in its support cabinet. A checklist scrolled down, confirming the suit muscles' integrity. Internal blood bladders held a large reserve of the oxygenated, nutrient-rich fluid capable of being fed into the circulation system when any bursts of strength were required. Other than that his own organs would have to support the suit muscle entirely by themselves.

"Phase three."

The suit AS began to bring a multitude of peripheral electronic systems online: he'd enhanced the original program with his Prime, which he felt gave him a better response and interface. Nobody else knew about the addition. He still wasn't sure about Prime's legal status, and the Z-B armory technicians disapproved of such customizations.

Phase three started by providing him with several sensor options, all of which he could link to targeting grids. Com
m
unication links ran through their interfaces and encryption codes. Air filters slipped across the helmet grille, giving him immunity from chemical and bioviral attack. Integrated weapons systems ran through test sequences. He selected neutral carapace coloring, shifting it from the original dark gray to a bluer shading that the human eye had difficulty distinguishing. That was coupled with full thermal radiance, allowing him to jettison the heat generated by his body and the Skin suit muscle through the thermal fiber weave. His penis sheath confirmed it was secure and capable of allowing him to take a leak any time he needed.

Lawrence stood up and examined the range of articulation his new Skin gave him, moving his limbs in every direction, bending his body, flexing fingers. Sensors on the inside of the synthetic muscle picked up the initial movement, and in conjunction with the AS shifted the suit in a corresponding motion. As he worked methodically through the various positions and actions the yammer of claustrophobia vanished as it always did. Worming up from his subconscious to replace it was a mildly narcotic sense of invulnerability. Even on Santa Chico his Skin had never let him down. Anything that made him less reliant on Captain Bryant was a good thing indeed.

Lawrence looked around the compartment. Most of the platoon were already in their Skin and running preparation checks. He saw Hal, who only had his helmet left to fit. The kid was sitting on the bench, frozen with worry. Lawrence went over and stood directly in front of him. He flashed the kid a quick thumbs-up, unseen by the rest of the platoon. "You need a hand?" his amplified voice bounced round the aluminum walls.

"No, Sarge," Hal said gratefully. "I can cope, thanks." His suited hands scrabbled round slowly and awkwardly behind his head, finding the helmet. Then he was pushing himself into the dark covering.

The platoon trooped out of the suit armory and lumbered down the corridor to the munitions store. Each Skin's AS linked directly with the quartermaster AS to issue the weapons authorization. When he received his allocation, Lawrence's Skin split along the top of his arms, revealing various mechanical components that were melded with muscle bands to form hybrid guns and microsilos. He slotted his magazines into their receiver casings and watched as the thin muscle bands undulated, moving missiles and darts into their sacs and chambers. The punch pistol he'd been given was clipped to his belt, ironically the largest weapon and the least lethal.

For some unfathomable bureaucratic reason, the Cairns base AS had decided that the munitions store should also distribute Skin bloodpaks. Lawrence collected his four and secreted them in the abdominal pouches. They'd give him another few hours' endurance should they hit physically demanding conditions. Nice to have. Although, frankly, if the Memu Bay ground forces hadn't established their headquarters and barracks at the end of the first day, it wouldn't matter anyway.

Now that the squad was active, they took a lift up to the life support wheel's axis, then transferred down the wide axial corridor to the cargo section. The radial corridor that led out to their drop glider was even narrower, making life difficult for the bulky Skin suits. Not that the interior of their little landing craft—a short cylinder filled with two rows of crude plastic chairs—was much of an improvement. They strapped themselves in amid curses about lack of space and bumped elbows. Lawrence took the single chair at the front. It put his head level with a narrow windshield. A small console with two holographic panes was provided in case anything glitched the AS pilot and he needed manual control. For a vehicle intended to deorbit and deliver them to a specific ground coordinate with only a fifty-meter margin of error, the whole arrangement seemed totally inadequate.

Amersy closed the hatch and strapped himself in. Short trembles running through the fuselage indicated the other drop gliders were leaving their silos. Eight minutes to go.

"Hey, Sarge," Jones called out in their general channel. "I think Karl's testing out his vomit tube. Aren't you, Karl?"

"Fuck the hell off."

"Knock it off back there," Lawrence said.

His optronic membranes alerted him to a call from Captain Bryant, which he admitted.

"Tactical have completed the cartography of Memu Bay," Bryant said. "It's accessible now. Get your platoon to install it"

"Yes, sir. Any major changes?"

"None at all. Don't worry, Sergeant, we're on top of this one. I'll see you down there. Meteorology says it's a beautiful day; we might even have a barbecue on the beach this evening."

"Look forward to it, sir." He canceled the link.
Asshole.
The suit's AS gave him the platoon's general channel. "Okay, we've got the current map. Get it installed and integrated with your inertial navigation. I don't want anyone getting lost."

"Has it got any decent bars marked on it?" Nic asked.

"Hey, Sarge, can we have access to the Durrell guys?" Lewis asked. "Like to know how it's going."

"Sure. Odel, set it up."

"Absolutely, Sergeant."

Five minutes until their flight Lawrence began installing the new cartography into his Skin's neurotronic pearls. Out of curiosity, he accessed the traffic Odel was pulling out of the Durrell force's datapool. His membranes displayed a small five-by-five grid, with thumbnail videos from different drop gliders. He expanded one, seeing a shaky picture from the nose camera. A splinter of dark land rocked from side to side in an ultramarine void. Terse voices barked short comments and orders.

"No groundfire," Amersy observed. "That's good."

"Have you ever seen any?" Hal asked.

"Not yet. But there's always a first time."

Three minutes.

Lawrence dismissed the video grid and requested the new map of Memu Bay. It looked very similar to the settlement he remembered from the last time he was here: big features like the stadium and harbor were still there. Smaller, somehow. He superimposed the old map and let out a shallow breath of aggravation as he took in the new sprawl of outlying districts. Memu Bay had grown beyond Z-B's projections. A larger population would be harder to keep in line.
Oh, great.
No battle plan ever survived engagement with the enemy, but it would be nice to have one that was vaguely relevant when they hit the beach.