Talosian Chronicles 2: Star Dancer (26 page)

“None of my business, but why don’t you? From the sound it, you already have all the knowledge.” Alan asked.

Tom shrugged. “I might, just to make him happy. Personally, I feel a person’s knowledge and experience should be more important that any letters behind their name.”

“Well said!” Doctor Hiram nodded.

Doctor Schmidt cleared his throat. “”Conspicuous by his absence is Doktor Kenneth Jenkins, Power systems and Physics. Before we get into the qualifications argument, perhaps we should give the Major a briefing on the system he will be testing for us. Olivia?”

“Major Carlson, if you would come this way, I’ll show you what’s going on here,” Olivia said nodding at her father.

“Before we split up, could everyone please refer to me as Alan? The title of Major is new to me, and I’m not actually used to it,” Alan said.

“It is new to you? Are you not a Marine?” Schmidt asked.

Alan nodded. “I am classified as a Marine, however, combat is not my current job. Before going to work for Ty Anders at Talos, I worked as a troubleshooter for the NSA. Before that, I was one of their field operatives.”

“We asked for a Marine,” Schmidt said, disapprovingly.

“With respect, Heir Doktor, I am very much a soldier. However, I have extra training so I could do a special, different job,” Alan explained.

“He’s a special operations soldier, Daddy,” Olivia said. “You asked Ty for a Marine, he sent you the best one he could find.”

“Oh!” Schmidt said as he understood what he was being told. ‘Please forgive the foolishness of an old man, Heir Major.”

Alan waved it off. “No offense was taken, Heir Doktor. But, please, call me Alan.”

“Ja, thank you Alan.” Schmidt replied as Alan followed Olivia over to a large display unit.

“Okay Alan, what we have is, what we hope, something that will save a lot of lives. FROG is an acronym that stands for Forward Roving Offensive Guard. By definition, it is a combat drone that is driven by a remote pilot. What we have tried to do is create a drone that can respond to a situation the same way a person would, only with a lot more firepower. The advantage is that if the drone is destroyed, the pilot can simply activate a new drone and get back into the fight.

That being said, the drone is more heavily armored than a Hornet fighter while bringing slightly more firepower to the fight. As you can see, the drone is equipped with a pulse laser in the left fore-arm and one of the new mass driver guns in the right fore-arm. Instead of hands, we equipped the drone with three ‘fingered’ claws that can conceivably be used to strip the armor off an opponent, or be used to climb and anything else you would normally use a hand for. Do you have any questions so far?” the woman finished.

“Yes, as I understand the mass driver theory, it is a line of sight weapon, right?” Alan asked.

Olivia nodded. “Yes, in a vacuum, the range is whatever you set the round destruction distance to be, but in an atmosphere, the range is variable depending on the density of the atmosphere. On Earth, it could be used as a horizon to horizon weapon, but that would be too dangerous, so it has an artificially imposed range of five miles. Any further than that, and the round would turn into unstable plasma.”

Alan nodded. “What I wanted to know was, what have you got for an indirect weapon system?”

“Why would it need one?” Tom asked, he had tagged alone so he could answer questions.

Alan shrugged. “I can think of a couple uses right off the top on my head. Anti-artillery defense, if they were missiles, anti-aircraft defense. But you could also use it to soften up a target as you’re coming in to hit them, or to discourage pursuit.”

Tom looked thoughtful and nodded in agreement. “You do have a point. Let me see what I can do about it. I don’t know about missiles though, since most of the ones we can get to are either air-to-air or air-to-ground.”

“I’m by no means an expert, Tom, but it sounds to me like a software issue,” Alan said. “After all, isn’t simply a matter of telling them where to go, and how to get there?”

“Yeah, it is, and you could be right. I wonder if we can give it a selectable warhead function,” Tom replied, and scooted away to begin typing on a terminal.

Alan chuckled and turned back to a smiling Olivia.

“You just made his day,” she said. “Unless there is something major that needs to be rebuilt, his part of this project was finished.”

“Every weapon system, no matter how well designed, will always have two major flaws, Doctor. The first is the designer that says they have built the perfect weapons system, and the second is the operator that believes them. No matter how well built, there is always room for improvement or something that could have been done better,” Alan said. “It’s my job to find as many of those things as I can and let you know about them. I’m here to try and break your toys, Doctor.”

“Yeah, and we’re going to try to make sure you can’t,” Olivia replied. Now, how this works is you will need to wear a suit, not unlike a flight suit you would see a fighter pilot wear. Like the new Shadow fighter, you will have to have sensors on your head, so we have included a hood for this suit. They will enable the system to interpret your movements and also give you feedback. In addition to the suit, you will be in a special holographic interface unit that will display a full field of view. If you turn your head, so will the drone. We tried to make the controls as user friendly as we could, so you should have no trouble getting the hang of this system once we hook you up.”

“Dummy proof control system huh? Good, I think we’ll need that,” Alan replied.

“Well, we did build this for soldiers, so we only considered our target customers,” Olivia quipped back. “So, what we’re going to do, is pretty much drop you into a simulator until you get the control system figure out, then we’ll connect you to one of the two drones you see over there.” She pointed to one of the big machines.

“Ty told me to steal a few of these when we finished up,” Alan smiled. “I think he’s looking forward to getting his hands on them.”

Olivia nodded. “Well, he is the person we thought that would benefit the most from these. If we can, I’ll send you back with at least two complete systems, but I don’t think we’ll have any back up units for you. Now, let’s get you changed.”

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F
.S.S.
Star Dancer

Selene (Earth’s moon) Orbit

Sol Sector.

Combat location: Dark Palace

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I
an was pulled from the combat readiness report he was reading by his door chime. “Come,” he called, almost grateful for the interruption.

I man Ian had never met, but wearing the rank of a Chief Petty Officer, opened the door and entered, followed by Major Getty,
Star Dancer’s
Marine detachment commander.

Both men saluted Ian as they came to a stop before his desk. Ian also noticed that they seemed to be wearing some kind of strange armor that almost looked like Talosian Marine Battle suits.

Ian stuck out his hand to the CPO “Ian Williams.”

The man shook his hand. Chief Petty Officer Wayford, Sir. The Marine’s Armorer.”

Ian nodded. “What can I do for you this evening, Gentlemen?”

“CPO Wayford has created a new armor for us. I’d like you to approve its use, Sir,” Major Getty replied.

“Have you tested it, Major?” Ian asked.

“Yes Sir, as extensively as we could. There’s only one more test to give it, and that’s a combat test, Sir. We’d like to give it a try, we think it’ll be a big help,” Getty said.

“Okay, tell me about it, Wayford,” Ian said.

“Aye Sir. This version of the armor is roughly the same weight as the previous version, but it has the addition of a stronger shield, as well as a system my mates and I designed that should help keep a few soldiers alive.

“It has a rather unique automatic sealin’ system that if the suit gets popped the system will automatically seal itself. If somethin’ gets shot off, like an arm or a leg, the suit will not only seal the hole, but it will apply a coating to the wound to stop bleedin’.

“It’s capable of administerin’ a few drugs, like a pain killer, if’n the squad medic or the medical folks wants it give. Like the armor we had before, it has a distress beacon in it that will switch on after ten seconds if the soldier don’t turn it off first.

“This is the first version and I only made it ‘cause we needed somethin’ better than what we had. Once I can get my hands on that stuff they got for that new fighter, I can fix this up right,” the CPO explained.

“How do you mean?” Ian asked the older gentlemen.

“Well Sir, the new armor is lighter than the stuff we currently be usin’. I can use that to add either more weapons or ammo storage. I was also thinkin’ ‘bout maybe seein’ if I could put in a power port for the pulse rifles to get power right from the suit. Maybe a stronger shield or somethin’. Just a lot o’ fun we can have if’n we gets some o’ that new stuff.” Wayford explained.

“I'll see what I can do for you, CPO Wayford. Major, if you are willing to risk your life in this, then you can use it.” Ian stopped as a thought occurred to him. “CPO Wayford, how hard would it be for you to design and build a different kind of suit? This wouldn’t need to be more than an armored space suit. I’d like to have something the crew can wear in case we get boarded, or if the section they’re in blows out.”

“You want me to make up something everyone can wear, and still do their work?” Wayford asked.

“Yes, something like a pilot’s flight suit, only without the fighter specific gear, maybe some light armor, and sealable in case of decompression,” Ian asked.

Wayford looked off to the side. “Shouldn’t be too hard to manage. I might have to try a couple of things, but I think I can get ya something Sir. Ya want it for the whole crew?” Wayford asked.

“Actually, I’d like a set for everyone on the ship, except for the babies,” Ian said. “When we go into combat, I’d feel a whole lot better knowing that if we took a bad hit, the people in that section stood some kind of chance at survival.”

Wayford nodded. “I knows exactly what ya want Sir. It might take a few days, but I’ll come up with somethin’.”

Ian was about to remind the man about the impending enemy arrival, but Wayford hadn’t finished talking.

“Can’t do much for this battle, but we should be able to get somethin’ ready for the next one. Can I ask the computer for the folks sizes when it comes time to make them up?” Wayford asked.

“Of course, just ask for Major Star, and she will be happy to help you,” Ian replied.

Wayford nodded his thanks. “With yer permission Sir, if I can start getting’ these turned out, I’ll try to get the flight crews done first, can I tell them this is their new duty uniform and they should go an put it on as soon as they can?”

“If you can do that without interrupting them, that would be great, chief,” Ian replied, impressed by the man’s planning.

“Well, If’n you’ll pardon me Sir, I got work to be gettin’ to,” the man said and saluted.

“Thank you, chief. Good work,” Ian replied.

Major Getty was trying hard not to grin, but failed as the older man left, mumbling to himself.

“He’s been working on this new armor since he came aboard. He claimed that the old stuff we had was too bulky and cumbersome,” Getty said.

“How’s the new armor feel? Any different?” Ian asked.

“I don’t know how, but he improved the power assist functions, so it actually seems lighter, even if he says it isn’t. As Marines, we tend to spend a lot of time in our armor, and the other stuff was kinda bulky, but it was sure nice to actually have armor that actually protected you.

“What he didn’t tell you was this stuff is made for each individual Marine. Our old stuff was almost a one size fits all type of thing. He scanned each of us wearing our under liners, and then built this stuff. I can move much easier, faster, and with a hell of a lot more power. Check this out,” Getty said, and reached over and gently picked up a smart sheet off Ian’s desk.

“There was no way in hell I could have done that in the old armor,” Getty explained. “He may seem like a simpleton, but that man’s a genius when it comes to weapons and armor. I’m very glad we have him.”

“Good. I was wondering if I would need to get someone to design new armor for you guys. Hell, we’re pretty much redesigning everything else around here, why should you folks be left out!” Ian said.

Getty chuckled and saluted. “With your permission Sir, I’ll let you get back work.”

“Get a good night’s sleep, Major. Tomorrow, you’re on the clock!” Ian said.

“Yes Sir, we are all going to be on the clock tomorrow,” he replied, dropped the salute, and left the office.

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L
unar Research and Training Base

Selene, (Earth’s Moon)

Sol Sector.

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T
he drone had promise that much was clear to Alan. However, there were still a few issues that needed to be worked out before it was ready.

One major issue was the control signal to the drone from the interface unit. Alan had found someone on the base that was capable of emitting a jamming signal without telling them what channel the drone was operating on. Even after the jamming signal was stopped, it was very difficult for the control unit to reconnect with the drone. Once it finally reconnected, the Drone was jerky, and only semi-responsive.

The second major issue was weapons cooling. In space, or on the lunar surface, it wasn’t as much of an issue since space was pretty cold, but in an atmosphere, like Earth, the weapons over-heated very quickly which shut them down. This issue turned the drone into a large moving target.

Strike three came when Alan was trying to evade mock weapons fire from a Hornet that had been dispatched for the test. Alan tried to roll out of the way of a strafing run, and the drone almost fell apart. Alan was worried about how Heir Schmidt would take his final report on the drone, but he shouldn’t have been. When he went to present his findings to the team, he found them already working on trying to fix or improve things.