What situation? wondered Bowie.
“What about THKs?” asked Bowie, taking the weapon and sighting along it. It felt light and flimsy. He’d have to account for that when acquiring for target. He was used to lugging the N-18 up and firing. It wasn’t heavy, but his muscle memory was trained for that specific weight for every condition expected, and unexpected, in the employment of the weapon system. A lighter weapon, while nice on a long overland hump to a hit, might be a problem when trying to target inside a close-quarters environment with split-second acquisition. He’d have to go through some rifle PT to make sure he had its weight just right in his head. And muscle memory. Didn’t want jerk it up and be way off target in a sudden firefight. Best for it to come up slow and smooth into the engagement window.
Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast, some old hullbuster had once hectored him endlessly with. Yeah, he thought. Got it, Sarge. Still got it. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.
Lying on the table was a bando of bot-poppers after all. So Team Nilo was making sure he was more than ready for what was in the vault. With the subcompact EM blaster, these seemed like overkill. But you never knew. And honestly, he wasn’t sure he’d take the explosives. Even if he did need to clean the whole library first, he just didn’t know how much noise these things made and that could present a problem with regards to quiet and stealth.
He tabled the bando. He’d object later. And… he might not. Because… well… you never knew.
“Finally,” brayed Reiser. “We got a nifty tailor-made suit cut all special for super-spy Jack Bowie.”
Laid out on the loadout table was a synthprene wet suit. Or at least that’s what it looked like.
“Am I going to swim through sewers at some point?” asked Jack drolly.
“Hardy har hah!” replied Reiser lamely.
Hardy har har, thought Bowie and said nothing.
“Ain’t what you’re thinking, Jack. And I’m honestly surprised you didn’t recognize this. This ain’t no wetsuit. It’s the synthprene undersuit leejes wear beneath their armor. Only this one is a smartsuit. Latest from Team Nilo. It does everything Legion armor does regarding filtration, imaging, and comms. Protects you from all environments and still gives you enhanced sensory access. Scrambles passive detection and messes with targeting telemetry for anyone using a scope or running a drone. Line of sight is your only problem. Optical contacts that go with it synch and act as your HUD. Think… and it runs the systems. No tongue or second set of externals on the sleeve. This thing will listen to your thoughts and run the systems the way you want them run. Which is straight up crazy when you think about it, Jack. So, my advice… just don’t think about it. Just think you want to go to IR and it will throw that over your current visual spectrum. And yes, it tags and identifies your enemies and even runs a passive gathering sensor system that should identify your targets as much as a hundred meters away.”
Should, thought Bowie. Sounds like a wish instead of feature.
“Does it stop blaster bolts like Legion armor?”
“We wanted it to deflect blaster fire, but no. We aren’t there yet. It’ll ablate some, but I’ll be honest with you, Jack… don’t get hit. It’ll just seal up the wound with nanites and drug you, which… when you think about it and all… surrounded by a dozen of those froggy buggers… maybe ain’t the greatest situation to be in, tactically-speaking and all. Direct hit from a heavy and you’re going to be looking at a hole in your chest while you go into shock and bleed out. Roger, amigo? We’re looking at go-time at some point in the early morning hours just past end of today. So that gives you six hours for familiarization. Let’s get moving before we hit the Oh-Bee-Jay.”
We, thought Jack Bowie. He picked up the bando after all.
33
Go time.
The AN-16 dropped away from the rear cargo deck of a boxy utility-sized dropship that anyone on the ground might have mistaken for a bulk shipping distribution vehicle passing from one delivery site to the next. Never mind the street battles below. Commerce went on regardless over Soob City, recent economic boomtown. They simply had to dodge more surface-to-air missiles than before.
The dropship was common in the days leading up to the current crisis. Common on the thousands of civilized worlds that spanned the galaxy. What was not common was the small bat-winged glider that danced in the engine backdraft at the rear of the dropship at an altitude of five thousand feet. Again, common shipping traffic airspace altitude over Soob City. The glider disconnected and then dove for the deck of Soob City rooftops, silently streaking down into the labyrinthine maze of buildings old and new. Tall and small.
Any sensor pickups were either deflected or eaten by the AN-16’s absorptive nano-skin and thin profile signature. Designed for stealth and used for insertion over hostile, or even heavily debated, crisis zones, the AN-16 was a Dark Ops plaything that came direct out of Legion R&D. It wasn’t useful beyond getting a single operator into an operational theatre unnoticed, but, if that’s what you wanted to do, then the AN-16 was perfect for the job.
Unnoticed electronically, the craft was also visually hard to detect. It moved fast due to its design and, when needed, could slow to
