Twice the size of a human, massing a good quarter of a tonne, with four standard terrestrial limbs and two prehensile tails – which in just about any combination could claw their way along a narrow arkship tunnel if they didn’t have a clear flight path. They even had a wedge-shaped head on a stocky neck, containing sensors and weapons, while the shell was woven through with energy deflector fibres and atomic bond enhancers, leaving them capable of surviving a tactical nuke at close quarters.
The cohort settled their ovoid casings into the exoarmour’s shaped recesses, and the petal lids snapped shut over them. Limbs flexed, running through test procedures; a multitude of weapon nozzles telescoped out, then back again. The cybernetic hellhounds landed and formed up in an eager pack, their adaptive feet making clacking sounds on the smooth floor.
‘Nice.’ Dellian smiled down at them. His own hulking armour suit was further along the rack. He walked towards it, just as Janc and Xante appeared at the end of the aisle.
‘Saints, I thought we were early,’ Janc exclaimed.
‘And that’s why some of us are mere squad members, while I’m squad leader,’ Dellian told them.
They jeered him loudly before the three of them hugged. It meant so much more today. He’d always thought leading the squad on their Vayan ambush mission was as intense as life got. But this . . . the Olyix enclave!
Uret was next, followed by Falar and Mallot. More squads were turning up in the hiatus facility, activating their cohorts. The noise level built steadily. Dellian was glad of the activity; he could concentrate on routine, making sure everyone had run their equipment tests. His own armour suit needed a replacement rear left visual sensor – the ultraviolet receptors were below optimal – while Xante’s needed a new magpulse rifle projectile feed tube. All their equipment was designed with multiple redundancy modes, ready for whatever damage they were punished with in combat, but he wasn’t going to allow anyone to move out at anything less than full operational capacity.
Just before they got into their suits he made them gather in a circle, arms around one another’s shoulders. We need to be this close. It might be the last time we ever see each other in the flesh.
‘We left pep talks behind on Juloss,’ he said. ‘And face it, I’m crap at speeches anyway. But we’ve trained for this our whole lives. Saints, this is what we were born for! So I know we’re going to watch each other’s backs and do the best we can – especially for the poor bastards we’re here to liberate. All I want to say is that I’m glad it’s you guys that I’m facing this with.’
The group hug tightened – almost as much as Dellian’s throat. He wiped away some tears from his eyes, not trying to disguise it. He wanted them to see how much they meant to him. Looking around, he wasn’t the only one overtaken by the moment. That felt good, too.
His suit was standing in front of its storage and maintenance alcove in the rack, chest segments open. Intellectually, he still wasn’t comfortable with the arms and legs. This brute was so big that his own limbs wouldn’t be long enough, so the corpus humans who designed it had provided its legs and arms with three joints apiece, giving him extra knees and elbows. The extremities were governed by his own physical kinesis – walking, running, reaching, lifting – as extrapolated by an integral genten to provide perfectly coordinated movements.
A maintenance remote brought a small set of mounting stairs out for him, and he climbed up, twisting awkwardly to get inside. He slipped his legs down the tunnels of spongy padding that felt like oiled leather until he was sitting on the haunches’ cushioning. Then there came the bad bit, fitting the waste extraction tubes – as usual accompanied by some serious grimacing. Finally he was able to push his arms into the suit’s sleeves. The suit went to active level one, and the loose padding in the arms and legs contracted around his skin, gripping firmly. There was no separate helmet. Instead his neck and head were completely enclosed by the top of the torso, reducing vulnerability. Its upper section hinged down and locked, triggering a long moment when he felt as if he’d been imprisoned in a medieval iron maiden.
Graphics and camera feeds swarmed across his optik, and his databud confirmed full integration. Systems data swirled green. A quick double-check on the ultraviolet receptors, and he initiated full-motion possession, which allowed his physicality to puppet the suit’s movements. So . . . a shadow-box review for the arms, run on the spot, twist and sway and crouch in a seriously naff dance routine. From the claustrophobia of a second ago, he was now liberated, weighing nothing as he floated gracefully along the aisle.
Every display remained green.
He kept an eye on the rest of the squad, confirming their telemetry as they finished their screwy assessment calisthenics, half smiling at the way everyone’s cohort kept their distance, as if they couldn’t quite believe what they were seeing.
He opened the mission comms icon. ‘Ellici, Tilliana, comms check, please. Switching to multiple redundant linkage.’
‘We got you, Del,’ Ellici answered. ‘Hardened em encryption, omni and directional, plus multiple entanglement rotation. Stand by. One hour to wormhole exodus.’
If everything goes okay, he added silently. ‘Thank you, tactical.’ He raised his arms as if he were performing a blessing. ‘Okay, squad, let’s get down to the armoury and load up. Embarking in twenty minutes.’ He started walking towards the portal at the far end of the aisle, secretly rather pleased at looking like a full-on badass demon, his hellhound pack following eagerly.
*
Yirella found the Morgan distinctly unsettling that morning. The ship’s quarters were big
