Specialist Travis McComb had studied a lot of power signatures over the course of his career, but he'd never seen anything like this one.
The jagged spikes had turned out to be reflections and feedback within the monitoring systems. Not that there wasn't a lot of power down there. There certainly was. In fact, the true levels suggested at least ten fusion powered mechanized defense suits were in that crater, each pilot fighting to the very limits of system tolerance.
The odd thing was, the power distribution was smooth, even, nothing lost and nothing gained.
It looked like whatever it was could go on forever.
"Nothing like this turned up on long range scanners," Fleet Colonel Stevens was still intently looking over the Specialist's shoulder.
While it wasn't actually a question, McComb felt obligated to answer, "No, sir. Until now all we'd seen was power signatures for simple fossil fuel burning vehicles and generators. The scale for this qualifies it as . . . "
"Remarkable," Stevens finished.
He turned to the assembled senior command officers. Straightening his uniform jacket, which had creased in just the few minutes he'd be crouched over the terminal and its operator.
"I want my team prepped, dressed and in the assault holding area in fifteen minutes," and his tone was not one to allow for negotiation.
Turning swiftly on his heel, he walked as casually as he could out of the briefing room and down the hall towards his quarters, unbuckling his dress uniform before he was completely inside.
Three minutes later he was headed for the lift to the hangar bay. He had suited up in his rubberized protective undersuit, the micro servers in the material having expanded and contracted automatically to ensure a proper fit. While they made no sound, nano tubes of flexible material were laced throughout the suit, each pushing coolant all over the garment to keep the temperature at the proper levels to prevent muscle injury or hypothermia or heat exhaustion, all while keeping the wearer at a comfortable perceived seventy two degrees.
Stevens jogged to the equipment lockers and pulled out his Earth Prime Protection Force issued suit enhancements.
Teflon and Kevlar fibers were laced over a titanium chain mesh on the shoulder pads. While Stevens had never needed it to, the pads could supposedly stop a bullet. He knew from experience that the blend of Teflon and Kevlar would blunt or deflect a physical impact and distribute the force through the pad as opposed to through the wearer.
As more micro servers fitted the pads in place over his undersuit, he grabbed the forearm pads and the set designed to protect his internal organs and lower back.
After thigh pads, electronic knee support brackets and shin guards, he strapped on his armored boots. The boots were textured across the bottom for use in multiple environments and could be magnetized by the wearer with a quick press of a button on the forearm for use in zero gravity situations.
He flexed and stretched, testing the fit. While the whole set was engineered to provide maximum freedom of movement versus protective ability, his right arm was a little more free than his left since Stevens was right handed. The extra flexibility would help ensure he could reach his controls and the keypad on his left forearm no matter how his mechanized defense suit was oriented.
Attention to detail, thought Stevens, that is just part of what makes the Earth Prime Protection Force great.
As his gaze took in the weapons systems bristling across the front of his nearby mechanized defense suit he mentally added, just one small part.
He climbed into the glossy black defense exoskeleton, strapping himself in with his left arm while toggleing through the system status indicators with his right.
All around him, the scene was repeated fifty times as troops piled into identical mechanized defense suits, the only difference being their lack of a Fleet Colonel badge on the left shoulder. In battle, even that difference would fade away as the finish would gloss over and obscure the insignia as soon as the weapons were powered on, a feature implemented after a string of battle field assassinations by rebel Un-Faithful in the skirmishes of the last generation.
Stevens closed the windscreen on his defense suit and heard the hiss of the environmental systems kicking on.
He stepped the suit out of the gravity lock and walked down the line of his assembled troops. Not a single one was a millimeter out of formation. They couldn't be, given the computer controlled navigation systems hard wired into the motivators.
Each stood at attention, all pre-flight checks done during suit up just as Stevens had trained them.
At the end of the line he pivoted and faced another suit, addressing the occupant.
"Specialist McComb, are you still seeing those energy readings?"
"Sir, the readings seem to have died down for a few minutes," he tapped his heads up display for emphasis, "But it looks like they are ramping back up. I don't know what's going on down there, but it is big."
"Let me know as soon as we are over the drop site," he said. Then, turning to face the rest of the troops he ordered, "Line up at the launch doors and await the drop order."
Chapter Nineteen Interlude
File: Datanet Core Server Gamma Beta Sixty Three, Galactic Military Protocol, Era: Modern -0, Operating Procedures, Index Earth Prime Protection Force, Data source EPPF Handbook
In the unlikely event of hostile contact, the mechanized defense suits employed by the Earth Prime Protection Force are equipped with environmental systems and boosters which enable the Benevolent States United to deploy troops from orbit into any contested area. These amazing suits have been used by the past three generations of Faithful officers of the Earth Prime Protection Force and the technology has undergone several important advancements.
First, power has been converted to a light-weight fusion-based power distribution system with solar back up. This power is produced soundlessly and can theoretically be produced for over one hundred Earth Prime years when assembled.
The second advancement is in the on-board computer, which features a projected three dimensional display and interface. With full Datanet access, troops in the field have the ability to monitor the environment and enemy positions in real time.
The last advancement is in the are of weaponry. In addition to the full array of melee weapon add-ons and projectile weapons (including those that launch sensor fouling micro magnets), the latest generation of suits can be equipped with arm mounted lasers and the new energy field deployment weapons, which can overload targeted enemy systems to disable the electronics of enemy combatants to enable a swift and merciful kill.
Specialist Travis McComb switched from his Datanet view to a topographical chart of the planetary features below. He watched as the carrier tracked across the surface, viewing the broken terrain, primitive dwellings, rudimentary infrastructures (was that a game trail?) and massive, ever-present piles of Earth Prime garbage. He shuddered.
"Sir," he began, after opening a direct communications channel to Fleet Corporal Stevens, "We are crossing the drop zone in one minute."
"Troops!" Stevens barked over the regiment command authority channel, "Form up and drop when the doors open." He nodded to McComb and triple-checked his weapons while the men around him verified their life-support systems. Priorities are different for everyone, he thought.
At the appointed time, Specialist McComb keyed the sequence to open the doors, all noise disappearing into the cold vacuum of space.
The planet loomed below them, covered by thick clouds of smoke or dust.
It was early evening over the drop site. McComb knew there was a settlement near the landing point, but any lights the locals had were not powerful enough to pierce the thick hanging clouds of whatever it was that choked the atomsphere.
As one, the chosen warriors of the Earth Prime Protection Force switched off the magnetic properties of their boots and tumbled out of the gaping hatch.
The fall into the atmosphere was a first for Specialist Travis McComb. Sure, he'd been trained. The valid techniques had been implanted into his muscle memory. He'd done countless virtual drops in training rooms on every carrier to which he'd ever been assigned.
But this, this freefall into the dark early evening of an alien planet so very far away from Earth Prime, this was new.
Of course, the view was amazing, but what made the biggest impression on Specialist McComb was the sound. He looked around at the other suits falling around him in a tight cluster, armed to the teeth and ready to kill and kill and kill to meet their assigned mission parameters.
And they were completely silent. Regulations called for strict communications silence, but there was no noise at all in the dark, inky blackness that surrounded them. The most forward suits, including one that likely was worn by Fleet Colonel Stevens, began to glow red as they entered the atmosphere as McComb waited for his on board computer to kick in the boosters which would slow his descent to a survivable speed.
