Chapter 8

James and Tarra had arisen after their brief rest and cleaned off with a refreshing shower. The shower on the Didgeridoo was one of the few real luxury fixtures on the starship. James' father had been a shower fanatic; he found that a hot, steamy, vigorous shower was an excellent stress reliever. He had designed the ship with a large shower that could easily fit two or three people in it. Water was able to spray out from any of the fours walls in addition to the floor and ceiling. James often thought that he could accidentally drown if all the hidden nozzles were to spew water at the same time.

They enjoyed a quick bite to eat and Tarra winced as she sipped from a coffee cup and made a face.

"Yuck," she stuck out her tongue, "well it beats having no coffee at all — barely."

James was sitting at the Captain's station on the bridge. Tarra sat at the sensor station that also doubled as the weapons console. The various positions were largely traditional as any position could bring up displays that monitored any other. The controls were also principally voice actuated and not tied to any specific position.

Starship's AI's made most human input for the actual running of the ship unneeded anyway, but people were creatures of habit and liked at least the façade that they were actually controlling the operation of the ships. Those same AI's also allowed individuals, such as James, to ply the voids between the stars without additional crewmembers.

"Alright Didgi, let's get this shindig running. Bring ships engines to standby and ready for lift, engage running stealth systems and lift. Destination is the park near the Government Center. There is a large clearing in the center. Let's give the spaceport a wide berth. The interdiction forces are more likely to pay attention to any anomalous readings they may get from leakage of our cloak in that area."

"Aye Aye, Captain. Systems secured. Engines ready. Silent running active. Lift-off in 5 seconds. ETA 12 minutes." James watched the status displays change as Didgi executed his commands.

The flight over the countryside was uneventful as the ship circled around the settlement to approach the park opposite the now defunct spaceport.

"Landing site in view. Down in 15 seconds," Didgi's manner was businesslike in its efficiency.

"Be careful as we set down. I don't know how soft the ground is," James said.

The ship settled down on the park's clearing. The landing skids made deep indentations in the soil as the heavy ship's weight settled in.

"Ship down. Securing systems."

"Send the signal to Joe that we are down and ready to load," James ordered.

"Signal sent."

James got up and headed for the bridge door. He stopped and turned his head to look at Tarra, "I'm going to go back and help them get their gear stowed. I'll bring your dad up once we are ready for lift."

"Do you need me to do anything?"

"Nope, just get your battle attitude ready. The trip to the moonbase will take less than an hour on a stealth approach."

James exited the bridge and opened the airlock to await the arrival of the two strike teams. The park was well lit. No need to turn off the lights since the Didgeridoo's stealth shield was active and powerful. He walked out past the 20 meter limit of the field and turned to look at the ship. Not seeing anything amiss, he turned back and waited.

Soon, James could see the strike force approaching. Joe was in the lead, Luke at his side. Joe stopped next to James and looked what appeared to be a large stand of trees.

"If I didn't know that the tree line didn't bulge out like that into the clearing, I'd never suspect your ship was this close. That is some stealth shield you have. Not even a waver in image this close." Joe was clearly impressed.

"There is none better that I know of. It sure cost enough. But it is definitely worth the expense." James turned and walked through the shield. To the others, it looked like he had simply disappeared after he had pivoted and strode toward the trees.

They quickly followed and the ship appeared before them as they crossed the barrier. Once in the ship, James directed the team to the galley and lounge area for the trip to the moonbase. He showed them where to stow their gear in some unused staterooms off of the lounge area.

"The trip up will take about 40 to 45 minutes. Just relax and you can use the replicator in the Galley if you need anything. I'll be on the bridge with Joe and Tarra. Once we are down, I'll be back and we can suit up." James motioned to Joe to follow him to the bridge.

Tarra greeted her father warmly with a hug when they entered the bridge. James sat at the Captain's station and told Didgi to take them up and to the moonbase on the planned route.

"We got confirmation from your comm tech that she has the sensors under control?" James asked.

"Yes, she said that her roommate was the sensor tech on duty tonight and that she would be able to turn down the sensitivity and block those settings from the log. We should be good to go."

The ship looped around the moon, moving relatively slowly to minimize the leakage from its stealth shields. It approached low to shield the ship from the sensors located on the base itself.

"Final approach to landing site. Down in 1 minute." Didgi's update through the helmsman interface rang out.

The ship came over the horizon and settled behind some low hills just east of the moonbase. Small amounts of dust were kicked up as the starship made contact with the ground. They fell slowly to the moon in the low gravity.

On the flight to the moonbase, James, Joe and Tarra had discussed the events leading up to the coup by the General and his actions against the Ragnor colonists. James' anger at the madman who had precipitated such a mindless massacre on these people burned brighter. Over 10,000 colonists had been killed across the planet when Dumitrescu had foolishly released the virus. Fewer than 1,200 colonists remained, many of them chameleons.

The full impact would not be realized by many for some time. But frontier colonists were tough souls. New planets held unknown risks and novel ways to die; death was not unknown or rare. They knew not to dwell on the enormity of the loss, however unprecedented in their colony's brief history.

The extent of the immoral actions rallied the survivors and hardened their resolve. As they entered the lounge area, the faces of the strike team members as they readied themselves for their assault on the moonbase reflected this determination. James shared their fortitude.

Each strike team member donned his or her pressure suit and they all checked the readiness of their weapons. The pressure suit, or p-suit, was a simple, skin tight outer covering that had a fitting around the neck to attach a clear, dome shaped helmet. The helmet wasn't needed to keep the air in when the suit was operational as a force field could perform that function. The hard plastic would however, maintain suit integrity in the event of a p-suit power failure. The suit was easy to get into as it was quite loose until the last seam was closed. Once that had happened, the p-suit shrunk quickly and its silvery surface looked like it was painted on the nude bodies of the strike team. Until they were inside the moonbase and could shed their p-suits, the chameleon's camouflage ability would be worthless.

Tarra emerged from the ships lavatory with her head shaved. James greeted the sight with a smile that grew wider when she stuck her tongue out at him. She quickly donned her p-suit.

James had already taken his combat suit out of its closet and had just finished putting it on. Underneath, it was quite similar to the pressure suits worn by the others and indeed functioned as a complete self-contained environment that could withstand both vacuum and high pressures that would kill an unprotected human.

Attached to the skin of the suit on the arms were weapon mounts, information screens, and shield generators. The legs held similar shield generators as well as anti-gravity nodes that allowed the suit to fly and jump if needed. The nodes also allowed him to walk and move normally on low-G and high-G planets.

On the back of the suit was the main shield generator, primary power cells and stealth circuitry. Like a standard pressure suit, the combat suit had air purifiers and plumbing build into the fabric to handle removal and processing of bodily waste. The suit could reclaim the water from sweat and urine and deliver it, purified, to a nipple in the combat helmet.

The combat helmet was a full virtual reality environment controlled by the suit's AI. The suit could manage any number of simultaneous heads up displays of real-time battle status superimposed over an enhanced image of the surrounding environment. A 360 degree field of view around the suit was condensed into the peripheral vision viewing angles of the soldier. This effectively gave the wearer full situational awareness of everything around them. Quite a bit of the advanced training James had at the merc's OS consisted of how to interpret the flood of information presented by a state of the art combat suit.

James had added modifications to the suit primarily to improve its defensive shields and power systems. James was an expert in power sump technology and had fashioned several ingenious upgrades that made them much more effective and smaller. Their ability to effectively "consume" extremely large amounts of energy without any heat buildup was central to the modifications James had made to the suit's combat shields.

A normal shield without a power sump was able to take the destructive power that resulted from being blasted by an energy weapon and route it around the entire shield. This allowed a major portion of the strike to be re-radiated outward over the whole surface area of the shield. Likewise a hit from a kinetic weapon could be absorbed by the shield and spread over a large portion of the suit. Because of this re-radiation, it could be extremely unhealthy for an unprotected soldier to be next to a combat suit that had just taken multiple hits from enemy weapons. Heat build up from repeated strikes was the primary reason for shield failure.