Fratricide

4: Under Fire

A roar filled the inside of the dropship. The heat shielded fuselage burned red and blue as the intense friction of the planet's air slowed the craft in its breach through the atmosphere. Other ships fell into formation on either side and began to glow as they too sped toward the planet at dusk. The sun dropped behind the horizon just as the ships broke through the clouds and began to extend their massive wings, dozens to each side, and level into their horizontal course. The force consisted of some fifty ships, all hundreds of feet long and bearing a metallic sheen on their underbellies from the setting sun. The fleet had originally been painted black for stealth but the numerous atmospheric entrances had worn away the heat-resistant coating and gave them the appearance of meteors covered in soot.

Wings now fully extended, with the longer row on top and smaller ones staggered underneath, the grotesque biplanes plodded through the air with immense blue flames of their engines beating the laws of gravity into submission. Inside the lead ship, prints were stacked in their rigs hooked into an intricate metal scaffolding suspended over bay doors running down the middle of the fuselage. Their equipment glistened with oily alloy undercarriages; polymer armor plating muted in pixelated browns and grays; the large plates sliding seamlessly over one another as the operators fidgeted restlessly. The vast majority were mid-infantry XR rigs, suited for support and close combat. Larger tank rigs were also in the back of the formation, motionless next to the high walls of the transport.

Daniel muttered a prayer absently as he rested in the curved seat of his spherical pod. His rig was on the back top row of the scaffolding; he would deploy last and land directly on the front lines while the rest of the battalion moved in for capturing ground. His machine was of a completely different class than the rest of his comrades'. The idea behind modern war machines had been the development of humanoid exoskeletons in various forms that would operate intuitively with whatever pilot was operating. This concept was intended to reduce training time for the machines and increase the survivability of all infantry deployed in the field. Up until recently. A new wave of research had produced fascinating and creative uses of the miniature nuclear battery that made all rigs tick. The humanoid template was being abandoned, and the STV was born from the ashes.

Daniel's spherical terrain vehicle was essentially a hamster ball covered in composite carbon plating and equipped with a side-mounted high caliber chain gun on the side, complete with full field of view cameras. Inside the pod, the operator reclined in a gyroscopic seat with a neuro uplink near the base of the brain stem. The STV was faster than any other combat rig, capable of sporadic and adaptable movement over almost any terrain. The curvature of the armored shell over the entire structure could render almost any small-caliber projectiles inert with its ricocheting capability; spikes inlaid in the armor plates could also fold out along the forward momentum of the vehicle to assist propulsion over rocks and even vertical terrain. Although perhaps not as visually menacing as other rigs, the STV was easily one of the most feared on the battlefield.

Daniel finished strapping himself securely into his seat as the countdown for drop began. The seat was comfortable as he reclined backward and braced his feet against the guards in front of him. The system was ready for him to connect. This was the most complicated and important development of the rig system over the past decade. The humanoid template, bipedal exoskeletons, had originally been adopted because it was believed to be the only way soldiers could meld with the systems of their rigs seamlessly. A neuro uplink tuned to the subtle electric outputs of the brain allowed pilots to move and react with their machine in an intuitive manner if calibrated correctly. As more ambitious designs were tested, it was found some people could meld successfully with the anatomically unrelatable machines and others couldn't. Daniel was the former.

Daniel relaxed and let the HUD come down over his face. Cameras in the single turret as well as on the opposite side helped him see his surroundings. Sound waves were used to enhance vision, a feature especially useful in the dark. Daniel gripped the handles in front of him and tested the functions of the pod. Some small and abrupt turns of the pod and turret confirmed to him all was functional. He finished his prayer and listened to the heavy beat of his heart. A war drum was sounding in the ears of every print getting ready to fall through the sky and into enemy fire. A clock ticked off the seconds until drop would commence.

When the count hit thirty the beeps became louder. Daniel's hands shook from excitement. It had been two weeks since his last drop and he could not contain himself any longer. He was addicted to the feeling of being under fire. When he was in his pod he was unstoppable. Nothing could touch him. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. He was falling rapidly in the open air. The parachute deployed in the precise amount of time necessary before hitting the ground to prevent structural damage. He hit. Precise or not, it wasn't comfortable. His teeth rattled and his back ached from the impact. He sped off down the city street.

Bullets came flying his direction. The impacts were analyzed by the onboard computer and instantly identified the cowering enemies. They were on top of a building down the road. Daniel grinned. He geared toward one of the closest buildings. When he reached the bottom four lengthy panels extended from out of the shell and dug into the building like a spiked wheel as flew up its side, concrete flying everywhere. He reached the top easily and rocketed off the edge, turning in midair to send a barrage of bullets across the line of fortified attackers completely exposed in his new line of sight.

They each dropped without a sound. Daniel collided into another building and his plates dug in to hold him there. He went up to the top. Overlooking the city he could see more XRs fighting similarly designed rigs in the streets, crashing through barricades. The tank rigs held up the outskirts of the city and fired mortars into the air to crash into enemy concentrations designated by the front line. Daniel's attacks were not nearly so organized. He and the other SVTs weren't given any orders before they dropped. His sole purpose was to demoralize the enemy; an unpredictable and terrible thing to encounter on the battlefield.

He leaped off the building and let his re-deployable chute catch him before hitting the ground. Before landing he swiveled to the right and fired as shots clattered against the pod's armor, eviscerating a couple storefronts shacked up with sandbags. The infantry was torn apart like paper by the high caliber rifle. The city just didn't have enough rigs for every person to really be in the fight.

Daniel sped down the street and turned down the side to fire at a group trying to flank an XR with rocket launchers. Turning to the side caused him to roll on the horizontal axis so his turret rolled underneath him with each rotation. As the gun fired the computer corrected for the rolls and sent each burst of ammunition exactly where it was intended. For Daniel, there was no squeezing of triggers or pressing of buttons or pedals. All he had to do was think, and the capabilities of the machine leaped to meet his demands. The strength of his meld was unrivaled.

The warping of the pilot's visual field was a strange experience when melded to the rig. In the XRs it was far more natural with the primary cameras being in the faceplate, although things got a lot funkier once the secondary shoulder or tertiary leg cams came into play. When the neuro uplink was active it didn't just send output from the brain to be interpreted and executed by the computer. Input from the computer's sensors: cameras, UV, sound waves, physics simulations, structural conditions, projectile impacts, etc., all fed back into the brain. This made initial melding for most to be an uncomfortably invasive and confusing process.

Daniel's experience combined with the plasticity of his neurons allowed him to see and feel so much more in the meld than he did with his painfully limited body. Reaching top speed down a thoroughfare he could see the red outlines of warm-blooded bodies sheltered in the skyscrapers of what was once a crowded city square. He could see the those directly within the STVs line of sight and the sound waves emitted off the buildings in front of him allowed him to estimate the positions of those hiding on the floors facing away from the sensors. It was clearly an ambush. RPGs were the most effective weapon against rigs and had replaced rifles as the standard small arms in the latest round of conflicts. He could see them balanced on the wavering shoulders of the men and women unsure if their uprising was now worth its consequences.

Daniel sighed, it was all too easy. He launched over a barricade and flipped on his side with the turret on top, and landed in the middle of the square. With all of his targets marked beforehand, the turret spun in circles and unloaded on every window bearing the heat and sound signatures of human bodies. After a few rotations, the multiple bores of his rifle burned red as they stopped spinning. That.... was cool, he thought to himself. Daniel stayed still for a second as he surveyed the buildings for any survivors. Negative.

He rolled away in search of his next quarry.