“And some pretty solid hits,” someone said in the back of the group.
“Sure,” Bus admitted. “But if you get so much as a finger cut off in space, you are dead. The same, however, goes for the enemy. So you have to get a brand new idea through your heads. The object is not to strike for vitals, but to breach your enemy’s armor. If you’re in vacuum, that is all it will take.”
Bus picked the mace back up and swung it at the elbow joint of the armor, breaking the arm backwards and popping the joint.
“That is a kill,” he said, continuing with the momentum and hitting at the thigh, driving the spike in deeply. “Kill.”
“Should be easy,” Sergeant Graff commented.
“Easy to get dead,” the captain snapped. “That is a kill on you, Graff! Most of your body is going to be covered by not much more than a couple of layers of silk. Keep that in mind, too! If they get a cut on that suit when you are in vacuum, you’re going to get bled out in a few seconds, even if it’s just a slice.”
“Got it,” Graff said, nodding seriously.
“This is going to be our primary weapon,” Van Buskirk said, holding the mace aloft. “You’re used to using your gladii, but this is much better for what we’re going to be doing. The pick is for hitting solid parts of the armor.” He spun in place and slammed the pick, full force, into the chest of the armor, puncturing it with a “ping” sound. “The flat head is for helmets,” he continued, yanking the mace out and slamming it into the helmet, knocking the latter askew, “or anywhere you think you can pop a seal. Anyone got any thoughts on what is wrong with my demonstration?”
“If you’re in vacuum, you’re going to be in microgravity,” Lieutenant Massa said, soberly. “And if you strike like that you’ll go flying away.”
“Agreed,” Bus said, flipping the mace through a series of figure eights. “I don’t think we’re going to be doing any full microgravity fighting. The interiors are all under gravity and on the surface you’re going to be using mag-boots. So you set up the figure eight and let the mass of the mace do the work.” He ended by slamming the mace into the undamaged arm, clearly popping the elbow joint.
“If you are in microgravity,” he continued, “the techniques get a little complex. There’s little or no way to get any sort of formation. What we will be doing is training in teams, with the idea that two of you will gang up on one of them, if possible, and do unto them before they do unto you.”
He picked up one of the metal plates and walked over to the suit, tossing it in the direction of the chest. The plate, which was clearly a magnet, stuck to the front of the suit. He then picked up the small buckler and showed that it was magnetic as well.
“The ship uses a fair amount of stuff the magnets will stick to on the interior and exterior,” Bus said, walking up to the suit and popping the magnet off. “The basic technique will be for one or more of you to target one of them. You then launch very carefully from your position and slap one of these magnets, or the buckler, onto the target. Then you hit them, once, and let the momentum push you away in the most controlled manner you can. If you don’t get a kill, don’t stick around. Grappling is a losing proposition. Keep moving. There’s no up or down in microgravity; use that to your advantage. Remember, if one of these guys is drifting by you can grab a boot or whatever, slam your pick into their ankle joint, and that’s an effective kill. You can use the mace to move around, as well, by hooking into anything that’s sticking out.
“When we get to the water portion, as soon as they’re done with our suits, we’ll start practicing on that. For now, you’ll start working out with the mace and getting used to its uses and limitations. There are two other weapons I’ve suggested to our friends the dwarves.” That brought a laugh. The dwarves were notably gruff with everyone. He held up a large cylinder.
“This is a magnetic punch,” Bus said, sticking the device onto the front of the suit and firing it. There was a clanging sound and the device flew backwards with a large spike sticking out of the front. There was, however, a hole in the suit. Before it had hit the ground the spike had retracted.
“The magnet holds it in place just long enough, in most cases, for the punch to penetrate. It only pops the armor, but remember that in vacuum that’s a kill. Then it goes flying off and the spike automatically retracts. If you’re in good position, you can remain attached to the lanyard. Otherwise, just let it go and recover it later. It’s got five shots using air pressure for the attack and retracting. There will be pressurized bottles to recharge it.”
He tossed the punch on the table and picked up a much more complicated device with a backpack and a nozzle. It looked something like a flamethrower with a magazine sticking out the bottom.
“I’m not sure we’ll have many of these,” he said, pointing it at the back wall. He pulled the trigger and a line of small spikes flew out to stick in the wall. “You’ll have to have a good solid position, it’s got a bit of a kick so I wouldn’t just trust your boots for example, and it’s only good against soft targets. But I think they’ll probably come in handy at one point or another.”
“I want,” Massa said, grinning.
“We’ll see how many there are,” Bus said, nodding. “That’s it for now. Each of you will be issued your maces and start training with them this week. As soon as we have suits, and the first in fighters are first in line, we’ll start training in the water tank.”
“How’s it shaping up?” the avatar of Edmund asked.
“Pretty good,” Herzer admitted. “We’ve been retraining on the new weapons and that’s going well on the grav training level anyway. The engineering teams are pretty well as dialed in as they can be without the actual equipment. Same with the computer techs. The pilots are pretty caustic about their training equipment, but they’ve learned where all the controls are, anyway. We’ll have to see if they can actually fly. And everybody has to go in the water as soon as the suits are done.”
“That should be interesting,” Edmund said, smiling. “Tao is on the way over with a courier package. You and Megan should find it interesting.”
“I look forward to it,” Herzer said, frowning.
“You asked for intel,” the council member said, shrugging. “You got intel.”
“Sir,” Lieutenant Tao said, setting a courier bag on Herzer’s desk.
“Thanks, Tao,” Herzer said, picking up the pouch and breaking the seals.
Gerson Tao was nearly as large as the commander and, if anything, darker, with slight epicanthic folds by his eyes and lank black hair. He’d been born and raised on the Western Plains and was a noted horseman. He and Herzer had met when Herzer was his instructor at Officer Basic course and had tapped him, along with Amosis Van Krief and Destrang, to accompany Duke Edmund on a “diplomatic mission” to the southern isles. The diplomatic mission had gone badly awry but the then ensign had stuck to his salt on the long ride Edmund had sent him on to bring the cavalry. He wasn’t the brightest of the three, but he was tough and stubborn. Give him a task and he’d keep battering away at it until something gave.
“I need you to do me a favor,” Herzer said, extracting the heavy linen envelope in the pouch and tossing it back. “Shanea has to go back to Washan. Actually, she doesn’t have to go back, but she deserves a break. I don’t suppose you’re into shopping?”