That’s where the rub came in.
“I have discovered the source of your troubles,” Dr. Harris told Paul. “Your neural net is off. We will have to realign it.”
“Do I have to begin the entire process from scratch?” Paul asked.
“I should hope not.”
“Yeah,” Paul said. Calibrating the neural net had taken boring weeks of detail.
In essence, the suit’s helmet read his mind. It was called SQUID—Superconducting Quantum Interface Device. The array in his helmet detected the minute magnetic fields produced by brain electrical activity. To interpret and run the brain signals took a neural net computer in the control systems. Months ago, Paul started operating the suit with the detection system running, performing simple tasks. The neural net compared the brain’s motor center activity and built its own operative pathways. With each use, the computer learned better ways of performing tasks. In this way, it optimized itself. That made the battlesuits extremely individualistic.
As Dr. Harris led the techs, Paul thought about that. He was in for the duration, obviously. The time it had taken them to train him and train his suit about him, meant it would take a long time to find a replacement. They’d have to take his powered armor for that, and that would leave the US with one fewer Marine for the nine months of preparation.
There aren’t too many drop specialists, fewer than a thousand so far.
What could one battalion of orbitally dropped commandos do? It was going to be something wild, he knew that. One of his crazier weapons was a small nuclear-tipped missile, with .3 kilotons of killing power. It was a super-RPG.
Paul smirked to himself. In Toronto and New York in 2040, many American soldiers had referred to the GD drone battalions as Terminators.
We’re the real Terminators.
What would that mean on the battlefield? The training was winding down. Soon, now, they would enter the fight. So far, General Allenby had demanded ultra-secrecy. He and other brass hats wanted to lay this on the Chinese as a total surprise. Paul could appreciate that. What he disliked was the security details, one in particular. No Marine had been able to talk to anyone but the training personnel for endless months on end. Paul had gotten sick of that, more than he’d expected at the start of this business.
How’s my Cheri? I know she needs to hear from me.
He’d talked to the general about it. The man shrugged, told him to can that kind of talk. He was a drop specialist and he’d just have to suck it up.
No, Paul told himself. I want to talk to my wife and I’m going to talk to her.
First, though, he’d give it a few more weeks, maybe a month. Then he’d put some pressure on them, on General Allenby. They wanted him to drop from low orbit in a tin can. Well, baby, they had better find him an open line so he could speak to Cheri and find out how she was doing. Probably, he’d have to reassure her. He couldn’t put the pressure on them just yet, though. That would be tactically foolish. He had to retrain his suit first, and make sure he was indispensable.
Besides, Paul wanted to go to the finish on this one. He had to be there in the end. That’s why he’d joined the Marines in the first place.
“Try lifting your right arm now,” Dr. Harris said.
Paul tried, and he did it.
“Excellent,” Harris said. “We’re making progress.”
“That’s great,” Paul said.
The scientist ignored him. Instead, Harris lifted the slate near his lips as he spoke into it, making notations. It made a front tooth more noticeable, a shinier tooth, a crown no doubt.
That was okay. Despite the boiling in his gut wondering about Cheri, Paul bided his time. Soon now, very soon, he was going to find out about his wife.
-11-
Drive on Harbin
Jake kept his eyes peeled as he moved down the village’s main street. Snowy mountains rose to the east behind the place. A highway passed to the west. It was more than a huddle of houses and a store, having a temple, some storage facilities and a factory to the north.
Battalion had already secured the huge chicken processing plant. Lieutenant Wans’ platoon had the job of sweeping the village, making sure the civilians understood this had become US conquered territory. The point was the highway to the west. It had become the key supply trunk to the US 3rd Army Group. Every village, town and city along the way had to be secured.
Battalion had taken the chicken plant with a minimum of effort. That meant almost no ammo expenditure, one wounded sergeant and three dead Chinese workers who had attempted to protest. For some reason, though, the lieutenant had told them to be careful with this one.
“There’s something wrong about this place,” he’d said.
So Jake didn’t saunter in the middle of the paved lane or swagger like a conqueror. He agreed with Wans. Something felt off in this place. Instead, Jake edged along a building as if he starred in some Wild West TV show and this was the final showdown with the bad guys.
Behind him came Chet and Grant. Each of them wore body armor. Across the street on the other side were Cowboy, MacDonald and Bradbury, the rest of the squad. Tiller and Lars were too sick with stomach flus to help today.
The platoon swept through the town from north to south, and there hadn’t been any gunfire so far. No one had shouted and neither had any Chinese appeared to surrender.
This place felt wrong, haunted maybe, filled with bad luck. Jake was starting to hate these small, out-of-the-way places the infantry always had to clear out the old-fashioned way. You never knew what these kinds of backwater joints hid. Yeah, battalion was half a mile away, and mortars and heavy machine guns could take this place apart. That might even be fun. But what if a nasty surprise shocked the first ones in? Jake hated surprises. Surprises could kill you.
“If you ask me,” Chet said. “They’re going about it the wrong way.”
Jake scowled. Two things made him especially edgy today. One, he was bone tired. He hadn’t slept for… oh yeah. He hadn’t slept for over thirty-six hours. Man, he was ready to collapse and call it a week right here. High command kept demanding, though. This was an around-the-clock offensive, don’t you know. It was old shock and awe, making the Chinese piss themselves. The Americans just kept grabbing more territory and blowing everything up that resisted.
The second thing that bothered him was listening to Chet’s philosophies about anything.
Each of them cradled an assault rifle. Each wore a pack. Jake was ready to ditch his. Together with his body armor, it was too much already. Battalion needed to get them rides. They’d been doing far too much walking—the “Tour of Manchuria” the guys were already calling it.
“Why do the Chinks fight us up front?” Chet asked. “I don’t get that.”
“Uh…” Grant said, “Because we’re invading their country.”
“You’re not listening to me,” Chet said. “I’m not saying they should let us walk all over them. I’m talking about smart tactics. See. These people here, they should lie low. After we’re away, then they hit the supply columns.”
“Listen, you idiot,” Jake said. “That doesn’t do us any good in the long run.”