“Ah, green eggs and ham,” Hattelstad said, sitting down at the table.
“Was Dr. Seuss in the Marines?” Berg asked, tearing at a strip of rubbery bacon.
“I thought you were the guy with all the answers,” Jaenisch said, sipping his coffee. The sergeant clearly wasn’t a morning person.
“What’s up for you guys today?” Berg asked, changing the subject.
“Dickbeating 101,” Jaenisch said.
“Ground simulated combat for the first four hours,” Hattelstad said. “So we’re basically in our racks playing Dreen War. Then upper body workout, then Space Marine WCT. I’m still trying to figure out the difference between a maizon and a querk.”
“One’s a waiter, the other’s a personal characteristic,” Berg quipped. “Or did you mean a meson and a quark?”
“Whatever.”
11
“Right arm straight up to my finger,” Lyle said.
Berg raised the arm to where he thought the finger should be, then lifted a bit more.
“Did you have to correct?” Lyle asked.
“Yeah.”
“Do it again,” the armorer said, looking at the box in his hand. “That’s where you think it should be, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Right arm straight out, come in and touch your nose.”
CLANG!
“Maulk.”
Once a Wyvern was fitted it was supposed to perfectly mimic actions. But it never did. Thus it had to be adjusted for movement.
And adjusted and adjusted and adjusted. To the point where feet went where they were supposed to go, arms went where they were supposed to go, fingers closed with the right amount of force, to the point the wearer could bend steel bars, juggle eggs — if they could juggle — and jump over tall buildings in a single bound. Well, maybe not the latter.
“And in and touch your nose.”
Ting.
“Left hand in and touch your nose.”
Ting.
“Hand salute!”
Clang!
“Little softer next time, Two-Gun. Sensor pod’s not as well armored as the rest. Let’s get started on the legs…”
“And we’re… done,” Lyle said. “Step out and let’s key it to you.”
“Hell of a job, man,” Berg said, climbing out of the armor. “Like a grapping glove.”
“You’re welcome,” the armorer said, then hit the hatch close button. “Okay, palm on the pad.”
Under the right armpit was a hand-print pad. If the user wasn’t in the armor, it could only be opened by the user, the unit armorer, the first sergeant or the CO.
“State your last name, first name and rank,” Lyle said.
“Bergstresser, Eric, PFC.”
“Team name?”
“Two-Gun,” Berg said with a wince.
“And you’re keyed,” Lyle said, starting to put away his tools. “But if you’ve got a few minutes, come on by the armory.”
“Okay,” Berg said. “Can I give you a hand with that?”
“No offense, but nobody touches my tools,” Lyle replied, looking up at him and grinning. “You know, except good looking ladies of inappropriate age.”
“Gotcha, man,” Berg said.
“What in the grapp is that?” Berg asked, as Lyle set the gun on the counter.
“It’s a really grapped up pistol,” Lyle replied. “I started with some parts from a Barrett M-63. See, the Wyverns don’t have a pistol system…”
The pistol was massive. Berg could pick it up with one hand, but only by cradling it. There was no way to get a hand around the grip. Forward of the grip was the magazine.
“What’s it fire?” Berg said, then paused. “Wait, the Sixty-Three is a damned .50 caliber system!”
“I don’t know if it can actually be used,” Lyle pointed out. “The Wyvern’s only got two fingers and a thumb. It might rotate out of your hand.”
“You don’t want me to try this thing, do you?” Berg protested.
“Hey, you’re the one called Two-Gun, not me,” the armorer whispered. “I don’t even have a Wyvern.”
Berg paused at that. He wasn’t sure what the specialty of the armorer had been before his accident, but he was probably infantry. Now he just got to fix the toys, not play with them.
“If I strap this on, I will get unending maulk,” Berg pointed out. “And Top will blow a gasket.”
“If we get the chance, though, will you at least try it out?” Josh asked. “I’ll square it with Top.”
“If I get a chance.”
“Shiny. ’Cause I made two.”
“All hands! All hands! Stand by for Chill! We Be Chillin’!”
“Maulk,” Berg said. “Again?”
“Still getting over the pink stuff?”
“I’m never going to get over it at this rate…”
“I’m dying in data!” Dr. Dean half screamed. “And now they want a planetary survey!”
“Sir, if I could recommend,” Runner said, looking up from his computer screen. “Doing a planetary survey is grunt work. I can run the scope. You keep working on the data from Saturn.”
“Good idea, Runner,” the doctor said, picking up two two-liter bottles of generic cola and looking at them balefully. One was full, one nearly empty. He carefully opened the full one, poured part of it into the empty until both were slightly over half full, sealed both and shook them vigorously. Then he opened the cap on one, let the air hiss out, shook it again and took a swig. “For a soldier, you’re not entirely stupid.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” the master sergeant muttered, unlatching his chair and rolling it over to the telescope controls.
The main scope for the Blade was mounted where a periscope would normally be on a sub. Runner first extended the scope, then swiveled it into working position. Then he entered the survey command.
Now that they were in a stable orbit around the sun, the boat was probably moving at a notably different velocity than the planets. By taking fifteen-minute-long duration shots of the sky in quadrants looking “outward” from the sun, he got six “plates” of the sky. They were actually detailed Flexible Image Transport System, or FITS, graphic files but the term plate went back to when astronomers would use actual photographic plates for the same purpose.
Mostly older astronomers used plates; the newer ones talked about files or digital images. Dr. Dean had started out with a thirty-five millimeter camera as a kid before video cameras and frame grabbers were available. He was in the generation that was between the older astronomers and the new kids on the block like Runner. But Dean didn’t think of Runner as an astronomer. He was a stupid soldier, not a scientist. Which was why Runner called the files FITS at every opportunity.
Since planets were probably going to be moving at a notably different velocity than the boat, any planet facing the sun, and therefore bright in the sky, would turn up as a streak. What used to be a laborious human process was now all managed by computers. Stars turned up as dots. Planets turned up as streaks. A rather simple program found the streaks and highlighted them. An only slightly more complex program could determine orbits, debris, velocities, and distances.
Each of the shots required fifteen minutes of exposure, but they could be used for purposes other than just the planetary survey. Ever since man had looked up at the stars he’d been wondering “just how far away are those damned things?” He’d eventually gotten past thinking they were glued to the top of the sky, but scientists were still scratching their heads about most of them. The easiest way to compute a distance is called triangulation. Look at something from two different angles, do a bit of simple math and you know exactly how far away something is.