“Makes sense,” Alex responded. “But I’ll still take the full Ka-Bar set.”
“Fine.” Grey shrugged.
The trio headed along the corridor. Grey’s voice rose as he talked faster, nervously pointing to different sealed doors as they passed: laser technology, biologicals, handguns, rifles, combat body armor, sensory enhancement. Alex nodded, but stayed silent. He knew all these weapons labs intimately as he’d trialed many of their tech in the field.
Grey slowed as they approached the ASU — the Armored Soldier Unit — the center for all physical shielding for the field operative. A soldier’s combat fatigues of old had been replaced by new materials that were more a mix of body armor and computer system. The new lowest level infiltration suits had active camouflage with micro-panels capable of altering their appearance, color, and reflective properties, enabling the wearer to blend into their surroundings. The next level up for a front-line solider was full confrontation gear with hyper-strong body armor that came in various levels of defense — lower level micro-mesh that could stop a 9mm slug and be worn under normal clothing, moving up to full ceramic or biological plating, able to defray direct hits from a shotgun or assault rifle.
“I understand from Colonel Hammerson there’s a risk of contamination,” Grey said. “We’ve been developing an armored HAZMAT suit. Might be ideal for this mission.”
“Cool.” Sam rubbed his hands together in anticipation.
Grey stopped before a silver door that looked like a sheet of solid steel. He laid a palm on a glass panel, the outline of his hand was briefly illuminated and then the door soundlessly slid back into the wall. He led them into the cavernous space and the lights automatically came on around them.
There was a mannequin wearing an all-black compression suit with biological plating over the chest, biceps and thighs, and with smaller armadillo-like scales over the stomach and neck.
Alex had worn similar suits, and had found them both tough and pliable. For colder environments, they even had warming cells built in. This one was new in that the stand-out feature was that it covered the head and face. The flexible scale-like plating extended up the neck, each plate overlaying the one below it, but stopped at the forehead and chin where there was a clear oval panel acting as a full-face visor.
“What do you think?” Grey beamed.
“I think it looks a little stifling,” Alex said, frowning.
“Ah, but just wait.” Grey stepped toward it and touched a small stud beside the faceplate; it fully retracted up and away. He touched it again to bring it back down and then adjusted something that made four lenses protrude from the visor, making the face look totally alien.
“Whoa, quad vision,” Sam said, grinning. “Like the Warrior system?”
“Oh yes.” Grey nodded enthusiastically. “But where that had four separate tubes for light enhancement, this image intensifier can be adjusted to amplify thermal, light, and also deliver macroscopic vision.”
“I like it,” Alex said. The quad vision looked weird, the four tubes making it seem that the wearer had four eyes, but in fact the image kit had a computer application that overlapped the images, giving the wearer vastly superior peripheral sight with an almost wrap-around 98 percent field of vision.
Grey reached up to tap the faceplate. “Impact resistant polymer; you could take a direct hit from a shotgun blast, and still walk away with a face.”
“But will the face still be on the neck?” Sam winked at Grey.
“Of course.” Grey looked indignant. He turned the model around, indicating what looked like two pads between the shoulder blades. “Compressed oxygen cylinders can give you breathable air for forty-eight hours. Pumps and heating cells all work off a miniaturized nuclear chip.” He pointed at Sam. “Similar to the one powering your internal MECH Suit, Lieutenant.
Sam nodded. “No complaints.”
Alex stepped forward and lifted the dummy’s arm. The gloves over the hands had ribbed fingers for grip, and plating over the knuckles and back of hand. Good. If they needed to get physical, using the suits was like having built-in brass knuckles; they tended to finish arguments real quick.
Sam walked around it, his brow creasing. “One question: how the hell does someone, ah, take a leak in that thing?”
Grey looked bemused. “Inside; where else?” He swung the model around on its plinth and showed them the back. There was a barely perceptible rise in the rear armor plating.
“Waste conversion system — filtered and converted to drinking water. Body temperature, of course.”
“Nice one,” Sam said. “And if I need to…”
Grey shook his head. “For that, you’ll need to peel yourself out of the suit in the cold, I’m afraid. Solid waste presents a contamination and storage problem.”
Sam grunted and looked skeptical.
Alex scoffed. “For Christsake, Reid, just go before you get into it.” He grinned. “And no vindaloo curry before dust off.”
“No promises.” Sam grinned back.
Alex turned to Grey. “Good work. There’ll be seven HAWCs including myself, and we’re out of here in a few hours.”
“No problem, send the bios. I’ve got all your measurements so we can engineer them right now. Be ready in an hour.” He made some notes.
Grey clapped his hands. “And now. Let’s go and look at some sub-zero environment weapon tech.” He headed toward an adjoining door that linked them to the next R & D lab.
Alex and Sam followed him in. The new room was longer than it was wide, and at one end there was a target set up — a half torso. The hangar-sized room also sported multiple firearm racks.
Sam spotted some of the newer light-emitting weaponry. “Lasers?”
“No can do,” Grey threw back. “Our analysis indicates an environment high in methane and hydrogen. You fire a laser in that, and it’s liable to ignite the entire mountaintop.”
“Ouch. What else you got?” Sam pulled a gun from a rack and checked it over.
Grey came and took it from the HAWC. “Well, we can’t use anything that has either ignition-based initiators, propulsion or impact detonation devices, so that rules out a lot of the standard weapon tech.”
“What about compressed air or EMP?” Alex folded his arms.
Grey snorted. “Old tech. I’ve got something even better. Magnetics.”
Alex raised his eyebrows. “Rail design?”
Grey held up a finger and waggled it. “Well, we’re still trialing rail-gun tech in our airforce and naval assets. We know we can get much greater muzzle velocities from lower energy than weapons powered by conventional propellants — means we can deliver bigger payloads faster and with greater accuracy.”
“Faster is right,” Sam said. “I’ve heard using electromagnetics to achieve a high velocity can make the projectile near invisible,” he said. “But my understanding is that the tech is freaking huge, like tank-sized huge.”
“Oh yes, the heavy conflict weaponry still requires a good-sized hardware footprint,” Grey agreed. “Our rail guns can deliver tungsten armor-piercing shells with kinetic energies of nine megajoules at two miles per second — at that velocity a tungsten rod projectile could penetrate down to a bunker buried beneath a mountain. But you’re right, the big power systems are still truck sized.”
“So, no rail gun.” Sam’s mouth turned down.
“I didn’t say that.” Grey showed a row of neat little white teeth.
“You’ve miniaturized it?” Alex smiled.
“Yes, we did. We lose some delivery speed, and they’re only down to rifle size, but even then, we still managed to achieve muzzle velocities of 1.1 miles per second, and with enough kinetic energy to punch a tiny hole through six inches of solid steel.” He shrugged. “If that’s all you wanted it to do.” He held his smile, waiting.