Gearing Up

“What’s up Kazh.” Noah said leaving the academics as they digested his answers. “I’m in the middle of a”

“Gear up, we are likely going planet side. Do you need weapons?” Kazhvoyova’s voice was all business.

“I have my Earth guns. Would need to be issued something else.”

“Armor?”

“Prototype based off of what you girls hit us with. I think it’s”

“Good enough, where is it?”

“My workshop. Everything is in my workshop.”

“Vazhchayvr will complain,” Kazhvoyova’s voice pivoted to contemplative. “Get geared up. We will meet you.” Then the line went dead.

Noah turned to the academics. “I have to go to my duty station, we will have to pick this up later.”

“Are you not on the damage control teams?” Renopold asked, clearly suspicious.

“Technically I’m in the militia. However I think I’ll be going planet side this time. All I know at the moment. I’ll fill in what I know when I get back.”

“Stay safe.” Grolvoni said as Noah left.

Noah found the hallways a form of organized chaos. Everyone was in a hurry, it was an organized hurry. Noah was glad that traffic was moving at a reasonable pace, which helped a little bit with not getting lost in the circulatory system of the ship. Entering his workshop Noah paused for a moment as he thought about all the work he would still have to get done. His job was officially: ‘Learning the alien space magic’, as Elizabeth had declared it, which meant he had a lot to learn, and a lot to build. He paused in front of the crate containing his armor. “I really need to stop lying to her.” The ghosts didn’t answer him, so he went to work getting dressed.

He started with the body suit, a thick rubbery thing that the Roschani use as a base layer. He and the armor nerds fitted a few layers of soft armor in as well it was thicker than the standard Roschani suit. The extra impact absorption backed up by good old fashioned Kevlar was already a fairly good suit. Once he wrestled that on he went for the armor frame. Noah refused to think of it as an exoskeleton even if the Roschani insisted on the term. It was what the armor attached to, the power assistance wasn’t enough to make much of a difference to his strength, endurance it was a game changer. As Noah’s run times and distances saw no change between the full armor and no armor. On this armor frame Noah layered the ‘stupid plates’ as the Roschani military had named them. The mix of ceramic and steel plates were fully rifle proofed, which if the Roschani had when they hit Earth they would have had an easier time of it. On top of this layer Noah layered the ‘stupid plates’ as the Human militaries had named them. The Roschani armor could stop pistol calibers, some of the time. However in space lasers and plasma throwers were the primary weapons one had to worry about. These armor plates ablated off when struck by those weapons nullifying most of the effects.

With the armor layered on Noah pulled out his helmet, and went to the next crate. Inside he found his two old rifles, old pistol, the new webbing that had been made to go over the armor, his backpack, and a lot of magazines. Noah didn’t like how the armor disconnected the feel of the webbing, yet the functional suit of full plate armor was worth it. Noah still wanted a cape. Loading his pouches with ammo, the door chimed. “Come in!” Noah looked up to see Kazhvoyova, Vazhchyvr, and Nekamormi enter the room all of them were armored although there wasn’t a weapon between the three of them. “You ladies forgetting something?”

“Weapons should be stored in the armory where they can charge.” Nekamormi said looking at Noah with an incredulous expression. “Why do you have yours?”

“The armor didn’t want to touch them. Something about electricity?” Noah still wasn’t sure about that word.

Kazhvoyova said something, as Noah pulled out his pistol and holstered it. Nekamormi took a step back. Looking at Noah like he was crazy. Noah turned to Vazhchyvr, “Any idea what I need?”

Nekamormi came over to the crate and looked in it. “Are these the same?”

“Yep,” Noah said, “Same two. Although a good number of new parts. New barrels, new suppressors, new paint.”

“May I?”

Noah shot Vazhchyvr a look, “You want to touch something apparently so scary the military armorer won’t touch it?” Vazhchyvr attempted, and mostly succeeded at, an eyeroll.

“I know how dangerous they are, from both sides.” Noah caught the wince in Vazhchyvr’s voice.

Noah inspected her face, “Which one? Long range or high speed?” He said pointing to the two rifles.

“High speed?”

Noah made a show of picking up the freshly painted black rifle and clearing it. Then handed it over to her, “Remember.” Noah knew he didn’t need to say anything else. Vazhchyvr for her part looked over the rifle very carefully, as if it was some kind of artifact.

“It has been a long time.” Vazhchyvr said mostly to herself. “Bring both.” She said turning to Noah, handing the rifle back. Noah nodded and started loading up his backpack. Food, extra ammo, medical supplies, all were packed into his pack. Noah knew the girls were watching him, he simply ran though his check list after check list. Making sure that each item was where it should be and that he had enough of it.

“You’re bringing a lot,” Nekamormi sounded like a ghost. Noah looked at her, shrugged and went back to double checking everything. “Is this him or humans?”

“Both I think. Humanity has had it fairly rough.” Vazhchyvr said, equally concerned. Noah finished his packing and attached the backpack to the rest of his gear. He felt normal with all the extra weight added to his frame. Slinging both rifles and holstering his pistol he turned to Vazhchyvr.

“Noah Bannon, reporting” He didn’t attempt to keep the smug out of his voice.

To Vazhchyvr’s credit she only gave him a mildly disappointed look, “In all honesty we thought you were going to take longer. Come, we will be getting briefed in the shuttle bay.” She then lead the group out into the now empty hallways. Noah was surprised at the speed they were moving, and spared a moment to examine the gear his squad was wearing. All three were in similar outfits to his own. Nekamormi had the biggest difference as her tail was loose but covered. Noah wondered how the form fitting suit worked with a tail as full as hers. He refocused when they arrived at the armory and the girls were given magnetic rifles. Noah hadn’t been super impressed by the performance of the ones the Roschani had used on Earth. The ammount of drag meant at long range the darts were less lethal and more inconvenient to get hit by. The armorer gave Noah a worried look as the rabbit like creature looked over the pouches on his chest. Noah attempted a friendly gesture instead the armorer muttered something and went back to handing out items.

“You are still crazy for carrying all that.” The armorer said to Noah after he finished handing out the supplies to the girls. “Absolutely crazy.” Noah didn’t respond simply stood there unsure what else to do.

“Alright,” Vazhchyvr said and once again the group was moving. It wasn’t far until they entered the shuttle bay. Noah was impressed at the size of it. He had been moved from the shuttle up from Earth in a containment suit which had rather poor visibility. Now that he could move his neck looking around the cavernous structure The floor was a mixture of markings and lights, two small shuttle craft and a large one were pointed to the large doors all of them had their rear ramps down and a small cluster of people were gathered on the far wall. More shuttles were stored along the walls and ceiling of the bay of various sizes. Vazhchyvr directed the team to gather next to the wall which had a large screen.

As they filed in the Captain who was standing on a table gave their group a nod, “Right now that everyone is here we can begin.” The screen turned to a map, “We picked up a distress call coming from this area. It is rather large as you can see with this scale.” A grid appeared over the map, Noah had no idea what it meant. Although concerned noises came from the rest of the gathered crew. “The distress call implied hostile action, and a crash landing. We were unable to get a name or a transponder code with the distress call, there was weapons fire in the back ground. Thus team one and team two will be searching these sections first where the debris have been located.” Noah knew that the captain hadn’t used numbers but he didn’t know what else could have gone in there. He ran the sentence over again to make sure as one of the other team leaders asked a question, and the Captain answered. He still didn’t know what the other two teams were called.

“You,” the Captain said addressing Vazhchyvr and team directly, “will be up in the mountains. We suspect they may have gone that way looking for shelter after the crash. It would be hard for them to make it that far unaided in the gravity of the world, but we must…” Noah’s understanding lapsed as he started to focus on the mountains in the overview. They didn’t look too rough.

Kazhvoyova slapped Noah’s hand bringing him back to the here and now, “You have something to say?”

“Looks like a good hike.” Noah offered, not sure if he should comment further. He then realized that all eyes were on him, and most were clearly unhappy with that answer. Kazhvoyova repeated the line in common as Noah had absentmindedly spoken in English. A few noises came from the larger creatures, Noah hoped they were laughs or equivalent. With that the briefing ended and each team split out, Noah followed Vazhchyvr a little ways from the rest and she pulled out a tablet with the map.

“Your hiking preferences aside, this is a rather dangerous world. Not Earth dangerous,” Vazhchyvr shot Noah a look, “just dangerous. Wild animals, ‘heavy’ gravity, honestly closer to home than anywhere else I’ve seen so far. Our path will be south to north.” she traced the line with her finger leaving the trail. Others were appearing in the forest presumably below them. We have enough stuff for the three days it should take. Any of you have questions?”

“Captain said there was weapons fire.” Nekamormi said, “Do we suspect there will be combat?”

“That is a possibility.” Noah knew that tone, it was the tone a Roschani used when they knew they were lying and wanted to get caught. He wasn’t sure if Vazhchyvr was aware of that seemingly species wide tell. Yet she continued, “It is unlikely that we will run into anyone on our path. We are mostly to look to see if any escape pods or if we can pick up any beacons, the mountains and ionosphere hampers the ship’s sensors and with the damage the ship likely had sustained who knows what state it was before it fell into the forest.”

Noah traced the scar that was the impact site with his eyes, “It’s not as on fire as I’d expect. Thing fell from orbit after all.”

“Not everything is as flammable as you’d expect. Plus the survey scanners suggest it had been storming when they hit the ground.” Noah shrugged not sure what else to say. “Alright everyone load up we are headed down.” Vazhchyvr said holstering the tablet, “and make sure you are sealed for vacuum just in case. I don’t want any nasty surprises.”

Hello all, because the comments aren’t working the way I want them to. I’ve started making chat threads. Feel free to leave your comments there I will read all of them!