Strike Force

“The cargo compartment monitors shut down — probably due to high heat,” Nano said as she monitored the computerized shutdown process. “If my experiment is trashed, Boomer, I’m going to give you a smack in the head.” Noble didn’t respond. As soon as the onboard data was collected, the spacecraft completely shut down, and the inspection stand rolled into place, she hopped out and climbed up onto the platform to look at the cargo bay passenger module.

Hunter had a bad feeling about the outcome when he saw daggers flying out of Nano’s eyes, aimed directly at him. “What?” he asked.

“Black streaks coming out of the seam in the bay doors,” Benneton said frostily.

“The whole spacecraft is black, Nano. How can you…?”

“It’s built-up heat and oxidation, Boomer,” she said. “I’m going to slit your throat, I swear.” A few minutes later, with firefighters and paramedics standing by, they opened up the cargo doors — and an undulating, shimmering gray cloud of smoke and heat rolled out. Nano was shaking her fist in the spaceplane pilot’s direction as she stared into the cargo hold. “Boomer, wait till I get my hands on you…!”

It took several long, agonizing moments to move a crane into position to lift the passenger module out of the cargo bay and onto a cradle in the hangar. Luckily the cradle was covered with heat-resistant materials, because the module was definitely hot, like a fat steak fresh off the barbecue. As expected, the electrical door opening mechanisms didn’t work, so the ground crews started to work on the mechanical locks. By the time the locks had been twisted free, a small crowd had gathered at the hatch, morbidly curious as to what the insides looked like. Nano herself grabbed a pair of insulated gloves and grasped the latch…but before Benneton could open the hatch, the levers moved and the door swung open from the inside.

“About time, Doc,” the electronically synthesized voice of Air Force Brigadier General Hal Briggs said. A wave of heat rolled out through the open hatch. “We thought you guys forgot about us.”

“For God’s sake, General…are you all right?” Benneton asked breathlessly.

“I’m okay — a little bored, that’s all,” Briggs said. He was inside a “Tin Man”—powered exoskeleton, a protective suit of electronic armor made up of composite materials thousands of times stronger than steel but just a fraction of the weight. The suit was composed of a material called BERP, or Ballistic Electronically Responsive Process, that kept the material flexible but instantly hardened into an almost impenetrable shell if struck. The BERP material was surrounded by thin microhydraulic actuators in a lightweight composite framework that gave the wearer superhuman strength, agility, and speed. The suit had a variety of sensors, communications equipment, and weapon control functions built into it, as well as its own environmental controls to keep the user comfortable in extreme conditions.

Benneton started to reach in and undo the straps securing Briggs in the aft-facing seat. “Let’s get you out of there, sir…”

Briggs held up a large armored hand. “Better not, Doc. My readouts say it’s over one-seventy Fahrenheit in here.” He looked over at his comrade while he undid his harness. “You okay over there, Sergeant Major?”

“Affirmative, sir,” the second passenger, U.S. Marine Corps Sergeant Major Chris Wohl replied, also wearing Tin Man armor, his usual emotionless monotone clearly identifiable through the electronic voice synthesizing system. The big Marine was seated in a forward-facing seat. He turned to Benneton while he unbuckled his harness. “I assume it’s not supposed to get this hot in here, Doc?” he deadpanned.

“The sergeant major has just expended his allotment of quips for the year,” Briggs interjected.

“Take it up with the aircraft commander,” she responded perturbedly. “If he had let the computers fly the re-entry and it stayed precisely on the programmed glide path everything would have been fine.” The bug-eyed helmeted figure looked at Benneton, then Noble, but said nothing in reply.

After downloading and checking all of the recorded data from the Tin Man suits, Briggs and Wohl disconnected and stepped out of the exoskeleton, removed their helmets, and shuffled off to the back of a Security Forces flatbed truck, helping themselves to cigars and bottles of water as they rested. “It was a good ride until the re-entry, Doc,” Briggs said. “I think normal folks would have trouble with that re-entry, though — other than the heat, the g-forces are pretty severe. Can’t you make it so you pull fewer g’s?”

“We did a two-point-five-g re-entry, which is about half of normal,” Hunter Noble said. “The Tin Man suits may have made it feel heavier than normal. How do you feel, Sergeant Major?”

“I feel fine, sir,” Wohl said. “Perhaps all of the seats should be forward-facing — the aft-facing seats get a pounding during both takeoff and re-entry.”

“Roger that,” Briggs agreed. “I know what ‘Spam in a can’ feels like now.”