William was busy meddling with what looked like a helmet; it provided cover for most of the skull without fully encompassing his head. The actual helmet covered the back, top and sides of the head and had a light-green visor that covered the eyes and nose. It looked similar to a motorcycle helmet, but had a few micro antennas poking out on the sides. It had the same black color to it, with dull green paneling to cover crucial areas. William turned, and saw that David was watching him.
�These things are pretty awesome, sir. I�m still just messing with them, but these little toys have got a lot of tools packed into them, like comms equipment and night vision.�
David plucked his helmet out from his crate, and looked at it. It didn�t have the green visor like William�s, but otherwise looked exactly the same. He slid it over his head, and felt the Morphgel change shape to fit his head perfectly. It locked into place, completely unmoving. William walked over, and pressed a small panel that sat at David�s right temple. A green visor slipped out of nowhere, and rested itself an inch away from David�s eyes and nose.
�The instructions for it are in your crate, but it�s also got a bunch of tutorial junk packed into it. You can probably get to it through your wrist implant.�
David had made more connections between his wrist and eye implants on the trip to Mars, and had placed his wrist implant under total remote control. He simply had to think to activate menus and programs within it.
As he sent the �on� signal from his brain, his eye implant flickered to life and conjured a menu. He entered directories, under ConNEcT, External Devices, Auto Scan. He gave the computer some of the general characteristics of the helmet, and let it run its search. It detected the helmet�s digital interface, and gave him the option to connect. He did, and began tweaking settings.
First, he deactivated the helmet�s on/off switch and routed control of that to his wrist implant. He wasn�t going to have some punk enemy soldier push a button to turn off his helmet in a battle. Next, he found the comm settings. He created three new frequencies; one to talk to the newbies, one for N�tn�see, William and Jean, and a third for all of them. He saved those, and rummaged through tutorials.
The helmet had a lot of features, but really didn�t give him too much of what he didn�t have. His eye implant could only display basic information, such as NavMarkers, ID Tags and text prompts, but this helmet was really only an upgrade. It could detect IR and UV, as well as pick up scents of explosives, and let him really analyze his surroundings. It made it a lot more efficient and quicker to create NavMarkers of his own, even give several sets of directions to different teammates. The helmet and armor would only tools though, not something he would rely on. Too much dependency would get him killed.
N�tn�see was still fascinated by how his hip holster held his high-capacity revolver in place so perfectly, yet released it on demand instantaneously. David never really understood why N�tn�see loved his revolver so much, and David personally preferred the standard A-3 .44 semi-autos, mainly because they held twenty rounds and fired quickly. They were very reliable, but David never depended on technology to get a job done.
Jean rummaged through her crate with a curious look on her face, and David came over to inspect. She took from the crate a smaller box, still large but nowhere nearly as voluminous as their crates. She opened it, and gasped in surprise. She looked up at David, a smile on her face. She turned the box to face David, and he quickly realized her reason for excitement.
Inside the box lay the parts for a rifle, the collapsible stock and sections of a barrel, muzzle break and magazines. It was the A-50 LR 14mm Sniper Rifle. She instantly scrambled to assemble it, and within a minute the beast stood muzzle up on the floor. The barrel was well over a meter long, and the whole thing was painted jet black. The muzzle break was considerably larger than normal, indicating it had silencing technology. Above the slide, where the scope should have been, sat what looked like a T. The �T� lay parallel to the barrel, and sat a mere two centimeters off of the stock. On either side of it sat two blue orbs, each only a centimeter in diameter. William stood there, stroking his chin.
�Those sights, I�ve seen something like those before� they link directly to a visual output source, such as our helmets, and use triangulation to adjust aiming for the sight picture. The two blue orbs are the optical sensors that pick up all this data, and feed it to the computer in the stock. Basically, with all its correctional hardware coordinated by those things, you can get a steady sight picture at about 30X. That�s its highest magnification rating, though� and those rounds, those�ll go accurately up to seven or eight kilometers.�
David nodded. Jean did always seem to have a preference for sniping, rather than the close up battles, and was damn good at it, too. The rifle�s stock folded at the touch of a button, and another made the barrel telescope. It was now just at a meter in length, and snapped into place perfectly on the left side of Jean�s back plate. Their Armor Agent hadn�t told them about that. Or was that why he placed so much stress on the importance of looking through their manuals?
David walked over to his bed, and sat on the rigid mattress. He started exploring through some of the helmet�s features that concerned NavMarkers and mission plans, and interfaced with the military databases to get better information on the terrain. He ran a subroutine to go check his email account, and it reported him having two new messages. He turned on the computer terminal at the wall of his bed, and the computer jumped to his email inbox. Both of the two new messages were from high up on the command chain, one titled �MISSION 01� and the other titled �COMMAND PROMOTION�. He skimmed through the command promotion message first, and found nothing new. Basically two page�s worth giving him roster information and the importance of good leadership.
He saved the roster to his wrist implant, and opened up his other email: �MISSION 01�.
Officer Jackson, David S.
113th Division
0835 SAMFT (Standard Alliance Military Force Time)
MISSION 01: Operation Assurance
Your first assignment on Mars as the newly reformed 113th division is to scout the area of the coordinates listed below (A-1). Enemy hostility is expected in the low range, from little to no resistance. You are also assigned to the destruction of the Clan Sapphire Wolf command outpost at destination coordinates listed below (A-2). Commence operations at 1000, SAMFT. Complete mission objectives by 1145 SAMFT. Any further questions should be directed to mission control; frequency 144.40, encryption cycle Gamma-Omega-Zeta.
Good luck.
David finished reading the letter, and downloaded the coordinates. He programmed the frequency and encryption cycle into his helmet, and shut down his terminal. He had a busy morning ahead of him. He scrambled off of his bed, briefed his new crew, and they prepared for their first mission.
