“Do you know how to wear that combat armor in your crate?” Ian asked. It didn’t surprise me that he’d gone through my stuff when he’d transferred it over.
“I’ve had the training,” I allowed. I hated combat armor. I found it incredibly claustrophobic, and I wasn’t usually prone to claustrophobia. But Matavara was hostile to outsiders and going out without armor would be incredibly stupid. Locals had some degree of protection from whichever gang claimed their territory, but outsiders stood out like red flags.
“Get it on,” Ian said. “We need to make this quick.”
On the protection spectrum, combat armor fell somewhere between simple ballistic armor and fully mechanized armor suits. It was made of a lightweight composite, but a full suit still weighed more than half as much as I did. Combat armor was powered and had some built-in movement assistance, but nothing like a fully mechanized suit that would let a user lift a transport.
Ada had procured a suit sized to my height—a feat in and of itself. I’d worn armor that was too big before, and it just made the whole experience worse.
I pulled the armor out of the crate, inspecting each piece. It was all pristine. I stepped into the lower body section and it clamped around my body from the waist down. I squatted down and the armor moved with me. So far, so good.
The chest piece went on over my head, like a bulky, oversized tank top. The front and back clamped together. It wasn’t tight but I had to fight the feeling of suffocation.
Each arm was designed as a single sleeve that clamped into the chest piece at the shoulder. My hands were covered by a stretchy, reinforced glove with light armor on the backs of my fingers. Blasters for use with combat armor had to have oversized trigger guards.
I swung my arms and hopped in place, testing my movement. I was slightly slower and heavier than usual, but it didn’t feel as if I was wearing an additional thirty-five kilograms of weight.
The helmet was my least favorite part of this whole ensemble. I pulled it over my head, but left the face guard open. I consciously kept my breathing slow and even.
Ian finished checking Aoife’s armor and turned to me. “Do you feel any air gaps?”
I shook my head.
He circled me, stopping to press on my left side. Once satisfied, he handed me a pistol blaster from the crate. “Yuko’s shop is close to two kilometers away. It’s ten blocks and the territory changes ownership around block six. We’re going to run the entire way. Can you do it?”
Back when I was in shape, a two-kilometer run in armor wouldn’t even be a warm-up. Today I would feel each meter. “I can do it.”
“Don’t stop for anything. Aoife or I may fall back to defend. Don’t wait for us. I will send the address to your suit.” He pulled his face guard closed.
I took a deep breath and held it as I closed my own face guard. It was made of a thick, transparent plastech. As soon as the helmet clicked closed, the heads-up display came on. Screens provided additional peripheral vision from helmet-mounted cameras and even the transparent face guard was overlaid with information streaming from the suit’s systems.
I released the breath I’d been holding. The suit filtered outside air and could even be completely self-contained for an hour or two, but I always felt like I was breathing stale air. It was entirely mental, but that didn’t make it feel less real.
While I was fighting panic, a request popped up to join Ian’s squad. He would be able to monitor my vitals, which meant I had to get my heart rate under control ASAP. Another breath and I approved the request. An address popped up, along with a faint green route marker stretching out in front of me.
“Ready?” Ian asked.
“Yes,” Aoife said.
I echoed her. Time to make good on my promise.
Ian took point and Aoife took the rear guard, leaving me in the most protected middle position. As soon as the cargo door was high enough, Ian jumped to the ground. I followed him, landing with a slight stumble. I caught my balance at the last second, saving myself from a mortifying face plant.
Ian had already put two meters between us, so I dashed into a run. Oh yeah, this was going to suck.
As soon as we cleared the ship’s shield, a blaster bolt glanced off my arm. I returned fire on instinct without breaking stride. I missed, but the shooter went to ground.
When he popped back up, Aoife didn’t miss.
“Shields up!” Ian barked.
I activated the suit’s shield and kept an eye on the distance between us. Overlapping shields might do nothing, or it might cause one or both shields to catastrophically fail.
We cleared the spaceport and moved into the city. Very few transports operated in Matavara. Most people moved around on foot or on personal vehicles, predominantly hover bikes.
The buildings were short and square. Most had started as plastech but the constant fighting meant they were patched with whatever was handy, giving the city a hodgepodge appearance under the brilliant blue sky and harsh yellow sun.
Ian ran straight down the middle of the street. The few pedestrians braving the sidewalks hugged the buildings or darted into alleys until we passed. Most of them were just normal people, trying to go about their day. They wanted no part of the trouble we would bring.
Others, however, saw us as prey. A block ahead of us, three heavies in older mechanized armor spread across the street. They were trying to herd us into an alley half a block away, but Ian wasn’t having it.
“I’ve got left and center,” he called over our coms. “Bianca, straight through, right of center, don’t slow down. Aoife, right and cover.”
Ian wouldn’t risk us unnecessarily, so I didn’t question his orders. I might poke at him normally, but he knew what he was doing when it came to combat and security. He rested his blast rifle in the crook of his right arm and drew the electropulse pistol strapped to his left hip.
Designed to disrupt communication, electropulse pistols also worked well against older unshielded mechanized armor. It wouldn’t penetrate to the person underneath, but it would shut down their system.
Electropulse pistols weren’t super accurate at a distance, but Ian managed to hit his two targets and Aoife’s shots from over my shoulder hit the target on the right.
The two outer suits froze, but the person in the center brought up an ancient projectile gun and opened fire. Bullets went straight through Ian’s shield and glanced off his armor with metallic hisses. Ian holstered his pistol and pulled up his blast rifle.
“Bianca, stay behind me. Aoife, hit him if you can.”
“On it,” she said.
She moved two meters to my right and brought her blast rifle up, still running. The mech decided she was the biggest threat and changed to shooting at her.
Aoife didn’t even break stride, she just consistently put shot groupings right in the mech’s face guard, until, on the fifth grouping, he stopped firing. She had repeatedly hit a moving target fifteen centimeters wide from over a hundred meters away. At a dead run.
Note to self: do not challenge her to a shooting competition.
We dashed past the disabled mechs. Breath sawed through my chest and my head pounded. My main focus became putting one foot in front of another. Ian shot at an unseen target, but they didn’t shoot back.
It felt like a century later when Ian finally turned down a side street. We circled around so we didn’t lead any pursuers straight to Yuko’s shop, but time was of the essence, so Ian didn’t bother with an elaborate deception.