Fleet Academy Page 27

  “Got it. We can use four of the new six’s we got. I just finished doing the setups on them, so they are the best we have. You sure you want pushers?”

  “Yeah. We don’t know what we’re going up against, and even though the pushers are old technology, the high velocity projectile might come in handy.”

  “Ok. I can pull four of those no problem. What about suits?” Trina asked, making notes on the computer screen as Matt paced in front of the desk.

  “We’re supposed to be getting some of those new class eight delta mod suits for the team. Problem is we won’t see them until a few hours before the turn. That won’t leave us much time to prep ‘em and no time to train in them. We’ll use some sevens to train in, it’s the closest thing to an eight we have. If the eights don’t show, we can go ahead and use the sevens.”

  “Good morning Lieutenant… Ensign.” Lieutenant Brody said as she stepped into the office.

  “Morning Tina. I’m just working through the list with Ensign Forester. Have a seat and see if I’m missing anything.”

  “Sure thing.” She said taking a seat in the corner of the office.

  “Ok where was I?” Matt asked Trina.

  “Prepping the suits.”

  “Oh yeah. The bio packs are designed for eight hours, and we’re only going to have four total, but I still want an extra O2 and power pack with each bio pack. Get with the Master Chief on the tech specs so that were ready to go. I seem to remember that these new suits had the ability to carry extras.”

  “Got it.”

  “I want each suit fitted with a utility pack too. One for each leg. We need a personal med kit for each one of us. We can put that and the weapons packs and recharges into one pouch. We’re going to want a utility took kit too. What do you think Tina?”

  “I agree. Let’s use an EVA service pack and spread it over three people.”

  “I hope you’re leaving room for a med kit.” Lieutenant Yang said as she walked in.”

  “Yeah. I have an individual kit for each person, and there’s room in your second util pack for whatever medical you can squeeze in. Trina, you want to get me one of those bags? And also one of the personal kits so she knows what’s in it.” Matt called after Trina as she headed down the corridor to the supply lockers.

  “Sure.” Trina answered over her shoulder.

  “Is there anything else I’m forgetting?” Matt asked the two women.

  “Not that I see right now.” Tina said. “But we may come up with other stuff later.”

  Trina returned with the bags and tossed them to Matt. “I’ll go prep your weapons.” She said as she ducked back out of the office.

  Matt handed the bags to Kim. “You can take whatever you can pack into this. It fits on your left suit leg. The other is what we will all have on our right leg.”

  “Sounds good. I can get to work on that this afternoon.”

  Matt walked back around the desk and sat down, leaning back in the chair. “What else have I forgotten,” he asked the ceiling?

  Kim walked over to him and ran her hands across his shoulders and then put one on his head, gently stroking circles in his short hair. “Seems to me we need some suit training.”

  “Yeah. We’re going to do that later this morning.” Matt replied as she continued to comb her fingers through his short hair.

  “Good!” she said leaning down and kissing him on the neck. “I can’t wait to see you naked in person” she whispered.

  “Um… right.” Matt said nervously, suddenly sitting upright to key the intercom. “Molter to suit room. Is the Master Chief there?”

  Within a few milliseconds, the ships computer printed his voice, determined where he was trying to call, made the appropriate connection and replayed his message, leaving the connection open for a reply.

  “Yes sir, he is.” The reply came back.

  “Have him come to the armory please.”

  “Aye sir. He says he’s on his way.”

  “Thank you. Molter out.”

  “So what did I miss?” Chief Ron Hillard asked as he walked in.

  “Just going over the equipment we’ll need.” Matt said, looking up at the new arrival.

  “Weapons bay to Lieutenant Molter.” The intercom squawked.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’m ready for you.” Trina said.

  “Ok. On my way.” He said clicking the intercom off.

  “Ohhhh… ready for you is she?” Kim chided quietly before taking her hands off his shoulders to let him get up from the chair.

  “Ok, let’s go.” Matt said more sharply than he intended, as he headed for the door. The three followed him out of the office and down the short hallway to the weapons bay. Matt walked in, the door still open from Trina’s entrance, finding her near the back of the bay.

  “OK. Each one of you needs to come grip one of these, but don’t remove them yet.” Trina said, motioning to the four pusher projectile weapons that were sitting in docking bays with small red lights on the handles blinking. Each weapon, consisted of a short barrel, a rectangular cartridge feed assembly and a disproportionately large handle that could be used even with the bulky gloves of a hard suit. “I programmed the system to program each of these, as well as four of the pulse pistols so each of you can use any of the four, but no one else can use them.”

  “Thanks Trina.” Matt said, stepping up and wrapping his hand around the grip of one of the pusher pistols. “Ladies…” Matt prompted the two women, who had not followed his lead like the Chief had done. More hesitantly they stepped up and placed their hands on the grips. All four grip indicators turned green at the same time, and Matt pulled his pusher from its slot. “You can take them out now.” He said to them as Ron pulled his out of the electronic holder and quickly placed it in the holster sitting on the shelf by it. The two women pulled theirs out but were much more hesitant about how to handle them. “Don’t worry, they’re not loaded yet, we’ll do that in a bit.” Matt told them as he switched it to his other hand. “Go ahead and pick up the holster sitting by your pusher and put it in. You can strap the web belt around your waist and then we’ll get the pulse guns.”

  Trina stepped over to another rack and pulled four pulse pistols from the rack and put them in a small case that already contained a number of items.

  “You wanted to see me sir?” Matt heard Master Chief Wallace call from the bay door.

  “Yes Master Chief.” Matt said, turning from his group and walking over toward him. I need you to pull me a set of class seven bravo mod suits for Myself, Commander Emerson, Lieutenant Brody, Lieutenant Yang and Chief Hillard. I want the whole thing, the new one piece cool suit and the works. We’re supposed to be getting a set of custom class eight delta mods when we mate with the fuel tanker. For now we’ll practice with the sevens.”

  “Aye sir.” He said pausing. “You’re sure you want to use deltas? They’re still in testing.”

  “Yeah, I know, but from what I read they are a lot more flexible and compact than either the eight bravo’s or any of the seven class.”

  “Yes sir. I’ll pull what you want. Where do you want it?”

  “Let’s do it in the suit repair bay. The cage room is off limits, but we can still use the entry lock can’t we?”

  “Yes sir. The cage room side has been secured for now. But you can still use the changing room side of it.”

  “Ok. We’ll be down in a couple hours to work with the suits.”

  “Aye sir.” The Master Chief said, starting to turn and leave.

  “Master Chief!” Matt called loudly.

  “Sir?” He said stopping in his tracks and snapping to attention.

  “At ease Master Chief.” Matt said, waiting for him to relax. “As a backup I want you, Jenkins, Tempe and if she’s up to it, Endez ready in hard suits in case I need you while we’re EVA. I’m going to talk to the Captain, but I’m planning on having you suited and in lock two the whole time were out. Kind of a safety net.” Then stepping clo
ser Matt said in a quieter voice. “I know you juiced up some packs for some races once and got your ass in a sling over it. I want you to do the same thing to all four of your packs. I want you to try to double the range, and if you can double the thrust.”

  “That’s going to take a lot of fuel sir.”

  “I know. But you can hack the pack down to two hours of life support. The whole time you’re in the lock you can be on ships systems with a buddy cable.”

  “Captain’s going to have a fit sir. She threatened to bust me for that stunt.”

  “I read about it in your record. I’ll take care of it. You just get to work on the packs. Ok Master Chief?”

  “Aye sir. You got it.” He said with smile. Matt watched as he turned his back and headed out the door, a lot more spring in his step than when he came in.

  “All right, let’s go to the range!” Matt said, feeling a bit better with his new safety net in place. He led them out of the bay, each carrying their pusher, and Trina following along with a box full of equipment. They went down a long corridor and ended up in a fairly long narrow room that had “Test Range” stenciled on the door. “This is the test range. This is the only place in the ship that you can fire either of these weapons.” Matt said, holding the pusher up for them to see. He walked over to the table and pulled several items from the box and laid them on the table. “Ok. If everyone wants to come over here,” Matt said, turning to face them. He held up a long skinny box looking object about twenty five centimeters long and about three centimeters square. “This is the load pack for the pusher your holding. It inserts into the handle like this. Each cartridge contains twenty duranium alloy projectiles and an energy pack to drive the system. This is similar to the rail guns used on the ship, but it fires a solid projectile instead of a plasma shell. These things fly at nearly two thousand meters per second and will penetrate two inches of solid steel. Make sure that you have the muzzle aimed down range before loading. This has a dual safety. You have to press with your thumb here… and squeeze the trigger to get it to fire. This can be done bare handed or with your suit on, although it’s a bit harder with hard suit gloves. Ok. Everyone load up and let’s try to hit the electronic targets downrange.”

  Matt watched as each person loaded their weapon and aimed it down range. The projectiles fire at several times the speed of sound, so even though the weapon is silent, the sonic shock from the rounds made a loud popping noise. Matt allowed each of them to fire a full cartridge of rounds before calling them back. “Ok. Looks like everyone got the hang of the gun and the laser sites. We don’t use these very often any more. We traded them in on various versions of these…” Matt told them as he pulled a pulse charge pistol from the case and held it up along with its cylindrical charge unit. “This is a pulse pistol. It fires a pulse that is high energy plasma. These are extremely good on personnel and electronics, but not much good hard steel over about an inch thick. There are four power settings. The lowest will knock a man out, but it will leave burns where the plasma hits, so I don’t recommend using it for a stun gun. The highest will bore a hole clean through a hard suit, in one side and out the other. Go ahead and select a weapon, insert the charge module and fire downrange.” Matt watched them each load and fire at the stationary targets, stopping to help Kim with her aim when she seemed to not be able to hit the target module at all. “Here. Line up the laser and squeeze.” He said reaching around her with both arms to help her aim the weapon down range. “It won’t kick like the pusher so all you have to be is smooth with it and it will go right where you want it to.”

  “Ohhhh.” She said rubbing her butt against the front of Matt’s jump suit. “Just line it up and it goes where you want it to?”

  “That’s the general idea.” Matt said, trying to pull back from her a little bit so she didn’t notice the already growing bulge from the rubbing she was doing.

  “I may need some one on one practice with this.” She said, bending over farther to force contact again.

  “Ok. I think that’s enough of this.” Matt said loudly as he pulled away from her completely and walked over to the table where Trina was standing. He pulled the charge module out of the weapon and set the pieces in the case. “Ok everyone, let’s get these put up. Go ahead and drop both weapons your belt and the charge modules in the case. We’ll hold these separate so each of us can practice. I want each of you to come by sometime in the next few days and practice until you can hit the small target every time with both weapons. When we load on the suit you will have both of these on your until belt. You can choose which you prefer on which side, but we will mount both for a right hand draw from their holsters Now, Let’s take about a half an hour break and then meet in the suit maintenance room and we’ll start working on the suits. Any questions?”

  Ron pulled his charge module, dropped it into the case and grinned at Matt. “Looks like you got your hands full sir.” He said before walking out of the room. Tina unloaded her weapon and dropped it into the crate, gave Matt a sexy look and disappeared out the door after Ron.

  “I seem to be having some trouble with this.” Kim said, walking up to him with her weapon pointed at the ceiling, her jump suit zipper pulled down to her navel.

  “Just press the button on the side to eject the module, and then safe the weapon with this button here.” Matt instructed, showing her where each control was located on the weapon, Kim pressing her body against his.

  Trina giggled as Kim pressed the button, sending the power module out of the weapon and rolling across the floor. Kim skittered after it, bending over at the waist to catch it. When she stood back up and turned to face Matt with the errant module, her jump suit had gapped enough to completely expose one of bare breasts between the unzipped halves of her jump suit.

  “Ohhh! How did that happen?” she asked with exaggerated concern, making no effort at all to cover it up as she walked back to the table and put her weapon in the case.

  “I’ll go put these away sir.” Trina said with an impish grin before picking the case up and disappearing out the door, leaving him alone in the room with Kim.

  “So. You were telling me about just aiming it and letting it go where it’s supposed to?” she said as she stepped up to him, both her bare breast now sticking out of her jump suit.

  “I really think we should leave this for some other time.” Matt said quietly.

  “Oh, don’t be a spoil sport.” She said stepping closer and playing with the zipper pull of his jump suit.

  “Well, unless you plan on becoming the next porn video star.” Matt said reaching for her zipper and pulling the tab up until her protruding breasts threatened to be pinched. “I think we better put these away.”

  “Where’s the camera?” She whispered.

  “In the corner behind you.”

  “Can it see the front of me?”

  “Nope.” He whispered back.

  “Then why don’t you just finish zipping me up?”

  “You sure?”

  “Oh yes.” She said as she reached for his free hand and placed it on her bare breast. “Positive!” She sighed as she pressed his hand against her breast, pushing the soft globe back into the front of her jump suit. She let go of his hand, allowing him to slide over to the other breast and cup it with his hand as he tucked inside as well. As he zipped the jump suit up, he gave her breast one last gentle squeeze before letting go and pulling his hand out.

  “There you go, All proper again.”

  “Hmmmm any time you want me improper, you just let me know.” She said quietly, leaning forward and giving him a sensuous kiss on the lips before pulling back. “Is there any place around here where there isn’t a security camera?”

  “Just the head.”

  “Good. Come with me then.” She said as she walked away, exaggerating the swing of her hips pulling him along by the hand.

  Half an hour later Matt walked into the suit repair room, Lieutenant Yang following close behind. Everyone else was already ther
e, including Commander Emerson. The Master Chief had laid out a class seven suit on each table, a small piece of paper indicating which suit was for each of them. “OK, let’s go ahead and get started. This is a class seven suit. It’s not exactly what we will be using, but it’s the closest thing we have. On the actual EVA we are going to use the new class eight modification delta suit. Yes, it’s still in testing, but I think it’s the best choice. It’s the first suit that has active field coils in the suit. This class seven is a light weight, light duty suit. It is typically custom fit for the wearer. It’s not designed for heavy work, but the material choices for the outer shell make it incredibly flexible and durable. Its primary problem is that it tends to be a bit of a balloon in a vacuum. The class eight dons the same as the seven, the only difference is that instead of having to be ten layers thick to get the sealing and rigidity needed, its only three layers, with a field coil system embedded in the suit that you can adjust to stiffen or soften the suit. According to what I read, they are superior for working in tight places, and they weigh a fraction of these sevens. Both of these suits use the new cool suits that are made up of a micro fiber tube system. Instead of having to have tubes running all over like the old two piece suits, the material is made up of micro capillary tubes in a loose mesh. Since the material is made up of these flexible tubes, it stretches and form fits like a second skin, or so I’ve been told. I haven’t worn one yet, but I saw one on a person once. There should be one on each table with your suit, so find the table that’s yours. I hope none of you are bashful. These don’t leave much to the imagination, and the literature says they work better if you’re not wearing anything under. Looking at the women, he said “If you prefer to leave your panties on, you can, at least for training, as long as they are small and tight fitting. Bras unfortunately need to come off if they have any metal at all. Your welcome to wear sports bra’s if you choose, but you will most certainly have a hot chest. This suit only works in direct contact with the skin.”