Somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy, enroute Veria
Jonuth Kidravia’s Ship - Abi
23:03 Ship Time
September 7, 2019
I saw the twins simultaneously jumped and took their helmets off, while Ben turned towards my mom.
“No way! There are AIs built into the suits?”
My mom shook her head. “They’re not built into the suits, they’re all in a server room on the deck below. Each AI will be assigned to a person, and that AI will tie into the Mark VII and VIII suits, as well as the earpieces you’ll be getting shortly. They can also tie into phones, but the ones you have aren’t sophisticated enough. We’ll probably rectify that as well, once we arrive.”
“It’s different in Jonathan’s case, as Abi is more capable than any AI. His suits are also quite a bit more durable than everyone’s, bar his sisters’, but the gap will close once we’re able to acquire a supply of Warvynium. If you go around to the back of your suits, you’ll notice that there are slots going all the way around. There is nothing in them right now, but you’ll be able to insert plates, increasing the overall durability of the suit.”
“How much protection do they offer without the plates?” Ben asked. “When I looked at my gun, it said that it would have about a thirty percent chance to get through my suit.”
“That’s a hard one to answer because there are so many different types of weapons. You’ve got particle beams and lasers, pulse and plasma weapons, and then a wide variety of more conventional weapons. For example, sharpshooters usually use gauss guns built for range, but they use all sorts of different projectiles. Some are your typical armor penetrating rounds, while others might have poison capsules or explosive tips. The AI was estimating that your pulse rifle would get through your suit with the first shot thirty percent of the time. A gauss gun would go through much more easily, but that is what the plates are for.”
“So does it work the same way as armored vests and such?” Mason asked. “Will the suit get weaker and weaker with every hit?”
“If you’re hit in the same spot repeatedly, then yes, but the armor is made in such a way that a hit in one area doesn’t compromise the armor adjacent to it. They’re made using a material similar to kevlar, but the entire suit is made using hundreds of hexagonal pieces a few inches across. They’re sewn together in such a way that if one or two of those hexagons take a hit then the ones surrounding them will still be in perfect condition. All of the plates on the outside of the suit covering the torso, arms and legs will also be swapped out for Warynvium to provide added protection. They’re just placeholders for now.”
“That’s three levels of armor, right? The outer plates, the kevlar-like stuff in the middle and then the insertable plates?”
“Precisely. How about the five of you step into your suits and I’ll go over some of the features.”
“Is it safe? The AI, I mean,” Anja asked.
“Absolutely,” Abi answered, her voice coming over the intercom. “AIs have been in use for hundreds of years, but before that people were just as worried about them rising up as humans are. A few civilizations actually banned them before they were proven to be safe. Oya and Tala both have AIs in their mechs, by the way. That is how each circuit was faster than the last when they were racing. As they ran through the forest, their AIs were working to find the best possible route. Besides, since all of the AIs are housed in a server room down below, I can monitor them at all times to make sure they’re behaving. I wrote the code though, so I know that they’ll be absolutely fine.
Neither of the twins had a reservation after that, and the five of us walked around our individual mechs before stepping inside of them. The suits didn’t close up, so we all looked up at my mom.
“There is a small throat microphone built into the collar of the suit. Just make sure that the collar is touching your throat and then say ‘close,’” she said, continuing when we had all done so. “That’s just the default command to close the suit, and it will only work for you. Later on, you can work with your AI to change it, or you can ask your AI to open and close your suits for you. Now, put on your helmets and then pick up your guns.
She stepped over to the side while she waited for us, and then had us raise our rifles to a firing position. As we did, a reticle appeared on each of our HUDs, showing exactly where our rifles were pointing.
“So there are a few things you’ll notice right away. With the Mark VII and VIII suits, you won’t need to raise your gun up to your shoulder and aim down the sights all the time. You’ll see the amount of power remaining in your current power cell, the power setting of the rifle, the current heat level and exactly how far away your target is. If you switched from your pulse rifle to a different type of weapon, some of those displays would change. For example, if you switched to your gauss pistol, the power setting would change to display the amount of ammunition remaining, while the power cell and heat level displays would remain.”
“The entirety of the HUD is also customizable. Right now if you look at me, an image of me, along with my name, race and a bunch of other details will appear on the top left-hand side of your vision. You’ll be able to move it anywhere you want, resize it and change the amount of information you want shown, among other stuff. If you don’t like the look and color of your reticle, you can change that too.”
“The suit, or helmet in particular, also does away with the need for accessories such as night vision goggles or respirators. Everything is built in, including flash eye protection, thermal imaging, nightvision, infrared and regular flashlights, making sure you’ll be able to see in all situations. Oh, and one more thing. I want each of you to say ‘plate.’”
Our vision went dark again as something formed over our faceplates. After a second we could see our surroundings again. Looking at my friends, I could see that all of them had black plates covering the entirety of the front of their helmets. There was also a small camera built into the place, which was presumably how we were able to see.
“Those plates will immediately drop down if your AI detects an explosion close to you as the face shields are the weakest part of the suit. It’s only one layer of laminated materials, and while it would probably stop a round from a gauss rifle, I wouldn’t want to test it. Especially not more than once. The plates covering your faces will help with that, but you shouldn’t use them all the time. They’re more of an emergency measure, than anything else.”
“We won’t be able to use this suit in dungeons, right?” Mason asked. “I remember the fact that we would have to level up to be able to wear some of the better suits inside of our closets.”
“I don’t think anyone has tried to wear them into a dungeon yet, but I would say no, not until you’re at least level one hundred, if not higher. We don’t know how dungeons determine what armor can be worn inside of a dungeon and what armor can’t. There have been a few situations where a dungeon will let a person in one set of armor in, while someone wearing another, better set of armor, won’t be let in. You’ll probably have to stick with the suit you’ve been using.”
Mason nodded and then we killed time while waiting for my sisters to get up to speed. Once they were, Ryx walked everyone through familiarizing ourselves with their AI. For me that was easy, as Abi would be functioning as mine. For my friends and sisters, however, that meant getting to know their AI and getting used to communicating with them. They would also have to learn everything about their suits, while Abi could download all of the relevant information right to my brain.
Once that was done, he walked us through setting up our initial loadout. To do so, we each picked up the tablet corresponding to our station, and began picking the things that Ryx told us to pick. It was mostly stuff like spare power cells, spare armor plates, tools to repair our armor in the field, explosives, rations, water and anything else we might need if we were stuck in the middle of a war. It was unlikely, but it would be better to be prepared for such an eventuality. When we were all done, he had us save our loadouts, which were temporarily named ‘Loadout 1’, and then slide the tablets into the slot at our respective stations.
“Alright, so the next time you access a station to get your suit, all of the items you just picked will be laid out on the table attached to the station. You’ll just have to get suited up, put all of your items in your suit’s dimensional storage, pick up your gun and you’re good to go.”
“You’ve had a few days off, so tomorrow I want you to spend time in the morning going through the list to see if there is anything you might need. Some stuff, like guns and explosives, will be off limits until you’ve been taught how to use them, but most of the inventory will be available to you. Now, step out of your suits and I’ll show you how to put them away, and then we’ll give the Mark VIII suits a look.”
It was pretty simple to put the suits back in dimensional storage. After walking them back over to the spot that they appeared, we stepped out of them and then went back around to the tablet. With the push of a button, the suit disappeared. With that done, Ryx had us walk back over to the wall and pulse it with mana, calling out ‘Loadout 2.’
The Mark VIII was much beefier than the Mark VII, but it definitely wouldn’t be considered a mech. It was the same height, but everything from the helmet down to the feet was much better armored. Along with the suits, everything was cleared off the table in the middle of the room, and a number of objects covered it instead. All of them looked like they attached to the suits in some way.
“You can see that the Mark VIII is a little wider and offers more protection. Along with that, it’s also got room for a number of attachments, like the ones you see on the table here. You probably won’t be using one of these suits until you’ve trained with it, which will probably be on the way back to Earth, but it doesn’t hurt to take a look now.”
“Is that a jetpack?” Mason asked, pointing to what looked like a large backpack with a thruster attached to the bottom.
Ryx laughed. “Nope, but that might not be a bad idea. It’s a plasma mortar. Once attached to the back of the suit, it allows you to act as a one man, mobile mortar team. Everything on the table is either a weapon or a tool. Hell, some of them could even be considered both.”
He went through everything on the table, picking one item up at a time as he explained what they were, before showing us how they attached to the suit. There were retractable blades, grenade launchers, missile launchers, and arm-mounted gauss guns to name a few of the weapons. On the tool side there were plasma cutters, saws, drills, hydraulic jaws and an assortment of other tools. The tools all seemed catered around rescuing people or creating openings, which would probably be pretty useful aboard a ship or in an urban setting.
Other than being a bit bigger and able to carry a bunch of different weapons and tools, it wasn’t too different when we got inside of it. The HUD was exactly the same and other than a little added weight, it felt the same too. It was clear that the added weight added much more protection, and the fact that it had a multitude of attachments meant that it was pretty versatile. I’d probably use it over the Mark VII once cleared to use it, and I knew Mason absolutely would.
Reiterating the fact that he wanted us to get used to the Mark VII tomorrow, Ryx also said that we’d continue practicing with the gauss pistol in the afternoon. While we had originally planned to game for a few hours, it was now much too late for that. After heading to the mess for a snack, we all headed to our rooms to get some sleep.
Somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy, enroute Veria
Jonuth Kidravia’s Ship - Abi
07:56 Ship Time
September 8, 2019
“Hey, check this out,” Mason said, drawing our attention to where he was sitting, checking everything that was in the armory’s inventory.
We had immediately headed down to the armory after we finished eating, as we wanted to take our time going through everything. Ben had the idea that we look through and see if there was anything we would like to have if we planned on spending multiple days inside of a dungeon. There were plenty of similarities between a dungeon and a battlefield, the main ones being that we would always need to be alert, and we would need to do some cooking, unless we wanted to eat MRE-like rations all the time.
The image on Mason’s tablet was a gauss rifle, not dissimilar from what my mom was describing last night. It was huge as far as rifles go, being at least seven and a half feet long, with the majority of that being the barrel.
“I don’t think that’s going to help us inside of a dungeon, Mace,” Sonja said. “Not unless all of the floors start being like the one with the goblins and the wyvern.”
“I know, but it’s pretty damn cool. This thing fires rounds the size of .50 BMG, and I don’t mean the size of the bullet, I mean the size of the bullet and the casing. That’s insane! Especially since our new suits have a chance of stopping one of those. It’s also got something like a ten kilometer range, but I have no idea how anyone would be able to see that far, let alone hit their target. There must be some damn good scopes in here somewhere.”
“You can look at that later,” Ben replied. “You declared yourself our demolition’s expert. You’re supposed to be looking at those.”
“You’re sure we can use explosives inside of dungeons? That seems like an incredibly easy way to kill a bunch of monsters all at once. We could even take out a boss if we managed to lure it into a trap.”
“At level one hundred, yes, but we’re not just putting these loadouts together for dungeons. I’m not sure we’ll actually be participating, but we could be in a war in a few months. I’d like to have everything we might possibly need, should we have to get involved. I doubt explosives would kill a boss, though. At that level they would probably have pretty good resistances or shields to protect them from blasts.”
“Oh. Anyways, I’m done.”
“Done?”
Mason nodded. “Remember last night when Ryx said that the majority of weapons and explosives would be off limits until we learned how to use them? He was right. The only explosives I found that we can use are shaped charges and grenades. You can’t add anything to a loadout if you don’t have the right permissions. I’ve just been killing time checking out all the cool toys in here.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? We could’ve used some help sorting through all of the other stuff.”
He shrugged this time. “It shouldn’t be too hard to find things, right? I mean other than the stuff that Ryx had us add to our loadouts last night, what else do we need?”
“How about you help me find stuff for setting up camp?” Anja asked. “I already found hammocks and collapsible chairs and stuff like that, but I’ve been having trouble finding axes and shovels.”
“I get the shovels, but why bother with axes? We can just grab a few of the collapsible ones like my halberd or your daggers. If they’re good enough for killing monsters, then they’re good enough for cutting down trees, or branches. It’s not like we’re that limited on space, the suits have a dimensional storage capable of holding two hundred pounds worth of stuff. Why not just throw a chainsaw or something in there?”
Ben laughed. “Here’s a hypothetical for you, Mace. We’re trapped in a forest behind enemy lines. We need to make a shelter while we wait for rescue, but there are no fallen trees or broken branches around us. We could probably range out further to find some, but that would increase the chances of us being found, and either captured or killed. In that hypothetical, what would make it more likely that we would be discovered, an axe or a chainsaw?”
“You could’ve just said the noise,” he grumbled in reply. “Alright, I’ll look for an axe, but I’m also going to pick up a chainsaw if I can find one. One that preferably runs on power cells. We’ll be carrying enough of them around, anyways.”
Mason ended up finding both a chainsaw and an axe, though the latter was actually a multi-tool, acting as both a shovel and an axe. It wasn’t what Anja was looking for, but that was simply because there weren’t any other shovels or axes in the inventory. It also made sense, because before dimensional storage was in widespread use on Earth, the militaries around the world often used foldable shovels, both for the compactness and the low weight. It wasn’t a reach to suggest that other civilizations might have done the same, which is probably why there weren’t full-sized shovels or axes available.
Pretty much everything else had been found by that point. We even went so far as to pack supplies in case we needed to build a fire. Ben could simply cast any of his fire spells or activate Aura of Flame, but we would need to resort to other means if he was incapacitated. Fortunately there was no shortage of fire-starting tools to choose from.
With everything found, we needed to take some time to actually put everything away in an organized manner. My sisters were well suited to that task, and they showed up at the perfect time to help us with that. After looking at everything that was laid out on the large table in the middle of the room, the three of them began organizing everything into its own little area.
They made sure that everything was divided evenly between the five of us, making sure to grab a few more items out of the armory inventory if there wasn’t enough of something on the table. They even grabbed our tablets and made sure that they were all the same and everything was listed. If some items were missing on our tablets when we saved the loadouts, then those items wouldn’t be loaded into our suits automatically.
When they were confident that they were done and everything was evenly divided, it was as easy as getting into our suits and then walking around the table to put everything in our suit’s dimensional storage. When we were done, we put the tablet back into its slot, stepped out of our suits, and then pressed the button to put the suits back in storage.
To make sure that everything worked correctly, we immediately took our suits back out of storage and checked to see if we had everything. It was extremely easy to do so, as my friends could talk to their AIs and I could talk to Abi, allowing us to go down the list and check everything off. Seeing that everything was there, my sisters went about getting their own suits ready, however they did it a much better way.
They were in their suits from the start, communicating with their AIs as they poured through the inventory. They seemed to know exactly what was in there, and it only took them about ten minutes to get everything they needed. Surprising all of us was the fact that they had a much larger variety of explosives and weapons to choose from.
“You learn a lot living with Spectres like Omar and Yuki,” Alexis said. “We’ve been around different guns and explosives all our lives, and we’ve practiced with different types over the past few years.”
“Oh. Is that why you join us for the martial arts training, but not the firearms practice?”
“Mhmm,” she nodded, answering my question. “Omar said that Ryx is a very good instructor, but there isn’t that much more he can teach us. We still go down to the range and go through the course to stay sharp, but we know how to handle all the weapons in the inventory. We haven’t had as much experience with explosives, but we’re able to use the most commonly used ones.”
“I’m surprised that he didn’t teach you Krav Maga when you were growing up. I mean, he trained with the guy who created it,” Mason said.
“He tried when we were twelve or thirteen, but we just weren’t interested in it. It’s one of the more extreme martial arts out there, and we had already spent the last five or six years learning Jiu Jitsu,” Aleena replied.
With the loadouts taken care of, now it was time for everyone to customize their HUDs, if they wanted to, and for my friends and sisters to spend some time getting to know their AIs. My sisters had a short head start on that over my friends, though it was certainly possible that their AIs would be replaced or repurposed later on. That was assuming that we found the crystals and they were intact, of course.
Thanks to Abi, I already knew how to customize the HUD, though I could periodically hear the AIs walking everyone else through the process of doing so. It was rather easy to do, but still took quite a bit of time to finalize everything. Aside from the crosshair and information when you look at someone, or something, there were also displays showing the current temperature, the direction the wind was coming from and even a medium-sized circle in the corner.
While it looked almost like a minimap, it was actually a lifesigns detector, which was almost identical to the one that Abi had installed on the three Grasshoppers. I could see seven other green dots, which were clearly representations of my friends. There was no scale on the lifesigns detector, so having no idea what sort of range it had, I asked Abi about it.
“There are three settings, all with different radiuses. The current one it is set to has a radius of twenty meters, and the other two are fifty and one hundred meters, respectively. Anything after one hundred meters is unreliable, at best, at least for the small version on the suit. In terms of the display, green is for friendlies, white for unknown or neutral, and red for hostiles.”
“How does it determine who is hostile and who isn’t?”
“There are three different ways. The easiest is just visual. If you see someone who is undoubtedly hostile, then the detector will mark them as hostile and keep track of their movements. If they move out of range, then the next time they move back into range they will be white, unless you, or another friendly sees them.”
“The other two ways are radio waves and mana signatures, though they aren’t as reliable, and often show up as white. The militaries of different species use different radio frequencies, and they are easily spoofable as well. Mana signatures are slightly different from species to species, and the fact that an extremely skilled Scyftan can mimic someone else’s means that they shouldn’t be trusted, either. The lifesigns detector’s primary purpose is to let you know that someone is close to you, not necessarily determine that they’re good or bad.”
“Interesting, I definitely shouldn’t get rid of it then.”
It was quite large in my HUD, so I shrunk it down a little bit and offset to the left of center. In its current spot, I would easily be able to see any signatures as they were detected, but without it blocking my vision. If it was night time, or we were in a dark building or cave, then it would dim further, so as not to blind me or create a blindspot in my vision.
I modified the temperature, humidity, wind direction and speed settings and put them in a block in the bottom right, along with a bunch of other stuff like the atmospheric composition, radiation and toxin readings, among others. When I was done, the important stuff was located towards the middle of the HUD, while the less important stuff was towards the outside.
The thing that I probably spent the most time on was the reticle built into the hud. It meant taking out my pulse cannon and walking around with the gun in different positions, finding the one I like the most. It was almost like a video game HUD in that respect but I doubt I would be hip firing the majority of the time while using the reticle as a reference point.
“How does the suit even know where my gun is pointing, anyways?”
“There’s a small chip that runs parallel to the barrel, which keeps track of the temperature of the barrel, the power setting, as well as the amount of charge left in the current power cell. It is about five centimeters above the center of the barrel, so it compensates for the height over bore. That gives you the exact spot that the gun is pointing. It’s not as reliable for long-distance shooting, but is perfectly fine for short range.”
I took a few more minutes customizing my reticle, so that it would always be visible, regardless of the lighting. In dark lighting it would be a faint gray, but any sort of lighting would turn it to a dark red. I could always change the color of it with a quick vocal command, but the two colors would be fine for the majority of situations.
“Is there anything else I’m missing?”
“You haven’t taken an in-depth look at the information panel yet. It was taking up so much of your vision that you had me disable it for the time being.”
“Oh, right. Can you bring that up again for me?”
It popped up immediately, but was currently blank. I set my gun down beside me and then turned to look at my friends. I focused on Mason and a large amount of information popped up. It looked like an intelligence dossier you might see in spy movies and the like. It showed stuff like his name, date of birth, the names of his parents, his level, his skill and perks and his team name. It seemed like much of the information was pulled from the Adventurer’s Guild registry, while other stuff was more personal. I asked Abi about that as well.
“There are dossiers on anyone that comes into contact with you, your sisters, or anyone else that is considered high profile to the Spectres. If someone is a registered adventurer, then most of the information comes from the Adventurer’s Guild, but other information is gathered manually, like physical characteristics, associates, places they frequent, etc. A background check is also run, just to make sure that the person isn’t wanted in other countries, but otherwise to just make sure that the person isn’t a threat.”
“That seems a little invasive,” I said.
“It’s no different than other high profile protection details, really. Do you think the secret service lets anyone close to the President without doing some digging? Obviously they can’t check an entire crowd, but they make sure that anyone attending an official function or that anyone that comes into contact with him daily isn’t a threat.”
“So how often is someone determined to be a threat?”
“On Earth? Not very often at all. You know there is a team monitoring you at all times when you’re out in public, and they’ve always had the facial recognition that your suit has. If someone is dangerous or suspicious, then they’ll watch them while cloaked, but otherwise they just keep track of everyone. If you always run into certain people, they’ll check them out to make sure they’re not up to something. Most of the time they just keep a record and continue to protect you.”
“Now it’ll be a different situation entirely on Veria, Nedovis, or many other planets in this area of the Milky Way. I bet your detail was more relaxed than they’d ever been while we were on Yrranth. There wasn’t anyone that they had to actively monitor. That’ll change the second you step onto Menseio Station. Most of the people you’ll see will have been cleared by Mr. Warvyn’s people, but there are always ships coming and going, either to drop off supplies or come in for a refit. A bunch of Xigios’ people will be there as well as The Indomitables’ fleet undergoes refitting.”
“I see. Anyways, back to the information panel. Some of this stuff doesn’t really seem relevant. I mean, do I really need to know what someone’s date of birth is?”
“Not at all. The suits are geared more towards Spectres, however, so the default shows as much information as they might need. For you, your friends and your sisters, you can just remove anything you don’t want.”
I nodded, doing just that. I got rid of a bunch of parts I didn’t need, including date of birth, address, and a bunch of other more personal ones, just to clear up as much space as possible. I did keep the associates area and the organization area, the latter of which stated if they were part of an organization, and if so, which one. It would allow me to know with a quick glance if someone was a part of The Storm Bringers, for example, assuming they were in the system being used.
Some of the information was incredibly useful as well. Stuff like knowing what level someone was, what abilities they are known to have, and whether they’re a part of a team or not. It would allow my friends and I to know immediately if we happen to be over our head. There was probably a fair chance of that happening, considering the fact that Pygmaeans had been delving into dungeons while humans were still in the stone age. That along with their long lifespan meant that the majority of people we would end up meeting would be much higher level than us.
When I was done customizing it to my liking, the information panel was about half the size and it would become transparent when I wasn’t looking directly at it. If Abi thought that I had seen a person of interest then it would become opaque again, bringing my attention to it. I actually went back around and edited everything else except for the lifesigns detector, making sure that they were only visible when there was something important, or when I glanced at the area they were in. It gave it a very minimalist look, one that I liked quite a bit.
I saved everything and was going to check up on my friends when I remembered something.
“When I first put on the helmet, I saw a number counting up in the top right. What did you do?”
“I cut out another part of my mana core,” she replied. “It’s much smaller than the one in your Grasshopper, but it’s still big enough to power the additional functions I added to your suit. I did the same for your sisters too, actually. Like your Grasshopper and the Beacon, it also allows you to take anything out of, or put stuff into my dimensional storage.”
“I thought you said that taking parts out of your mana core will reduce your capabilities.”
“It would if I created a large amount of shuttles or fighters, or split it so your sisters could have their own ships, but the four small parts I cut out are smaller than the one inside the Grasshopper. They’ve got a capacity of one million mana and will power the personal shield installed in the suit, or allow you to bank that mana for later. If you switch to the Mark VIII suit, then the small mana cell will be transferred over to it, with the same functionalities. The plates on the outside of your suits, as well as the replaceable ones inside are made out of the same crystal that I am made of, so you’re about as protected as I can make you, right now.”
“I’m working on something after seeing Oya’s mech, though. It will probably take a few weeks, but I’ll let you know when it’s done. I may or not be able to make it work for your friends as well, but I won’t know until everything is tested out. If it works the way I think it will, then it will be very hard for anyone to hurt any of you. I can guarantee that you won’t be able to use it in dungeons, but everyone will breathe just a little bit easier if you’re in it out in public.”
“Is it a mech? Because it sounds like a mech.”
She laughed. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
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