Resurgence (Redleg In Space Book 2) Page 26

  The men sat in front of the screens at the forging station, sorting through all of the options for Max’s armor and helmet. Zade had told him that he needed him to fill the role of warrior on the ground and gunner on the ship. Max agreed and began working through the specialties and modifications that he could incorporate which would increase his effectiveness in battle.

  For the gunner class, they decided on making Max a firing solutions expert. The kit allowed him to calculate the most effective firing solution with given weapons in space-to-space firing problems or space-to-ground problems. The downside was that he would not be capable of maintaining the firing battery on the ship. Both men felt confident that Mara could do that from what she had accomplished already.

  With one half of the hybrid class set, the men moved on to Max’s ground class. The marksman special kit was a subsidiary of the warrior armor and had nice synergy with his shipboard roll. The marksman class gave him real-time firing data for long-range targeting. As a firing solution expert, the data collected from his person would be verified with data collected by the ship, if the ship could see the target. Conversely, he could use firing data he collected on the ground for space bombardments. The two classes were a natural pair.

  As a marksman, Max needed a dedicated weapon system that could either be of Groz origin or a modified version of another weapon platform.

  “I’d like to keep my rifle. I’ve been using it since I became a sniper,” Max said.

  Zade could understand the attachment formed between man and tool. It also would cost less Rua to simply modify another weapon instead of creating one from scratch. While Max went to the armory to fetch his rifle, Zade had the forge start constructing his helmet. The drain on the capacitor was immediate, and he could see why earning a place on a Groz crew was so momentous. Even with the fighting and killing he had done, he would only have had the resource to create, at most, three helmets.

  With the helmet in the works, the men turned their attention to the rest of Max’s new armor. Zade started with an exact copy of his as the base. Max immediately swapped the shielding for the cloaking modification. He couldn’t see himself being in the thick of the fighting and thought the cloak would be more useful. Zade hadn’t spent any time improving the quality of the modification, which meant that it would only be useful for a few hours at a time. Every kill would generate Rua that could be used to power the cloak, but sudden movements, sounds, or flashes would break it. Max could use it to get into position, but as soon as the shooting started, he would be exposed.

  Max’s armor didn’t get the capacity to have a copy of the ship AI, but he did get a much simpler firing solution and targeting AI, coupled with a better communications array. He pitched it as a way to improve the effectiveness of the combat multipliers he could bring to bear, and Zade couldn’t see a fault in his logic.

  By the time they had finished the buildout on Max’s armor, his helmet had finished being created. It was completely smooth except for four spiky protrusions, two in the front two in the back. Its matte black finish was overlaid with a faint green hexagonal pattern that Zade immediately recognized as the cloaking modification. Before taking it from the forge, the men brought up its specifications at the station. They found that the two protrusions on the back were advanced antennae for the communications bundle and the forward two were part of the targeting package. One was a rangefinder and the other was a scanner that could be used to determine the composition of the target.

  Max removed it from the forge and replaced it with his rifle. As Zade explained how he would have to pair with the helmet, which Max already knew from his sister’s ramblings, they watched the rifle change before their eyes. First, all the gunmetal grey metallic components of the rifle were replaced with the same matte black material that the armor and ship were made of. They watched as the optics on the rifle disappeared. Both were confused by the change, but wouldn’t be able to address it until they knew the full capabilities of the kit. The rifle modification finished after visible green ports formed on the pistol grip.

  Max took the finished weapon back to the armory, unable to fully examine it without his helmet. He then headed to his quarters to pair with his new equipment. Zade stayed in the forge room long enough to ensure the armor was being crafted before heading to the bridge to view their destination data. On his way, he ran into Mara who was finishing up the medical bay. He made a quick pit stop and was happy to see that the room looked like it could handle any injuries.

  “This is a good start for medical, but with enough Rua, we will be able to convert it all to Groz medical tech,” Ann said after her hologram materialized.

  “This will have to do for now. I want to save up our reserves. We don’t know what we are getting into at our next stop.”

  Before leaving the med bay to head to the bridge, he filled Mara in on what her brother was up to. She headed to check on him before retiring to her quarters for a shower after the heavy lifting required to get the medical equipment in place. Zade found Sam already on the bridge, manipulating a star map of the target location and surroundings.

  “How was your visit with Axis?” he asked her, breaking her concentration.

  “Good. It was nice to just socialize and not talk operations and business,” she said as he moved up to the projection

  He could see the target system highlighted in green. With the warp drive provided by the Unity, it would take weeks to arrive. Ann, however, had informed him that she had gotten the Groz drives back online and wouldn’t need the subpar Unity tech anymore. He wasn’t sure what to expect.

  “We have everything we need for the trip?” he asked.

  Sam and Ann both replied in the affirmative, so he did a quick check with Mara to make sure she was ready to move. Once his crew was ready, he took his old seat at the top of the bridge. Sam looked up at him and smiled, and then took her usual place at the pilot station. Control cleared them for take-off, and they slid through the shields of the bay.

  “Cleared to jump?” she asked after lining the ship up with their destination.

  “Let’s do this,” he replied, feeling more hopeful than he had since the beginning of his adventure.

  The windows were tinted their usual opaque grey and shielded the crew from the radiation present while the ship was under warp. A timer of just over four days started on his visor; the Groz jump technology was, in fact, superior to anything the Unity could field.

  Sam stood up from her station.

  “Ready to celebrate your recovery?” she asked.

  “A brief vacation sounds great,” he responded, pushing himself out of his chair.

  “A thank you gift,” she said, reaching under her seat and pulling out a box. “From Axis for what you have done for him and his clan.”

  He moved toward her, kissed her, and took the box out of her hands. It was a case of the wine Zade, Samix, and Axis had enjoyed earlier that day.

  “Your quarters or mine?” he asked with a smile.

  Author Note

  Thanks for reading the second book of the Redleg in Space series. I will be taking a short break to help a vet buddy of mine get his first work up. After that it's back to Zade's exploits. Stay tuned.

  Z.D. Dean