Koban: Rise of the Kobani (61 page)

He looked at the slightly shorter and smaller built young man. “You have speed, I’ll grant you that. Your nightly practice wasn’t entirely to cover your deception, I suspect, since you don’t seem winded.”

Jorl wasn’t breathing hard, although neither was Crager.

“You seem comfortable in this gravity, Breaker. I know you have been pacing yourself, to stay in the middle of the pack all the way to this point. Your lack of early effort and ability to pick up your performance when necessary was a giveaway when I started looking. Where are you from kid?”

“The requirements to volunteer for this opportunity did not require me to tell you that, First Sergeant. I still choose not to do so.”

“That was the offer.” He agreed with a nod. “However, have you spent time in a heavy gravity orbital station? I’m not asking where, I’m curious how you managed to grow acclimated before you arrived here.”

“Heavyside isn’t the only high gravity planet, Sergeant.”

“It’s the highest one we’ve ever settled,” he countered.

“This sparsely populated, half-empty world is not exactly settled, First Sergeant.”

“Shifting direction again, are we? You do that a lot. The heavier planets are not considered livable, and need environmental suits because there is too little oxygen generation on those even more barren planets. I doubt if you got that healthy tan you arrived here with from inside an environment suit.”

“You are correct. I got my tan the natural way, under a bright hot sun.” Jorl knew this cat and mouse byplay was leading to something more than exercise. He wasn’t being called “candidate” any more. He wondered if he was about to be cut from the program.

Crager shifted subjects this time, back to his stated purpose of exercise. “Why don’t we race to the top of Everest? On my mark.”

Everest was a one hundred twenty-foot high steel and wood framework, with four steeply sloping sides, and a twelve-foot square platform at the top. There were six-inch diameter rough wood poles lashed to a four-sided metal support frame, and squads were timed for which ones could get all eight members to the top in the shortest time. Jorl had heard the apparatus was named after some mountain on Earth, supposedly its highest peak. It was certainly the highest point on the physical training course, located at its center. The candidates had not been permitted to climb that for the first two days; to be certain they had adjusted to the gravity. The next highest obstacle on the main course was a seventy-five-foot latticed rope covered wall.

Jorl was suddenly suspicious. They had never done the highest climbing parts of the course without lights, in the dark as they were now, and never Everest even with floodlights, because shadows made good handholds harder to identify when you were in a rush to win the race. A fall from near the top in 1.41 g’s would be fatal to most people. Crager had night vision implants and he knew Jorl did not, making it safer for him.

However, was that really what Crager thought? Jorl’s high-speed thoughts raced over what Crager had said and heard tonight. He had not asked what Jorl meant when he said he had not climbed the fence. Tunneling under or tearing through the fence had obviously not happened, so if it was not climbed, jumped over was the remaining logical conclusion. His identification as a Kobani wasn’t possible by Crager, no one on Heavyside knew Koban existed, or of its new breed of soldiers. The Avenger came here directly from Poldark, so no word of what was happening there could have reached here.

Only spec ops troops in their Booster Suits had the potential strength to jump that fence. In a flash of insight, Jorl decided Crager suspected him of being trained like the spec ops troops were, and perhaps even had their nerve and eye implants. That would explain Crager’s apparent assumption of Jorl’s night vision and physical ability.

“Hold on, Top. You asked me where I’m from, but who do you think I really am? You know I must have jumped over the fence if I didn’t climb over, and you just challenged me to a dangerous climb in the dark. I’m obviously not wearing a bulky Booster Suit like you have right now, but do you think I also have your IR eye implants?”

Facing towards him, the camp lights were reflected in Crager’s eyes, giving him a sinister look. “Breaker, if that
is
your name, I don't know where you’re from, or who sent you here. However, if you don’t start climbing when I say
go
, I’ll drag your helpless ass up there myself.”

Jorl smiled in the darkness, aware that Crager could see his face in infrared. “My name really is Jorl Breaker, and I was sent down here to find a way to help you. Not help you personally, but your Special Operations Branch in general. Although I’m confident you are not about to believe me when I say that. Not yet anyway. I’ll turn you into a believer.”

He’s certainly acting cool and confident right now
, Crager thought.
I wonder if that smug look will last all the way down, when I toss his ass off the top.

“Start moving, Breaker or I’ll carry you, unconscious if necessary.”

Jorl laughed. “You certainly couldn’t force me to go, but out of simple curiosity, I plan to beat you to the top. I’d even give you a head start, but you would never trust me to follow after you.”

“
Go!
” was Crager’s only reply.

Jorl, turned towards the obstacle course in the center of the track, and in a smooth burst of his maximum speed, he left Crager briefly gape jawed, believing he was trying to escape. Crager reacted and started after him, his Booster Suit failing to close that widening initial gap and he fell farther behind.

Jorl reached the base of the tower, and in a graceful leap landed fully twenty feet up its side, and in a flurry of hands and feet, found the inch-wide gaps between the six-inch thick horizontal rough logs in the dark. He swarmed up as if on a shallow flight of steps, glancing back to see Crager just reaching the base when he was over half way to the top.

He made an easy one-handed flip up and over the top, to stand and look down at Crager, making his best speed trying to catch up. He saw the man glance up frequently, watching for some trick. It was too dark for Jorl to make out his features, but he assumed the man was pissed. When Crager was within ten feet, Jorl turned and walked to the center of the platform when he knew he was being watched. It permitted Crager to complete an unchallenged spring over the edge, landing in a crouched defensive posture.

His starlit expression up close was confirmed for Jorl. Definitely a pissed off look.

“You’re fast you little shit, I’ll grant you that. You must have on some sort of skin colored slim-line suit.” Spec ops had never done a skin color match on the black carbon fiber Booster Suits. In combat, they always wore
Chameleon Skin flexible armor, or more rarely, a hard suit that covered the Booster Suit as well as their uniform.

Crager assumed Breaker had a lighter version of a Booster Suit, which had been colored to blend with his skin. It would have to be a thin version, because the kid didn’t display the thicker body build or the heavier looking muscles, which the standard suit gave a wearer. That implied to Crager that the display of speed was the primary advantage this lighter suit could provide. The standard suit had a thicker mix of overlaid fibers, some at various angles, to produce strength as well as speed. It could be configured to increase running speed at the expense of strength, and thus forming a slimmer looking body suit.

Crager studied the younger man’s unconcerned expression. Up here, on a twelve-by- twelve platform a hundred twenty feet high, there was no room for Breaker to run, fast or not. He should have used that speed to try to get away. As analytical as Crager thought he was being, he’d forgotten the jump Breaker had made over the fence, which had been more than a result of mere speed.

“Top, the advantage I brought with me is under my skin. It isn’t anything I can remove. I suspect you think you lured me here
, to eliminate me as a threat of some kind to your organization, or to the plans for spec ops in the future. Actually, I’ve drawn
you
up here to prove to you that you have greatly underestimated what I represent. You will have no choice but to listen to and believe what I’m about to tell you. I am already what I believe you want spec ops troops to become.”

“Lying spies? I think not. You can’t call for help either. I have your transducer blocked, and those of your two friends.”

“Ahh ha. You know I didn’t come alone. Are Yil and Fred being confronted the same way right now?”

“I’ll take care of them later, myself. I won’t let you three, or who sent you get in the way of our trying to win this war.”

“Top, we are part of a group that has the best chance to turn the war around, and we came back to Human Space to seek help from interested parties, and to offer them biotechnology they don’t have. We had reason to believe there were interested parties on Heavyside. That’s why we’re here.”

“I know why you’re here, and you won’t take anything you’ve learned with you.”

Crager had been sizing Breaker up as they talked, considering the ramifications of his opponent wearing a limited Booster Suit. There was a trace of lighter sky to the east, so his own night vision advantage, if Breaker didn’t have eye implants, would be gone soon. He didn’t have time to draw out more information from him if the “accidental” neck-breaking fall was to happen unobserved. He lowered his hands and acted as if he were about to relax, but had not straightened from his partial crouch.

“So you came from outside Human Space…” he didn’t complete the question because he launched himself at Breaker without warning. His intention was to use his strength to grapple with the younger man, and pin his arms and take him down as he wrapped his legs with his own powered lower limbs. He didn’t want there to be any marks on the face or body from punches or kicks that would dispute his story of a neck-breaking fall from near the top of the platform. He would reach around Breaker’s neck with one arm and cup his chin in a powerful grip. A hard quick jerk and his neck would snap. It would be almost painless.

He saw he had caught him completely by surprise, because he wasn’t reacting to the form coming at him out of the darkness, only six feet away. He suddenly spread his arms to engage in a bear hug, prepared to accept a punch or kick to secure his victim, and pin his arms to his side. Once down, a leg scissors holding Breaker’s legs from kicking would hold him briefly while he moved his right arm up and around the back of the neck to grab his chin. He’d be dead, an unfortunate training accident when found at the bottom of Everest.

It didn’t go exactly as planned.

In motions so swift they left infrared streaks on his adapted IR night vision system, Breaker’s left hand, backed by a rigid straight arm, simply appeared in front of Crager’s face. The iron hard hand went over his mouth below his nose, thumb and forefingers on his cheekbones, snapping his head back. His momentum, driven by his exomuscle legs forced him upright, and he felt his reaching right hand grasped as if by a crushing metal gauntlet that yanked him violently around to his left, the stiff arm in his face acting as fulcrum for the pivot point.

Crager’s right arm was yanked so violently that he continued to spin around as Breaker’s right hand, having pulled back under his own left elbow, released the numbed hand it gripped. The spec ops sergeant was suddenly turned facing away from his opponent, and then his elbows were slammed down and pinned to his ribs by two hands that exerted and maintained a painful vice–like grip. He was lifted four or five inches off the platform, held by his elbows being pressed crushingly against his ribs.

Crager kicked backwards and tried to twist his torso to free his arms. His boot heels were just barely able to make grazing contact, without a solid blow possible. He snapped his head back to smash into his opponent’s face, presuming he was close behind to hold him aloft so tightly. He encountered only air. Turning his head to the right, he could see Breaker’s extended right arm held straight out, his right hand the only thing grasping Crager’s right elbow. A quick left glance revealed the same. It was impossible! He couldn’t lift him this way!

Breaker was supporting the much heavier man by two hands, both arms straight out from his leaned back stance, keeping Crager’s feet inches above the platform. This was against Heavyside’s gravity, and despite strenuous Booster Suit assisted kicking and shoulder hunching to make the task that much harder to hold him aloft that way.

“Top, it doesn’t hurt much, but I’d like you to stop kicking your heels back at my knees and shins. If you don’t quit I might just squeeze in and break some ribs to make you stop. I can probably hold you like this until the sun breaks the horizon in thirty-five minutes, making you look damn foolish to the rest of the camp, and ruining any chance we have at secrecy. I don’t want to hurt you, and I definitely don’t want to make you look ridiculous, which would be more damaging.”

“I’ll break every bone in your body, you sack of spy shit.” Crager renewed his struggling, making Jorl suspect his promise of holding him suspended at arms-length for thirty-five minutes was a boast he might not be able to meet.

“Top, bare handed I doubt if you can break any of my carbon nano tube reinforced bones. I’m sure if I allowed it, you could bend some of my limbs and joints painfully. However, despite your expertise at hand-to-hand combat, and your Booster Suit and drugs, you can’t beat an unarmed Krall warrior can you? Well, I
can
do that and I don't even have your level of training. With your training I could do it a lot easier.”