Ch: 123 New Toys

Edited

Sorry for the delay. Christmas was crazy. Anyway this is done. Almost have the Sage chapter done, and half of the Royal tower chapter as well. Enjoy

Chapter 123

New Toys

“Yo, you alright there?” Monkeyman’s voice asked. Freya opened her eyes and saw him approaching.

“Yep, just …” Freya said, trailing off as she realized how stupid she would sound if she told him the truth. In the end, it didn’t matter.

“You forgot to adjust to all the stats you earned inside, didn’t you?” He asked with a big grin on his face.

“Yeah.” Freya replied with a sigh.

“Come one, we got credits to spend, and things to buy.” He told her excitedly.

Freya couldn’t help the smile that appeared on her face as she took Monkeyman’s hand and stood up. “I really need a better gun.” She said as they made their way out of the room full of training facilities’ doors.

“We’re sergeants now. We need a lot of stuff, especially you, since you’re leading a squad now.” He told her.

“True,” Freya said thinking about all the cool sergeant stuff she wanted to get.

The biggest thing she was thinking about was the sergeant’s com array to monitor her people's health. It was technically for a platoon leader position, but once you reached the rank of sergeant you could get it anytime you had the credits for it. She really didn’t want a new set of armor since she had three sets already, but she didn’t say anything to her friend as he looked too excited about the prospect of getting a new one. She hoped she could mod her armor with the needed mods.

Of course they came across the armor shop first. Monkeyman was nearly vibrating as he stepped into the shop. Freya followed him in, shaking her head with amusement. She hadn’t seen this side of him before except that one time they got drunk on that planet that had all those nightclubs. The sales android came out from behind the counter to meet with him, but Freya held back watching them.

“Oh no, no, no. This won’t do.” A voice said from behind her.

Turning around she found herself facing the strangest android she had ever seen in her life. Most of the androids she had seen had been mostly human-looking, in simple and bland clothing. It was how they acted that really exposed them for who they were. The android that was approaching her was a male android who was wearing a dress, completely skipping the normal bland clothing that every android she had seen so far had worn. He also sashayed instead of the normal too-rigid walk that most androids used. He was the most human android she had ever seen.

“I like your dress.” Freya blurted out, surprising herself with the comment.

“Oh, thank you, Sergeant O’Malley.” He said and gently patted her on her forearm. “In these dark times I wanted something bright to cheer you people up.”

His dress was certainly colorful. It was a white skinny dress that widened at the bottom. The dress was decorated with colorful embroidered tropical birds that Freya didn’t recognize. To top it off he wore a fluffy white feathered boa around his neck and a wide brimmed white hat with a single pink feather coming out from the left side of it. To Freya’s amusement, he spun around showing off his entire dress.

When he stopped, he pulled out a tablet from somewhere inside the tight dress and held it out to her. “Hun, can I have your permission to view your status page?”

“Of course.” Freya said delighted with him. “I just came in looking for some health array mods.”

“I see you have the latest Wrath model, stupid name. It’s a stealth armor, not an assault model. They should have called it ghostly something, but wait that’s a bit played out. Maybe wraith. Oh, I should send them a message, and get a commission off of it.” He told her, looking upwards.

“Anyway. We need to get you into proper armor befitting your new rank.” He told her, placing his arm on her back and gently guiding her towards the counter where both Monkeyman and his normal-acting android were standing.

“So…” He continued. “...I see you are going to be fighting mostly in close quarters. My suggestion, forget about medium armor. With your strength, it would slow you down, and the Ketica can bypass armor anyhow. I see you got the strength mod to your last suit, plus an extended memory which makes sense with your Personal AI and Hacking skills. Oh I see you had a cloud forge as well. For a sniper, you’re all over the place, aren't you. No matter. I can find you something perfect. Just you wait and see.”

“I was hoping to mod my existing armor instead of buying a new one.” Freya told him as he looked down at something only he could see.

“If you are looking for a health array then you don’t have the room in your current armor.” He told her, sounding like he was only partially paying attention to her. “We would have to remove your cloud forge because it’s taking up too much room. Not enough plugins left with it in.”

“Oh.” He said looking up at her suddenly with a wide grin. “I found the perfect armor for you.”

When he didn’t say anything, and continued to grin at her she spoke. “What?”

“I have a light armor Oni command suit. It has an upgraded strength and friction assistance function so you can keep up with the big boys. It also comes with a huge memory for all of your hacking needs. Standard. The armor also has the latest in stealth tech so you won’t have that module on your back to limit your backpack” He told her.

“This model comes with your standard health array, but you can upgrade it with a few credits more to get the advanced package which includes injury alerts, and face avatars, so if you’re bad with names, you can see who you are looking at with their avatar. You can also tap into satellite feeds for communications and status updates in the area you are in.” He continued.

“It also comes with steady aim.” He said, looking down at something only he could see again. “We can remove it since you don’t seem to need any aim assist on your weapons. I suggest we replace it with the more advanced strength module. It won’t make you run faster, but it will increase your upper body strength equivalent to three hundred mod points.

“There is also a mod which I strongly suggest you get. It’s the emergency health mod which will auto pump a dose of nanos to repair your body. It’s similar to the medi pens except it will activate automatically when you are injured. It won’t affect your suicide mod if you need to activate it, which is a plus. Not that I think you should with the Ketica, but it’s there.” He told her.

“One last mod I suggest you get is the agility mod.” The flamboyant android suggested. “It will increase your agility by three hundred equivalent mod points. With all of your mod points in processing speed, you should be able to react much faster than what your body can do even with all those mods in agility. This armor mod will help with that.”

Then the annoyingly good salesperson showed her what she would look like with a hologram that popped up from the floor next to her. It was a full-length hologram which was slowly spinning so she could see all of it. The armor looked slick. Her old armor had a bunch of round nubs sticking out from it, making it look awkward and slightly ugly. The armor in front of her had none of that. It was smooth and sleek looking. The current active camo on it was a very dark glossy black, and it had Jesus’ white skull on the left breast.

“I do need to be able to run faster.” She told herself, still looking at the amazing armor in front of her. “Dammit, I need that armor.”

“Fine.” Freya said with a sigh.

“Great!” The annoyingly good sales android replied, sounding very happy. “Now let me show you some odds and ends that you might need. I see you like a variety of climbing gear, can I show you what we have in stock?”

After spending far too much time in the armor store, Freya was glad to leave. The armor she bought was twice what her last armor had cost even with the discount they got for being in the war, but she had to admit it was worth it. Not only did she get to keep everything she had before, she was able to upgrade the mods she had before in her old armor to her new armor. Well, accept her cloud forge. It was already as good as it was going to get until some kind of breakthrough in drone forge technology. She also picked up a bunch of stuff she thought she might need while in the Ketica tunnels.

Monkeyman was also ecstatic. His new armor was apparently a huge upgrade compared to his last one. It was a medium armor that was specially designed for Demos. The biggest thing he bragged about was that he was finally able to afford a cloud forge for creating explosives. He had been using disposable one-time devices as they were very cheap compared to the cloud forge, and he still needed to as the cloud forge still took time to create the devices he needed to use, but now he shouldn’t ever run out of explosives. He also bought a bunch of copyrights for devices he used the most often. He even got the copyright to build his own auto turret. It would take a while to print, but if they were too far out to resupply he still had options.

They came upon a weapons store as Monkeyman was still describing his new armor, and how this mod or that mod was simply awesome. It showed, she realized after a few minutes of listening to him, just how spoiled she had become. Monkeyman had been in twice as long as she had been, and he had been modding out his old armor forever instead of buying new ones like she did.

Granted, he had two armors that he had to take care of, a heavy armor that he got when he was a private for the first, then a medium he got as a corporal for the latter. As he talked about his old mods she couldn’t help but feel bad for him. They weren’t anything special to Freya. The new ones sounded only average to her, compared to what she was used to, that is. According to Monkeyman, what she thought was average was a lot better than what most marines had.

The sales android inside the weapons store was, unfortunately, normal-looking. He had the same mannerisms as all the other androids she had seen so far. Monkeyman spotted something on the wall and, ignoring her and the android, he walked right up to it. She smiled at the android and motioned for him to go help Monkeyman. A second android came out from a door that was behind the desk and walked up to help her instead.

“Welcome, Sergeant O’Malley.” The second android said as it came up to her. “May I have access to your status page?” After she agreed, the android asked what it could do to help her.

“I need a rifle that I can use against the Ketica inside their tunnels.” She told the female android. “I want something with a lot of ammo and something that has a fully automatic fire option.”

“I see you just bought a new Oni armor. That is very good armor. You also have added two strength mods to it, I see.” The android said, looking at her.

Freya wasn’t wearing her new armor yet, just her old armor in its working uniform mode. It was mostly because her new armor didn’t have a sleeveless option for a working uniform. She decided to go with what made her more comfortable. Plus she didn’t want Petty Officer Johnson to think she changed her uniform because of him. She knew she could always change it before a mission. With all the information that the android had given out freely, it made her wonder just how much information the android was seeing with its access to her status page.

“Unfortunately, most of the better machine guns that have been found effective against the Ketica are too heavy with your mod build. But I do have one rifle and three pistols that fit your request if you are willing to change some aspects of your request.” The android replied.

“Which ones?” Freya asked, concerned.

“I have a heavy Galahia 404 shotgun. It does not have the fully automatic fire you requested, but with enough heat sinks and your high dexterity, I calculate that you should be able to fire the shotgun 308 times a minute. Of course you would have to mod the shotgun to use Andreax ammo rods which would allow you to shoot the shotgun a thousand times before reloading. You may go with the extended NG ammo rod, but you will only get two hundred rounds per rod.” The android explained.

When Freya didn’t say anything the android continued. “The Galahia 404 is a light shotgun designed for close quarters. If you go with the Andreax ammo rod then the shotgun will fire forty AP HE ballistic slugs per shot. This exceeds the required ammo needed to penetrate heavy Ketica’s bio-construct armor. Please be warned that due to your low strength mods you will need the optional anti-recoil mod and a shoulder stock.”

“Option two, if you go with the extended NG ammo rod, the Galahia will only be able to fire twenty AP ballistic slugs per shot. This will penetrate heavy Ketica’s bio-construct armor, but the expected damage would be much less. Depending on the bio-construct, you may need more than one round to kill it. You will also not need the anti-recoil mod nor the shoulder stock.” She told Freya.

“And the pistols?” Freya asked her.

“The first option is to modify your Wingols to accept dual HPSG ammo rods, which would allow you to fire your weapon forty times before needing to reload. If you do mod your weapon to accept the ammo rods then I suggest you buy single packaged dual ammo magazines for faster reloading times. You may also mod the weapon for automatic fire, but I believe that is unnecessary due to your high dexterity.” She told Freya.

“The second pistol is a single-fire Mazznus 108 pistol. It is a beam weapon that fires a continuous energy beam that can, at short range and max setting, cut a heavy Ketica’s bio-construct armor with ease. The Mazznus is a very popular last resort weapon right now for marines on Karma. There have been only two reported problems. One is that the weapon needs the max amount of heat sinks to be effective, and, two, the operator needs to change out the four Mega Colax purified battery pods after two seconds of weapon fire.” The android explained.

“That last weapon is an Antilla chain handgun. The Antilla chain handgun is the miniature version of their full model of the Antilla chain gun. The pistol comes with a wrist ammo catch that can use various tiny, single-use ammo rods to be belt fed to the chain gun. This weapon is both a beam and a ballistic weapon which can fire, depending on the ammo, seven hundred and fifty to nine hundred and fifty rounds per minute. With the stock ammo catch you can load five hundred rounds by hand or you can purchase pre-loaded ammo catches. You may mod your pistol for an extended magazine which will allow for seven hundred rounds to be loaded per catch.” The female android told her.

“You said it was a beam and a ballistic weapon. Can you explain what you mean?” Freya asked.

“The beam part is an electromagnetic coating used to propel the ballistic round out of the pistol.” The android explained.

“So it’s not like my ASO long-barrel rifle?” Freya asked.

“No, the electromagnetic coating is only used for propelling the round at a much faster velocity than could be used in a traditional ballistic weapon.” The android explained.

“What kind of ammo can I use in it, and can I see a picture of it?” Freya asked. A hologram appeared in front of her with an arm holding a large, wide-bore pistol. There was a thick metal circle around the wrist. The gun fired what looked like a continuous stream of bullets for a few seconds then it ran dry. Then the empty gun hovered away from the wrist and then the metal circle was removed and replaced with a new one and the gun returned to the hand of the shooter and connected at the top to the wrist magazine before it started firing again. This time it continued to fire for the full minute.

Lack of mobility.” Freya noted to herself as she saw how the ammo magazine was attached to the gun. “The magazine would keep the weapon perfectly straight which is good, but if I needed to drop the weapon I wouldn’t be able to unless I used my other hand to disengage the magazine from the gun itself. That could cause problems.”

“Here is a list of what type of ammo rods can be purchased to use in the gun.” The android said and a list popped up next to the holographic gun with a list of twenty different ammo rods. “These ammo rods are effective against the Ketica bio constructs.”

The list dropped from twenty to six. Looking at the list she noted that none of them were considered armor piercing or high explosive. That meant that, while the pistol fired far more ammo than her current one, it would require a lot more hits on target to get through the armor of the average Ketica.

“That’s not really going to be that much of a problem considering how many rounds it fires downrange at the target.” She thought to herself then frowned as a thought occurred to her.

“What’s the price for the preloaded magazines vs buying the unloaded ammo rods and loading it myself.” She asked the android.

A list of prices appeared on the left-hand side of the list. Right away Freya noted just how different the unloaded rods were versus the loaded ones. A fully loaded wrist magazine catch was nearly ten times what she paid for her current weapon. The unloaded version she had to load herself was much less expensive, but thinking about the time she would have to waste to load all the rods into the magazine made her shudder. She could only imagine how bad it would be if she got the extended magazine mod.

“I’ll take the Galahia 404 with the Andreaz ammo rod mod and all the required mods for me to fire it. Plus I would like the max amount of heat sinks I can put in it after all the other mods.” Freya told the female android. “Also I would like my current pistol modified for extended magazines and enough heat sinks so that it won’t overheat if fired for over a minute.” She doubted that she would get in a gunfight with just her pistol for any longer, if she did then she had more problems than her gun overheating.

“Would you like to buy the prepackaged dual ammo rods?” The android asked. Freya sighed and agreed.

“What kind of grenades do you sell here?” Freya asked after they were done with her guns.

An hour later and a few thousand credits shorter, Freya walked beside Monkeyman as they left the weapons shop. Monkeyman had ditched his big as hell bazuka for a smaller version. It wasn’t as powerful as the one he had had, but he could now use it in the bigger tunnels. It also shot faster and was much faster to reload timer.

He had also picked up a side weapon in case his current weapon ran out of ammo or the tunnels were too small to use. His side weapon was a short-barrel beam weapon that was sort of like Freya’s Asy Minor, but it had semi and fully automatic settings. It also had a much larger battery pod for longer engagements. It was slightly bigger than her Asy Minor rifle, but not by much.

With nothing else to do, they left the barracks and went back to the quad where the platoons were forming up. They joined their platoon, but separated as Freya went to join Jesus and Monkeyman went to join his fire team that were already done with their training and purchases. Jesus was standing by Petty Officer Johnson near where they had stood before. As soon as he spotted her, Jesus motioned for her to join them.

“No new armor?” Petty Officer Johnson asked when she got close enough to speak without yelling.

“Nah, my new armor doesn’t have a sleeveless option.” Freya replied with a neutral smile.

“Fair enough.” The assistant platoon leader said, surprising Freya. She thought he would be angry, but for some reason he seemed relaxed. She didn’t trust his sudden attitude change. Looking at Jesus, she wondered if he had anything to do with it.

“Like I told the platoon earlier, I went over the feeds of your missions. I’ve come up with some training scenarios. I want your opinion of them and what kind of training you want from us.” Jesus asked as he turned on his holo table. Freya nodded and looked at what he had created.

They spent the entire time going over his scenarios. At first she only added a few things to his training plan, but as he and Petty Officer Johnson talked she inputted more and more. By the time Kruz had set for the company to return, they were in full discussion with her doing most of the talking. By the time Jesus called all the platoon to attention, she was calling Petty Officer Johnson by his last name, leaving out his rank. He had surprised her with some very good suggestions and how he was able to pull more information out of her that she hadn’t thought of. In the end, she had to admit he was a good soldier. Maybe not a marine, but good enough.

They spent the rest of the day in training missions. At first Jesus ran the missions, but he gave her more and more control over the missions to the point where she wasn’t leading her squad anymore, but running the entire training mission. Jesus and Johnson took part in the training missions as both fighters and commanders with Freya being the mission monitor. By the time Kruz called an end to the missions for the night, Freya and the rest of the platoon couldn’t help but notice just how good of a Marine Jesus was. Johnson was good, but Jesus left him in the dust with both how he commanded his squads and his ability to fight. She had seen it before, but seeing it again just made it clear to her just how good he was at his job.

The next day they were out and doing more training missions. This time they traded off the job of being the monitor of the training missions with each other. Jesus was the monitor of the first training mission while Johnson took the second. That left Freya with the third. Then they rotated again after lunch.

Kruz worked them hard from early in the morning to late at night for the rest of their time on the Conture. They did join up with the entire company in their final days onboard. They practiced multiple hunts, where the training sim mission had multiple Ketica in the same area. The tactic never really changed all that much, even with a full company mission. First Squad was always the hunt platoon. Second Squad was always the exit defender, and the final platoon protected the area above ground.

In a full company mission, they just did it at multiple holes that led to connecting tunnels underground. The only real problem they had was how hard it was to communicate with the Ketica jamming. They came up with some solutions that no one knew if they would work, but it was left out there for them to try. One of the suggestions came from a guy not only in her squad but also in her fireteam. A Navy SEAL counter-communication expert named Miller came up with an idea to bypass the jamming. He suggested they use old-fashioned landlines to communicate. She didn’t know if it would work, but Kruz wanted it tested as soon as possible.

Then the training sim missions were over. Still unable to leave the camp, Jesus threw a barbeque for the platoon that turned into a company-wide barbeque. It wasn’t as good as the barbeques that Sergeant Torres used to throw in the Iron Hand, but that was mainly because of the camp's terrain which was still a horrible gray desert. Still, it helped Freya relax after she ate some good food, and played volleyball in the sand. She went to bed feeling hopeful for the future. She wasn’t confident that any of them would live through the war, but she was hopeful.