Proving True

I press the announcement button on the office of the Executive Officer fifteen minutes ahead of time. When I was commanding Night Searcher my standard was, “to be early was to be on time, to be on time was to be late.”

The door slides open. The First Officer, Commander Alexander Nimyitschi, is standing at the food service kiosk of his office. The decorations in his office are scarce, but presumably very personal. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee is heavy on the air. As is the lingering tell tale scent of pipe tobacco. I wonder how Angus is doing I muse. He waves me into the room pointing with his coffee mug to an empty chair in front of his desk. There are two chairs. I presume the other is for DuQuois. He takes a seat behind his desk, sitting a cup of coffee on it, and opens a page on his holoCom. “You’re early,” he says, blowing on his coffee. “I like that. Ms. DuQuois should be here soon, we’ll hold off on your brief until she gets here. So, I know what you were hired to do, why don’t you tell me if there’s anything else you want to accomplish aboard Star Chaser?”

While he isn’t an old man, he’s older than I. I feel quite comfortable around him. If a starship were compared to a family, he’s kind of like an uncle. The Captain would be the stern grandfather. I’m formulating my answer when the announcement chimes. “Hold those thoughts, we may get to them later.” He presses the opening button to admit who is probably DuQuois.

She enters in mid rant, “Sir, I’m sorry but I don’t know where MacTaggert…” her eyes find mine. “Oh,” she says trying to recover. “You’re here.” And where else would I be? I don’t know what this woman has against me, I wonder if I’ll find out before I leave this ship.

Commander Nimyitschi takes control of the meeting. “Ladies, thank you for being on time. I understand that Ms. MacTaggert has developed a suit of Strike Armor that will change physics in its local area. Is that an accurate description?” He’s not looking at me, but at DuQuois. It’s her department so that makes sense.

“I wouldn’t give her that much credit, sir,” she says. “With some help from a student of Professor Jenkins she manipulates physics and applies some interesting techniques, but ‘change physics’ is a pretty high praise which I don’t feel is merited in this instance.”

“So, the armor,” his gaze shifts to me, “is it a standard issue suit?”

“Not exactly, sir,” I say. I’m beginning to say more when I get interrupted.

“We had to take a bit of the shell in order to apply the apparatus that bends light,” DuQuois explains. “And the backpack unit has been plussed up in weight a bit to accommodate the needed equipment to power the apparatus. That led to a minor reduction in the direct fire resistance capacity of the armor.”

“Oh?” The Commander’s eyebrows go up. “How minor, Miss MacTaggert?”

“Sir, the reduction…”

“I asked her, Ms. DuQuois.” I would never have described the First Officer as “laid back,” but I certainly don’t want to be on his bad side right now. “Miss MacTaggert?” his gaze comes back to me.

“Sir, any trooper worthy of the title would say the suit is unacceptable for a straight-up fight,” with my peripheral vision I see DuQuois looking daggers at me. But I’m not covering for her in this situation. “But it was never meant to be directly engaged. The mission I built it for is stealth and reconnaissance. I have a trooper friend, a combat veteran, who was willing to help me with the requirement parameters. This is the sort of tool that would be employed singly or in pairs, depending on the nature of the mission. If they do their jobs correctly, they’ll never be detected, much less directly and decisively engaged. To answer your question, the armor can take a direct hit from most sidearms, but a direct hit—straight on—from a combat rifle will likely penetrate it. Those are my projections, anyway.”

“I see,” he sits back. “Tell me about your test plan.”

“Static tests, sir,” DuQuois says. “We’ll put the armor on a frame or mannequin and shoot at it. Hence, our request for the flight deck.”

“Unfortunately,” I say, “that doesn’t test the greatest strength of the project.” DuQuois wants to strangle me. I can feel it radiating from her. “The only way a test like that would be useful would be to set the mannequin in place, turn the lights off and invite in a shooter to look into a dark room for a target. I would recommend someone wear the suit and walk away from the shooter. He or she would then tell the evaluator when they could no longer see the target well enough to shoot at it.”

Now DuQuois turns to me, “And who would you recommend to wear an untested suit of armor to intentionally draw fire?” She glares at me.

“I will,” I return her gaze.

“No,” the First Officer says, “that’s not happening the way you described it. But,” he holds up his finger for emphasis, “what we will do is let your…chameleon walk to the end of the hangar and we’ll turn out the lights. The ‘shooter’ will have a non-firing rifle but the sighting systems will be functional. The test ends when the shooter engages the target, the target engages the shooter, or the target exits the AO. You,” he points at me, “said the armor could survive a sidearm shot. If you’re still willing, you’ll have an opportunity to prove that. The shooter will be armored as well in conventional Strike Armor to employ the integrated sighting system, since the mission of the—what do you call this,” he refers to his holoCom. “Wraith armor is to avoid confrontation, you will not be required to defeat the shooter, just avoid getting shot yourself. When will you be ready?”

“One hour, sir,” DuQuois says. “She can be ready in an hour.” Oh, how I hate this bitch!