AMPED TO KILL: The Unofficial Follow-Up to Neil Blomkamp's "District 9" (formerly known as 'Alive in JoBurg') with elements borrowed from Rockne S. O'Bannion's "Alien Nation", James Cameron's "Avatar", and Steve Jackson's "Ogre". Other similar elements (e.g., Robert Heinlein's "Starship Troopers", Joe Haldeman's "Forever War", David Drake's "Slammerverse", Robert Aspin's "Bug Wars", Keith Laumer's "Bolo", John Steakley's "Armor", Masaya's "Assault Suits Valken" and "Assault Suits Leynos", Eclipse Software's "Iron Soldier" series, et al.) contributed greatly to the author's vision of mecha-based mayhem.
PRELUDE — REQUIEM TO LANDFALL
"Truth be told, Rook; I find Earth prawn delicious. They're great eating even if I have them grilled or cooked. Stupid Afrikaner slokaa. Why'd they call those filthy beasts 'prawn'?"
Miles, already a bundle of nerves before the drop, only listened with half an ear to the woman while he walked down the hall and fiddled with the various protuberances on his battle-dress. While Miles was a soldier, he would not be taking on the "poleepkwa" in battle fatigues. As the Van De Merwe Incident demonstrated years ago, that would be suicide, especially the aliens were now hostile and actively organized to kill anything that looked remotely human.
Speaking of aliens, the woman with Miles wasn't from Earth per se, but she was at least humanoid. The Newcomer female was slender, and at least as tall as Miles; he himself was a prime specimen of humanity at six feet and change, but that meant little. If Miles and his bald alien ally physically wrestled like two school children, she'd easily beat him down like a rag doll.
The Newcomer appeared far more at ease than "the Rook"; she occasionally stroked her smooth spotted head and kept chatting about her slim pickings of cooked Earth food as they headed for the drop bay. Soldiers tended towards nervousness regardless of how much they trained, and Miles suspected she was using idle chatter to keep her mind off the fact that they were both underwater in a submarine carrier.
Any hull breach meant the incoming seawater would dissolve the pretty alien woman in seconds unless she reached the escape vehicles, sealed herself inside a battle blister, or scrambled into a survival suit made for her kind.
Miles reflected on the many aliens now living on planet Earth. The prawn ship came to a stop over Johannesburg in 1982 and no one stopped to wonder if that species was the only one in the neighborhood. The insect-like aliens were called "prawn" by the South Africans, but everyone else called them something else; "crickets" by the British and Australians, but other countries had other monikers, all which focused on the JoBurg aliens' speech, which sounded like clicks and clacks.
Ultimately, the mystery of why the "prawn ship" stopped on Earth was answered when the Newcomers' slave ship crashed in California's Mojave Desert six years later in 1988. Between a space wreck and an inoperable craft, the best minds humanity had to offer surmised that a mid-space accident had somehow occurred, and that both craft touched down on the planet much like a two vehicles after a traffic collision.
Once dirtside though, the fortunes of the two alien races diverged rapidly. The Newcomers, having landed in the United States, were first held in quarantine as a precautionary measure, but ultimately assimilated into the human population. Not so with the "prawn" in South Africa. Their radically inhuman appearance, coupled with the vast political and social changes in South Africa at the time, proved to be the prawns' undoing.
Then in 2010, Wikus Van De Merwe happened. Miles' mind still reeled at the ineptitude of Multi-National United, and how poorly they handled the situation. While the United States was never officially invited to participate in anything MNU-related (having their own extra-terrestrial situation at home), America did send unofficial observers - even Newcomer scientists - who watched the events unfold in District 9.
Without any idea what would happen if the prawn came back, the United States erred on the side of caution and prepared. Armed with the scant technological scraps from their new alien allies and information on the aliens in South African, DARPA managed to developed the "amplified mobility platform" (AMP) to combat the hostile alien threat.
After initial teething troubles, America had started a new technological revolution in warfare with a militarized version of the AMP, the Gibbon combat rig. With help from Newcomer scientists, DARPA managed to get their various armaments programs working, and just in time too. Less than a decade after the stricken prawn ship departed for its home system, their invasion fleet arrived on Earth. Strangely, the prawn didn't come to "rescue" their brethren in South Africa, but to harvest the raw materials instead.
Miles and his alien comrade-at-arms entered a large loading bay where a dozen or so other rig drivers were lined up. They were all in similar body-hugging battledress. Their codpieces sported protuberances and inputs much like as his. The group's commander - a 'Tactical Sergeant' by his insignia - was a short, wiry Chinese man with a dour face, and a more dour disposition.
"We're wrapping up," the sergeant's bald head glistened under the interior lighting as he glared at the new arrivals. "Small change of plan. Rook, you're ridin' alone. Teabags will be driving Ginny. Move out."
At that, the others started moving towards ladders marked with names on large signs. A blonde woman with a mediocre but perky bust stepped up and waved to the Newcomer, saying, "C'mon Mary. See you in the Bactrian."
"All right." The Newcomer - Mary - turned and gave Miles a friendly punch in the arm as she strode off, "See ya, Rook."
"Uh, sir?" Miles seemed hesitant as the sergeant started off to his own ladder.
"Don' you ever 'sir' me. I work for a livin'."
"Yes Sergeant Cheng," Miles quickly corrected himself. "So, how's this going to work? I thought my blister was set for the Bactrian instead of a Gibbon? I thought I was to escort Miss Webster?"
"I swapped the control cards," came his response. "Just because you're not driving the Virgin Mary around -" a play on Webster's name and call sign "- doesn't mean you're not on baby-sitter duty."
Miles started up his ladder as Cheng continued in his American drawl.
"You're still new to movin' in a blister and cradle. Gibbons ain't training machines. Bein' on your own means you can make mistakes that won't get my people killed - 'specially my bot controller," the sergeant said simply. "You stay near the Bactrian, but do exactly as Tanya says. Understand?"
"Yes sergeant. Understood."
Probably more so than you want, Miles thought darkly as he settled into his battle blister. Tanya "Teabags" Doyle, the unofficial bodyguard of their squad's bot controller, was rumored to have been a stripper, a porn star, or a hooker before the prawns invaded Earth. Miles heard a few sordid stories aboard the submarine carrier that ran rampant in small circles of how Doyle got into the combat rig program.
Some said she and Cheng were having some fun before the invasion, but that didn't hold up, as the sergeant himself was rumored to be a refugee himself. In any case, once the shooting started, Doyle, like Sergeant Cheng, quickly earned new infamy as rig drivers who excelled at their craft - and killing the enemy.
Whether "Teabags" and Sergeant Cheng were once an item, or still an item seemed moot - the sergeant and the slender Newcomer female, Mary Webster, were often found eating together in the mess, much to the disgust of the crew. The raw meat diet of Newcomers wasn't exactly a welcoming sight except to their own kind.
Still, the nickname for Doyle seemed apt. Her tits did sag like a pair of wet teabags if she didn't bind them with duct tape.
Miles tuned out the innuendo and he concentrated on getting himself ready. He connected the waste line to a metal orifice on his codpiece, followed by the wash/rinse line. That done, Miles slipped his arms and legs into the metal and polymer cradles inside the blister.
With his limbs so encompassed, he would be able to control any rig his blister was installed into just as he would his own body - at least hands, arms, legs, and feet wise. The cradles' many joints were wired or motorized to provide resistance to his movements, if just to give the operator a sensation of feedback; physically and practically, he was a walking five meter tall metal giant, with proportional strength.
The blond rookie was primarily standing, although there was a small rest protruding from the rear wall of the blister to allow Miles to rest on his buttocks. He seldom did so, as sitting like that was painful if he did it too long. To actually "sit" comfortably in a blister, Miles had to remove his legs from the lower limb cradles (in essence letting the auto-walk take over - not a good idea in combat). So, like any soldier, Miles toughed it out and took short sits when his legs were feeling tired.
There was a slight bump, and Miles felt his battle blister shudder. He was being loaded into his Gibbon. The war machine stood between nearly five meters tall; its upper body was voluminous enough to encapsulate the cylindrical cockpit containing its operator. So enclosed, the only means for the person to see while inside one of these assault suits was through the cam-plate - the prefabricated armored faceplate with bundles of fiber thin cables serving as cameras to the outside world.
The cam-plate wrapped around the Gibbon's bulbous upper-body and came down in a bib-like fashion over the forward and side facings of the torso. Special optic mountings in the outer frame's crotch and underarms allowed the to "see" the ground beneath him.
Inside his armored cocoon, Miles felt connections being made between his blister and the rig. A brief moment later, the entire inside of his battle blister blinked to life. Liquid crystal displays pressed into sheets received input from the cam-plate and became a virtual window to the world outside. A clear, electronic voice chimed inside the battle blister.
:: sensors online. actuators connected ::
Miles cycled through the various vision modes: low-light and night vision, infrared, ultraviolet, gamma, motion-sensing, vibratory, infrasound, and checked them against the various filters that let him distinguish between the biology of different species: human, prawn, and Newcomer.
:: weapons online. power optimal ::
Miles checked his Gibbon's armament. Doyle had either opted for the standard load-out, or the selection was restored when Sergeant Cheng made the last minute switch. No matter. Nearly all Gibbons sortied on a standard load-out; the few exceptions were just that - exceptions; many rig drivers switched back to the standardized load-out after their attempt at being different.
There was no need to mess with perfection: a Particle Impeller Gun (PIG) firing pellets of antimatter held in stasis, an eighty Terajoule laser on the operator's off-hand mitt, and two backpack units, one firing soda can sized antimatter "grenades" and the portable indirect munition platform (PIMP) which launched small, self-guided cruise missiles.
Antimatter didn't only figure prominently in the weaponry, but a variation of the matter/antimatter reaction powered the Gibbon and other war machines.
Miles' Gibbon slowly clunked onto the landing vehicle; with prawn ships controlling much of the skies, human and Newcomer alike needed to adapt to survive, and the sea was one of the few refuges free of prawn control.
While both races could dig into the mountain terrain or ruined cities that survived initial bombardment, the underwater military complexes (which doubled as fall-back positions) saw few, if any, Newcomers. For the bald headed aliens to live underwater meant a potentially vile death. Many Newcomers opted to support their human allies by fighting alongside them in various mountain strongholds; their alien physique made them suited as mountaineering or SpecWar infantry.
Where the human-Newcomer forces on land were mostly stalemated by prawn forces, assaults made by sea were making good progress. Utilizing the cover of water to confuse prawn detection gear, the naval forces denied the aliens valuable food and grazing grounds for their eggs in the short term.
'A single adult humpback whale can yield enough nutrition for 5,000 to 7,500 prawn workers,' Miles remembered from his training.
While a single prawn could be killed by something as simple as a hunting rifle, a shotgun, or a fire axe, the creature was still capable of tearing apart a Newcomer - let alone a human. Miles saw the combat footage of Colonel Koobus Venter. One moment he was firing on a pack of angry prawn, the next, he was rendered limb from limb. And when the insect aliens were armed with their exotic weaponry, human and Newcomer forces were at a disadvantage unless they attacked with overwhelming firepower from their war machines, or with artillery.
Miles had his Gibbon hold onto a support brace of the landing vehicle. Next to his Gibbon, Doyle's Bactrian - so named for its dorsal "hump" that formed the second crewman's position (where Webster was) - was already in position.
The Bactrian stood a meter taller than the Gibbon, but instead of equipping dorsal weapon pods, it had an instrument laden, semi-independent crew blister that linked the Bactrian with the engagement robots - affectionately called EaRLs (Engagement Robot, Legged). EaRLS were unmanned, semi-autonomous killing machines, friendly to human and Newcomer alike, but responded to prawn by opening fire and alerting the military authorities.
"You doin' all right there, Rook?" Doyle's distinctive Manchester accent clipped through the private frequency to Miles.
"Yeah," Miles responded.
The murky underwater environ had nothing interesting, so he opted to put his escortee's real-time portrait in a pop-up window on his blister's display. The dirty haired blonde had a flat face, wide lips, and a cowling stare - all completely at odds with her cheerful and gregarious demeanor which Miles found attractive.
"You were a tad slow boarding," Doyle glanced down and fiddled with something - probably her own codpiece, "You're not upset with the duty change are you?"
"No," Miles replied. "It just caught me a little off guard."
"Well don't you worry your pretty little head," she managed a garishly toothy smile. "All you do is stay near me an' Ginny."
"Hello Miles," Webster chimed in. Miles moved her pop-up on his blister's screen underneath Doyle and felt the landing craft detach itself from the submarine carrier.
"Don't forget the Bactrian can't move worth a darn when it comes to movin' as fast as the Sarge wants," Doyle said. "Not moving quick and not havin' nothing 'cept a modified PIG and a laser glitterstick - well, if we get in trouble, we'd be in serious shit, even with Mary's metal pets."
"Not like we'll have any, slokaa," the Newcomer chimed in. "All of them will be out. None will be home."
Hence the me and my Gibbon, Miles thought to himself. The bots will be out busy hunting. Good for them but bad for us if we get caught by a large force.
The throb of the landing craft increased as Miles felt his ears ache slightly. Even with a sealed environment, there was no getting away with mild pressure differences coming from such a depth.
"Focus people," rasped Sergeant Cheng. "We hit the dance floor in thirty. Arsenyev, you and your team take the left -" Miles heard quick acknowledgment "- the scouts, Talua, and I will take the right. Faraz, do the usual. Straight down the middle. Kill 'em all."
Miles heard the last team leader exclaim gleefully in Arabic. He was a former Iraqui Army, or something. It didn't really matter now that the area around the Dead Sea was a nuclear wasteland for a hundred miles in all directions. Those damned prawn enjoyed the salt water so much they were willing to retake the area repeatedly. So, someone high on up decided to lure in a large number of enemy forces and glass the location with several mega-tonners.
The irony was the wholesale destruction of the Dead Sea brought about a faster truce between Jew and Arab than any number of peace summits or talks generations before - not that either side had much military might left to do much except to fight the alien menace and survive.
All other things considered, it was a small price to pay for victory. The blast destroyed one prawn ship and crippled a second one. The second ship eventually succumbed to an extended bombardment and crashed. There were no survivors, or at least none that the Search and Destroy teams reported when they went through the wreckage.
"Ready. Wait," the sergeant's voice was steady. "Ten seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven ..."