John Ringo - East of the Sun, West of the Moon

“Welcome to Icarus Base and all that,” the captain said, looking at the assembled group of Blood Lords. Fifteen of them, mostly from his own company, had been designated as members of the five “first in” teams; those that had techs associated with them and were guaranteed to fly. In addition, a sixth “Blood Lord pure” team had been assembled under Sergeant Graff. The fifth “first in” team leader was Lieutenant Mike Massa, his Third Platoon leader.

Massa was medium height with brown hair and eyes and the burly look commonplace among the Blood Lords. The lieutenant was newly promoted and about to be rotated out of the platoon leader slot. An experienced fighter, he had been among the group of Blood Lords that had assaulted the enemy camp during New Destiny’s abortive invasion of Norau. A sergeant at the time, his actions in first taking and then closing the north gate had led to a field promotion and a tour through Officer’s Basic then to Van Buskirk’s company.

There were another sixty volunteers from Raven’s Mill who had responded to the “mission involving a high level of risk” call. It was unlikely that there would be sufficient suits made for all of them by the time the fuel shuttles started landing, but they would form the reinforcement corps for the mission.

“You all know the nature of the mission and you’ve previously been briefed on the plan,” the captain said, looking around at the short company of elite infantry. “This is about how we’re going to do it.”

He picked up the pick mace off the table and swung it around in a figure eight.

“Listen to me very carefully,” Van Buskirk said, continuing to swing the mace. “Space is an unforgiving, unremorseful, coldhearted, murdering bitch. Remember that. If you keep that thought in the front of your brains from the time the shuttles take off until you’re back on the ground, we might not be sponging you out of your armor!” He ended the opening with a snarl and then swung the mace, hard, into the armor. The spike punched into the shoulder.

“That soldier is now dead ,” Bus said, wrenching the mace out of the armor and tossing it on the table. “You’re used to having to hit a vital point and of only protecting vital points. To fight until you die or drop, no matter how many minor wounds you take. Look at Herzer; he’s covered in scars from ‘near misses.’ ”

“And some pretty solid hits,” someone said in the back of the group.

“Sure,” Bus admitted. “But if you get so much as a finger cut off in space, you are dead . The same, however, goes for the enemy. So you have to get a brand new idea through your heads. The object is not to strike for vitals, but to breach your enemy’s armor. If you’re in vacuum, that is all it will take.”

Bus picked the mace back up and swung it at the elbow joint of the armor, breaking the arm backwards and popping the joint.

“That is a kill,” he said, continuing with the momentum and hitting at the thigh, driving the spike in deeply. “Kill.”

“Should be easy,” Sergeant Graff commented.

“Easy to get dead ,” the captain snapped. “That is a kill on you, Graff! Most of your body is going to be covered by not much more than a couple of layers of silk . Keep that in mind, too! If they get a cut on that suit when you are in vacuum, you’re going to get bled out in a few seconds, even if it’s just a slice.”

“Got it,” Graff said, nodding seriously.

“This is going to be our primary weapon,” Van Buskirk said, holding the mace aloft. “You’re used to using your gladii, but this is much better for what we’re going to be doing. The pick is for hitting solid parts of the armor.” He spun in place and slammed the pick, full force, into the chest of the armor, puncturing it with a “ping” sound. “The flat head is for helmets,” he continued, yanking the mace out and slamming it into the helmet, knocking the latter askew, “or anywhere you think you can pop a seal. Anyone got any thoughts on what is wrong with my demonstration?”

“If you’re in vacuum, you’re going to be in microgravity,” Lieutenant Massa said, soberly. “And if you strike like that you’ll go flying away.”

“Agreed,” Bus said, flipping the mace through a series of figure eights. “I don’t think we’re going to be doing any full microgravity fighting. The interiors are all under gravity and on the surface you’re going to be using mag-boots. So you set up the figure eight and let the mass of the mace do the work.” He ended by slamming the mace into the undamaged arm, clearly popping the elbow joint.

“If you are in microgravity,” he continued, “the techniques get a little complex. There’s little or no way to get any sort of formation. What we will be doing is training in teams, with the idea that two of you will gang up on one of them, if possible, and do unto them before they do unto you.”

He picked up one of the metal plates and walked over to the suit, tossing it in the direction of the chest. The plate, which was clearly a magnet, stuck to the front of the suit. He then picked up the small buckler and showed that it was magnetic as well.

“The ship uses a fair amount of stuff the magnets will stick to on the interior and exterior,” Bus said, walking up to the suit and popping the magnet off. “The basic technique will be for one or more of you to target one of them. You then launch very carefully from your position and slap one of these magnets, or the buckler, onto the target. Then you hit them, once, and let the momentum push you away in the most controlled manner you can. If you don’t get a kill, don’t stick around. Grappling is a losing proposition. Keep moving. There’s no up or down in microgravity; use that to your advantage. Remember, if one of these guys is drifting by you can grab a boot or whatever, slam your pick into their ankle joint, and that’s an effective kill. You can use the mace to move around, as well, by hooking into anything that’s sticking out.

“When we get to the water portion, as soon as they’re done with our suits, we’ll start practicing on that. For now, you’ll start working out with the mace and getting used to its uses and limitations. There are two other weapons I’ve suggested to our friends the dwarves.” That brought a laugh. The dwarves were notably gruff with everyone. He held up a large cylinder.

“This is a magnetic punch,” Bus said, sticking the device onto the front of the suit and firing it. There was a clanging sound and the device flew backwards with a large spike sticking out of the front. There was, however, a hole in the suit. Before it had hit the ground the spike had retracted.

“The magnet holds it in place just long enough, in most cases, for the punch to penetrate. It only pops the armor, but remember that in vacuum that’s a kill. Then it goes flying off and the spike automatically retracts. If you’re in good position, you can remain attached to the lanyard. Otherwise, just let it go and recover it later. It’s got five shots using air pressure for the attack and retracting. There will be pressurized bottles to recharge it.”

He tossed the punch on the table and picked up a much more complicated device with a backpack and a nozzle. It looked something like a flamethrower with a magazine sticking out the bottom.

“I’m not sure we’ll have many of these,” he said, pointing it at the back wall. He pulled the trigger and a line of small spikes flew out to stick in the wall. “You’ll have to have a good solid position, it’s got a bit of a kick so I wouldn’t just trust your boots for example, and it’s only good against soft targets. But I think they’ll probably come in handy at one point or another.”