Steel Uprising (Paladin 05 Book 2) by Rodney Hartman

Author:Rodney Hartman [Hartman, Rodney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-08-01T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16 – Frackas

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Jake closed his eyes to try and clear his head. Even that simple act felt strange. He opened his eyes again. The liquid controlling-gel that filled the inside of the Warcat was perfectly clear, so it didn’t affect what he could see through the cat’s visor all that much, but the pressure of the gel on his eyes took some getting used to.

Calm down. I’ve done this a dozen times before. Even the Warcat simulator required us to immerse in the gel so we’d get used to it. The control system for the cat depends on the gel to detect my movements so it knows what parts of the cat to move. The gel’s filled with oxygen, and it’s thin enough to breathe. Between the gel and the connector band around my forehead linking my neurons to the Warcat’s tactical computer, I can move, shoot, and stay alive.

Although most of his piloting experience was with larger UHAAVs which used a variety of hand and foot controls to move and shoot the cat, there was no room for such controls in the three-meter-tall Warcat. It didn’t matter. The hardest part about piloting a Warcat after he entered it was forcing himself to take the first breath of gel. Once he did that, operating the scout cat was no problem.

Heck, Jake thought. Piloting a Warcat’s like wearing a second set of skin. It’s the easiest of all the UHAAVs to drive. He blinked his eyes in a vain attempt to clear them of the somewhat annoying gel. It just takes some getting used to.

He twisted his head to the left. The Warcat’s head turned left at the same speed. He spotted the second Warcat only a couple of meters away. Like him, Tim was secured horizontally underneath the body of the fighter-shuttle. A slight orange aura from the shuttle’s tractor beam enveloped the scout UHAAV, locking the cat in place. Although he couldn’t see it, Jake knew the same orange glow was around his cat, holding him in place. He returned his gaze forward and stared at the emptiness of space around him. The vast, dark vacuum made him feel insignificant and extremely vulnerable.

Damn, Liz. Why I let her talk me into staying inside the Warcat during the flight to Frackas is beyond me.

He knew that wasn’t the truth. Her plan had made perfect sense. It still did. Originally, he’d planned on having the Trecorian fighter pilot land on the small moon before any of them entered their cats. That plan changed when the Tomcat was scratched from the roster after Jennifer discovered it was infected with the rogue ghost virus. When it became obvious one of them would have to remain with the shuttle anyway, Liz had suggested that Tim and he enter the Warcats before taking off from Geris. She’d argued that there would be less chance of discovery if they made a high-speed drop on the back side of the moon instead of landing and risking detection.

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