Had they overheard Lt. Brooks’s candid assessment of their mental health, Kurt and Joe might have agreed with him. Considering the odds alone, they were at least “half crazy.”
Fortunately, the military had brought along a few items that would even the odds a bit.
Kurt and Joe were changing into combat gear that was far more exotic than anything Kurt had ever heard of. The clothing looked more like a two-piece wet suit than standard fatigues. It fit snugly and had some compression to it, bulging only where armored Kevlar pads covered the chest, thighs, and forearms.
“Feel like I’m suiting up for some futuristic sport,” Joe said as he pulled the garment tight.
Kurt laughed as he pulled his own suit on and ran his hands over the outer layer. “Odd texture,” he said. “It feels like sandpaper.”
An Air Force staff sergeant named Connors explained the clothing. “These are what we call infiltration suits,” he said. “The guys call them Chameleon Camo, because of the way they work. There are twenty-nine thousand microsensors sewn into the exterior. They detect ambient light in all directions and change the color of the suit to match what is behind and around you. Try them out.”
Kurt found a small switch and clicked it to the on position. Then went over and stood by the wall of the aircraft. The suit changed almost instantly from a dark navy blue to battleship gray. Where his right leg crossed in front of a black seat, the suit turned black. And where a yellow cable crossed behind him, a matching yellow strip crossed from his shoulder.
He wasn’t exactly invisible, but it looked like he’d been painted over to match the wall. Only his face and hands were obvious and they would be covered by gloves and a hood once he was on-site.
“That’s incredible,” Joe muttered.
“If you think they work well inside a brightly lit aircraft,” the sergeant said, “wait till you get on the ground. If you two aren’t careful, you’ll lose track of each other from ten feet away.”
“What about infrared?” Kurt said.
“The suit has a cooling unit,” Connors said. “It will counteract your body heat for about thirty minutes once you switch it on. After that, the e
xterior of the suit will start to warm up and you’ll lose both your thermal protection and your chameleonlike powers. From that point on you’re just wearing expensive body armor. And I mean real expensive. Each of these suits costs more than you guys make in a year.”
Kurt switched his suit off and watched it return to a dark blue color in the time it takes a lightbulb to dim. From there the sergeant led them over to an equipment table that had been folded down from the wall of the cavernous aircraft.
“You’ll breathe through these,” he said, picking up two devices that looked much like divers’ regulators.
“What’s wrong with the air on the ground?” Joe asked.
“We can’t have your breath giving you away.”
Kurt chuckled. “I told you go easy on the onions.”
“What can I say?” Joe replied. “I like a little flavor.”
“It’s not the odor,” Connors explained, “it’s the heat. Breathing out vents a lot of hot air into the world, easy to spot on a thermal scope. No sense covering the rest of you in a cool suit if you’re going to walk around with a plume of ninety-eightpoint-six-degree vapor coming from your nose or mouth.”
He pointed to a lever on the front of the regulators. “Twist this when you’re ready to go dark. From then on the regulator will mix cold air with every outgoing breath, effectively cooling it to the ambient air temperature and neutralizing the danger.”
“How long will it last?”
“As long as your compressed air holds out. Depends on your level of exertion. The tank is small so you’re looking at fifteen, maybe twenty minutes tops. Make sure you’re through the outer layer of security by then.”
Both Kurt and Joe nodded.
Next came the weapons and guidance equipment. First off, the sergeant strapped a gauntlet to Kurt’s arm. It had a curved, low-light screen on it. “Standard GPS, moving map display,” he said. “It will illuminate with less than one candlepower. You’ll be able to read it with your night vision goggles on, but no one else will. Remember, this is military GPS, so it’s good to within three feet.”
From there they moved to a rifle rack.
Connors handed them matching weapons. Once again they were like nothing Kurt had ever fired. Considering how much he knew about guns, that was surprising.
“Are these phasers?” Joe asked. “I’ve always wanted one.”
Connors chuckled. “Electromagnetic railguns,” he said. “Completely silent. Accurate up to a thousand yards. They fire ferrous projectiles—in other words, the bullets are made of iron, not lead, so they’re more lethal in terms of penetrating anything they encounter. Also, since they don’t require gunpowder, your standard-sized magazine carries fifty projectiles. You have a second magazine in your packs.”
Kurt held the weapon up, testing the weight and feel. It had a long barrel and was definitely nose-heavy.