Free Hunter Legacy 9: Hero at the Gates by Timothy Ellis Page B

It's
really stupid when you think about it. What can two suits do in hand to hand combat,
but batter on each other until one suit fails? I guess that happened a bit, but
the real combat is dueling at a distance using heavy weapons. So what happened
here? We ended up dueling with heavy weapons at point blank range. How did that
work out for all of you?"
    "Badly," admitted Jack. "We
won because of three main things. One, better suits, and the added protection
of extra belt suits. Two, better weapons, and discipline firing them. And
three, one of us had an invincible sword."
    "I wish we'd all had them boss,"
said BA. "Given your success with it, we need to come up with something
along those lines for this sort of melee. Jane, we need to go back to the
drawing board for hand combat in suits. We need something which will cut
through a combat suit, as if it wasn’t there."
    "Confirmed."
    Water was passed around, and we all drank
deeply. The butlers had finger food as well, and we nibbled for a while, each
lost in our own thoughts.
    "But that defeats the purpose of the
exercise," I said at last. "I've never seen the point of wearing
armour which conventional weapons punch through easily. Granted, we were
breaking all the rules here today, but such rules are meant to be broken. But
if you make suits pointless, you need to improve the suit again so it isn’t
pointless. And the one thing which always happens when we make a breakthrough,
is someone steals it, and uses it against us. It's only a matter of time before
anything you develop now, will become general use, and we're back to today,
only worse."
    "Still worth doing," said Alana
quietly from the back.
    "True," I admitted. "I also
like the fortification idea."
    "And we can think about better tactics
on the ground too," said Jack. "Trenches was such an obvious move,
and none of us thought of it. We could have had bulldozers make a trench and
berm arrangement in the dark zone, while the talking was going on."
    "It didn't occur to me either."
    "You were rather busy," said
Aleesha, with a grin.
    I flopped back on the grass, and lay there,
letting the rain hit me in the face. I really needed some sleep.
    "In hindsight, maybe it would have
been better had I not destroyed the wall, and forced them to charge."
    "It was the right call," said
Jack. "Without their Mesons, we weren't quite so disadvantaged by numbers.
Code red was also the right call. The extra suit protection was the difference
here. As was the command to pool fire, and concentrate on outright kills for
each firing. They were less prepared for this than we were, as they expected to
be picking us off from their fortification. Depriving them of it, made a huge
difference to the outcome. It levelled the playing field, since neither side
had a plan."
    I lay there, fighting fatigue.
    "Found the entrance," said Jane.
    "We got this boss," said BA.
"You rest. We'll take a look downstairs."
    "Fine, but be careful."
    "You know me boss. Careful is my
middle name. Not."
    She grinned at me, and I couldn’t help
smiling back at her.
    "Saddle up," said Jack, taking
charge.
    Those with still functional combat suits,
stepped back into them, and followed Jack towards where Jane's suits were
grouped. It was mid-way along the now destroyed wall. Jane's avatar stayed with
me.
    Jeeves was back a short time later, and
gave me a stimulant. My mind cleared, but my body still felt like it was weighted
down with lead. I stayed where I was, lying on the grass, listening to team
coms, as Jane's suits led them down, and into a warren of corridors and rooms.
Reluctantly, I pulled my attention away from their search, and began doing
karmic releases. Surprisingly, they didn’t generate much in the way of physical
reactions.
    Above ground, cargo droids were collecting
suits. In each case, they took a genetic sample, to aid identification of the
body, and in case any bounty was claimable. The bodies which could be removed
from the suits were taken beyond