“I think so,” Zuri whispered, and then felt herself being moved into a sitting position, with her head between her knees. The MMU was taken off her back, and the attached code box along with it. There was gee, but not much. Maybe twenty-five percent? Modest thrust. Though where in the universe the ship might be going, Zuri could not guess.
“What ship is this?” Zuri asked, finally lifting her head. She was surrounded by half a dozen Constellar DSOD personnel in zipsuits. A seventh—with medical insignia on his jumpsuit uniform—rushed into the compartment from an adjoining corridor. He was followed by two others, toting small medical chests.
“You’re aboard the Daffodil, Admiral,” the medical officer said, stooping over to have a look at her. “And you’re damned lucky to be alive.”
“What happened to Commodore Urrl? The Hallibrand?”
“Gone, ma’am,” the medical officer said, propping Zuri’s chin on his palm while he peered into both of her eyes with a pen flashlight.
“Gone?” Zuri asked, her senses suddenly coming back to her in a hurry.
“Destroyed,” the medical officer said, snapping his light off. “Or at least that’s all we can tell. We were conducting a search for both Tarinock’s and Catapult’s Keys when we discovered your MMU broadcasting on the encrypted emergency wireless.”
Zuri blinked several times, and looked carefully around her, until she saw the code computer sitting safely in its protective case.
“If that’s been wiped or damaged,” she said, aiming a finger weakly in the code machine’s direction, “none of it matters.”
Zuri closed her eyes, and fought back tears. She and Commodore Urrl had become friends during her time in Oswight system. They’d previously seen different battles, across different parts of the Waywork, but their outlook had been very similar. Of the several executive officers who’d come under Zuri’s command, Urrl had been the best. In her mind, she said a silent I’m sorry to Urrl’s memory, then immediately pushed that memory out of her conscious awareness. The job wasn’t done until Zuri did what she’d initially set out to do.
“Any luck locating those Keys?” she asked.
“Not yet,” the medical officer said.
“Save it for another time, then,” she said. “Daffodil has a new mission.”
Chapter 33
Wyodreth Antagean resisted the urge to vomit. He’d kept his composure all through deceleration and atmospheric entry. But the disappearance of the rest of the drop modules was too much for his nerves to take. It had been bad enough landing with the knowledge that they’d all remain planetside until Admiral Mikton could find a way to get rid of the Nautilan pursuit squadron. But now? There was no way a small platoon’s worth of people could hope to fend off whatever ground force Nautilan deployed upon arrival. Wherever the other drop modules had gone, they’d not landed anywhere near the objective. And without additional personnel, weapons, and equipment, the little group which had landed with Wyo on the beach was in grave danger.
Wyo turned and walked back down to where the rest of his people were clustered around their overturned drop module. All the crates of gear which they’d brought with them from the starliner had been pulled out, and were being carried in two- or four-person teams. Though nobody seemed to know where. There was a mixture of both fear and indecision on every face. Wyo felt it himself: an acutely insecure sensation of literally not knowing what to do next. But he couldn’t show that to his people. Not while there were so few of them left, and they still had so much to do—regardless of how outnumbered they might be.
“Captain Fazal,” Wyo said, resisting the sick feeling in his stomach.
“Yessir?” the TGO officer said.
“Do what you can to try to reach the other drop modules via tactical net. Until we learn otherwise, we have to assume they either went long, or fell short. This means we’ve got people potentially spread out over a wide area. Maybe even in the water? They’ll be looking for us at the same time we’ll be looking for them.”
“Yessir,” Fazal said, and beckoned several TGO troops over to him, while he knelt in the sand and began drawing with his finger.
“Lady Oswight,” Wyo said, turning his attention to the First Family heir, and her majordomo. “I’m afraid we’re more ill prepared than ever before to conduct a proper reconnaissance of Uxmal. It would be best if we postponed your piece of the expedition until we can locate the other drop modules, and formulate a plan to reaggregate Fazal’s TGO troops.”
“Which will require zero input or effort on my part,” Lady Oswight said. “I don’t want to sound callous, Lieutenant Commander, because there may be Constellar soldiers in peril. But why postpone the inevitable? Mister Axabrast and myself are perfectly capable of exploring this area on our own.”
“Without armed escort?” Wyo said. “I would be derelict in my duty to allow it.”
“You’ve not got many options, lad,” Axabrast said. “The Lady’s correct. It might be hours, or days, or never, before we find out what happened to the rest of the TGO battalion which dropped with us. For all we know, somethin’ about this place is disruptin’ our wireless, and they could be on the other side of that wreck. Or beyond the pyramid.”
Axabrast’s arm was extended, pointing to the metallic peak which projected into the sky—even taller than the ribs of the beached ship. The regular, geometric network of lines cut into the pyramid’s surface was even more pronounced when viewed up close. It looked a bit like an old puzzle game Wyo had been familiar with during his boyhood. The objective of the puzzle had been to randomly spin the individually attached pieces of a four-sided tetrahedron, then try to rotate all the pieces back into place, so that one color dominated each side again. Wyo had always struggled with the game. He’d frequently lost patience with it, while his sister had excelled. Something about the puzzle appealed to her personality, which worked similarly well with numbers. But Wyo? He’d never been any good at it.
“You two can’t go wandering around this place without some form of protection—no offense, Mister Axabrast, but you’re just one man.”
“Aye,” Axabrast said to Wyo. “So maybe we take a few of the lads with us?”
Wyo considered, then said, “A moment, please,” and trotted back up to the top of the bluff. Removing a pair of mechanized binoculars from his tactical pack—which attached to the armor on his back—he scanned a slow three-sixty, to be sure his initial survey was not mistaken. When he still didn’t see what he was looking for, he put the binoculars back in their case, then took a knee. All of it had become far too real for his businessman’s sensibilities. In the time he’d been running his father’s company, the only risks he’d had to take were financial in nature. Now? Men and women were dying. Had died. Would continue to die. Was he up for the role assigned to him? Captain Fazal seemed competent enough. As a TGO-trained officer, he had to be. But what good would Wyo be to the group if he turned everything over to the junior officer? He couldn’t handle weapons as well as the TGO troops, and he didn’t have their tactical land-combat training. DSOD skillset—for Reserve officers—focused more on logistics and space-combat operations than on what to do if you found yourself planetside.
Wyo dipped his chin to his chest, and breathed several deep breaths of the amazingly wonderful Uxmal air. He should have been excited. Instead, he merely felt a cold nugget of dread wedged under his sternum. Because he knew there might not be any way to think his way out of or around their predicament. It wasn’t a question of funding, or allocation. It was a question of time, and manpower. Wyo’s group didn’t have enough of either. Even if they located some or all of the other drop modules, Admiral Mikton had to be successful dislodging the Nautilan pursuit force from Uxmal orbit, or Wyo’s dilemma remained the same.
When DSOD personnel had first barged into Wyo’s father’s office, he’d never guessed that it would mean his potential death. Even if DSOD Reserve officer training emphasized the fact that Reserve personnel died in battle right alon
gside the regulars. It just wasn’t a possibility Wyo had ever taken seriously. Until now.
Wyo slowly stood up, went back down to the bottom of the bluff, and asked Captain Fazal if his people were able to get any kind of communication going, even if it wasn’t with the other drop modules.
“There’s still that beacon,” Fazal said, nodding his head in the direction of the beached derelict.
“Nothing’s changed about the repeating message?” Wyo asked.
“Nossir,” Fazal replied. “It’s the same as it’s been since we entered the system, though obviously a lot clearer and stronger—now that we’re so close.”
“That would be the obvious place to start,” Lady Oswight said. “If we all stick together, the march to the source shouldn’t take more than an hour or two.”
“Provided we even know what to look for when we get there,” Wyo said, eyeing the wreck over his shoulder. “We’re not entirely certain what we’re getting into.”
“It would make a far better place to stage a defense,” Elvin Axabrast said.
“He’s right,” Captain Fazal agreed. “Out here, we don’t have any cover. But there? We might be able to set up a hasty fire chart with overlapping wedges. If Nautilan comes, we can at least make ourselves painful for them.”
Wyo inwardly boggled at the matter-of-fact way Fazal made such a statement. As if dying in a losing fight still had some kind of moral merit? When negotiating shipping deals, Wyo had never felt any sense of victory emerging from the clinchers having lost more than he’d gained. And he didn’t relish the idea of a foot soldier’s martyrdom. Especially if Nautilan was going to own Uxmal—and the whole system—eventually. Nobody would be around to carry news of Wyo’s passing back to Starstate Constellar. Not even Kalbi the infotainer, who seemed to reflect Wyo’s uneasiness.
“Very well,” Wyo said. “We’ll proceed to the wreck, and hope something good comes from it. Captain Fazal? This is your specialty. You tell us where you want us.”
“Modified tactical column,” Fazal said, and quickly sketched his concept into the wet sand. “Two rows of people on either side of each other, and spaced at intervals so that nobody is too close to anybody else. We carry our chests and trunks of gear between the two rows. When one set of arms and hands gets tired, they swap out with another set. Lieutenant Commander, Lady Oswight, it would help a lot if you two assisted in this way.”
“Of course,” Wyo and Lady Oswight both said in unison.
Axabrast had already lined himself up on one side of a chest, his free hand reaching down to grab the handle. He stared at Kalbi long enough for the infotainer to get the hint, then Kalbi reluctantly got on the opposite side, and mimicked Axabrast’s movement. When Axabrast said, “Up,” he pulled the chest’s handle, and Kalbi did the same—except Kalbi struggled mightily to bring the chest to thigh level. And promptly dropped his end back to the ground.
“It’s too heavy,” he said indignantly.
“Nobody else to do it, Mister Kalbi,” Captain Fazal said.
Wyo—sensing the opportunity—got on the other side of the chest, and lifted it to match Axabrast. It was a supremely heavy box in Uxmal’s gravity, which felt like it was a small percentage stronger than Planet Oswight’s had been. But as hesitant as Wyo was to lead the group, he was man enough to recognize that sometimes you just had to do what needed to be done, and doing something would be much better than doing nothing.
Kalbi eventually teamed with one of the smaller female TGO troops on a much lighter crate, and soon Fazal’s modified tactical column was making its way slowly toward the beached wreck. The sand proved to be particularly difficult to walk on, and before long Wyo was panting and sweating profusely under his zipsuit—which could breathe in an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, but didn’t seem to be helping much.
Eventually, the column found a low part of the bluff, up which the group could successfully switchback, then they were striding across firmer, dryer ground. The land beyond the beach was fairly flat, but occasionally jumbled with boulders. In the very far distance, the crumpled spine of what appeared to be a mountain range disappeared into the horizon. Those mountains had been worn down by time. There didn’t appear to be any recent volcanic activity. Nor any tectonic upheaval to thrust fresh pieces of the planet’s crust high into the sky.
Which perhaps accounted for why the pyramid had been built in this specific spot to begin with? Geologic stability.
All of the structures between the wreck and the pyramid appeared to have been built from sun-dried brick. Two, and sometimes three, stories tall, the majority of them had crumbled in on themselves. Roads and streets still ran throughout, though they appeared to have been long abandoned. Wyo could not bring himself to think of it as a city. There wasn’t a living soul in sight.
“Up here!” Captain Fazal shouted from the head of the column. Wyo—his arms, shoulders, and legs all feeling like they were on fire—gratefully set his end of the chest down. Looking at his elderly counterpart, Wyo was momentarily satisfied to see that Axabrast was also pink faced and puffing, then Wyo jogged as best as he was able to where Captain Fazal was standing at the base of one of the huge ribs which projected high over their heads.
“There are steps up this way,” the TGO officer said. He pointed, and Wyo noticed immediately that the steps had been cut into the metal of the rib itself. They ascended steeply for several stories, then curled up and over to a place which could not be seen from the bluff. Wyo tried his luck at the first few steps, then jumped down and said, “We’re going to have to be very, very careful, or the people carrying things are liable to get hurt.”
“Agreed, sir,” Captain Fazal said. “But the signal—from deeper in the wreck—is stronger than ever. And this is the only way I’ve found up. Unless we want to go farther inland, and try to approach the wreck from a different direction?”
“No,” Wyo said, still catching his breath. “This way is as good as any. Though I think it would be smart for us to get up to the top of these stairs and have a look—before we send anyone else up.”
Fazal nodded agreement, and began to pick his way up, with Wyo close behind, and Lady Oswight behind him. Wyo had the notion to order her back down, then realized he didn’t have the energy to fight with her. Axabrast protectively followed his charge, with Zoam Kalbi following Axabrast. Eventually all of them reached the top of the stairs, and had a proper view into the wreck itself.
The scale was immense. Crumbling sunbaked brick buildings came directly up to the wreck, and mingled between the ribs, so that it was difficult to tell where the ship’s internal compartments ended and the newer dwellings began. Everything was clearly sized for human accommodation. Though there was no sign whatsoever that any person had lived there—in the town, or the wreck—for a long time. No skeletons. Nor even loose items, such as abandoned tools. The inhabitants of the place had made a tidy retreat. To where, or for what reason, nobody could tell.
“Lady,” Captain Fazal said, “I estimate at least another kilometer of walking, though we’re going to have to be more careful than when we left the beach. We don’t know the structural integrity retained within. And I wouldn’t trust any of the brick dwellings, just because of how obviously vulnerable they’ve been to the weather.”
Lady Oswight gazed out over the wreck, her eyes soaking up the spectacle of her surroundings. Kalbi too, with his infotainer glasses getting still shots and moving imagery. Wyo went after, watching his step, and brought them up short.
“Wait for Fazal to get all of his TGO troops up here,” he insisted.
Lady Oswight reluctantly agreed—her eyes continually straying to the arching ribs of the mighty ship, each of which cast a tremendous shadow. Uxmal’s rotation lent itself to a natural day and night cycle. Which would or would not be close to the cycles Wyo was used to. Many of the inhabited terrestrials across the Waywork were tidally locked. No day and night cycles at all. Or if there was a day and night cycle, it didn’t much matter because l
iving was done in domes, or beneath the surface. Where the rising and setting of the sun didn’t matter to those who couldn’t live out in the open.
Wyo checked the chronometer on his wrist, and decided that—come dusk—he’d start a timer. Just to see how many hours, minutes, and seconds a local Uxmal rotation might take at this time of the year.
This time of the year, Wyo thought, and allowed himself a small smile. Despite his trepidation, he thought it novel that they were on a planet which might actually have seasons. The Constellar capital did, though not as exaggerated as Earth legend. In fact, none of the clement terrestrials in the Waywork had seasonal transitions to match the stories which had passed to them from the Exodus. Earth—the stories said—was a planet of stark contrasts. It was cold and icy in one hemisphere for part of the planet’s orbit, then as the axis of the world changed in relation to the sun’s rays, the formerly cold hemisphere grew hot, while the formerly hot hemisphere grew cold. And people had lived with it. Long before modern fusion power was invented. Humans had been forced to heat themselves with natural fuels, or simply get used to levels of cold, heat, and humidity which most Waywork humans would have considered intolerable.
This particular latitude on Uxmal’s surface seemed to be in a mild phase. The overall temperature had been a bit warm, considering the exertion done since leaving the drop module. But not scalding hot, either. Was that the doing of the plants? Wyo had seen moss near the beach, and there was obviously a lot of phytoplankton in the sea. It was theorized—based on what Waywork humans knew of clement terrestrials—that life actually contributed greatly to stabilizing the temperature and precipitation variance of any specific world. Adding complex Earth-based life to the mix stabilized things even more. So that by the current age, all five capitals in the Waywork enjoyed self-sustaining ecologies with comfortable environments. Maybe a little tweaking was occasionally required. But the terraforming projects themselves had each been declared a success long before Wyo was born.
A Star Wheeled Sky Page 26