Kali's Fire

by Craig Allen

  Cody wondered if she’d just made an insult, but if so, the commander didn’t notice.

  “Not here,” the man said.

  The two officers at his side snickered. Cody liked them all immediately.

  “I’m Commander Gaston.” He held out his hand to Cody. “You must be Dr. Brenner, and this must be your crazy goddamn plan.”

  “Yes on the first, sir.” Cody shook Gaston’s hand. “I only helped on the second. And it’s Cody, Commander.”

  “Ah, Cody.” Gaston patted Sonja on the shoulder roughly. “Christ, what short straw did you draw to get this posting?”

  Sonja started to say something then stopped. That sent Gaston into a laughing fit, along with the other two officers.

  Gaston calmed down. “Well, let’s get this show on the road.” He addressed the officer to his left. “Johnson, how long to the first waypoint?”

  “We got a shitload of ex-mat from the Tokugawa earlier, and we’re setting up our Daedalus drive according to the specs the Tokugawa’s engineer sent, sir,” Johnson said. “That’ll take…”

  Johnson looked behind himself through an open hatch, through which Cody could see the engine room. Three techs leaned over an ex-mat conduit, behind which was the large ex-mat chamber itself. One straightened and held up six fingers.

  “Six hours,” Johnson said. “It’s a twelve-hour ride to the first waypoint from there and another four to the second. From there, we’ll be over the ocean.” He shrugged. “Or in it.”

  “And then we’ll look for…” Gaston held out his hand, into which Johnson placed a viewer, which Gaston proceeded to examine. “Look for a communication hub that we don’t know is there, hoping that will force those monsters we’re fighting to shut down their cloaks.” He handed the viewer back to Johnson. “What makes you think there’s only one?”

  “That’s Admiral Jericho’s assumption,” Cody said. “That’s why I’m here. The fliers would likely be aware of any new facilities on the planet. They can help us pinpoint an exact location.”

  “Wonderful. A suicide mission.” Gaston tucked the viewer under his arm. “At least we have plenty of time for a wake.”

  Cody blinked. “A wake?”

  “Sure.” Gaston grasped Cody by the shoulders. “You don’t think we’re going to get out of this alive?”

  Everyone in the tiny docking bay roared with laughter, except for Cody and Sonja. Cody didn’t see how assuming they would die could be fun by any measure.

  Gaston strode toward the only other hatch in the bay. “Hope you like bad tequila. It’s all we got.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Cody sat quietly at the back of the bridge, at a console smaller than what was on a hopper. At least Cody could monitor progress. The whole bridge was tiny, even smaller than the one on the Spinoza. He had known destroyers were small vessels, but actually experiencing the cramped conditions of one was a different matter. Only five other people were there, not including Sonja and Cody.

  Sonja shifted in her seat, bumping Cody for the tenth time. “Well, here’s the good news. Docking bay is close by. If we need a fast getaway, no problem.”

  Cody blinked. She hadn’t said a word to him since they’d boarded. During the wake, she had mingled some but kept away from him. She hadn’t even batted an eye as he, repeatedly, brushed off a petty officer who was hitting on him. Then, out of the blue, she started talking to him again for some reason.

  Cody went with it. “Everything’s close by on this ship.”

  “We got spoiled by all the space on the Washington.” Her chin quivered. “I miss them.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Cody said. “There’s no one to call me Egg anymore.”

  “I could call you that, but it wouldn’t be the same.”

  “I appreciate the offer.” Cody eyed her for a moment. Maybe she changed her mind.

  Sonja smiled, but she couldn’t hide her feelings from Cody. The edge of her mouth twitched and one hand gripped her pants. She was scared, and when a gunnery sergeant got scared, it meant things were really bad.

  “Time to our final waypoint?” Commander Gaston sprawled his legs outward.

  Commanders liked to act relaxed during difficult missions, but Cody wondered if Commander Gaston was taking it too far.

  “In two minutes, we’ll be over the water, sir,” an ensign said. His voice cracked as he gazed into the viewing globe, which showed mostly black with patterns of light, none of which had to do with anything outside.

  “That puts us well within the middle of their fleet,” the commander said. “I guess we’ll find out before long if this works.”

  Cody nudged toward Sonja. “Hope we don’t run into anything.”

  “No chance of that, Dr. Brenner.” Despite how much tequila Commander Gaston had had, he didn’t seem to have a trace of hangover. “Space is too vast. The odds of a collision are remote.”

  The odds are remote but not impossible. Though the Alcubierre field dislodged them from space-time, it didn’t mean hitting something wouldn’t have a cost.

  After a moment, the ensign spoke. “Thirty seconds.”

  “Very good, Mr. Johnson.” The commander sat up straight. “Well, I guess we’ll know if the math is correct.”

  “If it isn’t, sir?” the ensign asked.

  “Then we’ll be crushed by the depths of the ocean,” Gaston said. “Or by the ground. Either way, it’ll be so quick we won’t know it. So we have that going for us.”

  The rest of the crew snickered, even Ensign Johnson. Cody didn’t feel like laughing, and Sonja simply gripped the edge of her pants more tightly. He grasped her hand and gave it a squeeze. That made her relax a little, at least.

  “Here we go, sir,” a lieutenant said. “Three, two, one.”

  “Disengage Daedalus drive and activate anterior thrusters,” Gaston said. “Bring lidar cloaking online.”

  “Aye, sir,” a number of voices echoed.

  The viewing globe, which had been showing lights streaking across a background up until that point, had changed into an image of the dark blue ocean, so either it was very close, or they had the viewing globe zoomed in very far.

  “Altitude?” Gaston asked.

  Ensign Johnson stared at his console for two full seconds. “Uh, five meters, sir.”

  Cody’s eyes went wide. He pulled up the calculations. Someone must’ve misplaced a zero, or they’d planned on it being that close and hadn’t said anything.

  “Five meters?” Gaston chuckled. “Well, if those calculations were a razor blade, I’d have a shorn scrotum right now. Doc, make us proud.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Actually, Cody had been working on the new transponder code the moment the Alcubierre field dropped. He had already copied the code being transmitted between Kali ships. The code was a little different but not nearly enough to stop him. He altered it and reprogrammed the Olympus Mons’s transponder.

  “We’re ready, Commander,” Cody said. “Transponder has been updated and is ready to broadcast.”

  “Very good.” Gaston sat and crossed his legs, as if they were going for a Sunday drive. “Well, let’s do this, shall we?”

  The entire ship rocked back and forth. A crewman at another console was thrown into the air and landed hard on the deck. Cody barely managed to stay in his chair.

  Gaston ran to the crewman. “Damage report!”

  “Impact aft,” the ensign said. “Looks like a graser hit. We lost thrusters there. Trying to compensate with other—”

  The ship rocked again. A schematic of the ship appeared on the viewing globe. The ship had a lot of red sections in engineering.

  “Point defense down,” the ensign said. “Grasers online.”

  Cody tried to pull up the transponder. He must’ve done something wrong, and they got spotted. He couldn’t figure it out, though, with the ship shuddering under fire. Oh, Christ. What have I done?

  “Get a goddamn solution, and fire.” Gaston then pointed at Cody. �
��You and your girl get the hell out of here.” He shifted his finger to Sonja. “That’s an order, Gunny. Move!”

  Gaston continued to bark orders, but Cody couldn’t make out what he said. He and Sonja ran down the narrow passageway to the docking bay. In half a minute, they were there, running toward a hopper that was halfway inserted into the launch tube already. The escape pods might’ve been closer, but he’d rather be in a hopper than an escape pod when stranded on Kali.

  “With point defense down, we’re toast if they use tacs,” she said.

  Cody barely kept his balance as the ship jolted. “Oh, God. What if I did something wrong with the transponder?”

  “You didn’t. Something else happened. I just don’t know what.” As the ship rocked, Sonja activated the internal gravity of the hopper from a console just inside. “That last one wasn’t from weapons fire. It was too widespread.”

  “Did we splash down into the water?” Cody glanced back into the hangar bay. “I don’t see anyone else. Should we wait?”

  “They’d be here by now. The ship’s not that big.” She closed the rear hatch to the hopper. “Shit. I hope they can get to ejection pods, at least.”

  Sonja dove into the hopper cockpit and brought the engines online. In seconds, the hopper was active. The launch tunnel enveloped them and pulled them out of the main launch bay. Cody climbed into the copilot’s seat and brought up sensor systems just as the launch tunnel opened. They were just a few meters below the surface.

  Cody copied the codes from the Olympus Mons systems just before they went offline. “Loading codes into the transponder. Hope they work.”

  The hopper ejected into the water. Bubbles surrounded them as the craft started to sink. They had already sunk to ten meters below the surface.

  “Sonja?” Cody watched the surface grow more distant, and below them was only darkness. “What’s the maximum depth this thing can survive, you think?”

  “Fifty meters. I bet she’ll go deeper, though.” Sonja reached for the stick but backed off. “If I try to keep us from sinking, they’ll pick us up on gravimetrics.”

  “Do you think there were other survivors?”

  The hopper rotated in the water as it sank. Ahead in the darkness of the ocean was the bulk of the destroyer Olympus Mons. Graser burns lined the outer hull, cutting neatly through the armor in places, but the main body was intact.

  “Hope some of them made it,” Sonja said. “Those guys are too crazy to die.”

  Cody was about to agree when his console lit up. “Contact.” He displayed the passive sensors on the HUD. “Five total.”

  Hovering in the upper atmosphere were five vessels, all with a Kali cross section. They hovered in place with their grav plates glowing on the sensors. Cody picked up pings from them as they actively scanned the area. With luck, they would appear as debris—that or the minerals and microscopic metal fragments common in Kali’s oceans would help hide them. If not, they’d be dead.

  Sonja swallowed as she stared up through the canopy. “According to the Sol Conventions, firing upon escape pods is expressly forbidden.”

  “I don’t think the toads care too much about war crimes.”

  The depth gauge showed they were below forty meters. The hull creaked, and popping noises sounded near the rear hatch. In the heavier gravity, the ocean pressure increased much more quickly than on Earth. Engineers tended to lowball their estimates on a hull’s strength, but Cody couldn’t imagine the hopper surviving past one hundred meters.

  Nothing appeared on gravimetrics but the five Kali vessels, which Cody didn’t believe. More were certainly out there.

  Finally, the five Kali vessels accelerated into the higher atmosphere.

  “They’re veering off, heading back on regular patrols, I assume.” Cody kept his eyes on the sensors. “How’d they spot us, anyway?”

  Sonja grabbed the stick and gave the hopper thrust. “Maybe the calculations were wrong?”

  “Or maybe they’re watching this area specifically, which means there is something here they don’t want us to know about. Or we didn’t get the camo field up in time or they noticed something else. Christ, I wish I knew.”

  “We’ll have to figure it out later.” Sonja brought the hopper closer to the surface. “The question is where to go from here.”

  Cody angled the sensors downward. “I’m going to see if anyone else survived.”

  “Passives only.”

  The ocean floor was a good hundred meters down. All he found on sensors was the Olympus Mons as she sank lower and lower. He detected no escape pods—no life signs, either, but passives wouldn’t necessarily pick those up.

  “The Spinoza survived deeper than that when we crashed two months ago.”

  “We also had to deal with the sea creatures. I hope the crew of the Olympus Mons is spared that.” Cody checked the gravimetrics again. “There are a handful of hoppers around. We can masquerade as one of them.”

  “You want to continue the mission?” she asked.

  “The fleet is attacking no matter what we do,” Cody said. “You heard Admiral Jericho. We can’t risk another war. They’re going to destroy this place, and if the local ships are shielded from gravimetrics, the fleet is going to suffer heavy losses.”

  “Unless we do something.” She slumped in her seat. “Shit. I wish you’d stayed on the Tokugawa.”

  “Well, I’m here now,” he said. “You’re in command. It’s your call.”

  She tapped the controls briefly. “I’m going to change course for Monster Island. We’ll land in the surf and then wade into the main part of the island.”

  “If they see a hopper near the fliers, they’ll probably get suspicious. They would never go there.” Cody rubbed his chin. “I recommend we contact the fliers remotely. We don’t need to meet them in person, necessarily.”

  “Makes sense,” Sonja said. “And I know just the place to land, too.”

  ~~~

  They cruised at two hundred meters over the ground. Hoppers flew past, but none took notice. Cody felt a part of the guilt vanish. He didn’t do anything wrong with the transponder, after all. He just wished he knew how the Olympus Mons had been spotted. So far, they hadn’t seen any other survivors.

  When a gap appeared in the flights around them, Sonja dove into the ocean more quickly than Cody preferred. The water rushed around them, but the gravity inside kept their heads from bouncing off the canopy.

  Soon, the underwater shelf appeared, the same one they had landed on when they were last stranded on Kali. Sonja banked the aft of the hopper toward the rock face and set her down. She flicked the engines off, and the engines died down.

  “Well,” Sonja said. “Here we are.”

  “Damn.” Cody tried not to think of the Olympus Mons and how she’d likely suffered the same fate as the Washington. “If it weren’t for Ann, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  “That’s not true,” Sonja said. “They still would’ve developed their stealth field, and they still would have attacked us.”

  “But at least the Washington would be here.”

  “We couldn’t have known.” Sonja covered her face for a moment. “Shit, we really couldn’t have known, but…”

  “But we could’ve saved the Washington by stranding her there.”

  She smiled weakly. “Glad I wasn’t the only one thinking that.”

  She reached for Cody, but before he could take her hand, she withdrew it. She put the hand to her lips as she looked out the canopy at the surface. “All right. I hope the fliers are still there.”

  Cody activated the comm system. Then he realized the denizens of Kali might have annihilated the fliers altogether. The defense system they had left behind was formidable but hardly perfect. A handful of nukes would take care of the island altogether. If the fliers were lucky, the toads wouldn’t have considered them worth the time. He prayed that was the case, because if it wasn’t, he doubted the toads would hesitate to commit genocide—unless the r
eeds stopped them for some reason. He smiled inwardly. He really had gotten attached to the fliers, like good friends who desperately needed help.

  Cody waited for the communications buoy to hit the surface then sent a signal. “Yeah, I hope they’re okay.”

  No sooner had he said that than Stripe’s face appeared on the comm. The view bounced around until he had a firm hand on its viewer.

  We thought all of you gone when the loud ships appear.

  Cody let his breath out. They’re okay. “Not all of us made it, but I’m glad you are still alive.”

  So much has happened and we hide when enemies of people pass but they not care or notice us we don’t know which but you are here to help.

  “So they’re ignoring you,” Cody said.

  For now because they are watching the machine but soon they come for us.

  “Machine? What machine?” Sonja increased the size of the image. “Where is this machine?”

  Stripe sent an image down the comm channel, which Cody placed next to the image of the flier on the HUD. He tried to enhance the blurred image a little, but that didn’t do much good. Whatever it was, it was big, like a giant dinner plate covering the landscape.

  A second image appeared, showing a line on a map that started at the fliers’ island and stopped inland a short distance.

  “Why didn’t we see that on the probe?” Cody asked.

  “They camouflaged it.” Sonja ran her finger over the blurrier sections on the HUD. “See how it looks like there’s heat waves coming off it? That’s a standard UEAF camo field. It’s pointing directly upward while this image is looking at it from the side. That’s how the fliers were able to see it—and we weren’t—on that probe. I don’t know why we didn’t pick something up on the probe’s gravimetrics.”

  “They were probably cloaking it the same way they cloak their ships. But they’d have to deactivate it from time to time if their primary purpose was to provide the cloaked ships with intel as to their surroundings. They can’t see outside their cloak any more than the other ships.” Cody pulled up the most recent maps of Kali he could find. “Let’s see if I can find it.”