The white—snow? Ice? Hail?—was thicker than he expected, but down the middle of it, he saw boot impressions and then some skid marks and long holes that might have been made by a body, probably Bridge’s. The man had fallen more than once trying to get here.
Coop’s sense of urgency grew as he saw that. Bridge might have been on his way even before Coop and Yash went into the sector base.
Coop glanced over his shoulder. The four were following him, single-file. They weren’t sliding either.
He now wished he was wearing regulation boots. They would tell him what the temperature of the brown stuff was, how it was defeating this white layer that was covering everything.
The farther he got away from the overhang, the stronger the wind became. One gust nearly blew him into the nanobit wall. He put out a hand to prevent himself from hitting that wall, and the hand slipped.
His suit sent a warning along the hood. This suit is not made to handle severe ice storm conditions. Seek shelter immediately.
Well, that answered his question. The storm had evolved into an ice storm, and the pellets were ice. He had no idea if there had been a bit of snow earlier or if the pellets were now coating the hail, making it a lower level of ice.
But that explained why Bridge had trouble getting here.
Coop could only hope whoever was coming to defend Sector Base E-2 would have trouble getting here as well.
The wall curved back toward the road, away from the skip. Coop was going to have to step off the brown stuff, onto the ice. He wished his boots had spikes or something other than the minimal features built into the average Fleet boots.
He hadn’t expected to need other features since he was going to be planetside. The boots had helped him earlier, but they hurt him now.
He glanced back at the four. Bridge actually pointed in the direction of the skip as if Coop didn’t know where he was going.
It didn’t irritate him, though. He understood the gesture. It was almost impossible to see as the pellets of ice rained around them. He certainly couldn’t see the skip from this distance.
He had his suit plot the most direct course to the skip. On his hood, a small map appeared. A three-dimensional path appeared over the white surface, showing his route in red, and telling him he was only about twenty yards away.
Twenty yards seemed like twenty miles.
But he squared his shoulders, braced himself, and started across the surface. He had walked on ice maybe a dozen times before, at least in real gravity. But usually he’d been walking on an ice-covered lake, and he had been wearing boots made for that trip.
He’d also walked on ice coating some of the ships in space, but the gravity in his boots had kept him in place, often interacting with the ship itself. Plus in that situation, he often used other tools—grapplers in his gloves or a tether—so he felt like he could fall and not hurt himself.
Falling here would be painful.
Even though he wanted to run, he didn’t dare. His boots slipped with every step. His suit warned him again about the ice storm, and as it did, the wind nearly blew him backward.
The visibility had diminished just in the last few minutes. Only the path that the map carved out for him showed him where to go. He could barely see a few yards in front of him, and he certainly couldn’t see the skip—not even the shape of it.
“Go slow,” he said to his crew, without looking backward. He didn’t dare look backward, afraid it would unbalance him. Every movement felt precarious, including every step forward.
“Something’s coming,” Chen said. “Above us.”
She had barely gotten the words out when an aircar wobbled past. It was having trouble in the wind and ice as well, unable to maintain some kind of balance. It buzzed low, but didn’t land. It seemed unable to do so.
If it was flying on automatic and it was like aircars Coop had ridden in, the controls wouldn’t allow the car to land on a surface like this, not without the proper gear.
He wondered if there was proper gear.
“Where there’s one, there’s bound to be more.” Yash sounded out of breath.
“Ignore them,” Coop said. “Let’s just get to the skip.”
It was all he could do to stay on his feet. He had trouble maintaining a straight path. He veered all over the imaginary line created by his map overlay. Sometimes he would veer to his left, and sometimes to his right, depending on the wind.
Then he heard a whumpf, accompanied by a grunt of pain. He looked behind him, nearly lost his own balance, and had to shuffle his feet, and pinwheel his arms to stay upright.
One of the four was down. Bridge, Coop was guessing, but he couldn’t quite tell.
He backtracked, even though someone—Chen?—waved her arms at him, telling him to go on. The other two were crouched, trying to help Bridge up, but they were losing their balance as they did so.
Pretty soon, everyone would be in a pile on the ground.
“I’ve got this,” Chen said, her voice authoritative. “Move aside. Get to the skip. I’ve got him.”
Of course she did. Security officers trained in all kinds of adverse conditions. If they were good—and clearly Chen was—they kept up that training on their own, usually simulating strange situations.
She was probably the only one of them who had actually trained for this.
“Yash, Perkins,” Coop said, “step back.”
Bridge was leaning to one side, but he was sitting up. The two who were trying to help him stood, then staggered in the wind.
Chen approached him from the back. “I’m going to lever you upright,” she said. “Can you walk?”
“Hurt my arm, not my legs,” Bridge said. He sounded annoyed.
Above them, the aircar wobbled past. It was flying too low. Another was flying higher than that, also wobbling. They seemed to overshoot the pavement again, or maybe they were just trying to record what was going on here.
Either way, Coop didn’t like it.
He waited for Yash and Perkins to reach him, waited for Chen to get Bridge on his feet.
“Need my help keeping him upright?” he asked Chen.
“I can stay upright on my own,” Bridge snarled. Coop hadn’t used a private channel, and probably should have.
Coop didn’t tell them that they had to hurry. They already knew that. So he pivoted—carefully—and headed back toward the skip.
His steps from earlier remained, but even in that short period of time, they had filled with fresh ice. He didn’t think he could see as far ahead as he had a moment ago.
But the map told him that he only had about eight more yards.
Seemed like forever, particularly since he couldn’t see the skip.
“You managing, Chen?” he asked. He didn’t want to turn around again.
“We’re fine.” That was Bridge, still sounding annoyed.
As long as he sounded irritated, he was all right.
Coop bent his head, walking into the wind, feeling it push back at him as if it were an actual living being. He didn’t remember ever being in weather conditions like this, not even simulated conditions.
But he kept his head down and followed the red line his map created on the surface in front of him, hoping it would take him to the skip.
He walked for what felt like forever and nearly walked into the skip itself.
It was coated with ice. Its sides gleamed, and icicles hung from every surface.
“Another one,” Yash said from behind him.
Coop looked up, saw yet another aircar wobbling in the wind. He could only see it because its lights reflected on the ice pellets and rained down onto the ground below.
This aircar looked even more unstable than the others. It flipped sideways and started down.
“Watch out,” he said to the others, hoping they could get out of the way.
It landed with a bang that he felt more than he heard.
If whoever was inside was suited up and belted in, they would be fine.
And they would get out near him.
At that moment, the skip door opened. Lankstadt stood there in his environmental suit.
He grabbed Coop under his shoulders and yanked him upward, something Coop wouldn’t have thought possible in full gravity.
“I thought I said that we would—”
“Orders later,” Lankstadt said. “We have to get out of here. They need help, I can do it, and you’re a better pilot.”
He had a point. Coop staggered into the main part of the skip, feeling slightly unnerved. No longer pushing against the wind and ice unbalanced his entire body.
His muscles felt heavy with exhaustion, but somehow he made it to the pilot’s chair.
Stone stood nearby, her hood down, monitoring everything on her tablet.
“I need something to drink,” Coop said, pulling down his hood. “The others will too. And some kind of food.”
He didn’t know what kind. He didn’t want to think about it. He just knew they had expended a strange kind of energy out there, and they needed refueling just like a ship would.
Lankstadt had several holographic screens open. They showed the distance between the skip and the sector base, the actual view of it, and the entire valley.
He hadn’t been kidding: more aircars were on the way, as were vehicles that Coop couldn’t identify. Some were actually driving on the roads.
The holomap off to his left showed the entire planet. Ships were coming in—what size, Coop couldn’t tell at a glance—and were entering orbit.
A third holomap near the first showed the pavement itself. The aircar, on its side, was already covered in white, and it appeared that someone was trying to get out of it. A door was open, or so it seemed. Coop couldn’t be certain.
Too many maps, and not all of them useful. He peeled off his gloves and dropped them on the floor.
Another holomap showed one of the mountain ranges. Coop squinted at it because something looked off. He couldn’t quite tell what.
“You’re dripping.” Stone handed him a bottle of blue water—the kind that Lost Souls kept around for emergencies after a dive. He didn’t argue, took it, and took a swig from it.
The water tasted metallic.
“Maybe you should take off your suit…?” she said.
“No time,” he said. He leaned forward, shut off some of the holomaps because he couldn’t process this way. He called up screens filled with telemetry—showing the area around them, showing the area beyond. He even brought up one that explained the weather.
It was going to continue storming for hours.
A bang behind him made him swivel. Yash was on her side, leaning against the skip’s far wall.
“What the—?” he asked.
“It looked like she got tossed in here,” Stone said.
Yash held up a gloved hand. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”
Yash wouldn’t have entered before the others, not voluntarily. Perkins or Chen had forced her.
Or something else was happening.
He glanced at the holomap of the area outside of the skip. Impossible to see much, with the weather clouding everything. But he thought he saw more figures around the crashed aircar.
“Got her,” Yash said from behind him.
He glanced one more time, saw Yash near the door now, saw someone else roll in.
He couldn’t concentrate on that. He had to focus on getting this skip ready to leave.
Lankstadt had the skip in standby mode. Coop activated the skip, then ran a quick systems check. The skip told him that the ice outside would create a problem if he tried to take off with the ship still covered, but he wasn’t going to have the nanobits clear the ice until his entire team was on board.
Besides, he had a lot more to worry about. The telemetry told him that, in addition to ships arriving in orbit, one had entered Nindowne’s atmosphere.
And the holomap of the mountain, the one that made no sense, made sense now.
The mountain’s top was open.
Someone was operating the landing protocols inside the sector base.
It had been occupied after all.
He opened a channel to the Ivoire, only to have it shut down immediately. He’d never experienced that before.
Then another channel opened, one that he hadn’t expected.
He toggled it. “Boss?”
“No, Captain, it’s Lynda Rooney.” The Ivoire after all. “We’re using this channel because we don’t think they can access it easily. They’re all over the Fleet channels. We’re going to have to keep communication to a minimum whatever we do.”
“They?” he asked.
“Whoever is arriving,” she said. “There are a dozen more ships heading to Nindowne. They’re all large vessels, the kind that can easily take on a DV-Class ship. You stirred up something big, Captain. I’m just not sure yet what it is.”
He looked at the imagery she sent him. Dozens of ships, with a long trail of more.
There had been no indication of this when he arrived, nothing that showed some large group was using this base.
“The Fleet?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter if they blow you away before talking with you. Move fast, Captain. You don’t have a lot of time.”
He glanced back at that open door. The others weren’t inside yet. Stone hovered, her hood up now. He couldn’t see Yash anymore.
“Inside,” he said on the group channel. “Now.”
But no one answered him.
No one answered him at all.
Thirty-Five
Yash’s chest hurt. When Lankstadt had tossed her inside the skip, it had knocked the breath out of her. Still, somehow, she managed to stand up, legs shaking.
She beckoned Stone to her side, then handed her the data strips. Stone had her hood down, so she wouldn’t be able to hear any comm chatter.
Yash pulled her own hood down just enough to talk to Stone.
“Put those somewhere safe. Make sure that even if we get tossed around like a child’s toy, they won’t get destroyed.”
Then she pulled her hood back up. Stone nodded and wandered toward one of the cabinets as if she had never given any thought to hiding or protecting anything.
Yash couldn’t worry about that, though. Lankstadt had his hands full. The wind was making it almost impossible to get anyone on board the skip. Bridge was injured, and Chen was holding him up, barely staying upright herself. And Perkins—
Perkins had stepped away from the skip after shoving Yash toward Lankstadt. The last thing Yash saw was Perkins pulling her laser pistol.
Yash grabbed hers and reached the interior of the airlock. Lankstadt was bent over, trying to get his hands around Bridge’s shoulders.
Yash shoved Lankstadt closer to the wall so that she could grip Bridge as well.
Chen was behind him, supporting Bridge’s weight.
The wind was whipping, even inside the airlock, and the edges of the skip were covered in ice.
“We’re lifting on three,” Yash said, glad they were communicating inside the environmental suits. Their voices would be lost outside in that wind. “One. Two. Three.”
She grunted as she pulled Bridge up. Lankstadt did too. Yash’s chest hurt with the maneuver, and she wondered if she had done more to herself than have the wind knocked out of her as she had gotten tossed inside.
Bridge was dead weight and heavier than she thought a person should be. As they got him inside, she realized why.
He was unconscious.
Surely he hadn’t hit that hard when he had fallen, had he? He hadn’t because he had gotten up, acted like it was no big deal.
Lankstadt propped Bridge against the airlock walls, then put one gloved finger to his hood, urging Yash to remain silent.
Outside, in the ice storm—or was it an official blizzard now? Looked like one to her barely experienced eye—flashes of red glimmered through the moving darkness.
Lankstadt used hand s
ignals, which Yash didn’t understand. Except one. Wait here. Everyone learned that one.
Then Lankstadt jumped out of the skip and into the weather.
She leaned out, saw shadows moving in the darkness, saw more red lights, and realized that some of them were coming from the side of the skip.
The weather continued to swirl into the airlock. Yash looked down, saw Chen standing over Perkins and Lankstadt beside them, firing his laser pistol away from the skip.
Yash took out her laser pistol, then toggled the display on her hood so that it used infrared.
Five people—giant green blobs on her screen—wove their way toward the skip. More green blobs appeared in the distance, probably getting out of another aircar.
The first had crash-landed, but apparently someone had survived.
Yash crawled back into the skip, toggled her hood view back to normal, opened one of the lockers, and removed a laser rifle. Stone watched her, gape-mouthed.
Yash pulled down her hood. “Get Bridge out of the airlock,” she said to Stone.
And then Yash pulled her hood up again, walking back into the airlock, feeling the wind buffet her. She changed the screen again, saw that the green blobs closest to the ship hadn’t moved, but the ones farther away—ten of them—were advancing.
She sure as hell hoped Coop had the skip ready to fly.
Then she crouched in the doorway, leveled the rifle at the blob closest to the ship, and fired. The blob blew backward. She targeted the next blob, but didn’t shoot before that blob spun away, as if it had been hit by someone else.
The skip rocked, and for a moment, she thought it was the wind. Then she realized that the advancing group had higher-powered weapons than the group up front. They were shooting on the skip.
Lovely. This was just getting better and better.
Yash leaned out, waved a hand downward, and hoped she got someone’s attention. Because if she didn’t, she was going to speak on the comms.
She assumed that Lankstadt wanted silence because he believed that the group coming toward them could hear the chatter. She had to trust that.
Chen looked up, and pointed toward the blobs. Yash nodded once, then caught the next one in her sites.
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