by P. R. Adams
Just as she crawled out the far side, Carruth connected to her. His line was scratchy, and his voice weak. “It’s coming through, Lieutenant. You got five minutes. I’ll let you know which one of us was right.”
Her throat constricted. “I hope it’s you.”
She started a countdown on her heads-up display and stumbled forward. There were two more bends—
Another collapse lay ahead, but this one blocked the way completely.
The only option was to go back and hope for an alternate route she’d missed the first time.
Partway through the narrow gap, more rubble broke free from the ceiling. It rained down all around her and bounced off her back with a dull sting. She wiggled, but the debris had her pinned.
She connected to Halliwell. “Staff Sergeant? Can you hear me?”
“Barely.” His voice thrummed with distortion. “Where are you? We’re climbing out now.”
“Pinned. A section of the roof gave way.”
“I think I’ve got your location. We’ll come for you.”
“The way’s blocked. Don’t worry about me. Save that data.”
“Sorry, Lieutenant, can’t understand you. We’ll be there soon.”
He disconnected.
Stiles smashed a fist against the rubble pile in frustration. If they wasted time coming back for her, they wouldn’t make it out. The forerunner robot couldn’t be too far behind, and the demolitions charge was going to go off in—
The timer countdown showed 00:03:58.
She tried twisting again, but the clumps of debris shifted beneath her rather than giving her something to lever against.
Her communicator vibrated.
It was Grier. “Hey! I think I see you!”
Stiles wiggled her boots as much as she could. “You see that?”
“Um, no. But I’m up on the surface looking through a hole in the floor.”
Light flickered over Stiles’s arms and glared off her facemask. They were above her. “Can you see my head moving?”
“Oh, yeah. Okay. Wow. So, you’re pinned under a big slab of wall. Or part of it.”
“It doesn’t feel that heavy. I can breathe.”
Something scraped above Stiles, then she felt hands on her back. “Is that you, Grier?”
“Yeah. Okay, no. That’s not the main wall. A piece broke off. I guess the main wall must’ve missed you. Wow. By centimeters.” The corporal’s fingers ran along the side of Stiles’s upper left arm. “You feel this thing you’re up against here?”
Solid. Unmoving. “The wall, yes.”
“Not the one down there; the one that used to be up here.”
Stiles curled around enough to get a look at the wall. Grier was right. A slab rose up and out of sight, and if Stiles looked down the way she’d come originally, the lower section wall was a good meter farther to her left.
What were the odds?
“Okay. Can you get me out?”
“I think so.” The corporal grunted, and the pressure against Stiles’s back lessened. “Can you move?”
Just as Stiles twisted, she caught a glimpse of movement in the dust at the edge of her sight.
The automaton.
Adrenaline shot through her. The pain in her back suddenly became less important. She kicked and scrambled and dug until she had a grip on the corporal’s boot, then on the wall she was standing on. The angle was awkward, and breathing was hard, but she found enough of a hold on the ancient surface to allow her to climb free. Black soot scraped away as she cleared the hole and threw herself flat on the floor above.
“It’s down there. Close.”
Grier let go of the chunk of wall, which slid down deeper into the hole with a loud rasp and crash. “Clive’s got the shuttle inbound. He and Chuck are on the way.”
Two lights danced from the direction of the stairs.
Stiles realized where they were now, not too far from the western edge of the building compound. The wall that had fallen in was one of the few support pieces that had risen as high as the second floor. Now the wall tilted at about a 120-degree angle, still several meters above the floor they were on. That made it one of the highest points still standing.
And tons of material had missed her by centimeters.
The bouncing lights grew brighter, then Halliwell and Kohn were there, breathlessly panting.
The staff sergeant pointed skyward, where the lights of the shuttle were growing brighter.
Grier whistled. “That’s coming in fast.”
Tumbling debris below brought Stiles around in time to see the automaton scraping at the bottom of the rubble.
She shoved Kohn toward the sloping wall. “Up! Now!”
Grier fired a burst into the hole, then she hooked an arm around Halliwell and started him up the ramp. Stiles stayed behind just long enough to be sure the robot had retreated, then followed.
Kohn was already slowing. His breath was hollow, as if he couldn’t suck in enough air. She did the same as Grier, guiding the petty officer up, sharing strength.
Then something cracked and scratched.
The robot was back already. Climbing.
Its claws were finding purchase, but it moved slower as a result.
And that made it a target.
Stiles had lost her weapon earlier. “Grier, Halliwell!”
The Marines turned, saw the thing, and brought their weapons to bear.
Bullets cracked off of it, doing no apparent damage, but it hunkered down anyway.
It was a standoff, it not moving but forcing them to hold position to fire.
Stiles’s communicator crackled, and Benson’s voice was drowned by hissing and pops. “Say again, Commander!”
“We see you!” The last word stretched and twisted in a long echo.
The shuttle engines whined, and it came to a stop at the top of the wall. In the glow of its exterior lights, Stiles saw the airlock hatch open. Benson was there, statuesque, waving.
“Fuck!” Grier tossed her weapon down the wall. “Empty!”
Halliwell waved them up. “Move!”
Stiles shoved Kohn up. It was like pushing a noodle.
After a few steps, the big Marine’s carbine went silent as well. “Empty!”
He came up after them, sucking air, taking Grier’s hand. Climbing.
But the robot came after. Even at a more modest rate, it closed quickly.
The timer showed 00:00:38.
Something arced over their heads and bounced slightly, then rattled down the wall. It rolled along an impossibly straight line, passing just centimeters wide of the robot.
Then exploding.
The wall shivered, and all four of them dropped to their hands and knees. There was no way they were going to make it.
Except when Stiles glanced back, the automaton was gone.
How—?
The thing was at the base of the wall, clawing its way up again.
Stubborn. Definitely stubborn. And fast now.
At the top of the wall, Benson was dragging Kohn into the shuttle. She had a harness on, but she was really favoring her taped-up leg. When he scrambled out of sight, she reached out for Grier. The corporal dragged herself up into the airlock and spun around, immediately reaching for Halliwell.
00:00:08
Benson offered a hand to Stiles.
But the lieutenant knew they couldn’t get far enough away to avoid the robot.
“Got another grenade?”
The commander pulled back, and a moment later, a grenade tumbled down the slope of the wall, this time straight for the robot.
And detonated beneath it.
She let the fuse run low!
Once again, the wall shuddered, but this time, it snapped.
Benson reached a hand out; Stiles grabbed hold…just as the wall fell away.
Grier had Halliwell in now, but the commander was struggling to haul Stiles in. Benson’s knee seemed to give, and she pitched forward, then she and Stiles both
fell.
The lieutenant squeezed the other woman’s wrist, but the glove was dust-covered and didn’t manage much of a grip. Far below, the black depths of the ruins called.
Fire flashed deep in that darkness, then the air all around shook.
The shuttle engine whine grew louder, straining as the craft banked and headed toward the structure across the broad avenue. Benson swung from the safety cable, and Stiles clung to her. Their eyes were wide and locked onto each other as realization hit that the shuttle could be headed for a crash.
As suddenly as the shuttle had banked and lost altitude, it leveled off.
Grier had the harness cable in her hand. Her feet were braced against the wall around the airlock hatch. Halliwell reached past her, grabbed the cable, and pulled.
Centimeter by centimeter, they drew the two women up, until first Benson was inside, then Stiles.
Kohn poked his head inside the airlock. “Closing the outer hatch! All extremities inside!”
And with that, the hatch hissed shut.
Benson pushed herself up on her elbows and smiled woozily. “Okay. Now for the hard part.”
Halliwell helped her up, and Grier did the same for Stiles.
As Benson made her way toward the cockpit on unsteady legs, she connected to someone. “Captain Gadreau, our people have been retrieved. Launch now! We’ll meet you at the satellites.”
Stiles had barely dropped into a seat and lowered the harness, when the shuttle hit full thrust and the g-force shoved her back.
At her side, Kohn had his arms wrapped around his harness and his eyes closed. He shook his head. “I hope she was being sarcastic about that being the easy part.”
A smile slipped across Stiles’s lips, but only for a second.
She wasn’t even sure what easy was.
32
Gaining the weightlessness of space again seemed a victory all its own. Staring at the black of space, Benson rubbed her throbbing leg and told herself the pain wasn’t something to be lamented; it was a reminder that she was alive. So many others who had gone to the surface of Jotun hadn’t been so fortunate, and she was sure there were many Azoren who had died as well.
She was just happy now to be free of her rebreather, to be out of the moon’s frozen, lifeless air, to hear the world with her own ears instead of the speakers of her helmet and mask. The authenticity of Reyes’s voice brought a warmth to Benson’s awareness, same as the dull smell of ozone coming off the cockpit control systems and the acrid, charred taste in the back of her throat.
That taste—the burned remnants of the moon—would stay with her for a while, she was sure.
Reyes cocked her head slightly. “You okay, Commander?”
“Okay?” Benson glanced down at her command tablet. “Alive. That’s enough.”
“Definitely a great start.”
“Let’s see if we can keep the momentum going.”
“Lead on, ma’am.”
Benson swallowed. Lead on. She had led on, and her leadership had seen more of her people die than live. It all seemed too much, but someone had to take the role.
Data scrolled across the device screen: updates from McLeod about the task force engagement, official complaints from Gadreau about leaving the dead behind, and demands from Patel for updates on his sister Srisha.
Stiles had already stepped into the situation with Patel—it was now a GSA-SAID matter, not something for the Navy to be concerned with.
And apparently it had nothing to do with Patel’s sister.
Data. It was all about the data. A pouch full of data.
Although the lieutenant had hinted even that wasn’t the full truth. Halliwell and Grier both seemed to agree with that assessment. Whatever had killed the GSA SIGINT team—a forerunner robot, an indigenous creature capable of living on a frozen, mostly barren moon, a shadow of a nightmare—had been in the ruins, prowling, waiting. For how long?
That had been what SAID had wanted. Everyone—even Patel’s sister—had been expendable in the pursuit of that threat.
Shadow. Darkness. Lies and deception.
Benson wasn’t a fan of the intelligence world, yet it’s what had sucked her in and surrounded her now. She owed her crew more: light, hope, honesty. Those seemed out of reach at this point, but she wasn’t giving up.
The task force was holding its own against the much larger Azoren ship, mostly thanks to the stealth system that had been installed on the Pandora. It apparently was a match for the Azoren ship’s targeting systems. Neither side could get a clean firing solution on the other, but the Marie Belle and Polaris were suffering systems failures that left them vulnerable.
And McLeod was at wit’s end with Scalise, who seemed fixated on tactics he didn’t agree with.
The lieutenant commander was going to be a project. With so few quality officers left in the Navy, Benson couldn’t just jettison the woman. Rehabilitation, positive encouragement, a bit of sternness—those were the available tools.
But they had to be second to saving lives and resources, which would mean more confrontations and slower improvement.
Agent Patel sent another demand for a video connection.
Instead, Benson sent a text: Agent Patel, we’ll conduct an AAR once safely out of Azoren space. It seems inappropriate to burn bandwidth and time on the matter now when you lacked either during the ground engagement.
Seconds passed, and the SAID agent didn’t respond.
Message received, she hoped.
She turned her attention to the task force. As far as she could tell, Scalise had actually done fairly well given the limitations of her resources. Five hits, only two of them direct. It seemed reasonable. None of the vessels were crippled, and they’d managed three direct hits of their own in retaliation. The enemy cruiser’s weapons were more powerful, its shields and armor more capable, but it hadn’t managed a kill. The Azoren captain was using conventional—if outdated—tactics, probably compensating for a lack of support ships.
That lack of support ships was what most intrigued Benson. It hinted at a ship arriving at a fortuitous moment or responding to a distress beacon rather than a planned ambush.
No signals ship, no gunships, nothing to run interference when a new variable entered the situation—it left even a capital ship vulnerable.
She tried to connect to Parkinson, but he didn’t respond. There were only three shuttles: hers, the one carrying Gadreau and survivors, and the one piloted by Lieutenant Durall. The dying pilot had managed to get the shuttle stuffed with all the explosives and the dying troops and those who might be resuscitated off the moon. No one was going to question Durall being resuscitated. Not after what he’d done.
Benson gambled Dietrich would have kept Parkinson with the survivors and connected with the doctor.
He accepted. “Commander Benson? Are you aware that Captain Gadreau is monitoring all communications?”
She groaned inwardly. “Is he making a face?”
“Something ranging between days-long constipation and a glower. With Marines, it’s hard to know for sure. Now that I think about it, it could be a typical face. Perhaps he’s reading the message of the day.”
“I tried connecting to Chief Parkinson.”
“The good chief rests easy in the seat beside me, drooling onto the harness.”
“He’s alive?”
“And blissfully oblivious thanks to a small cocktail I administered.”
“I need to speak to him.”
The doctor sighed. “The cocktail was more for my sake than his.”
“I’m sorry, but he was digging into the Azoren stealth gear for me.”
“Yes. That was what made the drugs necessary. The only thing worse than the chief bragging about his accomplishments is the chief talking about how inferior others are.”
“He found something?”
“My impression was that he’s figured out everything the Azoren have ever known and will ever accomplish. Obviously, you will need t
o run a Parkinson Filter against that.”
That brought a smile to her face. Dr. Gaines had coined the term as her way of separating Parkinson’s bullshit from his true accomplishments. “Can you wake him?”
“Only under protest.”
“The drugs or his wounds?”
“Oh, no. He’ll survive either of those. It’s having to listen to him.”
“Doctor, please.”
“All right. But you owe me a bottle of Scotch and a day to sleep it off.”
“So long as I can choose that day.”
“Accepted. He’ll be awake in a few minutes. You’ll know by my groans of despair.”
“Have him connect with me once he’s alert, please.”
Benson spent the minutes running through the updated data sent by the Clarion. The Azoren cruiser hadn’t changed its tactics, even with the shuttles and gunship approaching. They weren’t a threat, and she doubted Patel would allow his gunship to engage anyway.
But the lack of change was another positive sign. It showed arrogance and rigidity. Yes, the cruiser would win out over time, but not changing tactics?
It was a blind spot.
Parkinson sent a connection request.
“Chief, you alert?” Benson scanned through the next set of updates. There was no missing the other captain’s patterns now.
“Yes. I…” He swallowed. “I don’t recall falling asleep, to be honest.”
“You made progress with the Azoren stealth technology?”
“Oh!” His tone brightened. “Actually, yes. The funny thing is—”
“I have a question for you. It’s critical that you think this through. Can you do that?”
“About the stealth technology?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I only had a little while to examine—”
“Chief, yes or no. Do you think you can answer a question about the technology?”
“Y-yes. With caveats.”
That would have to do. “Assuming the technology can be extrapolated beyond visual obscurement—”
“Oh, it’s not obscurement, not in the sense you probably mean. It’s nothing new. We’ve had the same technology ourselves for a while. I’ve seen it. This is just a refinement.”