Fire Flare

by Chris Ward

  ‘It looks like the hail’s stopping,’ Harlan5 said. ‘According to my sensors, the precipitation density in the air means we’ll have an hour or so before the likelihood of more.’

  Caladan stood up. ‘Let’s move,’ he said.

  They were now forced to clamber over heaps of packed ice cubes, many as big as a human head, with the relentless wind buffeting around them. In some places, the hail had piled several metres high, and even though Caladan’s boots could alternate between heavy gravity and light, giving him stability when necessary but also allowing him the lightness to bounce over the terrain, the going was tough. The hail piles were constantly shifting as the ground rumbled and shook, occasionally collapsing into widening chasms, some opening up right in front of his feet. On more than one occasion he found himself at the top of a sudden cascade of debris, only to find the wire connected to his suit hauling him back, and a twinkling of Harlan5’s lights that suggested the robot was banking all these moments of rescue for later returned favors.

  ‘That ridge,’ Harlan5 said at last, as he clambered up an icy slope at a pace Caladan and Beth struggled to match. ‘The transmission is coming from just five hundred metres away. Our target location is over that ridge.’

  Caladan looked up, his resolve fading. The ridge was more of a cliff, a slice ripped out of the earth and risen thirty metres high. An easy climb for a robot, perhaps, but a significant challenge for a one-armed man.

  ‘You’ll catch me if I slip, won’t you?’ he said, thumping Harlan5 on the shoulder. ‘I mean, I know I’ve always ripped on you, but as robots go, you’re not so bad.’

  ‘And despite a wretched level of recklessness that might have got your ass blown up a thousand damn times, as a pilot and sometime captain, I could have done worse,’ Harlan5 said, one eye light flickering in an attempt at a blink.

  ‘Can’t you just stick to robot-speak?’

  ‘My programming will attempt to prevent your death,’ Harlan5 said, assuming a mechanical voice, as Beth gave a tired laugh.

  ‘Not just the ship that needs a service,’ Caladan said, pausing at the top of the ice heap to catch his breath. ‘Right, let’s get this over with.’

  As the storm continued to rage around them, they battled their way across an open plateau into the lee of the newly formed ridgeline. Then, with Harlan5 going first, they began to climb, hauling themselves up the loose, shingly wall, Caladan leaning on the wire connecting him to Harlan5 while reducing the gravity level on his boots to give him a little less weight.

  They were almost at the top when lightning began to flicker through the sky.

  ‘Damn this place. Couldn’t the general have crash-landed on the stable side? My beard’s frayed enough already—’

  ‘That’s not lightning,’ Beth said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s cannon fire, but it’s getting intercepted by the moon’s screwed up atmosphere.’

  ‘Make more sense please.’

  ‘Look.’

  Something sleek appeared out of the clouds. It rushed over their heads, lasers firing into the ground. It flew away over the forest behind them, before disappearing into the clouds.

  ‘A seek-and-destroy ship. Raylan’s forces are looking for us.’

  ‘Or the general.’

  ‘Probably both.’

  ‘My programming has detected some seismic activity from the ground below us,’ Harlan5 said. ‘I would suggest we get over this ridge as quickly as possible.’

  With the threat of the seek-and-destroy ship playing on their minds, they resumed their climb. They made it to the top, just as the ground below them began to rumble.

  ‘Set your buoyancy to its lowest setting,’ Beth said. ‘Quick!’

  Caladan could only gasp in terror as the ground fell away. With reduced gravity making them half as heavy as they would have been on an Earth-gravity planet, they took a second longer to drop into freefall. Caladan found himself dropping back through the space he had spent the last hour climbing, surrounded by mud, rocks, and churned ice. Harlan was somewhere beneath him, Beth above. He caught a glimpse of her trying to dig her way through the cascading rock.

  Then everything went still.

  ‘Harlan? Beth?’

  Caladan tried to twist around, but he was buried to his waist. He dug away some muck to find the wire that connected him to Harlan5. It was buried under the ground, and angled farther down into the mixture of rock, soil, and ice.

  ‘Caladan, are you all right?’

  The voice came through his helmet’s sensor. He twisted around, wishing it would give him some sense of direction.

  ‘Beth. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m over here. I can see you. Left.’

  He twisted the other way. The girl was dragging herself out of the mud a little farther up the slope. Also connected to Harlan5, she hauled on her end of the wire, but it went straight down into the earth.

  ‘He’s buried. We’ll have to dig him out. Harlan, can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Beth,’ came a voice in Caladan’s helmet. ‘I appear to have been buried. A little assistance would be useful.’

  ‘We’ll get you,’ Caladan said. ‘Beth, help me out of here. If we can get to the general, perhaps he has something we can use to dig.’

  ‘Caladan—’

  He sensed something was wrong from her voice only a moment before a hard object pressed against his ear. He flinched, twisting around, looking up into a grinning doglike face.

  ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ said the six-limbed Jeeeb, as it twisted the blaster against Caladan’s cheek. ‘You’re that one-armed scumbag who cheated me out of a decent shuttle.’ With a wide, fang-jawed grin, it pulled the trigger.

  14

  Paul

  He felt like someone had punched him in the face, but on a certain level, that felt good. He gritted his teeth, feeling the tightness of bruising, and tried to throw a punch in return, only to find his arm was enveloped by a thick, slime-like substance.

  He opened his eyes to find himself inside a tank of warm gunk, with only his head poking out of the surface. ‘Where in Vantar’s Seven Hells am I?’

  ‘The hospital wing,’ came an unfamiliar voice from overhead. ‘But you’re fixed, more or less. Close enough. We can’t wait any longer, I’m afraid. We have a problem.’

  ‘Caladan? You sound like you’ve taken up a pipeworm habit. You should stick to the whisky.’

  ‘It’s Teer.’

  Paul’s smile dropped. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Just you and me here, I’m afraid. I trust your nose is fixed?’

  Paul reached up. It took a considerable effort to pull his arm out of the gunk, but when he did finally get a hand to his face, his nose felt as good as ever.

  ‘Ready to start and end wars.’

  ‘Good. Get yourself out of the tank and cleaned up. We have work to do.’

  Paul stared at the lizard-spider monstrosity who came slowly into focus. While he was happy enough for such creatures to fix his spaceship, he felt uncomfortable being in close proximity. Beth had no problem being among all the strange and unsettling off-worlders which they encountered in any population center, but Paul preferred his flight mates to look at least vaguely human. Teer Flint was something that should live in a hidden cave or be blasted on sight.

  ‘Did someone make you captain?’ he said slowly, shaking the gunk off his right arm, glancing around to see if his blaster was in range. Monstrosity that Teer Flint might be, there was strength in those scaled arms and speed in those legs.

  Teer Flint’s eyes blinked heavily, lids making a snapping sound. He grimaced, the skin around his mouth folding up and then stretching out again.

  ‘You’re welcome to resume command once you’re out of there,’ he said, looking Paul up and down with a distinct lack of respect. ‘However, I’m sure you’ll agree we have only one choice.’

  ‘And what choice is that?’

  ‘We received a mayday signal from
Harlan5, shortly before his transmissions cut off. The others are in trouble.’

  Paul’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Beth.’

  ‘Could be alive, could be dead. The transmission didn’t say. Get out of there and we’ll go and find out.’

  ‘I don’t appreciate being told what to do, lizard—’

  ‘Then enjoy your bath while I go alone.’

  Teer Flint turned for the door, but Paul put up a hand. ‘Wait. Just let me get out of here.’

  Teer Flint sneered. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll be fine. She’s far more resourceful than you are, so I’m sure she’d be happy to wait for you to finish your bath.’

  With that, Teer Flint scuttled away through the door, closing it behind him, leaving Paul to scowl in the lizard-spider’s wake.

  ‘Beth,’ he growled under his breath. ‘Goddamn you, stay alive until I make it.’

  He was out of the tank, cleaned and changed within a couple of minutes. He found Teer Flint down in the lower hangar, pulling on a strangely shaped spacesuit over his upper body, before he began to rub a salve into his hairy legs. Paul’s repulsion dragged itself up into his throat, and he had to run to a small trash disposal unit and vomit. When he was done, he found Teer Flint glaring at him.

  ‘Are you quite ready?’

  ‘What in all the galaxy’s scum holes are you?’

  Teer Flint sighed. ‘Time for introductions, is it? I’m not surprised your knowledge of races doesn’t extend to mine. I doubt it extends far beyond your own. I’m a Blingdil, from the marsh world of Rubin in Areola System. And you?’

  ‘A human, of course.’

  ‘Complete with all your race’s failings and prejudices. Why am I not surprised?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Just get ready. The others are waiting for us. At least, they will be if they’re not dead. Do you want to bury your friend?’

  As he pulled on a spacesuit, the temptation to blast the back-talking monster had never been greater, but Paul forced himself to think of Beth. And if he needed to shut Teer Flint up once and for all, he’d make sure his blaster was charged first.

  ‘Why don’t we just take the ship?’ he said, as Teer Flint opened the lower hatch, letting in a freezing wind, which, even in his temperature-controlled spacesuit, made Paul shiver.

  ‘Seek-and-destroy teams overhead. We’d be spotted immediately if we took off. In these unstable climate conditions, it’s nearly impossible to spot people on the moon’s surface.’

  ‘Why don’t we take them on?’

  Teer Flint smiled. ‘You’re brave, boy. That’s something. Now come on.’

  The newly formed cave in which they had landed provided more shelter than Paul realised. Within a few steps a raging wind had almost knocked him off his feet, while beyond the cave entrance swirls of sleety rain turned the ground into a boggy mulch. Teer Flint was waiting by the cave entrance, his face damp.

  ‘I’d have thought you’d like this kind of weather,’ Paul quipped at Teer Flint’s grim expression. ‘It must remind you of home.’

  ‘I prefer a little less wind. And this heavy gravity isn’t helpful. The Matilda doesn’t have a pair of boots that will fit me, I’m afraid.’

  Paul glanced down at his space boots, automatically adjusting for the heavy gravity so it felt at standard Earth levels, then up at Teer Flint’s pained expression. ‘At least you have extra legs,’ he said, feeling a brief pang of compassion.

  ‘Isn’t that lucky? Come on.’

  Despite the heavy gravity, Teer Flint took the lead, scuttling over heaps of ice, clambering over fallen trees, pulling aside branches as Paul came behind, moving much slower over the uneven terrain, made worse by flurries of rain and the poor light. At first he tried to carry his blaster in one hand in case some of Raylan’s troopers appeared, but it was impossible, so he returned it to the holster on his belt. The time was coming, he knew, but for now he had to focus on Beth. How could he have been so stupid as to let her go out there without him? Whether she loved him or not—and if she didn’t it was only a matter of time—it didn’t matter. He had secretly sworn that first day he met her that he would protect her forever.

  Teer Flint was waiting up ahead, in a hollow carved out by the roots of a massive, fallen tree. Breathing heavily, he had dropped into a skin-crawling crouch, his legs folded beneath him. It reminded Paul of how spiders looked when they sat on a hot dash for too long, shriveled up in the sun.

  ‘You’re still with me, boy? I wondered where you’d got to. Don’t worry, we’re close. As the missile flies. A couple of Earth-miles.’

  The strained look on Teer Flint’s face made Paul frown.

  ‘Am I losing you, old timer?’

  Teer Flint gave a sadistic grin. ‘I’ll be here to haunt you a while yet, boy. Just let me get my breath. These suits aren’t configured for my species. My oxygen levels are too low, and this gravity isn’t helping.’

  ‘You can wait here if you like,’ Paul said. ‘Just point me in the right direction.’

  Teer Flint grinned again. ‘You wouldn’t last five minutes. Come on. Let’s move.’

  He pushed himself up and headed out into the storm, Paul struggling to keep up. Flint had a mouth on him, but he had guts, Paul had to admit. He looked ready to drop but he was still moving forward, even when of all of them, he had the least loyalty to Beth, Caladan and the robot. He could have switched off Paul’s recuperation tank, taken the ship and fled.

  When Flint next paused at a fresh rocky outcrop which had likely been underground until recently, Paul couldn’t help but ask.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he said, crouching as close as he felt safe to Flint, who was breathing hard, steam rising off his face. ‘Beth … I’d die for that damn girl. I’d climb Jacob’s accursed ladder to look on her face one more goddamn time … but you … why not take the ship and leave?’

  A grin spread over Teer Flint’s face. ‘You’re wondering why I’m risking my life for two people and a robot I’ve only just met? You want me to tell you that I’ve found a calling in life, that I’ve found friends at last, that they mean something to me?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘Yeah, something like that.’

  ‘I despise and love you stupid humans at the same time. You’re such an emotional race. Everything has to be about love or heroism or loyalty, doesn’t it?’

  Paul gritted his teeth and patted the blaster on his hip. ‘Or retribution, hot damn.’

  ‘I’m an engineer,’ Teer Flint said. ‘I know how to repair a stasis-ultraspace drive or a shield generator. I could probably build one from scratch if I had the parts. But that’s what I am, a mechanic. I’m no pilot. I couldn’t even get the Matilda off the ground without help.’ He let out a meaty laugh. ‘I was expecting to die on that worthless asteroid, but then your lot showed up and gave me a way off. And once off it, I found I quite enjoyed staying alive. At least, there must be better places to die than here.’

  ‘I can fly it,’ Paul said, feeling a little offended that Teer Flint didn’t know. ‘He won’t admit it, but I’ve got even Caladan cooked. You want to see space action, you could have just held a gun to my head.’

  Teer Flint grinned again. ‘And I’d have pulled the trigger within five minutes of take-off.’ With a laugh deep enough to make Paul’s helmet shake, Teer Flint slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Come on, Little Buck Sanders, we’re nearly there.’

  ‘I hate that name,’ Paul said, scowling.

  ‘Then earn yourself another one. Come on. We’re close.’

  As they headed back out into the raging storm, through a break in the clouds Paul caught sight of a towering volcano spewing magma up into the air. While the sight of it terrified him, the glow against the clouds gave them a little more light than usual. The ground up ahead was a churned mess of ice and shingle, beyond it a black line. Teer Flint was running towards it, but as Paul tried to follow, the relentless wind ragging him from side to side, he seemed to be slop
ing downhill. As he tried to increase his pace, it took him a moment to realise the ground on which he was standing was slowly collapsing into the earth.

  ‘Flint!’

  The cry for help came before Paul could stop it. Nearby were a pair of fallen trees, so Paul leapt onto the trunk of the nearest, grappling with some springy branches. Upside-down as the tree leaned precariously into the opening chasm, he tried to scramble his way to safety, but the ground continued to dip, and the trees to lean. Ahead, the chasm yawned, a red glow far down. The tree he had caught hold of hung out over it, held from falling only by a few resilient roots. He could feel the heat through his spacesuit; he felt like a pig on a spit.

  ‘Are you having some trouble?’ came Teer Flint’s voice through his helmet. ‘I can’t see you. Switch on a light on your suit.’

  ‘I’m fine, goddamn. Just give me a minute to sort this out.’

  Paul twisted around, clambering up through the lower branches, but with the tree almost upside-down he was faced with a clear stretch of trunk without any handholds. Thirty metres or more to safety.

  ‘I’m coming, Beth,’ he growled, pushing off his last foothold, gripping the trunk, and trying to shimmy up.

  Unlike many species of tree, this alien kind had a smooth trunk with little grip. Paul made it a few metres by sheer willpower, but the moment he paused to take a breath, he began to slide back down. Too wide to get his arms right around, and with the wind buffeting him, as the tree slipped farther, the angle increasing even more, he started to wonder if he might have a problem.