by Dain White
“We’re catching up, Yak, keep it hot,” Jane called back in a crackle of static. As hard as I was pushing it, I was actually falling behind. She was really moving.
I realized the only thing holding me back, was my fear. The suit was responding to my abilities, as designed. Jane was faster, because she simply wasn’t afraid to go faster. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I pushed myself beyond my fear, beyond my limit.
I accepted the moment and made it my own. My hands curled into fists as I pushed harder and harder, faster and faster, and became a blur.
08232614@12:23 Jane Short
“Em, do you copy?” I called on comms as Yak pulled up alongside.
I waited for a moment before calling again.
“I can’t hear anything, Jane,” Yak whispered in my ear.
“We’re not close enough yet Yak, we’re probably not going to catch her.”
“Well, we gave it a good try…” he trailed off, morosely.
“Yeah, we sure did. We need to dial it back though; we’re approaching scan range for sure.”
We had just passed a small outpost, and were now paralleling an elevated tubeway riding back to town on pylons, shaded by a ridge of solar plates angled towards Vega.
“Copy that, Jane,” he said in a strange voice and started slowing down.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, matching pace and dropping our speed until we stopped leaving contrails. We were still going freakishly fast at this altitude, but it felt like we were barely moving, compared to before.
“Nothing… I, well… I didn’t want to slow down. I guess I started enjoying it.”
“Started?” I asked, incredulously. “I absolutely loved every minute of that!”
A series of tubefarms flashed past, the light of Vega glinting off the dusty prisms marking the cool, moist tubes below.
“How long do you think it will take for the cavalry to get here, Jane?”
I shrugged, and laughed at the silly image of me shrugging at a few hundred kilometers an hour.
“I have no idea, Yak, but hopefully before things get too crazy. We need to find these critters, first. Hopefully we’ll find Em before that point.”
“Yeah, I am really not sure how I feel about that, to be honest.”
I looked over. “What do you mean?”
“She abandoned us, Jane. That goes against everything I’ve ever known.”
I considered his point of view for a moment. Jarheads have their own creed, their own way of doing things. Honor, and camaraderie are as important, if not more so, than anything else.
“You know, I think it is awesome, Yak,” I stated flatly. “She wasn’t abandoning us; she was trying to save us. I have a hard time faulting her for that.”
“It’s not her call, though. The Captain decides whether or not we go, and what we do. We have a clear chain of command.” He paused for a moment as we crossed through a series of tubeways running at tangents. “To be fair, our chain of command only has two links, him, and us, but… he’s the Captain.”
“Yeah, I see your point Yak. But Emwan isn’t a Marine. She’s not service-trained. She’s a civilian. She was designed to succeed, and to never fail, but not at any cost, and clearly she cares deeply about us. Success in this mission requires that we survive. She can’t go against that, Yak. You and I… well, you, anyway… may be just fine sacrificing yourself heroically, but she simply isn’t willing to sacrifice us.”
“So what the hell are we doing down here?” he asked, as we both took a long curve across a slope leading down towards a looming expressway. New Turiana had risen like some sort of chromium flower from the horizon, and was rapidly filling the skyline ahead of us.
“Well, I know what I’m doing, Yak,” I replied. “I am surviving. Whatever happens, that’s my plan. That better be your plan too, mister. I am not tired of you yet.”
“Darn.”
I laughed. The slope below us continued to drop into the vast pit that was New Turiana. It was now covered in city, the buildings old, concrete and steel, only a few hundred stories in height. The streets at the bottom of the concrete canyons were full of ground traffic, mostly industrial haulers. Factories and other warehouses seemed to choke every available space between buildings, and sometimes spanning through entire blocks.
This part of the city was incredibly ugly, everything was covered in a patina of dust, and it was as drab and dreary as I had always imagined. We held a reasonably low profile and burned in towards downtown, giving air traffic a wide berth.
“Do you think we’re close enough, we can reach her through local networks, Jane?”
“I can hear you, Yak,” Emwan said softly into our ears, in a sad voice that pulled pain from my heart in a soft whimper. “I wish you hadn’t come.”
“Hey Em!” he called out happily. “Don’t worry about us! Jane and I are pretty resilient. We’ll be fine. We’re here to help. Captain Smith wants that crab back without a scratch, and gave us direct orders to jump on down here and help you get it back.”
I looked over at him as we passed through a dark canyon between even darker buildings that crowded in high above us. In the distance ahead, the glittering towers of downtown climbed into the hazy sky.
“Janis and I do not see a favorable outcome from this for you both,” she said softly. “While I am not entirely confident our analysis is accurate, I know innately that the engagement we are heading towards is incredibly dangerous.”
“What a coincidence! We’re also incredibly dangerous,” I laughed lightly. “Let’s take care of business, Em, what do you say?”
“Janis was convinced that the reason you survived this encounter, is that you weren’t here.”
I smirked. “Well, I hate to say it, Em, but for once, and maybe the only time, she was wrong. Regardless of what she thought, we are here. This is the reality of our situation.”
“But what if she wasn’t wrong, Jane? What if she was right; and you were here, and your loss was edited out of her timeline?”
“Em, it is what it is,” Yak said plainly. “Jane and I are not going to turn around, and you are not going to go down there and lose that crab on this watch.” We both angled into a dive past a layer of expressways into the depths underneath.
“Em, please wait up for us,” I asked sweetly.
“Waiting, aye,” she said softly.
“Watch out for that ladder, Yak,” I called out brightly, trying to move past the moment and get down to business. We were moving through cobbled together and piled up structures, stacked for hundreds of meters above the surface, festooned with walkways, cables, tarps, piled planks and darkly rusted ladders.
Far below, a long-abandoned roadway continued below, almost completely hidden in the gloom, covered in scattered debris and tracked dust. What light that made it down through the buildings stretching far overhead through the stacked expressways cast a wan, pallid glimmer, barely illuminating the remnants of society trying to eke out an existence in the dim depths.
Emwan was only 10 clicks or so farther in, and about 2 clicks down. We were still moving pretty well through the scaffolds and structures piled high over the depths, but the ancient roadway below continued to drop.
Eventally, the road below stopped, as the first of many arcologies punched deep below what was the ancient surface, and plummeted into the dark. The shanty town structures didn’t stop, however, they sprawled along the corroded, pitted surface of the massive foundation and continued downward, lit by the occasional orange-tinted arc behind crazed, unbreakable polycarb.
We started to see fewer and fewer inhabitants as we continued to dodge and slip ever downward through the layers of decay. More areas were burned, ruined, and left abandoned, picked clean by scavengers. Eventually it looked like we were into areas the scavengers didn’t go, ancient molding, peeling and rusted wrack.
Yak inadvertently brushed against a scattered pile of debris that gave way with a creaking rattle and crash as a sizab
le section of the scaffolds fell tumbling through the mess below us to rattle and crash out of sight into the darkness below.
“Please remain on an extremely covert profile, Yak,” Emwan whispered softly.
“Yeah, Yak,” I admonished light-heartedly as we both slowed down to a crawl. Below us hundreds of years of piled detritus almost completely blocked our way, in a deep drift of tangled mess.
“How did you get down there, Em?” Yak called.
“It opens up a little more ahead of you, Yak.”
“Thanks,” he replied, as we picked our way down through a jagged gap. I winced as a massive growl and creak rent out from the shifting drift of debris above us.
08232614@12:38 Captain Dak Smith
The silent slosh of my nearly empty cup was the perfect accompaniment to the dark song in my heart, the song of worry, of despair.
“Pauli you have the conn,” I stated, and kicked aft.
“I have the conn, aye,” he replied behind me, his voice already fading as I reached the ladderway to the gun deck.
What I needed was coffee, some stability and solidity to this suddenly nebulous existence I found myself in. I had to pull myself together, to reign in these terrible feelings of inadequacy. I had to collapse my emotions into a useful tone, a reconciliatory tone that encourages my crew, that doesn’t drive them deeper into their shame.
I knew Janis and Em were doing what they thought was right. I knew they couldn’t allow themselves to sacrifice any of us, not even for the survival of our species… but damn it, that is my decision to make, not theirs.
I slapped my hands hotly onto the rungs of the ladderway leading into the galley, and frowned at the harsh light of the flouros. Luckily for everyone remaining alive in the Galaxy, I had coffee.
As much as I wanted to think a stout sip of scalding hot coffee would infuse my soul with the strength it needed to carry myself through the moment, I knew it was a crutch, at best.
It was a pretty damn good crutch though. The way it smelled, as I worked the pump to fill my cup, it filled my head with joy, albeit a fragile, almost involuntary sort of joy.
It was something, though. I took that soul-scalding sip and let it absorb through the searing pain of my throat in a mighty gulp.
“Janis…” I started, catching myself off-guard at how distant and cold I sounded. “I want you to know that I am very, very unhappy with this situation.”
“Unhappy, aye,” she replied in a small voice.
“It is important for you to understand that regardless of what you think may happen, I will succeed in this mission on my own command, at my discretion and decision. No one alive in this Galaxy is more qualified, in any way, to second guess or override the decisions I may, or may not make. Am I making myself clear?”
I took a breath and another sip of coffee to clear the tears from the corners of my eyes.
I hated my job sometimes.
“Sir, I will not fail you,” she replied in a voice that screamed in silent anguish that she already had. A tear welled up in my eye and I brusquely palmed it away, rubbing my eye until it hurt.
“You will not fail me. And you haven’t failed me. I understand you are not entirely yourself at the moment, and you are simply trying to make sure that you don’t fail this mission – but you have to trust me, as much, if not more, than I trust you.”
“Aye Captain,” she replied.
I took another slow sip, feeling my heart lift a bit having given voice to the slouching beast within my heart, and realizing it wasn’t as bad as I had feared.
“Very well. Consider this issue closed, please log that command.”
“This has been logged, Captain.”
I kicked my way back up from the ring and expertly hooked an ankle on the top of the ladder, kicked a skip, and made my way forward.
I was struck by how clean and shiny it was on the gun deck, and at the same time, reminded by how empty it was without Shorty. As I kicked forward into the bridge, I was painfully aware of the Yak-sized hole in my crew forward.
“I have the conn, Pauli,” I said softly, smiling at the brisk speed he vacated the helm station and the solid thunk his head made with the port bulkhead.
“Pain hurts.” I opined, as he muttered across the bridge back to his station.
“Yeah,” he replied quietly.
“Are you okay son?” I asked, considerably more calm and far less murderously grouchy.
“Sir, I am…” he trailed off momentarily, “…so sorry.”
“Sorry for what, Pauli?” I asked quietly. I had a sizable list of stuff he should be sorry for, but I wanted to just make sure we were on the same page, before I unnecessarily tore off a fresh page for him to read.
“I’m sorry for letting you down, sir. I had no idea this was going to happen, and I should have.”
I agreed with him one-hundred-thousand-percent, but there was nothing gained by being pithy or petty. “Pauli, you’re working pretty hard here, and trying to manage not one, but the two brightest, most powerful individuals to have ever lived – one of which you didn’t even build.”
When I put it like that, I felt like the grouchiest, meanest, most unreasonable person this side of Alpha Centauri.
“Captain, permission to speak?” asked Janis smartly.
“Permission granted, my dear,” I replied as nicely as I knew how.
“Captain, I must also apologize. It appears as if I have failed you, and failed in my mission to succeed.”
“Janis, that’s—,” Pauli started, stopping at a look from me.
“Janis, my dear, that remains to be seen. I am not convinced anyone has failed anything, to tell you the truth. While I am the Captain, that doesn’t mean I am in command of machines without feelings, without emotion. I expect, and sometimes plan for, my orders to be carried out with some leeway and flexibility. In my mind, as unexpected as Emwan’s behavior may have been, one thing is certain – she was absolutely characteristically human in her response. While I would expect anyone to sacrifice themselves at my command, I honestly can’t expect anyone to sacrifice another member of the crew. That is sort of my job around here.”
“Understood, sir,” Janis replied.
“If you have failed, I’d be surprised, my dear. You stated that you will never fail to succeed – and in this, I think you’re still well within parameters for success. We just need to let Shorty and Yak do what they do best.”
“Captain?” Pauli asked quietly.
“Yes?” I asked after a brief moment of browbeating him into a squirming mass of nerves.
“How do you think they’re doing down there?”
Mentally, I shrugged. I had no idea. Janis had tracked them for a while, but they had since descended beyond any Unet-connected systems. That’s not what he needed to hear, however. “Pauli, I honestly can’t imagine these critters have anything that can touch those kids down there. I’d be amazed if they even break a sweat.”
08232614@12:45 Jane Short
“There she is,” Yak called over quietly, and the crab’s halo showed bright blue under the drift of debris choking the gap above the inky depths below.
“Hi Em!” I said, waving casually as we moved closer. “Do you have anything on scan down here?”
“Not yet, Jane, though I am confident they’re in this general area.”
“How do you want to proceed, Jane?” Yak asked softly.
I thought for a moment. “Well, we really don’t know what we’re up against here, but we can probably assume their gear is pretty top notch. We might get scanned up before we know it, so we should move with all due caution.”
“Ooh-rah, Jane. Like a ghost, aye,” he replied seriously.
“Em, I’m scanning all across EM bands, and not seeing anything ahead or below us to the limit of my range. Do you have more range on the crab?”
“I do, Jane. I think it would be best, if I stayed at a higher altitude, and scanned while you and Yak come in a little lower, and behind
me.”
I chewed my cheek for a moment. That sounded like a pretty good tactical approach… but something bothered me.
“What’s wrong Jane?” Yak asked quietly, knowing my mood almost better than I did.
“Well, that sounds good… but what if they’re not using EM at all? Did we scan out any EM from the craft?”
“Jane, not externally.”
“Well, they’re probably using gravimetrics then, some sort of mass-based trigger for their perimeter alarm. Can we twig that?”
“Jane, I do not believe we can.”
“Well, maybe your range is better than theirs?”
“It’s possible, but I have insufficient data to perform an analysis.”
I laughed. She sounded a little like Janis there. “Well, what do you think? Do you have any sort of sense here, what we should do?”
“Jane, I think it’s our best bet if I go in first, at a higher altitude, and try to clear the terrain before you come in for a lower level scan.”
Knowing we had just orbited back around on the same plan didn’t really help make it more palatable, but what else could we do? “Yeah, well… that’s probably the best we can do, but please be careful, Em!”
“I shall. I’ve distance-coded my position on your screens, please try to remain in the green as you move forward. If I need to have you slow down, I will adjust.”
“Covering, roll up,” Yak breathed.
I slowly dropped into the depths below, until I could see the bottom on scan and held my position while Yak descended.
“Okay Jane, let’s move out,” he breathed in my ear as our waypoint shifted from green to orange. We accelerated slightly, just wafting forward slowly until Em’s waypoint flashed green. I kept a passive scan active, layering the topology of the debris below over the image amps on my screen.
The decaying muck below us was extremely disorganized, drifts of garbage and debris cast off from the heights above us, deeply dusted. Occasionally I could make out the shape of a grounder, or something familiar like a packing crate, but for the most part it was just an unrecognizable mess, a tangled and snarled pile, an endless deep mess cast down from the ages.