She slid the door open, wishing they swung so she could slam it, and followed the hall lined with other pods. A quick right, then left at the joiner to the next pod over. She found Gordon studying the latest scans.
“I’ve got the flight codes. Have you found an excuse to shut us down yet?” she asked, collapsing into the one-seat lounger crammed into the space between his console and the window. The view, mostly of the next pod, still fascinated her with sun and shadow, and she let her head fall back to stare into the shifting patterns.
“Moody much?” Gordon said. Janlin struggled for a smart-ass reply, but she couldn’t speak around the knot in her throat. She fought back the tears that threatened to spill.
“Ah, bloody hell,” Gordon said softly. His hand landed on her shoulder for a quick squeeze and a little shake. “Your dad’s going to be fine. Rudi’s not the kind of bloke to take off without good reason, I swear.”
“I know. There has to be something to this, but not knowing is killing me. I just hope he’s okay.”
Gordon nodded. “Maybe you’re right, and the Renegade is on a mission to help us out. Your hero will appear, your knight in shining armour.”
Janlin snorted and turned back to the window. “Too bad it’s my dad, and not Stepper being who he really could be, if he had a heart.”
Gordon let out a long sigh. “Look, I agree Stepper’s a wanker, but he’s faced more than his share of trouble in life and you know it.”
“Fine, drop it already,” Janlin said, turning away to hide her hot tears. “What’ve you got?”
She heard him inhale, as if ready to pursue the painful topic further. There was a pause while he reconsidered. “There are small quiet spots. But you’re going to have to watch for survivors, too. Even the noise of the Shunter coming in might draw unwelcome company.”
“Do you see signs of habitation?”
“Not really, no, but I’m worried they’ve gone underground. That’ll make it bloody hard to tell what’s in the area.” He gave her a hard look. “They’ll be desperate, you understand?”
Janlin pulled her jumper straight, scrubbed her face, and lifted her chin. “Yeah, I understand. And maybe it’s good if they’re underground.”
“Good?”
“If they’re underground, there’s a better chance they won’t hear the Shunter come in.”
“Right,” he said with heavy doubt. “Look, you’re not on some suicide mission, are you? ’Cause you can leave Urse out of it if that’s the case.”
Janlin reeled, at first astounded, then stung, then incredulous. Then, just plain angry, which brought her to her feet. “God dammit, Gordon, we’re starving in case you haven’t noticed, and I’m trying to do something about it.” She pushed her way past Gordon’s chair, wishing she could run endlessly like she did as a teen in the wide-open spaces of southern Alberta.
“Janlin—”
She didn’t give him a chance, swinging out into the hall and bouncing down every joiner she could find until she’d put some distance between them.
With some horror, she wondered if he was right. She shook the doubt away. She’d never do anything to hurt Ursula or Gordon, and she wasn’t suicidal. They simply had no one to turn to for help anymore, and her gut told her not to wait for something that might not show up.
She hadn’t told them about her plan to land near Dad’s old lab though, and that said something. He could be anywhere, and dirtside seemed the least likely. But she had to check. If he’d gone to Mars, there would be no reason to keep it secret.
Movement caught her eye and her heart leapt, but it was only a Shunter coming in from another station. Every day she held hope that he would return with the Renegade full of exactly what they needed for a fresh start, and the mystery explained away.
Too many days had passed, and her hope had dwindled. The idea that he might need help, might be waiting for her somewhere, that was the motivation she clung to now.
They had to take care of themselves, and as a pilot she was one of the few that could get what they needed. If she had a side mission at the same time, that was her business.
She stopped at another porthole and pressed her forehead to the cool plate while she waited for the station to give her a view of the planet below. When it did, she found herself staring at a superstorm over Africa, its whirl of white destruction obscuring the surface. From here, it was silent and beautiful. On the surface, she knew the planet’s topsoil churned in the air, whipped into massive dust storms by the intense winds that rarely let up.
What was she thinking, heading down there? Every other mission that had tried, died.
Janlin straightened and drew a deep breath. She had no desire to risk her life, but circumstances left her little choice. Besides, she was done being hungry.
Maybe, just maybe, there was a way to reduce the risk.
Chapter Three
HUNGER NIPPED AT the edge of her attention, always there, always demanding what wasn’t available. Janlin adjusted the thrusters, punched in the stabilizers, flicked her gaze over the controls and back out the windows. Just then the clouds broke, and she could make out the land below through the yellow haze. She straightened out and scanned the flooded plains.
Beyond the water lay a wasteland of rock and dust that marched over foothills and off into the Rockies. Some slopes still bore macabre forests of blackened trunks and scorched earth, but most were washed clean by the harsh storms and frequent landslides. With each visit more land disappeared, eaten up by the rising sea levels.
Earth looked more like Mars used to everyday, and Mars had become the new oasis. How ironic.
Smoke from worldwide fires and the smog-thick air vied for dominance, swirling grey and brown, bringing a welcome respite from the view of the ground. Janlin wrinkled her nose, already anticipating the stench and the pinch of the necessary rebreather mask. The cloudbank thinned, the view returned, and she could see the area she once called home.
High-rise remnants of Calgary studded the water below. Floating jetsam rode the waves, the debris of a broken civilization. She flicked switches, checked the fuel cells to see if they were charging the lithium batteries effectively, and entered commands with her right hand to program the NECS.
“They’re called Nano Electrochemical Systems, and someday they will enable us to create faster and more efficient space craft. In fact, they may eventually perform miracles, like allowing us to fold space and Jump to other systems.” The voice of her instructor echoed through her head, and she shook off the memory. Where were the miracles now? Jumping to a new planetary system would certainly solve some problems.
She came in fast, headed for the foothills west and north of the flood basin. Janlin cut one set of thrusters, fired another set hard. The ship dropped, losing altitude and speed fast. Wind gusts reminded her of the good old days of piloting aircraft, and she fought for control with a joyful intensity unlike anything she’d felt in a really long time. She might be scared, but this was flying old style, and she missed it.
Below, swaths of rippled sand ran from the edge of the water right up the slopes of the foothills. Janlin checked the readouts, searching for just the right GPS position. Away from the high-rise remnants, the area below held few landmarks of times past, but satellites still circled, many performing their ongoing functions despite a lack of response from below.
Her earcell let out a burst of static, making her flinch. “Orbital to Shunter Green, please come in.”
Janlin winced and considered ignoring it, but Gordon might have data she would need. Might as well get the tongue-lashing over with.
“Shunter Green to Orbital, go ahead.”
“Shunter Green, you are a blasted idiot! Going down alone is not the answer—”
“I’m just doing what needs done. I’ll be back so fast you won’t have time to miss me.”
“Bloody right I won’t miss—”
Janlin tapped her ear, severing the connection. He would be livid, but at least she
wasn’t risking his wife’s life, right? She’d get what she could, and Ursula would just have to deal with whatever she brought back.
The Shunter’s integrated aerospike engines whined, a sound that put a thrill through her again. In space, there was no atmosphere to whistle through your jets, no wind to rock you, no sensation of flying at all. This—this was flying, and her heart rushed with it.
Below, the water’s edge passed and the ground rushed by. While great swaths of land had become barren, not even holding enough life to warrant being called a desert, this area still had standing forest. It also happened to be where her family’s cottage once stood.
Janlin prepared for her big finish, her hands rarely still as she ran the descent protocol. Could she convince the computers to let her cut engines and glide in silently?
She sent the command she’d carefully programmed. Alerts lit up across the console. She grappled with the sudden loss of stabilizers, urging the digital nanoelectronics to just let her take over.
Her chosen landing site approached fast. “So far so good,” she said, patting the stick. She calmed a few of the flashing alarms, letting the smart machine know she was aware of what was happening. It seemed to work.
She brought the Shunter into a mild turn, heading northwest of the old city. Calgary. Alberta. Canada. Names like that didn’t matter anymore. Neither did borders, although the survivors eking out a living down here might still care. Janlin doubted it . . . on both counts. The biggest pockets of survivors still left were in Europe, where biodomes had allowed for some crop preservation. Those domes were long gone now, but the descendants of those builders lived on. Before Luna’s devolution there’d been much talk of bringing them out despite SpaceOp’s strict protocol against any new emigrants from Earth . . . again for the “safety of those already in place.” Sometimes SpaceOp, which meant Diona Jordan, tended to be a little forgetful of what it was to be human.
Janlin banked in to make a run at an old strip of asphalt highway, a relic of the days of metal cars and combustion engines. From here, it didn’t look long enough by half.
The winds twisted, gusting hard, and the forward thrusters suddenly kicked in, screaming with force. She cursed the noise, but she could see how necessary they were. Janlin let the ship drop, determined to leave a nice patch of highway ahead of her for take-off. Turning a Shunter around was a bit of a pain in the ass, and mucking with a straight thruster take-off in full Earth gravity and high winds was simply asking too much, even for a good pilot like Janlin. A good old-fashioned strip landing and take-off would work just fine.
Touchdown rocked her in her seat, but otherwise went well. As soon as the Shunter stopped, Janlin unbuckled and checked systems status. She hit the switch for the hatch. Moments later, in tandem with the red signal warning on her console, Janlin’s nose flared at the pervasive smell of smoke. The clang of the unlocking hatch followed. Janlin rotated her shoulders, took a deep breath before it got too bad, and got back to her shut-down procedure.
The smell of smoke meant death in space—here it never went away. With another deep breath for good measure, she slapped a rebreather over her face. It took some effort to get out of her seat, and she staggered under the pull of Earth gravity on her space-weak body. Already the dry heat engulfed her, and in mere seconds sweat soaked the shirt inside her jumpsuit. She pulled at the zippers and clips, angling the top down off her arms and tying it around her waist. Her pale freckled skin might burn, but the vitamin D couldn’t hurt.
To the east lay plains of grey, and further out a shimmering horizon, yellowish in the haze of contamination. Where once ran the rolling hills of prairie and farmland, now dead water evened the score. Few fish species survived, and those that did carried enough toxins to be inedible. The floodplains stretched south, disappearing under roiling clouds of a brewing storm system. Janlin frowned at the dark mass.
Against the cloudbank, and lit by the rising sun, the skeletons of Calgary’s downtown stood hollow and black, an echo of the forests she’d seen from the air. They protruded out of the water, ghostly spires of a lost city in the strange light. Behind her the Rockies still stood proud, if dry and barren. Despite the sunrise here, she’d been awake for nearly half a day-shift.
She touched her earcell. “Gordon, you read?”
“Oi, now she wants my help,” came the answer. “You’ve got some explaining to do, lass.”
“Later. I don’t have time.”
“How’s it look?”
Janlin grimaced and adjusted her rebreather. “The place just isn’t what it used to be. More importantly, tell me about the weather forecast.”
“It’s a bit dodgy, that, so no pissing around. Get some plants, and get gone.”
“Will do.” It was a small enough lie. The cottage was just up over the rise. Wouldn’t take long.
Janlin ducked into the Shunter and swung up Ursula’s pack she’d snuck along with her. She may not know exactly how to use all the fancy biochemist gear, but she could at least fill the chambers.
“My God, this thing weighs a ton!” Earth gravity was enough to deal with without adding twenty kilos to her back. She adjusted the pack for her shorter stature as she set the ship’s seal.
She turned and faced the steep hill that led up to the trees. Each step kicked up little drifts of dust. The soil, if you could call it that, looked empty.
Then she looked closer. Ants crawled here and there, and a beetle scuttled out from under a rock. Bugs whined around Janlin’s head, making her flap her hand to ward them off.
Some life did survive. Too bad they couldn’t eat the spore that ate their plants.
Fifty-odd steps brought her to the top of the ridge. Trees rose up, welcoming her with shade. As she strode into the relative cool, the smell of soil struck her. It was faint compared to the wave of moisture and mustiness in the growhouses, but it was here.
High on a ridge, this area was bordered by a dry riverbed, an expanse of field, and two old highways, putting this tiny pocket of life in direct contrast with the charred area around it. She wandered under the trees, many of them limp and yellowing, but to her scorched eyesight they stood like vibrant beacons of hope. Janlin ran her hand down the smooth bark of a slender aspen, marvelling at the shocking whiteness of its trunk. Still, it stood bare of leaves despite the late spring season for this area. She knew she needed to bring either seeds or a whole plant with living roots. Leaves from nearly dead trees weren’t going to cut it.
Colour flashed in the shadows. “A wild rose!” Janlin scrambled through tangled deadfall to reach it. With a little exclamation, she fell to her knees to examine one shrivelled rose hip standing out as a shock of red on the otherwise barren bush. Janlin had a sudden memory of being at her grandmother’s acreage as a child, crying because a rose’s thorns had scratched her legs. Her grandmother had pointed out the beauty of it, how it was covered with delicate pink blossoms and serrated leaves as well as thorns.
She reached out, half lost in memories, and touched the precious rose hip. It came free in her hands too easily, revealing the plant’s true state. Still, a closer look gave her pause, and she pocketed the rose hip to investigate. A few withered leaves pushed out from the stem, not exactly green, but not exactly dead. Staring at the surrounding skeletons of bushes, Janlin wondered how such a little survivor managed to make it. She shrugged off the pack and took out a small folding spade, determined to bring this valuable plant home.
The wind chose that moment to whip up, clogging Janlin’s rebreather with dust and throwing grit into her eyes. She crouched forward, using her arms to shelter the tiny bush instead of her face until the blast subsided.
With some struggle, and not a little cursing, she dug up the rose bush, retaining as much of the root structure as possible, and encased it in one of the chambers Ursula had prepared. The wind gusted and tugged, and then seemed to settle, teasing at her hair and clothes but not driving quite so hard anymore.
Janlin’s stomach growled.
In response, the distant sky growled back.
The wind had a cooler touch all of a sudden, and shadow and light interchanged quickly as the clouds scuttled overhead. Janlin studied the sky as she hoisted the pack up with a grunt. Getting trapped by a storm wouldn’t up her odds of success.
She scanned the area, hoping for another miracle.
That’s when she saw the footprint.
Fear gutted her worse than the hunger. The boot print stood out where the soil was sandy and loose. She looked around, wondering how many other signs didn’t register on the hard-packed ground. It was no consolation that the print was roughly the same size as hers. Man or woman, any survivor down here would be desperate and willing to do anything to fly out of here. Janlin scanned the surrounding woods for any sign of movement.
Her earcell buzzed, and Janlin tapped the switch in her earlobe. “Go ahead,” she said quietly.
Static was her only answer for a few seconds.
“. . . looking beastly,” came Gordon’s voice. “Your area will catch the edge of it. Bugger the plants, Kav, you need to knock off and head back. Even a minor storm down there is still a right bit unpleasant.”
“Perfect,” Janlin said under her breath, hoping he didn’t hear her through the crackle. She winced when the static’s volume rose. Then the connection cleared again, bringing Gordon’s voice back.
“You still there?”
“Yep. I’m on my way,” she assured him. “I’ve come across a fresh footprint.”
The bit of silent airtime seemed to ring with a cockney “bloody hell.” She knew Gordon far too well not to hear it.
“Right, then, get out of there now,” he said out loud. “You’ll have to hurry in order to lift before the storm. You could shelter in the Shunter and wait it out, but the dust will clog the systems and might make her a flight hazard.” Janlin heard Gordon’s false bravado, and it chilled her worse than the cooling breeze. He said more, but the static chopped it up. The wind pulled at her constantly now, tearing away bits of soil from the ground. Shadow engulfed the landscape, then sun, then shadow again.
Jumpship Hope Page 2