She didn’t know that for certain, but it felt right. They could even now be clearing away the rubble, preparing to search the caves. Their tracks had been a dead giveaway. There hadn’t been any way to conceal the fact that humans had been walking all around the cave, or that their tracks had led into the cave mouth.
“How quickly can you get another suit up and running?” Charline asked Halcomb.
“The printing pieces is the easy part. The fabricator’s database is full of all kinds of shit. Just about anything and everything. Putting it all together is gonna take a lot of work,” he replied.
“How long?”
“Couple of hours to print the parts, once the fabricator has broken down some of the stuff enough to begin work. A lot longer to get the parts together. Not like we have a crane to move things around in here,” Halcomb said.
“I’ll help,” Tessa said.
“We’ll all help,” Charline said. “This is about survival. We need everyone on board working together to make this happen.”
There were so many steps to what she had in mind. The main obstacle was time. If the enemy came at them too soon, they’d have a hard fight. Maybe an impossible one. The more hours of work they had, the better off they’d all be.
“You plan to fight them,” Arjun said. “Count me in, then.”
“Oh, we’re going to do more than fight them,” Charline said. “We’re going to beat them, steal their ship, and get us all off this dustball.”
EIGHTEEN
They took two full days of working at a breakneck pace to get six new suits of shining armor made. Each used one of the power cells taken from the alien armor. The original suit stood off to one side. Halcomb said it was easier to build one from scratch than to update the one they already had with new tech.
Mixing alloys was part of the problem. The alien metal was both stronger and lighter than steel, which made it easier to build with but problematic for the printer. The bottleneck turned out to be the fabricator, not the human labor. It required running the machine at all hours to get the work done.
Charline looked at the completed armor suits. They gleamed in a way her dusty old suit hadn’t. The sparkling alloy the aliens had used for their insect armor was tough stuff. According to Halcomb, it was a mixture of aluminum, titanium, and a few other things. However they’d manufactured it, the stuff was hard to break once it was molded into place.
“Guns all mounted?” Charline asked.
“Yes. We had enough for two per suit,” Tessa replied. She’d been the natural person to put in charge of the rack of things they’d discovered were powerful plasma weapons. Arjun did most of the actual installation, but Tessa helped.
The suits had one mounted on each arm. Charline had fretted over the decision on where to place the things. Arm mounted weapons might be more vulnerable to damage than something mounted in the more heavily armored torso section, but they were also easier to aim. The act of pointing your arm at something was fluid and natural. Besides, as she’d learned fighting the bugs, sometimes you can aim an arm, but you can’t turn your body. After debating the pros and cons, they went all-in with arm mounted guns.
“We need to do a couple of dry runs before we take the suits topside. We’re going to want to get some practice in,” Charline said. “Andy, still nothing from the sensors you placed?”
“I’d have told you if there was,” he replied. “All quiet up top.”
That bothered Charline more than she wanted to admit. Why hadn’t the aliens come down after them? If they knew her team was there, she would expect them to come hunting. If they had no idea her people were buried beneath the ground, then the footprints should have at least aroused curiosity.
Maybe they’d moved on, left the world behind them and gone on. That would be both good and bad. Good, because it meant they didn’t have a highly advanced race of aliens waiting outside to blow them all to bits. But on the downside, they were all going to starve if help didn’t arrive soon. The only alternative was to rescue themselves, which was why they’d raced the clock to get these suits done. If the ship left before they were ready, it was all for nothing. They’d remain trapped on Dust until Earth managed to send a rescue party – or they all died. It was hard to predict which would happen first.
“OK, let’s suit up. I’m in One. Andy, you’ve got Two. Tessa in Three. Arjun, you’ve got Four. Jonas, take Five. Isabella, you’ve got Six,” Charline said.
“What about me? I all but built those things!” Holcomb asked.
“Yes, you did. Which is why I need you in one piece, to repair them if they get damaged. Same for Karl, in case one of us gets hurt. You two are irreplaceable. The rest of us aren’t,” Charline said.
Andy cast her a glance which told her he disagreed with that statement. She gave him a small shake of her head. Now wasn’t the time. There never seemed to be a right time to have the conversation she felt like they needed so badly. It had been one emergency after another since they’d been stranded.
“Well, when you put it that way,” Halcomb said. He shot her a grin. “I’ll just keep at the building, shall I?”
“Please. We’ll probably burn out some parts over the practice runs. We’re not going to use live ammo, but let’s be ready in case there’s some damage.”
She didn’t add that they were going out in untested designs. These new suits of armor were based heavily on the old suits. That part was old, reliable tech. But they hadn’t enough steel to make even a second suit, so they’d used the alien components, fed through the fabricator to generate the parts. There was no telling how well they’d work together.
Charline pushed aside her worries. “Let’s move.”
HOW THE HELL had things fallen apart so rapidly? Her carefully orchestrated maneuver was collapsing in front of Charline’s eyes, and nothing she said seemed to make a bit of difference.
“No! Arjun, you’re crossing Tessa’s line of fire,” she called out.
She watched as he walked blithely through the space where she was theoretically firing her guns to pin down the imaginary enemy. He’d cut across directly in front of her. In a real fight she would have had to either hold her fire and risk the enemy popping out at them, or continue the covering fire but cut Arjun to bits. Assuming she saw him in time to react at all.
The other flank wasn’t faring much better. Andy and Isabella were paired off there. It had been Charline’s idea to partner each experienced warrior with a novice, to help keep an eye on the team members who hadn’t experienced much combat yet. But Andy had his hands full babysitting Isabella as she slowly marched her armor forward, trying to stumble her way into position. Try as she might, the young botanist didn’t seem capable of managing the armor’s controls. She was fighting them instead of working with them.
“Let’s move,” Charline said to her own partner. He grunted an affirmative over the radio and stepped off with her. They both moved to support Tessa, who was arguably in the worst position. With Arjun most likely dead or disabled, she’d quickly be surrounded and picked off without support.
Charline stopped behind a stalagmite to assess the situation. Andy and Isabella had reached cover. At least that was something. Arjun was cutting back across Tessa’s field of fire for a second time.
Charline grunted with frustration. She tapped a command on her tablet and sent a message to his suit to shut down. Immediately the suit lost power and toppled to the ground.
“Ow!” Arjun’s cry went out over the radio. “What the hell?”
“It’ll hurt a lot more when you’re cut to ribbons by enemy and friendly fire,” Charline barked. “Stay aware of your surroundings.”
She stepped out away from her cover to move toward Tessa. Before she could take three steps, her armor’s leg caught on something. She tried to recover her balance but couldn’t catch herself in time. Her armor toppled to the ground with a crashing sound that rang in her ears.
“Ow!” If it hadn’t hurt to much, Charline might
have seen more humor in saying the same thing Arjun had. “What the hell was that?”
“Sorry,” Jonas said. “That was me.”
Charline hoisted herself back up by an arm so she could see his suit. He’d toppled to the ground as well, crashing to the floor a few feet away from her. Jonas had stayed close, just like she’d told him. He’d been too literal, though. His armor must have been practically on top of her heels for them to get tangled like that.
Charline heaved a sigh and hauled herself back to her feet. “All right, folks. Reset. Let’s do this again.”
“No. I’m done,” Arjun said. “That last fall hurt. We’ve been at this for hours. It’s time for a break.”
“The enemy could attack at any moment,” Charline said.
“Yes, or they might have already left. We need to take a breather and get out of these suits,” Arjun said.
She was about to protest again, but heard murmurs of assent from one or more of the others. Why couldn’t they understand? Unless they drilled long enough to get good at this, they’d die in a real battle. They needed as much training as they could manage in whatever hours remained to them.
But this wasn’t Earth. If she pushed too hard, she might find people deciding to follow someone else. Her authority as leader was based on a command structure dozens of light years away.
“All right. We’ll take fifteen, then get back to it?” Charline asked. She bit her lip. That should have been an order, not a question. She was screwing this up. No wonder the team was a mess.
NINETEEN
Charline’s knees sagged as she stepped off the ladder. Her legs were shaking. Maybe the break was a good idea after all. If she was this worn down, the others must be about as bad. It wasn’t going to do them any good if the team wore itself to a nub in training and was too exhausted to deal with a threat when it appeared.
She pulled out her computer tablet and opened the clock app, setting it up for a timer. They’d do a session, then take a break, and after the break go again. That way no one would get burned out by the training.
“Can we talk?” Andy said, walking over.
Charline ran her fingers through her hair. She glanced down at the time. “Sure. We’ve got another eleven minutes.”
He frowned, like that was going to be enough time. It had better be. Charline agreed she’d been running everyone a little too hard, and that breaks were going to help. But that didn’t mean she would let the break extend for too long. They still had work to do.
“What’s up?” Charline asked.
“Not here. Step away a bit with me?”
This time it was her turn to frown, but she followed Andy as he walked them both out of earshot of the others. The cavern was darker, away from their suits. The shadows were long and deep. They’d swept the caverns looking for more bugs and hadn’t found any. That didn’t mean there were no more, hiding someplace they couldn’t see. Charline kept her eyes open and her body on high alert.
“What is so important it couldn’t wait, and so secret that it had to be said in private?” Charline snapped. She was annoyed that Andy would put them both at risk like this. They shouldn’t be so far from their armor. If anything came at them, they’d never make it back in time.
“Wow,” Andy said. “I haven’t even said anything yet and I’ve already had my head bitten off.”
“If I wanted to bite your head off, I would. As it stands, I’m too tired to bite much of anything. Tell me what you wanted to say,” Charline said, waving a hand across her face in fatigue.
“You’re driving them too hard,” he replied. “They’re making mistakes because they are just repeating the same things. We need to broaden the range of exercises to give them some variations, but they need to rest, too.”
“We’ve got limited time to do a lot of training,” Charline said. It was one thing to agree in her head that breaks were a good idea. But her hackles went up at someone else calling her out over it. Even Andy. Maybe especially Andy. Shouldn’t he be supporting her?
“Yes, but have you ever trained people to fight before?”
“I’ve run shooting classes lots of times,” Charline temporized.
“That’s not the same as combat training. You’ve seen enough fighting to know that. Remember how you and I drilled for room clearing?” Andy asked.
She did. That training saved her life more than once, and it was what she’d used as a model for the sessions she was running for this team. But it sounded like she was doing it wrong. Or at least Andy thought she was. For a moment she considered handing all the training over to him. He had the experience, after all. She could be the mission leader while he ran the tactical squad. It could work.
“Honestly, I’m not happy with you being out there in armor at all,” Andy said. “I liked what you told Halcomb about some people not being expendable. But in my opinion, you’re one of them.”
His words put the brakes on Charline’s thoughts. She couldn’t believe her ears. “You want me out of the fighting?”
“I want you safe,” he said. “If you die, who is going to get into the alien computer system to get their ship under our control?”
He had a point, but she wasn’t going to admit it. She wanted in on this, damn it. The armor had been her brainchild. She’d bled in that suit of hers. Charline felt like it was a part of her now.
“Am I really going to be safer out of armor than in it?” Charline asked.
“Maybe, maybe not. We can clear the area and then move in our unarmored people once it’s safe. Everyone who isn’t expendable.”
Charline wanted to tell Andy that none of them were expendable, but she knew he wasn’t going to buy it. He considered himself that way, at least. It pissed her off whenever she thought about it.
“Like you, you mean?” Charline snapped. “You’ve considered yourself expendable ever since John died. That’s why you’re here, right? To take a bullet for someone just one more time, the way you couldn’t take that last one for him?”
Charline regretted the words as soon as they’d left her mouth. Andy’s face went white. His lips grew pinched, and his eyes were shining. Those were unshed tears she was seeing. Damn it, she knew the two of them had been close, almost as close as a father and child. Reminding Andy of John’s death was the last thing she should have done. She’d hurt him, and immediately felt guilty.
“Andy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean–”
“If that’s why you think I risked everything to get on this mission with you, why I left a perfectly good spaceship because I heard you were trapped on the other side of a cave-in...” Andy said. Charline gasped. She hadn’t heard that part of the story from him. “Then I don’t think you know me anywhere near as well as I thought you did.”
“Andy … I’m worried about doing the right thing for everyone here. I want to keep them all alive. You most of all,” Charline said. She ran both hands through her hair and turned away from him. “I just don’t know how to do that. There’s so much working against us here.”
His palms dropped gently to her shoulders, and she leaned into one of them. His anger and hurt had already cooled. That was one thing she loved about Andy. He was slow to anger and quick to cool off. Charline reached up and stroked one of his hands gently.
“You’re doing damned well, given the circumstances,” Andy said. “Keeping everyone alive through what we’ve seen so far is a testimony to your leadership.”
“And my fighting skills,” Charline said. She turned back around to face him.
“Yes, that too. Although I still think you should be right up there with Halcomb when it comes to people being indispensable. Maybe even more than he is. We might be able to capture an alien ship without him. We definitely can’t do it without you,” Andy said. “If you die in a firefight to take the ship, we’re all stranded.”
“It’s not just about you being overprotective?” Charline asked. The corner of her mouth quirked up in a small smile. She knew damned well that was p
art of his motivation, but she wanted to hear him admit it.
“It’s not. Oh, I’d rather you weren’t in danger. Don’t get me wrong!” Andy said. “But I usually think the best way I can help ensure you stay safe is if you’re with me. This time I’m not sure that’s the best move. Not for you. Not for the team.”
Charline looked down. There was merit to his argument. She hated admitting that, but he might be right. No other human had as much experience as she did writing code to enable human tech to talk to alien tech. What had become easy and natural for her over the past year of work was beyond the conception of most programmers. There was no one on the team with even the root skills required to learn how to do what she’d accomplished in the field. Andy was right. She was the irreplaceable one.
“Damn. I don’t want you to be right. I want to be out there leading the fight from the front,” Charline said.
“But you know I am, anyway,” Andy said.
“Yes. I just … I don’t know. Something about this type of fighting felt right to me. It blends so many things I’ve already done. Computers, marksmanship, quick thinking…”
“Playing Halo,” Andy quipped back.
“Hey, I beat you every time we played,” Charline said, giving him a light slap in the arm for emphasis. “But you’re right. I shouldn’t be in the front. I’ll go get one of the others to drive this suit.”
“Mark might be good. He’s young, but his reflexes look solid and he really wanted to be out there on the team,” Andy said. “Charline, I really am sorry. But there will be other times you can fight. This time, you have to do something even harder. You have to lead. Sometimes that means leading from the front. Most of the time, it means sending other people into danger instead of yourself.”
She turned away and walked back to her armor. Starting up the ladder, she turned back to look at him one more time. “That doesn’t make it suck any less. Train them well, Andy. They’re going to need it.”
Dust & Iron (Adventures of the Starship Satori Book 9) Page 8