Hhhstttt … craccckkkk!!! The storm over the badlands discharged somewhere east of the tower, close enough that the first wave of the static knifed through the implant before the system’s overload breakers cut in. Trystin’s eyes watered even more, and he sneezed.
“Shit. Friggin’ stormlash.”
Was he getting more and more sensitized to stormlash, or was it just fatigue? Would the medical screening coming up the day before endday discover he was sensitized? What did medical screening have to do with the Farhkans? Who knew much about them, except that they were remarkably humanoid beings living in toward Galactic center who had been around a long time, and who had demonstrated, with rather convincing firepower, a few centuries earlier, that their desire to be left alone except through formal contacts was something that had to be respected.
The Eco-Tech Coalition had only lost one ship—officially. The revs had lost almost a hundred ships—and a major outlying Temple, along with a good portion of New Salem—before they had gotten the idea. The Farhkans had demonstrated close to total ability to annihilate the entire heavens of the Revenants of the Prophet before the revs had gotten the message.
Would the Eco-Tech Coalition have to do the same to stop the waves of revvie ships? He sighed. That wasn’t his problem, and he doubted that the Coalition had either the ability or the will to wipe out entire systems. Still, he wished they’d do something, rather than just have perimeter officers like him sitting and waiting and reacting. Someday, he might not react quickly enough.
Once the Coalition and the revs had been allies against the Immortals … but that had been a long time ago—before the Farhkans.
He frowned, realizing that he’d never really seen a Farhkan, not in person. According to the holos, they had pale gray skin and dark iron-gray hair that was short and bristly over their entire body, except around their mouth and single nostril. They had two red eyes and teeth that looked like greenish crystals which framed a doublehinged mouth.
With the rising wind, he reset the breakers and went back on-line to check the power screen, pleased to see that the fans were generating nearly sixty-five percent of the ambient load. So long as the winds held, the drain on organonutrient for the fuel cells would remain low.
Cling!
“All PerCon Stations. DefCom visual plot indicates two paragliders on entry envelopes. Paragliders are new beta class. Probable landfall coordinates follow. Full alert on perimeter stations. DefCon Two. DefCon Two …”
Trystin checked the coordinates. The probable landfall was beyond the western perimeter line, and the revs didn’t miss by the width of the entire central plains—not by fifteen hundred kays. Not so far.
New beta-class paragliders! Now the revs were bringing down heavy equipment, and that equipment came off troids that had been launched from Orum or somewhere nearly twenty years earlier. What else had they developed that would be coming in the months and years ahead? He pursed his lips—better just to worry about the days ahead. Someone else could worry about the years.
Hhhstttt … craccckkkk! Crack!! Trystin only winced at the stormlash, and checked the metplot. The big storm was rolling westward and down toward East Red Three.
He tried to raise the scooter that sat, according to the satellite plot and the beacon, right beside the turners that Hisin was repairing.
“Hisin, this is Lieutenant Desoll.”
“Barely read you, ser … .” The response was crackling, probably because of the approaching storm.
“We’ve got a big storm rolling our way. I’d estimate not more than a stan.”
“I’m almost done. This time it wasn’t that bad. Just had to clean out the toxics accumulator. The turners must have run through a bad patch here.”
“Stet.” Trystin checked the metplot again, but, if anything, the storm had slowed. That was good because Hisin would get back in time, and bad because a slower-moving storm tended to have more time over the station.
Supposedly, the storms would get worse as more oxygen and water vapor built up in the atmosphere, at least on the perimeter lines where old and new tended to mix. That had something to do with the slope of the hills at the edge of the high plains, not the perimeter lines themselves, although they had reached the badlands.
In another five years, the Service would have to begin to repeat the whole process on the western continent, and things would get even hairier.
Trystin stood and walked around the center, stretching his legs and glancing out the armaglass, where the eastern sky was continuing to darken.
The station still smelled of ammonia and weedgrass, and he rubbed his nose, so sensitive that the rubbing hurt, but his nostrils itched, and his eyes still watered. He blotted them on the back of his suit sleeve and headed back to the command seat.
After checking the four-screen once more, he watched as the scooter pulled away from the turners and curved back toward the station. Then he took another sip of the Sustain. Sometimes he felt as if he were living on the high-energy liquid nutrient. He coughed and cleared his throat. Sometimes he was.
“Back in-station, ser.”
“Stet.”
Crackk!!! CRACKK!!!! At the first knife through his skull from the clouds rolling out of the hills and across the station, Trystin winced, but the overrides cut him off-line again.
While he waited for the storm to pass so that he could go back on-line, he called up the split screen on the console, visually scanning the displays, and feeling slowed and partly blinded by his loss of direct access to the network and station systems. His fingers were far slower than his mind.
Outside was dark, almost like twilight, as the heavy clouds passed over the station. The armor and walls couldn’t block out the whining of the wind, or the gritty tick, tick, tick of sand against the armaglass window.
Crack! Another bolt of energy lashed from the storm.
Trystin shifted in the command seat, leaving his links to the system dead until the storm passed. There wasn’t much sense in trying to go on-line and getting kicked out, especially since high-energy surges offered a chance of incremental neural degradation, small but definite.
The screen showing the area around the station continued to darken, as did the armaglass portal looking toward the eastern hills. At least the fans were generating enough to carry the entire load and actually load the backup accumulators.
The sand continued to tick against the window.
Crack! Crack! Two more lightning bolts flared down near the perimeter line, raising the illumination in the station and on the screen.
“Lieutenant, I’m shutting down the tech boards.” The words came through the speaker, automatically turned on when the link system went off-line.
“Go ahead.”
“Stet, ser.”
Crack! CRACK!!!!
Trystin didn’t need the red lights from the maintenance panel to know that the last discharges had mangled something, only to pinpoint where the damage was—main reclamation tower number one. Again, he should have been the one to suggest the cutoff earlier. He shook his head.
If it weren’t the revs, it was the damned planet. He took a sip of Sustain and manually called the metplot onto the side screen before him. According to the scanners, the storm center had passed.
Crack!
That didn’t mean the storm was finished with East Red Three, not as the station shook again.
Cling! This time, the tone came through the speaker, since his implant was off-line. Trystin fumbled with the console and shifted the message to the screen on the console. He hated being off-line. It was slow and clumsy.
“All PerCon Stations. DefCom has confirmed two beta-class paragliders with landfall near western perimeter. Both gliders are being neutralized. Landfall coordinates and estimated time of landfall follow. Full alert on western perimeter stations. DefCon One. DefCon One …”
Once more Trystin fumbled with the console controls and the keyboard before finally locating the landfall coordinates—directly
across the plains to the west, and less than five kays into the western badlands.
He pursed his lips, not liking the phrase “are being neutralized.” Was Maran Defense Control having trouble with the shielding on the gliders as well? More trouble than before?
Crack! The intensity of the lightning was lower.
Trystin continued to use his eyes to scan the screens on the console, begrudging the comparative slowness of his fingers in handling the displays. Still, the monitoring screens weren’t that much work, and they were the only systems, besides basic station-keeping, that were on-line while the storm thundered westward over East Red Three.
As the storm faded, and the afternoon light rose, Trystin finally relinked to the system and began to reactivate the technical side, confirming as he did so that in addition to a number of minor circuits through the system, all systems of reclamation tower one were inoperative.
“Lieutenant, tower one is down. Down cold.”
Trystin checked the metplot, but the storm was a good ten kays west of the station and beginning to break as it crossed the more heavily creepered areas. “Looks clear if you want to check it out.”
“Stet. Scooter one is all right.” A laugh followed. “I can always walk back.” With the nearer tower one less than a kay away, Hisin would be close, not even out of helmet comm range.
Trystin checked the four-screen again, but could see no signs of more storms or revs—not that he had that much confidence in the scanners being able to detect anything the revs had until they were practically overrunning the station.
Then he used the net to scan the comm inslots, coming up with little more than routine messages.
Hisin hadn’t been at the tower more than ten standard minutes before he called back. “Lieutenant, all the power links to the control boxes are fused. That last bolt from the storm overloaded the grounds, and …” Hisin’s voice trailed off. “ … haven’t seen anything like this in a long time.”
“There’s a lot we haven’t seen in a long time, and it’s happening more frequently, I think. Do what you can.”
“I’ll have to come back to the station to see if we even have enough components.”
“Stet.” Trystin watched as Hisin reentered the scooter and rode back to the station. Just two more days before he could go to Klyseen. Medical exam or not, he was ready for a break.
Cling!
“Advisory for PerCon Stations. revvie assault repulsed West Red Five. Full alert remains for western-perimeter stations. DefCon One. DefCon One …”
Trystin shook his head. Another long session for the western sector watch officers. Repulsion was not neutralization by a long shot, and that meant the revs had heavy weapons. And that meant trouble.
He shifted his weight to remove some of the pressure on the sore hip, then checked his own screens again, even remote-swiveling the outside scanners to the west for a quick sweep, but everything remained clear, not that he expected the revs to cross the high plains instantly.
Lifting the cup of Sustain, he looked at it, then set it down without drinking. He was already hyper, and being too hyper on the net was a recipe for headaches.
He’d had enough headaches in the last two weeks.
9
“The time is zero four hundred ten.” At 0410, the single sentence from the system was enough to jolt Trystin from sleep. He swung his bare feet onto the hard plastcrete flooring of the cubicle and sat on the edge of his bunk. He had a moment, but not much more, before he trudged to the shower and the chemically pure recycled water that had no zip. He rubbed his forehead, then struggled upright. Even so early in the morning, he could sense a faint static through the implant.
The shower helped—some, but even the hot water couldn’t wash away the odor of ammonia and weedgrass.
Trystin dried himself, wrapped himself in the towel, and trudged back to his cubicle. He dressed in informal greens, then made his way to the lock doors to wait for the shuttle.
At 0440, the ground shuttle stopped on the pad outside the center, and Trystin, respirator over his mouth, beret tucked in his belt, kit bag in hand, triggered the door to the pad, stepped out, and marched out and in through the shuttle’s rear door. The passenger compartment was scarred green-gray plastic, with matching seats, and lit by a single glow-strip down the middle of the overhead.
A square-faced noncom looked at Trystin for a moment, scanned the uniform and pointed to a seat along one wall. Four of the twelve wall seats were taken, each by a junior officer, and each officer wore a respirator.
“Lieutenant Desoll?” came the faint indirect-link question.
“That’s me,” Trystin responded back through the static.
“Leave your respirator on, ser, but you can plug into the jack by your seat. We won’t go to full oxygen till we finish the pickups.”
As Trystin strapped in, the shuttle pulled away from the station. The faint hiss of the shuttle’s air fed through the respirator, along with the odor of oil and metal … and ammonia and weedgrass. Trystin leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes, much the way the others had done, he suspected.
He didn’t really sleep, or even doze, but sat there in a semiconscious daze, as the shuttle swayed through three more stops and starts before beginning its return to Klyseen.
“Full pressurization.”
Groggily, Trystin opened his eyes and pulled off the respirator, unplugging and folding the mouthpiece into the pak. He rubbed his eyes gently, crusted as they were from the irritation of ammonia and weedgrass. Then he took a deep breath that was not quite a yawn.
“You’re Trystin, aren’t you?” The dark-haired officer next to him wore a star beside the double-linked collar bar, signifying her selection for major. Her nose was sharp, but fitted to her face, and the chin firm, squared, above the strong shoulders that were almost, but not quite, too broad. Her body seemed trim and muscular.
“Yes.” Trystin looked again, realizing that the eyes were harder, the face older than he had first seen.
“I’m Ulteena Freyer.”
“Congratulations.” He nodded at the pin. “How long?”
“Next month. I’m one of the few with anniversary dates in Unodec.” Her eyes fixed his.
“Could I ask how you knew who I was?” Then he grinned stupidly. They were all in uniform with the highlighted name badges below their shoulders.
“Actually, I picked you out before I could see the badge.” She gave him a smile that was friendly, but not cuddly. “You’re the only one who looks like a rev.”
Trystin shrugged. “Can’t do much about genetics.”
“You from a long-term techie family?”
“Yes. One of the first on Perdya—believe it or not.” He hated explaining that despite his rev looks, he was a techie through and through with family links that went back to the foundation of the Eco-Tech Coalition.
“I believe it. It also explains why you survived those booby traps the revs sent. You know Weslyn didn’t? Neither did a couple of tech officers on the western perimeter.”
“Why?” he asked politely.
“I’m sure you have to prove everything, and you and your family always have had to. Any failures in your family?”
Trystin understood the star beside her bars. Then he grinned. “You, too?”
The momentarily blank look was replaced by a grin. “Yes. Don’t forget it, either, Trystin.” Then the grin faded.
“I know. Next month, it will be ‘major.’”
“It will. That’s true. But your time will come. Ranks are temporary.” She leaned back in the seat, closing her eyes.
What was that all about, he wondered? Except he knew. For whatever reason, Ulteena Freyer had as much to prove as Trystin did—maybe more. In a way, it was too bad. Despite the slightly sharp nose, he liked the way she looked, and her competence. It reminded him of Salya. He wondered how his sister was doing, then shook his head. Wondering wouldn’t answer the question, and he settled back and closed his own eyes
.
“Klyseen depot!” announced the noncom from the doorway.
Trystin jerked awake in time to see Ulteena step out through the shuttle’s doorway into the shuttle depot. He stood and stretched, letting the others leave first. According to the implant, it was still only 0715, and he had more than enough time to get something to eat before his 0900 appointment at the Service medical center.
The tunnel from the depot was double-wide, nearly twenty meters across, with the side to Trystin’s right—the eastern side—bearing a maroon stripe. The five meters next to the wall were reserved for electroscooters and open passenger carts. The carts each had three bench seats and were programmed to stop roughly every quarter kay.
Trystin ignored the carts, unlike most of the Service people, and walked away from the depot, situated under the center of Klyseen, southward toward the residential domes. On his days off, he had learned that the better cafes were there, with cross tunnels for pedestrians that led to the western Service dome—though the term “dome” was a misnomer, since the bulk of each structure was below ground.
Even with an interior and largely underground culture, most of the personnel on Mara had darker complexions than Trystin, not surprisingly, since the Eco-Tech heritage had been genetically mixed, to say the least. While he did not quite tower over the average Eco-Tech, at 195 centimeters he was taller than most, but he tried not to slouch.
He passed the first restaurant—the Tunnel Cubed—because it was crowded, with Service people at practically every table. Another half kay south along the tunnel, he stepped into the Marigold, where less than half the tables were taken.
After scanning the menu, he saw why. The prices were a good third higher than at the Tunnel Cubed. Hoping that the higher tariff meant better food, he tapped in his order at the service console—real eggs, toasted white algae bread, and browned potatoes. Potatoes could be grown almost anywhere. The console compared his thumb print and ID number and beeped its approval.
Trystin took the squarish slip with his number on it and walked over to the dispenser for some tea. The tea cost as much as the rest of the breakfast, but he needed something hot and real. He took a corner table beside the planter filled with live marigolds and rysya. The marigolds provided color and a bitter scent that Trystin found more acceptable than all the artificial fragrances that drifted past him. The rysya—planted everywhere in Klyseen—had only small white blossoms, but served as a supplemental oxygen regenerator. He could feel the directed heat from the laser-type sunsquirts in the ceiling.
The Parafaith War Page 7