Merkiaari Wars Series: Books 1-3

by Mark E. Cooper

  There was a large crate already on the loader. He didn’t care what was in it. It was faster to unload it in the shuttle than dump it. He muscled it off the loader in the cargo bay, and hurried back to load it up again. Two trips back and forth and he was happy with his loot. He had plenty of ammo and supplements aboard. He parked the loader intending to get Gina, but paused. His eyes narrowed at the raider’s shuttle as an idea came to him. If it worked it might solve all his problems.

  If.

  He ran back to get Gina.

  When he reached her, she was forcing herself to eat, but by the look on her face she wasn’t enjoying it. Enjoying it or not, she looked better for it. He would swear the black skin on her face had paled. It was still very dark, but had edged toward a more natural colour. Good news. Very good news in fact, because her IMS wouldn’t consider epidermis a priority. If it had spared resources to fix frostbite, Gina’s insides must be well on the mend.

  “I’ve had an idea,” Eric said. “I’m going to use their shuttle to get aboard their ship.”

  “Do tell,” Gina said with interest.

  He laid it all out while he carried her to the shuttle. He wanted to get her to Liz and return to enact his plan before the raiders came to investigate things, but Gina had other ideas.

  “It won’t work,” Gina said. “It’s been hours since they shot me, Eric. They have to be on their way here. I can’t believe they won’t arrive soon.”

  “Then I’ll think of something else.”

  “I’ve already taken care of that for you,” Gina said and grinned. “Put me in the cockpit of my shuttle, and you stay here. Load some of our stuff into their ship and hide in one of the crates. They’ll find their dead friends and just fly back to their ship.”

  “Your legs—”

  “I don’t need legs to fly. Liz will look after me when I get there. Besides, IMS might have me back on my feet by then. Two hour trip. You never know.”

  It had possibilities, and he had to admit he feared the raiders would come down while he flew back to alpha site. He carried Gina up the ramp trying to think of a better way, but couldn’t.

  “Okay,” he said and continued into the cockpit. He put her in the pilot’s chair and strapped her in. He held her shoulder for a long moment. “Good luck.”

  “You too,” Gina said. “Don’t get killed.”

  Eric snorted. “I’ll try not to miss our boat trip.”

  He put her rifle on the co-pilot’s chair and slung his own over his shoulder before leaving.

  “Wait! What did you say?”

  “No time now. Ask Liz,” Eric shouted over his shoulder as he ran down the ramp. He thought he heard a curse but might have imagined it. He laughed.

  Gina’s shuttle buttoned up and took off moments later, but Eric was already hard at work by that time and didn’t watch it leave. He chose some random stuff to shove into the raider’s shuttle, before adding an empty crate that had held one of the generators. It was big enough for him to hide in and he did so after adding some ammo for his rifle and pistol to it.

  Snugged inside the crate he had time to consider this move, and began to have doubts. He was vulnerable to a single hit now. A paranoid man might abandon the shuttle and blow it on the ground. It was certainly something he would consider in their place. Run of the mill pirates sometimes killed, but in general they preferred to steal. They often put crews into lifeboats rather than simply kill them hoping for leniency should they ever be caught. To Eric’s disgust, the tactic worked more often than not. Raiders were a different breed and were more hard core. Not only were they willing to kill, they seemed to prefer it. No witnesses was their mantra.

  All that was true, but would they blow a perfectly good shuttle from the air rather than retrieve it? They must know by now that their men had probably lost a fight. The smoke still rising from dome three was a big clue, and their loss of contact with their buddies should be enough to cement the notion.

  Eric muttered a curse and sat tight. He didn’t have another plan. Gina was right. If he pretended to be one of their own and fly the shuttle, they would shoot him down. He couldn’t talk to them and they probably used recognition codes of some sort. He had to hope this would work.

  He stared at nothing in the dark, and let himself slip into memory. His breathing slowed as he became the soulless machine he sometimes feared he was, and the thing Gina had seen lurking in his eyes peered out of them into the dark unblinking.

  * * *

  19 ~ Preparations II

  Alpha site, Landing, Kushiel

  The flight back had been uneventful but for one thing. Pain. Gina’s IMS had finally connected something in her back that let her feel the damage, and although her legs still wouldn’t move she had some sensation in them again. There were tingles and shooting pains in her legs, and burning hot agony in her back that made her grit her teeth. Her face felt numb, and she wasn’t looking forward to seeing it in a mirror. Eric had tried not to show it, but he had been horrified when he saw her. IMS could fix anything given time and resources, and getting her legs back was a priority, but her comm and her face were a close second as far as she was concerned.

  Unbeknown to Gina, she chose to land her shuttle in the same place as Eric had chosen on his last run. A nice clear space close to the crane for unloading seemed ideal. She landed and lowered the ramp to allow the engineers to unload the cargo, and waited for Liz to visit the cockpit.

  “Gina, you need help?” Liz asked as she entered and gasped in horror when Gina looked up at her. “Oh my god!”

  “It’s nothing, just a scratch,” she said and grinned. Her lips split again and began bleeding profusely. Liz paled. Gina covered her bloody mouth. “Sorry about that.”

  “Sorry! My god, she’s sorry she says!” Liz reached toward the harness buckle. “What can I do?”

  “About this? Nothing. But I’ll need someone to carry me, and I warn you, I weigh a ton.”

  Liz snorted. “I have two strapping men in mind, don’t you worry about that. And I have a new suit for you downstairs.”

  She nodded. It would be good to breathe clean air again. Her IMS was keeping up with the damage the air was causing, but that didn’t make it pleasant.

  Liz removed the harness and then stepped aside as two of her people entered to lift Gina out of the pilot’s chair. They struggled at first despite their apparent strength. Liz was right about that. They were rather large specimens of maleness, but despite that, they had trouble with her mass. She was average size for a woman, but her bones were armoured, and her mylar enhanced muscles were dense. Vipers had all kinds of technology built in and despite high tech materials, it all added up. She weighed 115kg in her skin, easily twice her unenhanced weight. The suit weighed another 2kg even ruined as it was.

  The engineers linked arms so that Gina was sitting between them. She put her arms around their shoulders trying to take some of her weight on her arms and hold on. They carried her out of the cockpit and into the still busy cargo hold. Everyone stopped to watch her carried out. She heard gasps, and she looked back over a shoulder. Liz was standing near the cockpit door and she was crying. Crying? What the hell for? Sure she was banged up, but she was alive. It hurt like molten lead had been poured on her back, but the fact it hurt reassured. She would live and go on living. That’s all that mattered right now.

  “You have somewhere to hide the shuttle?” she called back.

  “Yes,” Liz said but had to clear her throat. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Gina raised a hand in acknowledgement and tried to ignore the engineers clapping. She didn’t deserve applause. The truth was she had screwed up and gotten away with it. She shouldn’t have been caught in the open and unaware like that. If she had been checking sensors, if she had slung her rifle over her shoulder ready for action, if she had set a simple alarm for sensors to trigger when the raiders arrived, she could have blown them away and kept loading her shuttle barely even inconvenienced. But she had done
none of those things, and had turned an easy fight into a desperate defence. She was secretly horrified by how close her carelessness had come to killing her true dead.

  She forced the gloomy thoughts away and promised to do better. She was alive, her legs were tingling, and she fully expected to be mobile before the day was done. Then the murderers of Hobbs and her crew would see something. Her thoughts turned to Eric. The raiders might be seeing something special right this very minute for all she knew.

  Getting her into the crane’s bucket was a real chore. It took two people lifting and two more standing inside receiving. Gina apologised for all the bother, and said sorry every time one of the men grunted and strained against her weight. If her face wasn’t so messed up she was sure she’d be blushing. This was worse than having fat thighs on a blind date!

  Finally she was in, someone handed her rifle to her, and Liz scrambled in beside her. One of the men waved and the crane hoisted them into the air and over the shaft. They plunged into darkness. Gina was looking forward to that new suit and a litre of coffee. Did they have an autochef set up yet? God, she hoped so. When last here she had asked Liz to create a place to hide for a while. She assumed that had progressed and was where she was going. Eric had hinted that the prize was found with his mention of a boat trip, but she had forgotten to ask Liz about it. Where was her brain? They were here to find the A.I or its backup module, and she had forgotten about it! Dumb.

  The bucket came to rest at the bottom of the shaft, and the struggle to get her into the bucket was repeated getting her out. More apologies from her, more demurrals combined with grunting and straining from them ensued, but finally she was sitting upon linked arms again riding into blessed warmth and light. The air was still bad. The engineers hadn’t yet figured out a way to cobble together an airlock on a room not designed for it without the correct tools and equipment, but the warmth was so welcome. It was probably no more than -10°. Positively balmy compared to the -30° up top.

  “Take her into the rest room,” Liz said and the men complied.

  “Rest rooms too, aren’t we all high tech,” Gina said with a chuckle. Her bearers grinned.

  They took her into the restroom and set her upon the counter between the wash basins. She could sit without help. Her balance was fine, just about the only thing that was these days. She leaned back until her shoulders touched the mirrors. She purposefully did not look back to see her face in the gleaming surface. She could do without any more shocks today, thanks so much.

  Liz entered with a new suit in her arms and ushered the men out. Two more people came in, both women. Stacey Ward and Heather Winner. Stacey was carrying a PLSS for the new suit. They closed the door and looked to Liz for instruction. Gina took a deep breath knowing what was coming, and that caused a coughing fit. Stupid! She controlled the coughing and took shallow breaths.

  “So,” she said trying for a light-hearted tone. “A funny thing happened to me on the way to work...”

  Liz laughed and her helpers grinned. “Strip!”

  Gina rolled her eyes and took off her helmet. Liz took it from her and tossed it. It was NFG (No Frigging Good) and she had a replacement ready. With Liz’s help she unsealed her suit and peeled it off her shoulders and arms until she was sitting on it. She lifted her weight off her butt using her arms, and the four of them managed to get the suit down to her ankles. The boots were a struggle. They were huge things, rugged, and made to take abuse without ever breaking seal. Stacey and Heather tugged and twisted but finally they came off. They threw the entire useless mess into a corner.

  “We haven’t got a uniform for you, but I’m roughly your size. I had a spare coverall here with me. Can’t remember why now. Good enough?”

  “Sure, Liz. I trust your sense of style won’t make me look fat.”

  Liz chuckled. “How can you sit here like this and still make jokes? Your back... it’s like burned hamburger.”

  Gina swallowed. “Thanks so much, I was trying not to think about it.”

  “Sorry.”

  She waved the apology away. “Don’t worry about it. I know it looks bad back there. It hurts, but crying about it won’t help. Kidding around might... it does. Takes my mind off it. How do we do this?”

  “I think if you lay face down, we’ll cut your uniform off you. It’s badly charred and I think your skin is growing back over it in places.”

  She winced at the thought. No wonder Liz looked sick. She would have to cut those areas out with a knife. Gina unsheathed her knife and handed it handle first to her friend.

  “Sorry,” she said as Liz took the blade.

  “Stop apologising,” Liz said, starting to sound annoyed. “It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. I think you’re amazing. All the vipers are. You fight and die to protect us, you sacrifice family and a normal life to keep us all safe, and here you are apologising to me. I should be saying sorry to you, Gina, for your sacrifice.”

  Stacey and Heather nodded agreement.

  Liz brandished the knife. “Now on your belly if you can. We’ll help if you can’t.”

  She couldn’t. She could get down on her side easily enough, but her legs dangling off the counter stopped her from getting flat. Stacey lifted her legs onto the counter top and finally Gina rolled onto her front. Stacey gulped seeing the damage clearly for the first time, and hurried into a cubicle where she was violently sick.

  Gina looked that way grimly wanting to say sorry again but didn’t dare after Liz’s speech.

  “If you’re going to be sick, Heather, step out,” Liz said.

  Heather looked pale but she shook her head. “I’m good.”

  Liz placed a hand on Gina’s shoulder and squeezed gently in sympathy. “Here we go,” she said and Gina closed her eyes as Liz started cutting.

  Later, Gina would prefer not to think about that torturous half hour. Liz cut, Gina bled, and Heather joined Stacey in the head to be sick. In time Liz had her naked except for panties and tee-shirt, but the shirt had to go as well. It was mostly gone at the back anyway. They didn’t have a replacement, but Gina was beyond caring by then. She was freezing her tits off, not literally thank god, but if she didn’t get back into some clothes and a suit soon, she really might get frostbitten nipples! Liz washed her back, cleaning it of old and new blood, and then she carefully cut away dead charred flesh. Gina couldn’t feel it, but Liz was shaking and in a cold sweat when she was done.

  They couldn’t bandage the wound for fear her body would incorporate it as it had tried to do with her uniform. Heather used an entire can of synthskin to protect it, and prevent her coverall sticking to it. Synthskin was clever stuff. It would keep infection away, and was biodegradable. The big plus was that her body was welcome to absorb it. Her bots would love it. It was basically made of the same stuff her IMS used. Stacey dressed her while Liz knelt upon the floor trying to regain her composure.

  With her helmet on and sealed, the PLSS connected but sitting beside her to keep it from hurting her back, Gina basked in the warmth that flooded her suit. Ah... bliss. She took a deep breath of uncontaminated air.

  >_ Diagnostics: Critical spinal injury, communications failure, TacNet offline, lung capacity 86%. Unit unfit for duty. Hibernation recommended. Hospitalisation at earliest opportunity advised.

  >_ IMS: Repairs in progress.

  >_ Diagnostics: Critical spinal injury, communications failure, TacNet offline, lung capacity 88%. Unit unfit for duty. Hibernation recommended. Hospitalisation at earliest opportunity advised.

  >_ IMS: Repairs in progress.

  Excellent. Her IMS was catching up and her lungs were responding well. She would be fixed up in no time.

  “Is there food?” Gina asked a little plaintively. “And coffee? I would kill for a litre of coffee right now.”

  Liz looked up from her squatting position and smiled. “We have an autochef up. You can order anything you want. Pizza?”

  She groaned. “Not you too! Bloody hell, we don’t al
l live on pizza, Liz.”

  Liz blinked. “I love pepperoni.”

  Gina burst out laughing, but Liz just looked confused. “Don’t mind me. It’s something Eric said to me. I’m from Faragut.”

  Liz’s eyebrows climbed. “Really?”

  “Yes really. Anyway, I’m craving steak with all the trimmings and many litres of coffee. Can do?”

  “Can do,” Liz agreed, but then frowned. “Actually, you’re the only one who can eat something like that until we get an airlock in place. The rest of us hold our breath, stuff a biscuit in our mouths, and reseal our helmets.”

  She frowned at that. “How long to sort that out?”

  Liz shrugged. “With a portable airlock, minutes at most. Here with what we have?” She shrugged again. “Hours. We can seal the door no problem, but we still need to go in and out. Sealing the door isn’t enough.”

  “True. I’ll need access to the stairs when I get my legs back. I have to defend the only way in. Hey, Eric said you found the prize?”

  Liz brightened. “We did! Well, we found the backup file. We’ve made lots of copies. Do you want one? Eric took the first one in case... well, you know.”

  She nodded.

  “I forgot you didn’t know. We think Sebastian is still online. The file was updated the day we entered the system.”

  “You’re kidding! We’ve got to get him then!”

  Liz jumped to her feet and hugged Gina. “Thank you! I think so too, but I think Eric would be satisfied with what we already have. We don’t know where Sebastian is, but now we know he’s alive we have to stay as long as it takes to find him. I have some ideas about that.”

  “Oh?”

  “This place was obviously built to withstand exactly what it did. Everything is hardwired and hardened against EMP. I think we can trace the cables right to him. If not that, we can find the power plant. Surely he draws power from it. We should find him by following the current.”