by Jo Zebedee
After some four hundred yards, Divine Providence came to rest. She sat nose down in a bank of earth. A cloud of dust hovered about her. Rocks and pebbles slipped and slid down the banked dirt. Her hull creaked and groaned. Bright shiny metal showed where parts of the hull had been ripped away.
Ormuz heard running feet in the gangway. He shook his head to clear it. He fumbled with his straps, and winced as he touched bruises and contusions. Nothing was broken but he felt incapable of moving. His head rang, his vision was blurred. He tasted blood. He had bitten his inside cheek during the crash. He felt distant, unconnected.
Lotsman lurched into Ormuz’s cabin. He had a livid bruise on one side of his face, stretching from his jaw-line to his cheekbone. He mouthed something.
Ormuz shook his head: he couldn’t hear. He tried again to undo the chair’s webbing.
Lotsman crossed to him and bent to unsnap the buckle. Ormuz painfully pulled himself from the straps. He winced with each movement. He managed to gain his feet and wobbled dizzily. Turning slowly, he saw Tovar step gingerly into the cabin. Blood from a cut on the cargo-master’s temple leaked down the side of his face. Tovar grimaced and reached up to touch the wound.
Ormuz’s hearing abruptly cleared.
“—got to get out of here!” Lotsman yelled. “The fuel tanks are ruptured!”
Tovar limped along the gangway towards the airlock. Lotsman flashed Ormuz an urgent look and hurried after the cargo-master. Ormuz followed the pilot.
The jury-rigged webbing by the main airlock holding their survival-packs and possessions had survived the crash-landing. Plessant was busy pulling out bags. Ormuz squirmed past Tovar, grabbed his bag and hoisted it to his shoulder. He grunted with pain at the movement. Plessant passed him a survival-pack and he hung that from his other shoulder.
Dai was in the airlock, working on opening the outer hatch. The hydraulics had failed and the control-mechanism was useless. They were lucky the hatch was new: it had withstood the stresses of the crash and not warped.
“Give me hand!” Dai called.
Tovar pushed past Ormuz and joined Dai at the emergency release. Together, they strained at the lever, the cargo-master grunting, the ship’s engineer swearing… Until, with a shocking suddenness, the lever dropped. Gears within the hatch withdrew locking battens and hinge pins. Dai pushed and the hatch tumbled out. A loud, heavy crash followed. Dust billowed into the airlock through the open hatch.
Ormuz saw a rocky landscape, littered with boulders, stretching away to a jagged range of mountains dancing in the distance through the haze of dust. Heavy clouds glowered in an overcast sky.
Dai leapt out of the hatch and disappeared from sight. Someone shoved Ormuz from behind. He stepped into the airlock and crossed to the outer hatch. Dai was scrambling up a banked pile of earth below him. She reached the top and turned.
“Throw me the bags,” she yelled, gesturing frantically. She was filthy, streaked with greyish dirt. There was blood in her hair, bright red against the platinum blonde.
Ormuz dropped his bag and swung his survival-pack into his arms. He threw it under-arm at the engineer. She caught it and lowered it to the ground. He threw her his bag. Then he jumped. It was a six-foot drop. He landed badly on the slope and lurched sideways and back. He put up an arm. It hit the hull. He let out a yelp as it burnt him through the sleeve of his coverall. Scrabbling forwards, he climbed the bank on hands and knees. Behind him, he heard another member of the crew land in the dirt with a loud “Oof!”
Reaching Dai, Ormuz turned. Lotsman was climbing up the bank. Tovar dropped from the airlock hatch and sprawled forwards. Dai pushed Ormuz away from her. A bag sailed from the hatch. She caught it with a grunt and dropped it on the pile beside her.
Captain Plessant leapt from the hatch and landed on all fours. She clambered up to where Dai, Ormuz, Lotsman and Tovar now waited.
“Get a move on,” she panted. “We need to be at least five hundred yards away.”
Tovar turned from inspecting their surroundings. “That boulder over there,” he said. “That should shield us.”
Ormuz looked in the direction of his pointing hand. The boulder was huge, the size of a house and sat solidly on the plateau.
They grabbed their bags and packs, and broke into a lumbering run towards the boulder. Lotsman was in the lead, covering the ground quickly with a long-legged stride. Tovar, despite his bulk, was a close second and moving at speed. Ormuz followed Dai. Plessant brought up the rear.
Ormuz rounded the boulder. Lotsman was leaning against the rock, panting. Tovar was bent forward, hands on knees, pulling in great draughts of breath.
“Any minute now,” Dai said. She dropped to the ground and sat, legs splayed out, back against the boulder.
Ormuz dropped his bags and stood there, unsteady on his feet. His arm burned with a fierce pain. He cradled his forearm with the other arm. The heat of the hull had burnt away a patch of sleeve some five inches long. The flesh beneath was seared and raw-looking.
Plessant crossed to him. “What have you done?” she demanded. She peered at the burn. “You touched the hull?”
Ormuz nodded.
“Rot it, Cas.” She turned to Lotsman. “Lex, get the medical kit out.”
Plessant was smearing anti-burn jelly on Ormuz’s arm when the data-freighter blew.
A bright flash threw the boulder’s shadow into stark relief across the ground. A deafening boom accompanied it. Everyone flinched. Tovar clapped his hands to his ears. A fierce, hot wind scoured the dust from the ground. Pebbles and small rocks rolled and bounced away. Ormuz pulled his arm from Plessant’s ministrations and ducked. He felt hot breath curl around the edges of the boulder and lick against him.
With a clatter of falling stones, the wind died. Ormuz looked up and saw the edge of a black cloud. It rose, a perfectly circular formation, before disappearing from sight into the overcast sky.
“Not much left of the old girl,” Lotsman said. He was standing at the edge of the boulder, gazing back at the data-freighter. No, the remains of the data-freighter.
Cradling his arm, Ormuz joined him. Divine Providence sat half-buried behind a rough berm of dirt which stretched back along the plateau to its edge. The squat and battered hull was now ruptured and torn apart. The explosion had blackened hull-plates and twisted them into fantastical shapes. The data-freighter’s tailplane had gone, completely vanished. Her drive-tubes had split open and now formed two misshapen lengths of pipe.
“I hope they don’t decide to take the damage out of our wages,” Lotsman murmured.
Ormuz glanced sharply at him. This was no time for levity. A twinge of pain from his arm reminded him of his wound, so he returned to Plessant. She gave him an angry look and set about finishing dressing his burn.
Twenty minutes later, the crew of Divine Providence were ready to leave. They had their survival-packs slung on their backs and the bags containing their personal possessions slung across one shoulder.
“The nearest township,” said Plessant, consulting a notepad, “is 215 miles due north-west of us. The terrain is mostly flat.” She gestured due north. “We’ll be skirting a mountain range in that direction.”
“A long walk, then,” Lotsman said.
Plessant nodded. “About ten to twelve days. We have enough supplies in the packs.”
“Can’t we call for help?” asked Ormuz. “They could send someone to pick us up.”
“I’m not taking the risk. That battlecruiser will have enough trouble spotting five people on the ground from orbit. Call for help on the radio, and they’ll have our location pinpointed in seconds.”
“We’d better get started,” Plessant said. “It’ll be dark in a couple of hours and I want to put some distance between us and the wreck.”
Hitching their shoulders to seat their packs more comfortably, the five set out at a comfortable pace. None of them looked back at the wreck of Divine Providence.
/> CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Rinharte halted at the bow of the jolly boat and glanced back over her shoulder. She saw the Admiral in the boat-deck control-room, standing at the window, hands clasped behind her back. The Admiral—appearing almost inhuman: black insignia-less coveralls, pale face, shaved head—gazed at Rinharte, her features grim, and gave a slow nod. Rinharte turned back to face forward and climbed the ramp through the open bow into the boat.
Although the jolly boat outwardly resembled a pinnace, its interior did not. Instead of rows of seats facing forward, the fuselage was furnished with rudimentary seating against the sides facing inwards and an equipment-rack along the centre-line. The jolly boat could carry twelve marines with equipment, and a battlefield command staff of two officers. It was also armoured, fitted with a single directed-energy turret and more powerful power toroid and drive-tubes.
Rinharte worked her way along the aisle towards the aft bulkhead. Marine-Lieutenant Kordelasz was already buckled into his seat, his legs stretched out before him. Opposite him sat Boat-Sergeant Alus’s squad. Kordelasz and the marines wore patrol pattern uniforms: dun padded coveralls with cuirass and greaves, pea-green shell-jackets, and black pill-box helmets. White cross-belts over the jacket carried a variety of field equipment.
Rinharte settled beside Kordelasz and buckled in. She was clad in battle-rig—a navy undress coverall, with white armour-vest, gauntlets, and naval kepi. Navy battle-rig was chiefly designed for defence against flying debris and not close combat. But it would suffice on Bato.
She nodded companionably through the equipment-rack at Alus and his squad: Marine-Corporal Valka, Marine Tatakai and Marine Sniskutte. Tatakai was the one female member of the squad, a round-faced short-haired woman who, in uniform, resembled a beardless youth. Valka was a hulking brute, almost as large as Alus himself, with a shaved head, grey-flecked goatee and permanent scowl. Sniskutte was of average height but wiry, his features a collection of angles planed down to the bone.
All four nodded back at Rinharte.
She had come to know the boat-squad since their secondment to her department as her “Special Operations Team”. All four were excellent close-combat fighters and extremely resourceful. They respected and admired Marine-Lieutenant Kordelasz, and had been led by him on numerous occasions.
The bows of the jolly boat slowly closed, cutting out the light of the boat-deck. A steady whine built up as the toroid spooled up to full power for the launch. The craft was now sealed, so Rinharte decided the time was right to brief the others.
“We’re going down to the planet,” she told them, “to find the crew of the data-freighter we just shot down. We know she crashed but we’ve no way of knowing if the crew managed to survive. We’ll be arriving on the scene a good ten hours after the crash, so we’ll likely find nothing.” She paused. “The Admiral has decided she wants the crew alive. It shouldn’t be much of a challenge.”
It would have been even less of a challenge if the Admiral had taken Rinharte’s advice. She had recommended they hail Divine Providence and warn the data-freighter she was to be boarded. Instead, the Admiral had ordered a shot across the bows. And Divine Providence had immediately begun evasive manoeuvres. There was no stopping her from that point on, except with a disabling shot. Which had proved extremely difficult: Divine Providence’s evasion protocol was highly sophisticated. It had been quite a chase.
“Search and rescue, ma’am,” said Alus.
“If you want to put it that way, then yes, boat-sergeant, it is ‘search and rescue’. But they could be armed. They could be already dead. We don’t know.”
The boat shook and fittings rattled as it was winched from its berth towards the boat-bay’s exit.
“We’ve gone to a lot of trouble for this data-freighter and her crew,” Kordelasz said quietly to Rinharte.
“I think they’re worth it,” she replied.
“We still don’t know whose side they’re on.”
“Ours, Garrin. I’m convinced of it.” She turned away from the marine-lieutenant and gazed at the pikes and boarding axes stowed on the equipment-rack. There was even a directed-energy field-piece and its power-cart stowed at the rear of the boat. So much weaponry for five data-freighter crew-members. It was pure over-kill. And, if Rinharte were right, entirely unnecessary.
“We’ll take them, Rizbeka,” Kordelasz said, grinning. “Not even knight stalwarts can stand up to Alus and his squad…”
Rinharte stood by the jolly boat and watched the marines stumble from the blackened remains of Divine Providence. She could hear the boat’s dorsal turret whirring in watchful circles above and behind her. The data-freighter’s hull had split open when its fuel tanks exploded. Blackened hull-plates curved upwards like some exotic sculpture. Holes gaped down the side of the vessel where the crash-landing had ripped away yet more hull-plates. Divine Providence would never fly again.
But would her crew?
“Ma’am!” Marine Tatakai beckoned Rinharte with an urgent wave of the hand. Rinharte strode across to the marine, hand on her sword to prevent it banging against her leg.
“What is it?” Rinharte asked once she was in earshot.
Tatakai pointed at the ground. A drift of sand held a boot-print. It was blurred about the edges and the gentle wind had already begun to fill it in. Another few hours and it would have been gone. Tatakai turned to gaze in the direction the wearer of the boot-print had been travelling. Rinharte followed her gaze. There was little to see. The plateau ended some five or six miles away. A ridge rose beyond it, but it was impossible to tell how far away it was or how large. The overcast sky made judging distance difficult and the sizes of distant objects hard to discern.
“How far could they have travelled?” Rinharte asked.
Tatakai shrugged. “Average person, carrying a survival-pack, probably injured after the crash… maybe two, three miles an hour, ma’am.”
“So they could be twenty or thirty miles from here.”
“Ma’am.”
Rinharte turned back to gaze at the jolly boat and frowned in thought. The nearest township was over two hundred miles away. If the data-freighter’s crew made twenty miles a day, it would take them ten days to reach the township. Rinharte could be there in fifteen minutes in the boat.
Kordelasz approached, dusting his hands together. His green shell-jacket was decorated with smears of black. “They’re not in there,” he said.
“We know.”
The marine-lieutenant glanced from Rinharte to Tatakai.
“We found a boot-print,” Rinharte added.
“Ah.”
“We’d better get back aboard the jolly boat. We’ll take to the air. They can’t have got far.”
Rinharte leaned over the shoulder of the boat mechanisms operator, watching his console’s glass. She looked up, and out of the control cupola’s scuttles. Rocky landscape slid past at a sedate one hundred miles per hour. At that speed, the boat’s stub wings did not provide enough lift and so it flew chiefly on downward-pointing gas-rockets, its weight lessened by the chargers in its keel. The jolly boat headed due north by north-west, the direction indicated by the boot-print Marine Tatakai had found. Ground-sweeping sensors ranged to five hundred yards on either side.
Rinharte glanced down at the console glass. The false-colour image repeated the scene visible through the scuttles. Rocks and boulders. No troop of five people tramping across the land.
“How far have we come from the wreck?” she asked.
“Twenty-three point four miles, ma’am,” replied the operator. He twisted to look up at her. “If we flew higher, it would increase the size of the sensor footprint.”
“No, stay nap-of-the-earth. I don’t want to be spotted by the starport’s traffic control.” She glanced across at the pilot. His gaze remained fixed on the view ahead.
“If we’re off their course by as little as one degree, ma’am, we could miss the targets by miles,” th
e operator continued.
Rinharte considered her options. “Keep on going until we reach fifty miles from the wreck. We’ll run a search-pattern back.”
She crossed to the ladder leading down into the hull, squatted until she could see the length of the interior. “Mr Kordelasz, Marine Tatakai,” she called.
The two marines turned to her.
“Up here. I want you on watch.”
Kordelasz and Tatakai unbuckled and worked their way forwards. Rinharte stepped back and they climbed the short ladder. “The boat is too low for the sensors to cover more than 500 yards to either side,” she explained. “You’ll be able to see further than that.”
It was extremely cramped in the cupola with six people crammed into it. Rinharte had chosen Marine Tatakai for that very reason. Kordelasz squeezed next to the boat engineer. Tatakai stood beside the pilot, hanging onto the shoulders of his chair. Both knew what to look for. Although the terrain meant the horizon was only some ten to fifteen miles way, it was a good deal further than the jolly boat’s sensors covered.
Rinharte would find the missing crew. She had no doubts on that score. She would hunt them down and her marines would capture them. Once she had them in her custody, she would learn who they represented, why they were a target of the enemy.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Ormuz breasted the ridge and the vista before him caused him to stop and blink in surprise. A plain of fractured rock, peppered with large circular holes, stretched as far as he could see. Some of the holes were filled with water of such a vivid blue it could not possibly be real. Light shone from the pools, great ghostly pillars of azure, turquoise and ultramarine, supporting the grey and black cloud-deck that billowed above them. It was such an unexpected sight that Ormuz forgot his aches and pains.