by MadMaxAU
Saul’s contorted body had imbedded its image in her mind, a silent, grotesque rebuke. He had looked so strange, so eerily different in death, as if he were another person. Peaceful, despite his wounds. Younger.
So many struggles . . .
If she had been closer, had thought faster, run harder—
No. Stop that. She knew this was a deadly spiral, that nothing could come of an endless cycle of guilt and pain.
But such easy realizations did not free her. She sat amid the currents of anger and frantic talk and raw emotion…and clasped her hands, rubbing them incessantly, unable to move or think or even let the upwelling grief spill out into tears.
It was useless, anything she did, so pointless and stupid. She did not care if she sat forever this way, surrounded by the slowly gathering musky damp of the regenerating dome. The plants were space hardened, able to withstand quick decompressions and chills, far better adapted, through a half century of human handiwork, than was mankind itself.
Others tried to help. Lani was a hovering presence, soft sibilants in an engulfing stillness. Carl made his awkward gestures, said the conventional things. It was all wooden, distant, faces under glass.
The fact that the crazy Ubers and their allies were holding them all inside Dome 3 made no difference, really. She was as uncaring as the silent frosted ice outside, where figures gyred the launchers into new, well-padded directions, their muzzles pointing to different constellations. She watched the distant puppets do their irrelevant things, without caring what it meant. Earth was a more welcome target than Mars, certainly—but not because she thought they would succeed.
Nothing had ever worked on this doomed expedition. Earth would find some way to counter them. Was the scheme to cast off in balloonlike aerobrake vehicles? Hollow steel shells that, under the hard ramming pressure of braking, needed only the slightest flawed asymmetry to twist and shear and shatter—no, Earth would see that opportunity quite well. A laser bolt, particle beam—anything that punched a hole in the shell would end them all in a fiery orange red caldron. She had no faith in Sergeov’s fevered astronomical dream.
Or in the Mars maneuver, either. She had kept Carl’s secret, never told anyone. We live by believing fictions . . .
But Sergeov’s lie was worse. It would bring no dead world alive, and they would all wind up just as doomed.
What if the comet head was directed to actually collide with Earth itself, as she had heard some Ubers discussing openly on the comm? What would become of soft skies and hazy Hawaiian afternoons? She closed her eyes and shook her head. Maybe humans should go out the way the dinosaurs did.
“Virginia?”
It was Carl, pale and drawn, gain trying to make some contact. She blinked up at him. “Time to eat again?”
“No, I just—look, I could really use some help.”
“Doing what?”
“Figuring way out of this.”
She said wearily, “Sergeov’s got us trapped. Do you want to dig out through the waste tunnels? Using garden trowels?” The Ubers had caved those in quite effectively.
“There must— “
“You tried the autochutes? The conveyors?”
“Sure. Yesterday. He’s got people blocking them.”
She frowned. It was hard to think in the old way . . . . “My mechs. If I could get control function over them from here, on a remote . . ”
“You tried that yesterday,” he reminded her gently.
She looked up, feeling a surge of irritation. “Oh yes. They’ve changed the T matrix inputs. Sergeov was smart enough to do that right away. I could only fix that from the big console at Central, or my lab. I have to be there in person.”
They were silent. She could see Carl’s frustration building in his face.
Jeffers came over hurriedly, strain showing in his face. “Somethin’s happenin’—they’ve cranked up that laser again.”
Carl launched himself in a long glide for the top of the processing hut, fifty meters away. Virginia was tempted to lapse back into neutral and let the world wash over her. But instead she sighed and stood up. She kicked off and followed the two men in a slow coast.
“They’re firing at somebody!” Carl called from his vantage point. Virginia snagged a guy wire and arced to a hard landing atop the hut.
“See?” Carl pointed. “Sergeov’s up on that rise, there. He’s shooting at people coming from the south.”
Fly speck figures swept rapidly across the gray, streaked plain. “Who?” she asked.
Lani landed next to her. “Arcists, I figure,” she said. “Quiverian’s folk. They’re still down there to the south, living in their quake rubble. It’s natural they’d oppose an Earth flyby. But with the Ubers holding the launchers, they’ll get cut to pieces.”
“You’re sure?”
“I can’t see— “
A huge gout of steam erupted from the base of the hill where the Uber laser sat. The cloud enveloped the hill in a shroud of fog. Before it could swell further and dissolve, another blue spark ignited at the base, sending a ball of white skyward.
Virginia said excitedly, “The Arcists are using their big laser. It’s hard to aim, but if they just hit the hill itself—“
“They’ll blind the Uber laser crew with the vapor,” Lani said. “Yeah!”
Figures moved on the horizon, their tabards too small to distinguish in the dust they kicked up. Virginia had never thought very much about tactics in near zero gravity, but she could see the logic behind the slowly converging horns of the Arcist movements. Their pincers closed toward the equatorial string of launchers. Sergeov’s people struggled in the launcher pits. The big, awkward flinger modules were difficult to move quickly, particularly in declination. They began to nose down toward the south, but their long, slender barrels turned with agonizing slowness.
“Look,” Carl said, pointing. “The Arcists are trying to sweep by us. We’ll get free if— “
But then a second Uber laser opened fire from a distant hill, flinging spheres of steam up from the plain. Even a near miss blew the tiny figures up and away from the sudden gusts.
“Why don’t they attack from the sky?” she asked.
“Sergeov’s probably got some small radars with him. He can pick them out if they’re isolated up there. On the ice, it isn’t so easy. And the dust helps shield them.”
“Yeah,” Jeffers said. “How’d you like to be hangin’ up there, naked as a jaybird? Feels a lot better to have some ice between you and that big burner.”
The attackers sought shelter. They fired small weapons of limited range—flechettes, e beam borers—but merely raised small puffs from the Ubers barricades Some used portable microwave borers, presumably tuned to disrupt human cells, but the beams tanned out too broadly at this range Now and then, those inside the dome heard faint clicks, the microwaves softly tickling their inner ears.
Meanwhile, the big Arcist laser continued to pound away at the hills of both Uber strongpoints, making it difficult for them to aim carefully. They watched for an agonizing half hour as each side maneuvered, fired, ducked—to little effect. The entire conflict was soundless, with a slow motion unreality about it.
“Looks like a stalemate to me,” Carl said, fatigue weighing on his words.
“Nobody can get enough men together to cover their movements,” Jeffers said. “Looks like there’s still a fair number of Arcists, but you can’t outflank a whole damned equator.”
Virginia hesitated. “Can’t we make use of this?”
Carl asked, “How?”
“To escape! It we run a kilometer or so, into those piles of slag the north— “
“They’d pick us off.”
Jeffers nodded.
“But if I can get inside, I can get back control of my mechs! The Ubers couldn’t stand up to a mech kamikaze attack.”
Lani said, “I could try to get down to the Blue Rock Clan. Keoki Anuenue would bring up his Hawaiians, if he knew where we were.”
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br /> Jeffers’s mouth opened in disbelief. “You women are both crazy. You’ll never reach the shaft.”
“Create a distraction, then,” Virginia challenged him.
“What?”
Virginia thought rapidly. “Suppose we vent the entire dome at once—with the vats open?”
Carl frowned. “The water vats? They boil and—I see. It’ll make a huge ball of steam. Nobody’ll be able to see through it.”
Jeffers shook his head. “No tellin’ how long that’d last.”
Virginia turned to him. “We’ll have you running the pumps—squirting water right out the dome, where it’ll boil off immediately.”
Jeffers opened his mouth to object, then closed it. “Um, I dunno. Might.”
“Let’s do it! Otherwise. if Sergeov wins—“
“Right,” Carl said, his lips pressed thin and white “Come on.”
It took ten minutes to set everything up. Virginia worked with maddened ferocity, dragging hoses, shutting down yeast flowering towers, throwing protective temporary plastic blankets over the acres of plants, sealing growing units that were too delicate to withstand very much vacuum and cold. It felt awkward, doing manual labor without a mech.
Not thinking ahead, scarcely thinking at all, she found herself crouched inside the lock beside Carl and Lani. She suddenly realized that she was about to risk her life on her ability to run. Impossible, absurd! I’ve spent less time on the surface than anyone else. But she could see no other way out. She sure as hell wasn’t going to let Sergeov stuff her into a slot forever. Or let him bury Hawaii under a night of cosmic ash.
Jeffers called, —Ready’? — from inside.
She nodded fiercely. Pretend you’re not here in person. Just believe you’re operating a mech out on the ice. You’ve done it thousands of times.
—Yo! — Carl answered.
The lock sprang open and they launched themselves forward.
They separated immediately. Lani dashed northward while Virginia and Carl loped toward the east. She remembered to cut off her comm. No need to alert anyone, in case the Ubers were using tracers on suit transmitters. She tucked her head down and ran in the long, even, ice-gripping stride, almost free coasting, that covered ground best.
Just like running a spider mech. Head low, find the traction. Avoid the deep dust.
She glanced back just in time to see the seams pop on the dome. The entire translucent structure billowed out like a collapsing lung, exhaling a heavy mist into the star sprinkled sky. Billowing banks enveloped her. Then Jeffers started the firehose streams from the vats, thin sprays that thickened and then abruptly dissolved. Fog clasped them from all sides. The world turned white. She had to depend on her initial momentum to give direction, because she could not even see the scarred ice beneath her.
Her receiver was on and she heard shouts, swearing, exclamations. But no one cried out their names, called for pursuit.
Ivory mist seemed to press in from all sides, lifting her . . . she lost sight of the ground completely . . . the shouting increased . . . she landed, bit in with her ice spikes, kicked off . . . seemed to soar with wings into a cloud of welcoming white . . . landed again, boots crunching into frost . . .
—and was out. clear, back into a world of gray ice and hard black sky and death.
She glanced around. Carl was ahead of her, just pushing off on a long, shallow parabola. As his feet cleared the ground a quick flash blinded her, a blue hotpoint of light—only yards from Car1. It struck a roiling vapor cloud from the ice, scooping a crater a meter deep.
She switched on her comm to line AF, as they had planned. “They’re on to us!”
—Yo! —
Carl’s head jerked around and he motioned to the left. —Get behind that! —
Fifty meters away was a sturdy mech repair platform, canted against a heap of ruddy iron slag. It was, in fact, a piece of the old Edmund’s external cargo assembly, thick with struts and crisscross structural members that had supported great masses in the long boost out from Earth. On her next footfall Virginia swiveled, felling a sharp twinge from unused muscles, and pushed off towards it.
A brief spark of blue lit her way. Her shadow stretched. a thin giant flying across pocked ice in the sudden glare. She did not turn to see the cloud of fog billow out, but the hairs on the back of her head stood up. That was close.
She landed behind the platform an instant after Carl. —Stay here, — he sent unnecessarily.
“What’ll we do?”
—Wait ‘em out. They’ll find other targets. They don’t know who we are for sure, so . . . —
A buzz interrupted him as another party tapped into long-comm. Sergeov’s voice boomed in her ears. —I do know. I am not so stupid I cannot guess who it is that is running away. Or search for comm channel. —
—Oh shit, — Carl said.
Virginia realized that they had nothing to bargain with, no possible help. She thumbed to open channel. “Listen, Otis. Carl and I can get the Arcists to leave off their attack, if you’ll let us do it.”
—You offer me what? Diplomacy? — Sergeov’s contempt was plain.
—It’s all you’ve got left. —
—I have you. You shall not move a meter or I burn you. —
“What good’s that do? Your problem is the Arcists.”
—You are one having problems. — With that Sergeov began rattling instructions to someone in Russian. Virginia remembered there were several ex Soviets among the Ubers; belief in your own perfectibility ran through both movements.
She cut comm and touched helmets with Carl. “What can we do?”
“Not a damn thing.” On the plain beyond, distant figures moved and an occasional small weapon winked. They crouched beneath the bulk, holding to struts. A bright flare burst only a few meters beyond the jagged edge of their shelter. Gouts of gas swept by them. An instant later another blue white fireball winked on the opposite side, then was smothered by a swelling sphere of ivory.
“He’s showing off how he’s got us bracketed,” Virginia said.
“Probably start punching holes through this next.” Carl slapped the slab of metal in frustration. “One bolt alone won’t go through this, though.”
“Can he keep one of his two lasers trained on us?”
“Not for long. But he can’t afford for us to get away, either. I can’t see how—“
A heavy thump shook the strut beneath Virginia’s hands. “Hey, what—“ Another solid blow, followed by a trembling in the metal. “He’s trying to break through!”
Carl shook his head, peering beneath his grimy visor. “A laser bolt doesn’t feel like that. This— “
The platform lurched on its right side, biting into the ice, kicking up dust. Carl pressed his helmet against a big cross bar of blue gray prestressed steel. “Listen!”
Virginia had barely touched the metal when she heard a loud crump followed by a low, persistent ringing. “What is it? I— “
The entire platform shook. The next blow came only seconds later and this time she was looking to the side, and could see that there was no momentary blue flash illuminating the surrounding gray ice.
“So he’s thought of that,” Carl said angrily.
She guessed. “The launchers.”
“Yeah. He can’t spare the laser, so he’s aimed a few launchers at us. Flinging empty casings at low speed, to prevent an explosion. Firing around this chunk of stuff, hoping to pick us off if we show— “
A jolt shook the platform and the entire bulk lifted from the ice. Virginia felt a crump, crump, crump through her hands, three quick blows that pushed the platform a meter clear of the ice. She hung on, looking wildly at Carl. “He’s pushing us off!”
—Get a good grip,—Carl sent.
“But we can’t— “
—Just hold on. We’ll have to move fast when . . —
Sergeov broke in, —I did not expect this, but is good. —
“You can’t— “
&
nbsp; —Launcher is to keep you from getting inside. Even better if it gets rid, eh? —
The platform rang and shook now with a steady hammering. Once sighted in, the launcher could pour a steady rain of the soft hollow slugs at them.
Carl said, —The pellets just splatter like a marshmallow when they hit. They can’t get through this hard alloy. But they’re pushing us. —
Virginia looked down. Already they were high above the stained gray plain, and gathering speed. The impulses from the launcher had driven them tangentially off the surface and now they passed over the battle scene. Random flashes, rising puffs of gas. She heard a click and recognised it as a symptom of a near miss by a microwave beam; the waves actually resonated with small bones in the human ear. Whoever it was didn’t fire at them again.
Someone was running toward the shelter of a low line of fuel drums and she recognized the tabard of Joao Quiverian. A laser bolt caught the tall Arcist leader in midstride and a blue sun leaped in his chest. A small cloud rose from the body as it continued on its way, hugging the ground, arms flopping outward and spinning uselessly as it skimmed into a dust pit and disappeared.
Figures glanced up at them but no one tried to come to their aid. Those below could undoubtedly see the results as a steady hail of slugs struck the other side of the platform, and knew that any approach would run that gauntlet. She called, “Sergeov!”
—I gave you place to stay. You leave dome, you bring this on yourself. —
“Look, we’ll—“
—Too late for talk. I have battle to win, Arcists to kill. Goodbye. —
“Carl, what’ll we— “
—Don’t let go! —
I’m not about to, she thought. Even if the whole thing’s making me . . . dizzy. Halley seemed to tilt in the sky, the speckled and blotched gray sheets rolling and veering as they swept over them, lifting . . . .
—Just what I was afraid of. We’re turning. —
Of course. The slugs don’t hit evenly, so the platform is picking up spin. Sergeov, knows that . . . .
“Can’t we crawl around?”
—It’ll be tricky. Come on, go left. —