by MadMaxAU
Carl moved with an easy grace she envied as she clumsily followed, not daring to let go of one strut before she had the next firmly in hand. The platform was to her a mountain of crossed metal strands, which she climbed hand over hand, a slight centrifugal pull tending to turn her outward and away from it. If the platform had been spherical, their maneuvering would have been simple—just keep on the side away from Halley. But as the slab turned, there was a short interval when it was edge on to Halley and the launcher slugs were passing by invisibly close. Virginia and Carl clung to the edge of the platform as this moment came, then scrambled to the new face, feeling slugs slam into the far side again. As she struggled for a secure grip she saw spalled and dimpled impact craters. And all this comes from empty casings, launched at a millionth the normal energy!
The slab seemed to be spinning faster. “Are they trying to spin us?” She asked, panting.
—Wouldn’t surprise me. —
“How’ll we—“
—Hustle! —
She followed Carl around to the next corner and waited. The metallic sheen of the cold steel reflected the dim gray glow of Halley as the flat face slowly revolved, the curve of the cometary head rising over a warped tangle of rods and rivets. From this distance there was no sign of a battle, no indication of humans and their petty lives at all . . . only the smeared dust scape, like an accidental abstract work of art glimmering in the starlight. Then she saw the long dashed Mine of equatorial launcher pits and realized that the machine which was propelling them could “see” them, too. She scrambled after Carl, around the edge.
Virginia felt a clanging thump and saw a rod near her leg dissolve into nothing as a blur struck and sent it whirling away into space. She sucked in her breath and jerked herself around the lip of the platform.
“It . . . it’s too dangerous, doing this.”
—If we don’t keep this between us and the slugs, we’re dead. — Carl’s eyes were wide, and yet somehow calm, steady.
“Can’t we jump off? Without something big to target on— “
—Fine, only what about the slugs that miss the platform? And if Sergeov knows we’ve jumped, he’ll let the launcher wander around the target, to try to catch us. —
Carl’s voice was almost matter of fact, assessing possibilities. Virginia clung to a pipe, legs drawn outward, the steady thump-thump thump coming through her hands. It was hard to think. “Look, let’s put our maneuver jets on impulse. That’ll get us clear fast.”
—Yeah, but it’ll take a lot of push. These jets haven’t been kept up well, either. —
“We haven’t any choice!”
—We’re safe here. —
Virginia didn’t like the distant, resigned look on Carl’s face. “And every minute we get further away from Halley!”
—Yeah, you got a point. — He frowned. Shaking his head. Trying to care.
Halley’s pale horizon began rising over the platform’s lip.
—Let’s go jump straight off the edge as it comes round. Sergeov can’t hear us, with all this metal blocking our comm. —
He looked at her with an unreadable, pensive expression. She struggled over to the lip of the platform and got her feet braced against a tangle of struts. “Say when.”
—Wait…got your jet activated? Put it on emer override for a twenty-second burst, see? — He flipped the switch for her. —Okay, throw ‘er to full when I . . . say . . . now! —
Virginia jumped as she threw the switch. A fist slammed into her waist and sent her hurtling, struggling to keep her hands and feet aligned. The thrust seemed to last forever and she fought an impulse to double up, present the smallest target for the slugs that she could feel streaking out from Halley, searching for her . . . .
Release. The savage thrust was cut off by the suit’s timer. She dipped her head and could see between her feet the platform, turning lazily. A silvery flange winked and tumbled away as she watched, liberated by a slug’s impact. If only Sergeov didn’t know what they’d done . . .
Carl. Where was he?
She looked around quickly, found nothing. If a slug hit you, would it just go straight through? Or would it give you enough push to drive you far away in only, a few moments, beyond view . . . ?
Virginia didn’t dare call on comm. She turned in every direction, telling herself not to panic, to be systematic—and found him at last directly overhead, a doll sized dot.
Rendezvous took only a few moments. He came swimming toward her, braked, they locked hands and touched helmets. She had expected a moment of celebration, for surely they were out of the danger zone by now, but all he said was. “Now comes the hard part.”
“What?”
“Getting back to Halley.”
“Won’t someone . . .” She was going to say, come after us? when she realized that obviously nobody would be thinking about a rescue in the midst of a battle. The Ubers and their allies had undoubtedly covered the shafts, bottling in anyone who could help. Besides, how many knew they were out here?
“How far away are we?”
Carl held up a small tube, pointed it at Halley’s acned, dwindling disk, and read off, “Twenty three point four kilometers. And increasing at about three kilometers a minute.”
“So far!”
“A lot of slugs hit the platform.”
“These suits . . .”
“They have a big range. The real problem is getting back before our air runs out.” He gestured toward their inventory logs, running in color-coded lines down both sleeves of their suits. “Haven’t got a hell of a lot.”
“How much delta-V can I get?”
Carl did the calculation in his head, frowned, and resorted to his faceplate for a check. “Not much.”
“We can still get back, can’t we?”
“Yeah . . . only we’ve got to make up this three klicks per minute. It’ll take nearly all the juice we’ve got. Then we have to go the thirty or so klicks back to Halley . . . .”
His voice trailed off into a frustrated gesture as he punched in fresh figures on his board, attached at a waist pop out. Virginia bit her lip. All this was going so fast, and she had no time to think.
Carl stopped, typed in more, pressed his lips together until they were white. “Looks bad.”
“How bad?”
“Neither of us is going to make it back in time for fresh air.”
“Neither?”
“Can’t be done. That three klicks a minute takes a big bite out of our fuel.”
“Then . . . “ A dark foreboding, the underlayer she had felt for days now, swelled up in her. They were all going to die. Fate had managed everything so they would each face some excruciating death, alone and afraid, out here in the oblivious cold abyss . . . .
“We can overcome that three klicks per, but that leaves just a small velocity. The comet’s gravity won’t help much. It’ll take hours to get back to Halley.”
And it’s getting worse as we talk. Each second takes us further away. Out into the emptiness, to join the frozen souls of the Edmund. Only we have to die, first . . . .
“Can’t one of us take both jet packs?”
Carl shook his head. “They’re integrated, remember! Can’t pop one out without rupturing the air seal.”
She didn’t remember, had never known that, but her mind skated quickly now, skittering over what she knew of dynamics. If there was some way . . .
“Wait. Only one of us has to get back, get some help. Isn’t there some way to trade momentum between the two of us?”
Carl looked puzzled. His face was grizzled and tired, dark circles rimmed his eyes. He looked older and more worn than she had ever seen hi, even at the peak of the plagues. He shook his head mutely, lips still tightly pressed, his eyes full of despair.
She remembered something from long ago…fished for it…caught the fragment of n idea.
“Wait. There’s something…”
CARL
Halley hung suspended in the consuming d
ark, its rotation long stolen by Man, its face now lit by his fitful fires.
Carl watched the battle progress as he made his long approach. It was over three hours since he had separated from Virginia. By agreement they had kept comm silence. It had made the journey lonely and frustrating, for he could hear the scattershot shouts of the struggle, harsh cries and strumming sidelobes of microwave pulses—all without getting any clear idea of what they meant, of how the battle flowed. He had tried to concentrate on the blurted cries, not only because he needed to know the situation when he landed, but to quell his own anger.
He scanned the looming landscape with a telescopic projection on his faceplate. Bodies of dead Arcists lay sprawled near the equator. Laser gouges pocked the hillsides, but now the Arcist lasers seemed to be knocked out. He spotted one broken into a shattered tube. The launchers had proved more effective than the clumsy welder lasers. Farther to the south Carl could see a line of Arcists forming up around five microwave pulsers. The engagement would focus down there.
The Ubers were moving out, skirmishing. They swept south from the equator, pursuing ragtag parties along a line of hummocks and rusty slagheaps. Everybody was keeping down, hiding in plumes of dust, using what shelter there was. The Ubers seemed better trained. They used fire-and maneuver effectively, two figures shooting personal weapons at a nearby position while a third moved up to the next covered spot.
She knew I’d never agree, so she didn’t even discuss it.
Virginia’s idea was elegant and she had understood its implications from the instant it occurred to her. He recalled it all clearly, ruefully . . . .
Carl had thought of them linking belts, then his firing his jets until they were exhausted. Virginia would then separate, leave him, ignite hers, and reach Halley. Even that would not provide much margin. Worse, it would be tricky, because his jet would not fire directly along the axis of the two-body system. That meant she would have had to waste fuel vector-keeping.
Virginia’s alternative was simple. They tethered with a hundred meter line and Carl took an accurate sighting on potato-shaped Halley—ten times bigger than the moon was as seen from Earth, but a hundred and five kilometers away and shrinking visibly, swiftly. Carl had programmed his suit to give a clear beep whenever his velocity was aligned opposite to the Halley vector. They pulled the line between them taut, and Carl was about to start his jets—when Virginia fired first.
“Hey!” he had cried. “Shut down!”
—No, this is better—I’ll expend my reserve. —
“Dammit! Stop!”
—No, Carl think it through. — Already they had begun to revolve about each other as Virginia’s jets built their angular momentum.
“I’m going to fire, too,” he shouted.
—That’s stupid. Waste your reserves and we’ll both die. Just hang on. —
“No, I can’t
—I’m like a pig on ice out here. You can match velocities and make the trip with minimal fuel. And you’ll handle yourself better when you come down in that madhouse. You know that’s true. I’m not being self-sacrificing here. Far from it. I’d botch it and we’d both end up as icicles. —
“I mass more than you,” be had raged. “I’ll pick up a lower velocity than you would—so I’ll take longer. That’s simple dynamics.”
—I’m talking skill here, not Newton’s laws. You can do it Carl, and you know very well that I can’t. —
“Dammit, I won’t let you—
—Too late. — Across the hundred meters she waved cheerily as the stars wheeled behind her. The tether linked them, navel to navel. Centrifugal force bent him backward, as if he were suspended from his belly button.
He struggled to think clearly against the steadily pressing hand. There had to be a way to stop her. “You can’t— “
—I’m triggering on the signal. —
“What?” So she had set up the came vector-seeking program, only hers marked a spot on the opposite side of their circle than his. His beeps had been coming regularly, uselessly, and now—
—I’m down to two percent, —she called. —I’m going to sling you way. —
She soared against the mad whirl of stars, the only fixed point in his centrifugal universe, and he heard his own ritual piping beep, knowing that hers would come a scant five seconds later.
“Wait, there must be— “
—Time’s a wastin’, Carl. Fly fast! —
With a decisive chop she freed the line.
He felt the jolt as a sudden release, a return to freefall. Looking up, he saw that she had hit it just right—Halley hung above, a dim splotch.
And below him, between his parted boots, Virginia waved with a slow, somber grace. He was alarmed at how quickly she shrank, a blue dot swallowed by the yawning space between the burning suns . . . .
. . . Three hours ago. He shook off the memory. He should have found a way to thwart her, to launch her Halleyward instead . . . but once she had committed her own fuel, he had been trapped. She had always been quicker than he, and maybe this time she had been right. He had to prove her correct now, get down to the surface and find a craft that could rescue her.
Nearer, now. Halley seemed to fill the sky. Momentary blue brilliances lit its scarred face. The shaft mouths were clogged with ice, sealed to prevent crew inside from entering the battle. Small lasers commanded the agro domes, keeping them isolated.
Would so many people have joined Sergeov’s conspiracy if they had figured out all the implications of his plan?
Carl had had a lot of time to think, on the way back. Sure, using Earth as a target made better sense than Mars, dynamically. Earth’s greater gravity would be more useful and the thicker atmosphere would be better for aerobraking. But it would still take many passes before the returnees had shed enough velocity to match orbits or land.
And would Earth sit still while they kept swinging around again and again, pass after pass? Oh, they might be intimidated once—by the threat of plague bombs—but that wouldn’t last.
Some joined Sergeov, because they think it’s the only way to live. No matter what the price.
The price, in this case, would be high.
In order to keep Earth from interfering, from taking revenge, Sergeov had to destroy her.
The way the dinosaurs had been destroyed…by a storm from heaven. Sergeov planned to bring Halley home, dead centre.
So? Carl thought bitterly. Earth declared war on us, didn’t they?
It was a sophistry to which Carl was fortunately immune.
I’m not at war with six billion people, no matter what their leaders do to me.
After Halley smacked into the Earth, there would be no civilization left to speak of. Sergeov’s Ubers could maneuver back slowly, casually, without interference.
Perhaps they plan to become gods.
Over my dead body.
He would fight them, of course, useless as it seemed. But that was distant from his mind as the surface rushed up at him. He cared only about one thing—finding a fueled lifter mech as quickly as possible and getting spaceborne again.
She tricked me, he declared again to the stars. Please, oh please, keep her alive until I can get to her!
As he began his long delayed braking, he saw that several launcher pits were blackened. Debris lay all about them, the ruined sleeves of flinger tubes, cores of electromagnetic assemblies, induction coils . . . .
Vast damage. Carl felt sickened at the lost work. Loving craftsmanship destroyed.
And in his ears rang shouts of victory from the Ubers. Two Uber pincers converged on the line of microwave borers. Their Arcist defenders crouched low, trying to cover the attackers with the cumbersome trumpet-shaped horns. Carl could hear the quick bursts from them as sssttuuppp sssttuuppp sssttuuppp over the comm. Blue white plumes flowered where the microwaves caught the ice. They were putting up a fierce last stand, but it seemed to be all over.
Suddenly, Carl caught a new clicker of movement out the cor
ner of his eye. Fanning out behind the Uber main force came a motley gaggle, moving swiftly. A smaller group swarmed toward the equatorial line, now only lightly held by the Ubers. He turned up his telescopic power. Who were these?
They did not come from the tightly guarded shafts, but rather from fresh cracks in nearby depressions. New tunnels, Carl thought. They’re organized.
They spread across the grainy ice. He counted a dozen figures in sleek black suits—of a type he had never seen before—and over twenty others dressed in strange, filmy green. They lacked tabards, so he could not tell what faction they were with, if any at all.
The newcomers fought with a fine-edged ferocity, using small, potent handguns. They took the Uber line from the rear, inflicting damage on weapons rather than pinpointing people. Carl coasted closer, watching with mounting impatience. What was happening? His comm gave only shouts, incomprehensible orders, and crackling static.
Who are these guys?
The odd figures in green and in black outflanked one launcher, attacking from its vulnerable side. Someone had trained them. Instead of a milling rush, they used covering fire to maneuver, keeping the Ubers’ heads down while each figure moved forward. Then they pounced into the pits as the launcher crew tried vainly to swivel its awkward muzzle to meet a fresh, unexpected attack.
It didn’t work perfectly. Laser pulses caught some attackers and blew gouts of blood into the vacuum. Distant launchers pelted the ice with machinegun bursts, striking a few figures and propelling them off the ice into a permanent, solitary orbit about the sun. In the frigid gripping silence their ends were impersonal, an intersection of certain vectors and momenta, the dynamics of death a matter of mere mathematics.
But human verve counted, too, and the black and green tide washed over the pit punctuated equator. In his ears rang hoarse
jubilation, incoherent cries. Ubers died in burrows where they had crawled for shelter.
He was coming in close now. Two figures below him donned tabards, apparently so their troops could form up about them—the heraldry popped into his head acid he blinked in amazement. Ould-Harrad and Ingersoll? At the same moment he saw that they were not wearing green suits, but rather no suits at all! The green was some airtight layer. Halleyform!