Nimbus

by Jacey Bedford

  “The last time we were here, there were too many bodies,” Ronan said. “I sincerely hope there are no more bodies today. Let Lieutenant Charles Strachan be the only one, please.”

  They nosed through more debris. “Ahead, Boss,” Yan said. “It’s an Eastin-Heigle cruiser. It looks to be intact. No life signs.”

  “Let’s take a look.”

  Just because Eastin-Heigle had abandoned their ships in favor of taking the crews home, didn’t mean to say they’d left them unprotected. It was very likely they were booby-trapped unless you had a set of Eastin-Heigle recognition codes. This was going to be tricky.

  Ben left Yan to maneuver Solar Wind into place off the cruiser’s port side while he suited up along with three psi-techs, Issy Monaghan, Corin Butterfield, and Lynda Munene, who was a Psi-Mech as well as a Telepath. Issy had been working with Dido Kennedy and Yan Gwenn retrofitting some of Crossways ships and was there primarily to assess whatever ships they found for refit.

  They checked each other’s suit seals and made their way down to the cargo airlock, which was big enough to take all four of them. They tied onto a line for the journey across to the waiting cruiser. Lynda opened up a communications network.

  The airlock cycled and the outer hatch slid open.

  Ben and Corin, at either end of the line, fired their suit thrusters and eased all of them to within fifty meters of the ship, then floated silently to the emergency hatch on the port side.

  Corin examined the hatch. *Come on, baby, talk to me.*

  He put his face close to the mechanism, leaning his suit helmet against the side of the ship. They had no way of knowing whether the ship had been locked down tight with all life-support systems mothballed, or whether it was operating on a sleep cycle which would restore power on detecting a human presence.

  *Or it could be booby-trapped to hell and back,* Ronan said, following everything from the safety of Solar Wind.

  *Could be,* Corin said. *I need to connect and—* He grasped the hatch opening. *Here we are.*

  The emergency hatch was wide enough for two suited bodies at a time.

  Ben itched to join Corin, but protocol said he should let the engineers take the risks. It didn’t feel right to send in Corin and Issy first, but that was their job. Ben let them do it.

  *Clear,* Issy said. *There’s stale air in here, but no life support. The power’s on standby, though, so we should be able to cobble something together. Come on in.*

  Ben went in with Lynda. The ship was dim and tomblike with no gravity and a fine rime of ice on anything metallic.

  *Engineering’s through there,* Corin said, pulling himself hand over hand along the corridor grab-rail. *I sent a couple of spider bots ahead. It’s dark and creepy, but there are no obvious booby traps. It wouldn’t make sense if there were. They pulled their crew out, but they know the ship’s here. They’ve left it in working condition, possibly hoping to be able to salvage it themselves at some future date. It’s one hell of an expensive piece of hardware.*

  They followed him.

  *Lights,* Issy said, and they were rewarded with a gentle glow.

  *Looks like I can give us quarter-grav,* Corin said. *And reinstate life support so that—oh, shit!*

  *What?* Ben said.

  *We’ve tripped something. Self-destruct sequence initiated.*

  *How long?*

  *Five minutes. Less now.*

  *Can you figure out how to stop it?*

  *Sure, but not in five minutes.*

  *Everybody out. Now!* Ben pushed Issy toward the corridor they’d entered by. Lynda was close behind. Ben turned. Corin had lingered by the engineering console. *Corin, out, now.*

  *I’m just—*

  *Now!*

  *Yessir.* Corin pulled something out of the console and pushed off toward the exit.

  *Yan, we need a quick exit. Do a close pass and have the jump drive online.*

  *Coming now.*

  The emergency hatch cycled too slowly. *Blow it,* Ben told Corin who sent a couple of bots into the lock. A small, quiet puff of the internal lock and then a louder clang as the outside hatch popped and flew off, driven by a rush of stale air.

  Ben clipped a line on Issy and sent her up the hatch, then Lynda, Corin, and finally himself.

  *Three minutes.* Corin had been counting.

  Solar Wind loomed in front of them. They all jetted for the open cargo hatch, tumbling inside as gravity took hold. Ben unclipped his line and ran for the flight deck as fast as he could while fully suited. He popped the seals and stripped off the gloves as he ran, dropped them on the floor, and jumped onto the first step of the access tube. Solar Wind was way too close. She’d be wiped out if the cruiser blew. He emerged onto the flight deck and flung himself into the pilot’s chair as Yan rolled out of it. His hands found the controls. Yan released his helmet seal for him and still had it in his hands as he slid into the systems station. “Jump drive ready, Boss.”

  “Go!”

  • • •

  And just like that they are in foldspace with thirty-four seconds to spare. Ben takes a deep breath. He hasn’t even had time for the usual doubts.

  *Well done, everyone.* Lynda is still holding the comms link open and Ben feels everyone’s state of alarm. *Debriefing after we exit from foldspace.*

  He blinks rapidly. The void dragon is on the flight deck. He’d not noticed it arrive.

  *?* The void dragon says.

  *You know, I wish I could tell you.* He tries to imagine an explosion.

  Does the void dragon understand? Ben feels a sudden *Ah-ha!*

  The void dragon explodes.

  Ben begins to duck but there’s no real explosion, only the appearance of one. Scales are embedded into the bulkhead. Ben’s heart is pounding, but before he can react, the void dragon returns and the scales realign themselves.

  EXPLOSION, the void dragon says it quite clearly in Ben’s head.

  A word. It says a word.

  An actual word.

  Maybe it’s worth the explosion.

  • • •

  Predictably, the void dragon disappeared as they popped out of the Folds into Crossways space.

  “Did you see anything, Yan?”

  “Such as?”

  “A void dragon.”

  “No. I don’t know whether to be grateful for that or not.”

  “On balance, I think you should. Can you fly the bus? I need to debrief.”

  Ben peeled off his suit. It would need a thorough check, especially the glove seals where he’d ripped them apart. He made his way to the mess where Ronan, Lynda, and Issy were already waiting. Corin slipped in behind him and sat at the table with a cat-that-got-the-cream grin.

  “You look very pleased for someone who nearly blew us up,” Lynda said.

  “Hey, it wasn’t me. Blame Eastin-Heigle. I got it.”

  “Got what?” Ben asked.

  “The systems download. With this, we should be able to tell how they safeguard their ship so we can disarm it.”

  “You mean you’ve figured out how to untrap the booby?” Issy asked.

  “Well, not quite, but the way to do it should be in here.” He waved the crystal. “Any other Eastin-Heigle ships out there should follow the same protocols.”

  Ben held his hand out. “Well done, Corin. One of Mother Ramona’s specialists should be able to crack this.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  OLYANDA

  CARA STOOD ON THE EDGE OF THE LANDING pad in the rain, enjoying the weather on Olyanda after the weather-free atmosphere on Crossways. She left her hood down and let the rain slick off her short hair and trickle down her face. She was happy to make her home wherever Ben and the Free Company were, but there was no denying she preferred her feet on solid ground.

  If only she could p
ersuade Ben down to the planet, but Garrick called on him more and more frequently these days. It was almost as if . . . She didn’t want to think about it, but it was almost as if Garrick was grooming him to take over one day. How old was Garrick? He couldn’t be more than twenty years older than Ben. There was plenty of life left in him.

  Yet . . .

  They’d all noticed a difference in Garrick since the attack on Crossways, and Cara didn’t think the space battle was to blame. She was pretty sure the close call with the Nimbus was what was weighing on his mind.

  Cara had been monitoring the S-Logs for chatter about foldspace. There was nothing about the Nimbus, and no one else had seen the void dragons, or more likely they weren’t saying anything if they had in case they were sent for a neural examination. But, worryingly, two more passenger vessels had disappeared in the Folds within the last couple of weeks. Vessels occasionally disappeared in foldspace, but not so many in such a short period of time. They had nothing in common except they’d used the jump gates. Not even the same jump gates—she’d checked.

  *Stand by,* Jake said. *Anticipating touchdown in ten minutes.*

  *Waiting for you on the field. It’s raining.*

  *Ah, my bad luck.* Jake had a pilot’s disdain for weather systems. They were nothing but a nuisance as far as he was concerned.

  *No crosswind, though.*

  Olyanda could be subject to sudden fierce storms, which caused everyone to take shelter, and closed down the spaceports and all traffic.

  *That’s one blessing.*

  Jake brought in the Bellatkin in slightly under ten minutes, set her down on the landing pad, opened the hold hatch, and released the unloading ramp.

  *Lots of goodies, courtesy of Crossways.*

  *Including my exoskeletons?*

  *Them, too.*

  *You’re a star.*

  *Yeah, right. I suppose you want some help with the unloading.*

  *If you’re offering.*

  Jake climbed down from the pilot’s hatch and stared at the remains of the little town they used to call Landing. “It’s not exactly prime real estate, is it?”

  “It used to look better than this. It took a battering both before the Crossways battle and after. Apart from the occasional solar flares that send us all running for sun block and the violent storms that send us running for shelter, Olyanda’s a decent planet—at least around the equatorial belt.”

  “Yeah, I saw the polar ice on the way in.”

  “It’s retreating, but the ice goes in cycles. As far as we can tell, it’s never completely covered the whole planet, but sometimes the temperate equatorial band narrows considerably. It might be a couple of thousand years before the next ice age or a couple of hundred, but it won’t happen overnight. In the meantime . . . look.” She gestured beyond the compound to where a fat silver river rolled gently across a wide valley floor. On the far side of the valley giant hoodoo-like pinnacles rose and beyond them mountains, grayed out by the rain.

  “The mountains sparkle in the sun,” Cara said. “Mica, in case you’re wondering.”

  “I figured you might have mentioned it if they’d been made out of diamond.”

  The remains of a road, laid down for the original settlers, ran parallel to the river. In the far distance, a collection of buildings squatted close to trees that Cara had ceased to think of as strange, but when she’d first set foot on Olyanda they’d looked like giant heads of purple-green broccoli. The name had stuck, as had the name for the town.

  “Those are the infamous broccoli trees, huh?” Jake asked.

  She grinned. “The settlers decided to call their first town Timbertown, but it was always Broccoliburg to us. The refugees Garrick sent down from Crossways after the battle have taken over the buildings there, and the crops that the settlers broke ground to plant are doing well.”

  “So how much of what’s here is salvageable?”

  She sighed. “The landing vehicle is completely gone. Gutted. Nothing left to strip out, so we can’t retrieve any tech. A couple of ground cars can be repaired with parts from the chewed-up ones. There were five flyers still operable after the bombing, but Leah Nolan’s guys took them in the early days. I’ve asked for them all, but I’ll be happy if I get two.”

  “Accommodation?”

  “Tengue’s guys salvaged some of it already. They camped out here for a short while after the settlers left—”

  “They were originally Ari van Blaiden’s squad, right? I heard the stories.”

  Cara sincerely hoped he hadn’t, at least not all of the stories.

  “Tengue’s mercs had been hired by van Blaiden, but they were a professional crew and van Blaiden being very dead at the end of the confrontation, they considered that contract ended and were happy to sign on as security for the Free Company.”

  Tengue rarely talked ethics. However, Hilde had once told her that he’d had serious second thoughts about van Blaiden, but having signed a contract felt honor bound to stick to it.

  “Come on, I’ll show you around before we unload your cargo.”

  Something blue-green whizzed past their legs at knee height. Jake jumped, startled.

  “What the heck was that?”

  “Trikalla. Native wildlife.”

  “It looked like a jellyfish.”

  “Yes, almost, except it floats on air, on a cushion of air to be precise. And it squirts out jets of air to steer, kind of like farting, except we’re still not sure whether it has a rear end or whether both ends are the same. Don’t worry, they’re not dangerous—not to flesh-and-blood creatures anyway. They live by ingesting metal. Copper’s their favorite, but they’re willing to try anything new.”

  “Okay. Anything else I should know about?”

  “Not unless you take a trip into the mountains where you should watch out for lyx packs, six-legged things about the size of a wolf. Be careful in swamplands, too. Reptans are the most dangerous creature on Olyanda. They look a bit like a cross between a beaver and a flying squirrel. Do not engage. They leap for your face and latch on, and their underside is covered in venomous barbs. Neurotoxin. You’d last about half an hour and it would be the longest half hour of your soon-to-be-over life.”

  “Jeez! Can’t this place come up with fluffy bunnies?”

  “I once asked Ben exactly the same question. He said that if it did, they’d eat all the crops.”

  “Yeah, he might have a point.”

  Cara led Jake into the middle of the compound where what had been a geodesic meeting hall now stood like a skeleton, spurs reaching into the sky, defying gravity. Some of the clear panels lay splintered and crushed, but alongside the dome was a sealed tunnel-shaped structure made from whole panels.

  “At the moment that’s our only weatherproof structure. We eat and sleep there.”

  “What’s that about people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones?” Jake asked.

  “Or maybe that should be: people in glass houses shouldn’t.”

  Jake laughed. “Yeah, not much privacy, huh.”

  “Not much. We’ll get the privacy thing sorted out now we have the exoskeletons. We need some help with the heavy lifting to move the medonite panels from the old risers. There isn’t one still complete, but there are plenty of panels that are reusable. There are enough to make shelters for us and the animals.”

  “Animals?”

  “The settlers left behind all their livestock when we had to get them off planet in a hurry. Garrick’s refugees started to round up horses and cattle, but there are still more out there. We’ve liberated half a dozen riding horses already.”

  Jake shuddered visibly. “I’ll stick to a more predictable mode of transport if I can.”

  She grinned at him. Typical flyboy. He’d fly a bucket of bolts through the Folds without blinking, but he was nervous of anything planet
based.

  “Come and eat with us, and then we’ll get your cargo unloaded.”

  At the far end of the glasshouse, they’d set up a camp kitchen, presided over by Blake Morgan, one of Ada Levenson’s food wizards. He took care of all the domestic arrangements, which let everyone else get on with their jobs.

  “Hello, Jake.” Jussaro waved from the table where he was tucking into a bowl of Blake’s fragrant risotto. “Get yourself a bowl of this and come and join us. Tastes great, but don’t ask what’s in it.”

  “Hey, I heard that,” Blake called from the other side of the kitchen. “I’ll give you the recipe if you like.”

  Jussaro chuckled. Archie Tatum glanced up from his own bowl, smirked, and continued eating.

  “Do not piss off the chef, my friend,” Lev Reznik pointed at Jussaro with his fork. “I once worked in a restaurant, I know—”

  Cara turned away to get a bowl. The friendly banter was good. She hadn’t known what to do with Reznik. He’d had several sessions with Jussaro and was currently trying to decide whether he wanted to be fitted with an implant, at the same time as Jussaro was trying to decide whether he could cope with one. There was every indication that with an implant he could be an excellent long-range Telepath. Cara had been pleased he’d volunteered for the Sanctuary working party.

  Ben had given her ten Free Company psi-techs, mostly Psi-Mechs under Archie Tatum, but she’d also brought Efra, Dido Kennedy’s protégé from Red One. Dido was worried that someone would try and snatch her again. If she joined the Free Company, they could protect her.

  They also had Nairi, the child Ben had rescued from the tube. Her family had gone home on the understanding that Nairi would stay with the Free Company until she was old enough to decide her own future. Jussaro had paired her up with Efra and the two girls were becoming firm friends. With Efra’s help, Nairi’s Basic was improving. If one decided to have an implant fitted, the other probably would, but they didn’t have to make that decision yet.

  One by one, another eight psi-techs filed in for food. Morale was good. They had a simple job to do: clear the site and recycle what they could. Cara realized she was happy here. Life in the open air with no distractions was remarkably restorative.