Frozen Sky- Battlefront

by Jeff Carlson

  6.

  Adhering to the terms of the cease-fire, Jan informed the PSSC camp and the Dongfangzhixing that the allies were returning to the catacombs. She said they were constructing new mecha to repair Zones One and Two.

  Constructing new mecha was their justification for the commotion in and around camp. Beneath the tent, the Americans arranged a steel cradle and welding platforms. Outside the tent, their GPs prowled through the heaps of scrap, prepping steel and wiring, sorting plastic.

  They began to lay the spine and principal struts of their submarine before Vonnie ate dinner. Later, Troutman injected her with more OBP. She slept.

  In the morning, a note from Peter said she could observe the engineers as a consultant, not a participant.

  Vonnie would have cleaned sewage tanks if it meant getting to work. First she needed to calibrate a suit and pass NASA's checklists and exams.

  The ESA had reconditioned four of their scout suits. After an early breakfast, Peter, Ash, Tony and Ben had taken all four suits outside. As for the trio of FNEE soldiers, they'd decommissioned the battered hulks of their suits and switched to NASA gear.

  Vonnie met DeBrun in an American ready room. "I'm gonna walk ya through our HUD and voice commands," he said. "If ya learn those interfaces, we'll try a sim."

  "Roger that." Vonnie could have listed her qualifications, but she figured DeBrun needed her scores on record to avoid getting into trouble with Washington. Berlin was just as bad. Even in a crisis, the bureaucrats couldn't separate their rules from reality.

  Like the ESA, NASA used ROM-12, and their Mark III HUD was based on Germany's Modell Seiben, which she'd learned at university. None of DeBrun's tests were difficult.

  "Wow. Nice." He gave her a thumbs-up.

  He's so young for command, she thought, but the Americans loved young. They loved safety and lawyers and warnings. Their hab modules were plastered with signs posting who to call in emergencies, how hatches opened, and where nudity wasn't permitted beyond the red line on the shower floor.

  They treated their population like children, and, like children, they loved big and fast.

  Their suits were larger than ESA or FNEE suits. When she was finally allowed to armor up, Vonnie teetered beneath her massive arms and the weapons housing on her shoulders. NASA scout suits were praised as gorillas or derided as huge wankers. The weapons housing vaguely resembled a stout penis. More important, the huge wankers had kicked the shit out of PSSC and FNEE commandos in their few meetings in combat.

  "Let's go," DeBrun said, gesturing for her to move into the air lock. They stood side by side as it cycled. Vonnie tapped her fingers inside her oversized gloves and stamped her feet inside her boots.

  As they stomped into the construction area beneath the tent, Vonnie broke into a grin like Jan's cocky slash of teeth. Big and fast was fun -- and it was very, very sweet to feel healthy again.

  "Thank you, Commander," she said.

  "Yer welcome."

  She liked his confidence and the casual waves he received from the five Americans laboring among their mecha. One of them made a pistol finger -- it was David Hunt -- and DeBrun shot the same hand signal back at him.

  "Where do you want me?" Vonnie asked. "I can strip panels from... Lander 04."

  Saying the name quenched her happiness, but DeBrun waved off her pensive mood. "Nah, you're supposed to watch," he said. "Tell us what we're doing wrong."

  Assisting the team was Byron Troutman. NASA's engineers were Hunt, and Jewel, Mississippi and Sky, three of the women with Disney names. Vonnie hadn't quite wrapped her head around that. Gender equality had an odd kink in the U.S. Their female politicians, business leaders and athletes were expected to be attractive whereas Vonnie hadn't always been taken seriously because she was blond and blue-eyed. Either way it was a double standard, but the Americans laughed at their own hypocrisy. They awarded extra points for sexy.

  Even more so than the ESA or the FNEE, all of the Americans were handsome or gorgeous. They'd had thousands of qualified volunteers for Europa. Like a Hollywood production, they'd selected astronauts who were not only gifted but appealed to the camera.

  Mississippi was a great example. She was all woman -- all curves -- with big round eyes, round breasts, round butt and round hips. She was also roundly educated and sharp as a whip.

  In the West, many parents had their embryos genesmithed for physique and intelligence. They even tinkered with traits as trivial as exquisitely uniform melanin distribution, which meant zero blemishes or moles, or deactivated the genes that grew wisdom teeth, which meant those teeth never needed to be removed. As a rule, they were smooth-skinned and thick-haired and bright-eyed and stunning, which had the unintended consequence of making them look ordinary among each other.

  Vonnie's father hadn't been able to afford prenatal tinkering or she would have been a boy. She liked it that her best attributes were natural.

  She stood among the American gods, reviewing their schematics for the sub. Big and fast with lots of guns, she thought. If threatened, the sub could transform from an exploration vessel into a death-dealing marauder.

  Sometimes overkill is the right answer.

  Too many times, Vonnie had seen what happened when her people were unprepared. "This is perfect," she said.

  Mississippi popped a pink bubble in her mouth and drawled, "Ya think so?"

  She was chewing gum inside her helmet! If she got a sticky wad in her hair or choked on it, no one would be able to clear her airways, so Vonnie smiled and murmured, "Verrückte Amerikaner." Crazy American.

  "Oh, I've heard that before," Mississippi said.

  Everybody laughed and Vonnie felt like she was going to be all right. She felt included.

  DeBrun allowed her to map new pieces for the submarine's growing frame as they cut and shaped more steel. It was like playing with a three-dimensional puzzle. The mecha took care of the heaviest work. The astronauts handled the finer, almost surgical welds, using auto programs in their suits for lap joints and microscopic brazing.

  After ninety minutes, Vonnie grew tired. Skimming through their displays wasn't physically demanding but it was mentally taxing. She hadn't regained her stamina.

  She stayed. She wanted to run into Peter, who'd taken Ash and Tony into the catacombs. Ben was twenty kilometers away with Ribeiro on one last sweep for ESA and FNEE salvage, so maybe Peter would be patient with her.

  She just needed a chance.

  According to their transponders, Peter's group was climbing up from the ice. The day shift was in its tenth hour. Vonnie and DeBrun hadn't stepped outside until long after the others ate lunch inside their helmets, eating tubes of flavored paste so they could work without taking a break.

  "Amazing job today," DeBrun said. "We have ESA crew approaching. Let's move before there's a log jam. I want everyone to rest. Then we'll start another shift."

  Vonnie debated asking if she could remain behind. On what pretext? She couldn't afford to antagonize them.

  The nearest air lock allowed four suits at once. DeBrun indicated that Vonnie should enter with the three female engineers. "After you," he said.

  "Boys in the back!" Mississippi called. As they strode to the lock, she popped her gum at Vonnie. "I hear you're seeing Ben, yeah?"

  "Yes."

  "He looks like a handful."

  "He's crazier than you are," Vonnie agreed, earning another laugh from the other women. Then she grew serious. "You've put a lot of work into that sub," she said. "Do you want to come on the mission?"

  Mississippi shrugged. "I dunno."

  "It scares me, but I want to go down there."

  "Who did you say was crazy?" Jewel asked. Her remark provoked more laughter, although Vonnie thought she heard a disparaging note in Jewel's tone.

  Jewel masked it with a smile, but there was cruelty in her eyes. She didn't like Vonnie. Why?

  Vonnie let them leave the ready room without her, finding reasons to delay over her suit's leg pieces a
nd its boots. Lingering was a mistake. The air lock snapped open and DeBrun, Troutman and Hunt entered while she was half-dressed. The men were fully armored. Vonnie was stepping into her jumpsuit with it unzipped to her waist - bare stomach, bare cleavage, white bra. Their eyes drank her in.

  She zipped her suit shut to her neck.

  Is that why Jewel took a shot at me? Because their men are interested in the Hero Of The ESA?

  Normally, Vonnie enjoyed flirting. There had been times in her life when the best part of a lousy day was stripping off her clothes in a group of men and women. Casually bumping elbows or bending over to slip into her panties gave her a little charge. Among healthy adults, the banter and the peep show were more opportunities to bond. They needed to have each other's backs.

  Now she felt like she'd done something wrong. She didn't think the Americans dressed in single gender groups, but they had so many rules and signs. Hours ago, DeBrun might have been shocked when she put on her suit in front of him. What if he'd mentioned it to the others on a private channel? Gossip spread so quickly.

  "We'll, uh, we'll give you a minute," DeBrun said. He knew she'd caught him staring.

  That night, dinner was served before everyone returned from outside. Ben was still with the FNEE soldiers. When she walked into the mess hall, Vonnie counted too many unfriendly faces. She saw Harmeet at one table and Mississippi at another, but Mississippi was sitting with Meiko and Jewel.

  Because Ben wasn't there, Vonnie attempted to make peace with Peter. He sat at the last table with Jan. The two of them read from a display together, poring over AIs systems and equipment manifests.

  "Can we talk?" Vonnie asked.

  "Yes," Peter said, allowing her a flicker of hope. Then he said, "Let me find some time tomorrow. I'll call you if I have a minute."

  "She can join us," Jan said.

  "I need to get this done," Peter said. "My jobs are piling up and Berlin wants to move on to stage five. We're barely through stage three."

  Vonnie fled to eat dinner with Harmeet. She appreciated the older woman's calm more than she could say. Her stomach was bothering her again. She wanted to pretend it was the American food but she knew it was stress.

  She was asleep when Ben returned late with the FNEE.

  Early the next morning at 07:00, Ash, Tony, Claudia, Araújo and DeBrun suited up and went beneath the ice with American GPs and doppelgängers. The GPs cleared the tunnels in Zone One, fortifying its ceilings and walls, placing new beacons and listening posts. The doppelgängers crept into Zone Two, calling for the sunfish.

  Peter and Jan visited Submodule 07. Later, they joined the others in the catacombs.

  More than half of the astronauts would stay behind when the submarine departed. They could have designed a sub large enough for everybody, but Washington, Berlin and Brasilia didn't want to put all of their eggs in one basket. What if the sub was destroyed?

  By the same token, nobody wanted the people who stayed behind to find themselves at the mercy of the PSSC. They intended to seat Submodule 07 deeper in the ice. Next they would modify what was left of Module 01, place it with 07, then stockpile weapons and food.

  NASA's hab modules would serve as their primary base. In the event of an attack, their fallback positions were in the catacombs. 01 and 07 would be defended by their mecha, and, ideally, by a contingent of sunfish. Creating more protective layers were the sheets of ice where the cave-ins and floods had hardened like concrete. If there was a ground assault, PSSC mecha would be limited to approaching across the surface.

  Work on the submarine continued.

  In orbit, the Jyväskylä was building its own toys -- burrowing mecha designed to assist the sub in drilling or melting through a chimney.

  At 09:00, Troutman visited Vonnie with one more round of nanotech and optimized blood plasma. "Tomorrow you're cleared for active duty," he said.

  "Thank you. I don't know if I've said it enough. Thank you for everything."

  "My pleasure," Troutman said, and his tone was polite, but his eyes were distant like Jewel's had been when she called Vonnie crazy.

  What was going on? Their behavior felt like more than jealousy or pique. Mississippi and DeBrun got along with Vonnie, and Jan said the right things, but the rest of them held her at arm's length.

  Maybe they didn't believe in dedicating so many resources for the unknowns of the Great Ocean. Did they think she was exacerbating their standoff with the PSSC?

  Screw it, she thought. Either they'll accept me or they won't. I'm not changing now.

  I'm here for the sunfish.

  I'm here for the ocean.

  She spent the next hour in rehab. She spent another thirty minutes practicing with her NASA scout suit. For the rest of the day, one of her responsibilities was to assess their reports on Ghost Clan Thirty.

  Also in her queue was an announcement from Berlin that the sub had been named the Lewis by the American government. This was followed by new orders. She was told to study -- and to practice -- a series of U.S. Navy training simulations.

  She wasn't the only one. During the night, most of the astronauts had received messages to adjust their schedules. They were expected to find enough hours in their day for drills and instructions. The sub's crew had yet to be decided, but it would include pilots, engineers and at least two scientists. Earth wanted as many candidates as possible.

  The last message in Vonnie's queue was a recording from Ben. He must have been up late. The time stamp on his message was barely four minutes older than their new orders.

  He laughed, pretending it was a joke, but his words were harsh. "You noticed when they sent our new directives, right? They did it when everyone was asleep so we'd wake up and it's a done deal. Look how much training we need. They literally gave us a crash course. We're gonna learn so much in a hurry, we'll definitely crash."

  Vonnie laughed, too. Dark humor was better than no humor -- and to some extent, his skepticism was justified. None of them had served on civilian or military watercraft, much less in the specialized domain of submarines.

  Fortunately, the Lewis would operate a lot like a spaceship. Radar was useless in the ocean, although their holo displays would trivialize the differences between radar and sonar. They could "see" in the water, though not far.

  As for communicating with probes, beacons or mecha, radio signals were badly attenuated by salt water, so their short-range data/comm would be converted to bursts of neutrino pulses. For the AIs, this was a minor complication. The astronauts wouldn't notice any delays or restrictions unless they needed long-range communications with the surface.

  To reach the Jyväskylä or their friends on top of the ice, the Lewis would be equipped with nanostrand filaments for ELF broadcasts.

  At max power, the Lewis should be capable of communicating through twenty klicks of salt water and twenty more of ice. The nanostrand filaments of their ELF transmitter would extend 1,100 kilometers from the hull, putting them in danger of snagging on a fin mountain or the bottom of the frozen sky. These filaments would be extended only in a dire emergency. For all intents and purposes, the Lewis would be on its own.

  Ben said, "I'm making a list of how many ways this can go wrong. Let's start with water pressure. If the sub crashes, it better crash into a mountain because the ocean floor is a long, long, long, long, long way down and the max depth for the hull is thirty klicks."

  "Oh, Ben," she murmured to his recording.

  "Don't volunteer. Tell them you're too weak. I know you want to go, but the smart money says this mission is fubar," he said, using the American military slang for Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.

  He'd spent several days working alongside NASA and FNEE personnel. Did most of them feel the same?

  Vonnie thought the allies had done remarkably well given their circumstances. The Lewis was a fine piece of hardware. It would be crewed by some of the world's best.

  Also, Earth had decided to stick with common nomenclature such as denoting t
he Lewis's speed in kilometers per hour rather than in knots. She believed she could adapt. No, the situation wasn't ideal. What choice did they have?

  She called Ben but he didn't answer and she didn't leave a message. She was more interested in the status of Ghost Clan Thirty than in fueling his pointless rebellion. They were going to the Great Ocean whether they were ready or not.

  7.

  In search of a late breakfast, Vonnie brought her display to the mess hall and sat at a table in the corner. Around her, people came and went. Most were Americans she didn't know well. They made small talk. Hi. How are you?

  The words were meaningless, but their demeanor was nuanced. She felt strongly that they were evaluating her like one tribe of sunfish testing another.

  She studied her training sims. She read the latest reports from the catacombs.

  Many of the savage males had left Zones One and Two. Her briefing put the number of deserters at sixty-plus, although dozens of scouts were in range of the ESA/NASA grid, conveying songs from the matriarchs.

  The clan hadn't forsaken its human partners, but their cries were perplexed. They'd let their injured heal and they'd murdered their critically wounded males and females, listening as the astronauts enacted a similar purge of useless mecha, landers and modules.

  The sunfish wanted affirmation of their treaty with the ESA. They knew other humans were present. They'd sent scouts to investigate; the matriarchs would not approach until they were assured of the ESA's commitment; and NASA's doppelgängers had failed to pacify them.

  Physically, NASA's doppelgängers matched the ESA models, but NASA lacked the ESA's experience with the tribes. Their doppelgängers didn't move or sing convincingly.

  At 11:13, Peter pinged Vonnie's display to say he wanted to meet at 14:00.

  Within twenty minutes, he rescheduled for 15:00.

  An hour later, he rescheduled for "tonight or tomorrow morning." How long would he put her off? It couldn't be forever even if she made him feel awkward.