Frozen Sky- Battlefront

by Jeff Carlson

  Jan rearranged the seals while Vonnie held the rescue ball. After the lock cycled, without removing their suits, they strode through a cell-by-cell maze from lock one to ready room one to decon one to hab one. Every compartment was a buffer against the outside. Nobody would ever walk freely through the Lewis. The interior was a honeycomb of walls and hatches.

  Hab one was among the largest rooms. It held five fold-out bunks, ten lockers and two bathrooms, each with a toilet and a shower. The ceiling held a data/comm array with cams and sensors. On the walls were five displays where group feeds showed their crewmates and checklists.

  Jan immediately moved to the nearest display. The astronauts had taken two hours to accomplish what Admiral Cornet wanted done in sixty minutes. The proxy's latest commands were stern, even waspish. The checklists were dominated by yellow and orange alarm bars.

  In the conn, Ribeiro was yelling at Jewel and Sky, who were in propulsion. In the American command module, Peter was arguing with DeBrun, who stood outside on the ice, where he'd readied ten mecha to tow the Lewis from camp. In the labs, Ben leaned past Lorena Hernandez to type on her display, doing something for her. Everybody was on edge.

  "I gotta go," Jan said. "To be honest, I'm not sure who's running this monkey farm."

  Vonnie tried to smile but failed.

  Jan said, "Can you handle the sunfish by yourself?"

  "Yes."

  Jan grinned suddenly. She hugged Vonnie, clanking her gorilla against Vonnie's smaller scout suit. "We'll talk when you're back, okay?"

  "Be good, cowboy," Vonnie said, keeping it light, but as soon as Jan released her, she hid her face by turning to look at the checklists. They'd only known each other for a few days. Nevertheless, she would miss Jan's energy and confidence.

  Jan walked from hab one into decon one. She closed the hatch. Alone with the rescue ball, Vonnie double-checked that the lights were off. The temperature was warm. Also, there was a med kit on the floor that Harmeet had sent. The kit's tag read PRIORITY Vonderach on Vonnie's HUD. She picked it up and maglocked it to her thigh. She would need it soon.

  She transmitted a safe code to the rescue ball. It deflated, then split. The sunfish spilled out. Angelica shrieked once, after which the sunfish were quiet.

  Ultrasound echoed painfully inside the room, which was a steel box. They were also troubled by its sterile condition. The high ceiling and the breadth of the walls were alien to them as well. They were accustomed to irregular spaces.

  Vonnie had stayed in her suit to protect herself but also to intimidate and guide them. In her armor, she seemed almost like she was a part of the Lewis. The message was 'Our world is metal. I am metal. You need to adapt.'

  They gripped her ankles and her waist, curling themselves around these key spots in her anatomy. As always, they approved of her determination and her loyalty to them, although Brigit seemed to chide her for her busy mind. Brigit correctly assumed Vonnie was suppressing a host of concerns, but Brigit didn't pry because the sunfish still didn't understand planning with so many variables.

  They were willing to throw themselves on her mercy. They'd committed to their imprisonment even if Tom and Hans quivered with tension. The males were overwhelmed by hab one. Hans chewed on the loose folds of the ERIC, mangling its sensors, shaking himself like a dog with a rag.

  Brigit coaxed him away. She connected him with Angelica and Tom. The matriarchs stroked the males in a cozy foursome, dulling their instinct to fight.

  It was Tom who asked about the ceaseless activity on all sides of the room. --Noises? Noises? he piped.

  Vonnie carefully explained the different sounds of mecha and people. She emphasized that there were only friends onboard. She also demonstrated how they could call for her on the open microphones.

  --I need to leave, she cried. --I'll return soon and I'll bring food.

  --Leave? Leave? Tom piped.

  --I'll always be near, and part of me will stay with you now. I have medicine, she cried, disconnecting Harmeet's kit from her thigh. --I can give you our strength. This will relieve your sickness.

  --Blood? Saliva? Touch? Smell? Brigit piped. The matriarchs had mastered the benefits of biochem and physical contact even if they didn't use those words.

  --This is better, Vonnie cried. She removed an old-fashioned hypodermic syringe. The kit held seven more. Harmeet wanted injections, not pills, because sunfish stomach acids were so caustic. --This is a kind of power like our metal warriors or the eyes we call radar or neutrino pulse. Let me heal you. My tools will bite, but you'll gain our strength.

  --Yes? Yes? Hans piped at Angelica and Brigit.

  Angelica brushed an armtip over Vonnie's hand and the needle, describing it to Brigit.

  The matriarchs quickly signaled their approval. They had one reservation. Before they allowed Vonnie to sting them, they wanted to learn how the males reacted.

  Vonnie administered two shots to Hans, then Tom.

  Hans clacked when she shoved the first needle into a vein labeled sixth mesenteric artery on her display. He latched onto her, grinding his beak on her forearm. She didn't flinch. She smacked him.

  Harmeet had described the shots as simple vitamins. In addition to food and rest, any boost to their immune systems might be enough for them to overcome their sickness.

  Hans and Tom showed the effects in seconds. Their accelerated metabolism converted the vitamins into fuel. They snapped. They tugged and whipped at each other, swelling with violence.

  Hans scratched open one of hemorrhagic bruises on Tom's side. Greedily, he swiped up the droplets of blood. Angelica and Brigit seized him before he could drink. They stole the blood from him, mopping it with the undersides of their arms. They tasted it.

  At the same time, Vonnie applied pressure to Tom's wound. "Christ," she said, looking at the display. She hoped Harmeet would see the mayhem she'd caused. But of course the matriarchs approved of the males' vitality.

  --Us! Us! Brigit piped. She curled an arm around Vonnie's wrist and pried her hand away from Tom.

  He'd already clotted. The scent of his blood continued to enliven them, but mostly they were galvanized by this new type of sustenance.

  Vonnie gave two shots to each matriarch.

  --More, Angelica piped. --More.

  --It's gone. No more. I'll return with food.

  --New strength! New food! Tom and Hans screamed.

  All four sunfish cringed as the steel room magnified the sound. Angelica and Brigit punished the males by grabbing their arms and squeezing. Hans bucked in pain. The matriarchs were barely in control of themselves.

  Vonnie decided to make her escape. Trying not to alert them, she glanced at the far wall without moving her head. There were two exits from hab one: the hatch into decon one and the smaller, auxiliary hatch that Tony and Mississippi had engineered.

  The auxiliary hatch led directly from hab one into airlock one so the sunfish could exit the Lewis without gaining access to the interior. If they got into decon one, they might get into the central corridor. From there, it was a short distance to the labs and the conn. They might accidently damage the electronics or hurt someone. It wouldn't matter if Wester or Ribeiro provoked them. Any blame would fall on the sunfish.

  --Stay, Vonnie cried. --You are safe.

  She separated herself from them and they separated from each other, gnashing and thumping. They did not call out, but their movements were rambunctious and loud.

  As she strode to the hatch, Brigit explored one of the displays, prying with her armtips. Angelica yanked at the handles of the lockers. Hans and Tom investigated the fold-out bunks. By design, there wasn't anything to break in hab one. The display was shatter resistant. The lockers were empty. The astronauts had removed every blanket and pillow, although they'd left the thin gel mattresses in place.

  Hans and Tom ripped into a mattress with their arms and beaks. They scooped out the colorless gel, eating it, smearing it on themselves.

  Vonnie almost laugh
ed.

  Leaping from the bunks, they scattered the torn fabric on the floor and soiled the room with gel, flinging it everywhere. Then they splattered the walls with urine and feces.

  Piping at their matriarchs, Hans and Tom bumped past Vonnie in a crisscrossing pattern. They began to paint the smooth, square-cornered room as if camouflaging the flat steel. They were making it more like home.

  Of course she knew the sunfish used bodily fluids to fuse their structures in the ice; to mark territory; to fertilize their farms or wild growths; to guide their lesser males and females through a process like puberty; even to feed each other when they were starving; but she'd always witnessed these activities in a scout suit or through the eyes of probes and mecha.

  She had planned to return without her suit. Now she wondered how she could stand it if they didn't clean up... but she shouldn't have paused at the hatch. Hans piped at her, questioning her hesitation.

  She turned to say something to him.

  On the other side of the room, behind Tom, Angelica's arms bunched as if to leap.

  Vonnie rushed into decon one and shut the hatch. They almost came after me, she thought. Hans had distracted her while Tom concealed Angelica, who'd intended to jump. Every time people went in or out could be a test of wills. Do we need mecha to contain them? Maybe we should just lock them inside.

  Alone in decon one, Vonnie walked to the decontamination chamber without removing her helmet or her armor. The chamber sluiced her with bleach and nanotech. Hoses drained the mess. Then it baked her with UV.

  The floor of decon one had also been cleaned. Vonnie stepped out of the chamber and walked to ready room one, which had been disinfected by its own nanotech and UV after she and Jan passed through. She took off her suit. She set Harmeet's med kit on the rack and located a new ERIC to refill her chest kit.

  She stopped and stared at her left hand. Her fingers were wet with syrupy guck. It was black with flecks of red or translucent matter. It was pungent and foul.

  With a jolt, she quit breathing and stuck her hand as far from her face as possible. Her first thought was that this slime was Europan bacteria or mold.

  What if it's in my lungs? My eyes?

  She realized it was feces. Hans had tucked a little present into the empty slot in her chest kit, which she hadn't locked after she removed her rescue ball because she'd been too focused on the sunfish. When Hans and Tom thumped against her in hab one, he'd popped in some poop. Then her fingers had discovered his gift as she unloaded her kits.

  Were his feces meant as a tracking device? Their sense of smell rivaled that of bears, who could follow the scent of potential mates over hundreds of miles.

  In the ice, the sunfish were constrained only by the limits of atmosphere or liquid water. Inside the Lewis, the hatches were air tight -- but when a hatch opened, the faintest stink, even if undetectable by human beings, might allow them to estimate the range and size if the nearest rooms.

  "I'm an idiot," she muttered, wiping the guck on a spare jumpsuit. She used it like a towel, then folded it into a bundle as if that could lessen the stink.

  She might have tried to wash up with antiseptics. What she needed was a shower and a laundry unit.

  She spoke to a display without touching it, holding her hands up to avoid spreading any molecule of the rank filth. "Ribeiro, this is Vonderach in ready room one. The sunfish tricked me. I'm marked with shit. Permission to enter hab two so I can get clean?"

  The display flickered as an AI linked her with the conn. "This is Ribeiro," he said, paying more attention to a holo map than to her. "Why did you say 'marked'?"

  "They'll use the smell to gauge the interior of the Lewis. I'm sorry. I was careless."

  "Then I can't let you move about the ship."

  "I'll shower in the women's barracks."

  "I can't let you do that, either."

  The cold talons of claustrophobia squeezed around her. She hated feeling trapped -- and she realized this stealthy fear had been increasing since she entered the Lewis. She'd managed to distract herself while she was dealing with the sunfish, but she'd seen the map that he was studying now.

  In order to reach the chimney, they needed to travel 13.4 klicks to the north. The journey would take forty minutes if they made it at all.

  The quakes, the geysers and the flooding had transformed the area in a rolling quilt. It buckled and peaked. It was also strewn with debris. Many kinds of fallout peppered the larger destruction -- white ice, black dust, grey steel.

  Glancing through their projected route, Vonnie had been struck by an odd feeling. For most of her life, she'd looked forward to her weeks in orbit or in space. Vacuum was a blank slate. The stars were distant friends, very distant, nothing like an oppressive father or a gang of brothers. She loved the stars... but there were too many manmade objects overhead.

  Trundling across the surface, the Lewis would be impotent. Its weapons were intended to defend it in the ice and in the ocean. She supposed that was why she'd asked to duck into the women's barracks. Until the Lewis was on the move, she didn't want to be inside it.

  "Colonel, please," she said.

  "No." He reached to disconnect their link.

  "Even if I leave a trail to the barracks, we'll disembark soon. Any information they gain about our camp won't affect the mission."

  He glanced sideways, where DeBrun sat at his shoulder in the conn. "What do you think, Commander?"

  "Sir, she has to clean up," DeBrun said.

  "Is there a risk of contagion? The sunfish are ill."

  "No, sir," DeBrun said, assessing Vonnie from the display. "We're already sharing our airco with them, and everyone's up-to-date on our meds and gene sweeps. A little blob of crap won't hurt her as long as she doesn't ingest it." He pretended to shiver. "Man, that's nasty."

  "Feces are one of their few tools in the ice," Vonnie said, trying to excuse Hans. In a sense, he was as blameless as a child. He was also a ruthless killer.

  "I'll allow it. You've worked hard, but don't let this happen again. I dislike excuses," Ribeiro said.

  Had she seen a glimpse of humanity in his face? Not quite. Ribeiro expected women to need special treatment, and his condescension made her furious.

  She signed off without thanking him.

  She went to lock one. She brought the reeking jumpsuit with her and elbowed the control panel instead of using her hand. The seals were fixed for the tube into Module C. Someone was inside. She waited.

  The tube opened to reveal Dawson, who held a MAID/comm. He was followed by Hunt, who carried three more. Both men made disgusted expressions. "My dear, you're incredibly ripe," Dawson said.

  "You know I'm responsible for the sunfish."

  "But the stench! What are you doing with them?"

  "Just let her through," Hunt said, which was gallant, although he stepped further back than necessary.

  Vonnie hurried through camp, eliciting more complaints from Purity and Meiko as she passed. "Wow," Purity said as Meiko cried, "What is that smell?"

  In the barracks, Vonnie stuffed the extra jumpsuit into the laundry unit, then her own suit.

  The shower eased the muscles in her neck. I'll feel better when we're gone, she thought. Once we're in the chimney, the PSSC can't touch us. We'll be fine. I'll be fine.

  She scrubbed her nails carefully, then her face and hair. She emerged from the bathroom in a clean towel.

  Ash stood by Vonnie's bunk, arms crossed, expressionless.

  Vonnie looked at her warily. "Hi."

  "Ribeiro sent me to make sure you're prepped," Ash said. "I'm coming with you on the sub."

  "Really? Good. When did that change?"

  Ash unfolded her arms, relaxing as soon as Vonnie said Good. "I'm not the only one. Jan made other substitutions and Cornet approved."

  Vonnie put on clean clothes. "Who else?" she asked.

  "Popson wanted out. I heard she threw some kind of tantrum. She said she's a space pilot, not wet navy. Wester
is taking her slot. Jan wants a full complement of ten. She said we can't have too many pilots or engineers, so they added me. She also wants another genesmith. Harmeet is coming, too."

  "You said you'd never go down there again."

  "Henri would have wanted me to."

  You were ordered to go, Vonnie thought. MI6 made a deal with the French Directorate or the American government. Ash may work for all three of them now.

  Harmeet was a worthwhile addition. As for Popson and Wester, trading one for the other was bad for worse. Vonnie would keep an eye on him. She continued to worry that Earth had organized a military force rather than a scientific and diplomatic mission. NASA was sending all three of its "security" personnel -- DeBrun, Troutman and Hunt.

  Perhaps for the first time, she envied Ash and Claudia and everyone else who did what they were told. Life was much simpler when you submitted. Did her friends feel less uncertainty than she did? Were they less imaginative? Less principled?

  Don't kid yourself.

  Ash was a wolf in sheep's clothing. She was tough and smart. Unfortunately, her best characteristics were hampered by her lack of initiative. She didn't want independence. She wanted to be set on a path, then achieve someone else's goals. The leash she wore dulled her bite.

  When she's older, she might be less reliant on father figures. Maybe she'll outgrow it. I shouldn't be angry. There's a lot of good in her.

  "I'm glad you're coming," Vonnie said. "Popson is a bitch, but at least she was another woman. I'd like to take Claudia or Mississippi instead of Troutman or Wester, but the Brazilians won't risk their lady and the Americans are almost as sexist. I hope Harmeet will help me with the matriarchs."

  Ash jutted her chin out stubbornly. "I can, too."

  "You don't like them."

  "They like it that I don't like them. I can be Biting Female if you need me. Look," Ash said, indicating a wall display, where Tom had bent one of the locker doors and Hans was wrenching at the folds of the rescue ball with four arms and his beak. "They're trashing hab one."