Frozen Sky- Battlefront

by Jeff Carlson

  She sent her GP after the sunfish. They darted among the bent rooms, piping cautiously. She waited to see if they would abandon her. Establishing a new colony would be difficult at best. Could one of them guard their eggs while the other hunted?

  If they left her, she wished them well. She thought Ben would have wanted them to go.

  But they didn't leave. Tom chomped at the gummy skin of a manta. Brigit explored beneath a section of wall where lock two had folded into ready room two.

  Vonnie moved after them. She found no ghosts, no personal effects, not even a shred of clothing. Everything had been swept away by the implosions, the currents, and their journey into the whirlpool.

  Ben wasn't hiding in a locker. He wasn't inside an ESU. The lockers had been pulverized and the ESUs were empty beneath the misshapen floor. One had been speared by the wreckage. On its topside, a flap of alumalloy rattled as the currents surged in and out.

  Vonnie wept. She fell to her hands and knees where Ben might have been when he died, and she wept.

  None of the astronauts spoke. They let her be, although Troutman took control of her mecha. The GP set its laser against the contorted slab of what had been ready room two's ceiling, surgically removing long strips of alumalloy.

  Tom piped again. He joined Vonnie, thumping on her helmet. --Triumph and death! he crooned. --Young Matriarch protects us! She sees, she gives.

  What was he trying to say?

  During the past hour, Tom's movements had become less graceful, and Brigit continued to rummage around in the narrow space beneath the torn wall.

  Like Tom, her body language was ungainly. She'd stopped speaking to Vonnie, although she mewled at Tom, alternately commanding him to find food or to stay near her. Vonnie would have pulled rations from her helmet if she hadn't felt uneasy about creating the slightest opening in her suit.

  The sunfish had missed two sleep cycles. Their intelligence was waning. As a scout, Tom had better-developed instincts to fall upon in his animal state. He wouldn't change as much. Brigit's transformation was more severe. She would grow more and more hostile until she slept. Like the human fight-or-flight response, her rising insanity was a defense mechanism that allowed the matriarchs to endure any hardship and escalate their savagery until they were safe.

  The sunfish needed security, rest, and a good meal before they'd relax. They needed to return to hab one.

  How was Harmeet?

  On the group feed, Vonnie saw that Angelica and Hans were drowsing. Harmeet had fed her sunfish with a bag of eels. She'd also increased the temperature in hab one to lull them, but Angelica writhed, grinding the tips of her beak. Angelica was dreaming. Potentially, she was dangerous.

  Vonnie stood up. She couldn't dry her cheeks -- not with her helmet on -- and she didn't mind. Her tears gave her a strange feeling again that the water on her face was connected to the abyss outside their tattered hull. She felt like she was dreaming, too.

  Another hour ticked by as Vonnie and her GP sorted through the wreckage. They welded a majority of the alumalloy to the new, improvised shape of their hull. Tom was disruptive now, snatching and pulling at Vonnie. Brigit grew more strident as they worked toward her hidey-hole.

  Vonnie sang to them. She yelled at them. Finally, she evicted Brigit so her GP could cut the wall.

  Tom sprang at Vonnie's neck, thinking he needed to protect Brigit. Vonnie caught one of his good arms and deliberately punched his amputated stump. The GP loomed over them, adding its size and weight.

  Tom submitted. Reluctantly, so did Brigit.

  Vonnie banished them to a corner. While the GP stood guard, she pulled rations from her helmet. She tossed the food to them, but first she stamped and shrieked -- a masquerade -- swearing to hurt them if they interfered with her again.

  As she resumed her work, she listened to reports from DeBrun and Ash. The Lewis had approached a mountain range, this one with seven peaks extending into the ice. Ribeiro elected not to pass between the mountains' wide trunks and spindly towers. HKs might lie in wait or riptides or storms. He kept them in the moderate waters between the whirlpool and these peaks. Far below, their sonar detected a louder current, and hydrothermal vents bubbled from the sides of two mountains. Nothing else. The Lewis held steady beneath the waves lapping at the ice.

  It was a lifetime before Vonnie trudged into the corridor with her sunfish and her GP. A new life.

  Five hours had passed since Ben was killed along with Dawson and Wester. Her muscles ached. Her thoughts were a blur, although she felt extraordinarily aware of her hands. The bones were sore. The gouges in her fingers and palm were tacky with dried blood.

  Pain was good. It was real.

  Vonnie resealed the hatch, rigged a pump from her tool kits, sliced a hole through the wall and sealed the pump to the hole. The water began draining from ready room one and the central corridor as Brigit clacked threateningly, arguing that the water was sweet with bacteria.

  Brigit leapt at the pump, intending to disable it. Vonnie smacked her. Different partner, same dance. In their animal state, the sunfish no longer evoked pity. They were predictable and irritating.

  Vonnie needed downtime, too. She wanted Harmeet and Ash. She would also insist on speaking with Admiral Cornet.

  After coordinating with Troutman, Vonnie pinned Brigit and Tom against the floor. Troutman rushed into the corridor, his arms spread to prevent them from invading the conn. Behind him, the hatch closed. He said, "Let's get 'em into hab one. You're off-duty, but Colonel Ribeiro wants you to stay in your suit. I'll get everyone else to the ready room."

  "Yeah." She carried a flailing sunfish in each glove. "What about Harmeet?"

  "Sweetheart, I'm staying with you," Harmeet answered on the radio. "Bring an extra suit into hab one. I'll put it on, but I'm staying with you."

  "Good." Vonnie thought they could manage the sunfish, and she needed a friend. She would have preferred to rest somewhere else besides hab one, but where? She wanted a shower. More importantly, they needed Brigit or Angelica to return to the sonar interface as soon as possible. She could help the matriarchs sleep, then get back to work, by helping them feel safe.

  Her resolve didn't prevent her from feeling like she was walking into a lions' den. As she and Troutman entered ready room one and activated a scout suit for Harmeet, Brigit's screams riled Angelica and Hans.

  Fortunately, Angelica was also attuned to Harmeet. Harmeet seemed to have rediscovered her equilibrium, and Angelica responded to Older Matriarch's calmness.

  Troutman played goalkeeper again while Vonnie and the extra suit entered hab one. His vigilance was unnecessary. Angelica restrained Hans, and Vonnie held onto Brigit and Tom. Troutman sealed the hatch.

  The ESU panels were still open in the floor. Vonnie picked her way around the square gaps. She put Brigit and Tom down. They hurried to Angelica and Hans.

  Harmeet embraced Vonnie even though the exterior of her suit was damp and cold. The four sunfish formed a different physical connection, grasping and sniffing at each other, chirping softly. Their affirmation ritual included their human clanmates. They directed their calls at Vonnie and Harmeet. Angelica screeched in tribute.

  "You saved our lives," Harmeet said.

  Vonnie shook her head.

  "It's true," Harmeet said, "and this isn't the first time. You're a hero, Von."

  "No."

  "Yes. Sit. Eat." Harmeet was strict.

  She's in shock, too, Vonnie realized. She's mothering me because the pain is too much.

  To Harmeet, Dawson had been a respected colleague. Harmeet had also been close to Ben. She'd enjoyed his brain and his irreverence even as she'd deplored his pottymouth.

  "I need to look at your hands," Harmeet said. "Then you'll want to clean up. I can sterilize your suit for you while you shower."

  Vonnie released her collar assembly as Harmeet donned the other suit. Helmets off, they shared bulbs of soup with the sunfish. Vonnie ate two. Brigit and Tom each devoured si
x. Angelica and Hans weren't as hungry, but sunfish never refused food.

  The strange picnic felt like being with family. It felt like home. Vonnie laughed when Tom squeezed one bulb too hard and dumped soup on himself like a slapstick routine. Angelica slurped it off of him while Vonnie laughed and laughed, punch-drunk from sorrow and exhaustion.

  Tom snapped his beak at her softly -- a docile, friendly clack clack -- not understanding the joke but cognizant that she was expressing friendship.

  It was a nice moment, a good moment.

  Then the sunfish stiffened. They buzzed among themselves, agitated by the sound of people rushing through the central corridor. Ash, Hunt and DeBrun jogged into ready room one for scout suits. Soon there was another pattern of footsteps as the astronauts dispersed.

  Harmeet explained to the sunfish. Ash had returned to the central corridor, where she would bolster Vonnie's emergency repairs. Hunt and DeBrun had gone to lock one with the GP. They were venturing outside to tinker with the sub's weapons pods, sensors and damaged nose.

  "Our clan is safe," Harmeet said. "Our males and Biting Female will protect you. Sleep."

  Grumbling, the sunfish settled in a loose pile with the matriarchs covering their males. More than a lullaby, Angelica and Brigit's pheromones would trigger immunological responses in Tom and Hans. Sleep and increased kidney function would restore all four of the sunfish.

  If only human mental health were as simple.

  Vonnie peeled off her suit. Inside, it reeked of urine because she hadn't spared the time to connect her plumbing.

  She walked to the bathroom and reveled in a hot shower. She could have stayed longer. She could have hidden in the warm shower bag like an embryo in an amniotic sac, relinquishing the world, forgoing all pain and joy, perchance to dream.

  Live for him, she thought. You said you were going to live for him, so make yourself useful. Get some sleep. Your friends will need you again soon.

  When she emerged, Harmeet had flushed her suit with sterilizing gel and UV. Vonnie would have preferred to nap without it, but Ribeiro wanted everyone in armor. What if another section of the Lewis imploded?

  Vonnie couldn't conceal the tremor in her hands as Harmeet attended to her palm, her fingers, her knee, her elbow. The med systems in her suit had long since stopped the bleeding and cleaned each wound, leaving pink new skin and black scabs, but Harmeet extracted two flecks of shrapnel and sealed the new injuries with stitches and glue.

  Vonnie put her suit on again. Then she went to her bunk and closed her eyes. Beyond the walls of hab one, she heard a clank in the central corridor and the distant vibrations of Hunt, DeBrun and the GP on their exterior.

  She couldn't sleep. She rolled over and looked at the display, following her crewmates' progress until Harmeet said, "Von, don't."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You've done more than anybody. You need to rest. Do you want a sedative?"

  Like a sunfish, Vonnie responded with paranoia. "I'm not that tired," she said. What was Harmeet trying to keep from her? Was there a new danger outside?

  Her pulse spiked and she sat up, staring at their datastreams. Then she bristled with anger when Harmeet shut off the display.

  "Let me see," she said.

  Harmeet shook her head. "I think you should--"

  "Let her see," Ribeiro said, reactivating their display from the conn. "Vonderach, we're crossloading everything into our suits and ESUs for safekeeping. You have our files, too, so you'd learn soon enough."

  Since the storm, her HUD had chimed with hundreds of non-critical alerts and sims. She'd paid no attention. Now she gaped at their display as Ribeiro zoomed on two feeds, a third, a fourth. She felt the blood drain from her temples. She felt the sides of her head run cold.

  Holding herself up, she crushed the edge of her bunk with her gloves. She stared at the reports he'd posted. Then she turned on Harmeet.

  "How long have you known?" she asked.

  "Colonel, she should have slept," Harmeet said.

  "How long have you known!?"

  "You shouldn't have told her yet," Harmeet said, but Ribeiro said, "She's as strong as any of my soldiers. Stronger. Perhaps she'll notice something we missed."

  Sliding across the display were images generated from the signals of a dozen probes and many thousands of nanotags.

  The Great Ocean had swept the Lewis's probes and tags into a non-uniform grid more than a hundred kilometers across. Operating in clusters, the tags generated low-power ELF signals. The tags needed large numbers to communicate. They also functioned better with a probe in range, piggybacking on the probe's far more powerful data/comm. The probes had deployed molecular filaments into the long transceivers required for ELF broadcasts.

  For several hours, the makeshift array had appraised the mountains, the varied depths and the ocean floor... while the Lewis had been deaf and dumb.

  It wasn't until Vonnie had pumped out the corridor that Ribeiro dared to unreel his deep-water ELF transceivers. The filaments extended twenty klicks in the sluggish current.

  The filaments increased their detection footprint by a large amount, and enemy sonar was now more likely to find them. Also, if they transmitted instructions to the grid or sent a distress call to Peter and Jan, the PSSC would hear it, so they remained voiceless for now.

  Nevertheless, the grid accomplished two things.

  First, the probes and tags represented an extensive allied presence. Their combat capabilities were marginal - but as a reconnaissance system, the grid was superb. It would identify and track any enemy HKs or probes and allow the Lewis time for evasive action.

  Second, the grid displayed a detailed map of physical features over an astonishing patch of water and land. From west to east, the tags had spread over two hundred kilometers. From north to south, they'd stretched nearly three hundred. Top to bottom, they scanned from the ice to the geologic features rising from the bottom of the Great Ocean - ridges and valleys, live volcanoes, old cones and the fin mountains.

  The images on the display were unmistakable - on the highest slopes of the mountains there were unnatural structures, the work of an alien civilization. Two sites lay within five klicks of each other. Two others were separated from this pair by distances of forty and seventy klicks.

  Each site was arranged in a circle several kilometers in diameter, much larger than the "village" they'd discovered earlier. Each was densely packed with hundreds of structures and sweeping walls, always curved. These builders hadn't used rectangles or planes. Not even Dawson could have contended that these walls, domes and pits weren't architecture. Intelligent creatures had transported and erected thousands of tons of rock. Vonnie didn't spot any roads -- an aquatic species might not conceive of roads -- but markers ran between the two neighboring sites, connecting them with a row of pylons like a pathway for a sonar-equipped species.

  Ben should see this, she thought.

  She wanted to forget he wasn't there. She felt that muffled sense of standing outside herself. The old Vonnie would have whooped and celebrated. The new Vonnie bent over like there was a knife in her stomach.

  She said, "Oh. God. Those are cities."

  21.

  "Affirmative," Ribeiro said. "We've confirmed four sites. The probes are examining other locations. Very likely there are more structures beneath the sediment."

  "How much sediment?"

  "The sites on the mountainsides are lightly covered. The currents wash them clean, but there appears to be another city in a valley northeast of our position. There may be two more in a canyon north of us. In the canyon, the sediment is several meters deep."

  "The cities aren't... they're not..."

  "They're uninhabited."

  "Sweetheart, sit down," Harmeet said, and Vonnie realized she'd bolted upright from her bunk, her gloves balled against her stomach as if to contain her grief.

  "I'm all right," she said.

  In another situation, Harmeet might have humored her. In
stead, Harmeet let her have it. Each word was a verbal slap. "The cities are dead," Harmeet told her. "They've been dead for eons. They're not going anywhere and neither are you. Sit. You need a sedative."

  "Were the cities built by sunfish?"

  "The AIs suggest the builders were a different race. The doors are too big, and the few carvings that haven't eroded look like dots and bumps. There are no sunfish shapes, although the architecture tends toward twos and fours. Sit and I'll show you."

  Vonnie shook herself to clear her head. Then she did as Harmeet asked like a lesser female relenting to Older Matriarch. "I'm sitting, okay? I'm sorry. I..."

  "You want Ben to share this with you," Harmeet said.

  Vonnie averted her face. Harmeet had always had a streak of tough love in her. Now she seemed like she was tormenting Vonnie. Why?

  "All of us miss him," Harmeet said. "It was just his time. "Sometimes all we can do is accept what's happened."

  "Stop!" Vonnie said. "Stop pushing me. I know what you're doing, but I cried in hab two and when I have time I'll talk to my therapy AI, okay? Is that good enough? What more do you want?"

  "I want you to take a sedative."

  "I'll take it." Her hands were shaking and she pressed her gloves against her thighs. "First I want to hear everything we've learned."

  "There isn't much more to tell. Not yet. The probes are investigating."

  "Where were their radio installations?"

  "We don't know."

  "The signal came this area. We need to get inside the cities. Inside the mountains. They wouldn't build their installations on unprotected rock."

  "Sweetheart, you're exhibiting symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder."

  "No shit! No shit! Do you think you're--?" She caught herself. Her voice had risen to a shout. Crafty old Harmeet was trying to provoke a deeper catharsis in her.

  Harmeet was more than a genesmith. She was trained in hab systems and medical science, which, in the ESA, included a strong background in psychology. Caring for people came naturally to Harmeet, but who actually needed who?

  Vonnie kept her tone low and even. "If it helps you to help me, that's great. Of course I'm upset. Don't pamper me so you can avoid dealing with your own fear. Maybe you could use a sedative, Harmeet."