Descent

by Erik Schubach

  Sai was pointing out, “There aren't enough nano panels to cover the required...”

  I held up a hand to stop her. “We found containers of nano panels from Sky Guard armor discards,” I added in my head that sure, we had to sift through the sandlike microscopic panels to separate the functional ones from the defective ones. And sure, I'm only like eighty percent sure we got them all.

  Anna was pointing out, “We're wasting precious time with this. The better option is to try to insulate one of your pingers to...”

  I snapped at her, “No! We aren't sending my family to die when there are other possibilities.”

  Germaine kept coming at me. “The unit was never programmed for that sort of application and would take days to...”

  Sighing I growled out, “I've already reprogrammed it, I still have the bulk of the programming on an iso-pad from when I had to hijack the coding on Vashon's armor when it was damaged. I just added a few tweaks.”

  This got a snort from her. “Not even you can hack the military grade encryption on the...”

  I huffed and said, “Just stop! If you aren't going to help then just step aside. I didn't need to hack it, I just bypassed it.”

  She blinked. That shut her up. Then she asked hesitantly, doubt on her face. “You... bypassed...?”

  I nodded. “I was hotwiring hover sleds from the Agri-Grids to ride when I was six. This is no different. A little monofilament fiber bonding and trace cutting, then encryption is disabled.”

  She blinked again but then Sai started giggling, and she said, “That would have to be done at the molecularrr level. I bet you had a tin accomplice?”

  I nodded with a grin as I looked toward Glitch who was doting on Flower at the moment. He had been my right-hand man, my partner in crime my whole life. He had virtually raised me with mom. And he was a wizard with molecular bonding, having the precision of a machine.

  I said with more confidence than I felt, “We don't have time for anything else, so I'm testing it now.”

  Germaine started to protest, “But...”

  I ignored her and looked at the multi-tool on my hip and took a deep breath as all my Pingers turned toward me, looking concerned. I tapped in a code on the tool and cringed. It looked like black liquid flowed out of the tool to cover me as the nano panels reconfigured. I held a hand up in front of me in fascination as they flowed over my hand, and to my relief I was still able to wiggle my fingers around.

  So far so good, they were allowing elasticity and dexterous manipulation just like Sky Guard armor. I inhaled deeply, holding my breath again as I felt the tickle of the panels going up over my head. This was pushing the multi-tool beyond its specifications, but I had faith that the overpowered processor could keep up with me. Especially since Anna couldn't duplicate my systems from my old multi-tool, so she had used a Mark-32 processor in it to handle the number crunching for reconfiguration. Mark-32s were used in dreadnought class attack tumbril carriers.

  I exhaled as lights came on in the helmet and a rudimentary heads-up display came to life as I looked around. Temperature control check, oxygen check, all environmental systems were in the yellow... good enough. I had done it! I giggled out as I saluted the air, “Self contained spaceship Fixit, ready for duty!”

  Vash was chuckling at the Doc's surprise and amazement. Germaine's hands were flying over an iso-pad as I fed all the telemetry through the com system. She was whispering, “Amazing.” Sai was all smiles.

  Then Anna looked up and prompted me, “What I wouldn't give to get a synaptic mapping of your...”

  I cut her off, “Never going to happen, Doc.”

  Vashon ignored the argument and said to Anna and Sai, “You both owe me a hundred credits, I told you not to underestimate my girl.” Then she almost purred over coms like Sai, “Lookin' good there Fixie.”

  I felt my cheeks burning as I deactivated the impromptu extravehicular activity suit before I burned any more power.

  I found it ironic that I wouldn't worry so much about it if topside wasn't so stingy with power storage crystals to begin with. If they kept me supplied the way they should, I'd have a boatload of full crystals, and I could power the suit for days.

  I smiled over at the relieved-looking peanut gallery, Flower somehow looking like a mother ready to chastise me. I waved at them and bit the tip of my tongue. Glitch warbled out his laugh.

  I said to them as I noted the time, I was about to lose them to the shadow of the planet. “Ok ladies, that leaves one thing. I need to get more reaction fuel in order to catch you.”

  Germaine sat up straight, and Lady Peregrine came in view looking almost horrified. Ahh... I had hoped Sai or Vash had told them, so I didn't have to. Anna sounded incredulous, “You don't have enough reactionary fuel, and you haven't told us? All of this was for nothing...” She trailed off, looking at some point in space beyond us all as she contemplated the ramifications.

  I shook my head and gave a smile that was more confident than I felt. I said, “Nonsense. I'll just head over to the neighbors and borrow a cup of sugar. It's all good.”

  This got confused looks from the Doc and Lady Peregrine. But then Vash's mother's eyes widened when she understood. There was only one place on Prime that would have the fuel I needed. “Vega, you can't. They...”

  I cut her off, “See you on orbit ladies. Love you Vash.”

  I flipped up the visor as soon as my girl said, “Love you too Fixie. Godspeed.”

  My visor was pinging as they tried to reconnect. I looked at the chrono. Three, two, one. The pinging stopped as the mass of the planet moved between us. Ok, I had three hours to get fuel and launch, or I'd have to wait for the final launch window.

  I inhaled deeply as I started walking to the Albatross, my open air tumbril. “Let's do this Glitchy.” He saluted and squeed out what sounded suspiciously like, “Aye Aye Fixit.”

  I looked at the makeshift communications rig the boys had copied from the Betweener tumbril as Blip and Wrongway pushed us out the bay doors that Flower opened for us. I looked out over my Agri-Grid, to my harvesters and tenders who were hard at work prepping the fields for re-seeding. I was so very proud of them all.

  Then we were blasting skyward as I started squawking out on the Betweener coms “Leader of the Betweeners, this is Vega Thrasher of Agri-Grid A1 on the Albatross. Please respond. This is a matter of life and death for not just the citizens of Prime, but for Betweeners as well. Please respond.”

  I started again, “Leader of the...”

  The improvised radio hissed then a static-y voice growled out through the hissing of the residual ionization of the atmosphere. “Albatross, this is McGreery, what the fuck has been going on out there?”

  I swallowed. That was good, they knew something was not right as well. At least I wouldn't have to convince them of that. Now the tricky part, dealing with pirates and murderers.

  That's how I found myself in a giant cave system in the nearby mountains just minutes later, with what appeared to be a couple thousand men, women, and children surrounding the Albatross in a cavern with weapons pointing at us.

  I had to nod in appreciation when he revealed where their base has been hidden these past couple decades. The mountains were laced with ionized crystal eriodite, the same stuff used to make power and control crystals. The best Prime scanners would never be able to get past the interference of the ICE. And they had picked a light vein of it so the automated mining pingers would not see it as a viable location until the plentiful high concentration veins were mined around the planet.

  But right now, I held my hands up, and Glitch looked at me, then did the same with his grappler.

  When a rugged looking man, with a deep scar slashing diagonally across his neck, stepped in front of the rest of the group, his sharp and intense dark eyes took in everything at once, from the clothes I was wearing to my poor battered Albatross and my trusty companion.

  The way his eyes bore through
me like he saw everything about me was eerily familiar, and I couldn't place why. I waved one hand I was still holding above my head at him and said, “Umm, hi?” As two men jumped aboard the Albatross and started roughly patting me down as three with stun sticks surrounded Glitch who stopped shaking and started growling as his iris spun down to an angry pinhole.

  I glance over at him quickly before returning my gaze at the man who still had his gaze locked on me, “It's ok, Glitchy.”

  When one of the men announced, “She's unarmed,” the man I assumed was their leader nodded once and nudged his chin. One of the pirates shoved my shoulder roughly, making me stumble in his exuberance to indicate I was to disembark. The world exploded into motion around me as I stumbled.

  Glitch was squealing in a warbling rage as he backhanded two of the men guarding him, sending them tumbling out of the Albatross and onto the ground. Almost faster than I could follow he was between the man who shoved me and me, the man dangling off the deck as Glitch grasped him by the neck.

  Then Glitch was screaming as the third man hit him with a stun stick. My eyes swept around the cavern as I spun to stop this, it looked as though everyone was just a moment from firing on us. I moved between the man with the stun stick and Glitch, an arm extended toward the man with the crackling weapon, yelling, “Stop!” As I looked at the man and my mechanical friend. “Put him down Glitchy.”

  My eyes met the tall man who had a hand out, calming all the people in the cavern, I didn't break eye contact with him as I continued, “It's ok, Glitch, he didn't hurt me. Remember why we are here.”

  The man wasn't even watching Glitch, he just kept studying me, and as Glitch lowered the terrified pirate back onto his feet, then straightened the man's shirt, their leader lowered his arm and everyone to the man woman and child lowered their weapons. Yup, I was right, this had to be McGreery. I tried again with a classic standby, “Umm... we come in peace?”

  The man's lips quirked up in a smile that again, seemed familiar to me. Then he asked in a deep baritone, with an almost amused smirk while the two men left in the Albatross eyed my Glitchy hero warily. “In seven seconds or less, tell us why we shouldn't just shoot you here and now little dirter girl. We don't like what we hear, then it was nice knowing you.”

  Now that was sort of ironic. Betweeners lived on the planet surface too, yet he was throwing around the dirter slur? I looked at the man who was moving around me, his stun stick still raised as he was angling for my friend. I slapped the stun stick down and ignored the incredulous look the man shot my way as I stood taller, refusing to look toward him. I wasn't going to be the first one to blink as my eyes were locked on McGreery. “I don't need seven seconds. Only seven syllables. Galactic Federation.”

  McGreery blinked first.

  That's how I found us loading two thousand pounds of reactionary fuel onto the cargo deck of the Albatross thirty minutes later after sharing everything I knew with the leader of the Betweeners.

  They had taken losses too. Their entire fleet of stolen tumbrils was grounded since when the signal rippled through the system, every spaceship they had outside of the caverns took to the sky with or without people on board and headed out-system. They think the other ships of their tumbril fleet were shielded by the ICE deposits.

  But the pingers on the upper levels, which they had stolen from other Agri-Grids during the Pass and reprogrammed, were moving supplies in a storage cavern. The signal must have reached them, being closer to the surface like that, and they went berserk, going after anyone with an iso-pad or tools.

  They killed a dozen men and women before his men, how had he put it, “Killed the hell out of the tin bastards.”

  I told him how to ensure their tumbrils didn't fall prey to the same thing. He sent men out to break all the auto-nav crystals in their fleet. He had mumbled in understanding, “That's why our coms still work.”

  Yup, he was a smart man. They had made an ad hoc com system which was separate from the information grid so they couldn't be traced. By not using the innocuous crystals supplied by Old Earth, they weren't susceptible to the malicious code.

  I explained to him why Glitch wasn't affected by the signal, saying that, “Well... my pingers. They aren't like any other pingers.”

  Then the man confused the hell out of me by prompting, “Wait. Agri-Grid A1? Special pingers? You're the tinker that Captain Peregradopolis took a shine to.”

  I looked at him, and answered carefully, “Umm... yes?”

  It became clear to me that he had some sort of obsession with my girl since he asked an awful lot of questions about her as I shared what was going on. If he wasn't one of the most wanted criminals in all of Prime, I might have gotten a little jealous since he really was a ruggedly handsome middle-aged man with some sort of interest in my girl.

  He was skeptical about helping me, how did he put it, “Run off on a suicide mission to save the sanctimonious topsiders from themselves.” Until he asked, “And why shouldn't we just let them all burn? Then Prime would be ours, and we'd be free of the oppression.”

  He was baiting me and I knew it. “Because you're smarter than that, man. How long do you think you will survive without supplies, and do you know how to run the Agri-Grids for food? And most importantly, you think the Sky Guard is rough, them simply defending the citizens from your plundering, what do you think the Galactic Federation Pacification Fleet will do when they find you here?”

  I shrugged and answered for him, “They will bomb you from orbit, and, how did you put it? Kill the hell out of you all without a second thought.”

  The man snorted. “No, please, tell me what you really think.” I had to strain to keep from smiling, reminding myself not to start liking the man. He was still a murderous pirate. Then he added, “So this is why the girl likes you.”

  “Huh?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. If you even have a chance of making the launch window to go get yourself killed, we'd better load you up.”

  Then he narrowed his eyes and looked up like he could see through a half mile of stone and into orbit where the floating cities inched ever closer to the atmosphere. He muttered, “This is exactly what I warned Abigail about twenty-eight years ago.”

  Wait wait wait. Abigail? As in Abigail Peregrine? “You know Lady Peregrine?”

  He chuckled. “Know her? I was married to the altruistic, naive fool. I took other separatists with me after I divorced her, since she refused to listen to my warnings.”

  Mother of all crystal! “You... she...?” My eyes widened as another thought came to me as I watched his hauntingly familiar look of exasperation. I had an inkling why it looked so familiar now as I swallowed. Twenty-eight years? Vash was twenty-seven. She's never talked about her father because she had never known him. Was McGreery...?

  I shook the thought out of my head and told him without giving away the existence of Prime's Dark Fleet. “I think she listened more than you may know, sir. And because she did, that may be what triggered all of this.”

  Then I had to add in case my instincts were right, without giving away Vash's unique nature, “Captain Peregradopolis is the reason everyone on New Terra is still with us, she's keeping them all alive.”

  I saw something in his eyes that told me all I needed to know. It was... pride.

  As the last of the fuel was loaded onboard, I checked the time. I wasn't going to make this launch window by the time I loaded the fuel onto the Dodo.

  McGreery asked before I took off, “So, little dirter, what if whatever sent that signal is still up there?”

  I realized though our talks, that he hadn't been using dirter in a derogatory manner, he took pride in it. I shrugged at the question and said, “It can't be.”

  He cocked an eyebrow, and I explained, whether I believed it or not, “Because if it is, this rescue attempt has already failed and we are all dead. And I can't think that way, or I can't do my job.”

  He inclined his he
ad in acceptance. Then like Vash, he stepped away from the Albatross and said, “Godspeed.”

  The next minute the Albatross was shooting out of the cave system and taking to the sky, soaring back to A1 as I whispered, “I'm coming Vashon.”

  Chapter 5 – On Orbit

  I checked my tool pack and the relay assembly again to make sure they were secured and took my seat in the pilot's seat. Alright then. I was about to pilot us manually on what amounted to a controlled explosion into orbit to chase down a city that was hours away from becoming a fireball in the sky. I had a makeshift EVA suit and zero experience in zero gravity. What could go wrong?

  I patty-caked the air at Flower who was checking to make sure I was strapped in securely, again, “I got this, lady. Go...” I kissed her on the optical port and said, “Love you. Tell the boys.”

  She made a sad two-toned noise, then I smiled hugely when she stopped beside Glitch, then mimicked me and put her optical port against his and then trundled out of the tumbril and sealed the door.

  Sai said, “Awww,” as she watched the scene through my com visor.

  I smirked and mumbled, “Stow it kitty cat.”

  She giggled, and Anna Germaine said, “We're in the launch window now. This is no time to be puttering about with niceties and...”

  Vash interrupted her with a countdown in a mechanical staccato, “Twenty, nineteen, eighteen...”

  I blurted, “For the love of crystal you lot!” Then slammed the grip forward that was labeled in bright red letters, “This one first, not the orange one!”

  Ok, so I labeled things, even if my chances were slim, I didn't want to blow up on the spot. The air breathers and the plasma drives wound up, and then the world was tunneling around me as I was pushed back in my seat.

  This thing may be space rated, but it certainly wasn't designed for ballistic launches, most Prime tumbrils used the free gravity assist of the gravitation wakes our system provided to get to orbit before firing their reaction engines and thrusters to maneuver. And it certainly didn't have the power reserves for an inertial dampening system.