by Gary Weston
Willis pulled up letting the engines idle. Through the grime covered bullet proof window they could see a body on the ground, two crows already pecking at the face, a hand feebly trying to push them away. Staples pulled out his laser pistol and opened the door.
'Are you nuts?' Willis asked. 'In a hurry to get yourself killed?'
'By whom? Like you said. That's a grunt like you and me. You stay here all cosy if you like.'
Staples got out, slamming the door after him and cursing under his breath, Willis did likewise. They crouched down low, surveying the area before hurrying over to the fallen soldier who was lying face down. Both legs were missing, as was the left arm up to the elbow. The birds had taken small chunks out of her earlobe, the tasty morsels they could get at before having their meal disturbed. Staples put his weapon away and grabbed the shoulders and turned the soldier over.
'Damn,' said Willis. 'A woman.'
Other than her ears, her face was the one part of her body unmarked. She was no more than twenty-years-old and she was pretty. Her eyes opened, fixing Staples with a terrified stare, then her right hand grabbed his arm, her grip belying the delicate looking girl.
'Bastards!' she snarled, spitting in Staple's face.
'I wouldn't argue with that,' said Staples. 'We were not the ones who shot you. Sorry. Not much we can do for you.'
'Just stop the pain. I beg you. Please. Don't let me die out here alone.'
Staples looked up at Willis who had his weapon already trained on the girl.
'Move out of my way and I'll do it,' said Willis.
'No. I'll do it.' Staples took her hand in his. 'You have a name?'
'Private Formona.'
'Drop the private. What's your name?'
The girl fought for breath to speak. 'Christina.'
'A lovely name, Christina. I'm Giles.'
Christina's fingers dug painfully into Staples' arm. 'Giles. Please shoot me.'
'I will. I'm so sorry, Christina.'
Staples wasted no more time and pulled his weapon from its holster, pointed it at the girl's head and fired. The laser burnt a neat hole in in her skull and she was dead. The two men stared at the dead girl then Staples closed her blue eyes. He kissed the tips of his fingers and touched her full red lips with them.
'We gotta go,' said Willis. 'There's no telling if there are any live ones still around.'
Staples turned his head away from Willis as he wiped tears away. 'Such a stupid waste.'
They returned to the Charger and in a heavy silence, drove off the highway to get around the tank then they were away heading east at top speed.
Chapter 12
Goliath Technical Officer Joe Friar took the call from Captain Jacobs, ignoring the few seconds of time delay.
'Captain. The sound quality isn't great. Increase the resonance filters output. Better. How are you all?'
'Good. Considering. Still picking up our vital signs?'
Friar said, 'Patchy. That storm's interfering with everything the closer you get. There's a real possibility I'll lose you completely as you reach the planet.'
'A prospect I'm well aware of. Anything from Earth?'
'Nothing. Shall I try them again? I did so a few hours ago.'
Jacobs said, 'No, Joe. Your regular scheduled calls will do for now. I'm sure Sam will tell you before we lose contact with you all together of his plans to get us safely on the surface should the need arise.'
'We tossed ideas around before you left us,' said Friar. 'It will push the shuttle to the limits.'
Jacobs chuckled. 'Thanks for reminding me. Believe me. Any success with the equipment to make landing unnecessary and we'll not risk it. I'll have Sam call you in...three hours. In the meantime, if Earth responds, alert us immediately. '
'Of course, captain. Don't hold your breath, though.'
'We won't. Over.'
Jacobs ended the call and checked the time. 'I'm tempted to increase speed.'
Clifton shook his head and replied, 'Not knowing the situation on Earth or even Spero for that matter, I would not be for expending fuel unnecessarily. Relax, Jay Jay. Go read a book or something.'
'I tried that. Couldn't concentrate. I told Joe you would call him in about three hours. Assuming we can. Even with the filters we were breaking up. That storm is causing too much interference and will only get worse.'
'Localised storms wouldn't do that, but the whole damn planet is covered with it. Nothing of the intensity of a solar flare of course, but this close to us it is bound to have some affect.'
Jacobs stared at the screen and the flashes of the lightning inside the slightly yellow cloud cover. 'That volcano has really stuffed the place up. Let's just hope it won't erupt again for a couple of centuries.'
'Amen to that. The terraformers have enough to sort out without additional work from eruptions. Even if we manage to kick-start them again our people will be spending more time on the Goliath than anticipated.'
Anne Lee appeared in the cramped flight-deck in a change of outfit. It was a comfortable one piece of a soft blue fabric that hugged her body in all the right places.
'Either of you ready to take a break?' she asked.
Smiling approvingly as he appreciated the female form, Clifton said, 'I could do with stretching my legs and grabbing a feed. While I'm gone will you please try to cheer up our captain?'
'I'm not sure that's even possible,' said Lee settling into the pilot's seat.
'Hey,' said Jacobs. 'I am right here, you know.'
Lee giggled. 'And I'm here to hold your hand and stop you fretting too much.'
'Good luck with that,' said Clifton as he left.
'Damn. That storm looks worse than ever,' said Lee.
Jacobs said, 'The intensity hasn't actually changed much according to the readings. We're just closer to it.'
'Does the radio still work?'
Jacobs shrugged. 'More or less. Still nothing from Earth, by the way.'
'Too busy killing each other to bother about us, I reckon.'
'So everyone keeps telling me and I wish they wouldn't. Whatever happened to no news is good news?'
Lee stared into Jacobs' kindly grey eyes. 'Yeah. You keep telling yourself that. Me? I'm of the opinion Earth is out of the equation now. If not and we hear from them again, I'll consider that a bonus.'
Jacobs decided he had no suitable response to Lee's opinion, so sat quietly with his own deep and dark thoughts.
Chapter 13
From a safe distance, Staples and Willis ate sitting on the sandy ground with their backs against the Charger, watching the war rage away to the east.
'If I don't think too hard,' said Willis, 'I can almost imagine that's some firework display and not people killing each other.'
Staples scraped the last of his meal out of his mess-tin and licked the spoon. 'I keep hoping they'll come to their senses before we get there and call it quits.'
'Why break habits of a lifetime? It just amazes me we've survived our own stupidity as long as we have.'
Staples refilled the mugs with black coffee and handed one to Willis. 'I haven't stopped thinking of Christina. That was just about the hardest thing I ever did, killing her.'
'If you hadn't I would have. A pretty kid. Reminded me of my sister.'
'Yeah,' said Staples. 'She was probably somebody's sister. Y'know. It's one thing to be in a tank or a ship blasting away with cannons from a distance but putting a gun to a girl's head and shooting her is entirely different. I wish we'd had time to bury her.'
'That is the problem. Those jokers in their shielded bunkers telling the rest of us what to do never see things like that. They should be made to do what you had to do and see if they had the guts to kill a girl with their own hands. Maybe they'd think twice about fighting these damn wars.'
'Doubt it,' said Staples as he relieved himself on a nearby gorse bush. 'Time to move out.'
Willis gathered things up and said, 'Are you still not ready to tell me why we are hea
ding east?'
'If and when the time comes. I'll drive for awhile.'
'Ok, lieutenant,' said Willis climbing inside the Charger. 'Just try to keep us on the highway for a change.'
'If there's anything left of it.'
Staples climbed inside, paused and stared out at the cannon fire in the distance, pulled the hatch shut and less than a minute later they were heading towards it.
Chapter 14
The technician adjusted her safety goggles, taking nothing for granted even though the test device was in the bomb-proof chamber, flicked a switch and held her breath as the series of test diodes turned from red to green. Her three colleagues and her commanding officer Major Otto Gunther stood apprehensively behind her.
'Looking good, Lieutenant Caswell,' said Gunther, putting as much encouragement into his voice as he could.
'It seems to be stable,' said Caswell. This was the third unit they had built to replace the defective one, required to make communication with the Goliath possible. It was an ugly piece of work, cobbled together from scavenged and scrounged parts, the war creating a barrier to obtaining genuine components. Caswell finally allowed herself to take a breath when the unit began to crackle seconds before smoke leaked from it. As she reached out to cut the power to the unit to salvage what they could, it exploded, shards hitting the safety glass with such force everyone instinctively flinched. 'Sorry, sir.'
'You did what you could with what we had available,' said Gunther, trying to comfort the disappointed technician.
'I still don't understand,' said Caswell. 'It may have been rough, but in principle it should have worked. We tested every component individually prior to assembly. It all checked out. I...I just don't know what more we could have done.'
Gunther said, 'The unit is an essential part to control the terraformers. It is also required to communicate with the Goliath. Do we have enough stuff to try again?'
Caswell shrugged. 'Perhaps. If no individual element fails before assembly. But what's the point? What can we do next time that we haven't already tried?'
'I think that's what we need to concentrate on, lieutenant. Not so much the components but the technology behind it. Don't forget we are working with a flawed design. The original unit stopped working and proved irreparable. Forget what we have and try looking at the problem afresh.'
'But with each passing day the mission is held up.'
Gunther said, 'Caswell. We must put that kind of thinking behind us.' He looked at the team and pointed at each of them. 'You are a talented team. I have complete confidence in your abilities. Forget about the mission for now. That just puts pressure on us we can do without. Focus instead on just the unit and its intended function. Go over the entire schematics then start again.'
'Yes, sir,' said Caswell. 'Everyone. Have an early night and we'll brainstorm in the morning.'
The team left the laboratory workshop leaving Gunther and Caswell alone.
'You can do it, Karen. I have faith in you. We know what doesn't work. Subtract those from the equation and find something that does work.'
'Yes, sir. Sound advice as usual. Goodnight, sir.'
'Goodnight, Karen.'
As Caswell left him alone, Gunther looked at the destroyed unit in the safety chamber. His technicians, now just four in number, were good. But they were supposed to maintain the whole Base along with the rest of his officers now taken from him, not build from scratch a sophisticated, intricate unit from a collection of components "similar" to those in the original unit. For all his soft words of encouragement, he doubted they would be any more successful on the next attempt. It had been a long day and it was time to go to bed.
Chapter 15
'Joe? Joe? Are you getting this?'
'Patchy at best, Sam. Same your end, I assume. All we can do is say good luck and hope for the best. And before you ask, nothing from Earth.'
Clifton said, 'Joe. As we discussed earlier, we will do slow orbits the planet twice, as Anne attempts to get the readings from the terraformers. If we get nowhere with that we will probably attempt to land the shuttle. If...all goes to plan, we'll stay no more than forty eight hours. More than enough time to locate and manually activate the terraformers. After that time passes and we are not able to contact you, assume something has gone horribly wrong.'
Friar said, 'I'll come after you in another shuttle if you get stuck.'
Jacobs butted in. 'Joe. Losing three lives will be bad enough. I'll not have you adding to the death-toll.'
'Jay Jay. I'll take a quick cremation in that storm over years of floating around in the Goliath until we either all go nuts or starve. I respect your orders, but on this occasion, and as I'll become captain after you and Sam, I'll be making those decisions.'
Clifton said, 'He's got you there, Jay Jay. Rules and regulations. Joe will have no alternative but to assume we're dead and he'll become captain.'
'And I suppose as usual, my opinion around here counts for nothing. What the hell. I never wanted to be captain. Anyone else wants the job, please feel free.'
Friar said, 'We know you are more scientist than military, Jay Jay. But in my book you've more than proved yourself as our leader and captain. If I do become captain, it will be with deep regret at losing you three. But if you aren't off that planet within forty-eight hours, I will assume command, hopefully temporarily, and try to rescue you. That being the case, if you are alive and stuck for whatever reason, watch out for me and I'll be with you as soon as possible. Try to set off an emergency flare to help me find you. Ok?'
Jacobs nodded at Clifton.
'We understand, Joe,' said Clifton. 'The signals breaking up completely. Time to go.'
'Good luck, Sam.'
'And to you too, Joe. Over.'
'Over.'
The shuttle ate up the miles across the void of space, Spero filling up the screen with its swirling mass of dense clouds with the hundreds of lightning flashes illuminating the way like a guiding beacon. Clifton put them in orbit as Lee, back in her uniform, worked her equipment. But even as they closed in on the planet, it became abundantly clear that with every passing mile, they had little hope of penetrating the fierce storm. Eventually it was decision time.
'This is it, Jay Jay,' said Clifton, pointing out the obvious. 'Is it even worth our while orbiting?'
Jacobs looked at Lee, still attempting to demand the impossible from her equipment. 'Nothing, Anne?'
'Not a damn thing, captain. But it is still worth a couple of orbits. Perhaps we can find an area of lesser intensity and get our shuttle through.'
'Fair enough,' said Clifton. 'Here we go.'
Still outside of Spero's atmosphere and the storm, Clifton put the shuttle into a slow orbit. The intensity of the storm did indeed vary over the surface of the planet, but even at the areas of comparative calm still beat off all of Lee's attempts to penetrate it. A second fruitless orbit had both Lee and Clifton staring at Jacobs for his orders. Reluctantly the order came.
'Right. Get fully suited and strapped in. Get ready for a very bumpy ride.'
They snapped on their helmets and checked oxygen and pressure. Jacobs sat next to Clifton and Lee took one of the three empty rear seats and they buckled up.
'I'm heading for the northern pole,' said Clifton. 'Slightly less storm activity. As bad a place as any.'
Minutes later they were above the northern pole, and if the storm activity was indeed less, it was only marginally so. 'Ok. I'm going to turn off anything we don't need to land, including the ships radio. They're isolated systems. That should help protect them. The suits function independently so they should be ok. Hold on tight, because here we go.'
Clifton made a target of the pole and the shuttle was racing towards it. Even before they hit the outer atmosphere, the lights of the control panels flashed, several extinguishing permanently. The very air inside the shuttle seemed to become electro-statically charged, crackling with energy. Then the shuttle began to shake, slightly at first, then it
intensified.
The screen filled with the deadly storm, lightning like nothing encountered on Earth raked the clouds of swirling yellows and whites. So thick was the cloud cover, nothing of the planet's surface could be discerned, not even the tallest peaks. The screen flickered and went blank, the shuttle flying blind. Calm under pressure, Clifton flicked on an auxiliary circuit and they had visuals again.
'Losing directional control,' warned Clifton. 'The shuttle is fighting itself to function. Turning off everything now. Hopefully the storm will lessen as we approach the ground.'
It didn't. The free-falling shuttle was buffeted as a small toy would be, gravity doing the work of pulling the small vessel onwards. Down they went, spinning uncontrollably, Lee and Jacobs hardly daring to open their eyes, Clifton waiting for the slightest lull, ready to restart the controls.
'I daren't leave it too long,' said Clifton. 'I'll give it another ten seconds, then I'll fire everything up.'
Clifton's countdown was the longest ten seconds they had ever experienced. As the shuttle was hammered by the storm, they were well aware that at any moment, their plunging descent could end abruptly. As their fingernails dug deeper into the arms of the seats, the shaking of the shuttle reduced.
'I'll take that for a good sign,' said Clifton, his fingers working the controls.
The screen lit up and through slightly thinner clouds they could make out the range of ice covered mountains protruding through the northern ice-cap.
'Thrusters not responding,' said Clifton, unable to keep the anxiety from his voice. 'Come on, damn you.'
The twin plasma drives stuttered into play then died again. Then they had spasmodic power and Clifton endeavoured to direct their flight.
'We're going to hit that peak,' said Lee.
'Not if I can help it,' said Clifton. 'Hang on.'
The icy black peaks filled the screen and it seemed crashing into them was inevitable. Clifton had other ideas and using a combination of skill and willpower had the shuttle on a course level with the ground, but still heading for a huge mountain peak. With seconds to go before impact, the shuttle began to veer away, but the lightning around them interfered with the manoeuvre. They skimmed over the mountain with the slightest of margins, and they remembered to breathe again.