“They built more?” Erik asked. “Without the drysines knowing?”
“My people’s empire was spacefaring, with little interest in planets. If the Tahrae intended to build more than the Doma Strana, they did not tell the Empire. This is not particularly suspicious. Tahrae at the time were drysine allies. Their activities did not threaten us even in space, much less on planets.”
“It could have been a safety feature,” Romki added. “If the Drysine Empire fell, or if a faction broke off in a new AI civil war… I mean, these things happened all across the Machine Age, yes? If you wanted to safeguard the location of something for tens of thousands of years, better that the primary record keepers of the age remain ignorant, yes?”
“Quite true, Professor,” Styx agreed. “As Professor Romki states, these coordinates appear to indicate the location of alternative construction sites in the original Tahrae documents, if that is indeed what these are. Whether anything was actually built there, none of us can know.”
“Aristan might know,” said Trace. Looking at Erik, with her usual calm intensity. “But asking him would tell him just how good at decoding those documents we are.”
“Thus risking that he’ll guess Styx exists,” Erik finished. He gazed out the windows for a moment, at the brightening glow above the rugged horizon. A cruiser hummed by, regular traffic around Doma Strana.
“What happens if he guesses that?” Lisbeth wondered.
“Well,” said Erik, “this is a guy who worships a guy who was the Drysine Empire’s best organic friend. I don’t want that worship transferring to Styx, or to us.”
“Sure,” Lisbeth said drily. “Wouldn’t want to make a friend for once.”
“If making that friend is followed by all his enemies who fear him then trying their best to kill us?” Erik replied. “Then yes — this friend we can do without.”
“Company,” Hiro announced. Trace looked at him, tense and alert… but Hiro remained calm, gazing into space but seeing all on his glasses. Trace relaxed. “Down the hall. No trouble, he’s approaching Corporal Haynes in three, two, one…”
“Hello Major, Captain,” came Lance Corporal Haynes’ voice on coms. “I have a single parren, black robed, walking calmly. Seems unarmed.”
Trace flipped down her glasses, to take a look at the Lance Corporal’s helmet-cam. “Search him and send him in,” she told Haynes.
“Aye Major.”
Thirty seconds later, the door to the dining room opened, and a black robed parren appeared, cowled and masked as Aristan had been. Private Krishnan followed him in, full armour looming behind the dark, silent figure.
The parren spoke, and a translator speaker spoke louder, somewhere within the robes. “Phoenix officers are invited to attend,” it intoned, without preamble. “In the fourteenth taka, the upper cargo level. It is secure. The leader shall accompany.”
A short nod, and the parren turned, and swept from the room once more. The Phoenix crew blinked at each other. “Polite, isn’t he?” said Shilu.
“The leader,” said Trace. “Presumably that’s Aristan. Fourteenth taka, that’s…”
“Nearly an hour,” said Erik. Tavalai measured time in taka, making conversions a nightmare. With the Dobruta, Erik had been getting a lot of practise. “So they drop this data chip on us, and now invite us to meet Aristan again?”
“It’s almost like he wanted us to decode it for him,” said Shilu. “And knew that we could, and how long it would take.”
“Well,” said Erik “we won’t admit anything. We can’t. But it would be nice to find out some more about Doma Strana’s original construction plans.”
“Aristan might have no idea what was on that chip,” Trace cautioned. “If we go in there asking him about construction plans, he might guess exactly what was on the chip, in addition to guessing that Styx exists. Too many cards in his hand, and too much leverage over us.”
Erik made a face, sipping coffee as he gazed at the view. On the cliff face opposite, the enormous parren face gazed back at him through the snow flurries, fearsome and impassive.
“If he does admit it was him who gave us the chip,” Lisbeth complained, “then ask him how the hell. Because it’s freaking me out.”
4
It was a long ride up the central shaft elevator to the top cargo level. They shared part of the journey with some tavalai Pelligavani, civilians about their business, both curious and polite in the presence of heavily armed humans, where other species might be terrified. Partly, Erik thought, it was just that tavalai did everything by the book. Phoenix was in tavalai space on invitation of Makimakala, and that being the case, ordinary tavalai could not conceive of possible treachery.
The car contained only humans when it arrived at the very top, and let out Erik, Trace, and the first two squads of Echo Platoon, led by Lieutenant Zhi himself. Person-sized corridors soon opened onto larger halls, where robot cargo sleds hummed by, loaded with containers. Everyone wore full armour save Erik, who was no more qualified for marine armour than the marines were to fly spaceships.
The hall opened into a wide storage room, filled with racks and walls of stacked containers, and aisles of mobile robot loaders. Freezing wind swirled, beyond the capacity of Doma Strana’s heaters to warm. Erik followed Trace between aisles, as marines split left and right to secure the room. Beyond the cargo walls were landing platforms, five in total. Three held empty cargo sleds, jet-lift cruisers for freight, small and low-powered. The bigger cargo haulers must have arrived at another platform, Erik thought — probably lower down the mountain, to avoid the difficulties of elevators. Those cargo rooms would be for the long-term haulage. This room was for short-term perishables. One advantage to it being so cold up here, he thought, folding his arms against the chill — there was no need for refrigeration.
“No sign of parren,” came Sergeant Kunoz’s report. “They’re late.”
“Recommend we not hang about,” said Lieutenant Zhi at Erik’s side. “If they’re not punctual, that’s their problem.”
“Major,” came Hiro on coms, “I’m getting a strange reading from the local coms network…”
And his voice blanked to static. “That’s coms,” said Trace, checking her uplinks. Her voice was hard in a way that Erik knew from long experience meant trouble. His heart might have missed a beat, but in truth, he was getting used to it. Surely this time it couldn’t be as bad as previous times? “Full withdrawal, back to the elevator, go go!”
They’d barely moved when the seal doors crashed into place about the cargo room, sealing them in. “Fuck,” someone announced, succinctly. That wasn’t supposed to be possible, Jokono had assured them it wasn’t.
“Blow it!” Zhi commanded. “Everyone cover! Watch your blast radius!” Erik ran with Zhi, not needing to be told, and took cover behind some cargo with hands over his ears. Then marines were letting off backrack missiles nearby, a hiss-and-boom! of headsplitting proportions, filling the room with smoke and flying shrapnel.
Without a fully enclosed helmet, Erik missed the next coms traffic from the noise, until Zhi whacked him on the shoulder armour. “That was Hausler! We have incoming marks, PH-1 and PH-4 are scrambling!” And back on coms, “More fire on the near door! Breach this one first, don’t spread your shots!”
“Captain this is Phoenix!” It was Lieutenant Lassa in orbit. Speaking through orbital relays, she’d be several seconds behind developments. “Atmospheric drone is reading you have incoming marks, five kilometres and closing fast!”
“This is PH-1!” Hausler overrode. “Incoming missiles, I’m reading ten! Shuttles are full evasive — Tif, break and run!”
“Break and run,” Tif agreed.
“Those missiles will be coming in here!” Trace shouted, crashing across to Erik. “We’re not getting through those doors in time, we gotta go!”
Erik saw her coming, and realised in shock what she was saying. “Hell no! We’re not leaving them here to die!”
And Tr
ace simply grabbed him by the arm and hauled — an impossible force to resist in powered armour. “Those missiles are after you! You leave, you’ll save them!”
That got him moving, running for one of the cargo sleds and scrambling into the pilot’s seat. “Krishnan!” Trace was yelling. “Just you, we’re too heavy for more!”
“Captain, twenty seconds!” came Hausler, tracking those missiles. “I can’t get to you, we don’t have the counter measures for that spread!”
As Erik fumbled with various controls, trying with increasing desperation to figure how to get this contraption started. “I don’t know how to start it, it’s all parren!” Multiple explosions as Lieutenant Zhi’s marines expended all remaining ammunition on the one door.
“Captain this is Styx. Activate all coms functions on the vessel. Major, full suit coms open, give me everything.” The coms panel was fairly self-explanatory, and Erik hit buttons in what seemed a logical sequence…
…and suddenly the engines were whining and howling, cockpit lights springing to life. Erik took the controls and throttles, recalling that this was a thrust VTOL vehicle and he’d need to balance it on a column of air at four thousand meters altitude…
“Two passengers,” Trace told him from the rear. “We’re secure.”
“Five seconds!”
And Erik hauled them backward, judging thrust and altitude by eye as he skidded them back toward the open doors and simply fell sideways into empty space… and lost ground-effect, going with gravity as they fell from the sky like a rock, plunging down the towering cliff. Something big exploded behind them, then another, and he figured there was a good chance the later-arriving missiles were chasing them. Having no way to see them coming without his familiar sensors, he simply slammed on thrust to lurch them sideways as they fell, then again the other way. Sure enough, something fast flashed by them, then streaked up around in a long arc, suggesting it was going to try and reacquire. But the arc was long and wide — this wasn’t some fancy, fast-turning aerial missile, more a mid-range strategic weapon, big on range but lower on mobility.
His eyes were picking up the control displays and Head Up Display, just from seeing what moved when he flew… or fell. And now the valley floor was racing up, a carpet of trees below rocky walls, and he powered on the thrusters once more. The sled recovered slowly — much more slowly than he’d hoped, and he gritted his teeth as the trees came up real close and racing. Movement caught his eye ahead, then an assault shuttle flashed by — not human, it was mottled brown and green, camouflage painting. Not as big as the Phoenix shuttles either, but clearly armed and not the kind of thing he wanted to tangle with in a cargo sled.
“We can’t go back!” he shouted at his passengers, and at any Phoenix crew still listening above the jamming. “We just lost air superiority, our shuttles can’t stand up to this many! They’ll have to run and hide until we can regroup, and if we try to land in this thing, we’ll be shot down!”
“Run south!” Trace told him. “Due 170 if you can manage it! I’ve got an idea!”
“Gonna be hard in these mountains, but I’ll try.” He kept them low, engaging more lateral thrust as he figured finally how those worked. The sled was primitive, but it was light and relatively well-powered for its low mass. The valley lifted ahead of him and he turned within the canyon walls, following the line of a small, frothing river amidst the trees. It would have been spectacular if he’d had time to appreciate it.
But now he was flying blind, and in the mountains that was never wise. Most valleys had an entry-point, but many had no exit, and then you had to hope your vehicle could climb well enough to get over and out. The sled could hover, so he wouldn’t be flying headlong into any dead-ends, but if one of those enemy combat flyers decided to chase them this way…
“Guys I’m completely blind up here,” he told the marines in the back. “I’ve got no idea how the navigation works on this thing, it’s not showing me the valleys on automatic, and it sure as hell isn’t showing me any enemy marks. I need you two to be my door gunners. Keep an eye out for any pursuit, and if you see it, shoot it down.”
Because marine armour suits were powerful enough to do that, if enemy pilots were careless enough to expose themselves. “We copy,” said Trace. “Private Krishnan, you good?”
“I’m good!” said the Private. He didn’t sound good. Erik had long ago learned not to make fun of marines who got queasy during hard flying. The ride was always far worse down back, even for experienced pilots. Erik took a quick glance back, and caught a glimpse of the cargo hold behind his seats. The sled was flying doors open, Trace hanging out one side, Krishnan the other. That extra drag was costing him speed, but pretty much anything had a speed advantage over a cargo sled, particularly at this altitude. If they were attacked, speed and mobility wouldn’t save them, but marine firepower might.
Erik tried coms channels as he flew several tight turns past jagged cliffs, then a wide, sweeping bend past an enormous scree slope where nothing grew. Nothing was answering — not Phoenix, not Doma Strana. They’d put an aerial drone at twenty kilometres altitude before descending for surveillance cover, and now probably that was dead too. Phoenix was possibly manoeuvring to get back over their heads once more, but the mechanics of near-orbital velocity made that difficult, and she was currently near the far side of the planet. Coms had been routed through yet another orbital drone, this one in high geo-stationary — Phoenix had dozens, and they weren’t hard to manufacture if one was lost. But the incomplete jamming back at Doma Strana had now become complete jamming, and there was nothing even Styx could do about that.
It occurred to Erik briefly that until now, he hadn’t spared even a single thought about who was trying to kill them. And realised just as fast that it truly didn’t matter, and refocused on the task at hand.
“I’m getting active tracking!” Krishnan announced. “Something’s tracking us!”
“I second that,” Trace affirmed.
“Well track him back! And I want lots of shooting even if you can’t hit him! Our best defence is fear!”
Marine suits’ scanning systems weren’t ideal for aerial combat, but for now they were all he had. He skimmed them closer to the river around a bend, having no real idea what he’d do if someone was chasing them. The smart thing would be to land, because then they couldn’t be shot down, while two marine suits could certainly do that to the enemy. Flyers shooting at grounded marines would be smarter to stay well clear and fire from range, but here in the valleys that wasn’t always an option.
“I have a lock!” said Krishnan. “Firing!” Missile fire whooshed from the back, but Erik had no way to see if it hit anything.
“Return incoming!” said Trace. “He’s beyond visual… no wait, there it is, closing!” At which point Erik knew there was nothing he could do beyond stay as low as possible, and hope. The missile hit a cliff wall on the left. “I had countermeasures running, don’t know if it did anything.”
“More likely we’re beyond range,” Erik replied through gritted teeth, swinging them through another tight gap as the valley climbed ever higher. “He’s staying back so he doesn’t get shot down, but the missile needs more target visuals than it’s getting.”
As he’d feared, the forested valley sloped up sharply ahead of him, trees thinning onto a slope of rock and scree. “Major, your door side, you’re about to get a shot!” As he slammed on full power and climbed the mountainside in a blur of rock that abruptly gave way to snow and ice. He threw in a sideways slide as they neared the top, just where he figured their pursuer should be coming into visual behind… a whoosh as Trace’s missile rack fired, then a thunder of rifle fire that Erik could actually feel through the controls, and god knew how marines learned to fight the recoil in a weapon that size…
Heavy gunfire kicked up snow and ice beside and ahead from a burst that would have torn them to pieces had it hit, then Erik shoved the nose down and they were negative-Gs for several seconds coming
over the crest between huge mountain peaks. He recovered to streak down the face of a high knife-edge ridge, more thunder behind as Krishnan fired, both marines far too preoccupied to report on results.
More fire hit the mountain wall on his right, and Erik slammed the thrust pivot down, hearing the gasp from the marines as the sled leapt. It kicked them momentarily out of their pursuer’s line of fire, but at the cost of speed, and now the enemy flyer was closing — perhaps suddenly much closer than he'd wanted.
Fire from Krishnan, then, “Got him! He’s breaking off!” As Erik dove down the mountainside toward this new valley floor. “How you like the Koshaim, asshole?”
Erik levelled off above the trees of a new valley, and another, wider river. “No, he’s coming back!” Trace corrected. “I get no missile lock, he’s got good countermeasures!” There was a little more room in this valley, Erik saw. That was bad. There was a mountain shoulder just ahead, and he angled them for it as low and fast as he dared.
“Fire and put him off or we’re dead!”
Something flashed behind, and Erik winced for the inevitable missile that blew them all to bits. “He blew up!” Krishnan yelled instead. “Holy shit, he just…”
Erik streaked over the mountain shoulder, relief dying fast as he saw another flyer ahead, a small dot but streaking fast straight at them. And saw the hypersonic contrail from the upper edge of his vision, tearing a great, white line through the sky until it reached the valley, and tore the flyer from the air in a flash of tumbling debris.
“Phoenix!” Erik yelled in triumph, just before something hit them with a huge bang, and made the sled jump. He fought frantically with the controls, full power and struggling for altitude and vertical thrust control, smelling smoke and fearing the worst. Right rear thrust was out, he could feel it without needing to read flashing parren control panels, and he had no hope of landing them vertically, nor staying in the air in any controlled manner beyond a few hundred meters. It didn’t leave many options.
Kantovan Vault (The Spiral Wars Book 3) Page 5