“Water’s not that deep,” said Krishnan, adding more equipment to the pack he’d assembled. Ropes, flares, rations, bottles, visuals, aid kit. Krishnan was a big guy, much bigger than Erik, who was no lightweight himself. He had a tight beard and a lean face. Only young, Erik thought, despite his physical presence. “The Major’s suit got kinda wrecked, she got it to the shallows before dropping it, it’s still there. I got out, water was just over my head, I pulled you from the cockpit and kinda walked back here holding you over my head.”
“Thanks Private.”
Krishnan smiled shakily as he worked. “Don’t mention it, sir. Thanks for getting us down in one piece.”
“My pleasure,” said Erik, wincing as he pulled the jacket over his shoulder.
“Those were orbital AAs that killed the flyers?” Trace asked.
Erik nodded. “Phoenix must have fired them immediately, sent them looking for something to kill.” There wasn’t much ordinance that could get halfway around a planet in ten minutes, then pinpoint a moving target on-site, but a modern Anti-Atmospheric could. Equipped with crazy thrust, they burned outside the atmosphere at 20Gs, entered the atmosphere white-hot before losing the outer-shell over the target area, leaving the hypersonic warhead at thirty kilometres up and looking for targets. The original technology was alo, of course, and still a little beyond what humans could make unassisted.
“Amazing they knew which targets to hit,” said Krishnan. “With all that jamming, no one could talk to them.”
“But we had two marine suits shooting out the back of our sled,” Erik reminded him. “They must have seen it and concluded we were friendly. It’s pretty thin targeting parameters for usual missions, Lieutenant Karle must have reset them to emergency parameters or they’d normally not have engaged.”
“Well then sir, please buy Lieutenant Karle a drink for me at the next port of call.”
“You know Private,” Erik panted, “after something like this, I think we could ditch protocol for a night so you could buy him a drink yourself.”
“How long do you think we have before they come looking for us?” Trace asked.
Erik grimaced, trying to get thoughts clear in his spinning head. She was right to ask him — he was the pilot, this was his expertise more than theirs. He had to function, for all their sakes. “Hard to tell given we don’t know who they were. I reckon at least ten of them, we saw two killed… good thing with jamming is it goes both ways, they won’t know their two flyers are dead, nor where they came down. They’ll search, but…” he nodded at the lake. Water flowed, a strong, eddying current, hiding all sign of their crashed sled. “They’ll see their own wrecks, but they won’t see ours here as well until they search harder.”
“It won’t hold them that long,” Trace disagreed, glancing at the overcast sky as she arranged her gear. It dawned on Erik that with only one suit working, and both marines packing for a hike, they were going to be unarmored from here. Even working, marine armour as they were configured on Phoenix had limited range, especially in this terrain. “The lake’s shallow, they’ll spot the wreck in a flyby. We have to put in some distance first, and hope this overcast doesn’t break anytime soon.”
“Orbital sensors can’t penetrate that?” Krishnan asked, also glancing up.
“Not likely,” Erik replied. “It’s pretty thick. Major, what’s the plan?” They were grounded now. Erik outranked Trace by a full two degrees in the Fleet ranking system, yet with dirt beneath their boots, authority returned to the highest-ranking marine. Erik could decide objectives and broad approaches, yet in deciding how to achieve them, Trace’s word was final.
Trace pulled AR glasses from her pocket, put them on and tapped them a few times, gazing at the mountains up and down the valley. Evidently the glasses were still working, and showing her navigational cues as she turned her head. “I got some more information from Styx before we went to see Aristan,” she said. “I asked for her best guess on temple coordinates, for secret stuff the Tahrae didn’t want anyone to know about. She knew the Tahrae pretty well, I figured even hacksaws can make guesses. Styx gave me two, and since we came south like I said, we’re now pretty close to one of them.”
“You want to go there?” Erik asked in disbelief. Not that he thought it was a bad idea. It was just the way she managed to turn this close shave with death into a stroll in the mountains to see an archeological curiosity.
“Sure,” she said, shouldering into her own, smaller pack. “Why not? Aristan chose this planet and this mountain range to meet us. The Dobruta contacted him and he told us to meet him here, of all the places we could have gone. Then he gives us this chip, which turns out to be an old map his people probably couldn’t translate. He’s looking for this place too, I reckon he thought we could find it for him.”
“And… these people who’re trying to kill us…” Krishnan said slowly as he caught on.
Trace nodded. “Don’t want us finding it. My guess is State Department, but it could be Aristan’s parren enemies too, possibly even his own house. Whatever, it doesn’t matter now. What matters is we have an old temple to find, and if we weren’t attacked, we might never have gotten permission to come and see it, and certainly couldn’t do it without others watching. This way, we do. Lucky break.”
That last was purely for his and Krishnan’s confidence, Erik was sure. Trace was many things, but rarely cocky. She glanced at Erik’s bare feet. “Come on, you’re going to need a hand getting your boots on.”
Their first hike was up the valley, a comfortable walk alongside the river, keeping beneath the trees for cover. They’d left armour and most unnecessarily heavy things behind, in thick undergrowth with extra branches on top — it wouldn’t fool anyone who found the submerged cargo sled, but there was no point in making it easy for them either. For Erik, leaving heavy things behind meant body armour, assault rifle and ammunition. His shoulder also made it impossible to carry a pack, which left him feeling unhappily useless on this marine expedition. What he did carry was combat webbing and whatever useful things could be stuffed into its pockets, including his service pistol.
Trace led, with short rifle and pack, looking warily about beneath cap brim and AR glasses. Private Krishnan took the rear, the big man lugging the largest pack, making Erik feel extra guilty for not bearing his share. Soon Trace was leading right and uphill, followed by them meeting the snowline. The snow was thin at first, then got steadily thicker as they gained altitude. Soon it was ankle-deep, and Erik followed carefully in Trace’s footsteps as she picked her way up the steepening incline.
Erik saw a few birds, and once they startled something four-legged and goat-like crashing through the undergrowth. But mostly the cold and altitude made for sparse wildlife. This part of Stoya III was only in early autumn too, he reflected. The Neremal Range was enormous, and often cold in summer. A few months later and this way would have been impassible with snow. In mid-winter nothing moved.
As they got higher Erik was surprised how good he felt. The painkiller in his shoulder had worked, and his bruised knee was loosening with the exercise, though there’d be hell to pay after he’d slept and stiffened. He even managed to marvel at the view through occasional gaps in the trees. He’d wanted more colour and beauty from his first downworld visit in four months, and well, here it was, if a little pale and white and cold. It was certainly nothing like you got on a ship or a station, and though the air was nearly painfully cold, it tasted fresh and clean in a way that no synthetically filtered air could ever taste, and smelt of pine and snow.
Trace’s path found its way skilfully into a cleft in the valley-side — following the valley up from the base would have been impossible, rocky, sheer and treacherous. But climbing this wooded slope first allowed a hiker to wind her way into the new, smaller valley from higher up, and on a more gentle angle. It was the kind of thing that someone who’d grown up in mountains would know, and seeing her climb like a mountain goat ahead of him, Erik felt some comf
ort to know that Trace was in her element.
Behind him, Krishnan was steady and powerful, and showing no sign of tiring. He looked slightly bewildered, and almost eager, to find himself on this particular adventure. Erik supposed it was a big deal for a marine private, to be on a two-man operation with Major Thakur herself. Plus the Phoenix Captain, of course, but Erik had no illusions about which of the two officers Krishnan was more excited to spend time with up close. Erik settled into as comfortable a rhythm as he could manage, and concentrated only on putting one foot before and above the other, and climbing.
Slugging their way up the new, high valley, the snow increased to knee-deep, and the trees became smaller, and stunted. Even Trace took a breath, more from sympathy for her struggling Captain, Erik thought as he sat in a roughly-dug snow seat beside her, than from any personal need. They ate rations, drank water that was not quite beginning to freeze, and took in the view for a few minutes longer.
Krishnan heard it first, and looked at Trace. The distant, echoing whine of an approaching flyer. Sitting amidst stunted pines, they weren’t likely to get better cover. The sound grew, and then a military flyer howled by, heading for Doma Strana. Echoes from multiple mountains made it sound like three flyers, then one again.
“Different model from what attacked us,” said Erik. “I think that’s a local, maybe from Troiham. The response time is about right — it’s nearly two hours away by flyer.” Though fast-response jets could have gotten there sooner. He didn’t know if sleepy Stoya III security forces had any of those.
“Could be friendly then?” Krishnan said hopefully.
Trace shook her head. “We don’t know what’s friendly. We don’t know the situation at Doma Strana, if it’s still under attack, if it’s been occupied. We don’t know if local Stoya security are acting in concert with State Department, and my bet is State Department planned the whole thing.”
“Dobruta are on our side,” Erik panted. “Tavalai don’t fight tavalai. State Department might have orchestrated an attack on us, but they’ll have made a real effort not to get Dobruta or Pelligavani in the crossfire. My bet is those were parren trying to kill us. Better parren shoot at Dobruta allies than other tavalai.”
Trace nodded. “Makes sense. State Department has more leverage outside tavalai space than inside it, they’re the foreign affairs division.” She raised small binoculars to peer back down the way they’d come. In the distance, the flyer was now circling, the engine wail not fading.
“Sounds like they found the wrecks,” Krishnan observed. “If the jamming’s stopped, I bet Phoenix will be here soon. Even on silent coms, Styx could break in and listen to what these guys are saying.”
“And if State Department are still listening in,” said Trace, “the moment we call for help they could lob a missile on our coms location and there’d be nothing Phoenix could do about it.” She glanced back over her shoulder to the peaks above. “Nice thing about this temple, if it exists, is that it should give protection from artillery, and could be defensible.”
“With three people?” Erik asked.
“Could be,” Trace repeated. “Better than a valley floor, anyway.”
“You think First Squad are okay?” Krishnan wondered.
“Depends how many of those missiles followed us instead of going into the cargo room.” Trace retrained her binoculars on the slopes below. “They didn’t have the biggest charge, so in full armour everyone might still be okay even if a few went in. Can’t do anything about it here.” Krishnan nodded slowly. Evidently he knew better than to expect more concern from his Commander here. All of her marines knew that she cared for them. They also knew that she didn’t waste time worrying about things she couldn’t help while the mission was still on, no matter how upsetting the possibilities.
“See, here we go.” Trace pointed down the mountain. “We’re being followed.” Krishnan frowned, squinting. Trace handed him the binoculars, still pointing. “That lower ridge, by the big brown rock. We left single-file tracks there. They were still single file ten minutes ago. Now they’re double.”
“Oh yeah,” Krishnan said grimly as he peered. “Not great fieldcraft.”
“No. Not unless they want us to know they’re after us.” Trace took a final swig of her water bottle, preparing to leave.
Krishnan offered the binoculars to Erik. “I’ll take your word for it,” Erik told him. “Why would they want us to know they’re after us?”
“Make us make a mistake,” said Krishnan, heaving himself, his heavy pack and rifle from the snow. “Maybe panic us into calling for help, draw an arty strike on our heads, like the Major says.”
“Hang on,” said Erik as he struggled up after them, ignoring Krishnan’s offered hand. “If these guys were with those guys in the flyers,” and he pointed with his good hand toward the sound of the circling flyer down the valley. It now sounded as though it might be landing. “Wouldn’t they just call an airstrike on us themselves? Or get a lift up the mountain, instead of hiking up?”
“Yep,” said Trace. “I’m guessing parren again, like the ones who tried to kill us. Working with State Department, but not aligned with local security. Probably came after us by ground skimmer, we wouldn’t have heard it from up here. State Department probably helped them to Stoya quietly, under local security’s nose. Kill us, remove State Department’s problem without tavalai having to get their hands dirty.”
It made sense, Erik thought. Tavalai considered themselves civilised and peaceful. When they wanted things done that were neither civilised nor peaceful, they turned to alien allies with less fragile sensibilities.
Trace resumed walking, straight uphill, slogging through the snow. “So at least these guys won’t have air support any longer,” Erik surmised. “If the ones who attacked us had to run before local security got them. Local security would be protecting the Pelligavani at all costs.”
“Sure, but we can’t bet that local security doesn’t have State Department moles as well,” Trace cautioned. “I want to find this damn temple. Styx’s map says we’re real close, but it might be pretty high.”
And deliberately hidden for over twenty five thousand years, Erik could have added, had the spare breath in his lungs not disappeared with the resumption of climbing. If no one had seen it since then, how the hell were three spaceship crew going to do it with no specialised equipment?
Trace turned them left off the valley, and Erik realised with dismay that she was taking them up a sheer wall of broken rock ahead. Trace saw the look on his face. “It’s worse every other way,” she told him, adjusting the rifle strap around her neck, pulling it close and tight across her chest, muzzle up and butt down so it couldn’t knock her out cold in a fall. “Trust me. How’s your arm?”
Erik flexed it. It hurt, but the shoulder was still numb with painkiller. “I think it’s okay. It’s the third time I’ve dislocated it, it gets function back faster if you’ve done it before.”
“I know,” said Trace. “I saw in your medical records.”
“Checking up on me?” Erik panted.
“It’s my job,” said Trace, eyeing the rugged slope. It was short of vertical by perhaps ten degrees, with lots of rough rock-face and ledges for footing. “Just try not to extend too much.”
And she astonished Erik utterly by pressing both hands together before her lips, nodding her head and murmuring something beneath her breath. Erik looked at Krishnan, and found him equally bewildered.
“Is that a prayer?” Erik asked when she’d finished.
“My people believe there’s karmic fortune in mountains,” said Trace. “Every rock-face tells a story, every valley hides a secret. You can see time itself shaped in these rocks, if you look. Come on.”
The rocks were too steep for snow to accumulate, and Trace climbed quickly, hands and feet finding no difficulty on holds as simple for her as a ladder. Erik followed less certainly, trying to use his right hand as little as possible, and avoid long reaches over
his head. Soon he was high, and getting higher, as Trace stopped above him, and calmly advised on where to put his hand and feet.
The cold had become very cold, and the wind stung Erik’s cheeks above the thick, high collar of his jacket. Thank god for spacer insulation, he thought. None of them were truly dressed for this kind of cold, but with such well insulated clothes, and constant activity, they’d stay warm for a while yet.
By the time he reached the top, he was exhausted, dizzy and in pain. He dropped beside Trace, gasping and fumbling for a bottle, as Krishnan pulled himself up next. When Erik looked up, he could see they’d barely made the top of the foothills that skirted a truly huge peak. It disappeared into cloud above, a thick mist that swirled and blew, as the mountain made its own weather. It had to be nearly midday, but suddenly everything looked dark. From their current position, there was a route along the ridge, Erik saw, with sheer drops on either side. Then a massive rock face, too steep for snow, disappearing into cloud.
“That’s Mount Kosik,” said Trace, looking instead down below for signs of pursuit. “Styx says the Tahrae worshipped it.”
“How would Styx know what worship looks like?” Erik muttered past his drink bottle. He handed it to Trace, who swigged it.
“Don’t know,” she said, handing it back. “But it seems to me that if you were going to put a sacred meditation temple anywhere, it’d be on that thing.”
“Major,” volunteered Krishnan, “begging your pardon, but if we have to climb that, we’re screwed.”
“It goes up to thirteen thousand meters, Private,” Trace admonished him. “You’d need a spacesuit on the summit. But Styx’s coordinates say about a kilometre up this ridge. And I’m no engineer, but I reckon that little shoulder there looks just perfect.”
Erik looked. Sure enough, about a kilometre along and above, the ridge was interrupted by a vertical rock face, before resuming. Inside that vertical rock face, he thought… if you hollowed it out? Yeah, heck of a view. And the flat top could have made for a decent landing pad, if you accounted for the ridiculous windshear off the mountain behind when the weather turned bad. As it seemed to be turning now.
Kantovan Vault (The Spiral Wars Book 3) Page 7