Ursark was swarthy-skinned and fleshy in build, with oily black hair, several days' growth of stubble, and a barking laugh that revealed strong teeth while asserting disdain and defiance. His eyes were black and depthless, betraying nothing of what might be taking place within. But Kieran conceded inwardly that he had a point in his own artless way. The troopers dubbed the commanding lieutenant "Thumper" Coombs—everything was undeviatingly as ordained and stipulated in the book. But at least they weren't having to take orders from somebody learning in a combat mission situation, Kieran reflected. That would have been a lot worse.
He rested his head back against the painted metal bulkhead and idly surveyed the other two crew. Bolen, doing the piloting, was lean and muscular with somewhat drawn features and short reddish hair. He seemed to go about his work easily and competently. Kieran wondered what other tempting offers there might be for somebody like him out here—as opposed to working for the regular carriers or other agencies that employed pilots. Demand was said to be such that they could virtually name their own pay. Maybe the added kick of mixing a little danger with the job wasn't something that appealed to everyone. In the engineer's station next to Bolen was Wallax, black-haired, square-chinned, and rugged-faced. He had said little, not allowing Kieran to form any clear impression of him—although there had been a hint of an aggressive streak. Somehow, the three didn't really fit the image that Kieran would have guessed for an off-world flight-crew; but then, what experience did he have to guide him as to what should be expected in these distant places where humankind was finding new homes? As the freighter droned on above the wilderness, his thoughts drifted to the wider picture that he found himself part of.
Although still officially a "base," Lowell was creeping outward along the canyon bottoms from an intersection of canyons in the complex of Valles Marineris, merging its original dome structures between new roofs spanning between the walls to already become an incipient city. Earth had rebounded from its century of institutionalized technophobia and, with the advent of fusion, strong-force catalysis, and other nuclear technologies that had revolutionized just about everything from space transportation to materials extraction and processing, humanity was finally bursting from its home world to pick up again at what should have been the next step back in the years when the Apollo monuments were left on the Moon. Mars was opening up. The Belt worlds, natural and artificial, were seeing the beginnings of what some predicted would become a dizzying diversity of cultures and lifestyles. A few adventurous souls had established what looked like being a permanent human presence among the moons of the gas giants. Amid all the vitality, restlessness, innovation—and inevitably, rivalries and differences—comfortable Terran notions of a common system of enforceable law had been left behind. Some said it would follow eventually; others maintained it was already a dead concept, and some new system for restraining excesses and dispensing justice would have to be invented. In the meantime, there was plenty of work for go-it-alone operators like Skyguards, protecting life and property, and, where expedient or arguably justifiable, generally helping to "promote interests."
The Mocha's engine note changed suddenly to a succession of juddering coughs, bringing Kieran back from his musings. The craft dipped and banked to port, throwing him forward from the seat and causing him to grab at a side bracing. An alarm note wailed as the pilot's panel lit up with red indicators. Outside, the horizon of cloud titled and swam sideways across the windshield. Bolen slammed the controls to manual and threw a worried look back at Ursark.
"What is it?" Ursark barked.
"Major thrust loss. Synchronizer failure. Double-X category malfunction."
"Power system's screwed! We have to go down!" Wallax shouted.
"Escort Leader to Mocha Rider," Lieutenant Coombs's voice said. "You're altering course and attitude. What's happening?"
"Some kind of power failure, sir," Kieran answered. "The engineer says they have to put down."
"Hell, we're not asking for permission," Bolen yelled over his shoulder as he wrestled the manual stick, and Wallax called numbers and flipped switches. "Whatever he thinks doesn't come into this." The Mocha nosed into a descent, then angled back to use its braking thrusters, the main power note steadying but falling. Orange haze enveloped it, becoming denser, streaking past the windshield and ports to give a sudden hint of the craft's velocity. Bolen watched the forward radar imager and centered on what looked like a straight run of reasonably flat terrain ahead, clear of obstructions and boulders, flanked by rocky bluffs on both sides. "That's our only chance," he yelled to Ursark.
"Go for it," Ursark told him.
Kieran spoke into the stem mike on his suit collar. "It looks like a genuine emergency, sir. We're out of options here. Trying for a clear strip dead ahead at . . ." He raised his voice to call to the front. "What's the range of that?"
"Five miles," Bolen answered.
"Five miles."
"We're following you down," Coombs advised. "Tell the captain that I'm calling Lowell for an emergency pickup."
Kieran passed on the message and braced a foot against one of the metal steps coming up from the doorway behind, which led back to the access section, where the suiting chamber and airlock were located. A hazy, colored version of the radar image appeared dimly beyond the windshield, growing larger, flattening out, and then expanding to meet them as the Mocha came down. Additional dust blown up by the retros blotted out what view there was for the final few seconds before the skids struck with a jolt and a brief shriek of metal racing over frozen sand and rubble. The craft went up on a bounce, grounded again, and eventually scraped its way to a halt. As the dust thinned outside the windows and on the viewscreen, Ursark cut to a rearward shot showing the escort ship landing through the storm, maybe a hundred yards back. The Mocha's engines died, and the hiss of sand blowing over the outside hull became audible for the first time.
Ursark looked across at Kieran. He was showing his teeth, smiling in a strangely satisfied way that wasn't at all consistent with the situation. Kieran returned a puzzled look and was about to speak . . . when Wallax produced a pistol and leveled it at him.
Kieran shook his head noncomprehendingly. "What—"
"Not a word, kid." Ursark's voice was cool but menacing. He leaned over the nav-display table and reached across to tear the mike from Kieran's suit collar. Then he indicated the autocarbine by Kieran's leg and motioned with a hand for Kieran to hand it over. "Slow and easy, butt first, okay? Nobody has to get hurt."
Bolen was calling from the pilot's console. "Hello, Sandman. Do you read? Are you out there?"
A voice answered, patched through to the cabin speaker. "I hear you, Bird. You're a few hundred yards past the marker. We're on our way."
"Gotcha."
Coombs came through in Kieran's ear. "Escort Leader to Mocha Rider, report situation," But Kieran had no means of reply. "Come in, Rider. . . ."
Kieran lifted his weapon clear from the wall, reversed it, and set it in Ursark's waiting hand. "What's going on?" he demanded.
"Wait," Ursark answered, and stared expectantly at his viewscreen, still showing the shape of the gunship nose-on, standing in the murk. Wallax kept Kieran covered. Kieran followed Ursark's gaze. At the pilot's console, Bolen operated some switches, and an electric whine came from the rear, which Kieran recognized as the sound of the loading door of the cargo module opening. Maybe ten seconds passed by. . . . And then a quick series of flashes lit up seemingly behind the gunship, which lurched visibly, accompanied by the crump-crump-crump of weapon fire sounding deceptively distant in the thin atmosphere. A window opened on the screen to present a side view of the -gunship—evidently coming from an external source—that showed the rear end of its fuselage torn and holed, its the tail surfaces shredded. Then another burst of tracer streamed from a point near the camera and raked the stern engine pod. The damage was localized away from the personnel compartment, which was farther forward, Kieran could see; but the gunship wasn't going anywhere. It
had been reduced to little more than a life-support shelter in the desert.
Coombs hadn't fully grasped the situation. "Mocha crew, alert! We are being attacked. Secure—" But a new voice cut him off, sounding on a channel evidently directed at the gunship, but which Bolen or Wallax had patched to the speaker circuit. "Calling you Skyguards turkeys. Can you hear me in there?"
Coombs replied. "I hear you. What is—"
"Your bean can is immobilized and covered by heavy infantry weapons." Which meant ordnance capable of taking the gunship apart at that range. "Sit tight, and this can be easy on everyone. You're not calling any shots. And let's not forget that we still have one of your people in the freighter." The viewpoint that the image was coming from began moving forward past the nose of the stranded gunship, and then ahead of it. Moments later, a smaller, approaching blur appeared on the screen showing the view sternward, and transformed into a general-purpose desert crawler—used all over Mars for survey work, exploration, scientific expeditions, and the like. It halted just short of the Mocha, and two figures clad in heavy-grade EV suits and helmets got out. They crossed through the sand spray toward the Mocha and disappeared from the viewing angle. Bolen switched to a camera showing the inside of the cargo module with its loading door open and the two figures just coming in off the ramp. "The voice that had spoken before announced, "Okay, we're in."
"We've got you, Roney," Ursark confirmed.
"Then let's move it."
Bolen closed the loading door. The engines started again, rose in volume, and Kieran felt the craft -moving.
"Escort Leader to Mocha Rider. Our position appears to be compromised. Unknown hostile elements are approaching you and are heavily equipped. If you are receiving this, offer no resistance. Repeat, do not resist."
Ursark flexed his console mike in Kieran's direction and gestured toward it, at the same time leering derisively. Despite himself, Kieran felt his face flush with embarrassment at his own helplessness. "Yes, sir," he acknowledged self-consciously.
"That's a good soldier," Ursark said.
The voice that Ursark had addressed as Roney came over the speaker again. "Calling the bean can. Just to let you know, we've left a functioning crawler about a hundred yards in front of you. It'll get you by until help shows up if your support system's shot. 'Bye turkeys."
The Mocha bumped its way up to speed, lifted off, and rose into the storm, by then growing darker with the first shades of evening.
Since there was no internal access forward, the two additional hijackers—for it was obvious that the whole thing had been a setup all along—remained in the cargo module. No doubt Coombs had already put out a distress call and reported the incident; but provided the Mocha relied on its navigation aids and stayed below the ceiling of the storm blanketing the region, the satellites would have little chance of finding it optically or on infrared—and naturally, the tracking signal being transmitted previously would have been switched off. Since its course was unknown, the area that it might be in increased with the square of the distance covered as time went by. A thousand miles of flying would generate over three million square miles to get lost in—and plenty of time to switch the cargo to a different vehicle, or whatever else the hijackers had planned.
Ursark's manner mellowed somewhat, now that the critical point was past. He produced a flask and some plastic mugs, poured out three coffees and passed two forward, along with a couple of film-wrapped sandwiches and a bag of chips, and then looked quizzically at Kieran, as if in an afterthought. "Eat?" he invited.
Kieran had no idea how long it might be before another opportunity might present itself. In any case, he was getting hungry. He nodded. "Sure. . . . Thanks."
Ursark filled another mug and pushed it across the nav table, following it with another sandwich. He unwrapped one for himself and began munching, at the same time watching Kieran curiously. "You know, you're not so bad, kid," he grunted finally. "You keep it cool, know what I mean? Not the kind that loses his head and acts stupid. Somebody like you could do okay if you had connections." He smacked his lips noisily and worked something from his teeth with his tongue. "Any idea what you could make, working for the right people?" He studied the expression on Kieran's face—firm, not looking for a fight, but refusing to concede or be drawn into anything either. "Still pumped up with principles and ideology, eh?"
"Give him another ten years," Bolen said without taking his eyes off the dust veils whipping by outside. "I used to fly for one of the enforcer outfits too, once."
"I never knew that. . . ." Ursark seemed about to say something more, when Roney spoke from the cargo module.
"Hey, Urse?"
"What?"
"I don't think we're going to have enough air here to last all the way to Quentas."
Ursark's eyes flickered alarm in Kieran's direction. "Watch your talk," he said into the mike.
"Oh . . . right. But we need to put down somewhere along the way and get fresh bottles from the cab."
Ursark turned his head in Bolen's direction. "Did you hear that? Can do?"
Bolen was already keying in a query to change the flight plan. A revised course appeared on a terrain map showing on one of his screens, and a string of numbers unrolled across the bottom. "There's a hard pad we can put down at forty minutes from here," he announced. "Increases final ETA by . . . less than a half hour. We should be okay."
"Forty minutes from now," Ursark relayed back. "Reckon you can hold out till then?"
"Yeah. Shouldn't be a problem," Roney replied.
Quentas, if Kieran remembered correctly, was a mesa-like geographical feature somewhere near the edge of the deserts of Elysium.
Night had fallen by the time the Mocha set down. The flight-deck screens and the view through the windshield showed the surroundings to be in a flat depression fringed by a rocky scarp—possibly a crater rim—appearing as disconnected crests and edges picked out against shadow by starlight filtering down through the still dusty air. But they seemed to be out of the storm. Kieran made out structures of some kind outlined dimly a short distance away—a construction gantry, maybe, and several storage sheds.
Moving awkwardly in his suit in the confines of the cabin, Ursark went back into the access section, taking his helmet. From the doorway behind where he was sitting, Kieran heard the clatter and clinking of bottles being taken from a rack, sounds of Ursark securing his helmet, and finally a suit monitor's triple beep confirming systems to be functioning normally. Then came the whirr of a the inner lock door opening, Ursark shuffling through, and the lock closing again. In the flight deck compartment, Wallax studied his fingers between glancing at Kieran, his pistol still close at hand. Bolen opened the cargo module door and reactivated the view of the inside to show Roney and his companion moving out onto the ramp to stretch cramped arms and legs in the light that had come on within.
"Any coffee left back there?" Bolen asked. Wallax passed him the flask. Bolen refilled his mug and returned to contemplating the scene outside, immersed in thoughts of his own.
Something was odd, Kieran realized. Why would Ursark have bothered putting on his helmet and going outside to take the bottles back, when Roney and the other with him were already fully suited? Ursark could simply have left the bottles in the lock chamber to be retrieved from the outside. The answer came when Ursark appeared in the view on the screen, and while Roney and his companion took turns attaching the replacement bottles to each other's packs, entered into an animated discussion with them over another channel, this time not switched though to the cabin: They wanted to have a private conversation. . . . And then, when Kieran had been watching with more-or-less detached interest for perhaps a minute, it suddenly hit him what it was they needed to talk privately about. After Roney's careless talk earlier in which he had let slip their destination, the problem was what to do with him—with Kieran! And now, guessing the subject of the debate, he was virtually able to follow the exchange from the gestures and body language—even in s
uits.
Roney—somehow Kieran knew which was Roney—arms spread, hands upturned; then a one-handed throwing-away motion, followed by hands crossed, opening to make a breast-stroke movement: What's your problem, Urse? He knows too much. Get rid of him; it's simple. Then the whole thing's behind us, clean and over.
Ursark—two-palmed restraining gesture; window—wiping movement; side-to-side shoulder swings, emphasizing shaking of the head. Finally, both hands turned up in appeal: Wait a minute, think about it. That's a whole different rap than for a heist if things screw up. I didn't agree to that kind of ride. He's just a kid, for chrissakes.
Roney's companion—half-turn away; pause; turn back, one arm sowing seed. Either way, I don't care. Can we just get this settled? We're wasting time.
The chilling realization came home to Kieran that they were arguing over his life. Wallax's idle toying with the pistol, and Bolen's studied detachment took on a whole new, sinister significance. He felt his mouth and throat turning dry. He was the kind who knew how to keep cool, Ursark had said, not one to lose his head. Yeah, right. . . . Not losing your head could come fairly naturally when you had no choices to make.
Then Ursark's voice sounded over the cabin speaker. "Calling the kid soldier. Get helmeted up and move your ass out here. Okay?"
Kieran stared around dazedly, trying to tell himself this couldn't be happening. He'd signed up for a tour away from Earth on what sounded like an exciting job, that was all. It wasn't supposed to end like this, and so soon. He looked at the others in a silent, desperate plea. Bolen continued staring implacably through the windshield. Wallax cradled the pistol more securely in his palm and looked up.
"I guess that means you," he said laconically.
For an insane moment Kieran tried estimating distances by eye with thoughts of trying to grab for it . . . but it was pointless. He got up numbly from the jump-seat and picked up his helmet from the ledge where he had set it.
"I'm not hearing an answer," Ursark's voice said from the speaker.
Cosmic Tales - Adventures in Sol System Page 5