by Piers Platt
“I have a little brother,” she said. “But this wouldn’t really be up his alley.”
“Mom and Pop?”
“My mom and I are close. I don’t … like to talk about my Dad.”
“Oh,” Falken said. “Sorry for bringing it up.”
“What about you?” she asked, changing the subject. “Have you ever brought your family on a trip here?”
Falken shook his head. “I’m an only child.”
“Are your parents still alive?”
“Far as I know,” Falken said. “We were never that close, my folks and I. We don’t really keep in touch.”
“Well, aren’t we just a couple of misanthropes,” she said, smiling again.
Falken frowned. “If I knew what those were, I’m sure I’d agree with you.”
“Loners. Introverts,” Vina explained.
“Ah. Yeah, that’s true enough.” He grinned. “Here I am, thinking you’re comparing us to a species of antelope or something.”
Vina laughed.
“Falken?” Greban’s voice came from the kitchen.
Falken stood. “Better go see what the boss needs,” he said, excusing himself.
* * *
“Kill Day, everyone,” Falken said, pushing back his breakfast plate and standing up from the table. “You know the drill by now, so I’m just going to do a quick safety brief before we displace.”
Around the table, the five guests nodded, listening. Falken held up a short staff with a leather strap, identical to the one he had used the day before.
“This is a noise cancellation staff. You remember I used one yesterday when the other truck flipped over. It has two modes: noise canceling, and noise producing. In active noise canceling mode, it uses a small microphone to sample the noises you make, and uses this speaker to produce the precise wavelength of sound needed to cancel out the noise you’re making.”
“What about noise producing mode?” Shep asked.
“It makes a high-pitched whine that mimics a wounded faun. You’ll barely hear it, but the dragons definitely will. You want to set it to cancel your noise, or this will be a very, very short hunt.”
Shep laughed.
“Even in noise canceling mode, the technology isn’t perfect – it muffles your noise, but it doesn’t silence you completely. And dragons’ hearing is something like forty times more sensitive than our own. If you can hear yourself, they definitely can, too. So you can’t rely on the staff for everything. Remember to act like a faun – move slowly and carefully.”
“I’m just going to switch Kuda’s stick to noise producing mode and run like hell in the other direction,” Shep joked.
“You can, actually,” Falken said. “I mean, don’t mess with your brother’s device, obviously, but you can use your own staff as a distraction if you’ve got a dragon zeroing in on you. I’ve seen folks switch it to noise producing mode and toss it as far as they can. It usually draws the dragon away. But there’s two big drawbacks to that technique: one, dragons aren’t stupid; they don’t stay fooled for more than a few seconds. And two, now you don’t have your noise canceling device when they come back looking for you.”
Falken handed the staff to Vina, who played with the switch experimentally, frowning. The noise around the table dimmed suddenly, the background sounds of the ship muted.
“I guess it works,” she said, and her voice was hushed, as if she was calling to them from far away. She turned the noise cancellation back off and passed it to Raynard, beside her.
“Okay, last thing,” Falken said. “When you get caught, you’re not going to feel any pain. But it will be pretty intense – so long as your proxy is functioning and connected to your real body up here, you’ll feel some sensations, and you’ll obviously be experiencing what’s happening. Unlike the human body, your proxies don’t go into shock, and they can take a lot of damage before they stop broadcasting a signal. Some people think it’s cool to experience themselves getting eaten, all the way to the bitter end. Others – like me – are just in it for the thrill of the chase, and aren’t into all that gore and stuff. Bottom line: whenever it gets too disturbing for you, just bite down three times, and the connection will be severed. With that, please go get changed into your displacement suits, and I’ll meet you by your pod.”
Falken was the first to finish changing, as usual – only Greban was waiting for him in the displacement room.
“Good group?” Greban asked quietly, leaning against a pod.
Falken shrugged. “Yeah.” He glanced furtively through the door, checking to make sure the ship’s corridor was empty. “Ed’s gotten into it with the two brothers a couple times.”
“Is it a problem?” Greban asked.
“Just petty bullshit. I handled it,” Falken said. “But he’s kind of a downer, even when he’s not rubbing people the wrong way. I don’t know. There’s just something off about him.”
Greban’s brow wrinkled. “Are we going to have our first blacklisted guest?”
“Maybe,” Falken said. “We’ll see how he does today.”
“I don’t want to have to start handing out refunds to make the other guests happy,” Greban warned.
“Naw,” Falken said. “I got this. They’re all going to have a blast today.”
Greban smiled. “My man.”
Shep strolled into the room a moment later. He pounded his chest with a fist. “Let’s do this!”
“Where’s your brother?” Falken asked.
“Bathroom,” Shep said, glancing over his shoulder. “He should be along any minute.”
“Okay. Let’s get you strapped in,” Falken said, patting Shep’s pod.
Shep took his helmet off its hook and then stepped up, twisting as he sat down in the pod. Falken checked that his harness was in place, and the pod was connected to Shep’s proxy down on the surface. Then he gave Shep a fist bump.
“See you down there,” Falken said, and shut the lid.
He soon fell into the familiar rhythm of helping the guests into their pods, and when they were all snugged inside, he climbed into his own pod. Greban shut the lid over him, and Falken felt the warm gel ooze up beneath him. He slipped the helmet down over his eyes, and took a deep breath.
* * *
Falken checked the map on the truck’s display panel, and then pulled to a stop. The vehicle settled down to the ground as the hoverfans slowed. The slope of Mount Olympus loomed overhead, steep and foreboding. Falken checked the sky in all directions, then slipped his door open and stepped carefully outside. He walked several feet, then stopped to bend down, touching several small mushrooms, and a patch of lichen. He straightened up and hurried back to the truck, closing himself inside the canopy quickly.
“Okay, guys,” he turned in his seat. “I’ve got multiple faun tracks and some fresh spoor, which means a herd of fauns passed this way less than an hour ago. If the dragons aren’t here already, they will be soon.” He eyed the guests in the truck, smiling. “You guys ready?” he asked.
“Hell yeah!” Kuda said.
“No,” Vina said, but she smiled nervously, and took the noise cancellation staff from Falken’s outstretched arm.
Raynard reached for his own staff, then stopped. “What was that?” he asked, steadying himself with an arm against the seat. “I thought I felt the ground move.”
Falken spun in his seat, frowning. “I didn’t see anything …”
… but I sure felt it. A big lurch, like the truck got hit by something. What was that?
“Earthquake?” Shep guessed.
Falken shook his head. “We would have had some advance warning if there was going to be seismic activity today.”
“Now I feel dizzy,” Vina said. “Like … vertigo or something.”
“… like we’re falling,” Raynard finished.
Falken’s eyes went wide. He searched the sky frantically for a moment. Then he saw it: past a thin patch of clouds, a dark form trailing smoke and fire was plummeting tow
ard the ground.
Ed caught sight of Falken’s horrified gaze and turned to look. “What’s that?”
The dark form deployed several parachutes, and Falken saw retro-rockets firing on full blast, trying to slow its rapid descent. But the ship was heavily damaged, and falling too fast.
“Falken, what is that?” Vina repeated, fear creeping into her voice.
His voice was hoarse. “That’s the Ecolympus. That’s us.”
The ship disappeared behind a rock column, and then everything went dark.
Chapter 10
Commander Jiyake sipped her latte, and then skimmed through another newsnet article on the display screen mounted into the wooden bar counter. Over the back of the bar, the day’s scheduled arrivals ticked upward on a large vidscreen. Jiyake knew them by heart, but still mentally checked them off as each familiar ship name scrolled upward. A soft thump distracted her, and she turned to see a duffel bag dropped onto the floor. Captain Muir of the Liberty Belle stood next to the bag, smiling amiably.
“Mind if I join?” Muir asked.
“Hey, welcome back,” Jiyake said. “Take a seat.”
The barista wandered over. “Coffee, black, one sugar?” she asked Muir.
“Yes, please,” Muir confirmed.
“You need a refill?” the barista asked Jiyake.
“No, thanks,” Jiyake said. She turned on her stool as Muir sat next to her. “Good trip?”
Muir shrugged. “Can’t complain.”
“Any unwanted hitchhikers this time?” Jiyake asked.
“Dragons?” Muir asked. “No. They decided to leave us alone. It’s a crapshoot – some trips they’re all over us, tearing at the hull, flapping everywhere. Other trips, nothing. Talus swears it has something to do with the weather.”
“Hm? In what way?”
“It’s just his theory,” Muir said. The barista brought her mug of coffee over, and Muir thanked her. “I don’t put any stock in it, but if it’s sunny and clear, Talus thinks they stay away. Then whenever it’s overcast, he’s like, ‘storm clouds, Captain, that’s a bad sign.’ ”
Jiyake smiled. “He’s getting to be like an old fisherman. ‘Barometer’s dropping, I can feel it in my bones – we’re in for a gale’!”
“Right? He sees some cloud cover and immediately gets worried that the dragons are going to make a run at us.”
“Have you asked the research team if there’s any truth to that?” Jiyake asked.
Muir chuckled. “No. I haven’t checked the ship’s log, but I’m ninety percent sure he’s full of crap. Talus is just superstitious.”
“Great pilot, though,” Jiyake observed.
“That he is,” Muir agreed. “And good stick-jockeys are allowed to have some quirks. I think it’s part of the job description. Anyway, how have things been around here?”
“Same old,” Jiyake said, stifling a yawn. “Yesterday’s big excitement was when we found a cargo transport whose reactor inspection was overdue.” She sipped her latte again. “In other words, Harrison’s Waypoint was completely quiet and uneventful while you were gone.”
“You sound disappointed,” Muir said.
“Not at all,” the Colonial Guard commander replied. “Quiet and uneventful is exactly how I like things. It means I’m doing my job right.”
“Or maybe the bad guys have all figured out how to sneak things past you,” Muir teased.
Jiyake frowned. “You think so? I hadn’t thought about it like that.”
Muir laughed. “Jiyake, relax. I’m kidding – this has to be the most well-policed pit-stop in the colonies. Last year you wrote me up for a typo on my passenger manifest, for God’s sake.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Jiyake said. “But I couldn’t go easy on you just because we’re friends.”
Muir laughed. “I know. But you can buy me another coffee to make it up to me.”
“Oh no,” Jiyake said, wagging her finger. “That was a fifty dollar fine. I’ve bought you way more than fifty dollars’ worth of coffee by now.”
At the same instant, both women’s wrist-mounted datapads vibrated. Jiyake’s glowed red, as well. She frowned. “That’s an emergency alert,” she said.
“Mine too,” Muir said, tapping on the wristpad’s screen. “Did you guys have a drill planned for today or something?”
“No.”
“Talus is paging me,” Muir said, reading from her wristpad. “What do you want to bet we’re both getting called about the same thing?”
“Seems likely,” Jiyake agreed, standing up from her stool. “Olympus?”
“Shit, I hope not,” Muir said. She grabbed her duffel bag and the two women hurried through the coffee shop, emerging into one of the space station’s pedestrian corridors. A uniformed Colonial Guard petty officer hurried over to them.
“Commander, distress call from Olympus,” he said.
Muir pointed across the way to a docking tube. “I’m docked right here at Gate Seven,” she said. “Talus has gotta be monitoring the same transmission.”
Jiyake nodded. “Lead the way.”
They found Talus half-dressed in a vacuum suit, standing by a communications terminal in the Liberty Belle’s cargo hold.
“Hey, Commander,” he said, greeting Jiyake.
“Talus, what’s going on?” Muir asked.
“I was getting ready for a spacewalk to go check out that thruster,” Talus told her, gesturing at his spacesuit. “Then I got a call from Hylie. The Ecolympus just crashed.”
“Crashed?” Muir said, aghast.
“What happened?” Jiyake asked.
Talus turned to his screen. “Hylie, I’ve got Commander Jiyake and Captain Muir here now. Want to catch them up?”
On the screen in front of him, Jiyake and Muir saw Captain Hylie nod. “I’ll tell you what I know, but it’s not much,” she said. “We were prepping our guests to displace down to the surface for the morning safari tour, and then our computer alerted us that the Ecolympus was dropping out of orbit. By the time I got up to the bridge, they were already on the ground, it happened that fast.”
“Are they alive?” Jiyake asked.
“I don’t know,” Hylie said. “I’ve been trying to raise them for the past five minutes, but I’m not getting any answer.”
“How hard did they hit?” Talus asked. “Are we talking full free-fall, or did they still have some thrust?”
“More crash than landing, I think,” Hylie said. “Our sensors lost visual on them when they descended past the drone patrol, but their engines were still operational at that point. The drones lit them up, though – they thought it was an unauthorized entry, I guess.”
“Let’s hope the drones didn’t knock out whatever power they had left,” Talus said.
“Mm,” Hylie said.
“Have you got visual on the crash site?” Jiyake asked.
“Thermal only,” Hylie said. “There’s a layer of clouds up now. The ship looks like it’s still intact. It didn’t explode or break up, at least.”
“That’s a good sign,” Muir said. “If they’d been coming in too fast, the wreckage would be spread over a couple miles, at least.” She checked her wristpad, noting the time. “Talus, are we refueling?”
“Not yet,” he said.
“Go, now,” the captain urged him. “I want a full tank.”
“Roger,” he said, jogging back down the craft’s docking tube, shuffling awkwardly in the spacesuit.
“You think they’re alive?” Jiyake asked Muir.
“I think we have to assume they are.”
“Agreed. But search-and-rescue is my responsibility. It’s one of the Colonial Guard’s primary missions ….” Jiyake said, biting her lip.
“… except the Extremis doesn’t have the armor to land on Olympus,” Muir continued. “And you know it. The Liberty Belle’s the only ship that can do it. Hell, it has to be us.”
“I can’t order you to go,” Jiyake said, frowning.
“
You don’t have to. I’m going either way,” Muir said. “You’re in command – you coordinate the overall mission, we’ll execute.”
Jiyake sighed with relief. “Okay. But I’m thinking I might bring the Extremis along with you – or at least have it on standby back here, in case you need us. What’s the travel time to Olympus?”
“Three hours,” Muir said.
Jiyake shook her head. “We can’t do much good back here on standby, then.”
“You mind tagging along?” Muir asked.
“Not at all,” Jiyake said. She turned to the petty officer that had brought them the news in the corridor. “Send out a mobilization alert. I want everyone at their stations in fifteen minutes, and I want to be launching fifteen minutes after that.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and turned to go, activating his wristpad’s communications system as he ran.
“Captain Muir, you’re cleared to launch as soon as you’re ready,” Jiyake said. “We’ll be right behind you. The Belle will land and attempt to recover any survivors of the Ecolympus, while the Extremis serves as the mobile command center for the operation. And we’ll be ready to put our sick bay to use if the survivors need medical assistance.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Muir said. “Hylie, we’re going to launch just as soon as we can, okay?”
“Good,” Hylie said. “Let me know how we can help.”
Muir turned and looked at Jiyake.
The Colonial Guard commander frowned. “For starters, stay off the surface, at least for the time being. My apologies to your guests, but we don’t need any of your proxies down there stirring up trouble while lives are at risk.”
“Absolutely,” Hylie said. “They’ll understand.”
“Keep trying to raise the Ecolympus on the radio, and relay any news back to me if you can,” Jiyake said. “If you guys have footage of the crash, even if it’s just their initial descent, I’d like to review it, too. We might be able to learn something that will help with the rescue.”
“I’ll have Quiss send it now.”
“I better go start our pre-flight checks,” Muir said.
Jiyake held out her hand. “Good luck. Be careful out there,” she said.