Mission Pack 2: Missions 5-8 (Black Ocean Mission Pack)

by J. S. Morin

  While Tanny set herself in position once more, Esper had a brief, silent conversation with the door. What sort of door are you, anyway? Stuck shut… that’s not being a door. You’re acting like a wall, and that’s not who you really are. A door needs to slide free and easy. We’re trying to go through to the other side. How long has it been since anyone’s used you? If you’d loosen up a teensy bit, my friend would be able to open you. How about it?

  When Tanny heaved, the door shuddered and broke free. The rust or grime that had caked its path gave way and opened into a long corridor that led down the aft of the Odysseus. It was intact as far down as the light from Esper’s mote of light could shine.

  “Nice work,” Charlie said. In all her criticism and praise of Tanny, her tone hadn’t changed one iota.

  “Looks cleaner and safer down this way,” Rhiannon said. “Be nice to have a roof over us that won’t come down any second.”

  A bass growl echoed from somewhere in the distance. A second joined it, then a full chorus. They weren’t mechanical sounds, or anything a human voice could mimic. Something alive was down there, waiting in the darkness.

  The four of them stood still, silent. The only sounds from them were ever-quickening breaths. “Close it,” Esper whispered. The growling grew. “Close it!”

  Tanny scrambled to push the door closed, and Esper could come up with no polite argument to convince it to play along. All she could think of was the pack of bestial alien creatures closing in quickly. Instead, Rhiannon and Charlie joined her—one pushing, the other pulling from the opposite side of the opening.

  The growls echoed and seemed to multiply. The four of them were prey that had stumbled into a lair that clearly no longer belonged to humankind. Light from the glowing mote caught the creatures as they came around the final corner. They were the size of lions, with dark fur and several long limbs that ended in claws. Scrabbling across the metallic floors, they skidded as they veered down the corridor, piling into one another before regaining the footing to accelerate.

  Shaking off her momentary panic, Esper felt for her inner strength—a magic that no longer needed words—and lent her aid with the door. The door slid partway shut and stuck once more, the opening still a half meter wide. The creatures closed the distance with ferocity driven by wanton hunger. Fangs gleamed in the eldritch light, wet with saliva. With a second heave, the door closed within a quarter meter.

  The first of the creatures slammed into it from the far side, its clawed paw reaching through the door and sending the four women scattering for cover.

  “Do something!” Rhiannon shouted. She took off her pack and swung it ineffectually at the reaching appendage. Hooked claws scratched along the door’s polymer metal surface but failed to leave a mark. Score another victory for A-tech material science; it was holding up despite the moon’s hatred for all things technological.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Tanny said, grabbing her ex-sister-in-law by the arm and dragging her out of harm’s way.

  “What are those things?” Charlie asked, staring at the beasts from just beyond their reach. It appeared that the growling monstrosities were unable to pry the door open any wider, though they were clearly desperate to get through.

  “I don’t know,” Rhiannon said. “But there’s at least three ways for them to get around that door to find us.”

  They fled.

  # # #

  It might have been hours; it might have been years. With the dueling complexities of planetary and lunary orbits and rotations, Carl had no idea the length of the trip to the marines’ encampment. All he knew was that it was too damn long. His feet were rubbed raw inside his boots, likely blistered. They ached all the way up past his knees and into the small of his back. The sweat that dripped from him had been water in his canteen not long before; he was a sieve.

  Mriy and Kubu seemed less bothered. Carl’s biology was an unfortunate side effect of an evolution slanted toward tool use and farming. He comforted himself that neither of them could play guitar. But every time he took the effort to raise his head, there they were, trooping along like it was their first hour off the Mobius.

  Their guides had been willing to talk along the trip. If Carl had the lung power to both keep his breath and talk at the same time, he might have found out more about their destination. But the stoic marines had seemed content to lead the way in silence when neither Carl nor Mriy pressed the conversation.

  “There it is, up ahead,” Messerschmidt said. Carl followed her pointing finger to a series of yellowed buildings rising above the tips of the tree-grass. It was a city. The architecture was blocky, consisting mainly of cubes and obelisks. It reminded him of a badly programmed simulator, where the tech hadn’t done a sweep to add detail. In the simulators, nuances such as signs, windows, and decoration were superfluous. They seemed more important to an actual city.

  When they reached the edge of the jungle, Carl reassessed his judgment. The buildings were stone, not metal or brick as he initially guessed, weather worn and rounded at the edges. A road that led right to the jungle’s edge greeted them, its surface unbroken, seamless, and as yellow as the buildings. “Is this stuff some sort of evercrete?” he asked. The effort of asking left him short of breath.

  “Who the hell knows?” Vasquez replied. “We didn’t build it, and the Vaieen didn’t leave plans.”

  “Vaieen?” Mriy asked before Carl could catch his wind.

  “Azrael says that’s what they called themselves,” Messerschmidt said. “Come on.”

  Carl, Mriy, and Kubu fell into step behind Messerschmidt as she led them into the city. At ground level, most of the buildings had entrances facing the road. By the size of the arched, doorless openings, they were either meant for creatures twice the size of a human or built for grandeur rather than practicality. There were no stairs anywhere. Any entrances above ground level were connected to twisting, sweeping ramps, some stretching across the road to connect buildings on either side. There was no stopping to gawk as the marines kept up a steady pace just fast enough to keep Carl from recovering along the way, despite the easier ground for walking.

  Messerschmidt stopped at an imposing obelisk that had to have been forty meters tall. “Azrael’s office is up there.”

  Carl stopped at the foot of the ramp and followed it up and around the obelisk with his eyes. Just cranking his neck made him tired. “Of course it is,” he muttered.

  A wet nose nudged his hand. “Kubu help,” Kubu said quietly.

  Spending all day—or some unknown quantity of alien time—stomping through the jungle hadn’t diminished Kubu’s energy noticeably. He wasn’t as tall as a horse, and to the best of Carl’s knowledge, he had never carried a rider. The 200-kilo canid certainly seemed capable of carrying him up the ramp. But Carl wasn’t a refugee. He hadn’t been rescued from a crash site. He wasn’t headed to a medical facility. This was a negotiation with the leader of these marines, and appearances could mean everything.

  “Nah, I’m good,” Carl lied, patting Kubu on the head. He stepped onto the ramp and ascended behind Messerschmidt. The marine kept her pace slow, perhaps noting that Carl wasn’t keeping up.

  Though every muscle in his legs burned, Carl finished his ascent. From the third floor, the view from the ramp was impressive. He could see above the grass-tops to the mountains in the distance. Even the tiny form of the Odysseus was discernible in the fading twilight as the system’s blandly named sun disappeared behind the equally taxonomically challenged planet. The alien city spread out with more beyond than behind, back the way the marines had led them. If it had been a human city, Carl would have pegged the population around the ten- to twenty-thousand mark.

  “You need a minute?” Messerschmidt asked. There wasn’t a hint in her voice that she was short of breath, while Carl wheezed humid jungle air.

  “Just… admiring the view,” he replied.

  Messerschmidt handed him her canteen. It was a military survival model, but that
was more a matter of durability and no-frills style than any substantive difference. The water in it tasted better than Carl’s had, probably because Messerschmidt’s hadn’t come out of the Mobius’s water reclaim system.

  “Thanks,” Carl said with a gasp as he handed it back. After a quick nod of reply, she led the way inside.

  The interior of the obelisk was consistent with the outside. The walls and floor were faded yellow stone, worn with age. Around the perimeter, jutting cylinders glowed pale white, illuminating the interior space. At the center of the chamber, a low bench circled a fountain. Its crystal clear waters spouted from the top, pouring down tier by tier into a pool that drained into the lower levels.

  “Welcome,” a voice called from the far side of the room, obscured by the fountain. Carl searched to put a face to it, but his memories came up dry. “Come in. Sit down. Rest. I’ll have someone bring up fruits and roasted bavra—it’s a sort of reptilian thing that tastes almost like pork.”

  Carl made his way around the room until he caught sight of their host. The years might have blurred the image, but he recognized the familiar face. He’d never known Azrael Jones well, but the star-drive mechanic’s features brought back memories—a chance encounter in the cafeteria line, an exchange of polite nods going opposite directions in a corridor. The two of them didn’t exactly sit in on the same poker games, but they knew each other by sight.

  The wizard’s office was merely a desk and chair, cobbled from ship scrap and local materials that Carl couldn’t identify. He rose and strode over to greet Carl with his hand extended. Like his marine underlings, he wore no shirt, despite the relative cool inside the obelisk. Carl could already feel the jungle heat leeching out of his body, the sweat drying on his skin.

  “Some place you’ve got here,” Carl said, shaking Azrael’s hand. “What’s the rent?”

  “Six years hard labor,” Azrael said. “Who are your friends?”

  “The azrin’s name is Mriy,” Carl replied. “I’ve got my own ship these days, and she runs security.”

  “Never met an azrin,” Azrael replied, approaching Mriy and putting his hand out. “I’ve heard things though.” Mriy obliged in the human custom.

  “The one who looks like a giant dog—but isn’t,” Carl said, correcting himself before Kubu could do it for him. “Is named Kubu. He’s not full grown, so we haven’t put him to work. He helps out however he can.”

  “What is he?”

  Carl shrugged. “Some Latin shit I can never remember.”

  Flattening back her ears, Mriy spoke up with a growl in her voice. “Canis ultra poltidae.”

  Azrael harrumphed. “Never heard of Poltid.”

  “I hadn’t either,” Carl said. “But his kind are top of the food chain there, from what I’ve heard.”

  “There are things out in the jungle like that,” Azrael said. “Most of them are nocturnal. We lost a few men and women to them in the early days after the crash, before we found this place. We don’t leave the city after dark.”

  “You fear the night,” Mriy said. Carl hoped Azrael lacked the cultural awareness to pick up on her disdain.

  “Fear?” Messerschmidt asked. “Of course we do! Hell, there were nearly forty of—”

  A quick glare from Azrael stopped her short.

  Messerschmidt swallowed. “Well, we lost a lotta good marines out there. Some to the wildlife. More to the navy.”

  “Fuckers,” one of the other marines muttered.

  “What’s the deal with that?” Carl asked. With a few minutes off his feet in cool air, he was beginning to feel more like himself. “I mean, you all crashed on the same ship, right?”

  A hint of a smile twitched at Azrael’s lips. “If only it were that simple. Not many survived the initial crash and the days that followed. We worked together to bury the dead. But when it came time to live, we came at odds over command. The bridge crew was killed upon impact. Their bodies are still under that mountain somewhere. The highest ranking survivor was the damned science officer, Lieutenant Kwon.”

  Carl blinked. “Wait. Sephiera Kwon? The one with the dimples and—” Carl caught himself before he went off on a tangent that might offend the lady marines in attendance. He cleared his throat. “I mean, a lieutenant is in charge? Fuck me, I outrank everyone on this moon.”

  Azrael turned to Messerschmidt. “The messenger said he was retired.”

  Messerschmidt shrugged and gave Carl a sidelong glare. “Hey, just relaying what he told us.”

  “I am,” Carl confirmed. “But who else knows that? I mustered out as lieutenant commander. Your marines were grumbling about a fucked-up chain of command. I might be the solution.”

  “You crash on our moon and tell us we should put you in command?” Messerschmidt asked, stepping up to loom over Carl.

  “Hey now,” Carl said. The next time he let himself be intimidated by a marine would be the first. Marriage had been the closest he’d come, and he’d never caved to Tanny’s bullying. “You folks put a roof over my head and got us out of the jungle. Maybe I can do you a foot rub and patch things up with the navy personnel.”

  “We’re beyond patching,” Azrael said. He lifted his hands and looked to the ceiling. “We have found Devraa, and his power guides and protects us.”

  Well, that put a twist in the fuel line. The marines had found a stray religion and taken it to heart. Zealots were shit to deal with. There was no reasoning with them, which meant lying did squat; they just didn’t listen. Esper had her church stuff, but she had a brain in between her ears. Carl’s initial impression of Devraa wasn’t promising, given the beatific peace on Azrael’s face at the mention of his name.

  “OK there,” Carl said. “We save that as a trump card, all right? So where do me and my crew fit in?”

  “If we were the navals,” Azrael said. “We would demand your ship’s supplies and take you prisoner, pending a determination of your alliances. But that is not Devraa’s way. You may shelter here until next light, then make your decision. You may join us, or go your own way. If you join us, you would share what belongings are still of use from your ship. You would swear allegiance before Devraa and forsake your connection with the navy.”

  “Can we trust him?” Vasquez asked. “I mean, he is ex-navy.”

  “Squadrons were always on the outs,” Messerschmidt said. “They were half outside the chain of command already, and I don’t see Ramsey taking orders from that science bitch, whether he slept with her or not.”

  “That rumor got around, huh?” Carl asked without making eye contact.

  “Ain’t like those floor-moppers and seat-warmers,” Messerschmidt continued. “They put their asses on the line pulling triggers for a living, same as us. Ramsey being here means they finished a fight we ducked out on, our fault or not. We owe him a chance.”

  “What about his crew?” Vasquez asked.

  “Azrins have a reputation as warriors,” Azrael observed, narrowing his eyes at Mriy. “I would welcome her among us on her word.”

  “My crew’s got a retired marine and one of my squad mates,” Carl said. “Should be no problems there. Ship’s wizard, my mechanic, and my sister—who was just along for the ride—I don’t see a problem.”

  “How big a ship you crash here, Ramsey?” Vasquez asked. “Got your own star-drive mechanic?”

  “Converted Turtledove class,” Carl replied. “And Mort’s not a star-drive mechanic. He’s… complicated.”

  “Where is your crew now?” Azrael asked. “I’d very much like to meet your wizard.”

  Carl wasn’t certain of that. He could foresee a change in command structure if this Devraa was the sort who liked wizards. Mort could be pretty persuasive, and Carl doubted that trading words with an alien god would daunt him.

  “Mechanic and wizard are at the ship, seeing if they can get it spaceworthy,” Carl said.

  “They won’t be successful,” Azrael said. “Devraa’s will prevents science from powering technological devic
es here.”

  Carl knew that was at least partly bullshit, but it wasn’t the time or place to argue the point. There was nothing he’d seen or heard since arriving that made him believe Azrael was anything more than the only wizard these guys had. He was the one-eyed man in the land of the blind. It was certainly possible that Azrael believed what he said, and couldn’t stop the pervasive distortion of higher scientific laws. Maybe he’d never tried.

  “Well, the rest of them went up to poke around and see what they could find in the Odysseus. We didn’t know where you guys and girls were camping, and figured maybe you’d settled down inside.”

  Azrael hung his head. “Then your friends are dead. The growlers took over the Odysseus years ago. Caught by surprise in close quarters, there’s nothing they could have done.”

  With reflexes only no human could match, Mriy clamped a hand over Kubu’s muzzle and hissed a quiet order to keep quiet. From the corner of his eye, he could see her whispering to reassure Kubu, though he couldn’t hear the words.

  “Oh,” Carl said. He quickly pushed aside the paralyzing worry that threatened to overwhelm him. Carl the Sanguine kept his head, while Heist Carl and Jailbreak Carl began plotting. “So, you got anyplace we can crash for the night?”

  # # #

  Corridors that had seemed hazardous on the way in had become a racetrack. Charlie led the way, pelting down the polymer steel tunnels at breakneck speeds that would become literal if any of them took a step amiss. Shadows rioted as Esper tried to keep near the front of the group, her mote of mystic light their only source of illumination. Pounding footsteps and the clattering debris disturbed by their passing weren’t enough to drown out the growling stampede that grew closer by the second. Any respite closing that door had bought them had expired.

  “They’re gaining on us,” Rhiannon said, panting for breath. If any of them were to falter, she seemed the most likely. Esper knew that if Rhiannon fell, she couldn’t leave her. Slowing her pace, she grabbed Rhiannon’s arm and put it over her shoulder, supporting the singer’s weight as she gamely tried to keep up.