Under A Winter Sun, page 22
“I have splendid news and awful news.”
I should have guessed.
“Give us the splendid news first.”
“We found out where Eirik went.”
“Where?”
“To the moon Muspelheim.”
“Muspelheim is a scorching methane wasteland. There's nothing there.”
“Apparently, there is.”
“OK, that is splendid news.”
Muspelheim is Nifelheim's neighbour moon, and practically next door on a galactic scale.
“That's where you can drop us off then.”
“You got it.”
“Thanks. What's the awful news?”
“Remember that data spike on the Galahad? Turns out it was a tight-beam transmission sent to a precise location in this system.”
I wince. “Same place?”
“Yes. Command wants to know what the signal means, and we are the closest asset they have to Muspelheim.”
“So, you mean …”
“Yes, we're coming with you.”
“Sorry. Our deal is done. We do this on our own. I don't work with the military unless I have to.”
Jagr looks hurt. “Why do you dislike us so much, Perez? Join up. You'd be good at it.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. When I kill someone, I want it to be personal, not a job. Look. I did what you wanted and talked to Finn for you. I even avenged your agent. We're done. Now we've got work to do.”
“Space is free. We're coming, whether you like it or not. Besides, you need our ride.”
She's got a point.
I sigh. “Alright. So, what now?”
“We set the civilians down on Nifelheim, then burn hard for Muspelheim. Also, there are recent developments you need to know about.”
“What?”
Hildr's eyes grow wide. “You can't do that. You saw what they did to Ragnwald's men.”
She thrusts a finger at the screens displaying Nifelheim revolving beneath us.
“There must be people you can contact, Hildr. Relatives perhaps. We can't take you. This is a military operation.”
“But they will kill me.”
“Not if you're careful. You are not my responsibility.”
Jagr has a point. We can't afford to babysit the queen of Nifelheim and a priest. Not that Hildr requires a babysitter, but still.
Hildr looks to me for support. “Perez?”
“Sorry, Hildr. No can do. You heard the lady.”
I turn my back on her and pull myself towards the loading bay to stock up on ammunition. I can't bear to look her in the eye.
“Of fuck. I'm dead.”
The loading bay door slides shut behind me and I busy myself loading my magazines. I'm halfway done when the door hisses open again behind me. It's Hildr.
“Hey, what's up, Hil?”
“Don't call me that.”
“Sorry. What do you need?”
“Company. May I join you?”
“Sure.”
It's almost time for Braden to fire the thrusters to push us down from orbit to drop off our passengers.
“So, what can I do for you?” I push shell after shell into the magazine, refusing to meet her gaze.
“Oh, you know what I want,” she purrs and something in her voice makes me turn around.
She has pulled open her soft leather tunic and the white shirt underneath, and her breasts float free.
“Nice. What's the occasion?”
She pushes the button next to the door, and it slides shut behind her with a hiss. “I thought we'd say goodbye.” She pulls Skallagrim's sword from her belt and lets it float away across the bay.
“Saying goodbye is important.” I push off against the crate and float to meet her. She takes me in her powerful arms, and we go into a slow roll. Then she kisses me. Hard. She tastes of strawberries, and for a second I'm confused. The red hair and the strawberries make me think of Suki and what we never had.
Hildr wraps her powerful legs around me and her fur-trimmed leather skirt rides up high on her smooth thighs. She unzips the front of my jumpsuit and I grab her firm ass. She's not wearing any underwear.
What would it have been like if I had been here with Suki instead? Something stings my eye, and a drop of saltwater detaches itself from my eyelash and floats in the air. It splashes Hildr's cheek.
“Hey, what's this?”
She wipes the moisture away and licks it from her rough hand.
“Are you crying, little man?”
“Nah, I got your hair in my eye.”
She leans back and her eyes narrow.
“You're not as tough as you think you are, Perez.”
She gently shakes her head, making the beads in her hair clink.
“Deep down, you are a decent person. A good man.”
She smiles, but there's something about that smile that unsettles me. Like she's trying to sweet-talk me into something.
I shake my head, sending more drops of water across the room like tiny crystal projectiles.
“No, I'm not, Hildr.”
I wriggle out of my black T-shirt and throw it at the surveillance camera where it lodges over the lens.
“You have no idea how bad I can be.”
“Then show me,” she purrs and pushes my face down between her smooth thighs.
She is a natural redhead.
* * *
Braden's voice crackles from the speakers. “Starting landing burn in two minutes. Strap down, puppies.”
I study Hildr as we float together, still entwined. Our clothes and weapons bounce lazily off the walls and crates around us. “Are we done here?”
“You look like you're done, Perez.”
She smiles as we untangle. “I could go all night.”
“Hold that thought.”
“Better get me a ride out of here if you want more.”
“I'll see what I can do.”
I retrieve my jumpsuit and boots where they drift close by and pull them on. Hildr pulls her skirt down and laces the front of her top back up. I grab my T-shirt from the camera and pull it on.
“Ready?” I pick my weapons out of the air.
She smiles and her green eyes twinkle. “If you don't want to go again.”
“It would be a wonderful way to go, but I want to survive this burn. Come on.”
Hildr sighs but follows me out of the cargo bay and up the short airlock passageway.
As we float into the troop bay, Hildr ties the cord of her leather skirt and I realise my clothes are in shambles. I casually push the T-shirt down into my jumpsuit and zip up the front.
I'm not casual enough.
Jagr notices and her face congeals into a hard-to-read grimace.
What? She said herself that what we had was a one-time thing.
Women. Can't live with them. Can't space them.
“Jagr, I've been thinking,” I say as I pull myself into my crash seat. “We could use an extra pair of hands, and Hildr is good with guns.”
“I'm guessing that's not all she's good with,” Jagr says with a glance at Hildr who straps down opposite me.
“Can you afford to lose a shooter?”
Jagr looks sceptic. But at least she's not refusing outright.
Hildr lowers the safety bar on her seat. “I want to avenge Ragnwald, Jagr. Grant me this chance.”
Jagr thinks it over. Then she nods. “Fine. But they are your responsibility, Perez. She and the priest.” She points them out like I forgot who they are.
“Got it.”
“Braden,” Jagr calls. “We're not going down. Take us to Muspelheim.”
“Sure thing, boss. Plotting alternative course. Give me two minutes.”
“You said there had been developments, Jagr?”
She swallows her anger and is back in control of the situation. “Yeah. There's been a change of plan. Command has brought in Tyrus. We're playing second fiddle on this one.”
“What's Tyrus?”
“Terran black ops. You crossed paths on Utopia a couple of days ago.”
I give her a stiff smile. “Didn't work out so well for them, did it?”
“No. Not quite.”
I nod. “So, it was they who took out the Utopian Front.”
“Not they, Perez. Him. Brandon Tyrus is one man.”
“Oh, come on. Are you saying one man took out the Front on his own?”
“I am, and he's inbound for Muspelheim, braking into orbit as we speak. He'll meet us on the ground. We'd better get going. He's not a man you want to keep waiting.”
“If he's such a hotshot, you should have called him to do your dirty work instead of me.”
“We did. He was busy.”
“What?”
That hurt my pride. “I was not your first choice?”
“Nope. But you were available.”
Fuckin' A.
Soledad leans close. “You're old, Perez.”
“I'm not old. What the hell kind of name is Brandon Tyrus, anyway? Sounds like the hero in some cheap ass video game.”
“What's a video game?” Soledad looks confused.
“Fuck you, Soledad.”
“Not gonna happen, old man.”
I lower my safety bar.
“Everybody tucked in?” Braden calls from the cockpit.
It feels like Jagr's gaze is drilling holes in my skull, but it's only the injection needles pumping my bloodstream full of chemicals again.
“Muspelheim, here we come in three … two … one …”
The Sundowner's powerful engines ignite.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, we're on our way to Muspelheim. The eight-minute, 20g acceleration from the orbit of Nifelheim was a bitch. The burn to get into orbit around Muspelheim will be even worse. Space flight is no fun when you're in a hurry.
We left the Shiloh far behind, coasting along at a much more leisurely acceleration. Trust those navy softies to ride in comfort. They will arrive in Muspelheim orbit about an hour behind us in case we need them. We don't know what we'll find on that yellow ball, but if our experiences so far are anything to go by, a battleship will come in handy.
I close my eyes and lie back in my seat to enjoy the weightless part of the journey between the burns. Everything goes soft around the edges and I drift off towards sleep. When was the last time I slept? I can't even recall.
A burst of static startles me out of my slumber. A glance at my wrist console tells me I've been out for almost two hours. Shit. We're almost there.
“Perez?” The voice is garbled but legible.
“Is that you, Aeryn?” I sit up in my seat.
“Where am I? I couldn't see. Why couldn't I see?” There's panic in the construct's voice. That's new.
“We're on the Sundowner, heading for Muspelheim, remember?”
“Is that you, Perez? Why was everything dark?” The construct's voice is now clear as rain.
“Yes, it's me. I was sleeping.”
“Why the fuck would that impact my vision?”
“Um …”
“Why can't I move?” The construct's voice rises in panic again. Almost like an actual person.
“You're inside my skull.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You're implanted at the base of my skull, connected to my cervical cortex with some hi-tech wizard crap.”
“The fuck I am.”
I don't like where this conversation is going. This does not sound like a construct.
“Um … Who are you?”
“It's Winger. You know that, Perez. What the fuck have you done to me?”
Oh, shit. Aeryn said she was being attacked by a virus. If that virus was a part of Mimr, could it have infected her with … sentience? I've seen enough weird shit these last couple of days to rule anything out.
“Well, in a way you are Winger. You are a construct, taken from a snapshot of Winger's brain about two months ago.”
“Stop fucking around Perez. This isn't funny.”
“I'm not joking, Aeryn.”
Silence.
“So, you mean I'm …”
“I'm sorry, Aeryn. You are not Winger. You're …”
I stop myself. I can't bring myself to say “just a brain scan”. That would hit much too close to home for me.
“I'm what?” There are tears in her voice.
“You're you, Aeryn.”
Another lengthy period of silence.
Then she screams.
If ever there was a perfect rendition of existential angst, it is this scream. I clamp my hands over my ears, but I can't shut out the howling.
Eventually, the screams give way to sobs.
“Hey, Aeryn. It could be worse.”
“How could it be worse?” she sobs.
“You could be stuck in Wagner's head.”
“Yes. That would be worse,” she snivels. At least she has stopped screaming.
Why am I calling it “she”?
Soledad has been napping in her seat across the aisle. Now she glares at me. “What the fuck's wrong with you, Perez?”
“Nothing. I talk in my sleep. That's all.”
“Fuck that. You weren't sleeping. You're losing it.”
“It was nothing. Trust me.”
“Nothing?”
“Sorry, Aer. Maybe we should keep this a secret. For the time being.”
She thinks it over.
“You might be right. So, what now?”
“Do you remember where we are? What we're doing?”
“Yes, I remember everything. How is that even possible?”
“Good. Take your time to adjust to your surroundings. When we're back in Masada, we'll talk to Winger about extracting you from my head. You'll be all right. I promise.”
That seems to calm her down.
“Sounds like a plan.”
“And Aeryn?”
“Yes?”
“Let's keep the screaming to a minimum, shall we?”
“Can't promise anything.”
I peer at my wrist console again. Time for the brake. “Now I've got things to do, Aeryn. I'm here for you if you need to talk.”
“Thanks, Perez.”
“Hold on people, six-minute burn starting in three, two, one …”
I read somewhere that an untrained human body can survive a braking force of about 12g for several minutes when facing forwards. That's graphically described as “eyeballs out”. A human can survive 17g when facing backwards, or “eyeballs in”. We're not untrained, we're not human, and Braden knows that. She brakes a lot harder. It feels like someone has parked a starship on my chest.
Six horrible minutes later we're back in Zero-G, in orbit around a sulphur moon in the ass-end of space.
“Welcome to sunny Muspelheim,” Braden announces over the intercom.
How can she sound so chirpy? “It's a sweltering one hundred and seventy-nine degrees C down on the surface. The weather forecast for today is heavy methane clouds with wind speeds up to a hundred metres per second and showers of acid rain. Don't wear your best clothes, boys and girls.”
It sounds like a blast.
I glance around the troop bay.
Jagr and Soledad check readings on their wrist consoles while Finn and Hildr talk in low voices. The priest is asleep.
“Hang on.”
Braden's voice crackles over the intercom again. “Scanners report an anomaly. Jagr, Perez, you might want to see this.”
Anomaly? I don't like the sound of that.
“Perez. Let's go.”
Jagr pushes the release button on her seat. “Now.”
“Ma'am, yes ma'am.” I hit my release button, then push off and follow her to the cockpit.
Not too far below hangs the boiling yellow clouds of the yellow moon Muspelheim. It's named after the land of the fire giants in Norse mythology, and it's a fitting name.
The moon doesn't look anomalous to me. Unless you count the lightning bolts flashing between the yellow cloud-tops in the greatest thunderstorm I've ever seen.
Jagr grabs the headrest of Braden's seat, making sure not to interfere with the neural interface cables linking her pilot to the ship. “What have you got, Braden?”
“I don't know.”
She fingers her lips. “This is a rocky moon, right?”
“Yeah, last time I checked.” Jagr nods.
“A rocky moon would be massively heavy.”
“It would.”
“Well, this one isn't as massive as it should.” Braden swivels one of her screens around on its arm to show us an array of holographic schematics. Scrolling rows of numbers complement the bars and charts.
Jagr studies the display without uttering a word, until she sees what Braden has already seen. “What the hell?” The numbers mean something to her.
I see nothing out of the ordinary. “What is it?”
“Braden, tell him.” Jagr keeps scanning the numbers, looking for an explanation to the anomaly. “In simple layman's terms,” she adds with ice in her voice.
I scowl at her. She ignores me.
“Well, I noticed our orbit around the moon was not stable. We were drifting away from it at a constant rate, suggesting something was off about my calculations.” She waggles her head, and her blue mohawk flows like the long tail of a fish. “Yeah, I know. It's not common, but it does happen. I redid the maths and came up with the same numbers, and we were still drifting. A scan of the moon showed it weighs in at about zero point two per mille the mass of Nirvana.”
“Mmm-hmm,” I nod, trying to sound knowledgeable. I have no clue where she is going with this.
“Common sense and previous measurements say a moon of this size, with this composition, should be at least a point three or four. That is enough of a diff to trigger a warning flag in my book.”
“And what does all this tech crap mean? In simple layman's terms.” I glare at the back of Jagr's uncaring head.
“Well, Mr P. As far as I can tell — in simple layman's terms — that moon is hollow.”
A Claim of Cultural Appropriation
We drop from orbit in the Sundowner's huge armoured exosuits. Every surface on the suits is black and angled, to deflect projectile fire and offer optimal stealth performance. We look like aliens. Which I suppose we are. Humans do not belong on Muspelheim. No life does. This place is hell.
We didn't detect any satellites in orbit, so any listening devices they have will be down on the moon's surface. That means we can send updates back to the Sundowner in aimed data bursts. But Braden won't be able to signal back.
