Under A Winter Sun, page 23
The moon's thick atmosphere does a splendid job of braking our descent. It also heats my suit alarmingly fast. I watch the heat-sensor readout climb from near absolute zero to over a thousand degrees Centigrade as we fall.
“It's hot out there, Perez.”
“Not much I can do about it, Aeryn.”
“Just letting you know. Be careful. We don't want to die.”
“Noted. Now hush.”
There's no point in pondering the risk of suit failure. If it happens, it happens. I will never even notice.
The yellow clouds get thicker as we fall, and the last electromagnetic radiation in the thin band we call light flickers out and dies. Increasing turbulence tosses me around like a marble in an ancient pinball machine.
“Approaching the ground, Perez. Get ready.”
I watch the altimeter spin through the numbers. The impact is ten seconds away when the suit triggers its preprogrammed braking routine. Powerful servos position my body into an arrowhead configuration as the suit goes into glide mode. A monofilament membrane deploys between my arms and legs, and the suit steers me towards our landing zone. The Terrans build quality stuff.
A hundred metres from the ground the glide-sail retracts, the parachute deploys, and I'm yanked skywards. I can't see shit through the sulphur clouds, and if the suit hadn't been keeping tabs, I would have splattered all over the ground. Lucky for me, the suit has my back and lands me light as a feather on the uneven yellow gravel.
“We're down. Welcome to Muspelheim.”
“Thanks, Aeryn. Where are the others?”
“Look around and I will see if I can spot them.”
The gravel crunches underfoot as I turn to survey my surroundings. I can't hear the crunching, but I can sense it through the hypercarbon soles of my suit. I've landed in a hollow between sharp rocks taller than I am. Everything is yellow in this damn place. Yellow ground, yellow rocks, and yellow clouds under a yellow sky. Visibility is poor. We dare not use active radar for fear of being detected.
“Nothing. You?”
“Nope.”
Without using the tracking beacons, it will be a bitch finding the others. Lucky for us, these suits have starlight navigation systems. Even if the stars are not visible to human eyes through the thick clouds, the suit can still detect them. They give the onboard computers plenty of references to compute my position. As I wait for the calculations to finish, I detach and fold the parachute and hide it under a pile of rocks. You can never be too careful. It would be just my luck if a Goliath went to take a leak and stumbled on it.
“Nice place to pick for a date.”
“This is not a date, Aeryn.”
“Aw.”
“If we survive this, I promise I'll take you somewhere nice.”
“I'll hold you to that promise.” There's an edge to Aeryn's voice. She still hasn't come to terms with her current situation.
A jolly chirp from the nav system informs me the computer knows where we are. I pull up the map on the suit's HUD. Hmm, not too shabby. I'm about a click away from the rendezvous point. The suit did an excellent job getting me close to our objective. A small indicator pops up on my visor to show the way.
“Not too bad for Earth tech.” The engineer in Aeryn can't help being impressed. For the first time since she became self-aware, Aeryn sounds almost normal. I bet the idea of being a construct intrigues her. Maybe that's all that's keeping her from screaming.
“Yeah, I'm impressed too.”
I set off over the gravel in pursuit of the HUD indicator.
I hope the others made it. There are so many ways you can die on a suit drop.
* * *
Ten minutes later, I reach the target. The others are already there. I count five suits. Two of the suits are a lot larger than the others, and one of them has a sword on its back. One suit is much smaller. These things have a wide adjustment range, but Soledad had to work to get the Goliaths to fit.
The others look fine. No sign of this Tyrus guy. I hope he burned in the atmosphere. He sounds like a prat.
Five weapons point in my direction as I approach. Their suit sensors will have told them I'm one of the good guys, but I raise my hands just in case. We don't need any blue-on-blue kills. There will be plenty of other ways to die on this mission.
I wave to them and Rivera waves back. We go into a huddle and pull out our communications cords. I plug into the suit next to me, and the others follow suit to form a primitive ring network.
“Right.” Jagr's voice is tense. “So far so good. We're still alive, but we don't know what we're up against, so pay attention, weapons at the ready. Do not fire unless fired upon. For all we know, this could be a fucking Goliath kindergarten.”
“We don't have kindergartens,” Finn says.
“Anyway,” Jagr goes on. “According to our sources, Eirik's ship landed somewhere over there.”
I'm not sure why, but she points off into the mist. “It's a one-hour walk to the landing site. There we will get an idea of what the Goliaths are up to.”
Her helmet turns to Finn and Hildr. “And stop them.”
Hildr raises her hands, palms out. “You have no objections from us there, little woman. Whatever that cunt Eirik is up to, I want to stop him too.”
“I kill him,” Finn states in a flat voice. “No one touch him. He is mine.”
“Can't promise you anything, Goliath,” Soledad says. “I've killed all kinds of people, but never a Goliath. If I get the chance, I'll take him out.”
I wince. “Jagr. Better let Finn have Eirik. It's a cultural thing.”
Soledad's helmet turns to me. I can only guess she glares at me through the smoked face-shield. Jagr thinks it over.
“Soledad, leave Eirik to the Goliath. We don't want a claim of cultural appropriation on our hands. It's a safe bet there are more of them in there, and if this goes sideways, you will get to kill a lot of them.”
“Works for me,” Soledad says.
“Any last words before we move out?”
No one has any last words.
I look around. “Where's Tyrus?”
“Don't worry. He'll be there when we get there.” Her confidence rings slightly off. “OK, people. Move out.”
Jagr waves us on, and we follow her into the thick mist, with the communications cables stretched like thin umbilical cords between us.
* * *
An hour later, my suit's soft female voice informs me we have arrived at our destination. There's nothing there except the rim of an enormous crater. No Tyrus.
“So, where is this Typhus guy?” I ask on the open channel.
“He should be right here.” Jagr taps the console on the arm of her suit. She waits for feedback and points to a cluster of tall, jagged rocks, dimly visible like yellow ghosts in the mist. “Over there.”
She walks over to the rocks, the communication cable stretched to its limit. “That's odd.” She bends down and picks something up.
“What is it?”
She opens her hand. “It's his transponder.”
Crap. “So, he wasn't as good as you thought.”
“Say again?” an unfamiliar voice asks on the closed-circuit.
What the fuck?
I turn around, and there's a new exosuit connected to our little network, between Soledad and Hildr. Camouflage-weave drapes the suit like the shroud of a corpse, rendering it almost invisible in the yellow mist. No wonder I didn't see him in the gloom. “But you should have spotted him, Aeryn.”
“Yes, I should. That is odd.”
So, he's not an amateur. Good to know.
Tyrus' voice is hard and so sure of itself I hate him already.
“Glad you could make it.”
Soledad claps the newcomer's shoulder. “Tyrus. Good to see you.” Tyrus carries a heavy assault rifle and a huge cloth-covered sniper rifle on his back. There's a grinning skull painted over the faceplate of his helmet. The same one he had on Utopia. It still looks stupid.
Tyrus goes on. “You know why we're here. We do this smooth and by the numbers. We do it my way, or not at all.”
“And what way is that?” I ask.
“You're Perez, I take it.”
The skull on his faceplate turns my way. “So, you think you're a tough guy who doesn't take orders from anyone? You can drop that shit right now. This is my mission. If you don't follow my orders, I will kill you. Got that?”
“I'd love to see you try.”
“Boys, cut it out.”
It's Jagr. “I didn't ask for this situation either, but here we are. I plan to survive this shit, so please, Perez, follow Tyrus' lead. Tyrus, don't push his buttons. When we're done here, I couldn't give a rat's ass if you two go blow yourselves up with your inflated egos. But down here on the ground, you play nice. Both of you. All right?”
I glare at Tyrus. “Whatever.”
“Tyrus?”
He glares back. “Whatever. Ma'am.”
“Good. So, what's the plan, Tyrus?”
“There's something down in that crater. Perez, you and that big guy,” he points to Finn. “Go check it out. Jagr, set up perimeter defences over there.”
He points to the ghostly rocks where Jagr found his beacon. “Move.”
I throw him a quick salute. “Aye aye, boss.”
It will be good to get away from this arsehole. “Finn, with me.”
“Jawohl.” The largest suit unplugs from the others and lumbers towards me through the fog.
Tyrus comes back over the wire. “If you're not back in half an hour, we will assume you have been compromised. Do not expect us to come to your rescue.”
“Whatever happened to 'leave no man behind'?”
“It got fucked along with the other standard protocols when that comms-spike fried the telecom systems of the inner planets. Everyone is expendable now. Is that clear, Perez?”
“Like vodka.”
“Good luck, Perez,” Hildr says. “Be careful.”
“You're Finn's mother, Hildr. Not mine.”
“Fuck you, Perez.” I can hear she's smiling.
“When I get back.”
Jagr cuts in. “Enough, Perez.”
There's a strange edge to her voice. She must be more spooked by this whole moon-sized mystery than I am. “Move out.”
I unplug from the team and plug directly into Finn's suit.
“It's you and me now, big guy. Like the good old days.” I slap his armoured shoulder.
“Yes. Like good old days. If good old days were yellow, like my farts.” I can hear the smile in his voice. I'll never understand the Goliath psyche. We're on a hostile moon in the depths of space, on a mission to kill his brother, and Finn is telling fart jokes. It's hilarious, and I can't stop myself from laughing.
“You're crazy, Finn, you know that?”
“I know.”
The grin fades from my lips as we move out into the sulphur clouds. I hope we find nothing in that crater, so we can go back to somewhere you can see further than you can piss.
* * *
After about two minutes, a small warning light blinks on in the lower field of my HUD. Something about “suit integrity breach imminent” something-something. That sounds ominous. We don't know how well our suits or weapons will stand this corrosive atmosphere.
We'd better hurry.
The clouds part, and we stare across what seems like an endless void after the claustrophobic fog. Beneath our feet, the rocky ground drops sharply away at the rim of the giant crater. The suit's rangefinder informs me the far side is thirteen hundred metres away.
“I guess this is the crater.”
Finn hums.
A hundred metres below the rim, a thicker layer of roiling yellow fog obscures the floor of the crater. Something down there is disturbing what passes for air on this rock, and the clouds boil rhythmically. Like something breathing.
Apart from that, there's nothing here. Only rocks and a shitload of clouds.
There's a tap on my shoulder. “Look.” Finn points into the distance.
Something moves down in the fog. Something bright, and it's coming up fast.
“Contact,” I call, and we dive behind a rock at the rim of the crater. A fighter ship breaches the clouds and tears for the stars above, trailing fog like the tentacles of a deep-sea monster.
So, there is something here.
I move to get up, and the tip of my rifle bangs the ground with a clang. What now?
I brush the dust from the ground. This is no ordinary ground. It's made of metal.
I survey the crater's rim. It's oddly symmetric. This thing is artificial.
Before the implications of that can sink in, I turn to Finn.
“Right. Ready to do some climbing, buddy?”
“Always.”
The suits come equipped with all kinds of handy bits and pieces, including a kilometre of thin hypercarbon wire attached to a powered winch. We pull them out and secure them around the rock.
“Last one to the bottom buys the first round,” I call to Finn before I unplug the comms and jump over the edge. The gravity of Muspelheim is only a fraction of that of Elysium, but a fall can still kill us. I let myself drop for a bit, enjoying the sensation. Then I pull on the brakes and let my momentum and the wire swing me to the vertical wall of the crater. I hit hard, but the suit's servos absorb the impact, and I run straight down the metal wall. The rock is porous, and great chunks of it drop into the depths as we run.
My surroundings grow dark as I enter the thick fog. The suit switches to infrared, and there is Finn, running beside me. Like the good old days. Below us, there's nothing but clouds.
Faint lights from far down below pierce the mist, and something comes looming out of the clouds to meet us as we run.
Something vast.
* * *
Twenty minutes later we're back with the others.
“We were about to abandon you,” Tyrus greets us as we plug in. “What's down in that crater?”
“It's not a crater. It's a tunnel.”
“A tunnel?”
Jagr sounds surprised. “How deep does it go?”
“I don't know, but there's something down there. It could be a starship.”
Tyrus nods. “So that's where Eirik hid his ship.”
“Oh, no. That is not Eirik's ship. Eirik's ship could fly right up the ass of that fucker and it wouldn't even smile. That thing is huge.”
“So, they're hiding a big-ass ship down there. Why?”
“We didn't find anyone to ask.”
“I don't think it was a question, Perez,” Soledad says.
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really.” Soledad is pissed. Irony doesn't translate well through these suits.
“Silence.” Tyrus is such a killjoy. “Our mission is to discover what they are hiding down there.”
“We haven't got the manpower or the firepower to go down there, Tyrus, and you know that. That tunnel is large enough to house an army of Goliaths. Or two.”
“If there's an army down there, Command needs to know. We're going down, Perez.”
I sigh. “We're so screwed.”
“Maybe if we …” the priest tries, but that is as far as he gets before we all cut him off.
“No fucking prayers.”
“Oh. All right. Right. May I say one myself?”
Jagr sighs. “Just do it in silence.”
Soledad turns to me. “Perez. Remind me why you had to bring the priest.”
“For luck. And I like him.”
“You seem to like many people.” There's venom in Soledad's voice, and even behind the visor, I can tell she's looking at Jagr.
Tyrus clears his throat.
“Right people, this is the plan.”
You're Standing On It
It's not much of a plan.
“We get down there, take a peek, get back out again and bounce a report to the Shiloh off your ship in orbit.”
“What?”
I can't believe my ears. “That is your cunning plan?”
“Yes.”
“Care to share any details? Like, how we get down there? That cave is at least a kilometre deep.”
“We jump.”
“Jump?”
“Yes. Jump. Got a problem with that, Perez?”
“No. But how do we get up again?”
“Improvise and adapt, soldier.”
“Won't they see us coming?”
“The fog will provide optical cover.”
“Ever heard of radar and IR sensors?”
“These suits have state-of-the-art stealth capabilities. They won't see us coming.”
“What if we land on someone?”
“We kill them.”
“What if someone spots us?”
“We kill them.”
“What if someone sounds the alarm?”
I check myself. “No, forget that. We kill them.”
I simulate writing a note. “Kill everyone …”
“What are you doing, Perez?” Tyrus asks.
“Taking notes. I don't want to miss any details of this intricate plan.”
“Are you trying to be funny, Perez?”
“Yes.”
“You're not doing a splendid job of it.”
“I try my best. That's what counts, right?”
“Fuck you, Perez. I've killed men for less.”
“So have I.”
Jagr steps between us. “Boys, let go of your hard-ons and keep your eyes on the fucking ball.”
I stare at Tyrus. The skull painted on his opaque visor shows nothing of his emotions. What I wouldn't give to punch his face in.
I take a deep breath and let it out again. It doesn't help one bit, but for the sake of the others, I let the matter be. “OK. It's a brilliant plan. Let's go.”
“Perez …” Jagr cautions.
“Fine. Whatever. You're in charge, Typhus.”
Silence from Tyrus.
Then he too lets it go. “Keep your eyes and ears open. If we're compromised, our top priority is to transmit as much intel to Crom on the Shiloh as we can before they get us. Everything else, including our survival, is optional. Are we clear?”
