Jungle (Colony Book 2), page 84
“We’ll get on it, then,” Jake said. “Might leave us with a couple of inoperable throwers, though.”
Ikeda paused, drumming her fingers on the table. “Do two, then,” she said. “Just in case.”
“Isn’t this a little much?” The question had come from Wells. “I mean, it was one run-in.”
“True,” Anna said. “But it pays to be prepared.”
“More than that,” the commander said. “But if the pollen is connected, then we could be seeing strange bulges in the trees where you were infected at any time. We don’t know if we will, but I’m not willing to relax simply because we don’t know. Especially as those trees are right on our doorstep. So until we have the full sky of it, rather than the open, I want to take every precaution. Understood?” The question was as much directed to the rest of the room as it was to Wells, and Ikeda waited for everyone to nod before speaking once more.
“Good,” she said. “Now, you two.” Her eyes turned toward Anna and Jake once more. “One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“As soon as you have these defensive systems in place, I want you to take control of the recon drones. Or better yet, one of you do it while the other is setting up, if possible. Fly over the area where we encountered these things, see if that fire of yours left any lasting impressions. Or if you can see anything from the air.”
“That’s outside of our operable range,” Jake said. “With the interference, we could arrange a flyby and record data, but that’s about it.”
“It’ll have to do, then,” Ikeda replied. “Anything else?” Jake looked at Anna, and then, as one, they both shook their heads. “Then does anyone else have anything worth reporting at this time?”
“I … uh …” Jane said, the group’s focus shifting in her direction as she spoke. “I do have an update. I fed the tissue samples Karabou gave me into the Razor and compared them to the samples I’ve been going over so far.”
“Did you determine its XNA?” Silva asked, leaning forward on his elbows, an intense look on his face.
“Ah … not yet,” Wells said. “I’m close, with this additional entry, but there are still some discrepancies I’m trying to clear up. But in another day, perhaps, I think I’ll have finally isolated the genetic makeup.”
“Interesting,” Naomi said, cocking her head to one side. The motion made light glint off of her shaved scalp. “But does that have anything to do with our immediate circumstances?”
“Getting a lock on a genetic code of some kind could answer a lot of questions,” Johan said quickly. “It could give us the leads to a lot of answers about what’s really going on here and where we may have messed up.”
“Keep trying,” Ikeda said. “But let me know once you’ve figured out what it is. For something that’s taken so long, it has to be interesting in some way.”
“Gracias,” Jane said. “I will.”
“Good.” The commander spread her fingers on the tabletop as she rose, looking at the rest of them. “Does anyone else have anything to add?” Silence reigned for a few seconds, and then she nodded. “Very well; meeting adjourned. You all have things to do, so get to it.”
***
“All right,” Anna called from down below. “You ready?”
Jake shifted his feet, eyeing the armored boots of his security suit as they scraped against the roof of the bio-hab. He was braced; everything looked ready. Both his hands were tightly wrapped around the cable Anna had tossed him a minute earlier, held one atop the other in front of his chest. “Yeah,” he called back. “I think so.”
“Okay,” came her reply. He looked down at her, watching as she prepared to lift the heavy sentry gun from the ATV’s rear cargo rack. “Just like the others. I lift, you pull, when it gets too high up just brace it.”
“Got it,” he said, spreading his feet slightly and tensing his shoulders as he lowered himself into a crouch. “Ready.”
“And … lift!”
He let out a grunt as he pulled upwards, the cable stretching tight beneath his fingers. For not the first time that day, he felt a faint pang of loss for his dive suit. The security suit had a soft exoskeleton effect, but it hadn’t added nearly as much strength as a skinsuit had.
His hands were nearly level with his shoulders now, and he began to push with his legs, rising up until the weight he was carrying suddenly tripled.
“Hold it there!” Anna called. He managed to grunt in reply, but little else. His arms were screaming after already having lifted five of the heavy guns, and even holding one in place was a bit of a trial.
Why are these things so blasted heavy? he wondered as Anna took a few steps back from the side of the bio-hab before starting forward at a run. But he already knew the answer, and before she had even kicked off of the front of the ATV, throwing herself upward, he was mentally reviewing the explanation she’d given him.
Because they’re highly durable and work under a wide array of conditions and abuse, he thought as Anna’s armored hands grasped the lip of the building and, with the momentum she already had, pulled her entire body easily over the edge. She landed on her feet, already moving to help him pull the sentry gun the rest of the way up to the roof of the bio-hab.
The next few seconds was nothing but faint grunting and burning muscles as they maneuvered the gun up onto the roof and then over to the nearby mount. Only when it had dropped into place with a heavy metal thunk and they had pulled the lifting cable free did Jake let himself sink back, shaking his hands and arms to help the blood rush back into them.
“I know,” Anna said, shaking her head as she began sliding the bolts that would hold the gun into position, a faint metallic rasp following each one. “Ridiculously heavy. Surplus; I guess UNSEC’s got to save costs somewhere.”
He nodded and reached into one of the pouches on his suit, pulling out a number of washers and nuts. Modern as the guns were, some tools and fittings were simply classic. He bent down and began sliding the washers over the end of each bolt. “The thing that gets me,” he said, pausing as he almost dropped one of them. “Is that these are supposed to go on the roof, but I don’t see how the team’s supposed to do that without something like a skinsuit or an exo-suit.”
“I think you’re supposed to use more people,” Anna said as she slid the last bolt into place with a heavy, metal thunk.
“Right.” The last washer went into place and he moved back to the first bolt, fishing in his pouches for the ratchet and plucking it out. Meanwhile Anna had merely wrapped her fingers around the other end of the bolt. He didn’t doubt for a moment that it was an effective substitute for a wrench. “But what about on high-gravity worlds? I mean, this thing is actually pretty heavy—”
“And old,” she added as he began tightening the nut.
“Right, and old,” he said. “But we still only got it up here because you’re augmented.”
“More people?” She shrugged. “Don’t know, but I really don’t want to waste any time thinking about it. Maybe they send energy weapons to high-gravity worlds. Lasers or something. Speaking of which, though” she said as they moved to the next bolt. “We’ll want to sight these in before we put up the fence.”
“Won’t the sonic fencing field ignore one of these?”
“Sure,” she said as the ratchet began to click. Next bolt. “But we could also hit one of the posts. I’d rather leave bullet holes in those trees out there.”
“Good point,” he said, cinching down another nut. They tightened the last two down in relative silence, and then there was only the process of hooking up the various cables to integrate the turret into the hab’s security network. Which Anna left to him, coiling their cable and dropping off the side of the hab as she went to collect the last sentry gun. There was a faint hum as the ATV came to life, and then she was moving out of sight, headed for the armory.
And … there, he thought as he connected the last of the color-coded plugs and snapped the armored cover shut. Done. He rose, arching his back and stretching, and then started walking across the top of the hab toward the last, unsecured arm. From down below he heard the faint sounds of Anna maneuvering the last turret onto the back of the ATV, just audible over the distant wind.
Going to be an interesting day, he thought, turning and staring at where normally there would have been a distant sunrise. Instead, there was just a mass of grey, the front of a titanic cloud system moving toward their position. With everything that had been going on, it hadn’t quite been a surprise that most of them had forgotten to check the eye’s weather report—and if not for Naomi coming to inform him and Anna before they’d left, they wouldn’t have even known. It was the largest weather system to pass over their position yet, but unlike the others, was actually being preceded by a full front of thick, bland-white cloud.
All the more reason to get this done quickly, he thought as he neared the end of the arm. The drones can handle some pretty rough conditions, but if it really starts to storm, we’re going to have to recall them.
Which meant the quicker they got done, the better chance they’d have at getting the kind of information they were looking to gather before the drones got grounded by the weather. Unless they assigned someone else to run the drones out beforehand.
Except everyone else is either catching up on much needed sleep or working with the remains of that hopper we brought back, he thought as he stepped up to the edge of the arm and looked down. Anna was backing the ATV up to the side of the hab, almost ready to go. And honestly, that’s not a bad idea. They could set the drones to run autonomously, but … they were fairly simple and straightforward, especially if they lost connection to the hab’s communication systems.
Blasted interference, he thought as Anna tossed one end of the cable up to him. If this place was normal, we could just run the drones from our suits and eyeball everything from here. But no, this place has to be … well, whatever it is.
Ugh, he thought, settling into a lifting position. You need sleep. You’re not thinking clearly. From down below, Anna let out a curt “Ready?”
“Ready,” he called, and began pulling. Once again the cable went tight, and again his muscles began to protest as he hauled the turret upwards. Again there was the pause as he held it in place, Anna climbing up atop the hab beside him and helping him pull the gun the rest of the way up. There was a loud bang followed by a piercing shriek as the turret scraped against the side of the hab, but then it was over the edge and their hands were underneath it, carrying it over to the mount.
“You’re quiet,” Anna said as they removed the cable and began bolting the heavy gun in place. “That usually means you’re thinking.”
“In this case it’s more trying,” he said as he dropped a washer, sending it skipping across the rooftop and over the edge. He watched it go, then pulled another from his pocket. They’d brought spares for a reason. “As in trying to think. My head’s just—” He shook back a yawn.
“Tired,” he said, looking at Anna and marveling at how alert she looked. “The stimulants aren’t working the best.”
“Well, they were a couple of years out of date,” Anna said he began tightening one of the bolts. “So they’re probably not kicking as well as they should. Last night’s spotty sleep schedule probably didn’t help, plus everything else we did. If you want, you can go get a nap while I—”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Hard labor I can do. It’s just thinking is a little—” He dropped one of the nuts, catching it before it could go far. “Well, you know,” he said, offering her a quick shrug. “Wish I had your augments.”
“That makes two of us,” she said. “No offense.”
“None taken.” The last nut went into place, tightening down against the metal of the turret. He let out a sigh and stood, once again eyeing the incoming cloud cover.
“Worried about that?” Anna asked as she began connecting the turret’s cables.
“A bit, yeah,” he said, still eyeing the oncoming clouds. Is it just my imagination, or are they closer now? He pulled his eyes away. Definitely my imagination. “I’m wondering if maybe we shouldn’t just cue up a preprogrammed flight plan right now and let them run their course.”
“One of us would have to go back inside,” Anna pointed out as she shut the cover over the cables with a sharp snap.
“We could ask someone else to do it.”
“We could,” she said, rising and walking over next to him, her eyes on the distant cloud cover. “It does look like it’s coming this way. It might be a good idea.” She looked at him. “Up to you, then, since you suggested it. What do you think?”
“Better safe than sorry?” he suggested, giving her a half-smile. He couldn’t see her face through her visor, but he knew from experience that the way her head had tilted slightly to the side meant that she had returned the expression.
“Good call. You want to call it in, or shall I take care of it?”
“I can do it,” Jake said, reaching to cover another yawn and then remembering that he was wearing his helmet. “It shouldn’t be that hard to talk someone through it while loading ammo cases on the ATV.”
“All right,” Anna said, nodding. “I’ll get the guns ready to load.”
Jake turned and walked to the edge of the hab, dropping and landing on the back of the ATV without too much difficulty. The impact was a bit harsh, even with the rear suspension absorbing the impact, but not too much so. He let out another yawn as he swung himself into the saddle and began rolling the machine forward, back alongside one of the hab’s arms.
All right, he thought as he maneuvered the machine around the edge of the arm and toward the garage. Who’d be best to assign to the drones? Probably Ikeda. The commander had mentioned she’d had experience using the devices before, hadn’t she? If not, she’d been on quite a few expeditions. She would have had to pick up the skill at some point.
He raised his hand to call, but then paused. No, better to come up with a backup in case she can’t do it. Except … most of the team were involved in research of one form or another trying to puzzle out why they had been attacked. Kombes was busy making sure Morel was still stable and keeping an eye on Jane.
Lankiss might work, but she’s analyzing the tissue samples. Dang. He turned the handlebars to the side, the ATV rolling right up into the garage and coming to a stop next to the titanic stack of ammo boxes he and Anna had taken the time-intensive effort to ferry out earlier. Well crud, maybe I should just ask Ikeda. Even just to know who to assign it to.
He adjusted his comm channel, connecting to the hab’s network directly and pinging the commander. Then, while he waited for a response, he began lifting the bland, grey ammo boxes up onto the back of the ATV one by one.
He didn’t have to wait long. There was a faint clatter in his ear as the connection opened, something on the other end banging against the microphone, and then the commander was speaking. “Ikeda here, Tames. What do you need?” The tone was brusque, clipped. Clearly she’d been in the middle of something.
“Sorry to bother you, commander,” he said as he lifted another heavy box of ammunition. “But Anna and I were just taking a look at the weather, and we’ve got that pretty large system moving in. If we want to get those drones out there, it might be a better idea to do it now, rather than later, before everything sweeps down on us.”
“Wind has picked up in the last hour,” came her reply. Another ammo box went into place with a satisfying thunk. “How’s work going out there?”
“Well, we’re almost done installing the guns,” he said, trying to hide a grunt as he hefted another box. “But we’ve yet to get started on the fence. We were hoping we could get someone in there to go to the armory and send the drones out for us, just in case. Anyone free?”
“We’re fairly busy, but that sounds doable,” Ikeda said. “Let me think. Wells is making a number of breakthroughs toward identifying this planet’s XNA, thanks to the hopper remains. What she’s finding is—” her voice stopped, and Jake could almost envision the commander taking a moment to compose herself and get back on topic.
“Anyway,” she continued a moment later. “Wells is busy with that. Lankiss and I are aiding her. Silva is still studying that fragment of bark he brought back.”
“Bark?”
“He thinks it might have been part of the ‘shell’ that the hoppers grew from. One of the growths? He said it reminded him of something and he’s been busy ever since.” Jake lifted a final ammo case into place and then went to work strapping the pile down. “And given his mood over the last few days, I’m loathe to pull him away.”
“Understandable,” he said, cinching one of the straps tight. “Last resort.”
“What about Price?” she asked. “He’s running sims at the moment, trying to see how our new discovery factors into the overall ecosystem, but he could probably spare some time.”
“As long as he can run a computer and set up a simple flight path with a few selectable commands,” Jake said, tightening down the last strap and moving for the front of the ATV. “That’s all it should take.”
“Right, give me a moment.”
“I’ve got time,” he said, but the commander was already “gone.” He lifted another ammo box as he waited, adding it to the front of the ATV. A second, third, fourth, and fifth followed it into place, each settling with a dull thump as he placed them on the cargo rack.
“Tames?” The commander was back. “He says he can do it. He’ll call you as soon as he reaches the armory.”
“Good. Thanks.”
“Not a problem,” the commander replied. “Better a small inconvenience now than a large one later. Get us that survey. Ikeda out.”
“I will,” he said. “Thanks.” He didn’t get a reply, and a moment later his hud confirmed that the connection had been closed.
He eyed the stack of ammunition currently sitting atop the front rack of the ATV, along with what was left, and made a quick mental estimate. A few more, and we can get this done in just two trips.
