Frozen Sky

by Jack Stornoway

then killed him. Someone who wanted him to know who had killed him. Someone who wanted gloat.

  A mutiny on an American ship? It had been years since the Eco-Revolution had turned the Army Airforce against the Navy and Space Corps. Many Naval and Space Corps ships had experienced mutinies then, but this didn't make sense. This was a cargo freighter, and where could the mutineers go with a stolen airship? Maybe that was why they were parked here in the icecap. They had nowhere to go to. She checked the controls, everything seemed in working order, but the outer edge of the dust-storm was getting closer.

  Sandra quietly pulled off the bulky thermal-suit, and slipped her handgun from its holster. There was a murderer on board, a cold sadistic one, who taunted his victims, and she didn't want to be next. At least the gun was American, a standard issue Remington solid-state laser pistol. Of course the rebels had seized thousands during the Uprising, so it probably wouldn't convince anyone on board that she was an American ASF officer.

  She moved silently down the passageway to the crew quarters, for the first time wishing the Rebels had stealth technology. She reached the hatch to the mess, and listened, nothing. She opened the hatch as quietly as possible and peered inside. One of the crew was dead on the floor, slashed deeply across the chest with a plasma blade. There was no one else in the mess so she quietly walked over to the dead crewman and checked her insignia for rank, executive officer. She realized it might not be a mutiny, someone could be killing the entire crew. It could just be a heist.

  She crept back out into the hallway, and down to the next hatch, and listened, nothing. She quietly slid the hatch open, and found herself face to face with woman aiming a particle beam rifle right at her. The woman was black, and not one of these faded-Martian blacks that had never been in real sunlight, the woman was from Earth. Sandra hoped her tanned skin would also be recognized as being Earth-born, the Mars-born always recognized it.

  “Come in,” the woman ordered in a Southern accent quietly but sternly. “Close the hatch, and don't make any sudden moves or I'll shoot you.”

  “Trying to keep someone out?” Sandra asked as she shut the hatch. “Do you know who the murderer is?”

  “Murderer?” the woman asked with the sound of panic in her voice. “Who's dead?”

  “The captain and executive officer,” Sandra answered, and saw the woman's soul shatter. She was holding back her tears, trying to be harder than she really was. Sandra decided this couldn't be the killer. “Someone sliced them up with a plasma blade. Which is a much better weapon to use in here than that thing. Do you know what will happen if you fire that thing in here?”

  “You'll be vaporized, as will a chunk of the ship behind you, and I'll probably be blown out into the freezing cold,” the black woman answered calmly. “But if you think I'm taking it off you, or that I won't fire you're dead wrong. Now did you see anyone else dead out there? A black man, Earth-born, but lighter than me... mid-twenties?”

  “No, just the dead captain on the bridge, and the dead XO in the mess,” Sandra answered. “Whoever did it knew the captain and didn't like him.”

  “How'd you know that?” the woman asked.

  “He let them get real close, and they kept him alive long enough to know who did it,” Sandra answered. “Someone sadistic, probably a crewman. Are you in the crew?”

  The question got the woman's attention, but she didn't answer. She seemed to be considering what to make of Sandra. Sandra realized the uniform probably wasn't helping, and decided to explain herself. “I'm an American. Captain Sandra A. Pritchard, originally from New Jersey. I'm stationed with the American Aero-Space Forces out of American Utopia. I'm currently on loan to the Arean Army, and have been patrolling the southern border of Beihai for the past week. I was redirected up here to find you.”

  “Me?” the woman asked.

  “This ship,” Sandra clarified.

  The woman hesitated, then decided to believe Sandra. “I'm Elayne Williams, from North Carolina. This is the AMS Cacophony, out of American Utopia. My dad was the captain. We are en route for Hangtian with battle-skiffs and light arms, but we can't get enough altitude to with all the weight to get above the storm, so we headed up here to wait it out. My dad said the cold from the ice would dissipate the storm. But we've had problems with the com since we entered the ice-fields. So we sent a couple of the crew to Hyperborea for help.”

  “Solid idea about the storm,” Sandra stated. “Your dad was right. So far the cold has been dissipating the storm reasonably well, but there's no guarantee that it won't be able to reach this far into the ice-fields. What kind of aircraft are the crew you sent to Hyperborea flying?”

  “They aren't,” the Elayne replied. “They went on foot. It's only a few clicks over the ice-peaks. We would have flown, but we couldn't get the altitude with all the weight we're carrying.”

  “A few clicks over the ice-peaks?” Sandra repeated in disbelief. “Who sent them?”

  “André, my fiancée,” Elayne answered. “The man I asked about. I hope he's still alive. He told he to stay in the cabin, said something was wrong and he'd be back.”

  The slight whine of the hatch sliding open behind her made Sandra spin around and find herself face to face with somewhat overweight black man, Earth-born based on his skin tone. More than a decade of muscle memory had her gun trained on him as soon as she saw him, and he froze with an odd combination of surprise and something else on his face. “André I assume?”

  “André! Where have you been? This woman says dad is dead!” Elayne exclaimed, her voice conveying both her relief at seeing him and obvious bewilderment at the situation.

  André ignored his fiancée, his eyes fixed on Sandra. He was a taller than Sandra, but chubby, while she was solid muscle. The Confederate still-suit was skin-tight, so he had to know he couldn't take her in a fair fight. Sandra could see there was something about the still-suit he was confused by... something giving him pause. Was it the flag?

  “Who are you?” André finally in a flat unwavering voice.

  “Sandra Pritchard, Captain, American Aero-Space Forces out of American Utopia,” Sandra replied, observing André's face close as she spoke. “I've been flying the transport run up to Phobos since the Uprising. Currently on assignment with the Arean Army out of Hangtian flying patrols along the southern border. I was dispatched to find the Cacophony when you didn't show up Hangtian.”

  André listened to Sandra, his face betraying nothing. He seemed calm, there was nothing suspicious about him, yet... it wasn't right, a ship full of dead people and a man this calm. When Sandra finished he turned to Elayne, “No one could fly though this weather, or land on the ice sheet. This woman is lying.”

  “I've flown though worse,” Sandra said calmly, “and landing on dry ice isn't any harder than landing anywhere else. Either way, this is an American airship, down in Confederate territory, and I am an officer in the AASF, currently on assignment for the Arean Army. I understand you're running arms from American Utopia to the Confederacy. That gives me more than enough authority to demand to know what exactly is happening on this ship.”

  “There was a mutiny,” André answered calmly, “It has been dealt with. We will get under way once the storm passes. We don't need help.”

  André was talking slowly, very consistently, but slowly. It seemed he was stalling, but for what? Sandra realized the cabin only had the one hatch, and André was standing in it. She suddenly felt boxed in. What, no who was he waiting for?

  “The captain and XO are dead,” Sandra stated. “If there was a mutiny, who were the mutineers?”

  “The XO and captain killed each other when the XO tried to mutiny,” André answered calmly. Sandra knew he was lying because she'd seen the bodies, but there was nothing in his voice or mannerisms to indicate he wasn't being honest.

  “No,” Sandra decided to push the psychopath's buttons, if he had any, perhaps he would break his calm, she still had a gun on him. “I saw the bodies. The XO was gutted in the
mess. The captain slashed in the back of the neck at his post on the bridge. It would have taken a real psycho fucker to kill a man that way too. The only reason to kill a man that way is to watch him die slowly, so you can talk to him as he dies, and watch the life drain from his eyes. You have a real twisted fucker on board, probably has all kinds of mommy issues too, wants to go back and suck on her titties.”

  There was something there, some glimmer of a contained rage inside the man, but he remained calm with only the slightest hit of rage slipping into his voice. “I'm having a hard time seeing you as an American officer, you sound more like a Latina whore. Are you a Sudamérican operative here to commandeer the Cacophony?”

  Sandra laughed suddenly understanding, “One of us is. The captain and XO were killed separately, and the captain trusted the murderer enough to let him walk right up behind him.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” Elayne demanded.

  “He was slashed across the back of the neck by someone he knew was standing behind him. You don't ignore a stranger on your ship, and you certainly don't let them walk up right behind you.” Sandra explained. “His spine was stashed with a plasma-blade, but the rest of his neck was left intact. He could have remained conscious for about a minute like that, unable to move, unable to breathe, his heart