by M. D. Cooper
The Eidolon was now a very large, very stealthed, delta wing glider, flying silently through Galene’s nighttime skies.
His sensors showed him a view of the terrain, twenty kilometers below, bathed in a combination of moonlight and ringlight.
Systems’ status was minimized, replaced by a sectional map representing the terrain just north of Kusharo Springs, with a green line leading from the icon representing the Eidolon.
* * * * *
Kodi’s voice sounded calm and assured with just a touch of humor, reminding Terrance that the AI had once been an ESF Marine. His was a steadying presence, something Terrance was grateful for at the moment.
But Kodi’s words had Terrance’s mind going momentarily blank.
A little help…?
Then he saw a window pop up on the holo just as Logan announced,
Terrance felt a small shudder, just the tiniest bit of buffering, as the shuttle’s aerodynamic configuration changed with the release of two forward-facing trap doors, set low and to either side of the ship’s front fuselage. Two small propellers attached to twin turbine engines began to rotate, providing power to the shuttle’s hydraulics system.
Looking down at the deck beneath his feet, he spied a slightly depressed section about the width of his boot. He pressed hard, releasing a spring-loaded door that flew open with a loud click as he slid his foot back. A stick sprang up from the deck, connecting firmly with his waiting palm with a satisfying slap.
Terrance grasped the yoke firmly, knuckles whitening a bit as his hand convulsively tightened its grip.
Holy shit. A dead-stick landing….
He drew in a deep breath and then forcibly relaxed his grip, gluing his eyes to the instruments indicating airspeed, attitude, turn coordination and elevation. He forced his brain to recall everything he knew about the Icarus-class shuttle his company had designed.
There wasn’t much to do except bleed the perfect combination of speed and elevation. While he focused on flying the craft, Logan sent a tightbeam burst to Sakai and the two AIs from the New Saint Louis, identifying the landing site they’d selected.
As their destination drew closer, the holo updated with imagery Logan must have siphoned from satellite feeds earlier in the day, for they were brilliantly lit and easy to navigate.
Logan zoomed the view in and pinned a flat, grassy area that Terrance estimated was about twice as wide as the shuttle and just long enough for him to tuck the delta wing in for a short-field landing.
Clearances do not look good, Terrance thought as he spied several twenty-meter trees at the near end. Given the stall speed for this beast, he knew he’d be coming in hard and fast.
He felt more than heard the AI’s assent.
It was a white-knuckle flight, one he was certain Jason would have seen as a thrill ride. Terrance had never been more than a weekend warrior himself, and this kind of flight was far outside his comfort zone.
The ground rose to meet him….
Terrance felt the camber of Eidolon’s airfoil change, increasing its angle of descent and lowering the craft’s stall speed. Eyes shifting rapidly between airspeed and the approaching horizon, Terrance eased back on the yoke, as Logan announced, <…thirty degrees….>
The shuttle came down hard once, porpoised on the grassy terrain, and then slid forward on its skids, ground effect finally giving out on Terrance as he lost control authority. Several meters into the skid, the nose tipped forward and plunged into the ground. The straps of his cradle contracted upon impact, and Eidolon shuddered to a stop.
He was met by groans from the passenger compartment as he called out, “Everyone okay back there?”
A scratching noise in the cabin was accompanied by a muttered
“Don’t worry, Beck. We’ll clean it up,” he heard Marta say. “You can stop trying to bury it now.”
Terrance smothered a laugh and then grimaced as he toggled his own straps loose.
Terrance snorted at that.
* * * * *
A whisper-soft whoosh was all he heard, and he looked up at the sound to see a massive shadow pass directly overhead just a few dozen meters above him. His head turned, eyeing the shifting blackness as it sank rapidly to the ground.
“Nev!” he called out. “Wrangle the men; we’re going hunting.”
Nev turned, his good eye gleaming, then followed the direction his leader pointed. One side of his mouth—the only one that was mobile anymore—stretched in a death’s-head grin as he turned and jogged back toward the makeshift camp.
Bellows and curses followed, but the man knew Nev would roust them in short order.
“Bring the weapons,” he barked, and received an answering shout. Certain they would follow, he turned and began the hike for Furano Fields. He was confident that was the shadow’s intended destination. It was the only logical choice. He should know; he was a pilot.
And if that sonofabitch is any good at dead-stick landings, I’ll be flying again very soon.
* * * * *
Terrance stirred at that and began to stand. “That’s right. We have about two hours until sunrise, so let’s get a move on.”
Marta looked up in alarm. “Hold it! No one opens that hatch until I say so,” she warned, her tone no-nonsense. “Logan, do what you need to do and then shut down. I want you dormant and in this nano-resistant isolation chamber before they open that airlock.”
“The doctor’s right, I stand corrected,” Terrance amended.
Marta pushed past Terrance and knelt next to the console where Logan’s cylinder was seated. With practiced ease, she keyed it open, removed the connections to his terminals, and seated him inside the hardened isolation case. Sealing it, she rose.
“George, release a passel of our rectification colloidenes,” she instructed. “At the very least, I want to ensure the shuttle remains clear of contaminants, especially while Logan is installed in his frame.”
The man gave Marta a short salute, then tapped an icon on his med sleeve, studied it for a moment and no
dded in satisfaction.
“Done, ma’am.”
The two ESF medics exited, carrying a large, lumpy duffel between them. Terrance stood in the shuttle’s airlock, tossed two more duffels down to the women and then followed them to the ground. Together, the three of them began unfurling the ghillie camouflage and draping it over the shuttle, while George trotted back along the furrows made by the skids to do what he could to break up the straight line that would indicate it had been made by a sentient, rather than the hand of nature.
Back inside the shuttle, Marta turned and passed her hand over Beck’s silky pelt as she walked by. The Proxima cat had stayed silent and out of the way as they offloaded the camouflage; now, he padded quietly over to the airlock and rose up on his hind legs to peer out the plas window.
Marta smiled when she saw that the cat’s attention was focused on Terrance.
I do believe Beck’s matured a bit, she thought to herself. Hard to let go of that image of a mischievous kitten, but it’s sweet that he’s taking this so seriously, and is looking out for his buddy.
At her regard, Beck turned unblinking eyes her way.
She cocked one eyebrow his way and shook her head. “Can’t do that just yet. Besides,” she teased, “I’m not going to stand there while you spend half an hour deciding if you really want to go out or not.”
Beck chuffed his annoyance at her, and turned back to his observations.
She smiled as she busied herself with the armored frame they had brought along, activating the auth token that would allow her to access its wake cycle. She set Logan’s isolation chamber next to the frame and ran one final diagnostic on its specially-coated nano-resistant exterior, created just for this op.
As it returned greens across the board, she sent it the command unlock sequence, and the torso swung open, revealing the padded and reinforced chassis in which Logan’s cylinder would be seated. It, too, was coated in nano-resistant material.
Marta had just lifted Logan and was making the terminal connections inside the frame when she heard Beck begin a low, deep growl. It reverberated through the shuttle compartment and she looked up, startled to see the cat’s hackles standing up straight, all along his spine.
“Beck?” she asked in surprise. “What is it?”
* * * * *
Terrance snagged the section of ghillie McCone tossed to him over the shuttle’s nose and pulled it back along the craft’s leading edge. He’d dialed in a broader EM spectrum with his optical overlays, rendering a brighter, blue-tinged view than that cast by the twilight from the ring and Maera, to provide more clarity to his surroundings. He looked up at the bow of branches that came together a few meters above him, from the two trees he’d put the nose between when he’d brought the shuttle to a halt, and was gratified to be able to clearly see how much room they had for the ghillie toss.
The medic had finished spreading out the next piece of ghillie by the craft’s tail section and had moved to the airlock’s outer door, waiting for him to hand her the netting. She reached out, nimbly catching the edge of the bundle he tossed her way.
Hoisting it, she crouched and then tossed it like a discus, calling out,
We’re making good time, Terrance thought in satisfaction.
Passive scan hadn’t picked up the presence of anyone in the immediate area, but Logan had recommended they communicate via Link to minimize the risk of any sound carrying.
They had brought along enough camouflage to drape the entire airframe, but Kodi had suggested they augment it with local materials to further break up any lines that might give away their presence. Terrance turned to see George draw his lightwand and begin hacking off small branches for their use. McCone trotted over to begin gathering them up. As he turned back to Eidolon, he noticed Logan hadn’t retracted the RATs back into the airframe once they’d landed.
Need to remember to do that before we head out, he thought. No use in leaving it open for the local wildlife. Or any random corrupted nano, he amended.
He heard a noise on the other side of the shuttle that sounded almost like a scuffle.
The only response was a muffled cry and a thud that might have been a body hitting the ground.
Wheeling, he shot his right forearm up to block the blow intended for the back of his head. Turning the move into a grapple, he used the momentum behind the attacker’s thwarted blow to pull the figure off balance, causing the man to stumble forward. A sweep of one leg took the man’s feet out from under him, and Terrance followed through with a quick elbow into the attacker’s back. It stunned his opponent long enough for Terrance to unholster his pulse pistol and send a shot jolting through the downed man, rendering him unconscious.
He swung his pulser toward a shadow of movement he’d caught out of the corner of his eye, rounding the nose of the craft.
A figure stepped out from behind a tree, flechette pistol pressed against the base of Chilters’ skull. A mess of nano growth overlaid one side of the figure’s face, rendering it as dead as if he’d suffered a stroke. A gargoyle-like grin curved from the living side of his face as he nudged the medic forward.
“Drop it,” the man grated, and from its texture, Terrance guessed his vocal cords had fallen victim to the invasive nano as well.
He lowered the pulser slowly, careful not to give the man a reason to harm his hostage.
DYSTOPIAN RING
STELLAR DATE: 09.11.3246 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Franklin City Spaceport Docks
REGION: Ring Galene, Tau Ceti
“Easy, there.” Jason raised his hands slowly, palms open in a placating gesture. “I’m unarmed.”
The person facing him was a large man clad in protective armor, face shielded. The figure gestured with the flechette rifle he held in his hand, indicating Jason to step out of the airlock and onto the dock.
“Down on the deck, hands where I can see them,” the armored figure ordered.
Jason complied, and another soldier stepped forward, raising an archaic-looking hand-held scanner. Approaching Jason as if he might turn on her at any moment, the woman aimed the bulky thing at him, her eyes glued to its readouts.
The soldier holding the rifle gestured. “Turn around—slowly. Yeah, like that. Keep turning. We’ll tell you when you can stop.” That last was delivered in a warning tone.
Jason nodded and complied, hands still held high. He listened to the machine’s beep-and-whir as he turned, waiting for the woman to confirm that he was indeed a natural, unmodified human whose nano had been ‘erased’.
Given the level of tech we’ve seen so far, those Elastene-clad internal Faraday cage compartments Shannon whipped up should easily spoof equipment this old…. At least, I hope it does.
As he rotated, he let his eyes wander, evaluating the surrounding area. Dim lights ringed the open bay, and most of the equipment pushed up against its walls appeared to be inoperable, or at least like it hadn’t been used in a good, long while. Near the entrance, another three armored figures stood—likely the rest of his escort.
As the woman nodded and the machine fell silent, Jason took a quick peek at his internal feed. It showed that the Link between him and Sable Wind was still open, so he reached out to Shannon.
The AI didn’t respond. He didn’t expect her to, either. They had agreed prior to launch that Shannon would do an imitation of a more base-level NSAI to minimize the Ringers’ paranoia where AIs were concerned. Given the warmth of the reception he was receiving, that had been a good call.
“Anyone else in that shuttle with you?” the man holding the flechette asked, and Jason nodded.
“Yes, flight engineer, named Jonesy. But don’t worry; he’ll stay with the shuttle,” he replied.
The soldier gestured to the woman holding the scanner, and she stepped back, pocketing the device and unholstering her own flechette rifle.
“We’ll make sure he does,” the soldier replied, then motioned with the muzzle of his own rifle for Jason to move toward the three personnel he’d spied during his pirouette, waiting at the neck of one of the corridors that funneled into the bay, their own flechettes held at the ready.
As he complied, he asked, “Isn’t this a bit excessive? We’re here to help, you know.”
One of the figures they were approaching snorted in derision. “You’re here to see what you can sell us, you mean.”
The woman’s voice was caustic, and the man behind him laughed as he shoved Jason forward.
“We’ll just see about that. The president has other plans.”
