by M. D. Cooper
“I’d get free.”
“Honestly, I don’t doubt that,” the man gave a rueful nod. “Look. If you go out there and get hurt or killed, Martin is going to beat me to death with a surfboard. I’m willing to compromise. In the next hangar over, there are a bunch of civilian skiffs we’ve commandeered. Given that this is Athens, they’re rated to fly through most of what that volcano is tossing into the air.
“You can get in on the search pattern, and Phaedra will show you where to go. But you do not—I repeat, you do not—touch down.”
Isa had begun nodding vigorously, but Usef held up a hand.
“I’m escorting you to a skiff to make sure you don’t take any equipment for a ground search. You stay in the air and stay out of danger. Phaedra is going to make sure you don’t go anywhere you’re not supposed to, and if you do, she’s going to fly you right back here. Am I understood?”
The Marine’s attitude made Isa want to hit him, but she knew that would get her nowhere. She sucked in a long breath before speaking.
“I understand, Major.”
“Good.” He drew his sidearm. “You’re rated for this, right?”
Isa’s lips drew into a thin line. “I’ve completed my training. What am I going to need it for.”
“Stars willing, nothing.” He passed her the weapon. “Let’s go. I’ll see you to your skiff.”
* * * * *
Isa had been flying her assigned part of the search grid for half an hour, going as low as she dared over the scorched landscape, staying above the debris that was still soaring through the air as the massive volcano continued to belch out chunks of the planet’s insides.
That turned out to be nearly ten kilometers above the surface, and her skiff’s meager scan could barely penetrate the ash below, let alone find any sign of Erin’s skiff.
Isa knew if the AI had, she would have said so, but she couldn’t help asking.
Isa swallowed.
Isa bit her lip.
The AI didn’t reply for almost a minute. Then she said,
Looking down at the scorched landscape below, Isa knew that she had to get down to the location of Erin’s last transmission, and see for herself if her wife had made it to her skiff.
She sounded tetchy. Isa didn’t blame her. Like everyone else, she seemed convinced that Erin was dead, and no planetary AI liked to lose any of the inhabitants under their care. On a planet like Athens, that pressure was higher than usual. She was also probably concerned about getting through this emergency while avoiding more deaths.
Wondering if the AI would enforce Usef’s ban on a close flyby of Erin’s last known location, she decided to take a closer look before going to the PETER.
As she descended, the bright sunlight faded, and she entered a zone turned dusky by clouds of smoke and ash. The skiff seemed to be coping with the conditions well enough, so Isa decreased her altitude further, hoping for a patch of clearer air that would allow her to find out what was happening below.
She came through a thick bank of ash, and suddenly, the glowing orange of a waterfall of lava emerged in the distance, and a scene of utter devastation spread out before her in the scant light. All that remained of the volcano looked like a single, broken, jagged tooth poking up from corrupt, cadaverous gums. A thick blanket of black and dark grey smoldering ash coated the remains of a lush jungle.
Isa overlaid the coordinates of Erin’s last transmission onto her visual of the landscape. The dot representing her wife’s last known location sat at the base of a mound of rock that had blasted from the volcano. A distant glint of silver caught Isa’s attention. She looked closer. It looked like the tip of a wing of a skiff turned on its side.
Shit! It is there!
That had to be the vessel she had seen through Erin’s eyes. The skiff she’d been running to when….
Isa’s eyes were suddenly wet. She blinked hard to clear them. She refused to believe that the body of her wife was lying under that pile of volcanic debris; the mass wasn’t sufficient to block a signal. She was sure of it.
Given that no one seemed interested in mounting a rescue, and Phaedra was still denying ground teams access to the area, Isa wasn’t sure they’d send in S&R until the volcano either subsided, or expelled its next burst of pent-up pressure.
She was four kilometers up, and she brought her skiff down another thousand meters, cruising over the ashy landscape and the remains of the volcano that loomed above it. Smoke and superheated steam continued to billow from the fractured edifice. The sky was a mess of raining ash and dust. A rattling sound came from her vessel’s exterior as it was hit by small pieces of rock, reminding her that, while it could fly through ash and soot, it wouldn’t survive an impact with a larger piece of debris.
And even if I land, I don’t have any gear. I wouldn’t last a minute—Usef saw to that.
She knew it was no good. She would have to visit the PETER’s engineers, as Phaedra had suggested. Isa hated the thought of Erin lying wounded somewhere out there, needing help, but the delay was unavoidable.
Angling the skiff’s nose upward, she flew the vessel in the direction of the PETER. As she journeyed out of the planet’s atmosphere, climbing the six hundred kilometers to the ring before following it to the C&C section, Isa did her best to think positively, considering that Erin’s skiff could have survived, and that it had emergency systems to protect an occupant in these sorts of conditions.
The other engineers had worked with Erin for weeks, and would also know she could have survived. Isa was certain she could convince them to help.
She looked up the names of her wife’s team members. Lark and Fazir. She randomly picked one and reached out on the Link as her skiff approached the C&C’s docking bay.
Isa wondered how many more times she would have to explain the obvious. Everyone was giving up on Erin so fast.
said Fazir.
Isa decided to play down the extent to which the skiff was buried.
Fazir took a second to respond.
Isa bit her lip.
Five minutes later, Isa’s skiff settled into the C&C section’s bay, where two more vessels sat inside, both bearing signs of damage from the eruption. One’s wing had been dented by a heavy impact, and the other craft was blackened, as if it had flown through thick ash.
As she climbed out of her skiff, an ISF medical shuttle landed next to her, and a pair of women rushed out toward a man who was pushing a stasis tube into the bay.
Isa approached quietly, glancing inside the tube to see a man with his legs ending in a scorched and bloody mass. The reality that many more people than Erin were suffering from this tragedy hit her.
“You must be Isa,” greeted the man pushing the container.
“Yes. And…shoot, Fazir…I’m sorry for asking for your help. I wasn’t thinking properly.”
The man’s eyes followed the two women from the medical craft as they rushed the stasis pod back to the ship. “It’s OK, this whole thing is crazy.”
“You’re from the Transcend?” Isa asked.
“That’s right. The name’s Jere. I don’t know that you and Lark should go down there. After Fazir told her what you found, she started prepping gear. I have to admit, I tried to put her off. We have suits that will protect you from the conditions down there, but with that level of volcanic activity, it’s crazy dangerous.”
“I get it.” Isa nodded.
“Lark is risking a lot to help you,” Jere stated plainly, then turned and beckoned Isa to follow him out of the bay to a nearby equipment room. Then he left.
Lark stood up when Isa entered. She was holding one of the heat-resistant suits she had been wearing when Isa met her. Another of the TSF’s engineers was in the room, and he nodded a greeting.
“Isa,” said Lark. “I’m ready to go. I’ve sent some drones with equipment to the eruption site, and it should arrive the same time as us. Take this suit.”
Isa lifted the garment from Lark’s outstretched arms. Despite her preoccupation over Erin, Isa couldn’t help noticing that the visiting engineer seemed oddly distracted. She wondered if he was still in shock from the eruption.
They finished donning their suits, and then the two women left the equipment room, heading for the docking bay.
As they walked, Isa glanced at Lark and said, “I take it that guy was from the Transcend too?”
Lark checked over her shoulder as if checking they were out of the man’s earshot. “Yeah. His name’s Hal.”
“He seemed really bothered by something. I thought there were four Transcend engineers here…. Where are the other two?”
“I think that’s his problem. They checked in that they were safe and headed to the PETER, and then we lost contact. Jere and Hal are going to go looking for them in a few minutes, they’re just double-checking with S&R that no sign of them has been seen.”
“Phaedra told me that Erin was the only casualty.”
“She was—oh wait…well that doesn’t make any sense,” Lark muttered. “They just checked in. They’re fine, but they flew to another section on the ring….”
“They didn’t come back here? How come?”
“I don’t know exactly. They gave an excuse, but it doesn’t hold water.”
Isa didn’t want to get involved in whatever weird political games were being played out among the two teams of engineers. She had more important things to focus on.
“I think we should start our search at Erin’s last known location,” she said. “If her skiff is still there, she might be in it.”
“Yeah, maybe,” said Lark.
The pitying tone in Lark’s voice set Isa’s teeth on edge. She knew the engineer had to be holding out some hope, or she wouldn’t be risking her life, but Isa couldn’t help but feel like the grieving widow that was just being humored.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
STELLAR DATE: 05.12.8942 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Near Mount Poros
REGION: Athens, New Canaan System
“I can’t see anywhere to land,” said Lark.
It was hard to see anything at all. Dusk had fallen, and the low light compounded with the clouds of smoke made the darkness complete. All was black except for the distant orange glow of lava and the flashes of lightning dancing above the craggy remains of the volcano’s mouth.
Lark had to rely entirely on the skiff’s instruments to see the ground. According to what Isa could read from the display, a mess of hot rocks and treacherous pits of smoldering dust and ash lay beneath them.
“What about trying to land farther away from the eruption?” Isa suggested. “We can walk in.”
Lark nodded. “That’s a better idea. I don’t want to risk the skiff being hit by any debris. He’s still growling and he won’t be stopping anytime soon. I’ll redirect the drones too.” She banked the skiff to the left and turned one hundred and eighty degrees, heading away from the scene of devastation.
Can Erin really be alive somewhere down there?
Isa knew that, logically, the chances were slim to impossible. But she wasn’t operating on logic. What she was operating on, she didn’t know. Maybe her motivation was only an inability or stubborn refusal to accept Erin’s death. Whatever it was, she couldn’t help it. She had to look for her wife.
Lark managed to land the vessel a little over a kilometer away from Erin’s last known location. She directed Isa to put on her heat-resistant suit, and got dressed quickly herself. Then she climbed out of the skiff to go to the drones and unload the equipment she’d sent down.
As she was putting on her suit, Isa saw, out of the corner of her eye, one of the two bulky contraptions Lark had unloaded rise up. She looked closer and saw the equipment’s parts slot into place. Her eyes widened in recognition. Lark had brought along exoskeletons similar to the ones miners used occasionally to move around chunks of ore.
Isa replied.
Isa’s throat swelled with emotion. Lark would only know that because Erin had told her. Erin had probably exaggerated how good Isa was, as usual.
she replied,
When Isa had clambered aboard the exoskeleton and settled herself into the seat, the device’s screen dropped down. Her suit’s HUD disappeared to be replaced with the same data on the new screen. The information stated that local atmosphere wasn’t survivable without specialized equipment, but Isa was undeterred.
Lark led the way toward the volcano, her exo’s legs powering over the uneven landscape. Isa’s machine rocked as it
carried her along, but its motion was smooth and steady, unlike the old, under-serviced, jerky equipment she’d operated in the past.
Her HUD was already indicating areas of intense heat: the remains of what had been massive trees, and boulders flung from the volcano like toys tossed by a child. Lark sidestepped the hottest spots and walked slowly, placing the long, wide feet of her exo down carefully for each step.
After a few minutes, Isa grew frustrated with the slow progress. They were barely going faster than walking pace. What had happened to the daredevil planetary engineer that Isa recalled from her first encounter with Lark?
She guessed that maybe Fazir’s terrible burn had dampened the engineer’s enthusiasm for risk-taking. But when it came to saving Erin’s life, Isa was not prepared to be cautious.
She sped up and moved to overtake Lark. Isa knew exactly where they were going, and now that she had the exo, she could probably move the rocks without Lark’s help.
It had been hours since the eruption. Time was pressing.
Isa plowed on anyway. The spot she was aiming for was only half a klick away, and if anything, the landscape was evening out.
As she strode her exo toward the volcano, Isa practiced working the pincers. She opened them to their fullest extent, closed them, and turned them at every available angle. She wanted to move the boulders away quickly; she had a vision of finding Erin trapped in a hollow, perhaps injured, but alive.
Suddenly, the ground under her exo’s right foot gave away.
The machine instantly attempted to compensate for the imbalance, leaning away from the hole, but it wasn’t enough. Isa’s exo fell sideways into the rapidly expanding chasm. The cabin crashed against the edge of the opening, bringing her face to face with rocks and cinders.
