Frozen Fire

by C H Gideon

  Rimmer nodded slowly before moving to a nearby virtual interface panel. “Get comfortable, because I’m only authorizing you to use this terminal. And no active scanning of the Jemmin vehicles, only broad sweeps of their locations like would be normal for routine overwatch protocols. Understood?”

  “Perfectly,” Podsy said enthusiastically. “Thank you, Chief.”

  “Keep it to two hours max,” Rimmer added firmly. “Then hit your rack and get ready for your next shift.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  After Rimmer had gone, Podsy delved into the Bonhoeffer’s sensor feeds and quickly found several key points of interest he honed in on to further investigate. His attention lingered for a few moments on the tense standoff between Jemmin forces and 1st Battalion at the Delta Site, but he forced himself to move on.

  “Stay focused, Podsy,” he muttered as he pored over sensor feeds and prepared for his first active-scan sweep of the formerly-Vorr-controlled base camp.

  A camp which was now filled with Jemmin “peacekeepers.”

  “Human paramilitary forces,” the Jemmin Peacekeeper declared as the ILPF vehicles lifted several meters off the ground, using their peculiar hover technology—which Jenkins had been assured was not anti-gravity, though it certainly appeared to be—and flew back in the direction of the now-Jemmin-occupied Vorr base camp, “we have secured the facility and are withdrawing as previously indicated. In accordance with the Illumination League’s directives, you are now legally permitted to enter the facility for whatever purpose you wish to pursue.”

  “Acknowledged, Peacekeepers,” Jenkins said flatly. Even General Akinouye’s work over the last hour had yielded zero tangible results, and with each passing minute, Jenkins grew increasingly convinced that the Jemmin had taken something important from Delta Site. He switched to Trapper’s private channel. “Sergeant Major, the Jemmin have withdrawn, but something doesn’t smell right. I’m moving 2nd Company up to secure Delta’s mouth, and I want you to lead an APC as far down the tunnel as it goes before deploying your people. I’ll take a team of technicians to inspect the facility’s control center.”

  “Negative, Colonel,” Trapper replied firmly. “You await my go-ahead before disembarking the command vehicle. Armor Corps protocol says I put boots into every room before you do.”

  Jenkins nodded irritably. “Understood, but I want you leading the team down whichever tunnel looks to have gotten the most use by the Jemmin in the last few hours. And, Sergeant Major, if you find anything of interest, I want you to treat it like a crime scene and await my arrival.”

  A meaningful pause. “Understood, Colonel.”

  “Deploy at your discretion, Tim.”

  A few minutes later, with 2nd Company’s mechs arranged in a reinforcing formation outside Delta’s cave-mouth, Trapper’s troops streamed out of the APCs just like they had three times before. Except while sixty troopers streamed into the mouth, leap-frogging with long-practiced rhythm as they worked their way into the potentially dangerous opening, the APC bearing Trapper himself remained silent.

  Four minutes later, Trapper’s APC leapt forward and he reported, “The control center is secure, Colonel. We’re moving down the tunnel.”

  “Copy that, Sergeant Major.” Jenkins nodded. “Chaps, take Roy to the cave-mouth. Styles, you’re with me.”

  “Yes, sir,” they acknowledged in rapid succession.

  With just six minutes left in the two-hour window Rimmer gave him, Podsy worked frantically to run down every last byte of data the Bonhoeffer’s sensors could gather. Thus far he had revealed no fewer than fifteen distinct, artificial holes in the icy crust of Shiva’s Wrath. They were spread out over a rough circle with a radius of eight hundred kilometers, and the Jemmin had occupied three of those holes with vehicles.

  Each of the five-meter-wide holes had a dedicated fusion reactor pumping out enough heat to keep the water in the shafts from freezing by circulating reactor coolant down several kilometers of pipe. Sort of an inverse geothermal power system, to Podsy’s mind. The tops of the shafts were covered with heavy-duty, special-alloy water-locks that prevented the water below from spewing upward like hydro-volcanoes. Each lock was a few meters thick, which meant it would be difficult to send anything large down them.

  It was obvious to Podsy that the Vorr had come here to conduct some kind of exploratory mission, probably with the goal of recovering something specific from the ocean beneath the icy shell of Shiva’s Wrath.

  But the problem was that he still didn’t know what they were there for. Or, perhaps more importantly, which of the shafts represented the best hope of finding it.

  “Time’s up, Podsednik,” Rimmer declared as he came to stand beside Podsy’s wheelchair. “Head to your rack.”

  “Chief,” Podsy pleaded, “I need a few more minutes. I’m running an EM scan of the subsurface ocean, which won’t be finished for another eight minutes. If I’m right, the Vorr didn’t have time to recover all of their equipment from down there, which is why the Jemmin forced the issue by exchanging fire. It’s why they keep trying to push us off overwatch,” he continued, mindful of the irritated look coming over Rimmer’s face. “I think there’s something down there they don’t want anyone to know about, least of all the Vorr but not us either.”

  Rimmer looked like he wanted to argue, but somewhat surprisingly, he pulled up a chair and sat down. “Why not hand this off to sensors?”

  “Frankly?”

  “Frankly,” Rimmer agreed.

  “I don’t know the Bonhoeffer’s crew yet,” Podsy admitted. “The people down there are like family to me. Well…some of ‘em, anyways,” he amended with a snort. “Could you lay your head on a pillow not knowing if your family was in good hands?”

  “You think you’re better than Armor Corps veterans?” Rimmer challenged, taking some measure of offense at Podsy’s suggestion.

  “No, sir,” Podsy said seriously, “but when I see crew chiefs like Batista wandering off for mid-shift naps…it doesn’t instill the highest degree of confidence in the rest of the system. No disrespect intended.”

  Rimmer eyed him for a few tense moments before sighing. “None taken. You work with what you’ve got, and right now, Batista’s what I’ve got. But I’ve also got you,” he continued pointedly, “and it’s obvious you’re going to go far in this branch. I need you to remember your duties though, Chief,” he said seriously. “You wanted to be a crew chief on my deck, which means that your duty to my deck comes first. If you can’t do that, you need to tell me right now so I can adjust my system.”

  Podsy understood his meaning and nodded. “Understood, sir.”

  “Good,” Rimmer allowed just as the monitor chimed with a notification.

  Podsy looked at the sensor feeds and clenched a fist victoriously. “There it is…fifteen kilometers below the surface, on the slope of that rock. See it?”

  Rimmer leaned closer to get a better look. The man was seventy-eight years old but had taken such good care of himself that he looked mid-forties. Spending the last thirty-five years in the largely-defunct Armor Corps had not caused him undue stress.

  “I do,” Rimmer agreed. “EM signature is consistent with a high-gain Vorr transceiver.”

  “My guess is they’ve got an automated facility down there,” Podsy concluded, “and that whatever they’re studying is something the Jemmin want to cover up so badly that they’re willing to risk a shooting war with the second-most powerful star-faring nation in known space.”

  “But why wouldn’t the Vorr just destroy the facility?” Rimmer asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

  “I don’t know.” Podsy shook his head irritably. “Just like I don’t know why the Jemmin haven’t destroyed it. They’ve got the ability to strike from orbit, and their sensors are better than ours, so they know where to shoot.”

  “What if the Vorr transceiver is a decoy?” Rimmer suggested.

  Podsy’s eyes went wide. “It fits…and now the fifteen dis
tinct shafts make sense, too. They could be trying to throw the Jemmin off the trail.” He pondered the situation for a full minute before shaking his head to clear it. “I need to forward this to Styles. He’ll know what to do with it.”

  “Agreed.” Rimmer nodded. “But send it through the chain of command. If they don’t forward this, I’ll personally do it. But only after you’ve put your head down in your rack for a few hours’ sleep. Understood?”

  Podsednik hesitated. He didn’t feel like he could trust anyone, not even his deck boss, but he knew he needed to get past that. He also knew he had no choice but to do it Rimmer’s way. He needed to do everything in his power to help the battalion, and right now that meant playing nice with the Bonhoeffer’s crew.

  “Understood, sir.” Podsednik nodded, pushing off from the table. “I’d appreciate if you could be the one to forward these findings, along with our preliminary theory, to the CAC.”

  “I’ll do just that,” Rimmer said seriously. “Good work, Mr. Podsednik.”

  As Podsy rolled back to his berth, he knew he wouldn’t get any sleep after flopping into his bunk. But he also knew that right now, he needed to show he was a team player and get on Rimmer’s good side.

  Because if Shiva’s Wrath was anything like Durgan’s Folly, things were going to go south.

  And soon.

  “They pulled every data recorder and information storage system in here,” Styles reported in frustration, his voice heavily-distorted as he spoke through his rebreather’s external speaker. “There isn’t even a relay switch that could hold more than eight bytes of data left in this mine, Colonel. I’ve never seen such a thorough cleanup job.”

  “Thank you, Chief,” Jenkins replied in muted disappointment, taking steady, slightly-labored breaths as his own respiratory muscles provided most of the rebreather’s air-cleansing power. “Sergeant Major?” He turned to Tim Trapper Sr., whose familial resemblance with his son was uncanny. Aside from a few deeper wrinkles and, surprisingly, a full head of hair on the elder version, it would be difficult even for an acquaintance to tell them apart.

  “All three shafts were empty, Colonel,” Trapper replied, his uniform stark-white from head-to-toe just like his troopers’, and in contrast to the mech crews’ white-with-brown-stripes running down the sides. “We conducted bio-sweeps and found nothing but trace Jemmin and human markers down the shafts.”

  “Are you sure other traces weren’t scrubbed?” Jenkins pressed.

  “Hundred percent, Colonel.” Trapper nodded firmly. “The integrity of the scenes was secure. The only living creatures that have been down those holes are humans and Jemmin.”

  “Vorr have self-contained enviro-suits,” Styles observed. “They don’t leave bio-material behind as a result. Just traces of the suits’ skins and minor magnetic disturbances which are almost impossible to detect.”

  “Almost?” Jenkins asked hopefully, causing Styles to grin triumphantly.

  “I found trace evidence of Vorr activity in the control center from about three months ago,” the technician explained.

  “They came here looking for something, too?” Jenkins asked in mild confusion.

  “It’s possible—” Styles shrugged. “—but at this point, all I’ve got is conjecture. My best conclusion, based on the available evidence, is that a single Vorr came in here, stayed for about six hours, and left. It could’ve monkeyed with the data storage systems, redirected the automated mining equipment, or just been scoping the place out.”

  “Vorr aren’t innately curious, Chief,” Sergeant Major Trapper grunted.

  “Agreed,” Styles nodded, “which means they came here for a specific purpose. But at the moment, I’m unable to present anything approaching a credible hypothesis as to what that purpose was. The data packet I just received from Podsy up on the Bonhoeffer makes me think the Vorr were looking for something on this world, but I’m confident they didn’t expect to find it in here.”

  “Why not?” Trapper asked.

  “Because they went to extreme lengths to establish over a dozen access shafts to take them down to the ocean below this world’s ice sheet,” Styles explained. “And it’s obvious they didn’t think they could extract whatever they came here for quickly, otherwise why go to all the trouble of drilling more than just a couple shafts?”

  Jenkins shook his head. “We need to stay on point.” He turned to Trapper. “Have your people secure this facility as planned. We’ll move the column and establish base camp where we can support all four sites.”

  “Understood, Colonel,” Sergeant Major Trapper acknowledged. “You moving up the rock or out on the ice?”

  It was a good question. If his force had primarily been comprised of infantry, he would have chosen a spot up the steep mountainous slope. But his battalion was centered on the armor, which meant that maximizing mobility was key, even if that meant being more exposed on flat ground with little potential cover.

  “The ice field,” he replied, suspecting Trapper disliked his choice. “We’ll rotate your people through the four mines to keep them fresh and to diminish radiation exposure. No longer than twelve-hour shifts in the mines, followed by no less than twenty-four hours at base camp. Every hour in the mines is equivalent to eight hours on the ice.”

  “The rock’s hotter than the water,” Trapper agreed with a curt nod. “We’ll lock these holes down, Colonel.”

  “I’ll have the Bonhoeffer deliver our first support gear within the hour,” Jenkins explained, “so your people should be armed with everything they need to fortify the mines no later than four hours from now.”

  “Good.” Trapper nodded before leaving to coordinate with his subordinates.

  As the venerable warrior left, Jenkins and Styles shared a knowing look before returning to Roy and preparing to lead the column to their new base camp.

  4

  Brinksmanship

  “Get those cans emptied, people,” Xi called out over Elvira’s external speakers, directing the PDF troops to unload the eight drop-cans the Bonhoeffer had delivered to the site of their new base camp twenty minutes earlier. “Prioritize crew-served weapons, mortars, auto-cannons, and anything else we’ll need to fortify our position. The mess gear can wait,” she added pointedly as a pair of troopers began unloading crates of foodstuffs—specifically water purifier-heater units and boxes of coffee.

  It seemed like half of the PDF troops from her home world were no-nonsense, by-the-book hard-asses like Sergeant Major Trapper. But the other half were at best more like summer interns, or at worst playing at being soldiers.

  An alarm sounded from her status board signaling a failure of one of Elvira’s external systems. An anti-personnel cannon had just gone offline due to extreme cold, causing her to raise Lu. “Chief, we’ve got a failure on L-1.”

  “I see it, Captain,” Lu replied shortly. “I should have it back up in two minutes.”

  “Two minutes?” Xi repeated in disbelief. “It takes you two minutes to melt a little ice off the ammo-feed manifold?”

  “Pop the hatch and I’ll have it in thirty seconds,” Private Staubach offered as he took a bottle torch from its mooring and made for the cabin door.

  “I like the initiative, Blinky,” Xi said approvingly, hesitating before unlocking the door. “I’ve got a thirty-second timer on my HUD; you’d better beat it. If you don’t, we might need to thaw you out next.”

  “Yes ma...” he cut himself short while pushing the hatch open and clambering outside the vehicle. “I mean, yes, Captain.”

  She snickered as he climbed over the top of Elvira’s hull, and her external video feeds showed him nearly losing his footing before he came to the spot directly above the L-1 anti-personnel chain gun. The temperature plunged significantly once the hatch was open, but in spite of the outside thermometers reading negative sixty-eight Celsius, the cold filling the cabin seemed less brutal.

  It wasn’t until Blinky lowered himself down, bottle-torch in hand, that Xi noticed a
pair of video drones whizzing about him as he worked.

  She silently swore, realizing Ms. Samuels had failed to ask permission before deploying her video drones to gather some footage. She thought about calling her out on it but instead decided to pretend she hadn’t noticed. “Ten seconds, Blinky,” she called, “nine…eight…seven…six…”

  At that, the alarm icon vanished, and L-1 went through a routine diagnostic cycle. Private Staubach slipped and scrambled across Elvira’s armored back, making for the door, and somehow maintained his footing while Xi continued the countdown.

  “Five…four…three…two…one…”

  Using acrobatic grace, Blinky gripped the upper lip of the hatchway, pivoted his body, and smoothly slid himself inside before landing on his feet with cat-like agility.

  “Zero,” Xi finished, closing the door almost fast enough to prevent the last of Samuels’ video drones from zipping back inside the compartment. “Thirty seconds and he even got back inside,” she said approvingly. “Somebody ought to reward you for that, don’t you think, Lu?”

  “Definitely,” Lu grunted, making no attempt to hide his animosity toward the mech’s assigned Monkey.

  “Glad to hear morale and team cohesion aboard Elvira is on the up-and-up,” Xi continued blithely, reminded once again just how much she missed Podsy’s steady, capable hand.

  An incoming communique flashed across her neural interface, which meant it was directly from Colonel Jenkins. The first part was a general status update to be disseminated among the crew and read:

  All but one of the Jemmin warships have withdrawn. Bonhoeffer is maintaining active overwatch of our position.

  “Good news,” Xi reported before opening the second, classified half of the message. “All but one of the Jemmin warships have withdrawn from orbit. The Dietrich Bonhoeffer is no longer being harassed by their aggressive maneuvers and is now in optimal overwatch position.”