by Vance Huxley
“Good point Magpie. I’ll take mine off. One more?” Bobby twisted to reach the tube.
Siflis spoke up. “I’ll do it Beebi. I’m smaller and I’ve got more manoeuvring room in here. What about the food connection?”
“If we find food it can come down the drink pipe. If we don’t and come back this feed pipe will still be in place.” Aggie interrupted Bobby.
“Three, two, one, capsule launch.” A click and shudder, and something gave the capsule a definite push sideways and upwards. The radar screen lit up to show one large return to the side, now falling behind, and eight smaller contacts. The centre of the screen showed a huge, solid contact, nearly two miles long! The bledrin rocket had launched them all directly at the iceberg!
“Break away, break away!” Bobby wasn’t the only one shouting, because they’d all seen what happened to the probe that fired something at the original piece of wreckage. Mickey heard or reacted anyway because the capsule yawed to the side, then the rockets kicked Bobby’s ass.
“Enough, don’t use all the fuel.”
“Will we miss it?” Mickey sounded on the edge of blind panic.
“Yes, stop boosting!” The capsule still headed towards the huge ice block, but at an angle that should take them clear. On the radar other capsules were using up fuel as well, to avoid the mass or to slow up. Two capsules continued on their way, apparently content to hit the target. Bobby read off the tags. “Who are BIVSUB?”
“Billiton-Vale-Suncor-Barrick, the top mining conglomerate in the far north of America. The Yankees.” Mickey had learned all this shite, it had to be a management thing. “The others are Mining Alliance of Chinese Co-operatives. MACC or just Chinas because all the industries are combined. Communist Corporate management, only they could make that work.” Mickey paused. “Are they really going to hit it?”
“Maybe, unless they do something soon. Can we hide behind one of these smaller bergs before they do, because I remember what happened to the other probes the first time?” Bobby didn’t want to nudge Mickey too hard, in case he panicked and burned off the rest of the fuel. Nor did he fancy being target practice for Alien lasers.
“We’ve used a third of the fuel. The basteds didn’t want us to avoid the target.” Mickey calculated courses and burns, the lines showing up briefly on Bobby’s screen. “We have enough fuel to stop by a ninety-foot-wide block almost level with the target asteroid. They’re ice asteroids. You threw me when you said iceberg.” Mickey sounded truly happy to get the name sorted; Bobby worried more about those two bledrin idiots heading for the illuminated whatever.
“Will we make it before Aggie spits us out?”
“Maybe. It’ll be close, but we should get there about the same time those lunatics do.” Bobby saw one line on his screen strengthen and a short kick from the capsule told him Mickey had refined the course.
Bobby left the driver to his job. “Basteds, you heard that. When Aggie warns us, grab hold of something and hang on tight in case we are pushed.”
“Not the seat, that might be what shoves us or it might come with us.”
“You heard Siflis.” Bobby glanced at his timer. “Two minutes and counting.” Dead silence fell as the squad watched their screens. The two capsules headed straight for the mission target, while Beebi’s Basteds’ capsule kept up but at an angle to close in on their own target. The screen rotated as Mickey turned them for deceleration. The rockets kicked them gently.
Another message from Aggie horrified everyone. “Please remember there is only enough food and water for forty-eight hours and air for seventy-two in your packs. Further survival relies on access to this capsule, with another forty-eight hours of supplies. Supplies will be released on receipt of samples and evidence of progress.”
“Shite, I thought we’d be able to access what was left on the capsule at least, and there’s no mention of the main rocket. What happens after that, after the capsule is used up?” Bells asked what everyone else wondered.
Aggie answered, or just got around to the second message. “The main rocket holds sufficient air, food and water for one squad to survive until further supplies arrive. The extra consumables will be released if Control sends the codes after assessing progress.”
Bobby opened his mouth to start cursing, but didn’t get chance. “Shite!” Mickey spoke but Bobby agreed. The Chinas had poured on acceleration to hit the ice harder while the Yankee capsule started decelerating as fast as possible to stop close to the ice. His own seat pressed harder on his ass as Mickey slowed them as well.
Before anyone else could speak, Aggie did. “Ten, nine, eight, seven….” Bobby shouted hang on over the countdown, still watching the two capsules getting nearer the ice. The Yankees had nearly stopped. “Three, two, one, separation.”
* * *
Bobby hung onto the door as it flipped open and the seat gave him a solid push. He kept his eyes on the two screens, radar and camera, as the Chinas and Yankees were also ejected. The Yankees hung onto their capsule but the Chinas spread out, using jets to get away from the doomed craft.
Bobby ended up looking above his head, along his arms, to keep the view. He saw the Chinas capsule enveloped in a cloud of what looked like steam. The steam jetted from a point about ten feet to the side of the imminent impact point, glittering into ice as it billowed around the craft and spread out. The beam that followed turned the capsule into another glittering cloud. The beam also went through one Chinas squad member who burst into a smaller, redder cloud of steam and glittering fragments.
Two of the other spacesuits cartwheeled, surrounded by vapour as debris ruptured their suits. The three remaining squad members used up their jets getting away from the carnage. Another jet of steam spewed out further along the illuminated asteroid before a thin rod thrust through the ice. Not thin, Bobby could see it had to be wider than the men in their bulky spacesuits. Lights flickered at the top and the last three Chinas impacted the ice with vapour jetting from multiple holes in their suits. The screen turned white.
“Knock before entering.” Mickey sounded sombre. “Whatever greeting our masters programmed into the computers didn’t work.”
Bobby shook himself. “Count off Basteds.”
“Basted three holding on.”
“Basted four holding on.”
“Basted five lost contact. Back now.”
“Basted six back in my seat. Can we put our legs on now?”
“No Magpie, they’ll just make you a bigger target.” Bobby looked around, and his camera screen hadn’t shut down after all. They were drifting very slowly into the side of their own target and the block of ice had cut off the capsule camera view. “Siflis, take a peek round the side of that ice and relay the view. The rest of you, let’s get this thing tethered.” That took a bit of doing, until they all warmed up a door edge and pushed it into the ice. As soon as the beams quit the asteroid refroze leaving Aggie tethered. Bobby allowed Bells to cross laser beams briefly with Hood, just to finally prove he couldn’t sword fence.
“Shite. Knocking doesn’t work even if it’s polite.” Siflis relayed a view of the Yankee capsule. The rod from inside the asteroid had shot out a clump of lines, the ends of which had separated to pierce their targets. Clouds of crystals, frozen vapour or air from inside, surrounded the Yankee capsule and the six still figures as they were drawn towards the alien weapon. A cloud of steam enlarged the hole before they were all pulled down out of sight.
Everyone seemed to be entranced by the sight until Bells broke the spell. “What are the rest doing?”
With a shock Bobby realised he’d lost track. “Siflis, give us a slow visual sweep.” He twisted himself up and around to his seat before pulling the door far enough closed to watch the radar. Three capsules still approached the blue-lit asteroid, but slowly and all showed tiny dots around them that must be the squads. A single tiny dot slowly grew further away from one of them. As the distance grew without any attempt to stop or return, Bobby wondered if that had b
een bad luck or had one squad already got rid of their Super. He tried to see that dot when Siflis panned the camera across the area, but nothing showed up and he shivered. He hoped that whoever was in the suit had already carked it and wasn’t fighting to make the jets work.
One of the last three capsules, the ones that had stopped, started back towards the big rocket. Everyone’s radio burst into life. “Warning. Warning. Approaching the mothership without authorisation will result in destruction of the offending party.” The warning repeated twice as the capsule, from SEPA, continued to close. The mothership, as the voice designated the rocket, didn’t leave it as late as the aliens nor was the solution so emphatic. The craft launched a missile which struck the capsule and exploded. Pieces of the capsule spread in all directions.
“Can you zoom, Siflis? Try to see if any of the crew of that capsule are alive.” Bobby wasn’t sure if anyone could help the radar dots spreading outwards from the impact, but even as he asked two began to turn back towards the big rocket. When Siflis zoomed the vapour of jets showed up two more tumbling figures, but they were either confused or didn’t have enough fuel and drifted slowly away. The first two dots settled onto courses for the mothership.
* * *
“Beebi, the other three capsules are stopping, but further away than the Yankees were.” Hood and Magpie had moved to the edge of their personal asteroid and now they relayed their camera pictures.
“Zoom on the one nearest to us, Magpie, the Krauts. What are they doing?”
“Those are legs. They’re fastening their legs into a frame, maybe all of their legs.” Hood fell silent for a moment. “Maybe to touch down first before risking people?”
“Nobody mentioned that in training. How do we touch down?”
“I don’t know Bells, but after someone else tries for starters. Then we pick a spot well away from those holes in the ice and the bodies.” Though even as Bobby spoke more of those sodin missiles on wires arced out of the second hole and began to drag the Chinas bodies away. “At least if we get to land on the ice it isn’t repelling like that piece of metal did.”
“No, it looks as if there’s some sort of gravity. There must be to drag the bodies.” Mickey put up a picture of the giant, blue-lit alien asteroid, and marked a cross on the near end. “If we land here, then perhaps we can walk across the ice to the larger hole? At least we can look down inside and see if there’s a way in.”
“That’s a weapon! They’ve clipped all their hand lasers together.” Bobby looked down at his laser, wondering what Magpie meant, then up again as the camera screen zoomed in on the construct. The frame and what Magpie said were the combined hand lasers were being manhandled round using suit jets. A light glowed around the end of a short tube, an answering glow lit up a capsule and vapour gushed! The lasers weren’t supposed to cut into suits, let alone metal.
Bobby didn’t hesitate. He didn’t want to face that weapon alone so he had to help the other squads. “Can anyone hit the bledrin thing? We’ve got to stop them before they get round to us. Hood, what about your added extra?” Magpie pulled a leg from Hood’s pack and passed it, and Hood twisted. A long tube slid out. Magpie refastened the leg and passed him the second.
“I could throw a blade?” Bells sounded doubtful. “I might come near enough to spoil their aim?”
“Too late for the Amazon capsule, it’s blown. What the…? One of the Amazons had some sort of mini rocket but missed the laser. He nailed one of the Krauts but the laser is still firing.” Siflis fell silent because although a second tiny missile had struck a second figure, the Kraut laser cut right through the Amazon Troopers including the one with the launcher.
Bells performed a gentle somersault backwards as he threw but Bobby reached out and snagged him before he went far. They tried to follow the glittering spark as the knife flew across the gap but lost sight. Meanwhile Hood had screwed the two tubes together. He stuck his metal forefinger in one end to give it a sharp twist, then brought the little finger across to socket into the tube side. “Try to hit the laser, Hood.”
“The Frogs are trying to hide behind their capsule. They’re fitting something together.” Siflis sounded puzzled. “A long tube?”
Bobby pushed Bells back towards their own asteroid. “Throw again.”
“I only had the two.”
“You’ll get the knives out of your pack if we survive. Throw it. Give your girlfriend time to put together whatever that tube is.” As Bobby finished, Bells slid a section apart on his other metal leg and pulled clear the long knife. They’d all got something built in, but not for this range and there wasn’t supposed to be anything powerful enough to damage a capsule.
“Firing.” A tongue of flame showed briefly at the end of the tube Hood now aimed at the Krauts and a line of smoke flew towards the modified lasers. “Missed. We’re too far away, they’d drifted before it got there.” Hood unclipped the index finger end on his other hand and slotted it into the tube. His truncated finger slid in behind it and gave a twist.
“Be quick, because you got their attention.” The souped-up laser had burned a deep hole into the Frog capsule, but it hadn’t exploded. Instead a cloud of vapour and pieces gushed out, turning to glittering ice which masked the capsule and Frog squad. The Krauts abandoned that target, already turning the contraption towards Bobby. Turning it quickly, one pointing as Bells threw again. The light flashed, and the other side of the Basted’s ice block jetted a cloud of steam. A few moments later the laser burned right through the edge and steam billowed past Aggie. The steam turned to ice dust as Bobby moved across the asteroid to look around the other edge.
Hood fired. The laser lashed out again but Magpie pulled Hood down and back, so if the laser came through it would miss. The laser chewed across the face of their asteroid and Bobby threw himself backwards. As the beam bit a notch out of the edge Bobby thought he’d been quick enough, until the cold and a cloud of vapour took his breath away. He tried to speak while frantically struggling to close the gash where the beam had caught his suit. The half metre long gouge, blackened at the edges, billowed briefly as all the air gushed out and Bobby felt the seals around his neck and the tops of his arms tighten.
Vaguely, as if a million miles away, Bobby heard Siflis curse. “You got the man, Hood, though it’s spun the whole thing away for now. Shoot again!”
“I can’t, no more ammo until we can get in the packs. Shite, Beebi!”
Bobby had the sealant out, but the hole was too long, flapping too much. He fumbled for the Gaffer tape, all the time expecting the skinsuit underneath to rupture and spill his guts out into space. What a stupid way to go. Would he feel his blood boil, because that’s what the instructors said?
Hands grabbed, pulling his own away but Bobby fought. The basteds were killing him. Why? Then other hands slapped tape over the slash, sealant gushed, and two more rolls of Gaffer tape passed over his chest and gut again and again. Hands were still shaking him, his senses swam, and then Bobby remembered to breathe. He’d got rid of all his air, breathed out, because the instructors said that. Air inside his lungs would burst them. Bobby dragged down huge gulps of air as all the noises crashed back in on the coms.
“I’m all right, I’m all right.” Bobby looked at the squad clustered round him with sealant all over their hands. He panted, then got out, “Hard luck.”
“Shite, missed my chance.” Bells turned away with a broad smile.
“Now you’ll never make sergeant, Hood.” Magpie elbowed the big man in the ribs even if the suit robbed the blow of any power.
“Are you all right, Sergeant?”
Bobby turned to Mickey. “Yes thanks. Have you got anything Bells can throw?” He had to get back into this fight rather than think about all that vapour, and the cold biting in.
“I’ve got one blade he might throw.” Mickey offered a short blade with a curve. “Not a throwing knife.”
“It’s better than nothing, and better than Magpie’s for throwing.” B
ells pulled himself up the ice while the rest watched. “I hope those Frog Divas get that bledrin thing working, whatever it is.” As Bells looked over their asteroid the Kraut gunner, his finger still firmly on the firing button, spun far enough to draw a line of steam across the alien asteroid. “Is that basted dead?”
Afterwards none of them were sure if the weapons inside the ice reacted before the Kraut laser reached the large hole, or after the beam hit the weapon inside. Five more gouts of steam blew out elsewhere on the rugged surface, blasting free chunks of ice. Six Alien weapons tore briefly at the Krauts and their contraption before metal glowed brightly and spattered in sparkling droplets. All the space-suited Krauts, even those already hit by Hood or the Amazons, burst apart in clouds of vapour. The rocket flying over from the Frogs to blow a big hole in the Kraut capsule came as a complete anti-climax.
Silence fell as the squad looked at the scene, but this time none of the pits spawned the tiny rockets and lines. “They’ve got their samples.” As Siflis spoke, Bobby realised that yes, the damaged capsules and Amazon squad bodies wouldn’t yield any new information.
“You think they’re alive? The Aliens?” Bells had ducked down as the Alien weapons lashed out. Now his faceplate turned frantically from one of the squad to another, and Bobby knew the signs. Bells going viral right now wouldn’t help anyone.
“Just automatic defences Bells, so calm down.” Bobby looked at the camera picture from Siflis, peeking again. “I think it’s time to go, Mickey.”
“Are you sure? It’s just killed another squad.”
“But not the capsule, and not until the laser hit either the ice or that hole. Up until then it let us fight.” Bobby hoped so, and that the bledrin thing hadn’t just held off to study weapons and tactics. “We should go now anyway before the other capsules arrive, or the Frogs reload.”
