by Eric Flint
“Speaking of that, time to let them know our status,” said Laura. “Sherlock, this is Raft One.”
“Raft One, we read you. What is your status?”
“All personnel are safely onboard Raft One and Raft Two. Please confirm you can detect and track beacons for both craft?”
A pause, then Comm Officer Gariba replied, “Sherlock is detecting and tracking both beacons, Raft One. We’re also tracking Emerald Maui, now two kilometers southwest of your current position.”
“She’s on autopilot,” Campbell said. “As a service…just note when she goes down.”
“Will do, Sergeant Campbell. Are your shelters all in good condition?”
“Ours appears to be operating perfectly,” Laura answered. “Sergeant?”
“All fine here,” Campbell said. “Aside from these damn waves.”
“Winds have dropped down,” Whips said. “They’re actually not bad now. Waves will probably subside. Do we have an idea for when the backblast hits?”
Tip replied. “Looks like another hour or two. We’ll be able to give you a heads-up a few minutes before that happens. Unfortunately, we’re seeing heavy weather in your area for that whole time.”
A brilliant flash lit the interior of Raft One and Laura jumped at the crash of thunder. Rain was now beating on the exterior of the shelter. “Roger that, Sherlock,” she said. “We have lightning. Is this a danger?”
“Shouldn’t be,” Campbell replied. “There are conductive channels in the walls for just that kind of thing. It’ll be loud as hell if you’re hit, though. Scare the crap out of you. I remember that happening to us on Fortannis, some years back—wasn’t a liferaft, but a special ops boat, same basic size and all.”
Laura shook her head. “Sometimes, Sergeant, it seems like you’ve done pretty much everything.”
“Well, now that I’ve been here on Lincoln, I probably have, Ma’am.”
She laughed at that. “Sherlock, is your ETA still 08:30 local time?”
“Raft One, that’s an affirmative. Be advised that even then the conditions will be extremely poor. This rescue will be hazardous and we cannot guarantee everyone’s safety.”
“Sherlock, that’s understood. Given current conditions, I think we couldn’t guarantee our own safety over the next week.” It hurt to admit that, but really, they’d done the best they could. Cosmic catastrophes were out of even the sergeant’s bailiwick. “All we can ask is that you try. The lifeforms of Lincoln have weathered this kind of thing in the past, probably many times, but we’re not native.”
“Understood. Rest assured we will do our best.”
Despite the storm, the waves did seem to be reducing. A blast of wind caught at the liferaft from behind Laura, shoving it along; then another, this one from her left. Then one from ahead, and another from behind. “No wonder the waves are smaller; the wind’s completely random now.”
“Right now we’re getting chaotic local storms. Hasn’t had a chance to get organized,” Caroline said. “By the time it starts, the next airblast will hit. Then we’ll really get rain, probably, what with cooling all this area filled with hot, humid air, but who knows…we’ve never observed this before.”
Sakura’s smile was small but visible. “Well, ‘never observed this before’ is like Lincoln’s motto, right?”
Laura laughed. “Ever since we first saw a star that wasn’t there!”
“We’ll keep in touch, Raft One and Raft Two. Our rescue shuttle is prepped and will depart on schedule, barring any new surprises from Lincoln. We’re also readying cabins for all of you onboard.”
Laura imagined sleeping on a real, modern bed in a real ship’s cabin, and for a moment was struck by longing so intense it hurt. “That sounds…absolutely marvelous, Sherlock. We’ll call if anything changes.”
“Sherlock out.”
Laura looked around. “Well, the waves aren’t so bad, and we’ve got fifteen hours or so before rescue. Everyone who needs to use the bathroom, and get something to eat. This is going to be one more day of Lincoln trying to kill us!”
Chapter 56
The reverse-blast hit like a screaming storm of demons, and despite the smart sea anchor Raft One heeled half-over before dropping reluctantly back to the ocean. Winds over three hundred kilometers per hour returned the ocean to the white-gray of spray and foam, interspersed with the towering walls of new and monstrous waves.
Sakura had held on grimly throughout that assault, feeling the temperature drop acutely before the environmentals could counter the ludicrous drop—twenty degrees Celsius in a matter of seconds. The waves threw them skyward, sent the raft spinning and slewing about, hammered Raft One and Raft Two with thundering torrents of foam as crests broke upon them.
In the middle of that terrible chaos, Sherlock called. “Raft One and Two, so you know: Emerald Maui just went down for the last time.”
There was a moment of relative silence within the storm. Then Campbell sighed. “One of the toughest ships I’ve ever had the honor of serving on. Survived more’n an hour by herself. Salute, all.”
Sakura had no problem saluting Emerald Maui.
She was, somehow, unsurprised when the limited sonar of the advanced life raft began to give an alert. “What are we seeing?”
“Hold on, Raft One, that alarm, we’re getting it too,” Tavana’s voice answered. “Sergeant, what is that?”
“Lemme see…huh.”
“Sergeant, ‘huh’ isn’t terribly informative,” Akira said dryly.
“Well, it ain’t so bad as it might be, but we’ll have to keep a real eye out. Chunks of one of the islands, that’s what it is. Sure don’t want to hit any of those with a raft.”
“How big?”
“Big enough; sonar’s seeing them ’cause they stick far enough down into the water that even all the chaff on the surface ain’t hiding them. That’s pretty big. Still, they’re a few klicks off, so no big worry yet.”
“Can these rafts maneuver at all?”
“Some—shape-memory material on the outside plus the sea anchor lets them sail a bit. There’s a built-in motor but it’s nothing like able to make a difference in this mess—mostly meant to help you make landfall or station-keep when a rescue comes. Tav, can you, Saki, and the others whomp up an avoidance app that can be tied to the sonar?”
“What do you think, Saki?”
Sakura looked at the indicated interfaces and code. “Together? I think so. Something to work on, anyway.”
It didn’t, after all, prove to be too difficult, and the work helped distract her while the waves of the reverse airblast had been trying to turn the world upside down and the winds were doing their best to help. Raft One and Two wouldn’t ever be sailing yachts, but they’d be able to guide themselves in broad courses past large objects, like pieces of floating island.
“Hey, Sergeant…” Sakura said.
“What’s up, Saki?”
“I was thinking—if we tie this into our location, we should be able to keep us close to each other. Do you think that’s a good idea?”
She could practically see his grin in his voice. “Pilot Sakura Kimei, I think that’s a damned good idea. Who needs tethers when the ships can do the work?”
“Tavana, Whips, can you help me figure this out?”
“On it, Saki,” said her oldest best friend, while her newest best friend said, “No problem.”
And it wasn’t in fact very hard to do. Within a relatively few minutes of implementing the change, their coordinates began to converge. “How much of a separation you looking to keep?” the sergeant asked.
“A few hundred meters,” she said. “We don’t want to be so close we might hit each other or get in the way during the rescue.”
“Sounds good. I feel better already.”
Another slow settling to merely ordinary storm, and then the second airblast—this one still vicious, but noticeably weaker than the first. Another lull, and sometime during that one, Sakura actually fe
ll asleep, only slightly roused by the second reverse, a while later.
And then she snapped instantly awake at a new message.
“Raft One and Raft Two, this is Lieutenant Susan Fisher, on board research and rescue shuttle John H. Watson, departing Sherlock. We are on our way, ETA one hour, twenty-seven minutes from…mark.”
The cheer that went up nearly deafened everyone in the shelters, but no one seemed to care. “Watson, this is Raft Two,” Campbell answered. “As you can probably tell, we’re all happy to hear that.”
“Can’t blame you,” Susan said with her own laugh. “Just hang on a little longer. Weather’s going to be rough, but if we time it right, it shouldn’t be much worse than rough, which looking at what’s likely to happen is the best we can hope for.”
“Roger that, Watson. Just get down here safe; we’ll find a way on board if I have to figure out how to climb a wave and stand on the top.”
“Let’s try conventional methods first, Sergeant,” Laura said.
“Much preferred, Ma’am. But I’m getting off this rock one way or another, and I’m not doing that until all the rest of you are first.”
“We’ll get all of you,” Susan said. “I don’t accept failure as an option, either.”
“Then we’ll get along just fine. We’ll let you get to your flying, then.”
“Watson out.”
Sakura checked her straps. I pull this for quick release. All my equipment’s tied on right. She debated dumping it; after all, she wasn’t going to need anything but her omni once she got on board. Why carry anything they didn’t need?
But…each of those tools was either a precious remnant of one of the two shuttles, or something that they’d had to make, with hours of work and often dozens of failures. Her ankle-knife, made out of the only successful batch of bog-iron based steel, was Caroline’s ultimate triumph. She couldn’t throw that away. Sure, the arrival of Emerald Maui had made working metal much easier, but that knife, and the few others made in the time before Emerald Maui completed the trip to their continent, had been their final proof that even without another group of castaways, the Kimei family was going to do more than survive; they were going to live. Its sheath was Lincoln-made leather. Her clothes, a patchwork of stuff from Emerald Maui and what they’d made from Lincoln’s animals and plants. Other things—ornaments, gloves, a shell-opener, climbing spikes—all things someone had made.
No. That’s all us. I’m keeping them.
She noticed, with a smile, that none of the others showed any sign of getting rid of the few things they’d kept in this last evacuation. “You know,” she said, looking to her mother, “I’m actually going to miss a few things.”
“Like what?” demanded Mel, staring at her like she had just grown a pair of new heads.
“Hedral jam, for one. Not getting that anywhere else.”
Mel blinked. Sakura grinned, because she knew how much jam Melody ate. “Um…okay. I guess.”
“I won’t miss stinging flowers and trees,” Tavana commented. “Though that capy roast your father makes, that I will miss a bit.”
For the next little while, the conversation continued. Sakura found herself surprised to realize how many things she genuinely would miss. Not enough to make her regret rescue, no…but enough to tell her that life on Lincoln wouldn’t have been bad—minus the giant meteor, anyway.
She didn’t know how to feel about that at first; hadn’t they all desperately wanted to be elsewhere? Hadn’t they almost broken because of everything they’d lost, all the little and big things that were gone, that they had to re-create or do without? She remembered that day with an echo of the terrible feeling of utter hopelessness, of defeat and anger and despair.
But…
But they hadn’t broken. They’d survived. They’d turned the alien world into…into home. It hadn’t, maybe, been the home they’d imagined. Hadn’t been the home they’d planned on originally. But the thought of Sherwood Tower and her snug room, far above the forest floor, and Whips visiting her as they talked and sometimes played games, made her smile. The family dinners, in the big room two floors down, with her father constantly trying new and, usually, amazing things in cooking the native food. Hearing Mother and Father laugh one night, just laugh, the way they used to on the ship, or back on Earth, and knowing that they were home, that everything was all right.
She remembered Tavana, and walking through the sunlight-touched forest with him, holding his hand and just feeling, not threatened, but at peace. There might have been dangers in the forest, but at the end, they were known. At least for that short time, they’d confronted Lincoln on its own terms, and Lincoln had accepted them.
Maybe that’s the problem, a part of her thought whimsically. Lincoln knew rescue was coming, and didn’t want us to leave it alone.
If so, Lincoln was that really crazy boyfriend from so many sims. The planet saw fit to punctuate that thought with a double bolt of lightning that almost dazzled and deafened them.
The radio came to life again. “Raft One, this is Watson,” said Susan Fisher’s voice again. “We have you on visual.”
Chapter 57
“Those are sweet words to hear,” Campbell said; Whips was pretty sure the sergeant was grinning ear-to-ear. “You have us, Raft Two, on beacon, I hope?”
“We do, Raft Two, and expect visual soon. You appear to be less than half a kilometer apart, which is, honestly, astonishing.”
“Give credit to our team of engineers and app-hackers; they’ve encouraged our little boats to stick together.”
“That makes things easier. Can you guide yourselves closer—minimum separation about a hundred fifty meters?”
“Tav? Saki? Whips?”
“Yes, we can start that happening,” Tavana said. “But the rafts, they will not sail like liners. Probably we will not get that much closer.”
“No problem, Raft One. We’ll have to also keep an eye on the two local island fragments—one’s fifty meters high, the other’s about thirty-five, but spacing at the moment doesn’t make them an immediate threat.” A pause. “Raft Two, we now have you on visual as well, though sea-spray will make it difficult to maintain at distance.”
“So long as you know where we are, that’s good enough. Rescue Raft One first—they’ve been here longer, they get seniority.”
A chuckle. “Will do. Raft One, prepare for rescue. We will be lowering a rescue harness. Do you require a rescue swimmer to aid anyone in boarding?”
“Negative,” Whips said instantly, before anyone else could answer. “I will be rescue swimmer for both rafts.”
“Understood,” Susan replied. “I couldn’t ask you to do it, but obviously I haven’t got anyone a tenth as qualified.” There was not a trace of hesitation or irony in her voice—a simple acknowledgement that he was right.
He couldn’t hide the gratified patterns that danced over his skin. It was still a special event for humans other than the Kimeis to accept him so fully. “Thank you, Lieutenant!” he said earnestly.
“No, thank you. Raft One, we’re matching vectors with you best we can. Rescue harness is…away.”
Whips saw the brilliant orange harness, blinking all along its length with lights that further outlined it against the hundred-kilometer-per-hour spray, weighted ends plunging into the ocean to hold it at least somewhat steady. “Here I go!”
Saki opened the flap door for him, and as the raft tilted for the next wave, he slid straight out and down.
Lincoln’s waters were still warm; how long that might last, or whether they might get too warm in a week, who knew? The important thing was that he was in the water now, near the harness. “Who’s going first?”
“Children first,” Laura said flatly. “Hitomi?”
He could see Hitomi looking, white-faced, at the ocean, and couldn’t blame her. He knew how bad humans were at swimming, and even a really skilled human wouldn’t be looking at this as a fun game. He jetted over nearer to the shelter. “You
’ll ride me, Hitomi. Trust me. It won’t be fun, but I’ll keep you safe.”
Hitomi shivered, hand gripping one of the side straps. He could see her try to make a move forward, but her hand wouldn’t let go.
“Hitomi, it’s Whips. Listen to him. You’ve got to.”
She closed her eyes, and Whips saw her face steady. She was still pale, but when the eyes opened, their gaze was not panicked; it was…not calm, but somehow older, and he remembered what she and Francisco had gone through. That hurt, somehow, deep inside, but at the same time he felt a spark of pride. His little sister wasn’t going to let the fear beat her.
She nodded once. “I trust you,” she said, and launched herself from the shelter.
The wind caught at her, pushed her sideways, but one of his arms fanned out, wrapped around the little girl and pulled her in. They plunged beneath the surface, but he felt her gripping hard, not letting go. Above the surface again, and he curled his arm back; a moment later, she was on his back, holding on with desperate strength. And I’m keeping my arm there so she stays.
As he reached the harness, another advantage of being a Bemmie became obvious. He could use one arm to hold Hitomi, and two others to open and steady the harness. The waves shoved them up and down, and a bolt of lightning made Hitomi jump, but in a few more minutes she was strapped securely into the harness. “She’s in! Take her away!” he shouted.
Instantly the ladder began to lift into the belly of the big transport, hovering above them on nuclear-powered airjets. “Retrieving harness. Harness retracting…all indicators show secure. Halfway up.” A few moments later, “Raft One, Hitomi Kimei is safe aboard. Dropping harness.”
Whips allowed himself a Bemmie whoop of relief, echoing out into the storm-tossed water. But there was no more time, because here was the harness, and it was Melody’s turn, also white-faced but methodically waiting and then diving almost neatly into the water, trusting Whips to retrieve her and get her to the harness. Then Sakura, who didn’t hesitate at all but dove to meet him, his catch synchronized with her motion as they’d done it when they were so much younger.
