“Want to bet?” Oliver Llewelyn muttered under his breath. He was beginning to wish he had never agreed to fly the Gemal for Smith, and to hell with the legalities of refusing. Some things were more important than money, starting with his life. He grudgingly began datavising instructions round the blackhawks.
The communication links with another two spaceplanes dropped out. But three had landed their mercenary teams without incident and were already back in the air.
It is possible, Terrance told himself fiercely as the pearl-white specks soared to safety above the tangled tributary basin. We can find out what’s happening down there.
He observed the red cloud sending huge pseudostorm streamers boiling ferociously out across the jungle. A navigational graphics overlay revealed the position of the spaceplanes still on the ground. The largest swellings were heading for the landing zones with unerring accuracy.
“Come on,” he urged them through clenched teeth. “Get up. Get out of there.”
“Sensors report no energy perturbation of any kind,” Oliver Llewelyn said.
“Impossible. It’s being directed. What about the sensors the invaders used to track our spaceplanes, have we detected those?”
“No.”
Five more spaceplanes were back in the air, streaking away from the grasping claws of red cloud. Two of them were ones they had lost contact with earlier. Terrance heard a cheer go round the Gemal ’s bridge, and added his own whoop of exhilaration.
Now the mission was starting to come together. With the combat scout teams on the ground they would have targets soon. They could start hitting back.
The last three spaceplanes landed in the Quallheim Counties. One of them was from the Lady Macbeth .
The Villeneuve’s Revenge had the standard pyramid structure of four life-support capsules at its core. They were spherical, divided into three decks, with enough volume to make life for the crew of six very agreeable. Fifteen passengers could be accommodated with only a modest reduction in comfort. None of the six mercenaries they had brought to Lalonde had complained. The fittings, like the rest of the ship’s systems, could be classed as passable with plenty of room for improvement, upgrading, or preferably complete replacement.
Erick Thakrar and Bev Lennon sailed headfirst through the ceiling hatch of the lounge deck above the spaceplane hangar. The compartment’s surfaces were coated in a thin grey-green foam with stikpads at regular intervals, though most of them had lost their cohesiveness. Furniture was all lightweight composite that had been folded back neatly into alcoves, producing a floor made up of labelled squares, hexagons, and circles like some mismatched mosaic. Walls were principally storage lockers, broken by hatchways into personal cabins, the red panels of emergency equipment cubicles, and inbuilt AV player blocks with their projector pillars. There was a watery vegetable smell in the air. Only two of the lightstrips were on. Several purple foil food wrappers were drifting through the air like lost aquatic creatures, with a couple more clamped against the roof grilles by the gentle air flow. A black flek was spinning idly. It all added up to lend the lounge a discarded appearance.
Erick slapped casually at the plastic-coated ladder stretching between floor and ceiling, angling for the floor hatch. His neural nanonics reported André Duchamp opening a direct communication channel.
“He’s docking now,” the captain datavised. “Or attempting to.”
“How is the communication link? Can you get anything from inside?”
“Nothing. It’s still a three per cent bit rate, just enough to correlate docking procedures. The processors must have been bollocksed up quite badly.”
Erick glanced over his shoulder at Bev, who shrugged. The two of them were armed; Bev with a neural jammer, Erick a laser pistol he hoped to God he wouldn’t have to use.
The spaceplane had emerged from the upper atmosphere and re-established contact with a weak signal from a malfunctioning reserve transmitter. Brendon claimed the craft had been subject to a ferocious electronic warfare attack which had decimated the on-board processors. They only had his word for it, the link had barely enough power to broadcast his message, a full-scale datavise to assess the internal electronic damage was impossible.
In view of the known sequestration ability of the invaders, André Duchamp wasn’t taking any chances.
“That anglo Smith should have anticipated this,” André grumbled. “We should have had an examination procedure set up.”
“Yes,” Erick agreed. He and Bev traded a grin.
“Typical of this bloody bodge-up mission,” André chuntered on. “If he wants proper advice he should have experienced people like me on his general staff, not that arsehole Llewelyn. I could have told him you need to be careful when it comes to sequestration. Fifty years of experience, that’s what I’ve got, that counts for a hell of a lot more than any neural nanonics tactics program. I’ve had every smartarse weapon in the Confederation thrown at me, and I’m still alive. And he goes and chooses a Celt who makes a living from flying the brain dead. Merde !”
Bev’s legs cleared the rim of the hatch into the lounge, and he datavised a codelock at it. The carbotanium hatch slid shut, its seal engaging with a solid clunk.
“Come on, then,” Erick said. He slipped through the floor hatch into the lower deck. His neural nanonics provided him with an image from the starship’s external sensor clusters. The spaceplane was floundering, just metres away from the hull. Without a full navigational datalink, Brendon was having a great deal of trouble inserting the spaceplane’s nose into the hangar’s docking collar. Novice pilots could do better, Erick thought, wincing as reaction-control thrusters fired hard, seconds before the radar dome tip scraped the hull. “Ye gods. We might not have anything left to inspect at this rate.”
The lower deck was severely cramped, comprising an engineering shop for medium-sized electromechanical components, a smaller workshop for electronic repairs, two airlocks, one for the spaceplane hangar, one for EVA work, storage bins, and space armour lockers. Its walls were naked titanium, netted with conduits and pipes.
“Collar engaged,” André said. “Madeleine is bringing him in now.”
The whine of actuators carried faintly through the starship’s stress structure into the lower deck. Erick accessed a camera in the hangar, and saw the spaceplane being pulled into the cylindrical chamber. A moth crawling back inside a silver chrysalis. The retracted wings had a clearance measured in centimetres.
He datavised orders into the hangar systems processors. When the spaceplane came to rest, power lines, coolant hoses, and optical cables plugged into umbilical sockets around its fuselage.
“There’s very little data coming out,” Erick said, scanning the docking operations console holoscreen to see the preliminary results of the diagnostic checks. “I can’t get any internal sensors to respond.”
“Is that the processors or the sensors themselves which are malfunctioning?” André asked.
“Difficult to tell,” Bev said, hanging from a grab hoop behind Erick to look over his shoulder. “Only ten per cent of the internal databuses are operational, we can’t access the cabin management processors to see where the fault lies. God knows how Brendon ever piloted that thing up here. He’s missing half of his control systems.”
“Brendon is the best,” Madeleine Collun said.
The console’s AV pillar bleeped, showing a single communication circuit was open from the spaceplane. Audio only.
“Anyone out there?” Brendon asked. “Or have you all buggered off to lunch?”
“We’re here, Brendon,” Erick said. “What’s your situation?”
“The atmosphere is really bad, total life-support failure as far as I can make out . . . I’m gulping oxygen from an emergency helmet . . . Get that airlock connected now . . . This is killing my lungs . . . I can smell some kind of plastic burning . . . Acid gas . . .”
“I can’t cycle the cabin atmosphere for him,” Erick datavised to André. “Our pumps
are working and the hose seals are confirmed, but the spaceplane pressure valves won’t open, there’s no environmental circuit.”
“Get him into the airlock, then,” André said. “But don’t let him into the life-support cabin, not yet.”
“Aye, aye.”
“Come on!” Brendon shouted.
“On our way, Brendon.”
Bev ordered the airlock tube to extend. The spaceplane’s fuselage shield panel slid back to reveal the circular airlock hatch below.
“Lucky that worked,” Erick muttered.
Bev was staring into the AV pillar’s projection, watching the airlock tube seal itself to the hatch rim. “It’s a simple power circuit. Nothing delicate about that.”
“But there’s still a supervising processor—Hell.” Environment sensors inside the airlock tube were picking up traces of toxic gases as the spaceplane’s hatch swung open. The console holoscreen switched to a camera inside the metal tube. A curtain of thin blue smoke was wafting out of the hatch. A flickering green light shone inside the cabin. Brendon appeared, pulling himself along a line of closely spaced grab hoops. His yellow ship’s one-piece was smeared with dirt and soot. The copper-mirror visor of the shell-helmet he was wearing covered his face, it was connected to a portable life-support case.
“Why didn’t he put his spacesuit on?” Erick asked.
Brendon waved at the camera. “God, thanks, I couldn’t have lasted much longer. Hey, you haven’t opened the hatch.”
“Brendon, we have to take precautions,” Bev said. “We know the invaders can sequestrate people.”
“Oh, sure, yes. One moment.” He started coughing.
Erick checked the environmental readings again. Fumes were still pouring out of the spaceplane cabin; the airlock tube filters could barely cope.
Brendon opened his visor. His face was deathly white, sweating heavily. He coughed again, flinching at the pain.
“Christ,” Erick muttered. “Brendon, datavise a physiological reading please.”
“Oh God it hurts.” Brendon coughed again, a hoarse croaking sound.
“We’ve got to get him out,” Bev said.
“I don’t get any response from his neural nanonics,” Erick said. “I’m trying to datavise them through the airlock tube’s processor but there isn’t even a carrier code acknowledgement.”
“Erick, he’s in trouble!”
“We don’t know that!”
“Look at him.”
“Look at Lalonde. They can build rivers of light in the sky. Faking up one injured crewman isn’t going to tax them.”
“For God’s sake.” Bev stared at the holoscreen. Brendon was juddering, one hand holding a grab loop as he vomited. Sallow globules of fluid burped out of his mouth, splashing and sticking to the dull-silver wall of the tube opposite.
“We don’t even know if he’s alone,” Erick said. “The hatch into the spaceplane isn’t shut. It won’t respond to my orders. I can’t even shut it, let alone codelock it.”
“Captain,” Bev datavised. “We can’t just leave him in there.”
“Erick is quite right,” André replied regretfully. “This whole incident is highly suspicious. It is convenient for somebody who wants to get inside the ship. Too convenient.”
“He’s dying!”
“You may not enter the airlock while the hatch into the spaceplane remains open.”
Bev looked round the utilitarian lower deck in desperation. “All right. How about this? Erick goes up into the lounge and codelocks that hatch behind him, leaving me in here. That way I can take a medical nanonic in to Brendon, and I can check out the spaceplane cabin to make sure there aren’t any xenoc invaders on board.”
“Erick?” André asked.
“I’ve no objection.”
“Very well. Do it.”
Erick swam up into the empty lounge, and poised himself on the ladder. Bev’s face was framed by the floor hatch, grinning up at him. “Good luck,” Erick said. He datavised a codelock at the hatch’s seal processor, then turned the manual fail-safe handle ninety degrees.
Bev twisted round as soon as the carbotanium square closed. He pulled a medical nanonic package from a first aid case on the wall. “Hold on, Brendon. I’m coming in.” Red environmental warning lights were flashing on the panel beside the circular airlock tube hatch. Bev datavised his override authority into the management processor, and the hatch began to swing back.
Erick opened a channel into the lounge’s communication net processor, and accessed the lower deck cameras. He watched Bev screw up his face as the fumes blew out of the open hatchway. Emerald green light flared out of the spaceplane’s cabin, sending a thick, blindingly intense beam searing along the airlock tube to wash the lower deck. Caught full square, Bev yelled, his hands coming up instinctively to cover his eyes. A ragged stream of raw white energy shot along the centre of the green light, smashing into him.
The camera failed.
“Bev!” Erick shouted. He sent a stream of instructions into the processor. A visualization of the lower deck’s systems materialized, a ghostly reticulation of coloured lines and blinking symbols.
“Erick, what’s happening?” André demanded.
“They’re in! They’re in the fucking ship. Codelock all the hatches now. Now, God damn it!”
The schematic’s coloured lines were vanishing one by one. Erick stared wildly at the floor, as if he could see what was happening through the metal decking. Then the lounge lights went out.
“Five minutes until we land at our new drop zone, and the tension in the cabin is really starting to bite,” Kelly Tirrel subvocalized into a neural nanonics memory cell. “We know something has happened to at least five other spaceplanes. What everyone is now asking themselves is, will the extra distance protect us? Do the invaders only operate below their protective covering of red cloud?”
She accessed the spaceplane’s sensors to observe the magnificent, monstrous spectacle again. Thousand-kilometre-long bands of glowing red nothingness suspended in the air. Astounding. This far inland they were slim and complex, interwoven like the web of a drunken spider above the convoluted tributaries. When she had seen them from orbit, calm and regular, they had intimidated her; up close and churning like this they were just plain frightening.
Coiling belts were edge-on with the starboard wing, growing larger as they spun through the sky towards the spaceplane. It was an excellent image, a little bit too realistic for peace of mind. But then the spaceplane’s sensor array was all military-grade. Long streamlined recesses on both sides of the fuselage belly were now holding tapering cylindrical weapons pods—maser cannons providing a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree cover, an electronic warfare suite, and a stealth envelope. They weren’t quite an assault fighter, but neither were they a sitting duck like some of the spaceplanes.
Typical that Joshua would have a multi-role spaceplane. No! Thank God Joshua had a multi-role spaceplane.
Forty minutes into the descent, and already she missed him. You’re so weak, she swore at herself.
Kelly was starting to have serious second thoughts about the whole assignment. Like all war correspondents, she supposed. Being on the ground was very different to sitting in the office anticipating being on the ground. Especially with the appearance of that red cloud.
The seven mercenaries had discussed that appearance ad nauseam the whole way in from the emergence point. Reza Malin, the team’s leader, had seemed almost excited by the prospect of venturing below it. Such adverse circumstances were a challenge, he said. Something new.
She had taken time to get to know all of them reasonably well. So she knew what Reza said wasn’t simple bravado. He had been a Confederation Navy Marine at one time. An officer, she guessed; he wasn’t very forthcoming about that period of his life, nor subsequent contracts as a marshal on various stage one colony planets. But he must have been good at the second oldest profession, money in large quantities had paid for a considerable number of phys
ical enhancements and alterations. Now he was one of the elite. Like a cosmonik, blurring the line between machine and human. The kind of hyper-boosted composite the mundane troops stored in zero-tau on the Gemal aspired to become.
Reza Malin retained a basic humanoid shape, although he was now two metres tall, and proportionally broad. His skin was artificial, a tough neutral grey-blue impact-resistant composite with a built-in chameleon layer. He didn’t bother with clothes any more, and there were no genitalia (rather, no external genitalia, Kelly recorded faithfully). Cybernetic six-finger claws replaced his natural hands. Both forearms were wide, with integral small-calibre gaussrifles, his skeleton rigged to absorb recoil. Like Warlow, his face was incapable of expression. Black glass bubble-shields covered both eyes; the nose was now a flat circular intake which could filter chemical and biological agents. The back and sides of his bald skull were studded with a row of five sensor implants, smooth centimetre-wide ulcerlike bulges.
Despite the lack of expression, she learned a lot from his voice, which was still natural. Reza wasn’t easily flustered. That and a civilized competence, the way the other six followed his orders without question, gave her more confidence than she would otherwise have had in the scouting mission. In the final analysis, she realized, she trusted him with her life.
The spaceplane banked sharply. Kelly was aware of Ashly Hanson focusing the optical sensors on a small river three kilometres below. The silvery water had a curious speckling of white dots.
“What does he think he’s doing?” Pat Halahan asked. The team’s second in command was sitting in the seat next to her. A ranger-scout, as he described himself, slimmer and smaller than Reza, but with the same blue-grey skin, and powerful adipose legs. Each forearm had twin wrists, one for ordinary hands, one a power data socket for plug-ins—weapons or sensors. His senses were all enhanced, with a raised rim of flesh running from the corner of his eyes right around the back of his skull.
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