As they both descended towards the carrier, the two monitors were still locked together, tumbling slowly towards the rough native tree-covered terrain far below them with their automated antigravity systems trying to control their descent.
Bob tapped the icon of the Games Board director on his comms screen. 'As you no doubt can see, Director Francis, two of your monitors are in trouble. Can we assist?'
The impossibly young face of the director appeared on Bob's screen with a huge beaming smile. 'Wonderful display of cunning and aerial prowess over your once-leader, commander. A most welcome relief on an otherwise deeply boring day. The monitors? Well, if you wish, yes please, you may lend them assistance, but we will not cover the cost of any repairs should your salvage craft be damaged during the recovery. Whatever you wish, commander, whatever you wish, but it is at your expense. If they are that stupid as to collide, they are below my interest.'
The connection was broken and Bob scowled, wondering why the Games Board sometimes treated its own with such contempt.
'Major de Ruyter,' he said, 'as fast as you can, please.'
Mark de Ruyter did not reply to the order, but immediately spoke directly to the Wrecker, leaving the comms channels open. 'Staff!'
Aaron, who had been closely watching the slowly tumbling forms of the monitors, replied, 'On it!'
Al, without being told, pressed hard on the throttles until the turbines were howling and started to pursue the damaged Games Board units.
The Wrecker closed quickly, swinging down on the monitors as Al started to decelerate, using the antigravity units by feeding the power of the turbines to them, and using the jet exhausts as manoeuvring thrusters. As they got close, smoke started to pour from the uppermost of the damaged monitors and they could see that it had its waldos locked around the other as if embracing it.
'Shit!' Aaron said. 'OK, the top one is obviously trying to rescue the lower. Looks like its own AG unit is failing. Swing under them, Al. We are going to take a hit anyway.'
Al was very busy watching his screens and also glancing out of the transparent dome that surrounded them, trying to judge the distance and also worrying that the ground was coming up awfully quickly.
Aaron called out: 'Everyone, arm ejection seats. This is going to be a near run thing.' As he was saying this, he was manipulating one of the long, heavy-lif t folding cranes with his own waldo controls, reaching out.
Al slid the Wrecker close under the now free-falling monitors. 'We are right on the edge, staff!'
Aaron ignored him as he could feel the housings of the monitors through his gloves and grabbed hard, yelling out, 'Roll under them and hit it!'
Al needed no further encouragement as he angled the Wrecker and twisted it in the direction of the turning crane arm. Without waiting for the monitor wrecks to hit the top deck, he hit the overloads on the antigravity systems and slid the machine sideways, washing off the speed, then, with the lightest brush through the tops of the licorice crops, levelled out and slowly started to climb. Once he knew that they were safe, he started breathing again.
Aaron said, 'Good work, Al! I owe you a beer!'
Al muttered back, 'It had better be a bloody big one!'
Sally looked at May, who was as white as a sheet. She slapped the younger woman on the knee. 'Told you! Nothing to worry about. Now that was exciting. Good work, boys. Right, off we go, May. Disarm your ejection seat and let's go have a look at our patients, as I know one is a bit banged up, if not dead, as I saw blood dribbling down its side.' She spoke directly to the medical unit, still locked on the wall beside her. 'Med-unit, follow.'
They left their seats and climbed out onto the top deck with their suits automatically deploying a safety line that locked onto the deck, while the medical unit lifted up and followed Sally.
The two wrecks of the monitors lay in a jumbled mess. As soon as they got close to the cobalt-blue units, Aaron caught up with them, the crane remote control in his hand. He activated a smaller crane that emerged from the deck and, working both, carefully pulled the mangled monitors apart and lay them down on the deck. As soon as they touched, tentacles of rope came up out of the mesh deck and secured the damaged units to the deck.
'Al, hold us here, please, on auto and get out here with the cutting gear.'
'We look at the one with claret flowing down its sides first,' Sally said. 'Staff, see if you can open it up, please.'
Aaron climbed over the smashed AG sled of the monitor and looked around for the emergency carapace overrides. He asked the Wrecker for data on the monitor's systems and soon located the lever mangled into the side of the unit. Swearing softly as it came away in his hands, he turned to the major.
'Yeah, this is going to take a couple of minutes, major. You want to have a look at the other one first?'
Sally nodded, walked over to the other monitor, and pulled on the emergency lever, activating the housing which folded up to reveal the unconscious Games Board audiovisual operator.
She gently lifted up the woman's head with its over-large ears and the snug metal plates over the top of her skull. She found the sockets that she was looking for and slid jacks from her wrist-mounted units into them.
'Looks like a new model of monitor, May. Will be interested to see what we learn of them this time.' Sally looked at the readouts in her HUD and frowned. 'Very interesting. This one is actually closer to a standard human than the others I have seen in the past few years. Lungs, heart, kid neys, liver and most of the other organs are about seventy per cent normal. And this one, at least, has a bigger digestive tract than others. No reproductive organs, of course, and still fused to the machine from above the hips, but like I say closer to us than others. Took a good bang to the head, quite nasty concussion. Right, May, give this one the standard brain injury pack through the neck shunt. Start a low dosage, check the brain function and increase it if necessary. Looks like Al and Aaron have the other one's carapace close to being off.' Sally stood up and walked across to where Al was cutting away the twisted locks to gain access to the more severely damaged monitor. She looked over the mangled machine, searching for external jack points. Seeing the one she wanted under a bent cover, she turned to the medical unit hovering beside her and pointed to the jack cover. 'Med unit. Remove and jack yourself in.'
The unit extended numerous little arms from its housing and as some reached down and grasped the mesh deck for purchase, two more simultaneously tore off the cover and a probe slid across and locked into the jack point. A second later, the information the med-unit was gleaning came up on Sally's HUD.
'Aaron, get that cover off fast. Stop being polite about it and just tear it off. We have minutes with this one.'
Aaron leapt up and jogged across to one of the vertical containers beside the closest turbine covers. He turned and pressed himself up against it as the power exoskeleton quickly formed around him. He clomped back over the deck on birdlike feet and, without saying a·word, bent down and grasped the carapace cover with clawed, powerful hands and heaved. There was a loud tearing, shrieking sound as the cover tore loose. Seconds later it was clear, revealing a male Games Board member with multiple crush wounds, including a piece of metal sticking out of his chest.
Sally went to work, with the med-unit opening itself in readiness. 'It reached across to her, jacking itself into a shunt on her right upper arm and linking directly into her brain as she snapped an oxygen mask onto the male. Surgical gloves formed around her hands from her suit as the med-unit cut away the leatherlike clothing of the monitor, and also sprayed the area with a rapid-seal medical membrane. 'It then pumped a low level anaesthetic through the shunt as it watched the male's level of consciousness. The major reached across as a glove was put on her hand by the med-unit. She thought about her requirements and a blade slid out of the glove as her visor went completely opaque.
Looking at the chest of her patient, she could see his internal organs, her visor acting as a CAT scanner, noting what the torn piece of met
al had damaged. She shook her head and frowned, then reached across with her left hand as a glove was locked on that hand by the med-unit. A blade also extended from it and she cut in two directions, outwards from the piece of metal. From her other fingers, fine, flexible tools slithered down into the wound as she directed each one to close off the haemorrhaging blood vessels. Once she knew she had the internal bleeding under control, she instructed the med-unit to pull out the piece of bloody metal. As soon as that was clear, she had the micro-tools repair the damaged veins and arteries to the right side of the heart and then gradually work their way outwards, quickly stitching the damaged lung tissue, then fully out through the chest wall and minutes later sealing the wound shut.
Satisfied that the most severe injuries had been dealt with, she stood up and looked over at May as her faceplate cleared then slid up into her helmet. 'How's that one doing, May?'
'On the mend, major. Almost conscious.'
'OK, good, have a look at this one for anything I may have missed.'
May nodded and walked across as the med-unit unplugged from the major and plugged itself into May's wrist u nit. She scanned the half-body of the monitor, looking for and noting the various injuries, advising the med-u nit the treatments to be commenced. Once she had finished with the living tissue, she went through the systems of the other half of the monitor, making notes of the mechanical systems that were no longer operating, or close to failure. 'Itbeing her specialty, she carefully examined the machine to-tissue interfaces, taking note of the latest tech advances that enabled the monitor to relay information directly to the Haast's database.
Sally looked across at Aaron and Al, nodding at each of them as she looked at her bloodied gloves. Frowning as if she had just remembered them, she slipped her hands into the med-unit where the gloves were unfolded off her and dropped into the cleaning solution. Looking at Aaron again, she asked, 'So what's the protocol now? Usually the Games Board has swooped in with one of its recovery units and the damaged units are off our hands.'
Aaron looked up and pointed. 'Well, the third one recorded everything we did and has now buggered off. Suppose I had better ask the boss.'
Sally nodded and added, 'Good idea, staff. I suppose it would be too much to ask for a cup of coffee? I know you have a good machine here on the Wrecker.'
As Aaron tapped his wrist unit to make contact with Major de Ruyter, Al grinned. 'Let me guess ... white with two sugars, right?'
She nodded.
'And May has hers straight black.'
Aaron looked across at Sally and reported, 'Nah, well, this is a new one on me. The major says that the Games Board says "you fixed 'em, you keep 'em".'
Before she could reply, Aaron called across to Al who was climbing back in the control sphere. 'Hey, Al, while you are at it get me an apple juice, will ya? Ta, mate.'
He looked down at his wristscreen again and said, 'Haast says keep heading towards Waipunga. They are going to come get us.'
Half an hour later the huge carrier slid up behind them. The Wrecker was remotely flown up past the landing bays of the individual fighting craft on the great curved side of Haast, until it was beside the medical deck. A large door opened downwards to form a landing platform which the Wrecker slid over. Minutes later, the monitors had been offloaded together with the two medics and their unit. As May had passed Aaron, she had reached down and gently pinched his left buttock, leaving him with a smile. Al grunted, then took up his own remote control and flew the Wrecker back down and into its own landing bay. As soon as the doors had closed, the first thing Aaron did was clean the blood off the mesh, gathering up the pieces of damaged monitor and placing them in storage. Then, with Al, he went over the machine, cleaning and restocking it with fuel.
'Hey, Al, think it's time for a beer, mate. We were supposed to have finished our shift an hour ago.'
As Al handed him a bottle of one of the local brews from their refrigerator, he asked him, 'So what are we going to do with the monitor bits? How about we just feed them to the recycling units? And why was the major so keen on saving the monitors in the first place? They have Soul Savers, don't they? Seemed a big effort for not much really.'
'Because, corporal,' said a gravelly voice behind them, 'the major is a fine example of humanity. She will save anyone or anything, no matter what. 'It is the way she is and besides which, she loves to practise her art.'
Aaron opened the refrigerator and handed Major Mark de Ruyter a pale ale without saying a word.
Mark took the top off and clinked the bottles against the others', raised the bottle in salute, and added, 'Yeah, she is fierce that one, but bloody good at what she does. Excellent work as always, guys. The Games Board is being a bit prickly about it, but the commander has awarded you a bonus anyway. There is something very wrong with that Games Board director. Weird one. Oh, yeah, Al, you may not know this but Major Aydon's younger sister and brother were both recruited by the Games Board a long time ago. So, like us she loathes them, but unlike us she will always do the right thing by them.'
Harold
Human Settlement on Storfisk
Harold was spending the last few days of his enforced recuperation researching everything that was happening around his village and its environs; also, the string of large islands that made up the settlements of the standard humans and the ACEs, plus the great continent thousands of kilometres to their north that made up the Haulers' reserves.
He had found that a great many of the ACEs who he spoke with every day were not, in fact, amongst the standard humans, but were guardians of the huge numbers of animals that had been brought back from extinction by the Haulers' Collective. Some of the more elitist ones would not consider conversing with the still-new Harold, but he did not care as the majority of those he contacted to learn more about were very happy to speak with a son of Basaltand share their knowledge. One of those was called Maqua and was one of the three ACE New Zealand Haast's eagles who looked af ter the other eagles, and also the flocks of giant moa in a mountainous area in one of the temperate zones of the continent.
'Hello, Harold my little friend, how does this beautif ul day find you? Has the itching stopped yet?'
'No, Maqua, but the girls rub a soothing ointment onto the skin each morning before they leave to go to school and then again when they get home. It's OK. At least I have been able to start exercising, I can breathe properly and eat again, so not long now before I can fly. How would you cope if you went back to being standard, or even augmented human, Maqua, if you could not fly?'
The eagle chuckled as she soared high in the mid-morning updraughts, watching a large flock of the massive moa as they contentedly grazed on the native and introduced flora. 'I fear that I would not do at all well, Harold. Did I tell you that I was here as an augmented before the first colonists to this world, all those hundreds of years ago?'
Harold grinned to himself, knowing that he was about to learn a great deal more about Maqua. 'No, you did not. Were you a Hauler crew? We have Hauler crew on Basalt. Lily and Jasmine. I like them very much.'
Maqua smiled, loving the young ACE's enthused wonder at all things and of his reactions to everything. Knowing of Marko and the crew of Basalt, she was not surprised that he had been made so well.
'Well, yes, I suppose that I was Hauler crew. I was a created human with strength and speed, endurance and physical toughness, designed to be an explorer. Looking at what you are seeing of what I am experiencing, Harold, why are you not uplinking completely so you can use all my senses?'
'Yes, I would like that, but the jacks are the last things to heal on me, thanks, Maqua. But I can see what you can see, so it's fine.'
Maqua, who was watching one particular flock of the moa, nodded a little in reply. 'They are a beautif ul bird, those moa. A pity in some respects that there is still not enough of the Old Earth vegetation for them to feed on exclusively, but we are getting there. Every year we see less and less defects in the eggs. I keep saying to the Haulers
that they should have their own ACEs to tend their flocks, but they say it is not necessary. But it does not really matter as it gives us an extra job and this is a good place to live.'
Harold had split his inputs and was also watching the Gjomvik carrier Haast slowly descending on the airfield. He relayed what he was seeing to Maqua.
'Oh, carrier airships! I so love them,' Maqua commented. 'The ones we used when we first came here were almost primitive in comparison to this Haast. Which reminds me ... will you excuse me for a few moments, please, Harold. I have a call to make.'
She broke the connection and in her mind linked to her two companions so they could share the rapid update from their friend, Haast, who was in the intelligence suite onboard the carrier thousands of kilometres to their south.
Haast spoke in his beautifully modulated voice, which had been created solely so he could comfortably converse with his human crewmates. 'Hello, my friends. I hope I find you well. I have information that may be of interest.'
Maqua, Moana and Tane called their greetings and then listened as Haast said, 'You have been told by the tigress Ayana of something alien that is in our midst and to watch and observe. I intercepted datalinks from Ayana's intelligence gathering drones in the seconds before they were destroyed. And, yes, it is true it was an incursion to test a new piece of equipment of mine, and most successful as no-one was alerted to it. I note that not all the information has been shared with Ayana by the Hauler orbital Angelito of what those drones learned of the alien. I am sharing that with you now, as you three are the closest I will ever have to kin and I want you prepared for this. Data packets follow. We are now about to fly up to be uplif ted by the Hauler Rose Foxtrot for passage to the local gas giant. Goodbye, my whanau, I shall see you upon my return. Stay safe.'
The three great birds farewelled their friend and then individually went through the data.
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