But not unscathed: Most obviously, our flank armor was trashed on both sides, having taken a pounding during the roll, twisted and dented and nearly torn-free in places. The starboard catwalk was curled partly upward around the upper tube, while the port was smashed downwards.
Fortunately, the tubes themselves were all structurally if not functionally intact in spite of their beating, as were the warheads inside. The starboard upper tube was, however, clearly damaged beyond firing, and Simmons couldn’t guarantee the others without time to break them open and inspect them properly.
The rover had been torn loose during our tumble, and was lying on its side about forty meters upslope like discarded junk.
Horst climbed up top to check our guns, but it was obvious we’d be getting no use out of the main battery until we at least swapped the primary gun barrels, as they were bent down into the upper deck. The boxed launchers and smaller turrets looked better, but everything was caked with soil and crushed plant life, so would probably be disastrous to try to fire until they could be cleared, assuming they could still be aimed or fired at all.
Down below, the treads were all relatively and miraculously intact. The starboard forward tread had been popped out of groove, but all the idler and drive wheels were still attached (if not completely straight on their axles). A quick inspection proved that the suspension linkages were abused to near-failure, however, and Simmons declared that we couldn’t afford another rollover, or any more serious rock climbing, not until he could have the time to do some significant part-swapping and welding. Corso, still hoping to make this mission a quick and glorious off-road jaunt, didn’t want him doing the work where we were, citing how exposed we would be in the open crater bowl.
She wasn’t wrong: most of the growth down here is head-height and lower. There’d be no easy way to hide the flash and heat of a welder, especially in low-light. At the very least, we’d need to wait until midday, set up a canopy screen.
But we had another problem that became instantly apparent when we tried to test the drive train. As soon as our treads dug in to move us forward, it took barely seconds for them to dig themselves trenches in the soft and almost slushy regolith until we were practically beached, undercarriage to the ground. We would have to dig out by hand, then wedge rocks in for traction. Assuming we didn’t just sink ourselves again as soon as we were out.
It was clear we’d never be able to make any significant progress by nightfall, and shortly after that we’d start having icing to deal with. We were definitely stuck here overnight and through a good part of tomorrow, exposed, though I could tell Simmons was worried that we might not be moving again at all, not without an airlift.
“Charlie Foxtrot,” Horst sighed in his helmet, his H-A shell covered in muck, using the old NATO abbreviation for cluster fuck.
“I was always more partial to FUBAR,” I told him aside, trying to lighten.
“So… How strong are you?”
I looked skyward, distracted, trying to listen for signals, anything from Orbit that might indicate that they’d even seen our predicament.
There was nothing. Dead silence.
Corso agreed with Horst and Simmons to wait on the dig-out and drive train repairs until morning, but insisted we needed to reinforce our position by getting as many of our battery guns back to operational as we could, assigning Horst and Simmons to the task. With Simmons working from inside the turret, I offered to help Horst topside. Corso shot him a look as if to warn him to keep an eye on me at all times, but begrudgingly gave her approval with Horst’s endorsement.
We stayed out and got to work while the others took the opportunity—having finished inventory and declared the hull intact—to get some hot food (a more appealing prospect now that we weren’t being bounced around inside a can). Then, while Scheffe and Jenovec hiked out to recover our rover bot, Lyra brought us out MRE packs (thankfully a reasonably inoffensive bean stew) and some recycled water. She sat with us topside with her rifle as a volunteer sentry, watching the last colors of sunset over the western crater rim while we ate and got back to work.
We dug and scraped and brushed out the worst of the packed-in dirt, then pulled all of the barrels, visibly bent or not, just in case. At Horst’s request, Jenovec brought out a set of replacements and more tools from the stores, but it soon became clear we’d need more than what we had to get the job done.
The carriage, cradle and elevators on the main gun array were all mangled—it almost fell off its mount when we turned the gun by hand. The main trunnion pivot was trashed, and half the linkages were snapped or twisted beyond function.
“How bad do you want this gun online?” I muttered conspiratorially to Horst. He didn’t give me a verbal answer, so I subtly shifted my position to block the view of the Comm ‘scopes, where I was sure Corso was watching me from. He got my hint, and shifted his own position accordingly, giving me more cover, then watched as I set the tools aside and started systematically laying hands on the damaged parts one-by-one, letting my nanites do the fine machining. I could see his eyes go wide, but he wasn’t about to protest, even risking getting his own gloved hands into the works so it looked like we were doing the job together.
It took me three hours to declare the main battery functional, though I really couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t jam or blow up the first time we pulled the trigger. What repairs my tech did would only be as good as my enhanced eyes and limited knowledge of the mechanisms, and I was thankful these were all manual linkages, not more complex automated systems. Still, Horst gave me a nod of impressed approval. Then Simmons ran some dry-fire tests from inside the turret, and declared the result good enough to risk loading live ammo (not that we could test it without potentially drawing unwanted attention). Then I did what I could for the other guns as it dropped below freezing in the dark, having earned enough trust that Corso allowed Horst to go inside long enough to get fresh canisters and use the head to dump his in-suit urinal.
Above my head, the night sky was clear and ablaze with stars. This is a view I could never get on Earth, no matter how remotely I travelled. The much thinner atmosphere and almost total lack of light pollution made for spectacular gazing. Even being out in interplanetary space—the view from the shuttle that brought me here (in this version of reality, anyway)—didn’t compare, because there was always layered polycarb in the way. Here, it was just me under the heavens, and thanks to my Mods, not even a pair of goggles between me and infinity.
“You don’t see nearly this many stars from Earth,” I tell Lyra when she catches me lost in it, bundled in her cold weather gear. “Barely any, most places.”
I see her shake her head in the dark, like she can’t imagine such a limited sky.
“You should go in,” I prompt her.
“We should all go in,” she returns as Horst cycles back out.
“I think Corso and a few of the others would probably rather I slept outside.”
“But then they won’t be able to keep a close eye on you,” Horst counters as he climbs up in his bulky armor. “Unless, of course, one of us gets assigned to sit out here with you.”
We finish the gun we were working on—the port-forward antipersonnel turret—and Simmons checks it from inside, knocking his approval through the hull. Then Horst calls in, looking into the lens of the Comm ‘scope, to ask Corso if we can call it a night.
“Perimeter check?” she asks back curtly on link.
We all take another good look around in night-vision and infrared.
“We’re still alone,” Horst reports.
“Then come in. Jenovec takes first periscope watch.”
I can imagine his eye-roll.
We climbed down, and Horst took a final look over our abused rover. Overall, it fared better than we did, limping home with one bent but still-functional wheel, and gave us one more gun to defend our position if need-be, sitting like a guard just in front of the rear hatch. He gave it a pat on the gun breech like a loyal pet, took o
ne last scan of the darkness around us, and then cycled us inside to light and warmth.
The fold-down racks were bare-minimum narrow, thin pads on metal frames. As there weren’t enough to go around with the extra passengers (Jenovec and Scheffe actually shared a rack hot-bunk style on alternating shifts), Horst gave me a roll and a blanket and I took a spot on the metal deck at the rear of the bay.
I picked my spot to be as far away from the other sleepers as possible for their comfort, but Lyra especially. Though—as I settled onto the hard deck—I realized I hadn’t been plagued by my urges for quite some time now. Perhaps the work had proven an effective distraction, but it wasn’t coming back now even though we were idle.
“There’s been a problem.”
Dee is sitting on the deck next to my roll, cross-legged like he’d been meditating, waiting until I woke up to notice him.
“I haven’t been able to reach you. Jackson took the Main Melas Uplink down. Blew it to pieces. Then he cut all communication with Orbit, pulled every uplink transmitter on-planet, including the secure laser systems. Even his aircraft are running on short-range link only.
“There was an incident at Melas Two. Richards is there, locked down, cut off, situation unknown. The new-drops at Grave-Base are panicking.”
In the back of my mind, I know I’m dreaming. I don’t feel the drowsiness of truly waking. The bay isn’t quite right—it’s far too big and open. And where’s the rest of the crew? Everyone is gone.
“They’re looking for you. But you’re off-course—they can’t find you. They won’t risk linking to Orbit, and without Richards or a channel to Earthside, they can’t get the codes to signal you.
“Jackson thinks you may have taken the Warhorse, taken it for Asmodeus, killed the crew.”
“How are you talking to me now?” I automatically play along, sucked into the internal reality.
“I’m not. I can’t.”
It’s not Dee anymore. It’s Doc, giving me a lazy grin. But then his face goes serious.
“Don’t let them find you.”
I snap awake, but it takes me several seconds to be sure I am really awake this time. Everything looks normal. The only change is that Jenovec is in his rack and Scheffe is up, slowly turning one of the ‘scopes. My internal clock tells me it’s 05:42.
There’s no sign of Corso. She’s probably sleeping up in the Comm Section.
“Anything, Specialist?” I ask Scheffe.
“Nothing… um… sir,” she struggles over how to address me (and whether she should). “All quiet, all spectrums.”
“I think I’ll go outside, start working on the dig-out,” I tell her. She seems to fumble with that, wondering if she should give permission or wake her CO.
“Let him, Specialist,” Horst mutters from his rack. “And for God’s sake, somebody put some coffee up.”
It’s still below freezing. The sunrise is obscured by the northeast rim of the crater, which rises up as a ridge of sharp almost teeth-like mountains. I know Liberty sits (or sat) on the far slopes of those mountains, but we’d have to climb a klick-and-a-half up to get over them. If that ridge wasn’t an issue, it’d only be about seven klicks from here as the proverbial crow flies. But the circuitous course this cumbersome but surprisingly tough vehicle can manage will be more like two-dozen klicks, assuming we can even get it rolling again.
The hull of the ‘Horse is thickly frosted over from overnight condensation, which won’t really start to melt until the sun hits it, but the ground isn’t frozen, despite the surprisingly high water content in the soil making the sand all crunchy slush under my boots. My Mods tell me it hasn’t frozen hard due to a high salt and perchlorate content (which also makes it pretty toxic and corrosive), and that also explains why we sank: the crater is filled with saturated dust and sand that never quite hardens into ice. Digging out is going to be a messy, exhausting task, and the next patch like this we hit will sink us again. Fortunately, it does seem to vary in depth and density, so we may be able to limp our way out of this bog to more-stable ground, but we’d better be sure of our course before we proceed, or we’ll be sunk again.
I still hear nothing from Orbit. I can’t be sure if that was Yod or an honest dream crafted out of my own paranoia. I don’t hear any aircraft engines over the whistle of the building morning wind, but then it’s probably too early to fly, especially since the Grave base doesn’t have bays to keep their aircraft out of the elements. And while it may not get as cold at night as it did in Melas, it is much wetter down here in the Vajra, so the icing is thicker if not harder, as the layer all over the ‘Horse can attest to. I scrape a handful of it off the rear hatch, taste it—it tastes of rusty soil, salts and traces of plant pulp from what’s still caked all over the rig.
I decide to start by collecting rocks and branches that we can use for traction, being careful to spread my foraging so I don’t visibly disturb the landscape any more than our crash did, and that takes me a good forty or fifty meters from the Track.
I hear it before I see it: The distinctive whir of Box motors, grinding with damage. Our broken, mute friend has followed us. But kept a distance: I find it all the way up on the crest of the slope we just tumbled down, as if watching over us, hunkered down in some almost-shoulder-high growth that’s gone thin as the leaves are still closed against the overnight freeze.
I climb up and approach it slowly, indirectly, trying to look non-threatening. It looks like it’s managed the terrain better than we did, but that’s not surprising, as Boxes are solid rolling masses of metal by design. It starts to shift back away from me on its sections when I get within five meters, and I show it an empty hand, then two. It sits put, lets me come close.
“If you’re not ready, I won’t kill you,” I do a poor job reassuring. “Why did you follow us? Why didn’t you head for Katar?”
Of course, I get no answer. So I decide to offer:
“I can help. I may be able to fix some of your systems. Just…”
It lets me touch it, lay hands on it. I reach in, try to hack its systems. I find a lot of damage. Transmitter. Receiver. Vocal interface. The sensor clusters are mostly intact, so it can see and hear, but it can’t talk to me. The nav system is also shot, so without a command signal, it doesn’t know where it is. It couldn’t find Katar—it probably couldn’t navigate a straight line—so it followed us as its only choice. But for what? Repair? Purpose? Or just company, the comfort of other beings (beings who showed it mercy)?
Unfortunately, I can’t fix any of the more delicate systems. I’d need Bel or Dee or Azazel. (This makes me think of what Asmodeus said: That if I simply took the opportunity, I could have absorbed their skills, downloaded their knowledge, and then I’d have everything I needed to restore this abused thing, or at least its mechanical components.)
I start where I can: Motors, linkages, bearings, hard connections. I could even get the guns working, if I could borrow a few parts and ammo from the…
I hear boots on the regolith, sliding, climbing.
“Status report.”
It’s Corso. She’s come out looking for me herself. I was too busy inside the guts of the bot to see her coming, even lumbering and stumbling like she is. I’m impressed that she bothered to climb up here, especially in a full H-A shell. She has her ICW ready, but not pointed at me. She is keeping her distance, though.
“It’s in sad shape, no way to communicate.” I go ahead and remove the bent 20mm barrel and toss it aside. “One working gun, but no ammo. I might be able to get it rolling better, pound a few things back into shape,” I simplify.
“Are you thinking of making this thing an asset?” she asks, trying to hold back her skepticism.
“It’s cut off from Asmodeus—he couldn’t control it if he wanted to. He can’t even receive what it sees. No one can, not without replacing those components.”
“Why not destroy it?” she gets to it. “You can, can’t you? Or we could, assuming our main gun really works.”
“It doesn’t want to die. Not yet.”
“But it’s…” She can’t find the words. The concept clearly horrifies her.
“It’s human,” I don’t pull the punch. “Human brain, human mind. Human soul, if you like… It’s as afraid of death as anyone.”
“But it has to be suffering.”
“The human CNS has no sensory nerves of its own, so it can’t feel pain, not without external input. So without its former masters to punish it into compliance, this is probably the first time it’s been pain-free since… well… You can imagine what the ‘salvage’ was like. I’m sure Fohat didn’t bother with anesthetic.”
This shuts her up for a few moments, but then she comes back at me with her venom:
“And you defend that monster. Chang. Everything he’s done… The destruction, the thousands of people he’s personally killed. And this too: If you’re telling the truth about where he comes from, then he brought Fohat here, into our world. Scheffe told me. She told me about the sick things you said he did, what he made… Things like this. Chang had to know. He had to know what he was bringing with him. Just like he had to know what Asmodeus was.”
But I also know Chang was just a figurehead, brain-wiped so he didn’t know. Of course, that just shifts all the blame to Yod. Everything Corso just said…
“It’s going to keep following us,” I tell her. “You can let it come along, or you can risk the noise of blowing it away. Sound probably echoes pretty well in this crater.”
I get more silence. Her eyes go far away, scanning the rims. They lock east, toward Liberty, then she turns south to look out across the crater bowl as the sunlight starts to slide into it, lighting up the eastern rim. Then she looks down at our trapped ride. H-A suits are working clumsily around the buried treads.
The God Mars Book Six: Valhalla I Am Coming Page 27
