by Alan Black
Allie kissed him, looked him in the eyes, and kissed him again before walking away without a word.
Stone walked across the hangar deck, vaulted into the shuttle hovering above him. Stepping into the nearest shuttle hatch, he turned and saluted the Rusty Hinges, holding his salute until the hatch cycled shut.
Turning back, he banged his knee against a luggage cart. Three dozen carts and shipping containers lined the corridor. He’d done his best to strip out every working cart or container he could find on the Rusty Hinges. He’d found them tucked in almost every corner where someone had left them laying about. The navy used hundreds of the small anti-gravity carryalls during the retrofit and resupply of the Q-Ship. Most were banged up, had faulty leads, a short-life power system, or the anti-gravity hum sounded off-key.
He would use them to haul everything his team needed to cross the hostile, toxic planet. His suit could keep him fed and watered and the piglet suits were built on the marine’s design and were as self sufficient as his. However, his drasco’s couldn’t go four days without food and water and be expected to fight at their peak condition. He even packed tents to allow everyone to get out of the chlorine atmosphere and rest. The same type of tents Dollish had thought to bring. Stone hadn’t wanted to bring Dollish along, even if the man’s suit was capable. Not that he didn’t trust or like Dollish, but he fully expected to beat Hammermill to Valhalla and didn’t want to drag Dollish to an early grave.
He tapped open his comms. “Shorty, we’re all aboard. Let’s move.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Yellowish air swirled around Stone. A light breeze picked up dust, tossing it around like small dirt tornados. At the base of the tall escarpment, protected by the bulk of the shuttle, the wind only threw small dust and tiny sand particles. Shorty’s pilot had grounded the shuttle after a treetop level radar evading race across the rugged terrain. They couldn’t fly any closer to the base without the Hyrocanians spotting them. From here they’d walk.
Looking in the distance, he saw gusts of wind wrenching fist-size rocks from the mountains, throwing them around like invisible giants playing dodge ball. The rocks fell to the ground like hail or slammed into a mountainside shattering into ever increasingly small pieces until they were little more than dust to be picked up and swirled around again. Spinning up his suit optics, he saw rocks hitting the escarpment, splintering, being snatched by the wind before falling to the ground, and hurled again. The shards looked sharp, but not sharp enough to damage any suit in his expedition. They wouldn’t put a dent in a drasco with their rusty pig-iron-like hides, but they could blind an unwary drasco.
Stone dug into a luggage cart, pulled out a handful of sand goggles and tossed them to Jay. “Pass these out to Peebee and the girls.”
Jay’s eyes blinked against the dust, her voice from the dataport getting sucked away by the wind, “We’ll be fine, Mama.”
“I don’t want you fine. I want you better.” He jabbed a finger at the goggles. “Those will make you better after a couple of days of this.”
Jay shrugged her shoulders, forgoing the dataport translator, “I feel wrong without my armor.”
Stone slammed a gauntlet down on the top of a shipping container, “It’s packed in here. You can put it on when we attack. We have a long hike ahead of us and we all need to be rested when we get there. We’re going to ride as much as we can, bounce when it’s possible, and hike when we have to. I don’t want you carrying any more weight than you’re forced to.”
Jay looked askance at the luggage cart. “Yes, Mama. I’m bigger than I used to be. Think that tiny thing will hold me up?”
Stone nodded. Then realized he was closed inside his own combat suit. Nodding wasn’t the most effective way to communicate. “They have the anti-gravity and propulsion to carry anything we can balance on them. Can you balance on them?”
Jay straddled a grounded cart, wiggling her belly as she settled on top of the cart. “Ta-da!” She picked her feet up off the ground putting all of her weight on the cart.
Stone reached under her neck, popped open the panel and pulled out a controller. His suit’s external receptors picked up the scent of milk chocolate and mint from Jay as he turned the dial, giving the cart lift to push her into the air. He remembered her trying to jump onto a moving cart years ago and laughed. She was much bigger now and more coordinated than when she was a baby.
The cart hummed louder as it lifted her bulk, but it stayed in tune as if it was happy with more weigh on its back. Jay wonked loudly and jumped to her feet. She stood upright on the cart, her neck stretched out and her arms spread wide, wonking in enjoyment. The light breeze caught her vestigial wings appearing to give her the feeling of lift.
In a flash, all eight drascos were balancing on the luggage carts. Stone popped open the control cover on the Charlotte’s cart. He ran the cable from that cart to Jay’s cart, hooking the daughter just behind her mother. He bypassed Ell and Bea to open the control panel on Emily’s cart. Raising the cart to the same height as Jay and Charlotte’s carts, he maneuvered it into place behind Charlotte’s cart.
He turned to find Anne, but Shorty squeezed in between him and the carts, attaching Anne’s cart behind her sisters. All the piglets were linking the carts into strings. A few piglets had climbed onto carts and were racing around, running them at top speed, slamming them to a stop, raising them to their highest level, and seeing how fast they could go as low to the ground as they could get. Soon there were strings of carts whipping around like mini-trains gone berserk.
Stone didn’t say anything. They were going to travel a long distance and piglets were going to be doing a lot of the driving. They needed to become familiar with cart capabilities. He heard an off-key hum and then another. The carts all seemed to be working fine, but he heard some straining.
“Shorty, have your people drive those carts past me slowly.”
“Yes, Boss.”
It only took a moment before Stone identified the carts with problems. “Pull them out of the line. Switch their cargo to other carts. We’re leaving these behind.”
Stone sensed Shorty wanted to ask why, but the piglet did as he was told. Stone said, “I don’t want to take equipment with us that might break down at the wrong time. Once we get through these mountain passes, we’re going to be racing across open ground. We’ll need to move as fast as we can for a couple of days. These carts are already not working up to standard. Even in this wind, I can hear their power systems working off key.”
Shorty nodded. “Yes, Boss. Anything or anyone breaks down, we leave them behind.”
Stone put a gauntlet on the piglet’s shoulder. There wasn’t any way the little alien could feel the touch, but he could see the gesture. “We leave things behind, Shorty. Not people.”
Shorty said, “We’re here, Boss. Every one of us knows this is going to be a hard slog. No one wants to be left behind, but we have a saying — the slow rat gets eaten.”
Stone said, “Shut down as much power on the shuttle as your pilot can manage without. We don’t want it discovered, even by accident.” He looked at the mountain range hiding them and their shuttle. “Send out your scouts.”
A dozen piglets raced away from the shuttle, scattering into the cracks and crevasses of the escarpment. He tapped open a map and set it to hover stationary between him and Shorty. Finding a pass up the escarpment and through the mountains was going to be time consuming. Although they had scans from the telescopes on Rusty Hinges, they only had a general idea of a pass through the mountains. They hadn’t been able to get close enough views to see a path that could be easily traversed.
He glanced around him. Piglets were driving cart trains around like they were being clocked for speed and graded on recklessness. Drascos stood on carts, wings flapping in the wind, whooting with abandon. Anne and Ell took tumbles off carts, but were back up and on another cart long before the laughter from their mothers and sisters died down.
Shorty stared
at the map as if trying to force the details to fill in by the strength of his vision alone. Little lines were filling in as piglets in suits raced through canyons and gullies looking for a way through. The lines centered along their suit’s video transmissions of the mountains surrounding the scouts. All too often, the lines backtracked and took another path when a piglet found its path blocked.
Stone couldn’t hear anything Shorty was saying, but the little guy was waving his arms like he was directing each piglet’s movement.
Stone checked the time. “Shorty, we only have three hours to find a way through or we have to abandon this plan. Unless we find a way through the mountains, we have to go to plan B.” Plan B required them to wait until just before the attack time, take the shuttle over the mountains and hope they didn’t get spotted before crashing onto the base hangar deck.
Shorty said, “Yes, Boss. I don’t like plan B.”
Stone agreed, “Plan B is stupid.”
“Might as well fly the shuttle right in front of the gun muzzles. They won’t expect anyone coming in on foot over this landscape, but they will spot a shuttle sized object and shoot us down before we get close enough to do any damage.”
Stone said, “They’re probably going to kill us before we get close anyway.”
Shorty said, “I know. Just don’t tell my people that. They think this is going to be a cakewalk. And that we’re all going home again.”
Stone made a mental note to look up cakewalk. He wondered how Shorty’s translator picked up a term like that. He was about to ask about it, but the piglet kept talking.
“I don’t mind dying here. Here is as good as anywhere for an old man like me and a warrior like you, but I do want to get close enough to hurt these bastards before I go.”
Stone didn’t think of himself as a warrior, but he suddenly felt puffed up that Shorty thought of him that way. “Well, I don’t know about all of that, but if we don’t shut that base down, all the marines are going to die on the orbital weapons platform.”
Shorty looked up at Stone. “That is why I gave my shuttle pilot orders to use Plan R.”
“What’s Plan R?”
“Last resort. It’s ramming speed, full-on engines to overload.”
“He’ll do that?”
Shorty shook his head, turned, and looked at the shuttle as if he could see the pilot deep inside. The translator managed to sound both sad and worried. “My pilot is female. She has watched more of her children eaten alive by those four-armed freaks than a mother should have to watch. It was a challenge to get her to agree not to ram them until she knows for sure we’ve failed.”
“Then we better find a pass.”
Shorty looked at the map excitedly, pointing a finger at a piglet’s position on the map. The piglet was moving quickly, streaking farther and faster ahead than any of his counterparts. Stone couldn’t hear the command, but other piglets abandoned their tracks. They backtracked and, in a swarm, dashed up the same path as the front running piglet.
The front piglet came to a halt, sending them a panoramic view of a high rock face stretching up for a thousand feet. Unable to hear Shorty’s command, Stone felt he heart skip a beat. The swarm of piglets didn’t catch up to the front runner before they began to branch out, fanning farther and farther into the mountain passes. Piglet’s paths halted, they backtracked, and followed the next farthest piglet’s track, fanning out, searching and probing. All along the way, the map updated as video of the mountains broadcast from piglet suits filled in the blank spots. Shorty waved his arms like conducting an orchestra, although none of the scouts could see him.
Stone glanced behind him. The trains had pulled up to a halt, lining up in one neat row. Everyone was watching the map. He tapped the map. Making duplicates, he threw them to every driver. The few piglets not on driver duty or searching the mountains, peered over their driver’s shoulders. He didn’t recognize the hand gestures between the piglets, but it looked like they were taking bets and gambling on the outcome of the search for a path.
Stone looked around him. Peebee sat atop a cart, her goggles making her eyes look oversized. She was grinning into the wind. He asked her, “What are the piglets saying?”
Peebee shrugged, “They’re making a game of the race through the mountains. They make games of everything.”
Stone laughed, “Grandpa would say that’s like the pot calling the kettle black.” There wasn’t any activity the drascos hadn’t turned into a game. They’d even had a running contest to see who could hold off going to the bathroom the longest and who could make the biggest pile of poop.
Peebee said, “When can we meet Grandpa, Mama? You talk about him all the time. We all want to meet him.”
“When we get back to human space I’ll take you to meet my family.”
“I don’t think it’s fair that you get to know them and we don’t. You’re my Mama and we should know your mama.”
“Soon, Peebee.” He turned back to check the map in time to see a search line streak forward at an amazing speed. The swarm behind it abandoned their tracks, backtracked and followed the piglet’s trail at a run.
“Well, it’s not fair that Allie got to meet your family on Peach’s Rest and we didn’t get to go.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Stone froze. His family was who Allie kept mentioning about meeting on Peach’s Rest. It should have been obvious, but somehow the thought hadn’t occurred to him. He should have expected it from his family. He hadn’t kept it a secret that he was going to take leave with Allie, but on the other hand, he hadn’t told them. They must have gotten word somehow and gone there to check up on him — or her — or both of them as a couple.
He tried to remember everything Allie had said about the people she’d met on leave, but her conversations had been all little hints and teases during a long and busy deployment. When they’d managed to find time together, talking about Peach’s Rest hadn’t been on the top of his list of things to do with Allie.
Had she liked his family? Had they liked her? Who was it? Just his parents, his parents and grandparents, or had she been subjected to a meeting of the whole clan? Without him there to intercede, his mother would have told all those embarrassing stories of him as a toddler. Dad would have boasted about all of the silly, minor victories he’d managed. Who knows what kind of crap his grandfather would have spouted.
He decided it was a good thing he wasn’t going to survive this attack. He wasn’t sure he would ever be able to face Allie again. No, he wanted to see her again and the desire was more than an urgent interrogation about who said what to whom at some far away vacation spot.
Both her attack on the orbital weapons platform and his attack on the planetary base had good odds of success, but military mathematics said that adding good odds to good odds always decreased the odds for both sides. No plan, no matter how good, ever survived first contact with the enemy. Neither attack had great plans, just good plans that might work. No military attack was a sure thing, no matter what admirals and generals ever thought.
How could he not want to see Allie again? He loved her. He told her so more than once and she’d told him she loved him, too. Maybe he hadn’t said it often enough. Sure, he was young, but that didn’t mean his feelings were any less strong. Allie wasn’t young. Her feelings toward him were suspect by many. Was she just after his money? Stone didn’t believe that although he knew many people did. Could a relationship last when his own feelings were questioned? Even the ship’s behaviorist Doctor Kat Emmons had asked if he thought he was mature enough to commit to a single long-term relationship. He’d replied by pointing out that his Aunt Ruth and Uncle Jim had married younger than he was and their marriage was an example of harmony, love, and longevity.
Stone looked up at the map again in time to see a piglet’s track suddenly speed up as if the tiny creature was bouncing forward at top speed. It had reached the halfway point through the mountains and skidded to a stop. The scout’s suit broadcast a vide
o as the piglet turned in a slow circle. It was standing on the shore of a wide lake with tiny waves lapping at the rocky shore. There wasn’t any vegetation, but the long smooth slope the piglet had just ran down was repeated across the lake, sloping up again into the mountains.
Stone didn’t like lakes, rivers, ponds or streams. He’d seen enough creatures lurking in their watery depths to satisfy him for a lifetime. Allie’s World was replete with dangerous land creatures, but its waterways were even deadlier. They hadn’t seen any sign of life on the planet. Still, this was the first surface liquid they’d seen either from space or on the ground. Surface liquid and a breathable atmosphere usually meant life, if nothing more than plant life. He had to admit that he didn’t know what the liquid was, it could be anything from pure water all the way to hydrochloric acid. He just didn’t want to meet any creature who breathed chlorine and drank acid.
“Let’s move forward, Shorty.” Without waiting for a response, he bounced along the track leading to the side of the lake, his body aching to do something. He felt the pent up excitement and adrenalin pumping through him as he stretched his muscles inside the suit. Waiting was always the hardest. Even running a short way was going to help burn off some of his nervous energy.
He scanned the terrain as he ran. The scouts trail was exactly what they’d hoped for, relatively smooth and wide enough for the carts to squeeze through, although there were a few spots the carts would have to pass though in single file. There were a few minor crevasses that were easy for suits and drascos to jump over. The anti-gravity on the carts should keep them up, as long as they raced across at top speed.
Bouncing along at a sprint, it took almost an hour to reach the small group of piglets clustered by the edge of the wide lake. He stood at the back of the piglets. The diminutive creatures were standing way too close to the mountain lake’s edge for his taste. Stone reasoned he wasn’t afraid, but was using appropriate caution since he didn’t know what might be hiding in the deep liquid.
