"Probably too busy doing close-ups," said Ruby. "While we get to do the dirty work, as always. What's the matter, Sergeant? Aren't two living legends enough for you?"
"No offense," said the Sergeant quickly. "Everyone knows your record. And I'm sure having the real Jack Random to lead them will do wonders for civilian morale."
The pinnace lurched wildly from side to side as it hit another patch of extreme turbulence. The crash webbing swung violently back and forth, slamming its human contents against each other. The cabin lights flickered and threatened to go out, but somehow hung on. Thunder rolled almost continuously, lightning crawling the length of the outer hull, and the winds howled like the storm given voice. From up front the pilot's continuous cursing grew ever more vicious as his hands darted over the controls. The Sergeant swung down out of his webbing, bracing himself against the sudden roll and sway of the drop with two separate handholds.
"I'd better go see if I can help the pilot! Back in a minute!"
He staggered off down the narrow central aisle, throwing himself into the co-pilot's seat and strapping in next to the pilot. Their lips moved, but Random couldn't hear anything. They'd switched to a private channel on their comm implants. Which implied really bad news. Random looked away and studied the other marines in their crash webbing opposite him. They paid him no attention, each lost in their own private rituals of comfort.
One was working a neon rosary, eyes closed, lips moving in silent prayer. Another was trying to tell an endless joke to the man beside him, who was pretending to be asleep. The others were passing a metal flask of something bracing back and forth. They didn't offer any to Random or Ruby. He gestured for her to lean closer. Normally a murmur would have been lost in the din, but Random and Ruby could always hear each other, no matter what the conditions. Just another gift from the Maze.
"I had been wondering why they wanted us here when we were doing so well uncovering Shub connections," said Random. "But if that really is Young Jack Random down there, then we could be the only hope Loki has."
"Maybe," said Ruby. "But why us rather than Owen and Hazel? They're the licensed troubleshooters these days. I can't help wondering if maybe our investigations were bringing us too close to something, or someone, that didn't want to be uncovered."
"No," said Random. "I would have insisted on this assignment, and they knew it. I need to do this. I wasn't there when my metal duplicate was destroyed. I never got my chance to face him, to test myself against him. I need to see him fall before me, Ruby. I need to tear him apart with my bare hands for all the terrible things he's done while wearing my face."
"And not just because for a while he seemed a better leader of men than you, and a much more plausible hero?"
"Of course not," said Random. "How could you think such a thing of me?"
They smiled dryly at each other, and then the side of the pinnace opposite them exploded. An entire section of the hull disappeared, blown away by a direct hit from a disrupter cannon. The marines were sucked right out of the gaping hole, their security hooks ripped out of the steel floor in a moment, gone before they even had time to scream. New alarm sirens sounded, and red warning lights flashed as the cabin atmosphere boiled out the hull breach and the temperature plummeted.
The pinnace spun as it fell, spiraling toward the planet's surface as the pilot opened up the engines, struggling to outrun and outmaneuver the enemy's tracking systems. Random and Ruby struggled for air as the cabin pressure dropped, and breathing masks fell down from above them. They tried to reach for the masks, but their crash webbing was being sucked toward the hull breach, and it was all they could do to hang on. Random fought for air, and prayed the security hooks would hold. There was nothing he or Ruby could do till the ship fell deep enough into the planet's atmosphere to equalize the pressure.
Then he looked over at Ruby and saw her struggling to release the webbing. He called out to her, but she wouldn't listen. The straps finally let go, and she lurched out onto the slippery steel floor, clinging to a nearby stanchion with fingers like claws. She let go with one hand and grabbed a steel gun locker on the wall. It was almost as wide as it was tall, and had to weigh the best part of a ton. Ruby ripped it off the wall, and with an effort that tore an agonized silent scream from her, she threw the locker in the direction of the hull breach, which sucked it into place, neatly covering the gap in the hull.
The cabin air pressure quickly reestablished itself, and Random fought his way out of his crash webbing and rushed over to hold the locker in place. Ruby was quickly at his side, blood dripping from her nose, with a hand welder she'd found in a tool box. It took only a few moments to seal the locker securely in place, and then they both collapsed onto the floor, their backs propped against the bulkhead. They were both breathing hard, but from effort now rather than asphixiation.
"Nice throw," Random said finally.
"Thanks," said Ruby. "Nice catch."
"You stay put and take it easy for a moment. I'll go have a word with the pilot."
Ruby nodded wearily, and gingerly massaged her aching shoulder as Random forced himself to his feet and stumbled down the aisle to the front of the pinnace. Neither the pilot nor the Sergeant looked around as Random joined them.
"That had to be a disrupter cannon," said Random, with a hand on the back of each of their chairs to steady himself. "Is there somebody up here with us?"
"I don't think so," said the Sergeant. "Sensors would have detected another ship, even in all this crap. Must be landbased."
"Then Shub must have supplied it," said Random. "There was nothing in the files to indicate the human traitors had access to that kind of weaponry."
"Well, they do now," said the pilot. "And we're a sitting duck up here. It's only the weather and the turbulence that's keeping them from locking on for another shot."
"Do we have any energy shields?" said Random, leaning over the Sergeant's shoulder to try to make sense of the control panels. There seemed to be a hell of a lot of warning lights flashing.
"No. Engines need all their power to fight the storms. And our armor was never intended to cope with energy weapons. Pilot, can you get us down any faster?"
The pilot opened his mouth to say something cutting, and then the window before him exploded into shrapnel as the pinnace took another direct hit. A hundred steelglass shards slammed into and through the pilot in a second, killing him instantly. Air rushed out through the window break. Random, having learned, pulled the nearest steel locker off the wall and plugged up the gap fairly neatly, and the air pressure stabilized again.
The engines whined as the pinnace dropped like a stone. Random hauled the dead pilot out of his seat, fastened himself in the command chair and studied the controls. They were a lot nearer the surface than he'd thought, but it was still a hell of a long way down. With no hand at the helm, sky and cloud and snatches of surface swept back and forth before the unblocked steelglass window. Random cleaned the controls of blood as best he could, being very careful not to activate anything till he was sure what it did. He looked across at the Sergeant in the copilot's seat, but even as he started to ask for help, he realized Miller was slumped forward, unmoving. Random reached out and pulled the Sargeant back in his chair. Miller's head rolled back, and he stared sightlessly up at the cabin ceiling, a large steelglass fragment protruding from one bloody eyesocket.
"Dead as a doornail," said Ruby, moving into view beside Random. "Our luck is running true to form."
"Haul his ass out of that chair and take his place," said Random. "I'm going to need your help to land this thing."
Ruby pulled Miller's body out of the chair and dumped it on the deck. She took over the co-pilot's seat and then looked over at Random. "You have flown one of these things before, haven't you, Jack?"
"Do you want the bad news or the really bad news?"
"Oh, shit."
"That just about sums it up. Those two disrupter hits did a lot of damage to the steering. And if I'm in
terpreting these controls correctly, we have associational damage too. Engine power is dropping, one of the main air tanks is ruptured, and the landing computers are shot to shit. Apart from that, putting this unfamiliar craft down in unknown territory in a never ending storm should be a piece of cake. Any questions?"
"Just one. Where did the Sergeant say those parachutes were?"
"Forget it. There's enough lightning out there to turn you into a cinder before you could even pull the ripcord."
"Escape pods? Gravity sleds?"
"In a ship this size? Hey, wait a minute… oh, shit!"
Ruby looked at him sharply. "I really didn't like the way you said that. What is it now?"
"Half the controls just shut down. Shrapnel from the window has riddled the main computers. We are now running entirely on backup systems. If I try to cut in the manual controls, this heap of shit will drop like a rock. It's only the few remaining automatic systems that are keeping the engines going."
"Oh, shit."
"Exactly. We are currently plummeting toward the surface of an unknown planet in a crippled ship we can't control, with all the glide factor of half a brick with a nail in it. Feel free to chime in if you have any bright ideas that don't include divine intervention."
"So what are we going to do? Come on, Random, you're the expert strategist. Think of a way out of this mess."
"Strategies require options, and we don't seem to have any. We're just going to have to trust what's left of the onboard computers to crash us as gently as possible."
"We can't be that helpless! We're Maze people, dammit! Superhumans!"
"Unfortunately, none of our abilities are any use in this situation. But we should be able to survive a crash that would kill anyone else. Hell, when I attacked the pastel towers back on Golgotha, they shot my gravity sled out of the sky and then set fire to me, and I still walked away from it."
Ruby stared at the useless controls before her. "There has to be something we can do. Something to improve our chances."
"There is," Random said suddenly. "Give me a hand."
He hit his strap releases and surged up out of his chair, his face alight with inspiration. He staggered up the slanted central aisle of the shaking ship, and started pulling loose all the remaining chairs and lockers. Ruby hurried after him, new hope in her heart.
"What is it? What have you thought of, Jack?"
"A cocoon. We're going to build a barricade around ourselves, layers of steel and padding, and hope it absorbs most of the impact on landing. Give me a hand here. We've only got a few minutes left before we hit."
Ruby joined him, tearing attachments loose. Everything that wasn't an actual part of the deck or the hull ended up part of the many layers of barricade at the front of the cabin. Finally they ran out of junk and time, and retreated into the heart of the cocoon. They'd left just enough room for the two of them to force their way in, and they sat together in each other's arms, wedged together so tightly they could barely breathe. The alarm sirens had blended into a single hysterical tone now, and the red emergency lighting had given everything the color of blood. The storm still raged around them, slapping the craft this way and that.
"I never thought I'd die like this," said Ruby Journey. "Just sitting helplessly, waiting for the end. I deserved a warrior's death. A chance to die fighting, on my feet, and take some of my enemies with me."
"We're not dead yet," said Jack Random. "Never give up hope, Ruby. It's all that keeps us going."
"I always loved you, Jack. Always will. I might not be very good at showing it, but…"
"It's all right. I know. Love you too, Ruby. If we get out of this alive, you want to take another stab at living together?"
"Hell, no. I don't love you that much."
They laughed quietly together.
"At least they've stopped shooting," said Random. "Either the storm's thrown us out of range, or they must think we're all dead."
"Let us be thankful for small mercies," said Ruby. "You know, that attack was no accident. Someone down there knew we were coming."
"Yes. We'll have to ask a few pointed questions about that later. Even if it's only through a spirit board."
"I won't die," said Ruby. "I'm not ready to die yet. There's still so much I meant to do."
"I suppose everyone feels like that. I'm… more or less content. I've achieved more than I ever expected to. And I got to meet you, eventually. I'll settle for that."
"You always were willing to settle for too little, Jack."
They laughed again, and then the breath was slammed from their bodies as the landing computers cut in and hauled back on the engines, fighting to turn the last of the descent into a landing. The pinnace's speed fell drastically, the hull groaned and flexed, and lights flickered on and off, the scream of the straining engines louder than the storms outside. Random and Ruby held each other tightly, their heads buried in each other's shoulders. And then the pinnace struck a towering black mountain a glancing blow in passing, and the whole right side of the craft bulged inward. The pinnace struck one obstacle after another on its way down, its heavily armored hull absorbing most of the blows, but Random and Ruby took a lot of the impact too. Fires broke out in the back of the pinnace, and smoke drifted down the cabin, thick and black and choking. And then the ship finally hit the ground.
The impact seemed to go on forever. The pinnace skidded across an unyielding, unforgiving surface in a sea of sparks and flames, slowing only gradually, until finally the nose slammed into a dark cliff face, and the pinnace came to a final halt. The engines were cut off automatically, and for long moments there was only the roaring of the gale-force winds as they blew out the flames and rocked the broken-open wreck of the pinnace back and forth.
Jack Random's first awareness was of being rocked pleasantly to and fro like an infant in its cradle. It felt wonderfully comfortable, and all he wanted was to lie there and enjoy it, but part of him knew he couldn't do that. Reluctantly he opened his eyes, and was greeted with the hellish red glow of emergency lighting. At least the damn alarm sirens had shut up at last. He didn't know how long he'd been unconscious, but he could hear fires burning at the back of the craft. Not a good sign. He could taste blood in his mouth. He tried to move his arms, and sharp pains erupted in his sides. Several careful movements later, he was satisfied he'd broken most of his ribs, and there was enough blood seeping into his mouth that he had to keep spitting it out. Definitely not a good sign. He gritted his teeth against the pain and tried to stand up, but the crash had compacted the barricades around him and Ruby so tightly that there was no room to move. Ruby's eyes were still closed, and she was breathing harshly through her mouth.
"Ruby! Wake up, dammit! I can't do this on my own!"
"Stop shouting," Ruby mumbled without opening her eyes. "I've got a headache."
She lifted her head slowly, and Random winced as her face came into the light. There was a deep and nasty wound on her forehead, blood streaming down the side of her face. But when she opened her eyes, they were clear and rational.
"Congratulations," said Random. "We survived the landing. Unfortunately, the ship is on fire. We have to get out of here, fast."
"So what's stopping us?" said Ruby.
"We're stuck in our cocoon, and I can't find enough leverage to free us. Any suggestions?"
"Our feet are still on the deck. If we can't push back, push up."
So they braced themselves against each other, refusing to cry out at the pain of their various injuries, and forced themselves to their feet. After that it was a simple but painful task to free themselves from the cocoon that had saved their lives. Leaning heavily on each other, they headed for the single airlock. Neither of them were particularly steady on their feet. Jack's vision wasn't as clear as he would have liked, and his head ached abominably. He just hoped he didn't have a concussion. Ruby was favoring one leg, and one of her eyeballs was red with leaking blood inside. Really not a good sign. Jack decided he'd think a
bout all that later. First get out of the damned pinnace. He hit the airlock controls, and nothing happened. He hit them again, as hard as he could in his weakened state, but the airlock inner door remained stubbornly shut.
"What's taking so long?" said Ruby petulantly. "I want to lie down. Get some sleep."
"In a while," said Random. "Right now, try talking to this door. It won't listen to me."
"Airlock's linked to the main controls. And they were wrecked in the landing."
"Can we repair them?"
"Maybe," said Ruby, frowning as she tried to concentrate. "If you're good at jigsaws. Anyway, don't be in such a hurry to leave. From what I remember of the files, surface conditions are atrocious. It's cold, high background radiation, and the wind never stops blowing. Let's just sit here and wait to be rescued. I'm tired."
"I'm afraid we can't do that, Ruby. There's a fire in the hold and it's coming this way. And the engines—"
"Could blow any time. Yeah. I remember. Damn. You're just full of good news, aren't you? All right, there should be manual controls for the door, top and bottom. Toss you for which of us has to bend over."
In the end, Jack nearly passed out from the pain when he tried to bend down, so Ruby had to do it, cursing and complaining all the way down. They cracked the inner airlock door open inch by inch, stumbled into the lock, and hit the explosive bolts that blew the outer door open. Random put his head out cautiously, and winced as the bitter night wind hit his exposed face. It felt like razors. He pulled his head quickly back in.
"Nasty."
"Told you," said Ruby. "The locals wear protective armor when they have to go out, which is as rarely as they can get away with."
"We don't have the time to improvise any armor. We need to put some distance and protection between us and this ship in case she blows. I'm pretty sure I saw a cliff face within walking distance, and what might have been caves."
"You'd better be right about this, Random. Okay, you lead, I'll follow."
They lurched out into the freezing dark, and the wind sent them staggering sideways for a moment before they could get their footing. The cold cut into them like a knife, and there was something abrasive in the wind that seared their exposed skin raw. They huddled together and staggered away from their crashed ship toward the great dark cliff face in the distance.
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