Ammonite Planets (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #1-3

by Gillian Andrews

  Six felt let down. There he was, preparing to die a hero’s death, and the visitor had swooped in and made it all look trivial again. Then he shook his head, and gave a laugh. Saved by a bowl of soup! Diva would simply not believe that one!

  He watched on the screen as the visitor did exactly the same to Ledin’s incoming missiles, and then those that had been fired at the orbital station. The only thing he could do now was to fall back into a defensive position in case the orbital station was attacked again by the Sellites on their way out.

  He wished he had thought to leave one shuttle pod at the orbital station. He could have shuttled down to try to help the girls. Now he would miss all the fun.

  Chapter 26

  DIVA AND GRACE held their pods steady in low orbit around Kwaide. The projectiles would be coming in at any moment. They had seen that only five of the ships were on course for Kwaide itself. That meant one ship per pod. Each of them would be trying to explode two missiles before they could fall on New Kwaide.

  Diva passed on instructions to the other pilots of the little flotilla. Each needed to know which ship they were to shadow. Grace gave a little wave to Diva as she broke formation, peeling off to situate her shuttle pod as close as possible to her target ship.

  There was only a short wait until the console told her that the missiles had been launched from the Sellite ship above her. She threw her fingers into a dance on the console, trying to lock on to one of the very fast moving targets. It was almost impossible. Grace tried to move her pod closer, and cursed to herself at the slow progress. It was like asking a sound wave to catch up with a light beam.

  Grace bit her lip. If she had been nearer she could have tried to put the pod between the ship and its target, but at the moment she was too far off course to do that. And as she was piloting something with the speed of manoeuvrability of a rexelene platform, it didn’t look as though she was going to make it.

  Suddenly a buzzer sounded. She was close to a lock on! Her fingers raced to confirm the lock before the target was lost again. There! She fired one of her two meager projectiles, and began to reprogram the on-board computer to find the other incoming missile. There was no time to see how well she had done – there was another of the things to be found. She would put herself between it and the target if necessary.

  But it was no good. That few seconds’ difference had allowed the second missile to get away. It was already almost upon its target, and there was no time to put her ship in its path. There was nothing she could do to save the people below her on the planet. Her heart sank. Refugees were going to die. She closed her eyes.

  She couldn’t hear the sound of impact, but she did see the cloud of debris billowing up from the crater. It was certainly very near the base camp, if not full on it, but she was too high up to distinguish exactly where it had fallen.

  She dragged her attention back to the console, to see the result of her projectile, and punched the air as an explosion about two hundred metres above the ground showed clearly on the console. Yes! She hoped that the two hundred metres of air would protect those on the ground from at least that explosion.

  Everything was too confused now on the console for her to be able to judge what had happened to the others, so she faced her pod upwards, towards the space station. If there was anybody left up there they would need a pod to evacuate.

  DIVA WAS IN exactly the right position when her target spaceship released its missiles. She saw from the console that they were arrowing in on her position and a glittering smile lit up her eyes. This then, was what it had all been leading to. This was to be the end of her existence, the moment when her life would finish. She felt adrenaline pump through her veins and lifted her head, almost eager to face the challenge.

  She made her fingers work quickly on the console. She had to blow one of the things up first, and then the other could be left to destroy itself on the pod. Come on, Diva! You have to get rid of one of these things first!

  It was a nightmare to get a lock on the target. It seemed to her that so many seconds passed that she would have been evaporated long before the projectile could be launched. She felt light-headed, free. A picture of Six passed through her mind, and she laughed with exhilaration. Beat this one, Kwaidian!

  The buzzer was screaming out that she could lock on. She was delighted to see that her brain was still working, because of their own accord her fingers instantly locked on to the target, and fired.

  At last there was time to breathe. She turned the small pod around so that she would have a visual on the result, and waited. The microseconds ticked past as if they were long minutes.

  Then there was a huge flash in front of her, and the sky exploded into light. The brilliance which was hurting her eyes hurtled towards her, throwing the pod into a crazy dance. Through the fog of sheer white light came the sound of the explosion, carried by the sparse upper atmosphere at a slower speed than the light. Then came a smattering of shrapnel – each tiny piece capable of bringing death. The pod shuddered, but held.

  Diva waited for the final impact, the one which would signal the destruction of the pod itself. She laughed again recklessly, ready for the end to come.

  There was another huge flash of light, and she was so dazzled that she was blinded by the intensity. Then she was aware of a huge crump of sound. The pod gave a tremendous shudder from its nose cone to its tail fins. Metal screamed. The shuttle hung in agony for a moment, and then began to fall out of the sky, turning over and over on itself as it plummeted in the direction of Kwaide’s hard surface. She frowned, puzzled. Surely she should be dead by now? How had she been able to hear that sound? Now her brain was sluggish, making it an effort to think. If she had heard the sound so long after the flash, then the explosion was not that of her own pod. The second missile must have been triggered by the first explosion!

  No sooner had she reached that belated conclusion when new pieces of shrapnel began to arrive. She felt the pod plunging down to Kwaide, felt small quivers in the thin material as it was decimated by the shrapnel, felt her stomach left far behind by the force of the fall, and then felt nothing at all …

  SIX WAS ANXIOUSLY waiting for Grace when she docked at the orbital station.

  “How are you? Is Diva all right? How many bombs got through?” He threw question after question at her, and she raised one hand in an attempt to stop him. The Kwaidian was moving from one foot to another, anxiety cutting a groove across his forehead to match the new white scar on his cheek. His eyes were burning with apprehension.

  Grace shrugged her shoulders as an answer to everything. She felt what little energy she had left draining away through her feet, and her legs failed her for a moment. Ledin caught her by the elbow, and led her gently to the nearest chair.

  “Rest here for a moment,” he told her sympathetically. “I will bring you a glass of water.”

  Grace nodded her thanks, giving him a grateful look.

  “I will take the pod back down,” decided Six. “I might be able to do something to help. You stay here, Grace, you look all in.”

  Grace shook her head. “I must come with you,” she said, trying to struggle to her feet.

  Ledin’s voice came from the console, where he was monitoring the events on the surface of Kwaide. “There are two pods missing,” he said. “Two and five.”

  Six turned and gave Grace a totally unnecessary shake. “Which one was Diva in? Tell me!”

  Grace lowered her head, to match her heart. “Five,” she told him slowly. “Five.”

  Six stopped, paralyzed. He turned white. Then he turned on Ledin, who took a step back when he saw the expression on Six’s face.

  “What do you mean, missing? Explain yourself!”

  “Two of the pods have ceased transmitting, First Six.” Ledin gave Grace the glass of water he was still holding.

  Six gave an uncertain laugh. “Nothing will have happened to Diva. Nothing can have happened to Diva.”

  Ledin looked most uncomfortabl
e, but wisely refrained from answering.

  Six took Grace by the shoulders and shook her. “She will be all right, won’t she? You were down there, Grace, what did you see? What happened?”

  Ledin prized Six’s fingers off Grace’s skin. “You are hurting her, First,” he told the Kwaidian gently but firmly.

  Six looked down at the red marks he had left on Grace’s skin. “Sorry,” he said automatically. Then he looked more closely. “Sacras! I really am sorry, Grace. Forgive me, please.”

  Grace gave a wan smile. “It’s all right, Six. I understand. Take Ledin here, and the others, and see if you can find her. I will stay here on the orbital station, in case we need to take the Variance out.”

  Six frowned. It would be a tight squeeze with five in a pod. Ledin stepped forward.

  “I will stay here too, First. It may be necessary to take out both ships, and there should be two experienced pilots here at all times.”

  Six nodded. “That is true,” he said. “Very well. I will be in contact as soon as we get down there.” He gestured to the waiting men to follow him, and they were gone within a minute, leaving an empty silence behind them.

  Chapter 27

  WHEN SIX TOUCHED down on the spaceport it was to see the remaining three other pods there. Their pilots were waiting for him.

  “Bamonte is dead,” one of them told him “I saw his pod blow up right in front of me. There is no way on Sacras that he could have escaped.”

  Six nodded. “And the other shuttle?” he asked.

  They shrugged. “We know nothing about pod five. Diva was piloting it. She was assigned the northernmost ship, and after the explosions began it was very hard to track anybody. No-one knows what has happened to her pod. We assume it either exploded or was brought down. Her chances of survival are very slim.”

  “And what about New Kwaide? How many missiles got through?”

  They looked uncomfortable. “None of Diva’s reached Kwaide. One of Grace’s …” The man who was talking looked rather ashamed. “I was unable to stop mine, and the same goes for Samoso here. And one of Bamonte’s got through. His shuttle pod stopped the other.”

  “You were only able to stop four in total?” Six felt dispirited. “That means that – what? – six got through?”

  The refugee again looked uncomfortable. “We believe so. We were about to go to see what we could do to help.”

  “Do so. I will take this shuttle pod and see if I can find the missing pilot. You all present yourselves to Magestra Cimma, and place yourselves under her orders. Tell her that her daughter is safe on the orbital platform, and that I have set out in search of Diva.”

  They nodded their understanding. Six just hoped that they would find Cimma still there, and the base camp in one piece. He doubted it – it seemed likely that at least four of those six missiles would have been aimed at the base camp. With a sigh he turned back to the shuttle pod.

  Where on Sacras are you, Diva? Trust you to be the one to disappear into thin air. Did you have to be the only one to bring down both missiles? Silly question. Of course you did. You wouldn’t be Diva otherwise.

  After refueling, he set off into the north with his pod. If the base camp was in an inhospitable area, the terrain further north of the black peak was practically unsurvivable. Even if she had come down alive in that area the chances of her being able to get herself out were nil. He gave a heavy sigh, and tried to concentrate on his instruments. Thinking about it was no good. It would be better to keep his mind on the task at hand. At least the proximity alert should tell him when he got within a hundred miles of her pod. If there was anything left of it, of course. Damn you, Diva!

  He had refueled twice before his instruments got a faint sign from the vanished pod. At last the proximity alert warned that it had detected remains. Six glanced down through the rexilene visor, and closed his eyes briefly. There were only scudding dark clouds visible below the jagged peaks. They were so far above the tree line that even warthogs would be unable to survive.

  He strained his eyes as he brought the pod in closer to the position marked on the console. Could it still be in one piece? The peaks pushed their serrated edges up through the racing clouds that were a sign of raging storms. Distance made them look almost benevolent, but Six knew better. Few who had ever come up here on foot had lived to return. Kwaide was not kind to its inhabitants – those that strayed far from the flatlands around Benefice paid for their temerity sooner or later. The peaks themselves were only visible because the fierce winds kept the snow off them. Slightly further down there was a blizzard of windswept snow mixed with icy rain clouds which made it almost impossible to see anything at all.

  The pod was getting closer and closer to the position given on the console, and still he could see nothing. They were so high up that the wind would make walking virtually impossible. Six stood up and began to put a full bodywrap on. There was an atmosphere on Kwaide, even at this high altitude, but despite this it was still just as unfriendly as Valhai. The same suits were needed on both. He grinned to himself. If only he had owned one of these suits when he had been that small untouchable in the uninhabitable zone trying to take care of his twin sisters! How luxurious it would have made their lives. Yet now he had learned to take it for granted.

  At last he was suited up. He secured ten mask packs around his waist, and stowed a spare bodywrap in a pack bag. If she had survived she would need one of these on if she were to stay that way. And the only way she could have survived was if the automatic parachute had deployed as she sank through the atmosphere.

  He spared one more second to look again out of the rexelene visor before he sat down to oversee the landing. There was still nothing to be seen below the unrelenting black icy needles spiking up through the white banks of snow piled on their leeward side.

  The pod came into to a dangerous vertical landing with a jolt. One of the legs had failed to find a hard surface, and the other three had to compensate automatically until a fifth leg could be deployed. Then the small pod righted itself slowly, and the green light permitting exit came on.

  Six made his way down the steps. According to the console, the signal was coming from about twenty metres to the south. Gingerly, he began to make his way across the treacherous surface, feeling his way with every footstep. He had heard of huge crevices hiding beneath apparently innocent-looking ice.

  After twenty metres he could still see nothing. And now he had lost sight of his own pod too – visibility could only be about five metres up here, he thought. The wind was buffeting him so hard that he was having to walk into it doubled over, as if he were crippled with space-bone disease. It whipped around his face, and he breathed thankfully in and out of the mask pack. It would have been impossible to have walked more than three steps otherwise.

  At last he made out rounded edges of a dark shadow in front of him. The mask pack autoblocked, as he forgot to breathe correctly, and he was forced to stop for a moment. The shadow looked large – that was a good sign, surely?

  Then he actually reached the shadow. It was the pod, he saw, but it was horribly damaged. The outside was pock-marked with tiny craters and the metallic hull was criss-crossed with slashes. He saw remnants of the parachute, and breathed slightly more easily. At least her fall had been attenuated.

  He felt his agonizingly slow way along to the entry hatch. Even activating the emergency unlock device was all but impossible in these conditions. He had to concentrate on maintaining his breathing so as not to block the mask pack again.

  At last the lock snapped open, and he was able to drag the protesting hatch out on its hinges. He had to scale part of the fuselage to get himself up to the opening.

  It was dark, and icy inside. But there was some degree of protection, despite the gaping holes in parts of the bodywork. Six fumbled with his hands, trying to feel his way to the console. They unwittingly touched something definitely too soft to be an instrument panel.

  “If that is you, nomus, I told y
ou last time to keep your hands to yourself!” A small quavery voice complained.

  “Sacras, Diva!” He snatched his hands back. “You could have said you were there!”

  “What, and spoil all your fun? You seem to be making a habit of grabbing at me!”

  “Yeah, yeah! Couldn’t you have taken a bit better care of your pod? You have totaled it.”

  “Oh so sorry! Pardon me! I was just saving your moth-eaten planet from a couple of bombs.”

  “That’s all very well, but I don’t see why you had to crash-land in the most hostile place on all Kwaide!”

  “Nobody asked you to come tearing out to find me. I was just considering how to get myself out of here.”

  “I’ll go away again if my visit is not convenient, your huffiness. Pardon my temerity!”

  “I’m perfectly capable of getting myself out. I do NOT need anybody to come and salvage me.”

  “I apologize for interrupting your tea break, your ladyship.”

  “And if I did need help it wouldn’t be yours, no-name. I can look after myself perfectly well.”

  “I didn’t doubt it for the least second. However, since I have a pod standing by, you might like to consider putting a bodywrap on and shimmying over to my place. I know you would rather hike it over the mountains, but it might be a bit quicker.”

  There was a sort of sniff from the person below him. “You will have to wait outside if I am going to change. I can’t fit a bodywrap over this spacesuit, and I can’t walk in the spacesuit.”

  “No way, Diva,” protested Six. “It is pitch black in here; It is about fifty degrees below freezing out there, and I refuse to freeze to death just to protect your privacy. Think again!”