by M. R. Forbes
"Bonnie," Katherine said at the sight of her friend. She approached her, giving her a short hug. "It's good to see you.
"Katherine," Bonnie replied. "It hasn't been that long. Only a few days."
"It feels like forever," Katherine replied.
"Bonnie, what's our status?" Yousefi asked.
"I managed to get everything you asked for, and everyone I pulled it from swore to keep everything secret. No one is happy with the way the UEA bowed out to the terrorists, and they were all pretty willing to stick it to the AIT."
"Good. Captain Jackson, get the team onto the HVU. Katherine, Trevor, come with me."
"Yes, sir," Jackson said, spinning in his armor. "You heard the man."
The armors made the floor vibrate as they moved across the floor toward the exit. Bonnie brought them back to an empty secondary corridor to a small armory. Everything they needed to prepare for the cold Antarctic climate had already been arranged, including two suits of power armor.
"Where's yours?" Katherine asked Yousefi as she quickly changed from her simple black shirt and pants and into the insulated underclothes that would sit beneath her fatigues.
"Wow, Katherine," Trevor said. "What happened to your neck?"
Katherine had forgotten about the injury. She ran her hand across the wound. "Watson," she replied.
"I'll be piloting the HVU," Yousefi said. "I've never done power armor training, anyway."
That wasn't a surprise. The armor was relatively new, the artificial musculature a result of technology salvaged from XENO-1. Human technology, Katherine remembered. Everything started somewhere. She was glad she had done the training course. It hadn't been required, but she believed every skill she gained would find a use. Now that one had.
She finished with the fatigues, fitted and impervious to the cold. Then she stepped forward, turning and pushing herself up and back into the armor. Clasps closed over her wrists, ankles, chest and stomach, holding her in place. The reactor on her back pulsed softly. A helmet rounded out the uniform, but she left it sitting on the armor's left shoulder. She turned her wrists, checking the machine guns mounted against them. Two ammunition feeds trailed from the sides of the unit.
"What's the ETA on the site?" Trevor asked, already strapped into his own armor.
"Three hours," Yousefi replied. "Weather's a little testy down there right now, though. I'm not sure how close we'll be able to drop you."
"Did you say drop?" Katherine said, feeling a pit grow in her stomach. Half the reason she had never been shot down was because she hated the idea of falling.
"Sorry, Major. I know that's your weak spot. There's no other way."
"Don't worry, Kate," Trevor said. "It's not the fall that will kill you, you know."
"Do we have any idea what to expect from Watson?" Yousefi asked.
Katherine shook her head. "No. I imagine he'll keep his surprises to himself unless we find the engine."
"Don't you mean, until?" Trevor said. "You've got a long-term part to play in this little space opera."
"Funny, Trev," Katherine said. "We should hope we find it."
"If you two are dressed and ready?" Yousefi said.
"Sorry, sir," Katherine said. "I'm ready to go."
"Me too," Trevor said, shifting to flex the armor like a pro. "This is an older config, isn't it?"
"These are alternate manufacturer models," Yousefi said. "Standard suits are made by a Nova Taurus subsidiary. We had to pull these suits out of mothballs to get them ready. Unfortunately, we can't do much about the HVU. I had Clemens disable anything that would allow remote communication. As soon as we take off, it's the eight of us against whatever the AIT sends our way."
"Mitchell and Michael make ten," Katherine said.
"If they make it," Trevor said.
"They'll make it."
Ten against who knew how many.
Nobody said it was going to be easy.
55
"There it is," Yousefi said, pointing at a large, irregular shape on the HVU's control panel. "But you've seen her plenty of times before."
Katherine was sitting in the co-pilot seat, her power armor left in the rear with the rest of the squad. "I've been within a half-kilometer," she replied. "Never inside."
"I was inside once, but they didn't take us very far. A few hundred meters. Even so, I don't think I took a breath until we came back out. Of course, that was before we started boarding the Dove. She's almost as big."
Thanks to Origin, she knew why. "How are we going to get in without being spotted, sir?"
"There aren't any crews inside. They pulled out a few months ago because of reports that the ice was thinning, and the wreckage might push through into the ocean below. The nearest facility is fifteen kilometers west."
"I wonder who made that report?" Katherine said.
If Watson was searching for the eternal engine, he might not want anyone to see where his slaves and configurations were going. Who knew how much of the ship had been sealed off? It had taken hundreds of years to discover all of the secrets of the Egyptian pyramids, and the XENO-1 had only been here for twenty.
"I can't say I would be surprised," Yousefi said. "The good news is, it means we can drop without risking interference with our own people."
"The bad news is, so can the AIT."
"Affirmative. You should head back and suit up. Unless you're staying with me?"
"No, sir. I'm not missing this."
"I'll be touching down at Alpha and waiting to hear from you. Good hunting, Major."
"Thank you, sir."
Katherine made her way from the cockpit to the rear of the craft. The HVU was an odd cross of old technology and new. It was wide, with a lot of sharp edges, two massive scramjets overhead, two repulsor rings below, and powered by a smaller version of the Dove's reactors. The cargo area was fairly comfortable due to the wide body, though much of it had been filled with supplies. They were bringing enough to spend three days inside the wreckage to search and explore, though she had a feeling that wherever the eternal engine was hiding, it wouldn't take that long to find.
She was supposed to discover it, wasn't she? Would Origin have been as quick to sacrifice herself if she weren't?
"It's almost go time," she announced to the others.
"Great," Lieutenant Chang said, reaching for her helmet and pushing her hair away from her face. "This was getting pretty boring."
"It was only three hours," Lieutenant Shah replied. He had been sitting in the corner meditating. Now he got to his feet and headed for his gear.
"Three hours of torture," Chang said. "This is the most serious crew I've ever gotten stuck with." She muttered something in Chinese, and then laughed at herself.
"I understood that," Captain Jackson said.
"I know," Chang replied, winking at him.
"Less talking, more motion," Katherine said. She had lived and trained with each of the officers present for the last two years. They all knew one another well and had found a lot of common ground in their occupations and makeup despite the fact that except for herself and Captain Jackson, they all originated from different countries.
"Andiamo," Lieutenant Ribisi said, hopping to his feet. He hurried over to his armor and quickly strapped himself in. "Ready to go, ma'am."
A soft thud signaled one of the armors already in motion. Katherine turned to see Trevor making his way toward the rear of the craft, where the loading door would drop to allow them exodus.
"Me first," he said, turning his wrists to check his armament. A survival kit and standard rifle were attached to the rear of the armor in case he had to abandon the augmentation. "Unless you object, Major?"
"Be my guest," Katherine said, reaching her exoskeleton and climbing in. "I'll follow you. Jackson, line up the squad after that."
"Yes, ma'am," Jackson said, quickly barking out the drop order.
The cargo hold was a flurry of motion as the squad prepared, suiting up in the armor and grabbi
ng the extra supplies. Within two minutes, they were all lined up at the rear of the craft, ready to jump.
Mostly ready to jump. Katherine couldn't help the rapid heartbeat and cold sweat that began forming on her skin. She had never liked jumping, and she hated it even more in powered armor. It left her feeling trapped and out of control.
"Nothing bad's happened to you so far," Trevor said.
She knew he was only talking about jumping. She appreciated his encouragement. "Right," she replied, fighting the tension.
"This is Yousefi," the voice said over the loudspeakers. "Opening rear doors in ten... nine... eight..."
Katherine clenched her teeth and closed her eyes. She would never have imagined a week ago that she would be here, about to jump down to the XENO-1 instead of being in the gym or the flight simulator, or on the bridge of the Dove working out final launch details. She would never have guessed she would find herself fighting not only for her own future but the future of all humankind.
She certainly would never have thought she would be searching for a time travel device and trying to outwit an emotionally psychotic advanced artificial intelligence.
She felt a blast of cold air as the rear hatch lowered. It shocked her back to the present and forced her to steel her nerves.
"See you on the other side," Trevor said without turning back, running to the edge of the plank and vanishing.
Katherine took one last breath and put the armor in motion, her muscles signaling the suit to provide enhanced assistance. She rushed to the edge of the plank, her breath catching one more time as she looked down at the remaining bulk of the XENO-1 below.
Then she was out and falling, and her anxiety rushed away almost as quickly as it had come.
For a moment, she felt free.
56
She landed smoothly, coming down fifty meters from Trevor, and about four hundred meters from the main entrance to the downed starship.
She imagined things had changed quite a bit since the day it had settled in the Antarctic ice. A pavilion had been erected nearby, a staging area for the workers going inside. Scaffolding and supports had been added to shore up any perceived weaknesses in the damaged frame. Bits and pieces had been pulled from the wreck, each of the original locations marked and numbered.
Even so, it was amazing. More impressive than she had dreamed, despite having already been inside of her past future version in the Dove. Knowing that this one was four hundred years older and had been altered by Tetron technology made it so much more than its origin.
"Let's not dawdle out here for too long, Major," Trevor said. "The weather is pretty ugly."
Katherine had barely noticed the climate, she was so taken with the ship. A stiff, cold wind was blowing, and snow was blowing in with it.
"Jackson, is everyone down?" she said into her helmet comm.
"Affirmative, ma'am," Jackson replied. He was moving toward her, the others not far behind.
Katherine looked at the ship again. Mitchell. Would the name mean anything to her now that she was here?
She felt a twinge of sadness, and nothing more. Whatever cosmic chemistry Origin had insisted she should feel, it wasn't coming. Maybe she would have to see the man first?
"Let's head in," she said. "Murphy, Ribisi, cover the entrance. If anyone else comes near this thing, I want to know about it."
"Yes, ma'am," the soldiers replied.
Katherine led the way into the ship. Lights had been strung along the corridors as far and deep as the researchers had explored, and they slowly faded on as they entered. The temperature rose as they moved further in, evenly spaced heaters making the location comfortable to work in. The reactor powering them was probably in the pavilion outside.
Katherine twitched her eye, navigating her way through the helmet's AR system. Yousefi had loaded a three-dimensional map of the wreckage into it. She had examined it during the flight, searching for areas that might have been missing a complete outline, but the overall condition made those locations numerous. There were plenty of places with collapsed corridors, tears in the outer hull that had allowed the elements to seep in, or simply walls of alloy that had proven difficult to cut through without harming the overall integrity.
A grouping of small blue dots indicated their position within the ship, right at the entrance. Katherine started walking again, moving deeper inside. She wasn't going to be able to work out what she was supposed to do or where she was supposed to go through logic. She had to go on instinct and feel. If this was her eternal role to play, she ought to sense something.
They spent an hour traversing the first level of the ship, moving through areas that had been made more accessible with stairwells, ladders, heating, and lights. Katherine checked the schematic on a number of occasions, tracking their progress through the mapped portion of the crash. She paused every so often, closing her eyes, slowing her breathing, and trying to let the subconscious, ancient memories that Origin claimed had been unlocked make their way to the surface.
She wanted to hear the voice again. The one that had told her to find Mitchell. The one that seemed so familiar, and yet so alien. Who did that voice belong to? It was only now that she realized it had been silent since she had first crossed paths with Origin.
She didn't want it to be silent anymore.
"Where are you?" she whispered, casting her eyes down another long, quiet corridor.
"Are you okay, Major?" Jackson asked.
"Yeah," she replied. "I was just thinking. Let's take a short break."
"Affirmative."
The soldiers gathered close, keeping guard while at the same time snacking quickly on one of their ration packs. The minutes passed in a hurry, and then Katherine got them moving again. She checked the blueprint. They were on E deck, near a shaft that pierced the center of the starship. The Dove had a similar central tube that led to the bridge, but no such thing existed here. The top of the ship had been torn away by something, lost before its entry into the atmosphere. The wound had since been covered over by a mangled mess of alloy and cabling.
Even so, she decided that she wanted to see it. They might be able to travel more quickly through the shaft, and there was no sense wasting time on floors in between the top and bottom of what had already been explored. If there had been something there, someone would have found it. Watson would have found it.
"Ribisi, Murphy, do you copy?" she said, reaching out to the guards at the entrance.
"Yes, ma'am," Ribisi replied.
"What's your status?"
"Everything is clear up here. Cold and quiet."
"Good. Let's hope it stays that way."
"Yes, ma'am."
Katherine tried to sound confident, but she was starting to feel a slight fraying on the edge of her nerves. She shouldn't have expected that Mitchell would have gotten there ahead of her or would arrive so soon after she did. Still, she couldn't help but worry that he might not show up at all.
"The central shaft is right up ahead," she said to the others. "We'll take a shortcut to the lower deck."
"Do you really think we're going to find anything down here?" Chang asked. "This place looks like it's been picked pretty clean already."
"We didn't come all of this way to give up in a few hours," Shah said. "Besides, you can't tell us you aren't enjoying the tour."
"Yeah, it's just like a walk in the park," Chang said. "I'm claustrophobic."
"You are not," Jackson said. "I've read your file. You spent a year on a submarine underneath this ice."
"Who said I enjoyed it?"
Katherine reached the shaft. There had been a hatch covering it at some point, but it had been damaged at some point, bent and torn away from the opening. She leaned out over it, her helmet's lamps activating on their own in the darkness. The ship was at an angle in the ice, leaving the hole slightly tilted. She looked down, able to see the separations of the decks and the terrain at the bottom. A pile of debris rested there, mainly bits of alloy tha
t had broken free during the crash. It was mingled with a pool of water.
"Yousefi said the science teams were concerned the ice was unstable," Trevor said, moving beside her to look for himself. "It seems like it's sinking already."
"The entrance hasn't shifted," Katherine said.
"The structure may be buckling," Trevor replied. "Bending in half as it loses its support. It isn't safe down there. It looks like this section is already mapped. We can head further aft and take a stairwell toward the base if that's where you want to go."
Katherine considered. Then she shook her head. Watson wouldn't care if it were safe, and the presence of the water was the only thing about the ship that seemed out of place. "I'm going down there. You can wait here if you want."
"Kate," Trevor started to say.
"Captain Jackson, you have the wire?" Katherine asked, cutting him off.
"Yes, ma'am."
She turned and motioned to the armor. Jackson retrieved the wire from his back, hooking it to a pair of anchors on the shoulders of Katherine's armor, and then to his own.
She returned to the edge, leaning out over it. The list would make it easier to get up and down. She went backward, rappelling down the side of the shaft toward the bottom. She paused at each floor, shining her headlamp into it, revealing more of the same empty corridors.
She was halfway down when she heard the first crack. It came from somewhere deep within the ship, a sharp groan that echoed along the frame and created a loud snap above them. She held tight, waiting for the craft to move, to buckle in and sink a little more.
"Are you okay down there, Major?" Captain Jackson asked.
"Affirmative," Katherine replied. "My ears are ringing a little, though."
"Mine, too."
She dropped down two more floors. A second groan sounded, and she paused again, a sense of fear reaching up toward her from the depths. Maybe she should head back up? Maybe Trevor was right?
She looked down. She was so close to the bottom. Too close to give up. She pushed off, letting the wire feed out. It was a ten-meter drop into the bottom of the shaft. She slowed herself slightly as she reached it, hitting the water with a loud splash.
