Shield of Lies

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  “So by the time that rock gets to here—”

  “It’s fifty meters down. These other objects, they haven’t been in the ice as long as that rock underneath them. And they would have had to come onto the ice somewhere in here.” Josala traced a circle with her finger over a flat area up-valley.

  “That’s out in the middle of nothing,” said Stopa.

  “Right.” She wrinkled her face in thought. “It’s hard to be sure of the timetables with cataclysmic climatic change, but I’d guess that whatever these are, they’ve only been in the ice for fifty to a hundred years.”

  His eyes widened. “Bodies. Burials on the ice.”

  “That was my thought.”

  “It makes sense. Nomadic groups, or perhaps caves somewhere nearby—ice caves, possibly—”

  “It doesn’t matter where they lived, so long as we’ve found where they died.”

  “How deep is the shallowest of those bodies? Eleven meters?” When Josala nodded, Stopa turned to the pilot. “We’re going to want our rover.”

  “Kroddok—”

  “I know, I know. But hear me out—we’ll wait until the weather’s good there,” Stopa said, his eyes animated by anticipation. “We’ll set the rover down right on top of the site. We leave the engine running at idle so there’s no chance for anything to freeze up. We work right out of the gear bay, because all we have to do is take a core. Our equipment ought to be able to handle that.”

  “You want to drill a core?” Josala said in horror. “That’ll mangle the remains.”

  “Yes,” Stopa said. “I know it violates the usual protocols. But we weren’t sent here to recover bodies. We were sent here to recover biological material. When our reinforcements arrive, they can go down and excavate the other sites. But in the meantime, we’ll have something we can analyze and report back on.”

  Josala shook her head. “I’d really rather wait for the people who know what they’re doing.”

  “But we know how to take a core,” Stopa said. “Krenn, a first-year apprentice knows how to take a core. We’ll be out of there in thirty minutes. Twenty.”

  Josala’s reluctance still showed on her face.

  Kroddok drew closer and dropped his voice. “The bonus from the NRI would be enough to fund the expedition to Stovax,” he said. “But if we wait until Penga Rift arrives, we’ll have to share the bonus. We might even end up being cut out completely.”

  He waited to see if that would sway her, then added, “I give you my word that we’ll withdraw at the first sign of any trouble. No, better, I’m making you expedition boss. You say ‘That’s it,’ and that’s it.”

  Josala looked up at him with a frown, then past him to the pilot. “What Dr. Stopa said. We’re going to want our rover.”

  The archaeologists’ little Mark II World Rover skimmed across the top of snow-covered southwest range and began its descent into the glacier valley.

  “You’re on the beam, eight hundred fifty meters out,” said the voice of IX-26’s pilot, continuing to talk Stopa and Krenn down to their destination. The navigation and sensor arrays of the rover were no match for those of the ferret.

  “Copy,” said Stopa, who was at the controls. “I’m going from glide to hover mode now.”

  “Seven hundred. Six hundred. Five fifty—”

  Several small shield doors on the rover’s fuselage and delta wings slid open, revealing vector nozzles for the thrustjets. With the rover’s nose stall-high and the nozzles perpendicular to the wings, the little ship quickly lost its forward velocity and began to settle.

  Josala was peering out the starboard cockpit viewpane, studying the ground below them. The steep inner slope of the southwest range wore a smooth blanket of snow, but the surface of the glacier itself was a field of jagged ice blocks, some as large as the rover itself.

  “It looked a lot smoother on the SSR display,” Josala said.

  “The rover can cope with a forty-degree terrain tilt. We’ll be all right.”

  “It’s going to be like drilling through rock.”

  “But ice won’t wear the bits like rock does,” said Stopa. “We’ll get through.”

  “Two hundred twenty,” the pilot was saying into Stopa’s headset. “Ease her a hair to port.”

  “Copy,” Stopa said. “Krenn, we have to at least give it a try—”

  Just then a cloud of swirling white particles billowed up around the rover from below, closing in around the cockpit viewpanes and cutting visibility nearly to zero.

  “It’s our downblast,” Stopa said quickly. He raised the control handle, and the rover climbed nimbly out of the cloud, which immediately began to dissipate beneath them. “Not a problem.”

  “One fifty.”

  “You can’t land us in a whiteout,” said Josala. “If you set us down on the edge of one of those ice boulders, we’ll flip over before the strut levelers can do anything.”

  “Ninety-five.”

  “I’ll just hover at ten meters until the thrusters blow the site clear of loose material,” Stopa said confidently. “If I can’t get definition on the undercarriage holo, I won’t try to land. All right?”

  “All right,” Josala said with a sigh.

  “Sixty,” the pilot said. “Ease off, or you’re going to overrun the site.”

  Stopa tapped the air brakes lightly and pulled back on the control handle slightly. As the rover settled toward the glacier, it was once again engulfed in a billow of jet-driven snow. But before long, the swirling cloud began to thin, and the horizon returned.

  “Twenty-five.”

  Josala peered forward. “I can’t judge distances without a referent. That big slab of ice—”

  He patted her arm. “It’s bigger and farther away than you think.”

  “Ten. Eight. Five. Easy—”

  “Take me to plus-sixteen. I want to put the rover’s tail right down on top of it.”

  “It’s under you now. Plus-six. Plus-nine. Plus-fourteen—”

  Stopa pushed the control handle sharply down, and the rover dropped hard and shook from the impact, nose tilted down and sliding sideways. It came to a stop with another small jolt, then slowly came to level.

  “There,” he said, switching quickly among the undercarriage scanners and studying the display.

  Those closest to the thrusters were frozen over with steam ice, but the forward and aft scanners were clear. The front landing strut seemed to be wedged in a small crevasse, though no damage was evident. Aft, the body of the rover was sitting comfortably above the ice.

  “That wasn’t half bad,” he said with a grin, setting the systems to STANDBY.

  “Let’s just get it done,” Josala said crossly.

  One behind the other, they made their way through the crawlspace over the orbital engine compartment to the crowded gear bay. There they helped each other into their improvised snow gear—the ferret’s sole emergency spacesuit for her, a standard digger’s isolation suit for him, augmented by the ferret pilot’s spacesuit glove liners.

  Neither of them was prepared for the blinding dazzle of the glacier when the gear bay doors swung open. The sky was clear, and the blue-white sun lit the landscape with cold crystal fire as hard to look at as the sun itself. Josala’s viewplate adjusted for it, but Stopa had to avert his eyes and squint to keep from being overwhelmed.

  “Spectacular!” Stopa exulted.

  “Sightsee when we’re finished,” Josala chided.

  Everything took longer than it should have. The core drill base didn’t want to latch in the working position, giving Josala reason to worry about whether the bay doors would seal properly when it was time to leave. The gloves made them both clumsy and turned the routine assembly of the first sections of the coring tube into a test. Josala’s sounding for the body beneath them was marred by crazy echoes. The drill’s gimbal mount froze up until the drill was turned on, complicating the alignment on Josala’s sounding.

  But at last the coring bit chewed its way in
to the surface of the glacier and headed down into its depths.

  “Seven sections!” Stopa shouted over the rumble of the drill. “At this angle, we’ll need seven sections.”

  Josala waved her hand in acknowledgment and turned away to pull the next section from the rack. It danced under her touch, and she drew her hand back. She pressed her gauntlet against the wall of the bay and felt it shivering. It was then that she realized that what she had thought was her own body shivering was the deck of the rover vibrating under her feet. The drill was roaring now, as though its bearing rings had disintegrated, its lubricants turned to grit.

  “Turn it off!” she cried, pulling her way along to where Stopa was leaning out the back of the bay, looking down at the core drive and measuring the drill’s progress. “Turn it off!” He looked up at her dumbly, and she reached behind him for the controls.

  The core cylinder spun to a stop, but neither the vibration nor the noise ceased. Just the opposite, in fact—the rumble was growing louder and the shaking growing worse.

  With a desperate fear already in their eyes, they looked out from the gear bay at the mountain ridge behind them, the ridge they had flown over just minutes before, the ridge that had been like cotton bathed in sunlight. The middle of the ridge was now hidden behind an onrushing wall of snow and ice, spreading and climbing the sky as it hurtled closer.

  There was no chance to escape into that sky. The avalanche was on them before they could even quite remember the word. It tumbled the rover before it like a toy, packing its every crevice with snow, engulfing the ship in the furious turbulence of the icy maelstrom.

  When the flow finally slowed and ceased, its leading edge reaching nearly halfway across the valley, there were two more bodies buried on the ice for Penga Rift to recover.

  “The first thing we need is a way to find this spot again, and this passage is notably lacking in landmarks,” said Lando. Using the cutting blaster, he sliced a small triangle off one corner of the equipment grid. “Where was our doorway? Here?”

  “Lower,” said Lobot. “There.”

  “I’m glad you’re sure,” said Lando. “I’m all turned around.” He cut a slit in the bulkhead, inserted one edge of the triangle, and held it there until the bulkhead closed around it. Then he placed one palm flat against the bulkhead and tried to tug the metal grid out of the wall. “That should do it.”

  Lobot drifted up with a short length of cord in one hand. “We might want more than one marker before we’re done,” he said, looping the cord through one of the diamond-shaped openings and tying the ends together with an overhand knot. “One knot equals the first marker. We’ll put two knots on the next one.”

  “Okay,” said Lando, turning away from the wall. “There’s one thing I overlooked when we took inventory. I burned about sixty percent of my thruster propellant trying to get up here.”

  “I have ninety-one percent remaining,” said Lobot. “Unfortunately, there is no way for me to share my supply with you.”

  “You might end up sharing it by carrying me around on your back,” Lando said. “Threepio, how are you doing for thrust mass?”

  Artoo burbled, and Threepio offered the translation. “Artoo says that his propellant supply is adequate, but he would like to be informed when any of us locates a power coupling.”

  “With any luck, it’ll be right next to an oxygen valve,” Lando said grimly. “All right—we are in a survival situation. This ship has now jumped twice, and we have to assume that it lost any pursuit that was mounted with that second jump. That means our first priority is to locate and disable the hyperdrive, and stop this ship.”

  “But Master Lando, if we disable the hyperdrive, we would be stranded,” Threepio protested.

  “We don’t know how long the vagabond stays in hyperspace—weeks, months, years. The galaxy is one hundred twenty thousand light-years across. I like our chances better stranded.”

  “Master Lando, would it not be more prudent to find the masters of this vessel and petition them to take us back to Coruscant?”

  “Threepio, I think we’re the masters of this vessel now,” Lando said. “We have to be, if we’re going to survive.” He ticked off the priorities on his fingers. “First, we find some way to stop this ship. Second, we find out where that leaves us. Third, we find out who our nearest friend is. Fourth, we find some way to signal them. If we get that all done before Lobot and I run out of air and the droids run out of power, then we can worry about who built the vagabond, and why.”

  “We may need to engage those questions in order to achieve those objectives,” said Lobot.

  “Maybe,” said Lando. “But in my experience, you really don’t need to know much about a precision machine in order to smash it.” He pointed a finger to the left, then to the right. “What’s your best guess—hyperdrive aft, or forward?”

  “Center of mass is the most efficient placement,” Lobot said. “Forward.”

  Lando nodded. “Then let’s get going.”

  Colonel Pakkpekatt hovered near the communications station as the cruiser Glorious dropped out of hyperspace. The chase armada was strung out along forty light-years, and Glorious was the second bead on the string. “Give them to me as fast as they come,” he said to the tech at the station.

  “Yes, sir. I’m seeing six dispatches—an emergency action directive from the Fleet Office, copied to Captain Garch. A blue letter from the NRI, copied to Captain Hammax. A dispatch marked ‘Urgent’ from the Obroan Institute. Reports from Lightning, Pran, and Nagwa.”

  “The three ships behind us,” said Pakkpekatt. “Very well. Make the dispatches available at my station.”

  Crossing the bridge with long, light-footed strides, Pakkpekatt eased himself into his flak couch and brought up the secure display. Neither his face nor his carriage betrayed any emotion as he read through the dispatches one after another. When he was finished, he tipped the screen away and let out a long hiss.

  “Major Legorburu.”

  Ixidro Legorburu, the M’haeli intelligence officer who was serving as Pakkpekatt’s tactical aide, hurried to his station in response to the summons. “Colonel.”

  “We have just received a Fleet-wide level one alert,” Pakkpekatt said, tipping his display upward so that the major could read the emergency action directive. “My request for additional ships for the search has been denied. I am under orders to release Marauder, Pran, and Nagwa from their duties here so that they may return to their respective commands at best possible speed.”

  “That’s nearly half our remaining strength, sir,” Legorburu said, shaking his head. “What do they expect us to do?”

  “Fail, apparently,” Pakkpekatt said curtly. “I have also been placed on notice that Glorious may be recalled as well. We are to remain on one-hour alert status, which means no jumps greater than one half light-year.”

  “At least that allows us to proceed with the search,” said Legorburu. “But we should call Kettemoor forward to fill the gap in the line when Marauder pulls out. She should be finished with recovery work by now, anyway.”

  “Kettemoor has already jumped to Nichen with the dead and injured from the Kauri,” said Pakkpekatt. “We will not have her back for another day at least—if they allow her to rejoin us at all.”

  Legorburu peered intently at the display. “I don’t get it, Colonel. Why the sudden change of priorities? What’s happening back there? It must be something big if they can’t spare a thirty-year-old gunship and a couple of interdiction pickets.”

  “That information was not made available to me,” said Pakkpekatt. His mouth curled in an unhappy threat-snarl.

  “Maybe I can get something out-of-channel,” said Legorburu. “Would you like me to try?”

  Pakkpekatt nodded. “Please do,” he said. “I would like to have a better idea just who I must wrestle to keep this mission alive.”

  Chapter Three

  The procession through the passageway of the Teljkon vagabond was led by Lando
Calrissian, combat blaster in hand. Following close behind was Artoo, towing the equipment grid protectively behind him. Last in line was Lobot, with Threepio riding on the back of his contact suit like a child perched on the back of his father.

  “This is my fault,” Lando said, peering over his shoulder at them. “I should have gone ahead and gotten a thrust belt for Threepio, maybe even a complete thrust harness and powerpack. Consumable refills for the contact suits, too.”

  “We have them—had them—on Lady Luck,” said Lobot. “Everything could not fit on one sled.”

  “I’d trade most everything on that grid for a couple of refill packs. I never thought we’d be in zero-G as long as it looks like we will be.” Forever, maybe, Lando thought grimly.

  “It is an interesting design choice,” Lobot said. “The Qella appear to have done everything they could to make it hard for us to move about in here. There is no artificial gravity, no spin. The bulkheads are nonmagnetic and have no friction tracks, handholds, or zip lines.”

  “What’s so interesting about that?”

  “The Qella were planet-dwellers,” Lobot said, surprised by the question. “How did they expect to get around in this ship?”

  Lando grunted. “Maybe the Qella are giant slugs as wide as this tunnel.”

  “Perhaps,” said Lobot. “But even giant slugs are probably more comfortable in a gravity field. I can’t help thinking that somewhere in this vessel there must be a switch that would make all of this much easier.”

  The passage seemed to have no end. It curved away in front of Lando like an ever-receding horizon, teasing him with a promise it never fulfilled. “How long has it been now?”

  “Artoo’s event recorders say we entered the vagabond three hours, eight minutes ago. We left our entry point forty-seven minutes ago,” Lobot answered.