by E. R. Torre
Latitia nodded.
“Better put on your seatbelts.”
They spent the next half hour in the void between Solyanna and Pomos, slowly dropping toward the larger object. Without electronics, they could do little but look out their front window.
“We’ll be entering Pomos in the next few minutes,” Latitia said.
Before them another large group of rocks hit the planet’s atmosphere. They glowed red and let off dust and smoke. Latitia looked away from them and at her helmet’s internal readout.
“The sensor signals are fading,” she said. “With so many rocks dropping into Pomos, there’s no way to track them all. I’m guessing whoever’s down there focuses on the rocks that may pose a risk to whatever they’re doing.”
The meteor shower they were a part of dropped down and down, closer and closer to Pomos’ toxic atmosphere.
“Here we go,” Latitia said.
They entered the atmosphere in silence, the only realization of this fact being a low rumble. Several of the asteroids around them tore away. Reddish flames streaked across their bodies as well as the shuttle’s heat shields.
Latitia gripped the ship’s controls.
“I was serious about not gliding all the way down,” B’taav said.
The ship’s power remained off and, without thrusters, Latitia fought to keep the ship stable. It turned, threatening to spin around.
“I’m reactivating,” she said.
She pressed a series of buttons and many of the cockpit’s panels came to life.
“Anything?”
Latitia held her breath. Her eyes were on the readouts.
“No sensors,” she said.
Flames formed a bloody arc across the shuttle’s body. The freshly activated instruments indicated heavy levels of radiation. The ship shook as thrusters leveled her entry. Flames licked the heat shields, for a while blinding their view of what lay before them.
Once the flames cleared, they made out mountains and streams. Pomos’ surface on the southern hemisphere was hideously charred and looked barren of any life. The already high level radiation readings spiked. The shuttle passed over a heavily bombarded area. Craters as large as continents rolled by.
Still they dropped, closer and closer to the planet’s surface.
“Looks like we made—”
A siren howled over their spacesuit speakers. One of the monitors turned red.
“Something’s over us,” Latitia muttered. “She’s too small to be a shuttle.”
“She has to be a missile or a drone,” B’taav said. “She’s just below the edge of Pomos’ atmosphere.”
The drone cruised above the rocky meteor shower and released sensor scans.
“Motion detectors only,” Latitia said, relieved.
The ground was rushing towards them. They were fifty miles above the surface. Forty five.
“Does it see us?”
“Hard to tell,” B’taav said. “It’s maintaining course.”
Thirty five.
B’taav could make out hills and small valleys and the gleam of metal. They were over a melted city.
“We need to use our thrusters,” B’taav said. “We need to slow down!”
“We use them and that drone’s sensors will detect our movement.”
Thirty.
They saw the remains of a large river. Fetid water gleamed in the sunshine.
Twenty.
B’taav held his breath. The surveillance drone moved away from them and followed another mass of Solyanna rock.
Ten.
The remains of petrified tree trunks stood up like burnt toothpicks. A highway lay in pieces. The drone continued its steady movement.
Five.
The drone moved farther still. It was nearly out of range. Nearly…
One.
“Shit,” Latitia yelled. “Hang on!”
There was no more margin for error. Latitia activated the ship’s thrusters and grasped the yoke. The shuttle screamed against the pull of gravity and fought the speed of their drop. Latitia leveled the ship just feet from destruction while clipping the petrified trees.
The danger was far from over.
The asteroids they traveled with slammed against the surface of Pomos and sent thick clouds of dust into the air. It proved a mixed blessing. Whatever was above them couldn’t see them through that dust. Latitia, however, couldn’t see where she was flying.
Sparks flew from the ship’s instrument panel as the shock waves from the asteroids’ collisions buffeted her. The passengers were rocked back and forth.
They flew in this heavy dust for several agonizing seconds, not knowing if they were about to fly into a rocky outcrop or jagged city remains.
Latitia applied the air brakes. Their forward momentum was great, and it would take a good distance to slow.
The dust clouds abruptly cleared and before them were the remains of a city. Towers still hung in the air, their frames bent away and melted like ice cream on a summer day. Another cloud from another fallen asteroid enveloped them.
Latitia activated the shuttle’s secondary brakes and the howls of deceleration reverberated throughout the craft. The view screen was covered in dust and filth. More asteroids fell around them, a second wave of deadly projectiles easily capable of destroying their ship. They heard the groans of the brakes and the smash of debris large and small slamming against their craft’s outer hull.
B’taav grasped the sides of his chair even as the seatbelt pressed back.
The shuttle slowed but the city’s remains grew larger and larger.
“We’re not going to make it,” Latitia said.
The chaos around them was too much for the small craft to bear.
Latitia pulled at the yoke and the shuttle banked to the right, barely avoiding the remains of a building. The right wing clipped it as it passed.
Latitia let out a hopeless grunt as the shuttle flopped down. Its belly hit the ground hard.
Latitia pressed several buttons in vain, trying to regain control over the stricken craft. It was too late. The ship continued its skid, smashing through thick brick walls and metal. Within the ship things fell apart. One of the monitors burst while a second went dark. Electric crackles and pops erupted and steam hissed from ruptured hoses.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the ship slowed until it stopped. All was quiet.
B’taav’s eye’s fluttered open. Blood dripped from his nose and his breathing was ragged. His entire body ached. Beside him Latitia stirred.
“That… that went well,” she muttered. She looked at B’taav. “You look like I feel.”
Latitia struggled with the seatbelt before releasing herself. She examined the remaining monitors.
B’taav also freed himself from his seat. He looked outside. In the far distance more asteroids rained down on the planet and sent plumes of dust into the air. The rock swarm was spent and the drone far up in the sky continued her journey. Sensor bursts reappeared now and again, their signal weaker and weaker with each passing second. There was no sign of other crafts coming to take its place.
“We avoided detection,” Latitia said. “Let’s see at what cost.”
Latitia checked the ship’s readouts. She shook her head.
“Ship’s badly damaged,” Latitia said. “Hard to believe we’re still in one piece.”
Latitia fiddled with the controls but her attention was quickly drawn away by a flicker of light coming from outside.
“B’taav?” she whispered. “Do you see this?”
B’taav followed her stare. In the very far distance, he saw an enormous structure. It was like a square tank, dull gray metal and rusted and self-contained and far, far larger than most cities. Through its center rose two thick, clear tubes, likely constructed with a heavy duty tinsel glass. The tubes extended from the center of the object and stretched up into the sky, disappearing beyond the thick black clouds.
“Is that what I think it is?” B’taav said.
> “Yeah,” Latitia said. “A Space Elevator. That’s where the energy readings are coming from. They –whoever they are– built a Godsdamned Space Elevator!”
29
The Xendos’ cameras followed the progress of the Cygnusa and her fighter craft as they approached. Inquisitor Cer carefully moved the ship back, drawing deeper into the asteroid field. On at least three occasions her cover was very small and she felt lucky she wasn’t discovered.
If this was a fleet exercise, I’d have a few of their heads.
It was only a matter of time before the Xendos was found and Inquisitor Cer had to do something. Quickly.
The hour before she put on her helmet and depressurized the cockpit. She exited the area and for the first time in a long while walked the stricken ship’s corridors. She grabbed whatever loose debris she could carry and loaded it, along with the corpses of the Overlord and his two personal Inquisitors, into the decompression chamber.
It’ll have to do.
It was a very old trick, jettisoning debris in the hopes that your pursuers would think your craft was destroyed. Cer prayed the three corpses would sell the deception, if only to allow her enough time to escape.
Inquisitor Cer then took all but one of the ship’s fusion guns and broke them apart. She used rope and tape to tie the weapons’ energy packets, spare oxygen canisters, corpses, and debris together. When she was satisfied with her work, she closed the inner decompression chamber door and opened the outer one.
In the weightless conditions she easily shoved the tied up mass out of the Xendos and used her suit’s thrusters to move it closer to the asteroid the Xendos was hiding behind.
She placed the corpses and debris in position and examined the fusion energy cores. They were wrapped tight against the oxygen canisters. Inquisitor Cer produced a simple timer and connected it to one of those energy cores. The timer was set for an hour. It would allow Cer enough time to get the Xendos away before the core slid open and ruptured the other energy cores and oxygen canisters.
The result would be more light than explosion, with debris and corpses flying in all directions and providing the Cygnusa and her fighter craft plenty of moving parts to engage their attention.
“Hurry.”
Inquisitor Cer froze. A man had whispered the word in her ear. She turned around, bewildered.
There was no one near her.
She checked her radio system. It was the same primitive, limited range equipment used on the Argus. If someone spoke through it, he had to be close. Close enough to see.
Am I dreaming this? she wondered.
Inquisitor Cer shook her head. She spotted a flash of light several hundred miles away.
“Whoever you are, you’re right,” she said.
Inquisitor Cer returned to the Xendos and ran to the cockpit. She slowly moved the ship away from the asteroid, corpses, and debris.
She knew the other crafts in the area had their sensors on full and, should the Xendos stray even a little from the cover of the asteroids, it would be found.
Using her ship’s cameras as guides, Inquisitor Cer retreated further and further into the sparsely filled asteroid field. She cleared several miles, inching her way and retreating deeper into the field. Even at its relatively slow speed, the Xendos was certain to make good distance before the energy cores detonated.
Inquisitor Cer eased the ship’s thrust and parked the ancient craft beside the largest rock she could find. She looked at the timer on the central monitor before her.
Three minutes.
She eased back in her seat.
Her very survival depended on what happened next.
30
Latitia spent nearly an hour going over the shuttle. She walked in and out of the cockpit several times, her movements slowed by her space suit.
B’taav was eager to help but was limited by his waning strength. He used the shuttle’s outward cameras to get as close a look at the Space Elevator as possible.
Even from this distance, it proved an impressive sight.
He witnessed long, train-like machines rise from the Space Elevator’s concrete base and shoot up through the tinsel glass tube before disappearing into the clouds. Moments later, another near identical machine dropped from above, its destination the concrete base.
As sophisticated as it was, the Space Elevator appeared to operate as a simple counterweight elevator. One side rose while the other dropped. B’taav showed this to Latitia.
“There has to be a space station in geosynchronous orbit above the base,” Latitia said. “It’s where the trains go.”
“Given their size, they were designed to move tons of material from the surface up.”
“The planet is –was– rich in minerals,” Latitia said. “But it’s been irradiated. It’s worthless.”
B’taav thought about that.
“Doesn’t make sense to create a structure like this and haul contaminated product,” B’taav said. “But what else could the train take?”
“Nothing,” Latitia said.
B’taav thought some more.
“You think the people behind the elevator discovered a way of cleaning the radioactivity out of the ore?”
Latitia leaned in close to the monitor and stared hard at the camera’s images.
“That’d be quite a breakthrough,” she said. She was silent for a while before nodding. “Very clever.”
There was a noticeable trace of fear in her voice.
“That means something to you?” B’taav asked.
“No, nothing,” Latitia said, unconvincingly. She pressed a series of buttons and the shuttle’s engine revved. “This will take a moment.”
Outside, plumes of dust rose from beneath their vehicle. Despite this, the ship’s turbines emitted a sickly sound. Latitia kept revving them. In between bursts, she pulled a memory chip from the paneling before her.
“Take this,” she said while handing the chip to B’taav. “In case we separate and you need to get the hell out of here, this will activate the Type 2.”
“I’m not leaving alone,” B’taav said.
Latitia smiled.
“I don’t expect you to.”
B’taav took the chip and placed it in his space suit’s side pouch while Latitia’s attention returned to the engines.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s give this a try.”
Latitia pressed a series of buttons. The shuttle rocked to the side and rose in the air. Several lights screamed bloody warnings. Latitia tried to keep the shuttle in the air.
“Come on!” she yelled.
The ship lifted only a few feet into the air. The engines rattled and coughed. They were dying. Latitia swore and set the shuttle back down.
“That’s that,” she said.
She shut the engines off.
Dusk settled on Pomos and the light of her faint sun disappeared in the northeast just as Solyanna appeared in the south. From the surface of Pomos, the moon looked like a rotted apple.
B’taav and Latitia exited the cockpit and walked to the shuttle’s lower deck, passing the engine room and reaching the end of the lower corridor. There, they opened the door to the rear compartment. Parked within was an all-terrain four-seat Rover. Latitia examined the vehicle to make sure it suffered no damage during the hard landing. She inspected its oversized tires and spongy shocks before moving to its engine.
“We’ve got approximately one hundred and fifty miles of terrain to cross,” Latitia said. “This is going to be a long, slow, and very uncomfortable trip. Hope you’re up to it.”
“What about the drones?”
“The Rover has electronic dampeners. It’ll be hard for sensors to detect her from orbit.”
“What if a drone goes suborbital? What if the space elevator’s base is surrounded with security measures? There could be mine fields or fusion cannons or—”
“We’re going to have to bet on those things not being there,” Latitia said.
“Quite
the bet,” B’taav said. “I’m afraid my credit’s limited.”
“So’s mine,” Latitia replied. “Well, you know what they say, spend what you’ve got. There might not be another day.”
B’taav helped Latitia free the vehicle from its magnetic moorings before loading up on supplies. Once done, they sealed and decompressed the interior of the chamber.
“Ready?” Latitia asked.
“Whenever you are.”
Latitia climbed into the driver’s seat and B’taav sat beside her. Once their seatbelts were on, she started the Rover. The sound of her engine was low, bordering on imperceptible.
B’taav examined the screen on the panel before him.
“Winds are fifteen knots,” B’taav said. “Not too bad. At least compared to the radiation.”
“Provided all goes reasonably well, it’ll take us maybe three hours to reach the elevator’s base,” Latitia said.
She pressed a button before her and the shuttle’s rear compartment door lowered. Dusty winds whipped up from outside.
Latitia put the Rover in drive and pressed the accelerator. They drove onto the surface of Pomos.
The first half-hour of the ride was made in silence.
Latitia kept the Rover’s forward lights low and avoided the most hostile terrain. Plasma blasts from years before left much of the surface before them remarkably smooth. The limited sensors on the Rover gave them an idea of their route and allowed them to avoid the largest obstacles.
While Latitia drove B’taav tried to rest. He couldn’t. A sudden, troubling thought occurred to him.
“Is the infection I have similar to what ravaged Pomos?”
“You’re showing no signs of aggression.”
B’taav’s eyes were on Latitia.
“You didn’t answer the question.”
Latitia drew a breath.
“It’s possible.”
“A different strain?”
“As I said, it’s possible.”
“What exactly happened here? Saint Vulcan had a state of the art security system. How did the virus get loose?”
