Damn! Though Leon. If I knew I could exchange pigs for pussy I would have smuggled some porkers on this voyage. “Now that is an interesting proposition, Brother Abraham. And I will be sure...”
Shouting and screams from the settlement interrupted Leon's negotiation with the preacher.
“Look!” cried one of the young men, dropping his end of the shipping container. “What in heaven's name is that?”
A tidal wave of black thread poured out of the town and spread across the grassy field. A number of people ran from the settlement toward the shuttle—they were over taken and pulled under.
“Holy shit!” Leon exclaimed. “Get on the god damned shuttle if you want to live, preacher!”
Leon jumped onto the ramp and ran into the cargo hold. After standing for a second, mouth agape, Brother Abraham scrambled on board with his young followers close behind.
“Frank! Get this bird in the air,” Leon yelled into the intercom while hitting the emergency ramp closure button. “That black thread shit is for real and its coming right at us!”
The young settlers were still on the ramp as it raised into its closed position, dumping them onto the cargo bay floor. A shudder went through the shuttle as Frank engaged the bottom repulsors.
* * * * *
On the shuttle's flight deck Frank had been idly staring off into space, dreaming of what he would do when the Fortune made port at Farside. Leon's cry caused him to look out the cockpit's side window, just in time to see another running settler consumed by rampaging black sinews.
“Shit!”
Though Frank had many shortcomings his saving grace was that he was a good shuttle pilot. His hands flew across the controls as he engaged the bottom repulsors and threw the massive shuttle into the air. Belatedly engaging the deck gravity, he raised the nose and applied the thrusters. The questing black threads fell short of the departing shuttle by a matter of a few meters.
“Leon, are you OK back there?”
“Yeah, man. Tell me we are off this fucking planet.”
“The gear is up and we are in the air at about 800 meters and climbing. Did anyone else get on with you?”
“Yeah, the head preacher and a couple of acolytes. They were a bit shook up by the liftoff.”
“Tell 'em to complain to the management. I'm going to circle the area and see what is happening on the ground. Check for any sign of survivors.”
“Go right ahead, but I don't think you are going to find dick. I'm going to get our passengers strapped in and come forward.”
“Right. I gotta call the ship.”
Bridge, ESS Fortune
“ESS Fortune, this is Shuttle Bravo. Come in.”
“Go, Shuttle Bravo,” Sid replied.
“Fortune, we have a problem.” Regardless of what they fly, pilots are pilots—the terse Chuck Yeager, test-pilot speech pattern was seemingly ingrained during flight training.
“What kind of problem, Shuttle Bravo?”
“You know that black shit you warned us to look out for? Well it just ate Zion.”
“Ate Zion? What do you mean, 'ate Zion'?”
“Ate as in devoured. Black crap came flowing out of the town, faster than a man can run, and almost got to us before we could lift off.”
“Are you sure? Where are you now? I mean what is your position?” The Captain was clearly flustered.
“I'm orbiting the settlement at a thousand meters, scanning for survivors.”
“Are there any survivors?”
“Just Brother Abraham and two lucky bastards who were standing near the cargo hatch when the shit hit the fan.”
“Roger, Shuttle Bravo. Can you send me video of the scene?”
“Roger that. Patching it through now...”
Chapter 23
CIC, Peggy Sue
The picture in the main 3D holotank showed a miniature diorama of a ruin in the desert. Disheveled white buildings stood forlornly in an endless sea of tan. Here and there the blue-black glint of sunlight reflected off a solar panel flashed. A few hours ago that ruin had been a settlement with over sixty souls living in it, along with growing gardens, grazing livestock, and surrounding fields of prairie grass. The satellite view showed no sign of survivors, no sign of life.
“That is just wrong,” said Billy Ray. “Nothing that can do that to a living world should exist in this Universe.”
“I am afraid that the organism, whatever it is, has been reawakened, Captain,” said Will Krenshaw.
“You think it's some form of life, Doctor?”
“It acts like a biological organism—a voracious, ravaging organism to be sure—but an organism nonetheless.”
“Hmm,” Ahnah rumbled. “It's more like anti-life than life. Organisms are not supposed to evolve that eat their food supply into extinction—that just doesn't make sense. Predators are supposed to cull the herd, not eradicate it.”
“Agreed, Ahnah,” said Mizuki, “but there is no reason to assume that it evolved naturally.”
“You suspect meddling, Dr. Ogawa?”
“All of us are proof that it does happen, Captain.”
“But why create something that wipes a planet clean of life and then dies off itself?” asked Will.
“That is not dead which can eternal lie, Doctor.”
“An appropriate quotation from somewhere,” Will replied.
“Abdul Alhazred the mad poet,” came Bobby's voice over the comm circuit. He and Beth were monitoring events from on board the shuttle, ready to deploy.
“Actually Lovecraft quoting him in 'The Nameless City'.” Billy Ray smiled. “You were the one who started spouting Lovecraft when you visited those first ruins, pardner.”
“I guess the reference was a better fit than I imagined, Captain.”
“Mizuki, can we get a satellite pass over New Mecca? With Zion wiped out, and probably New Jerusalem as well, we need to know if there is anyone left down there to rescue.”
“Hai, Captain, there is a pass coming up. I'll display it in the holotank.”
The room fell silent as the desolation of Zion was replaced by a pastoral scene, centered on New Mecca. The green prairie was still intact and tiny figures could be seen moving between the low white buildings.
“They seem to be untouched, for now.”
“Then there is no time to lose. Peggy Sue, open a channel to the Fortune—I need to talk to Captain Chakrabarti.”
“Yes, Captain. Establishing the link now...”
Bridge, ESS Fortune
“I have told you before, Captain Vincent. I will not jeopardize any more personnel or a shuttle in a vain attempt to rescue hypothetical surviving colonists. You brought this curse down upon us, you deal with it!”
Captain Chakrabarti was fortunate to not be physically confronting Billy Ray. Peggy Sue's captain was exasperated enough to wring his counterpart's neck.
“So yer just going to standby in orbit and wait for the last seventy settlers to become a meal for the infestation? You didn't, by any chance, leave yer balls back at Farside, did you?”
Sid's face turned dark with anger. He broke the connection without saying another word. Sitting at the bridge console, fists clenched in impotent rage, Fortune's captain cursed the other man, and his own wretched luck. In a matter of a few days the mission had gone from complete success to utter failure—the sweet taste of triumph turned to ashes in his mouth. Logic fled as Sid's thoughts became increasingly irrational.
Why do these meddling merchants have to bedevil me? If they hadn't raised the alarm the settlers may never have been attacked. Captain Vincent is so concerned about the Muslim rabble in the last settlement? Let him risk his crew and equipment trying to rescue them!
The ship's computer interrupted his dark thoughts.
“Captain, Shuttle B has achieved orbit and is on course for rendezvous in approximately 90 minutes.”
“Yes, yes. That's wonderful. Have them come to the bridge when they dock. Have Chu and Bell checked out Shuttle
C yet?”
“I believe they are on their way to shuttle bay three as we speak, Captain.”
“Good, good. Let me know if they find anything out-of-place.” That the Captain was communicating with his crew through the ship's computer was not a good sign. Not a good sign at all.
CIC, Peggy Sue
The ship was manned and ready for action. On the bridge, Umky was connected to the main tracking and fire control system. It turned out that the structure of a polar bear's brain was perfectly suited to interface with the T'aafhal devices that enabled tracking of ships and large objects in alter-space. Stars, planets and anything running a gravitonic drive impinged on the higher dimensions of alter-space, where effective distances were much shorter than in 3-space. Targets can be detected much more rapidly in alter-space; faster than the propagation of signals at the speed of light allowed in normal space.
Some humans could use the direct mind interface of the tracking system—Dr. Ogawa for instance—but bears were much better at it. This was because the interface operated on a different part of the human brain than it did on bears. A human being's most developed sense is vision, so the interface used the visual cortex to transfer data into the operator's mind. It took much uncomfortable training and a lot of throwing up before the strange multidimensional images made sense to a human.
Bears, on the other hand, had the most exquisite sense of smell of all Earth's creatures. When interfacing with a polar bear, the link was through the olfactory parts of the ursine brain. In effect, Umky could smell the presence of ships and stars and planets. Why they should be such natural operators for this type of equipment remained a mystery, but the few who knew about such things suspected that it was due to evolutionary meddling by the T'aafhal.
“Captain, Fire Control,” Umky called over the bridge circuit.
In the CIC, Billy Ray answered.
“Go, Fire Control.”
“I'm tracking a shuttle on an intercept trajectory with the colony ship. It should rendezvous in seventy minutes.”
“Very good, keep me informed of their activity.”
“Sir? I also have a visual on the Fortune. It looks like there are already two docked shuttles aboard her. The inbound shuttle would be the third.”
“I see. Thank you, Mr. Umky.” Billy Ray muted the link to the bridge. “Damn it all! That miserable little sidewinder has been holding out on me.”
“Captain?” asked Mizuki. In good times the Captain had a tendency to quote Shakespeare or Chaucer. When annoyed he reverted to cowboy argot that some found almost comical. That was a mistake people made only once, because when angered he became as cold blooded as a gunfighter.
“That Colonization Board varmint didn't bother to tell me that his missing shuttle had returned to the fold. They must know what happened to New Jerusalem.”
“Captain, we have been scanning the New Jerusalem site from orbit and there are no signs of life. While we cannot be 100% sure that settlement was attacked until we get a visual, I am 99% sure the colonists were destroyed.”
“That may be, Dr. Ogawa, but if someone escaped they may be able to give us some useful information. Peggy Sue, try to raise the Fortune again.”
“I have done so, Captain, and they refuse our call.”
Sid swore under his breath and called the waiting shuttle. “Beth, cast off and head for the remaining settlement. We'll get no help from the Fortune.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
“Damn that little pissant, there are people's lives at stake here. Maybe he'll get the message if I send a railgun slug through his hull!”
With that, Billy Ray left the CIC, headed forward to the bridge.
Flight Deck, Shuttle One
“Peggy Sue, Shuttle One. We have undocked and are starting a minimum time descent to New Mecca.” As he spoke, Bobby guided the shuttle clear of the ship. Looking at Beth, seated in the copilot's seat, he said, “You'd better tell the Jar Heads that we are a go.”
“Right, Bobby.” Switching to the crew frequency the First Officer told those in the cargo hold to prepare themselves. “We are beginning our descent to the planet's surface, people. It would appear that we can expect no assistance from the Fortune so this will all be on us. We should be on the surface in just under two hours.”
The heavily armored shuttle did a graceful pirouette combined with a back flip, putting it on a trajectory for the planet below.
“Show off,” Beth sniped.
“Gotta make the most of any opportunity,” Bobby grinned. Both of them being pilots, he and Beth shared a brother-sister type of rivalry when it came to flying. Turning serious he asked the mission's commander what her plans were. “How are we going to handle this when we get down there?”
“I don't really know, Bobby. If there is no sign of hostile activity I think we should land as close to the town as possible—in the town if we can find an open space big enough.”
“That would get their attention.”
“Yes. And that is going to be the problem. How to convince the settlers they should abandon their new homes and get on board a shuttle they've never seen. I can talk to them in Arabic, but with no sign of a threat they have little reason to believe me.”
“The bitch of it is, If they do see the threat it's probably already too late.”
* * * * *
All those on board were wearing armored spacesuits: the crew and officers standard armor, the Marines heavy combat armor. In the cargo hold the four Marines were clustered near the rear ramp, discussing the mission. Closer to the front of the cargo space two of the crew, Kate Hamm and Kashi Ademola, were sitting on jump seats, eavesdropping on the squad of hulking armored giants.
“So what's the plan, Gunny?” asked Kato.
“We are going to follow the First Officer's lead. Our job is to keep things orderly, and the boat safe.”
“And if a wave of black, flesh dissolving alien crap heads our way?”
“We get back on the ship ASAP and ask Cmdr. Danner to get us the hell outta there.”
“Da, this seems well planned.”
“If your job was thinking you'd be an officer, Bosco. Just shut up and follow orders. I want everyone to remember that this is a high gravity planet. You are all used to wearing armor under low G and no G conditions. Dirtside these suits weigh the equivalent of seven hundred kilos, more than three quarters of a ton, so do not try to bounce around like a comic book superhero down there.”
“We were all down to the surface before, Gunny,” chided Kato.
“Yeah, and you have the memory span of a goldfish.”
“If we're picking up a bunch of people why aren't there any chairs set up?” asked Vinny. The cargo hold was generally reconfigured for a mission before leaving the ship.
“There's supposed to be something like seventy civilians, so it's going to be a full house. The Chief figured it would be faster just to cram 'em in standing up than have them fumble about trying to find a seat.”
“So the plan is to land, pack in the settlers like a bunch of sardines and then get the hell outta Dodge?”
“You got it, Vinny. We send them up the ramp and the two swabbies get to do the packing.”
“Great plan, Gunny.”
“Nobody likes a smart ass, Vinny.”
Shuttle B, ESS Fortune
“Fortune, Shuttle Bravo. We are maneuvering for docking capture,” Frank reported to the ship. The Captain had stopped responding to his calls an hour ago. Instead, the voice of the ship's computer acknowledged the pilot's call.
“Shuttle Bravo, you are cleared to dock in bay two.”
“Roger, Fortune. Thank you.”
“Where's the Old Man? He taking a late lunch or something?”
“Who knows, Leon. We are almost back on board the transport and that's all I give a shit about. After seeing what that black crap did to those poor colonists I want to get away from this place as fast as I can.”
“What do you think that stuff was? I
ain't never seen anything like that before.”
“That's because if you had seen it you'd be dead. Now go see if our passengers have pissed themselves or died of fright. We'll be docked in under ten minutes.”
“Gotcha, boss.”
Chapter 24
Flight Deck, Shuttle One
Ionized gases wrapped the shuttle as it entered the atmosphere and for a brief time it was out of radio contact with the Peggy Sue. After slowing from orbital velocity, Bobby reestablished communications with the ship.
“Peggy Sue, Shuttle One, we have just gone subsonic and are approaching the target area.”
“Shuttle One, Peggy Sue. Roger that. Be advised that the transport appears to be making preparations for getting underway. You won't be able to take the colonists to the Fortune. Over.”
“Yeah, this keeps getting better and better,” Bobby said to Beth. “Roger that, Peggy Sue. We will get you a sitrep in about five minutes.”
“Roger, Shuttle One. We are standing by.”
The shuttle approached the continent on which New Mecca was located, coming in from the west. This brought it in over a range of mountains followed by rocky hill country. Ahead lay the plains.
“Look, there is still grassland,” Beth observed. “They may still be alive.”
“I'll swing south of the settlement and we can make a low pass before deciding where to land.”
“Right.” Beth switched to the comm link. “Ms. Acuna, be advised we are on approach to the settlement. I'll let you know as soon as we pick a landing site.”
“Roger, Ma'am,” came the Gunny's reply.
Bobby raised his eyebrows and glanced sideways at Beth. “You never call Rosey 'Gunny' like everyone else.”
“Not now, Bobby, the curtain is about to go up... Oh bollocks!”
“Shit!” Bobby quickly pulled up, trading forward speed for altitude.
Below the shuttle a black stain was spreading rapidly across the prairie grass. It came from along the river that ran south and east of the settlement.
T'aafhal Legacy 1: Ghosts of Orion Page 26
