CHAPTER 12
Small chunks skipped between the rolling boulders and hulking stones that made up the Free Mantle. Wovoka took in the chaos of the Free Mantle and steeled himself for the arduous task ahead of him and his men. He caught a glance at the Trighter as it screamed away. A good ship. Wolf Plume had programmed the comp to gently land the Trighter six hundred kilometers from Cartel Base Nurai. The loss of the tail stabilizer would make it a gamble whether the Trighter would make it not. Even at that distance there was little chance Rowan personnel would not pick up the Trighter.
The fact that Rowan personnel had found Wovoka’s infiltrator team on their planet would probably mean the construction of another chunnel immediately. Rowan managers could get reinforcements back to Naanac ASAP. Wovoka knew from the Zuni intelligence reports that it would take a minimum of nine days to build another chunnel, which would give them some time at least.
Wovoka and the three Infiltrators reached the edge of the maelstrom of rock. Below them spanned the grey-green marbling of Naanac surface, glimpsed between thick, wet clouds. Above them floated the planet's outer shell. The sparkling churning boulders prohibited Wovoka from seeing far into the Free Mantle.
“How are we going to tackle this, Wovoka?” Wolf Plume asked.
Wovoka boosted a few meters ahead of the rest of the group. “I hear static in the lines already. Once we get into that mess we are not going to be able to communicate at all. And judging from the chaos I see, I doubt we are going to be able to stay together. We’ll have to clamber through the Free Mantle's two kilometers of thickness, boulder by boulder. Cavaho, you handle these body tanks better than the rest of us. I need you to take Slow Turtle through with you. The Negacain I gave him should make it possible for him to move long enough to get through. Carry him when he can’t.”
Cavaho nodded.
Wolf Plume grimaced. “Wovoka, I don't know about this. Sure the body tanks will take a hit from a boulder twice their size but some of those rocks are fifty meters wide. If Slow Turtle gets caught between two of them his body tank will crack open like a clam.”
“Buck up, warrior.” Slow Turtle said. “The only alternative is staying on this marsh planet and that really doesn't sound appealing to me. Let’s get back to the squaws and scotch.”
Wovoka grinned. He pulled up a time stamp. “Let's get this done. I'm guessing it should take anywhere from two to four hours per kilometer. I am sending my time stamp to your comp sets, which should be in control of your body tank systems. We rally at 45 degrees north and 72 east of Telt, Naanac's moon, between 1100 and 1500 hours. Understand?”
“Check.”
“Check.”
Cavaho nodded.
Wovoka turned, as all three of his Infiltrators boosted toward him. The four soldiers clacked the plasteel of their helmets together. “Wambli, will carry each of us on his wings as he has a hundred times before. I'll see you on the other side.”
None of them spoke another word, just broke and boosted toward the Free Mantle. Wovoka's momentum gently sent him into the fringe of the Free Mantle. Small rocks began to clack against the body tank. He pushed away a boulder a meter wide. It rolled and smacked against an asteroid twice its size.
The big rocks started a few meters away. Wovoka spotted a twenty-meter boulder rolling slowly through the mass of churning rocks toward the far unseen edge of the Free Mantle. He boosted toward the fleeing boulder, activated the Jaguar’s wrist cannon and adjusted to its maximum setting. One blast created a perfect round hole about two and a half meters wide and a meter deep. He used the thrusters to get himself close enough to cram the suit into the hole. The smaller rocks bounced off of the Jaguar and the larger rocks that crashed into the boulder made no contact with the suit.
Wovoka was confident the rest of his Infiltrators would be able to figure out this maneuver. The large rock crashed deeper into the Free Mantle, farther away from Naanac. Wovoka spoke into his comp set. “Pack Alpha to infiltrators, echo back.” Only silence answered. The Free Mantle rendered their communication system useless, as he expected.
After a few hundred meters of diagonal progress, a large boulder rocked Wovoka’s ride. The boulder beneath him veered back toward Naanac. A boost from his boot thrusters sent him back into the chaos. He dodged smaller asteroids, constantly moving toward the direction of the Free Mantle’s outer edge. He progressed another seventy-five meters before he spotted a bulky asteroid heading his way. He maneuvered and snuggled his body tank in for another ride.
The asteroid took him another hundred meters as Wovoka continued to dodge and scrape his way toward the outer space surrounding Naanac.
Wovoka began to sweat inside his body tank, despite the cool jets of air the integral life support system provided. The physical exertion was difficult but Wovoka was used to hard work. He and his pack trained constantly. Wovoka exempted Slow Turtle from some of the rigorous training schedule because he often proved to be a distraction. He considered the wisdom of that decision now.
The most difficult part of the task was maintaining direction. Every boulder Wovoka attached himself to rolled and arched in a direction askew of where he needed to go. Normally his comp set could easily guide him, but the Free Mantle presented too much interference for the processors to crunch quickly. Each boulder had its own properties, some radioactive. The only way to tell if he was heading toward space or back toward the planet was to look for flecks of grey (Naanac’s atmosphere) or flecks of black (outer space).
Six hours of coasting and dodging and firing and tumbling brought his body tank close to the space edge of the Free Mantle. Here the black was in large patches, no longer flecks. Stars were visible. The inside of his body tank stank from his perspiration.
Sweat rolled off his brow and he blinked furiously to keep it out of his eyes. He rolled the body tank again and landed on a medium sized boulder not more than seven or eight meters wide. Suddenly a strange shimmering winked at his left and he turned to see a spacecraft. It startled him. He calmed himself and made out the clean edges of a CZ-214 Bounty Hunter, a heavy, expensive fighter-bomber.
It was another moment before he saw the shattered glasteel of the cockpit and realized it was deserted hulk. It had probably been junked here after a failed attempt to intercept last year's Rowan shuttle.
Carefully Wovoka moved around the Bounty Hunter. He read the remaining half of the ship’s name emblazoned on the front. It was mottled and the paint chipped. “1884-QI 8710 Billy the K,” Wovoka took a few stills with his comp set. It worried him that this ship was here. It could mean that Rowan was more prepared than they appeared to be. He was unsure. It was also quite possible Rowan Cartel had never found this ship and the ship had somehow become stranded here without any way to return. Wovoka moved away from the ship and put it out of his thoughts. This short investigation was all he could do now.
He boosted out to a safe distance from the edge of the Free Mantle. A huge weight lifted off of his shoulders. He basked in the beauty of Naanac’s moon and its background of thousands of brilliant stars. He would live another day and now he needed to gather his men. He looked right and left to see if he could find any of his Infiltrators. He saw no one.
Wovoka set the lights on his body tank blinking and looked at the arms. The finish was shredded away, showing scored black blastplast. The body tank was dented and worn, yet all of its basic functions were operating. Wovoka turned away from the endless vacuum of space toward the Free Mantle. His heart jumped as something slammed into him. Something grabbed his body tank by the shoulders and suddenly glasteel tinked against glasteel. Shock turned into amazement. It was Wolf Plume, smiling.
Wovoka laughed and spun with Wolf Plume. Two were out now, half the pack. “Any sign of Cavaho or Slow Turtle?”
Wolf Plume shook his head. “It took me longer to get through than I expected. They are probably running into the same problems we did. We can wait here.”
Wovoka laughed. “Of course, we'll wa
it here. Where else would we go?”
The next two hours passed slowly. Conversation with Wolf Plume was strained due to Wovoka’s concern for Cavaho and Slow Turtle. They spent the time observing, carefully, Naanac’s two suns, Venik I and II. Venik I was closer, brighter - a gas giant. Its bright electric blue light bathed their body tanks. Venik II cast brilliant green and between the two suns it made anything the light touched appear as if it were under water. Wovoka had just set a watch schedule so that one of them could sleep when Wolf Plume pointed.
Wovoka and Wolf Plume were approximately two kilometers from the edge of the Free Mantle but Wovoka could make out a dull glint of steel. “Optics, twenty.” The comp set adjusted magnification and the two thousand meters appeared to be one hundred meters. It was definitely one of the pack's Heavy Jaguars units but Wovoka could not tell whose from this distance. Then he realized the body tank wasn't moving, just drifting as boulders banged it about. Wovoka returned the optics to normal and boosted toward the body tank.
Slow Turtle. Wovoka's mind raced. He should have known. He should have known. Slow Turtle was injured. How could he possibly make it through the Free Mantle? Wolf Plume was in front of Wovoka now pushing boulders back away from the Jaguar body tank. Wovoka slowed and stopped just above the battered suit, its back to him. He grabbed the body tank, and boosted clear of the Free Mantle. Once they were clear, Wovoka turned the suit to face him. Tears clouded his eyes. The glasteel of the helmet was covered with blood and Wovoka saw that the body tank had been cracked. Explosive decompression. Slow Turtle, inside, looked as tattered and shredded as his body tank.
“Oh Wambli, what have I done? Slow Turtle…” Wovoka placed a hand to his faceplate.
Wolf Plume grabbed the bulky shoulder of Wovoka's suit, “Not your fault, boy. Not your fault. Don’t weep at a soldier’s death. Know that crazy Irishman died for the AmerIndian Confederacy and was glad to do it.”
Wovoka did not know how long he wept. He simply remembered seeing everything around him suddenly when his eyes were no longer clouded with tears. Cavaho and Wolf Plume were both hovering over him. He was glad to realize that Cavaho had made it through. The joy lasted until he saw the tether leading from the back of Cavaho's suit to the Heavy Jaguar that was Slow Turtle's coffin.
“What happened?”
Wolf Plume frowned. “I questioned Cavaho earlier and best I could make out was that Slow Turtle’s suit was cracked very early on in the Free Mantle walk. Cavaho pushed the body tank through because he thought you would want him to do that.”
Wovoka looked at Cavaho. Cavaho nodded confirming Wolf Plume’s version. There was no remorse in his eyes. Wovoka realized Cavaho would not process any of the pain he was feeling over Slow Turtle’s death. The warrior had been incapable of such feelings for years now.
Wovoka breathed deep. The time for mourning, the time for rage was not now. “Wolf Plume, how long have we been here?”
“Half-hour.”
“What does your O2 level read?”
“Forty-two hours” Wovoka finger tapped at link to Cavaho's body tank and found the same reading. The keying bands were slower when used inside the heavy gauntlets of the body tanks, but they were still functional. His suit also had forty-two hours. “Kill Spotted Horse put all suits at max oxygen. We also all have twelve-hour reserve tanks. Cavaho, take the reserve tank off Slow Turtle's and put four hours into each of our suits.”
No one spoke as Cavaho scavenged the air tank off Slow Turtle's suit and split it's contents between the three of them. There were another few minutes of silence.
Wovoka swung around and faced Wolf Plume. “Turn off all non-essential suit power drains and max your lights.”
“Do you have a plan? Are we supposed to do something?” Wolf Plume kept his voice calm, but his question betrayed his concern.
“Yes, I have a plan. Plan is, we wait.”
“Wait for what, Wovoka?”
“I don't know what but I know something will come along.”
“Wovoka, we are galaxies away from the nearest colony or outpost or trade route and our rendezvous ship won't get here until four hundred hours on the sixth, three days from now. That's sixty-three hours away and twenty-one hours more than we have. We have to do something other than wait.”
“No, we don't. When we were on Naanac, I experienced something. Quanana… A vision, clear and strong. It is my destiny to share that vision with the tribes. I know in my heart I will not die here and I won't let you die here either.”
“Quanana, are you sure? What did you see?”
Cavaho circled slowly and he leveled his cold eyes at Wovoka.
“I will tell you when I tell all the tribes, but for now you have to trust me.”
Neither Wolf Plume nor Cavaho looked at the corpse floating behind them. They knew Slow Turtle died following Wovoka. He had done no more or less than any of them had always been ready to do.
Wolf Plume spun his suit toward his Pack Alpha, “I trust you, Wovoka. We will not die here. I feel it, too. We wait.”
Cavaho nodded and the three huddled closer together and hoped the wait would not be too long.
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