It was something else to witness the other cities crossing the sky over the past few weeks on their journey upward. They would live sealed inside the spires of their cities during perihelion, out of danger from the severe weather that would have threatened the cities.
The last Exodus was before I was born, so this was the first one I had witnessed, and it was awe-inspiring seeing the parade of cities in the sky. The capitol, New Terra City was the last to make the ascent. I would be joining the rest of the dirters as they called those of us who lived on the planet surface to provide food and raw materials to the population, in New Terra once I had the Agri-Grid buttoned up.
This would be the worst Perihelion Pass since First Pass which had almost spelled the doom of the original settlers on Prime all those centuries ago. They hadn't been prepared for the weather and earthquakes that accompanied the high gravitational pull that close to Tau Ceti. They were forced to make that first Exodus to their orbiting ships after losing a quarter of their population.
This PP was going to be compounded by the seven moons aligning in conjunction, forming a gravitational syzygy that will increase the tidal forces on Prime. This conjunction only happens every hundred a three orbits.
I've spent the last week in the other Agri-Grids with their personnel, securing the crops under photonic shields to protect them from the brunt of the weather and herding the livestock into the giant Quonset huts that looked like huge versions of my repair shop.
Our buildings are rated to ride out the worst that Prime can throw at us, so they should survive just fine. The structures have no foundations but instead sit on giant slabs of plasti-ceramic, basically floating on the ground.
I braced myself when another tremor hit, then yelled over the rain to Glitch, the robotic pinger helping me with the coherent photon projectors that surrounded Agri-Grid A1, “Got mine, how you doing over there Glitchy?”
He squeed back at me and looked at a power storage crystal he held in his grappler. He looked confused for a moment before my orb shaped best friend dropped it into a bucket. Then quickly pulled it back out, held it close to his optical port and then looking embarrassed, he dropped the burned out piece of trollite into the other bucket.
Yeahhhh... Glitch is a bit, well, glitchy. But he's the hardest worker in our little family of misfits down here dirtside, and I love him so very much. Like I said, he's my best friend.
Unlike the other Agri-Grids, which have five or six people each manning them, I'm the only human here at A1, mostly because my Artificial Intelligence pingers are more efficient than any of the other pingers on the surface of Prime. This is the direct result of them attaining a degree of self-awareness. My late mother and I had learned how to wake them up, a secret we protect with our very lives.
I looked down at the two buckets I had strapped over my shoulders and just stared in wonder at all the full storage crystals filling one. This was the first full shipment of crystal I've seen down here since I was born. Topside saw fit to send less and less of the crystals in each shipment, and less spare parts for me to do my job of keeping the big agricultural pingers in good repair so that they can supply the population with food.
But whenever that food supply is threatened, it is amazing just how quickly they respond. All the photonic projectors which were spaced evenly between the sonic fence pylons that ringed the grids had burned the lattice in the crystals to trollite long ago, just sitting in standby mode.
That was my last task here in A1 before my – girlfriend, Vashon, came to pick me up before New Tera had to seal up as it left the atmosphere.
I curled my toes and smiled at the thought of the Sky Guard ranger who had stolen my heart. I still couldn't believe the tall, gorgeous woman had chosen me out of all the men and women of New Terra City who were pining over her.
I snapped a new crystal into the receiver inside the access panel of a projector, and with a thrum, it hummed to life. I checked the systems and the quadruple redundant circuits, and everything checked out. These projectors safety precautions exceed those of on-orbit installations and their triple redundancy. We didn't take chances with our food supply. Even with these shields, the crops would be a mess when I returned in a couple months to assess the damage. They could only stop so much wind and rain.
All of the storage silos had been emptied last week and their contents transferred to the cities while I was assisting the other grids. I keyed in a code on the handle of my sleek new multi-tool, and it reconfigured itself into a spanner. The Director of Sciences for Prime, Anna Germaine herself, had given me a couple of the multi-tools, an improvement on my design.
She had reverse engineered the original one I had made when I was a kid, just tinkering around with scraps in the boneyard. I hear almost every tech, and tinker on Prime is clamoring to get one now. And I had two. Though she never did return my original to me, I was sort of attached to it. I'm going to have to ask her about that.
I secured the access cover and yelled over to Glitch, “Got mine, you good?”
He swiveled his orb on his mobility platform to nod at me, and he came trundling over on his tank treads to me, sparks drizzling from the connection point to his mobility platform. He cocked his head like a puppy waiting for me to throw a ball and I patted his head. “You did good Glitch.” He made a low squealing sound that sounded like, “Awww.” to me.
I hopped up behind him, and he wrapped his grappler behind himself and around my waist as I said, “Ok, on to the next batch. Just four more after this.”
He nodded, then with a squee of excitement we were speeding off down the sonic fence line as we were buffeted by the rising wind and driving rain, his treads sure even when the ground tremored beneath them. I asked as we went, “You sure you don't want to spend the PP with Vash and me in New Terra?”
He shuddered violently as we moved along at a high rate of speed, and shook his head. The poor guy was scared of New Terra, and I didn't blame him. What with the way they kidnapped him and were ready to tear him apart to find out how he had attained sentience a few weeks back.
It was only by the intervention of our ruler, Lady Peregrine, that he was spared that grisly fate. She hadn't done it for him, she had done it for Vashon. That is when I learned one of the many secrets that my girl harbored. It seems that Lady Peregrine is Vash's estranged mother.
The only good thing that came from the horrific experience of almost losing my best friend like that was that it has started a dialogue between mother and daughter for the first time in what I gather has been years.
I don't push, and I trust that my ranger will share the reasons with me one day, though I do have my suspicions.
I patted Glitch's head and said, “Ok, I understand buddy. I'll miss you when I'm up there in orbit.” Then I said with irony, “Not really the way I envisioned visiting the city...”
I swear the silly pinger laughed at that. I noted the gleam of ceramic and metal in the lightning that had started as we traveled. The huge heaps of scrap of the junkyard of discarded tech that the cities dumped on the surface with no regard for the environment. The Boneyard, as we dirters called it. It is where I scavenged the bulk of the parts I needed to keep my pingers operational down here in pinger maintenance.
Glitch slowed a bit when we witnessed a huge lightning strike to the heart of the boneyard. I could feel the hairs stand up on my arm from the huge amounts of static electricity discharge, even from this distance.
Yup, it was time to get this job done and get back to the safety of the repair bay.
We almost tipped over at that thought as we were hit by a gust of wind of maybe seventy or eighty miles per hour. Glitch squealed as we rode up onto one tread. I shifted my weight enough to get us back down on two treads.
He made a frightened sound, and I said, “I agree, let's get this job done and get back home, like yesterday.” He nodded, and we increased speed to the next couple of projectors.
We separated again, and I was in the process of removin
g the access cover when the private uplink transmitter on my tool belt started vibrating. I grinned as I retrieved it. Vashon had given it to me a few weeks back, it was no bigger than a biscuit and had planetary coverage using the satellite relay network. I pressed the button as I held it close to hear over the howling wind.
I said, “As I live and breathe, if it isn't that sexy Sky Guard, Vashon.”
There was a delay then an embarrassed sounding Vash said, “Umm... I'm not alone here Fixie.”
I blushed in embarrassment, wondering if her whole platoon had heard me, and then she continued, “Are you done yet? We have eighteen hours before we leave atmo.”
I nodded absently as I yelled over the wind, “Yup, just a couple more to power up after this batch. Maybe an hour?”
She sounded relieved as she said, “Great, then I'm on my way in a bit. Be there in my tumbril in fifty to extract your cute butt.”
I heard a group of people chuckling over the link. Ok if I was embarrassed before, I was positively blushing down to my toes now.
I was about to sign off when alarms started going off on the sonic fence pylons and the iso-pad in my tool belt. I had just enough time to spit out an old Earth epitaph, “Shit!” when a huge lightning bolt struck twenty yards away from me, blowing me back and into the air. Another huge gust of wind sent me spinning back through the air into the cornfield, and I landed with an “Oof!”
I scrambled to my feet, my body buzzing in shock, my ribs aching and I could hear Vashon voice calling out from the uplink I had dropped somewhere, “Fixit? Vega? Vega!”
Chapter 2 – Catastrophe
Glitch zoomed out into the corn to help me up. I did a quick self-check as the ground shook with a minor tremor, I had a couple scratches on my face from being thrown through the cornstalks, and an ache in my side from landing hard, but I was ok. Well besides my ears ringing and my body buzzing from the close call with the lightning.
The winds kicked up as the storm seemed to intensify. My iso-pad was blurting more warnings, and I pulled it out to look to see an emergency weather update. The main body of the storm had merged with another, creating a massive system that was surging toward A1.
This weather was nothing but a pile of trollite.
I took a moment to search for the uplink, and some lightning reminded me of the urgency of our revised situation. I squinted through the driving rain at the projector pylons. I checked my tools and yelled to Glitch over the howling wind, “I'm fine. Let's get this job done and get you buttoned up for the Pass at home.”
He nodded and then moved in front of me as I leaned into the wind to take deliberate steps toward my goal. I smiled at how considerate he was and hopped on, and he drove me up to one pylon then started to trundle off toward a sonic fence pylon before pausing to look back and then lowering his ocular port in embarrassment, rolled back past me toward the photonic projector platform in the other direction.
I had to giggle at the silly boy.
I exhaled deliberately, re-centering myself and started to pull off the access door. I hissed in exasperation when I saw that the invasive wild lattice grass had made its way into the cooling vents of the projector and into the circuitry.
Flanterskelling crystal licking lattice grass!
I sighed and absently keyed in a code on my multi-tool as I tore away the long blades of the stiff blue, sawlike grass. Once the tool reconfigured to a plasma cutter, I went to work cutting away the ladder like surface roots. Those roots were strong as steel and would dull any non-carbon hardened blades, but they were extremely susceptible to high temperatures.
Once I got the insides cleaned out, I cringed at the power storage crystal receiver. It was pretty mangled, and some of the circuit boards looked to be scored pretty badly. This was going to require some precision work.
I reconfigured to a tool with the finesse I required, then I hauled back and started beating the crap out of the receiver with the hammer. I growled over the sound of the wind and deafening rolling thunder that didn't seem to quit. “Frazzle...” Clunk. “Grawl.” Ping. “Rawful.” Clank clank clank.
I grinned at my handiwork and looked back as Glitch showed up beside me. He made a low two tone noise I associated with him saying my name. He somehow looked a little smug. I grinned at him and yelled over the storm, “Don't get a swelled head, mine had a lattice grass infestation, smart guy.”
Then I asked with a sly grin as I pulled out a new power storage crystal and asked, “You sure you put a full crystal in yours? Or was it trollite?”
It was mean, I know, but it was fun to watch him look back at the other projector and then scratch his metallic orb like he was thinking. Then he figured out I was having fun with him and he shoved my shoulder and made a trilling sound which was his laugh.
But then he paused and looked into his bucket of new crystals at the last two crystals in it for the final batch we had before we could go home and he seemed to relax in relief. I chuckled and shoved the shoulder of his grappler in camaraderie.
Some lightning in the boneyard got our attention back on our work. I tried to push the crystal into the receiver. I had it aligned almost perfectly, but it still needed a little adjustment. I looked up and yelled as I grabbed onto the pylon when I was slammed with a huge gust of wind, “A little help buddy?”
He nodded and reached in with his grappler and bent the receiver just a tad more. I envied his strength.
I braced my feet and leaned into the wind and pushed the crystal into place. With a shower of sparks, the system powered up. I did a quick systems check and winced. The primary and secondary systems were down, though the tertiary and quadrary systems were functional.
It wasn't ideal, but at least there was one backup if the other failed. If I had more time, I could cobble together a workaround for the burned out boards. It wouldn't be pretty, but I would have felt better about it. Grid A1 was my home, and I felt queasy leaving it alone with a half-assed quadrant on the photon shield.
Glitch suddenly grabbed my waist with his grappler and fired an anchoring harpoon into the ground. Before I could ask, I was slammed back against him by a gust of wind that had to top a hundred miles per hour.
I don't know who was squealing louder, him or me. The lightning lashing around the skies only amplified the chaos. I glanced over at the pylon and moved the access panel into place and buttoned it up as Glitchy pushed back against the wind. Just as I was finishing fastening it into place the wind shifted ninety degrees, and I was flung to the side, held only by my friend.
My already sore ribs ached, and it was getting harder to breathe in the air around me it was flowing so fast. My face was being pummeled by the debris carried in the wind.
That's when I saw it. The almost constant lightning lit up the fields as I saw an old discarded pressure vessel from an orbital booster being flung through the fields by the gale force winds. The ground was shaking as it crushed everything in its path. It must have massed fifteen or twenty tons and was at least two or three stories tall.
My eyes widened as I realized it was coming straight toward us. We were anchored in place. If Glitch retracted his harpoon, then we'd be flung away, out the sonic fence into the wilds. Either way, we were as good as dead.
My panic turned into calm as I just watched my end barreling toward us. At least I was with Glitchy, and neither of us would die alone. My only regret was... I silently apologized to Vashon and started to close my eyes as Glitch turned his visual port to look at me. I hugged him, and he tightened his grip on me as he realized what I already had.
But then my eyes snapped wide, and I looked up when I heard the whine of plasma drive thrusters in overdrive. Vashon's tumbril was plummeting toward us, fighting winds it was never designed to fly in. She was in more of a controlled fall than actually flying.
My heart leapt into my throat as her tumbril hit the ground, hard, in the path of the oncoming debris, sending up a spray of dirt and vegetation that was stolen away by the storm. The tumbril
slid along into the wind, furrowing the ground, and it slammed into the pressure vessel in a cacophony of sound that drown out the thunder and wind.
As her vessel was torn apart, but the pressure vessel was stopped, I was screaming, “Vashon!” My voice was swallowed by a nearby lightning strike.
The moment there was a lull in the wind, Glitch released me and retracted his anchoring harpoon. Then we were rushing to the field of debris a hundred yards away. The sparking and flaming wreckage backlit a humanoid form striding toward us, and another flash of lightning lit up the Sky Guard ranger who owned my heart.
The wind was whipping her long black hair around her as she walked up to me in her violet plasti-ceramic armor, that flanterskelling smug, self-assured smirk on her face that I had fallen for was on her almost too perfect face.
She reached me, and I pulled her into a tight hug as she yelled over the storm, the rain making rivulets of water roll across her face, “Hello Fixit, mind if I drop in?”
I blinked at her, not knowing if I should be happy or angry she had risked her own life like that. She looked back at the wreckage they turned to me with a wince on her face over the fate of her tumbril and yelled over the wind, “Well it looks like we're stuck dirt-side for the duration. That was our ride.”
Ok, I smiled at that. I knew she meant the duration of the storm, before another came in, not the duration of the Exodus. I'd prefer to stay dirt-side, but I knew how dangerous it was because of the earthquakes. The fury of the storms would be diminished by the photon shield if we can get the last of the projectors online.
I couldn't wipe the smile off my face as she kissed me, and my toes curled. She always seemed exhilarated by danger and action, like she had no impulse control. I'm not sure why she seemed to thrive on the adrenaline, but who am I to complain? It was how I got my first kiss from her after she saved me from a couple pirate vessels full of Betweeners when we first met. She seems so alive at times like this.
Fixit Adventures Anthology Page 10
