Archaea 2: Janis (16 page)

Chapter 14

I was miserable, but warm. Gene was working on the hoist, lowering the gig, while we stood by, suited up and dreading the inevitable arrival of Captain Smith.

Shorty and Yak looked dangerous. They had tactical gear on, and had set their suit camo to a mottled white pattern that slowly shifted, whites and grays cycling across in patterns of jagged layered polygons. They were strapped, each with railer pistols in chest holsters and chemsers slung across their backs.

The hoist made a whining sound as it took the weight of the gig, a fact we were all reminded of as we stood on deck. Real gravity felt good, it felt right. Good for standing, but I wasn't too sure about flying.

The gig looked too small to fly. It was all engines, scramjet turbines and ducted vents, with wings that were way too small. Gene almost had it lowered to the deck when Captain Smith came through the upper lock, coffee in hand.

“Well folks, the weather outside is a balmy minus thirty, with a 40 knot fresh breeze... a perfect day for flying, though visibility will be nearly nothing on account of the blowing snow.”

He paused while we all groaned.

“The plan here, is to approach the coordinates using a very low profile, I will be flying as close to the deck as possible so we can hide in the ground clutter, and we will have Pauli and Janis working on ECM.” He had stepped to the hatch of the gig and palmed it open, and was waving us aboard.

“Let's get strapped in. Shorty and Yak, on either side of the crew area, Pauli will be in the station forward of my position.” he added, waving me forward as far as I could go.

I was a little confused how to climb down into the forward station, until the captain showed me the hand holds and safe places to step. Even so, it was a tight fit. I felt like I was squeezing myself into a coffin... a very tight coffin surrounded by screens, lights, levers, buttons, and dials.

“Pauli, there are crash bars over your shoulders, pull them down and get strapped in, please”

I reached up and felt two handles and pulled, and crash bars extended down to sockets on the center console between my legs. As soon as they were clicked, they cinched against inflation, welding me to the seat. I felt an almost uncontrollable urge to leap out of the seat, the cockpit, the suit, and my skin – I am not normally skittish of close quarters, but I felt like the gig had been surgically attached at that point.

“Pauli, the screens at your station are multi-function, and please work with Janis to reconfigure as needed. Please try not to poke at any buttons, levers, or switches up there, okay?”

“I will sir.” I hissed, trying to get my breath against the crush of the bars.

“No, I don't want you to.”

“Sorry sir, I won't. I am a little nervous, sir.” Of course, that was a bit of a misunderstatement.

“Pauli, nothing to be nervous about son.” he said, working through his pre-flight procedures behind me, flipping switches and booting screens. Various hums and whirring noises filled the cockpit as systems powered on, followed by the unmistakable sounds of the main turbines winding up behind us.

“Janis, let's get this station configured, please. Please use your discretion.” I really had no idea what I was going to do, but I knew Janis did.

“I will Steven. I have enabled terrain mapping, orbital data, targeting and comms.”

“Thank you, Janis.” I said, my voice cracking like I was twelve, as I watched the deck hatch slide open, leaving us hanging in the hoist over a cloud of blowing snow. The captain said we were at 25 meters, I could see through the side windows of my station down through the loading lights into the snow a bit, but not very far.

I slid the terrain mapper to my center screen, and zoomed out to get a view of where we were. The mountain we were nearest was absolutely massive, but as I zoomed out, it seemed like one of many hundreds of other peaks.

“Steven, I have taken the liberty of mapping all detected threats to your center screen.” Janis said in my ear. I turned on the layer, and my breath caught in my throat. The turbines were starting to howl now.

“Captain, have you seen the threat display?” I said over my shoulder.

“No, Pauli, is it interesting?” he said behind me.

“Well, it's... pretty full, sir.”

“I am looking now. This doesn't look too bad Pauli. So you have never done this before, right?”

“No sir.”

“It's a breeze, mister. We're going to be low enough for most of this to be a non-issue. Our rendezvous looks pretty hands-free, in fact. If we had to go to the station, it might be a different story, but all we're doing is getting coordinates for offload.”

“Sounds good to me, sir.”

“Pauli, it's going to be fine. I want you to try and enjoy yourself up there.” He laughed. “Janis, dear, please assist Pauli with ECM. Any radar comes on, jam it. Any communications, anything man-made that can be shut down... shut it down, please. On this rock, we're not going to see much of anything going overland, everything will be on the bounce from the orbitals.”

“I shall do so, sir. I am currently resident in all planetary networks. As per our current role, I will backtrack, trace, infiltrate, and as needed, jam all isolated systems and channels to the limit of our hardware.”

“Pauli?”

“Yes sir?”

“Relax, mister. This is a milk run.”

He clicked on the 1MC. “Shorty, report cabin status”

“Cabin status secured for flight, sir.” I couldn't believe how anyone could be that calm.

“Gene, Janis ought to have us on track throughout, she's in control of orbitals. Please let us know if anything happens we need to know about.”

“Aye skipper, take care of the gig, sir.”

“Of course Gene. Ready folks?”

No one said anything, and he dropped us like a stone into the swirling snow, though we almost immediately caught in the lifters and hung under the Archaea, while the turbines climbed to a deafening scream.

“She sure is a nice looking bird” he said behind me... I looked up, and had to agree. Even in the blowing snow on this iceball, she looked like home.

“Here we go folks, I'll take it easy on us.”

The thrust of the engines shoved me deep into the cushions, which inflated back against me as the crash bars inflated inwards. My helmet shoved back against the headrest and rolled up and back, and suddenly I couldn't see anything but chin gauges.

Fighting the urge to panic I tried reaching up and my hands collapsed across my chest, unbelievably heavy. My face felt like it was pulling off the bone. I struggled against the weight of my arms, clawing them up to my helmet.

“How are we doing back there Yak?” the captain asked brightly, as if he was out for a stroll on a warm summer evening.

“Sir, Yak is currently asleep.” laughed Shorty.

“He must not be impressed yet, Shorty. How about you Pauli? Enjoying the view?”

I was gasping like a fish out of water. I had my hands up to my neck collar, and was trying to pull it down, to roll it into the headrest, but at that point it felt like we were turning and I couldn't get a grip.

“Pauli?”

“I can't see sir!” I said through my teeth.

“Is the world gray son?”

“No sir, it's my helmet!” I said.

“Did it roll on you? Forgot to tell you to make sure it was sitting well first.”

Immediately the acceleration dropped abruptly, like a little hiccup. With what felt like a little pop my helmet rolled into position and I could see again.

“Better son?”

“Yes sir!” I gasped, as the view forward of the terrain mapper and the mountains outside the window caught my full, undivided attention.

“Outstanding. Okay folks, we're currently at mach 2, just poking along. I am going to cut close to this one and drop into a pretty deep valley. We're pretty close now, so I am going to punch it. Hang on!”

Punch it?

We were right on the terrain, the snow blowing past to either side mostly blocking visibility, though at times rents in the snow showed brief flashes of rocks and other landscape curving up and out from us as we hurtled through a valley. As bad as it was when I could see how fast we were moving, it was way worse when the snow socked in, and I couldn't see anything. Way worse.

I tried focusing on the terrain mapper instead. Watching the screen, I realized what it was we were doing at the moment, and I felt my guts turn to water. We were deep in the depths of what looked like an enormous pressure ridge, but angling up to the right towards what looked like a pass between two peaks, a tight cleft in the mountains.

“Folks we're going to be a little exposed on this ridge, so I am going to move right on over.” he said, as we shoved back into our seats again and rolled sideways.

I was beyond fear. The cleft at the end of this valley looked too small for us, and we were going too fast.

“Janis advise countermeasures”

“Sir, negative emissions.”

“Copy”

He held the line, as I started to cry, tears ripping off my face into my ears. We were going to die.

“Here we go folks, up and over.”

At the last moment, he stood the gig on a wing and we sliced through the gap. To my right and above me, blurring rush of white, moving too fast to see. To my left, open sky between the tops of the ridges, far enough away to watch the gap above undulating as the captain matched the terrain and shot the gap.

I felt like my mind was about to snap. I was dimly aware of a rhythmic braying sound and realized it was me trying to breathe, when we rolled upside down.

“She'll be coming down the mountain...” he started to sing, horribly off-key.

We were inverted and accelerating down a widening valley down between enormous ridges of the peak, massive buttresses of rock and ice to either side rising out of the mountain as we accelerated down. He rolled us slowly back over and kept feeding the throttle higher and higher.

“Our waypoint is near the end of this valley, we are going to drop all the way down into it and follow it along at a good clip. Having fun Pauli?”

“Sir!” I gasped.

“I hope so, I am really going to open her up now son.”

He laughed and punched it in even higher. Red pulsing flashes were throbbing in my eyes, and every time we topped out over a ridge and dropped deeper, my body torqued painfully against the restraints. As my eyes filled with grey tunnels, I realized the red flashes were from outside, from the plating of the gig.

“Sir, how fast are we going?” Shorty managed to spit out.

A slight pause. “Shorty we are currently going mach 6, though I wouldn't call it fast” he laughed, and I could hear him breathing slowly, pushing his air through his lips, a slow hissing. I couldn't see much of anything, the world was shaking and I was falling off of it.

“Okay folks, we're here.” He said as he dropped the throttle, immediately my face felt like it was on fire as the blood rushed into my head. A throbbing pulse beat in both temples. “Stand by for deceleration.”

He started firing retros, and glowing fingers of flame blazed past on either side of me, burning brighter and hotter as he engaged thrust. I felt myself grind forward against the crash bars as we dropped speed, but it was smooth. He was shedding speed rapidly, balancing the thrust while increasing it, forcing our speed down, slower and slower, easing off the retros smoothly, until we were merely hurtling over the landscape, and I could move my eyes again.

“Well Pauli, what did you think, son?” 

I gathered my thoughts, dim flashes of the past few minutes, fleeting glimpses of terror and exhilaration. I opened my mouth and tried, but only air came out. After a few tries, I managed to make a small croak.

He laughed, a deep belly laugh. “That bad, huh? Well, I guess I'll just have to keep working on it!” 

We were approaching a small dome structure at the top of a low hill, glowing white-hot on thermals. At our current speed, the buffeting of the wind was stronger, but the captain brought us in flawlessly, making a perfect landing just outside the lights around the entrance tunnel of the dome.

“Welcome to Solis”, he said on comms. “Yak and Shorty, time to get to work. Our contact is supposed to be inside the dome, though I don't know what he or she is named. Announce your intentions and try not to shoot anyone unnecessarily, please”

“Aye Captain”, Shorty said. The gig shifted from side to side as Yak and Shorty unclipped and moved around, preparing to exit.

“Captain, what is this place?” I asked, looking out towards the entrance tunnel, ringed with lights. The dome was not large, maybe five meters tall at the highest point, though it was mostly hidden by the blowing snow.

“Well, my guess is a monitoring station of some sort Pauli. Probably environmental, but could be a research facility as well. It couldn't hurt to poke around with Janis and see if you can't figure out more...”

“I'm on it”, I said with a smile. Finally something I know how to do. I brought up a console and started digging around. It took me a while to understand the structure of their network, it was very amorphous, unplanned. It looked like they just slapped on nodes wherever they wanted, and I wasn't finding any nodes out to where we were.