Archaea 2: Janis (2 page)

“Yak's probably got a good grip on her, and besides, this isn't hardly enough of a breeze to rock him back on his heels.” I said lightheartedly, but I was deeply concerned. This was the sort of storm where you seek shelter, or end up blown pretty far off course.

“Cap... she... ts...” the comms burst into life, filled with howling winds and static.

“Yak, say again, over?”

“Jane's been ta... they...” another hiss of static.

“Yak I copy 'Jane's been--', but nothing else is coming through. Can you get to shelter, over?”

“Yes sir... eakin unbelieva... ir.”

Gene, Pauli and I shared a look as the hiss and pop of static filled comms.

*****

From the back seat of the patrol grounder, I was unable to see anything past the thick neck of the driver as we weaved our way along the packed expressway towards downtown. A wailing siren accompanied our high speed run through lanes of traffic, all headed somewhere ahead or away from the incoming storm.

The sky over New Turiana was dark, giant streamers of ragged blackness, winds full of debris blotting out the light of Vega, turning night into day.

Damn these backwater yokels, anyway. They showed up right before the medics, hauled me off to the side to get a statement, then shoved me into their grounder to wait. I didn't even attempt to explain what had happened, they clearly didn't want to listen. It seemed more prudent to hand over my service identification with a smile. A smile they didn't return.

After what felt like hours on end, sitting on horribly uncomfortable temper foam, my wrists sore from the binders, brief glimpses of the world outside filled me with fear as the driver hunched over and fought the controls against increasingly powerful gusts of wind. He was trying to make headway, through traffic that had started to panic and slow down as the howler fell on us full force.

The winds were unbelievably fierce, massive gusts slewed the grounder sideways and forced the patrolman to drop speed to retain control. Traffic throughout the expressway slowed to a halt as visibility fell off to nothing. The incessant rattle of grit and gravel blasting against the side of the grounder filled my ears.

“Dispatch, Lima-three-four-two, show me located on route 12, two clicks south of exit 14 with one, unable to proceed, disaster activation requested.” the patrolman said into comms.

“Copy Lima-three-four-two, stand by.”

“Ten-four” he said, clicking the mic back to his dash.

“What was that all about?” I asked, having to speak up against the howl and rattle of the wind against the glass of the grounder.

“We're stopped, miss. I can't make any headway, and had to let dispatch know where we are, and that conditions out here are serious.”

As he spoke, a terrific gust of wind hurled the grounder sideways into the concrete barricade on the side of the breakdown lane. I gripped the temper foam of the seat cushion tight enough to leave permanent dents, and hoped my belt was tight.

All around us, grounders slid and crashed into each other as the winds tore the top off the world, and threw it to the horizon. The patrolman in the front seat tried to say something else, but the horrible roar of the wind drowned him out.

A hauler in front of us smashed sideways against the barricade. I watched in horror as the height of the load was caught by the wind, and the double wheels started to lift and slowly rotate. The wind blew harder, and in a terrible scream I will never forget, forced the trailer skyward. It seemed to hang briefly in balance against the barricade, then in a rush, pivoted up and over while other grounders slid sideways, wedging into the space it left behind.

The patrolman reached to open the door, but pinned against the barricade as we were, and with the press of vehicles against us, It was a futile effort. There was nothing we could do but watch in silent horror as as the hauler flipped sideways off the expressway with a gut-wrenching squeal and crashed below out of sight.

My eyes unable to look away, I watched in shock as one by one, windows started to blow out by the increasing force of the onslaught, filling the sky with sparkling clouds of glass... and other things too terrible to remember.

Our grounder was rocking violently up against the barricade, slowly wedging higher and higher as the vehicles to windward pressed in tighter and tighter.

The front passenger-side window blew out with a mighty pop, turning the front compartment of the patrol grounder into a maelstrom of dust and debris. I could hear the patrolman yelling in pain or horror, maybe both, as I reached for my ankles and prepared to say goodbye to this mortal life.

Chapter 2

The wharf quickly cleared out as people sought shelter from the coming storm, looming like a wall of shadow against the mauve sky. The onrushing darkness cast the gleaming arcologies of New Turiana into sharp relief, lit by the purple light of Vega setting into the inner sea.

It was already tremendously windy, and I knew that I needed to get a move on. What I should have done is beat feet right on out of there on the double-time, but I was moving with a purpose and had the winds at my back.

My ears were filled with the hiss of rolling whitecaps blowing out to sea along the quay, leaving small runners of foam, white against the gunmetal gray of the dark water.

The dock workers were yelling, securing everything in sight, a frenzy of last-minute activity while increasingly powerful gusts of wind began raging down the wharf. Further out to sea, spray was being thrown high into the sky from the bows of ships, desperately beating upwind, straining at flank speed to reach port.

I pressed on, almost flying with the stronger gusts, trying to reach shelter. My rendezvous was close, a lone warehouse at the end of the wharf, set back from the quay behind a storeyard full of racks, floats, rollers, and other miscellaneous odds and ends. Increasingly dense runners of dust blew past, filling my eyes and teeth with grit and burning my throat. 

My hackles were up, more so than usual. I kept my eyes on swivels, but this far down the wharf there were no other people in sight, just boarded-up warehouses standing silent and dark. I could hardly see, and between the ominous roar of the incoming storm, and the rising wail of winds through the rigging, I could hardly hear myself think.

As I approached the gate to the storeyard I was so keyed on a cargo container by the entrance, that when a man stepped out from behind the container I felt as if I had willed him into existence. Maybe I could smell him.

“Halt or you will be fired on!” he yelled, predictably.

Being fired on was exactly what I didn't want at the moment, so it was an easy decision for me to hold my hands up and out at shoulder length. A strong blast just about lifted me off my feet and threw me off the end of the wharf. I staggered a bit in the most non-threatening way I could, and said clearly and loudly, “My name is Yak Onebull, I represent the independent frigate Archaea, and have been directed to meet here regarding transshipment of supplies.”

I considered my options for a few moments, while the man huddled in the lee of the container, covered me with a nasty looking shotgun and barked unintelligible sounds into his comms. It seemed the best course of action to adopt an immediate no-sudden-movements policy and smile.

As he stepped up, and waved me over, I noticed he was wearing pretty decent tactical gear, and looked pretty solid.

“Are you armed?” he yelled with a strange accent.

“Yes sir, I suppose I am. Are you my contact?”

“Negative, you'll want to move on up!” he gestured with the barrel of his gun towards the warehouse.

“Thank you!” I yelled, with the winds trying to tear the words out of my mouth, and made my way through the storeyard away from him, hoping he didn't feel even the slightest bit threatened.

The barrels of his gun looked like two caverns. I wanted nothing more than for him to turn them away, but that was apparently not on his agenda and I felt a horrible itching and burning between my shoulder blades as he tracked me all the way to the door of the warehouse.

When I got there, I had an even worse feeling of being watched, the feeling that I was walking into a trap. I'd prefer to have overwatch and a squad of assault troops on tap, set to storm the place if something went south... or at least Jane.

I hated leaving her like that, but she didn't seem to be in any real danger, certainly not enough to abort our current mission. At least she was someplace safe right now, either back at the Archaea, or hanging tough in some holding cell waiting for the captain to collect her.

As I stepped up the wide plastiform planks that made up the front steps to the warehouse, the sliding door opened up barely wide enough to enter, and a voice called me in – into the dark interior I couldn't see.

My bad feeling was not getting any better, but I wasn't exactly flush with options at that point.

A glance upwind left me with an image I will never forget, and one I won't ever be able to accurately describe as the full fury of the storm started to fall.

“Mr. Onebull, please come in!” a man yelled, stepping through the door and motioning me in.

*****

Captain Smith, Gene and I made our way forward to the bridge, ears ringing and eyes caked with grit, the ferocity outside completely insulated inside the Archaea – she felt like an impenetrable fortress compared to the chaotic maelstrom hurling hunks of Vega 6 past our forward port.

The view forward was grim indeed. We couldn't see the next blast pan at all, just an undulating wall of brown and black as the winds scoured everything in their path and hurled anything that wasn't bolted down into the darkening sky.

“Some howler, Gene. I guess I had forgotten what these were like.” Captain Smith said, as he checked the Unet terminal on his station.

“This is definitely a beast, Dak”, said Gene, taking a sip of water and wiping the dust out of his eyes. “What class do they have it at?” he asked.

“The weather stations are calling it a class 8, sustained winds above 400... yeah, that's a bad one.”

“Don't they have the ability to forecast these, Captain?” I asked. On Earth, they have hurricane and other cyclonic storm forecasting down to a science.

“No Pauli, not on this rock, though we know why they happen, we can't see them coming. The borosilicate deserts of the great plains set up an incredible updraft, which pulls massive katibatic winds inwards from the rest of this blasted continent, which in turn, feeds the process and forces the updraft higher and higher. A similar process over the inner sea can cause another drop in pressure, and in conflict between the two, a tall ridge of pressure forms between them across this peninsula.”

“But can't they tell enough in advance to post a warning?” I asked, incredulously.

“Not really. In the summers here, this process might go all summer without a howler forming. The pressures by themselves aren't enough of an indication a howler will form.”

“So how do they form?”

“Well, the going theory is, the ridge of high pressure causes ripples and eddies in the jet stream, and a howler happens when the leading edge of the jet stream dives down underneath the ridge of pressure, crashing without warning towards the low pressure of the inner sea, right across us. That massive downdraft unbalances the low pressure over the great plains, and it pulls down behind the jet stream, adding to, and accelerating it into a true howler.”

“Well is it a cyclic event?”

“No, not really Pauli. Some years we may get a hanfdul of howlers, but then we might not see one for many years. The competing systems are too chaotic.”

“What about pressure monitoring... indicators in cloud formation maybe?”

“Well, the howlers form fast enough there's really not much in the way of indication, no impending cloud formation. As the winds drop towards us and blast across the great plains, clouds do pile up,” he waved into the inky blackness we could see hurling past the Archaea's bow, “but by that time the storm is moving fast enough it will hit New Turiana in moments. Everyone is very good at seeing when a howler is about to hit, but we just haven't gotten good at telling when the conditions are right for their formation.”

“How long do they last?”

Gene answered with a grimace, “They blow themselves out eventually, but as a rule, they blow until they don't. One time we had one that lasted a few weeks.”

“I remember that one Gene, it was like hell. I spent the entire time in the upper Warrens, while dust kept piling up and getting deeper and deeper.”

“Lucky, I would have paid money to be in the Warrens, if you can believe that... I was on the municipal services payroll at the time, and ended up drowned in dust as we tried to save solar farms.”

“Warrens?” I haven't really heard this term used in conjunction with New Turiana.

“The Warrens are the subsections of the really big arcos, the massive buildings in the core of downtown. They reach many tens of thousands of meters into the sky, but are built on massive foundations that delve even deeper. The Warrens go all the way to the bottoms of the deepest foundations, from what I've heard, though you'd have to be pretty brave to explore those parts of town. The rule of law stops eventually, and the underside of this city is pretty dark and dangerous.”

Gene scowled. “I've been down there, Dak.” he said, “One time when we had a major failure in a water pump station, we had to go all the way to the bottom with full military support. People down there didn't look human, they were beyond savage.”

This reminded me of stories I'd heard of some of the worst parts of Old Detroit back on Earth, completely abandoned and shut off from basic services, it nevertheless became home to those who were faced with impossible decisions, those who couldn't afford to go elsewhere, or those who wanted freedom from authority. It became the worst sort of society, uncontrolled chaos and unrestricted anarchy lost in the savage depths of the industrial heartland.

Captain Smith paused mid-sip, an eyebrow raised as if to deflect a twisted mass of metal that sailed past the forward port.

“I think we might want a little bit more of a charge on our plates... I'd hate to have something like that dent us, Gene.”

“Couldn't hurt Dak.” Gene said solemnly. We were all taking it in, the gravity of the situation.

“Captain, are there shelters on the waterfront?” I couldn't imagine what it would be like out there right now if you were just hunkered down somewhere.

“Well... not really Pauli...” the captain trailed off, looking into the howling night.

“I'm sure they'll be fine”, said Gene in a small voice. Both of them knew first-hand what it was like out there right now, and neither seemed to want to discuss it further.

*****

Pauli and I stepped aft, to work on the turret installation while the captain watched comms in the bridge. As bad as it must be out there for Yak and Shorty, we had to stay on schedule and make sure the ship was ready to launch when the time came. If they made contact before the howler hit, they'll be back when it lifts, with coordinates to go pick up cargo, and we'll be on a time-crunch from that point on.

“Pauli, I'm going to work on getting these turrets vacuum-ready. The captain would probably like to have an airtight ship, I think. Do you need any help with the wetnet?”

“I don't think so Gene. It won't take me too long to form connections.”

He brought up network schematics on his handset holo and got to work connecting the bionetic wetnet to the turret control interface – as our resident technologist, he excelled at this task.

It's not that I couldn't do it, but he could easily avoid the mistakes I would make. Wetnet isn't really the type of network system you just plug in and go, you actually use a form of chemical hormone to encourage growth between the wetnet node and the control interface.

Wetnet is a psuedo-biologic, it's pretty error proof, but you have to know what sort of connection to develop, what sort of routing nodes to extend. It's really better suited for Pauli, as he's probably forgotten enough about this sort of thing to fill a manual I'd have to study to even begin.

While he worked away on the interfaces, I crawled up into the access spaces around the turret mounts, the inner section of the socket the turrets slid into.

“Pauli, can you clip the torque bar on my leash?” I called down past my boots, out of the access space.

“Sure thing Gene... what does it look like?”

“It's the long bar with the readout on the side of the toolbox.”

“Got it... anything else?”

“Yeah, I can't get at my handset.  Can you ask Janis to call up specs for the torque ratings on these bolts?”

“No problem, one moment Gene”, he said.

There are a series of bolts around each turret socket that have to be drum-lace tensioned to specific torque ratings, otherwise they would leak. It was quite a job, but it was a lot easier when I could brace myself against gravity. I didn't want to be back here in null-g, so I was trying my best to make sure the job was done right the first time. It might take me a bit longer, but it was the only way I worked.

Once we had these turrets physically attached, my next task was to connect power leads from the main conduit, and fabricate a new loader rail for the ammunition oven that bakes the plasticine rounds for the maglev railers of the repeater turrets.

The turrets we were replacing were a little older, they had open armatures that turned the turret compartment into a deadly nightmare for anyone but Shorty, but the new ones were factory sealed with built-in cooling.

I didn't have a pressure line to this compartment yet, but that was next on my list, to pull an insulated helium line forward through the access tunnel and bleed a little coolant from the tokamak harness in the engineering space.