Archaea 3: Red (7 page)

“What is this?” he exclaimed, I could see his wide eyes through his visor.
He shrank back in his seat like I was about to hit him. I took a handhold and did my best to defuse his mounting terror.

“Sir,
please remain calm. There has been an emergency inside the hab, and our captain has ordered us back to our ship.”

“How the
hell has he taken control of my bus?!” he shrieked in mounting panic.

“Sir, our
ship’s technologist is driving through the assist interface. Please remain calm; there is nothing to worry about.”

Even as
I said the words, I wasn't sure I believed them.

We were through third gear and
still accelerating, approaching the top of the exit ramp at what I would consider an excessive speed. We weren’t at escape velocity…but we were definitely going to go ballistic off the ramp.

“We are going too fast!” the driver
yelled, wrestling ineffectually with the wheel and stomping pedals, flipping switches and praying for all I could tell.

I
grabbed a second handhold as we suddenly blasted out of the shadows into the starry sky on a low trajectory. A sky bridge running over a pipe rack sailed past underneath us, as we silently floated downrange. I watched in awe through the sidelights as the tires accelerated, over and over again, in a complex yet articulate series. Janis was adjusting our angle perfectly as we slowly dropped back down towards the road.

“YAAAAAAHHHH!” the man
screamed, quite calmly, considering. If I didn't know Janis was in control, I would be looking for a soft spot to leap right about now. It looked terrifying, but it was obvious she had us well in control.

Right before we touched down, the tires accelerated precisely to the speed over ground, and the moment we hit, she smoothly accelerated u
s through a bounce, and eased off as we came off the pavement onto the hardpan.

“Yak, there are grounders be
hind us!” Gene called on comms.

I
looked back and nodded, then looked down at the driver. “Sir, please relax. This is under control, and we are safe. I am going to step back for a moment, okay?”

I couldn't see his face through his filters, but he nodded his helmet fast enough to snap his neck. I hopped back through the crowd of people who were clutching on for their lives while we roared across the crater.

“Where are they Gene?” I said when I made it to the back of the bus.

“They are in the dust right now, and probably slowing down – they pulled out from the right a few moments ago, two, maybe three
small grounders.”

I nodded again.
“Are you boys with the Service?” a man asked over local comms.

“
Not actively sir, though we are working with the Service at the moment.” I suppose that wasn't technically a lie, and it definitely wasn't a justification for what we were doing, but it seemed to be enough for the other riders. They seemed to relax, once they realized someone was in control.

The rest of the ride was surreal. O
ne man played some app on holo nearly the whole way out. A few others had their screens out, covered with equations and arguing heatedly. It was as if they didn’t even notice the fact we were literally flying a few moments ago. Overall, there was definitely far less screaming than I expected.

Lunes are a strange breed.

Captain Smith broke my reverie. “Gene, I am lowering the ramp, you're within 500 meters. Get ready to disembark and prepare for launch as soon as you get on the ramp.”

“Aye sir
”, he replied. Of course, we all knew what to expect. Get on board and grab on. Our captain was not going to wait around.

The grounder bounced to a halt across the blast pan and we piled out as it was sl
owing down. The moment my boots hit the pan, Janis immediately sped off across to the far side of our blast pan, putting the Archaea between the bus and our pursuers. As we hopped at speed up the ramp, I saw the lead ground car come over the rim of the pan, and accelerate down towards us. The captain raised ship before the ramp had been secured.

“Are they shooting at us?” the captain asked on comms
as I kicked onto the bridge.

“If they are, they’re a bunch of idiots, trying to bring down a frigate with needlers.” I scoffed. 

Janis
agreed, “Sir, I am tracking incoming small-caliber explosive rounds at hyper-velocities. Be advised, while they will soon deploy a more significant served weapon, it will be insufficient to pose any sort of threat.”

“Well,
at any rate, it's damn impolite. Folks, get to your stations, I think we have some time here. We're going to hang around a bit and give Janis time to roll the grounder clear.”

I leaped for the forward ladder with Jane, while Gene headed aft. We moved as if our lives depended on it, as very soon, it may. The captain says hop, and we don't even worry about coming down, we continue to go up until he says otherwise.

“Everything cool, Yak?” the captain asked, as I kicked through the bridge towards my station.

“Sure thing sir, nothing to it… definitely a
nice day for a drive”, I laughed as I slapped down my crash bars and got secured. “Do you want me to hail the driver of the bus? He was scared right out of his mind.” I swiped the comms channel across to my center screen.

“I do, but first open a hail to Station Control please. I don't mind spending money
here, but I don't want to spend it on traffic tickets.”

“Sir, hail channel is open.” I called back, while we swung around slowly back towards the center of the blast pan
. The men had assembled a tripod-mounted howitzer.

“Captain, that’s a big gun down there, sir” I said through a dry throat.

“Janis, is that worth concern, dear?”

“It is not, Captain”, she said sweetly. One of the men was in the rig, aiming the gun, bringing it to bear on us. I involuntarily ducked down a bit, and made sure my crash bars were tight. A howitzer at this range was considerably more dangerous than I wanted to see.

Captain Smith didn’t show the slightest bit of alarm as he swiped through screens and checked through his systems.

Suddenly, they fired, the overpressure wave lit from within from the white blast of the explosive. Immediately the blast enveloped our forward screens and I felt a slight kick as our bow rocked ever so slightly, but it really wasn’t enough to be worried about. I took a breath and tried to calm down a bit.

“Tranquility Control, Archaea, requesting clearance for launch”, he said, waiting a few moments, then repeating.

“Archaea
, Tranquility Control, you are cleared for launch at this time. Be advised, we have a heavy on approach, we are sending their vector now.”

“Copy Tranquility Control,
We do not need orbital clearance at this time, requesting low lane to Applied Dynamics berth.”

“Copy
that, Archaea, You have a direct shot to Applied Dynamic, come about to 225.”

Another shot streaked in, rattling dust off the pan deck in concentric rings from the end of the muzzle. This one hit us amidships, and I hardly felt it.

The captain sounded like he was about to fall asleep. “Copy 225, Archaea out.”

He
took another moment to stare at the target set I had for us. “Yak, you may let the grounder driver know we are returning control, but that he should stay clear of this area.”

“Will do
, sir”, I said, and opened the channel to the bus. “Sir, this is the Archaea. We greatly appreciate your cooperation, and are returning control of your vehicle at this time.”

There was no answer, but I didn't really expect any. At least he didn't have a broken arm, so he had that going for him.

“Are they still shooting at us?” the captain said, leaning forward to get a better view as he hauled us around.

Pauli looked up from his screens.
“They appear to be repositioning for a shot on our engines.”

“Well, it's damned
rude. I think it might be helpful if they were given a time out. Janis, dear?”

“Yes sir?”

“Would you please vaporize those grounders? Try not to hit those idiots with the shrapnel, but I want those grounders gone. As soon as they throw themselves clear of that popgun they have there, I want it atomized.”

“Atomized, aye sir” she said sweetly.

Immediately, flashing pulses of plasma streaked into the grounders from our turret guns, and one, two, three they were blown into chunks and then shredded into bits – and she kept pouring it on until there wasn't anything on the blast pan bigger than a boot in a blackened patch of debris. Well, except for three very unlucky hitchhikers laying on their faces in what must have been pretty stinky suits, filled with shame.

“Nice shooting, my dear!”

“Thank you sir.” she said proudly while he pulled up into the sky over t
he prone figures of the gunmen. We pulled past and left them where they lay.

*****

The mooring crew at the Applied Dynamics dock seemed surprised to see us, but I played the dumb wrench monkey that didn’t know better, and referred them to check their schedule – which showed us right on time. They didn't realize it was Janis that had modified their schedule, and probably didn’t care. A job was a job.

We were all suited up again, and airless
all the way from engineering though the aft lock and cargo bay up to the forward inner lock. Shorty and Yak were openly armed and stood guard at the bottom of the ramp near a docking clamp that had a good line of site across the dock towards the AD lock compartment. As one might expect, no one had much to say about it – Yak and Shorty tend to stifle any argument, geared out in full mimetics, with rifles at the ready.

I worked like a fiend in engineering, swapping parts throughout the reac drives as fast as the
dockside 'mechanics' could haul them in, but of course, it was time consuming work. I may have bitten off a little more than I could chew, but I was going like gangbusters.

Once I had the ion grates installed in the new housing they had machined, I set a trickle charge on the grates and
set Janis loose with simulations via handset prompt.

“Captain, the internal work is done, and we're making great time. We're going outside to replace the nozzles in the bell housings.”

“We have nozzles?” he said innocently. “Just kidding Gene… so we can launch in ten minutes?”

“Not a chance sir, and d
on't tell me I have five minutes. We can't possibly be done that fast. It's simply not possible.” I repeated firmly, just to make sure he understood. As I spoke, I was hooking over the ladder and dropping to the deck of the cargo bay, with machinists and engineers chasing to keep up.

“Well
Gene, I was afraid of that. Unfortunately for us, in about ten minutes there isn't going to be enough sky to fly, it will be filled with dropships.”

“I'm afraid
we're going as fast as we can, Dak”, I replied as we bounded down the ramp to the dock and headed sternward. 

“Very well Gene. Carry on and remain calm, as they say.”
At that moment I had made it to the stern tubes, trailing my ragtag retinue of dock workers, and assorted hangers-on. I swarmed up the scaffolding towards the bell housings, the massive bell-shaped units at the end of our motors that deform to provide vectored thrust of the ion jets that exit the nozzles. The AD folks were already breaking out the new nozzles from their crates, and I took a brief moment of silence to look them over.

They were absolutely beautiful, formed out of glassed tungsten, with a ceramide insert. I drooled a little like Pavlov's proverbial pup
at the handiwork. No wonder they cost so much – they must arrive from the gods.

The workers had
already pulled the old nozzles, and seeing them side by side was like looking at the most beautiful things ever made by man, next to something that fell off the back end of a coal cart. Either the captain was burning a little hot for the spec of our old nozzles, or they were junk – and maybe a little of both. Luckily, the new ones were rated well in excess of any charge we could get to the grates, even with our tuned tokamak.

“Janis, it's important to recalibrate the throttle on this bird, we don't have pseudomass compensation for the acceleration limits we will have
with the new engines.”

“I have done this already Gene, though the limit is considerably higher than you might think.”

“Well, as you think best, dear, but don't tell Captain Smith, or he will peel the tires clean off.”

“Gene,
we do not have tires, though I do recognize the term. Should I assume you were being facetious?”

“Well... okay, yeah. I guess I was. I guess.”

“You don't sound very convincing Gene, but I understand your concern. Be advised I will not hesitate to provide the captain with accurate and safe limits for the ship and crew, but I will make sure he understands how the new capabilities will affect his ability to remain conscious.”