Merkiaari Wars: 03 - Operation Oracle (39 page)

He adjusted the shuttle’s sensors and digested what they reported to him of the topography. There were some hills to the east, but he wasn’t happy with them. They were distant. It would take him quite a while to hike that distance and Gina might need him right now. He checked his own sensors for a moment, but he was out of range without the boost he was getting from the shuttle. Unfortunately, the shuttle was a civ design and wouldn’t pick up her signal... or her beacon if she was down. He tried not to assume anything, but she had to be down. Her shuttle was still parked and she hadn’t tried to comm him. She had to be down.

He landed in the hills. Anything else risked the shuttle. Besides, he could use Gina’s for the trip back. He was careful to use GPR to test the ice before landing, but as soon as he knew it could take his weight he slammed the shuttle onto the ice, almost powering down before it had fully settled. He grabbed his rifle from the co-pilot’s seat and sealed his suit. He was out and running toward the domes in less than a minute, his sensors reaching out ahead of him and his optics dialled up to X2.

The smoke rising above the base had him slowing his approach. “Gina?” No reply, but her icon glowed steadily blue within the base. “Come on, girl, don’t do this to me. You’re alive. Answer!”

Nothing.

He crouched and paused to survey the base at X4. The two shuttles appeared undamaged. He could see Gina’s shuttle had its ramp down and he could make out some of the cargo inside. There wasn’t enough of it. Nowhere near fully loaded. Whatever had happened to her, it had happened before she could fill her ship. Probably not long after her arrival.

“God damn it, Gina! Answer me... please.” Nothing. Viper comm remained silent. She wasn’t dead. Her beacon would be pulsing its distress call. She wasn’t in hibernation either for the same reason, so what was left? He tried helmet comm in case she had damage to her internal comm. “Gina?”

Still nothing.

Eric’s lips thinned and his grip upon his rifle tightened. He was going to fucking kill the bastards. They were fucking dead! All of them. He took a moment to reign in his rage at the thought of the raiders hurting Gina. She was family, the only family on this world. His brothers and sisters in the regiment were all he lived for. The mission? Yes that too, but it was the people that kept him breathing and going back for more. He had to fight for them. It was what you did—fight for those who were fighting for you.

He dialled his optics, his eyes, back to X1 and advanced warily. He had no hostiles on sensors. He should have by now. He theorised they were in one of the domes, but his sensors shouldn’t have been spoofed by the flimsy walls so easily. He was picking up Gina’s icon just fine. The raiders had to be in a dome though. Their shuttle was right there. He advanced in a crouch with his rifle firmly against his shoulder and aimed.

Smoke was rising into the leaden air from dome three, but he couldn’t hear anything. His helmet did reduce his ability there, but not by much. He raised the gain to max briefly then back to normal. All was quiet. He had the feeling that he’d missed the party entirely. Whatever had happened was probably over, but he didn’t take chances. Worst case scenario hadn’t happened. Gina lived. Her steady blue icon on his sensors reassured him that was the case, but she must be damaged and that meant he was their only defence. He had to ensure that he remained that way.

He was careful.

He entered the dome fast and low and almost fell over the first body. Gina had put a round into his helmet. Good. One less bastard for him to deal with. The smoke was coming from the smouldering boxes and crates in the stacks. There had been one hell of a firefight. There was debris scattered all over. He found three more bodies as he made his way toward Gina. All had been taken apart with rifle fire. He had seen it often enough to recognise viper gunnery. She had taken all three dead centre of mass. Millimetre perfect as vipers tended to be. No hostiles on sensors. He abandoned his caution and hurried to find what was left of Gina and give aid.

He found her slumped forward. She looked dead, and Eric had a procession of flashbacks. He had seen so many bodies like this, not all of them friends. She wasn’t dead, he made himself remember that. He forced the memories away with his certainty that she was repairable. Her reassuring presence on his sensors made it certain.

She was sitting propped against a crate. Other crates near her were shattered and their contents were all around. Liquids had frozen into shiny icicles and runnels. Gina was covered in the stuff. He noted the pile of trash and frowned wondering what the hell had happened. She looked up as he approached.

“Ah hell, Gina, what did they do to you?” he said in shock. Her face looked black through her shattered helmet visor. Frostbite. She smiled and her lips split. Blood ran down her chin. “You didn’t invite me to the party.”

Gina raised a hand holding a viper smoothie. “Here. I saved this one for you,” she croaked and coughed, wracking her chest.

“How bad are you hurt?”

“I’m not hurt.”

Eric sighed. “How bad?”

Gina shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Eric ignored her and pulled her hand away from her belly. He winced when he saw the hole in her suit, but probing through it with his fingers he found new pink skin. Huh, she really wasn’t hurt. The wound was healed. That was when he realised something wasn’t right about her suit. Bad enough her helmet was compromised, but she was sitting against a crate. What the hell? Her PLSS shouldn’t allow that. They were too bulky. He realised it was completely missing.

He pulled her upper body toward him and she slumped bonelessly forward against his chest. He held her there so that he could see what was going on and hissed in dismay. Her back was... it was... gone? Cratered? Holy shit, he could see her spine and it didn’t look right. He stared and shivered as he watched it repairing itself. No one should ever see that sparkly shimmery shit that nannies did when they worked, not in a body this way. It was just not right. Her spine was damaged. He could bloody see it! Why could he see it when her gut wound was as good as new? He certainly could have done without another horror in his head.

He eased her back to a sitting position. “It doesn’t hurt?”

“Nope, why? How does it look?” Gina said, starting to sound scared.

He didn’t answer. He’d just had a revelation. “You had to top up IMS.”

“Yeah. Eating all that made me feel sick,” she said gesturing at the pile of empty bottles and cans. “I still do, but it kept me alive I guess. They shot me in the back but didn’t finish me. Probably thought the blast was enough. I went directly into hibernation, didn’t pass go or collect my two hundred credits,” she said with a laugh. “But main power failed and IMS shut down. My processor decided it was wakey-wakey time. I crawled in here to stock up and get IMS back.”

“Good thinking, but you need real food for your... for the bio-systems. You have frostbite. You might lose your nose and lips, Gina.” He wouldn’t tell her how bad her back was. “They’ll grow back,” he said hastily when she looked horrified. What woman wouldn’t? “I’ll grab you some MREs.”

Gina grimaced but nodded. Meals ready to eat might be factually correct, but no one would ever admit to liking them. Some were better than others, but the hot ones were off the menu right now. They didn’t have time to boil and add water. She would have to make do with the crackers and biscuits.

Eric consulted his database and quickly navigated the stacks. He found the boxes containing what he needed and grabbed two. Another box caught his eye and he grabbed that as well. He wasn’t a fan of peanut butter, but it had calories and Gina needed that more than anything. Her body was burning fat at a ferocious rate in an effort to heal, and she hadn’t been heavy in the first place. No viper was ever overweight. Their systems were regulated to keep them in top fighting trim at all times.

He opened a jar of peanut butter and a box of crackers and offered them to Gina. She used a cracker as a spoon to scoop out the nutty paste and ate it. He winced as her lips bled at the movement. He watched her for a few minutes and then hurried away. He would finish loading her shuttle as fast as he could, and use it to take her back to Liz. He didn’t want the raiders to catch him here, but if they did they would regret it. He had more than
Hobbs
to avenge now.

There was a large crate already on the loader. He didn’t care what was in it. It was faster to unload it in the shuttle than dump it. He muscled it off the loader in the cargo bay, and hurried back to load it up again. Two trips back and forth and he was happy with his loot. He had plenty of ammo and supplements aboard. He parked the loader intending to get Gina, but paused. His eyes narrowed at the raider’s shuttle as an idea came to him. If it worked it might solve all his problems.

If.

He ran back to get Gina.

When he reached her, she was forcing herself to eat, but by the look on her face she wasn’t enjoying it. Enjoying it or not, she looked better for it. He would swear the black skin on her face had paled. It was still very dark, but had edged toward a more natural colour. Good news. Very good news in fact, because her IMS wouldn’t consider epidermis a priority. If it had spared resources to fix frostbite, Gina’s insides must be well on the mend.

“I’ve had an idea,” Eric said. “I’m going to use their shuttle to get aboard their ship.”

“Do tell,” Gina said with interest.

He laid it all out while he carried her to the shuttle. He wanted to get her to Liz and return to enact his plan before the raiders came to investigate things, but Gina had other ideas.

“It won’t work,” Gina said. “It’s been hours since they shot me, Eric. They have to be on their way here. I can’t believe they won’t arrive soon.”

“Then I’ll think of something else.”

“I’ve already taken care of that for you,” Gina said and grinned. “Put me in the cockpit of my shuttle, and you stay here. Load some of our stuff into their ship and hide in one of the crates. They’ll find their dead friends and just fly back to their ship.”

“Your legs—”

“I don’t need legs to fly. Liz will look after me when I get there. Besides, IMS might have me back on my feet by then. Two hour trip. You never know.”

It had possibilities, and he had to admit he feared the raiders would come down while he flew back to alpha site. He carried Gina up the ramp trying to think of a better way, but couldn’t.

“Okay,” he said and continued into the cockpit. He put her in the pilot’s chair and strapped her in. He held her shoulder for a long moment. “Good luck.”

“You too,” Gina said. “Don’t get killed.”

Eric snorted. “I’ll try not to miss our boat trip.”

He put her rifle on the co-pilot’s chair and slung his own over his shoulder before leaving.

“Wait! What did you say?”

“No time now. Ask Liz,” Eric shouted over his shoulder as he ran down the ramp. He thought he heard a curse but might have imagined it. He laughed.

Gina’s shuttle buttoned up and took off moments later, but Eric was already hard at work by that time and didn’t watch it leave. He chose some random stuff to shove into the raider’s shuttle, before adding an empty crate that had held one of the generators. It was big enough for him to hide in and he did so after adding some ammo for his rifle and pistol to it.

Snugged inside the crate he had time to consider this move, and began to have doubts. He was vulnerable to a single hit now. A paranoid man might abandon the shuttle and blow it on the ground. It was certainly something he would consider in their place. Run of the mill pirates sometimes killed, but in general they preferred to steal. They often put crews into lifeboats rather than simply kill them hoping for leniency should they ever be caught. To Eric’s disgust, the tactic worked more often than not. Raiders were a different breed and were more hard core. Not only were they willing to kill, they seemed to prefer it. No witnesses was their mantra.

All that was true, but would they blow a perfectly good shuttle from the air rather than retrieve it? They must know by now that their men had probably lost a fight. The smoke still rising from dome three was a big clue, and their loss of contact with their buddies should be enough to cement the notion.

Eric muttered a curse and sat tight. He didn’t have another plan. Gina was right. If he pretended to be one of their own and fly the shuttle, they would shoot him down. He couldn’t talk to them and they probably used recognition codes of some sort. He had to hope this would work.

He stared at nothing in the dark, and let himself slip into memory. His breathing slowed as he became the soulless machine he sometimes feared he was, and the thing Gina had seen lurking in his eyes peered out of them into the dark unblinking.

* * *

Alpha site, Landing, Kushiel

The flight back had been uneventful but for one thing. Pain. Gina’s IMS had finally connected something in her back that let her feel the damage, and although her legs still wouldn’t move she had some sensation in them again. There were tingles and shooting pains in her legs, and burning hot agony in her back that made her grit her teeth. Her face felt numb, and she wasn’t looking forward to seeing it in a mirror. Eric had tried not to show it, but he had been horrified when he saw her. IMS could fix anything given time and resources, and getting her legs back was a priority, but her comm and her face were a close second as far as she was concerned.