Overload Flux (24 page)

At the top of the nav pod, she wedged a length of heavy pipe as a cross brace, then draped the line over it and dropped both ends down to Luka. Clever man that he was, he figured out what she intended and was soon pulling on one end to lift Haberville up with the other. The makeshift line was holding, but she didn’t trust it. As soon as Haberville was in range, Mairwen hauled her up and rested her on the door ledge. Close up, Mairwen could see Haberville was groggy and marginally responsive. At least her exosuit looked to be intact. As gently as she could, Mairwen lowered Haberville down into the water. She was mostly submerged but didn’t quite sink to the bottom. Mairwen jumped down herself and untied the line so she could send it back down to Luka. He insisted on sending up the medical kit first before using the line to haul himself free of the nav pod. Mairwen pulled Haberville into a half sitting position in the water as he climbed down and joined them in the hall.

When he was finally standing next to her, knee-deep in water, he pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her. The exosuit prevented any body contact, and the transit vibration dampeners prevented contact communication, but she clung anyway and let the comfort it provided wash over her for an uncounted number of seconds.

She stepped back and pulled him toward the autodoc unit. In clumsy sign language, and hindered by the poor lighting, she tried to indicate that Adams was upside down in the unit and she needed Luka’s help getting him out.

As she’d hoped, Luka’s knowledge of the ship gave them a better way to open the unit than assaulting it with the pry bar, and they soon had Adams out and floating in the water. He was unconscious but alive.

Completely unexpectedly, Adams had shared the autodoc with a high-end sniper’s railgun, and had jammed a case of ammunition and the xenobiological sampling kit into the end near his head. Had either gotten loose, it could have injured or killed him. He’d been stupid to take the chance, but she admired his dedication to duty.

By her estimation, Adams only had about thirty minutes of breathing mix left. They were running out of time.

They only had intermittent emergency lighting, which was enough for Mairwen to function, but Luka was mostly blind. They couldn’t communicate except by gesture and lip reading, which neither she nor Luka was good at. She went looking for a safe path.

Getting out of the ruined ship was alternately frustrating, harrowing, and tedious. The worst part came when she had to dive completely underwater and search through jagged metal for a route that would accommodate pulling unconscious bodies through without risking the exosuits that were keeping them dry and breathing. The suits were designed to resist tears and punctures, but it paid to be cautious.

The only thing that terrified her more than being in open water was being in enclosed water, like a flooded ship. She focused on her strong desire to get Luka and the others to safety, telling herself she could fall apart later. She finally found a route that would take them to a spot beyond the hull, where they could float to the surface. Then they could tackle the next hurdle of finding dry land.

She swam back to Luka and found him propping up a shaky but now awake Adams. Adams grinned weakly when he saw her, which surprised her because no one but Luka ever did that, until she realized Adams hadn’t known until then that she’d survived the crash.

It was easier to keep Haberville’s form moving with Adams helping, though he insisted on taking his railgun and the xeno kit with them instead of coming back for them, and Luka did the same with the medical kit. It seemed to take forever to escape the wreck, and they nearly lost the xeno kit more than once because Adams was still impaired.

Once in open water, they used the buoyancy of the waterproof kits to lead them to the surface. It was either dawn or dusk, she couldn’t tell which. All she could see as she treaded water were oily patches and floating debris. The exosuit made movement awkward, and a part of her mind was still gibbering in the corner about being in the water. She looked for a bigger piece of flotsam that could help support Haberville so Luka didn’t have to keep holding up her weight.

Luka had other ideas. He began swimming with purpose, towing Haberville’s exosuit by the conduit harness he’d rigged. Mairwen let Adams go next, and followed in case he needed assistance. She narrowed her focus to just following, just swimming, so she wouldn’t have to think about the surrounding water that might stretch for endless kilometers.

It came as a surprise when her foot hit something sloped, and she looked up to realize they’d reached a sandy, rock-strewn shore. The increased light told her they’d landed at dawn. Adams was struggling with the kit, and ahead, she saw Luka dragging Haberville and the medical kit in the silty mud. She helped Adams first, then Luka.

They ended up sitting on dry ground among some scraggly shrubs, about six meters from the water’s edge. Behind them was what looked like the edge of a forest, but it was still too dark to see details. Luka got her and Adams’s attention, then unsealed his own exosuit and took a deep breath of air. They both unsealed their suits, and Adams took several deep breaths. They helped steadily improving Haberville with hers.

“The planet’s oxygen levels are a little high, but probably not enough to hurt us,” said Luka, reading from his exosuit’s display.

“I never want to get that close to flatlining my air supply again,” said Adams feelingly. “And no more ship crashes, either. My head
hurts
.”

Luka laughed sympathetically, and the sound soothed Mairwen, though she couldn’t have said why, since he was obviously alive and unhurt. Perhaps because she wasn’t in the water anymore and could hear him.

“I’ve never blacked out like that before,” said Haberville. “Maybe my blood pressure bottomed out or something. I’m still dizzy.”

“Maybe syncope,” said Luka. When both Adams and Haberville gave him a blank look, he added, “Sudden loss of blood to the brain. That final bounce was intense.”

Luka and Adams helped Haberville stand so she could try walking, but she couldn’t reliably stay upright when they let go. She kept tilting over to her left, like her sense of balance didn’t know which way was up.

Trusting they’d ask for her help if needed, Mairwen stepped away and turned up her senses, trying to get a feel of the sounds and smells of their new environment. The lapping water had a rhythm to it, like ocean tides, but shallower, and it smelled slightly salty. She hadn’t seen or heard any insect or bird sounds, but that presumed the hybrid planet’s fauna was terra-like. The air was warm, even though it was dawn and near water. From what Haberville’s scan data had indicated, heat could become a problem.

The smells were all new and complex. All Mairwen could do was start tagging them in her memory for later association with sources.

The light breeze shifted and brought a whiff of lubricant and fluids from the ship, which in the increasing light, appeared to be about a hundred meters from the shore. From its silhouette, it looked like it was stuck in the lakebed at an angle, with the nav and engine pods at the waterline. She imagined the ship’s manufacturers hadn’t envisioned a crash landing on a lakeshore when they advertised the ship as being “wilderness ready.”

She went back to where Luka and Adams were. Haberville was still sitting, looking pale and nauseated. The scents of Luka and the others were comfortingly familiar.

“Luka, where did we land?” she asked. Since he’d unerringly taken them to shore, she assumed he’d seen visuals after they’d hit the atmosphere.

He gave her a quick smile, perhaps because she’d unthinkingly called him by his first name in public, if Adams and Haberville counted as public.

“On a peninsula. Haberville aimed the ship for it, but we hit some trees and tumbled in just short. I saw the shore as we went in. The lake is big, probably a hundred and sixty kilometers across and five hundred kilometers long. We’re about sixteen kilometers from what looked like a large building and a landing field with an interstellar ship. The base was well lit.” He pointed vaguely toward the trees. “We have the coordinates, so we should be able to find it with the xeno kit’s readers. This part of the continent has low-energy geoposition transmitters about every six hundred kilometers or so, in a grid pattern.”

He made eye contact with Adams and Haberville. “The installation may not be the safest place to go, but the alternatives are worse.”

Adams and Haberville nodded their agreement. Mairwen nodded, too, for their benefit. Luka already knew she’d go wherever he was going.

She didn’t see any way to avoid going back into the ship to look for salvageable supplies they’d need to stay alive, and that meant going back into the inky brown water. Despite the temperature control in her exosuit, she shivered. She decided she could at least wait until there was more sunlight.

“Adams, Haberville,” asked Luka, “did your gunnin training include wilderness survival skills?”

Adams snorted. “Just the basics, like don’t drink unpurified water and stay away from predators.” His sweeping wave indicated the crashed ship in the lake and the trees. “It sure as hell didn’t cover anything like this.”

Haberville just shook her head, then winced and put her fingers to her temples to rub.

Mairwen sighed. She’d have preferred not to admit any knowledge at all, but they needed her expertise to survive. “I have training. I participated in planet-fall expedition challenges.”

It was the best excuse she’d been able to come up with to explain her skills. She’d actually been on one once, but only because it gave her access to a target.

At this rate, she should just issue a press release to the top newsfeeds that she was a legendary death tracker and get it over with.

CHAPTER 16

* Planet: Insche 255C * GDAT 3237.042 *

L
uka couldn’t help but smile at Mairwen’s cover story as Adams expressed amazement and interest.

Actually, Luka kept wanting to smile ever since he’d seen Mairwen’s face above him through the nav pod door she’d pried open. It had taken the heart-freezing fear of losing her to realize he was deeply and madly in love with the woman. She was ferociously competent with the extraordinary, and quirkily awkward with the simplest of things, especially human interactions. He had no idea how to make it happen yet, but he wanted her to be a part of his life and wanted to be a part of hers. But first, they had to get off this planet alive.

“I have to go back to the ship,” she was saying. “We need water containers and edible food, and if we’re lucky, weapons and camp gear.” Something in her tone made him look at her more closely, and he thought he detected uneasiness. Knowing how reserved she was, he probably wouldn’t get a straight answer out of her if he asked directly.

“Adams,” he said, “how much breathing mix has your suit regenerated?”

“About ninety minutes’ worth,” Adams said, peering at the display. “Call me Jerzi, by the way. I figure fellow crash survivors should use first names.”

Luka nodded his acknowledgment. “Call me Luka.”

“I’m Eve,” said Haberville, then gave Adams a coy look. “We could have been Adams and Eve.” Adams looked puzzled, clearly not understanding the reference. Eve gave an exasperated sigh.

Luka waited for Mairwen to give them her first name, but she didn’t. Maybe she didn’t care. He smiled at her. “Breathing mix?”

“Seven hours, forty-one minutes.”

He nodded. “Mine says six hours plus a little.” He turned back to Jerzi. “If we swap rebreather units, are you up for another swim? Since Morganthur is our survival expert, you and I should become her security detail.”

He heard her soft snort and gave her an amused smile in reply. He ignored Eve’s peeved frown, which had become her current default expression. She probably had a killer headache.

“Fine with me,” said Jerzi, and started peeling out of the suit so the rebreather could be removed and replaced. “Too bad we don’t have dive gear. That’d be more fun.”

Once out of the suit, Jerzi took off down the shore to go relieve himself, claiming he hated the way it felt in the exosuit.

Luka took the opportunity to ask Mairwen if there was any reason they should wear exosuits on their upcoming trek.

She looked toward the trees, then back to him and Eve. “No,” she said. “It’ll make you clumsy, and if the temperature controls fail, you’ll overheat too fast. But keep your armor on. Don’t roll up your sleeves, and keep your cuffs and collar tight if you can.” She looked at the forest again. “I want a closer look at the trees.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Luka. He wasn’t willing to let her out of his sight again so soon.

He looked at Eve. “Jerzi can help you get your suit off when he comes back.”

“Good,” she said, massaging her neck and wincing as she eyed the lake. “It’s not safe out here. We need to get to that base.”

He and Mairwen walked in companionable silence over the hardened sand to the tree line. She was looking intently her surroundings, as if all her extraordinary senses were fully engaged. He imagined no one but other trackers had ever seen her like that. He glanced back to see Jerzi just returning to Haberville’s position on the shore, about fifty meters from where they stood.

“Why are you nervous about going back to the ship?” he asked quietly.

She looked away, then down. “I dislike deep water,” she said. Her mild words belied the brief glimpse of fear he saw in her eyes. It was the first time he’d ever seen her afraid, or at least the first time she’d ever let him see it.

“Then I’ll go...” he started to say, but she cut him off.

“I’m better suited for it.” She had the quietly stubborn look he’d come to know well.

He sighed, knowing she wouldn’t let him put himself in danger. She didn’t seem to understand he felt the same way about her, especially since she’d admitted the lake scared her.

With another quick look to make sure Jerzi and Eve were distracted, Luka closed the distance to Mairwen and cupped her face in his hands. “You are a wonder,” he said softly, then kissed her thoroughly, letting her needy response nourish his soul. He stepped back, though not as far away as he had been. The slightly dazed look and small smile she gave him made him almost light-headed.