Nobody wanted to go outside anymore. It wasn’t just the fear of the creature that stalked them; the cold was acting like a viral tox on their thoughts, their attitude; dragging their mood down. It was an effort simply to put on the correct clothes in preparation to venture out. Then more often than not the wind would be blowing, making even walking a difficulty. Vision was a few meters. Far better to stay inside, huddling around a heater, working to prepare the convoy, however menial the assigned task.
If for some reason Omar was resistant to the same disposition as the rest of the camp, then Vance wasn’t about to ignore that. They needed armed protection now more than ever.
Vance finally caught sight of the shack ahead, a soft wall of bright orange fabric. It was the simplest covering the microfacture team could come up with, a fifteen-meter-diameter balloon of thick fabric kept under positive pressure by fans blowing in excess heat from a fuel cell. Horribly energy-expensive, but effective.
Snow falling on it slithered off as it turned to sludge, making sure that there was never any excessive weight building up on top. The ring of crunchy ice that built up around the rim was slowly rising, but Vance hoped they’d be leaving by the end of the day, so that wouldn’t be a problem.
They went through the short access tunnel, closing the outer awning of fabric before opening the inner so no pressure was lost. Inside, the warm air hit them, heavy with the mélange of bioil, fresh polymer, and ripe human that swept straight down Vance’s nostrils as he unwrapped the printed scarf from around his face. Snow crusting his parka and waterproof trousers stared to melt, dripping onto the floor. He took his goggles and helmet off, but not much else—it wasn’t that warm inside the shack, just above freezing.
Two of the Tropics occupied the majority of the floor, sitting under bright floodlights. Four or five people were working on each one. Vance had to grin with enthusiasm as he saw the modified vehicles. The new tires were amazing, as high as his chest and equally wide. It was the ultimate pimp-up machine to please his inner boy. An image that could only ever be amplified by the remote-control machine gun mounted on the roof.
Every convoy vehicle had a similar weapon, which was why preparation was taking longer than originally scheduled. Vance had insisted. A morale booster following from Wukang’s latest loss.
It had been a standing order for a long time that nobody was allowed out alone. Mackay from the AAV team, and Juan-Fernando, one of the helicopter pilots, had faithfully followed that order last Thursday as they went out into the blizzard to check on the emergency comm rocket launchers. They’d carried regulation sidearms, too, according to Davinia and Leif, who bunked down in the same accommodation dome.
Neither of them had returned.
Vance had to change the standing orders: Now anyone going outside had to take an armed Legionnaire as escort. No exceptions were allowed. The machine guns on the vehicles were included at the same time. If they encountered the creature after the convoy set off, they could open fire immediately, without having to wait for the Legionnaire squad to climb out and give chase.
Ravi Hendrik and Ophelia Troy were on the cab roof of one Tropic, finishing the machine-gun installation, connecting it to a small microwave radar mounted on the side of the barrel. As Vance watched, it swiveled from side to side then changed elevation, pointing down.
Ravi grinned. “Hey, boss, this’ll teach the bastards not to bring a knife to a fistfight, huh?”
“Is it ready?” Vance asked.
“Got some work to do on the targeting software, and these servos are a bit rough and ready, but we’ll be finished when it’s time to bug out.”
“Good man.” Vance walked around the back of the first Tropic to where Darwin Sworowski was tightening up the wheel lock nuts on the offside axle motor. Jay was standing beside him, handing tools from a tall wheeled cabinet when Darwin asked for them, and looking every inch the fifth wheel.
Jay looked up. “Sir.”
“How’s it going?” Vance asked.
Jay glanced at Darwin, who shrugged inside several layers of overalls.
“Vehicles will be ready in three hours,” Jay said.
“I thought they were finished,” Vance said. He tried not to let annoyance show in his voice, but in his heart he’d expected this visit to the garage to be the one where he gave to order to drive out.
“We’ve done as much refit work as we can,” Darwin said. “But there are some adaptation issues.” He patted the big tire with its thick tread. “Once you alter the wheel size, especially to this degree, then you completely change the gearing. The axle hub motor torque will have to be recalibrated. It also means we’ll use a lot more power to turn the wheels.”
“More power,” Vance mused. “You mean more fuel?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, have you revised the convoy estimates?”
“Uh, we should make Sarvar with a twenty percent reserve. That’s the worst-case scenario,” he said hastily. “I’m hoping we’ll have around thirty percent left.”
“You’re just telling him what he wants to hear,” Karizma said as she walked over from the second Tropic. “We’ll be lucky if Jesus lets us get halfway to Sarvar before we run out of bioil. What then, eh? What’s your contingency for that, Camp Commander?”
“If my vehicle team chief says we’ll be there with thirty percent fuel left, then that’s the information I base my decision on.”
“It’s a guess! A wild, stupid guess. Christ himself doesn’t know how tough it’s going to be out there.”
“Hey,” Darwin snapped. “I’ve had two test drives in a Tropic and one in an MTJ. I know what they’ll be dealing with.”
“You did a circle of the camp. That tells you nothing. Crap on it, we don’t even have a map!”
“The AAV team have drawn up a good chart from the e-Ray data.” Jay said.
“Bullshit! It’s barely got a five-meter resolution. And that’s just a gradient plot—we’ve no idea of what your God’s actually hidden under the tree canopy. There could be a million gorges between here and Sarvar. You cannot back up that twenty percent wish with any real knowledge. We have to stay here.”
“Nobody is coming for us,” Vance said. “And the creature is taking us out one at a time.” He found it interesting that Karizma had started to blaspheme a lot more when he was around. Presumably a crude attempt to highlight his belief in the hope others would question his judgment. It was easy enough for him to ignore; it wasn’t as if he didn’t have the practice.
“Creatures,” Ravi said.
Vance looked up at the pilot in annoyance. “What?”
“There has to be more than one. Come on, look at what it’s done to us. It took out Mackay and Juan-Fernando without a sweat. And I knew Juan—there’s no way he’d roll over without a fight. They’re out there, okay, gathering around the camp. One day soon there’s going to be enough that they’ll just walk in here no matter how many Legionnaires are on patrol, or remote weapons we’ve rigged up. You stay right here if you want to, but me, I am leaving.”
“Nobody is staying,” Vance said firmly. “I want these Tropics loaded and ready to leave in three hours. We are driving away with or without any final torque adjustments, understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Darwin said. “We’ll be ready.”
“Good. Carry on. Jay, assemble the rocket launch crew. I want Abellia to know what’s happening.”
The Aero-Roe Corp HA-5060 emergency comm rocket launcher was a oblong box five meters long and two in diameter, sitting on a small trailer. They used MTJ-1 to tow it away from the camp, though
drag
was a more accurate description. The trailer’s small wheels kept getting stuck in the snow; it was only the MTJ’s power that kept yanking it along. Riding in the cab, Vance got an uncomfortable demonstration of what it was going to be like slogging through thousands of kilometers of the antagonistic frozen landscape. It was almost enough to make him hesitate. But Ravi had captured the essence of everyone’s thoughts. Rumor around the camp was that more than one creature was out there in the snow-clad jungle. Everyone just wanted to get the hell away. Discipline was going to collapse if they didn’t; already the capture mission was effectively over. Even Vance acknowledged just how bad their situation was now. His own strategy was to make it back to Sarvar and then—when the sunspots were over, and the climate returned to normal—another, better-equipped expedition could return to Wukang. For now, the creature had the upper hand. It was an admission Vance hated, but above all he was a realist.
With Olrg driving, they took the rocket launcher six hundred meters from the administration Qwik-Kabin. Sergeant Raddon and Leora Fawkes stood guard in the driving snow while Ken Schmitt and Chris Fiadeiro prepared the launcher. It didn’t take much. The trailer extended legs from each corner, sinking pads deep into the snow. Then the oblong box slowly hinged up to vertical.
Back in the AAV shack, Davinia Beirne confirmed they were receiving the HA-5060’s telemetry. Everyone clambered back into the MTJ, and Olrg drove it away.
They parked three hundred meters away from the launcher. Everyone craned forward to try to see through the thick smear of snow whipping past outside.
Davinia completed the short countdown. A brilliant orange light flared through the blizzard, overpowering the pastel fluctuations of the aurora. Then the roar of the triple solid rocket boosters slammed into the MTJ, accelerating the snow even faster. The unseen light source shot upward and quickly faded from sight.
Vance closed his eyes as he whispered a small prayer. The HA-5060 emergency comm rocket was designed to be launched in adverse conditions, but this was a real stretch of its design criteria. His grid shone with neon brightness as he kept his eyes shut, relaying the telemetry.
At seventeen kilometers the three booster rockets burned out and jettisoned. The rocket was still surrounded by cloud and ice particles, which would be dangerous if they extended much higher. Velocity was building, and the nose cone was starting to friction-ablate. The main stage ignited, slamming out seven tons of thrust, accelerating the HA-5060 hard as it finally cleared the clouds at twenty-one kilometers.
Thirty-three seconds later the solid rocket fuel was exhausted and the four-hundred-kilogram payload package separated, continuing upward under the tremendous impetus of the rocket thrust.
All Vance could do wait and watch the telemetry data. At least they were receiving data, though the antenna was consuming a lot of power to punch through the storm.
When it passed through the three-hundred-kilometer level, the payload started beaming data packages directly at Abellia. They knew the expedition camp there had assembled a receiver antenna as soon as they arrived back in February, which should be permanently operational. Everyone was hoping the storms hadn’t knocked them out.
After seventy seconds they got a reply from Abellia.
The cheering in the MTJ cabin was raucous. A line of icons appeared across Vance’s grid as the link to the base’s net was established. The only one he was interested in was Major Griffin Toyne.
The payload package reached 350 kilometers, soaring still farther. Pre-loaded messages recorded by Wukang’s personnel started to flood into Abellia’s network. Vance’s e-i reported that Toyne was responding.
“Really glad to hear from you,” Toyne said. “What’s your status?”
“Not good. It’s killed four of us now. I’m evacuating to Sarvar. It’s all in my report, but I’d like a quick confirmation from you that there’s enough supplies there to sustain us.”
“Yes. There’s only a skeleton crew left there, fifteen people. All the supplies and fuel are still in place.”
“Good. The report contains our proposed route. If the situation does change in the next week …” Vance’s e-i told him that the payload had reached four hundred kilometers, and its rate of ascent was slowing drastically. Apogee was close.
“Unlikely,” Toyne said. “The sunspot outbreak seems to have stabilized. It’s constant now.”
“Damn. Do the astronomers have any idea how long it’ll last?”
“None at all. Listen, Vance, Highcastle is emptying fast, the residents are abandoning the planet. We’ll stay on of course—we don’t leave our people behind. There’s a final evacuation operation being planned for all the forward camps, but it won’t be enacted for a few months. You’ll be in a much better position if you can get to Sarvar. We will come for you, the general himself has promised that.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you have any more data on the creature?”
“No. The weather here is abysmal. It’s degrading every sensor we have. Smartdust is utterly useless. We’re practically living in the twenty-first century.”
The payload reached its peak at 437 kilometers, pausing for an instant amid the supercharged ions of the upper ionosphere, and recording a hail of hard particles inbound from Sirius. Several processors started to glitch under the radiation assault, and the software hurriedly compensated.
“I’m sorry we can’t do anything for you. But if anyone can get through this, it’s HDA people.”
“How are the other forward camps managing?” Vance asked as the payload began its long fall.
“We lost contact with them as well. None reported any creature activity. It’s just you.”
“Anybody have any theories on that?”
“No. But Alice Springs is working on it.”
More processors inside the package dropped out. Telemetry showed a problem with the main power circuits. The radiation environment was far outside recommended tolerance levels. Static levels on the outer casing were threatening to break through the insulation.
“Okay, what happened with the Newcastle investigation?” Vance asked.
“It’s over. They charged Ernie Reinert with accessory to murder. The trial will conclude this week. But they never found who gave the order.”
“Really? I had more faith in Detective Hurst.”
“You ask me, this whole expedition has been a disaster from start to finish.”
“It’s not over yet. The creature is here, and it’s killing us.”
“I can’t get any action on that, Vance. Officially it’s still Tramelo or her accomplice.”