On a Pale Ship Page 32

  "How did you know it was me?"

  "I could feel the change in pressure due to the lift."

  "Any problems retrieving Jimmy?" Luc asked.

  "It was not difficult," Gob said. "We were together when you called."

  "You went out drinking with Jimmy?"

  "I needed to apologize for my outburst," Gob said. "It was unprofessional."

  "Did you get everything worked out? What about the issue with you being in his shooting lane?"

  "It is worked out," Gob said. "Jimmy is a good man. I believe he is often misunderstood."

  "That is right, my brother," Jimmy said, his Scottish brogue cutting through from the back of the bridge where he’d entered. "And you, big man, know how to party."

  "What tactical decisions did you come up with?" Luc asked.

  "We need to ditch the old girl," Jimmy said.

  "Who?" Luc asked, just as Tali rounded the corner, entering the bridge.

  "Me," Tali said.

  Luc looked uncomfortably from Jimmy to Tali and then to Gob. Of the three, only Gob seemed to squirm because of the uncomfortable conversation.

  "I would have told you to your face," Jimmy said. "The fact is, you are too slow."

  "This is hardly the time for this," Luc said. "Marek knows we're coming. He'll have reinforcements. We can't exactly afford to ditch a quarter of our team."

  "That's just it. You wouldn't be ditching me," she said.

  "Have you guys talked?" Luc asked.

  The frustration he felt faced with such a late change in strategy was compounded by the fact that he knew Jimmy was right. Tali's hand-to-hand combat skills were excellent and her upper body was extraordinarily fast and strong. Unfortunately, her legs simply didn't have the endurance to keep up with the three men. After analyzing their combat, Luc had discovered that Gob was slowing the team as the sessions got later and later into the day. Initially, he'd thought the big man was tiring, but after looking at it further, he'd realized Gob was making up for Tali.

  "No, we haven’t had a chance to discuss this yet," Tali said. "But Jimmy's right."

  "Thank you," Jimmy said, leaning against the bulkhead.

  "Don't think you're getting rid of me, though," Tali said. "Not all combat is fought in a four-man stack. At least for the initial assault, I can take an over-watch position."

  "Over-watch?" Luc asked.

  "Sniper," Gob answered. "Do we have the equipment? Sniper rigs are expensive."

  "Of course they are," Luc grumbled.

  "I started as a sniper," Tali said, her voice growing distant. "It wasn't until I was injured that I decided to take a position as team lead. I would never travel without my equipment."

  "I'm not ready to lead," Luc complained. "Your equipment, when's the last time you used it?"

  "Sack up, Gray," Jimmy said. "Between Alcazar and me, you'll be batting cleanup at best. We just need someone to keep us headed in the right direction."

  "Got that straight," Gob said, holding a big fist out for Jimmy to bump, which he did.

  "Doctor Wilder is looking at my equipment right now," Tali said.

  "That's something I wouldn't mind doing," Jimmy said, under his breath.

  "Please keep in mind what a sniper does in the field, Jimmy," Tali said. "I wouldn't have any trouble dropping forty grams to the base of your neck just above your collar armor."

  "Hot."

  "Jimmy! Dammit. Can we keep this professional, please?" Luc asked, exasperated.

  Chapter 28

  Point Grünholz

  Lightning flashed and wind violently tossed the small shuttle as Tali dropped into black storm clouds. Sitting aboard Arion, the plan had seemed simple enough and few words had been given to describe the extreme danger of the constant storms above Grünholz. With one hand, she grabbed at her equipment pack as the inertial generator and gravity system whined in an attempt to keep things level within the cabin. Much of the plan rested on her shoulders and she wondered if she'd finally succumbed to a fatal case of hubris.

  A direct lightning strike exploded aft and the small craft lost power, tumbling out of control.

  "Damn," Tali said, grabbing at her pack. "Bit, I'm not sure if you can hear me but my ship is down. I'm going to attempt a halo insertion."

  A gust of wind picked the craft up and steadied it for a moment. Tali grabbed her chance, slipping her arms through the pack's straps and cinching it down. By the time she'd grabbed the door's emergency handle, the shuttle was pinwheeling again. There was nothing else she could do, so she twisted the handle. For a moment, nothing happened as outside forces held the door firmly in place. The very nature of the storm she'd fallen into was chaos and those forces soon reversed. Before Tali knew it, she'd been sucked out into the gale.

  She released the door, knowing that her greatest danger was to be struck by either the door or the shuttle. Pulling her arms to her side she ignited her armored vac-suit's arc-jets. They were hardly made for the environment she was flying in, but separation was imperative.

  For several minutes Tali struggled against the random winds, flinching as lightning lit the sky. Each flash made Tali wonder if the next strike would find her. And then, she suddenly dropped below the cloud cover where the rain and winds, while still intense, lessened significantly.

  She was off course by several kilometers, so she adjusted, fighting her way through the wind. Why anyone would choose to live in this environment was well beyond her understanding. In the distance she saw the lights of Cauldron. It became immediately obvious that her load was too heavy and she would drop into the sea well before making landfall, much less the tower which was her target.

  Grabbing the knife on her thigh, she cut the straps to her equipment and watched as it fell unfettered toward the churning water below.

  "You should have taken the other shuttle back to Joliot, Doctor Quentin," Luc said, standing at the rear of Arion. Gob had already boarded the TaunTaun and was looking out expectantly at them. They'd decided to leave behind the Stryker armored infantry vehicle, not expecting to travel great distances.

  "There is no danger to us up here in the stars, Lucien," Quentin said. "I wish you Godspeed."

  "Remember, I need those hacking clamps installed right away," Bit said. "There's no equipment in the universe that can punch through that storm without some help. You copy?"

  "I got your clamps covered, sweet cheeks," Jimmy said, slapping Bit on the derriere as he passed. "Thanks for the tune-up on Rocinante, Doc Q."

  Jimmy turned as he got to the capsule door. “Hasta la vista, baby!" He saluted to no one in particular.

  "Todos regresaremos seems more appropriate, don’t you think?" Gob asked innocently, from inside the capsule.

  "Eh?" Jimmy asked, obviously not expecting to be questioned.

  "It's Spanish for 'we will all return,'" Gob said.

  "Right you are, my large Mexican friend," Jimmy said, strapping into a padded chair next to him. "And since we're on the subject, have you ever heard of a small place in Texas called the Alamo?"

  Luc shook his head as he tried to tune out the conversation. Jimmy was in dangerous territory and seemed to relish it.

  "Once you have the children, what will you do?" Quentin asked. "Your plan lacks anything resembling an exfiltration."

  "Kane will release the second TaunTaun thirty minutes after we insert," Luc said. "I've programmed Arion to retrieve the capsules automatically."

  "That settles it," Quentin said. "I will sail Arion. I was quite a good pilot in my time and can be relied upon to retrieve capsules from space. Wait until the insurance underwriters get a hold of this, though. They already have enough trouble with me building ordnance. Go, Lucien. We'll come for you when you call."

  Luc stepped into the oversized, egg-shaped drop vehicle. Large enough to hold ten men, the TaunTaun had plenty of room for everything they'd decided to take. Without the weight of the Stryker, the engines would be more than powerful enough to overcome the storm forces of
Grünholz.

  Through small peepholes in the side of the TaunTaun, the three men watched as they were dropped from the back of Arion into the upper atmosphere. The engines fired a short burst thrusting them downward toward the city.

  At first, the mission continued just as planned. Fire burned around the capsule as the atmosphere slowed them. When they fell into the clouds, the effects of the storm became intense.

  "Damn, is it always this windy?" Jimmy complained as the capsule buffeted from side to side.

  "I am glad for the insulation," Gob said, as lightning illuminated the sky.

  Luc ignored the chatter, recognizing it for what it was, and connected to the capsule’s exterior sensors. It was difficult to see past the rain, especially in the clouds. He checked the time. If she was on schedule, Tali would be setting up her personal gravity pallet a thousand meters away from the first tower and choosing her target. They'd argued about the ability of the pallet to deal with the buffeting of the storm, especially above a violent ocean, but Tali assured him the rig was designed to hold a person steady in the worst of situations.

  A loud explosion sounded outside the capsule and the lights dimmed momentarily and then turned back on.

  "About that insulation," Jimmy started.

  Luc checked the capsule's status. They only had ten thousand meters further to fall, but two of the five engines had been knocked out by the lightning strike. He uploaded the data-stream, meaning to take it up with Quentin when they got back together. His AI assured him they would be able to navigate the remainder of the trip, but it would require they drop elevation to the surface and use the ground effect to improve the lift of the engines.

  "We're going to miss Cauldron," Jimmy said.

  "No we're not," Luc answered. "AI wants to sail across the ocean surface so we can get extra lift from proximity."

  "Aren't you native to Nuage?" Jimmy asked.

  "I am."

  "Want to tell me what those things are?" Luc looked through Jimmy's zoomed-in video stream and saw they were headed toward a large grouping of lightning vines that stretched up toward the intensifying storm.

  "Trouble," Luc said, redirecting the capsule's engines. To be caught up in the vines would mean the end of their trip on a most permanent basis.

  His AI showed that he was burning fuel he couldn't afford and predicted they'd miss Cauldron by at least a kilometer.

  "Kind of wish we'd brought a naval insertion package," Jimmy said.

  "Hang on," Luc said, skimming over the top of the vines as the counter on their remaining fuel drained precipitously.

  A nearby strike of lightning caused the vines to stretch for the sky and he immediately backed off the power. The drop in power was followed by free fall toward the ocean.

  "Are you crazy!?" Jimmy asked.

  Just before they splashed down, he fired the engines on full and leveled out, meters above the water.

  "No. Learned that from a friend. Vines can't reach below their roots," he said. "Just needed them distracted for a moment."

  "I need my brown pants," was Jimmy’s mystifying reply.

  "What?" Luc asked, disturbed at the previously quiet Gob's chuckle.

  "Old joke. Ask me if we get out of here," Jimmy answered.

  "When. Never if. Grab your gear, it's going to be a wet landing."

  Fifty meters from the exact spot where Emilie Bastion had been mostly killed by a groglesnout, the TaunTaun gave its final push and nosed into the surf. A moment later, the capsule tipped over and sank into the muddy water, finally coming to rest on the bottom, five meters below the surface.

  "I've had harder landings," Jimmy said, standing and strapping Rocinante to his back.

  The TaunTaun bucked violently and Jimmy was thrown into the opposite wall. Scrabbling for purchase, he finally grabbed a seat strap.

  "What was that?" Gob asked.

  "Groglesnout," Luc said.

  Tali watched her pack disappear into the churning water below and blew out a breath, hot with tension. The team relied on her to take out the tower and without her sniper rifle and sniper's perch, it was a nearly impossible requirement. To make matters worse, she couldn't risk contacting the team as it would likely give away both their presence and positions. If there was any advantage to the storm, however, it would be the fact that it was nearly impossible to detect a single soldier arc-jetting a few meters above the choppy sea.

  As she sailed forward, lightning strikes illuminated fish the size of men, leaping from the waters. Her AI, tracking her focus, added information. "Aquatic life often break the surface of the water while in pursuit of prey or while being pursued. This adaptation is verified by the National Oceanic Partnership."

  "Stop," Tali replied, not wanting to hear further litany. It was an easy adjustment to change her elevation to fifty meters which put her well above the fish issue.

  In her research, she'd come to understand that the Oberrhein nation was broken into Fiefs. Cauldron, ruled by Khan Leonidovich, was a middling fief that occupied one of the shallower portions of the great sea that wrapped the entirety of Grünholz. As a result, the fief lacked any of the heavy steel ships used by its larger cohorts. Even so, the docks she sailed up to boasted three fifteen-meter boats, each complete with a deck-mounted, slug-throwing turret. Briefly, she considered landing aboard the unoccupied boats in search of a long-rifle, but decided the risk was not worth the unlikely payout.

  As she closed on the northern side of the island, Tali dropped in elevation to match the city's perimeter wall. She pulled short at two hundred meters and hung in the rain-soaked air. The lightning was intensifying. It seemed a tossup as to whether she would be struck in midair or exposed by the brilliant flashes of light. The fact was, she needed more intelligence and while she couldn't easily make out the figures atop the massive stone and steel wall, her suit's sensors were vid-streaming the entire operation.

  After what seemed only moments, a brilliant cone of light punched upward into the sky. Someone had illuminated a massive floodlight and she froze as it tipped in her direction. Her fear had been realized. Someone had seen her and was now searching. It didn’t take a tactical genius to understand that someone with a long-gun would be tracking right behind the large beam, ready to pluck her from the sky.

  Tali had never been prone to hesitation, so she cut her arc-jets, immediately falling to the ground. At the last moment she fired them, but only enough to blunt her downward acceleration. Splashing through the heavy surf, she rolled as a current caught her body. A thump on her leg alerted her to the presence of an animal. A micro-second later, she was pulled violently back as a great maw clamped onto her armored leg.

  The pressure on her leg was considerable, but for the moment the vac-suit held its integrity. Fear pushed adrenaline through her body and she gave herself to the moment, chanting something she'd learned long ago, oddly enough while reading an ancient fiction story. Truth, she'd learned, could come from anywhere and the passage had brought her through many rough situations. Fear is the mind-killer. I must not fear.

  Forcing a calm through her body, she reached for the nano-blade at her waist. Reassuringly, the hilt expanded into her hand as she plucked it off and flicked the nano-width filament away from her body. A red glow surrounded the filament as the frothing water resisted her strike against her own leg.

  "Override safety protocol," she ordered. Nano-blades would not injure any object that was in contact with the wielder, but the override would temporarily allow it. There were too many variables and she struggled to avoid cutting her own flesh as she sliced into the neck of the beast attached to her.

  Perhaps the most dangerous thing about a nano-blade is the lack of resistance when it passes through flesh. A sharp pain in her calf alerted her to damage at about the same moment the beast stopped pulling against her. In the deep recess of her mind, she knew she'd done something bad, but she also knew she'd dropped blood into the water and understood the predators of Grünholz's sea would soo
n converge on the location.

  "Restore safety protocol," she grunted and retracted the blade, slapping it onto her belt.

  Straightening her body against the surf, she pushed with the arc-jets and moved away from her attacker. After a few moments, she bumped into a second soft object, this time ahead of her. Letting off the arc-jets and instinctively reaching forward, she found she'd run into a mud-shoal. A quick check of her HUD and she realized she'd made it to within a few meters of shore. She turned over and sat up, her head poking up out of the water.

  She startled at the report of a heavy weapon firing a three-shot burst. Searching frantically, Tali discovered the searchlight illuminating a spot in the water not far from her position. A second three-round burst grabbed her attention and she pushed up from the mud until she was kneeling. Someone on the wall was firing into the now boiling mass of sea life.

  She smiled. Infiltration was often a matter of exploiting small mistakes. It was something she'd become an expert at. The soldiers had exposed themselves and ruined their own night vision by illuminating the sea with a search light. The undisciplined weapons fire would necessarily be communicated to the other towers as an exercise.

  Pushing the palms of her hands into the mud, she fired arc-jets and lifted from the water. She winced as air hit her wounded calf. A moment later her vac-suit sealed around it. Testing, she attempted to wiggle her foot and found it was non-responsive. She would have to move quickly. Without the ability to stand on her leg, she would need to put the guards down quickly.

  Shots rang out again and she oriented on the weapon. Flying up from below, she heard the laughter of at least two men. The weapon's report was that of an older-model rifle — a heavy slug-thrower with an even heavier barrel. The weapon wouldn't have been in her top five choices, but it would replace her own lost rifle as long as she didn't lose it over the wall.

  The look of surprise in the young guard's face was almost comical as she rose into his view and lashed out with her closed fist, striking him on the jaw. The sound of cartilage breaking and possible bone fracturing preceded the man's fall to the ground. The second man, the shooter, clumsily swung the long-rifle around and squeezed off a single shot into the air before she grabbed the receiver in her hand and spun, smashing an elbow into the side of his face, knocking him unconscious.