Ammonite Planets (Omnibus): Ammonite Galaxy #1-3 (64 page)

She emerged gasping a second later, her hair newly streaked with a nasty shade of bluish green and eaten away in places. She looked terrifying and Jalana cringed back against the ring around her wrist.“Don’t touch me!”

Diva curled her lip. “Touch you?” she murmured. “You have got to be kidding! You are lucky I didn’t throw you in the nearest fuel tank and burn you to a crisp!”

“You are a friend of my brother’s!”

“And you … aren’t.”

“He is still my brother.”

“Well, maybe you will get lucky and be able to try that number on him. In the meantime, you had better shut up, because I have things to do, and if you bother me too much, I might still decide to throw you out of the hatch without a parachute.”

The Kwaidian girl glared, but kept silent. She wasn’t sure whether the Coriolan was serious or not.

Diva turned her attention to the console. What she needed to know now was if the others had successfully managed to get their spaceships off the ground. She totally forgot the existence of the other girl, losing herself in the fight beneath. Where had Six got to?

SIX HEARD THE jet engine start up nearby as he reached the flexitube at the end of the fixed fuel pipe and his heart leapt in exultation. Diva must have made it! The vibrations carried clearly into his pipe, and he knew that he would never have a better moment to cut through the tube. He hacked away, and then clutched his dagger close to him as he fell to the ground.

The nearby spaceship was beginning to move now, and most of the sycophants around Six were looking at that. Some though, were ducking and looking up, trying uselessly to brush off the liquid fuel which had fallen on them. His shuttle was in horizontal take-off position, Diva’s had been in vertical. Six fell to his knees and scrambled around to the back of the ship. He forgot all about the mask pack, having to tear it off when it blocked. Thank Sacras it hadn’t chosen to block inside the fuel pipe! He felt lucky. He hauled himself up onto the fuselage of the shuttle, and then pulled himself over the tapered exhaust cone, stepping on one of the smaller directional exhaust pipes. From there he was able to reach up to the entry ladder, now horizontal because of the shuttle’s orientation. He was about to swing himself up when he became aware of a rocking movement on the exhaust casing, and ducked instinctively.

The attacking soldier in the sycophant army lurched as the expected contact with his target did not materialize. Six took immediate advantage of that, and flung his arms around the other man’s knees, knocking him down to the casing. Six cursed. He could not allow himself even a few seconds more in open sight of an enemy army. Every second that passed meant that his chances were exponentially slimmer.

He pushed at the man’s face, and that turned out to be the right thing to do. Six’s bodywrap was still coated with propellant, and as he struggled to force the man’s head back, all of the remaining toxicity in the sodden finger wraps reached the man’s eyes. He cried out, and put a hand up to his face.

That was all Six needed. With a huge effort, he tumbled the man off the casing, hung momentarily from the horizontal rungs, then pulled himself up and into the open hatch, punching at the locking mechanism as he fell through the hatch and down onto the interior cabin floor.

Ouch! The landing was far worse than he expected, and he had damaged one hand, which had been trapped under the rest of his body. He stared at it angrily, but the thing dangled quite uselessly. He would have to make do with only one. He did the best he could with the one working hand, racing to get the engine started with monopropellant for a non-vertical takeoff. He could feel the sycophants clambering onto the fuselage, and hear their furious shouts, but he didn’t care. They wouldn’t be able to get at him now, and they would make themselves scarce as soon as the shuttle began to get up speed. As the lights came on inside the cabin he took a moment to check around, but there was nothing and nobody inside the craft. He breathed a sigh of relief, engaged the automatic take-off, and fumbled to strap himself in. The engines began to pick up, the men on the casing could be seen flinging themselves to safety, and the shuttle was turning onto the main runway to the north, ready for take-off. Six braced himself, and took a deep breath. The small shuttle began to hum, as the power stepped-up, then shriek, and then scream until the sound became almost unbearable. At that moment it precipitated itself along the runway, then tilted at an absurd angle up to the clouds. Six struggled to breathe through the hefty gravitational force, and then counted up to thirty as the shuttle reached a suborbital cruising altitude. He turned his attention to the console. He had to find out what had happened to the rest. Where on Sacras was Diva?

GRACE SWALLOWED AS she fed herself gingerly into the fuel tube. She put her knife in her right hand, but facing inwards, and then agonizingly began what seemed to her to be an interminable journey. She had to put all her concentration on breathing slowly, knowing that a blocked mask pack at this stage would be fatal. The only escape from the place she was in now was by cutting open the piping, and even if she could get her knife through the thicker walls of the main pipeline, she would be killed by the sycophants underneath. Her heart was pounding as she inched along the piping, terrified that at any moment she would be seen. Behind her, she heard the scream of a space engine starting up, and knew that either Six or Diva had made it to their designated target. She was so scared that it hardly penetrated in her brain, which was a hundred and twenty percent pumping useless adrenaline around her slight body.

Magestra!
She sent her mother a silent call. Help me, please. I … I … am too scared to do this. Her legs felt like jelly, and something was screaming inside her to get out, get out, GET OUT!

Her mask pack blocked, and for one moment she knew absolute, incapacitating panic. A blackness took over her whole brain, and stopped all rational thought. She was within an inch of trying to cut her way out of the main tube, even though she was still in the middle of the enemy army. Grace frantically tried to hold on to some coherent remnants of decision. Slowly she fought her way back up to logic, to making her body functions obey her brain, to overcoming the black negation. She began to breathe again, at first so shallowly that it was almost imperceptible. The mask pack behaved, allowing the precious oxygen through to her starved cells. She breathed a little deeper, and then a little more, until finally the level of oxygen in her bloodstream normalized, and she was able to continue. She had no idea how much time she had lost. Seconds or minutes? As some cognitive function came back she felt angry at herself. Could she never do anything quite right? It felt hard to be the one who was going to fail on the mission, even though her determination was rock solid.

At last she was at the closed hatch, where she would be able to cut her way out of the thinner flexitube. For a moment she thought she would not have enough strength in her hands to make the first cut. Panic erupted again. Then she set her jaw. No! She was not going to give up! She was going to go through this whole thing; going to show them all that she could be just as heroic as Diva, or Six, or whoever. She renewed her attack on the resistant material, and at last began to make an opening. It all depended on the sycophants, now. Would they have spotted her, would they be there, waiting to catch her?

GERRANT WAS LEADING the way, with Solian following. They had decided to leave a gap between the two of them, in order not to weigh the pipeline down too much, so Gerrant had a full segment’s lead on Solian. They edged their way along the piping, making good time.

They were about half way across the expanse between the fuel depot and the space shuttle. Solian saw Gerrant reach the next Y support and slide over it to the other side, and breathed a sigh of relief. He saw Gerrant’s feet disappear as the other Kwaidian pulled himself over the support and into the following segment, and began to drag himself forward, towards the Y support, entering the segment Gerrant had just abandoned.

There was a sudden wobble in the pipe, and Solian felt disoriented. The pipe seemed to be moving to one side. Solian paused for a moment, and then hurled himself along the rest of the segment, trying desperately to reach the Y support. Something was wrong, the piping was not holding. He tore pieces off the bodywrap as he skimmed the sides in his hurry.

But it was not the pipe. The closer he got the Y support, the more the piping moved. It was not until he was almost on top of the support that he realized why. The Y support itself was breaking. There was a slight angle from one segment to the next, and the combined weight of two bodies, pulling slightly to one side, must have destabilized it. The whole structure was coming down! His heart gave an enormous leap of fear, and then the coupling joining both segments broke at the support, fuel sprayed out over the unsuspecting enemy below, and then the two loose ends separated completely and plummeted to the ground, discharging all their contents into the surrounding sycophants.

Solian pulled off the mask pack, and leapt to his feet. He had been at the top of the piping, and so had been deposited head first, and very quickly. He had time to pull out his sword before they were on him. He tried to find the space shuttle, and his spirits sank. It was another fifteen metres ahead. There were too many sycophants between him and the ship. He knew he would never make it. He raised his sword high above his head, and gave a battle cry.

“NEW KWAIIIIIIIDE!” He shouted, and launched himself into the last battle of his life. He would be dead in seconds, he knew, but he was determined to make those seconds count. He was going to take as many of the enemy with him as he could. He was going to keep their attention away from Grace for as many long moments as he could.

Gerrant felt the piping drop, but was helpless to do very much. He slipped inexorably backwards, feet first, down to the ground. He felt the bitterness of failure, and spared one last thought for Grace. Then he slid out of the piping and they were on him. He was dead before his head emerged from the tubing.

GRACE FELT THE tube suddenly give way as she hacked at it, and dropped in a soggy lump to the ground. She could hear shouting all around her, and for one moment thought she heard the battle cry of New Kwaide from behind her. She didn’t have time to look, though. Hers was one of the upright shuttles – ready for vertical take-off, so she had to find her way around to the ladder and climb up to the hatch. She felt for the first rung, surprised and hugely relieved not to have to fight any sycophants. They all seemed to be surging in a different direction, and a small clearing had opened around her. She didn’t stop to wonder why she had been so lucky, but grasped the first rung with relief. It was only a moment’s work to slip inside and slam one hand against the locking mechanism.

Behind her Solian finally succumbed to the press of eager sycophants. He fell to the ground, and his open eyes began to glaze over, unable to see the nearby shuttle as it rose into the air.

SIX WAS CIRCLING above the spaceport, desperate to know what was happening. His instruments told him that one of the ships had not taken off, but he didn’t know which one was still on the ground. He had been trying to contact one of the others for nearly twenty minutes, but with no success. He punched at the controls savagely.

At last Diva’s voice came through.

“Nomus? Is that you?”

“Took your time answering, didn’t you?” he snarled.

“My housekeeper didn’t tell me you were calling,” she replied, “I will have her replaced immediately.”

“Are you all right?”

“Of course I am all right. A little crisped around the edges, perhaps, no more. You?”

“I am fine, but one of the groups didn’t make it. There is still a ship down there.”

“I know. I think it is Grace’s ship which is in the air, but I can’t get through to her, and I am not sure.”

“How much fuel reserve have you got?”

“I can stooge around here for maybe ten minutes more, and even then I will be hard pressed to make it up to the space station if we do have to go in for an attack.”

“I only have a couple of minutes more than that. We are going to have to make a decision within five minutes. We can’t leave the Elders even one ship. If they can get up to the orbital platform they can destroy it. The ship left on the ground simply has to be destroyed.”

“I know.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Six … there is something you ought to know.”

“What?”

“I have Jalana with me, and she says your other sister – Samaliya – is inside one of the other shuttles. They were brought here by the elders to prevent us attacking.”

“Which ship is she in?”

“Jalana doesn’t know.
You
haven’t got her, so obviously one of the two left. And whoever is piloting the other ship in the air, they are not answering. We are not going to know in time.”

Six felt all his emotions shut down. One moment he was feeling things, and the next everything was a big blank emptiness. He froze. He knew that there was an important decision to be taken somewhere in the world, but not where or what that might be. A dull pain spread out from his chest, and pressed against him, leaving him breathless.

“Wh-wha-what?”

“Can you hear me? —Six, please acknowledge!”

“I … I … heard you.”

“If we destroy the shuttle that is still on the ground – we might be killing Samaliya, as well as Solian and Gerrant or Grace, whoever didn’t get through.”

“They are already dead if they didn’t make it to the ship. They would all have died trying. Either Grace is already dead, or Solian and Gerrant are. But it does mean that we might be killing Samaliya.” Six felt his mouth dry up. “There is a fifty-fifty chance she is on the shuttle on the ground.”

“And a fifty-fifty chance that she is not.”

“I have to choose between New Kwaide and my sister?” Six was still in shock. “How can I do that?”

Diva bit her lip. “Do you … do you want … err … me to do it?” She wasn’t even sure that she could.

Six rested his head in his hands, and rubbed his eyes. “No. Yes. I don’t know. Give me a minute, will you?”

“You can have four, Six, that is all we have got.”

Six closed his eyes. He had begun to shake all over. Cian! Please don’t ask me to do this. I can’t.

DIVA KEPT SILENT for the four minutes, but spent the time trying to contact the other shuttle which had managed to get off the ground. She had no success. The instruments seemed to indicate a vertical take-off, which would mean it was Grace’s ship, but no positive identification was possible since she was not getting through directly.

“Six.”

Six lifted his head wearily. “Yes?”

“I think it is Grace who is in the air, and I should think that if she is, Samaliya would be with her. It would have been much easier for the Elders to have put her into a vertical shuttle than a horizontal one.”

“But we cannot be sure.”

“No. We cannot be sure.”

“What should we do?” For once in his life Six sounded defeated, beaten.

Diva took a very shaky breath, and looked behind her at Jalana, who was still glaring at her. Diva wondered if she had been able to follow the conversation about her sister.

“The result of the war depends on the Elders having no ships,” she said quietly.

“There is no choice then?” he pleaded.

“I can’t see any. If we leave even one ship then whoever has already given their life for the mission will have done so in vain. Grace, perhaps? Or Gerrant and Solian?”

“I am going down. I will do it.” Six’s tongue felt heavy and he found it hard to say the words.

“I am following you in. We will both do it.” Diva was not in a much better state.

“Understood.” Six used his good hand to program the run-in and the projectiles and for a second his finger hovered uncertainly over the console. Then he forced himself to think of those who had already died for the mission, and tried to make his finger bend down towards the console. It didn’t want to obey his brain. He struggled with himself as it paused, shaking, over the engage button. He willed it to press down, to commit the ship and Six himself to irrevocable action. It remained stubbornly still, quivering over the console. He set his jaw—

“Sckrrch … scrrch … Six?” The communication device gave a crackle, and Six heard the person he would most like to hear at that moment.

“Grace?” He shouted, telling Diva at the same time to wait for a moment, that he was in contact with Grace. “Are you all right?”

“I have S-Samaliya here with me, and—” Some static interfered for a moment with the transmission, and then her voice came back again, clear, but choked with emotion, “—they were b-both lying there on the g-ground, and I knew they were dead, so I have d-destroyed the last ship.”

“Grace? Are you sure? Can you repeat?” Six was unaware of the tears of relief streaming down his face. He just knew that something had shifted, that something inside him would never be the same again.

“The last shuttle is d-destroyed, repeat, the last shuttle is destroyed. G-Gerrant and Solian are d-dead, I have tapes of them on the automatic rear cameras. I thought you might think Samaliya was on their ship, so I-I d-destroyed it myself.” Then the transmission faded and Grace’s voice changed. “I think I am going to be s-sick!”

“Just get yourself up to the orbital station, Grace.” Six told her, wiping away the incriminating tears, glad that nobody had been there to witness them. “Are you on automatic now?”

“Yes, all on fully automatic … I’m s-sorry … not feeling quite—”

“Grace? Grace? Are you still there?”

But a hiss of static was all he got back. Six called Diva.

“I know, Six. I caught the second transmission. Let’s just set a course for the orbital platform.” Diva sounded quite exhausted. Her voice was uncharacteristically grey. “See you up there!”

GRACE TUMBLED OUT of the space shuttle and nearly fell. Luckily Ledin was waiting to greet her, and he stepped quickly in to catch hold of her.

“Grace? Are you all right?” The Sellite girl was chalk white, and shaking all over. She seemed in shock. Ledin looked dubiously at the second girl in the shuttle, who was a stranger to him, and signed to one of his squad to come over and keep an eye on this unknown addition. He carried Grace to the station’s galley and gave her a hot sweet drink, insisting she sip it slowly when she declined.

“G-Gerrant and S-Solian are gone. I saw Solian fall as I took off, Gerrant was cut to b-b-bits.” She burst out crying and Ledin put his arms around her.

“I b-blew up the sh-shuttle.” She wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve.

“Good for you!”

“I f-flew p-past first so they would know to get out of the way,” she told him. “B-but Gerrant and Solian were already d-dead. They couldn’t m-move. I b-blew up the s-ship.”

“Grace, they were already dead. They would have been happy to know that they died saving New Kwaide. We will put a monument up to them.”

“But I had to b-blow them up!” she wailed. “I c-couldn’t let S-six do it b-because of his sister!”

There were parts of the conversation which Ledin couldn’t follow, so he put a comforting arm around her, and made her sip some more hot liquid. His hands were stinging where he had touched her, and as he turned them over he saw that they were red. “You are toxic, did you know?”

“She managed a watery laugh, and struggled to her feet. “Of course – the fuel. I have to get under a detox shower.”

“I might join you.” At her look Ledin held up his hands so that she could see how reddened they were, and the blisters which were forming. “Purely a necessity, I assure you!”

“I am s-sorry. Now I have h-hurt you too.”

“I would be a poor warrior if I let a bit of chemical burn bother me, wouldn’t I? And after what you have been through it will be an honour to share the same shower with you. Something to tell my grandchildren about.”

That raised a watery laugh. “Don’t be silly!”

“I am serious. You deserve a shower to yourself, of course, but you know how strictly water is rationed up here.”

Grace sniffed. “Fully clothed?” she checked.

“Fully clothed,” he concurred. “Once we have got that noxious bodywrap off you, that is. And you can explain to me just how you all managed to get through a circle of sycophants and snatch three shuttles from under their noses!”

DIVA DOCKED AT the orbital station and thrust a sullen Jalana into the hands of one of the guards.

“Take her and her stupid sister to one of the holding cells, and lock them in!” she instructed.

“Yes,
Valhai
Diva.”

“And don’t let them persuade any of you to let them out, even though they are Six’s sisters!” She looked around, and if she had been a cat her tail would have been lashing from side to side. She was furious at the world, and not about to stop to figure out just why.

“Grace? Grace?” she shouted. The Sellite girl’s shuttle was already docked, so she must be somewhere.

“In the detox showers,
Valhai
Diva, with Ledin.” the guard informed her, looking with awe at her hair. “You … err … may like to join them.”

“That bad, huh?”

The man gave a sort of nod, which he changed with alacrity into a shake when he saw her expression. “Y … n-no!”

“Oh, never mind! I will find them myself.” Diva strode off in the direction of the cramped crew quarters.

She had already stripped her bodywrap off when she got to the showers, where she found Grace and Ledin sitting on one of the benches in the drying booth, both fully-dressed but dripping. Ledin was rubbing Grace’s hair briskly with a towel. Diva stalked over to the shower and was just about to turn it on when Six strode in too, struggling to pull off the ends of his own bodywrap with only one hand, the other hanging uselessly at his side.

“Don’t take all the water, will you Diva?” he said.

Ledin waved an arm. “Two to a shower,” he said. When they turned unbelieving eyes on him he raised his arms to disclaim all responsibility. “House rules,” he explained. “Shortage of water.”

“Grrr!” Diva was not amused. She stepped into the shower, waiting impatiently as Six climbed in after her, and then turned the tap on full force. A disappointing trickle was all that came out. Ledin and Grace clutched their sides with amusement as she cursed and Six looked long-suffering.