Forever Until Tomorrow (War Eternal Book 5) (35 page)

"Kate," Trevor started to say.

"Captain Jackson, you have the wire?" Katherine asked, cutting him off.

"Yes, ma'am."

She turned and motioned to the armor. Jackson retrieved the wire from his back, hooking it to a pair of anchors on the shoulders of Katherine's armor, and then to his own.

She returned to the edge, leaning out over it. The list would make it easier to get up and down. She went backward, rappelling down the side of the shaft toward the bottom. She paused at each floor, shining her headlamp into it, revealing more of the same empty corridors.
 

She was halfway down when she heard the first crack. It came from somewhere deep within the ship, a sharp groan that echoed along the frame and created a loud snap above them. She held tight, waiting for the craft to move, to buckle in and sink a little more.
 

"Are you okay down there, Major?" Captain Jackson asked.

"Affirmative," Katherine replied. "My ears are ringing a little, though."

"Mine, too."

She dropped down two more floors. A second groan sounded, and she paused again, a sense of fear reaching up toward her from the depths. Maybe she should head back up? Maybe Trevor was right?

She looked down. She was so close to the bottom. Too close to give up. She pushed off, letting the wire feed out. It was a ten-meter drop into the bottom of the shaft. She slowed herself slightly as she reached it, hitting the water with a loud splash.

Her fatigues kept the frigid liquid from piercing through and into her skin, holding it at bay as it rose to her knees. She slipped on an unseen piece of debris, catching herself against the wall. Then she looked down.

The light pierced the water more easily from close up. She saw a face, slightly bloated but preserved. She stumbled back toward the wall. "Shit."

"Katherine? What is it?" Trevor asked from above.

She got over the initial surprise. She followed the face down to a torso, and then to the debris. A hand was visible there, its complexion too dark to belong to the same person.
 

"It looks like part of the shaft collapsed onto some people down here," she said. She leaned in closer, looking at the face. It was familiar to her. It resembled the configuration she had run into in the loop station. "It looks like one of Watson's."

A third pop sounded within the ship. A vibration passed along it, almost knocking Katherine over. The sound of bending metal followed. She turned her attention to the sound. A single opening. A mangled but passable area that moved toward the rear of the starship.
 

Katherine checked the map, confronted with a moment of confusion when she realized that she was off it. She adjusted the schematic to get her bearings.
 

She was three levels further down than anyone had been before.

"I'm outside the boundaries," Katherine said. "Deeper than the map goes. I can see an opening toward the aft."

"Major, you should get out of there," Jackson said. "If more of the ship is opening up, it's only because it's unstable." A fourth vibration shook them, emphasizing his point. "I'm going to reel you back up."

"Negative," Katherine said, taking a few steps toward the bulkhead. "I'm going to see what's through the hole."

"That's not a good idea, Major," Jackson said. "You could get trapped down there."

"It's a chance I have to take, Captain," she replied.
 

"Kate," Trevor said, switching to a private channel. "You don't need to do this. If we can't reach the engine, neither can Watson. If the XENO-1 is going to sink, let the device sink with it."

"You know I can't. We need it as much as he does. Origin said it has to be on the Dove."

"Why?"

"So the Dove can go into the next recursion."

"Why?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why does it need to go into the next recursion? What's the point? We lose anyway, don't we?"

"The point is that we don't give up, Trev. We keep fighting. We keep trying. Origin said the Mesh is broken, and that we have a chance. This is our chance. If the eternal engine is down here, I'm going to find it."

"Then I'm coming down with you."

"No. Stay up there. There's only one way in or out of this space, and that's through you. If Watson shows up, you have to keep him neutralized. Set up a defensive perimeter with Jackson."

"Is that an order, Major?"

"Does it have to be?"

"No. You have a point. I'll take care of the defenses. Don't go silent on me."

"Affirmative."

Katherine returned her attention to the corridor. The opening was too small for the power armor. She was going to have to leave it.

She disengaged, releasing the bindings and powering down. Then she stepped off, reaching back and taking her rifle from the side. The water was up to her knees now, and the watertight insulation of her fatigues was beginning to lose the battle against the cold.
 

She pushed on, through the water to the corridor, crouching low and navigating her way through the twisted frame. The passage beyond was also bent, crushing in on itself as damage and time finally caught up to the starship. She had no idea how much time she had, or even where she was going. It didn't matter. If she died down here, so be it. At least she would die trying.

"We're set and ready," Trevor said a short time later. "Nothing is getting through here. Any leads?"

"Not yet," Katherine replied. "The ship goes on forever." She looked ahead. There was still only the one corridor, leading straight back toward the rear. "I feel like I'm being directed. Every other passage I cross is blocked by debris."

"A trap?"

"It feels like it should be, but what would be the point? Watson could have killed me back in D.C. No. I think I'm supposed to be down here. Whatever is going to happen, it's going to happen soon."

"Affirmative. We've got your back."

Katherine kept walking. Could it be that the ship had been altered for her arrival as if it knew the state of the world outside? Or had it all been pre-organized and pre-ordained based on prior recursions? Had she been here before? Walked this corridor before? It all seemed so impossible, and at the same time was the only thing that made sense to her. Who knew what permutations of coincidence could be created when history had repeated some version of itself over the course of infinite time?

It was enough to make her head spin if she thought too much about it. It was better to accept what was, rather than try to understand it. Her present experience was the only experience that mattered to the her that was here now.

Twenty minutes passed. The air grew colder. Katherine was sure she should have reached the back of the ship by now, but the corridor continued. It had changed, however; turning into a smooth, cylindrical alloy that appeared newer than everything else.
 

Something had made this after the crash.
 

Something that was probably still here.

She could imagine how the cylinder might have been closed off before, tucked away and hidden so that no one could find it, including Watson. For whatever reason - whether because of the ship's deterioration, past recursions, or her presence - it was open now.

The passage ended at a large sealed hatch, at least ten meters in diameter. It loomed over her, a monument to the secret waiting on the other side. Katherine approached it without slowing, without hesitation, half-expecting it to open as she neared.
 

It didn't. Not right away. Instead, a small light in the shape of a hand began to flash on the surface.
 

She finished her journey, reaching the barrier and staring at the panel. She should have sent word back to Trevor and the team. In the moment, she forgot. She had come a long way in a very short time.

She reached out, putting her hand to the light. It glowed beneath her palm. She knew instinctively what was going to happen then, as though she had been waiting for it to happen since the day she had been born. The same way she had known to look for the falling starship before it had appeared in the sky.

A hiss of air, a soft clang, and a rumble. Then the doors began to part. More intense light greeted her eyes; a quickly pulsing blue. It blinded her for a moment, leaving her unable to make out the details of the chamber that was revealed. She could see a large structure in the center, thousands of branches spreading out in all directions from it, reaching around the room and plunging down into the ice below. She could see a silhouette in the center of it, a black outline of a human-shaped figure facing away from her.

Time slowed down. Seconds passed as if they were hours. The brightness began to come into focus, the figure at the center of it all turning toward them, yet still remaining anchored to the core of energy.
 

Katherine walked toward it, each step an eternity. She couldn't get close enough, fast enough. There was no fear in her. Only an excitement she couldn't completely understand.

Sound. A voice. It was slow at first before reality resumed. She heard the words in her head almost before they were finished being spoken.

"Mother," Kathy said. "You're right on time."

"There it is," Captain Verma said, pointing down toward the black splotch in the center of a sea of white. "Not quite what you were expecting, is it?"

Mitchell looked down at his starship, a wave of memory washing over him. He remembered the day he found her, hidden in the asteroid field, guided to the spot by a recording made by Major Katherine Asher hundreds of years before. Everything had changed since then, he knew. The Mesh was broken. Continuity was destroyed. That past had little to do with this past. This time.
 

Was it the first time?
 

He would make sure it was the last.

"Any sign of life down there?" he said.
 

"Not that I can see," Verma replied. "Quiet as a morgue. Oh. Wait. Thermals are picking up something. Two somethings."

Verma flipped a switch on the center console of the VTOL, activating a small monitor that reflected what he saw on his helmet's visor. The outline of the ship was obvious, as was the ice and rock. Two reddish figures stood close together.
 

"Guards," Mitchell said. "Someone has to be inside."

"Do we drop in and say hello?" Stoker said. "Or would you rather take them by surprise?"

"You said UEA and U.S. forces shouldn't be in the area," Mitchell said.

"That's right. They've been limiting activity. The ice is apparently unstable, thanks to a warmer than usual climate."

"Let's go with surprise," Mitchell said.

"Yes, sir. You heard the man, Mazerat."

"Yes, sir. Hold tight."
 

The VTOL shuddered as Verma adjusted course, rapidly ascending away from the scene. It was the same tactic they had used nine hours earlier when they had taken Mitchell and his companions unaware.

"This is my favorite part," Stoker said. "Come on, Colonel, let's give our drop team the good news."

Mitchell followed Stoker from the cockpit to the cramped space at the rear of the craft. The Fighting Fifteenth was already geared up and ready to go, in skin tight black wingsuits that would allow them to swoop in nearly silently.
 

"Kook, Demon, Dreck, you're on drop detail," Stoker said. "We'll be on the site in t-minus thirty."

"Yes, sir," the three soldiers replied.
 

"There are two targets on the ground," Mitchell said. "Assume they're unfriendly, but try not to kill them unless you have to."

"Roger," Koos said.

"We'll join you on the ground once it's clear," Stoker said. "Keep things copacetic for us, will you?"

"Affirmative," Sergeant Damon said.
 

Kook brought them to the side door. "It's damn cold out there, soldiers. Be ready to get slapped in the face."

The statement reminded Mitchell to pull his insulated headgear down and cover his face as the rest of the squad did the same, lowering AR goggles over the white cloth.