Warp World (24 page)

The Storm crackled ominously in the distance. The rider roared low over the surface, heading toward a dark mountain range. Shan tapped a couple of buttons on the console and a joystick flipped out next to Ama’s arm. A screen before her lit up with an image of the surface, whizzing by, split into three different views. One view was the visual as they were seeing it, only light-enhanced. Another was the d-scan, which showed wireframe schematics of anything penetrable, such as buildings. The third was the thermal display—red for hot; blue for cold; green, yellow and orange for the variations between.

“We’re doing your owner a little favor,” Shan said.

“He’s not my owner,” Ama said.

“Yeah, yeah, so you keep telling me. Anyway, he’s got some crazy plans I’m not supposed to know about. But he needs me, whether he knows it or not. You see that stick beside you?”

“Yes.”

“That’s the one I told you about. You’re going to use that to take pictures for me. You pull the trigger and move that stick around, keep it going over the hill as we approach, and try to get as much of the Keep as possible. You’ll see it all on the display. I won’t be able to hold your hand on it once they start aiming at us.”

“Once who starts aiming at us?”

“House Etiphar, the World’s most notorious and hated renegades. ’Bout a hundred years ago they were declared a Black House—that’s about the worst thing you can be here, worse than caj in some ways. There was a bunch of stuff that led up to the declaration but Etiphar corked it when they deliberately abandoned extrans raider units on a failed raid just to recover costs. Filthy, back-stabbing bastards. So they got Blacked, which is like being cast out, or shunned, and instead of following protocol, they decided to stage their own private revolution. Ended up out here in the wastes, in Julewa Keep. A lot of raiders and pilots died trying to pry them out of there but Julewa is almost impenetrable and those Eti’s are insane when it comes to defending their turf. No one’s gone near it for over eighty years.”

“And we’re going there now?” Ama asked. “Even though they’re going to shoot at us?

“Don’t blow a gill. I said
aim
, not shoot. I mean, they
might
not shoot at us, it’s not like they’re expecting company. Even if they do, it’ll just be a couple of warning shots. Old weapons, too. Eti’s have been cut off from the World for a long time.”

“If you say so.”

“I say so,” Shan said, though she didn’t sound completely convincing, even to herself. “Now shut up and concentrate.”

Ama grabbed the stick and Shan focused on the mountain that was coming up fast.

“Alright.” Shan laid the craft over on its side and veered toward the mountain. “Let’s see what you Black House kargers got in there.”

Julewa. Shan had never seen it up close. Riders kept a sixty kilometer safety radius away from the perimeter and there was no good reason to fly over the area, even for Stormwatch. She could see now why House Etiphar had chosen the site—the building, sculpted from stone, was barely distinguishable from the mountain. Heavy shutters kept the Storm out and the only way in, that she could see, was a single landing area at the very top. Any attacking forces would have to put in there, making them an easy target for the Keep’s well-entrenched defenders.

Even a small army could hold this ground indefinitely, if they were diligent. The question was, were the Eti defender’s diligent? Would they still be on alert after almost eighty years without visitors?

As if in answer to her question, lights flashed in the cockpit and alarm tones sounded in the helmet earpieces.

“Don’t mind that.” Shan reached across Ama to flip a couple of switches. “That just means they’ve seen us.”

As soon as the words left her lips, a new, orange light flashed.

“What does that mean?” Ama asked.

Shan jerked the yoke around to move the rider in a less predictable pattern. “That means they have bad intentions.”

As they swerved, Ama kept her hand firmly in place on the stick. “Bad intentions as in wanting to kill us?”

“Affirmative.”

The early morning sky lit up with tracer fire, stitching through the air. An insistent androgynous voice chimed in their ears. “
Missile locked. Missile locked. Missile locked
.”

“Bet they don’t fire off,” Shan said, though her voice was tight. “They can’t have many left. They’re just trying to spook us. Get ready. I’m going to take us on a long curve around. We want shots from every angle. We’ll get all the data we can from this run, so that when your crazy karger wants to come rampage, he’ll know what he’s facing.”

She rolled the rider and lined them into a tight turn. High G-forces went to work, pulling down on her arms and the skin of her cheeks. Her head felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds and her vision narrowed. Cursing physics and giving thanks for her G-suit, Shan could only hope that the savage primitive in the co-pilot seat wouldn’t pass out or go into hysterics before collecting enough data to make this ride worth the risk.

A light flared from below. Apparently the locals did feel they had enough missiles to spare.

“Oh, karg.” Shan stabbed at the display in front of her as she kicked in the afterburners. “Show’s over.”

“
Thirty seconds to impact
,” the voice cheerfully informed them.

Shan hit the countermeasures and corkscrewed the rider away from the mountain. Now she really hoped that Eraranat came back to karg this hill over. Popping flak was one thing—an entirely understandable response to having an uninvited intruder in your airspace—but a missile? That was downright hostile.

“Twenty seconds to impact.”

Time crawled. The countermeasures weren’t working, probably because this old dog of a missile was too primitive for the fancy, state of the art equipment they were flying. She was going to have to break the lock in a different way.

Shan set up the fan profile as she whirled them through the air.

“Shan?”

“Shut up.”

Of all the ways to go, being downed by a missile that was obsolete over a hundred years ago was not what she wanted for her epitaph.

“Ten seconds.”

One trick left. She leveled out and watched the track, then slammed the fans forward. The airframe screamed in protest as they zeroed speed in roughly a second. They both rammed forward, even against the automatic adjustment of their harnesses, and the rapid deceleration threatened to knock them out cold.

The restraint system held Shan’s head in place; the g-force pulled her forward, and then back. She pushed the yoke forward and up, dumping them into a spin as the missile skimmed over them, missing by a whisker.

Now to hope the stupid thing didn’t have either reacquisition capability or a long-term sustainer motor, because this spin was going flat in a hurry and that was going to leave them sitting ducks.

One problem at a time. 

As the world spun around her, Shan fought the pull of centrifugal force to reconfigure the fans and correct the spin. She did not want to eject over this Storm-forsaken chunk of rock. Even if the Black House didn’t come after them, they wouldn’t survive a day out in the open, especially with no extraction.

Win or die. She jammed the program through and the fans screeched as they fought to right the craft. Laboring mightily, the fans struggled against both the spin and the loss of airflow that threatened to choke them off.

“C’mon you kargin’ piece of junk!” Shan screamed at the craft as it came out of the flat spin. Her body stretched against the restraint harness. The heavy brace cut into her flesh as she fought to focus and manipulate the controls.

They rocked from the concussion of a nearby burst, and shrapnel pelted the hull with a sound like stones pinging against metal. The wireframe schematic displaying the craft’s hull and system integrity blinked orange in several places

Righting the fans, Shan jammed the afterburners in, and dove to regain speed. Just above the surface, she broke the dive. G-forces reversed, sucking her back against the seat. Her face stretched backwards and she fought the stick to maintain pressure. They skimmed across the terrain at a breakneck pace. She laid the craft over on its side to avoid a massive rock outcropping; the wake-blast of the afterburners launched a minor rockslide behind them.

Yeah, and she didn’t qualify for Aggressor training? Her lips pulled back in a fierce grin as she flipped to the horizontal and rode the craft back up to altitude, safely beyond the range of the Etiphar guns.

In the distance, the missile detonated—a white comet against the sky.

“HA!” She banged her fist on her thigh. “Suck ass, you backstabbing murderous grubbers!”

With that, Shan slumped back against the seat. She was soaked with sweat and the acrid tang of fear filled the cockpit. “If I had a raid load, I’d go back and crack that rock open.”

Foolish bravado. It would take more than a single raid load to crack that rock. More like a full wing with gunship support to even make an appreciable dent, if she was honest. But, by the Storm, she wanted to peel that shell open and cram a load of rockets and seekers right down their throats. “Bastards.”

In the co-pilot seat, Ama sat silent, mouth hanging open. Both of their chests were heaving and it would take some time for the adrenaline flowing through the cockpit to subside.

Shan sucked in a breath. “I’m gonna need a new flight suit.”

“Me too,” Ama said.

They looked at each other and broke down into adrenaline-fueled laughter.

Shan kicked off the burners and brought the craft back down to cruising speed. “In the meantime, let’s go finish our boundary survey, so we look legit.”

“Whatever you say, Captain.”

“No idea how I’m gonna explain the damage, but I’ll come up with something on the way.”

“You didn’t think this out too well, did you?” Ama asked, in an exaggerated imitation of Shan’s earlier line.

“Story of my life.”

As they cruised, the morning light washed over the wasteland—endless stretches of desert punctuated by the occasional rock formation or the ruins of once-flourishing cities. Despite the barren emptiness, there was a beauty to all that open space.

“If I were you, I’d never come back to land.” Ama gazed out the cockpit window. “This is amazing. I wish I could fly.” She sighed, perhaps realizing the futility of that dream. “I didn’t know people lived outside the shield.”

“Not
People
. Escaped caj, the Storm-driven, bandits, scavengers, and crazies like the Etis. No sane Person lives outside the shield,” Shan said. “There’s a thousand ways to die in the wasteland and caj with grafts get picked off easy enough. Even if they manage to karg with the machinery, lots of times the graft locaters still function. Raider squads light ’em up and hunt them as part of training.”

“That’s horrible.”

“That’s the World,” Shan said.

She banked the craft toward the distant, black mountain of clouds, riven with crimson and gold lightning. Out here, in the open, the Storm seemed even more menacing. It felt hungry and alive.

Ama whistled softly as the clouds grew larger in front of the craft.

“So, if no sane person lives outside the shield, why is Seg interested in Julewa Keep?”

“
That
is a very good question,” Shan said.

“Is it always like this?” Ama asked, an unmistakable tinge of fear in her voice.

“Sometimes it settles down, sometimes it rages. It’s been pretty nasty lately, dunno why.” She tapped a button and a holographic display came up, with flashing blue carats. “Those are the forward monitoring stations. They start up and shut off as the storm advances and retreats, lets us chart the boundaries. And I guess the CWA does stuff with them, but they don’t tell the likes of us about it. Wellies are even crabbier and more secretive than the Guild.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ama said, her voice drifting away at the end. She raised her hands to either side of her helmet and dipped her head forward as if she were trying to shake something loose from inside. “What happens if the Storm gets worse? If it gets bigger?” she asked in a strained voice.

“It eats the World.” Shan’s hands moved constantly as the turbulence level increased. They skirted the edges of the Storm; the thunder banged non-stop but was muffled by their helmets. “That’s why we go and kick over dirt piles like yours, so we can feed the hungry karger.”

“And what about the voices?”

“The what?”

“You don’t hear them?”

Shan shook her head as they cleared the next marker. Lightning danced in front of them, arcing down to the ground. Beneath them, revealed in the cloud flash, the ruins of an old settlement the People had abandoned generations before were briefly highlighted—crumbling buildings and half-glimpsed figures running for shelter.

Ama leaned back in the seat, eyes squeezed shut.

“You gonna throw out?” Shan asked. “Most do on the first ride.”

“I’m not sick.”

Shan figured if the girl hadn’t tossed by now, after all the acrobatics, it wasn’t likely she would. But she didn’t look well.

Not my problem
, she thought, as they crossed the final waypoint and turned back to home.

They rode with just the muted roar of the engines until the Storm was well behind them.

Eventually Ama perked up and opened her eyes once more. “Jarin explained to me why your people don’t leave, but I don’t know if I’d want to go on living on a world where there was no hope.”

“Y’know, I almost forgot you’re a kargin’ Outer, then you come along and say something dumb like that.”

“Yeah, well, I
am
an Outer. Guess that’s never going to change.” Ama turned away and stared out the window.

“Guess not,” Shan muttered, as the shield over Cathind grew larger ahead of them. 

Tongue stuck between her lips, Shan concentrated on bringing the wounded rider down. The crash crews were assembled on the tarmac in case the landing went awry, ready to extinguish any fires and attempt to rescue the crew.

“Remember to keep your mouth shut when we put down,” she said.