Black Hawks From a Blue Sun Read online

  “I’m never gonna get used to that.”

  “Jettisoning main drive. Popping orbital relay.” Beckert states. The craft jolts with a muffled boom as the engines separate and drift away. “Course set. Atmospheric interface in ten seconds.”

  The planet nearly fills Thompson’s screen, save the slight curve of the horizon at the top. Enormous islands slide gracefully beneath them. On the larger islands, rivers thread like veins across the white and brown landscapes.

  “Nine…eight…seven…”

  On the flattening horizon a vast inland bay appears, extending over a thousand kilometers in all directions.

  “Six…five…four…”

  Argo continues his work, too busy to appreciate the magnificent view.

  “Three…two…one…Interface.”

  Thompson braces for another jolt, but there is only an eerie calm. Gradually, Thompson’s screen glows brighter. An ever so slight pinkish-orange glow surrounds the screen’s edge like an aura.

  “Hull temp crossing 600 degrees,” Beckert announces.

  Thompson remains glued to the screen as the glow intensifies. The image crackles, nearly breaking up before restoring itself.

  “800 degrees…”

  Argo moves with speed, saving the last bits of data on the yellow sun before the craft slips into the night side of the planet.

  “1,000 degrees…”

  The first buffets of wind rock the craft, swaying the men in their recliners.

  “Trim angle of attack holding…TPS tiles intact. Hull temp 1,300 degrees…”

  The gentle whoosh of air grows louder as the buffeting becomes more pronounced. Beckert has to raise his voice.

  “1,600 degrees…”

  Out of habit, Thompson punches up the basic indicators of ship systems. From stem to stern, everything is green bars. When he goes back to real time view, all he gets is static. He punches the keys again, getting the same result.

  He looks over at Argo and sees him sitting patiently in his recliner. His console is shut down and the labset is no longer docked on the console.

  “Brick, why can’t I get video?”

  “We’re surrounded by plasma. It’s affecting our sensors. We should be out of it in a few minutes, but…”

  “But, what?”

  Argo grimaces. “We’re highly visible to anyone looking. Might as well be sending a beacon.”

  “Z-minus five minutes,” Beckert calls over the roaring wind.

  Thompson closes the video screen and opens a new one. The computer renders an image of their craft which resembles a tear drop cut in half with three bulges on the flat side. Initiate and prime crash systems, he types.

  The image rotates to the flat side of the craft and highlights the three bulges in yellow.

  Arm crash pod ejection system? the computer queries.

  Confirm, he types, and the three pods flash from yellow to red.

  “Lock into recliners!”

  Argo makes a last check of his equipment to make sure it is all stowed properly and clicks into his restraints. Beckert does the same while Thompson runs final checks over each pod. The buffeting grows severe.

  “Brick! Are you secure?”

  “Aye, Sir!”

  “Geek! Are you secure?”

  “Yes, Sir!”

  Thompson clicks into his own restraints. “Sealing crash pods. Switch to helmet mic and confirm hard seal.”

  From both sides, the walls of his pod rise to the low ceiling and latch tight with a hiss. He swallows to equalize the pressure in his ears.

  “Hard seal confirmed,” Argo radios.

  “Hard seal confirmed,” Beckert echoes.

  “Close faceplates and stand by.”

  With the pod doors closed and his faceplate sealed, Thompson is well insulated from the noise of their descent. He rocks gently in his recliner while the consoles around him shudder with vibration. As he waits, he realizes that just beyond the thin walls of this pod is their ancient home, an entire planet where humans once numbered in the billions, a place where life was diverse and fascinating, where people could breathe without life support, swim in abundant water supplies, feast on wondrous varieties of nutrients. Now, a vast graveyard…

  “Z-minus one minute,” Beckert warns.

  Thompson shakes himself, amazed how quickly the last three and a half minutes passed. “Maintain radio silence after ejection. Once you’re on the ground, police up your gear and vaporize your pod, then converge on me.”

  His mind focuses and he draws slow, deep breaths to prepare for the imminent g-forces of ejection.

  “Thirty seconds…”

  The Gun blanks his mind, driving off anticipation, sweeping away anxiety.

  “Fifteen seconds…”

  Centered and ready, he sways in his recliner.

  “Three…two…one…MARK.”

  A sound like a dozen mallets striking metal clangs throughout the cabin. A great force crushes Thompson back, and the violent roar of wind returns. The pod tumbles end over end around him, shifting and wobbling through the dense air. Even with the recliner’s isolation from the tumbling pod, Thompson grunts from the abuse. Long moments tick by as he hurtles toward the ground. With no windows and the endless rolling, he has no idea which way is up.

  Noisy hydraulics switch on, extending long blades from the back of the pod. The pod abruptly halts its tumbling, and the dragging blades slow the maddening free fall. Thompson’s recliner spins over a few times before settling. Fluid rises to the top of his throat. He chokes it down.

  “Just like simulation,” he mutters.

  As gravity reasserts itself, Thompson pulls his console closer. The screen displays an image of his egg-shaped pod and highlights the bottom third.

  Ballast Purge? the screen requests.

  Thompson smacks a flashing red button and another staccato clang echoes through the pod. The entire bottom of the egg, containing the heavy life support and cryogenic machinery, drops away. Much lighter, the pod lurches with deceleration.

  On screen, the image zooms in to three narrow booster nozzles at the bottom edge. Braking Thrusters Armed, the computer displays and the nozzles flash from yellow to red.

  Thompson cycles a switch on the left of his console and his hand hovers over a large button. Wind whistles by as the altimeter plunges below 1000 meters. He grits his teeth and mashes the button.

  Thrusters ignite, crushing the Gun in his recliner, collapsing his chest, and stretching the skin of his face. The pod reverberates with phenomenal noise, and just as suddenly, the thrust ends. He gasps a quick breath as the feeling of weightlessness returns. The blades retract into the pod and it free-falls the last fifty meters.

  Thompson’s hands shake. His breathing quickens. The impact is going to be hard.

  The pod punches through forest canopy, stripping every branch in its way. It slams sideways into a rocky outcropping, ricocheting down the forested slope. Young trees snap at the trunk and old trees shrug the pod aside.

  The egg pitches and rolls, brutalizing its occupant. Seams in the outer shell rip open, spraying the interior with dirt. A jolt from below lofts the egg and it is falling again. With a deafening crack, one whole side of the egg collapses and the recliner breaks loose. The pod rolls over once more and comes to rest. Water sloshes in from below.

  Thompson’s eyes dance in their sockets. Delayed jolts of pain explode through his head and body as he struggles to recover his breath.

  A powerful blue spark surges at the bottom of the pod, and the few lights whiff out. In the darkness, a single shaft of silvery light penetrates the egg from a split at the top. He focuses on the swirling shaft of smoky light, trying to merge his doubled vision.

  He breathes deeply, draining the pain away. For a moment he lies in the wreck of his pod, watching smoke swirl in the shaft of moonlight.

  I’m on the surface!

  New vitality springs within and he clears the recliner restraints. His legs ache but obey his comm
ands, pushing him clear of the ruined chair. The Gun’s feet plunge into shin-deep water and he stretches out in search of his rifle. His hands feel around for the familiar shape, grazing submerged boxes and pod fragments, until he finds it dangling from the side wall. The cradle it snapped into has pulled free on all but one of its rivets. The sturdy weapon, however, is unbent.

  Thompson takes his trusted companion in his grip and checks it quickly. It carries a few more nicks but is in perfect working order. He loads a battery and primes the capacitors, ready for the outside world.

  Crouching low, Thompson feels for the escape hatch and finds it directly beneath him.

  Naturally, he curses

  He turns to the open seam overhead. His armored hand slides through and feels the gap. It widens just beyond the interior edge.

  He shoves the butt of his rifle into the gap and pries. The pod’s alternating metal and carbon fiber layers groan and snap in protest, spreading wider. He removes his rifle and peers through.

  Stark moonlight streams between the trees, shining directly on the pod’s exterior. The outer layers of the thick pod wall are peeled like an onion.

  Taking hold of the inner layers, he peels from the inside, making a hole large enough for himself. With one hand, he juts a piece of reflective metal through the gap, turning it like a periscope. In the improvised mirror, moonlight dances over a pond and spills between wind swayed trees. It refracts in steam rising around the pod, creating ethereal columns that are whisked away with each breeze.

  Uphill, a great swath of broken branches and torn earth climbs in a meandering trail. The only sounds are the slight hiss of air through leaves and the gurgle of water filling the pod.

  Thompson drops the metal and activates the scope of his rifle, setting it to link wirelessly with his visor. A small translucent window opens in the bottom left of his view.

  With both hands, he thrusts the weapon up through the gap and levels it. The infrared scope peers through the steam, revealing a landscape of rocks, trees, moss, and dark soil. Tiny heat sources flit through distant branches, keeping a wary distance.

  Thompson retracts his rifle and props it. After collecting every case of equipment from inside the egg, he hurls them one at a time out of the gap to the pond’s edge. The last item he grabs is a dark metal frame, which is likewise hurled to the pond’s edge. He puts his rifle through the gap for a quick sweep then hauls himself up through the hole.

  The pod shifts beneath him as he adjusts his footing. Every angle of it looks as though clubbed by giants, with massive dents and peeled composite layers. When he leaps from the egg, his boots sink into loose muck at the edge of the pond, and he slogs to dry land.

  Thompson’s head swivels to and fro as he collects his gear. Each box, he snaps onto the dark metal frame. Once the rack of equipment is fully assembled, he lifts it overhead and guides it onto rails in his back armor. The rack slides neatly and locks tight.

  Rifle in hand, the Gun runs up the rough trail of destruction, pausing to collect fragments from the pod. It is a short way before the trail ends at a circle of flattened trees. Looking up, he sees a rocky outcropping nearly fifty meters away. Broken saplings dangle over the edge.

  That second drop…no wonder I hit so hard.

  Thompson lugs the debris back to the pod and tosses the scraps into the steamy pond. Taking a bulb-shaped device from his waist, he rotates the cylindrical neck and a red display clicks up to 5:00. With a deep breath, he grips the neck, mashes the end with his thumb three times, and lobs the device inside the pod.

  His muddy boots dig deep into the organic soil as he bolts up the trail. He dives through the foliage, using the thinner trees to pull himself up the steeper sections. He is nearly all the way to the top of the ridge when the counter reaches zero. There is a bright flash, and the Gun dives prone.

  The ground thumps hard beneath him, followed by a thunderous crack. Dead branches and leaves fall from the blasted trees, a thick limb slamming down less than a meter from his head. Booming echoes fade as they roll down the valley.

  Thompson shrugs off his covering of branches and resumes his climb to the ridge crest.

  The trees end near the top, and Thompson looks back across the nighttime terrain. A plume of black and white rises from a charred scar in the trees where his pod used to be, illuminated from below by smoldering flame and from above by a nearly full moon. Peering through his rifle scope, he scans the burning crater and finds no trace of the battered egg, just rings of felled and carbonized trees. With a nod to himself, he lowers his weapon and looks across the valley, dreamlike and surreal in the moonlight.

  A bright flash behind him makes him crouch and pull his weapon close. The ground thumps under his boots again and a sharp crack rushes past him with its entourage of echoes.

  Thompson runs to the far side of the ridge crest and looks into the adjacent valley. Approximately halfway up the far side, a brilliant fireball balloons and dulls to deep red as it rises in the clear air. The Gun lifts his weapon to look through the scope again. No question, one of his teammates just detonated their pod.

  Breaking his own order, he dials his radio transmitter down to its lowest output and keys his mic.

  “Team Forestall, respond with location.” The radio crackles with static.

  “Brick, here. Top of ridge, directly above crash site.”

  Thompson raises his rifle scope to his eye and traces a line from the burning crater to the ridge crest. At first he sees nothing. Then, he finds a thick tree arching to one side. The Gun magnifies the bent tree in his scope and sees a black-armored mass climbing up the listing trunk. The mass squats and illuminates a lamp on its head.

  Thompson sets his rifle output to “signal” and triggers rapidly, coding a message in flashing light.

  Do you see Geek?

  Argo shakes his head.

  Keep watch. Thompson codes. I’m coming to you.

  Argo gives a “thumbs up” hand signal and extinguishes the helmet light.

  Thompson hops down the steep grade, letting gravity pull him as fast as possible. His strong legs absorb the shock of each landing and launch him again, covering large stretches of land in one bounce. By degrees, the slope levels and he sprints full speed to the bottom.

  When he arrives, he hears a noise like static, only deeper. Just beyond the thinning trees is a frothing stream of white water, undulating and spitting. With a cautious glance to the sky above, he steps toward the stream, studying its curves and motions. A variety of different solutions cross his mind, but urgency hastens his decision.

  The Gun straps his rifle to himself securely and sprints at the white water. At the stream’s edge, he hurls himself into the air and straightens out like a missile, plunging into the powerful currents. Immediately, he is dragged to the bottom and slammed into the rock bed. Currents grind him against every immovable stone downstream.

  No longer sure of up or down, he reaches out with his arms. One hand grazes a patch of gravel and it is the clue he needs to orient himself. Flailing and paddling, he points his legs downstream and pushes hard off of the next boulder.

  Moonlight streams through his visor as he explodes past the chaotic surface. Pulling with all his strength, he drags himself to the shallows and strides from the stream. At the tree line, he looks over his shoulder with dismay and respect.

  “Never do that again…” he tells himself.

  Working the stiffness from his back and arms he sets off into the underbrush to rendezvous with Argo.

  Living Life Support

  Cresting the mountain ridge, Thompson scans the clearing. In the pre-dawn light, trees stand straight and true, save one listing heavily to the side. Tracing his view up the trunk, he sees Argo perched like a colossal vulture watching the sky. The Brick’s massive cannon lies across his lap. Argo spots him and raises a hand in greeting.

  Thompson sprints over and leaps up into the branches of an adjacent tree. The tree leans, though not nearly so much as Ar
go’s.

  Still watching the sky, Argo points straight out.

  Thompson, dripping from his river crossing, settles into his perch and follows Argo’s outstretched arm. Just beyond the horizon, a thick column of sooty smoke and dust billows into the air.

  “Our ship’s crash site?” Thompson asks, his voice electronic and clipped through his helmet speaker.

  Argo nods, his voice equally modulated. “Look closer.”

  Thompson raises his rifle scope and magnifies the distant cloud. Fires below the horizon tinge the underside of the cloud in dull orange and feed the spreading fumes above. He is about to lower his rifle when a tiny speck moves from behind the dense smoke, just high enough to reflect the early morning light. It orbits the column slowly.