Hex (17 page)

“And kiss your—” Sandy began.

“Shut up!” Sean snarled. Kyra was frightened enough as it was, and Sandy's fatalism was only making it worse. He reached across the aisle to push Kyra's head down, then he did the same himself. The harness dug into his chest and stomach, and he suddenly became conscious of the pull of gravity. Just then, gravity was something of which he could use a little less . . .

Long, long minutes went by during which he couldn't see anything except the toes of his boots and heard nothing but the rush of the wind and an occasional mechanical noise. Sean was almost ready to think that it might be a smooth and uneventful landing when Mark suddenly shouted, “Brace yourselves!” And then . . .

The harsh and ugly screech of the landing gear coming into contact with snow and ice. The craft shook violently, tossing him back and forth within his seat. He was just beginning to hope that the
Reese
might simply drag itself to a stop when there was the loud snap of the port-side landing strut breaking free.

When the lander fell over on its left side, the port wing was the only thing that prevented the craft from going completely upside down and crushing the cabin. But although the wing remained connected to the fuselage, its leading edge dug deep into the ground, causing the aft end to fishtail around. The bow caught the worst of it; Sean heard glass shatter, then something that sounded like hail rained down upon his shoulders and the top of his helmet.

Kyra and Sandy screamed. He did, too, although later he couldn't remember having done so.

The lander spun across the ground, its broken landing gear and wing dragging through snow, mud, and rock until it gradually came to a halt. For several long seconds, Sean heard only the slow, awkward tick of relaxing metal, the tinkle of a loosened piece of glass falling from its frame.

Then silence.

Sean let out his breath, took another one. He was alive . . . and, at least so far as he could tell, unharmed. Carefully sitting up, he looked over at Kyra. She'd been thrown back in her seat, and for a moment he thought she wasn't moving. But then her helmet turned toward him, and he could see her eyes through the faceplate, wide and terrified.

“You okay?” he asked, and she slowly nodded. The lander was listing to its port side. With the deck slanted toward the left, it would be difficult for her to move from her seat.

First things first. The lander's prow appeared to be half-buried in the snow; the cockpit windows were shattered, and pieces of ice and rock were scattered across the consoles. Mark lay back in his seat, hands in his lap, head cocked to one side. It looked as if he were resting from his exertions.

Sean thought Cayce had been knocked out, but then the team leader stirred in his seat. “Everyone all right?” the lieutenant asked, his voice weak and dazed. “Sound off.”

“I'm good,” Sandy muttered. “Nice landing, Mark. I mean it.”

“Yeah . . . good job, man,” Sean said.

No response. Sean hastily released himself from his harness, then leaned forward between the front seats. “Hey, Mark,” he said, prodding his friend's shoulder. “Are you . . . ?”

No, he wasn't. At Sean's touch, Mark Dupree's head swung toward him upon a broken neck. Through his helmet faceplate, his eyes gazed sightlessly at the world to which he'd given his life to bring his friends.

W
HEN ANDROMEDA CARSON WAS A CADET AT THE
ACADEMIA del Espacio
of the Union Astronautica, she'd learned to fly in the academy's flight simulator, an exact replica of a spacecraft cockpit. With an instructor sitting beside her and the voices of the control room piped in through her headset, Ensign Carson flew missions ranging from simple launch-and-landing exercises to more complex orbital sorties.

At first, the simulator was a lot of fun, at least for a girl from New Mexico who aspired to command her own deep-space vessel. But her instructor and the controllers were aware of her ambitions, and after it became apparent that Andromeda was a quick study, they stopped taking it easy and began throwing in-flight emergencies at her: main-engine failures, cabin decompressions, computer glitches, docking aborts, power brownouts, telemetry blackouts, onboard fires, space-junk collisions, even bizarre scenarios like alien attacks or crew mutinies. Sometimes the controllers would come up with two or three things at once while her instructor sat calmly in the copilot's seat, eating a sandwich as he quietly watched Andromeda cope with looming catastrophe.

Andromeda did the best she could. Not only was she at the top of her class, but it was obvious from the beginning that she had an instinctive talent for flying, displaying reflexes and intuition beyond the minimum requirements for flight certification. Yet the simulator staff seemed to take an almost sadistic pleasure in making life tough for her, and since they held all the cards, it was only inevitable that, every so often, they'd deal her a lousy hand. And when she found herself in a situation she simply couldn't handle, they would punish her in a singularly cruel manner: they would shut down her controls and put the simulator on full autopilot. So Andromeda would have to sit in her seat, quietly fuming as she watched the simulator solve her problems for her in the wink of an eye before completing the mission without her input. But while her instructor was aware that she was humiliated, he didn't know that what she hated even more was the sense of helplessness that went with the loss of control.

Simply put, Ensign Carson always wanted to be able to choose her own destiny. Which was why, many years later, Captain Carson tortured the armrests of her chair as the
Montero
was guided by forces unknown to a destination uncertain.

No one in the command center was happy about what was happening. Melpomene Fisk fidgeted at the helm, unable to do anything that mattered, while Rolf Kurtz appeared to be grinding his teeth as he scowled at the wallscreen. Anne Smith continued trying to regain contact with the
Reese
even though the hexagon where the lander had gone down was a long way behind them. Thomas D'Anguilo closely monitored the remote survey console, searching for any clues as to where the ship was going or why it was being taken there. On captain's orders, Zeus Brandt had gone below to the small-arms locker on Deck Two, where he opened the cache of fléchette pistols just in case . . . well, just in case.

Yet Andromeda was more tense than anyone else aboard, and only Jason Ressler knew why. From his seat beside her,
Montero
's first officer quietly observed his captain from the corner of his eye. He was particularly intrigued by her fingers; they alternately dug and drummed at the armrests, occasionally curling into fists whiteknuckled with suppressed anger.

Catching Jason watching her, Andromeda glared at him. “What?” she demanded.

“Nothing.” He forced a smile. “Except we're going to need to reupholster your chair if you keep up like that.”

“Take it out of my salary,” she muttered, then returned her attention to the wallscreen. Without telemetry from the lander, the only image it displayed was Hex's outer surface, a seemingly endless plain of hexagons slowly rolling beneath them. Melpomene had put their flight track up on the nav table. It appeared as a tiny red line running across the holographic sphere; although it was only a couple of inches long, Andromeda was aware that the line represented the forty thousand miles the
Montero
had traveled since its guidance system had been taken over by the
danui
. . .

With every passing mile taking her farther away from Sean.

“I'll make a note of it in my log.” Jason paused, then added, “I've got some friends at the shipyard back home. Maybe I can get them to cut us a discount.”

“Knock it off,” Andromeda growled.

“Sure. You first.” Jason sighed. “Look, there's nothing you can do, so you might as well take a break.” He cocked a thumb toward the hatch. “Go below. Grab some lunch, or take a nap. Something other than sit there and fret.”

An angry retort hovered on Andromeda's lip; she restrained the urge to say it out loud. Jason meant well, but there was no way she could leave the bridge. Not until she knew where they were going, or what had happened to her son and his team. Until then, lunch and a nap were out of the question.

Instead, she pushed aside her lapboard and unfastened her seat belt. Planting her stickshoes against the floor, she stood up and walked over to D'Anguilo's station. She was about to ask—again—whether he'd learned anything new when she felt the deck make a small yet noticeable movement, a motion that she recognized at once.

“Forward thrusters firing, skipper.” Melpomene stared at the comp screens of her console, hands on either side of the frozen controls. “We're braking, and”—another motion, this time in a lateral direction—“turning about, ninety degrees to port.”

Forgetting what she was about to ask D'Anguilo, Andromeda turned toward the wallscreen. Hex no longer appeared to be a flat plain but instead a wall of hexagons slowly moving by. As she watched, the wall seemed to grow larger.

“Are we heading toward it?” she asked.

“Appears so, ma'am.” Melpomene didn't look at her. “Lateral velocity decreasing, forward velocity increasing.”

“It's drawing us in,” Jason said quietly.

Andromeda glanced at Anne. “Anything new?” she asked. The com officer silently shook her head, and the captain turned to Rolf. “What about those engines or RCRs? Can you . . . ?” Rolf shook his head as well, and Andromeda took a deep breath. “Damn. Damn, damn . . .”

“Captain?” Jason was still seated in his chair, calmly gazing at the wallscreen. “There's nothing we can do about it. Might as well wait and see what happens next.”

“I have to agree,” D'Anguilo said. “Whatever the
danui
have in store for us, I don't think it's necessarily hostile.”

“And what leads you to that conclusion?” Andromeda asked. “Your fine grasp of alien psychology?”

D'Anguilo let the sarcasm pass. “If they meant us harm, don't you think they would have acted by now?” He nodded at the screen. “The
danui
could destroy us in seconds . . . Of that, I have little doubt. Yet their actions so far have been nonviolent, if rather mysterious. In any case, we're entirely in their hands.”

“Or claws.” There was a wry smile on Jason's face. “He's right, skipper. It's entirely up to them, so we might as well relax and wait.”

Wait, yes . . . but Andromeda was damned if she was going to be passive about it. She tapped a finger against her headset wand. “Zeus, are you there?”

“Right here, skipper.”
The chief petty officer didn't need to tell her where he was.
“I've got the weapons out. Want me to bring them upstairs?”

“Negative. I'll have Jason come down to fetch them.” Her first officer started to say something, but Andromeda silenced him with a raised forefinger before he could speak. “You know what's happening, don't you?”

“Yes, ma'am.”
Zeus's tone became menacing.
“They're not taking us without a fight.”

D'Anguilo blanched, and Andromeda suppressed a smile. At least she wasn't alone; someone else was suspicious of the
danui
. “I'm not looking for a fight,” she replied, giving D'Anguilo a sidelong glance. “At least not for the time being. Right now, I want you to prepare for docking. Suit up and board the pod.”

“Yes, ma'am.”
There was newfound enthusiasm in Zeus's voice; apparently he, too, was tired of doing nothing.
“I'm heading below.”

“Good man.” The lander's bay doors had been left open after the
Reese
had departed, so Zeus should have no problem taking out the pod. She muted the mike, then turned to Jason again. “Go collect the fléchette pistols from Zeus and bring them up here, along with holsters. I want everyone to have one before we . . .”

“Captain, I object!” D'Anguilo stood up from his seat and took a step toward her. “This endangers the very purpose of this mission! The
danui
have no history of hostility. They . . .”

“Dr. D'Anguilo, your opinion has been noted.” Andromeda stared him straight in the eye. “As commanding officer, it's my duty to take whatever measures I deem necessary to protect my vessel and crew. You say the
danui
haven't acted in a hostile fashion. I disagree. They've refused to respond to nearly all our messages, allowed another race to act against our survey team, then captured this ship and brought it to an unknown location. And now they're preparing to do something else . . . dock the ship, and possibly even board us . . . against our will. As far as I'm concerned, those are hostile actions, and I'm taking the minimum precautions.”

“Captain . . .”

“Sit down and shut up . . . or I'll have Mr. Ressler confine you to quarters.”

Jason was already on his feet. He stood beside D'Anguilo, waiting for Andromeda to give him the word. Everyone else in the command center stared at them; no one dared to speak. The astroethnicist regarded Andromeda for another moment, then he looked away and sat down again without saying another word.

Jason headed for the access hatch, but not before he paused beside Andromeda. “I hope you know what you're doing,” he whispered.

Andromeda quietly nodded. Jason left the bridge, opening the hatch to glide headfirst down the access shaft. She let out her breath, then returned to her seat and sat down again. She could feel D'Anguilo's eyes upon her back, but she refused to look at him.