The Winter War (21 page)

Aneka followed her up. The room
above did, indeed, contain a metal desk, a few chairs, and what
looked like a chart table. Ella had opened a cupboard, which was
bolted to one of the walls. Aneka could see what looked like
rolled-up charts, though there was going to be no unrolling; the
desiccated material crumbled into dust as soon as Ella touched
it.

‘Shame,’ the redhead commented.
‘Documentation would have been nice to find.’

There was a third floor, but
that seemed to be little more than a lookout post. Aneka looked out
across the desert. Sand as far as the eye could see, and her eyes
could see a long way.

‘God it’s bleak,’ she said, her
voice low.

‘The locals must’ve been adapted
to it,’ Ella replied. ‘Low resource requirements. Maybe they were
crepuscular.’

‘Uh, soldier, remember?’

‘Active during twilight periods.
This planet has a moderately long day, about twenty-two standard
hours. Dawn and dusk may be quite long too.’ She looked around. ‘An
entire civilisation, just… gone.’

‘Yeah. We can thank the Xinti
for that.’

‘Sort of. I mean, yes, but
there’s no way of knowing that the Idridians wouldn’t have blown
themselves up eventually anyway. It’s not a certainty of
high-technology. The Herosians managed to get past the
self-destructive phase, and their petty rivalries are legendary,
but it was a pretty close thing.’

‘Huh. Evolution. Survival of the
fittest. It works on an intellectual level as well as a physical
one.’

‘I guess so. I’m not saying what
the Xinti did didn’t contribute to the destruction, but we can’t
assume it was the sole cause either.’

‘Eve seemed to blame this kind
of thing on their actions.’ The AI who had been in charge of
running the uplift projects had been fairly certain that the
experiments had not been entirely justified, in fact.

‘Eve was too close to it. She
saw a war with the technology she helped promote and decided to
blame herself and the Xinti for it. If the Jenlay hadn’t been
uplifted I think we’d have ended up vassals of the Herosians, or
extinct. The Xinti did us a favour, even if they did try to kill us
afterward.’

Idridia.

It was getting dark by the time the
survey bots had completed their work. With them back in their box,
Aneka and Ella carried everything back to the, gloriously air
conditioned, ship and set up the lab unit to analyse the data from
the mapping.

The evening was quite long at
this latitude. It stayed hot outside as the sand gave up the stored
heat of the day, but Aneka was guessing it would get fairly cold
later. At least inside the ship they would be warm enough and they
could sleep without setting a watch.

Ella did not have much of an
appetite after the hot day, but she forced down a bowl of soup
while the lab did its work, and then began examining the results of
the scan.

‘Here,’ she said after a minute
or so. ‘I think our crashed ship ploughed into the sand outside
that entrance arch, or whatever it was. It must have been buried
since. Someone dug a hole down to the hull, which is still mostly
clear. The bots found material down there they couldn’t classify
properly aside from it being extremely hard.’

‘They dug down and then…’

‘Cut a hole in the hull, from
the looks of this data. They resealed it with a metal plate
afterward. Looks like an aluminium alloy.’

Aneka frowned. ‘That makes no
sense. They break in, on a deserted planet, but they seal up the
hole before leaving and they leave in a hurry. Otherwise they
wouldn’t have left those supplies in the tower.’

‘Well, I guess the only way
we’ll get any answers is to go down there tomorrow and look.’

Aneka nodded, but she had a bad
feeling about it.

12.7.527 FSC.

Aneka looked down into the hole and
sniffed. ‘We’re going to need the climbing gear this time,’ she
commented.

The mysterious looters with the
Herosian survival rations had cut a nearly perfectly smooth path
down from the surface under the bridge into what looked like fused
sand, and down about thirty metres to the hull of the ship below.
The sides of the well were not only smooth, but they were glassy,
as though the sand had been subjected to considerable heat either
by the crash or the cutting process, or both.

‘I think the ship came down and
ploughed through the southern side of the outpost,’ Ella said. ‘The
impact energy must’ve been enormous to cause this much heating.’
She watched as the cloud of light-emitting microbots moved further
down the well. ‘We’re probably going to need the cutting gear too.
I think I can see weld marks from here and…’ She stopped, frowning.
‘Are those dents in the plate?’

Aneka looked down, her eyes
zooming in to make the marks Ella was pointing out clearer. They
did, indeed, look like dents in the aluminium plate, which had been
welded over the breach in the hull. ‘Little hard to tell from
here,’ Aneka said, ‘but those look kind of like something was
trying to smash its way out.’

‘Something survived the crash
and
however long it had to wait until these mercs cut into
the hull?’

‘Those robots lasted quite a
while on Alpha Mensae.’

‘That’s a point, I guess. How
about cutting a hole in the patch and letting the survey robots
check it out in there before we go further?’

‘That’s actually a good plan,’
Aneka replied. ‘I’ll go get the kit.’

‘I’ll come carry the climbing
gear,’ Ella said. ‘It’s still fairly cool, even in the
sunlight.’

‘I’m not going to complain about
the help.’ Together they started out of the shadow of the bridge
toward the ship.

Something moved in the corner of
Aneka’s eye, but it was too fast for her to react to it. Ella let
out a shriek and clutched at her neck. Aneka moved in front of her,
left hand rising as her shield energised, right hand drawing
Bridget, one of her pistols. An arrow. It had been an arrow, but
from where?

A tactical map appeared
in-vision showing the layout of the compound and the likely source
of the missile, and she turned in time to see a second arrow coming
their way. ‘Al? How is she?’ The arrow bounced off her shield and
Aneka returned fire. Her target was small, a squat, humanoid figure
wrapped in ragged clothing a bit like Bedouin robes. The cloth
afforded no protection at all against a hail of hyper-dense,
hyper-velocity projectiles.

‘Wounded,’ Al replied. ‘Some
loss of blood, elevated heart rate, some shock.’

‘Hold on, Ella,’ Aneka said
aloud. ‘Stay behind me.’

‘Sure,’ Ella replied, wincing.
‘So much for “no dangerous life forms.”’

Aneka was too busy scanning the
area to reply. There had to be more than one of them. One person,
out in the desert alone? Unlikely. A spear answered her thought,
flying toward her as its owner stepped out of cover on the wall.
She brought her gun up and fired, cutting the figure down as the
stone-pointed stick bounced off her shield. She scanned the other
wall; no sign of anyone there, but could she risk that they had not
considered a flanking action?

‘Stay there,’ Aneka said, and
bolted toward the wall the spear and arrow had come from. ‘Watch
the right-hand wall.’

‘I’m not moving,’ Ella
replied.

Another spear thrower appeared
as she was running up the slope and she dropped him before he could
launch the weapon, shredding his body with automatic fire. There
was a scream from beyond the wall, which sounded almost like a
word, and when she crested the top of the wall she found herself
watching four small, cloth-wrapped figures running away as fast as
their legs would carry them.

‘They are still well within
effective range of your pistols,’ Al commented. His tone was flat,
matter-of-fact. He was not making a recommendation, just stating an
option.

‘I may regret it, but…’ She
holstered her pistols and started back down the slope. ‘They looked
like some sort of hunting party. We’re probably on their normal
route. But they looked scared shitless so I don’t think they’ll
come back.’

‘That was a conspicuous display
of firepower. Ella’s vitals are currently strong, but she is losing
blood from the wound.’

Aneka reached to her belt and
found a spray bottle of artificial skin. ‘Soon fix that, but we’ll
get her back to the ship and have that medic gadget look at her
anyway.’

‘I didn’t hear more gunfire?’
Ella asked as Aneka approached.

‘No, they were running like
scared rabbits. I let them go.’

Ella nodded. ‘Good.’ Generally
speaking, Jenlay were pacifists. Ella was a little less so than a
core citizen, but she did not like needless death.

‘Let me see that wound.’

Ella moved her hand. There was a
nasty gash in the side of her neck where the arrowhead had slashed
through her skin. ‘Is it going to leave a scar?’

Aneka shook the bottle and
sprayed some of the contents over the wound. Ella winced as the
antibiotics set to work, but the bleeding stopped almost
immediately. ‘With this stuff? I doubt it. We’ll get that Automed
to check you anyway. Come on, up you get.’

Ella made as if to move, and
frowned. ‘I… I don’t think I… I don’t feel… uhh…’ The redhead’s
face relaxed and she fell backward onto the sand.

‘Ella?!’ There was no response,
barely any movement. She seemed to be breathing…

‘She is still alive,’ Al said.
‘Her respiratory system is depressed, but her cardiovascular
functions are still operating normally.’

‘Connect me to her implant.’ A
message popped up indicating he had done so. ‘Ella?’

‘Aneka?’ Her voice sounded
panicked, even over the implant communication channel. ‘I can’t
move! Not even my eyes! I’m having trouble breathing. Not bad,
but…’

Aneka picked her up and started
toward the ship. ‘It sounds like curare. It’s a neuro-toxin. Causes
relaxation of the muscles, paralyses the entire voluntary nervous
system. Hunters used to use it in South America, there must be
something on this world that produces a similar chemical.’

‘Is… is it lethal?’

Yes, it bloody is. You die of
asphyxiation as your lungs stop working.
She was not going to
tell Ella that. ‘The Automed will fix you up. You just hang in
there.’
I’m not losing you now!

~~~

Aneka sat with her back to the bed and
her chin resting on her knees, her eyes fixed on the woman lying in
front of her. Ella was asleep under the metal case on legs that was
the Automed. The thing had put her out, pumped her full of drugs,
and pushed a tube down her throat to feed her oxygen. Displays
indicated that she was more or less stable, that the poison had run
its course and was doing no more damage, but it had been close.

So Aneka sat, and watched, and
waited, unwilling to close her eyes until Ella was entirely out of
danger.

13.7.527 FSC.

‘Can I please come out from under this
thing?’ Ella asked, again.

‘Not until you’ve healed
properly,’ Aneka replied. She held out a bottle with a straw.
‘Drink some more of this.’

‘It tastes like gopi,’ Ella
grumbled, but she sucked nutrient fluid out of the bottle. She
might be a lousy patient, but she knew what was good for her.

Taking the bottle away, Aneka
reached over and picked up a sample bottle. She rattled it in front
of Ella. ‘I thought you might be interested. This is what laid you
out.’

Ella took the bottle from her
and examined the object inside it, her eyes focussing in to magnify
the edge of the bladed arrowhead. ‘Knapped flint arrowhead. It’s
pretty good craftsmanship. I haven’t seen one of these in… Well,
I’ve never seen one that I actually found.’

‘Next time, try not to find it
by being shot.’

There was a giggle; that was a
good sign. ‘I’ll try. It’s got some sort of goo on it.’

‘Yeah, I put it through the
chemical analysers. I was right, it’s basically exactly the same
molecule as curare. Which was a good thing since this gadget…’ She
tapped the metal box sitting over Ella’s chest. ‘…knew how to treat
it. I also ran some tissue samples from one of our buddies and this
stuff is significantly more lethal to the local life forms. They
probably expected you to fall over and die on the spot.’

‘Oh,’ Ella said. ‘How close was
it?’

Aneka bent down and kissed
Ella’s forehead. ‘Too close for me, love. Next time you go out,
you’re wearing your suit.’

‘Are you expecting me to argue?
I’ll even wear the helmet.’ She grinned. ‘The suit’s climate
controlled and I won’t need sunblock. It’s a win all round.’

15.7.527 FSC.

The Automed had let Ella out the day
before, but Aneka had insisted on another day of rest before she
let the grumpy archaeologist suit up and go out to the crash site.
Now that she was out and Aneka was using the fusion cutter to burn
through the patch plate on the old ship’s hull, Ella was
significantly less grumpy but no less impatient.

It took only a second or so for
the searing heat of the torch to burn a hole through the aluminium,
rather longer for the metal to cool enough for Ella to send the
survey robots down.

‘Whatever made the dents isn’t
reacting to us cutting through,’ Ella pointed out.

‘This is your plan,’ Aneka
replied. ‘It’s a good idea, so let them do their job. I’ve nearly
lost you once on this trip, I’m not risking it again if there’s a
perfectly good way of avoiding it.’

‘Humph,’ Ella grumped.

‘Cheer up or there’ll be no sex
for a week.’

‘I already went without for
days!’

‘You’d have got it this morning
if you hadn’t been so keen to get out here.’

‘Humph.’

Aneka grinned and watched the
hole. It was another five minutes before the bots finished their
pre-programmed sweep and returned to their box, relaying the data
they had collected to the portable lab.