Ice War, page 9
"Don't tell me the cold didn't bother you," said Yajain.
"Oh, I'm bundled up better than I look." Kidann smiled, then turned to Pansar. "Captain, perhaps we should advise everyone to stay as warmly dressed as possible in case this happens again."
"Good idea, Odyide," said Pansar. He flipped the channel open and relayed the recommendation throughout the ship.
Thraid said, “Odyide, Aksari, you need to see something.”
Yajain left the sensors for Joth and Enna to take over as the sibling engineers arrived beside Thraid. Kidann and Yajain followed Thraid to engineering.
Thraid stopped inside the long engineering chamber around the core and pointed at the dimly shining central tube encasing the ship's power supply. Yajain squinted to follow his direction to the spot he indicated.
"The core isn't a perfect fit for this kind of ship, annoying as that is for me to admit," he said. "I shaped it without knowing the exact demands of rapid transit."
"You appear to be correct," Kidann said. "This bodes poorly for any attempt at using it again."
Yajain frowned.
"We can't transit again?"
"Ordinary transit, perhaps," said Thraid. "But likely not rapid."
"We can't go back the way we came, then," said Yajain.
"Unexpected," said Kidann. He folded his arms. "I won't lie. This makes me nervous."
"No time for nerves," said Thraid. "We can fix it."
"You want to fix a core in flight?" said Kidann. "How?"
"It's not the core that's dragging the ship down. It's the casement. We need to port the casement or the core will suffer strain even under regular flight conditions." Thraid turned to Yajain. "Doctor, I wanted you here in case something goes wrong."
Yajain nodded.
"It's not how I planned to rest off-shift, but it makes sense. What is the procedure?"
"I have a set of arc cutters we can use by hand," said Thraid. "It looks as though our flight capacity will deteriorate without three additional ports cut into the core casing."
"Three more ports?" Kidann shook his head. "Who exactly will do this cutting, given the chance of power flare-ups in here?"
"You'll do one. I'll do two."
"Wait," said Yajain. "There are three of us. If we have the tools, let me help."
Kidann raised his eyebrows.
"That would be irregular. With all due respect, you're not qualified, I think."
Thraid's intense features remained inscrutable.
"It’s simple. Synchronized timing of the first two cuts is of the greatest importance."
"So I can make the third cut. Just tell me what to do," she said.
Thraid nodded to her.
Kidann's eyes widened.
"I don't know about this, shaper."
"I can do one of the ports," said Yajain. "Trust me."
"I do," said Thraid, expression impassive.
Kidann grimaced.
"What if I don't?"
"You and I will make the first cuts, Odyide," said Thraid. "Don't worry."
"She's not an engineer. We should get one of those bandojens."
"Annoying." Thraid scowled. "Neither of them sees the problem."
"So we need to trust you that this is necessary? I think not." Kidann's lip trembled.
"It must be done," said Thraid. "With or without you."
"Shaper Thraid, I refuse to accept that. I will tell the agent captain."
"Tell him what?" asked Tinar Boskem, poking his head into the chamber.
Yajain explained the situation as clearly as she could.
Thraid turned to Boskem.
"This is a matter of the core."
"The core needs additional ports." Boskem's brow furrowed. "That makes sense, given the stress we must put on it during rapid transit."
Kidann threw up his hands.
"I am going to tell the agent captain you three are conspiring to sabotage this ship. For all I know the tyrants have you, Thraid."
"Don't annoy me," said Thraid.
Kidann started toward the door. Boskem blocked his path.
"No, Odyide. You're staying here."
"I can contact the bridge remotely."
Yajain shrugged.
"Do it, then."
Kidann shook.
"Very well. I will."
He hit the communicator on his collar.
"Agent Captain," he said.
Boskem glanced at Thraid. Thraid shook his head.
Kidann trembled.
"Uh, stand by for some emergency core maintenance, sir."
"Emergency maintenance?"
"We need to add some ports. It seems the design was...flawed, given the specifications of the core."
"Do it, but quickly. We appear to have a clear glide-path for the moment."
"Thank you, sir," said Kidann. He closed the channel.
"Why'd you do that?" asked Yajain.
Kidann took a deep breath.
"I can admit when I am outnumbered and outgunned," he said.
"No one was threatening you," said Boskem.
"You don't believe that," said Kidann.
"No time for this," said Thraid. "Let's get to work." He indicated the toolkit on a workbench by the core.
Yajain picked up a back-up set of metal shapers, capable of cutting through the core casement to make a new port in seconds. Kidann and Thraid each took a set of main shapers. She glanced at them.
"Will the back-ups work?"
"They'll work," said Thraid. "Just need steady hands."
"Those, I have," said Yajain.
"It's not surgery," said Kidann, shaking his head.
"No. Simpler." Thraid smirked.
They took up positions by the new ports. Thraid showed Yajain how to press the inactive shapers to the core casing's exterior.
"These will start your incision thirty seconds after we start," he said, then set a timer on the shapers to keep track. "After that, you only need to guide them in a circle."
"I can do that," she said.
Kidann snorted.
"Starting now," called Thraid.
He and Kidann cut into the core casing with their metal shapers. The seconds ticked down on the shapers Yajain held. At zero she started turning them in a tight circle, carving a slow path through the metal of the casing. Sparks flew from the metal as it melted in places. She kept the tool steady.
Her single round chunk of metal pulled free after a minute of cutting, only thirty millimeters in diameter. The separated piece of casement clattered to the floor at her feet. She deactivated the shapers as Thraid and Kidann completed their ports. Light pulsed in pale-blue from within the case, revealed by the new ports leading to the core.
"Is that all we had to do?" she asked.
Kidann grumbled something under his breath as he walked past Boskkem and left the chamber.
Thraid glanced at Yajain.
"Timing is the challenge," he said. "Good job."
Three shift changes later, Yajain sat at sensors once again, the only one this time as they ascended through clouds of gray mist. Gellen flew the Razor Crow, her interface implant connected to the controls by black cables, while her eyes stared into nothingness, void of perception. Yajain couldn't help but feel a kind of kinship for Ija's officer. They had both gone through a lot, both of them always focused on something no one else on this ship didn't understand.
Gellen had her devotion to Ija, though the great mind was far away.
Yajain couldn't be sure if her fixation was on Mosam or Lin.
She hated to consider what either meant, what each of them meant.
The mist around the ship paled, then blossomed with light. They broke through a layer of cloud. Undiminished light from a Solna near them bathed the bridge.
Yajain blinked. Gellen closed her eyes as the tint on the windscreens compensated throughout the ship. As Yajain regained her vision, she glanced at the console before her. The distant colony beacons of Kerida Cluster flickered with interference, their signals distorted by the proximity of the ship to other lifeforms.
Yajain gasped involuntarily as motion flashed outside the window, trailing shadows following shapes erupting from the cloud layer alongside the crow.
Each bulbous, shadowy form trailed threads of roots, and Yajain's eyes widened with wonder as she realized what they were. No enemy flew beside them. These weren't birds either. The shadows belonged to traveling vegetation, drawn by gas sacs. These were nomad vines, and judging by their size, they belonged to the largest species of their kind. Yajain stared at them.
"Plants," she said. "That means—"
"We're getting close to a warm zone," said Gellen. "I wonder..."
Mosam stepped onto the bridge, drawing a glance from Yajain.
"So that's what I heard," he said. "Beautiful beings, they are, and in a beautiful location."
"Do you recognize this place?" asked Yajain.
"Yes." He walked to her side and indicated a point ahead of them on the long-range sensor map. "I left the gatehouse through its portal near the caphodel forest in that region. We may not know if it's still there, but I bet we can find some clues to guide us the rest of the way."
"We're closing in," said Yajain.
She hated to think what she would do when she found Savar. The old doctor had commanded the attack on the armory. His evil had tainted her feelings for Mosam and both of their lives.
"Is something wrong?" he asked.
She shook her head. Flowering vines streamed all around the Crow. Brilliant light played on limbs and blossoms. Yajain kept her gaze on them, doing what she could to avoid Mosam. His question continued to nag her mind after he left the bridge in silence.
Ten hours later the Razor Crow reached the forest where Mosam last departed through the gatehouse and docked with a small mist station. The station floated among clumps of towering caphodels where birds sang in the branches of trees both above and below. Light bathed the black shape of the ship as Yajain swam between it and the station on their combined arc fields, accompanied by Mosam, Gellen, and Dara. Boskem’s robot soldier followed them on its own arc lifts as they climbed through the air toward the entrance above the ship.
Boskem himself remained behind on the Crow, piloting the robot with the mimic-visor interface. Yajain was grateful for that. She did not want to deal with the pompous, violent agent at the moment if she could help it. She glanced at Dara, who swam along just below her and to one side. Dara was smiling and gazing around at the trees. I should be treasuring this, thought Yajain. It’s an almost entirely wild caphodel forest.
She grinned and looked straight up at the loose ranks of trees above, each one a living parabola of wood and leaves. Lighter than air gas sacs held each tree aloft, sandwiched between two radiating layers of roots at the top of the lower trunk and the bottom of the upper one. The caphodel glittered with dew and flickered with motion. Small mammals and birds, beautiful in their variety and colors, leapt or flitted here and there. An eyeless snake coiled around the branch of one tree Yajain passed, but this kind of forest was far safer than the verges like Bahami Forest because the foliage never became as dense, and fewer large animals could subsist there.
Mosam swam past Yajain and reached the upper door of the station, still surrounded by ranks of flying trees. He alighted on the small platform before the door and looked at the rest of them. Gellen and Yajain caught up with him a few seconds later, with Dara close behind. Yajain deactivated her arc lifts and turned to search for the robot, but it had vanished. She glanced at Gellen, puzzled.
“He’s going to hide outside,” Gellen said. “Civilians don’t talk as easily with a war machine like that in the same room.”
Yajain nodded.
“For once, some tact from Finder Boskem.”
Mosam laughed.
“Now we know he just chooses not to be subtle.” He turned to the station door, still sealed from the inside. He hit a button on the speaking pad beside the entrance. “This is Mosam Coe,” he said. “My friends and I would like access to your facility to ask some questions.”
A harsh male voice answered him through a speaker in the wall.
“Doctor Coe? Of the Harvest?”
“The truth,” said Mosam.
The door unsealed before them.
“After you, ladies.” Mosam motioned for the others to pass. Dara and Gellen went first. Yajain felt the vare blade at her hip.
“You first,” she said.
“What happened to us trusting each other?”
“I have a job to do. Nothing personal.”
“Right.” Mosam smiled at her, then turned and stepped through the doorway.
Yajain followed. He thinks I’m being silly. Maybe he doesn’t believe I’m serious but I’m not to going to give him a chance to escape. Most spiders don’t bite if you don’t get close enough to give them the opportunity.
The door sealed behind her and she followed the others through a passage to a large circular room that looked like the inside of a bar. Wood-paneled columns supported the ceiling and an open floor in the center of the room’s ring of tables looked to have been made of the same caphodel boards. Yajain rarely remembered seeing so much wood rather than metal anywhere near a pillar. Evidently, this station had been in the forest for long enough the owners had started localizing maintenance materials.
She and the others walked toward the bar. Gellen hung back and turned to Yajain.
“Good job keeping an eye on Coe. He may still try to escape, especially this close to his destination.”
Yajain’s gaze followed Mosam as he approached the bar.
“I won’t let him.”
The two of them caught up with Dara and Mosam at the bar while a grizzled bald sorai man in a sleeveless white shirt without a heat layer made his way down the length of the counter toward them.
“Doctor Coe. It really is you, huh?” he said.
“Yes, indeed.”
“That’s a fine ship you came in. Where’d you get it?”
“That’s a long story, friend.” Mosam grinned. “And I’m in something of a hurry, Hosh.”
The bartender grunted.
“To business then.” His eyes moved over Dara and Gellen and then lingered on Yajain for a moment before turning back to Mosam. “These three traveling with you?”
Mosam nodded. He leaned onto the bar.
“We’re looking for Doctor Savar.”
“Savar.” The bartender’s pale eyes glittered. “It’s been a while since I spoke to him. We shouldn’t talk about this out here.” He jerked his head toward the other end of the bar. A younger nuinn man nodded to him and approached Hosh. “Take the bar, Greth,” said the big sorai. “I’ve got some things I need to discuss with these guests.”
Greth bobbed his head.
“Right, boss.”
Hosh turned to Mosam and Dara beside him.
“Follow me.”
He opened a low door at the end of the bar and motioned for them to follow him back past the taps and the mirror and through the dimly lit kitchen that appeared empty of anyone working.
“Business down?” Mosam asked, walking beside Hosh.
Hosh grunted.
“Supplies are low. Station authority is rationing the supplies we couldn’t hide.”
Mosam nodded.
“Why are they rationing?”
“There’s a war on.” Hosh scowled and opened a door at the back of the kitchen. Mosam, Dara, and Gellen went past him and inside. Yajain moved to follow them, but Hosh slammed the door before she could enter through it. Feelers emerged above his eyes and he glowered down at Yajain. “I recognize a Ditari anywhere. What is one of DiKandar’s people doing out here?”
She stepped back, hand falling to her vare blade.
“I’m not with DiKandar,” she said. “And I’m only half Ditari.”
Hosh scowled at her.
“You know what’s happening, don’t you? Governor Sovilan’s people are hunting every Ditari in Kerida, and he’s got Count Perdine helping him.”
“Sovilan and Perdine are here?”
Hosh glowered at her.
“I saw their flagships on the broadcast when they arrived at Calaim Hub. How did you not know that?”
Yajain stared at him. Someone pounded on the door from the other side, but Hosh’s huge hand held it shut.
“We didn’t use the corridor to get here,” said Yajain. “Mosam told you it was a long story.”
Hosh’s eyes narrowed.
“You aren’t lying to me?”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“You’d better be.” Hosh stepped to one side and released the door.
Mosam burst through it and nearly crashed into Yajain.
“What are you trying to pull, Hosh?”
“Trying to find out why you’d risk traveling with a Ditari.” Hosh folded his arms. “Damn foolish to bring someone like her here, doctor.”
Dara and Gellen waited on the opposite side of the door, behind Mosam. Gellen held a coil pistol with a glowing charge-pack.
Mosam shot a glare at Hosh.
“Roen Hosh, allow me to introduce Doctor Yajain Aksari.” He motioned to Yajain. “She wasn’t raised in a Redocate, but more importantly she greatly assisted in getting Redoca DiKandar’s fleet headed in this direction.”
“Is that so?” said Hosh. “Well, forgive me for being suspicious but you can’t bring someone like that here. Perdine and Sovilan have people everywhere. Even here. People I once thought I could trust have turned into informants.”
Yajain glanced at Mosam.
“Tyrants,” she said.
A boom echoed outside the station. Hosh winced.
Mosam gritted his teeth.
“It seems they’re onto us.”
Yajain jumped into the drop shaft Hosh told them led down toward the station’s docks. Mosam fell right behind her, followed by Dara and Gellen. She accelerated downward with arm strokes supported by arc lifts. The station shuddered with an impact just before Yajain slowed her descent slightly and then reached the exit platform on the dock level.
She hit the unyielding floor too hard and stumbled forward. She caught herself on a door frame. Pain ran through her legs and shoulder from the impact. Her fingers found a wall brace. She held on as Mosam landed behind her with a thud. Yajain glanced into the shaft just in time to see Dara and then Gellen miss the platform and continue hurtling further toward the base of the station. The entire station rocked again.
