Burnt Ice (38 page)

‘OK, Harry. We go with that. You
have something to say, Ernst?’

‘I am sorry to report that the containers
for your food and drink are contaminated with an altered bacterium, which Topaz
originally located on the flies’ skins. The exterior of all your suits is
covered in the same. We need external assistance to decontaminate us. It is
imperative that you do not break the seals on your suits.’

‘OK, people. You know the drill.
This is why we have had no forced probes from whatever is waiting out there for
us. It or they are just sitting us out. Harry, start work on the designs to
make the flame-throwers. Marko, have a long hard look at the loaders and the
tugs, then design armour. Try getting me some real flight capability on those
tugs. Jan, Fritz, you’re with me. Glint and Nail, I need you as well. We’re
going for a little raid and I need your assistance as backup. Harry, flash me
over the shopping list. Grab one of your pop guns, Jan. Let’s see what they’re
capable of. Fritz, you carry one too.’

The suits were designed to keep
the occupants alive under almost any circumstances, but living in them continuously
for days on end would be tedious. The suits also had only seven days’
sustenance — at the most — before things would become very uncomfortable. Marko
brought up the menus in the HUD and scrolled through the suit and bioware
protocols for long-term suppression of hunger. He activated the requirements,
then got to work as the drugs slowly leeched into his bloodstream.

The tugs were simple designs,
tractor units really, for pushing or pulling AG cargo sleds. They were operated
by the human standing, or sometimes sitting, in a compact cupola at the front.
A pair of little gas turbines drove the antigravity units, a few directional
thrusters, the towing attachments and not a lot else. He roughly sketched up a
couple of designs for control surfaces on his wrist unit then interfaced them
with Topaz, allowing her to also work on the hardware. Then he pulled up lists
of what was still on the lander, and useable.

Two of the twin side thruster
units were still intact so he pulled up the designs of the mounting brackets,
programmed the plasma cutter table and used the overhead gantry to drop a piece
of 8mm steel plate on it. After pressing the button initiating the cutting
program, he went to look at the loaders. They were powerful beasts, standing
over three metres tall, with two arms and legs, engine compartment at the rear
and the control station in the centre of an egg-shaped unit. Not particularly
fast, but tough, solid pieces of equipment.

Marko pulled down one of the CAD
drawing plates and quickly sketched a rollover shield, set on a counterbalance,
which would give the operator additional protection. This was also programmed
into the plasma cutting table. He called up some 10mm plate to cut in sections
then weld together, a faster method than rolling the plate. With the jobs under
way, and with Harry’s help, he laid out some armoured brackets for the fuel
tanks for the flame-throwers. After dropping them into the cooling tanks, he
hooked the parts out and started tacking them together. It was not nice, just
big tough welds with the MIGs and no real measuring or precise positioning.

On the water cutting table, Marko
programmed up the designs for the flight surfaces of the tugs. He created two
sets, for the thruster units available, pulling a sheet of titanium out for the
job.

‘The guys are late,’ said Harry. ‘They
should be back by now. How about we go have a look, Marko? Grab a loader. You
steer, I’ll ride shotgun.’

Marko climbed into the open
cockpit, activated the machine and, with Harry hanging on halfway out of the
cockpit, they clumped off towards the boiler room. The machine did not get far
before Glint came barrelling around the corner, with Nail clinging to him. He
clambered up until his comms unit could see theirs.

‘On our way back we were ambushed
by a bunch of service robots. They do not have weapons but were trying to pull
the crew’s helmets off. We couldn’t raise you on any of the channels. They are
blocked in by the robots, which have also brought up heavy containers to trap
them. We have destroyed most of them, but need help to move the containers.’

‘Show us where they are. OK, got
it! Go back and get the other loader. You steer, Glint. Nail, you will have to
operate the foot controls. Meet us there. Run!’

They stamped down the covered
ways to where the maintenance robots had blocked access with steel containers,.
They moved forwards, Harry destroying two of the robots with his underarm
rotary, pieces exploding off them as the diamond projectiles first hit their
targets then shattered. Marko did not waste any time. He grabbed the containers
with the heavy waldos of the walking machine, and shoved them through the thin
metal sidewalls, clearing a path to where the rest of the crew were. To their
disgust, Marko and Harry could not see them for the flies. Neither had any idea
if their crewmates were OK or not; the massed insects heaved over the lumps
that were their crewmates. Arms were being flung about, swatting at the flies.
But for every hundred killed, two hundred more arrived.

‘Fire extinguishers, Marko. Grab
them and spray the guys. Holy crap, these are nasty! I so hate bloody insects!’

Grabbing the CO, extinguishers
from the walker, and more from the wall-mounts, they emptied the contents over
their friends. It was spooky seeing the insects pouring off them. As soon as
the spectral comms links were uncovered everyone was talking at once.

The major cut through the gabble.
‘OK, enough! Harry, turn around and hot-foot it out of here. We’re right behind
you. Grab every extinguisher you can. Jan — behind us, more robots. Smack them.’

Marko had just enough time to
glimpse two robot heads with big holes punched in them, falling to the floor,
before they were moving. At every junction point, the section grabbed the
portable extinguishers and continued to discharge them over themselves.

‘Can’t see behind me, Harry. What
the fuck’s happening?’

‘We’re good, Marko. Just keep
moving. Shit! Flies — thousands of the crappers. Boss, what’s in the fuel
containers?’

‘Dicyanoacetylene.’

Harry couldn’t help himself — he
smiled. Wow, this is about to get really interesting, he thought. Seriously hot
fuel. And the oxygen content in the planet’s air was just high enough to make
it work.

‘Fritz, when I tell you, kick one
of those containers off the back of the trailer. Boss, at the next corner, slow
down. Hope your shooting is up to scratch, people. Fritz, I want you to punch
two holes in it. Then, four seconds later, Jan, fire a tracer through it. Wait
for my commands. I want that swarm over the top of it. Now, Fritz! Marko, stop
us here, mate. Shit, my neck’s sore.’

Harry trotted back to the corner
as the tug was coming up.

‘Now, Fritz. Shoot! Get around
the corner, boss. Jan!’

Before she fired, Harry was
running back to the loader. Marko reached out, grabbed him and gunned the
engine. The flash was huge, but they were all around the corner before the
shockwave hit. Even so, it bounced off the walls, knocking out panels. The
corridors behind them were on fire, the paint burning off the steel panels.
They kept moving as fast as the walker would allow, heading to the machine
shop, and about halfway back they found Glint and Nail with hundreds of fat
flies hovering around them.

‘Glint, go to the lander — here’s
the shopping list. In theory. They’ll leave you alone. We’ll escort the boss
back, then meet you, if necessary.’

‘I’m not aware of shops out here,
Marko.’

‘It’s a phrase, Glint. Just get
what’s on the list.’

‘You humans should be clearer in
your speech!’

‘Fuck off, Glint!’

‘How can I fuck off, Marko? You
have not given me a penis yet.’

In spite of their situation,
everyone laughed.

No one was hurt and no suits had
been breached, but the slime of thousands of dead insects was dripping off
them. And, back at the machine shop, clouds of flies were arriving, crawling
and flying in through holes in the skylights which had not been there when
Marko and Harry had left — maintenance robots were smashing the windows and
hammering on the covering plates.

‘Just as well we have total
control of the olfactory systems on these suits. I’d hate to think what this
lot smells like. OK. Night time in an hour. We can carry on working without
lights, but I doubt that the insects can — at least, I hope not. We need to get
somewhere where we can see what’s coming. Jan, shoot those bloody robots
please. How many rounds did you bring? Knowing you and Harry, it was probably
five first line per weapon, right? Five hundred rounds? Yeah, thought so. Good.
Soon as it’s dark, go get those kids of yours, Marko.’

Harry started working on the
flame-throwers. They had managed to gather all of the spare boiler burner
units, which could easily throw a jet of compressed fuel twenty metres. Harry
was quickly measuring the units and programmed the auto mills and lathes to
make new jets to quadruple that distance with the aid of extra pumps. The major
started laying out the control lines and electrics, and Fritz worked on the
plugs and sockets to connect the electric burner units to the vehicles. Jan was
having fun blowing apart robots as they appeared, shooting through gaps in the
walls.

‘Jan, set off another bug bomb.
At least it’ll give us peace for a few minutes.’

Fritz and Marko were about to
depart to find the ACEs, when there was a knocking on the door. Fritz hammered
out a short code on the door and was answered by a short, fast burst which
identified Glint. As the doors swung open the tug drove in, towing the trailer
full of equipment. Perched on top was a slightly battered-looking Flint. He
scuttled across to Harry and promptly started cleaning off his suit for him.

‘Hey, buddy. Very glad to see
you! So pleased you got down OK. Marko and Topaz made you tough, eh? Great that
we don’t have to make you again. Don’t worry about the suit. Help me with
these, will ya?’

‘Flint said he knew that we would
come back to the lander, so he started stripping it before we arrived,’ Glint
informed them.

‘Good work, guys. I’m proud of
all of you.’

~ * ~

Three

Every
few hours Jan set off another bomb. By 0100 local time there were no more insects
alive in the workshop. At 0300 the outside doors were opened. With a couple of
hours left until dawn, the little convoy moved. Jan was in the lead, piloting a
flight-capable tug now nicknamed the Gunbus, Flint operating the flame-thrower.
Then came the major in a loader, which was sporting a medium-calibre rotary gun
on its side and had a hog painted on the front shield — courtesy of a bored Jan
— so both loaders were now called Hogs. Then Fritz in the hover-capable-only
tug, towing the spares.

Marko was in the other Hog, and
Harry in the remaining flight-capable Gunbus, towing another trailer with the
rest of the equipment, including Topaz and Ernst. The five-vehicle convoy moved
as quickly as it could in the starlight, heading due east away from the
facility, towards a prominence towering above the desert floor.

‘Jan. Recon that prominence. Find
us a defendable area. I want to suck those bastards to us and give them a tough
time of it.’

Jan accelerated away as the
convoy travelled the five kilometres to the foot of the mesa-like rock
formation. It had huge boulders around its base, jumbled on top of each other —
providing numerous hiding places. Long before the convoy arrived, Jan had found
one with good cover and the best available fields of fire. She directed the
vehicles towards it.

‘OK, people,’ said the major. ‘We
have to be sneaky about this. Fan out and find a hole to hunker down in — with
at least three alternative positions. Maintain your arcs. Conserve ammo. And
whatever you do — stay out of the sun, stay cool. We have no idea what 27, or
whatever we’re up against, can see. So hide from the sky, as well. Glint, I
need you on top of that mesa. You’ll be our eyes. You’re only to engage targets
on my express command. Nail, you stay with me. I may have to use you as a
messenger. Flint, you remain with Jan as you can fix anything on her Gunbus.
You’re our attack unit, so find somewhere that you can deploy from quickly,
Jan. We have sixty minutes until first light, so let’s make the most of the darkness.’