Morgan's Return (39 page)

In complete contrast to her. That brought back memories. Morgan had come dead, motherless last in everything, but her Supertech skills. Especially drill. Makasa had tested her on her first posting at Gens Brasna, suggested she might like to join him to use her skills to make money.

"If I'd agreed to your proposal at Gens Brasna, would you have had me killed?"

"Oh, yes." His eyes were hard as black stones. "As you've seen with Cruickshank, bent Supertechs are dangerous."

"She was only dangerous to me."

"No. I had her affairs investigated after she acquired that Dainridge Interceptor. She had a network of bank accounts, a list of names in big companies, a sniff of blackmail, a hint of arms running. We've only scratched the surface. There's a suggestion she was the real brains behind the Black Cat crime network."

Wow. No messing about with Cruickshank. "What did she want?"

"Who can really say? It looks like power. She wanted my job, it seems."

Morgan lifted an eyebrow. How would he know that?

"She left a diary in her flat. We needed our best Supertech to beat the encryption and the self-destruct. That's where we found the information that led us to Black Cat. They're probably still working on it."

"Looks like you'll have to improve your Supertech vetting in the future. That's two of us you almost got wrong."

Makasa winced. "I'm well aware."

It was almost time. One last trip to the bathroom.

Ravindra met her coming out. "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be."

She let Davaskar pilot the ship, taking him through a micro-jump that left them on the opposite side of the planet from the alien mother ship, and beyond the orbiting junk. They wouldn't have much time.

"Well." Ravindra's chest rose as he sucked in a deep breath. "Let's get this over with." He slapped a hand on Davaskar's shoulder, and jerked his head in a short bow.

Jirra pushed the last air pack into the lander. "Good luck." She hesitated, then pulled Morgan into a brief hug.

Morgan responded, aware of the woman's slim, but strong body. She'd never had a girlfriend, not really. Jirra was perhaps as close as it got. She forced a smile. "We'll be back as soon as possible."

"And if we're not," Ravindra added, "leave for home."

They boarded the lander, and strapped in. Jirra started the sequence to cycle out the air while Morgan went through everything one last time. Space suits, tiny missile, laser-lances, torches, water powered jetpacks that doubled as weights. Check. Sort of. The jetpacks were based on a thruster, sucking in water, pushing it out. It should work. In principle. Ravindra carried rope, a short grapple gun and corplast. If they needed anything else, too bad.

First things first. Get to orbit, pretend to be space junk, and settle on the water next to the temple.

The hatch opened. Ushas hung in space surrounded by its garland of flotsam. The once beautiful, blue and white jewel had disappeared behind masses of grey and black cloud. Ushas had burned. Morgan eased the lander out. Streamlined and elegant, the little ship's short wings were tucked inside for space travel, and for storage in
Vulsaur's
docking bay. The cloaking software would hide the ship from sensors, but it wouldn't be invisible to visual contact. The lander had barely shifted into the stream of junk when
Vulsaur
disappeared, back to its hiding place near the next planet.

Ravindra sat beside her, impassive. They both wore their space suits, set to black for stealth. The air packs were on the floor behind them, ready to be clipped on. Morgan checked the trajectory, a loop down through the atmosphere, timed to stay away from that mother ship, which drifted in a slow orbit. The lander dodged a piece of junk, but something more flexible slid past the screens. Best not to think too hard.

Fuck
. One of those scoop jellyfish lay a few klicks ahead. Morgan flipped the lander over in a slow roll, and snared a piece of space junk with the ship's grapples.

Ravindra smiled, giving her an approving look. "Clever."

The scoop came on.

Nerves jangled in Morgan's gut. If there were eyes to see, all the whizzbang electronics she'd rigged wouldn't be worth a pinch of shit. The thing came closer, two wide wings of jelly. It flicked away anything but the blue gloop. Her fingers twitched on the armrest. Just a short burst and they'd be out of its way.

Ravindra's hand closed over hers. "Patience."

The shuttle and its piece of junk were flicked aside, rotating slowly, while the scooper ship glided past.

Morgan sank back in the seat. "One down."

He gripped her arm. "Don't release the grapple."

She had been intending to. "Why?"

"We can ride it down. The lander can deflect the heat, can't it?"

"I guess. To an extent."

"It will be enough. You can break away later, another piece of space junk disintegrating. It will help to hide us from visual surveillance."

Good idea. For an admiral, he was quite good at tactics. All Morgan had to do now was maneuver the lander and its cargo into the atmosphere without it looking like a maneuver. And do it soon, before the mother ship reappeared. She balanced the thrusters, a little here, a little there, easing the ship into place. Just a little bit more.

The lander and its piece of junk accelerated slowly, diving into the planet's gravity well. Ushas lay below them, but through the top of the ship. Morgan kept an eye on the sensors on the ship's base in particular, where the grapples held the section of wreckage. Temperature rising. Speed increasing. The shields protected the lander's carbon alloy hull. The ship shuddered, bouncing them around in their seats. On the screen, the rear sensor showed a streak of heat. Anybody watching from below or above would see just another hunk of junk burning up as it plunged.

When the heat sensors pinged a warning, Morgan let go, and rolled the lander over, leaving the space junk to streak on across the sky, trailing fire in its wake. The temple should be over to the right. She deployed the wings, and curved the ship around.

"Doesn't look good," Ravindra said.

No, it sure didn't. Black smoke coiled up from the island mountain, disappearing into the low cloud that obliterated the sun. The white tower was gone. Pieces of masonry which had stood for thousands of years now lay scattered, with only a few jagged tops like so many broken teeth. Wreckage tossed in the waves smashing on the cliffs. Morgan swallowed down bile. Bodies floated down there, too. A few boats seemed to be at work collecting bodies or maybe refugees. A larger vessel pulled out from where the island's main dock was situated.

"Do you think they've landed?" Ravindra was looking at the temple on the display.

Morgan shook her head. "Seems like overhead damage to me, bombardment from space. There's no sign of strange landing ships." She wondered what they looked like, these aliens with their gelatinous-looking ships.

"No, don't slow down, Morgan." Ravindra's voice snapped her back to where she was. "We can't set down there. Too much traffic, too many people. Plan B."

"
Srimana
."

They'd talked about it. If they couldn't, for whatever reason, land on the water by the temple, they would go straight to the island where the lab was hidden beneath the rock. She glanced at him, noting the tense lips, the hard planes of his face. The move was more dangerous, because they had a set amount of air to get in, do what was necessary, and get out. Morgan didn't like the idea much, neither did her jittering nerves, but you did what you had to do. Bringing the ship down to almost sea level, she headed away, toward the lab island.

The target island appeared to be deserted. Morgan zoomed around the island to make sure, then fired the forward thrusters, slowing the vehicle to idle speed. Waves surged beneath them, rising bulk into a curve that crashed on the cliffs. They wouldn't be able to get too close. She found a place as close to the island as she could and let the ship settle into the water, as deep as the bottom of its wings, tossing in the swell, just another piece of flotsam.

Ravindra turned to retrieve the air packs, enough for four hours, and the jetpacks they'd rigged up. The lander was programmed to stay within a small radius of this point, able to drift, but never too far. Time to go. Morgan released the canopy, and slid it back. Sea air filled the cabin, moist and salty, and tasting of smoke. Two klicks away the waves boomed onto the rocks, while wavelets slapping on the hull provided a counterpoint. She clambered up onto the hull, and reached down for the jetpacks. Ravindra climbed up beside her. The canopy slid back into place. With her jetpack buckled on, she shared a last look with Ravindra. What was there to say? In unison, they deployed the helmets folded into the backs of the suits into place over their heads, and turned on the air.

Four hours.

Chapter 34
 

R
avindra fought the surge of panic rising from his gut as he sank down into the water. The sky was a receding circle of brightness above him.
Keep your breathing even. Don't hyperventilate. It's just like space, except with pressure
.

Around him streaks of sunlight drove down into the depths like lances. Given the lowering, smoky clouds in the sky, he was amazed that any light managed to get through. A few curious fish swam past him, and flicked away into the gloom when he lifted his hand.

"Okay?" Morgan eyed him from behind the curved face plate.

"I'm all right. Which way?"

They were still sinking, going deeper and deeper. Morgan flicked on the jetpack on her waist, angling the propulsion toward her feet. She moved away from him. "Coming?"

He followed her lead. Jetpack switched on, nozzles angled down. In space the burst of power would have kept him moving for… ever. Here, the jets would have to work harder. He accelerated enough to catch up with her. "How long will the jetpacks last?"

"At half power, long enough. I hope."

"That's not encouraging."

"The current is stronger than I'd expected."

Nothing to be done but get the job finished. They moved through the water, well above the sea floor, and well below the surface. Keeping his body at the right angle, without going up or too far down, was harder than he would have imagined. Something moved out there in the gloom, something big. His heart galloped, remembering the huge beast they'd encountered last time they were here. Morgan's gasp of fright was almost soothing. It wasn't just him.

The shadowy shape resolved into a shoal of fish, the biggest as long as his forearm. He relaxed. Morgan didn't. She pushed nearer to him, "Quick," she snapped, accelerating a little. He responded without question. Something else sped past his feet and disappeared after the shoal.

Morgan slowed down again. "Hunters following the hunted."

Of course. It happened in the mountains, too. If you saw a herd of tip horns running, you looked for the cause. "How much further?"

"We should reach the wall soon. Then the tunnel entrance should be nearby."

The darkness ahead seemed darker. A little further on, Ravindra switched off the jetpack, and turned on his helmet lamp to reveal rock covered in reddish growth. He put out a gloved hand. Now if this was like last time, a cardoplast's nest was around here somewhere. The triple rows of teeth were etched in his memory.

Morgan had turned on her lamp, too, gazing along the rocks. She hung in the water, just as she would have done if this was space. "Here. This is the arch."

He swam over to her, kicking his legs for the short journey.

"Right. Ready? The cardoplast is down there. You can't see it, but I can. And it knows we're here."

His pulse bounded. "Oh, good."

"We go in as soon as the gap is large enough. Okay?"

"Okay." Just… make it happen. The thought of the creature, invisible in the depths, had his heart hammering.

The gate moved. Silt drifted into the water.

"It's not easy," Morgan muttered. "I think it's damaged."

The gap widened. Up close like this, he could understand why the cardoplast might mistake this for a mouth. All it needed was the teeth.

"Fuck. The cardoplast's coming."

Morgan had hold of the metal lip, trying to ease herself inside. He joined her, imagining the great teeth closing on his legs. One more wriggle and they were in the tunnel.

"Hurry," she said.

He felt like a junior recruit, but he obeyed, motoring up the tunnel as fast as the jets would take him. A boom crashed into his eardrums, moments before the water surged, tossing him around. Something hit his shoulder, and glanced off. His heart hammering, he increased the jetpack's propulsion to maximum. If they ran out of power, that was one thing, but being trapped under a fallen roof was unthinkable. Rocks fell around him, on him. Debris rose like an evil mist, threatening to shut down the light from his helmet.
Don't think. Just do
.

Morgan glided to a halt, and turned. He joined her, the light of their helmet lamps picking out a mountain of rubble through the swirling, floating debris. Bile churned in his gut. He forced it down. One of the first lessons a recruit learned was, don't be sick in your helmet. He'd been proud of himself for being one of the few not to throw up at the academy, when they'd confronted the new boys with fresh, very dead bodies. That was a long time ago.