Shades of Gray (29 page)

The shuttle began to jerk and buck like a riding beast with a burr under its saddle. Kusac gripped the safety rail and looked over his team. Noolgoi had his stomach under control, though he looked somewhat pale. Not that he likely had anything left in it after the way he’d thrown up on the
Kz’adul
.

Zsurtul was sitting beside Zhalmo, his jaws clenched tight, but if he was any judge, the Princeling would rather die than throw up in front of a female he wanted to impress. The rest looked a little shaken but fine. Which left Khadui.

“How you doing?” he asked the older Sholan quietly.

“Better than a drop ship,” the older male said through gritted teeth. “I’ll last. Least we got our helmets off.”

“Can’t raise the landing pad, Captain,” said Sheeowl to Tirak. “Too much interference.”

“Keep trying.” Tirak said as they suddenly began to drop like a stone before just as suddenly leveling out again.

Kusac felt his stomach lurch and eyed the bucket someone had thoughtfully fastened to the wall opposite. If anyone was going to be sick, it wasn’t going to be him, he decided grimly, clamping his own jaws tightly shut and swallowing hard.

“Got a fix on the landing beacon,” said Sheeowl. “Captain, looks like they’ve got that force field up after all.”

“I see it,” said Tirak. “It looks unstable to me.”

The craft went through another series of gut-wrenching dips.

“Got them on audio now, Captain. They’re putting the lights on for us. They want us to taxi into one of the warehouses. What do I say?”

“Say yes. I’ll stall them, make it look like the wind blew us down on the pad. Mrayan, you can taxi us in.” He raised his voice. “You hear that, Kusac? Get your people ready to move out as soon as we touch down. We’ll all need to lie low at the edge of the pad till they kill the lights.”

“Copy that,” Kusac called out. “Helmets on now,” he ordered, lifting his own off his lap. “Those with remote sensors, check they’re firmly fixed to your suits. Run safety checks again; any errors let me know immediately. Make sure you can’t lose your tool packs. We’ll need them if we hit any cave-ins.”

“Why didn’t we just use the regular entrance?” Valden asked.

“It’s a concealed exit, not an entrance,” said J’korrash. “Only meant to be opened from the inside. It’s easier to use a controlled charge in the soil to open a shaft for us than to blast the exit open.”

“The hill is predominantly limestone and is riddled with natural tunnels. Captain Tirak has a cover for the hole that will conceal it,” said Zsurtul. “Anything that does show will be thought of as a cave-in due to the rain.”

“By the time daylight comes and this storm clears, we’ll hold the City and the Palace, and no one will care about the hole,” said Kusac. “We expect some flooding, possibly even cave-ins, which is why we’re carrying tools. Valden, remember to compensate for their weight if you have to use the suit jets at all.”

“You have jets on your suits?” asked Zsurtul incredulously, nausea forgotten as he leaned forward to look at Khadui’s lower leg pieces.

“Valden, that’s enough. You’re here on sufferance because we need you to hack the AI,” said Kusac absently, his mind moving to other matters.

“I didn’t say a thing!” the youth objected indignantly.

“I heard it,” he replied as one by one he reached out to touch the minds of the rest of his team. For this mission, he wanted a light Link to each of them. “The Primes copied our armor to make these suits. Doubtless your next generation armor will incorporate a lot of what we use, Prince Zsurtul.”

“Captain, I’d prefer if you just called me Zsurtul,” the young Prime replied. “I don’t want to be different from anyone else on this mission.”

He could empathize with that, having run away from the family responsibilities that had been forced on him three years before.

He grunted noncommittally in reply. His own checks completed, he readied himself for the landing.

Good as Tirak was, he didn’t have to fake much of the unscheduled landing at the edge of the pad. High winds drove the shuttle down, and it was only the U’Churian’s piloting skills that enabled him to align it exactly where he wanted.

“Out now!” Tirak barked, turning the controls over to Mrayan and getting out of his seat.

Kusac was up first, opening the side hatch. As he dived out into the pelting rain and raced the few yards to the edge of the pad, he saw that they were hidden from the warehouses not only by the foul weather but also by the shuttle itself. Beyond the edge of the landing surface was a slight drop into a ditch, then beyond that the scrubland that surrounded the walled city.

Rifle held clear in one hand, he flung himself facedown in the churning muddy ditch. Around him he felt the slight impact as the others landed close by, saw their telltales on his HUD. Automatically his free hand checked that the remote sensor from Toueesut was still safely attached. Barely audible above the noise of the gusting wind and the rain battering on his armor, he heard the shuttle lift into the air again and head out across the pad for the warehouses.

He raised his head slowly, finding it was level with the pad, but he could see only vague flickers of light through his visor and the driving rain.

“Switch to IR,” he said. He saw the shuttle then, glowing brightly between the open doors of the warehouse—he could even make out the huddled outlines of the six Primes waiting for it.

As soon as the shuttle was inside, before it had even landed, the doors slid closed. Scant minutes later, the pad was plunged into total darkness as the landing lights went out.

“Wait,” he cautioned them, reaching out mentally to see if he could eavesdrop on Mrayan’s conversation with the Primes inside.

When he was sure all was proceeding normally, he contacted Tirak.

“Ready,” he said. “We’ll stay down while you blow an entrance in the tunnel for us. The fewer of us on our feet, the better.”

“Aye on that,” agreed Tirak. Signaling Sheeowl to follow him, he carefully raised himself into a crawling position and headed into the darkness.

Kusac felt the small concussion shock vibrate the ground under him and waited for Tirak to let him know all was ready.

“We’re through, Kusac,” said Tirak.

“Coming,” he said, securing his rifle with the suit latches and coming up in a low four-legged crouch. He crawled over to where Tirak and his group were kneeling around a four-foot hole in the ground, grabbing for the flashlight that hung at his side.

He shone it briefly into the hole so he could see the tunnel opening out below. “Neat hole,” he murmured. It looked as if it had been cut out with a cookie cutter.

“Right tool for the right job,” said Tirak. “Better get down now. With this rain, it’ll collapse soon. Sheeowl’s rigged a rope for you.”

A rattling on his suit announced the start of hail.

“To me, in your ranks,” he said over the team channel.

Reaching out, he grasped hold of the rope, then, having second thoughts, sat back on his haunches. “I think I’ll send down a ’bot first.”

Unclipping it, he fiddled for a moment with the activating switch, then held the small mud-brown oval shape against the rope.

“What’s that do?” asked Tirak.

“Touiban device,” he said, almost letting it go in shock when six tendrils, three on each side, whipped out and caught hold of the rope. Instantly, a new telltale appeared on his HUD. When he did release it, it began to rapidly scramble down into the hole.

“Kathan’s beard!” swore Tirak, who’d leaped back in surprise. He approached Kusac again, his own flashlight picking out the small ovoid shape as it rapidly descended. “How d’you keep track of it? It’s almost perfectly camouflaged!”

“It’s on the HUD,” he said, watching the device let go of the rope, drop to the tunnel floor and begin what he could only think of as sniffing. “Toueesut said it would change color if it found anything. Hell,” he said, shifting his weight and leaning closer to the edge. “It
has
found something! J’korrash! Did you have a trip wire or trap around here?”

“At least you know it works. What now? Don’t get too close to the edge—that soil is waterlogged,” warned Tirak.

“I’ll wait till it signals it’s disabled it,” he said, watching his footing. The ’bot identifier, projected onto the inside of his helmet visor, had begun to blink yellow.

“Not one of ours, Captain,” she said.

“Better move back,” said Kusac, fitting actions to his words. “It could be explosives.”

They waited, tensed in case there was an explosion, but a few minutes later, the telltale returned to blue.

“Clear now,” he said, moving back to the edge of the hole and grasping the rope. He held his other hand out to Tirak. “Once again, good hunting, Tirak.”

“And you, Captain.”

Hand over hand he lowered himself swiftly down the rope. When his feet touched the ground, he chinned his helmet controls, turning on his low light sensor, then looked around for the ’bot.

It sat about a foot away, beside a now deactivated land mine.

“Ancient but effective, especially in such an enclosed area,” he muttered to himself as he quickly surveyed what he could see of the tunnel around him.

“Didn’t catch that, Captain,” said Khadui from above.

“A land mine,” he said. “Safe now. Hold on while I take a look around me.”

The debris from the hole Tirak had created had fallen to the back of the tunnel, almost filling it, leaving their way ahead clear except for a scattering of soil and stones. The walls were a mix of naturally eroded limestone and rock, fused by intense heat when the Valtegans had artificially enlarged it. About ten feet wide at this point, the roof was only eighteen inches above his helmet.

“All clear,” he said, moving away from the rope and into the tunnel proper. As he did, the ’bot scurried some fifteen feet ahead of him then stopped, blending into the darkness at the edges of his visibility. He examined the walls again, moving closer, seeing the water that was seeping through the untreated limestone and running down the walls to pool on the earth-covered floor. A quick survey showed that a drainage hole had been cut at the juncture of wall and floor, and the water was managing to escape through it. The surface underfoot was still slick with mud—and he knew there was a downward slope just ahead.

“Watch your footing everyone,” he warned as Khadui landed just behind him. “Floor is muddy, with water running down the walls onto it.”

“Probably hasn’t seen this much rain in a good many years,” said Khadui, clearing the access hole and performing the same checks he’d just done. “No lichens or mosses I can see.”

“None in this area,” Kusac confirmed. “We’ll need to watch our time. I allowed us ninety minutes for the tunnel and getting into the Command Room.”

“Let’s hope there are no surprises the ’bots can’t handle,” said Khadui, eyeing the deactivated mine.

“Glad I sent it down first,” Kusac muttered as J’korrash landed beside them. “I take it this wasn’t one of yours.”

“No, Captain.”

“Now we know for sure they’ve trapped this area,” said Khadui.

 

“THE force field is up now. Why can’t it stay up?” demanded K’hedduk, pacing from his desk toward the window to look out at the pale actinic rippling light that arced above the Palace.

“Two generators are faulty, Majesty,” said Fabukki, one of his M’zullian followers who had come to the Prime world with him. “We’re using them for this test, but if we keep them in the relay, they will fail completely, distorting the shape of the force field.”

“Meaning what, exactly?” demanded K’hedduk, returning to his desk to push the map of the Palace and surrounding City toward his Security Chief. “Show me.”

“Meaning we will have no force field covering the area beyond the front entrance wall to the Palace or the one on the east side beyond the parking area,” said Fabukki, indicating the defective generators and their arcs on the map. “Instead the field will default to a weaker path, roughly along the front of the walls. Weaker because it will have to cover more distance.”

“There’s still a generator at either corner of those walls. Doesn’t that mean each will only have to cover half the length of the wall, less distance than it does on its normal arc?”

Fabukki shifted his feet. “It’s not quite that straightforward, Majesty,” he murmured. “Before we lost contact with the Orbital, I was told the shipment of replacement parts had arrived. Given the violent nature of our current weather and the asteroid storm, I doubt their shuttle has left there. Indeed, it may even have been destroyed—we have no way of knowing until offworld communications are restored.”

“I thought I’d made it clear that communications with our ships are a priority. They’re our first line of defense,” said K’hedduk, narrowing his eyes as he looked at Fabukki.

“There’s nothing we can do right now, Majesty,” said Fabukki, deferentially. “Not until the storm ends, or someone on the
Kz’adul
checks on the Orbital to find out if it has been damaged, as we fear.”

“There should be failsafes, alternative ways to override the main computer system other than accessing it in the sublevel Command Room! I want a system set up that has redundancies built in, other ways for me to access the main controls and the Orbital! I should be able to see exactly what that meteorite shower is doing. It’s unconscionable that I should be out of communication with my fleet at this time!”

A tapping at the door brought their attention to it. A youth entered, bowing low before scurrying over to K’hedduk, holding a piece of paper out in front of him.

“Message from the landing pad, Majesty,” he said, handing it over and unobtrusively retreating.

“This whole damned planet is a joke,” K’hedduk hissed as he unfolded the note. “We were brought up to believe it was the holiest of worlds—the place of our emergence, where we evolved! How advanced it would be in comparison to our humble planet, we were taught. Advanced? Everything is ancient, worn out, crumbling, not steeped in history—steeped in threadbare decay more like! Nothing works! Even our internal communications are down again tonight! This wouldn’t be tolerated on M’zull!”