Windrunner's Daughter

Windrunner’s Daughter

Bryony Pearce

Xist Publishing

IRVINE, CA

Copyright © 2016 by Bryony Pearce

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

Xist Publishing

PO Box 61593

Irvine CA 92602

www.xistpublishing.com

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Windrunner’s Daughter/ Bryony Pearce
. -- 1st ed.

ISBN 978-1-62395-375-1

This book is dedicated to my beautiful daughter, Maisie, my superhero of a niece, Blythe and to all the girls who know there is nothing they cannot do if they try

Other books by Bryony Pearce

Angel’s’ Fury (2011)

The Weight of Souls (2013)

Phoenix Rising (2015)

Phoenix Burning (2016)

Wavefunction (2016)

PROLOGUE

“We’ve lost them.” White-faced, the Captain stared at the viewing station, where his view of the tiny blue planet remained unchanged. Perhaps in a few minutes they would see flashes of light, or spreading fungal splotches of mushroom clouds; or maybe, from this distance, it would remain at peace.

“Who started it?” There was no point to such a question.  

The Captain shrugged. “The Caliphate, the Russians, the Pan-Asian Alliance, the Western Blockade?” His lean body curved as though a sudden gravitational increase had dragged at his spine. His hands hung loosely at his sides. Impulsively he flicked his fingers, changing the view to the 100km orbiting mirrors, wiping out the Earth altogether.

“Captain?”

“We’d better annou-”

The control room rocked sideways and a cloud of oxygen propelled debris, puffed silently in front of the viewers and filled the window with mist.

“Sector three – report!”

“No answer, Captain.”

“What the hell?” The Captain’s fingers danced as he called up displays. The mirrors that had been filling the screen slowly began to realign, turning their reflective surfaces away from the planet below.

“Get a security team suited up and over to three. Send Phelps to engineering, find out who’s altering the mirrors,” the Captain shouted. “Where are the redundancies?”

More silent explosions of atmosphere and bodies; dandelion fluff blown towards the turning mirrors.

The Captain’s face hardened. “Sabotage.”

“They were waiting for the earth event?”

“Had to be. Now they know there’s no chance of resupply. Hail the
Intrepid.
” The Captain’s foot started to beat on the tile, a hard sound in the thickening atmosphere.

“Nothing, Captain. I-I think -”

“They’re in the Molniya orbit, it might take them a minute.”

The seconds ticked by.

“Still no answer, Captain.”

“Keep hailing, if the
Intrepid
is down, then there’s no way to get the colonists up to their emergency habitat.”

“Captain, word from Mariner Canyon, the CFC factories have been targeted.”

“Co-ordinated attacks.” Trembling with cold rage the Captain spun to his communications officer. “Find the messages. They’ll be buried in code but find them. I want to know who’s doing this.”  

“Everyone’s Deep Vetted.” The reply was almost a wail. “How could this happen?”

The Captain’s eyes filled with tears as the wreckage of the
Intrepid
swung past the viewing screen, moving in a silent majestic ballet towards Phobos, the largest and closest of the Martian moons.

Alarms blared and he started. His screen blinked at him, emergency warning lights strobing furious red lines across his face. “Get the scientists and their families into the shuttle.” His voice cracked. “Hail the ten colonies. Let them know …” He closed his eyes. “Let them know that now the CFC factories are gone, they’ll have to rely on the positive feedback loop.” He shook his head. “That last orbital asteroid transfer would have had us a decade away from a breathable atmosphere, Lieutenant - a decade.”

“And now?”

“In a few years they won’t need their pressure suits to go outside, but they’ll need oxygen canisters for generations.”

“
They
, Captain?”

“We have to try and give them a chance - those mirrors need to be put back in alignment. It’s a manual job now they’ve blown the Stack. The last thing they need is sunlight being reflected
away
from the surface.”

But instead of rising from his chair the Captain switched the view once more. Swirling below them was the red planet. The Martian Delta was gouged with patches of brown-green and half obscured by the clouds that thickened and rolled in its new atmosphere. The sun glittered from the shallow water that covered Lake Lyot, turning it into a mirror that reflected back the racing clouds.

“They’ll have to remain in their separate habitats, won’t be able to spread out as planned.” The Captain was dictating furiously as the communications officer transmitted in a low voice. “The dust storms are worsening, so no leaving the safety of the biospheres in the afternoons.” He wiped his forehead. “God help them when the next big one comes around. There’s a mega-storm due in six months and no way to get them off surface.”

“And what about -?”

The viewfinder switched to the bio-labs. They were burning.

“The indigenous organisms appear to be restricted to the sand, at least at the moment. They’ll have to find a way to survive alongside them.”

“We were
so close to
full terraforming.”

A shuttle burst onto the main view screen and started to fall towards Mars; a tiny burning seed, carrying the last of the colonists.

“They could be on the shuttle - the saboteurs.”

    The Captain sighed. “Lieutenant, they’re already on the surface. Keep working on the messages, send what you find down to Harris and the other nine colonies, maybe they can pinpoint the terrorists. The important thing is that the families have dropped to safety.”

“Safety?” The word was a sneer.

“Earth’s irradiated.” The Captain sagged in his chair. “If the biospheres can hold, Mars is the safest place in the solar system for humanity now.” He turned off the view-screen. He’d had family back on Earth, been coming up to the end of his posting; had been looking forward to sunlight and true-blue skies, not the florescent glow of the space station, or the half light on the Martian surface. He stood, just as the low oxygen warning began to flash. “If they all left on the shuttle, at least we’ll able to realign the mirrors.”

“And if some of the saboteurs have stayed behind?”

The Captain smiled dangerously, and lifted his weapon. “Lieutenant, a part of me hopes that they have.”

Runner’s Elegy – Fragment:
Unknown author

…

When I fly, I fly alone

If I’m lost it’ll be far from home

When I die don’t search for my bones

For I’ll lie as I lived - under wings, under sky

Don’t bury me deep in the dust when I die

Chapter one

Elysium Mons was littered with the bones of Runners. Most, but not all, were bleached white. There was always
something
for the Creatures on the flats below the cliffs.

    Amongst the corpses lay the Runner’s wings. Half buried they shone like fallen stars; heartbreakingly beautiful, even broken and twisted. There were so many shattered wing-sets down there that after the biennial mega-storms the dust sometimes shone silver for days, until the sand blew back over them.

    Wren squinted over the desert, her O
₂
canister light on her back, barely aware of the mask that rubbed against her cheek as she turned her head. Ignoring the bone-yard beneath her, she was seeking the tell-tale glimmer against the rosy sky that would warn her a Runner was flying in.

Despite the warmth of Perihelion she shivered. The Runners had never gone this long without contact before. The Patriarchs were meeting at Convocation, but that left plenty of Juniors still flying; someone should have arrived from one of other colonies by now or, if there was a problem, sent a message over the central communicator in Elysium.

When the sky remained empty Wren’s heart sank. She glanced back at the Runner-sphere on the cliff edge. Avalon, as the Runners called it, looked like a low mollusc, clinging to the rock, as close to the Running platform as practically possible. But she wasn’t heading home; if the Runner’s weren’t coming in, she would have to send a message out. She needed someone to fly for her.

Turning her back on the sphere she started to run. She had to talk the Councillors of Elysium into letting her into their coms room.

The path curved along the cliff edge, so close that each step sent red-brown stones flying past the marker-posts into the desert, kilometres below. The few who walked the path from Elysium to the Runner-sphere, Avalon, did so with care, looking over their shoulders to see how close to death they stepped.

Wren sprinted down the trail as though Creatures were on her heels.  The rattle of kicked gravel followed her footsteps and her long black hair flew from her scarf.  

As the green-belt came into view with its low slung gingko trees and clinging ferns, she put on another burst of speed. A rock slid under her foot. Her ankle twisted but the sharp pain vanished when she realised what was about to happen. Frantically she wind-milled her arms, but there was nothing to stop her from falling; her whole world tilted towards the sky.

Wren spit curses as her right hand slammed into a marker post. Instinctively she grabbed hold and her whole body swung; her fall arrested.  

    Closing both hands around the creaking pole, Wren looked down. Below her feet the branches of a spindly bush clawed the sky. Beneath its browning leaves a sheer drop plummeted towards tendrils of cloud then finally, the bone yard, kilometres below.

A hysterical giggle bubbled through her mask.

There was no point calling for help. Even in normal times visitors from Elysium were few and with no incoming Runners for the Council to interrogate there would be no-one taking the path. Even if there were … Wren closed her eyes. There were those in the biosphere who would happily watch a Runner fall.

    Sweat began to prickle on Wren’s hands; she was running out of time.

    With a swift exhalation she pulled herself higher and wrapped her elbow around the post to secure her grip.

Wren was lucky to be on Mars; on dead-Earth such a move would have been impossible. Baring her teeth in a humourless grin, Wren swung again and, moving her legs from side to side, made a pendulum of herself.

Finally her right leg reached high enough that she was able to hook her ankle over the cliff top, halting her swing.

Dragging her body back onto the path, Wren lay for a moment with her arms clamped around the post that had saved her. Then she pried her fingers free, sprung to her feet and limped into a run once more.

She had to get to Elysium and back before her mother woke up.

Inside the line of gingko trees the path began to meander. Wren narrowed her eyes and glanced at the sun. “No time for the scenic route.”

She plunged into thick ferns, her boots scraping carefully cultivated lichens and algae from the rocks. The Green-Men would be furious, but what choice did she have? At least she wasn’t in the GM soya fields.

Deeper in the green belt the ferns were at shoulder height. Dense, damp tendrils clutched at her clothes and hair and a thin mist blurred her vision: O
₂
being synthesised moment by moment. Wren had a strange, suicidal desire to rip off her mask and inhale the fresh made oxygen.

All around her, ferns absorbed the sounds of Mars; the howling of far away dust storms, the hissing of the air filters in the biospheres, the eerie distant shrieking of the Creatures. Here the rustling of ferns and creaking of branches filled her ears; even the buzzing of the pollinators was muted, their tiny wings brushing against her cheeks, surprising her and making her jump. She ran her fingers through the hair-like greenery, then shook her head and pushed on, directly towards Elysium’s dome.

Hexagonal, dust-pocked solar panels covered the top two-thirds of the biosphere and thick plastic storm proofing ran around the bottom. Wren staggered to a halt in front of the airlock. Vast farms of cyanobacteria kept the air inside breathable and, once through, she would be able to remove her mask. She never did, Wren felt naked without it. The feel of air on her lips was terrifying, like falling.

    She clapped her palm on the lock and waited, stamping impatiently, for it to cycle green. Then she stepped inside, allowing it to hiss closed behind her.