Waiting (5 page)

'Enemy,' said
Staples. 'Probably the tank that hit our ship.'

'They're still
grunts like us just trying to survive. Hey. I see a live one.'

Willis pulled
up letting the engines idle. Through the grime covered bullet proof
window they could see a body on the ground, two crows already
pecking at the face, a hand feebly trying to push them away.
Staples pulled out his laser pistol and opened the door.

'Are you nuts?'
Willis asked. 'In a hurry to get yourself killed?'

'By whom? Like
you said. That's a grunt like you and me. You stay here all cosy if
you like.'

Staples got
out, slamming the door after him and cursing under his breath,
Willis did likewise. They crouched down low, surveying the area
before hurrying over to the fallen soldier who was lying face down.
Both legs were missing, as was the left arm up to the elbow. The
birds had taken small chunks out of her earlobe, the tasty morsels
they could get at before having their meal disturbed. Staples put
his weapon away and grabbed the shoulders and turned the soldier
over.

'Damn,' said
Willis. 'A woman.'

Other than her
ears, her face was the one part of her body unmarked. She was no
more than twenty-years-old and she was pretty. Her eyes opened,
fixing Staples with a terrified stare, then her right hand grabbed
his arm, her grip belying the delicate looking girl.

'Bastards!' she
snarled, spitting in Staple's face.

'I wouldn't
argue with that,' said Staples. 'We were not the ones who shot you.
Sorry. Not much we can do for you.'

'Just stop the
pain. I beg you. Please. Don't let me die out here alone.'

Staples looked
up at Willis who had his weapon already trained on the girl.

'Move out of my
way and I'll do it,' said Willis.

'No. I'll do
it.' Staples took her hand in his. 'You have a name?'

'Private
Formona.'

'Drop the
private. What's your name?'

The girl fought
for breath to speak. 'Christina.'

'A lovely name,
Christina. I'm Giles.'

Christina's
fingers dug painfully into Staples' arm. 'Giles. Please shoot
me.'

'I will. I'm so
sorry, Christina.'

Staples wasted
no more time and pulled his weapon from its holster, pointed it at
the girl's head and fired. The laser burnt a neat hole in in her
skull and she was dead. The two men stared at the dead girl then
Staples closed her blue eyes. He kissed the tips of his fingers and
touched her full red lips with them.

'We gotta go,'
said Willis. 'There's no telling if there are any live ones still
around.'

Staples turned
his head away from Willis as he wiped tears away. 'Such a stupid
waste.'

They returned
to the Charger and in a heavy silence, drove off the highway to get
around the tank then they were away heading east at top speed.

Chapter 12

Goliath
Technical Officer Joe Friar took the call from Captain Jacobs,
ignoring the few seconds of time delay.

'Captain. The
sound quality isn't great. Increase the resonance filters output.
Better. How are you all?'

'Good.
Considering. Still picking up our vital signs?'

Friar said,
'Patchy. That storm's interfering with everything the closer you
get. There's a real possibility I'll lose you completely as you
reach the planet.'

'A prospect I'm
well aware of. Anything from Earth?'

'Nothing. Shall
I try them again? I did so a few hours ago.'

Jacobs said,
'No, Joe. Your regular scheduled calls will do for now. I'm sure
Sam will tell you before we lose contact with you all together of
his plans to get us safely on the surface should the need
arise.'

'We tossed
ideas around before you left us,' said Friar. 'It will push the
shuttle to the limits.'

Jacobs
chuckled. 'Thanks for reminding me. Believe me. Any success with
the equipment to make landing unnecessary and we'll not risk it.
I'll have Sam call you in...three hours. In the meantime, if Earth
responds, alert us immediately. '

'Of course,
captain. Don't hold your breath, though.'

'We won't.
Over.'

Jacobs ended
the call and checked the time. 'I'm tempted to increase speed.'

Clifton shook
his head and replied, 'Not knowing the situation on Earth or even
Spero for that matter, I would not be for expending fuel
unnecessarily. Relax, Jay Jay. Go read a book or something.'

'I tried that.
Couldn't concentrate. I told Joe you would call him in about three
hours. Assuming we can. Even with the filters we were breaking up.
That storm is causing too much interference and will only get
worse.'

'Localised
storms wouldn't do that, but the whole damn planet is covered with
it. Nothing of the intensity of a solar flare of course, but this
close to us it is bound to have some affect.'

Jacobs stared
at the screen and the flashes of the lightning inside the slightly
yellow cloud cover. 'That volcano has really stuffed the place up.
Let's just hope it won't erupt again for a couple of
centuries.'

'Amen to that.
The terraformers have enough to sort out without additional work
from eruptions. Even if we manage to kick-start them again our
people will be spending more time on the Goliath than
anticipated.'

Anne Lee
appeared in the cramped flight-deck in a change of outfit. It was a
comfortable one piece of a soft blue fabric that hugged her body in
all the right places.

'Either of you
ready to take a break?' she asked.

Smiling
approvingly as he appreciated the female form, Clifton said, 'I
could do with stretching my legs and grabbing a feed. While I'm
gone will you please try to cheer up our captain?'

'I'm not sure
that's even possible,' said Lee settling into the pilot's seat.

'Hey,' said
Jacobs. 'I am right here, you know.'

Lee giggled.
'And I'm here to hold your hand and stop you fretting too
much.'

'Good luck with
that,' said Clifton as he left.

'Damn. That
storm looks worse than ever,' said Lee.

Jacobs said,
'The intensity hasn't actually changed much according to the
readings. We're just closer to it.'

'Does the radio
still work?'

Jacobs
shrugged. 'More or less. Still nothing from Earth, by the way.'

'Too busy
killing each other to bother about us, I reckon.'

'So everyone
keeps telling me and I wish they wouldn't. Whatever happened to no
news is good news?'

Lee stared into
Jacobs' kindly grey eyes. 'Yeah. You keep telling yourself that.
Me? I'm of the opinion Earth is out of the equation now. If not and
we hear from them again, I'll consider that a bonus.'

Jacobs decided
he had no suitable response to Lee's opinion, so sat quietly with
his own deep and dark thoughts.

Chapter 13

From a safe
distance, Staples and Willis ate sitting on the sandy ground with
their backs against the Charger, watching the war rage away to the
east.

'If I don't
think too hard,' said Willis, 'I can almost imagine that's some
firework display and not people killing each other.'

Staples scraped
the last of his meal out of his mess-tin and licked the spoon. 'I
keep hoping they'll come to their senses before we get there and
call it quits.'

'Why break
habits of a lifetime? It just amazes me we've survived our own
stupidity as long as we have.'

Staples
refilled the mugs with black coffee and handed one to Willis. 'I
haven't stopped thinking of Christina. That was just about the
hardest thing I ever did, killing her.'

'If you hadn't
I would have. A pretty kid. Reminded me of my sister.'

'Yeah,' said
Staples. 'She was probably
somebody's
sister. Y'know. It's
one thing to be in a tank or a ship blasting away with cannons from
a distance but putting a gun to a girl's head and shooting her is
entirely different. I wish we'd had time to bury her.'

'That is the
problem. Those jokers in their shielded bunkers telling the rest of
us what to do never see things like that. They should be made to do
what you had to do and see if they had the guts to kill a girl with
their own hands. Maybe they'd think twice about fighting these damn
wars.'

'Doubt it,'
said Staples as he relieved himself on a nearby gorse bush. 'Time
to move out.'

Willis gathered
things up and said, 'Are you still not ready to tell me why we are
heading east?'

'If and when
the time comes. I'll drive for awhile.'

'Ok,
lieutenant,' said Willis climbing inside the Charger. 'Just try to
keep us on the highway for a change.'

'If there's
anything left of it.'

Staples climbed
inside, paused and stared out at the cannon fire in the distance,
pulled the hatch shut and less than a minute later they were
heading towards it.

Chapter 14

The technician
adjusted her safety goggles, taking nothing for granted even though
the test device was in the bomb-proof chamber, flicked a switch and
held her breath as the series of test diodes turned from red to
green. Her three colleagues and her commanding officer Major Otto
Gunther stood apprehensively behind her.

'Looking good,
Lieutenant Caswell,' said Gunther, putting as much encouragement
into his voice as he could.

'It seems to be
stable,' said Caswell. This was the third unit they had built to
replace the defective one, required to make communication with the
Goliath possible. It was an ugly piece of work, cobbled together
from scavenged and scrounged parts, the war creating a barrier to
obtaining genuine components. Caswell finally allowed herself to
take a breath when the unit began to crackle seconds before smoke
leaked from it. As she reached out to cut the power to the unit to
salvage what they could, it exploded, shards hitting the safety
glass with such force everyone instinctively flinched. 'Sorry,
sir.'

'You did what
you could with what we had available,' said Gunther, trying to
comfort the disappointed technician.

'I still don't
understand,' said Caswell. 'It may have been rough, but in
principle it should have worked. We tested every component
individually prior to assembly. It all checked out. I...I just
don't know what more we could have done.'

Gunther said,
'The unit is an essential part to control the terraformers. It is
also required to communicate with the Goliath. Do we have enough
stuff to try again?'

Caswell
shrugged. 'Perhaps. If no individual element fails before assembly.
But what's the point? What can we do next time that we haven't
already tried?'

'I think that's
what we need to concentrate on, lieutenant. Not so much the
components but the technology behind it. Don't forget we are
working with a flawed design. The original unit stopped working and
proved irreparable. Forget what we have and try looking at the
problem afresh.'

'But with each
passing day the mission is held up.'

Gunther said,
'Caswell. We must put that kind of thinking behind us.' He looked
at the team and pointed at each of them. 'You are a talented team.
I have complete confidence in your abilities. Forget about the
mission for now. That just puts pressure on us we can do without.
Focus instead on just the unit and its intended function. Go over
the entire schematics then start again.'

'Yes, sir,'
said Caswell. 'Everyone. Have an early night and we'll brainstorm
in the morning.'

The team left
the laboratory workshop leaving Gunther and Caswell alone.

'You can do it,
Karen. I have faith in you. We know what doesn't work. Subtract
those from the equation and find something that does work.'

'Yes, sir.
Sound advice as usual. Goodnight, sir.'

'Goodnight,
Karen.'

As Caswell left
him alone, Gunther looked at the destroyed unit in the safety
chamber. His technicians, now just four in number, were good. But
they were supposed to maintain the whole Base along with the rest
of his officers now taken from him, not build from scratch a
sophisticated, intricate unit from a collection of components
"similar" to those in the original unit. For all his soft words of
encouragement, he doubted they would be any more successful on the
next attempt. It had been a long day and it was time to go to
bed.

Chapter 15

'Joe? Joe? Are
you getting this?'

'Patchy at
best, Sam. Same your end, I assume. All we can do is say good luck
and hope for the best. And before you ask, nothing from Earth.'

Clifton said,
'Joe. As we discussed earlier, we will do slow orbits the planet
twice, as Anne attempts to get the readings from the terraformers.
If we get nowhere with that we will probably attempt to land the
shuttle. If...all goes to plan, we'll stay no more than forty eight
hours. More than enough time to locate and manually activate the
terraformers. After that time passes and we are not able to contact
you, assume something has gone horribly wrong.'

Friar said,
'I'll come after you in another shuttle if you get stuck.'

Jacobs butted
in. 'Joe. Losing three lives will be bad enough. I'll not have you
adding to the death-toll.'

'Jay Jay. I'll
take a quick cremation in that storm over years of floating around
in the Goliath until we either all go nuts or starve. I respect
your orders, but on this occasion, and as I'll become captain after
you and Sam, I'll be making those decisions.'

Clifton said,
'He's got you there, Jay Jay. Rules and regulations. Joe will have
no alternative but to assume we're dead and he'll become
captain.'

'And I suppose
as usual, my opinion around here counts for nothing. What the hell.
I never wanted to be captain. Anyone else wants the job, please
feel free.'