Stepping Up (23 page)

The room is silent.

“All granted,” he says, “except Gwendolyn. There is one
person that can handle her if she gets out of control, and that is I. And it
isn’t child’s play for me.  Work the rest out with Aria. I will expect your
report within ten days.  Aria will give you what limited information we have.” 
He leaves.

I call Ginny. “Mind the shop—I’m not sure when I’ll be
back.” I tell Ginny the time frame and put her in operational control, with
Gorb as the resident subject matter expert. For HR purposes, I send the
personnel officer a text message detailing that, copying Ginny.

Aria has been making notes.  She spins her pad around for me
to read and says, “These are your assets.”

Personnel
:

Sonia
MacTaggert: Team Leader, Engineer, Shooter

Shawna
Landers: Pilot, Navigator, Medic

Sherri
Watson: Shooter, Backup Pilot, Communications

Marlon
Jones: Shooter, Explosives

Dr.
Avinoam Took: Medical, Long Range Communications

Doyle
Reeber: Scientist’s Apprentice, Shooter

Materiel
:

The
100-ton cutter has been configured with:

Two
30-ton cargo modules

2
single barrel, fusion turrets.

2
MED Kits

1
LR Communication system

4
survival packs

90
field rations

90
gallons fresh water

10
APE suits

5
suits Strike Armor

1
flame cannon

5
shotguns with a total 400 rounds

1
MAINTBOT

“I have in mind two more shooter/spacers you can take, if
you want,” Aria says. “They are not special ops qualified, but competent and extra
people to help. If you want them, their names are Loki and Seams. I am sending
you the photographs we have made of the planet.”  Her fingers dance over her
notepad.

“I’ll take them.  May I use this room to brief my team?” 
She agrees. My own notepad signals the arrival of the data. I send messages to
the team and direct them to be in the briefing room in one hour. I spend the
hour looking over photos, charts, atmospheric data, library data, and the scans
the Bridge has run.

When the team is gathered, I bang a coffee mug on the table
to get attention. “Let’s get started. Does everyone know everybody?” Some shake
their heads, so the team members take turns introducing themselves. “For those
who don’t know me, I’m Sonia MacTaggert, Chief Engineer.  I’ve been tasked to
lead a recon mission of the planet below, and I have selected you to be on my
team.  Our mission is to find out where in the universe we are.  Star charts
will be most helpful.  This is not an assault.  This is not a raid. Ideally, we
will neither fire nor be fired upon.  We will travel to the planet via
hundred-ton cutter and Shawna is doing the flying.  If you don’t know—or aren’t
comfortable with—each other, don’t worry.  That will change as we’re going to
be together for at least a week, no more than ten days.  This may turn into a
First-Contact mission.  Shooters, bring your armor and your preferred weapons. 
I hope we won’t need it, but one never knows.  Everybody should bring some
formal attire, some workday clothes, and some bumming around clothes.  Reeber,
please contact the galley and find out if a field kitchen is available. Ten
days of cold or moderately warm FieldRats is
not
appealing.  Understand
there’s a lot of work to do before we go.  Any reason we can’t leave in twelve
hours?  Any questions of me?” There are none.  “It is now H minus 12, PCIs in
the small craft bay at H minus 1.  Okay, get hopping.”

There is a lot of work to do, so they start filing out.  I
hold Avi back, and when everyone else is gone, I confront him with my
no-nonsense face and take his hands in mine.  “This isn’t a break-up speech. 
But it is a ‘things will be cooling down’ speech.  While we’re on this mission,
I have to be ‘The Boss.’  That isn’t to say I will or will not sneak into your
sleeping bag from time to time.  But we have to keep our eyes on the mission,
not each other.  Can we agree, my love?  Call me when you get some time; we can
share a nap or something.”

“Of course. It will be my pleasure to serve under you.  I
mean…oh forget it.”

We both grin.

At H minus 1 all team members are present.  Shawna is
doing her pre-flight checks on the cutter.  There’s an air of professionalism
and confidence among the team.  Shawna has her suit zipped up to cover her
ample bosom, so the spacers loading the launch won’t trip over their tongues.
Sherri has the shooters on line and is double-checking their basic loads. 
Everyone gives me a thumbs-up. I can’t explain it. I am way out of my element,
but I feel good.  For safety purposes, everyone is either in an APE suit or
combat armor.  All the shooters have questions about my prototype.  I promise
to answer all of them in good time, but not now.  I have the armor stowed.  I
can’t sit in the cockpit in anything heftier than an APE suit.  The spacers and
maintenance robots are loading the mobile base unit through the cutter’s rear
cargo hatch.

I climb into the seat beside Shawna. “Seems I remember the
navigator telling me the ship’s sensors wouldn’t read the planet.  That being
the case, when we transition to atmospheric flight, I want to be on the night
side of the planet to hide our contrails.  Wherever we see lights is probably
where we’ll find people.  We’ll set down in that vicinity.  But not too close.”

“Roger, Boss.  Coordinates for an LZ?”  Just as I’m about to
answer, the loading boss reports the base is aboard and secure.  Shawna
acknowledges him and presses the buttons to close the cargo hatch.

“No planned landing zone yet,” I tell her. “Aria predicts
we’ll have visibility of the ground at about twenty thousand feet. I guess
we’ll see.  We’ll figure that out when we get below the clouds, I suppose.”

“Angels twenty it shall be.”

Once all the checks are complete, we launch and head for
BaineRa’ah IV.

As Aria predicted, we start getting sporadic ground
visibility at an estimated altitude of twenty-five kilometers. We are over the
night side of the planet. There are two “cities” in view.

“Reeber!” I yell.  “I need to know what you know.”

“The planet is class three,” he answers. “It has a thin but
breathable atmosphere. Hydrology: unknown at this time. Mean population and
anthropological data are unknown at this time but are accumulating. The cities
look to be about the size that would support fifty- to sixty-thousand each,
and, just eyeballing them, to be about nine hundred miles apart. We have
detected no vehicles flying and no satellites or orbital stations. The launch’s
sensors are about sixty percent degraded most likely by some atmospheric
pollution.”

“So a whole lot of nothing,” I say. “Any topographic data
yet?”

“Geo-survey computer is drawing maps as we speak.  I should
have them available for our next pass.”

We’re leaving the night side.  Shawna increases altitude and
cuts velocity to mask our contrails then toggles over to the private channel.
“Any preference?” she asks.

“I trust your judgment. I don’t have any reason to pick one
city over the other.  If we could land with at least one terrain feature—preferably
a hill mass or a ridge—between us and a city but still be within four clicks,
that would be ideal.” I go back to the “everyone” channel.  Just musing aloud. 
“With no space industry, the chances of getting star charts are pretty slim.”

“Boss!” Reeber yells. “There’s a thick cloud mass enveloping
the planet. It’s made up of some pretty dense gases.  Nothing toxic, but the
ionization has to be what’s fouling the sensors.  With cloud cover like that,
the locals may not know there
are
stars.  Topo charts are available,
channel seven.”

I pull up the chart on the center screen.  Shawna and I look
at it. She stabs a finger at a flat spot on the chart and says, “Ok, that area
looks good. There’s a place in a valley that looks pretty well hidden, but there’s
access to—what are those, train stations?—just over three kilometers away. I
think that’s our best bet.”

“I like it,” I tell her.  “Set us down there.” We’re coming
back to the night side.

Reeber is talking again.  “There are nuclear reactors and
manufacturing plants everywhere. Serious levels of emissions that have created
or at least exacerbated that cloud effect.”

Shawna sets the launch down in a valley, near a grove of
trees.  The chart shows a stream two hundred meters inside the tree line.
Nice
place. It would be a great locale for a picnic, or a honeymoon.

“Nice flying, Shawna.  Get the launch shut down and quiet. 
If I remember the TMs correctly, these launches have standalone generators and
solar units so we can recharge the batteries.  If you haven’t already, please
put your hands on the things and make sure the maintenance is current.  If you
need another pair of hands, take Loki or Seams.”  I start barking out more
orders:  “Avi, you and Doyle do some atmospheric scans to include the water and
plant life.  Our trip will be a moot point if we all die due to some local
toxin.  Everyone is on bottled air while outside the launch until Dr. Took
gives the ‘all clear.’  Jonesy, Sherri, scout out about a thirteen hundred
meter radius.  Make note of high-speed avenues of approach and plant PSAS
stakes.  Also, see if you can figure out what mode of transport is common.  I’m
guessing for short distances, it will all be ground based.” I pause and look at
the crew (more to take a breath than for effect.) “All right, everyone, if you
leave the launch, you do it in pairs.  No one goes outside unarmed until I say
otherwise.  I’ll be with the ship’s receiver looking for nearby broadcasts. 
Once the area is declared secure, we all start in camouflaging the cutter and
setting up the base camp. Any questions?” There aren’t. “Then let’s get hot,
folks.  When Jonesy and Sherri get back, they’ll brief us on what they found.”

While monitoring the COM, I get signals comparable to high
frequency amplitude modulation transmission systems…a lot of power and long
range. I hear a digital signal but it is impossible to decipher without the
key. What is in plain speech, I don’t understand.  All I can say is they sound
confident.  That implies politics, military, or religion.

After ten minutes, Avi reports that the air is not the best,
but breathable by our standards. Although, if we’re doing anything strenuous,
he recommends using bottled air and/or taking frequent breaks. The atmosphere
around the planet amazingly still maintains an average 17.4% O2 content.

Jonesy and Sherri call my perCom in about forty-five
minutes. They found an elevated MagTrain track to the north, about a click and
a half away.  Sherri says their binoculars show a station.  She wants to set up
some cameras.  I consent with the caveat that they, she and Jonesy, are not
detected.   It adds an hour to their patrol time.  When they get back, I call
everybody together for a team huddle and ask for their conclusions.

Avi reports for Medical:  “I recommend we sleep in the base
or the launch with air scrubbers running, and outside we alternate between
local and bottled air, no longer than an hour of local air at a time with as
much time on the bottle for the first twenty four hours. The local air is as
clean, with respect to biological impurities, as it is on Atlas or Goliath, but
much thinner.”

Jones addresses the Infantry:  “Data is coming in from the
cameras we set to watch the train station.  From there we could not see our
cutter.  So far, we haven’t seen anything more advanced than laser carbines and
what looks like primitive ceramic armor. There’s nothing flying and nothing on
the ground except military vehicles. We watched a column of wheeled vehicles
heading south from the city.  We estimate the weight range from quarter-ton to
five-ton.”

Shawna talks about local power: “We have external power for
our duration.  We can also supplement with solar conversion.  The cloud cover
reduces it, but the collectors are getting enough light to charge the
batteries.”

I brief signal and basic situation: “The bad news is that
the only transmissions we detect are unintelligible.  They are probably using
an encryption on top of a language unknown to us. The good news is our
equipment appears superior to the locals if we have to start shooting, which I
desperately hope we don’t.  For the while, we’ll do our poking around at night
and hunker down during the day.  I’m planning a patrol in the future to
parallel the train to the nearer of the two cities.  Going will be Seams, Loki,
Avi, Reeber and me.  Sherri, you and Jonesy will pull at least a fifty-fifty
security while we’re gone.”

I conclude: “It is now 1630.  Eyeballing the bright spot on
the cloud, I suspect to be the sun, there are about three hours of light left.
The temp is about 111 Fahrenheit.  First we get the base set up, pressurized
and functional.  Then everybody helps on the camo mission.  Once that’s done,
we’ll implement a sleep plan.  Questions? Good.  Everyone grab something that
cuts. Let’s get this can buried.” Everyone gets up to go.

Sherri pulls me to one side. “I urge you in the strongest
language possible: Take me and Jones instead of those frickin’ deck scrubbers.
Neither of them can hit a barn door with a meson cannon.”

“I was thinking of leaving my experience here to protect the
ship, but truthfully, I’d rather have you along.  I’ll think on it and let you
know.”  We go outside and pitch in with the area improvement exercise.  As the
sun sinks, we lay the last branch on the ship.

We wait and watch for five days.  The temperature is
always high just like the humidity.  Avi pushes water and rest.  Trains travel
the tracks near us six times daily.  Most that we have seen are carrying
personnel.  Over time, we pick a target and a time.  There’s not really an
embassy to drop in on or a party to crash.  If we want information, it’s time
to kidnap someone.