Jeff Carlson - The Frozen Sky

Koebsch shut off access to his station, glancing once at Vonnie. “You explain,” he said. “If they want to haggle, that’s your job. Tell everyone they can monitor our progress if they want, but no one interferes. Frerotte is in control of our spies. I’m in charge of our probes. That’s final.”

Vonnie managed to nod. “Yes, sir.”

I’ve never heard him like this , she thought. He’s flattering with Ribeiro and rude with us. He almost seems like he’s punishing himself, too. Koebsch might agree with Dawson about changing our approach to the sunfish, but he’s loyal to our crew. He hates letting the Brazilians into our grid.

I need to talk to Ash and find out what’s really going on.

The wait was excruciating. Koebsch kept both women at their stations long after Vonnie resolved the progression errors between ESA and FNEE mecha. He made Ash stand by for more file transfers even when Ribeiro said his team was done.

As the FNEE mecha and Probe 115 skittered through the ice, Vonnie worried that a Brazilian gun platform would light up the darkness at any instant, riddling Lam with its 30mm chain guns.

Each of the FNEE war machines looked like a table with eight crab legs and two short-barreled turrets. Ammunition belts sprang from its top in coils sheathed against the cold. The sensor array was small and crude and tucked between the guns. Its legs were sized like those of a sunfish, yet less articulate, with four hinges. Worse, the legs were naked steel and arranged incorrectly in two rows instead of around its circumference. All of these factors would hamper any attempt at communication if the sunfish were unwitting enough to talk to these bulky, jerking mecha, which also carried STAT missile launchers.

A month ago, after erecting their camp, the Brazilians’ statement that they’d deployed the gun platforms for self-defense had been absurd. Gazing through the machines’ sensors made Vonnie want to punch someone — not Koebsch — preferably the bastards on Earth who’d set the ESA/FNEE union in motion.

The gun platforms’ radar was crosshatched by target finding programs that continuously adjusted for range. These were not self-defense mecha. They were weapons.

Vonnie could only try to make sure the gun platforms didn’t mistake 115 for an enemy or key on the movements of the sunfish colony. She advised Tavares again and again as their datastreams jumped. “That’s not the missing probe.”

“Affirmative,” Tavares said.

“These blips here are more sunfish. This is Probe 110. This noise is probably tidal cracking around Gas Vent D-7, but let’s keep tabs on it.”

“Affirmative.”

Three hours later, Koebsch dismissed Vonnie and Ash. He transferred their duties to Gravino, the other member of the crew who wasn’t a biologist or a gene smith. “Thank you for skipping lunch,” Koebsch said. “You must be exhausted. I’ll give you an hour off, but then I want you back again for another three. We need to keep the pressure on until we find Lam.”

“I’d like to stay, sir,” Vonnie said.

“Take a break,” Koebsch said. “Freshen up.”

“The FNEE need help interpreting our signals. They think everything is a target.”

“You did a great job defining our contacts,” Koebsch said. “They know where our mecha are situated and the boundaries of the sunfish colony.”

“But if they—”

“Go.” Koebsch had control of her station. He closed it. “Get out of here. I’ll ping you if something comes up, but this could take all day. Longer. Get some rest. I’ll need you to spell me soon.”

“Yes, sir,” Ash said, tugging at Vonnie’s arm.

The two of them left data/comm for the air lock, where they suited up and went outside.

Ash had a data pad in her leg pocket. She showed it to Vonnie, then cut her fingers at her neck to indicate radio silence.

After they climbed into the jeep, Vonnie tipped her helmet against Ash’s helmet. “What did you find?” she said.

“You were right about Dawson, and I also pilfered some of Koebsch’s orders about the Brazilians,” Ash said. “He doesn’t want to partner with them. He’s under duress.”

“I knew it.”

The jeep drove through camp. Ash craned her neck to gaze through her visor at Vonnie. “Our agreement here with Brazil allows for new talks between us on Earth,” she said. “You have to admit, if we could stop yelling at each other in the A.N., that would be good.”

“It would be good for Earth.”

“Good for everywhere. We don’t need another war. And if there is more fighting, we want Brazil on our side this time — or neutral. Anything to offset the Chinese.”

Vonnie stared at her, unable to hold back any longer. “You set this up from the start,” she said. “We’re going to let them kill Lam just so we can have a job to do together. So we can pretend to be friends.”

“I am your friend,” Ash said.

“Who are you working for? Really?”

“I’m one of the good guys, Von.”

“You used me and Lam. Now the FNEE mecha are getting close to the sunfish. You know the colony will attack. It’s like throwing them into the guns. Dawson will get what he wants.”

“That wasn’t the plan, I swear,” Ash said. “Think about it. If I wanted to capture sunfish, I wouldn’t need Ribeiro’s crew. We brought our own weaponry. There are eight torpedoes and a maser cannon on our ship, and hand weapons in the armory. We’re also packing a quarter ton of excavation charges. If my objective was to take the sunfish by force, I could have made it happen without the Brazilians.”

“Then why, Ash?”

The young woman was characteristically blunt. “We lived in London before the war,” she said. “My parents owned an apartment up the street from my uncle’s house. I had a sister. Three cousins. Only my mom is still alive, and I don’t ever want to see anything like that again.”

The contempt Vonnie felt began to wane. In a more roundabout way, Frerotte had used the same rationale for his support of the ESA/FNEE partnership. Horror, grief, and the desire to keep other people from suffering were noble motivations to serve.

“My job was to make the Chinese look responsible for Lam, then we’d help Brazil,” Ash said. “We thought we’d run a few joint patrols. The main thing is our governments would start talking again.”

“But you underestimated Lam, and you didn’t anticipate Dawson’s influence back home.”

“That’s right.” Ash’s gaze was haunted by the admission. “It’s not about Lam anymore. It’s about the sunfish. Brazil wants access to our site because we found a colony. We want them to do the dirty work so our hands are clean. A rogue AI is the perfect excuse. The point is to make any fighting with the sunfish look like an accident.”

“Collateral damage,” Vonnie said. “That’s what they called London and Paris.”

“I…”

“You screwed up. The sunfish are innocent exactly like those civilian populations.” She was being harder on Ash than she’d been with Frerotte, but she thought Ash would rise to the challenge.

She was mistaken.

“I fulfilled my orders,” Ash said. “It’s better this way. Brazil’s gene smithing programs are crap like their cybernetics. They need us. We need them. If we can establish a science program to develop the sunfish DNA together, we’ll have a long-term investment in each other. We can bring them to our side.”

“What about the families you’ll kill?”

“They’re aliens, Von. People come first. Why can’t you see that? I want to save people first. I’ll always save people first.”

Ash leaned back, pulling her helmet from Vonnie’s. It was an effective way to have the last word, but Vonnie rocked forward in her seat. Trying to catch Ash’s gaze, she realized that during their conversation, Ash had drawn her data pad from her leg pocket. Had she intended to share Dawson’s files? If so, she seemed to have changed her mind. Ash gripped the data pad in both hands, turning her body to protect it, and Vonnie worried that she’d lost Ash as a friend.