David Brin - The Heart of the Comet

Meanwhile, the big Arcist laser continued to pound away at the hills of both Uber strongpoints, making it difficult for them to aim carefully. They watched for an agonizing half-hour as each side maneuvered, fired, ducked—to little effect. The entire conflict was soundless, with a slow-motion unreality about it.

“Looks like a stalemate to me,” Carl said, fatigue weighing on his words.

“Nobody can get enough men together to cover their movements,” Jeffers said. “Looks like there’s still a fair number of Arcists, but you can’t outflank a whole damned equator.”

Virginia hesitated. “Can’t we make use of this?”

Carl asked, “How?”

“To escape! It we run a kilometer or so, into those piles of slag the north.”

“They’d pick us off.”

Jeffers nodded.

“But if I can get inside, I can get back control of my mechs! The Ubers couldn’t stand up to a mech kamikaze attack.”

Lani said, “I could try to get down to the Blue Rock Clan. Keoki Anuenue would bring up his Hawaiians, if he knew where we were.”

Jeffers’s mouth opened in disbelief. “You women are both crazy. You’ll never reach the shaft.”

“Create a distraction, then,” Virginia challenged him.

“What?”

Virginia thought rapidly. “Suppose we vent the entire dome at once—with the vats open?”

Carl frowned. “The water vats? They boil and—I see. It’ll make a huge ball of steam. Nobody’ll be able to see through it.”

Jeffers shook his head. “No tellin’ how long that’d last.”

Virginia turned to him. “We’ll have you running the pumps—squirting water right out the dome, where it’ll boil off immediately.”

Jeffers opened his mouth to object, then closed it. “Um, I dunno. Might.”

“Let’s do it! Otherwise. if Sergeov wins—”

“Right,” Carl said, his lips pressed thin and white “Come on.”

It took ten minutes to set everything up. Virginia worked with maddened ferocity, dragging hoses, shutting down yeast-flowering towers, throwing protective temporary plastic blankets over the acres of plants, sealing growing units that were too delicate to withstand very much vacuum and cold. It felt awkward, doing manual labor without a mech.

Not thinking ahead, scarcely thinking at all, she found herself crouched inside the lock beside Carl and Lani. She suddenly realized that she was about to risk her life on her ability to run. Impossible, absurd! I’ve spent less time on the surface than anyone else. But she could see no other way out. She sure as hell wasn’t going to let Sergeov stuff her into a slot forever. Or let him bury Hawaii under a night of cosmic ash.

Jeffers called, —Ready’?—from inside.

She nodded fiercely. Pretend you’re not here in person. Just believe you’re operating a mech out on the ice. You’ve done it thousands of times.

—Yo!—Carl answered.

The lock sprang open and they launched themselves forward.

They separated immediately. Lani dashed northward while Virginia and Carl loped toward the east. She remembered to cut off her comm. No need to alert anyone, in case the Ubers were using tracers on suit transmitters. She tucked her head down and ran in the long, even, ice-gripping stride, almost free coasting, that covered ground best.

Just like running a spider mech. Head low, find the traction. Avoid the deep dust.

She glanced back just in time to see the seams pop on the dome. The entire translucent structure billowed out like a collapsing lung, exhaling a heavy mist into the star-sprinkled sky. Billowing banks enveloped her. Then Jeffers started the firehose streams from the vats, thin sprays that thickened and then abruptly dissolved. Fog clasped them from all sides. The world turned white. She had to depend on her initial momentum to give direction, because she could not even see the scarred ice beneath her.

Her receiver was on and she heard shouts, swearing, exclamations. But no one cried out their names, called for pursuit.

Ivory mist seemed to press in from all sides, lifting her… she lost sight of the ground completely… the shouting increased… she landed, bit in with her ice spikes, kicked off… seemed to soar with wings into a cloud of welcoming white… landed again, boots crunching into frost…

—and was out. clear, back into a world of gray ice and hard black sky and death.

She glanced around. Carl was ahead of her, just pushing off on a long, shallow parabola. As his feet cleared the ground a quick flash blinded her, a blue hotpoint of light—only yards from Car1. It struck a roiling vapor cloud from the ice, scooping a crater a meter deep.

She switched on her comm to line AF, as they had planned. “They’re on to us!”

—Yo!—

Carl’s head jerked around and he motioned to the left. —Get behind that!—

Fifty meters away was a sturdy mech-repair platform, canted against a heap of ruddy iron slag. It was, in fact, a piece of the old Edmund’s external cargo assembly, thick with struts and crisscross structural members that had supported great masses in the long boost out from Earth. On her next footfall Virginia swiveled, felling a sharp twinge from unused muscles, and pushed off towards it.

A brief spark of blue lit her way. Her shadow stretched. a thin giant flying across pocked ice in the sudden glare. She did not turn to see the cloud of fog billow out, but the hairs on the back of her head stood up. That was close.

She landed behind the platform an instant after Carl. —Stay here,—he sent unnecessarily.

“What’ll we do?”

—Wait ’em out. They’ll find other targets. They don’t know who we are for sure, so…—

A buzz interrupted him as another party tapped into long-comm. Sergeov’s voice boomed in her ears. —I do know. I am not so stupid I cannot guess who it is that is running away. Or search for comm channel.—

—Oh shit,—Carl said.

Virginia realized that they had nothing to bargain with, no possible help. She thumbed to open channel. “Listen, Otis. Carl and I can get the Arcists to leave off their attack, if you’ll let us do it.”

—You offer me what? Diplomacy?—Sergeov’s contempt was plain.

—It’s all you’ve got left.—

—I have you. You shall not move a meter or I burn you.—

“What good’s that do? Your problem is the Arcists.”

—You are one having problems.—With that Sergeov began rattling instructions to someone in Russian. Virginia remembered there were several ex-Soviets among the Ubers; belief in your own perfectibility ran through both movements.

She cut comm and touched helmets with Carl. “What can we do?”

“Not a damn thing.” On the plain beyond, distant figures moved and an occasional small weapon winked. They crouched beneath the bulk, holding to struts. A bright flare burst only a few meters beyond the jagged edge of their shelter. Gouts of gas swept by them. An instant later another blue-white fireball winked on the opposite side, then was smothered by a swelling sphere of ivory.

“He’s showing off how he’s got us bracketed,” Virginia said.

“Probably start punching holes through this next.” Carl slapped the slab of metal in frustration. “One bolt alone won’t go through this, though.”

“Can he keep one of his two lasers trained on us?”

“Not for long. But he can’t afford for us to get away, either. I can’t see how—”

A heavy thump shook the strut beneath Virginia’s hands. “Hey, what—” Another solid blow, followed by a trembling in the metal. “He’s trying to break through!”

Carl shook his head, peering beneath his grimy visor. “A laser bolt doesn’t feel like that. This.”