“You found them?” Joe asks.
“Some,” Tak says. “All dead, at first. We found a few tents, one darted but two functional, enough to keep us alive. No working fountains. Then Lieutenant Colonel Roost found us, he was driving a Skell, alongside a Korean general. They took us over to where more survivors, mostly Eurasian brass, had holed up around an old, broken fountain. They had a command tent but not much in the way of resources, not for so many. Mostly injured, some severely. The fountain was beyond repair, at least with what we had. By the time a Muskie buggy arrived—”
“Driven by Vinnie’s girlfriend,” Joe says.
“She’s from a settlement called Green Camp,” I pick up, ignoring the gibe. “A refugee—an outcast. Her name is Teal. She saved us just as we were about to crap out on the Red. The only survivor from the command tent was the Korean major general, named Kwak. Kwak and Gamecock, Tak, Kazak, DJ, Neemie, Vee-Def, Michelin—she picked us up, shared air and water and filters, and transported us here. She called it the eastern Drifter.
“Shortly after, Captain Coyle and her troops arrived at the southern gate. Another scattered drop, I guess. They forcibly hitched a ride with less savory settlers, the Voors. The Voors were also coming to the Drifter, maybe to intercept Teal.”
“Voors—Voortrekkers?” Joe asks again, and there’s a glint in his eye, the same glint I saw the first time he asked—as if this was not unexpected.
“Yeah. Then, while Tak and I were outside—something happened inside. All but DJ vanished. He didn’t see or hear a thing. We’d asked him to go outside the southern gate and try to establish a satlink.”
“Vinnie thinks another wagon full of Voors showed up, maybe at the eastern gate, and took our people by surprise,” Tak says. “But that gate was supposed to be welded shut. We just don’t know what the hell happened.”
Joe looks down at the green dust, scrapes it with his glove tip. Rubs the dust between his fingers. Most of it sifts to the floor. “How come we didn’t detect the Ant forces in solar orbit? Flying downsun to intercept Mars?”
“How come we didn’t detect comets?” I add.
“Fucking shambles,” Joe says tightly. “Lousy coordination, crappy intelligence. If we get back, I am definitely going to write a letter.”
We update Joe on the character of the Voors, who could become a second front in our little set-to.
“They hate us, I get that,” Joe says, “but enough to destroy all chances of survival?”
“Maybe,” I say. “The patriarch, de Groot, is a real strutter. His son, Rafe, may be more sensible. The others… pretty strung out—and in mourning. They lost their settlement to the comets. They may be the last of their kind.”
Joe’s eyes get bigger. “Are the Voors expecting to team up with the Ants?” He looks us over with his wild, pale stare, and I hope I’m not seeing the last hope drain out of him, because frankly, we’re all going to need a little of that, just a sip, from his cup.
“I doubt it,” I say. “They won’t be beholden to anything or anybody.”
“Just like my pappy,” Joe says, slipping into drawl. “Biggest sonofabitch in Memphis, ran a plumbing outfit, cheated on his customers and his women, never paid his taxes, but at least he wasn’t a fucking joiner.”
Tak and I reward him with weak grins. Joe’s pappy is famous—and various. Joe never knew his father.
“Who’s on top of our pyramid?” he asks with a sniff, and covers the silver leaf with his hand.
“Gamecock.”
“Never here when you need them. Let’s grab our shit and move.”
Just then, to emphasize our situation, the outer lock doors resound like they’ve been hit with a fistful of boulders. It doesn’t take us long to gather what supplies we can carry and abandon the northern garage.
TWO BALLS, ONE HEAD—YOU’RE GOOD TO GO
The reconnaissance group sends Ackerly back. We meet him a third of the way through the tunnel going south, just where a side jog took Teal and me to the first lookout. All clear to the southern gate, Ackerly says. DJ worked the locks and brought in the survivors who made it around the Drifter’s shoulders.
“Needles fell in a second wave from the aero. They were caught outside, trying to get from the Tonkas and the Trundle. We lost all but two of the Tonkas and couldn’t fit the Trundle. The Chesty is inside, but it’s badly damaged.”
“How many got in?” Joe asks.
Ackerly lowers his eyes. “Thirteen,” he says.
Joe’s lips work. He turns to Tak and me. “We have to assess, find out how many can fight, get our teams back in order,” he says. “Then we have to locate Captain Coyle and the Voors.”
Ackerly leads us to the southern gate. The thirteen new arrivals are of all persuasions, all walks of life, all colors, tired and stretched to breaking, but all are beautiful. Six corporals, three sergeants, a warrant officer—CW5, black eagle eyes surrounded by wrinkles; could be outstanding, another major, a tough-looking first sergeant, and another captain who’s too zoned and beat up to do anybody any good.
In addition, we now have two lawnmowers, six heavy bolt rifles, eight boxes of spent matter cartridges, and kinetic projectiles of all sorts. Plus the Chesty—the General Puller, a long, narrow tan and red carriage sitting on eight tall wheels, supporting four side-mounted Aegis 7 kinetic cannons and the big draw: a triple-rail, chained-bolt ballista—but only ten percent charge remaining.
Joe asks how many of the new group have more than a few minutes’ reserves in their suits. Two hold up their hands. We start distributing the filters and tanks taken from all the vehicles, including the Voor wagons. The survivors are quiet, trying to deal with their emotions, their short-term shock response to what they’ve been through. The usual acid mind-burn that comes after an engagement, when there is still no relief, no chance to really think, just adrenaline and bad shit dogging us while we run and pretend that we’re still iron-ass Skyrines and not damaged goods.
It’s going to take some real leadership to bring us back up to snuff. Joe picks the warrant officer, Wilhelmina Brodsky, a tough old bird with a face carved from teak. Brodsky is given the task of organizing new fire teams. Tak helps with the distribution of hand weapons. Not all of the weapons will be carried by rated Skyrines, but we’ll make do.
“We’re going to defend this gate with all we have,” Joe says. “Most will stay here for now, rest up, scrub suits.” He turns to Tak. “I want to station three sentinels just before the northern gate. Comm doesn’t seem to work very well down here, so make sure they can all run fast. Vinnie, pick three. Then, I need to know about that eastern gate, and wherever the hell everyone else might have gone.”
DJ says he understands the tunnels pretty well around here, and even down a few levels. I ask how he knows that.
“I seduced the panel in the southern watchtower,” he says. The same place that Teal took me when we saw the Voors arriving. “Time on my hands while you were out on the playground. All dead-dude crypto. I got me some pretty pictures.”
“Upload?”
“Eyeballs only. No way to link, like I said.”
“But your angel recorded, right?”
“Some of it. Then the console crapped out—all the displays went blank. But it’s still up here.” He taps his head—not the angel, the skull beneath his helm. I remember Teal saying that the digs continued even while the Drifter was deserted, even while it was flooded. I say nothing about that. No sense confusing people with things I haven’t seen and don’t yet understand.