"Nothing, sir." Kosho shut down the channel. Hadeishi did not look at her, knowing the usually proper officer would be struggling to contain embarrassment and chagrin. Showing any awareness of her near-insubordination would only make matters worse.
Hadeishi's panel made a polite chiming sound, indicating the dorei had finished scrubbing the logs. The chu-sa felt a little uneasy for a moment, but then put the entire matter from his mind. Long experience with such unpleasant events allowed him to shut his own memories away into a quiet, discreet box.
"Duty watch reporting," Gemmu announced to the bridge. Hadeishi nodded, looking up at last. Kosho was already gone and the second watch officers were taking their stations.
"Thank you, Gemmu-san." Hadeishi said, shockchair unfolding as he stood up. "You have the bridge. Hold current course, thrust and emissions control level."
"Hai, Chu-sa!" The junior officer's response was crisp. "Have a good evening, sir."
Near the Stonespike Massif, Northern Hemisphere, Ephesus III
Choppy wind gusted across a basin striped with long, low dunes. Veils of dust and sand streamed toward the west, casting watery shadows on the floor of the valley. Gretchen felt the Midge shake and rattle as she banked into a landing approach. The engines whined as the ultralight angled into the wind. Through cloudy, pitted glassite, Gretchen could just make out the long scar left by the shuttle crash. Most of the skid — which had seemed so sharp and dark in Magdalena's video — was gone, wiped away by blown sand. A few bits of scattered metal remained, glinting in fading sunlight. The main bulk of the wreck was visible off to her left.
The Midge labored through the turn, coming into the wind, and her airspeed sank like a stone. Gretchen blinked sweat out of her eyes, gritting her teeth as she lined up for a landing. Ahead on the windswept plain, she could see the shining gray shape of Hummingbird's ultralight and a dark speck beside the aircraft. Yeah, a single thought burned, I'm coming to visit, old crow.
Gagarin wobbled down, battered by the gusty wind, and Gretchen tried to keep her hand from clenching tight on the stick. Flight comp was burning cycles at a ferocious rate, trying to keep the nose up, the wings aligned, and the overheated engines from shutting down. The busy little processors didn't need her trying to wingover into the deck and smash them all to tiny bits. A rumpled red quilt of thumb-sized pea-sand rushed up. Gretchen felt nauseated, her eyes glued to the altimeter. Numbers spun down to single digits. She tweaked the stick forward, popping the nose up, and there was a screeching jolt as the tires hit the ground.
The Midge shuddered, bouncing twice, then three times. A gust caught the ultralight from the side, slewing the back wheel around. Gretchen corrected, nearly blinded by sudden sweat, her hand moving in molasses. Dust plumed behind the aircraft and she feathered the brakes. Terrible high-pitched squeals answered, but the ultralight jounced and quivered to a standstill. Anderssen exhaled, staring at the looming mass of torn and blackened metal filling her field of view.
A figure in a z-suit emerged from the shadow of the broken shuttle, wind snapping dun-colored robes tight against a stocky, compact body. Gretchen let both engines wind down and the Gagarin settled into loose sand. Her arm trembling, she reached down to unlatch the door. As she did, the Midge shook in a fresh gust of wind, lifted a meter, then slammed violently down again. Anderssen gasped, breath knocked from her lungs, and put differential power to the engines. Obediently, Gagarin spun in place, nosing back into the wind. Gretchen locked the brakes, then waited, fingers light on the stick.
Another gust rolled across the sand, rushed over the ultralight and the whole airframe shook, lifting off again. The Midge jounced back five, ten meters.
"Oh, Mother of God!" Gretchen cursed, feeling queasy. Bile bit at her throat. "We're too light!"
She shot a glance outside and saw the suited figure squatting in the minimal shade of the other aircraft, which was tied down in a pentagonal pattern with sand anchors.
"How the hell did he — " The Midge bounced again, caught in a fiercer blast. Sand rattled on the canopy and a string of warning lights flared on. Number two engine had just taken a shot of grit right into the intake. "Sister, help me!" How did he land and have time to put out anchors with positive buoyancy? Wait — ah, idiot, idiot, idiot!
Gretchen slapped the lifting surface controls. Two hydrogen pumps woke up with a gurgle and began to evacuate the wing tanks. As gas compressed into pressure tanks behind the seat, Anderssen turned on the motors to retract the wings. Despite her best efforts, the Gagarin continued to bounce backward, leaving her a hundred meters from the crash by the time the wings were locked back into storage position, and the Midge was no longer so excellently airworthy.
Grunting under the weight of two sand anchors, Gretchen clambered down out of the pilot's chair, her goggles on, suit zipped up, one end of a heavy tan and white djellaba across her face. The footing was poor on such heavy gravel, but she paid no mind. Her muscles remembered what to do, how to walk, how to lean just so into the gusting wind. She labored toward the wreck, twin monofil lines spooling out behind her.
The squatting figure under the other Midge did not stir, watching with interest as she drew even with him and fired both anchors into the sand. Five minutes later, the winch on the Gagarin was in operation and the ultralight approached at a walking pace, bouncing and hopping across the rough ground. Gretchen squatted herself, her back to the wind, the control for the winch cupped in one gloved hand.
Gretchen secured the last of the tie-downs and stood up, feeling her back creak. No substitute for planetside exercise, she thought with a groan. Both aircraft lay in the lee of the broken shuttle, cowering in a tiny space protected from the constant wind. Anderssen turned, hands busy rewrapping the heavy scarf around her face and shoulders to protect her breather mask and the relatively sensitive gaskets and equipment around her neck.
The suited figure stood as well, face hidden by goggles and mask. Gretchen could see the suit was a little worn, the shine of newness long gone, and there was a suitable array of tools strapped onto the man's body. She guessed he'd put in plenty of hours in hostile environments, but the drape of his djellaba and kaffiyeh was poor.
"Well," she said, clicking open the groundside channel, "thanks for helping me tie down."
"Were we on ship," the voice had a little buzz around the edges, as if his comm gear were already suffering from dust, "I would have you incarcerated, or shot, for disobeying a direct order."
"You might," Gretchen said, her voice brittle with fatigue and too much adrenaline, "but I'm not an Imperial officer. I'm a civilian. I even have a permit to be on this planet. I checked — you didn't have time to file the proper forms and paperwork to revoke our exploration rights."
"Amusing," Hummingbird replied and she could hear an edge of weariness in his voice. "But I will not argue the point. You were foolish to come down here. What did you hope to achieve by following me?"
"You," Gretchen said sharply, "have something of mine. I want it back."