Fairchild Read online

  You could kill a Qunsahr Industries Shuttle, Mark 4, Heavy, theoretically. Dani had come close, on Riggel III, but the subsequent flight investigation had discovered maintenance corners cut by a lazy ground crew. She had still managed to glide the beast in soft enough that only one front landing foot had to be replaced.

  Dani wasn’t going to be that lucky, today. She was riding a corpse. That bull had just died of heart failure mid–buck.

  Instead of panicking, Dani reached out and scooped up the Aide containing Eleanor and stuffed it into the customized pocket of her emergency flight suit, right between her breasts. Where Eleanor could listen to her heart rate and monitor other vitals when Dani was doing crazy things.

  Like every other time.

  At whatever altitude Dani had lost everything, the ground was coming up from below like an angry shark smelling an injured sea lion.

  “A pilot in a normal flight suit with a parachute would be a dead man right now, you know,” Dani announced as she checked buckles and straps. “Aren’t you glad I got permission to wear my free–glider instead?”

  Eleanor harrumphed from Dani’s tiny cleavage with an amazing level of disdain for an electronic lifeform without lungs.

  “A normal pilot wouldn’t need a free–glider right now, dearie,” Eleanor sneered with an icy disdain she must have learned from Chloe. “They would be watching the bow wave from a safe distance and elevation, drinking tea, and measuring sciency things, wouldn’t they?”

  …and boring as hell…

  Dani checked her consoles, but the best she got right now were a few yellow lights, and one big, green, virtual button on her main console as the shuttle suggested strenuously that she eject.

  And then something else popped and that console went black.

  Dani smelled smoke.

  She pulled down her face mask, locked it in place, and felt the life support system pressurize from internal oxygen.

  Lizardbrain took over now.

  Lots and lots of training was designed to make this process automatic. Dead–drunk, half–asleep, and still automatic.

  Feet together. Left arm on lap. Head back, spine straight and relaxed.

  Right hand reaches down.

  Locate the lever by touch. Push down in a hard but firm motion and lock it to reveal a side panel that opens aftwards with a snap.

  Middle finger into the recess. Giving fate the bird, as her old instructor used to say.

  Jab hard, listen for the sound of whistling air as the electro–chemical timer ignites.

  Pull right hand onto your lap.

  Take a breath.

  Cross your arms over your chest, protecting the boobs with the elbows.

  WHOOSH!!!

  Acceleration straight up. Whatever straight up happened to be at the moment she and the dying shuttle parted ways.

  Free flight.

  Freefall.

  Nine–point–nine meters–per–second squared acceleration as gravity got her greedy fingers on Dani’s toes, like a squid wanting to feed.

  One hundred sixty kilometers per hour wind in the face, a blow like a sledgehammer only barely subdued by Dani’s flight suit. Air temperature readings at sixty–eight degrees Celsius.

  Tumbling ass over teakettle as the Shuttle disappeared from sight, somewhere below and behind her.

  Not good…

  Chike

  “Fairchild, do you copy?”

  Dr. Chike Odille was practically yelling into the microphone by now.

  Her signal telemetry had gone from Four and One to Zero and Five in a heartbeat as that wall of electrically–charged particles had washed over the shuttle’s bow.

  Chike was glad he was alone in the radio hut at Ground Station Beta, so nobody could see as he wiped sweat from his face and took a deep breath, staring at the cream–colored microphone stick in one dark hand, turning from chocolate brown to ebony as he squeezed all the blood out of his right fist.

  Chike muttered a curse and a prayer to Elegua under his breath as the gravity hit home. He reached out to change the radio channel from the one dedicated to the shuttle to the one for everyone on the planet or in near orbit.

  “Calypso, this is Ground Station Beta, Dr. Chike Odille,” he intoned sepulchrally. “I am declaring an emergency.”

  He counted to ten silently.

  “Chike, this is Giles,” the response from orbit sounded a bit rushed and breathless. “What’s happening?”

  Dr. Giles Jones–Parker. Overall Mission Director on his seventeenth planetary survey. The grand old man of xeno–archaeology.

  Chike couldn’t imagine a bigger contrast between two old friends and colleagues.

  Giles was a tall and rail–thin Anglo from the ancient land of Wales in the way–northwest of Europe, back on Earth. Chike had been born in Cameroon and studied in East Lansing, Michiga;, a squat, heavy–set man with eyes like expectant coals and skin like ninety–two percent dark chocolate.

  If both were bald on top, at least Chike kept his sides shaved as well, instead of that stringy, almost–hippie look that Giles managed.

  “Fairchild was flying a storm mission in the primary shuttle, Giles,” Chike replied, aware that anyone with a radio, in orbit aboard Calypso, or on the planet at one of the ground stations, could be listening in right now. Many would be, in another few minutes. “Something went wrong.”

  There. Leave it at that. Do not speculate over an open channel.

  It might be that nothing happened and she was just out of radio contact due to some unknown meteorological phenomenon.

  Chike Odille didn’t believe that for a moment.

  He knew in his bones that there were problems. Xeno–archaeology missions were always dangerous places. Even if this was only his fifth, compared to Giles’s seventeen, Chike still had a nose for it.

  “A storm, Dr. Odille?” Giles asked. It sounded like the older scholar might have been asleep and was only now surfacing from a dream. “Do we have anyone on the ground who is expert in xeno–meteorology?”

  “Yes, Giles,” Chike agreed. “I’ll be transmitting all of the data from the station and the shuttle to Calypso shortly. And I will also have Hadley Swain review everything and let me know what she thinks. You should also break out the secondary shuttle and prepare for the possibility of a Search and Rescue mission. That storm will be washing over us here in another fifteen minutes or so.”

  Chike took a deep, calming breath and pushed a button on a wall computer console. It happily trilled at the attention and began sending its telegraph signal into the sky as fast as the geo–stationary Calypso could absorb the data.

  “Mother of God, Chike,” Giles gasped. “What the hell is that? I’ve never seen a storm front like that.”

  “Neither have I, Dr. Jones–Parker,” Chike kept the hectoring out of his voice. He realized that Giles was flighty when he got nervous. “We will learn a great deal when we have the leisure. However, right now, I cannot locate my shuttle, or the pilot, on any of my scans. She is not responding to the radio. Please initiate emergency procedures aboard Calypso. We may need an all–hands effort.”

  “Yes. I heartily agree,” Giles replied.

  In the background of the radio, Chike heard the emergency sirens begin to wind up as Calypso transformed from stodgy survey vessel into a rescue force.

  Hopefully, he was simply over–reacting and would be the butt of crew jokes for years. Not that any of them would mind, in their hearts, a scientist over–reacting to protect the crew, instead of one complacent about a possible loss.

  The alternative was that Fairchild was out there, somewhere, down on an unknown and potentially hostile world, populated by whatever life forms and things the Elder Race had left behind when they disappeared.

  Chike carefully set the microphone down and let go, afraid he might crush even the rigid plastic in his grip.

  Fairchild

  Heat.

  Even through the layers of insulation and life–support that comp
rised her free–glider, Dani felt the dry, angry heat of the storm, like ants trying to get inside and bite her. She could only imagine what it must be like on the ground.

  And the wind was simply insane.

  On Earth, Dani knew she would hit a terminal velocity of two hundred kph fairly quickly and then stay there until she spread her wings or slammed into the ground. Everything she had studied about Escudra VI had suggested a rough–enough symmetry of atmosphere with the mother planet.

  But the wall of furious wind was tumbling her backwards at some ungodly speed as well.

  First off, stop panicking.

  Dani heard the gruff voice of her first free–flight instructor again, as they did that very first tandem sky–dive over Utah, back on Earth. Her a thirteen–year–old know–it–all and him a fifty–something ex–paratrooper that out–massed her by a factor of three and possibly out–snarked her by a factor of one half. Which was really saying something, compared to most of the people she’d ever met.

  Stop panicking. This is just gravity doing its thing. Birds do this all day. So do silly–ass flying squirrels like you.

  Dani couldn’t help but giggle at that.

  Humans had dreamed of flying since Icarus tried and Daedalus succeeded.

  Da Vinci. Joseph–Michel and Jacques–Étienne Montgolfier. Orville and Wilbur Wright. Chuck Yeager.

  Going into the sky and coming back safe.

  A regular pilot in a pressurized suit would have to deploy a parachute right now and end up getting blasted sideways, out of control and tumbling, dragged by winds that hit like a drunk and jealous boyfriend who was always sorry afterwards.

  They would probably black out from the torque generated.

  Dani didn’t have to settle.

  Not that she had planned it that way, but she always wore her free–glider suit instead of a standard suit when she was flying. It was already tailored for her slim figure, so it saved on expedition costs, money that could be sunk into better toys for the boffins.

  Now, it was going to save her life.

  Hopefully.

  Skin–tight and navy blue in a flat, matte finish that wouldn’t distract others nearby doing the same, crazy flying stunts. Wrapped tight around a body that some people compared to a twelve–year–old boy.

  Of course, those were usually girls whose fashion sizes were steadily creeping up towards double–digits.

  Meow.

  Onboard life support for a couple of weeks here and enough padding to keep her from bruising too badly on a rough landing.

  Rigid helmet strapped tight. Blond hair cut short enough to stay inside and let it seal. Transparent semi–steel face plate with voice–activated Heads–Up–Displays that had everything from barometrics and flight sensors to the latest dance club videos, depending on need and attention span.

  It was the gaps between limbs that made a free–glider fun. She really was a flying squirrel.

  Soft fabric membranes with semi–rigid ribs connected wrist to ankle on both sides, with a lesser flap between her legs to help her stabilize when falling. Aileron–like flaps on her heels helped her steer and only deployed when there was enough windstream over them to overcome the springs that normally held them close against her body.

  Free–gliding.

  Take an aircraft up to around thirty thousand meters and bail out, along with a dozen of your closest enemies and the flavor of the month boyfriend. Contests for fastest to ground, longest glide time, greatest distance covered, or races to capture a flag, either on the ground or hanging from a tower or bridge.

  Attack of the rabid, flying squirrels. Frequently while at least partly drunk.

  Hopefully, all that juvenile stupidity would keep her alive now.

  Step one, feet together and toes pointed. Lean back into the windstream.

  Nobody ever understood that part.

  Let Mercury’s little ankle–bootie wings grab the airstream and turn you over, head pointed down like a javelin. It was too easy to lose track of the horizon and gravity, especially when you were doing this at night.

  Make Newton do all the work for you.

  Face down now, decide if you want to turn into the wind and stall, or run down it like a ski jumper getting ready for serious air.

  The dust storm made everything a hazy pink. Visibility would be measured in decameters, not kilometers.

  Dani decided to run with the storm for a while and let it bleed energy off before she tried to land and take stock.

  She knew she had been north of Ground Station Beta by about seventy kilometers when everything went sideways, but right now, her compass was literally spinning counter–clockwise from the electromagnetism in the dust storm and the radio was a hash of newspapers being crumpled and torn apart.

  Apparently, Escudra VI was a much more interesting place than she had been led to believe by the briefing packets.

  Middle–age could wait a while.

  Force hands and feet apart, head back, and let the force of her falling through atmosphere be converted to forward momentum. The dust storm would be running downhill. As long as she ran before it, she should be going away from the mountains.

  Assuming she hadn’t gotten on the far side of the macroburst and was going deeper into the range instead of closer to home.

  Sun right now would be helpful. Flying blind in the gloaming was fine when you were a kid and winning a bet. Right now, it was her ass on the line.

  At least Eleanor was quiet.

  Although, considering the amount of electricity in the air, hopefully she wasn’t dead.

  Having nobody to talk to until the S&R teams showed up would probably drive Dani mad.

  Deep breaths.

  Oxygenize everything and let it burn out the adrenaline threatening to make you sound like a rabid squirrel if you talked.

  Radio: painful.

  Compass: swirling and useless until she got out of the charge field of whatever she had flown into. Hopefully.

  Altimeter: laughing madly and doing strange things as it crept down towards what it thought was zero. Or ground. Or splatter.

  Visibility: dust.

  Air Temperature: medium rare.

  Airspeed Indicator: Okay, that was looking promising.

  Dani couldn’t remember ever hitting that speed on Earth, or anywhere else, but she’d also never tried doing something this amazingly dangerous before, either.

  Still, record it and remember to send it off to the lovely folks in Ireland so she could get into their pretty, little book and thereafter could win bar bets and free drinks forever.

  Dani tilted her head back more and curled her fists forward a scooche. Not much, at this speed, you didn’t need much. Just enough to generate a little lift. Or rather, convert some of that mad forward momentum into lift, like an owl with a rabbit in its feet.

  The airspeed indicator dropped back down from a probable galactic record to only completely insane as the altimeter decided that maybe she was flat enough and the ground wasn’t about to bite her.

  “System: comm off,” Dani called over the harsh static in her ears.

  Okay, maybe still a little too loud. Too much rabid and not enough squirrel in her voice.

  Still, the radio stopped grinding gravel in her ears, leaving only the screaming whistle of the outside air channeling nooks and edges into sound.

  Dani risked a glance back over a shoulder out of the corner of her face plate. Maybe it was lighter over there. That might be the back side of the storm.

  Maybe it was even starting to die out and she would be able to find ground soon.

  Hopefully before it found her.

  Better to sneak up on the thing. It was like morning sobriety, that way. Best found by accident and quickly rectified.

  I can turn into it and maybe get blasted ass over tea kettle again. Or I can do it the crazy way.

  Dani smiled.

  Like that was even an option where she was concerned.

  She leaned back hard a
nd pushed her legs together while spreading her arms like angel wings.

  Aerial gymnasts on the ground only wished they could do this. They might have more control, but they still had to land afterwards.

  Dani turned a perfect back pike, tucked into a cannonball at the top of the fall, and rolled onto her left side before splaying her arms out wide suddenly, like flashing her naked chest at a stranger from a third story window.

  Or something to that effect.

  Now she was falling into the wind, gliding like a big, blue eagle on bucking thermals as the outflow boundary got further and further away from her heels.

  The air was darker here, but that was her getting lower, rather than the nasty shit getting thicker.

  Nothing but eerie darkness below.

  It was almost like scuba diving after a storm.

  Not like the Terran Caribbean, where the water would be clear and the sand white.

  No, murky. Maybe on the northeast parts of the Pacific Ocean, or Hyanduse Reef back home on Panamuer Nuevo.

  Like sharks might swim out of the dust suddenly and sniff her for food sign. Or a killer whale might start to blow a bubble net around her with ten of his closest, hungry friends.

  Still, the madness of the storm had receded some. Blown past her in its rage and hunger to go chase someone else.

  “System: headlights on,” Dani said, much more evenly, possibly even reverentially, although she would never admit it. The shadows and gloom reminded her of an ancient, almost–forgotten church she had once visited in Jalisco. The quiet as well.

  Two bright lights lanced out of her skull, like ram’s horns.

  At least nothing loomed from the dark suddenly. No sharks or angry whales. No dragons rising up as she turned her head right and left to cut through the dust.

  The wind was dying as well.

  Or maybe she was coming down off the high. It was hard to tell.

  Dani settled for a scallop now.

  Tilt forward in a pike to gain speed and drop elevation, then pull back almost enough to stall.

  Repeat, going down like curved steps on a staircase.