7

a job to do

“This isn’t going to work.”

It was hard to focus in that environment.  The darkness swept around them in tendrils of ash and dust that hovered like malevolent snakes.  The ground was soft and unstable and filled with small sinkholes, and every step Cole took sent up explosions of silt.  The electric current in the air was almost palatable, but there was absolutely no moisture, even with the promise of the approaching storm, which when last she’d checked the timer on her watch was less than two hours out.  

“What’s the problem?” Goss asked.

Since arriving at the edge of Zone 66 and securing the area, Cole, Rawlins and Lee had been able to conduct their surveys and determine that the ground and atmospheric conditions were stable enough to fly the small transport into the area without danger of setting off some sort of explosive chain reaction.  Goss, Diaz and Jones were with them soon, and they’d parked the transport on stilted landing pads a dozen feet inland, where it provided something of a sheltered space from the encroaching darkness.  They were even able to remove their breathing filters and masks, which seemed odd and unexplainable and completely insane, but no more, Cole reasoned, than the fact that an 800-foot wall of darkness stood directly to the west, an ebon tidal wave frozen mid-crest.

It was difficult to even see the storm from within the black aurora.  It was like living at the edge of night.  They could make out the island’s surface and a good stretch of its expanse, at least a solid mile of sodden marshlands riddled with oddly shaped stones and jagged clefts like great knife wounds, but they saw little else, for the wall of darkness cast a pall on the entire landscape.  It blocked all sight of the coming storm and everything to the north, not just sight but sensor readings, as well, which was Cole’s first point of concern.

Her field instruments were everywhere, scanners, digital distance finders, 3D maps rendered by a small holographic projector which hovered just above the ground, and three laptops all running algorithmic software at once, a triage of green and red screens covered with complicated, almost hieroglyphic script.  Rawlins and Lee had their own work areas, similarly messy, all spread out on Army blankets laid across the sodden and moldy-smelling earth.  The organic taste in the air was overpowering.

Goss came and stood over her as she worked, grey and green fatigues and officer’s beret reminding her far too much of her father, right down to the short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair just visible beneath the edges of his cap.  His cruel eyes and gaunt face were intense in the shadows cast by the hot lamps they’d set at the perimeter of the small camp.

“We’ve done our preliminary analysis,” she said.  “We can’t build a Bridge here.”

Cole was on her knees, packing up her telemetry scanner (that small rectangular tablet had cost more than all of her college tuition put together) so when Goss came and stood over her, locked his hands firmly behind his back and stared down at her, he became the spitting of fearful authoritarianism she’d grown up living under, and if she didn’t already have reason to resent him before she certainly did now.

“What the fuck are you talking about, young lady?” he demanded.

She shook with fear at his tone, and instantly resented herself for it.  She focused to keep him from seeing how unsettled he made her, so she slowly stood up and faced him.  The darkness of the Zone loomed at her back, which put the setting sun in her face and cast a halo of dim light around Goss’ shoulders.  Cool air whipped her hair forward, but the moment it took for her to brush it from her face gave her a needed respite to compose herself, and to realize both Lee and Rawlins were nearby, standing close to lend their voices in support, though she honestly wondered if they would.

“The area is all wrong…” she started, but she hadn’t even made it through the first sentence before he cut her off.

“And what exactly does that mean?” he said with barely contained anger.  “The only reason we’re out here is because you people told us Zone 66 was a go.”

“We didn’t tell you anything,” Lee stepped in.  Cole smiled inwardly.  “Republic scientists conducted long-range scans and decided this was a good Zone for Bridge building.  So don’t stand there and talk to us like we’re the reason we’re here.”

“Fine,” he practically snarled, and then turned his eyes back to Cole, changing tactic.  “So you want to tell me why you think Republic-gathered intel was wrong?”

Nice, she thought.  So I went from being one of “you people” to the one who’s claiming the almighty Republic Army made a mistake.  Either way, it’s still my fault.

“The readings taken from the colony indicated Zone 66 was stable enough to build a Calabi-Yau Engine, and that the temporal and spatial distortions were minor enough that the energy generated by the Bridge would be enough to create a Ricci-flat manifold, which in turn would render the instabilities of the Zone inert.”

“Please speak in plain fucking English, Missy,” Goss replied.

She wanted to punch him through the spine.

Then do it.

She shuddered.  That voice had not been her own.

“It means,” she said with a tremendous amount of focus, “that the area is too unstable.  The readings taken by the Republic scientists were wrong.  No Bridge could ever make this area safe enough to connect a Wormhole even to Earth’s Moon, let alone New Texas.”  She snatched her bag from the sodden ground.  “I’m sorry.”

But Goss was far from finished.  “They were ‘wrong’?” he said, almost mockingly.  “And how in the blue fuck is that even possible?”  He nodded at her pack.  “Take your readings again.”

“We just did…” Lee started, but again Goss wasn’t about to let the women speak.

“Take them again,” he said sternly.  

“Captain,” Rawlins said from behind him.  “We just did a full scan into as much of the Zone as we could safely reach without putting ourselves in danger, biologic and metereologic scans, quantum field analysis, space-time curvature readings, and I can assure you…”

“I don’t want your assurances, Padre,” Goss said.  “I want confirmed, rock-solid data.  Because I am not terminating this mission until we know for certain it will fail.  Lives are depending on us, and the information the Republic gathered is indisputable.”

“How can you possibly know that?” Lee argued.

“We already took the readings,” Cole said.

“Take them again!” Goss shouted.  “And if you need to put yourself in harm’s way to ensure your data is accurate, you’d God-damned well better do so!”

“Captain, it can take hours to do that,” Rawlins said.  “And the storm…”

“Is none of your concern,” Goss said coldly.  “People will die if we fail.  The least you can do is make sure you do a thorough job.  If you’re concerned about the storm, I suggest you work fast.”

“We already did a thorough…” Cole started, and again was not allowed to finish.

“Do.  It.  Again.”  The glare he gave her could have left mortal wounds.

Fuck you, she thought, but the words wouldn’t come to her lips.

In her mind she saw a cloud form about him, razor smoke and flaming fumes, a gossamer angel of edged vapors that took hold of his flesh and ripped it from his bones while he screamed.  The image was so sudden and shocking it made her reel, but just as fast as it came it was gone, and Cole was left feeling hollow and sick.

Goss didn’t give her a second look, evidently content that her sudden pallor was a result of his reprimand.  He turned and walked over to Corporal Black, his body buffeted by the soiled wind.

“They’re conducting the scans again,” he said.  Black looked up at the growing darkness that blocked any sight of the coming storm, but before she could voice protest he continued.  “They are to complete their task no matter what.  Do you understand?”

Cole couldn’t see Goss’ face, as his back was to her, but she saw the cold gaze in Black’s eyes as she accepted what she was being told.  She nodded grimly.

Cole stiffened.  Still recovering from the unbidden visions, her realization as to the subtext of Goss’ order to Black sent a chill down her spine.

If we try to stop before he’s satisfied, we’ll be shot.

***

They worked fast.  Fear gripped Cole from the inside out, so, at least for her part, she knew her work was sloppy, and overshadowed by the fact that if they didn’t beat the coming storm they were just as likely to be shot if their data didn’t produce the information Captain Goss wanted.

Does he really expect us to alter our findings? she wondered.  Why bother sending experts at all? 

Maybe it was just to make it all look good on paper.  Maybe the data the scientists back at Republic headquarters received was taken to be indisputable, and the powers that be were so desperate for a new colony they’d literally banked all hope on making the retaking of Earth work.  The news sources tried to suppress details of the prior colonial expedition failures, how terror groups like Black Sky sabotaged all efforts and made short work of Engineers before they were even able to step foot on a transport.   Even more terrifying was the rumor spreading that the religiously anti-expansionist effort was in fact backed financially by the draconian government of USSR II, which explained not only the source of the terrorist’s superior resources and intel but also put an entirely political light on an issue in an era where the Republic’s leaders had insisted time and again that war between superpowers was a thing of the past.  If Czar Rostov was hampering the Republic’s efforts to colonize so it could prevent wide scale death on its overpopulated home worlds that meant the New Axis had committed an act of potential genocide.  Such an idea was horrifying, especially if it meant more war.  Everyone still recalled the catastrophic fallout of the last major conflict.  

Either way, Cole was convinced that if she, Rawlins and Lee didn’t produce the results Goss expected they were all going to die in some tragic accident.  It was a paranoid scenario to presume, but the look in Goss’ eyes when he’d demanded an explanation sent ice particles across her skin.  The decorations on the man’s uniform back when she’d been briefed in New Texas suggested a war hero, someone who’d seen and ordered the deaths of others, and who would willingly do so again.

She fumbled with the chronometer, her bulkiest piece of equipment, as the stygian wind intensified.  The storm drew closer.  It was getting harder to hear her own thoughts, like a dirge played on bone instruments rang across the marshy night.  Now and again the wind turned into whispering voices, or one voice, amplified tenfold, a chorus of one.

Not now.  Please, not now.

“The storm is intensifying!” Rawlins shouted, and even then he was only barely heard.  “It’s affecting all of our readings!”  Cole looked up from the moistened box-shaped console buried half in the dirt at her feet and gazed through swamp water mist to see the geologist/priest plead with Goss.  “If you’re going to insist we do all of our work again we need to wait until the storm has passed!”

“No,” Goss said coldly.  “Now get your ass back to work!”

“How dare you!” Rawlins shouted.  Cole heard the tremor in his voice, but admired his resolve.  “How dare you speak to a man of God in such a fashion!”

“God abandoned this place, Padre!” Goss shouted back.  In the past thirty seconds the wind had nearly doubled its intensity.  “And this entire operation is under military jurisdiction, which means if you know what’s best for your priestly hide you’ll move your ass!”

“Cole!” Lee shouted.  She came and hunched over with her back to the wet slick that came at them from the west, a drenched air current spiced with rot.  “How are you doing?”

“Nearly there!” Cole shouted back.  “What did you find?!”

“Same as before!” Lee said after a moment’s hesitation.  The fear in her eyes might have been on account of the storm, or maybe she’d drawn the same conclusion regarding their findings as Cole had.  Maybe both.  Cole looked over Lee’s shoulder at the small ship, perched like a tiny wall against the storm, and saw Corporal Black stare at them with a mixed look of boredom and murderous loathing only a professional killer could carry.  “Rianne,” Lee said as she leaned in so close their wet faces nearly touched.  “What are we going to do?”

Cole had no answer, but in the end, even if she had, she wouldn’t have been able to give it, because moments later the full force of the storm hit them.

Next Chapter: The Storm