Breach

fiction by michael werneburg

2002.07.26

She nodded, pleased that he remembered.

The sled dove into a wide pit mine that was about eight hundred meters across. Its rough banks had been cut into crude terraces in the fashion of pit mines everywhere. At the bottom of the pit was a matte black oblong shape. It was partially obscured by a thin white fog that was boiling off it.

"That's one of our tanks," the Ensign observed.

"And it's still venting coolant," The Lieutenant replied. "Must have been breached in the recent past. Maybe a matter of days, real time. We got here none too soon." The sled accelerated down the slope and shot across the first of the terraces. It then dipped down the subsequent slope even more rapidly. The AI was really pushing the vehicle.

As one, the crew crouched down to get a better grip on the low railing, Eisberg fished out a field sensor kit from his suit's stomach pouch and held it out over the mine's wall as they descended. The readouts confirmed what their automated drones on sight had already reported. He said, "The excavated material has been pulverized by great energy blasts, maybe from some mining tool. These Caofsh have released so much of the waste that molecules now cling to the surface all around the dig site." He cursed, and said, "Well, then, we'll certainly have to mop up, but we're ultimately fixing this from orbit and then re-burying it. Or maybe even taking it off-world," he added, doubtless weighing the options.

The sled bounced heavily as it shot over another terrace.

Marl smarted from having banged her helmet with her forehead. "From orbit? You mean with nukes?"

"That's what Corporate will say, I guarantee it. Look, it's fifteen parts per million in some locations. Enough to change the course of life on this planet forever." He cursed again. "I hate nuking worlds."

The sled then shook as it slammed into the final terrace above the pit's floor.

"Mother! That's enough," Marl cried, clinging to the railing. Cursing Mother mentally, she added, "This is a high-gravity, highly contaminated world. Please drive with care! "

The AI simply said, "Acknowledged."

"Mother, I've lost the trace of the Prince," Xin told the AI.

"Confirmed."

Eisberg was still taking his own readings. "There is no way he went into the breached repository. He must have moved to another type of vehicle. If this sled would just hold still for a moment!"

"No chance," Xin said. "It's completely unsafe at this excavation site. Look there, see where that dust is kicking up? That's where large-caliber bullets are tearing up the surface."

"The Caofsh haven't seen us?" worried the Ensign.

"No," Xin told him. "They're firing at those small slots in the surface, there you see? Wide but not very tall, reinforced with some kind of concrete?"

"Yeah, what are those?"

"Someone's made fortifications at points around the pit mine. Hard to shoot into, easy to shoot from."

"And we just dove into this pit?"

"We won't be here long," she told him, matter of fact in the face of the danger. "But they'll soon get some sense that something is among them. If we're here longer than maybe five minutes, I'm going to have to direct an exit or that we assume an offensive posture."

"We're not armed for offense," Marl said, but Xin just shrugged. Marl scanned the ridge of the pit mine behind them to see if she could spot who was shooting. "There! About two hundred meters above that ridge, it's some kind of helicopter!"

That was met with exclamations all around, except the Engineer, who said, "There are signs of something large having lifted off in the past few minutes."

"I'll log that," said the Ensign. "What is the evidence, Lieutenant Eisberg?"

"Ion residue. Something like a hyper-sonic atmospheric shuttle."

"Military?" asked Xin.

"Hard to say, but it was powerful to have an ion engine."

The AI spoke up, "I have located the Prince's craft. It sits about two hundred meters away from the rim of the pit mine on the far side from our approach. It is unoccupied. May I send it back to the Virga?"

"No, let's see the site."

"Is that necessary? That sled is scrap," Eisberg remarked.