Cibola Burn

Koenen grunted. His arms were crossed awkwardly over his chest, the bulk of the suit defying the pose. Havelock frowned, not that anyone could see him.

“Something the matter, chief?”

“You know,” the chief engineer said, “I don’t mind that the Israel has her own engineering crew. I understand that we’ve got separate mandates. But we’re working with the same equipment and supplies, and as a courtesy, I would like to be kept in the loop when the ship crew are sending out a team.”

“Okay,” Havelock said. “I can talk to them when we get in. Is it something that’s been happening often?”

“It’s happening right now,” the chief said, pointing out into the darkness.

It took Havelock a moment to see it. A flicker where no flicker should be. The weaponized shuttle brightened and dimmed. A welding torch, half a klick away in the darkness. Panic felt strange in null g, the blood flowing away from his hands and feet.

“Do you have enhanced magnification on your helmet?” Havelock asked.

“Yeah,” the chief said.

“Could you take a look at who’s out there?”

The chief engineer bent back. The surface of his helmet glittered for a moment, the HUD taking over. “Red EVA suit. Got a decent-sized pack on it too. Long-distance travel. And a welding kit.”

Havelock said something obscene, then switched to the all-group channel. “Everyone stop. We have a problem. There’s someone at the shuttle over there, and he isn’t one of ours.”

For a moment, no one spoke. Then one of the militiamen, his voice calm and matter-of-fact, said, “Let’s go kick his ass.”

It was exactly not what Havelock wanted to do. If the enemy had a rifle, he could pick half the team off before they got close. Even then, they had paint guns. But the alternative was to let whoever they were do whatever they were doing to the only ace up the Israel’s sleeve.

“Okay,” Havelock said. “Here’s the plan. Everyone sync up with the ship’s computer. We’re going to let the Israel calculate our burns. Turn off the mag boots.” He plucked out his hand terminal, fed in the emergency security override, and coded in his request. Their vacuum suits had more then enough propellant to get them all to the shuttle and back again, provided nobody missed or tried to do something clever. Above them, the penumbra around New Terra grew lopsided, the sun preparing to reemerge. Another tiny dawn. The computer announced the burns were ready.

“Okay,” Havelock said. “These are the bad guys. We don’t know how many there are. We don’t know how they’re armed. So we’re going to try to scare them off. Everyone get your gun at the ready. Look threatening, and don’t fire. If they figure out our guns aren’t real, we may be in for a bad time.”

“Sir?” one of the men said. “You remember we’re covered with target paint, right?”

Before Havelock could answer, the thrusters started, pushing compressed gas out behind them like a fog and smoke. All their suits rose together into the night. Or else fell. The acceleration pushed the blood into Havelock’s legs, and the suit squeezed, pressing it back. It wasn’t even a full g. It was hardly a third, but it felt like something much, much faster. Much more dangerous. Now that he knew to look for it, the welding flicker was obvious. It didn’t stop. The main burn cut out, and the suits rotated, starting the braking burn. The perfect synchrony meant the Israel was still coordinating them.

This time, the intruder saw them. The welding torch died. Havelock looked down between his feet, his paint gun centered between his toes, waiting for the bullets to start streaming out and praying that they wouldn’t.

They didn’t.

“It’s working!” one of the men shouted. “Motherfucker’s running away!”

And there it was. A red EVA suit on the skin of the shuttle. It struggled with something, looked up toward Havelock and his militia descending upon him, and turned back. Whoever it was, there was only one of them. The braking thrust stuttered. They were almost at the shuttle now. Fifty meters. Forty. Thirty. Havelock opened a standard general-response channel.

“Attention unidentified welder. You will stand down.”

The red suit stood, the EVA suit firing off. The person lifted at a ninety-degree angle, not going directly away from them, but diving down toward the planetary surface and whatever lower orbit would mean a safe rendezvous. Havelock felt the relief flooding him. They weren’t shooting. His HUD promised him that the shuttle’s basic functions were unchanged. It hadn’t been set to detonate. And the militia boys weren’t in charge of their own burns, so they wouldn’t be taking off after the intruder.

He had underestimated them.