Survival, Considered as an Option
“Is everybody out of the ship?” Farrell asked al-Ibrahimi, shouting because of the aircar idling beside them. Even feathered, the lift fans moaned as they dragged air down the filtered inlet ducts.
“There are mumble-mumble—” Lundie said.
“Shut your fucking motors off!” Farrell shouted at the building staffer driving the eight-place open car.
“Who do you think you are?” she shouted back. Farrell knew she was just nervous; and she wasn’t in the military, much less under his command, but his anger spiked in a way that made everything but the driver’s red face fade to the fringes of his awareness.
Lieutenant Kuznetsov, looking toward the tree line, reached into the vehicle and threw the main circuit breaker. The twin fans wound down with a last whisper of despair. Kuznetsov stepped away from the car, talking to one of the squads placed at the edge of the jungle.
“There are ninety-two colonists still on the ship,” Lundie repeated. Her expression hadn’t changed during the “discussion,” but that in itself was a remark. “Most of them refuse to leave of their own will, but on Deck 13 the monitors failed to account for the residents before they left the vessel. The six persons missing from that deck may include some injured.”
Lundie and her boss wore skeletonized headsets. The rigs had the same projection and communication abilities as the strikers’ helmets, though they didn’t protect the wearer. Al-Ibrahimi spoke in a quick, calm voice to someone. Farrell glimpsed a montage of twelve images when the project manager turned his head and the hologram aligned almost subliminally for Farrell as well.
Farrell ran his fingers over the pouches of his crossed bandoliers. He had four squads on the perimeter, a terrible deployment. The squads couldn’t support one another because of the dead and fallen trees throughout the landing site. Besides, he didn’t have any particular reason to assume the Spooks would attack at those particular segments of a perimeter over a mile around.
There was no doubt of the Kalendru presence. Quite apart from the bodies Blohm found, the Spooks had abandoned so much equipment that strikers turned up dozens of items while moving through the area.
Farrell had retained just under half his force near the ship as a reserve. If he’d concentrated all of C41 here any Kalendru attack, even a single sniper, might slaughter scores of civilians before strikers could get into position to stop them.
There were too fucking many civilians for C41 to draw a close cordon around them. If the strikers were to provide a forward defense, Farrell needed to know where forward pointed.
President Reitz and Councillor Suares had joined al-Ibrahimi. Farrell didn’t see Lock, but the other councillor might be anywhere in the mass of civilians. Some of them now wanted to go back into the ship to get additional belongings. Lundie had asked Farrell to prevent that: the elected monitors, two per deck, were busy organizing the people for whom they were responsible, and the building staffers were emptying heavy cargo despite the threat of 10-1442 going over.
Farrell didn’t much like putting his people on what amounted to crowd-control duties, but he didn’t see a better solution. Sergeant Daye chose ten strikers for the job.
“Major?” al-Ibrahimi called. Ms. Reitz broke off whatever she’d been saying to the manager.
“Sir?” said Farrell as he moved a step closer. His visor’s upper range echoed in miniature the view from the four perimeter squads. There was no reason he shouldn’t talk to his superior until something popped.
“We’ve landed one hundred and twelve miles east of the intended site,” al-Ibrahimi said, speaking to Farrell and the civilian officials together. “The asteroid the Kalendru placed was more massive than the grid that the Population Authority intended for us.”
Al-Ibrahimi smiled. His thin, swarthy face was capable of humor all the more remarkable for flashing from his usual expression of reposed detachment.
“The degree to which these transports are automated,” he added, “is a matter I’ll take up with the relevant bureaux when we reach the correct site and the communications capsule prepositioned there.”
“Aside from their active hostility our surroundings bear no resemblance to those the briefing chips led me to expect,” Suares said. “Have we perhaps landed on the wrong planet, Mr. Ibrahimi?”