Birdie Down Page 9

  ***

  Cummings did not like hearing that, but he understood. The frigate needed to stay on the V4’s tail.

  ‘So, we’re eating local crap tonight?’ Muldrow asked, his voice vibrating as he spoke.

  ‘Looks like it, Rick. Tell the lads. It’ll cheer them up.’

  Cummings looked back down at the ground as he turned the RAV tightly to fly low over the rebel crash site. It passed by quickly to port. The rain had dowsed the fires, but steam and smoke still rose from the hole in the forest canopy. A line of broken branches stretched a hundred metres out to the east to mark where it had come down. Of the shuttle itself, he could see nothing.

  A few kilometres further on, and for the last time, they swept past the second crash site, a place marked by a long, scorched furrow in a forest clearing that continued on and into the broken trees at the forest edge. The shuttle must have ripped apart as it slammed down: debris was scattered either side of a brown scar in the ground; an engine lay at rest just inside the tree line; a row of seats stood as a park bench, looking back across the clearing—people slouched in them as if sleeping.

  As the RAVs cleared the area, the gusting wind turned into a single and continuous wave of pressure, pounding at the forest canopy, ripping leaves from branches and driving walls of rain ahead of it. Lightening struck the trees. Thunderous slaps reverberated through the canopy. And inside the forest, inside his airbed, and under a glass canopy covered in forest detritus, Rolf screamed the scream of a man who was buried alive.

  19

  Rain trickling up glass. Trees growing from the sky. A PIKL lying in a puddle on the ceiling. The smell of burnt plastics.

  Blurred vision. A thick, pounding head.

  Goosen shuddered and then coughed. That made the head worse. He saw an unconscious man hanging from his seat belt beside him, arms outstretched towards the ground. So were his own: his knuckles almost touched the rad-hardened cockpit glass.

  A shuttle?

  This did not feel or look right.

  Where the blazes am I?

  The deafening noise of rain pounding at leaves. Water gurgling above him—or was it below? Smoke pooling—or wafting—around his feet.

  It looked bad, whatever it was, wherever he was. He reached down—up—at his seat belt. It clicked. He fell heavily. Blackness.

  Waking again, Goosen found himself lying in a puddle of water. His head was clearer, but it still hurt. He moved and bumped against Bing. Yes, that was his name—Bing: a friend. Bing did not move. Goosen pushed his friend’s head back and saw a lump the size of a chicken’s egg on the temple. His eyes were closed but at least he was breathing.

  He let Bing’s head flop back, stood up and slipped down the cockpit’s concave hood. He steadied himself and reached for the door. It was stuck. He pushed at it. Eventually it broke free. Smoke poured in. He closed it again.

  Crap!

  In the gloom, he reached into the water for the laser and slung it over his shoulder. He needed some clean air. He hammered at the cockpit hood. No use. It was rad-hardened. It was not even cracked. There was no other exit. He would have to go out through the door.

  He gathered himself, ready to hold his breath and make his way through the passenger compartment, and hope the way was clear to the cargo ramp. Then he remembered the re-breather below the pilot seat. He instinctively bent down, but quickly realised he should reach up. For a second or two he hoked around inside the seat. It was not there.

  He stooped and groped beneath the water again. He picked up a light-tug remote, putting it in his pocket. He groped around some more, this time finding the re-breather. As he fit it to his face, he heard a groaning and then the thud of metal meeting metal, somewhere back in the cargo hold. He stood stock-still. Nothing else moved. He relaxed. He felt under Bing’s seat, grabbed the co-pilot’s re-breather and placed it over Bing’s face. He slapped him a couple of times. Still nothing.

  He brought Bing down from his seat, threw him over his shoulder and pushed at the door again. Smoke flooded in. The rear passenger cabin was filled with black toxic smoke and gases. He stumbled across its ceiling, banged his head on a seat corner, and felt his way between boxes, fire extinguishers and life belts thrown clear from the overhead bins around his feet. Eventually he saw the end of the cabin brighten. The cargo hold door was open. Light streamed in through the doorway and from the starboard side. The cargo hold ramp and starboard engine were nowhere to be seen.

  Staggering out into the pouring rain, he ripped the re-breather off and sucked in the local air. It smelled rotten, felt wet. He sat Bing up against a tree, his head held upright in a crease in the bark. He knelt beside him, checked his pulse again and then looked back at the shuttle.

  At first Goosen’s shoulders sagged. Then he laughed. It was a body shuddering laugh. It came from deep inside of him: wave after wave of it.

  The shuttle was a mangled mess. There was a hole in the canopy above him down through which rain poured, hitting the shuttle to run away in rivulets. Parts of the airframe, an engine cowling and the cargo ramp hung from the massive branches above. What there was of the undergrowth had burned away in a wide circle for dozens of metres. The air was very humid and still stank of burned aviation fuel. The only part of the shuttle that remained intact was the cockpit. The rest of it was barely recognisable.

  By jeeze, it felt good to be alive.

  Finally he remembered why he was on the ground and not in the air. He pictured a light-tug, and felt inside his pocket. Checking that Bing would not fall onto his side, he walked back over to the shuttle and leaned against the airframe, peering into the cargo hold. There it was, on its back in the corner, rammed up against the bulkhead. He put two hands against it and gave it a rock. It was heavy. He tried again. It shifted slightly. Bending his knees and ignoring a thumping head, he gripped it low down and heaved it upright. When it was the sitting the right way up, he walked around it. Although the shell was intact, it was wet. It might be ok, but its guts could be damaged; Goosen could not say one way or the other. Only Bing would know, and he was not talking.

  He walked back outside and dropped his PIKL at Bing’s side. He sucked in more of the local air, refitted the re-breather and made his way back inside the cockpit. He unhooked the transponder, cut some of the airbags free, and then he grabbed the emergency first aid box and two transparent canteens of water. He could not find any food.

  As he made his way back though the cargo hold, he inflated a couple of life rafts, tossed everything onto one of them and dragged the whole lot across the clearing.

  Finally, he sat down next to Bing under an upside-down life raft tied to a tree, one end close to the ground and the other propped up with sticks. Every so often it buckled and twisted, but the forest undergrowth bled the wind of much of its strength.

  He looked out. They were on flat ground, surrounded by huge trees, maybe three metres thick at their bases, which soared straight and proud into the canopy. In the distance, the trees stood so thick and so straight that nothing beyond them was visible. The majesty of the place, the awesome nature of it, reminded him of his trip to his mother’s ancestral home in Bourges, some 20 years ago, and the trip to the city’s Cathedral, its huge columns still holding up a leaky roof after a century of neglect. He was 17 at the time. It felt like a lifetime ago.

  When he was confident the shelter would stay in place, he leaned back against the tree trunk, pushed a hand back through his wet sand-coloured hair and thought it a good time to count his blessings.

  He was alive, even if his friend was unconscious. They were on an unfamiliar planet, but it beat being vented into space. They were probably being hunted down by the ORF, Lynthax’s doorstops, and a type two frigate, but at least no one was shooting at them right now. They were armed with only a laser and an immovable light-tug, but at least they had them, and between them they could make them work—touch wood.

  It was not long before his eyeballs rolled upwards. He tried to stay aw
ake, but the hypnotic patter of rain on leaves eased him into a stupor. Eventually he dreamt. It was a lucid dream. As he recalled his childhood, he mumbled to himself.

  I was born in Montreal, that’s right, Montreal, but I don’t remember the place. I was too young. I remember Red Deer, Alberta, though, and what a fracture-broken, methane stinking, hell hole of a place that is now. But back then it was a time when a five-year-old could still take himself to school and then wander off with his dog to play in the burbs. No one would ever send out a search party—not even when it got dark—they would just shout over their garden fences and word would pass along the street.

  It was a time of adventure, of building dens in rubbish tips and of running through the estates throwing stones at the rival gangs until someone was hit up the side of the head and called a truce. Yeah. I remember. I'd come home late and with scrapped knees and a dirty school uniform. My mother was a saint and a miracle worker. Somehow, he would always smell good the next day.

  One day he would fight with his brother, the next he would be fighting alongside of him. Their parents left them alone. They were both working anyway. It was a time when mothers served tables or stayed at home, uploading and sorting data on behalf of one of the local information centres. At weekends they would make each other clothes and eat around the table, usually with another family so they could mix and match what foods they had left from the week. Dads were seen at breakfast and maybe again at suppertime almost every day of the week. Parents were always busy, and very trusting. No one worried about drugs or dirty needles and the neighbours did not lock their doors.

  His shoulders heaved slightly as he snorted a laugh. Hell, yeah, if we kids felt like a snack, we'd just raid each other's kitchens.

  He remembered losing his front teeth running away from his mother. He had already told her he was not something-or-other coming in for dinner—it was a new word he used, if he recalled correctly—but she was insistent, and surprisingly quick. He remembered stumbling and breaking his front teeth on the pavement, even through his clean air mask. When he saw the blood, he cried. His mum laughed but gave him a hug. It took two years to grow the bloody things back. Yep, the late 70s were really good days.

  Then the growing pains. They were kind of thrust upon him. He came home from school to find his Dad slumped over the toilet bowl upstairs. There was blood all over; glass was everywhere. He tried to plug the holes in his Dad’s chest, but nothing worked: he did not even know if he was doing it right. By the time the paramedics arrived, his Dad had bled out.

  The family ignored his questions in the days that followed. The focus was on trying to keep his mother from falling off the edge. He was my Dad, he recalled. But still, they wouldn’t tell me anything.

  The memories made him feel sad. He sighed and his head dropped onto his chest.

  For the next few months, he followed the detectives around. He asked questions; he got in their way; he made a nuisance of himself. Then they called his mum and told her to put him back in school. But I was 15 then—old enough to know. Boy, did I kick up a stink when they did that.

  Anyway, the neighbours said his Dad was killed because he was a cop. His dad’s colleagues thought it was because he owed money, but it did not sound like they believed it themselves. The detectives on the case would not say one way or another.

  The next couple of years were full of muddled memories, but he did remember the not-so-hot grades at school. It didn’t worry me as much as it did my mum, he seemed to remember: my interests lay elsewhere.

  He bunked off school and took the train back East. He presented himself to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Academy recruitment office in Montreal and volunteered for service. He half laughed as he remembered the old girl behind the counter trying to snatch his ID off him so she could call his mum. But she was not fast enough.

  After a night of wandering the streets, he tried to enlist in the North American Joint Services Unit. His father had served, before becoming a local Red Deer cop. The recruiting sergeant had the cheek to tell him to grow up a little first, but saw the size of him and had second thoughts about sending him away. The sergeant asked him to wait which he did. They showed him around and even gave him a place to sleep for the following night. Things were looking up. Then he woke up to his mum giving him an ear full.

  ‘Stop with this, Andy. You can be a policeman when you’ve graduated. After you’ve graduated, and not before.’ She was angry.

  So she dragged him back to Red Deer and he joined the local police cadets while he continued with his studies. He was marking time. Yeah, marking time was all I was doing, he thought: I hated every minute of it.

  Then the big day: induction at the local police academy. They were welcoming, though for some reason he felt strangely out of place. He tried hard to be like them, but it slowly dawned on him that he was still trying to work through his father’s death and that he only wanted to solve a three-year-old, unsolved murder.

  When he graduated into the force, he accessed his father’s file and noticed how slip-shod the investigation was. He confronted one of the original detectives assigned to the case who told him that no one spent more than a few weeks on it, and that detectives were re-assigned to other duties whenever a new lead came up.

  He confronted the previous Chief of Police with how poorly the investigation was managed—especially given it was an investigation into the death of one of their own.

  He knew he was onto something soon after he started digging himself. At the time of his death, his father was working a case of three missing Alberta Environment employees. Rumour was they had found unusually high levels of Radium in Red Deer’s municipal water, but as the file at AE was sealed he could not prove it either way. And their disappearances remained unsolved.

  Yes, I bloody was onto something, he mumbled to himself, nodding subconsciously.

  But they did not give him the chance. Within six months of voicing his concerns, he was downsized. Budget cuts, they called it. But why me? he asked himself, marvelling at how lucid these memories were. I was good at my job. Weren’t the the budget cuts aimed at clearing out the deadwood?

  Then it occurred to him that his questions were annoying, or embarrassing, officers in high places. He had been too open, too visible. Now his career was ending—badly

  Had it not been for an offer of security work at a local refinery, courtesy of one of his father’s ex-colleagues, he would have fallen onto bad times. The pay was meagre, and the routine boring, but at least it was steady work. His involvement in local theatre helped to brighten up those long, dark winter nights when he was off duty, and if he was not rehearsing he studied New World law, in preparation for a much bigger move. He kept himself busy.

  For some reason his mind wandered back to patrolling a refinery on foot in the pouring rain, and of sitting for hours on an aching butt in the security room.

  The dream faded. The memories disappeared.

  As he woke, he realised his butt did ache. He shifted his weight from one cheek to the other and pulled at his trousers. They were wet and cold to the touch. He recollected putting a pair of coveralls in the cockpit before take off and looked across the clearing. It was still raining. There was no point in getting them now: they would be soaked in minutes. He would wait for the rain to pass. It had to clear up soon. But clearer weather would also bring out the search parties. They would need to be gone from here by then, wherever here was: possibly soon.

  He looked sideways at Bing. He was still out cold. Escape on foot would be difficult. And to where? They had to rely on a rescue.

  That meant they were relying on Scat.

  He sat listening to the rhythm of rain drumming against the life raft. It took a while but it eventually dawned on him that perhaps Scat couldn’t, or wouldn’t, be along any time soon. In fact, he might never show up.

  He recalled Thomas Irwin pleading with Scat to rescue Nettles and then to go to ground on Trevon. Scat was all for rescuing Nettles, but h
e wanted the V4 more. He wanted to take the rebellion ftl. It would make for better news, and be of more use to the cause than a living politician. Scat had been very clear about that. ‘He can be a martyr for the cause,’ he had said, or something like that. ‘He’s one man ... the candle for the cake ... and we’ll lose a lot of them before this thing is finished. Nothing is more important than the cause.’

  And Goosen had agreed with him: taking the V4 was the right thing to do. But now Scat had to protect it, he had dozens of rebels to care for and a rebellion to preserve. So what use were two missing ex-coppers in the grand scheme of things?

  Goosen looked at Bing and then back up through the gash in the canopy. It might be late morning, or lunch time already, who could say, but the sky above him was every bit as dark as his thoughts.

  He did not want to believe it, but it looked like they were on their own.