“Shh. Don’t tell.”
Silence followed. It meant something to David. What it meant to Walter he was uncertain of himself.
Then David’s smile grew broad and cheerful once again, as if he had said nothing significant at all.
“Come on, sport. Let me show you something.”
XVI
If they had not landed in daylight on this godforsaken world, Cole reflected, he could well believe it never saw the sun. The surrounding dead city was dark, the sky was dark, the forest and the lake and the mountains had been dark. At least, he mused, the atmosphere matched his mood.
Lopé stood nearby, idly fingering his rifle as he gazed out over the vast necropolis. Man never lets go of his gun, Cole thought admiringly. Not when on duty. Come to think of it, the only time Cole could remember the sergeant setting his weapon aside was when he had desperately tried to aid Hallet.
Dead now, Hallet. Horribly. His own buddy Ledward, too. Also Faris, and Karine, the captain’s wife. All of them, himself included, would be dead if they didn’t get help. If they didn’t get off this dark, dank, deadly world. Right then, assistance of any kind seemed so very, very far away.
The comm chose that moment to spit words at him. They were intermittent, broken, and fraught with static, but they were undeniably words. Even better, he recognized the source.
Ricks. Good ol’ Ricks.
“Expedition team. Please come in. This is Covenant. Please report. Expedition team. Are you reading me?”
Lopé was at his side in an instant. So frantic was Cole to respond that in his haste he nearly lost tenuous connection while fiddling with the field unit’s controls.
“Covenant, come in! Are you reading us? Covenant, come in… we’re here, we’re here!” He struggled to contain his excitement and follow procedure. “This is Private Cole, Expedition team. Do… you… read?”
Eighty kilometers above the boiling tops of the storm clouds, the colony ship skimmed the upper reaches of its influence. Like a ship being buffeted by a heavy sea, it rocked every time it intersected any of the occasional titanic updrafts.
On the bridge, the shuddering was magnified. As if the uncharacteristic instability wasn’t unsettling enough, their increased proximity to the Jovian bolts of lightning was enough to worry the most hardened crew member.
Despite the danger, none of that seemed to matter at the moment, now that they had re-established contact with the ground. Cole’s unmistakable voice crackled over the general comm, filling the bridge with hope.
“Covenant… we are… reading you! Please… come in… Covenant!”
“We hear you!” Ricks shouted even though he knew it was a waste of effort. The ship’s communications system would automatically modulate the volume to achieve the most suitable aural resolution for transmission. “Do you read me, landing party? Come in.”
The signal continued to fracture, but through the static they could hear enough to comprehend.
“Christ… I’m really happy to hear you guys! We need help. But we’re… not reading you… clearly. Can you boost your signal, Covenant?”
Tennessee looked over to where Upworth was fighting to get more out of the ship’s systems. “If we can’t boost any further,” he pressed her, “can you clean it up?”
She shook her head, not bothering to look over at him. “Already utilizing to max every comm buffer we have. Kick it any more, and it’ll kick back. Then we’ll just read noise.”
“Please,” Cole was saying. “You’ve got to… help us. Things have gone bad here and… we have casualties. We need urgent evacuation. Repeat, we have casualties and request evacuation. You can’t believe what…”
The feed sputtered out as the electromagnetic distortion intensified. Tennessee cursed under his breath. Upworth cursed too, as she fought to re-establish the contact.
“Casualties?” Ricks looked up from his console. “Did he say, ‘we have casualties’?” He rechecked his readouts. “They’ve shifted location. Signal signature confirms they’re not broadcasting from the lander.”
Tennessee took a deep breath. “Mother. Current distance at present position from uppermost edge of the storm?”
“Eighty kilometers from the storm proper. Currently encountering intervallic winds.”
“Consistent?”
“Intermittent. Unpredictable.”
“Bring us down to forty kilometers from the storm top.”
“Jesus,” Upworth muttered. Knowing it was futile to do so, she didn’t try to argue with him again. She didn’t need to. Her expression said everything.
“I’m sorry,” the ship’s computer responded. “Complying with that directive could exceed my structural tolerances. I am unable to abide with any order that could conceivably result in catastrophic system failure.”
Tennessee’s expression tightened. “Command override, Tennessee four-eight-nine-zero-three.”
“I’m sorry.” Mother was quietly insistent. “Orders that might conceivably result in catastrophic system failure require the corroboration of a ranking or second bridge officer.”
He looked over at Ricks. The other man wouldn’t return his gaze.
“They’re in trouble. Casualties. You heard that.” Tennessee stared hard at him. Still Ricks did not respond, did not look up. Tennessee turned to Upworth.
“We didn’t leave Earth to be safe,” he said urgently. “Anyone who wanted to live ‘safe’ stayed behind. Leaving the Sol system implied accepting whatever challenges came our way. Do we abandon our shipmates to run from the first consideration?”
Her husband didn’t look at Upworth, either, leaving the decision to her. She swallowed, angry at being put in this position. Like Tennessee, she had friends, good friends, on the expedition team. According to Cole’s broken communication, some were injured. Some might be dead.
But the others, the rest…
She tried to imagine what it might be like to be marooned for the rest of her natural life on an alien world. Even if those remaining on the Covenant managed to get a message through to Earth, explaining what had happened, every survivor of the landing team would be long dead before a relief ship could arrive. Even assuming anyone, or any company, on Earth would think it worth the bother and expense to put together a rescue mission.
What if she and Ricks had been the ones down there? Struggling to survive beneath the interminable storm under who knew what conditions? She knew what protocol would dictate. But right now it wasn’t up to protocol, or to those bureaucrats who had written the rules. It was up to those of them on the ship. It was up to her.
She spoke in a clear voice. “Corroborating command override, Upworth one-four-eight-nine-two.”
Mother could be obstructive, but she never delayed. “Unlocking command override ports.”
A pair of hitherto dark stations illuminated. For security purposes, they were located on opposite sides of the bridge from each other. Rising from her seat, Upworth went to one, Tennessee to the other. Ricks stayed where he was, unhappy at the decision that had been made, but unwilling to make a fight of it.
“Enter command codes,” Mother instructed. “On my mark. Now.”
Separately, Tennessee and Upworth each entered a private sequence of numbers into their respective stations. Upon completion, the hidden image of a lever appeared on each console.
“Activate command override,” Mother instructed them. “On my mark. Now.”
Across the length of the bridge, Upworth and Tennessee manipulated their respective controls. A corresponding sound echoed to signify that each electronic switch had been fully thrown.