But that’s impossible, she thought.
Although the digger was shaped more like a scorpion than a sunfish with its claws and a cutting tail, the Brazilians must have programmed their mecha to mimic everything they’d gleaned from the public data of her time beneath the ice. If not, there was only one explanation for the digger imitating sunfish shapes.
Vonnie saw two more diggers caught in identical seizures — only the diggers. None of the other mecha used sunfish shapes. They shuddered and jerked. Ash must have hit the diggers with the same SCP while she used other weapons against the rest of the FNEE mecha.
In unison, the diggers quit shaking. The nearest one hunched on the floor with sudden poise, scanning back and forth as if waking up for the first time. The other two assumed standby positions, although none of them acknowledged the abort code relayed through Ribeiro’s suit.
“Get out,” his people radioed from camp. “Get out.”
The Brazilians retreated with less than half their mecha. Some might be saved later. Five kept dropping their response codes or were destroyed internally. Before Ribeiro lost sight of the abandoned machines, Vonnie thought the diggers turned to scurry deeper into the ice.
She opened a private channel to Ash. “I’d like to buy you a drink,” she said.
“Nobody brought any money, did they?” Ash said. “I appreciate it, but I’m going to be swamped with cleaning up data/comm and writing my report.”
“One drink,” Vonnie said. “Later.”
27.
That night, instead of alcohol, Vonnie brought Ash a piece of carrot cake she’d baked herself after running over to Module 02 and its small oven. “Better for you than vodka,” she said.
“Thank you,” Ash said cautiously.
“What happened to their mecha at the end?”
“Total systems override,” Ash said. “I burned out their AIs with disposable subsets of our own.”
“You appreciate a good program.”
“It’s what I do.”
Vonnie glanced over her shoulder, but the two of them were alone. “I think you couldn’t bring yourself to kill Lam,” she said.
Ash stopped eating the cake. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Maybe you broke Lam into components like Koebsch said, making him look like an SCP, but you kept all of his files, and you knew you couldn’t hide him in our system forever. That’s why you uploaded him into the Brazilian diggers.”
Ash was either a superb actress or innocent. “That sounds like a lot of work,” she said, looking Vonnie right in the eye. “Nobody but a top programmer could fox our system and the FNEE grid at the same time.”
“Someone like you.”
The corner of Ash’s mouth ticked with a smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, and Vonnie laughed.
Lam was alive somewhere inside the frozen sky.
ESA and FNEE Camps
DOWNSIDER
28.
“We don’t want to cause problems for you back on Earth,” Vonnie said, “but your team needs to stop the bombing.”
“We have no bombs,” the Brazilian woman said.
“That’s a lie. We know you’re blasting in the ice.”
“Our mecha have been tunneling, yes. Sometimes there are cave-ins. We have no bombs.”
“Are you killing sunfish?”
The Brazilian woman frowned, then looked to her left. Vonnie wished they were standing face-to-face instead of talking on a showphone. Vonnie couldn’t know if someone else was standing off-camera, and, in truth, Vonnie might have acted differently herself if she was alone.
Hiding teammates off-camera was only part of the deception allowed by electronic communications. Seated beside Vonnie in Command Module 01, out of sight, Ash was both recording and hacking the FNEE transmission while Koebsch stood ready to upload any of eight different sims.
Twenty-two days had passed since they’d stopped the Brazilians’ incursion into the ice. All four Earth agencies had begun to send their own mecha beneath the surface, including the ESA, but there were seismic shocks radiating from the terrain explored by the FNEE.
The job of approaching the Brazilians belonged to Koebsch. Vonnie had convinced him to try another way, allowing Ash to open a comm link in the Brazilians’ main hab module when she thought their only female crew member was alone.
“I’ll ask again,” Vonnie said. “Are you killing sunfish?”
“Why have you called me?” the woman asked. “You are not the European commander, and I am not in charge of our base.”
“My name is Alexis Vonderach.”
“I know who you are. Everyone has seen your mem files.” The woman frowned again, then said, “I am Sergeant Claudia Tavares.” “Claudia. Call me Von.”
“My name is Sergeant Tavares,” the woman said. She was barely older than Ash, and yet she seemed a hundred times more prim. Was that due to FNEE training, a difference in national character, or her concern that Ribeiro would catch her talking to the enemy?
The ESA and NASA were civilian operations, although the Americans often seeded their teams with Space Force officers. The Chinese and Brazilian crews were exclusively military. China’s fleet and the FNEE were offshoots of their countries’ armies. That meant Sergeant Tavares was taking a substantial risk. If Vonnie failed in her effort to communicate, she could try again, whereas if Tavares was deemed disloyal, she might lose rank or find herself sent to a courts martial. Vonnie approved of her willingness to stay online.
It’s got to be difficult being the only woman in their crew, Vonnie thought. Especially in a macho culture. Especially because she’s pretty.
Even with her black hair woven into tight, cornrow braids and the collar of her uniform buttoned high on her neck, Tavares couldn’t hide her femininity. Her cheekbones were like sculpted bronze, and she had warm brown eyes.
What was the sexual dynamic in the FNEE camp? Were they celibate or promiscuous?
Fraternization was discouraged among the ESA but not enforced because they were under enough strain without forbidding Homo sapiens’ most basic drive — to procreate. In the past, the ESA had tried all male and all female crews, chemically neutered crews, and mecha-only ships, too often with subpar results. Sexually active, mixed gender groups brought the highest versatility to any non-combat mission. It was messy, which the bureaucrats hated, and often heated, which the crew leaders didn’t like — but in mixed groups, there was a deep-seated urge to excel, outperform any rivals, and win a mate.
Harnessed correctly, that motivation led the group to attain its greatest potential. It heightened their stamina. It helped preserve them. The men and the woman struggled to protect each other physically and emotionally.
Last week, Vonnie had finally begun to date again herself, stealing three hours with Pärnits and then another with Metzler, playing holo games and chess, talking, and watching comedy shows. After preparing two plates of fruit, cheese, and crackers, she’d even held Metzler’s hand across the table as they ate, quietly rubbing her thumb on his knuckles.
But if the Brazilians were promiscuous, when the hell did Tavares get any sleep?
Vonnie grinned, which appeared to startle the younger woman. Tavares leaned back from her camera as Vonnie said, “I’d like to send you two sims.”
“No unauthorized files.”
Vonnie shrugged. “I’m offering the sims to you as a courtesy. We haven’t shared this data with Earth yet. We don’t want to, but the bombing needs to stop.”