Frozen Sky: Blindsided (the Europa Series Book 3) by Jeff Carlson

Author:Jeff Carlson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: JVE
Published: 2016-06-11T03:00:00+00:00

20.

Vonnie led her mecha after the band scampering into the darkness. Small and agile, they weaved through the ice. Vonnie ducked a low spot. She jumped over a crevice.

The sunfish accelerated when they reached an open pocket. Then they swerved into a zigzagging maze of holes, where the males doubled back on her. Vonnie didn’t waver. She barreled on, making them avoid her. The males sprang off the walls and ceiling, howling at the doppelgängers.

The tunnels in Zone One were well-traveled, but the males insisted on scouring for spoor. They were like demented puppies. They screamed at every scent. They dug at every crack. Hoping to draw them off, Vonnie sent two of her doppelgängers behind her. She needed to think. The frenetic males were too much to handle.

Her doppelgängers led them away. When she glanced back, they were snuffling at a dirty patch of ice where a GP’s hydraulics had leaked. Then they were out of sight.

Vonnie pursued the four matriarchs, emerging from the maze of holes into a wider space.

—Close! We are close! they cried.

Her sonar detected other sunfish screaming far below. She saw a steel bulkhead reinforcing the ice. It was labeled ZONE ONE Section 19. Suddenly she passed a bundle of cables leading through a smooth, man-made shaft. She was almost in Zone Two.

Her helmet crackled. “Radio check,” Koebsch said. “All signals clear.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m reading a localized malfunction in your left glove. There’s a dead spot from the wrist down. The sunfish must have damaged the circuitry.”

“Yes, sir.” Every segment of her scout suit reported to their grid.

“Vonnie, does your glove work?”

“Yes.” Her mind felt as honed as her sword. They called me a rogue, she thought. I thought they were urging the males to stay loyal to them by pointing out my shortcomings. Did they hear my reservations when I spoke with O’Neal and Koebsch? I’m a liar, too, and for what? Small lies for the greater good. That’s what I tell myself. It doesn’t feel right.

The tribe is planning something… but if they aren’t preparing an assault, what are they doing? There’s nothing east or south. The Americans and the PSSC are eighty klicks away. Could they know we’re at odds with the PSSC? They’ve intuited so much about us. What if they send males to the PSSC camp to raid for metal and food?

She rapped her knuckles on her helmet, chastising herself. Don’t give them any ideas! If they aren’t going to attack, you can’t suggest it. They’re so quick to make connections. Quit thinking about the PSSC.

Ahead of her, the matriarchs hurtled off a cliff into a black, cluttered maw. The chasm dropped forty meters.

They exulted in their freefall. Shrieking, they sounded out the chasm’s sides and the piles of debris at the bottom. Vonnie jumped after them. The matriarchs landed first. They rolled lightly on the debris. Her doppelgängers thumped down, then Vonnie. Her burrowers came last.

The matriarchs went into a low tunnel camouflaged by the piles of ice. The tunnel was short.

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