A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [220]
“Shizz, how would we know?” a repair tech snapped. “Our ships get here faster than a signal can.”
“We’ve all got suit transmitters,” Kotto said. “Our life-support tanks can last for a day or so, and our regenerator packs should keep the coolant flowing through our suits.”
“Yeah…under optimal conditions,” muttered one of the engineers.
“You mean this isn’t optimal?” Kotto tried to maintain his sense of humor. “Okay, we’ve got enough surface rovers and mining vehicles to take us over the terrain. If we hop from shadow to shadow, we can get to the night side and hide there for a week.”
“Our air won’t last that long, Kotto.”
“One problem at a time, please.”
In groups of five, they cycled out onto the baked surface of Isperos. Pounding breakers of solar storms continued to lap at the planet. The star overhead was a churning cauldron of heat, surrounded by repeated flares. Kotto thought of it as plasma indigestion.
Three overland vehicles carrying equipment, supplies, and a crowd of evacuees had already rumbled off across the scorched terrain. The heavy ceramic treads left deep indentations in the soft rock.
“Let’s go. Seven of us can fit in the next rover. Move it!”
He pushed the engineers toward the waiting vehicle, then took the controls himself. In normal times, his coworkers often refused to let the distractible engineer drive a rover, because Kotto paid more attention to geological features and mineral resources than to finding a safe path.
Now, though, Kotto was not sightseeing. He was trying to save them all.
The horizon was a close, curved line. As he passed a tall mound of rock, razor black shadows spread out like a pool of spilled ink. Impetuously, Kotto swerved into the abrupt shade, where the temperature dropped sharply. Thermal waves rippled up from the cooling rock, and heat seeped from the rest of the baking landscape, but it was better here for a while.
“I’ll give it ten minutes here to let the system dump some of our waste heat. If this rover melts, we’ll be walking all the way to the nearest shadow.”
“Good thinking, Kotto.”
When they set out again, the blazing fury seemed even more intense. The sun hung like a baleful eye, seething and flickering, as if ready to explode.
The first Roamer rescue ships arrived in the system when Kotto and his refugees were still more than ten kilometers from the night side. Other Isperos rovers had already made it to the cooler darkness and arranged a staging area where the rescue shuttles could land.
Along the way, Kotto had lost contact with one rover. The driver had sent a signal calling for help, but was unable to give her location. “Systems are failing—guidance completely scrambled…hull breaches likely…no, imminent!” The next sound, a horrible rising scream, had mercifully turned into garbled static.
Kotto clenched his jaw, but kept driving. All the miners, engineers, and tech workers had known the risks here. The Roamers would memorialize anyone who died—but only after as many Isperos workers escaped as possible. For now, Kotto had to make sure such an accident did not happen to anyone else.
Anna Pasternak, a salty old merchant captain, led the first group of rescue ships on an approach to the dark side of Isperos, but had to abort her landing when the solar storm increased its fury, bombarding navigation systems and control circuits. The rest of the rescue ships lined up in the shelter of the planet’s shadow cone, trying to formulate a plan for retrieving the survivors.
Kotto’s rover reached the dark-side sanctuary, where five refugee vehicles had found a flat crater, its surface melted and rehardened numerous times. One rover had arrived at the staging point, but had suffered an air-tank breach, and now their atmosphere was running out. Kotto could redistribute minimal surplus supplies from two other rovers, but that would only postpone the