Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [179]
When he circled in and flew low, geometric lights spread around the site of the Roamer base. He adjusted the magnifiers, focusing in to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him. He had never been here before, but obviously this wasn’t right.
As the Aquarius cruised over the complex, caution made him keep radio silence. The base showed furious activity, but he couldn’t fathom what was going on. Switching scanner bands, Nikko discovered that the visible spangle of lights marked only the tip of the iceberg; in the infrared, emanations were pouring out like a blaze. Plumes of evaporated gases rose into the sky. The small-pile power reactor, a standard Roamer design for isolated outposts, had been enhanced for an enormous energy output.
The cluster of Roamer domes, rail launchers, and transmitting towers had all been torn apart and reassembled into strange patterns. He even spotted the remnants of what had been a few Roamer cargo ships. Their engines had been torn out and implanted in larger, angular skeletons of sharp structures. Alien structures. Five huge ships, shaped like bones and beetle shells.
He saw dark figures in armored suits that reflected very little light. Had Roamer engineers developed a body casing that allowed people to maneuver for long periods in the extreme cold? He descended and increased magnification, and the shapes suddenly came into focus. Black insectile automatons. Everywhere.
Nikko had never seen a Klikiss robot himself, but was certainly familiar with what they looked like. What were the alien machines doing on Jonah 12? And what had they done to the Roamer mining base? It looked like an invasion! He saw no humans at all. The habitation and headquarters domes had been breached, the walls torn down, the atmosphere released into the frozen vacuum.
These Klikiss robots had destroyed the station! And now they were culling every scrap to assemble spacecraft of some sort. The vessels looked nearly complete.
Some of the black machines swiveled geometrical heads toward the sky, detected his ship moving above them. On the magnified screen, he saw the glint of red optical sensors and felt a deep cold in his heart.
He had no idea if the robots could shoot him down. He accelerated the Aquarius, ducking behind the close horizon. There, he was in transmission shadow from any ambush the Klikiss robots might set. The clicking machine-coded transmissions on his speakers grew quiet as he passed out of range.
No one knew what had happened here. Nikko was the only one who could carry a warning to the other clans.
Suddenly his comm line pinged: a small, weak signal coming from far beyond the base camp. “Hello, ship! Please respond—and please be piloted by a human being.” It was a woman’s voice. Nikko thought he recognized it.
He boosted his own signal to compensate for the obvious weakness of the sender’s transmitter. “This is Nikko Chan Tylar. What the hell is going on down there?”
He heard a yelp of exultation. “This is Speaker Peroni. Thank you, Nikko!” Her voice sounded heavy, as if every breath was a labor. Her teeth were chattering. “Follow these coordinates and land. I hope you can take two passengers. We’ve been stranded out here for days.”
The man’s voice added, “And we probably have less than an hour till either our air runs out or we freeze. It’s a toss-up which will happen first.”
“Hang on! I’ll be there in a minute.”
He raced low over the frozen terrain until he came upon a rise where one of the hemispherical grazers had broken down. The Aquarius landed on the rough ice, and stabilizers locked down to level the ship. Steam rose from residual thermal energy radiating out of the heat vents.
After cycling through his airlock, Nikko crunched across to the silent, damaged grazer. The rear of the vehicle had been mangled, and jagged scratches were torn along the plated hull. An insulation cowling had been shredded, components ripped free. He ran his gaze along the flattened path where the grazer had lumbered along, amazed the small vehicle had made it so far.
Wearing environment suits, Speaker