Chapter 7
1252 Words
5: Deva
Deva
Deva stared at the terminal, tried to shut out the reality of the situation, shut out the anger between the boys.
The Proteus lifted.
Up was good. Down meant water. Up meant sky.
The craft scraped against rock. Keelin muttered, the words unintelligible. Piran whined. The Proteus twisted, and metal shrieked again.
And then Keelin exhaled.
The image on Deva’s terminal was still bathed in green, but a different hue now, not as artificial. Shapes shifted, and Deva pulled the terminal closer, squinted.
Were they leaves? Was she looking at trees?
The craft wasn’t moving. And Deva realised they’d landed. Keelin had got them through the tunnels.
“What is this place?” she asked as the sensor feed slowly cleared, showed her the small, tree-covered clearing the Proteus now rested in.
“If these readings are accurate,” Ryann said, and there was a vague haze over her eyes as she read data off her lenses, “I’d say we’ve come out in the crater.”
“Crater?” Piran frowned. “As in a volcano crater? Is that safe?”
Keelin growled, turned to Piran. He frowned, then nodded. “Oh,” he said. “Right. Extinct. So we’re safe. Right?”
“That’s always a relative term,” Ryann said, “but we’re reasonably safe for the moment. I’m not getting anything from the sensors.”
Deva swiped around the image on her terminal. The trees were dense, and there was no way to see clearly into the foliage around their trunks. She tapped for filters, but saw nothing.
Didn’t mean there wasn’t anything out there, though.
“If this place is abandoned,” she said, “where did those Ions come from?”
“Base on the flat part of the island?” Piran looked to Ryann.
“Not that I’m aware of,” she said, carefully. Her eyes glazed over as she checked her sources. “The most recent overheads of the whole place don’t show anything, and there’s no record of a base here.”
“Doesn’t mean a thing, though, does it? Kaiahive get everywhere.”
“There’s nothing to confirm those Ions were from the company.”
“And nothing to say they’re independents either.”
The corner of Ryann’s mouth twitched. “You’re correct. So we have to be careful. But we remain calm, and we take things steady. Keelin, what’s the Proteus look like?”
“Checking.”
Deva checked, too. She tapped and swiped through data, and winced. “Looks like structural damage only. Nothing pinging on alerts.”
“Turned them off,” Keelin said, in a monotone. “Knew we’d be too close most of the time, would’ve been sounding constantly. Didn’t need the distraction.”
Which was fair enough, except that a catastrophic failure would’ve hit with no warning. But she was the pilot. And she’d got them away from the Ions, hadn’t she?
Deva still wasn’t quite sure how she’d pulled that off. Ions were super-nimble, even more so than Nyxes. Didn’t have the range, or the storage space, but they should’ve reacted faster when Keelin…did whatever she did.
Unless she caught them by surprise. Always possible. Yeah, a b****y good pilot, Keelin. Didn’t have that superior flyer attitude, either. Grounded—which was a ridiculous word to use to describe a pilot, but it fitted.
The data on the terminal swarmed—Keelin, already organising repairs. She had two main groups, mech and tech, each one subdivided by severity.
There was a hell of a lot of work.
“Not going anywhere any time soon,” Keelin said. “Wouldn’t like to fly long-range the way we are.”
Ryann nodded, and clicked her tongue in irritation. “What kind of time-frame are we looking at?”
“Hard to say. Need more analysis.” She turned her head. “Piran? Any thoughts?”
“Thoughts?” He frowned.
“Repairs. Marked tech issues.” Keelin paused. “You’re in the system, right?”
His mouth twitched. “Yeah. I mean, just monitoring. Not doing anything dodgy.”
“Never said you were.”
“Right. The list. Repairs. Yeah, got it. Lots of flags. Looks like most of the issues are linked to mech or structure. Might not need tech fixes.”
Which was true enough. Even Deva could see that.
But she also understood why Keelin was diverting attention. The list was long. It was hard to believe this bird would ever reach the sky again.
“Are we looking at hours or days?” Ryann asked.
Keelin stiffened. “Days. Maybe weeks. Depends. Could be more underlying problems. Won’t know until we sift through the list.”
“But we’ll sort it,” Deva said. “Me and Kee. Reckon we’ll need to cannibalise internals for hull repairs. Won’t be a problem, will it, Keelin? Can make do without storage unit doors for a while, can’t we?”
“It’ll take a lot…”
“Lot of time, sure. But what else are we going to do? I can c***k on with the hull, you deal with the system-related stuff. Work as a team, like usual.”
She watched Ryann, in her peripheral vision. The woman appeared serene, but her eyes were fixed on Keelin.
Keelin tapped her fingers on the side of her chair, nervous under Ryann’s questioning.
“Don’t reckon it’ll be as bad as it looks, anyway,” Deva said. “A lot of these markers’ll be from sensor trips, right? Always make these birds’ systems sensitive—don’t want a warning flashing when it’s too late. The system always plays it safe.” She shrugged, shifted in her seat. “Might not get the Proteus in perfect shape, but Kee can fly it with a few niggles. Right? I mean, if you can make it through those tunnels without proximity, I reckon we’ll have this bucket up in the sky before you know it.”
She stopped, conscious that she was going too far.
But Ryann nodded. “You two know what you’re doing,” she said. “Arrange your workloads, and pass anything tech-related over to Piran. And if we need parts, we’ll arrange something once we have a clearer idea of our surroundings.” She unfastened her harness. “I’m going to take a look outside.”
Piran frowned. “Outside?”
“We can’t stay cooped up in here all the time.”
“But…but we don’t know what’s out there!”
“Which is why I want to take a look. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I’ll make a quick circuit, just to get a feel of the place. It’s easier to taste traces when I’m not inside. And then, when I come back, we can look to a longer-range survey. Brice—we’ll need packs for that. Can I leave you to organise them?”
“How many?”
“We might as well make up five. I don’t intend for us to all leave the Proteus, but it won’t hurt to be prepared, will it?”
She gave Brice that peaceful, in-control smile of hers. Brice nodded, slid from his chair and disappeared into the cabin.
And Deva swallowed.
Ryann was acting too calm. And she’d never had major problems reading traces from inside the Proteus before, had she?
What wasn’t Ryann telling them?
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