“You heard the man!” Demi shouted to his unit, “Bring it in close. We move as one, behind the shield. Wagner, get in the center. Lilia, behind him - a hand on my back and Kalus’. Sophia, bring up the rear and steer us. You’re the eyes. Are we all clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir,” Sophia and Lila managed.
“Crazy bastards,” Wagner murmured, though he smirked. He took his position without another word of complaint.
“I felt it give a little,” Demi said, seconds later. The shield slid an inch forward with his test push. “I think we can move it.” Kalus nodded, and the two tightened on the bar. Lilia pressed a hand to each of them, with Wagner sandwiched between. Sophia bunched close to her back, up on tiptoes to peer over their heads through her echoscope. Kalus and Demi scraped forward at a slight diagonal, left, toward the center of the icy steel bridge.
“Let us know when we’re close! I don’t know if we’ll see the rods in this!” Demi shouted back to his auxiliary eyes.
“Left more!” Sophia told him. He and Kalus braced their shoulders against the shield bar. They dug in their heels and gripped with their toes. If not for Lilia’s constant shove, they might not have been able to fight the wind. If not for Kalus’ blast shield, Lilia might not have been able to stand in such a wide stance without blowing away. “Alright. We’re just a foot from the rods now. Straighten out and push!” Sophia competed with the scream of the wind. Without her, the solid unit might move right off the side of the bridge.
Wagner was left in awe. He watched the Captain and the Arms Master ford ahead. He watched the Commander lend them every ounce of her muscles’ strength. He heard the Artillery Specialist scream her throat raw with commands. Wagner watched, entranced, as the unit fought to operate through a situation beyond stress, beyond cold. He was so captivated that he lost his sense of time; all he could do was pace in time along with them. Then, in an impossibly jarring single step, everything calmed. The wind slowed. Its scream quieted. Their frozen limbs breathed a warm breath of new blood.
Kalus and Demi fell straight forward, Lilia, and Wagner on top of them. Only Sophia managed to sidestep the massive heap of limbs and laughter. They peeled themselves up in reverse order of collapse, all of them unbelieving. They’d made it. The eggshell veil of the Marre terradome glistened behind them. A few meters more of the steel bridge led toward the WCC’s second development on Neptune. Demi offered Kalus his hand to help him up last, after he collapsed his blast shield.
“This is…unreal,” Kalus muttered at the sight of it. Marre: the ring-shaped city built around the greatest known Chrysum well in the Milky Way. Kalus’ feet wandered on their own in pursuit of his fellows, toward the return booth for their acclimation suits. His eyes, however, never left the shining aquamarine pit of ice and fluid. It churned around the swirl of a giant mixing arm from the bottom of a cylindrical building, which was suspended over it by rising bridges from the city.
“What’s unreal is you four, crossing the bridge in a blizzard,” Wagner sighed, “You’re the first, to make it with the same amount we left with.”
“Well, that’s quite the introduction,” said a voice only Wagner recognized. All heads cocked sideways, mid-shed of their survival suits. It was a man with wild brown hair and a certain awkwardness in his half-smile who had spoken. Where he’d come from was beyond the Dogs of War at the moment, still winding down from their charge through the storm. “Good to see you, Wagner. I’ve been waiting to meet you four. I’m your research specialist, Howard Carver.”
Chapter Eight: A Pillar of Industry
The Dogs of War stood with their arms hung limp, their mouths ajar. It was something about the way Howard had said it, like he wasn’t even so sure himself, that disarmed them. With that half-smile. I’m your research specialist. And there he stood, just on the other side of a frozen hell. Everything outside his long navy-gold coat, likely chosen to match his unit-by-proxy, was ordinary. His tan pants. His black dress shirt. The unassuming glances he took everywhere but directly at the faces of his new acquaintances. All of that combined brought on an uncomfortable, frozen silence in which the Dogs stood with their survival suits half off, waiting for something more dramatic. Something that matched the ordeal it had been to get to him.
“I…expected you’d delay arrival at least a day, with the storm. But, when I saw five people stumble through the terradome wall from the Reactor, I knew it couldn’t be anyone else,” said Howard, if only to break the tense quiet.
“Reactor?” Kalus echoed, when no one else elected to answer. Howard turned sideways to point to the huge cylindrical building at the center of Marre with his thumb over his shoulder.
“That huge pillar over the Chrysum pit. The one with all the bridges holding it up? That’s the Chrysum Reactor. I work there. Come on, I’ll give you the tour,” Howard smiled. Demi, Kalus, Sophia and Lilia exchanged puzzled glances before they resumed pulling their survival suits off. Howard made it sound so casual. Tour.
“Sorry…but we’re not here to take in the sights,” said Sophia. With her life no longer at risk, some of her old entitled spunk poked through. Howard let out a little quack that might have been a chuckle.
“I wouldn’t exactly call it that, though the Reactor is really something. Matter of fact, it’s restricted to most folks. Only reason you’ve got permission to enter is because it’s part of your briefing,” Howard told Sophia. If he sensed even a whiff of her pretension, it didn’t seem to affect him at all.
“I apologize, Doctor Carver,” Demi said as he buttoned his survival suit jacket around a hangar in the return booth. “My unit and I have been terribly rude. I’m Captain Demitri Alexander. Call me Demi.”
“Commander Lilia Delphi,” Lilia smiled and offered her hand. Howard took it for one of the limpest, clammy handshakes she’d ever suffered.
“Arms Master Kalus Delphi,” said Kalus. His eyes narrowed on Howard in a way his whole unit recognized as dangerous. None of them had the good sense to stop him before he said, “I prefer to go by my complete title. Always.”
“Kalus,” Demi hissed, “Now, you-”
“Sophia Brass, Artillery Specialist,” the final member of the unit broke in before he could finish. Howard’s head cocked to one side at the sound of the name.
“Our families have a long history together,” Howard mused, “My grandfather, Tim worked under Dorothy Brass. I work for your uncle, Marcus.”
“Oh? I thought I recognized your name,” Sophia nodded as she peeled her echoscope from the helmet of her survival suit. With that, everyone had returned their gear. Arms were shaken out. Legs were stretched. Ultimately, the Dogs of War straightened up to the sapphire cityscape of Marre, newly nimble in their proud uniforms. “Come to think of it… wasn’t there a Carver on the Arcadia mission?”
“We can talk about that in the Reactor,” said Howard, quietly and suddenly grave. The Dogs nodded to him one by one.
“Could…I come along?” Wagner butted in, “I’m sure as hell not heading back to Calliope until tomorrow.” Howard thought on it with his eyes to the distant, storm-tinged glare of the sun.
“You were supposed to guide them to the Reactor. I’ll jot down in the report that you did. It’s to be expected you’d at least walk them inside,” Howard supposed.