Under A Winter Sun by Johan Dahlgren (ink ebook reader txt) 📕

egos. But down here on the ground, you play nice. Both of you. All right?”

I glare at Tyrus. “Whatever.”

“Tyrus?”

He glares back. “Whatever. Ma'am.”

“Good. So, what's the plan, Tyrus?”

“There's something down in that crater. Perez, you and that big guy,” he points to Finn. “Go check it out. Jagr, set up perimeter defences over there.”

He points to the ghostly rocks where Jagr found his beacon. “Move.”

I throw him a quick salute. “Aye aye, boss.”

It will be good to get away from this arsehole. “Finn, with me.”

“Jawohl.” The largest suit unplugs from the others and lumbers towards me through the fog.

Tyrus comes back over the wire. “If you're not back in half an hour, we will assume you have been compromised. Do not expect us to come to your rescue.”

“Whatever happened to 'leave no man behind'?”

“It got fucked along with the other standard protocols when that comms-spike fried the telecom systems of the inner planets. Everyone is expendable now. Is that clear, Perez?”

“Like vodka.”

“Good luck, Perez,” Hildr says. “Be careful.”

“You're Finn's mother, Hildr. Not mine.”

“Fuck you, Perez.” I can hear she's smiling.

“When I get back.”

Jagr cuts in. “Enough, Perez.”

There's a strange edge to her voice. She must be more spooked by this whole moon-sized mystery than I am. “Move out.”

I unplug from the team and plug directly into Finn's suit.

“It's you and me now, big guy. Like the good old days.” I slap his armoured shoulder.

“Yes. Like good old days. If good old days were yellow, like my farts.” I can hear the smile in his voice. I'll never understand the Goliath psyche. We're on a hostile moon in the depths of space, on a mission to kill his brother, and Finn is telling fart jokes. It's hilarious, and I can't stop myself from laughing.

“You're crazy, Finn, you know that?”

“I know.”

The grin fades from my lips as we move out into the sulphur clouds. I hope we find nothing in that crater, so we can go back to somewhere you can see further than you can piss.

* * *

After about two minutes, a small warning light blinks on in the lower field of my HUD. Something about “suit integrity breach imminent” something-something. That sounds ominous. We don't know how well our suits or weapons will stand this corrosive atmosphere.

We'd better hurry.

The clouds part, and we stare across what seems like an endless void after the claustrophobic fog. Beneath our feet, the rocky ground drops sharply away at the rim of the giant crater. The suit's rangefinder informs me the far side is thirteen hundred metres away.

“I guess this is the crater.”

Finn hums.

A hundred metres below the rim, a thicker layer of roiling yellow fog obscures the floor of the crater. Something down there is disturbing what passes for air on this rock, and the clouds boil rhythmically. Like something breathing.

Apart from that, there's nothing here. Only rocks and a shitload of clouds.

There's a tap on my shoulder. “Look.” Finn points into the distance.

Something moves down in the fog. Something bright, and it's coming up fast.

“Contact,” I call, and we dive behind a rock at the rim of the crater. A fighter ship breaches the clouds and tears for the stars above, trailing fog like the tentacles of a deep-sea monster.

So, there is something here.

I move to get up, and the tip of my rifle bangs the ground with a clang. What now?

I brush the dust from the ground. This is no ordinary ground. It's made of metal.

I survey the crater's rim. It's oddly symmetric. This thing is artificial.

Before the implications of that can sink in, I turn to Finn.

“Right. Ready to do some climbing, buddy?”

“Always.”

The suits come equipped with all kinds of handy bits and pieces, including a kilometre of thin hypercarbon wire attached to a powered winch. We pull them out and secure them around the rock.

“Last one to the bottom buys the first round,” I call to Finn before I unplug the comms and jump over the edge. The gravity of Muspelheim is only a fraction of that of Elysium, but a fall can still kill us. I let myself drop for a bit, enjoying the sensation. Then I pull on the brakes and let my momentum and the wire swing me to the vertical wall of the crater. I hit hard, but the suit's servos absorb the impact, and I run straight down the metal wall. The rock is porous, and great chunks of it drop into the depths as we run.

My surroundings grow dark as I enter the thick fog. The suit switches to infrared, and there is Finn, running beside me. Like the good old days. Below us, there's nothing but clouds.

Faint lights from far down below pierce the mist, and something comes looming out of the clouds to meet us as we run.

Something vast.

* * *

Twenty minutes later we're back with the others.

“We were about to abandon you,” Tyrus greets us as we plug in. “What's down in that crater?”

“It's not a crater. It's a tunnel.”

“A tunnel?”

Jagr sounds surprised. “How deep does it go?”

“I don't know, but there's something down there. It could be a starship.”

Tyrus nods. “So that's where Eirik hid his ship.”

“Oh, no. That is not Eirik's ship. Eirik's ship could fly right up the ass of that fucker and it wouldn't even smile. That thing is huge.”

“So, they're hiding a big-ass ship down there. Why?”

“We didn't find anyone to ask.”

“I don't think it was a question, Perez,” Soledad says.

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really.” Soledad is pissed. Irony doesn't translate well through these suits.

“Silence.” Tyrus is such a killjoy. “Our mission is to discover what they are hiding down there.”

“We haven't got the manpower or the firepower to go down there, Tyrus, and you know that. That tunnel is large enough to house an army of Goliaths. Or two.”

“If there's an army down there, Command needs to know. We're going down, Perez.”

I sigh. “We're so screwed.”

“Maybe if we …” the priest tries, but that is as far as he gets before we all cut