Chapter 30
The coordinates Noah gave her were off to the southwest, about a three-hour flight away. Takeoff was easy enough as usual, but she had some trouble getting used to such a small plane. In most of the simulations back home, she'd been flying the shuttle, or something comparable to it in size. The Wren handled so much more easily! She was tempted to take it down for some terrain-hugging maneuvers, or try some aerial stunts, but they didn't have the time. Nor could they afford any of the other evacuees seeing them behaving strangely. At least the jamming device seemed to be working. Cain should have no idea they were here, unless his drones were close enough for visual confirmation.
Once they were at cruising altitude, Diana felt comfortable enough with the controls to beckon Tycho forward. This modified Cessna didn't have the same noise-cancelling tech as the larger shuttle back there, so she could barely hear herself think. Once Tycho was in the copilot's seat, she gestured for him to put on the other headset so they could talk.
"So," she started without preamble. "When exactly did you find out I'm not your everyday New Eden woman?"
"The day I met you," he responded easily. She glanced over at him, ready to rebuke him for the joke, but he looked dead serious. "Not kidding," he specified. "Simon may have seen it first, but he wouldn't have been the only one eventually. Even I could see that you were chafing under the girls' restrictions back in Harmony. It must have been a great relief to move out and into your own place."
"You have no idea, but let's stay on topic. I meant when did you find out I could fly?"
"This morning, about an hour before I met you on the tarmac. It was a bit of a brain twister, but it also explained a lot. I always wondered what a woman like you saw in Simon. Don't get me wrong, he was a great guy, but he was so boring all the time. Now I understand that you could trust him, in a way you couldn't trust anyone else. Or at least you thought you couldn't. You can trust me."
He certainly sounded sincere, though that could be just an act. "Why didn't you go straight to Adam and John, and tell them? You're taking a big risk keeping the secret, you know."
"Oh, I know. What good would telling them do, though? They'd lock you up, probably, and then we'd be out a good pilot, right when we need as many as we can get! Noah's right. This is a matter of survival. If you can help us beat Cain, and you're willing to keep your involvement a secret, then turning you in would be like shooting myself in the foot. Or shooting everyone in their feet, I guess."
Diana had never really gotten to know Tycho that well, since their Naming Day. He'd had a light sense of humor, she remembered, though he wasn't quite as popular as Rhys, who had the makings of a good stand-up comedian. Simon had liked him a good deal, but their interests were too dissimilar for them to be close friends. He'd put his hat in the ring, and ran against Bez for the House Representative slot, but had only gotten one vote: his own. Aside from his academic achievements and his love of the stars, Tycho was fairly forgettable. At least to everyone but her, now.
"Why did Noah tell you and no one else? Are you just supposed to cover for me, in case anyone asks where I am?"
"Literally, as it turns out," Tycho said, his expression turning sad for some reason. "You might not have known this, but every guy in the draft was put through an assessment before being evacuated. According to Noah, I scored one of the lowest out of all of them. The cockpit might as well be a torture chamber as far as I'm concerned. That's why, when the training starts, I'll be your cover story. As far as the other trainees are concerned, you are me."
"What?" Diana craned her neck to look back at Noah. Without a spine or any real need for restraints, he was flat on his back in the aisle of the plane. If there was turbulence, he'd be about as immovable in the plane as the cargo he'd put in the hold. It might look strange, but it was best for a caretaker drone like him. "I thought we'd all be using numbers instead of names, and voice disguisers! That's what Noah told me, anyway."
Tycho shook his head. "He wanted to, but Adam vetoed that idea. He wants everyone to develop close bonds, so there won't be any hiding of identities. Aside from you and me, that is. He thinks the whole 'band of brothers' idea will make all of us into a more cohesive group. Thankfully Noah has the ability to disguise a voice, so when you speak into the simulator, or later into a cockpit radio, the voice other people will hear will be mine. I'll have to record a bunch of sentences in front of Noah so he can get it sounding just right. I'll have to be on hand, too, in case any of the others asks you something only I might know," he added thoughtfully.
Diana didn't know what to say. Not only had Tycho agreed to risk his freedom, but he was also giving up any chance at piloting fame (admittedly a small chance, as he'd said, but still a chance). In addition, he was giving up his very identity so that she could train with the others, and hopefully they could benefit from her experience!
Slowly, she put a hand on his shoulder and gripped it. "I'm sorry I never really got to know you before, Tycho," she said truthfully. "What you're doing here; I guess I just want you to know how much I appreciate it."
He hesitated, blinking several times, and then nodded. "It's nothing. Besides, people read the Bible and focus on the heroes in the story: Joshua, David, Jesus, and the others. They never really think about those peoples' support staff. Who cares who made sure Joshua's armor was polished, or who arranged King David's schedule? But just because they weren't recognized, doesn't make them any less heroic."
-.-
Landing had been a bit of a challenge, even with Noah guiding them. The landing pad was completely invisible from the air, by design. Only as they approached, did Diana see four quarters of a circle on the barren rock begin to spread apart, revealing a circular pad beneath it. Reveling in the experience, Diana carefully handled the VTOL engines, setting them down perfectly in the middle of it. Tycho clapped her on the back, but as usual Noah was much harder to impress.
He instructed them to grab breathers, and then depressurized the plane and stepped down onto the open surface. It was a mountainside, probably much like the other evacuation sites he was arranging for everyone else. Like most mountains on New Eden, this one hadn't been named yet, but it looked like whoever did so would have their hands full. This was one part of an entire chain. Vaguely, from maps she'd looked up while living with Simon, Diana remembered this mountain chain. It had looked like fangs strung on a necklace, like hunters had once worn back on Earth.
Noah didn't leave the pad for some reason, and Diana and Tycho followed suit. Suddenly the whole thing began sinking into the ground! It spun a little as it did so, and above them the four quarter-circles began to close up again.
Of course. Every evacuation site was probably camouflaged. Since there were very few trees and shrubs yet on this planet, the camo would have to look like the dirt or clay of the mountainside.
They didn't go very far down, and a series of lights popped up to replace the sunlight as it was choked off. They were in a vertical tunnel, barely wide enough for the Wren, and bordered by a tunnel, which was the source of the lights. Noah grabbed the bags he'd removed from the plane, and stepped off the pad as it came to a stop. He led the way down the tunnel and along the lights.
Off in the distance, Diana could hear running water. Yes, there had been streams on that map, she remembered now. Noah rounded the bend, into... a furnished apartment!
"It's not much," he said apologetically, "but it's all I could arrange on short notice. I've divided it up for privacy's sake, between the two of you. The training simulator is on the far end, in a room with doors to both apartments. You'll have to share a kitchen and bathroom, and I'm afraid your food selections will be extremely limited until the protein farm is up and running. I've stored plenty of rations here, so you should be able to function until it is. Fresh water won't be a problem—a portion of the stream is siphoned off into a water purifier. Not that New Eden water needs much purifying, but it's just to be safe. You'll have to take cold showers, though. A water heater would be a dead giveaway to thermal sensors."
"This is... something else," Diana said wonderingly as she looked around, and Tycho made noises of agreement. "You've only had a week, at most, to set this up, and you've probably had to do this in hundreds of different places to keep us all safe!"
Noah shrugged. "I hope it's adequate to your needs. I'll give you a quick tour, and then fly the Wren back to Greater Harmony. I'll be delivering your combat fighter here eventually, but that will take longer, as I'm sure you can imagine."
Practically salivating at the idea of flying something as fast and maneuverable as the Wren, but armed and armored enough to handle itself in a dogfight, Diana almost missed Tycho's follow-up question. "How is this place even powered? It can't be solar energy—that would be a dead giveaway too."
"It's hydroelectric," Noah explained. "Hydro is the most efficient form of renewables, with over ninety percent of its energy being convertible into electricity. The stream has a small generator attached to several powerful batteries. Unfortunately the lift out there drains a lot of power, so you can't use it too often. There are stairs leading to the surface if you feel the need for fresh, if oxygen-deficient, air at times."
"Thank you, Noah," Diana said, grabbing one of his metal hands for a moment. "We'll figure out how everything works on our own. You should head back now, and start moving some of the others. You're networked to this place, right? Connected to it the same way you connect to all your drones?"
He nodded. "There are cameras in the launch bay and on the surface, but you should be able to speak to me through the door panel and the simulator itself. The door is reinforced, by the way, in case Cain's drones find you. There are emergency evacuation plans in the shelf by the fridge, if he should ever find you here. There are shelters you can get to, on foot even, if that happens."
That was a troubling thought, but at least Noah had planned for it. She knew a little about how his drones scanned for possible signs of life or technology. It wasn't just visual scans from orbit, but thermal ones from close range, as well as listening for radio signals and other transmissions. Until Cain had 'woken up', it had all come up empty so far. Cain would probably use the same methods, which meant they were probably safe here.
After giving a few more last-minute instructions, Noah got back in the Wren and left. Together, they returned to the apartment, and did rock-paper-scissors to see which one got which side of the place. When they were done, Tycho stretched a bit, limited somewhat by the shortness of the tunnel. "Home sweet home," he said ruefully. "Come on, let's get you into that simulator right now, so you can really show them how it's done tomorrow."
-.-
Since New Eden's rotation was slower than Earth's, the stars took more time traversing the sky. Tycho was on his back out there, staring up into the heavens, and wondering how many stars out there had planets, which had people, who were staring back out at him.
Siagis had risen a few hours ago, just before he'd gone in to recharge his breather. It was unremarkable, from their perspective, but he could see more than the others, right from the start. They saw statistics, and twinkling, and pictures from the various classes they'd taken. He saw the star itself. He wondered how his distant ancestors on Earth had felt when they’d first been looking up at their sky. Sol, they'd called it, even before they'd realized it was the center of their solar system. A beautiful yellow orb, supporting a beautiful blue and green one.
Noah had orbital images of Earth that he'd taken himself, during his initial launch. He also had thousands of others from the various space launches undertaken by America and other nations before he'd existed. Video footage from Mir, from the ISS, from every Soyuz and shuttle ever launched. As a kid, Tycho had spent hours poring over them, trying to get into the headspace of his ancestors.
There was so much green in them! Not just trees in an arboretum or vines growing around a greenhouse dome. There were entire forests back there, blanketing the ground and pouring oxygen into the air to keep everyone alive. And they hadn't been planted by people, or at least the vast majority hadn't. People had come along later, if only by a few days.
New Eden was all brown and grey, and blue in the oceans. Every vista taken from every drone that Noah had flown, since before Tycho had even existed, had shown barren rock in most places. Clay deposits, sediment from the oceans being pulled this way and that by the moons, volcanic glass from some of the active chains. It was fascinating from a geological standpoint, but it was also ugly.
People from Earth had no idea how lucky they were. They didn't need breathers or an imagination to catch sight of such beauty. All they had to do was go outside. Or if they lived in a city, drive for a bit to reach a place where they could see plants in abundance.
It was encouraging to know that eventually New Eden would look like Earth. Noah was hard at work seeding plants all over the place, along with the microbes that could sustain them, but even he could only do so much. It would still take centuries to establish a stable ecosystem like the one on Earth. Tycho would be dead and gone and turned to dust long before that happened. All he had were pictures, and his imagination.
And that was assuming they even survived. Cain seemed intent on wiping out every trace of humanity, wherever he found it. From what Adam had told Tycho in confidence, his drones had established an expanding perimeter, centered on the site Simon's plane had gone down, and he was steadily pushing it outwards, with hundreds of patrolling drones outside looking for more targets to attack. Noah's scouting drones had been attacked at every opportunity; only a handful had lasted long enough to transmit what they'd seen back to his core drives.
As expected, 'Tycho' down there had proven to be a prodigy in pilot training. 'He' had immediately started training the others in everything from handling high g-forces, to maintaining multiple weapons systems at once, to flying in a reinforcing pattern to watch your wingman's back. Diana had been running herself ragged, spending about twenty hours a day in that chair with all of the other trainees. More than once he'd had to cut her audio feed manually, and threaten to disconnect the entire simulator, in order to force her to rest.
Then the real Tycho had slid into the seat, disabled the voice modulator, and encouraged the other pilots with his real voice.
He'd meant what he'd said to her those few weeks ago. He really was content being the support system to the hero, in secret. He could handle pretending to be the hero for the increasingly adoring squadron of trainees. He imagined it must have been just the same for those Old Testament figures. King David had killed Goliath, sure, but once he'd become a political leader after the fact, it was most likely that an entire team of people upheld his public image. Even after disasters like the Bathsheba and Uriah incident, most of his people had still loved him, so that team must have been exceptionally good at their jobs.
His version of King David was down below right now, hopefully sleeping like the dead. Noah had recommended, and Adam had agreed eventually, to let them out in real planes next. Diana would be leading an armed assault against the edge of Cain's perimeter. It was like a scouting mission, sort of. They were testing just how effective their skills and weapons would be against Cain's swarm of drones.
Noah had delivered the 1-man craft yesterday, and Diana had spent most of the day going over it like a bird inspecting a nest. He'd actually seen a pair of nesting sparrows, back in one of the greenhouses in Harmony. That was literally days before his Naming, and he'd been so busy after that that he hadn't had a chance to get back there before moving out to Greater Harmony.
Those birds were probably dead now. Cain's drones had shattered every dome in the area just to be sure. At least that had happened after the general evacuation.
With a grunt at how stiff his back felt, Tycho got up. Despite the blanket he'd put down, it was still rock underneath. Siagis was only an hour or so away from rising anyway, so his charting of the stars would soon become impossible. Tycho stretched, rubbed his back briefly, and then went over to the hidden entrance. Inside was a ladder leading down into the apartment. He made sure to seal the outer door tightly before climbing down the ladder, pressurizing the vertical tunnel, and stepping through the inner door. The hangar bay functioned in much the same way. The hidden surface door would only open if the reinforced one inside was closed. That way the plane wasn't always in an oxygen-rich environment, but it could be if it needed repairs.
One glance at Diana's half of the apartment showed her bedroom door was open. In concern for her safety, he hesitated just a moment, and then crossed the room and looked inside. She wasn't there.
She wasn't in the simulator, either; he would have heard it from here. That left only one option. Growling, he ran down the tunnel towards the hangar. Sure enough, she was underneath the plane, on a roller while tinkering with its insides. "What the hell are you doing?"
Diana started at his words, but didn't roll out from under the plane. "Just checking the fuel lines down here. I can't afford a leak on the mission, or any problems when I'm switching to the modified air-breathing jets."
"You're not an engineer," he reminded her impatiently. "I'm sure Noah's done his due diligence. That thing is brand new, after all."
"Noah's not human. He has a hard time thinking about how we react in tight quarters, or just what we need. I've already had to increase the O2 flow in the cockpit based on my simulator biometrics."
"Get to bed, Diana. Now. You have a mission that starts in six hours, and you absolutely have to be well rested for it. Your squadron depends on it."
"Just let me finish this diagnostic, and I'll be right in. Besides, I slept a little already."
"Yeah, for how long? All of twenty minutes, I'm betting. I bet if I check the simulator logs right now, they'll show you've been up since the moment I went upstairs!"
She paused, and then rolled out from underneath the plane. She glared at him, though the look was blunted by her bleary eyes. "I should be able to delete those logs. Noah should have programmed that ability into the chair."
"Bed. Now," he repeated, reaching for her tools. "I'll seal up the bottom of the plane for you, before you decide to use that as another excuse."
She refused to give them, and he hesitated. He was reasonably sure he could just pick her up and carry her over to her bedroom, and then close the door and stand guard outside, but that was the last thing either of them needed. Then another idea hit him. "Ok, how about this? If you don't go to bed, I'll call up Adam. With a video chat, so he's sure it's me. I'll tell him I'm not feeling well, and he'll have to find someone else to lead the mission. Either you sleep now, or you'll sleep tomorrow during the mission. Which you won't be a part of, thanks to your own stubbornness."
Her eyes widened from the roller. "You wouldn't."
He scoffed. "I would, and it's not even a contest. Your job is to protect your squadron—I get that. My job is to protect you. If that means you hate me, then so be it. It's a small price to pay for success against Cain."
"Fine, you win." She stood up, leaving the tools on the ground as a childish display. She glared as she walked past him. "Tyrant."
"Workaholic," he responded easily.
He kept a respectful distance, but he did keep an eye on her as she left. She used the bathroom and then went to the bedroom. He watched the closed door for a minute or so. Then, shaking his head, he went back to the hangar.
