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Chapter 5: Hell's Gate
Consciousness reasserted itself somewhat slowly. Kate's eyes opened, took a few seconds to focus, then revealed the dimly-lit interior of the link bed.
With a groan, Kate pushed open the lid, followed by the sensor frame. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, groaning and rolling her neck. What a rush, she thought. But coming back, it's like waking up after sleeping wrong.
"Welcome back," said Max, standing at the control panel next to the link bed.
She looked down...at her legs. Her useless legs. She sighed. Right. Back to this. With a sigh, she reached down and pulled her wheelchair closer to the link bed.
"You okay?" Max asked, a hint of concern on his face.
"Yeah, I'm okay," Kate said as she carefully heaved her upper body down into the wheelchair, then reached up to swing her legs down. "Hell of a ride."
Max grinned. "So I hear."
"Wish you could join in?" she asked, turning to look at him.
"Almost," he said, "but nah, no avatar for me. Someone's gotta run the lab while you folks are doing the field work."
The link bed next to hers opened, and Grace groaned as she sat up. She let her legs dangle off the side of the bed, her head drooped toward her lap. "Who's got my goddamn cigarette?" she called, reaching an arm toward the central monitoring station and waving her hand about. "Hey! What's wrong with this picture?"
Another woman in a lab coat scurried over to hand Grace a lit cigarette and her own lab coat. Grace took a long drag from the cigarette, then got to her feet and stepped around the bed to face Kate and Max as she donned the coat. "Everything good in here?" she asked Max.
"Yeah. New link protocols worked like a charm according to the readouts." He gestured at Kate. "And Kate's got a gorgeous brain. The link hit ninety-nine percent and stayed rock-solid the whole time."
Kate briefly wondered what he meant with that comment.
Grace looked thoughtful, then glanced down at Kate. "And you? Any thoughts in that noggin?"
"Best day of my life, or close to it," she said, grinning. She glanced down at her lap and felt her smile diminish, although it didn't disappear entirely. "Wish I was still out there."
Grace nodded, taking another pull from the cigarette, then looked past Kate's link bed to where Norm was climbing out of his. "Norm? What about you?"
"All good here, except I'm starving."
Right on cue, Kate's stomach grumbled. She was confused for a moment—why should she be hungry? They'd just eaten, out at the cabin. Then she mentally slapped herself. Right. Avatar, not this body.
Grace nodded again and looked at her watch. "We ran a little late, but the mess should still be serving dinner. You two go ahead, I'll catch up."
Kate had had to rely on following Norm to find her way back to the mess hall. After getting their food, he led her to the single empty table, taking a seat near one end. Kate rolled up and set her tray at the actual end of the table, perpendicular to the bench seats, and practically inhaled her mashed potatoes before looking at Norm with a grin and asking, "So what'd you think?"
Norm grinned back at her. "It was great. I haven't felt that good in at least ten years. I can't wait for tomorrow." He paused, a sporkful of peas halfway to his mouth. "But you were right; after seeing how you took to it? I don't think I can imagine what it must have been like for you. I'm not sure I've ever seen someone enjoy exercise that much."
"I'm not sure anyone's ever had as much reason to enjoy it as I did. Between this and this—" she lightly slapped one of her legs, then gestured at her whole body "—I just...man, there are no words."
Norm nodded at her, then looked up and waved across the room, having spotted Grace leaving the mess line with a tray.
A moment later, Grace sat down across from Norm. "So," she said, "it was a good first day, even if we did have to compress the schedule. You two ready for a field trip tomorrow?"
Norm looked surprised. "Already?"
Grace nodded. "I've been at this since before you two left Earth. Your avatars are in good condition and you've had no issues with the link. No need to waste time." She looked at Kate. "Quaritch wants to see you, one-on-one, tomorrow morning, in the hangar, eight o'clock." She took a bite of meatloaf. "Meanwhile, Max will be updating all the other link units with the new protocols, and I'll be sorting out your kit. Norm, you can help me with that."
"Sure," Norm said.
"Once all that's taken care of, we'll head out," Grace continued. "You two can get the 'grand tour' on our way to collect some supplies we've got stashed off-site before we really get down to business."
"Sounds good," Kate said, finishing her food and leaning back as she nursed her drink. A wave of fatigue washed over her, and she stifled a yawn. "Ugh...why am I so tired all of a sudden?"
Grace smirked at her. "All that activity this afternoon. Most of your muscles may be resting while you're in the link, but your brain is still very active; and respiration and heart rate stay approximately in sync between driver and avatar while the link is active. All of that burns more calories than you might expect."
Kate pondered that for a moment. "Fair enough." She glanced at Norm, who was just finishing up his own meal. "Help a girl out? I'm gonna need some good rack time tonight, and it'll probably take me an hour to find my way back to the living quarters on my own in this rat's nest."
"Sure," he said, standing and picking up his tray. "Gettin' a little sleepy myself."
Grace gave them a small wave goodbye. "See you in the morning, kiddies."
The next morning, after a quick breakfast, Norm had guided Kate most of the way to the hangar, then pointed her the rest of the way and gone off to help Grace.
As she rolled into the hangar, Kate could see dozens of the twin-ducted-fan rotorcraft the RDA used—both the SA-2 Samson transports and the smaller, more nimble and heavily armed AT-99 Scorpions—along with several rows of AMP suits. People were scurrying all over, performing inspections and maintenance on some of them, and loading weapons onto others.
A latina woman in a flight suit with aviator sunglasses dangling from the zipper and a clipboard in her hand stopped next to her. "Simmons?" she asked.
Kate extended a hand. "Yeah."
"I'm Trudy," the woman said. She shook Kate's hand before beckoning for her to follow. "I fly all the science sorties." Trudy walked up to one of the Samsons and gave it an affectionate slap on the nose. "And this here's my baby."
The Samson was a fairly old design, having been selected by the RDA for its relative simplicity, reliability, and being something that could be built entirely on Pandora rather than being shipped from Earth. The cockpit had seats for two pilots plus another two humans, while the rear compartment could seat an additional eight humans or two humans and two avatars. Trudy's aircraft in particular had the roaring head of a tiger painted just below the pilot's door, and looked like it had seen a lot of use while still being kept in good condition.
"Hold on a sec," Trudy said, tossing the clipboard into the pilot's seat. "Hey Wainfleet, get it done! We bounce at zero-nine."
"Yeah, I'm on it, capitane!" replied a man with a shaved head who was installing a large machine gun onto a pintle mount by the Samson's starboard side door. "She'll be ready."
Trudy climbed onto the stub wing and reached up to grasp a blade sticking out of the Samson's body at an angle in front of the starboard engine intake. She gave it a couple of yanks, then climbed back down, frowning. "Vine strike's still loose."
"You guys are packing some heavy gear," Kate said as Trudy led her away from the aircraft and toward the rows of AMP suits.
"That's 'cause we're not the only thing flying around out there. Or the biggest." She led Kate under a catwalk, past an AMP suit with a massive combat knife mounted on its torso, and turned right. "I'm gonna need you on a door gun; I'm a man short."
Kate glanced up at her, smirking. "Thought you'd never ask."
Trudy chuckled, then pointed to the end of the row. "There's your man. See ya on the flight line."
Kate gave her a fist-bump as she turned to leave, then continued down the row of AMP suits toward the end, where a cage that served as a small-arms locker had also been stocked with weightlifting equipment. Colonel Miles Quaritch was inside, doing bench presses with an impressive amount of weights on the bar.
"You wanted to see me, Colonel?" Kate asked as she rolled up to the cage's door.
"This low gravity'll make you soft," Quaritch said as he hefted the bar. "You get soft..." he did one more rep, then set the bar down on the bench's hooks and sat up, "...Pandora will shit you out dead with zero warning."
He wasn't wearing his fatigue jacket, only the pants and a tank top, leaving his arms bare. Kate spotted half a dozen nasty scars she hadn't been able to see before, in addition to the three on his temple.
He smirked at her before continuing, "I pulled your record, Sergeant. Interesting path you took. Started off in infantry, then damn near first in line when they started expanding flight training to the enlisted ranks."
"Yes sir," Kate said. "I was decent on the ground, but I always felt like I belonged in the air. Just barely missed out on OCS, and thought that was that. When they announced the pilot expansion, I wasn't about to let the second chance pass me by."
Quaritch nodded. "Venezuela, that was some mean bush."
Kate nodded, unpleasant memories bubbling up to the surface of her mind. She'd been extracting some grunts from hostile territory when they'd come under fire; all she remembered clearly were muzzle flashes from the treeline, the staccato sound of impacts on the hull, a hard punch in her side followed by searing pain in her back, and ordering her copilot to take control as she realized she could no longer operate the pedals.
"Nothin' like this here, though," Quaritch continued. He glanced down at her wheelchair. "You got some heart, kid, showing up in this neighborhood."
Kate shook her head and shrugged. "I figured, it's just another hellhole."
Quaritch stood up and gestured back toward the row of AMP suits, and Kate backed out of the doorway to let him past. "I was First Recon, myself," he said as he walked past her and she turned to follow him. "Few years ahead of you. Well, maybe more than a few. Three tours Nigeria, not a scratch. I come out here?" He turned back to her and pointed at the trio of scars on his temple. "Day one. Think I felt like a shavetail louie?"
Kate wasn't sure exactly what that was supposed to mean, but the context was clear: Pandora was not to be taken lightly.
Quaritch turned back to the AMP suits and approached the one with the giant combat knife. "Yeah. Oh, they could fix me up, if I rotated back. Make me pretty again." he said as he climbed up on the AMP's shin and reached into the complex hip joint, checking some component or other. Apparently satisfied, he stepped back down and turned to face her once again. "But y'know what? I kinda like it. Reminds me every day what's waitin' out there."
He spun on his heel, gestured to the technician who was working on the AMP suit, and started climbing up toward the cockpit. The technician scurried out of his way and onto a small lift platform next to the suit. Kate quickly rolled onto the platform behind the tech before it started rising up to the catwalk.
"The Avatar Program is a bad joke. Buncha limp-dick science majors," Quaritch said as he climbed into the cockpit. "However, it does present an opportunity both timely and unique. CLEAR!" he called, getting a responding "Clear!" from the technician and firing up the AMP's compact turbine power plant. As the turbine spun up, he fastened and tightened the shoulder straps, then slipped his arms into the waldo controls that would translate his movements to the suit's arms.
"An experienced Marine like you, in an avatar body. That's a potent mix. Give me the goosebumps. Such a Marine could provide the intel I need, right on the ground. Right in the hostiles' camp.
"Look, Simmons. I want you to learn these savages from the inside. I want you to gain their trust. I need to know how to force their cooperation, or hammer them hard if they won't."
Kate chewed on that for a second. "Am I still with Doctor Augustine?"
"On paper," Quaritch said. "Yeah, you walk like one of her science pukes, you quack like one, but you report to me. Can you do that for me, kid?"
She chewed on it some more. This didn't sit right with her, but Quartich was officially her commanding officer. If she refused, the RDA might very well ship her back home with nothing to show for her time here but the memory of one magical experience and twelve years missing from her life. That would be worse than if they'd left her on Earth to rot in the first place.
"Yes, sir," she said, giving Quaritch a nod.
"Well, all right then," he said. He pressed a thumb-switch on his waldo controller and the AMP suit sprang to life, mimicking and exaggerating the movements of his arms and legs. He punched the air a few times as a way of double-checking that all the actuators were working properly, then stepped the suit forward out of its maintenance bay and turned back to face her.
"Son," he said, causing Kate to bristle, "I take care of my own. You get me what I need, and I'll see to it you get your legs back when you rotate home. Your real legs."
Kate put a lid on her irritation and said, "That sounds real good, sir."
Without another word, Quaritch reached the AMP's hand up and closed his canopy, then turned and walked away.
The next half-hour went by fairly quickly. Kate managed to find her way back to the science lab mostly on her own, although she had gotten turned around twice and had to ask random passers-by for directions.
As she rolled into the link room, Max waved her over to the same link bed she'd used before. "Good timing," he said. "Grace has been out for almost an hour, but Norm just linked a minute or two ago; he should still be at the cabin." He gestured at the bed. "Ready when you are."
"Let's do it," she said, hauling herself up.
As she got situated and pulled down the sensor frame, Max turned to her and said, "Grace told me to tell you, 'Just keep your mouth shut and let Norm do the talking'." He smirked. "I think she's warming up to you."
Kate let out a snort of laughter, pulled the bed's lid closed, and let the whirring of the neural scanner lull her into the state of near-sleep.