Chapter 3 | Dead Freeze 3

“My name’s Max. This is Sierra, Lexi, and Petra,” he replied as neutrally as he could.

“What the fuck happened?”

“I put you in a chokehold. I would apologize for doing that, but you tried to kill me.”

The woman’s eyes were wide and still a bit feral, but she was a hell of a lot clearer now. He thought she was actually very reasonable, given the speed of mental recovery and how she wasn’t slavering at the mouth, screaming at them to untie her.

“...right,” she said, and that memory surfacing seemed to douse the rest of her temporary madness. “Um. Sorry. I’m...I’ve been here for a year, and alone for the last six months, and I am...not good with people anymore. I kind of snapped when I saw you landing outside.”

“That’s not an unreasonable reaction,” Max replied. “So now what?”

“Well, I am apparently completely at your mercy. I imagine you all are stranded here, too. Are you?”

“We are,” he acknowledged after considering the implications of giving her any intel.

“I’ve been working on a plan to get the fuck off this planet for a year now and I am finally almost done. And if you would be willing to help me get off this fucking rock and back to society, then I will be willing to help you do the same thing. You’ve got the tools, I’ve got the knowledge.”

Max thought about it.

He’d encountered enough people in his life that he could usually break them down in his head with a lot of accuracy. When he looked at this woman, he saw a few things. A hardcore survivalist, and not just because she was forced to be. Although he imagined the last year had pushed her to her absolute limits.

God, a year! A year in this wretched place. And the last half of it alone.

He was actually impressed that she was as put together as she was right now.

He saw someone who was...not dull, but not clever. Much like himself, he supposed. Max knew that he could string together enough knowledge to get by very effectively out here, but he was never going to be a philosopher or a mathematician or a surgeon.

He also saw someone who had a will of unbreakable titanium. That could be a good thing or a bad thing, but he thought in this case, it was a good thing.

In a way, she reminded him of Sierra.

“What’s your name?” he asked finally.

“Kassandra.”

Max looked up, looked at each woman slowly, eyebrows raised. Petra shrugged, clearly communicating that it was up to him. Lexi nodded, they were on the same page. Sierra looked dubious, but ultimately nodded.

“Okay, Kassandra,” Max said, pulling out his knife and ducking down behind her. “We are going to hand you some trust and take that deal. I would like to hear some specifics though,” he said as he cut her loose.

“Before I do that,” she replied, first rubbing her neck, then her wrists as she stood up, “I want to speak with each of you. Alone.”

“That’s kind of a big ask, given the circumstances,” Sierra replied.

“You can keep your gun and stay on the other side of the room and it can be nearby, I just want to speak with each other individually,” Kassandra said firmly, flicking a glance Max’s way.

Sierra looked at him, confused and paranoid. He knew what was going on.

“Yeah, that’s fine. Make it the next room over, though, and if you try anything…”

“I know, I’m not stupid. I’m not outrunning you if you’ve got a shuttle and you’re presently my only way off this rock and I want the fuck off this rock. I cannot stress that enough. I’m not looking to hurt anyone, I just want to make sure no one is being hurt.”

“Oh,” Sierra said, then snorted. “This is going to be fast.”

They marched off through a side door that led into the mess hall and shut it behind them.

“I don’t get it,” Petra said.

“She’s paranoid that Max is abusing us,” Lexi replied.

“Why? I don’t understand. Did she see something suspicious or…?”

“Traditionally speaking, guys who look and act like me aren’t in the company of multiple women and no other men unless they’re kind of making the women be there.”

“So you’re saying the makeup of our group is inherently suspicious?” Petra asked.

“To women, yes. Some men, too, I imagine. Women have to look out for themselves and each other in ways that men don’t,” Max replied.

“That is true,” Petra murmured. “Hmm. So she’s just going to ask us if you’re hurting us?”

“Yeah, basically.”

“What should we tell her?”

“The truth. If she asks for any specific details on our mission, tell her that you can’t talk about that yet, and the deal needs to be secure first. And she almost certainly will probe for details beyond our relationship. We’re sharp, but Kassandra is a finely honed razor.”

“You think so?” Petra asked.

“Oh yes, I do. Besides the fact that you don’t survive alone on this planet for six months without being very good at what you do, I can see it. I think she’s the type of sharp I am: situational awareness and near future planning.”

“Huh.”

Sierra came out a moment later. Lexi walked in next.

“What’d she ask you?”

“If you were hurting us, how we met, what we’re doing here. I told her we crash-landed, since I figured she’d put that together anyway. Otherwise, nothing.”

“Perfect.”

Lexi came out about thirty seconds later, and then Petra went in and talked for perhaps two minutes before coming out.

“Okay,” Kassandra said, following in Petra’s footsteps this time, “I’m convinced that you’re more or less on the level. But I do want to know more.”

“You will,” Max replied, “after we hear your plan.”

Kassandra hedged, crossing her arms, staring at them.

Max waited. He studied her.

She was a little tall, but not as tall as Sierra or himself. Her skin was pale olive and scarred where it was visible. Her hair was short, dark, and very messy. Her eyes…

Were such an interesting shade of gray.

She had a wild energy, almost like a caged tiger, kept there for everyone’s safety. Max recognized some of his own anger and distrust and cynicism in her steely gaze. And he knew, suddenly, that he was going to have to be the one that gave first. Because she had been here for a year, she was absolutely tougher than he was, emotionally speaking, right now.

She had to be.

“Fine,” he said, relaxing just a little, and glad to see that she did the same, “we’ve got a functional shuttle and rover. We’ve got a decent amount of food, weapons, ammo, and medicine. We know that we need to take down the orbital defense network and that we need a shuttle with faster than light capability. We do not have either of those things right now and aren’t sure how to get them. If you help us complete these tasks, we’ll help get you back to civilization. That’s the deal.”

Kassandra stared at him for a moment, then looked around at the others, no doubt reading their expressions, their stances, trying to get anymore information out. Finally, she returned her gaze to him and at last unfolded her arms.

“All right, that’s fair. I guess I don’t really have a whole lot of choice at this point anyway. So, you’re right in that you’ll need to deactivate the satellite defense network and obviously about the shuttle. I figured these two things out pretty earlier on, so I’ve been working for a year now to make this happen.”

“Holy shit, we could have been doing this for a year and still not gotten home?” Sierra whispered.

“It was more a year of survival, setbacks, and running down dead-ends than anything else.” She frowned, looking for a moment furious and bitter. “And other problems. But that’s in the past. Here is the actionable intel that I have.”

Max felt himself straightening up, focusing in. This was it. Hopefully.

“As far as I have been able to determine, the satellite network went into Code Cobalt lockdown. Or, in short, someone panicked and locked the system down so that it can only be accessible from three locations. I’ve been to the two ground-based locations. One of them was outright destroyed by, I’m guessing, a power plant going critical, the other had been destroyed by fighting. And destroyed beyond hope of repair. The third one...is in a much, much harder place to get.”

“Oh great,” Sierra muttered.

“Yeah, and it gets harder.”

“Of course it does.”

“Where?” Max pressed.

“Underwater.” He sighed. “Yep. It was originally a space station that crashed into the sea.”

“So it’s gone, too?”

“No. It survived the crash. Well, it survived well enough. It’s more or less intact down there. Not sure how, I guess they built that motherfucker to last, but it’s down there for sure. I actually got a probe down there four months ago. Now, I do not know for sure that this thing still works, but I’m willing to investigate.”

“Okay, we can manage this. We can find a submarine, I can pilot a submarine,” Max said.

“You can?” Lexi replied.

“Yeah, they’re not that different from shuttles and I’ve done it before. I’ve pulled underwater salvage before,” he replied.

“Well, that solves that, because I was wondering how the fuck I was going to actually get down there myself. It’s about a quarter mile down and obviously I wasn’t swimming that.”

“So how does it get worse?” Max asked.

“Right. There is only a single way to lift a Cobalt Lockdown, and that is with a Commander’s Keycard. And there are only half a dozen of these keycards on the whole of the planet. And you can’t hack the system, nor can you fabricate more of these cards.”

“Why?” Lexi asked.

“Because they’re apparently made with a mineral that is not found on this planet, and has no real reason to come here.”

“You seem to know a shitload,” Sierra murmured.

“Uh, yeah, I do. Because I’ve been here for a goddamned year and I’ve had a lot of free time to comb through databases. Now, this is the most recent breakthrough I had: I finally found a list of potential sites where the cards might be and also I rigged up a tracking device that should be able to at the very least tell us if one is in a mile radius.”

“Was this one of the locations?” Max asked uncertainly.

“It was a long shot,” she replied. “I’ve compiled a database of personnel and locations and logs and I found out that a Commander’s son was stationed here, and since my home is nearby, I figured I’d just pop on over and double-check that he didn’t rush over in the chaos and die here, with his card on him.”

“That makes sense.” He took another measure of her, then solidified his decision and stepped forward, offering her his hand. She shrunk back from it instinctively, then seemed to make herself step a little closer. “I am willing to agree to these terms.”

She at least didn’t hesitate, taking his hand and shaking it once, firmly. A curious look came onto her face as she did, but it came and went so fast he couldn’t interpret it.

Well, she’d been alone for six months, and even the most steadfast of individuals came prepackaged with quirks and perhaps emotional glitches nowadays.

“I will drive and you will follow. We’re heading about ten miles east,” she said, and then began walking for the garage.

Max looked around at the others, then began heading for the shuttle.