Chapter 3

They switchedoff the lead every hour after a five-minute break. Their long march slowly shifted Jupiter, from its fixed position almost directly over the crash site, down toward the horizon behind them. They followed slowly lengthening shadows—for Jupiter was far brighter than the sun on Io’s surface—as they trudged northwest from the crash site. The farther they walked, the deeper and darker the shadows became on the far side of anything that rose above the plain. Helmet lights were often needed, despite the drain on batteries, to make sure there were no pits or jagged edges lurking within the pitch dark of a hill’s shade.

It was relaxing to be able to simply follow and let someone else scout the best path through the nightmare landscape for an hour at a time.

Volcanic peaks towered above them, over a thousand volcanoes shredded the moon’s surface, and a lot of them were active. They had to cut north to avoid a plume spewing sulfur oxides into the sky. Half of the ejecta achieved escape velocity and added to the sulfur belt that Io was leaving in its path, but the other half fell back to the surface.

Their suits slowly yellowed with the accumulation of dust.

Parello made jokes about never having wanted to kiss Halberson, let alone sharing his recycler.

Christine answered his questions about her service. He asked about her mother too, but was smart enough to not ask about the rebellion’s leader.

General “The Sword” Moore had been respectable once, a top commander who’d made his name during the Colony Wars. Then, after peace had finally been built over five long years, he turned terrorist. There was no other word for it. His rhetoric against the Richards Monarchy had been vitriolic. When Richards was voted in by all of the remaining colonies, the decision had stuck in his craw.

“It was the military who finished the Colony Wars. Only the military understands how to keep the solar system running.”

His rebellion had been put down, and put down hard. He’d escaped out past the asteroid belt with a small cadre of hard-liners and too much equipment. The “Hero of the War” had become the “Terrorist of the Monarchy.”

Special Operations Forces had been sent out after him and the Night Stalkers flew them there.

They were squeezing “The Sword” hard; they’d driven him out of the asteroid belt rock by bloody rock and flanked him to take back Saturn. The Jovian system was the last of his strongholds. But he wasn’t done yet. With sixty-seven moons and four rings, the terrorists had dug in deep. And Europa, with its water oceans comprising the best reaction mass in the outer system, was so heavily fortified that it was impregnable—at least so far.

Parello had apparently been born the day he joined the Army. It took her until late in the second day of the hike, when they were both moving far too slowly, before she figured it out. Her thoughts had been on the blisters that she couldn’t treat, couldn’t even massage inside her boots.

So, she’d forced her thoughts to something more pleasant. Last night as she and Parello had sat side-by-side on the ash surface, a tri-layer aluminized sheet laid over them for radiation protection, blocking any view of the stars or Jupiter.

It had been cozy.

Neither of them much interested in sleep, they’d actually shifted until they were shoulder-to-shoulder. Even through the heavy suits it had been nice to feel another human being. Leaning against a rock outcropping, because there was no real way to lie down comfortably in a full field suit, even at eighteen percent gravity.

They’d talked of relationships and friends. Parello clearly had his fair share of both.

“Looking the way you do, how can you not have had more men than that?” Parello had been shocked.

“Officer. Hello. Don’t fraternize with the troops or it makes it harder to give and take orders, even if it is accepted now. And being…” she couldn’t say it directly. “…the daughter of who I am, I found it easier to keep to myself.”

Parello was easy to talk to. It was as comfortable as she’d been with anyone since her mother’s death. More than once they’d clunked their helmet’s together so that she could hear his deep laugh through conduction rather than the radio. They’d finally slept tipped together.

Christine considered asking Parello about his real past. He’d been subtle about it, yet candid about everything since joining the Army. Criminal? Didn’t get you into Special Operations. Not that a record kept you out, but it took a kind of determination and grit to make the grade that didn’t come easy. Enjoying hard work wasn’t why a man typically turned criminal.

But she couldn’t ask.

They were in “The Grind” now, far past talking. They’d covered over a thousand kilometers. It was a landscape from hell. Jupiter irradiating them from behind, they each had a silver foil blanket draped over their packs as extra protection. Before them lay the yellow-gray sulfurous plains. They had to climb old lava flows while avoiding two hotspots more heated than the face of Mercury. They’d been forced north by the active Girru Patera, then forced south by the Heiseb Patera flow. The sun appeared as a blinding spot the size of a fingertip held at arm’s length. It made travel easier for a while as it lit the shadows, but was soon gone as Io followed his day-and-a-half orbit around Jupiter.

In the heart of the grind, a soldier folds into herself. A space where the body was past agony and it was now a contest of wills.

No way on this moon was Christine going to be beat by a lousy walk. She’d survived a decade of service, and her father’s shock troops were not going to end her. If she had to take the battle to him personally, so be it. No way were they getting past her.

Still, it was easier due to Parello’s silent company. His early complaining had all been perfunctory and expected. He’d made it funny. For a while he counted each hundred-and-eighty-eight strides as an Allen, “a buddy’s height in centimeters.” While funny at first, he’d given it up when, even with making up numbers, they’d easily crossed several hundred Allens. Then he’d begun counting it out in marathon lengths, but that became even more depressing—walking a dozen marathons a day was simply too depressing a thought.

Instead, they simply shut down and walked.

There was a shared closeness to their trudge across the Ionian plains. A shared hardship, but also a shared determination.

She was in point position when they finally reached the “neck,” a surface material change rather than an elevation change. She stopped. Parello stumbled up beside her and also inspected the change.

The surface material had been predominantly yellow-gray and brown for the entire day. Now they stood on the edge of a brighter yellow lava flow, long since solidified. They were on a slight rise that had forced the flow, originating to the south, to narrow here, before spreading wide across the northern plains. The “neck” was narrow enough, barely five kilometers across, that they could see the darker plains beyond. Had they lost their way, they wouldn’t be able to see across the width of the flow.

Numb, they stood side-by-side for a long time looking down at the goal they’d been chasing for two long days.

“We made it,” Parello’s voice was soft with disbelief.

All she could do was nod, despite knowing he couldn’t see her do so inside her helmet.

Then Parello folded her weary body into his arms and held her. If she could have kissed him, she would. She’d fought with hundreds, served with thousands, but this man was the sort she’d always want beside her no matter how sticky the situation.

“Christine the Fighting Machine,” his voice little more than a warm caress on her ears.

Together they sunk to their knees and leaned against each other while their bodies went through the shakes. Pain, so long ignored, pounded up her legs. Muscles cramped, but with nowhere to go and no way to massage them, she could do nothing but ride it out. Ride it out until at long last they were simply holding each other.

Neither spoke before collapsing into exhaustion.

There was no need.