Chapter 16

Mars, February 23, 2162
Lake Jezero Crater

Using a tow bar and an excavator, Alex pulled the remaining ships from the shelters that Eris cleared of ice. As she continued to scoop ice away from the base with her Truc, Alex towed five F-733F GunSlingers, an F-733E fighter, and an FB-719 Fighter/Bomber out into the open, then he slung straps around a fighter like Eris showed him. Once he had the fighter ready to hoist, Eris set the Truc down, grabbed another Eastern Bloc scooter that she sliced away everything that she didn’t need and flew over to the fighter that Alex had slung. Alex connected the slings and Eris hoisted the fighter and carried it back to her shop.

While she was hauling the F-733E to her shop, Alex slung a GunSlinger with an extra set of slings and, as he finished up, Eris was heading back to him with a set of slings dangling under her Truc. She dropped those slings and Alex connected the GunSlinger to her Truc, then he dragged the slings to the next GunSlinger.

The work went quickly and before they knew it, there were six GunSlingers, two F-733E fighters, two FB-719 fighter/bombers, an F-231 interceptor and an F-303 sitting at her shop. Inside her shop, Eris was sitting in the pilot seat of a GunSlinger. “Can you fly this thing?” asked Alex.

“While you were on the Naha playing catch with Scarver’s head, I was flying all over the asteroid belt.”

“I was guarding some dumbass Captain that caused that whole thing,” said Alex as he looked around her shop. “You found their armory?” He was looking at an impressive array of weapons.

“Arm who? Uh, oh yeah,” said Eris, who was for some reason unfamiliar with military terms of speech. “I found guns and ammo, grenades, rockets, rocket launchers, smocks, hoods...”

“Smocks and hoods?” asked Alex, trying not to laugh.

“They look like something that you’d wear over your environment suit to keep from getting paint on it, same with the hood, it fits over the helmet,” said Eris as she continued to touch the switches in the GunSlinger’s cockpit. She was doing switch drills, exercises Alan taught her to remind her where the switches she may need were located.

“They’re camouflage, dear. They have a camera that looks at the ground around them and the color of the hood and smock change to match that background color.”

“How come you don’t have them?”

“Because the batteries are heavy and tend to burst into flame.”

“That’s a bad thing,” said Eris as she discovered that the batteries on the fighter she was in were still good.

“It tends to give away your position,” said Alex as he examined an Eastern Bloc 12mm sniper rifle. “What are you doing now that you have these ships dug out and Big Berserker is on its way here?”