Free The Knights of the Black Earth by Margaret Weis, Don Perrin

One, this is Sunray. You will proceed to the
facility and begin your entry. Assume Blackjack situation—all control is
exercised from this station. Do you understand, Delta One?”
    Ito paused in
midyawn, gave Xris a puzzled look. Xris shook his head, annoyed. He didn’t know
what was going on, either.
    “Sunray, this is
Delta One. Confirm that we are to begin our entry. We haven’t linked up with
Javelin yet. Has something gone wrong?”
    Javelin was Rowan’s
comm call sign.
    “Delta One, this
is Sunray. You will immediately begin your entry. If Javelin doesn’t arrive, do
not wait. Do not execute any action without first clearing it with this
station. Is that clear, Delta One?”
    “Very clear,
Sunray. Delta One, out.” Xris sat back, glared, frustrated, at the commlink.
    “I don’t like
this,” Ito said.
    “Me, either. We
should wait for Rowan.” Xris scratched irritably at a red welt on his arm; one
of the local insects had bitten him. “Unless that computer system is dirt easy,
there isn’t much you or I can do to break in.”
    “What do we do?”
    “Hell, there’s nothing
we can do! You heard Armstrong. We must assume Blackjack. No arguments, no
questions.” Xris kicked the console with the toe of his boot.
    Ito was silent a
moment, then said quietly, “You think it’s Rowan, don’t you? Something’s
happened.”
    “I don’t know what
to think!” Xris stood up, stomped around the small plane. Then he stopped,
glared at nothing. “No, damn it. Whatever personal problems Rowan’s got, he
wouldn’t let them get in the way of his job.”
    “You said it
yourself—he’s been acting pretty strange.”
    Xris didn’t
respond. He moved back over to stand in front of the comm unit. His fingers
itched to touch the controls, call up Armstrong, demand an
explanation—Blackjack or no Blackjack.
    Not that Armstrong
would tell him anything. The controller wasn’t there in order to satisfy Xris’s
curiosity. The controller was in charge of the mission, and what he said went.
Xris would only get himself into something deeper and darker than that damn
swamp if he started disobeying orders again. Amadi wouldn’t go easy on Xris
this time. Xris would be stuck behind some desk somewhere. Besides—Xris’s
common sense took hold—if Armstrong was trying to grapple with an emergency,
Xris might jeopardize the whole mission by attempting to reestablish contact.
    “Maybe something’s
gone wrong with the shuttle,” Ito said, reassuring. “That’s a new type Rowan’s
flying in, you know.”
    Xris snorted. “Rowan’s
as experienced on flight systems as either of us. Maybe more.”
    “So what do we do?”
Ito asked again.
    “You heard the
man.” Xris went outside the plane, grabbed his coveralls, and started to dress.
“Rowan’s probably on his way. We’ll link up outside the munitions facility.”
    Ten minutes later,
both were ready, their equipment strapped on. They put on earpiece headsets and
keyed their data transmission to pass through the commlink on the spaceplane,
enabling them to keep in touch with their orbital command vessel. The sky
glowed an eerie orange. The gas giant was just setting. They headed for the
swamp.
    They slogged along
side by side. No sign of Rowan. No word from the controller. Judging by Ito’s
tightly drawn lips and lowering brows, he was thinking the same thing as his
partner.
    Suddenly Ito came
to a halt.
    “This isn’t right,
Xris. We deserve some sort of explanation.”
    Xris looked up at
the sky, instinctively and inanely searching for Rowan in the heavens.
    “You know as well
as I do that as far as the bureau’s concerned, we don’t deserve a damn thing
outside of our paycheck. But,” he added grimly, “you can bet I’m going to have
a whole lot of questions to ask once we get aboard Vigilance. And the
faster we do this, the faster we’re back.”
    The night was much
darker than it had been on their first trip to the facility. They could
actually see