The Last Campaign (The Near-Earth Mysteries)

by Martin L Shoemaker

  I was sure the other crawler was even more crowded, with a dozen Rapid Response troops in armored suits. Hogan was taking no chances. There might still be dangers hiding in Boomtown.

  Once we were rolling, Hogan began his briefing. He pushed a map to our comms, and he pointed out surface features. “After we navigate the grade down into the chasma, we’ll soon find ourselves among the Candor Colles: low, conical hills along the southeast flank of Ceti Mensa. It looks like they built among the Colles to provide additional cover. This is the main lock,” he said, pointing at what showed on the map as a low, rocky hill, “as identified by Mr. Gale. It was camouflaged.” He switched to a satellite reconnaissance photo at medium resolution, zoomed in enough so a person might be a pixel, or maybe half. The outline of the low peak was clear, and I could just make out edges and faces in the shape. “And this is after our bombardment,” he continued, switching the image one more time. The rock lay in fragments around the hill, jagged clusters of pixels that hinted at the destruction. Where the hill had been was a metallic gray dome, riven by fracture lines. “We breached the outer lock,” Hogan continued. “My people tell me the entrance was made for personnel defense, but never intended to stand up to heavy weapons.”

  Nick nodded. “Aside from the fort, there’s not a lock in Maxwell City that could stand up to a sustained bombardment. We haven’t needed one. And even if they had been that paranoid, the logistics of trucking in heavy armor and building the emplacement would’ve made it much harder to conceal.”

  “Agreed,” Hogan said. “We examined the satellite maps. There are no obvious entrances. Everything had to be carefully camouflaged. So that guided our strategy: we could concentrate on speed and surprise, without having to worry about a sustained defense. With the maps that Gale provided from his memory, we identified two more likely locks; and then our analysts identified a handful of other likely access points.” He tapped the comm, and it switched back to the original map, now with features circled. “There’s also a crawler lock somewhere. We haven’t found it yet, but we will. We blockaded the locks we could find, and we set satellites to watch for crawler traffic. Then we went in.”

  Gale shook his head. “There were more,” he said.

  Hogan turned away from his comm and looked at Gale. “Are you certain?”

  Gale paused. “Reasonably certain, Hogan. I know there were at least two large locks, since I saw the second one. But only from inside, and the place was a bit of a maze. It was probably”—Gale traced a line on his own comm—“probably in these hills nearby.”

  Hogan whistled. “That’s nearly ninety meters outside the extent that we mapped out. Are you certain, Gale?”

  Gale frowned. “Not certain, Chief, but . . . as far as the distance, it might be off by twenty, thirty meters in any direction. But not more than that. So looking in that area, those hills are the only place to hide a lock. I can’t give you a precise spot, but it’s there.”

  Hogan’s face tightened, his jaw clenched as he thought for a few seconds. Then he tapped his comm. “Crawler Bravo, this is Crawler Alpha. Check your loads. Repeat, check your loads. We may find some surprises.” He closed the comm channel. “All right, it’s time to turn around.”

  “Turn around?” I said. “Why?”

  “We were wrong,” Hogan said. “The area is not secure. I don’t want to bring a bunch of civilians into a possible hot zone and have to watch your asses and maybe get mine shot up.”

  I shook my head. “You are being overly cautious.”

  “No,” Nick replied. “He’s being properly cautious, Ms. Morais.” I glared at Nick, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Standard Initiative Security doctrine: you don’t bring untrained personnel into a hot zone.”

  Hogan’s eyebrows rose. “Thank you, Mr. Aames.”

  “Except you’re overlooking something, Hogan,” Nick continued. “We’re not untrained. Gale is still an active explorer and spacer. I should know, I trained him, and I’m the founder of Maxwell City. And Ms. Morais is better, the best spacer in the system. Dr. Costello has nearly fifteen years in surface and tunnel operations on Mars, including emergency medicine. Better than the medic you brought along.” I did not ask how Nick knew. He had had all night to study the mission personnel records, and that would be just like him. “Out of the eight civilians, six of us are former Initiative, and the other two are seasoned Mars explorers.”

  I added, “And they are here under the authority of Maxwell City’s executive, specifically under the police force. And that means me. I can vouch for this team.”

  Hogan shook his head. “Again, it’s too risky.”

  “It is a risk trade-off,” I said. “If there is someone inside there, they may be destroying evidence as we speak.”

  “We would see that,” Hogan answered. “We planted monitors.”

  “Monitors can be spoofed,” Nick said.

  “Our security is excellent,” Hogan said. “It would take a top expert to spoof our system.”

  “Experts can be hired,” Nick answered. “And if there are hidden chambers, you won’t have monitors there. You’ll need your forensic team inside. You have no time to waste. And you need Gale to walk you through the layout, point out what your team missed. And Gale’s not going without me, right, Horace?”

  Gale nodded.

  Hogan sighed. “And I’d probably better take Ms. Morais.”

  “You’d be a damn fool if you didn’t,” Nick said.

  Hogan shrugged. “Donihue has top commercial scanners, as good as anything we have.”

  “Better,” Donihue said.

  “If there’s something hidden,” Hogan continued, “Donihue has the best chance of finding it and warning us. All right, Aames, you convinced me. But we’re changing the infiltration plan. Instead of setting my troops up in zones, they’re going man to man. Every one of you will be paired with one of my troops, with a virtual tether. If you get more than ten meters from your assigned guard, there’ll be alerts screaming across the comm channels.”

  “Yes, Chief,” I said. It was a standard escort protocol. It made good sense.

  As the crawlers approached Candor Colles, we saw many more Initiative vehicles and personnel stationed in the vicinity. Hogan pointed out the guard posts and observation points on the map.

  Nick turned to Gale. “Can you think of any other access points they should cover?”

  Gale frowned. “I know I helped construct two. From the surface. One of them . . .” He tapped the comm. “It’s probably that one. But I don’t think the other is on the map here. My star sightings on that one weren’t precise, but it had to be”—he gestured toward the north edge of the area—“somewhere up in here. It was a long way from the main part of Boomtown. The design was just a small surface access lock, like you might have for field maintenance. But I never saw anything out there to maintain.”

  I looked at the map where Gale indicated. “My money is on an escape tunnel.”

  Nick nodded. “That’s a good theory. Escape from where? is the question. Gale, did you get down inside that lock and see where it led?”

  Gale shook his head. “No,” he said. “But it had to be south from here, didn’t it?”

  Nick frowned at Gale. “We’re not guessing. That’s a good theory, nothing more. We don’t know what could be down there.”

  “If we find it,” Marcus said, “we can use sonics and radar to answer the question.”

  Nick sneered. “If we find it, we can go down inside. Send down some of Donihue’s drones to map it out for us.”

  “I know how to do my job, Aames,” Marcus said. “I’ve got good people.”

  “I know you do, Costello. It’s not your people who made the idiotic comment.”

  “It’s not idiotic to—”

  “Enough,” I said. “I am beginning to think Hogan was right, we should all go back. You two have work to do, and there is no time for this petty rivalry. So stop it!”

  “We weren’t—”
r />   “Enough!” Men! Did they think this was impressing me? Or would they be bashing their antlers against each other just as much even if I were not there? “We all know how to do our jobs. Shut up and do them, and stop arguing about them.”

  Hogan cleared his throat. “That’s an excellent suggestion, ma’am. If we could have a little quiet so I can call my people . . .” He opened the comm line and issued redeployment orders for his troops on the surface, sending them out to cover the areas that Gale had suggested. Then he turned back to us. “Helmets on, shields closed. We’re almost to our destination.”

  Sealing our suits provided a good distraction from the bickering. Then we buddy-checked each other’s seals, just like a drill.

  But this was no drill. I felt every nerve jumping, anticipating action. The new revelations meant we could not be sure if there were still Boomtown holdouts down there. Seldom had I ever had to move into hostile territory, not in my service life and not on Mars. Initiative duty was mostly peacekeeping, and from a distance. I had occasionally had to inspect ships suspected of carrying contraband. Sometimes those had been armed and defended. So it was not my first time in a hot zone, but the first in nearly twenty years.

  But Mars itself was a hot zone. Space was too. You paid attention to details, or you died. Sometimes you died even if you did pay attention, but drills and alertness could make a crucial difference. We would see how well I remembered my old drills.

  After the crawler came to a stop, Hogan waited until the other team had unloaded and surrounded us before opening our rear hatch so we could come out. As we exited, each of us gained an escort, already assigned by Hogan. My trooper introduced himself as Oliver Matthews, and he pushed a tether signal to my comm. My comm acknowledged it, and then he said, “Hold still, Ms. Morais. We need to test.” He marched ten meters away; just a little short of the distance, my comm started chirping, and I saw his blinking. “Ms. Morais, tethered,” he said, and he marched back over to me. The other escorts tested their tethers as well, and all seemed good.

  Hogan signaled on the all comm, “All right, search team and escorts, let’s get to the main lock.”

  He led us over to the shattered rock of the hill, and he showed us a brand-new emergency lock that had been fitted on top of the old entry. It was the standard-model portable lock, sealed to the original entrance with weld tape. It stood above the original approximately one-quarter meter, easy enough to climb upon in Martian gravity. “Here’s your procedure,” he said. “The lock can take three at a time. We’ll go down with two escorts and one investigator until all escorts are down. Then the rest of the investigators can follow. Dr. Costello?”

  Marcus half turned, looking at his team. “Donihue, you go first with the scanners. Send out the drones, testing for physical and chemical risks, just like we did at the factory. Priest, you’ll be next with video. Then data, then structural, and then me. Your people can come after, Ms. Morais.”

  “Nick and Gale and I can come down as a group,” I confirmed.

  Hogan added, “Then I’ll come down last, and everyone should be regrouped with their escort by then. We’ll assess the situation and break into search teams.”

  Marcus added, “Each team will take two drones, a shoulder mount and an aerial. The aerial drones will circulate as they see fit. The shoulder cameras will record anything you direct their attention to, and will otherwise scan the area.”

  Hogan continued, “There’s a slight drop inside the lock, but there are ladders built into the sides. Once you hit the door below, just cycle through. There’s another drop below that about five meters, and then you’ll be in a big round vestibule. We’ve got maps from the raid to take it from there.”

  “Where you can trust them,” Nick added. “Make sure we scan for joints, drafts, hollows, anything that might hide an exit. Hogan’s people did a thorough search last time, but a quick one, more worried about apprehending personnel than about searching. Take your time, go slow, and notice details.”

  “Sounds good,” Hogan said. “First group, up.” Donihue and two escorts climbed up onto the lock. They cycled the air out, climbed down in, and let it close behind them. The cycle lock light turned green, indicating that they had full pressure; and then it turned white, indicating that the inner hatch had opened. Once it swapped back through green to red, Hogan ordered, “Next group.”

  One by one the groups dropped down. Soon enough, Nick and Gale and I stood on the rim of the lock, and Nick touched the cycle controls. When the light was red, he reached down and twisted the arm to open the lock. Six fitted panels dropped away, revealing a dark hole with another door and a control panel at the bottom, three meters down. He pointed to the three ladders, and we descended. At the bottom, Nick found the switch to close the upper hatch, and the button to start airflow. When the panel light showed green, he opened the next hatch, and we climbed through.

  At the bottom, we gathered in the vestibule. It was a small space, maybe five meters across, and crowded with all the suited figures in it. The original lock had probably been faster, but this was not the best way to the surface for large numbers of people. In an emergency, this lock would only cycle maybe six people per minute if they were well trained and knew not to get in each other’s way. Either Boomtown had no proper plan for emergencies, or there were other, larger exits still to be found.

  Gale echoed my thoughts. “I hated this entry,” he said. “A lot of the newer workers never thought what the design implied. They’d never been through emergencies. But I knew: if there had been a serious contamination or a breach, whoever designed this didn’t care if we got out or not. We were expendable.”

  “That’s a good indication that there are other exits,” Nick added. “The engineers, the designers, the people in charge . . . they wouldn’t see themselves as expendable.” He looked around at the walls, the lighting, the floors. “This wasn’t designed by idiots. Hogan, how many people did you arrest here?”

  Hogan answered, “Eighty-one. Plus six casualties.” He looked darkly at Gale.

  Gale raised his arms in a half shrug. “I wasn’t here, Chief, I have an alibi.” Then he turned to Nick. “There should’ve been more people, Nick. Unless they reassigned or evacuated after I left, there were over 100 here, maybe 120. Eighty or so would’ve been the work crews, plus supervisors. Maybe some maintenance crew.”

  “We should have had you look over the arrest reports,” Nick said.

  “We will,” I said. “As soon as the bureaucracy lets us.”

  “I’m working as fast as I can, ma’am,” Hogan said. “My superiors want to review everything first before they clear it for release. I’m sorry, not my choice.”

  “All right,” Nick said on the all comm. “Be ready for as many as thirty personnel here, hidden away somewhere. Or evacuated by now, and sneaking back into polite society, but we can’t assume that. They could be trapped, and they could be dangerous. So keep alert!”

  “Agreed, Mr. Aames,” Hogan said. I managed to stifle a laugh. Then he continued, “Escorts, pay attention to motion sensors, and keep your eyes peeled. Do not let your charge go in someplace before you’ve checked it out thoroughly. Rely on drones, your scanners, and your eyes. Look for movement and concealment. And if any of your charges gives you any trouble”—he waved toward Nick—“restrain them physically.”

  Donihue declared the air to be clear, so we opened our face shields. No sense in wasting suit air.

  But “fresh” was a relative term. The air stank of bodies, cleaning chemicals, and other industrial odors. “The recirculators are off,” I said.

  Hogan nodded. “We found emergency lighting, but we haven’t found the batteries yet, so we don’t how long the lights will last. My team took down the power plant. That’s standard crowd and data control.”

  I nodded. As quickly as possible, you wanted to take machines off-line so there was no opportunity to wipe them. And people who had no air recirculators were more eager to get into custody so they
could keep breathing.

  Four tunnels branched off from the vestibule in the cardinal directions. I checked Hogan’s map. “South looks like new construction,” I said. “North looks like . . . some sort of communal area.”

  “We called it the Block,” Gale said. “Someone joked that it was laid out like a cellblock. And I suppose it was. Three levels of small living quarters, arranged around an open central area where they held meetings and served food and such. There was room for maybe three times as many of us as were there. You could easily double or triple that, if you put more to a unit; but we weren’t crowded, so we each enjoyed a private unit.”

  “My people searched the Block,” Hogan said. “Just a quick run through to make sure no one was hiding in there anywhere. We videoed the whole thing, but we haven’t had time to do a thorough search to gather evidence and personal effects. That’s what . . .”

  I nodded. “That is what my team would be doing right now, a swarm of us, if you had let us.”

  Hogan spread his hands. “If it were up to me, you’d be deep into it already.”

  “I know,” I answered. “Orders.” I looked back at the map. “Anything else to the north, Gale?”

  He nodded. “Beyond the Block, there are storerooms, tool rooms, and labs. We workers weren’t often welcome back there. That was for managers, techs, and VIPs.”

  “VIPs?”

  Gale nodded. “It didn’t do to ask too many questions. We sometimes had people in and out who we never saw in briefings or on work crews. They weren’t supervisors or techs or mechanics. They acted like they ran the place, speaking only to our managers, never to us. I just thought of them as the VIPs.”

  “And they went back there?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes they headed over to the east from here, where the offices were. That was strictly off-limits territory, unless you got in trouble. Then you might be summoned back there for discipline. I was too smart for that, I kept my nose clean; but I heard there’s dozens of offices back there, running all along parallel to the Block.”