The Last Campaign (The Near-Earth Mysteries)

by Martin L Shoemaker

  “Offices on level 1,” Hogan confirmed, “and apartments down below.” He tapped his comm, and a lower level appeared. “Nice and spacious, as you can see. Closer to a Maxwell City apartment than one of the units in the Block. That’s where we found the casualties.” He swallowed.

  “Pretty bad?” I asked.

  “I’ve seen worse,” Hogan said. “I’ve worked accidents and boarding actions. There was a lot of blood, the bodies looked broken. Like somebody was angry. But there wasn’t a lot of time between breaching the lock and us making entry. I think the responsible parties took what revenge they could in just a few minutes, and still had time to clean up so we couldn’t identify them.”

  “We probably can,” Marcus said, “with a thorough examination.”

  Hogan nodded. “We will. It’s just taking my people time to do the processing.” He narrowed his eyes as he looked at Marcus. “We do know how to do this, you know.”

  I gritted my teeth. Where was Vile when I needed her? Now I had yet another man trying to show who was the alpha dog. So I changed the subject. “And what is off to the west here? It looks like . . . a garage area?”

  Gale nodded. “That’s the crawler garage. From mini crawlers up to twenty-person transports. I never saw where the exit was. They never opened the doors until we were all inside under blackout.”

  “Hogan, how could you miss a crawler lock?”

  “We haven’t missed it,” he said, “we just haven’t found it yet. Our first priority was securing people and weapons and potential evidence. After that, the IG ordered a lockdown until they could get here. We’re the first ones in here since then.”

  “All right,” I said, “let us work on that first. We need to find every access point into Boomtown. Until we know where those are, we will not have a secure crime scene.” I shook my head. Security duty is not policing, so I could not fault Hogan for not locking down the scene. But his inspector general had dropped the ball there. Rand should have ordered that. “Donihue, what sensors do these drones have?”

  “Acoustic, radar, IR, and terahertz scanning, ma’am,” he answered. “The whole works, just not very smart. They feed back to my central unit for processing.”

  “And without the central unit? We might be cut off.”

  “All the data is there,” he said. “You just need to interpret it manually.”

  I looked around at the investigative crew. They were smart people, they could handle that. “All right,” I said, “let us split up and check the different passages. We will make better time that way.”

  Hogan raised his hand. “We’re safer if we stick together,” he said.

  “You have given us escorts. It is their job to keep us safe, is it not?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Hogan, this is your investigation, so it is your call. I just think time is critical here. If there are undetected passages, we do not know who could still be in here.”

  “That’s my point,” he replied. “We don’t know what threats there might be.”

  “And we do not know what evidence they could be destroying. This case is going to tie up Maxwell City courts for years. And Initiative courts. But it will take even longer if we lose the evidence trail.” Then I softened my tone. “I was out of line, issuing orders, I know.” And I did know: it looked like I was trying to be alpha bitch, as bad as Nick and Marcus and Hogan. “But I really think it is the best idea.”

  Hogan sighed. “I don’t like it. But . . . you have a point. Escorts, you’re on high alert at all times. Patch into the aerial drone feeds to give yourselves an extra set of eyes. You’re not looking for evidence, you’re not exploring and enjoying the experience, you’re just watching your charges. And watching for threats.” He turned back to me. “All right, Ms. Morais, what do you recommend?”

  There were nine of us plus escorts. Four directions to cover. “I would send Donihue and Swanson to the garage. They are our sensors and mechanical engineering experts. We know there are doors to be found there, and they will have the best chance of finding those. Our digital analyst, Taylor, should go to the offices and secure machines; and Hogan, you should accompany her. You have been through there already.”

  “Makes sense,” Hogan said.

  “Dr. Costello and Priest should head south from here for videography. If there is new construction . . . you had better go with your helmets sealed. Sometimes the seals aren’t good in new tunnels.”

  “Understood,” Marcus said, closing his helmet.

  “That leaves three of us,” I said, “Nick and Gale and me, to inspect the Block. That is a larger area, so we could use the extra person.”

  Again Hogan nodded. “That makes sense. Everyone stay on comms at all times. You see trouble, don’t hesitate. Yell for help first, question second.”

  “How well do comms work down here?”

  Hogan shook his head. “Spotty. The rock and the metal walls absorb some frequencies and bounce others so bad that there’s constant noise. It looks like the designers never wanted over-the-air comms. Everything in here is secure wired connections. But my team put up repeaters as they went through the facility. There should be enough bands for what we need, unless somebody gets out of range of a repeater.”

  “So let us go.”

  30. THE BLOCK

  Nick and Gale and I set out along the north tube with our escorts. Gale moved slowly. His suit was bulkier in order to accommodate his assist suit underneath. That meant more air, more pressure, so he had to work harder to move. He did not complain, probably because he was used to it. He had done surface work for years in the suit. But still, he was slower. I would have left him behind if I could have.

  But Hogan had made the right choice. Gale was our local expert. He moved confidently through the tube, pointing out security eyes along the way. “It was never good to point them out to another worker,” he said. “But they were obvious if you knew what to look for.”

  But only if you knew what to look for. They were concealed inside bolt heads, colored to blend in. Only if you caught them at the right angle could you see a reflection that indicated the surface was glass, not metal.

  I got on the comm channel and sent out pictures of the lenses. “Watch out for these,” I said. “Our scan drone says they are inactive, but do not assume that. We might be watched.”

  We continued along the tube until we reached a door with an alcove on either side. The door was slid open, and I guessed that the invading troopers had forced it and then left it. With no power, it did not operate on its own. The alcove was barely lit by the emergency lighting. I shined a flashlight inside. “Showers,” I said.

  “Yes,” Gale said. “Though there was seldom enough hot water to go around. You’ll find units like this on all three levels and on both ends. You’ll find lavatories at every corner.”

  “No wonder you called it the Block,” Nick said. “Either a cellblock or barracks. This wasn’t luxury accommodations.”

  “No,” Gale said. “But oh, the luxuries they promised. They were good at motivating us with the future of Mars and how someday we’d all be rich for it.” He shook his head. “I never bought it. The VIPs and the managers were already doing pretty well for themselves. I didn’t expect they’d be eager to share if Boomtown started paying off.”

  Because there were three of us, we had two of the aerial drones assigned, as well as two of the shoulder drones. One sat on my shoulder, and the other on Nick’s. We sent the aerial drones out ahead to search for movement or other signs of occupancy. Nick and I checked our comms, and the drones were coming up empty. No sign of anyone there.

  So our escorts entered the Block, satisfied themselves that the room was empty, and then motioned us forward. We stepped out onto the broad walkway of level 3 of the Block. It was a metal grid floor without anything to cover it. In Earth gravity, that can get pretty tiring to the feet. Here on Mars, it was bearable, it just looked ugly. Functional, but no more. And it was one of many ways that the Bl
ock stripped all privacy from its occupants. It was easy to look down and see what happened on the floor below, and even shadows from the floor below that.

  The well of the Block was guarded by a rail and a mesh fence, a meter and a half high. A fall from here would not be fatal in Mars gravity, but you could certainly get hurt. Especially if you landed on something or someone. So the rail made sense. It just added to the institutional feel of the place.

  But looking around the Block, that is where the resemblance to a prison ended. The units were small but private. Not bars but walls, with privacy doors set in them. I walked over and rapped one. It was a thin barrier, not enough to stop an intruder who wanted to come through, but padded with sound-absorbent foam. Inside there, the occupant would not hear any noise out in the Block. And probably vice versa. I went to slide the door open, but my escort put a hand on my wrist to stop me.

  “Ms. Morais, if I may,” Matthews said in a deep voice. Very businesslike, and he did not wait for a response. He gently slid between me and the door while another escort took the other side. One high, one low, they slid the door open. Their rifles had lights mounted on the barrels, and they shined those around the room. Matthews said, “Go,” and the other practically leaped inside. He said, “Clear,” and Matthews followed.

  It took them only seconds to secure the room. It was barely larger than a closet. “You can come in, ma’am,” Matthews said; but I could not, not until he vacated the room. The other guard exited as well, and Nick and I stepped inside. Gale stood in the doorway, looking in.

  “It is so small,” I said.

  “Not really,” Nick answered. “We’ve gotten spoiled by all the cubic in Maxwell City. We think we’re cramped there, but we’ve got more space per individual than almost anyone off Earth or Luna. On any ship but a cycler, they would double up in a cabin this size. Mars was settled by people who lived in rooms this small or smaller. This is just enough space for a hardy pioneer.”

  “You sound like one of the managers, Nick,” Gale said.

  “I assume you didn’t mean that as a compliment, Horace,” Nick answered.

  “No; but . . . maybe? They had a . . . a zeal to them. And a lot of the workers bought into it. The ones fresh up from Earth, who still had big dreams. They fell for those pioneer speeches.”

  “But you don’t think the managers believed them?”

  “It was hard to say, Nick,” Gale answered. “I think some did. I never got to talk to the bigwigs, certainly not the VIPs. But there was this sense that things were rough here because it was important, had to be done, whatever it took. Like people thought they were building something that mattered.”

  “It should matter,” Nick said. “But not like this.”

  Gale laughed. “Nick Aames, defending the Compact? Thinking people should follow the rules?”

  “It’s never that simple, Gale. If a rule has a reason, you understand it, and then you decide if you should follow it. If it’s an arbitrary dictate from thirty light-minutes away that has nothing to do with the situation on the ground, then ignore it. It’s your life on the line, you have to decide.”

  Nick looked around. “But the Compact isn’t arbitrary. It was hammered out over years, a balance between the scientists and the commercial interests and the need to set up a second home for humanity. There’s a lot of dumb things in Initiative regulations, but the Compact isn’t one of them. There’s a time for this, for expansion far beyond this. For expeditions and settlements all over Mars. But these fools were too impatient to wait for that. And now it may cost us all our independence.”

  I did not know what to say to that. Nick was probably right, but I did not want to believe it. There were still six weeks before the election, six weeks in which we could make a case that the Libertist Party’s goals were right, even if its backers were overzealous. Anthony believed we could make the case. Alonzo seemed certain of it. But I could see how it could all go sour.

  We continued on to another room, and then a third; but they were not significantly different from one to another. Different clothes in the drawers, different pictures and mementos on the shelves, but the same layout and the same feel. This was a place where you lived identically to your neighbor in most regards.

  By the fourth room, we decided not to bother. We set an aerial drone to circulate, looking for signs of any unit opening unexpectedly, while we made our way to the stairwell and down to the second level.

  “The tube to the labs and workrooms is on the ground floor,” Gale said, “but I’d like to stop here if I could.”

  “Here?” I asked.

  “My cubicle,” Gale explained, walking to the fourth one north of the stairwell. “If they haven’t cleaned it out.”

  Again the escorts searched the room first before letting Gale enter. This time Nick and I both stood in the doorway, letting Gale have his space. Inside, he opened a drawer and pulled out a small duffel. Then he started pulling clothes from the drawers and stuffing them into it.

  When the drawers were empty, Gale turned to three small shelves set beside the door over top of the drawers. He pulled down two items: a small plastic trophy, a soccer ball on a pedestal, less than four centimeters tall; and an electronic photo frame. He put both in the duffel, zipped it up, and turned to the door. “I didn’t dare take anything with me,” he said. “I couldn’t afford them suspecting that I wasn’t coming back. So I’m . . . Thank you, Ms. Morais, for letting me come back and get these.”

  I shook my head. “Thank Hogan. It was his idea.”

  Gale looked at the map, frowning. “I was only back in the work area a few times,” he said. “I know there’s an infirmary, I had to carry a wounded man back there once.”

  I pointed at a note on the map. “Maybe that was just this bio lab?”

  Gale paused. “I really can’t say, ma’am, but the tool room is in the right place.”

  Nick pointed at the map as well. “And what are these rooms against the back wall?”

  Gale said, “Storage, we thought. Spare suits, machine stock, spare oxygen, power cells. It’s one long storeroom, actually, with just dividers between sections.”

  “If there’s something more through the north,” Nick said, “it has to be through those rooms somewhere.” Nick tapped the comm. “Hogan, have you found any access to the north?”

  “Not yet, Aames. We’re still searching.”

  Nick stared at the map. “Assuming there is a hidden section to the north, there will be a passage there, I’m sure of it. Whoever designed Boomtown were no idiots. You want multiple ways out in case of a collapse or an air breach. We’ll search down here. I’ll bet we’ll find multiple entrances.”

  Our escorts led the way into the tunnel network, and we briefly inspected each room, confirming that the labels on the map looked accurate. I really wanted a larger team and days to put into this search, not hours. This was far too much territory for such small groups to search so quickly.

  But our immediate goal was simply finding the presumed hidden rooms. So we pressed on. We reached the storage corridor, and we approached the middle door. Like the rest, it was broken open.

  “Your people were thorough, Hogan,” Nick said into his comm.

  But there was no answer. The comm sign was dead.

  “What happened to the repeaters?” I asked.

  “They don’t always work in confined tunnels, ma’am,” Matthews answered. “Tolhurst, go back to the Block and put up another repeater.”

  “Yes, Sergeant,” another escort answered, heading back to the entrance to the network. As soon as he got outside the ten-meter tether limit, his escort alarm started chirping loudly. He tapped his comm to lower the volume, but the chirping continued.

  Meanwhile our aerial drone circulated through the storage room. The section dividers did not reach to the ceiling, so it crossed from one section to the next, scanning the ground. Everything matched what we expected from the map, so the two remaining escorts stepped inside, and then nod
ded back to us. Nick stepped in, and Gale followed behind him. I was almost to the door when I heard a hissing sound.

  Instinctively I stepped back. At the same time, Gale shouted, “Nick! Move!” I saw Gale grab Nick by the carry handles on his suit; and then he pivoted, tossing Nick through the open doorway and then leaping behind him. They were still in the air when the blast hit, slamming both of them against the ceiling of the tunnel. Then they slid along the corridor back south past me.

  31. EMERGENCY MEDICINE

  “Nick!” I screamed.

  But if Nick was hurt, then Matthews and the third escort . . . I tried to pull up the aerial drone’s feed, but I got only static. I saw Tolhurst running back up the tube. He leaped nimbly over Nick and Gale, landing just in front of me and stopping at the doorway. Beyond was a bright, yellow-white light and a wall of heat. I slammed my helmet shut and turned on suit air. I did not want to breathe whatever might be in those flames.

  And I did not want Nick breathing it either, but this was time for triage for two escorts in there. Tolhurst checked all directions for more danger, and then he rushed into the flames. I followed behind him, led through the smoke by the sound of his escort alarm. Surface suits were lousy for fire protection, but we only needed seconds to find the two escorts and drag them out.

  Not that there was much we could do for them. Their suits were charred, their faceplates cracked. Their limbs were at uncomfortable angles. They had caught the main blast.

  The new repeater must have been working, as Hogan was on the comm. “Explosion! All units report!”

  “Ma’am, it was the storeroom,” Tolhurst said. “Four down. Repeat, four down. We’re pulling back to the Block.”

  “On our way,” Hogan said. “All interior units, to the storeroom. Surface units, be alert. Watch for any movement. If you see someone, stop them. Alive if possible, but don’t let them get away. Pay particular attention to the field north of Boomtown. And send down some medics!”