by Ken Lozito
Chapter Eight
They went inside and Ian Malone waved them over, his eyes alight with excitement. “It’s older than we thought it was,” he said while holding a tablet computer and gesturing with a flick of his wrist toward the nearest wallscreen, which sent the report onto it.
“Dash did say the architecture favored the older or more traditional style than what we encountered with their subterranean cities,” Connor said. He quickly skimmed through the report, as did Lenora.
“Is this accurate? This report says it’s over three hundred years old,” Lenora said.
Connor frowned in thought. He knew the NEIIS had disappeared sometime within the last one to two hundred years—or at least that was the current theory. As far as Connor knew, the only evidence the NEIIS had been here was the cities they’d found and the fact that they had genetically modified the local wildlife—the foremost of which was the ryklars, which were an apex predator sometimes rivaled by the berwolves. Both predators were highly lethal, but overall, the berwolves would generally leave colonists alone whereas ryklars were more unpredictable and should be avoided. They knew the NEIIS had used the ryklars for some purpose—be it protection, an attack force, or something else they simply hadn’t thought of yet. Colonial geneticists had been studying the ryklars since they’d arrived on New Earth. There was evidence to support that the ryklars had even been manipulated to their current form.
“So, what does it matter if this new remote site is older than we thought it was?” Connor asked.
Lenora was watching the pallet of equipment sitting in the middle of the room that Captain Fletcher’s team had recovered from the NEIIS building. It was covered in a protective shell, but Connor knew that wouldn’t last long, especially not now.
“Well, it throws off the timeline we’ve been piecing together and supports some of the newer theories that the NEIIS had come to this part of the continent later—much later—in their development,” Lenora said.
“New theory . . . ” Ian said. “But I thought it was—”
“That’s not important right now,” Lenora said quickly.
Connor found himself wondering what she was up to now. A soft knock came at the door and Lenora called out for the person to come inside.
The door opened and Dash walked in. His gaze darted first to Connor for a moment before smiling a greeting at Lenora.
“Good morning, Dr. Bishop, Dr. Malone.” Dash looked pointedly at Connor. “Sir,” he said in a controlled, neutral tone.
“I thought you’d like to be the first to know that one of your theories is proving to be correct,” Lenora said.
Dash’s eyes became bright with excitement and he glanced at the pallet of covered equipment in hungry anticipation. “Which one? No, don’t tell me. That remote site is older than we thought it was. That has to be it. The architecture matches the older style. Is that right?”
Lenora nodded. “Ian ran the numbers this morning. The date puts it at three hundred years old.”
Dash’s eyes took on a sudden intensity as he considered the implications. There was no doubt in Connor’s mind that he was putting pieces together.
“We need to access the console and see if we can get more data from that map I found,” Dash said.
“I think there are some things we need to discuss first,” Connor said, drawing everyone else’s attention.
“That can wait until later in the day. We have some work to do first,” Lenora replied.
Connor considered pushing it, but Lenora had been clear. She wasn’t about to send Dash back to Sierra. Dash would be reprimanded, but Lenora was not about to cast him aside. Connor was only slightly annoyed by this. He knew what it was like to have someone with real potential working with them. Most of the time, they were worth the effort. Sean Quinn came foremost to his mind. They’d had a rocky beginning, but he’d taken Sean’s youthful potential and energy and honed him into an outstanding CDF officer. Perhaps Dash DeWitt was to Lenora what Sean Quinn had been to Connor. He was just worried that Dash’s recklessness would be overlooked, which could lead to a barrelful of regrets.
Dash looked at Connor, considering. “I’m sorry for what happened. I did check the general Field Ops daily bulletin before we set off that day and there was no ryklar activity reported in that area.”
Connor drew in a patient breath. “You’re right. There was no ryklar activity reported when you left in the morning. The issue is that field survey teams need to be put on the schedule so they can be monitored in case something goes wrong. It was dumb luck that Ian and I were checking the supply caches within sixty klicks of where you were. There were no other Field Ops teams in the area. Do you understand that?”
“I do, but I’m just not sure it changes anything,” Dash replied.
Connor felt his brows push forward in consternation. “It changes everything, Dash. We schedule field missions so there’s support readily available if something goes wrong. But what you did is how lives are lost. What happened the other day would have resulted in the loss of the lives of the people with you and, possibly, Ian and me as well. But you don’t see that, and that’s the real problem. All you see is the discovery,” Connor said and jerked his thumb toward the covered pallet behind them. “Whatever we find on that pallet isn’t worth the lives of the people who were with you. It's certainly not worth my life or Ian’s. Did you ever think about that?”
Dash’s cheeks reddened and his mouth hung open for a moment before he clamped it shut, forming a stubborn line. “Of course I thought about it. What do you want me to say? It happened. I can’t change it.”
Connor shook his head. The kid just wouldn’t get it. He glanced at Lenora and knew she understood. “I know you can’t change anything. What I’m looking for are assurances that something like this will never happen again. We can do field missions, but they must be done the right way.”
Dash looked away from Connor for a moment. “Is that all you want? A promise? I think you want more than that. You want me to admit that I shouldn’t have gone in the first place and I won’t do it. I don’t regret going. Neither do the others. You can’t keep us here under lock and key.”
“That’s just the thing. You’re not being held here against your will. Right now you believe that because you made this discovery it wipes the slate clean and justifies the method that got you there in the first place. You’re wrong. This time you were lucky. Next time you might not be,” Connor said, and Dash rolled his eyes. “You can throw your life away,” Connor continued, his voice rising. “You can walk right out that door, go off into the forest, and no one will stop you. But you put other people’s lives at risk. I know your friends didn’t want to die out in the field so you could pin your name to a discovery. I don’t know why you don’t understand that.”
Dash narrowed his gaze and then tried to look at Lenora and Ian for support, but there wasn’t any to be had. “We can’t afford to wait for Field Ops to hold our hands every time we want to go out and do a survey. You think I haven’t thought about what happened? I have. We should not have left the ATV where it was. We should have communicated back to Field Ops where we were and what we were doing. I get that now.”
“Then why didn’t you? The only reason there was a distress beacon at all was because the ryklars were trying to get into that ATV, which tripped the vehicle’s automated systems, which overrode your lockout for the transponder,” Connor said.
Dash glared at him and didn’t reply.
“This is what comes from lying and trying to hide what you’re doing,” Connor pressed.
“No, this is what happens when you try to control everything and everyone around you. I’ve got news for you. I don’t need your approval. I don’t need your permission to do my work. I did the research and found a lead worth chasing, something the other research scientists either missed or thought they’d get to at a later date. You’re making this place into a prison camp. We have the right to risk our own lives and you don’t get to d
ictate that for me or anyone else!” Dash said coldly.
“Dash,” Lenora said sharply. “That’s not fair. Connor is looking out for you. And as far as who has a say in what work you get to do here, that’s entirely up to me,” she warned.
Dash looked at Lenora and his gaze softened. “I’m sorry, Dr. Bishop. None of this is directed at you,” he said and paused for a moment, considering. “But I’m surprised to hear you say it because it’s well known that you take matters into your own hands in pursuit of your research.”
Connor’s eyes darted toward Lenora, who was at a rare loss for words. The kid was right in that regard, at least. Dash idolized Lenora as a member of the scientific community, and the way he’d just called her out for her dynamic pursuits was shocking for her.
“You want a promise from me,” Dash said, looking at Connor. “I won’t hide the fact that at some point in the future I will be going on another field survey mission. It’s part of what I want to do. We won’t disable the vehicle’s transponder like we did the other day. Is that what you’re looking for?”
Connor pursed his lips in thought. “Not good enough. Field missions must be registered with Field Ops and the department head accountable for you.”
Lenora recovered from Dash’s audacious comment about her reputation. “I’ve been known to take matters into my own hands from time to time. I freely admit it. I do not, however, hide what I’m doing. There is a difference.”
Dash nodded. “I understand,” he said finally.
Connor wasn’t sure if he believed it, but he had to admit it was a rare occurrence indeed when Lenora was at a loss for words. He was slightly amused, even in the midst of being annoyed with Dash, but Connor was careful not to let that show.
Ian cleared his throat and gave everyone a sunny smile. “What do you say we crack open that pallet and see what we found?” he suggested lightly.
Connor glanced at Lenora and shrugged while pursing his lips noncommittally. He wanted to know what was on that console, too. “Alright, let’s table this discussion for another time and see what we can learn from this thing,” Connor said.
They went over to the pallet and began removing the protective coverings that kept the NEIIS equipment safe. Lenora had them tag and catalog each item, which was then uploaded to their data repositories. Those repositories were backed up nightly to the main colonial library in Sierra. It took them several hours to go through everything collected. The CDF squad had been thorough in what they were able to retrieve from the NEIIS building. Connor looked at the items they’d tagged and arranged on the extended workbench of the lab and was a bit surprised by how much they’d been able to recover.
They settled into a quiet routine, which drained away some of the tension that had been building between them. Though Connor felt that Dash was still angry with him, there was an unspoken agreement to set their differences aside and learn all they could about the discovery Dash had made.
The NEIIS console had been damaged during the ryklar attack, but they were able to reproduce the woven mesh console the NEIIS used in their computer interfaces. It took them several more hours to connect the new mesh screen to the old console. They cleaned out the base so they could connect a power supply to the console.
Dash was lying on the floor, looking inside the base. He frowned as he cleared away some of the dirt and debris inside. “It looks like their data storage is in pretty bad shape from being exposed to the elements for so long,” he said and let out a frustrated sigh.
Connor squatted down and looked where Dash was pointing. The rusty area showed signs of oxidation and calcium buildup from years of being exposed to moisture. “Well, we have your recording to fall back on. We could try throttling down the power so we don’t burn the console out. Copying the data carries the same risk because we’d have to power it on in order to copy the data anyway.”
Dash nodded and glanced at Lenora. “What do you think, Dr. Bishop?”
Lenora had been standing by the wallscreen, reviewing some of the data recovery methods they’d developed during their time researching the computer systems found at Sanctuary. She closed down her session and walked over to them. “It’s a crapshoot. Either we’ll get some usable data from it or it’s gonna burn out. I think we should move forward and get as much as we can from it,” she said.
Dash closed up the control panel and stood up, offering his tablet computer to Lenora. “Would you like to do the honors, Dr. Bishop?”
Lenora’s gaze softened. “Go for it,” she replied.
Dash’s eyes widened in anticipation as he brought the tablet back in front of him. He glanced at the others. “Here goes nothing,” he said and took one last look at the NEIIS console. Then he pressed the execute button for the power startup sequence.
They’d made great strides in adapting their colonial power generators to existing NEIIS technology. Connor knew there had been a lot of trial and error in those efforts. Most of the great strides they’d made had occurred within the past year, which were the result of Noah Barker’s work on the colossus canon that had been used to defend Sanctuary from the Vemus. The power startup sequence was monitored for feedback from the NEIIS device so it reduced the risk of overload but couldn’t eliminate it altogether, something that had plagued Lenora’s archaeological team across multiple dig sites. The software slowly ratcheted up the power output, and for the first full minute the NEIIS console remained a defeated, darkened shell. Then a faint light slowly began to glow on the mesh screen.
“Initiating recording and data retrieval,” Dash said.
Connor watched as NEIIS symbols began to scroll across the screen from right to left. He’d seen them before, but he had no idea what they meant. There were linguists who were still working on deciphering the NEIIS language, but they hadn’t fully cracked it. They could read some of the text, but to Connor it seemed like there was a lot of conjecture on just how much they understood about the NEIIS language. Until they had some kind of credible proof that the symbols meant what they thought they meant, he’d just assume that the margin for error was still much too high. They could do basic things, like figure out the protocol to initiate the ultrahigh-frequency sound waves that were used to trigger the ryklar protection or guard instinct for NEIIS sites, but this wasn’t truly deciphering the language. It was just signal observance and regurgitation without a true understanding of what they were doing.
Dash approached the mesh screen. “Alright, let’s try this again,” he said.
One of the NEIIS symbols was more prominent than all others. Connor thought it resembled an inkblot with dark wavy lines running underneath. Dash lightly tapped the symbol. The other symbols faded away and a topographical map appeared on the screen. The much larger wallscreen nearby became active and showed the same information. They all watched the screen silently for a few moments.
“This is what we found before. These areas over here represent the part of the continent that we haven’t fully explored,” Dash said and brought up their current map of the area on the adjacent wallscreen. “This is from the Galileo seed ship that mapped the surface of the planet before the Ark arrived. If this is the same area we're looking at on the NEIIS console, the landscape doesn’t match up. There are more lakes and hills now, and even that canyon wasn’t there before.”
Connor peered at the screen and rubbed the stubble on his chin with his thumb and forefingers, making circular motions while he thought. “Let’s assume you’re right. What could change the landscape so severely?”
“I’m not really sure. It could be anything—some kind of major catastrophe or—” Dash began.
“Not so fast,” Lenora said. “Major catastrophes would affect the continent as a whole. We don’t have enough data to support that based on this image alone. So we should start small and work our way up.”
Dash nodded. “Agreed. This is why I had Merissa Sabine with us when we went to the site.”
Connor frowned as he remembered the two young
ladies. “What’s her field of expertise?”
Dash smiled. “Planetary science with a specialization in ecosystems. Can we call her and share this info? Maybe she’d have something to contribute.”
Connor suppressed a grin. He was sure Merissa was quite capable, but Dash’s eagerness made him think there was more to it than that.
“Let’s do that. Give her a call,” Lenora said.
Dash opened a comlink and stepped off to the side, speaking quietly. A few minutes later he returned to them. “Merissa is on her way here and Selena was with her so she’s coming, too.”
Connor arched one eyebrow. “Perhaps we should get Jim Tucker here and the whole gang will be back together,” he said dryly.
Dash’s face blanched for a moment and Connor knew why. Jim Tucker had gotten in trouble for his participation in Dash’s survey mission. Technically, Jim wasn’t part of Field Ops. He was just doing a work-study program; however, there were strict guidelines Jim was expected to follow while he was serving in any capacity at Field Operations. Connor knew Captain Ramsey wouldn’t tolerate any such behavior, even from an intern at Field Ops.
“Jim isn’t available,” Dash said.
While they waited for the others to arrive, they ran some data-extract routines and analysis on the backup they’d made of the NEIIS storage device. As they suspected, it was severely damaged and limited data retrieval was possible.
There was a soft knock at the door and Dash went over to open it. Two young ladies entered and nodded a greeting toward Dash before looking at Connor and the others.
“Ladies, please come inside. We’re in need of your expertise,” Lenora said in a friendly tone.
Connor knew Lenora loved this. She liked working with students almost as much as she enjoyed recruiting people into her field of study.
Lenora gestured toward the wallscreen. “I’m assuming you recognize the map. We were able to retrieve this from the NEIIS console.”