by P. R. Adams
“And what is that?”
“When the Republic was still in one piece, the Mega-Bus—MB-219—was the main robotic pass-through system.”
Stiles pulled her hand away. “This is a Republic robot?”
“No. But it’s based on one. An old one.”
It seemed unlikely he could tell so much from one quick glance. “I see.”
“I bet you do.” He reached for her hand again and barely caught the device when she dropped it instead. “Nice work. Anyway, it looks like parts have been excised, as if it was a component of something else. See these pieces here?”
She leaned in closer, keeping an eye on his wandering hands. “Yes.”
“It was a head. Processor modules. Sensor modules—and these were optical sensors.”
“They look hollow.”
He pointed his lamp at the chunk of metal. “That’s the excised part I mentioned. Whatever was in there has been yanked or—” He brought the device up to his rebreather mask. “—somehow or other…removed. And not conventionally.”
“You mean using tools?”
“Most modules like this, you can…” He fiddled with the side of the thing, then seemed to squeeze it. The section where the interface joined the main module slid out. “There. You don’t even need tools.”
When he popped the section open, there were thin, green circuit cards with nothing on them.
He ran a finger over the visible surface of the cards. “Gone. All the components and wire traces.”
Lights flickered behind the chief, revealing more Marines. Three of them were approaching—unarmed and sagging slightly under the weight of heavy backpacks. The lead one was a big, husky, pale woman who frowned at Parkinson as if she knew him from somewhere, then saluted before shining her light up the crater wall.
Stiles glanced up. It looked like Kohn and Sergeant Carruth might be making their way back down. She leaned in close to the female Marine. “You three heading up?”
The other woman grunted. “Stringing sensors.”
“You have mines?”
“None to take. Commander wants sensors, though. This is the easiest way up?”
“That’s what I heard.”
“Then we’re heading up.” The female Marine turned her focus back on the wall. “Let’s go.” Those words boomed through her mask.
She quickly took the other two up a trail, then they began a quick ascent.
Carruth and Kohn paused several meters up, apparently chatting with the Marines, then descended.
A broad smile split Kohn’s face. He held something up. “We found it.”
Stiles held out her free hand. “And that is?”
“A regulator. I think that’s what failed. On the Badger, I mean.”
Parkinson snorted. “Regulators don’t fail.”
The slender petty officer bowed his head. His shoulders slumped. “This one failed.”
She couldn’t really tell what the device was or how it would function. It was a little smaller than her hand, fairly light for as big as it was and the appearance of it being a small metal globe with some bolted-on rods and levers. She handed the thing back.
“How?” Parkinson wasn’t going to let it go.
“The inner wall lining was cracked slightly, and that led to an inlet valve failure.”
“So drill a new hole. That’s not a failure. Those are built to survive anything.”
“And this one did.” Kohn shook the device at the chief. “And this will—”
“It’d be easier to drill a new hole than to replace the entire regulator.”
Kohn turned to Stiles for support. “We don’t have the sort of equipment we’d need to drill a new hole, or I would have.”
Parkinson came a step closer. “Look, if you don’t know how to—”
“I know what I’m doing, Chief!” Kohn squeezed the device against his chest, as if it might protect him from the engineer.
“But you’re going to replace a regulator instead of—”
“I’ll pull the manifold access panel out, pop the regulator core, then replace the regulator on that. I’ve…heard it can be done.”
Stiles wrapped her hand around Kohn’s. “How long will this take?”
“F-fifteen minutes. Maybe thirty.” It sounded like he was gasping.
“Hurry, but don’t take any unnecessary chances.”
“O-okay.” Kohn smiled as he had when he’d first come toward them, then stumbled away.
But Carruth hung back. He leaned into Parkinson’s space. “Hey, Chief?”
Parkinson puffed his chest out, as if that might make him somehow on par with the Marine. “What is it, Sergeant?”
“That kid just hiked up that crater like a pro. Dug through a bunch of cooked body parts and melted vehicle pieces, too.”
“And?”
“And, seems to me like someone in your position might know enough to—”
“I do know enough—that’s why I told him it was pointless.”
The Marine sergeant leaned in even more. “Uh-uh. I mean know enough as a leader to tell the kid he did a good job. The way you acted? I don’t know, but it seemed like what I’d expect from a real tool.”
The little engineer’s rebreather mask fogged slightly as he huffed.
Carruth nodded toward Stiles. “Pardon me, Lieutenant.”
Stiles had the gift of calm where others would be caught up in the whirlwind of emotions, so she didn’t smirk when there was a temptation to. It was one of the true advantages of her…upbringing. “Chief, maybe you could find some way to contribute?”
“Contrib—?” Parkinson huffed again, then bowed his head. “I’m an expert engineer, one of the best you’ll find anywhere.”
“Then why don’t you start acting like it and engineer?”
She brushed past him, adding a little emphasis to her hips in case he was watching her go. It was petty, the sort of thing a teen would do, but she still was a teen in many ways, and for some reason it felt good to hurt him a little.
Whore? She wished she’d left him to the elevator doors a little longer.
After searching around, she finally turned to the communicator network to locate Benson, pinging the commander’s device until it located her several meters closer to the center of the crater than the shuttle she’d said she would be at.
Stiles barely noticed Staff Sergeant Halliwell and his beefed-up corporal at first, and they didn’t seem to notice her at all. They were absorbed in the guts of what appeared to be an automated gun turret. Someone had stacked banged-up cargo cases around one side of it, creating an improvised pillbox.
Benson noticed someone was approaching and stepped away from the gun. “Lieutenant Stiles?”
“It’s a robot, probably a part of its head.” Stiles handed the device over.
“That’s what Parkinson said?”
“Yes. And that it’s old technology. From before the war. And something…disassembled it.”
“He could tell all that?”
“Along with some other things, yes.” Stiles felt something like annoyance in the back of her thoughts. It was odd, not part of the conditioning she’d gone through.
“Where is he?” Benson pulled out her communicator. “We could use his help.”
“Out by the crater wall.”
“Doing anything?”
“There’s no one there to annoy, no.”
The commander seemed to realize that something had gone on. “Well, I’ll put him right to work. This gun should be working, keyed in to those sensors Fero’s people are stringing along the wall, but we’re getting nothing but red lights.”
“Petty Officer Kohn should have the Badger running soon.”
“Good!”
“I’d like to make him part of my team.”
“Not Parkinson?”
“I think Chuck’s just as capable.”
“He—” Benson bowed her head slightly and closed her eyes. “Commander Martinez rode Petty Offic
er Kohn pretty hard. I’m not sure he has the confidence to handle combat stress.”
Stiles was sure there was truth to that. She was also sure she could coax whatever she needed from the young man. And she wasn’t taking Parkinson. “He’ll be okay.”
“All right. Did you decide on Gadreau?”
“Actually, I was thinking I’d rather take people I could count on.”
“Some of Fero’s people?”
“Your staff sergeant and corporal, actually.”
The commander’s eyebrows arched. “I…see.”
“They’re the most reliable I know.”
“That’s fair.” Benson sighed. “Just two?”
“And Sergeant Carruth. I think a couple of Fero’s people could work out okay, too. She has a good driver, and someone with more recent…active experience.”
“Give me their names, I’ll talk to her.”
“Thank you. And Captain Gadreau—will you tell him?”
Benson had the communicator in her hand now. “I’ll let him know Carruth has been tasked for the run to the ruins. And I’ll inform him he’s too critical to holding this position to go with you. After I get the chief over here.”
Stiles caught the commander’s curious gazing at the robot piece. “You still bothered by that, ma’am?”
“I’m trying to make sense of it. A piece of an old robot at the bottom of an empty crater? You think the Azoren have been using this as a garbage dump for old technology?”
“Do the Azoren actually use technology this old?”
“I thought you were the intelligence expert.”
“It’s an imperfect discipline.”
Benson did a slow turn, eyes locked on what she must have imagined was the lip of the crater. “Could it have been ours?”
“From the SIGINT team?”
“Or the SAID agent.”
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know.” Stiles couldn’t imagine an old robot being used by her people or Agent Patel’s sister, but secrecy and compartmentalization meant she could never be sure, especially where the SAID was concerned.
“Maybe it’s time to call Agent Patel.”
“He’s…not the most helpful person.”
“Really? Safely floating around in space while the rest of us do his dirty work? That doesn’t sound helpful?”
Stiles allowed herself a lopsided grin. “Maybe it does.”
“Maybe. Anyway, I can still try. Would you mind telling Staff Sergeant Halliwell and Corporal Grier?” Benson nodded back toward the two of them.
“If you’ll handle the captain and major.”
“I will. I just need to bring Chief Parkinson in, then I’ll talk to both of them. Then I’ll make call to Agent Patel’s gunship.”
The tone and the words said it all: Benson didn’t care for the SAID agent either.
Stiles gave the commander a moment to walk clear, then squatted next to Halliwell. “Staff Sergeant Halliwell? I’m going to need you and Corporal Grier to accompany me.”
The tall Marine’s head came up, and he searched around, probably for Benson. “Where to?”
The throaty growl of the Badger motor caught Stiles’s attention. She smiled. “We’re about to make the run to the ruins.”
“The commander knows about this?”
“She does.”
The two Marines exchanged a look, stood, and grabbed their gear.
Grier winked. “Sounds like it’s about to get interesting.”
Stiles took one last look at all the frenetic energy—Marines and technicians using debris for improvised cover, checking equipment, powering down lights and covering flares.
It was time. In fact, it was probably too late. But that was the way of this war: Everything they did seemed one step too short and too late.
16
Colonel McLeod had never felt so out of place as he did standing on the bridge of the Clarion. He imagined it had all the elements of a starship that should have offered comfort to a sailor but everything that would be there if it had just come off the assembly line. The equipment gave off soft light and a soothing hum; the paint and furniture smelled new and clean. And the temperature was perfectly regulated.
Yet he felt like an alien, his uniform coat too tight and stiff.
If he’d wanted to go into the Navy, that would have been the option he pursued as a younger man, not the GSA. After all, for the McLeod family, all doors were open. He could have chosen the corporate world as his older brother had, or he could have entered politics as his younger sister had.
But there was a draw to the military that the younger Avis McLeod couldn’t resist. It was the patriotic thing to do, and it seemed like a good opportunity to wash away the foul taste his grandfather had left in the general population’s collective mouth with his own little betrayals.
Legacies. McLeod hated legacies. Yet he was saddled with one.
Same as he was saddled with this ancient ship and its hastily assembled crew of misfits. He caught the glare of Lieutenant Commander Scalise and smiled at the pudgy little woman. Her odor permeated the place, an almost sour and definitely stale scent, as if not wearing even a hint of perfume weren’t protest enough. She seemed to be eschewing basic hygienic practice.
What had her psychological profile indicated? Stubbornness, definitely. A lack of creative thinking. A need to rebel.
Constantly. Against everything.
Was it to call attention to herself? She seemed more concerned with tearing others down than building herself up. Nothing was ever her fault; everything was someone else’s fault. Was it the sideburns? She could have had facial hair treated easily, assuming she didn’t simply shave it. That’s what his great-aunt had done when her hormones had gone crazy.
But not this Scalise. No, she had to smell like a sour laundry hamper and march around stiff-legged while glaring like a little gnome protecting its garden.
For such an important mission, why couldn’t he have been given better officers?
At least he had Benson. And Stiles. With them, there was a chance.
Even with the SAID involved.
He tugged his coat sleeves down. “Commander Scalise, I’d—”
One of the people operating the gear at the front of the bridge turned around. “Commander, we have a connection from planetside. Commander Benson.”
Scalise pursed her lips in annoyance. “What’s it about?”
“She’d like to speak to Colonel McLeod.”
That seemed to annoy the husky woman even more. “Colonel?”
McLeod hated the way she turned an honorific into a challenge. “If you could forward it to my communicator, that would be appreciated.”
“Please forward the communication to the colonel.” Scalise turned her back on him before he could exit the bridge. It felt like she had stopped just shy of urinating on the deck to mark her territory. Get off my bridge!
As if he wanted to be there.
In the passageway, with the hatch closed, he sighed and sucked in a breath of relatively fresh air. Command had never been one of his ambitions, yet here he was, in charge of a task force while the woman who should have been running it was stomping around inside a crater full of debris and dead. His skills were with negotiation, assessment and evaluation, and logistics. Give him several terabytes of imagery, human intelligence reports, and some history on the various parties involved, and he could plan out an effective surveillance or counter-intelligence operation. Wading through the muck of an obvious SAID operation gone awry…?
His communicator buzzed, and he accepted the connection. “Commander Benson? How are you?”
“Colonel McLeod, can you hear me?”
“I can. You sound like you’re in a tunnel, but you’re clear enough.”
“I’m sorry. Our radios have been damaged. This is as good as I can get.”
That she was still alive was almost a miracle. “What can I do for you?”
“An update?” She didn’t sound testy but annoyed.
“No change so far. Agent Patel reports his gunship hasn’t seen any aircraft launch from the Azoren airstrip.” His gunship. Couldn’t the man see what sort of divisiveness his behavior was creating? But that’s how his family operates.
“That’s good. We just got one of the Badgers running and it’s headed into the ravine.”
“Did you send Captain Gadreau?”
“Lieutenant Stiles.”
“Lieutenant—?” That was an odd choice. “She took a team with her?”
“A small one. She wanted to be agile.”
Something about the way Benson said that sounded like a signal. “Is everything okay?”
“No. We’re at half strength.”
“Agent Patel said the other gunship was lost.”
“And several shuttles. And one of the Badgers. But I don’t think it’s sunk in for people.”
“They’re professionals. If things get messy, they’ll come around.”
“I hope so, because if the Azoren hit us, it’s not going to be a light peck and they run away.”
“You’ll do fine. I’m sure of it.”
“I wish I had your calm and confidence, Colonel.”
It was good to know his voice wasn’t giving away his concern. Patel, Gadreau…there was so much potential for things to go awry, and he couldn’t really share his concerns. “I wish we had more shuttles or other craft we could send you. All those losses…I’m sorry.” Although only losing half was better than anyone could have realistically expected.
“There’s a new wrinkle I needed to tell you about.” She sounded even more annoyed now.
“Oh?”
“A robot. At least that’s what my senior engineer tells me it is.”
“You’re being bothered by a robot?”
“No. But we found one here. Part of one. Its design is old, from before the War of Separation.”
“That seems odd.”
“So we don’t have something down here? You or Agent Patel?”
“A robot? The GSA uses newer robots when they use them at all. I would assume the SAID do the same.”
“Could I talk to Agent Patel? Maybe get him to bring that gunship of his down here?” Now there was heat in her voice.