Only one yet, Caroline thought to herself.
“Okay, Silas. Let’s go through the samples again. This time we’ll run a different sequence on them.”
“As you wish, Doctor Tao.”
Gentle shaking brought Caroline to wakefulness, but only marginally. She felt groggy and had a slight headache.
It was Nowak who was shaking her.
“You awake?” he asked.
“Getting there,” she replied.
“You fell asleep at the table. Again. That’s not good for you. You should have woke me.”
Nowak was a tall bear of a man with a gentleness to him. Despite his large build and long hair and beard making him look like a throwback Neanderthal, he had the manual dexterity that Caroline had always been jealous of. His ability to wield microscalpels was the best of any member of her twenty-one person expedition. Such deftness for a man that took up double the space in the rover of any other team member.
“Are you hungry?” asked Nowak. “I was about to make some breakfast.”
Calling the rations the rover was stocked with ‘breakfast’ or any other meal was a kindness they didn’t deserve. This was the fourth terran day they’d away from the base colony and already Caroline was sick of them. She couldn’t wait to get back to the base and have some real food instead of the flash-sealed rations she’d endured.
“Can I hope that breakfast is going to something that tastes wonderful?”
“You can hope,” said Nowak. “I wouldn’t hope too hard.”
Nowak placed two of the plate-sized rations into the food preparer, which blasted them with microwave energy. Within a minute both rations, containing a mixture of carbs, fats, and proteins, were ready to eat.
“They may taste horrible,” said Nowak. “But at least they cook quickly.”
Nowak took both meals out of the food preparer and place both on the table, placing one in front of Caroline, along with a fork and knife. She opened the ration’s covering, releasing the excess steam from the meal into the air.
“Ugh,” she said. “Salisbury steak again.”
Nowak swapped her rations with her own. His meal was ravioli with some broccoli on the side. They both gulped their meals, washing them down with drinks from their personal hydration flasks. Caroline’s flask had a green tea infuser added to it, which helped with the off taste that came with reprocessed water.
“Anything from Shirazi or Jeffs while I was sleeping?” Caroline asked.
“Just a quick message. They found more samples like the ones they already brought back.”
“Any like the big one?”
“Yes. They found another two of those.”
Would those two samples be like the sample that had the extra metal material in them? No matter if they did or didn’t. Caroline could now drill down into the sample she had to get that strange metal out of it.
“Did they say when they’re coming back?”
“They mentioned that they should be finished with this pass in a day or two and are trying to bring as much back with them as possible. They’ve only got a few containers, though.”
When the team had first found the opening into the ground, they followed standard research protocol and split into two groups; the first team would survey the area while the second team would stay in the rover and analyze anything found or brought back. Caroline, being the chief scientist and the team lead opted to stay in the rover and to lead the second team consisting of her and Nowak; her days of doing a lot of physical toil were far behind her. She was no longer the young and vibrant graduate student that loved digging at excavation sites. This she left to much younger people.
If Caroline were to tell the truth, she was feeling too old to even do surveying work any more. She’d much rather be sitting in an office, perhaps a home office, and doing analysis and research that way. But the sponsor had said they needed her out in the field to supervise all the digs. That had meant working at the research outpost and monitoring multiple teams as they worked remotely. At least, that was the plan. When Erica Luisina came down sick, Caroline had to take her place on the survey team.
It had been several days since the rover crew had communicated with the main outpost or made dumped any data, all because of the damn ion storm. Now the storm was over and hopefully Erica was feeling better and Caroline could trade places with her.
“Silas,” said Caroline. “Open up a voice channel to the outpost.”
In her alek, Caroline saw the outgoing voice request icon cycling through its active use animation. A moment later the voice channel connection was completed. There was a moment of silent then a strange male voice spoke up.
“Who is this?” it demanded.
“Never mind who I am,” said Caroline. “Who the hell are you?”
The voice on the other end of the call incoming to the outposts communication’s system sounded older but authoritative.
“Private First Class Jack Conway, acting Echo Team leader, from the PSS Dauntless,” he said. “Now, your turn.”
“Doctor Caroline Tao, in charge of the outpost. Why are you in my outpost, Private Conway?”
Jack wondered how much he could, or should, share over the open line. It was possible that the Shiveen may be listening. They’d been known to be able to hack into open mesh communications, but s far as he knew, they’d never been able to access the quantum tunneling between two alek AIs.
“Hold on, Doctor. I’m transferring your call to my alek. Please do the same.”
A moment later in his AHUD, Jack saw the connection to Caroline complete.
“Now, Private, what’s the hell is going on?”
Jack figured it was probably better to be honest with her.
“Doctor, several days ago the Shiveen attacked Pallas IV, completely destroying New Macedon and the other outposts on the planet. Since then, they’ve been scouring the surface looking for smaller outposts like yours and taking them out too. It looks like they were here a few days ago. We just fought off several Shiveen infantry who remained behind.”
There was a pause.
“Are there any survivors at the outpost?” asked Caroline.
“None. We found at least a half dozen dead here. I’m so sorry.”
There was another pause.
“How many rovers?”
“Just one.”
“That means none of the other rover teams made it back to the outpost. We had another three. They could still be out there, out of communication because of the ion storm.”
“If they are, the other fire teams from the Dauntless will find them.”
Jack didn’t add that that they’d probably be found dead, if found at all.
Another pause.
“There are four of us here,” said Tao. “Two of my team are at a secondary base just beyond the escarpment.”
“Ma’am,” said Jack. “We’re also here to determine why the Shiveen attacked.”
“That may have something to do with what we’ve found.”
“What did you find?” asked the marine.
Caroline paused. How much should she share with this marine? All the information that she and her people had collected was proprietary and corporate-owned. She’d signed a non-disclosure agreement with the sponsoring company, as had everyone else in her research team. Sharing that information was setting her up for too many legal headaches.
Nowak sat motionless at the table. He had only been hearing Caroline’s side of the conversation and had probably put together what had happened.
“Erica,” he asked. “Is Erica okay?”
Caroline took the big man’s hand in her own and tried her best to remain calm.
“There was an attack on the science station. Shiveen. I’m afraid everyone’s dead.”
Nowak’s eyes filled with tears. He and Erica had been a couple for several months now, after years of dancing around their feelings for each other.
She wasn’t supposed to be back at the science station. She wa
s supposed to be here with Nowak.
Not Caroline.
As Nowak sobbed softly, Caroline continued holding his hand.
“Doctor Tao,” said the voice of the marine via her alek. “What did you find?”
“It’s hard to explain. It’s easier if you see it.”
“There’s an operational rover still here. Send us your location and we’ll be there shortly.”
8 Moving Out
Jack’s alek received the research team’s location from Caroline and spat up a map into his AHUD. The team was about ninety klicks north east from the science station.
“Bandura, what’s the speed and range of those rovers?”
“Over the ground out there? Probably about thirty klicks an hour. Range is pretty far. It has a microfusion engine, not solar.”
From Jack’s brief view of the interior of the rover, he saw that it could comfortably transport four people, eight at a push. If they took this rover out to the science team, everyone could return in one, with at least one marine in each rover.
“Okay,” said Jack. “We’ll take that rover out to the science team.”
“What about the Corporal?” asked Anderson. Anderson and Bandura had been with Stone for over a year. He’d been their fire team leader through multiple engagements. Protocol was to return his body if possible, his tags only if not.
“He goes with us. I’m not sure we’re coming back here. The Shiveen know about this place. Bandura, get a data dump if you can from these systems. Anderson, get the Corporal and bring him to the rover.”
“Roger that,” said Anderson.
“Conway,” said Bandura. “These are corporate systems, not military. We shouldn’t even be looking at them, never mind copying them. There are rules.”
“We’re at war. There may be something useful in the data repositories here. Just grab what you can. If anyone gives you grief, you were following my orders. And see if you can find that AI.”
“You’re the new boss, Boss.”
While Bandura and Anderson went about their tasks, Jack made his way to the vehicle bay and the rover. He walked up the rear ramp into it, dropped his backpack on the floor, and sat down in the driver seat. Around him were numerous instrumentation panels complete with screens and many buttons. He found the starter button for the rover and pressed it, bringing the vehicle to life with a quick burst of whining that went from low to high pitch rapidly then disappeared. Panels and instrumentation lighted up showing that startup diagnostics were running. Jack used another touch panel to find the settings to pair his alek with the vehicle and was rewarded with the same startup diagnostic information appearing in his AHUD. He quickly cycled a few options to show additional information, including the navigation option.
He heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Anderson carrying a zipped black coffin bag, Stone’s limp body within it.
“Found the bag in the medical bay,” said Anderson as he gently placed the bag down on the floor of the rover. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a set of dog tags, tossing them to Jack. “Figured you’d want to hold on to these.”
Jack didn’t. He wanted Stone to be still alive and leading the fire team. Only a few days ago Jack had been preparing to graduate office school. He had always thought he’d have more time before he had to take charge of a group of marines and try to keep them alive. Now he was not only in charge of the rest of his fire team but he would need to keep four civilians alive too. He wasn’t sure he was ready for this, but who else was there to do it?
“Thanks,” said Jack. He looked down at the dog tags, a military tradition for countless centuries used to identify soldiers. Original made of metal, these were made of a specialized ceramic and contained a data chip that linked to the wearer’s combat alek. Almost like a black box, it recordeed information gathered just before the wearer died, providing proof of death and the moments before. Jack tucked the dog tags into a pocket and sealed the pocket up. He hoped this was the only set of dog tags he had to take back to the Dauntless.
Anderson pulled his own backpack off, then undid the straps that had been holding his weapon. He began looking it over.
Now they were just waiting on Bandura.
Jack opened a comm line through his alek to her.
“Bandura, you good?”
“Just getting the last of the data. Wanted to be thorough, seeing as I’ll lose connection once we get out into that weather.”
“Any luck on finding the AI?”
“Nope. I think someone took it. Weird for the Shiveen to do that.”
“Hustle,” said Jack. “There are civilians out there that need us.”
And Shiveen that were most likely hunting them.
On the bridge of the Dauntless, Laroux was not happy with what he was seeing. Battle information was streaming to his AHUD from multiple systems of the ship, and it didn’t look good. The Dauntless was a hell of a ship, but it was only one ship and it was facing off against three Shiveen heavy cruisers, one of them heavily damaged from expertly placed mass driver strikes. The Shiveen cruisers were accompanied by a few squadrons of strike fighters, many of which lay scattered in pieces around the Dauntless, its defense systems shearing them apart with high-powered flechette rounds.
“Captain,” said Nambo. “We just picked up another two heavy cruisers coming in from the other side of the planet.”
Laroux was sure that the Dauntless could take out three cruisers. Five, though? That was pushing it. Four perhaps if they could put that damaged cruiser completely out of the fight before the other two joined in. The Dauntless had enough ammunition, and the shielding was holding, but the Shiveen would have the odds in their favor and could trap the Dauntless between them and just bombard them.
Laroux made a decision.
“Commander, inform the crew we’re disengaging. We’ll jump to the sun and hold there for the following reinforcements.”
If the Shiveen followed them, the Dauntless would jump to the secondary staging area that had already been determined.
“Sir,” said Nambo. “We’ll be leaving our marines alone on the ground.”
“They’re marines. They’ll make it through. Drop a relay shell onto Pallas with details on what we’re doing. Hopefully that will cut through the ionizing radiation down there and get through to them. Then get us the hell out of here, Commander.”
“Damn,” Jack said aloud. He didn’t need to explain to Anderson or Bandura. They both saw the same message through their aleks.
“They’re leaving?” said Anderson. “I thought the Dauntless was a kick-ass ship.”
“It is,” said Jack. “But I doubt it will hold against that many Shiveen heavy cruisers. And I’m sure there’s more of them coming. Until the Dauntless gets back, we’re on our own.”
“At least we have some dropships,” said Bandura. “That will give us some air support.”
“Maybe,” said Jack. “Unless these storms get worse. Right now we need to focus on getting to the scientists.”
The path to Caroline’s rover overlaid on planetary topography showed that there was some difficult terrain to get past. Instead of a direct route, it was curved and required passing through an area that made for a perfect ambush point; there were some elongated rock formations that formed a natural valley.. Jack had activated the rover’s autopilot, freeing his team up to defend it if the needed. Bandura had been able to jury-rig motion tracking using their aleks and the primitive sensors of the rover. It only covered about half a klick in any direction, but it was better than nothing. Jack had considered driving the rover backwards so that Anderson could cover the entire front, but the rover move slower backwards than it did forwards, and speed was more important right now.
As they got nearer to the potential ambush location, Anderson opened the rear door and planted himself in the middle of the rover passenger bay. If anything came at them from behind, his heavy weapon would shred them to pieces. Jack and Bandura opened the two gull-wing side doors
of the rover, giving them both a firing arc that covered the entire sides of the rover and most of the front. The only area not covered was a small area at the front of the rover. Not ideal, but it would have to do.
The rover trundled towards the rock formations as the marines scanned around them visually and using the limited motion tracking. It would take just over three minutes to pass through the valley. During that three minutes, anything could happen. The Shiveen could swarm the rover from in front and behind. They could use the higher ground to lob down chemical bombardments upon the rover. Jack didn’t think they’d have mined the valley floor or even laid out any obstacles that would stop the rover getting through. Everything Jack had been taught about Shiveen infantry stated that they were fast and deadly and preferred skirmishes and relying on guerrilla tactics.
No-one in the rover spoke as they closed on the valley opening.
Jack’s mouth felt dry. His breathing was slow and calm. He ran through his combat training in his head, thinking of all the ways an ambush engagement could play out. To his surprise, it was almost calming for him to do this.
And then they were in the valley, the rover detecting its wall edges and compensating for them as it continued on. Jack realized that the raised gull wing doors would provide some extra armor if they were fired upon from above, but it made returning fire difficult. In fact, with everyone being inside the rover, they were unprotected from an aerial attack while passing through the valley. While Jack hated that idea, having someone be on top of the rover made them the perfect target to be picked off. Better the rover take some damage than he lose any more of the fire team.
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