“That’s what it looks like,” Shauna agreed. “Must have used a magnetic or optical trigger. Jesse, we need to-”
“Yeah, I know, and I am not gonna argue with you one bit. Send that scanner on ahead of us, I don’t care if it slows us down. Last thing I want is my pretty face to end up like the Headless Horseman here,” he gently tapped the dead Kristang with the toe of a boot.
“Horse-man?” Nert leaned forward to see inside the shattered helmet. “You think Kristang appear to be horses from your homeworld? Why then do you call them ‘lizards’?”
“No, I,” Jesse rolled his eyes. “The Headless Horseman is a character in a story,” he had a vague memory that got Rip van Winkle confused with Sleepy Hollow. “You can look it up later. All I meant is, this guy is missing his head. Wait, I don’t see any clan insignia on his armor.”
“There is no insignia,” Nert confirmed. “He also does not have any of the identity implants that Kristang warriors use, like the way you American soldiers use ‘dog tags’. That is curious. Whoever he was, he did not want anyone to know.”
“Yeah,” Jesse stepped back warily. “More important, whoever he was working for didn’t want anyone knowing who he was. They just left him here.”
“The Kristang only retrieve their dead if they died honorably,” Nert observed.
“Unless they didn’t have time to recover his body,” Shauna stepped carefully around the shattered remains of the mystery corpse.
“Or they couldn’t,” Jesse leaned to look around the curve of the hallway. “There was another explosive device ahead of us, this one was set into the floor. If their whole crew got killed down here, no one would be left to bring this guy back.”
“There’s no body this time,” Shauna shifted her attention to data from the little scanner.
Jesse examined the data carefully before replying. “Yeah. Somebody got lucky. Or-”
“Or what?” Nert asked.
“Give me a minute.” Jesse looked up at the light fixture that had concealed a bomb, and down at the body. Slowly, carefully, he rolled the body on its side to peer under it, and set it back down.
“Jesse,” Shauna prodded her fellow sergeant. “This guy is dead, and we know why. Mystery solved. If we have any chance to rescue those-”
“It’s not about a rescue at this point.”
That was the last thing she had expected to hear. “It’s not?”
“No. This doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t?”
“None of this. What do you see?” Jesse asked, sweeping a hand to encompass the hallway around the armor-suited body.
“A dead guy?” Nert guessed.
“A guy who didn’t die the way it looks like,” Jesse insisted.
Shauna knelt down to examine the body. “How do you know that?”
Jesse knelt down beside her, and again rolled the body away from where it had lain. “See the floor under the Headless Horseman here is clean? Not damaged by stingers.”
Shauna took in a breath. She could see chips from stingers all around, but not under where the body had been. “He was already lying down when the bomb exploded?”
“Had to be,” Jesse said. “So, if he was laying down, how did the blast focus on his helmet? Take a closer look inside his suit, at his injuries.” He knew what she would find, so he explained. “This guy was shot by a rifle round. There’s a hole in the back of his helmet, see? No way a shotgun blast of stingers punched all the way through this helmet. This corpse,” he kicked the armored suit in disgust, “was already dead on the floor when that claymore blew up.”
Nert reached to scratch his head, forgetting he wore a helmet. “Why?”
“That’s the question I want answered,” Jesse was distracted again. “This looks like a group of lizards came down this tunnel to ransack the place, and ran into boobytraps, right? They got here and tripped the claymore’s sensors. That’s what we’re supposed to think.”
It was the Ruhar cadet’s turn to gasp. “Sergeant Colter is correct. I asked my suit computer to analyze the void patterns on the walls and floor here. You can see here,” he used the laser designator built into his suit’s left wrist to outline an area where there was a gap in the chips and gouges from the scattershot stingers. The gap was farther back along the hallway, toward the surface of the asteroid. “And here, and here. There were at least three other people in this hallway when the claymore exploded.”
“Ok,” Shauna hated complications, and the simple rescue mission had suddenly become very complicated. She thought she understood what had happened in the underground hallway, and she knew her boyfriend would appreciate telling the story himself. He had, after all, discovered the mystery.
“This guy,” Jesse unslung his rifle and used its muzzle to point to the armor-suited corpse. Shauna noted he had disengaged the first level of the rifle’s safety features. “Was on point. Someone farther down this hallway took him out with a headshot. His buddies,” he pointed to the gaps in the chips blasted in every surface where the claymore had exploded. “Rushed in to engage. That’s what the enemy planned. They wanted this guy’s buddies to get right under that phony light fixture before the defenders triggered the bomb. But, the defenders jumped the gun, or the dead guy’s buddies got smart. They hung back, maybe waiting for reinforcements, or for heavy weapons to be brought forward, or they figured it was a trap. The defenders triggered the claymore when the attackers were too far away. Their suits protected them from the blast. That’s why there aren’t four dead guys right here.”
“Makes sense,” Shauna stood up. “We need to call this in. The Colonel needs to know.”
“Why?” Jesse asked. “Our mission out here is to clear facilities the lizards are handing over. We’re doing that.”
“Because,” she insisted with hands on her hips. “Our mission on this rock is a rescue.”
“Fine,” Jesse’s mind was already elsewhere. “Call it in. Tell Perkins we found a minor mystery. Shauna, hold on that. Nert, do you see what’s missing? Don’t use your suit computer, use your noggin.”
“My nogg-in?” The cadet tilted his head at the unfamiliar expression.
“Your head. Your own brain.”
Nert walked slowly, pacing halfway around the body, before he looked up suddenly. “His rifle is missing. And the spare ammunition that should be attached to his belt.”
“Give that man a cigar,” Jesse remembered he was speaking to an alien. “That means you got the right answer. The dead guy’s buddies didn’t recover his body, but they did take anything they thought might be useful in an extended firefight. They didn’t give up, they kept going.”
“They also didn’t come back,” Shauna added. “There are going to be more bodies up ahead.”
“Maybe more than bodies,” Jesse made a show of checking the rocket launcher of his rifle. In the confined space, they would need to be careful about using heavy weapons. “Shauna, Nert, get ready for trouble.”
Shauna did not like taking orders from another sergeant, even if he was her boyfriend. Especially since he was her boyfriend. On away missions, they rotated taking the lead, and this mission was Jesse’s turn to be in command. It still irritated her. “This guy is dead and cold. He’s no threat to us.”
“He isn’t. Nert, look at the data on residue from the explosion. When was it?”
Nert had been assuming the incident happened at least months ago, before the Kristang formally surrendered the star system. “The residue?”
“The chemicals decay at a predictable rate after an explosion,” Jesse said patiently. “You can ask the scanner to-”
“Yes, yes,” Nert mumbled, head down as he requested the data. “The explosion occurred,” he looked up, surprised. “Only three days ago? But, the team assigned to clear this asteroid arrived around that time.”
“They did,” Jesse said without even a hint of smugness. He just wanted to solve the mystery. “The lizards cleared out of this place, when? Two, thr
ee days before our team arrived?”
Nert checked the records before he responded. “Two days, according to the official calendar. But the Warshon detected a Kristang dropship leaving here, less than one hour before the clearance team arrived. They lost it after it engaged stealth.”
“What does this mean, Jesse?” Shauna tore her attention away from the scanner long enough to ask.
“If you want my guess, I think after the lizards who owned this place officially bugged out, a second group snuck in to grab whatever they could haul away. Or maybe they knew something valuable was here, and they came specifically to steal it. Something went sideways, because there were already lizards here, and the defenders fought back. Their dropship hung around as long as it could, then got away while they could.”
Nert bounced on his toes excitedly. Too excitedly in the low gravity, the action nearly had his helmet bumping the ceiling. “The attackers never came back to their dropship, because they all died?”
“That is one possibility,” Jesse pointed his rifle’s muzzle at the floor of the hallway in front of them, where the gloomy half-light faded into utter darkness. “But behind Door Number Two, we could have a group of lizards hiding out down here.”
“They did not leave when they could?” Nert checked his own rifle, despite the icons in his visor informing him the weapon was in perfect order.
“Maybe they couldn’t leave,” Jesse suggested. “Either they got what they came here for and could not retreat for evac in time, or they stayed behind because they’re still looking for something. All they’d have to do is wait for the initial survey team to clear this rock. After the survey team moves on to their next assignment, the lizards come out of their hidey hole.”
“Ok,” Shauna sent the little scanner scurrying on ahead of them. “Now we really have to call this in.”
Colonel Perkins did not like hearing there might be Kristang somewhere under the surface of the asteroid. She came close to recalling the team, until Jesse persuaded her it was just a theory, and they promised to be extra careful.
Eighty meters down the hallway, deeper under the surface, they found three more bodies, shattered by rifle fire. Two were wearing armor similar to the first corpse, the other dead Kristang was clad in an older, heavier type of suit. Shauna designated the two parties as Attackers and Defenders, over the objections of Jesse. “For all we know, there were two groups trying to ransack this place before the Ruhar showed up. None of these guys were wearing the insignia of the clan that owned this rock.”
“One of them had time to plant antipersonnel devices,” Shauna countered. “They were here longer.”
Jesse knew it was best not to argue, and it didn’t matter anyway.
The tunnel hallway branched off twice, but both heavy doors led only to chambers where maintenance crews could access equipment for air, water and power distribution. The air ducts were far too small for a Kristang to crawl through, and the scanner’s active sensor pulses did not detect anything unusual in the ducts for fifty meters in either direction.
Jesse took a turn operating the scanner with Shauna and Nert in front of him. The scanner walked along, its sticky feet keeping it firmly attached to the floor although Jesse could have made it crawl along the wall or ceiling if that provided a better view. “Whoa,” he called out softly. “Hold up here. We got something up ahead.”
Shauna instinctively stepped in front of Nert, nudging the cadet backwards. While Jesse intently reviewed the scanner data, the others only maintained a view from the scanner through a small window in the upper right corner of their visors, and neither were paying any attention.
Until they heard Jesse gasp just as the scanner feed blanked out.
“What happened?” Shauna stepped backwards while peering through her rifle scope, making Nert back away behind her.
“Dunno,” Jesse said quietly. “The scanner just stopped feeding data. I sent a recall command, and I’m trying to reset it now.”
“I can try,” Nert suggested.
“No!” Jesse was adamant. “I can do it.”
“That’s odd,” Shauna did not like what she was seeing, or not seeing. “The data of the last few seconds aren’t available. That shouldn’t happen.” She backed up to stand beside Jesse. “What did you see before it stopped working?”
Jesse did not reply, not verbally. He pressed his faceplate against hers and opened his eyes wide, silently mouthing ‘Don’t tell Nert’.
“Mister Jesse?” Nert noticed the odd behavior. “What did you see? I am sorry, I was not watching the scanner feed.”
“Don’t be sorry, Nert.” Jesse pulled away from a shocked and puzzled Shauna. “You were supposed to be watching for trouble, and that’s what you did. The hallway opens to a big space up ahead, looked to me like all kinds of equipment in there.”
Nert tried to be helpful. “The diagram shows environmental-”
“Yeah, all kinds of pumps and tanks and other stuff in there,” Jesse interrupted. “What matters is I saw a dozen or more dead lizards in there. There was a major firefight up ahead, and rifles and rocket launchers on the floor. Nert, you stay here, Shauna and I are going ahead to check it out.”
“I should go-” Nert began.
“We should call-” Shauna started to say.
“This is my operation,” Jesse used the knife hand, a slashing gesture. Nert understood what it meant and so did Shauna, and Sergeant Jarrett did not like being treated like a recruit. “You,” Jesse jabbed a finger at Nert. “Stay here. Stay here and stay alert for trouble. Jarrett, you’re with me.”
Shauna was torn. She opened her mouth, closed it, and decided the situation was too serious to remain silent. Whatever was going on, she needed to call it in. Perkins needed to know. With an eyeclick, she opened a message window to contact the Colonel. The window remained open, blinking in one corner of her visor. The pleading look on Jesse’s face, dimly illuminated by the glow of lights in his helmet, stopped her. This, she recognized, was a moment when she either trusted Jesse Colter, or she did not. With a blink, she closed the message window. “Nert, you heard the sergeant. Stay here and cover us. If there’s any trouble, you get back to the surface. Do not wait for us. Is that understood?”
“But, but,” the alien teenager was stung by being treated as a child. No, what really hurt was he was not considered part of the team.
“No ‘buts’, Cadet,” Jesse cut off the Ruhar’s sputtered objections. “If you hear any shooting going on, you haul ass out of here. That’s an order.”
Nert stiffened, coming to attention with the rifle across his chest. “Yes, Sergeant.”
Jesse led the way down the hallway as it curved. As soon as they were around a corner and Nert could not see them, Shauna deactivated her helmet communications system and stepped in front of Jesse, grabbing the back of his neck and pulling their faceplates to touch. “What is going on?” She asked, her voice muffled.
Jesse cut power to his comm gear. “Found something.” he pointed down the hallway ahead. “Something big. I killed the scanner and purged the last ten seconds of its memory.”
“What the hell did you see?”
“Something we can’t let the hamsters know about. Not until the Colonel decides they need to know. We Ok?”
“Yeah,” Shauna relaxed slightly, letting tension drain from her shoulders. “What is it?”
“I’ll show you,” Jesse gently pulled away and gestured for her to come with him.
The scene was just as Jesse described. A tall, wide chamber, filled with tanks, pipes, ducts, pumps and other equipment Shauna could only guess at. Almost every item in the chamber, including the floor, walls and ceiling had been shot with rifle rounds. She counted five blast marks that she judged to be from Kristang rockets. There had been a firefight there, a vicious battle.
A battle no one walked away from, based on what she could see. Hardshell armor suits, all of them missing clan insignia, were sprawled on the floor or on top of walkways, dra
ped over pipes or tanks where the Kristang died. “Shit,” she breathed, and Jesse heard her. They were far enough away from Nert than the cadet could not pick up the faint line of sight laserlink between their helmets, so they had restored power to their comm gear. They were supposed to record all information during a mission, including voice communications, but even a Ruhar cadet knew how to glitch a skinsuit’s data recorder.
“Five defenders,” Jesse used his rifle’s target designator as a fancy laser pointer. “Eleven attackers. All dead. Nobody gave medical care to any of these dead guys,” he noted. “There wasn’t anyone left alive when the shooting stopped. I figure the defenders got chased down that hallway, and trapped in here when the attackers blew the legs of that big storage tank,” he indicated a large gray tank that once held a thick yellowish liquid. It was shot full of holes and the top had been sheared away by a rocket warhead. “When the tank fell over in front of those big doors, there was no way out, except,” he jerked a thumb back over his shoulder, “back up the hallway.”
“All right. What is so damned important that all these guys died down here? Show me quick, before Nert gets ambitious and checks on us.”
Wordlessly, Jesse strode over to where the scanner had rolled against a smashed pipe, the little sensor drone’s legs folded up. Before showing her what the battle had been about, he opened a hatch on the scanner and removed its powercell. “Not taking any chances,” he explained, and set the scanner back down. “Help me move these guys.” He began pulling on a group of three Kristang who were somewhat entangled. Two of them were missing arms or legs, one had a helmet half shot away. The last one, on the bottom, was protectively curled around something, using his armor and body to shield the object from harm. The action had not done him any good, as three rifle rounds had penetrated the back of his suit and dark dried blood told his fate.
Shauna jerked upright. “Oh my God. Is that-”
“You got it,” Jesse winked. “This here is a gen-u-ine Elder power tap.”
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