Popkess replaced Dollarhyde. “Our main objective is to determine if there are any alien life forms present. If we find nothing alive, then we secure the site and send an all-clear to the Science Corps. If we do find something alive, you are not to engage unless attacked. We all know what happened the last time some jackass got too trigger happy. The last thing the Recon Marines need at this point is a repeat of the battle of Alpha Centauri-A. Remember that you are being monitored and will be disciplined if it is determined that you acted aggressively in a situation that did not merit it.”
There were mumbles and grumbles all around. Marsden knew from experience that any disciplinary action meted out wouldn’t compare to the utter horror that was the mountain of paperwork they would have to fill out if anyone witnessed such a thing. Nothing was more effective at policing itchy trigger fingers than other grunts afraid of red tape.
“However, if the situation does merit it,” Dollarhyde added. “Be prepared to sweep the site clean.”
That elicited a much more appreciative murmur from the group.
“Does anyone have any other questions?” Popkess asked.
“Yeah,” Bayne muttered to himself. “Why is your voice so annoying?”
“I heard that Bayne,” Popkess said. “Next time you want to insult your current commander, maybe you should make sure your personal mic isn’t recording everything you say. I hope you’re prepared for extra cleaning duty when we get back to the Dixon.”
Bayne frowned, but for once he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.
“Five minutes to landing,” Dollarhyde called out, no longer bothering to use her PDM. Everyone took that as the sign to stow their PDMs and do any final checks needed on their gear. Bayne turned around in his seat to make sure that his heavy chain gun was securely fastened to his back. Axel had her standard MH-56 rifle in hand, but she tended not to use it if she could. Her speed and small size made her much more effective with smaller weapons that she could take with her into tight spaces. More importantly to her, she had pockets full of various explosive devices at convenient places all over her armor.
Marsden didn’t have anything special in terms of weapons. He simply had his MH-56, two pistols as side arms, and a knife in his boot. His specialty had less to do with his weapons than with his ability to operate nearly any machinery or transport in a pinch. If either of the pilots were to suddenly drop dead here and now, he would be the one expected to land them safely. He might not be able to guarantee that the touchdown would be pretty, but he would have no problem making one of his bets that everyone on board would live.
Dropship Alpha made planet fall with no problems, however, and the teams immediately filed down the boarding ramp and formed up. The two pilots stayed on the dropship, keeping ready for a speedy exit in the event of an emergency. That left twenty-two people per team, and both Popkess and Dollarhyde took a moment to make sure everyone in their team looked prepped and ready.
While they did this, Marsden took stock of the environment around them. They were in a rocky mountainous region, but given what little they’d been told about the planet, he suspected that most of Bullfinch-2 was like that. All of the marines had put on the half-mask re-breathers that covered the lower part of their face to filter out environmental contaminants, but even through the mask he could feel how thin the air was. The sky was a purplish color despite the local star high in the sky, and there was a small moon hanging on the horizon. Actually, compared to some of the places they’d had to go in the past, this planet wasn’t really that bad.
“Alright, let’s move out!” Dollarhyde said to Charlie team, and they all started their march toward the ship. They kept a defensive posture, but Dollarhyde hadn’t yet given any signal that they needed to worry yet. All of the marines carefully watched their surroundings, fully aware that, if the crashed ship had indeed had survivors, they could be hiding in the surrounding ridges and preparing an ambush. But their approach to the north side of the ship was uneventful.
The ship had appeared strange enough to their human eyes from the picture they’d seen on their PDMs, but up close Marsden wasn’t sure what to make of it. They all assumed they were going around the rear side, but there was nothing there that indicated any mode of propulsion. Some of the bulbous areas could have been weapons, but otherwise they didn’t appear to have any purpose. The entire ship looked like a gigantic white cigar covered in tumors.
It took them nearly half an hour just to reach the halfway point of the ship. Here there was an enormous gash in the side that was several stories tall.
“What do you think caused that?” one of the marines asked.
“Looks like it scraped up against one of the mountains when it crashed,” someone else said.
The hole in the side was about fifty meters long and about three meters above them. Marsden figured that they would easily be able to climb up the side and find their way in, but Dollarhyde held up her hand in a gesture for them to stay back for the moment.
“Popkess, do you read?” Dollarhyde said into her PDM.
“Read you,” Popkess replied.
“We’re in position. How about you?”
“We’re here, but Arizona and L’wongo are having trouble figuring out how to open the door.”
Arizona’s voice now came over the PDMs. “There’s some kind of interface here, but the power is down. It looks like it’s been that way for quite some time now. We’re looking for some kind of manual release.”
Mingo, who was standing several marines down from Marsden, spoke into his own PDM. “Are there any markings?”
“Yeah,” Arizona said. “And just like the rest of the ship, they look similar but still different from Stenani writings.”
Marsden piped in. He was rather pleased with himself that he had something to offer at this juncture. “On a Stenani ship, there would usually be depression above the door. It would be about fist sized. That would be their version of a manual release.”
“Fat lot of good that would do us,” Popkess said. “This door is twice the height of Bayne. None of us would be able to reach it.”
“Hold up,” Arizona said. “Just because there’s similarities to a Stenani ship doesn’t mean that a release would be in exactly the same place.”
“Over here!” Marsden heard someone else say through the PDMs. “There seems to be something like what Marsden described over by the side of the door.”
There was a pause while Charlie team waited for Delta team to try it out. “It’s not doing anything,” Popkess said. “You got any other great ideas over there, Marsden?”
“Wait, here’s another one on the other side,” Arizona said. “It doesn’t seem to be working either, but maybe if we tried both at once?”
After another pause, there was a whooshing sound from the other end of the PDMs, followed by several whoops of celebration.
“Can it, everyone,” Popkess said. “Big deal. We managed to get a door open. If you’re waiting for a medal, you’re going to have to wait longer.”
Marsden smiled as he heard a familiar voice grumbling. It wasn’t loud enough that the PDMs picked up exactly what he said, but Popkess apparently didn’t have the same problem.
“I heard that, Bayne. Now not only do you have to do extra cleaning duties, but you’re going to have to do all the toilets as well. Now, would you like to get stuck on onion peeling duty as well, or are you ready to shut up?”
Bayne didn’t say anything at all.
“Good answer,” Popkess said. “Okay then, Dollarhyde. You and your team ready?”
“We’ve been ready,” Dollarhyde said. “If you take any damned longer, I think Axel is going to start getting twitchy and just blow holes in the side of the ship just for the hell of it.”
Marsden looked over at Axel, who shrugged at him as if to say, Maybe.
Popkess didn’t sound too pleased with Dollarhyde’s sass, but the other team leader he couldn’t punish Dollarhyde for talking back to him like he d
id his own people.
“Fine then,” Popkess said. “Let’s go in and see what there is to see.”
August 2, 2147 (Earth Calendar)
1759 Greenwich Mean Time
Location: Interior of Unknown Alien Spacecraft, Bullfinch-2
Marine Heartbeats Detected on Planet: 46
Charlie team carefully climbed up into the rift in the hull and then again waited patiently while Mingo did another scan. “Still no life signs detected, although the interference we were getting earlier is much stronger.”
“What could be causing it?” Dollarhyde asked.
“Not a clue,” Mingo said. “It’s some kind of radiation or energy we haven’t encountered before.”
Marsden heard Arizona comment through the PDMs. “And the technology isn’t matching anything of the intelligence we have on file regarding the Stenani. So either this is something they’ve been keeping so secret they’ve somehow managed to keep it from the Galactic Intelligence Agency, or else this truly is a completely new race.”
“If this energy is the product of some new technology, then it has to be residual rather than active,” Mingo said. “Because it doesn’t look like there’s any power going to anything in this ship.”
“Never make assumptions,” Axel muttered nearby. “That’s how you end up with false data.” Neither Mingo nor Dollarhyde seemed to hear her. They were both too busy doing further scans while Marsden and the others took in their new environment.
They were in some kind of storage, from Marsden’s best guess, although it was impossible to be sure. The room was long and narrow with organic, uneven corners. They made Marsden think that the ship might not have been built, but possibly grown in some way. A couple of marines slowly crept up to the walls to take a closer look, but they didn’t get too close. For all anyone knew, there were security measures built into the ship that would kill them if they touched anything.
Dollarhyde described everything they saw to Delta team, who in turn gave them a description of their own area. The main entry was apparently cleaner, since it was absent the dirt and dust that had blown in over the years through the gaping hole, but it was otherwise very similar in design.
“Now we’re definitely starting to look different than the Stenani,” Mingo said.
“No immediate threats detected,” Dollarhyde said. “Popkess, we’re going to head right in the hopes of finding a command deck or control room. You and your people head to your right and see if you can find anything resembling an engine room or power supply.”
“Roger that,” Popkess said.
Mingo and several others used their PDMs to map the area around them and their route as the marines cautiously filed out into the hallway, all of them keeping their weapons ready at all times. The rest of the ship was done in the same organic design as the first room, and while they passed a number of rooms, neither Marsden nor any of the others could identify the purpose of most of them. For the next five minutes of slowly proceeding through the corridors, they found nothing of interest. From the bits of chatter that they picked up from Delta team, they seemed to be finding much of the same. It was almost creepy, how little they were finding. If the ship had truly crashed, Marsden would have thought there would be bodies of the crew scattered around.
The first body they found was right in the middle of the hallway when they turned a corner. Dollarhyde signaled them all to stop for a few minutes, then silently directed them to take up positions around the body. If she was expecting other members of the crew to pop out, however, she would be disappointed. This was the only sign they had found so far that the ship had been inhabited at any point.
“Delta team, we’ve found a body,” Dollarhyde said into her PDM. “Presumably it was one of the crew. Looks like he or she has been dead for quite a while.”
The reply that came back from Popkess was broken and fuzzy. “—that again? We’re… hearing you.”
“Must be the energy interference that’s messing with our instruments,” Mingo said to Dollarhyde. “There must be enough of whatever it is between our two teams that it’s starting to mess with the communications.”
“Crap,” Dollarhyde said. “What about life sign monitors? Are we still able to pick those up?”
“Those broadcast on a different wavelength,” one of the other marines next to Mingo said. “So far they don’t seem to be affected.”
“Thank God for small favors,” Dollarhyde said. “Popkess, did you catch any of that?”
“Some,” Popkess said. “Your video feed… not giving enough details, so I can’t… Please repeat… originally said.”
“I said we’ve found a body. Dead for a long time. Have you found anything similar yet?”
“Negative. In fact…” The rest of his sentence was cut off by static.
“Say again, Popkess.”
“I said it’s a… how clean it is. We’re not… biological material at all. Like something… -eaning the whole area on a…”
“I think I picked up enough of that to understand what he’s saying,” Dollarhyde said. “Mingo, Chunda, you two probably have the most xenobiology knowledge among us. Take a look at this body and tell us what you see.”
Both Mingo and Chunda kneeled down next to the body. Marsden couldn’t help his curiosity. He moved slightly out of position to get a better view of the two as they examined the alien remains.
“Definitely not a Stenani,” Mingo said.
“No, but the basic shape has a lot of similarities,” Chunda said. “I think you were right that we might be dealing with something related. Maybe it’s some kind of evolutionary offshoot. If the Stenani weren’t so hostile to humans, we might be able to ask them about this.”
“But the Stenani are hostile,” Dollarhyde said. “So we’re going to go with the assumption that if any of these things are still alive in here, they’re going be out for our blood.”
“Why isn’t it decayed at all?” one of the marines asked. “If a body had just been sitting here for years, wouldn’t it be nothing but bones by now? Or at least mummified, or something like that?”
“Actually, it is nothing but bones,” Mingo said as he gently nudged the body with the toe of his boot. It moved very easily, as if the whole thing was light from being hollow. “I think we’re looking at an exoskeleton.”
“Like an insect?” Marsden asked. “The Stenani don’t have exoskeletons, do they?”
“No, they don’t,” Chunda said. “And that’s a pretty huge difference between Stenani biology and what we’re seeing here. They have skeletons like we do. Evolutionarily, we shouldn’t be seeing something with an exoskeleton and the typical Stenani features like the beak and the skinny limbs. I would almost guess that this guy was some kind of genetically altered mutant or hybrid.”
“I’m not seeing anything on the body that looks like a weapon,” Dollarhyde said.
“I don’t either,” Chunda said. “I am seeing this, though.” He pointed out several holes in the exoskeleton that were about the width of Marsden’s thumb. “Conway, want to come take a look at this?”
Conway, Charlie team’s medic on this mission, came forward and gave the holes a closer inspection.
“What do they look like to you?” Dollarhyde asked her. “Some kind of weapons damage? Was it shot?”
“No, I don’t think so, at least not from any kind of weapon we would recognize. If this had been caused by a bullet, the bullet would still either be in the body or somewhere nearby. And I don’t see any bullet holes in the walls or shell casings nearby.”
“What about an energy weapon of some kind?” Chunda asked.
Mingo shook his head. “The only alien race that we’ve confirmed has been able to develop real working energy weapons so far are the Manises. And they only have them as a deterrent against other races attacking them. The Manises consider themselves to be peaceful and neutral.”
“And even if they weren’t,” Conway said, “I’m willing to bet such a weapon would le
ave some kind of darkened scoring mark.” She sharply looked up at Marsden. “It’s just an expression, Marsden. Don’t you dare try to con me out of any of my money.”
Marsden held up the hand that wasn’t holding his rifle in a “don’t look at me” gesture. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said.
“Yeah, right,” Conway mumbled, then turned back to the body. “But do you see these tiny marks around the holes? If I had to guess, I would say those are teeth marks of some kind.”
“Teeth marks?” Dollarhyde asked. “Something ate it?”
“Something rather small, by the looks of it,” Conway said. “Although I don’t think it’s something we need to be worried about. It just means that Bullfinch-2 isn’t as devoid of native life as we thought. It has its scavengers.”
“I don’t know,” Mingo said. “The life scans on the way here looked pretty empty.”
“It’s not going to matter,” Dollarhyde said to them. “Something that small’s not going to pose any threat to us. Popkess, I hope you’ve been hearing all this?”
The PDMs popped and crackled with static, but there was no other response.
“Popkess? Talk to us. Can you still hear us on this end?”
There was a long pause before Popkess answered. “Holy hell, Dollarhyde. You guys need to see what we’re seeing.”
All of their PDMs lit up with a live feed from Popkess’s camera. Just like their video feed to Popkess, there were enough breaks in the signal that it was hard to watch. At first it was hard to tell what they were seeing, as there was no sense of scale. All they could see were the dark walls with blue spots against them. It wasn’t until the camera caught a couple of marines in the shot that Marsden realized how large some of these bubbles were. They were opaque and bright in color, a contrast so stark against the plain black walls that the bubbles seemed to glow. They protruded out of the walls much like the formations on the outside of the ship.
Recon Marines Page 2