Freedom Express (Book 2 of The Humanity Unlimited Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  She looked through the scratched faceplate on his helmet. “See the nose and lips? They’re shaped the same way as ours. The position of the eyes and ears are consistent, too. As odd as this sounds, I’m betting this guy was human.”

  Rex looked unconvinced. “Built like this? He must be twice my width. That’s not normal.”

  “We’ll let the medical team look him over, but I can’t see an alien species evolving on another world with such precise features. This guy has some human in him.”

  She stood and looked at the rocks. “Any idea how much further?”

  “The rocks were shifting pretty easily, so I’m thinking we’re almost through. Let’s get this fellow out of the way and see if we can break through before dinner.”

  “Don’t forget we’re passing Neptune in a bit more than an hour. Plan on eating lunch on the fly or after.”

  They backed out of the way and let a couple of suited figures load the dead man onto a makeshift stretcher and carry him out. In the reduced gravity, that wasn’t much of an effort.

  The men got back to work clearing the rubble and it didn’t take more than ten minutes for a gap to develop at the top. Rex peered over the lip with a light. “The tunnel seems to be intact after this. We can get the debris out of the way and brace the ceiling. We’ll keep the gravity low, too. That should prevent any more collapses.”

  Clearing everything took about half an hour. The corridor continued on, but the lighting was out. So was the gravity. It would be interesting to watch Ray do damage control on an unfamiliar base without knowing the technology.

  “Let’s stop now,” she said. “We can grab a quick bite and head out for the surface. We don’t want to miss this. And since we can’t control our course or speed, we’re sightseers.”

  “We need a guard,” he insisted. “We have no idea what’s beyond this. Until we do, I’ll post some people. I’ll stay, too. Wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t.”

  “That’s probably a good idea. Maybe we can come back through past Saturn and give you a better show. Thanks. I’ll only be an hour or so. Then we can go explore the rest of this base. And find out what was so important they had to fight over it.”

  * * * * *

  Paris was still dark, but it wouldn’t be long before it began coming to life. Nathan’s men had found a nest of live terrorists. Not bad for only being in town a few hours and not very complimentary of the French police.

  The unprepossessing apartment building was mostly dark. The residents would begin rising for the day in an hour or two. Well, normally they would. In this case, they’d wake up rather more abruptly when his team took out the people in the apartment on the third floor.

  They snaked a camera under the door to make sure it wasn’t booby-trapped. Then Nathan picked the lock while his people kept watch. They’d avoided the cameras at the street level and he’d rather the police never knew they were there at all.

  Once the door was open, he entered with his suppressed pistol leading the way. Unlike how Hollywood portrayed them in the movies, a shot through a suppressor was hardly silent. It just reduced the noise down to something that didn’t sound like a gunshot.

  Combined with using lower powered ammo that didn’t break the sound barrier, it was good enough. Anyone that woke up would assume that someone had dropped something. Unless they got into a gunfight, then all bets were off.

  Nathan didn’t expect anything like that. These idiots hadn’t even posted a guard to watch over the bomb making materials scattered across the kitchen table.

  It looked as though they were making some improvised explosives out of chemicals. Nice, but hardly showy enough for his plans. He pulled some C4 and a timer out of his pack and set it among the jugs and wires. That would get the police a lot more excited.

  The charge was small, but he needed to leave most everything in the apartment recoverable. It was hard to frame someone if the police couldn’t find the planted evidence.

  One of his men was leaving a scattering of papers from his mother’s lab in the living room while the rest kept a close eye on the bedrooms. He’d prefer not to kill any of them. That would just raise questions. This was supposed to be a case of incompetent terrorists blowing themselves up.

  There’d been a big bomb maker that had killed himself and his entire class of suicide bombers a few years ago. He’d laughed for days. Who doesn’t love irony?

  Nathan pulled some equipment he’d brought along and left it on the other side of the kitchen from the bombs. It had low-grade radioactive material. That would really get them excited.

  He didn’t want to make things any more difficult for the police than he had to. If he could put a signed note confessing to the crime, he would, but that was over the top. They’d just have to deduce his lies for themselves.

  A noise from one of the bedrooms captured their attention. A toilet flushed and the shower came on. Someone was up.

  The timer still had fifteen minutes to go, so he’d rather not risk someone wondering where the extra bomb came from. He motioned for two of the men to follow him into the bedroom.

  Based on the mess, a man lived in the room. No self-respecting woman would tolerate the filth. He shook his head at the stack of girlie magazines. So much for deep religious fervor. The bastard probably drank and fornicated, too.

  Not that Nathan objected to any of those things. Hell, he was all about drinking and fornicating. But he didn’t lie about who he was, either.

  The bathroom door was unlocked, so they got in without a problem. A cheap shower curtain was all that separated them from the terrorist. He could hear the man singing something catchy in French under his breath. Well, Nathan was going to screw up his day for sure.

  On a silent count of three, one of his men yanked the cheap plastic barrier aside and the other shoved the man against the wall of the tub, clamping a hand over his mouth. Nathan planted the end of his suppressor against the suddenly terrified man’s forehead.

  “Allahu Akbar,” Nathan said pleasantly. “If you have a few minutes, my friends and I would like you to settle a dispute for us. Nothing too complicated, but we wondered what really makes shit bags such as yourself blow up schools and gun down random people in the name of God. It really has us confused.”

  He had no idea if the man understood him, but he obviously comprehended the weapon. That would do for now.

  They dragged him out and duct taped his mouth, hands, and feet. Harry shut off the water as his men carried their struggling prisoner out.

  He considered killing him here, but again, that would raise questions in the simple minds of the police. Better to keep things straightforward.

  Besides, this had been more fun than he’d expected. Maybe he could get some other names from the bugger and do this again.

  Nathan didn’t lose any sleep over the things he did, but even he had his limits. Wanton murder of children was a bit much. Scum like this asshole bred like lice here in Europe. He’d never lack for targets. Besides, everyone needed a hobby.

  They hustled the idiot into their van and drove slowly away from the apartment building. A wireless camera on the street level gave him a good view of the exterior as the bomb went off. It blew out the windows, but left the walls intact. Good.

  The interior of the apartment was on fire, but more than enough evidence would remain to nudge the police to the appropriate conclusions.

  They might have fun shooting up the remaining terrorists, too. The blast hadn’t been strong enough to do more than stun them. Well, maybe cause some broken bones and shrapnel wounds. They’d be in shape to resist the police with force when they showed up.

  They’d wanted to kill for their god. Now they could die for him instead.

  Nathan pressed an icon on the handheld and the video feed vanished. The micro charge in the camera wouldn’t make a mess and it would hardly draw any attention as it destroyed the camera. Not compared to the burning apartment building.

  The sun would be up in a few hours.
That left plenty of time to settle their guest in and touch base with the people he’d had scanning the target area with ground-penetrating radar. The plane and equipment hadn’t come cheaply. He hoped his mother’s money had gotten her some positive results. She tended to blame the messenger in cases like this.

  * * * * *

  The door leading into the rest of the base proved more resistant than Harry had hoped. It was either locked or unpowered.

  They’d have to do this the hard way. He’d ordered the team to bring up the portable airlock. That meant they didn’t have to worry about decompressing the base, if it still held pressure. There was no telling how fragile the artifacts inside were, so it paid to be careful.

  Just in case the door wouldn’t open because the bay was depressurized, they tried it again once they had the airlock pumped full of air. Still no joy.

  Then they started on the wall near the door. People often reinforced the obvious points of entry. The wall might be easier to breach.

  Only, in this case, that hadn’t proven true. The wall was made of stern stuff.

  The precautions proved wise. There was heat and pressure inside the base. The testing unit indicated the atmosphere was breathable. That probably was bad for a lot of potential artifacts, but it meant the base was operational. At least life support was.

  They snaked a camera in and looked over the large room on the other side of the door. It was consistent with a cargo receiving area. He wondered what they brought in from Mars. It wasn’t as though the planet had ever supported a population. Still, people didn’t build bases without a reason.

  The controls to the personnel lock seemed simple enough. They slid a manipulator inside the room and pressed the button beside the door. The inner door closed and the outer one opened.

  “I feel like a B&E man,” he said.

  Sandra shook her head. “You’re a mess.”

  The chamber was big enough for four people to enter. Harry found a manual lock that he thought had disabled the outer door. He turned it off and cycled them through.

  The large room had a number of crates sitting off to one side. A few had fallen and come apart. After a thousand years, it was a miracle any of them were still together.

  He walked over to one of the breached containers and examined its contents. Food, maybe? After all this time, it was hard to tell.

  So, they’d imported their food all the way from Earth—they certainly hadn’t been growing anything outside—or they were shipping it from here to other locations that couldn’t grow food.

  Outposts in the Martian desert? Again, why? Maybe they’d find out inside the base.

  A short set of stairs led up to the room overlooking the loading bay. The lights came on as soon as he stepped inside. The controls were a lot simpler than inside the ships. He could figure out the main exterior hatch and the pressurization controls just based on how they looked.

  “I’m going to try to bring up the bay pressure,” he said over the suit radio.

  He removed his glove and ran the faux slider up.

  “I’m hearing something,” one of the men in the bay said. “I think it’s pressurizing.”

  The control for the exterior hatch went orange. No doubt because it wouldn’t open with pressure inside. Good enough. He’d need to station someone here to facilitate entrance and exit until they worked out a procedure to make sure everyone stayed safe.

  There were controls for the hoists that lined the roof of the bay. He moved one of them to be sure.

  There were displays he didn’t understand. Probably communications. A strobing icon there might mean some kind of emergency beacon from the crashed ship.

  They hadn’t detected one, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Radio might not be the preferred method of communication for these people. They might use something more esoteric.

  “Okay, we need to patch the hole in the wall,” he said. “Once we do that, we can go in and out as we choose. With the personnel airlocks, we can leave everything in habitable conditions.”

  The loading area had two corridors that led deeper into the base. One was large enough for cargo, the other for people. He opted for the smaller one.

  They passed two emergency pressure doors. Both were open, but would slam closed if there were a loss of atmosphere in the loading area. Smart.

  “Are we going to test the air?” Sandra asked. “We could see things a lot better without these suits on.”

  He was feeling a bit winded. It took a moment to figure out why. The gravity was up. Maybe close to Earth normal. It must’ve been slowly getting stronger as they walked.

  “That might not be a bad idea, but I don’t want to do anything until they check for viruses and bacteria. We’d be taking a big risk.”

  “Sooner or later, someone is going to have to take a chance,” she said. “Sit it out in quarantine until we’re sure that everything is good. It’s the only way.”

  He stopped her as she reached for her helmet. “You’re right, but that’s my job.”

  Harry popped the seal on his helmet and lifted it clear. The air smelled old. He’d traveled by submarine a few times. It seemed like that. Canned and recycled. There was a very faint hint of decay in the air. He couldn’t imagine what hadn’t already rotted in a thousand years.

  A noise caused him to turn and look at Sandra. She was pulling off her helmet and shaking out her hair.

  “I thought I said I was doing this,” he grumbled.

  “Oh. You meant only you. My bad.”

  “You’re a terrible liar.”

  She grinned. “No, I’m a great liar. I just don’t need to fib this time. It smells as if something was alive in this place in the recent past. Shall we find it?”

  They continued down the hall with the rest of the team—still in their sealed suits—following behind. They passed a number of doors with strange writing, but he decided not to stop.

  After three intersections, Harry decided the base was huge. At least the size of a stadium, if he believed the curves of the cross-corridors. Though they passed two elevators, he decided to press on and see what was at the center of the base.

  There was some kind of noise coming from ahead. He couldn’t place it at first, but then it hit him. He just couldn’t believe it.

  Sandra stared at him. “Am I hearing what I think I am?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  They came to an atrium like the one many cruise ships favored, where the interior cabins all faced an open inner area. It was circular and at least a hundred meters across.

  Harry grabbed the rail and looked over it. The open area went down dozens of levels. The floor was a jungle similar to the one in Guatemala. Complete with live vegetation, birds, and insects. Now that they were close, he could make out the individual cries of different small creatures. And the occasional roar of something larger.

  “How the hell can this exist on Mars?” Sandra asked.

  “Damned if I know. I guess we’ll need to make our way down to take a better look at some point.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Jess made it out of the airlock a few minutes early and got to watch the large, dark planet grow huge above them. She supposed it was pure chance that the base entrance was facing the planet, but it might not have been. Perhaps they’d programmed the computer to do so because people might like watching the spectacle.

  And a spectacle it was. They came close enough for the ice giant to fill the sky. What looked like solid color from far away resolved into deep blue swirls that were quite distinct. She didn’t see any large storms like the Great Dark Spot, though.

  NASA had discovered that original massive storm when Voyager 2 flew by in 1989. Telescopic observation years later showed it was gone, but others had come and went since.

  They were recording everything to send back to Liberty Station. The NASA probe had visited the cold world, but her people were the first to come in person. They wanted to document everything they could.

&nb
sp; At the speed they were traveling, the flyby was over almost as soon as it began. It was still long enough for surprises, though. Someone called out and pointed. One of the moons was just visible. Amazing.

  The extinct comet rotated to keep Neptune in sight as they pulled away. That answered the question about the orientation being chance. Neptune shrank to a dot and was lost among the stars. Perhaps they’d be able to come back and spend some quality time later.

  Jess waited until everyone else had entered and then made her way to the cave in. Rex and a couple of men stood nearby, still in their suits, but with weapons in their hands.

  “Do you really think those are necessary?” she asked. “I’m pretty sure that nothing is alive in there.”

  “It never hurts to be careful.”

  She shook her head. “Let’s go see what we can find. Then we can get some real food.”

  Rex turned on his suit light and led them down the freshly opened tunnel. It quickly turned into the scene of a full-scale battle. Bodies littered the floor, some in pieces.

  Jess was glad she had her helmet on. She suspected there was still some kind of odor, even if just the musty scent of mummified corpses.

  Most of the dead looked to be heavy-worlders, though she saw a number of normal humans inter-spaced with them. The regular humans didn’t have armor. They wore the same coveralls as the others they’d found thus far.

  Why was that? And where had the heavy-worlders come from? None of the quarters they’d looked at had seemed comfortable for someone with that body type.

  “Look at how the bodies are laid out,” Rex said. “The regular people were overrun. They had no weapons. Most of them had been moving toward the cave in. Away from the aggressors.”

  “What about this guy?” she asked.

  The dead man in this case looked to be a normal human, but he was in armor and had a rifle. He seemed to have died going the other direction.