Freedom Express (Book 2 of The Humanity Unlimited Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Harry had stayed up later than he should have examining the base. It was significantly larger than he’d expected. It would take them a very long time to explore every nook and cranny. The number of people that had once lived here must have been staggering.

  Almost as much as the central jungle.

  They’d found stairs to take them down to that level, but he’d resisted the urge. It was late enough by the time they’d worked everything out that the others in the party had been in their suits too long. They’d retreated to the landing bay.

  Since Sandra and he had exposed themselves to the atmosphere, he’d had someone bring in cots and supplies for them. He figured that if they hadn’t gotten sick in a few days, they probably wouldn’t.

  Sandra shook him awake far too early the next morning. “I found something funny.”

  “Oh, good,” he said as he stretched. “I needed a laugh.”

  “Funny strange, not funny ha-ha. Get dressed, have a snack, and come with me.”

  He took his turn at the portable latrine, dressed, and had a breakfast bar. He considered putting on the suit, but decided not to. Sandra wasn’t wearing hers. Just ship’s coveralls.

  “Okay, now tell me what we’re looking at.”

  She gestured toward the larger corridor. The one they believed the original owners had used for cargo. “I took a walk down that way. I found more than I bargained on. I’m not quite sure how to explain it.”

  “Then let’s go solve the mystery.”

  He followed her down the corridor. It quickly opened up into a larger warren of storage rooms. There were a lot of cargo containers. A number of wide lifts served other levels.

  Sandra led him to the closest of them. “I took a ride down in this one.”

  “That wasn’t very bright,” he said with a frown. “If it had broken down, we might not have found you for weeks.”

  “I took my radio and I left a note on my bunk. Anyway, there aren’t any stairs in this segment, so my options were limited. Come on.”

  He sighed and stepped into the elevator. It looked remarkably similar to the ones used on Earth. Sandra pressed the key for the lowest floor. He was starting to get a drift of the numbering system. This one was fifteen levels beneath them.

  That was a lot of cargo for a dead world.

  The elevator dropped quickly into the depths of Mars. He wasn’t sure what to expect when the doors opened, but the area looked very much like what was above them.

  “Okay. Now what?”

  “We go on the other side of these crates and you explain what I’m seeing.”

  He followed her around the imposing stacks and stopped when he saw the far wall. It looked…odd. Rather than being somewhat curved, like the rest of the walls, it was flat with a series of arches. Three large ones, to be precise.

  The arches led into shallow alcoves. He walked over to one and stepped inside. It was a dozen meters deep with metal ribs all along its length. No other exits. Nothing stored there. Each of them looked the same.

  Harry turned to Sandra with a shrug. “I’m at a loss. Seems odd, but I’m sure they used them for something.”

  She nodded. “I know they did. Look down.”

  The floor was made of grav plates, much like the rest of the base. The scuffs indicated someone had traveled over them a lot.

  He felt his eyes narrow. Traveled where? The worn paths led into the alcoves.

  “Now you see,” Sandra said. “Something was moving crates into and out of the alcoves.”

  The width was about right for the few cargo lifts scattered about. The thick wheels would fit into the worn areas.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “Why move crates into those shallow areas and then take them back out?”

  “No clue. Did you notice the floors in there? Stone. Not grav plates.”

  Harry went back into one of the alcoves and examined the area closely. The wear only came inside a little way. Then it ended abruptly just in front of the far wall.

  He went to one of the cargo lifts. It was a one-seat affair much like a forklift back home. He’d had occasion to use one a few times. They weren’t that complicated. He was willing to bet this one wasn’t either.

  A touch of the screen brought it to life. “These people really built to last. This thing is still operational.”

  The console was mostly graphical. That made figuring out the controls possible. In short order, he was able to raise and lower the fork, as well as control the angle of the tines. Forward and reverse were simple enough to figure out.

  He circled around until he found a crate off by itself and cautiously picked it up. The sides held.

  An image of the area in front of the lift came to life on the console. That was useful, since he couldn’t see around the crate without lifting it high off the ground.

  Harry brought it around to the first alcove and a numeric keypad appeared off to the side of the video. There were twenty spaces above it.

  He randomly tapped out twenty numbers. They filled the open area above the keys, but nothing happened other than them flashing orange for a moment and vanishing.

  “It’s looking for a code. Maybe there’s a secret door in there.”

  “It’s solid rock,” Sandra said as she climbed up beside him. “What are these?”

  The keys she was pointing at sat beside the numeric keypad. They kind of reminded him of up and down arrows with a grey button between them.

  She pressed the up arrow and the code he’d just entered appeared. The numbers flashed orange and disappeared again.

  “Invalid code, maybe,” she said. “Let’s see if there are any others in memory.”

  She pressed the up arrow twice and a different sequence of numbers appeared. These stayed on the screen and turned orange.

  Still, nothing happened.

  “Maybe the center key enters them.” Harry pressed the grey button and the numbers flashed and then turned gold.

  “What the hell is that?” Sandra demanded. The area inside the alcove was becoming misty.

  They climbed off the lift and stared at the alcove as the mist grew thicker until they couldn’t see the stone behind it. That made no sense. There had been nothing back there but rock.

  Small bits of lightning seemed to shoot through the mist, running from side to side as well as up and down. They backed up a little as the light show got more energetic. Then the mist seemed to puff out and faded somewhat. Enough to see through it, in any case.

  The alcove was deeper. Much deeper. Darkness stretched out farther into it than the light could penetrate.

  He stepped close and could see misty air swirling inside. The floor in the new area had grav plates. He felt an unexpected chill in the air, too. As though the temperature had fallen ten degrees. Or more.

  “I’m taking a look.”

  He stepped into the alcove and almost immediately regretted it. The temperature in this new room felt Arctic. He shivered almost uncontrollably as he walked completely into the new area. He felt the gravity drop closer to Mars standard. His breath puffed into a cloud as he gripped his arms around his torso.

  The chamber looked more like a lounge in an airport than a cargo area. Complete with a wide viewing port.

  He looked over his shoulder through the arch. Sandra stood there looking at him with some concern. The wall on this side was much more artificial looking, but substantially the same as the Mars side.

  Harry stood shivering in the darkness, staring out the glass at a deep sea of stars. The outside of the port was in space. And he was standing somewhere other than Mars.

  * * * * *

  Paulette Young met Jess after breakfast. “I have version one of the translation program ready for testing.”

  Jess took the phone from her and looked it over. It seemed as though the camera was displaying directly on the screen. “Excellent. Let’s go to the core and give it a look.”

  Once they arrived, J
ess sat at the console. A touch brought it to life.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “Hold the camera so that the image shows the writing. Keep it as steady as you can.”

  She held it so that she could see the writing. It morphed as she watched, the letters actually changing to English. It was very finicky, whole words changing back and forth with each movement of her hand.

  A two-handed grip proved more stable. Some words didn’t change, but most did. The grammar of the translation was terrible, but she could make sense of what she was reading without too much difficulty.

  “Let’s see. ‘Protected terminus track. Assessed period before advent twenty-six qwen.’ I suppose that means the course is locked and we’ll get there in twenty-six qwen. Whatever that is.”

  Paulette nodded. “Based on what you’ve said, you picked the destination and the computer locked it in. Like an autopilot. A qwen is a unit of time. My best guess is that it’s about an hour and a half.”

  “So, we get to wherever we’re going in almost two days. That’s not terrible.” She touched the destination icon and new text appeared. She’d done this before, but had no way to determine what it said.

  The translation was a little clearer this time. It read, “Abandon automated passage or alter swiftness.” She touched the second option and an up and down slider appeared with text beside it. They were close enough that they might as well complete the journey.

  Paulette leaned forward and read over Jess’ shoulder. “It looks like you can boost speed or slow down. The lower options look open ended, but the faster speed is capped.”

  “That makes sense. There’s a top speed to any vehicle. I do like the sound of four qwen, though. Six hours. And I thought this thing was already hauling butt.”

  Jess slid the slider up to the fastest speed. A box demanding confirmation appeared. It used the word ‘sanction’ in the translator window. She gave her permission and the options disappeared.

  “I guess we’ll see how accurate the timer is. We’ll want to have people here monitoring the console. If need be, we’ll cut speed or change course. I wish we had a clue where we’re going.”

  “It seems like it should say,” Paulette said. “Let me try something.”

  The other woman leaned forward and pressed on the destination, but kept her finger there. A different screen opened with text in it.

  “How did you know to do that?” Jess demanded.

  “My phone behaves differently when you press and hold. I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. Let’s see what we have here.”

  The text was brief and to the point. ‘Investigation transport Padjar. Peril: Ravencraft.’

  “What the hell does that mean?” Jess asked. “Investigation transport? What’s a Padjar? And it’s dangerous because it’s Ravencraft?”

  “We still have a lot to learn,” Paulette admitted. “We’re making progress working on the stored documents. As we identify more of them that we can accurately translate for ourselves, we can use them to fine-tune the data this program uses.

  “Emily has been a tremendous help. She’s working on updating the HUD in a spacesuit helmet to do the same kind of translation.”

  “That would make exploration a lot easier.”

  Jess’ radio squawked to life. “Jess, this is Ray. I think you need to come up here.”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “No, but we found something I can’t explain.”

  “On my way.”

  She handed the phone back to Paulette. “Keep working on this. I want as much improvement on the program as possible by the time we get to wherever we’re going.”

  “We’ll do our best, but that might not happen in just six hours.”

  Jess headed up to the battle scene. The bodies and small combat equipment were gone. Doctor Crocket and his wife were cataloging everything. With him grumbling about how much context they were losing.

  Liberty Station’s chief engineer was standing near one of the arches with Rex. “What’s up?” she asked as she stopped beside them.

  “This wall,” Rex said. “Based on the number of pockmarks all around it, a lot of people were shooting at it.”

  “Okay.” She examined the wall. There were indeed a number of scars all around the arch. Based on the weapons they’d recovered, the impacts came from fast moving flechettes.

  Ray gestured at the alcove inside the arch. “This area, however, is scar free. That seems statistically unlikely.”

  She shrugged and looked in. It was maybe ten or so meters deep and had metal ribs along the stone. “Maybe one of the vehicles was in front of it.”

  “Look at the arch itself.”

  One look told her what he meant. The arch was scarred and chipped. The wall area at the back of the arch was pristine.

  Jess put on her engineer’s hat and started looking at angles. “The shots came in from several directions. You can tell by how the rock chipped. Yet this alcove is free of damage. It’s as though something filled the area. One of the vehicles wouldn’t stop a hundred percent of the projectiles.”

  She stepped into the chamber and examined the arched entrance from the inside. It was stone, as expected, but there were dozens of small projectors on the inside. They looked like little fans, so probably not narrow beams.

  “There are some projection devices in here. Maybe they display an image onto the wall. No controls, though.”

  “We have another oddity,” Ray said. “There are definitely no exits for the ships. And no way the heavy-worlders could get in here and surprise everyone.

  “And how did they get the cargo inside here? Not through the main entrance. This just doesn’t make any sense.”

  Jess shrugged. “There’s no telling. I figured out how to increase our speed, by the way. If the translation program is working correctly, we’ll arrive at our destination in six hours. You might want to get some sleep and food. It might get busy in a hurry.”

  Rex seemed amenable to the idea, but Ray Proudfoot declined. “I don’t like things I can’t explain. I’m going to borrow that translator and see if I can’t turn something up. You might want to take your own advice, though. You’re running on fumes.”

  She smiled at him. “I could use a cat nap. Wake me if you find anything important. Otherwise, I’ll see you in a few hours for the big reveal.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Queen stepped off the plane in Chicago, annoyed. He’d barely made it to the Yucatan Spaceport when one of Pembroke’s associates called and insisted they come back right away.

  He’d demurred and told her that they’d be back as soon as he was done, but she’d insisted—vigorously—that he needed to “get on the damned plane right the hell now.” Her exact words.

  Pembroke swore she was one of his best agents, so Queen had grumpily acquiesced. This had better be worth the delay in his schedule or both of the FBI agents would regret it. Deeply.

  A short black woman with a no nonsense air about her waited at the bottom of the plane’s steps, a black SUV parked behind her. Queen wasn’t attracted to women, but even he could recognize her beauty.

  Her professional stance made him suddenly doubt his certainty that this was going to end badly for her. She didn’t seem the kind of person who panicked and demanded her superiors come running when she hit some minor bump in the road.

  Pembroke stopped between the two of them. “Secretary Josh Queen, Agent Brenda Cabot. Lay it on us, Brenda. What’s so important that it couldn’t wait? And how did you end up here? I thought you were in Michigan.”

  “I have my sources,” she said, her voice a little deeper than Queen expected. “And I am the FBI’s resident expert in odd cases like this.

  “Not that this is like anything I’ve ever seen before. And I’m hurt you tried to keep me out of it. What we found is probably classified, so we should talk in the SUV. If not, it sure as hell will be the moment you see it.”

  Queen gestured for her to precede. “Lead on,
Agent Cabot.”

  She climbed behind the wheel and Pembroke sat in back with Queen. The SUV took off as soon as they were strapped in.

  “We traced a bunch of offshore companies and subsidiaries belonging to or associated with Mrs. Bennett,” Cabot said. “We also pulled the call logs from her phones. As part of the monitoring while we were searching the kill site, we got a FISA warrant to capture the phone numbers of every cell phone used in the area.

  “We didn’t get the contents of the calls, but we got the caller and the length of the connection. Most of them were innocuous, but a few stood out. Burner phones. That was unusual in a stand up place like this, so we focused our attention on those first.”

  Pembroke nodded. “I assume that led you to someone interesting.”

  “Yes, sir, it did. Doctor Ethan Wagner. He purportedly owns a small engineering firm here in Chicago.”

  Queen smiled a little. “Purportedly. I gather he works rather more directly for Kathleen Bennett.”

  She nodded. “Yes, Mister Secretary. Once we knew the name of his company, we were able to link them, though it wasn’t easy. Someone went to a lot of trouble to bury the connection.

  “We got a no knock warrant and raided the place in force this morning. We didn’t find anything connected to the murders, but this might very well be linked to the larger case with the spaceship her ex-husband built.”

  She handed Queen a tablet that had been sitting on the front passenger seat. “The pictures speak for themselves.”

  He examined the image on the tablet. It looked like the framework for some kind of aircraft. One he wasn’t familiar with. It was either mostly stripped or they hadn’t completed it yet.

  “What am I looking at?” he asked.

  “That’s a spaceship.”

  He felt his eyes widen. “Pardon me?”

  “Did you hear about the hubbub in Guatemala? Someone blew up an archaeological dig. Collapsed a Mayan pyramid.”

  He nodded. “Grave robbers, I assumed.”

  “Perhaps, in a manner of speaking. Apparently, this was the target of the theft. Doctor Wagner was a little short on details. He only knew bits of the story.