Officer Harland rested against a partition wall behind a desk, holding his shoulder. Officer Lee attended to the wounded man.
Captain Kobol gestured to Victor. “Put down the weapon.”
“Chimera will be here soon, and then you will know—”
Red splattered on the wall behind the gun-wielding maniac, and his body folded onto the floor like a deflated concertina. Clio stared down the barrel of her smoking blaster. How many civilians has the monster murdered? No better than the damn Chits.
Captain Kobol shot Clio a disapproving glance before turning to Officers Harland and Lee. “Are you okay, Harland?”
“Lee’s patching me up, sir. As soon as I catch my breath, I’ll be right as rain.”
Officer Lee gave the Captain a thumbs up. Kobol nodded and made his way to the scientists at the back of the room, Sanchez walking by his side.
Clio and Nakamura searched the bodies. They collected Victor’s security access card and several dropped weapons. Clio rolled a cold scientist onto his back and found the name Boris Dorval on his ID-tag. “Must have died when the gunfire went off earlier,” she whispered.
They joined Captain Kobol and the others at the back of the lab room as he questioned the scientists. They wore black and white uniforms, and saddened expressions. Thinking they had been rescued, they dropped their arms to their sides.
“Keep your hands where I can see them.” Captain Kobol pointed his gun at the nearest scientist. He wasn’t taking any chances. “No sudden movements. Officer Sanchez here is gonna search you. If you show up clean, then you can move.”
“You’re the Confederation?” a female scientist said before slumping onto the floor, sobbing into her hands.
The man next to her watched as her shoulders heaved. He clearly wanted to comfort her but decided not to risk getting shot.
Sanchez frisked them one by one. “We’re Confederation Marines.”
“Victor kept talking about an organization called Chimera.” The male scientist they had heard from the hallway stepped forward, arms still raised. His name tag identified him as Dr. Josh Baker. “He said they would arrive soon and show us the light. Anytime we asked what he meant, he would get angry and start firing his gun.”
“Who’s Chimera?” Kobol’s arm swept to take in the room. “Someone care to tell me what the hell happened in here? Where is everybody?”
“It was Victor,” Josh said. “When those things invaded, we locked down the labs…standard protocol. We have enough power and supplies to last us years. Apart from the fighting outside, the first few days were fine. But after that…” He hung his head and ran his fingers through his greasy brown hair.
“Spit it out,” Nakamura pressed.
“One by one, the head scientists started disappearing, until only Victor and Boris remained. We still aren’t sure, but we think they killed the others.”
“If Boris was helping Victor then why’s he dead?”
Josh swallowed. “From what I gather, Boris and Victor worked for these Chimera people. I think Boris started having second thoughts after Victor let all those colonists die outside the main doors.”
“That would explain the blood stains out there. It must have been a slaughter. What about lab security?” Kobol eyed a bloody uniformed guard on the floor.
“They were subcontracted by the Confederation, but it turns out they were in Victor’s pocket all along. They started openly taking orders from him as soon as the invaders attacked the city. He locked us all in here. As each day wore on, he grew more erratic. Started killing people for no reason.”
“And you cowards just watched?” Clio struggled to conceal her disgust. “Watched all those colonists die…and your colleagues?”
“We’re scientists.” Josh squirmed under her gaze. “We aren’t trained to fight.”
“You don’t need training to pull a damn trigger.” She pointed her gun at him and pretended to fire.
He protected his face with his arms.
“That’s enough, Evans.” Nakamura put his hand on her shoulder, and Clio backed down. “What happened before we arrived?” the Aegis asked. “It sounds like Boris and Victor had a difference of opinion.”
“When you turned up outside the building, Boris and Victor had an argument about letting you in. When Boris purged the thermal vents earlier than usual, Victor knew he was up to something. Boris got to the control panel…opened the doors and locked out a bunch of systems so Victor couldn’t see. They struggled for a bit, but Victor shot him in the end.”
“And you’re the only people left in the building?”
Doctor Baker looked at his collogues. “As far as I know.”
“They’re all clean, sir,” Sanchez said.
Nakamura and Kobol lowered their weapons. Clio did the same but didn’t take her eyes off Josh.
“Where’s Project Zero?” Nakamura said.
“I’ll send you the lab schematics and mark the hangar’s coordinates.” Josh walked to the nearest terminal. “Do you plan on taking the ship? She’s never been fully tested. Victor locked out the hangar’s systems and killed all the pilots. He was afraid someone would try to steal the ship before his Chimera friends got here. Boris didn’t like that Victor had killed the pilots. Victor claimed that his friends would arrive with more. That’s why we thought you might be Chimera.”
“It sounds like Chimera was trying to get their dirty paws on classified Project Zero information. Could be the same people who leaked the data the Aegi order detected,” Nakamura said to Captain Kobol. “The hangar being locked down could cause problems, but we’ll work something out. Evans, can you use my keys to access the hangar from here?”
“I’ll give it a try,” she said, reaching for the nearest terminal.
The vox crackled as Captain Kobol opened a channel. “Sergeant Lynch, it’s all clear up here. I’m sending you the location of a hangar. Take the civilians there. We’ll join you soon.”
“Sure thing, sir,” Lynch replied.
Clio tried accessing the hangar twice before giving up. “I’ve got control of a few local systems, Sai, but access to the hangar’s denied, even with your codes. Their firewalls are beyond me. We’ll never get in without Victor’s codes or some kind of override,” she said, guilt at killing the lead scientist setting in.
Nakamura nodded. “Hey,” he gestured to Josh. “How to we regain access?”
The scientist pointed to a flashing light on another terminal. “It looks like someone’s trying to contact the labs.”
“Answer it,” Clio ordered.
Josh obeyed, and words punctuated with weapon’s fire spilled out of a speaker.
“—do you read me?”
“Lab control, reading you loud and clear,” Josh answered.
“This is Officer Briggs of the SS Bakura.” His voice was almost drowned out by the noise.
Clio’s heart jumped at hearing they had made it so far.
Kobol ushered Josh out of the way and held the radio switch. “Captain Kobol of the Confederation Marines. What’s your situation?”
“We’re in the tunnels below Xerocorp Labs. Entrance B-23. Heavy Chit activity. Plenty of injured. Care to let us in? Don’t know how much longer we can hold ‘em.”
“Copy that, Officer Briggs.” Kobol invited Clio to take the terminal. “After you.”
Clio located the correct system protocols and executed the commands but was denied access. She attempted another hack from her SIG, but the lab’s state-of-the-art security was more advanced than anything she’d ever seen. “I can’t get in. Everything apart from life support, shields, and communications is out.”
“Boris must have locked out the other systems so Victor couldn’t get in,” Josh offered. “It explains why they couldn’t get surveillance back online. Just as well or they would have seen you coming.”
“How do we get access back?” Kobol snapped.
“I’m a materials engineer,” Josh said defensively. “I don’t know anyth
ing about computers beyond the basics.”
“Anyone else?” The Captain eyed the other scientists, but no one came forward.
Clio thought about it. There was a chance she could find a back door if she had access to the correct system databases. “I might be able to get us in from the data control center.” She turned to Josh. “Where are the server cores?”
“You’ll need a key card to get in. Here, take mine.” Josh handed her his card and pointed to a door at the end of the room. “The main server room is on this floor toward the middle of the building. I’ll mark it on your map.”
Clio’s SIG bleeped as she accepted the file.
Nakamura lifted his rifle. “I’ll tag along. I’ve got the access keys for the ship, and we can’t have anything happening to our only starship pilot.”
Kobol reconnected with Officer Briggs. “Lab control to Briggs. We’re having trouble accessing the system, but we’re working on it.”
“Please hurry.”
“We need to shut this place down,” Nakamura said. “We can’t leave anything intact for these Chimera people…or the Chits for that matter. If the invaders mean to attack other planets, Project Zero might be the only thing we have that can stop them. We can’t risk it falling into the wrong hands.”
Captain Kobol read his map. “We can set charges on the thermal control breakers. That’ll overheat the central core. Fail-safes should trigger and confine the blast to the lab premises. I’ll assign a team. We’ll meet at the hangar control room when we’re finished.”
Josh’s expression told Clio that he didn’t like the idea but knew better than to argue.
Nakamura led Clio to the door the scientist had pointed out as Kobol barked orders. “You four. You’re assigned to guard Ensign Evans and Aegis Nakamura. If anything happens to either of them, don’t come back, or I’ll kill you myself.”
Clio and Nakamura ran through the doorway, the four Marines in tow. She followed the flashing beacon on her SIG, glad that the servers were so close. It sounded like Briggs and the others were in real trouble down below.
She checked her TEK’s battery and found it hovering just over four percent. As Clio turned a corner, she assigned more power to the joint actuators and picked up the pace.
Clio opened the data-center door using Josh’s keycard. Nakamura ordered the four Marines to guard the hallway and followed her inside.
As they entered, lights flashed from high above, illuminating multiple rows of server-core racks that stretched to the end of the long room. Without her helmet, Clio felt the chill on her face as the noisy environmental units filled the space with cold air. When the door closed behind them, two master-terminals arose from the ground on each side of the central walkway. Clio went to the one on her right and started the hacking process. Needing the assistance of her custom-built program, she subtly slipped her secret data crystal into the terminal interface while Nakamura tried to access the second terminal behind her.
Breaking the first security measures took longer than she would have liked, but her program finally granted her access to the terminal. Getting into the data core was another matter entirely. She prodded for a backdoor via stacked sub-routines but navigating between data clusters that way was beyond sluggish. The system was equipped with an active security artificial intelligence that kept her hacking program busy.
A rumble from deep below rocked the room, and she looked to Nakamura.
“Must have been Grimshaw,” he shouted over the sound of the fans.
Clio wiped a bead of sweat out of her eye despite the room’s environmental cooling. “This is taking too long!” She pounded the terminal. “The AI is too clever.”
“Nonsense. I’ve seen you rig an ancient comm tower. This is child’s play.”
Nakamura was right. She just needed to figure out a way to distract the security protocols. Then it hit her. She wrote a quick injection program and set it on an exponential-growth loop. That’ll keep the bastard busy.
She removed the data crystal, returned it to the hidden cavity in her finger, and walked to Nakamura. “Swap terminals.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t touch anything until I say.” Clio slipped her crystal into the interface and hacked the second terminal. She searched the data cluster’s system resources and found her plan had worked. The AI was preoccupied with the injection attack, allowing her to move around freely. She deactivated security first then brought lab systems back online bit-by-bit. “I’ve got surveillance working.”
She continued to hack with the assistance of her program, her fingers moving as fast as they had on the Bakura. “Optical feeds should be appearing on your display any second now.”
“Good work, Evans,” Nakamura said. “What about those subline doors?”
“Door access controls are near the bottom of the stack. The way the system’s designed, I need to work through them one at a time. Going as fast as I can.”
“Just keep doing what you’re doing,” he said. “I’ve got that optical feed you were talking about. I’ll check on Briggs and the others.”
“When you find them, you should be able to patch the audio through your vox using the green icon in the bottom-left corner of the terminal screen.”
“Got it.”
Clio finished bringing lab maintenance back up before moving to the research facility controls.
“I’ve found them,” Nakamura said. “Looks like they’ve caved in one of the tunnels. Would explain the tremor we felt earlier.”
“Tell them the door will open soon.”
“Aegis Nakamura to Officer Briggs. Do you read?”
“Reading,” Briggs answered. “Where are we with the door?”
“Evans is working on it. It’ll be open soon.”
Another familiar voice cut in. “Commander Grimshaw here. Make it sooner. We’re almost out of ammo, and it’s just a matter of time before the Chits find another way through.”
If Clio hadn’t been concentrating so deeply, she would have smiled at hearing the Commander’s voice.
“We’re going as fast as we can, Commander,” Nakamura said. “I’ll check the tunnels using the surveillance network and see what the situation is with the Chits.”
“Keep us posted. Grimshaw out.”
Clio looked over her shoulder at Nakamura as access to the security doors loaded. “The security AI is eating up resources while dealing with my loop, so this is taking a while. We’re at twenty-four percent.”
“How much longer?”
“About five minutes.” She blew a strand of hair out of her eye. “It’s hard to tell.”
“You’ll have to make it sooner. I’ve just located the Chits. They’ve rerouted to a secondary tunnel that leads straight to Grimshaw’s position. They’ll be on them in no time.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Clio cycled through system processes and killed anything non-essential that drew on resources. She watched the loading bar as it progressed a fraction faster. “It’s just over sixty percent. That’s as good as it’s going to get without killing the system entirely.”
The lights flickered, and the fans grew deafeningly loud.
Aegis Nakamura looked at her suspiciously.
“It wasn’t me.” She checked the system’s status. “It’s the AI. It has a secondary function that makes it restart the system if it’s been locked out for too long. Lab shields are down.”
“Dammit. Can you bring them back up?”
“Not while the door access files are loading.”
A crash sounded from the hallway, barely audible over the whirring fans and servers. Gunfire quickly followed.
“Shields coming down must have let Chits in.” Nakamura ran for the hallway. “Make sure that subline door opens and get those shields working again asap.” The gunfire grew momentarily louder as the Aegis opened and closed the data-center doors.
Clio checked the tunnel cameras. Grimshaw and his troops fired on the advancing Chits. The loading bar hi
t ninety-nine percent, and the tunnel doors snapped open. Grimshaw and the others hurried through and Clio force-locked the security door behind them. She navigated to shield controls and reloaded the lab’s barriers. An error appeared on the terminal’s visual display. The shield generators had been damaged. Either the Chits had already gotten to them, or Victor had set them up to fail.
With system resources freed, Clio transferred files from her secret data crystal and loaded them into an encrypted message. Given that the facility was going to be destroyed, no one would ever trace the signal back to her. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. She entered the address her contact had provided and hit send.
Only then did it occur to her that the contact may have worked for Chimera. They seemed particularly interested in the Bakura’s most recent mission. Clio told herself that Chimera didn’t need someone like her when they already had operatives inside Xerocorp Labs. She refused to believe that she had colluded with an organization that had slaughtered countless colonists in cold blood. Her contact had claimed that he was just an information broker, but Clio had never met him in person, so he could have been anyone. Her mind raced back and forth, and she punched the terminal in frustration.
Suddenly she realized the gunfire in the hallway had died away. Raising her weapon, she hurried to the door and swiped the access panel. She pulled back, her finger ready to squeeze the trigger, as the door hissed open.
Nakamura appeared in the doorway, his complexion a ghostly white. Blood dripped from his lower lip, and a long black blade protruded from his abdomen.
34
The Way Up
Grimshaw and Sergeant Wallace put several floors between themselves and the sublines before stopping for a brief reprieve. They had seen too many Chits bring down doors to feel comfortable staying in the sub-levels.
They climbed the stairwell and exited onto the lab’s fourth floor. Bright overhead beams lit up the long corridor, the passage disappearing to a point as it stretched the length of the building. A freight elevator took up most of the wall to Grimshaw’s right and windows lined the corridor to his left. He walked to one of the windows and looked out over vast swarms of milling Chits. The throng pressed against the building and poured in through broken openings in the lower levels.
The Galactic Sentinel: Ultimate Edition: 4 Books with 2000+ Pages of Highly Entertaining Sci-Fi Space Adventure Page 24