by HR Ringer
Once settled into her dorm room with the other women accompanying her, she sent a brief note to Samantha lamenting the loss of privacy she would have to endure for the next month, but also wrote about her happiness at having an opportunity to learn more about the ancient people thought to be responsible for building the relays and the Citadel, something that far outweighed any negative feelings she had concerning her accommodations. She closed by wishing Samantha (and Xiùlán) good health for the coming year, and promised to send another note soon.
* * *
Chapter 10: A Death in the Family
To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die. - Thomas Campbell
* * *
* ALIEN RESEARCH STATION, SOUTH POLE, MARS, 2180/01/08 *
Heather Gonzales had been assigned the task of cataloging the excavated fragments from dig site ‘Theta’. Most of the recovered items from this area were small, flat and generally no more than 10 to 15 centimeters across, consisted of some unknown type of polymer, off-white in color on both sides. Some appeared to have been in the middle of a larger whole, as all their edges were irregular; others looked to have been part of an outer edge. A very few had micro-connectors along the edges, with circuitry sandwiched within, visible as ghostly shadows when held up to a strong light source. General consensus was the pieces were the remnants of a shattered computer display panel. All of the pieces discovered thus far were estimated to be only a third of the entire panel.
Heather’s job, after photo-recording each piece front and back, was to seal them in clear poly bags and record the location where each had been found. Once placed in the bag, the open ends were simultaneously sealed and date/time stamped. All of these bags were then sorted by type of relic and date recovered and filed away in containers to be stored on site.
While the job itself was not difficult, it also was not challenging. After two days of such monotonous work, Heather felt like her brain was turning into mush and was in danger of oozing out of her ears if she wasn’t assigned another task.
The project leader for this section of the dig site was an archeologist from North America who had been recalled from the excavation of ruins discovered on Eden Prime; Doctor Delbert Wright’s discoveries there had been linked to some of the items being recovered here, all of which had been computer analyzed to have been created between fifty to fifty-one thousand years ago.
As had been discovered on Eden Prime, Mars had yet to yield any organic remains. Admittedly, excavations at both sites were still in their early stages, but based on discoveries made at human sites on Earth, prevailing wisdom held that a population of advanced people would hold ceremonies and bury their dead locally, but no evidence of that had been discovered at either site.
Saturday was a scheduled half-day for work; not wanting to waste the day’s limited time, she made quick work of her breakfast then hastened down to the office beside the dig site. As she approached the main entryway, she felt the tingling on the back of her neck that usually indicated something wasn’t quite right. Pausing outside the sectional hatch, she listened for a few moments; where there should have at least been noises associated with two or three people moving about and conversing as they worked, there was nothing but dead silence.
Taking a deep breath, Heather entered in her key code for the door lock. The ‘error’ code she received was unexpected. She tried again – same result. Wishing her friend Traynor was here, she used her omni-tool in an attempt to hack the lock. After several seconds and a couple of false starts, she succeeded in forcing the electronic lock to unlatch the door. Standing to one side of the door frame she waved her arm past the center-mount latch and was rewarded by the door segments parting and receding into their slots on either side of the opening.
She remembered Traynor’s tactics when confronting Joesiar and Hobe in the hallway at the moon base, and employed one of them now. Activating her omni-tool, she started it recording audio of her surroundings as she used it to hack into the main security computer. Viewing video from the camera in the main work area just inside revealed nothing except the same mess she could glimpse through the open door, which she assumed to be the result of an apparent struggle or a bungled attempt by someone to find something of value.
Carefully entering the room, she saw research notes and clipboards scattered all over the tables and floor, computer monitors lying about broken, overturned chairs and wall hangings askew. She closed the main entrance door and relocked it, using an encryption code she’d purloined from security when she hacked the camera feeds.
The mess appeared to be worse towards the rear, down a short hallway to Doctor Wright’s office. She carefully made her way down the passage, hugging one wall as she silently moved closer to the door; a standard pocket door, it was made for privacy, not security, and was partially open, as if it had been jammed in its tracks.
She changed the signal source from the security computer in order to gain a clandestine view of Doctor Wright’s office before entering. She recorded the video from the lone camera in the ceiling as she had it pivot through 180 degrees to ‘look’ into all four corners of the room. What she saw on her monitor sent chills up her spine… Doctor Wright was lying on the floor next to the wall behind his desk, and there was a man with a hood over his head going through the doctor’s electronic files in an apparent search for… something.
Heather sent an emergency call for security personnel as she carefully retraced her steps back up the passageway to the main room and continued to monitor the hooded figure with video on her omni-tool. As she moved into another short passage leading to the restrooms, it appeared the mystery person had finished the search… a gloved hand activated an omni-tool, apparently to download whatever information had been discovered on Doctor Wright’s personal server; after several seconds, the mystery person entered several commands, then closed the tool as Heather’s video feed went dead. ‘Damn! He’s hacked the security cams,’ she thought. Before closing her tool, she sent another urgent message to security and included everything she had recorded. Leaving the tool set for audio recording, she reset it for combat mode, just in case she was discovered in the restroom. As she silently backed through the door into the room, a bare hand covered her mouth while a muscular arm encircled her waist and pulled her bodily backwards into the darkened compartment, allowing the door to close silently after her.
“Don’t scream, Gonzales!” a familiar voice whispered harshly in her ear. “It’s me… Marianna. I was in here when all the noise started in the workroom.” The woman took her hand away from Heather’s mouth as she spun her around to face her. “What the hell is happening out there? Did you see Doctor Wright?”
Heather took a deep breath to calm herself before whispering a reply to Marianna Walsh. “He’s face down on the floor in his office. Someone was in there ransacking his computer files, looking for god only knows what.” She looked nervously over her shoulder at the sound of someone walking past the door. There was enough light coming under the door to see the intruder’s shadow as it slowly went past. Gonzales continued, “I called security and locked the main entrance door with one of their algorithms. Hopefully they’ll get here before…”
She wasn’t able to finish her thought, as the thief came slowly back down the hall. They could hear the door to the men’s restroom slide open; after a number of seconds it closed. “Into the stall, Walsh. Stand on the toilet and crouch down… move!” In the dark, Heather and Marianna each went into a stall and hid, waiting for the trespasser to enter their hiding place. Heather continued to watch their door from above the privacy wall. The shadow stopped in front of their door. Heather ducked down just as the door slid open and the overhead lights came on.
“I know you’re in here,” a deep, gravelly voice said. “Come out before I have to waste my time looking for you. Maybe I’ll let you go after we have a bit of fun together.” There was no doubt in Heather’s mind about the ‘fun’ this jerk intended to have. What she couldn’t fathom was h
ow he could know she or anybody else was in here.
Heather was in the first of the two stalls in this restroom; readying her omni-tool and taking an offensive posture, she waited as she prayed Walsh would remain silent.
Without warning, the door to her stall slammed open with a kick; Heather straightened her legs and leaped like a predatory feline. Diving forward from the rim of the toilet, she used her right hand to grab his throat, shoving the surprised intruder violently back with the weight of her momentum. He spread his arms wide in a vain attempt to regain his balance as he came up against the sinks and mirrored wall, which allowed her to fold her arm down so she could put her upper torso hard into his chest; as the wind was knocked out of him with a ‘WHOooooffff’, her left fist connected with his right shoulder, allowing her omni-tool to propel the instantly fabricated blade through his body just under his collar bones. He screamed in agony as the super-heated ceramic pierced his scapula, shattered the mirror and embedded itself in the wall behind him, pinning him in place like a giant insect in a collector’s case. His attempt to reach around her with his left arm was quickly aborted as the motion sent more waves of pain coursing through his body.
“Gonzales!” Walsh exclaimed as Heather backed right into her; Marianna put her arms around her as she bumped backwards into her roommate.
Heather suddenly understood how dire her situation was as the edge of a curved knife was placed hard against her throat. She started to struggle to free herself, but stopped instantly when she felt a sharp pain where the blade was placed on her neck. “My god! Marianna! What the hell?…” Gonzales could feel something… blood, she guessed, slowly trickling down her neck below the knife blade.
“I’m really sorry you had to get involved in this, Heather.” Marianna said, her tone suggesting she was anything but. “We had hoped to avoid any casualties. You should have listened to Darius. We could have had a bit of fun… well, it might not have been fun for you, but…,” she left the thought unfinished. “Now, we have a mess on our hands, and I’m afraid I need to finish you so I can leave.”
So saying, she pulled the knife savagely across Heather’s throat, severing both carotid arteries and her windpipe. She attempted to cry out as her body sagged; Marianna let her collapse to the floor, then turned towards the entrance as security arrived in the form of two marines, a Gunnery Sergeant and a Corporal. Both had their pistols up as they came in and stopped short. “You Gonzales?” the sergeant asked.
“Marianna Walsh,” she replied weakly. “These two,” she indicated the moaning Darius and the dying woman bleeding out on the floor, “work for Cerberus. They were trying to steal Doctor Wright’s notes on the progress of the excavation here.”
Keeping his pistol pointed at her, Gunnery Sergeant McBride said, “You, Ma’am, are a goddamned liar. Put the knife down, slowly. Set it on the floor.”
“I don’t understand. I barely managed to…”
“Put the weapon on the deck now, Serviceman!” McBride’s demeanor left no doubt in Walsh’s mind he’d shoot her if she did anything other than what he’d ordered. She slowly crouched and set the knife on the floor next to Heather’s body.
“Now, turn towards the far wall, get on your knees, spread your feet apart, place your hands on the back of your head and interlace your fingers”
“You’re arresting me? What the hell for?”
“I’m pointing a gun at your head. You’re asking questions I’m not going to answer until I have you in binders, Ms Walsh. Now shut your damned mouth and do as I said.”
Marianna slowly complied with McBride’s instructions. Corporal Phillips came up behind her, kicked her feet further apart before stepping between them; she quickly grabbed her right hand and jerked her arm down and around behind her back, stopping when she heard a grunt of discomfort from Walsh. Holding onto the binder she’d placed on Walsh’s right wrist, she grabbed her other hand and treated her left arm in a similar fashion. “Get up, Walsh,” Phillips growled as she tugged upwards on her binder restrained wrists.
Once Walsh was on her feet and facing McBride, Phillips carefully patted her down for hidden weapons before shoving her back against the wall to the side opposite the sinks. Placing her hands on Walsh’s shoulders, Phillips pushed down hard, forcing Walsh to bend her legs and slide down the wall until her butt was on the floor. “Sit here. Don’t even think of moving.”
As Marianna stared resentfully up at Phillips, then at McBride, the corporal went over to check on the injured Darius. Because the omni-blade had been white-hot when it had pierced his shoulder, there was very little blood from the cauterized wound. Darius was moaning in pain and unable to do anything except hang there at an uncomfortable angle. McBride called for backup to assist them in getting the man off the blade pinning him to the wall before turning to Walsh.
“Your little act was not very convincing, Walsh. The summons we received came from Heather Gonzales.”
McBride looked down at the body on the floor as Corporal Phillips knelt beside her. “The serviceman also forwarded everything she recorded with her omni-tool as she recorded it, including her conversation with you, up to and including when you cut her throat.”
He stepped aside as two more people arrived from security to assist in clearing the room. “Truth of the matter is you are the one working for Cerberus. Gonzales didn’t kill this idiot…” pointing towards Darius, “…even though she had the perfect opportunity. Too bad she didn’t get the chance to end you.”
McBride moved to stand in front of Walsh, where he grabbed her uniform at the shoulder and yanked her to her feet; shifting his grip to the cloth at the middle of her chest, he pulled her towards him as his frown turned grim. “You murdered an Alliance recruit for no other reason than she was doing her job,” he whispered in a menacing tone. “Personally, I hope you try to make a run for it. I’ll be happy to save everyone the expense of a trial. The only thing left to discover is how many years you’re going to spend in a 3x3 meter cell.”
Walsh responded by raising her knee, hitting McBride hard in his crotch with the top of her thigh. As he cried out in pain and bent over, she head-butted him, knocking him to the floor. Marianna attempted to get past the hulking gunnery sergeant, only to get struck full in the face by Corporal Phillips. She grunted in pain as her nose and lips began bleeding. Phillips wasn’t done; she hit the hand-cuffed woman twice more, causing her to land hard on the floor as she tripped backwards over McBride’s prone body. She groaned in pain as she spit out a tooth and a mouthful of blood.
“You’re real goddamned brave against someone that can’t fight back,” Walsh sputtered.
Phillips answered by kicking her hard in the ribs. “Why should I give a murdering bitch like you any opportunity to fight back, when you didn’t allow Gonzales the same privilege? Now get your miserable ass up off the deck so we can escort you to your new accommodations.” Phillips was ready to hit Walsh again as she struggled to regain her feet without being able to use her hands.
McBride was standing bent over, hands on his knees as he spoke softly to the corporal. “Stand down, Claudine. I don’t think this little Cerberus flunky will offer us any more resistance.”
Speaking to the techs working to extricate Darius from where Heather had pinned him to the wall, he offered, “Don’t worry about injuring that asshole when you extricate him from that blade. Make sure you do treat the young woman on the floor with the respect she deserves.” Pushing Marianna roughly out the door ahead of him, he motioned to Phillips. “Come on, Corporal. Let’s get this prisoner to the first-aid station so she can get cleaned up. Can’t tell which bloodstains are from her and which are from her victim.”
* * *
Yuán Xiùlán entered her room and walked toward the kitchen. “Sam? Where are you?” The apartment she shared with Samantha Traynor was absolutely still. Her roommate… her lover… should be here. Saturday afternoons were usually quiet times, and Traynor normally didn’t leave for anything unless she had n
o other choice. “Traynor!”
Xiùlán walked back to their bedroom and bath – empty. Nothing was disturbed, indicating that Traynor had been out most of the day. With a feeling of apprehension, Xiùlán opened her omni-tool, entered an inquiry and sent it. Traynor always answered her text messages, no matter how busy she was. Xiùlán closed her tool down and eased her tired body into one of the chairs in their lounge area.
Eyes closed, she willed her mind to relax as she concentrated on her breathing. ‘Slow, even breaths… center yourself… ignore all distracting thoughts… concentrate on your breathing… clear your mind… center… breathe…’ One could be forgiven for thinking Xiùlán was asleep. Her body was at rest, her mind at peace, her breathing slow and regular, but she was totally aware of all around her. She grimaced inwardly as the entrance door opened, allowing her lover to enter. Outwardly, she was the picture of calm, but she knew without opening her eyes that Sam was extremely upset. She whispered, “Sà mǐ. [薩米 - Sami] What has happened?”
Samantha Traynor was nearly in tears. “She’s dead, Xiùlán. Heather…” her voice hitched as she said their friend’s name, “…Heather… she’s… god! She was murdered, Xiùlán. Some woman… at the excavation site… killed her… cut her throat. Why would… anyone want to… want to hurt Heather?" The tears were cascading now, overwhelming Traynor’s best efforts at preventing them from flowing down her cheeks. In one fluid motion Xiùlán’s eyes opened as she stood and pulled Sam into a tight embrace, whispering calming words as she massaged Sam’s back and shoulders. “What happened, Samantha? Settle yourself. Tell me what you know.”
Sam took a shuddering breath, then another, before she attempted to speak. “There was a break–in where she was assigned to work. She recorded it… on her omni-tool, Xiùlán… the whole thing is recorded, including…” Sam placed a hand across her mouth as she tried to rein in her emotions. “Security has her murderer in custody… woman named Marianna Walsh.” Traynor could speak no further as her emotions overwhelmed her control; she clung to Xiùlán as she wept for the loss of their friend. Xiùlán held her tight, gently rubbing her back and shoulders until Traynor’s sobs slowed and she was able to once again regain control.