She smiled. “It wouldn’t do these lips any good. It’s an information system cryptographic decoder. It has a small, high-frequency transmitter built into the tip. I just turn it on, point it at the computer I want to gain access to, and this little baby makes the computer do the hard work for me.”
Shawn was intrigued. “How?”
“Well, I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that the computer keeps the passwords inside its own database. This device tells the computer to simply erase that sequence of letters, numbers, biometrics, or whatever and replaces it with a digitally signed copy that the terminal simply skips over the next time it starts up.”
“Again, highly illegal,” he snorted.
“Yes, but also highly effective.” She motioned to the computer screen with her hand. “And, as you can see, we now have full access to this terminal. In fact, we should have the highest access available to this computer.” She began inputting commands, and the computer responded as if the two were composing a piece of music. While Shawn knew his way around systems like this, he was in silent reverence of the way she was able to extract and manipulate the data with little to no effort on her part. “I think I can get the image emitter online.”
“What for?” Shawn asked.
She narrowed her eyes as she scanned a particular directory on the computer. “I’ve found something…odd.”
“About what was in that empty hangar?”
“Not exactly.” She touched a schematic diagram on the screen, dragged it to another portion of the display, and then input a string of commands into the device. “Let me show you.” She got up from the chair and removed a small fragment of a ceiling tile that had fallen to cover the computer terminal’s built-in holographic emitter. Standard issue on all military terminals for the last ten years, the emitter would project a perfect three-dimensional image of whatever was called up on the screen. The image could also be fully manipulated by anyone who stretched his hands into the holographic model.
Seconds later the projector came to life, a topographical image of the base in its current state of disrepair springing into view. Melissa inputted another series of commands into the terminal, and a yellow triangle appeared over a building near the center of the base. “This is where we are now. And this is where we need to go.” Another triangle materialized on the screen, this time directly over a collapsed pile of rubble.
“What is it?”
“Let me show you.” She stepped up to the hologram that was at her chest level. She dipped her fingers into the projections and began moving the simulated rubble, as if the image were made of clay and she was a master pottery sculpture. The fragments moved, reoriented themselves, and then reformed into larger bits one after another. After a moment, Shawn realized that—with the computer’s help—Melissa was rebuilding that section of the base to its appearance before its destruction. Several minutes passed as she continued to manipulate the image until at last she stepped back. With a wave of her hand she moved several outlying buildings out of the view until a lone building dominated the projection.
Shawn was understandably impressed with her skills at the computer, but the nondescript building he was looking at didn’t seem like it was worth the effort. It was essentially a cube-shaped office, perhaps forty feet on each side, with a single entry door and no windows. “What are we looking at here?”
Melissa stared at the image. “This is…was…the Special Projects Theory and Design building.”
“Special projects?” he inquired. “What type of special projects?”
As the image of the cube building spun slowly on its axis Melissa felt a cold breeze blow in through the destroyed windows opposite of the terminal. “The kind that this base shouldn’t have.”
Chapter 3
The streets below the skimmers looked like ocean waves frozen in time. They were warped, twisted, and cracked in hundreds of places—more than Shawn could count in the few minutes it took the Marine craft to reach their final destination. They were now on the far side of the base, beside the remains of buildings that were on the eastern edge eight-hundred-foot-wide crater that had swallowed the remainder of the complex. Shawn could see several of the surrounding streets had simply fallen into the mouth of the abyss. Their goal, the Special Projects building was in complete ruins, probably due to its proximity to whatever had caused the crater in the first place. All the walls had collapsed in on themselves, and there didn’t appear to be a navigable way inside.
And, just as Cal Vross had described back on Darus Station, there were indeed bodies. There were hundreds—thousands of them, it seemed. They were crowded near what remained of the three fallout shelters within a few minutes’ walk of the crumbling Special Projects building. The bones of the victims were, in some places, piled four high on top of one another, as if they’d been scrambling to get into the shelters before whatever had destroyed them had taken their lives—efforts that had obviously been in vain.
“Looks like there was a bottleneck at the door,” Adams remarked, his pulse rifle at the ready.
Shawn nodded slowly. Beyond what was left of the shelter door, the entire structure looked as if it had caved in on itself. “For all the good it would have done them.”
Melissa walked to the nearest pile of bones, indistinguishable from any other around them, and leaned down toward the remains. She withdrew something from her pocket that Shawn couldn’t make out from his distance, reached out, and waved the device over the remains.
“Whoa there, lady. Let’s play a little game called ‘look but don’t touch’, okay?”
Melissa continued to wave the instrument above the bones in a slow, sweeping motion. “I’m not going to disturb them, Commander, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
He wasn’t really sure. There was a certain respect that needed to be paid to the deceased; of that there was no doubt. But something else was tugging at the edge of his mind, something he couldn’t put a finger on. Caution, he decided, was going to be the word of the day. “What are you doing, anyway?” he asked as he stepped closer.
“Taking some fragment samples. I’ll analyze them when we get back to the carrier.” A moment later she stood, and then walked back to where rest of the team had assembled.
Choosing to leave the skimmer behind, it was decided that Raven and Private First Class Montoya would circle the remains of the Special Projects building to the west, while Shawn and Sergeant Adams would search to the east. Melissa found herself truly alone for the first time on the planet’s surface, and began probing for clues on her own. She looked at the large blocks of rubble, knowing full well that the small team would never be able to clear enough of them to get into what was left of the structure. As she stared at it, an image of the last letter she had received from her father popped into her mind. She recalled his unusual sentence that specified he’d been working on a ‘special project,’ and it dawned on her that he might have stood near this very location at some point in the recent past. She looked around for anything out of the ordinary, but there didn’t seem to be anything there except dust and debris.
She slid off her backpack and withdrew her electronic map, unrolling the paper-thin, semi-transparent device and bringing up the model of Addison Field and Delta Base. She initiated the self-centering mode and the map zoomed in to the team’s current location outside the Special Projects building. As she studied the map she realized that she was about twenty yards from the building’s former entrance door. She decided it seemed the best place to start looking for clues, even though she had no idea what she was looking for.
Following the map closely, Melissa rounded a large pile of debris until she was standing a few feet away from where the door should have been. In front of her was a large wall of irregular concrete blocks and steel beams bent at odd angles. Surely there was no way to enter the structure from this side. She examined the flexible map once more, looking for the first time at the areas surrounding the Special Projects buil
ding. There were the remains of a postal office to the north, and a small park to the east and northeast. The base’s motor pool was south of her current location, well inside of where the large crater now dominated. Melissa turned so the former Special Projects building was now behind her and she began to absently pace east across an unusually clear section of roadway.
She was watching the map intently as she walked, and it wasn’t until she tripped over a large chunk of gravel that she looked down to see what she had stumbled over. There before her was a series of similarly shaped chunks of plaster and concrete. Though this wouldn’t have been at all unusual to find here, Melissa took instant note that the debris was aligned in a near-perfectly straight line parallel to the street, and that it was set too far away from any other remains to be a coincidence. The line was about four feet long, with the size of the dozen or so blocks steadily increasing as she traveled the arrangement to the south. She licked her lips and held the digital map to the line of debris on the ground, and found there was no digital counterpart for this particular formation.
Shawn and Raven’s teams, having come up short on their investigations, rounded the building at the same moment Melissa made her discovery. She heard them talking behind her and knew she had found what she was looking for. “I’ve got something over here.”
Scrambling over debris, the two pilots and the two Marines rushed to her side and looked down at the map she was studying.
“What did you find?” Shawn asked excitedly.
“This formation of debris. It’s not on the map,” Melissa cried enthusiastically.
Roslyn gave her a sideways glance. “What’s so unusual about that?”
“Nothing,” Melissa grinned, leaning down and laying a hand lightly on the smallest of the rocks. “And that’s exactly what makes it unusual.”
Roslyn turned back to Shawn. “I think I’m beginning to see why you would think she’s a little touched in the head, Skipper.”
Melissa scowled at Shawn. “Did you really tell her that?”
“I didn’t say anything,” he defended. “Maybe it’s just obvious by the way you’re admiring this pile of rocks.”
“This isn’t just some random pile of debris, Shawn. This is a clue.”
“Um, says who? It could have come from anywhere.”
“You’re suggesting I’m grasping at straws?” she asked, still studying the smallest parts of the line in great detail.
“You’ve got to admit,” Brunel piped in, her dark hair fluttering in the afternoon breeze, “it’s a little strange. I mean, this whole area is a disaster zone. Why would this lone pile be organized in a perfectly straight line?”
The fact that the usually logical Lieutenant Commander Brunel was in some way defending Melissa’s eccentricities told Shawn even more caution was warranted—if only for the sake of his sanity. He reached down and pulled Melissa gently away from the formation.
“What on Third Earth was that for?” she asked as she stumbled to her feet.
Shawn held his hands up. “Just being careful. It could be a trap. Remember, that slimebag Cal Vross was here a number of times. There is no telling what he could have left behind for unsuspecting OSI agents to stumble across.”
“Like a bomb?” Melissa replied sarcastically while leaning back toward the pile.
Shawn was quick to grab her forearm, spinning her so her face was inches from his own. “The only way I’m letting you near that pile is if there’s a bomb hidden in there that subjects you to a healthy dose of common sense when it explodes in your face.”
The fire behind his eyes informed Melissa that he meant it. She found herself flustered at his nearness and it wasn’t until she remembered that Raven and the two Marines were close by that she snapped out of a rather pleasant—albeit short-lived—daydream. She pulled away from Shawn’s grasp and fixed her hair. “Fine. Have it your way. But I assure you it’s harmless.”
Adams, his pulse rifle at the ready, walked to the edge of the debris line. “You don’t think someone put this here after we touched down, do you?”
Melissa shook her head vehemently. “No, I don’t think so. None of our sensors reported any kind of life readings on the planet prior to our landing on the airfield.” She folded the map, placed it back into her backpack, and then withdrew a small portable scanner. She leaned down and aimed it at the concrete arrangement.
Shawn was quick to reach a hand out for her, but a quick turn of her head and a glimmer in her emerald eyes told him to momentarily back off. He straightened and she offered a weak smile, silently thanking him for his momentary trust. With the push of a button, a soft beam of red-white light emitted from the top of device, making contact with one of the large chunks on the ground. Within seconds the ray stopped as the computer began processing the molecular core sample.
“This material has been completely saturated with baryon particles,” Melissa said, shaking her head in confusion.
Private Montoya gripped his weapon tightly. “Is that dangerous, ma’am?”
“No, they’re completely harmless to humanoids. However, they are very useful in eradicating some diseases and—”
“Let’s skip the science lesson for now,” Shawn inserted impatiently. “Tell me why we need to find these hunks of rock as important as you do.”
“Agreed,” Raven said. “What purpose is served by flooding a chunk of concrete with baryons?”
Melissa took a deep breath. “Well, as I was going to say before I was rudely interrupted, if the material is small enough in size, flooding it with baryons makes it appear invisible to most standard sensors.” She smiled. “If, however, the object is larger than, say, two square feet, the baryons begin to decay rapidly—and the sensors would pick up the anomaly.”
“Why would someone want to make this section of debris invisible?” Sergeant Adams asked.
“Because someone didn’t want anyone else to find it unless they knew what they were looking for,” Melissa replied. She pointed her scanner at the next portion of debris and took another sample. “This one has less baryon saturation than the last.” She aimed and took a sample from the piece of debris on the opposite side of the first she had sampled. “This one contains more baryons.” She continued down the line of debris to the south until she came to the last chunk of material. It was shaped roughly into a diamond, its points oriented directly north and south. Melissa leaned in and took a final sample. “This piece has three times the amount of baryons as the one before it.”
“What does that mean?” Shawn asked.
“Like I said before, it means it’s a clue.” She leaned down and reached for the piece of debris. Sergeant Adams and Private Montoya were quickly at her side, pointing their rather imposing-looking pulse rifles directly at the lump. Raven silently took two steps behind Shawn, who was now standing directly behind Melissa. As Melissa lifted the mass out of the way, something shiny briefly came into view before it was swallowed by dirt that rushed in to fill the void. Melissa reached in to retrieve the object, but Shawn put a hand gently on her shoulder.
“Okay, that’s really enough excitement for me today,” he said with a forced chuckle. “Let’s just all relax for a second and let the Marines handle this one, okay?”
Placing the debris in her hand aside, Melissa clenched her teeth and tightened her hands into fists before slowly standing up. If Shawn Kestrel was intent on protecting her every move, she would at least allow him this one moment of chivalry. She unclenched her fists and stepped backward into his chest.
Shawn withdrew his blaster, sidestepped in front of Melissa, then motioned to Adams. “Go ahead, Sergeant. Let’s see what we’ve got.”
Adams produced a small telescoping grabbing arm from a pouch at his side. Gingerly plunging the device into the sand, he slowly grappled onto his prize and withdrew the small object. A small, silver metal case gleamed in the sunlight.
“What is it?” Shawn asked as Melissa reached for and dusted off the artifact.
&
nbsp; It was about two inches by three inches, and perhaps only a quarter of an inch thick. She turned over the metal casing and read aloud the inscription etched on its surface. “W.B.G.” she said breathlessly, a lump forming in her throat. “This…this is my father’s. I used to play with this when I was a little girl. He used it to hold his pass cards and access badges, back before the Unified government switched to single identity cards. I would hide it from him on the mornings I didn’t want him to go to work.” She was certain her heart had stopped beating, and knew it wouldn’t start again until she opened the case. Where she expected to see her father’s cards, she instead found a small scrap of paper sealed inside a clear bag. Extricating the note, she unfolded it and read it silently.
“What does it say?” Shawn asked with due curiosity. “Is it from the Admiral?”
“I don’t know. It’s typed, not written. It looks like an address…somewhere here on Delta Base.” Melissa then accessed her electronic map and entered the address into the computer. The whole team watched as the three-dimensional image panned away from their position and fixed itself on a small building near the center of Crystal City, several miles from their current location. “It appears to be a building. One that seems fairly intact, I might add.”
Shawn leaned over her shoulder, his excitement piqued, and spoke softly into her ear. “Do you think it’s from him?”
She turned to look him in the eyes, her lips inches from his as a broad smile crossed her face. “There’s only one way to know for certain.”
* * *
The Marine hover carrier sped away from Delta Base in a plume of dust, leaving the remains of the base to continue their slow decay into oblivion. Sergeant Adams was at the controls, with Private Montoya on the far right side and Raven between the two. Directly behind them, Melissa sat silently beside Shawn and continued to study the digital map for nearly five full minutes before she placed it back in her bag. She sighed heavily, watching the surrounding countryside pass the carrier in a blur.
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