by Jay Posey
“Tonight?” she responded. “Kind of short notice, isn’t it?”
“I hope not,” Lincoln said. “Mike’s already inside.”
There was a pause, and when Thumper answered, her voice had a new quality of controlled intensity; flipping the switch.
“We’re on the way.”
SEVENTEEN
“It’s good kit,” Thumper said, lying on her belly next to Lincoln, sharing what she’d found about the weapon he’d asked her to ID. “Not exactly standard issue for CMA military, but that’s only because it’s higher-grade than standard. Only reason it doesn’t look expensive because it’s all so well-used.”
“So these guys are funded and experienced,” Lincoln said.
“Could be a rough ride,” Thumper answered.
Lincoln had backed off a couple hundred meters from the airlock that Mike had designated as his emergency exit and found a place to set up shop while he had waited for the rest of the team to arrive. Now he and Thumper were providing cover while Sahil and Wright closed the final distance to the facility. Mike’s emergency exit was about to become their route for free admission.
“Get an estimate on numbers?” Lincoln asked.
“Based on power usage and what little we could get from the skeeters, I’d guess twelve to fifteen. Main building’s got six floors total, but I think they’re only running the upper two. Maybe the third for storage or something. The heat differential’s pretty big in that gap, so if anybody’s working on that third floor, they’re doing it in a coat and gloves. None of the outbuildings are powered at all, except the garage. Those two people you picked up earlier, I’m not sure what they were up to, but they probably weren’t planning on staying for long. As far as I can tell, they’re keeping the activity mostly restricted to the main building.
“I didn’t get to do a deep mapping, but perimeter security looks pretty straightforward. Couple zone alarms, few motion detectors,” Thumper continued. “I don’t think they’re expecting too much trouble way out here.”
“The fact that they took any precautions at all says enough,” Lincoln said.
Some hundred meters away, Wright went flat to the ground, with Sahil dropping behind her an instant later. In the hard-shell of the facility, an exterior light came on at one of the corners of the main building, lighting up the whole place like a lantern. For a moment, Lincoln couldn’t help but wonder if they’d tripped some early warning system.
“Wright, you good?” he called in.
“We’ll see,” she answered.
“Thumper?” Lincoln asked.
“Grid’s still green. I don’t think they blew anything.”
Two figures emerged from the main building and trudged towards the garage.
“Mikey gave us a heads up,” Wright said. “He’s got tremblers near all the entryways.”
While Lincoln had been staring at a door waiting for the rest of the team, Mike had been busy skulking around inside “making some preparations”, as he’d called it. He hadn’t gone into details. When exactly he’d had time to get tremblers out, Lincoln didn’t know. The micro seismic monitors were sensitive enough to pick up vibrations from talking, footsteps, even breathing if it was heavy enough. They didn’t provide a lot of data to go on, but if you had them in the right place they were a handy way to keep people from sneaking up on you. It made sense that a sniper might take a pocketful of them everywhere he went.
“Mikey, whatcha got going on right now?” Lincoln asked.
“Just hanging around,” Mike answered. “Couple of night owls look like they’re maybe headed out. Or they left something in the skimmer.”
Lincoln switched on his locator for Mike; the indicator showed him at the edge of one of the outbuildings, facing the garage. He seemed awfully close, like he was almost daring the two individuals to notice him.
“You’re sure you aren’t in the open there?” Lincoln asked.
“Pretty sure, sir.”
“Looks close to me.”
“Look again,” Mike said.
Lincoln magnified the view. From his current location, he didn’t have direct line of sight to Mike’s position. But once he zoomed in close enough, the detail he’d missed before became clearer. The difference in elevation.
“Are you on the roof?” Lincoln asked.
“That’s a roger,” Mike answered. “I could maybe spit on ‘em from here, and they might think it was raining. If you’d let me open my faceplate.”
“Negative on both counts.”
“I think you’re good to move up, anyway,” Mike said. “The way the light’s reflecting off the shell in here, I can’t hardly see what’s going on outside. And I’m paying attention.”
“Sahil,” Lincoln said. “What’s your read on it?”
“Same as Mikey,” Sahil replied. “Plenty of shadows from here to there. We can ghost right up to the door.”
“All right, go ahead and move up. Hold off at ten meters, and when you’re set we’ll join you.”
“Copy,” Sahil said.
“How much time you need on the door?” Lincoln asked Thumper. Not because they hadn’t already discussed it. But they’d come up with the plan on the fly, talking it through while the three remaining Outriders patrolled in from base camp. Revisiting the details never hurt. Especially when you were making it up as you went along.
“Still sixty to ninety seconds, captain,” she said. “Assuming Mikey did his part right.” The fact that she called him by his rank was a good indication he’d asked her one too many times. “A hundred and eighty if you ask me again.”
There’d been a physical lock on the interior door that Mike had taken care of for them. The airlock they’d chosen was the least convenient for access to the buildings. Once the team was through the airlock, there was a fair amount of open ground to cover before they reached the nearest outbuilding. The inconvenience was a feature; Mike had figured it was the least likely to be used, and therefore the least likely to be carefully monitored. It was a strange aspect of human psychology that the mind tended to cling to the familiar and to overlook the unused. Lincoln had made his living, and kept his life, by exploiting such tendencies.
“How are we on the cameras?” Lincoln asked.
“Skeeter’s patched in no problem,” Thumper said. “We can go full blackout whenever we want.”
“And if they call for help?”
“It won’t come. Intercept’s locked in. Call won’t go out, but we’ll know who they were trying to reach.”
Lincoln nodded. And then added. “I’m glad you’re on our side, Thump.”
“You should wait on that, sir,” she said, “until we see if it all works.”
“We’re in place,” Wright said over comms. “You’re good to move up.”
“Roger,” Lincoln answered. “Moving up.”
Lincoln nudged Thumper.
“Ladies first.”
“Always the gentleman,” she replied. A moment later, she did an explosive pushup that took her from her belly to her feet in a crouch all in a single movement, and was advancing across the terrain before Lincoln had even started to get off the ground. He got to his feet the old-fashioned way and followed after her, already five meters behind. They continued past Wright and Sahil and closed the final ten meters to the airlock.
Once they reached it, Thumper dropped to a knee and went to work affixing a device to the main panel while Lincoln stood over her, providing cover. He didn’t mind taking a turn on the long gun every once in a while, but now that they were getting ready to make entry, he was really looking forward to getting his weapon back from Mike.
“Mike, we’re at the lock,” Lincoln reported. “What’s the status of our night owls?”
“Still in the garage,” Mike answered. “Can’t tell what they’re up to, though.”
“Roger. We’ll hold here until you give us a go.”
“‘K,” said Mike.
As much as Lincoln hated standing around right at the perimeter, h
e liked it a lot more than getting stuck in a sealed box with potential hostiles wandering the premises. If he tried to go now, he had no doubt those two individuals would decide to show back up as soon as his whole team had loaded into the airlock. They’d just have to wait and see.
It was a long wait. After about half an hour, Mike called back in.
“There they are,” he said. “Might’ve been wrong about the night owls.”
“How’s that?” Lincoln asked.
“Might actually be love birds,” he answered. “At least, they’re not bringing anything back with them that they didn’t take over in the first place.”
“All right, roger that,” Lincoln said, even more annoyed at the delay now. He took a couple of deep breaths, and tried not to let it get to him. The only schedule they were on was to get everything done before sunrise, and they still had a good few hours before that deadline. “Still armed?”
“Only one, but yep. Carrying it lazy-man style now,” Mike said. The individual was carrying his weapon unslung and in hand, but not ready for combat; like you might if you’d picked it up, say, off the front seat of a vehicle and weren’t expecting to need it any time soon. “I didn’t get a great angle on it, but looks like a Type 32 to me.”
“It’d be the right family,” Thumper answered.
“They’re almost back to the main building now,” said Mike.
“Seems weird they’d switch the lights on if they’re trying to be sneaky about it,” Thumper said.
“Yeah, probably just loading something in the skimmer. But the other story’s better.”
A few moments later, the light from the main building went out, returning the facility grounds to heavy darkness. Lincoln glanced up at the sky; the dust and thin clouds obscured most of the stars, keeping ambient light to a minimum. The clouds struck him. He didn’t know where everything stood with the ongoing terraforming process. Last he’d heard back home, the general consensus was that it’d take another fifty years or so before Martian settlements could take their chances going completely unshielded. But they’d already gotten an artificial magnetosphere reconstructed and raised the atmospheric pressure well above the critical levels, both faster than anyone had predicted was possible. Technically, if not for the ridiculous temperatures, he and his teammates could have been running around with just some additional oxygen support.
That was one thing that made Lincoln nervous about a potential war with Mars; pretty much every forecast anyone had made about the speed of their expansion and development had underestimated them. Sometimes grossly.
“All right, you’re clear,” Mike said.
“Thumper,” Lincoln said. “Spring it.”
“Ninety seconds,” she replied. Given her initial estimate, Lincoln was pretty sure she’d have it done in under a minute.
“Wright, Sahil,” said Lincoln. “Come on up.”
Wright hopped up with Sahil close behind, and the two made the quick jog to the airlock, standing off just a few feet while Thumper finished her work.
“Once I get this bypass,” Thumper said, “we need quick open and close. I’m not going to pop both doors at once because of the atmospheric imbalance, I don’t want to make any more ruckus than we absolutely have to. But I don’t want to be stuck in that lock any longer than necessary either. So, load in fast, and get out faster.”
“How long?” Wright asked.
“We can get through in fifteen seconds, if nobody trips.”
“Mike,” Lincoln said. “How are we looking?”
“Slow,” Mike answered. “But still clear.”
“Got it,” Thumper said. “Security’s looped, door’s set for knocking. Ready on you, Lincoln.”
“Cameras?”
“We’re good.”
“Roger that. On me,” Lincoln said. “Mike, we’re coming in… three… two… one… Go.”
Thumper stepped back from the entrance. The next moment, the airlock clicked and opened inward. As soon as it moved, so did Lincoln. He stepped into the lock and went as far forward as he could, positioning himself right at the internal door. Wright was right on his heels, followed by Sahil. Thumper came through last, closing the door behind her. Ten long seconds later, the secondary door clicked and unsealed. Lincoln pulled the handle and swung the door open, stepped in and to the right, and went to a knee, covering their right flank. Wright was there a moment later, mirroring him and covering the opposite direction. Sahil advanced five meters into the open, keeping his weapon trained on the main facility while Thumper came through the lock and sealed it behind them. Once the lock was resecured, she held position for a few moments, all of them listening and scanning for any signs of trouble. The only thing that seemed to have changed was the ambient temperature.
“Mike, we’re in,” Lincoln said.
“Roger that. I’m coming down. Meet you at the front door.”
Sahil took point from the perimeter all the way to the main facility, his catlike steps smooth and sure despite the rough terrain. None of the ground appeared to have been graded or improved beyond what was strictly necessary from a construction standpoint, and Lincoln wondered how many of the original researchers had been treated for sprained ankles and broken wrists.
When the four teammates crossed into the compound proper, Mike was already holding position off one corner of the main building. Sahil led the team to a point between two of the outbuildings. Mike disappeared around the back of the main building, and then re-emerged from the other a minute later and joined them. Wright pulled open a pouch on her harness, and dug out a handful of hard plastic bands. Quick cuffs. She handed them to Mike. He accepted them, and stared at them for a moment.
“We’re really doing this, huh?” he said.
“Unless you have a better idea,” Lincoln said.
“Just about all of my ideas are better,” Mike answered. “But none of them involve us going in there.”
“Yeah, well,” Lincoln said. “I know you’ll make it work.”
“I’d feel better if we had a good head count,” Wright said. “Gonna be tough to know when we’re secure.”
“Let’s just assume we aren’t secure until we’re off the planet,” Lincoln said.
“Fair enough.”
Mike stuffed the quick cuffs into a pouch on his harness, and then turned back to Lincoln, holding his weapon out. Lincoln took his own rifle, and returned Mike’s to him.
“You going to be OK running that inside?” Lincoln asked.
“Sure thing,” Mike said. “If it gets hot enough in there for me to be wanting something else, a lot of other things will have already gone wrong.”
Lincoln nodded, and then looked around at the rest of his team.
“Set?”
“Let’s do it,” Sahil said.
“All right,” Lincoln said. “Drop camo.”
The reactive camouflage’s mottled reds and blacks drained away to a deep navy blue streaked with charcoal lines, with four letters emblazoned in bright white, front and back.
OTMS.
The impossible to miss initials for the Outer Territorial Marshal Service. Thumper had pulled footage of the Marshal Service’s Special Tactics Group in action; Veronica had analyzed it and fed the data to their suits. And now, instead of blending into the surroundings, the reactive camo was mimicking the group’s signature uniforms.
Not that the Marshal Service had anything remotely like the Outriders’ recon suits. But that was part of the point. The more confusion they could inject into the bad guys’ plans, the better.
The facility was too far out to fall under any one colony’s law enforcement jurisdiction. The OTMS was an arm of the Central Martian Authority’s shared police force, one that extended protection and security to settlements that couldn’t support their own force. It also oversaw any areas that weren’t explicitly designated as belonging to a particular governmental body.
Which was all to say, if any illegal activity were to be taking place way out here,
technically it was the Marshal Service that would be responsible for shutting it down. The ruse wouldn’t hold up to any serious scrutiny. But the deception served two purposes. The obvious one was to give credit for the operation to someone closer to home. But it would also quickly indicate the loyalties of the people inside. If they all threw up their hands and complied with orders, the situation was likely to be a lot easier to resolve than Lincoln was expecting it to be. If not, well… at least that would suggest they knew they were up to no good.
“I’ll take first in,” Sahil said.
“Negative, I’m on point,” Lincoln said. “This was my stupid idea. If their answer to it is to shoot, it’s only fair that I catch the rounds.”
“Hope they don’t have AP,” Mike said. Their powered armor was made to withstand most small arms fire, but they were primarily designed for reconnaissance, not assault; armor-piercing rounds of sufficient power would cut right through.
“If they do,” Lincoln said, “I’m counting on you to avenge me.”
“If they do,” Wright answered, “I’m counting on you to shoot first.”
Sahil knelt down at the door to work the lock. Lincoln took the lead position, followed by Wright, then Thumper, then Mike. They set up on the front door in a staggered line, left, right, left, right, to flow faster through the entryway. Based on the floorplans Thumper had pulled together, the upper entrance wasn’t a full floor, just a large, single room with a staircase directly opposite the main entrance. A sort of combination reception and staging area where researchers could leave all their cold-weather gear before descending into the facility proper.
They’d decided to forego sending Poke in first to scout. As nice as it would have been to have had a full picture going in, there weren’t many viable places for the little foldable to get around without risking discovery. And this wasn’t the kind of hit where they could afford to tip the bad guys off early and give them a chance to harden up the interior. Lincoln was trusting instead to speed and surprise to get the job done.
“Sahil,” Lincoln said.
“Lock’s done,” Sahil answered. He slid to the right side, clearing the path to the door, but kept his hand on the mechanism.