by Mark Wandrey
“All good, I hope,” she smiled back. He was probably thirty and in peak physical condition. Certainly from the Boglands, same as Gregg. Though his build was athletic it wasn't as muscled as Minu's friend.
“Oh, mostly. Well, even though I'm in charge, it’s a scientific recon so I'll follow your lead. I know you're a competent field leader so we'll work through this together.”
“Thank you sir.”
Carlson handed them both a control rod (SOP in mixed teams) then waved to the controllers behind their protective forcefield. The portal flashed into life and they passed through onto FAX544. It was thankfully only a few minutes on the perpetually snow covered world while Capella activated the next program for the portal and they all donned protective breathing masks before moving through onto GBX2334. Minu kept her own control rod in the pocket built onto her black jumpsuit thigh.
"I hate borderline worlds," Pip yelled over the howling wind of the new planet. She was glad they'd been warned about the atmospheric conditions before coming through. Tiny scrubbers in the masks cleaned the air and goggles protected their eyes. GBX2334's air was filled with nearly undetectable fine silica powder that could permanently damage lungs, not to mention a high concentration of methane, chlorine, and sulfur. It all combined to make the world smell like an open latrine situated next to a swimming pool, in hell.
Three scouts from another team were waiting. Minu met the team leader and was quickly directed away from the portal. "It's not safe here!" he yelled to be heard through his more complex helmet and over the merciless wind.
"This is horrible," she replied as they all moved toward a nearby structure.
"If you think this is bad, wait until morning." As they marched she could feel the wind stinging against the exposed skin of her neck and hands, the other scouts full helmet and gloves made good sense on this planet. Minu glanced up at the dimly glowing orange star in the sky and cast him a curious look. He followed her gaze and laughed. "That's a moon. This is a trinary system; during full daylight the surface reaches almost one hundred. My computer said there is only full night once every three weeks on this rock. Luckily there are three large moons that cover the sun from time to time. Without that I doubt the temperate would dip below seventy" As the team moved into the building one of the stars came out from behind the moon. The blast of heat was intense, even through her protective jumpsuit.
"Wow," she said and they hurried under cover as quickly as possible. The last of the equipment was carried in doors just as another sun started to emerge and her suits radiation alarm chirped in her ear. "This is unbelievable," she said, "how could anyone have ever lived here. And it's only rated a B on the index!"
"Mostly because of the cities," he said as the doors automatically closed out the screaming wind, heat and radiation. Artificial light came on and the Concordia designed air lock automatically started cycling.
“Why the hell did they put a portal outside on this hell hole?”
“It's a cargo portal, probably used by bots and automated transports. We haven't been using the indoor portals because of alien traffic,” he explained. He pulled his helmet off and attached it to a belt clip then held out a hand. "I'm Bill Richardson."
"Alma," she replied and took the offered hand. He was quite the opposite of Capella who was stowing his breathing mask. Richardson was very thin and surprisingly tall, a thin face and hawkish eyes gave him a guarded appearance. Four black stars rode his collar and she noticed his weapon out and slung over a shoulder. Capella caught his eye and nodded, Richardson nodded back. Scouts worked a lot together, and these two were obviously acquainted. “Well, we're just here to help you evaluate the find."
"I'm glad too. Tech isn't my thing.” He tapped the butt stock of his gun and gestured to his team. “Better have everyone ready weapons.”
“Have you had trouble?”
“Nothing yet, but several times in the past on this planet there has been conflict. You'll have to see the cache before we can say more.”
Minu nodded and pulled her weapon from the special pouch on the side of her pack. Terry and Alijah saw what she was doing and began unlimbering their own weapons, if a bit less competently. Again she thought of readiness drills. Pip got his gun out without hesitation. Mandi watched them with an obvious expression of distaste. As a civilian she was unarmed. “Once your people are organized, follow us." The rest of Richardson's team was either deployed or watching the find. The inside door of the lock hissed inward and he led them through to the the worn looking building and down several gradually descending ramps. "Whatever species built these cities didn't look like us," he said as they walked. "No stairs anywhere." The farther they got from the entrance the quieter it became. Her suit was also telling her that the air was cleaner.
"Probably some sort of slithering species like the T'Chillen," Pip offered. Richardson's head spun around with a jerk. All it took was a mention of the species, commonly called snakes, to set most scouts on edge.
"Maybe they were just scared of stairs?" Alijah joked, though no one laughed.
After descending about a hundred meters they came to a maglev transit tube station of common Concordia design. Distant computers would control a fleet of varying sized cars to shuttle beings all over the cities. Operated by magnetic levitation and highly efficient, the design was found everywhere on Concordia worlds. Back on Bellatrix a maglev was under construction and was decades in the making. One day it would circle the world. Minu looked into the dark tunnel extending in both directions from the protective railing, dreading a long walk to their destination. Then there was a sudden rush of wind announcing the arrival of a tram sliding into view.
"It's still working?"
"Almost everything does," Richardson confirmed. The tram silently and smoothly came to a stop, doors pivoting open on cue and the stations safety rail rose out of the way. They all climbed aboard and the tram pulled away without anyone having to do a thing. Once it was underway Richardson went over to one wall where a map lit up as he approached. Minu could see it was a very detailed an incredibly intricate transportation system composed of hundred of lines and branches. He reached out and touched a spot on the map which flashed in reply before going dark.
"How extensive is the system?" she asked him.
"It's planet wide. Probably more than a hundred thousand miles of tramway. The map only displays local destinations unless you change modes. Whoever lived here might not have known how to climb stairs, but they breathed similar air."
The tram ride was almost an hour long. When it eventually came to a stop, they were in the center of a huge dome carved from the living bedrock of the planet. All along the walls, lights glimmered and catwalks went back and forth like the ceiling was covered in cobwebs. On the floor of the dome buildings of glass and steel stabbed toward the ceiling. All this did was further confused Minu.
"There are thousands of class A worlds in the galaxy. Why bother going to this extent on a world obviously unsuitable to whatever species lived here?"
"Ask Ted," Pip said nearby, "he has a theory."
"Save me the time, and let me in on it."
"It just follows his other theory that the Concordia are in decline. The empire was once so populace that even borderline worlds like this were utilized."
Minu had to give Ted his due. Faced with scenes like this, it made more and more sense. Still... "Okay, but he was talking about a power shortage, they obviously didn't have that problem here." She gestured expansively, taking in all the power being consumed by the huge dome.
"I don't think he ever claimed to have all the answers."
Richardson led them away from the station and to a service door, only the door wasn't there anymore. It had been torn away by force and lay a few meters away, nearly bent in half. "How did your team find this, anyway?" she asked Richardson. "There must be dozens of cities, each with hundreds of tram stops. It would have taken your team years to find it."
"Actually, we got on the tram and
it took us right here." Minu looked back at him in surprise then exchanged confused looks with Pip. "Our logistics person thinks that whoever left the stash programmed the tram to come straight here to make it easier to find again.
"That assumes no one comes along and uses the tram before they do," Pip said.
"Exactly," Richardson agreed.
"Which explains the big hurry," Minu said, "whoever left this is going to come back for it, and soon." Richardson nodded his head.
After going through the service door, they found a tightly turning ramp descending downwards. The ceiling was only a little over a meter high which forced them all to crouch uncomfortably, even Minu. Luckily it only went around a few dozen meters and ended up in a large equipment room. All sorts of machinery sat around, some working, others quiet. Minu suspected it was part of the trams mechanism. Also in the space was two more members of Richardson's team and more importantly, dozens of the nearly ubiquitous Concordia made cargo containers. Each case was a meter long and half meter across its hexagonal cross section. They were devoid of any identification marks, the sure sign of a cache, even though no attempt had been made do disguise or hide them. Taken with the tram being preprogrammed and the obviously broken door, it all added up to a very hasty, and equally temporary cache.
"So what do we have?" Minu asked Richardson. He waved her over to where one of the cargo modules lay with its top removed. Her science team all stood around with their jaws hanging open. Minu moved closer as Pip reached inside and fished out one of the devices inside. She held it so Minu could get a better look. Even unassembled it was impossible to mistake what he held. She'd been staring at schematics of just such a device for months on end. It was the business part of a beamcaster. "Jackpot," she whispered. There were big grins all around.
“That's a beamcaster?!” Richardson said, his eyes wide.
“You bet,” Pip said, already laying one on the floor and taking digital images. He fed them to a tablet to index against their computer database. "I say it's about ninety percent chance this is a T'Chillen design," Elation turned to quiet in an instant. "The computer says ten species are known to use this design, with only five of them as perfect matches based on this build-out." Richardson and Capella exchanged glances, the latter scratching his chin. It was far from a clear cut case of finders-keepers.
"How sure are you it's a snake design?" one of Richardson's scouts asked.
"The core weapons components are state of the art and in current production. The basic system actually has a number of uses when they come off the assembly line. These have been assembled as beamcasters, which are basically a portable particle accelerator.”
“Cut to the chase, Pip,” Minu encouraged him.
"This is the favorite weapon on the snakes, and they're horribly expensive," Pip said.
"Only higher order species could afford them," Minu said, Pip nodded.
“That's still not enough to be sure these belong to the snakes,” Capella said.
Alijah and Terry got another case open while the discussion went on. From the case Alijah held up another component, a fabricated stock. Unlike a gun stock the humans would use, this more closely resembled a corkscrew. It didn't take a lot of imagination to see the T'Chillen’s tentacle-arms curling around that grip.
"And the T'Chillen are the only senior reptilian species," Alijah told them.
Capella was in charge of the whole operation and now was faced with some hard decisions to make. He went over and looked at the corkscrew gun stock and glanced at the Pip's computer search results before speaking. "So we have about thirty cargo modules full of uber-tech snake hardware, probably worth more than our damn planet. Either this was boosted off the snakes, in which case they'll be hot to get it back, or they stashed it here themselves, in which case they'll be pissed if they find it gone."
"Any way you look at it if we take this stuff someone is going to be pissed." Richardson said. It was hard to argue with good old fashioned logic.
"Pip,” Minu said, “work with their logistics person and run a full inventory."
"That'll take an hour or so," he said, “these things are in pieces and we've never put one together.
"You don't think I know that? We need to have our eyes wide open here."
"You're not actually thinking of taking this shit, are you?"
Minu was rubbing her chin silently, running the scenario through her head. "Can you take the guts and modify these to work for us?"
"Sure, a hell of a lot easier than trying to build one from scratch. It doesn't get around the fact that we're up against the rules of engagement."
"We're not under attack," Richardson said, "the ROE doesn't concern scavenging. We've stolen from the snakes before..."
"And we'll do it again," Capella agreed.
"This is too good to pass up," Minu agreed with a nod.
As promised Pip finished the inventory an hour later. He, Alijah, Mandi and Terry assembled two of the weapons. They claimed it was the only way to verify that the cases didn't contain random spare parts; Minu suspected it was also for fun. Each of twenty case held two dozen central weapon build outs. The other ten contained stocks, assembly parts, and magazines holding fully charged EPC. Four hundred, eighty guns worth millions of credits. The Chosen only owned five beamcasters, purchased as a lot from a weapons dealer years ago. Ancient worn out models that cost more than a small factory. What was in front of her not only represented a vast fortune to their poor world, it was also more firepower than the Chosen had ever been able to afford. Here was the means of equipping a human army that would be as well armed as any in the Concordia.
In the course of finishing the inventory, Pip also found ten squad shields, and a hundred personal defensive shields. While neither was individually as valuable as the beamcasters, to her knowledge humanity did not own a single personal shield. It was the mother load.
“What's your opinion?” Capella asked after she'd finished with Pip.
“We have to take it,” she said without hesitation.
“Regardless of possible ramifications?”
She thought for a second then nodded her head. “There are so many reasons to take this, from tactical advantages to monetary, and only one reason not to.”
“Fear of the T'Chillen,” Richardson said, giving voice to the unspoken snake in the room.
Capella nodded and spoke to Minu. “I agree. Go make the report through the portal. Tell them to launch a full logistics teams along with enough transports to move all this.”
Armed with the inventory, Minu left with two of Capella's scouts to make her report back to the Chosen command. She knew it wasn't her choice to make, but they just had to agree with her and Capella. There was no way she was leaving any of this. They also brought some evidence to tantalize command further, the two assembled beamcasters, two personal shields, and a half dozen power packs. That would force them to come to the same conclusion when they saw the shiny new weapons, they just had to.
As she rode the tram back to the portal she watched out the window on one side while working through her head the arguments she'd use with Jacob and the rest of the council. She intended to speak to Dram first, this was far too important to waste time on anyone else. She needed to convince him to allow her to retrieve the cache. While she was thinking the tram slowed slightly while passing through a station. Another tram was going in the opposite direction, and sitting in that tram was a squad of six Rasa. She watched in stunned silence as they went by, heading in the direction she'd just come from, all armed to the teeth and in full combat armor.
Chapter 14
Octember 22nd, 516 AE
Chosen Headquarters, Steven’s Pass
It took Minu almost an entire minute of desperate fear and anger to figure out how to make the tram stop and reverse course. She couldn't radio Capella and warn him of what was coming, their radios didn't have the range, and she couldn't just allow the lizards to arrive in that station. Her people and the scouts wer
e down in the equipment room, nearly unarmed, and completely unaware of what was coming. Worse, it was a dead end with no way out. The Rasa must have been the ones to drop the cache; it was too much of a coincidence. At least it wasn't a platoon of T'Chillen.
"What can we do?" one of the scouts asked as the tram came to a silent stop. The rifle was off his shoulder and he was checking its load.
The other scout also had his gun ready but was looking at it dubiously. The capabilities of the Rasa's weapons and defenses were well known among the Chosen. "They have full combat armor," he said. They all knew that their native manufactured weapons were nearly worthless against combat armor. It was like trying to crack a boulder with a slingshot.
"We have an option," Minu said and pulled off her pack. "You, get to work on that tram control and see if there is any way in hell we can get back before those Rasa soldiers do. You, come here and help me. We have some quick improvising to do."
* * *
In the other tram the ten Rasa soldiers prepared to arrive at the cache site. They readied weapons and equipment because they were expecting trouble. On arriving through the portal they were informed by tiny sensors left behind that others had been through since their previous visit. The unit commander, Var'at, hesitated at this. The cache was three days old, and this world in the frontier was chosen due to its complete lack of usefulness. Not even squatters were interested because though it possessed an artificially maintained atmosphere and ample living space, no facilities for food production existed. The world was little more than a monument to some failed species. The maze of trams and cities were ideal hiding places and his people used them routinely for just this sort of operation.
Var'at was not a nest leader; his egg was not kept warm enough to be that smart. He got confused having to make more than a couple decisions at a time, and he had no real skill for math. Still, he was smart enough to lead males into combat and make the basic decisions required of that position. However, he found himself decidedly outside his comfort zone now. The orders were simple, retrieve the cache. Avoid conflict with higher order species. Being a member of a young independent species was often more dangerous than being a client of a powerful one. True, clients out in the wild of the frontier were usually free targets unless being escorted by their patrons; at least you could run home for protection. Once you were independent, there was no help unless you paid for it. The Rasa flourished through sheer determination and shameless acts of self-preservation.