Carbon Life

by HR Ringer

  After sending a short status report to the Hong Kong, Tobias put his helmet on, sealed it and looked back at Traynor and Yuán. “Seal your suits, ladies. Need to depressurize so one of you can retrieve the trash.”

  Yuán and Traynor pulled their helmets on, checked the seals on each other’s suits and nodded to Perkins, who ran gloved fingers over the environmental controls; after the air had been pulled from their cabin and stored, Tobias opened the starboard hatch, allowing Yuán and Traynor to drop onto the crusty surface.

  The coolers in their EVA suits immediately started whining in protest as they attempted to prevent the internal temps from climbing past 25°. Traynor carefully walked around the nose of the M35 and stepped up to the debris, being vigilant in the near micro-gravity to maintain her footing. Crouching in front of it, she looked it over carefully before picking it up. It appeared to be a container for a standard field ration issued to Alliance Marines, but she wanted to examine it closer inside the Mako.

  Xiùlán walked up beside her as Sam stood with the container in her hands. “Let’s take a closer look at that before we re-enter the Mako.” She entered several commands on the suit interface connected to her omni-tool and passed her wrist over the apparently empty container; upon inspecting the scan results, she immediately grabbed it from Sam’s hand and threw it away from the crater as hard as she could. Jartar’s micro-gravity and lack of air allowed the container to fly over 50 meters from the pair before it silently exploded with a bright flash and puff of greyish-white smoke.

  “Damned thing was rigged,” Xiùlán fumed. “Scanning it activated a countdown timer – liner must have been packed with the explosive.”

  Sergeant Perkins voice came over the comm. “You two okay out there? Looked like a pretty powerful explosion for its size.”

  Traynor answered, “We’re fine, Sergeant – thanks.” She changed to the suit-to-suit frequency and said, “Thanks, Xiùlán. Glad you looked at it out here. Were you able to tell before you threw it away… was it batarian, or Cerberus?”

  “Looks like it was a gift from Cerberus,” Xiùlán replied, her voice still tight. She crouched down and carefully studied the surface ahead and to the side of the Mako before finally settling on one direction, away from the crater’s edge at an angle. “Tire tracks… really faint, but definitely there – looks like from a Grizzly. Tracks are most likely from their drop point.”

  “Do we need to go over there, or should we continue on?” Traynor was already looking ahead.

  “Let’s continue on,” Xiùlán said quietly. “I have a hunch we’ll be following Grizzly tracks.”

  Switching her suit comm to the squad channel, she said, “Sergeant? We’re coming back in – time to get out of the sun for a bit.”

  They had continued moving alongside the crater’s edge for an additional two hours without seeing any other objects left behind by previous explorers, even though they were still following tracks apparently created by a Grizzly. They had discovered as they moved that Jartar was continuously being wracked by micro-quakes, no doubt caused by the planet’s proximity to both Dis and Nearrum. Their short ‘day’ was nearly over, causing Traynor to voice some concern about night exploration until they noticed the planet Nearrum rising above the eastern horizon. It would provide enough reflected sunlight to enable the team to continue moving safely during Jartar’s short ‘night’.

  They were about 30 minutes into the night cycle of the planet when Traynor called a halt. “There’s something in front of us, hanging off the edge of the crater. Looks like a vehicle.”

  Sergeant Perkins agreed with Sam’s assessment, saying, “Possibly our Grizzly.”

  As they got closer, it became apparent that the tracks they’d been following ended here, with a model VT7 partially over the crater’s edge, left side forward wheel hanging off in ‘space’, right rear wheel nearly off the ground. The vehicle’s weight, even with Jartar’s micro-gravity, had caused it to ‘high-center’ as the opposite corners lost contact with the ground.

  Tobias observed, “Someone forced the driver of that thing towards the edge.” He pulled the M35 alongside the bigger vehicle and activated the side cameras and lights. “See that? Right side wheels are buried to the axles in this soft soil – pile in front and back of each tire makes me think they tried to drive their way out.” The sergeant panned the view from back to front. “Couldn’t use the ventral thrusters for fear of sending the whole thing over the edge. Safer to simply abandon it.”

  “Any way to see if they were forced to the edge by someone – or something?” Traynor was studying her view of the vehicle. “I think we need to go out and take a closer look.”

  “It’s up to you, Serviceman,” Tobias replied. “I’m just your driver.” He pulled his helmet on, sealed it to his suit and backed the M35 a few meters away from the Grizzly in order to allow Traynor and Yuán more room to move around outside; they left from the port side hatch as soon as the cabin was depressurized.

  Walking up to the right side of the stuck vehicle, they could just make out traces left by small arms fire near the driver’s side window. “Not really proof it was attacked, Xiùlán,” Sam observed. “Most of these old bears have seen action of some sort, either military or mercenary. Can’t do too much damage with small arms. Can you find the serial number? Should be laser engraved on the sides immediately behind the leading edges of the operator cab.”

  Xiùlán shined her light obliquely across the area where she expected to find the numbers; the high-intensity light caused the engraved numbers to stand out by throwing shadows. “Looks like 67-VT00402a.”

  Traynor entered the number into her omni-tool and had the microframe in the Mako send the query to the Hong Kong orbiting above them; she had her answer within minutes. “Originally purchased by a mining company – Merida Industries, mid-2168. Company went bust in late ‘71 after rampant speculation tanked the price of beryllium; Grizzly was auctioned in early ’72. Buyer was a mega-conglomerate – Cord-Hislop Aerospace.” Traynor paused to read the data scrolling on her screen. “Shell company… CEO is one ‘J.H.Arper’.” Traynor closed her omni-tool.

  “That was eight years ago, Sammy. How did it wind up here, and why? ”

  “I believe this Grizz’ belongs to Cerberus, Xiùlán. J.H.Arper?” Traynor thought for a moment before continuing, “The ‘H’ and ‘A’ together? Harper? It’s Jack Harper, aka The Illusive Man. Makes sense, I suppose. C-H Aerospace is a starship manufacturer. Funny thing is, a lot of the ships C-H manufactures as civilian transports are thinly disguised warships, fully weaponized and shielded.”

  While Traynor had been talking, Xiùlán had been looking around the nose of the VT7, searching for footprints or vehicle tracks going away from the heavy transport, as well as gazing into the crater the Grizzly had almost tumbled into.

  Without warning she dropped to a crouch as she said, “Traynor, stay down. Sergeant, douse your lights!”

  The front and side lights on the Mako went out immediately, plunging the pair into the eerie twilight provided by the sunlight reflected from Nearrum. “Look in the crater, Sam, about eleven o’clock from your position, two klicks out.” Xiùlán said.

  Traynor looked over the edge in the direction indicated; there appeared to be movement. Several people using portable high-intensity lights, two vehicles sitting parked, one behind the other. Sam moved back to the Mako; reaching into the cramped storage area, she retrieved her sniper rifle, a fully modded Kassa Fabrication Harpoon. Carefully moving back to the VT7, she dropped to her belly and crawled to the edge of the crater. Bringing up the long gun, she aimed it at the vehicles and sighted through the scope at the people in the crater.

  “What do you see?” Xiùlán had crawled up beside Sam.

  “Pair of Grizzlies, five… no, seven… people. They seem to be looking for something… can’t tell what from here.” Sam continued to inspect the people through her scope. “Their suits all look alike… can’t see any markings, so not A
lliance.” She caught a glimpse of one person’s face through the faceplate. “One of ’em is human, anyway. They’re all about the same height, so probably the rest are as well. Looks like…” She paused for several seconds before finishing, “Judging from their chestplates, one or two of ’em are women. Doesn’t appear they’ve seen us.”

  Xiùlán entered a query into her omni-tool and sent it to the microframe in the Mako, requesting the Hong Kong initiate a search for other ships in the system, as Sam examined the vehicles minutely through the rifle’s scope.

  She pulled the gun back and rolled sideways so she could face Xiùlán. “Both vehicles look exactly like this one, Xiùlán. What do we do? Mission parameters are that we remain undetected. It’ll be sunrise in just over an hour.”

  Xiùlán’s omni-tool flashed as she started to reply. “Heard back from the Hong Kong… they found a large vessel orbiting Klensal. Captain’s going to break orbit, move the ship to Nearrum. She’ll come get us if we holler, but thinks we should just sit tight and observe for now.”

  Xiùlán sighed as she thought about their next move. “Looks like we’ll be here a bit longer. Let’s get back in the Mako – we need to have Sergeant Perkins reposition the tank so the turret is aimed at our visitors down below while keeping its bulk hidden behind the Grizzly. We can keep an eye on them through the gunsight, and the Hong Kong will alert us when their ship is inbound to pick ‘em up.”

  Traynor got to her knees and took another look in the crater. “Okay. I’m starting to feel a bit hungry. Guess we can have a bite to eat while we see what they do when the sun comes up.”

  * * *

  After two and a half hours of quiet observation, night was fast approaching; the reflected light from Nearrum would be slightly lessened by distance, as Jartar was rapidly drawing away on its journey around Dis.

  The two Grizzlies had moved towards the far side of the massive crater and were nearly out of sight over the planet’s curvature. Xiùlán and Samantha felt they should drop down into the crater and follow along, just to see what the suspected Cerberus crew was doing.

  The Hong Kong had been covertly scanning for comm traffic from the unknown vessel orbiting Klensal; there had been some chatter concerning the ground crew on Jartar, but nothing that identified the vessel’s owners. The Hong Kong’s communications officer had confirmed the mystery ship’s transponder appeared to be turned off; while not illegal to run without it, it did add to Sam and Xiùlán's suspicions that it was a Cerberus-owned vessel.

  A transponder broadcast the identity of a vessel, including its owner. It made sense to Traynor that a Cerberus-owned vessel would wish to keep their presence in the system a secret; even though they were technically in Earth Alliance Space, Hades Gamma was near the far end of the human’s designated area, and considered by the batarians as belonging to the Hegemony. The Dis system consisted of non-habitable planets with a fair amount of mineral resources, in every way unremarkable even to humans. All of this ran through Sam’s mind as she watched the shadows of nightfall crawl across the crater floor and the pair of vehicles disappear into the gloom at the far end. She looked at Xiùlán and asked, “Time to go?”

  Yuán looked to Perkins and said, “Let’s see what’s down there, Sergeant.”

  “You got it, Ma’am. You may want to strap in, just in case.” He initialized the drive motors as Traynor centered the turret before strapping into her seat. Tobias turned and drove away from the crater’s edge 250 meters before turning back and accelerating to full speed. He decreased the Mako’s mass as they flew off the edge of the crater and started descending, Perkins making minute mass adjustments in order to keep the Mako slightly tail-down as they slowly fell towards the crater floor.

  They floated to a gentle touch-down, their pilot expertly playing the mass and drive controls to ensure they didn’t bounce when they touched down rear wheels first. With the Mako still traveling forward at top speed, it was only a few minutes until they reached the spot where they had first spotted the unknown vehicles from their vantage point at the crater’s edge.

  As Perkins came to a stop, Traynor rose from her seat and sighted through the cannon’s rangefinder. Panning left and right, she could see no sign of the two vehicles; spinning the turret around, she looked at their former position. The VT7 stuck on the crater’s edge was barely visible, its bulk mostly camouflaged by the ruggedness and ruddy hues of the terrain around it, even with the view at maximum magnification. Explains why they never saw us.

  “Any more information from the Hong Kong, Sergeant,” Traynor asked.

  “Hong Kong is running silent, Serviceman. Captain will inform us if the strangers’ ship starts moving this way from Klensal.”

  Looking at Xiùlán, Sam remarked, “Good time to slip outside, take a quick look around. We’re going to need a pickup soon.”

  Xiùlán thought for a few moments, then replied, “Sergeant, turn right and take us into that depressed area our unknown friends were investigating. Let’s see if the GPR produces any results.”

  “Roger that,” came the reply as he turned the Mako and eased it into the depression. The tire sound coming into the cabin changed as they rolled onto compacted soil. “Whatever was lying here was quite heavy, even on a micro-gravity planet,” Tobias observed. He turned back to the left as he reached the center of the depression. Checking his instruments, he added, “Depression appears to be about 1800, 1900 meters in length. That’s more than twice the length of an Everest class dreadnought.” Shaking his head, he looked back at Xiùlán and Sam and asked, “What the hell kind of vessel was grounded here?”

  Xiùlán raised her hand as she said “Stop!”

  Perkins promptly brought them to a halt and waited for Yuán to explain. “I’ve got something! Actually several somethings.” Looking at Traynor, she asked, “Any sign of those two Grizzlies?”

  “Nothing,” came the reply.

  “Sergeant, depressurize, please. Probably last chance we’ll have to get outside. I think we need to call for a pickup when we’re done here.”

  * * *

  Xiùlán directed Tobias to reverse the Mako just enough so she could stand on the spot over which the front wheels had been parked. Using her omni-tool to confirm her findings with the Mako’s GPR, she pointed at the ground and told Traynor, “Right here, Sam.”

  Sam used her personal mass modifier to increase her apparent weight before applying the short handled shovel to the spot; she excavated a hole half a meter down and a meter in diameter. The clunk of the shovel spoke to their success – the both used their gloved hands to push enough soil away until they were able to uncover the metal parts.

  Each of the several pieces of metal was black in color – the kind of black that absorbed all the light shining on it. They inspected them for radiation emissions before picking them up; the largest was about 65 – 70 centimeters by 35 – 40; the smallest of the three was less than half the size of the first piece, and their apparent weight on this planet spoke to the density of the material from which they were formed. Traynor stowed them in the small cargo compartment, then entered the Mako behind Xiùlán.

  Perkins started pressurizing the Mako as he spun it around 180° and began moving back towards the crater wall. He started speaking as soon as he had his helmet off. “Hong Kong’s on its way here to pick us up. We’ll rendezvous at the far end of the crater. Captain said our unknown companion left Klensal ten minutes ago, heading this direction.” The Mako was moving at its top speed, so bounced a bit as it came to the end of the depression, its tires spinning slightly in the looser material past the deformed area they had been traveling in.

  Xiùlán had been watching their ‘six’ through the cannon gunsight as they drove along; repositioning the gun, she looked up at the crater rim until she could see the Grizzly stuck on the edge. She had to look at it twice, at two different magnification levels to confirm what her eyes didn’t want to accept. “Sergeant Perkins? Sam? That ancestors be damned Grizzly is
in a slow-motion free-fall off the crater’s edge.”

  Perkins brought the Mako to a stop so he could look at the monitor. “She’s right! Damn!” They had stopped far enough away that they weren’t in any danger; what they hadn’t counted on was another ground party, looking in their direction from the former parking place of the unfortunate VT7 now falling slowly down the crater side. “That’s not good,” Perkins opined.

  Yuán aimed the 155 mm cannon at the people on the crater edge. At full magnification, she could just make out the logos on their chest armor – Cerberus. “Sergeant, tight-beam a message to the Hong Kong: Cerberus confirmed ground-side. Use caution.”

  Perkins was watching the monitor showing what Xiùlán was watching. The hair on the back of his neck stood up as he saw two of the people setting up a rocket launcher. “Serviceman Yuán, charge that cannon and standby. Target is the launcher they’re setting up. Wait for my order to fire.”

  “Will do.” Cursing their miserable luck, Yuán engaged the cannon’s mass generator and made sure it was loaded. “Standing by, Sergeant.” The cannon added its own moaning sound to the interior of the cramped cabin, as if whining in anticipation.

  Perkins watched the people above finish their preparation. As they stood and moved away, a bright light flared from the device, followed by a tight trail of flaming smoke aimed right for the nose of the Mako.

  Perkins immediately turned to the right and accelerated away from where they’d been stopped. The smoke trail turned to follow. “Shit! Yuán, fire that cannon then recharge!” He turned the Mako’s nose back to the rocket’s path and charged their kinetic barrier as Xiùlán pulled the trigger. The cannon’s recoil rocked the Mako slightly back as the Cerberus rocket launcher and the round it contained, along with the people around it, were all obliterated in a fiery explosion from the heavy-metal 155 mm slug traveling at a small fraction of light speed.