Lennox’s voice came on the channel. “Captain, we’re unable to get our hooks into place. The armatures can’t maneuver in this tight space. Requesting permission for EVA.” Evangeline did not like having her team members perform anything outside of their vehicles. An EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity), common to space walks and other duties performed outside of a ship floating between worlds, was no big deal unless you were in an unknown situation with no reinforcements and the chance of a lethal encounter.
“Are you certain you can’t get your hooks in place with the armature?” she asked.
Harper answered her question. “No, ma’am. It’s snugger than a St. Bernard in a cat door down here. These winch-holds were just not made for such masculine equipment.” Evangeline could not suppress her grin; it was lucky for her position of authority that grins did not transmit over audio.
“Can it, Harper. Lennox, permission granted. Get those doors open. And, Harper, keep the colorful commentary to yourself next time, got it?” Evangeline said with a slight chuckle.
“Roger, that, Captain.” both Lennox and Harper replied in unison. Lennox’s TRTV began to hum inside the cockpit. Part of why Evangeline hated EVA’s so much was how long it took to cycle through the neural connection from the TRTV. She watched Lennox’s seat began to descend down through the floor of the cockpit.
When it reached the bottom, mechanisms spun and unwound themselves from his back and the base of his helmet, revealing illuminated ports along his spine and neck. The dots of light along his back reminded her of the first time her husband had seen her since the procedure. The memory of his reaction churned in her stomach. She did not want to think about it and pushed the thoughts into the back of her mind with the rest of her pain.
In a flash, the jacks penetrating the neural-interface ports retracted and the open ports were sealed shut. Once disconnected from his vehicle he stood up from his seat and stretched. He performed a quick check on the seal between his helmet and flight suit before he moved toward the front of his own TRTV, taking the hook from the armature. He walked toward the doors and attached his hook to the winch-hold, then did the same on Harper’s side.
Lennox used the console on his forearm to activate the winch once he secured the hooks into place. Harper activated his own winch, from inside his TRTV, at Lennox’s signal. The hangar doors inched open with the squealing sound of metal scraping against metal. The doors opened about five feet before they would not move any farther. The wires attached to the hooks started to strain.
“Stop!” Lennox shouted at Harper. “The lines are going to snap! Captain, this is as wide as these doors will open.”
Evangeline responded to Lennox’s assessment. “Lennox, go inside and see if there is something blocking the doors.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lennox replied touching his fingers to the faceplate of his helmet. He took his side arm from its holster and began to walk between the massive doors. Even at 6’2”, he looked small next to the TRTV’s and the huge metal doors. Lennox turned on the lights on sides of his helmet to help him navigate. He poked his head through the opening and looked around the hangar interior.
At first glance, the inner hangar looked like it had been cleaned just before their arrival. It was empty, stark and devoid of anything except a thin layer of dust that has settled to the floor. Upon closer inspection, the hanger showed signs as if a fire had scorched it. He saw dark burn marks in the corners and in the door tracks.
As he examined the doors, he found the problem. “Captain, there are large beams blocking the door tracks. Just like my grandpa used to prevent people from opening our windows back home. It’s cheap security. I also see cables connected to what looks like a hand-winch. I’ll see if I can move the beams out of the way.”
“Roger that, Lennox,” Evangeline replied. “Signal Harper to resume winching when you’re finished.” The vulnerability of her team member was making her uneasy. She wondered if there could be another way in and out of this facility. If there was, those beams could have been set and forgotten. If not, there may be danger inside yet to reveal itself.
She could hear Lennox grunt with the strain of turning the hand-winch. The cables that ran from the hand-winch to the security beams tightened and strained as the beam lifted up out of the door tracks. “Okay, Harper. Activate your winch.” he said with heavy breath.
“You got it, buddy!” Harper replied, and the winch cables tightened as the hangar doors started to move apart at a slow gait. “That’s right, baby! Open wide for Daddy!”
Evangeline closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and counted to three to prevent her from yelling at Harper. However, Weston intervened first. “Harper, get serious! Any more flack and you’ll be singing soprano for the rest of your life.”
The silence over the channel was palatable. The only sounds over the channel were a quiet ‘Yes, sir,’ from Harper followed by the muted chuckles from everyone else.
FIVE
After the laughing died, Lennox came back on the channel. “Captain, I have good news and bad news.”
“What is it, Lennox?” replied Evangeline.
“The good news is that I found the power switches for the hangar lights,” Lennox replied. At that moment, the hangar lit up and flooded the sinkhole with illumination. The flickering light cast strobe-like shadows of their group onto the crater wall behind them. Evangeline’s canopy darkened again as her pupils constricted to adjust to the brightening hangar.
Lennox walked toward the middle of the hangar entry. “The bad news is the inner hangar doors are too small for the TRTV’s. These are standard airlock doors. Big enough for personnel and small equipment, but there’s no way a TRTV will get through.”
Evangeline’s first thought was not again. It was bad enough to have one team member exposed outside of his TRTV. Having the whole team exposed, with only side arms and survival packs, was unacceptable. She felt the risk to her team was too great. As much as she hated it, she would have to consult Graham.
Graham was envisioning himself back on Olympus receiving medals, praises, and his choice of assignments, when a voice over the PA system tore him from his reverie.
“Commander Graham. I have an urgent message from the surface.”
“What is it?” he barked into the air. “There’s no way that team has completed its mission yet.” Graham rolled his eyes with a sigh. “What could possibly be the problem? It’s a simple assignment.” He paused, exhaling his disgust. “Play the message.”
There was a small chirp and Evangeline’s voice sounded overhead. “Commander Graham. There’s a problem. We’ve breached the facility, but to go further we’ll all have to go EVA. Requesting additional support units. Over.”
Evangeline’s voice, usually so professional, seemed snippy, even rude in the recording. Graham hated it when subordinates questioned his orders and second-guessed his plans.
Graham pinched the bridge of his nose and mumbled his response toward his desk. “Response to ground team... Request Denied. You have your orders… GET GOING!”
Evangeline’s frustration bubbled near the surface, but she kept it under control and replied through gritted teeth. “Acknowledged. Proceeding as ordered.”
Again, she had to take a breath and count to three. Risking her own life was nothing, but risking the lives of her unit was another matter. She understood her role as their superior officer, but did not see their lives as expendable as she saw her own.
Resigned to her orders she took another calming breath before speaking over the channel. “Disconnect, people. We’re proceeding on foot. Grab your packs and weapons. Assemble at the airlock in five minutes.”
“Aw, man!” Harper groaned under his breath, unaware that he spoke aloud. Sighing erupted from the rest of the team, but they also acknowledged the order over the channel. One by one they emerged from their TRTV’s, and disconnected from their neural interfaces. They each opened the armored compartments on the underside of their vehicle to retrieve their
survival packs.
Their packs contained emergency air recycling canisters, food and water, first aid kits and ammunition. Next to the packs were storage compartments for rifles, handguns, flares, grenades, and other equipment used by TRTV pilots on rare occasions. Although they rated as experts in their use, their training in them was only for survival if they crashed in a combat zone. Their use for infantry style combat missions was unplanned.
Evangeline had never been required to execute a reconnaissance mission without her TRTV in her entire career. Her mouth went dry and she felt the hairs on her arms press against the inner lining of her flight suit. She wondered if that was what infantry soldiers in her history books felt like before entering unknown territory; armed to the teeth, but with only their body armor to act as a shield from an attack. She felt as exposed as a newborn baby did.
The squad had assembled in silence, and they were ready to go in four minutes. Without a verbal order, her team formed up in the familiar defensive circle while Hicks, the technician, worked on opening the outer airlock door.
“Let’s see what kind of encryption these guys used,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else in the group. Hicks did that a lot, talked to himself aloud. He was the quietest one of the group, preferring to listen. He remained quiet unless spoken to or if he forgot there were others around. Then he would share one side of his own inner conversation.
“Now, that IS weird.” He said.
“What’s weird, Hicks?” Weston asked. Hicks turned around with a look on his face as if he had walked in on a surprise party for someone else. He stumbled over his own words before responding.
“The encryption…” he answered.
“What about it?” Evangeline asked. “Is it sophisticated?” Hicks was like a kid sometimes in his ability to be amused and surprised by the simplest things.
“No, ma’am,” he answered. “Not sophisticated. There is none. No encryption whatsoever.” Hicks stood there with a dumbfounded look on his face.
Through his faceplate, Evangeline saw the small tattoo’s below, and outside, his eyes. They were ancient hieroglyphics depicting the eye of Ra. It was the symbol of his favorite Avatar bar on Olympus, Second Eyes. He may not have had the highest aptitude scores for piloting a TRTV, but his IQ tests placed him at genius levels.
Not following his point, Evangeline pushed for more information. “How is that a problem? Doesn’t that mean we can just walk in?”
Hicks, still looking dazed, replied. “Well, yeah. It just doesn’t make sense. This place looks like it took great effort to hide, but it has the access security of a ‘come on in and borrow a cup of sugar while I’m out’ vibe. It’s just strange.” Hicks looked like he wanted to scratch his head, but that would have appeared odd with his helmet on.
“Alright, duly noted,” Weston cut in on the conversation. “Let’s just be on our guard. Maybe these people never expected to be found, so no need for higher security.” At any rate, Evangeline thought Hicks was right. It was peculiar.
“Okay, Hicks. Open the door. We’re proceeding with the mission. Weapons free. Lennox, you take point.” Evangeline gestured toward the door, and the team entered the airlock behind Lennox. One by one, they stepped through the outer airlock door after Lennox with Harper closing the airlock door behind him.
SIX
After the airlock pressurized with the loud hissing of old, abandoned air compressors, Evangeline, and her team made their way past the inner airlock door and into a corridor on the other side. Dunbar looked down at her instruments as she scanned the atmosphere.
“The air is breathable,” Dunbar said. “But, just barely.”
Evangeline met her eyes and nodded. “Acknowledged. But to be on the safe side let’s keep our helmets on.”
“We have approximately three hours of O2,” Dunbar added.” I recommend we stay in here for no more than two. That will give us an hour reserve to return to the extraction point.”
Dunbar was the team medic. Although everyone else had the same first aid training, she had a maternal nature that was calming. It felt natural for people to go to her for help whether it was medical or if they just needed someone to listen. Lennox had commented several times on the Chiron how she was a good listener back home. Comments like that led Evangeline to believe Lennox had a crush on his cousin.
“Agreed,” Evangeline responded. “Weston, set the clock.”
Weston activated a timer on his arm console, which began to descend from 2:00:00.
They stalked down a corridor, inching their way from one floor tile to the next with their weapons raised. They peered into each room they came across for any signs that there were people living there. At first, they moved as a single unit, touching shoulders, feeling each other’s movements. From one room to the next they found dim sleeping quarters, offices, bathrooms, a kitchen, and a dining hall. The entire facility had a benign feeling to it.
It seemed to be compact, Spartan with minimal aesthetic elements. The only movement aside from Evangeline and her team were the robotic cleaners roaming along the floors, walls, and ceilings.
“Someone forgot to turn off the cleaners when they left,” Harper snickered. “Who knows how long they’ve been running, huh? I’d hate to see the power bill.”
“Yeah,” replied Lennox with a snort, “My mama would’ve skinned me for wasting power like this.”
Evangeline looked over the floor with new eyes. She had not noticed upon their entrance that the spaces were in old, yet pristine condition. “The cleaners must have been running for years to get all the surfaces this clean,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve even seen floors on Olympus this polished.”
Dunbar slapped Lennox across his shoulder with the back of her hand. “Your mama would have blamed your little sister,” she teased, “and you would have let her take the fall. You know you were always the favorite.”
“Cut the chatter,” Weston growled, “Stay focused.”
“Yes, sir,” the three soldiers responded in unison, but Evangeline could still hear Harper let out a faint geez.
The further into the facility they explored, the more it appeared to be the remnants of an abandoned mining outpost. After thirty minutes of clearing all the rooms from the airlock to the end of what appeared to be the main corridor, they discovered the only locked door.
The tension in the squad rose in anticipation of what was behind the one door that seemed intent to keeping people out. However, Evangeline wondered if it had also been used to keep people in.
“Hicks, check the door,” Evangeline ordered. He moved forward and began to examine the door’s security. It was an electronic keypad, simple security, of ancient technology.
Hicks knelt down in front of the keypad and held up the scanner attached to his palm. “There’s power to this lock,” he said while cycling through scanning frequencies. “And there seems to be an eight digit code to open the door. I can’t bypass the security system with my scanner. This lock is just too old for our tech. It’d be like trying to write on a stone with your finger.”
“How long would it take to decipher the code?” Evangeline asked while lowering her weapon. She looked over at the timer on Weston’s console. They still had ninety minutes before they had to return to their TRTV’s and get to the extraction point. She did not want to leave before her mission was complete unless there was no other option. Having to face Graham with a report of an unfinished mission was less appealing than cleaning her TRTV’s engines with her toothbrush.
Hicks turned his body so that he was facing Evangeline and the rest of the team. “With eight digits, there are nearly a hundred million possible combinations. However, we may be able to narrow that down a bit.” He turned and resumed scanning the keypad. A low hum began to emit from his console and a series of numbers began to spin like a slot machine. “Aha! I was hoping you’d say that,” he mumbled to himself.
He jumped to his feet with excitement. “Captain,” his expression was like
a child who had just made a fascinating discovery about mud. He stepped toward Evangeline and held out his hand facing up. “The circuits of some of these buttons are more degraded than others. I think the code is a combination of these numbers.”
The hologram above his hand was a glowing model of the keypad with the numbers one, two, seven, nine, and zero illuminated.
“That’s only five numbers,” Harper said tilting his head to see around Weston’s shoulders. “I thought you said the code had eight digits.”
Lennox smacked Harper’s helmet with the back of his hand. “Some of the numbers were used more than once, genius!” Harper stared at Lennox with a dumbfounded expression, then smiled and laughed as his brain connected the dots.
“That still leaves over ten thousand possible combinations, Captain,” Hicks said, leaving his palm up to keep the hologram active. “We don’t have the time to try them all.” He pressed a few buttons on his arm console and the numbers begin to jumble in strings of eight digits hoping that random coincidence would reveal the right code.
Evangeline stared at the jumbling numbers floating in the air. This can’t be a coincidence, she thought to herself. She knew those numbers. She had known those numbers her entire life. In an instant, she saw the correct sequence form in her mind. The startling revelation penetrated her down to her core.
Evangeline’s head spun as the blood rushed out of her skull. She felt the rush of falling and thought, for a split-second, she was dreaming. An involuntary hand reached out and took a hold of Weston’s arm to balance herself. Several of them, including Weston, called out “Captain!” Dunbar stepped around Lennox and scanned Evangeline for leaks in her flight suit.
Avenging Angels (The Seraphim Chronicles Book 1) Page 3