The image was not clear, but it looked like a Blaw-Knox lattice tower peak.
“Echo. Bring the boys in. We are moving the Sariska to that tower. We may have found our beacon.”
Wes smiled.
“You will lose contact with the drones, sir,” Echo warned.
“I know, but we have to check this out.”
Hagan took another bite of the ration bar.
***
As the Sariska lifted off and slid down the mountainside on a direct line to its goal, eyes watched from the surface.
It flew straight as an arrow.
She knew exactly where it was going.
She ran.
***
“Wes, I am not sure this plan is safe,” Echo said from the co-pilot’s seat, with real concern in her voice.
“I thought ECHO systems were badass,” Hagan said, mockingly and excitedly. “What's with this safety stuff? I’m dead anyway. And honestly, I am not going to starve to death.”
“If that Blaw-Knox tower is what I think it is, it may have a base there that is occupied. I want to do a high flyover and drop the boys in, for a bit of recon, before we go there.”
“Now that's more like it.” He smiled. “We have the right tools for that job.”
“I also want you to take this.”
A small maintenance-bot crawled up his leg, carrying a nanite hypo injection tube.
“Like you said, you're dead anyway.”
Hagan took the injector tube from the bot and read the warnings regarding inappropriate use. It had nothing about the dangers he knew the mil-HUD injections also brought.
Hagan laughed, a bit too long, and then said, “What the hell.”
He held the injection tube to his neck.
Echo didn't have to say it out loud, but she did.
“Chief Engineer Wes Hagan, do you accept the installation of the Black Badger mil-HUD-2745?”
“Just do it, before I chicken out.”
He pressed it, harder. He felt the numbing mist and a slight prick.
“That wasn't so bad.”
Then suddenly, it felt like the tube sunk sharp teeth into him.
He screamed, and his vision went white. He was paralyzed. It felt like something big was eating its way up to his brain.
Why do I smell toast?
***
When he came back to consciousness, sometime later, his first thought was that he was glad he had been strapped in. The tube was gone. He tasted blood in his mouth.
A maintenance spider climbed him, holding a clear vial with a brown liquid that looked like weak coffee.
Echo said, “Drink this, it will help. All of it, at once.”
“Why do my sinuses hurt? And my wrists?”
He took the vial. It looked like a large test tube. He pulled the stopper and upended it in a single motion.
It burned on the way down. Hagan sputtered and coughed.
Finally able to speak, he said, “Was that bourbon?”
“Actually, yes.”
Echo smiled.
“It's tradition. Your systems are coming online now.”
“Holy shit. No wonder it hurts. How can they integrate so fast?”
A SL-Hagan status window was rolling by in his personal HUD. He knew, without thinking, that DS-01 through DS-06 were prepped and lined up for a drop. He simply knew that the ramp was already down, and the rear compartment was in full vacuum.
“We will be over the target in eleven minutes. Squad drop-prep, go,” Echo said, and things happened, fast, in his brain with no explanation.
Hagan was the designated squad leader. He could now, somehow, see everything the six drop suits could see. All at once. Amazingly, this didn't confuse his perceptions, it just sharpened them.
Weapons status cycled on all the suits. Grav-chutes were ready, and when tactical indicated it was time, DS-01 to -06 ran out the back of the Sariska.
The ship veered off sharply as the drop suits descended, in formation. Hagan saw the tower, far below, and the small station at its base.
There was a very wide landing pad, but no docking or hangar facilities.
“Keep her steady. I am going to suit up.”
Wes released the five-point harness and turned back to the main compartment to find his pressure suit, waiting. By the time they set down, he was ready.
He felt, more than saw, the other six drop suits follow him down the ramp.
Four of them deployed around the base of the Sariska, and two followed him up to the two that were already waiting by the open base airlock. Four of the suits entered the airlock with him as the big door closed behind them.
“The base still has power. So far so good,” Hagan said.
“It is deserted. It looks like it had an organized shutdown when it was closed up,” AI~Echo said, as the door and airlock finished its cycle and the inner door swung open.
Floodlights came on from the suits as they entered the base. There was another inner door that was closed. The configuration would allow for a large space airlock, if needed.
They entered the space within and closed the outer doors. His helmet indicated that pressure was good, and the O2 and CO2 levels were excellent.
Without warning, the four suits turned and faced him, weapons powered up. He was being painted by lasers.
“Wes, did you know you had a rider?”
AI~Echo’s voice was sinister as the drop suits crowded closer.
CHAPTER FIVE: Hagan’s Station
“Logs showed that Hagan sat on that ridge for months while the drones searched an area the size of Texas. When he found the site of the station, he moved right away. He almost saw her again. She was clearly visible in the data on video.”
--Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: General Patricia Chase, senior member of the Earth Defense Coalition.
<<<>>>
“Echo, what are you doing?”
His new mil-HUD showed that all the weapons trained on him were hot. He also saw the targeting solution of all sixteen weapons. They would pass through him and miss the DS behind him.
“What do you mean a rider?”
He unlatched and removed his helmet for a sniff of stale, very cold, dry air.
Echo's avatar appeared as if she was in the room.
“Someone was surveilling you without your consent. The mil-HUD has detection protocols and protections against this. Please, remain still.”
Echo placed her finger to her lips as he felt something in his head.
“Are you alright, Wes?”
“It's not too bad. Like a rapid ice cream headache,” Wes said.
“Interesting. Not what I expected at all.”
Echo turned away and was looking into the base’s garage bay.
The weapons began to stand down. The suits turned away, one at a time, to shine their lights in the base instead of on him.
“DS-03, go to the tower base so we can assess the condition of the communications equipment.”
He walked to a console. It was completely dead.
“DS-05, assess the solar panels. We have emergency lights only in here.”
“Would you like me to explore and inventory the outpost, Wes?” Echo asked, as she looked around the garage.
“How will you do that? The drop suits are too...”
Hagan trailed off as he saw six of the palm-sized spider-bots climb down from a suit.
“Oh. Yes, please. Everything from tools to wire. Water to beds. Everything. And if you find something that will tell us anything about who the hell these people are, let me know right away.”
Echo seemed to walk deeper into the workshop, followed by DS-01 and five of the spider-bots. One spider-bot and DS-02 were already exploring the garage bay with full floodlights on.
***
“The solar panels are 90% intact, but they required some maintenance. Dusting mainly,” Echo said, as a window opened in Hagan's HUD.
He saw the field of panels. Dust h
ad settled on them from a couple of centuries without maintenance.
“We have already discovered the pole mops specifically designed for the task.”
“Let me know when you find the power plant,” Hagan requested.
“Already found it. Looks dead,” Echo replied, as an expanding floor plan of the outpost was displayed.
The layout included a battery bank room and a generator room.
“It looks like this place had an organized shutdown. It's like they expected to come back. The interior airlocks were secured, and the seals are still good.”
Wes proceeded to the lower level where the batteries were. DS-03 followed, providing light. It was apparent, right away, as he entered the room, that the cells in the bank that covered the wall were dry.
“Echo, how much water will it take to refill these cells?”
He looked at the clear, clean glass fronts of the cells that told the whole story. Over time, they had just dried out.
“About 300 liters. Not much really,” Echo replied.
“Make it a priority to find the water storage.”
Hagan moved to the generator room. It was just as he'd feared. Old-style colonist portable nuclear generator. He'd never get it running. They were not that reliable when they were new. He closed and sealed the airlock to that room behind him.
The floor map expanded.
“Water storage will be on the upper level or even in tanks above. It will be frozen solid.”
***
“This has been the longest year of my life,” Mallin said, as he waited by the radio for the supply shuttle to contact the moon base.
The control center was in a dome, and projectors showed the sky outside in high definition, Baytirus center most.
“I have never been so bored in my life. I thought being a pilot would be fun. One fifteen minute flight a month is not what I had in mind.”
“I’ve been here six months, and it’s not so bad,” Skinner said. “Easy duty, twelve on twelve off, three hot meals a day and all the slave wenches a guy could want.”
“Gah, you been to the agri-dome since you been here?”
Mallin grimaced.
“Some of those women have been here too long. They just don’t look right. I saw one climbing in an apple tree, picking, once. Arms and legs were too long, too skinny, with sunken eyes. I wouldn’t screw her with your dick.”
Skinner laughed.
“Well you won’t have to worry about that much longer.”
“Three hours total flight time this whole assignment. What a waste.” Mallin continued to complain. “At least, I got to see that huge ship get destroyed by the High Keeper.”
The main board lit with annotations and telemetry.
“Go wake up Cyrus and Enoch. Our ride home is here,” Mallin said, as the transmission hail came in.
***
Hagan’s outpost turned out to be three levels deep.
The top level was the only level above ground. Even this level had been buried under a deep mound of the excavated regolith. Each side had an exterior airlock, including the garage door they came through.
They also found a sealed airlock to the entrance of a tunnel on the lowest level. It was wide enough to drive a vehicle through. Vehicles were still parked there. They were open-top, utility flatbeds. The tunnel was in vacuum. From what he could see, the pipes and cables attached to the walls were cables that went directly out to the tower.
Offices were located which included the base chief engineer’s office. He was kind enough to have one entire wall of his office covered with the old-fashioned, annotated, design drawings of the entire installation. There were even handwritten modifications drawn there, including notes. A smart engineer kept this low tech, just in case something went wrong.
The water tanks were directly above the top level. They had even designed a power-free method to thaw them, in case of a full freeze. It only took Wes a few minutes to figure out the system. He tasked DS-09 to go to the roof pad and simply open the four two-meter-square hatches and focus the sunlight on a heat transfer matrix. They used the moon’s extreme temperature variance to heat the ice to liquid.
There was also a solar greenhouse-like system that they opened to heat the air inside the outpost via convection through sealed pipes filled with some kind of super antifreeze liquid.
It only took about six hours before the water was flowing to the battery room. There were leaks everywhere, but most of the shutoff valves worked.
The battery bank began to charge; as the cells filled, the solar panels were cleared off. They might even be fully charged by the time the darkness came.
***
There was a song drifting to her ears from the darkness. She knew it was him, calling to her. He always knew when the guards were drunk and asleep. The nest of rags that made her bed were in a shadowed corner of the guard’s room.
She quietly moved, took the key, and unlocked the barred gate that controlled the access to the hall of cells that held him. She rehung the key.
She padded quickly down the black hall, counting the cells on the left side with her fingers.
He was only humming now.
She sat on the floor just beyond the bars.
“Hello, Peanut. Did the little man in white find you?”
“Yes. He said to tell you,” she lisped through broken teeth, “she’s here. In the Citadel. She can move about as she likes. She says she sees the war’s end.”
“Excellent.”
***
“Wes, I have finished my assessment of the outpost,” Echo said to him, two days later, as he ate the last bite of his ration bar.
“So what do you think?” Wes asked, sipping the last of his water from a real ceramic coffee mug in the well-lit engineering office. He sat behind the desk in a large, comfy swivel chair that was big enough to accommodate his pressure suit.
She looked at the wall with the engineering map of the base.
“The only vacuum pumps that are still working are on the north and east airlocks.”
She indicated them on the map.
“We will be able to come and go, as needed, without loss of air. The passive CO2 scrubbers work fine. The environment control systems are working, so we will be warm during the fourteen day darkness.”
She turned to him.
“This outpost was mothballed about two hundred years ago. They did a great job. But about fifty years ago, someone returned and removed all the comms gear, all the computer cores, all the disk drives, and an unknown amount of other items. All the tractors were disabled, and even the reactor core was removed. They were cool and calculating about how they disabled this station. They knew what they were doing.”
“Any idea why?” Wes asked, simply.
“It's only speculation, but it seems they wanted to ensure this station could not be used for transmitting anything. Even the cabling conduits to the tower have been severed and removed from the site.”
She pointed to the tunnel on the station end.
“Why destroy the airlocks on the far end of the tunnel? They were so careful everywhere else,” Hagan wondered, out loud.
“They didn't.”
Echo moved to the left, so Wes could see the antenna end of the tunnel schematic.
“Someone entered those airlock doors about a decade ago. Leaving them open, and exposed to extremes, simply caused the seals to deteriorate. They came all the way down the tunnel, looked around, and walked away without closing them behind them.”
“I'm already working something out. I think I can create a beacon with the assets on hand,” Wes said.
“There is one more thing, Wes.”
A spider-bot’s eye view opened in Hagan's HUD. The point of view was from the pipes in the tunnel, looking down at the floor.
There were clear footprints in the dust from small, bare feet.
The spider-bot followed them down the tunnel and through the three open airlock doors. Eventually, it climbed the ladd
er to the surface, near the tower leg closest to base.
The bare footprints could just slightly be seen in the dust of the regolith. They faded as they moved off into the distance.
CHAPTER SIX: The Visitor
“When the events were described in Chief Engineer Hagan's logs, we suspected a hoax. Please. Barefoot on the moon? We knew it was impossible. Until it wasn't.”
--Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: General Patricia Chase, senior member of the Earth Defense Coalition.
<<<>>>
Wes woke with a start.
He looked around the room. It was a dimly lit bedroom. A small bedside lamp provided enough light for him to see the glass of water which he clasped as he sat up. He was thirsty and his eyes itched, but he was also very hungry. He stretched and drank the water.
He didn't think. Couldn't think.
He casually looked about for more evidence. There was an actual book, made of paper, on the bedside stand. He picked it up. It was Endless Night by Agatha Christie. There was a bookmark, but he had no memory of reading it.
He stood and stretched again. It felt good. He noted that he wore a plain, black, over-sized T-shirt and charcoal gray boxer shorts. The door to the bathroom was open, and a dim light was on in there as well. The door to the hallway was ajar, and he heard music playing faintly from beyond. It was a smoky blues, with a sorrowful trumpet and a woman singing words he could not recognize.
A spider-bot walked in from the hall through the door. Placed on its flat back was a steaming cup of coffee.
From the hall, Echo said, “Good morning, Wes. Did you sleep well?”
He crossed to the bathroom for a quick pee, before he started drinking coffee.
“Yes. I slept very well. Thanks,” he replied, remembering her name was Echo.
She was an AI. She controlled the spider-bots. She controlled a dozen combat drop suits. She made him coffee?
The spider-bot waited for him, making itself as tall as possible in an attempt to hand him the coffee.
Blood of the Scarecrow: Book 3: Solstice 31 Saga Page 4