The paved runway leading from the landing pad to a large facility built into the asteroid itself. It was still in good condition, with no dips, bumps, or divots. On either side of it, every thirty meters or so, stood metal light poles—also non-functional. The visitors used the ultrabeams mounted on their blaster rifle rails or buckets to find their way. The devices’ thick beams of light were like giant swords cleaving the dark, which greedily reclaimed it secrets the moment the lights were pointed in another direction.
Keel direct his ultrabeam to the top of a light pole on his left. The chamber containing the biochemical light source—the type purported to shine for centuries—was broken wide open. “Looks like someone shot all these lights out.”
“Remind me to thank them,” said Exo, his ultrabeam shaft jumping erratically as the blaster rifle it was mounted to moved up and down from the march. “This place is creepy as hell.”
Bombassa sounded unconcerned. “It’s just dark.”
“It is not the dark itself that should concern the hearts of men,” Ravi called out from the forefront of the group. “But rather what hides within that darkness.”
“I don’t like either one,” Exo said.
Keel swept his light on either side of the path, looking for trouble. The asteroid was rocky, the roadside composed of jagged boulders the color of iron ore. Ahead, at the end of the runway, were the mining colony’s massive double-blast doors. There were no welcome lights left on.
“We are inside fifty meters of the primary doors,” Ravi announced. “Slow your pace. There will be defenses set up.”
“Was that outlined in the will?” Keel asked.
“Common sense if one thinks like Tyrus Rechs.”
“Tyrus Rechs,” Exo repeated. “Kind of hard to believe we’re standing where he stood. Guy was crazy.”
Keel probed the darkness, shining his light into the distance. “Maybe. Now he’s just dead.” His ultrabeam fell upon an abnormality. It was so sudden that Keel passed it by, stopping his sweep a second after it fell back into darkness and bringing his light back to bear on it. A pale, organic-looking thing. “Hey, I’m gonna go check something out.”
“Famous last words,” said Exo, but neither he nor Bombassa made any attempt to stop him.
Keel walked to the edge of the roadside, his steps sure and easy thanks to the magnetic connection of his boots to the runway. But as he stepped onto the asteroid’s rocky surface, he had to half-hop, half-skip in the asteroid’s low gravity.
The anomaly was, as Keel had suspected, a dead creature. It was like some hellish dog, shaved and naked aside from a hairy tuft around its neck, shoulders, and chest. Its claws appeared to be made of granite, and its skin was tight enough to reveal the bones and muscle underneath. Its head was elongated, with no eyes, and its vicious-looking maw contained ridiculously sharp teeth. Its long, lolling tongue was pointed at the end like an arrow. Keel was impressed by the thickness of its cranium, which looked to have evolved to apply maximum bite pressure with the knife blades it had for teeth.
A gaping hole in his head revealed brain matter. Gore matted its fur.
“Whatcha see?” Exo called over.
Keel motioned for Exo and Bombassa to come and have a look of their own. The shock troopers were soon standing at his side, their own lights shining on the grim discovery.
“Oh, dude, that’s messed up,” Exo said.
Bombassa stared. “I’ve never seen a creature like this before. It must be able to withstand the vacuum of space without any protection.”
“There’s probably a team of Republic biologists that would love the opportunity to look into it,” Keel said. He shined his ultrabeam in the distance. “But I’m glad I don’t see anymore of these things. Wouldn’t want to get caught by one out in this gravity.”
As Keel brought his ultrabeam down, it landed on another anomaly only yards away. A gloved hand.
“Uh-oh.”
The hand led to an arm and then a body. Blood covered the owner’s survival suit, which had a deep hole chewed into it. Part of the poor soul’s rib cage—still covered in gore—was exposed to the coldness of the asteroid.
Bombassa shook his head. “It looks like this miner fell afoul of the creature. Perhaps she shot it in the struggle.”
Ravi appeared between the soldiers’ ultrabeams and the macabre spectacle, causing all three men to jump in surprise.
“Dammit, Ravi!” snapped Keel.
Ravi inspected the carnage and wrinkled his nose in distaste. “One wonders whether this unfortunate miner died of atmospheric exposure, once her suit was ripped open, or from her chest being subsequently torn apart. Either one alone would have been sufficient.”
Exo let out a whistle. “I’m gonna add ‘exposed to the vacuum of space and then eaten alive’ to my list of ways I do not want to die.”
Keel was keenly aware that he was gripping his blaster pistol tightly. Exo and Bombossa had their rifles at the up and ready as well. Keel’s HUD showed no life signs beyond the men with him, but that didn’t convince him that there were no more creatures out there. And no sense taking chances.
“Ravi,” Keel said, his voice almost a whisper, “are you picking up any other life signs? Anything from Six?” He looked back at the ship, standing like a lone sentinel in the distance, half expecting to see some four-footed devil dogs scurrying past its landing lights and into the surrounding shadows.
“No,” Ravi replied. “There is nothing alive out here but us.”
“All right,” Keel said, without relaxing his grip on the blaster. “Let’s head on inside the colony building. You think Rechs left a key under the mat?”
Ravi headed back toward the runway. “There is a key of sorts, yes.”
The others moved back toward the runway with much less ease than the hologram. When they reached it, Exo bounced up and down, clearly happy to once again have magnetic stability under his feet.
When they were within fifteen meters of the great blast doors—massive enough to fit the Six through it, if Keel felt the need to attempt the maneuver—Exo said, “Hey Wraith. Why don’t you have your holographic friend go on ahead? Just in case there’s any trouble at the door. Asteroid predators and defensive turrets won’t hurt him.”
“Yes, this is fine,” Ravi said, already moving ahead to approach the doors.
A pair of linked N-50 auto turrets came online, waking from a slumber at the hologram’s presence—or perhaps at the sound of his voice. But their visual targeting scanners must have been confused by Ravi, because after their barrels converged on the hologram, they began to sweep from left to right, as if scanning for other targets.
“Good thing we stayed back,” said Keel.
Ravi turned. “These would not fire without giving you an opportunity at least to prove that you belong here by providing the proper passkey—which I have acquired, by the way. I do not think Tyrus Rechs would have been particularly fond of being shot at his own doorstep, and judging by the age of this mounting, I do not think that these turrets are capable of linking to a particular bio-signature.”
“Well I’d rather not take a chance on what you do or do not think,” Keel said.
“I also think,” Ravi continued, as if Keel hasn’t spoken, “they are waiting to fire after a predetermined amount of time, should the right passkey not be given. And, to be clear, you are already well within their range.”
“Then hurry up and give the passkey!” Keel said emphatically.
Ravi turned to face the massive doors. “Reina.”
The guns nosed down in slumber, and the airlock blast doors began to slide open. They were tremendous, and the way they opened in utter silence, due to the lack of atmosphere, only added to the eerie feeling of the asteroid’s surface. Ravi walked inside, his holographic robes shimmering. The lights of the shock troopers’ ultrabeams shone on him, giving him a look of opacity.
Keel and the others hustled behind him, all business. They took cover inside the siza
ble airlock, looking outside as if awaiting pursuers.
“You could land a shuttle in here,” Exo said, staring up at the ceiling.
He wasn’t exaggerating, and Keel wouldn’t be surprised if the airlock had been used in just that way. The maneuver would require a talented pilot—or autopilot—but it would save the miners a walk out on the surface. Of course, the truly big space haulers would have landed back where the Six was and waited for heavy freight haulers to come out and offload them. The airlock was big and wide enough for those pieces of equipment too. It made Keel feel small.
Bombassa walked over to the airlock’s manual close, pressed the smooth command screen, and stepped back as the two great blast doors sandwiched closed again. Though they made no sound, Keel could feel the reverberation across the deck as the two colossal impervisteel doors clamped together.
Only then was there any sound. A hissing as the airlock began filling with breathable atmosphere.
“Welcome back, Tyrus.”
The voice was synthetic, clearly an AI and emanating from a localized speaker system.
“It has been fifteen years since your last visit. Please wait while I complete pressurization of the airlock.”
The hissing sound continued.
“Feels anticlimactic,” Keel said as the party waited like passengers taking a speedlift from the top floor of a Utopian tower all the way down to the lobby.
The hissing ceased.
“Pressurization complete. You may now enter. Interior air quality is at or above minimum Republic environmental standards. You are free to remove any breathing or vacuum protection devices.”
The interior airlock door swished open, revealing the inside of the mining facility.
“Holy…” Keel dropped down into a shooter’s crouch, his blaster rifle at the ready. Exo and Bombassa gave shouts of alarm and raised their own weapons.
Scattered throughout the building’s interior were scores of the vicious four-legged creatures they’d witnessed outside.
As the shock of the sudden sighting gave way, Keel saw that none of the creatures were moving. They were on their sides, their tongues resting on the deck, or lying awkwardly on their backs, legs frozen in the air like slaughtered animals left in a field. All had massive gunshot wounds of the type associated with a high-powered blaster pistol. Except these openings showed no signs of burning typical to blaster fire.
The explorers waded inside the great facility, which looked like a loading bay or great hall that bristled with several doorways. Many of the dead creatures were concentrated around a massive, eight-wheeled all-terrain cargo loader.
“I am still not detecting any other lifeforms,” Ravi announced.
“All dead,” observed Bombassa, looking around at the dogs.
“Looks like someone with a slug thrower did the damage,” Keel said, keeping his own blaster pistol at the ready in spite of Ravi’s all-clear. He stepped gingerly over the dead animals. “A powerful one at that.”
“Tyrus Rechs?” Exo asked.
Keel nodded. “I guess the old man wasn’t much for cleaning up after himself.”
“I expected to see more dead miners,” said Bombassa, looking from left to right in the great room. “Especially after seeing the one outside.”
“Maybe they all got gobbled up down in the mines, or farther out on the surface,” Keel suggested. “Or maybe they escaped and the one outside got left behind.”
Exo kicked one of the beasts, causing it to roll from its back to its side. “Or maybe Tyrus Rechs dusted everybody and everything here, but only bothered burying the humanoids.”
“I don’t think so,” said Keel. Though he hadn’t known Tyrus long, or particularly well, the old bounty hunter had struck him of the sort of person who was capable of such a thing, but principled enough not to do it… not without cause, at least. “But I’d say it was definitely him who made this mess. Just look around. There isn’t a missed shot anywhere. No impact marks on any of the walls… nothing.”
Given the number of dead monsters scattered about the area, that was impressive. Whatever hand cannon Rechs had used to kill the beasts off, he’d done the job with one shot per kill. Again and again.
“He was that good?” Bombassa asked.
Keel changed course to investigate the cargo loader. “Yeah, he was. Almost as good as me.”
The tires of the great vehicle were each the size of a man. Looking up, Keel saw rectangular portholes along the sides, but they were darkened and impenetrable to his gaze. At the front of the vehicle, attached to the main body, was a cab, looking like a pyramid tipped on its side, its windshield partitioned into two square panes of glass. Even from his perspective down below, Keel could see that these were splattered with blood. He could also unmistakably see the bloody handprint streaked down the glass, leaving five trails of dried blood all the way down.
“Well, I think I found what happened to the other miners.” He gestured the others over. “I’d say that the miners tried to lock themselves inside this rig, hoping they’d be safe in there until another ship arrived. Except one of the beasties must have gotten inside before they could seal the thing up.”
“Should we open it up?” Bombassa asked.
“Not if we don’t have to,” Keel replied.
Ravi gave a threat assessment. “I am not detecting any life forms inside the vehicle. There is a ninety-nine percent change that whatever was in there slaying the miners has died during the time elapsed. Tyrus Rechs probably arrived here well after the colony’s inhabitants had faced their own personal holocaust. You can go in if you’d like.”
“If it’s all the same to you guys,” Exo said, motioning toward a doorway marked “Armory,” “I’d rather not take a detour to visit any halls of horrors. Especially with the deadline we’re under?”
Keel nodded in agreement. “Sure. Why don’t you and Bombassa check out the armory and see if there’s anything of value? I doubt they’ll have much actual weaponry, but they may have some explosives or high-powered laser cutters we could use.”
The two shock troopers nodded, and jogged for the armory.
Keel looked to Ravi. “So what now? Did Rechs leave some sort of treasure map? X marks the spot, and all that? What should I be doing here other than being glad Mama didn’t raise me to be a space miner?”
Ravi shrugged his shoulders. “I have no idea, Captain Keel. I merely said that this place was left to you, and suggested it was worth investigating. I made no promises as to its importance or any valuable information you might find. It was simply a—”
Keel waved off the navigator’s explanation. “All right, all right. There’s the command room up ahead. See if you can find out exactly what happened and how Rechs fits into it all. Maybe you’ll find something useful. But let’s not waste any more time than we have to.”
Ravi arched an eyebrow. “We could leave now, if it is what you truly desire…”
Keel spied another door off to the left. It had something scrawled across it in freehand. He stepped closer until he was able to decipher the words, written in standard.
I didn’t forget nothing.
“I’m curious now, Ravi. Fifteen more minutes won’t kill us. I’ll check out this room over here. Now hurry up, huh?”
Ravi gave a nod and went on his way, leaving Keel to inspect the room whose inscription, he knew deep down, had been put there by Tyrus Rechs himself.
04
The “Forget Nothing” room was small, and it felt to Keel as though he’d walked into a personal office and workshop. There was a table, devoid of anything except an old mug and water-stained rings marring its finish. A workbench with bristled cleaning rods and grime-covered boxes overflowing with spare parts and springs. A stool. And no other furniture.
Keel looked around appreciatively. This was obviously where Tyrus Rech maintained his weapons. Keel had a similar setup on board the Indelible VI, and he used it frequently.
He tipped a box with his finger and p
eered down into what looked to be a collection of replacement barrels for slug throwers. Other boxes contained spare trigger assemblies. Keel picked up a wire cleaning brush, crunching its bristles between his gloved fingers. He shook the rod in the air like a stylus between his fingers. There were probably enough spare parts on this bench for Rechs to have built himself five or six working pistols if he felt the need.
That wouldn’t be a bad idea, Keel thought to himself. Carrying a slug thrower, just as another option.
It was a pity that time was so short, but maybe after he’d gotten his crew back, he and Ravi could swing back by.
Keel picked up an oily rag that sat on the top of a green metal box. Faded white letters stenciled on the top read “.45 acp D-U.”
“Hello,” Keel said to himself as he unclasped the lid and opened the box.
Inside were heavy depleted uranium bullets set in cartridges designed to load in a slug thrower. There were at least a thousand rounds in the box.
Keel looked around the room. “It would be nice if the old man left something that I could use with these.”
He spotted some sort of galactic coat rack mounted to the wall. It was probably where Rechs hung up his armor, or at least took off his bucket. Hanging on one of the pegs was a nylon strap with an assortment of miscellaneous gear. An ultrabeam, multi-tool, and a synthetic pistol holster, the type designed to tuck into a waistband, allowing the wearer to conceal the weapon.
And sure enough, the holster still had a slug thrower nestled inside it.
Keel removed the gun. He turned it over in his hands, rubbing his fingertips across the polished action. It was so much heavier than he remembered from the last time he’d held one. He’d fired slug throwers before—but mainly old Savage War surplus. He’d never seen a seen a weapon like this. It looked similar to the big hand cannon that Tyrus Rechs had carried on his person. Was this gun the brother of the one Rechs carried? Maybe a backup? Could it even fire? Or had the old man left it here as a project to finish at a later date?
Message for the Dead Page 4