Project Diamond (Jacob Lansing Series Book 1)

by J. W. Bouchard

  “Fighting’s out of the question,” Perkins said. “We need to get down there and assess the situation and then figure out how to pull our people out.”

  I couldn’t see how it was possible. How could we infiltrate our own base without being spotted by the roaches? They’d either capture us or kill us on sight. If we lived by their organizational structure, then we were the soldiers. We weren’t workers. We were useless to them. Expendable. The smartest thing for them to do would be to kill us. Otherwise we were a potential threat.

  But they hadn’t killed us when we first made contact. Why? Were they intelligent enough to hold onto us in case we proved to be of some use in the future? Assess the situation before they acted?

  Tell that to Davidson.

  “It’s probably a death sentence.” But in the back of my head I heard Burnell’s voice again. The memory of me standing next to him as he gave a fresh bunch of wet-behind-the-ears recruits the there’s-always-a-solution speech. Sometimes I wished Burnell’s wisdom would have fallen on deaf ears. Or that I had called out sick on that particular day. And did his wisdom extend to our present situation? Had he ever been confronted by a similar scenario? “But what the hell,” I said, “might as well give it a shot.”

  CHAPTER 19

  I hated the plan.

  But it was my idea.

  Since there was no way to get close to the operation zone without being spotted, someone from the group would need to cause a distraction. Needless to say, no one volunteered for that particular duty.

  “It’s my plan, so it might as well be me,” I said, wondering if I was signing my own death warrant.

  We descended the ridge. The rover was still parked where Jin and Gloria had left it. The plan was for me to take the rover while the rest of the group continued on foot. I would give them a head start and then drive the rover to the operation zone to cause a distraction. How things went after that was anybody’s guess.

  I climbed into the rover and started the engine. Gloria came up to the window and said, “Are you sure about this, Jake? We can figure out another way.”

  “There isn’t another way. The operation zone is the only way we’re going to get back to the Astraeus.”

  I watched the others set out on foot. I circled the rover around so I could see them through the front windshield. As I watched them disappear into the distance, I felt alone. Lonelier than I ever had. Lonelier than the years I had spent in the apartment by myself, lonelier than when I had watched the Earth turn into a tiny speck as we had first set out on this mission. It wasn’t a good kind of lonely either.

  What if these are my last minutes, I thought. There was at least a fifty-fifty chance that I would drive up to the operation zone, get out of the rover, and the roaches would converge on me and cut me down within seconds. I wasn’t a grunt. I was a soldier. The enemy.

  I watched the seconds tick by on my HUD. The walk was nearly two kilometers. An average walking pace was around fifteen minutes. I would give them half an hour and then drive to the operation zone shortly before they reached it. Timing was everything. I sat in silence, waiting for Perkins to give me the go ahead.

  I removed my duty belt, my thought process being that I didn’t have to look like anymore of a threat than necessary. Make it tough for them to discern whether I was a soldier or a scientist. Maybe I was just a straggler, returning late from a routine expedition.

  After fifteen minutes had lapsed, I called Perkins over the com. “ETA?”

  “Making good time. Ten minutes out.”

  “Copy that.”

  The rover’s engine purred as it idled.

  Was I really willing to sacrifice my life for what could turn out to be a fool’s mission?

  The short answer was yes.

  I tried to convince myself I wasn’t doing it for bravado’s sake. That it wasn’t to earn respect in Perkins’s eyes. Maybe those things factored into it, but it was more than that. Whether I liked it or not, these people had become my friends. Hayes had told us long ago that out here we could only rely on each other, and at the time none of us could have predicted how true those words had been. None of us had expected it to come to this. I know I hadn’t. While I wasn’t anything close to an expert on how friendship worked, I knew I was doing the right thing. The only thing. I didn’t like putting my life on the line, but I wouldn’t have been comfortable with anyone else doing it.

  Maybe I’ll at least get to see Lisa one more time.

  Something had changed in me over the course of the mission. It had nothing to do with traveling into interstellar place or setting my boots down on the soil of an alien planet.

  It had everything to do with people. I had spent years cutting my ties with society.

  I had been withdrawn and detached, never allowing myself to get close to anyone. Even Burnell, whom I admired and trusted, hadn’t gotten through the walls I had erected. I can’t say if I was happy, but happiness wasn’t a luxury I had paid much attention to. Over time, you lose enough you get so you leave things that way. You stay lost. It’s a tired cliché, but if you don’t have anything, then you have nothing to lose. I had lived by that. I hadn’t ever planned on straying from that course.

  ETA – five minutes.

  I thought about Gloria and Flynn, about Perkins, Yuri, Jin and Harper. I thought about Captain Hayes. Anyone of them would have done the same for me. Instinctively, I was aware of that.

  And I thought about Lisa. I was a fool for not expressing my feelings for her. Hell, I didn’t even know if she felt the same way, though a tingling sensation in my gut told me she did.

  But maybe it wasn’t my gut doing the thinking anymore. Maybe it was that reliable old organ that never stopped working; the one that pumped blood through my veins and seemed to have a mind of its own when it came to the more delicate matters of life.

  I wouldn’t have shared any of these thoughts with anyone in a million years. People might start to think I’d gone soft.

  I gripped the steering wheel, shifted the rover into drive, and put my foot down on the accelerator.

  You’re one dumb bastard, Lansing.

  I sped toward the operation zone.

  CHAPTER 20

  I had the rover up over sixty as it bumped and jolted over the rocky terrain. I made a beeline for the operation zone.

  “On my way,” I said into the com.

  Gloria’s voice said, “Good luck.”

  And I was going to need it.

  When I was halfway there, I switched off my night vision and turned on the rover’s headlights. The lights sliced through the darkness, and I watched as the bright spotlights positioned around the operation zone grew closer. I wanted to make sure the roaches knew I was coming.

  The rest of the group was nowhere in sight. I had assumed I would pass by them, but Perkins was too smart for that. He would have skirted around the zone and tried to come in on the far side where the carrier ships were parked. That would provide them with more cover than the direct route I was taking.

  I slowed the rover as I neared the operation zone. The rover’s headlights lit up a group of several dozen roaches. I sped toward them, and when I was close enough I slammed on the brakes and the rover skidded to a halt.

  I killed the engine and sat behind the wheel for a moment. I waited to see what the roaches would do. They stood there as if in prayer, their forelegs held in front of them.

  They’re smart enough to watch and wait until they can figure out what my play is, I thought.

  I opened the door and stepped out. Slowly. I raised my hands over my head, showing them that I was unarmed. It was difficult putting one foot in front of the other, continuing forward, knowing that at any second they might attack and I would end up like Davidson with my body in the dirt.

  One of the roaches near the front of the group was wearing a translator. I kept my
mouth shut. If I was to take a lesson from what had happened to Davidson, then I had learned that stating my peaceful intentions wouldn’t help the situation. They had cut him down without hesitation. Silence was the best option.

  I stopped when I was inside the operation zone, about twenty feet away from the pack of roaches. Several of the roughnecks that were part of our crew had stopped what they were doing to watch, but another team of roaches prodded them back to work.

  The roaches approached me. I missed having the weight of one of their shorn appendages in my hands, thinking that if I was about to die, it would have been nice to take a few of them with me. The roach wearing the translator moved to the forefront of the pack.

  Its mandibles gnashed furiously.

  Click-clack-clack-click.

  I kept my hands raised above my head.

  I wasn’t dead yet. A small miracle.

  Clack-clack-click-clack.

  A robotic voice issued from the translator.

  “Where you come from?”

  They were trying to assess the situation; trying to figure me out. Probably wondering if I was a soldier or a worker. Was I a threat or another sack of meat they could use for slave labor?

  “My name is Jake Lansing,” I said. “I’m a scientist. I was on a digging expedition.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  The translator approached me, raised its arms up until they scissored open, the tips of their spiked undersides resting inches from either side of my neck. I was scared shitless, but I forced myself to meet its gaze. I stared at it, into its impossibly large compound eyes. Its eyes reflected a distorted image of me.

  I didn’t take my eyes off of it. I wanted to look around and see if I could spot Perkins and the others, make sure I had fulfilled my duty and had created enough of a distraction for them to enter the operation zone unnoticed.

  The roach lowered its arms.

  Click-click-click-clack.

  “Put him with the others.”

  Two of the roaches broke away from the group and circled behind me. I felt powerful claws close harshly over each of my arms, just above my elbows. They guided me forward, but didn’t carry me. They let me walk on my own.

  I was led across the operation zone, to the northwest corner past the topside mining equipment. On the way, we were close enough to the lip of the pit mine for me to glance down and see miners hard at work, being overseen by more of the roaches. Some of the miners worked with tools, chipping away at the rock, while others used tablets to control the remotely-operated machinery that collected debris and moved it toward a lift system that carried it topside to be loaded into the dump trucks.

  We stopped in front of a squat structure that appeared as though it had been fashioned from the now familiar bone-like material that covered their machinery. One of the roaches let go of my arm and opened a door and shoved me into the darkness. The door slammed closed behind me.

  I wasn’t alone. I could sense others inside the building. I switched on my suitlights and lit up the room.

  A group of people were huddled in one corner.

  I said, “Is everyone okay?”

  “Jake?”

  Female.

  “Jake, is that you?”

  Lisa’s voice.

  “Lisa?”

  “You’re alive?”

  “At the moment,” I said. She was seated on the ground. Someone had their helmeted head resting in her lap. It was Thomas. I knelt down beside her. “What happened?”

  “They took us prisoner,” Lisa said. “They weren’t gentle.”

  Through his faceplate, Thomas’s face was twisted into a grimace of pain.

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “I think it’s a broken arm, but I don’t know. All the medical staff stayed on the ship.”

  I touched Thomas’s arm gently and he winced in pain.

  “Why did they send you down here?” I asked.

  Before Lisa could answer, Bertrand stepped forward and said, “They came down with me. I wasn’t sure what would happen with your mission, so I insisted we come down for an expedition in case it was our last.”

  I didn’t think Hayes would have agreed to something like that unless Bertrand had cited some statute or other that had allowed him to make the call.

  I counted the people in the room.

  There were six of us. Lisa, Thomas, Bertand, Sam Tang, Elizabeth Packard, and me.

  “How did you get here?” Lisa asked.

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “What about Hayes?”

  Bertrand shrugged. “We don’t know. He came down after us, once you were captured. We lost contact after that, but he was likely captured with the rest of your people.”

  Lisa ran her gloved hand over Thomas’s helmet. A soothing gesture that didn’t appear to alleviate any of her friend’s pain. “What do they want, Jake?”

  “They’re mining the planet same as we are. And it doesn’t look like they’re interested in sharing.”

  “Davidson?” Bertrand asked.

  I shook my head solemnly. Bertrand lowered his head. I didn’t envy the burden of guilt he carried on his shoulders. He had fought tooth and nail to have his man come down with us, and it had resulted in Davidson’s death. If it had been me, I know I would have felt responsible. I didn’t know enough about Bertrand to judge his abilities as a leader, but part of me thought it served him right. He should have listened to Hayes. Then again, Davidson had volunteered. I figured there was enough blame to go around.

  I walked over to the door and put my weight against it. It wouldn’t budge.

  “What is it?”

  “I think it’s some kind of bone,” I said. “Their vehicles are made of it too.”

  “Chitin,” Tang said, stepping out of the shadows. “I believe it’s the same substance their exoskeletons are composed of.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s solid. We’re not going to be able to bust through it.”

  Thomas lifted his head. He reached forward with his good arm.

  “Stay still,” Lisa said. “Just rest.”

  Thomas protested, sliding his hand along the ground, trying to reach the strap of his pack. I bent down and grabbed his pack and opened it. I dumped its contents onto the ground. There were various tools and containers, but I didn’t see anything useful.

  “The kit,” Thomas said weakly.

  I held up a small metal container that resembled an old-fashioned first aid kit. Thomas nodded. I opened it. There were several vials of liquid in glass bottles, something that looked like a sprayer with a long curved trigger and a nozzle that tapered at the end.

  “What is it?”

  Bertrand said, “It’s a portable strip kit.”

  “That might actually work,” Tang said.

  “Work on what?”

  “To get the door open,” Tang said. He knelt down beside me and began sorting through the contents of the kit. He held up one of the vials. It had a threaded cap at the top. “Formic acid. We use it to strip away the matrix from around a specimen. It’s harsh stuff, and can eat through bone, but we usually apply a barrier layer like calcium phosphate on the bone first to protect it from the corrosive effect of the acid.”

  “You’re saying it could eat through the door?”

  Tang shrugged. “Potentially.”

  Tang grabbed the sprayer from the kit and screwed the vial of formic acid to a threaded connection that protruded from the underside in front of the long squeeze trigger. He held the nozzle close to the small gap between the door and the wall of the building.

  “Wait,” I said. “Let me think about this.”

  I wanted to take a minute to look at the bigger picture. Perkins and the others were out there somewhere. We hadn’t heard any commotion from outside our make
shift prison, which led me to believe that Perkins and the others had successfully infiltrated the operation zone without being seen.

  Where were they now? I had to take that into account before taking action. If Tang’s idea worked (and it seemed like a long shot), then I had to keep in mind how our escape might affect things. I didn’t want to compromise what the others were trying to do.

  “Isn’t this a rescue mission?” Bertrand asked impatiently.

  I shook my head. “Yes and no. Just give me a sec.”

  I glanced up at him, daring him with my eyes to start an argument. I wasn’t as patient as Hayes. If Bertrand tried to quote statute to me I was going to knock him out cold. I would deal with the repercussions later.

  Bertrand didn’t argue. He calmly said, “If there’s anything I can do to help…”

  “I appreciate it.”

  There were six of us locked in the building, five of them scientists. I was the only one trained in combat, and that was mostly hand-to-hand training. I was unarmed. There were at least three dozen roaches keeping guard topside, each of them equipped with what amounted to twin machetes that could slice human flesh and carve through bone like they were cutting through a stick of butter.

  What was the play?

  If the six of us escaped, what was the next step?

  Get to one of the carrier ships.

  I had seen at least two of them parked outside the operation zone. I could get Lisa and her group onto it and they could remotely pilot it back to the Astraeus. Then I could go searching for Perkins and the others.

  It was a flimsy plan. Plenty of potential for things to go wrong. I could end up getting us all killed.

  But how long did we have?

  Our suits could sustain us for another day or two. I had used up a lot of resources during the escape from the pit. My mouth tasted like metal. I couldn’t go without water for much longer. And If Perkins failed, it meant we were on our own. For all I knew, the Astraeus had already blasted off and was headed for home. There might be nothing but empty space out there.