Kris Longknife's Relief: Grand Admiral Santiago on Alwa Station

by Mike Shepherd

  It came to a stop before a solid metal door.

  “You know, I don’t think these bug-eyed monsters want us visiting their holy of holies,” someone drawled on net. The aliens might look just like the humans, but to those refusing to be declared vermin and murdered in mass, the aliens were bug-eyed monsters.

  “There was no door there last time,” Jacques mused. “I don’t like the looks of that thing. Major, if I may make a suggestion.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I would not enter that passageway until I did a very thorough analysis of the hatch.”

  “Agreed, sir. I need some nano probes,” the Marine announced to the boffins.

  A minute later, nanos were advancing down the passageway. Penny’s Mimzy produced a general overview of what they were finding. The first section of the tunnel still showed signs of the explosives that had turned the walls into shrapnel. The walls along the next two sections proved to have cooling gun barrels on one side and a pock marked wall on the other.

  The door soon absorbed everyone’s attention. Above it was the same runes. Apparently, the aliens would know the combination. Sandy wasn’t at all sure we humans had gotten the right combination yet. Yes, we’d opened the first door, but murder had awaited us behind it.

  That couldn’t be what the aliens faced.

  The nanos probed the runes, the blocks they floated on, the door and the walls around it.

  Other tiny sensors identified infinitesimal evidence of out-gassing from explosives, but could not find the actual charges.

  They ran the mannequin back and forth, trying to trip a sensor, but got no result there, either.

  Sandy finally sighed. “I guess we’ve got to push the runes and see what happens.”

  “Admiral, I’d like to withdraw my people a safe distance,” the Marine major said.

  “Do so, and keep them away from the mouth of that cave. Tell the scientists if they’re smart, they’ll be down range of your people.

  Ten minutes later, everyone was well away from the mouth of the tunnel, and the nanos had slipped into the blocks of runes and were ready to activate them in the same order that Jacques had pushed the outer set the first time.

  Rune one’s switches were close.

  Nothing.

  Rune two’s switches closed.

  Again, nothing.

  Rune three was activated.

  Just before the cameras up the tunnel vanished, they broadcasted a picture of a massive expanding cloud of superheated gases coming at them.

  The mouth of the tunnel turned into the mouth of a cannon as all the rubble and wreckage was vomited from it at several hundred meters per second. Lacking rifling, the projectiles were poorly aimed and scattered as they left the suddenly-a-gun-barrel.

  Fortunately, the Marines were not only a full two kilometers back from the tunnel but also had left a wide kill zone directly in front of it. The scientists were further back and further from the tunnel mouth.

  Despite everything, the Marines closest to the tunnel found themselves engulfed in a cloud of dust spiked with a few fast flying pebbles.

  The rocks were no match for the armor. They bounced off, leaving the Marines looking rather dusty. Still, the armor had won; the alien’s rocks had lost.

  “Wow. They really don’t want us in there,” was one of the more printable comments on net.

  “Okay, troops. Take it down to a dull roar,” a sergeant was heard to roar on net. “The major wants to think and you ain’t helping.”

  Younger voices immediately fell silent. Even the older voices of the boffins began to trail off.

  “I need another probe. Small and rolling with plenty of sensors,” the major called.

  The scientists quickly cobbled one together from their dwindling Smart MetalTM supply and another cheerful mechanical volunteer wheeled its way into the still dust-clogged cave.

  It was much more of a cave than the pristine tunnel had been just a bit ago. The walls were now ragged rock. There were deep pits where some of the machine guns had been ripped out of the walls. A weakened chunk of the overhead broke loose and narrowly missed the rover as it struggled to make its way over the rubble in its path.

  “That explosion must have been a real mother,” was whispered on net.

  “Aren’t you glad we did what those damn jar heads told us to do?” got plenty of murmured agreement.

  Sandy smiled when no Marine chose to correct the boffin’s nomenclature. Likely the Marines would be getting plenty of free drinks if any of them managed to visit the scientists’ transports.

  Unlike Kris Longknife’s ships, Sandy’s fleet was dry. Still, if this cruise went long, she’d have to allow some breaks in the work and tedium.

  On the screen, the probe had reached the door. It was still there!

  It was dished in a bit in the middle, but the heavy hatch stood, solid and in place.

  “I guess they didn’t want to ruin their trophy collection,” Jacques said beside Sandy.

  “So, what kind of door are we dealing with?” Sandy asked.

  “Search that thing for some kind of a latch. It’s got to open,” Jacques said.

  “I need some really tiny nanos,” the Major announced.

  Moments later, nanos began to flit their way toward the wall. Mimzy showed those on Sandy’s flag bridge their view as they flew down the tunnel. The scene was surreal. The view as they began searching the surface of the door, looking for any break was also like something out of a nightmare.

  There was nothing like a handle anywhere. Apparently, the door either was opened with the right combination, or it wasn’t. The nanos showed the hatch to be a solid half meter of steel. It was locked in place by metal bars, 250 mm square. Six of them to each side, three to top and bottom.

  Mimzy produced a schematic of the door, then rotated it 360 degrees on both axises.

  “Any suggestions for taking that down?” Sandy asked on net.

  “How deep into the rock does this puppy go?” came from someone who’d rather go around than through that half meter of heavy metal.

  Nanos were dispatched to slither between the rock and the doorsill. The steel went a half a meter into the pyramid’s rocky walls.

  “What do you say we blast our way around this damn door,” someone said on net. In a moment, several of the scientists and Marine combat engineers had their heads together. A minute later, mining nanites began to excavate nice round holes into the rock. The engineers stuffed them with high explosives, then cleared the tunnel.

  This explosion was not nearly as large as the last one, but the next scene Sandy saw from inside the tunnel showed big holes gouged out of the wall, revealing unfazed metal.

  While the engineers prepared the way for another explosion, Smart MetalTM movers latched on to large chunks of rock, created wheels under them, then moved them up the tunnel. The tiger pit began to fill up rapidly.

  Two explosives later, and the entire doorsill was exposed, right and left side, top and bottom. Now the engineers began to blow away both sides and the top. Two blasts later and they were thinking one more big one would do it. They packed the holes, now bored behind the door and doorsill, and cleared the tunnel.

  This was the biggest blast of them all. The first probe to roll in found that more of the overhead and walls had collapsed. It took some earthmoving gear to clear a path. At the end of the tunnel, the door still stood but it was no longer blocking the way.

  There was room for a man to walk entirely around it.

  “Is that thing going to stand or do we need to knock it down?” Sandy asked.

  “That all depends,” said a quiet, authoritative voice on net. “If we topple in into the room and it slides any, it will crush the central exhibit, and I don’t think we want to do that. I’m thinking that we ought to fill in the floor around it. Set up some supports in front and back of it, then get some jack hammers in here and widen the side openings. Then again, I’m wondering if it wouldn’t be easier if we just go
t some laser drills down here and cut a new entrance. This one is really trashed.”

  Sandy found herself chuckling. They could have done that in the first place. Still, the idea of leaving a totally open access port for the next alien visitor to find looked like something that was too good to pass up.

  “How about we cut a nice big access tunnel, something you could drive a truck through. Could the pyramid’s stone survive that?” Sandy asked.

  “Ma’am, that pile of rock ain’t going anywhere. It didn’t budge when that first blow went off, it won’t mind one or two nice, comfortable access routes. You know, Admiral, some of us have been thinking we ought to remove everything under this rock pile for safe, scientific study somewhere else. If we open the whole damn place to the elements, it would be our scientific duty to protect these priceless specimens from damage.”

  “Oh, dear,” Sandy said, trying to sound so disappointed . . . not. “It appears they forced our hand, didn’t they?” Then she got serious. “Study them carefully in situ, then lift them out of there. Every last fragment of a cell.”

  “Ah, Admiral,” said the Major. “You want too get down here right now. There’s something you have to see before anyone disturbs it. I think the last visitor sent Kris Longknife a message.”

  “I’m on my way,” Grand Admiral Santiago said, and quick marched for the Victory’s drop bay.

  19

  Three hours later, Sandy gazed into the dark maw of the cave.

  She was in an armored spacesuit. Sandy knew that Jacques had run around down here buck naked in order to make contact with a small group of aliens. The planet was safe for humans.

  Still, Penny had told her superior officer that she need to wear an armored spacesuit. The young woman was white as a sheet. Likely, Mimzy at her neck had passed along a vision of what awaited them.

  Jacques, who also had one of Nelly’s kids at his neck, grimly told his wife that she did not need to go down with them. Amanda had insisted even before they left Alwa that she’d seen what was under the pyramid and had no intention on visiting it again.

  “I don’t need more red meat for my nightmares,” she’d said then.

  Still, she looked her husband in the eye . . . and quietly followed them down to the drop bay to don a set of armor.

  Now, in front of Sandy, she could see air compressors feeding large round ducts, forcing air into the cave. Around the mouth, Marines lounged, weapons at the ready, their face masks still down.

  No one, apparently, wanted to breath the air being forced back out.

  Sandy led her staff into the cave.

  The rocks were much the worse for the experience of automatic weapon fire and explosives. The floor beneath her boots was Smart MetalTM now; the walls and overhead looked to have also been sprayed with the stuff to stabilize them. They walked down a small incline until they came to the huge steel door and its doorsill, now standing alone, like something out of a fantasy novel.

  Sandy edged her way around the door . . . and caught sight of what she’d been summoned to see.

  The place was a charnel house.

  Rotting bodies lay two or three deep in front of her. Rising among them she could see what she’d seen on video from when Kris Longknife first visited the horror house. Blocks of clear plastic stood. Closest were the family that Kris thought might be the royal sovereigns of the planet that had enslaved this planet – and been reduced to slag when its slaves rose up against them.

  Stretching away along the wall in both directs were more crystal-clear blocks with other samples of intelligent races that had been wiped out by the alien space raiders. In front of each block was reported to be a pile of skulls. Sandy couldn’t see them; they were buried under the pile of rotting corpses.

  The space around the door had been cleared, most likely by the explosives that cleared the path around it. Dismembered body parts were scattered over the mat of bodies for some distance around the clearing.

  Sandy looked at the scene. All she heard was the hiss of air as her suit provided her with clean oxygen. All she smelled was the usual hint of metal and oil.

  Her throat worked, feeling the need to vomit out the bile engorging her stomach, but the familiar smell and sounds battled with the vision of horror before her and she controlled herself, though she did spend a long minute swallowing hard.

  Beside her, Amanda, the lovely economist, fled back up the tunnel. The sounds of soft retching came on net until it was cut off in mid choke. There were benefits to having Nelly’s kids around.

  The quiet stretched. Finally, Penny coughed softly, then said on net, “Kris said that she found the aliens disgusting and that if they made war on us, she’d fill this place with their heads. She also swore that they would not get to annihilate another intelligent race. I guess this is their response to us.”

  “How could they have done this?” Sandy whispered.

  “We know they’re vicious,” Jacques said.

  “I know that,” Sandy snapped. “I mean it’s only been what, two, three years since Kris left them that message? How could they find an intelligent race, murder it, and dump the bodies here?”

  “Are they intelligent?” Jacques asked.

  “You tell me,” Sandy shot back.

  “We’ve only glanced at some of the bodies,” Jacques said. “They are kind of like egg laying caterpillars. They’ve have ten appendages. Six are very short feet, two kind of have hands on them, though only three fingers and an opposable thumb. The second pair from the front seem able to be either feet or hands. We’re not sure the hands allow for the fine motor skill needed to handle tools.”

  “So, they knew about this developing planet but they left it alone because it was no threat yet, then when we showed up, they massacred it and dumped the bodies here for us to find if we came back for a second visit,” Penny said slowly.

  “They couldn’t get at us on Alwa, so they left us a message here,” Sandy muttered.

  “It looks like it,” Jacques said.

  Sandy studied the revolting mess in front of her. Then she turned to the Marine major and Professor Labao. “I want this place cleaned up. Our scientists can’t work under these conditions. Also, these bodies deserve a decent burial. Here’s what I want you to do. I’ve already asked you to cut a nice, big access route into this place.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the Marine answered. “I’ve got laser drills dropping from orbit as we speak.”

  “I want these bodies buried right out in front of this place. I know it’s atomic or lazed glass, but see if you can cut down through it. Give me some options as quickly as you can.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am.”

  Sandy took one more look at the savage message the aliens had sent the human race. “I’ll come down for another visit when I can see the samples of those four hundred and some races, but not today.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Professor Labao said.

  Sandy turned on her heels and led her staff back out of that dark hell.

  20

  Sandy got back to the Victory to discover that there were more problems waiting for her.

  “The Ruby and Opal out of Hekate jumped into the system just after you left,” her Chief of Staff told her. “Any messages from them should be coming in any moment.”

  “I’ll be taking a shower,” Sandy told him. “After what I just saw, I need to get clean. If the message can’t wait, bring it to me in the shower.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Was it that bad?”

  “Bad enough to make me feel filthy right through my space armor,” she answered.

  He shivered. “We don’t have video up here yet.”

  “Don’t watch it before you sack out,” Sandy said. “It’s the stuff of nightmares.”

  “Bastards,” was all the Chief of Staff could say.

  In her private head, Sandy slipped out of the sweat-soaked ship suit she’d worn under her armor. Her Navy issue bra and panties quickly joined them on the floor as she turned on the water. It was
warm almost immediately. She stepped into the shower and closed the thin door that kept most of the water in.

  She’d been asked if she wanted it clear or opaque. She’d chosen opaque. She didn’t expect to be sharing her private head with anyone, but she knew message traffic would likely catch her in the shower a time or twelve.

  Her hair was full of suds and her eyes were closed against them when a male voice asked, “May I come in, Admiral.”

  “Won’t it keep?” she asked her Chief of Staff.

  “Ma’am, I don’t want to carry the responsibility for delaying this message.”

  “Enter,” Sandy said as she put her face under the water and cleaned it of soap. She shook the water off her face and said, “What’s the message, Van?”

  “These two battlecruisers entered a system five conventional jumps out from here. They intended to post a buoy at that jump and come back. However, they did conduct a survey of the system. They found a alien fast mover orbiting a gas giant close to the most distant jump out of the system. No sooner did they spot the alien than it broke orbit and headed for the jump. They took off after it, but it accelerated all the way to the jump and hit it fast. They figured any chase would be a long one. After the trap the aliens set for you, they kind of didn’t want to get too carried away. They brought this straight to us, using a close-by fuzzy jump.”

  Sandy cut the water off; she could survive a bit of leftover soap. “Could you hand me that towel?” she asked.

  He did and she toweled off, thinking furiously and out loud.

  “So, they know we’re here.”

  “It could have just been a stray cruiser,” Van offered.

  “I don’t believe in coincidences where those bastards are concerned. Not after what I saw down there. No. We’ve dishonored their trophy room. They’ve really messed the place up, leaving a whole lot of rotting bodies strewn all over the place. They’ve blown away all our pickets, so they know we tend to set up alarms around us. Any of them who tried Alwa know we do.”

  She briskly rubbed the towel over her short hair. “They wanted to know when we dropped by. Now, the question is, are they planning to do something about it.”