Vendetta (Project Vetus Book 2)

by Emmy Chandler

  “It may have something to do with the temperature,” Jamison says as the landing bay grows larger in the viewshield. “The surface is hot enough to cause instant heat stroke pretty much all over the planet.”

  “Why would Universal Authority set up a lab on a planet like this?” Zamora scowls down at the surface through the viewshield. “Why would they even terraform this planet? It’s barely habitable.”

  “They clearly don’t want company,” I say. “Or attention of any kind.”

  “Which would explain why there seems to be no significant population on Zelos,” Dreyer says. “This appears to be Universal Authority’s modus operandi: find a place no one wants to live and carry out illegal research projects in secret.”

  “Or create a place where no one wants to live—like a prison planet,” I add.

  “Okay, here we go…” Jamison pulls back on the controls, and the Dinghy lurches beneath us as it slows. Then he glides us smoothly through the nano-shield and sets us down gently.

  “Holy shit,” Dreyer breathes, and I turn to see her staring through the viewshield at what’s left of the landing bay. “Looks like the Bureau’s raid didn’t go very smoothly.”

  “Somebody put up a fight, that’s for sure.” Zamora whistles. “If this is the work of a bunch of scientists, color me impressed.”

  There are only two other ships docked in the large bay, and the reason they’re still here is obvious at a glance: one is riddled with holes from a laser rifle set to its most damaging setting, in order to punch through the hull, and the other has been burnt so badly I can’t recognize the model.

  But the grounded ships are the least of the carnage.

  “Are those bodies?” Lilli’s shock floats toward me on the breathy sound of her voice.

  “Turn around.” Sotelo crosses the main deck toward her and physically spins her by her shoulders. “You don’t need to see that.”

  “It’s not like I’ve never seen a body before. Remember that building you took me to in zone three? There were corpses in nearly every room. But they didn’t look like that.”

  Because like one of the ships, these bodies have been burned beyond recognition. Beneath them, large patches of the floor are scorched, as are wide vertical swaths of the walls.

  “That life signs scanner would really come in handy right now,” Lawrence breathes. “I’d like to know if whoever did this is waiting in here somewhere to mow us down.”

  “It’s a fucking miracle that nano-shield is still functioning,” Jamison says, staring through the viewshield at the carnage.

  “It’s not a miracle.” I point to an open electronics panel set into an untouched section of the wall. “Either they intentionally avoided damaging the electronic systems, or somebody repaired the damage.”

  “There was no damage.” Dreyer squints at the panel. “See? No scorch marks or holes from a laser round. But someone’s pried open the panel and tried to hack into it.” She points. “See those wires?” I follow her aim and see several wires hanging beneath the open panel. “That means someone survived the slaughter and is probably trying to find a way off this rock. And the only reason that person would need to bypass the system is that he or she isn’t authorized to access it.”

  “Can you hack into it?” I ask Dreyer.

  She shrugs. “Probably. What do you want me to do with it?”

  “Find out anything you can,” Sotelo says. “What they were working on here, specifically. And what happened to the missing crate.”

  “First, see if you can run an infrared scan for survivors,” I insist. “Lawrence is right. We need to know who’s left alive, and where they are.”

  “I’m on it.” She reaches for the red button, to lower the ramp.

  “Wait.” Jamison is already doing something on the flight control panel. “Let me put what few capabilities the Dinghy does have to work.” A few seconds later, he spins in his chair. “The air in here is breathable, and the temperature is warm, but not unbearable. It’s probably cooler underground, but do not go onto the surface of the planet.”

  “Got it. Thanks.” Dreyer glances at Sotelo, and when he nods, she punches the button. The moment the ramp separates from the hull of the Dinghy, hot, dry air rushes in at us.

  “You weren’t kidding.” Lawrence scowls as he swipes one arm over his forehead. “This is more than just warm.”

  “But not unbearable,” Jamison repeats. “The sooner you get back, the sooner you get cool.”

  “What’s that smell?” Lilli asks, one hand over her nose.

  “Charred human flesh,” Zamora tells her. “This carnage doesn’t look fresh, yet no one’s shown up to take care of the bodies or clean up this mess. It’s like UA just abandoned the place.”

  “Let’s go.” Sotelo steps onto the ramp as it clunks down on the floor of the landing bay, and I’m right behind him. “Lawrence, you stay with Dreyer and watch her back while she does her thing.”

  Lawrence nods, and the two of them veer toward the electronics panel on the far wall, stepping over charred corpses and odd bits of debris.

  “Stay in touch,” Sotelo orders.

  “Will do,” Dreyer says into my earpiece as she swings the panel all the way open.

  Behind us, the Dinghy ramp whines as it begins to fold up, and I turn to see Lilli standing next to the button. She waves as the ramp closes, separating me from Grace. “She’ll be fine,” Lilli says into my ear. “Go find her a doctor.”

  But that no longer seems like much of a possibility. Considering the slaughter and destruction greeting us in the landing bay, we’ll be lucky if we find an unopened box of bandages.

  “That way.” Sotelo points toward an open door on the far end of the landing bay as we pass the burned-out hull of one of the two remaining ships. Zamora and I follow him into a white-tiled vestibule with several doors to choose from.

  Sotelo peeks through the only open doorway. “Control room.” He steps inside, and we follow him, pistols drawn and ready. But what looks like the control center for the entire complex has been abandoned, all of its chairs and consoles undamaged.

  “You found the control room?” Dreyer asks into our ears. “That’s much better than this hacked panel.”

  “Yeah,” I tell her. “Through the door at the end of the landing bay, then first door on the right.”

  “On the way,” she says.

  We open all the cabinets and look under all the work surfaces, verifying that no one’s home, then we head back into the vestibule as Dreyer and Lawrence arrive.

  “Lock yourselves in, just in case, and do your thing.” Sotelo says. “Keep us updated.”

  “Of course,” Dreyer says as she closes the control room door behind herself and Lawrence.

  Sotelo, Zamora and I check the other three doors, one at a time. The first is a storage room, which looks undisturbed. “We’ll take what we can carry, on the way out,” Sotelo says.

  The second door leads to a bathroom.

  The third reveals a staircase, leading down.

  “Dreyer, we’re in the staircase across from the control room,” Sotelo says. “Can you find the lights?”

  “Umm…” she says into our ears. “I just got access to the complex’s infrastructure controls, so… Yes!” Light flares from overhead, illuminating the entire long, steep staircase. “I’ve also got Theron’s master blueprints. Looks like you’re headed for the tunnel system. I’ll turn on all the lights for you.”

  “Thanks,” I say as I follow Sotelo down the steps, while Zamora brings up the rear. “Can you figure out what the other buildings are? Where we should head?”

  “Working on it,” she replies, and we take a quarter of the long staircase in silence. “Okay, when you get to the bottom, you’ll be in a lobby with tunnels branching off in three directions. The one on the left leads to the employee housing units. Looks like an apartment building. The tunnel in the middle leads to an indoor shopping and services complex.”

  “And the on
e on the right?” Zamora says.

  “It leads to two more buildings. They’re labeled as research labs, on the blueprints.”

  “Can you tell if there’s anyone home?” Sotelo asks as the staircase leads us into the lobby she mentioned. His voice bounces back at us from more stark, white-tiled surfaces. We’re standing in a sea of empty lobby-style furniture and vending machines, and there’s no sign here of the violence that was unleashed upon the landing bay. Though there are dozens and dozens of dirty footprints, leading to all three tunnels. As if an army marched through here.

  “I think so,” Dreyer says. “The security features include an infrared scanner, and something much more advanced. It looks like…holy shit, it’s a neural impulse detection network.”

  “Neural, as in brain waves?” Lilli pipes up, from the Dinghy.

  “Yeah.” Dreyer sounds excited. “Which means it’ll work even if the climate control has failed in one of the buildings, making it too hot for a human heat signature to stand out. Though, from what I can tell, the buildings are all still intact and functioning. In fact, let’s just make it a little cooler all…over…”

  A humming sound comes from overhead, as cool air begins flowing into the lobby.

  “Okay, now please turn on that fancy neural scanner and tell us what we’re facing,” I say. “And which way we should go.” The lab complex seems obvious, but it’s hard to imagine that any UA employees who survived the raid would still report to work.

  “Just a second,” Dreyer says, and in the background, we can hear the soft tapping of her fingertips against a virtual keyboard. “I’m not authorized to access those systems, obviously, and hacking my way in could take hours. I need an authorized retina or thumbprint.” Her voice changes slightly as she turns away from whatever console she’s facing. “Lawrence, can you go check the corpses in the landing bay? Search the name tags for anyone ranking high enough to have access. Anyone who still has an unburnt eyeball or thumb.”

  “We can’t wait for that,” Sotelo says as the door to the control room creaks open overhead. “Let us know if you find anything, but we’re moving on.” Then he turns to Zamora and me. “We’re staying together. Which tunnel should we try first?”

  “Residential,” Zamora says. “If anyone’s still here, that’s where they’ll be. Right?”

  “Lab complex,” I say. “We’re not going to figure out what UA was doing with Theron laboratories by searching a bunch of empty apartments.”

  “Found one!” Lawrence shouts into our ears. “Dr. Lewis Thompson, Project Assistant. He has one unburnt eyeball and one unsinged hand. But I’m not scooping out his eyeball, so you’re going to have to make do with his thumb.”

  “Fine,” Dreyer says. “Bring it to me.”

  “I vote for the lab,” Lilli chimes in, as the telltale soft sliding sound over my earpiece says that Lawrence has equipped one of the blades hidden beneath his skin.

  “Lab it is.” Sotelo opens the door to the righthand tunnel—like all the other doors, it’s unlocked, which may have something to do with the hacked panel we found in the landing bay—and Zamora and I follow him in.

  “Dreyer, can we get some light in the tunnel to the lab complex?” I whisper.

  A second later, light floods the tunnel, revealing a long, white-tiled passage.

  “What do you see?” Lilli asks.

  “Not much, yet,” Sotelo tells her. “There’s a door at the end.”

  As we continue through the tunnel, Lawrence pipes up in our ears. “Here’s your thumb,” he says to Dreyer. “I hope it works, because I don’t think I can get that dude’s eyeball out of his head without squishing it.”

  “You could bring her his whole head,” Zamora suggests with a snort, from behind me.

  “Everyone has a limit,” Lawrence says. “You just found mine.”

  “That wouldn’t work anyway,” Dreyer tells them. “The retinal scan requires the iris to dilate, to prevent exactly what we’re doing now. The fingerprint scanner detects warmth. Fortunately, the fact that it’s so damn hot in the landing bay probably means the body hasn’t actually cooled.”

  It’s hot here in the tunnel, too, but every second seems cooler than the next, now that she’s adjusted the climate control.

  “Dr. Lewis Thompson was wearing something interesting,” Lawrence says. “It was burnt to a crisp, but I could swear the material was something similar to the nano-tech fabric the ladies on Gebose wear as modesty sheaths. Only UA appears to be using it as armor.”

  I nod, though he can’t see me. “I knew they had more in mind with that tech than making women invisible.”

  “Press the pad of the thumb here,” Dreyer says, and I try not to picture what they’re doing, up in the control room, while we march down the white-tiled tunnel.

  “No way,” Lawrence says. “I cut the damn thing off. You can take it from here.”

  Dreyer huffs her annoyance. A second later, she sighs happily. “Poor dead Dr. Thompson’s clearance worked. I’m in. Give me a second to…” She types some more. “Okay, the neural impulse detector is only registering brain activity from one being in this entire complex.”

  “Human?” Sotelo asks, his footsteps echoing ahead of me.

  “I—” Dreyer sounds stumped for a second. “Well, I assume so. Though if there’s a way to tell for sure, I don’t know what that is. So be prepared for anything.”

  “That’s the plan,” Zamora tells her. “Where’s the signal coming from?”

  “From one of the labs. Good call, choosing door number three. He—or she—is on the second floor of the lab in the center. Oddly, the blueprints don’t say what the three labs in that complex are actually for.”

  “Stupid mad scientists…” Zamora whispers.

  “Okay, we’re here.” Sotelo stops in front of the door. “Can you tell if the door is unlocked?”

  “The blueprint is interactive. Looks like all the doors in the lab and shopping complexes are unlocked. I’m guessing that whoever hacked into the panel in the landing bay did that.”

  “Okay, we’re going in,” Sotelo says, his hand hovering over the panel next to the door. Zamora and I take up defensive positions on either side of him, pistols drawn and ready. “Radio silence until further notice.”

  Sotelo taps the pad and the door slides open, admitting us into another lobby, which branches into three more open tunnels, each short enough that we can see the ends from where we stand in the lobby.

  We head into the center tunnel, which ends in a lobby made of sleek, metal-and-glass walls put together at odd angles. Where most buildings would have a front door, this one has a large glass screen that probably once held an interactive directory or showed promotional footage of the work done at Theron labs. But while nothing else in the lobby seems to have been disturbed, that screen is now dead and webbed with cracks, likely from the impact of the chair that lies on the floor in front of it.

  We quietly check all the rooms on the first floor, confirming that they’re empty. And they are. Most, in fact, have been ransacked, forcing us to walk through debris composed of broken glass and fractured bits of medical and scientific equipment, little of which I recognize.

  “Who do you think did this?” Zamora whispers, despite the censuring look Sotelo gives him. “The Bureau isn’t known for shooting up civilian labs.”

  “The Bureau might not go in guns ablaze, but they’ll defend themselves when they’re fired upon,” I point out softly.

  “You think Theron Labs fired first?” Zamora snorts. “Why would a bunch of scientists pick a fight with an armed Bureau raiding team?”

  “Because their shit was about to be confiscated. UA will do whatever it has to do to protect itself,” I say. “And to protect its research.”

  “Fuck,” Sotelo breathes. “What if they did this themselves?”

  Zamora frowns. “You think the Theron scientists destroyed their own labs?”

  “I think they’d do that before they’d let t
heir research and equipment get confiscated.”

  “But some of it was confiscated,” Zamora points out. “Otherwise, it couldn’t have been stolen from the evidentiary transport.”

  I step over what appears to be an entire tray of smashed glass vials as I follow Sotelo through another doorway. “Maybe they couldn’t destroy it all in time.”

  “Captain may be right,” Dreyer says into our ears. “I’ve just accessed the security cameras. It’s a live feed. The residential and commercial buildings are empty, but intact. As if everyone who lived here just got up and left.”

  “Or was arrested,” I say.

  “Sure. But my point is that the labs and the landing bay are the only places showing damage. Oh!” she breathes. “I found you guys. The camera is to your left,” she says, and when I look up, I spot it in the corner. “And I found something else interesting. Two doors down, on the right side of the hallway.”

  I frown up at the camera. “Can you give us a little more to go on? I’m not walking into an unknown situation just because you describe it as ‘interesting.’”

  “Have I ever led you into danger, you big wuss?” Dreyer demands, and I can practically hear her rolling her eyes. “Just go see what I found.”

  We pick our way through the debris and into the hall, and the room she leads us into turns out to be largely intact, other than a couple of smashed consoles. The source of her interest is immediately obvious.

  The centerpiece of this workspace is a series of three mannequins mounted on oval metal bases in the middle of the room. The figures are completely transparent and posable, but what has clearly caught Dreyer’s eye is what the center and right-hand mannequins are wearing.

  Lightweight, form-fitting body armor. They look like one-piece, steel gray battle uniforms, thinner than anything I’ve seen before, though they’re thicker and reinforced in vulnerable areas like the chest, neck, and crotch. The thick-soled boots seem to be incorporated, and the row of helmets on a counter to our right are obviously meant as part of the gear.

  “Nice!” Zamora holsters his pistol and runs one hand down the chest of the center mannequin, feeling the material. His brows rise. “It looks like metal, but it feels…pliant. Flexible.”