by Kelly Gay
Apparently neither did Ram. He entered the bridge in a T-shirt and baggy pajama bottoms, hair loose to his shoulders, carrying two mugs of Casbah coffee—a splurge in credits due to its import tax, coming all the way from Tribute in the Inner Colonies, but so worth it.
He handed her a mug and then moved to the nav panel and pressed a few commands. “Not far now,” he said quietly, leaning his hip against the console and staring out the viewscreen, sipping his brew. “Mind-boggling sometimes . . . how tiny we are, moving through something so vast.”
And there were many people out there who couldn’t handle it, couldn’t live a life in space. If you weren’t a seasoned traveler, the endless nothingness, the long stretches of isolation could weigh on a person’s mind, overtake it, put you on a path to madness. She’d seen it once on the Hakon, when they’d been set adrift, months on end, food running out, not a single star in sight. . . . Cade had—
No. Memory lane wasn’t a place she wanted to visit right now, so she focused on the cigarette poking out of Ram’s shirt pocket. She hadn’t seen him smoke since she’d found him on Komoya. “You ever going to smoke that thing?”
He shrugged. “Trying to quit. I’m down to smelling it every once in a while.”
“You know we have patches for that, right?”
He returned her sarcastic smile, then shrugged. “Call me old school. So I was looking over the report from Gek’s commpad,” he said, changing the subject. “He sounds serious about whatever he thinks is in the debris field. He mentions using it against us, hitting us at our heart. I think he means Earth.”
Rion pulled her feet under her and then took a sip from her mug. “If he believes he can make it there, and make a statement, he won’t hesitate. He might make it to Earth, but he’d have to get through Home Fleet.”
Ram thought about it for a moment. “Unless he has help from the inside. The alien refugee settlements on Earth are growing. Makes you wonder how the hell they’re able to weed out the bad from the good.”
Good point.
Hell, even the refugees were at risk. “There’s been talk for a while, Covenant loyalists wanting retribution against defectors, wanting to send a message. Those refugee settlements on Earth might be courting disaster. Once we get the salvage and find a port with a decent comm relay, I’ll turn Gek’s report over to the authorities.”
His attention was drawn once more to the view. “Strange to think of Jackals, Grunts, and hinge-heads making a home on Earth after they wanted us all dead, while we’ll be lucky if we’re not permanently barred from the planet if ONI ever finds out what we’re planning.”
“Would that bother you?”
He scratched his beard, thinking. “I don’t know. Never been to Earth.” He paused to take a drink, then shrugged. “Guess I’m like most—a small part of me always yearns to see the homeland.”
She smiled over the rim of her mug. “Didn’t peg you for the pilgrimage type.”
He shot her an eye roll. “All of us colonists are, to some degree. ‘I might be Komoyan, born and bred . . .’” He grinned as he recited familiar lines:
“But in me lies the need to tread
On shores of sand and plains of red,
On soft green grass to lay my head.
Past stars and years, to distant view,
A long way home, I push on through;
She calls and sings her song of blue,
My heart, my soul, my homeland true.”
Rion mentally recited along with Ram’s spoken words. The lines were from a famous folk song written by early colonist Mary Parker Meade. Known throughout the colonies, it was the kind of simple song taught to schoolchildren, and sung at events and holidays and by happy drunks in bars. It was an everyman anthem. And it was sung replacing the first line with whatever planet, colony, outpost, or ship you called home, just as Ram had done.
“Earth is home as much as Komoya is,” he admitted. “I think it’s a need in all of us to see it at least once, don’t you?”
She might’ve felt a tiny twinge of homesickness, but Rion’s perspective, being born and raised on Earth, was far different from those growing up in the colonies. There was and would always be something special and even mystical about Earth. There would always be those wanting to go home, like Ram, and those wanting to leave, to branch out and make their own way, as Rion had done.
“Since we’re up,” she said, “let’s recon the system and see what else is out there.”
They worked silently after that, noting the giant orange star coming into visual range as Ace adjusted course through the asteroid belt, and then toward the four small planets that orbited the star.
An hour later, Geranos-a was in their sights and they’d located the ONI commsat. Rion kept Ace out of range of the commsat and settled the ship into high orbit.
Lessa entered the bridge with two breakfast wraps—thank God for a crewmember who liked to actually cook meals instead of relying solely on packaged fare—and handed one to Rion and the other to Ram. “Figured you two would already be at it. So that’s it, huh? Looks . . . inviting.”
“If you say so.” Besides the color, Rion thought it looked a lot like the old pictures of Mars before the planet had been terraformed. She took a bite of her wrap and groaned.
“That’s the last of the Brillon eggs, by the way,” Less said.
With her other hand, Rion pulled up the planet’s image on the tactical table. “Pretty barren. Mostly sand and rock. Atmosphere is too thin for much, if anything, to survive.”
“So we’re not looking for survivors then.”
“Depends,” Ram said around a mouthful of food. “Whoever or whatever sent the distress call might have enough oxygen reserves to live on or, if there’s a ship down there, could have a pressurized section still able to support life.”
Lessa spun the holograph to find a blue dot indicating the location of the signal. “At least the light gravity will make carrying stuff a breeze.”
“Once Niko is up, we’ll send in Michelle to recon the commsat and see if we can disable it.”
“He’s up,” she replied, her tone suddenly rigid. “Heard him in the gym.”
Rion regarded Lessa for a long moment. “He didn’t mean it, you know?” she said carefully. “What he said back in New Tyne . . .”
Lessa shrugged. “I know he didn’t. But that’s not really the point, is it?”
Rion had the feeling it was a question she couldn’t or shouldn’t answer, so she left it alone. When nothing more was forthcoming from the girl, Rion finished her food and then buzzed the gym as Ram left to get dressed.
“Yeah?” came Niko’s out-of-breath response.
“Need you to prep Michelle when you’re done.”
“ ’Kay. Give me twenty minutes.”
True to his word, Niko arrived on the bridge just shy of twenty minutes later, freshly shaved and showered, a definite change from the last several days.
“Michelle’s launched,” he announced, and headed for his comms console to pull her feed up on screen and direct her movements. The drone, affectionately dubbed Michelle, had begun her life as a UNSC spy drone, but under Niko’s care, she was all that and more.
The commsat wasn’t easy to spot; the thing was encased in flat black stealth coating and was only about seventy-six centimeters in circumference. Michelle approached and scanned the satellite. “There’s no SATCOM network out here, so it can’t relay information, only store it,” Niko said. “It’s using a disruptor wave to break up the distress call. It’s illegal for us to mess with commsats, especially military and government. We could leave it alone, destroy it, or bring it on board so I can salvage the components,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “My vote is for salvage.”
“Well, we can’t leave it and risk it recording our activities,” Rion said. “Can you disable it before bringing it on board?”
“Can you disable it,” he echoed, shaking his head and returning to his screen. “Yeah, of co
urse I can disable it. . . .”
Niko commanded Michelle to send out an EMP pulse, rendering the commsat inert, then employed a magnetic well to tow the device back to the ship.
Once Michelle was docked and the airlock engaged, Lessa went down to the cargo bay to receive the device, and then deployed Michelle again for an exploratory flyby over the distress signal’s origin.
As Niko guided Michelle through the atmosphere of Geranos-a, Lessa returned and fed him navigational corrections to account for the winds. Soon the surface appeared, a wash of sand and dunes with a few rocky outcroppings dotting the landscape.
“Coming up on the signal,” Niko said.
The drone descended over a pile of slate-like rocks and slowed to a hover above an antenna stuck into the ground. A thick band of cables ran down its length and over the sand.
“Well, clearly someone did this,” Less said. “There must be survivors.”
“Or were. We don’t know how long this thing has been broadcasting,” Rion said.
“Guess we just follow the lines?” Niko asked, glancing to Rion for confirmation before piloting Michelle along the cables.
Down the dune and into a flat valley, half-buried bits of wreckage began to appear . . . then a large section of fuselage came into camera view with a jagged opening covered by a wind-worn cloth, flapping in Geranos-a’s steady winds. “That looks like a shelter,” Ram said, standing.
“And look, the cables lead inside,” Lessa said.
“Wait. Niko, back up.” Rion sat up straight. “Angle down . . . those are tracks.” The sand was already filling in the impressions. “Someone was definitely down there. Recently. Ram, you got anything on life signs?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Could we be getting interference from the winds?”
“I’m not picking up any.”
Rion tapped her finger on the arm of her chair. Odd. But there was only one way to find out who’d made those tracks. She pushed up from her seat, energized by the anticipation and excitement of discovery. “Ram, since you’re still recovering, you’ll take over here.”
He frowned at her, returning to his seat. “I’m good, Forge. Body is chock-full of nanites—”
“Yeah, and they’re still repairing you, so you’ll be our eyes on the ship. Less and Niko will come with me. Let’s suit up, kids,” she said with a clap. “Grav carts, cutters, med kit—and we go in armed until we know what we’re looking at. Ram, set us down here”—she leaned over the tactical table and pointed to a spot on the holographic image—“just on the other side of those rocks. And keep Ace running and weapons warm until we know what kind of survivors we’re dealing with.”
Ram swiveled in his chair. “Don’t forget that ONI thinks the site is dangerous enough to issue a ‘proceed with caution.’ Remember that. Tread carefully.”
She nodded. “Will do.”
The Ace of Spades settled onto the sand, using a rocky dune as protection from the winds streaming at a steady twenty knots. Rion, Niko, and Lessa were waiting at the cargo bay in light fatigues and breathing masks with oxygen converters and reserve tanks, with grav carts and tools at the ready. As soon as Rion saw the green light on the pad by the door, she hit the airlock and released the ramp.
Hot, dry air and sand swirled as they exited the ship with their gear. Rion’s boots should have sunk deep into the soft sand, but the gravity was so light that she barely made a dent. “Comm check,” she said, and waited for Niko and Less to reply.
“All good, Cap,” Lessa said, glancing around.
Niko was staring down at his feet before jumping a few times to test the gravity. “G’s aren’t that light,” Rion remarked. “Come on, let’s get moving.”
They made their way across the sand to the rocky dune in the distance. Leaving their gear at the bottom, they climbed to the top to inspect the antenna. “Well, at least we know there were survivors at some point. This didn’t get here all by its lonesome,” Lessa said, craning her head. The antenna was more than three meters high and made from a long titanium shaft.
“Looks like some sort of ground plane mast-radiator combo,” Niko said. “Depends what’s underneath it and what’s attached at the other end of these cables.”
“Should we turn it off?” Less asked.
“Yeah, shut it down,” said Rion.
Niko dropped to his knees and brushed the sand away from the ground to inspect the cables. “Hold up. . . . The cables have been stripped and wired directly into the shaft and this broadcasting board. Honestly never seen anything like it. It’ll be easier to shut down from its power source.” He glanced behind him at the trail of cables snaking down the dune.
“All right,” said Rion. “Let’s get off this rock and find the source then.”
Rion went slowly along the cables’ path, directing her grav cart beside her and picking up a few pieces of ship wreckage to examine and then toss back into the sand as they went across the valley floor. They wouldn’t know what kind of craft they were dealing with until they got to the main site.
A sudden glint caught her eye. She picked up what appeared to be glass and realized it was vitrified sand.
So far, what she was seeing wasn’t exactly consistent with survivors. A wreck this bad, this old and weathered, in this kind of environment, crashing hot enough to turn sand into glass? Although it wasn’t unheard of, people surviving through insurmountable odds like this. Yet even if there was a chamber buried somewhere under the sand with oxygen and pressure lasting for years, there still was the issue of food. . . .
“Hey.” Lessa’s hand nudged Rion’s shoulder. “Look at that.” She pointed to a raised area a couple meters away, stacked with a mound of rocks. A piece of metal jutted up from the stack to mark the spot. “Is that what I think it is?”
“A grave site.” Rion stared at it for a long moment, feeling very keenly that something just wasn’t right. Nothing was adding up the way it should.
As they continued on, she asked, “Ram . . . still not picking up any life signs?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Any traces of power?”
“No, it’s really quiet. Nothing breathing or moving. . . .”
“Gotta love a good mystery,” Niko commented drily.
“All right. We’re coming up on the main site.” Intact, the fuselage would have been enormous. Most of it now was either buried in the sand or sheared off. The cloth hanging over the jagged hole was ripped and threadbare, flapping in the wind with audible snaps.
“This is starting to feel really creepy,” Lessa said, eyeing the entrance and the cables that disappeared inside.
Rion pulled her rifle over her shoulder. “Heading inside.”
Carefully and slowly, she ducked past the cloth and entered the wreck.
The floor was sand, but the walls were clearly titanium plating.
As Rion moved farther in, it became dark enough that she had to use her light to see down the length of the hull. With Less and Niko doing the same, they revealed a strange scene of what appeared to be a collection of wreckage.
Rion moved toward a makeshift worktable built out of storage containers, its top consisting of a long piece of metal plating and piled with cables and wiring, cracked screens, a few dead power cores, and an assortment of system components and motherboards.
Lessa stared down at the table where a collection of random personal effects had been placed—a belt, burned photos, a hairbrush, a sock, a broken bottle of brandy. . . . “Yeah, definitely creepy.”
Niko picked up a few system components and tossed them into his cart.
“I really don’t want to run into a dead body,” Lessa said, her nerves getting to her. “Especially one in a mask or space suit. No offense to the dead or anything, but that totally freaks me out. . . .”
“That happened to you one time,” Niko replied.
“Yeah, well, one time was all I needed for it to be awful.” She shuddered. “And you were the one who screamed an
d ran away first.”
“Yeah, sure. I think your recall needs work.” He found a serial number on a small piece of tech and ran it through their database.
“No, it doesn’t. You dropped your tools and left your grav cart and went running through the grass. You tumbled ass over end and then popped right back up and kept on going to the ship. I remember because it was funny as shit. And I had to make two trips to get your crap because you refused to go back out to the site.”
“Whatever.”
“Don’t you ever take responsibility for anything?” she asked, nerves quickly replaced with annoyance as she reached beyond Niko for a piece of wreckage. He didn’t move out of the way because a name popped up on the scanner, so she gave him a quick, forceful shove.
“Ow! Would you stop?”
“Would you move?”
“Well, maybe I would if please was somewhere in your limited vocabulary.”
“Oh, here we go. Well, please, why don’t you say what you really think?”
“What are you talking about?”
“That you think I’m an idiot.”
“Well . . . that’s true of everyone compared to me.”
“Knock it off, both of you,” Rion said, headache brewing.
“Sorry, Cap.” Niko read his screen as Lessa moved past him in a huff. “Check this out. That serial number I ran through—it’s coming up as a part on the UNSC Rubicon. Science vessel. Once we return to civilization, we can run the name through Waypoint and see what comes up.”
“Good idea.” Rion moved along the other bulkhead wall, inspecting the haphazard bits of wreckage until Lessa’s shriek split through her earpiece. She swung around, rifle at the ready as Less stumbled back, bumping into a utility counter behind her, her weapon hastily drawn and pointed at a figure on the ground.
Heart in her throat, Rion approached slowly. Seeing that there was no danger, she placed a hand on Lessa’s gun, lowering the weapon, then crossed to the figure on the ground. “Ram, you seeing this?” she asked.
“Jesus. Yeah, I’m seeing it. . . . Don’t know what it is, but I’m seeing it.”
