Don rubbed his chin before answering. “As before, her background in planetary science should be well-suited for this. And Palmer, your engineering training should make the two of you a good team; but, I don’t know how much engineering knowledge will help with analyzing this thing.”
Jack knew Don wasn’t trying to be condescending, and couldn’t tell what Palmer made of the comment. He gave them a second before saying, “I’ll take that as an approval.”
“Yes,” Don said quietly.
“Palmer, with Devon being our only available pilot, I’m going to need him for the IPV, which means you’re going to have to fly this one yourself.”
“No problem sir. I’d like to get an early start on this. Maybe at zero-seven-hundred.”
“Do you think you can be ready by then?”
“It’s only nineteen-forty-five, so if we get started immediately, yes.”
“Ok, proceed,” Jack said with a smile.
Chapter 13 – July 17, 2124; 11:00:00
Jack stepped out of the shuttle airlock into the bright sunlight. Even though it was still morning, ship-time, the sun was already well past midday on E-Eri-D giving them only three hours to work before sunset. They would never actually be able to get into sync with the planet’s day-night cycle: its sixteen-hour day was simply too short. For now, though, it didn’t matter. Jack just stared straight ahead at the dome’s wall. Its mysterious railing and possible doorway called to him. He picked up his equipment bag and walked slowly across the leaf covered ground, stopping about a meter from the wall. Its dull-gray, square panels stretched away in either direction: the large lighter one they assumed to be the door stood in front of him.
“Jack,” Don called. “Do you want to use Kurt’s device to clear this area of any those insect creatures while I setup my equipment?”
“Coward,” Alex said mostly under his breath.
“I heard that,” Don shot back.
Jack just ignored them and said, “Just stay back for a minute.” He pulled a black, palm-sized box from his bag. The front had the mesh covering of a speaker while its back had a handle and a small computer display. According to Kurt, all he needed to do was hold it in the desired direction, choose a volume setting and press the activate button. It seemed simple enough, but Jack still chose to hold the device carefully at arm’s length. Positioning himself with his back to Don and Alex, so that any escaping creatures would head away from them and the shuttle, he pressed “activate.”
The frequency was high enough that they heard nothing, and initially, nothing happened.
“Is it working?” Don asked.
Jack lowered his arms as he opened his mouth to answer, but stopped as the soil in front of him began to stir. He held the device in position for a second longer but nothing else happened. Pointing it to his left and right had a similar result – some motion beneath the leaves but little else. He turned up the volume and reflexively stepped back as a diffuse, black cloud shot out from the ground. It behaved as if it were a single organism. Hovering a few meters away, it carefully kept away from his speaker. Each time Jack stepped toward it, the cloud backed off an equivalent distance.
“It doesn’t seem to want to leave,” Alex said.
Jack turned the volume control up to maximum and the cloud quickly dispersed in all directions. Aiming the device back to the ground didn’t result in any more movement. Jack walked slowly back across the area in front of the door, sweeping the device back and forth, but found nothing else.
“I guess you cleared out their hive or nest,” Alex said. “There might not be any others right around here.”
“Ok,” Jack answered while eyeing the ground suspiciously.
“Still,” Alex said, “I think we should keep that thing on while we’re working here. Let’s convince them not to come back for now.”
“Good idea,” Jack replied as he placed device on the ground, facing away from the wall.
“Jack,” Don called. “Can you come over here and help me with this?”
“On my way.” Don was in the middle of setting up an array of sensors that would hopefully give them a hint of what lay behind the wall.
“There,” Don said pointing to the ground in front of him, “hand me the radar unit.”
Jack did as asked.
“This should hopefully penetrate these walls and give us a hint of what’s in there.
“Guys,” Alex called out.
“Just a minute,” Don answered as he focused on setting up his gear.
“I think you’ll want to see this,” Alex persisted.
Jack turned to see Alex crouching by the base of the wall.
“What is it?” Jack asked.
“Look for yourself.”
The man could be frustrating when he wanted to be, but Jack obliged and stepped down into the trench they had dug the previous day. Craning his neck to peer over Alex’s shoulder, he finally saw what had caught the scientist’s attention. Beneath the railing, right up against the side of the wall, was the faint outline of a small square cover plate about thirty centimeters across. Alex carefully brushed away the remaining dirt that clung to the seam.
“Jack, I need you guys out of the way if I’m going to take a...” Don started, but cut himself off when he realized no one was paying attention. “What’s going on?”
Jack didn’t answer. Instead he took a large screwdriver from his tool pouch and forced its blade into the seam. The cover plate popped off with surprising ease, revealing a shallow, recessed cavity containing a single large handle.
“What do you think?” Alex asked.
“What’d you find?” Don asked as he jumped in behind them.
Jack just smiled, grabbed the handle firmly and pulled. It moved smoothly. The soft hiss of a hidden hydraulic piston was followed by the sudden, heavy clank of an unseen metal latch. They backed off a couple of steps as the large panel before them slid into the ground, hitting bottom with a deep resonating bang. In front of them lay a long, dark corridor, as broad and tall as the three-by-three meter door that just opened. Jack flicked on his flashlight, but the passageway extended beyond the range of its beam. The walls and ceiling were lined with a deep charcoal metal or stone, polished to a high gloss. The floor might have been the same substance too, except for the fact that it was uniformly coated by a thick layer of dust or dirt. “Kurt, are you getting this?”
“Yes, there’s a little static, but we see it.”
“OK, we’re going to go in a bit and look around.”
“Understood,” Kurt replied.
Jack led the way. There were no markings or even any patterns along the walls; just a smooth, uniform, dark-gray surface. They proceeded slowly – the only sound was the shuffling of their footsteps, and their echoes off the hard, alien walls. After walking nearly half the length of a football field, the corridor curved gently, and they lost the last of the sunlight that had been at their backs. The beams from their flashlights were so completely consumed by the all-encompassing darkness that it took them a moment to realize when the passage had become straight again. They continued until the surrounding walls and ceiling suddenly disappeared: they were at the entrance to a mammoth, open chamber. Jack stood at the threshold, and surveyed the area with his light. The air was thick with dust, keeping him from seeing very far. Directly in front were three large objects – machines of some sort. Each was the length of a small truck and the better part of two stories tall. They were covered up to eye-level with dull, silver sheet metal, while the upper portions were a complex array of coils with interconnecting pipes and cables. They seemed to resemble turbines he’d seen used for power generation – however, he knew better than to start blindly guessing as to their actual purpose.
Jack walked slowly to the nearest one and saw a jagged, half-meter wide hole about waist-high in its paneling. He brushed away the centuries of dust that clung to its side, exposing charring along its sharp edges. Shining his flashlight into the hole revealed a fused mas
s of melted plastic panels. “Don, take a look at this.”
Don came up from behind followed a second later by Alex. The two peered in for a minute before Don stepped back and said softly, “I’m not sure I like what I’m seeing here.”
Jack had the same misgivings, but thought better of agreeing aloud. Instead, he reached into the hole and gently tugged on one of the plastic boards that protruded from the melted mass. It snapped off without any effort. The rectangular shard was as large as his hand and covered in a thick coat of gray dust. He took a can of pressurized nitrogen from his pack and blew off the dust. The wafer thin piece was translucent teal and shimmered under their flashlights. Bringing his face close to its surface, he could just discern a finely etched pattern of lines running its entire length. It reminded him of a circuit board, except for the fact that the patterns were more like groves than lines of metal.
Alex walked off to his left before shouting, “Jack, over here!”
Jack whirled around as much from surprise as curiosity and looked blankly at the man, until he took Alex’s unbroken gaze across the room as his cue. At the end of Alex’s dusty flashlight beam was the dull surface of an adjacent machine. Centered in its side was another jagged hole, nearly identical to the one by him. Jack stepped toward it, but caught his foot on something, inadvertently kicking it across floor. The object skidded away with a hollow sound. Jack’s eyes reflexively followed the noise, trying to find it in the darkness, but it was gone. He then glanced straight down at his feet. There lay a pile of debris shrouded in dust and spread across a couple of meters of floor. The collection of cylindrical objects numbered at least a few dozen and were of varying sizes. The ends of a few curved upward, protruding from the blanket of dust, showing themselves to be a pale, lifeless yellow. Without thinking much, he pushed at one with his toe. It was light and slid easily, dragging several other pieces with it. The last one in the chain, though, made him stop. Before he could translate his gut feeling into a thought, Don jumped back, shouting, “Damn it Jack, is that...” but stopped; his voice trailing off as he regained his composure.
Jack looked down at the large, hollow, oval mass. It lay motionless with both eye sockets staring at him. Alex, who hadn’t so much as twitched during the commotion, stepped forward and calmly crouched down by the pile of bones. Without a word, he carefully brushed the dust off the skull, picked it up and examined it at arm’s length. Its elongated shape was animal-like, though its cranium was definitely larger than a human’s. The two large eye sockets were set wider apart than a man’s. There was no obvious nose, and the mouth area seemed toothless.
Don shined his light at the bones strewn in front of them. Now that there was context, it was obvious that it was a complete skeleton. Jack was a little surprised by its similarity to terrestrial animals. A spine, ribs, and four appendages were easily recognizable. The creature was about two and a half meters long and seemed in near-perfect condition except for something by the ribs.
“Jack? Do you …”
“Yeah I see it,” Jack answered, not waiting for Alex to finish his question. There was a hole in the near side of its ribcage. The edges of the broken bones were singed and looked almost as if they’d melted. “Kurt, I assume you’ve been listening in on all of this. Can you make out what we’re seeing on the video feed?”
There was no answer. “IPV, do you read us?” Jack called.
More silence followed.
Don looked around the room and said, “The metal in these walls could be blocking our signal. At least we’re recording all of this – they can review it when we get back.”
Jack wasn’t satisfied with the answer and said again, “IPV, do you read us?”
“Hey, there’s another body here,” Alex called. Jack turned and followed Alex’s flashlight beam across to the adjacent machine again. Lying beneath its hole was another skeleton.
“What the hell went on here?” Don asked loudly.
“I don’t know, but we can find out later. I want to head back out and restore contact with the IPV.”
“Not yet,” Alex said as he walked deeper into the chamber.
“Not now,” Jack said calmly. “We can come back later.”
“You can’t be serious. Look at what we’ve found!”
“Alex...”
“Come on! Let’s at least get a broader view of what we’ve found. Just a quick walk-around – something we can review when we get back to the IPV. Besides, a few more minutes isn’t going to kill anyone.”
The truth was, he didn’t want to leave yet either. His desire won out over his subconscious concerns and he said, “OK, but let’s do this quickly. We’ll split up – one of us down each side, the other down the middle. Go only a hundred meters, no further. I want to meet back here in ten minutes.”
“I’ve got the center,” Alex said as he disappeared into the pitch-black cavern.
“Alright then, I’ll take the left. Don, you’ve got the right,” Jack said. He walked slowly, keeping the charcoal-gray wall to his left. There were more rows of machines, all identical to the first ones, creating neat aisles that went on as far as he could see. It wasn’t until he was five rows in, that he saw another body. As before there was a single blast hole in the device, and a crumpled skeleton lying beneath it.
“I’ve found two more bodies over here,” Alex said over the comm. link.
“Three here,” Don responded. “They’re all the same. A single shot for each.”
Jack kept walking. After the sixth body he stopped counting, and instead tried to look for something different from the surrounding monotony; some clue as to what might have happened. The darkness and uniformity of the surroundings made it tough to judge distance, so he resorted to counting his paces. Around seventy paces in, he came to a wall and had to make a right turn to continue.
“I’ve reached a wall,” Don called over the comm. “There’s no door here but...”
Jack let a few seconds passed before he said, “What Don?”
“You’ve got to get over here. I’ve found something.”
“What?” Jack pressed.
“Just get over here.”
Jack walked back the way he came, looking down each row for his science officer. It wasn’t until he was nearly back at the entrance that he saw the dim glow of Don’s light in the distance. He picked up his pace as he headed toward it. When he finally reached him, Don didn’t even glance at him. He just said, “They were slaughtered. They never even had a chance.”
The wall in front of them was covered with dozens of charred blast marks. The floor was littered with bones – too many to count. He couldn’t even estimate how many bodies were there.
Alex came up from behind and said, “What the...were they…,” but stopped as Don answered his unspoken question: “It looks like they were herded over here and executed.”
Jack glanced around them and said, “I agree. It doesn’t look like they even put up a fight.”
“How can you be sure?” Alex asked hesitantly.
“Look at the machines and walls behind you. They’re undamaged. If...whoever they were, had fought back, they’d have shot at their attackers in this direction. I’d expect to see some damage here. There’s nothing.”
“This isn’t right,” Don said softly.
Jack allowed them another minute before saying, “OK, don’t touch a thing. I want a full team in here to document this properly. Let’s get back outside and re-establish contact.”
Alex didn’t protest this time and just started slowly back toward the entrance. As they walked, Jack looked over the room’s walls and machinery. There were no other signs of violence. Nothing had been ransacked. They continued back through the entry corridor, and as they rounded the final bend, his eyes were stung by the bright sunlight from the distant door. There were a couple quick bursts of static from the radio, and then a barely intelligible voice came through.
“...one team, this is IPV, please respond. Shuttle-one team...”
/>
It was Kate Stewart, one of the mission’s communications engineers. Jack quickly replied, “IPV, we read you.”
She left the comm. link open, allowing him to hear her say, “Kurt, I’ve got him.”
A second later, Kurt’s clearly stressed voice came over, “Jack, where the hell were you?”
“In the structure; I told you we were going in. What’s going on?”
“Damn, you don’t know. We lost contact with shuttle-two about twenty minutes ago. There was short burst of gamma rays from the object and then we just lost them.”
“Do you have them on sensors?”
“No, nothing.”
“What’s your status?”
“We’re holding our current orbit, but were about to land the IPV and start looking for you.”
“What about their transmissions before you lost contact? Was there any sign that they were in trouble or...”
“Nothing, Jack. I’ve been through this a dozen times...” Jack could hear Kurt stop and take a deep breath. “Sorry Jack. No, there was no sign. We just had a clean data stream and then all contact ceased.”
“OK, ready the ship for departure to the object. We’ll leave as soon I get the shuttle back aboard. Jack out.”
Chapter 14 – July 17, 2124; 15:05:00
Kurt leaned forward in the command chair and ran his fingers through his hair. This was not where he wanted to be – not in Jack’s seat. Anything else would be preferable, even cleaning the grime off of the bio-matter recycling units during a maintenance shift. He glanced impatiently at the command console. Its upper corner read, 15:05:00, 17 July 2124. It would still be another half hour before Jack’s shuttle returned and he could finally relinquish this post. Just to keep from dwelling on it any further, he turned to the communications station to his right. “Kate, any more luck with the adjustments you made?”
“Still no response,” She replied without looking up. “The mods are online and working. It’s just that there’s still no signal from them.” Unwilling to let her statement end so pessimistically, though, she continued, “But there’s still one more thing I want to try. I’m betting that there might have been an EMP associated with the gamma burst; that could’ve knocked out all of the shuttle’s systems. As a last resort they might try to contact us using the short-range comm. unit in an EVA suit. We just need to squeeze a bit more gain out of this and we should be able to pick even that up.”
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