Shadow Play

by P. R. Adams

  She pulled the information up and sent it to him.

  His brow wrinkled. “Huh. I haven’t seen a string like that.”

  “Is there something wrong?”

  “No, no. I just…it must be some intelligence asset, right?”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  “I guess so.” The way his bottom lip stuck out, he obviously wasn’t thrilled with the idea.

  “Can you handle this, Chief?”

  “Do I have a choice?” It came out petulant, like when she’d told him to pitch in against the Azoren boarding team.

  At some point, they would have to talk about his military obligations.

  He slid the helmet on, initially much less confident and enthused than when he’d come into the room, then powered the computing slab up and slipped the gloves on. That seemed to calm him a little. “Is this far away?”

  “It is. Will the delay present a problem?”

  “Nah. Looks like it’s pretty insignificant. I just need to get used to it.”

  While he became acclimated to the drone, Benson pulled up Scalise’s record and began reading through it. Almost immediately, the ratings drew the commander in. Good, not great. And the problems with stubbornness, a lack of imagination and intuition, and a real problem with empathy—all of them were called out. It was something captured in subordinate interviews as well as rater summaries.

  There wasn’t much you could do about someone who had low emotional intelligence, not without acceptance of the problem, and Scalise didn’t seem to be much on accepting that she had problems.

  Benson turned her attention to the rest of the bridge crew, which not so surprisingly didn’t quite match up to Scalise’s take.

  I’ll have to give them all a deeper look later.

  But what mattered more at that moment was Gadreau. She might not have been able to just accept Halliwell’s gut reaction, but since it matched hers there seemed to be something there to look at.

  She found it about five years prior to his assignment to the newly re-launched Clarion: “anti-piracy operations.”

  Right around the time Halliwell had been involved in supporting the same thing.

  What had he said about those people? Unmarked uniforms? Off-the-books operations? Something.

  If Gadreau had come up through such activities—and as a staff sergeant, apparently—then he might have connections or at least sympathies that could be problematic.

  She’d have to keep an eye on him.

  “Look at that!”

  Benson straightened. The chief was all smiles, completely oblivious to her now as he piloted the probe, gloved fingers twitching, head tilting, shoulders twisting. He was in his happy place.

  It was better to leave him alone while he got the hang of things, but she needed to know what he was seeing. “What’s out there, Chief?”

  “Looks like I’m coming up on a moon. Was that a gas giant I passed?”

  “Riefenstahl. I think.”

  “Well, this place looks pretty dreary. Thick clouds. Were there supposed to be satellites in orbit?”

  “I—” She’d have to check on that. It had been described as a listening post. It made sense. “I’ll ask.”

  His lips twisted. “Is this where we’re headed?”

  “Yes.”

  “I heard we’re sending a rescue team down.”

  “We’ll have to see. That’s what the probe’s going to tell us.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “You’re worried about something, Chief?”

  “Just—” He reached for the helmet or his head, as if he might be thinking about scratching himself, then apparently remembered he was piloting a remote. “There aren’t a lot of qualified people on these ships.”

  “There aren’t.”

  “I—we won’t have to go down there, right?”

  “We’ll see. Does that worry you?”

  He reached for the helmet, and this time took it off. “Of course it does! We were just resuscitated!”

  “Chief, that’s more than most people can ever say.”

  “No! It isn’t guaranteed. I mean, it can fail nearly twenty percent of the time. And another twenty percent comes down to ‘efficiency targets.’ Your life is in the hands of someone giving approval to a computer evaluation.”

  “You made it, Chief. These people agree with you about your worth.”

  He snorted. “You think I’m blind? They have reservists and people recalled from retirement staffing those ships!”

  “Which means you have value, doesn’t it?”

  “Compared to them?” Parkinson blinked, then smiled. “I guess so, yeah.”

  “Then you should be fine. But, Chief?”

  “Hm?”

  “You wouldn’t be hurting your odds of another resuscitation by learning to get along with others, and that starts with valuing others as equals.”

  His jaw dropped, and his eyes registered offense. “I’m just talking odds.”

  “People are more than odds.”

  Parkinson slid the helmet back on. “The probe will be hitting the atmosphere soon.”

  “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

  She leaned back in her seat and started working on a query for McLeod about the satellites. She was sure they weren’t a surprise to anyone but her, but what did it mean, ultimately? Had they launched the probe from the missile carrying it early enough to miss detection by those satellites, or had they inadvertently alerted the enemy?

  11

  “Oh.”

  That was all Chief Parkinson said, but the way he suddenly hunched forward, then leaned hard to the left with a soft groan, Benson was pretty sure the word carried more meaning than just “oh.”

  She clasped her hands in front of her to keep them from shaking, enjoying the warmth and the reassurance of her own flesh. “What is it, Chief?”

  “Just a second.” He leaned again, this time to the right, fingers flying.

  The planning room light caught every angle and bend of the engineer’s gloves, and the humming air circulator did a decent job sucking the heated plastic smell out. But Benson was well aware of how hard the helmet and gloves and computing slab were working.

  “Can you show me what you’re seeing?” She could do it herself, but that would annoy him even more than bothering him.

  Or maybe it wouldn’t. His mouth pursed, then the tabletop display came to life. At first it flared, revealing a world of deep blues and blacks, white lines and splotches of pale yellow, then a green grid overlaid it all, painting contours and shapes.

  She was disoriented at first, then realized the probe was going through some pretty intense maneuvers, changing the angle of the map with only minor delays. The clear heart of the computing slab glowed a persistent, soft blue.

  He’s pushing the hardware to its limits.

  Her instinct was to demand to know what was going on, but the way the probe kept moving so fast, she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t about to crash or…

  Could something be pursuing it?

  The map blanked out for a second, and Parkinson grunted, then the computing slab became nothing but a clear plastic brick again.

  “No!” The engineer’s head jerked right and left. “The signal!”

  “What happened, Chief?”

  His fingers tapped the air, swiped and circled. “Signal loss…”

  “We lost the probe?”

  “I don’t know.” He yanked the helmet off, blinked, then picked up the slab. “Overload.”

  “Can you—”

  He nodded, annoyed, all the while tapping a pattern on the surface of the brick. Blue light slowly came to life in the heart of it, then it became like a prison for a miniature blue sun. “I’m pulling from the Clarion’s computing resources. I’ll need a new slab when this is done.”

  She squeezed her fingers together. “The probe?”

  “One second.” He had the helmet back on, and almost immediately seemed to be searching for something f
ar away. Then he grunted and threw himself against the back of his chair. “Got it!”

  Obstacles. Or weapons. Something was giving the probe trouble.

  The video feed returned, and she had a good look at a fairly flat plain, then what looked like some sort of massive rockfall. Building foundations took on detail within that rockfall, and she realized it was probably the ruins mentioned in the earlier briefing.

  Parkinson drifted forward, and the image leveled off, then the ground came closer. “The ruins.”

  “I thought so. What are these things in the flat area surrounding the ruins?”

  “Things?”

  “Lines. Jagged—”

  “The ground. It looks like there must have been some sort of tectonic activity.”

  Tectonic activity. Had anyone mentioned that? “Can we get a live shot? Something more than…”

  “That’s computer-enhanced infrared. There’s no real light down there. None to speak of, at least. Reflection off the gas giant, whatever sunlight gets through the atmosphere when the moon is on the other side of the planet.”

  “Can this be enhanced?”

  “Sure.” He was much calmer now. “Once you get all the data back, we can build up a more realistic representation.”

  “Do you see anything? Any sign of what might have happened?”

  “Other than the cracks in the ground?”

  “You think there was an earthquake?”

  “At some point. Maybe those are old, but it looks to me like something happened. And you’re not going to set a multi-ton ship down there. No way.” He leaned to his left, once more grunting, and the camera angle changed, then leveled off again. “Something created this.”

  “This” was a narrow valley that widened, then shrank, then twisted, then widened again before opening into a broad, deep bowl.

  “That’s the crater!” She leaned closer to the display.

  It looked like the bottom was fairly flat. Remarkably flat.

  She tried to get a sense of scale. Zoomed out, it looked like the lip of the crater was just a little larger than half the size of the ruins. The probe’s cameras and sensors captured more of the cracks radiating out from the edges of the hole gouged in the ground.

  He leaned again, and the image twisted. “The atmosphere…I don’t know if it’s breathable, but it’s there. Winds. Crazy thermals, maybe. I can’t figure what would be the source of dramatic temperature differences, but something’s causing weather. Real weather. I’m pretty sure there’s ice all over the place.”

  Ice. Wind. Had the world been inhabited at some point? Did the ruins represent something more than a small outpost that came before the Azoren?

  Parkinson snorted. “If you think that’s interesting, you’ll love this.”

  He took the probe higher and sped away from the crater.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just wait.”

  “Chief—”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  The ground farther out from the crater was even more rugged and untamed than what they’d seen with the cracks surrounding the crater and ruins.

  Then the ground transformed into an unnaturally flat area lit by strips of something that glowed red hot against the blue and black. Small bumps sat atop long, low rectangles, and a short strip of perfectly smooth land ran from larger rectangles.

  Parkinson leaned again, and the view banked away. “That is what should scare you.”

  “The listening post?”

  He frowned. “What?”

  “They’re supposed to have a listening post. The Azoren. Those bumps on the—”

  “I thought we had a listening post?”

  “That’s who we’re listening to. Our SIGINT people are leeching off theirs.”

  His frown deepened. “Yeah, well, that’s not a listening post. It’s a small military base. That was an airfield if you missed it. That means they’ve got at least one or two atmosphere-capable vessels within minutes of the ruins.”

  The facility certainly looked larger than she’d imagined a listening post would. “I’ll ask what we know about it. Do you think they saw you?”

  “This probe?” He chuckled. “I’ve been looking at some of the specs. I think I could probably land it on someone’s ass and they wouldn’t notice until they tried to take a—”

  “Thank you, Chief. Could you return it to orbit?”

  “I—” He shrugged. “Sure. It has fuel left. I think it’d be better to set it down somewhere remote in case we want to use it again.”

  “Did you see someplace that would be shielded from those satellites?”

  “Lots of places. Give me a minute, I’ll have it out of sight. But if they could see it, they already have.”

  That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Then again, it was better to hear something you didn’t want to than to have the surprise destroy you.

  When Parkinson took his helmet and gloves off, the smug smile she was used to seeing on his face was back. He might be haunted by what had happened to him on the Pandora—they all were—but at least he could still find satisfaction in his work with remotes.

  She returned his smile. “Why don’t you requisition yourself a new computing slab?”

  His smile faded. “That’s it?”

  “Well, beyond a thank you, yes. What you’ve provided here was very valuable.”

  Parkinson bit his bottom lip. “They’ll cancel this, right?”

  “The rescue? There might be people down there.”

  “Not alive. You saw those ruins, the winds. How long ago was the SOS? Without power, people would freeze to death in hours.”

  “Perhaps they still have power.”

  “Then why send an SOS?”

  “Go get that computing slab, and send me that enhanced video, please.”

  His lips quivered as he stood and gathered his gear, then left.

  She needed to talk to McLeod. Did he know about all that they’d seen? Unsteady ground around the ruins? The larger-than-expected military base?

  When she tried to connect to the colonel, she didn’t get anything. She wasn’t about to try Agent Patel, so she connected to Stiles.

  The connection request was accepted almost immediately. Stiles was in a T-shirt, her gold-brown skin glowing from exertion. “Commander?” She sounded out of breath.

  “Lieutenant, I’m trying to reach Colonel McLeod.”

  The young woman brushed a forearm across her brow. “He’s in a meeting with Agent Patel.”

  “This is important.”

  “So is the meeting.” The set of the younger woman’s jaw said she wasn’t going to budge if she was asked to interrupt the meeting. “Maybe I can help?”

  Benson almost rolled her eyes, then she remembered the lieutenant was the only one to survive the Azoren attack on the Pandora. There was more about her than met the eye. “Maybe you can. I have some fairly raw footage from the probe we sent to Jotun.”

  Stiles picked up her communicator and turned off video. “Send it to me. I’ll give it a look.”

  “I’d like to discuss it.”

  It sounded like steps in a passageway, then on stairs, then in a passageway again. “All right. Send me the video, then I’ll call you back. I need to clean up. I won’t be long.”

  The connection terminated.

  Benson found resentment settling into her thoughts. The younger woman had been working out and merely glowed. When Benson worked out, she looked like an absolute mess within minutes.

  Her communicator pinged: the request for a data transfer; she sent the video from Parkinson’s probe across.

  While she waited, she connected to the Clarion astronomical database and pulled up everything she could on Azoren space. It had been Kedraalian Republic space before the war. All of the enemy holdings—Azoren, Gulmar, Khanate, and Moskav—had been Kedraalian. There should have been something about the moon, even if it wasn’t called Jotun at the time. After a quick search, she found the orig
inal designations and fairly terse entries on the solar system, the gas giant, and the moons. Everything had been left with the older, duller designations based on star and planet: Terkel star, Terkel System, Terkel VI for the gas giant, and Terkel VIc for the moon.

  There was basic data—scans and probes—but nothing detailed beyond a vague mention of a potential large impact crater. That meant the system didn’t catch the eye of anyone within the Republic scientific community decades ago. That seemed to support the idea that the Azoren were the first to give the moon any serious attention, and that probably only came from its proximity to the eventual DMZ.

  Her communication device flashed: Stiles was calling. Benson accepted. The lieutenant was dressed in a combat uniform now. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  “Sorry for the delay. Can I ask what has you concerned?”

  “Did you see the video?”

  Stiles frowned. “It looked like a very crude wireframe over infrared imagery.”

  Of course she would know what that looked like. She’d probably been trained in imagery analysis to some level in the GSA. “That’s the probe run over the ruins.”

  “That’s what I thought. I’m still not sure why you need to speak to the colonel about it.”

  “Did you see the cracks in the ground? It looks unstable.”

  “It can support a small shuttle. That would’ve been how they managed to insert the team.”

  “Did you watch all of the video?”

  “Why?”

  “There’s a military outpost less than a hundred kilometers out.”

  “The Azoren listening post.”

  Benson’s head pounded. “It’s not some little outpost. There’s an airstrip.”

  That finally got through; Stiles’s eyes narrowed. “An airstrip?”

  “And it looks like a couple of large buildings, probably mostly subterranean.”

  “One moment.” The connection paused.

  So she hadn’t seen all of the video! She had just assumed it was hysterical overreaction. Great.

  Stiles came off pause, but she was looking elsewhere, probably still watching the video. “All right. I see it.” Her attention came back to the live feed and Benson. “What do you propose to do about it, Commander?”