“Not reading any life signs in the station at all,” Bandura said. She had already tapped into the top layer of the station’s internal systems and was streaming data from it directly to the fireteam’s AHUD. The rest of the fireteam disconnected their goggles and breathing masks.
“What’s the count supposed to be?” asked Stone.
“Total count is twenty. Headed up by a Caroline Tao,” she replied.
“If there were twenty souls here when the Shiveen got in, they’re all probably dead now,” said Anderson.
“Maybe,” said Stone. “Looks like they put up a helluva fight though.”
He pointed to score marks along metal casing and shelving on the wall and holes punched in support struts.
“Scientists with weapons?” said Bandura.
Anderson inspected the holes.
“Scientists with bolt throwers and nail guns,” he said. “Nice. Someone had their heads on.”
Stone pointed to the planetary rover.
“How many of those are in inventory?”
“Looks like five,” said Bandura, checking records.
“Maybe they escaped in the rovers?” said Jack. “Could get about five people into each of four rovers.”
“Doubt it,” said Stone. “Main bay door is closed. You don’t escape an alien terror and close the garage door behind you on the way out. Those rovers are probably out in the field somewhere.”
“With Shiveen swarming around,” added Bandura.
The loading bay had multiple doors leading off it, each of the doors open and leading to one of the hub bubbles on the outside of the station. A large elevator cage sat off to one side of the room, the actual elevator up in one of the higher levels.
“Main mess and research rooms are above this,” said Bandura. “Top level is operations and communications.”
“We need eyes, Bandura,” said Stone.
Bandura pulled three drones from her backpack, powering them up. The fist-sized machines extended four small rotors from inside their bodies as soon as she activated them. They floated like a small swarm of hummingbirds in front of her before following her commands and dispersing throughout the science station, following her programming and feeding information back to her. She pushed the feeds to the rest of the fireteam. They watched as drones passed through doorways and headed to the outer buildings, and found a series of stairwells leading upstairs.
Jack stepped forward, about to follow the drones up the stairwells. Stone grabbed his arm and pulled him back.
“We sweep and clear first. Bandura’s drones are cheap and replaceable. We’re not.”
The fireteam continued to watch the vidcasts being sent back to them. Stone tagged various things of interest, including two closed doors and more acid scorch marks on the floor of the second level. One drone made it up to the third level and offered a panoramic view of the operations room. Desks and tables were strewn everywhere, metal scorched and punctured.
Most of a human body lay over a communications console.
“Now we go up,” he said. “Conway with me to the top. Bandura and Anderson, check out those things I tagged on the second floor.”
Jack moved forward, taking point. He pulled his gun in tight to his body and activated combat scanning via his AHUD. His alek began marking off angles and items of interest as he made his way up the stairwell as it also fed him information from Bandura’s drones. Stone following closely behind him, his own weapon at the ready. Bandura tapped away on her alek, accessing remote computer systems, while Anderson followed at the rear, walking backwards, his rifle sweeping the vehicle bay as they ascended.
“The station AI is gone,” whispered Bandura.
“Did the systems get damaged?” asked Stone.
“No, it’s gone. Looks like it got yanked out of the core.”
“Where’s that at?”
“Under the vehicle bay with the rest of the power system. There’s an access hatch to get to it.”
“We check it after we secure the building.”
Jack neared the middle of the stairwell, rounding it and arriving at the second level, his weapon centered and pointing into the main room there. The room looked exactly as the drone had shown them. He continued ascending, as Bandura and Anderson peeled off to examine this floor.
He smelled the body in the upper level before he stepped into it. It was a sweet smell, one he’d been trained to recognize in basic training when the instructors had wheeled in various bodies in different stages of decomposition. Simulations were good for many things, but the raw viscerality of seeing, smelling, and touching a dead body was something that wasn’t left to a digital recreation. Marines would experience death and needed to be prepared physically and emotionally to handle it.
Jack’s alek scanned the room as he looked around it. The drone hovered in the center of the room, continuing to provide its feed, including that of the body draped across the comm station.
Stone stepped past him and went to the body to check it out.
Most of the upper half of the body was still intact, although there was a gaping hole in the right side of the body with the telltale chemical burns of Shiveen weaponry around the border, internal organs starting to liquefy and drip over the edge. The arm on that side was missing, a small stump remaining descending from the shoulder joint. On the other side, the other arm was intact, hanging limply down the line of her body, a small light on the inactive alek she wore on her wrist blinking softly.
She had been pretty, and still was in some morose way. Her blond hair splayed all over the control station, her head turned to the right, a look of regret on her face. The pain from a Shiveen rifle shot was extreme, a neurotoxin in the shot lighting the human nervous system on fire. Often it wasn’t the shot itself that killed, but the overload of the nervous system.
Stone stood in front of her, scanning her into his alek, recording her death.
“Turn her over for me, Conway,” he said.
Jack slung his rifle over his shoulder and approached the body.
Recently this young woman had been vibrant and alive, and now she was nothing more than a decomposing piece of meat, all of her hopes and dreams gone, the only memories remaining of her what she had recorded via her alek or other means. This was what would happen to every panhuman if the Shiveen weren’t stopped. With as much respect as he could, alek turned the young woman’s body over, trying to ignore the smell coming from the huge wound in the side of her body.
The zippered top she wore had a nametag stitched onto the breast area.
“Rest in peace, Erica,” said Jack.
“Looks like she was trying to send a distress signal,” Stone said. “Storm most likely blocked it. Bandura, see if you can tap into the archives here.”
“It may take a bit with the AI gone. Also, we found the rest of the scientists. Well, parts of them, anyway.”
She sent a vidcast to Jack and Stone’s AHUDs. One of the sealed doors on the second level was now open, inside it the remains of several bodies in various states of disintegration, all of them lying in a pile atop each other.
“Crabbies dropped a grenade then closed the door behind them. There’s not much left.”
“Get a count and see if we’re missing anyone.”
“Roger that.”
Stone took in a deep breath then sighed.
“Okay, Rook,” he said. “Read the situation.”
“The Shiveen most likley got in through a bubble. Either cleared those out first or came right into the station. Those people defended themselves with what they could find but were overwhelmed. They made it upstairs to the second floor. One of them tried to make a distress call. The others hid in a side room, hoping to wait out the Shiveen. That didn’t happen.”
Jack looked down at Erica. She had given her life to save the others. There was no place to hide on this upper level. She was dead as soon as she made it up here.
“Not bad. What do we do now?”
“Fini
sh securing the building. Assess and confirm Shiveen entry point. Find the missing AI. Gather information from the archives here.”
“Ah, but this is a private corporate science station,” said Stone. “We can’t just go snooping around in it. There are laws against that.”
“Laws superseded by the fact the Shiveen attacked the station. Military reconnaissance laws overrule corporate privacy laws in situations like this.”
“You might be worth that upcoming promised commission you graduated with, Conway.”
“Corporal, can I ask you something?”
Stone nodded.
“Is it always this bad? When the Shiveen attack?”
“Sometimes it’s worse. Sometimes those up against the wall take the end into their own hands, choosing how they go.”
Stone put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. Jack could see pain in his eyes.
“I hope you never have to see some things I have. But knowing the Shiveen and the way this war may go, I think you may even see worse.”
“Can I ask something else?”
“Shoot.”
“Why am I here in this fireteam? Why are any of us in these fireteams? We graduated as officers.”
“Too many officers, not enough grunts? Honestly, I’m not sure,” said Stone. “We got restructuring orders just as we found out the Shiveen had attacked Pallas IV. Every one of our squads was rebuilt to include one of you OCS in them.”
“That’s odd, right?”
“A little. But it also helps spread out the manpower and give us more teams. The Dauntless’ marine platoon is a tight group, smaller than most ships. You all coming on board doubled our ranks in one go.”
“Corporal,” said Bandura over the comms mesh. “Found where the Shiveen got in. They melted away a hole in the bubbles.”
A drone searching the bubbles was relaying a closed door at one of the bubbles. Through the plasteel window, a huge rip in the opposing wall was visible, and the inside of the room was covered in a layer of the red-gray dust the covered the planet’s surface.
The door opened and the drone’s vidcast ended.
“I think we found the Shiveen,” said Anderson.
Jack and the rest of the fireteam prepared for the Shiveen assault as best they could.
They had pulled back into the top level of the science station, which gave them the most defensible position. There was only one way into the top level — the stairwell — which was now partially blocked off by furniture tossed down itto make it difficult for the Shiveen to ascend. That also made getting out of the operations room a little challenging.
Anderson was in cover just behind a desk that had been overturned, his heavy rifle laying across the edge of it pointing down the stairwell. Shiveen that tried to make it up the stairs would find themselves cut apart by the big man’s weapon.
This was Jack’s first true engagement with the Shiveen, and he was terrified. He ran through the results of the many simulations he’d attempted over the years that included direct engagement and considered what he knew of Shiveen battle tactics. The furniture on the stairwell would only hold them for a little while; they’d either use their weapons to destroy it or just barrel over it. Being over ten-foot tall and having multiple legs and arms made traversing difficult ground a little easier.
He and Stone stood near the stairwell, flanking Anderson to provide him fire support when he needed it. Over by the comms console, Bandura fiddled with her alek, trying to find what environmental controls from the station she could access and use. Stone had told her not to waste any more drones; none of those she’d sent out were still functional, the Shiveen having picked them all off. She still had plenty in reserve, but better not to waste them.
Jack could feel his heart slamming into his chest, the loudness of his pulse in his ears. His palms were sweaty, and he had a little difficulty holding onto his rifle.
He wasn’t ready for this, but he had no choice.
Jack flipped the ammo selector to sliver rounds and switched the fire mode to short burst.
And waited.
The first Shiveen tried climbing over and around the furniture on the stairs, using its long crab-like legs to climb them. All the while it held its chemical rifle pointed up.
It almost made it to the top before Anderson opened fire, noise filling the operations room as the heavy rifle sent shot after shot into the underbody of the Shiveen, making it dance as each shot struck it and splashing its blood behind it as the shots ripped through it. One shot struck the ammo reservoir on its weapon and the acid inside it splashed everywhere, coating the walls, stairs, and furniture in it.
“Come on, crabbies!” yelled Anderson. “Get some!”
What remained of the Shiveen body slumped and rolled down the stairwell, coming to rest a little above the bottom, trapped by a piece of furniture.
“Well,” said Stone. “One down, two to go.”
There was a soft chuft and a glowing ball ascended the stairwell in an arc, flying towards but over Anderson’s head.
“Grenade!” he yelled, following its path, watching as it landed in the center of the room. Bandura and Jack watched as Stone threw himself on top of it.
Stone was looking right at Jack as the grenade exploded, his face contorting in pain as the chemical grenade sent acid flying into his abdomen and legs. If he hadn’t done that, everyone in the room would have been struck.
“NOOOOO!” yelled Anderson. He stood up and switched the ammo selector on his heavy rifle. Multiple microgrenades spat out of his heavy weapon, firing directly down to where the two remaining Shiveen were. A few seconds later, they all exploded, and everyone heard the Shiveen screech as karma visited them.
Jack rushed to Stone, who was trying to turn himself over. The amount of pain he was in must be unbearable, thought Jack. He’d only encountered simulated pain from similar wounds, and even then it was dampened.
“Rook,” said Stone through clenched teeth. Jack and Bandura helped him roll over. The wound was grievous. One half of his hips were gone, as was half of his abdomen. His entrails began sloughing out, being eaten away by the acid from the Shiveen grenade.
“Don’t have long,” he said. “Hurts. Rook, you’re in charge now. Keep them safe.”
Anderson knelt next to Stone.
“Goddammit, Corporal,” he said. “You still owe me for that last round of drinks.”
Stone chuckled, blood coming out of his mouth as he did.
“Way to be an asshole, Anderson. Stay frosty.”
Stone’s eyes rolled in his head and his head lay it back. As the Shiveen acid slowed and stopped eating into Stone’s armor and body, the rest of Echo Team watched him die.
7 Caroline
Caroline rubbed her eyes to will away her full-body tiredness. She was sure that the ion storm that had raged for the past few days was contributing to her pain, even through the shielded rover.
The soft sounds of Nowak’s light snoring came from the other side of the rover. The rover had with two pull-out beds, and Caroline was tempted to pull the other out and use it. She couldn’t though, not until Nowak awoke or Shirazi and Jeffs returned from the ruins they’d discovered deep within the mountainside.
She looked at the information being sent to her alek by the six-inch square metal box sitting on the table that contained Silas, the research virtual intelligence that she’d been partners with for over twenty years. Silas’ favorite avatar, a small green frog, projected above the metal box that contained his complex circuitry.
“Silas,” she said, pushing away several stray silver hairs from her eyes. “Have you been able to find any cross-references with the new data?”
“No, Doctor Tao,” replied Silas, his soft melodic voice coming from the small frog’s mouth. “The composition is organic, but nothing matches in the academic databases.”
“What about non-academic ones?” she asked, stifling a yawn. She could feel the tiredness deep in her bones. She was getting more and more tired th
ese days. Of course, the fact that this planet’s gravity was a little over a quarter the standard contributed to her fatigue.
“Public databases have no matches. But there may be something in private or military databases that I cannot presently access.”
Caroline sighed. She should have taken that military contract when she had the chance all those years ago. That would have given her access rights that she could still use today.
“Okay, Silas. Table that and let’s look at the next sample.”
In Caroline’s holographic interface, information on the last sample was discarded and a new sample was displayed in its place. In the center of her view now was a three-dimensional rendering of the object, bordered all around with information on it, including its physical dimensions and initial materials composition. Caroline gestured with her hands and the rendered object rotated on its axes, following her hand movements.
“Same composition as the previous sample,” she said.
“Not exactly,” replied Silas. “There is an additional material include in this sample.”
“I don’t see it, Silas.”
“Pardon me,” replied Silas, rotating the image in Caroline’s view until it a highlighted area was directly in front of her. “The material is small, and it does not appear to be part of the original object’s design.”
Caroline zoomed in on the sample, magnifying it as she did. The material that Silas highlighted was visible now. It was tiny, less than a centimeter in length, and conical with the tip of it facing towards the center of the sample.
“That’s strange. It’s almost as if it’s sealed in there. Is there any way to get a closer look at that?”
“Not without drilling into the sample to remove it, I’m afraid.”
“And you’re sure that it’s not meant to be part of the sample?”
“Absolutely, Doctor. All the other samples are organic. This material is metallic. No other samples contain anything like it.”
Caroline lifted her mug of cold coffee from the desk and sipped from it. The initial excitement of finding the ruins and the samples was still with her. The research team had stumbled on them as they descended into the series of caverns they were surveying. They had been looking for underground mineral deposits, anything that was valuable and could be mined by their corporate sponsor. Sizable deposits of various metals and minerals had been found all over Pallas IV by small teams like hers, but hers was the only to find the strange organic samples that Caroline was now examining.
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