Voidstalker

by John Graham

  “There should be a security station behind the front desk.” Said Bale.

  “Secure it.” Gabriel ordered.

  As the squad weaved in between the rows of seating, covering every corner, Doran reached the front of the atrium and vaulted over the front desk, stowing his weapon and accessing the holographic computer controls.

  “Everything’s been shut down.” Doran said as he brought everything back online.

  “You don’t say.” Viker replied sarcastically.

  “No, I mean somebody deliberately powered down the computers.” Doran clarified, “There was no power failure or emergency shutdown that I can see.”

  As Doran powered up the system again, the ceiling lights glowed faintly before slowly brightening, re-illuminating the atrium. It wasn’t just deserted, there was no sign that anything out-of-the-ordinary had happened at all. No bodies, no physical damage, no signs of battle; nothing unusual except the lack of people.

  “Ogilvy,” Cato said warily, “are you sure there aren’t any hazards in here?”

  “I’m pretty sure,” Ogilvy replied, “seeing as I’m using top-of-the-line equipment.”

  “That’s not all, by the way.” Doran said as he searched through the computer system, “There’s nothing in the logs to show that anything strange happened. No contamination alerts, no containment breaches, no evacuation order, not even decent encryption.”

  “Just because there aren’t any logs, doesn’t mean there wasn’t an accident.” Gabriel pointed out, “or that other parts of the facility aren’t contaminated somehow.”

  “So what’s our next move, colonel?” Bale asked.

  “Find us a map of the facility,” Gabriel ordered, “We’ll explore this whole place room-by-room, corridor-by-corridor until we find out what’s going on.”

  “Done,” Doran replied, “I’ve downloaded the facility schematics to the squad-net. There’s a tram line circling the facility, it can take us wherever we need to go.”

  As if on cue, the double-doors swung open. The squad snapped back to attention, aiming their weapons at the lone figure who walked in.

  “FREEZE, NOW!” Viker shouted at the man, the voice-modulating speakers in his helmet making him sound demonic.

  Confused yet strangely calm, the man obeyed, raising his hands above his head as Viker and Ogilvy closed in on him with weapons raised.

  “ON YOUR STOMACH!” Ogilvy shouted, “PALMS FLAT ON THE FLOOR!”

  The man did as he was told, lying face down on the ground and spreading his limbs as the rest of the squad joined Viker and Ogilvy. He was wearing maintenance overalls and despite being held out gunpoint, he didn’t seem terribly frightened.

  “Identify yourself.” Gabriel ordered the man.

  “Uh, Teller. Marcus Teller.” The man replied hesitantly, “I’m a junior technician.”

  “What happened here and where is everyone?” Gabriel demanded.

  “Well, I can take you to the rest of the facility staff–” Teller offered.

  “That’s not what we asked you,” Bale interrupted him sternly, “what happened to this facility and where is everybody else?”

  “Nothing happened,” Teller replied calmly, “a perimeter breach was detected, so we went into a soft lockdown and evacuated everyone to secure parts of the facility.”

  “What the fuck is a ‘soft lockdown’?” Doran demanded suspiciously.

  “A soft lockdown gets initiated in case of a perimeter breach,” Teller explained, “no alarms are triggered, no event logs are registered; just a partial lockdown until the breach is resolved. I just came to get everything up and running again.”

  The squad processed the man’s answers, such as they were. Ogilvy switched off his own helmet speakers, remotely deactivating the rest of the squad’s helmet speakers so that their captive wouldn’t overhear them.

  “I bet he’s lying.” Ogilvy said.

  “Agreed,” Cato seconded, “who goes into ‘partial lockdown’ for a perimeter breach?”

  “There was no intelligence on the security protocols used by this facility,” Gabriel pointed out, “he could be telling the truth.”

  “So what do we do with him?” Viker asked.

  Gabriel reactivated his helmet speakers and turned back to their captive.

  “Get up,” Gabriel ordered him.

  The hapless junior tech slowly got back on his feet and dusted himself off.

  “So, I’m guessing you guys are DNI, huh?” Teller asked.

  “Correct.” Gabriel answered, “And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that it’s in your best interests to cooperate with us. This facility is suspected of illegal xenotech research. We need to access this facility’s computer mainframe to find out.”

  “Well, the corporates don’t pay me enough to say no to armed commandoes.” Teller replied nonchalantly, “Follow me, I’ll take you to central operations. If you want to access the mainframe, that’s the place to go.”

  With his guests holding him at gunpoint, Teller led the squad back through the doors and down a flight of steps to the deserted tram station.

  “So, you guys really think there’s xenotech down here?” Teller asked congenially.

  “You work here,” Bale pointed out, “you tell us.”

  “Hey, I’m just a junior technician,” Teller replied defensively, “Masterminds know what the scientists get up to in their labs all day. I just keep the machinery running.”

  A mag-tram was already waiting, and Teller waved everybody aboard. Once the doors had shut, he keyed in their destination.

  “The tram goes to central operations.” Teller explained as the tram began to trundle forward, “But to be honest, you guys are the most interesting thing that’s happened here.”

  “The intel brief said that J.E. Co. first lost contact with this place several days ago.” Doran said over the squad comm., “Now this guy’s telling us nothing strange happened except for us showing up? Not even a banal communications loss?”

  “We’ll get our answers once we’re at central operations.” Gabriel replied.

  “The brief also said that J.E. Co. sent in its own in-house security team to investigate this place,” Cato added his own doubts, “think he forgot to mention that as well?”

  “Maybe,” Gabriel replied sceptically, “None of this adds up.”

  “Permission to put a bullet in his head just to be safe, Colonel?” Viker half-joked.

  “Denied.” Gabriel replied seriously, then added, “For now.”

  The facility’s tram glided along at a steady pace, moving slowly enough to see the station names. The squad stood in patient silence whilst keeping a watchful eye on Marcus Teller, who seemed unusually calm for a man effectively being held hostage.

  “How long have you worked here?” Bale asked Teller through his helmet speakers.

  “About six months.” Teller replied amicably, “They don’t let you go home that often, long term rotations and all. But still, this place is sac…such a great place to live and work, I mean.” Teller apparently corrected himself. “So much to do, so much to learn…”

  “What the frick is this guy talking about?” Viker wondered over the comm.

  “Here we are.” Teller announced, as the tram glided into the station. The holographic sign above the platform read: ‘Hydroponics’.

  Ogilvy grabbed Teller by the collar and threw the man to the ground.

  “Do you think we’re fucking stupid?” Ogilvy yelled at the man, aiming his weapon at Teller’s head, “You said we were going to central operations!”

  “We are going to central operations,” Teller replied, displaying his bare palms to the squad, “you just have to pass through the hydroponics bay to get there.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” Doran informed the squad as he consulted a holographic map.

  “Look,” Teller said as he picked himself up off the ground, “you guys asked me to take you to central operations, that’s what I’m doing.”
/>   “It might have helped if you’d told us the route beforehand.” Gabriel said suspiciously.

  “It’s up the stairs, straight through the hydroponics labs, and on to central operations.” Teller clarified, “once you’re there, you can do whatever you want.”

  The tram doors opened and everyone disembarked, following Teller through the deserted station, then through another atrium before finally arriving at the hydroponics labs.

  The squad found themselves at the top of a huge, multi-storey complex covered with greenery and filled with steam, like an indoor tropical rainforest without the trees. The walls were lined with rack after rack of genetically-engineered fruit and vegetables, tended to by aerial drones and robotic arms which took routine readings, and periodically relocated tanks to the ground floor for processing into food.

  “The hydroponics labs are entirely automated,” Teller explained, leading the squad across the walkway towards a reinforced door at the opposite end, “each section can produce enough food to feed the entire facility for a decade.”

  “So no one needs to come down and monitor the labs at all?”

  “Not at all,” Teller replied, stopping in front of the door and turning to face the squad, “except when catastrophe strikes!”

  Teller shouted those last two words at the top of his lungs. Without warning, the lights cut out and all the machinery stopped dead.

  * * *

  After the impromptu staff meeting had concluded, everyone filed out of the breakroom in a visibly sombre mood, dispersing back to their offices and workshops. Aster followed them, heading quietly back to her office, and locking the door behind her.

  Then she sat down at her desk and held her head in her hands.

  Everything was a mess. No one wanted to think about the fate of their Loki colleagues or what they had been working on. It was an open secret that many of J.E. Co.’s breakthroughs had come out of the Loki facility, and it didn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to guess what they might have been based on. The less they knew, the safer their own necks were.

  Gabriel was probably over there, too, risking his own life to investigate what had happened. Every time he deployed on some new mission he was gone for weeks or months at a time; she never knew where he was, or when – or if – he would return. But this time she was more or less directly involved. If he was only going to be gone for a few days, that meant he was staying in the Asgard star system. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

  Furthermore, as selfish as it seemed to even raise the subject, career prospects were also in the backs of everyone’s minds. Once word got out about the scandal, clients and investors would flee like rats and new contracts would dry up, potentially forcing the firm to file for bankruptcy. J.E. Co. did offer decent severance pay, but the stigma of having worked for a company rumoured to have dabbled in xenotech would make it difficult to get hired again.

  It had been over a decade since she’d left the frontier, leaving behind the prospect of a mediocre future as a mechanic’s housewife with two children. Instead, she had an actual career…with four children and a taciturn supersoldier for a husband. Even so, it was a good life, and she wasn’t about to let it fall apart. It just wasn’t clear what she could do about it.

  The buzzer sounded, bringing Aster’s gloomy train of thought to a sudden halt. Felix Kessler’s name was illuminated on the door’s holographic display.

  What did he want now of all times?

  Aster hastily composed herself before buzzing him in. Felix entered the room, looking distracted and despondent. Without saying a word, he walked straight over to the lounge in Aster’s office and slumped down on the couch.

  Wondering why he had turned up, Aster got up and joined him on the couch.

  Most days, Felix looked like a middle class teenager dressed like a scientist. He was from the Clouds originally, and he retained a keen sense of fashion with his carefully styled hair, dyed black and gold, and a silver stud in one ear. It was hard to believe that he had advanced degrees in materials science.

  Now, however, he looked more like a sleep-deprived corpse. His steel grey eyes looked heavy and his features were sullen, weighed down by the events of this morning. Even his ear-stud looked duller under the light.

  “We did all the diagnostics this morning, before you got here.” Felix reported blandly.

  “Good to know.” Aster replied, equally blandly.

  “We found 0.2367% corrosion on the primary lens of one of the initialiser lasers,” Felix reported, “repairing the lens should be complete by the end of the day.”

  “That shouldn’t delay the schedule too much.” Aster answered, awkwardly aware that Felix was dancing around an entirely different issue, “how about the simulations?”

  “The simulations have been done to death,” Felix added with weary exasperation, “we really should be starting live-testing right now.”

  “I seriously doubt you came all the way to my office to tell me that.”

  Felix was silent for a moment.

  “How well did you know Lawrence?” he asked suddenly.

  “Not as well as I know you,” Aster replied, “But then, I don’t think anyone did.”

  “He did like to keep to himself…” Felix noted, hesitant to continue with the topic.

  “You think he knew something about what was happening on Loki.” Aster concluded, “Which would explain why the DNI had such an interest in him.”

  “Of course he would have known something,” Felix pointed out, “or else he wouldn’t be doing his job as liaison officer. So I was thinking maybe he kept backup logs–”

  “No.” Aster interrupted flatly.

  “But I haven’t asked you anything yet.” Felix said.

  “You came here to ask me if I would use my personal override code to open up his office and find out if he kept any backup logs there.” Aster guessed, “and the answer is no.”

  “Well, you are project-lead.” Felix continued hopefully, “And Lawrence’s notes–”

  “Would be incriminating material, if they exist,” Aster pointed out, “and, if they contain anything of interest to the DNI, would also be grounds for arrest.”

  “So you really want to just bury the whole issue?”

  “Yes, I do.” Aster confirmed bluntly.

  “Look, this isn’t me being all emotional about what may or may not have happened on Loki,” Felix tried to explain, “I just think it might be worth looking for any notes or logs he might have kept that could be useful to the DNI.”

  “The DNI searched all our offices, including Lawrence’s,” Aster reminded him, “if he kept any logs in his office, they would’ve found them already.”

  “But if he hid the logs well enough that the DNI didn’t find them, they might still be there.” Felix pressed, “And if we find them, we can make sure the DNI doesn’t, and maybe even salvage some useful data out of this mess.”

  “…Are you serious?” Aster answered in disbelief.

  “Of course I am,” Felix stood his ground, “why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Does the phrase ‘criminal complicity’ mean anything to you?” Aster demanded, “Because that’s the legal term for what you just suggested.”

  “Look, it’s not like I want to get anyone else in trouble but–”

  “Oh, that’s good to know!” Aster shot back sarcastically, “if you mean that, why don’t you drop the issue and never bring it up again?”

  “Well, regardless of what we do with the data, would it really hurt to just look?”

  “Yes, it would.”

  “Look, Aster, we were all involved,” Felix persisted, “the fact that we all pretended not to know or care about Loki doesn’t make us less complicit.”

  “So it’s about moral absolution, is it?” Aster asked cynically.

  “Partly, yes,” Felix conceded, “we all benefitted from the research they did; and now, we’re just washing our hands of them? It’s horrible.”

  “I know it’s
horrible!” Aster shot back angrily, “This whole thing is horrible, I’ve been overseeing the whole project for over a year, remember?”

  “So why in Terra’s name shouldn’t we look?” Felix asked in exasperation, “the worst case scenario is we don’t find anything.”

  “No, the worst case scenario is we all get arrested for hiding data from the DNI – aka ‘criminal complicity’ – and spend the next few decades in a penitentiary facility.”

  “Do you really not want to find out what happened?”

  “I’m afraid to find out,” Aster admitted, “and of everyone getting arrested. Keeping our heads down is the best strategy for us.”

  “Well I’m afraid to find out, too,” Felix conceded with an earnest, almost pleading tone, “but if there’s anything we can do–”

  “I have four children, Felix, all of them under ten.” Aster interrupted him, “I don’t plan to watch them grow up through a weekly video link from a prison cell.”

  “So you won’t even consider opening up Lawrence’s office?” Felix asked desperately.

  “I don’t see what the point would be.” Aster answered, “Especially since your plan involves potentially landing us in even more trouble with the authorities.”

  Felix looked away, sighing in resignation.

  “Fine, then.” He got up and left without another word.

  Aster remained slumped on the couch long after Felix had gone, glumly processing the tense conversation that had just transpired.

  ‘Trouble with the authorities’. That phrase had a completely different meaning out on the frontier. ‘Trouble with the authorities’ meant that the government suspected the colony of harbouring smugglers or trafficking their contraband. ‘Trouble with the companies’ meant the colony was behind on its payments, and the corporates’ hired thugs had come to collect.

  The reach of the government was infinitely long but seldom felt, and they allowed the corporates to roam more or less freely on the frontier. The former was distrusted but respected, the latter were despised. In spite of their dependence on both, the colonials valued their freedom, and successfully defying either was considered a badge of honour.

  But here on Asgard, no such freedom was possible. ‘Trouble with the authorities’ meant far worse than a visit by the Marine patrols or the corporate loan sharks, and no one would congratulate you for it. If you ran afoul of the law here, everything could be taken away from you. Aster had built an entire life here within the hyper-urbanised milieu of this hub-world, and it could all just fall apart as a result of ‘trouble with the authorities’.