Obsidian Detective

by Michael Anderle

  Close enough.

  Adeyemi’s let out a loud groan. “You have got to be kidding me.” He slapped his forehead and pulled his hand down his face, his eyes focusing back on the board one more time. “I can’t believe what I just saw.” He pointed at the board but was talking to two of the guys to his left. “He didn’t have his freaking eyes open, and his back was turned!”

  Biyu smirked and popped him in the stomach to get his attention. “Told you. At least he let you off easy.” She reached up and patted him on the shoulder. “We all think he’s lucky, too. Our platoon hasn’t lost a single soldier since he took over, and we saw plenty of action before getting sent here to watch dust and rocks and wait for hissing aliens.”

  Erik’s mark looked around, exasperated. “You’re not a bunch of green scrubs,” Adeyemi argued, his hands up as if he were preaching to a bunch of sinners. “That’s not luck. It’s experience.”

  “Sure, but it’s like he said. It helps to have both luck and skill.” She winked. “And now we’re so lucky we’re sitting at the edge of UTC space doing nothing but playing darts and going on boring patrols. Maybe it’s a reward, as boring as it is.” She stopped for a moment, pressing her lips together. “Not that I wouldn’t mind a crack at the Zitarks,” she mumbled. “But I’m not all that eager to see if those bastards are tough little dinosaurs or not.”

  “Don’t worry.” Erik grunted. “There’s a reason the 108th is the last major platoon left on this rock.” Once the garrison relief arrives, we’ll move on to something more useful.”

  The passage of time had convinced Erik that some idiot desk ranger, or worse, desk Marine in intel, had freaked out too much about routine Zitark ship movements and spun the whole UTC military up into almost starting a war.

  He could imagine how they had loaded up thousands of troops and gathered a decent-sized fleet, only for absolutely nothing to happen for months.

  Say, the months he had been sitting on his hands here, for example.

  And that meant vital military resources which could have been used against humans who were actually causing trouble weren’t available.

  Erik was as eager as anyone in his group to go on leave and then get back to doing something—anything—useful with his platoon.

  How many terrorists we could have smoked are out there causing trouble?

  “Are you shitting me?” Adeyemi sighed. “It took me two months of travel to get here, and now it’s all over?” He shook his head. “I was good with a transfer here. I wanted to be there when the first intergalactic war started.”

  Erik grinned. “I was wondering why someone would suddenly request a transfer to 108th when we were stuck in the middle of nowhere counting dart scores. Sorry. The Zitarks aren’t going to make a move on human space. We’d promptly make them as extinct as the dinosaurs on Earth, and they know that. It’s probably why they backed off so much once they saw we were getting ready for a fight.”

  “Damned right!” Jekowski, and Butters in the back fist-bumped. They were both adrenaline junkies, but damned good when life showed up and bitch-slapped your plan for the day into next week.

  Adeyemi narrowed his eyes. “You really don’t think they’re going to be a problem?”

  Erik considered his answer before shaking his head. “Highly unlikely. You know they apologized for that crap they pulled last year, right?”

  Adeyemi shrugged in that way which suggested it rang a bell, but it was ringing in the other room.

  “Well, they did. Which is why we’re here playing darts instead of wasting space raptors in our exoskeletons. Besides, everything we know says there are a lot more humans than Zitarks.” Erik shrugged. “We stay out of their way, and they’ll stay out of ours. Hard to win a war when the other guy’s guns are as big as yours, and they’ve got a lot more people than you do.”

  Biyu snickered. “So, even if we couldn’t beat them, we would win by breeding them out?”

  “Hell, yeah!” Jekowski called.

  “In your dreams,” one of the ladies shot back.

  “Hey!” Jekowski turned to her. “We signed up for whatever it took to win this war, right?”

  Erik noted the mostly male grunts of agreement.

  Jekowski jerked a thumb to his chest. “It might not be the way you want to serve your world, but if I’m told to go breed for the benefit of mankind, I’m taking that shit seriously.”

  “Just call it the great human advantage.” Erik spoke over Jekowski.

  Adeyemi shook his head. “What about the Orlox? Can’t they just basically sneeze out new little fungi?”

  Erik chewed on the inside of his cheek in thought, then said, “It’s kind of hard to be intimidated by a bunch of glorified walking mushrooms. Trust me, I’ve seen one in person. They’re weird, not scary.”

  His hands outlined an Orlox’s shape in the air. “They’re not even all that intelligent by themselves. They’re only self-aware in groups. They won’t last long in war if they all start drooling when we shoot one out of four of them.”

  “Do Orlox drool?” Biyu asked.

  “Hell if I know. I’m not a xenobiologist. They look kind of…sticky.” Erik chuckled and gestured around the room. “The UTC might be pinned in for the most part by the Local Neighborhood races, but none of them seem like they’re going to mess with us anytime soon. It’s been almost forty years since first contact with the Zitarks, and the most we’ve had are a few border skirmishes. I’ve been in the Expeditionary Corps for thirty years, and I’ve only ever had to fight humans.” He scratched his chin. “There’s no Thucydides Trap when all the races are balanced in power already.”

  Adeyemi pondered Erik’s reply before trying again. “What about the Leems? They’ve been coming to Earth since 1947. You know, what was it…Roswell? That Leem ship that crashed, even if they didn’t admit it until recently. That’s got to mean they’re planning something.”

  Chuckles ran around the group.

  Erik snorted. “An almost three-hundred-year head start on having hyperspace tech, and all those little gray freaks did was run a few worthless experiments and buzz the occasional farmer? I’d put my money on the Orlox to win a war before I put it on the Leems. Please note, the minute we started sticking our satellites up, they were afraid to do much. And keep in mind, the Leems who were in the Solar System were stuck there because of some weird hyperspace accident. It wasn’t like they were in communication with the rest of them. It also doesn’t do a race any good to have tech if they don’t know how to fight. That’s the other great human advantage—the will to fight, honed over thousands of years fighting each other.”

  Erik thought about it for a moment. “That, and we have bagels and fried rice. I don’t think any of those other races have bagels or fried rice.”

  “The power of biryani will defend humanity,” declared another soldier, Lieutenant Ahuja. “It’s even better than fried rice.”

  Harold, known to most here as Lieutenant Sampson, made a face. “Ugh. Why are we talking about good food when we’re stuck with rations here? I’d kill for real food.” He turned to look over his shoulder. “Especially Jekowski.”

  “Hey!” came the automatic reply. This generated the expected chuckles, as well as the single-finger salute that seemed to go with mankind no matter what world, planet, planetoid, or barren rock humans took root on.

  Along with pizza. Erik agreed with Sampson’s thoughts. He’d be tempted to kill Jekowski for a bite of pizza.

  Sampson waved off the man’s complaints. “They say printed food is the same nutrient-wise, but it’s definitely not the same flavor-wise. I don’t care if it’s cheaper to ship out the nutrient paste tubes and print them into a meal. They should give us some real damned food if they’re going to stick us on rocks like this for so long.”

  The room became a cacophony as people shouted out the foods they missed.

  Erik shook his head, a slight smile visible in his eyes, if not on his lips.

  If you looked hard
enough.

  The Knights Errant had earned a long leave, and he’d been promised one from up above. Just two more months and a garrison platoon would arrive.

  Too bad the Zitarks won’t let us show up and hit their beaches. They’ve got to have at least a few decent ones.

  A small silver card clipped to his belt vibrated; it was his PNIU, personal network interface unit. He tapped it and waited for a chime to signal connection, then put up a hand. Those around him lowered their voices and hit those who had loud voices behind them who hadn’t noticed Erik’s raised hand yet.

  “This is Major Blackwell.”

  “Sir,” came the response. The sound was transmitted almost directly to his ear, granting him some privacy. “That UTC auditor who is evaluating the mine just sent out an SOS. He says he’s under attack by terrorists.”

  What the hell? I’d believe the Zitarks showed up all of a sudden sooner than terrorists.

  “Terrorists?” Erik echoed. “What are you talking about?”

  “We don’t know, sir. Just got a garbled transmission about him being under terrorist attack.”

  Everyone fell dead silent and turned to look at him, excitement in their eyes. A little action, especially against terrorists, would be welcome.

  Erik frowned. “Do we have any drones in the area?”

  “No, sir. We’re getting some transmission errors. I’m also having some trouble communicating with the satellites.”

  His frown deepened. “Prep additional drones. We’ll launch them ourselves on the way. Send out an all-call alert as follows.” Erik glanced around. “We’re suiting up. Full battle-rattle. We have a possible terrorist incursion at the mines. Enemy number and capability unknown.”

  A moment later, a harsh alarm emerged from everyone’s PNIUs, the sound repeating from nearby rooms as his message was issued. There was intentionally no directional sound for full alerts.

  Erik gestured toward the door. “Let’s move. Some poor bureaucrat probably just hit his head and is seeing things in the shadows. I expect everyone in this room to be suited up and ready to go before the rest of the platoon even gets to the armory.”

  Terrorists? How could terrorists get from the gate all the way here without the destroyer picking them up? Infiltrators with the company workers?

  If this auditor idiot is wasting our time, we’re going to have a loud, vociferous one-way conversation.

  Chapter Two

  “Knight Two, report,” Erik ordered through the comm.

  He glanced out the window of the armored flitter, a dedicated troop transport. Even though a lot of people referred to flitters, civilian or otherwise, as hover vehicles, they technically relied on antigravity technology rather than any sort of thrust-based hovering. He didn’t know or care much about the particulars.

  They were fast and could maneuver well.

  “Not seeing anything. Just dust, rocks, stars, and Quijote,” responded Biyu over the comm, her voice cutting through the clinks of armor against the flitter’s walls or floor when someone moved. “Pretty as always.”

  The bulky but angular black vehicle zoomed over the flat, featureless plains of the moon.

  Erik was in front next to the driver, with the rest of the squad one in the back. The other squads were in their own flitters.

  His platoon was on their way to the mines, which were located far from the habitation domes for safety reasons. To his right, the massive blue-green-ringed gas giant Quijote hung in the sky.

  Technically, the moon Molino had an atmosphere, however thin, and some geological activity, which was why it was covered with rocks and dust, and more than a few small mountains, but it wasn’t a crater-ridden graveyard like Earth’s moon. It also wasn’t worth the terraforming effort to get a glorified quarry.

  Small domes and self-contained buildings defined the settlements there.

  Erik grunted, his thoughts drifting to Earth’s moon. It’d been a long time since he’d been to the heart of the UTC.

  For all he knew, they’d blown up the moon and concealed the evidence from everyone on the frontier.

  It didn’t matter. If Earth was the shining imperial planet ruling all of them, it was his responsibility to help protect it from the barbarians on the frontier.

  Unfortunately, the thin atmosphere of Molino didn’t include significant amounts of oxygen, nor did it help much to fight off the cold.

  Every man and woman in all four of the deployed squads wore military-grade exoskeletons and full tactical suits that kept them warm, with their helmets producing more than enough air to breathe. They could operate on the surface of the moon for days without resupply if necessary.

  Erik tapped his wrist, the smart lenses over his corneas interfacing with the faceplate of his helmet to provide an enhanced augmented reality interface that he could see by looking out.

  The newly forward-deployed recon drones weren’t spotting anything. No visual confirmation of trouble. No unexpected thermal traces in the sky. No unusual radiation or other energy spikes.

  Did he get attacked by terrorists or ghosts?

  “Base, did we get any other transmissions from the auditor?” Erik asked.

  “No, Knight One,” the comm officer replied. “The line went dead about two minutes after the platoon left the base.”

  Erik frowned.

  His unit had been assigned to the moon as part of an entire division. The UTC military had ferried people away from the moon over the last few months to help cool the border tensions once it became obvious there would be no Zitark invasion or raid. The remaining troops weren’t local cops or security.

  They no longer had a purpose here.

  The vast expanse of human civilization, the entire United Terran Confederation, stretched in one form or another over fifty light-years from Earth, and included scores of settled worlds and moons.

  Given how the UTC had used colonization as an excuse to boot troublemakers off Earth since the start of the Social Cohesion Transport policy of 2136, only the most naïve citizen who paid any attention was shocked by the fact that the galaxy was filled with a rich collection of terrorist and rebel organizations.

  It was unlikely, but not impossible, that a terrorist group had gone to the trouble of infiltrating the Mu Arae system. The only thing Erik couldn’t figure out was why they would bother.

  Erik shook his head. It didn’t matter who was there. They could determine who was responsible once they rescued the auditor.

  The team was heads up, looking around using the age-old Mark One Eyeball to see anything that could be seen without their sensors.

  A few minutes passed. Still no enemies.

  The troop transports coasted to a stop.

  The mine’s exterior was unimpressive, nothing more than a collection of large metal tubes extending to massive gray warehouses, all topped with landing pads for collection drones. A huge square tunnel jutted out of the surface at a steep angle, black reinforced doors protecting the entrance. If the doors had been open, they could have easily driven one of the troop transports straight inside.

  “Deploy,” Erik ordered.

  The side doors of the transports lifted.

  The four squads rushed out, rifles at the ready.

  The combined footfalls of fifty armored pairs of feet produced a light rumble in the area. Everyone in the past had believed robots would inherit the battlefield, but too many militaries had learned the hard way what it meant to rely on autonomous gadgets, especially far from their supply lines.

  Maybe if they ever managed a true AI, that would change, but for now, dozens of soldiers in their powered exoskeletons with gunmetal-gray limb extensions, heavy weapons strapped to their backs, might easily be mistaken for robots.

  Erik disembarked last. He raised his weapon, a custom black Selene Firearms TR-7 Quad. With four selectable hungry barrels, he could use it for massive suppression fire, or just switch down to one for some snap shooting.

  Was it over the top? Maybe a little. Ok
, yes.

  Satisfying to use when taking down the bad guys? Abso-damn-lutely.

  He’d had to pull a few strings to bring it along the last few years as they tried to make him upgrade, but the gun had saved his life more than a few times. It was another good luck charm, like his arm.

  “All squads spread out,” he barked. “Keep an eye out. We should be able to find one lost bureaucrat. Just look for the paper trail.” He kept his safety on but set his weapon to single-barrel mode. “Remember, the grav fields from your exoskeletons don’t mean crap once you fire and that bullet’s away from you. Keep that in mind. Anything you shoot is going a long way on this moon. There’s also no grav field in the mine, for transportation efficiency. Knights Two, Three, and Four, on me.”

  The other squad leaders rushed over to Erik, including Biyu, who was in command of squad two, Lieutenant Ahuja in command of squad three, and Lieutenant O’Malley in command of squad four.

  Erik switched to a direct frequency. “What are we thinking, people?”

  Biyu shook her head, her frown visible even through the darkened faceplate of her helmet. “This doesn’t feel good, sir.”

  O’Malley nodded. “I agree. There’s nothing. Where’s the damage? Where are the vehicles? We took a few minutes to get out here, but our drones got here quicker, and we didn’t spot anything with those either.”

  Erik pointed to a few parked collection drones atop a warehouse. They resembled giant metal dragonflies with long metal baskets beneath them. “None of the drones are moving either, but there haven’t been any alerts from the mines other than the SOS. I’m thinking a couple of terrorists sneaked in as new hires, maybe anti-expansionists or pro-aliens. They sabotage the mine, and our auditor friend sees them.”

  “That’s kind of farfetched, sir,” Ahuja suggested.

  “Really? I’m working on farfetched at the moment. So, ask yourself why a UTC auditor is all the way out in Mu Arae investigating a mine?” Erik turned his head toward the mine’s access tunnel.

  The presence of the auditor had lodged in the back of his mind since his arrival last week, but Erik’s orders were clear. He was to maintain the garrison and keep his soldiers in line so they didn’t interfere with either corporate or UTC personnel.