The Cronian Incident (The Formist Book 1)

by Matthew Williams

  The schematics indicated this was nothing more than a storage room, measuring no more than a few dozen square meters. But where the back wall should have been, there was an opening. The thin sheen of spray rock was broken, and on the other side was a hole carved into the ice. It was barely large enough to admit a standing person, and appeared to slope upwards after a short distance.

  Okay, here we go.

  He took another deep breath, one which burned his lungs. The cold was nearing the point of frostbite now, but he couldn’t possibly turn back. Setting one foot in front of the other, he began to scale his way along the tunnel. It was slow going, as each footing seemed less sure than the last. The grey ice was frozen solid, but slick to the touch. Luckily, the gradient was low enough he didn’t start slipping backwards. Here and there, there were gaps in the wall letting him pull himself forward.

  Handholds, Ward thought. An unmistakable sign of engineering.

  In time, the tunnel leveled off and he got a glimpse of where he was going. Bright light reflected off the walls. He began moving quickly, sliding his feet across the floor to reach the opening after several tense minutes.

  At last, he emerged into a large recess which, like the entryway, was carved directly into the ice. Lighting fixtures stood in key places, illuminating what was clearly some kind of small facility. The walls had been reinforced with metal sheeting, and the floors were covered with a grate provided for traction. At one end, there was what looked like another tunnel.

  Unlike the entryway, this one was wide and over two meters high. Once more, there was a bright light at the far end. It appeared to be the only way out of the recess, so he set his gun forward and began to move again.

  He made it about three steps before he heard the words that brought him to a halt.

  “Don’t move.”

  It was instinctive. The kind of obedience which couldn’t be explained rationally, like being caught in a bright light, or suddenly realizing there was a target painted on you. Somehow, the only way to react was to obey.

  “Who’s there?” he called.

  “Just us and you, Extro-man,” said a calm female voice, coming from a spot ahead. There were some sonic reverberations in the room, but he knew it was coming from the tunnel before him. Not more than ten meters, he gauged.

  “Show yourselves,” Ward ordered. While he waited for them to comply, he considered trying to triangulate the location of the speaker and taking a shot at them. He dismissed that idea out of hand. He knew the speaker wasn’t alone, and most likely her companions had him encircled already.

  His assessment was borne out once they disengaged their cloaking fields. The speaker was before him, of slight build and only moderately tall for a local. The other three were arrayed in a horseshoe around him, two immediately flanking him and the third slightly off to his right. They were all armed. The three of them carried shock sticks, no doubt the same ones they had used to incapacitate Lee.

  Ward directed his words at the woman who had addressed him, as he assumed she was the one in charge. “Looks like my plan to catch you off-guard backfired.”

  “Was that your plan?” she asked. “Because it kind of seems like you’re taking some awful stupid risks here.”

  Ward had to give her that one. He had wandered into a confrontational situation with absolutely no exfiltration plan. But he had already crossed that bridge, and several others, to get this far. No sense in lamenting it now.

  “You got my message, you know what I can do. Can you show me to Doctor Lee or not?”

  The woman hesitated for a second. The others exchanged glances between them, a gesture which struck Ward as an indication of messaging. But it was entirely possible they were just looking to each other for some guidance. Clearly, none of them knew what to do with their new arrival. Perhaps they were more confused than he was.

  “What are you doing here, really?” she asked. “Do you think your bosses will let you do this?”

  “They don’t have to know,” said Ward. “If I can verify his remains and return with the original data intact, nobody needs to know I disseminated a copy to you guys.”

  “So, you know,” she said, sounding mournful.

  Ward nodded. “It stood to reason he was dead. Otherwise, we would have heard from you people by now. Finch said as much, without saying as much.”

  “It was an accident,” another replied, the tall one to her right. The team leader waved her hand at him, signaling at him for quiet.

  “He’s right. We brought him here with the intent of learning what he was up to out here. We told him we would release him so long as he surrendered the sleeve to us. He refused.”

  Ward sighed. “He killed himself rather than let it fall into your hands?”

  There was no answer. As possibilities went, he certainly hadn’t ruled that one out. Given how precious Lee considered his work, it made sense he would rather die than watch someone else take it from him. Knowing his colleagues might produce an identical copy of him, at least once they had confirmed he was dead, probably helped a little too.

  “Well, I meant what I said. I alone can deliver that information to you. I’m willing.”

  The leader scoffed. “You don’t think they’ll find out what you did, sooner or later?”

  “That depends on what you plan on doing with it.”

  Another silence. The team leader stood there for a moment, as if weighing her options. The others kept looking at each other, and to him. Ward saw how their hands gripped their shock sticks tight. Any one of them would rush him in a second, given the order, or the slightest provocation. He wondered how many he could take down before they got to him.

  If he wanted, he could slow things down again and probably be able to take out all three of them. That would leave their leader, whom he could then force at gunpoint to bring him to Lee. He could resolve all this on his own terms, finish the job, and walk away. But there was more going on here, questions he wanted answered. He wasn’t entirely sure they had Lee yet, or that they would be willing to hand him over if it came to that.

  After all, Lee had been willing to die to protect his work. Would they be any less willing to protect their cause?

  “Do you know who we are?” she asked finally.

  Ward shrugged. “I can only assume you’re an affiliate of the Centimanes. Maybe not directly affiliated, but you share some of their interests. You want to protect Titan.”

  “And do you know why we grabbed Doctor Lee?”

  “More or less. He was here as part of some inspection. He was evaluating Titan and Callisto for possible geoengineering. As for the rest of the details, I’m a bit fuzzy on those.”

  Reaching to her hood, she undid a small clasp in the front. It retracted from around her face, revealing her features. The others looked a bit anxious at her action.

  “I’m Valeri,” she said. “And you’re right. Our interest is in protecting our world from outsiders like you. Didn’t think there’d be two of you willing to help us.”

  “Two?” The question came out of Ward’s mouth before he had a chance to stop it.

  “Yes,” said a familiar female voice, coming directly from behind Valeri. Ward’s ears became suddenly attuned to the footfalls slapping against the grating. Another figure emerged next to Valeri at the edge of the corridor. Disengaging her cloaking field, she undid her hood to reveal her face.

  “Hi, Ward. Fancy meeting you here.”

  The Rutger in Ward’s hand lowered of its own accord. He was already feeling close to the point of frostbite. And yet, it was in hearing those words – thus confirming something he’d long suspected – he began to feel truly cold.

  Thirty-One

  Amaru looked at him oddly. There was the faintest trace of a smile on her face. It wasn’t a mocking grin, though. More like the conveyance of calm relief. Ward understood how she felt. After so much time lying to each other, it felt good to come clean.

  As for Valeri, she looked as stern and cold as
when he had first walked in. She exchanged a sideways glance with Amaru, who raised her left arm, revealing a small bracelet on her wrist. She placed her right index finger over it, preparing to tap a small control there.

  “What are you doing?” Ward asked.

  “Don’t worry. This won’t hurt a bit.”

  She pressed down. Immediately, Ward’s overlay was triggered, bringing up his comlink and indicating a total lack of connectivity. While there was no Survey to lose contact with, whatever wireless links he had to the outside world were now terminated.

  He shook his head. An odd reaction, considering she had done nothing to him physically. But it seemed like the appropriate thing to do.

  “What was that?”

  “A neural hack, designed to disrupt your comlink. Adler was using it to monitor you. They wanted to keep tabs on you, for obvious reasons. Using standard comms to hide a monitoring frequency was the best way to do that without you knowing.”

  Ward blanched, looking around at the facility frantically. The very place he had found his way to, and mere moments after talking to the man. “Oh, shit. Does he know where we are?”

  Valeri was the one to answer, responding in the reassuringly negative.

  “He wouldn’t be able to track you down here. The second you entered the transit line, he would have lost your signal. But once we’re topside again, he’ll be able to re-establish contact. We can’t allow that.”

  Ward rebooted his overlay. Every other indicator and subsystem appeared to be working fine. His comlink, however, was now inactive. He felt relieved, and a little embarrassed he hadn’t thought of it himself. There was no way Adler was going to let him go without putting a leash on him. Monitoring their personal frequency seemed like a rather obvious way to go.

  “So, what now?” he asked.

  “Now we talk,” replied Valeri. “We don’t go anywhere until we iron a few things out.”

  Ah, of course. The big reveal. Ward smiled. “Fine. I have some questions myself. I’d sure like them answered before anything else happens.”

  “All right. Shoot.”

  “How long?”

  He directed this at Amaru, who seemed a bit confused. The question was the slightest bit vague, and very pointed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “How long has she been working with you?”

  Valeri quickly realized the question was directed at her, and shrugged. “A few years, I suppose. She had been feeding information to Finch and her people for a while.”

  “It wasn’t until Lee died that I made contact with them,” said Amaru. “It only seemed right. I was the one who fed them the information.”

  Ward sighed. The Rutger was growing heavy in his hands and he slipped it back into its holster. They seemed past the point where weapons would be useful. He let his words lead the way now. “So, she knew all along what he and the Chandrasekhars were planning?”

  Amaru smiled uneasily. “I wasn’t meant to. But you were right. David and I worked together for years. We got close at one point, and he confided in me. That’s when I made my choice.”

  “You contacted Finch. She farmed out the job to some. . .” Ward looked around the room, trying to think of a word to encompass everything he saw. “Let’s call them specialists. She figured the less she knew, the better. And you let them know where and when Lee would be vulnerable? I’m betting you had something to do with that. You were the one he was planning to meet that night, weren’t you?”

  “Best way to set a trap. Provide your own bait.” It was Valeri saying this, and sounding proud of the statement. Amaru didn’t share that appraisal. She looked rather guilty for the role she’d played.

  Ward began to pace around the room. The others had relaxed somewhat, but tensed visibly as he walked about. He kept his distance, and his hands visible to avoid any possible misunderstanding. He had many more questions, and didn’t want their conversation to end prematurely out of panic.

  So many questions, he thought. He decided to ask the obvious one. “Where is he?”

  Amaru was about to answer, but Valeri interrupted before she could. “We have him. Or rather, what remains of him. Not here though. We put him into stasis the moment he flatlined, and took him somewhere we knew was secure.”

  Ward smiled. “This place isn’t secure, then?”

  Valeri returned his smile. “You found us, didn’t you?”

  Ward chuckled, looking around the confines of the room with new appreciation. There were more facilities like this on Titan, then? How many dotted the landscape of the planet, all tucked away neatly beneath the planet’s icy surface? “Well, are you going to take me to him?”

  “There’s something you need to know first,” Amaru said “Pinter and Emile, they aren’t partners in this. You met Pinter, didn’t you?”

  Ward nodded. “Of course, as soon as I arrived on Ares. Emile gave me the distinct impression the old man was in charge.”

  “Well, he’s not. In truth, Pinter hasn’t been in control of the Faction for decades. While he’s whiled away time in his virtual worlds, Emile has slowly wrested control of all their operations away from him. He’s the one who decided to take Lee up on his ideas. Emile breathed new life into them and convinced Lee they would make it happen.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “You wanted to know what they intended to do with the information. You had to know they plan on releasing it. And if that were to happen, you must have known you wouldn’t be safe. They’d find you eventually. But with this, we can drive a wedge between them. We can let Pinter know what his grandson has been up to, maybe even get his help in bringing him down.”

  Ward scoffed. “Pinter’s merely an upload. What help would he possibly give us?”

  “Don’t count the old man out yet,” Amaru said sternly. “He’s got resources and means at his disposal. The only reason Emile doesn’t fear him is because he’s done his best to keep his actions hidden. If Pinter knew what his grandson was really up to, he could make some serious trouble for him.”

  “That’s your plan, then? Let Pinter see what Lee had locked away in his head? Hope he reins in the lesser Chandrasekhar?”

  “It’s a start,” Amaru replied. “We’d also time it with the release of the information publicly.”

  “We ran the numbers,” Valeri added. “We figured a public release in the Cronian system would spread to the Jovians in less than a year. It would only take a few weeks before it started penetrating the Survey as well. And once it’s there,” She raised her hands, palms facing up.

  Ward knew exactly what she meant. Once the information reached the Survey, it would spread to all corners of the inner Solar System in no time at all, and not a soul would be able to suppress it. Even around-the-clock efforts by Cisne, Gaia, and Mangala – the Level IV super-sentients running Venus, Earth and Mars – wouldn’t be able to keep users from rapidly duplicating and disseminating the information.

  The veil would be torn off a very serious conspiracy put in place by a prominent Extro Faction. Rob millions of Outer Worlders of their homes to ensure the dream of transforming the Red Planet finally came true. There would be shock. There would be outrage. Powerful people everywhere would scramble to distance themselves from it. The result would be nothing short of a . . .

  “Revolution,” Ward said aloud. He looked back at Amaru. Now seemed like the time to broach the matter he’d brought up with her earlier. “So, Doctor. What was your involvement in all this? Why did Lee need you out here, running all those tests?”

  Amaru glanced at the others in the room, looking almost apologetic. She obviously felt some measure of guilt for her part in things, and that clearly informed her decision to betray her bosses the way she had.

  “Well, you know the official story. I was called in to perform the surveys on all the extraction sites, check them for signs of microorganisms to avoid any chance of contaminating Mars’ biosphere.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “The truth
is, my work was being used to provide Emile, Lee and all the others involved with a cover story.”

  “Cover story?”

  Amaru looked at the others again. The guilt on this one ran deep. Valeri chose to interject, cutting right to the heart of things.

  “What do you think, Mr. Ward? They would start bringing their ships into our systems, start bombarding the planets with comets, warming them up with orbital mirrors. You can’t simply start altering the landscape beneath people’s feet. First, you need to get rid of all the people. Then you can do whatever you want with the land because you’ve got possession.”

  Ward frowned. “Clear the people out? Like how?”

  “With a fucking plague,” said one of the crew. Ward hadn’t noticed, but they had removed their hoods as well. He saw their faces, their eyes, and the looks they conveyed with both.

  “Emile reasoned if a well-timed and strategically introduced pandemic broke out on Titan and Callisto, it would lead to a full-scale evacuation of both moons. The pandemic would be tailored to look like it was indigenous in origin, something close enough to Jovian and Cronian microorganisms that the local medics would be fooled.”

  “They wanted as much information on the local microbes as they could get. They had to be sure they could make their plague look as real and as local as possible,” said Valeri.

  “Emile then intended to make all of his people’s resources available to assist with all emigration efforts. Lift people out, resettle them, and make sure they had food and medicine and anything else they needed. Emile would look like a hero.”

  “Of course,” said Ward. And to be fair, any help Emile gave in that regard would be considerable. For people looking to get out of a plague zone, the small fleet of ships the Chandrasekhars had at their disposal would potentially save hundreds of thousands of lives. Using their far more advanced technology, the Formists would ensure refugees got all the food, water and energy they needed to be quite comfortable.

  “With the people out of the way, Emile and his associates would simply move in, secure rights to the moons themselves, and start using them as test beds. The Cythereans would be free to collaborate with him on Titan, attempt the ‘Big Rain’ there. Meanwhile, his own people would use Callisto as a laboratory for creating a green Mars.”