The Cronian Incident (The Formist Book 1)

by Matthew Williams

  “Right.” Ward smiled sardonically. “Nobody could say a thing because the great Emile helped save so many lives. And nobody would want to go back to these places since they were infected.”

  Silent acknowledgement from around the room. Only Valeri felt any further words were necessary. “Given time, our worlds would revert to their natural state. Everything they did in the meantime, melting the surface and converting the landscape, would ensure the indigenous life was wiped out. They could almost sell it as some grand sterilization job. Who knows? That might even be something they’re considering.”

  Ward chuckled softly. He wouldn’t put such a plot past someone like Emile. It would explain why he had recruited someone like Adler – someone whose record seemed deliberately checkered. The mercenary could be counted on to do the kinds of things others would find unconscionable, and be expected to keep his mouth shut while doing it.

  The mere thought of Adler circling the moon above them put a shiver down Ward’s back. To think such a man was relatively close at hand. He only hoped Adler had bought Ward’s evasive explanations earlier.

  “So,” Ward said finally. “Can I see Lee, or what?”

  Amaru looked at Valeri, who looked back at her. This time, there was agreement between them. The others seemed to concur as well. For the first time since Ward had arrived, they looked ready to move, and not on him.

  “We have an ice hopper not far from here. It’ll take us to where Lee’s being kept. You’ll need to surrender that gun first.”

  Ward looked down at the Rutger, now resting by his side. It was a difficult thing to hand it off yet again, but he didn’t see a way around that. He extended the weapon to the nearest of the squad, who took it from him and promptly gave it to Valeri.

  “Good. You’ll need to suit up before we get to the shuttle, though. The path there leads out onto the surface. You don’t want to be breathing hydrocarbons, I imagine.”

  Ward cracked a small smile before he nodded, indicating the outfits Valeri and her team were wearing. “What about underneath? Got any more of those lying around?”

  Several of the people arrayed around him scoffed at once. “You’ll have to be content with a pressure suit. They were only nice enough to send us four.”

  “They?” said Ward.

  Valeri didn’t have the patience to answer. She looked to Amaru, wordlessly asking her to handle the explanations.

  “A long story. I’ll fill you in later.”

  #

  Adler had been looking at the mottled yellow-brown disc hanging before them. The reflection of the great Cronian giant was now bathing one half of it in its light, leaving the other side a relatively dark cloud. He wasn’t sure what it was about this view he found so fascinating. Perhaps it was the fact he was attempting to monitor the activity taking place beneath the dense fog. Or maybe he thought he might catch a glimpse of something scurrying around down there.

  It was hypnotic, in its own way, watching a world so keen to avoid being seen. Knowing his prey lurked there, thinking it was somehow safe and hidden. Adler looked forward to the time when he would disabuse them of that notion. When the strike fell, when the talons closed around their throats and they were his at last.

  Whatever it was, the tech’s report snapped him from it and grabbed his full attention.

  “Boss, we lost the signal.”

  Adler turned from the main porthole and looked back onto the bridge. His people sat around a few scattered terminals, their exosuits on but not deployed, their weapons sitting idly by them. They too seemed to be entertaining thoughts of various kinds, but became very much alert when the report was issued.

  “You’re sure about that?”

  Adler waited for the tech to double-check the signal. The results came back the same.

  “Confirmed, boss. The signal’s been lost. Looks like it’s being jammed from the source.”

  Adler smiled a feral, teeth-bearing smile. At last, the game was afoot, and sooner than he had expected. It was all the more amusing considering he had talked to Ward not more than a few hours ago.

  “I underestimated you, Jeremiah Ward,” Adler said to himself. He had thought it would take a standard week or more before Ward would connect everything. But only a few days since his arrival, the former detective had already begun to pursue his own leads, leaving them out of the loop, and feeding Adler false information when it came to that.

  Under different circumstances, Adler might have felt proud of Ward.

  Adler issued the mental command making his armor deploy itself around him. The skin formed from numerous storage chambers located within the exosuit, creating a hardened shell gleaming like polished plate mail. He stopped it short at his neckline, leaving his head and face uncovered. There were still orders to give, and he preferred not to engage in direct mind-to-mind interfacing yet.

  Adler issued the first order to the ship’s pilot. “Take us inside the atmosphere. Have our scanners ready to detect any changes in atmospheric density, and any sudden thermal signatures. If I’m right, they’ll be trying to keep low to avoid detection. We need to be on the lookout for any indication of thruster fire.”

  “Yes, boss,” replied the pilot, bending to his task.

  Adler looked next to the men and women who had moments before seemed entirely bored. Now, they looked like compressed springs, every muscle primed and ready to jump. More importantly, they looked ready to tear apart anything that stood in their way.

  “Get to the bay and prep the docking collar. As soon as we have coordinates, I want to be ready for insertion. Not one of them is walking away from this.”

  Wordlessly, they stood and left their stations. No salutes, but all gave him a nod of approval. Like Adler, they were no longer in the habit of standing on ceremony or protocol. All that mattered now was getting things done, and making sure not a trace was left once they were finished.

  Thirty-Two

  It took only a few minutes for them to reach the airlock. As promised, there were pressure suits waiting for them, more than enough to outfit their small band, Ward and Amaru included. Valeri and her bunch were clearly accustomed to the ritual. In no time at all, they shed their stealth suits, packed them away, and donned pressure suits. Valeri removed the bracelet she was wearing and snapped it onto the cuff as soon as she had her suit on.

  She issued some final words of advice before snapping on her helmet. Ward knew it was strictly for his benefit.

  “Keep close. We’re in for some dense fog and it’s easy to get lost out there. Just follow the person in front of you and you’ll be fine.”

  “That’s me,” said Amaru, giving him a light punch on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ve done this before.”

  “I have no doubt,” said Ward.

  Once they were all suited up, Valeri led the way to the airlock. A quick cycle, and they were leaving the cave of ice behind, venturing onto a surface of the same.

  The change in perspective was rather unusual, going from a tunnel underground to the surface, and looking upon a sky so incredibly thick and dense. The cloud cover was particularly opaque, with heavy swirls of yellow-brown illuminated by Saturn’s glow.

  In many ways, it put Ward in mind of home. Stepping out into daylight, he would expect to see skies intensely yellow and orange, though considerably brighter. While back on Mercury, conducting an EVA meant walking out into endless night. Aside from the lamps you brought with you, there were only pinpricks of light in an infinite field of darkness above.

  Ward keyed the suit’s comm and called over to Amaru. “Where are we going?”

  “To the night side. It shouldn’t take long.”

  “How long until we get to the shuttle?”

  There was a pause as Amaru detected something in Ward’s voice: fear. She keyed her comm and conveyed it to him. “Are you scared of surface walks?”

  Ward grunted angrily. His bioimplants were managing to address the worst of it, but the last few times he had pulled an E
VA, he’d had the benefit of some mind-numbing narcotics. Heavy meds kept the adrenals at bay and ensured the neurons were getting plenty of serotonin; that always made wandering outside on the Rock bearable. “I don’t like knowing there’s nothing but a suit between me and a terrible death.”

  “Cut the chatter,” Valeri said, hopping on the line. “You never know who may be monitoring these frequencies.”

  Amaru and Ward obliged. For the next few minutes, he stuck to deep breathing and keeping his eyes on the murky horizon. In the distance, he made out the elevated region to the north of them, the mountain chain known as the Apus. To the south lay the brighter region of Garotman Terra. Together, the six of them carefully stepped along the dark, gritty surface, making their way between discernible landmarks towards something unknown.

  Valeri twisted to look back at them at times, on occasion indicating a change in direction. A few times, they jackknifed to follow what felt like a footpath, but was really the lowest point in the somewhat rugged terrain. Their path eventually began to lead downhill, and Ward noticed ringed walls beginning to form from the features around him.

  It was then Ward realized where they were. The crater was known to lie just outside Cassini, and had been a landing zone when the colony was still being constructed. The perfect place to ditch a shuttle, as the low-lying area would be invisible to anyone looking down from orbit at the surface, while any craft coming and going would also be undetectable to surface-based sensors if the craft stayed close to the ground.

  Just who are these people? thought Ward. More to the point, how was it they were thusly equipped? It was a foregone conclusion that groups like the Centimanes had resources at their disposal. They also had an organizational structure in place, one which had ensured they maintained a presence in local politics. This, however, went beyond that. It was as if people outside of them were preparing for a revolution, and doing their best to keep Finch and her “respectable” ilk out of the loop.

  But how far did their assets go? How long had they been preparing? Who was supplying them? All questions he planned to ask as soon as they were safely aboard the hopper, and he could get out of the tight pressure suit.

  The descent continued. Amaru looked back at him once to make sure he wasn’t stepping too quickly. Even in the low gravity, the gradient of their descent was sure to send someone tumbling if they weren’t too careful. The way the fog was thickening around them didn’t help matters. In time, even the lip of the crater disappeared behind them. It was a good thing they were marching closely, because that soon became all that was visible.

  The slope began to even out. It felt like they were walking on flat ground again. It was only a few more steps before Amaru turned slightly and raised her right arm, bent at the elbow. Ward recognized the gesture and came to a complete stop. The entire group had halted and were fanning out ahead of him. He barely made out their formation. They were standing before something now, and Valeri appeared to be doing something with her bracelet again.

  The result was a new light coming on, and a gust of wind pushing out the haze before them. After a few seconds, Ward saw his way into the shuttle cabin clearly. It was as Valeri had described it: a simple ice hopper, short-range, but with room enough for half a dozen crewmembers. Clearly something left over from the early settlement period. It would be scarcely enough to get them to the dark side of the moon.

  “Get in,” Valeri ordered.

  Her three squad members quickly hopped inside. Amaru held back a second and looked at Ward. He saw her expression through the visor. She was attempting to give him a reassuring look, one telling him he wouldn’t be taking his life in his hands by following them.

  For some reason, Ward looked to the sky. It was futile. The haze was so dense it was impossible to see anything in orbit. He also knew that on a clear night, he wouldn’t be able to spot anything as small as Adler’s Cǎiguāng-class skiff.

  But still, he looked. Being out on the surface like this, trying to slip away, it had a way of making a man feel conspicuous.

  “Don’t make me say it again,” Valeri ordered. Ward spun around and saw five faces staring at him impatiently through their visors. Two had taken to the front seats, while Amaru and the rest occupied the seats in the rear. Taking a deep breath, he hopped inside, the hatch closing behind him and nearly taking a layer off his back.

  As soon as his backside touched down on a seat, Valeri began firing up their thrusters.

  “All right, strap in and hang on.”

  Thirty-Three

  It felt like only a matter of seconds before they arrived at their destination. It began with their forward momentum ceasing and the sensation they were coming about. The VTOLs kicked in as the hopper began making its descent. Within seconds, Ward felt a jolt as the landing legs touched down. A dull thud sounded through the cabin, announcing they were once again sitting on solid ground.

  Contrary to what Ward had thought, there had been no time for questions during the short journey. No time to even remove his helmet. He wasn’t even certain they had pressurized the cabin with breathable air once the door had shut. For the entire flight, everyone had remained seated and in their suits. To a person, including Amaru, they held onto their restraints as they shot across the surface, keeping as close as they could to the ground to avoid any detection.

  Just as quickly as they had embarked, they began to disembark. This consisted of Valeri opening the hatch from her seat and then climbing through the cabin to be the first one out. She gestured at Ward to follow. Once on the surface, he took up his position behind Amaru, advancing into their new location at the end of their train.

  Ward managed to get a quick look at their surroundings. The hopper was now parked inside a landing bay, or what passed for one here. The walls were once again carved from ice, an uneven layer of spray rock covering it and preventing sublimation. The temperature in the bay was still very low, and the density of the air indicated it too wasn’t breathable.

  He had little time to gather much else. The train he was part of moved quickly down a staircase from the landing platform. This deposited them near another airlock, which they cycled through. It wasn’t until they were on the other side, and the air was breathable, that people began to slow down. The helmets and suits came off, and new instructions followed.

  “Once we’re inside, Mr. Ward, you’ll see certain things. Try to keep your eyes forward and the questions to a minimum,” warned Valeri.

  “Aha,” was all Ward managed to say, but in those two syllables, he had conveyed a rather sizable realization. So, they were walking into a rebel stronghold, were they? An assemblage of patriots preparing for the day when they would overthrow the current regime? He had hoped to ask some questions – specifically, who the hell was supplying them and mobilizing them? But he imagined what he was about to see would answer much of that.

  As soon as the suits were off and stowed in a nearby rack, they began to move in their formation again. He noted how the stunners remained at their sides, despite the fact Valeri was still holding onto his sidearm. Clearly, trust was something which still hadn’t been established.

  Through another door, and into another part of the facility. Like the previous one, it was little more than space carved from icy walls, though this one was significantly larger.

  The entranceway they followed opened onto a floor consisting of steel grating, while metal plates and bulkheads reinforced the wall sections. Within meters, the floor fell away, opening onto a larger area with what appeared to be work stations and terminal set ups. Free standing light fixtures kept the place illuminated, and the place was also wired for electrical and data hook-ups.

  More importantly than that was the fact this facility had far more bodies inside it. In the sunken area they now looked down on, Ward saw dozens of people moving about and performing various tasks. Some busied themselves at terminals, entering data or monitoring data that came up. Others were seated at stations and inspecting weapons of vario
us kinds. A few appeared to be conducting repairs or maintenance on pieces of machinery.

  In the background, Ward heard music playing. It was being piped in from some archaic PA system – an announcer speaking in some local patois while synthesized music played in the background. Ward caught some of the words trickling up from below.

  “Tovarishchi! Das ni winto ein anruf aux armes! Uasi!”

  Even without active translation running on his overlay, Ward recognized the tone of the speech. It was a guerrilla transmission, featuring an emcee issuing a call to arms punctuated by a militant musical accompaniment.

  It was a spectacle, to be sure. The sights and sounds of people preparing for armed insurrection. From the looks of it, they were dangerously close to being ready.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Amaru whispered back to him. “But try not to ask too much. They’re already taking a huge risk in letting you come here.”

  “I can see that,” he said. “But my main question is for you. Who are they?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ward gestured ahead to Valeri. “She said before that someone only sent a few of those stealth suits to them. Who were they?”

  She sighed angrily. “Don’t suppose I could ask you to forget you heard that, huh?”

  “Not bloody likely.”

  Amaru pitched her voice lower. “They aren’t exactly alone in what they do here, Ward. They happen to have friends and supporters from outside the system.”

  “What kind of friends?”

  “The kind that can afford cutting-edge tech, that’s who.”

  Ward grumbled. So that was how they were playing this? Tight-lipped and no straight answers? He tried coming at it another way. “And what exactly are they doing here? These people. Preparing for war?”