by John Ringo
In a spot of good news, it appeared they were not, because the little creature was able to penetrate without any of the sensors going off. Further in there would probably be "clean" zones into which even a mouse couldn't penetrate. But the outer sections were relatively easy, with only local terrain, predators and the biobot's diminutive size as obstacles.
It took another solid hour for the creature to do its penetration, just one of many small mammaloids running around in the area. Once it did, it found a rock under which were several of the local roach lookalikes. They were edible to earth creatures and the viewster hunted them avidly until another party of Blobs, or perhaps the same one, came back through. When it saw the low, grey creatures it quickly scuttled across their path where the swift moving creatures would run over it and continue on their way.
"Here we go," Gorilla said, and everyone watched the repeated image from his controller. The "Tslek" flopped and rolled right over the sensor-creature, leaving it, and the nearby grass and twigs, unharmed. They were excellent holograms, but nothing more.
And the base was a trap.
The encounter had been in clear view of the sensors Dagger and Gorilla had deployed and that was that. Gorilla looked at Tirdal, who stared back but didn't even change expression, then down at the team. Whatever was there was apparently a fake.
"I can send the viewster into a few emplacements and possibly get more information, sir, but the likelihood of detection increases with each exposure. And I think the answer we have is short and sweet."
Bell Toll shook his head for a negative, then used hisses and hand signals to get the attention of the rest and order them back. The Aldenata tech-based communicators they had were absolutely secure, but he wasn't going to trust them this close to an enemy base that was obviously set to trip them up. It might, in fact, be best to go back to old-fashioned laser signals, even if it limited them to a line-of-sight formation. After this, they had to exfiltrate by a different route to avoid possible detection, then get the acquired intel back to the sector command. The slim facts they had would nevertheless rule out many wrong avenues in this game of deception. Negatives could sometimes, in fact, prove more valuable than concrete answers.
But that was for the analysts to decide. Their job was to hump back out and stay alive.
Following Gorilla's preprogrammed orders, the viewster headed back up the game trail as the two recon troops and Tirdal slid down the reverse slope of the ridge. The larger bot had already headed back over so Gorilla told it and its companion to head out on point. The reverse trip would actually be shorter than the insertion and they should be able to make it in a week. It would be a tense week of careful movement and thorough concealment. Whether or not the Tslek had planned for them to find the site, they had to assume that the Tslek knew they'd found the deception. So being found now would mean death. A pawn stays alive only so long as its purpose is served, and from a Tslek viewpoint they were now a liability even had they been valuable before.
The team bivouacked again within the trees, the nearness to the Blobs being a slightly better risk than trying to slog out fast, risking noise and discovery as they traversed terrain in daylight. They'd save the forced march for tomorrow night.
Later that day, the viewster came darting back over the shards of the ridge and found the place where it had been told to report. It sat patiently under a ledge and waited an hour for signals or orders, but there was nothing there. Having lost contact with its control it snuffled around until it found a hole in the ground, crawled in and died. Specially bred internal bacteria would dissolve it in under three hours, leaving nothing but a smell and some bones. At some level, everything is expendable.
Chapter 9
TheIR RETURN route cut through the low hills that had intervened before. For a while they followed some game trails that paralleled the hills. The hills probably were ancient remnants of mountains, worn down from staggering ranges, most likely foothills of the taller mountains that rose to east and west of the glacial valley and river plain in between. There were other signs of old vulcanism, indicating that this area had had a violent youth.
Once away from the Tslek "installation," they moved quickly and surely, and off the game trails. Predators loved game trails for obvious reasons, and no one wanted a fight. There was no other reason to be more than normally cautious, and every reason to get off-planet as soon as possible, so they slogged fast. Ferret made good time and showed considerable skill at finding routes with fair footing and clear space to hike, while still keeping tall growth around them for concealment. He rarely caused them to backtrack around obstacles, though he did have them detour around another log that might contain a nest of the biting ant things. Tirdal watched and tried to deduce how Ferret did this. It was a skill he had no experience in.
The second night out, they came to a fairly deep and strong stream that had cut a chasm through the rocks ahead.
"We'll have to detour downstream until we find a place to ford," Ferret said. "Unless we're going to build a moly-rope bridge?"
"No," Shiva said. "Safer and likely faster to go around. Five minutes to rest and on we go."
The path downstream was a rubble and boulder-strewn igneous mass with trees growing at chaotic angles near the edge, straight and tall further back. The soil was rich and fragrant, made dark and fertile by minerals from the broken rocks and well-rotted foliage. It wasn't a hard route for trained troops, as it was downhill with lots of handholds. They swiftly covered three kilometers of steep, rocky bank as the bots led the way.
"Flat ground ahead," Gorilla advised.
Ten minutes later, the ground began to level. They were back out onto glacial plain. No sooner had they reached a stretch that looked promising for a crossing, Gorilla called, "Whoa! Anomaly!" His voice was soft but urgent.
"What type?" Bell Toll asked as Shiva waved the troops into a perimeter.
"Not here," Gorilla answered with a shake of his head. "Forward and west. Energy reading of some kind. It's small and not moving."
"Isn't that just great?" Bell Toll asked facetiously. "Okay, keep the bots safely back but find out what you can. Everyone sit tight here. Tirdal, what've you got for me? Can you sense it?"
"Yes, I can now," he nodded. "It's very faint. It's not Tslek. There's something there, but it doesn't even seem alive. Just . . . there, present. And it has a psychic component. More than that I cannot say. But definitely not alive."
"Okay, Ferret will lead, you move up closer to him and keep alert. Remember that he has more experience at sneaking. Gorilla, get your bots out wide and move slowly; we don't want to spook whatever it is, but we've got to take a look ourselves. Shiva, plot us two escape routes—one slow and cautious, one go-to-hell. Everyone ping me acknowledgment . . . okay, let's do it."
Tirdal and Ferret dropped their rucks and crept forward. The relayed image from Gorilla's bots helped them keep to low ground and clear of the knotted webs of roots. The ground was soft and mushy again, and it soaked through their suits, the wetness permeating the air with the smell of damp and rotting life. The only animals they saw were the smallest scavengers and stem-eating types. While crawling, they were below the umbrellalike canopies of bushes. Their route through the looping roots of the trees took them past a local anthill analog, busily trafficked by beetle-creatures less than a centimeter long. Ferret shook off a few that tried to bite and sting, taking him for some dead source of protein.
"Ouch," he muttered. "Gonna have welts from that. They aren't as bad as those other little bastards, but watch them, Tirdal."
"I see them," Tirdal said. "Stand by." He pulled a scrap of uneaten ration from his smaller ruck and waved it past the nest, then dropped it a meter away. It was a sugary cookie and the eager little monsters swarmed it and ignored him.
"Let's see the bots-eye view," Ferret asked. Gorilla obliged and relayed a near-ground-level image in the visible spectrum. There was an almost-clearing ahead; one of those spots where the trees thinned enoug
h for a dropship insertion or a small camp. The bots had stopped there. They'd been programmed to pause if they encountered anything with a pattern not on file as "natural," and what was here certainly wasn't.
"Is that what we're looking at?" Ferret asked.
"At and for," Gorilla replied. "I dunno what it is."
All that could be seen was a thin spot in the trees. Within were some lumps and mounds. They resembled burial cairns from some lost civilization, weathered and beaten for ages. There was a wrongness to the area that even the humans could feel.
"The source is in there somewhere," Gorilla said. "No threats show. I've got both bots watching it and the flyers perched on trees on the far side. Nothing except local life."
"Gorilla," Bell Toll said, "send a bot in slowly. One step at a time. Ferret and Tirdal can pull up to the edge. We'll stay back for support. Thor and Shiva, keep an eye on our asses." There were pings of acknowledgment and the team moved.
They'd shifted perhaps five meters when Gorilla said, "Stop." Everyone froze, fingers on triggers, until he said, "No threat, but I've IDed the source. Central mound, right there. Power emanations, but very low."
"Okay," Bell Toll acknowledged. "Let's move in. Ferret and Tirdal wait where you are. Gun Doll and I will take a supporting position on the left. Dagger and Shiva on the right. Gorilla will pull up and relieve Ferret, then Ferret advances."
Upon closer inspection, the area wasn't a clearing at all. It was tree covered, like the surrounding terrain, but in a radius around the central mound the trees were slightly stunted and there were stones poking up through the loam. It was the lack of animals and the stunted trees that gave it an odd feel.
"Radiation?" asked Bell Toll.
"Not much above background levels," Gorilla said after studying his sensors.
"There's a minor pulse to the emitted frequency," Dagger added. "It's steady. Nothing dangerous to us, but I suppose after enough years it builds up. There also might be chemicals in the soil, depending on what this device is. The surface here reads differently. And those stones are odd."
They were among the mounds, now. Ferret and Thor had their backs in, as did Gun Doll, her automatic cannon moving in slow sweeps as she studied the trees.
Tirdal brushed at one of the stones and examined the striations revealed beneath the clinging dirt. It was an extruded block, not carved native stone.
"Plascrete," he said softly.
The others shifted carefully over to him.
"What did you say?" Bell Toll asked.
"Plascrete," he repeated. "Look at the extrusion marks and the texture. It was produced on site with no concern for prettiness."
Gun Doll ran her fingers over the chipped corners of the revealed mass.
"How old does plascrete have to be to crack and crumble like that?"
"Very old, I would guess . . . and Sense," Tirdal said.
Spreading out and examining other revealed rocks determined that the place was a ruin. It was some sort of very old building or fortification, hundreds, possibly thousands of years old. All that was left were a few mounds of tumbled plascrete overgrown with misshapen, gene-damaged trees and tangled vines. In the cold drizzle and half-light, it was an eerie, disturbing scene.
Gorilla had the bot dig into the lump, carefully. It made quiet incursions by drill, split cracks between the holes with a pneumatic ram and gingerly pulled out sections. It then made another cut, slightly deeper. Ferret, Dagger and Shiva stayed in an outer perimeter, nerves naked wires, alert for any threatening movement, or any movement at all. The other half of the troop formed to contain anything that might erupt from within the dig.
"Energy source," Tirdal said.
"Yes?" prompted Bell Toll.
"I'm not sure. Just some source of energy. They all feel somewhat alike . . . heat, radio, UV . . . just a sense of intruding rays, not enough to be harmful."
"Got that, Gorilla?" Bell Toll asked.
"Got it," he nodded softly, adjusting the bot to dig wider before going deeper. "We're going to have to either hide these blocks the bot is cutting, or stick them back when done. A pile will be a giveaway."
"Yes," Bell Toll agreed. "But it can't be much deeper now, can it?"
In answer, Tirdal said, "There."
"Yeah, the bot sees it now," Gorilla agreed, looking at his screen. "I'm clearing around it. It's a root power source of some kind, encased in plasteel."
Bell Toll dialed up enhancement and resolution on his helmet and tried to get a glimpse into the hole, past the ludicrously hulking limbs of the small bot.
"Oh, shit," he said softly.
"What?" asked Gun Doll, being closest. She pulled up her own screen and said, " 'Oh, shit' is right."
Enough of the case was revealed for its architecture to become apparent. That combined with the energy readings made it familiar to anyone who studied history or matters military.
It was an Aldenata artifact. Apparently a functional one.
The Aldenata were extinct. It had been they who had bred the Posleen for war, and screwed it up so as to leave the Posleen a marauding threat. They'd created the Darhel, who could administrate but not fight to defend themselves. The Indowy, Tchpth and possibly the humans had been tampered with by them, also. Besides the damaged races of this part of the galaxy, they'd left a few installations and a very few artifacts. Whatever had done them in had been thorough. No one knew. Or at least, no humans. The other races didn't discuss it much.
The box wasn't that large, about a half meter on a side and vaguely oblong. There were two queerly formed handles on it that the bots used to drag it to the surface. A careful cleaning by Gorilla and Gun Doll revealed that it had controls on the surface and some inscribed characters.
"It could be anything or nothing," Gun Doll said, as she wiped away dirt to reveal the text and pulled out a ruled scale and camera. They couldn't decipher it here, but they could get images for file.
"Yes, but any industrial corporation would pay a cool billion credits for it," Bell Toll said. Even if it wasn't sold, the soldiers could expect enough of a bonus for it that they'd be able to live comfortably for the rest of their lives.
"So, ten percent of a billion, split eight ways . . ." muttered Dagger, sliding up alongside to peer into the hole. He was figuring the likely salvage percentage they'd get if the government did sell it.
"Dagger, get back out where you belong," Bell Toll snapped quietly. The sniper's eyes were needed where they could track incoming Blobs, not calculating profits.
"Yeah, sure," he agreed and slithered away again.
"Captain, should I get some images for our researchers?" Tirdal asked. "We do have more experience with Aldenata equipment than you."
"That's partly because you won't share the info you do have, but go ahead," Bell Toll said, some prejudice slipping past at last. Tirdal ignored it and took several views of the device.
They turned over a few more rocks and had the bots drill around the area, test bores to see if anything else registered. There was nothing else that stood out.
"I'm getting nothing else," concurred Tirdal. "All I feel is the power from this," he indicated the device, "and it feels as if it's idling, waiting."
There was nothing left but for a full archaeological expedition, which could be expected if the humans ever took the world.
"Well, let's clean up the area and move out," Bell Toll ordered. "We'll take the box with us and let the experts fiddle with it."
Gorilla got the bots to work replacing the chunks of plascrete, while the soldiers took turns scraping and digging at the bot tracks and drag marks of the rocks as only trained Special Operations troops can.
"I can easily determine the damage at this close range," Tirdal said when they were finished, "but it's likely not obvious to a routine observer at any distance."
"I can see it," Dagger challenged. "If I can, others can if they look hard enough. But there shouldn't be any real searches before we bug out."
"Nevertheless, let's try to cover our tracks in and out," Shiva suggested.
"I concur," Bell Toll said. The work resumed amid sighs.
The trick to a good concealment is not to do too much, or a site becomes a "garden," neat and obvious rather than rough and nondescript. In true Zen fashion, doing little is harder than doing much. But by dusk, rain starting, there was little evidence that anything untoward had happened. An organized search might show something, but no casual examination. If they'd done their jobs properly, rain would wash away any remaining signs in short order. Of course, any major flaws in the dig would show more clearly as rain eroded soft earth. It was best they move quickly, just in case.
Bell Toll took the bulky artifact and strapped it onto his pack under a chameleon cover. He grunted with the effort of lifting it—while not outrageously massive, it wasn't light by any means.
Slogging through mud is a military tradition from as far back as humans have been fighting, which is always. It's something every military organization has to get used to, but, despite jokes, no one ever gets used to. Mud slows the steps, sticks to the boots then oozes inside, cold, wet, gooey, gritty and sharp in spots. It splashes as high as one's head, no matter how high that might be, and is generally unpleasant. Every generation, the designers insist they've developed a "mud proof" boot, and every generation the troops laugh hysterically as mud squishes past seals, flush surfaces or joints.
The team was squelching along the nearby river, mud alternating with trickles and puddles of water, the dark, dank bank on one side with the tendrils of tree branches arching in ghostlike fingers over them to the water's edge. They should be well shielded from most sensors. Even thermal imaging wasn't likely to detect their chilled, clammy hides through the scattering foliage.
Ahead, they were seeking a ford. Some further distance from the Tslek facility was desired, and crossing the watercourse should decrease the likelihood of anything coming for them. While they could swim, even burdened as they were, there was no need to exert unnecessary energy.
