Above and to the side of the double set of smaller screens were larger monitors that offered those riding inside the APC a complete wraparound view of the terrain outside. Gorman thumbed controls. Hidden telltales beeped and responded on cue.
'Looking good,' he murmured to himself, as much as to his civilian observers. 'Everybody on line.' Ripley noted that the blood-pressure readouts held remarkably steady. And not one of the soldiers' heart rates rose above seventy-five.
One of the small video monitors displayed static instead of a clear view of the APC's interior. 'Drake, check your camera, Gorman ordered. 'I'm not getting a picture. Frost, show me Drake. Might be an external break.'
The view on the screen next to Drake's shifted to reveal the helmeted face of the smartgun operator as he whacked himself on the side of the head with a battery pack. His screen snapped into focus instantly.
'That's better. Pan it around a bit.'
Drake complied. 'Learned that one in tech class,' he informed the occupants of the operations bay. 'Got to make sure you hit the left side only or it doesn't work.'
'What happens if you hit the right side?' Ripley asked curiously.
'You overload the internal pressure control, the one that keeps your helmet on your head.' She could see Drake smiling wolfishly into Frost's camera. 'Your eyeballs implode and your brains explode.'
'What brains?' Vasquez let out a snort. Drake promptly leaned forward and tried to smack the right side of her helmet with a battery pack.
Apone quieted them. He knew it didn't matter what was wrong with Drake's helmet, because the smartgun operator would abandon it the first chance he got. Likewise Vasquez Drake would appear in his floppy cap and Vasquez in her red bandanna. Nonregulation battle headgear. Both claimed the helmets obstructed the movement of their gun sights, and if that was the way they felt about it, Apone wasn't about to argue with them. They could shave their skulls and fight baldheaded if they wished as long as they shot straight.
'Awright. Fire team A, gear up. Check your backup systems and your power packs. Anybody goes dead when we spread out is liable to end up that way. If some boogeyman doesn't kill you, I will. Let's move. Two minutes.' He glanced to his right 'Somebody wake up Hicks.'
A few guffaws sounded from the assembled troopers. Ripley had to smile as she let her gaze drop to the biomonitor with the corporal's name above it. The readings indicated a man overwhelmed with boredom. Apone's second in command was deep in REM sleep. Dreaming of balmier climes, no doubt. She wished she could relax like that. Once upon a time she'd been able to. Once this trip was over, maybe she'd be able to again.
The passenger compartment saw a new rush of activity as backpacks were donned and weapons presented. Vasquez and Drake assisted each other in buckling on their complex smartgun harnesses.
The forward-facing viewscreen gave those in the operations bay the same view as Ferro and Spunkmeyer. Directly ahead a metal volcano thrust its perfect cone into the clouds, belching hot gas into the sky. Audio pickups muted the atmosphere processor's thunder.
'How many of those are on Acheron?' Ripley asked Burke.
'That's one of thirty or so. I couldn't give you all the grid references. They're scattered all over the planet. Well, not scattered. Placed, for optimum injection into the atmosphere Each is fully automated, and their output is controlled from Hadley Operations Central. Their production will be adjusted as the air here becomes more Earth-normal. Eventually they'l shut themselves down. Until that happens, they'll work around the clock for another twenty to thirty years. They're expensive and reliable. We manufacture them, by the way.'
The ship was a drifting mote alongside the massive, rumbling tower. Ripley was impressed. Like everyone else whose work took them out into space, she'd heard about the big terraforming devices, but she'd never expected to see one in person.
Gorman nudged controls, swinging the main external imager around and down to reveal the silent roofs of the colony. 'Hold at forty,' he commanded Ferro via the console pickup. 'Make a slow circle of the complex. I don't think we'll spot anything from up here, but that's the way the regs say to go, so that's how we'll do it.'
'Can do,' the pilot responded. 'Hang on back there. Might bounce a little while we spiral in. This isn't an atmosphere flyer remember. It's just a lousy dropship. Tight suborbital manoeuvring ain't a highlight of its repertoire.'
'Just do as you're told, Corporal.'
'Yes, sir.' Ferro added something else too low for her mike to unscramble. Ripley doubted that it was flattering.
They circled in over the town. Nothing moved among the buildings beneath them. The few lights they'd spotted from afar continued to burn. The atmosphere processor roared in the background.
'Everything looks intact,' Burke commented. 'Maybe some kind of plague has everyone on their backs.'
'Maybe.' To Gorman the colony structures looked like the wrecks of ancient freighters littering the ocean floor. 'Okay,' he said sharply to Apone, 'let's do it.'
Back in the passenger bay, the master sergeant rose from his seat and glared at his troops, hanging on to an overhead handgrip as the dropship rocked in Acheron's unceasing gale.
'Awright! You heard the lieutenant. I want a nice clean dispersal this time. Watch the suit in front of you. Anybody trips over anybody else's boots going out gets booted right back up to the ship.'
'Is that a promise?' Crowe looked innocent.
'Hey, Crowe, you want your mommy?' Wierzbowski grinned at his colleague.
'Wish she were here,' the private responded. 'She'd wipe the floor with half you lot.'
They filed toward the front lock, squeezing past operations Vasquez gave Ripley a nudge as she strolled by. 'You staying in here?'
'You bet.'
'Figures.' The smartgun operator turned away, shifting her attention to the back of Drake's head.
'Set down sixty metres this side of the main telemetry mast. Gorman swiveled the imager's trakball control. Still no sign of life below. 'Immediate dust-off on my "clear", then find a soft cloud and stay on station.'
'Understood,' said Ferro perfunctorily.
Apone was watching the chronometre built into his suit sleeve. 'Ten seconds, people. Look sharp!'
As the dropship descended to within a hundred and fifty metres of the colony landing pad, its exterior lights flashed on automatically, the powerful beams penetrating a surprising distance into the gloom. The tarmac was damp and freckled with wind-blown garbage, none of which was large enough to upset Ferro's carefully timed touchdown. Hydraulic legs absorbed the shock of contact as tons of metal settled to ground. Seconds later the APC roared out of the cargo bay and away from the compact vessel. Having barely made contact with the surface of Acheron, the dropship's engines thundered, and it crawled back up into the dark sky.
Nothing materialized out of the muck to challenge or confront the personnel carrier as it rumbled up to the first of the silent colony buildings. Spray and mud flew from beneath its solid, armoured wheels. It swerved sharply left so that the crew door would face the town's main entrance. Before the door was half open, Hudson had piled out and hit the ground running. His companions were right behind him. They spread out fast, to cover as much ground as possible without losing sight of one another.
Apone's attention was riveted to the screen of his visor's image intensifier as he scanned the buildings surrounding them. The scanner's internal computer magnified the available light and cleaned up the view as much as it could, resulting in a bright picture that was still luridly tinted and full of contrast. It was enough.
Colony architecture tended to the functional. Beautification of surroundings would come later, when the wind wouldn't ruin all such efforts no matter how modest. Wind whipped trash between the buildings—that detritus that was too heavy to blow away. A chunk of metal rocked on an uneven base banging mindlessly against a nearby wall, any echo subsumed by the wind. A few neonic lights flickered unsteadily. Gorman's voice sounded crisply over ev
eryone's suit communicator.
'First squad up, on line. Hicks, get your people in a cordon between the entrance and the APC. Watch your rear. Vasquez take point. Let's move.'
A line of troopers advanced on the main entrylock. No one expected a greeting committee to meet them, any more than they expected to cycle the lock and stroll in without difficulty but it was still something of a shock to encounter the pair of heavy-duty tractors that were parked nose-to-nose in front of the big door, barring any entry. It implied a conscious effort on the part of those inside to keep something outside.
Vasquez reached the silent machines first and paused to peer inside the operator's cab of the nearest. The controls had been ripped out and strewn around the interior. Impassive, she squeezed between the earthmovers, her tone phlegmatic as she reported back.
'Looks like somebody took a crowbar to the instrumentation. She reached the main doorway and nodded to her right, where Drake flanked her. Apone arrived, scanned the barrier, and moved to the external door controls. His fingers tried every combination. None of the telltale lights came alive.
'Busted?' Drake inquired.
'Sealed. There's a difference. Hudson, get up here. We need a bypass.'
No funny cracks now as the comtech, all business, put his gun aside and bent to examine the door panel. 'Standard stuff, he said in less than a minute. Using a tool taken from his work belt, he pried away the protective weather facing and studied the wiring. 'Take two puffs, Sarge.' His fingers deft and deliberate in their movements, despite the wind and cold, he began patching around the ruined circuitry. Apone and the others waited and watched.
'First squad,' the sergeant snapped into his suit pickup 'assemble on me at the main lock.'
A sign creaked and groaned overhead where it had broken loose from its moorings. The wind howled around them buffeting nerves more than bodies. Hudson made a connection. Two indicator lights flickered fitfully. Moaning against the dust that had accumulated in its guide rail, the big door slid back on its tracks, traveling in fits and starts, in sync with the blinking lights. Halfway open it jammed. It was more than enough.
Apone motioned Vasquez forward. The muzzle of her smartgun preceding her, she stepped inside. Her companions followed as Gorman's voice crackled in their headsets.
'Second team, move up. Flanking positions, close quarters How's it look, Sergeant?'
Apone's eyes scanned the interior of the silent structure 'Clean so far, sir. Nobody home yet.'
'Right. Second team, keep watching behind you as you advance.' The lieutenant spared a moment to glance up and behind him. 'You okay, Ripley?'
She was abruptly aware that she was breathing too fast, as though she'd just finished running a marathon instead of having been standing in one place. She nodded curtly, angry at herself, angry at Gorman for his concern. He returned his attention to the console.
Vasquez and Apone strode down the wide, deserted corridor A few lights burned blue overhead. Emergency illumination already beginning to weaken. No telling how long the batteries had been burning. The wind accompanied them partway in whistling down the metal concourse. Pools of water stained the floor. Farther along, rain dripped through blast holes in the ceiling. Apone tilted his head back so that his helmet camera would simultaneously record the evidence of the firelight and transmit it back to the APC.
'Pulse-rifles,' he murmured, explaining the cause of the ragged holes. 'Somebody's a wild shot.'
In the operations bay, Ripley glanced sharply at Burke 'People confined to bed don't run around firing pulse-rifles inside their habitat. People with inoperative communications equipment don't go around firing off pulse-rifles. Something else makes them do things like that.' Burke simply shrugged and turned to watch the screens.
Apone made a face at the blast holes. 'Messy.' It was a professional opinion, not an aesthetic one. The master sergeant couldn't abide sloppy work. Of course, these were only colonists he reminded himself. Engineers, structural technicians, service classifications. No soldiers. Maybe one or two cops. No need for soldiers—until now. And why now? The wind taunted him. He searched the corridor ahead, seeking answers and finding only darkness.
'Move out.'
Vasquez resumed her advance, more machinelike in her movements than any robot. Her smartgun cannon shifted slowly from left to right and back again, covering every inch ahead every few seconds. Her eyes were downcast, intent on the gun's tracking monitor instead of the floor underfoot. Footsteps echoed around and behind her, but ahead it was silent.
Gorman tapped a finger alongside a large red button 'Quarter and search by twos. Second team, move inside. Hicks take the upper level. Use your motion trackers. Anybody sees anything moving, sing out.'
Someone ventured a couple of lines a capella from Thor's storm-calling song at the end of Das Rheingold. It sounded like Hudson, but Ripley couldn't be sure, and no one owned up to the chorus. She tried to watch all the individual camera monitors simultaneously. Every dark corner inside the building was a gateway to Hell, every shadow a lethal threat She had to fight to keep her breathing steady.
Hicks led his squad up a deserted stairwell to the town's second level. The corridor was a mirror image of the one directly beneath, maybe a little narrower but just as empty. It did offer one benefit: They were pretty well out of the wind.
Standing in the middle of a knot of troops, he unlimbered a small metal box with a glass face. It had delicate insides and like most marine equipment, a heavily armoured exterior. He aimed it down the hallway and adjusted the controls. A couple of LEDs lit up brightly. The gauges stayed motionless. He panned it slowly from right to left.
'Nothing,' he reported. 'No movement, no signs of life.'
'Move out' was Gorman's disappointed response.
Hicks held the scanner out in front of him while his squad covered him, front, back, and sideways. They passed rooms and offices. Some of the doors stood ajar, others shut tight The interiors were similar and devoid of surprises.
The farther they went, the more blatant became the evidence of struggle. Furniture was overturned and papers scattered about. Irreplaceable computer storage disks had been trampled underfoot. Personal possessions, shipped at great cost over interstellar distances, had been thrown thoughtlessly aside, smashed and broken. Priceless books of real paper floated soddenly in puddles of water that had leaked from frozen pipes and holes in the ceiling.
'Looks like my room in college.' Burke was trying to be funny. He failed.
Several of the rooms Hicks's squad passed had not just been turned upside down; they'd been burned. Black streaks seared walls of metal and composite. In several offices the triple-paned safety-glass windows had been blown out. Rain and wind gusted through the gaps. Hicks stepped inside one office to lift a half-eaten doughnut from a listing table. A nearby coffee cup overflowed with rainwater. The dark grounds lay scattered across the floor, floating like water mites in the puddles.
Apone's people systematically searched the lower level moving in pairs that functioned as single organisms. They went through the colonists' modest, compact living quarters one apartment at a time. There wasn't much to see. Hudson kept his eyes on his scanner as he prowled alongside Vasquez looking up only long enough to take note of a particular stain on one wall. He didn't need sophisticated electronic analyzers to tell him what it was: dried blood. Everyone in the APC saw it too. No one said anything.
Hudson's tracker let out a beep, the sound explosively loud in the empty corridor. Vasquez whirled, her gun ready Tracker and smartgun operator exchanged a glance. Hudson nodded, then walked slowly toward a half-open door that was splintered partway off its frame. Holes produced by pulse-rifle rounds peppered the remnants of the door and the walls framing it.
As the comtech eased out of the way, Vasquez sidled up close to the ruined barrier and kicked it in. She came as close as possible to firing without actually unleashing a stream of destruction on the room's interior.
Dangling from a
length of flex conduit, a junction box swung back and forth like a pendulum, driven by the wind that poured in through a broken window. The heavy metal box clacked against the rails of a child's bunk bed as it swung.
Vasquez uttered a guttural sound. 'Motion detectors. I hate 'em.' They both turned back to the hallway.
Ripley was watching the view provided by Hicks's monitor Suddenly she leaned forward. 'Wait! Tell him to—' Abruptly aware that only Burke and Gorman could hear her, she hurried to plug in her headset jack, patching herself into the intersuit communications net. 'Hicks, this is Ripley. I saw something on your screen. Back up.' He complied, and the picture on his monitor retreated. 'That's it. Now swing left There!'
The two men who shared the operations bay with her watched as the image provided by the corporal's camera panned until it stabilized on a section of wall full of holes and oddly shaped gouges and depressions. Ripley went cold. She knew what had caused the irregular pattern of destruction.
Hicks ran a glove over the battered metal. 'You seeing this okay? Looks melted.'
'Not melted,' Ripley corrected him. 'Corroded.'
Burke looked over at her, raised an eyebrow. 'Hmm. Acid for blood.'
'Looks like somebody bagged them one of Ripley's bad guys here.' Hicks sounded less impressed than the Company rep.
Hudson had been making his own inspection of a room on the lower level. Now he beckoned to his companions to join him. 'Hey, if you like that, you're gonna love this.' Ripley and her companions shifted their attention to the view being relayed back to the APC by the voluble private's camera.
He was looking down. His feet framed a gaping hole. As he leaned forward over the edge they could see another hole directly below the first and beyond, dimly illuminated by his helmet light, a section of the maintenance level. Pipes conduits, wiring-all had been eaten away by the action of some ferocious liquid.
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