The Lost Voyager: A Space Opera Novel Page 6

  Thousands of digits, letters and symbols flowed along the screen. Squid Two hovered closer, paused for a moment, and beeped twice. Babcock nodded.

  “Found what we need?” Mach said.

  “There’s a hidden directory. Squid Two’s capturing the contents before I delete it.”

  “Are you sure that’s the data we’ve been asked to destroy?”

  “Unless they’re worried about their operations logs, video feeds or resource management information getting out, I’d say so. I’ll purge everything just to be sure, including the backup data. Provided there’s no physical copies, it’ll do the job.”

  “Will that leave this place screwed?” Adira said.

  Mach shrugged. “Who cares? OreCorp can come back and reconfigure if they want to use it again. It does leave one question, though. Whoever attacked this place… did they take a copy?”

  Babcock fiddled with the pad. “The directory hasn’t been accessed since it was placed here. I think it’s safe to assume they didn’t.”

  “Probably a rogue attack,” Sanchez said. “Easy target for marauders outside the Sphere. What’s in this directory, anyway?”

  “Sensitive company information,” Mach said, trying to be as vague as possible. “You know how corporations like to bury dirty secrets.”

  “Don’t I ever. I’ve been one of those secrets more than a few times.”

  Adira narrowed her emerald eyes and glared at Mach. He suspected she might see straight through his high-level baloney. Being naïve wasn’t a normal character trait for a lethal assassin.

  “I’ll analyze the information later,” Babcock said. “We’re nearly done.”

  “We don’t need a copy,” Mach said.

  “Don’t worry. OreCorp’s secrets are safe with Squid Two and me.”

  At some stage the reason would have to come out. Mach wondered if letting Babcock break the news might be a good way to do it. He could feign surprise and the crew would already be committed.

  “What about the security feeds?” Adira said, gazing up at the blank screens. “Can you find one for outside the transport door? See if we can see who or what caused those pools of blood?”

  “One job at a time,” Babcock said.

  Data stopped streaming across the holographic display. Squid Two descended back to the height of Babcock’s shoulder and its silver tentacles drooped. Mach raised his eyebrows at the speed the older man continued to tap the pad.

  Babcock input a long command, spun in his chair, and extravagantly raised his index finger. “Just say the word and the deed is done.”

  “Do it,” Mach said. “Start a planet-wide scan next. See if we can locate Voyager.”

  A 3D image of the planet flashed up and slowly rotated. Markers lit up around the sphere, joined by lines to form a grid system.

  “It might take thirty minutes,” Babcock said. “I’ve input parameters to search for anything that’s appeared in the last two months.”

  Mach raised his smart-screen. “Lassea, Tulula, you can bring the drone in. We’ve started a search from here.”

  “Roger that,” Lassea instantly replied.

  “What about the security feeds?” Adira said.

  “Coming right up,” Babcock said.

  The five screens on the wall blinked to life. One displayed the Intrepid’s vague outline on the dark strip of land in front of the facility. Three showed locations inside the facility. The final one focused on a murky area.

  “There’s thirty cameras and they last recorded two weeks ago,” Babcock said. “I’ll load the last few minutes of the footage outside the transport door.”

  The first screen switched from the Intrepid. A running clock in the top right corner displayed local date and time from two weeks ago. The open transport door threw out a shaft of artificial light. Two figures dressed in bulky atmosphere suits stood at the edge of the shot, looking skyward.

  Mach stepped closer and pointed at them. “Is that where you saw the blood?”

  Adira sharply inhaled.

  A large claw or talon pierced through both bodies at chest height. Both figures were raised off the floor and pulled off-screen to the right. A flash of light erupted over the warehouse and the feed cut to static.

  “Play it again,” Mach said.

  Sanchez jumped to his feet and joined Mach at the screen. Babcock ran the last thirty seconds of footage. Mach squinted at the screen but couldn’t recognize what attacked the facility staff. The flash of light explained the hole in the roof. They must’ve been looking at a ship and maybe didn’t realize some of its deadly passengers were already on the ground.

  “Can you zoom in, Babs?” Sanchez asked.

  The resolution blurred when Babcock attempted it. “It’ll only work on live feeds. We don’t have auto-focus on historical captures.”

  “What’s to the right?” Adira asked.

  “A quarry,” Babcock said. “That’s the dark screen on the end. I’ll see if the floodlights still work.”

  Babcock pushed back in his chair and wheeled to the end of the console. He ran his finger over a shiny glass plate before tapping his finger around the top right corner.

  One by one, bright white lights thumped on around a hundred-meter-square quarry, brightening the right-hand screen. It dropped to a depth of fifty meters with an uneven mottled surface at the bottom.

  “Focus in on the ground,” Mach said. “There’s something down there.”

  The feed panned in.

  A mix of frost-covered clothing, suits, and bones filled the surface, piling toward the center of the quarry. The team stared in silence at the screen.

  Mach unslung his Stinger. “Get yourself prepared, Sanchez. We’re going down there to take a closer look.”

  Chapter Seven

  Lassea took a deep breath and inhaled the bitter coffee vapor from the machine in the mess kitchen. Mach had provided them with some kabelleira beans, which she regarded as the best coffee in the known universe.

  When the machine finished brewing the beverage, she filled two china cups with the dark liquid and sweetened it with a pinch of sugar and cream.

  Although the purists would sooner burn themselves on a stake than sweeten kabelleira, Lassea much preferred the balance of sweetness and bitterness. Not to mention how the sugar metabolized with a chemical within the genetically modified bean to release a stronger dose of stimulant.

  She needed everything she could get to stay awake—and avoid the nightmares.

  She lifted the cups, noticing her hands still had the tremble that had manifested a few weeks ago. The coffee would help for a while, so it was okay—for now. She had made sure to hide her trembling from Mach. He would only grill her on what was wrong. Ever since she’d first met him, he had looked out for her—and her brother—although that was no longer possible.

  As she turned her back and headed to the bridge, being careful not to spill the coffee, she choked back tears and composed herself. She would have time after the mission to deal with her family issues. Right now she wanted to focus on being the best pilot she could be.

  Assuming Tulula would let her.

  Although Lassea thought the world of Mach and didn’t doubt his ability to captain the crew, she wished he hadn’t insisted on Tulula staying behind. There was something decidedly creepy about her. Well, creepier than her multi-limbed vestan appearance. It was the way the alien just glared at Lassea in that silent brooding way of hers. Lassea shivered once before steeling herself and entering the bridge.

  ‘The alien’ was sitting at Babcock’s engineering console to the front of the wide-open circular bridge. She hunched over it like an animal devouring its prey. Her four yellow ponytails were swept back over her neck. The bright color contrasted with her near-black skin.

  “You brought coffee,” the vestan said without turning around. Even up close she seemed so small. When standing upright, Tulula was barely a meter and a half tall; her head would only come to Lassea’s shoulders, yet the vest
an was no less intimidating than Adira, even when sitting.

  “I thought we could both do with something while we scan this empty husk of a planet.” Lassea placed one of the small china cups onto a non-active part of the console and stepped away to take a seat at her own console. From the corner of her eye, Lassea saw Tulula pick up the cup, taste it, then grimace.

  “You’ve put that disgusting sugar stuff in this,” Tulula said.

  “Um, yeah, is that a problem?”

  Tulula swiveled in her chair and stared at Lassea and said, “My kind cannot tolerate it; it’s poisonous to us.”

  The vestan expressions were difficult to gauge, which was what made dealing with them from a human’s point of view so difficult. At the moment the vestan woman’s flat nostrils were flared and her large yellow eyes bored into Lassea. It didn’t take an interspecies anthropologist to know that she was upset.

  “I was just trying to be kind,” Lassea said. “I’m sick of there being this tension between us.”

  “There wouldn’t be if you just left me to get on with my job,” Tulula added, turning back to her console.

  “Well, excuse me. Mach put us both on this job.” The blood was starting to rise in Lassea’s cheeks and neck as it did every time she got angered, which lately was far too often. She took a breath and avoided saying anything else to worsen their relationship.”

  “Mach didn’t need to; I’m more than capable,” Tulula said.

  “No one’s doubting that, but we’re teammates, we ought to be able to work together without all this bickering. What is it about me that bothers you so much?” Lassea already thought she knew—that she was a human—but she didn’t press it. Tulula was already unpredictable around Lassea; she didn’t want to make it worse.

  Slowly, Tulula turned to face the young pilot. “I have complicated emotions about you with regards to Ernesto,” she said now, her mouth working slowly to enunciate the words of Salus Common properly.

  “Sanchez? What’s he got to do with this?”

  “I… well, we have formed a kind of bond.”

  Now Lassea got it! She had to prevent herself from laughing. It wasn’t Tulula’s fault for misunderstanding; she was still new to working on a human crew. Lassea downed both of the coffees, her body needing the caffeine more than ever. “You’re jealous of me? You think I’m interested in Sanchez in a romantic way?”

  Tulula blinked her large yellow eyes that resembled those of the lethargic lizards on the sun world of Gatton. “The way you look at him sometimes,” Tulula said, trying to find the right words as she spoke slowly, “it makes me feel an inner violence.”

  Well, that wasn’t good at all. Lassea broke eye contact. She no longer felt the need to laugh. “I like Sanchez as a friend and a colleague,” she said firmly. “When we first worked for Mach, he helped me out, showed me the ropes. That’s all. He’s old enough to be my grandfather.”

  “Oh. I understand,” Tulula said, her voice softening. “I…” She trailed off as something started flashing on the disc-shaped holodisplay in front of her.

  “What is it?”

  “The drone, it’s picking up a signal on the far east side of the planet.”

  A bolt of excitement shot through Lassea. She jumped out of her chair and almost leapt across to Tulula. She was right, though; there on the holoscreen was a rhythmic pulsing blip, sent back to the Intrepid via the drone’s radio transceiver.

  “The signal’s weak,” Tulula said, bringing up the visual representation of it. A few spikes penetrated through a fog of electrostatic interference that didn’t seem to be coming from the planet or its atmosphere. “We’re going to need more power to clear it up. The drones system’s isn’t enough.”

  “What do you suggest?” Lassea asked. “We’ve already got most of Intrepid’s systems running at full power. Mach won’t be happy if we just start switching off processes.”

  “He won’t be happy either if we miss this opportunity to analyze the signal and find out where it’s coming from. Looking at the way it’s pulsing, I think it’s highly likely to be a distress signal of some kind.”

  “Let’s speak with Mach,” Lassea said.

  “We won’t have time for a discussion if the signal gets interrupted.” Tulula gestured the visualizing radar screen away and brought up the Intrepid’s main control panel. Her lithe, double-jointed fingers quickly manipulated the controls, diverting power from various systems to the radio array. The lights in the bridge dimmed and the antigravity plates became weaker.

  Lassea had to grab onto the seat so she didn’t start to float away.

  “It’s still not enough,” Tulula said. “I’m cutting comms and heating.”

  “Are you mad? What if there’s an emergency on the surface and they need our help? I can’t let you do that.”

  Tulula spun round to face Lassea. “Are you going to stop me?”

  Damn her! Lassea thought. Why’d she have to put them both in this situation? None of her training with the CW academy had prepared her for such close interaction with a vestan—the enemy. But then that’s why she was no longer in the CW. Mach had always insisted that she trust her instincts, and surprisingly her instinct told her to let Tulula do her thing.

  “Fine, do it,” Lassea said, “but if we don’t find anything soon, I want you to return the ship to its previous state. And you’re taking full responsibility if anything goes wrong.”

  Tulula simply smiled, gently stretching her thin lips and baring the sharp edges of her teeth. Lassea couldn’t see what it was that Sanchez liked so much about her to form this so-called bond. Perhaps she was great in… no, Lassea refused to let her thoughts go there. She pulled herself closer to the console in the near-zero-g atmosphere of the bridge and watched as Tulula ran a complicated set of frequency filters and boosters, all the while hoping they would actually find something.

  If they’d done this for nothing, Mach would likely fire them from the crew, and without her twin brother around anymore, she’d have nowhere else to go. Her whole life was here with Mach and the others.

  “Be quick,” Lassea said. “And accurate. We can’t screw this up.”

  Chapter Eight

  Mach decided this would be a good time to speak with Sanchez alone. He ordered Adira to stay behind with Babcock and Squid Two to get more information from the facility’s system and to continue to scan the planet.

  The two men stood in stoic silence as the elevator car slowly descended the edge of the chalky quarry wall. The floodlights shone down into the pit, illuminating the bones.

  “They’re so white,” Sanchez said, leaning against the transparent glass window. “Like they’ve been bleached—no pun intended,” he added with a smirk.

  “Your spirits have risen a bit,” Mach retorted, scrutinizing his friend’s face.

  “Yeah, well, nothing like descending into a pit of human bones to bring some cheer to proceedings. All this relative safety was getting boring fast.” Sanchez unconsciously lifted his left hand up to his neck but then dropped it when he remembered he was wearing the cold-temperature suit and his necklace was tucked beneath.

  “You’re worried,” Mach said. “I know it’s not about the mission. Hell, we’ve been through far more dangerous situations than this. Then there’s the awkwardness between you and Tulula—you two are no longer bickering like five-year-olds. If you’ve got something on your mind, you do know you can tell me—in confidence.”

  The motors whined as the elevator slowed. The pile of bones and ceramic-looking fragments loomed up in front of them. Mach couldn’t even begin to guess how many souls were killed to create this—or even who or what was responsible.

  “Listen, Mach, it’s not easy… or simple. I’ve never had to… wait, what’s that.” Sanchez stepped back from the car’s window and drew his rifle over his shoulder.

  Before Mach could continue his interrogation about Sanchez’s issue, movement from outside caught his attention, and like Sanchez, he brought his we
apon around to the front, raising it up to his chest. A few singular bones on the edge of the five-meter-high pile rolled as though something beneath them was writhing.

  The elevator stopped. The door opened with a quiet hiss.

  Frigid air flowed about them. Mach’s HUD charted the sudden drop in temperature, but there was a source of heat down here, keeping the quarry a few degrees higher than the normal atmosphere above the pit.

  “What are you thinking?” Mach said as the two men stepped out cautiously, testing the rocky surface beneath their feet.

  “I’m thinking I wish I had a small tactical nuke.”

  “Likewise,” Mach added. He aimed his Stinger at the moving bones and stepped forward, one foot over the other with soft, deliberate steps. Sanchez remained by his right, just a meter away. The two men stalked forward, the blue cast from their visors washing across the bleached-white remains.

  Mach instructed his visor to dull some of the bright white light from the floodlights so he could better make out the details before him. The quarry was truly massive down here at the bottom. He guessed they must be at least a hundred and fifty meters below the facility’s surface. The pit itself easily stretched a couple of hundred meters in diameter.

  “It can’t all be bone,” Sanchez said as they continued to stalk forward.

  The movement at the edge of the pit had stopped.

  “Babs, Adira, you getting anything up there?” Mach said.

  “Negative,” Adira responded. “No change whatsoever. We have a visual on you both, though. You’re almost central to the pile. What are those ceramic fragments?”

  “We’re just about to find out,” Mach replied. “Sanchez, you cover me while I inspect.”

  “On it, boss,” Sanchez said, taking a knee to steady himself and bringing his scope up to his helmet. He swept his weapon in slow arcs, his eagle eyes watching for any danger.

  Mach stepped forward to the base of the bones and fragments, slid his Stinger over his back, and kneeled down. He reached out his hand cautiously until he gripped a piece of shell the size of his palm. “Any movement?” Mach said, feeling his heart rate increasing a few extra beats per minute.