Alternative Directions: Options
Chapter 37
Mars Colony
Base Dome
Date: 1st March AC 198
Time: 15:20 MST [Mars Standard Time
Noin
The elevator pinged and the doors opened. Silence greeted her. Three seconds. Five. Still no sound from beyond the doors. Noin, standing to one side of the doors, back pressed to the cold metal and gun in hand, finally glanced out, eyes sweeping the area and grunted softly. No reception committee. Good. She was almost surprised, but they could not be everywhere, these people who came as invaders.
Stepping out she glanced up at the dome overhead. With the emergency lighting set to strobe, the dome flashed intermittent various shades of red. The pink of the Martian sky was usually visible through the transparent panels, but now the plexiglas was tinted blood red by the red glow of the lights and it was not so easy to see beyond.
The immediate area about the elevators was deserted and to her left one of the three hydroponics garden domes dominated the view. Behind her position, on the far side of the elevator block the control tower for the shuttle bay reared three stories high. All seemed quiet. Her goal lay to her right where the main administration block housing the control room for the project itself stood, the tallest structure in the Base Dome.
In an emergency situation there should be twenty seven people in that building, not counting herself of course. By rights she should have gone to her station in the control tower when the alert had been raised, but she had remained with her children. Now she eyed the structure with brooding hatred, considering her course of action. Not knowing who was ESUN security was a danger. She could not trust anyone, and she wanted to encounter only one of them. The only one she knew was ESUN. Oh yes. She had a few words coming with Shanna.
//I have to trust that he knows what he's talking about. He's been right so far. God, Jenny. No. Not now. I can't afford the distraction. Zechs, you bastard. It would help me if you trusted me enough to tell me all of it. What are you keeping from me? Damn, the man. He knows but he just won't tell me.//
Noin settled on her course toward the control center, noting every possible cover she might be able to use. She really had no desire to advertise her presence to her so called friend. The eerie silence of the base caused her to glance uneasily around. It was a rare occurrence that the base did not resound with the sounds of activity. It seemed so deserted. In her time at the base they had gone through Meteor strike drills twice and she had had occasion to be out under the enviro-dome. It had been an unsettling feeling then, but now, it was much more.
The buildings under the dome, and above the ground level, all had windows. Windows were made to be looked out of. Anyone could see her if they were at a window. There should be up to ten people in each of the three hydroponics habitats, twenty to thirty in the third dome on this day, attending to plantings. While the hydroponics domes were opaque it was quite possible to see into the major dome from a number of positions and who ever did would likely have a pretty clear view of her. It was more than possible from the control tower and the shuttle control tower that anyone within, especially from the higher floors, could have an uninterrupted view of her actions. She felt as though she was striding naked in public, inviting their attention and commentary.
//Get a grip, girl. Your better than this.//
No one moved within her sight. No machinery rumbled and grumbled as she was accustomed to. There were no voices or laughter in the background. There was not even music playing, where someone worked on broken down machines as there usually was. It was eerie. Too quiet. It served to heighten her perceptions.
She did not mind the time she took in moving from cover to cover, working her way slowly toward the building. It was safer. From elevator to packing crates usually stored in the supply dome, to the trolleys where the young plants were waiting to be moved into the third hydroponics dome. She paused there, smelling the earthy scent that was subtly different to the earth smell of their distant home, eyes roving over the area, seeking any hint that she was not alone. Slowly, slowly and with great care to lessen the chance of a hasty, rash action alerting the enemy to her presence.
She had to believe in her abilities. Already once today she had failed to listen to her instincts. Well, no, not really. Her instinct had said danger, kill, without her reading the message sent from brain to hands and feet. She had not intended to kill, but she had hit hard enough to do so, and if she did not want to face that situation again she had to exercise more care. She had been trained to be the best, and it was not all that long ago that she had been a soldier. She had not liked to kill. She was not a cold blooded killer and she would never become a rabid dog.
Leaving the shelter of the mass of trolleys she skimmed the ground in the shadow of the third dome. For an instant she thought she detected movement on the other side of the plexiglass dome and with her heart in her mouth she slipped behind a forklift, glaring at the dome, waiting for the hue and cry to go up, but there was only silence. Breathing a sigh of relief after a count of sixty had produced no alarm she left the shelter of the old vehicle and ghosted up to the door.
Somewhere in this building was her nemesis. Her betrayer. She would be quick and she would learn why the bitch had chosen to work for the ESUN. She would learn who amongst the Terra Forming Team were Sleeper agents. She would teach Shanna bloody sex pot McIntyre what it meant to cross Lucrezia Noin.
She grasped the handle in steady fingers, senses alert, eyes scanning the door for any indication of a possible booby trap. All the trust was gone. She could trust no one because that bloody blonde menace she had the hots for would not tell her who she could not trust. The door to the tower was unlocked, as it should be, even in an emergency situation, but she paused, her hand poised on the knob as it turned too easily, alarm tingling through her senses.
Something was not right. Something felt wrong. Instincts she had not had occasion to listen to for well over a year warned her, coursing through blood, bone and brain. Something beyond the door was wrong. Taking a deep, steadying breath she nudged the door open sufficient to allow her to peer into the foyer.
A quick glance in the foyer and she scowled at the very obvious emptiness of it. This was all wrong. There were supposed to be guards here. Two on duty at all times, and in an emergency there should be four, one at each of the two doors leading into the building, one at the elevators and one behind the security desk. Not good.
Feeling her heart pound as she had not since the war she slipped into the room, body tucked into a low crouch, presenting as small a target as possible. Across the length of the room angling her direction she made her way to the security desk. It was supposed to never be unmanned. She crouched in its shelter, glaring at the elevators and the doors in the walls on either side of the foyer and then slipped around the desk.
She gasped, spinning, gun drawn and held in a firm hand as she swept the room again. Satisfied that for the moment she was alone she knelt over the prone form sprawled behind the desk, reaching to feel for a pulse. The pool of blood gathered around his head was not a good sign and she sighed, confirming what her first impression had told her. Dead. Not good. Not good at all. She examined him quickly, checking the wound for how he had died and fighting down the urge to vomit. Not so much as the means by which he had died, but by the cold bloodedness of it. Who ever had done it had been quick, silent and ruthless. Slit throats were somewhat difficult to do from a distance. Likely he had known and trusted his killer.
"Damn." A whisper. "Sorry, Johnny. I'm sorry you had to get caught up in this."
She had known him well, having chatted with him just this morning on her way into work. Every morning or afternoon he would offer her a cheery comment and a friendly wave. One of the good guys, he had been. One of the few people who could easily draw a laugh out of her.
Rising from his side Noin turned to the desk, pursing her lips and whistled softly at the array of blank screens displayed there. The surveillance cameras were all down. Almost every inch of the Base Dome was under surveillance, with the notable exception of the bedrooms, bathrooms and community showers. Scowling she fairly attacked the keyboard, running every system check she could think of and inventing a few on the spot. Nothing she tried would bring them up and while it meant no one would see her coming using them, it also meant that she had no way of knowing where anyone else was.
If the cameras were down, and Johnny had been killed and left so openly on display, then more than she had thought was happening here. Her lust to hunt down Shanna McIntyre suddenly took a back seat. Why take out the security system? Would it not be safer to commandeer the facilities and use them to their benefit? Why would the agents kill the cameras? It made no sense and she had no time to think about it now.
Beyond the security desk, to the north of the room lay the elevator, the doors standing invitingly open. Near the elevator, but on the western wall of the foyer, the door to the stairs was closed. The door to her left, the west side of the foyer, led to the canteen, storage rooms and first level offices. It too was closed. If she was where she was supposed to be, then Shanna McIntyre would be in the control room itself, two levels up. Decision made Noin moved to the nearest door, the one leading to the canteen and other facilities of this floor and pressing her side to the metal of the wall near the door she pushed it open.
Nothing.
Not a sound. No movement.
Counting silently to thirty Noin waited. Still nothing.
With a sigh she glanced around the foyer, slipped to the elevators and wedged the elevator doors open. No one would be coming at her back from there. She returned to the west door and taking a deep breath she ducked around the door, aiming to hide behind the potted plant placed to the south of the door and cursed fluently.
The plant and the ceramic pot lay in blasted shards around the body of the second of the security team in charge of the tower. There was no doubt that he was dead. No one could survive with a hole that large in him.
"God." Noin whispered. "What the bloody hell has been going on here?"
They were not long dead. Only minutes. He was still warm to her touch. She had heard nothing as she had approached the tower. From the condition of both men she had found thus far she estimated they must have been killed around the time she was riding the elevator up to the surface. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes, not much longer than that. Twenty at most.
The eerie silence of the building set her nerves tingling. Fighting the urge to start shooting indiscriminately at everything in sight she turned, glancing down the hallway behind her. Soldiers instinct set the hair at her nape on end, warning her that she was being watched. All three of the doors she could see were closed. The silence was broken only by her own breathing. Her heart began to race.
MOVE
Instinct demanded and Noin threw herself back to the side, out of the door she had only just entered by. The chatter of an automatic weapon shattered the silence, impact points chipping the floor where she had stood seconds before. Not pausing Noin rolled to her feet, calculating how many seconds she had before her assailant entered the room.
//Too long. It's been way too long since I had to survive combat.//
Nor did she have in her possession her preferred type of weapons. Not to worry. She had not been a slouch at hand to hand combat, if it came down to that. She was one of her Masters best students. They would come through that door hard and fast, likely in a diving roll, shooting as they came. She had the two hand guns she had taken off the men she had killed. She could set them to one shot, semi automatics or full barrage and waist the clip of ammunition if she chose to. There was also the hunting knife she had always carried since her first days at the Lake Victoria Academy. The bullet graze on her arm was an inconvenience, nothing more.
Sweeping for cover she cursed, realizing just how bare of cover the foyer was. The room had always been spartan in its furnishings and now she regretted that as she had not before. No where to hide. The shelter of the security station was no shelter at all, which, on a second glance around the room left her with one option. Nothing for it.
No other choice, time was running out. A running jump toward the door she had just come through and she caught an overhead beam, arms and shoulders straining to pull herself up into the open network of beams. Thanking fortune for the lower gravity of Mars she swung her legs up, wrapping them around a beam and crossing over her ankles. She would only need a few seconds if she could just secure herself.
The door slammed open, a figure with automatic rifle blazing threw itself forward and tucked into a roll, coming up in a kneeling position. A second form remained standing, shooting over the head of the first, both strafing the foyer, cutting the security desk to ruin. Circuit boards exploded, glass and shrapnel flying everywhere. From her position she could see the guards body shudder and jerk as it was hit repeatedly. Noin grunted, a gun now in each hand as her legs took the strain of her weight, lowering herself a little, thumbs flicking the selection of firing rate on the weapons. In her heart there was no hesitation. They had killed. What they had done here was cold blooded murder. There would be no questions asked and no quarter given, by them or by her. They deserved what was coming.
It was war.
The first bark of her weapon was answered by a grunt from her chosen target, the back of his head exploding in a fountain of blood. Before the second assailant could get his bearings on the source of the attack he knew an instant of pain and then nothing as the bullet Noin gifted with his name took him from just behind the left ear and came out somewhere along his lower right jaw.
Two single shots. Two thuds as bodies hit the floor, weapons clattering across the floor. Noin flicked her eyes to the door that now hung from one hinge, the other broken by the force of their entry.
Noin hung from the rafter, metal bruising her thighs and calves and waited, weapons at the ready.
Ten seconds. Twenty.
Her body screamed to get down from its unnatural position, her heart beat thundering in her ears.
Thirty seconds.
The building was silent. No screams. No running feet of anyone coming to investigate.
Forty seconds. Fifty.
Noin began to breathe again, ignoring the pain in her thighs. It hurt. Even in light gravity she had body weight and the beam she hung from was metal and only fifty centimeters wide.
Sixty.
With a soft hiss of protest to the pain flaring in her thighs and ankles she tucked one gun into her belt, keeping the other in hand. Stretching her free hand up to take some of her weight, and easing the pain in her legs. Somewhat more comfortable she hung from the rafter and waited. Only after another full minute had passed did Noin dare to lower herself from her precarious perch, careful to do so silently, wincing at protesting muscles, eyes darting around the foyer.
Silence.
Breathing a little easier, eyes still darting around, she knelt beside the bodies, turning them to identify them if she could. One was a security guard, assigned to this building and seeing that she spat a curse. That would have explained about the guard with the slit throat. Johnny had been friends with Craig Chandler. Good friends. She wondered if Chandler had had any regrets about killing him. The second man was Richard Muir, a quiet, easy going hydroponics engineer from hydroponics dome three.
//I think I am going to be sick. Just as soon as I have the leisure time to indulge in it. How could they have done it? How could they have made friends with everyone and so cold bloodedly kill them?//
No time. No time for that now. She had to pull herself together and check the remainder of this floor. There was no help for it. She could not afford to take the chance on leaving anyone at her back she could not trust. The deaths of the two security guards at these people's hands, friends for God's sake, clearly said it. The identity of the two killers made that clear enough. She could trust no one.
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15:47
Everyone was dead. She felt ill. How could they? She had found the bodies of twelve people so far. Most had been taken down from behind. Three had had their throats slit. Most had been gunned down where they worked. She was sickened. What did they think they were doing? How did they think they were going to explain this cold blooded slaughter?
One more room on this floor to check. One more room and that was the room where Shanna McIntyre should be. Would she find a corpse? Was Zechs wrong about her? If he was, she would be in there dead, either gunned down or with an extra grizzly mouth. If he was right, she would likely be gone, one of the hunters now picking off the personnel. If that was so, where would she chase her down?
Noin paused, peering through the window down into the dome, careful to keep out of the direct line of fire should there be a sniper. She would put nothing past these people, not after the horror she had found in the first three floors of this building. She did not doubt that on the fourth floor she would find carnage. They had been thorough.
The ground below her vantage point was deserted. No one moved. The deserted area was bathed in the pulsing red lights of the emergency warning. No one moved. Even in the emergency there should have been some sign of someone down there, checking on the machinery, on the functions of the dome. How many other people had they killed? Were they only targeting the control tower? If this main control tower had come under fire, then why not the shuttle control tower too?
Noin shook her head. Too many questions. She needed answers, but she would have to get those answers later. She had not thought they would go this far. She had never thought they would slaughter the terra formers to get to her children and her man. If they did this to the team they had worked along side for years, then what would they be likely to do to herself and Zechs if they caught them? What would those new agents, the paramilitary group brought in to take her babies, be likely to do? There was no way she would allow those animals to take her children.
The door to the control room was closed. She considered its featureless blue self in silence, weighing options. Locked? Perhaps. If so, likely Shanna dearest was behind it. Hiding in there. Unlocked? Possibly trapped. She would not put that past them either. Unlocked, would be an open invitation to come in. Probably face a gun in the face.
No, she did not trust entry by that door at all. If the door should be unlocked that likely meant they had sabotaged the control systems and had no fear of anyone entering the room being able to use the systems to track them down. It would also mean the room beyond was empty. So many possibilities and none of them good.
The floor above her was still unchecked, an unknown question at her back. Dare she make a move to enter that room without checking above her? If she left the room and went upstairs, she might be leaving an enemy at her back. Options. Decisions. Considering the possible consequences of each action she felt sickened.
Zechs.
Was this what he experienced? Possibilities, he said. Possible events, each leading to other events, making a path difficult to find. She had a sudden better understanding of what he had been trying to tell her and blistering shame speared into her. She had not understood. She had not understood what he had been trying to say. She had demanded that he tell her what would happen. She simply had not understood.
She did now.
Considering the layout of the control room and thinking on the layout of the building Noin studied the door and nodded slightly, decision made.
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15:55
Shanna McIntyre
Shanna McIntyre replayed the message and smiled. Yes, that would do the trick. No blame could be laid at the feet of the ESUN Security Council when this little gem was leaked to the media. No one would believe that the security agency was responsible for the damages done at the colony and terra forming base. No one would be able to take the ESUN to task over the lives lost, or the set back to the founding of the Martian colony.
It would not be long now before Noin and Merquise were run to ground and placed in restraints. She had to admit they were better than she had formerly given them credit for. Likely one if not both of them was out in the control building somewhere even now. Craig and Richard had not joined her in the control room, so likely either Merquise or Noin had gotten to them, possibly taking them down permanently. That brief spate of shooting she had heard a while ago had been the last sound she had heard in the building.
She would need to send off this message before she was interrupted, but she had time yet. Perhaps not long. Just a few more things to do and then it made no difference if she lived or died, the matter would be irreversible. No one could stop it. Not she, not Simpson. No one. Certainly not Merquise or that sniveling bitch Noin.
God, how could she have wasted so much time bemoaning the fact that Merquise would not take her to bed? Overall she liked the woman, but she had been an utter fool when it came to Peacecraft. Three months on an interplanetary shuttle and she had not once got into his pants? Was the woman a total fool when it came to men? Honor and love be damned. If you wanted to get laid by a man you took matters into your own hands, you never gave the idiot a chance to refuse you. Men were walking sex bombs. You just needed to know which switches to flip and they were easy to defuse, too, if they wanted sex and you did not. It was all a matter of control.
With a sigh she glanced around the control room. No more useless time wasting. Work to do. Standing in the control room in a building full of the dead did not bother her in the slightest.
Casualties of war. You got used to them after a while, she reflected. Yes, you found yourself able to ignore the dead and get on with the job. She had thought that her days of daring do were over, when the Alliance fell to Oz, but she had been offered a position by a certain individual who had plans for the future, and he had been right. She chuckled as she programmed the computer.
She had been called within days of the Barton Incursion and assigned to the Terra Forming team on Mars. She had had two months to train and then boarded a research shuttle to Mars, arriving well after Noin and Merquise arrived, but her cover had been perfect. They had not suspected she was ESUN Security and she had taken charge of the Sleeper agents placed here when the colony had first begun to form. He had long sight, her superior, and he had not missed much.
It had not been boring to be Merquise's keeper. She was a trained engineer and fitted well into the terra forming team, no one having suspected she had another reason to be on Mars. Shortly she would be able to play Miss Distressed Innocent for the cameras, and there after resume her position when this was all done, unless she was to be reassigned, of course. Likely they would not be leaving Merquise on Mars, and he would have other keepers where they took him. He would be removed to a more controlled environment.
"The man should be dead." She chuckled. "More lives than a cat, that one. Right then. The virus is ready to go. The message sounds suitably panicky to get their attention and it's just a matter of time." Smiling she keyed the send. "Done." She whispered, smiling as she activated the virus. "And done."
Shattering glass erupted to her side, showering her with shards and something hit her full on and threw her across the room. Stunned she slammed into the wall, sliding to the floor with a groan. Pain pounded through her head and vaguely she heard the dim sound of crunching glass under booted feet, and a hand caught in her hair, jerking her head up.
"Bitch." Noin snarled into her face. "What did you just do?"
Noin shook her when no response was forthcoming, hand fisted in long flame tresses. Snarled and threw her to the floor and began searching her pockets before straightening, eyeing the automatic pistol she had taken from the engineer and tucking it into her own belt.
"You won't be needing that. What did you just send and to whom?"
Again silence. McIntyre glared sullenly at her, her only consolation was that it was too late to stop it now. It would begin any time now. Any time.
"I am not really in a good mood, bitch. I have not had the best of days, you know? Some asshole is trying their damn hardest to see it stuffs up even more. Your bully boys downstairs are dead. Just desserts from what I've seen of their handy work. How do you think you are going to explain this, Shanna? How the bloody hell do you think you can explain this away? People can't keep secrets. It's not possible to cover up slaughtering people."
A short, harsh bark of laughter escaped her, as she forced herself to overcome the pain. She was not done yet. "How did you know the door would be trapped?"
Noin looked at the door, eyes sweeping the set up there. Crude. Very crude. Tied to the door knob was a string which attached to the trigger of the automatic rifle set up directly in front of the door. Shaking her head Noin drew her knife and carefully cut the cord, then moving the rifle away from the door, never taking her attention completely from the woman sprawled across the floor.
"It was obvious that something stank. I went upstairs and came down, through the window. People tend to think more of doors when they trap a room, you know? It is a universal failing, I think. What did you send?"
Green eyes flashed to the clock face and she frowned. 16:01. It should have happened already. Maybe it hadn't been as long as she had thought, but she was certain her time schedule was right. She cried out in protest when Noin back handed her. Maybe the clocks were a few seconds out. A minute maybe.
"Don"t push me, Shanna. Answer, or your body will join the others here today. What did you do?"
Her eyes were a deep violet blue she had never seen before. An unusual, intense colour and a chillingly cold colour too. This woman radiated violence. Barely controlled violence. Lucrezia Noin had always struck her as a strong woman and now she thought she could be a cruel woman, when she turned her mind to it. Shanna knew of her history as a Specials Officer in the Oz forces, but she had thought she had known this woman. Dangerous, yes, but not a killer. Now she was not so sure. Those eyes. Despite the briefing and the reports she was suddenly certain that those who had briefed her had erred.
"I sent a message." No harm in her knowing. She could not do a thing about it.
The gun cocked and Noin glared coldly at her, warning in the violet eyes.
"I sent a Mayday call." //What will you make of that, bitch? Likely think I'm lying and slap me around again.//
"What?" Startled Noin backed a step. "A Mayday call? To who?"
"Broad band. Everyone will pick it up. Everyone." //Not a thing you can do about it. It's already gone out.//
Noin shook her head, violet eyes widening, understanding coming. Understanding and a grudging respect for this woman who faced her down, and for whoever had devised the plan.
"Raiders. Your going to blame the deaths on a raid. How many are you bastards planning to kill?"
"As many as it takes. The explosives are already set. All around Base Dome. All over Alpha dome. They'll go any second now. Nothing anyone can do to stop it. Raiders attacked the colony. It will be all over the ESUN. The media will make a circus of it. No one will believe it was anything other than Raiders."
Horrifyingly true. The Raiders were already a media circus. The perfect scapegoats. There would be a hue and cry from all corners of the Earth Sphere; an outcry against the lawlessness of the outlying areas of the ESUN. Demands would be made of the Preventers and the ESUN forces to clean up the raiders. The few who knew or guessed the truth would not be heard above the howling of the press and politicians and mining corporations, who already complained that the Preventers were not doing enough to protect their ships and transports.
"Anyone who tries to say otherwise will be dealt with. Or their families will be dealt with. You can't win, Noin. Give it up. Let me have the children. They'll have the very best of care. The best education. They can't stay here on Mars. You know that. Even if you had succeeded where would you go? This is Mars, where is there for you to hide here? There is nowhere in the ESUN that you, your children or Merquise can hide. No where. Better to let the children have a normal childhood on Earth than to try running from colony to colony. If you do that, they'll only get hurt."
"Shut up." A savage snarl. "If you value your life, just shut up."
"I'm talking sense, Noin." //Rattled her. Good. She'll be easier to handle.// "You know it. Zechs is too noticeable. You can't hide him. What makes you think you could hide his children?"
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Noin
Noin swung the butt of the gun against her jaw, watching her crumble, unconscious to the floor. "I did tell you to shut up."
She moved to the communications board and shook her head. Message sent and even as she watched the computer was failing. A virus, most likely, to disable the bases communications systems. Likely Alpha Dome, too, was down. No coordinated effort could be made against them without reliable communications. Even internal inter dome communications was down. She briefly wondered what was going on over there, in the Alpha Dome and quickly pulled her thoughts back. She was more concerned with what was happening here. One problem at a time.
"I don't know how, but I'll not let you bastards win."
t.b.c.
Karina Robertson 2004