OSaBC : The Bird of Hermes
Chapter Ninteen: Unassuming Arrivals
A/N: MUCH credit to EnigmaticOne, who spent hours and hours gathering the RP notes up, typing them in, and cleaning up the grammar. Any mistakes are mine, not his.
"These logs are pretty light on the details of what the fuck your team of clowns actually did down there, Vandefar."
"That is usually by design, Admiral. After all, the Aliiance doesn't want sordid details available to be leaked by some idiot hacker. But beyond that, what we do have seems to indicate they were too busy fighting to survive and get out alive than bother recording things. Besides, I might point out they actually brought out useful intel and tech."
"Yes, well... except the energy device."
"Frankly, Admiral, if they had brought it here I'd have shot it into the sun even faster than we did the samples of the mess on the Decca. I did not get to be my age by tempting fate."
Admiral Branson and Admiral Vandefar, private comms, personal log from Branson's files in the Magog Incident
The pinnace engines cooled as Paig consulted the built-in sensor package of the ship, or as well as one could without a VI. He tapped his omnitool and studied the readouts with a grave expression, as the rest of the team sealed their armor and put on helmets. After a minute, he shook his head, turning to face the group.
"I've reviewed the scan telemetry, both from the Repensum and the limited sensor suite I can access here without a full VI. The VI issue – why they are malfunctioning – is not as simple as expected. There are multiple bands of transmissions on wavelengths that appear to be... out of phase with time, I think."
"Whatever is happening, execution and decision routines for VI's are corrupted. In theory you can use low-level argument functions with direct control, but even that may not be safe. This is in addition to whatever active nanotech effects we may encounter. I would say the decision to remove VIs off of anything that has any kind of external interaction was a good call, Commander."
"Yeah, but we stripped the VIs from our all gear." Wilson affirmed. "So some of the VI's might work?"
Holden shook his head. "I don't want to take any chances, this op is already messed up enough. You were saying, Doctor?"
Paig nodded absently. "Yes. Ah, second, the atmosphere is, as I said in the briefing, toxic, acidic and poisonous. If you suffer a suit breach you will have less than sixty seconds to patch it before you begin suffering effects. Our effective endurance in this environment, given the acidity of the atmosphere, is roughly eight hours. After that the suit's outer protective layers will be corroded to the point that the suit seal will be breached no matter what."
"Lovely." Agent Rho muttered.
"Standard omni-gel patches enough or would this stuff get through?" Ansgar asked.
"Omni-gel should work. Set it to setting six, that will last the longest. Four is stronger but less resistant, and your kinetics won't stop the mist." Paig paused to tap his omni. "We have partial manifests for what HERMES was supposed to be studying and on the way down I used the cameras to examine the sites."
"Doctor, would it help if Avasarala patched you into our orbital support team's feeds and sensors?" Holden inquired.
"That would be useful, yes, but I have the data I think we need already." Paig answered. "There was the initial landing base of the tech team, the landing base of the backup team, a forward supply and operating base, a base to act as the motor pool and storage, and two separate dig sites."
"Based on the orbital images..." Paig projected grainy images on the bulkhead while Avasarala loaded her comms suite, linked Paig to orbital support, and the others set their omni-gel to the recommended settings. The rest of the team spent this time double checking weapons, suit seals, patches and the rest of their equipment even as they watched and listened.
"The primary landing base of the backup team is destroyed. The primary base of the tech team shows heavy damage, the motor pool base is a complete wreck surrounded by various corpses and the ruins of what look like turrets. I can only presume this is either the work of General Kinnix and his team or HERMES infighting. The 'secondary' dig site was what the Repensum blew up a few minutes ago. Given that the blast site is currently registering victor radiation bands, investigating that is out. That leaves us with the primary dig site, as well as two small bases not in the initial HERMES manifest to the north."
"No signs of the planet's security measures?" Holden questioned.
"I am unsure." Paig displayed a second image on the bulkhead. "There are concentrations of those black-fur things around two buildings to the south, almost fifty kilometers from here, estimates are thirty to forty thousand such beings. The sites are tall spars of black metal with glowing green energy balls and are the source of the GTS fire we experienced. There are what look to be roads of some kind running from there to the ruins of a city, and there are the post-necrotic things fighting the black-fur creatures there, sixty kilometers east."
"We have one Kyle left in orbit, did the Repensum not fire at them?" Holden wondered.
Paig shrugged. "I am unsure of the wisdom of attracting attention to the orbiting ship, Commander. Common sense tells me nothing should be able to survive a degenerate matter destabilization blast, but nothing in this nightmare system seems to care much about 'common sense'. I would recommend holding it in abeyance in case we need it ourselves."
"Plus, targeting a GTS site is an escalation. We are here to identify and localize the HERMES sites, not glass the planet, no matter how much I wish we could." Rho chipped in.
"If we need it ourselves, we better find a helluva defensive position or we'll get taken out with it." Holden warned.
"There is one additional concern." Paig was studying the data feed from the orbital link. "As I said, several of the HERMES bases appear to have been destroyed. I strongly doubt we'd find anything there. However, the site flagged as 'primary dig site' was not destroyed. There is an automated signal being broadcast from that location."
Ansgar raised one hand. "Automated signal." He raised his other hand. "Planet fucks with all VI. Can only be good."
"Can you tell what's broadcasting the signal?" Wilson asked.
"No. Only that it is on repeat, and consists of a single phrase. 'Do not approach.'" Paig said.
"I believe that we should listen to that message." Holden deadpanned, though serious. The looks on everyone's faces showed they too considered it to be nothing but a trap. "Anything else, doc?"
"There are two secondary bases not on the HERMES manifest, as I said. One appears to be some kind of dig, the other appears to be a staging site with two GRIZZLI ground vehicles and a shuttle." Paig added. "Given that we do not possess ground transport, and that the pinnace is highly visible - and vulnerable - moving our units and the engineer and support team to that location may be a good first step."
"Armaments on the GRIZZLIs known?" Ansgar asked.
"They're old armored personnel carriers, predecessors to the current gen of APCs." Rho replied.
"I concur." Holden used the secured comms from Avasarala to contact Hammer. "Hammer, we've found a better fallback position for you to set up at. Base that appears stable and has ground transport present, marking it now."
"Copy, Commander. We'll follow you in."
Then he turned his attention to the team. "Let's make for the ground transport. Secure that, see what Hammer brought along for support, and head out for our sweep of the other sites. When we know more, we'll decide on investigating the signal or not."
The pinnace, trailed by the two other shuttles, made its way northwest. Paig and Avasarala slaved the ship's camera pickups to people's omni-tools, a kludge job to get around the lack of VI. The cam pickups were shaky and monitoring a pain in the ass, but it was safe.
Sigma flew past the 'main' base for the first HERMES team - a complete wreck, the main building looking like something exploded out of it, with the smoking, twisted wreckage of a JOTUN nearby. A shuttle rested on a landing pad, covered in black moss, with two horribly deformed corpses outside.
No energy signals detected.
"Just what could fuck up a JOTUN like that?" Wilson wondered.
"Theoretically, it could have blown its self destruct." Rho commented. "That would imply, however, that its VI was intact and that it felt it was over-matched by whatever it was facing. And I really do not want to consider what could over-match a JOTUN mech."
"They could have hard locked it to voice commands only." Holden pointed out. "Manual detonation."
Rho sniffed. "That seems like a waste of a perfectly good killing machine to me, but you're the 'experts'." His voice radiated doubt, and Holden only chuckled.
"It's a good point. But yes, the JOTUN is a worrying datapoint, but more so in conjunction with the wreckage."
Paig arched an eyebrow. "And what is the concern?"
"I don't know if we brought enough gun, and that's worrying considering just what we have with us." Wilson answered. He and Iridian activated their barriers at this point, just to be safe.
The second site passed by in the distance, smoke still rising from it. At this range they couldn't make out much, but none of the buildings appeared intact, although another shuttle was present. Avasarala managed to clean up the image - two more dead marines propped up against the shuttle, again mutated, the windshield shattered and covered in blood, and a scrawled message to stay away.
"If we survive, how about a nice beach vacation without a strange dig-site nearby ready to vomit forth abominations from the other side? Cuz so far all this looks like the kind of lead into horror movies where the main character gets stabbed to death." Ansgar grinned.
"If it doesn't have biotic absorbing abominations, Faulkner, sure." Eric dryly replied.
Holden sighed. "That was one time."
Wilson only muttered something under his breath that made Ansgar grin wider. Holden glanced out the window. The terrain shifted and rose, the sea of grisly corpses and blocky, misshapen buildings ceasing at the edge of a granite shield formation, striated here and there with the ancient remains of roads. The cyclopean remains of a statue almost half a kilometer high loomed in the misty distance, the shape an elongated curve with multiple arms and legs, all subtly off and angled oddly.
"Doc", Wilson spoke, "What is this place? Was it a capital world or..." He trailed off as they passed by more destroyed buildings, looming into the misty distance.
The elderly scientist shrugged. "I'm afraid we really don't know much. All other xenohistorical records we found indicated every race that learned anything about the Ythrongi feared them, but we have almost nothing indicating we ever found any major colonies." He also looked out the window. "But given the fact that half the planet looks to be a near ecunompolis, this may very well have been their home world."
Light flared to the east, a moment later the laser tight beam lit up.
"Team," Sara Ryder announced, "something big just blew up about 120 klicks to your east. Not sure what it was, but we're picking up… god. Zeta bands of radiation. Debris got thrown nearly into orbit."
"Not only is this a nightmare world, it's also exploding." Holden groaned.
"Jesus Christ and Victor, do we have anything that could do that?" Iridian exclaimed.
"The expected yield of Kyles is in the X-ray range at point blank, and that is the highest known radiological yield we have. Zeta is a theoretical classification of 'in excess of 1000 gigaSieverts per second." Paig explained. "Exposure to that level of radiation would evaporate you simply from the heat impact of neutrons and gamma rays. It's more like you stop being physics, and become theoretical math. Probably painless, however."
He glanced around the shuttle. "...probably."
"...Were you ever a medical doctor? I do hope not if that is your method of being upbeat." Rho complained dryly. Holden ignored him and spoke into the commlink.
"Copy that, Spyglass. We can't hope to get close, and even out here the exposure is insane. Best thing we can do is make sure we keep our distance - and to keep an eye on it. Spyglass, we're continuing to our LZ. If anything changes, comm us."
"Understood. So far, nothing is moving your way. Lots of the black things marching southwest. Heavy fighting with the corpse whatevers. About 200 klicks, so don't go south. So far no one has noticed you. Yet."
"Copy, Sigma out." Holden wrapped up and faced his team.
"I got something, Holden." Avasarala looked up from where she'd been working on the camera interface. "Nothing showed up on most of the filters, but when I got to the eezo wake filtering: FTL wakes, giant ones over the planet. Looks like we are at the center of a large hexagonal web-dome."
Paig was agog. "What could even produce these kinds of energies, and what exactly are they doing?"
"Don't tell me the planet is about to rip itself apart or..." Ansgar lowered his voice. "...Release a Great Evil."
Rho sighed. "Do you people take anything seriously?"
Ansgar shrugged. "Yeah, the old CO before Malcolm did. Grim bastard. Never laughed. You know happened to him? Didn't figure out an Inusannon trap in time and got turned inside out but still alive." The bigger man grinned in a lopside fashion. "We don't laugh to dismiss it, but to stop us from losing our fucking minds."
"Enough. As for what this could be, my gut is saying both. You don't build giant planet-spanning energy fields as an art installation - it is either to stabilize the planet or to stop or imprison something." Holden opined.
"Sadly, I'm going with the latter." Wilson agreed. "Though both are bad, I think the Great Evil is worse than a planet ripping itself apart."
Ansgar leaned against the bulkhead. "C'mon, we already saw the fucking planet with eyes. Maybe this just what allows it to do that. Or something."
"Regardless of the purpose, I am less concerned about the planet and more concerned about flying into that giant dome-web, personally." Rho cast his gaze on Paig.
"While I try to be non-disciplinary, I have no real skills in pure physics or FTL mechanics." Paig admitted. "Does anyone here?"
"Falkner? You dabble in those right?" Holden recalled about the R&D 'special asset.'
After a few seconds of thought, Ansgar shook his head. "I could only guess but what might be going on here doesn't seem completely understandable to my degree of knowledge, sadly. I imagine the FTL wakes from the rest of the planet support the dome. How it works or what it does, is beyond me. But the Great Evil theory does sound nice."
Holden brought Hammer up on the comms, given they were the engineering support. "Listen up, I need some analysis from your best marine in physics, we've got FTL wakes on our scans and need help determining what they are for and where they come from. Transmitting now."
After two minutes of said best marine and Ansgar talking:
"Commander, our best guess - and keep in mind, this is a guess - is that this is some kind of temporal shield. Based on the fact that it's being powered by about thirty sites scattered over the planet - all of 'em, according to Spyglass, surrounded by the black-fur guys - we're assuming it's to keep something locked down. Problem is, the energy levels it is operating on wouldn't do anything to conventional matter."
"You could fly through the thing all day and lose a few nanoseconds. Whatever it is, it's designed to stop something inside from accessing... something. Our theoretical physics guy says it may be a sort of stasis lock for beings that are pure energy."
"It's meant to keep something in, something that isn't conventional matter. Well our theory of a prison planet trapping a great evil is close to confirmed at this point then." Holden figured.
"Paig, could this also explain the temporal...out of phase...whateverthefuck you mentioned earlier?" Iridian recalled.
"Possibly. I'm unsure, however, the data is unclear." Paig's brow furrowed in thought. "If this is a prison planet, as Holden says, this is most likely either the prison cells itself, or isolation containment for study."
"So we're gonna be potentially dealing with..." Wilson trailed off before glaring at Holden. "Take us somewhere nice next time! No more fucking hellholes."
"This is all well and good, but I am far more alarmed that there is a dig site at this location and that these HERMES lunatics have been fucking with this." Rho observed.
"Yes, HERMES completely screwed the pooch here." Holden agreed.
"Ideally we figure out how to keep it closed or at least don't let out whatever being or energy is contained there, when we have to inevitably fuck with it, too." Ansgar cautioned.
The unmarked base came up on their view. A quick examination showed no hostiles anywhere near.
"Get tactical." Holden ordered, reaching to the comms. "Hammer, let our team sweep the premises first before you deploy. Don't want any surprises."
"Understood, Commander. We'll split and do circles, set up for cover fire if you need it."
"Lt Avasarala is our FCO, she'll relay any targets to you." Holden added. "Out."
Wilson did a final check on his gear before glancing at Holden. "Biotics first, then the old man, Commander?"
"You and Iridian have point. Ansgar, stick with the Doctor in the middle with Rho, keep your sixth sense ready but with the things at work here - don't get your mind corrupted. Use it sparingly. Avasarala and myself will watch our backs and provide support."
Ansgar made sure the under-barrel launcher was loaded with his favorite 'conversation starter' - a LINIUS - and nodded in satisfaction. "Gotcha, I'll try to be careful."
"Ready here." Srinja smiles. "No throwing me this time, eh?"
Iridian drew his shotgun. "Depends on the situation, Avasarala. It worked last time, didn't it?"
"I'm pissed that I haven't gotten to do that yet," Wilson grumbled, pulling out his Nightmare. "We'll see if it's needed, Srin. Otherwise it won't."
"And just like that, it is almost guaranteed to be necessary." Ansgar remarked. "Though here we might have to be careful to not throw her out of phase with space and time."
Wilson nodded in agreement. "Right. That would suck."
Holden loaded a plasma ammo block into his THUNDERBOLT MOD IV Anti Material Rifle. He'd also brought regular, explosive, phasic, and acid blocks in his webbing, for any situation here.
The pinnace circled the area, then touched down at the edge of the base. Wilson and Iridan headed out of the pinnace first, followed by Holden and Avasarala. Finally, Ansgar with his THUNDERBOLT half-raised, and Rho exited slightly ahead of Paig.
There were three buildings - all made of cheap quick set plascrete. North of them were a set of drop-pod storage crates, and a pair of shuttles. The first shuttle had been partially disassembled, the other was blown open on the front left, splashes of blood and melted plastic forming a crazed caul over the hole.
Three GRIZZLI trucks were parked beside the shuttles. An open-bay repair station stood east of them, with power disconnected and the cables neatly coiled next to it, and held a badly damaged JOTUN mech in the cradle of the bay, its head missing.
Two of the buildings had simple slide doors, the largest was secured with a keypad, and had a row of sandbags and two racks of Avenger rifles in front of it. The ground looked roughly hewn, like someone ran a plasma fuser over it to smooth it out, but did a poor job, leaving lots of sloppy or missing spots.
The buildings were a little slanted, indicating someone in a hurry didn't let the quick set do its job. Fortunately, there was no sign of any kind of contamination, or corpses.
Paig glanced around and frowned. "This is a HERMES setup for an evacuation processing site. There should be a storage shed, a sleeping area, and a processing and command center with an isolated quarantine cell."
"Well, this is a nice rush job of a base," Wilson said as he scanned the area. "I don't see anything out of the ordinary, barring the ground someone took a plasma torch to."
"Seems calm so far, at the very least." Ansgar commented. "Well, going by the ground around here being mostly bones and corpses, I can totally understand melting it to get a viable base, Wilson."
"Except the corpses stopped a mile back. This is all granite. Why bother?" Rho expressed, drawing his Griannon firelance, and casting a disapproving look at the area. "Sloppy. Rushed work. The GRIZZLIs were auto-parked, they all came to exactly the same stopping line. Shuttle hits look like conventional missile fire, not whatever is down here."
"Infighting between HERMES teams, perhaps." Ansgar suggested.
"Point, watch spacing. Command center first, breach and clear. Everyone else pull security." Holden ordered.
Wilson nodded to Holden and motioned for Iridian to follow him to the command center, his Nightmare half-raised and ready to engage hostiles. Iridian followed him, readying his ODIN.
The main building door was durasteel, with a five-digit type pad. Avasarala cracked it without even needing to try, using an omnilead.
The door slid open with a jerk, the slide rail not installed properly. It revealed a bare plascrete interior, with a thin metallic floor covered in plastic. Bright sprays on the wall stood out:
"ISOLATION AREA. MAINTAIN FULL SUIT SEAL."
Iridian immediately stepped in, followed by Wilson.
A row of comms consoles ran along the north wall, ending with a pair of research terminals. Next to those were a tall plasteel cylinder, transparent and filled with a blue liquid and holding a human corpse.
Iridian took a closer look.
No, there were two corpses.
The corpse in the cylinder could only be described as twisted: the left arm split in two at the elbow, the hands looked more like fanged maws, and the legs fused together and ruptured by black bone spikes. The face was more a mask of bloody flesh and corruption, black tendrils erupting outwards, spiraling up and down the length of the cylinder. It was unmoving and at room temperature.
The second corpse, wearing a stock ENCOUNTER suit, rested on the floor in the southeast corner. The face-plate had been shattered, most likely a point-blank execution with a high powered sidearm of some kind, leaving a third of the skull missing.
"What the fuck happened to them?" Wilson asked, disturbed.
"Nothing good..." was Iridian's answer.
The back of the room had a kinetic barrier cube set up around a heavy metallic hatch, with a pair of ground turrets hastily installed on the ceiling.
Posters hung on the far wall - one of a human outline with multiple notations, the rest all weird representations of cells. One of the comm consoles was blinking.
"No hostiles in the room. Two dead bogies. Commander, a console is blinking. Srinja may want to take a look at it." Wilson reported, something the feed the others got confirmed.
"Rho, Falkner, stay here. Paig, Avasarala, on me." Holden headed into the building, bringing the doctor and team hacker to investigate, while Falkner and Rho watched their backs.
Rho watched the feed closely. "The gunshot looks like it is from a Zeus, Commander. That means either a Commissar, a very senior cybernetic N7, or something like that."
"Do we know what HERMES personnel had with them? A Zeus isn't something commonly used." Wilson commented.
"Unknown but the Zeus is not a useful tool for a research team." Rho pointed out.
Holden brought up the mission briefing files on his omni, checking for any heavily modified Hermes personnel that could use a Zeus. "Go over the clues, Avasarala check the tech, Paig tell me what the fuck is in the tube."
"I'll be here for a bit, Holden. It's, of course, encrypted." Avasarala reported after inspecting the console. "You chucklefucks can find out what these people considered defenses if quickset wasn't the right answer."
The doctor spent his time examining the tube, the posters, and a series of padds on the shelf. "No, I wouldn't open the tube under any circumstances. The poor man on the floor is, as Rho indicated, dead of a single headshot. Based on the faceplate - and face - being shattered, I'd suggest he was shot in the back of the head."
"Execution, then. Definitely seems like we have a HERMES civil war here." Wilson surmised.
Holden frowned as he found what he was looking for. "From the briefings, the only person in this mess who would have had the auth and the cyber for a Zeus was the Decca's CO."
"...The CO should have stayed on the Decca, he wasn't HERMES at all." Rho stated incredulously.
"So either they had to run to this hell planet or someone else had a very big gun and isn't listed." Iridian reasoned.
"Major fuck up then. Whatever they encountered here made the team here fight over it." Wilson said grimly.
"Or - even more fun - they got brought here from orbit and had a reason to blow this guy's brains out." Ansgar offered. "Holden, how about we have Srinja deploy a drone on her direct link for an additional set of eyes out here?"
"Good idea," Holden concurred, "if you can multitask Avasarala, do it."
"Wait one. Encryption is a bitch." The Indian lieutenant told them. "Also, most people aren't equipped to handle their 360 degree input in their HUD and actually comprehend it. I'm not most people, so I can handle a few drone feeds. But I don't want the good doctor to be motion-sick."
"Give me the feed-link then, please. Shouldn't be an issue." Ansgar informed her.
"Finally!" Avasarala uttered a cry of frustrated triumph. "The encryption was insane. My decryptor unit got past the core algorithm to generate a new key, but we're only going to get text."
There turned out to be fifteen files. Six were comm logs, four were 'update reports' from someone named Chu to a 'R.W.', two were bioanalysis logs, and the last three were video logs, that obviously were still locked.
Ansgar suggested looking for Kinnix's son, but oddly enough, a plaintext search for 'Kinnix' returned no hits.
The comm logs were all from Dr. Yang Chu to either Dr. Cynthia Vandefar or someone only flagged as "CO, D."
For the most part, they delivered dry summaries of excavation, except for the last one. It was a report indicating that HERMES successfully breached a new level, but Lt. Asiva and Cpl. Jameson was injured by a rockfall. Jameson suffered a suit breach which they patched, but experienced dizziness and disorientation before vomiting up black gunk.
The team hastily set up an isolation base and put him in quarantine until he expired, then began studying the remains.
"Can we confirm the ID of the body in the tube?" Wilson asked.
"He has no uniform on, and frankly I'm not willing to open it up to pull a DNA sample." Paig demurred. "All the records just list him as 'subject'. That being said, I'm pretty sure this is him."
"50 credits say there is a chance he becomes active if we mess with him." Ansgar predicted. "Anything in the notes pertaining to what exactly was going on with him?"
"I'm far more concerned that HERMES had enough building material to build multiple bases equipped with ground vehicles, shuttles, power sources, and JOTUN robots." Rho remarked.
"I assure you, the, ahem, victim in the tube, on the other hand, is more concerning." Paig interjected. "It looks as if the victim was, according to the notes, infected inside the dig site. They applied several different types of nanoagent to try to counteract it, but none worked. At that point the team commander and the two science leads had a difference of opinion. Dr. Chu and Dr. Vandefar decided to move forward with the dig and the security commander was, well..."
He gestured to the corpse in the corner. "The process is a form of hostile nanotech sequestration. DNA is overwritten and the black moss-fur is a chelated combination of assimilatory nanotech and protein conversion, along with some kind of strange DNA polling to derive traits."
"English please?" Wilson rolled his eyes.
"In other words, it's even worse than black dissimulat in that it can adapt to the biology of whatever is infected and build or modify the being appropriately. It does so by literally re-writing your very genetic code then breaking you down to force the growth of..." Paig shuddered and gestured at the tube. "Optimizations."
"Nano only or is the process going further? Might be interesting to know in regards to conventional nano counters." Ansgar inquired.
"In theory, although it has no control or immunity agent or counter-agent." Paig answered uncomfortably.
Rho gave the tube a considering look. "This would be extremely useful as a bioweapon, yes?"
"Rho, don't even fucking think about it." Wilson snapped. "We don't know what this would do if it were introduced en masse."
"Oh, I wasn't." Rho's reply somehow did not soothe. "I am wondering, however, if this is what they came for to begin with, and why HERMES is so over-prepared for a supposedly archaeotech bunch of lab coats. After all, a thing like this - 'accidentally' released on, say, Sur'Kesh - would be highly desired by certain parties, after all."
"It seems HERMES has been co-opted by someone else for archeotech research. That's all I can think of that would explain the resources they have here." Holden declared.
"The R.W. recipient of the files." Wilson noted.
"Then we are in very deep trouble, I think. Because I cannot imagine why Admiral Vandefar would tap me - or Holden - for an investigation that clearly implicated her." Rho concluded. "And 'R.W' could be literally anyone. I can think of eleven off the top of my head. Ronald Wisean, CEO of Bioforma United, or Rachel Windsor, the CIO of Mars Genetic, stand out as the top ones."
Ansgar nodded. "We can leave the politics to others. We have more immediate worries right now."
"The other problem is that this Chu - and god, please don't let him be related to the High Lord Family - is clearly operating with a party external to HERMES." Paig remarked. "That means someone else knows about this place."
"Given everything that's happened here, I'd say he probably is related to the High Lord family." Wilson regretfully said.
"It's safe to say that Admiral Cougar isn't expecting us to return, but we need to focus on the here and now." Holden announced. "Leave the politics to Rho, and the actual Lord here."
Rho snorted. "I'm not worried about that frustrated old virgin. I am worried this is a sign of something worse. But, no matter."
"Secure the data of course, Shame we couldn't get all of it. Iridian, Wilson, clear the barracks next." Holden went on. "Watch for traps. Anything left here?"
"I've examined the rest of the datafiles and copied them to an OSD. The isolation cell below that hatch is almost certainly not clean, and there's nothing else here of use." Paig answered."According to the bioanalysis files, that was for our poor friend in the tube. They sealed the hatch with omni-gel and placed a M/AM mine on the hatch underside to blow up if it was breached. That suggests to me there is nothing down there I want to see."
"Copying the vid files. We can crack them later once we can use a VI." Srinja said.
"Do you have any idea how well that stuff would stand up to radiation, doc?" Iridian asked.
"It depends. When it is in the process of deforming the victim's DNA it would probably shut down the process. But enough rads to do that would also kill the victim."
"Let's go, Olon. Same drill as this building." Wilson told the N5 as he left for the barracks. "Srin, please send a drone ahead for overhead recon."
"Drone out!" She sent one out, flitting up and around. "I'll send any motion or radiation spikes to the squadnet, but you guys don't need to see everything the drone sees unless we encounter shit."
The terrain within visual range was blank, weathered granite. The circling crafts of the Hammer team were the only things moving or emitting heat signatures within 5 kilometers.
Once again, Wilson and Iridian took up positions by the doors, this time of the barracks. Iridian blew the locked barracks door open with a single breaching shot.
Iridian entered first, Wilson a couple meters behind him.
The barracks was rather plain. Lights on, a kinetic field barrier over the door, and standard atmo. Three double-deck marine standard bunks, each neatly made, with a pair of footlockers in front. A heavy shelf above held a mix of MRE packs and SA nutritious food product boxes, bottled water, and a trio of first aid kits.
The only amenities were a small food prep unit, a simple plascrete table with chairs, and a single door leading to a small space with a shower, basin, toilet, and decon spray. A bloodstain on the floor next to the bed, and a small number of holes in the far wall.
The inhabitant brought a small amount of personal items. A civilian-brand high power omniscope leaning against one of the beds. Another had a pair of books on demolition charges in cave breaches, and the third, a disassembled Avenger on it.
"Commander, we have a couple first aid kits here along with regular supplies." Wilson reported. "Also some signs of a fight. Want us to check the lockers?"
"First aid kits left behind, that's not a good sign." Avasarala moved the drone further out, to reconnoiter the perimeter.
"They should just be personal effects. Move on to the storage room." Holden instructed.
Four heavy drop-crates flanked the storage room to the north, each one still in the cradle with monoprop thrusters and an eezo harness. The crates had been stenciled with the stylized HERMES seal and read "SUPDRP FWD."
They opened at a touch: three contained traces of plascrete, setting agent, and dirty plas-set mass effect trowels. The fourth had empty wraps and documentation for solar panel charging stations.
The storage room itself was unlocked. What looked like a keypad had been torn off and left broken next to the door.
"Engineers will use it," Holden told the two, "anything else in the storage room?"
Wilson and Iridian repeated the set up and breach process a third time. "Commander. Something of interest here. You and the doc'll want to take a look."
Two bulky metal crates sat in the storage room, each one made of battle-grade combat steel, shielded by two redundant kinetic containment shields, and covered in hazard tape. Both read: "DANGER: BIOHAZARD CONTAINMENT. STASIS UNITS. DO NOT OPEN WITHOUT BUSCI-HAZ AUTHORIZATION / CLASS NINE ISOLATION REQUIRED EXTREME NANOTECH THREAT."
On closer inspection, a large hole had been clawed or torn into the crate on the right. Inside rested a shattered stasis tube, half filled with filmy fluids and black threads. Black fur-moss coated the shattered glass and a severed arm floated in the remains of the tube. It was obvious that somehow, something dug into the crate from the outside, yet the kinetic barrier containment field was still up.
The other crate was still sealed, the status window indicating the stasis field is active, containing one subject with nominal but anomalous life signs.
The feed from the two also showed four ENCOUNTER suits hanging on the wall, with a hook for a fifth one. Ominously, one of the encounter suits was breached in multiple places, and either set on fire or plasma torched.
There were odd rents in the suit, like claw marks but with almost fractal looking cracks edging each mark. "There's an encounter suit that's been through hell, Commander. Twice." Iridian reported.
"Is the room clear of hostiles?" Holden asked.
"It seems to be, but we're seeing some strange stains and cracks around." Iridian checked the corners. Black stains splotched the floor in several places, dry and old, but leaving the surface of the metal decking corroded and pitted wherever they were.
"Paig, can you analyze from here using their feeds? I don't want to risk more of us going inside." Holden informed the doctor. "And I will have the engineers seal the entire storage room up afterward."
"I would agree, sir." Paig said. "Clearly, they had more than one victim. I presume they sealed them in stasis and then crates for pickup that never came. Someone, or something, got into this building and tore one open and well, they didn't leave much. But why only one and not the other if they were trying to neutralize a threat?"
Given that there was dust inside the shattered crate, whatever happened occurred more than a few days ago.
"Alright, back out." Holden had Wilson and Iridian leave, then he entered and deployed motion-sensing plasma mines around the crates.
Ominously enough, Holden noticed a countdown on the intact crate, as he finished up with the mines. Four days, nineteen hours, thirty two minutes. The status screen only displayed basic information: the subject being 'Subject 1 (P.K)' and the countdown was 'Remaining Effective Containment, Estimated.'
Holden and his force would thankfully be long gone by then.
Meanwhile, Rho checked out the GRIZZLIs, while Avasarala yelled at him to let the drone in first.
The drone's examination of all three GRIZZLIs revealed them to be, oddly enough, factory-fresh. The plastic was still on the seats and consoles, and the eezo cores were disconnected, waiting to be hooked up. The consoles all had gaping holes where the VI cores were removed.
The leftmost Grizzli had a paper map, coated in protective plastic. The map showed the base, a red line leading north to the dig site with a bearing, and two blue lines leading to the destroyed main bases. It also had a location to the west of the digsite circled in red wax pencil with a hastily written note in Chinese.
"Unknown energy reading, lost contact with C.V. here."
At this point, with the storage room secured and everything else cleared, Holden got on the horn. "Hammer, LZ is clear. Note that the command center and storage area are biohazards and are to be avoided. Do not open up the hatch in the command center, it's linked to a M/AM mine. There's construction supplies in the drop crates, use them to seal the storage and command buildings, you are green to land and deploy. Have your CO meet with me when you get here."
"Understood, Commander. I'll have the LOKI mechs we have slaved to Johansen's omni drop isofields over both buildings and some antigrain mines." Hammer's comm operator responded. "On the ground in two minutes."
"Copy, out."
Iridian came over to Holden with the map. "Any chance we could have spyglass take a look at that labeled location? Might be something interesting."
Holden nodded. "Spyglass, got a request for a closer look at the following location..."
Meanwhile, Srinja Avasarala took the omni-scope out of the barracks. "Watch the VI on the scope, Srin." Wilson cautioned her. Ansgar's expression through his faceplate indicated he felt the same way.
"It's safe. The VI has been modified to only run simple heuristic processing, no decision making, and the comm system on the scope has been physically removed as well." She told the two men with a hint of annoyance.
In minutes, the other shuttles touched down, their cargo of engineers moving out in battle formation, flanked by four armed LOKI mechs directly slaved to operators. Six missile saturation drones flew up and made a circle, as the engineering officer in charge walked forward. A short man, but broadly built and hard features visible through his faceplate. Holden came up to meet him.
"Commander Holden? Lieutenant Commander Jack Grassi, SA BuEng. This place is omnifucked, sir."
Holden nodded. "You don't know the half of it. Anyways, what support can we get from Hammer while we're here, LTC?"
"Hard to say." Grassi glanced at his team, already isolating the two buildings. "Depends on what we find, I expect. You guys take one Grizzli, I'll have the first unit take the other two. Second stays here with the ships and build a laser beam tight-link relay, that's my suggestion. If it comes to a fight, my boys are all A-rates, most from Mindoir, but this is some straight up Twilight Zone shit. We have plasma flamers, mortars, missile drones, and M/AM flecks and antigrains, but our armor is mostly for support."
"Sigma will be the front line. Your artillery support will be a godsend if we get in a fight. I'll keep your men in the rear unless we need engineering skills to get anywhere or analyze anything. If at all possible, I want to get through this mission without engaging either of the nightmares inhabiting this rock." Holden explained.
Grassi nodded, then frowned. "One problem, potentially. These GRIZZLIs are clearly civilian models, God knows why the fuck they even brought them along. You want us to do a quick up-armor with omnigel and duraplast?"
"I doubt it would do any good, lighter is probably better considering the gravity based weaponry we faced on the way in." Holden answered grimly.
"Very good, sir." The Lieutenant Commander acknowledged. "We'll be ready."
Wilson walked up to Holden. "We ready to ship out?"
It was at this moment that Sara Ryder came back on the line. "Spyglass here. Adjusted orbit, only used the maneuver thrusters. Commander, there's a problem. The site you wanted me to look at?"
"Go on, honestly at this point I'm numb to it." Holden deadpanned.
"There's over a hundred and fifty corpses, human. Some kind of maybe a command center, mostly plascrete, in ruins. Some of the corpses appear to be in heavy power armor, or civilians. Six destroyed MAKO's as well. Sir, there weren't that many people in HERMES to begin with, and none of them had heavy power armor. There's also what looks like two of those things with black fur down there, not moving. And some of the bodies are also infected, I think. There's a lot of damage and the ground is all jumbled up for half a mile around it."
"Goddamnit. This mission keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?" Wilson groaned.
Holden tried to look on the bright side. "We identified here that HERMES has most likely been co-opted by someone else for archaeotech research, this area could give us the answer for who that exactly is."
"Stupid fucking cameras… sorry." Sara apologized after realizing her complaints were audible. "Trying to gain some enhancement, but with no VI the system is stupid… oh god. Sir, there are dead children down there too. Fuck. The building has a Ashland-Eldfell logo on it, sir. Sorry it took so long. Had to filter. I'm counting: one hundred sixty six adults, nineteen children."
"Wasn't there something about a mining colony? That would be them, then." Ansgar recalled, gravely.
"Yes." Holden agreed. "That's the original people that discovered the system and set this entire mess into motion."
"It appears they thought this place was safe. Curious. Surely no one is stupid enough to build a fucking colony on this hellworld, are they?" Agent Rho dryly wondered.
"And the two black furs are just sitting there, not doing anything?" Wilson asked Sara.
"It's really hard to tell sir. Some have lines? I can't make it out from this distance with no VI assistance. But the black things are at ambient temperature and are not moving at all."
Iridian considered Rho's point. "Did they have sealed suits that we know of? Or did they just decide to step out into a corrosive, toxic atmosphere?"
"They look to have on survival suits, I think." Sara responded. "Bright orange and white?" That was the standard stock survival color.
"This depends on if - and how much - there might have been any influence, biohacking or whatever going on." Ansgar thoughtfully commented. "Not the first time we deal with mental manipulations or something that can do such things."
"Remember the evidence of HERMES being co-opted. Ashland-Eldfell may have been as well." Wilson added to the discussion.
"To manipulate a small archaeotech team in hostile territory with dubious moral constraints is one thing. To manipulate a mega-corp based on Earth half the galaxy away implies something else." Rho stated.
"At this point, I'm not leaving anything off the table unless we can prove it ourselves." Wilson countered.
"We should at least investigate, Commander." Paig proposed. "If with drones and at a safe distance. It is on the way to the dig site after all."
Rho turned to face Holden. "I would recommend we think this over before doing anything crazy. However, the good doctor is correct. And if nothing else, we can report we secured the civilian casualties. There may even be logs or records indicating why they would go there."
Ansgar lazily raised a hand. "If we go there, I'd really like a flamer or two."
"Give me half an hour and we can omnifab hand flamers and flame units, sir." Grassi promised.
"We'll have a drone sweep first, then advance. If necessary our fire support of mortars should blow up those black fur balls if they start moving. We'll find out exactly why they did what they did." Holden decided. "Once we're geared up we'll set out. We'll wait until the engineers have mostly fortified this area as our fallback point. Get to it people."