"It's called what?" The familiar voice half-yelled over the frequency.
Van Horn grimaced as he triggered his radio. "Captain, this place, this so-called city… It's a human settlement, and the sign we found says it's called 'Base One.'"
"'Base One' of what?" Tanaka asked hotly. "Who built it? How long ago? Or more importantly, is there anything we can use?"
Van Horn shook his head, which didn't convey anything to Tanaka as the anthropologist-soldier was still standing in the ruins, along with Castellano, who was looking around, and Alexis and Mikula, both sitting on the ground in shock.
Not that I blame them, van Horn thought as he triggered the radio once again. "Captain, I told you, we just found the sign, and then we told the locals to head back while we checked some things." Apparently, that Joru character seeing us spooked gave 'em the willies, he added mentally for his own running tally of the situation. "Preliminary scans show structural reinforcement with iron rebar in every building, and several, including the main structure we found the sign on, are almost entirely ferrous, save for an outer façade of stone."
"So you're sayin' that you don't know jack shit?" Tanaka asked, her already-frayed nerves stretched to general annoyance with this bombshell.
Van Horn sighed again. "Unfortunately, yes," he admitted. "I sent Corporal Castellano scoutin' around, lookin' for any more signs or artifacts that're layin' out in the open, but with the looks of this place, I wouldn't be surprised if he finds nothin.'"
The radio was silent for a bit before Tanaka spoke again. "So, you are absolutely sure that you have no idea who built that place, or why?"
"No sir, only that they weren't natives and they used English on their signs." Van Horn turned around at this and looked over the sign again.
It was a rectangular, blue sign not painted onto the wall, but it was bolted on with four seven-millimeter bolts at the corners. On it was the typical white block lettering that one would expect to find in a military base or corporate warehouse or a research station. However, this sign was on a planet that was nearly a thousand light-years from Terra, a planet that hadn't been charted until the Republic had discovered it two decades ago.
Tanaka's sigh came over the channel then. "Okay, doc, in your opinion, is the place safe enough to keep the Kaytorians?"
Van Horn frowned within his helmet. "Captain, this is an important-"
"'-Archaeological discovery and we shouldn't disturb it,' you're going to say?" Tanaka said, finishing Earl's thought. He took a breath and spoke again in a slightly cold fashion. "Essentially, yes."
Tanaka sighed again. "Look, doc, if we had a choice, I'd agree with you. But for now, we need to keep these natives somewhere safe and preferably, a place with a fuckin' roof and walls. I mean, you want them to freeze?"
Van Horn blushed deeply, and he shut his eyes tightly. "No… No, of course not," he said dejectedly. "You're right, of course, captain." He paused and sighed then. "Castellano and I are going to check things out some more, though it'd probably help if you could send the rest of Sierra squad to help us look for… Well, anything that we wouldn't expect."
"I'll take that under consideration," Tanaka replied. "I need to confer with my passel of lieutenants, and then I'll get back to you. For now, just look around as much as you can. You are authorized to do whatever you need to do to get information from the ruins, short of endangering lives."
Van Horn felt his blood run cold. "Captain, are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"
"I am," Tanaka replied businesslike. "Doc, right now my job is to keep people alive, and I do not like surprises in this regard; triply so when we have a surprise of this scale. So if you have to demolish something to get hard data, do it."
His lips pressed into a thin line, van Horn took a few calming breaths. "Of course, captain," he replied as neutrally as he can. Because she's right. Innocent lives are at stake. "I'll be sure to leave no stone unturned."
"Good, and if it'll make you feel better, you can blame everything on me if your scientist friends get all huffy," Tanaka replied with a note of satisfaction. "Now, I've got to set up a conference. Stay in touch, Oni One out." With that, the channel became quiet.
Van Horn shook his head and looked around the ruins again, this time with light-amplification circuits making the area a monochromatic sea of green. The nearest buildings, now that he knew which species built them, looked less impressive and more like simple dwellings. Still, pretty big though, he thought as he critically gazed at the nearest one. Two stories, easily, maybe could hold a large family… But there wouldn't have been families, he realized this suddenly. 'Base One,' that implies a specific setup, not a colony. Probably wouldn't be any families… Unless it was an extended duty posting… With that, van Horn made a decision and started walking for the structure.
Movement and a voice from behind made him pause. "Earl, where are you going?" Mikula asked quietly. Van Horn turned around then and took a look over his two native friends.
Mikula seemed to have taken it a bit better, and though he looked haggard, his face still held animation. Unlike Alexis, who seemed just to stare off into space, her face blank.
Must be from the way they were both raised, van Horn thought. The few gatón stories I've heard meld Basun into their religion more than the lupar's. With a mental sigh, the anthropologist-soldier made his thoughts shift back to the present. "I'm going to look over that nearby building," he said and pointed towards the structure that was his destination. "Are you two going to be all right by yourselves?"
Mikula blinked slowly, his mind still apparently slowed by the night's revelation. "Yes… Yes, we should be fine," he said with a slow nod. "I have a flashlight and a radio."
"Good," van Horn replied with a nod of his own. "I shouldn't be too long, and Dan ought to be back soon, as well. Call if you have any problems." With that, he turned and walked the last few meters to the building.
Moving up to an obvious entranceway, van Horn briefly wondered why there was no door. Then he noticed the metal hinges set into the stone, and he realized that the building must have had a door at one time. It must have either been stolen, or maybe it was wood and rotted away… But then, why would a military or mining or research base not use good plastic doors? Or even use treated wood? The stuff we have now makes wood last for centuries. He concluded that it must have been stolen, and then began looking around the edges of the doorframe for anything that might shed more light on the situation.
Brushing off some more climbing plants that had gone dormant for the winter, van Horn quickly found another marking. It was a simple, small sign, painted on to the right of the door and thus worn by time, but still readable. White letters over a black field simply stated the name, "Dr. Garcia."
Doctor? Van Horn mused, his curiosity rising. So maybe this was a research post after all… But that still doesn't answer who, what, when and why? He brushed the entire doorframe clean, but found nothing else but stone.
Wait a minute… Van Horn looked more closely at the building itself, and he switched from night vision and back to visilight and turned on his helmet-mounted flashlight. There's no mortar… This isn't stone, it's concrete.
Confused, the anthropologist turned back to look towards the central building, and he used his suit's visor to zoom in to the patch he had originally uncovered. Those are definitely stone and mortar… This is very odd. Turning back to the door, van Horn leaned forward and looked into the interior.
A small hallway extended straight back, appearing to stretch the full width of the building. Three doorways led off into different rooms, two at the front, and one in the back and right. A small nook opposite of the far doorway looked to be a stairwell, though any stairs it had once contained appeared to be missing.
Looking left, van Horn saw that a single, large room took up a third of the building's ground area. The floor was a terrible mess of rotting plants, dead animal carcasses, and other telltales of forest animals using the room for shelter. However, several large objects stood up from the floor, and van Horn quickly realized that they were long metal tables, or desks. Don't know for sure, though, he thought.
Turning to the right, the good doctor saw that this room was half the size of the first one, making it about four meters square. The floor was a mess, as well, though less so, since apparently animals didn't care for the tighter confines. No furniture was evident, though there were marks on the walls that looked to have been made for mounting shelves.
At this, Earl began walking forward at a trepid pace, glancing down every few steps to make sure he wasn't about to plunge into an unknown basement or step into something he'd rather not have to scrape off. He quickly traversed the few meters to the end of the hall and looked into the room on the right.
This one was similar to the last room he had checked, though this had a single table stretching down the middle of it, the furnishing apparently bolted to the wall. On one side there was a pile of some sort of material lying on the ground next to the wall, and the walls themselves bore more marks that would denote the mounting of some sort of furnishing or piece of equipment.
Deciding to risk moving into the room, van Horn slowly took the few steps to the mess lying against the wall, and he bent over and picked up a piece. Hefting it carefully, he found the material to be the smashed pieces of an apparently flat stone counter cut from the native rock of the valley.
A chill went up van Horn's spine as if he were being watched, and he had to check his HUD several times before he could make the feeling subside. Someone walked over my grave, he thought as he gently laid the piece back on top of its fellows, and then stood up. Or rather, I'm walkin' over someone else's grave… And through it. Slowly, he backed out of the room and turned to face the nook opposite of the doorway.
It was, as he had suspected, a stairwell. It was not a large one, and van Horn reasoned that it must have held a spiral staircase. Not enough room for a conventional set. Though, I wonder where the stairs went?
Van Horn moved into the nook and looked up to see that the opening onto the next floor was still clear, and above he saw the underside of the building's concrete roof. Those edges look pretty solid… With that, Earl made sure the equipment strapped to his armor was secure, and then he did a small hop. It wasn't enough to ignite his jump jets, but it was enough for him to reach up and grab the lip of the opening and haul himself up just enough to look into the space above.
The top floor was entirely open, save for the exterior walls that framed the space. Here the floor was relatively clean, with only a few small piles of leaves and other detritus here and there. Unlike the bottom floor, this one had windows spaced evenly around the outer walls, though there were only six that van Horn counted before he dropped back to the ground floor; he hadn't seen anything else of interest.
This is really, really creepy, the scientist thought as he made his way back out of the building and looked over it again. And I think I know why. This is, or was, rather, a home for someone. Someone human, who spoke English, I'd assume, given the signs. A shudder went through his body then. It's times like these that make you wonder if ghost stories aren't real after all.
A sudden spike of static in his earphones told van Horn of an incoming radio transmission. "Doc, you might want to come over here," Castellano's voice sounded. "This is… Fuck, I don't know what this is. It's just big fuckin' shit and I'd like you to tell me what it is before I start blowing things up."
Van Horn let out a brief chuckle, Castellano's joke helping to lift both of their moods a bit. "Okay, Dan, we'll be coming," he replied.
Alexis followed along behind van Horn, and Mikula trailed her as the three walked through the ruins, heading for the series of warehouse-like buildings standing in one corner of the complex. She walked almost mechanically, barely keeping herself from tripping over the root or vine that poked upwards through the stone pavement.
How can this be true? She wondered and glanced around again. What had seemed almost a miracle to her earlier in the day now seemed like s cruel joke. This is Basun… But it's not! It's a human base… But, Shubasu, the Shaman Garkayo, our stories…Are they all wrong? Are all our beliefs wrong? Alexis felt as if the world had turned itself inside out, and had left her behind during the process.
Ahead, a new light source grabbed Alexis' attention, and she looked up to see the flashlight flick off so that it wouldn't blind the trio walking up. Blinking her eyes a few times, Alexis finally recognized the shape of Castellano in his armor standing in the darkness, next to a large doorway that led into the nearest of the large, low buildings.
"Glad y'all could make it," Castellano said as the others walked up. "Didn't know that you were coming for sure since I didn't get the R.S.V.P."
Van Horn shook his helmeted head a bit. "Funny, but in all seriousness, what do you want us to see?"
"It's in here," Castellano replied in more serious tone and turned to point into the large building. He also turned his helmet-mounted flashlight on to add to van Horn's as the anthropologist also swept his gaze inside. Alexis and Mikula, not knowing what else to do, walked up and joined the two humans as they scanned over the interior.
The inside was not like any native-built building that Alexis had ever seen. The floor was a wide, open mess of the typical debris that one finds in abandoned buildings, and an occasional pillar of metal rose up to support the roof. But other than that, there were no major partitions that blocked the line of sight.
At least not fully, Alexis realized as she saw the light from van Horn's helmet lamp reflect off of something that looked to be a skeletal wall, until she realized that they were bars. Following van Horn's lighted gaze, Alexis saw the outlines of a large cage or holding pen emerge from the darkness, though its door was lying on the ground after coming off of its hinges.
Nearer to the doorway, Castellano's own light swept over several large tables and desks that appeared to be made of metal or plastic, and several had what looked to be some sort of equipment on them. What that equipment was, no one could tell, for much of it had been smashed and/or covered with dust, dirt, and debris.
Dan's light swept deeper into the building, and Alexis followed the patch of illumination as it came to rest on more holding pens of some sort, many of which had openings to the outside within their confines.
"What the fucking hell?" Van Horn muttered aloud. "What's with all this?"
"That's what I was hoping you'd tell me, doc," Castellano replied quietly. "Looks like some sort of brig to me, 'cept for those holes in the walls." He just shook his head then. "But this isn't all of it. Come on." With that, the trooper turned and began to walk off for the next building, prompting the others to follow.
It was a short walk to the next building, and here the same, wide doorway granted access to the inside. Unlike the previous building, however, this one was clearly subdivided, as walls greeted the soldiers' eyes no less than three meters away. A small foyer of sorts led to a pair of hallways, both of which went back into the building. Doorways opened into dark rooms along either passageway, and the ends of the halls were gray splotches in the small helmet lights.
"Almost looks like an office," van Horn spoke first.
"Yeah, that's what I thought," Castellano agreed. "I was going to check it out, but then I decided to see the third building." He turned and pointed off towards the next warehouse-like structure. "That's when I called you."
Van Horn grunted. "Well, let's take a look in here before we move on," he said and then turned to look at Alexis and Mikula, turning off his light so he wouldn't blind them. "You two should stay here while we look through here."
"Why not, Earl?" Mikula asked from beside Alexis, who still was just numbly staring at everything. Why not? She thought. I don't think anything could possibly make things any worse.
Van Horn, however, sighed aloud. "Because, these buildings are old, very old. If we bump into something accidentally, it could cause the whole thing to collapse. That won't be so bad for Dan, and me since we're armored. But you two…" His voice trailed off then.
Mikula nodded sagely. "I see. We'll wait here then."
Van Horn nodded back and looked towards Alexis. The gatón looked up at Earl and nodded slightly, but she said nothing, which made the human start to worry about her. It's one thing to be in shock, but letting it overwhelm you… He took a breath and forced himself to turn towards the building's interior again. She might just need time, and you have a job to do, van Horn reminded himself and then took the first few steps inside. Castellano soon followed him, and they both started down the left hand hallway.
Alexis watched them go, and then after Castellano's form moved into the hall, she sat down on the ground. Absentmindedly, she crossed her legs and curled her tail around herself before she dipped her head down to stare at the ground.
The sound and feeling of movement beside her told Alexis that Mikula had followed her lead in sitting down. However, she was surprised when she felt his arms wrapping around her, pulling her into a hug, and he placed his head right behind hers, resting it on her shoulders.
Her face a study in surprise, Alexis tried to turn around in Mikula's arms so she could look him in the eye. "Mikula, what?" She asked softly, lacking any hint of negative emotion.
"You looked like you needed it," he replied. "And besides," his voice dropped lower then. "I know that I needed it."
Alexis felt warmth begin to replace the apathetic shock within her, and her eyes teared up as she returned Mikula's embrace. "Th- thank you," she whispered into his large ear.
Van Horn stalked down the hall slowly, again watching the floor for any telltales that could indicate a potential pitfall. As much as he looked, however, van Horn began to feel more and more like he had an idea of who built the place, and why. But I still need to find the evidence. He then reached the first door and held up a hand to tell Castellano to hold. The other trooper did, and van Horn cautiously peered around the frame.
The room was a fairly large one, five meters by six, though what drew van Horn's attention weren't the dimensions, but rather, the centerpiece of the room. Standing in the middle was a large, meter-high metal table, and around it were several overturned carts and stands. The table itself appeared somewhat disturbing, as it had straps on it that clearly were intended to restrain a person.
Van Horn Shuddered and he moved aside and waved Castellano over. The medic/trooper moved to stand next to the doctor and looked inside for a moment before he, too, shuddered. "What the holy hell?" Castellano muttered. Then he glanced over at van Horn. "Just what the fuck is this place?"
"You're the medic, you tell me," van Horn commented dryly. "Notice the fixtures on the ceiling over the table?"
Castellano looked up then, and he made a surprised noise that worked its way past his helmet speakers. "Jesus, those are lights aren't they?" He asked surprisedly, and then went on without waiting for an answer. "This is a fucking operating theater. Though, I've never seen one with restraining straps."
Van Horn just grunted and turned to move on down the hall. After a moment, Castellano followed along, and they went to the next door, and then to the next. Each of the six rooms along the hall was a similarly equipped room, each in varying degrees of disarray, but all obvious in designed use.
At the end of the hall, they found that it made a right angle turn to meet up with the other hall the building had, and down this connection was another doorway, as large as the one that had gained them entrance into the building. Through it, they saw a large room that was mainly empty, save for the trash and detritus that was everywhere. However, there were regular rises in the debris on the floor, and van Horn observed that they were ordered like beds in a hospital ward.
The pair of humans continued on, heading away from the alleged ward and up along the other hallway. The doorways in this section entered into smaller rooms, some of which still had metal desks, or at least the recognizable chunks of them. Others were stark empty, save for rotting vegetation, though one held some bones that appeared to have come from a small daukner.
"This is all really, really creepy," Castellano observed as the two moved into the building's foyer. "This is like something from an old trivid show, one of those ones that deals with haunted ruins of lost colonies and shit."
"Don't remind me," van Horn grunted out as they walked for the entrance. "I was in one of those smaller buildings earlier. Damn place gave me the willies." He was about to say more when he and Dan stopped to see Mikula and Alexis just sitting in a mutual hug.
"Awww," Castellano said aloud, causing Alexis and Mikula to start and quickly stand up. They both blushed, which elicited chuckles from the Republic trooper. "I'm sorry, I just couldn't help myself," Castellano said.
"That's okay," Mikula replied, still blushing. "It's fine. What did you see in there?" He asked, hoping to change the subject.
Van Horn, however, would have none of that. "Let's not worry about it for now," he said quickly before Castellano could say anything. "Dan, let's look at the third building, now, and see what spooked you more than this one."
Castellano just nodded, and he turned and headed off for the third and final warehouse-like structure, and van Horn, Mikula, and Alexis followed along.
Alexis still felt the heat of her blush on her face and in her ears, but she moved along, still feeling the warmth within, as well. Although part of it might've been from holding another so close for several minutes, Alexis knew it was far more than that.
Though, what is it then? She asked herself as the group trudged over to the next building. But even as the question formed, an answer was forthcoming. Because, Alexis, although this is a big shock, a terribly disappointment perhaps, it's not the end of the world. And, most certainly, it's not the end of your relationship with Mikula.
The warm feeling rose in strength, but Alexis had little time in contemplating it before the small group reached the next set of doors. This time, however, Castellano halted them a few paces short and turned around to look at van Horn and began to speak in a dialect that Alexis didn't understand.
"Aybemay ourway iendsfray ouldshay otnay eesay isthay?" He asked. To which the good doctor drew himself upright in a show of annoyance. "Ofway oursecay eythay ouldshay," he replied in the same, confusing dialect that made Alexis' head spin.
The two used an obscure dialect known to humans as "pig latin," and it translated as Castellano asking "maybe our friends should not see this," to which van Horn had replied, "of course they should."
Alexis knew none of this, though, and from the confused look she saw on Mikula's face, neither did he. But before either native could speak up, Castellano turned around and headed for the doorway, with van Horn following close behind.
Alexis and Mikula shared a look before they followed along, and by the time they caught up the few steps, van Horn and Castellano were already looking into the building. "Wow… This just keeps getting better and better," van Horn said sarcastically as Alexis poked her head between the two humans.
Like the first building, this one was undivided by walls, but this was by far not the most striking feature. That honor was reserved for the three long rows of cylindrical devices that stood canted at an angle on large stands that rose a full decimeter off the floor. Arms rose from these stands to cradle the large cylinders, and the base and arms looked to be made of metal, while the tubes themselves appeared to be a form of glass or clear plastic.
Standing next to each of these contraptions were tables or other such furnishings, each one having some sort of device sitting atop it, and wires lay everywhere around them, some leading to the cylindrical gadgets, others leading to a central line that ran down the back of each row. These three trunk lines converged at the end of the rows at a large piece of equipment that looked suspiciously like the main computer of some sort of vessel.
"Sweet fucking H. Christ," van Horn muttered. "What in the name of all that is holy is this shit?"
"You're the guy with the doctorate, Earl," Castellano replied. "Why don't you tell me?"
Van Horn just turned off his helmet light and shook his head. "I have an idea… But there's no proof, yet."
Alexis frowned and looked up at the human. "Proof of what, Earl?"
"Of what I've suspected for some time now," van Horn replied mysteriously. "And I think I know where that proof is…" His voice trailed off then, and he turned his head to look off into the distance. Alexis and the others turned as well and followed his gaze, and they found themselves looking at the central building.
The sound of stones being pulled out seemed mind-numbingly loud to van Horn as he and Castellano removed the blocking wall from one of the main building's entrances. However, when he checked the sound monitor of his suit's sensor suite, he found that it was hardly louder than the noise a man made whenever he ran in his armor over a hard stone surface. It must be the defacing of a monument that's makin' me nervous, van Horn thought wryly.
Their helmet lights were augmented by the twin flashlights of Mikula and Alexis, who stood back a few meters so that their lights' beams would blanket the area, giving a decent base illumination that the lights from the scout armor amplified where needed. Thus, the two humans had a good view as they yanked stones out, using their armor's strength to simply pry apart the old mortar and remove the set stones.
"I think this is the last of it," Castellano commented as he reached into the third layer of the wall and began to yank the topmost stones out. Bits of mortar and stone fragments rained down in a miniature avalanche, coming to rest on the pile of such material that had formed at the base of the entranceway.
They needed another few minutes, but soon they had removed all of the stones down the lowest layer, and the doorway now stood as a gaping black hole. Van Horn turned to look at his friends and took in a deep breath. "Well, here goes nothing," he said and then turned and walked in, drawing his pistol as he did so.
The good doctor turned his head about, letting his helmet's light play across the various features, though soon that light was assisted by Castellano's, and then by the lights held by Mikula and Alexis as the others followed the anthropologist in.
The room was different from the ones that were in the other buildings of the ruins. It was fairly well sized, though the exact dimensions were hidden by the rapidly shifting shadows. In one corner was a wooden desk, and behind that was a chair made from the same material. Drawn to it, van Horn slowly approached the two furnishings, carefully re-holstering his pistol as he went.
Although the sealing of the building had apparently worked – the floors were clear of forest debris – a thick coat of dust lay upon everything, and van Horn slowly, carefully wiped some of this material off of the desk.
Real wood alright, the doctor thought, and he cleared more dust off, careful to avoid mixing it too much with the air. "Odd," he muttered aloud. "This desk is wood, but the cut looks far too rough to be a manufactured piece."
"So what does that mean, exactly?" Castellano asked as he pointed his light and his own sidearm down the short hall that led from the entry room.
"I'm not exactly sure…" Van Horn said quietly as he moved to inspect the chair. Again, he carefully swept part of its surface clean. "This chair's made the same way… Doesn't even have padding."
"So, now what?" Castellano asked as he kept sweeping his light and gun down the hall. "Is there anything here you can use, doc?"
Van Horn checked the backside of the desk before turning around and shaking his head. "I'm afraid not. This thing's very basic, no drawers." He sighed then and pointed his light down the same hall Dan was covering. "We need to go deeper."
Castellano sighed. "I was afraid you were gonna say that," he said with a quick shake of his head. "All right, how do you want to do this?"
Van Horn frowned, but then remembered he still had his helmet on. "Dan, if you hadn't noticed, the ground's clear, 'cept for dust," he said slowly. "This place has been sealed for a few centuries, at least. I don't think anyone's gonna pop out and say, 'boo.'"
Castellano stopped in his sweeping movements, and then slowly chuckled. "Yeah, I guess you're right," he said and began to holster his weapon. "I think that this whole thing's just given me the willies."
"You're not the only one," Mikula added from behind the two humans, who started a bit before they remembered who else was there. "Jeeze, that took about ten years off of my life," Castellano muttered grumpily, though he then chuckled to show that he was only joking.
"I apologize," Mikula said most earnestly.
"Don't bother," Castellano replied with a wave. "It was my fault I wasn't paying attention."
"In any case," van Horn said in a clear tone. "Let's get back on track. I'll lead, Alexis and Mikula will follow, and Dan, you take the caboose and check our six."
"I thought you weren't worried about surprises?" Castellano said as he moved aside to let van Horn pass. The latter shrugged as he entered the hallway. "Well, there's a big hole in the wall behind us, if you hadn't noticed," he said in passing.
"Yeah, well, just don't tell my mom," Castellano replied jokingly. "Well, lead on, doc."
Van Horn grunted and then moved toward and then past Castellano, and he headed into the hall. The others fell into formation behind him as instructed, and Earl concentrated on studying the walls, floor, and ceiling for any defects that could cause a collapse. Fortunately, the hall was stable, and the four moved past doorways that led into more rooms that held desks, tables, and chairs.
Then they came to the end of the hall, which formed a T-junction with another, curved hall. Van Horn held up a hand to indicate for the others to halt before he carefully stuck his head around the corner.
The next hall, he saw, was not only curved, but indeed, seemed to be entirely circular. Or so it seems, van Horn mentally cautioned himself. Doesn't mean there ain't a blockage somewhere… All, well, don't worry 'bout it now. With that, he arbitrarily decided to go left, and the good doctor waved his friends on as he moved forward. The hall had a gentle curve, they noticed, and it seemed to run the entire circumference of the large dome.
"Doc," Castellano said after the group had passed two other halls leading away from the dome. "I'm getting' a shitload of ferrous off to our right."
"So am I," van Horn responded calmly. He didn't offer anything more, however, and Dan cleared his throat. "So, you don't seem surprised."
"I'm not," van Horn replied as the hall they followed finally reached its terminus. "And here's why," he said and moved inside the room that the circular hall ended in. The others quickly followed, and then all four soldiers stopped once inside.
It was a large hall, leading straight from the dome section of the building to the outer wall, though the doorway to the outside was, predictably, blocked off. A set of four columns seemed to prop up the room at the corners, while along the sides of the walls were pictures, hung in old-fashioned wood frames. If there was any doubt as to which race had built the settlement, they were now destroyed as the newcomers saw the images of humans peer out at them from traditional, two-dimensional photographs.
The biggest surprise by far, however, was the large staircase that jutted out from the right side of the hall, directly opposite of the outer doorway. It was a simple, straight staircase that went up at a steep, forty-five degree angle into a dark recess within the wall.
"Wow…" Castellano muttered. "This is some serious Egyptian shit here."
"Sort of," van Horn replied quietly, and then he walked for the stairs. The others followed him slowly until they were all standing at the base of the steps, van Horn kneeling down to brush the thick dost from them.
"They're metal," Alexis breathed as van Horn uncovered the first step.
"Metal, with wood planks laid over them," the anthropologist replied. Then he stood up and shined his light up into the doorway that the stairs disappeared into. The dull sheen of painted metal shone back at the small group, and van Horn grunted. "Just as I suspected."
The others all turned their heads to look at him. "Exactly, what did you expect?" Castellano asked half-sarcastically.
"This isn't a building, or at least, it wasn't originally," van Horn replied mysteriously as he began to climb the stairs.
"What the Hell do you mean?" Castellano asked after he took a minute to decide whether to follow the anthropologist or not. Then he started up the stairs after van Horn. "How can it not originally be a building?"
"Simple," van Horn replied as he entered the room atop the stairs. "Before this was a building, it was a DropShip."
The halls were dark and strangely cold inside the ship, though Alexis wondered if it wasn't just the eeriness of the situation. Van Horn's supposition had been met with confirmation when the group had passed through the narrow airlock and into the cavernous vehicle bay.
They were in that bay now, walking down the center of it as they checked the vehicle cubicles that lined the open space. Each one held either an engineering vehicle or a pair of smaller trucks or jeeps or tractors.
"So, doc," Castellano began after they shone their lights over another multi-purpose engineering tank. "How did you know this was a DropShip, anyway?"
Van Horn just looked over the dusty vehicle for a moment, and then he answered. "In the year 3055, Clan Steel Viper occupied a world I the deep periphery, known as Siroc." He began quietly, just standing and staring at the 40-ton engineering vehicle. "Siroc was discovered by ComStar's Explorer Corps years before, and they had built a supply cache there.
Siroc had been established by a set of colonists who had left the Terran Hegemony over five hundred years before. They slid, technologically, due to diseases that hit their population hard, and they lost much of their history as well." Van Horn paused for breath then, and he shook his head. "I mention this, because the Explorer Corps sent a mercenary unit to drive off the Vipers and rescue the supplies and the team that guarded them. The merc unit, however, unwittingly alerted the clanners, and a running battle ensued, ending in the natives' main city of Châlons.
"The mercs won, but only because they had discovered that the locals' main temple was, in fact, a Vulture-class DropShip that had had a building constructed around it. They activated the ship's age-old weapons and used them to surprise the clanners enough so that their allies in the Corps could flank them." Van Horn made a point to look around then. "Once I saw the massive MAD readings from this building, I figured that a similar situation must've occurred here."
Castellano shook his head a bit, causing his light to swing about. "That's one hell of a tale, Earl. Just one thing bugs me about it: How did you find out about that?"
Van Horn chuckled darkly. "Because the CIA is full of sneaky bastards," he said and turned to lead the group to the last set of vehicle bays. "And because I'm an anthropologist with a security clearance, I can get reports that are only slightly classified, so long as they pertain to my field of study."
Castellano chuckled then. "I guess workin' for the Washington Academy opens doors," he said amusedly.
"I suppose it does," van Horn mused aloud as he shined his light into the next bay. "Holy Shit," he said suddenly. "Dan, come look at this."
Castellano and the others hurried to join van Horn, and they all turned to see what had caught the doctor's attention. "Wow," Castellano said quietly. "That's real nice."
"Hell yes," van Horn mused as he looked over the large, 75-ton Burke heavy tank that occupied the last two vehicle bays, which had been combined into one, larger bay so as to accommodate the combat vehicle. "Well, at least we know which era this ship is from."
"Oh?" Castellano asked, turning to look at the good doctor. "Care to enlighten us?"
"Dan, Dan, Dan," van Horn said in a mock reproachful tone. "Didn't you bother to learn your military history?"
"I wasn't plannin' on goin' to OCS anytime soon," Castellano replied in a sullen voice. "So what's up?"
Van Horn chuckled lightly. "This is, obviously, a Burke tank. They were only introduced in 2580."
"'Only,' the man says," Castellano replied with light sarcasm that carried a playful tone inside. "That's still, what? Five hundred years of history?"
"Four hundred ninety-two, to be exact," van Horn answered lightly. "But we can only count half of that, since the Burke was only extensively deployed during the First Star League era. The Successor States never had too many to waste by sending them to guard engineering vehicles," he finished by waving a hand back towards the other vehicle bays."
"I'll take your word for it," Castellano replied dryly. "Still, I wonder if this thing still works?" He said and turned his head around to look over the tank again.
Van Horn chuckled again. "Fell in love already, Danny?"
"Shut your pie hole," Castellano retorted lightly. "I just want it to be a nice, fat target for the enemy mechjocks to shoot while we're sneakin' up behind 'em to rip them a new one."
"I'll drink to that," van Horn replied. Then he sighed. "Well, as interesting as this place is, I don't think we'll find any real answers down here." He turned around, shining his light about until he found what he sought. "Let's take that ladder up to the next deck and see if we can't learn more."
Mikula followed close behind van Horn as the human led the way up yet another ladder. The group had traveled up nearly a dozen of them, and the lupar, for one, was getting tired, despite the adrenalin that continued to propel him forward.
I think Earl said that this is the last one, though, Mikula thought as van Horn disappeared through the hatch in the deck above and pulled himself to the side. Mikula, his flashlight firmly clamped between his jaws, feverously hoped so.
The four newcomers had walked throughout the ship, seeing various infantry barracks, crew quarters, and storage compartments. Van Horn had surmised that, like the ship on Siroc, this vessel was an old, obsolete Vulture-class. "Too many troop barracks to be anything else," the anthropologist had said. "Plus, a lot of them were used for colony ships once the militaries stopped using them."
Mikula forced himself to focus on the present as he pulled himself through the same hatch that van Horn had climbed through. Metal-clad hands reached down and got a grip under his arms, and van Horn helped Mikula to the deck. "Thank you," the lupar said.
"No problem," van Horn replied, and then waved for Mikula to stand aside, which the young man did. Alexis came through next, and she was helped similarly to how Mikula had been, and then Castellano pulled himself up and into the room.
Mikula, meanwhile, had been shining his light around the room to get an idea for what it was, and he saw various controls, seats, and monitors arrayed around the hatch in the floor. "I think this is a control room," he said aloud to no one in particular.
"Seems that way," van Horn added casually as he turned and headed for one of the larger control panels. Alexis and Castellano continued to simply check over the other consoles, but Mikula followed van Horn, curious on what the anthropologist would turn up next.
"Hmmm," van Horn hummed aloud, his helmet broadcasting the noise.
"What is it?" Mikula asked as he brought up a hand to cover his nose and mouth as the human brushed dust off of the console.
"This looks to be the communications station where one of the officers would sit… but there's no seat," van Horn replied. "Odd… Wait, what's this?" His voice took on a new tone of surprise as a light flashed on as soon as the doctor's gloved hand touched it.
"Holy shit!" Van Horn exclaimed, causing Mikula's hears to flinch back and the other two in the room to turn around and walk over. "What's up, Earl?" Castellano asked cautiously.
Van Horn just swung his head around to look at the other M.I. trooper. "This thing still has power!"
"You're fucking with me?" Castellano asked in shock, but van Horn just shook his head and turned back to brush more dust off of the console. "I sure the hell ain't, Dan," he replied and studied the writing. "Shit, this is the 'message stored' button."
"Message?" Mikula asked aloud. "Who would leave a message? Or why?"
"I think we can find out," van Horn replied distractedly as he looked over the console's controls. Then he glanced back at Castellano. "You got your recorder ready?"
"Yes," Dan replied quickly with a bob of his head. "Fire away, doc."
Van Horn took a breath as he turned back to look at the console. With a few button pressings, the display screen at the station started to whine as power built up from its mysterious source. A small lamp over the console came on, though it was shaded so that its light would only illuminate the controls, and an LED panel glowed over the legend 'message playback.'
Then the screen flared to life, and the four soldiers stared openly as static faded to show the visage of an older human woman. From the background, she had stood in the same room while recording the message, and the idea gave Mikula the chills. The gray-haired elderly woman, however, radiated a sense of calm warmth, and the lupar focused easily on her words as she began to speak.
"Those of you who are watching this recording are undoubtedly explorers, so let me first congratulate you on reaching this room, despite whatever trials may have been in your path.
"Hopefully, you know who I am, but I cannot assume so, so let me explain." She paused for breath, and then continued on. "My name is Doctor Felicia Garcia. I was born on the planet Dieron in the Terran Hegemony in the year two thousand seven hundred twenty-eight. I received my degrees in genetics and bioengineering from Unity City University on Terra in twenty-seven fifty-six, and since then, I've been working for the Star League Terraforming Corps."
Another pause for breath, and this time, the woman brought up her hands and steepled them beneath her chin. "Hopefully, you will know what that all means. If not, then let me be simple. I was born and educated in the twenty-eighth century, and I learned from the best of the best. Perhaps that sounds arrogant," she paused to shrug then, her hands disappearing again. "But then, false modesty was never my strong suit." At this, she smiled.
"Now that introductions are over with, let me give you the brief story of this place," Garcia said and waved a hand around to indicate the ship and, presumably, the base around it. "I and a team of terraformers, both workers and scientists, were dispatched in this ship – which, by the way is named the Sable Pine, in case you were wondering – to help with the recurring environmental extremes encountered on the planet Raldamax in the Outworlds Alliance.
"Things… Did not go exactly as planned," the woman frowned then, and she shook her head. "We don't know, exactly, what happened, only that our transport JumpShip mis-jumped and then suffered a coolant failure in the K-F Drive core. We ended up here, in this star system, and were stranded.
"That normally would have been bad enough, I suppose," Garcia added in an annoyed tone. "But we didn't even know where we arrived. None of our star charts matched the skies, and the system we found ourselves in wasn't like anything on record in this quadrant."
The elder woman paused for breath then, and it became apparent that she was quite tired. "Nevertheless, we decided to stick it out and wait for help. We moved our ships in-system and parked the JumpShip in orbit around this planet's moon. The ship's captain set an automated distress signal to broadcast constantly, and then we all dropped to the planet to build a base and stick it out until help arrived." The old woman snorted at that. "We should've known better, but castaways seldom have need for pessimism.
"In any case, we set up this base, which we called, 'Base One.'" She paused to roll her eyes at that. "So cheesy, I know, but we drew straws, and trust me, you never want to let a mathematician name a place, even if he is a physicist.
"Where was I? Ah, yes, the time of hope and building." The woman's eyes took on a distant look, and a faint smile played across her lips. "We were so busy, working on building a nice little home, safe in the mountains, that we didn't bother to think of our situation." The smile disappeared, and her eyes focused back on the recording device. "It didn't last.
"Thankfully, we weren't the only DropShip. We had some help from the SLDF Corps of Engineers, and they had their own, Mule-class ship loaded to the gills with everything we would have needed to fix Raldamax's problems." She paused for breath again. "Not only heavy duty construction material, but also the laboratory equipment we'd need to engineer some living vectors if needed."
Van Horn felt a chill run up his spine as his mind leapt ahead. Oh God, I was right…
Uncaring, the recording went on. "Of course, there were some other things that we eventually grabbed from the JumpShip, and we eventually dismantled the Mule as much as we could before it was buried in a landslide." Garcia sighed then. "With these, we managed to get a decent living standard. And, like the scientists we are, we had to figure out what went wrong.
"Doctor Kynes – that physicist I mentioned – came up with this creepy idea, which none of us have proved or disproved, but we latch onto it simply because we have nothing else." She paused then, and anyone watching could tell she was having problems with what she was about to say.
"Now, you may or may not find this unbelievable, but…" She paused to sigh again. "But Jeffery- Er, Dr. Kynes, suggested that the malfunction in the drive core resulted in not only a space jump, but a time jump as well." Her face contorted then, and she shook her head. "It seems ludicrous, but Kynes had all the charts lined up within a few weeks. If he's right, then we traveled not only several hundred light-years off course, but we also went back two thousand years."
"Madre de Dios," Castellano breathed, and van Horn felt almost dizzy. Time travel? Two thousand years! His mind reeled at the implications.
Garcia, apparently, had anticipated the furor that this announcement would have elicited, and she waited patiently on the recording for a few seconds before continuing. "I know, I know, time travel is impossible according to all known physics. However, Dr. Kynes was most emphatic, and, well, it does explain the lack of any deep space transmissions one usually picks up this far into the rim." She sighed again, the idea still apparently irritating her sensibilities. "Kynes had some interesting ideas, something about the nature of K-F Fields and the implication of time travel by some lost theorems of Kearny and Fuchida… But none of the rest of us can follow it. Even captain Byrne, our former JumpShip commander, can't make heads or tails of it.
"Still, without any evidence to the contrary, we've had to adopt this as a working hypothesis." Garcia closed her eyes then, as she seemed to peel back her memories. "We figured, then, that we were stuck here, and we'd better make it a real colonization attempt. Only, there was one, major flaw." Her eyes opened, and in them van Horn saw pits of sadness. "We didn't have enough people for true genetic diversity. After a few generations, the recessives would have built up enough to kill off the colony after only six generations.
"So we had to find new genetic material… And, it so happened that there was already a species on this planet that was half-evolved already into sentience." Garcia's face twisted then into a curious mix of sadness, stoic control, and self-disgust. "They resembled Terran tigers, and had rudimentary language and tool making abilities. They were, roughly, equal to Homo Habilis. Please note, the use of the word 'were.'"
Van Horn, Castellano, and Mikula all glanced to Alexis, who was simply staring at the monitor in shock. What- what is she saying! The gatón's mind reeled, but the recording went on. "Using our vehicles, we managed to capture several of these natives, get DNA samples, and then began to work." Garcia bit her lower lip then, and she closed her eyes. "It was slow, at first, introducing retroviruses to rewrite some of the natives' DNA. We improved sight and intelligence by a small margin in the captured natives, but our greatest success was with their offspring.
"I'll admit it, I'm going to Hell," Garcia said, her voice low, and a tear rolled from her right eye as she turned her head away from the camera. "I… I won't go into the other details. There is a written report attached to this message, and hopefully, if the databank held this recording, then it would have held that report, as well. Read that if you want the sordid details.
"Suffice it to say," the old woman continued, her voice becoming stronger. "We began to infuse our human DNA with that of the natives' to create what, I hope, you will see today; a race of small, civilized bipeds with the traits of their native ancestors and those of Terran genes, including some tiger genes we had the coding to, so that they would have the strength to fight against natural predators." She wiped her eyes then, and turned to look straight into the camera again. "But that wasn't the end of it, unfortunately.
"While we loved and cherished our creations - our 'children,' if you will – we noticed that they were still a bit too… Content." Garcia sighed then. "They were the ideal of the 'nature's child' crap that anti-technology cults indulge in. Only this time, it wasn't quite crap. Our new race was happy to live simply off of this planet's bounty.
"This, however, breeds complacency and, potentially, extinction." Garcia tilted her head forward and closed her eyes again as she recounted the story. "We had thought that by creating racial diversity, we'd generate the kind of mutual competition and, ultimately, distrust that would keep our children evolving, progressing, developing well into the future.
"We were wrong," Garcia said and then raised her head and stared into the camera again with open eyes. "I suppose we were too perfect in our design… Or else we didn't go far enough. Whatever the cause, there wasn't the sort of impulse that drives humanity to perfect itself, to move forward and discover. By then our design was complete, and so the Gatos – 'cats' in English, in case you didn't know – were not what we'd want to tinker with anymore, lest we undo our careful work.
"Thus, we started on a new, counterpart to the Gatos. Instead of working with a native species, we decided to work with the few animals we had brought with us for Terraforming. Namely, wolves."
Mikula felt his fur stand on end, as he knew very well she was talking about his people. So this is why Alexis looks like she's dead on her feet, he mused with gallows humor as his insides turned ice cold.
"The genome of the Terran Gray Wolf is one that the Terraforming Corps has used extensively to create predators that hunt down and control native pests on many worlds. I know of examples where the intelligence of the species was doubled, making them smart as chimpanzees.
"We, of course, went further. Using not only these aforementioned tricks, but also the same gene-splicing of our own DNA, we managed to work much faster on our neowolves. Again, the details are in our report…" Garcia shook her head then, apparently using the movement to focus her mind and control her emotions. "In any case, these Novo Lupus were more like humans than our Gatos. They were immensely curious, and took to machinery and learning more naturally.
"Unfortunately, we were again a bit too successful. We had the appropriate tension between the species… And then some. The years passed, and we taught our children all that we could about living, society, culture, and morals.
"But it wasn't enough. Fights broke out, resentment built up, and us humans were scorned for not taking sides. Finally, our Gatos and wolves had enough. A small battle ensued in the base, and we had to separate them by force." Garcia again closed her eyes to prevent the tears from flowing freely. "Many died, and we eventually told them all that, if they could not live in peace, then they must leave.
"And leave they did, though some Gatos built a town nearby. With our help, eventually, since we couldn't turn our backs on them since they didn't wish to turn their backs on us." Garcia sighed then and opened her eyes.
"So, that brings us to now… There are but few of us left, those who came in on the ships. And as you an see from my own face, we're not exactly spring chickens." She smiled self-depreciatingly at that. "So we're making preparations. Equipment is being locked, smashed, or simply buried to prevent their misuse from hurting those who may come looking for this place. We have also gotten promises from the Gatos nearby that they will finish our work of closing this place down, permanently, once the last of us are gone.
"So there you are," Garcia said, her voice again becoming sad. "That is our story. I'm sure that, if you are human, then you are condemning us, blasting rhetoric and praying that our souls will rot in Hell. Trust me, you're too late on that front." She smirked then before going on. "And, if by some small chance, you are the descendents of our children…" She took a breath then, and a moment passed as she thought. "I- no, we want you to know, that whatever the reasons for your existence, whatever you make think seeing this… We did come to love you as our own." The tears started then, from Garcia and as well as the soldiers. "Please remember that we did our best, and that we are sorry, so very sorry, for anything we might have done that could have hurt you down through the ages. We did our best to do right by you, but, alas," a faint smile appeared then. "We, and you as well, are only human."