NOTE: The SSV HONG KONG in this chapter is the original frigate of that name, which was destroyed in the Battle of the Citadel in 2183. The wreckage was later salvaged, melted down and used to construct a second frigate of the same name—the Hong Kong II—part of the Alliance's Fifth Fleet in 2186.
GPR – Ground Penetrating Radar
Something very strange is going on in the depths of space. — Carl Sagan, Cosmos
• ALLIANCE BASE, MARS · WEDNESDAY EVENING, 12 JANUARY 2180 •
The main entry door unlatched, allowing the multiple segments to slide silently into their slots; Xiùlán's head came up as she listened. The sounds of footsteps, soft, slowly dragging, came to her ears, followed by the metallic sounds of the door segments exiting their recesses and once again meeting in the middle of the opening, the sound of the electronic latch locking being the loudest portion of the entire operation. A heavy sigh ensued, followed by the resumption of the nearly silent footfalls coming towards her desk. "You okay, my love?" Xiùlán rose from her chair and looked intently at Traynor; it nearly broke her heart to see the dullness of grief in her normally sparkling honey-brown eyes.
"I don't think I'm cut out for this, Xiùlán," came the quiet response. "Seeing … Heather …" Sam was having difficulty keeping herself from breaking down again. What must Xiùlán think of me? How can she love someone so bloody weak? "on that table like that? … I kept thinking … of how that could have just as easily …" she held a hand over her mouth and nose, attempting to maintain her self-control. "Xiùlán, what if … what if that had been … you … under that drape? I keep thinking …"
Xiùlán quickly grabbed Sam by her shoulders and gently shook her, an action for which she was instantly sorry, as shaking Samantha was the wrong thing to do. Sam tried to turn away from her lover as the tears overflowed and began running in rivulets down her cheeks. Xiùlán whispered, "By my ancestors, Sà mi! You are allowing your feelings to drive your imagination," as she pulled the distraught woman to her, wrapping her in her arms diagonally, one over a shoulder, the other around her waist. "I am so sorry, Sà mi … I'm sorry …" she whispered in her ear. "Ssshhhh … it'll be okay. Please, calm down, Sà mi. Sssshhhhh."
Traynor melted into the warm embrace of her lover as she cried her heart out yet again. It had been a tough day, and being told by the program administrators they wouldn't allow her to leave to attend Heather's funeral back on Earth. "…you're not family, Serviceman. Leave if you must, but you will be dropped from the program. Means a black mark in your jacket, and you'd have to start over, if there are any openings the following year." Sammy whispered, "It's not right, Xiùlán! It's just not right, and it's not fair!"
Yuán pushed Traynor back a bit so she could look in her eyes. "Sà mi?" Xiùlán used a hand under Samantha's chin to tip her head up gently. "Sà mi, look at me. There is nothing fair about life, or death, but it's going to be all right. You'll get through this. I'm here for you, okay? And I'm not going to end up cold on some exam table, understand?" Kissing her gently on the forehead, she rubbed Sam's back and added, "Come on … let's order some food. Have a bite to eat, you'll feel better."
"Not hungry. Just want to crawl in my bed, go to sleep, wake up before all this happened."
"Do you want me to order for you? Remember the last time I ordered your dinner?"
One corner of Samantha's mouth actually tipped up in a slight grin. "Puked my guts out."
"Right. So, tell me what you want to eat, and I'll get it coming for you." Xiùlán was still holding Sam against her, and the pressure and warmth from her body was causing a spike in the heat within her own core. As much as she enjoyed the feeling and wanted to exploit it, she realized it would be completely inappropriate for her to take advantage of Sam's vulnerability in that way, so gave her an extra little squeeze and added a gentle kiss before reluctantly pushing herself away.
"I need to finish what I was doing, Luv. I managed to contact General Park in Vancouver. She promised to get in touch with the ME regarding Heather's omnitool. Hopefully we can take a look at the recordings tomorrow. I already informed Mallene to be expecting a call."
Sam took a deep, cleansing breath to calm herself; in a sad voice she said, "I'm going to get cleaned up. Whatever you order, make it light, okay?" Traynor walked back into their sleeping area to use the bathroom as Xiùlán placed a food order on her terminal; she had decided to pay for the delivery service herself, rather than ask Sam to chip in. She just hoped General Park would be able to cut through the red tape in time.
Several hours had passed since dinner; Xiùlán was lying on her back in their bed; Sam had finally gone to sleep, lying close beside her with an arm draped across Xiùlán's midriff, face nuzzled into her lover's neck, her breath warm across Xiùlán's throat. She could feel Sam's pulse, almost in time with her own.
This group … this Cerberus. They were supposedly a 'black ops' arm of the Alliance, but operated as if they had no affiliation to any but the so-called Illusive Man. Xiùlán felt a profound anger beginning to well up from deep within her. She decided that doing research on their background wouldn't provide the answers she needed, particular the answer as to why murdering an innocent woman in an obviously futile attempt to escape capture was considered acceptable. She needed to figure out a way to talk to either Marianna Walsh or Darius Holden, even if she expected neither would be very forth-coming.
Disturbing Sam just enough so she could roll onto her side and face her, she hugged and kissed her, settled herself comfortably next to her lover and drifted off to sleep.
The trill of the door lock at 0605 wormed its way into Xiùlán's dream, sounding like a warning of something destructive about to engulf her. The trill occurred again, this time awakening her from her dream. She gently disentangled herself from Sammy's arms and legs and rose from their bed, put on her short silk robe and walked to the door as the lock trilled yet again. The camera feed revealed her early morning caller was Mallene Calis; she was wearing a long, blood-red cloak with a deep hood pulled well over her head, as if she was attempting to remain unnoticed. Yuán released the lock, allowing the door to open and Mallene to enter.
"I wasn't sure the door chime would wake you," she said as she pulled her hood back. "I really need to speak with you … Traynor as well. It's important."
"Of course, Ms Calis. I'll wake her. Would you like some tea?" Xiùlán walked back to the kitchen to set a pot of water on the stove as she spoke. "Aglyna T'Sega gave me some of hers to try—I still have enough to make some for the three of us."
"That would be very nice, Ms Yuán."
Xiùlán smiled at the asari as she came back into the living area and said, "Please, have a seat. I'll get Traynor up so we can …"
"So we can what?" Sam yawned from the bedroom door, attempting to cover her mouth with one hand as she clutched her robe together with the other.
Traynor sleepily sipped her tea as Mallene spoke softly. "Your General Park is a real miracle worker, Ms Yuán. The base ME contacted me about an hour ago—gave Heather's omnitool to me before they sealed her stasis pod for transport back to Earth."
Traynor perked up a bit and asked, "When are they planning on leaving?"
"Later this morning, I believe. They're going to use a freight shuttle for the trip."
Yuán wanted to know, "Have you reviewed the recorded info?"
"I have," Mallene replied as she set the tool in the middle of the table and activated its playback function. "The video portion is hard to watch. I'm actually glad there's only an audio record of Heather's death … I don't think I could bear to witness that," she finished sadly.
The three of the them watched quietly as the vid portion played; Sam grimaced and covered her mouth in a vain attempt to stifle a gasp of her own at the sound of Heather's last breath exiting her lungs through the gaping wound in her throat, as her body collapsed to the floor, just before Corporal Phillips and Gunnery Sergeant McBride entered the restroom and took Marianna Walsh into custody. The audio continued even after Heather's body was transferred to a gurney; before she was taken from the restroom, they were able to hear the sounds of a laser-cutter slowly severing the ceramic blade from Heather's omnitool. This was accompanied by the sounds of glass shards falling to the sinks and floor, along with the pitiful cries of pain and screams of agony from Darius each time he was jostled, until the recovery crew was successful in freeing him from the wall to which Heather had pinned him. The sounds faded from that point, as the gurney was taken to a holding area for transport back to the main facility.
Mallene commented as she shut the playback off, "Her omnitool continued recording until the ME removed it from her wrist." The asari's forehead wrinkled a bit in sympathy as she remarked, "I certainly would have expected those people to have administered medigel before they began cutting through that blade."
Traynor frowned as she replied, "Forgive my lack of empathy for that man's suffering, but I'd say he got no less than he deserved, and he certainly didn't pay as much for the encounter as Heather."
Xiùlán huffed as she stood, finished her tea and said, "Thank you so much for coming to see us with this, Ms Calis. And I agree with Traynor. Neither of them has a very long future ahead of them … the leader of Cerberus rewards people for their failures; I guarantee it will not be pretty when it happens, and that they're in Alliance custody will not deter him."
In the days following Heather's murder at the hands of Cerberus agents, Xiùlán and Samantha had continued training for covert assignments of their own. Xiùlán was mastering the art of infiltration into secure locations; she was already considered a master of hand-to-hand combat, so much so that the only person on the entire base willing to meet her on the mat for a sparring session was her lover, and then only under protest.
Both women had spent several weeks learning the basics of infiltration, reconnaissance, assassination, and sabotage from a master spy – a salarian whose résumé included time spent with the Salarian Special Tasks Group. The STG was not widely known, which was the whole point of their existence. Salarians were not warriors like the turians and—with rare exceptions—had no biotics abilities as did the asari; they weren't aggressive by nature, but they were extremely intelligent and used that to their advantage in covert operations.
Traynor had done her own research on Cerberus, both its history and current objectives. Despite their origins with the Alliance, they were currently considered to be a terrorist organization and known to do business with the Blue Suns and Eclipse when their interactions were totally advantageous for Cerberus. Their 'humans first' rhetoric made both merc groups leery of dealing with them, particularly the asari-run Eclipse gang. The Blue Suns were nearly as problematic—the group's proclivity for employing turians, and worse yet, batarians, crossed the line in so many ways for Cerberus; unfortunately for them, humans were not highly regarded by the rest of the galaxy's inhabitants, so getting certain things done meant dealing with the mercs on a regular basis.
Neither of them had found the time to visit the Cerberus sleeper agents responsible for the death of Heather Gonzales; Sam wasn't even sure she should go. She felt a deep-seated loathing for the pair of them, Marianna Walsh in particular. Traynor knew meeting Walsh would not turn out well for either of them; Walsh would be dead, and Traynor would be in shackles inside a holding cell.
Xiùlán had brought up the subject at dinner one evening. "Sammy, we may never get a chance to speak with either of the operatives responsible for Heather's murder." She used her chop sticks to grab a piece of meat and take a bite. "I really think we're going to have to let this go until we're out of the program."
Traynor's cold, calculating expression didn't do Xiùlán's mood any good. "I can wait, Xiùlán. I have a long memory and a lot of patience. If their boss doesn't reward that fuckin' bastard and miserable little bitch for their failure to escape, I'll certainly give 'em exactly what's coming to 'em; when it happens, they'll know two things right away … that is was me that set 'em up, and that they won't have a chance to tell anyone how they managed to die at the hands of a computer nerd."
"What are you going to do, Samantha? How do you propose to get close enough?"
Traynor's expression was a bit frightening—it was a side of Samantha Xiùlán had never seen. "Don't have to be close, Luv. Their equipment will do the work for me. Only regret? I won't get to watch it happen firsthand." She paused and drank a bit of water before continuing, "I'm working on that part also. I really do want to watch it happen, and getting revenge is just part of the plan. That asshole that runs Cerberus? He'll get to see it as well."
A germ of an idea had begun forming in the back of her mind—a way to extract revenge on Walsh that the woman would never see coming, would never connect with anyone in the Alliance. She continued to think about it … how to pull it off … whenever she had a few moments of free time.
As they completed their classes under the watchful eyes of their ex-STG instructor, they were informed they would be participating in a 'pre-grad' mission, expected to last fourteen days, in the Hades Gamma Cluster. Their assignment would be relatively straight-forward—survive the mission undetected as they explored locations on two of the planets in the Dis system.
The Alliance was covertly assisting the salarians in looking for any data it could find on the so-called 'Leviathan of Dis', found in the bottom of a crater on the planet Jartar by a batarian survey team in 2159 or 2160. Estimated at the time of its discovery to be nearly a billion years old, it was rumored to have been the corpse of a genetically engineered living starship. In 2163 it mysteriously disappeared after a batarian dreadnought visited the system.
Their other assignment was in the same cluster—they would pay a short visit to the planet Klensal in order to verify or disprove the rumored discovery of a League of One operative near a crashed escape pod. If a salarian member of the League had crashed on Klensal, he would not have survived for long without a shelter and life support—the thin carbon dioxide and ethane atmosphere would have led to a slow death by suffocation once emergency oxygen supplies had been consumed.
Of interest to Traynor, there was more than just a little danger in visiting either planet—there were reports that small teams from Cerberus were involved in research in the system, particularly on Jartar, and were definitely not welcoming of outsiders.
Mission planning, with the exception of transportation, was being left to the students. Group leaders would inspect their plans, but would not intervene unless something really egregious stood out.
Xiùlán and Samantha decided to visit Jartar first, making planet-fall in an M35 Mako piloted by a skilled Marine; the Mako would be their shelter from the lack of atmosphere and extremely high surface temperatures between exploratory excursions on foot. They planned to scout the area outside of where the massive starship—if indeed that was what it had been—had lain on the surface; Xiùlán's belief was that there was never a 'clean' ground mission—there was always trash and debris left behind, and it was generally species specific. She also secretly hoped they would encounter Cerberus operatives while on the ground there.
She and Traynor added heat-resistant EVA suits to their inventory—the tiny planet's extremely fast rotation of just under five hours meant they would need to set down at planetary dawn. Xiùlán didn't think they would be able to stay outside the Mako for more than thirty minutes of the two-and-a-half-hour day; they would be highly dependent on surface scans along the edge of the crater, while the Mako's ground-penetrating radar would be used to search for subsurface anomalies. The pair wanted to wait until they were planet-side before deciding to explore the bottom of the crater—a lot depended on the roughness of the terrain and steepness of the crater walls.
Their preparations and plans had been approved—they were scheduled to leave in two days.
• JARTAR, DIS SYSTEM · HADES GAMMA – THURSDAY MORNING, 24 FEBRUARY 2180 •
The frigate SSV Hong Kong, on loan from the Alliance Fifth Fleet at Arcturus, had established a low orbit around the planet after swooping close by Jartar's surface and dropping the Mako bearing Yuán Xiùlán and Samantha Traynor; their driver was a young Marine sergeant named Tobias 'Toby' Perkins, who skillfully landed the M35 and immediately increased the mass of the vehicle to make it 'stick' to the surface of the extremely low gravity planet. "Hope you ladies brought your heavy boots with you," he snarked. "Gravity is virtually non-existent!"
Traynor snarked right back. "Suppose we could simply jump straight up to rejoin the Hong Kong?"
Perkins laughed and replied, "Not quite, but when you go outside, you will certainly need to watch your step."
Xiùlán was using the Mako's GPR as the sergeant rolled the Mako forward at a walking pace. Traynor had been using the zoomed gunsight of the 155mm cannon to inspect the area ahead of their intended path for anything on the surface that looked out of place.
After half an hour, the Hong Kong called down for a status report; Sergeant Perkins replied that all was proceeding normally. As he terminated the connection he noticed Traynor looking at him. "Question, Traynor?"
"Would you mind looking at your view screen, Sergeant?" she asked, referring to the 'repeater' of the cannon's gunsight. "I think I have something."
Perkins complied with her request, fine-tuning the focus and pulling the zoom control slightly. "Looks like you did find something, Traynor." He altered their direction towards the object and increased their speed slightly, moving them closer to the edge of the crater. After half a minute, he stopped a couple of meters from what was apparently an empty food packet, lying in the dust 13 to 14 meters from the crater's edge. It was the sort of thing normally stashed aboard whatever vehicle in which you were riding.
After sending a short status report to the Hong Kong, Tobias put his helmet on, sealed it and looked back at Traynor and Yuán. "Seal your suits, ladies. Need to depressurize so one of you can retrieve the trash."
Yuán and Traynor pulled their helmets on, checked the seals on each other's suits and nodded to Perkins, who ran gloved fingers over the environmental controls; after the air had been pulled from their cabin and stored, Tobias opened the starboard hatch, allowing Yuán and Traynor to drop onto the crusty surface.
The coolers in their EVA suits immediately started whining in protest as they attempted to prevent the internal temps from climbing past 25 degrees. Traynor carefully walked around the nose of the M35 and stepped up to the debris, being vigilant in the near micro-gravity to maintain her footing. Crouching in front of it, she looked it over carefully before picking it up. It appeared to be a container for a standard field ration issued to Alliance Marines, but she wanted to examine it closer inside the Mako.
Xiùlán walked up beside her as Sam stood with the container in her hands. "Let's take a closer look at that before we re-enter the Mako." She entered several commands on the suit interface connected to her omnitool and passed her wrist over the apparently empty container; upon inspecting the scan results, she immediately grabbed it from Sam's hand and threw it away from the crater as hard as she could. Jartar's micro-gravity and lack of air allowed the container to fly over 50 meters from the pair before it silently exploded with a bright flash and puff of greyish-white smoke.
"Damned thing was rigged," Xiùlán fumed. "Scanning it activated a countdown timer—liner must have been packed with the explosive."
Sergeant Perkins voice came over the comm. "You two okay out there? Looked like a pretty powerful explosion for its size."
Traynor answered, "We're fine, Sergeant … thanks." She changed to the suit-to-suit frequency and said, "Thanks, Xiùlán. Glad you looked at it out here. Were you able to tell before you threw it away … was it batarian, or Cerberus?"
"Looks like it was a gift from Cerberus," Xiùlán replied, her voice still tight. She crouched down and carefully studied the surface ahead and to the side of the Mako before finally settling on one direction, away from the crater's edge at an angle. "Tire tracks … really faint, but definitely there … looks like from a Grizzly. Tracks are most likely from their drop point."
"Do we need to go over there, or should we continue on?" Traynor was already looking ahead.
"Let's continue on," Xiùlán said quietly. "I have a hunch we'll be following Grizzly tracks."
Switching her suit comm to the squad channel, she said, "Sergeant? We're coming back in—time to get out of the sun for a bit."
They had continued moving alongside the crater's edge for an additional two hours without seeing any other objects left behind by previous explorers, even though they were still following tracks apparently created by a Grizzly. They had discovered as they moved that Jartar was continuously being wracked by micro-quakes, no doubt caused by the planet's proximity to both Dis and Nearrum. Their short 'day' was nearly over, causing Traynor to voice some concern about night exploration until they noticed the planet Nearrum rising above the eastern horizon. It would provide enough reflected sunlight to enable the team to continue moving safely during Jartar's short 'night'.
They were about 30 minutes into the night cycle of the planet when Traynor called a halt. "There's something in front of us, hanging off the edge of the crater. Looks like a vehicle."
Sergeant Perkins agreed with Sam's assessment, saying, "Possibly our Grizzly."
As they got closer, it became apparent that the tracks they'd been following ended here, with a model VT7 partially over the crater's edge, left side forward wheel hanging off in 'space', right rear wheel nearly off the ground. The vehicle's weight, even with Jartar's micro-gravity, had caused it to 'high-center' as the opposite corners lost contact with the ground.
Tobias observed, "Someone forced the driver of that thing towards the edge." He pulled the M35 alongside the bigger vehicle and activated the side cameras and lights. "See that? Right side wheels are buried to the axles in this soft soil—pile in front and back of each tire makes me think they tried to drive their way out." The sergeant panned the view from back to front. "Couldn't use the ventral thrusters for fear of sending the whole thing over the edge. Safer to simply abandon it."
"Any way to see if they were forced to the edge by someone—or something?" Traynor was studying her view of the vehicle. "I think we need to go out and take a closer look."
"It's up to you, Serviceman," Tobias replied. "I'm just your driver." He pulled his helmet on, sealed it to his suit and backed the M35 a few meters away from the Grizzly in order to allow Traynor and Yuán more room to move around outside; they left from the port side hatch as soon as the cabin was depressurized.
Walking up to the right side of the stuck vehicle, they could just make out traces left by small arms fire near the driver's side window. "Not really proof it was attacked, Xiùlán," Sam observed. "Most of these old bears have seen action of some sort, either military or mercenary. Can't do too much damage with small arms. Can you find the serial number? Should be laser engraved on the sides immediately behind the leading edges of the operator cab."
Xiùlán shined her light obliquely across the area where she expected to find the numbers; the high-intensity light caused the engraved numbers to stand out by throwing shadows. "Looks like 67-VT00402a."
Traynor entered the number into her omnitool and had the microframe in the Mako send the query to the Hong Kong orbiting above them; she had her answer within minutes. "Originally purchased by a mining company – Merida Industries, mid-2168. Company went bust in late '71 after rampant speculation tanked the price of beryllium; Grizzly was auctioned in early '72. Buyer was a mega-conglomerate – Cord-Hislop Aerospace." Traynor paused to read the data scrolling on her screen. "Shell company … CEO is one 'J. H. Arper'." Traynor closed her omnitool.
"That was eight years ago, Sammy. How did it wind up here, and why? "
"I believe this Grizz' belongs to Cerberus, Xiùlán. 'J. H. Arper'?" Traynor thought for a moment before continuing, "The 'H' and 'A' together? Harper? It's Jack Harper, aka The Illusive Man. Makes sense, I suppose. C-H Aerospace is a starship manufacturer. Funny thing is, a lot of the ships C-H manufactures as civilian transports are thinly disguised warships, fully weaponized and shielded."
While Traynor had been talking, Xiùlán had been looking around the nose of the VT7, searching for footprints or vehicle tracks going away from the heavy transport, as well as gazing into the crater the Grizzly had almost tumbled into.
Without warning she dropped to a crouch as she said, "Traynor, stay down. Sergeant, douse your lights!"
The front and side lights on the Mako went out immediately, plunging the pair into the eerie twilight provided by the sunlight reflected from Nearrum. "Look in the crater, Sam, about eleven o'clock from your position, two klicks out." Xiùlán said.
Traynor looked over the edge in the direction indicated; there appeared to be movement. Several people using portable high-intensity lights, two vehicles sitting parked, one behind the other. Sam moved back to the Mako; reaching into the cramped storage area, she retrieved her sniper rifle, a fully modded Kassa Fabrication Harpoon. Carefully moving back to the VT7, she dropped to her belly and crawled to the edge of the crater. Bringing up the long gun, she aimed it at the vehicles and sighted through the scope at the people in the crater.
"What do you see?" Xiùlán had crawled up beside Sam.
"Pair of Grizzlies, five … no, seven people. They seem to be looking for something … can't tell what from here." Sam continued to inspect the people through her scope. "Their suits all look alike … can't see any markings, so not Alliance." She caught a glimpse of one person's face through the faceplate. "One of 'em is human, anyway. They're all about the same height, so probably the rest are as well. Looks like …" She paused for several seconds before finishing, "Judging from their chestplates, one or two of 'em are women. Doesn't appear they've seen us."
Xiùlán entered a query into her omnitool and sent it to the microframe in the Mako, requesting the Hong Kong initiate a search for other ships in the system, as Sam examined the vehicles minutely through the rifle's scope.
She pulled the gun back and rolled sideways so she could face Xiùlán. "Both vehicles look exactly like this one, Xiùlán. What do we do? Mission parameters are that we remain undetected. It'll be sunrise in just over an hour."
Xiùlán's omnitool flashed as she started to reply. "Heard back from the Hong Kong … they found a large vessel orbiting Klensal. Captain's going to break orbit, move the ship to Nearrum. She'll come get us if we holler, but thinks we should just sit tight and observe for now."
Xiùlán sighed as she thought about their next move. "Looks like we'll be here a bit longer. Let's get back in the Mako – we need to have Sergeant Perkins reposition the tank so the cannon is aimed at our visitors down below, while keeping its bulk hidden behind the Grizzly. We can keep an eye on them through the gunsight, and the Hong Kong will alert us when their ship is inbound to pick 'em up."
Traynor got to her knees and took another look in the crater. "Okay. I'm starting to feel a bit hungry. Guess we can have a bite to eat while we see what they do when the sun comes up."
After two-and-a-half hours of quiet observation, night was fast approaching; the reflected light from Nearrum would be slightly lessened by distance, as Jartar was rapidly drawing away on its journey around Dis.
The two Grizzlies had moved towards the far side of the massive crater and were nearly out of sight over the planet's curvature. Xiùlán and Samantha felt they should drop down into the crater and follow along, just to see what the suspected Cerberus crew was doing.
The Hong Kong had been covertly scanning for comm traffic from the unknown vessel orbiting Klensal; there had been some chatter concerning the ground crew on Jartar, but nothing that identified the vessel's owners. The Hong Kong's communications officer had confirmed the mystery ship's transponder appeared to be turned off; while not illegal to run without it, it did add to Sam and Xiùlán's suspicions that it was a Cerberus-owned vessel.
A transponder broadcast the identity of a vessel, including its owner. It made sense to Traynor that a Cerberus-owned vessel would wish to keep their presence in the system a secret; even though they were technically in Earth Alliance Space, Hades Gamma was near the far end of the human's designated area, and considered by the batarians as belonging to the Hegemony. The Dis system consisted of non-habitable planets with a fair amount of mineral resources, in every way unremarkable even to humans. All of this ran through Sam's mind as she watched the shadows of nightfall crawl across the crater floor and the pair of vehicles disappear into the gloom at the far end. She looked at Xiùlán and asked, "Time to go?"
Yuán looked to Perkins and said, "Let's see what's down there, Sergeant."
"You got it, Ma'am. You may want to strap in, just in case." He initialized the drive motors as Traynor centered the turret before strapping into her seat. Tobias turned and drove away from the crater's edge 250 meters before turning back and accelerating to full speed. He decreased the Mako's mass as they flew off the edge of the crater and started descending, Perkins making minute mass adjustments in order to keep the Mako slightly tail-down as they slowly fell towards the crater floor.
They floated to a gentle touch-down, their driver expertly playing the mass and drive controls to ensure they didn't bounce when they touched down rear wheels first. With the Mako still traveling forward at top speed, it was only a few minutes until they reached the spot where they had first spotted the unknown vehicles from their vantage point at the crater's edge.
As Perkins brought the tank to a stop, Traynor rose from her seat and sighted through the cannon's rangefinder. Panning left and right, she could see no sign of the two vehicles; spinning the turret around, she looked at their former position. The VT7 stuck on the crater's edge was barely visible, its bulk mostly camouflaged by the ruggedness and ruddy hues of the terrain around it, even with the view at maximum magnification. Explains why they never saw us, she thought.
"Any more information from the Hong Kong, Sergeant," Traynor asked.
"Hong Kong is running silent, Serviceman. Captain will inform us if the strangers' ship starts moving this way from Klensal."
Looking at Xiùlán, Sam remarked, "Good time to slip outside, take a quick look around. We're going to need a pickup soon."
Xiùlán thought for a few moments, then replied, "Sergeant, turn right and take us into that depressed area our unknown friends were investigating. Let's see if the GPR produces any results."
"Roger that," came the reply as he turned the Mako and eased it into the depression. The tire sound coming into the cabin changed as they rolled onto compacted soil. "Whatever was lying here was quite heavy, even on a micro-gravity planet," Tobias observed. He turned back to the left as he reached the center of the depression. Checking his instruments, he added, "Depression appears to be about 1800, 1900 meters in length. That's more than twice the length of an Everest class dreadnought." Shaking his head, he looked back at Xiùlán and Sam and asked, "What the hell kind of vessel was grounded here?"
Xiùlán raised her hand as she said "Stop!"
Perkins promptly brought them to a halt and waited for Yuán to explain. "I've got something! Actually several somethings." Looking at Traynor, she asked, "Any sign of those two Grizzlies?"
"Nothing," came the reply.
"Sergeant, depressurize, please. Probably last chance we'll have to get outside. I think we need to call for a pickup when we're done here."
Xiùlán directed Tobias to reverse the Mako just enough so she could stand on the spot over which the front wheels had been parked. Using her omnitool to confirm her findings with the Mako's GPR, she pointed at the ground and told Traynor, "Right here, Sam."
Sam used her personal mass modifier to increase her apparent weight before applying the short handled shovel to the spot; she excavated a hole half a meter down and a meter in diameter. The clunk of the shovel spoke to their success—they both used their gloved hands to push the soil away until they were able to uncover the metal parts.
Each of the several pieces of metal was black in color—the kind of black that absorbed all the light shining on it. They inspected them for radiation emissions before picking them up; the largest was about 65 to 70 centimeters by 35 to 40; the smallest of the three was less than half the size of the first piece, and their apparent weight on this planet spoke to the density of the material from which they were formed. Traynor stowed them in the small cargo compartment, then entered the Mako behind Xiùlán.
Perkins started pressurizing the Mako as he spun it around 180 degrees and began moving back towards the crater wall. He started speaking as soon as he had his helmet off. "Hong Kong's on its way here to pick us up. We'll rendezvous at the far end of the crater. Captain said our unknown companion left Klensal ten minutes ago, heading this direction." The Mako was moving at its top speed, so bounced a bit as it came to the end of the depression, its tires spinning slightly in the looser material past the deformed area they had been traveling in.
Xiùlán had been watching their 'six' through the cannon gunsight as they drove along; repositioning the gun, she looked up at the crater rim until she could see the Grizzly stuck on the edge. She had to look at it twice, at two different magnification levels to confirm what her eyes didn't want to accept. "Sergeant Perkins? Sam? That ancestors be damned Grizzly is in a slow-motion free-fall off the crater's edge."
Perkins brought the Mako to a stop so he could look at the monitor. "She's right! Damn!" They had stopped far enough away that they weren't in any danger; what they hadn't counted on was another ground party, looking in their direction from the former parking place of the unfortunate VT7 now falling slowly down the crater side. "That's not good," Perkins opined.
Yuán aimed the 155 mm cannon at the people on the crater edge. At full magnification, she could just make out the logos on their chest armor—Cerberus. "Sergeant, tight-beam a message to the Hong Kong: Cerberus confirmed ground-side. Use caution."
Perkins was watching the monitor showing what Xiùlán was watching. The hair on the back of his neck stood up as he saw two of the people setting up a rocket launcher. "Serviceman Yuán, charge that cannon and standby. Target is the launcher they're setting up. Wait for my order to fire."
"Will do." Cursing their miserable luck, Yuán engaged the cannon's mass generator and made sure it was loaded. "Standing by, Sergeant." The cannon added its own moaning sound to the interior of the cramped cabin, as if whining in anticipation.
Perkins watched the people above finish their preparation. As they stood and moved away, a bright light flared from the device, followed by a tight trail of flaming smoke aimed right for the nose of the Mako.
Perkins immediately turned to the right and accelerated away from where they'd been stopped. The smoke trail turned to follow. "Shit! Yuán, fire that cannon then recharge!" He turned the Mako's nose back to the rocket's path and charged their kinetic barrier as Xiùlán pulled the trigger. The cannon's recoil rocked the Mako slightly back as the Cerberus rocket launcher and the round it contained, along with the people around it, were all obliterated in a fiery explosion from the heavy-metal 155 mm slug traveling at a small fraction of light speed.
Perkins watched the rocket still coming at the Mako's nose as the range-finder computed the rate of closure and began a beeping countdown; he calmly waited as the individual tones rapidly grew closer together.
The instant the tone became one solid sound, he accelerated momentarily before dropping their mass and using the propulsion-jets to jump the vehicle straight up three-and-a-half meters. The Mako's forward momentum carried them up, over and away from the rocket, which exploded some ten meters behind them as Perkins increased the mass and set the M35 back on the ground and stopped. "How we looking, Yuán?"
"All targets eliminated, Sergeant. Nothing moving up there."
"Okay, get ready for evac. The ship's almost here."
Xiùlán tracked the Hong Kong inbound using the cannon's rangefinder; as it came to a hover five meters from the surface, Tobias brought the Mako around and jumped it onto the cargo bay ramp, which slowly began closing as the Mako rolled safely inside. The first part of their mission in the Hades Gamma Cluster was complete but, as far as Xiùlán was concerned, since they made enemy contact and had not completed the mission undetected as required, it was an absolute failure.