For a lush world, nocturnal fauna seemed to be missing on Akuze. On most worlds April had been to, there was always some animal or insect cutting up the night with noises or flitting around, either lit up like fireflies with strange lighting or dim mists. Not on Akuze. It felt unnatural to her. It's as if a boding menace had silenced the night, watching and waiting to pounce on unsuspecting prey. Figments of imagination, she knew, due to the underlying unease and tension. Still, it was hard to brush off the impression. The voices of rustling leaves and swaying trees continued unabated through the helmet pickups with her breaths and the thump of her boots underlying her solus walk to the administration buildings.
There was no urgent tag to the message so she took a route that took her past the sentries posted for the night. Given how uneasy everyone was, she wanted to have a word with them and made sure they were buckled down solid. The veterans were taking it in stride but the new intakes were raring for action. A few were edgy. With the senior lieutenant temporarily away on another mission and her pulling double loads, she didn't want anything to happen on her watch.
It was close to half an hour later that she entered the main administrative building, satisfied with the brief talk she had with the sentries. Here, there were more signs of human activity as she walked past the rooms. A few marines under the direction of Sergeant Niels were running a stock check of the meagre armament of the colony at the supply office. That the weapons were left behind was a sign the colonists were not expecting any trouble.
She nodded in acknowledgement when they hailed her but did not stop. The door of the medical bay was open so she glanced in. Doc aka lieutenant McKey, MO, did not see her since his back was facing the door. From the stack of datapads, the numerous holo-displays blooming around the work console and the way he muttered under his breath, it was obvious he was deeply engrossed in his own research of the medical records of the colony. She continued on to the main office. Santino sat in line of sight of the door, manning one of the work consoles. He flashed her a wide eyed look when he saw her walked in and ducked his head. She frowned. A curious reaction.
Other than Santino, a few other marines were scattered at other work stations, checking the colony data entries for anomalies. Absorbed in their tasks, they did not look up as she made her way to the large conference table at the back of the room. The top of the table was littered with beverage stained cups and datapads. Someone with an artistic hand had embedded a carved wooden clock at one end of it. Why it was there, she had no idea since the table came with a perfectly functioning holo-chronometer. A hologram of the colony floated at the center of the table. The craggy-faced man with faint wings of grey at his forehead, standing near the middle of the table paid no attention to it. He frowned down at a datapad in his hand.
She took off her helmet and came to attention, wondering what update was upsetting Captain Landry. "Sir."
"Shepard-," he did not look up, "took the long tour?"
"To keep everyone on their toes, sir."
"Toeing the line is all good but keeping them there-," he looked at her with a gleam in his eyes, "can be highly taxing."
"For a home run, it's worth it, sir," she said evenly, not about to admit the double load was eating into her rack time and liberty.
"I can't argue with that." He handed her the datapad. "The Emden picked up a short range beacon signal 25 klicks south-east of us. With only one settlement on this planet, no other sign of a foreign landing, it has to be the colonists."
She nodded. Her eyebrows shot up as she read the report. "Intermittent signal. This should have been picked up when the Emden entered orbit. Not sixteen hours after."
"Survivors. I hope," he said bleakly when her eyes flicked up. "A busted beacon they managed to get working perhaps."
"That would imply a catastrophic event," she said without surprise as she laid the datapad gently back on the table. She did not bother voicing the few possibilities that would fit the current situation since it was all mooted in an earlier discussion onboard the Alliance cruiser. "How do you want this to play, sir?"
"If the entire colony went out there-," he rubbed his stubble chin thoughtfully, "it might be extremely ugly."
"Advance recon, sir?" she queried.
"Thirty minutes," he nodded in agreement, "take doc with you. We're beating feet-," he glanced at the quaint ornate timepiece set into the table, "in about an hour."
"Any comprehensive local maps of the south-east?"
"They just dug it up." He hit a key near him. The holographic image on the table changed. "Correlates with the initial scans with a few more details. Flat terrain at beacon location. No water sources, mid hilly ranges. They're still collating data on local fauna but there's no red flag. Nothing nasty to fear at the moment."
"Doesn't mean it's not there," she said. "Local or foreign," she emphasized the latter word. "Flat terrain-," she frowned. Every marine's nightmare when trouble exploded.
"So watch your asses out there." He cocked his head at the display. "That is all."
"Sir." She came to attention and turned away. There were tasks to be done and she had less than thirty minutes to prepare.
"Shepard-," he waited till she looked back. "Don't take any chances."
"Heard you first time, sir."
"Good marines are hard to come by." He flicked his eyes away quickly.
His concern was interesting. She wondered if it had anything to do with her upcoming interview with the officers review board. Usually, that meant a kick up in pay grade unless the officer in question was committing one gaffe after another in the field or his CO didn't think he warranted the boost. Neither of which applied to her. She stopped by Santino to check for additional data he could have found on the target location. From the strange look on his pale face, beads of sweat that dotted his forehead and the bouncing of his body from a jerking leg, he looked as if he would keel over at any minute.
"Need a med check, Santino?" she asked with some concern.
"What?" He blinked up at her and followed her gaze to his leg which went still immediately when he realised what he was doing. "No, sir. I'm good. Really," he added when she looked hard at him, wiping his face and straightening in his chair, attempting to look alert.
"Don't bugger around if you're not tops," she said.
"No, sir. I won't."
She fancied she heard a sigh of relief when she turned away. What's the matter with him? Santino didn't stand out that much when he swept in with the new intakes. A typical fresh and eager joe who buckled down well under the brickbats handed out by the rest of the company. He had settled in and performed up to par in his first field trip. Akuze was his third. He didn't look so bad as he did now when they first landed. Did he pick up a bug? If he did, his hardsuit biosensors would have detected it. So why did he look like he wanted to puke? Shaking herself mentally, she made a note to check on him later and pushed the problem to one side.
She turned into the medical bay and updated McKey. He did not look surprise when informed of the recon. There was nothing alarming in the medical records he looked into. They were disappointingly pedestrian. The only entries that fascinated him were notations on the impact of local flora and fauna on human physiology. Knowing McKey's penchant to launch into discourse over new discoveries, she hurriedly cut him short before he could begin and directed him to make preparations to leave in less than half an hour. She would treat him to a drink after they got back to the ship to make up for it but she doubted he was offended at being averted. The only times he was offended was when someone tried to tell him how to do his job.
After leaving the medical bay, she began calling in the marines she had in mind. While she waited, she inspected her own equipment; assault rifle, pistol, grenades. Fingers moved smoothly over each weapon component, precise and confident. As she tucked the pistol away, the squads she selected stepped into the supply office. Erial looked subtly excited but braced to attention with the others instead of flapping questions at her. She was no greenie to tuck a boot in her mouth. The mission briefing was clear and concise but then, they expected no less from April. Once dismissed, they began their own preparations, assembled again after five minutes for inspection before making their way to one of the 'cockroach' at the landing pad. They were on their way within minutes. While the others settled down in the cargo compartment, April went to the cockpit.
After double checking their heading, she settled back in the co-pilot seat. It would take about fifteen minutes to reach the site. She would use the time to get some rest to clear her mind and ready herself. Nothing but darkness could be seen through the windows. If she looked harder, she could perhaps see the glimmer of stars. If stars were wishes, perhaps they would grant her wish that all of them would come through unscathed. That she did not have a stone peach in her stomach. The times when she felt like this had been run-ins with pirates, mercenaries and worse of all, batarians. Any encounters with the last inevitably left some gaps in the ranks if they were unlucky. Fervently, she hoped the latter were not the cause of the current situation. Slavers were the most loathsome fiends she never want to deal with. She took a deep breath and resolutely cleared her mind as she closed her eyes.
"LT, five minutes to target."
Her eyes snapped open at the soft murmur from the pilot. Did she fall asleep? It felt like she did. Yes, she did doze off. Ouch. The pilot would have noticed or maybe not. A look at the cockpit window revealed the darkness had faded to a dark grey haze. A couple more hours before dawn. Unstrapping herself from the seat, she made her way to the cargo compartment. The squads looked up at her entrance, the murmur of their conversation died away.
She nodded to them. "LZ in five minutes."
They began to secure their helmets and went through all the little motions of tightening their hardsuits, checking their weapons once more. The overhead screens lit up. They had their first view of their destination when the pilot turned on the exterior lights.
"Target sighted," he said. "Orders?"
April's eyes widened. Even in the dark greyish haze, the scattered vehicles on the ground was hard to miss.
"Hold at forty and circle perimeter of debris field," she said, moving closer to the screens as she held on to the overhead handbar while the rest braced themselves.
The shuttle banked and flew in a circuit. In the dim light, she could make out overturned trucks. Some were in pieces, others looked pulverized. Some trucks were buried midway into the ground. Parts and chunks of metal covered a large area of the flat terrain. It looked as if some giant had been raking up the ground with a huge fork. There were hollows, troughs and piles of earth. No bodies. Her eyes flicked. No. Her breath caught when she sighted a couple of corpses among the wreckage.
"Source of beacon?," she asked, frowning uneasily. The pattern of the debris was not coherent to her.
"It's coming from one of the trucks along the perimeter," came the reply after a while. "Nothing else sighted," the pilot added.
"Set us down by the beacon," she said, turning to face the hatch as the shuttle straightened and began to descent. "Eyes peeled-," she motioned to the squads and opened the hatch once the shuttle set down.