They had stopped about fifteen hundred metres from the fence to examine it, but the walk in closer was taken carefully, so it took them a good ten minutes to cover the ground.
"Do you think the ground is this hard all over? It looks very compressed to me."
"I'd think so. The area's pretty much a desert with a lot of wind from the north, and some fairly bitter cold for much of the year, so it's likely to have settled. From what I understand there used to be irrigation, but after they frakked up the ecosystem it's been pretty much abandoned. Why do you ask?" Hunter glanced back at Marius, wondering where the question had come from.
"As I understand it, the damage to the area has made spellcasting almost impossible. That means if we need to dig a hide, we need to do it the old fashioned way. I know that we have a couple of folding spades – but to get through this soil will be difficult, time consuming and tiring."
"Ahh – I see. Yeah, that sucks then. Best thing we can do is to try and find a natural depression, or even better a defile or wadi, something like that, and use the natural terrain to our advantage."
"Affirmitive"
"Once we get a bit closer, we may want to look for somewhere to rest up. I'm thinking of actually crossing the fence line once it gets dark. I still find it hard to believe that there's no sensors out here."
"None yet, Aswon. I am sure they will have them. Saeder-Krupp might not have the same reputation for ruthless death-traps as Mitsuhama, but they are not to be taken lightly."
"Oh, I'm not dismissing it Marius – it just makes me nervous. A single wire with signs? That doesn't sound right…"
"Think of the area Aswon mate. The perimeter for this half of the spaceport is going to be more than two hundred kilometres long from my calculations. Do you know how much it costs to run a fence that long?"
"No. How much?"
"A frak ton."
"That's not very precise."
"Hang on, lemme think. I'm sure Nadia showed me a line on her spreadsheet…. Yeah. Around 25 Nuyen per metre, if I'm remembering right – that's for the material only, not including the labour. So you're talking about five million to get a fence all the way around. Sure, bulk discount probably applies – but you've got to install it and maintain it as well."
The team fell quiet for a moment as the enormity of the potential fence danced through their imagination.
"Hmm. And a single spool of wire is likely to be 25 Nuyen for a kilometre I would guess. Sure, plus the stakes – but an order of magnitude less. I guess the size of this place hadn't really sunk in. It's like trying to put a fence around an entire city or something." Aswon glanced left and right, across the bland rolling landscape which vanished into the distance with no lights or visible man-made structures in either direction. "I'm also thinking we're not likely to run into jamming or white-noise generators out here. Not only because of the scale of the place – but it'd jam their telemetry and communications, and that's not the sort of thing you want to have happen during a space launch I would say. If what we do makes the rocket blow up though, then all bets are off – they may well block out all the airwaves but a few of their own channels as part of their security response – and we should be ready for that."
"If our actions cause this rocket to explode – I personally do not fancy our chances of escaping. Not against the kind of response SK will launch." The rest of the team glanced over at Marius and saw that his expression matched his grim tone. "I worked for them. I saw how they did business. They will not take such a loss lightly, and will expend considerable resources to find out what happened." He sighed a little. "On the other hand, if the rocket does not explode, and it just gathers data – then we walk out in the same way that we walk in, and nobody is any the wiser."
"The thingy probably doesn't have a transmitter does it?" Kai asked. "So we'll have to carry it out with us, the same as we're carrying it in?" He head affirmative grunts from both Aswon and Hunter, and gave a little sigh of his own. "I do hope Shimazu's Johnson hasn't been compromised or burnt."
"What do you mean? Sato is trustworthy, and an honourable man!"
"I didn't mean it like that Shimazu. I mean – I hope whoever gave him the job isn't setting him up as much as us, and it's not a suicide run. I don't think Shimazu would have given us the job if it was. But if he's not been told what a cluster-frak this is supposed to be, he wouldn't know, and he couldn't tell us could he? What if Sato has been hired to send in a decoy mission, and both he and us are regarded as expendable?"
"I think Sato would not fall for such a tactic."
"I hope you're right – I really do. But I'm with Marius. I've got a bad feeling about this one."
"What do we do then if we're discovered, and cannot deal with the situation quietly? Normally if we were happened upon by a security guard or a maintenance man, we could rely on Tads to take them out with a stun-blast. But the chance of her being able to pull that off out here is very slim. That leaves tasers and the like – which are shorter range and not as reliable. So we should work on a plan for what to do if the alarm is raised."
"We run Aswon. Really fast."
"A nice idea Marius – but not practical – not over ten kilometres of this kind of terrain. And if we're being pursued by a vehicle, then utterly impractical. We would be quickly outflanked and boxed in. I was thinking that we find somewhere the mana is less polluted – if we can find anywhere like that – and get Tads to dig us a hole and we drop into it. And we hide. For days, if that's what it takes."
"If we're having to get close to the rockets to do this mission anyway, do you think we can find somewhere people are living? That might ease things a little?"
"I'm not sure Tads. You're right in general terms – living things seem to have a positive effect on the manasphere – that's why the ocean depths are just as good to cast magic in as the surface, and why space is a killer. But I think it has to be natural life. You look at a big city and there's a palpable taint to it in the astral realm, despite the millions of people there – just because of all the buildings and the lack of nature, and the depression and treatment of so many people. Even if we found the base housing block, I think it'd still be a miserable place and the manasphere would reflect that."
"Hmm. That doesn't sound positive. I think I'd have to agree with you then. Most of my spells are just not going to be effective out here – the warping effect is too strong, and the smaller and easier spells just get drowned out by the static. I've got a few that are powerful enough to blast through it – but they're going to be even harder than normal to cope with after casting. It's possible that if we spot someone I can put enough power into a spell to alter their thoughts or memories – but you shouldn't count on it."
"Marius – I have a serious question for you. It's not something any of us would be wanting to contemplate… but if it looks like we're actually going to be captured… well…." He paused for a few steps, trying to work out if there was a better way to phrase his question. "Well, should we save a bullet for you?"
"Ask me if the situation crops up Aswon. I have no desire to go back to the corp – no desire at all. But I am not keen to die either."
"Of course. And I wouldn't want to be the one to tell Nadia – assuming that any of us got out alive. Which if we've just blown up a quarter billion Nuyen's worth of rocket I wouldn't rate as likely!" He managed to inject a little levity into the response, but then his face frowned as he stared forward, walking a few more paces as he studied the area ahead. "STOP! Everyone down, now!" He dropped prone and shucked off his rucksack, lowering his profile and grabbed at his rifle, bring the scope to his eye. The rest of the team dropped prone as well, trying to put the large cases holding the laser equipment in the lowest ground they could and hastily throwing a square of cammo netting over it as they too sought cover.
Aswon continued to scope ahead while he heard subtle but frantic efforts around him to get the team down and into concealed positions – they all had rucksacks on carrying their survival equipment, the two large boxes holding the laser designator and the power packs, and their personal weapons – several of them in Hunters case – and the terrain here was unforgiving to say the least. He ignored that though, looking ahead. Something had triggered his senses. Something he'd see had made him feel uneasy enough to trigger the alarm, but without conscious thought. Now he just had to work it out. He slowly scanned the area ahead of the team, panning the rifle left and right as he examined the terrain. The magnified picture tracked over the desert, spotting the odd cacti, mound of earth, small tuft of grasses growing out of a collection of rocks… then he paused once more, and lowered the scope to use his unmagnified vision instead.
Something clicked in his brain as he saw the wider picture, taking in the vista ahead. Cacti. Pan left, about fifty metres. Hillock. Pan left, fifty metres. Rock formation. Pan left. Fifty metres. Another cacti. Another fifty metres. Tufts of grass. Far too regular. Nature just didn't work like that – there was no way all of those things would be spread out in a line, with such regular distances between them purely by chance.
Now that he knew what it was his unconscious mind had picked up on, he grabbed the rifle again, panning even further over to the left and right, and spotted the line marching off to the distance in both directions, regular as clockwork. He returned his gaze to the closest one, almost dead ahead of them, and zoomed right in, straining his vision as far as he could in conjunction with the maximum setting on his scope. The cacti surface was shiny and smooth – too smooth. Plastic looking. And there was a faint pattern over it, a series of perforations set in bands all the way around the plant on the side he could see. He shifted over to the patch of grass next over, and was fortunate to catch it just as a gentle gust of wind moved the blades around, revealing the omni-directional microphone that lay at the centre of the small tuft.
"Ok, found the sensors. About seven hundred and fifty metres ahead – that puts it about five hundred metres inside the fence line. There's a line of sensors running from west to east, parallel to the fence as far as I can make out. Artificial clumps of cover, spaced out every fifty metres, disguised as plants or rocks or mounds of dirt."
"Microphones? So we just need to creep past?"
"Possibly Kai. It probably makes sense out here. Engine noise is going to travel for a good distance, and even the whine of an electric motor is going to carry – there's no other noise to cancel it out."
"What about the wind? Wouldn't that play hell with the recordings?"
"I don't think so. If you've got a good knowbot running the system, with that many sensors to take samples of the ambient noise you can probably filter out all the background quite easily." Hunter responded. "I can think of half a dozen commercial utilities used in things like recording studios to take out background hum and equipment noise that would do the job – hell, they're probably less capable versions of whatever's running this, released by the corp to coin in on their research!"
"Can we go back and get the tilt-wing and fly over?"
"We could, but I think we're still gonna get tagged. Aswon – did you say they were omnidirectional?"
"I'm pretty certain they are, yes."
"Yeah – that makes sense. Each one will receive the audio in a hemisphere around them. Get a pair and you can start working out bearings and speed. Add the third and you can triangulate much faster and more accurately, and start working on height as well as angle. Punch in a whole row of them and they'll pick up noise in a three dimensional space on either side of the net, and let you know the exact position, vector, whether its single or multiple sources, the whole nine-yards."
"But there's got to be hundreds of them to make a barrier. Thousands even!" Kai grimaced.
"Just over four thousand if they've done the whole perimeter. And I don't think there's any reason to doubt that. But with a sufficiently sensitive microphone, they can leave big gaps between each one and still have plenty of overlap in coverage to do the job, and it's still gonna be cheaper than a physical fence. And it's going to provide active feedback too, to a central point. A fence just sits and makes life difficult. This will report back on intruders and let you send out a response force.
"Speaking of response force – everyone keep your heads down. I can spot movement to the west, right on the horizon. Dust plume – looks like something is heading this way."
With the prospect of active sensors or guards heading their way the team checked their positions again, trying to make sure they were as unobtrusive as possible. Aswon adjusted his position and draped the cammo netting over both himself and the rifle, and then moved down over the scope again to see if he could spot what was coming yet.
At first all he could see was the dust cloud thrown up behind whatever vehicle it was, a rolling mass of dust thrown up into a huge wedge shape by the progress of the vehicle before slowly settling down to the ground again. Twenty seconds later he spotted the source of the cloud – a lightweight dune buggy style vehicle powering across the ground at a fair rate. Huge balloon tyres were a spinning blur of rubber, bouncing up and down violently as the oversized shock absorbers worked to nullify the punishing impact on the uneven ground. The main body was a mass of tubes welded together into a lattice, forming an open body around a couple of seats and a raised back area. That meant minimal armour and comfort, but light weight and probably exceptional manoeuvrability. Looked like a driver and passenger up front, and two in the back area. One facing backward in a rear seat, while the fourth was standing, holding a weapon that looked pretty big.
As the buggy grew in size, covering the distance between them quickly, Aswon adjusted the report he was giving to the others, correcting his observations. The gunner wasn't so much holding a weapon, as holding ONTO a weapon. It looked to be a medium or heavy machine gun, mounted onto a simple ring mount, and the gunner was grasping onto the handles firmly. Even so, when the buggy hit some bits of terrain he was catching good air, and he certainly had to be strapped in with some kind of harness to avoid being just thrown about more than he obviously was.
"I reckon they're doing about forty kph. Probably not their top speed, but I think if they went much faster the chance of seeing or hitting anything with a drive-by drops dramatically. So that's probably the best speed they can do, while still being functionally useful. Even so we're talking about an entire shift to do a circuit of the perimeter."
"They will not do that. You cannot drive at that kind of level for that duration and stay focussed – not even a fellow rigger. In combat, sure. But not for a daily routine. They much have sectors to cover before returning to a central point for rest."
"I agree Marius – which means we're talking about multiple patrols, probably with slightly overlapping sectors to worry about. Ok, heads down, they're coming about as close as they're going to get. If they're going to spot us, it'll be now…" Aswon flipped the cover on his scope down to avoid any tell-tale reflections in the late sunlight and hunkered down, his head turned sideways and watching the buggy with one eye as he tried to make himself look like just another bump in the scrubland.
The buggy roared past, skimming from mound to mound as the driver hammered along a route that lay on the far side of the sensors. They could see the passenger looking their way, gun secured on a sling while held ready, and the ring mounted machine gun was aimed in their general direction – but they didn't appear to spot the team, and carried on eastwards, leaving nothing behind them except the slowly settling cloud of dust that marked their passage. The team waited a good ten minutes for them to get some distance away, and to ensure they weren't going to be doubling back before they started to rise from their hides, scanning the eastward horizon with binoculars and spotting scopes to double check on their progress.
"Any comment Marius?"
"A routine patrol. Given the distance to cover, the mode and speed of travel seems reasonable. I would expect them to have very good quality equipment, with excellent technical capabilities. The corporation is likely to heavily invest in technical equipment with good specifications. As with all the mega-corporations though, there will be a cost/benefit analysis done on what funding is available. With the value of the facility here, that is likely to be overwhelmingly in the 'give them anything they want within reason'. So count on them having plenty of stopping power in their weapons, top of the line armour and their miscellaneous equipment will also be very good. It would be hard to jam their radio I would expect, for instance."
"And the sensor line?"
"I think Hunter has covered most of it. But I would agree that a passive system like this is a very good example of that cost/benefit analysis. An investment up front in laying the thousands of microphones and cabling and disguising it all, but all the processing and really expensive equipment can be kept safely back at base where it is easy to secure and monitor. And that is where any upgrades will have taken place over the years as well, to refine the software and add processing capability. I am sure microphones will fail over the years, but they are swapped out ad-hoc by an engineering or maintenance team I would expect. If you are good enough to work maintenance on a rocket, repairing microphones is probably childs play. But that means crossing the line will be tricky. They can probably detect footsteps at a considerable distance. They did not sound like seismic microphones from your description – but it is possible there are two components, with a ground based or buried element listening for ground impacts from footsteps that feeds into the same system."
"Great. That is going to be a bitch to cross then." Aswon lowered his rifle and rolled his shoulders, loosening the muscles. "I think we have to assume there's some overlap between the positions. If what you and Hunter said about them wanting to triangulate stuff, that means they've got a good 100m range per unit, at least for ground stuff. I would imagine they can hear the noise from a jet engine even further. But that means we need to be super-sneaky from further than that away. Say at least a hundred and fifty metres – probably closer to two hundred to be safer. So we have a four hundred metre crossing were we need to move with absolute silence. Anywhere else I'm sure Tads could help us with spirits and a spell or two, but that's not going to be an option here…"
"I have… a suggestion." Shimazu hesitated, then looked around at the team, giving each of them an appraising eye.
"Are we going to like it?"
"You will Kai. I'm not sure about anyone else." Shimazu gave his boss a grin. "I carry you. You know I can move with absolute silence over soft ground, and not leave footprints in sand, dirt or snow and the like – it's all a matter of placing your feet with absolute precision and control. So I do that – and carry you each over the ground, one at a time, then come back for the next."
The team looked at Shimazu, then glanced ahead at the ground they needed to cover, imagining Shimazu trudging back and forth over and over again, carrying them and their gear over the sensor line.
"I dunno man – you're going to get exhausted." Aswon walked up behind Kai and shook his rucksack, listening for and getting a few muffled sounds from items banging against each other inside. He then bounced up and down a little, comparing the sounds of his own pack against Kai's, with only the rustle of the fabric from his own. "We can always repack a little, cut down on the rattle of gear and make sure everything is stowed down tight. Maybe get some cloth wrapped around the boots to try and muffle the sound a little. Walk with syncopated steps and make sure we're not marching in time. Try to make our footsteps more random."
"All of those would help. But I don't know if it will be enough. We have to count on being picked up with at least four of the surveillance microphones and with enough processing power they might still pick up on the frequencies and work something out – or at least trigger an alarm." Hunter scratched the side of his head, sending forth a small shower of dandruff that blew away into the wind. "I mean they computers might even just be listening in for a number of footstep like sounds overall, and trigger an alarm when that rises above a threshold for time. That's how I'd probably do it…"
"Well, you're not giving me a piggyback. I doubt you even could." Shimazu turned to face Hunter, looking at where he'd grab hold of him. "Don't! Don't even go there. Ain't nobody carrying me. I'll walk over on my own two feet thanks."
"I happen to agree with Hunter on this one," Aswon added, "and we know he's pretty sneaky for someone regular sized, let alone someone his size. But it would probably work if Shimazu carried your pack over… that'd let you be as quiet as possible, while he used his powers to keep himself silent."
"What if we went over in pairs, trying to mimic the sounds of a small animal – something like a fox or rabbit? I mean a four legged critter, so we'd walk together. We've seen signs of things like that out here, maybe their system is programmed to ignore them?"
"I dunno Tads – sounds like we'd need to be very co-ordinated to do that, and I don't think this is the time to be trying it for the first time. It might work – but I don't fancy our chances of pulling it off."
"What about just going back to the tilt-wing and flying in? Maybe we can fake an emergency or something, that's forcing us to land? I can always try blagging our way in past security?" Kai looked around at the mix of horror and amusement his suggestion had caused. "Hey – it was just an idea. Just throwing it out there…"
"I do not feel comfortable with that suggestion."
"I don't blame you Marius. Neither do I being blunt."
"I don't think so either Kai. Hmm – if they've bought thousands of those devices, they're probably a mass market model, yes?" Aswon looked over at Marius for confirmation, continuing when the electronics expert nodded to him. "So they're probably a fairly standard design. Not likely to have advanced anti-tampering mechanisms. How about if Shimazu carried you over to right on top of the closest microphone to take it out of action?"
"It would be difficult to be set down right next to it with no noise, and almost impossible not to make noise while accessing the device. I would rank the chance of setting off an alarm as very high, unless we can cover the noise with another source that could be a distraction."
"What about the launch? Do you think they'd sell tickets to it for spectators?"
"Perhaps in the other section Aswon. The one where SK lifts goods for smaller corporations. In fact I think it highly likely that they would have to allow corporate presence there to guard and do final preparations on their own equipment. But not in the section we need to be in. I think they would specifically exclude all other people. If they have an observation stand it will be for senior management only. I certainly never heard about any kind of observation lounge or ability to come and watch a space launch while I was working for the company – and given my interest in vehicles, I would have expected to have seen such a thing if it existed.
"And probably one very big seat or landing area for a golden someone in particular. Hmm. So that takes us back to Shimazu's plan." Aswon frowned. "I can't believe we're circling back to 'getting a piggyback' as our way of sneaking into a spaceport. Does that feel surreal to anyone else?" He saw several nods from the others, but nobody had a better idea. "Well, if we're going to do it, we should probably start. My guess is that the patrols are every few hours at the closest, based on the distances they have to cover. So we've got a window – probably. But we need to keep our eyes open."
They got ready to move – Shimazu dropping his own pack and taking Hunters instead, while the big orc adjusted his own gear and strapped his weapons down tightly, giving a few bounces and shakes to make sure there were no betraying noises. When they were ready they both set of slowly, walking with irregular steps, sometimes stepping sideways or changing directions as they veered back and forth over the best terrain they could find. Their progress was slow – painfully slow to those watching back at the start point. While they would normally cover about two metres per second, or about 7 kilometres per hour, they were making barely a quarter of that with their efforts to remain stealthy. Covering the four hundred metre 'hot-zone' would take them nearly fifteen minutes. The team watched as they moved, fading into the gathering dusk until they could just about see them reach a point they had determined as somewhat safe, then carefully stop. Shimazu put down Hunter's pack while Hunter got himself set up with his assault rifle, ready to provide covering fire if the alarm was raised, his other gear within easy reach. Shimazu turned and started to head back, finding an alternate route to travel, just to vary any acoustic signature and try to prevent a pattern that might be recognised by a suitably advanced knowbot. Twenty eight minutes after they'd first set off, Shimazu returned, grabbing his own pack and strapping on Kai's pack on his front, then ferrying that over to put down next to Hunter's. Another thirty minutes later, he was back, and Kai climbed up onto his back, grabbing the front of his armoured clothing with his hands to make his own arms transfer as much weight as possible into Shimazu's shoulders.
Back and forth Shimazu went, carrying Kai, then Marius's pack, then their pilot, returning once more for Tad's equipment, then the shaman herself. Finally he returned for the last time to get Aswon's pack, and the two of them snuck forward together, crossing the ground as silently as they could. Three tense hours had passed since they had started the operation, and the pressure had slowly ratchetted up as they made each crossing – never knowing if they might have tripped an alarm somewhere and if a response force was already heading their way.
They made it over to with the last journey, and Shimazu flopped to the ground, breathing hard. Aswon moved over and crouched next to him, holding his canteen by the side of his face.
"Here, drink a little. Keep the body still though." He reached down and unclipped the straps for Shimazu's kit, then pulled down on the zipper for his armoured jacket, fanning it open. Steam rose from his body into the cold night, rising visibly from his sodden clothing. "You'll be glowing like a fireplace on thermos right now. Let yourself cool down for a few minutes, and relax. Take slow, small, steady sips of water to rehydrate. Grab yourself an energy bar too and chill. In about ten minutes change your top – you'll have cooled enough by then, and you need something dry to avoid actually getting cold." While Shimazu rested, Aswon moved out to one flank and took up position with his rifle, covering an arc to one side, while Hunter adjusted to face the other way, giving them long-rifle support over the semi-circle of ground facing towards the cosmodrome. Kai, Tads and Marius lay to either side of Shimazu, using themselves and their packs as wind-breaks to shelter him – their own weapons being much shorter ranged and less useful on this kind of terrain.
"Hey, guys. Look out, at a bearing of one-eight-niner. Can you see that patch on the horizon. Dark patch, just cutting out part of the sky beyond?" Aswon heard the team adjusting behind him, moving positions and pulling out binoculars or scopes, and then a series of quiet confirmations. "Any idea what that is?"
"Checking the map… I think that might be one of the launch pads. Yeah, pad 171. It's about 8 clicks from here." Hunter confirmed.
"And how far is that from our location?"
"Roughly nine kilometres away, to the north-west."
"Hmm. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Warms beds and hookers?"
"No then. I'm wondering if that's a good place to head for. It's inside the range of the designator. It's to the north-west, so we shouldn't have to worry about rocket exhaust fumes and debris based on the wind direction. And it's likely to give us an elevated position to get line of sight on."
"Just a minute." Hunter pulled his cammo blanket all the way over his head, covering the top of his body entirely, then illuminated his tablet, making sure none of the light would leak out and give away their position. He checked the angles and position as carefully as he could on the limited resolution map they had, then powered down and pulled down the blanket again. "Yeah, should be doable. From that position we're just squeezing past pad 161 to get a bead on 162/36. So we might need to be careful – but from what I can see it's doable. And you're right – if we can get twenty metres up, hell, even ten – we can see past any of the ground clutter no problem."
"Alright… how you feeling Shimazu?"
"Better now, thank you. I'm going to get changed into a dry top." They stayed in position for a few more minutes, while Shimazu pulled out dry clothing and struggled to get changed from a prone position, shivering in the night air as he stripped down to bare skin before hurriedly re-layering and strapping on his armour and equipment. "Ok, ready to go."
The team gathered their equipment, and were just about to head out, the designator being carried between Marius and Tads while Shimazu and Kai held onto the power cells, when Aswon alerted them again, telling them to get down.
"Patrol is coming, from the west. Back into positions!"
Fortunately they'd found a decent spot to use as their rest location, and they were able to get back into the same shallow scrapes and defiles as they'd used for resting in, throwing the cammo netting and blankets back over themselves to conceal their forms.
"The vehicle is using active infra-red headlights." Marius informed them. "That means the driver is using IR goggles or possibly cyber-eyes. He will see the terrain ahead like daylight, but hopefully not much out of his field of vision. But he will be able to drive that fast anywhere. If he turns the vehicle he will not have to slow down."
"Hopefully the passenger is still checking the outside fence side, as is the gunner in the back. Shouldn't be looking our way." Aswon snugged his head down again, along with the rest of the team, watching the buggy go roaring past.
"Do you think they use the sound of the patrol to check and monitor the microphones?" Tads asked.
"Hmm. Probably. That's a really good point actually – they probably do track them. Using a known sound will help them calibrate and test the equipment without having to send someone out to do it separately. And it also means they can track the patrols progress and determine if they're doing anything unusual. We should bare that in mind if we're thinking about taking them out – we're going to raise the alarm almost immediately! Sneaky bastards." Hunter's accent provided a certain cultural emphasis to the last word, but there was a tinge of admiration in his voice too. "Right, well at least we've got a time for the patrols now. Somewhere around 4-5 hours I would guess, with a bit of wiggle room. So at least four perimeter sweeps a day – which given the size, is pretty good going. I'm setting a silent alarm on a schedule from now to remind us and let us know when we come back this way what to expect."
They waited for the buggy to disappear to the east, then once more gathered their gear and started to head south-wards, moving slowly and quietly in a tactical formation. Hunter led the way, with Marius back and on his flank a little, both using their cybernetically enhanced vision to check the path ahead. Tads was close to Marius, holding the other end of the large box of equipment, and Kai and Shimazu also moved as a pair, but offset to their left by ten metres, and about 5 metres behind them. Finally Aswon bought up the rear, checking their back trail and flanks, and providing backup to Hunter with his rifle, for which the twenty metres of extra range from his rearward position was insignificant. They moved slowly and carefully, covering about two kilometres per hour as they headed for the pad, the dark blob on the horizon growing steadily in size as they approached.
They'd been walking for two hours, covering roughly half the distance when there was a sudden thump to the rear of their formation. Despite the fatigue from a night of effort the rest of the team spun in place to see what was going on, catching Shimazu combat rolling to the right, drawing his sword mid roll and rising into a kneeling position with the sword held high, ready to strike; while at the same time Kai lurched sideways, struggling as the other end of the box thumped into the ground and abruptly stopped moving unexpectedly. Guns swung around to cover the scene, and Tads gave a little choking cough as she naturally tried to gather mana in preparation for casting a spell and felt like she'd sucked in a lung full of toxic fumes.
Shimazu held his position for a moment, then sprang to his feet and stalked forwards a few steps, body still visibly on edge and ready to strike in the blink of an eye. He stared down at the ground intently, then started to strafe around in a circle, continuing to look downwards.
"Clear. At least it looks clear – no sign of critters or anything."
"Why did you drop the box? It smashed right into my leg!"
"It was not a deliberate choice. I felt the ground give way beneath me, and I naturally dived to the side."
The rest of the group collapsed inwards on Kai and Shimazu's position, examining the ground and the tunnel that had collapsed inwards. Tads and Aswon in particular checked out the size and formation of the tunnel.
"It looks like it was dug by a small mammal, maybe something the size of a badger or large fox."
"No sign of spoor though, or any litter in it Tads. I'd say it's been abandoned for a while at least."
"Yes. Maybe the wind has eroded the top of this hillock a little, worn away the roof of the set. But we should be wary about this happening again. The next one might not be empty. The last thing we need to do is fall through onto some hibernating creatures and rouse them. "
They moved on, keeping an eye out for any more tunnels, nests or sets. Marius realised that his ultrasound scanners could penetrate at least a small way into the dirt and reveal the tunnel beneath on the set they had broken, and so he moved up to be almost level with Hunter, scanning the ground ahead of them while Hunter concentrated more on the above-ground threats and environment.
The eastern sky was starting to lighten as they reached the pad, an enormous structure that rose before them like a behemoth. After so long on the flat plains with nothing around them, they felt like ants next to the giant structure, dwarfed by the gargantuan slab of reinforced concrete that rose several metres into the air, and the large steel tower that rose up tens of metres higher. Before that though was a chainlink fence, rusted and warped, surrounding the pad about two hundred metres out. They checked it out carefully, looking for any cameras, microphones, proximity sensors or capacitance wire, and a dozen other esoteric security devices, but found it was as simple as it appeared to be – just a very old and basic fence, designed to keep stuff out.
A few minutes work with a set of snips and they had neatly cut a small patch in the bottom of the fence, just high enough to create a flap they could crawl under one at a time, before lowing it back into place and securing it with a few twists of wire to hide it from casual inspection, letting them close in on the structure.
The pad appeared to be a massive cube of concrete, fifty metres to a side and nearly four metres high that must have weighed thousands of tons. Cracked and discoloured by time, it carried with it the rough marks on the sides where it had been formed and poured in layers, the striations of different mixes of concrete forming a subtle looking into history. They found a way up onto the pad on the eastern side, a large mound of earth piled up against the concrete giving them only a metre or more to climb up onto the surface of the dark grey pad. Aswon and Hunter climbed up first to give the place a quick scout, while the rest waited in the deep shadow by the side of the launch pad.
Here they found another unexpected danger – one that Aswon nearly fell into. The top of the pad wasn't solid – laid out upon it in a regular formation were a series of square shafts that plummeted down all the way through the pad into an abyss below. The temperature was the same all the way across the pad, and the dark shafts were barely visible against the dull grey surface.
"What the hell are they for?" Aswon exclaimed, stepping back from the edge and glaring at the floor around him.
"I think I know why. I'm going to check the edge of the platform over there… watch yourself though, stay back from the edge." Hunter stepped around the offending murder-hole, and made sure his ultrasound emitter was working, highlighting the edges in the surface and detecting the deep shafts. He quickly led the way to the edge of the pad, then glanced over at the thirty-metre drop exposed on the other side, a huge gouge in the earth that spread out to the edges of the pad and then led away from them, rising slowly until it met the desert perhaps two hundred metres away. "Yeah – it's a flame sump. On take-off, the jets are blowing out flames the same height as a tower block. If you don't have room for them to escape, they fan out in all directions, and pretty much burn anything around the pad to dust. So you make a grid of shafts down into that pit. The bottom will be curved, I bet, and it redirects all the exhaust gas and flames around and then out up there. Stops you trashing your pad every time you have a launch. It's a brute force approach. I think other places use a water trough – they dump a million litres of water down into an area below the lift-off, to absorb the energy. But if this place used to be Russian, this doesn't surprise me."
"There's trees and bushes growing down there though!"
"Guess there's not been a launch for a while. Out of the wind, and any rain or moisture is going to drop down into the hole. Makes a kind of oasis, I guess. That's good though – this place much not have been used for years if that's the case, so we're not going to get surprised.
They headed over to the bottom of the tower next, examining the massive steel structure carefully. It contained a wide stairway that crossed back and forth as it climbed the levels, easily big enough for two to climb abreast, or to carry large equipment up. The structure seemed solid, even with the decay of years weighing upon it, with barely any part of the original paint remaining. There was little rust though – the air was too dry, and the constant pelting of airborne particles acting like a continuous sand-blasting treatment on the exposed surfaces. The structure had been built sturdy though, upright sections twenty-five millimetres thick or more in a densely packed lattice-work that kept the structure reassuringly still despite the wind. Hunter lifted his mask and gave a few cautious sniffs, waiting for the chemical analyser installed in him to spit out an analysis of the air.
"It's not good. Lots of trace toxins in the air. I suspect a lot of chemicals have leeched into the steel over the years, and the ground looks heavily polluted. We should stay masked up as far as possible. If we limit exposure to eating and drinking, we should be fine though."
They went back for the others and advised them of the situation, and the team climbed up onto the pad, bringing up the heavy boxes with them and working their way around the outer edge, staying well clear of the exhaust vents, then started to climb up the tower. The boxy structure had about eight levels, each five metres in height and every other level seemed to have an arm or crane mechanism that could swing out to carry pipes or hoses to where the rocket would have been, or just provide support for the rocket balanced on the pad. They were two levels below the top when they felt a chill ripple through their spines – even Hunter and Marius felt a vague wave of unease.
"You all felt that?" Aswon asked. He risked a quick look in astral, and immediately wished he hadn't as the corrupted maelstrom of mana lashed out at him. He recoiled physically, realising that he could taste something metallic, and a moment later a drop of blood rolled out of the end of his nose. "Drek. Ok, stay out of astral – it's not just corrupted up there. It's an actual warp. It'll physically hurt you to be in in if you've any magical talent active."
"Ok, gimme a minute." Hunter headed up the stairs, checking the area out thoroughly. He'd been gone a couple of minutes, and the others were starting to get a little nervous and think about calling him when they heard the quiet clonk of his boots on the metal treads as he came back down. "I think I know what happened. There's a plaque up there, almost sandblasted clean. Written in Russian, there's a bit of poem and a list of names, and a dedication to the 'brave technicians and cosmonauts that died in the disastrous fire'. Things about thirty years old if I was reading the date right. Would that cause the warp thingy?
"Only if their deaths were caused deliberately and wilfully. But that doesn't sound impossible. If someone knowingly cut corners on safety, or sabotaged safety systems, it could create a spike like that." Aswon looked around and then headed down one more floor, onto the landing below and risked another look in astral, before calling up. "Ok, it looks safe down here. I can't see any of the warping area, there's too much structure in the area. Astral space is still filthy mind – but it's not attacking me to look at it, it's just unpleasant. I'd suggest we set up camp down here, and not use the upper levels."
"We should still be plenty high enough to get a decent line of sight on the launch area anyway, so it's no biggy." Hunter shrugged, then hefted one of the boxes up onto his shoulder and made his way down the stairs to follow Aswon. The rest of the team followed, and then unpacked their gear, trying to set up a comfortable camp on the steel grilles that made up the flooring, wedging themselves into the structure to avoid as much of the wind as possible.
"Shimazu – could you come stand guard please? I'm going to see if I can dig us an escape tunnel out of here. Just in case."
"Of course Tads." He checked his sword was in place on one hip and his massive revolver on the other, then headed down the stairs to lead the way. Once back at ground level, Tads headed around the edge of the pad. The growing light made the holes slightly easier to see, but she still didn't want to risk getting too close to them, and it was safer and quicker to go the little extra distance to go around them. Once she was off the pad and back onto the sandy floor, she took a few deep breaths, hearing the hiss of the filters on her mask as she tried to steel herself for what was to come.
Reaching into the astral for mana was just as hard as she'd feared, and it felt more like trying to ride a raft bouncing through the rapids than the normal smooth ride over a placid lake she was used to. Mana roiled and twisted through her, fighting her control moment by moment and she gritted her teeth and fought against the power as it tried to twist free from her control. She grounded it into the earth, shaping the ground and forcing it to obey her will, opening up a shallow, then a cleft and finally a tunnel, sliding downwards at an angle and then opening up into a wider passageway, deep into the bank with the roof arched to shed the weight above it. When she finally let the power go, the backlash snapped at her and nearly drove her from her feet. She felt Shimazu place a steadying hand on her shoulder while his eyes continued to watch the area around her, but that was all the attention she had for anything but the mana that was coursing through her mind. Focussing on her training and experience she smoothed the flow, containing the power into a cyclone around her, gradually tapping off the steams of astral energy bit by bit, dissipating the power back into the world safely. Seconds ticked by, and still the vortex swirled around her, and she continued to focus, bleeding it off, trading time against the damage she new she couldn't afford to risk. It took her nearly thirty seconds to quiet the raging storm, and when she could finally relax, she realised she could still taste blood – not from the damage taken from casting the spell, but from the biting of her lip as she'd concentrated so hard on resisting it.
She headed back up the five flights of steps, somewhat unevenly, helped along by Shimazu, and collapsed gratefully onto her bed, wincing a little as the steelwork beneath her made its presence known through the thin inflatable mattress.
Kai checked his watch as the sun crested the horizon, sending the first shafts of brilliant yellow light through the tower.
"Get some rest folks. Seven thirty am… so launch time in twenty-seven hours or so…"
