Chapter Summary: More discoveries on Mars. Follows right after the previous chapter, on the same day.
Chapter Word Count: 4,826
"Hey Brit?" Quinn said, as she traveled along an old creek bed, using her new suit's battle comm channel that supposedly only Brittany knew about.
"Yes, Quinn?"
"How deep have you scanned this part of Mars?"
"Just a preliminary scan," she said. "It's mostly a big red ball of dust."
"But you've found things," Quinn said, hopping over a large boulder.
"Sure, a few things here and there. It's an old planet. Things tend to end up on it like galactic driftwood."
"What have you found so far?" Quinn asked.
"There was that underground base with the gravity well, of course, and the escape pod you just found," Brittany said. "A few old things from the Russians and NASA. Mostly museum level stuff."
"Any signs of inhabitants or visitors? Living ones?"
"Not yet. Why?" Brittany asked.
"I still feel like someone is watching me," Quinn said. "You'd have noticed if we had any visitors, right?"
Brittany hummed for a moment. "They would have to be here already, before San's system sensors went up, or have tech better than ours to sneak past her. Or to sneak by mine. And Artie would have told us."
"Your system watch is better than Fleet's?" Quinn asked.
"We have slightly different approaches, but yes, much better," Brittany said. "But don't tell her."
"I didn't hear that," Quinn said, laughing. "So, if anyone is watching me, and it's not you or anyone in the Fleet, or Artie, they've been here for years?"
"Yup," Brittany said. "Let me know if you find anything."
"Will do," Quinn said. "Out."
"Later, Handy Babe," Brittany said, giggling.
Quinn scanned the sand dunes she was currently passing through. Now that the sandstorm had lifted, the horizon seemed to stretch out forever, though her suit said it was only a dozen clicks away. The feeling of being watched persisted as she approached some hills, still a thousand clicks from home base. If she didn't stop or slow down she'd be there in an hour.
She was starting to feel the strain of constant movement. Not including the interruption for the escape pod, she'd been in her suit and constantly moving for twelve hours, her trek taking her across a huge chunk of planetary surface. Not a long time in a Clan hard suit, she'd gone weeks in her previous suit during training exercises in the past. But there were rarely such sustained periods of exercise at speed or on rough terrain. Even with her Clan enhanced physique and the hard suit she could feel it.
A sharp beep from her suit nav system warned her of an obstruction ahead. Slowing down, she looked ahead and saw jagged hills. As she approached them it was looking more and more like a large blast crater. Fairly common on the moon and some of the outer planets but the first she'd personally seen on Mars. Cautiously making her way through them she stopped at the edge of a large crater that her suit's sensors said was twenty klicks across.
"That's a big hole," Santana said in her comm.
"Voyeur much?" Quinn said. "Don't you have some space monkeys to scare?"
"Why would I do that when I can peep on you?" Santana said. "Sure, it's kind of boring on Mars but you do find interesting things."
"It's a crater," Quinn said. Her suit beeped a warning. "With a high radiation count…"
"Which doesn't register with all those expensive high tech sensors floating over you," Santana said. "So, why does your suit see it and we don't? And why don't they show you where your suit says you are."
"Can't answer that," Quinn said. "Maybe one of them is broken?"
"Your suit says it's okay," Santana. "And so do those satellite sensors."
"They can't both be right," Quinn said. "And the suit isn't invisible to Clan scanners. Not even in stealth mode.
"And that escape pod shouldn't be there either, but oops, there it is, Santana said.
"Brittany won't be surprised," Quinn said. "She's being very silent out there."
"She's busy," Santana said. "She doesn't watch you 24/7, you know."
"Feels like it sometimes," Quinn grumbled.
"Nah, she does have minion AI's keeping an eye on the rest of the Council. They let her know if she needs us. She doesn't have time to watch us all personally anymore."
"Ah," Quinn said. "Not sure I should be relieved or concerned she's so busy she has to do that."
"I've got the worrying about Brit under control," Santana said. "You go check out that crater."
"If I die, I'm telling Brit on you," Quinn said, looking down into the crater.
"If you die we have bigger problems than Brit yelling at me," Santana said.
"Don't worry, I've got good minions," Quinn said. "They can handle the Bugs."
"That I'm not worried about, as long as your battle plans are on file somewhere Brit can get to," Santana said. "It's your planning skills we need, not your fighting skills."
"Gee, thanks, San," Quinn said. "Love you too."
"You know what I mean," Santana said. "But Rachel would kill me if you get killed doing something I told you to do."
"No, she won't," Quinn said.
"Doesn't matter," Santana said. "Nothing's going to happen. Now go find out what's going on with that crater. Maybe it's the troop ship that pod was from."
"Not going to be much left of it if it is," Quinn said. "Probably just radioactive dust."
"Just go," Santana said.
"Going," Quinn said, flipping the suit comm channels to 'do not disturb'. It wouldn't stop anyone from contacting her but only emergencies would get through immediately.
That's a long drop, she thought, leaning over the edge. She looked behind her, back towards the plain, mapping out a straight route. If she planned it correctly she could get a high enough jump to get a better close view of the crater. If the sat scanners weren't showing her, who knew what else wasn't being seen. It probably wasn't Bugs, they weren't subtle. Or sneaky. According to the history records, you always knew when they were in the neighborhood.
With a clear route in mind, Quinn moved back a click. Turning back towards the crater, she took off. Even with the rocky ground, she was able to get close to her maximum speed before reaching the edge of the crater. Hitting the edge like a high diver on a springboard, she hit her boosters, the momentum propelling her up in a high arc above the crater. As soon as she was airborne she switched all of her suit sensors to maximum sensitivity.
The arc wasn't high enough to carry her even half way across the crater. Hitting her suit boosters again she briefly came to a stop, hovering several hundred feet above the crater floor for several seconds, before continuing her journey to the ground. Fortunately, her suit was built for this kind of use. It wasn't much different than the final stages of planetary insertion. And this time no one was shooting at her.
As she reached the ground, Quinn prepared for the bounding jump that made the Clan's hard suits so unique. As soon as her feet touched the ground she was pushing off again, gaining ten meters elevation. Not high enough to see above the crater rim but giving her a clear field of view across the crater.
On the third bounce she saw a dark shadow halfway up the crater wall. On the tenth bounce she was close enough to detect a metal oval embedded in the wall, set back several meters. Just barely leaving room for her to stand there, if she judged things correctly. With two more bounces she was headed straight for it.
With a hard thump, jarring enough to knock out a suit-less person, she slammed into the metal oval. Hitting the magnetic grapples built into her suit gloves she grabbed the oval to stop any further movement.
"That was fun," she mumbled.
"What was fun?" Rachel said on the Council comm.
"Oh, hey Rache, didn't know my comm was live," Quinn said.
"It just came on," Rachel said. "You've been out of contact for thirty minutes. We were starting to get worried. Brit was going to send a rescue team after you."
"I told her you were busy," Santana said, jumping in. "But someone didn't believe me."
"Sorry," Quinn said, not saying what she was sorry for, a deflection trick she'd learned years ago. "Found something."
"You're very faint," Brittany said. "And still not showing up on our monitors. Must be something about that crater."
"Do I have enough signal to send a data dump?" Quinn asked, under her breath. "Not sure what's here but I did a full scan of the crater while crossing it. Trying to send it now."
"Crossing it? Did you climb down and run across it?" Santana said. "Would have been faster to jump across it."
"It's too far, even in this new hard suit," Quinn said. "I only made it halfway before I landed. But I had my suit sensors going full blast the whole time."
"Getting it now," Brittany said. "That radiation you detected is some kind of camouflage shield. That's why we can't see you."
"What are you doing now?" Rachel asked. "Your video comm isn't transmitting anything, just static."
"Suit status is still good," Quinn said.
"Not getting any suit data," Santana said. "The suit techs are freaking. Only that comm channel is punching through and it is just dribbling the data. Your suit telemetry signal isn't strong enough."
"Can't help you there, San," Quinn said. "Didn't design the suit, I'm just wearing it. They can fix that when I get back. It is supposed to be experimental."
"Argue later," Brittany said. "What did you find?"
"It's a large metal oval," Quinn said. "Sort of looks like that one near that underground base you found. How do I open it? Does my suit have the right tech?"
"Use code Aleph - Finn - Moloch, authorization Clan Council override. That'll give you access to the suit lock picks," Brittany said.
"Can anyone access those?" Santana asked. "The suit lock picks."
"Just Shadow suits on ops," Brittany said. "And a couple others."
"So I can't?" Rachel asked.
"Do you need to get into places you normally can't?" Brittany asked.
"Umm… no…" Rachel said.
"That would be a no, Shorty," Santana said. "Q-ball's suit has a special test pilot mode for this test. It can do some things most suits can't."
"And isn't ready, remotely, for real ops," Quinn said. "All that extra tech like the special telemetry that isn't working requires too much power. It's going to need a full recharge tomorrow before I can wear it again."
"What's behind the door?" Brittany said, interrupting them. "Do we need to send a team to meet you? I've got one team at the base. The other is in transit with that Pod."
"Just a minute," Quinn said. She triggered the suit lock picks, pressing gloves against the oval again. It shuddered for several seconds before it started to slide to her left. "It's dark." She aimed her suit lights into the dark.
"Do you need a flashlight?" Rachel asked.
"She's wearing a hard suit," Santana said. "She doesn't need a flashlight. She's got sensors and shit."
"Oh, right," Rachel said.
"It's a tunnel," Quinn said. "Walls are smooth. Sensors say ceramic of some sort. Are you getting it?"
"Still only getting voice," Brittany said. "Even compressed down as far as possible there isn't room for video on that channel."
"Understood. I'm going in a few meters. Let's see how far you can 'hear' me," Quinn said. Putting words to action, she carefully entered, wary of triggering any traps. "Can you still hear me?" she asked.
"On max gain," Brittany said, her voice very faint. "You're barely understandable."
"Got it. Compressing the signal more," Quinn said, adjusting her comm channel. A regular suit didn't have the ability to change comm settings to that degree but her test suit seemed to be full of interesting features. "How's that?"
"Better," Brittany said. "I suspect the tunnel material is affecting the signal. If you go much further we'll lose you completely."
"Understood," Quinn said. "So, save the exploration for later?"
"Just wait until I can get a team down to you," Brittany said. "It's not going anywhere. Looking at historical data on Mars, that spot has looked like that for as long as we've had detailed images."
"Okay," Quinn said. "Closing it up." She stepped back out of the tunnel and triggered the door. "How long until they get here?" she asked, looking across the crater. "And how are they going to find me?"
"You've got enough signal for them to find you," Brittany said. "But tag the door just in case."
"Done," Quinn said, placing a tag on both the metal oval and the surrounding rock just in case. "Think I'll go explore. Maybe there's something else here. We could cover it and add some air and have a nice place."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Santana said. "We still have Brit's underground base to set up and your training base. Who would use this new base you are proposing?"
"It was just a thought," Quinn said. "We aren't exactly outgrowing what space we have. At max population density, how many of us will there be?"
"Not counting the diaspora? A quarter million," Rachel said. "There really aren't that many of us. Half a million if we add the Lost."
"Small but powerful," Santana said. "We aren't supposed to be large or need to be. How big is the largest clan?"
"The Ghost Clan had two million active members at the last Clan census," Brittany said. "We've never been very large, which is probably why we ended up out here."
"But large enough to stop the Bugs, right?" Rachel asked.
"Our tech allows us to punch way above our weight class," Brittany said. "Some of the other Clans don't have tech like ours and had to grow to survive."
"Two hundred and fifty thousand is still a lot of people," Quinn said. "Enough for a small city."
"I'm sending Pip and Squeak," Santana said. "They should have been on this little trip with you anyway. They should reach you before the others."
"I don't need bodyguards," Quinn said, repeating a familiar complaint. "And we didn't have any spare suits for them that could keep up with this one."
"Well, obviously you need to be watched," Santana said. "There'd be a riot if you got hurt. And you aren't moving now. I think your adventure is over for now. You can test that suit some other time."
"I'm doing fine," Quinn said, jumping down from the tunnel entrance. "This just looks like a huge bomb crater, not from some asteroid. I wonder what happened."
"There are heavy elements scattered across the whole crater," Brittany said. "We'll have to get some heavy scanners in to look at it. Some of those elements aren't native to Mars."
"So, another alien facility? Or the remains of one?" Quinn asked, headed towards the center of the crater. "Still feels like someone or something is watching me."
"Can't say," Brittany said. "That's going to have to wait until my team gets there. It's possible it's some kind of automatic watcher. Something must control that camouflage field."
"Just a bunch of rocks," Quinn said. "If there's something here it's hidden under more rocks."
"Pip and Squeak should be with you shortly," Santana said. "They were already headed towards you when this happens. Apparently they agree that you need a babysitter."
"I might have suggested they join her," Rachel said.
"You don't have the authority," Quinn said. She wasn't going to yell, but she was tempted. Sometimes Rachel didn't understand chain of command in her command. And sometimes it seemed like she just ignored it, taking advantage of her position on the Clan Council.
"I didn't order them to do anything, Quinn," Rachel said. "I didn't have to."
"See what you have to look forward to?" Santana said, laughing. "Someone who takes care of you even when you don't want it."
"Of course," Rachel said. "Someone has to keep an eye on her."
"Brittany?" Quinn said, hoping for backup.
"Don't look at me," Brittany said. "I have enough trouble keeping San out of trouble. Rachel's your problem."
"Hey!" Santana said. "I'm not trouble!"
"Keep telling yourself that," Quinn said, with a loud snort as she landed in the middle of the crater. "Not very impressive. Pluto's more exciting."
"You can freeze your ass off on Pluto," Santana said. "It's not a garden spot."
"There's just enough weather on Mars to have erosion and variety," Brittany reminded her. "That's why you wanted to have a training base set up there."
"It really looks like a bomb crater," Quinn said. "A big one."
"The aliens probably blew themselves up," Santana said. "Not going to find anything there."
"Hey Boss, nice picnic spot you picked out," Pip said, landing in the crater next to her. Squeak landed a few seconds later.
"I do what I can," Quinn said. "You were getting bored."
"We're never bored," said Squeak. "Hanging out with you is more exciting than refereeing a tech robot fight."
"Watching grass grow is more exciting than a tech robot fight," Santana said. "Ladies, don't let your boss out of your sight."
"Yes, Lady Air, Ma'am," Pip said. "We'll stick like glue."
"Like glue," Squeak echoed. "What's the plan?"
"Lady Shadow's team should be here in a few minutes and then we're going exploring," Quinn said. "Found a tunnel." She waved back in the direction of the tunnel.
"Exploring exploring? Or Bug hunting?" Pip asked.
"No Bugs," Quinn said. "But my suit doesn't have any close range weapons so we aren't going to barge in and attract attention."
"Plenty of weapons to go around," Squeak said. She handed a suit blaster to Quinn. "Here you go Boss."
"Thanks," Quinn said, locking it to her suit.
"That suit hasn't been certified for weapons tests," Santana said. "If you break it, you can explain to the techs what you were doing."
"Lady Air, we got the blaster from one of your techs," Pip said. "It's coded just for that suit."
"You're the best, ladies," Quinn said happily.
"We ain't ladies, Boss!" Squeak protested. "We're Serpent Clan Troopers. The toughest suits in the Galaxy. Right Pip?"
"Exactly, Squeak," Pip said. "Tough Suits! None are better!"
"I think they've lost it," Santana said to the others over the Council comm. "Who're her backup body guards?"
"They're troopers," Brittany said. "They've earned their attitude."
"And they're going to need it," Quinn said quietly. "The Bugs aren't pacifists."
"So what else did you find, Boss?" Pip said.
"Nothing so far," Quinn said. "We'll have to wait for a full heavy scan team." A proximity sensor in her suit pinged. "Looks like they're here." Turning, she headed back towards the tunnel, her entourage keeping pace.
"Boss, that's an awesome looking suit," Pip said. "Moves so smooth. When do we all get them?"
"Hopefully before the Bugs get here," Quinn said. "But right now it's too experimental. The power signature needs some work. And the weapons load is a bit off."
"Still a sweet looking suit," Pip said. "The chicks dig test pilots, I hear."
"I wouldn't know," Quinn said, ignoring comments from Santana in the background on the other channel.
Quinn watched the Fleet engineers building a platform around the tunnel entrance to give them more room to maneuver. Another team, a Fleet Heavy scanner team, had taken up position in the center of the crater. Gold Team had also arrived fully outfitted for close quarter operations.
A comm relay had been set up at the edge of the crater to take care of the comm problems. The crater had quickly become a bustling hive of activity.
"So, a lot of bored people today?" Quinn asked.
"What gave you that idea?" Brittany said.
"It's like a circus out here," Quinn said. "I've got one of your Shadow teams, several Fleet Engineer teams, and one of my teams. All for a little cave exploring."
"Think of it as a training exercise," Brittany said. "Your chance to direct a combined Clan team."
"I do that all of the time," Quinn said. "When was the last time we had a major operation that I didn't get Fleet and Shadow support?"
"There was that time when you snuck into Moscow with your team and rescued that Ambassador's wife from those mobsters," Brittany said.
"How'd you hear about that one?" Quinn asked, surprised. She'd thought that little misadventure hadn't been noticed.
"One of my monitor AIs noticed some unusual traffic, and copied your suit logs before you erased them," Brittany said.
"Sorry?" Quinn said. "That was totally unplanned. The Queen asked my Grandmother for help and I couldn't really say no."
"So, the Queen now knows you're from Ohio?" Brittany said.
"Maybe?" Quinn said. "She knows how to contact me in an emergency."
"Well, if she does know there haven't been any leaks," Brittany said. "She's got mad intel skills. And some good people working for her that would surprise you."
"So, some of the big intel groups know who we are?" Quinn guessed.
"From almost the beginning," Brittany said. "I've got an agreement with them. They don't spill our secrets and I don't spill theirs. And my tech is much better so they can't cheat."
"How much do we charge them?" Quinn asked.
"Charge them?" Brittany said innocently.
"For the intel?"
"Going rates," Brittany said, "but mostly trading in favors. And we don't play politics with intel."
"So we're basically neutral?" Quinn said.
"As much as we can be," Brittany said. "They know who we are and that we're law enforcement with some extra zip. We aren't going to get involved in their petty wars and squabbles."
"Do any of them know about our long term plans. About the Bugs?" Quinn said.
"Not yet, though they are suspicious. Too many things we are doing don't make sense if we're just building a base for a sector wide police force. If we were just space cops we wouldn't buy NASA or share some of our tech. And we probably wouldn't have grabbed Yucatan. We could have built our base anywhere. Like Mars."
"Huh," Quinn said. "So one of them told you about Russia."
"Yes," Brittany said. "You can't hide anything from me. The Shadow always knows."
"As long as you don't tell Rachel," Quinn said. "She doesn't need to know about these kinds of side projects."
"I won't lie to her," Brittany said. "And some day she'll find out. She'll get all of our records eventually."
"I know," Quinn said. "But by then it won't matter."
"No worries," Brittany said.
"What do you think this is?" Quinn asked her.
"I think Santana has it right," Brittany said. "Somebody blew themselves up, or someone else did it for them. The tunnel probably goes to the control room for the camouflage and nothing else. It's possible there's some kind of security system still running but it seems to be ignoring us right now."
"Security? Active?"
"Mostly passive," Brittany said. "There was some low energy comm traffic in the area that seemed to follow you."
"And you didn't say anything?" Quinn said.
"Hard to track them down if we scare them away," Brittany said.
"Ready?" Quinn signaled over the command comm, to her team and the Shadows. Everyone else had pulled back to the center of the crater, with reinforcements guarding the non-combatants. Green status lights flickered in her display as they all signaled ready.
Quinn stepped up to the metal door and signaled it to unlock. Even in the low atmospheric conditions of Mars, it slid open, eerily silent. Tossing a probe beacon down the tunnel, Quinn and her team quickly followed it, the Shadow team bringing up the rear.
There were no explosions, no gun fire, nothing. A large empty tunnel stretching out into the crater wall for an unknown distance. They cautiously walked in standard patrol fashion down the tunnel. With no reaction.
"Anything?" Quinn asked.
"It's dead, Lady Hands," Jocelyn, the lead Shadow said. "Nothing on any of the comm bands or frequencies we can monitor. And the tunnel material absorbs any other kinds of energy. Not even a vibration."
"Mapping?" Quinn asked.
"The probe just says it's a ten klick tunnel with an opening at the end. It's not sensing any doors or other openings."
"Looks like we have a long walk ahead of us," Quinn said. "How are our comms doing?"
"Loud and clear," Brittany said. "Much better than last time. Definitely the camouflage shield that was affecting comms."
"Let's go see what's at the end of this," Quinn said, leading her team deeper into the tunnel, lit only by the infrared combat lights on their hard suits.
"Still nothing?" Quinn asked Jocelyn after they'd slipped a klick down the tunnel.
"Still dead," she said. "If there's anything here we'll need a heavy scanner team to find it."
"The heavy scanner team scanning the crater can scan the tunnel once you clear it," Brittany said.
As they passed the probe, Pip picked it up and tossed it further down the tunnel. "Did it go into the opening at the end?"
"No," Jocelyn said. "It bounced off of something in front of it."
"You need to practice your throw," Squeak told Pip.
"Looks like a corner," Pin, Gold Team XO said. "Someone want to scan that before we stick our heads around the corner and get them blown off?"
"You have such a way with words, Pin," Quinn said. "Joyce, check that out."
"Yes, Ma'am," Jocelyn said. Reaching into a pocket she pulled out a smaller probe and tossed it towards the corner, where it floated for several long seconds before moving out of site around the tunnel.
"Anything?" Quinn asked.
"Just more tunnel, Lady Hands," Jocelyn said. "It curves to the right, back towards the crater."
As soon as she finished, the was a large vibration and bright flash of light. Both teams pulled back from the corner.
"Lost contact," Jocelyn said. "Something triggered the self destruct."
"Any readings?" Pin asked.
"A brief blip when it blew, on a low frequency," Jocelyn said. "No detected direction."
"How many more of those do you have?" Quinn asked.
"Standard load, three each," Jocelyn said.
"Let's try three this time," Quinn said. "One high and one low. And one here with us looking down the tunnel."
"Yes, ma'am," Jocelyn said. Her team pulled out several more from their pockets. The three were released into the tunnel. One stopped, hovering with a view down both legs of the tunnel.
There was a double flash this time, as the two probes sent down the tunnel exploded at the same time.
"Did you catch that?" Quinn said impatiently. "Was there anything from the third?"
"There's a shield of some sort in the tunnel," Jocelyn said. "They ran into it and it fried them."
"So passive protection," Quinn said.
"Yes, ma'am," Jocelyn said. "Not a weapon or not intended as one."
"What setting for our suit scanners so we don't run into it?"
"Tiger tech shield setting," Jocelyn said, after a minute. "That'll show it."
"It's Tiger tech?" Quinn said, surprised.
"No, ma'am," Jocelyn said. "But the Tiger tech scan setting will reconfigure your scanners to see it."
"Okay," Quinn said. "Britt?"
"She's right," Brittany said. "It's running at a low frequency like some really old Tiger tech they haven't used in thousands of years. But the shield signature isn't Clan. Any Clan. Ours or Tiger."
"Got it," Quinn said. "So, set your suit scanners to include setting Tiger-Alpha-Zed."
"Yes boss," Pip said, echoed by the others. "That's the one that gives everything a faint green tinge."
"Could be worse," Squeak muttered. "There's that one scan setting that gives everything a purple tinge, and you have to replace the scanner module to fix it."
"Ladies," Quinn said. "Save it for later."
"Yes, Boss," Pip said.
"Not seeing it," Quinn said, stepping around her bodyguards into the side tunnel. "Will it activate before we run into it? Or when we're in the middle of it? Jocelyn?"
"It looks like the shield came on as the probes passed through it."
"So, being able to see it won't do much good," Pin said, following her. "Who wants to get fried so we can turn it off?"
"We know approximately where it is," Quinn said, pointing at the charred probes several hundred meters away. "Just be careful."
"Janey, this one's yours," Pin said.
"Gee, thanks XO," Janey said sarcastically. "I expect an awesome Journey party when you bury me."
"Only the best," Pin said. "Now go!"