Outpost

  She raised her voice. “Lieutenant Spiro? Prepare your squad and proceed at will.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Spiro called from the back. She bellowed, “All right, children. By the book. Helmets on, weapons hot, safeties on. Condition Three.”

  God, Kalico missed Cap Taggart. What had the damned idiot been thinking? Ride out into the bush? With Talina Perez? A woman Kalico still planned to execute? Who’d admitted to killing a Supervisor? The damned fool had lost his mind.

  And apparently his life.

  I’d kill him myself if Donovan or Perez hadn’t beaten me to it.

  Kalico stood, watching as the marines fastened their helmets, formed up at the hatch, and unslung their weapons. Spiro in the lead, they cycled the hatch, passing through, squad after squad.

  “We’re in!” Spiro’s voice came through the com. “Power’s off. Corridor’s dark. Temperature’s about twenty below centigrade. Air’s good, but really high in CO2. Ma’am, we’re getting nothing on battle tech. No life signs.”

  A pause.

  “Reconnaissance drones are deployed. Proceeding to secure the corridor.”

  Kalico turned to the side monitors, leaning over Abibi’s shoulder to watch as the system displayed the marines’ battle com images. She saw a dark lobby area with seats along the walls, bits of what appeared to be trash on the floor. Frost glittered in the marines’ suit lights as they shone on the surfaces.

  On separate monitors, the armed drones flew down the hallway, past open hatches, their sensors reading no life-forms.

  “Let’s go, people.” Spiro led the way past the shuttle bay doors and into what looked like a standard ship’s corridor. The helmet-mounted cams cast cones of white down the black length.

  “Fucking spooky,” one of the marines muttered.

  “Cut the chatter, Finnegan.” Tension filled Spiro’s voice.

  At the first intersection, Spiro’s squad carefully used their tech to peer around the corners, finding nothing but dark, cold, and empty hallways.

  This would have been the transportees’ section of the ship, set up as a big dormitory. The part of the ship the crew had vented to suffocate the transportees. What Kalico was looking at was the scene of mass murder. It sent a shiver down her back.

  “Ma’am?” Spiro asked. “Request permission to continue deployment of additional recon tech.”

  “Proceed, Lieutenant,” Kalico said into her mic.

  In the light of the head cams, the marines set one of their equipment cases on the deck, unlatched it, and triggered the systems. A swarm of smaller unarmed drones lifted from the case, separated into groups, and vanished into the dark halls branching out from the intersection.

  As Spiro issued orders, the marines split into threes, heading off down the hallways in pursuit.

  “Nothing to do but wait now,” Abibi said.

  Kalico crossed her arms, watching the various holo projections as the marines started their search of the ship. It was just plain eerie to see the honeycomb stacks of bunks, empty, black, and yawning. The mess room, plates still on the tables, desiccated food still visible. The bathrooms with bits of clothing strewn around, toilets in a line, shower stalls shadowed and cold.

  “We’re at the main corridor. Officer’s country on the other side. Got a shut hatch here,” Private Miso reported; her helmet cam displayed a closed decompression hatch. She plugged her power relay into the socket, the hatch monitors springing to life. “Got atmosphere on the other side. Opening now.”

  In the holo, the hatch groaned and lifted. A puff of air frosted as different air pressures equalized. Stepping through, Miso palmed the lights, and to Kalico’s surprise, the corridor illuminated.

  “Still got high CO2. Temp’s up to thirty-two degrees C.” Talbot’s voice reported.

  “Continue on to the command deck,” Spiro ordered.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Miso replied, showing her four companions as she turned in their direction.

  “They shut themselves away from the rest of the ship,” Abibi said. “Kept the core warm. Probably to conserve resources.”

  “Or there were too many ghosts on the other side,” Chan muttered.

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Tyler chided from behind.

  Miso’s team trotted down the hall, the sialon walls looking oddly brown, streaked, sometimes splotched. At astrogation they were stopped by another closed hatch. The bypass didn’t work.

  “Uh, Lieutenant? This has been welded shut.”

  “Well . . . burn it.” Lieutenant Spiro’s voice replied.

  On the holo, Spiro’s squad had reached the officer’s deck and another closed hatch. This, too, they opened, only to encounter a partially lit corridor.

  “Looks like they left the lights on here, but they’re on their last legs.” Spiro stepped through the hatch, slowing as she looked around. “Holy shit. Ma’am? You seeing this?”

  Kalico triggered her mic. “What is that, Lieutenant?”

  Spiro leaned forward, her helmet cam playing across the walls. “It’s writing, ma’am. Screw me in vacuum. Look at this!”

  The wall was depicted in perfect clarity, but what was that? Curling, looping, lines over lines, all scrawled in black, as a sort of design that . . . It was writing! Thousands upon thousands of lines of script. Every square inch of wall was covered with it. From the ceiling down to the floor, across the floor, and up the other side. The scrawled lines were written atop one another, hundreds or more. Often to the point of being illegible.

  From the look of the corridor, the writing extended all the way down the hall. Spiro and her team were muttering under their breaths as they walked along, cameras on the writing-covered walls. It seemed endless.

  “How many hours would that have taken?” Abibi wondered. “Thousands? A lifetime?”

  Kalico asked, “Lieutenant? Check your biodetectors.”

  The image shifted as Lieutenant Spiro lifted her belt pack and thumbed the boxy detector. Images flashed across the holo. “Looks good, ma’am. Nothing lethal reading on this end.”

  “What do you think, Doctor?” she asked Tyler who was monitoring the display.

  “I see the signature for molds, fungus, lots of the usual spores. Heavy concentrations of organic molecules. Skin cells, HEBs, which are human endogenous bacteria. It’s also reading dormant viral elements, occasional pollen from the hydroponics, bits of microscopic endemic arthropods.” Tyler was checking her own readouts which were channeled through Turalon’s computers for analysis. “Jesus, it’s as if the ship’s never been cleaned. I mean, the thing’s filthy!”

  “Malevolent organisms?” Abibi asked.

  “No sign, Captain. Whatever happened, it wasn’t pathogenic.”

  “I’m going in,” Kalico decided.

  “Supervisor?” Abibi asked uncertainly.

  “I need to know. If it was disease, the biodetectors would have cued on it. The drones are most of the way through the ship now. If there’s anything, they’ll find it.” She made her way back past the seats in the main cabin to the lockers.

  It took her only moments to slip into the hazard suit, seal it, check the oxygen, and secure her helmet.

  At the shuttle hatch, she hesitated.

  Whatever is over there, it’s going to change my life forever. Kalico? You sure you want to go through with this?

  She palmed the hatch and passed into the cold. Flipping on her suit lights, she took a deep breath and stepped into the dead ship.

  42

  Fire crackled and spit sparks at the roof of their little shelter as rain pattered down. Lightning flashed, illuminating the gravel bar upon which they’d made their camp. The pod canoe was pulled up high, tied with a length of cord. Behind them, rain in the leaves made a hissing and spattering as it fell on the endless forest.

  They had made camp early, choo
sing a gravel bar a couple of hundred meters up from the confluence of the Briggs River where what looked like basalt cliffs rose above the marshy floodplain.

  As a precaution against slugs, they had made sure the pool behind the gravel bar lay on impermeable bedrock. They’d both bathed and washed their clothes in the clear water, and Talina had been able to relax as Cap foraged for wood. She’d laid her head back and let Capella’s warm rays dry her long black hair. After days in the forest, she realized what a relief clear sky and bright sun could be. At least until the clouds had moved in.

  And she’d had time to really think about Taggart. No matter what the suspicious side of her insisted, she really had come to like the guy. She respected people who had the sense to learn what they didn’t know, and he’d been an apt student. She needed no more proof than the fact that he was still alive. More than that, they were both alive. Had it not been for Cap, she’d have never made it off the beach when the quetzal froze her nerves.

  Nor was she sure she could have kept from capsizing the canoe in the beginning. That, too, had been Cap’s expertise.

  So, what was this attraction? She’d slipped more than her share of curious glances at his muscular body as he bathed, liking his lines, the ripples on his hard belly, the power in his shoulders and arms. Long white scars on his left hip and thigh piqued her interest, and she’d covertly admired his muscular buttocks.

  At the same time, the looks he’d shot her way had built a tingle down in her loins. Not only was his interest palpable, but he’d fought to keep from gawking as she scrubbed herself. She knew the difference when a man watched her with appreciation rather than lust. And that just added more kindling to the fire she wasn’t sure she wanted to damp.

  Supper had consisted of a crest who had appeared at the edge of the trees to stare at them. The beast had no doubt never seen a human before, and displayed its amazement by erecting every glittering scale on its body.

  “Edible?” Cap had asked.

  “Very,” she’d replied.

  Cap’s movements had been fluid as he reached down, pulled his knife, and with a flip of his arm, impaled the crest dead center in the chest. She’d never seen a knife thrown faster or better.

  “Why waste a bullet?” he’d asked. Then glanced around. “Besides, the report would ruin the peace and beauty, don’t you think?”

  She’d laughed at that, remembering the way his eyes had almost shone. Recalled the movements of his hands as she showed him the proper way to gut the animal and drain its fluids to minimize the heavy metals. How those strong hands had handled the knife, the sure way they worked, how he didn’t mind the blood and juices. Competent hands.

  What was it about a man’s hands? How the tendons flexed, and the skin formed to the bones? Hands, eyes, muscular butt, and hard belly. So, Cap was a finely made package.

  While they cooked the crest, the clouds had built, rolling in from the east.

  She showed him how to cut broad vine leaves and weave them into a mat. He cut the stalks and sections of vine to lash them together. As the first drops of rain fell, they were sitting shoulder to shoulder, grease running down their fingers as they laughed and chewed tender crest meat from the creature’s polymer bones.

  The fire popped again, spitting more sparks. Talina watched the flickers of flame. “If we do make it back, there’s a real good chance that Turalon will have spaced. You’ll be left behind.”

  He smiled at that, firelight dancing on the lines of his face. “Just the thought of it is almost too good to be true. That solves a whole host of potential problems.”

  “There may never be another ship, Max. You’re here. Probably for the rest of your life. You’re never going back. Your family, your friends. All those ties and memories. They’re gone.”

  “I think I’ve made my choice.” He took a deep breath, laid his arm across her back.

  She didn’t stiffen, didn’t reach to remove it.

  “I can’t promise you anything.”

  “I know.” He grinned, as if amused at himself. “I’m not asking it of you.”

  “The Corporation—”

  “Sent me here as punishment. My vaunted career? Call it mediocre, Tal. I made captain by luck. By being in the right place at the right time. I was always just good enough, but never above average. If I had been, they would have overlooked it when I confronted Major Creamer. It was an excuse. A chance to get me out of the way. So, send me off to Donovan. With my record, they think if I have to kill a bunch of civilians, I’ll do it. If I don’t come back, they’ve washed their hands of me. If I make it home, they hand me a big check and a suggestion that I go into private security.”

  “Since the aircar went down you haven’t struck me as mediocre.”

  He frowned at the fire. “Would it make sense if I said that I found something here? You were talking about how you and Mitch just seemed to fit together? It’s like part of me was missing until I set foot on Donovan. A part of me sort of kicked into place that had never been there before.”

  “I can accept that.” The warmth of his arm over her shoulder actually soothed her. It had happened so slowly, she didn’t realize when she’d melted against his side. Down inside the quetzal seemed to be waiting, curious.

  Lightning flashed and reflected silver off the rain-stippled river.

  “The other day in the canoe, you asked what I’d do if Kalico ordered me to arrest you or the rest.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I guess I’d take a squad. Katsuro, Dina, Paco, and Finnegan. The ones who really trust my orders without thinking them through. I’d have to round you all up, load you on an aircar, and make sure you were deposited somewhere where you couldn’t be found until Turalon spaced. Then I’d have to vanish myself. Maybe see if Step Allenovich couldn’t smuggle me out of Port Authority and off to wherever I’d hidden you.”

  “They could order your execution just for saying that, you know.”

  He smiled out at the rain. “Like I said, a piece of me clicked into place. Look around, Tal. We’re camping where no human has ever set foot. Sure, there’s danger, and I might die tomorrow morning. If I do, I’m whole. Complete in a way I’ve never been. Never known I could be.” He paused. “And there’s you.”

  “Me?”

  He turned to stare into her eyes. Miniature flames from the fire reflected in his large, dark pupils. “I never want to leave your side. I’d give my life for a single evening with you. Just to hear your voice. To watch your smile and the dream in your eyes.”

  She swallowed hard, her heart beginning to pound.

  “Understand?” he asked.

  She nodded, wondering when she’d grown short of breath.

  “How’d you get those scars on your hip?”

  “Wounded. Firefight with rebels and insurgents in China. How’d you get that line of scars along your right thigh?”

  “Gotcha vine. They don’t infect right off, but it was over two weeks before I could get back to Raya’s to have them cut out.”

  “Talina Perez, I’d cross a thousand galaxies just to sit here and share your company.”

  Every nerve in her body was singing.

  Do I want to do this?

  But she did. The old fire had been lit, the flame warming her core. She reached up, pulling his lips to hers as he curled her around onto his chest.

  Then she was tugging his jacket and shirt away, running her hands over his chest and shoulders. He peeled away the top of her coveralls, hands tracing down her shoulders to her breasts.

  She shifted onto her back as he pulled the last of her clothing away. Lightning outlined his muscular body, haloing it with silver as she wrapped her legs around his hips and exalted in the almost forgotten sensations of man and sex.

  43

  A couple of hours after entering Freelander, Kalico Aguila wasn’t sure what she believe
d. She stood behind Miso’s team as they worked with a molecular cutter to open the door to astrogation and what would have been termed “the bridge” in earlier centuries.

  They weren’t the first to try. The heavy duraplast and steel was dented, pock-marked, as if someone had hammered at it with a battering ram.

  The marines now stood around as Private Paco Anderssoni worked the cutting tool around the thick door’s margins.

  “Weird place,” the marine who had “Abu Sassi” emblazoned on the back of his armor said softly. “Man, I keep thinking I’m seeing things in the corner of my eye. Like flitting, you know? Sort of like creatures that are there . . . and then aren’t.”

  “It’s space jitters,” Spiro told him. “But I gotta tell you, after that corridor? All that writing? I mean, who does that? Just covers wall after wall with script? In places it was so thick you’d think it was paint.”

  Private Michegan said, “I could make some of it out. Over and over, it read, ‘I am vacuum. A cloud of emptiness.’ It just went on and on.”

  “Wonder what they used for ink?” Kalico asked, half-unnerved as she glanced back down the dim corridor with its flickering lights and filth-covered walls. She, too, had caught glimpses of something, or things, that flickered at the edges of her vision.

  Nerves. Had to be. Her stomach had yanked itself into a knotted ball.

  “We’re through,” Anderssoni announced and dragged his torch out of the way. “Back! Everybody!”

  The heavy hatch tilted out, slowly accelerated, and slammed down onto the sialon deck with a bang that shook the corridor. Ten billion dust motes rose to float through their suit lights.

  Kalico stepped into the doorway and shone her light around. “Holy shit,” she muttered. “Get some light in here, people.”

  As the marines filed in behind her, she could barely understand what she was seeing. A bed was shoved up against the astrogation console. The now-dead holo displays were almost hidden behind sialon storage chests stacked six high. The captain’s chair and first officer’s station were piled with personal items, clothing, and a stack of antique books. Five-gallon water jugs stood in a line atop the plotting table, and a peculiar apparatus of tubing, condensers, and filters rested on a platform to one side. What looked like a small, cobbled-together hydroponics unit took up space before the sensor array. Long-dead stalks of desiccated vegetation hung over the sides.