Senescence (Jezebel's Ladder Book 5) (37 page)

Stu watched the feed from the Rio weather channel by way of
a lunar satellite. There was no direct contact with Earth or
Sanctuary
from here. When the news reported the anticipated storm, he told his crew,
“That’s our cue.” He flew the shuttle over the lunar horizon, into radar view
of their target. “Why do they call it Dark Base Seven?”

From the navigation chair, Eowyn
replied, “It’s a joke. Dark side of the Moon, black ops. You know.”

“There is no dark side of the Moon,
just one that faces away from Earth’s surface,” he explained.

“Is he always this dense?” asked
Eowyn.

Kaguya said, “He’s from another
culture. His differences are part of his charm—that and whatever makes Laura
scream in the bedroom like she’s running an obstacle course over hot coals …
and winning.” She had been prone to inappropriate outbursts of truth and
opinion while she adjusted to the Ethics Page. Complete adjustment took up to a
week, but they didn’t have time to wait.

Being in the cockpit with two women
with no filters made his cheeks burn for the umpteenth time. “So this place was
a top-secret research facility authorized to experiment with nanotechnology.
When the subject of its research escaped its bounds, the site fell under UN
jurisdiction.”

“Officially, Seven was an
independent hazardous-waste facility with no research staff. The unlicensed
scientists were among the first to be eaten,” Eowyn said.

“Eaten?” Stu repeated.

Eowyn held a finger to her lips as
she broadcast to the secure facility. “Dark Tower Seven, this is Investigator
Quinn. We’re delivering a stolen shuttle craft that I recently recovered.”

“This is Dark Tower Seven,” the
shuttle’s radio replied. “Why are you bringing it to the ass end of nowhere?”

Eowyn smiled in recognition at the
voice. “Lieutenant Balfour, this craft visited the alien artifact. We suspect
contamination. I’ll need your entire crew to sweep it for evidence. We want to
find out where it’s been and why. Compare it against the original specs, and
see what they modified.”

“If we have to remove every bolt.
Who’s authorization?”

“This shuttle isn’t officially
here. There is no investigation ID. Am I clear?”

“Eight by eight. Use this approach
vector and velocity. Dark Tower Seven out.”

A string of numbers appeared on the
screen, and Stu adjusted course.

As if she hadn’t interrupted, Eowyn
returned to her description of the disaster. “These nanobots particularly liked
transforming the ceramic components of spacesuits and the calcium of our bones.
Normally, nano has strict containment protocols. With this batch, the
scientists neglected the usual safeguards in favor of titanium oxide.”

“Sunscreen?” Stu said, incredulous.

“That’s actually titanium
di
oxide.
I still had some residue on my skin from the beach, or I’d be dead with the
others,” the investigator said in all seriousness.

Stu shook his head. “What? The
scientist who developed the variant was a member of a White-supremacy
organization? Did he hope to wipe out all the darker races and make the world a
better place?”

Kaguya replied, “Not at all. They
designed the self-deploying power grids to stay contained inside the
aluminum-rich ilmenite of the crater interior and avoid the titanium ore
outside. They even lined the rim with a thin, metal band like a teacup. Didn’t
you pay attention to my briefing?”

“The NERO ship data was much more
interesting,” Stu confessed. “I remember the stuff about making solar panels by
spinning a layer of fiberglass from the sand and floating the aluminum to the
top—the substrate. I shouldn’t walk on that layer because it’s too thin and I
could get stuck in the hollow area underneath. I just never heard how any of
that related to Koku.”

Eowyn glanced at Kaguya and made a
sound of disgust. “Maybe we should have tattooed the briefing on your
daughter’s ass, and he might have paid closer attention.”

“Substrate is also a biology term,”
Kaguya explained patiently. “The self-deploying solar panels are pretty
standard. We use those on Earth today. The dangerous component was the
circuitry that the silicon and calcium formed underneath. Liquid calcium wiring
is a better conductor than copper, but we can’t use it on Earth because of all
the oxygen. The scientists at Seven employed biological growth models from both
mold and spiders’ webs to spin custom computing resources under the substrate.”

Eowyn’s voice went flat. “When we
tried to open Mori’s lab to examine his illegal experiments, the booby trap
splattered my men over half the tunnel … using the calcium spray to expand the
prototype. That monster turned them into red cotton candy in order to squeeze
into the cracks in the walls. It tunneled a conduit under the ceramics into the
main crater. By the time we returned with reinforcements, the genie was well
out of the bottle. Containment took months.”

Stu asked, “Did you bring a few
extra tubes of sunscreen for this visit?”

“Your suit has been sprayed with a
titanium compound that should be effective on a wide spectrum of nanos. I also
carry a low-power laser to burn off contamination.”

“Right,” Stu said. “We drop off
this shuttle as a Christmas present for your lab geeks and wander off while
they’re drooling. ETA six minutes. Anything I can do for you ladies while we
wait?”

Considering for a moment, Eowyn
said, “The tent people had a lot to say about camping near your house. Can you
explain that grape exercise to Mo? I think my sister would really enjoy
shouting encouragement until she requires medical attention for her voice.”

“I made Laura tea with honey, and
she was better.”

“What did she require medical
attention for, then?” Eowyn prodded.

“You’re not allowed to ask that by
UN medical rules.”

“You’re not a UN citizen,” Kaguya
countered. “Tell her. We’d both like to know.”

Stu swallowed hard. “She called the
doc for me.”

Amused, Kaguya toyed with him.
“Dehydration? Muscle strain? Leather allergies?”

“This isn’t the way I wanted to
tell you,” Stu said. “Promise you won’t tell anyone else.”

“That’s not fair,” both women
complained.

He glared at them until they swore
secrecy. “I found an unopened pack of condoms in Laura’s flight suit last night
and sort of fainted when she told me what they were for.”

Eowyn put the pieces together and
started laughing.

Kaguya needed more information.
“You’ve never seen a condom before. So? Laura has full prevention implants.”

Stu shook his head. “Not since the
pod.”

“The manipulative witch wanted to
get pregnant and didn’t tell him. Classic Mori,” Eowyn said.

“What did you do?” Kaguya asked.

“Took her for a walk in the meadow
to harvest honey. Picked tea leaves. Taught her how to hang laundry on the
line.”

Both women chuckled at the
high-society geneticist doing prairie-style housework. Kaguya said, “I meant
about her trying to trick you into a baby.”

“I abstained until the last moment
and let her take a viable sperm sample in a test tube.”

Eowyn whooped. “In case the first
ten tries didn’t take?”

“Or in case she wants our child to
have a sibling. I wish I’d had one growing up.”

Kaguya unclipped and kissed him on
the forehead. “That’s why you were late. You’re a good husband.”

“I don’t get it,” Eowyn said.

“If Stu dies on this mission, Laura
will have something to remember him by. She may even be able to survive the
death of her bond mate.”

“My dad survived over a decade to
raise me. Maybe a genius biologist like Laura could last longer, especially
with the possibility of a second child. I told Mo about the precaution so he
could do the same if he and Kelly have bonded, not that it’s any of our
business.”

“So my sister will live, even if Mo
dies here,” Eowyn whispered. “I owe you, Ambassador Llewellyn.”

Kaguya struggled with how to ask
Stu her question. “Your initial reaction was shock. What changed your mind?”

“I also thought about how raising
the children might heal Mira’s grief at not being able to raise her own. She
might forgive you, and we could be one big family. On the other hand, if I die
today, I could be at peace knowing I’m a dad. Besides, Laura’s my other half.
What she wants, I want.”

His mother-in-law tried to hug him,
making crinkly sounds against his suit. Embarrassed, he turned his head and
looked out the window.

From the outside, lunar craters
resembled desert mesas. He could see the landing pad at the base of the nearest
one. “I’ve got to grow up now. I have a family to protect. Strap in, ma’am.”
Over the cabin speakers, he said, “Helmets on. Showtime.”

****

Stu parked the ship as close to the wide door on the
mesa-like exterior as he could, and the tongue of the landing pad pulled them
into a cavern. When the massive double doors rolled shut, they were committed.

Fortunately, bored scientists hope
for distractions. All Eowyn had to do to misdirect the technical crew was to
point to the patches on the shuttle. “These spots resemble the hull material we
saw on the videos of the alien ship. If we analyze all this, we may find out
why they modified the shuttle or what they stole it for. I’m going to take the
portable evidence to the lab.”

Sif used her own credentials as a
reserve UN trooper because she sometimes served as a rescue consultant or embedded
media.

Smokey the hacker “borrowed” IDs
from Mo’s Earthside team to get the rest of them in. The Somalian’s skin was
dark, and his eyes darted nervously. “As long as one of the real officers
accompanies us, and we don’t encounter any biometric locks, we can pass as
hired muscle for a few hours.”

Mo had sealed the
Sanctuary
guns and explosives in evidence containers. Each team member carried one of
these items to look busy. Every piece of inventory was tagged with a tracker
and a second seal that would alert security who opened them and when.
“Verifying the chain of evidence,” he said, scanning each at the airlock door.

Inside the airlock, they faced the
first security checkpoint. Eowyn closed her eyes and announced over private
frequencies, “We’re all registered and clean.” This meant that she had
infiltrated the security grid, enabling her to monitor alarms. “We’re in luck.
Most of the people in the base have swarmed the outer landing bay. There are
only a few in the control tower.”

Leaving the airlock, they entered a
spacesuit locker room similar to the one on
Sanctuary
. Immediately
afterward, they passed what appeared to be a large break room. Stu asked,
“Video games?”

Mo shut off the large TV screen. “A
ready room. These guys spend a lot of their time on alert status. Regs also
require a bio break for every four hours in space, just to keep them fresh.”

Over public frequencies, Eowyn
said, “This way with the evidence.”

The main hallway was glassy smooth,
light gray, and perfectly clean. It could have been a mausoleum except for a
panel Stu spotted on the opposite wall. The sign read In Case of Emergency,
Break Glass. “Fire hose?”

“That’s a variant of supergoo. It
puts out any fire and hardens in contact with air. They also patch air leaks
with it.” Eowyn checked her wrist computer and followed the map to a side
passage sealed with biohazard warning signs. “We’re on the outer ring. Ground
zero is through this tunnel.”

Sif signaled their allies of their
arrival, hopping through the long-range comm on the shuttle. Their suit radios
had less than a five kilometer range.

Smokey went to work on the next
lock while the rest of the other seven fanned out to guard his back. “Defeating
the quarantine codes is going to take longer than expected. This system has more
layers than an ogre.” He removed his left glove in order to make direct contact
with the interface pad.

Stu stood behind the hacker, with
eyes closed, listening to multiple radios and scanning with his gravity sense.
The silence and the mass of the crater walls overhead made him nervous. Every
few seconds, he checked on the hacker. Instead of finding him relaxed, Stu
noticed that Smokey’s fingers were tightly clenched.
Electrical shock?
“Getting away with it, priceless.” When the hacker failed to respond to his
recall phrase, Stu knocked the man loose from the computer hardware. “Medic!
We’re blown. This place has Active defenses.”

“Sif, tell the locals it’s a false
alarm,” Eowyn ordered.

Nurse Yvette examined Smokey. “His
heart is fine, but his brain is theta trapped. It may take hours to bring him
out.”

Meanwhile, Stu examined the wall
panel. “He appears to have cracked the magnetic lock, but the door still won’t
budge. Oleander, I need to see what’s on the other side of this door before we
blow it.”

The blonde scout appeared next to
the computer tech and had a seat. In moments, she blinked awake, “This whole
wall is lined with mu shield. I can’t penetrate it. Someone likes their
secrets.”

“Security just issued shoot-to-kill
orders,” Eowyn said, shocked.

Mo and Sif broke the seals on their
gauss guns and powered them up. Tilting her head, Sif seemed distracted.

“Zeiss doesn’t want any UN
officials harmed,” Oleander urged. Technically, she was the ranking officer on
the expedition. “Use the fire hose to seal off the landing bay.”

“Yes, sir,” Mo said, breaking the
glass.

Eowyn placed her hand on the lock
to the ready room. “I’ll jam the door while the goo hardens.”

Mo stopped foaming when Eowyn said,
“Enough. That’s going to be a bloody mess to clean.”

Meanwhile, Kaguya sat next to the
unconscious Smokey. “I’ll pop up above the lunar surface and sink down in on
the other side of the shielding.”