Star Cruise: Marooned (13 page)

She gripped Callina’s hand tight. “Ready?”

“I sure am,” Mrs. Bettis said. “I’ve had enough of roughing it in the woods to last me a lifetime. Adventure has become a dirty word to me.”

On Meg’s count of three, she sprinted across the uneven ground, hoping the others were close behind. Mr. Bettis tripped on a root and fell headlong, his wife stopping to help him, screaming at him the whole time. Blaster at the ready, Red kept his eyes on the sky, which thankfully remained empty of Shemdylann, until Meg and Callina had moved past him into the safety of the facility. Then he ran to help Bettis get to his feet, looping the man’s arm around his shoulder and half carrying him, limping, across the threshold.

The door snicked shut on their heels.

Hands at her waist, gasping for breath, Meg surveyed the room. “This is ridiculous. There’s nothing here. It’s some kind of reception area.”

Bettis leaned on the wall, favoring his ankle and laughing.
 

In her present mood, Meg was easily irritated. “What’s so funny?”

“PolyStarMed.” Bettis pointed at the corporate symbol on the wall and emblazoned on the deserted desk.
 

Hands on her hips, Meg’s irritation grew. “Yeah? So?”

“Finchon owns them. It’s a minor holding through one of his shell companies.”

“Small galaxy.” Red shrugged.

“I wonder if he knew this was here?” Meg said.

“Doubtful.” Bettis shook his head. “Even he doesn’t know the infinite details of all his businesses. That’s what he has me and a bunch of other flunkies for.”

“I feel safer inside, though, whoever owns the business,” Meg said. “This place seems much more of a fortress than the ranger station.” She patted the solid wall beside her. “No windows to hurl fire bombs through. So, is the rest underground?”

Red nodded. “Makes sense when you consider the severity of the storms this planet suffers. I’d build down myself.” He pointed at the far wall. “There’s a gravlift.”

“Is it working?” Despite being in a more secure situation, away from prying flyovers and scanners, Meg wasn’t impressed so far. The facility appeared to offer nil in the way of resources. She almost believed she’d rather remain in the forest than this deserted place, but of course there wasn’t any way to call for help in the open. And they might not be so lucky at finding sturdy shelter the next time a storm hit.

“The staff left all the systems fully powered and enabled, unlike the ranger station. I’m guessing the energy grid is a few decades more modern, integrated. Unless the building is demolished, the power is available until the core deteriorates. Takes centuries.” Red waved a hand. “Notice the lights? Came on by themselves when I entered.”

She realized she’d taken the diffused illumination for granted. Mood improving, she retrieved her backpack from the floor and said, “What are we waiting for? The sooner we make this place ours, the sooner we can call for a rescue.”

Red activated the gravlift, standing aside with a bow. “After you.”

One after the other Meg and the Bettis couple descended one level, stepping off in another brightly lit chamber. Five corridors stretched away on all sides, like spokes in a wheel.

“No one goes off exploring on their own,” Red said. “It should be safe here, but I prefer to have all of you where I can see you for now, until we’ve scoped out the facility.”

“Here’s a map.” Meg pointed at the display next to the gravlift and the others crowded to peer over her shoulder.

The research facility was five levels, plus the reception kiosk above. The first level, where she was standing, consisted of offices, a cafeteria with an attached kitchen, sickbay, a conference room, and the control room. The second level was living quarters, another tiny kitchen, a gym, and storerooms. The third level was labelled as lab space and storage, and the fourth bore the label “Controlled Access Only.” A fifth level showed as “Sealed Building Systems.”

“Probably not a good thing the fourth level is glowing red.” Meg ran her finger across the lower segment of the map.
 

“We don’t know. It could be a simple reminder it’s a limited access space.” Red didn’t sound too hopeful. “I wish we could find out why the place was abandoned, though.”

“If I had my AI, I could tell you,” Bettis said. “It’d take some digging, because this was one tiny piece of Finchon’s business, but I could have found out.”

“But surely we’re safe, right?” Callina rubbed her arms and stumbled away from the building map, going to the center of the open space. “I mean, whatever research was done here wasn’t dangerous? To humans?”

“I think we’re fine.” Meg tried to be reassuring. “We’ve got no reason to descend to the fourth level. Red’ll figure out the communications, call for help, and we’ll be on our way home.”

“Sure, simple.” Red’s calming tone was contradicted by the flat expression in his eyes, but Mrs. Bettis heaved a gasp of relief. “Here’s something on the third level, an access tunnel maybe.” He traced that part of the diagram across the map with his index finger, and a new portion of the wall came to life with flowing illumination. “There’s the landing pad, maybe a quarter mile away.”

“Why locate it over there?” Meg asked.

“Does it matter? Let’s do a quick scan of this floor, see if any food or liquids were left in the kitchen or if I need to go hunting before dark. I need to see the control room too. Then we’ll go down one level to the quarters and pick out rooms to call our own while we’re here.” Red stretched, unkinking his spine and rolling his shoulders. “It’ll be nice to sleep in a real bed for a change, assuming the furniture was modular, built-in and not removed when the place was abandoned.”

“Sounds good.” Meg headed for the cafeteria, the others on her heels. The door opened as she approached and she stopped on the threshold so suddenly Callina bumped into her and sent her staggering a step or two. “What in the seven hells—”

The tables bore mute evidence to the previous inhabitants having been called away in the middle of a meal. Plates laden with moldy, desiccated food and stained, crusted cups sat at numerous places. The chairs were pushed away from the tables and several were overturned, as if their occupants had departed in haste.

“I thought you said this place was shut down in an orderly fashion?” Meg asked Red.

“Maybe the rangers didn’t know the full story. Just that the installation went inactive.” He moved around her into the room. “Even if there was a problem, the event was years ago. We’re here now and the fact that the building is accessible argues the evacuation, or hasty exit or whatever happened, was precautionary. Let’s see what’s in the kitchen. I have hope for finding a hoard now.”

The group walked through the small space single file, Callina setting chairs upright as she passed, as if she could restore normalcy.

The kitchen reminded Meg of the galley on the
Far Horizon
, efficient and compact. There was an area where individuals could reheat prepared food and a larger area where apparently a cook had worked on meals for the whole staff. A messy clump of gray mold showed where bread or fruit had been in a bowl. Pans on the stove held remnants of whatever had been in process on the day the place was abandoned. Ignoring the distasteful scraps, she walked to the cupboards, which opened easily under her touch, apparently not locked to any one person. “Oh, we’re going to eat well tonight.” She surveyed the stacks of sealed foodstuffs and did a little dance step. “It’s a good omen.”

“Dried fruit,” Callina said with a happy laugh. “May I have some?”

“I think we’ll all have some.” Meg passed out the brightly colored packets of sweet dried fruits. “We need to celebrate reaching this place and getting safely inside,” she said to Red, who had an impatient frown on his face. “Is the water running?”

He took the packet of Terran apricots she handed him and strolled to the double sink. Flipping the control one handed, he was rewarded by a gush of bubbling water. Meg tossed him a mug from the rack on the wall. After rinsing off the dust, he filled it to the brim, moving aside so Callina could get herself a drink.

“I crave a shower,” Meg said. “Even if the hot water isn’t running. My hair smells like smoke.”

“I have leaves and twigs in mine.” Callina tried to comb through her hair with her fingers.

Red flicked another tab and the water instantly changed to steaming hot. “I’d say we’re good. Why don’t you stay here and enjoy the refreshments, and I’ll check out the rest of this level. Then we can all go to the next level and see what the conditions are in the living area.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Meg was opening more storage units, Callina right behind her.

Red helped Mr. Bettis limp to the nearest chair, at a clean table, and then he returned to the central area, presumably to carry out his plan of reconnoitering the rest of the level.

Blaster in hand, although there was precious little charge remaining, Red prowled through Level One, finishing his exploration in the control room, which was his desired destination. Despite his putting a good face on it for Meg and the others, unease kept pricking his nerves. The mess in the cafeteria hinted at some major problem having caused the abandonment of the place, and the flashing red indicators for Level Four were also unsettling.

The control chamber showed few signs of the hasty exit. There was a security desk, with currently blank monitors. Red scanned the labels and realized from here he could check out every room in the place except the private quarters on Level Two. He rested one hand on the chair, but paused before sitting. Moving to the next console, which appeared to be communications, he nodded in satisfaction. Choosing to sit here, he activated the unit, silently blessing whoever had decided to leave the power grid active.
Might even write them a thank you note, once we’re safely out of here.

He tried the planetary links first, not surprised to find only silence. Other than the now destroyed ranger station, there was no other known outpost on Dantaralon. Then he switched to the internal link between this installation and the landing field a quarter of a mile away, at the end of the service tunnel. Again, nothing but a hum from the equipment.

Next, he opened the channels for offworld. Harsh Shemdylann voices spilled into the room and hastily he thumbed the volume down. Listening to their chatter ship to ship for a while, he heard no mention of his own party. The enemy forces were running through some kind of drill, maybe in preparation for the future attack on Sector Hub the heedless sentry had told him about on the beach. He chuckled as he listened to the ships’ captains cursing at each other. Shemdylann didn’t play nice amongst themselves. Interesting the Mawreg had sent this set of clowns to soften up Sector Thirty. A half a dozen scenarios to explain the strategy flooded his mind and angrily he muted the com volume.

You’re not on active duty anymore; it’s not your job to play war games. It’s your job to get Meg and the others rescued.

Shaking off the remnants of his old military mindset, he started searching the intergalactic channels, but found no human transmissions. He hadn’t expected any. Clearly, this area was under a warn-off that somehow had escaped the attention of the
Far Horizon’s
captain, or else the charter had been overlooked by Sector authorities. Either way, someone screwed up badly, letting a passenger vessel wander into a war zone.

Okay, time to get into the military channels. For the only time in his life, he wished he’d been one of the guys picked for the fastlink experimental gear, to be able to send message from anywhere, anytime. Although rumor was, each time the link was activated, the operator took a year off his or her life. He’d make that sacrifice gladly if it meant he could get Meg to safety sooner.

The communications unit was locked out of military channels. He’d expected as much, but since the equipment was a standard unit from a major manufacturer, Red knew it had the capability to access the network. This wasn’t his area of expertise—he’d had a bit of training on it along the way, so it took Red time to figure out how to work around the control. He tried various overrides and workarounds until suddenly a new set of indicators glowed green. “Gotcha!” He relied on the code his unit used the last time he was downrange, knowing it probably wouldn’t be current, but all he wanted was to draw attention. Someone sending Special Forces code from a planet deep in a war zone should raise red flags. The only questions in his mind were how long would it take to evoke a response, and could he persuade Command to authorize an extraction?

Drumming his fingers on the edge of the console, he considered what to send. The message had to be short but pithy. He settled for “Extraction needed, 3 civilians and self,” signed it with his service number and added the code for this general area of the Sector. Once encrypted, he sent the message, setting the system to resend the data at irregular intervals. No use drawing the Shemdylann attention. While he was waiting to see what kind of response he was going to get, if any, he moved to the Security desk. First, he activated the outside scanners, since he definitely wanted to be warned if anyone approached, and then he worked his way through the other floors of the installation. The place was empty, although as with the cafeteria, each area showed signs of an emergency evacuation.
 

He was about to activate the monitors on Level 4 when he heard a ping from the com desk. “Pretty fast response time.”