“Metal eating termites that can live in vacuum would certainly be a notable find,” the ursine biologist agreed. The drone drifted across the sizable open space and started down another tunnel on the far wall. As it exited the chamber there was a chirp from its motion detector.
“What was that?”
“Something moving behind the probe in the big chamber,” Billy Ray replied. “Shuttle One, Peggy Sue. Did you catch the motion sensor alarm on probe two?”
“Roger that, Peggy Sue. I just told it to reverse course and re-enter the chamber slowly.”
As they watched, the view from the drone spun wildly and came to rest pointing back the way it had come. It eased ahead slowly, reemerging from the tunnel. The drone's camera panned from left to right, then up and down, but there was no further indication of movement from its sensors.
“I wonder if that drone has a wonky motion sensor?” said Beth.
“I don't know, but there's nothing moving in there now,” replied Billy Ray.
“I think maybe we are all a bit jumpy,” said Will, as the recon drone once again reversed its course and resumed its journey toward the moon's center. As it disappeared into the tunnel, a pair of boulders that hadn't been in the chamber on the drone's first visit silently moved off through a different side tunnel.
Interior, The Metal Moon
The spherical, basketball sized drones possessed enough machine intelligence to navigate autonomously, requiring only general direction from their human masters. They were propelled by gravitonic repulsors on all three axes, making them highly maneuverable and well suited to flying down the twisty, maze like tunnels that riddled the moon's interior. On the front of each drone were a number of lenses and protruding sensors, lending the drones a comical, clown-like look.
Even when not careening down enclosed metal tunnels, the drones had a habit of weaving about when they moved. Given their staggering movement and mirth inducing appearance, the human crew had taken to calling them clown bots, or just clowns for short. The inhabitants of the moon saw them a bit differently.
“That was close, it almost saw us,” Gx!pk said.
“Saw you, you mean,” Kq*zt replied, following behind the younger creature.
“Come on! It's like playing hide and seek, or tag, when I was younger. There's no thrill if you don't take some chances.”
“I'm beginning to think I do not understand the younger generation.”
“You're closer to my age than to Qz@px's,” Gx!pk said in a peevish tone.
“Qz@px said we were to keep track of the stranger, not play games with it. Like I said before, it might be dangerous, particularly if you startle it.”
“Do you really think that is one of the aliens from the ship?”
“We both saw it and two others emerge from the small ship that entered the crater on the planet facing side. They seem to be heading toward the center of our moon, while shouting loudly to each other and their ship.”
“I don't know, it doesn't seem very smart. If they can build starships you'd think they'd be smarter.”
“Maybe they use young, expendable individuals as scouts. People nobody would miss if something went wrong.”
“You mean like the elders sending us to keep watch on the aliens?”
“Now you are wising up. You don't see any of the old ones running through tunnels hither and yon, chasing after interloping aliens, do you?”
“No, but that may be because the elders aren't as spry as they used to be, and some of them have trouble remembering where all the tunnels intersect.”
The two friends laughed loudly at that remark and almost burst into the next chamber where the alien they were following was floating motionless, evidently trying to decide on which tunnel to take next.
Shuttle One
“Which way now?” asked Bobby.
“I don't know,” Mizuki replied, glancing at the other two drones' live feeds. They were still descending along the tunnels they were sent into. “Take the biggest tunnel that heads down.”
“Down isn't much around here, there is almost no gravity.”
“0.00017 m/sec
2
,” the astrophysicist responded automatically. “Roughly two thousandths of a percent of Earth normal.”
“Like I said, almost no gravity. I bet you could jump right off the thing and drift away into space.”
“Yes, escape velocity is about 26 kph. But then you would go into orbit around the gas planet. It would probably be a lonely way to die.”
“Remind me not to jump.” A flashing light on the overhead instrument panel caught Bobby's attention. “Did you see that? There was a burst of RF radiation just before the drone exited the chamber.”
“Just reflected signals from the drone or its repeaters?”
“Frequency is all wrong and it registered as pink noise.”
“That's weird.”
On the center display panel, recon drone two resumed its twisting journey to the moon's core. It had gone about ten kilometers into the moon when it emerged into a third, even larger open space. Slowing to a hover, the drone's camera panned around the chamber. Just as the camera's motion detection software triggered an alarm, something that looked like a large boulder collided with the drone and its video transmission abruptly ended.
Large Chamber, The Metal Moon
“Oh no!” exclaimed Kq*zt. “Did you see that? Zz#tx just squished the alien!”
“Worse, I think he's going to eat it,” Gx!pk replied, “the senile old fool!”
The two friends popped out of the tunnel opening they were hiding in and moved toward the third creature. The one called Zz#tx had pinned the much smaller probe against the hard metallic wall of the chamber and oozed around it on all sides. As he moved, cracks formed in his dark stoney exterior revealing the deep red glow of molten rock within. Before Kq*zt or Gx!pk could intervene, Zz#tx finished ingesting the probe.
“You silly old coot!” yelled Gx!pk. “Didn't you hear Qz@px say not to have contact with the aliens!”
Zz#tx floated away from the wall and noticed the presence of the youngsters for the first time.
“What? Why are you shouting at me, you impertinent young pebble. No respect for your elders.”
“You just ate a visitor from an alien ship that's come snooping around our moon,” yelled Kq*zt. Zz#tx was known to be hard of hearing, though many thought it was just an excuse to ignore those he didn't want to listen to.
“There was a little metal asteroid here in the chamber so I ate it. You're just mad because I didn't give you any.”
“No, no, no,” Kq*zt muttered.
“It wasn't very good, though,” the old lava creature continued. “Mostly lighter elements; no nutritional value whatsoever.”
To reinforce that statement he out-gassed a plume of incandescent vapor. The others just floated and stared at the oldster.
“Don't you understand, Zz#tx? You killed an alien, and there's no telling what they might do if they find out.”
“Egh? Alien you say? Well it had a lot of useless metals in it. I'll probably be constipated for a dozen orbits.”
“Crap!,” Gx!pk said in frustration.
“Exactly!” said Zz#tx, “I won't be able to crap!”
“Come on, Gx!pk. We need to go and tell the elders what happened.”
“Yeah, I wonder how long it will take the aliens to figure out what happened.”
“Uh-huh, and what they will do then.”
As the pair departed, heading back toward the surface, Zz#tx belched again and wandered off into the chamber.
CIC, Peggy Sue
“Shuttle One, what just happened to recon drone two?” Billy Ray had been idly monitoring the drones' progress when the video feed from drone two suddenly went black.
“Peggy Sue, we aren't sure what happened to the drone. The last we saw it was scanning the chamber when something collided with it. Its telemetry signal dropped but just before it quit the onboard temperature sensor went off the chart—it registered more than 1,000 degrees.”
“That's what we saw as well, Shuttle One. Interrogative the status of the other two recon drones?”
“We've halted the others in place.”
“Roger that.”
“There's something weird going on inside this metal ant heap. We are picking up a lot of electromagnetic radiation, some RF and some microwave. Trouble is, the damn moon is made of metal and it blocks most transmissions.” As he spoke, the video feed from drone three went dark.
Now what?
Bobby thought.
What's taking out my drones?
Before he could take any action telemetry from the remaining drone quit.
“Shuttle One, we just lost the video from the other two drones.”
“Roger, Peggy Sue, so did we. This time it looks like the telemetry links were broken.” The drones scattered small sensor relays behind them as they descended into the metal maze so they could stay in touch with the shuttle. Otherwise the solid metal of the moon would have soon rendered them incommunicado.
“Understood. You're the commander in place, Mr. Danner. How do you suggest we proceed?”
“I think we should find out what took out our drones. If there are other living creatures in this system—possibly hostile creatures—we need to know.”
“Affirmative, if we have hostiles in system we need to warn the colonists.”
“Roger, Peggy Sue. I think we need to send the Marines on a reconnaissance patrol.”
Marine Squad
“All right, listen up Marines,” the Gunny sent over the squad frequency. “Our objective is to find out what happened to the recon drones. We will form three groups and follow the same tracks as the drones until we either find the clown bots or some sign of what happened to them. Hopefully clown bots one and three only lost comm and are still functional.
“Hitch and Jacobs, you will take the port track; Kato and Bosco the starboard track; Umky, Vinny and myself will take the center track which should lead to where bot two went dark. The clown bots dropped sensor relays along their paths as they descended so comm signals could get back out of this metal rat's nest. I want you to scatter extra ones as you go to make sure we don't lose contact. And get your mini-bots out in front and behind you. Questions?”
“What if we get lost, Gunny?” asked Vinny.
“Your suit's inertial tracking will tell you where you are and how you got there, plus we got the bots' track telemetry. Besides, DeSilva, you're with me, which means by definition you are not lost.”
The squad chuckled, easing the tension that darkened their mood. They were, after all, about to enter a gigantic maze made out of solid metal that even their weaponry couldn't blast through. Splitting into three teams meant they would be even more isolated once they entered tunnels, but it made sense. The tunnels, spacious for the drones, were only wide enough to let the armored Marines advance single file. Even if they were attacked from both front and rear simultaneously, at most two of them would be able to engage the enemy at a time.
“Hey, I bet we find our clown bot before you Navy jerk offs,” said Kato, trying to get a rise out of the two petty officers.
“No way Jar Head, you guys got no sense of direction,” replied Hitch.
“Why do you think the Navy always has to transport you Gyrenes to the battle zone?” added Jacobs. “Try not to get lost in the drain pipes.”
Vinny made a rude hand signal and Rosey shook her head, a gesture concealed by her suit's full coverage helmet.
“Enough! OK, Jacobs, your call sign is now Drainpipe One; Kato, you're Drainpipe Two; and I am Drainpipe Leader. Got that?”
“Aye, aye, Gunny,” replied those named.
“All right people, head out and stay in contact. Break. Shuttle One, Drainpipe Leader.”
“Drainpipe Leader, Shuttle One. I read you five by five.”
“Be advised we are heading out.”
“Roger that, Drainpipe Leader. Good hunting.”
The two teams of Marines quickly moved into their assigned tunnels. Hitch and Jacobs peered into the pitch black darkness of their entranceway a bit more hesitantly. With a last look back at the shuttle, they too disappeared into the maze.
Chapter 13
Shuttle One
On the flight deck, Bobby and Mizuki watched the Marines' progress on the same screens they had monitored video from the recon bots. The remaining crew and scientists were looped in via the comm net and watched the teams moving down the almost featureless tunnels on the forward passenger compartment display. All were quiet, listening to the Marines chat with each other until Mizuki could stand it no longer.
“Why did Rosey call herself 'Drainpipe Leader'?”
“What?” replied Bobby, startled by the question amid the tense silence. “I guess it's Marine humor, sweetheart.”
“Drainpipe?”
“Yeah, a drainpipe leads down into a sewer or cesspool. Marines make fun of what they are facing to relieve tension before a battle.”
“Are we expecting a battle?”
“God I hope not. It would be like a shootout in a... well, a drainpipe. I'm just hoping that we find the missing drones and a rational explanation for why they all went off line.”
“Hostile action by unknown aliens is a perfectly rational explanation.”
“You know, you are too pretty to be so damned logical.”
Mizuki looked at him and smiled, her dark eyes glistening. For reasons Bobby did not fully understand, his beloved came alive when facing danger. She was not the shy and frightened young woman he had saved from the yakuza years ago—this Mizuki would have taken her katana and turned those mobsters into shashimi. She was no longer a damsel in distress but he loved her even more, his Japanese warrior princess.
“Too bad we could not bring the
aoi chō,
I think they would have enjoyed exploring the tunnels.”
“I'm sure they would love to explore the tunnels, but I don't think they would do well in hard vacuum. Maybe we will find another planet or space station where they can accompany us, Mizuki-chan.”