On the leftmost screen, the one showing video from Matt Jacob's suit camera, progress came to a halt. Matt's voice called over the squad's frequency.
“Drainpipe Leader, Drainpipe One.”
Rosey's voice replied immediately. “Go, Drainpipe One.”
“We have a bit of a problem here, Drainpipe Leader. The tunnel has narrowed to the point that we can't fit through.”
“Roger that. Shuttle One, did you copy?”
Crap,
thought Bobby,
I knew things were going too smoothly.
He keyed the radio. “Affirmative, Drainpipe Leader. Can they find an alternate route around the constriction?”
“There were a couple of cross tunnels back about twenty meters. We can try one of those.”
“It's your call, Drainpipe Leader,” Bobby replied.
“Roger, Shuttle One. Break. Drainpipe One, backtrack and try to find another way forward.”
Drainpipe One
“Roger, Drainpipe Leader. We are moving back to find another passageway.” Matt switched back to suit-to-suit in time to hear Hitch complaining.
“Balls! Kato and Bosco are going to find their clown bot before we do at this rate.”
“Have a little faith, Stevie. It ain't over till the clown bot sings. So turn your ass around and find us an off ramp.”
With considerable effort, the two sailors managed to reverse their direction of travel in the cramped tunnel and float back the way they came. A short distance up the tunnel they found two side tunnels, one that headed east and turned up, and one that headed west and turned down.
“What do you say, Bro. West and down?”
“Works for me,” Matt replied, throwing a couple of sensor relays down the eastern side tunnel, just in case. The Marines' relays not only passed on communication signals but provided heat and motion detection as well. If something tried to sneak up behind them, or otherwise use the path they had come by, they would know about it.
Inside the moon there was no light, visible or other wise—just what they brought with them. The near infrared light sources built into their suits illuminated the path ahead throwing the melted, almost smooth tunnel walls into stark relief. The suits could also generate visible and UV illumination on demand but IR mode had the added bonus of picking up living creatures from their body temperature. The view was displayed holographically on Matt and Stevie's heads up displays, along with thermal background readings and added depth ques.
After gliding along for several minutes, the tunnel curved, flattening out to the west. Matt sent his small recon bot around the bend before navigating the corner himself. Unlike the bigger recon drones, the mini-bots had limited autonomous capability and, being about the size of a softball, mounted fewer sensors as well. Each suit of heavy armor came with a mini-bot integrated with its sensor suite.
“Hey, Stevie. It looks like the tunnel intersects with a vertical shaft about ten meters ahead.”
“Great. All I got is a view of your armored ass.”
Matt drifted forward without comment. The moon was essentially a zero-gee environment, which allowed movement using the suit's built in repulsors. The repulsors were meant as an active defense against armor-piercing shaped charge rounds, causing them to detonate prematurely. They did this by creating a sharp but highly localized negative gravity gradient just prior to impact. They were not intended for continuous use nor strong enough to allow flight under any respectable gravity. Fortunately, this excursion was more of a spacewalk than a hike.
“The vertical shaft ahead looks like a big one, and this tunnel widens out to form a bit of a platform.”
“Great, Matt. Move over and let me see too.”
Jacobs edged right and Hitch maneuvered to his left. Soon they lay side by side, both staring across the larger tunnel.
“How wide do you make that?” asked Hitch.
“My laser rangefinder says 7.2 meters, almost 24 feet.”
“It looks like it goes all the way up to the surface,” he observed by rolling onto his back and sticking his head out of the side tunnel.
“Get back in here, Stevie! If there are hostiles out there they could take a shot at you!”
“Matt, there ain't nothing moving around out there,” Hitch replied as he rolled back onto his stomach. “Have your bot shine a light down the shaft and see if it attracts any attention.”
“Right, let's kick over the hornet's nest,” he muttered as he ordered the mini-bot to do as Hitch asked. A brilliant white light slashed into the shaft, casting a bright ellipse on the far side tunnel wall. The illuminated ellipse grew more distorted as it ran down the wall until it became a circle on the shaft's floor. As the spotlight traversed the bottom of the shaft, roughly twenty meters below, flashes of color winked back at the two explorers—red, green, blue and white.
“What's that sparkly stuff?” asked Hitch.
“I don't know, but I think we need to find out.”
“And just how do we do that, Bro?”
“First we send my bot to take a closer look. If nothing takes it out then we go down ourselves.”
“Just for shits and giggles?”
“Right, Stevie. Just for shits and giggles.”
Drainpipe Two
Kwan and Boskovitch were making better time toward their objective than Hitch and Jacobs, not having encountered any obstacles or distractions. As they drifted downward, Bosco, in the trailing position, had little to look at but the tunnel wall—smooth, dark, and rippled like a giant's intestine. There he noticed something out of place.
“Kato, stop! There is something here on the wall of the tunnel.”
“What is it, Bosco? I haven't noticed anything unusual.”
Bosco moved in for a closer look. Under light from his suit, a silver smear was visible against the dark metal of the tunnel wall.
“It looks like the remains of a telemetry relay.”
“The remains of a relay? What happened to it?”
“It looks like something smashed it against the tunnel wall.”
“Well that would explain why we lost track of the clown bot. And it also means that there's something down here other than us.”
“Da, something big and heavy and strong.”
Kato keyed the comm. “Drainpipe Leader, Drainpipe Two.”
“Go Drainpipe Two.”
“Gunny, Bosco found one of the drone's telemetry relays smashed against the tunnel wall.”
“Smashed? How did that happen?”
“It looks like something crushed it on purpose. I don't think we're alone down here.”
“Roger, Drainpipe Two. Wait one. Shuttle One, did you copy that last?”
“Roger, Drainpipe Leader. There's no way the relay could have been destroyed by accident?”
“Shuttle One, Drainpipe Two. It was ground into the tunnel wall with considerable force. Something smashed it, either by accident or on purpose—something not us.”
“Roger that, wait one.”
There was a pause while the officers on the shuttle undoubtedly conferred with the Captain back on the Peggy Sue. The Marines waited quietly, awaiting further orders.
“Drainpipe Leader, have Drainpipe Two leave additional relays and continue toward the drone's last known position. Carefully.”
“Roger that, Shuttle One. OK, listen up people. This situation is starting to become real. Keep your eyes open and your mini-bots out on point. Report any more smashed relays or contact immediately.”
“Aye, aye, Gunny,” replied Kato. As the ensuing silence lengthened there came no response from Drainpipe One.
* * * * *
Now what?
Rosey thought. “Drainpipe One, Drainpipe Leader. Did you copy that last?”
Silence.
Shit! Leave it to the fuckin' Navy. Can't let 'em off the ship without adult supervision.
“Drainpipe One, Drainpipe Leader. Over.”
More silence.
“Shuttle One, Drainpipe Leader. Can you raise Drainpipe One?”
“Negative, Drainpipe leader. We have lost telemetry from both Hitch and Jacobs. There were no threat indications, this is like the telemetry loss on the last two recon drones.”
“Roger, Shuttle One. What do you advise?”
Another pause while officers conferred.
“Drainpipe Leader, we show you a half a klick from the chamber where recon two was lost. Proceed to your objective and hold in position.”
“Roger, Shuttle One. Proceeding to the objective. Drainpipe Leader out.”
Shuttle One
“This is not good,” Bobby said out loud, though mostly to himself. “We have lost three recon drones and now a pair of sailors.”
“It just looks like the telemetry link was lost,” Mizuki replied. “There was no indication that they were attacked.”
“But cutting the communications link could be a prelude to an attack.”
Before Mizuki could respond, indicators on the control panel associated with recon drone three came back to life. Then video reception was restored.
“What's going on now? This is getting weirder by the minute.”
Mizuki interrogated the control panel indicators and sent self diagnostic requests to the re-acquired drone. After a few seconds, waiting for the self-check results to come back, she smiled and looked up.
“The drone is OK, Bobby. Everything checks out fine.”
“Did it see anything while it was out of contact?”
“No, I uploaded the event log and it shows nothing—no contact of any kind. It simply followed its programming and waited for communications to be restored.”
“This is getting too freaky for me, I'm going to call the ship.” He switched to the inter-ship channel. “Peggy Sue, Shuttle One.”
“Shuttle One, this is Peggy Sue. I see you have restored telemetry from recon three.”
“Roger, Peggy Sue. I think it must have been Drainpipe Two laying extra relays. They filled the gap created when the drone's relay was smashed.”
“We concur, Shuttle One. How do you propose to proceed?”
Bobby paused a moment for thought. Just speaking to the ship helped suppress the growing dread he had been feeling. There was still no indication that they had lost anyone, other than that first drone, and reestablishing control over drone three was a hopeful sign.
“Peggy Sue, be advised I am going to bring recon drone three and Drainpipe Two back to the surface. Then we can send them down the same path as Drainpipe One. If they are having a telemetry problem for the same reason as the drone we should be able to reestablish contact without any problem.”
“Roger that, Shuttle One. We will continue to monitor from here.”
“Roger, Peggy Sue. Break, break. Drainpipe Leader, Shuttle One. We are going to order recon drone three to return to the surface. Have Drainpipe Two reverse course and come back to the shuttle.”
“Roger, Shuttle One. Understood.”
Elder's Chamber
In a side chamber, several passageways away from the recon drones and their would be rescuers, an assemblage of sentient boulders were holding a conference. By acclamation, Qz@px was the leader of the older lava creatures. The collection of elders was as close as the creatures came to a government, being highly evolved they had little time for such tomfoolery. The topic of discussion was what, if anything, to do about the visitors currently making their way through the interior of the metal moon.
“I find these new creatures very annoying,” said one of the eldest present. “It's bad enough they are constantly squawking, they leave small noisemakers behind them that constantly squawk back.”
“I find that if you crush one of the little noisemakers the others fall silent,” said another.
While many of the lava creatures were very old, tens of thousands of years old, most spent their time in solitary contemplation. Qz@px was a bit of an anomaly among them, for he paid attention to things happening throughout the star system they inhabited, not just the little moon on which they lived. Over the millennia he had seen other visitors come and go, usually seeking out the inner planets and seldom calling on the gas giant his home orbited. As a result, his level of knowledge regarding aliens was far superior to that of his peers.
“I do not believe the things that entered the tunnels were creatures at all,” he said, causing several side conversations to cease.
“What do you mean, they aren't creatures?” demanded the relay crusher.
“Other visitors have brought devices with them, automata that can explore on their masters behest,” Qz@px explained. “Such devices often constantly babble to each other and their masters, who stay comfortably out of harm's way.”
“Is that why they make so much noise?”
“Probably. And since it would be hard for the three initial automata to hear one another or the small ship they arrived in once the were inside the tunnels, I suspect the little noise makers are simple repeaters. They pass messages among the explorers and their ship.”
“So they are not really living creatures at all.”
“And Zz#tx didn't kill an alien, he just ate one of the aliens' machines,” said Kq*zt. He and Gx!pk had come to the elders chamber to report what they had witnessed, shadowing the aliens.
“That is correct,” replied Qz@px, “though I doubt that the real aliens will be pleased with providing Zz#tx a meal.”
“He didn't like it much, if that's any consolation,” added Gx!pk. “But I think that smashing the repeaters might also upset the aliens, if it means they can no longer talk with their machines.”
“Yes, Gx!pk, you are correct. We need to spread the word that none of the alien devices should be destroyed, no matter how annoying they are. Unless I miss my guess, there will be more visitors entering the tunnels to see what happened to the first ones.”
“More of the little metal balls like the one that was eaten?”
“Possibly, or some of the aliens themselves. And beware, the aliens may be dangerous in ways you have never seen. Creatures that build starships have a tendency to also build things called weapons, which can inflict pain, damage and even death on other beings.”
The chamber was suddenly very quiet as Qz@px's words sank in. Creating devices was a strange enough concept for most of the creatures present. Creating devices that inflicted harm on other sentient beings was almost beyond belief.