"This gonna be more of the same?" asked Dia de Santo.
Arcturus didn't have to ask what she meant. Most of their ops in me last few years had involved securing mines or frontier exploration sites from Kel-Morian prospectors. Either that or providing heavily armed backup to local enforcers.
Riots and thousands-strong protests were flaring up throughout the Confederacy with ever more regularity, and you couldn't watch the UNN without some report coming on about a disaffected populace attacking police or marching beneath waving banners.
Of course, these were downplayed as a few malcontents, but Dominion section's experiences and Arcturus's last visit to Korhal told him that things were far worse than anyone suspected. The Confederacy was rotting from the inside out and the powers that be were holding on by their fingertips.
"More of the same?" said Arcturus, as a sudden shiver ran along the length of his spine. "You know, I rather think it won't be."
"What do you mean, Captain?" asked Yancy.
"I have a reeling that Duke isn't playing with a full deck," said Arcturus. disregarding the military protocol of not criticizing fellow officers to lower-ranked soldiers.
"You think he's dangerous?" asked Chuck Horner.
"Very much so, Charles," said Arcturus. "I'm just not sure whom he's dangerous to."
Noranda Glacier itself towered over them, a solid escarpment of blue ice on the opposite edge of a shallow-bowled meteor crater gouged into the ice thousands of years ago. The crater's ridge curved away to either side, and its far edge was over three kilometers away. The cliff of the glacier reached thousands of meters into the air, like the dwelling place of gods from ancient legend.
In the center of the shallow bowl a dark fault line spill the ice, and the tendrils of a yellowish green vapor issued from all along its length. A giant, metallic refinery structure of huge pipes, towering collection vats, and flaring exhausts squatted at the center of the crater like a giant, oil-stained spider, surrounded by a host of prefabricated storage sheds and rough-looking living compounds.
Men in hostile-environment suits went about their business below, oblivious to the marines poised to march in and take their livelihood, and huge trucks with spiked wheels crunched over the ice as they loaded up with containers of the precious gas.
It looked as though the place had been built in the midst of what had once been a ruined city, with jagged spires of dark, crystal-veined stone clustered around the more recently built constructions. The architecture of these ruins was a mystery, but there was something about them that looked oddly out of scale with the humans tolling in their shadow.
Brantigan Fole's marines lay in the lee of the crater's edge, looking down into the enormous crater. The goliaths were hunkered down behind them and the vultures did looping circuits of the snow farther back. High overhead, the Wraiths flew figure-eight patterns, lost in the clouds, their engines inaudible.
A thrumming vibration was carried through the ice toward the waiting marines, and Arcturus couldn't help but admire the skill with which the builders of this complex had managed to anchor the refinery over the vespene geyser.
How had they overcome the problem of the shifting ice and the need to keep the collection heads stable? Arcturus couldn't wait to get in and examine the complex.
"Hell, they must have to drill down a ways to get any vespene outta there," said Chuck Horner.
"Indeed they do," said Arcturus. "According to the briefing, the vespene is nearly thirty kilometers beneath the ice."
"Man, that's deep," said de Santo. "Surely there must be easier places to mine?"
"Undoubtedly, but this is an uncommonly large underground geyser," said Arcturus. "And even though it's contaminated with some very noxious chemicals from beneath the ice, it's so vast that it's still worth all the extra effort and danger to get it out."
"Danger?" asked Yancy. "What danger? Aside from drilling over a dirty great crevasse, I mean."
"Look at the color of the gas coming from the extractors," said Arcturus. "You see how it has a yellowish tinge?"
"Yeah."
"Thai's hydrogen sulfide, a very toxic and flammable gas. Mix it with vespene and you have a highly unstable compound indeed."
"So this place is like one big damn bomb?" asked Dia de Santo.
"Potentially," agreed Arcturus.
"Great," said de Santo. "This just gets better and better."
Leaving his marines to gripe about the danger of this current mission, Arcturus returned his attention to the target below. The ground was open and inviting, easy to walk over, but with precious little cover. And to reach the central refinery itself, the marines would have to negotiate the tangle of abandoned maintenance sheds and sagging storage hangars.
From the flaring exhaust gases, it was clear the facility was in use, but there seemed precious little activity for so large a refinery. It was almost as though the few workers in view were going through the motions. Something about this whole setup rang false to Arcturus, but before he could give the matter any further thought, Edmund Duke ran over at a crouch and dropped to his knees beside Arcturus.
"Your men ready, Mengsk?" demanded Duke.
"We are," confirmed Arcturus. "How do you want to do this?"
It galled him to defer to Duke's authority, but Commander Fole had been quite clear as to who held the reins of command in this operation.
Duke looked at him as though he'd just asked something stupid. "How the hell do you think I want to do it? We go straight toward them and shoot anyone who gets in our way. I'll take most the men out front with the vultures and five of the goliaths. You and your men fallow with what's left."
"Captain Duke," said Arcturus, giving Duke his full title as a salve to the man's ego. "That seems a little heavy-handed. We don't know what's down there, and I have just finished telling my soldiers that the gases collecting there are extremely dangerous. We have to be careful here."
"Careful, my ass," said Duke, waving a dismissive gauntlet. "Ain't nothing down there but a bunch of ditch-digging yokels, Mengsk. Nothing we can't handle. Of are you telling me your boys ain't up to the job?"
Arcturus could feel his hackles rise at the insult to his section, but kept his temper in check, knowing that to let Duke see his anger would give him the advantage in this exchange.
"Not at all. Dominion section is ready for action, but we need to think this through. We can't just go in guns blazing."
"Why the hell not?"
Arcturus bellied up lo the ridge and gestured to the refinery complex. "Look at the number of maintenance sheds and derelict structures down there. For all we know there could be a hundred or more men waiting for us. It's a ready-made killing ground. I don't like the look of this, Duke. It smells of a trap."
"Mengsk, the only thing I'm smelling here is cowardice," snarled Duke. "Now get your goddamn men ready to move out or I'll haul your ass in front of Commander Fole on a a court-martial."
Alpha Squadron formed up and moved out on Duke's order, climbing to their feet and marching over the ridge toward the refinery. Almost immediately, the workers in the mine ceased their labors and withdrew to the central complex. The marines set a punishing stride across the ice, their powered suits allowing them to close the distance to their target at a run.
Five of the goliaths loped across the ice with Duke's men, their heavy autocannons spooled up and ready to fire. Dartlike vultures skimmed over the ice at speed, easily outpacing the marines and moving in to circle the refinery with their grenade launchers locked and loaded.
Arcturus let Duke draw close to the refinery before passing the order to move on to his own men and the twenty his fellow captain had deigned to leave with him. The two remaining goliaths lumbered alongside them, one on either side of their dispersed formation, though Arcturus didn't think they'd be much use back here, where their guns couldn't engage anything for fear they'd hit their own men.