Only seconds had gone by as the stealth craft was permanently grounded. The Marines who had continued running forward with Orvis were once again coming to a halt and raising their own weapons. “First Squad, Third Squad, engage assigned targets.”
Energy pulses and projectiles from the Marine rifles slammed into the few weapons visible on the hull, destroying the external portions or sealing firing ports. Sensors on the spacecraft’s outer hull were also knocked out by carefully aimed shots. “They’re grounded, helpless, and blind, Admiral,” Gunnery Sergeant Orvis reported.
“Good.” Geary looked toward Desjani, who shook her head to indicate that no communications had been received from the stealth craft. Very likely the external transmitters on the craft had just been destroyed by the Marines, so if nothing had been heard before now, the kidnappers had lost their chance to try to negotiate. Nonetheless, he felt a strange reluctance to issue the next command, a hesitation that vanished in a flare of anger at the fools on the stealth craft who had made this necessary. “Get inside and finish the job.” He could feel the weight of those words, as if they had real mass that settled on him and came to rest in his chest.
“Yes, sir. First Squad, Third Squad—”
“Gunny! There’s something under the air lock on this side!”
Orvis opened a virtual window on his helmet display that gave him a view of what Corporal Maya had spotted. That gave Geary a window showing Orvis’s view, with Maya’s view in it in miniature. He actually wasted a precious second wondering how to enlarge it before mentally slapping himself and just looking directly at his own view from Maya’s armor.
The image tightened and grew within the window as Maya magnified her view. “Got a body, Gunny,” she reported.
A body? Geary heard a sharp intake of breath from someone on the bridge, but otherwise a tense silence had fallen.
“I don’t see a suit,” Orvis noted.
“Ain’t one,” Maya said tersely. “IR shows body temp matching surface temp. Must be frozen solid. Body is flat, but arms are locked into position slightly elevated.”
“Been out here a little while, then,” Orvis commented. “Sounds like whoever it was died while trying to climb back to the hatch and fell already half-frozen. Get in close while we cover you.”
Maya flitted forward, her armor’s sensors scanning the body for any signs of booby traps. Geary almost flinched again as he saw the object closer up. A woman, wearing only lightweight coveralls, lay splayed on her back on the ice of Europa, her body already frozen as hard as the ice beneath it. Her face, distorted by death and the physical damage caused by Europa’s surface environment, was only partly visible beneath a coating of frost and icy strands of hair.
Geary stared at the image, trying to make out if the face was that of Lieutenant Castries. Had the hostage-takers decided that at least one of the Alliance officers had outlived her usefulness? Had they decided there was no sense in keeping alive another mouth to feed, and used a cruel and vicious means of disposing of her? Was Yuon’s body also lying somewhere nearby, camouflaged by death and frost?
Had the Marines arrived too late?
Five
Corporal Maya crouched next to the body, not touching it and being careful not to let any part of her armor except the soles of her armored boots touch the surface of Europa. “I don’t think she’s one of ours,” she reported, her voice professionally unemotional. Maya moved her rifle’s muzzle with surprising gentleness to sweep some of the masking hair away, the frozen strands snapping like tiny icicles.
“That’s not her,” Desjani said, her voice rough. “That’s not Lieutenant Castries.”
“Did you copy that, Gunny?” Geary asked.
“Roger, Admiral. We’re looking, and this is the only body out here.”
“Air lock is right above me,” Maya continued as she stood straight again. “She’s got an empty holster. This wasn’t a suicide. Somebody took her gun and tossed her out. You’re right, Gunny. She was trying to climb back in when Europa got her.”
Geary looked to another virtual window open next to that of the Marines, this one showing Dr. Nasr as he and the quarantine doctor watched the same events. “Doctor, is there any way to tell whether or not that woman was infected before she died?”
“No,” Dr. Palden answered shortly.
“Do you mean was she ejected from the craft because she was ill?” Nasr asked. “It is very hard to tell with such little data, but if the reports we have of the plague are accurate, if she had been infected and showing the illness, she would have been too sick to try climbing back up. Once the plague manifested, disorientation and weakness came quickly. The others may have suspected she was infected, or the cause of her ejection may be unrelated to that.”
Dr. Palden frowned but did not dispute Nasr’s words.
“They pushed her out alive,” Desjani said. “They wanted her to suffer. This was about thieves falling out, not the plague.”
“I agree with your captain,” Commander Nkosi said. “I have seen people shoved out of air locks by criminals like these before. They even call it walking the plank, as if they were romantic pirates rather than vicious murderers.”
Orvis must have reached the same conclusion. “One less for us to worry about. All right, they know we’re here because we had to knock on the outside of this bird to ground it. First Squad, Third Squad, commence forced entry. Weapons free. Take out any threats, but make sure you don’t shoot until you’re sure the target isn’t one of our officers. No grenades or other area weapons. This is a hostage rescue, not an assault. Second Squad, Fourth Squad, provide cover, and make sure no one drops out of any secondary hatches.”
Corporal Maya beckoned to her squad, bent her legs, then jumped nearly straight up, aided by the weak gravity of Europa and the power of her battle armor. She grabbed the outer hatch and brought her boots down on a narrow ledge running along the hull just below it, waiting while three of the Marines from her squad joined her. The rest of her squad gathered beneath them. On the other side of the ship, Sergeant Hsien and his squad did the same at the air lock on that side. The squads commanded by Corporal Bergeron and Sergeant Koury held their positions, their weapons aimed toward the stealth craft, ready to fire.
“Outer hatch is locked,” Sergeant Hsien reported.
“Same here,” Corporal Maya said.
“Crack them,” Gunnery Sergeant Orvis ordered.
A private whose window data indicated a subspecialty in Demolition and Entry edged next to the air lock and placed a small box next to the external controls. “What is that?” Senator Sakai asked from the back of the bridge, jarring Geary out of his absorption in the events on the surface.
“It’s called a skeleton key,” Geary replied. “I’ve seen the Marines use them several times. They’re designed to open doors by any means they can access.”
But after several seconds, the private shook his head, producing a dizzying effect on those watching the view from his armor. “No go. Our gear can’t get a grip on the software these guys have. It’s nothing weird like the Kick junk, but it’s too different from the stuff we or the Syndics use.”
“Can you do a mechanical-override entry?” Hsien asked.
“Trying.” Another couple of seconds passed. “It’s hard to read stuff even just under the hull’s outer surface with these stealth coatings in the way.”
“Got a lock mechanism,” the Demo and Entry Marine working on Maya’s side reported. “Look about here.”