“I know,” Tirdal agreed. “But I sense one. Only one.”
“Well, I admit to being freaked,” Thor said. “What do we do?”
“We wait for Gorilla’s bots to tell us what they see,” Shiva replied. “We check around here. Then we decide from there.”
“Right,” Bell Toll said. “Gorilla, ready?”
“Ready, sir,” he agreed. He set a small “animal” down and let it scamper off.
“If this was a big base, you’d expect patrols,” Dagger muttered. “I’m not even getting particulates or aromatics from metal or plastic, which you always get with bots. If they’ve been running patrols they are really stealthy. And there’s no reason for that kind of stealth. They didn’t know we were coming.”
“Did they?” Thor asked. “Could they?”
“No way,” Ferret assured him with a choppy shake of his head. “And if they could, we’d be dead already. Why wait? But why no patrols, even if only bots? It doesn’t make sense.” He was trying to reassure himself, too.
“Tirdal,” Thor asked, “are you sure you’ve got the right feel? How can you know what a Blob feels like if you’ve never felt one before?”
“I can’t explain color to the blind. I know. Believe me or not, but I’m telling you what I have.” Tirdal gave him a look that was almost a glare.
“Relax, Thor,” Bell Toll ordered. “Gorilla, how’s the bot?”
“Running, sir. Or walking, more accurately. Got it on molecular wire. Halfway down the slope and nothing so far.”
“Describe, please.”
“It’s a glacial valley, very heavily forested once past the lava. On the far side there are some dark spots that are probably caves. It is just possible to see under the canopy… wait, I have movement. Here’s the image,” he said as he plugged them all in to his view. “Bringing up mag now.”
There was definitely movement. “Are those bots?” Gun Doll asked. She lit a cursor and waved it over the area in question.
“Might be,” Gorilla agreed. “We’ll get a better view shortly. Stand by.”
The view faded as the bot scurried ahead, shutting down most of its sensors as it entered the thicker growth. It ran with only its navigation and warning circuits live, as Gorilla coaxed it through the brush.
The team sat still, patiently, as he moved it in closer. This was something they trained for almost beyond all else. The stars shifted overhead, occasional small forms scurried past, including one as big as a fox. It was a half hour and more before Gorilla said, “Got it. Here.” The images came back on screen.
There was a cleared area, and within and around it was activity. Vertical maintenance bots moved around vehicles and performed functions. Sensor globes flew slow orbits around the area, weaving around trees and other obstacles like so many intelligent tennis balls. Armored combat bots, unlike Alliance or Republic gear but obvious as to design, rolled around the perimeter.
There was a pause as Gorilla’s bot detected and moved around a mine. At Gorilla’s prompt, the screen lit with locations of sensors, mines and self-guided weapons, the drone detecting their faint idle signals and extrapolating. It wasn’t yet as accurate as it would get after prolonged exposure, but it was good enough.
As the bot’s view panned across the edge of the encampment it revealed a group of Blobs moving in a wedge formation. The patrol ambled and flopped across the clearing and into another part of the woods in a gait that seemed impossible.
Everyone had seen the patrol. Bell Toll looked over at Tirdal, who deliberately shrugged, that not being a Darhel gesture.
“I’m not sure what those are. But I don’t sense them. Nor any distortion from the machines. I sense one Tslek only. Still.”
“Something else is bothering me,” Dagger said. “That clearing is too small. It’s as if it’s supposed to look like a base, but isn’t one.”
“How do you mean?” Thor asked.
“I see it too,” Gun Doll said. “A proper facility would have a second perimeter, the trees would be downed and either removed or placed as revetments. They have no safe zone, and any attacker on foot or skimmer can come right up to the edge.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” Thor said. “They understand security and threat discipline as well as we do. Why are they being so stupid?”
“Maybe they aren’t,” Dagger said. He had everyone’s attention. No matter his façade, the man could stalk anything and find any hole in a perimeter. Under the sweaty grime and ragged, unshaven whiskers, his eyes had a sharp, squinty cynicism. He wasn’t assuming the Tslek didn’t know exactly what they were doing.
“What do you mean, Dagger?” Shiva asked into the pause.
“Tirdal says he senses one only. Let’s assume that’s true. We have one Blob. We have a lot of gizmos. We have a crappy perimeter a troop of Space Scouts could crack. We have a formation of what look like Blobs stomping around like a dictator’s guard. Sensors get no good reading of any minor effects like waste. I say it’s a decoy.”
Shiva and Bell Toll frowned. Shiva spoke first.
“This is a big camp. If this is a decoy, those are holograms… so an insertion team would come someplace like right here,” he said, jabbing his finger at the ground, “see all this and boogie in a hurry, without doing a detailed check. They’d see what the Blobs wanted them to see and not start a fight with a force that size. But why?”
“Because they want us to call in a report of a major facility building up and request space support,” Bell Toll extrapolated. “The Navy sends a major force in, and somewhere they’re waiting to cream it.”
“Tirdal, you say they might be able to block you?” Gun Doll asked.
“It’s possible, of course,” he admitted. “It’s never happened, but I can’t rule it out. They’d be just as likely, more so, to note your signatures. I can… suppress mine. Do as a matter of course. Humans, nonsensat humans, do not.”
“What are you thinking, Doll?” Shiva asked.
“If they tracked us coming in and want us to leave with that intel, we’re fine. If they haven’t pinged on us yet, we don’t want them to. We can’t assume those are holograms.”
“One way to find out,” Gorilla put in. “The biotic mole.”
“We didn’t bring it this far to not use it,” Bell Toll said reasonably. “Do it. But be careful.”
“Believe me, sir, seeing that dance down there makes me very careful,” Gorilla replied.
The item in question was a hamsterlike bio-animate. Grown from Earth rodents, it was a “dumb” biorobotic brain with tiny sensors encased in a real and retarded animal that had just enough brainpower to eat, excrete and move where told. It wasn’t good for any detailed scans, but it excelled at missions like this. Even if detected, it would look like one of the local minor mammals.
“Send it scurrying in, however it’s supposed to move, and have it contact something, preferably a dumb bot,” Bell Toll ordered. “We’ll go from there. Gun Doll.”
“Sir?”
“Get the transmitter ready. If we get doinked, the report has to go out before we die. But don’t push it without my orders.”
“Yes, sir,” she agreed. And if it came to that they were well and truly fucked, because the emergency transmitter would burn a signal through subspace that would be easily readable at the Navy’s station thirty-five light-years away. They might as well set off fireworks and wave their arms.
“Primary plan is to walk out with the data, no matter what it is,” Bell Toll reiterated. “I’d rather fly out than fight. So don’t get horny. This is a walk, not a dance.”
Gorilla was done digging in his ruck, and had the tiny creature in his hand. It sat there, dumb and still, its only sign of life being the little turd it chose to drop right then. Ignoring the minor distraction, Gorilla traced instructions on the touchpad in front of him, then set the creature atop the larger standard “pill bug” that would carry it to the perimeter. He gathered up the pair and shimmied higher toward the crest. There was no real reason, just the psychology of being a bit closer. Tirdal followed behind. The few meters would help him sense better. This was not a good situation. Behind him, Dagger came up with his sensors, and squirmed between two rocks like a lizard.