“Well, it’s just that we heard there was a big accident–”
“Maybe the board doesn’t yet know what happened,” Aster cut him off, “and besides, there are more urgent things for us to worry about right now.”
“But if something happened over there,” the scientist went on, “then shouldn’t we–”
“Shouldn’t we do what, exactly?!” Aster exclaimed, her voice rising to shouting level, “rent out a shuttle and head over there to investigate ourselves?”
“But those are our friends and colleagues over there; your friends and colleagues!”
“For whom nothing can be done!” Aster shouted, her patience evaporating, “In case you’ve already forgotten, the DNI were here raiding our offices; so if something did happen on Loki, everyone over there is either dead or under arrest.”
Everyone fell silent. Aster had said openly and bluntly what they were all thinking, and it sounded a lot harsher coming from her mouth than from the chief legal officer.
“That’s not me being cold or heartless,” Aster continued resolutely, “that’s a cold, hard fact that you all need to accept. Flailing around in anguish helps no one, and the less we involve ourselves in whatever the fuck may have happened over there, the better.”
More silence. But this time, people were nodding in reluctant agreement. As worried as they were about their colleagues on Loki, nobody wanted to be slapped with a criminal complicity charge. It didn’t matter how uninvolved they actually were; the Directorate of Naval Intelligence took a dim view of ignorance and those who pled it.
“If there’s nothing else, it’s time to get back to work.” Aster concluded, “Rerun your simulations and diagnostics, and report back to me before the end of the day.”
* * *
The elevator took the squad a quarter of a kilometre below the moon’s surface before finally trundling to a halt. The heavy blast door unlocked, sliding open and causing a rush of air to flow into the partially depressurised space. Gabriel and the squad stepped out, weapons primed and ready to shoot on sight.
There was no lighting or power, leaving the room pitch black; but through the visual enhancement filters in their helmets the squad could see that they were in an atrium. Aside from pristine rows of leather seating and an unattended front desk, there was nothing else to see. More importantly, nobody jumped out to ambush them.
“No environmental hazards detected.” Ogilvy said through the comm., using his wrist-top computer to adjust his suit’s hazmat module, “Radiation levels are normal too.”
“There should be a security station behind the front desk.” Said Bale.
“Secure it.” Gabriel ordered.
As the squad weaved in between the rows of seating, covering every corner, Doran reached the front of the atrium and vaulted over the front desk, stowing his weapon and accessing the holographic computer controls.
“Everything’s been shut down.” Doran said as he brought everything back online.
“You don’t say.” Viker replied sarcastically.
“No, I mean somebody deliberately powered down the computers.” Doran clarified, “There was no power failure or emergency shutdown that I can see.”
As Doran powered up the system again, the ceiling lights glowed faintly before slowly brightening, re-illuminating the atrium. It wasn’t just deserted, there was no sign that anything out-of-the-ordinary had happened at all. No bodies, no physical damage, no signs of battle; nothing unusual except the lack of people.
“Ogilvy,” Cato said warily, “are you sure there aren’t any hazards in here?”
“I’m pretty sure,” Ogilvy replied, “seeing as I’m using top-of-the-line equipment.”
“That’s not all, by the way.” Doran said as he searched through the computer system, “There’s nothing in the logs to show that anything strange happened. No contamination alerts, no containment breaches, no evacuation order, not even decent encryption.”
“Just because there aren’t any logs, doesn’t mean there wasn’t an accident.” Gabriel pointed out, “or that other parts of the facility aren’t contaminated somehow.”
“So what’s our next move, colonel?” Bale asked.
“Find us a map of the facility,” Gabriel ordered, “We’ll explore this whole place room-by-room, corridor-by-corridor until we find out what’s going on.”
“Done,” Doran replied, “I’ve downloaded the facility schematics to the squad-net. There’s a tram line circling the facility, it can take us wherever we need to go.”
As if on cue, the double-doors swung open. The squad snapped back to attention, aiming their weapons at the lone figure who walked in.
“FREEZE, NOW!” Viker shouted at the man, the voice-modulating speakers in his helmet making him sound demonic.
Confused yet strangely calm, the man obeyed, raising his hands above his head as Viker and Ogilvy closed in on him with weapons raised.
“ON YOUR STOMACH!” Ogilvy shouted, “PALMS FLAT ON THE FLOOR!”
The man did as he was told, lying face down on the ground and spreading his limbs as the rest of the squad joined Viker and Ogilvy. He was wearing maintenance overalls and despite being held out gunpoint, he didn’t seem terribly frightened.
“Identify yourself.” Gabriel ordered the man.
“Uh, Teller. Marcus Teller.” The man replied hesitantly, “I’m a junior technician.”
“What happened here and where is everyone?” Gabriel demanded.
“Well, I can take you to the rest of the facility staff–” Teller offered.
“That’s not what we asked you,” Bale interrupted him sternly, “what happened to this facility and where is everybody else?”
“Nothing happened,” Teller replied calmly, “a perimeter breach was detected, so we went into a soft lockdown and evacuated everyone to secure parts of the facility.”
“What the fuck is a ‘soft lockdown’?” Doran demanded suspiciously.
“A soft lockdown gets initiated in case of a perimeter breach,” Teller explained, “no alarms are triggered, no event logs are registered; just a partial lockdown until the breach is resolved. I just came to get everything up and running again.”
The squad processed the man’s answers, such as they were. Ogilvy switched off his own helmet speakers, remotely deactivating the rest of the squad’s helmet speakers so that their captive wouldn’t overhear them.
“I bet he’s lying.” Ogilvy said.
“Agreed,” Cato seconded, “who goes into ‘partial lockdown’ for a perimeter breach?”
“There was no intelligence on the security protocols used by this facility,” Gabriel pointed out, “he could be telling the truth.”
“So what do we do with him?” Viker asked.
Gabriel reactivated his helmet speakers and turned back to their captive.
“Get up,” Gabriel ordered him.
The hapless junior tech slowly got back on his feet and dusted himself off.
“So, I’m guessing you guys are DNI, huh?” Teller asked.
“Correct.” Gabriel answered, “And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that it’s in your best interests to cooperate with us. This facility is suspected of illegal xenotech research. We need to access this facility’s computer mainframe to find out.”
“Well, the corporates don’t pay me enough to say no to armed commandoes.” Teller replied nonchalantly, “Follow me, I’ll take you to central operations. If you want to access the mainframe, that’s the place to go.”