Aster slumped against the wall. Again, she had to ask herself: what exactly was she hoping to find? Lawrence hadn’t been to this office in weeks, why would he have left anything incriminating behind? Every entry-level engineer and technician had their own office, but Lawrence's office was just a glorified storage closet.
The cleaning drone zipped along the edge of the wall, meticulously scrubbing the corners before vacuuming up the dust around Aster’s shoes. Moving on, the drone found its path blocked by the pile of boxes. It paused its routines and hummed patiently, waiting for someone to clear the obstruction.
Aster looked at the drone curiously. Since Lawrence was hardly ever here, why would he bother having a cleaning drone in his office? She bent down and plucked the drone off the floor, flipping it over and examining the underside.
It was a simple, commercial model, though the counter-espionage techs would have scrubbed it for malicious components and software before allowing it into the building. It was an older model, too, moving about on six motorised wheels instead of an anti-gravity cushion. Wheels? Really? In an age when Humanity could make a 100,000 tonne spacecraft hover above the ground, why not a simple cleaning bot? However, that also meant the drone had a simple, pop-open panel on its underside.
Aster dug her nail into the groove and prised open the panel, exposing the components. There, hidden in the guts of the machine, was a red memory chip secured to the inside of the drone’s casing by adhesive. This wasn’t the kind of chip that a simple cleaning drone would need, in fact it wasn’t even connected to the drone’s circuitry. The manufacturing code indicated that the chip could store at least a zettabyte of data.
Aster felt a leaden weight drop in her stomach. This kind of data chip was used to store and transport sensitive company information between locations rather than transmitting it through potentially insecure data links. The data chip, and whatever was on it, were proprietary material, and it clearly wasn’t meant to be found.
Worming a finger into the circuitry, Aster peeled the chip cleanly away from the adhesive and held it up to the light. The weight in her stomach only grew heavier as she stared at the blood red data chip; but having come this far, she couldn’t just leave it where she’d found it. Aster slipped the fingernail-sized chip into her pocket and hastily reassembled the drone, before placing it back on the floor where it resumed its mindless cleaning routine.
Then she fled the office.
* * *
After navigating the maze of service tunnels, the squad finally re-emerged into the main facility, itself a maze of pristine corridors and corporate offices. Ogilvy’s increasingly faint tracking signal was heading towards the laboratories at the opposite end of the enormous facility; at least that’s what their onboard maps were telling them.
Losing a comrade in the field was bad enough; having a comrade be taken prisoner was almost worse. You could make your peace with the death of a brother-in-arms and resolve to avenge him later, but if he was captured there was no telling what might be done to him in captivity. The bizarre ravings of the treacherous maintenance technician didn’t give them any peace of mind, either; but that wasn’t even the strangest thing.
The whole place was deserted.
The facility was supposed to be big enough for a staff of a thousand or more, and yet apart from Marcus Teller and his dead accomplice, they had yet to encounter another staff member. There was no way only two men could carry a fully-armoured operator on their own, let alone whilst he was struggling and thrashing, so there had to be a lot more than just a dozen people in on the conspiracy.
So where was everyone?
To Gabriel, it was just as well that Ogilvy was being taken in the direction of their primary objective. Otherwise, this rescue mission was pure foolishness. As a soldier, he could certainly feel the need to rescue a brother-in-arms – or avenge him if he were killed, particularly one under his command. But if he had to choose between saving a soldier and completing the mission, he would have left Ogilvy to his fate. That wouldn’t make him popular with the squad, but events seemed to be conspiring to unite the two priorities.
Ogilvy’s weakening signal meant that his captors were widening the distance between them. That, or the signal was being jammed, a difficult thing to do. Eventually, the signal disappeared from the squad’s sensors altogether.
“Fuck!” Doran cursed, “Now all we have is his last known location.”
“It’s better than nothing.” Bale pointed out.
As they were speaking, Gabriel used his wrist-top computer and his command authority to deauthorise Ogilvy’s ID and remove him from the squad’s local network.
“Woah! What the frick are you doing, colonel?” Viker demanded.
“Using my command module to follow protocol.” Gabriel replied, minding Viker’s tone.
“But you’ve cut him off from the squad’s comm. system!” Viker shot back, “what if he gets free and tries to contact us?”
“He can still use his comm. to let us know that he’s free again,” Doran explained, “but unless Colonel Thorn reinstates his ID, he won’t be able to hear anything we say in reply.”
“And more importantly, neither will his captors,” Gabriel added firmly, “Once a squad member is MIA, their gear is to be considered compromised until proven otherwise.”
Viker was silent.
“Unless you would prefer to allow the enemy to listen in on us?” Gabriel added.
“No, sir.” Viker acknowledged grudgingly.
“Good,” Gabriel answered, “then let’s go rescue Ogilvy.”
The squad continued through the deserted facility until, at length, they reached the entrance to the laboratory complex. Ogilvy’s tracking signal had vanished beyond the door, but he had definitely passed through this way.
The entrance was an atmospherically sealed door with a viewing window and another biometric lock, leading into a decontamination chamber. While the squad covered him, Doran planted Teller’s severed hand on the biometric reader. The reader rejected the hand with a red light and an angry beep.
“Figures.” Said Doran, tossing the now-useless hand aside, “either they’ve de-authorised his biometric signature or he was never allowed in here in the first place.”
“It’s another breach resistant door,” noted Viker, running his hand around the edges of the door, “Blast resistant too. Hard work even for a plasma torch.”
“So you can’t cut through it?” Gabriel asked.
“I probably could,” Viker replied doubtfully, “but we’d be here all week.”
“I could try cracking the encryption, instead.” Doran suggested.
“Do it.” Gabriel ordered.
The squad’s motion trackers flashed red.
“Contacts! Behind us!” Bale shouted as the squad spun round to face the threat.
A silver object bounced off the wall at the far end of the corridor and slid to a halt in front of the laboratory door. Before the squad had time to take cover, the object detonated, releasing a wave of concussive force that sent them flying against the walls, temporarily scrambling their suits’ sensors.
At the far end of the corridor, several creatures appeared from around the corner, bounding on all fours towards the squad with vicious, hungry snarls. Still climbing to their feet, the squad managed to raise their weapons fast enough to open fire, spraying flash-moulded pellets into the faces of the oncoming creatures.