Ceaseless (3 page)

Technically speaking, they could likely function as a team. But that didn't mean they would. For a moment, Allan considered calling the whole thing off. But part of him wanted to just run with it, see what would happen.

Plus, he couldn't really leave whoever it was out there hanging.

“I'm so glad we could all come together like this,” he said finally.

Carpenter cleared his throat, returning attention to him. “Yes, well, let's get started.” He reached out and tapped a button on the keyboard of the terminal built into the table in front of him. Immediately, a holographic, 3D projection sprang to life in the center of the table. Everyone turned their attention to it.

“This is Communications Relay 37-D. It's isolated, meant to hold up the comms net for a pretty sparsely populated region. It's wasteland territory. Nothing but a lot of dirt and a few mountains. Some mining colonies and storage facilities. There's only four people at the outpost. You can review personnel files and structural layout on the way over. It's a half-hour flight via jump ship. I want to keep this short. Honestly, there's not much I can tell you. We've attempted communications but there's been nothing because right after the distress call was sent out, all comms in the area went totally dead. So, obviously, there's been some damage to the relay.

“Your mission is simple. Get out there, secure the area and assess the situation. If necessary evac survivors and get that comms relay up and running again. Are there any questions?” Carpenter swept the table with his gaze.

Allan thought there were probably more than a few, but none actually relating to the mission. No one spoke up.

Carpenter nodded. “Good. Suit up, grab your gear and report to Hangar Three. Your jump ship is waiting for you.”

Allan stood up. “Got it.”

He turned and headed out of the briefing room. The others followed, filing out after him. The group moved briskly down the corridor, towards the armory. No one spoke as they stepped into the sprawling collection of rooms that was collectively referred to as the armory. It was more than that, really. The newly formed team stepped into the central room where gear, guns and ammo was stored and could be checked out.

Several doors lined the walls, in between shelves and cases of guns and suits of armor. Each door lead to a small room personalized to each Investigation Squad. There were close to a dozen Squads stationed in Lansing. Allan cast a brief glance towards the room that used to belong to him and his squad. The door was closed and no doubt locked by now. How long would it remain as such? Would they let him build a new squad?

He doubted it.

Allan led the misfit bunch into their own room and looked around. It was roughly identical to his own room. They all looked pretty similar, he supposed. The only difference was that there were four areas instead of five. Squads ranged from four to six members, no more, no less, depending on their functionality and the preference of the Sergeant in charge. The three actual members of L Eight moved to their designated spots, each of which contained a locker, workbench and weapons case. Allan almost began moving to the final one, just out of sheer habit, but stopped himself. He would have gone to his old room, but that would be too painful.

Allan looked at the others three, who had busied themselves with the task of suiting up in their own armor and gear, and wanted to say something before leaving. But there was nothing to be said. At least nothing diplomatic. He turned and left, nearly bumping into Lucy the communications expert who was hovering uncertainty in the doorway.

“Come on,” Allan said, leading her out into the main room.

There was no one there but the quartermaster, who sat behind his desk, making sure nothing was stolen and everyone checked everything out appropriately. Allan came to stand before a weapons case and stared at it for a moment. He didn't want to go back to his own gear station and he supposed helping Lucy gear up was a good enough excuse.

“You should grab at least some body armor and a pistol,” Allan said.

“Fine,” Lucy replied glumly.

Allan stared over the weapons. After a long moment's contemplation, he selected a wide-bore shotgun with a long barrel and fitted a shoulder strap onto it. He grabbed a box of fat, red shells and fed them one by one into the shotgun. Once fully loaded, he let it hang across his back and grabbed a tactical rifle. Allan loved the rifle they provided the Squads. It was military-issue and came with a variety of shot-settings and attachments. He loaded it, let it hang from his right shoulder and filled his pockets with shells and spare magazines.

“Well?” he asked to Lucy, who was still standing there, staring at the selection. Allan grabbed a pistol, loaded it, hit the safety and slipped it into the holster attached to his suit. “Grab your gear. We don't have long.”

Lucy heaved a sigh and yanked open one of the lockers marked 'Armor'. She poked around inside before grabbing a bulletproof vest and awkwardly pulling it on. Allan sighed and helped her get it down over her head, then get it properly into place.

“Which pistol sucks the least?” she asked once that was done, disdainfully eying a case of pistols. Allan chuckled.

“Here,” he said, opening the case and selecting a basic model with a low-caliber, fifteen round magazine. He passed it to her, then helped her fit the holster to her hip and retrieved three magazines. She took them from him and loaded the pistol, hit the safety and holstered it.

“So...you
do
know how to shoot, right?” he asked, wondering if it might just be better to leave her unarmed.

“
Yes
, I do. I'm not an idiot. I've had the training. I've just never had any reason. I've never gone out into the field before. It's not my job,” she replied.

“How the hell did you get roped into this?” Allan asked as they crossed the room to the quartermaster and began signing everything out.

“I'm one of the comms techs for the actual base. Apparently all the others are busy and it was down to me and another guy. We, and I'm not kidding, thought of a number between one and ten to see who got sent out, since we're both technically qualified and capable. I'm pretty sure he didn't want to go and they let him off easy because he was hung over. So now I have to head out into the field with a gun and a bulletproof vest and hope for the best.”

Allan laughed. “Don't worry, you'll be fine. We'll make sure of it.”

“Yeah, I'm sure. Worked out great for your team and their Sergeant,” Lucy muttered.

Allan signed out and turned to regard her with his polarized faceplate. She looked into the blank, black pane of silent glass for a moment, then turned away. Allan spied the rest of the team emerging from their equipment room.

“Time to go,” he said, his voice flat.

They all began to head towards the hangar.

Chapter 03

–
Into the Wastes
–

The walk to Hangar Three was awkward, lengthy and silent.

Allan led the way. He contemplated his immediate future. He was willing to bet that the mission was going to be a milk run. Probably someone went nuts or maybe some idiot had spilled beer on the comms equipment and then tripped drunkenly onto the distress beacon. It was possible, he'd been on missions that basically amounted to that. It would probably take a few hours to fly out there, fix the gear and fly back.

Then what?

He'd be put on leave and he'd already decided that he'd go to the base psychiatrist and run the sessions. He'd done it before and he could probably bullshit his way through it. Unless he was more fucked than he thought he was. Which was a possibility. But if he made it through psych-eval...then what? Come back after a short medical leave? Get a new team, start over again? Transfer? He'd probably transfer.

Things here at Lansing were too fucked up. Everyone had a very clear view of Sergeant Allan Gray's mental status, and some report in a file saying he'd passed psych-eval wouldn't change their mind in the slightest. No one would want to work with him. There was always mercenary work, and the megacorps were notoriously easy to get into. He supposed he could go there, but to what end? What would be the point besides his own continued existence? Not for the first time, Allan felt the thought of suicide pass through his mind.

They reached Hangar Two. The immense room was mostly empty, just a few tech crews working on the array of vehicles that SI retained for use. The group moved across vast expanse of floor, navigating between the maze of tables, crates and workstations. They found their jump ship waiting for them in the early morning sunshine on a landing pad just beyond the massive open doors on the far side of the bay.

Allan led the team out into the sunshine. He squinted reflexively, even though his visor automatically filtered the light and protected his eyes. The jump ship almost appear impatient, engines powered up, back ramp down. The team moved up it and took a seat in the back bay, strapping into the seats. Allan linked his radio with the jump ship's and informed the pilot they were all onboard and accounted for. The back ramp began to close.

As soon as it was secure, the ship ascended into the sky and they began making their long journey into the wastelands.

* * * * *

Most of the journey was made in silence.

Allan didn't mind. He'd been reviewing the information on the outpost, displaying the data over the interior of his visor. There really wasn't much. The outpost was a handful of structures inside of a chainlink fence. The communications relay itself was a tower in the exact center and the rest of the buildings occupied the perimeter just inside the fence, leaving a small circle of open space in between them all.

There were just four personnel manning the outpost. A base commander that also doubled as a security officer, a comms specialist, a medic and a backup mechanic. A brief glimpse of their files suggested that they were all rejects in one way or another. Their problems ranged from laziness to insubordination to drug use. A lot of drugs were legalized now, but there were still more than weren't, and even so, you weren't supposed to use them on duty.

“So, what happened to your team?”

Allan came back to the present, sitting inside of a softly thrumming jump ship, flying a few dozen meters above a mostly flat, packed dirt ground. He looked around and realized that everyone was looking at him now.

It was Corporal Mitchell that had asked the question.

Allan stared at her for a long moment. “We were on a mission to investigate some strange activity at an isolated storage outpost about a hundred miles outside of Lansing.”

He was silent for a moment. The team stirred.

“And?” That was Private Bell. He sounded as nervous as he looked.

“Satellite imagery was showing that more people were coming and going from the base than there should have been. SI put a plant in the base, a new employee, who pretty much figured out right away that there was a smuggling operation going on. We snagged their schedule and decided to make a surprise inspection right about the time the next shipment was supposed to arrive. The resistance was said to be minimal,” Allan explained.

“Whoa, hold up,” Mitchell said. “A smuggling operation? Here?”

“Yes. It was an offworld group. Mercenaries. They'd hit a weapons depots, steal a huge cache of weapons, then lose the heat, store them here, wait for things to die down, then come and pick up the stuff to either use or sell off. They chose this place exactly because no one expects anything to happen around here. Like I said, resistance was supposed to be minimal. But either the contact was paid off or we somehow tipped our hand, because when we landed for our 'surprise inspection' they were ready and waiting for us.”

Allan fell silent. In his minds eye, he could see his squad getting cut down. Four good men and women, dead in minutes.

“What happened?” Mitchell's voice was quiet now.

“We got into the facility, started talking with the guy in charge, and that's when it dropped. Ambush. They cut down two of my squad before we could even grab some decent cover. It was a bad firefight. There were almost a dozen of them...” Allan fell silent again. He thought of crawling across a gritty, bloody floor, grabbing his fallen comrade, trying to pull them to safety, only to watch their body suddenly be riddled with bullets.

“When the dust settled, I was the only one who wasn't full of holes. They were using armor-piercers, top-of-the-line. Everyone was dead but me and some of the base personnel. I arrested them all, called for backup...”

Silence again. Allan listened to the drone of the engines.

“What about you?” Lucy asked suddenly. Everyone glanced at her. “He told you his story, now you tell him yours.”

“Fine,” Mitchell said. She shifted in her seat. “The squad was responding to a comms blackout for a radar facility in the wastelands. When we got there, the situation was worse than we thought. A power relay had blown, destabilizing the generator. Our Sergeant...went inside to try and stabilize it and ordered us to get the wounded out, evac the personnel. We got everyone out, but...the generator blew. Killed Sergeant Gillman.”

More silence followed this grim recollection.