huge, dead screens and an elaborate series of modules.
'Yeah…Priestess, honey, can you get me in that seat?' I helped Priestess ease Redhawk into the seat. We were all fully suited up, and still jumpy. Redhawk was the closest thing we had to Merlin. He was a tech's tech, and he would understand the panel.
'Nothing outside, Priestess?'
'Negative.' She sounded tired.
'We're not leaving without Warhound.'
'I know.'
'So what is it, Redhawk?' Snow Leopard asked.
Psycho had stationed himself by the open airlock with his Manlink. All the bodies we could find were now outside. Our smoke still hung in the air and the atmosphere of violence and death was palpable. Somebody's dox mug lay on the floor in a blizzard of flimsy printouts and plastic manuals, a pitiful reminder of the lives that had so suddenly ended here.
'Aircars. Damn, this is an aircar control center!' Redhawk was astounded.
'Good,' Snow Leopard said calmly. 'That's good! Where are the aircars?'
'Don't know—we've got to activate power. Everything's down.'
'How do we do that?'
'Give me a little time.'
'We've got to do it very, very quietly. We can't tap into any outside power—you understand?'
'Sure, sure—they'll have emergency power. Deadman!' Redhawk gripped the edge of the console with his armored fingers. 'Priestess, I need a bit more of your magic.' Priestess gave him a biotic charge, slipping the tip into an access port on his A-suit.
'Thinker, Psyco—get that wreckage out of the airlock,' Snow Leopard ordered. 'I want to seal the lock and blow the at, and get us something we can breathe in here.'
I had been lost in dreams, thinking of the Systies who had lived and worked here. It was almost unbelievable, knowing what we knew of the Omnis. How had the Systies coexisted with them? Even as allies, it was hard to believe.
Five and I removed the wreckage and dumped it in the corridor. The doors remained stuck in place. Everything here was dead, dead and frozen in one catastrophic instant of time.
'I want the absolute minimum power we need to breathe, and run these systems.'
'That's a ten.'
'How about that airlock?'
'I can close it manually,' I replied. 'The control's right here.' I opened the access port and unfolded the manual crank. We were certainly back to basics, but it turned easily and the airlock doors began to move. As I cranked away, I closed my eyes and prayed for the souls of all who had died here. I was not certain to whom I was praying, and I had no sympathy for Systies and certainly none for Systies who had betrayed humanity by aligning themselves with the O's. But I prayed for them anyway. What could they have been doing here? How could they have lived with the O's? Were they willingly betraying their own race, their own species? Did they realize the enormity of what they were doing?
###
'Airlock doors secure.'
'Power on. Emergency ventilation activated. Stand by.'
The dead air within the installation stirred. The papers on the floor suddenly fluttered. The ceiling panels flickered and flashed on, illuminating us with a cold white light. The control panel came to life, reds and blues and greens glowing calmly, as if all was well—but all was not well, not at all.
'Confirm we're on blackout systems,' Redhawk said. 'No link to outside power sources. Commo all down…'
'Keep it that way,' Snow Leopard ordered. 'Tenners. Confirm the installation is airtight. Pressure building…'
The deck was filthy underfoot, sticky and gritty. We had dragged the dead through here. I bent down and picked up the dox mug. It bore the insignia of the 15th DefCorps—the same bunch we had run into on Andrion 2. I put it aside and recovered a manual from the deck—OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS—2200 LOCKON—MODE COMMANDS—fascinating stuff. I dropped it back onto the deck.
'Redhawk, can you bring the screens up? Will it attract any attention?' Snow Leopard was looking over the controls carefully.
'I can and it shouldn't. This installation is designed to function effectively on full blackout. And we're on emergency power. Just a frac.' Redhawk turned to the task.
'According to the panel, the main screen should give us an overall view of the lake—can you confirm that?'
'Tenners,' Redhawk responded. 'Port visuals—that should be the starport. External, internal— Deadman!'
'Don't touch the internal! Not yet, anyway.'
'Deadman! We'll be able to see everything!'
'Go slow! Nice and easy, or they'll be on us in a flash!'
'That's a big ten! Deadman!'
A dull explosion thundered through the walls. The lights flickered and the deck trembled. Sharp vibrations echoed up through our boots. We looked around, but there was nothing to see.
'What was that?'
'Antimat,' Sweety replied calmly.
'Deadman. Somebody's still out there.'
Psycho squatted by the airlock, checking his Manlink. Priestess appeared in the doorway to the living quarters. She had a pocket-sized datapak in one hand. She passed it to me, wordlessly. OPSKED, it was entitled— 15 DefCorps—Starfleet Commandos—Property of United System Alliance—Responsible Officer—Lt. Jeffleigh Karmion.
'Fifty percent pressure,' Redhawk noted. 'Atmix confirmed.'
Priestess sat down, exhausted, and leaned against a wall. I ran through the contents of the datapak. The entire opsked was classified SECRET SYSRES NOCIV DEFOR DEFCON. The first few docs were mission orders for Karmion's unit—Hqs Company, Aircar Squadron 303, 4th Commandos, 15 DefCorps. I glanced through the memos; there were several references to an Oplan Gold.
'I've got the external screen psyched. I think,' Redhawk said.
'Don't do anything until you're sure,' Snow Leopard replied.
The miscellaneous data was a lot more extensive than it should have been, I noted. I went into it. It wanted a password.
'Priestess, did you get into the miscellaneous?'
'Yes. That's the interesting part. The password is 'Jenny'.'
'Now how did you do that?'
'There's a solid of his girl on his desk. And her name. It was just a guess—he was not very imaginative.'
I punched in Jenny and the data came up on the screen.
It was a journal—the personal journal of Jeffleigh Karmion.
'Main screen coming on,' Redhawk reported.
I raised my eyes. It glowed to life suddenly, taking our breath away.
The entire lake was there, massive black slopes glittering with pumice, cloaked in smoke, the great incandescent, golden lake of lava bubbling and hissing, grinding along slowly, black smoky clouds close overhead, the wind tracing eerie patterns on the surface of the lava. Lightning arced down from the clouds, striking the lake. A spidery complex of nav lines overlay the image, invisible highways in the sky, and a status box revealed there were no aircars in sight.
'Where are the aircars?' Redhawk asked himself.
'Never mind the aircars,' Snow Leopard replied. 'We use this screen to find Warhound. Tell me what it can
