“Then what?” Galish asked.
“Then we dig,” Ana-Zhi said.
It was settled. The only thing left to figure out was what to do with Murroux.
Ana-Zhi ended up deciding to let Murroux stay aboard, but Xooth would closely guard him.
“Remember,” Ana-Zhi said, pointing to Xooth. “Jumpy.”
Xooth smiled evilly.
We escorted Murroux to the bridge and set off, skimming just a few dozen meters off the dusty surface of Taullae, with Murroux guiding us. Meanwhile, Yates and Chiraine operated the scanners.
“How deep is this zoo?” Ana-Zhi asked Murroux.
“I told you, I never actually went inside. But judging from the entrance, I’d guess it’s at least fifty meters. But it could go down four times that. Who knows?”
“That doesn’t sound very helpful,” Galish said. “Why are we bringing him along again? We could find the place ourselves.”
“Sure you could,” Murroux said. “But how long would it take you? I was under the impression that time was of the essence.”
“It is,” Ana-Zhi said. “So stop your jawing and keep navigating.”
We arrived twenty minutes later. I could immediately tell that we were in the right place. Massive solar arrays and light tubes ran in a grid that covered at least sixteen hectares. At the southern end of the grid was a low blocky structure.
“That’s the entrance,” Murroux said.
“Not too close, Galish,” Ana-Zhi said. “We don’t know what kind of defenses this place has. And I imagine for it to have lasted a thousand years, it must have some defenses.”
“Well, I can see at least two D-beam cannons,” I said. “One on each of those two diagonal corners.”
“Good eyes, Captain.”
“Yes, those are D-beams, all right,” Murroux said. “But I’m not sure they are even operational.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Ana-Zhi said. “Yates, make sure you scan the weapons as well, and you might as well go ahead and scan for life forms. Just for shits and giggles.”
I asked, “How far out are we from a full tableau?”
“Close, Captain,” Yates said. “Real close. EMR’s done and we’re just waiting for the energy and biomass scans. This place is gigantic, by the way.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
We set down outside the perimeter of the underground zoo complex, well away from the D-beam cannons and the entrance. As Obarral and Galish prepped for the ground op, Ana-Zhi pulled me aside. “Same marching orders. You stay on board with Galish and the princess. I’ll go with Yates, Xooth, Obarral, and Murroux. We’re just going to try a few data grabs on the surface first. My preference is to avoid going underground.”
I took a deep breath. “I can go with.”
“That wasn’t the deal.”
I glanced back towards the bridge, in the direction of Chiraine. “It’s starting to get suspicious. I mean, what kind of captain just sits on his ass during a mission?”
“You call it ‘sitting on your ass.’ I call it ‘command and control.’ Doesn’t matter. You’re staying.”
“What if I want to go?”
“As my great-great-grandma used to say: tough titties.”
“I am the captain. Technically, right?”
She put a hefty hand on each of my shoulders in that friendly, yet threatening way of hers. “Let’s not succumb to delusions of grandeur, shall we, Jannigan?”
Back on the bridge I felt a little bit like a loser, staying put with an academic and an injured guy, while the real crew was out there doing the work.
Well, if I wasn’t a loser, I certainly was an imposter. That came through loud and clear when Murroux was fawning over me. Or fawning over Sean, to be more accurate. Even after all these years I couldn’t get used to it.
I wasn’t like my father. Or Lirala for that matter. I didn’t crave attention. I didn’t have to be the loudest guy in the room. I didn’t need everyone hanging on my every word. That was bullshit as far as I was concerned.
My thoughts were interrupted by Chiraine.
“You have a weird look on your face. Everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You concerned about the incursion team?”
“A little,” I said, looking down. “We didn’t have time to be as thorough as I’d like. In terms of threat assessment.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “A lot of the area on the tableau looks dark. It narrows down the area of consideration quite a bit. Plus nothing really came back on the bio scan. It’s probably just a big empty structure down there.”
“I guess. The question is, are they going to be able to find anything from the surface. Empty or not, no one wants to go down there.”
The sled was loaded up with all kinds of equipment, including the Raker and a portable version of the Freya’s EMR array. Ana-Zhi had a copy of the tableau on her datapad, so she had a map of sorts to start the scanning process.
It went slowly. Chiraine and I watched as the team methodically ran down and up a row, and over, and then down again. The Raker was perched up front on the sled like a hood ornament on a Cimber Exeter. Its displays blinked and it occasionally changed position as it scanned, but even after a few hours it didn’t find anything to connect with.
“I think we need to go in,” Ana-Zhi said over the radio.
“I thought the plan was to just go in through the surface.”
“Negative. Scan shows at dozen meters of catasteel. We’d never cut through it in time. We’re going to need to go in through the front door.”
I didn’t like it, but we didn’t have much of a choice.
We tested the video link on the sled and then the team geared up in their exosuits and headed towards the entrance building.
“Are they going to be able to get in?” Chiraine asked. “I thought this facility was all locked up.”
“They’ll get in,” Galish said. “Xooth is an annoying little dimbag, but he knows his way around a donokkal, I’ll give him that.”
“A what?”
“A donokkal. It’s a Plargondian device. Very rare.”
“What’s it do?”
“You wouldn’t understand the technology. It’s esoteric to say the least. But picture an
