Moving quickly but thoroughly, I searched the room for weapons, but came up empty-handed. That made me think that Mr. and Mrs. Lark had enough advance warning of the attack to grab their blasters.
I skipped Kira’s cabin, where I had spent that first night, and moved to the lab. Kira and I had taken a quick look when we were first checking the camp, but I wanted to examine the structure in more detail to see if I could spot any telltale signs of a struggle, or blaster scorch marks, bullet holes, or other clues of an invasion.
But everything looked peaceful. As far as I could tell, the systems all seemed to be running, and the sample vault was sealed and locked. Kira had opened it up as a matter of course when we first inspected this station. Apparently the samples were the only thing of real value in the camp. But they were all intact, and Kira even noticed some new ones that been added while we were off collecting. She loaded her own samples in, working in a daze—probably on autopilot.
I continued to check the camp, poking through the mess hall, power plant, and mechanical workshop. Six large hover-sleds were in the garage, hooked up to a power source. They had been partially loaded with gear.
This was so weird. It was like Thastus and Biella Lark just vanished. No sign of a struggle. Nothing missing—at least nothing that I could see.
I returned to the comms building, where I found Kira asleep in her seat and TenSix still perched on the console.
“Any luck?”
“It’s been erased,” TenSix said.
“Are you serious?”
“Quite. And someone knew what they were doing. The data is impossible to recover and the loss appears to be a result of a surge of some sort.”
“A surge?”
“From the field electrical grid. The error codes indicate that someone likely did not initiate a proper shutdown, which cause a back-surge throughout the line.”
“Is that what happened?”
“Of course not. The monitoring system was attacked. Probably with a surgical micro-pulse weapon of some sort. But, as I said, it was a clever attack. Sophisticated.”
“So you are also an electrical engineer—on top of everything else?”
“Hardly, but I did work a stint in security soon after I was commissioned.”
I motioned to the console. “So, what? The logs are just blank for today?”
“No, not for the whole day. Most of the logs show normal activity. The Larks were indeed packing up their camp.”
“Yeah, I saw some half-packed sleds in the garage.”
“But then, shortly after noon, the—quote—surge happened and everything until now is static.”
That was troubling. It meant that this was not a random attack. Someone planned it out and did a good job of covering their tracks.
“What did I miss?” Kira asked as she rubbed her eyes.
“I didn’t find anything in any of the outbuildings, but TenSix was able to access the surveillance logs and discovered that they’ve been wiped.”
“What?”
We quickly got Kira up to speed, but the more we explained, the more distraught she looked.
“I don’t know what the hell to do…” She was on the verge of tears.
“I have an idea,” I said. “At least a first step.” I dropped to the ground and started doing push-ups.
“Your idea is to work out?”
“It’s method acting. I need to be prepared.” I continued the push-ups. My goal was a hundred.
“I don’t get it,” Kira said.
“Ready your comm unit. We’re going to send a distress call.” The push-ups weren’t really having the desired effect. Probably because of the low gravity. I changed them up from normal push-ups to clapping push-ups.
“Show-off,” Kira muttered. “Tell me about this distress call.”
“How do you feel about dying?”
After two hundred or so low-gravity clapping and one-handed push-ups, I was ready to make my call. Kira and TenSix followed me outside to the edge of the camp.
“Is this the same channel I used before?” I asked.
“Yeah. I still don’t get—”
“Okay, quiet.” I was breathing hard, which was exactly the effect I was going for.
I opened the channel and yelled, “Mayday! Mayday! Come in Lark Camp. We are under attack.” I moved the comm unit through the underbrush, allowing leaves and branches to hit the microphone.
“I repeat, we are under attack. Something big. A komorak, maybe. It got Kira. We need help immediately.” I wheezed for effect and dragged the comm unit against foliage again. “I’m bleeding badly. Oh my god—it’s back. I have to—”
At that point I screamed and tossed the comm unit against the ground as if it was a stone I was skipping across a pond. Then I carefully found it, shut off the unit’s power, and pulled out the beacon. I crushed it under my heel.
“Okay, we’re good.”
“Who the hell are you?” Kira asked, suppressing a smile.
“It sounded quite convincing, Jannigan Beck,” TenSix said.
“Thank you. My acting training. You think they bought it?”
“Well, other than the fact that komoraks are not usually nocturnal, everything sounded pretty authentic,” Kira said. “But why did I have to die?”
“With any luck they’ll think we’re both dead—and won’t try to come after us to clean up any loose ends.”
“Ah, smart. So what’s next?”
“For you, the MedBed.” I had spotted one in a corner of the mess hall.
“I don’t need a MedBed. I’m fine.”
“I have to agree with Jannigan,” TenSix said. “You suffered a concussion and your ribs need to be scanned to determine if they are bruised or broken.”
“There’s nothing we can do in the dark,” I said. “You get patched up, and tomorrow we’ll see if we can find some sign of how they removed your parents.”
“You think they were kidnapped?”
“Yes. This was not some random attack. Someone went through a lot of trouble to cover their tracks. They hit your camp for a reason, and I think their target was your parents.”
Kira didn’t respond to that,
