"Good morning, Jim--do you mind if I call you Jim?" I shook my head. Jim was fine. "My name is Mike Jackson with the LSF." Mike was a slightly-built man of greater-than-average height; my first impression was an animated coat rack.
"Good morning to you as well, Mike. This a social visit or do you have some ulterior motive here?" He chuckled and pulled out a small sheet of paper. He glanced at his watch briefly before continuing.
"Unfortunately we don't have much time to just chat, so I'll get to business. You're a unique man, Jim, in more ways than one. You survived an encounter with something we don't fully understand, and if you don't mind..." I cut him off.
"Come on, you know that I've been asked nine ways of Sunday about it. I've told everything I remember, and Eli's been following me everywhere in case I remembered something new." His eyebrows rose slightly. I was right about Eli, at least.
"Yes, I am aware of that, but we've identified a method that might aid recall of the event. Unfortunately I can't say a whole lot about that until you get your security clearance for Division 18, so you'll just have to trust me on this for now." I'd never heard of any Division 18 before and said so.
"Division..eighteen? I've never heard of it before. Some kind of psychoanalysis group?" Again that little chuckle. He leaned forwards and stared into my eyes.
Mike and Eli took up flanking positions as we left my office. I was in 'E' wing, Level 7. The hanger we were heading for was on Level 2, and took up roughly half of that level. We moved fast, avoiding as many people as we could. When we got to the hangar proper, Mike turned to me.
"Now, this has a slightly...unusual...effect on first-time viewers." I nodded and looked around for our ship. Eli touched my shoulder and pointed with his chin at the hangar doors, which were opening.
"It's already here." I checked again, but still no sign of any sort of LSF ship, just the usual Patriots, Liberators, Upholders, Rocs, and the odd Eagle.
"But...there's nothing there." Mike just said a few quiet words I couldn't make out into his cufflink microphone and indicated in the general direction of the hangar doors.
It's kind of hard to describe what a battle-kitted Grizzly looks like when it just appears about two yards from your nose. Or what it does to you. Suffice to say I was mildly shocked, dismayed, and in a fighting crouch behind a stack of crates before I knew what was going on.
Mike just gave me that "I-told-you-so" sort of a look. I grinned sheepishly and stood up. Eli walked to the boarding ramp controls and activated them. I must have been seeing things, because it looked like they glowed for a second. I didn't have time to worry about that, though, because the ramp descended and Eli tilted his head to one side slightly, then waved me aboard.
"Jackson, crew reports we're ready for launch." Eli took a last cursory look around the hangar before he walked up the ramp behind Mike, who pointed. I tracked with my eyes to find a small cabin, door open.
"It's cozy, but the trip won't be too long. It's only two jumps out, where we're headed." Mike turned and headed for the cockpit. I examined the room. One bunk, about waist height, along the left wall from the door. Storage under that, a desk and chair on the right. Towards the back was a small restroom that doubled as a clothes hangar. I took off my gear and stowed it, then hit the bunk for a rest.
With a clunk of releasing clamps, the Grizzly lifted off and headed for the hangar doors.
I got about two hours of sleep before Eli knocked, which was about two hours more than I'd been getting a night for the past two weeks. "Jim? We're here. Get dressed, we're docking in five minutes."
"Okay, but...where is 'here', exactly?" I pulled on my boots and checked over my pistol; more from force of habit than anything else.
"Ah, but that would be telling. You'll know soon enough." I heard his footsteps recede towards the cockpit as I holstered my pistol and finished dressing. I palmed open the door and followed where Eli had headed.
The cockpit of a Grizzly is a pretty busy place, with several consoles and lights everywhere. It's sort of like an electronica concert stage with the synthesizers and laser arrays, only this one is designed for more mundane purposes. To the left of the door was a comms station, a rack of transceivers running from floor to ceiling with a single master console for the comms officer. To the right was weapons. On this ship, there were a standard load of shieldbuster turrets and a trio of forward-mounted Magma Hammer cannons for hull breaching duties. Unlike most, though, this one had an additional console to the gunner's left that controlled the cloaking device. To the front were the pilot and copilot's seats; these were occupied by Mike and Eli. Out the front viewscreen I could see a planet, which the HUD registered as Folsheim. There was a station, but its signal was masked. "So where are we, exactly?" I couldn't stand not knowing.
"Ellesmere." Mike answered without looking. I suppose, being the only one on the ship apart from the four crew made looking unneeded; besides, he had to focus on docking with the station. "More specifically, here's a nondisclosure form to sign." He handed me a clipboard over his shoulder. I took it and glanced over it. Standard LSF Form ND-18b, colloquially called a "Thou shalt not tell". I read it--all of it--signed, and handed it back. The usual stuff. Apparently the station's classified to the point of you-tell-you-die. I guess any stories I have from here will be just for me, myself, and I.
Once we got clearance from Control, we entered our final approach. I'd never seen so many fighters, weapons platforms, and turrets defending a single station before in my life. At least five different wings scanned us on the last approach alone. The docking tubes weren't the usual either. All ships that landed were clamped in place by giant overhead cranes. I guess they don't like people leaving without permission.
Out the cockpit, down the ramp, and into the midst of about a dozen armed and armored guards. Or wardens. It's hard to tell. Mike and Eli were nowhere to be seen, and I suppose there might have been just a touch of sweat on my brow there. A door on the far side of the hangar slid open, and I was motioned to go through it. Four of the guards came with me, the others stayed with the ship. None of them spoke.
I went past the doors and was more than a little awed at the thickness of them--nearly three feet of solid laser-reflective armored steel. Nothing short of maybe a battleship Mortar could breach those. It made me wonder just what they were keeping out--or in. The hallway itself was large enough for the Grizzly to fly through it with enough room for a battleship or two, and I quickly lost count of how many robots and workers were moving things around, fixing things, and running around with clipboards. Busy place.
The first guard motioned me inside a small examination room, and once I'd entered, shut the door and left. I checked the physician's console, but it was locked down, and I'd never paid much attention in class about how to break into one. Not that I'd want to here; some of the people looked like they just wanted an excuse to shoot me. I took stock of my surroundings. This room was about twice the size of my cabin on the Grizzly, but furnished with a funny-looking lounge, console, a sink with cabinets above and below, and overstuffed chair. Some kind of abstract artwork was hung on the ceiling above the lounge, but other than that, it was pretty spartan in decor. The door chimed and a man in a light gray suit entered. Fairly diminutive, I don't think he stood much over five feet, six inches. For comparison, I stand around five-ten-and-a-half.
"Mister, er, Jim, is it?" He pushed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose as he peered at a clipboard.
"That's me." I sat down on the lounge and waited for him to speak. When nothing was forthcoming, I cleared my throat, causing him to jump. "So...What, now?"
"Terribly sorry. Things tend to space a bit once one gets up there in years." Now that he mentioned it, he did have silvering hair and crinkles around his eyes and mouth. If I had to guess, I'd have said maybe sixty or so. He set the clipboard down on the console after scribbling something on it, then went to the cabinet over the sink. "I have here some medication I'd like you to take before we begin. It helps the...process."
I nodded as he pulled a small bottle out of the cabinet and filled a paper cup from the sink. He shook two pills out of the bottle and handed them to me along with the glass. I examined the pills. Depressants, apparently, designed to take major muscle groups offline. I sniffed the water. Pure dihydrogen oxide, such as to be expected in a facility like this, is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. This had the first and third, but the distinct sickly sweet smell of sevoflurane. I realized the pills were placebos. The water wasn't to wash them down. The water was to knock me out, but good.
I knew the sevoflurane would work through either inhalation, ingestion, skin contact, or direct injection. I had no way of knowing the amount, no reference point as to my own level of tolerance. The man was watching me distractedly. I didn't have much time before he'd get suspicious. As quickly as I dared, I popped the two pills into my mouth. As my left hand brought the cup to my lips, my right made a stealthy move to my belt. Classic sleight-of-hand, but it worked. The suit followed the cup, and it was a simple matter to draw my pistol and fire two shots at virtually point-blank range into his chest.
A nine millimeter round doesn't normally do much damage, instead passing right through a body. Mine was anything but normal. It doesn't take a lot of pentaerythritol tetranitrate to make a mess, and it goes off with one hell of a bang. What was left of the man went flying backwards, hit the wall, and slid down. I checked the console. It was still locked down; the suit hadn't even logged in. I can only guess what the idea was here, but I sure as hell aren't going to stick around and find out. I fired at the door lock and was rewarded with a third deafening bang as the next PETN round shattered it. I don't carry a lot of PETN rounds, usually just the first five shots in a clip of fifteen, but it sure makes door breaching easier.
I started to leave the room, then realized I had no idea where I was going. I walked over to the dead suit and checked his pockets. Nothing in them except a strange metal sigil.
The backside of his badge was another matter altogether. It had a complete map of 'E' level of the complex--apparently where I was--and was able to change maps based on what level the badge was on. Unfortunately, the shrapnel from my PETN rounds had sliced part of it into ribbons. Damn. At least I knew where to find a data center.
I shoved the sigil into my left front pocket, and the badge into my same-side breast pocket. I gave the room one last quick sweep before shoving the door the rest of the way open. I tucked and rolled into the hallway, brought my gun up, and checked for incoming hostiles. Nobody yet. I held my gun low and made my way down the hallway. Spotlessly clean, and no sign of all the activity of earlier. I hadn't seen anything to convince me to lower my guard though.
I got down the hallway, found the connecting corridor, and was promptly accosted by what appeared to be a housekeeping/security robot combo.
"Produce clearance badge."
I kept my cool as best I could and pulled out the card I'd gotten from the suit. It scanned it, then handed it back.
"State identity."
I stole a glance at the card. No name on it, and I hadn't bothered to learn his name. "You tell me, metalhead."
It unlimbered a railgun and aimed it in my general direction. "State identity."
Okay, it's immune to social engineering, and it's pointing a gun at me. Not good.
"Um, my name is equal to the square root of two."
"Identity given as 1.4142135623730950488016887242097... ERROR. ERROR."
I left the twitching, smoking robot behind me and kept going.
I stopped about twenty feet down the corridor. I didn't have any way of knowing how well that security 'bot could reboot, and the last thing I needed was a pissed-off robot following me, particularly if it was armed. I didn't want to take that chance. I only needed the one shot to blow off its head, but I went ahead and shot off the railgun too, just in case. The trigger slid back. Click. I wasted valuable time extracting the dud round before squeezing off a pair of rounds into the upper body of the robot down the hall.
I got to the data center and eased open the door. I had no idea what sort of things they might have guarding the area, so I took it slow. As it turned out, nothing. Nothing whatsoever. I found a logged in terminal and started exploring.
> Define this station
This station: Division 18 Station Eureka (Ellesmere)
Purpose: Processing Station/Research Facility
![[Image: sigil.png]](http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q13/treewyrm/sigil.png)