Jungle colony book 2, p.26
Jungle (Colony Book 2), page 26
Oh. Her eyes went wide. For a moment she simply stood still, staring down at the boxy, bulky bit of composite sitting in the bottom of the bin, doubting her good fortune. Is it …? But there was no mistaking it. She’d seen its like on too many fellow mercs in the last fifteen years. The boxy, rounded edge shape, the off-center design that looked awkward but was balanced so well … It was a military communications suite. Full spectrum. Extended range. Capable of reaching and picking up every form of signal over hundreds of square kilos. One of her old squad mates who’d used a similar rig had once joked about listening to orbital communications from Mars. A week later he’d won a bet with a green private who hadn’t believed him when he’d said that he could.
And it was perfectly adaptable to her armor.
But she didn’t reach out and grab it. Not right away. It almost felt … too serendipitous.
It has to be busted, she thought, finally daring to reach out and pick it up. It was lighter than it looked—which made sense given it was meant to be mounted on a helmet. Broken or something. Why else would it be in here? But as she examined it from every angle … despite the battered and scuffed exterior, the unit looked solid. Old and worn, but still functional.
Of course, that was just the outside. Maybe it had been dropped in the drawer because something internal had been jostled out of place, something a nano-patch couldn’t fix.
Even so … She glanced down at the two standard, low-budget pieces of communications equipment already in her arms. I’d take this any day if it actually worked.
And after all, it couldn’t hurt to try.
She closed the locker with her foot, not wanting to let her prize out of her hands, and made her way out of the armory module. If this works … She hardly felt the cool chill of the metal deck beneath her feet as she made her way back to the stairs, and from there to the elevators. Attaching the communications unit wouldn’t solve all her suit’s problems … but it would solve one. And that was good enough at the moment. Even a small victory was worth it.
The patches in her hands almost fell when she triggered the controls at the elevator, forcing her to twist her body to keep them in place and make an awkward waddle through the opening door. Still, it didn’t dim her mood.
A military-grade communications suite, she thought, redistributing her armload as the elevator began its trek downward towards the first deck. What are the odds—
Her thoughts came to a screeching halt, and she froze, even as the elevator neared the bottom floor.
Actually … She narrowed her eyes, staring down at the comm suite. What are the odds? A dark suspicion was beginning to worm its way through the back of her mind, an ugly thought that made her insides twist.
What if … it’s not just dumb luck? UNSEC had been the ones to remove her comm suite. The elevator came to a stop, door sliding open with a faint, soft ding, but she didn’t move. Her mind, however, was charging ahead at full speed.
How hard would it have been for them to have planted this? she wondered as she eyed the comm mod. Sabotage mine, then plant a convenient “replacement” that could monitor … The thought trailed off as the elevator door began to close, and she stuck her leg out, halting its progress.
But why bother? the more rational part of her mind asked. The battered module looked inert under the dimmed, night-time lights aboard the ship. UNSEC already owns this ship, owns the bio-habs, owns all of it. Just to monitor your communications … that they’d already be monitoring if they wanted to? All they would need to do would be to bug everyone else’s gear, rather than yours. Or the hab modules. It’d be the same difference.
Crud, she thought as she stepped out of the elevator, eyes still locked on the comm mod. Maybe they already have. We’re reporting everything via satellite, right? Maybe that’s already how things operate.
A bug, then, or a hacked module, didn’t make sense. And while rumor persisted that there were “hijack” modules out there, armor components designed to remotely take control of an individual’s neural skinsuit, the stories were just that: Rumor. The most that could be done in that regard was to shut down a user’s suit. Full control just wasn’t possible. Even a shutdown order was tricky, since all a user had to do to stop it was remove the offending part. Difficult in a combat theater, but not overly so. And certainly not worth the trouble it would take to set up. Not for such a poor payoff.
No, Anna thought as she neared the door to her quarters, there are a lot of better ways to sabotage an armor panel. Like a … She paused, the cool sensation of adrenaline flooding her body as she completed the thought.
A bomb.
They wouldn’t … would they? It would work. All it would take was a small amount of plastic explosive. About the size of a quarter or so, nestled somewhere inside the unit. There wouldn’t be any need for a receiver—the unit was one already. And then, once a specific signal was sent …
Pop. Composite plate was tough, especially around a head, but even that wouldn’t be enough to save her from an explosion so close.
Then again … why bother? She shook her head and entered her and Jake’s cabin. I mean, there are plenty of ways to kill someone like me, UNSEC could have taken any one of them rather than do something so contrived.
Unless, of course, Jake’s fear proved true, and there was a mole among the group. All it would take was a casual suggestion, waiting for the right moment, and …
And what? She lowered her collection of goods down atop the table, flinching with each rattle of plate. But Jake didn’t stir from his slumber, and she relaxed as she sat down. Then what? It’s not like any sort of morale would be left on the expedition if my head was blown off by someone. The group would either dissolve into anarchy or hunt down my killer. Or, at least, Jake would, she thought, glancing at the sleeping investigator. He’d have my back.
Even so, as she turned her attention back to the comm suite, she frowned. There’s no way to know … and it was pretty convenient of there to be exactly what I needed left in the armory. Maybe I should just take it back, unless …
Wait a moment, she thought. Why bother worrying about it when I could test it? There’s a whole deck stuffed with laboratory equipment. Someone on this expedition should be able to do a scan for traces of explosives.
She smiled down at the small device, a grim sense of certainty filling her. And if it is laced with something, well …
That’s what airlocks are for. And that would solve the issue nicely. On the other hand, if it was clean … Then I’ll have the comm suite I needed, and then some, she thought, setting the unit aside. She paused, her hand halfway back, then picked it up again and rose, heading for the bathroom.
Not the best place to secure it, she thought as she wrapped it in a towel and set it in the corner. But it’s better than turning one of my footlockers into a fragmentation bomb if it does happen to be laced with something, and someone gets itchy.
Now, she thought, suppressing a yawn. What about that shoulder piece? Fix that, and then get some sleep.
She selected one of the two possible options she’d found from the table and held it up, eyeing it from several angles. The matching bit of composite plate she’d been trying to fix was still sitting where she’d left it on the table, and she picked it up as well.
On the other side of the room, Jake mumbled something and shifted in his bunk. Her eyes darted in his direction, watching as he slowly settled down to stillness once more.
Right, let’s fix this. Neither part looked like a perfect match for the other, but the contact points were at least similar.
I might be able to force them together, she thought as she pressed the two pieces together. The composite resisted, holding firm even as she applied more and more pressure.
The parts, however, refused to yield, and she let off. If it hadn’t taken already, then there was little chance she could force it into position, even with her augmented strength. She flipped the shoulder piece in her hand, checking to make sure that she’d opened the appropriate segments with her tools.
She had. Everything was open as it was supposed to be. Theoretically, all she needed to do was slot the attachment into place.
And clearly that wasn’t working. Fine, she thought. That’s why I brought two back. Odds were one of them would work—even if it took a nano-patch or two to make it happen.
Anna picked up the second piece and gave it a quick once-over before pressing it hard into place across the back of the shoulder piece, waiting for the answering click. It didn’t come.
“Come on …” she muttered, squeezing her fingers together. “Come on … I looked at both of you; one of you has to fit. Come on!” She felt something shift between the two pieces, adjusted her grip, and—
The pieces slipped, scraping across one another and flying out of her hands. The shoulder plate went skittering across the tabletop, skipping across its brethren, while the replacement connector shot almost straight down, hitting the metal surface of the table with a loud ping before ricocheting off into the corner of the cabin.
And with a shout that was almost a scream, Jake snapped up, one hand clutching at the empty air beside him, his eyes wide, frantically scanning the room. Anna froze. For a moment longer the panicked, fearful look stayed on Jake’s face, even as his eyes locked on her, but then recognition seemed to take hold, reality asserting itself, and he sank back, his breaths coming in shuddering—but deep—gasps. A sheen of sweat on his forehead glistened under the dim lights, and as he pushed himself up once more, she could see that his shirt was soaked with sweat.
Another one, Anna thought. And the noise I just made probably made it worse. “You all right?”
Jake didn’t answer, merely waving a hand in her direction as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. He let them hang there for a moment, his eyes shut as his breathing began to steady. Slowly but surely, the shaking in his shoulders began to fade, first to trembling, then to a faint tremor that almost wasn’t noticeable.
Almost.
“Bad dreams again?” Anna asked as Jake pushed himself off of the bed, dropping to the deck. He nodded as he padded towards the small bathroom, his eyes still partway shut.
Must have been a rough one, she thought as Jake shut the door. The thin metal wasn’t enough to cover up the sound of running water however. Cold, if she was any judge. I thought he was getting better. Maybe today stirred something up.
Nightmares after something like what had transpired on Pisces weren’t exactly a surprise. Heck, the therapy business there ought to be booming in the next few years—provided they can find any that aren’t suffering from the same problems as everyone else. She’d even had a few herself, long, lingering dreams where she was running down endless metal hallways and indoor causeways, unarmed and inevitably pursued by a distant scraping sound that drew inexorably closer with each passing moment …
A shudder crawled down her back, and she grimaced. Thankfully, her own nightmares had mostly ceased after the first few days, probably as a result of over a decade of experience seeing and experiencing horrible things. Her partner’s, on the other hand …
Sweets, surprisingly, seemed to have suffered the least out of all of them. That or he’d been really good at hiding it. Jake, meanwhile …
Well, to be fair, he had it worse than any of us, Anna thought as the sound of running water cut off. A fear of water, on a planet covered in it … And then he’d had to face it, make a mad dash across the ocean floor carrying a quantum warhead. While being pursued by the largest and most dangerous of all the drones they’d encountered.
Enough to give anyone nightmares all on its own, Anna thought, another cool sensation crawling down her spine. To say nothing of the crushing phobia.
But he’d done it. Even if he had been a little shell-shocked when they’d found him at the airlock. And, like a trooper, he’d pushed past it and helped them deliver the bomb.
And now he’s paying for it, Anna thought, looking up as the door to the bathroom slid aside, Jake walking out. His short hair was lying flat against his head, wet with moisture, and she could see a faint sheen to his freshly-washed face too.
He didn’t say anything. In fact, he didn’t even comment on her scattered armor pieces spread across the table, nor the shoulder plate he had to step over in order to reach the chair opposite her. He just sat down, a faintly haunted look to his eyes.
“Really bad one, huh?” Anna asked. Jake nodded and slumped forward, resting on his elbows. “Drones again?” Another nod.
“Sorry about the noise,” she said lamely. “It probably didn’t help.”
Jake shrugged, opened his mouth as if to speak, then let out a rasp and coughed. “It’s fine,” his voice still sounding faintly dry as he spoke. “At least I woke up.” A visible tremor ran through his body, starting with his shoulders and making its way down below the table.
“You want to talk about it?” She leaned forward, looking him in the eyes and trying to make herself look a little less … stern. “Sometimes it helps.”
“Ah … not really,” Jake said, giving his head a slight shake. “I just need to … relax … for a minute or two.”
“Must have been some nightmare,” she said. “You usually don’t wake up screaming.”
“Worse than normal,” Jake agreed. Still, the faintly haunted look was starting to leave his eyes. “Leave it up to my brain to come up with even worse scenarios just as the old ones are starting to lose their kick.”
“What, did you dream about a whole army of command drones, or something?” Anna asked. “Because I’ve had that one.”
“No,” Jake said, shaking his head. “Regular ones. But at the riots.”
“The riots? You mean the ones where your—”
“Yeah,” Jake said, cutting her off before she could finish with “—parents died.”
“Ouch. No wonder you woke up reaching for your Slugger.” Jake nodded but didn’t say anything. “Sorry.”
“It was just a dream,” he replied. “Nothing more.” He let out a sigh and then sat back. “It probably wouldn’t happen as much if I’d stop thinking about them.”
“Thinking about what?” she asked. Is he talking about his family? Or the drones?
“The drones,” Jake answered, a lighter tone coming back into his voice. He was starting to look and sound a bit more like his normal self now, the haunted looked fading from his face and eyes, replaced by one of … not quite confidence, but definitely curiosity.
“Yeah, that’d probably help,” she admitted. “I know I try to avoid thinking about them most of the time. It’d probably help with your sleeping if you weren’t.”
“I don’t know,” Jake said, shaking his head. “I just … They don’t make sense, you know?” There was something about the emphasis that he put on the word sense that set her teeth on edge. Then he looked down at the table, as if seeing the armor plates for the first time, his forehead wrinkling. “Were you up working on your armor?”
“Trying to,” she said, glad to get away from the topic of the drones for a moment. “It’s not going very well, though.” She plucked the wayward replacement part up from the floor and set it on the table with a sharp clack. “Either my armor is older and more out of date than I realized, or UNSEC uses some annoyingly specific proprietary standards for their equipment.”
“It can’t be both?” The only thing that kept her from tossing the unhelpful part at his face was the slight lilt of humor to his tone.
“You joke,” she said, choosing to wave it at him instead. “But when we’re down on K-247-whatever and you’re in a basic enviro suit and my armor’s glitched out because I couldn’t fix it, you’ll be running a different tune.”
“Fair enough,” he said, nodding. “You really think it’ll come to that?”
“It might,” she admitted. “None of the replacement parts I’ve found so far have been any help.”
“And these won’t help?” Jake asked, picking up one of the nano-patches. The bright plastic wrapping crinkled beneath his fingers.
“Not for something like this,” she admitted. “Nano-patches are meant to be just that: Patches. The most I could hope for is getting them to bridge the gap somehow between my suit and one of these parts, but that’ll take a couple at the very least. Plus,” she said, tossing the part down. “It also means I’ll need to replace all the plates I do it to later.”
“Ouch. Not prime.”
“Agreed,” she said. “Even if we do wind up eventually getting those long-promised paychecks …” She let her words trail off.
“It’ll still be a decent chunk of your account,” Jake said, nodding. “Stuff’s not cheap.”
“Right …” Less money meant more work trying to relocate to Damascus with her family—or maybe somewhere even further out in light of the threats Eidre had made earlier that morning.
Something plucked at the far recesses of her mind, something that Jake had said, just before he’d changed topics. Something that had bothered her. She frowned, her mind running back to just moments before. What was—? Oh, right!
“Jake,” she said, turning her attention back. “A minute ago you were talking about the drones, and you said that they didn’t make sense.”
”Hmm?” Jake twitched, like she was pulling him away from some distant thoughts. “Yeah? Yeah, I did.”
“What did you mean by that?” she asked.
“Well …” He paused, his mouth partway open, hesitation written across his face. “I just … didn’t they seem kind of … odd, to you?”
“They were alien drones, Jake,” she said, giving him a flat look. “At what point did that become normal?”
“Fine, fine,” he said, waving a hand. “You’re right. Whole thing is weird. But, as drones … did they make much sense?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m not the most forward expert on conventional English, but I don’t think you’re allowed to explain a concept by referring to the concept.”
