Kangaroo Too Page 2

  Lenny clips his helmet to his life support backpack while I give a quick situation report. None of the other spacemen remove their helmets; they simply undo the tether connecting them all and proceed to check their other equipment. The tether was necessary when I put them in the pocket. Each pocket location only “locks” to one item at a time—“item” defined as a single solid object, either a continuous shape or connected by something. Oliver and Jessica call it a “memory labyrinth thread,” and they explain it a lot better than I can.

  I finish my report to the squad leader, Sergeant Radcliff, who is identifiable by the triple chevrons and two crossed comet tails etched into her spacesuit’s shoulder pads. She gives me a hand signal in acknowledgment, then calls out orders to the other spacemen, who have separated themselves into groups of four.

  “Fireteam Red!” Radcliff says. “You will accompany Captain Bafford—”

  “Bafford,” I correct. It’s important to be consistent with your legend.

  Radcliff glares at me. “Accompany Captain Bafford and Corporal Carrozza to the top of the station and sweep downward. Do not fire unless fired upon. Use of deadly force is authorized.”

  Lenny offers me an assault rifle. I wave the weapon away. If we run into anyone in here, I’m going to be better at running my mouth than shooting a gun.

  “Fireteam Blue, go to the bottom of the rock and clear upward,” Radcliff continues. “Fireteam Green, hold position in this med bay until you’ve secured all automated systems, then meet us at the central hangar. Any questions?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, “can I just add one thing?”

  Radcliff turns to look at me. “Yes, Captain?”

  “Just wanted to remind everyone that we are also looking to extract a prisoner. One of our field agents. And retrieve any scientific specimens we can—intel says they’re live animals, probably reptiles.” Wombat’s last message wasn’t very clear. “Sorry, that’s actually two things. Prisoner and specimens. All the info should be in your mission computers. Don’t shoot those things. Okay?”

  “Copy that,” Radcliff says. She turns back to her spacemen, who are tapping at the wrist-mounted control bands in their spacesuits. I see information displays lighting up their helmet visors. “You heard the captain! Neutralize resistance, extract the prisoner, seize any specimens. In that order. Your priority is taking control of this station, using all necessary force.” She pauses, I suppose to let that last bit sink in. “Good to go, X?”

  “Oo-rah!” the spacemen respond in unison.

  “Let’s do it!”

  Radcliff hustles down the corridor. Blue team follows her and sweeps around the corner, heading for the nearest stairwell. Green team ducks into the medical bay and closes the door. Red team forms up around Lenny and me.

  “Your show, Captain,” says the corporal leading Red team, a woman named Stribling. “Lead the way.”

  I turn to Lenny. “Ready?”

  He cocks the assault rifle. “Right behind you, Cap.”

  “Just watch where you aim that thing,” I say. Then, in a Russian accent: “Most things in here don’t react well to bullets.”

  Lenny frowns at me. “Why are you talking like that?”

  “Come on,” I say. “We watched the vid on the way out here. The one with the Soviet stealth submarine?” I’m always trying to educate my colleagues about twentieth-century entertainment, mostly so they’ll get my jokes.

  “What’s a Soviet?”

  “Never mind.” I give up. “Just don’t shoot any windows.”

  * * *

  Intel estimated there could be anywhere from thirty to fifty people in this asteroid. So far, based on the X-4s’ radio reports, we’ve only found about a dozen, and the corridors feel eerily abandoned. Where are the rest of the station personnel hiding?

  “Green Leader, this is Ajax,” Radcliff says over the radio, using her call sign. “Where’s my internal sensor tap?”

  “Working on it, boss,” Green Leader replies. I don’t remember his name. Huffman, maybe? “So far all we’ve got is visible-spectrum in the hallways, and nobody’s walking around but us.”

  “Nothing in the rooms?”

  “Found the data streams, but they’re encrypted.” That seems pretty paranoid. Huffton? What is his name? It’s going to bug me until I figure it out. I pull up our mission roster in my left eye.

  “All right. Keep me posted,” Radcliff says.

  Huffley! That’s it. Now I’ll be able to sleep tonight. “Green Leader, Bafford,” I say. “Did you search the unconscious guy in the med bay? The doctor?”

  “Negative. We put him in restraints and moved him out of the way,” Huffley replies. “What are we looking for?”

  “Check his pockets for a tablet. Maybe a notebook. Something he might have saved his access codes in.”

  There’s a pause. “You think this guy wrote down his password?”

  “He’s a doctor,” I say, “not a security specialist. People hate remembering passwords. Look in his wallet, I don’t know.”

  “Wait one.”

  “Hey, Cap,” Lenny says. “Is this the place?”

  I stop and look where he’s pointing: a door marked LABORATORY J-47. I switch my left eye back to the overlay map I’d marked while eavesdropping through the air vents. This is where I heard the two lab techs talking about specimens. I didn’t share this map with the X-4s; I still don’t quite trust them not to shoot first and ask questions later. I do trust Lenny to know his job.

  “Looks like it.” I adjust my eye sensors to check if I can see through the door. No dice. “Shielded. A little help here, Stribling?”

  The X-4s take position around the door as Lenny and I step back. Stribling directs one of her team—the name tag floating next to the helmet in my eye’s battlefield overlay says “Yu”—to step forward with a more powerful scanner than the one I have implanted in my skull.

  After a moment, Yu shakes his head and gives a thumbs-down sign. Stribling waves him back, then flashes a series of cryptic hand gestures at the other three X-4s. I should probably learn those at some point, maybe. Lenny seems to understand what’s going on. I figure just staying out of the way will be good enough.

  My left eye tells me that the two X-4s setting up in front of the door are Graham and Tullis. Stribling and Yu take up positions behind them. After they all check their weapons, Tullis attaches a device to the electronic lockpad by the door. The lights on the device flash red for a few seconds, then go solid green, and the door slides open.

  A lot of stomping and shouting follows. The X-4s make sure Grumpy and Sleepy are unarmed and then herd them into a corner. Lenny and I step inside after it quiets down, and I start looking around for anything specimen-like.

  When Wombat stopped reporting in last week, agency analysts back on Earth took a harder look at the intel that had led us to investigate this part of the asteroid belt. The agency has been watching the belt for unusual activity since last summer—when our director of intelligence committed high treason and then disappeared into the belt—and there were some discrepancies in the documented location of one of Rubinaxe LLC’s asteroid bases and the navigation data that actually appeared on FDA audit logs from the facility.

  It turned out that Rubinaxe was maintaining two rock bases in close proximity, one on the books and one not, and that’s more than a little suspicious. It got even more suspicious when the agency sent Wombat to look into it, and W disappeared. Trained operatives don’t just disappear. Something happens to them—usually something bad.

  My handler—who also happens to be the agency’s director of operations—decided not to pull any punches with his follow-up. He called up a full squad of X-4s, hid them in my pocket, and sent me to retrieve Wombat and take control of the asteroid. You don’t mess with Paul Tarkington or his people. There’s a reason D.Ops’s code name is LASHER.

  My eye’s biochem scanning mode isn’t showing anything unusual. I cycle through some other sensor modes and s
ee a patch of color pop up in infrared, at the back corner of the room. I point at the heat signature there. “What’s that?”

  “Checking,” Lenny says, walking up to the corner. “How about that. There’s an access hatch here.”

  “That’s just a service tunnel,” says Grumpy. “Wiring, plumbing, other boring stuff.”

  Definitely not trained in security. “Well, then you won’t mind if we take a look inside.” I kneel down and feel around the hatch, but I can’t quite get a grip on it. “A little help here?”

  “I am helping,” Lenny says. “I’m ready to shoot any bad guys who jump out of there.”

  “Thanks.”

  I pry the hatch open. Nothing jumps out at us.

  I peer inside what appears to be a service crawlspace. It goes straight back for about two meters, then makes a right-angle turn to the left. Boring as advertised. There’s a fading trail of body-heat blobs leading down that way, but I can’t see through the sides of the crawlspace, either—whatever this asteroid is composed of, it naturally interferes with scanners. I report all of this to Lenny.

  “Does that tunnel get any smaller inside?” he asks.

  I put a three-dimensional wireframe in my eye, then lower the brightness of the overlay so I can see how it matches up with the surface of the wall. “Looks like it stays the same. About a meter across the diagonal.”

  “So we’ll fit inside.”

  “I will. You won’t, not in that spacesuit.”

  Lenny stares at the wall for a moment. “Fuck it. Let’s go.” He unlatches his chestplate and starts taking off his armor.

  “Recommend against that, Corporal, Captain,” Stribling says. “We can’t follow you in there.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Lenny says. “You just keep an eye on those two.”

  “It’s dangerous in there!” says Grumpy.

  I stare at him. “How so?”

  He stares back at me. “There are snakes in there.”

  I blink. Sleepy looks horrified, which signals to me that Grumpy isn’t lying. “Snakes.”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Venomous snakes. Like, super poisonous.” He might be exaggerating. He really doesn’t want us to go in there. Which means we definitely should.

  “Thanks for the warning,” Lenny says. “We’ll take our chances.”

  * * *

  My radio buzzes as I’m getting into the service tunnel behind Lenny. Sergeant Radcliff’s voice comes through. “Bafford, Ajax, please respond.”

  “Copy that, Ajax, Bafford here,” I answer. “The corporal and I are clearing a crawlspace in section J-47. What’s your status?”

  “Blue team has recovered Wombat,” she says.

  “Is Wombat injured?” I ask.

  “Unconscious but stable.”

  “What happened?” Lenny asks. He doesn’t have a comms implant, so he’s not hearing any radio chatter now that he’s doffed his spacesuit. The only equipment he’s carrying is his assault rifle. I opted for a stunner, myself. If I have to shoot something, I’d rather not kill it immediately.

  “Blues got Wombat,” I say with the radio muted.

  Lenny nods. “Oorah.”

  “Sure.” I unmute myself. “Ajax, Bafford. Red team has detained two lab techs in this section, and Carrozza and I are running down a possible third.”

  “Copy that. Be advised, Blue team also reports they caught some station personnel releasing lab animals into a service tunnel.”

  “Were they snakes?”

  “Unknown,” Radcliff says, not missing a beat. “Blue team found empty crates next to an open access hatch. Station personnel are not cooperating.”

  “Yeah, I’m shocked,” I say. “Let us know if Wombat wakes up. We’ll tell you what we find in here as soon as we find it.”

  “Wilco. Ajax out.” I return my attention to crawling.

  The service tunnel looks like it was carved out of the solid rock of the asteroid, and the walls are still rough and sometimes jagged where they didn’t need to be smoothed or grooved in order to run conduits or attach equipment. Lenny points out jutting edges or sharp points as he passes them, which I’m grateful for, since I’m still scanning for targets. If Lenny is irritated by the high-pitched tone I’m generating with my shoulder-phone to get a sonar picture of the area, he doesn’t show it.

  We approach the turn leading to the left, and my sonar starts pulsing. I turn up the audio reception in my ears to verify what I’m hearing, then tug on Lenny’s boot to stop his forward motion before he turns the corner.

  He stops and turns to give me an annoyed look. I tap my chest quietly with one hand and mouth the word “heartbeat.”

  Lenny stares at me, then nods. He makes a series of hand gestures I don’t understand. I shrug in response. He rolls his eyes, points at me, points at the floor, and mouths the word “stay.”

  I grip my stunner in both hands and watch as Lenny turns back to face the corner, coils his body, then launches himself forward in a tight roll, coming back up with his back flat against the far wall and his assault rifle pointed down the tunnel past the curve. He stares in that direction for a moment, at something I can’t see.

  “Do not move!” he calls down the tunnel. Then, still aiming his rifle there, he raises one hand and waves me forward.

  I move to where Lenny is with considerably less style, shuffling on my knees and elbows, struggling to keep my stunner pointed and steady.

  I round the corner and see a portly man with thinning brown hair, wearing a white jumpsuit. He’s slumped against the side of the tunnel, about a meter and a half away from Lenny. In the man’s lap is a clear rectangular box containing a writhing mass of—tentacles?

  No. It’s snakes.

  The man’s holding a whole box of goddamn snakes. Grumpy wasn’t lying. One of the snakes pokes its head up, studies me with beady black eyes, and extends a forked tongue.

  I don’t like snakes. But at least they’re contained.

  I lower my stunner. The man doesn’t present much of a physical threat. And Lenny’s got a good bead on him with that assault rifle. Then I think again and raise my stunner again. It might not be the best thing for Lenny to shoot to kill if this guy makes any sudden moves.

  “I got this, Corporal,” I say to Lenny. “You can stand down.”

  Lenny frowns without looking at me. “I prefer the redundancy.”

  “Then switch to nonlethals,” I say through clenched teeth. “Our friend is likely to be more cooperative if he doesn’t think we want to kill him.”

  “Don’t you?” the man in the lab outfit says. “You’re only interested in the animals, aren’t you?”

  “Our assignment is to secure this station,” I say. “We’d like to keep as many people—and animals—alive as we can.”

  “But we will defend ourselves if necessary,” Lenny says. He still hasn’t put away the firearm, but I don’t want to tell him again. It’s not good to disagree with your partner in front of hostile forces.

  The man with the snakes shakes his head. “I will cooperate. I never wanted to come out here in the first place.”

  My initial relief—he’s cooperating!—almost immediately turns into suspicion. Why is he volunteering so much information? Nobody whose workplace gets stormed by commandos wants to cooperate that much. I didn’t trust Grumpy, and I don’t trust this guy.

  But if he wants to talk, I’m going to let him talk. He can’t lie with his mouth and his body at the same time—that’s one of the first things the agency taught me, when they finally agreed to give me field training. People betray themselves all the time, if you know how to read the signs.

  I lower my stunner ever so slightly. “What do you mean by that, Mr.—?”

  “My name is Klaus.”

  “So is that your first name, or…?”

  “Dr. Stefan Klaus,” he says. “They promised me a facility of my own. They never said it would be on an asteroid. But I could not argue with their reasoning.”

  “Which w
as what, exactly?”

  Klaus looks at me for the first time, and I study him with my left eye’s medical scanners. He doesn’t seem all that agitated, which is a bit odd. Pupils slightly dilated, which might indicate he’s on some kind of drugs. I can’t test for that, but if he’s not thinking straight—

  Of course he’s not thinking straight, Kangaroo. He brought a fucking box of snakes into a small, enclosed space.

  “Isolation,” Klaus says. “Privacy. Absolute security. Limited risk of escape or contagion.”

  “Contagion?” Lenny says, shrinking backward. “What’s wrong with the snakes?”

  Klaus chuckles hoarsely, his head bobbling from side to side. Okay, I’m pretty sure he’s on drugs at this point. “One could argue they are not snakes anymore. Not really, you know. Not genetically.”

  Great. They’re doing unregulated gene editing out here. Probably trying to get even deadlier neurotoxins out of these animals, attempting to twist Mother Nature’s design to suit human purposes. That never goes well.

  “A new species,” Klaus continues. “I should name them. Yes, that needs to go on my to-do list.” He reaches into one of his jumpsuit pockets.

  “Put it down!” Lenny shouts, raising his assault rifle and bracing it against his shoulder. “Open your hand and drop what you’re holding!”

  Klaus opens his hand. Then the box of snakes sails toward us. We were so focused on the hand reaching for the pocket, we didn’t notice that his other hand had braced the back of the transparent cage, preparing to launch it at us.

  I open the pocket at the same instant I have the thought: Lenny’s going to shoot.

  The portal pops into being on the other side of the snakes, without the barrier, a black hole sucking air—and, hopefully, bullets—into an alternate universe. At least two deafening thunderclaps fill the tiny crawlspace. The sound reverberates horribly, so I’m not sure exactly how many times Lenny fired.

  I don’t know if I was fast enough. I close the portal before the snakes get sucked in.