The Trilisk Ruins (6 page)

“
If they do come for us...”
Telisa started.

“
None of us will ask you to
do anything but defend yourself,” Jack clarified. “I understand
that you didn’t sign up with us to kill UNSF people.”

Telisa nodded weakly. “Okay... so we’ll
look for artifacts and hope for the best,” she said. She didn’t
feel as confident as she tried to sound.

“
How far is the anomalous
site?” Magnus asked.

“
About sixty-five
klicks.”

“
We’re going to be walking
it too, if you’re serious about avoiding detection,” Telisa said,
getting drawn in despite herself. Her excitement returned as she
thought about the Trilisk artifacts again. “How large a power
source did you detect?”

Thomas smiled as her enthusiasm
returned.

“
Enough to power a small
city,” he said. “I’m thinking it’s military. Just the kind of stuff
we need to get filthy rich.”

“
How much you wanna bet four
aliens aren’t going to pass security?” Telisa said.

“
Yes, but we’ll only have to
deal with the purely automated stuff. This civilization’s clearly
dead, there probably won’t be any Trilisks around to oppose
us.”

Telisa raised her eyebrow. “Probably?”
she asked. Humans had never encountered a live alien of any race.
The ruins of three different races had been discovered, but they
were from ancient times and were no longer around.

“
Well, they are aliens after
all,” Thomas said. “I try not to make assumptions about things like
that. For all we know, this is just the local powerplant,
anyway.”

“
Then why don’t we try some
of the other ruin sites?”

“
Because we’re after intact
tech, and there’s a greater chance of finding intact stuff in a
place that still has power. The entire site might be sealed up
completely, utterly unaffected by the elements. That would be a
find that could make us, if we can get back off this
planet.”

Chapter
Four

Joe Hartlet barely breathed as he
examined the odd creature through the scope of his NX-37 sniper
rifle. It looked like a tentacled mollusk with a flat plate-like
shell, hanging upside down from a branch so the shell faced the
ground. It had at least three tiny eyestalks waving around,
examining its next potential meal, a big green fruit dangling in
front of it. The thing was about the size of a large
housecat.

“
Here’s another one,” he
said. “Let me know when you—”

“
The scan is complete, sir.
You may take your shot,” a clean, emotionless voice responded from
behind.

Joe swept some of his black hair off
his face and centered on the target. He gently squeezed the
trigger. His beefy 110-kilogram frame easily absorbed the light
recoil.

The round hurtled towards its target,
too fast for the human eye. While still dozens of meters from its
target, the bullet detected a wind drift from its logged
destination and corrected for it with tiny bristles on its surface
that could alter its drag. The projectile slammed into the
unfortunate tree dweller and tumbled through its innards, dropping
it from the branch.

Joe searched through his scope for a
moment, looking for his target. He found it lying on the ground,
leaking red fluid. The thing looked very dead.

“
Looks like it’s got
iron-based blood, anyway,” he noted happily.

To Lieutenant Hartlet, this was a dream
job. Travel to strange planets, scan every type of lifeform,
catalog it, and make sure that it could be killed. After all, part
of his job was to identify species that were potential threats to
the UNSF personnel who were working on-planet. Besides, none of the
scientists ever complained if he brought in an extra corpse or two
for dissection.

“
That would be consistent
with other life forms catalogued on this planet, sir,” the robot
behind him agreed flatly. It was a humanoid constructed of black
plastic and metal, its head smooth and featureless other than a
black plate where a human’s eyes would be.

“
Okay. This critter is
definitely not a threat,” Joe summarized. “Let’s pick up some big
game. It’s kinda fun to plink at these things, but I doubt anything
that small could hurt humans anyway.”

“
Size is only one of several
variables involved, sir,” the Series Seven commented.

“
Agreed. I don’t care. Now,
big game,” Joe insisted. He scratched at the dark stubble forming
on his chin.

“
I’m afraid we’re needed at
the base, sir.”

Joe’s eyebrow rose, but he didn’t have
time to reply. His comm link announced an incoming message with a
mental flourish of musical notes. Joe connected and saw Commander
Mailson waiting to speak with him in his mind’s eye. He immediately
joined the channel.

“
Hartlet here,” he
announced.

“
Lieutenant. We have
something requiring your immediate attention.”

“
Yes sir. What is it,
sir?”

“
Looks like we have a
surprise visit from some smugglers. Over on Yarnitha.”

Joe considered the news for a moment.
Yarnitha was the second largest continent on the planet. So far no
UNSF bases had been set up on it.

“
Smugglers? That sure was
quick. We just got here. What’s the plan of action,
sir?”

“
Here’s the suspected
landing zone,” the commander said. A map appeared on the link and
Joe mentally examined it. The continent of Yarnitha was displayed
with a wide red swath over about a third of its surface.

“
I know, it’s large. They
were quite resourceful in our orbital encounter. Take your copter
out there and see if you can snoop them out. If you do find the
landing site, try and identify the ship so we can intercept it at
its destination port if they elude us here. Of course, if you run
across any of them while investigating...”

Joe knew what that meant. Smuggling
alien artifacts was a grave offense, posing a considerable danger
to the United Nations. Grave enough, in fact, that anyone caught
doing it could be shot if they didn’t surrender immediately upon
coming into contact with the space force.

Commander Mailson knew Joe quite well.
The lieutenant’s line of thinking was transparent to
him.

“
I thought you’d enjoy the
chance to bag something other than alien varmints, for
once.”

“
Yes sir! I appreciate that,
sir.”

“
Be careful. They know it’s
a dangerous business and have already proven to be well prepared.
They’re more likely to start shooting at you than
surrender.”

“
Yes, sir. What do I have at
my disposal for this operation?”

“
I requisitioned some
hardware for you. The scientists are having a shit fit over it. I
managed to get you another Series Seven, a variety of small arms,
and some satellite coverage to help search for them. We’ll drop a
refueling station for your copter near the search zone. Since the
copter travels light, we’ll drop most of the other supplies you
need with the fuel.”

“
Sounds good, sir. Anything
else?”

“
That’s it. Keep me
notified.”

The commander broke the link. Joe
opened his eyes and threw his rifle over his back.

“
Big game it is,” he said
happily and marched back towards the copter.

***

The refueling platform was a huge metal
spider, its gasoline-filled abdomen resting against the green
earth. Joe skillfully maneuvered his one-man copter in a spiral
down towards the landing zone on the spider’s back.

He landed the flying machine expertly,
then pried himself out of the tiny seat. He winced, coaxing
sleeping muscles back to life. At least the weather had been good;
it was summer here on Yarnitha.

Joe walked down into the small living
center of the platform. As Commander Mailson had promised, two
Series Seven robots were waiting for him. Joe wished that he could
make use of more formidable hardware than this. These were general
purpose robotoids and could perform a wide range of functions. The
real combat robots, which looked more like tanks than humanoids,
were needed for base protection. The Series Sevens would have to
do.

He looked the robots over and checked
their programs. They were both loaded with reconnaissance software
as he had expected. He left one alone and cleared the other one’s
brain, loading a combat package instead.

The robots were too heavy to ride on
the small copter. There was a large, slow hovercar provided for
their transport. It would serve to shuttle them back and forth but
would be worse than useless in a combat situation. Joe decided that
he would have to get a bearing on the smugglers before calling for
the robots.

Joe had no choice but to sleep before
getting started. The day-and-a-half trip over from the other
continent had been long and uncomfortable. He was completely
exhausted. The copter was fast and maneuverable, but sitting in the
same position for several hours between rest stations was less than
ideal. Still Joe spurred himself on, eager for the opportunity to
hunt some real prey for a change. He was bored with the routine of
sniping at helpless creatures while the robots catalogued them.
This time the targets of his hunt might be able to fight
back.

He cranked open the two tiny windows on
opposite sides of his cramped quarters. He thought briefly about
the dangers of allowing something in while he slept but decided the
robots could watch for him. He wanted to feel the warm night air
and hear the sounds of the forest outside. It reminded him of
summer nights on the frontier planet where he grew up. It seemed
that he had done the same sorts of things back then as he did now,
wandering around through parts unknown with a rifle on his
shoulder. He fell asleep quickly with old memories of his childhood
adventures knocking around in his head.

It was night when he climbed back into
the refueled copter and took to the air. Switching on his scanning
equipment, Joe searched for lifeforms. The devices he had were for
his usual job of cataloguing new species. Joe increased their
helpfulness by setting the computer to screen out creature types
which had already been catalogued; anything he detected would be
either new species or humans.

Joe set a search pattern into the
computer and then let the copter fly itself over the dense expanse
of spiny trees. He realized that the search was going to be long
and perhaps futile. He thought about ways to increase his chances
of finding the smugglers. He remembered that the commander had
allocated one of the new satellites to gather data for his
search.

Joe linked into the satellite network
to look over the information that had been obtained from orbit. He
looked over the raw maps, searching for anything that would give
him an idea. Something caught his eye—an electromagnetic anomaly on
the surface. It didn’t look like any kind of spaceship, but some
form of power generator was functioning on the planet—a big
one.

Suddenly Joe had an idea. If this power
source was so prominent to him, it might be seen by the smugglers
as well. Which meant they might show up there. Since the robots
were wasting their time just sitting at the refueling station,
perhaps he should put them to use. He could set up an ambush at the
power source, tell the robots to wait there and then continue his
search. Joe liked the plan. If he couldn’t find the smugglers, he
might get lucky and get them to come to him.

Joe hailed the robots waiting at the
refueling platform and set up a rendezvous near the odd readings.
They would meet close enough to walk towards it without alerting
anyone there. He broke the copter out of its current search pattern
and headed out.

At the rendezvous Joe found that
finding a spot to set the little copter down in the middle of the
night was difficult. In the end he had to have the robots set the
hovercar down first and clear away a few trees before he could
land.

Once on the ground, Joe converted the
second Series Seven to a combat program and designated them simply
One and Two. They each had an assault rifle of standard UNSF issue
and plenty of ammunition. Joe gave a backpack of miscellaneous gear
to Two to carry.

“
There are no other UNSF
personnel on this continent,” Joe told them. “If we encounter
anyone, it’s safe to assume that they’re smugglers operating here
illegally. Shoot to kill.”

“
We are to allow no
surrender, sir?” asked One.

“
The smugglers waived their
surrender opportunity in an encounter with a UNSF ship in orbit of
this planet. We are now authorized to use lethal force in
apprehending them.”

“
Yes, sir,” both robots
responded simultaneously. Joe waited the last half hour until
daylight, pacing about impatiently. Finally he decided that the
light had increased to a level that would be safe for him to walk
in.

“
One of you to each flank,”
Joe said. He took a bearing using his satellite link and headed out
through the trees, cradling his rifle. The robots moved to either
side, holding their rifles in similar fashion.