The Jackals moved in silence, with the Good Boys bounding ahead. It didn’t take long for them to detect a security fence around the building on the mountain promontory.
The wide mountaintop jutted out into the mist, isolated and silent.
The fence wasn’t physical. Maintaining such a thing on this windswept and rocky surface would have been impossible. Instead, the company employees had laid out a detector grid supported by a rank of UA 571-C automated sentry guns. Hardly surprising, Wey-Yu made those too. They effectively sealed off their approach to the facility, detecting any movement that came towards it. The sentry guns would fire on anyone who didn’t have the correct IFF transponder.
This black site was fortified, working in secret with a formidable protection field if anyone came knocking. Whatever was going on inside, they very much wanted to protect.
Zula was definitely ready to hammer on that door. It wasn’t the first breach she’d done like this, but it was for her daughter in the combat droid body. Red Mae relied on her protocols and slipped into her role as part of the first synth squad, R1 to R4. Her partitioned personality, however, wondered at what they might find beyond that well-defended fence line.
“Confirm what’s on the other side.” Zula kept her eyes locked on the blocky form of the buildings ahead and gestured Captain Shipp over. Red Mae trained her superior synthetic hearing on the noises coming from within the buildings. A hiss whipped across the barren mountaintop, but it wasn’t anything identifiable in her databases. However, no human breathed on the other side.
“Wonder how my daughter is doing right now,” the colonel muttered in a low voice to Shipp.
“She’ll be fine, ma’am.” The captain grinned. “She’s got the best of you and Davis in there. Nothing she can’t handle.”
“You’re right. I’ll concentrate on our very own shitshow. Let’s see what kind of nest the company’s built here.”
The two women examined the fortified company building, raising their rifles and checking it out through their sights.
“F-series.” Zula shook her head. “Grenade launchers, latest kit. Wey-Yu really doesn’t want any visitors.”
Shipp checked the Pinpoint drones’ results on her wrist-pd. “Seems like the building up top is only part of the facility. It runs down the outer edge of this mountain plateau too, and leads into some caves, lower down.”
“Of course it does.” Zula frowned as she lowered her weapon. “We’re going to have to burn this black site at the end, but there will be innocent civvies, too. Not the damn scientists, but ones like we found at the elevator entrance. They don’t deserve to be here when we rain down hellfire.”
“No, ma’am. They do not, but it won’t be easy. Still, like you always say, ‘we eat hard things for breakfast, and shit out the shells.’”
A smile flitted across her mother’s face before she gave the next orders. “I want an EMP blast grenade launch. Let’s knock out that grid hard and fast, and show the company they’re not the only ones with new toys.”
“Oorah. Move out.”
Mae remained with the first and second synthetic units as they pushed forward up the hill in a V formation. The Good Boys took flanking positions, ready to deploy, while Pinpoint drones darted about overhead, looking for any dangers. The mist swirled over the barren hill, but Mae detected no genetic human heat signatures. Her sensors picked up no movement, which would indicate Xenomorphs.
Reaching the edge of the sentry unit’s detection field, she drew more info from the Jackal synthetic network. The Pinpoints shared a view of the valley below. It was a boneyard. Scattered human remains stood out white on the gray landscape. From above, it was easy to deduce that the humans came from the base of the mountain and attempted to flee south, away from it. None of them made it. The bones stopped two clicks from anything like safety.
Zula’s face grew hard. “Seen this on other black sites. Training grounds. Seems like they’re running tests in the valley on their ‘controllable’ Xenos. R1, make sure to record this.”
Mae did so, knowing this evidence was as vital as whatever the other teams found on Minos. As if the pathogen-spreading ships weren’t enough for the people of the Outer Rim to deal with. Once they extracted whoever they could save, Mae agreed with her mother: an orbital bombardment was never more justified. This site needed to burn.
The Good Boys encircled the synthetic squads and lowered themselves into a crouch. They did not get close to the field of fire.
Activate shielding, Shipp ordered across the synthetic network. She pulled the Pinpoints back behind the squads while the combat units deployed their spikes into the ground. Creating a faraday cage protected the Jackals’ equipment, in case the blast radius unexpectedly reached them.
Zula gave the order. “Give ’em a round of e-blast grenades, Thami.”
The corporal had already loaded the specialized grenade into the launcher beneath the M41A. The synthetic network fed information to the ballistic computer built into the weapon. It calculated range, angle, spread, and wind. This was a new weapon, not yet field tested, so it needed a human to pull the trigger.
The grenades made thumping noises as they deployed. They arced over the field of fire and struck the front of the line of robot sentries. Unlike most of the Jackals’ weaponry, the e-blasts didn’t deliver a satisfying explosion or a rattle. Only the synthetics witnessed the magnetic field wash over the line of sentry guns. For all its size, or maybe because of it, Weyland-Yutani didn’t expect anyone to use their own tech on them.
Some middle manager in the company wanted to keep his bottom line solid, and hadn’t signed off on hardening the guns against EMP. Cost-benefit analysis helped the Jackals, according to the files Mae inherited from Davis.
The guns sagged as the blast fried their circuitry. Since they’d now announced their presence so dramatically, the Jackals abandoned any pretense of secrecy.
Through the network, the synthetics took their order to move up. Flanked by the Good Boys, they breached the field of fire. The grenades did their work, and soon enough they were passing through the row of now-silent robot sentries.
The other two human squads followed, along with Sergeant Nyako, Captain Shipp, and Colonel Hendricks.
The blank gray square of the building almost blended in with its surroundings, as if the company actually thought its coloring would help conceal it. From outside, there were no lights visible. Mae’s scan still found no heat signatures or movement. The only entrance was at least level four, and locked mechanically. No one, not even Red Mae in her combat body, was going to kick that down.
“Time for breach,” Sergeant Nyako called. The squads moved smoothly into place. The corporals unfurled the shrapnel shield, and their privates got in line behind them.
Synth R5 moved up. His programming made him faster and more efficient than a human Jackal. He shaped the charge around the lock and withdrew back into formation.
“Stand by for breach.” The unit spoke the words for the benefit of the entire section. “Five, four, three, two, one.”
The thunder of the explosion rumbled across the mountaintop, the low clouds turning it into a rattle even Mae’s combat body registered.
Sergeant Ackerman made the confirmation after the debris fell. “Breach clear.”
The synthetics were first through the door, and Red Mae took the foremost position. After them, the human squads moved in, training their rifles left and right, searching for any enemy combatants. Things didn’t go as expected; the command center was empty.
The synthetics scanned the area on multiple frequencies and found it a mess. Mae reached the back of the room and discovered another locked door. This one was a repurposed RK-8005.34 blast door—something manufactured by Weyland-Yutani for the USCM’s tactical fleet. It would take more than a shaped charge to open this.
She read the rest of the information coming from the other synthetic units: no signs of organic life, and no explosive traps discovered.
“Clear, Colonel.”
The human fireteams entered, while the synthetic units took up position by the interior door and waited for further instruction.
The flickering light of abandoned computers filled the room, but no humans sat in front of them. A delivery wagon, large enough for several comatose people to lie in, stood empty by the side wall. Chairs lay overturned, and Mae’s foot shattered a coffee mug while another one sat steaming by the window. From its warmth, this was something they’d missed by mere minutes.
“No blood discovered,” Mae reported to her mother as she entered the room. “Perhaps the humans subjects they brought in here woke up and took their captors hostage?”
“Then where are they?” Shipp hefted her pulse rifle, running her eye over the scene with increasing suspicion reflected on her face.
“It doesn’t appear to be a Xeno attack,” Zula agreed. “Blood should be everywhere in here. It would have been a massacre. These people don’t know we’re coming. Get all the data drives you can find, then we find the civvies, and get back to the Fury. R1, see if you can get into the system and run a bypass on that door.”
Mae took up a position by the largest computer, opened her arm cavity, pulled out a narrow cable, and attempted to break it. It felt good to be using her abilities to their utmost again. She raced through the systems, trying to discover a weak point in the security. Weyland-Yutani made quality systems, she gave them that much. A regular synthetic would not have been able to find the passcode to get in. AI generated a long string, not the far easier passwords humans created. That would have taken Mae mere seconds to calculate.
The wrong passcode would not only seal Mae out, but also burn all records. Weyland-Yutani did not want to be held liable for their terrible experiments. That kind of thing caused a decline in the bottom line and weakened consumer confidence.
However, Mae not only contained all the records from her father, Davis, but also the black site data from Rook. His motives to assist the Jackals might still be murky, but she took a chance on the intel he’d brought with him. Buried in there, Mae located a program ripped from the Wey-Yu central system. It was a backdoor hack for all their programs, in case an AI went rogue or became corrupted.
Inserting the program into this mainframe was her only chance. If a synthetic could cross their fingers, then Mae decided it could do no harm. Hopefully, none of the Jackals noticed such unusual behavior from a combat android.
The computer console chimed once, and the lock on the formidable door clanked open. The synthetic units remained in position, weapons turned to whatever lay behind the door, while the two human squads moved up. Zula finished packing her webbing with data drives, and took her place with her Jackals.
Beyond the door was a wide ramp leading downwards. As Mae stepped onto the ramp at the front of her squad, she noted the temperature behind the main door was five degrees warmer than back in the command center. The synth squad moved forward, covering the angles, while the Good Boys darted ahead of them. None detected anything moving or warm ahead.
The tunnel that arched overhead was another unusual feature that Mae could not find in any of her databases. The material was some kind of plastic composite and formed into interlocking, opaque hexagonal walls. A faint blue glow emanated from it, providing a soft ambient light. It was not Xenomorph resin, but rather something that the company created. It would have been interesting to run tests on it, but in her combat body, Mae remained in position with the squad.
She pinged her readout to the colonel and Shipp as they started down the ramp with the other two squads. They made no comment, but Mae guessed it didn’t make them any more comfortable. The unknown was always dangerous.
Keeping to their V formation, the squads moved up, trying to make as little noise as possible. The slight impact of their boots and the muffled rattle of their equipment were the only noises in the strange, smooth-walled tunnel. Mae registered the increased pace of the genetic humans’ heartbeats. They were still within normal parameters, and the stress was justified. Whatever waited for them up ahead, it would be a nightmare.
They only hoped to push forward and save as many people as they could. Mae understood that was why her mother came to this planet, and she wouldn’t stop until she’d atoned for Shānmén.