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“I’m telling you, Lyle, those damned Marines are snooping around like they know something. What’ll keep them from finding our stuff? And why did that dumbass die right after they replaced the regular garrison?”
Harry Zbotnicky’s whining grated on Lyle Fournier’s nerves. At least his buddy Joey wasn’t around to echo each complaint. Lyle ignored the man and stared at the busy dance floor, absently swirling the greenish hooch in his glass.
He’d met Jannika Hallikonnoen an hour earlier, and the woman was worrying him. As much as she thought it didn’t show, irritation at Evans’ death and the Marines’ sticking their noses in every corner of the station was breaking through her icy demeanor. But Lyle couldn’t figure out why.
She was a dangerous woman, he knew that, but so far, she hadn’t made too many demands on Fournier and his little gang of smugglers and petty crooks. A bit of information gathering here, some rumor spreading there, a few deliveries — package contents unknown — and a warning to stay ready for more important stuff.
Hallikonnoen had promised Fournier ample rewards if he did her bidding and a few choice words in the ears of the Marine garrison commander if he didn’t. Fournier, like everyone in Tyrell, was here for the money. Still, he could tell she was working on something else.
He took a sip of his Shaft Slammer, letting the booze burn a hot path down his throat. Whatever that something was, it would happen soon. Otherwise, she’d let the current uproar die away.
“There’s a shipment coming in five days on the resupply ship, Lyle. We should do something. These Marines will watch everything pretty closely, that’s for sure. More so than the usual sort.”
“Shut up, Harry. They won’t find a damn thing and lower your voice. There’s always a few of them over in the other corner watching and listening.”
Unseen in the next booth, Jannika Hallikonnoen allowed herself a cruel smile as she decided. A distraction was what those Marines needed, and her tame smugglers would give them one. She could manage without them when the time came. Delgado and his people were welcome to Harry and his moronic sidekick for all the good that’d do them. But Lyle?
She watched Fournier and his acolyte leave the Reach as a plan crystallized in her mind. It would take a few days to set up, but the timing should be perfect. Absolutely perfect.
**
Deep in the bowels of Shaft One, Sergeant Sberna and Lance Corporal Torres emerged from the first of the two abandoned galleries, giving off Gallery B, Level Sixteen, with nothing extraordinary to report. Only one more tunnel to do, and with any luck, they’d get another assignment. Something fun, like preparing the base for demolition or giving this forsaken planet a new orifice using high explosives.
At the blood-red boulders blocking the way into the second gallery, Sberna pulled out his handheld battlefield sensor once more to check the surrounding rock for cracks or instability. The machine wasn’t exactly designed for such work, meaning precision and effectiveness were less than optimum, but it gave him and Torres a certain sense of security.
Sberna studied the results, then slipped between the boulders and into the abandoned gallery. As they left the harsh yet comforting light of the main tunnel, their helmet visors’ night vision function took over, showing them a gallery bathed in an eerie, faintly green glow.
Underfoot, regular dimples in the floor showed where the conveyor belt which once moved ore to the vacuum tube in the great cavern had been bolted down. Otherwise, there were no indications of the tunnel’s former role.
The smooth walls receded in the distance, blending with the black of the dead planet’s innards beyond the night vision visor’s range. This was the tunnel at whose entrance he may or may not have seen something. But Sberna didn’t believe in ghosts or other supernatural manifestations. And after trudging through dozens of abandoned galleries, he didn’t think there was such a thing as secret hideouts three and a half kilometers underground either. He’d probably seen a natural shadow cast by the glare of the industrial lighting and let his imagination fill in the blanks.
Still, Sergeant Testo’s patrol schedule ensured Sberna did that particular one last so as not to alarm anyone if it was being used for nefarious purposes.
As they walked in complete darkness, they spotted secondary galleries branching off from the main and investigated each, determining they were dead ends. And onwards they went, deeper and deeper into the old tunnel.
After another couple of dead end branches, the gallery came to an abrupt halt at a rockslide. Sberna and Torres searched the sides and top of the slide for anything hidden in the shadows, perhaps a way through. Then they turned off their visors and switched on powerful flashlights. Aiming them at every nook and cranny of the slide, they concluded it was impossible to pass without excavating.
As Sberna studied it, something tugged at the edge of his consciousness, something which drew from his intimate knowledge of explosives and their application in every context. After a few moments, he looked up at the ceiling, bathing it in light. The entire scene felt wrong, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on the why quite yet.
“What do you make if it? Natural or unnatural?”
Torres picked up a melon-sized boulder and examined it. He tossed it aside after a lengthy examination and he climbed up the unstable pile of rocks until he reached the fractured ceiling to inspect it with his eyes and his sensor.
“A small charge might have created this, Sarge. I’m neither seeing nor picking up any fractures.”
Torres climbed down again. “The slide isn’t that wide — around five meters. No telling when it happened. Could be two years ago or this morning.”
Sberna thought for a few moments but decided against further exploration, not without the Skipper’s permission and not without tools and more people.
“Let’s do an in-depth scan and head for home. If the major wants to go further, we can always come back.”
“Roger that, Sarge.”