Here Be Monsters - Chapter 32



     Shevaughn brought her leg up at her attacker's lunge, snapping it out at the last moment, connecting with the leg carrying virtually all of his weight.  He responded by using the impact to shift his momentum, and spun into a tight roundhouse kick that, had she not used the impact to achieve a slight separation, would have landed with enough force to knock her down, likely for good.  His foot was so close that she felt the skin of his heel brush against her left eyebrow.  His inability to connect gave her the opening she needed; she forced her muscles, now pushed nearly to the breaking point, to move her back in close proximity to her opponent, and she thrust her right arm under his passing leg, while simultaneously snap kicking the back of his opposite knee.  He went down hard, instinctively putting out his hands to protect against slamming his face into the floor, and she added her own weight; rolling up to put her padded elbow up to the back of his head.
     "You're dead, Kenjirō-san."  She said, as she bounced back to her feet, and held out her hand to help him up.  "The fancy roundhouse was a bit much.  Although I will admit, if it had landed, you'd be peeling me off the floor."  She added, bowing to him in return for his own, slightly deeper, bow before she took a small step back and strode off the tatami.
     He regarded the woman who had recently taken over the post of senior commander of the Darkaellan Imperial Guard detachment assigned to the embassy on Minotaur.
     "Indeed."  Was his only reply.  There seemed to be little point in debating the obvious.
     She walked over to the bench along the dojo wall, and reached for her towel and water bottle.  She rinsed the gumminess out of her mouth and then drank, pausing to pour some of the cool water on her head, quickly wiping it away with her towel.
     She could feel the subliminal pressure of Kenjirō watching her as she took off the tunic of her gi to inspect the spectacular bruise forming on her left upper arm.  She was accustomed to people staring at her behind her back, so long as he didn't do it to her face.  The memory of what had precipitated those stares suddenly rose to the forefront of her thoughts with a clarity sharp as a freshly stropped razor.  If only she had been as quick witted dealing with the Emperor's eldest son, as she was in the dojo.
     She decided that the injury didn't warrant a trip to the embassy's infirmary; it would be uncomfortable, but not debilitating, and her duties today were limited to organizational matters, so she had plenty of time to get it checked out later.  She put her tunic back on, threw the damp towel into a basket along the wall for eventual collection by the domestic servants, and grabbed her gym bag, turning to her sparring partner and second in command.
     "Kenjirō-san, get the other unit leaders and their seconds together for an operational briefing," she quickly consulted her optical implant's chronometer, "at thirteen hundred hours, and have the stewards set up tea and biscuits.  I'm going see if Satoshi Hayashi can be convinced to give an intel report on the newly installed director of the Space Enforcement Agency.  First, however, I am going to have a well deserved bath."
     Kenjirō seemed to consider her words for a moment, then offered a short bow of acknowledgement.
     "An excellent idea, Commander.  A good soak should put you in a much better frame of mind to deal with that eta, although I, personally, would wait until after."  He said, in an acid tone.
     "Just remember, Kenjirō, that man wallows through the abundance of mongrelized burakumin beyond these walls so that we don't have to.  He is, by that metric, a far better person than either of us, and his commitment to the security of the Imperium is ironclad."  She admonished him gently, before leaving the dojo.
     She stepped out of the building in which the dojo was located, and into the sweltering heat and humidity of Níngjìng Bay's late summer.  As always, she couldn't understand why anyone would voluntarily emigrate to a world like Minotaur; Darkael was cooler at the equator than the Bay was in its - so called - warm temperate zone.  Minotaur's tropical and equatorial regions were almost completely uninhabited, due to the fact that the average daytime temperature at this time of year was in the high 40s to low 50s Celsius, with around ninety-five percent humidity.  Darkael's equator rarely got above 35°C, and then only in the lowlands near the coast, the seasons were less extreme as well, due to the planet's shallower axial tilt.
     There were, however, some aspects of life here that were unexpectedly pleasant.  The gravity was about seventy percent of what she was used to, which was a good thing, because the air, although it had a slightly higher percentage of oxygen, was still much thinner than that to which she was accustomed.  She had endured about a month of acclimation before the embassy's doctor had cleared her for light duty, and another two before she was allowed to take on her regular duties.  As a result, she had done a fair amount of sightseeing after she'd landed.
     The southern tip of Níngjìng Bay had a white sand beach nearly five kilometers long, with what someone had described as "...firing the sickest, glassy right-handers in the universe!", which apparently was a reference to the waves upon which people went 'surfing'.  The idea of immersing herself in open water was terrifying at a level very near instinct, and she had been horrified by the sight of dozens of people sitting on their surfboards waiting for a wave.  For someone raised on Darkael, the notion was quite simply suicidal; the marine life on her birth world was incredibly dangerous, and found humans to be very much to its liking.  As food.
     One species of sauropod, called a Dracūl, which resembled a two to three meter long cross between a komodo and a giant horned lizard, was always found in or very near lakes and rivers, and had been known to kill people and Terran livestock, even when there was local prey closer and more accessible.  Dracūl (the same for plural and singular) were solitary and extremely territorial, and on the island of Acarsaid Mòr, where the Capital was located, they had been hunted to near extinction.  Needless to say, swimming was not a very popular recreational activity back home.
     Here, on the other hand, the planet's oceans, while teeming with life, were actually less dangerous than Earth's, and she found that she had a knack for surfing.  She had also discovered that there was no shortage of willing instructors from which to choose (although she was ultimately forced to admit that they were less driven by a desire to teach, than to get her in bed).  Their interest was more due to novelty than anything else, since there were probably less than a thousand Darkaellan subjects on-planet, and virtually all of them were employees of the embassy and their dependents.
     The embassy itself was large enough to accommodate all Imperial subjects in an emergency, but most took advantage of the Imperium's very generous housing allowance for embassy staff, and found private residences in the city itself.  Even so, the embassy covered a roughly square area of approximately 24 hectares, with three main buildings, and five smaller buildings for support services.  The buildings' exteriors had been constructed of locally sourced materials, and the work had been done by local contractors.  The interiors, however, had been made of both local materials, and others imported from the homeworld.  Most of the embassy's internal communications and data network had been built on Darkael and shipped here, but some of the most sophisticated components had to be brought from Earth.  As a result, the embassy had some of the best communications security on the planet.
     The grounds had the well manicured look of a Japanese garden, complete with an ornamental rock garden with its typical raked gravel, and bonsai trees.  The design of the building that housed the Honorable Bruce Addison Stirling, ambassador to the HIA, combined aspects of highland Scottish and Japanese architecture, and it blended in well with the other buildings.
     The confluence of Scottish Highland and traditional Japanese culture was no accident.  Darkael had been settled by a curious mix of Scots, Northern Europeans and Japanese, all of whom had a shared history.  They were all descendants, relatives, or associates of the seven families who had served as retainers and partners of the MacMullen clan.  Some of those relationships went back to the sixteenth century, but more than a century of relative isolation since the Exodus had caused some cultural dividing lines to blur into nonexistence, and others had ossified into impenetrability.

-----

     Shevaughn Turlington - her grandfather liked to call her 'Chevy', and the nickname stuck - was trying to organize her thoughts while soaking her tired muscles in the embassy's private spa bath, when an outside call came through to her comm implant, which meant that it was from someone with a lot of authority, and some heavy encryption; Imperial Guard communication implants couldn't normally be used with outside service providers, unless the originator used military grade encryption protocols.
     The call carried a Hyperwave ID code that she recognized instantly; it was a recorded message from an Imperial Guardsman who had been inducted at the same time as she.  It was short and to the point.
     "Hey, Chevy, I thought you might want a heads up:  Three Navy ships are headed out to Novy Sevastopol through the Minotaur locus.  The lead ship is being commanded by none other than Admiral Teiji Sakamoto.  Two of our merchant ships were apparently taken by unregistered privateers, so the Imperial House has decided to enforce the laws against piracy that the Baryshev Industrial Combine clearly won't.  Ki-o-tsukete, Chevy, and good luck."  The recorded message ended abruptly, as FTL communications were insanely expensive, and nobody wanted to spend more on their limited bandwidth than was absolutely necessary, although, since it had been invented by DTI, the Imperium's official business tended to go at a massive discount.
     She decided to share the anxiety of having someone like Admiral Sakamoto on their way.  With any luck he'd just pass through, but she would have to be ready, just in case he decided on a personal visit.  She activated her comm and pinged Kenjirō.
     "Kenjirō-san, I've just received a back channel heads-up from an old friend, letting me know that Admiral Teiji Sakamoto is going to be passing through the system.  Pass the word, I'll elaborate further during our ops briefing."  She said, as soon as he acknowledged her call.
     There was a long pause, which wasn't entirely unexpected.
     "When you say 'passing through', you don't necessarily mean a personal visit, right?"  He said, warily.
     "For my own sake, if nothing else, I hope not."  She replied with feeling.  "There's not much we can do if he does, so quit worrying about it, we still have a job to do."
     "Yes, Commander.  I'll pass the information to the other team leaders.  I'm assuming you will be informing the ambassador?"  He asked with a trace of sly amusement.
     The Right Honourable Bruce Addison Stirling, Ambassador to the HIA, was a grand nephew of Lord Clarence of House Stirling, one of the seven Noble Houses that served as governors of various territories throughout the home system.  She had to admit that the man owed his position more to guts and brains than most of his contemporaries, and that, suave and cultured though he may be, he was a ruthless as a dracūl when it came to protecting the Imperium's interests.  He was also less doctrinaire in his own way than many others who were born to service and privilege.  He was approachable, yet managed to maintain a professional detachment; he treated his subordinates with respect, while never losing sight of the fact that they were subordinates; most importantly, he seemed to know his limitations, and was capable of deferring to another's expertise when it was required.
     In short, Ambassador Stirling was the perfect boss.
     "You may safely make that assumption Kenjirō-san.  Although I'd be surprised if he doesn't already know."  She answered, before cutting the connection.
     The news that Teiji Sakamoto was on his way filled Chevy with a vague sense of apprehension.  The Admiral was an ardent isolationist, and arguably the best flag officer in the Darkaellan Imperial Navy; he had been an instructor at the Naval Academy, but his views had been cause for some concern, so he had been promoted, and given command of the 3rd Fleet.  She wondered why he had suddenly been given a detached squadron and a mission to a technically neutral station system, but the implications, like a Darkaellan winter, were chilling.  She suddenly found herself incapable of relaxing, despite the heat of the water in which she was immersed, so she climbed out of the bath, and reached for her robe.
     Some days, it just didn't pay to get out of bed.

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 31

     Station systems existed for only one reason: Commercially valuable resources.  New Detroit was one of the oldest of the station systems, a solar system with no chance of ever hosting Terran life in any but the most tightly controlled of artificial environments; but it was a major trading nexus sitting in a system that contained one of the most commercially valuable materials known to man:  Kreshnium.
     Discovered accidentally by a xenogeologist on a survey mission through the system, Viktor VonKresh was lauded by the scientific community for his discovery of a substance that pushed the 'faster than light speed limit', once thought to be unbreakable, higher than ever thought possible.  Seven years after his discovery, Dynamic Technologies Inc. revealed that they had found a way to incorporate it into their next generation of FTL drives.  New Detroit's charter was drawn up within days of the announcement.

     The station had originally been designed as a twin taurus design with a rotational gravity, but the advent of gravity polarization technology had caused the design to be altered significantly.  The station, when viewed perpendicular to its long axis, looked amusingly like an old railway train axle with one large wheel at one end, and a smaller wheel with six balls around the axle next to it at the other end.  This design placed the habitation area all in the same plane and made it possible to have a very open space to live in.  The larger of the two quickly became known as Topside and was reserved for the station's commercial and administrative needs, open areas to supplement local food production as well as green areas for recreational pursuits, and naturally these areas became an attractive place around which to put housing for the people working Topside.  The smaller wheel became the industrial center for the station as well as efficient housing for the labourers, technicians, shipyard workers and maintenance personnel who were needed to keep the station running, and keep the shipyards in business.  It became known colloquially as Low Town, and it quickly became the place to find any form of diversion a person could want; bars, brothels, and dens of vice of every kind became common to the point that it became easier to tax them, rather than try to put them out of business.
     DTI had been one of the original investors in the station, but their interest was always seen as peripheral to a colonial charter; the system had a resource they wanted, and they were willing to invest to get it, but no more.  Their investment included a number of very quiet suggestions to the original board of directors about how to make New Detroit self-sufficient, including an offer of very low interest loans from the Darkaellan Imperium for developing an indigenous ship-building capacity.  There had been a number of deals made between the board and DTI, the most important of which was that DTI would get to purchase refined Kreshnium at a reasonable price, and and in return they would prioritize their FTL drive production to supply the local shipyard's needs.  They also brought in trained technicians to do the installation and maintenance of any FTL units.  This last was seen by many as an insult, an implicit distrust of New Detroit's ability to maintain the Drives themselves.  The truth was far more complex, since DTI had good reason to suspect that their proprietary technology would be a huge target for organizations like the Cartel, who would just love to get a massive leap forward in their own FTL R&D programs.  The status quo had been maintained, however, and most of the fears that a foreign monopoly on FTL technology would result in high prices, secondary costs, and artificial supply shortages to boost demand (and prices) turned out to be unfounded.  DTI and the Imperium made FTL drives cheaper and faster than anyone else, and within a dozen years had a market share of FTL drive production of about 90 percent, the last holdouts tended to be military SpecOps, or clandestine manufacturers, catering mostly to smugglers, pirates and other outlaws.  Most people didn't realize how much the history of this one massive station had been influenced by a state which was now widely viewed as a pariah by most of the people living outside of it.
     The irony of all of this was not lost on Petrona Hamasaki.  She had acquired a finely honed sense of historical irony in her present occupation as an investigator in the offices of the Minotaur branch of the United Systems Police Force.  The USPF had been her own figurative run for the border after her career in the NDPS had come to a explosive, screeching, grinding halt.
     She had been right, had done everything by the book, and had made certain that what had turned out to be the last official arrest of her career, as an officer of the law with New Detroit Public Safety, had been beyond reproach.  The fact that the Darkaellan woman she had tried to detain had been working for DTI's own private security unit shouldn't have mattered to anyone, after all, the NDS Legal Code did not provide outside contractors with any special immunity from prosecution.  DTI's security people had to obey the law just like anyone else, and she had deliberately committed an act of lethal violence on no other grounds than suspicion, and the ststion's Judiciary Board had refused to prosecute her for it.  Petrona's attitude towards the Imperium and its corporate subsidiaries - like DTI - had been as cynically hostile as anyone else's, and her indignation in the face of such a betrayal had been indecently volcanic.
     And now she sat in a small office in the large, block-like UniSys building in the Old Quarter of Níngjìng Bay.  The last five years had certainly been educational, that was certain; any lingering antipathy she might have felt over the official charges of insubordination and the unofficial advice of her former lieutenant, and boss, that she quietly resign before she was loudly cashiered, had been washed away, and replaced with something like pity for how badly informed about the realities of interstellar commerce and politics she had been.
     Her current boss, a man named Julius Benedict Harlow (Special Agent in Charge, Níngjìng Bay), had sought her out, and made her a job offer working for UniSys.  JB (as he preferred to be called) had made it clear that the offer was one likely to make her even more unwelcome than she already was in law enforcement circles, but she would have the authority to "...Stomp on anyone's dick if they get in your way."  To say that she'd been enthusiastic would have been a lie, but she had to eat, so she had said yes without really thinking about it.
     Her prejudices about the USPF had been as poorly informed as the ones she'd had regarding Darkael and DTI had been (what she now realized was just popular bigotry), and the learning curve in her new job had been challengingly steep.  She had come to understand the incredible difficulty of maintaining law and order across interstellar distances, and how one system's laws could conflict with another's to the point of laughable absurdity.
     Case in point:  A businessman from Jefferson finds out his 17 year old daughter is consorting with a man "of unsuitable nature" - ie. wrong skin tone, ethnic background, and religion; a triple threat - and has his private bodyguards beat the man with a thumb-thick rod and warn him, in accordance with what is scripturally acceptable common practice on Jefferson, that he would do well to move on.  The man who is beaten doesn't take the hint, and convinces the girl to elope with him on a ship to a new star system.  The father of the girl then sends his agents to find the girl and bring her home, since a girl of her age is not considered a legal adult and cannot make a legal contract of marriage to a man of whom her father does not approve.
     "Needless to say, JB,"  Petrona said as she explained events to her boss, "these guys just don't seem to grasp why the Alliance considers their actions kidnapping, and try as I might, it was a wasted effort.  I'd have had better luck explaining gravitic systems engineering to them.  Their case doesn't have to go through a UniSys Criminal Court hearing though, since they were forthcoming enough to admit that they put that girl's husband into a coma from the beating they gave him."
     JB gave her a sceptical look before asking, "Was that before, or after you advised them of their rights under interstellar law?"
     She couldn't help the Cheshire Cat grin on her face and said, "After.  They knew they had a right to silence, and legal aid, and they talked anyway.  Frankly, I don't think they took me seriously, it might have something to do with the fact that they come from Heardsfort County on Jefferson."
     "I don't get it, Pet.  What's so different about Heardsfort County?" JB asked while reaching for his cigarettes.
     "It was settled almost a century ago, primarily by what I personally would consider 'insanely conservative' religious fundamentalists; they don't allow women to enter most professions - especially law enforcement - and generally don't encourage them to live independently.  I think they thought I was your secretary."
     JB managed to avoid choking on the smoke from his cigarette as he laughed out loud, "And since you had done your due diligence, you didn't bother to enlighten them?" he finished for her.  He got a wink of her eye by way of response.
     JB started blowing smoke rings at the ceiling's air circulation vent and watched as they got pulled away to be filtered and recycled in one of the building's hydrostatic air systems.  Petrona had come to realise that this meant he was deep in thought, and waited for him to finish working out whatever was occupying his mind by removing the dust cover from the cranial interface port behind her right ear and plugging in her wireless uplink node.  She still got a thrill out of using the virtually unlimited access that UniSys agents had to the planet's public network, although here the office was a closed system that had to be accessed with a direct hardline connection.  Her first order of business was to check her private message in-box, there was little of interest aside from the ubiquitous vids of her younger brother's pet cat doing something dumb or cute.  Her brother was planning on going to university outside of their home system, he had a burning desire to go to a real planet and see what life there was like.  She wished him well, because she had a pretty good idea that her mother would be doing everything she could think of to keep him on New Detroit.
     It made her feel a bit homesick, but there was no way for her to go back without her past coming back to haunt her.  In her weaker moments, she wondered what would have happened if she'd gone public with the information in the official arrest record - of which she had kept a copy.
     Nothing good, probably.
     Publicly, her father had been outwardly stoic about what had happened, as Japanese always were, but the man had been as comforting as any parent could be expected to be in private moments between them.  She missed her father; the two of them used to meet for lunch on the first day of the month, just the two of them, no matter what.  It was their own private tradition.  Noboru Hamasaki's family were part of the Japanese exodus from Earth, people who had gotten tired of the rising ethnocentrism of their homeland's politics and increasing social pressure to be 'more Japanese'.  Her mother's family were mostly Hispanic, with a hint of Norteamericano in the family tree somewhere; not that any of them let it show.  She hadn't spoken to her mother since she had resigned from the force in disgrace, and left for Minotaur.
     'Both of us too proud.  Hispanics to the bone - as always.' Petrona thought to herself as she watched Joaquín's feline behaving badly. 
     JB's voice brought her attention back firmly to the subject at hand.
     "I think it would be in our best interests to ship our two wayward Jeffersonians back to local custody along with a sealed copy of their admission of guilt to you, as well as your own investigative report, and then let them handle it.  They admitted to beating that man to within a millimeter of his death, and they had to know that would be a crime anywhere." He stubbed his dwindling cigarette out in a little sand filled ashtray that sat on the right corner of his desk.  "Want me to make the call?"
     "Nah, the gang over at Bay PD has to get used to the idea that I can make them choke on their own work sooner or later."  She shut her 'link down and removed it, replacing the dust cover as she put her desk terminal on-com to place the call to the local Níngjìng Bay Police office.  She wished all of their cases could be resolved so easily, but that just wouldn't be in the Universe's nature.  Considering how her career had developed in the last few years, she knew that every easy case was followed by half a dozen real bastards.  That was tommorrow's problem, however, today's easy work meant that she could have a little fun, and she was really looking forward to a few drinks with the team, and knocking those pins over at the bowling alley.

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 30

     "Why the hell not?"  Alex demanded hotly, as she got up off the bed.  "I can't believe that you won't trust me to understand, so at least have the decency to say why!"

     Alex realized that she was losing her temper, but right now she just couldn't find the available detachment to care.  If Dirk wanted her to back down, then he would have to meet her half way, and explain why he had refused to tell her what they had discovered on the colony ship.

     She had waited in nail biting anxiety when the survey team had gone silent, and her mind had forced her imagination into some very dark corners.  It had never occurred to her that she might still be in the dark after everyone had made it back safely.  The idea was uncomfortably novel, and on a ship with a crew the size of the Jester's, it led to all sorts of wild gossip.

     She just wanted the truth, but it wasn't coming from Dirk as she'd hoped.

     "I can't,  Alex, I just... can't.  I won't insult your intelligence by telling you that it's for your own good, but I am going to ask you - beg you - to trust me when I say that telling you wouldn't put your mind at ease."  He said imploringly.

     Alex stood there, arms crossed in front of her, and considered what she had just heard.  The idea of him begging for anything, even her trust, was so totally unprecedented that she was momentarily dumbstruck.  She tried to think of an appropriate response, but her mind just kept spinning in circles, and the silence between the two of them stretched out uncomfortably.  She decided to give it one last try.

     "You want me to trust you, yet you don't seem to want to trust me.  How is that fair?"  She demanded, frustrated with her inability to sway him.

     He got up off the edge of the bed, crossed the room, took her by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes.  He did it so suddenly that she jumped involuntarily, and the look in his eyes was one she couldn't readily identify.

     "It's not fair, Alex, but I give you my word that knowing the details won't make it better.  Ask me for anything else, but let this lie.  Please?"  He pleaded in near desperation.

     She looked at him for several moments before the gravity of what he had just said finally registered.

     "Anything?"  She asked in disbelief.

     "Anything."  Dirk affirmed, relief in his voice.

     "OK, Marine," she said coyly, "if this plan of the Captain's works out, we are going to spend our bonuses to take a long, well deserved, vacation.  Deal?"  She paused long enough for him to respond.

     "I promise.  Anyplace in particular you had in mind?"  He asked, smiling.

     She couldn't believe her luck, and she exploited the opening.

     "Yeah:  Home, to Nova Sol.  I'm going to introduce you to my parents.  Oh, and you will indulge my public displays of affection."  She smiled, and patted him on the cheek before crossing to the door to the bathroom, leaving him standing in the middle of the room, with a stunned look on his face.

     "Wait, you - what did - I can't - just...  Wait... Your parents?"  Dirk stammered incoherently.

     She turned back just before closing the door.  "Bet you wish you'd told me what was on that colony ship now; but I really think my folks are going to enjoy meeting you."  She said, with a teasing edge of malicious enjoyment.

     Seeing the look on his face, she almost felt bad for him.

     Almost.

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 29

     Rollie was in his usual hiding spot, in EEV Number 12, smoking one of his dwindling supply of real tobacco cigarettes.  He'd just left the meeting that had taken place in the Captain's office after having been segregated from the rest of the crew for more than two hours.  What conversation had taken place had been largely one-sided, with the Captain explaining why the survey team could never, under any circumstances, reveal that they had gone on board the ARA colony ship.  He had to admit that, if he had known - hell, if he'd suspected - what was on it, he never would have volunteered to go in the first place.
     With his cigarette held between clenched lips, he reached into one of his work jacket's inner pockets and pulled out a scuffed metaplast case, little bigger than a small matchbox.  He considered what he was about to do once again, turning the case over and over between his fingers, as tendrils of smoke drifted across the close interior of the escape pod, where it was pulled into the life support system's air recycler.
     He slid his right index fingernail under a faint recess in the case's surface where its two halves joined almost seamlessly.  There was a faint click, and the case opened smoothly to reveal the carefully arranged data storage cards, twelve in all, each one in its own slit in the case's foam insert, and a special adapter to allow him direct access to their contents through his cranial interface.  He removed the adapter from its slot in the foam, pulled out the built in CI jack, and unwound its threadlike connection cable.  With the ease of great familiarity, and without removing the cigarette from his mouth, he laid back on the crash couch and connected the jack into the interface port behind his ear.  He then removed a tiny data storage card from the case, and inserted it into the adapter, closed his eyes and pressed the small power button.
     The sensation was of having one's mind suddenly feel like it had just expanded in volume a hundredfold.  He felt as if he'd instantly stepped into a massive room in his mind; although they were small - barely the size of a child's fingernail, each card could hold a frighteningly huge amount of information, somewhere around 50 Terabytes.  The one he had selected was empty, although not for long.
     Rollie selected all of the POV images and video he had recorded through his cybernetic eyes, and copied them to the data chip.  He wasn't a scientist, but he knew enough of the basics to be able to make visual records of what might be important, and he had done just that.  The data card was packed with imagery of the bodies of the cybernetically enhanced GMHs, and of the lab technicians, surgeons, and researchers; basically everything that would be of interest to any competing entities with deep pockets, and a burning desire to see ARA Corporation's black ops R&D.  He'd recorded hundreds of still images of everything, from document hardcopy, to lab equipment, and even a random piece of jewelry that had been drifting amidst the charnel horrors they'd found.
       Once the copying was completed he accessed his cyberoptics' file cleaning program, and purged all of the original recordings from their on-board memory.  He gently removed the data card from the adapter and returned it to its slot in the small case. He removed the CI jack from the port behind his ear, allowing the thread-thin cable to wind itself back into the adapter, and placed it back in its own slot in the foam, then closed the case and put it back in his jacket.

     Reaching into another pocket, he pulled out the only object brought off the ship. 

     He had smuggled out the small piece of jewelry, vacuum sealed in a mylar bag; the single image he'd recorded of it hadn't been transferred, just wiped from memory.  Up until now he had only been able to give it a quick look, but here in his private hideout he could take the time to examine it more thoroughly.  It was a small piece, made of artistically engraved platinum, about five centimetres long and ovoid in shape with an elliptical stone inset into its surface.  The highly polished stone was like nothing he had ever seen before, it had swirling colors ranging from indigo to deep navy blue with occasional small gold flecks along the bands of color.  All in all, it was an amazing find, and it would likely fetch a good price on Minotaur.
     He was acutely aware of the danger involved in keeping the information contained on the tiny card in his possession, but Rollie was a firm believer in the concept of being prepared.  The images and video he'd saved were potentially the biggest goldmine he could have been handed, with a price tag attached that was essentially a blank check.  He doubted that anyone suspected that he'd taken the liberty of recording their entire trip through the ARA ship, because nobody had specifically asked him if he had.  Truth be told, however, he would probably have denied having done it anyway if they'd asked, but this way, he didn't feel like an asshole for lying about it.

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 28

     The faint susurration of air from the vent on the wall behind the Captain's wirewood desk was audible only because Dirk had just finished explaining what he had found on the colony ship, leaving a profound, shocked silence.  Cameron, whose brows had creased intensely, like a pair of caterpillars engaged in a stare-down, was desperately trying to understand what he'd just heard, and not taking it well.
     "Would you care to repeat that?"  The Captain finally asked him incredulously.
     Dirk really couldn't blame him.  To be fair, he hadn't wanted to believe what he and Rollie had found, but there was no wishing things otherwise.  The situation was what it was.
     Perilous.
     "A mobile genetic R&D lab, with a fully equipped cybernetic surgery, Skipper."  He explained.  "I know it sounds crazy, but if you wanted to do illegal medical research; then making it mobile, and parking it outside of anyone's jurisdiction would make sense, right?"  He asked rhetorically, and hoped that the explanation would keep the man sitting behind the desk from noticing the huge hole in his logic.
     The 'colony' ship had been owned by ARA Corporation, once the leading multisolar in genetics research and development; it was now obvious that they might have been too smart for their own good.  Unless he missed his guess, whatever they had been cooking up had gotten out of hand, and in all likelihood turned on them.
     And that was the good news.
     "So, how can you be certain this was some kind of mobile black clinic?  It hardly seems like something you'd have a great deal of experience with, DJ."  The Captain commented, his voice edged in suspicion.  "More to the point, why wouldn't they come back and at the very least destroy the evidence?"
     Dirk had had his own suspicions regarding what they were going to find months ago, when, following their FTL departure from Vulcanfall, the Captain had finally told them what they were after.  He had nursed his doubts in private, but they hung like the old, battered MedAlert tag on its chain around his neck, a constant reminder of unpleasantness to be avoided at all costs.
     The Captain's final question was the big one - which he'd hoped would go unnoticed, and the one he couldn't answer, but he knew what they had found.
     When he was still in the Alliance Marine Corps there had been occasional rumors, second - even third-hand stories, and barracks scuttlebutt about corporations such as ARA and Resodyne having cybernetically enhanced and genetically modified combat units.  He told the Captain as much.
     "If you'd trusted me enough to tell me what you were planning early on, I would have told you this long before now."  He added, reproachfully.
     "So we file the claim quietly, without telling anybody that we went aboard.  At the very least we should be able to collect a healthy bounty from DTI for the FTL drive.  Then we simply put the whole thing up for public auction, listed as 'uninspected salvage' and wait for the bidding to start."  Said the Captain, confidently.
     Dirk winced internally.  What he didn't - couldn't - tell Cameron, was that he'd heard the same story that he'd heard in the Corps from his father once as a young man.  Years later, without any supporting evidence (which his father had been unwilling to provide at the time), he'd eventually come to think of the rumors as just that; rumors.  Obviously, he'd been wrong, and now he was trying to figure out how to extricate himself from the mess he was in.
     Not that the Captain was making things easier.
     "Captain, you can't be that naive!  You know as well as anyone, Resodyne will never trust that we didn't at least try to get inside that ship."  He said in disbelief.
     He knew that some of the upper management of ARA had ended up working for Resodyne after the buyout, along with a lot of the talent from the R&D sections of the company, and you could bet your last centicredit that some of them knew that ship was out here.  If the Jester and her crew waltzed back into Alliance territory, or even the Free Systems League for that matter, and put that ship on the auction block, then they'd likely be dead before they finished getting through customs.  It would be the same as if they had announced that they found a black ops genetics lab on a ship registered to ARA Corporation.
     He explained as much, adding:  "Those people are not people who take a possible threat to their lofty position lightly.  You've worked for one of the Multisolars, and don't pretend that they were any less amoral; if we even admit that we were here, then we're all fucked!  And I refuse to believe that you're too simple-minded to see it."
     It was hard to sit here, doing his best to throttle back a burning desire to tell the man sitting across the table the whole story, but if he did that, then he might just as well shoot himself now, because if anyone suspected that he knew what he did, then none of them would ever be safe again.
     Multisolar corporations were profit driven engines, after all, with reputations and revenues to protect, and their shareholders would not look kindly on executives who failed them.  They also had resources bordering on the infinite, and probably wouldn't think twice about killing anyone they couldn't tie up in court.  There was a slim chance that Resodyne might publicly disavow any knowledge of the ship's existence, and then hide behind a phalanx of lawyers, but he doubted they would allow anyone who had seen what was on that ship to die of old age.  The risk of negative public exposure regarding a possible violation of the United Systems Transgenics Ban, however, as well as the Kagoshima Accord, and Johannesburg Convention, would likely result in Resodyne being investigated by the USPF.  If UniSys investigators started prying into ARA Corporation's illegal activities, that might make the old ARA executives desperate enough to try and silence any potential witnesses.
     That wasn't the bad news, however, but before the Captain could frame a suitably caustic reply to match the expression on his face, his com badge chripped at him, displaying the chief engineer's icon.  He glared at Dirk before answering.
     "What's up, Brostowski?  I'm in a meeting."  He said, brusquely.
     "I figured you would want to know when the SSD came back.  It's back, and now you know."  She answered, with trademark bluntness, before cutting the connection.
     "What SSD, Captain?"  Dirk demanded sharply.
     The Captain regarded him with a slightly smug expression, and said:  "I took the liberty of sending a drone out while you were on your way back, and had it map the hull of the ship.  Once 'Milla has the images downloaded, we'll be able to create a complete external model of the ship."
     Dirk was about to royally lose his shit, when a bright light suddenly dawned in the proverbial swamp.  The SSD would only have recorded a map of the exterior of the colony ship, highly detailed to be sure, but provably so.  There was now a much better chance of survival.
     "Captain, that may be the best thing I could have heard right now."  He told him, in a relieved voice.
     "Happy to be able to oblige you, DJ, anytime."  He replied sarcastically.  "Perhaps you might elaborate, for the simple-minded."
     "Easy, we do exactly what you said originally:  We file a claim, put it up for public auction, but not as uninspected; instead we can say, because we have the imagery, that we could only do an external survey.  You won't get anything like the kind of financial settlement you would if we had a full survey, but if we showed that, then the UniSys Police Force would just confiscate it anyway."  He explained, careful to emphasise that the USPF could very quickly ruin their payday.
     The Captain sat back in his chair, and appeared to give the idea some serious thought.  Silence stretched out between them long enough for Dirk to become slightly anxious, and he hoped that the man had the sense to see that what he had proposed was the only option that offered them any chance of staying beyond Resodyne's notice.  More than that, he couldn't be a party to any official investigation into what they had discovered here; the news that a small salvage crew had found a clandestine bioweapons lab on the ass edge of the Outer Sphere would definitely be noticed on his homeworld.
     And that was the bad news.
     There were definitely some things worse than being hunted by the lethal agents of a major Multisolar, being hunted by Dirk's family was at the very top of that list.
     It would be difficult to imagine a more parochial group of people than his father and older brothers.  For them, the idea of associating with people who were not 'their kind of people' was unthinkable.  He'd embraced the anarchical thinking of his Earth-born ancestors, and struck out on his own, and in so doing had discovered a personal truth:  That the great variety of humankind was it's single greatest strength.  Which wasn't to say that his family would just let him go.  They no doubt believed that he had an duty to maintain the integrity and purity of his people, but if his biometric data were to appear in some official record of an investigation into violations of the transgenics ban, and the Kagoshima Accord in particular, he knew they would send their best agents to find him, and bring him home to meet what they believed were his obligations
     His attention snapped back to the Captain when he finally spoke.
     "I hate to admit it, but you're right.  There's no way we make any money at all if the Neofelynx gets out of the trap on this one.  We keep our heads together, and we get paid; but you're right, there'll be nothing for anybody if the UniSys authorities get wind of what's on that ship."  He declared, with thoughtful resignation.
     Dirk wasn't about to jump for joy - not yet, but he didn't think he would need to grab Alex and jump ship at Vulcanfall on the way back, either.  Even so, he resolved to remain vigilant for the foreseeable future, just to be safe.
     As they began discussing the details, the hoary, and utterly fraudulent, old adage about the Chinese written symbol for 'crisis' being a combination of the characters for 'danger' and 'opportunity' sprang to mind suddenly.  It seemed to describe the situation in which the Jester's crew found themselves.  It was full of potential dangers, and the opportunity was as potentially huge.
     It was definitely a crisis.

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 27

     Cameron was not particularly happy, having had a brief, and frustrating, conversation with Dirk that had gone nowhere, and then being told that they were coming back earlier than expected; the survey cut short due to one of his people having a full-on, screaming freakout.  He supposed it could have been worse, but not knowing what they had found was driving him up the wall, and Dirk had adamantly refused to discuss it.  He'd offered no explanation, save to say that he had to explain it in person.  He had then cut communications with the Jester, and ignored his calls thereafter.
     To say that Dirk had better have a good reason for doing what he'd done, went without saying, but there was something about the tone of his voice that went beyond his normal professional terseness.  He had been evasive, and whenever Dirk got evasive, it was never good.
     Cameron decided that the best - and only - way to deal with the lack of incoming information was to distract himself with busywork until Mule-1 was safely back aboard.  To that end, he decided to get a better idea of what their salvage claim would net them in the way of revenue, using a wide range of assumptions about how much of the derelict would turn a profit on the open market, versus what Resodyne, or another company, might be willing to pay for it.  Since the original owners were defunct, and the ship had not been listed among ARA Corporation assets when those had been purchased by Resodyne, he could easily put the whole thing up for public auction.  It would be interesting to see just how much he could get for the whole thing in one go, but before he did that he'd need a complete structural survey, and inventory of the entire vessel from bow to stern, and they just didn't have the time.  Without a full accounting of the condition of the transport and its contents, the starting bids would be lower than he liked.
     Inspiration struck suddenly, and he realized that he had a way to get a preliminary survey of the condition of the colony ship's hull without the need for on-site personnel.  He called up Ludmilla Brostowski.
     "Milla, I've got Dirk and his team coming back early; they had to cut their survey short.  How fast can you send a salvage survey drone out there?"  He inquired, pulling up images of the derelict colony ship on his command console's monitor.
     "I can put an SSD outside in less than half an hour, but getting it on station will take some time.  Unless all you want is a fly-by?"  Replied the Chief Engineer.
     Salvage Survey Drones were little more than a vaguely spherical cage surrounding a remotely operated set of attitude thrusters, a small chemical reaction drive, and a basic sensor package, consisting of optical-infrared and low powered radar.  Most corporate ships had them aboard, but classed them as fungible equipment, and often made no effort to retrieve them.  Cameron tended to think differently, and if this job was about to go sour, he wouldn't have a great deal of money to throw around.
     "Program for a least-time course there and back, but leave it with a minimum survey time of, say, an hour; use a helical flight pattern along the main axis of the ship, I want to be able to model the entire exterior for future reference.  Oh, one other thing; set the SSD to record everything instead of continuously transmitting, we can dump the thing's memory when we retrieve it later."  He told the engineer.
     The latter part of his instructions would make sense from the standpoint of power conservation, but he had really done it without consciously thinking about it; he realized that he had done so mostly to keep anyone from being able to interfere with his getting a good look at the prize he was trying to collect.  It occurred to him that maybe he was being paranoid, and that what he really needed was a few hours of sleep.  He knew that wasn't going to happen, so he kept on working with the limited data he had, trying to find a way to turn their massive find into an equally massive goldmine.
     A little less than an hour later, his com badge chirped lighting up with the Chief Engineer's icon, and he nearly dislocated his thumb trying to hit 'Accept'.
     "Captain, I thought you should know that the SSD has reached the ship, and is running according to plan."  Ludmilla told him, succinctly, and added:  "It should finish within the next 45 minutes, and then be on its way back; call it two hours before we bring it back aboard and download any usable information out of it."
     She didn't wait for an answer, and cut the connection before he had a chance to respond, but he was unfazed by the chief engineer's blunt manner.  After nearly a decade of working together, the two of them barely needed to talk at all in order to communicate effectively.  Ludmilla Brostowski had been his chief engineer since leaving Haro-Ryushi to go privateer; she had been pushed out of the Tanner Combine, a large interstellar-capable shipping and freight hauling company.  They had officially declared her as 'surplus to requirements', but like a lot of people who raised objections to corporate skirting of regulations, she had simply been pushed out for refusing to put the ship she was responsible for at risk, and insisting that standard maintenance schedules be adhered to.  She had come on board, full of the iron pride of her Polish upbringing, and confident in her skills, both of which had stood her in good stead - and occasionally irritated the hell out him.  Nevertheless, she not only kept the Jester running, but in better shape than he had a right to expect, and she knew its every dent, patch, and secret better than anyone.  He'd learned a long time ago that people like her were rare, and when they showed up, you did whatever you had to in order to keep them happy.
     He realized that Mule-1 would be docking anytime now, and decided to head down to the well deck to meet Dirk upon arrival.  He swung by the medical bay to get Doc Morishita, since one of the survey team had apparently suffered from some kind of extreme panic attack, and no one knew how severe the damage was.  He truly appreciated having Ujio Morishita on his ship, it wasn't easy to justify the expense of keeping a fully licenced and certified medical doctor on board during the lean times, but he always made it a priority to have the doctor paid on time, regardless of the financial hardship.  Morishita, for his part, kept his certification up to date, kept a careful eye on the crew's health, and was always there when needed, uncomplaining, calm, and professional.
     As if to prove it, he found Morishita and Carla Ustinov, their new sick bay attendant, prepping a stretcher and EMS bag.  Jinx was running diagnostics on the ship's autodoc; made on Earth by Siemens-Medtronic AG, the autodoc was probably one of the most important pieces of equipment on the ship, and it hadn't been cheap.  The autodoc was a TC-7j 'Lumina', often referred to simply as 'the coffin', and it could diagnose and treat virtually any medical problem a ship's crew might have, from a sinus cold to trauma from explosive decompression.  Its bed retracted into the smooth, cylindrical housing of white metaplast while Jinx did her work, and he caught her eye as she looked up from the diagnostic tablet in her hand.
     "How'd the coffin check out, Jinx?  Everything good?".  He asked her.
     "As good as possible; all its systems check out, and I plan to keep it on standby for now, just in case it's needed.". She replied confidently.
     Intellectually, Cameron knew that he really didn't need to be in the medical bay right now, but he needed to be absolutely certain that his crew were up to the challenges coming their way.  Doc Morishita, Jinx, and Ustinov all exuded such a profound competence in their work that he sometimes wondered why they stuck around.  Today was one of those days when he was just glad that they did.  Further introspection was cut short by Bao-Jian's call from the bridge.
     "Captain, just thought you should know, but Mule-1 is on final approach, and should be fully docked within the next few minutes."  The pilot informed him as he watched the doctor load the EMS bag on the stretcher.
     "Thanks, Shen, I will be on my way threr shortly, you have the bridge for the remainder of the watch."  Cameron said, and turned to Morishita.  "All set, Doc?"
     "I believe so, Captain.  With only limited information regarding the patient's condition, I have prepared for a wide range of possibilities."  There was a mild reproof in the reply, and he understood the doctor's feelings.
     He was anticipating a less than pleasant conversation with Dirk once he was back aboard, and the closer that moment, the more incensed he became with his gunner.  Given the circumstances, he could understand cutting the survey short, but a complete communications blackout with a medical case in transit was criminally negligent at best.  To call his mood dark as he set foot in the well deck where Mule-1 was once again securely docked would have been a massive understatement.
     He spotted Dirk talking to Rollie, he appeared to have already removed his EVA gear and his exo, and as he got closer he could hear him say: "... I know, Rollie, just stay here, shut up, and get my exo back to the Crypt when the doc and company have got Bujdoso out of here, alright?"
     Cameron could see Rollie give him a look that bordered on mutinous before saying: "Fine!  I don't see what difference it makes, but you win!  Happy?"
     Dirk's reply was too quiet for him to hear, but the look on Rollie's face was a complex blend of sympathy and frustration.
     "Dirk!  Get over here!"  Cameron shouted from the deck, as soon as Morishita and Ustinov had gotten inside the tug, and Dirk had spoken briefly with them regarding Bujdoso.
     He didn't waste time; he marched over with a look on his face that - had he noticed it - might have worried Cameron right through the anger he'd built up on the way down.  Dirk looked like hell up close; his face, normally a mask of professional arrogance, was drawn and seemed pale.  None of which could be allowed to prevent Cameron from addressing his reckless, insubordinate behavior.
     "Do you have any idea how many USITC, Space Enforcement Agency, FSL, and Navy regulations governing the use of exoatmospheric craft you've bent, broken, or just ignored?"  He demanded rhetorically, and continued; "If we were anywhere near a populated star system, I'd beach you with a recommendation that your ticket be revoked, and you be brought up on charges.  In fact, I have half a mind to confine you to your quarters, and do it anyway."
     Cameron paused for a second, took a long breath, and said:  "But before I do, you will explain to me just what the hell you found on that ship, do you hear me?"
     Dirk didn't say anything for several seconds; then, in a flat voice seemingly leached of feeling, replied:  "I'll tell you as much as I can - but only you - and when I do, I promise you'll wish I never had.  I'll be in your office."
     He found himself following Dirk out of the well deck, with a sudden chill running down his spine.  He suddenly realized what he was hearing in the man's voice; it had taken a few moments for it to register, simply because he'd never heard it from Dirk.
     It was fear.

Here Be Monsters - Chapter 26

     Rollie and Bujdoso had rejoined Dirk's team, the general consensus being that there was safety in numbers, although what threat they might face on a derelict ship, adrift in a far flung system, and open to space like this, was up for debate.
     "So how can you be sure this is the same guy?  You said that he got out the year after you got in."  He asked Dirk, as they stood around the body,  "Including the last three years with us, that makes, what, almost eight years since the last time you saw him."
     "Trust me Rollie, its him.  The real question is:  Who killed him, and why?"  He replied, his voice hard, leached of all feeling.  "Bull was as good as they get, but someone broke his arm, ripped his face up, and put a knife in him where it would do the most damage without having to get through his body armor.  That takes a hell of a lot of skill, considering how well trained he was, and how heavily enhanced his reflexes were."
     "Maybe Doc Ujio can do an autopsy, or something; either way, we have to report this back to the Captain, don't we?"  Interjected Hicks, her voice sounding haunted.
     Xu decided to get his own ideas in the open.  "Look, what do we really know right now?  We have a man who appears to have been murdered, but no idea why, or by whom, right?  The Captain's going to want more information anyway, so why not finish our job, then report?  Maybe we'll find out something along the way."  He stopped to gesture at the drifting corpse, "It's not like he'll mind waiting."
     Rollie watched for a reaction from Dirk at the casual lack of respect being displayed for his late friend, but it was difficult to gauge what he might be thinking since his face was behind the solid faceplate of his helmet.  He was relieved when Dirk appeared to shrug his shoulders, and said:  "Xu's right, let's finish what we came to do; trust me, if Bullard was able to talk, he'd tell us: 'mission first', but let's all stick together for now, the forward sections can wait."
     They made their way aft through the ship's 'Broadway' maintenance/transfer tube, and Rollie could see that the bulkhead doors heading aft were only partially shut, which made little sense, unless they had been forced open after the power was lost.  The corridor was as dark as the rest of the ship, and their hand held flashlights, and suit mounted spotlights, threw noonday circles of light around them with almost no peripheral illumination in the airless vacuum.  It wasn't until the beam from his own flashlight washed across a dark blotch on the floor, however, that he began to see any cause for concern.  The spot looked suspiciously like dried blood, but it was smeared along the floor as if someone had dragged a body away.  The smear came from the forward area of the ship, which they had reserved for later inspection, and Rollie was just as glad they were headed toward the stern.
     Dirk and Hicks led the way to the next set of doors which, while partially open, were still too close together to let them through in vacsuits.  The two of them grabbed a door each, and with their feet braced against the opposite, used the augmented strength of the exos they wore to force the doors open enough to let them pass.  Without waiting for instructions, Bujdoso and Xu joined in, adding at least something to the overall effort.  Rollie hung back to observe, since there wasn't any more room for another body on the doors, and he would need to activate the manual lock that would keep them from slamming shut when they let go.  He could imagine the racket that the pneumatically actuated mechanism being forcibly reversed would have made if the ship had air.
     "OK guys, that should do it."  He told them, once they had gotten the doors apart wide enough, and pulled the lever under the control panel locking them open.
     They moved into the next section, focused on finding the access stairwell to the areas below Broadway, and as a result, they had ignored the dark corners of the corridor.  A sudden hint of movement caused Monika Bujdoso to pan her hand held spotlight above her head, and she found herself less than half a meter away from the outstretched arms of a nightmarishly grotesque figure drifting in her direction.
     Her screams came one after the other, as her hands battered the controls of her vacsuit's EVA flight pack in a panicked effort to get away.  Her thrashing had the opposite effect, and she sent herself careening right into the figure's waiting embrace.  In the seconds of confusion that reigned, as everyone else tried to understand what was happening, Bujdoso suddenly went silent, her voice drifting off to a murmur, then stopping entirely. 
     Rollie quickly maneuvered over to her, and pulled her away from the body with which she had collided.  The body was a frightening patchwork of cybernetic grafts, implanted demal enhancements, and Saints only knew what else, but it was as dead as the rest of the ship.  He looked at Bujdoso through the clear visor of her helmet, then checked her vitals using their suit's emergency communications network, but her life signs were reading within acceptable limits.
     "I overrode her suit's medical support unit, and pumped her full of sedative.  She'll be out for a while.  As of right now, I'm putting the survey on hold, and you're all heading back."  Dirk told them, while carefully examining the latest gruesome find in the house of horrors in which they had found themselves.
     "Wait just a second, what do mean 'you're'?  Just what do you think you're gonna do?"  Rollie asked, acidly.  "And another thing, how the hell did you override Bujdoso's MSU? That's supposed to be impossible."
     Hicks was clearly shaken, but managed to interject:  "Who cares?  Let's just get out of here, this fucking ship is creeping me out."
     "I have to agree, Rollie,"  Said Xu, "something's definitely weird about all this.  And that - thing, is not what I'd have expected to find here."
     Rollie, fuming in the relative privacy of his own vacsuit, wasn't giving up without making one last argument:  "OK, fine.  But DJ, you know as well as I do that you can't go on alone without violating at least a dozen safety regs; so Xu, Hicks, you two get to tow Bujdoso out to Mule-1 and wait.  DJ, I'm coming with you."  He ended with finality.
     "Rollie, I don't think you underst -"
     "Forget it pal, you ain't gonna go alone, and that's that.  If you wanna stop me, shoot me."  He said, cutting off any further argument.
     "Suit yourself, but I have a feeling you'll wish you'd gone with them."  Dirk said, pointing at their crewmates, who were wasting no time getting underway.
     Rollie had no real desire to continue further into the ship's interior, but he wasn't about to allow his friend to risk himself, alone, in the most hostile environment known to humanity.  He decided to err on the side of caution, and issued one last instruction to the others:  "Xu, start a countdown clock; if you haven't heard anything from us in six hours, then call the Captain and tell him what happened."
     "Last chance to back out, Rollie."  Dirk said, as the two of them watched the others head back.
     "Fuck you, DJ.  Let's go."  He replied, caustically, still annoyed with Dirk for trying to shut him out of whatever was going on.
     Dirk didn't say a word, he simply headed for the stairwell that gave access to the central areas of the ship.  With only the two of them, Rollie now found that the shadows seemed deeper, and the darkness enveloping them more profound.  His Davis-Arctica vacsuit lacked the LIDAR, radar, and image enhancement of Dirk's Baccardax exo, but he really didn't need any, since the amps in his cybernetic eyes gave him full low light vision.  He placed a diffusion filter over the front of his flashlight, and dimmed it until he fount a level that optimized his eyes' abilities, without compromising their image resolution.  His immediate surroundings became clearly visible, and he saw a few scattered objects drifting weightlessly in the stairwell.  His eyes were recording an image of each object he saw, just in case it was necessary for later reference.
     Their descent was interrupted by the hatch that sealed off this part of the ship, which was sealed shut, and resisted their efforts to open it.  After five minutes of trying, and little to show for it, Rollie was becoming frustrated with the idea of continuing further.
     "This is pointless.  Why don't we go back up, and move on to the next section?"  He suggested.
     Dirk didn't appear to hear him, instead he pulled an interface cable from its compartment on his exo's forearm, and plugged it into the socket on the door's control panel.  Rollie couldn't see the point, there was no power to move the door.  After half a minute, Dirk detached the cable, and retracted it back into its compartment.
     "Satisfied?  Now can we move on?"  Asked Rollie.
     "Let me borrow your hooligan bar for a second."
     Rollie shrugged his shoulders and handed it over, watching as Dirk jammed its flat end into the slot in the door designed to accommodate it, and braced himself while pushing on the opposite end, using the frame of the door as a fulcrum.  He was about to point out the futility of further effort, when the door slid open a few centimeters
     "OK, that shouldn't have happened.  What did you do?"  Rollie demanded, incredulously.
     "Used my cranial interface to disable the lock, the exo's cable can run enough power to the systems to make them work as long as they're plugged in.  An old Marine trick.  Give me a hand with the door."  Dirk explained, handing back the hooligan bar.
     They pulled on the door by hand, opening it enough to allow them through, and found themselves in a room unlike any either one of them would have expected to find on a colony ship.  It was an open area with two sets of elevator doors opposite a sealed hatch between two security desks.  Rollie moved to the sealed hatch, which had 'LAB 03' stenciled on it, and a small window inset at eye height, to try and see what lay on the other side.
     "Uh, Dirk?  Something's blocking the window, want to try your voodoo on this one?"
     Dirk didn't say anything, but he didn't hesitate, and plugged into the data port on the coded entry panel next to the door.  He remained still for more than a minute before the door popped open.
     "Whatever's behind this thing, somebody didn't want unrestricted access to it.  I almost didn't think that my old military overrides were going to work."  He said, grabbing the edge of the door and forcing it back into its recess in the wall.
     "Holy vestments of the Saints!  What the fuck is this?"  Rollie asked, looking into the room ahead.
     The open hatch revealed a room populated only by the dead.  It was full of bodies, and parts thereof, all of which were distributed randomly throughout the space beyond.  Random objects drifted among the bodies, giving the whole scene the look of a twisted and macabre piece of modern art.
     Rollie stood there, motionless, trying to unsee the horribly mutilated corpses in front of him, swallowed nervously, and said:  "You were right DJ, I wish to hell I'd gone with the others."
     Dirk was silent as he stepped into the chamber of horrors.