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  Jules moved to get in front of the Major and his field of vision. “Shall we risk the pad?”

  Carter shrugged. “We didn’t want to touch anything at the console back in the greeting room.”

  “I understand that,” she said. “However, they may interpret forced entry as hostile.”

  “I’d say we’re already at the hostile phase,” Carter replied.

  Jules pointed at her face, which was slightly illuminated from her helmet’s dim lights. “Look at me. I get that part, but I’m thinking that everything with the alien technology has gone either wrong, or not to plan. There has to be an explanation for what they did, one that eludes us at the moment.”

  Carter frowned slightly, a look of confusion across his face. “I’m afraid I’m not following your logic here, Commander.”

  “Why wait three days to attack us?”

  “You tell me, Commander.”

  “The heat plume that was reported came after entering a series of inputs that MAX came up with in order to try to open the interior door as well as to test and assess if the console had something akin to a password on it.”

  “So?”

  “So, what if we activated something that we shouldn’t have? What if the system is actually responding to our inputs and not its own?”

  Neil interjected from the console room. “Jules, are you saying we ordered an attack by those alien orbs on ourselves?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head by habit. “I’m saying that perhaps it read the many attempts at inputting commands into the console as an intrusion, or something that threatened its programming.”

  “Wait,” Carter said. “Programming as in an alien computer system?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “We haven’t seen any actual alien the last four years, have we?” The question was taken as rhetorical—no one responded. “If there was a malign intent then shouldn’t another orb have attacked me when I destroyed the first one?”

  “You took out the second one,” Flores corrected her.

  “Whatever,” Jules said in exasperation. “I’m simply saying that too much of what is happening makes no sense.”

  “How do you explain the attack on our ship?” Carter asked.

  “I can’t,” she conceded.

  “You know,” Neil cut back in, “Doctor Jones was always saying that there could be literally no way our species could understand the culture of another sentient race, if it were different enough.”

  “Exactly,” Jules said. “It would be like cows understanding what humans were doing to them.”

  “Why am I not finding that comforting?” Neil said over their headsets.

  “All I am saying is that maybe it’s okay to risk what we know. The top button is the open symbol that Maria first identified days ago. It’s not lit, so maybe it’s inactive, but it’s worth trying before we jam these doors open and allow the aliens, or their computer’s programming, to interpret that in another way.”

  Carter nodded but Neil spoke again: “The lighting is off in the interior, so the doors being off makes sense. I don’t think it could hurt to try.”

  “Carter?” Jules looked at him.

  “Fine by me,” he said. “We’ll use these if necessary.” He held up his claw hammer.

  Jules took a single step to the wall, and with a final look and nod from Carter, she pressed on the upper symbol. Nothing happened.

  “So much for that,” Neil said.

  Carter and Anderson started to move their tools back to the seam at the middle of the door when Jules said, “Wait a sec, I have an idea.”

  She used her index and middle fingers to press and hold both buttons in much the same manner that MAX had recommended on earlier console attempts. Again, nothing happened.

  “Let the major open it,” Neil said.

  “Hang on a sec,” Jules responded, maintaining her hold on the door. “I have a hunch.”

  Long seconds passed by, and she was about to release her hold when the buttons lit up and the hallway lights started to illuminate. It almost scared them, the sudden change in lighting from near pitch dark to an eerie glow.

  “Alright, now you’re starting to scare me,” Neil said.

  Carter was more direct. “How did you know?”

  Jules sighed. “We’ve been trying combinations of variables like this at the console with guidance from MAX. This recommendation seemed plausible, considering the fact that this part of the structure seemed to be shut down.”

  “Where did you read that?” Neil asked. “I don’t remember seeing it, and I read every line of code from MAX the last three days.”

  “Oh, it was there, buried under hundreds of other recommendations, but we focused on the ones for active consoles, inputs, activations, and the like.”

  “Well, good for you, Jules; I completely missed it,” Neil said.

  “We’ll see soon enough,” Carter said pragmatically.

  Jules nodded her helmeted head again, though Neil was used to watching her head cam bob up and down at times like this. “Here goes nothing.”

  She pressed the top button and the door immediately responded, retracting into the walls at the middle and illuminating another corridor, narrower than the main, circular one they were in.

  Neil spoke. “I’ll be damned ... it worked.”

  “She was here,” Carter said, motioning at the ceiling, where a larger blotch of dried blood was easily seen. “Flores, maintain rear guard.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll take point?” Anderson asked.

  “It’s all right, son,” Carter said, his words informal for the first time the entire mission. “Let the old man take this one.”

  Old man my ass, Jules thought to herself. The major may have been pushing fifty, but he had the body equal to any of the SEALs in their mid to late twenties. Only faint whispers of gray above his ears, barely visible with his entire head being almost all stubble, indicated otherwise. Instead, she said, “I’ll follow you both.”

  “Stay behind me, Commander,” Anderson said, more strictly than she was accustomed to, and seeing the look she gave him, he quickly added, “I need to be able to respond to point if necessary.”

  The man didn’t look at her again and instead proceeded after his commanding officer. Carter was now well in front, moving forward, methodically checking all four sides of the corridor, walls, ceiling, and floor. The dark surface was lit by the same overall illumination that they had encountered in the larger corridor and the console room.

  After a few minutes, Flores spoke. “The view gives me vertigo.”

  Jules knew instantly what the man was referring to. The hallway seemed to go on forever without visible end; in zero-g the effect would have been like looking down an endless shaft with only a dull glint of light reflecting off the obsidian-like surfaces of the hallway. “Can you see where the corridor ends?” she asked Carter.

  “I think I can. Say another two hundred meters.”

  “Damn, that’s a good hike in,” Neil said.

  “Keep that communication wire intact,” Jules said without looking back. The transceiver and wire were the only things ensuring they had proper open channels via which to communicate. The radio band degraded rather quickly inside the construct, as they had quickly found out earlier.

  “It’s rolling,” Flores affirmed.

  After a few minutes, they reached another door, identical to the one they had used to enter the corridor. Carter said, “I’ve got this one, Commander Monroe.”

  The major hit the top button and the door opened. He quickly stepped through, followed by Anderson. Jules was about twenty paces behind and quickly closed the distance. Despite her helmet, she could faintly hear Flores moving up just as fast behind her.

  She found herself standing in another semi-circular hallway that was just as wide as the first. There had been no visible doors in the corridor they had just transited, but this time, the doors against the inner wall of this passageway were not human-sized
doors but rather cargo-sized. They reminded her of smaller garage doors back on Earth, as if they led to internal storage or work bays.

  “What would they need doorways that large for?” Neil asked. “Can you look back up the hallway one more time, Jules?”

  Jules complied and noted that Neil had finally returned to addressing her informally now that he had acquiesced to her demand to accompany their military team into the structure. “You see what you wanted to?”

  “I wanted a count on how many interior doors were visible, as well as if there were equal corridor doors on the outer surface.”

  Faintly, the sound of radio interference came over their headsets.

  “What’s that?” Anderson asked, tapping his helmet.

  “Is that you, Neil?” Jules asked.

  “No, we copy the same signal via the repeater. It’s coming from your end.”

  “Wait a second,” Jules said, walking to the right again and realizing the signal was getting stronger. A voice became identifiable within the static.

  “Don’t get too far ahead of me,” Carter said, moving to stay parallel with the NASA commander. After a few seconds, and a few more steps, he said, “I hear it, too. Flores, mark at the doorway. Don’t let it shut.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Static hissed, then a few lone words made it through: “God, can anybody hear me?” The voice was unmistakable. It belonged to Maria.

  Jules manually keyed her mic and practically shouted, “We hear you Maria. Where are you? Do you copy?”

  The sound of sobbing and quick intakes of air could be heard through their headsets and it fought against the static for dominance. Jules moved quickly down the hallway, passing the major, who was forced to run and drop all pretense of any orderly formation. The signal became stronger until it was heard clearly as Jules reached an undistinguished door. Small flecks of dried blood on it gave witness to its recent use.

  “Anderson, get your bar ready—we open this one way or another,” Carter said, moving into a secure stance at the front of the bay door. Anderson took up a position next to him.

  Jules looked for any button, but this time, there were none visible. She leaned against the wall and keyed her mic again. “Maria, this is Julie, can you hear me?” It was a most human plea for her usual professional NASA demeanor.

  The reply was instantaneous: “Oh, God no, please no,” Maria was sobbing.

  “Move,” was all Carter said, and it was an order for Anderson, who inserted the slim edge of his crowbar into the nearly tight seam on the bay door. The major was also using the claws on the opposite side of his hammer to assist. The next words they heard were not good:

  “Shit,” Flores said. “We’ve got company.”

  The trio working at the door looked back and noticed that they had moved a considerable distance away from their only known escape route. Not more than thirty yards past their rear guard were four gleaming black orbs moving in two by two formation, the second pair elevated slightly above the first.

  “Ah, Major Carter,” Neil said, “be advised that Lieutenant Harris is en route to your location.”

  Since their signal was being sent via the land wire, Harris couldn’t communicate directly with them unless he was back in, or near, the main console room, or close enough for their RF signals to interact directly. The lieutenant hadn’t bothered to wait and had simply taken off running at a pace that startled Neil, especially considering the man was suffering from his second concussion in as many days.

  “Open that door,” Jules barked.

  Flores backed into the transit corridor and out of sight of the approaching orbs as they transited the second, main semi-circular hallway. He said, “Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better hurry. I don’t think I can hold four of them off you at the same time.”

  Carter resumed his attention on the door and Jules could see him straining as he pulled while Anderson pushed in the opposite direction. The door had just started to budge when their headsets and HUDs came to life again. “Incoming directive, Alpha One priority from Houston,” John Royal’s voice said as it was patched through their wire and into their headsets and helmet display.

  The words were displayed, and the message was in audio format, from Doctor Marjorie Jones. “Red Horizon crew. Abort primary mission immediately. Do not delay, do not challenge. Abort your primary mission now.” There was a pause as the message repeated, and then the professional voice and tone of their NASA second-in-command at Houston disappeared and was replaced with the simple sound of Marge, a fellow human and colleague of theirs. “Jules, if you hear me, get your people out of there now!” The message ended.

  Maria’s voice interrupted their sudden trance coming from the urgent message that had mesmerized them. “God, no.”

  Maria screamed one last time, and the alien orbs attacked.

  Chapter 7

  Rebellion

  VOSTOCHNY COSMODROME

  Siberia, Russia

  In the near future, Year 4, Day 179

  NYET, Vlad thought to himself as he stood at the door to the server room. His mind said no, but his hand brought out his secondary badge and swiped it at the door’s RF reader. The red light pulsed green and a slight beep-tone accompanied it, along with the sound of its magnetic lock releasing. He’d have three seconds to turn the door handle before it relocked on him. He hesitated, using most of that time, before finally committing and opening the door.

  He stepped through and allowed the spring to do its work. The sound of the lock engaging was muffled by the hum of hundreds of mini fans whirling in their endless task to keep their electronic chips and motherboards cool from the constant flow of electrical energy that heated them in the first place. There were several rows of scaffolding with shelving braces that each held a RUS201 server dedicated to various tasks. Wiring harnesses held dozens of network wires and cabling that served the entire Vostochny Cosmodrome complex.

  Vlad kept the badge in his right hand while fishing in his pants pocket for his real ID. The room was dimly lit, and he held both cards in his palms, face up, so he could see them clearly. In case of inspection, both had his photo in the usual prominent position at top center, but that was where the similarity in the identification cards ended.

  The card he had used to enter the server room would not withstand a detailed inspection. It was coded as belonging to one Sergei Sidorov, as common a Russian name as could be thought of. Vlad would have let a smile cross his face at that one. He could imagine the extra few milliseconds that a supercomputer crunching a database would need to sort out the name and to whom it belonged.

  Oh, there had actually been a Mister Sidorov that had worked at the complex years ago and had retired. He had even lived not far from the complex for several years, staying in his newly adopted home, city, and oblast—or county—until he had passed away peacefully last summer in his sleep. The man had been a well-known food server who had doubled as a cook in the complex’s cafeteria. Vlad wasn’t certain if the Americans had selected that identification because of his simple position at the Cosmodrome, or in spite of it. Does it matter? he asked himself.

  The cards felt identical, and the only real question Vlad had was why he was needed in the server room if the bloody Yanks could infiltrate their personnel system in Moscow. Vlad thought he understood the nature of the request. The Soviets’ main personnel office, the Department of Personnel Affairs, had obviously been compromised. Moscow would not be happy to know this, and the Americans were placing a high priority on this mission by risking the revelation of what they had hacked should Vlad be caught.

  That would be awkward, he thought to himself. Up till now, the main reason he was keeping his honor intact was due to the loyalty he had for his boss and mentor, Dmitry. The old man was like a father to him and he couldn’t bear to do anything that would dishonor him or break the man’s heart ... till now.

  The attack on the Americans and the destruction of the Chinese ship had had a big impact on
Vlad. The Red Star had reported minor damage from flying debris thrown off from the Roaring Tiger as it had impacted on their ship. None of their critical or routine systems had been damaged, but it was like having someone ding your prized car in a parking lot.

  No, that was simply stupid. Vlad’s thoughts continued to plague him. His current course of action was playing games with his thought process. It was ridiculous to compare the pride of the Soviet nation to a car. Still, the nature of the attack by the Chinese and the alien artifact had frozen the Soviet leaders into inaction. Their ship and crew floated lazily in space—well, they orbited the planet Mars, to be exact, and Vlad did chuckle at the thought that he would correct himself when it came to scientific description—and their inaction was both painful and obvious.

  We must act, Vlad thought to himself, and this one statement galvanized him into action.

  He pocketed both cards and walked down the middle of the server room till he reached the wall opposite the door. Turning right, he didn’t need to unlatch the red roped chain that was supposed to bar access to that specific row; the maintenance workers hadn’t bothered to reattach it after their last preventive maintenance check. It was a joke anyway—the KGB communication servers were supposed to be secured like the ones in Moscow, but the centralized planners must have thought that being in the same room as the secured Ministry of Space servers was sufficient.

  He was looking for server number 42A. Small but efficient labels quickly directed him to what he was looking for, and he found himself standing and looking at the blinking lights on several ethernet cables, which indicated electrical activity. These servers were supposed to have a monitoring system that would trigger an alarm if the flow of data were interrupted. Even when encrypted communications weren’t being sent, there were security packets being exchanged by the second. Each packet was looking for a coded response to ensure it was talking to a properly-approved electronic counterpart.

  Vlad watched as the lights blinked on and off like a Christmas tree—not that Russians celebrated Christmas much, and when they did it was in January and not December. Their big holiday was New Year’s Day, and with the advent of the newest version of the Communist party, Christmas was frowned on as a celebratory day.