Jupiter's Halo Book One: The Lies

Chapter Twenty-Four "The First Level"

Lelo sagged against the remains of an office wall and pulled his helmet, the seals hissing as they came apart and warning icons flashing in his view for a moment.

He spluttered as it came away, the vomit pooling inside spilling out over his mouth and chin. It had slipped inside his gorget, the warmth of the liquid gently cooling against his chest had now turned to cold heavy wetness.

He smelled the acidic tang and coughed, letting his helmet fall to the floor and turning his head away to breathe air that wasn’t tinged with the stench of his own weakness.

The atmosphere of the station was cold; breathable, but without a heat source to maintain its temperature. He felt the skin on his face and neck begin to prickle in response. He couldn’t leave his helmet off for long, but any break from the sudden claustrophobia he’d felt was a welcome relief.

The gentle sounds of the station filtered naturally into his ears. They were muted without the aid of his armour’s sensors, but still there. He concentrated, trying to focus on the shuffling of Bolthosian’s squad as they carried out his commands.

He’d ordered Bolthosian to search the bodies. The Sergeant had nodded mutely as if he’d expected Lelo to shirk the responsibility handed down from their Captain. He’d hated the hypocrisy of that reaction. As if Lanad was any different. She’d given him an order and he had, in turn, passed that order on. That was what the chain of command was for.

He’d expected Bolthosian to do the same, but the old Sergeant had simply turned and knelt, carefully moving the little bodies at the foot of the pile aside with delicate hands. Other marines had joined him, none of them speaking through the comm-link or out loud. He’d watched them work in reverent silence as if the dead cared how their remains were treated.

Lelo had walked away, disgusted by the sight and guilty for his decision not to join them. It was too late now, he couldn’t issue the order and then immediately go back on it. That would set a bad precedent. That would make him out to be the same as any other common trooper.

He’d issued orders for detachments to scour the remaining areas of the level. The marines went quietly in their groups, almost reluctant to leave the job of searching the dead to their brothers and sisters. Lelo hated the feelings that brought too. He hadn’t killed those people. He hadn’t arranged their corpses into that twisted tableau, mocking their deaths by displaying them as if they were sitting for some madman’s elaborate portrait. He wasn’t the cause of their deaths. He wasn’t trying to be disrespectful to their memory. He just wanted not to be near them any longer.

They still hadn’t found the source of the noise and no matter how hard he tried to block it out, there it was still. It thudded like the slow, sleeping rhythm of a great heart. It was as if the station itself was alive, but slumbering to recover from its wounds. Lelo found himself uncomfortable at the thought of what would happen when it finally awoke.

The air of the station was thick with the coppery tang of blood. Breathing it made his head swim and his stomach lurch, so Lelo steeled himself and dragged his helmet from the floor. He pulled it on, letting the seals close tight and seeing the auto-diagnostic present confirmation he was void-safe again. The sickly smell of bile filled his nostrils and he swallowed hard, trying to block it out.

>“Lieutenant, we’ve finished the primary sweep.”Sergeant Radjion’s voice was clipped and professional through the comm-link.

He was a decent enough sergeant in Lelo’s opinion; naturally accepting of his place in the chain of command with too little imagination to get ideas above his station. For all his positives, Lelo did often find the man’s need for step-by-step instructions to be tiresome.

>“And you have found?”He prompted.

>“Nothing of note, sir. More blood, more damage, but no bodies. It looks like they were all taken to the lower level.”

Lelo was impressed; even this simple deduction showed more vision than he was used to from Radjion.

>“And what of access to the bridge, Sergeant?”

>“It’s closed, sir. Locked tight.”It was typical of the man not to manage the additional assumption and add this was probably due to the lock-down. Clearly his moment of inspiration had passed.

Lelo didn't need to ask if Radjion had set his engineers to work on the door. He wouldn't have done.

>“I’m coming up,Lelo sent. >“Find some engineers and have them meet me at the bridge access. And tell me you know what’s making that noise.”He realised he should have been more specific, expecting Radjion’s response to question exactly which noise he was referring to, but for once he was pleasantly surprised.

>"Yes, Lieutenant. It's loudest here at the bridge entrance. Whoever's making it is probably inside. It's a shielded door though, so it might take a while to get in."

Lelo let the link close and sighed. Of all the times he’d appreciated the Sergeant’s inability to think creatively, today was not one of them. He was sick of this place, of the blood and the flashing, faltering lights. Of the noise and the quiet. Of the emptiness and the feeling of death that hung in the air. He was sick of the weak, almost imperceptible gravity and the feeling that something terrible lurked in every shadow.

He was sick of feeling unsettled, jumpy and judged by the marines that followed him. And he was sick of seeing those staring faces every damn time he closed his eyes.

Lelo pulled his legs up close and braced his back against the wall, using its support to slide himself up to standing. The movement caused another wave of noxious scent to flood his helmet and he gagged.

>“Sergeant Bolthosian, I’m heading for the bridge. Report when you have something to tell me.”

He sent the words and started along the corridor towards the stairs without waiting for a reply. He would have preferred to use the trans-terminal; a quick ride to take him where he needed to go instead of slow, careful leaps up the narrow link-stair.

He pushed through the entrance, the sliding doors peeled back from his marine's breach, hanging open and silent without power. Lelo stopped at the base of the stairs and looked up. The bridge was a hundred metres above and the confines of the link stair meant he would have to ascend twenty short flights to cover the distance. Lelo leaned against the rail at the foot of the stairs and opened his comm-link to Radjion again. The knocking was louder in the echoing confines of the link-stair and he needed desperately for it to stop.

>“Sergeant, when your engineers are ready have them blow the door. I’m not pissing around for hours while they jimmy the damn shield locks, I just want to get in there.”He stopped himself from adding ‘and I just want that damn knocking silenced’.

>“Sir, they’re already here waiting for you. Cooper says it shouldn’t take more than ninety minutes to get the shield up-”

>“Just bloody blow it!”Lelo overrode him. >“I said I don’t want to wait.”He could feel his irritation bleeding into the link and hoped Radjion was inspired enough this once to pick up on it.

>“Understood, sir.”Came the response after a moment. >“I’ll have Cooper set charges. Should we wait for you?”

Lelo glanced up at the waiting stairs again. Thud, thud, thud.

>“No.”He sent, sagging. >“Just get it open and tell me what you find inside. I’ll be there shortly.”

Lelo cut the link again, muted his comm and the aural input of his helmet to make the climb in silence. He'd know when his orders were completed; there was enough atmosphere to carry the vibration of the blast down to him and enough structure left intact for him to feel it.

Lelo had made it to the third flight before the rail beneath his gloved hand shook slightly and he heard the muffled thump of the explosion from above. From the depth of the noise, it seemed Cooper had relied on quantity to make sure the shield came down. No doubt even now Radjion would be trying to tell him his task had been completed. He would get nothing but silence until Lelo reached the bridge. It didn’t matter, he could rely on the Sergeant to wait for him.

His mind turned inexorably as he pushed off the floor and glided upwards. This wasn’t what he’d been expecting. He wasn’t quite sure what he had expected, but this wasn’t it. He’d thought they were more subtle than this; surely they had to be to have stayed undetected in the shadows for so long.

He’d assumed they would be here, somewhere within the crew or maybe the science team. Waiting, biding their time and gently engineering the right moment to act. Maybe they had been. Maybe this was all the result of some terrible misfortune, totally unconnected to their interests.

He doubted it. They hadn’t seemed like the kind of people who let things get out of control and what he’d seen so far was the epitome of an uncontrolled situation.

Lelo continued up, turning from the top of one flight and stepping onto another before making his next leap. Only six left to go.

What had they done here? What had they let happen and why?

None of it made sense.

He made it to the head of the link stair and saw the crumpled security shutter that had previously obscured access to the bridge deck. It was torn open from one side; peeled back he knew by the hands of his marines but leaving the impression it had been attacked by some imaginary monster.

Lelo tried to stop his imagination from running unhindered, but still the feeling of cold trickled down his spine. It peopled the shadows with faceless horrors and he had to fight the urge to turn and check the stairs behind him. He knew what had happened here. At least he thought he’d known. What he’d expected to see and the reality of the station were so far apart he was starting to doubt all his assumptions.

The place was a wreck, a slaughterhouse overseen by a sick and broken mind. He stepped up to the torn open doorway and steeled himself for whatever terrible spectacle the bridge would hold.

Lelo opened his comm-link and removed the mute from his aural receptors. There was a blessed moment of quiet before the booming thud of the knocking filled his ears.

                                                                                         #

Lelo stepped through the opening onto the bridge deck and saw the devastation elsewhere had not been spared here. To his left large black data-banks were toppled, their imposing forms now changed to resemble drunks lying askew in a row. To his right, the armoured glass of the windows was cracked in zig-zag lines of fracture. Ahead the bridge opened onto a wide circle, stepped down to be set lower than the entrance and ringed with terminals from where the operations of GS-114 could be overseen.

The sound was loudest here. It reverberated around the room, filling the air with its monotonous plea to be heard. This close it had a metallic edge, the kind you got from one very hard object colliding with another. There was no question of avoiding it. His eyes turned inexorably toward the closed shutters of the trans-terminal. Whoever was making the noise was inside. His mind replaced the word ‘whoever’ with ‘whatever’ and Lelo felt himself shudder.

Bang, bang, bang!

He walked down into the centre, negotiating the gap between two terminals and seeing a set of smashed monitors which he assumed must have been used for displaying the various station camera feeds. They were useless now; damaged beyond repair and every one of them black with the absence of power.

There were bodies on the bridge too; the only other place his or Lanad’s marines’ had found them, excepting the grisly deposit in the mess. Most were clearly former members of the crew, dressed in drab grey jumpsuits, each spattered with blood.

Bang, bang, bang!

One was sprawled across a chair and terminal. Lelo guessed the man had died before he’d even managed to stand from his station. Another was crumpled against the far wall, marks of her violent impact sprayed out around her bowed head and up the reinforced glass above her. There was a third lying at the entrance to the trans-terminal, the lock-down shutters neatly bisecting one arm at the elbow. He’d been fleeing or at least attempting to. His legs were bent at unnatural angles; broken, shattered.

Bang, bang, bang!

Lelo took them in with a single glance, his experience of combat filling in the details of his summations. None of them held his focus enough to detract from the steady thud emitting from the trans-terminal doors. It seemed to be getting more urgent as if whatever made the noise had become aware of their close proximity. There were two more bodies laid out in the middle of the floor. They were unusual.

Both were dressed in black. Not dressed in fact, but armoured. They wore single suits of a hard-looking substance that Lelo wasn’t able to identify. It covered them bodily, patches of it dully reflecting the light of his marine’s lamps as their beams pierced the darkness. It looked sleek, light and high-tech. Lelo couldn’t fight the impression that it looked entirely similar to the bulky mark three armour he was carrying but pared down to only what was absolutely necessary.

He knew who they were and the knowledge of their identity coupled with that of their deaths suddenly transformed the severity of the situation.

LSS.

Luna Special Service.

They were the best of the best. The black operatives of Command sent into the most dangerous or secretive situations. Their missions were classified at the highest level. Even their existence was a guarded secret kept from the common citizens of the Deorum, as well as the lower ranks of the military. Lanad had spoken of their involvement, but of course, had been restricted from explaining why.

Bang, bang, bang!

If they were dead it meant whatever had attacked the station was far more dangerous than Lelo had suspected. If it could take down members of an LSS team the likelihood his marines would succeed if they faced it was less than slim.

He shuddered at the prospect.

>“I tried to reach you but your comm wasn’t responding.”

Lelo almost smiled as Radjion’s words interrupted his thoughts. It was another fantastic example of the man’s unique mind. He hadn’t said, ‘I tried you but got nothing so I tried Captain Lanad’, or even something as simple as ‘I’ve been trying’ which would imply he’d continued. No. Radjion had tried him once and gotten no answer, so he’d simply stopped and waited for his next order. He truly was a rare individual. He hadn’t even made comment on the two clearly unusual dead bodies that were occupying his Lieutenant’s attention.

Lelo dragged his eyes away from them and looked to his Second Sergeant.

>“I'm here now, Sergeant. Tell me what you've found."

Radjion paused for a moment before responding. The deafening sound from the terminal filled the pause before he answered.

Bang, bang, bang, bang!

>“Bodies, sir. Five of them.”He waved his arms in a gesture encompassing the bridge. >“Three over there and these two. It looks like there was a fight, sir.”

Lelo marvelled at whatever strange course of events had led to this man being promoted.

>“Yes, I can see that, Sergeant.”He returned, his patience already straining. >“But have you found anything not immediately obvious? Have you in fact looked?”

He couldn’t see the man’s face, but Radjion’s body language radiated his perplexity. Of course, he hadn’t looked for anything more. Lelo hadn’t told him to.

The bridge deck filled with thumping again. Lelo’s eyes moved to the trans-terminal and he saw how other heads in the room turned to match him. It was putting them all on edge. The tension in the air was growing with the intensity of the strikes.

Bang, bang, bang, bang!

>“If I may, sir?”

He turned to see who’d addressed him. It was Cooper. The engineer; a Corporal and a joker. He was friends with that clown Deneminjic. Lelo knew him to be ambitious, smart and too full of bloody cheek. He didn’t approve.

>“What is it, Corporal?”He tried to convey his disdain for the lower rank through the link, pretending he was ignoring the noise that pervaded every thought.

>“The bodies are strange, sir, well these two at least.”He indicated the black-clad LSS members with a sweep of his arm, apparently unaware of or simply ignoring Lelo’s sleight. >“I’m guessing there’s something special about them, but that’s for you higher-ups and not the likes of us to question.”

Lelo was mildly impressed, despite himself. He knew the humility was feigned, but the gentle implication that he was important enough to be aware of both their presence and mission was a clever compliment that appealed to him.

>“They’re not the strangest thing though, sir.”Cooper continued. >“What’s odd is the way they’re all placed.”

He stopped and Lelo looked around the circular room again. Whatever it was the Corporal was seeing wasn’t apparent to him, but he couldn’t say so.

>“Explain, Corporal.”He kept the words haughty as if he was asking the man to pass a test rather than provide an answer he didn’t know.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!

Lelo pretended not to notice the furious change in rhythm. It was urgent now as if the maker of the sound was demanding their attention and venting their frustration at being ignored.

Cooper stepped past him, seemingly doing the same and pointed to the body against the wall.

>“You see this, sir? The way she’s facing?” He turned and pointed again, this time to the crewman lying across his console. >“And him? And the last one over there?”This time his finger was directed at the man by the trans-terminal shutters.

Lelo followed the digit as it made its way around the room, but whatever the connection Cooper was making was still beyond him.

>“What about them?”He realised he’d asked it as a question and hastily repeated the words. >“Tell me what you think you’ve noticed about them.” He was pleased with the way that sounded.

Cooper made a little clicking sound through the speakers of his helmet, almost lost against the background thudding. He strode across the bridge to stand in a wide space between the control terminals, spreading his arms and then waved them forwards.

>“They were attacked from over here, sir.”He said, a hint of question in his tone.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!

Lelo surveyed the room again and the conclusion the young Corporal had reached clicked. He was right. The man at the terminal looked to have been struck from behind, the blow hard enough to send him sprawling across his desk. The woman against the wall was facing back towards where Cooper stood. If someone had attacked from the link-stair or the trans-terminal she would likely have fallen at the opposite angle. And the man cut off by the shutter was clearly trying to reach it when he died. They’d been killed by something or someone who was already in the room.

Lelo felt another shiver run down his spine. Cooper was right. He could see it now so clearly. He fancied he could imagine watching each crew member die. But the LSS…

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!

He bit back a scream of anger at the constant interruption. It was frying his mind, dragging his concentration away and rattling his nerves. He wanted it to stop. He needed it to stop.

The LSS agents had been laid out as if someone had killed them and then gently and respectfully arranged their bodies afterwards. If that was the case it meant someone who knew them. Someone who cared enough about them to mark them out as more important than the rest of the crew. Someone, or something.

He shivered.

>“Very… er, very good, Corporal.”He sent, trying to keep his mental voice from portraying his sudden nervousness. >“I am pleased you didn’t miss something so obvious.”

>"Thank you, sir."Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!

>“And that makes me think something else, sir.”Cooper added, the edge of smugness unmistakable in his tone.

Lelo let it go, too focused on trying to block out the thumping that now seemed to have crawled inside his head.

>“If they were attacked from here,”Cooper indicated the spot he was standing on with his hands again. >“And trying to flee that way,” he pointed to the trans-shaft. >“Then I can’t help but think maybe someone made it and they’re in there now, banging away so we’ll open the doors and rescue them.”

As if on cue the blast shutters covering the terminal rang with thunderous knocking again. Lelo tried to convince himself it was fueled by desperation, but the word that kept sliding into his thoughts was ‘anger’.

A flash of colour caught his eye and he looked down. Below the rows of shattered monitors was a panel, it’s lights still shining barely, a single message displayed. The opportunity to put the thoughts aside and focus elsewhere hit him like a wall of relief. The trans-terminal could wait. Maybe there were survivors inside, maybe it was something else. But this was something he could be sure of. And importantly, it was something he didn’t have to risk himself to find the answer to.

>“It’s a shame you were so caught up you didn’t notice this.”He sent, his triumph at besting the Corporal temporarily overruling his fear.

Cooper gave a response, a question that Lelo ignored as he opened his direct channel to Lanad.

>“Captain, we’ve found more bodies on the bridge, including two members of the LSS unit.”

Lanad’s response was quick, but her mental voice sounded choked, even fragile.

>“Two members? Who or what killed them?”

Lelo smiled briefly inside his helmet, before another round of knocking wiped the smirk away. He could hear the confusion, feel it in her message. Clearly she was as unnerved by this place as the rest of them. The thought of her so unsettled was a welcome one. It made her vulnerable.

>“Unknown.”He lied, as the feeling stole over him that whatever was trapped in the trans-terminal was definitely not frightened survivors. >“There’s something more important right now though.”

He left the words hanging, knowing how badly it would irritate her to have to ask him to continue.

>“Which is?” She returned after a moment and his smile returned as her impatience bled through the link. He let her wait another few seconds.

If his suspicions were right then the reason for his mounting fear could be put safely away. It was trapped, whatever it was, inside the reinforced shutters of the trans-terminal. The continued knocking meant only one thing: it couldn’t get itself out.

The knowledge slid comfortably into his brain, releasing the pressure that had been building since the first moment they’d stepped out of the loading bay.

As long as they didn’t open those shutters whatever had caused the devastation and death they’d seen all around would remain contained. He felt his body relax, the muscles becoming less tense and his focus returned to the reason this mission had been so important to him. There was still work to do. Still an objective to reach. He decided he’d left Lanad hanging long enough. There was no harm in giving her a little diversion.

>“If there’s anyone left alive on board, I think I know where they’ll be.”