Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [140]
Now he could see the burn marks and wreckage with painful clarity. A few colorful scraps of what had been prefab colony structures lay scattered, knocked to pieces. The ancient Klikiss ruins had been blasted into rubble.
Stromo stared. “I don’t see anybody moving down there, do you?”
“According to the girl, this happened some weeks ago. We didn’t expect to find anybody.”
“Right, right.” Stromo stood straight-backed, remembering General Lanyan’s instructions. “Put together a crew with full analytical instruments. I want detailed imaging, precise postmortem studies, and a complete map of the destruction. We have to learn what caused this.”
“We have a personnel transport ready to depart, Admiral,” Ramirez said. “I presume you’d like to accompany them?”
He would rather have stayed on the bridge, but the situation seemed to require his presence. “You’ve run a full scan all the way out to the perimeter of the Corribus system? No enemy vessels detected, nothing unusual?”
“Whatever’s been here went away long ago, sir.”
“All right then, get eight crewmen, and I’ll accompany them in the shuttle. I promise to find out what happened down there.”
The dry air held a spoiled tang from old burns. Thin winds whistling through the granite canyon had long ago scoured the smoke away, but a greasy layer of fresh soot covered the rockfaces. Stromo paced the uneven ground, using the toe of his boot to nudge shattered stones and melted lumps of polymer. The investigators found only blackened bones and bloodstains, no other sign of the hundred or so colonists.
Without instructions from him, the team members fanned out, taking detailed three-dimensional images. They probed about, measuring residual energy signatures, scraping the by-products of burns from where weapons blasts had destroyed equipment and material. They marked the locations of any human remains they found.
“Admiral, do we take the cadavers back up to the ship for identification, or should we bury them individually here?”
Stromo didn’t want to stay on this unnerving planet any longer than was necessary; besides, the General was waiting for his immediate report. “We can presume they’re all dead. The colony records will list their names. Instruct the Manta to dispatch digging equipment so we can provide quick graves.” He nodded for emphasis. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Even with the scramble of activity, he found Corribus oppressive. What if the mysterious attackers came back? It could happen at any time.
“How soon until you have a first-order conclusion?” he said to a nearby woman, who was using a scraper to put powder from a burn scar into a diagnostic machine. “I want to have something by sunset.” He worked his jaw, silently cursing the green priests for dropping out of military service. It would have been much easier to send an immediate report through telink.
“I’m verifying my results right now, sir. From what I’ve got so far...I just wanted to be sure.” She looked down at her tiny screen, saw the jagged lines of a spectrographic signature. “No doubt about it—these are scars from jazer blasts. Other debris bears specific signatures of the explosive chemicals we use in EDF heavy-artillery shells. The girl was right.”
Stromo blew out a long breath through his heavy lips. “So you’re claiming that the Earth Defense Forces did this? That our own battleships opened fire and obliterated a legitimate Hansa colony?”
The technician bit her lower lip and answered slowly and cautiously, “What I said, sir, is that these scars are from jazer blasts and that some of the explosives bear identical signatures to the chemicals our military uses. I wouldn’t presume to draw any further conclusions than that.”
Scowling, Stromo walked away and let the technician continue her work. He queried two other