Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [25]
“Then we’re going to make sure that explosion doesn’t happen, Doctor,” Jackson replied. Or if it does, it happens somewhere far, far away.
“You say the killings at MS3 look like the work of the Assarn?” Dr. Parker asked Char-Kane. “What can you tell us about them?”
For just a second the aloof façade that seemed to prevent the consul de campe from showing any emotion slipped slightly, and she visibly shuddered. Quickly recovering her composure, she spoke calmly. “They are like the locusts of the galaxy. They live only for killing and destruction. They are the most barbaric of the three empires—and the most dangerous. The Eluoi, at least, are subject to diplomacy and negotiations. After the Second Spider War we Shamani even worked out a treaty with the Eluoi that has proved effective on a local basis. But the Assarn—they are mad, violent, irrational. If they have discovered your outpost on Mars, then they certainly know about your home planet. And that is a very dangerous thing.”
“And you deduced that it was an Assarn attack because of the ritual killings?” Jackson pressed, hoping she would expand on her quickly reached conclusion at MS3.
She blanched and glanced away for a moment before continuing. “Yes. I have never personally witnessed their gruesome violence, but it is not unknown to the Shamani on some of our more remote systems. Every young Assarn warrior, before he is accepted into the ranks of their legions, must commit a ritual killing with a metal blade. The victim must be sliced in two. That is the scene I discovered in the barracks chamber of MS3.”
“But what would these…these Assarn want with Mars?” Professor Zaro asked. He wrung his hands nervously, blinking eyes that seemed to water incessantly as he looked between the SEALS and his colleagues.
“Information?” Sanders guessed. “Or maybe they plan an attack on Earth and are taking out our remote outposts first.”
“I don’t think so,” Jackson countered. “If they wanted to neutralize the human presence on Mars, they could do it with about four well-placed bombs launched from space. No, they’re here doing some kind of recon mission.”
“So you are convinced that these robots—and that robot gun—are Assarn weapons?” asked Zaro, looking pointedly at the lieutenant.
“I’m convinced that they’re hostile, and that’s about it,” Jackson said with a shrug. He nodded at the Shamani woman. “It’s the consul de campe who seems convinced that they’re Assarn.” He noticed that she squirmed slightly under his gaze, and he asked directly: “Just how sure are you?”
She hesitated just a moment, then shrugged delicately. “Robotic fighting is not entirely in keeping with what I know of the Assarn, so I must say it is mysterious. But I cannot think of any other plausible explanation.”
“Maybe you could check with the Gladiola and get us whatever files you might have on the Assarn.” Jackson was interrupted by the buzz of a speaker on the bulkhead, and he recognized Dobson’s drawling voice.
“Lieutenant?” the radioman inquired. “Can ya come up here fo’ a sec?”
“I’ll be right there. Ensign, see if you can help the director form an evacuation plan. Find out where the hardest points in the station are in case we need a redoubt.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Sanders replied as Jackson trotted through the door.
A minute later, the LT found Dobson in the raised dome of the station’s communications and observation center, a transparent hemisphere perched on a slender tower some twenty meters higher than the surrounding plain, which was shrouded in the Martian night. He was seated in the middle of an array of screens and monitors, gauges and dials that controlled radar, electronic sensors, radio, and vidscreen readouts, and he looked right at home.
“What is it?” Jackson asked. “Have you heard from Pegasus?”
“That’s just it, sir. I can’t raise her. We’re bein’ jammed, and pretty effectively. Seems to be comin’ from