The Riddled Post - Aaron Rosenberg [10]
“That doesn’t match up with what the two survivors said.” Sonya let out a long breath. “They said the attack only took a few minutes.”
“There could be multiple attackers; otherwise, I don’t see how we could wind up with this many lines. But I’m still working on it.”
Sonya nodded. This was definite progress. “Okay, what’s next?”
Fabian grimaced. “Now I get to the fun part. I can run an analysis on the holes, comparing the stress on the materials and the amount of corrosion on the inner edges. That’ll tell me which holes were made first. Using that, I can turn this image into an actual blow-by-blow, showing the attacks in order. The first and last will probably be the most important.”
“So you’ve got to go to each hole and get readings?”
“Yep.” He grinned at her. “Want to help?”
Sonya laughed. “No, thanks.” She turned to the Bolian security guard. “Frnats, want to do a little legwork?”
“I thought you’d never ask, Commander. What do you need me to do, Stevens?”
Leaving them to it, Sonya went to the command post to get a report from Kieran and Soloman.
“What have you two got for me?” Sonya asked as she glanced around. Corsi and her people had started clearing away the remains of the former inhabitants. It helped significantly. Sonya thought the holes that passed through one wall, through various consoles, chairs, desks, doors, and cabinets, and then out the opposite wall were still ominous, though.
Kieran and Soloman looked up from the console they’d been huddled near. “Well, Soloman’s tapped into the station logs,” Kieran said, “and he’s already sorted through them a bit. It’s pretty much what we’d heard from those two in sickbay—just a couple of miners, a few scientists and engineers, and two security officers. Nothing worth stealing, no major fights, no threats or strange occurrences. Nothing.”
“There had to be something,” Sonya said, glancing down at the logs herself. “Unless this was a random event, and I don’t buy that—not with the power station so obviously left alone. What about swiping a shipment of dilithium?”
“Unnecessary.” Soloman didn’t even look up, although he did shift over to let her see the console more easily. “There are several dozen remote mines on this planet, fully automated. They have no real defenses, and could easily be robbed by anyone equipped to reach this planet undetected.”
“Okay, so if you wanted to rob the place you’d hit one of those instead, not have to worry about witnesses or interference, and have a lot less trouble doing it. Got it. But if it’s not the dilithium, and it wasn’t the people, what was it?”
“Well, there is one possibility,” Kieran admitted, although he looked a bit embarrassed.
“Spill it.”
“Well, I was thinking—we’ve got scientists here working on new mining methods. What if one of them had come up with something really spectacular? Enough so that someone else wanted it?”
“Badly enough to kill for it? Sounds a bit far out, but right now we don’t have anything better to work with.” She thought for a second, then nodded. “You’ll probably need to find personal logs or scientific records, though. I doubt the command post kept track of every device that got worked on.”
Kieran stretched. “Great, more research. I thought this job was supposed to be exciting.”
“It is—you’re researching how an entire outpost got wiped out.” She turned and headed back toward the door. “Soloman, keep checking the logs in case we missed anything. Duffy, get to work.” She stepped out quickly, before he could find anything to throw at her.
* * *
The next person Sonya checked with was Corsi, swho only had more negatives to tell her.
“The good news is, this place is safe,” the security chief admitted. “The shields here are strong enough to withstand anything short of heavy bombing, and the da Vinci would see any ship or missile attack coming. The bad news is, I can’t find any traces of attack beyond the holes themselves. There’s no forced entry anywhere,