Terra-33 Ep. 08

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The companions are forced into a violent discovery.
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Part 9 of the 10 part series

Updated 08/16/2020
Created 03/23/2015
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*****

Terra-33

Episode 0.8

"They are herding us, that much is obvious. The question is... Where?"

Trix glanced over at Ida, who was watching their pursuers in the console's view of the rear of their buggy. Remi didn't respond, but she knew his silence probably just meant that he was thinking. The cab was quiet for a time, each occupant lost in their own dark thoughts.

"I've been thinking about their attack," Remi began, chewing on the words. "The slumpers only killed one buggy, and disabled or killed one APC. They were planning all along to capture us, I think it was just a question of how much force did they need to use to do it."

Trix knew he was right, but Ida beat her to speaking it.

"You're right, Remi, we should have taken multiple direct hits long before they loosed those missiles. That mortar strike alone would have been enough, they simply led us more than they should have, on purpose."

"Well, what can we do now?" Trix finally spoke up. Both Remi and Ida turned partially, as if they had forgotten about her in the back.

"I don't think we can fight. There are five of them, even if we had the firepower, I think as soon as we started shooting, they'd take us out. Plus, they have enough speed and agility to catch us if we try to run. Our only option seems to be continuing. I just wish I knew where they were driving us."

"I don't think you do..." Trix said despondently, glancing at Ida's screen.

The view from behind was provided by one of the two directional cameras attached to the top of the technical, set into the base of the gunner's nest. They were well-protected and hadn't been damaged by the afternoon's violence. Their low-light optics were engaged and Trix watched the muted gray and green landscape roll away with them. About five kilometers behind, fully visible on the relatively flat terrain, the five alien ground ships hovered. They kept a tight formation, which shifted around the rear of the buggy whenever it altered course. Remi had tried a few times now, and each time, the two vehicles on either side would accelerate and begin maneuvering around the side until they readjusted their course. The odd thing was that they were far away from the pillars now and Trix didn't see a lot going on through the windshield ahead of them.

Their buggy was paralleling the coast, clipping along at a steady eighty km/h. They had passed some hills and small clusters of trees, but the pseudo-desert landscape hadn't changed much in hours of driving. Her biggest worry was that instead of capturing them, the aliens had some weird scheme or another that would end up being a much worse fate. She really had no idea what capture would entail, probably slow dissection or attempts to communicate, but it might be a blessing compared to whatever was looming in their future. Trix had even considered suggesting to Remi that they just go out in a blaze of glory, but her fear of her own death, and her friends' was enough to put that aside for now. If it got desperate though...

As soon as she had spotted the slumper vehicles approaching, Trix had asked Remi what his plan was. Luckily, he had one, and had ordered her out of the vehicle to inspect the damage to the front of their ride. That had been a frantic two minutes, as she scrambled up and over the nest, finding that they were simply stuck atop a large rock. The front axle and wheels were raised above the ground by the uneven terrain where they had landed. Trix shouted as much to Remi, who told her to get back inside. To her ecstatic surprise, she heard the engine turning over with a dirty-sounding cough as she mounted the small ladder leading to the cab. Later, Remi had told her that he spliced two wires that had been split by Ida's knee upon landing. He then engaged the manual-start override and was able to get the engine turned over. She hadn't been aware of this fun fact, but the buggies had fully shielded backup batteries which provided just enough power to get the engine started in an emergency. The alternator and spinning wheels took care of the rest.

In less than twenty minutes of driving, the alien vehicles had closed with them and assumed the positions which they were in now. Around that time, Ida awoke with a start, Trix's HUD reengaged and Remi stated that the main battery was now charging. No one had any idea exactly what kind of weapon had been employed against them, but it had at least partially disabled the operation of batteries and cut power instantaneously. It seemed that once they reached a certain range though, the phenomenon ceased abruptly. Ida suggested that it was some sort of dampening field, similar to chaff used to distract radar in one of the historical World Wars of Earth. She thought the missile had strewn a huge radius of some physical electronic dampening agent above the battlefield and they had simply exited its effective radius. It was as plausible an explanation as Trix could come up with, not that she had tried.

"Trix, throw in another fuel cell," Remi said over his shoulder.

She popped the hatch on the cargo bay and fished around for one of the canisters. They were bulky rectangles with lots of handles. Conveniently, her suit's servos were able to be called upon to drag the sixty-five kilogram units out of the hold and into place. Once she had ejected their auxiliary cell, she replaced the now feather-light box with her much heavier one. Remi thanked her and the quiet drive continued. Trix leaned up in the seat, glancing all around the barren landscape for any sort of sign that they were nearing whatever their destination was. Disappointed once again, she sat back to stew in fearful anticipation.

"Ida, you can remove your helmet. You know, if you want, that is."

The construct just glanced over at Remi before returning her attention to the console in front of her. Trix laughed to herself, already aware of Ida's feelings regarding maintaining proper combat readiness. Remi was too, but that didn't stop him from offering it up as an option every hundred klicks or so. She knew that he just wanted them to be as relaxed as possible, but it seemed they each achieved that in their own way. Trix's own helmet was lying on the floor between her boots, removed as soon as they realized what the situation was. Her hair had been matted to her neck and face and it had taken over an hour to get it dry and reassembled in some semblance of order.

Trix broke into the ration pack on the seat beside her, silently offering a few shrink-wrapped nutrient bars between the front seats. Ida took one, but Remi just shook his head. They hadn't been able to get out of their suits yet, even to relieve themselves. None of them wanted to stop and find out what would happen. Trix assumed the others were doing what she had been and letting the suit remove her waste along with her body's sweat. The suit would reach capacity eventually unless they were purged and Trix didn't even want to think about what would happen if she had to use her other hole. Urine was one thing, the suits got the warm dampness out quickly, but she had never been unfortunate enough to find out what happened if one was forced to defecate. She hoped that she never would. At that thought, her eyes narrowed and she set aside her half-eaten bar, planning to stave that degradation off as long as possible.

"Remi," she began slowly, "What do you think will happen if we stop?"

None of them had voiced that concern yet.

"Um... Well, I expect that they will assume we have run out of fuel at that point and swoop in to capture us when we exit the vehicle. So, it's either fight and likely die, try to run on foot and likely die, or be captured."

"Those are not preferable options," Ida stated in a monotone.

The slumpers had driven them far from any hope of getting close enough to New Bernburg to contact the city for help. They were unable to make much northern progress and had been moving on an east by northeast heading for a long time. As she was about to try to take a second nap, Trix saw something in the distance. It loomed ahead of them, a large, black shadow at first. She frowned as they got closer, it seemed like another mountain, but as far as she knew, there weren't any mountains in this area. At least, the aerial surveys hadn't turned up any. There was a lot that the aerial surveys had missed though, as evidenced by the fast-moving assault craft dogging their own vehicle.

"What is that?" Remi asked Ida.

"Analyzing," the construct replied, focused on the console. Trix watched as she tapped away at options, running a variety of scans. Her heart began beating a little faster when the heat scan results displayed, showing a variety of signatures within the mound. Ida met her gaze with a forlorn look.

"It appears to be a constructed piece of the landscape. There are numerous metals that would not be present under normal circumstances and various heat signatures, indicating power in use."

"Great," Remi said, taciturn now that their fate was nearing.

Remi slowed the technical as the mound began taking shape. It had tiered cuts on the front facing them, reminiscent of Mayan temples. Toward the outer edges, the more curved shape resumed, making the structure probably appear like a huge, round mountain from the other sides. Trix thought that the aliens must have incorporated a lot of technology into remaining unseen here, masking heat and topography scans from above. The idea that they were capable of that kind of subterfuge made her uneasy. Previously, she had just considered them warlike creatures with modern infantry weapons and armor. Now though, the events of the past few hours painted them in a very different light.

"Our escort has halted," Ida stated calmly.

Trix checked the console and found that the slumpers formed a line about equidistant from them as they were from the front of the structure currently. Remi attempted another course deviation and moved more northward, angling to avoid the front of the disguised mountain. Moments later, Ida gave a warning and they watched as the slumper units repositioned aggressively, moving to block their vehicle if they kept heading in that direction. With a heavy sigh, Remi readjusted and they resumed their previous course.

As they neared the front of the structure, the slumper ships following them spread out in a semicircle and came to a stop. Remi kept driving, not wanting to provoke another reaction in them. Trix watched in awe and a decent amount of fear as the lowest section of the wall they were approaching opened wide. The night was lit by lights from more than their headlights as a portal to what looked like a docking bay opened. There were no other vehicles present, but it had all the trappings of a normal, human vehicle bay. Remi eased into the facility, parking in an overlarge space which was partitioned off with white-painted lines. Trix looked all around, taking in the overhead cabling, concrete walls and wide doorway leading further into the facility.

"What is this place?"

Remi looked back at her, and something in his expression made her turn as well. The doors they had entered were sliding shut smoothly, two panels coming to rest and locking the slumpers out, and themselves in.

"Wherever we are, I think we're being watched," he responded.

"Were there any other human colonists that established themselves on Terra-33 prior to your dropship?" Ida asked.

"No, not any on public record," Remi said as he engaged the parking brake and opened his door. "They would have briefed us. Although this structure, whatever it is, looks manmade."

"I have just scoured the databases that I downloaded prior to becoming cut off from the New Bernburg network," Ida began, apprehension in her tone. "There is nothing detailing any other human life on this planet."

"Should we have a look around?" Trix asked, breaking the tense silence.

"First, we suit up. I want us each to have a backpack with food, water, ammo and our emergency gear. We'll go in ready for anything. Who knows if the buggy is going to be here when we come back."

"Or if we will even be able to come back to it..." Trix sighed.

Ida had stepped out of the technical and was opening one of the outer side panels to access the cargo bay. She removed her Garr and mini-SMG pistol, holstering the latter and slinging the former over her right shoulder. Trix jumped over the passenger seat and joined her, gathering up her small arms and fitting her helmet back into place. As it clicked on, her HUD powered up and she felt reassured that at least the software worked without a link to the rest of the T-Up team. That brought another thought which seemed of critical importance.

"Remi, Ida, activate your manual trigger overrides, just in case they locked down our weapons when we ran."

Remi nodded appreciatively, hitting the little lever on his own rifle. He unlimbered the shotgun that he had put behind his shoulders and removed the safety as well. It might be unnecessary, but Trix didn't want to have any possible glitch if they had to open fire on hostiles in a split second.

"Ready?" Ida asked, handing her a loaded backpack.

"Ready as I'll ever be."

Remi strode toward the large doors, the only set in the room now that the outer panels had sealed them in. They had handles a little higher up than waist height, but they looked like they operated the same way as normal doors. He jerked his head at Ida, swapping rifle for shotgun and aiming directly at the spot where the door would open. Trix fingered her own trigger, her full-auto Chanet SMG resting against her hip. With a nod, Ida swung the door wide and crouched. Remi was through the door instantly, his barrel tracking back and forth as Trix came right up behind him.

The hallway beyond was empty. Green emergency lighting ran along the upper corners. As they stepped in deeper, more natural lights flickered on directly overhead. The hall was an off-gray color, with an almost silvery sheen. Trix noticed that the corners all appeared to be rounded slightly, despite the generally rectangular and otherwise straight corridor. There were more oversized doors along the huge hall, set at regular intervals. In the distance, the emergency or auxiliary lighting, whichever it was, faded away into gloomy darkness. A series of panels and consoles dotted the wall to their immediate right, with occasional little workstations scattered throughout their vision. For some reason, there were no chairs in front of any of the clusters of inert electronics.

"Weird layout," Remi commented.

"It is strange," Ida said thoughtfully, letting the door close silently behind her. There was no clicking of a lock, so if they were locked into this corridor, the mechanism had been silent to Trix. With the amplified acoustic capabilities of her helmet, she doubted that it would have gone unnoticed. They followed after Remi, Trix on his left and Ida on his right.

"Are you familiar with the Golden Ratio?" Ida asked as they walked along the corridor.

Trix frowned but let Remi respond. "Not in the slightest," he said, looking over.

"Well, it is a mathematical principle regarding what ratios humans find appealing in geometric rectangles. It was defined by Luca Pacioli in the fifteenth century, AD, but had appeared well before that time. The main premise is that there is a certain ratio of proportions that are aesthetically appealing to humans. Imagine a viewscreen or console, think of the dimensions. Then, think of how many other rectangular objects carry those similar dimensions. You'll find that it is a significant number, from books, to buildings, to vehicles, to paintings. Numerous creations of humanity follow this principle, like the input panels on our armor."

Both Remi and Trix inspected the panels set into their left forearms. They were roughly the size of a playing card or smartphone. Trix thought maybe two inches by three, whatever that corresponded to in metric. She had given up on trying to think in metric now that they weren't required to, it was just easier to use standard. In her opinion, centimeters were too small a measurement and meters were too large. Compared to inches, feet and yards, metric just couldn't describe things as easily.

Remi had looked up, and was inspecting the panels and empty viewscreens in front of them. Then he looked down the long hallway and stood silent for a moment, fingering his jaw.

"I see what you mean," he said, looking to Trix.

"I don't..." she began, then the same things he had seen began to pop out at her.

Once Ida described the Golden Ratio, it became abundantly clear that none of the alien equipment or architectural design followed it. Trix saw plenty of rounded squares, perfect in their proportions. There were also rectangles, but those were highly elongated in width. The larger viewscreens and panels that she saw were at least a 2:5 ratio in composition.

Ida nodded to her before speaking again. "From Trix's expression, it appears that this anomaly has become apparent to her as well. Consider this, the other major irregularity I've noticed is that nearly every right angle has been tapered into a curve. There seems to be a uniformity to the method, suggesting that it is not simply a design consideration for this structure, but an aesthetic standard. I probably don't need to tell you that humans favor right angles over curves in design."

"No, I can think of plenty of examples for that. I'm going to guess that your conclusion is that this is not a human structure," Remi offered.

"Exactly. Our former assessment seems erroneous considering these major breaks from tradition. Even a splinter of humanity that somehow gained the stars, colonized this world, and built this structure would have followed these basic human traditions. Those things are too engrained in our collective knowledge and history. It would have to have been a society that developed wholly without contact with the rest of humanity, and without any historical imagery. Even then, I would posit that it would still be highly unlikely that such a group would develop such abnormal traditions. I believe that this facility is of alien construction, and possibly not the native aliens that chased us here."

"They didn't appear very interested in getting close to it. I wonder if there is another species of alien present on Terra. If so, why are they letting us explore their facility unimpeded? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me," Remi trailed off, poking at the unresponsive buttons on the panel to their right.

"What if it is automated?" Trix suggested.

"You think there aren't even any aliens present?"

"Maybe not, or maybe not enough to try to capture us. So far, everything we've needed to open to move forward has opened, lights have turned on, even the vehicle bay door where we entered closed behind us, locking out the slumpers. Unless this is some sort of elaborate trap, why haven't we encountered any other lifeforms?"

"I think that is the likely explanation," Ida chimed, moving ahead down the long corridor.

Trix and Remi exchanged a look that spoke volumes about their shared apprehension and trailed after. Trix noticed that Remi's right hand never left the grip of a weapon, similar to her own. Ida had found another set of consoles and an input suite set mid-abdomen height and paused to inspect the array. Her finger darted here and there on the raised keys, pausing momentarily but not depressing any of them. After about a minute of watching this, Trix got bored and stepped up next to her. She reached past the construct and popped the biggest button on the keyboards and input panels. With a whirring hum, the consoles began lighting up, displaying random characters in similar patterns.

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