Incident at Facility IX

Chapter 2 - Arrival

Outside Facility IX

"Line the bodies up over there," said Rozen dully, pointing at the edge of the forest on the North side of the track. He was not looking at the bodies, instead he was watching the smoke from the still-burning promethium fires drift out over the lush valley. His eyes were distant, his mind wandering, likely on some other battlefield on some other world. The sounds of the forests had come back in almost immediately, as if the planet cared nothing for the plights and squabbles of it's human inhabitants.

"This one is alive," said Edora in a strange, sing-song tone. She knelt over one of the insurgents. "There is something wrong with his eyes," she added.

The ragged, blood-stained Multessan had multiple gunshot wounds in his torso, and was bleeding from the mouth. The make-shift flak armour across his chest and stomach had been shredded and stained deep crimson. He breathed desperately and unevenly, his body racked with involuntary jerks of pain and the futile struggle to keep functioning.

As Edora had noticed, one of his eyes was brown, and the other a disturbing, pale gold. Both flickered and glanced around as if the man only faintly understood his impending death. Edora's mouth turned up in an odd little smile as she watched him closely.

Hasken grimaced and marched over, her red-painted lips curling up into a snarl. "This is what you get, Mutt!" She spat at him, dizzy from some victory-rush. She brought her non-standard stub pistol up and put a bullet through his brain. Edora didn't flinch. She looked down at the mess Hasken's pistol had made of the Mutt's forehead, a drop of bright blood on her cheek.

"Anyone else still awake?" Hasken added, posturing and waving her pistol at the other bodies. Many of them were barely recognisable as human, thanks to the efforts of Hein and Lander. The likelihood of any more insurgents still breathing was slim.

Nytus watched her cautiously as the others started to move the bodies away from the gate. He glanced at Rozen, hoping that the sergeant would tell Hasken to reign it in, but once again Hasken's dangerous behaviour seemed to have escaped his notice.

Instead, Rozen stepped up to the gate. The metal perimeter fence that enclosed the facility loomed tall. The monolithic posts were painted a chipped, matte green, with exposed metal rails at the top that hummed with a deadly electric charge. To the North the tall fence stretched on up the hills, the undergrowth creeping back in since the last time it had been cut back. To the South the fence stretched to where the ground dropped off steeply into the canopy below. On the other side of the high gate was a guard tower that appeared to be empty.

A control panel was housed in the side of the gate, but the insurgents appeared to have been trying to access it or sabotage it. The screen was smashed, the keypad was damaged, and there were exposed, sparking wires.

Rozen strode up to the battered control panel. The button that opened up the comms relay to inside was, miraculously, still intact.

He pushed it.

"This is Sergeant Mattius Rozen of the Aboran PDF. The insurgent threat at the gate has been neutralised. Please respond."

After a moment, a voice came back from an unseen speaker.

"This is Facility Administrator Astea Kress," the female voice said, and there was a sense of relief in her words, "I'll let you in."

* * *

The PDF transport limped through the gate and ground to a decisive halt, smoke rising from it's engine and fluid leaking from somewhere underneath. Behind it, the gate shut and locked either automatically or thanks to some remote operator. Rozen's unit started unloading ammunition and supplies from the sub-floor space in the back of the transport and stuffed their packs and pouches with whatever they might need. The solid form of the facility guard tower loomed over them. Sergeant Rozen shielded his eyes form the pale sun as he stared up at it's bulky silhouette.