He made a snap decision.
<Watch that shuttle’s flight path carefully. And reserve me a shuttle—and a pilot. I want them on standby, just in case.>
<Gunny?>
<It might be nothing….> His mental voice trailed off. <But if we lose their transponder, I want to know about it. Tell Commander Lauren I’m out following a lead, but don’t say anything more. Last thing we need to do is piss off the locals by acting like we think one of theirs is the enemy.>
<Understood. Consider it done.>
SEVEN WONDERS THEME PARK
STELLAR DATE: 3227475 / 06.05.4124 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Hadrian Township, Tarja suburb
REGION: Venus, InnerSol, Sol Space Federation
Katelyn spent the first ten minutes of the flight settling into the rhythm of the old shuttle. She divided her attention between the FLIR’s readings being fed to her own Link’s overlay, and the view outside the plas windscreen.
Visibility was still poor due to the low cloud deck and the amount of precipitation, but she could see enough to make out the glow of Tarja in the distance. Hadrian, a satellite community to the city’s northeast, grew increasingly brighter as they neared it.
<Just managed to handshake with one of our units,> Aaron sent suddenly. <Name’s Wren, says she knows you.>
“Yes. Has she heard from Clarke?” Katelyn couldn’t quite hide the anxiousness she felt. “Did he make it out okay?”
<He did. Guess he feels responsible for abandoning you. Wren says he’ll rendezvous with us and escort us back to friendly territory once we have a destination identified. We need to get past the TSF lines and into Tarja.>
“I’ve been thinking about that.” Katelyn sucked her lower lip in between her teeth, her gaze jumping from the outside view to the terrain map projected by the FLIR. “With this weather, it’s totally believable that they might lose us to ground clutter once we descend below a hundred fifty meters.”
She shared the FLIR’s feed with Aaron, highlighting the destination logged in the shuttle’s flight plan.
“Though, I’m not terribly crazy about flying nap-of-the-earth in this kind of weather, especially over a populated area.” Widening the topographical field, she dropped a pin on a nearby landmark. “What do you think about this for a rendezvous? It’s a quick hop from the supply depot, and I think we can make it without anyone spotting us.”
There was a pause. <You want Clarke to meet us at…a theme park?>
Katelyn laughed. “Well, it almost butts up against Veef-held territory. Plus, I kind of feel like I know it—well, by association anyway. Ma never liked the place, but I got my brother to tell me all about it, years after the place had closed down.”
<Sounds like there’s a story in there somewhere,> Aaron commented, and Katelyn sent him a nod in response. <Last I heard, there were about a hundred or so of you Evanses. Which brother are you talking about?>
Katelyn snorted. “Ma wasn’t that prolific.”
She paused, considering, and then corrected herself with a laugh. “Well, okay, maybe she was. She quit just after ninety, though. Honest. At any rate, Joe’s the one who told me about it.”
<Joe….>
“Kid number nine. Us twins were kids twenty-seven and twenty-eight, respectively. Born here on Venus, but the Evanses made the trek out to Makemake while Rory and I were still pretty young. Joe’d been gone more than a decade before we were born.”
Katelyn smiled as she recalled those early years. “He and I got on like a house afire, though. I stuck to him like glue when he’d come home for the holidays. Ma used to say the two of us were cut from the same cloth, both a bit too adventurous for our own good.”
She shook herself from her memories as the shuttle pinged, notifying her she was within minutes of landing. She made a few adjustments, bringing the craft down in a cruising descent, taking note of the amount of time she had left before it would be safe to shut off the transponder.
“At any rate, that theme park made quite an impression on Joe—and by association, on me as well. It was closed before I was born. Hell, it’s been closed for more than thirty years.”
<I take it that their ‘closed for renovations’ tag on the city map is a bit of a misnomer, then?>
Katelyn coughed. “Uhm, yeah. You might say that. I’ve heard that over the years, people have tried to stir up a bit of local interest in renovating the thing, but no one’s been able to overcome the tragedy associated with it—near’s I can tell, anyway.”
Aaron was silent a moment. When he spoke again, his mental voice sounded intrigued. <Well, isn’t that interesting….>
<You didn’t say it was a terrorist attack.>
Katelyn shrugged.
<How old was your brother when it happened?>
“Thirteen.” She felt her shoulders rise and fought the tension that built when she considered the role her brother had played in the incident.
<Says here that the ones responsible for shutting the terrorists down were here on vacation. Terrance Enfield and Jason Andrews, of the Enfield Corporation.> Aaron paused once more. This time, he brought up the record of a GSS colony ship Katelyn knew well. <Didn’t you say your brother left on the Intrepid?>
She nodded, fighting the pang of loneliness she got every time she thought of never seeing Joe again. “He did. He accepted a position as head of security in exchange for passage.” She cleared her throat. “Why is that relevant?”
<The two heroes at that theme park, they’re the ones in charge of that entire venture.> Aaron’s tone had progressed from intrigued to bemused.
Katelyn cocked her head to one side as she considered that. “You know,” she said slowly, “Joe told me once that the people who took down the terrorists and rescued the hostages made a ‘lasting impact on an impressionable teen’. Said it was why he’d chosen to become a pilot.”
A flash on the FLIR had her straightening, pushing the past from her mind, as she brought herself back to her surroundings.
She shot a look over her shoulder at the NSAI node. “As strange as that coincidence may be, I still need an answer to where we should land.” Katelyn reached for the transponder, her hand hovering over the unit. “It’s time to go dark. So, what’ll it be? Seven Wonders Theme Park, or somewhere else?”
<Seven Wonders it is, then. You get us there, and I’ll tell Wren to let Clarke know where he can find us.>
* * * * *
Williams emerged from the hangar and watched as the shuttle carrying Lieutenant Sands to the supply depot was swallowed by clouds and darkness. He turned as a figure strode toward him, his Link identifying the newcomer as one of the Marine pilots assigned to Bravo to provide close air support.
“Lieutenant Marsala,” he nodded to the AI.
“Gunny,” she responded in a crisp contralto, but then immediately switched to a three-way over the Link.
<Bruno,> she drawled, her tone bordering on insolent.
<Mars,> the battalion AI responded with a heavy sigh.
<Seriously, luv, what crawled up your arse and died today?> The AI standing beside Williams let out a mocking sigh to match.
When neither continued, Williams shifted impatiently. <On the clock, here, people. Want to tell me where my ride is, Lieutenant Marsala?>
The AI before him shot Bruno an impatient mental glare, interrupted by the sound of an aircraft on fast approach. It slowed over the airstrip and switched to VTOL mode, settling to the ground twenty meters away.
<Sorry,> Bruno told Williams privately. <Mars insisted on flying one of the Coasties’ fast attack craft. Only one available was hangared down the coast a few klicks, in for scheduled maintenance. I had to initiate an autopilot recall. You should be good to go now, though.>
Williams grunted. <Well,> and shot Mars a look just shy of insub
ordination. “Ready to go, ma’am?”
The AI gestured to the ship. “After you, Gunny. We’ll have no trouble catching up to your Coastie in this beaut. Your turn to hurry up.”
He cast Mars an appraising look before turning to march toward the shuttle’s now-open hatch.
Stars, what is it with pilots and attitude tonight?
“What’s your end goal, Gunny?” Mars asked once they’d taken off.
“Out of sight and off her radar, ma’am,” he called out from the small locker where light armor was stored. He sealed the suit and shut the locker after double-checking the load on the short-barreled E-SCAR that now hung on a single-point sling around his neck. “If she’s legit, I don’t want to offend her. If she’s not, I don’t want to spook her.”
“Understood.”
He returned to the cockpit and settled beside the AI to watch their progress. They followed at a distance, and it began to look like the Coastie was doing exactly as her flight plan indicated—until she disappeared off scan.
“Looks like you called it,” Mars said, her voice tightening. “What now?”
Williams’ jaw clenched. He hadn’t really expected anything to go wrong—stupid, in light of how the last few days had gone. A fireteam at his six would be helpful, but none of the Coastie aircraft could catch up in time. It was also possible that Lieutenant Sands’ old bird had dropped out of the sky.
“How easy would it be to reacquire that shuttle?”
Mars hmmed. “Depends on how daring a pilot you have on the other end.”
“Assume very, but not stupid.”
“Okay, then. That leaves out nap-of-earth in this weather. I’d say she’ll keep at least a hundred to a hundred-fifty between her and ground.” The pilot’s voice turned musing. “But she also knows she can only maintain that for so long before she gets into range of another scan tower or repeater station, so let’s assume a ten-klick window from that depot.”
She tossed a terrain map up onto the ship’s main holo, highlighting a ten-kilometer circle.
“See anything that looks promising?” she asked.
Williams studied the map for a second. Open park to the south, single-dwelling homes to the west. North of the depot, though….
“There,” he said decisively, pointing to the icon for Seven Wonders Theme Park. “Drop me there.”
Mars tapped the icon, and a brief description of the park appeared. “Not my cuppa, but to each his own, I suppose,” she remarked dismissively.
Ten minutes later, after a slow and stealthy approach, Mars settled onto a service road on the back side of the park. Their flyover had identified the residual heat signature of the Coastie shuttle, nestled under a copse of trees just off the park’s main entrance.
“We’re off comms,” Mars commented as she flipped through channels on her console. “Towers must be down and there’s EM chaff in the air—can’t link the satcomm.”
“Just our luck. You OK to stick around for a bit?”
“I’m at your disposal until 0800 when I report for duty,” Mars offered as Williams jumped from the craft, one hand securing his E-SCAR while the other automatically went to his combat knife to ensure it was properly sheathed. “How do you want to play this, Gunny?”
Williams checked the time. “Hang back here for another hour. I’ll check in then, and we’ll decide where to go from there.”
“You got it.”
* * * * *
Katelyn stared out the plas windscreen of the shuttle, waiting for the ship that had passed over earlier to return. When it didn’t, she breathed a small sigh of relief.
“Ready?” she asked Aaron, turning to eye the NSAI node.
<Yes. Let’s do this.>
She triggered the hatch open and stepped cautiously out into the wet night, her eyes straining to see into the darkness. Her optical infrared spectrum overlay returned ghostly clumps of blues and greens with tiny spots of red-orange. Small ground creatures skittering amongst abandoned buildings and native foliage. Nothing that indicated a Marine ambush awaiting them.
A hand landed hard on her shoulder, and she screamed, twisting away from the threat, only to find another hand clamped over her mouth, muffling the noise. Her heart thundered in her ears, panic threatening to overwhelm her, until a chuckle sounded inside her head.
<Easy, there, sunshine. It’s only me.>
She whirled and came face to face with the mech frame from the shuttle. On the ground beside it was the NSAI node.
“You’re—” she began, then ground to a halt and waved a hand at the frame. “How’d you install yourself in there without my help?” Katelyn kept her voice low.
Aaron’s avatar sent her a smirk. <Don’t need to be inside to manipulate the thing, sweetcakes. Just figured you’d appreciate me pulling my own weight, if you know what I mean.> The mech frame bent and lifted the NSAI node.
“Har, har. Very funny.”
<I keep telling you, I’m the fun one.>
Aaron’s comment served to ground her back into the reality of their situation.
“This stopped being fun when they shot Rory, and I got roped into infiltrating a Marine compound,” she muttered.
Aaron sent her a mental nod, all humor leached from his avatar. <Lead on, Evans. This is your turf.>
Katelyn turned toward the main entrance, keeping to the fence line. “You’re better equipped to scan for life signs than I am. See anything sketchy?”
<Not a lot here that’s not sketchy, I’d say. Entropy can do a helluva lot to a place like this after thirty years.> Katelyn heard the soft thump of his metal footfalls behind her as he added, <To answer your question, no. I don’t see anything to be concerned about. I am picking up a few stray EM emissions, though. I have my doubts about how accurate any scans will be once we get inside.>
Katelyn shrugged and, with a confidence she didn’t quite feel, said, “Good. So, they’ll be as handicapped as we are if they try to follow us. I’ll take it.”
Seven Wonders Theme Park—or what was left of it, rather—boasted immersive rides that faithfully recreated each one of the wonders of Old Earth. From the Pyramid of Khufu in Egypt to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Machu Picchu to the Colosseum of Rome, each one was a unique experience that combined augmented reality with physical landmarks, scaled reproductions painstakingly crafted to deliver each parkgoer a realistic experience.
Or so the tattered digital playbill at the entrance claimed.
Katelyn gave the sputtering, flickering sign a wide berth. A hard left once inside placed them off the once-manicured path and into a small expanse of sand, littered with trash, that fronted the ride that was once Khufu’s Pyramid.
She slid between palm trees, advancing toward the monolithic pyramid silhouetted against the dull glow of cloud cover, nearby civilization outside the park giving it a slightly golden cast.
Katelyn paused at the base of the edifice, one hand on its surface. “Taj Mahal is that way,” she said quietly, pointing straight ahead. “Colosseum to the right. Just beyond that is Stonehenge. There’s a whole lot of open space around the Taj, broken by a water feature. I think we have a better chance of hiding at Stonehenge. They’ve a small forest encircling it.”
<Been here a few times, have you? Trespassing, Evans.> Aaron tsked. <Do any time in juvie for it?>
Ignoring Aaron, she set out across the sand for the stand of trees she could just make out on the infrared band as a blue-green lump of darkness in the distance. She’d not been entirely honest with Aaron about how well she knew this amusement park. She’d lied to her ma about it, too, a lifetime ago. Hell, she’d even lied about it to her brother.
Katelyn knew Seven Wonders far better than she was willing to admit. As a kid, she’d broken into the forbidden territory more than once, wandering through the derelict rides, her imagination taking flight as she envisioned what her brother had witnessed on that fateful day.
She’d almost been caught a few times. The last had been a close on
e, and had convinced her that maybe skulking around in abandoned places wasn’t exactly her superpower.
But she had an excellent memory, and that served her well now as she navigated through the ruins of the Colosseum, picking her way through reproduction travertino.
<Nice digs, Evans.> A small, secured net sprang up over Katelyn’s Link, accompanying the sound of Clarke’s mental voice. <Where should I meet up with you?>
The knots in Katelyn’s shoulders eased slightly at the connection. <About half a kilometer northeast of my current location,> she responded. <A small, forest-like grove of trees with a clearing in the center that has a circle of standing stones in it. If you get there before we do, come to the south side.>
<Got it. Stay sharp, Evans. By now, those Marines will have figured out that node is something special.>
Aaron sent Clarke his agreement. <They’re going to push to reacquire it. Assume you were followed, chief warrant. That’s what I’d do.>
* * * * *
The ruins and rain were giving the sensors on Williams’ armor fits.
What I get for strapping into Coastie gear. I should have gone back to armor up properly.
He knew that hadn’t been an option, though. With Lieutenant Sands already in the air, he would have never come close to finding her if he’d wasted that time.
An alarm appeared on his HUD, triggered by a piece of nearby abandoned equipment that still pulled some modicum of power from an equally-abandoned solar-charged SC batt. He mentally silenced it, eyelid twitching in annoyance.
Williams froze and then lowered himself into a crouch when a twig snapped nearby. Two shadows flitted between the trees, disappearing behind a long-forgotten vendor’s cart, its faded sign hawking genuine Italian ices.
He’d found…someone.
He rose and followed.