[PG-13] Expendable: Gamma Moon

[Enigma]

"Could I ask for a finer group of people to die with?"

"Well said, laddy!" Scotty said.

“I understand we are looking for the people and equipment lost previously, but what if we find…other people? Or beings? Or toy soldiers? Are we charged with a diplomatic mission, or do we shoot first and ask questions later?” The toad wiped his hands on the front of his jumpsuit. *yoom* “I want to make it clear that I have no intention of murdering innocent people.”

"We have no idea where this will lead," Rand asserted itself, somehow the Expert system stood straighter. "As the task that will earn you your pardon is finding out the purpose of this structure, should we find any living sentient beings down there, questioning them would seem more prudent. But if it's a matter of self-defense, shooting may be your only option."

"Any chance we get t' keep any o' the loot we scrounge up? I'm gonna need a lot o' money once I go free."

"The rights to this entire system belongs to the Corporation, so any 'loot' will be corporation property. Theft of corporation property will be charged against you," Rand warned, looking at Caine. "However, I am authorized to provide a bounty for each survivor brought back alive - $10,000 per person, to be divided among the team. If no one has survived, you can still earn a bounty of $1000 per body."

"Should there be others, as Prisoner 47-7606 suggests, the Corporation will gladly pay the same rates. Living beings are much easier to question."

"If you are ready then, organic life forms shall go to into the Airlock Annex and don one of the environment suits. While the atmosphere on the planet is breathable, we would like to take all due precautions. When you're done, you can join the Synthetics in the drop pod. Remember to grab the handle over the hatch and to swing in legs first, there is no artificial gravity in the pod. Take any available seat."

The pressure door at the end of the room slid open, revealing the lockers labeled with each prisoner's numbers, containing a red suit and helmet - and straight ahead, the hatch for the drop pod.

[Azazeal849]

The toad wiped his hands on the front of his jumpsuit. *yoom* “I want to make it clear that I have no intention of murdering innocent people.”

Further down the table Sonia rolled her eyes, as if to suggest that only a maniac would have any intention of murdering innocent people.

"We have no idea where this will lead," Rand asserted itself, somehow the Expert system stood straighter.

...

"Theft of corporation property will be charged against you," Rand warned, looking at Caine. "However, I am authorized to provide a bounty for each survivor brought back alive - $10,000 per person, to be divided among the team. If no one has survived, you can still earn a bounty of $1000 per body."

"One thousand split?" Sonia commented, scratching a tattooed cheek with her short nails. "Bodies aren't paying as much as they used to." She shrugged and let out a breath. "Alright, we know the where, the who and the price. Let's do this."

...

The pressure door at the end of the room slid open, revealing the lockers labeled with each prisoner's numbers, containing a red suit and helmet.

"At least we'll stand out nicely to anyone watching." Sonia frowned as she zipped out of the heavy prison overalls and reluctantly pulled on the red, single piece enviro-suit instead.

The pressure suit was thin enough not to be restrictive of motion, but still felt awkward to someone who had spent their entire life rooted firmly on Earth. The weight was well distributed though, with the air tank built into the armoured chest section, feeding through a segmented metal tube into the neck seal. The visored helmet fitted into place with an intuitive snap and twist. The seal locking into place brought the suit to life, with a soft hiss from the air tank and bursts of light across Sonia's visor as various test icons blinked into life and then switched off one by one. Sonia felt a wet trickling as pressure gel squirted out of the chest unit into the extremities of the suit, pooling anywhere the fibreweave didn't stick directly to her skin and ready to turn solid in a jolt of electricity if the suit detected a vacuum outside itself.

Sonia lowered herself into the pod slightly gingerly, carrying her rectangular item box in one hand. She hadn't experienced zero gravity before either, and the sensation was uncomfortably similar to falling as she lowered herself out of the barge's comforting grav field. She put her free hand on the ceiling of the pod as she bobbed along, and managed to lower herself into one of the four-point seats. That was slightly better, but still not comfortable.

Like the suit and the gravity-free landing pod, nothing about this expedition felt quite right. The alien ruins were a black box, in spite of the damned robot's cold and clinical description. The people going down with her were not gang-brothers, who could be trusted if not liked. And while Sonia would have had to have been mad not to take this offer over her currently assigned fate, the fact that the Corporation were desperate enough to be calling up hardened criminals for the job?

The growing, uneasy tension was beginning to make Sonia's heartbeat tick hard against her throat, but she was damned if she was going to telegraph the fact to the others. Before she shoved her item box into its sized alcove beneath her seat, she cracked the lid and teased out a well-thumbed copy of Band of Brothers. She flicked through to her place, pressed down the pages that were floating gently in the zero-G, and began to read quietly, looking up every time someone else lowered themselves into the pod to see where they sat.

[Emet]

Nosau huffed appreciativelly. His suit was larger than the others, but not just a XXL surplus, like his prison suit. It had been made for him, and it felt good to wear, even if the filtered air inside the helmet would smell like a stale office room.

He grabbed the bag and clicked it open. On top of his clothes was a bottle of TUMS. Sweet, sweet TUMS. He popped the top and swallowed one. They helped prevent Zero G and sea sickness alike.

Then he saw the photo. It was her. Elise. His heart ached at the sight of her. Beautiful auburn hair. A few freckles, she always told him that she hated them. Nosau thought they were cute. And brown eyes that defied the idea of the color brown. He missed her.

He tucked the photo into his bag almost reverently and sat in the seat beside Sonia.

[Enigma]

Once everyone was properly suited and aboard, strapped in, the Corporate Expert system sealed the hatch and floated down to the central raised dais. Producing a program disc, he inserted it into a slot in the side of the dias, then took a seat.

The lights dimmed inside the capsule as a holographic display came to life, showing Gamma and a dotted line for the flight path. Over it started a one minute count-down.

At zero, the drop pod disconnected from the prison barge and lined itself up for re-entry before firing the main engines. Within five minutes everyone was hearing the muted roar as the pod tore into the atmosphere of the moon. After ten minutes of being tossed about in their seats, the roaring faded as the falling pod raced towards the surface. On the holographic display, they could see the island rise up over the horizon. Braking rockets fired, slowing the descent until the craft hovered a hundred yards from the prickly thicket surrounding the dark pyramid.

Hatches on the side of the pod deployed spindly-looking legs, then the pod settled onto the surface. The engines died.

"Well, that wasn't so bad?" Rand module said.

Through the viewport on the hatch, the drone supply pod could be seen, a wide cylinder with a a curved heat shield and four pivoting engines nodes on top.

[Ma1chbox]

"Theft of corporation property will be charged against you. However, I am authorized to provide a bounty for each survivor brought back alive - $10,000 per person, to be divided among the team. If no one has survived, you can still earn a bounty of $1000 per body."

Caine grimaced, showing a hint of frustration. If the team split the earnings, then that would stand in the way of his plans. Silently, he thought to himself about any scenarios in which the team would rescue everything and everyone in need of rescuing, but he would be the only surviving convict.

His sinister train of thought was cut off by the sound of a pressurized door sliding open to reveal a line of lockers, each one stamped with prisoner ID numbers. Sighing in frustration, Caine loosened himself up and walked through the doors, approaching the locker marked with four lucky 7's.

He gave the numbers two taps for good luck before swinging the door open and donning the intricately engineered red suit inside. It was a bit uncomfortable at first, but he quickly became accustomed to the feel and was fully functional in no time. If anything, it was more comfortable than the outdated environment suits his old ship used to have.

All the parts seemed to be in working order, including the little displays inside the helmet. Fortunately, none of them seemed to clash with any of the reticles or displays inside his own bionic eye. Just for good measure, he tested it out by targeting the lady and the large dog as they put on their suits.

Seeing as everything was good to go, he turned to look at the other two as they walked towards the drop pod. He picked up his small box with one hand and followed suit. Without turning to look back at the others left behind, he spoke up loud enough for them to hear. "Make it quick, people, we got a job to do. Sooner we go down, sooner we go free, now chop chop."

Once the other two convicts ahead of him boarded and took their seats, he made a short hop and boarded the vessel in one quick motion. Caine was already used to the feel of being in a zero-gravity environment, and this fact was made evident by his effortless maneuvering through the interior of the drop pod. In no time, he was all strapped up and cozy on his seat, his box kept firmly on his lap by his forearms.

All throughout the entire landing process, Caine sat as still as a statue, unfazed by the rocking and the muted roaring of the engines. In his mind, he was still playing out scenarios and plans based around the premise of earning the most money at the end of this damned suicide mission. Even as the holographic display came up, he kept his eyes locked firmly in front of him in a thousand-yard stare. Both his hands were mimicking the act of gripping two pistols, letting them go, then gripping them again. Every now and then, he would gulp. There was only one chance, and one chance only. His plan had to be perfect, or else it'll all be for nothing.

He only snapped back to reality once the drop pod had finished landing on the small island. As soon as the vessel touched down onto its elongated landing struts, he looked up outside the window to see a supply pod dropping down as well.

"Well, that wasn't so bad?" Rand module said.

"Nope. Not bad," Caine replied, squinting his eyes as he saw the supply pod land with machine-like precision. "Not bad. At. All." With a quick sigh, he unlatched his seatbelt with one hand and made his way to the drop pod's bay doors, opening it as soon as he had his hand on the handle. As he did so, a slit on the underside of the pod slid open and a ladder extended down to just a foot off of the ground. Box in hand, the cowboy jumped down, ignoring the ladder altogether.

Looking around, the island really was bare, save for the gigantic gloom n' doom superstructure in the middle of it. In every other direction was just water. Nothing but water as far as the eye can see. The ground was a bit soft, as expected from a shoreline. Just as the corporates had mentioned, the gravity definitely was weaker compared to that of the prison barge, but at least it was manageable.

Caine took a few careful steps at first, acclimating himself to the gravity. After a couple of steps, he began to perform some hops this time, again, for the same reason. He repeated this until he was practically leaping meters as he made his way towards the supply pod, which was now down on the ground.

As he approached, it opened to reveal a multitude of high-tech equipment, all strapped to two high-tech All-terrain carrier mules. Still, that wasn't what he approached for. Scrounging deeper into the armory, he finally got his hands on his beloved revolver, as well as his backup pistol and machete. For the first time in a long time, Caine smiled.

He sheathed the machete horizontally across his lower back and holstered the backup pistol on his left thigh, but he kept his revolver at hand, admiring the handiwork and details on the deadly beauty. He looked down the sights, aiming at nothing in particular, and once again smiled to find out that everything was still to his liking. With a swift flick of his arm, he holstered it on his right thigh and like many other things dear to him, gave it two light taps for good luck.

[Azazeal849]

He tucked the photo into his bag almost reverently and sat in the seat beside Sonia. The tattooed woman lowered her book and gave Nosau a sidelong, slightly suspicious glance; trying to size up his motive for doing so when every other seat in the pod was still free. Still, she reflected, the expensive science project was better than having to sit next to the motherfucking robot. And perhaps she should try and get the measure of one of the people she had just met, who just like Mouse and Lady Blue would be standing behind her with a gun once they got down to the surface...

"Someone important?" she asked the one-eyed uplift casually, indicating the bag he had just stowed away with a tilt of her head.

Nosau nodded, ears turning momentarily towards her. "She was. Just a reminder that you're not all bad."

Sonia raised an eyebrow sharply, as if to inquire what he meant by 'you'.

Nosau's eye flicked towards the entrance where the others would come in. "At least, not the ones convicted of whatever the fuck we're all in for. No idea how bad you all are yet."

He turned to get a better look at her. Shorter than him, no surprise. Tattooed. Tattoos were one of the more curious things that naked races sometimes did to themselves, and Nosau had never understood it. He had seen one of his own kind try something similar with dye, once, but once it grew out it looked ridiculous, and upkeep was expensive and time consuming.

"So what are you here for?"

Sonia exhaled down her nose. "You're new meat, aren't you?"

And yet, the first timer must have received a pretty harsh sentence to make a volunteer mission like this one appealing. She bit her cheek for a moment, considering, then shook her head.

"A word of advice for you, Fido. One of the unspoken rules is never ask someone why they're in here. You might not like what you hear, and it might get you shanked."

He resisted the urge to snap at her. He wasn't a dog. "I didn't ask what you're here for. I asked what you're here for. I couldn't give a shit how many humans you killed to get thrown in prison. Why are you signed up for this suicide mission? Nothing left to lose? Don't want that life sentence? Fucking crazy?"

"You've answered your own question." Sonia shrugged. "For me and everyone else here. Although," She folded her book closed on her lap and glanced up at the bionic-eyed hardass across from them. He was clenching and unclenching his fists as if around imaginary weapons, in a way that Sonia was certain she didn't like. "Although the ratio of the three might vary a bit."

* * * * * *

Walking and turning felt strange in the lower gravity, especially with the extra mass of the air tank on her back. Sonia stepped carefully up to peruse the supply pod while Caine rooted around for his firearms. The two robot carriers were stacked with medipacks, ration tubes, full canteens of water, chemical lights, climbing ropes, and even a Trailblazer paintball marker.

"Cute." the tattooed woman muttered as she unlooped one of the magnetic webbing belts from the robot's back and fitted a torch, water canteen and ration tube to it. She stared for a long moment at the disc shaped homing beacon and VLF repeater pack, and decided she preferred to keep their only means of long range rescue on her person instead of on the god-damn robot pack mule.

As Caine stepped back with a revolver and a wicked-looking machete in his hands, Sonia turned her attention to the small weapons rack at the bottom of the pod.

"What, no grenades?" she asked the CES which was standing annoyingly close behind her. The machine just blinked its shutter-like eyelids.

The pod held no explosives, and unfortunately no automatics either. It did however hold a Riordan-Metzer 9mm, and what looked like a police-issue shotgun. Sonia wondered if someone in the corporation had an ironic sense of humour as she picked them both up and familiarised herself with the shotgun's pump action. Such a weapon would have earned major street cred back in the old gang - yeah, and I'd never get hold of one without painting a massive Fed target on my back.

She fed a row of red, brass-capped shells into the weapon, checked the safety was on, and let it hang from her gloved hands.

Still, she thought as she took a moment to drink in the seemingly endless ocean view behind the group, like almost nothing that could be seen down in the grimy projects of New Detroit, A shotgun is a shotgun.

She looked up at the alien megastructure for a moment, while the rest of the team prepared. Definitely not like home at all.

[Potatrobot]

Meanwhile, still in orbit around Gamma, the android locker in the docking annex budged. Inside, Max Stone was under the closest approximation of sleep he would ever experience in his current body, and as such, he dreamt. The neural matrix inside his head was designed to emulate the neurological make-up of the human brain, allowing it to function in a similar manner. However, it lacked some of the subtleties that millennia of evolution had granted the human mind. Max's dream was nothing more than a cyclic memory, replaying his capture over and over again. The last thing he remembered before the electromagnetic pulse guns finally took him down was the wailing alarms and the red and blue lights flashing everywhere. After that, the dream simply started anew.

The android inside the locker was tightly restrained - his feet were fastened to the floor, his legs and chest were held against the wall he stood against, and his four arms were braced against the narrow walls of the locker. Despite the restraints, whenever the robot twitched in his sleep, the entire locker shifted with him. It was only after some time since the rest of the prisoners had departed the barge that Max finally woke up.

"G--yaaaaaah!" Max's deep-set eyes lit up a fierce shade of red as his armature powered-up, and the deadlock collar installed around his neck armed itself as it registered the activity. The inside of the locker was bathed in the eerie red glow of Max's optics, barely revealing the rest of his body. The seven-foot-tall, matte-black armature was secured to the back wall by huge, mechanical brackets holding his enormous chest and thick legs in place, while his load-bearing arms were fastened to the adjacent walls. His head, unlike the rest of his body, was human sized, and was shaped like a skull without a bottom jaw, with a row of squared ridges along the top of his forehead. His huge, clamp-like hands clenched as he fought to free his arms from their restraints, but it was no use. After a few moments of vain struggling, he relaxed and began to look around to analyse the situation.

It was dark and he was the only thing in the locker.

"Oi!" He yelled, his unruly, gravelly voice slightly distorted by the mechanism that produced it. He looked around impatiently, expecting some sort of response to dignify his exclamation. He received none.
"Are we fuckin' there ye'?!" He bellowed, trying once again to wrest one of his arms from its restraints. His servos groaned under the effort, but yielded no progress. However, he finally got a response.

A rectangular section of the opposite wall, which he now realised was a screen, lit up and immediately displayed the image of the alien structure that the prisoners were being sent to investigate, while the disembodied voice of the CES droned the mission briefing at him. Max barely retained most of the information spouted at him until payment was mentioned, at which point his attention was focused entirely on every word that the CES said.

"Ten-thousand..." Max whispered. "Divided among the team." He didn't know how many other prisoners were in this team, but he figured it wouldn't be long before it began to shed the excess weight. Plus, with his armoured frame, he was counting on lasting the entirety of the mission.

"Alrigh'. When do I leave?"

[Enigma]

"What, no grenades?" she asked the CES which was standing annoyingly close behind her. The machine just blinked its shutter-like eyelids.

"Prisoner 49-0849, I see you've found the VLF Repeater," CES Spock said, pointing to the cylinder with the flattened side. "That will relay communication between the orbiting ships and the VLF transmitter we will be taking with us. Please set it on rock and press the buttons on each end to anchor it."

"Please collect your equipment, everyone! We will be moving into the artifact shortly. We're just waiting for one late arrival."

"Ten-thousand..." Max whispered. "Divided among the team." He didn't know how many other prisoners were in this team, but he figured it wouldn't be long before it began to shed the excess weight. Plus, with his armoured frame, he was counting on lasting the entirety of the mission.

"Alrigh'. When do I leave?"

"Prepare for jettison," the screen told him. There was a clunk, then the pod began moving sideways on contragrav floats into the waiting airlock. A large supply pod was in the rack, its cavernous door open swung open to receive Max's shipping container, which spun around so he was facing the closing airlock door as the unit settled inside. Yellow revolving lights began flashing as the room began depressurizing as the supply pod door swung shut and sealed.

"Please do not be alarmed," the screen told him. "The container will keep you restrained during the transit to the planet's surface, and you will be released after landing. The Corporate Expert System has been notified of your pending arrival. Launching in three, two, one, release."

With a clunk, the rack clamps released the supply pod as micro-thrusters flared silently, moving the pod through the open floor hatch and into space.

The screen showed the gas giant and Gamma, looming large in front of him - as well as a Corporate frigate watching silently in the distance. There was a sudden thrust as the engines fired, and the pod began racing towards the moon's surface.

"We are beginning the transition into the atmosphere, you may experience some turbulence," the screen warned as flames were picked up on the edge of the display. The pod bucked and shuttered, but finally burst clear, showing blue sky and clouds.

"Beginning landing sequence," the screen announced, panning downward to show the larger drop pod the rest of the mission team had taken, the figures below and two supply pods.

Braking engines roared in the sky as the plummeting pod shuddered and slowed, coming to a gentle landing. The engines suddenly shut off, the pod pinging as things began to cool. With a clunk, the pod door swung open, then with several thunks, the restraints released and the shipping container door swung open, showing the rocky surface of the moon, the basalt structure lying just beyond, and the waiting Corporate Expert System.

"Prisoner 49-8750, I am glad you were able to join us," CES Rand said. "Please collect your supplies, we will be leaving momentarily."


A cool breeze was blowing towards the black basalt pyramid, carrying with it a faint sulphurish scent from the water surrounding the small rocky island, giving everyone a faint chill as they strode past the patches of lichen surrounding the structure. However, as they draw closer to the outer ring, they can feel the heat radiating from it, at first welcoming, then becoming more oppressive as they reach the edge, like a hot muggy day in a strangely silent city.


The strange black blocks tapered as they rose several stories before branching out into black spires radiating out from each corner and from the middle, a very unsubtle warning to keep out. Oddly enough, the black basalt was smooth to the touch, the volcanic glass showing no blemishes as one would find in nature. Nor was there any sign of green from the lichen.


Between each block was a narrow alley, not quite eight feet wide on all sides. Peering down the center, one could see past the blocks there was an opening before the pyramid, the center walkway going right up to the dark entrance. On one side of the walkway was the first sign of wear, a gouge in the basalt in the gap between the blocks and the pyramid. As the party draws closer, they can see deep scratches, as if something clawing desperately for purchase to keep from falling into the deep channel surrounding the pyramid. Leaning carefully, one could see a skeleton of some large creature huddled at the base of the arch for the walkway, the bones of the legs and one arm shattered. The claws on this creature were huge.


Inside the doorway, one could see a faint glow rising from the floor inside the pyramid. While not as hot as the ring of blocks, there was still an uncomfortable warmth radiating from the structure.

[Splat]

"Prisoner 49-0849, I see you've found the VLF Repeater," CES Spock said, pointing to the cylinder with the flattened side. "That will relay communication between the orbiting ships and the VLF transmitter we will be taking with us. Please set it on rock and press the buttons on each end to anchor it."

Sonia squinted at the CES for what seemed like a long time.

"The fuck away from me, robot." she growled at the uncomplaining machine, before turning back to the pod. Once the CES had left to inspect the second landing pod, however, she did as it had suggested and configured the VLF transmitter. As she did so, she wondered what was so dangerous about the final prisoner that they warranted transfer in their own solitary pod.

...

Sonia didn't like the labyrinth. It reminded her of the grid-iron streets in the centre of New Detroit, except there you were relatively safe from getting iced because of the number of cops and innocent bystanders around. Here, you had to check left and right every few metres, where a new alley through the stone sculptures meant that something could leap out at you from either side, or even from behind. The sound of her own breathing inside her suit helmet only served to accentuate the hot, oppressive silence.

Leaning carefully, she could see a skeleton of some large creature huddled at the base of the arch for the walkway, the bones of the legs and one arm shattered. The claws on the creature were huge. Presumably, this was the xenomorph that the overly-polite CES had mentioned.

"Looks like someone took a leap of faith and missed." Sonia commented dryly. She put one foot on the seemingly solid stone of the walkway, reassuring herself that it was, in fact, solid.

Inside the doorway, one could see a faint glow rising from the floor inside the pyramid. While not as hot as the ring of blocks, there was still an uncomfortable warmth radiating from the structure.

"Alright." Sonia said, chewing her lip thoughtfully. "I vote we send the robots in first. Who agrees?"

She looked round, and noticed that the sleek Orion-model android that had been checking out the frog man earlier was watching her - or at least, the purple LED slits on the front of its smooth visor were pointed in her direction.

"Doing jobs better and cheaper than humans is the whole point of you, right?"

The robot let out what could only be described as a soft chuckle as he registered the human woman's question. He stood idle, still picking at the last of the paint that had been plastered on his metal chest. As he thought of a suitable answer, he looked up, the purple light on his "face" flashing, indicating a laugh.

"Yes, I suppose that is the logical assumption. It was the purpose of my construction." Beneath his matter-of-fact demeanor and his appealing, empty voice, a hint of sarcasm was barely intimated. "I would be glad to head the scouting party. Assuming, of course, that you follow."

Sonia shrugged, the police shotgun hanging loose in her hands. "That's what we're all down here for, isn't it?"

Sonia fucking hated androids. As soon as they came onto the market, companies started laying people off. And then they decided to give them sentience, for no fathomable reason other than they could. So now they had the fucking ridiculous situation where these robots had a right to human jobs, even though the corporation could pay them less because even a sentient robot didn't know what the fuck to do with money. Meanwhile, fuck the rights of all the people scraping to get by in the slums.

You can't even send one back to be disassembled when it goes defective, because sentient rights mean it has to go to jail like the rest of us poor fuckers, and so I'm stuck here having to look at your cold chrome ass.

Still, better a cold chrome ass with her shotgun facing it than to have the android behind her, metal claws twitching away. Sonia swung her shotgun barrel up to rest on her shoulder and extended an arm towards the doorway in invitation, letting it slap back to her side as the robot passed her.

The halo of light illuminating Rigel's mechanical head flashed red for a nigh-undetectable millisecond- but long enough for the robot to revel in the short, sadistic lapse into his duplicitous side.

[Enigma]

The doorway yawned open, towering two stories high, cutting through the thick wall of the structure before opening into a tall angled space. Dust covered the floor except where it had been disturbed by survey team, who seemed to be interested in tall square pillars free-standing but forming a square around the center of the giant room. Curious symbols were etched neatly into the basalt of the pillars.

Two bags were still lying next to the base of the closest pillar, as well as a forgotten camera.

It was in the center of the room that there was a subtle difference - a large circular patch in the middle of the building where there was no dust!

There was a second ring surrounding the larger one, of small numbered plastic tags standing tent-like next to small round depressions in the dust.The CES unit paused to check the abandoned bags. "Rations, a med kit, a sample bag...?"

He held up a bag containing golden coins.

"Fascinating," CES Spock replied, examining them closely.