Free The Lost Voyager: A Space Opera Novel by A. C. Hadfield Page A

the sharp edges of her teeth. Lassea couldn’t see what it was that Sanchez liked so much about her to form this so-called bond. Perhaps she was great in… no, Lassea refused to let her thoughts go there. She pulled herself closer to the console in the near-zero-g atmosphere of the bridge and watched as Tulula ran a complicated set of frequency filters and boosters, all the while hoping they would actually find something.  
    If they’d done this for nothing, Mach would likely fire them from the crew, and without her twin brother around anymore, she’d have nowhere else to go. Her whole life was here with Mach and the others.  
    “Be quick,” Lassea said. “And accurate. We can’t screw this up.”

Chapter Eight

    Mach decided this would be a good time to speak with Sanchez alone. He ordered Adira to stay behind with Babcock and Squid Two to get more information from the facility’s system and to continue to scan the planet.  
    The two men stood in stoic silence as the elevator car slowly descended the edge of the chalky quarry wall. The floodlights shone down into the pit, illuminating the bones.  
    “They’re so white,” Sanchez said, leaning against the transparent glass window. “Like they’ve been bleached—no pun intended,” he added with a smirk.  
    “Your spirits have risen a bit,” Mach retorted, scrutinizing his friend’s face.  
    “Yeah, well, nothing like descending into a pit of human bones to bring some cheer to proceedings. All this relative safety was getting boring fast.” Sanchez unconsciously lifted his left hand up to his neck but then dropped it when he remembered he was wearing the cold-temperature suit and his necklace was tucked beneath.  
    “You’re worried,” Mach said. “I know it’s not about the mission. Hell, we’ve been through far more dangerous situations than this. Then there’s the awkwardness between you and Tulula—you two are no longer bickering like five-year-olds. If you’ve got something on your mind, you do know you can tell me—in confidence.”
    The motors whined as the elevator slowed. The pile of bones and ceramic-looking fragments loomed up in front of them. Mach couldn’t even begin to guess how many souls were killed to create this—or even who or what was responsible.  
    “Listen, Mach, it’s not easy… or simple. I’ve never had to… wait, what’s that.” Sanchez stepped back from the car’s window and drew his rifle over his shoulder.  
    Before Mach could continue his interrogation about Sanchez’s issue, movement from outside caught his attention, and like Sanchez, he brought his weapon around to the front, raising it up to his chest. A few singular bones on the edge of the five-meter-high pile rolled as though something beneath them was writhing.  
    The elevator stopped. The door opened with a quiet hiss.  
    Frigid air flowed about them. Mach’s HUD charted the sudden drop in temperature, but there was a source of heat down here, keeping the quarry a few degrees higher than the normal atmosphere above the pit.  
    “What are you thinking?” Mach said as the two men stepped out cautiously, testing the rocky surface beneath their feet.  
    “I’m thinking I wish I had a small tactical nuke.”
    “Likewise,” Mach added. He aimed his Stinger at the moving bones and stepped forward, one foot over the other with soft, deliberate steps. Sanchez remained by his right, just a meter away. The two men stalked forward, the blue cast from their visors washing across the bleached-white remains.  
    Mach instructed his visor to dull some of the bright white light from the floodlights so he could better make out the details before him. The quarry was truly massive down here at the bottom. He guessed they must be at least a hundred and fifty meters below the facility’s surface. The pit itself easily stretched a couple of hundred meters in diameter.  
    “It can’t all be bone,” Sanchez said as they continued to stalk