Shadows from the Badlands

"Bunker Hill, this is shuttle zero eight, requesting permission to depart."

"Shuttle zero eight, stand by."

Michael sighed in frustration. He had be due to undock and return to the planet some 15 minutes ago, and yet, with no explanation, he had been told every time he asked, to stand by. No explanation given, just, stand by.

"Bunker Hill, what's the hold up!"

"Shuttle zero eight, we are having problems with life support, nothing to worry about, now stand by," was the terse reply. He grinned, glad that he had finally gotten past the formality of the military. Maybe it was time to push a bit more.

"Why does that effect me exactly? I'm not on board?"

A different voice came on the radio, Michael thought it was the captain, but the low audio quality made it difficult to tell for certain, "Shuttle zero eight, cleared for departure." The annoyance in the voice made his grin even bigger. He loved irritating people that made his job difficult.

When he heard the clamps on the shuttle disengage, he applied the thrusters, gently moving the ship out of the shuttle bay, and far closer then military regulations would normally allow, cut the small crafts main engine on, quickly pulling away and back towards the waiting planet. The communications system was just beginning to fade out when he heard the ships radio operator recover and start sending a scathing rebuke to him, but it died into static before more then a couple words could be heard.

He frowned when he checked the altitude. He was almost a mile lower then yesterday before the communications had cut out. He made a note to check the cutoff more frequently, it was possible that whatever was causing the communication blackout was losing power.

He landed the ship quickly and efficiently, near the same location as last time. He rechecked the external sensors, yesterday they had reported no bio hazard threat, and today was much the same. He felt the trill of paranoia run down his spine again at the thought of the cryptic warning written on the wall of the home yesterday. He felt the need today for something more substantial then jeans and a work shirt.

The armor he seldom wore was one of the basic technicians sets worn by non combat military personal, allowing for quick movement, and hindering flexibility to the minimum. It had done well enough the few times he wore it on Pandora, and fending off viscous native critters, and he felt just a little more protected in it.

Outside the shuttle little had changed. He noticed the robot he had shot yesterday, still laying on the ground. There were some small scorch marks where it's arcing circuits had likely caught some of the short, dry grass on fire, but other then that he could see no immediate changes to the landing field. The slight indentations made in the grass by his jaunt to the town and back were barely visible, and didn't seem to be joined by any others. Now that he was aware of it, he still could hear very few signs of life, no birds and only a faint whisper of what might be insects.

He double checked that the sensors in the armor he wore had interfaced successfully with his HUD, and set of once again to the town. The objectives were still limited. He did not see anything that looked like it was worthy to take as a sample, and he figured he would spend a couple hours today checking more buildings, and checking them more thoroughly then a glance inside the door.

When he looked inside the house he had checked yesterday, he half expected to see the writing on the wall had changed. "Too much corny sci-fi," he muttered, amused at how his mind was wandering and filling him with such odd fears. He took a closer look around the room, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing was out of place from yesterday, and, considering that it had been abandoned for months, nothing looked like violence had occurred. There was a slight mildew smell, his mind associated it with the smell of old abandoned house.

He wandered further into the house, carefully checking the different rooms. The kitchen looked like it had been almost completely unused, cans still packed neatly in the cupboard, boxes of cereal lined up neatly. There weren't even dirty dishes in the sink. The fridge was sitting in the corner, he decided that three months without power may have grown an interesting science experiment inside, but he decided not to check.

The bedrooms turned out similar. Two were easily recognizable as children's rooms, younger, with their toys still scattered carelessly. On the desk in one of the rooms he spotted a series of colored markers laying out. He thought back to the height of the message in the front room, he hadn't realized it but the message had been a little low to have been written by an adult.

The adult room made him smile slightly. It figured that it would be in a bigger mess then the children's room. There were several piles of clothes which looked like they had possibly been dirty, but was too hard to tell. A handful of food wrappers lay on the floor near the bed, along with a discarded condom, which fairly disturbed him.

He made his way to the computer in the room and began work quickly dismantling it, hoping to extract the hard drive for analysis later. The positioning of the camera mounted on the top amused him and made him hope for some interesting pictures, until he realized that it would be fairly creepy, considering that these people were probably dead.

He had just pocketed the hard drive when he noticed something that stumped him. Sitting on the desk was a bowl of cereal. He could tell that it had molded over at some point in the past, which was normal, but something about it seemed wrong. Michael sat for several minutes, just staring at the discarded food before it hit him. The cereal in the cupboards had not been disturbed. Nothing had tried to tear the boxes open, and it would be unlikely in the extreme that no insect or rodent wouldn't try.

He made his way quickly back to the kitchen and tore the boxes open. While they had molded, he could see no evidence of any rodent or insect. This was the first organic sample that was worth taking, and he quickly scooped up a pile and deposited it into the resealable case he was carrying with him.

Michael searched three more houses in the next two hours. In each the story was the same. He found no more writing on the walls, yet there were no signs of insect or rats invading the pantries of the houses. He pulled the hard drives of all the computers he found, and pocketed the entirety of any PDA he came across.

He made his way back to the shuttle fully pressing the time limit, wanting to finish searching the last house. The thought of why none of the insects he could hear in the distance had been eating at the various pieces of food was a curious one, that the bio techs back on the Bunker Hill would probably love to try and figure out. Everyone on board would probably have something to do, with the need to examine file by file the 4 disks and 2 portable computers he had pocketed. He made a mental note for the next time he was down there to try and find the storage for any security recordings.

As he past the altitude that communication was blocked at for the trip down, he absently hit the transmit button, not realizing that the data network hadn't been established. "Shuttle zero eight to Bunker Hill, I have some samples for your people to look at, and I'll be docking momentarily," there was no response. "Bunker Hill, do you read me?"

A quick check of the communication gear shows that he was transmitting, and receiving the automated transponder from the larger ship, so communications should be working. "Bunker Hill, respond please." Still there was no response. He looked out the forward view port, trying to get a glimpse of the ship. There was, even at this distance, a distinct oddity in it's orbit, the sip appeared to be drifting, no longer aligned with the planet in the military precision he was used to. He could see the lights shining out from the hand full of view ports.

He pulled the shuttle up close to it's mother ship, hoping to see any evidence that the ship had simply suffered an equipment failure.

With a growing sense of dread, he slowly brought the ship into the still open docking bay. The ship looked abandoned, there was no movement behind any of the glowing windows.