Season 2 Episode 02: Entrance

A salvage operation begins.

"What do you think, Chattanooga?" Carrol Berlin Holbrook said. "What am I missing here."

The guanaco just looked at her and bleated.

"Of course," Carol continued. "You wouldn't know. The Goultarans who fiddled with your genetics should have uplifted you enough to understand some of this."

She inspected the power source she'd connected to the door controls. The unit appeared to be functioning. She wriggled the connector and still saw no response. Then she got out a flashlight and went all around the device again, searching for anything she'd missed. She'd already scanned it thoroughly with her sign reader to translate the controls, so she thought she understood how to open the door if she could ever get it to show any signs of life.

"I hope I don't have to tear into it. I'd probably end up crossing a connection in my bumbling and totally destroy it," she said. "Then we'd have to go back to the beach house and fetch something inconveniently large and destructive to open this door with. That'd make us no better than the Space Force Guardians. They use explosives on doors like this one and then charge inside and shoot anything that moves."

The guanaco stepped forward as if trying to help, perceptive enough to know that what Carol was doing was important but not knowing what to do about it.

Carol stopped for a moment to stroke the side of the creature's head.

"You probably think I'm looking for something to eat."

She found a tiny red button on her third pass over the control unit with her flashlight on the back of it near the ground. Usually, the Goultarans put an LED behind such things that would light up to indicate when the magnetic breaker had tripped. Perhaps the light had failed, which wouldn't be a huge surprise considering that it had sat out in the weather unmaintained by anyone for roughly a hundred years.

She reached down and pushed the button, which recessed into its housing with a satisfying click.

"Awesome!" She squeed in triumph.

The unit said something to her in Goultaran.

"Voice commands not functioning," her Goultaran translator said into her ear.

"No problem," she said.

"Voice commands not functioning," the unit replied again.

Carol shook her head and sighed. She returned to the front of the door controls and pressed the button labeled "Open" in Goultaran. Ancient servos long dead came to life, and the door creaked and popped, and a small cloud of dust lifted around it as it slowly slid open. She quickly put away her various tools, hooked her toolbag back into its place on the saddle, and mounted.

She drew her pistol, turned on its flashlight, and shined it into the small room behind the door. She knew that Chattanooga, much larger than his ancestors back on Earth, could carry his own in a fight against any of the natural predators in the area that might have wandered into the alien facility from somewhere. He also had night vision, extraordinary hearing, and an excellent sense of smell that made him almost impossible to sneak up on in the dark. However, Carol needed to be ready to quickly deal with any unnatural threats she expected to find inside. She'd come prepared to reason with any robotic sentries she encountered, but she might have to act quickly and forcefully if they started shooting first. She hoped it wouldn't come to that, though, since she was a much better mechanic than a marksman, and the robotic sentries would be more useful to her without bullet holes.

Then she remembered her promise to Steve. Reaching into one of Chattanooga's saddlebags, she removed an emergency beacon, set the timer for four hours, and dropped it on the ground in front of the entrance.

Though the size of a horse, Chattanooga still fit nicely through the tall doorway, and Carol urged him forward into the darkness. Once inside the dusty, musty-smelling room, she waited for the door to close behind them while she and Chattanooga's eyes adjusted. She got out her sign reader again and scanned the small room's walls.

When the door clicked closed behind her, a chill ran up her spine and squeezed at her heart, but she brushed it aside. Chattanooga stomped his feet nervously.

"Do you see another door in here anywhere, buddy?" Carol said, patting the creature's neck.

She found a button on the wall near where she'd entered. The sign reader translated the Goultaran label on the button as Down.

"Oh! It's an elevator," she said.

She pressed the button.