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was painfully loud in the quiet. He went in first, the others moving in behind him. He studied the structural layout. There were two buildings to the left, two to the right, two more at the back, all in a ring around the central structure. He made a quick hand signal, sending Mitchell and Bell to the right, while he led Carter off to the side. The technician fell in line behind him automatically.
    They moved across the outpost as the wind whispered around them. The first building they were approaching was a low rectangle: the base infirmary. Allan approached the door, which was closed and intact. He hoped it wasn't locked. Carter slid in behind him, weapon at ready. Allan reached for the pad, but hesitated, casting another glance around the area. He could see the others entering another building across the way. There was no immediate negative reaction, so he let his gaze continue sweeping the area. He could see nothing moving.
    Allan hit the button and went in gun first as the door slid open.
    The infirmary was lit only by the light from the windows and the open door. At first glance, there didn't appear to be anything wrong. Allan moved aside to allow Carter access. The tech moved in, covering the right half of the room while Allan took the left. It was a small room. There were just three examination tables, a medical cabinet, a small space for an office. Allan frowned. Closer inspection revealed, in fact, nothing out of place.
    Carter checked the only other door in the room that led to a closet and reported nothing.
    “Mitchell, how's it going over there?” Allan asked over the shortwave radio.
    “We're in storage. Nothing out of place here. Preparing to move to the cafeteria,” Corporal Mitchell replied tightly.
    “Got it. Nothing in medical. We're heading for the generator room.”
    Allan led Carter out of the medical building and moved quickly across to the next structure. It was small, little more than a single-room, single-story shed meant to house the generator. Immediately, he could see that the door had been damaged. As he came closer, he realized that it had been forced in by what appeared to be brute force. The door itself had ripped from its moorings and bent backwards. Allan stepped in and looked around.
    There were no bodies, no real signs of conflict in the small room that supported nothing but a simple generator, a table and a closed shelving unit and crate no doubt meant to hold spare parts and tools. The only real sign of damage, besides the ruined door, was the generator itself. It looked like someone with superhuman strength had simply punched it. A large dent had formed in the center of the machinery, tearing a hole into its inner workings.
    “Jesus,” Carter muttered. “This isn't coming back online anytime soon.”
    “Come on,” Allan replied softly.
    As they stepped back out into the sunlight, the shortwave crackled. “I've got blood. And two bodies,” Mitchell reported.
    “On the way,” Allan replied.
    They crossed the base, passing around behind the communications tower that dominated the center of the area. Allan glanced in the windows, two of which were cracked, one was broken out, but he could see nothing moving around inside. He and Carter rejoined the other half of the team in another small structure that served as the base's cafeteria. It wasn't much larger than a kitchen and dining room in an average apartment.
    Three tables with a collection of foldout chairs took up the left side of the room while the kitchen area, which was little more than a refrigerator, a stove, a dishwasher and a lot of cabinet space, took up the right. The tables and chairs had been scattered about. A pair of bodies lay on the floor in random positions, broken by death, in pools of blood. Mitchell was kneeling over one of them, checking the pulse. She glanced up when she noticed Allan and Carter and shook her head.
    “They're both dead,” she said.
    Bell was crouched by the first body, checking it