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interference. It didn’t work. With readings coming back at him from all directions, it was impossible to get a fix on where they came from. “Damn.”
    “No joy, Commander?” Pitch asked.
    “We’ll never narrow it down banging away like this,” Nathan replied, motioning for the others to join him. They huddled close together, while Nathan changed his scanner configuration.
    “Our only shot is to go passive, broadening our range with a combined sweep. Between the three of us, we should be able to cross-section the entire cavern. That should at least get us going in the right direction.”
    Pitch and Kellean nodded, switching their own scanners to passive mode. The group then turned around and formed a reverse circle, standing at each other’s backs so their sensors would overlap. Gradually, the excited pings melted away into an oppressive stillness. Minutes passed before another reading started to take shape—an amorphous form, crawling across the walls like some viscous liquid.
    “Any idea what that is?” Pitch whispered.
    Kellean stepped backward, pressing her back into the circle. “It looks alive .”
    “I don’t know about that,” Nathan said, watching his scanner as the surges peeled off into one of the tunnels. “But I do believe we found our point of origin.”
    He pointed toward a small ledge, about a three-meter rise over their heads. Past that was another opening, just barely visible from where they stood.
    “Come on,” Nathan said.
    Pitch went up first, getting a boost from Nathan. Kellean followed, scrambling up the rock face by herself, with a practiced ease that made her climb look effortless. She then reached down to lend Nathan a hand, while he looked back up at her in surprise.
    “I’m a Colorado girl,” she said with a shrug, and pulled him up.
    The opening was wide enough for the two of them to walk side by side, while Pitch brought up the rear and kept an eye on their backs. Given the history of this place, Nathan couldn’t blame him for being paranoid. The cave reeked of malevolence, a dry charge sparking to life the moment they entered.
    “Kellean,” he said, forcing himself to think of something else, “was there any record of the colonists ever making it up this far?”
    “No, sir,” she replied. “None of the survivors ever mentioned it, but it’s unlikely the civilians would have known anything about military expeditions. SEF kept things pretty tight—no logs, no documentation—so nobody knows entirely what happened.”
    “Makes sense,” Pitch said from behind. “Goddamned butchers didn’t want anybody to find out what they did to all those people.”
    “And they would’ve gotten away with it,” Kellean reminded him, “if the rescue ships hadn’t arrived ahead of schedule. They must’ve dug this place out as a fallback position. Makes you wonder if they ever had a chance to use it.”
    Nathan didn’t need to wonder. He knew the stories—the crimes exposed in lurid detail at the trials of those few soldiers who had made it off Mars in one piece. The Collective had made a show of them for all the world to see. Testimony had gone on for weeks, colonists recounting how the SEF had declared martial law after the Mons outbreak—and the atrocities they committed to slow the spread of the disease. Anybody who fought that hard to survive would have used every contingency. Or they would have died trying.
    Maybe it was both.
    Nathan instantly froze, eyes darting behind the plastic faceplate of his helmet, trying to make sense out of randomized darkness. Somewhere out there, patterns assembled in his peripheral vision—solid, familiar shapes that dissolved when he looked at them directly.
    The others reacted to his sudden halt, crouching into ready positions. Nathan held one hand up, a gesture for them to stand by. He then switched his scanner back to active mode, sending out a single ping that bounded down the remaining length of the tunnel. Shielding distorted the