Operation: Pacifica, Road to Nowhere
by Admiral J. FoxGlov, aka Hanover the Feral (NYAR!)

 "Sir! A moment, please..."

 J tilted his head to one side out the open door of the TARAV, not
  actually looking at Richter as he came running up, but in acknowledgement.
  "Lieutenant. What can I do for you?"

 Richter swallowed, fingering an electronic pad nervously. J's
  unusually flat tone wasn't that inviting. "I... started the download of
  sensor logs from the _Hatchet_'s trip over Pacifica, sir." He looked past
  the driver's seat over at Chris Andrews, who was still hovered over the
  passenger side console. He shuddered, still not used to working in a group
  diverse in species enough to include a 7-foot gold dracolizard.

 J raised his head and stared straight forward, cutting Richter off.
  "Let me see... you're from the Alliance, and I sent you as the TRES liason
  to get them to scan the island from sub-orbit..."

 Richter blinked at J's mutterings, mindfully carrying on the
  thought. "...and I was able to convince them to allow the Hatchet to fly
  over at 500 meters... we were able to scan most of the island before we
  experienced some unexplained mechanical failure, then we had to pull out and
  land near TRES HQ..."

 "Hmm..." J turned to face Richter for the first time, sizing him
  up.  After a brief pause, he turned to the passenger seat, where Andrews was
  just finishing the prelims. He nodded, and J turned back to face Richter,
  contemplating for a brief moment...

 "Get in." J took Richter by the wrist and yanked him towards the
  back seat. Richter began in protest, broken off by his own "Oof!" as J
  slapped him on the back and closed the door behind him. Within a few more
  seconds, the TARAV was off, headed west.

 "What's the..." Richter glanced nervously around the cabin, unused
  to the experience of ground travel.

 "You've heard most of what was in this morning's briefing, so
  congrats, you're now part of the mission party." J grinned as he glanced
  back long enough to see Richter's half-sputtering, half-amused face. "Now,
  you were saying, about the Hatchet's readings..."

 Richter started, then broke off after a glance through the side
  window.  The scenery didn't seem to be passing by very quickly, considering
  how fast he was told the TARAV could travel.

 "Er... Admiral?"

 J leaned his head slightly to the side, keeping his eyes on the
  road.  "Go ahead, I'm listening."

 Richter cleared his throat. "I just wondered... you don't seem to
  be going very fast."

 J shrugged and checked the odometer. "Right about 55, what's your
  point?"

 "Well, I..."

 Richter was cut off by a dull roar filtered through the thick TARAV
  walls.  Samhain drove by in his own TARAV, his face partially visible as he
  shot past. His mouth was open as if shouting something, as if it could be
  heard through the armor plating.

 He looked back to J in time to see a pasted-on grin flash past his
  face.  He sat back in his seat, confused.

 J's grin widened. "You were wondering why I'm only going about one
  quarter the speed to start with."

 Richter blinked. "Uh... yes, that came to mind."

 J nodded, and acknowledged Andrews, also with a knowledgable grin
  on his face. "Quite simple, really... Samhain likes to think he's the king
  of the road, and in the past has taken every opportunity to make fun of my
  driving.  So I just start out at a ridiculously low speed. I don't even meet
  the highway speed limit."

 Richter made a few more quizzical expressions. "So... you were just
  pretending, in other words."

 "In other words, yes."

 "I see..." Richter seemed unconvinced. "We're not going to be going
  this speed the whole trip, are we?"

 J chuckled. "No." He flipped a few more switches, shifted gears,
  and slammed his foot down on the accelerator, at a pace leisurely enough for
  Richter to survey the situation and buckle himself in.

 All three slowly came out of inertial displacement, and soon became
  used to the off-road experience at 90 miles per hour. Even with good
  suspension, it's a bumpy ride.

 "Continue, Lieutenant."

 Richter sat up and tried not to focus on the road outside, suddenly
  a bit queasy. "Anyway. I'm still getting... er, wait." He glanced at the pad
  again.  "Scratch that, the Hatchet finished its download and sensor analysis
  of the island. Relaying now."

 He punched a few more keys on the pad while the other passengers
  waited.  "Right... the island is one click north of Earth's equator, typical
  climate for the tropics... volcanic in origin, heavy foilage... several..."

 At this Andrews looked askance at the driver's seat, puzzled. "Wha?
  Volcanic?"

 Richter continued reading. "...several, maybe 100, lifeforms
  discovered, all readily accounted for. One consistent with prior readings of
  Captain Hamster's... others are all humanoid, generally consistent with
  readings of spounge minions. High-level brain function virtually
  nonexistent, almost entirely beta waves. No large artificial structures
  present."

 J turned to meet Andrews's gaze, then gave a quick glance at the
  back seat. "You realize those are almost entirely inconsistent with HQ
  sensor readings. You're sure about everything you just read?"

 "Eh...?" Richter glanced up, confused. "What do you mean?"

 "What he means," Andrews cut in, "is that HQ readings showed
  Pacifica was non-terrafirm, there were a lot more humanoid lifeforms
  present, some unreadable to sensors, some we couldn't identify as humanoid
  at all. What's more," by now Andrews was tapping a taloned finger against
  the armrest, "a good number of those humanoids were Lyran sorcerors."

 Richter furrowed his brow, glancing back and forth between the pad
  and the two in the front seats. "I... don't know what to tell you... we were
  over the island for nearly an hour before we had to leave..." He gave the e-
  pad one more look-over before tossing it aside. "... to my knowledge the
  sensors have never been that far off. At least not the ones on the
  Hatchet..."

 J cut off Andrews just before his mouth opened. "We'll keep an open
  mind about this. I've never been too keen on total sensor reliance. We'll
  find out what's really there eventually... keep in mind none of them may be
  accurate."

 Both Richter and Chris shrugged and went back to watching the road.

...

 He gaped at the screen. This couldn't be right...

 "Ensign. Report." The _Hatchet_'s first officer was a bit agitated
  at the delay. Alliance officers were supposed to be more punctual in their
  replies to requests made by superiors.

 "Ah... yes, sir. The maintenance report."

 Lieutenant Sutek leveled his gaze without changing expression. It
  was plain the Ensign was troubled by what the screen readout showed, and he
  didn't want to seem overbearing. "Yes, regarding our mission to chart the
  island... what came up on the diagnostic?"

 The Ensign swallowed and faced the screen. "The report is
  inconclusive, sir... inasmuch no explanation seems adequate for why our
  engines failed."

 Sutek rose from his chair and walked slowly over to the Ensign's
  post.  "But..."

 The Ensign pointed at the graph on the screen. "There is an
  unexplained drop in our power supply at this interval... for that time it's
  as if the juice in the engine reactors just cut out for about 10 minutes"

 "Mmm... but they were able to recharge after that. Is there any
  indication where it all went?"

 He frowned. "Still checking for any unexplained power spikes in the
  vicinity of where we were during that time... to be honest, sir, nothing I
  know of could have siphoned our engines that quickly without a trace."

 Sutek paused, nodded and headed back to his seat. "Richter need
  only be informed when we have a working theory."

 "Aye sir."

...

 J sighed and put down the transceiver. "DarkSide... he's leaving
  the caravan, he said. Too slow for him."

 Andrews looked sidelong at J. "Caravan? Is that what this is?"

 J smirked and said nothing, acknowledgement enough.

 Richter shifted in his seat, the ride starting to grate on his
  mind.  Years of space travel had not prepared him for the monotony of land
  maneuvers, his thoughts bouncing around much like his body bounced around on
  his seat.

 J sensed the awkwardness and glanced backwards. "Comfy back there
  Loo-tenant?"

 Richter gave a slight scowl and forced a question that he'd been
  wondering about. "Admiral... I must ask you something. According to reports
  of Operation: Phoenix, you were the last person to have seen Captain Hamster
  alive, is that correct?"

 "And you were wondering what my stake in the matter is, right?
  Well... I tried not to make this a personal matter, but it really is.
  Contrary to what many officers assume about me is that I'm some military
  master. That's about as far from the truth as it could be.

 J's hands tightened around the steering wheel. "The last time I saw
  Hamster flat on his back in the mud... couldn't tell if he was alive or
  dead.  I don't want to get into what that provoked in me... but needless to
  say, I take the loss of any Corps officers very seriously."

 The silence hung for a moment, then J broke Richter off in mid-
  addendum.  "Yes, he was different... he was always someone I wanted to get
  to know better, like all new officers... but it was always a challenge.
  After he turned up MIA, I thought my chance was lost."

 J had a real talent for squashing the conversation with his topics
  of interest. He sighed and unhooked his claws from the steering wheel
  covering.

To be continued.