by J. N. Chaney
“About that, sir,” Lars said.
“About the starships?”
“Yes, I have updated information on Victor’s vessel.”
“And?”
“He will not be able to make atmospheric entry.”
“Why the hells not?”
“His ship simply isn’t built for it, sir.”
“So, what you’re saying it we’re going to need to find individual transport off the planet in order to get the people to… to…”
“Deloris, sir.”
“Damn Deloris!” I ground my teeth together, stepped away from the RTV, and pounded down the ramp. “And where’s Monty?” I asked no one in particular.
Suddenly, a soft white plume of dust emerged from the barrack’s door.
“What was that?” I asked.
“I believe that was Monty’s detonation,” Lars replied. A beat later, he added, “Yes, I’m detecting a sizable crater left on the far side of the main quarry.”
“And Monty?” I asked Rachel.
She coughed, and I could see her waving dust from her face from my position. I repeated my question before she finally replied, “Still no sign of him.”
“Godsdammit!”
“Sir, would you like me to send the first pod?” Lars asked.
“Do it,” I replied grimly.
“Please stand back, sir.”
I took several more steps away, telling the next wave of miners to stay clear. We all watched as the vehicle began to power up, diverting all power to the undercarriage repulsor panels. The pod began to shimmy and shake and dust and rock blew out from beneath the car.
“She’s still clamped to the rail, Lars!” I shouted over the whine of the repulsors.
“That is intentional, sir. Part of achieving the necessary velocity with so many people on board is the need to overcome significant inertia.”
“Contact!” Rachel yelled from behind me. I heard gunshots ring out above the repulsor panels.
“Send the pod, Lars!” I ordered.
“Sending, sir.”
The clamps on the rail released then the RTV propelled itself off the ground and shot up the chute. The ground shook again, but somehow it didn’t seem like it was coming from the ascending pod.
“Gods, I hope this works,” I muttered to myself, holding my arm up against the propulsion wash. I watched until the blue glow of the repulsor panels vanished in the darkness above. Then I turned to see the new overseers emerging from the mine’s depths, weapons firing blah-tat-tat bursts of fire.
“Let me know when they arrive safely, Lars,” I instructed.
“Affirmative, sir.”
Now I just hoped Monty was okay.
Lars brought the next RTV into position and opened the doors. I looked at the new round of miners, still comprised of the elderly and the lame, and motioned them up the ramp. They ducked at the incoming weapons fire as looks of panic and fear covered their faces.
“It’s going to be okay!” I said, keeping my own head down. Lowering my voice, I asked, “It is going to be okay, right Lars?”
“Indeed, sir. The first RTV has reached the surface and I am directing it to land safely to one side, though touchdown will be a little rough.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Good job, pal.” Rachel echoed my sentiment to the AI.
“Thank you both. It continues to be a team effort.”
“Speaking of team,” I said to Rachel as I helped load the next pod, “any sign of Monty?”
“Still not yet, sir.”
I cursed several more times as I assigned another armed miner to this pod. The woman had picked up one of the thug’s weapons and slung it over her shoulder.
“You know how to use that?” I asked.
She replied by racking a round, flicking the safety off, and bringing the rifle into low ready position, butt against her shoulder. “Three years in the Union, light infantry, Mr. Flint,” she added.
Well, then, that was an interesting twist. But this was not the time for hearing her backstory, as much as it intrigued me. “Take care of them topside. Join the others, and wait for us to join you.”
“Copy that, sir.” She stepped into the RTV and the doors closed. Again, I backed down the ramp, and again, Lars fired up the repulsors panels. The ground trembled beneath me. But it was more than just the repulsors’ doing. I reached out a hand to balance myself.
“Anyone else feel that?” I asked, not sure who I expected to reply.
Rachel did. “Yup. I don’t like it, Flint.”
“Me neither.”
I looked up and watched the RTV sail away from the track, disappearing up the chute. So far, this was going according to plan. But now that we had proof of concept, I no longer felt this was the best use of my skills. I ordered the next most capable looking miner to take my place, instructing him to help groups of thirty to thirty-five board the RTVs and wait for Lars to launch them.
“Who’s Lars, Mr. Flint?” the man asked. It was a fair question, and I’d been too quick in explaining to recognize my failure to explain.
“He’s operating the cars remotely. Just… never mind. He’ll see when you step clear of each vehicle and initiate the launch sequence.”
“Understood.”
I raced back toward the barracks and saw Rachel and several other armed miners defend their position against a growing number of overseers. The thug’s gun barrels flashed in the darkness, burping out flames and bullets. One stray bullet clipped my bicep, carving a lighting-hot mark across the surface of my skin. I cursed and dove for cover behind a crate.
“It’s getting hot down here,” I said, scooting up beside Rachel.
“When did you figure that out?” She was picking her targets one at a time, firing a single round for every time she peered down the sights. She was methodical but never predictable, alternating positions and changing her timing.
“Anyway…” I said, leaning back to look in on the barracks. The large majority of the miners still waited inside—since we’d already sent three RTVs, I guessed about four hundred remained. “This seems to have slowed our departure significantly.”
“You don’t say,” Rachel replied, sending two more shots downrange.
“Any bright ideas?”
“I have one, sir,” Lars said.
“And that is?”
“I suggest you and the others get out of the main corridor immediately.”
“I don’t think a retreat is the best tactical move—”
“Something is coming, sir!”
In the short time that I’d known Lars, I’d never once heard him raise his voice. This didn’t bode well.
“Everyone back inside!” I ordered, then yelled up the tunnel to the RTV port. “And get those passengers loaded!”
Our defenders sprayed the hallway with a burst of full-auto gunfire, covering one another as I pushed them back toward the main gate. But the withering suppressive fire did little to keep the growing numbers of thugs at bay.
One miner spun sideways and a round caught him in the shoulder. He struck the ground, crying out in pain. I knelt and grabbed him under the shoulder, hauling him to his feet as I charged for the door. A second miner took a bullet to the cheek, blowing off the side of his head. I let his body lay and continued hauling the injured miner into the protective shadow of the gate.
The tremor in the ground was growing stronger. The strange noise that we’d heard earlier also returned but much louder. I dropped the miner and covered my ears. “What the hells?”
“There is an extremely large organic lifeform inbound, sir,” Lars said. “Correction… make that several organic lifeforms.”
I ordered everyone away from the door, shouting over the din of the cavern-wide groan. Bullets continued to ricochet off the gate’s frame, showering me in sparks. Within seconds, however, even walking became difficult, and I found myself sprawled out on my stomach. I heard a female voice scream in my ear. It was Rachel. “Look out!” was all I c
ould make out.
I rolled over as the ground shook beneath me. Then I looked up to see two men in the tunnel, bracing themselves against the shakes, weapons coming to bear on me. There was no way I could crawl away fast enough, no way I could avoid their fire.
I was about to cover my head when something caught the two thugs’ attention. They turned to the side and aimed at something back the way they’d come. Judging by their attack angle, the thing was tall. They started screaming, their faces contorted in a ghoulish sneer. Muzzle flashes lit their mad eyes and yellowed teeth. But I could barely make out the sound of their weapons fire over whatever stalked them. Then something massive passed over the mouth of the door and the men vanished from sight—there one second, gone the next.
I watched in shock as rough leathery skin passed over the opening, moving so quickly I hardly had time to think about what I was seeing. On and on it moved, gliding by the barracks as the ground reached its zenith—bucking and trembling so much that I found myself bouncing along it. I covered my head to keep it from smacking the stone, opting for my hands and arms to take the brunt of the blows. Likewise, my hips and knees knocked against the hard surface, sending bolts of pain through my body. I stayed in the fetal position, tumbling across the ground, for what felt like an eternity—unable to hear anything beyond the deafening groan of the beast in the tunnel.
Slowly, the violent shaking began to abate, and my body settled on the ground. I was covered in dirt and dust, with plenty of bloody cuts along my knuckles, knees, elbows, and hips. I coughed, daring to sit upright, and heard others in the enclave stirring as well.
“Rachel?” I asked over comms.
“I’m here,” she said. “What was that?”
I deferred the question to the AI. “Lars?”
“I have no known record of anything of this nature,” Lars replied. “So I can only provide a rough comparison.”
“To?” I asked.
“That of a worm, sir.”
“As in a common garden worm found in soil?”
“Affirmative. Though this creature is exponentially larger in mass and employs an anterior oral cavity that most closely resembles an industrial multi-headed drill, for lack of a better example.”
“Giant worms?” Rachel said, walking toward me. “The monsters of the deep are giant, man-eating worms?”
“That seems to be an accurate assertion, Miss Fontaine, though I predict the man-eating attribute is merely a byproduct of those combatant’s unfortunate positions at the time of appearance and not reflective of the creature’s normal dietary needs.”
I blinked at the now-empty passage before us, moving toward it slowly. Then again, I realized if that was another giant worm on its way, we’d be well-notified by the shaking in the ground. I raised my MX090 and poked my head into the tunnel. But as I suspected, there wasn’t a soul to be seen. My heart skipped a beat, however, as I thought about the miners gathered at RTV port.
“Anyone still down there?” I yelled, cupping a hand to my mouth. I yelled twice more before I heard someone reply.
“I’m good!” said a miner—the one I’d left to take my place. “RTVs are too!”
“Thank the gods,” Rachel sighed.
“Was that a real life worm?” called a child’s voice from behind us. I turned and saw a fully dust covered kid sprinting toward us.
“Monty!” Rachel yelled first, catching the boy in mid stride and throwing her arms around him.
“Where the hells were you, kid? And how are you still alive?” I yelled. But neither Rachel’s embrace nor my line of questioning seemed to deter the boy. He wrenched himself out of Rachel’s grip, dodged me, and darted into the tunnel, hands extended.
“Was that seriously a giant worm?”
“Sure was, kid,” I replied, just happy the little runt was alive.
“Bring it back! Oh my gods, I want to see it!” He put his hands on his head and started rambling. “Mrs. Boneshaw always said there were monsters down there, but I had no idea that it was an actual worm! I mean, I suspected maybe it was some sort of endogeic lumbricus, but to think that it had a circumference equidistant to that of the—”
“Kid, kid!” I yelled, stepping out to get his attention. I turned his shoulders toward me and knelt in front of his face. “You did it.”
“Yeah, I know, Mr. Flint, but—”
“Kid,” I said, trying to get his frantic eyes to focus on me. “Monty!”
“Yes, Mr. Flint?” He finally settled on my face.
“Good job. I’m proud of you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Flint.”
“And, what’s more, I’m really glad you’re okay.”
“That makes two of us,” Rachel said, placing a hand on Monty’s white-covered hair and giving it a good muss.
“And you might want to inform the lad that his efforts have attracted the attention of the entire security division,” Lars added. “Several dozen guards have already responded to the explosion and, based upon radio chatter, are expecting miners to come pouring out.”
I shared the good news with Monty and then asked Lars, “They reached that conclusion so soon?”
Lars gave the closest thing to a chuckle that I imagined he could evoke, then said, “I may have had something to do with that.”
“You sneaky devil,” I said. “What about the worm?”
“It has moved to the end of the tunnel you’re standing in, and has penetrated what appears to be a very old vertical shaft that—until now—has been backfilled with rock.”
“Until now?” I asked, hoping the AI would expound.
“Correct. At the present time, the worm is boring a hole through the substrate in what I can only classify as an eager attempt to escape from the ground.”
“Why would such a creature want to get out so fast… oh shit.”
Rachel looked at me. “The starship?”
“Lars, is there any way a creature like that could, I don’t know, detect a mounting energy build up like the starship is giving off?”
“There is a significant amount of data collected throughout the galaxy that validates the existence of a so called sixth sense, yes. Research shows that various native organisms of a given planet can be acutely sensitive to seismic geological events before they occur.”
“They know somehow that something bad is coming,” Rachel concluded.
I nodded back at her. “And, chances are, that big guy wasn’t alone. Lars, we need to resume the evacuation.” I cupped a hand to my mouth and ordered the miners to prepare the next pod. “Let’s get these people out of here.”
22
Without the presence of enemy fire, the evacuation went much more quickly. The miners left the barracks in teams of thirty- to thirty-five as before, but loaded three RTVs at a time, expediting Lars’s ability to jettison each vehicle up the chute. The loading was faster too as the elderly and injured had already been sent up, allowing each group to run down the tunnel and enter their respective pods.
We were halfway through when the ground began to shake again.
“Sir,” said Lars. “Worms imminent.”
“Worms? As in plural?”
“Affirmative, sir.”
“Everyone out of the main tunnel!” I cried, grabbing the closest miners and ducking back into the enclave. “Hold on to something!”
Seconds passed as the vibrations increased. Then came the monstrous groaning—this time in a dual-note harmony that resonated in the cavern, adding to the already intense vibrations. The low-pitched frequencies played with one another, the waves oscillating in frequencies to cause shifts in the harmony that made my head dizzy. I clutched a vertical railing, feeling my legs give out. I knew that if I fell again, I’d be at the mercy of the ground, tossing me around like a rag doll. The cuts and bruises on my body already hurt enough as it was—I didn’t need anymore.
On and on the worm calls went, making my ears ring and disrupting my sense of balance. Then the worms passed by the barrack
s one at a time. Rocks fell from the ceiling, striking several people, sending them sprawling. I saw blood, but I didn’t hear the miners cry out. How could I? Instead, the sounds of grinding stone and wailing worms shook the enclave, consuming everyone in the wave-like din. I tried to keep my legs under me, but it was nearly impossible. Instead, my hands clung to the railing much like I’d clung to the chute’s rod.
Eventually, however, the worms passed and the quaking subsided. Their departure left me to wonder just how many more we might expect, and whether or not this cave could handle any more.
“I have a bit of good news, sir,” Lars said over comms.
“We’ll take it, pal,” I said, looking to Rachel.
“The first worm has broken through the surface of the mountain and is making quite a spectacle of destroying the southernmost quarter of Oppenheimer’s mine. The result is mine-wide attention on the worm’s appearance.”
“Which is going to leave us ample opportunity to figure out how to escape,” I said.
“My hypothesis exactly, sir.”
“And they’re about to get two more surprises too,” Rachel said, obviously referring to the additional worms making their way up the shaft.
“The worms don’t look like they’re heading to the Horizon’s dock, do they?” I asked, suddenly concerned for the ship and Lars.
“Negative, sir. If anything, the worms seems intent on getting clear of the entire operation.”
“Why do I have the feeling they knows something about the explosion coming that we don’t?” Rachel asked me.
Lars continued: “The destruction to the mine seems unintentional and non-hostile in nature. Rather, the creatures are simply trying to escape the depths by any means possible.”
“Okay, people!” I shouted. “Let’s pick it back up!”
The final push to the last RTV went smoothly. Fortunately, no more worms had shown up to slow us down, nor—for that matter—had any remaining overseers.
Rachel and I were the last to board, and I closed the door behind us. “Let’s do it, Lars.”
“As you wish, sir. Please hold on.”
I repeated Lars’s instruction to those in the car and then grabbed one of the overhead handrails with both hands, allowing my MX090 to rest on my back. I heard the familiar whine of the lower repulsor panels charge and then felt the pod shake against its death-grip on the track beneath us. “Here we go!” I called out, knowing we were seconds away from—