“What do you think Sarge?” Wilkes asked, his gaze locked to the alien construct.
“Let’s go see what all the fuss is about shall we?” Baker scanned the space below, seeing where the excavation road reached the top a short distance away. “Brass check, I don’t want any mistakes. You pull that shit again Dom…”
“I know Sarge, I’ll be walking home.”
“Good,” Baker said, turning to eye his unit. “Then what are we standing around for, we’ve got ourselves an alien structure to go inspect.”
The others turned and followed him to the road leading downwards. They followed it for nearly an hour as it circled around and around the pyramid, finally coming to a basin at the bottom. They made their way to where the original excavation team had breached the structure walls. There was an opening blown into the side a short distance away and they stopped just in front of it. Around them, red walls layered upwards until all that was visible beyond was the swirl of an orange sky.
“Lights up everyone. Fascio, you’re on point, Dom, Corlin, after him. Mills, Hawkes, you follow us up.
Everybody, stay together. We don’t know what’s in there.
Doc, you’re with me.”
14
The structure’s interior was pitch black, darker than the expanse of space they had traveled through prior to arriving at the derelict station. The weight of the air around them was heavy and pressed in against their helmet and rifle lights, choking the illumination back in a desperate attempt to keep the inner structure unmolested. The hallway around them was a perfectly smooth, polished metal that stretched into darkness, a path disappearing straight into the middle of the building. They followed the tunnel for ten minutes before they came to an intersection, the first sign the path did not stretch on forever into a hidden abyss. The paths leading left and right stretched even further into the darkness, but as Baker was standing there, he thought he could see a faint glow far down the tunnel ahead, a whisper of light in the ebbing distance. “Everybody hold.” The squad came to a stop. “I want everyone to go dark.”
“What was that Sarge?” Fascio asked, not sure what the sergeant meant.
“Lights out, everyone,” he clarified, reaching up to kill his helmet light.
“Are you sure this is such a good idea?” Dom asked, the others already following the sergeant’s order.
“This is not a discussion.”
Dom took a deep breath and clicked his rifle light off, mumbling about how he wished they had their NVG’s as he reached up to kill the one on his helmet. Instantly the group was standing in complete darkness; pitch black that only left phantom traces of shapes shifting in front of their eyes as they squinted into the nothingness beyond.
“There,” Baker whispered through the comms. “Twelve o’clock. Does that look like a light to you?”
Fascio squinted hard against the dark, allowing his eyes to adjust. Then he saw what Sarge was talking about. Far down the corridor ahead was a faint glow, almost unnoticeable; a trick playing off the dancing spots in his vision.
“I don’t know how you caught that Sarge,” Fascio replied, “but yeah, I think it is.”
“Lights up. Looks like we found our direction.”
The soldiers quickly brought their lights back to life, pushing back the blackness as they started forward, their hands not pressing the switches nearly fast enough. Baker could feel the same scraping sensation as in the facility, but here, surrounded by the claustrophobic dark, the eyes in the black seemed to peer past his soul. He could feel the cold working thorough him as he made his way further in, his companions nearly becoming a vacant thought as his gaze watched the approaching glow brighten in the hall. It was minutes later the lumination became decipherable, the patterns casting off the azure illumination becoming visible across the walls.
As they approached, they realized that it was the same inscriptions from the outside of the structure, some form of bio or chemical-luminescence causing them to glow. Vuong brought his hand up to brush the surface, and in that moment, Fascio shot his hand out, grabbing his arm.
“Whoa,” Fascio whispered.
Vuong glanced at him for a moment and then pulled his arm back.
“It’s cool man.”
Vuong brought his hand up, sliding his glove against the ancient surface. The runes on the wall were smooth. There was no imprint, no bevel, they seemed as if they were part of the wall itself. He stared at the shapes, the light casting its glow across his features. He was fixated, the ebbing azure sending a chill through him like an icy breath of wind. “It’s smooth.”
“I didn’t see any pictures of this on that drive,” Baker said, observing the hieroglyphs that stretched farther towards the center of the structure. “You wanna catch this?” he asked, turning to look at Talmadge. “I think your higher-ups might be interested in seeing this, don’t you think? Who knows, might even get you a raise.” This was his attempt at being civil, though the moment the words finished leaving his lips he felt a ping of embarrassment at coming off as what could be construed as a kiss ass.
Talmadge held quiet, reaching up to his helmet to engage the camera function. He hadn’t thought about it until this moment, and for a fleeting breath, was thankful that the sergeant reminded him. But that would still hold no bearing against the fact he was going to drag his ass though the mud when they got back home. Hopefully he would do something stupid now that he was on camera, something that could bolster his case against him. Though smiling inwardly, he knew it wouldn’t take much to turn the whole situation around and place the blame for the events all on Thomas’s head. He turned and nodded, flashing his best pseudo-camaraderie.
Baker waited long enough for the rep to snap a few stills and then turned to continue inward. The symbols bore into him as he passed, tiny ripples spreading their way out across his back as he continued. He could feel the hallway closing in and the pressure building behind his eyes as the headache that had yet to dissipate continued to grow. Then a tickle brushed past his ear, a touch of warmth guided by phantom breath.
“We’re here—”
Baker stopped, his feet frozen in place as the men behind him came to a halt. He brought his hand up to his helmet, his fingers pressing against the spot the soft words had just come from. Slowly he turned, his pupils locking to the first face that fell into view.
“You OK Sarge?” Mills asked, seeing the brief look of panic in his sergeant’s eyes.
He stared at the soldier for a moment before replying slowly. “Yeah.” His gaze moved to the darkness behind the others, locking to the void that pressed in on them. “Just thought I heard something.”
“Like what Sarge?” Mills asked, his brow wrinkling beneath his helmet.
“I don’t know,” Baker replied, glancing into the dark one last time before turning around and following the others. “Something. Maybe nothing. Let’s keep moving.”
He turned and continued onwards, allowing two of the others to move forward while he fell back. Ice still ran frozen through his veins as he fell into pace just behind Lanskey. He grasped desperately at some semblance of sanity as his wife’s breath still lingered strong inside his helmet. Gooseflesh beneath his uniform held his skin tight against his frame and he could feel the moisture clamming up his hands. He kept silent as they continued forward, pushing her voice from his head, and convincing himself that he had hallucinated it, that it wasn’t real. His head still hurt and he could feel the pounding getting worse. He just had to keep it together. They would find out what the colonists had found, or at least the remnants of it, and then they would get back to the safety of the facility. He scoffed silently at the thought that the word safety had even crossed his mind when thinking about the station, but in contrast with how he felt at the current moment, he would be glad to be back there as quickly as possible. He could only assume the others felt the same way.
The unit moved further in, a short time later coming to another intersection. The hall they had been fo
llowing intersected with another corridor that disappeared on both sides further into the structure. In front of them was another portal cut into the wall. Baker scanned the rubble with his flashlight, noticing the scorch marks along the edges where a very powerful mining torch had ripped through the walls material. “Vuong?” Baker clicked across the comm. “Was there any schematic on that drive?”
Vuong fired up his holowrist, flipping through the files, flashing light bouncing across the smooth surface around them. A moment later he stopped, expanding an image into the air in front of him. “Got it Sarge,” he said, pausing as he looked at it closer. “Strange though. Not a lot to see. Single corridor running just inside the perimeter, single one running to the center, and the one we’re standing in circling a tight perimeter around a central room with no connection to the outer.”
Baker inspected the image closer, a thousand questions firing off in his mind like bells in an ancient steeple.
“Why is this here?” Vuong whispered, asking one of the questions lingering in Baker’s thoughts.
“You’re right,” he continued, pointing at the holo-image. “The hallway on the outside connects to the inner one, but nowhere is there a connection to the center room. No doorway, nothing. From an engineering standpoint, whoever built this, didn’t want anyone even knowing it was there. If I had to guess, I’d say this structure was designed to hide whatever was in that room.” He scoffed. “Whoever it was that built this, went through a lot of trouble not only coming to Mars, but building an entire pyramid around a sealed room, and then burying it beneath the surface. So my question, is what the hell did those colonists find in there?”
“Whatever,” Dom whispered, his gaze glued to the image.
“What?” Vuong replied, looking at him puzzled.
“Yeah, what ever built this….”
“Yeah,” Vuong whispered into the comm. “And I’m not sure it’s exactly something we should be looking for?”
A ripple of murmured nervousness flashed through the group as each of them exchanged worried glances.
Baker allowed the comment to pass unchecked. He knew they were scared. Hell, no more than he was. And at the moment he was too preoccupied with his own unspoken questions. Every fiber of his being told him that his next move was a bad idea, but his entire career was hosted on nothing but, so pushed the feeling back and readied himself to add another tally to his marks. Slowly he turned his flashlight and scanned the inside of the room, sweeping as much as he could before making the even worse decision to step in. Beyond the scorched edges lay a bare room, twelve foot across and eight feet high. The walls inside were covered in inscriptions similar to those on the hallways and surface of the structure, but these ones were carved deeply into the walls, gouged into the foreign material, floor to ceiling. Along the base were small, neat piles of a black material so dark that it seemed to absorb the light from Baker’s flashlight as it moved across it, yet at the same time, sparkled lightly. The cell was empty; void. “Well whatever it was, it’s not here now.”
Baker felt a chill move past him, an icy mist unseen that frosted his skin for a moment, leaving the hairs on his arms and neck standing at attention. He shuddered for a moment, deep fears rising up as he turned to the others.
“Sarge, you know I’m not one to complain, but this place is starting to freak me out. I really don’t think we should be here.”
Baker stared at the man who until this moment, had been one of the most reserved, serious soldiers in his unit. He took a deep breath and glanced back into the room for a moment.
“It doesn’t look like there’s anything else to see here. Let’s start making our way back.”
He agreed with Corlin, there was something ripping at him, tearing desperately inside him to turn and run. Whatever had been inside the empty room, had been removed by the colonists, and there was no mention of it in any of the files. Whatever they found was either long gone, or still hidden somewhere in the facility. The only thing he knew for sure at that moment, was that his men were right. They needed to get back. There was nothing they were going to be able to do except waste the air in their tanks. As he turned to step out of the room the thought flashed past his mind. What if the room was empty, not because something had been removed, but because whatever it had housed, had simply been freed.
The others nodded, turning to make their way back down the long hallway to the entrance, their steps coming noticeably quicker now. Each of them held their fear behind their masked visors. None of them wanted to be there a moment longer than they had to, and if it wasn’t for Sarge keeping the pace, every one of them would have launched into a full sprint.
“Portofino, any response from HQ? Over.”
Nothing came back, not even static. The comms were as dead and black as the corridor that enveloped them.
“Portofino,” Baker repeated, “Are you reading me?”
Nothing.
“Shit.”
“Some kind of interference,” Vuong replied. “Picked it up when we first made our way in. There’s something keeping radio signals from coming in or going out. Even the holowrist is acting a little funny. Probably whatever material this thing’s made out of is jamming us.”
Baker held his response. He could still feel the chill worming through him, and was anxious to get back to the facility so he could free himself of his envirosuit. It felt like it was holding the cold in, like it was swirling around him, leeching his strength as he continued outwards. Beneath the helmet his head was still pounding, the rhythmic pulses crescendoing harder and higher every step he took. The first thing he was going to do when they got back was down a half a bottle of aspirin, chased with some of the whiskey he had heard his men speaking about. If it wasn’t for having to maintain composure, he would have turned to a sprint a long time ago.
The unit made their way back towards the entrance, and had been walking quietly for ten minutes when something brushed past Corlin’s ear; a faint whisper coming from behind him. Immediately he turned his head, his pace slowing to a stop as he stared into the darkness he had just traveled. As the others continued forward, their lights slowly dimming with each step further from him they became he paused. He moved his light further down the hall and then froze, the hairs at the nape of his neck rippling with an unseen chill.
“What…?”
Standing just at the edge of his gun’s light was a young girl. She was no more than ten years old, with dirty blond hair hanging in strands around her shoulders. She was wearing dirty colonial clothing and had a makeshift breathing apparatus strapped around her head. Her light blue eyes stared at him pleadingly beneath the mask.
“Please,” she whispered, her voice crackling across his comm with an electric buzz layered behind it. “Please help.” Her arms folded across her stomach as she slowly folded in on herself.
“Sarge!” Corlin snapped through the comm as the girl began stepping backwards towards the center of the structure, her gaze locked firmly to his. “We’ve got a live one!” Corlin glanced back to the others and saw them stop.
“Roger that,” Baker snapped back. “Retrieve her.”
“On it,” Corlin replied, turning to look back at the empty space the girl had just been standing in. “Hey, wait!” Corlin flashed his light down the corridor. The girl was gone. “Damn,” he grumbled to himself, starting his way quickly down the hall.
The unit was nearly to the entrance when Hawkes turned his head to scan the hall behind them. He’d felt eyes watching him from the moment they left the room in the center. Every step he took felt as though they were behind stalked, and he had forced himself to keep his eyes forward until the light from the entrance was in view. Now he grappled the courage to look. “Sarge,” he snapped, stopping in place. “Corlin’s gone.”
Baker stopped in his tracks, turning to look where Hawkes was standing. “Corlin,” he barked across the comm. “Do you read me? What’s your twenty?” Silence replied over the headset. “Corlin god damnit, wh
ere are you?”
Still silence.
A cold foreboding worked through him. In a breath he was overcome by the feeling that something had gone horribly wrong. His unit knew better than to go off on their own. They moved as a team, though some of them bordered on the verge of insubordination at times, none of them would make a decision without running it by him. No. Something had happened. He could feel it. “He was right behind us when we left Sarge,” Hawkes replied, his flashlight scanning back down the corridor. A thin layer of worry lingered around his words.
“Corlin!” Sarge exhaled heavily. “God damnit. Fuck. All right. We back track. Maybe his comm set is acting up. If what Vuong said is true, then this structure is affecting our electronics. Let’s go find the Corporal.”
The group turned around and reluctantly started making their way back down the corridor, each of them whispering their own silent curses.
“I don’t like this Sarge,” Fascio clicked a minute later. “Something ain’t right. Corlin wouldn’t just go AWOL. That ain’t like him. He would have said something.”
Baker stayed quiet. Fascio was right. Corlin was by the books. He was the one in his unit that wouldn’t even go piss without asking permission to release stream.
“We shouldn’t have come out here…”
“Stow it Fascio,” Baker growled, his rifle illuminating the hallway a short distance away.
Corlin passed the runes that had glowed brightly moments before, now invisible against the metallic walls. They hadn’t come far before she had appeared, and there was only one place she could end up. Silently he wondered why she had run, and how it was that they had passed her and not seen her. His thoughts became a thin fog, glimpses of their entrance into the structure that fragmented more and more with each step further inwards. Moments later he found himself standing at the entrance to the central room. He flashed his light inside, sweeping the open space when he saw her against the back wall. “I got her,” he said into the comm as he approached the girl who was kneeled down, her face pressed into her tiny arms that folded across her legs. “It’s ok,” he said softly, slinging his rifle behind his back as he stepped closer. “I’m not gonna hurt you. We’re here to help. We’re with the military. We’re gonna get you out of here.”
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