2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent)

by Robert Storey

  Kara gave him a look. ‘A trick, you think whatever took her is that intelligent?’

  Goodwin scanned the map, deliberating as to which teams to move. ‘Yes,’ he said absently, ‘possibly.’

  Just then another incoming transmission interrupted his thought process. ‘This is Hil—’ a voice said, before breaking up.

  One of the soldiers adjusted the system’s frequency and Goodwin picked up the radio. ‘Say again, is that you, Commander?’

  ‘This is Hilt.’ The message was repeated, much clearer this time. ‘Do you copy?’

  ‘Five by five, Commander,’ Goodwin said. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘I heard the previous transmission. I’m repositioning to their location.’

  ‘Copy that, Commander, keep me updated.’

  ‘Will do, sir. Hilt, out.’

  ♦

  Another day of searching came and went and the Darklight leader returned to camp, bringing with him the remains of Susan’s bracelet but no further news. Goodwin glanced over at the piece of handmade jewellery on the side of the desk at which he worked and couldn’t help but remember the sweet, vulnerable and unassuming woman that had made it. The other in the matching pair, even now, encircled his wrist, a constant reminder of the loss and guilt that he felt over her disturbing abduction.

  Despite the initial breakthrough there seemed to be no accompanying trail which they could follow. A large proportion of the search parties had been reassigned to the area surrounding where the bracelet had been found but, as yet, nothing even resembling a lead had surfaced.

  It was mid-afternoon when an unexpected visitor, Corporal Walker from the decontamination team, was escorted to the command tent, requesting an audience with Hilt and Goodwin.

  ‘You wanted to speak to us, Corporal?’ Hilt said.

  ‘Yes, Commander.’ Walker looked from Hilt to Goodwin and back. ‘It’s a matter of some importance.’

  Walker, Sergeant Alvarez’s second in command, was now in temporary charge of the small unit of U.S. Army troops still held under guard in the camp. The corporal was slim and of average height, with cropped dark hair and a goatee beard. He wore the baggy green uniform worn by U.S. soldiers the world over and had developed a slight facial tic since Goodwin had last seen him; he wondered if it was perhaps precipitated by the stress of detainment.

  ‘Well, Corporal?’ Goodwin said, when Walker failed to speak.

  Walker eyed the other people in the room; a few civilians, but mostly Darklight troops, populated the desk where the search for Susan was being co-ordinated. ‘May we talk in private?’

  ‘Negative,’ Hilt said, in no mood for having his time wasted, a stance Goodwin himself held to.

  ‘Out with it, man,’ Goodwin said, as Walker continued to procrastinate.

  ‘Right.’ Walker’s cheek and eye twitched in tandem. ‘Since Sergeant Alvarez left—’

  ‘Absconded,’ Goodwin corrected him, noticing as he did so that Major Offiah watched Walker from across the room.

  ‘Yes,’ Walker continued, ‘since the sergeant absconded and the disabled woman went missing, I feel it’s time to come clean on a few things.’

  Goodwin gestured to him. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Alvarez – the sergeant,’ Walker said, ‘he’d always been on the decontamination teams in Sanctuary, as have the rest of the unit you have under guard. I’ve been at the USSB longer than everyone else, though – three years longer, to be precise – and I wasn’t on a decon team during that time, but a different regiment that worked in and around the military laboratories along with a civilian outfit called the SED.’

  ‘SED?’ Hilt repeated, unimpressed by what he’d heard so far.

  ‘Sanctuary Exploration Division,’ Walker told him. ‘They go out into Sanctuary Proper, where we are now, and photograph and dig up ancient sites built by the Anakim. It’s a highly secretive outfit as they get to go where others don’t, far outside the USSB.’

  ‘And you keep this information to yourself?’ Goodwin wasn’t sure where this was leading.

  ‘It’s more than my job’s worth to blab about it,’ Walker said. ‘But the fact is when I worked there, while I never got to see anything very interesting, I did hear things.’

  Goodwin frowned. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as, years back, the elite Deep Reach survey teams from the SED used to explore to the east of the USSB; that was, until a whole unit, along with Terra Force support, went missing and the eastern programme was shelved – permanently.’

  ‘We’re east of the USSB, aren’t we?’ Goodwin said.

  Walker gave a solemn nod.

  ‘What happened to this Deep Reach team?’ Hilt asked him.

  ‘Officially? They were deemed the victims of an earthquake, and the whole region was declared unsafe for human habitation or exploration.’

  ‘Unofficially?’ Goodwin said.

  ‘Word has it they encountered something, something that left more of a trace than the official documents let on.’

  Realisation suddenly dawned on Goodwin. ‘Something, you mean the light, don’t you? You knew and you didn’t tell us?’ Goodwin was enraged by the man’s deceit. ‘Do you know what you’ve done?!’

  Hilt held him back as Walker quailed at his fury.

  ‘How many men were in this Deep Reach team?’ Hilt said, his tone urgent.

  Walker stared at Goodwin, who still seethed with anger.

  ‘I said!’ Hilt roared, grabbing Walker around the throat, lifting him off his feet and slamming him into the rock wall, ‘how many men?!’

  ‘For—’ Walker gasped, unable to speak as Hilt’s giant hand throttled him.

  ‘Sir!’ Major Offiah tried to pull Hilt away from a rapidly reddening Walker.

  ‘How many, Corporal?’ Hilt repeated, shooting a look at his Major that made Goodwin fear for the man’s life.

  Offiah held his hands up and backed away, Hilt’s wrath seemingly indiscriminate.

  ‘Forty,’ Walker croaked, as he tried in vain to free Hilt’s mighty grip.

  Hilt released his hand sending the corporal falling to the floor. ‘Call back all civilian search teams,’ Hilt said to one of the coms operators, who looked as frightened of Hilt as Corporal Walker did. ‘NOW!’

  The soldier got onto the radio, his training kicking into gear.

  Walker looked to Goodwin as he stood back up. ‘I swear we didn’t create those boot prints at the lake. I’ve never heard of any USSB units going through water-filled tunnels, either.’

  Goodwin’s contempt for the man vied with the anger he felt towards him. ‘You admit you don’t know everything, though.’

  ‘No, I don’t. But I think when we came to Sanctuary, humans I mean, we disturbed something down here, something that was better left alone. Not Anakim, but something, something else—’

  ‘That’s why you kept pestering me for your weapons for all those months, isn’t it?’ Hilt’s voice was full of fettered rage. ‘Isn’t it?!’ he bellowed.

  Walker nodded in confirmation.

  ‘Sir,’ Major Offiah said to Hilt, his tone attracting Goodwin’s attention, ‘we’ve lost touch with three of our men in one of the western reaches of the city.’

  ‘How long have they been out of contact?’ Hilt turned from Corporal Walker to give Offiah his undivided attention.

  ‘Five hours. They were scheduled to report in two hours ago.’

  ‘Two hours,’ Goodwin said, ‘and you’ve only thought to tell us now?’

  ‘Normal protocol, sir,’ Offiah told him, ‘we give our recon teams more leeway as they travel further, often underground where communication is difficult or impossible. It was flagged up when they failed to submit their report, but many of our teams get caught out similarly on a daily basis; this one is the first to breach the two hour window, however.’

  ‘Sir, an emergency flare has been sighted two miles west of the city,’ a Darklight communications operative told Hilt.

  ‘That’s our missing team,’
Hilt said, ‘they must be out of coms range. Major, secure the camp; reinstate all Darklight personnel returning with the civilian search teams to form a secure perimeter. I want weapons hot, visors down, combat systems activated.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ Offiah got to work on his orders.

  Hilt looked to another soldier. ‘Lieutenant, tell all recon teams in the vicinity of the flare to converge on its location.’ Hilt, shrouded in his matte black suit of armour, picked up his helmet and slid it over his head, the visor up, his face visible inside it. ‘Sir,’ he said to Goodwin, ‘I’m heading out to my men; emergency flares are only to be utilised as a last resort, so they’re either in difficulty or they’ve found something, maybe both. I’m bringing this situation back under our control, you have my word. If I fail, I recommend you replace me with another officer of your choosing.’

  Goodwin looked at Hilt, lost for words. He nodded his head as Hilt waited for his response.

  ‘Thank you, sir. You men,’ Hilt gestured to three Darklight soldiers who’d been poring over some maps, ‘with me.’

  And with that, the Darklight leader and his men left the tent, vanishing into the subterranean night.

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Goodwin paced the edge of the camp’s exterior, waiting for the imminent arrival of the Darklight leader. Hilt had only been gone six hours, but the unexpected speed of his return had set Goodwin’s nerves jangling. For some reason only discernable to the Commander, he’d declined to comment on his findings during his brief communiqué, just saying, ‘You need to see it for yourself.’

  He didn’t have to wait much longer before the hulking figure of Hilt emerged out of the gloom, accompanied by a large unit of soldiers, all similarly garbed in black armour, an array of formidable weapons on show.

  Goodwin fell into step beside Hilt. ‘What news, Commander?’

  ‘I’m sorry to keep you waiting, sir,’ Hilt said, his mood grave. ‘The flare drew us to an area where we found a previously undiscovered tunnel system. We wouldn’t have found it at all except the entrance, concealed beneath the ruins of an ancient monument, had a curious symbol embedded into its rock surround.’

  ‘Anakim symbols are two a penny down here,’ Goodwin said, as they made their way into camp and towards their hub of operations, ‘why was that one so special?’

  ‘It glowed, bright blue.’

  Goodwin looked sharply at the Darklight man. ‘Bright blue?’ He pulled up his sleeve to reveal his bracelet, which emanated its faint radiance in the half-light. ‘Like this?’

  Hilt peered at it. ‘Exactly like that. I recommend you take that off. If that’s what drew the creature to Susan, it might return for you.’

  ‘Creature?’

  Hilt glanced at him. ‘Sir?’

  ‘You said, drew the creature to Susan; what have you found, Commander?’

  Hilt looked at him once more, his expression unfathomable. ‘A turn of phrase, but one that may yet prove accurate.’

  ‘Tell me.’ Goodwin led the way as they cut left and onto the main thoroughfare of the campsite.

  ‘I had a few hundred men at the scene when I arrived,’ Hilt said, resuming his narrative. ‘Once we’d found these new tunnels we entered, seeking the three man recon unit we suspected had preceded us. It wasn’t long before we found a locator beacon, no doubt left by one of the team for us to find. A little further in, we found another and then a … trail.’

  ‘Trail of what?’ Goodwin asked, the command tent now in sight ahead.

  ‘Blood.’

  The evocative word flooded Goodwin’s mind with all manner of images, many of them distinctly unpleasant.

  ‘Following this,’ Hilt continued, ‘we arrived at a cylindrical structure with a high vaulted roof, where we found this.’ He held aloft a helmet Goodwin recognised as one worn by Darklight’s reconnaissance personnel, the shape narrower and more streamlined than the bulkier, combat orientated headgear sported by Hilt and the rest of his

  mercenaries.

  ‘It looks in bad shape.’ Goodwin noticed one side of the helmet had been crushed. ‘But, there’s more that you’re not telling me, isn’t there?’

  ‘There’s no point telling you any more,’ Hilt said, as they walked inside the tent. ‘It’s better if you watch.’

  ‘Watch what?’

  ‘You may remember, all Darklight helmets have an array of tech integrated into a comprehensive combat system.’ Hilt placed the battered helmet down next to a portable computer on one of the desks. ‘Which includes solid state memory chips, cameras and perhaps most advantageous in this instance, automated recording protocols.’

  Hilt connected the helmet to a port on the computer, positioned the screen so Goodwin could see it and then streamed the video file. ‘Take a look,’ he said, moving back to stand alongside Goodwin, ‘but be prepared, it’s hard to watch.’

  Goodwin swapped glances with Major Offiah, who’d been by Goodwin’s side during Hilt’s excursion.

  ‘Captain,’ a man’s voice said, the sound coming out of the screen’s speakers. ‘I think I just saw something, two towers down.’

  ‘You think, or you did?’ another man’s voice replied.

  ‘Did!’

  The pale blue image on screen showed a bright light gliding quickly across the ground some way away, between an avenue of Anakim structures.

  ‘I see it too, Captain,’ a woman’s voice said, her armoured shape creeping into view on the right side of the screen, rifle in hand.

  Another person strode into frame, the slits in the helmet glowing like demonic eyes as the man looked at the camera’s owner. ‘Don’t just stand there, Dixon, you idiot,’ the captain said, sprinting off, ‘after it!’

  The woman followed her CO, and Dixon, the director of this production, swore and started running as well, the image on screen moving up and down in response, rhythmically attuned to his gait.

  The crew of three sprinted through the ghostly city at speed, their agility impressive considering the armour they all wore. Further ahead, the ethereal light Goodwin was all too familiar with flew onwards, the Darklight recon team in hot pursuit, the gap between them increasing.

  Rounding a corner, Dixon all but knocked over his female colleague who’d pulled up behind the captain, standing a few yards ahead, his weapon raised as he scanned the area, now devoid of any movement or light.

  Dixon was breathing hard. ‘Fucking hell – that thing’s quick.’

  ‘Quiet,’ the captain said, and then walked forwards, rifle still at eye level. ‘Activate visor-radar, echelon formation on my six.’

  The two Darklight soldiers moved out in front of Dixon; he brought up the rear, completing the short, diagonal column. Goodwin watched the image as it rotated this way and that, Dixon’s rifle scope in shot as the man surveyed the terrain around them.

  ‘Command, this is Recon Delta Two Six, over,’ Dixon, said in a hushed voice. ‘Still no signal, sir.’

  ‘Copy that,’ the captain replied. ‘Keep calm, we knew this section might be a dead spot.’

  The recon team moved as one towards the crumbling structure of a huge plinth, on which stood a colossal statue that looked like it had once resembled an animal. Across the ground, to one side, another large section had collapsed, its shape no longer easily determined; the ravages of time masking what might have been the figure of an Anakim warrior. An object twenty foot in diameter and resembling a head had detached from the rest of the fallen stone monument and lay at the furthest reaches of the debris, as though it had been severed from its body by the powerful swing of an equally immense sword.

  The scene changed as Dixon’s attention was drawn towards a dark hole at the base of one the walls. The display on the screen darkened as he scrolled to a different type of spectral image; now visible within the pit was a dim glow. ‘Captain, look at this.’

  The Darklight officer came to a halt. ‘Henderson, cover us.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The woman dropped to one knee, h
er rifle at the ready.

  The captain moved back to Dixon’s side. ‘I don’t see anything.’

  ‘Try T.I.I.,’ Dixon said.

  ‘T.I.I.?’ Goodwin looked to Hilt for an explanation.

  ‘Thermal Image Intensifier.’ Hilt’s eyes were fixed on the screen.

  ‘Good job, Dix.’ The captain held out a hand. ‘Drop me down.’

  Dixon grasped the captain’s hand and lowered him down into the hole.

  ‘I see an entrance,’ the captain said, almost disappearing from view. ‘Henderson, stay topside; Dixon, get your ass down here.’

  Dixon switched back to the pale blue visual image and the picture on the display lurched as he turned and dropped down into the hole, aided by his colleague beneath. Now below ground level, Dixon and the captain walked a few paces along a tunnel, the floor littered with rubble and the walls wreathed in cracks. A wide archway, ten feet high and the same in width, came into focus. Around the arch an inscription had been carved into the stone, its meaning lost long ago to time’s unyielding embrace. In the centre of this text a large symbol glowed with a brilliance Goodwin knew to be as blue as the stones on Susan’s bracelets.

  A faint noise, seemingly far away, could be heard through the speakers.

  ‘Jesus wept.’ The captain traced the symbol of the cross on his chest. ‘Did you hear that?’

  Dixon’s camera moved up and down. ‘Yeah, it sounded like a girl’s scream.’

  The captain hung his head for a moment as if in deep thought. ‘We have to go in.’

  ‘But we’re off the grid.’ Dixon sounded worried. ‘We’re almost at the two hour cut-off.’

  ‘Fuck that!’ the captain said. ‘We may never get another chance at this; if that poor girl’s down there, we have no choice. Henderson, do you read me?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ came the response.

  ‘Send up an e-flare and follow us down; Dixon, lend a hand.’

  Dixon walked back to where he’d entered the hole and looked up to see Henderson firing a projectile high into the firmament above. A trail of smoke streaked out behind it until, seconds later, a small detonation was followed by a piercing bright light that filled the screen. Stowing her weapon, Henderson climbed down into the hole, helped by Dixon, and the pair rejoined their leader, who waited at the gateway into the newly discovered tunnel complex.