by Bruce Adams
Lieutenant Arneson’s visage appeared in Eris’s helmet HUD or ‘heads up display’ on her interior faceplate. “Captain, I’ve deposited the package and am returning to rendezvous point Charlie Five,” said Kyle. Good, he’s dropped off Omega Team, thought Eris. “Roger that…keep me apprised if the situation changes,” she replied. And keep safe, she thought silently. There were no glowpanels illuminating the tunnel within at least ten meters. Ultravision sensors in each of her crew’s helmets allowed them to see, even in total darkness. After exploring tunnels for twenty-six minutes with negative readings and several twists and turns, T’sell T’savri spoke as they passed through an area of darkness.
“Captain, there are sentients up ahead,” she coolly informed the group. Eris held up her closed fist, stopped and the team stopped behind her.
“What is their disposition and direction?” replied Captain Monroe as she took the safety off her gauss rifle with a quiet click.
“Two human males twenty meters ahead at a crossroads of tunnels manning a checkpoint. They are neither Alliance nor Vortex personnel…” T’sell had unlimbered her sniper rifle from her back weapons mount.
“Miners then. Why are they at a checkpoint?” Eris asked plainly. She valued advice from her team.
“Perhaps we should ask them?” squeaked Lia’s soft voice over the comm link. “We are dressed like them after all.” She had kept her pistol holstered.
Eris returned her gauss rifle to its position on her weapons harness attaching it to her back with a magnetic clack. “Sounds like a plan.” As she did so, everyone else in Alpha team mimicked her, putting their weapons away. She moved forward and motioned for the others to hang back. Caution was necessary and Eris didn’t want her team being shot by trigger happy guards. She would talk to them first. As she approached the checkpoint, she set her audio pickup to open broadcast, which would allow the miners to hear her amplified voice. She kept her suit and helmet sealed.
“Uh…don’t shoot, we’re coming through here!” Eris stated, hoping the men could hear her. Before she had moved five meters, a voice came over her headset.
“Woman! What the hell you doin’ out there! Fuck, get your ass on up here where we can get a solid look at ya!” There was no visual on the feed, just audio and the man sounded strained as if he had had little to no sleep. Eris calmly walked out into the well lit junction of tunnels. There were floodlights pointed in her direction and portable generators humming with power. She noted that the man’s accent was rustic and from his vocabulary he sounded uneducated. Four tunnels intersected where she was standing and she knew from memory exactly which passage to take to reach Platinum City. If her team took the right tunnel, the one heading east, they would hit the miner’s outpost within two kilometers. She first saw and then slowly approached the two men with her arms stretched out in the universal gesture that meant she had no weapon in her hands. Eris quickly noticed they wore patches on their environment suit sleeves indicating they worked for the mining company Touvep Ceticun – a small outfit. Her memory accessed the information she needed in a split second...it was the second smallest company on Furnace, and located their headquarters in Platinum City.
“Don’t shoot! We’re coming through…” Eris shouted out to the unseen guards. She purposely pitched her voice higher as she stood fully in the well-lit area. She knew that human males responded well to females that seemed to be in distress or that needed help. The higher pitch in her voice subconsciously cued the men that she was slightly panicked. Eris saw that plasteel bars had been spot-welded to heavy mining equipment to create a make-shift barricade. Crude but effective she thought. Behind the temporary barrier were two men who carried relatively modern laser carbine rifles – which they pointed in her general direction. One of the men peered at the FMM Company insignia that was affixed on the chest and upper arms of her combat suit.
“You work for FMM huh? Well, I won’t hold that against ya,” laughed an older man with stray strands of gray hair at his temples and a gray scraggly beard. “At least ya ain’t with them damn Alliance fucks…” He looked at her with narrowed eyes. “Ya ain’t are ya?” He pointed his laser carbine slightly closer to Eris. “Alliance that is…” Beside the old miner stood a young man perhaps in his early twenties – he was carrying a laser carbine and wearing a bright orange envirosuit with an older used plasteel vest. The younger miner had long dirty stringy yellow hair that was falling into his face. Eris instantly dubbed him Yellowhair.
“Um, no, we’re miners out of Long Junction. We came here to get to Platinum City because we heard it was safer,” Eris lied to the men in a slow monotone. She continued to keep her hands up.
“Long Junction?” Yellowhair looked over to his partner. “Who’s this ‘we’ ya keep jabberin’ about?” asked the other man. Each man had suspicion etched in the lines of their faces. “Ya got more folks back there in the dark?” He looked uncertain as his eyes shifted from his partner back to Eris.
“Yeah, I wanted to make sure we could get through here first before bringing up my whole crew.” She put her hands on her hips. “It’s safe at Platinum City right? There’s no disease there?”
“Woman, if you’re from Long Junction, well the Alliance got that place quarantined and bottled up tighter than a cork in a bottle… I might be suspicious that you could have the plague too...” The old man spat out the words and motioned to Eris with his laser carbine. “You’ll have to take off your helmet and let me take a look at your face.”
Eris switched her comm link back to encrypted mode. “Lia, what do you think?” She kept her focus on the two men ahead of her as Doctor Xinhao’s face displayed inside her helmet.
“So far I haven’t picked up any pathogenic strains in the atmospheric samples I’ve taken. Whatever the disease vector happens to be, it certainly isn’t airborne,” came her soft reply.
Eris used her suit controls to retract her helmet into the base of her armored collar. The two men could see her unblemished face in the light of numerous glowpanels. She took two steps closer. “Satisfied, gentlemen?” The younger man whistled. “Well damn! Ain’t you something to look at?” He smiled. Eris noticed that he had relaxed the grip on his weapon, letting it point to the patterned metal floor grid. “See Frank, she ain’t got those funny eyes or scabs.”
The older man visibly relaxed while he leaned up against the tunnel wall. “Well, Jake, let’s just see what we can see, we ain’t seen all of them yet. Missy, why don’t you bring your whole crew up here, we got to take a look at them too.” He motioned with his hand towards the dimly lit passage behind Eris.
Eris turned around and cupped her hands in front of her mouth. “Hey, everyone, it’s alright…come on up!” Eris called out in a booming voice. A few moments later, her crew came out of the dark tunnel and arrayed themselves just behind her.
“It’s okay; we can take our helmets off. These gentlemen want to make sure we aren’t infected.” Eris nodded and silently thought that having a comm implant would be handy just about now. One by one, each person in her squad removed their helmets. Yellowhair picked up a large flashlight and shone it into their faces, one at a time. No one on her team said anything, but the bright light made them squint. “They don’t seem to be infected with the disease Frank. Should we let ‘em pass? Briggs said to shoot shamblers on sight and keep anyone diseased out of the outpost. That is, if we saw any.” Yellowhair picked his nose as the older man, Frank, scratched his scraggly beard while leaning his laser carbine against the smooth wall behind him.
“That’s an awful lot of firepower you folks have strapped to your backs…we know there was fightin’ going on up in Long Junction. You said you was from there…” He rubbed his mouth with his right hand. “You should get to Platinum City, it ain’t far. Just take this tunnel behind us. Look for our foreman at airlock 21D, there’s another set of barriers we put up to keep shamblers out of the city.”
“Do we have to go through all of this again?” Eris asked. “We
just want to get somewhere safe…” She offered a lopsided smile to the old miner.
“Don’t worry about it none, Missy. We’ll call ahead to let ‘em know your coming through. Just talk to Briggs, he’s the foreman and will let you through.”
“Which one will be the foreman?” asked Eris as politely as she could manage and with a winsome smile.
“Now, that’s easy, he’s the fella that only gots one arm!” laughed Yellowhair.
As Eris and her crew clambered over and through the makeshift barricade, Frank called out one last time.
“Ya see any shamblers…ya better shoot ‘em.” The old man laughed a final warning, “They ain’t gonna be nice like us!”
After ten minutes of walking through a veritable junk field of discarded equipment and scrap metal Eris motioned for everyone to stop with a raised fist. Not much had changed after the crossroad junction; the air smelled the same as before - musty odors mixed with damp dust and the walls of the tunnels were identical to what they’d been traveling through.
“Alright, that wasn’t difficult at all getting past that barricade. Everyone heard what those two miners had to say. Recommendations?”
“Eris, I’ve taken more readings, there is still nothing to indicate any kind of airborne viral threat. Perhaps the disease is transmitted through touch – blood, body fluids…that sort of thing,” said Lia softly. “We can keep our helmets down, it should be safe enough.” She began quietly managing the holographic computer display shown above her left wrist.
“Captain, there are still no readings concerning the Initiator. I am not picking anything up at all…no Valdren tech…nothing is being detected.” The K’Tosk barely moved as he adjusted the scanner slightly. “We must continue on - I recommend we descend deeper into the crust. The information supplied by Mr. Gray indicated that the newest mines and their access tunnels were located at least eight kilometers down below the surface.” Sev Tariv said in his usual monotone voice. Nothing seemed to faze the K’Tosk.
“I agree,” said T’sell T’savri. “We need to go deeper. It’s much more likely the device will be found in the lower levels where the passages are new than in tunnels that have been excavated for years.”
Eris shifted her gaze from T’sell to Sev and then to Lia. “Very well, let’s get through to Platinum City first, and then we start descending. There is an elevator shaft that should drop us down to the lowest level not too far on the other side of the City.”
“Your mind is like a steel trap,” Eli said with admiration in his voice. “You remembered all of that from the maps you studied on the Sparta?” Eris nodded as she looked at Eli and said, “Were you able to interface with any comm links or computers back there?”
“No…they had a bunch of junk. The only items that were of any value were their laser carbines and a small nav device. They even had crappy neural implants.” He nodded. “I looked through the nav unit they carried and found out they’ve physically blocked off all of the routes except one into Platinum City. This passage is the only cleared way through – all the other’s have been collapsed or blockaded by tons of junk.” He began smiling with a mischievous grin. “I code locked their weapons so they couldn’t fire on us…”
“How did they block the tunnels?” asked Eris.
“The nav device had a couple thousand pictures stored on it. It shows a few of the tunnels they blocked off. Here, let me show you,” Eli said as a picture appeared above his left arm. A mass of tunnels and passages appeared in full detail, showing blocked areas in red. Eli swiped the pictures with his left hand, moving them rapidly until he came to the tunnel photos he wanted. “Here…here’s one idea of what they did,” he added. A collapsed passage that had been fused shut showed that there appeared to be no way through.
“That means we can’t get through to the mining outpost taking a secondary path. We’ll have to take this main passage,” Eris said with a grimace. “Any suggestions?”
“We have grenades, we could try blowing one of the passages apart,” offered Sev Tariv.
“Too risky. If the explosion didn’t collapse the tunnel, it would certainly alert whatever sensors or MEKS were listening. Plus I’d rather save the grenades for something more important. We need another idea.” Eris was becoming impatient.
Lia spoke up. Her voice was soft and soothing. She had quietly been taking readings the whole time with her medical scanner. “I don’t see why we don’t continue with our ruse. Those miners back there were easily fooled and didn’t seem too suspicious. They obviously believed that we’re from Long Junction. Why not just try the same tactic with anyone else we meet?” She had stopped taking measurements while speaking.
T’sell T’savri spoke with solemn determination. “We have been relatively lucky.” Her hands moved animatedly as she spoke. “These people are just miners…not Alliance…not Vortex. They are amateurs. I guarantee we shall not be able to fool someone more competent. There is also the emergency of the disease that is quite distracting. The advantage lies with us – so far.”
“Very well, we’ll continue down this main passage and head into Platinum City. Let’s get to that elevator and take it to the lower mining levels.” She looked over at the K’Tosk in her group. “Sev, you keep using Eli’s Valdren tech scanner. We have to find the Initiator. All right, let’s move out.” She began walking to the north and the group followed her.
The maintenance tunnel actually grew larger the closer they got to Platinum City. The group spotted airlock 21D after another ten minutes of slow walking. Outside of the airlock was another makeshift barricade though this one was manned by two human males, a K’Tosk male and a single Orvod female. All of them wore combat suits with different mining company logos and all were armed with various types of weapons. Most carried laser carbines and pistols. Eris called out to the group first.
“Hey! Foreman Briggs? We want to get on to Platinum City,” she said calling out to the big man who clearly only had a left arm. Briggs stood in front of his group and addressed them as they came within ten meters.
“Right…stop right there – that’s far enough. You’re the group from FMM?”
“Yes, that’s us,” replied Eris. The foreman didn’t seem impressed.
“Frank called and said you were coming this way.” He seemed to be having trouble breathing as he wheezed out each word. “Dezali, go and search them,” he said to the Orvod female. “We’ll need to collect all their weapons.”
Eris noted that Dezali was slightly shorter than Hasephrey Saephan, but was still a good two hundred and thirteen centimeters tall. Dezali ambled over to Eris and her team beaming a broad smile. Female Orvod didn’t have secondary sexual characteristics such as female humans – they didn’t have breasts or long hair to differentiate them from the males of their species. The main difference between the Orvod sexes was height …males were almost always taller and stronger. Dezali began to touch Eris but in one fluid motion Eris had put her in an arm-lock and forced her to kneel.
“Aaaaggghhh! She’s breaking my arm!” The Orvod female screamed in pain as Eris tightened her grip. No one said anything, but the miners were stunned that a smaller human female controlled and subjugated their Orvod companion so easily… Eris stared at Briggs and his miners blocking their way. The miners had hastily swung their weapons to cover her group.
“No one is searching us and no one is taking our weapons.” Eris hissed out a warning between clenched teeth. “We came through hell to get here, and you are not going to stop us.” T’sell, Lia, Sev and Eli had also drawn their weapons at the same time as the miners brandished theirs. The foreman Briggs was wielding a laser pistol with his left hand, but he slowly lowered it when he realized his position. Eris was keeping the bulk of the Orvod between her and any possible incoming fire.
“Ok, let her go, and you can pass on through. Keep your damn guns.” He spat. The rest of his crew lowered their weapons. The miners opened up the barrier and the airlock so they could pass through.
Eris walked the big alien over to the makeshift barrier and let her go.
“Glad you could be so helpful,” said Eli cheerfully as his group passed through the airlock and on to Platinum City. Inside was a bustling outpost full of thousands of sentients. It was then that the first creeping edge of a headache started for both Eli and T’sell.
CHAPTER 21
It had taken Kyle sixty-six minutes to fly the Starlifter to the next designated drop off point after leaving Captain Monroe and Alpha team behind. He flew low and slow over the rough mountainous terrain to avoid any kind of detection and to keep from hitting this atmosphere’s sonic barrier. He didn’t want to alert any passerby with a sonic boom. The heads up display of the onboard computer showed him all the vital information needed to fly the craft. They were one minute out from their destination and he adjusted speed accordingly, slowing the craft from seven hundred kilometers per hour to a relatively slow one hundred and sixty klicks per hour. The wind and pressure of this world made flying difficult, and there was constant buffering and jolts during the one hour flight. Kyle was sure the team in the back would be glad to be on solid land soon. Thankfully, none of the combat specialists had thrown up from all the jostling. He would have hated to clean that kind of mess up.
“Lieutenant Commander, we’re thirty seconds from drop off.” Kyle couldn’t keep his mind off Eris - he hoped she was alright. He wouldn’t be able to stand it if she got hurt or anything happened to her.
“Roger that,” came Malik’s instant reply. Omega squad was arrayed in the pressure seats located in the passenger compartment of the craft. Starlifter was like a miniature starship, complete with jump-drive, antigravity pulsar thrusters and even a stealth field generator. She wasn’t as sleek or fast as the Valkyrie fighter, but she was still fairly agile for a craft of her size and purpose. Her armor plates would be extremely useful in any kind of aerial or spatial dogfight. Kyle loved that she came armed with eight Hellbore missiles and carried a heavy pulse laser on a swivel mounted turret just beneath the cockpit. The powerful fusion reactor that powered Starlifter could easily energize the two GigaWatts needed for the weapon, the antigravity thrust engine and the kinetic shields simultaneously. The Hayles Zinder kinetic shields were a bonus that not many smaller craft could carry due to the amount of energy they drew. As the craft touched down, the aperture doors at the rear of the passenger bay opened and Omega squad trotted out at a swift jog. Kyle noticed they were all clear within twelve seconds, closed the passenger ramp door and took off vertically.