“Wait for my signal before you come down,” she said.
“Hold on,” Carpenter said. “Let me throw a flare...”
“No,” Weber interrupted. “That's the last thing we want to do. If there's anyone waiting down there, at least we'll have a chance of evading them if we move silently, and throwing down a thousand-candlepower flare is an invitation for an ambush.”
“You can't climb down in darkness,” Carpenter protested.
“Might be easier,” Harper replied. “This way, I can't see how far I have to fall.” Snapping off her flashlight and sliding it into a pocket, she took the cable with both hands and started to work her way down the shaft, bouncing carefully down, easing herself down gently. She glanced up at Carpenter, managing what she hoped was a reassuring smile, before her friend faded out of view, replaced by the blank emptiness.
There were almost two miles underground, no sources of light at all, nothing for her eyes to use other than the faint traces from Carpenter's flashlight above. It felt as though her other senses were sharpening, her ears picking up every faint scratch and translating them in her imagination into an ambush, a horde of cannibal barbarians waiting to pounce. She felt like shouting out, doing something to break the gloom, but didn't dare. If there was someone down there, she had to keep silent, had to surprise them.
Almost before she realized it, she reached the bottom, falling to the floor as her foot slipped on a smooth rock, dropping her on her back. On instinct, she pulled out her pistol, waving it around, and tensed up in expectation of an imminent attack. After a few seconds, nothing happened, and she tugged three times at the cable, the signal for Carpenter to descend.
Throwing on her flashlight, she shone the beam around, looking for the source of the organic residue. A few meters down the corridor, she saw what appeared to be a bundle of rags huddled by the wall, the first sign of anything in this catacomb other than bare wall and pictogram. Hastening over to it, her eyes widened as a sightless face stared back at her, the flesh wrinkled and dry, a faint odor in the air the last trace of the long-dead figure.
Behind her, she heard Carpenter drop to the floor with a muttered curse, and waved for her friend to come forward, then knelt down beside the corpse, looking over the body. Definitely human, and a vaguely recognizable jumpsuit, though a lot older than she had expected. Not from Monitor, certainly.
Carpenter moved over, waving a datapad over the figure, and said, “More than a century.”
Turning the figure, Harper looked at the flag on the sleeve, replying, “Fifty-two stars. The flag of the old United States.” Frowning, she added, “That dates him to sometime in the 2040s, right?”
“Between '41 and '48, specifically,” Carpenter replied. “I'm impressed.”
“Recent events have caused me to brush up on my 21st Century history.” Reaching into the dead man's pocket, she pulled out an ident card, and squinted at the faded text. “Edward Bigelow. Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy. NASA astronaut. USS Nautilus.” She looked across at Carpenter, and added, “I think we may have just added a page or two to this history books.”
“One of the colony ships, launched during the Third World War? This far out?”
“Why not?” Harper replied. “In terms of travel time, it's no further than some of the colonies we've found. They had a different take on the hendecaspace drive, far less reliable but capable of much greater range. Back home we've got a project working on getting the best parts of both, and I know they've managed unmanned test flights of more than twenty light-years.”
“To a recently discovered system?” Weber asked, the trooper moving up behind them.
“Only to us,” Harper said. “The middle of the last century is the nearest thing we've had to a dark age. We don't have good records from that era, and almost everything connected with space travel and exploration was classified as a military secret. Most of them lost during the final Nuclear Spasm. It seems reasonable that a discovery like this could have been hidden.”
“Then there might be human colonies out there,” Carpenter said. “Somewhere in this galaxy.” Looking at the figure, she added, “He's got two broken legs.”
“Fell down the shaft,” Weber said. “Though why wouldn't his friends retrieve him?”
“Lost, perhaps. My guess is that we'll never know.” Rising to her feet, Harper said, “Though it doesn't matter. You think we can take him back to the surface?”
“I don't know,” Carpenter said. “I don't think we'll ever find a better mausoleum than this.” Turning up to Harper, she added, “We've failed, haven't we.”
Looking down at the body, Harper asked, “Come on, Commander. You were down here for something, and I'd guess you found what you were looking for. Where is it?”
“What makes you say that?”
“There's nobody here. Susan, those colony ships were designed for a one-way trip, and every jump was a risk. For every one that made it, three failed to even make planetfall. This is an inhabitable world, and I've seen less promising planets host colonies. Hell, you weren't far off sustainability with half a dozen shuttle flights from a scoutship. A full colony ship could establish hydroponic plants, water reclamation, and should be well on the way towards spaceflight by now.”
“Unless they failed, and the settlement died,” Weber replied. “No, that can't be the answer. We'd find some traces, even if all of them perished. There'd be signs in orbit, as well. Satellites wouldn't decay that quickly.”
“You're right!” Carpenter said, stabbing at her datapad. “Damn it all, I wish we had a decent connection with a database so I could be sure. We've got a record listing of a settlement founded by a USS Nautilus. A failed colony, out at 70 Ophiuchi. Thunderchild evacuated the survivors last year.” A beaming smile on her face, she continued, “They'd reverted to barbarism, all records lost, but there were some stories about a great adventure through the stars. Some of the mythologists went crazy about it, a real chance to see the evolution of legends in action.”
“Meaning that there is a way home, and that the answer is somewhere down here, buried in the rocks.” Weber peered down at the man's hand, and said, “What's he holding?”
Easing the dead man's fist open, Carpenter said, “Just a piece of metal.” Her eyes widened, and she added, “Some sort of tool. An artifact. And made of some sort of organic material.”
“So, what does that get us?” Weber asked.
“It means that we can establish the dating of this site with real accuracy,” Carpenter said, stretching the sensor filament from her datapad and clipping it to the tool. “That's going to help us enormously in the establishment of a baseline history of this place. And we might get some idea of the original builders, if they came from our galaxy.”
With a sigh, Weber replied, “Very interesting, Lieutenant, but is it going to get us home?”
“His people did,” Carpenter said. “There must be something down here, perhaps a mural. We're going to have to find a way to extend our stay, conduct a proper survey of these tunnels, and maybe we can...”
“Yes!” Harper yelled, her voice echoing down the corridor. “Susan, get that dating! I think I've worked out our way home.”
“What?” Weber asked.
“How long, Susan?”
Looking down at her readout, the archaeologist replied, “A little under thirty thousand years. With a little time, I should be able to get it narrowed down to the century.”
“That's close enough,” Harper said. “Listen, that wormhole is fixed gravitationally, right? Anchored to this star.”
“We don't know that for certain.”
“I think we can assume it. What are the odds that it would have taken us here, otherwise, to the same system that the Nautilus discovered, more than a century ago. One that has a base with distinct similarities to a culture that died out in our galaxy at about the same time
when that tool was built. We've both read the same reports, Susan. It can't just be a coincidence.”
“So?” Carpenter asked. “What's your point?”
“Stars move, Susan, and in thirty thousand years, they move a hell of a lot. We can guess that the wormhole is artificial, and further that it was established by the creators of this base. I know that I'm using a pretty long chain of assumptions, but bear with me. Given a little time, and some baseline observations of the local stars, we should be able to work out the positions of all the stars in this region at the time the wormhole was constructed.”
Weber's eyes lit up, and she replied, “I get it! You want to work out what stars would have been within hendecaspace range of the wormhole. On the principle that the builders of this place must have visited it at some point in the past, and that if there is a way home...”
“And we now know for certain that there is.”
“It must be at one of those stars. And one that Alamo can reach. If Nautilus could, then we damn well can as well!” Carpenter finished. She pulled the tool free, sliding it in a sample bag and placing it in her pocket. “That's what he must have found. Maybe he was taking it back to the ship when he got lost. The specifics don't matter.”
“We still don't have a route, though,” Weber replied. “It isn't going to be quite as easy as that. We might narrow it down to a far smaller number of stars.” She paused, then added, “Though of course, we could expect to find more evidence elsewhere. Hell, Monitor is out there somewhere, probably following the same trail. Not to mention the other ships that were lost through the wormhole.”
“So at any point, we might find a shortcut, a guide to take us home,” Harper said. She reached for her communicator, hoping against hope for a miracle, and shook her head. “No signal. We'll have to get up to the surface. As soon as we can, we'll have to contact Alamo and get them moving on this. I don't know how long Astrogation will take working out a course, but the sooner they can get started, the sooner we can be on our way home.”
“I'll be damned,” Weber said. “We actually found what we were looking for.”
Looking down at the corpse, Harper patted him on the head, and said, “Thank you, Commander. I think we owe you our lives. Rest in peace, my friend.” She glanced up, spotting a flash of light in the corner of her eye, and turned to the shaft in time to watch the cable curl down, dropping to the floor. A small cylinder followed, and acting on pure instinct, Harper dragged her two friends to the ground, a heartbeat before the ear-shattering explosion.
Weber was the first to react, racing to the shaft and emptying a clip at full automatic up it, a scream indicating that she'd had some success, but a series of bullets slamming into the ground behind her forced a retreat, and she raced past Harper and Carpenter, running as quickly as she could down the corridor.
“Come on!” she said. “There must be more of them down here, or they'd have climbed down after us!” Carpenter sprinted after her, Harper following after a last, sorrowful glance at Bigelow, lying alone in the darkness, destined to remain in the shadows forever.
Now that the attack had begun, their pursuers were abandoning any pretense of stealth, instead racing through the darkness towards them in all directions, flashes of light gleaming through the corridors as they sought to outpace them. The occasional crack of a bullet urged them to greater speed, but after a moment, it was obvious that they weren't going to make it.
“Split up,” Weber said. “We've all got plans of the layout. We'll just have to make our own ways back up to the surface. My watch says that we've got thirty hours to get home.” Without waiting for confirmation, the trooper slid down a ramp, and with a final glance, Carpenter and Harper split up, racing down corridors, attempting to confuse the enemy.
Immediately, it began to work, and the pursuing force paused for a moment, muttered arguments in the distance revolving around who they should be following. The window of opportunity was brief, but Harper took it spotting a narrow shaft that dropped down less than fifteen feet, heading into a long, low tunnel at the bottom.
There was no time for her to fix a rope, and with a quick glance back at the approaching troopers, she swung herself down, grabbing onto the side of the shaft, then let herself fall, dropping and rolling in exactly the way she was taught, remaining on the ground and scurrying into the shadows, hardly daring to breathe for fear of attracting pursuit. Above her, she heard footsteps, shouting, and for a soul-wrenching second, a group paused overhead, shining their flashlights down the shaft, sweeping about.
As fast as they arrived, they left, heading off towards some imagined enemy, and Harper continued down the tunnel, no longer caring where it led, only interested in getting some distance between herself and the would-be ambushers. Sliding into a junction, she pulled out her datapad, quickly getting her bearings.
Heading directly up to the surface wouldn't be a good idea. The odds were good that they'd have people on their way up towards the Vault, and they'd be concentrating their search in that area. The only answer was to play for time, try and go deeper, into the darkness below. A risky move, but at this point, there didn't seem to be a realistic alternative. She glanced at her watch, and frowned, then reached into her pocket for a stimulant, swallowing it dry.
Twenty-nine hours before Salazar was forced to detonate the bombs on the surface, assuming the approach of the enemy forces didn't lead them to move sooner. With one last look around, she ducked into the tunnel, pushing deeper into the gloom and the dark. Somewhere in the distance, she heard a crack, followed by an angry scream, and for a moment turned to help, knowing that one of her comrades had likely just been shot. Captured at best, killed at worst.
Resignation froze her in place. Racing off into the dark would only give her friend some company, either in a cell or on a fast route to the next world. She couldn't do anything to save them, not now. All she could do was try and save herself, and get the information in her head back to Alamo, the clue that might show them the way home. Then, at least, all the deaths would mean something.
Chapter 17
“I just don't see how we're going to pull this off,” Caine said, looking up at the tactical display. “Our latest reports confirm that they have completed repairs on their laser cannon, and that gives them all the tactical advantages they need.” Reaching across to the controls, she brought up Alamo's trajectory, and continued, “I've gone over the recovery plan three times. The best we can do is eighteen minutes, and that's with a surface stay time of less than ninety seconds. I just don't think that's practical.”
“Ten missiles against six. Seven fighters against twelve,” Francis said. “And on that course, we don't have anything to work with. Even if the superstructure could take it, I don't think we could dip into the atmosphere. Not and recover the shuttles.” He paused, then added, “Maybe we could draw Waldheim away, run the shuttles for longer.”
“Wouldn't work,” Foster said shaking her head. “If I was commanding Waldheim, I'd leave at least a flight of fighters in orbit to cover for that. Target practice.”
“So much for that idea,” Marshall said. Looking around the bridge, he gestured at the countdown clock, and added, “We've got less than ten hours before we have to face that ship, ladies and gentlemen, and I still haven't heard anything resembling a workable plan.”
“Abort,” McCormack said. “I'm quite serious. Leave our team on the surface for the present, and head to the nearest hendecaspace point. We jump in-system, two days, as far as I can see, and then come back on a different vector. We'd have to find some way to warn our team on the surface, but…”
“Why bother?” Foster asked, fury in her eyes. “We'd be forcing them to surrender in any case. The only reason that they're holding out at the moment is that we've drawn Waldheim away from the planet, and they haven't been able to use anything like their full strength. Their fighters can operate in atmosphere just like ours can
, and with targeted airstrikes, they could easily wipe out our team without destroying the alien site.”
“She's right,” Caine replied. “That's what I'd do, if I was commanding Waldheim. Hell, I'm surprised they haven't tried it already.”
“Then we leave anyway,” McCormack said. “We shouldn't have committed troops to surface operations in the first place, and they all knew the risks they were running going in. You're talking about throwing away the lives of everyone on this ship.” Pointing at the display, she added, “The situation is not recoverable.”
“We are not leaving those people down there,” Foster said, coldly. “Not while I am sitting on this bridge.”
“Are you contemplating a mutiny, Lieutenant?” Marshall replied with a wry smile. “I could use a few days off.”
“Of course not, sir, but we can't simply give up on our people.”
“I agree,” Marshall said. “Simply abandoning our landing team is unacceptable. Furthermore, there remains the issue of Pioneer, and our current course gives us a close flyby, near enough that we can take a proper look at the surface.”
Nodding, Francis replied, “Potentially, we've got a window for a shuttle launch, but it would be tight as hell.” He paused, then added, “I should note that we have no evidence that there is anyone still alive down there.”
Marshall looked up at the tactical display, watching as Waldheim loped on its high orbit, permanently ready to move to engage Alamo. They'd be meeting up anyway in ten hours, the two ships fighting it out once more. And according to the manual, Alamo would lose. The coming battle looked distressingly like an even fight, the two ships warring it out, and without any tactical trickery, the battlecruiser was doomed.
“Can we strengthen Alamo's point-defense system?” Foster asked. “I've not had a chance to look over the specifications properly, but...”
“Ten mass-driver turrets around the perimeter of the ship,” Caine said. “All experimental designs. I'd be reluctant to make any serious changes. The recoil's bad enough as it is with the current rate of fire.” With a faint smile, she added, “The first test ripped one of the turrets right off the hull.”
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