The Styx Strikers

by Thor Zollinger

  Bjorn checked the readout on the side of the winch and called out “one hundred eighty six meters. We’re about twenty meters from the edge, so set your Ascenders to one hundred sixty meters. We’ll fine tune the number after the first person goes down the cable.” Bjorn was dragging an aluminum cable-support tripod over to near the edge of the sink hole. It held the cable up off the ground and slightly away from the edge so you could slide unobstructed down the cable. Jake finally figured out why the stake was so far out into the sinkhole. It had to be if you wanted the cable to clear the edge of the hole.

  Sven had pulled a canvas bag out of the vehicle and was fishing some longer hexagonal aluminum devices with handles out of the bag. Sven pointed out the button below the green numerical display to Jake. “Press it once, then use the thumb wheel right here to set the display to 160m, then press the button again and it will stop flashing. You unlock the clamshell using these two buttons, one on top and the other on the bottom, then the Ascender opens up like this.” Sven said while demonstrating. “You slip the Ascender around the cable and close it. Make sure you get the rollers in the grooves in the cable or it won’t close all the way, like this.” Sven had the Ascender securely on the cable and snapped his D-ring onto the ring at the bottom end. “Slide this switch to set your direction using the arrows, then grab onto the handles and press both buttons at the same time to go up or down. The harder you squeeze the faster you go. Simple, huh.” Sven put his weight onto the Ascender and started down the cable, just barely clearing the edge with his back as he went down the cable.

  “That’s Rad!” Jake exclaimed as he reached for an Ascender out of the bag.

  “Wait until Sven gets to the bottom.” Bjorn ordered. “I don’t want you dropping an Ascender on his head.”

  It didn’t take long until Sven keyed his mike and radio’d back up “I’m down. Whoever is next can start repelling down now. Use 162 meters.”

  Jake snapped his Ascender onto the cable and hooked on. He forgot to reset the numerical display, but it didn’t matter. Jake eased the device into action and figured out the pressure thing with the buttons after a couple of jerky starts. The air literally whistled through his hair as he zipped down the line at full speed. Jake had a big grin on his face all the way down! “Wow, this is fun!” The Ascender slowed to a smooth stop and went into ultra slow mode two meters off the ground allowing Jake to reach the ground without any trouble. Sven helped Jake to disengage and called up for the next person to come down. “Going up is a lot slower.” Sven added as Jake stepped away from the landing spot and walked over by Tarra.

  “That was so rad! I can’t wait to do that again!”

  “An adrenalin junky, eh. Maybe tomorrow.” Tarra smirked. “We have a LOT of exploring to do, you won’t have time for another run down the cable today.”

  Just then a bird shrieked somewhere further down the slope near the river. Tarra glanced down in that direction to see if she could see what had spooked it, but it was too far away. It was almost a half a kilometer to the east, downhill to the riverbed. The ground in the sinkhole consisted of a hill rising up in the center towards the base of the spire, created when the majority of the roof of the underground cavern had collapsed. The spire was a massive irregular rock structure, jutting up near the center of the opening about the size of a small skyscraper. Large birds could be seen perching on the crags surveying the landscape below them, watching the group descend into the cavern and set up on the floor of the cavern in a small clearing. Medium sized trees populated parts of the hill, with bushes and shrubs filling in the gaps. The guys had removed the brush in one area to use as a base camp, with the cable stake in the center of the clearing. Further west the river had carved away at the caved-in roof material creating a boulder filled channel. The river bed had been pushed way over next to the far wall of the underground tunnel when the roof had caved in tens of thousands of years in the past.

  The moisture content of the air was high in the cavern, hinting at a waterfall somewhere down one of the underground tunnels which led roughly north and south in this section. Plant life existed mainly just in the section where the roof was missing, where sunlight could enter the cavern. The passages north and south transitioned into bare rock formations very quickly as the light level dropped.

  Jake shaded his eyes from the bright glare of sunlight up above and tried to see who was coming down the line. Bjorn came down next, along with a big canvas bag full of gear suspended from the ring on the Ascender. Sven helped him unhook the gear bag when he reached the bottom and dragged it away from the landing spot. Jake stepped over to help. “What’s in the bag?”

  Sven breathed in deeply, then said “Food, a mapping drone, some spare clothes in case someone gets wet like Dan and Zane did when they fell in the river last time, some emergency stuff like a first aid kit in case YOU do something stupid, stuff like that. We’re going to use the drone to try and scan the insides of the sinkhole tunnels. I want to import the data into our Mech sim and use it for battle practice.”

  “Nice!” Jake stepped closer to Sven to get a look at the contents of the bag. Sven pulled out the camera drone, which was mostly rounded white plastic, with four black propellers and four straight legs sticking down. The drone’s camera was in the center, above the hole in the center housing. A thin boom stuck out the front where Sven attached a small rotary laser scanner. Sven fired up the controller which had a small monitor integrated into it for the main camera. After turning on the drone, a red laser light flashed out of the rotary scanner as it did a quick 360 degree calibration spin, then centered itself pointing straight down.

  “No lights?” Jake queried.

  “Nope, it has a low light camera that can see really well in the dark. Well, as long as it isn’t pitch black anyway. There’s enough light in here we don’t need any additional lights. At least I hope not, I left them back home in my room.” Sven flicked the transmit switch on, reset the inertial system and flew the drone straight up about three meters and hovered. “If the drone loses my signal it retraces it’s flight path back to home. I can also program in a flight path for it to run autonomously. It has collision avoidance sensors that point out the front, back, and sides, and height sensors that point straight up and down. That way it can keep from hitting anything since I can’t see in all directions at once with the camera.” Sven took the drone up higher and flew a lap around the huge spire counter clockwise.

  “Watch this…” Sven flew the drone straight at the spire. Jake watched as it stopped short about a meter from the rock spire as red warning lights lit up on the control screen. Sven backed the drone away from the spire and the red lights went off. “Pretty smart little control system. If you leave the safety’s on it’s pretty hard to crash it.” Sven flew the drone back down to the launch site and set it down gently. “Your turn.”

  “Wow, really? Nice!” Jake took the controls in his hands and lifted the helicopter off the ground slowly. He’d had some practice in video games and considered himself to be a fairly decent pilot. Jake repeated Sven’s maneuver around the massive spire, then took the drone all the way up to the top of the spire so he could see down on everyone. He found he could keep the drone under control better when he focused on the monitor and didn’t watch it in the air. All the controls were backwards when he flew towards himself if he looked at the drone.

  “Ok” Sven added after setting up his tablet for laser mapping, “I need the drone now. Bring ‘er back down.” Jake complied and soon had the drone back down on the ground near their feet. Sven sync’d up the tablet wireless with the laser scanner, set the app up to save point cloud surfaces, then handed the tablet to Jake. “Press this button on the screen when I tell you…” Sven took the controls, lifted the drone off the ground, and flew it over deeper into the sinkhole down to where the river was and hovered. “Ok, hit it.”

  As soon as Jake hit the button the laser on the drone started spinning. Jake could see it in the shadows
of the sinkhole reaching out to the inner walls of the cavern. Sven turned the drone and flew it clockwise around the spire. “I almost forgot, I have to scan the sinkhole around the spire too, not just the tunnels…” He had to lift the drone up higher to keep it above the trees and flew it over the clearing, up out of reach of the group. “Dang, I almost crashed it!” he exclaimed as he jerked the drone to the left flying just under the cable, narrowly missing it. “The sensors can’t see the cable, it’s too small.”

  “Way to go hotshot.” Bjorn interjected. “You crash it and your savings will have to buy us a new one. You didn’t spend it all at the dance last month, did you?”

  Sven stuck out his tongue at Bjorn and concentrated on flying the drone back down the hill towards the river. He turned the drone right and headed it off up the northern branch of the cavern following the river, about three or four meters above the water. Jake watched it disappear into the tunnel, then moved closer to Sven so he could watch it on the monitor. “Nice. I need to get me one of these.” Jake could see the shape of the cavern taking shape on the tablet as Sven flew along the rocky passageway. “How far up the tunnel have you guys hiked?”

  “We’ve gone about five kilometers down the Styx.” Tarra said as she moved over closer to Jake so she could see the tablet screen too. “Sven is just about to the reflecting pool just below the next hole in the roof. There, see the big white streaks down the side wall? Those are stalagmites and stalactites. Big ones. It’s really pretty in that cavern, and there are all kinds of cute little fish swimming around in the pool. They eat the algae that grows on the rocks.”

  Sven followed the slight turns and bends in the passageway, flying well above the water. The floor of the tunnel ran slightly down hill, but was mostly level making it fairly easy to fly the drone. He had plenty of space in the massive tunnel since it averaged between 50 to 100 meters wide and over twice that in height. The tunnel narrowed here and there where harder rock made up the cavern walls. It wasn’t all soft limestone. The next section of tunnel was longer and darker, Sven had to hover for a minute over some boulders while he set the camera up to automatically increase the brightness to better match the light levels. It was slower going until the light level came back up again as he approached the next cavern which had another hole in the roof.

  Picture Pack: Underground River Styx

  Each section of the tunnel seemed to have it’s own personality, the rock formations were all different in this section. The walls glistened more, as the light reflected off the crystals in the rock. “Hey, look at that!” Ariel exclaimed as she strained to see the screen over Tarra’s shoulder. “It looks like the insides of a giant geode! We need to hike there and explore it, maybe get some crystals to take home.”

  “Ummm, maybe next trip. I’m a long ways down the tunnel, probably about seven kilometers or more. That’s a long ways from here, probably at least a day long hike over all those rocks. We’d need tents and gear to stay overnight and more food than we have now.” Sven did a once around in the geode cavern to record it on video and continued on off to the north up the tunnel. After another long stretch of rocky tunnel he came to an intersection where the tunnel formed a “Y”. Sunlight was coming in from the right branch where a smaller stream joined the main underground river.

  “Go over there, into the light. See if there’s a way out over there.” Bjorn grimaced and watched as Sven slowed the drone after shooting past the branching tunnel. Bjorn wanted to be the one flying now, but he had to hold back and let Sven do it. It was Sven’s mapping expedition after all, not his. “We’ve been hoping for an easier way into the caves, one we can drive the Ripsaw or the mechs into, then we could explore the caves a lot faster than on foot.” Sven had backtracked to the branch and entered the smaller tunnel. As he proceeded it narrowed down to an opening about the same width as the double hanger doors on the machine garages back at the ranch.

  “Look how smooth and level the cave floors are here.” Ariel added breathing down the back of Bjorn’s neck. She had placed her hands on his shoulders and was very close behind him. Bjorn forgot for a moment what Sven was doing. Ariel’s mint scented breath distracted him, then he snapped his attention back to the monitor.

  “It looks almost like a natural doorway.” he said with a puzzled look on his face. “See if you can get out past those trees in the entrance and let’s see what it looks like outside.”

  “Roger.” Sven flew the drone up over the medium sized trees and bushes clogging the entrance and popped out into the bright sunlight. Outside the entrance the stream bed was fairly wide and flat, almost like a road with a rivulet running down it. The water followed the bottom of a small winding ravine out towards the east, rising in elevation up to the level of the grassy plains west of the main road heading north to Hai’s mine. Sven took the drone straight up to get a better view of the surrounding landscape. “The entrance is somewhere in the foothills west of the plains where the Bants hang out. Now that we have the GPS coordinates we should be able to locate the entrance from the outside. Do you think we can talk Dad into letting us take the mechs out on safari?”

  “Doubtful. We’re going to have to figure out a good excuse to take them out of the ranch compound. Think about it and we’ll see if we can come up with something. It looks big enough to drive the Ripsaw into, though. Just a couple’a trees and bushes to drive over the top of.” he said with a grin.

  Sven brought the drone back into the cave system and headed back south again. He still needed to fly it back to home base, then fly ten kilometers down the south tunnel and it would need a battery recharge in between runs. It would take him another hour just to get the drone back to home base.

  By this time, Hai, Dan and Zane had finished setting up the campsite up by the Ripsaw and had glided down into the sinkhole with the rest of the crew. Zane had a big bag of paintball gear and he and Dan were suiting up. Hai decided he wanted to help Sven rather than play paintball, the computers held a lot more fascination for him than running around like a madman with Dan and Zane and the guys. Bjorn dug into the gear bag and pulled out the remaining paintball gear. “Jake, sort it out by color, the girls wear the blue smaller sized stuff, you’re medium sized like Sven so you get the dark green, me, Dan and Zane are the biggest, we wear the gray. Hai has his own black set but it doesn’t look like he’s going to play right now.”

  “Matching gear, cool!” Jake dug through the pile and pulled out all of the dark green pieces. The gear consisted of a loose jacket with pieces of slotted plastic riveted on, chaps with a center cod piece to protect your family jewels, and a light weight tanker’s helmet with ear pieces and canvas down the neck. Lastly, they put on a face mask with a lower canvas neck guard just in case you got popped in the throat, with a clear lens over the eyes. The mask had a kind of snout with a grilled opening so you could breath easily and not fog up the lenses.

  Dan had the bag with the guns and ammo. “This here’s old bessy.” Dan said with a drawl. “It’s my favorite. It’s a double barreled shotgun that shoots paintballs. The red paint balls are mine, so keep your hands off ‘em.” he said staring Jake straight in the eyes. “You’ll be bleed’n red in less’n half an hour.” he snarled with a toothy grin, getting into character for playing the game.

  “Don’t mind him.” Bjorn stated flatly. “He’ll be bleeding purple in a few minutes.” he said tossing Jake a bag of fluorescent purple paintballs, the same color as he was loading into his own pistol. Jake grinned! Obviously he was going to be on Bjorn’s team. Bjorn tossed a bag of purple balls to Tarra, who had already pulled on her gear and was sidling up to Jake.

  Ariel was already in her blue gear, she was busy picking out a red rifle and loading up with bright red paintballs. She pointed her gun at Bjorn and said “Bang, you’re dead.” Bjorn grinned, and blew her a kiss. “I’ll get you later, sweetheart.”

  Jake was crouched, holding still behind a close group of trees with bushes around the trunks. His
green gear blended in well, he didn’t think anyone could see where he was. Across the gap in the trees he could see Dan and Zane scanning the area looking for him and Tarra. Where is Tarra anyway? Jake pondered, he hadn’t seen her in a while. And where was Ariel? She had disappeared too. He knew where Bjorn was. Bjorn had headed off to the north side of the spire fifteen minutes ago to circle west towards the river, then south to sneak up behind Dan and Zane, the danger twins. Jake was supposed to wait until Bjorn was in position, then the two of them would catch those two wackos in a cross fire.

  Jake’s radio crackled twice, the signal to rush Dan and Zane. Jake burst out of the trees, gun firing as fast as his finger could pull the trigger. “Bonzaiiiii!” Jake could see Bjorn doing the same from the opposite side. Dan yelped and dove into the bushes, but not before Jake smacked him in the back. The game they were playing, you had to hit someone three times before they were considered dead. Zane the enemy took off to the north after smacking Bjorn in the chest once with a bright red paint ball. Zane had been hit twice too, Bjorn had done his job. Jake turned north and took off after Zane, but Zane was a fast runner. He out-distanced Jake quickly, then dove behind a tree.

  Where’d he go? Jake thought as he ran quickly right past Zane’s tree. Plam! Zane nailed Jake right in the back as he ran past. “Dang!” Jake wheeled around a tree and slid into the dirt, landing heavily on the ground facing Zane’s direction.

  Zane came after him and got a two purple blotches right on the arm for his trouble. Zane’s shot went wild over Jake’s head missing entirely. “Hah! Got you that time!” Jake danced around waving his gun in the air and pointing at Zane. Zane held up his hands, “Ok, I give. Dang it! I’m out!” and turned to walk back to the clearing and home base.

  “And now for Ariel.” Jake commented.