by Scott Moon
“You’re crazy,” Dickles grumbled.
At the same time, Quark nearly climbed out of his seat with sudden enthusiasm. “How exciting! We’d be racing the clock to escape horrible deaths!”
“You’re crazy too. Why’d I promote you to junior foreman again?” Dickles asked.
Thad drummed his fingers on the console. “It’s not a great plan, but Mast is right. There is more at stake than your life. Besides, I doubt they will let you off the hook even if you pay. Proletan is on his way and he’s like a bullet you can’t put back in the gun. Dickles, build the charges. Mast, look for the best place on those rocks to put them. Quark and I will review the airlock procedure.”
“You can’t go out there,” Dickles said, face pale.
“I’m not an idiot. We’re going to do it by remote, but we still need to get the explosives from in here to out there,” Thad said.
Dickles went to work on the small bench near the back of the compartment. “These charges were made for normal environments, not twenty thousand leagues beneath the sea.”
Thad’s mind drifted to his imminent showdown with the most feared enforcer between Darklanding and Melborn. “We’re not that deep.”
“Might as well be. I’m never going in another ship like this as long as I live,” Dickles complained.
Time crept slowly forward because Thad had nothing to do but think and watch the rest of the crew. He wished he could sleep as easily as the pig-dog. Hurry up and wait, then try not to die. That had gotten him through a lot of tough times. Why not this as well?
“How are you doing, Mast?”
His Unglok deputy took a while to answer. Head down, hands typing on the small computer terminal in front of his seat, Mast was a perfect example of concentration. Thad didn’t see fear. Ungloks could be like that when focused on what needed doing.
“I have the solution. We must place two charges, one here and here,” he said as he pointed at the screen.
“Two? You told me three. What do I do with this bundle of high explosives?” Dickles asked.
“I suggest hold onto it. Dropping it would be muchly bad.”
“Take it apart and put it away,” Thad said.
Dickles shook his head. “Not that easy. This entire voyage was a bad idea. You coming along was worse.”
No one argued.
“This is definitely the rock fall that must be destroyed to release the water back into its natural place. I think very muchly it has been a problem since before the flood. The planet sings loudly in this place. Many of the underground lakes should be filling the canyons between here and Darklanding.”
Thad worried about flooding Transport Canyon. There was nothing else he could do, so he didn’t ask Mast for clarification.
Charges set, they continued to search for a cache of A99.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Proletan
Five minutes before they had to ascend to the surface or run out of air, they found a vein of A99 protruding from a wall. Quark operated the remote arm of the submarine with even more skill than he had when placing the explosive charges at the passage obstruction only a few hundred meters from here. Mast used a second remote control to hold crates open. Quark filled them to bursting with A99.
“That should make me a lot happier than it does,” Dickles said. “Few people see A99 even once in their entire careers. That crate full of it could pay for a spaceship. All I can think about is getting beat to death even if I pay.”
“I won’t let that happen,” Thad said.
Maximus growled.
“I am also thinking I will stand between you and this Proletan person,” Mast said. “If we make it to the surface before the explosion collapses the caverns, we are muchly traveling with this load of priceless A99.”
“How much time do we have?" Thaddeus wanted to take control of the submarine. He understood it was different than flying an airship or a spaceship but watching Dickles cautiously navigate around corners and up vertical shafts made him want to bang his head on the wall.
Quark answered giddily. He was smiling, but not with the same excitement he’d previously expressed. Thad recognized what was happening. The young man was beyond his fear threshold. Adrenaline would only take him so far. Then he would start to break down, make bad decisions, and panic.
Quark gripped the timer with both hands. “My timer says we have nowhere near enough time to make it out alive. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my fraking God!”
Thaddeus grabbed him by his jumpsuit and shook him. "Listen to me. We're going to make it. Just count on it. Don't think about what could happen. Only think about what I'm telling you will happen. And I'm saying we’re going to make it."
Quark nodded vigorously.
Thad went back to his seat. When no one was looking, he calmed himself with a combat breathing exercise. Drawing in air, holding it, and letting it out in a controlled manner relaxed him and helped him focus. He hoped no one noticed except for Mast. His deputy always knew when he was tense.
"The kid’s right to be afraid," Dickles said.
"I told you, I'm not a kid!"
Dickles ignored him. "I didn't think I'd be this scared, but I am. I'm the only one who owes credits. Maybe this Proletan guy isn't even here yet. Wouldn't they have brought him in the first place if he was on the planet?"
Thaddeus didn't answer. Sharn had seemed extremely confident, which led him to believe the legendary enforcer was close at hand.
“We are muchly out of time. I believe Thaddeus should pilot the ship now,” Mast said.
"It's not that simple. This isn't a rocket ship. We can't just gun it and head for the surface.” Dickles released the controls even as he protested Thad taking over. "It doesn't even matter. I'm a dead man. All I wanted was to explore the mines of Ungwilook.”
Thaddeus guided the man out of the seat and took his place. He was aware of the ascent restrictions on this submarine…and he was going to push them to their limit.
"I haven't felt anything. Maybe the charges didn't go off," Quark said.
“Muchly unlikely. We are a long ways from the explosion. It will take time for the shockwaves to reach us,” Mast said. "When they do, we will die."
Thaddeus zoomed upward. Lights flashed, and warning buzzers filled the cabin with noise. The water he had noticed at the beginning of the voyage grew suddenly deeper. Soon he was sloshing his feet in it. Leaks sprung in several places.
"You have to give it time to adjust to the change in pressure, just like a diver couldn't ascend this fast without getting the bends," Dickles said.
"We may swim the last part of this trip," Thaddeus said.
"Not funny," Dickles, Quark, and Mast said in unison.
"Snort, snort!" Maximus turned in a tight circle.
"Hold on, it's about to get real.”
The submarine seemed to grow lighter as they approached the surface. Thaddeus couldn't remember if this was a true fact of physics or just his perception, but either way, he knew this was the last voyage of this particular vessel. Pieces came off both inside and outside, leaving a trail of parts that twisted away in the increasingly violent current. He looked at his camera monitors to be sure they hadn’t lost the A99.
Everyone within the submarine was screaming when they hit the surface and burst upward like a whale. The submarine slammed down near the gold and black beach, sending waves in every direction. Thaddeus and the others popped the hatch and scrambled out, immediately grabbing onto the crates of A99 and wading them onto the beach.
Water raced away behind them. The submarine was sucked into a wet slide of sand and mud.
Thad shouted at the stunned miners lining the beach. “Help us with this crate!”
Near their impromptu landing site, the docks were sucked away by the violent erosion of the cavern floor. They were standing at the top of a deep, near-vertical shaft. The vanishing water made this fact very clear.
He didn’t have time to worry about the ShadEcon officer and
his goons. They were still there but didn’t seem to know what to do. Most backed away. A few aimed blasters at Thad and his friends.
One figure among them was new—Proletan, a six-and-a-half feet tall example of genetically enhanced muscle and secret combat laboratories. The man wore a sleeveless shirt with a hood. If the rumors were true, his face was a mass of scar tissue just like his hands and forearms.
The ShadEcon enforcer stood in the middle of chaos staring at Thad, completely unmoved by the dangerous environment.
Thaddeus didn’t have time for a showdown, so he ignored the legendary killer. “If you’re not helping with the crate, evacuate immediately. There’s going to be a collapse.”
“You’re an expert miner now?” a man yelled at him.
Dickles growled an answer as he heaved the crate of A99. “The flood opened new passages. When the water is gone, there won’t be enough support to hold up the new openings.”
“Oh, yeah. That makes sense,” the man said. “Everyone, get the hell out of here. You heard the boss. Move it. You know the drill!”
Lights flashed over the exits. A voice came over the public-address system. “All personnel proceed to the surface and assemble at your assigned inspection points. All personnel…”
Sharn waved for his men to leave, but stood beside Proletan, who was still silent as a statue.
“We have your payment, Sharn,” Thad said. “Come and get it.”
Sharn scowled. “All the A99 on Ungwilook won’t be worth anything if I’m dead.” He narrowed his eyes as he looked at the crate. “That is what you have, A99?”
“Yeah, promise the loan amount won’t magically go up, and I’ll make sure you get it once everyone is out of the danger area.”
The ground shuddered violently.
“No promises,” Sharn said.
“You can promise to honor this payment, or I’ll come for you when I’m done with Proletan. I won’t be wearing my badge. You think this collapse is dangerous? Wait until you piss me off,” Thad said.
Sharn glared for a moment, then snapped his fingers. Proletan turned toward the exit lift. Sharn followed.
***
Thaddeus had never been this exhausted. He felt defeated despite all they’d survived. The lift trundled upward. The evacuation continued despite the eventual cessation of tremors and reports of passage and cavern collapses from every area of the SagCon operation. Between him and Dickles was a crate full of A99, a substance so valuable there could be a war when news of its discovery got out.
“What really upsets me is that I don’t even get to keep the submarine. All this, and it’s destroyed along with half the work we’ve done in the mines during the last two years,” Dickles said. “SagCon might not go bankrupt, but getting to all those exotic minerals we saw won’t be easy, but it’ll be easier than when it was all underwater. We’re back to real mining again!”
“Like starting over,” Quark said.
“Your pep talk is muchly depressing,” Mast said. “You should be very happy that we found the A99 to pay your debt and Sheriff Fry made Sharn promise to accept it as payment in full.”
Maximus rolled his eyes and shook his head side to side. “Snort.”
“You’ve never seen your life’s work literally go down the drain,” Dickles said.
“I muchly have not.”
Thaddeus didn’t care about any of that right now. Proletan was waiting for him topside.
The End of Episode 11.
Episode 12:
Empire
CHAPTER ONE: Above Ground
Sheriff Thaddeus Fry walked into the light. Survivors of the recent collapse bustled around the loading docks and staging areas between the mines and the monorails. Rows of massive forklifts and trucks were parked like a forgotten column of armor down one side of the asphalt. It had been some time since more than a few of them were used to move material.
Mast Jotham and Maximus moved with him, guarding his right and left flank. P. C. Dickles and Quark Guthrie followed with a locked crate on a cart.
“Do you see Sharn or his goons?” Thaddeus asked. He’d expected an ambush. Proletan wasn’t rumored to fight fair. As the most feared enforcer of ShadEcon, short for Shadow Economy, the man was as skilled in stealth gear as he was in full combat kit. He was the real boogeyman that government leaders and industry magnates feared would kill them in their sleep. Curtis Sharn was the ShadEcon officer with the clout to summon the killer to the back-galaxy world of Ungwilook to deal with a troublesome sheriff and a Company Man who refused to get on board and follow the program.
“I didn’t see ‘em, partner,” Mast drawled. Seven feet tall, but weighing less than Thaddeus, the Unglok deputy sheriff gazed over crowds of human workers with ease. “Oh, wait. I see the hooded assassin everyone is afraid will kill them, and their families, and all their friends.”
“Mast, stop reading those books. Or better yet, stop trying to talk like you’re in a spaghetti western,” Thad said. “Where is he?”
“It seems Sharn’s other tough guys are clearing a space around Proletan. Oh, look. Sharn is waving us over. Should we oblige them?”
“Why not? How could this day get any worse?”
“We could muchly die,” Mast said. “I do not see a way to avoid this man. And I believe it would be a good time to pay Mister Dickles’s loan.”
Thad looked at Dickles. “Ready?”
The man nodded.
“Okay, let’s do this. Everyone knows the plan. If this goes bad, head for Transport Canyon to regroup,” Thad said.
“I am certain it will go muchly bad,” Mast said.
Thad grimaced. “Thanks.”
“For Sharn and his enforcers,” Mast said, chuckling at his own joke. “See what I did there?”
“Work on it. Humor is mostly timing.” Thad moved ahead of his friends. If this turned out to be another ambush, he’d give them a chance to get away.
Mast removed a small journal made of local paper and jotted notes, muttering as he scribbled. “Humor is about timing. Is this, in and of itself, funny? Mast does not know. Mast should “work on it,” says the sheriff.”
“I’m walking into a death match. Can you pay attention? Watch my back?” Thad asked.
“Yes, Thaddeus. I am here.”
Thad relaxed. A nervous thrill went up his spine. He’d been on the planet long enough to know that “I am here” was the most sincere and reassuring phrase an Unglok could speak.
“Sheriff Fry,” Sharn said. “This has been a most unfortunate day for SagCon. They have lost the mines and will lose their sheriff if he doesn’t bow to the will of ShadEcon.”
“The mines are better than ever. The water is receding,” Thad said.
“True, but the sudden un-flooding of the mines is causing many collapses,” Sharn said.
“Mines collapse all the time. Dickles and his crew know how to deal with it.”
Sharn shrugged. “We shall see. Losing such a diligent and by-the-book sheriff will cause more problems for SagCon than the Company Man realizes. Don’t worry. I’ll be there to protect her.”
Thad grabbed the man by his coat.
Proletan crossed the distance between them with preternatural speed, smashing Thad back like he was a child.
***
Yakti-droon was a thousand bodies and one mind. He was old, poisoned in both mind and spirit, and tired of quasi-death. Slaughtering the ship crew had turned out to be a mistake. Yes, the ship was a living entity that could operate without lesser beings, but it chose not to. What Yakti-droon hadn’t realized was that the ship lived to serve—but not to serve evil incarnate like Yakti-droon.
Sleeping at the bottom of the shaft the ship had made when it came to this planet—Ungwilook, the people called it in his dreams—was no longer enough. The ship would not change its mind. Yakti-droon wasn’t worthy of space travel. Yakti-droon would never be allowed to rampage across the galaxy as he had for a millennia before getting trapped on this planet.<
br />
I was so hungry, he thought. And bored. Images of the crew fleeing through the passages, memories of his thousand bodies slaughtering them and feasting on their fear and blood, caused Yakti-droon to squat down on his fifteen legs and listen to the sound of the primitive town—Darklanding, they called it.
It wasn’t my fault. What could I do? I was made to slaughter, and the crew of the ship were made to be slaughtered. He shuddered at memories of the shaft, of darkness even he couldn’t endure, and of hunger.
There was no need to remain hungry. This Darklanding place seemed full of bipedal creatures standing around waiting for him. They warmed themselves around fire contained in metal cylinders. Talking loudly, barely aware of their surroundings beyond their social circle, these creatures were exactly what Yakti-droon needed.
He raised hundreds of hair-thin antennae to sniff the air for the Glakridozian. It had been here, but was far away now. Chittering his quasi-arachnoid laughter, he signaled his thousand bodies to move through the night like a dark wave.
A female of his new food species walked alone. Yakti-droon was curious. She was different somehow, royalty perhaps or a great mother. He massaged the air with his largest cluster of antennae, then raised onto his back legs, making him nearly as tall as the…human. She was not a great mother, not yet. Her pheromones spoke of power and influence despite youth.
I will follow. I will know her, Yakti-droon thought.
***
Shaunte stopped, looked behind her, and frowned. No one used this street at night. A shadow moved in the corner of her vision. When she turned, it was gone.
She slid her data pad from her handbag and checked Thad’s locator icon—still at the mines. She really needed an update from Thad or Dickles. The stress of her next meeting was causing her to see things. Paranoia wouldn’t play well in front of Judy Ortega and her secret collaborators.