The Lazarus War: Artefact

by Jamie Sawyer

  “Take us in, Martinez.”

  The crawler gently shifted gears and began the descent into the unknown.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  SEE YOU ON THE OTHER SIDE

  After my father died, Carrie and I were passed between a series of aunts and uncles – usually well-meaning, often misguided, always transient. With my mother gone as well, there was no one else left to care for us. We never moved far – always within the Detroit Metro, shifting from one tower block to the next.

  We probably spent the longest time with Aunt Ritha, or my memory of her is certainly the brightest. I was never quite sure how we ended up in Ritha’s care, but oaths sworn in poverty are hard to break and Ritha had promised my mother she would see to us if it ever became necessary. Ritha was an enormous black woman, over six foot tall, and her height gave her an awkward hunch. She always wore an apron – the same apron, tarred with brown and yellowed stains – but I had never seen her cook food. Ritha had migrated to the Metro from Haiti, or so she said, and her convoluted backstory of illegal immigration into the United Americas created a vaguely exotic appeal to the local gangs. That, and the fact that Ritha was addicted to scolometh – a chemical derivative of scopolamine. She spent most of her days on the couch in the tiny one-bed apartment, watching the tri-D viewer in a stupor. Occasionally shuffling to the door in her years-old slippers to meet another dealer, then shuffling back to the indentation on the equally ancient couch.

  All that said, Ritha was a good woman. She wasn’t a blood relative, obviously – none of those aunts or uncles were, I don’t think – but she tried her best. She sold a few drugs on the side and always made sure that we had ration vouchers for food on the table.

  I liked Ritha.

  The problem was her partner: a rat-faced bastard called Leeroy.

  He was a much smaller man, Detroit born and bred, so pale that he looked transparent. Hair shaven, scalp a tapestry of gang tattoos, nose razor-sharp. As with Ritha, my memory of him is a single outfit of clothing: a DETROIT WHISTLERS vest, the neck line pulled down so that it exposed most of his chest, and a pair of too-large combat trousers stolen from an Alliance soldier on shore-leave. Leeroy never touched scolometh – was somewhat proud of that – but his drug of choice was just as easy to obtain. He’d drink whenever and whatever he could.

  Leeroy and I didn’t see eye to eye, and when he drank our differences seemed to expand until there was a gulf between us. Everything about Carrie and me he hated. Couldn’t see why Ritha had to care for us. Couldn’t see why she would want to. Ritha wasn’t one for arguing; she would just let him rumble on, rant, the reflection of the tri-D playing on the thick lenses of her antique glasses.

  The shouting I could take. The shouting didn’t hurt.

  The beatings hurt.

  Those started almost immediately on our arrival at Ritha’s. For literally any reason, Leeroy would find an object and hit me with it. His preferred tool was a baseball bat: kept beneath his bed for protection, stained dark with the blood of prior use, the faded words AMERICA’S FINEST printed on the handle. He’d usually aim for my legs or across my back. I remember that the face hurt, most of all.

  As I got older, I would flee the apartment. Ritha never really showed much interest in what Leeroy was doing, if she even noticed, but she would sometimes have the mercy to give me small jobs to do. Deliver some money to a neighbouring block, take a package to meet one of her dealers. I was grateful for the opportunity to be away from the stifling atmosphere of the tiny apartment.

  Leeroy would often follow me, and we would be involved in an hour-long game of cat-and-mouse. I got good at it, in the end. The best hiding places were in the abandoned or bombed-out tenements: those empty black shells, full of winding narrow corridors, full of hiding places. I’d crouch among the debris of the old world, listening for Leeroy as he stalked behind me.

  “Come out, you miserable piece of shit!” he would yell, voice strangely high pitched, quivering with rage. “I told Ritha not to give you and that dumb-shit sister of yours any more ration vouchers. We’re on a budget, you piece of shit, and that money is mine.”

  I would run from him. And, like I say, I got good at hiding. Watching him from gantries or collapsed stairwells; that haggard white figure, stalking through the blackened corridors. The quickening of my heart-rate as I misplaced a foot: then the flight would start again. His yelled protestations as I fled, took up a better hiding place.

  He never caught me. I think if he had, out of the apartment and away from Ritha’s gaze, Leeroy would’ve killed me. That fear drove me on, made me better – the best – at hiding and running.

  I hadn’t thought about Ritha and Leeroy for a long time. I rarely revisited that part of my history, and for good reason, but right now – in the tunnels beneath the desert – it sprang to mind.

  The sensation was exactly the same: being chased through the dark by something malicious, through narrow and twisting corridors.

  I only wished that it was Leeroy following me, now, and not the Krell. But that feeling of being watched was impossible to shake.

  The crawler was descending. Progress became slow and arduous. Following Kellerman’s speculative maps, we encountered dead-ends or rock falls where there should have been open paths, and Martinez was forced to backtrack twice.

  “This place is massive,” he commented, as we drove onwards.

  “I’m trying to plot possible enemy movements through the network,” Kaminski said. “So many hiding places.”

  “This is supposed to be the easy part,” I said. “These tunnels are apparently well-explored.”

  Martinez navigated the crawler through a passageway, narrower than many we had encountered so far. A vast cavern unfolded ahead. It reached into darkness far above. The crawler prowled, cat-like, around stalagmites the size of ten men. Ahead, even larger stalactites dripped from the ceiling. Water flowed from some, gradually pooling in the lower recesses of the cave. Great insects flitted among the life-giving fluid. As they stooped to drink from the pools, they flashed brilliantly with internal light.

  “It’s raining up there,” I said. “The water has started pouring into the caverns below. If the storm has broken, then the Krell will be loose above.”

  “Then this is where the Krell will be,” Jenkins said, pensively.

  We all sat in silence for a moment. Of course, she was right. The Krell liked water, liked humid environments. The desert above was anathema to them – they occupied the sector around the Artefact because of the effect it had on them. The dark, watery, and rank tunnel network below: this was their preferred habitat.

  So why haven’t we seen them yet?

  I rubbed my eyes. I was tired from the constant observations.

  “How far underground are we?”

  Kaminski sucked his teeth in indecision. “Can’t tell, but there’s a lot of rock above us. The sensor-suite can’t penetrate it.”

  The crawler sensors projected a holo of the immediate area, and I studied it carefully. Heavy rock strata. That would be dense, likely capable of blocking radio transmissions or at least heavily disrupting them. I didn’t need a chemical analysis to tell me that this was our best chance to break communication with Kellerman.

  “Martinez, run a check on our signal back to Helios Station.”

  There was a pause as Martinez did as ordered. “We’re still broadcasting, but the signal has degraded. Not sure whether we will be able to keep airing as we go further underground.”

  That was good enough for me. Now was the best time to act on my plan. I didn’t know the precise transmission capabilities of the crawler, or of the individual suit-cameras. But the storm and the rocks above us would interfere with comms, as would the Artefact the nearer we got to it.

  I theatrically rubbed my chin, leant over the control console. Got to make a show of this.

  “So, we need to follow this path?” I asked, pointing out the route on the holo-map. “If the Krell try to follow u
s down here, they’ll probably use the same access point as us. All-stop, Martinez. We’re going to seal that tunnel.”

  The crawler came to an immediate standstill.

  “But you’ll need to get out,” Kaminski said. The logistics of our situation dawned on him. “We can extract, but you’ll be trapped down here.”

  “I’ll have to think of another way out of here if that happens,” I said, again precisely and clearly. All for show. “We don’t have long before the Krell get wise to our position. Kaminski, Jenkins – button up. I want you to go outside.”

  Jenkins hauled one of the demo-charges from the passenger cab. “I’m up, Cap.”

  Kaminski was less convinced, frowning at me – on the cusp of refusing the order for my good. Don’t blow this, ’Ski – don’t argue with me.

  “Execute that order, Kaminski.”

  Just as I had expected, the communicator suddenly broke with static.

  “Captain Harris, this is Dr Kellerman. I do hope that you don’t intend to use that demolition charge. Those are nuclear charges.”

  “That’s exactly what we’re doing. Anything wants to chase us into the caves with that storm acting up, it’s going to come in the same way we did.”

  “Captain, that is the primary route to the Artefact! What if a later expedition needs to use the same path?”

  “Then they will have to find another way in. We have to seal that shaft. It’s the best chance we have of making it to the Artefact.”

  “Do not seal those tunnels, Captain,” Kellerman said, definitively.

  “Try to understand this: if these tunnels are flooded, then the Krell will be rampant down here. We’re only a four-man team.”

  Kellerman didn’t answer immediately, as though he was considering my answer. Did he believe me? How much did he really know about the tunnels, about the presence of the Krell down here? He had sent expeditions into the dark before, but nothing like this.

  “Try to keep comms to a minimum, Kellerman – every broadcast we make out here could be attracting Krell,” I said, before he had responded. “Kaminski, Jenkins – you’re up.”

  I cut the connection. Swallowed hard. Kept my eyes on Kaminski and Jenkins, prayed that they wouldn’t collapse from a bullet in the head back at Helios Station. They were unsuspecting of what I planned, unsuspecting that I was taking an enormous gamble. But seconds passed, and no one made extraction. The scheme was too risky for me to feel any relief – not just yet, at least.

  Jenkins sealed up her combat-suit and strapped a demo-charge to her back. She holstered a pistol on her thigh. With obvious relish, she armed her M95 plasma rifle and flamethrower. The pilot-light on the muzzle of the flamer lit immediately.

  “Martinez, I want both crawler guns primed and ready to fire. Kill the engine.”

  “Affirmative, sir.”

  “I’ll man the hatch,” I said. “Constant scanner sweeps when they’re outside – covering fire if they need it.”

  “We know what we’re doing,” Kaminski said. Both he and Jenkins slammed helmets into place, hiding their faces behind reflective face-shields, making them look anonymous.

  “All good,” Jenkins declared.

  “Keep it swift and keep it clean,” I ordered.

  I hauled open the crawler hatch and was immediately glad it wasn’t me going out there. The cave was enormous, probably hundreds of metres across, and made me feel insignificant. Without the aid of the crawler sensor-suite, it was also utterly pitch-black. My ears prickled with the change in atmospherics and I was overwhelmed by the stink of damp and death that filled the cabin. I grappled with my respirator and sucked down cold oxygen.

  I immediately recalled the Alliance operation on Torus Seigel IV. That was the last time I’d been fighting in my own body, while I was with Spec Forces. The conditions there had been similar: an endless night above ground, a rat’s nest of endless tunnels below. Ten years ago now; a different life that I was suddenly revisiting.

  Jenkins and Kaminski jumped down from the crawler. They flashed on their suit-lamps, casting bright light over the muted greens and greys of the cavern interior. With a regular supply of water down here, the wildlife was more obvious than on the surface. Alongside the alien insects, colourful and bio-luminescent fungi polluted the rock pools. Weird, needle-covered shell creatures scurried about. There was a loud drip-drip-drip of water falling from above, a gushing in the distance.

  This is definitely where they will be, I thought. And yet the place is empty.

  Jenkins scanned the nearby area with her rifle, looking for signs of hostile activity. With the ceiling so far above, it was impossible to determine what might be up there.

  “Get back inside, Captain,” she said, over the comm. “Better you watch with Martinez.”

  “Affirmative.”

  She had a point. I slid the hatch shut, and wandered up front with Martinez. He was still hunched over the control console, watching the scanner-feeds and external cameras. We were an island of light amid the dark; the crawler headlights disappearing somewhere before the cavern perimeter.

  “Kill the lights,” I said. “We’re too exposed out here. There could be anything watching us.”

  “Affirmative, Cap.”

  The lights went dark. Kaminski and Jenkins had full sensory awareness inside their suits – the light would only serve to make us an easy target, make us vulnerable.

  I looked down at the chronometer. The team had been outside for less than a minute, but it felt like an eternity. Time seemed to stretch, become elastic.

  Jenkins jogged back the way that the crawler had come. She aimed her flamethrower into the tunnel. Kaminski stalked behind her, weapon panning back and forth.

  My pulse raced unnaturally. There was extreme risk in my plan. I needed to cut comms between the station and my squad. Closing the tunnel would stop the Krell from following us underground, but would also disrupt our signal back to the station. Kellerman had certainly foreseen the former consequence, but maybe not the latter. Although he might react by executing one of my team, I didn’t think that he would do that. He had no qualms about expending their lives, but I still had the Key; executing one of the team meant one less bodyguard for me and reduced my prospects of making it to the Artefact. I desperately wanted to explain all of this to my squad. Would the others be angry with me for taking the gamble? Maybe, but I couldn’t discuss it with them: right now, we were still broadcasting. This was a risk that I – we – were going to have to take.

  “Patch us into the combat-suit camera feeds,” I said.

  The direct feeds from Jenkins and Kaminski appeared on the crawler console. Martinez manipulated the controls and activated night-vision mode, improving the visual quality. This was exactly what Kellerman would be viewing back at Helios Station.

  “Approaching tunnel entrance,” Kaminski said, his communicator channel open to the crawler.

  The tunnel mouth was fifty metres ahead of them. Jenkins waved Kaminski up, and she dashed through rock pools to cover another few metres. Her footfalls echoed off into the distance. So loud: the noise made me flinch.

  “Spooky as hell down here,” Jenkins panted.

  “I’m getting possible movement,” Martinez said. “Maybe just water though. There’s a lot of it coming through this section. Mucho movimiento.”

  Jenkins reached the tunnel mouth and unstrapped the charge from her back, holding her flamer one-handed. It was a big, clumsy weapon, but she handled it expertly. Kaminski came up behind her and hunkered down beside the rocky wall. The situation was impossibly tense. My eyes kept flitting to the crawler view-screens, to the deep darkness that surrounded us.

  “Best place to seal the tunnel will be a few metres in,” Jenkins said. “If I set the charge for three minutes, we can roll out in the crawler before it hits. You sure that you want me to do this?”

  I had a moment of indecision. I didn’t know about the structural viability of the caves, and I doubted that any expedition had e
ver performed a demo test. Kellerman would never have allowed it.

  “Orders, Cap?” Jenkins asked again.

  “Do it – ten metres inside, three-minute delay,” I decided.

  Jenkins knelt down to ready the charge. Kaminski motioned her on, his rifle up to cover her.

  There was a distant, high-pitched keening noise. Like a banshee howl, loud enough to be detected by suit receivers and relayed back to the crawler.

  “Wait!” I called.

  Jenkins paused.

  “You hear that? Turn up your external audio receptors.”

  I watched through Kaminski’s suit-camera: Jenkins frowned behind her face-plate.

  “Sounds like the wind,” she said. “Maybe coming down through the rocks.”

  It’s the Artefact. Not in my head, but sounding through the tunnels. Get a Christo-damned grip; these people depend on you.

  “Ignore it. Execute the order,” I said to Jenkins. But that confirmed it: none of the others could hear the signal like me.

  Jenkins attached the charge to the tunnel wall. The rock was slick with water and algae. The charge slipped free the first time. She attached it again. The display panel illuminated.

  “Done. Nuke is placed.”

  “I’m getting readings all around us,” Martinez interrupted. “I don’t like this at all. Scanner is showing definite motion.”

  “Get back inside the crawler,” I ordered. “Move now.”

  They moved on at a brisk jog.

  I stared down at the scanner. It showed a certain, solid build-up of hostiles. Flashing blips, moving swiftly all around the cavern.

  “Clearing tunnel mouth!” Kaminski whispered.

  He turned back towards the crawler – so distant on his camera-feed, rendered throbbing green by his helmet visuals.

  In front of Kaminski, head so close that it almost touched his face-plate, was an enormous Krell primary-form. It was poised on a rock, powerful legs coiled underneath it; massive razor-claws raised and ready to strike. Maybe the image froze for a second, or perhaps it really was that still: like some twisted alien sculpture. Its mouth was open wide, exposing rows of teeth, and it screamed right into Kaminski’s face – spittle showering him, enough of it landing on the camera lens to cloud my view.