“What are you thinking?” Deneb whispered as they crept along. “I know that look. You’re planning something.”
“I don’t know. It’s just a possibility…” Andi held up her hand. Ahead of them was a computer station. She nodded to Deneb. He slipped in front, peered around the lip of the tunnel, waited a second and then moved quickly.
“Drop it!” he snapped as the guard raised his own rifle. The guard ignored him, bringing the weapon up to point at Deneb.
“No!” The word escaped Andi’s lips as the laser blast erupted from the barrel. Her hand flew to her mouth, and then she watched the guard slump in his chair.
Deneb looked over his shoulder at her. “I had no choice, Andi, it was me or him.”
“I’ve no quarrel with that,” she said, coming around the station and pushing the guard in the chair aside with a grimace so she could face the computer screen. She studied the text and pressed a button for the location menu. She now had a working knowledge of the Hoshaen language, and had no problem in locating Clios. “She’s listed as working in section G4 of the mine today.” She cleared the screen. “Come on.”
“Aren’t you going to program the card?” Deneb said as she left the station.
“No need. I know the way.” She led him down one of the tunnels. She smiled to herself in the semi-darkness as they walked. She knew that he was curious about her sudden remarkable memory and other skills. She would have to explain everything back on the ship, of course—that was inevitable. But first they had to rescue Clios and get out of here.
“Andi!” Deneb reached out a hand and grabbed the back of her outfit suddenly as she exited the tunnel. In alarm she looked at the waist-high railing in front of her. She had nearly toppled over it. Together they leaned carefully over and looked down.
They stood on a platform at the top of a pair of staircases that lined the walls of the central heart of the mine. Down below them, Andi could see Ruvalians working on other platforms at various levels. Tunnels carved into the rock curled in every direction as far as she could see.
“Where’s G4?”
“This way.” They descended the steps to the next level, where a huge trolley stood against the wall, stacked high with small packets of food.
“Lunch,” Deneb guessed. He opened one and pulled a face. “Almost as bad as Taurus’s attempts at burgers.”
“Come on,” Andi said. “We’re the waiters.” She picked up a large pile of the packets and began to walk along the lines of Ruvalians chipping at the walls. Deneb did the same, distributing the food as he walked.
Deneb had told Andi that the Hoshaens took the new prisoners to the shallowest mine tunnels while they become acclimatized to the pressure. Andi was relieved by this news. She had been worried that the convoluted maze of tunnels would make Clios hard to find, but in the end it was surprisingly easy. Before they had gone far, she found the Ruvalian girl in a small group who were working on a section of the wall, placing chips of Indigo Quartz into a large wagon. A guard stood at the edge of the level, looking out with boredom across the mine.
Andi walked up to her friend. “Lunch?” she asked softly.
“Thank you.” Clios half turned, accepting the packet, then raised her eyes. She gasped. “Andi?” Her gaze flicked past her to see Deneb, quietly handing out other food. “How?”
“Don’t ask now, Clios. Grab a couple of packets and come with us. Quickly.”
The Ruvalian girl dropped the small laser tool she had been using to gouge out the rock. “It’s not sharp enough to cut butter,” she grumbled, accepting a handful of packets from Andi. Together they made their way out of the small tunnel.
“Dad? Come on.” Andi frowned at her father, who was lagging behind.
“I’m coming,” he said, jogging to catch up. Together they walked back along the level, distributing food as they went, then began to climb the steps up to the top mine platform.
At one point, Clios stumbled. “Are you all right?” Andi asked. For the first time she noticed Clios’s shuffling walk, and the huge patch of blood on the back of her head.
“One of the guards hit me when I tried to escape,” Clios said. Her speech was slurred and she looked tired. Her usual spirit seemed to have deserted her, although her eyes appeared brighter at the thought of getting out of the place. “I can’t believe you escaped again, Andi.”
“Neither can I.” The voice came from above them, on the platform. All three of them gasped at the figure that was standing there, waiting.
It was Sphere.
Without a thought, Deneb fired his rifle. The shot took the Hoshaen by surprise, catching him in the shoulder, and he fell backwards onto the platform from the force of the blast. Deneb moved forward and lowered the rifle to his chest, but Sphere was too quick. He swung his arm to knock the weapon aside and it skittered along the floor, out of reach. Andi leaped forward to grab it but it was on the other side of the two men, and the platform was too narrow for her to pass.
Sphere still had his own weapon, however, and the two men were now grappling for this. Deneb sat astride the mighty Hoshaen, one hand on his chest supporting his weight as he swung his other fist at Sphere’s face. The blow connected, but Sphere then knocked Deneb’s supporting arm and he collapsed on top of the general. The two of them rolled on the floor, blue-green blood from Sphere’s wound spraying around them.
It was then that Andi noticed something that had fallen onto the platform. It was a huge, dark piece of Indigo Quartz—the chain that had been holding it had broken in the struggle. She walked over to the pendant and raised her foot above it. “Sphere!” she yelled. The two men looked over briefly.
Sphere’s eyes widened. “No!” he screamed.
Andi’s eyes gleamed. “This is for Clios’s parents.” And she brought her heel down onto the beautiful, but delicate crystal. It shattered easily under the weight of her body, splintering into a thousand pieces.
“No!” Unfortunately the destruction of the pendant seemed to bring renewed energy to the Hoshaen. With a final thrust he threw Deneb off him and struggled to his feet, finding his rifle on the floor. Before either Andi or Deneb could stop him he had moved behind the injured Clios and grabbed her around the neck. His rifle barrel dug into her ribs. “Drop it or she’s dead!” he snarled.
Deneb had snatched up the rifle that Sphere had knocked out of his hands, and he was pointing it at the couple that stood by the barrier. He looked over at Andi. There was confusion in his eyes, and she knew hers must mirror the same.
“Don’t drop it,” Clios yelled. “I’m dead anyway, Deneb, I know it. Shoot him, and go and take Lydia away from this place.”
“I mean it.” Sphere dug the barrel of the weapon into Clios’s body and she cried out in pain. Deneb’s rifle wavered.
“Don’t!” she said again. “Kill him, Deneb!”
“I can’t,” he said. He began to lower his weapon. “I can’t let him kill you.”
Andi saw the next few moments as if in slow motion. Whether it was something to do with her computer mind, or whether it was just the adrenalin racing through her veins that gave her the clarity of thought, she would never know, but it seemed as if time had slowed down. Her eyes met Clios’s, and in that instant she read the truth there: once Deneb had lowered his weapon, Sphere would kill them all. Clios knew it, and she wasn’t prepared to let that happen.
In one look into Clios’s eyes, Andi read both an apology and a plea not to let her death be in vain. And then Clios bent her knees and gave a mighty push with her feet. Sphere’s waist was against the top of the barrier, but as she transferred her weight he overbalanced. He gave a startled shriek of alarm, and the rifle went off. Clios’s body bucked, but the momentum of her push still carried her backwards. Together, she and Sphere tumbled over the railings.
Andi and Deneb dashed to the barrier. There was no sign of Clios—her body had fallen into the depths of the mine. Sphere, however, hung with one hand to the railing, dangling in the dar
kness.
“Help me,” he pleaded. He looked Andi directly in the eye. “I know you won’t let me die. You have a good soul—I can see that, even without my pendant. Please help me, I promise I will let you go free.”
Andi knelt on the ground, looking past Sphere into the darkness. She felt confused by the event that had just taken place. It was as if her brain was refusing to process it. Clios was dead? She almost wanted to laugh at that preposterous thought. But then she felt the agony slicing through her body like a laser blade, and she knew it was the truth.
She stared at the Hoshaen general, who clung desperately to the railings with one hand. Every cell in her body wanted to hurt Sphere for what he had done to Clios. But if she allowed him to die, didn’t that make her as bad as he was? Could she actually take another person’s life?
Sphere must have seen a hint of doubt in her gaze, because his eyes lightened. “I knew it,” he said, and there was a touch of glee in his voice. “I knew you couldn’t just let me die.”
“No, she couldn’t,” Deneb said, looking down. “But I can.” And he kicked his heavy boots at where Sphere’s fingers held tightly to the railings. They loosened involuntarily. For a fleeting second Andi saw the look of surprise, anger, and fear on his face. And then he, too, plummeted into the mine, his scream echoing around the walls.
Andi stood slowly and then, together with Deneb, looked over the barrier. She raised an eyebrow at him. “We’d better get going,” Deneb said matter-of-factly. “They’ll be searching for us.”
Andi’s eyes stung with tears for Clios, but she clenched her jaw tightly, fighting back any emotion. She would not cry yet. She would grieve when they were finally out of this dreadful place. “We’ve one more thing to do,” she said firmly.
Deneb nodded. “Yes I know, rescue Lydia.”
“Okay, two more things.” Andi picked up the rifle that Sphere had dropped. “Follow me.” She began to walk determinedly along the tunnel.
Deneb ran to catch her up. “Where are we going?”
“To the hydroelectric generator unit.”
“The what?”
“The power for this mine.” In her mind she pictured the plan of the lower levels. She led them along a complicated series of tunnels and junctions. “I’m not going to let another Ruvalian suffer in this hell-hole.”
Eventually they found another elevator. This one had buttons, and she pressed for the bottom level. Deneb looked at her once, but said nothing. In silence, they listened to the elevator descend.
At the lowest level, there were still more tunnels, but Andi led them easily to the room where the generator was held. Twice along the way they met a guard, and both times Deneb knocked him out without a word.
Eventually they came to the huge control room. They entered together, seeing two Hoshaen operators at the far end of the room. Andi shot first, wounding one in the thigh. Deneb followed her lead, catching the other operator in the shoulder. They ignored the squealing Hoshaens, stepping over their writhing bodies to the machinery in the center of the room.
Andi paused for a second. Beneath her feet, she could feel rather than hear a thundering, and knew that they must be very close to the river. In the center of the generator she could just see the top of an enormous water wheel, the paddles moving smoothly.
“What are you going to do?” Deneb was breathless, whether through fear or excitement Andi wasn’t sure, although she expected it was the latter.
“Stop the generator. That should open all the cell doors. The elevators won’t work, so everyone will have to climb up the shafts to the surface.”
His eyes widened. “What about all the guards?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed but actually there aren’t that many, on the lower levels, especially. The prisoners will easily be able to outnumber them.”
“Some may get killed though, Andi.”
She nodded, looking at the machine. “Civilians die in war. It is unfortunate, but it is a fact of life.” She smiled humorlessly, remembering who had said the words. Deneb gave her a strange look, but said nothing.
The machine was huge and extremely complicated. She walked around it, looking at all the dials and buttons. How on earth was she going to do this? There weren’t many symbols on the machine to give her a clue as to what to press.
One of the operators on the floor sniggered. “Did you think you could just turn it off with the press of a button?”
Andi turned slowly and looked at him. Deneb stared in alarm as she walked over to the Hoshaen, whose leg was bleeding slowly over the floor. She bent down and looked him in the eye and then took out the knife that she had tucked into the belt of her trousers.
“You see this,” she said, tapping the blade on his leg. “This is a small wound. Not a fatal one, really. I missed the main artery, here,” and she indicated the top of his thigh, “on purpose, otherwise you’d be dead in a minute. However.” She raised the blade to touch his neck. He stared at her with wide eyes. “There is another artery just here which can serve the same purpose. Tell me how to shut this machine down, or I’ll cut it and leave you to die.”
He swallowed, and the blade pressed against his throat muscle as he did so. “You’re bluffing,” he said, not sounding too sure. His eyes flicked to Deneb, who shrugged as if he didn’t know either.
Andi smiled. “Am I?” She pressed a little harder, and a thin line of blue-green blood appeared.
“I don’t know!” he yelled. “It’s a long procedure, lots of steps.”
“So what would you do in an emergency?” she demanded.
“I’d have to follow the book.”
“Where is it?”
“In the drawer over there.”
She walked over to one of the desks on the far side of the room and began to rifle through the drawers. The Hoshaen stared at her as she found it and pulled it out. “You must be joking.” He laughed harshly. “That thing is at least a thousand pages long. There’s no way you could shut down the generator before someone catches you.”
She ignored him and read the Hoshaen words on the front. “The Mayheb Generator 1000. We hope that you are pleased with your purchase. In case of complaint, please contact the office address at the bottom.” She smiled wryly at Deneb. “Some things don’t change. I wonder if they’d be any help?”
“Andi!” For the first time Deneb looked cross. “We really haven’t got the time.”
She ignored him and began to flick through the pages. When she had turned over the final cover, Deneb said, “So which section do you need?”
“I don’t,” she said, turning towards the machine. “I know what to do.” In less than two minutes, she had digested the contents of the book. Deneb and the Hoshaen operatives stared at her in shocked silence as she walked up to one of the control panels and began to press buttons. It took her about a minute to run through the complicated shutdown procedure. As she finished, there was a hiss and the gauges all dropped, the loud noise of the generator dulling to a stop. The ventilation fans in the corner slowed to a halt. The lights, however, remained on.
“Right,” she said, turning to her father. “I’ve shut down everything except the lights. But I can’t keep the elevators working, so we’re going to have to climb our way out.” She smiled calmly. “I reckon we’ve got about two hours to get to the surface.”
“Why, what happens in two hours?”
“I’ve shut down all the pumps that direct the water here. The level’s going to start rising. It’s going to flood the mine, Dad.”
Deneb’s eyes widened. “Hey, you’re good.” He walked over to the machine. “But the guards will know that the generator’s shut down when they see the elevators not working. What’s to stop them coming in and starting it up again?”
Andi hadn’t thought of that. “Nothing I guess.”
“Right.” He looked around the room. Finally his eyes fell on a small table on which stood piles of boxes. He walked over and with a sweep of his arm, brush
ed the boxes onto the floor. Turning the table over, he banged the table repeatedly on the floor until the legs broke off.
He brought the now flat piece of metal back to the machine. Climbing under the railing, he straddled the hole in the floor through which Andi could see the top paddles of the water wheel, now still. Carefully he lowered the table through the hole until it was half sticking out. “Hand me that hammer.”
There was a tool kit on one side of the room. Andi retrieved the tool he wanted and passed it to him. Using all his strength, he began to rain repeated blows onto the top of the table. Gradually it started to bend. He continued until the piece of metal was securely wedged around the paddle.
“There,” he said, climbing back under the railing. It was growing warm already with no ventilation, and he was perspiring freely. He wiped his forehead on his sleeve. “That will stop them getting the wheel turning, and they’ll soon realize they haven’t got enough time to fix it before the mine floods.”
“One more thing, Dad,” Andi said. “Will all the Ruvalians know that the cell doors are open? Will they know what to do?”
Together, they both turned towards the large switchboard on the opposite wall. Here, there was a speaker and a panel of communicator switches. “We’ll tell them,” Deneb said grimly. They had both heard the occasional announcement come through the system that fed the entire mine.
They went up to the board. Andi rotated the dial to turn it on. “It’s on the same circuit as the lights, luckily,” she said. She pressed the communication switches for all the levels from the top to the bottom of the mine. There was a hiss of static, and a whining noise as all the speakers were activated.
Deneb handed her the mouthpiece. “Your Ruvalian is better than mine,” he said.
Andi took it and cleared her throat. She held it up to her lips. “Fellow Ruvalians,” she said loudly and clearly. “Please listen to this announcement. Sphere is dead.” She ignored the gasp from the operators on the floor beside her. “The generator that powers the prison has been shut down. The water level is already rising, and the mine will soon begin to flood. All your cell doors are open. The elevators are not working, so you will have to climb out of the mine. Freedom is yours, my friends, if you can overcome your guards. Good luck!”
Andromeda Day and the Black Hole Page 12