He reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently, “I hope we are not too late. But it sounds like he still cared for you even if he didn’t care for your career.”
Shona looked up at him and shrugged, “It doesn’t matter now. If we can find him I am getting us off this damn Moon! We will start over dirtside, and I’m going legit.”
They were both jostled, even crammed as they were, as the shuttle began its landing cycle.
He hitched the duffel bag with their guns and equipment back up on his shoulder and remarked quietly, “Here we go.”
Within moments the loading ramp of the shuttle lowered, and they filed out with the rest of the miners into the docking bay of the mining complex. They quietly followed the crowd of miners past two security checkpoints and into the Commons Area where everyone grabbed a last bite to eat and did a safety check on their suits before their shift. Security cameras were everywhere, but the guards were scattered and looked a little bored. Because really, who would break into a mine? Calin asked himself.
Calin couldn’t help but notice the dejected mood of the miners, the slumped shoulders, the shuffled steps as they headed to work. To live on the Moon was hard enough, to spend most of your daily life underground made it worse. Humans needed to see the sun and have wide open spaces, and that was why he would never give up his ship or flying.
They hung back and pretended to do a safety check on their suits as they watched the work shift file out through the rear airlock. Everyone scanned their I.D. badges with the guard at the lock to clock in for their shift. Calin really hoped they didn’t have facial recognition tied to the I.D. scanner, or this mission would be over before it started.
They locked their helmets into place and Calin led the way to the airlock. He passed his fake I.D. over the scanner in the guard's hands. The guard never glanced up from his scanner as he absentmindedly waved them through.
Calin released the breath he didn’t realize he had been holding as they passed through the airlock into the mining tunnels.
The main shaft of the mine was crowded with miners getting assignments while shift leaders rounded up their crews. This mine was Exoplanet’s main source of Iridium, an ore with a high commercial use here on the Moon so it had the largest shift of miners.
They navigated their way through the crowd and headed to one of the side elevators; they timed it so they could be the only ones on it. Calin pulled up a map of the tunnel system on his suit gauntlet and directed the elevator to take them down 3 levels.
The level they stopped on had recently been closed down and supposedly classified as non-productive. But thanks to the decrypted security stick they knew this was the level Mining Group 10 had worked on when they discovered the strange tunnels. There was still plenty of mining equipment on this level, with crates of portable mining lasers and large round tunnel diggers stacked around the tunnel.
As soon as they exited the elevator, they pulled their holsters out of the duffel bag and strapped them on. Calin with his trusty A-D Mark 10 blaster and Shona with her lower powered but fast shooting Mini-Carbine. When he got his bearings from the map displayed on his arm, he silently gestured a direction. They had previously agreed to stay comm silent as much as possible to avoid detection.
Calin suppressed a shudder as they navigated through the creepy empty tunnels. The lights were on and equipment still layed around ready to be used, but no one was there. Exoplanet had shut this level down in a hurry and it looked like at any minute they would find a full crew hard at work. But as they rounded a corner of an intersection, they stumbled across something else.
They ducked back around the corner quickly. For some reason, there was a guarded airlock. This deep into the mountain there shouldn’t be three guards and security cameras, much less an airlock.
“We’re here,” Calin mouthed silently through his helmet to Shona and unlocked the safety strap on his holster. With a quick glance back around the corner to target the location of the guards and cameras, he silently pointed for Shona to take out the cameras while he would take out the guards.
Shona pulled her Mini-Carbine out of its holster into a firing position and nodded she was ready.
He held up his gloved hand and silently counted down 3-2-1 with his fingers. On one they both leaped out guns blazing. One person alone would could not have taken out both the guards and cameras, but two highly skilled people had no problem. By the time Shona had shot out the two cameras in the ceiling, Calin had taken out the three guards. A part of him had hesitated at killing the guards, but not for long. They had signed up to Exoplanet and knew full well the risks that the job entailed. If they had been trusted to guard a highly sensitive discovery like these mysterious tunnels that meant they had proved themselves loyal. Which to him meant they had done pretty nasty things for Exoplanet.
He ripped a security badge off one guard and passed it over a scanner to unlock the airlock. With a gesture for Shona to go first, he followed her into the lock and slapped the cycle button on the wall. Compressed air hissed into the airlock to equalize the pressure with the other side. When the cycle showed green, they both reached up and retracted their helmets back. They both held their guns at the ready and he pushed open the inner airlock door.
When they stepped through, they both had to stop and stare. The tunnel on the other side of the lock was completely different from the tunnels they had snuck through for the past hour. These were twice as large as the tunnels behind them and had extremely smooth walls and ceilings. While Exoplanet’s tunnels were all roughly bored straight shafts, this tunnel system curved away out of sight. Calin walked over to the wall and ran his hand over it to discover it was smooth as glass. But he could tell it wasn’t concrete or even plastic, the walls looked like something had melted the rock smooth! The floors were flat but with a slight non-slip texture to provide a tacky grip in the low Moon gravity.
Shona was equally astounded and turned in circles to shine a light all over the large tunnel. Lined along the tunnel walls were crates with Exoplanet stamped on the sides. Air hoses snaked along the floor and filled the tunnels with breathable air.
Calin checked the location of the point labeled MG10 on his map again and whispered, “it’s just a little further down this way, we need to move quickly before someone notices those guards are not responding.”
They continued down the strange tunnels and examined the strange architecture around them as they went deeper. Calin has spent most of his adult life on the Moon and had never seen tunneling techniques like this. The clean smooth lines and gradual curve of the tunnel was so different from the dirty straight walkways and alleys of Caldera City it felt almost alien.
They were almost a 50 meters down the tunnel, and both were so intent on examining the strange structure of the tunnels around them that neither one heard the airlock behind them open.
A person in an Exoplanet security guard spacesuit stepped out with a pistol held ready. Unseen by Calin and Shona the guard followed them. He hugged the side of the tunnel or ducked behind crates whenever they glanced back. Silently he watched them with steel-gray eyes as they disappeared around the curve of the tunnel.
Chapter 14
Calin and Shona sneaked down the strange tunnel, guns held ready. The strange architecture of the tunnel was almost memorizing the look at, the smooth walls shone like glass. At regular intervals, there were arches across the tunnel with strange writing carved into them. The low light made details difficult to see, but the flashlights built into their suit chest provide enough illumination for them to navigate by.
Calin routinely checked their position on the map displayed on his arm. They passed through multiple intersections with tunnels fading away into the darkness. Strangely enough, the tunnels are eerily quiet. Living on the Moon you became accustomed to a wide variety of background noise, other people, machinery, generators, even air flow. But these tunnels were possibly the quietest place Calin had ever been on the Moon. Even their
footsteps were barely perceptible.
Shona moved to a lead position and moved quicker the closer they got to the spot marked MG10 on the map. Calin watched her move, the tenseness in her posture revealed her hidden anxiety and the worry she could never admit. He couldn’t help but admire her dedication and loyalty to her brother, even when they didn't get along that well. That kind of loyalty was hard to come by on the Moon. Sure, he would do just about anything for Dean, they have been buddies for years. But they worked and talked together literally every day. Yet Shona was here, risking prison, or worse, to find her brother. He wondered if her talk of leaving her criminal past behind her due to her brother was nothing more than an excuse to leave. He knew from personal experience an outlaw was a lonely career, luckily he had Dean and the Sea Rover.
He hissed slightly to get her attention as they passed into yet another intersection and silently indicated the left tunnel. Just before he got to the corner he paused and held up his hand to signal a stop. He turned his head and peered down the dark tunnel behind them. He thought he had heard a slight scruff or movement. After a minute of silence, he shrugged and they continued down the tunnel into the blackness before them. He was unaccustomed to this level of quiet, his ears were playing tricks on him he thought.
Around the next curve in the tunnel, they came upon another temporary airlock inflated across the tunnel before them. Normally used in emergency situations to block off areas exposed to vacuum, this type of lock was a large inflatable that pressed against the ceiling and walls with a double door air chamber inside. The low-tech inflatable was a stark contrast to the almost alien technology of the tunnel they had been skulking through.
“What the hell?” Shona exclaimed. “Why in the world is this here?”
“No idea,” he remarked and pointed at its control panel. “That shows there’s a vacuum on the other side. They typically use these as a temporary lock for a leaking section of a hall or tunnel back in Caldera City.”
“The map shows the MG10 marker just on the other side of that airlock,” he told her as he opened the airlock door. He carefully moved up to the inner door of the lock and peeked through the round porthole. From behind him, Shona watched his shoulders slump as he lowered his gun and slipped it back into its holster.
He turned to look at Shona, his eyes were full of sorrow.
“What? What is it?” she asked and pushed past him to look through the little window.
There, on the other side of the lock were bodies carefully laid out on the floor in rows. Ten spacesuits, a full mining group.
With a gasp, she jerked back from the door, the look on her face more anger than anguish.
“I’m sorry, Shona,” he said.
She held up her hand to him and shook her head as she walked away from him, back into the open tunnel. There she paced back and forth across the width of the tunnel.
“That son of a bitch! He had to go and get himself killed! This is legitimate employment he said, it’s an honest living he said.” She ranted as she paced.
Calin followed her out to the tunnel and again said, “I’m sorry, Shona. We’ll get whoever who did this, OK?”
Abruptly she stopped pacing, took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her eyes. She turned to him and asked in a soft voice, “What do I do now? I’m done stealing and working by myself. We were supposed to get off this rock together, start somewhere fresh.”
She shook her hands, stood up straighter and a look of determination steeled her eyes, “But now I need to find the S.O.B.s that did this. Governor Silas just made a huge mistake.”
“Hey,” Calin said softly and tried to distract her, “if you still want to go dirtside I’ll take you.”
She shook her head negatively and continued, “No, not yet. I know this isn’t your fight but I need your help again. Help me kill that maniac?” she pleaded as she pulled her gun out of its holster.
When he saw her determination and strength he had an idea. “Sure,” he replied. “I’ll help you in any way I can. And afterward, if you don’t want to go to Earth you can always join me and Dean on the Sea Rover. We could use someone like you.”
Her eyes softened just a touch as she inclined her head to him. “Thank you, I’ll think about it, once this is over.”
The sound of marching boots echoed through the tunnels and interrupted their conversation.
“Uh oh… they must have finally noticed those guards were missing.” Calin exclaimed.
“Where is it coming from?” she asked as she frantically looked down the three tunnels that led away from the intersection they stood in.
He studied the map on his arm and pointed down one of the tunnels, “I don’t know, but let’s head this way! There is a large cavern down there. Maybe we can hide.”
They raced down the tunnel as fast as they could in the low Moon gravity as the sound of troops behind them got louder.
When they came around the last curve they stumbled out into the large cavern. There were already lights placed sporadically around the cavern that created brilliant pools of light. They could see the cave was around the size of a football field and filled with boulders, rubble, and large sections of cave ceiling that had crashed down. And there in the center, towering up to the ceiling above, was a smooth round building like none they had ever seen.
“What the hell?” Shona exclaimed and they skidded to a stop.
Calin looked around the cavern, at the strange building, and then back down the tunnel they had run from. “We will have to worry about it later, right now we got more pressing issues.”
“I don’t see any other tunnels out of this cavern.” He drew his blaster and gestured toward one of the larger boulders nearby, “Let’s get behind that cover for now, we may have to fight our way out.”
With a growl Shona replied, “Bring them on.”
They ducked behind the boulder just in time as a squad of eight troopers came out of the tunnel behind them. Calin hoped to get the jump on them before they could establish a defensive position and opened fire immediately. He took out two troopers with his first two shots. Shona followed suit, her Mini-Carbine filled the area with bright blaster bolts.
The troops, surprised for only a second, maneuvered into a defensive position and hide behind piles of rubble and boulders.
One trooper, who wore the red stripes of command on his shoulder, shouted, “This is Captain Avis of the PPD! You are trespassing in a secure government location. Lay down your weapons and come out with your hands up!”
Their only response was a flurry of blaster bolts to force the troopers back into the mouth of the tunnel.
Shona turned to Calin and asked in a quiet voice, “The PPD? What are they doing in an Exoplanet mine?”
Calin shrugged, “Silas must be using them as security for whatever his company found down here,” and jerked a thumb back at the big building behind them.
Realization dawned in her eyes, “then they must be the ones who killed MG10 and my brother,” she snarled.
She poked her arm around the boulder and sprayed a flurry of laser fire at the troops, “You murderers!” she yelled emotionally.
The Captain replied coldly “Oh, so you found the bodies? Well, that’s not good. Now you will have to join them.”
“One of them was my brother you piece of shit! I’m going to kill you! I’m going to shoot you a few times, then I am going to break your neck with my bare hands!” Shona yelled.
Calin raised his eyebrows at the venomous anger that oozed out of Shona and began to reconsider if offering her a spot on the Sea Rover was that bright of an idea.
Captain Avis poked his head out from behind a boulder and taunted with a grin, “Ok, come and get me.”
Avis gave a silent signal to his troops, and the squad started to advance out of the mouth of the tunnel and into the cavern.
“Shit! Did you have to piss him off now?” Calin asked and looked around for somewhere, anywhere, to retreat to.
Sudd
enly, from behind a large boulder to their left a barrage of laser fire lit up the cave and tore into the rock above the tunnel the PPD was in. With a loud series of explosions, the rock above the mouth disintegrated and piles of rubble fell down to block the tunnel entrance.
Calin and Shona looked at each other in confusion and quickly trained their weapons in the direction of the laser fire.
Out of the shadows a man appeared, his hands held up high. “Don’t shoot!” he said as his steel-gray eyes shone in the low light, “We’re on the same side.”
Chapter 15
Calin’s cybernetic arm aimed his blaster rock-steady at the stranger who emerged from the shadows. “We appreciate the save there buddy. Now would you kindly mind explaining who the hell you are and what you are doing down here?”
The man with the gray eyes shook his hands that were still above his head, “Do you mind if I put my hands down?” he asked, then lowered them without waiting for an answer. “My name is Nilos Wyer, I am a Solar System Authority agent investigating the Exoplanet Mining Corp.”
Shona, when she heared the words Solar System Authority agent, moved her aim to Nilos’s head. She gestured with a jerk of her head at the collapsed tunnel behind them, she asked, “SSA? Then why did you help us and shoot at your own people?”
Nilos shrugged unapologetically, “Actually I was helping myself. I followed you two down here. And thank you for taking out those guards at the airlock by the way, it made things easier for me." He nodded at the collapsed tunnel entrance, "But they outnumbered you, and if those troops got in here they would have discovered me too.” And he added with a slight bow to Shona, “I overheard you about your brother, my condolences. I assure you, grievances and atrocities like that are the reasons I’m here.”
Shona murmured “thank you” as she lowered her pistol.
Calin took his clue from Shona and holstered his gun but decided he would keep a very sharp eye on Nilos. He waved his hand at the large building in the cavern, “Do you know what’s going on here? Who built the tunnels and this thing?”
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