by Joshua James
“How long until repairs are finished?” Wan took a swig from his bottle of water. His chest ached.
“Couldn’t tell you. We got some of the crew working on it, but without Kelso, it’s probably gonna take a while.”
Wan looked up sharply. “We lost Kelso?”
“Afraid so,” Falcon said sadly.
That news was upsetting to Wan, but he felt Falcon’s eyes on him, so he tried to mask it. Not only had Kelso been a genius engineer, but Wan had saved him from the streets of Vassar-1 himself. It would be a bit much to say he was like a son to Wan—more like a personal project—but he still cared for him deeply. Or at least, he had.
“We lost him along with engineering. We suffered seven casualties, Captain.”
“Shit,” Wan said. Then he shrugged. “Well, what can you do, right?”
Falcon frowned, but said nothing.
Wan took another swig of the water and felt it soothe his throat. He should be dead. Hell, some days he felt like he already was. “Make sure to keep record of who we lost. Once we’re off this moon, we’ll transfer credits to their families’ accounts, if they have any family.”
Falcon nodded. “Of course, sir.”
It was beyond fair by the standards of his peers, Wan knew, but it was also the least he could do after all this. He glanced at Falcon. “You sure you don’t want to, I don’t know, unplug?”
“And do what? Go get some fresh air out in an active war zone? Thank you, but no.”
Wan nodded. He had a point. “Suit yourself.”
Falcon leaned forward, squinting out the viewing window. Wan followed his gaze; then a note popped up in his HUD.
“Shit,” Wan said.
“Trouble, too,” Falcon said.
Ships were heading straight their way. The scanners were just picking up on them. “Fighters?” Wan asked.
Falcon shook his head. “From the reading, they’re small.”
“How small?”
“Hoverbikes.”
Wan leaned back, then steepled his hands in front of his chin.
“What are you thinking, Cap?” Falcon asked.
“I’m thinking,” Wan said hesitatingly, “let’s try being diplomatic for once.”
Falcon’s eyes grew as large as thruster exhausts. “Diplomatic? You?”
Wan groaned as he stood back up. “I got this,” he said as he headed out of the bridge and continued down the main walkway to exit the Orion.
Wan hobbled out until he stood alone in front of the ship. He glanced back and waved up at Falcon, who saluted back.
What the hell are you doing?
Falcon looked nice and safe in the ship. Wan wondered what had possessed him to come down here.
His coat blew in the Europan winds as he watched a couple of small shapes in the distance get closer and bigger. He nervously opened and closed his fists as he thought about what he was going to say to them.
“Remember,” Wan reminded himself out loud. “Diplomatic.”
Twelve
Below
“Where are you taking me, Mr. Bausman?” asked Sydal. They’d been walking for almost fifteen minutes, since leaving Janis and Lau behind.
“To the entrance to the tunnels. Like you asked, sir.” Bausman led the detective down a scenic trail.
“I sure hope so. I sure hope you aren’t just delaying me, wasting my time. That’d be a mistake.”
“I assure you I’m not. We’re close. I can’t bring you to the main entrance, because it’s in a private residence at the moment.”
“Why is the entrance to the tunnel in someone’s home?” Sydal asked. A fair question, he thought.
“It’s only a residence right now. Actually belongs to the architect in charge of the project. But once it nears completion, he’s going to move off the moon, and his house will be converted into an entrance, exit, and storehouse,” explained Bausman.
“That’s a strange way of doing things.”
“Look around you, Detective,” he said. “This is a strange place. A garden in the middle of a cold desert.”
“True. How much further?”
Bausman suddenly stopped.
“Why are we stopping?”
Bausman knelt down. He cleared away some plants and revealed a hatch, built right into the ground. “Because we’re here.”
“I’ll be damned,” Sydal said. “Well, open her up.”
Bausman stood up straight and turned around. Immediately, Sydal could tell his demeanor had taken a drastic change. Instead of meek and subservient, he was now confident.
“Afraid I can’t do that, Detective.”
Sydal tensed, his senses heightened. “And why’s that?”
“I can’t let you go down there.”
“Then why the hell did you lead me here?”
“I needed to get you further away from your partner,” Bausman said.
He pointed at Sydal, but there was something wrong with his hand. As Sydal watched, his entire hand and wrist morphed in the blink of an eye into a solid wedge of blackened flesh with a sharp edge.
“What the hell?”
“It’s time, Detective,” he said. “Embrace it. Embrace the Abyss.” With that, Bausman swung at Sydal.
Sydal was still struggling to process what he was seeing, and his mind told him to brace for a punch. Then he felt a stinging, burning sensation, followed by wet warmth. He looked down, and he had a cut across his chest. There was no time to process what had just happened, because Bausman was going in for another attack.
Sydal barely dodged the second swing of what was now clearly a razor-sharp blade where Bausman’s hand been. It was huge, running half the length of what had once been his forearm. It was more than capable of slashing Sydal’s throat, or maybe taking his head off.
Sydal drew his pistol. But before he could aim and fire it, a tendril came flying out of Bausman’s back and hit him hard in the chest, knocking the gun out of his hand and throwing him to the dirt. He scrambled backwards as Fredrich tried to impale him with his blade hand.
“What the shit, Fred!” yelled Sydal as he managed to get back up to his feet. He looked at the formerly squirrelly man and saw that his eyes were shiny and black, and his mouth was full of sharp, needlelike teeth.
Bausman answered by rushing the detective. Sydal did the only sensible thing and turned to run for his life. “HUD, call Detective Janis,” he screamed.
There was no answer. Once he was hidden behind a tree, and for the moment a little safer, Sydal tried again. Still no answer.
“I truly am sorry,” Bausman said. “But there’s great works here, Detective. And we cannot allow you to interrupt—” Before he finished his sentence, he thrust his bladed hand forward, impaling the tree he thought Sydal was hiding behind.
The second Sydal realized that Bausman had picked the wrong tree, he made a run for his gun. As the monster struggled to retract his blade hand, Sydal had already retrieved his firearm. Without delay, he aimed at the once squirrelly-looking German man’s head and unloaded.
Sydal was relieved at first as he riddled Bausman’s head with shots and blood poured out. He thought it was all over. But then he watched as the bullets simply secreted back out of Bausman’s head, and the deformed head returned to its original shape.
That…what the hell is he?
Sydal looked on, terrified, as Bausman’s other arm burst into a couple dozen sharp spikes. It shredded the tree. As it fell, the thing that used to be Bausman turned to Sydal and let out a bone-chilling shriek.
Nope, that’s not happening!
Sydal figured he had two options. He could make a run for it through the artificial wilds of the Aitken Basin, but it was enclosed and covered in cameras and tracking devices he didn’t trust. Plus, whatever Bausman had become, he probably knew the community like the back of his shapeshifting hand, considering he was its elected leader.
So he went for option two: the tunnel.
He ran for the hidden entrance,
desperately hoping he didn’t miss it as he rapidly retraced his steps. When he saw it, he dove to the ground and grabbed the hatch. Bausman lumbered towards him, tendrils wiggling out of his back. His mouth opened so wide his bottom jaw reached his chest. The shrieks made the detective’s ears ring.
Sydal frantically tried to spin the hatch. At first it gave him a little trouble. Eventually, with all his might, he managed to turn it and pull it open. Bausman had almost caught up. Just for a little insurance, the detective put two carefully-placed bullets into the monster’s kneecaps, causing it to fall and slowing it down just enough that he could climb down into the tunnels.
Sydal turned to close the hatch behind him, hoping to slow the creature still more. As he did so, he felt Bausman from the other side, trying to open it. And he was strong.
Balancing on the rungs of a ladder in the dark, Sydal struggled to hold on to the hatch’s wheel. He could feel it: this was a tug of war battle he would surely lose. That couldn’t be allowed.
Luckily for Sydal, he managed to spot what he needed to save his life. There was a lock on the hatch in the form of a lever he needed to pull down. However, that would mean he’d have to use one hand to lock it which meant one less hand to stop Bausman from opening the hatch on the other side.
C’mon, c’mon, c’mon...
There was no choice. Sydal had to sacrifice his position in this potentially fatal tug of war and try to lock the hatch. He quickly grabbed the lever and pulled with all his strength. It barely budged, so he tried leaning down some to add some pull force to the locking lever. Nothing. All that was left was a gamble.
Sydal completely let go of the hatch at the same time as he grabbed the locking lever with both hands and jumped off the ladder. His body weight was just enough to engage the lock. It slid in, then stopped, and Sydal finally lost his grip. He fell down to the tunnel floor.
He landed awkwardly on the slightly wet tunnel floor, but managed not to break anything. He quickly took his pistol back out. With one finger, he turned on the flashlight right below the barrel and aimed it at the hatch as Bausman pounded on it from the other side. He watched as the thick steel deformed with each one of the monster’s blows. Then it suddenly stopped. There was another shriek, and then nothing.
Sydal got up from the tunnel floor. His back and the back of his pants were soaked. He didn’t care. Obviously there were more pressing matters. What was this tunnel? Where did it lead? And most prevalent in his mind was the question of what he’d find down here, especially considering what he’d just escaped from.
A little out of breath, a little out of shape, Sydal took a moment to gather himself. He used his pistol’s flashlight to examine his own chest. The cut Bausman had given him was deep. If he didn’t do something about the bleeding, he might bleed out. There was no telling how long those tunnels were, or when he’d be able to get out.
Sydal took off his coat. Holding that between his thighs, he then took off his shirt. He grimaced as the cotton-like material rubbed against his wound. Then he wrapped his shirt around his chest, over his injury, and tied it tight at the sleeves. After putting his coat back on, he started down the tunnels.
“HUD, call Detective Janis,” whispered Sydal as he walked, using his pistol-mounted flashlight to light his way.
“Sorry. Cannot dial Detective Janis,” replied the robotic woman’s voice in his HUD. In the corner of it he saw that there was no signal, which made sense.
“Shit!” Sydal was really hoping for some backup and help. Or, at least, he hoped that his partner and friend wasn’t dead, shredded to pieces like poor Sophie Wright and almost himself. He needed to focus.
We’ll figure out what the hell that thing was once we’re out of here. You gotta get back to your kids. You got to save them from whatever is pretending to be…
That’s when a horrible realization hit Sydal. Maria could be the same kind of abomination that had just tried to kill him. What would that mean for his children’s safety? The question propelled his legs faster through the tunnels.
The tunnels under Aitken Basin were creepy, completely dark other than the light that bled through the occasional sewer grate-like opening. He really needed that gun mounted flashlight. It guided his way, but also made every movement scarier. Sydal fully expected to shine his light from left to right and reveal another monster, waiting there to ambush him. But it was quiet down here, other than the sound of echoing dripping water and the detective’s own footsteps.
Sydal walked for a good hour. There was nothing. Just more tunnel. He wondered just how long it was. If it really reached the Lunar Dome, how long would it take him to walk there?
Two hours passed. Sydal was tired and thirsty. God, he was thirsty. There were no more dripping storm drains that he regretted not standing under with his mouth open when he’d had the chance. He surely must’ve been far from Aitken Basin, and it must’ve been only the moon’s surface above.
Three hours passed. Sydal wanted nothing more than a drink and to rest, but he knew stopping meant he could pass out. Passing out down here meant death, so he kept trudging along.
What’s that?
Sydal heard what sounded like talking, and a vehicle’s engine. At first he thought he was hallucinating. After all, he’d been down here for a while. Combine that with his injuries, and perhaps his state was deteriorating faster than he expected.
No, it wasn’t a hallucination. Sydal could see three distant headlights in a triangular pattern, far down the tunnel. This was his chance. He needed to take out whoever was driving that thing and commandeer their vehicle.
With the flick of his finger, Sydal turned off the flashlight on his pistol. Having held the pistol up as his guide for three hours, his forearm, elbow, wrist, and shoulder ached and shook. He took a deep breath and held it to try and steady his aim.
Right before he was lit up by the oncoming vehicle’s lights, Sydal turned his own flashlight on in an attempt to blind them. It worked: the vehicle slowed down. Someone yelled out, asking who was there, and that was when the detective opened fire.
Sydal shot without thinking it through. He was a cop. As law enforcement, it was his job to protect the public. If the people in that vehicle were just clueless workers, than he was a criminal, a murderer.
Please don’t let them be innocent. Please don’t let them be innocent. Please don’t let them be innocent.
As Sydal approached, he saw that both men were completely bald, and wearing the strange garb that the Oblivion cultists had all started to wear. Did that make shooting them okay? Maybe. Did the cult have something to do with whatever the hell Bausman was?
The first thing Sydal did after pushing the bodies off the transport was look for anything that could potentially quench his thirst. Much to his dismay, he found nothing. So he got in, put it in reverse, and sped down the tunnel.
Relieved to be off his feet, Sydal could relax, but only a little bit. Those cultists had to come from somewhere, and he was about to drive there.
The ride was smooth, even though Sydal’s mind was everything but. He wiped the sweat off his face as he concentrated on what was within the reach of the transport’s headlights. At any moment he expected to see more cultists—or worse, Bausman.
It was bound to happen eventually, but Sydal was still surprised to see the tunnel abruptly end. There, lit up by the headlights, was a pair of heavy-looking iron double doors. He turned off the transport and climbed out.
Sydal used his pistol flashlight to examine the iron double doors. They looked old, almost ancient. The handles were oddly shaped and higher up than usual. In order to try and open them, he had to reach up and pull downwards.
The doors had designs on them, writing in a language that couldn’t be more foreign to the detective. Sydal ran his hand across the etchings, which looked like what he could only describe as aliens. He felt grit on his fingers. It was dust. How old were these doors, and what were they hiding? Or were they containing something?
&
nbsp; These weren’t built with the tunnels. No, they were here before construction even started. So did they build all this around them? Why?
Sydal’s musings were interrupted by the sound of the doors opening from the other side. He had to make a quick decision. Surely whoever came through would notice the transport just sitting there in the tunnel. How would he deal with that?
As the doors slowly creaked open, Sydal hid behind one of them. After taking a deep breath, he readied his pistol. There was no telling how many people were going to come through there, and there was no way to tell if they were armed, trained, or just poor clueless construction workers.
Sydal heard one man’s voice: “They’re waiting for us. I dunno why they need all these explosives, though.”
“It’s none of our business,” said a second voice. “We serve our Saviors. We serve the Abyss.”
So he knew there were at least two of them. Calm and steady.
“Yeah, well, it would be nice if the Abyss told us why every now and th—what the hell is that?”
“It’s one of our transports, I think. But what’s it doing here empty?”
Control your breath, control your aim.
“I dunno. Didn’t Miller take one out with, uh, what’s his name again?”
“Howell.”
“Yeah, didn’t he take one out with Howell? Not too long ago?”
Sydal slowly squeezed himself out from behind the iron door. He pointed his pistol straight at the nearest of the two cultists. He didn’t fire until they started investigating the blood on the steering wheel.
He pulled the trigger twice in quick succession. Two headshots, two kills. He breathed again as they crumpled.
If he was going to make it out of these tunnels, Sydal needed to find some way to fit in. If this was the end of them, he was willing to bet there were more than a few additional cultists between him and the exit.
After putting on some of the cultists’ rags, Sydal stood in front of the open double doors. What he saw was a long dark hallway; but unlike the tunnel, it ended at what looked to be an opening. From the end of the hall he heard noise, like a city.