Aurora Blazing

by Jessie Mihalik

  The doors opened and I half expected a platoon of soldiers to be waiting for us. Instead, we were greeted by a wide stone and plastech corridor. Two meters in was a guard’s station with a body scanner. It was protected behind thick metal bars. A wide metal door was set into the wall on our right.

  Ms. Imbor strode forward toward the guard and waved her arm over the chip reader. The gate popped open. She held it and gestured to the chip reader. “Scan in, please,” she said. I waved my right arm over the reader and Ian—Noah—scanned his left arm. The guard briefly looked at our IDs before he waved us through the scanner.

  I passed through cleanly, but Ian wasn’t so lucky. “Please hand over your weapons,” Ms. Imbor said. “They’ll be returned to you when you leave.”

  Ian grumbled under his breath, but removed two blasters and a long knife. When he went through the scanner again, it didn’t go off. I didn’t know how many weapons he had left, but the loss of two blasters hurt.

  Ms. Imbor led us to her office. I made sure she caught me peering closely at the few people we passed. Her office was a small room, sparsely furnished, but nicer than most front-line bases. She settled behind her desk and waved me to the chair in front of her.

  “You think I have a rogue virus spreading through my base,” she said without preamble. “One that can overcome nanobots.”

  I held my hands up in a placating gesture. “No one is saying that,” I said. My voice was still muffled by the filtration mask I hadn’t removed, underscoring the inherent lie in my words.

  “There might be a small issue with a few of the workers,” I continued, “that might result in erratic behavior. MineCorp sent me to be their canary. I hired Noah here”—I hiked a thumb over my shoulder at Noah—“to protect me if there is a problem. And of course you will be compensated and the workers replaced. If needed.”

  “You expect me to shut down mine operations while you play doctor because of a rumor?” she asked, an impatient edge in her voice.

  “No, of course not,” I said immediately. “Give me the locations of the last two shipments of workers and I will go to them. And I wouldn’t be here if the executives didn’t think it was worth checking.”

  “Did your bosses tell you exactly how deep our miners are?” she asked with a skeptical frown.

  “Err, no, not exactly,” I said. “They decided expediency was preferable to in-depth knowledge.”

  “It’s over an hour trek to get down to the working mine levels,” she said. “Then anywhere from ten minutes to three hours to get to the active work sites.”

  “And the miners who attacked? Where are they being held? I should start with them.”

  “They are in the hole. On the mine level. I hope you’re not claustrophobic, Ms. White.”

  Chapter 24

  Ms. Imbor gave me a list of mine locations, but the list didn’t include names—the MineCorp workers were just numbered. She also gave us each a canteen of water before directing a young, dark-haired corporal to take us down.

  As she walked away, I caught the message she sent from her com. She asked about the status of my identity verification from MineCorp. The response said they were still waiting. If they had FTL communication on XAD Six, then we had less than two hours. We’d be buried even deeper in the ground when she found out I was a fake.

  I set a ninety-minute timer on my com. Now two times ticked away in the corner of my smart glasses—one counting up the time until we could jump, one counting down the time until our ruse was revealed. The vast chasm between them heightened my anxiety.

  The corporal led us back out the way we’d come, but instead of heading for the elevator to the hangar, he took us through the metal door. It did not escape me that an identity chip was required to open the door from either side.

  The room beyond the door was rough-hewn stone with none of the plastech niceties included for the rest of the base. A bank of six elevators, three per side, and another thick, metal door were the only options. The corporal swiped his chip over the elevator control, then pressed the button.

  The first doors on our left opened, revealing a large, industrial elevator car, big enough to fit over forty people. The corporal ushered us inside. “I’m Rivers. Did the lieutenant general explain the descent?” he asked.

  “No. Is there something we need to know?” Ian asked. It was the first time he’d spoken and his clipped accent was gone, replaced by a working-class brogue.

  “It’s a three-stage descent,” Corporal Rivers said. “The reason it takes over an hour is because we have to move horizontally at each stage before we descend again. Every time they ran out of mineral, they just dug deeper.”

  “What if there’s an emergency?” I asked. “Is this the only way up?”

  Rivers nodded, then corrected himself. “There are stairs, but each descent is nearly a kilometer. There’s nothing between the levels except occasional shelter rooms.”

  I drew a purposefully slow breath and told myself that the elevator walls were not closing in on me. I could climb three kilometers of stairs if I had to. I would do anything to save my brother.

  Breathe. Save my brother. Breathe.

  Five minutes later, the elevator reached the bottom. The hallway was three meters wide, cut out of the planet’s stone. The light panels strung along the ceiling pushed the darkness to the edges of the hallway.

  Still, doorways to rooms or tunnels—it was unclear which—lurked in the shadows, dark maws ready to gobble us up. I shivered as I followed the corporal. Ian touched my back, a gentle reassurance. I gave up on mentally calling him Noah. We were buried in the ground; I had larger concerns.

  Along the way, we passed through three gates. They were as wide and tall as the tunnel, and folded flat against the wall to allow equipment to pass through. Each gate required a chip swipe to unlock. It took twenty minutes to reach the next elevator bank.

  “It gets rougher from here,” Rivers said. “Are you sure you want to keep going? The lieutenant general said I could bring you back up if you couldn’t handle it.”

  “I can handle it,” I assured him.

  He shrugged and called the elevator. The trip took a little longer this time, closer to eight minutes. When the doors opened, the hallway was more roughly hewn and the light panels were farther apart.

  We went through four locked gates. One of them required a swift kick to open properly. The trip took thirty minutes, in part because of the gate slowdown. The Rockhurst soldiers up above clearly did not want the workers escaping anytime soon.

  The final set of elevators was noticeably smaller, with the exception of what appeared to be an equipment elevator. Our elevator made ominous noises as we descended. Even Corporal Rivers looked relieved when the doors opened and we could escape.

  A wide foyer area was cut off from the main hallway by a guard’s station and another heavy gate. The guard was on our side of the gate. She smiled at Rivers in greeting.

  “They made it, I see,” she said. “I’m five credits richer. I told Kelley that MineCorp wouldn’t send someone who couldn’t hack it.” She looked at me. “No offense, ma’am.”

  “None taken,” I said.

  She looked like she wanted to question me about the face mask but the corporal shook his head at her. “Thank you, Private,” he said. “Please let the hole know we’re on our way. Tell them to hose it down.”

  We were too deep for wireless signals to reach, but Rockhurst had run down communication lines and put in signal repeaters. Based on the scarcity of messages, they weren’t repeating everything topside. The private radioed a quick message and received a confirmation in response.

  “They’ll be ready for you, Corporal,” she said. She stood back with her hand on her blaster while we went through the gate. After we were through, she checked that it had latched properly.

  The hallway felt narrower on this level because pipes and wires were bolted to the ceiling and walls. The temperature was noticeably warm despite a cool breeze blowing fr
om the direction of the elevators.

  “Are we deep enough that heat is a problem?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Rivers said. He pointed at a thick pipe on the ceiling. “They pipe down a salt solution that they chill on the surface for the climate control system. It helps combat the heat in the main tunnels, but deeper in the shafts, the temperatures can hover over forty.”

  The light was better here, but only because the rooms carved into the rock on either side of the hallway were lit. We passed the typical military base facilities—barracks, medbay, and mess hall. I counted at least four off-duty guards milling around. Another guarded gate separated the soldiers’ area from the miners’ area.

  The same rooms were duplicated on this side of the gate, bigger but more roughly cut. Guards stood at each doorway. In the mess hall, a few bedraggled men and women stared blindly at their plates.

  I schooled my face into a cool expression and hardened my heart. I could not save them all. I had to save my brother, and I potentially had less than thirty minutes until the lieutenant general knew that I was a fake.

  We cleared the final gate, then Corporal Rivers led us through an increasingly complicated maze of tunnels that narrowed and heated as we went. Sweat plastered my blouse to my back. Just as I thought I’d be stuck in this rock hell forever, I heard the sound of laughter and spraying water.

  We emerged into a small square room with open doors on both sides. A table with a half-finished card game and a pair of chairs stood off to the left. Three tall cabinets lined the right wall.

  The air was blissfully cold. They must be using a cooling field because the change from hot to cold had been instantaneous between one step and the next. The laughter and water sounds were coming from the darkness beyond the far door.

  “Looks like they’re still cleaning up,” Rivers said. He moved to the cabinet and retrieved a trio of light sticks, a flare, and a stunstick. He handed us each a light stick and kept the rest of the stuff for himself. “Are those smart glasses?” he asked with a nod to my face.

  “Yes.”

  “Good, that will help. It’s dark in the hole even with the light sticks.” He glanced at Ian’s face. “You and I are on our own.”

  He clicked on his light then led us through the far door. A short hallway led to a large circular room with a low ceiling. A waist-high railing surrounded a dark hole at least five meters wide. Two soldiers, a man and a woman, were using high-powered fire hoses to spray water into the hole.

  “They use the same water used for the cooling system,” Rivers said, “so it’ll bring the temperature down for a few minutes while we’re down there. Otherwise, it’s stifling.”

  The soldiers shut off the water. “It’s ready for you, Corporal,” the man said. “We’ve washed out most of the shit, but watch your step.”

  “Thank you. I’ll let you know if we need anything else,” Rivers said. The two soldiers nodded and headed for the room we’d passed through.

  I approached the railing with trepidation. What new horror lurked below? My glasses adjusted to the dark. The pit was approximately six meters deep. A deeper gutter lined with drains ran along the edge at the bottom of the pit. Five people were shackled by their ankles directly to the stone with less than half a meter between them. They were hunched in on themselves and none of them moved.

  The only way down to the pit seemed to be a small lift cage dangling from a pair of chains attached to winches in the ceiling.

  Rivers saw me eyeing the setup skeptically and laughed. “It’s perfectly safe,” he said. He ushered us inside and used the small space as an excuse to press up against me. Ian wrapped a possessive hand around my waist and neatly switched places with me. Rivers backed up fast with a nervous laugh.

  The cage slowly lowered into the pit. The people huddled at the bottom didn’t bother to look up, despite the fact that the winches and chains made a hellacious noise.

  “How long have they been like this?” I asked.

  Rivers glanced down at the captives. “No idea. But the hole breaks their spirit pretty quickly. They’ve been down here at least twenty-four hours, starving and dehydrating in the heat.”

  The cage settled onto the ground. Corporal Rivers was right; the darkness of the pit clung in dancing shadows every time our light sticks moved. My smart glasses fought to compensate, but it was a losing battle.

  “Let me go first,” Rivers said. “Just in case any of them are still feeling energetic.”

  “I need them alive,” I said.

  He unlatched the safety chain across the door and stepped out. The nearest captives curled more tightly as if to protect themselves from a blow. “Ms. White is with MineCorp. She’s here to examine you. Give her any trouble and I’ll stun you, then withhold water rations for the day,” he said. “Get on your feet. Now,” he shouted when none of them moved.

  Three of them silently lumbered to their feet. The remaining two didn’t move, not even when Rivers kicked them. All five of them had the same buzz-cut hair.

  I held the light stick up and approached the first person. The light revealed it was a young woman with a bruised face. She kept her eyes glued to the floor.

  I desperately wanted to move on, to see if Ferdinand was here, but my cover depended on this ruse, so I pulled out my penlight and asked her to track the motion. Her reactions were slow and her eyes were foggy. I wasn’t a doctor, but that couldn’t be a good sign.

  I was examining the third captive, a middle-aged man, when I caught a flurry of wireless signals. Rivers touched his ear, frowned, and glanced at me.

  My ninety-minute timer still had a few minutes left, but that didn’t mean anything. The response had arrived from XAD Six. MineCorp had no record of me, and they had been hacked recently. They requested I be held for extraction tomorrow. The mercenaries were to be sent on their way after questioning. The ship would be kept under surveillance.

  Rivers was ordered to subdue both of us because they figured my guard wouldn’t take lightly to someone attacking me, even if he wasn’t complicit in my plot. Rivers quietly acknowledged the order. I touched Ian’s arm and tipped my head at Rivers. The corporal was very carefully not looking at us.

  He knows, I mouthed to Ian.

  Ian frowned. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rivers go white-knuckled around the stunstick. I couldn’t let that touch me. Ian’s eyes widened and he moved just as Rivers brought his arm up to hit me.

  I scrambled out of reach as Ian caught Rivers’s arm. I heard the crunch of bones, but by the time I turned around to see if Ian needed help, Rivers was unmoving on the floor and Ian had the stunstick.

  “How did you know?” Ian asked. He riffled through Rivers’s pockets, pulling out his blaster and com.

  “I heard the messages,” I said. I slashed a hand through the air when he would’ve questioned me further. “Leave it at that. MineCorp has outed me as a fraud and asked Rockhurst to hold me for questioning. You and the other ‘mercenaries’ are to be questioned and released if you weren’t in on it. When Rivers doesn’t report back, they’ll send the base after us.”

  Ian pocketed the com and handed me Rivers’s blaster. He sent Aoife one of our encoded messages, the one that meant we were fucked, then said, “Turn off your mike.” We both went radio silent because Rockhurst could track us by our conversation if we didn’t.

  Ian looked around at the three captives staring at him with wide eyes. “If you want to live, stay quiet and don’t harm her,” he said, pointing at me. They all nodded.

  Ian lifted his shirt and drew a blaster from the pouch strapped to his stomach. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll take care of the guards up above and let you know when it’s safe.”

  “They’ll hear you,” I whispered. “I can help.”

  “They won’t hear me.” He pointed at the two remaining captives. “Check them.”

  Ian didn’t wait for me to agree. He tucked the stunstick and blaster in his waistband, then climbed up the outside of the cage. He
paused on the top for a second to assess his options. He gripped the chain closer to the pit wall and hauled himself up hand over hand with no apparent effort. It was only after he disappeared into the darkness above that I remembered he didn’t have any smart glasses. At least the guard room was lit.

  I edged around the three standing captives. Their eyes darted between me and the blaster in my hand. “Don’t think about it,” I murmured. “Even if you get it away from me before I shoot you, Ian will be back in two minutes. It’s not worth it.”

  The last two people curled on the ground both had the right build. Hope warred with worry. The first person was a young man about the right age, but despite the massive bruising on his face, I knew it wasn’t Ferdinand. The young man didn’t respond to my touch at all, but a faint pulse beat in his neck.

  I turned to the last person in the pit. “He’s the instigator,” the young woman I’d examined first said bitterly. “We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.”

  The man, if it was a man, was curled tightly with his arms protecting his head. I touched him, but he didn’t move. Every centimeter of visible skin was mottled with fading bruises. I carefully pulled one of his arms away from his hidden face.

  He lunged up at me, growling low in his chest. I stumbled back in shock, but I wasn’t fast enough. The chain around his ankle brought him up short, but he took me down with him. Pain drove the breath from my lungs with a gasp as we landed on the uneven stone floor.

  He’d tackled me around the waist, so the blaster remained out of his reach. He clawed for it, dragging me toward him a painful few centimeters at a time, while I tried to kick him off.

  My smart glasses adjusted and I stared down into familiar brown and green hazel eyes. Shock stole my voice and he used my distraction against me. His hand closed over my upper arm, the grip bruising. I hissed out a curse, trying to stay quiet.

  “Ferdinand!” I whispered harshly. “Stop! It’s Bianca.”

  He pulled my arm down, reaching for the blaster. In desperation, I tossed it over my head. It slid off the edge of the raised floor and into the gutter. Ferdinand growled again and wrapped his hands around my neck.