by J. N. Chaney
I guessed this must be the outer corridor, probably far from anything of value. Maybe we’d find some mummified tombs in here somewhere; maybe a hidden bunker full of ancient technology like the kind we came across on Epsilon, the planet with the original star map. Hell, maybe we were just wasting our time, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a secret here—a buried treasure beneath this blanket of snow and ice, lost to time and circumstance.
All I had to do was find it.
* * *
It only took twenty minutes for the tunnel to open into a room, although it wasn’t large or impressive. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the doors and broken furniture, I would have thought we were still in a hallway.
I moved the light across the room, studying what I could of it. I had no idea what I was looking for, but you never know what you’ll find if you just open your eyes.
Abby stood there for a moment, scanning the room and taking it all in. Most of the furniture appeared to be old and decrepit. There was a couch resting against the wall, large holes in its seat cushions. I briefly considered sitting on it, but figured it might crumble in the process.
The table, which had two missing legs, sat on its side next to the couch.
The opposite half of the room had a large, half-circle desk, its corners chipped and cracked. The seat behind it had withered away at some point, so much that only pieces of it remained.
“What was this place?” Abigail asked, her voice echoing.
I checked behind the desk, but found nothing of value. Just dust and grime. “If I had to guess, I’d say this was the reception area.”
“Reception?” she asked. “Like a doctor’s office?”
I shrugged. “Who knows? It could’ve been anything.”
She thought for a moment. “If this was a lobby, then—” She turned back to the way we came and pointed at the hall. “—that must be the entrance.”
“This whole place reeks of government bureaucracy,” I said.
Abby nodded, motioning to the closed door beside the desk. “Let’s keep going.”
I nestled my pad into my coat, grasping the door with my hands. “Ready when you are.”
She did the same, planting her feet. “Okay,” she muttered, taking a quick breath. “Pull!”
Three
It took some effort to pry the door open. We worked at it for nearly twenty minutes, and for a moment I wasn’t sure we’d ever get it cracked. Once we did, though, the rest was easy. The metal slid open, grinding against the doorway and into the wall, filling the area with a horrible, echoing screech.
“If anyone’s here, they probably heard that,” I said, stepping into the next hall.
“Do you really think there are still people living here?” asked Abigail.
“Who knows?” I asked. “But I wouldn’t bet against it. Humans can survive anywhere. We’re like rats.”
“Rats can’t survive anything,” corrected Abigail.
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Bacteria. Bugs. Whatever. You ever heard of Tolsados?”
“No,” she said as we continued walking.
We came to a fallen beam in the middle of the hall. I took my time stepping over it, making sure I didn’t cut my clothes and accidentally break the heating pads. “It was a colony in the Deadlands, probably a century ago. Nice planet, from what I saw in the pictures, but that was before the bombs.”
“Someone dropped a bomb?” Abby asked, making her way across the beam.
I waited on the other side, offering my hand to help her. She took it, finally stepping clear of the debris. “Yeah, but it was more like a dozen of them. Nasty shit. They wiped three hundred thousand people off the planet.”
“That’s awful,” she said.
“That’s war,” I said, shaking my head. “Later on, a group of scrappers went down to the planet, looking to scavenge whatever they could find. One of them went off on his own and ended up finding a bunker full of survivors. Turns out, they’d been down there for nine years, terrified to go outside.”
“Because of the radiation?” she asked.
I shook my head. “They used non-ionized clean bombs on the colony, so long-term radiation wasn’t a problem. It was fear that kept them there. These people thought they’d get nuked again, so they decided to never leave. They had generators, a bio-garden, rations, running water. They’d planned for this scenario. By the time the scrappers found them, they’d already started having kids. Hell, they even had their own mini-government.”
“That’s crazy,” said Abby.
“No argument here,” I said, smirking. “All I’m saying is you can never count people out. Even when the world has gone to total shit, we’ll find a way to keep going. We’re stubborn like that.”
We entered another room, this one with a taller ceiling and more intricate carvings in the walls. There were multiple workstations, which suggested we were closer to the heart of this place. I tried touching one of the computers, pressing different buttons and hoping for something to happen. I got nothing, as expected. No doubt, the power here had long since died, so getting any of this to work would be nearly impossible.
There was another doorway on the right-hand side of the room, seemingly torn from its place. It took me a moment, but I found it lying on the floor nearby, its metal bent and cracked. “Huh,” I muttered, crouching over the door. “How do you figure this happened?”
“Earthquake?” asked Abigail. “This place looks like it’s barely holding together.”
I got to my feet, keeping my eyes on the fallen door. Abby was right about the facility. It looked like it was ready to cave in on itself, but that didn’t explain the markings here. This looked like it had been beaten open. Had there been someone inside at some point? Trapped, maybe?
“Over here,” said Abigail, walking to the edge of the room. There was a wall with broken glass. “Looks like the window’s shattered. Shine a light down there.”
“Where?” I asked, walking closer to the opening and amplifying my pad’s light. The area around me illuminated even more than it already had. I changed the option on the screen to narrow the light, allowing me to focus it to see further away.
I aimed the pad through the window, revealing a long drop into a larger warehouse. Containers littered the floor, varying in size and shape, suggesting this was a storage department. Maybe there was something valuable down here, after all.
“Want to check it out?” I asked, turning to Abigail. To my surprise, she was already out the door, looking down from the platform, into the warehouse. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
I swept the room again with my light, adjusting it to see a little more of the area at once. I didn’t much care for this place. The smell of death was everywhere, and despite the lack of bodies, I knew something had happened here. Something awful.
“Are you coming?” asked Abigail. She had already tied a rope to the platform, fastening the other end to her waist, ready to climb the nearby ladder.
“After you,” I said, watching her descend into the lower deck. I was right behind her, taking my time on the rickety ladder. Every step felt less secure than the last, leaving me to wonder if it was about to collapse from my weight. It didn’t, and I successfully landed on the floor in due time.
Abigail walked several meters into the warehouse, shining her wrist-pad’s light on the different crates, moving on from one to the next.
I approached one of the crates and felt around the upper edge for a lid. Digging my fingers into the crease, I managed to lift the cover enough to push it away and look inside.
“Hey, are you sure you should be doing that?” asked Abigail.
“How else are we supposed to investigate anything?” I asked, turning my light so I could see inside the box.
There was a stack of neatly laid cloth, folded and hardly worn. I was surprised to see how well preserved they were, although that could have been a result of the crate. Was it built for long-term storage? I’d heard certain con
tainers, so long as they remained unexposed, might keep materials fresh and clean for several lifetimes, although I couldn’t imagine why you would ever need such a thing.
Then again, now that I thought about it, Athena had mentioned that the Eternals from Earth could live much longer than the rest of us. Maybe all of this was meant for them.
Abigail opened another crate, prying the lid free of the body and checking inside. “Looks like clothes in this one,” she said, lifting out an outfit, which was blue and resembled a kind of jumpsuit. She tossed it to me and I caught it, instantly noticing the patch on the shoulder--a series of letters identical to those found on Titan.
Using my pad, I snapped a picture of the patch. Sigmond might be able to translate the writing, once we returned to the ship.
I checked my map, letting Abigail continue with whatever she was doing, and noticed we still had some distance to go before we reached the source of the transmission. The map also appeared to have filled out with the areas we’d explored already. So long as I had the feature on, the device would continue to scan, using line-of-sight to catalogue our progress.
“Jace, look at this,” called Abigail from across the room.
I glanced up to see her squatting on the floor, examining a pile of fallen rubble. “What is it?”
I shined my light on the ground until I neared the wall. There was a gaping hole, twice the size of a standard door. Rocks and debris littered the area near our feet.
“This place is a wreck,” said Abigail, finally standing. She glanced at the hole in the wall. “It looks like it goes on for a while.”
I focused my light source, extending the range, and aimed it down the tunnel. She was right. I couldn’t even see the end. “We need to go lower,” I said. “Are there any other doors around here? Maybe some stairs?”
“Not that I can see,” she said.
I checked the pad again. The source of the transmission was ahead of us, several meters below our position. This tunnel seemed like it might lead us to where we needed to go, but how could that be? It couldn’t have been built intentionally.
“Should we check it out?” asked Abigail.
I hesitated to answer, looking around the rest of the warehouse, hoping to find another way down. Maybe Abigail had missed something. Maybe there was a staircase somewhere.
No, we’d searched around and found nothing. I could see all the exits from here There was nothing else, no other path but forward. Somehow, this gaping hole in the wall was the only path we could take.
I stepped closer to the opening, leaning into it. “Guess we’re going down,” I finally said, looking at Abigail.
She nodded. “After you.”
Four
The cave floor was rockier than I expected, and I lost my footing more than once. The further we went, the more the air began to change, growing colder and forcing me to increase the heat in my suit.
I thought I noticed a smell, too, although I wasn’t sure at first. It was on the tip of my nose, and I wagered it was just my imagination, but the more we walked, the stronger the scent became. It was foul and rotten, like the trash you forget to take out before a long trip, only to find it stinking up the apartment a week later.
But despite the stench, I couldn’t find the source. Maybe there was a dead animal nearby, hidden in the ice walls of this cavern. Who could really say?
The tunnel was long and winding, going further than I thought it would, taking us deeper and deeper into the ground. We walked, slowly, for half an hour before we found anything besides the jagged stone and ice that made up most of the corridor, but when we did, I had to stop and examine it.
It was a crate, the same kind we’d found in the warehouse, its lid ripped from its body and half sunk in the dirt, all its contents missing. Marks ran along the metal surface of the object—scratches, maybe—giving both of us pause as we stared down at it. “Jace,” muttered Abigail, blinking at the box.
“I know,” I said, bringing my voice to a whisper. “There’s something else down here.”
“It has to be some kind of animal,” she said. “What do we do?”
I pulled out my rifle, checking the magazine and the safety. “We deal with it.”
She nodded, unholstering her pistol.
Without another word, we continued through the tunnel to whatever was waiting for us up ahead.
* * *
The smell had finally grown so strong that I had to cover my nose with my sleeve.
We neared a corner, descending further into the cave until the corridor opened into a larger cavern. The hard stone of the previous tunnel was gone, I realized, replaced with softer dirt and fresh ice.
Abigail spotted a pile of trash nearby—an assortment of broken things, such as metal wires and bars, shredded clothes, and…something else.
I leaned in closer, crouching beside the pile, trying to get a better look at it. With the light from my pad, and using the barrel of my rifle, I moved the different pieces of trash around so I could better see. It took me a moment to realize what I was looking at—chalk-white sticks with etches in them. These were bones, I decided. The only question was, who or what did they belong to?
I showed them to Abigail, who didn’t flinch or turn away. She only seemed to study them, waiting a few seconds before she gave me a response. “So, we know it’s a carnivore,” she said, almost analytically.
I had to admit, I wasn’t expecting that. “Do you think these are human remains?”
“Why would they be?” she asked. “There’s no way anyone still lives here.”
I motioned at the pile. “This could be from a grave somewhere.”
She paused. “Now that you mention it, we haven’t seen any skeletons yet.”
She was right about that. Everything we’d seen up until now had been totally empty.
“Even if they are,” she continued, “at least they were already dead. If these animals are going after corpses, they could just be scavengers. We might have already scared them away, just by being here.”
“Sure,” I muttered, staring at the bones at my feet.
“What? You don’t agree?”
I wanted to, more than she probably knew. “I don’t know.” I turned and shined the light on the rest of the cavern, spotting more piles a few meters from our position. I walked closer to one of them and bent down. Sure enough, there were more bones here, similarly placed. “Whatever did this, it wasn’t small. Those claw marks we saw on the box, back in the hall…they were huge. Same goes for the door we found in the warehouse. That kind of mark means there was muscle behind those claws.”
“You’re talking like you want to leave,” she said.
I paused at the suggestion. I hadn’t considered going back yet. Did I sound like I was afraid? “No, we’re not giving up on this job. So long as we’re armed, we’ll be fine.” I motioned at the pistol in her hand. “You watch my back. I’ll watch yours.”
She nodded. “You got it.”
I glanced back at the pile in front of me. There was something else about these things, a feeling I couldn’t shake. Animals generally didn’t organize things in such methodical ways, not like this. The piles seemed to serve no purpose, unless I was missing it. They didn’t look like a nest or anything useful that the creature might need later. They were more like little markers, signifying something.
The more I thought about it, the more I wondered. Were these piles meant to represent each kill? Or were they graves, built to remember the dead?
Either way, it meant there was an intelligence here, and it seemed eager to surround itself with death.
* * *
We found more piles as we continued through the tunnels, heading closer to the source of the signal. After a while, I stopped noticing them.
Part of me wondered if the animals had migrated someplace else or simply died off. Probably not, since the smell was so pungent that I could hardly stand to move my arm from my nose.
One of the tunnels brou
ght us to another opening similar to the first, which led into a lower section of the facility. As we stepped through the gap in the wall, I quickly discovered how different this place was from the first.
Glowing lights illuminated throughout this new area, hinting at some kind of power. My focused light showed several consoles and dusty computer systems, blinking a rainbow of different colored lights. I fought the urge to run up to them, and instead gripped my rifle tighter.
“The power source must still be partially active,” said Abigail, gawking at the sight before us. “Do you know what this means?”
“I think you just told me,” I muttered.
“There could be something salvageable. Maybe something we can use for the engine,” she suggested.
I doubted that. Ship design was constantly changing, and this place was old as hell. There was little to no chance we’d find anything compatible with The Renegade Star’s slipdrive.
Still, she had a point. If this place had power, that might mean a working system with data logs. We might be able to learn what happened to these people and where they went. If nothing else, we had a few hundred crates with preserved cargo sitting in the upper warehouse, waiting to be salvaged.
I waved Abigail over and pointed to one of the terminals. “Think you can figure this out?”
“I’m not Dressler, but I’ll try,” she said, walking to the console.
“Yeah, I should’ve brought her instead,” I joked.
She raised her brow, but didn’t look at me. “Let’s see what we have here.”
I watched Abigail as she tapped the console, then proceeded to pace around the room. The rear led into another corridor, its door sitting open, but not broken. If any of those animals had come in here, they hadn’t done much damage to the facility, and there were no signs of the bone piles, from what I could see. Who knew what lay ahead, though. We had to be ready for anything.
“It’s no good,” Abigail finally said, turning back to me. “The computer reacts, but most of the language is different. We need a translator.”
I tapped my ear. “Siggy, you hear me?” I asked, waiting for a response. Nothing came. “Siggy? This is Jace. You there?”
