Ilox Saga 1: Eris Monroe: More Than Human

by Bruce Adams

  “Eli, disable that MEK, I don’t want to have a firefight here. We’re too close to the outpost…” Eli looked to his Captain with an air of superiority.

  “I’ve already altered its programming….it sees us as permitted security personnel. Don’t worry…” As the group passed by the silent but hulking robot, they were presented with another obstacle.

  An airshaft a meter above the door made whirring sounds - a hidden mechanism sucked air down into the tunnels. Blocked by a solid and imposing security door, the tunnel they needed lay just beyond.

  “Bowman, you feel up to disengaging the locks on that door?” Eris asked Eli. “I’m sure T’sell can use her tools to open it if you can’t…you know…use your mind right now.” Eris had noted how the drug Lia had given him had improved his mood tremendously. The pain must have subsided.

  “Yeah…on it…” he murmured distractedly. A few short seconds later the lock cycled and the door swung open with a creak – the door must not have been used in a long time. Having Eli Bowman around was extremely useful. A bypass on an advanced lock could take up to five minutes by a skilled electronics and security system expert – Eli performed the same function in a matter of seconds. The maintenance tunnel to the emergency elevator shaft was smaller than the previous tunnels.

  “Re-engage helmets and perform internal leak checks,” ordered Eris as she manually activated the reticulated helmet. They would have a total of six hours of suit air with the rebreathers. They had best find what they were looking for in that time. The durasteel metal scallops emerged from the collar at the back of her neck and snapped into place with a series of clicks. Modern combat armor designers tried to make the form fitting suits as ergonomic as possible - collapsing helmets was just one special touch. With helmets sealed and weapons ready the squad moved down the corridor...with Eris in the lead. Like many of the previous access tunnels this one was the same. Roughly four meters in height and four meters in width, it was wide enough for miners to move with hand held equipment, though it was designed as an emergency access and egress tunnel. Smoothed over with obvious white patches of plasteel the walls were a uniform rough granite texture. Dim glow panels peeled back the darkness every twenty meters though there was not enough light to see well. Ultravision sensors embedded in their combat helmets enabled each member of the team to see perfectly well – even if it had been pitch black. After twenty minutes, the squad reached the elevator shaft they desired. Hard use had scratched and dented the tightly shut door. A steady red light on the nearby panel indicated the elevator was locked and closed.

  “Eli, get that elevator door open,” ordered Eris over her helmet link. Eli merely stared at the black metal panel containing the electronic controls beside the door frame. Even though he carried with him an electronics toolkit, he rarely used it. Within a few minutes a chime announced the arrival of the large elevator. The squad hustled into the space and the doors closed. Eli glanced at the control panel and the elevator began moving. Riding down was uneventful but the trip lasted over twenty minutes. Sev Tariv continuously looked at the Valdren tech scanner Eli had made but he received no signal on the long trip down into the bowels of the planet. As the car descended deep under the surface no one said anything - only the slightest whine of the motors made noise. Arriving at the bottom they felt a jolt. A huge passage opened up before the squad as the elevator doors slid apart. The corridor stretched to the west and the east and the tunnel was vast – much larger than the previous maintenance tunnels they had traversed.

  Eris looked at the vastness before her and spoke to her squad. “Communications will be problematic once we leave this area. We’re eight kilometers beneath the surface of Furnace. We’ll be able to link with one another, but we can’t contact Omega team, Arneson, or the Sparta. Everyone should be alert and have weapons ready. Let’s move out to the west.” Eris was serious minded and wanted to get the mission over. The tunnel walls were much coarser and rough at this level. According to the data she had read back on Sparta, the mining companies had last pushed through to this low level under Platinum City with robotic mining machines a year before. The huge expense of assembling the massive machines and caring for them had just barely been paid for with the material mined out. It seemed that all of the huge plays that had made this area profitable had been depleted and the mining companies had pulled back, only recently sending in MEKS and a few teams to rescan the huge area for anything that had been missed.

  After twenty minutes of walking through the abandoned mining tunnels, Sev Tariv spoke for the first time since they had left the elevator.

  "I have something on the scanner, it's weak but we can follow the signal. Continuing down this passage would be advisable," said Tariv with his characteristic monotone voice. The squad was all wearing their helmets and his face was unreadable.

  "That's the best news I've heard today," Eris replied. "Lead on, Tariv." She turned to Eli Bowman. “Eli, are you picking anything up with your abilities? Any sense of Valdren tech?”

  “Nothing nearby…” Eli stared into space for a few moments and shook his head. Eris nodded, satisfied with his answer.

  “What do you know about these tunnels?” Eris asked him.

  “From what I’ve learned so far, it seems these are some of the oldest tunnels mined out, dating back over six years from when the outpost was first founded.”

  “And if they’re the oldest, they’ve been played out, and there shouldn’t be any activity in them, right?” Eris remembered the briefing material exactly from her studies on the Sparta.

  “That’s correct. None of these old tunnels should be used, though I did read that the mining companies were sending in MEKS to take readings and measurements to see if there were any plays they had missed.” He continued talking as they walked along the tunnel. “It would make sense if there were still teams down here doing some exploratory drilling. After all, these mines are at least eight kilometers deep and expand outward for twenty-five kilometers. That’s a lot of material to scan…and a lot of ground to cover.” Eli was almost back to his usual boyish enthusiasm. The headache that had crippled him back at the outpost was all but gone.

  “Wasn’t Platinum City founded because this was the site of the most extensive yield of minerals found on Furnace?” asked Lia politely.

  “Yes…that’s right,” said Eli. “This was the primary outpost on Furnace, and as the first miners that came here became millionaires and billionaires, others followed. Everyone sure loves credits…”

  “T’sell, are you picking up any mental signatures of the Vortex mercenaries or Alliance soldiers?” asked Eris.

  T’sell T’savri had been silent. The headache was getting worse and she was having trouble concentrating. She had not been able to project her abilities since they had left the elevator, but she didn’t want to inform the squad.

  “No, Captain…nothing yet,” T’sell wanted the pain to go away. She would have to ask Lia for a shot for the pain soon.

  The team visibly tensed as they ventured further into the yawning tunnel, taking up combat positions and leap-frogging each other with military precision. Occasionally there were pieces of mining equipment that seemed to have been abandoned, just dropped in the tunnel as if the owner had decided it wasn’t worth carrying anymore. Eris was moving fast but taking precautions. When she heard the strange ululating sound, she motioned for everyone in her squad to stop moving with a raised fist.

  “Anyone know what that sound was?” she asked over her helmet link.

  “It wasn’t anything mechanical, I can tell you that,” offered Eli. “Hey Doc, you think you can give me another shot of…whatever…that stuff was you jabbed me with? I think the pain is coming back.” He looked at Lia expectantly.

  Doctor Xinhao glanced at him as if looking at a child. “No, I can’t give you any more…not yet; you’ll have to wait a few hours. Let me know if the pain increases where you can’t stand it, then maybe I can do something.” She looked at Eris with a
knowing gaze, “It was from a sentient being. I’m sure of it,” Lia said in a soft tone. “A cry from pain.”

  The team had been alternatively walking and trotting through the tunnels for fifteen minutes from the time they had exited the elevator and they had come to their first branch. One passage led to the northeast and the other to the southeast.

  “Sev, which way to the Initiator?” asked Eris impatiently.

  “The northeast passage is closer to the proper direction…though the scanner indicates we should go through solid rock,” he said while pointing at the wall between each passage. “Perhaps there will be another way to get access to the device?”

  “Captain, I suggest we proceed as quickly as possible. I sense that something is wrong,” said T’sell. The Zari agent had to bite her lip to keep from crying out in pain. She was sure the others could hear the quiver in her voice. The headache had become almost unbearable.

  “Let’s take the Northeast tunnel and see if it turns towards the device. Move out - don’t fire on anyone…or anything…unless I give the order. Whatever made that noise earlier is probably still around,” ordered Eris to her team. With her command, the squad moved steadily down the tunnel in military formation. The mining tunnel had become much larger and more irregular since they followed the left branch. After five minutes, the first body they came across was that of a K’Tosk mercenary wearing plasteel combat armor bearing the insignia of the Vortex group. The area they stopped in had seen combat. Blast marks from shrapnel and explosions were evident on the walls. The black and orange colored symbol of the Vortex mercenary group was detailed on the dead K’Tosk’s right shoulder epaulet.

  “Eli, I want readouts from his suit sensors ASAP,” said Eris. Eli bent over the still form.

  “On it…”

  “Captain, you should come look at this,” said Sev Tariv. The engineer was standing a few meters further down the tunnel where it made a hard bend to the east. Eris trotted over to him. The tunnel widened to a much larger room filled with mining machinery and control consoles. Eris immediately saw what he meant. There were half a dozen bodies strewn across the floor haphazardly. Black pools of blood dotted the hard rock ground nearby. The bodies had been freshly killed…at least in the last few hours. Most of them appeared to be clad in mining environment suits. All of them had died violently.

  “The scanner indicates the Valdren device is fifty seven meters distant at a tangent and…up…from this location,” said Tariv in his usual monotone voice. He pointed at a ramp leading up in the far side of the room. “It appears this is some kind of intermediate control room. Note the consoles…they’re used to monitor and control the various mining MEKS that were used in the mine.”

  “Eris, I have the last recordings from the Vortex mercenary’s combat suit. I’ll pipe them through the link now,” said Eli. T’sell T’savri had been attempting to block the pain coursing through her head by meditation. The images of battle filled her helmet as Eli’s feed came over the channel. The scenes were from the viewpoint of the K’Tosk Vortex mercenary’s helmet cam. Miners were attacking as he attempted to escape the control room. His weapon was out of ammo but he still had a grenade left. T’sell and the rest of the squad heard his last words. Let the Otesh chew on this… The Vortex mercenary threw a pulsar grenade into the midst of pursuing miners at point blank range. At that point the link feed went dead.

  “Well at least we know what happened to the mercenary,” said Eli grimly.

  “And these dead miners…but we don’t know all the details.” Eris was ready to move.

  “Captain, there is something wrong here. You had best come take a look,” said Lia as she crouched over one of the dead miners. She was scanning the corpse with her portable medscanner, and had turned the body over to see the front. His envirosuit had been shredded by shrapnel and dozens of wounds were evident in his torso, but his face drew the most attention. The man’s form was clearly human, but his face had partial hardened plates and deformities where smooth skin should have been evident. Most disturbing were the eyes…which appeared to be much like an insects. His hands also were bizarre, showing tough looking claw-like nails.

  “Is this an alien?” asked Eris as she walked over and stood behind Lia looking down at the body.

  “No, my readouts are certain…he is human…or was in the past, but no longer,” Lia said with a tinge of excitement in her voice. “I don’t know what caused the mutations, but they were rapid…” Lia took a small vial and proceeded to take a blood sample from the dead miner. “I need to get these specimens back up to the Sparta to run more extensive testing.” Eris noticed that the dead miner was wearing the uniform of Furnace Mining and Metals Corporation, the same company they had disguised themselves as being a part of.

  “If he was human as you say…what happened to make him not human?” Eris did not like what the implications were. Is it the disease?

  “I won’t know the answer to that question until I’ve had time to study these tissue samples in depth,” said Lia as she took more of the deceased man’s bloody skin and fluids. She packed the samples away securely in her medi-kit and backpack.

  “Lia, Sev, T’sell, Eli…let’s head up that ramp. Keep eyes and ears sharp.” Captain Monroe began walking at a fast clip with her gauss assault rifle at the ready. The rest of her squad fanned out behind her. The ramp was a switchback and relatively short, leading to a level just above the area they had left. There were no barriers – no doors to block her progress. Eris paused at the corner of the room and was confronted with a strange sight. There were dozens of miners, mixed in with a few Vortex mercenaries surrounding an Arrasian encompassed in some form of kinetic barrier. The mob was pounding on the exterior of the barrier to little effect. Inside the barrier stood an Arrasian and a device roughly two meters tall and half a meter wide. The alien Arrasian was encased in plasteel combat armor which was sealed. Something clearly was wrong. The area appeared to be another control center, perhaps a secondary mining supervision site.

  “Hostiles,” Eris said over her link. The rest of the squad waited on her command, not saying a word. Eris looked through her scope on her gauss assault rifle to get a better look at those surrounding the kinetic barrier. They had the same bug eyes as the dead miners in the room below. Even though she had not said a word and made no sound, something made several of the miners turn to face Eris. They saw her and made the same ululating cry that she had heard earlier. When they started to run towards her, there was no hesitation as she opened fire, hitting her target directly in the face. It fell to the ground as if it was a puppet with its strings suddenly cut. The miners were twenty meters distant and closing fast at a sprint.

  “Engage hostiles at will…” she stated calmly over the link as she blew the head off the next closest onrushing opponent. Sev was to her immediate right, and T’sell T’savri was behind him. Both Sev Tariv and T’sell T’savri began firing as soon as Eris gave the command. Eli and Doctor Xinhao were several meters behind Eris and didn’t have any clear shots. As more of the creatures turned from the Arrasian, Eris saw that they needed to retreat – there were too many of them.

  “Fall back, fall back!” Eris provided cover fire while her squad fled back where they had come from. If the enemy miners had weapons they never produced them…and they acted mindless showing nothing but pure rage as they attacked. Eris dropped another ten before they finally reached her. A particularly large K’Tosk wearing the uniform of the Vortex mercenary group slammed into her, knocking her down. She had bought the rest of her squad time to take cover even as she went down beneath the writhing and slashing forms of the mutated miners and Vortex mercenaries.

  Eli, T’sell, Sev and Lia had reached the previous control room just as Eris was engulfed by the swarm. More of the miners rushed on towards the squad as Eris was being mauled by half a dozen of them. Taking cover behind the mining consoles, each member of the squad took deliberate aim using automatic fire, felling the dozen miner’s that rushe
d on before they could do harm.

  “Get to Eris!” shouted T’sell. The headache had never left her and it was a splitting nail of white agony in her mind. She couldn’t take much more of the pain.

  “We have to help her!” Eli felt useless in this fight as he fired, hitting one of the miners in the leg with his laser pistol. It slowed, but continued on. He was an adequate shot with a pistol but never learned to use automatic assault rifles all that well and was not on a par with anyone else in the squad with his gunnery skills. His talents lay elsewhere and he cursed the luck that they faced organic enemies instead of robotic antagonists.

  Before ten seconds had elapsed, all of the onrushing miners had been felled by the squad’s tremendous outpouring of firepower. The unthinking assault of the disfigured miners led them to their doom. If they had used tactics or weapons other than their hands, it would have ended in all of their deaths. T’sell was moving towards where Eris was still surrounded when she heard the unmistakable sound of a sniper rifle and one of the miners fighting Eris slumped to the ground unmoving. She took careful aim herself, trying to hit one of the five creatures and not the woman underneath the pile. It was difficult as they were moving and thrashing all about, trying to rip Eris to shreds with their claws. Just as T’sell squeezed the trigger, felling another adversary, a shot rang out from ahead, and another enemy fell. She finally saw that the Arrasian had emerged from behind his kinetic barrier and come down the sloping ramp, sniper rifle in both hands, and was helping to dispatch the few remaining miners.

  Eris had been struggling to free herself beneath the pile of bodies that had fallen atop her prostrate form. The K’Tosk that had knocked her down had her in a bear hug and was crushing her. He seemed stronger than a K’Tosk had a right to be, but Eris couldn’t get enough leverage to free herself. She was in a fight for her life. She knew that some of the creatures had torn through her combat suit; she felt pain in her side and smelled the metallic odor of her own blood through the suits air circulation system.