After a walk of about an hour, they had made it back to the elevator shaft.
***
Captain Johnatan Akimbe was pacing the bridge of the Copernicus uneasily, as the small survey ship orbited the planet far above the science team. The sophisticated sensor suites onboard had been tracking the landing party for almost half an hour, the conditions down there weren’t ideal, winds had picked up on the surface, and his sensors were showing a storm surge coming in from the north east that looked pretty nasty. On top of this, they had lost contact with the landing party once they had begun to descend into that alien facility, due to the effects of the strange metal the whole thing was constructed from. That was almost two hours ago, he had no idea if his people were alive or dead, all he could do was wait for an update.
“Anything yet?” He asked Ensign Strandzhar, the relief geologist onboard.
“Nothing,” he repeated for the umpteenth time.
Sensor images from the surface were showing that the shuttle was still intact, there was no signs of a fight, nor any movement down there. Therefore, Akimbe reluctantly had no choice but to wait.
He relaxed into his old, worn leather captain’s chair. Secretly he wondered why E.O.C.A had any business wanting to colonise a world as inhospitable as Auriga III, it didn’t even have a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere. Yet the powers that be labelled it as one of their top priorities. He wondered whether they knew something he didn’t about this world. The Auriga system itself was close to the south eastern tip of Solarian territory, and with the discovery of these new structures, no doubt scientists from the research division would be clamouring all over the place like a flock of wild geese in the years to come. The thought amused Akimbe, and he smiled gently to himself.
***
Kathryn and the rest of the science team had found that the lift shaft extended much further down than where the elevator had stopped. It was a very tight squeeze, and they just barely managed to climb down past the elevator to a second floor.
It had a similar configuration as the first, opening out into the same type of room, with similar etchings daubed across its walls, and an identical unmanned desk.
“These first rooms are all the same,” Kalchacht said, stating the obvious. “I wonder if they are some kind of security checkpoint.”
“Makes sense, anyone coming down that elevator would have to go through one of these security stations, before venturing further into the facility,” Broadhurst replied.
At length Kathryn stopped, “we’ll need someone to go up to the surface, to give the Copernicus an update, let them know we’re okay.”
“I’ll do it,” Broadhurst said.
“It will be a lot faster if I do it,” one of the guards suggested. He bore corporals stripes on his arms, it was Corporal Jankov, a rather young, stout man who was Sergeant Rachthausen’s number two. Jankov had the rare honour of being born and bred on Sicarius, where the sixty ninth were based.
With the outer colonies only being settled over the past thirty five years, many could still remember the day they left Earth, searching for a new home that wasn’t as crowded or polluted as Earth had become.
Jankov shouldered his weapon, and began the long climb to the surface, while Kathryn and the rest of the team continued to explore the second floor of this subterranean labyrinth.
Although laid out in a similar manner to the floor above, the rooms were different. There was a huge, wide hall on this floor all sectioned off into tiny cubicles. Inside each was a bed and a locker, at least these guys slept similar to what humans did, Kathryn thought with a wry smile.
“Well, if we ever do get stuck down here, at least there is somewhere we can crash,” Gomez said with a slight chuckle.
Kathryn checked over her wrist display again and found the temperature had risen, by another two degrees, it was now showing thirty three degrees. This caused her a little alarm, it was strange, the temperature had now risen by six degrees from the surface.
“Anyone noticed how the temperature keeps rising?” she asked, betraying a slight hint of concern.
The other scientists had not really noticed, they were all too engrossed in the riddle of this facility to check their own status displays, however upon Kathryn’s prompting they all checked them immediately.
“To tell the truth, it is getting a little warm down here, we must be a couple of hundred feet down by now,” Pryor replied.
Unbeknownst to the scientists, they had descended over four hundred feet into the planets crust. As they continued down the dark, slightly humid corridor, they came upon a large communal toilet block, and a dining area big enough to seat two or three hundred people, all of which was deserted.
This floor must house those scientists who worked in the floor above, Kathryn figured. They continued exploring until they came to the familiar dead-end.
With a dejected sigh at not finding the all-important control facility, the team headed back, once again, to the elevator shaft.
Corporal Jankov had reached the surface. His arms ached and burned from the long climb, the winds had increased significantly since the descent. Scrabbling his way out of the elevator hatch, the howling gale lashed at him, and it was an effort for him to keep his feet in the onslaught. The roiling methane clouds overhead blocked out the moonlight, casting everything into almost pitch-blackness, flashes and rumbles lit up the darkness as forked lightning arced across the sky in terrific bursts of blindingly bright light.
Rather than be caught out in the storm, he staggered his way to the silhouette of the shuttle lit up by the lightning flashes overhead, once inside he used its own subspace transceiver to contact the Copernicus in orbit.
“We’ve got a message, sir. It’s from the surface, pretty garbled though, the storm is interfering with our sensors, I’ll see if I can clear it up,” Strandzhar announced.
“Shunt main power to the sensors, give it everything you’ve got ensign.”
“Yes, sir.” Strandzhar worked the controls for several seconds, as he diverted power to the giant sensor boom.
“Much better; putting it onscreen now,” Strandzhar said with a hint of relief to his voice.
Corporal Jankov’s slightly flushed face appeared on the screen, “Jankov to Copernicus are you receiving, over.”
“Copernicus here, we are receiving you, we’ve had some difficulty due to the storm.” Akimbe replied.
The corporal looked visibly relieved that his arduous journey was not after all, for nought.
“Are you okay?” Akimbe asked, slightly concerned for the soldier.
“Yes captain, the storm has increased in its intensity, the winds are approaching gale force now, I have taken shelter in the shuttle until the storm abates.”
“I can see that, what about the science team?”
“They are okay and continuing to explore the interior of the facility, whatever the structure is made of renders communication all but impossible.”
“I know, it’s the same reason why our sensors cannot penetrate it, how are the guards?”
“They are all fine captain, the facility runs for hundreds of meters underground. The science team are trying to locate a control room of some kind, so they can get power back online.”
“Understood,” Akimbe nodded.
“With your permission captain, I would like to ride out the storm here, before re-joining the landing party.”
Akimbe chuckled, “of course corporal, Copernicus out.”
The message ended and Akimbe was at last able to rest back in his seat, relieved that his team were okay after all. His dark skinned fingers pyramided in thought. If the facility does extend that far underground, then this thing could be much bigger than we originally thought. The question still remained however, why build an enormous underground facility on this scale, and then just abandon it without a fight. It made no sense, hopefully the landing party could uncover the mystery surrounding this thing.
***
Kathryn and the rest of
the science team climbed down onto a third floor, by now they were beginning to tire, and frustration was beginning to set in, they had been down here for hours.
“How many floors does this place have?” Broadhurst asked.
“The shaft ends just below this floor, so I guess this must be the last one,” Kalschacht replied matter of factly.
“Lets all just keep calm, and find this goddamned control room,” Kathryn cut in, their earlier assumptions had so far proved to be correct, as was the case in all of the others, this floor began with a security room also.
“It does make you wonder though,” Gomez said, “with all the security around this place, what were they protecting? What was this place really built for?”
“Somehow I don’t think it is bodies in the attic,” Pryor said remembering the grisly science labs.
“Anyway, that’s what we’re here to find out,” Mira cut in, in answer to Gomez’s question. Mira was normally the quietest of the whole team, typically keeping herself to herself, and only rarely mixing or joining in conversations. Though her work was first rate, which was why Kathryn had chosen her in the first place.
Their spirits rose as they explored this third floor, passing what appeared to be a rather spacious, yet spartan looking office, another storeroom, a huge briefing hall with enough seating inside to easily accommodate a hundred people. However it was the next two rooms that proved to be the most intriguing, these piqued the scientists curiosity immensely.
They were like nothing they had seen before, walls were lined with sophisticated looking consoles, work surfaces lined with yet more controls. ‘These were definitely control centres for something, but for what?’ Kathryn thought, the first of the two rooms was completely shut down, no monitor or terminal was functioning. So the team checked over the second room, again they found all the controls and monitors shut down.
How the hell where they supposed to get this place powered up again, the frustration at coming so close, and then not finding a way to activate this command centre was palpable. Kathryn could hear the curses and mutterings through tiny little speakers inside her helmet.
“Wait!” of all people, it was Mira who called out, “I think I’ve found something.”
“What?” everyone else asked in unison as they hurried over to her position.
She was stood at a smaller console, taking up one corner of the slightly rectangular room, there were a myriad of buttons, small displays and dials, all of which were defunct. That was, all except for a single tiny button, which flickered irregularly as though clinging on to some last vestiges of power remaining somewhere.
“It could be an activation switch,” Kalschacht said enthusiastically.
“Or it could be some sort of self destruct,” Pryor replied. “There’s no way to know for sure.”
“Well we’ve come this far, it would be a waste to go back without at least finding out what this place is built for, and all because we are scared to push a button?” Broadhurst said as he reached down and pressed the gently flashing control.
3. The beacon alights
As Matthew Broadhurst pressed that tiny flickering control a deep low hum began to reverberate throughout the installation, everyone heard it. A low-pitched thrumming noise that felt like it was pounding the insides of their skulls, almost as if an ancient and powerful relic was coming to life once again.
Kathryn began to get very worried, “What have you done!” She shouted over the increasing din and steady vibrations building through the floor. The pounding steadily grew in its intensity, ceiling lights began to gradually flicker as they awoke from their three hundred year slumber. Console lights blinked and came to life, the awakening of this ancient facility had begun.
“Oh god!” She shouted nervously into her helmet mic. as she saw lights begin to dance across gradually activating consoles, the lights above them flickered more fervently as power grew. Suddenly Kathryn was rather scared of what they had just awakened.
The thrumming noise now took on a kind of rhythmic, pulsating sound, as though something truly massive was slowly beginning to rotate deep within the heart of the facility, this was made all the more clear as they could feel the gentle vibrations in the ground, continually building all around them.
Broadhurst had definitely awakened something, something so unimaginably powerful, they could neither comprehend nor control.
Kalschacht desperately searched the displays, muttering Germanic curses as he looked for some way to shut the infernal thing down again. Everything was written in an alien language that none of them could understand. Wall mounted displays began showing data streams no one could decipher.
***
Ensign Strandzhar, sitting at the sensory officer’s station on the Copernicus orbiting far above studied his screen, oblivious to the usual noise of people shuffling past, and others working at consoles. Suddenly he almost jumped out of his seat, “Holy moly! Err….captain, I think you might want to take a look at this.”
Akimbe turned in his seat, towards the startled young ensign, “what is it?”
“Something’s happening on the surface, sir. I don’t know what, but my sensors just went crazy.”
The captain made his way over to look at Strandzhar’s findings to judge for himself. “Hmmm…It looks like it is coming from the alien structure, a massive energy surge, it’s already off the scale and it seems to be increasing even further, Jesus Christ!”
Akimbe tried to make some sense of what he was reading, “what in god’s name can generate that kind of power? Any chance we can find out what type of energy source it is?”
“Negative, sir. Our sensors still can’t penetrate the exterior.”
Akimbe berated himself for his oversight, he already knew this; then wide eyed with shock asked, “the science team?”
“There’s no way to tell.”
Akimbe had only one option open to him as he raced back to his command seat, “full alert status, break orbit.” He had to assume the science team was dead, nothing could withstand an energy surge of that magnitude, not even his ship.
The bridge of the Copernicus took on a darkened tone, a ruddy glow played across the various consoles and surfaces as the ship went to red alert, panicked officers hurried to their positions all over the ship.
Just as the Copernicus was powering up its mighty engines to break orbit, a colossal incandescent beam of raw orange energy, shot out from the enormous aperture in the centre of the structure. Blindingly bright, like a ray of pure fire. The strength of the beam instantly atomised the methane clouds in its path, and raced through the planets atmosphere with all the fury of a rail-cannon shell. Within milliseconds, it had shot through the upper atmosphere and straight past the Copernicus; coating the ship in an intensely bright orange glow as it careered past it and hurtled out into deep space, before shutting down again.
It had missed vaporising the tiny survey vessel by a matter of feet.
“What in the name of god was that!” Akimbe shouted over the warning sirens, and wailing of the red alert klaxon.
“A beam of pure energy captain, of what type, I have no idea,” Strandzhar replied.
“Is the alien structure still intact?”
“From what I can tell, yes sir. It seems as though the entire facility was designed to emit a beam of that magnitude.”
“A weapon?”
“If it is, it would be a clumsy one. It could only fire in a single direction, and only then at a stationary target.”
“True, but if that beam did hit, nothing would be able to withstand a direct hit from that kind of power.”
***
Kathryn and the rest of the panicked scientists were desperately trying to find some way to shut down the facility, to prevent a repeat of what had just happened. So far, they could find nothing they could understand.
The loud thrumming had diminished into a low barely audible groan, the station was definitely awake now, and it had awoken with an almighty scream too.
“Guys, come take a look at this,” she heard Gomez say from across the room, she and Kalschacht came over to join him.
“What is it?”
Gomez pointed toward a display, now fully lit, it was showing power readouts throughout the base, it also showed a three dimensional cross section of the entire facility.
“My god,” Kalschacht exclaimed in wonder, “the place is like a huge underground city, we haven’t even explored half of it.” He peered in closer, studying the three dimensional map in more detail, “If I’m looking at this right, the whole facility is built over a massive geo-thermal vent.”
“That would explain the temperature rises,” Kathryn cut in.
“The thrumming noise is a giant rotating collider, collecting the energy and exciting it, thereby turning the immense heat and pressure underneath into massive amounts of raw energy.”
He stepped back a moment, stoking his chin in contemplation, “This whole facility is nothing more than a super advanced, geo-thermal power station. Kathryn have you any idea of the amount of power a facility of this size can produce?”
Kathryn nodded blankly, “rather a lot, I guess.”
“Rather a lot is the under-statement of the decade, this facility can generate virtually unlimited power. If we can find a way to replicate this technology, we would have virtually solved E.O.C.A’s power needs overnight.”
He turned back to the display, “it must have some kind of collector somewhere, a means of storing the energy it produces.”
The physicist touched the display in an effort to find a control to zoom out of the facility, he quickly found that he could manipulate the representation by touch alone. Gradually managing to pan out, at first he could not see anything, then continued panning out further and further until he had zoomed out all the way to the upper atmosphere of the planet itself.
E.D.F Chronicles : Eye of the Dracos Page 3
