“I still don’t see what would be so important in there that could help dig out a starship. Do these people normally store excavation equipment in abandoned warehouses out in the middle of nowhere?”
“Maybe they are guarding the equipment,” I added.
Surprisingly, one of Kalaya’s drones shot out ahead of the group and to the top of the hill as we started the climb. The drone returned when we were about half way up and guided us the rest of the way, showing us the easiest route.
“You guys know this is a game trail, right?” asked Max as we stumbled, breathing heavily, up the narrow path.
“Of course,” Kalaya chimed in brightly. “I’m sensing this planet has all manner of critters on it. Some big, some small, and some in the middle. There are a stunningly large number of mid-sized herbivores on this planet and some larger species. Not much in the way of diverse top-of-the-food-chain predators, but the ones that are here are formidable.”
“No kidding. We ran into what looked like armored wolves right after we made camp,” Max growled. “They killed the fourth member of our landing party and trashed the place. We were attempting to run away when we found your ship.”
“Indeed, I have noticed that a large pack of the creatures in question seems to have claimed the area in a twenty-kilometer radius as their hunting grounds. I haven’t seen any yet, only tracks and scat. I guess they have a lair in one of the hills around here so I suggest you move inside quickly.”
“This wisdom is coming from the single member of the party who isn’t carrying a heavy weight and doesn’t need to breathe,” I panted.
“I know, but think of all the lovely mating pheromones being released along with your sweat.” The drone buzzed in a decidedly unhelpful manner.
We reached the top of the hillock and found by a small section of a corroded metal structure sticking out of the ground. I walked over and took a closer look. From what I could tell, it looked like some kind of service hatch or manhole that extended deep into the ground.
“I take it this is it?” asked Drik, as he joined the rest of us in clearing away the twisted vines and debris from the top. Fortunately, we only had to move aside about six inches of actual soil to reach the hatch. Working like dogs, we managed to clear it in a few minutes.
“I don’t suppose you have some way to unlock this, do you?” Max puffed, looking to Kodo.
“Sort of,” he said, with a smirk as he unslung his weapon from his back. Max had just enough time to roll out of the way before the gun let off an earth-shattering boom, blasting a six-inch hole in the hinge of the hatch. I covered my ears as he fired two more blasts, surgically removing the other hinge and the locking mechanism. Suddenly, there was a black hole before us as the hatch door dropped to the floor below with a loud, reverberating clank.
“What the hell? And you yelled at me for shooting the lock on the ship.”
“You shot the controls, not the lock; totally different.”
“No, not seeing the difference, but where can I get one of those guns. That thing punched through two inches of metal like paper.”
“I can make you one if you really want,” Kalaya said helpfully, “but the recoil would fracture your humerus when you fired it.”
“My what?” Max choked, glancing surreptitiously below his beltline.
“Your upper arm, you dork,” I groaned. How much beer did he consume getting through college anyway?
“Oh, well, that’s alright then. I should have known, there’s always a catch to these things, isn’t there? Do you have something smaller?” he shot back eagerly.
Kalaya’s voice took on a cool appraising tone. “I don’t know. Despite what you’ve heard, size does matter. But I suppose we could find a child’s training rifle blueprint somewhere in the database that you would be able to handle,” she teased.
My brother turned a dark shade of red, and I could practically see the steam coming out of his ears. I put a hand on his arm to calm him down and appealed to Kodo.
“Can we just get on with this, please? These power packs are very heavy.”
Kodo nodded in agreement. “Kalaya, you’re going in first.”
She sighed petulantly. “Fine, but I don’t like it already.” One of the two circling, flying bugs broke off formation and dipped down into the hole. I noticed a spotlight click on as she disappeared. “Just as I thought, absolutely filthy,” she said, her voice echoing out of the open hole. “Dust and dirt everywhere, nothing where it’s supposed to be, and I think I just discovered a petrified sandwich. Eww, gross.”
“Is it safe?”
“Absolutely not; there isn’t anything safe about this place. The ladder is missing, too.”
“Is there anything dangerous down there that isn’t dirt and grime?” Kodo demanded impatiently.
“Hello...I said there is a petrified sandwich down here. Its mere presence raises serious questions. What is it doing here? Who left it here? Did someone leave it here as a trap? If no one left it here, then how did it get here by itself? Does that mean sandwiches have evolved into sentient life? Are we being stalked by blood-sucking BLTs? There’s some mind-blowing shit down here, let me tell you!”
Kodo laughed quietly under his breath, then stepped out confidently and dropped through the hatch. After a quick look around, he told us that everything was fine and to join him down there. Admittedly, not the easiest thing to do wearing a heavy pack. It was easily an eight-foot drop to the floor, and I was never what you would call athletic. The boys had me go first so they could help lower me down. But, honestly, I just think they didn’t want to go down there at all.
A few seconds later, I was dangling from the ceiling with only my arms holding me up. I must have been quite the sight for Kalaya and Kodo; a pair of feet dangling and squirming from the ceiling.
Then I felt Kodo’s hands firmly grasp my waist as he lifted me up several inches. “Arms in,” he commanded, and naturally my arms dropped without me even realizing it. My feet touched down lightly as he gently lowered me to the ground with almost no effort. I couldn’t help but be a bit shy and unnerved about that. This was the second time today that he had touched me without permission in an area that would normally get a man slapped. Both times, though, he was a gentleman about it and only did so with my well-being in mind. Did that make it all right?
“Thank you,” I said stupidly, staring at the floor instead of the person I was trying to thank. I glanced sideways at him as he smiled politely.
“You’re welcome.”
The simple act of saying it made it seem to carry more weight. Was he actually happy to help me? Blushing, I stepped well out of the way and turned my back to him as he helped Drik climb down.
“That’s twice now,” whispered Kalaya into my ear.
“Will you just drop it already?” I said, shooing the small drone away from me. I didn’t have to see her to know she was smiling smugly on the other side of that lens, undoubtedly getting some kind of a kick out of this. Kodo had Drik on the ground now and had made his way over to a door on the back wall. Max, however, was still trying to lower himself into the room, undoubtedly refusing to accept help from Kodo.
“You coming or what?” I called up to him as he flailed in the hole.
“Yeah, yeah, just hold your horses, sis.” Well, this wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. “I don’t suppose you would give me a hand?” he asked one of Kalaya’s drones.
“Sorry, no can do. Someone of your impressive heft exceeds my maximum legal airframe capacity by something on the order of a zillion.”
He sighed, “I thought you were going to say that.”
I had enough of this so I ventured over to see what Kodo and Drik were up to and smiled to myself when Max dropped into the room with a plop and a wince. “Ow.”
“And the verdict is?” Drik asked Kodo as I approached. He was indicating the door leading out of the large chamber we had dropped into.
“It’s locked, and with no power, I have nothing t
o override.”
“So we’re stuck?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Maybe not. Kalaya, are these lined security doors?”
“No, they’re just regular locked doors. You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking, are you? The rest of you may want to take a few steps back…” Suddenly, the door bent inward as Kodo’s booted foot smashed into it, ripping out the hinges and lock and sending the entire unit rocketing into the hall beyond. “Well, I was going to say to use a cutting torch, but that works, too; rather well, actually. Think you can help me with this pickle jar when you get back? I can’t seem to open the stupid thing.”
“How is that possible?” asked Max, dumbfounded. The look on his face was priceless. I forgot that he hadn’t seen most of the incredible things on this ship yet, and hasn’t cared to learn about them either. “How did he do that?” Drik and I smiled, waiting to see what evasive answer Kodo would come up with for this one.
“Open a jar of pickles? Well, he hasn’t done it yet, so I’m not quite following your train of thought there. Oh, you mean the door thing, yeah the ultimate can opener,” Kalaya chuckled.
“Don’t get too star struck,” Kodo began. “That wasn’t near as impressive as it looked. I may be stronger than you but not enough that I could actually do something like that with a heavy door. Just because we are technologically ahead of you, doesn’t mean we can afford to waste resources. Interior doors in structures like this are really meant for privacy, not security, so they are built much lighter than an exterior portal to reduce material outlay.”
“So that was the space age version of a hollow-core door?” asked Drik.
He shrugged. “Probably, if I understand your usage of the words.”
“So why is it here?” Drik pressed further, then noted Kodo’s questioning expression. “Somewhere in the hold of the Aurora is a compartment full of cheap doors just waiting for you to construct a city and use them?”
“No, of course not. Even the Aurora isn’t remotely big enough to carry everything to build and equip a new world. And as I told you before, her holds are mostly empty.”
“So where did the door come from, then?”
Kodo led us through dark passageways at a brisk clip. He spoke over his shoulder, “One of the small manual production lines, I suppose.” He paused and looked back. “What exactly do you think the Aurora was built to do?”
“Well, you mentioned she was to set up a forward base for a colony ship. I assumed it was full of construction equipment and materials,” Drik ventured with interest.
“Not even close,” Kodo shot back. “She is a self-sustained factory ship designed to harvest materials and turn them into the machines and materials that would have furnished the colony world’s needs. But even the Aurora would be worthless without Kalaya to run things; we only had an operations crew of thirty-six, after all.”
Drik and I looked at each other, trying to absorb the enormity of what he had just said. This one ship could build and sustain an entire planet’s structures? Of course, Maxwell had to intervene with another of his patented stupid remarks.
“Well, if these doors are so easy, I get to break down the next one!”
“Are the rest of the doors going to be like this one?” I whispered to the nearest drone hovering nearby.
“Some will…some won’t,” Kalaya supplied lightly.
“And let me guess, you’re not going to tell him which ones are which.”
“Nope, not a chance,” she cackled evilly. “I dare say some of them are going to be a royal pain in the ass. Luckily for my perfectly sculpted ass, I’m not the one who will have to deal with them. If we are lucky, some of the heavier doors will be open instead of being in lockdown. So if you have some god to pray to that gives you comfort or a lucky rabbit’s foot, you should start using them.”
“Laree, come on!” called Max.
I snapped out of it and realized that they were already down the short hallway and halfway down a set of stairs at the other end. Embarrassed that I was caught daydreaming again, I jogged to catch up with them.
“Distracted again, huh?” Kalaya said matter-of-factly as I rejoined the group.
“Yeah, she does that a lot,” Max snickered. “Always has.”
“It’s even more acute when she is presented with a scientific puzzle,” added Drik. I wanted to argue that statement to try to defend my honor in some way, but there’s no point in hiding the truth. “However, I will say that she has been doing it a lot the last two days,” he said, with a knowing glance at me. Why? Why look at me like that? What do you know that I don’t, old man?
After several more flights down the metal stairs, it started to get dank, the air heavier and even darker somehow.
“Uh-oh,” Kalaya said, positioning both of her drones to block our way as we traversed what appeared to be the last set of open metal stairs before stepping out onto a vast open concrete floor below.
“Uh oh?” Kodo echoed skeptically.
“Sorry, colloquial human terminology. I’ve been watching too many of Laree’s vids, apparently. We have trouble; I am sensing unusual air currents that certainly don’t belong in this environment.”
“Meaning what?” I asked.
“Meaning there is a door to the outside open somewhere below us.” One of the drones whispered cautiously.
“How is that possible? We had to break in and go through numerous doors to get down here.” Max countered, lowering his voice as well.
Kodo shrugged. “It’s undoubtedly a big compound. Things can happen over the centuries; fault lines open up and rip structures apart, a volcanic eruption could have undermined some of the equipment access tunnels…any number of possibilities. The opening could be nearby or miles away; we have no way of knowing until we check it out.” He paused as if listening to something through his headset.
The lights from Kalaya’s drones were no longer bright enough for all of us to see safely so the three of us took out our helmets and activated their built-in floodlights. I say helmets because that’s what I feel they are, but they’re technically “semi-rigid survival sensory units,” or in layman’s terms, folding mining hats with a motion sensor and display. Oh, and they’re ugly as sin, to boot.
“Nice hat, does it come in chartreuse?” Kalaya snickered.
“Oh, shut up.”
“So how much farther do we need to go?” asked Max.
“Down until we reach the main floor and then two blocks over.”
“So, not far, then?”
“Not too far as the drone flies,” Kalaya smirked.
Kodo stopped and rummaged through one of the bags he had draped over his large shoulders. He withdrew three pistol weapons and handed one to each of us.
“It’s about time,” Max hissed, grabbing for his eagerly. “This one isn’t going to break my bones when I fire it, is it?”
Kodo leaned toward us meaningfully. “No, they are recoilless. In your terminology, they would be a type of miniaturized railgun weapon, and each pistol’s magazine holds six explosive tungsten carbide darts. Use them wisely, if things look very grim save the last round for yourselves.”
“Why are you giving these to us now?” Drik protested. “We don’t even have weapons training.”
“Because Kalaya has a bad feeling about this, and I’ve come to believe in her instincts. Also, I brought you three into this, and it would be unfair not to give you a way to defend yourselves if something happens to me.”
We got to the bottom level and started walking across what must have been an immense hangar floor. With our weak lights, we really couldn’t see where we were going. Darkness just seemed to be encroaching from every direction as if we were adrift in a sea of nothingness. Fortunately, Kodo seemed to have his bearings; at least, he kept us moving in a straight line across the concrete floor to somewhere.
I stepped forward and heard a crunching sound that echoed throughout the place. It was as if that single sound was magnified a hun
dredfold, making it unbearably loud. Oh, please, don’t be what I think that was! I looked down at my foot, which was frozen in place. Under my boot was exactly what I feared the most…a chewed-up scrap of bone.
“Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is. Someone, tell me it’s a piece of plastic or something,” I begged as my eyes slammed shut and my body started shivering uncontrollably.
“It’s a piece of plastic,” Kalaya said in a comforting voice, paused, then continued in a spritely tone. “It’s not, but at least you should feel better now. Oh, wait, I get it. You wanted me to tell you it’s plastic so you don’t have to face the reality that it’s a rib bone.” That didn’t help in the slightest.
“Everyone, be quiet,” Kodo ordered brusquely from the front. Scared as hell now, I nodded and tried to keep calm. That calm was put to the test as the number of bones we began to pass started to increase to the point where we were practically walking on piles of strange dead bones. Then there was the smell, the god-awful smell. The further we went into the cloying darkness, the worse it got. Death, that was the perfect descriptive word for it, the smell of death, rotting flesh and animal piss. I would give anything to be out of here.
I trembled even more now; I was at my wit’s end as I followed, fearing what might happen if I got lost down here. The other three each had a gun out already, but that somehow made me more nervous because now I was absolutely positive we were going to die.
Suddenly Kodo’s arm shot out, stopping us in our tracks. “What is it?” whispered Max.
“Growling,” answered Kodo, “lots of growling. I’m going to walk forward a short ways to see what I can see without your lights being a distraction. Stay alert.”
He motioned for us to stay put and I stood there losing my mind as I watched him silently creep forward and disappear into the blanket of darkness. Perhaps sixty seconds later, he backed up to where we could see him again. His eyes never left the darkness ahead and he had his firearm off his shoulder and resting uneasily in his hands.
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