by JE Gurley
Cici swallowed hard. Plia didn’t have to elaborate. If one of the arcs struck them, it would vaporize them.
“Maybe we can leave before they wake up,” Romeo suggested.
“And go where?” Dax replied. “It’s ninety kilometers to K124B, and I doubt our ATV is waiting outside.”
Cici realized Dax was right. They had nowhere to go, but the idea of willingly trapping themselves inside the complex ran counter to her concept of self-preservation, especially with hundreds of Ravers on the verge of awakening.
Ivers spoke up. “If we can’t hide in the power core, and we can’t run, that leaves the maze.” He looked at the metal door. “That door won’t stop them for very long.”
“Maybe they won’t know we’re here,” Cici suggested, more in hope than with any sense it might be true. “Maybe the EMP scrambled their senses.”
Plia was skeptical. She voiced her doubt. “Perhaps, but I doubt it. The crypts probably shielded them from the worst of the pulse.”
Dax removed the walkie-talkie from his belt. “In any case, I’ll turn this on and leave it out here. We can eavesdrop. When it gets quiet out here, we can presume they’ve left. We have food and water for three or four days. With luck, the Navy will be here by then.”
Dax’s plan sounded insane but plausible, at least as likely to succeed as making a run for it. The idea of seeking refuge in the maze of tunnels frightened her, but they had little choice. With a great deal of trepidation, she nodded her agreement.
“Can you seal it?” Dax asked Plia of the door into the maze.
“Yes, but they might know the code.”
It sounded implausible the creatures retained that much intelligence, but he didn’t want to take chances. “Scramble it,” he suggested.
Plia shut the door and plugged into the lock mechanism. “I can’t fuse the lock. We need to get out again. I’ll reset the code to a random repeating number that only my suit computer can match at the right time.” She looked at those gathered around her watching. “Of course, they can simply slice through the lock with those talons.”
“That’s comforting to know,” Cici said. “I guess we can only hope they are more interested in going outside than in coming after us.” She had a bizarre thought. “Will they know how much time has passed?”
Ivers answered. “I’ve used a cryo chamber in the Marines when I was severely wounded. They used it to save my life and send me to a medical ship. I was out two weeks, but when I awoke, it seemed I had just nodded off for a moment.”
“Great,” Dax groaned. “They’ll think the war is still on.”
Ivers nodded. “Unfortunately, yes.” He looked around the corridor. “We saw nothing with which to barricade the door. As Doctor Adar said, we can only hope they think the enemy is out there.”
Cici re-evaluated their chances of survival. It did not look good.
* * * *
Dax was amazed they had survived the Skip Drive explosion. He only half-believed they would, but a 50/50 chance was better than no chance. Fortune’s Luck is gone for real now, vaporized. Even though Fortune’s Luck would never have gone into space again, not without more repairs than the ship was worth, it was there. It was still his ship. Now, he had no ship and a slim chance of ever getting another. Banks did not loan credit to captains who blew up their ships. If it came down to a Board of Inquiry, he would lucky to keep his captain’s license.
To make matters worse, killing the three Ravers outside had awakened the hundreds inside. He had not counted on that bit of misfortune. Only a thin steel door stood between them and the creatures. He knew how useless that was. If the Ravers detected them using whatever seemingly magical sense they used, he and the others would die. He could see only one way to survive, and that depended on a lot of luck, which had not been running in his favor lately.
Unless the Ravers sensed the reptilian Lokians were kin and did not attack them, the Lokians had weapons effective against them or at least a means of controlling them. If the last few surviving Lokians died inside the mountain complex, any weapons they had were still there. They had to find them.
It surprised him that he still cared about living. He had killed Nate, Andy, and Tish. He could see no future for himself. All that mattered now was saving the remainder of his crew – Plia and Romeo. He could include Cici in that group.
His body ached and his head felt as if his brain was rattling around inside. The aftermath of the explosion had left him feeling fuzzy. He knew how close they had all come to becoming exotic particles whirling through space. He couldn’t think far enough ahead to plan. He was going on instinct.
“The Lokians must have had weapons. Somewhere in here.” He waved his hands around, bringing on a bout of nausea from the frantic motion. “We have to find them.”
“If they had weapons, why did they create the Ravers?” Cici asked.
“In the beginning, they were fighting the terraforming process. They had no hope of winning that, but they anticipated an invasion. If they were intelligent, they must have had weapons. They just didn’t have enough survivors to build an army except by transmuting themselves.”
“We looked,” Romeo said.
“We didn’t search everywhere,” Plia reminded them.
“Right. We ignored a few corridors. Let’s make a thorough search.” Their suit coms began picking up deep-throated wails from the newly awakened Ravers broadcast by the walkie-talkie. “We don’t have much time.”
“In pairs,” Ivers suggested. “Plia and Romeo. Cici and Dax. I’ll go solo.”
Any other time, Dax would have been thrilled to be alone with Cici, but all he could think about was Tish dying in his arms. It felt like a betrayal to have carnal thoughts about anyone other than her. He and Cici chose one of the corridors they had bypassed originally. They explored small rooms that might have been storerooms but now contained only dust and slivers of rusted metal.
“What if we don’t find anything?” Cici asked.
She walked pressed against Dax as if afraid to abandon physical contact with him. For his part, he did not mind.
“It was your suggestion, remember?”
She frowned and bit her lip. “I might be wrong.”
“Don’t give up yet. We might find something useful – a weapon or a control mechanism. I’ve given up twice already, but I keep getting pulled back in.”
“You, Dax? You gave up?”
“When I took that mine from Ivers, I knew I was going to die. I had to save my crew. I had been wrong about survivors. It was the only thing I could think of. Ivers dragged me back in.”
“When was the second time?”
“When I killed Tish.”
Cici glanced away, ashamed at making him lay bare his soul to her. “I’m sorry.”
“I wanted to give up. Hell, I did give up, but the Ravers puzzled me. The way they acted didn’t make sense until you mentioned these ruins. Then, the pieces fell together. They’re still as dangerous, but they don’t seem as … as…” he struggled for the right word.
“Superhuman,” Cici supplied for him.
“Yeah, something like that. We can beat them with the right tools.”
“Thank you, Dax,” she said.
He was puzzled. “For what?”
“Not giving up a third time.”
His cheeks burned. “Yeah, well, let’s see if we can do something to make this day last longer.”
The corridor dumped back into one they had marked previously. They met Romeo and Plia. “Any luck?” he asked.
He could tell by Romeo’s dour expression that he and Plia had found nothing. The floor quaked and the walls shuddered. Dust fell from the ceiling. The noise coming over their suit coms revealed the Ravers growing louder and more frantic.
“We found nothing,” Plia said. “I fear the power core is growing more unstable. The Ravers sense it. The Skip explosion must have penetrated deeper into the mantle than I anticipated. The mantle may be shallower here; the reas
on the Lokians chose this spot for their power core.”
“What are you saying?” Cici asked.
Plia stared at Cici as if explaining to a child. “The power core will fail entirely soon. The magnetic cork keeping the magma bottled will disappear, releasing the molten magma. It will explode up the shaft under tremendous pressure like a super volcano. It will destroy this part of the moon, perhaps the entire moon.”
“Fuck me,” Dax said.
“Yes, all of us,” Plia agreed.
Ivers walked up and saw their dire expressions. He smiled. “I discovered another metal door at the end of a short corridor. It must protect something.”
When no one said anything, he asked, “What’s up? We might have located the weapons locker.”
Dax nodded at Plia. “Tell him.”
Dax watched Ivers’ jaw drop at Plia’s news. As if underlining her dark pronouncement, the corridor shuddered violently. Seconds later, the Ravers began hammering at the metal door.
“They know we’re here,” Dax said. “Let’s check out this door and pray it’s a thick one.”
The sickening sound of shearing metal reverberated down the corridor. In less time than it had taken Plia to seal the door, the Ravers had broken through it. Dax grabbed his laser. “Go now,” he told them. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”
“This is my job,” Ivers argued.
To Dax’s surprise, Plia grabbed one of the lasers and strode down the corridor toward the commotion. She did not look back, as she said, “I’m tired of running. This entire moon is going to crack like an egg soon. I do not wish to witness it. I have no ship, I have no home, but I will not die cowering.”
“Don’t do this, Plia,” Dax begged.
The sound of claws scrambling on stone reached them. Plia stood at a turn of the corridor. “It’s done, Captain.” She fired her laser. One of the Ravers screamed.
Dax stood numbly and watched until Ivers slapped him on the shoulder. “She’s giving us a chance to live. Don’t waste it.”
They raced down the corridor to the door Ivers had found. It was a manually operated door with a series of sliding handles along the sides. The sound of Plia’s laser continued. The dead Ravers in the narrow corridor blocked the progress of the others. Eventually, they would find another way around, but she bought them time.
Ivers slid the bars and the door opened as smoothly as if oiled a few hours earlier instead of 2,000 years ago. The room beyond was in darkness. As he stepped inside, his boots echoed. His light did not reveal the true size of the space. Dax followed him inside and shone his lights along the wall, and then up the wall as far as his light would reach.
“It’s not a room,” he said. “It’s another damn shaft.”
“I think it’s some type of exit,” Ivers replied. “It goes up for hundreds of meters, maybe right to the top of the cliff.” He pointed to a structure in the middle of the circular room. “That’s some kind of lift.”
Dax walked over to the platform that dominated most of the space. It was ancient and rusty. Flakes of metal came away when he brushed it with his gloved hand. “This thing is about to fall apart under its own weight.”
Ivers moved his lights to illuminate two metal beams from the platform connecting with channels embedded in the opposite walls of the chamber. He touched a lever attached to a box on the handrail. It lit up. “It works.” He jumped up and down on the surface of the platform. “It should hold.”
Plia’s voice came over the com unit. “They’re breaking through, Dax. Good luck.”
“Plia!” he yelled, but she had cut off communications.
“Make up your mind, Dax,” Ivers urged. “She bought us a few minutes. Do you want to stay, fight, and die, or help me get these people out of here?”
Dax’s head rang from being pulled in so many directions. He couldn’t help Plia, but leaving her to die alone ripped chunks from his heart. Romeo was his only crewmember left. He would not let him die. He turned to Romeo. “Seal that door. We’re going up.”
Romeo glanced nervously up the shaft as he slammed home the bars on the door. “If you say so, Captain.”
“I say so,” he snapped, angry that things had come down to this. Either he trusted an ancient elevator that led to God knows where, or he faced the Ravers. “You’re going home.”
As Cici passed him, she reached out and touched his arm. “She was a brave woman, Dax.”
He nodded. “Get going.”
Once all four were on the platform, Ivers lifted the lever. Dax held his breath. If the 2,000-year-old machinery failed, they would die. If the power died on the way up, they would be trapped. The platform shuddered and groaned in protest at awakening from its long sleep, but to his great relief, it began to rise. They were getting a reprieve. The support beams sliding in the channels in the walls needed lubricating. They screeched and squealed every meter of their upward journey, but they did not falter. Plia would have liked to see this. He shook thoughts of her from his head, as well as Tish, Nate, and Andy. He had failed them, but he could not fail Romeo. He took a step backwards and almost fell through a hole in the platform. He hoped it held together until they reached the top.
Above the din of the lift, they heard the Ravers pounding on the metal door below. It withstood their attack for less than five minutes before Dax heard it hit the floor wrenched from its hinges.
“Here they come,” he said.
He had assumed they could climb with those long claws and powerful muscles. He did not expect them to be part monkey. They scurried up the sides of the shaft as if it were a ladder. Ivers leaned over and fired a couple of shots at the Ravers with the laser rifle, but he only angered them. The lift reverberated and shook, as the creatures scrambled up the metal channels. Watching them climb, he knew the lift would never outpace them.
A group of them tried a new tactic. They passed the platform and attacked the beam where it attached to the channel, ripping at the metal around it in a frenzied effort to stop the platform. Dax knew they could succeed. If the beam slipped from the channel, they would plunge a thousand meters to the bottom.
“Do you still have that bomb?” he asked Ivers.
“Yes.”
“Can you hit it with the laser if I throw it?”
Ivers was silent for a moment as he digested Dax’s plan. “Yes.”
“Okay.”
Ivers handed him the thermos. Dax could not trust the fuse. If the bomb exploded too soon, it would kill them; too late, and it would do no good. “Here goes. Everyone should hug the floor.” He waited until the platform was just below the Ravers tearing at the channel; then, lobbed the bomb toward the wall. He watched it tumble end over end, hoping his aim was true. It struck the wall just above the group of Ravers. Ivers fired.
The bomb exploded in a burst of flame and light. Ball bearings he had used as shrapnel pinged all around him, punching holes through the rusty platform. One piece struck his suit. He felt a sharp pain as it penetrated his leg. The platform jolted, throwing him down onto its surface. He watched five Ravers, some dead, some alive, fall past them into the dark depths below. Ivers picked off a few others with the laser rifle.
The explosion slowed the assault. The Ravers did not leave, but they dropped back, content now to follow the platform to the surface. Dax worried about that part as well. What would they do once they reached the surface? They couldn’t run far. The way his leg felt, he might not be able to run at all. He looked upward, hoping to see an opening of some kind. He saw only darkness.
He stumbled when the platform stopped; then jerked upward again twice.
“I think the power core is failing,” Ivers said.
“Great! That will leave us in a pretty fix.”
“I think I see something above us,” Romeo said.
Dax shined his light upward and saw rock. He hoped the platform stopped before crushing them. As the ceiling drew closer, he noticed an inset balcony around the shaft. The platform shuddered as t
he entire shaft trembled from a quake. Rocks showered down on them. The platform struggled the last few meters, and then stopped. Without the constant screeching of the lift arms, he heard the Ravers’ claws digging into the rock.
Ivers spotted a tunnel leading from the balcony. “That way!” he shouted, as he fired down at the Ravers.
Dax risked a look over the side and saw scores of Ravers scrambling toward them. He led the way into the tunnel. The tunnel sloped upward for sixty meters before ending ended at a metal door. He hoped it did not have a magnetic lock. He didn’t have Plia’s skills. As he studied the door, he heard Ivers coming up the tunnel, still firing at the Ravers. They were running out of time.
The door looked like a simple hinged bulkhead door secured by thick metal rods controlled by a pressure plate mechanism. He pressed hard on the center of the door, and with a snap, the six metal rods retracted. The door creaked open a few centimeters. It resisted his efforts, but he managed to pull it open only to find a small room with a second door on the opposite wall. The small cubicle resembled an airlock. He repeated the identical operation on the second door. This door opened outward. Partially blocked by sand, it opened more slowly. He and Romeo got down on hands and knees and pushed the sand away from the door bottom of the door; then, put their combined weight into it to force it open. Sunshine spilled into the small airlock.
Ivers stood right behind them as they frantically worked on the door firing at the Ravers. Dax pulled Cici into the airlock.
“Come inside and close the inner door,” Dax told Ivers.
He didn’t know how long the door would deter them, but every second counted. The airlock’s size allowed only one Raver at a time to enter. If they could kill the first few, it would hinder their exit.
Outside in the open, he secured the outer door and looked around. They were on top of the cliff overlooking the canyon where they had entered the ruins. There was nothing on the flat plain they could use as a shield or a place to hide. The only outcropping for hundreds of meters in any direction was the one in which the airlock was located.
