“How could he? We killed him almost instantly,” I say.
Nothing left to do now but run. Run in the hopes that the Hakorian didn’t sound off the alarm before he died. How could he though? He had no time to react when the door opened. Unless their species are telepathic, if that’s the case we’re screwed.
“He? How do you know it’s a he?”
“Well, seeing as we know what females look like now I think it’s safe to assume that that one was male,” I say.
“Stop for a second, we need to figure out where we are.”
I look around; the chamber is filled with machinery that looks like cranes and drilling tools. No shock there, the Intel did say that this is a mining operation.
“How many of those explosives do you have?”
“Well, you used one of mine, and you used two of your own. There are supposed to be four in each suit,” he catches on, “so…we should have enough to blow this place up, if we use them on the right equipment that could cause multiple chain reactions.”
“Hmm, alright. Let’s find where they’re storing the Thopium they mined, if we blow that up this whole place will light up like a match.”
“We would only need one or two though to accomplish that,” T-Rave points out.
“Yeah, we’ve got five left so let’s use them wisely.”
“Down!” I whisper, although it’s useless gesture seeing as we have private intercom, I could scream as loud as I want and no one would be able to hear me.
I crouch behind a large crate, two Hakorians pass without noticing us.
“We need to get out fast; we probably can't stay hidden for much longer.” At that precise moment a blaring sound echoes off the cavern walls.
“You just had to open your mouth didn’t you?”
“Sorry boss.”
“Let’s just find what we need to find and get out.” I stand up and look around for anything that’ll make a nice boom.
“Over here.” I say, I spot what looks like a tank at the far end of the cavern.
The alarm is getting louder and louder, “we have intruderss, find them!”
“Where’s that coming from?”
“I don’t know; they must’ve installed speakers or something in here,” I say.
We reach the tank without anything seeing us… hopefully. It looks like it’s a fuel tank, “Thopium is a gas right?” I ask.
“When it’s mined it is, it can be infused into certain stuff like our guns, why?”
“I think I found its container.”
The contained looks like just an ordinary box; on the top there’s a small nozzle device. That might be how they get the gas inside.
“Hand me on of your charges,” I say.
One of the cold cylinders falls into my outstretched palm; I fumble around the bottom of the tank, looking for a spot that’ll conceal it.
“Ok, I think that should do the trick. This is device number two, the one attached in the elevator is one, make sure we don’t mix those up, otherwise if we blow the wrong one we might be stuck down here.”
“How long do you think we have?”
“I don’t know, they are going to start setting up patrols now, it shouldn’t take long for them to find us,” I say.
“Weren’t our orders to try and negotiate with them?” T-Rave asks.
“We can't negotiate with them; you were there for the last mission weren’t you? They made their intentions pretty clear.”
“The General won’t appreciate you disobeying orders again.”
I walk in between a crane and more tanks.
“Yeah well, last time I didn’t follow orders I saved lives. So maybe if I repeat my actions then I can save our sorry asses.”
“Good point, but we should at least try.”
I take out one of the metal cyclinders, turning it over in my hand, trying to think of a good place to put it. I look up and inspect the crane, if the support beams fall it would cause major damage to the equipment and the people operating them. The perfect spot.
“Alright, that should do nicely, take however many you have left and just throw them.”
T-Rave looks at me.
“Did they fill your water tank with alcohol?”
“You think I’m drunk? Trust me Captain, you would know if I was drunk; I get really loud and laugh a lot…never mind… just throw them. They won’t explode when they make contact with the ground, instead their on a timer.”
“Oh, that makes me feel so much more comfortable to the fact that I’ll be lobbing a bomb.”
“Set the timer for ten minutes then throw it. I’ll do the same with the rest of mine,” I roll my eyes, T-Rave’s a hard-core military person, but he could be a real chicken shit at times.
I set the timer for ten minutes, anything less than that would be unwise. I lob the small device as far as I can throw it. If anything they’ll provide a distraction when they blow up. Describing the small devices as a ‘bomb’ is inaccurate. They just didn’t have enough force to be considered a bomb.
“Make sure you throw it away from the elevator,” I mention.
“Yeah, I got that.”
“Ok, are we done here?” I look at T-Rave; he’s raising his gun up at me, brilliant flashes of light arc by my helmet.
A sharp burst of pain erupts from the back of my skull. By the time I realize what’s happened I’m lying on the ground, the world around me goes dark.
****
“Wake up sscum.”
My eyes are closed; I can’t move my hands or legs. I’m in a sitting position, I’m on a cold metal chair.
My eyes snap open, a large quantity of cold water strikes my head, waking me up from my stupor.
The freezing cold water is running down my back and dripping its way through the gaps in my armour. Great time to not be wearing a helmet.
“You too,” the voice says again, I can hear another bucket of water being splashed against someone, probably T-Rave.
“Now, how did you get down here? How did you find thiss place?”
“Well, it was quite simple, you see, here’s what we did: we took a flying dog here, we then dug a tunnel from the surface down here using only our hands. Does that sum it up for you?” T-Rave says.
The Hakorian growls before lashing out with his hand; luckily his hand had been clenched. I’m expecting there’s torture, you can’t piss off your captors and not get punished for it.
Another blow strikes, this time it’s the side of my face; I can feel the inside of my skull rattling.
“How did you find thiss place?”
“Does it really matter? What matters is that we are here now and that you are screwed,” I spit the blood that was lingering in my mouth on the floor.
“Explain.”
“Boom.” A wide smile opens up on my face, there’s nothing funny about the situation, but I can tell that they’re angry, regardless of their alien facial structure, I can just tell.
“Find whatever they’ve put here,” he hisses to two Hakorians standing behind him.
“Just to make our superior happy I need to ask you one thing, is there any way that we can make a peace treaty with you people?” I ask, I already know the answer though.
“No, peace treatiess will only sslow uss down in our goal.”
“And that goal is to mine our Thopium right?”
“How did you know that?”
“I have my sources.”
“Take the other one to the next room, he might be more talkative,” he orders one of the Hakorians in the room.
“Don’t touch me, I can walk myself,” T-Rave says, he hadn’t been tied down for some reason, maybe they don’t think he’s as big of a threat as me; maybe they’re more scared of me than they’re of him. That thought alone makes me feel really good about myself.
The guard grabs T-Rave by the arm and drags him up onto his feet; T-Rave tries his best to shake him off. In response the guard shunts him in the back to push him along.
; Sitting here for what feels like hours, nothing I can do will allow me to escape; my hands are bound so tight they’re probably turning purple.
I look around at my surrounding, a small room must have been connected to the central chamber, I wonder why it didn’t show up when I had scanned this place; maybe this room is shielded somehow. A table stands at the far end of the room, two helmets lie there. There’s still hope that we can get out of this mess, if only I can get to my helmet.
The room that connected to this one that T-Rave had been shoved into opens, T-Rave comes stumbling out, two Hakorians right behind him.
It takes all my focus to notice that T-Rave winks at me as he walks past me. I stare back at him, not knowing what’ll happen.
An explosion in the background shakes the ground, disrupting my thoughts. The ground rumbles, sending the Hakorians stumbling when they try to walk any farther; not having T-Rave tied up was clearly a mistake on their part. Before I know it T-Rave has his arm wrapped around the leader Hakorians throat.
Even though I’m tied to a chair I stand up, a useless gesture to try and help T-Rave, it catches the other Hakorian by surprise.
I charge him, going head first into his stomach. He reacts to fast and runs forward. He clashes into me with enormous power. I land heavily on my back.
“Ssay goodbye,” spit lands on my face from his snarling mouth.
The Hakorian draws his arm up in preparation to strike. His eyes show victory for a split second, then pain and rage.
His hand stops in midair.
A large knife comes sprouting through the middle of his stomach.
“Goodbye,” I say, the body begins to fall down to the grown; a frown marks his now lifeless face.
T-Rave’s behind the body, green blood dripping off his blade.
“Not a moment too soon Captain, that was excellent timing,” I continue, “now cut me loose so we can get out of here.”
T-Rave pulls the chair back up into a sitting position, slashing down at the ropes.
I stand up from the chair, now unbound by ropes.
“It’s been ten minutes already?” I ask T-Rave, “how long were we unconscious for?”
“It hasn’t been ten minutes since we threw those charges. I set one of them to eight minutes instead, it’s a good thing that I did to, and otherwise I wouldn’t of had the opportunity to do what I did.”
“So then we only have a minute before the rest of them go off?” I ask.
“Probably less, we’d better hurry.”
I go to the small table where are helmets are sitting, it’s a sight for sore eyes as all the information from my suit comes flooding up on the HUD.
“Better hold onto something, the next wave of explosives is going to go off in five seconds,” I tell him.
“We’ll be fine, let’s just hurry.”
We run out the door, a second later the ground shakes again, although not as much as I thought.
“I don’t mean to be negative or anything, but shouldn’t we be dead?”
“How so?” T-Rave says.
We’re still running towards the elevator, sparing no time to stop and chat.
“The Thopium container’s still intact.”
“Don’t you remember? You set that charge to be set off manually. Just like the elevator charge.”
“Right, sorry. My memory is a little groggy after being smacked on the back of my head like that.” There’s no need to apologize, still, mistakes like that could cost you your life.
The elevator door opens seconds after depressing the switch on the side of the wall. We rush inside, the door closes behind us.
“Ok, how far up should we be before I hit activate on charge two?”
“We don’t know the explosive capabilities of raw Thopium; I would wait until we are almost at the top before we detonate,” he says.
“Up,” I say, the elevator lurches as it begins its ascend. The trip going down into the facility took no time at all, so you could assume that the return trip would be equally fast.
“Alright, last time it took about thirty seconds to travel the distance, so I’ll detonate in three; two; one.”
I blink at the activate icon.
There’s an explosion beneath our feet, it rocks the elevator from side to side before completely stopping.
“What happened?”
“I’m not sure; maybe the explosion killed the power,” I say.
Luckily I’m wrong though, seconds later the door opens up behind us and light comes shining through.
“Well, I guess the power didn’t get cut.”
“Yet again, thanks for pointing out the obvious.”
“No problem.”
We step out of the elevator, our rifles scouting the room in case any more Hakorians had been posted up here after we cleared them out earlier.
“Look,” T-Rave goes over to the hole in the wall, “it looks like it’s trying to regrow what it lost,” he says in awe.
The hole looks like a stalactite, forming thin bars from the top of the hole, tracing all the way to the bottom.
“Well, at least we know now that they’re organic in design,” I say.
I flip my rifle around and use the butt end of it to shatter the thin pillars. They break off with a high pitch ring, it sounds as if they’re made of glass.
I poke my head outside the hole and look around the perimeter. As far as I can tell me and T-Rave are the only two living things as far as the eye can see.
My head snaps around to the elevator, the door closes; the lift begins its descend back down to the cavern below.
“I think it's time to ruin their day even more,” I say, I scroll through my HUD again and find the activate icon for the first charge that we placed in the elevator wall.
The door in front of us shudders as the explosive blast rocks the elevator shaft.
“Well, that went well I think,” T-Rave says, “now why don’t we get out of here before more of them show up?”
“Right, let’s go,” I say, I step through the hole.
The outside light is blinding, even with my helmets built in shading system. It was dark when we went inside and underground, it seems like a whole new world now that the light’s pouring through the trees, illuminating the surrounding forest.
“Try to raise Jayon,” T-Rave suggests.
“Good Idea,” I scroll through the intercom channels, “Comets End this is Ground Team One, do you copy?”
There was nothing but static over the intercom.
“Captain Cofield, do you copy?”
“Maybe there’s interference from the blast; it could be giving off radiation,” I say.
“I don’t think that’s the case, our systems would’ve alerted us to any radiation leaks.”
“Good point, I guess we start walking then, there’s no point in staying here any longer then we have to.”
Me and T-Rave begin retracing our steps to our crash site.
Before leaving the vicinity of the building, I look back at what we’ve caused. The building is still standing, but just behind it, a giant sinkhole. The blast from below must’ve done more destruction than I’d originally thought.
****
The sun shines down on us, still high in the sky, trying to pierce its way through the thick foliage. It feels like we’ve been walking for hours.
The scenery changed little, the thundering sound of a waterfall comes from off in the distance, “we should stop up ahead and refill our water.”
“Good idea.”
The waterfall came into sight shortly, the roaring sound of the water rushing down is tremendous, never in my life have I ever seen something so powerful.
“Wow, that’s stunning, I’ve never seen anything like that before,” my mouth drops open in awe, beautiful, simply beautiful.
“Let’s make this quick, I want to cover at least another fifteen clicks before the sun goes down.”
“You got it Colonel.”
I unclip one of t
he water canteens from my hip, it’s bone dry. The water reserves in my suit’s been depleted, even though you can recycle it, it just isn’t the same.
I pop my helmet off, the stale air rushing out and mixing with the humid forest air. I bend down over the pool at which the waterfall is falling into; the water is cold against my gloved hands.
With my canteen full I reach down again and splash my face, the cold water runs down my neck and into my back plates, refreshing me considerably. If only there was enough time to have a relaxing bath, it would make my day end perfectly.
Static emanates from inside my helmet.
I quickly wipe my hands off on my leg plates and place my helmet back on my head.
“Hello? Is anyone reading this? Over…” I pause for a response, “I repeat, can anyone hear this? This is Ground Team One; we need immediate evac back to base.”
The only reply is more static.
“Captain, is there any way that we can clear up or boost our signal?”
“There might be, it’s not really my department, but if you’re asking me then I’m assuming that you’ve no skills at all in that field.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Just try and fix it ok?”
As T-Rave fiddles with the settings on the intercom I just sit there, there isn’t anything to do but wait, and this place is secluded like a cove, nothing will be able to find it without proper coordinates.
I look around at my surroundings, there’s really nothing more beautiful than a waterfall. A constant rhythm as the water pounds into the rocks.
“I got it Sir,” T-Rave says, interrupting the silence.
I put my helmet back on and transfer the settings from T-Raves helmet to mine.
“This is Colonel Woods, does anyone read me?” I pause, “Captain, are you sure you have it? There isn’t any static anymore but I’m not getting anything at all now.”
“Yeah, I’m positive, I heard a voice get through.”
“What did it say?”
“’Help’.”
“That’s it? Was there anything else?”
“Nothing that I could make out, it was really crackly.”
A voice comes over the intercom.
“We…n…ide…as…ance…wha…e…ur….co…ates…”
Siege of Terra (The Mavrik Woods Series, Book 1) Page 13
