I was not even given the dignity of scrambling to my feet, because while I was still spinning on my back like a turtle, Adams caught one arm and jerked me to a stop. “Colonel! Go!” She yanked me to my feet and with a hard shove in my back, propelled me forward.
There was no time to lose and no point in protesting. By the time I could have arrested my forward progress, I had to duck down to avoid smacking my face into the door that was still sliding down. All I could do was roll to one side then crawl frantically to get clear of the door. Snapping my head back as soon as I reached the other side of the doorway, I saw Adams was crawling along right behind me, the powered limbs of her suit actually working against her as she lost traction on the smooth floor. The door was about to crush her when I reached back for one outstretched hand and pulled with all my might. She crashed face first into my midsection and I skidded backwards on my ass. As a colonel, I was supposed to be an officer and a gentleman. Sliding on my butt was probably not considered gentlemanly behavior, but, screw it.
CLANG! The bottom of the door hit the tunnel floor with a reverberating knell of doom.
“Holy shit,” I gasped.
“Goddamn,” Adams agreed, her head bobbing up and down, eyes wide behind her visor. “Did you see that door? It must be a meter thick.”
With a couple eyeclicks to run back the recorded images, I had an exact measurement. “One point one six meters,” I stated, not knowing why I bothered.
“Correct, Joe,” Skippy’s voice reflected surprise. “How come you are so precise now, when you usually tell me you’re Ok with ‘meh’ level accuracy?”
“It’s called shock, Skippy,” I didn’t waste time arguing with him. “Can you get that door open?”
“No, duh. I would have done that already, dumdum. And you can forget about making a hole in that door with the little Cub Scout plasma torch Sergeant Adams is carrying, it wouldn’t even make a dent. Joe, that’s an emergency door, it doesn’t have a mechanism to retract. It’s a one-time-use thing.”
“How do we get Smythe’s team out of there?” I demanded.
“Huh? We don’t,” his tone included the implied ‘duh’ that I hated. “If they are getting to the surface, they will do it on their own. We can’t help them.”
“Skippy-” I began through clenched teeth.
“He’s right, Sir,” Adams grasped my shoulders and pressed her faceplate against mine to stare me directly in the eyes. “They bought time for us, for you, to get out of there. Smythe knows the priority is to get you and Skippy to safety.”
“That’s bullshit, Adams,” I pushed her away angrily. “We didn’t find a working conduit down here, that means Skippy is coming up against Zero Hour soon enough. My usefulness out here has been to think up wild ideas for Skippy to implement. When the worm gets him, he won’t be worth shit. Then we’ll be stuck here forever, and no one especially needs me to plant potatoes on this planet.”
Adams knew to silently let me deal with my guilt-driven anger, and after a minute of staring in impotent rage at the sealed door, I was able to think clearly again. “Sorry about that, Sergeant,” I said quietly without looking at her. Looking at her while I apologized would have made it awkward. She didn’t bother to reply. “Skippy, is there another way to the tunnel beyond this door?”
“No, Joe, not that I know of. That’s why we had to go down that spiral.”
“Yeah, the spiral,” I mused. The tunnel curved around itself, curling and sloping steadily to descend without going far in any direction. The chamber where we found that burned-out conduit was below our feet, or not far in either horizontal direction. “Adams,” I spun on my heels and began jogging up the tunnel. “Come with me, I have an idea.”
“An idea, Sir?” The skepticism was clear in her voice.
“It’s more of a concept than an idea at this point,” I admitted.
“Then I’m in,” she declared simply.
“You trust a vague concept more than a real plan?” I was surprised at that.
“Any idea you threw together that fast would be complete bullshit, Sir,” she explained. “A concept, now that’s something we can work with.”
That almost made me grind to a halt, but I kept moving. “Adams, being inside your brain must be interesting.”
“My brain?” She actually laughed despite the situation. “Tell me, is this concept one of your off-the-wall ideas?”
“Usually my ideas are for Skippy to mess with the laws of physics. This concept does have one thing in common with most of my ideas; it is probably stupid and impractical.”
“Your best ideas are, Sir,” she answered with a shrug. “Wherever we’re going, let’s pick up the pace.”
Chapter Twenty One
“This is your idea?” Hands on her hips spoke louder than the tone of her voice.
“I did say it was more of a concept.”
“Joe, even for one of your ideas, this is crazy,” Skippy chimed in. “What the hell do you think you will accomplish?”
With the toe of a boot, I nudged a pebble into the shaft, it fell and splashed into the black water. “These shafts are vertical, right?” Without waiting for an answer, I pressed ahead. “This one must parallel that spiral tunnel.”
“Parallel, yes, maybe. What good does that do?”
“You also told us these shafts were created to bring in equipment too large for the tunnels.”
“Yeah? So?”
“So,” I tried scanning the water on infrared, but it didn’t show anything. That water was uniformly cold. “The gear in that spherical chamber got there somehow.”
“Huh. Ok, Ok, that makes sense,” Skippy admitted. “But there was only one access to that chamber.”
“There is only one way to access it now; down that spiral tunnel. Can you run back the recorded sensor data, look for where there could be another way in, that got sealed up later?”
“That sensor data is vague, Joe, we weren’t looking for concealed access points, and these Kristang suits don’t have the best- hmmm. Ok. Interesting.”
“You found an access point?” I asked eagerly.
“No, Joe, I found a way to save fifteen percent on car insurance. Yes, dumdum, I found another access point, or what might be an access point. I can’t tell for sure. What I did find is a feature of the chamber that makes little sense, unless it was originally an access point. There is a slightly flattened, weak spot about a quarter of the way up the wall.”
“Is that weak point on the side of chamber facing this access shaft?” I clenched a fist.
“You are such a smartass. The answer is yes,” Skippy admitted reluctantly.
“Yeah!” I pumped a fist in the air, then accepted a careful high five from Adams. With our powered suits, a full-strength hand slap could do significant damage.
“Joe, please restrain your enthusiasm. I assume your plan is to go down into that shaft full of water, find a secret way into the chamber where we found the burned-out conduit? You will need to open an access between the shaft and the chamber, allowing thousands of gallons of water to flood the chamber and the tunnels above it. If you survive that, you need to contact Major Smythe, get past the bots, and bring the whole team up this shaft? You already almost drowned once on this planet, you should not be pushing your luck a second time. The odds of you getting out of there alive are, like, ninety seven to one!”
“Skippy, I really do not need you channeling your inner math nerd right now.”
“Joe, I did not tell you the odds against your survival because I’m a nerd.”
“Good, then-”
“I did it because I’m an asshole.”
Adams rolled her eyes and I shook my head. “It was your idea for us to go down in this freakin’ hole, Skippy. The only reason my team is down there is because-”
“Joe, Joe, Joe.” Skippy said sadly. “Your anger at me is really just your attempt at deflecting blame from where it truly belongs. This is all your fault.”
“My fau
lt?!”
“You trusted an ailing, absent-minded beer can. Totally your fault.”
Adams nodded wearily. “You can’t argue with that logic, Sir.”
“Shit.”
“Ninety seven to one is great odds compared to some of the shit we’ve gotten into,” Adams observed without a smile. “We jump in, Colonel?” The look on her face as she leaned over the edge of the shaft was distinctly unhappy.
“I was thinking we anchor lines to, uh,” I looked around the smooth walls, floor and ceiling of the tunnel. There were no pins, rings or anything else to tie a line to. “Hmmm. This could be a problem.”
“Is this where your plan becomes more of a concept, Sir?” She cocked her head with a bemused smile.
“Working on it, Adams. Skippy, if I set you down on the floor here, can you make yourself really heavy, so we can tie a line around you?”
“Good idea, Joe, except the answer is no, I do not currently have that capability, darn it. You better put your thinking cap on.”
Unslinging her rifle, she flicked the safety off. “While you’re thinking, I’ll knock a hole in this wall. Unless you have a better idea?”
I did not.
Skippy did not have an idea, but he did have an objection. “Sergeant, remember when I advised Major Smythe against shooting at maintenance bots? The same advice applies to shooting explosive-tipped rounds at the tunnels.”
“Well, crap,” I pulled him off my belt and held him up to glare at his beer can. “You sure have a lot to say about things we can’t do. Got any helpful ideas?”
“Nope. I’m not a monkey, Joe, helpful ideas are your job. I suggest you think fast.”
Him telling me that was super helpful. Not. All right, I told myself, back to basics. Specifically, basic training. When faced with an obstacle or challenge, first consider what resources or assets are available to you. What did we have with us? Plenty of nanofiber cable thinner than monofilament fishing line, but capable of holding tons of weight. Winches attached to our belts. And nothing to anchor a line to.
Or maybe we did. “Skippy, that fancy glue we have, for fixing leaks in suits and stuff like that, how strong is it?”
“It’s not glue, you ignorant cretin,” he sighed. “It’s a paste packed with nanoscale-”
“Yeah, blah blah blah, nerdy geek talk. If we used a big glob of that paste gook on the tunnel floor, could that hold a line?”
“Glob? Joe, that ‘paste gook’, as you so, ugh,” he huffed disgustedly. “I can’t even describe your astonishing failure to understand-” he sputtered to a stop. “The nano machines in that adhesive are so far beyond human technology, or even comprehension-”
“Hey, beer can,” Adams interjected. “Yes? Or no?”
“Yes,” Skippy snapped irritably. “You monkeys-”
“Shut up,” Adams wasn’t taking any crap right then. “The next words out of your mouth better be instructions on how to use that adhesive, or I’m dropping you into that flooded shaft. As you said, Skippy, we didn’t find a conduit. So, you’re pretty much useless to us.”
“Instructions, Ooookaaaay,” I had never heard Skippy sounding chastised before. He made a sound like nervously clearing his throat. “Here’s what you do-”
We dropped into the flooded shaft together side by side, letting the winches on our belts lower us steadily but not too quickly, so our armored suits could adjust to the increasing water pressure. With Skippy providing guidance, we descended until he estimated we were at the level of the spherical chamber, then we began scanning for concealed entrances to the chamber. “Adams,” I switched my visor view to infrared and used a glove fingertip to feel along the slimy wall in the murky water. “What we’re looking for could be very subtle, if the Elders sealed up the access and filled it with concrete, or whatever this shaft liner is made of.”
“Understood, Sir,” she replied from about a dozen meters below my feet. “But it could also look like this giant circular door right in front of my face.”
“You found it already?” I activated my winch to let out more line and descended to her level. Sure enough, there was a big, obvious door, with a big hinge on the right side, but no other visible mechanism. “Sergeant, you are truly amazing. Skippy, any idea how to open this thing?”
“There is no lock mechanism I can interface with,” Skippy reported. “You will have to cut the hinge off.”
Adams had a small plasma torch with her, so she began the slow process of cutting through the hinge from the bottom. She was concentrating and I had nothing to do, so I stupidly wanted to fill the awkward silence. Seeing how the plasma was making slow progress against the tough material of the hinge, I estimated we were going to be there ten or more minutes, and I couldn’t stand simply hanging on a line while Adams worked. It occurred to me this was the first extended time we had been alone, truly alone. During the mission to reactivate maser projectors on Paradise, we had been hidden in the jungle, living in a stealthed dropship. But other people had been in the jungle with us, and we were busy pretty much the whole time. In the shaft under Gingerbread, no one could hear us talk except Skippy. “Adams,” I said as nonchalantly as I could muster right then, “we never talked about what happened to you in that Kristang jail on Paradise.” The little guy in the back of my brain who is way, way smarter than me tried to stop the words coming out of my mouth, but I ignored my subconscious until it was too late.
When I first met Adams, she had been naked in a jail cell, and from the scars on her back I could tell the lizards had done awful things to her. She had never said anything about her experience there, and I had never asked. Psychologists on Earth declared Adams and Desai fit for duty, despite my reservations, and I had accepted them as official members of the Merry Band of Pirates.
“Really, Sir?” Her focus did not waver; she watched the plasma cutter intently. “You want to talk about that now?”
“Sorry,” I replied, stricken. “I’m bad at small talk, I guess.”
“I suck at small talk, too. The Marine Corps didn’t consider chit chat to be a core skill.”
“Sorry,” I repeated. “I wasn’t looking for lurid details of,” how the hell was I getting out of this conversation? “Of, what the lizards did. That’s none of my business. I wanted to, to, how did you find the strength to keep going?”
“Discipline, Sir. And, hate,” that time she did glance away from the torch for a split second.
“Hate?”
“Hate is a powerful motivator. That I did learn in basic. What happened to me in that jail, to all the women who didn’t make it out of there, made me hate the lizards more than you can imagine, Sir. After Kobamik, when we got that little civil war going, Skippy told me he estimated fifty thousand lizards dead already before the Dutchman jumped away. He asked if that number bothered me, and I told him fifty thousand dead lizards is a good start.”
On Kobamik, I had seen Kristang civilians for the first time, and I knew Adams would not rejoice at civilian deaths, no matter what happened to her in that jail. But I did share her sentiment. On Earth, the Kristang had not hesitated to cause civilian deaths, they had deliberately targeted civilians from orbit, resulting in mass casualties. “Sergeant, there’s a couple billion humans on Earth who feel the same way, and they don’t know the lizards like we do.”
“I won’t tell you what happened in that jail,” Adams said without looking at me. “I only told the Marine Corps psychologist because I was ordered to, and because I knew if I didn’t tell them everything, I wouldn’t be cleared to come back out here. I won’t tell you because I don’t want to remember it, and I don’t want you having that image in your mind whenever you look at me. Don’t say you won’t. Because you will.” She emphasized that last with a glance into my visor. “I’m a staff sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. I don’t want anyone’s pity, or understanding, which is almost worse.”
“Adams-”
“I will tell you what happened to me when there was a knock o
n my jail cell door, and you opened it. I thought I had been abandoned, by humanity. My species, UNEF, my country, the Marine Corps, I thought they had all abandoned me to rot and be killed in that jail.”
“Nobody came to visit you?”
“No, Sir.”
That surprised me, and dismayed me. Chang told me he had visits from Chinese Army and UNEF officials. “Just before the Ruhar hit the jail complex, I had a visit from a Marine Corps major,” whose name I could not remember at the moment. “He got killed in the hallway, maybe he was on his way to see you next?”
“Maybe,” she did not sound convinced. “Is he where you got that uniform?”
“Yes.”
“I was alone, I didn’t know what happened when the Ruhar hit the complex from orbit. There was a knock, the door opened, and I saw your goofy face. Then you ran off to get clothes for me, like I cared about that!”
“You were naked,” I said lamely.
“So?”
“So, you’re a, a woman.”
“And?”
As I did not have an intelligent answer, I gave her the truth. “It matters.”
“When you opened that door, I told myself that I had not been abandoned, somebody had gotten out of a cell, and instead of running off, like you should have,” another glance at me, “you took the time, and the risk, to rescue me. Right there, that restored my faith in humanity. We may be ignorant, as far as the beer can is concerned we may be dumb as a paramecium. We fight each other, we kill each other over politics and religion, we do horrible things to each other. Maybe every species is like that. But as long as there is one human out there who remembers what loyalty means, I’ve got faith in us monkeys. You not only saved my life, you restored my hope. So the next time I take a risk to save your neck,” she turned the plasma torch off to look straight at me, “don’t argue.”
“I heard that loud and clear, gunnery sergeant.”
“I’m a staff sergeant, Sir,” she looked startled, which did not happen to Margaret Adams.
Zero Hour (Expeditionary Force Book 5) Page 39
