“No,” Lord Erama said, reaching into a pocket and producing a pad. He scrolled through some files, brought one up and perused the contents. “No, he’s still there. He’s sent reports and various other messages as well. Generally by rather convoluted relays, making it impossible to send any communication back. And his messages are usually all fairly cryptic. And, so far, they’ve all been pretty much useless.” He started to read aloud. “‘The situation is well in hand. There’s no cause for concern.’ ‘I didn’t request the aid of your field agent and I’ve sent him back. Imraec Tarc is no place for inexperienced hands. Trust me on this. I am well set up here and I know what I’m doing.’”
Lord Erama put the pad down. “It’s all more or less like that. He says he’s not in danger. He says he knows what he’s doing. The people on Katara are treated well and there’s no cause for alarm.” He then laughed a little. “Unless of course we want to send someone out to see him. Then suddenly Imraec Tarc becomes a very dangerous place indeed and he warns us in no uncertain terms to keep away.” He drew in a breath and exhaled. “No, I don’t trust this man at all.”
“However,” he said, leaning forward and propping an elbow on the table, “he still might be useful to us. And that’s why I want to talk to you two.”
Asten nodded. “He doesn’t like it when you tell him you’re going to send people in. So you want us to pay him a surprise visit.”
Lord Erama nodded. “Basically. We need these mysteries about Imraec Tarc cleared up and this man might be able to help us. I want you to track him down, wherever he’s holed up, then get him to come back and report in - whether by verbal persuasion or a stun blast. We need him back.”
Selina frowned. “He’s a Phalamkian, isn’t he? This is why that Hie’shi senator was pushing this issue onto us. He sees this man as our problem.”
Her father sighed. “And he’s right. Deramar Ardeis is our problem. But there’s more to it now. Specifically, he’s now become my problem because it seems that the best people for this job are my own family. You two. You see, there’s a reason why I’m asking you to do this. Deramar Ardeis is a Phalamkian and so that makes this business of talking to him a Phalamkian problem, as we’ve said. However, our people tend to stand out somewhat, what with our height and what most humanoid species would consider to be an additional set of arms. So if I were to send in a Phalamkian strike team to extract this man, there’d be a good chance they’d be found before they ever reached him. However, there are a few half-Phalamkians around and plenty of humans. And since they travel more than Phalamkians like myself generally do, they’d have a better chance of blending in with the pirates and smugglers around the Imraec Tarc system.”
Asten nodded. It made sense to him.
Selina however still had some concerns. “Why not hire some half-Phalamkians or humans to do the job?”
“I could,” Lord Erama said, “but, as Senator Ereis told me, this is a delicate matter. I’d be happier knowing that whoever goes there is someone I trust. And I can trust you two.”
“And what about Zak or Maia?”
“Well, as you know, there are a lot of new personnel coming through the defense forces right now and they’re very busy finding suitable assignments for them all. However, that aside, I think you two are better suited to this particular job.” Lord Erama looked at Asten for a moment. “I think, and I’m sure you’d agree, that your old ship the Lady Hawk might be useful for this. Also, you have resourceful friends. Drackson. Laila Casdan’s daughters. I recommend you use them. But however you do this, the quieter you are, the better it will be all round.” He locked his gaze with Asten’s. “Will you do it?”
On the bridge of the Lantern, Eroim cursed the communication console in a low but sustained murmur.
Smiling, Carla walked over to him. “No luck as yet?”
Eroim shook his head and extended his hands, palms upwards, in a gesture of helplessness. “Nothing. There seems to have been no effort on their part to contact us since the initial transmission and I can’t raise them for love or money.”
“Is it a matter of not being able to tap into a relay?” Carla asked. “Or are we being jammed perhaps?”
Eroim frowned. “No. It’s not that, I think. It’s as though no one can be bothered answering.” He drummed his fingers on the console. “I wonder if that guy’s three day estimate might have been overly optimistic.”
At the navigation station, Kailis shot him a look of disdain. “That’s not very funny, Eroim.”
With a wistful smile, but with sadness in his eyes, the old man shook his head. “I wasn’t trying to be funny, lass.”
For a few moments, the bridge was silent.
Carla, who had remained where she was, leaning over the communication console, turned to Eroim again. “Do you know anything about the reactors they use in these types of mines?”
Eroim sighed. “Well, in a proper mine, that’s all set up right, this sort of thing shouldn’t really happen. But I’ve seen some of these hastily thrown together down and dirty mines, set up for a quick profit, where they use portable equipment for just about everything they can, including the power...” He shook his head. “If one of those reactors fails on you, you might be lucky to get one day, let alone three.”
Carla nodded. “Well, if they’re all dead already, I guess we’ll know soon enough.”
She straightened up and gave Eroim another smile and a clap on the back. “In the meantime, just keep trying. We’ll keep a little optimism and hope for the best.”
Everyone on the bridge smiled too and resumed their duties.
2. The Survivor
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Carla announced to the bridge as she brought up the forward visual display on the main viewscreen. “A29-M1. Levarc territorial possession, although officially unoccupied, and - rather more directly - a possession of the Class-2 gas giant A29-G.”
She smiled. “They tend to get a bit carried away with the names they give these things. However, I believe we have arrived at our destination. Eroim, see if you can raise them now.”
Eroim exhaled as he leaned over his communication equipment. “For what it’s worth, Captain.”
The bridge listened to see whether anyone would answer this time around but after several moments, there was still no reply.
“All right, Eroim,” Carla said, giving the old man a nod. “Terminate the transmission. Marlin, bring us in. Kailis, check for any other vessels in the system and scan the surface for power readings.”
The helmsman, a member of the rather avian species the Tollum, gave a nod, as did Kailis at her navigation station - and the Lantern accelerated towards the dark sphere that filled the viewscreen.
“I’m getting energy readings,” Kailis called out. “Near the equator on the near side. Marlin?”
“I see them,” the Tollum replied. “Coming around. Starboard yaw. Yes. We’re coming in on a good clean vector now.”
From the back of the bridge, Carla nodded and tapped some controls on the arm of her seat. “Bringing up a visual. Let’s have a look.”
Several heads turned to the viewscreen to see the wasteland that appeared there. Red rock, almost crimson, covered in shifting dunes of ochre sands, greeted them under a dark sky. For Carla, it brought back memories of the planet Nemasil, although thankfully without its terrifying atmospheric storm activity. In the midst of a cluster of large rocks, possibly debris from blasting or drilling, the crew of the Lantern could just make out the edges of a metallic structure. The entrance to the mine shaft.
“Marlin,” Carla said, “let’s do a flyover and see if we can figure out where we’re supposed to land. But don’t bring the ship down just yet.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Marlin replied.
Carla then switched on the shipboard communications system. “All hands. We’re preparing to land. I want everyone on yellow alert. Security, man the hatchways. If there are people down there still and this ship’s their only chance of getting off this
rock alive, they may well try to storm it.”
When Carla had finished her address, Kailis turned to her. “But now that we’re here, there are enough ships for everyone, surely.”
“One would hope so,” Carla said. “But if there are still survivors here and they haven’t been responding to our calls, something strange might be going on.” She gave her navigation officer a smile. “Plan for the worst but hope for the best, Kailis.”
Kailis smiled back. “Right, Captain.”
For a few moments, the bridge was silent as Marlin brought the Lantern over the structures. Carla watched the view from the dorsal cameras on the viewscreen.
“There’s our landing platform,” Marlin announced. “With one ship left on it.”
“The cargo ship we heard about,” Carla said. “Looks like the shuttles are gone.” She studied the lone vessel for a moment and then gave up on the exercise. “Do you know what it is, Eroim?”
“I’d say that’s one of those old Aurora Prime shifters,” the old man guessed.
“Shifters?” Carla asked.
“Don’t know the proper name,” Eroim said. “They’re an older version of the General A-type vessel. Aurora Prime doesn’t make them anymore.”
“All right,” Carla said. “Marlin. Bring us down but keep the systems online in case we want to get out of here in a hurry. The bridge is yours.” She climbed out of her seat. “Kailis. Eroim. You’re with me in the away team.”
The two of them followed her off the bridge and met with two mechanics who doubled as armed security guards. When the ship landed, the group checked the conditions outside and, satisfied that they were safe enough, debarked. It was hot outside the ship. A strong breeze blew over the sands but far from alleviating the heat, it felt like a blast from a furnace.
Carla wrapped a scarf around her face to keep the sand out of her eyes and mouth. Then she shuffled a foot around, digging it into the sand underneath until she felt a hard surface.
“Metal,” she said, almost shouting to be heard over the wind. “Anyone see a door?”
“Or a welcoming party?” Kailis muttered, although no one heard her.
“There!” Eroim called out, pointing at a rectangular outline on one of the structures that formed the enclosed wall around the landing platform.
The group headed over to it.
“These guys probably don’t get too many unannounced visitors,” one of the Lantern’s mechanics-turned-security officers said. “So this thing might not have a lock.”
Eroim nodded and, without checking with Carla, hit the release. The door slid open with an unpleasant grinding noise caused by a build-up of sand in the grooves it slid over. Then everyone went inside and Eroim shut the door behind them.
“There a light switch somewhere?” someone asked.
“Here,” Eroim’s voice sounded in the dark. This was followed by a very audible click and then the room lit up with a dull orange glow.
“Sparse, isn’t it?” someone remarked.
Eroim shrugged. “It serves its purpose, I’d imagine.” He nodded to a large platform about twenty meters away. “Looks like a one size fits all elevator over there. Shall we go down and have a look around?”
“Well, we have come all this way,” Carla said, taking point and walking towards it. As the others followed, she pulled out her communicator and flicked it on. “Marlin, we’ve found a cargo and personnel lift and we’re heading down. We’ll keep you posted.”
“Copy that,” the Tollum replied.
When everyone was on the lift, Carla gave Eroim a nod and he pulled a lever that started the lowering mechanism.
On many of the worlds Carla had been on, there were elevators that would shoot someone up or down a hundred floors in a matter of moments. This was not one of them. And, for about a minute or so, her party had nothing to look at but a shifting surface of cut rock and metal scaffolding. Given the uncertainty of the facility’s safety, the fact that there was no way they could proceed any faster was trying on everyone’s nerves. Carla for her part did her best however not to show this.
When, after their interminable descent, the elevator came to a stop, they saw a large room, roughly the size of a good shuttle hangar, partly filled with containers but with quite a lot of empty space. From the large gashes in the rock floor and the several containers that were lying on their sides with their loads of ore scattered around them, it seemed as though someone had cleared out of there in a hurry.
Then the group saw a lone figure, lying on the floor at the far end of the room, propped up against a rock. It was the man who had contacted them.
Carla switched her communicator back on. “Marlin? Send someone with a med kit down here right away.”
Carla looked at the man as he came round, wearied by fatigue and the pain of multiple untreated blaster burns that looked well over a day old. His features, that she had remembered finding quite attractive, were sunken. His eyes were clouded over and the dark rings beneath them, dark even against his naturally deep complexion, along with an almost frightening blue tint to his lips, told something of the ordeal he had survived.
Yet, considering what he must have been through, terribly wounded and left to die in the dim glow of this lonely subterranean cavern, the focus of the man’s gaze when he awoke was remarkable.
As he shuffled to make himself a little more comfortable, Carla adjusted the position of some of the healing packs that were strapped to him.
The man coughed.
“... dry,” he managed and, with some effort, tapped at his throat.
Carla was ready for this and she held a water flask to his lips. The man drank slowly at first, moistening his mouth, and then, taking the flask from her, he drank until it was empty. Then, with an audible sigh, he put it down and turned to her. “Thank you, Captain Casdan.”
Carla looked surprised. “You remember my name?”
The wounded man smiled. “Someone like you tends to leave an impression on a man.”
Carla blushed as she helped him into a more comfortable position, while the landing party were inspecting containers and exploring their surroundings. However, for the time-being, no one was straying far.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Carrelle,” he said, offering his hand. “Reece Carrelle.”
Carla shook his hand. “It’s good to meet you, Reece. Although, I didn’t expect to find you like this.”
“To tell you the truth,” Reece replied, furrowing his brow, “I didn’t expect you to find us at all. I thought this whole place would have blown by now.”
“How long have you been lying here?”
“Since an hour or so after I called you,” Reece said. “The chief operator got angry with me for putting out that call. He said he didn’t want any outsiders snooping around here and that this whole operation was under the radar.”
“Did you know that when you joined up?”
Reece sighed. “I suspected it was a somewhat dubious operation but these guys are something else. When I told them we would need help to evacuate everyone to safety, the chief and his faction took the shuttles.”
“Odd that he left the cargo ship though,” Carla said, “since he didn’t want anyone unloading it.”
“He left it?” Reece said in surprise. Then, for the briefest of moments, a small smile crossed his lips. “So none of his friends could handle the thing. Funny, isn’t it?”
Carla frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” Reece said, “it seems that the only person could fly the old piece of junk is trapped in the mine.”
“Trapped in the mine?”
Reece’s gaze flicked down slightly and he exhaled a long breath. “That’s where everyone else is. The ones the chief operator left behind. He collapsed part of the shaft where they were working. And he shot me when I tried to warn them first.”
“Then we’ve got to get them out,” Carla said. “Where are they?”
Reece pushed hi
mself up, groaning from the pain that accompanied the effort. “I’ll show you,” he stammered when he was standing. His resolution was clear in his eyes but he swayed dangerously on his feet, obviously in far more pain than he was letting on.
Carla looked at him in concern. “You can’t go down there. You’re a mess.”
“I’ll hobble if I have to,” Reece replied. “But those people need me. Although you and your friends don’t have to come. There’s no sense risking everyone.”
Carla nodded. “I agree. There is no sense risking everyone. You’re not going down there.” She turned around. “Eroim?”
The old man appeared almost instantaneously, as though he had been waiting just out of Carla’s peripheral vision the entire time. “Yes, Captain?”
“Find me the schematics of this place. We need to mount a rescue.”
Eroim nodded. “Aye, Captain.”
Then, as he set about his task, Carla turned back to Reece. “You can show me where your people are when he gets back. And then I’m sending you to my ship’s infirmary.”
When Carla had the location of the trapped men and had assembled her rescue team, she gathered them by the entrance to an elevator back from the room with the cargo containers. This elevator was right under the landing platform and descended straight into a vast, shaft over a hundred meters in diameter, the reach of its depths lost in darkness.
“If the people trapped down there are still alive,” she said, “then we’re going to help them.”
One of her mechanics nodded but his companion looked uncertain about the venture. “I’m with you, Captain, all the way, but are you absolutely sure this is safe?”
“Fair question,” Carla conceded with a shrug. “Absolutely safe? I can’t guarantee it. If what our friend Reece has told us is true, then this place could blow to pieces at any moment.”
“Any way we might be able to get an accurate timescale on that?” the mechanic asked.
“Eroim’s found the reactor and he’s having a look at it now,” Carla said. “As he tells it, some nasty fluid is leaking from it and when it corrodes through enough of the casing, it’s going to bring two electrical currents together that should really be kept apart.”
Descent Page 2
