“Not that you really need to know but I’m taking you to the old ruins we have. A while back Nimo, a former member of the team, fell down an abandoned mine shaft while he was out scavenging. Since then things have been pretty busy and we just haven’t had the time to go recover an item from him.”
A thousand questions raced through Ian’s mind all at once. How did the guy fall down this mine shaft in the first place? How did they know he did? If they did know why hadn’t they gone and rescued, or at least made sure, the guy was really there? And why are they sending me instead of one of their own to recover… whatever it is he is expected to recover? Was this guy really dead? Or had he just run off to some other dome to seek his fortune?
His thoughts distracted him enough that he failed to notice the loose I-beam. When it shifted Ian lost his footing causing him to fall to his knee and the resulting jar renewed the pain in his left side. Cacee, the ganger who was leading him on this ‘test’, had given him barely enough time to bandage it up. Nor the time to stitch it up, or any antiseptic, but it would do for now. It had to.
“You mind keeping up? Dyrke has you on a very tight schedule, and I wouldn’t want to keep him waiting. Not if you really want to run with the team.”
Ian said nothing, just picked himself off and jogged to catch up again. As he came within ten meters Cacee moved on leading the way once more. The path opened up into what had once been a small settlement. There were pools of various chemicals, some solidified – others emitting noxious fumes, dotting the landscape. Several of the buildings had collapsed, but it was obvious that none of them were currently occupied, at least not by ‘normal’ folks.
Cacee led Ian through what had once been the town square and into a severely dilapidated building. In the center of the room was a hole ten to fifteen meters across. “That’s it there,” the ganger said pointing to the hole.
“How do you know he fell, and how do you know he didn’t just run off?” Ian asked.
The Van Saar stopped mid-stride and turned. “You didn’t know the guy so I’ll let that slide. But we know he went down here because his rope is still attached, and his lasgun was found at the lip of the hole. He would never have gone down there without it. He either fell, or was pushed.”
Ian walked over to the edge of the hole. It was pretty impressive. At least five stories deep, probably more and it swallowed up the beam from his torch as he panned it around.
“Alright, down you go.” Cacee said as he knelt down next to the rope that was secured to some rebar protruding from the concrete floor. “I’ll watch your back from up here. Make sure you have a way back.”
Ian stood silently as Cacee fastened on a small web strap seat and connector. Once the ganger was happy that it wouldn’t just let Ian tumble out he connected another rope. “There’s actually plenty of hand holds. The rope is just to make sure we can pull your body back up if something should happen.”
“Thanks,” was all Ian could bring himself to say as he began his descent. The darkness that enveloped him was deep and it swallowed up the light as if it fed on the energy. Five levels, six, seven, as he neared what would have been the eighth floor the sound of something tapping against the ferocrette came up to meet him. Without further thought Ian jumped the final meter to the floor and drew his laspistol.
His torch cut through the inky blackness as he panned it back and forth trying to determine the cause of the sound. The light; however, would be swallowed up just as soon as he moved the light to look elsewhere making it hard to see. As Ian scanned a long tunnel he thought he saw some movement on the edge of his torch light, but it was impossible to be sure from here. Preparing to move down the tunnel he tripped sending the torch sliding into a nearby wall – the laspistol he managed to hold on to.
Cursing himself silently he remained still, listening for anymore movement. The beam of light from his torch ended up pointing right back at him. Looking away from the light to keep as much of his night vision as possible he glanced at his feet. He had tripped over a skeleton. “I think I just found Nimo,” he said to himself. The skeleton had been picked clean and its jump suit and kit was spread over a wide area.
As Ian stood back up the tapping returned and his heart skipped a beat. Dead bodies and noises in the dark are nothing new to anyone who has grown up in the hives, but this was different. He was by himself, and he suddenly felt very isolated. Crossing the ground quickly he picked up the torch and peered into the darkness once more. He had come through a hole in the ceiling of some long abandoned warehouse, adjacent to a wall. Scanning the immediate area around him it looked as if he was in the well of what used to be a freight elevator, and what was left of Nimo had been scattered all over. There were no bags, no salvageable kit, nothing that appeared to be of any value.
Glancing back up the hole he had descended through he could no longer see Cacee, just the rope disappearing over the edge above. As Ian’s eyes came back down to level there was more movement, this time the tapping sound came with it. Spinning to face where he had heard the sound the light fell fully upon the dark grey hide of a large spider. Two of its furry legs were extended towards Ian as if trying to reach out and touch him, meanwhile the fangs of the beast worked in a scissor like fashion. Ian’s blood froze in his veins. His mind raced with thoughts and actions but his body refused to respond to any of it.
The spider crouched low and then charged in. That was all that Ian needed to convince his arms to react. As he thrust his right hand forward, squeezing off several shots from his laspistol, his left hand drew his knife. There was no time to run anyway. The las bolts struck home around the creature’s mouth causing it to hesitate. Without though Ian hurled himself in for the kill with his knife held over his head. But before he could plunge his knife in one of the spider’s legs batted him aside. Ian felt the hair of its legs against his neck and face as he was tossed aside.
The spider did not follow up immediately though. It seemed to weigh the options in the beam of the discarded torch. Ian did not hesitate however. Leveling his laspistol he took careful aim at the spider’s left eye and took a deep breath.
“Here’s looking at you,” Ian said and let fly his shot. It struck home causing the spider to spasmodically dance throughout the area, one of its legs kicking the torch and knocking it out. Ian began shooting round after round in the vicinity of where he had last seen the spider. Bright blue bolts of light briefly lighting up the room until he no longer heard anything moving.
Glancing down to where his hands should be Ian flipped the laspistol handgrip up. The charge indicator showed that he had used a considerable amount of the power up in his panic. His eyes slowly adjusted and he could now see a faint grey shaft of light from where he had come from. Inching his way closer he groped around until he found his discarded torch. Flipping the switch it came back to life. As he did the beam fell upon the grey spider once more. This time it lay upon its back, legs curled above.
The thing’s body was a meter long, and the legs two. Inching closer Ian shot one of the legs – just to be sure. It didn’t move. Sighing to himself Ian looked back up the hole once more.
“It’s going to be quite a load hauling that carcass back up there.” With that in mind he set to work.
-=-=-=o=-=-=-
“You know kid, you could have just skinned it down there. It would have been a lot easier.”
Ian sort of looked through the Van Saar ganger for a moment. “Yea, but this way I know you’d believe me.”
“It’ll do kid. I am giving you a go on this one. Best of luck with Katan though. He’s not known for his sense of humor.”
No comments:
Post a Comment