Estella’s voice came over the intercom. “Seems Hue’s upgrades have given us a massive speed boost, we’ll be there in a matter of hours, compared to the couple days our previous trip took.”
“Impressive, let’s hope the upgrades don’t cause additional wear on ship components, getting spare parts this far out won’t be easy, aside from what I can piece together.” Aurora replied.
“Not sure where our plant buddy got his engineering degree, but him and Hue have taken things down here beyond my level of capability,” Aurora admitted after several minutes of digging through the wiring. “It seems reliable, and better than anything we could hope to produce, but doing actual repairs or even maintenance is outside my capacity for now.”
“So long as she’s still operational when we need to make a hasty exit from that rock I’m fine with it,” Estella said, “Maybe ask Sam to point them towards upgrading the weapons next? I wouldn’t mind some additional firepower if Star Analytics sends a fleet of warships to track us down out of spite.”
“Sam, if you could be so kind? I’m going to try and get to work understanding this new engine, in the event I have to do some emergency repairs mid battle sometime down the road.”
“Sure, I will let them know.” And they had just re-emerged. “H squared, can you and Vines work on upgrading weapons next? And focus on the powers.”
A few small vines moved to face me, fluttering slightly. H squared’s face emerged as some other vines pulled aside. “Weapons mumble…?” He gave a distracted nod and then his face receded into the vines. A single vine reached out from the mass and put a small canister in my hand. It was oddly shaped, roughly cylindrical but with a flat side that came with a small silver rectangle. I could not work out what I was supposed to do with it.
“This is?” I wasn’t sure whether Vines would understand me but hoping for the best.
One of the other vines pointed at my gun.
“Hmm…” I tried to the fit this odd-shaped object to the gun. The flat side stuck to it like a magnet.
“Is this it?” I asked Vines.
There was some rustling of the vines before they turned back to what they were doing. I took that for a yes. I went for a nap so that I could be sharpest upon landing.
***
“Lets collect the plant samples first, once we land and Aurora does her magic, this place will be a rapidly expanding cloud of dust.” Estella said, she landed right near the red goo for collection.
“You mean I can go play in the goo again?” You could all guess who that was by now.
Aurora nodded, “Yes, but take this bucket with you, it’s got a sealing lid, collect as much of the uh, chunky bits, into it please?” She told her.
“Absolutely.”
Estella lowered the ramp, “Have fun but don’t take too long.” She went off like a comet.
She took a little longer than necessary and was covered in goo by the time she got back.
“Have fun?” Aurora asked with a grin.
“Umm.. no? I was just being serious the whooole time.” Goo dripped down her hair and onto her cheek.
Aurora chuckled, “Go wash up, we’ll be setting down to blow this place to scrap in a bit.” She reminded her.
“Sure thing, Aurora” her voice came back as she rushed off.
Estella took us back to the spot of that pillar-elevator.
“Hue, you and Vines make sure we’re ready to leave in a real super hurry, once we finish down below things are going… to get chaotic.” Aurora put on a reassuring smile. “Safe to say when we get back on board we’re going to be in kind of a hurry.”
“Here we go, no turning back now.” Estella gave us all a nod, adjusting her shotgun and clicking on the light harness Aurora provided for her.
“Stick together, and if you somehow get separated from the group make your way back to the ship, the rest will continue as planned and return here after.” Aurora said.
I nodded.
Vines shambled over to Aurora and handed a cylinder similar to mine but larger.
Aurora turned over in her hands to look at it “Thanks,” She glanced at my rifle and put hers on a similar location. “Let’s hope we don’t run into the hungry fungus giant living down here.”It didn’t fit. Aurora looked at it some more. “Is this a grenade?” She asked Vines. Vines just shambled away.
Aurora tried to load it into her rifle like a magazine. It didn’t fit either. “Whatever this is I’m sure I’ll find a use for it eventually.” She tucked it in a pocket of her armor and fastened it shut.
“Maybe it’s a security card for the facility?” Estella shrugged. “Or the self destruct key?”
“I’ll figure it out later, for now let’s get a move on.” Aurora hopped into the sled, adjusting her seatbelt and giving a nod to Estella.
Estella turned on the sled’s lights and looked over at everyone else. “Ready?”
Guppy looked disappointed as she climbed into the passenger seat.
“I need you to pay careful attention to the route I’m taking, if something happens you’ll be the one driving everyone back out of here.” Estella told Guppy as she drove out into the black.
“You sure you’re up for this Jess?” Aurora asked Jessica with mild concern.
“I wish there was a way to keep all this alive and not just get a few samples. But otherwise, I’m good”
“Well, if we can find the on switch, and this place has engines, we could in theory fly it like a giant ship out of the system, somewhere on the fringe where no one will ever find it.” Aurora offered thoughtfully.
“But then Scorsby might be able to track me down.” She frowned.
“That’s a little out of my size class,” I knew she would be grinning at the notion, “But hell, flying an asteroid.” She looked back over her shoulder. “If this rock has engines it’s got guns too I’ll bet, we can just vaporize another space rock near this one with them, he won’t know the difference once it’s space dust.”
Jessica’s eyes lit up with hope. Aurora took her hand, squeezing it softly. “Whatever happens, we’ll make sure Scorsby’s off your tail, one way or another, I promise.” Jessica smiled shyly. “Thank you so much.”
“Plus, the Old Boy isn’t going to track us all the way into space. He’s too tied up the way he is.”
“I hope you are right.”
“Sam’s right, he’s pretty busy with stuff down there, and once the corp realizes their new bio-weapon is a bunch of debris they’ll go back where they came from and let life return to normal in this sector.” Estella reassured her.
“I’ve had the most hope in a really long time since I met all of you.”
“We’re glad to have you part of the crew.” Aurora gave her another smile.
“Well, what say we go explore this place?” She smiled broadly
“You are starting to acquire the right attitude for our crew.” I told her.
“You said it Sam!” Estella gunned the engine and we drove out. The sound of the sled seemed muted in the large space. Hulking and crumbling delelicts laid everywhere.
Estella picked a course between them roughly down the center line, “You do realize I have no idea where I’m going right?”
“This is a hangar for ships, so it should have a place for passengers to debark, enter the place properly, just keep going, there should be markings on the floor or walls to point visitors in the right direction.” Aurora said.
“Hey! Aurora, look over there!” Guppy suddenly pointed off to one side. A ship was there outlined in dim greenish-yellow lights.
“Interesting, think there might be survivors?” Aurora said as she shined her light in that direction.
“Ooh, that could be fun.”
“Maybe?” Estella shrugged, slowing down and steering in that direction. “We should check it out at any rate, if they’ve lived down here this long they might be able to point us in the right direction.”
“They would also probably appreciate rescue, but for now, no one mentions we have a ship docked, as far as they know our ship dropped us off and is waiting in orbit for our signal.”
“Why make them think our ship is waiting in orbit?” Estella asked Aurora, as she slowed down on our approach.
“Because if they’re desperate for rescue they may well storm the ship in our absence and fly off, leaving us stranded, or at the very least hurt Hue and cause enough damage to keep us from leaving in time not to be blown up along with everything else.” Aurora explained, “If they’ve been trapped down here any length of time they may not be entirely rational.”
“Yeah, that’s a good point, let’s hope they’re friendly.”
“If they are not, then this is their welcome.” I patted my gun. Aurora nodded in approval.
We had a saying in Chinese: it kills the horse going to the mountain you can see. That’s what felt like as we drove towards the craft. The curve of the floor dropped away bit by bit to reveal something that seemed way too huge to have been brought underground.
“Okay, maybe this is the control center.” Estella concluded.
“Maybe?” Aurora shrugged. “Could be survivors built it from a bunch of different wrecks too, it could be an entire underground community, in which case we’ll have to reevaluate our plans for blowing it all to scrap, at least until we evacuate everyone.”
The structure was in general disrepair- a lot of exposed areas with only a skeleton of a structure around it. Vines were everywhere, wrapped and looped about, as well as small greenish-yellow lights, like dim LEDs.
“This gave me the feeling that perhaps we should have brought Vines, umm, that is if we could separate it from H squared.”
“The vines seem different, watch yourselves near them, they may be some kind of security system,” Estella warned us, shining her light across the building. “We can make our entrance just about anywhere I think.”:
“One’s as good as another, let’s pick one with the fewest vines.” Aurora nodded to me, “We could go back to get Vines if you want?”
“Separating it from H squared might be a problem. We don’t want to drag H squared along with us.”
“Very true, and Hue might not want to have his new buddy leaving with us.”
“For now let’s see if there’s anyone still alive inside?” Estella suggested, “Whoever lived here might of perished long ago.”
“The lights are still working so either they’re consummate engineers, or someone’s still breathing.” Aurora pointed out, exiting the sled and readying her rifle.
“I wonder if all this ties in with the giant I found last time.”
“Maybe this is its lair?” Estella unslinged her shotgun. “Up to you how we proceed, Sam, security is your area.”
Aurora nodded, “We’ll follow your lead.”
“Guess we go in and find out.” and I walked into the closest opening.
There were vines draping all the way down to about head height. They vibrated slightly as I walked under them and seemed to hover close to me. I dodged them and they didn’t seem to react to that.
Somehow the inside was dark, none of the lights outside penetrated in. The floor felt spongy underfoot. I shone a light on it. Apparently it was made of a mat of brown vines.
Aurora had switched on the light on her rifle, was playing it around the floor and ceilings. “Looks like the same kind of place we found Vines, structure wise.” She mused.
“Yeah, maybe the entire structure is plant based?” Estella mused thoughtfully, from the back. She liked to bring up the rear.
I kept walking inside until I was hit by the stench of rotting meat. I covered my nose.
“Ugh! Either we’re in a graveyard, or a creature’s lair, either way, I doubt anyone’s still alive if the place smells like this.” Aurora said.
“Possibly,” Estella gestured to the plants, “Some plants give off the odor of rotting meat to attract prey, this might be something similar, at the very least there might be notes left behind by whoever died that might shed some light on this place and help us find the control center.”
“Yeah, even a partial map would be helpful,” Aurora looked back at Guppy and Jessica, “if either of you want to wait back in the sled that’s fine, you might not want to smell, or see whatever we find further in.”
Jessica raised her hand timidly.
Estella chuckled, “We’re not in school, you can just speak.”
Jessica smiled and lowered her hand. “Nevermind, I should keep going. Just a little spooky here, you know”
“It might not be a bad idea to have someone stay with the sled, just in case,” Aurora looked over at Guppy, “Want to hang with Jess back there and make sure nothing tries to run off with the batteries?”
“Hmmm.. wasn’t the original plan to stick together? We don’t want something coming out and running off with Jess and Guppy and then we have to play rescue again?” I reminded them.
Guppy looked a little hurt. “You’re trying to keep me away from the scary stuff.”
Aurora sighed. “Okay, good point, let’s press on then.”
Guppy perked right up. “Thanks, Sam.” I shrugged. Only making a practical point.
“That’s because she cares,” Estella told Guppy quietly.
“I just don’t want you having nightmares, or throwing up and then complaining you’re hungry the entire trip.” Aurora told Guppy with a joking grin.
“Ha! Never! I’m tougher than that. Give me a good mean ‘ol plant ta gut and you’ll see how strong my stomach is.”
“Keep talking like that and you’ll be captain one day,” Aurora said with a grin. I had no idea how she did this: the seamless transition between mother and best buddy.
Guppy’s grin got wider.
“I know I should be the objective scientific type here, but I have to admit this is all overwhelming. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.” Jessica gaped at everything as she shone her flashlight around.
“This is something few humans ever have I’ll bet.” Aurora echoed the sentiment.
Panels and parts held together by vines cluttered and crowded the space. The lights only penetrated a few yards at a time.
“This looks sorta like what Hue is turning the engine room into.” Estella commented.
“So long as it doesn’t bleed into our living spaces and makes the ship fly better I’m not complaining.” Aurora said.
“Or what that other bunch of vines was trying to do to the Xing.” I said.
“Let’s not take too long in here, this place looks overrun, I’m beginning to doubt there’s anything to find that’s not covered in vines.” Estella urged.
Several vines reached in from the outside and tried to grab Jessica who was the closest but she jumped and managed to elude them.
“Estella!” I shouted out a warning upon seeing this. Estella reacted by steadying Jessica as she leaped back. Aurora raised her rifle, “I think that’s our queue to exit.”
“Probably not a bad idea before we get entombed.” Estella agreed, “Sam?”
“Yeah, let’s go.” Now Estella became the lead. Two of the plant creatures shambled in at that moment, blocking the exit and looking like they were going to attack again.
“I think they’re not happy with our departure.” Estella gestured towards them.
“We could push deeper, try to find another way out? Fighting in these close quarters will get messy in a real hurry.” Aurora suggested and then looked over at me, “Your call.”
I quickly surveyed the structure. “This clutter is too difficult to move around in. Might be easier just fighting the vegetables again.”
“Right,” Estella raises her shotgun, “We go free, or you become coleslaw.” She told the plant matter of factly.
“I doubt they understand, or care.” Aurora told her with a mildly amused look, turning on her light harness and unsheathing her machete.
The plants advanced. I shot, followed by the other two gals. My shot ripped a huge chunk out of one plant. An odd green glow appeared where the wound was and some narrow viney filaments grew out of the wound to bind the thing, immobilising it. The other plant somehow evaded the attempts by Aurora and Estella and turned on me.
My reflexes saved me. I sidestepped the attack.
Aurora in front of me adjusted her aim and swung again in a chopping movement to delimb the vine monster. It threw the thing off balance. Another shot also went off in front- Estella’s work. I let loose again and tore a large chunk out of the one Aurora swung at. The same thing happened as the last one- green glow, filaments appeared to immobilise the thing.
“Let’s go.” I told the others and rushed out of the structure.
“Looks like your new gun improvement is pretty useful!” Estella said as I rushed past her.
Outside, there was a whole mass of the plants, smack in between our path to the sled.
Estella was the first to run for the sled, “Jump in, we’ll try to outrun them!”
Guppy flinged herself into the driver’s seat and gunned the engine- that girl could be as slippery and fast as it fitted her, kudos to her. Aurora, Estella and the plants were almost on a collision course. Me and Jessica lagged behind. Old injury.
Somehow Estella had come back alongside us, “Give our girl a chance to turn the sled around and she’ll be back.”
Aurora stood waiting for us all to catch up, “Glad we took the time teaching her how to drive!”
The plants closed in, vines sweeping back and forth aggressively.
Aurora brandished her machete, “Let’s hold the line until she saves the day.” Estella raised her shotgun and fired into the crowd of plants, “Not as if we got much choice!” She yelled above the gunfire.
Vines swung out at each of us successively. Aurora went off balance, Estella was hit while I dodged the attack.
“Wheeee!” Guppy came flying back, slamming into the mass of plants. Vines and green goo shot out everywhere. “Get in everyone,” she yelled through her huge grin. “You see that Aurora?” she cackled madly
Aurora cheered her as she leaped in. “You are amazing!”
“Now that’s what I call a rescue!” Estella hopped onto the passenger seat, “Nice save!”
Aurora Lieos held out a hand for Jessica to help pull her inside. Jessica blushed but took the help. “My, this is way more excitement than I’m used to. I hope I can get used to this!”I leaped into the sled after them. “Good work, kiddo! And now let’s be off!”
Guppy slammed on the gas. Green goo was everywhere. The sled spins away from the mass of angry plants. “Where to now?”
Aurora pointed into the blackness, “Thata way?” she smiled at Jessica, “You’re going fine so far!”
“Hang a left and back on our original course,” Estella advised, “but ease down on the throttle, we could run out of space down here in a real hurry, and smashing up on a ship or the wall will end our trip real quick,”
Guppy’s grin faded down a notch. “Oh, you’re right.” With a sigh, she eased up.
Jessica looked around. “Do you think this area takes up the whole subsurface of the asteroid? It just seems so endlessly huge.”
“Hmm, possibly, If I had time I could rig up an echo location device to map the cavern, or a flare gun to light things up.” Aurora replied.
“Hey, now there’s an idea!” Estella opened the passenger side storage box, “There might be a signal flare pistol in the survival kit we could use.” Estella pulled one out with a smile. “Here we go!”
“Guppy, change course to the right, and give it a couple minutes before you set it off,” Aurora advised, “then backtrack to our original course, that way anything that sees the flare go off won’t be able to easily track us.”
“Good thinking,” Estella lowered the flare gun, “We don’t want the plant army on our trail that easily.”
“Advantage to a hover sled is there’s no tracks for them to follow at least.” Aurora said.
“None for us too, either, if we get lost.” Estella pointed out quietly. She discharged the flare when we got far enough according to Aurora. With its light, it was clear that the ceiling was high enough to accommodate large ships. No surprise really since we knew how large the underground area was. And we couldn’t see any walls.
“This is potentially a problem.” Estella said, “There’s no way to know where the control center is.”
“Let’s head back to the ship, the elevator path that took it down here, it should have maintenance access hatches along it somewhere to replace worn out parts and what not, those access passages will probably lead deeper into the facility.” Aurora suggested.
“Good thinking.” Estella nodded to Guppy to head back towards the ship.
“Umm, which way is that?”
“At the very least we know that thing is powered, we can follow those power cables back to the reactor, those cables have to be laid in some kind of access space.” Aurora said.
Estella pointed behind us, “Two minutes back the way we came, then hang a left and keep going, you’ll see the glowing structure on our right a couple minutes after that, and then our ship a while after.”
“You paid attention to all the landmarks?” Aurora sounded mildly surprised.
“I fly between stars, a lot of the time constellations and shapes are all I have to go by, this is similar, just with parked hulks of ships rather than starlights.” Estella replied confidently.
“Right, astropath, the reason none of the rest of us can do it.”
It took a while but we arrived safely back. “Okay, let’s update Hue about the plant army, in case they pay a visit, and then we’ll start poking around for the access hatches.” Aurora suggested.
“An idea, what about building some kind of detector to locate the strongest power source?” Estella suggested, “Then we can follow that towards the reactor?”
Aurora nodded thoughtfully. “I can build a M.A.D easily enough, hand held maybe.”
“A what?” Estella raised an eyebrow. “Also, Sam, maybe you could mount some kind of plasma machine gun on the back of the sled using a ship point defense weapon? We run into another army it’ll be real helpful.”
“Magnetic Anomaly Detector, it’ll find the magnetic differential powered wires give off, or the magnetic shielding a transformer or power plant has. It’ll help us locate the power lines running to the elevator at least, but its range will be kind of limited for handheld.”
“Right, I will grab one off one of the gunning stations.” I told Estella.
“Need a hand?” Estella offered.
“Guppy, can you keep watch on the main cannons while we work? That plant army finds its way here, we’ll need someone ready to make’em into a stir fry.” Aurora asked. Guppy saluted and headed off.
“Jess? I could use an extra pair of hands,” Aurora continued, “I can also build some motion detectors for us, just…” She gave a pained smile, “Don’t wander more than about fifty feet from me with one or it’ll fall apart kind of… Explosively.”
“Motion detectors that double as hand grenades, oh the possibilities!” Estella offered.
“If you think that’s special you should see what happened after I remodeled my first apartment’s kitchen and then stepped outside to buy groceries.” Aurora said with a wink.
“This is why we give her extra time to finish her designs,” Estella told Guppy, “Her quick’n dirty builds tend to.. Malfunction once she stops paying attention to them.”
Guppy’s eyes got big. “I wanna see something blow up.”
Estella laughed, “Remember that sentence when we’re running for our lives minutes before this entire asteroid goes bang.”
Guppy giggled in response.
“These will work,” Aurora told Jessica, “But stuff packed close together will just register as a single blip, so don’t count on one blip being just one creature.”
“The detector though should let us find magnetic fields at least, just the range is iffy, more powerful the field, longer the range, won’t be much good if the fields have flux variance though it’ll try to filter that out as background static.” She continued.
I hauled a machine gun over to sled and mounted it onto the back according to Estella’s advice. Meanwhile, she welded some makeshift blades on the front of the sled. “This way we can mince the plants more effectively.” She said.
Moonlake's Fiction Space 