The ground was perfectly smooth, and even gave off a slight sheen as the moonlight played across it.
Despite the ferocity of the wind battering against the claw-like pylons, not a single one of them swayed so much as a millimetre. Whatever these were made from, they were immensely strong, and incredibly weather resistant Kathryn thought as she continued to explore. Moving her glove across a portion of one of the pylons, it came back wet. The whole surface of the pylon was damp with condensation, yet there was very little rust or oxidisation. She wondered how the Copernicus’s sensors could have dated the structure to be three centuries old, with such scant evidence. The pylons looked as though they had been built here recently, although that could be mostly due to the exotic materials used in their manufacture. This was getting weirder by the minute she thought as she looked across the base of one; judging it to be easily a hundred metres wide.
Kathryn abandoned her search and headed toward the massive aperture in the centre, she reached the edge after a moderately short walk. Surprisingly there was no handrail or anything to prevent falling into the black depths, the smooth floor just seemed to stop, and form this perfectly smooth borehole.
“What do you think is down there?” One of the soldiers asked as he approached her.
“I’ve no idea,” she replied honestly, as she knelt down to peer over the edge of this massive abyss. “The Copernicus’s sensors couldn’t penetrate much more than a few metres.”
The wind howled and blew around them again, the soldier helpfully took hold of her, in case she should be blown in.
“Thanks,” she said as she leaned over to peer into nothing but a dark inky blackness, gasping at the unfathomable depths, the aperture itself looked bottomless.
“Pass me your torch,” Kathryn asked, still peering.
“Sure thing,” the soldier unclipped a small torch from an accessory rail under the barrel of his pulse rifle, passing it to her carefully.
She switched it on and shone it down into the darkness, the beam could not illuminate the bottom, just a constant swirling mist. However, it did show that the sides of the giant hole were filled with small but lethally sharp concentric rings that ran as far down as she could see. Jesus, anyone falling into this would become swiss cheese, real quick, she thought, as she looked into the endless pit.
Footsteps were approaching from behind, she spun around startled, lost her footing and began to fall backwards into the aperture. She screamed, flailing wildly, panic flooded through her. She felt a steely grip clamp onto her wrist, pulling her steady again. The torch, flung from her outstretched hands, disappeared into the gloom without so much as a clatter.
“Godamnit Kalschacht, don’t sneak up on me like that!”
“Err, sorry. Hey we found the entrance,” he replied with an excited nod.
“Excellent!” Kathryn replied, excitement grew within her. Now she was going to have a good look into this place, and followed the German scientist to a relatively small hatch, sunk gently into the smooth surface.
“There’s no keypad, or discernable means of entry,” Romaine said.
“We’ll have to find some way to prise it open,” Kalschacht replied.
“Are you kidding me, those hatch doors must weigh a couple of tonne apiece.” Pryor argued.
“We have a set of pneumatic pryzors in the shuttle. In the emergency kit, used for forcing an exit in an emergency, can’t we use those?” Kathryn said, turning to Kalschacht.
The German nodded an affirmative. “It’ll be close to their limit, but they should be okay.”
“Okay you and Pryor go get them, take a couple of guards with you in case you need help, we’ll be waiting here.”
“Understood,” Kalschacht replied as the two scientists made their way back to the shuttle, waving to a couple of bored looking guards to accompany them on route.
“So what do you think so far?” Mira asked, as the two women stood over the dull metallic hatch.
“We are either looking at the greatest scientific discovery since the formation of the E.D. F, or the greatest threat since the Krenaran invasion, I’m not sure which yet.”
“It certainly is mysterious, strange metals impervious to scans, who knows what we’ll find down there.”
Broadhurst cut in, “the whole place gives me the creeps, I can’t help thinking that maybe we are disturbing something that wasn’t meant to be disturbed.”
“Me too,” Gomez added.
“Will you two stop. We’re scientists, where’s your sense of adventure, figuring out things like this is what we do,” Kathryn chided them both in mock anger.
“Well, you’re the project leader,” the two of them nodded.
At length Kalschacht, Pryor, and the two guards returned, hefting the heavy looking pryzors, they looked like long thin cylinders with a powerful magnetic clamp at either end. In the centre was a bulky panel containing a pneumatic pump, and a laser energy pod, that powered the thing.
The four men gradually lowered the heavy piece of equipment onto the hatch surface, with a ‘thud’ the magnets gripped the hatch.
Kalchacht and Pryor both looked at one another. With a silent nod, they each flicked a switch at precisely the same time on their respective ends. This activated the attached laser pod, which in turn powered the pneumatics that slowly, but with tremendous force pushed the telescopic bars inside away from one another, thereby gradually opening the hatch.
A loud scream of tortured metal greeted them, followed by a grinding noise, as the hatch doors, not opened for three centuries slowly parted. Allowing the assembled scientists their first glimpse of, and access to, the mysteries contained within.
The group shone their torches down what appeared to be an immensely deep shaft. There was a set of metal rungs forming a ladder etched into the sides of this tunnel, their torches however could still not illuminate the bottom.
Kathryn looked down with a sense of nervous trepidation, more to do with the fear of the unknown than of anything else. However, she knew she could not stay up here with the howling gales that threatened to blow them all down this great shaft anyway, so she elected to make her way down into the dark gloom, one rung at a time.
The other scientists gradually followed her, beams from torch lights cast eerie shadows as the team descended into the gloom.
“Hey Kathryn, I wonder if we’ll find the facilities inhabitants when we get down there?” Gomez said into his helmet mic.
“What like some subterranean city?” Pryor cut in.
“Who knows?”
Kathryn was silent, she was trying hard to contain her breathing, although all she could hear were her own shallow, nervous breaths. She did not like this, descending into the darkness; her nerves steadily increased.
The wind from the open hatch howled above. Filling the empty chamber with a strange dull whine, it resembled that of a wild animal in pain. The further they descended the fainter the whine became.
Kathryn’s arms began to ache from the descent, and she looked back up the shaft, she could just about make out the other puffing forms of the scientists all slowly following her, as well as the soldier escorts. Although she could now no longer see the hatch above them, she was enveloped in the darkness, and this added to her nerves. Jesus, she thought, this must run hundreds of feet down, it was almost like being entombed.
She swallowed her nerves again, and resolved to continue down the immense dark shaft.
“Jeez, how far down does this thing go?” Pryor asked, as though reading her thoughts.
“No idea, but we just have to keep going until we reach the bottom.”
“That’s if my arms don’t fall off first,” Broadhurst piped up.
“Pussy!” Kalschacht replied from further up.
Kathryn chuckled as they all continued their descent into the black abyss. After about an hour the light from Kathryn’s torch glinted off something. As she climbed down a little further, more of the surface was revealed to the torch light.
“Hey, I’ve got something down here!” She shouted up to the others.
A myriad of torch beams all flickered across to follow where her own beam was pointing.
“It looks like the roof of some kind of ancient elevator,” Gomez said.
