The scientists, terrified and disgusted at the horrific display hurried out of the room, and regrouped in the corridor outside. The Sicarian guards, used to seeing maimed bodies on the horrendous battlefields during the Krenaran war, casually regrouped with the panting, nervous, sweating scientists.
“That was not a laboratory, that was a slaughterhouse,” Kathryn said, trying to get her breath back in an effort to calm her jangled nerves. Her heart pounded in her chest, she could hear the others breathing through their helmet mics.
“The sooner we get these lights on the better,” Kalschacht said breathily.
The team continued onward, past two other doors, which also contained grisly mockeries of laboratories, what appeared to be a toilet facility, and a storeroom, before hitting a dead end.
Inside the storeroom however, they had discovered some intriguing clues as to what might have built this structure in the first place. They found a rack of black bodysuits, all of which were designed for a being of similar size to a man, yet much taller. Kathryn considered that the wearers must be around seven feet tall, which is very similar to the height of a Solarian.
They also found a myriad of different bladed weapons, curved blades, serrated blades, blades sharpened so fine, that their edges were almost microscopic. The evidence was mounting Kathryn thought, whoever these people were, they were an incredibly aggressive race who seemed to take great care in torturing their victims. Dare she think it; are these perhaps even more aggressive than the Krenarans were? The thought made her shudder noticeably.
After a walk of about an hour, they had made it back to the elevator shaft.
Captain Johnatan Akimbe was pacing the bridge of the Copernicus uneasily, as the small survey ship orbited the planet far above the science team. The sophisticated sensor suites onboard had been tracking the landing party for almost half an hour, the conditions down there weren’t ideal, winds had picked up on the surface, and his sensors were showing a storm surge coming in from the north east that looked pretty nasty. On top of this, they had lost contact with the landing party once they had begun to descend into that alien facility, due to the effects of the strange metal the whole thing was constructed from. That was almost two hours ago, he had no idea if his people were alive or dead, all he could do was wait for an update.
“Anything yet?” He asked Ensign Strandzhar, the relief geologist onboard.
“Nothing,” he repeated for the umpteenth time.
Sensor images from the surface were showing that the shuttle was still intact, there was no signs of a fight, nor any movement down there. Therefore, Akimbe reluctantly had no choice but to wait.
He relaxed into his old, worn leather captain’s chair. Secretly he wondered why E.O.C. A had any business wanting to colonise a world as inhospitable as Auriga III, it didn’t even have a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere. Yet the powers that be labelled it as one of their top priorities. He wondered whether they knew something he didn’t about this world. The Auriga system itself was close to the south eastern tip of Solarian territory, and with the discovery of these new structures, no doubt scientists from the research division would be clamouring all over the place like a flock of wild geese in the years to come. The thought amused Akimbe, and he smiled gently to himself.
Kathryn and the rest of the science team had found that the lift shaft extended much further down than where the elevator had stopped. It was a very tight squeeze, and they just barely managed to climb down past the elevator to a second floor.
It had a similar configuration as the first, opening out into the same type of room, with similar etchings daubed across its walls, and an identical unmanned desk.
“These first rooms are all the same,” Kalchacht said, stating the obvious. “I wonder if they are some kind of security checkpoint.”
“Makes sense, anyone coming down that elevator would have to go through one of these security stations, before venturing further into the facility,” Broadhurst replied.
At length Kathryn stopped, “we’ll need someone to go up to the surface, to give the Copernicus an update, let them know we’re okay.”
“I’ll do it,” Broadhurst said.
“It will be a lot faster if I do it,” one of the guards suggested. He bore corporals stripes on his arms, it was Corporal Jankov, a rather young, stout man who was Sergeant Rachthausen’s number two. Jankov had the rare honour of being born and bred on Sicarius, where the sixty ninth were based.
With the outer colonies only being settled over the past thirty five years, many could still remember the day they left Earth, searching for a new home that wasn’t as crowded or polluted as Earth had become.
Jankov shouldered his weapon, and began the long climb to the surface, while Kathryn and the rest of the team continued to explore the second floor of this subterranean labyrinth.
Although laid out in a similar manner to the floor above, the rooms were different. There was a huge, wide hall on this floor all sectioned off into tiny cubicles. Inside each was a bed and a locker, at least these guys slept similar to what humans did, Kathryn thought with a wry smile.
“Well, if we ever do get stuck down here, at least there is somewhere we can crash,” Gomez said with a slight chuckle.
Kathryn checked over her wrist display again and found the temperature had risen, by another two degrees, it was now showing thirty three degrees. This caused her a little alarm, it was strange, the temperature had now risen by six degrees from the surface.
“Anyone noticed how the temperature keeps rising?” she asked, betraying a slight hint of concern.
The other scientists had not really noticed, they were all too engrossed in the riddle of this facility to check their own status displays, however upon Kathryn’s prompting they all checked them immediately.
“To tell the truth, it is getting a little warm down here, we must be a couple of hundred feet down by now,” Pryor replied.
Unbeknownst to the scientists, they had descended over four hundred feet into the planets crust. As they continued down the dark, slightly humid corridor, they came upon a large communal toilet block, and a dining area big enough to seat two or three hundred people, all of which was deserted.
This floor must house those scientists who worked in the floor above, Kathryn figured. They continued exploring until they came to the familiar dead-end.
With a dejected sigh at not finding the all-important control facility, the team headed back, once again, to the elevator shaft.
Corporal Jankov had reached the surface. His arms ached and burned from the long climb, the winds had increased significantly since the descent. Scrabbling his way out of the elevator hatch, the howling gale lashed at him, and it was an effort for him to keep his feet in the onslaught. The roiling methane clouds overhead blocked out the moonlight, casting everything into almost pitch-blackness, flashes and rumbles lit up the darkness as forked lightning arced across the sky in terrific bursts of blindingly bright light.
Rather than be caught out in the storm, he staggered his way to the silhouette of the shuttle lit up by the lightning flashes overhead, once inside he used its own subspace transceiver to contact the Copernicus in orbit.
“We’ve got a message, sir. It’s from the surface, pretty garbled though, the storm is interfering with our sensors, I’ll see if I can clear it up,” Strandzhar announced.
“Shunt main power to the sensors, give it everything you’ve got ensign.”
“Yes, sir.” Strandzhar worked the controls for several seconds, as he diverted power to the giant sensor boom.
“Much better; putting it onscreen now,” Strandzhar said with a hint of relief to his voice.
Corporal Jankov’s slightly flushed face appeared on the screen, “Jankov to Copernicus are you receiving, over.”
“Copernicus here, we are receiving you, we’ve had some difficulty due to the storm.” Akimbe replied.
The corporal looked visibly relieved that his arduous journey was not after all, for nought.
“Are you okay?” Akimbe asked, slightly concerned for the soldier.
“Yes captain, the storm has increased in its intensity, the winds are approaching gale force now, I have taken shelter in the shuttle until the storm abates.”
“I can see that, what about the science team?”
