“Trouble?” I asked, indicating those men, with a tilt of my chin.
“I’m Captain Easrick,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you—and, yes, trouble. Looks like a new hive has set up, nearby.”
A new hive... Well, that couldn’t be good.
“How will that affect where I’m going?” I asked.
“This way,” he replied, turning away. “And, to answer your question, most of the scouts are concentrated in this end of the canyon, so the tunnels you’ll be taking are no more dangerous than they were when the maid passed through. Biggest thing you’ll need to watch for are the rebels.”
“Rebels? I thought there were only runaways down here?”
And he cursed.
“What? The rebellion’s a state secret?”
But he was surveying the cliffs rising up to a ceiling I couldn’t see.
“We need to move,” he said. “Stay with me.”
As though his words were a more direct command for action, his men formed up around us, and he led off at a brisk walk. I wasn’t linked into their comms, but I saw when one of his men pointed at the wall opposite, and Easrick snapped his head to look. I followed his gaze.
“Keep moving,” was soft, but audible, and the walk became a jog.
I wondered if they could shoot on the run—and also how twelve men were going to take out the twenty or so monstrous shadows darkening the cliff. It was hard to run and keep an eye on the shadows, and I’m not sure how Easrick and his men did it, but the jog became a trot, and then a lope, and then an all-out run with Easrick screaming “Move, move, move,” in my ear.
He dropped to the back of the squad, and two of his men came alongside me and grabbed an arm each, when I went to drop back with him. It was probably not the behavior of a normal contractor, but I don’t think the squaddies noticed as they pounded forward.
We reached the gates before the shadows made their move, and I never did get a better look at what kind of creature had pursued us through the dark. All I could say, for sure, was they was bigger than an arach, and moved like a multi-legged avalanche... Also, that they were cautious, because they hadn’t attacked straight away, even if they had paralleled us along the wall as we ran for the shelter of two, large, blast doors.
Someone had radioed ahead, because the doors were opening as we hit them, and they were closing as soon as the last man was through. Everyone slowed to a stop, and the captain made his way back through his men to replace one of the ones beside me.
“We’ll escort you to the cavern entrance,” he said, as a low hum filled the air.
I whipped back around to face the door, along with the rest of the squad, but the doors were closed, and the hum came from outside. From the look on the captain’s face, the humming wasn’t good news. He spoke into the mike on his collar.
“Tell the kitchen we’ll be doing our own meals until I give the all-clear—and let his lordship know the incursion of ants has added harromet to the mix.” He looked down at me, lifting his chin away from the mike. “Hornets. Sting paralyses and preserves you, and they lay their eggs in your body. A week later, you get eaten alive. Don’t get stung.”
I met his eyes, and tried not to show any fear. Hornets, huh?
“How big?”
And his mouth tightened.
“Come up to your knee, but look as big as a house when they’re flying straight at your head. You should be able to access a description on the net.”
It was a dismissal, but I’d been on K’Kavor, so I had one more question to ask.
“How smart?”
He’d been about to move into the mines proper, away from the hum vibrating through the blast doors. Instead, he stopped, and turned to face me.
“More cunning than smart,” he said. “They hunt as a team, and you can get two or more teams in an area as big as the canyon. Sometimes they take advantage of the ants, and steal their prey out from under them. Other times, they hunt the ants.”
He stopped and cocked his head.
“Any more questions?”
He didn’t say ‘dumb ass’, not out loud, but he didn’t need to. The tone of his voice and the curl of his lips said it plenty loud and clear. They also said he was tired of me wasting his time, and wanted me out of his mine as of ten minutes ago. Fine by me.
“No. You covered it,” which was a lot politer than I wanted to be, but, then, I didn’t want the man to drop me over the edge of a cliff, or shove me out the wrong door.
He didn’t say anything else, but took me through the open courtyard standing beyond the gates, crossing a cavern, whose high ceiling and walls had been covered over with plascrete. Instead of the pre-fab huts I was used to seeing in surface mines, this one had doors leading off into other spaces, and reminded me more of a starship’s interior than the interior of a mine.
We passed barracks spaces, kitchens, a dining hall, and what looked like a very primitive rec room, at the back of which were signs for showers and toilets. Opposite them, glassteel windows overlooked a space filled with loading docks, conveyer belts, hoppers and all the other equipment a mine needed for sorting and grading its goods prior to shipment.
“Living quarters.” Easrick indicated the barracks area on the left, and kept moving. He didn’t bother explaining the area on the right.
Not my business, I assumed, and kept my mouth shut. Mack would have been impressed. I wondered how he was doing, but didn’t have time to worry. We’d entered an area of corridor without windows, and walked about ten meters before Easrick stopped in front of another door.
“You’ll need a hard hat, goggles and breather,”
