“Easy there, big guy.”
Alex’s vision cleared, as the Special Forces underwater portal was flushed and filled with air. Two men in bulky ice-environment wetsuits stood close by, breathers now dangling at their necks. One had been holding him up, and now stepped away.
“Okay, now?” The man’s breath steamed in the freezing tube.
Alex nodded and shook more clarity into his mind. The heavy door-wheel was spun from outside, and there came a sudden sibilant hiss, as the watertight seals were pulled apart and the oval door swung open.
He then stepped into the artificial light in the metal corridor of the USS Texas, and sucked in a deep draft of the warm air. His exposed skin prickled from the sudden change in temperature.
“Jesus Christ.” A sailor stood waiting, mouth open. He stepped back as Alex moved further into the corridor. “Ah, Petty Officer Third Class, Anderson.” He saluted.
Alex nodded, peeling off his gloves. He went to return the salute, but caught sight of his own hand — it was blue, and the fingers still wouldn’t bend properly. He’d only ever seen skin like that on fresh corpses pulled from icy water.
“Commander Eric Carmack sends his regards, sir,” Anderson said in a rush.
Alex began to peel himself out of the wetsuit. He felt the pain in his shoulder, and looked down at the ragged bullet hole there. He tugged harder on the neoprene suit and a partially flattened metal slug fell to the deck.
Petty Officer Anderson looked down briefly at the remains of the high caliber bullet. When he looked back up, his eyes went to Alex’s wound, and became transfixed.
Alex could feel the familiar tingling over the trauma site, as the bullet wound began to heal, the skin around the meaty hole bubbling, and then pulling closed before the seaman’s eyes.
“That… musta hurt,” Anderson said, swallowing, with an attempted smile that was more of a grimace.
“Every time,” Alex said, and rolled his shoulder. He turned away; there was no time for conversation. “You have a package for me.” It wasn’t a question.
Anderson nodded. “Your kit and the skidder is juiced and ready. We also have a medic waiting to see you, if…”
“Don’t need him. Commander Carmack on the bridge?”
“Sir.” Anderson pointed. “Follow me.”
“I know my way.” Alex headed for the bridge and Carmack, feeling impatience rising in his gut. Time was moving against him, the race was on, and he was already playing catch-up. He moved fast down the steel corridor, Anderson jogging in pursuit.
CHAPTER 14
Captain Wu Yang held the shard of super-hard steel in his hand, his mind working. The metal had been flattened, impossibly compressed. He felt his frustration welling up. “Just like the elevator cage.” He turned, holding it out, and looked along the faces of the assembled engineers and scientists. They stood, shuffling their feet, refusing to return his gaze.
“What happened? Well?” His booming voice made many of them flinch back.
“The cutter has been dragged away… maybe taken into another tunnel,” Soong Chin Ling said softly.
“Dragged away; that’s what you think?” He glared. Soong dropped her eyes, and only one of the group met his gaze now — Shenjung Xing.
Yang flung the piece of steel down the tunnel and the fragment bounced away, clanging off into the darkness.
“This machine” — Yang waved his arm over the debris littering the tunnel — “weighed over a thousand tons and its drill head is solid tungsten.” He tilted his head, looking up at the ceiling and then down and around the edges of the huge tunnel. “It is so large that the device should have fully plugged the end of the pipe.” He scoffed. “But it’s not gone, and it hasn’t been dragged away into another tunnel.”
Yang walked to one of the walls, lifting his flashlight, illuminating a similar shards of steel embedded deep into the rock. “It’s still here. Except now, what remains of it is crushed into the walls, floor, and ceiling.”
No one said anything, avoiding his gaze.
“Just like the elevator cage,” he repeated. “What could do that?” Yang placed his hands on his hips and turned slowly, finding Shenjung. “Firedamp again, hmm?”
The lead scientist remained mute.
Yang walked towards them. “And if so, then where are they?” He leaned closer to the scientist, becoming infuriated with his calm. “Where is the team, their burned up bodies, blood traces, bones, anything?” He turned again to one of the shards sticking out from the wall, frowned, and leaned in closer. He sniffed.
Yang straightened, and beckoned to Shenjung and Soong, clicking his fingers and waving them closer.
“Smell it.”
Soong bent to wipe one of her gloved hands along a shard of twisted steel. She sniffed at it, and then held her hand up to Shenjung.
“The same as in the base, and on the boot.”
Shenjung nodded and placed a hand against the rock wall, looking around at the obliterated interior. “If whatever came through here could do that to the cutter, there would be nothing left of flesh and bone, Captain. But, maybe they are not dead, but instead further inside, trapped maybe.”
Yang grunted, just as the scouts came running back in from down the tunnel. He turned to them. “Report.”
“Sir, we found something, two hundred feet further in. Another tunnel. But it’s not one cut by the machines. It seems far older.”
“Ahh.” Yang waggled a finger in the air. “Perhaps our missing base members did descend lower. One of Comrade Zhang Li’s last communications talked of opening a void, yes?”
“A void,” Shenjung repeated softly. “Then yes, perhaps they were able to descend lower, and avoid whatever catastrophe occurred here.”
“There is something else, Captain Yang.”
Yang slowly turned. The soldier stood so rod-straight, it was if he were on a parade ground and not deep below the earth.
“Writing. There seems to be some sort of writing on the walls.” The soldier stared straight ahead.
“Good, they also left us a message.” Yang clicked his fingers. The soldiers fell in around him, and the scientists and engineers were pushed to the rear, their smaller frames eclipsed by the larger men at the front.
Yang looked down along the line. “Comrade Shenjung.” He motioned impatiently, and saw the man lean in closer to the small woman beside him.
“You come too,” Shenjung tried to whisper. “I think I get a front row seat.”
“I’m sure it is whether you like it or not,” she returned softly.
Yang walked briskly, Shenjung and Soong jogging to keep up, and not be trampled by the larger men behind them. They stopped at a collapsed wall, where the drilling ended when it had broken through into exactly what the missing Zhang Li had described — a dark void. Yang and several of his men lifted flashlights and panned them around slowly. Though the interior of the new cave was huge, it looked like it primarily sloped downwards, and its structure was vastly different from the tunnels they had been traveling along so far. The drilled tunnel had smelled primarily of cut stone and diesel fuel. But inside the new cavern, it smelled old, ancient, the rocks timeworn. There was a greenish tinge on several, indicating there was still moisture in the air.
Yang stepped lightly up onto the tumbled boulders, some the size of bread loaves, others the size of small cars. He let his eyes move over the broken debris. Shenjung went to climb up beside him, but the rocks shifted, and started to slide underneath him.