2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent) (31 page)

Sarah passed her phone over to a member of General Stevens’ staff for her data to be downloaded, wondering at the same time if they were going to check her bag, too.
That would be bad
, she thought. Her complacency switched to fear, then transformed into relief when he handed the phone back without so much as looking at her, his attention elsewhere as others pressed in around him and his colleague. With the excitement over, Sarah bade farewell to Anne-Marie.

Conscious she still needed the air-shuttle manual, she decided to hide in the building until the majority had left and then acquire the prize and depart for home the following day. Working her way towards the quieter storage facilities she contemplated her plan. Walk in when the Control Station is unmanned, take a manual, download it, and then walk straight back out again; simple, but hopefully effective. The manuals weren’t top secret, as who else could use them? They were just problematic to copy when someone had no good reason to do so. Well, Sarah knew she did have a good reason, just not one anyone else in the SED would appreciate.

After nine hours of excruciating boredom, Sarah relinquished her hiding place and weaved her way back up to the Command Centre. Padding down the now deserted halls of the SED, her footsteps echoing horrifically, she reached her destination. Sliding through into the low-lit Control Station, her eyes flicked towards the closed door located at the back of the large room where the nightshift slept. Acutely aware of this slumbering menace, Sarah made a beeline for the shuttle manuals. Leaning over the desk, she slid open the cabinet door and plucked one of the tomes from its shelf. As she did so, a chain attached to the rear of the metal folder’s spine slid along with it, clinking loudly like a miniature anchor being dropped form a ship. Sarah cursed softly and looked towards the back room, holding her breath, the fear of discovery heavy upon her. Nothing, no one stirred. The sound of the chain had seemed like a thunderclap to Sarah in her cocoon of silence, surrounded by vacated desks and hibernating computer systems.

The chain, she assumed – returning to her task – ensured the key system manual wouldn’t go walkabout within the Exploration Division’s complex. Placing the folder on the desk and grasping the metal tether in her other hand, to prevent it from making any more undue noise, Sarah perused the front cover to make sure it was what she needed. In the centre of the matte metal fascia an embossed SED logo had the following text beneath it:

AIR-SHUTTLE RETURN

PROCEDURES

Realising she had the wrong folder, she saw each of the six manuals had a corresponding number on the spine. The one she now held had a number two on it. Reasoning number one must be what she was after, she returned number two to the shelf and selected number one, which rested on the far right hand side.
It would help if someone put them back in order
, she complained to herself, while resisting the urge to rearrange them. Placing the new folder flat she was pleased to see the text:

AIR-SHUTTLE LAUNCH

PROCEDURES

Opening it out, she activated the digital screen inside and unclipped her phone.

She muttered a curse under her breath; the manual had no data transfer induction port, which prevented her from downloading its contents.

What to do, what to do?
she asked herself.
There’s only one thing I can do
, she realised, her heart sinking,
I’m going to have to film every page of the manual with my phone
. Pressing a couple of control buttons on the side of the screen, she set the manual to scroll through its contents, all six hundred pages of it, while holding her phone steady above. After ten minutes, which seemed more like two hours, her ears straining for any sign of movement both from within the back room and outside the Command Centre itself, the manual reached its last page. Putting the folder back, Sarah checked the other four files in case there was anything else relevant to their plans; fortunately there didn’t seem to be.

Sarah knew she had to get rid of the recordings prior to leaving the building tomorrow; the security officers, and or soldiers, would definitely be interested to know why she had launch procedure files on her person.
So I won’t keep the images on my phone
, she thought.
Stick that up your arse, General Stevens!

Firing up a nearby printer and attempting to muffle the resulting emitted beeps, Sarah utilised the peripheral’s integrated software to print out the manual from her phone’s video footage. More minutes ticked by, the paper copy of the manual spewing forth page by inexorable page. As she waited, to her right, through the thirty foot high windows of the Control Station, the darkened shuttle bay brightened; its array of lights flickering to life and sending a white brilliance cascading through the glass to highlight Sarah within.

Dropping down to a crouch, Sarah’s heartbeat quickened. Creeping to the front desk, she peeked over the top to see who had tripped the automatic lighting below. A team of Special Forces commandos, replete in full armour, fanned out around the shuttle bay, weapons in hand. Accompanying them was a host of military engineers and scientists, who homed in on a single docking bay; also along with them was a cigar-toting man whom she’d seen earlier that day, one General Stevens.

Sarah watched the enormous metal floor retract, the wail of sirens and flashing warning beacons unusually absent. Why were they opening the bay doors? There couldn’t be an air-shuttle arriving as there was no one at the Control Station to receive it. At that thought the sound of heavy booted footfalls approached from nearby. Petrified, Sarah had no time to grab the manual, which had finally finished printing, choosing instead to dive under a desk. Curling her legs up to her chest, her hair falling over one eye, she peeked out to see her rucksack in plain view next to the printer.

It was too late to do anything now as the soldiers had arrived, their black boots treading – silently now – past Sarah’s hidden location. Trying to keep her breathing quiet and her pounding heart slow, Sarah could just see from her limited vantage point the two soldiers disappear from view. Moments later she could see them at the rear of the room and they appeared to be locking the door to where the emergency crew slept. Returning in their heavy shod footwear and grey and black camos, the two men retreated from the room, one to the right and the other to the left.

When Sarah believed the coast to be clear she crawled from her hiding place and collected her manual. Still on all fours she deposited the wodge of paper into her rucksack, which she hitched onto her back once more. Getting into a low crouch, she sidled up to the nearest door to try and get a bead on one of the soldiers. Her face pressed up against the glass, she scanned the office beyond, half-lit by the shuttle bay below. There didn’t appear to be anyone around until a dark shape moved mere inches from her face making her jump in fright, a yelp of surprise almost escaping her lips. The soldier was right there, on the other side of the door, guarding entry to the Control Station. With her back to the wall, her breathing shallow and her chest heaving as the adrenaline sought to increase its grip on her system, Sarah spied the second soldier through the door opposite, preventing entry to the only other point of access. She was trapped!

Crawling low past the nearest door, the rough carpet feeling dirty on her hands, Sarah hid beneath another desk out of sight of prying eyes.
What’s going on?
she wondered,
surely they shouldn’t be locking the nightshift in their quarters?
It could prove catastrophic if a shuttle came in and the correct safety measures weren’t activated.

Twisting round in her cramped cubbyhole, Sarah could just see out into the shuttle bay, the huge shaft now exposed, the imposing rock walls lit up all around. Above one of the twin tracks, the engineers had set up a strange mechanism along with an industrial-sized winch; which already worked away, steam rising from its thick wire cable while two men used a hose to spray it with water as it spun round at high velocity. The toughened glass muffled most of the noise from below, but the distant whine of the winch still managed to penetrate through. As she watched, engrossed in this queer behaviour, some of the Terra Force commandos, utilising metal ropes and grappling hooks built into their armour, abseiled down into the deep hole and out of sight. The winch’s high pitched scream dropped to a low whirr and Sarah knew whatever they were bringing up was nearing its journey’s end. A rush of activity preceded the arrival of a familiar shape, the tip of an air-shuttle’s nosecone. Bit by bit the subterranean craft’s silver sub-frame edged into view. Either side, the soldiers who had scaled the rock face reappeared at the lip of the shaft, returning to the thick concrete that surrounded the entire bay.

Instead of allowing the machine to continue along its track, the team of men and women hauled the air-shuttle to one side using what was clearly a specially designed crane. The shuttle, resting on secure ground, had been gutted, its usual seating removed to enable it to carry a special load. Using the crane once more, the general’s teams unloaded the single piece of cargo, which almost filled the entire shuttle, its bulk shrouded by a thick black plastic cover. Now standing erect, Sarah estimated it to be fifty foot high and half that in depth and breadth. The object, still attached to the crane by lifting slings, hung precariously suspended until it dropped down onto a waiting flatbed lorry which had reversed unseen through the maintenance road that led out into the USSB’s lower levels. Once secured onto its transport, the lifting gear fell away and with it the cover, too.

Sarah shifted closer to the glass, her hands pressed against it, eager to lay eyes on what had so preoccupied the military. It was a piece of ancient architecture, its sides made up of dense rock similar to the Anakim structure she’d witnessed on her Deep Reach mission. In fact, she decided, it looked exactly like the stone formation at the site. The size, too, sparked off her memories of the hole the military had cut into the building’s roof. Is this what had been producing the energy reading she and Riley had witnessed on their unofficial scouting mission? It must be. Obviously too big and heavy to bring back to the USSB by normal means, they had gone to great lengths to bring the load across many miles of sheer drops, vertical climbs and twisting tunnels. Such commitment meant this piece of rock must be important indeed.

Turning within the shuttle bay, which had by now been resealed, the transporter executed a one hundred and eighty degree manoeuvre, its great, deep-treaded tyres bulging from the weight of its single consignment. As it turned, Sarah saw the monument had a similar shape to the caskets she’d seen brought back by the archaeological team, only this monstrous thing had the look of a pentagonal prism. The meaning of the shape wasn’t lost on her; the same form as her confiscated pendants, a five-sided polygon. It also suggested a link between it and the image of the Anakim priestess Sarah had seen on the interior walls of the nine hundred thousand year old edifice.

The eighteen-wheeler completed its about turn, bringing the opposite side of the object into view. Unlike the rest of the dark, coral-like rock, run through with seams of lighter sediment, one of the wide pentagonal sides contained a large sunken cut-out, rectangular in shape. Within the recess, a foot in from the edge and half the length of the outside structure itself, a ten foot wide glass-like enclosure rested. Around this transparent case ran a corroded metal frame. At its base, a wide, flat panel had been installed, and sunk into its centre were three distinct and identical shapes – perfectly formed circles. Sarah knew the implication of these indented discs; they meant this mysterious object could be activated by three giant individuals who wore a special pentagonal pendant, the same as the one she now had to reclaim herself.

The juggernaut edged off, the movement causing the pale material behind the glass to shift. Slow, dark swirls spun out from the deep interior, suggesting the chamber contained a heavy, viscous liquid. As Sarah watched it being driven away, General Stevens spoke to some of his men and then he, too, departed the shuttle bay, leaving those remaining to clear up the area.

Realising the opportunity to get a record of the departing artefact was disappearing, Sarah held up her phone and took a picture, but in her haste her finger clipped another command setting off a powerful flash. Horrified at her mistake Sarah looked down to see an engineer looking up in her direction. The man called out to one of his Special Forces colleagues.
Surely he hadn’t seen it – had he?
The engineer, now joined by the Terra Force commando, pointed up towards the Control Station’s windows, behind which Sarah knelt, concealed by a piece of frosted glass and a section of desk. The armour clad soldier dropped his raised visor down over his face and turned on his interior systems, sending a green glow emanating from the helmet’s eye-like sculpturing. With the forbidding mask looking in her direction, Sarah knew the man within scrolled through various spectral ranges which could identify her heat signature; her own Deep Reach headgear having the same feature. The soldier’s gloved hand moved to one side of his helmet, most likely activating a communication to the men standing yards from Sarah’s position.

Knowing the game was up, Sarah threw caution to the wind and scrambled out from underneath the desk. Standing upright, terror gripped her mind like a shrieking banshee, rooting her to the spot. Where could she go? A sound to her right triggered her flight or fight response. She found herself running full pelt in the opposite direction.

‘Stop right there!’ a man said from behind.

This failed to break Sarah’s stride as the other door opened ahead of her; instead the words, ‘Sod you!’ erupted unbidden from her mouth as she launched herself forwards into mid-air and oblivion.

TERMINOLOGY / MAP