2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent) (32 page)

USSB – United States Subterranean Base

GMRC – Global Meteor Response Council

Darklight – World’s largest private security contractor

SFSD – Special Forces Subterranean Detachment (
Terra Force
)

SED – Sanctuary Exploration Division

[For easy reference this page is duplicated in the final Appendix and is also listed as the last entry in the
Table of Contents
]

Chapter Seventeen

Tucked away just south of Colorado, within the state of New Mexico, sits the small town of Dulce, population three thousand, four hundred and nine. Consisting almost entirely of aboriginal Americans, the remote New Mexican reservation had acted as a home for the Jicarilla Apaches for generations. Surrounded by dry scrubland and a rocky hilly terrain, the whole area exuded an arid beauty, baked dry by the endless sunshine that had once shone down upon it.

Since the asteroid AG5 had impacted, the sun had been taken, and as some knew this was an act of the creator. The dust on the ground had now been mirrored by that in the air high above, shielding the light giver from its subjects below. What the future held was unclear, but what the present supplied was plenty.

‘Where is the sky, father?’ the young boy asked as he looked up to the heavens, seeking glimmers of bright blue he knew should be there.

‘The sky is still there, Kuruk. It is just dark.’

Kuruk eyed the brooding skies in an inquisitive yet fearless manner. ‘Like the bad spirits?’

‘No, my son, not like the bad spirits. The gods are testing us. If we can survive without the sun we can survive anything.’

‘Anything, father? Even death?’

‘The body does not survive death, Kuruk, but our spirits will live on in the Land of Ever Summer. Hardships in life give us greater strength in death.’

Satisfied with his parent’s answer, Kuruk jumped down from the large boulder he’d been sitting on and bounded away into the darkness.

‘Don’t go too far, Kuruk!’ his father called after him as the boy disappeared into the night-like day.

‘I won’t, father!’ Kuruk threw back, switching on a small torch to seek out his favourite places to play.

Kuruk loved to run in the dark. The challenge of remembering small paths and trip hazards kept his senses honed and his balance true. Today he felt energised and so he decided to reach the secret place, somewhere known only to him.

Half an hour later Kuruk pushed aside a low branch, the light of his torch highlighting the small leaves and grey knotted wood of the bushy tree which rustled at his passing. Lying down, he squirmed his way inside a tight gap in a craggy rock face, the dust of the earth kicked up by his movements hanging in the air around him. A metre further in and Kuruk found himself in his tiny den. At the back, against the craggy stone, a deep, narrow fissure sank into the bowels of the Earth. Hot warm air gushed through this crevice to the surface, heating the cavity against the cold air from outside. Now in the wilderness the silence surrounding Kuruk was perfect. Leaning forwards and cupping his hands to his ears, he sat still and unmoving, straining to catch the sounds from below. He didn’t have long to wait, as after a few minutes, on the very edge of his hearing, a small chinking sound echoed up to him. Father said the white man built their own secret places underground. Kuruk couldn’t believe that. He fancied it was the spirits of his ancestors seeking their way back to the living.
I would very much like to talk to my grandfather
, he thought, the vague but comforting memory of his father’s father sending a pang of yearning through his tender heart.

‘Grandfather!’ Kuruk shouted into the deep, black hole. ‘This way grandfather, this way!’

As usual only his echoes could be heard along with the ever present
chink chink chink
drifting up from the depths.

♦

Over a kilometre below Kuruk’s feet, through layers of compacted soil and dense rock, the men and women of USSB Steadfast toiled by hand to clear debris from an emergency stairwell. The sound of picks and shovels striking the dense rubble reverberated through the surrounding area and beyond, sharp edges of hardened tools biting deep into pulverised stone and broken boulders alike. The collapsed tunnels, leading to the surface, had been compromised by strategically placed explosions. Critical excavation machinery had been either removed from the base or disabled beyond repair and the interior-to-surface lift systems lay crippled.

In the heart of the subterranean complex stood the reinforced, fifty storey high Command Centre, its grey clad bulk cleaving through three chamber levels. Running vertically down one side of the building, large three dimensional lettering spelt out the name,
U.S.S.B. STEADFAST
. In the lowest rooms of this central command structure, a select team of people awaited the arrival of the man that called the shots. He wasn’t normally in charge at Steadfast, only having arrived just before the meteorite impacted in 2040, but now their director had left the base the GMRC Director General of the Subterranean Programme himself had taken direct control; which was just as well, as no one else had the experience or expertise to deal with the crisis at hand.

The large glass double doors opened with a pneumatic swish and the assembled ranks stuttered to silence as everyone stood. A man of small stature and a powerful presence, flanked as ever by his personal aides, entered the room. Wearing a simple grey GMRC uniform, the Director General’s only indication of rank was the inconspicuous golden weave adorning his cuffs and epaulettes, and a badge on his right shoulder; the symbol of the powerful and influential GMRC Directorate.

‘Please be seated,’ Professor Steiner said, adjusting his glasses and taking his seat at the head of the large conference table.

A shuffling of chairs and the muted rustle of clothing followed his command as everyone sat back down. The Steadfast personnel glanced at one another in anxious anticipation, waiting for their leader to begin.

Professor Steiner cleared his throat and spread out some paperwork before him. He then looked to the greying, clean-cut, middle-aged man to his right. ‘Nathan, can you bring up a map of the base on the wallscreens, please?’

‘Certainly, Professor.’ Nathan got to his feet and walked to the far end of the room to access the building’s internal computer system.

‘Ladies,’ Professor Steiner said, looking over the tops of his glasses at the women in the room, ‘gentleman,’ he continued, perusing the men before him. ‘As you are all very much aware, USSB Steadfast is still cut off from the surface. Critical systems have been patched up as best they could be and the majority of the four hundred and seventy-five thousand souls that still call this base home have been relocated to the lowest levels for safety.

‘It has been many months since this –
situation
– was thrust upon us and we are no further along in securing any kind of route to the surface, despite our best efforts. The people responsible for our entombment did well when they sabotaged Steadfast’s systems. The damage caused to life support has ensured most of our efforts are directed at keeping ourselves alive rather than evacuation.

‘Every attempt we do make to reach the surface has been thwarted, not just by the previous efforts of our tormentors but by those still stationed on the surface tasked with preventing our escape—’

The doors to the room opened once more, causing Steiner to pause. Five U.S. Army officers marched into the room. At their head stalked a large, powerfully built man with a self-indulgent swagger, his scalp sprouting thick, dirty blonde receding hair, which flowed down into shorter bristling stubble that covered half of the owner’s grizzled face. Unlike his uniformed comrades he wore heavy green and brown body armour that had seen its fair share of engagements, its thick composite metal exterior bearing the marks of combat, shiny metal gashes and grazes standing out in stark contrast to the camouflage paint around it.

‘Ah, Colonel Samson,’ Steiner said, while glancing pointedly at his watch, ‘so good of you to join us.’

Samson sat down at the opposite end of the table to the professor, his fellow officers taking seats either side of him. The colonel, instead of responding to Steiner’s acknowledgement, merely glowered, his heavy brows hovering over a pair of pale, cold eyes.

‘Okay, shall we continue?’ Steiner clasped his hands before him, undeterred by the antagonism permeating from the very pores of the military leader opposite him. ‘Excellent,’ he said in his confident tone as some of the civilians looked nervously towards Samson and his cronies. ‘I have called you all here today to outline my proposal for extricating everyone from this facility. The reasons for our abandonment by the GMRC and U.S. military on the surface is still unknown, although it is clear that Intelligence Director Joiner played a leading role in the affair. Since we have been left to our own devices, it has fallen to me, and the people in this room, to take control of all our destinies. Now that we have stabilised our environment it is time to take the next step. Nathan,’ Steiner motioned with a hand at his friend and confidant, ‘if you will.’

Nathan Bryant nodded and activated the wallscreens around the office, each wall displaying the same image, enabling comfortable and clear line of sight for each person regardless of their physical position.

‘As you can see,’ Nathan said, ‘this is a detailed schematic of USSB Steadfast.’

Steiner eyed the graphical representation, noting the many intricacies of the base he helped to design.

‘And here,’ Nathan said, highlighting in a red hue various vertical sections as he tapped the screen with a couple of fingers, ‘are the main and subsidiary exits to the surface; all of which have been blocked, disabled and, as far we have been able to tell, guarded topside.’ He zoomed into the top right hand side of the base and executed a command to produce a bright green line, which reached the surface by a roundabout route. ‘Here is Conduit Shaft 183B.’ With a flourish Nathan flicked the image into the middle of the table, the transparent hologram rotating slowly on its axis.

A woman in a prim grey suit raised a tentative hand in the air.

Nathan pointed to her. ‘Yes?’

‘That shaft doesn’t exist. I run the engineers in that sector and I know that particular area like the back of my hand; there’s nothing there.’

‘You are partially correct,’ Steiner told her as he gave Nathan a small nod to indicate he would take it from there. ‘There is no access to the shaft, as indicated on the plans before us; however, if I have remembered correctly when this base was constructed that shaft was built but not completed, being classed as obsolete by further advances in the overall design. If that is the case – which I believe it is – then it may be possible for a team to use 183B to reach the surface without detection by those above, as it is an unknown potential exit.’

A civilian manager spoke up. ‘Wouldn’t the army be guarding the whole area and not just specific points of access?’

‘Yes,’ Samson said, his gruff manner out of place in the office environment.

‘Thank you, Colonel.’ Steiner turned to address the manager who had spoken. ‘Yes, they will be, but as you will note on the screen this unfinished shaft bisects the surface at the furthest extremity of the upper footprint of Steadfast. This means any military presence at that location will be much less than elsewhere, or so we can hope.’ He looked to Samson and his colleagues. ‘Do you agree, gentlemen?’

A collection of nods and yeses answered the professor’s question.

‘Excellent,’ Steiner enthused. ‘So, with that in mind, any excursion will have a good chance of survival if exiting at that location.’

The female engineer raised her hand again. ‘But, isn’t this all redundant if we can’t access the shaft in the first place? We don’t have any functioning equipment with which to reach it.’

‘And you could only squeeze a few people through that conduit tunnel,’ another man said, ‘which looks to run vertically for long sections. What could so few hope to achieve if they managed to evade those on the surface?’