2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent) (37 page)

A small torch on his head lit up his immediate vicinity, a tight concrete channel three and a half feet square and currently running at a forty-five degree angle. There was barely enough room to shrug your shoulders, let alone haul up the heavy kit the soldiers had to contend with. His climbing gear clinked and rattled as he crawled forwards, his feet occasionally slipping from under him. Holding on grimly to the guide ropes, his special gloves gripping to them like a gecko’s feet to glass, Steiner hauled himself onwards. The noises of those accompanying him echoed down the tight passage. Voices issued direction, while others let out a variety of curses and replies as everyone did their best to cope with the difficult conditions. Leading the way, the Terra Force unit forged ahead; next came Steiner himself, then the three communication technicians and bringing up the rear, the Darklight team.

After another hour, Steiner scrambled out into a wider area where twenty of the SFSD commandos had assembled, accompanied by their colonel. On one side of the smooth circular concrete wall, the code ‘183B’ had been stencilled in pale blue paint, looking for all the world as if it had been put there recently rather than three decades past. Above, the small chamber narrowed once more, taking a vertical path straight up. Ropes dangled down from it, half of Samson’s men having already moved on. Catching his breath, Steiner leaned against the wall for support.

Captain Iwamoto emerged from behind soon after, seemingly no worse for wear than when he’d started twelve hours before. ‘Are you okay, sir?’

‘Fine,’ Steiner said, gasping, ‘thank you, Captain.’

‘This is the final section of the conduit shaft,’ Iwamoto told him. ‘After that we’ll reach another area much like this one, where we can regroup and prepare for our exit strategy.’

Steiner nodded in understanding as he took a water bottle from his harness and gulped down some much needed fluid. The enclosed space they now occupied didn’t lend itself to ventilation, the smell of warm bodies pressing in around them. Steiner sank to the floor to ease his aching back and tired limbs. He watched while Samson hooked himself onto one of the ropes and, using some sort of handheld mechanism, with little effort pulled himself up and through the opening overhead. One by one his unit followed suit, their position in the round junction room soon replaced by the Darklight personnel still filing out from below. It was now Steiner’s turn to head upwards. With the help of Iwamoto and a female Darklight lieutenant at the bottom, and an SFSD commando above, Steiner embarked on the vertical climb.

Feeling like a piece of baggage, Steiner was pulled upwards, his own feeble efforts doing little to aid those taking the strain. He’d already resigned himself to relying on the assistance of others; near the start of the climb, when he’d attempted to propel himself along using his own strength, he’d quickly tired, his exertions merely serving to delay the whole group.

Back in the present, and now passing the shaft’s halfway point, Steiner became aware that those below had encountered a problem. One of the technicians had become entangled in their gear and only someone from above could rectify the issue. Since Steiner was unversed in such things it had been decided to winch him up and then send someone else back down to resolve the issue. Carrying on, Steiner now had no one following him, only a dark, ever increasing void ending in the faint light of the stuck communications technician far below.

The end of the tunnel finally approached, finishing in a deep overhang. It looked, from Steiner’s perspective, like he would need to clip himself onto another rope in order to enter the area above. The men that had been helping in his ascent had forged ahead to disappear from view, almost as if they’d forgotten he was relying on their help to move. Unsure what to do he called out. A face emerged upside down from the nearby aperture, it was the colonel.

‘Grab my hand.’ Samson held his arm out towards him.

‘I need to clip myself onto the other rope,’ Steiner said, unnerved by Samson’s appearance.

‘Stay attached, take my hand and I’ll transfer you over.’

Steiner considered Samson for a moment, his distrust for the man sending warning bells ringing in his head.

‘Come on, man,’ Samson said, ‘we don’t have all day!’

Steiner looked down and then back to Samson’s outstretched hand, and decided he didn’t really have any other option. Grasping Samson’s hand, Steiner swung out into the middle of the shaft. Now suspended over a sheer drop, he held onto Samson’s vice-like grip, the colonel’s bunched muscles and sinews standing out as he held Steiner’s full weight. With his free hand, Samson unclipped Steiner from the safety rope.

‘Wait, transfer me first!’ Steiner yelled at him but it was too late, his mistake had been made. Steiner’s life now hung in the balance, only Samson preventing him from falling to his death. The Colonel’s eyes bored into Steiner’s own, the man’s manic expression indecipherable.

‘Can you get us into Sanctuary?’ Samson asked, while straining against Steiner’s dead weight.

Frantic, Steiner tried in vain to hitch himself back onto the safety line that ran parallel to the wall.

‘Professor,’ Samson said, his voice shaking with the effort required to hold Steiner aloft, ‘I don’t know how much longer I can hold you for. Can you get us into USSB Sanctuary if we get out of here, yes or no?’

‘Yes! Now clip me on!’

‘How can I be sure you’re telling me the truth?’

Steiner felt his hand slip half an inch inside his glove. ‘Because I helped design it and I’m a GMRC Director General.’ Steiner glanced below at his flailing legs and the darkness beyond. ‘I know all the access points; I helped oversee software creation for Sanctuary’s security systems. You have my word, I can get us inside!’

More moments passed, Samson searching Steiner’s face to see if he told the truth. Finally he reached out his other hand and hooked Steiner’s harness onto the second line. With a heave, Samson pulled Steiner through and up into the section above.

Steiner now found himself in a small intersection, a low doorway leading off to one side. Samson brushed past him without another word, calling to two of his men to head back down the shaft to clear the way for the technicians and the Darklight crew, still caught up below.

Steiner felt too shaken to tackle Samson over the incident that had just transpired and the colonel had now rejoined his men, perhaps in a ploy to head off such a confrontation. Why the colonel hadn’t just asked him about Sanctuary without risking his life, God only knew. The man was once more living up to his unpredictable nature.

The plan was to relocate Steadfast’s residents to a variety of bases, when and if he could get them safely to the surface. The bulk of the near half a million souls that remained in Steadfast would indeed be heading to Sanctuary if Steiner had his way. Why Samson wanted to go to Sanctuary specifically made no sense; had he seen more of the message Steiner had sent to Goodwin than he was letting on? And why did he ask if Steiner could get them inside? If they were successful in their plan, Steiner would be back in command of the whole GMRC Subterranean Programme and access would be a formality.

As he pondered on these thoughts, and more, the problem with the technician’s ropes was resolved and he was eventually rejoined by Captain Iwamoto and his unit. Not wanting to cause further problems between Darklight and the Terra Force commandos, Steiner refrained from informing Iwamoto about Samson’s recent actions. Assuming they made it past the forces waiting for them above and he secured his position back within the GMRC, he would have Samson dealt with once and for all;
a sturdy prison cell in USSB Alaska should suit him just fine
, he thought grimly.

The climb completed, everyone assembled in the final area of the conduit shaft, a long horizontal corridor attached to another round concrete-clad structure. Two more hours passed while people shed their climbing equipment and replaced it with battle armour and weaponry. Steiner and the three technicians, huddled together, wore bulletproof vests and flexible shielding over the rest of their bodies. Around them Darklight and Terra Force soldiers alike clipped on their metal and composite plating until they were encased in suits of lightweight armour; visored helmets followed. The blue glow of the Darklight forces’ internal combat displays emanated out of the eye-like holes, mirrored by the headgear worn by the SFSD, the light from their helmets a steady green.

The top of the shaft had been capped off by two thick circular steel covers, riveted into place and spot welded one above the other. These metal barriers had already been removed using special thermal cutting gear. Above, a two foot compacted layer of earth hung suspended over the open hole beneath. The accumulation of soil had been deposited over the shaft after its construction was deemed obsolete many years ago, this dry permeable substrate now the only barrier between those in the shaft and the forces that would surely be waiting for them, somewhere, out there in the darkness.

♦

Samson’s helmet slid over his head, the interior fabric fitting snugly into place and feeling comfortingly familiar against his skin. With a command panel on the inside of his wrist plate, Samson tapped in a code to give him full connectivity to those around him, including the Darklight mercenaries to the rear.

‘Listen up,’ Samson said, noting with satisfaction that, as one, his men ceased whatever they were doing to look in his direction, their visors retracting to reveal their faces. ‘That includes you too, Darklight,’ Samson added when some of the black-clad soldiers failed to heed his voice.

Satisfied he now had everyone’s attention, he continued. ‘Any second we’ll be on the surface, leaving this rabbit hole behind. A scope recon up through the ground layer has revealed very little. Sending up small aerial drones is out as any wireless signals will be detected. We will have to assume the forces above will be concentrated in and around the interior footprint of Steadfast, but we must be prepared for any eventuality.

‘As we haven’t had time to work as a single unit, we’ll keep things simple. Terra Force will initiate a fifty yard defensive perimeter to the north. Darklight, under Captain Iwamoto, will secure the south on our six. If all goes well we’ll then transition, undetected, to the designated RV before making for the Darklight enclave twenty clicks due east.

‘Anyone who hasn’t completed a full diagnostic on their combat system should do so now; we can’t afford to have even one person out of sync with the rest. The director general and the coms techs will remain under Darklight protection unless circumstances dictate otherwise. I want all my orders actioned swiftly and precisely. If anyone fucks up out there and they don’t die, they’ll wish they had by the time I’ve finished with them. Do you get me?!’

‘Ooyah!’ The Terra Force commandos responded as one.

Samson nodded, pleased with the response, but noted that the Darklight troops had failed to acknowledge his demands. Opening a pouch on his utility belt, Samson extracted one of his red pills and flicked it into his mouth, swallowing it down. Pressing a button on the side of his helmet, the visor and face plate snapped into place, the two pieces interlocking to form a seamless shield. The rest of the soldiers did likewise, creating a low steady glow of green and blue within the enclosed space.

‘Activate partial camouflage,’ Samson ordered, watching the armour on his men and Darklight troops alike ripple and shimmer, the surfaces contorting visually until each individual composite metal plate matched the background behind the soldier wearing it.

‘Major,’ Samson said to his second in command, ‘we’re a go.’

The major, a few feet away, nodded to his superior and gave the order to collapse the compacted earth above the open top of the conduit shaft. Two commandos dug into the dry soil with their large knives, sending dust and dirt sifting down in waves around their feet. Clumps of earth dropped with dull thuds to the concrete floor, old tree roots drifting down with them. As the debris ceased to fall, the hole now fully exposed, Samson reached behind his back and unclipped his assault weapon from its snap-on clamp. Drawing the rifle down, he checked its digital display within the scope and then synced it with his visor; spooling up ammo, range and targeting data on his head-up combat display. 

‘Lock and load,’ Samson said to his men, who similarly prepared their weapons on his order. ‘Defence pattern Sigma Two. Major, take point.’

The SFSD major didn’t need further encouragement. Getting a boost from two of his men, he disappeared through the opening, in one smooth, silent motion. More soldiers followed him out, until Samson himself put his foot in the hands of one of his men to be launched upwards, his metal-encased hand digging into the shaft’s dusty, dirt exterior to aid his ascent.

Rolling to one side, enabling the next man to exit from beneath as quickly as possible, Samson gained his feet and scanned the terrain with an expert eye. The optics on his gun and visor, operating on the same combined spectral fields, produced a strange multi-coloured image that picked out even the smallest of details from the darkest of landscapes. As if to hail the arrival of their small band, a distant rumble of thunder echoed in the dark skies above. It had been many months since Samson had been topside and the lack of stars and moon in the night sky was an ominous reminder that the predicted dust cloud had shrouded the planet on cue.

Acting on instinct, Samson relocated to take cover behind a nearby cluster of boulders, the position offering a healthy overview of his men as they fanned out ahead. The red, yellow and blue spectral image of the camouflaged soldiers, processed by the combat system, made them stand out against the brown and grey topography that surrounded them.

The radar, displayed on the far left of his visor, indicated that the Darklight team exited behind, heading south as ordered. The single red and three yellow dots amongst the black, indicated the position of the communication technicians and the director general. His mind processing everything at high speed, Samson noticed a small movement in the air three hundred yards from their location. A drone!