AMP Rebellion (27 page)

Duane spoke, "Welcome aboard harvester 99 Sir. I call her the Beast. Get yourself strapped in and we will get the Beast moving."

The ground harvesters were massive digging machines. The pilot would fly over an area while scanning for resources. From the scans he would identify the highest density concentrations and then settle on the surface for the dig to begin. Half a day later we were sitting on a rich vein of Iron ore.

I spoke, "So, you basically just sit here for two days while this machine does all the work?"

Duane replied, "Yep, sounds exciting doesn’t it. I fly over and press a scan button, and then, we land and I press the dig button. I was all excited the first time I rode along in that chair. That excitement lasted for about ten minutes until those laser drills took us below the surface. After that there was nothing much to see."

I sighed as I looked out of the cockpit window. The planet’s surface was cold and desolate with high winds having worn down any surface variations to nothing more than slow moving sand dunes.

I spoke, "Well, let’s get this show on the road. We got ships to build."

Duane pointed at the Dig button. "I’ll let you do the honor Sir. There is nothing like pressing that Dig button for the first time."

As I reached out to press the button Duane quickly grabbed my arm. "You better strap in with that shoulder belt Sir. It can get bumpy."

I cinched the shoulder strap down and again reached for the Dig button. A giant wheel on the front of the harvester began to spin. Several seconds later the wheel turned down into the soil and the laser cutters began to slice into the earth below us. The harvester then lurched downward as the digging cups plowed through the Iron encrusted dirt, feeding it into the micro refinery we had on-board. The "Beast" as Duane had called it, began to jerk and buck as rocks and differing densities of soil were encountered.

I looked over at Duane as my head bobbed back and forth. "It’s not like this for two days is it?"

Duane laughed as he replied, "No Sir. This will settle down as we hit the vein. She’s fairly smooth in consistent soil. Give her about ten minutes and she should settle down."

I rolled my eyes as I gripped the armrests on my chair. Several minutes later, just as Duane had predicted, the violent jerks slowly subsided and were replaced by a smooth grinding vibration. I settled back in my chair and put my boots up on the console. Duane looked over and smiled as he flipped on some music in the cab.

Duane spoke, "Hope you don’t mind the tunes Sir. Makes the days pass a little faster."

I shook my head. "It’s your cab. You can…"

My stomach was suddenly up in my throat as the harvester broke through into a large hollow cavity that had not shown on the scans. We found ourselves falling nearly a hundred meters before the harvester came crashing to a stop on solid rock. The laser wheel separated from the ship and the spinning, hardened metal cups soon ground upwards into the base of the cab. I could hear air escaping at the same moment the power went out. Emergency lighting kicked in and Duane got to work looking over the console instruments.

Duane spoke, "I would suggest putting on your helmet Sir. We are going to be out of air in about two minutes. I'm shutting down the recycler and storage so that we can preserve the oxygen we have if we are able to repair her later."

I pulled on my helmet and quickly flipped the latch as I twisted it in place.

I spoke, "Has this ever happened to you before?"

Duane replied, "I've been in this cab for 15 years and this is a first. Scans usually pick up the hollows and we know to avoid 'em. I've never heard of anyone dropping through like that."

I unhitched the strap that held me in my seat. "If we get that air leak fixed are we going to be able to get out of here?"

Duane stopped and turned his head in my direction. "I think our best bet is just to survive until someone comes looking for us. The ion thrusters were on the base of this rig and I would say they took the full brunt of that fall, along with the cutting wheel."

I replied, "Well let's raise the Grid ops on the comm and get somebody down here."

Duane shook his head, "Sorry Sir, but when you get into an iron vein the comm system on these diggers doesn't have the power to broadcast through it. That's been a safety concern for years. This is the first time in my memory that it has been an actual problem. But I wouldn't worry too much about it Sir. They know where we started and that's where they will begin their search. We made a big hole up there, shouldn't be too hard to find it."

With the remaining oxygen secured we opened the cab and stepped out onto the maintenance deck. Shredded, bent and torn metal made half of the deck impassable.

Duane spoke, "We aren't repairing the Beast Sir. She's had it. Those cups ripped right through her guts. She's got nothing left but spare parts on her now."

Duane turned and placed his hand on the cab. "Goodbye old girl. We had a good run."

With the harvester down I turned my focus to the expansive cavern that was now our home. As I aimed my helmet lights around I took note of the smooth walls that surrounded us.

I spoke, "Uh, Duane. Do those walls look a bit unnatural to you?"

Duane replied, "Not as unnatural as those tracks down below Sir. I would say we crashed through into someone's tunnel. I can't imagine they are going to be too happy about that Sir."

I replied, "I don't imagine they will. I think we grab our blasters, top off our air and see if we can find a way out before anyone shows."

Duane stepped back towards the cab. "I will do you one better Sir. I'm going to set everything to ‘automated’ so it looks like no one was on her. We'll take all the rations with us. That way, if it's hostiles that own these tracks, they might not look very hard for us."

We emptied the cab of the harvester of all evidence that suggested the craft had been piloted. Duane worked on the flight logs, destroying evidence of where we had come from and of any living being having been aboard at the time of the crash. We soon found ourselves wondering down the dark tracks of the tunnel, our helmet lights illuminating all that we could see.

As we walked along Duane ran a diagnostic on the tunnel's atmosphere. "Air looks thin Sir, but breathable if the density picks up. I would guess most of it has rushed up through that hole we made. That would mean these tracks would have terminations or safety doors nearby."

I replied, "Safety doors?"

Duane stopped and slung a duffel bag of Human evidence over his shoulder.

He then continued, "Safety door, you know, If you have a long tunnel, you don't want a single point failure to shut the whole thing down."

I replied, "Airlocks?"

Duane chuckled, "Yes Sir. airlocks. Sorry about that. I've been calling them safety doors since I was a kid. Bad habit."

As we reached a distance of several hundred meters away from the harvester I looked back over my shoulder. As the image faded into black it was suddenly silhouetted by a light coming from the other direction. The light grew in intensity as we began to run down the eight meter wide tracks.

I reached and grabbed Duane by the shoulder. "Over here! There's some kind of a control box we can lay behind!"

I tossed the duffel I was carrying against the wall behind the control box. Duane followed suit and we both hit the rock floor at the same time.

The wide, tunnel maintenance vehicle came to a stop in front of the damaged harvester. It sat for several minutes as the crew scanned the wreckage. The Beast was soon crawling with maintenance workers. They were bipeds, as were most of the sentient beings we had encountered throughout our travels. It seemed that those with a similar build to Humans, had evolved.

The yellow, bumpy, leather like skin of the alien workers told of a hard existence. Additional work-lights were set up and the harvester was soon dowsed in bright white light. Strange bold lettering was visible on the front of the alien vehicle.

I spoke, "Duane, has your translator picked anything up from that lettering?"

Duane replied, "Only a partial. It's broken into three words. The second word is 'Mines'."

I replied, "I've got that along with the first one. Looks like 'Emory' or 'Embry'. It doesn't have a lock yet. Wait, the last word is filling in... 'Embry Mines' and then below that 'Colossus'. Looks like we gummed up someone’s mining operation."

Duane began to reply then stopped short. The maintenance workers all began to scatter and step away from the harvester as a new vehicle approached from behind. Wide doors that ran the length of the vehicle opened and armed soldiers jumped out onto the tunnel floor. Our translator soon began to fill in bits and pieces of their comm transmissions.

"... fall... tracks... air..."

As the lead soldier stepped up to the closest worker he was nearly twice their height. The gear he was wearing had a gold stripe on the shoulder of an otherwise sand colored, hard cased battle suit.

Commander Og spoke as the translator locked at 93%, "Who is the foreman!"

A worker quickly ran up to the soldier and knelt. "First Foreman Riekef Sir."

Commander Og continued in a thundering voice with a harsh tone, "What is this that impedes progress at my mine?"

Reikef replied, "We do not know Sir. It does not appear to be Colossus."

Og stepped forward, nearly trampling Reifek where he knelt, his voice booming over the comm. "Who dares trespass on a Colossus world?"

Og's comm immediately scrambled as he switched channels. I slumped back behind the control box and pulled Duane down with me.

I spoke, "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore Duane."

Duane replied, "Kansas Sir?"

I sighed and continued, "Never mind. It's an old reference from the Grid archives. I need to stop using those as they aren't quite as popular as I remember."

A rumbling could be heard as a second team with military style uniforms pulled up in a vehicle behind the soldiers. The same thin breather packs as the workers wore, were evident on their chests. From the blue stripe on their uniform shoulders I took a guess that they were the equivalent of our SCore agents.

I slumped back down as the agents began to crawl onto the harvester. "Duane."

Duane replied, "Yes Sir?"

I continued as I looked down the tracks into the blackness of the tunnel beyond our position. "Looks like we may be here for a while."

~~~

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