Below (3 page)

Numbly, she watched as he seemed to fall in slow motion, endlessly. Below, the crate of munitions crashed into the sea. The railing struck the water only seconds behind it. The crew below had scattered to a safe distance when the first shouts went up. She caught a glimpse of their upturned faces and bare shoulders, bobbing above the water, but she couldn’t seem to tear her gaze from Clancy as he continued to fall on and on, his face screwed up as he yelled something she couldn’t seem to hear, his body twisting.

He was almost halfway down when something shot from the water like a projectile from a cannon. She realized it was one of the sea crew as he met the falling man midair. The smacking sound of colliding bodies was like a thunder clap. They seemed to struggle for several moments and then Raphael gripped Clancy tightly against him and executed a mid-air back flip. They seemed almost to hover for several heartbeats before slicing head first through the water.

Victoria held her breath, waiting, watching for them to emerge, fearing they’d struck some of the debris below and it had injured both of them.

After what seemed a very long time, two heads bobbed up.

“Is he alive?” she shouted.

He’s breathing. I don’t know how long.

Victoria leapt to her feet and raced toward the ship. It took her ten minutes to prep a pod. Tuttle burst through the hatch and scrambled into the jump seat before she could lift off. Victoria nodded at the medic and punched the button to open the bay door, launching the pod almost simultaneously.

Within seconds, they were skimming just above the reach of the waves. Tuttle threw her restraints off and opened the hatch as they drew alongside the two men. Clancy, Victoria saw as she twisted around for a quick look, was bleeding from the mouth and nose. Raphael was bloody, as well, but she couldn’t tell if it was from his own injuries or if it was Clancy’s blood.

“Get in, Raphael. We need to check you out, too.”

He shook his head. “I’m all right.”

“Damn it, Raphael! Get in the frigging pod!”

A slightly crooked smile curled his lips. “I do love a woman with fire,” he murmured. In the next second, he’d disappeared beneath the waves.

Victoria was still gaping at the space he’d so lately occupied when Tuttle sealed the hatch. Briefly, their gazes collided. Victoria turned away, shooting skyward once more with the pod the moment Tuttle announced that she and Clancy were secured.

Clancy was barely breathing when they managed to get him onto an examination table in sick bay. Working together, they were able to get him stabilized after about an hour. They could find no evidence of internal bleeding from his organs. He was suffering from a concussion and several breaks, however, including his collar bone, several cracked ribs and two breaks on his left arm. When they’d set the breaks and stabilized the arm, they bound his ribs and realigned his collar bone, binding him to keep it from shifting again.

Finally, Victoria left Tuttle to keep a watch on him and returned to the deck. Brown and Kichens met her at the end of the gangplank. “Is Clancy going to make it?

Victoria drew in a deep breath. “Looks like it.” She scanned the area. Roach was sitting on the deck, tossing coins at the wall. It was patently obvious that he was completely unmoved by everything that had just happened, despite the fact that he could hardly have failed to know that it was his added weight on the railing that had caused the accident. Victoria saw blood. She strode over to him and decked him with her fist on the side of his jaw. He fell sideways. Before she could swing at him again, Brown and Kichens seized her.

“You damn near got two men killed ... endangered the crew members below. You step out of line one more time, Roach, and you’ll be spending the next six months in the brig!”

He rubbed his jaw, grinning up at her, but there was malice in his eyes. “Damn, Tory! That almost hurt!”

Victoria tried to pull free, but Brown and Kichens had a firm grip on each of her arms. “Tell me you understand what I just told you, Roach!”

He shrugged. “I heard you say Clancy was OK.”

“He’s NOT OK! He’ll probably live, but he’s not OK And he wouldn’t even be in that good a shape if Raphael hadn’t risked his life to save him!”

Roach looked at her blankly a moment, then smiled snidely. “You mean lead tadpole?”

Brown released her, but before Victoria could react, he’d slugged Roach so hard his eyes rolled back in his head.

Victoria glared at the semi-conscious man. “Lock him in the brig, Brown. When you’re done, check on Clancy. If it’s safe enough to leave him for a little while, bring Tuttle back with you. If not ... I guess it’ll just be the three of us making the sweep.”

* * * *

Brown and Tuttle had discovered the power station had been blown when they’d made their sweep of the upper deck, which meant neither the lights nor the lift were working. After collecting miner’s helmets, Victoria led the way down the stairs.

The upper deck was supported above main operations by a web of steel girders. Victoria examined them as they descended, but could see no obvious signs of damage. She paused as they reached the lower deck, looking out over the railing at the sea below them. She’d heard nothing from the deep sea crew since they’d gone under to retrieve the munitions. She’d tried reaching Raphael telepathically several times, but he either wasn’t responding or he wasn’t able to ‘hear’ her over such a distance. The underwater com units didn’t appear to work—not really surprising since the ones they were using didn’t work worth a shit either. She didn’t know whether to put it down to the planet’s conditions, or sorry equipment—neither of which would have surprised her.

It made her uneasy that she hadn’t heard from the crew, however. She had no way of telling if they’d managed to retrieve their weapons, or if they’d encountered a threat below.

She glanced at Brown and Kichens. “This could be nothing more than weather damage, so watch it with the lasers. We don’t want to shoot any of the good guys.”

Kichens and Brown exchanged a look, but it was Kichens who spoke. “You think there’s a chance there’s still somebody alive down there?”

It was the question everyone had been avoiding, but they all knew it was doubtful. Both communications and the power were out. If there’d been anyone left, there would have been signs that attempts had been made to restore the power at least. Beyond that, they had made no attempt at a stealthy arrival. Even if the entire ground crew was huddled below for some reason, they must have heard the arrival of the relief crew.

But it was inconceivable to Victoria that all sixty crew members had been killed.

It would almost have been easier to believe pirates had raided the place except for the fact that there were no obvious signs of an attack—two possible laser blasts, and possibly not—no signs of blood—no bodies. And they’d found a good bit of expensive equipment. It seemed doubtful pirates would’ve overlooked it.

“We have to assume there are some survivors,” she responded finally. “If there are, they could be armed, so watch yourselves.”

The door, they discovered, was locked.

Victoria and Kichens stood back while Brown hit it with a blast of laser fire, then kicked it open before stepping back. Victoria stood away from the direct line of fire. “Replacement crew!” she yelled. “Is anybody hurt down there?”

Her voice echoed eerily down the stairwell. She waited several minutes, listening intently. “This is Victoria Anderson. I’m the mission supervisor with NCO! We’re coming down!”

Again, her voice echoed hollowly, as if she’d shouted into a metal can. After waiting for a response and receiving none, she entered the stairwell, keeping as close to the wall as possible. They made their way down to the first level. The door opened out onto the stairwell, but it was steel, at least, and would protect whoever opened it from fire in the event someone was waiting for them.

She and Brown flattened themselves against the wall by the opening and she nodded for Kichens to open it. Kichens grasped the handle and gave it a yank. The door didn’t budge. The three of them exchanged a look. “They sealed themselves in,” Victoria muttered. It began to look like an attack after all.

There was just one problem.

If someone had attacked the rig, the bolted doors might have slowed them down, but they wouldn’t have held off a determined attack. They should have found that the doors had been blasted open. There should have seen signs of a fire fight.

Kichens blew a hole in the lock. Grasping the handle again, she jerked the door open. Brown hailed this time.

When moments passed and they received no response, Victoria eased up to the edge of the door, took her helmet off and flashed the light around the room beyond, expecting any moment that it would be shot out of her hand. Nothing but the same eerie silence greeted them. Finally, Victoria braced herself and dove into the room beyond, rolling to a stop behind a low wall. After a moment, Kichens and Brown followed her.

“Brown, watch the door. Kichens, you take that side. I’ll take this one.”

Unlike the upper deck, the operations floor looked untouched. It was deserted, however. She met up with Kichens and Brown again.

“I found the auxiliary power supply. Looked to me like it ought to be operational.”

Victoria frowned. “I don’t see how it could be. If it was working, it would be on, right?”

Kichens shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t get the chance to turn it on. Or maybe they left it off for a reason.”

“Give it a try. I don’t see stumbling around in the dark if there’s a chance of getting the lights on.”

To everyone’s surprise and relief, the power supply kicked on, flooding the operations room with light. They discovered, however, that the lift still wasn’t working.

Shutting off the lights on their helmets, they moved back into the stairwell and down to the next level. The second level contained the living quarters of the supervisory level employees, the dining hall and kitchen, and the media and recreational rooms. It, too, was deserted, seemingly untouched. The third level was primarily living quarters for the crew and also contained the sickbay. Below that level were three warehousing levels. The ore processing plant was below the warehouse levels. The eighth and final level was about twenty feet above the sea floor and designed for crew access in and out of the rig and for bringing up the raw ore.

It took hours to search the rig from top to bottom. The door on every single level was bolted from the inside. Every level was seemingly untouched. They found no blood, no bodies, no signs of a struggle of any kind ... and no crew members. The lift, they discovered, had been deliberately sabotaged.

Victoria had fully expected to find the remains of the crew on the eighth level. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or further unnerved when they discovered that the final level was as devoid of any signs of life—or death—as all the others. There were, however, signs of a battle.

The pressurized access pool had been covered over and barricaded. It was obvious, though, that the barricade had not held.

Chapter Three

“They fled up. What ever wiped them out came from below.”

Victoria glanced at Kichens sharply. “Maybe. But it doesn’t make any sense.”

“How you figure?” Brown asked.

Victoria frowned, trying to add up what they’d found. “Why come in this way when it would’ve been easier to come in from the landing level?”

Kichens shrugged. “Element of surprise, maybe?”

“They weren’t surprised. They had time to build a barricade,” Victoria pointed out flatly.

“Maybe the attack did come from topside and the crew evacuated from here?” Brown suggested.

Victoria shook her head. “Evacuate to where? Anyway, you can see it’s burst inward. Whoever attacked them broke through the barrier they’d built, and it looks like it must have been a pretty solid barrier.”

“Explosives,” Brown said, nodding.

“A battering ram, maybe, but they didn’t use explosives,” Victoria said. “There’s no shrapnel. If they’d used explosives to blow it, there’d be a lot more debris scattered around here, and signs of fire—there’s not even an odor of smoke--.”

“What bothers me the most is that there’s no bodies.” Kichens said, shivering as she glanced around anxiously.

Victoria glanced around, as well. “What bothers me the most is that there’s no blood.”

Kichens and Brown stared at her. Kichens was the first to grasp the implications. “They’re alive then!”

“Not if whoever it was dumped the bodies in the sea,” Brown put in.

“The problem with that, Brown, is that there’s no damn blood. They would’ve been fighting for their lives, wouldn’t you think? I can’t picture sixty people simply standing by and watching their fellow crew members being tossed into the sea to drown one by one without making a push to save themselves, at least. But except for this room and the flight deck, there’s no sign of any kind of struggle at all, nothing that could be interpreted as hand to hand combat, and no blood evidence of it.”

The debris littering the access pool abruptly heaved upward. Kichens and Brown brought their weapons up instantly, trained on the moving debris.

“Hold your fire, damn it!” Victoria ordered.

“There’s something down there,” Kichens snapped.

“We’ve got crew members outside,” Victoria reminded her sharply. “Hold your fire.”

They moved back, keeping their weapons trained on the debris in the pool as it continued to shift and heave. After a few moments, whatever it was managed to create an opening and a dark head emerged. Victoria knocked Kichens’ weapon aside when she heard the click of the trigger. The laser blast cut a two inch hole in one of the support columns. They were just fortunate it struck the column instead of the bulkheads. Otherwise the habitat might have depressurized, despite the shielding that had been built into the structure that was supposedly insurance against such ‘accidents’.