Into the Void

Chapter 26

Nate awoke in a warm, damp metal chamber. He was lying on his back staring up into the sickly green glow of a chemical light stick taped to the ceiling. He coughed, sending waves of pain rolling across his ribs. His helmet was filled with a string of softly pulsing red damage icons. He looked at the top icon and blinked, struggling to focus on the blurry red shape. Eventually the shape resolved into a broken line, a suit breach, under that was a hollow lightning bolt, the suit’s barriers were depleted. Next was a shield with a jagged line running through it, the ceramic armour plates were broken and finally a hollow square with a solid circle in the center, damage all across the reinforced fiber layers.

A huge figure knelt down next to him. “Nathan,” said Onyx. “Are you conscious?”

Nate nodded. “What happened?” he asked, his voice coming out in a dry croak.

“The entrance contained an anti-personnel mine. I have cleared further traps, moved you and Damon into this chamber and sealed the door behind us, we are safe for now. I have done what I can to treat any injuries I can see. Do you have any further wounds?”

“I don’t know. My rig is pretty well destroyed and my ribs hurt. But I think I might be okay.” Onyx helped Nate up off the floor. He wavered for a moment, but remained on his feet. “How’s Damon?”

Onyx chuckled. “His hardware is mildly more robust than yours. Damon was forced to discard most of his exo-suit but he is relatively unharmed and scouting the next tunnel.”

Nate looked over at the other end of the room where a pile of charred parts sat in a smoking heap topped with a cracked and blackened helmet. Onyx handed Nate the laser repeater and the two of them headed off down the tunnel, following a trail of green chemlights dropped in intervals on the tunnel floor. The tunnel eventually opened up into a high ceilinged room filled with row upon row of glass fronted cylinders. A swarm of thick cables ran across the floor, connecting each cylinder to a panel on the far wall. Damon stood next to the nearest cylinder, shining a small light through the glass front. Nate walked up next to him. The inside of the cylinder was cushioned along the back with several needles, tubes and cables poking out from the sides.

“Wow,” said Nate. “What do you think they’re for?”

Damon shook his head. “Hard to say. They look almost like suspended animation pods. You ever read about that? Way back in the early days of exploration research?”

Nate nodded. “Yeah, it never fucking worked though. Just made a lot of flash frozen corpses.”

Damon shrugged. “Never worked for us. Maybe it did for them.”

Nate walked up to the panel on the back wall. Dozens of cables were slotted into the wall each with a small dusty label next to them. In the corner was a panel full of switches and one large lever. Nate gripped the lever, someone shouted at him, he flipped the lever anyway. Everyone froze. A low hum came from somewhere behind the wall and a row of bright lights snapped on the ceiling. A soft voice spoke a string of hissing words full of long ess sounds and guttural vowels. The voice paused and repeated itself, it was clearly some kind of pre-recorded message.

A panel in the floor popped up and slid forward, revealing a dust covered metal staircase. Onyx rushed to the stairs drawing a laser pistol out of a compartment built into his thigh. Onyx's antennae perked up and he swept his head back and forth slowly. He motioned the others forward and stepped cautiously onto the stairs. The ancient staircase creaked under the war machine’s weight as they descended deeper into the compound. At the end of the stairs they emerged into a spacious room with several strips of bright white lights and four rows of tables. The tables were piled high with beakers, chemicals and a strange array of lenses that could be a form of microscope. A single computer struggled to life in the corner, fans cycling years of dust out of its case. Nate wandered slowly over to the computer system, there was a keyboard but no monitor. He brushed some of the dust off the top of the case and a light fixture above the computer jumped to life, projecting a fuzzy blue humanoid hologram into the space in front of the computer.