The Last Red Convict

Part - 1

I fired up my comms and linked the OmniGear to my suit while waiting for the elevator to get me down. It's oddly slow today, hopefully no fuck ups down below. My sigh echoed and rumbled in my suit, and midway through it, the elevator started rocking back and forth. I peeked over the railings and saw huge boulders and red dust coming down, and I ducked back in just in time not to get hit.

Is this an earthqua– no, a mars quake.

Shit. "HQ, this is K41, status update, copy." No response. I lost my footing, and felt the elevator rushing down fast. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Boulders hit the elevator and red dust occluded my view. I toggled my lights to maximum brightness and I could make out the emergency brake. I took a step towards it, and another, then fell on my ass. I felt a few rocks chip my suit and decompress it in my chest area. I have to move now, or I will die here. Adrenaline shot up, boiling my blood, and I managed to pull the red lever. The elevator slowed and screeched like a train, and after a few moments it stopped.

When I ducked out, the elevator was barely a foot off the floor of the cave. I jumped out, and immediately checked my OmniGear. I've lost all connections to the surface settlement. The local map pinged 80 red dots. That's half of the workers still alive, fuck.

Smaller pebbles kept falling, but the quake seemed to have stopped. Slowly the red dust settled, and my lights could show me the path.

As the operations leader I had to do a head count, and be accountable for any injured miner. I sent a ping to their OmniGears, and headed towards the lockers to get my graviton pick. The power went out through the entire mine but luckily, us prisoners, had shitty lockers and changing rooms with no secure doors. My pick was still there, about 80% charge. Should be enough. I also grabbed the only two, very scuffed, first aid kits with me and followed the main tunnel down.

"Anyone here?" I shouted through my external speakers; my own echoes replied back. Fuck. I thought. I hope there are no cave ins. If some of my guys are badly injured, corporate isn't gonna give a fuck about them. I better hurry. I started running, and shouting more.

"Kane... Kane..." I froze. "I'm flashing my light, I'm stuck." A UV flashlight blinked from under a big boulder.

"Jerico?! Jerico is that you?" I ran towards him. "Are you alright?" I could only see his hand.

"I'm fine, I'm just stuck under here" his muffled voice felt calm "I can't move at all, get this thing off me Kane."

"Alright, Jay, hold on." I lasered away chunks of rock, slowly revealing his head. "Okay, now look down" I stopped for a moment "don't wanna blind you."

"You got it." He sounded a bit rough, but otherwise looked fine. I lasered some more until I could pull Jerico out of the rubble.

"Fhew, thanks man" Jerico was out, alive and well "got any news from up top?" he rested his hands on his hips, before wiping his visor clean.

"We're on our own down here, Jay" I said, looking further down the tunnel "let's try and find the others now." I took on and walked ahead.

"Okay then, right behind you K." Jerico followed and turned his flashlights on.

We walked for about a hundred meters when the earth underneath us started shaking again.

"Fuck, it's an aftershock!" Jerico stumbled. I pulled him by the neck and ran with him under a structural support pillar.

"Stay close!" I shouted, since the comms could've shat the bed. "Fuck!" A bigger rock bumped my left shoulder, decompressing the left arm of the suit too.