The Sleeping Army Awakes

Part 6 Behind the door

Behind the vast pressure door was a broad large corridor, almost as high as it was wide, with cables and large and small diameter pipes on the ceiling. The corridor went on for some way, with additional, slightly smaller, but no less redoubtable pressure doors branching off either side from the main passageway. The whole thing was almost as if Samuel were looking at a giant warship below decks. The passage and the doors had a distinctly naval look to them, because everything paintable had been covered in battleship grey. Samuel had spent along time in the navy so it seemed familiar to him.

It seemed likely, that military personnel of some sort had been stationed, or more likely marooned, in the mines at one time or another. During the frequent conflicts that had scarred the previous century, men had waited anxiously underground, for invasions that had never happened, endlessly drilling for battles that were never fought, with nervous fingers poised to push buttons that would probably end all life if they pressed them. There had been many wars, where despite the preparations for open conflict, the major protagonists had merely scowled at each other from opposite sides o the virtual negotiation table, denouncing every action of their enemy as a breach of some solemnly signed treaty, while they secretly breached as many treaties as they could, when nobody was looking, or infected each other's computers with spiteful but amusing viruses.

The military theme continued, when the first of the chambers that Samuel opened, appeared to be a large armoury. It contained rack after rack of weapons of the same sort of vintage that Samuel had been trained on in his navy days. That made them very old indeed.

The first few racks were identical to the ones in the guard room. Why had they needed so many guns? Some of the guns were unpacked, as if standing ready for use, but others were still packed away complete with boxes of ammunition sealed inside airtight and watertight transparent plastic containers, Samuel recognised them. The opened, mission-ready, weapons were probably corroded inside but the sealed weapons might fire.

Samuel had converted to a Mík lifestyle after his naval career, and though his Mík belief system did not approve of the use of weapons, life had taught him that sometimes it was an even greater wrong to not to take arms against evil doers, than it was to shoot at them. He filed that conundrum away for later debate with fellow Mík so that they could develop a doctrine that catered for all eventualities. The guns would prove useful if the place was attacked, even if Samuel only had to brandish one and shoot into the air.

Finally Samuel found something that he really valued, a shelf full of boxes containing army knives. His hunting knife was fine for hunting but for little else and it desperately needed to be sharpened.

He broke the seal and opened one of the boxes to find that the knives had several useful un-rusted blades including: a blade for cutting branches for firewood, a sharp long blade, and a crude tin opening blade for the cylindrical tins. He attached the knife to the generator belt, using the karabiner provided and continued his search.

The second and third chambers held nothing that Samuel felt that he had an immediate need for, so he noted the contents and moved on. On the plus side, if ever a Sikorsky helicopter was stranded and needed a spare part, then he knew where to start looking for the parts to fix it. His first job in the Navy had been servicing and repairing helicopters but that had been many years ago. In fact it was so long ago that Samuel doubted whether any of the craft that he really knew how to maintain was still capable of flying any more. But it was possible, people tended to hold onto any flying machine that still worked because not many aircraft of any sort were manufactured these days.

What surprised Samuel was that he still seemed to remember what each part was and what its function would be without having open the boxes. Of course some of the parts were unmistakeable from their size. It is very difficult to disguise a rotor blade for instance. He extended his sore damaged hand out before him and found that it crackled with electrical potential every time it came near something metal. This worried him a little.