Physics of the Crowbar

Jet Engine

Freeman followed the pipes. He liked the pipes. He could lean on them and they were both faintly warm to the touch. Each corner might hold an enemy, or a wounded colleague, or an armed marine, so he inched his way along with gun up but finger hesitant on the trigger. Eerie silence followed him, aside from the faint gurgle of liquid through the pipes.

The corridor was empty all the way back to the silo, and when he got there he saw why. The bridge was gone. Only the pipes spanned the gap.

He stopped himself from slamming the butt of the hand gun on the pipe. No need to telegraph his position, or that he was now trapped. He mentally scrolled back through his path; the giant fan loomed insurmountable. No, forward only. Forward it was.

Forward across old pipes, over a yawning chasm of cement and sludge, without any chance of cover if he was spotted.

He stepped out, keeping his weight low. The suit was well-balanced but the chest and back plates were heavy with internal equipment and extra plating, and the half-healed gash on his back reminded him of its presence with every step. The throbbing pain was still there; the suit chimed with distress every few minutes, as if afraid he'd forgotten how to feel pain. He tuned it out. It'd be the least of his worries if he fell off the pipe or was spotted by anything.

His shoulders twitched with imagined danger and he resisted the urge to hurry. The pipe groaned underfoot and its tremors spread upward into his knees. He inched forward and crouched low, suppressing his own groans as the position stretched his injury. Something moved in the corner of his vision and he froze. An acid-spitter rummaged over a crate in a service bay a hundred yards away. He raised the handgun and sighted in on the beast, but hesitated. If he missed and it spat back, the acid would eat through suit or pipe or both. One shot. The pipe trembled under him and he stilled his core to counter the movement. Slowly squeezed the trigger. Dropped flat on the pipe and sighted in again.

The alien kicked in its death throes and something volatile exploded next to it, ignited by its corrosive juices. He signed and levered himself up into a three-point crouch and crab-walked the rest of the way across. His back protested standing but he made it function. The pipes had held, which meant the rocket now had both coolant and fuel. One step closer. The clawed, tentacled thing in the pit was nearer a fiery immolation.

Corrugated steel trembled under his boots; the monster's thrashing reverberated through the silo, the screech of its claws on metal and cement loud enough to make him flinch. His head knew the thickness of those walls, that they were built to withstand the force of a rocket liftoff, but his body remembered how the claw had sheered through the suit. He imagined it slicing through the cement with the same ease, and crossed the hall on the far side.

As if an extra three feet of empty air would save him, but still. He forced the human fear back down, recognizing its illogic. And then he saw it again, the three waving tree trunk-thick appendages tipped in carbon black talons. They writhed, searching, between silo levels. Greasy gore still dripped from two claws. He wondered how much of it was his.

His feet didn't want to move. He'd have to turn his back to the thing again. Have to cross its territory. His spine grew cold and he fingered the grenades. Would they be enough? Maybe if he threw all of them, he could kill it in one blast. The waving black talons moved with serpentine ease, their tips leaving curls of shiny steel in their wake. Half-hypnotized, he watched them reach into the furthest corners of the inner silo, scouring its catwalks for the next victim.

One more run. One more drop down a ladder and rolling crash into the next hall. Only way forward.

You are a physicist, he screamed at himself. Legs work. Knees bend. Control the machine that is your body, Freeman. Move.