Sector 4 - Alderson
Jayson Coley
They climbed down the cliff face the next morning to the structure below. It seemed quite a bit larger up close, and they were forced to walk another kilometer around the outside before they found an entrance they could use. It was a loading ramp designed for large vehicles to pass into the dome.
There was a several-thousand-pound reinforced door built for it, but it looked to have been busted open a long time ago; though whether it had been broken by explosives or…something else, they couldn’t tell. Whatever it was, Jayson knew, it had to have been a pretty major event that had broken that metal monstrosity open.
They exchanged glances, but no one spoke up. They all knew there were quite a few large creatures living on this planet, but the idea that one of them had punched through the door was worrisome to say the least.
“After you,” Richard said, gesturing for Jayson to go first.
He shrugged and headed into the building, and the rest quickly followed in after. It took a few moments for his eyesight to adjust to the darkness once they were inside. There were no lights on in the tunnel, or windows to allow any sunlight through.
The initial tunnel they walked into looked like an old underground roadway, sloping downward into darkness. Snow had drifted in through the new opening and covered much of the ground for the first few hundred meters, but after that, it actually grew warmer as they went deeper into the dome. It was eerily empty and grew darker and darker as they went.
They had a flashlight each as part of their equipment, but it did little to break through the heavy darkness of the tunnel. Jayson was only able to shine a beam on the ground and follow it, making sure not to trip.
“Anyone afraid of the dark?” Richard asked as they walked. “I suppose that if you were, it would be too late for that to matter.”
No one responded.
After about ten minutes of walking, they came upon a grouping of old ground vehicles that looked to have been abandoned long ago. One car was smashed into the wall, but the others looked to have been pushed aside the way a toddler might push over a stack of building blocks. Some were lying on their sides, and others rested in awkward positions.
Jayson tried not to think of what might have done that.
The vehicles looked like they were military or scientific, either armored or loaded with some sort of analyzing equipment to monitor the surrounding environment.
“They look old,” Bret said. He moved over to one and, after a few tries, managed to yank the door open. A frozen corpse slid out, hanging limply out of the vehicle. The arm snapped off and fell to the ground.
“Really old,” Richard agreed. “Poor sods died out here all alone.”
“We should check them for supplies,” Jayson said. Richard gave him a funny look, but no one objected.
They moved quickly through the line of cars, finding a lot of small items inside, including flares and more powerful flashlights. They didn’t find any weapons, though, and Jayson was starting to worry that they might really need them.
“What killed them?” Bret asked as they worked.
“No idea,” Jayson said.
They found three more bodies in the wreckage, but none of them had wounds on them of any kind.
“Maybe some kind of chemical warfare,” Tricia offered.
“Exactly right,” a voice called from deeper down the tunnel.
Jayson turned and shone the flashlight, falling into a fighting stance. Standing a little ways farther down the tunnel from them was Alexander Robertson. He was leaning on his cane and wearing an enormous winter coat that covered half of his face. He looked especially old in the tunnel.
“How long have you been standing there?” Richard asked.
“Long enough,” Alexander replied, tapping his cane on the ground. “I’m glad you found the place.”
“It wasn’t exactly hard to find,” Bret replied. “This place is huge.”
“No,” Alexander said. “It is difficult to miss. But, I’m pleased nevertheless.”
“What are we doing here?” Jayson asked. “You said we were supposed to clear this place out, but you still haven’t told us what is here.”
Alexander was silent for a long minute. “Nor should I, because it violates the terms of the wager. But, since I’m not a gambling man, I am here to fill you in partly on what you will face. Do you know what the Fists of the First Citizen are?”
“So this place is related to them?” Richard said.
“Soldiers,” Jayson replied, ignoring him. “The ones who were trained here before the rebellion began.”
Alexander nodded. “Yes, before Darius began his crusade against the Republic. What else have you heard about the Fists?”
“That they were genetically modified,” Richard said. “And that they are eight feet tall, have backup organs, and shoot lasers out of their asses.”
“It’s true,” Alexander said. “Except the last.”
“Genetic engineering is illegal,” Jayson said.
“Yes, it is,” Alexander agreed. “And has been since the founding of the Republic. Nevertheless, this facility was where the Fists were designed. It was never simple engineering either. These are extremes well beyond what human genetic material should be capable of. They were modified with the extreme ranges of all human traits to be superior to everyone who came before.”
“What happened to this place?”
“It was attacked by a group of militants who sought to stop the genetic engineering. Gas attacks and wholesale slaughter. No one survived, militant or otherwise. Everyone was murdered and left for dead, but the Fists program was not closed, but rather moved to the Core worlds where it could be better protected.”
“I knew it,” Richard mumbled quietly.
“What can we expect to find inside?”
“Many creatures,” Alexander said. “But also many resources and weapons. Scavengers have come through in the past, but few make it out alive.”
“So, this is a test? We do this and then our training is complete?”
“If you survive this test, then the four of you will be sent to Sector Two. You will be responsible for creating dissent and leveraging terror against the Republic. Everything hinges on your successful completion of this task.”
“Why Sector Two?”
“The Union doesn’t have the resources or manpower to challenge the Republic directly, and thus we need to leverage their vast resources against them.”
“Force them to waste resources trying to deal with us?” Jayson said.
Alexander nodded. “Yes.”
“And what happens if they catch us?”
Alexander didn’t reply this time. Jayson understood what his silence meant.
“I see,” Jayson said.
“What else came through here,” Tricia interrupted suddenly, still studying the ground vehicles. “No animals we’ve seen could do something like this.”
“No, they couldn’t,” Alexander agreed.
“Something else came through this tunnel,” she said. “There was an attack, but there are no signs of explosions, so what moved these cars? Something large must have come through here.”
Alexander smiled, and tapped his cane on the ground. “Indeed something did,” he said. “You’ll have to clear everything out.”
“You keep saying that we are supposed to clear this place out,” Richard said. “Is it going to be dangerous?”
“Quite,” Alexander said. “Darius intends to reopen the facility and recover the research and supplies. That is all I can tell you, and I must be off before Alyssa realizes anything is amiss.”
“What sort of creatures are in there?” Jayson asked as he left. “The worst of it. Is it something we’ve seen before?”
“No,” Alexander said. “You haven’t seen anything like this before. We know very little about them, except that they are large. We call them Wyrms. They can crush a steel crate in their teeth.”
“How are we supposed to kill them?” Jayson asked.
“Very carefully,” Alexander replied.
“Why not just use an army?” Bret asked.
“We will, should you fail. But if you fail, it means you are dead, so I would recommend not failing.”
“How many are there?”
“More than one,” Alexander replied. “I think. It is impossible to tell. There are other things here as well that you will need to deal with. I wish I could be more specific, but I personally know very little about them. No one I have sent to deal with them made it back.”
“That’s reassuring,” Richard said.
“In any case, this is where I leave you. Once you are finished, fire a flare into the sky and we will come to retrieve you.”
“What about weapons?” Jayson asked.
Alexander shrugged. “Nothing outside is permitted during this test.”
“You’re kidding?”
“You’ll think of something. As I said, this was a military facility where a war took place. There should be plenty of dangerous items for you to use.”
Jayson thought to reply, but Alexander didn’t give him the chance. He tapped his cane on the ground three times, the sound echoing, and smiled at them.
“I wish you all the best of luck,” he said and then strode back the way they had come. He disappeared from their light farther up the tunnel, heading back toward the surface behind them.
They all stood for a long moment, watching him disappear.
2
“Well, crap,” Richard said. “This is going to suck. When they said we were clearing this place out, I thought they meant we would be packing up and moving boxes.”
“We need to have a plan,” Jayson replied, shaking his head at Richard.
“Our plan needs to be to gather up whatever weapons and equipment we can find,” Tricia said. “We should get moving. Our flashlights won’t last forever, and we should find somewhere with better light while it is still daytime up above.”
“We need to locate items we can use to defend ourselves,” Bret said.
“We know this place used to have weapons, which means they must have an armory,” Jayson said.
“Definitely,” Bret replied. “On a planet like this, they would have needed a lot of them, and they would have kept them near their vehicles.”
“Why do you think Darius wants this facility?” Richard asked. “Genetic engineering? Do you think he’s going to start the program back up and build Fists of his own? If he did, I bet that would really piss the Republic off and get this war underway.”
“No idea,” Jayson said.
“And I don’t care,” Bret added. “I’m with Tricia. The sooner I have a gun in my hand, the better I’ll feel.”
“I don’t think a gun will do much against the creatures he was describing,” Richard said.
“It’ll do a hell of a lot more than my fist,” Bret replied. “Let’s split up and search out some weapons and then group back up to start hunting.”
Jayson didn’t like the idea of splitting up, but he decided not to object. So far, they hadn’t come across any threats, and splitting up would make it easier to find and recover equipment.
They moved forward down the tunnel until they found a four way intersection splitting away from their ramp.
“What do you guys think?”
“Impossible to tell,” Bret said. “Just a crapshoot at this point.
“We’ll head east,” Tricia said, pointing down one of the tunnels. “You guys go the opposite direction. Meet back here in an hour whether you find something or not.”
“Got it,” Jayson said. The two groups split apart and headed down their respective tunnels.
Jayson stepped lightly, on his guard now that Alexander had warned them of danger. He crept along with Bret, shining his flashlight down the tunnel in front of them.
Neither man spoke as they moved through the dome. He could feel the weight of the hulking structure over his head. There were overhead lights every few meters, but without any power, they served no purpose. The darkness was oppressive around them, and the air tasted stale this far underground.
After about twenty minutes of walking, they reached an enormous underground garage. It was filled with old vehicles that were abandoned and covered in a layer of permafrost. Industrial elevators dotted the floor at different points.
Throughout the area in various locations, they saw paths carved through the vehicles where cars had been haphazardly knocked out of the way. It was almost like following a deer trail through the forest, and it seemed like these trails were well used.
“Holy hell,” Bret mumbled. “That thing must be huge.”
“Or a lot of them,” Jayson agreed.
“Do you think they stick around or just come here once in a while?”
“Impossible to tell. My guess is, though, that whatever they are, they have taken up residence here.”
They spoke quietly, but their voices seemed to carry forever in the vast, empty chamber. It was eerie with everything so quiet yet designed for near constant use. The light from their flashlights couldn’t even touch the walls of the underground facility as they moved closer to the center of the parking garage.
“I hate this place,” Jayson muttered.
“Me too,” Bret said. “It feels like something is watching us.”
“Yeah.”
“He called them Wyrms,” Bret said. “Like dragons. You don’t think…”
“Dragons aren’t real.”
“I know, but…there are a lot of crazy things on this planet.”
“More likely it is giant snakes.”
Bret was silent for a long moment. “I don’t know if that is any better.”
They walked in silence for another few minutes, looking around at the equipment and vehicles for anything they might be able to use. Most of the vehicles looked scientific in nature and held little of value in dealing with the creatures in this place.
The farther they went, the less confident he was that they would find an armory. Most likely it wasn’t on this level, but he didn’t see any easy access points to one of the levels above. They didn’t have any stairs, only elevators: they clearly never expected for the power to go out.
“What’s that?” Bret asked.
Jayson shone his flashlight over, adding his light to Bret’s and amplifying it on a truck. It was a large off-road behemoth, military grade and covered in metallic plates. It had smashed into one of the pillars a long time ago and looked out of place.
They moved over to examine it more closely and saw that there was a pair of dead bodies inside. The icy weather had preserved them and it looked as though both had died in the crash.
“It is always cold up here,” Bret said, glancing in the front window and moving around the truck. “Never thaws out. I wonder if they picked a cold climate to make it easier to preserve the things they were testing on.”
“Heating must have been a bitch.”
Bret shrugged. “But if something goes wrong, everything gets cold, not hot. Helps with preservation.”
Inside they saw various items in disarray: a medical supply kit that had been smashed, radio and sensor equipment that was broken into pieces, and more unidentifiable wreckage.
Jayson moved around the truck and looked for a way in. The doors were locked and the windows looked to be solid, but the driver’s side window had been cracked in the crash. He found a nearby chunk of the broken pillar and used it to smash open the window.
The sound echoed through the place, causing him to wince by how loud it sounded in the silence.
“Could you be any louder?” Bret asked.
Jayson ignored him. He searched through the truck, checking under the seats and in any crevice. The two dead people, both men, were unarmed and had very few things in their pockets. It looked like they had barely had time to prepare before jumping into the car and trying to drive off.
They didn’t make it too far.
He got lucky when he opened the glove compartment and found a loaded pistol tucked inside, along with a lot of paperwork. It looked like a small-caliber gun, but it was certainly better than nothing.
“Thank the Ministry for small favors,” he mumbled, climbing back out of the vehicle. He unlocked the doors and started moving around toward the other side of the truck, planning to check the back for anything else.
“What?” Bret asked. “Did you find something?”
Jayson turned toward him and started to answer, but the words caught in his throat. Behind Bret, maybe fifteen meters away, a giant slithering creature was gliding across the floor toward them.
It moved silently across the ice, barely making any noise at all, and was completely white and covered in thin and sparse hairs. It appeared to be about three meters long and had a giant gaping maw on the front; that maw was open as it slid toward Bret, showing lines of jagged teeth that were each the size of a short knife blade and very sharp.
“Look out,” Jayson shouted, raising the pistol.
Bret ducked and jumped to the side, clearing his line of sight. Jayson took aim and squeezed the trigger.
The bullet smashed into the side of the worm, slowing it, but it wasn’t enough to stop it. Jayson fired off two more rounds, placing both right into the maw of the creature, snapping teeth on the way in. The bullets ripped through the body, tearing holes through its soft skin.
It slid forward a few more meters, shuddered and let out a sharp squealing sound, and then stopped moving. It slumped to the side, oozing some sort of liquid out of its maw that sizzled when it touched the ice.
3
Jayson stared at it, panting and with adrenaline still coursing through his body. He took a few steps closer to the creature, holding the gun ready and looking around them.
He couldn’t believe how quiet the creature had been moving toward them, and he was worried that another one might be sneaking up on them in the darkness. He checked with his flashlight, looking in all directions, but he couldn’t see anything.
The only sound in the chamber was the breathing of the two men and the sizzling sound coming from the dead body. Something was burning the ice and seemed to be very hot as it spilled out of the creature’s body.
“Damn,” he said.
“Is it dead?”
“I think so.”
“Is that it? Is that what Alexander warned us about?”
“I don’t know.”
“That thing was so quiet.”
“I know. Do you see any more of them?”
Bret shook his head. “No. Just the one.”
“Stay ready,” Jayson said. “No telling what else might be out here.”
“They look like burrowing creatures. Probably live underground.”
“Most likely,” Jayson said, barely paying attention. He was too busy looking out for more of them. He took a few more steps toward the dead body, hoping to examine it and find out what that sizzling noise was.
“Yeah. I mean, that wasn’t actually as bad as I imagined. I was expecting something a lot worse. But if that’s all there is, then this shouldn’t be too bad at all—”
There was a deep rumbling sound and the ground started to shake. Jayson stepped back toward the broken truck, dancing to keep his footing on the slippery ice.
Suddenly there was a massive blasting sound on the far side of the chamber, rocking the ground as though they were at the epicenter of an earthquake. He heard the ground get ripped apart, and sections of it went flying into the ceiling and walls.
It happened about two-hundred meters away from them, but some smaller pieces still thudded into the area around them.
He ducked behind the truck, waiting for the barrage to end, and then stepped out. The ground stopped shaking, but he heard a large thudding sound as something landed on the floor of the chamber some distance away from them.
That was followed by a high-pitched squealing sound, similar to what came from the small Wyrm but significantly louder.
“What the hell was that?” Bret asked, breathless.
They heard a scraping sound as something started moving toward them. They heard vehicles being knocked out of the way as something huge slid across the chamber. Jayson felt his hands start trembling as his mind tried to picture what such a creature might look like.
“I think this was what Alexander was talking about…” Jayson muttered, backpedaling toward the entrance of the chamber.
Bret nodded at him, eyes wide.
“Run!”
