FIRE IN THE HOLE (Revised 11/28/23)

"Energize the mains and boot up the secondary drive unit, ASAP." Moss said, as Dahl hauled Lockspur in through the massive hole where the windscreen had been a short while earlier. She looked at Moss standing with his ear against the closed hatch. He had crept over to the open hatch and gently pushed it closed after climbing in. "We need to access that data and get the hell out of here before anything else shows up." he said, in a voice barely above a whisper.

"On it." Lockspur replied, swinging off his heavy black canvas rucksack and placing it neatly on the primary bridge console. He looked at Dahl and said, "You need to return to the ship so the auto-doc can deal with cut before you end up with a scar."

"There's still time," Dahl said. "We need to deal with this first."

"We can do this."

"Thanks for caring." she said.

"And thanks for saving our asses," he countered.

"Just returning the favor. You did save my ass."

Lockspur removed several small black rollout tool pouches from side pockets on the sack. Opened them up, methodically organized them on the counter and took a quick inventory. The tool layout contained a myriad of highly specialized tools. He laid them out side by side, as if on display. He prized his tools more than any if his possessions. 

Lockspur dropped to his knees, holding a giant 18" long standard screwdriver. He jammed the wide tip a large access panel mounted in the main bridge's console base. It came wouldnt budge. He leaned on it with all his might and it popped free and struck the floor with a loud clang that made them all start. He grimaced and shrugged apologetically.

"A little more quiet and a lot more speed if you please." Moss said.

Lockspur was already wrist deep in a network of bus cables looking as if he were kneading an overfilled bowl of multi-colored spaghetti noodles. Dahl thought there must have been a thousand, and they all looked the same to her.

Lockspur was feeling guilty. Not for teasing Dahl since they arrived, or being overly protective. Hell, he knew those things would never stop, and to be truthful, he didn't want them to. What was making Lockspur feel that way was because he hadn't respected Dahl. And that's why she had tried to prove herself to them earlier. And that's why she almost died. If they survived, he was going to tell her he was sorry.

She couldn't see his fingers behind the tangles, let alone differentiate the rainbow of colored wires cycling frantically through his fingers. But she understood he knew exactly what he was looking for. As his fingers moved, she missed the twinges of pain contorting his face. She knew he was good and hoped they'd live long enough so she could tell him that someday.

She watched in transfixed amazement as Lockspur came out with the right two leads. Damn, there's a rat's nest of wires in there and he just snatched out the right two. Lockspur reached over his head, still looking into the tangle. Presumably for a third wire.. But that wasn't the case. He didn't want her to see his shame. So, he made himself busy. The searching hand atop the console moved with a mind of its own. It felt its way around the well cared for tools like a spider inspecting the silk strands suspending its sticky web.

"Why the sudden bravery?" Lockspur asked, as if he didn't already know the answer. He was terrified Dahl still thought she needed to prove herself to them. "You don't need to prove anything to either of us." he said, gesturing at Moss leaning against the hatch.

"Just being a team player." Dahl answered, handing Lockspur one of the four wire strippers in a pouch just outside his reach. It wasn't the right one. But she had made a good guess and tried to help, and that pleased him. It pleased him greatly. "After all, you saved me."

"And we always will." Lockspur said, standing up and rolling out the long black tool kit she had plucked the wire stripper from. The tools inside were so delicate, Dahl thought they must have belonged in a surgeon's kit.

"I was wrong to be pissed at you earlier." Lockspur said. "I got scared and shouldn't have treated you like a kid."

"No," Dahl said. "But if we're feeling the need for honesty. Then I was reckless, too. So… maybe we can start over."

Lockspur slid the wire strippers she gave him back in its empty pocket and removed a similar pair, one size smaller. He knelt down, preparing to strip away the protective black sheath covering the main power leads, and said, "I was wrong, too. We shouldn't have forced you to stay on the ship. You were ready even back then. Your skills are topnotch." He separated the multi-color strands and set the exposed ends off to the side.

"Yeah," Moss added, pressing his ear against the heavy steel hatch leading into the bowels of the dark wreckage. "We just..."

"I get it." she said. "You weren't ready to let go."

A faint sound came through the hatch. It could have been a weird growl, or maybe a strange voice. But Moss couldn't be certain. It was more like he was listening to someone's thoughts. Moss grimaced and thought his overdeveloped sense of paranoia had played tricks on him. But wait, he thought as he pressed his ear against the steel hatch harder. There it is again. He was sure he heard a woman's voice coming from the other side. But that's impossible. This hatch is 3 inches thick. Still, impossible or not, he heard it clearly; the voice even sounded familiar. Although he couldn't understand the strange language. His mind searched for a word to describe it, and came back with forbidden. Yeah., that's it, forbidden. "Shit," he blurted, looking down at the still unlocked handle. He turned to his teammates, sweaty right hand inching towards the latch as if it might bite him. "I forgot to lock it."

Great, Dahl thought, aware of what could burst through the hatch at any moment. And this time, there would be no running away. It would be on them in an instant.

"You forgot to lock the hatch when you closed it." Lockspur said, peering over the console at Moss.

"Oops." Moss said, taking the handle. He held his breath, praying he wasn't about to attract any unwanted attention and twisted the handle. With every creaking inch the handle rotated closed, each of them waited for the final squeak that would unleash their demise. It clunked shut, and Moss whispered, "Closed." He wiped the sandy sweat from his dripping brow with the back of his jittery hand. "See," he said, turning to Dahl. "We all make mistakes."

"Stop kicking yourself in the balls Boss," Dahl said, gesturing for Lockspur to redouble his efforts. "You may want to use them for something else later."

Lockspur grinned at Moss turned back to the console and began cutting into the wiring harness with haste. He connected the alligator clips attached to the battery in his rucksack to the bare ends of the wires. The console lights flashed on, the drive secondary drive unit booted-up and a faint hum emanated from the long dormant electronics. Shit, he thought, I can't believe this old junk still works. The relentless heat and grating sand eroded everything, and the rest of the ship already looked as if it had been through a meat grinder. The unprotected bridge had fared no better."Still works," he thought out loud. Reaching inside the console, he felt around for the drive unit housing. "It'll take at least an hour to remove the primary drive. Maybe more if the housing bolts seized up, it could take a lot more."

"In a couple hours there could be hundreds of them out there?" Moss blurted, instantly regretting the volume of his overly heated words. "We don't have a few minutes."

"We need to leave, now." Dahl insisted, watching Moss anxiously press his ear against the hatch again. In her mind, she could hear a raspy breathing coming from the other side of the paper thin hatch. But Moss didn't say he heard anything. She hoped nothing was there.

Lockspur stood up, removed a spare secondary drive unit from the bag on the console, and said with a triumphant grin. "Then, I guess it's fortunate for all that I brought a matching drive to clone this drive's data."

"You knew?" Dahl said, sounding half in amazement and half as if he were just being a smartass.

"Like I said, I know these ships inside and out, Chica." He gestured for her to take the drive and go to an adjacent console. 

"Move it." Moss said, his expression and clicking fingers catching Dahl's attention. "And stop calling her girl."

"Sorry, term of endearment. " Lockspur said quietly, pointing to an access port on a nearby engineer's console. "Plug it in there."

"Where?" she said, staring at Moss

"Port on the left side of the console."

"Carlos." Dahl blurted, pointing at Moss, who stared back at them with an expression of you won't believe this.

"Guys," he began, "I think… there is someone out there. "Are you nuts?" Dahl blurted. "There's No one's out there." She put the external interface cable into the open port and signaled Lockspur to start cloning the drives. "It's just a raptor."

Moss gripped the latch handle and began to slide it open. "Don't." Dahl cried out.

"I'm sure there's someone out there." Moss said, releasing the handle. "I heard a woman's voice."

"No one could survive with those things in there." Lockspur said, knowing there was indeed someone here waiting for them.

"I know what I heard." Moss countered angrily, placing his head against the closed hatch again."There's a woman out there?"

"Open that hatch and were dead," Lockspur said. "So, ket's just get the data and haul ass out of here."

For the next few minutes, the only sounds other than their own racing hearts, was that of the whirring drive motor. The stressful download finished with a faint ding that sounded like a cannon report, signalling the data transfer was complete. "Let's go." Lockspur said, r starting to methodically reassemble his tool kit.

"Finally," Moss said, walking to the console to help secure Lockspur's tools. Lockspur slapped his hands away and said, "Ill do it myself."

Moss could see the carcass of the dead beast lying on the ground outside. His furrowed brows relaxed, and he said, "Finally some good news for a change."

"Here it is," Dahl said, pulling up the ship's manifest and captain's logs on a small monitor set into the main console. She wanted to take a few moments to look it over.

"Later." Moss whispered. "We should get back to the ship."

Something huge slammed the back side of the hatch, leaving an imprint of its head 3 feet on each side of the hatch. It dwarfed the creature lying in front of the nose cone. Whatever was in there was enormous. And from the damage its strike left, it didnt look as if it could even get through the large It hit the door again and a half inch grade 8 bolt head in the mounting collar sheared off and rocketed across the room like a stray bullet ricocheting around the cockpit. Moss' earlobe stung like a bee bit him. He reached up and felt blood trickling down his neck and shoulder. It was gone. The three of them froze, caught in the grip of terror, as if waiting to see if the creature outside would knock again.

Dahl remembered a story her mother read to her as a child, 'Little pig, little pig, let me in.'

The creaute outside knocked againn and 3 more bolts whizzed passed Lockspur.

"We are leaving." Moss shouted, pointing through the open windscreen at the lowered ramp in the distance.

"It won't hold." Lockspur yelled.

"Move." Dahl screamed, tearing the drive cable out of the port and stuffing the drive inside her armor. She raced towards the relative safety of open ground and searing UV rays. It was their only chance.

"My gear!" Lockspur said, trying desperately to collect his tools as Moss knocked the rucksack on the floor without a care.

"I'll buy you new ones!" Moss shouted, jumping out the open windscreen and falling towards the carcass outside. He landed hard, rolled in a ball and popped up, running away as fast as his legs would carry him. The sound of something slamming the hatch filled them with dread.

Dahl and Lockspur followed Moss through the missing windscreen hole as the door exploded outward, sending the hatch rocketing between them like a spinning Frisbee. It missed Moss's head by a fraction of an inc h. The three of them landed on a flat-out run, crossing the open terrain between the two vessels as the ramp began closing slowly in the near distance.

"What the fuck!" Dahl screamed at Moss, and abandoning her rifle to gain more speed.

The hydraulic ramp pistons in the distance wined loudly and Moss called out."Remote trigger! I rigged it before we came over."

 "Remote switch," she blared in utter disbelief. "Why?"

"We can't let it follow us up the ramp when we get there!"

"If we get there." Lockspur shouted, looking over his shoulder at the beast jamming its enormous head through the open windscreen frame. The whole front of the ship was bulging. "It's trapped."

The beast disappeared, only to reappear seconds later in an explosion of jagged shrapnel that reduced the front of the ship to a pile of twisted scrap metal. The enormous raptor was 35 feet long and nearly 10 tons of solid flesh. It slammed the ground behind them. The tremor of its impact almost knocked the trio off their feet. The beast took off, gaining 5 steps to their every one.

Lockspur sprinted past his winded compatriots, screaming like a banshee, vaulted the closing ramp and rolled to a stop. He jumped up, shouting for Moss and Dahl to run faster. But the thin 02 had slowed them to a fast trot. The beast was 15 yards behind Dahl and Moss as they dove at the ramp, bounced off the rising edge, and slid out of sight beneath the cargo hold. They fumbled out of the beast's way as it skidded towards them, slamming clumsily against the now closed ramp. It righted itself, leapt back and slammed the ship again, trying to get at them. The ship slid five feet, landing struts digging I to the loose soil.

"Fucking great." Lockspur screamed, holding his aching chest where he bounced off the closing ramp. He was certain he had broken a half dozen ribs and the large welt crossing his ribcage squeezed his air off. He could barely breathe. Just before he passed out, he managed to crank up his 02 level.

Dahl had caught the edge of the ramp mid-face. Blood exploded out of her mouth, leaving her gagging and gasping for air like a beached carp. The deep cut on her face opened up again, and the creature, smelling the fresh blood, went into a feeding frenzy. Both Dahl and Moss were defenseless, winded, and in serious trouble.

The ship lurched hard to the side as the giant creature butted the closed ramp at full speed. The unexpected collision threw Lockspur against the port-side hull and stars filled his eyes He lay on the floor trying to right himself as the leviathan tossed the ship around like it was a child's plaything. Lockspur pulled himself to his feet, stumbled towards the cockpit, forehead dripping blood, and every joint in his body screaming in pain. Lockspur fell into the pilot's seat, having never piloted a ship, let alone started one and looked around for the on switch. He knew everything about the ship's internal systems, but little about how the controls functioned. "This is stupid," he thought aloud. But he had to try something. His friends' lives depended on a quick response. If he had been thinking straight, he would have known it was the wrong response.

Opening the comms, he shouted over an external speaker, "Grab hold of the struts and hold on. It's gonna get rocky!"

His teammates lunged at the nearest landing gear, wrapped themselves tightly around a strut arm and heard the engines fired up. A sudden sand storm cloaked the team and obscured the beast's senses. Everyone outside, human and beasr, were blind. The frantic animal ran in circles, butting whatever it could run in to. It was hungry and trying to locate its tasty prey. It was ravenous, and now that the harmful UV rays had gone out. The pain had gone, giving the creature time to play with its food.

The unexpected bone storm had two unwanted side effects. The first was that it gave the weakening creature the will to stay and fight.; and second, was that it filled both Moss and Dahl's with a stinging grit. They were utterly helpless and lost.

Lockspur jerked back on the stick, mimicking what Dahl had done to him a dozen times before. But in his race to save his friends, he didnt consider that was in zero - G. They were on the surface. The heavy ship lurched upward at a 45-degree angle. A choking dust storm filled the intakes. Both engines stalled. Gravity reached up, yanked the ship down, buckling the rear port side landing gear. Dahl and Moss landed nearly 30 feet away enveloped in a cloud of thickening dust that almost buried them alive. They lay disoriented, dazed and out in the open. And now that the engines had stalled, the last grains of sand were falling through the hourglass and when that happened, the beast would have them.

"Shit." Lockspur screamed, jumping off the floor and grabbing a stray weapon that had flown free from a weapons rack in the adjacent compartment. He didn't even know if Moss had loaded it earlier. But he knew he had to do something fast. Even if it was wrong. So, he grabbed the rifle and ran out to put himself between the beast and his teammates.not knowing if the weapon was loaded.

Lockspur kicked wildly at the first emergency hatch he came to, driving the latch handle downward as the panel toppled outward into the descending storm. He jumped down into the unknown with his weapon at the ready and dust filled his eyes. He stumbled away, shouting for his friends. The two suns slowly emerged as the dust storm drifted downward.

Silence fueled the growing terror in Lockspur's aching guts. It drew him around the ship, wild-eyed and screaming for his teammates. His hip screamed; his hands had swollen to an almost unusable state. He feared the worst. Rounding the aft section, Lockspur found them laying face down, buried beneath a shallow grave of dirt. Moving to their sides, he checked their vitals and blared, "Get up!" He knew they were hurt. Maybe seriously, but they had to move.

Dahl expelled a lungful of powdered calcium, and Moss moaned. They were still alive. The creature screamed in rage; the ship shuddered and quaked. It wasnt far away, and it was pissed. Lockspur sprang to his feet, weapon on his shoulder, but nothing emerged from the settling dust.

"Get up?" he shouted a second time, kicking Dahl's leg. "Now."

She sat up, rubbing her sand encrusted face. Blood trickled down her neck, and she raised a trembling hand. L grabbed it and hauled her to her feet. "Come on. We have to go."

"Who taught you how to crash?" Moss said, holding an arm that pointed off at a grotesque angle. He looked at the leaning ship through glazed eyes. One of the landing gear had collapsed.

"You're welcome." Lockspur said, holding out a hand. "Now get up. We need to get inside. This thing is still out here somewhere."

Moss sat up, spit a bloody tooth at Lockspur's boot, and let Lockspur lift him to almost standing position. The ship wasn't the only listing to one side. Moss held his arm in pain. But he remained up right under his own power.

The ship shuddered violently, the sound of fury filled the surrounding air and the three of them fliched in terror. Lockspur jerked Dahl in the direction he came from, trying to get back to the open emergency panel before the creature found them. Moss stumbled behind them, trying to get his sidearm out with a hand that no longer worked. He barely had the energy to keep up. Let alone, defend himself.

As they rounded the aft portside corner, the trio found themselves in the open with no idea where their enemy was located. A dangerous situation had suddenly become worse. There was no longer anywhere to hide beneath the ship. It was half on the ground. It was the raptor or them and their enemy had the advantage.

The ship groaned and shuddered. They stopped, open-mouthed and wide eyed. The creature lay pinned beneath the downed vessel, emergency panel laying on its back. The entire aft weight of the ship pinned the giant raptor to the ground. It lunged at them wildly, trying to pull itself free. And almost did twice. Dahl pointed at the crushed landing gear, punched Lockspur in the shoulder, sending him backwards and said, "You broke the ship."

"You came out there?" Moss asked, trying to take aim at the creature's head. His side arm trembled in his weak hand. Lockspur doubted he could hit it, let alone hurt it.

"Somebody up there has your back." Moss said, lowering his weapon before he could piss it off.

Lockspur pulled Dahl around to face him. He checked her injuries and grimaced. "Its gonna scar." he said. The deep laceration on her face was filthy and enflamed. He thought the deep injury was beyond the auto-docs ability to keep it from scarring. He removed a rag from his back pocket and carefully wiped the blood off her face. She didn't notice the salty tears running down his face . The tracks formed in the deep wrinkles.. "Hold still. I got this." he said, trying not to hurt her.

"And here I thought you didn't care." Dahl said, standing still like a child being groomed by a caring parent. He smiled weakly.

"Does it hurt?"

"Not bad," she lied.

Lockspur made a point of waving the bloody rag in the air. The snell of fresh blood drove the creature mad. He turned to the beast and limped up to within 4 feet of the creature's snapping jaws. He removed something from his right cargo pocket, wrapped it in the bloody cloth and held it out, scent wafting through the air. He let mother nature do the rest. He pulled something, tossed it to Dahl and lobbed the cloth into the beast's open maw. Dahl caught the tint pin, and Lockspur said, "Fire in the hole."

The raptor gulped hard and a few seconds later, a shower of guts exploded out of the creature's mouth, covering Lockspur in a sticky blue goo that smelled like an overflowing septic tank. The creature fell dead at his feet. Lockspur stepped up on the beast's twitching head, turned back to his comrades and said, "Time to leave."

"Who the fuck is he?" Moss asked Dahl. He turned to Lockspur and asked, "Since when are you the hero?" 

"Too old, too tired to be a hero." Lockspur said, holding out a hand to help her up.

"Doesn't smell good, does it?" Dahl said, as Lockspur lifted her onto the creature's head.

"Tastes worse than it smells," he replied, spitting out a blue gob with a weak smile.

"You're telling me," she said with a wrinkled grimace.

Moss stepped up to the creature's head, looked up at Lockspur, tried to shift his weapon into his other hand and dropped it. As he bent feebly to pick it up, Lockspur said, "Leave it. I'll get it later." Lockspur held out his hand and said, "Come on, squirt." Lockspur lifted him up. "Can we gothe fuck home now."

"Don't I wish."

Dahl slammed her fist on the console, pulled back on the stick and the stuttering ship rose clumsily into the orange sky, pinning them in their seats. Lockspur grimaced, and Dahk said, "Really. Every time."

"Not this time," he said. "Not eever again."

Dahl let off on the stick. The ship slowed, releasing their stomachs, and she turned to her teammates and said, "I wouldn't want to do this with anybody else."

"You may change your mind about that before this is over." Moss said.