FIRE IN THE HOLE (2025 *)
"On it." Lockspur replied, swinging off his heavy black canvas rucksack and placing it on the primary bridge console. He looked at Dahl, gestured to the ship in the distance, and said, "You need to return to the ship so the auto-doc can deal with that cut before you end up with a scar."
"There's time," Dahl said. "We need to deal with this first."
"We can do this."
"Thanks for caring," she said. "But I'm not leaving. You know, strength in numbers."
"Thanks for saving our asses," he countered.
"Just returning the favor."
Lockspur removed several small black rollout tool pouches from side pockets on the rucksack, opened them up, and laid them out according to size on the counter. Before beginning, he took out a clean white cloth, removed the tools he needed and wiped them clean. Dahl and Moss watched in disbelief as he laid them out, side by side, as if on display. He prized his tools more than any of his possessions.
"Amigo," Moss called out. "Today."
Lockspur dropped to his knees, holding a giant 18" long standard screwdriver. He jammed the wide tip into a large access panel mounted on the main bridge console base. The cover wouldn't budge. He leaned on it with all his might. It popped free, struck the floor with a loud clang that made them all flinch. He shrugged.
"A little more quiet and a lot more speed if you please." Moss said, stepping away from the hatch.
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 felt guilty. Not for teasing Dahl since they arrived, or being protective. Hell, he knew those things would never stop, and he didn't want them to stop. What made Lockspur feel bad was that he had disrespected Dahl. And that's why she had tried to prove herself earlier. And that's why she almost died. If they survived, he was going to tell her he was sorry.
Dahl couldn't see his fingers behind the tangles of wire, let alone differentiate between the rainbow of colors cycling through them. But it was clear he knew what he was looking for. As his fingers moved, she missed the twinges of pain contorting his face. His fingers and hands ached worse by the minute. The bump on his forearm had split open and pus trickled down his wrist. Dahl 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, he just snatched out the right two. Lockspur reached over his head, still looking into the tangle. 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 of 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. "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… weren't ready-"
"To let go," she finished.
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 listening to someone's thoughts than hearing their voice. He grimaced and thought his overdeveloped sense of paranoia had played tricks on him. But he pressed his ear against the steel hatch 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, two words filled his mind, and he looked down. "Shit," he blurted, "I never locked it." He turned to his teammates, sweaty right hand inching towards the latch as if it might bite him. There would be no running away if something came through now. It would be on them in an instant.
"You forgot to lock it." Lockspur blurted, peering over the console in disbelief. "Do it then."
Moss held his breath, praying he wasn't about to attract any unwanted attention, and twisted the handle clockwise. With every creaking inch the handle rotated, each of them waited for the final squeak that would unleash their demise. It clunked shut and Moss took a deep breath. "Closed," he whispered, wiping the sandy sweat from his dripping brow with the back of his jittery hand. He turned to Dahl and said, "See, we all make mistakes."
"Stop kicking yourself in the nuts," Dahl said, gesturing for Lockspur to redouble his efforts. "You may want them for something later."
Lockspur returned to the console and began cutting into the wiring harness with haste. He connected the alligator clips attached to the battery in his rucksack. Sparks jumped from the bare ends of the wires and the console lights pulsed on. A moment later, the secondary drive unit booted up, giving off 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."I can't believe it. It still works," he said, reaching inside the console. He felt around for the drive unit housing. "It'll take at least an hour to remove the secondary drive. It's buried beneath the main wiring harness. More if the housing bolts are seized. A lot more."
"In a couple hours there could be hundreds of them out there?" Moss blurted, instantly regretting the volume of his heated words. "We don't have a few minutes."
"We need to leave now." Dahl insisted, watching Moss press his ear against the hatch for the fifth time in 10 minutes. In her mind, she heard raspy breathing coming from the other side of the paper thin hatch. 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 I brought a matching drive unit to clone this unit's data onto."
"You knew?" Dahl said, sounding amazed, and like he was messing with her.
"I knew I'd need this before we left Sol Luca. Like I said, I know these ships inside and out. But I couldn't tell you where Lilith found this antique. Not that it's old; it looks brand new." He held up the secondary drive unit he brought. "Waylan Yutani discontinued this model 25 years ago. No one carries them anymore. They're impossible to find."
"So are the sour candies, but she can find those," Moss said, with furrowed brows. "I guess it's just one of her unexplainable peculiarities."
"I guess," Lockspur repeated, gesturing for Dahl to take the drive to an adjacent console. She didn't see him; she wasn't paying attention.
"Stop showing off, and move your ass," Moss said, clicking his fingers to draw Dahl's attention. When she looked, he pointed to an access port on a nearby engineer's console and said, "Plug it in over there."
"Where?" Dahl asked, unable to pull her gaze away from Moss.
"Port on the left side engineering console." Lockspur repeated, gesturing at the console.
"Carlos." Dahl blurted, pointing at Moss, who stared back at them with a look that screamed, you won't believe this shit.
"Guys," he began, "I think… there is someone out there."
"Are you nuts? There's no one in there." Dahl said, putting the external interface cable into the open port, and signaling Lockspur to clone the drives. "It's just a raptor."
Moss gripped the latch handle and began to slide it open.
"Don't." Dahl cried.
"I'm sure someone is 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, placing his head against the closed hatch again. "There's a woman out there?" He reeled on them and shouted, "And she's in my head and I can hear her talking to me."
"What's she saying?" Dahl asked.
"I don't know; I can't understand her."
"Open that hatch and we're all dead," Lockspur said. He didn't believe anyone could survive the raptors. "Let's just get the drive and haul ass back to the ship."
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, reassembling his tool kit.
"Finally," Moss said, walking to the console to help secure Lockspur's tools.
Lockspur slapped his hands away and said, "I'll do it myself."
Moss could see the carcass of the dead beast lying on the ground outside and wondered why it had stopped cooking in the UV rays. His furrowed brows relaxed, and he said, "Are we almost done here?"
"Here it is," Dahl said, pulling up the ship's manifest and captain's logs on a small split-screen 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. 10 times larger than the raptor that attacked Dahl. It was enormous. And from the damage its strike left, it didn't look as if it could even get through the hatch. A half inch bolt head set into the mounting collar sheared off and rocketed across the room like a stray bullet ricocheting around the cockpit. Moss' earlobe stung like a bee stung him and a mist of blood spattered the windscreen. He reached up and felt blood trickling down his neck. It was gone. The three of them froze, caught in the grip of terror, as if waiting to see if the creature on the other-side would knock again.
Dahl remembered a story her mother read to her as a child, 'Little pig, little pig, let me in.'
The creature outside knocked again, and 3 more bolts whizzed across the room. Two out went through the open windscreen, the last went between Lockspur's legs, struck the main bridge console. It punched through the secondary drive unit buried beneath the tangle of wires, ending any chance of further downloads.
"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 hope.
"My gear!" Lockspur shouted, trying 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 him with dread.
Dahl and Lockspur followed Moss through the missing windscreen as the hatch exploded outward, rocketing between them like a spinning Frisbee. It missed Moss's head by a fraction of an inch. The two of them landed on a flat-out run, crossing the open terrain between the two vessels as the ramp began closing in the distance.
"What the fuck!" Dahl screamed at Moss, abandoning her rifle to gain more speed.
The hydraulic ramp pistons in the distance whined to life and Moss called out. "Remote trigger! I rigged it before we came over."
"Remote," 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 entire front of the ship bulged. "It's trapped."
The beast disappeared, only to reappear seconds later in a jagged cloud of exploding shrapnel that reduced the front of the ship to a pile of twisted scrap metal. The enormous raptor was 35 feet long and 10 tons of solid flesh. It slammed the ground behind them. The tremor of its impact raising a dense cloud and almost knocking the trio off their feet. It took off, gaining 10 steps to their every one. The chase would not last long.
Lockspur sprinted past his winded compatriots, screaming like a banshee, vaulted the closing ramp and rolled to a stop, gasping for air. Every joint in his body screamed he was too old for this shit. 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 to a stop, slamming 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 into the loose soil. One thing was obvious to them all: the UV rays had little effect on the big ones.
"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 struggled for breath. Just before he passed out, he cranked 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 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 again. He fell into the pilot's seat, having never piloted a ship before, and punched the ignition 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.
Lockspur shouted over an external speaker, "Grab the struts and hold on. It's gonna get rocky!"
His teammates lunged at the nearest landing gear, wrapped themselves around a strut arm, and heard the engines fire up. A sudden sand storm cloaked the team and obscured the beast's senses. Everyone outside, human and beast, was 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 disappeared, the creature had time to play with its food.
The unexpected bone storm had two unwanted side effects. The first was that it gave the creature the will to stay and fight; and second, was that it filled both Moss and Dahl's eyes with a stinging grit, rendering them helpless.
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 didn't consider that was in Zero-G. They were on the surface. The heavy ship lurched upward at a 45-degree angle, choking dust filled the intakes, and both engines stalled. Gravity reached up, yanked the ship down, and the rear port side landing gear buckled. Dahl and Moss landed 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 shut down, the air around the ship was clearing 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. But he knew he had to do something fast. Even if it was wrong. He grabbed the rifle, running out to put himself between the beast and his teammates.
Lockspur kicked 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, dust filling his eyes. He stumbled away, shouting for his friends. The suns 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. He ran around the aft section. Lockspur found his teammates laying face down, buried beneath a shallow grave of dirt. Moving to their sides, he checked their vitals and blared, "Get up!" He screamed, knowing 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. Wherever it was, it wasn't far away. 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. He 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. The other was twisted.
"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 an almost standing position. The ship wasn't the only thing listing to one side. Moss clutched his arm in pain. But remained upright and under his own power.
The ship shuddered and bucked, and the sound of fury filled the surrounding air. The three of them flinched in terror, and 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 could not keep up. Let alone defend himself from a gigantic raptor.
As they rounded the aft port side corner, the trio found themselves in the open with no idea where their enemy was located. A dangerous situation had become worse. Their enemy had the advantage.
The ship groaned and shuddered. They stopped, open-mouthed and wide eyed, in front of the hatch. The creature lay pinned beneath the downed vessel, the emergency panel laying on its back. The entire aft weight of the ship pinned the giant to the ground. It lunged at them, trying to pull itself free of the ship. It 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 took the handgun, doubting he could hit it, let alone hurt it.
"Somebody up there has your back, amigo."
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 inflamed. 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 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.
"Does it hurt?"
"Not bad," she lied.
Lockspur made a point of waving the bloody rag in the air. The call of fresh blood drove the creature mad. He turned to the beast, limped to within 4 feet of the creature's snapping jaws, and removed something from his right cargo pocket. He wrapped whatever it was in the bloody cloth and held it out and let the wafting scent do the rest. Lockspur tossed something to Dahl and lobbed the object filled cloth in front of the beast's open maw. Dahl caught the object, and the raptor gobbled up the rag 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 stank of overflowing septic tank. The creature collapsed at his feet and Lockspur stepped onto the beast's twitching head. He turned back to his comrades and said, "Time to go."
"Who the fuck is this guy?" Moss asked. "Since when are you the hero?"
"Too tired to be a hero." Lockspur said, holding out a hand to help Dahl up. "I'm just trying to get home, and I can't do that without a pilot."
"Stinks, doesn't it?" Dahl said, as Lockspur lifted her onto the creature's head.
"Tastes worse than it smells," he replied, spitting out a blue gob.
"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 to pick it up, Lockspur said, "Leave it. I'll get it later." Lockspur held out his hand and said, "Can we go the fuck home now?"
"I wish."
Dahl slammed her fist on the console, pulled back on the stick and the stuttering ship rose into the orange sky, pinning them in their seats. Lockspur grimaced, and Dahl said, "Every time."
"Not this time," he said. "Not ever 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.