FIRE IN THE HOLE (2025 *)

"Energize the mains and boot up the secondary drive unit, ASAP." Moss said, as Dahl hauled Lockspur in through the empty windscreen frame. He didn't look her in the eyes. He was ashamed of his earlier performance. 

Dahl looked at Moss standing with his ear against the closed hatch. After coming in, he crept over and pushed it closed, turned to his colleagues and whispered, "We need to access that data and get the hell out of here before anything else shows up." 

"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 take it from here."

"Thanks for caring," she said. "But I'm not leaving. You know, the whole strength in numbers thing."

"Thanks for saving our asses."

"Just returning the favor."

Lockspur removed several small black rollout tool pouches from side pockets on the rucksack, spread them out, and laid the tools out according to size on the counter. Before beginning, he took out a clean white cloth, and removed each tool 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 like a short sword. 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 flipped free, struck the floor with a loud clang that made them all flinch, and slid into a corner. He shrugged.

"A little less noise and a lot more speed, if you please." Moss said, stepping away from the hatch as if it were a beast about to attack him. The memory of Dahl's attack haunted his thoughts. He was sure he heard something on the other side of the hatch, scratching at the steel with monstrous claws. He was no coward. They would complete their mission. But he was no fool, either. This world devoured careless travelers, and he intended to go home.

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 when the first sign of impending doom showed up. A howl of wind blew in through the windscreen. Moss and Dahl looked at each other, both thinking the same thing. Something is out there.

"There's nothing out there," Lockspur said, not looking up from his task. "It's just the wind."

Dahl turned to him, wanting to argue, but realizing the twin suns were their greatest allies. She watched his hands touch each of the wires, thinking there must have been a thousand of them, 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. What made Lockspur feel bad was that he had disrespected Dahl. And that's why she had tried to prove herself. 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 anymore. They were elbow deep in the tangles of wire, differentiating between a rainbow of colors. It was clear he knew what he was looking for. But as his fingers moved, she saw 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 a flow of oozing pus trickled down his wrist. Dahl hoped they'd live long enough so she could tell him how glad she was that he came into her life.

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 with his ear 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 that pleased him. "After all, you guys 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 back into its empty pocket and removed a similar pair, one size smaller. He knelt down, preparing to strip away the protective black and orange sheath covering the main power leads. "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, pulling his ear away from the heavy steel hatch leading into the bowels of the dark wreckage. "We weren't ready-"

"To let go," she finished.

He nodded.

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, thinking his overdeveloped sense of paranoia had just played him for a sucker. But then he pressed his ear against the steel hatch again and heard a woman's voice coming from the other side. That's impossible. This hatch is 3 inches thick, no sound could get through it. Two words forced their way into his mind. Not locked. He grabbed his head in pain and looked down.

"What is it?" Dahl asked.

"I never locked it." He said, turning to his teammates, bug eyed with worry. A sweaty right hand inched its way towards the latch as if it might jump out and bite him. There would be no running away if something burst through now. It would be on them in an instant.

"You forgot to lock it." Lockspur blurted, peering over the console in disbelief. "Don't just stand there, lock the fucking thing."

Dahl nudged him with her knee and scowled down at him, shaking her head. "Dick."

He shrugged.

Moss held his breath, praying he wasn't about to attract any unwanted attention, and twisted the handle clockwise. It screeched and squeaked with every inch the handle rotated. Each of them waited for the sound that would unleash their demise. The complaining latched clunked shut with a satisfying thunk that improved everyone's sense of safety. Moss took a deep, restorative 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."

"Who taught you to talk like that?"

Dahl rolled her eyes at him.

"Well, whoever did it. Tell them I said they're an asshole."

Lockspur popped up from behind the console and said, "You're an asshole."

Moss scowled at him and said, "And you're not?"

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, 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, but the electrical panel had protected the console's interior. "I can't believe this 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 and it's going to be loud. I need to cut the main support strut out and that's buried beneath the main wiring harness. More, if the drive housing bolts are seized. A lot more."

"In a couple hours there could be hundreds of those things 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 at the same time.

"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 found 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.

"Left side port on the engineering console." Lockspur repeated.

"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, "There is someone out there."

"Are you nuts? There's no one there." Dahl said, putting the external interface cable into the open port, and signaling Lockspur to clone the drives. "It's 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, "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 struck the back side of the hatch, leaving an imprint of its head on each side of the hatch. It dwarfed the creature lying in front of the nose cone and was 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 narrow hatch.

As the shaken team stood staring at one another, the raptor knocked again, and a half inch bolt head set into the mounting collar sheared off. It rocketed across the room like a stray bullet ricocheted back and. Moss' earlobe stung as if a giant bee stung him. A mist of blood painted the entry hatch. Moss reached up, touched his half missing ear with a trembling hand as his knees considered buckling. Blood poured down his neck. The three of them froze, caught in the grip of terror.

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

The creature slammed the hatch again, the upper half of the hatch bent inward, and 3 more bolts whizzed across the compartment. Two bolt heads rocketed through the open windscreen. The last bolt went between Lockspur's legs, tore through the tangle of wires and punched through the secondary drive unit, 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, seeing the enormous creature through the wide crack in the bent over hatch.

"Move," Dahl screamed, tearing the drive cable out of the port, leaving the connector hanging over the edge of the console. She stuffed the drive inside her armor vest and raced towards the relative safety of the searing UV rays outside. 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, yanking towards the open windscreen and jumping out. He flailed over the edge, struck the sand hard and rolled towards the carcass outside. He popped up and ran away as fast as his legs would carry him. The sound of the hatch slamming against the main console filled him with dread. It was loose.

Dahl and Lockspur followed Moss through the missing windscreen as both the hatch and main console exploded outward. The bent up hatch missed Lockspur's head by a fraction of an inch and the shattered remains of the twisted console crashed down between them as they landed on a flat-out run, crossing the open terrain between the two vessels.

As the ramp in the distance began closing, Dahl screamed, "What the fuck is happening!" Dahl tossed her rifle to the ground to gain more speed. Lockspur did the same.

"Remote trigger! I rigged it before we came over," Moss blared over the sound of whining hydraulic pistons.

"Remote!" she yelled. "Why?"

"We can't let it follow us up the ramp!"

"If we get there," Lockspur shouted, looking over his shoulder at the beast jamming its enormous head through the open windscreen frame. A bulge formed in the front of the ship, and Lockspur yelled, "It's trapped."

The beast disappeared for a few seconds, only to reappear 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 rippling flesh. It slammed into the ground behind them. Its impact raised a dense cloud of dust and the tremor almost knocked the trio off their feet. The creature 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 over the edge of 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 closed the distance between them to 15 yards when they dove at the closing ramp. They bounced off the rising edge, flipped upside down, and slid out of sight beneath the cargo hold. They fumbled out of the beast's way as it slammed against the now closed ramp. The aft portion of the ship leapt into the air, almost crushing its two targets. It righted itself, jumped back, and slammed the ship again, trying to push it out of the way to get at them. The ship slid five meters, 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 and cranked up his 02 level before he passed out.

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. His forehead dripped blood as every joint in his body struggled to reach the cockpit. He fell into the pilot's seat, having never piloted a ship before, and punched the ignition switch. "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 something and hold on. It's gonna get crazy!"

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, were blinded by sand. The frantic raptor ran in circles, butting whatever it could run into. 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; it filled both Moss and Dahl's eyes with a stinging grit that rendered 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 he was not 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 descending cloud of fading 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 be on 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 and ran 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 falling storm. He jumped down into the unknown with his weapon at the ready, dust filling his eyes, and stumbled away, shouting for his friends. The suns emerged as the dust storm drifted away in a gentle breeze.

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, and he feared the worst. He rounded the aft section, found his teammates laying buried in shallow graves of burning sand. Moving to their sides, he checked their vitals and blared, "Get up!" They had to move; the raptor was close. Too close.

Dahl expelled a lungful of powdered calcium, and Moss moaned a stream of expletives aimed at him. His heart started again. They were still alive. The creature screamed in rage; and 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, Goddammit."

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

"Who taught you how to crash?" Moss asked, spitting a bloody tooth at Lockspur's boot. 

"It's a gift," Lockspur replied.

Dahl scowled at him. "I don't know who gave you that gift, but you should give it back."

Moss held up an arm that pointed off at a grotesque angle, and Lockspur considered grabbing it and yanking him to his feet. But before he decided, the ship shuddered and leaned over, port side landing gear crumpling. The other starboard side gear was still up, but it was twisted beyond retraction. The ship was not going anywhere until the maintenance bots repair the landing gear.

"Thanks," Moss said.

"You're welcome." Lockspur replied, grabbing his vest and hauling Moss to his feet. "We need to get inside before that thing finds us."

Moss clutched his arm in pain. His eyes rolled in different directions, and he leaned to the side as if about to fall over. Lockspur caught him before he went down and hauled him upright. "Hold it together, amigo. You can pass out later."

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 running up behind them.

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. A much larger enemy had the advantage.

The ship groaned and shuddered again. 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 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, checked her injuries, and grimaced. "It's 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 dusty face. The tracks formed in the deep wrinkles of his ancient face. "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.

"I'm sorry." Lockspur said, 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 grasping claws and removed something from his right cargo pocket. The object was OD green and the size of an orange. He wrapped it in the bloody cloth and held it out to let the wafting scent do the rest. The raptor screamed and lunged forward, claws almost knocking the object out of his hand. He reached under the rag, yanked something out of the object, and tossed it to Dahl. As she looked at it in surprise, he lobbed the cloth and its hidden treasure in front of the beast's open maw. The raptor gobbled up the rag and Lockspur grinned and said, "Fire in the hole."

It 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 an overflowing septic tank. The creature collapsed, twitching at his feet. He stepped onto the beast's head, turned back to his comrades, and held out a hand. "Senor and senorita, it's time to get the fuck out of here."

"Who the fuck is this guy?" Moss asked. "Since when are you the hero?" 

Je looked at them through eyes that looked a million years old. "Too tired to be a hero. I'm just trying to get home, and I can't do that without my pilots."

"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 leaned down and lifted Moss onto the carcass. "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, nursing his arm with a heavy dose of morphine.