forward planning.”
“Especially as I am detecting seismic activity; and from the direction I believe the Drakken has just sealed emergency access D-four. We should wait until they have done E-three, by then they should be far enough distant not locate us easily.”
The minutes ticked slowly by and as Nicholas’s tension eased his mind went back to the keep again. “Can you listen into the messages between the Drakken and Quone?”
“Yes, but all the communications are in a secret cipher.”
Again they were quiet.
“Seismic activity in the location of E-one.” A few minutes later Isla spoke again. “Seismic activity in the location of E-two: we should move now.”
Nicholas nodded in acceptance
They traveled along a series on tunnels of decreasing size until they came to a large door. “Nicholas there are no controls that I can operate. You will have to open it for us.”
“What do I do?”
“The capstan on the door must be turned to unlock it. It will be too heavy for you to pull open, but I should be able to tractor it, once it is unlocked.”
Nicholas stepped down onto the tunnel floor. He looked back the way they had come. Only the area in front of Basilisk was lit, behind the light faded until back down the tunnel it was pitch black. He had a strange nervous feeling. He was far beneath the ground, in a maze of tunnels he was totally unfamiliar with; and somewhere ahead was a vast amount of water. He pushed the thought that this was probably the scariest place he had ever been; out of his mind, and went to the capstan. The bars felt icy cold as he gripped them. He could feel the dampness as the heat of his hands condensed moisture out of the air. He began to turn; surprisingly it turned without a great amount of effort, and after little more than two complete turns, he felt a hard thunk as the capstan stopped. “What happens to the water when we open the other end?” he called out, his voice calling back to him over and over as it echoed into the darkness.
“It will flood all the lower levels of the tunnel system.”
Nicholas stood still.
Isla waited a few moments. “Nicholas?”
It seemed illogical but he said it anyway. “I will wait and close it.”
There was nothing to indicate Isla had locked on a tractor beam, but with a straining noise the door began to move. Immediately water flowed out, and for a second Nicholas imagined a torrent flooding though, but after the first surge swept up to and past his knees, the flow eased. Basilisk moved through, and Nicholas quickly, followed
Up ahead, beyond the pool of light from the spacecraft, was utter blackness, though from what he could see, he was surprised that the tunnel was less symmetrical. There was no smooth lining, just the gouged rock where some ancient machine had carved its way through. The walls glistened, with moisture, and water dripped from overhead, to collect and run along the invert, in a slow stream. He hadn’t noticed water in the other tunnels, but there was little time to wonder where this particular water went, as with a solid noise the door shut. Nicholas quickly spun the capstan and quickly went back to the welcoming interior of Basilisk. They were already picking up speed as he again sat in the command chair.
“You don’t intend to close the outer door too?”
Nicholas was sure there was more than a question to Isla’s voice.
“No.”
“Good, because we may have to completely remove it.”
“Remove it?”
“Beyond is the lake; I would not recommend going outside to manually open it.”
“No, probably not a good idea… then how are we going to remove it?”
“Plan D?”
Nicholas smiled. “And that is?”
Nicholas saw several of the controls in front of him change colour, and from below the craft streaked a glowing ball of flame. “Particle discharge,” said Isla, as the shimmering projectile set out the path for them to follow, until its fiery glow disappeared into the distance. “Impact in three, two….”
There was a brilliant flash up ahead; then everything went dark.
“Shortly there will be a pressure wave.”
It wasn’t long in coming as the shock of the explosion was channeled down the tunnel and into Basilisk. Nicholas held on tightly as the spacecraft shuddered and swayed with the force of the impacted. I didn’t last long, and as the vibration eased the Basilisk began to rapidly accelerate.
Nicholas could see nothing other than the now blurring rock. Then as he strained his eyes the tunnel seemed to move. It only took moments before he realized the tunnel wasn’t moving, but the wall of water filling and pouring down towards them was.
Another shudder and Basilisk noticeably slowed. The impressions flashing through Nicholas’s mind were surreal, as if he was in the middle of a whirlpool with tree stumps, rock and things that defied recognition sliding over and about the still transparent canopy. Silt and sand ensured that visibility was measured in single figures, so it was with some relief that the swirling movement gradually eased: but he had no chance to relax, for with equal swiftness they emerged out of the tunnel: into the inland sea, and shot up into the air like a cork out of a shaken bottle.
“The Drakken does not register on my sensors,” said Isla passing off the experience as if it was an everyday occurrence.
“That’s good.” Nicholas said with a sigh of relief. “Then we must find them before they find us.”
“It will not be easy to do without being detected. The rugged terrain will hide us both until the last moment; maybe the advantage would be in concealing and waiting?”
“No, for the moment they think we are trapped. What they won’t expect is a full on confrontation.”
“My recollection is that, that was something we were trying to avoid?”
“I used to play a game called chess.” began Nicholas
“This is this going to be an analogy?”
Nicholas sighed deeply but carried on. “The game of chess.” He said deliberately. “Is played with set strategies, and if you play with someone a few times you know what to expect. What I would do occasionally was to throw my strategies out of the window and play a suicide game. A lot of people couldn’t cope with that play; they were so conditioned to playing the game that they forgot the purpose was to checkmate your opponent.”
“So we are now playing suicide?”
“I prefer to think that we are about to change the game. Our strategy is that we can still cloak and the Drakken can’t.”
“That was only a; I don’t think they can cloak.” Insisted Isla.
“Good enough, minimal power, take a wide flanking curve to bring us from the south and we begin to prowl.”
They had traveled a considerable distance back over the mountains. Nicholas searching visually, while Isla used every sensor to probe ahead: but there was no trace of the saucer. “Is there chance that they could have returned to Quone?” Nicholas pondered out loud.
“If they truly believed we had perished in the tunnel.”
“Would you or Reigel have assumed that?”
There was no hesitation. “No. There is no evidence or proof, so why should we assume that?”
“Logic does not take account of human slyness.”
“Possibly but neither does logic suffer from pride and underestimating the enemy.”
“No," agreed Nicholas. “All we can be sure of is that they could still be here; or gone?”
“Certainly one or the other."
“You know Isla you think more like a human than many I know d….”
“We have company.” Immediately they came a halt and sank down below the level of the tree canopy. “The Drakken is emerging from a cleft in the mountain some thirty klick ahead.”
“Do you think they saw us?”
“No: if they had they would be coming this way.”
“What are they doing?”
“It looks like they are making a thorough search for any other entrances.”
“Go
od: so all eyes; and weapons, will be on the cliff face.”
“After being shot at already it’s doubtful they wouldn’t leave the open side without some scan in operation.”
“How close would we get before they could bring their weapons to bear on us?”
“For me to accelerate at tree level I could get maybe eight klick, but as we got close their weapons would be re aimed at point blank range.”
“And if we waited?”
“They would probably be aware of us on their sensors at about the same distance.”
“So we run in hit them hard; but maybe not get away?”
“That about sums it up.”
“How far away can we fire at them?”
“A cruise missile will cover the eight klick only slightly slower than we will.”
“And we’ll have a head start?”
“If I went in on a curve that would lead us into the atmosphere, and I can go into maximum drive. The trajectory would take a second or two extra to lock onto, but we would be open to fire until we left the planet.”
Nicholas lay back in the command chair. “As options go, hitting hard and slight chance of getting away is not that bad.”
“Why have you not found him,” snapped the Marshal.
“Calm down,” said KarrLec curtly. “If we haven’t found him, there is high probability that he’s buried under the mountain.”
“I’ve written him off too many times to believe that until I see his corpse.” There was a crackle of shorting electronics followed by the smell of burning. “Damn him,” the Marshal swore, hearing it and looking towards where a crewman was enveloped in dust or smoke. “I will make his cronies pay for this interference when I get back