familiar voice shouting. ‘Mars where are you?’
Mars immediately snapped out of his trance like state and shouted ‘Down here Wolfe,’ through the window. Moments later a few stones and dust fell by the window. Mars turned back as Wolfe appeared around the bend in the stairs. Wolfe was like a man possessed his uniform was dirty and he had grass stains on his knees and elbows. Wolfe stopped at the turn in the stairs as the dust started to settle.
‘MARS, WHAT - THE - HELL - DO - YOU - THINK - YOU’RE - DOING DISAPPEARING LIKE THAT!’ His statement was broken as he caught his breath.
‘I nearly killed myself up there trying to catch you. These steps are dangerous, either one of us could have fallen over the edge of the rock, it is a hell of a way down!’ he stopped to get his breath again and continued. ‘ it is a good job you left a trail to follow, or we would have lost you in the undergrowth.’
Wolfe tossed the boy his uniform top. ‘Here you had better put that back on, it is cold down here.
‘Where everyone else?’
‘Right here!’ Called Capella as she too came skating down the stairway with Halley closely behind her.
It took them a whole ten minutes to calm one another down, after their scramble to keep the group together, which gave Wolfe enough time to consider their options. ‘On the way down here I thought I saw some more caves etched into the sandstone mountains. If there’s a civilisation there, we could ask them to help us. I wonder if we can find our way to them through these doors?’
Whilst Mars had a dressing applied to his ankle, Wolfe looked at the doorway in front of them; there was no buttons or any signage about opening the door. Was locked and secured from the inside? Carefully he positioned himself in front of the sliding doors. He eyed the narrow meeting point in the middle of the metal doors, and looked through it to see if he could see anything out on the other side. He could see nothing, but felt a light draft blow against his face. So he decided he could probably move the doors enough to get everyone through to the other side.
Wolfe flexed his muscles in preparation and planted his feet securely on the floor; his fingertips felt for the break in the two doors and began to apply pressure. At first the doors remained securely closed, but at a second attempt he managed to open a small gap before he lost his grip. Wolfe tried again although his fingers were starting to feel sore and the joints ached. He eventually made advancements encouraging the gap to widen more than before. His face was red and sweat started to trickle off his forehead. With one final push, he managed to get a firm grip with his hands before adjusting his stance. He grimaced and growled out load as he prized the gap wider. Wolfe jammed his foot into the gap and secured his grip on the doors, but he was struggling to force them any wider. Just then over his shoulder he heard rummaging on the staircase. It was Sheriff with a much-needed pair of extra hands, he had been slower than the rest but had managed to catch them up.
‘Hang on,’ Sheriff shouted as he saw Wolfe struggling, he rushed across to his side and both of them wrestled to prize the doors apart, a few seconds later they slid open. They stood back and peered into the dim corridor they had just unlocked, it smelt damp and little creatures scampered around their feet. Sheriff unfazed by the situation took the lead and enter the dark corridor.
‘Hey hang on a minute,’ Wolfe shouted after Sheriff.
‘You do not know what’s in there, you need to be careful,’ but before he could persuade Sheriff to wait he had disappeared.
‘What is wrong with people today, everybody’s in such a rush!’ he said looking back at Mars with annoyance.
‘Is everything OK in there?’ Wolfe shouted.
He waited for Sheriff to acknowledge an all clear but when it did not come, he became very impatient. He gestured to Halley and the two children to move forward into the passageway carved out of rock, and as they walked through the boundary door and entered what appeared to be underground bunkers, the floor became sticky and the air smelt increasingly damp. The further they ventured into the mountain the darker it became, so they all held hands and progressed in a line feeling their way along the passage wall.
‘Where the hells Sheriff!’ Wolfe said as he looked back at Halley's silhouette in the gloom.
From a distance Sheriff shouted, ‘Over here,’ before the corridor illuminated with a terribly weak light. The party could for the first time asses their surroundings and see that in front of them was workshops and a number of space craft wrapped in protective sheets.
‘I managed to find some emergency lighting,’ Sheriff said as he walked through the hangar towards the Magellan’s.
‘But how did you know that was there?’ Wolfe asked as he looked at Halley with astonishment.
‘Just lucky I guess, stumbled across it looking for a way out of that hangar,’ Sheriff replied.
‘Now lets see what’s behind the next door,’ he walked past the Magellan’s down the corridor to another door, this time the door had characters lit on its metal surface. Sheriff raised the palm of his hand to it, and the door opened instantly. Unexpectedly Sheriff was knocked to the floor by a wave of cold fresh mountain water. It raced from its unblocked confinement, and travelled with force slamming Sheriff into Wolfe as it propelled him back along the corridor. The torrent eventually subsided as the water escaped into the valley below, along the passageway and over the outside stairway.
‘Where’s all that water come from!’ Sheriff announced as he helped Wolfe and Halley to their feet. They struggled as the field bags weighed heavy around their necks, Mars and Capella who were on their knees looked up at Sheriff with annoyance.
‘Not to worry, no one hurt,’ Sheriff said in an apologetic tone.
‘Can we expect any more surprises?’ Wolfe tested Sheriff.
‘More than you can probably handle,’ was Sheriff’s cheeky reply.
Mars got to his feet and to his surprise his ankle felt a lot better, must have been the cold water, as the rest of his body also felt numb.
Once the group had dried off a little they made their way to the end of the corridor. They entered a vast core stairwell, which rotated like an apple peel around the bored out chamber. The entire block was flooded, beneath their feet below the waterline the stairwell’s distorted lines appeared to descend till it reached a vivid shining light many levels below.
‘Looks as if we will have to turn back,’ Wolfe said.
From behind them came a serious voice. ‘I’m afraid that will not be possible, the door behind us is jammed shut,’ Sheriff said without any surprise in his voice.
‘Just wait a minute, what the hell is going on here!’ Halley pointed a finger at Sheriff who was now dressed in one of the orange biomedical suits she had picked up from Maverick.
‘There’s only one-way out of here and it is by resolving this flooding. There’s a main exit that will lead us to a secret central compound. All we need to do is unblock the build up of water,’ said Sheriff.
Wolfe and Halley stood silent as they tried to reason with the statement. This gave Sheriff just the time he needed to check his airtight suit before jumping from the stairwell into the clear water holding a large rock.
The Magellan’s looked down at Sheriff as he plunged into the depths below them.
‘The man’s crazy, with this water temperature, he will die from hyperthermia in no time,’ Halley animated using her hands.
‘The air in the Bio-suits will recycle itself for up to six hours, but you are right there are only fifteen to twenty minutes before his body temperature will drop,’ Wolfe replied.
‘This is serious; if this is our only way out. I’d better get down there, and give him a hand otherwise we’re stuck. Give me a suit,’ he gestured to Halley.
Within a couple of minutes Wolfe had the bio-suit on, held onto two pieces of rock and jumped forward into the water. Down he sank much quicker than Sheriff and soon he was lost in the distorted flicker of light that came from below.
Mars looked up at Halley and tried
to reassure her by holding her close. ‘Somehow everything is going to be OK,’ he nodded and tried to believe what he had just said.
They seemed to look down into the clear water for an age. Mars searched the light and the ripples of water to interpret any signs from below, but nothing that far down could be seen. Occasionally little bubbles reached the surface and his eyes would play a trick on his mind, as if he could see Wolfe return.
Halley who paced around the waters edge had constantly kept an eye on her watch, and now she was becoming extremely concerned at the lack of movement below. It had already been fifteen minutes since their descent. She too now peered over the railing in front of her, searching for life in the depths, as time slipped by she sank to her knees and began to sob with anguish.
Mars raced over with Capella to be at her side, and they all held onto one another with a tight grip. He felt so helpless, what could the three of them do now they were trapped like prisoners in a jail. Worse still was the fact that they were sealed into their fate, they would probably all starve to death.
A few minutes passed by as the group became so wrapped up in their grief that they failed to notice the ever-increasing supply of bubbles reaching the surface beside them. Suddenly there was a mass eruption of bubbling water as if it were boiling; the spray soaked the Magellan’s for a second time in quick succession.
Halley stood and