Chapter 33 — Dante

Chapter 33 — Dante

What are humans, really? Are they the apelike pinky-skins that seem to be the bulk of their armed forces, or are humans the small furry animals that seemingly ride in command positions on the pinkies' backs?

Both fight furiously, and both seem to share the same hate and joy for combat.

We came to the conclusion that both are the humans, and their homeworld must be one of the rare cases where two sentient species developed in parallel, or even symbiotically.

The case for symbiosis seems even stronger given that both species share a general tendency toward aggression. Two such violent species could only coexist as symbiotes. Otherwise they would have killed each other off long ago.

— Narfir Memo on Humanity, 10004 P.I.

The elevator was round, with a gray metal bottom, a small metal terminal next to the sliding door, and walls made from glass.

As they stepped in, André wasn't sure what to expect.

He was certain the elevator hadn't decided on its own to pick them up, so he fully expected an ambush at the end of their journey, wherever that was.

Eleri began to unpack the foldable ballistic shield she carried.

"Intel did mess this one up royally."

André didn't answer, but he concurred.

It should be just a small relay station.

As he was about to inspect the buttons next to the door, it slid shut, and the elevator began its journey down.

The outside was dark, only slightly illuminated by the light inside the elevator.

The shaft had seemingly been drilled through the masonry of the temple, and then through the foundation.

His height measurement tool indicated he was already a hundred meters below ground, yet the elevator still accelerated.

"What's up, cat got your tongue?"

Eleri was suddenly in the mood to talk; he knew this was a sign she was nervous.

Stone cold facing half an army, but she got nervous riding an elevator into the dark. Almost cute.

"I'm thinking, nothing here makes sense."

Her laughter surprised her. "You're picking up on that only now? Nothing makes sense indeed. Those guys up there should have wiped us out. Sure was convenient I hit the right ammo box…"

André wasn't talking about that. He was thinking more generally, but she was right.

"You think it's a trap?"

Eleri shifted her weight from one leg to the other. "Bit excessive, don't you think? They didn't need to kill their own man."

She had a point, but what, if anything, would someone gain with those actions?

"Ideas?"

Eleri reloaded her guns, stacking up her magazines and rearranging the reserve magazines on her suit to reach the full ones more easily.

"Yeah, I'll block the door with this bad boy—" She pointed at the ballistic shield. "And fire on everything that looks at me wrong. The shield will stop conventional ammo, and detonate anything high-yield before it hits me."

The lights from outside surprised André. They had entered a lit-up cave. As he looked out, the scale hit him.

The elevator was now gliding in a glass tube. Far beneath them, he could see something moving, until he realized those specks were Humans.

They were already three hundred meters below ground, but the bottom of the cave was still far below.

Large spotlights were mounted on the natural roof of the cave, illuminating everything below. André could make out a container city, a large containment tent, walkways, and something that looked like a fortified command center.

The container city reminded him of military housing quarters. By the size, it was large enough for several hundred personnel, maybe even thousands or more, depending on how densely they were stacked.

Eleri stared stock-still, like André, at the camp below them.

"Fucking underground city. Someone watched too many movies."

FuckItImOut peeked out from his pouch.

"What are you talking…. Oh… I fucking knew it. I should have left you guys behind."

"You guys see that?"

André pointed at the cave's walls, about a kilometer away.

"What do you mean?"

André gave her some time to look; he hadn't seen it himself at first.

Fuckit pulled at André's suit.

"Hey, Gerber, stop ignoring me! Get me to the controls, I wanna turn this thing around."

"You're going nowhere, and I'll stop ignoring you once you start contributing instead of whipping out witty comments."

Eleri sat down on the floor.

"It's artificial, but ancient… where the hell did we end up in here?"

André knew she'd finally seen what he had spotted already.

The cave was almost round, a cavern, the outer wall enclosed by an upward-spiraling path, separated from the cave by columns of stone, like a gallery.

The cave's appearance was natural at first, with stalagmites and stalactites growing, carbon outwashings on the walls giving them the oddly grown feeling of natural caves.

But no cave he knew of had a ramp down.

After his eyes adapted to the dark, he thought he could see something moving up and down the ramp. Was there some other entry to the cave, or other caverns? How large was this system?

Fuckit had now jumped out of his pouch and sat on Gerber's shoulders.

"I swear, I've seen this somewhere… Guys, I have a bad feeling."

Eleri, who had become visibly more irritated, nodded.

"This place, it's wrong. I don't say that easily, but maybe we should turn around. Get reinforcements, or blast the site from orbit, something…."

André thought about it. Hearing Eleri willing to turn around was something he never thought possible.

"Okay, Fuckit, turn that thing around."

The Glider jumped off André's shoulders and somehow managed to grip the control panels on the corners, working the controls with his middle hands.

Meanwhile, André tried again to reach AIN Command. But ever since they entered the elevator, all signals had gone dark. He programmed his and Eleri's suits to instantly upload their data to AIN the second they got a link.

Who knows what state they'll reach the surface in, or if he'll even have time to send an upload when they do.

"Yeah, we're out of luck I guess. The elevator is a simple cabin in an antigrav tube. The panel sends commands to a control unit somewhere, and that unit isn't responding."

Even though he had hoped for better news, André was half expecting Fuckit's findings.

Eleri pointed downward. "Seems the welcome committee is arriving."

André looked down. They were still about a hundred meters above the platform, and some guards were preparing firing positions.

"That's gonna be a mess. You—" André pointed at the Glider. "Take cover and stay out of the way. Whatever happens, avoid contact and try to reach the surface."

"But…"

"No buts. They might not have seen you, or know about you. If anyone has a chance to sneak out, it's you. Understood?"

"Yes."

The Glider seemed less than happy, but André couldn't care about that now.

The roof of the cabin had a rim, where the lights were mounted facing upward. The aesthetic indirect lighting was now the perfect hiding spot for the Glider.

"There. Cut the power to the lights and hide. If the firefight is confusing enough, there might be a chance for you to go unnoticed."

Fuckit hid as ordered, cutting the lights, and the cabin went dark. Uncharacteristically without any witty remarks this time.

The elevator slowed down.

André helped Eleri fix the ballistic nanofabric shield in place when she turned and, for the first time since the transport, opened her visor.

She winked at him and smiled.

"Heroic last stand?"

André shook his head.

"No, I prefer heroic escape."

With a shrug she closed the visor again.

"Yeah, sounds good too."

A bell rang, the elevator stopped, and the doors opened.

Bullets began impacting the shield.

Eleri stood up from cover and synchronously aimed her pistols at different targets. Four shots, four guards fell.

"No ballistic armor. Twenty-two guards left. Fifteen on the left, seven on the right behind a concrete barrier."

Robot Eleri was back.

Just as André was about to stand up and fire, Eleri pushed him down and stood back up again. André heard her fire six times before she ducked back into cover.

"Twelve left, six right."

André pushed her hand away.

"Never push me down again."

She stood up again, three shots.

When she came down, André was fuming. Did she think he was incapable? A child to protect?

"Eleven left, six right. I pushed you down because you have a P180. Nine-mil, medium range, high fire rate. Good against armor or multiple open targets. This is close combat. Use your sidearm."

All he could do was blink. Of course she was right. They had to conserve ammunition… but still.

Getting manhandled by a sixty-kilo girl was still… unpleasant.

The barrier beeped three times. A warning that structural damage was compounding.

The guards focused their fire on the center of the nanofabric, the point where damage compounded the quickest.

"We got two minutes left at best."

André pulled out his sidearm. The .45-cal protomatter-tipped ammo would chew through the concrete barrier in seconds.

Pulling strategic overview data from Eleri's suit, he could prepare himself before standing up, saving a few microseconds he would otherwise waste searching for the target.

André stood up. Aiming at the barrier, he fired five times. The concrete evaporated in large chunks, ablating one defender as the round passed through. As he ducked back down, a stray round scratched his helmet — not penetrating, but his vision blurred slightly.

He didn't even notice that Eleri had left cover to fire.

As she sat down next to him, he was still shaking his head.

He was about to stand up when the nanofabric shield disintegrated.

André stared in disbelief. Even shot to shreds, nanofabric wouldn't just disintegrate into strands of loose carbon nanotubes. You'd need protomatter or sonic field generators.

The guards had set off smoke grenades outside as cover. Something moved out of the smoke, its footsteps echoing inside the massive chamber.

Standing more than three meters tall in among the dead and wounded guards was a Templar in full armor.

André's mind raced. That couldn't be one of their Templars. Then he noticed the differences, mostly the missing insignia, and the suit had no auxiliary machine guns.

Still, it was more than they could handle. Even though his gun might harm the suit, his ammo reserves weren't bottomless.

Covering behind the other side of the doorframe, Eleri was about to say something when the world went dark.

—————

Fuckit hid on the rim. Gerber was down, hit by a jelly bean and two concussion charges. The Human would regret ever being born when he woke up.

Fuckit admired Eleri's stone-cold resolve. Instead of giving in, the woman grabbed Gerber's gun and fired shot after shot at the monster outside.

Sure, Fuckit had seen Templar suits. He had even been in one. Before joining AIN, he had volunteered to be a co-pilot with the Templars.

But never had he been on the receiving end of their wrath.

Fuckit's blood froze when Eleri got hit by the rapid fire from outside. Her suit absorbed most of the initial impacts, but then the fabric failed.

Long dark-red bloodstains spread across her back. The rounds ripped through her. Fuckit wanted to close his eyes, hide, crawl away.

Eleri sank to her knees, blood even seeping from under her helmet. She raised her arm again, trying to fire another shot.

Another volley hit her. The stone-cold operative, the bubbly girl at the after-mission beer, fell back, her body convulsing for a moment.

Then silence.

Gliders don't cry, but Fuckit wished he could right now.

Fuckit had no time to fully grieve.

As soon as the dust had settled, the guards advanced.

From outside his field of view, he heard a voice.

"Get the unconscious one, we need to interrogate him. Oracle needs to know how much AIN knows. And get rid of the dead one."

Something touched his mind. Something… slimy.

'She's not dead yet. The suit is trying its best to heal Eleri. Stay with her.'

Fuckit looked around. Where was the touch coming from? It wasn't another Glider, that much was sure. And it wasn't human; the feeling wasn't the oddly technical feel human and Shraphen implants had.

"Who are you?"

The voice was emotionless.

'Not now. The guards are distracted. Move, now!'

Focusing back on the real world, Fuckit saw the guards throwing Eleri onto an antigrav barge, together with the guards killed in the firefight.

He saw his chance to hide between the bodies. The thought of it made him almost puke.

Fuckit aimed from his hiding spot opposite the door to the barge outside.

Four meters, gliding into the pile of corpses.

He jumped, sailing as fast as possible, his two hearts feeling like they would burst out of his chest and hip.

He hid between Eleri and a guard with a large hole in his chest, blood dripping onto him from somewhere.

The warm bodies, full of blood and gore, pressed in on Fuckit. He was sure he'd have nightmares for the rest of his life.

The flesh wound on the guard's body beneath him made a wet noise every time he moved.

"Serves you right for not following orders."

One of the guards started to look around, another voice shouting over him.

"What are you looking at? Get the bodies away before they start to stink."

The guard searching for something answered conspiratorially.

"I saw something fly. There's something down here."

Fuckit stopped breathing. His heartbeat sounded to him like drumbeats, in his mind loud enough for the guards to hear him.

"There's been nothing down here in this hellhole for billions of years. Didn't you pay attention in the briefing?"

"I tell you, I saw something!"

Then the unseen commander, from farther away.

"You two dreamers, get moving, now!"

Without any further discussion, someone started to move the hovering barge.

His benefactor made himself known again.

'Well done. The ride will take half an hour. You have time to treat your wounded colleague. Use it.'

Fuckit didn't even dare to answer, almost frozen out of fear.

'Good. Keep silent until we meet. I'll monitor your situation. Our continued existence relies on your abilities.'

For some minutes Fuckit didn't dare to move. Then, slowly, he placed his front hand on Eleri's suit, allowing for a whispernet connection.

The unseen voice had been right. Eleri was alive, barely. The blood loss was massive, xenobots substituting for blood.

The suit's medical systems were at their limit. Without a full medstation, she would soon be dead.

Hang in there, Eleri. I'll get you help, even if I have to carry you out myself.

He checked his unigel reserves. Full, of course. With ever so slow movements, he grabbed the container from his belt.

The minimal charge he carried around wouldn't do much, but every little bit would help.

Then he checked the guards for any first aid packs. Nothing. Whoever had sent them hadn't even cared enough to equip them with the most basic gear.

The suit's readouts read like a horror novel. Massive internal damage. Multiple organs pierced, lung collapsed, and the xenobots were at their limit of self-sacrifice.

They were in need of raw resources, otherwise they couldn't help any longer.

High on the list were proteins and iron.

Where the fuck do I get proteins and iron from?

Blood dripped onto his snout again. His fur was already sticky.

A disgusting idea formed in his head.

Could he…

Would they accept…

He opened the suit's medical port. With a cable, one end inside the port, he steered blood from the body above into the medical intake.

The xenobots reacted immediately.

With disgust and relief, he saw the numbers stabilizing. The xenobots digested the dead guard's blood and used it to repair the damage.

If I get out of here, I'll shower for a week, and then drink myself unconscious for at least another week.

The barge stopped.

He had to get off it before the bodies were unloaded.

Peeking out, he saw they weren't inside a morgue, but in a dark corner of the cave.

Noises from above told him the guards were doing something to their dead comrades.

Then some clothes were thrown on the ground.

Are they undressing them?

The guards carried the dead body onto something stinking at the side of the cave.

Fuckit saw the other guard for the first time. Larger, more muscular, against the smaller and fatter guard who had almost caught him.

"Get a hold of yourself."

"Fuck you, that was Mark, and we throw him here for the reclaimer fungus to eat him."

The long one shook his head.

"Stop thinking about it. The eggheads need raw biomass. Mark is biomass now. Period."

The large one was a cruel kind of cold. Fuckit hated him instantly.

"Get the chick."

Fuck…

He had to act, quickly. He could jump into the pile of clothes and pray to whatever god was watching that the guards didn't see him.

'I'll help you. Jump when they turn!'

The mysterious entity, again… how could it help him?

In the main cave, an overhead light exploded. The unknown benefactor must have overloaded it.

Long and Short turned toward the noise.

Fuckit jumped, diving into the clothes on the ground.

The small one shook his head.

"Everything here's shit. Instead of digging, we should focus on maintenance for once."

The long one just shrugged.

Then they turned back to the barge.

Fuckit saw both guards from his hiding spot under the clothes. They began to cut off her suit.

Despair rose inside of Fuckit. Without the suit to guide them, the xenobots would regress to simple mode.

That, more than anything, was now the biggest threat to her life.

The large guard made a long whistling sound.

"Damn, what a waste, look at her."

The small one stepped back, letting go of Eleri's hands.

"Man, you're sick, you're totally sick in your head, you know that, right?"

Never before in his life had Fuckit felt the urge to kill someone. Never before, but now.

The large guard shrugged.

"Whatever."

"You know what, fuck it, I'm out. Unload them yourself, you sick bastard. I'm leaving, and if you follow me, I'll shoot you."

Then the small one left, his gun pointed at the large one as he retreated into the more lit parts of the cavern.

The large one got angry, pointing at the smaller guard.

"Stop acting like a child, you moron."

The smaller flipped the large one off.

"Shut up, you psychopath."

Then he turned and hurried away.

The large guard turned back to the barge.

To Fuckit's shock, Eleri moved slightly in exactly that moment.

"What the…"

The large guard drew his gun, moving over to her, feeling her neck for a pulse.

"You're a hard one to kill, aren't you?"

The guard took a step back, aiming his gun at Eleri's head.

Fuckit had only a fraction of a second to decide.

Jumping out from underneath the clothes with all his power, he pulled his combat knife.

He was, like all Gliders, an exceptionally good jumper. He gripped the knife with all four of his front and middle hands, aiming it down like a spear.

Fuckit's rage receded as the knife cut between the guard's vertebrae, severing the spine, making sickening noises as it cut through flesh and nerves.

The guard fell like a tree, making stomach-turning sounds as he died, eyes wide open, staring into Fuckit's face, as Fuckit finally couldn't hold it back and puked.