Underground hangar, the Arena, Prasinos system
Andy lifted the mini-me off the deck of the underground hangar and after checking no more bits had fallen off, he signalled he was ready. The spotter up at the hatch gave a nod that everything was clear up top and the big hangar door opened slowly.
He could see the others in the hangar covering their ears as he lifted the fighter back out into the central atrium. A huge flash off to his left had him blinking for a moment. He quickly banked right as flames soared up a hundred metres off the ground as the diversion went off as promised.
Andy wasn’t about to hang around and watch though, as his first job was to disable the jump drive. He didn’t have use of his ship’s array, so once he’d selected the correct support pillar, he scanned with his DOVI to detect the electronic equipment as he climbed ever higher.
It didn’t take too long either, as Quaid had told him to put the tallest building in the main city directly behind him as he climbed the two hundred metre-diameter column. As he’d been told, it was over a kilometre up and as you wouldn’t be able to see it from the ground, up here the slight discolouration of the different stone density made the old doorway quite obvious.
Andy didn’t waste any time, he backed away about fifty metres and gave the area a short burst with the laser cannons. The thin outer stone layer ripped apart quickly and with a second burst from the cannons he found he had to back away even more as fire and lumps of hot metal erupted from the jagged hole. He considered sticking a missile in for good measure, but realised the Arenians would have to repair this damage at some point, so he’d best not make it too much of a shambles.
He turned and heading downwards, made directly for the warehouse with the red doors. They must’ve been watching as these began sliding open as he approached. He wasn’t prepared for the clouds of dust and gravel the antigravs kicked up as he entered through and found he had to rise up to the ceiling once inside so he could see where he was supposed to be. Someone had spray painted a circle in the centre of the huge space to help him find the plug.
He tightened his belts as he had to angle the ship straight down and it meant hanging in them for the entire time he would be cutting with the asteri beam. Starting roughly in the centre, he activated the beam. It was a bit experimental to start with, as he played with the beam width. Finding around a metre wide was the optimum size, he worked in a spiral, expanding the hole out to around twice the width of his ship. It cut down about five metres on each pass and he found visibility an issue here too and had to rise up above the ash and steam every so often. It took thirty-two minutes before he finally broke through. A small amount of rock and debris that didn’t get vaporised by the beam dropped into the shaft as he widened it out to the required size.
‘Below,’ he shouted, hoping Quaid would pick up his transmission.
‘We’re ready, standing by,’ came the reply.
Andy checked the cockpit seals were still in the green as he dropped downwards. He switched the ship’s powerful lights on too and then wished he hadn’t bothered, as it became even more obvious how claustrophobic it really was down there.
‘Always me that has to go down the fucking hole,’ he whispered to himself, as the tiny ship plummeted down into the uninviting darkness below. ‘I bet Ed’s sitting in a nice comfortable chair with a chilled glass of Sancerre right about now.’