Cutting a hole in the plastic wall took all of Talbot’s strength. Good thing it wasn’t a load-bearing wall like the one on the other side of the room.
Talbot muscled the flap back. Dya, Kalico, and Muldare scrambled past a couple of crates. They slipped through the slit and into the darkness of the adjoining room. As a sensor picked up their movement the light panel flickered to life. The way the ceiling curved meant they were in the rear of the dome. One of the axial hallways would be just beyond the closed door.
“This way,” Talbot whispered, hearing Batuhan’s demands for a response issuing through the hole behind them.
“Shoot our way out?” Muldare asked, flipping her safety off.
“It’ll mean killing a lot of people,” Kalico ground her teeth.
“What part of ‘them or us’ don’t you get?” Muldare hissed back.
“Is there another way out of here?” Dya whispered. “One that doesn’t leave dead bodies all over?”
“Yeah,” Talbot said. “But you’re not going to like how we’re going to have to do it.”
Kalico said, “Get us to the airtruck without turning this into a bloodbath. There’s women and kids out there.”
Talbot nodded. “Fenn Bogarten and I were all through this installation. We’ve got a way out, but it’s down, through the basement, into an old lava tube in the basalt. While Fenn and I didn’t check it out, it should take us into the forest. From there we can circle. Get to the airtruck from behind.”
Kalico gave him a slap on the shoulder. “Lead forth.”
Talbot unslung his service rifle, opened the door a crack, and leaned out. Seeing no one, he led the way into the hall. Lights flashed on as the sensor detected their motion.
The air seemed to pulse, suck, and blow; the dome shook as concussion literally blew Muldare through the doorway and into the hall.
“Briah?” Kalico asked the disheveled marine, “you all right?”
Muldare shook her head, worked her jaw back and forth to clear her ears. “Good to go, Supervisor.”
“Hey!” someone shouted from down the hall.
Talbot didn’t hesitate, but wheeled on his heel, lifted the rifle, and sent a shot in the direction of the young man who’d stepped into the hallway.
“There went our period of grace,” Talbot growled. “Beat feet, people. Follow me.”
He shoved past, heading for where the hall dead-ended against the dome. At the last door, he wrenched it open, tapped the light pad, and told the women, “Stairway. When you hit the bottom, we can’t get through the walls down there. They’re all load-bearing, so we’ve got to go back to the center. When you get there follow the first radial hallway to the left. Take it all the way back to the circumference. I’ll be right behind you.”
As the others started down the stairs, Talbot watched the hallway, took the time to thumb a replacement round into the rifle’s magazine.
Shouts sounded, and yes, here they came—a knot of men led by the throne bearers and carrying what looked like clubs and spears.
Talbot took his time, braced his rifle, and shot the leader through the chest. As the leader fell, Talbot’s second shot took the next man in the left shoulder. His last shot hit the third man center of mass. As they tumbled, howled, and screamed, those behind turned and ran.
Talbot bellowed, “That’s just the start! Next man to come down this hall, I’m popping out this door and shooting the dumb pus-sucker.”
He dropped back, eased the door closed, and pulled a screwdriver from his belt. This he hammered into the jamb with the rifle butt. Wouldn’t hold them for long, but it might slow them down.
In the hallway, shrieks and mayhem told him that the Unreconciled were too busy retrieving their dead and dying to follow for the moment.
Scrambling down the stairs, Talbot hit the hallway, running full-out for the center. At the hub, he took the left in time to see Muldare at the far end, bringing up the rear. The light panels, being old, flickered, but illuminated the way.
Talbot pounded down the hallway after them.
“Now what?” Kalico asked as he arrived, panting, his rifle at the ready.
“Forget the doors to either side. It’s just unfinished storerooms. They excavated this, figuring the base was going to grow. The assumption was that it would eventually house more than a thousand colonists.”
He stepped past to the big cabinet that blocked the end of the hall. Handed his rifle to Dya. “Briah, give me hand here.”
Together they grabbed the cabinet, muscled it to the side to expose a sialon door set in the basalt. Talbot clapped the dust from his hands, saying, “Bogarten and I didn’t figure the Unreconciled needed to know this was here. It would have just gotten them into trouble.”
“What the hell did they need that big a lock for?” Kalico asked as she gaped at the oversized bolt on the door.
“Maybe we don’t want to know what they were trying to keep locked on the other side.”
Talbot slid the heavy bolt back and opened the door, looking into the black maw beyond. “Briah, tell me you’ve got a light in that utility belt of yours.”
“Sure.”
“Inside. Now,” Talbot ordered. After the women hurried in, he slid the cabinet back as far as he could to block the door, then closed it behind him.
“You were right.” Dya eyed the darkness, running nervous hands up and down the backs of her arms. “I’m not liking this at all.”
Muldare was shining her light around the irregular sides of the old lava tube. “What is this place?”
“Volcanic eruption,” Talbot told her. “As a result of the meteor impact. There are places where the lava runs hotter than the surrounding rock, and when it drains out it leaves these tunnels behind.”
“What now?” Kalico asked. “Where does this go?”
“Supposedly all the way to the base of the escarpment,” Talbot told her. “But no one’s been down this since the base was built.”
“I can’t do this,” Dya whispered.
“Sure, you can,” Talbot told her, hugging her close.
“There’s something in here with us. You can feel it, can’t you?”
Kalico turned to the woman. “Hey, it’s either this, or you can go back. Batuhan will kill you, chop you up, and eat you. Then as your flesh is purified by digestion, your soul can figure out the maze, avoid getting sucked out his nipples, or finally ejaculated into a fertile female.”
Dya made the most horrible face Talbot had ever seen his wife make. “You’re right. There’re worse things than dying in terror. In the dark.”
He kissed her fondly on the lips, saying, “I’ll be right here with you, wife.”