Quite why they were being held on this cold rock, wherever it was, they had no idea. Perhaps they had a further role to play or perhaps it was just out of spite, who knew? Andy, Bache and Groxl were restless; while the others were happy to sit around and wait for something to happen, they’d decided to work on an escape plan.
There were four units high up that looked like cameras covering the interior of the room, so whatever they did had to be obscured from them.
Phil had found his riveted bed frame was a bit wobbly and made him feel seasick every time he moved. There were more beds than people, so he changed to another one. This had given Andy an idea.
He got three of them to stand side by side obscuring him from the cameras as if they were just having a conversation and set about bending the bed frame backwards and forwards until the friction snapped the rivets. He continued to do this until he had three lengths of metal tubing roughly the same length and shape as hockey sticks.
They waited until just before what they hoped would be the next meal time. Andy, Bache and Groxl hid the makeshift weapons under the blankets they wore as shawls and loitered near the door.
‘In your own bloody time,’ moaned Groxl, after standing and having a supposed conversation for almost an hour.
‘They’ll be here,’ said Bache.
‘Perhaps they’re having trouble sourcing the particular Petit Chablis I ordered and it’s—’
Andy’s joke was interrupted as the bolts outside rattled back. The door swung open and as before two armed guards stepped inside first. Andy had noticed that they never had their weapons up when they entered. This was indeed the case this time and he’d reckoned this would give them the split second they needed to clobber them with the pipes.
Bache didn’t waste any time and caught the right-hand guard squarely on the temple, rendering him unconscious before he hit the floor. Groxl had the guard behind carrying the food tray and caught him just under his left ear with similar consequences. Andy had the left-hand guard who was a bit quicker than the other two and swayed backwards, dodging the pipe that swished harmlessly past his nose and began bringing his weapon up. Groxl, using the momentum still in his pipe, hooped it around and caught the third guard in the back of his knees. As the guard had leaned backwards so far to avoid Andy’s attack it took his legs straight out from under him and he crashed back, hitting his head on the rock wall. His laser rifle discharged with the stun bolt sailing just over Andy’s head and hitting the ceiling above.
‘Fucking hell,’ said Andy. ‘Trust me to get Bruce Lee.’
‘Who?’ said Bache, as he picked up one of the weapons and shot out the four cameras.
Groxl grabbed a rifle and went out the door like a rat up a drainpipe.
‘Shit – hang on,’ called Bache.
It was too late. Groxl was away and had gone left, charging up the tunnel about twenty metres before hiding behind a row of steel containers. The reason for his madness was apparent when four more guards came sprinting around the bend and thundered past him. He managed to give two of them the good news in the back before the other two turned, allowing Bache and Andy to step out and down them from behind too.
Groxl nodded and began dragging the nearest unconscious guard back into their cell. Bache took out the camera in the corridor and crouched down, covering the others as they dragged all four inside and bolted the door.
There were no alarms sounding, no more guards came running, and just around the corner they found another dormitory similar to their own with a large monitor showing the camera feeds, a basic cooker, food supplies and seven used beds.
‘Looks like that’s all there was,’ said Phil, finding a rack of warm coats and handing them around.
‘Grab as much food and water as you can,’ said Bache. ‘It might be the last we get for a while.’
‘Should’ve killed the pricks,’ grunted Groxl. ‘Look at the decent food they’ve got and the shit they gave us.’
‘They didn’t deserve to die for that,’ said Bache. ‘They could’ve killed us anytime; they were just doing a job.’
‘Probably had no idea who we were,’ said Phil.
‘They knew who I was,’ grumbled Xutan, rubbing his unshaven chin and squinting at the ingredients on a food packet of something resembling biscuits.
Having gathered what they could and filling a couple of backpacks found amongst the guards’ belongings, they decided to follow the sound of the machines deeper in the asteroid and, as it happened, they didn’t have far to go.
Rounding a couple of bends they found another dormitory, a basic canteen, a bathroom and finally around one more corner, a cavern so big they couldn’t see the other side of it. The enormous excavated gallery dropped away below them, with a caged elevator hugging the rough wall the only way up or down. The noise of machines was much louder here and was emanating from deep below them.
Andy peered down through the mesh shutters of the elevator.
‘That’s a fuck of a drop,’ he said, turning to stare at the red call button on the left wall.
‘I hate heights,’ said Phil. ‘Makes my legs go funny.’
‘I say we go up,’ said Bache. ‘The passageways we originally came in on all sloped down. So, if we want to find the ship we arrived on, it’s got to be up.’
‘I agree,’ said Groxl, pressing the red button.
‘Oh good,’ mumbled Phil. ‘Going higher.’
A whine from below indicated something was happening. It took a couple of minutes for the car to grind its way up from below. Eventually it stopped with a clank, a red light flashed and a buzzer sounded. The mesh shutter automatically lifted upwards, revealing a sizable car containing some sort of industrial tracked auto trundle with a hopper on top full of yellowish rock.
‘What’s that stuff?’ Phil asked, as they all filed in around the ore carrier and the shutter dropped back down.
‘Buggered if I know,’ said Andy, noticing Bache inspecting it closely and sniffing a lump he’d picked out.
‘Oh shit,’ he said, wrinkling his nose and throwing the rock back on the hopper.
He sighed as everyone turned to stare at him.
‘I think it’s tycell ore,’ he said, looking downcast.
‘And that is?’ questioned Xutan.
‘The leading ingredient in the manufacture of tycelerin powdercake.’
‘That stuff’s illegal, isn’t it?’ asked Xutan, furrowing his brow.
The elevator, which had continued grinding its way upwards, juddered to a halt at the uppermost level. The roof of the cavern was close here and they stood aside as the shutter lifted up and the auto trundle tracked its way out and down another corridor. This passageway was wider and judging by the tracks, it was designed so the ore carriers could pass each other.
They followed the container of yellow ore as it made its way up the shallow gradient and around a left-hand bend. The sound of machinery began getting louder again, only this time it was a regular pounding shuck shuck shuck sort of noise.
Bache, getting to the corner first, peered around the bend. The auto trundle went through another low meshed hatch that motored up as it approached, similar to the elevator door only lower and only just big enough for the carrier. It closed with a violent slam as soon as the carrier was through.
‘Could have your leg off, that thing,’ said Andy, peering over Bache’s shoulder.
‘There’s a side door over there by the look of it,’ replied Bache, nodding towards the far side of the passage. ‘It looks a little safer than following the ore carrier.’
The door was unlocked and opened into a combined control room and maintenance store. Two operators sat on a platform with their backs to the door. They wore shabby once-white coveralls stained yellow, and breathing masks over their noses and mouths. One of them glanced over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows.
‘You know you’re supposed to be wearing your bloody masks up here,’ he said, pointing at his face before turning back to the control panel and pressing a flashing green button.
Bache, who had been first through the door, realised they were wearing the security guards’ coats, which was probably why he didn’t react. Movement in his peripheral vision caused him to look right. Two more men had entered from a side room, one in the same yellow-stained coveralls, but the other was the short fat man.
‘What the fuck?’ he grunted, as he recognised them and went for his sidearm.