Dig Deep

Elisha powered down the drill array. Even in the Hog he was driving, the heat shield could only take so much. Time for lunch.

He kicked on the music, enjoying the sounds of the surface while waiting for everything to cool down. Silent for now, the great drills rattled the Hog to much to listen to anything when at work. He was nearly six kilometres down, the exterior was over two hundred degrees.

The Hog was sixty meters long, pulling the ore carts, and ten metres in diameter on the face. It takes a while for the cooling systems to get a grip. He reckoned this shaft was about done, he was losing too many hours to the heat. Still, not his call.

Then his Comms lit up. Maybe this was the day.

" Elisha here. Before you start, I had to shut her down. Get the shields upgraded before you start giving out. Or take it up with the union"

"Elisha, I don't know who is normally your supervisor, and I'll pass on your message, but this is Security. I need you on the surface right now. Leave the blades and the ore behind and get up here as soon as possible. We need your help."

Elisha tried to work it out. Dumping the blades was a last resort. The ore could wait, but the blades would fry before anyone could collect them. A very expensive last resort. The seismic forecast was a solid clear, so not the shaft. None of his mine alerts had gone off, so no accidents on site. That left just one other possibility.

"Ah, crap."

One of the legacies of Earth was the long and dangerous history of mining. When we finally joined the greater Galaxy, we didn't know how rare that was.

Most light worlds didn't need to battle deep for resources, and when they did it was shallow, safe work for good money. Once a species reached its asteroid belt, mining on-planet was finished.

Earth proved to be different. While many left to take their skills to space for a living, the many heavy elements and rare earths in the planet's mantle continued to be useful.

Another legacy of Earth's past was a commitment to rescue and recovery that had, to the astonishment of many species, spread with them to include anyone in trouble. If a call came, the humans would arrive. Sometimes all they did was bury the dead, but even that was more than most.

It took Elisha nearly four hours to make the surface. All the way back, his mind had chewed through the possibilities. He came back to the same thing. If you were looking for a deep miner that had worked in space, had a history in rescue and recovery and was available, the possibilities were exactly one. Him.

When he kicked open the hatch, a group was standing around waiting for him. Some he recognised. Shift boss, Security, Chief Mining Engineer and then the others. Two Xenos and a couple of over-dressed civilians.

"So, where am I going? Who's in trouble?"

If his conclusions surprised anyone, it didn't show. Elisha took that as confirmation. Mind you, short of arriving naked and painted blue, he wouldn't have expected to surprise a mining crew. Miners were all a bit on the strange side.

One of the civilians stood forward

"We need you, it's been cleared all the way up. You've been volunteered. Everything is classified until we hit space."

Elisha looked at the guy. Never lifted a damn thing in his life. Probably the only time he had ever dug a hole was to bury a goldfish. The suit was a lie, this guy was military.

"Nice to meet you too. Go fuck yourself, Sir. I am strictly a civilian these days. You lot made that clear. I do rescue, not classified Mil Tec bullshit."

He turned to his Shift Boss

" Dude, not cool. I thought this place was on the up and up."

The Shift Boss looked uneasy, " Sorry, Elisha, they won't tell me anything except that it's a rescue. Please.'"

"Since when are rescues classified? What, you scream for help really quietly or something? Bollocks."

The other civilian looked around. "Can you all leave us for a moment, I will explain to Mr Elisha."

Everyone else trooped back to the office.

" I will keep it short. The reason it's classified is because one of us did it. A human engineer blew up a moon over an inhabited and subterranean world. We need to go and start digging."

"Holy fuck. What?"

The suit nodded.

" Exactly. She was attacked and unsupervised, but she did what needed to be done. Regardless, we need to help and, frankly, need to be seen helping. The Xenos will fill you in on the planet. My job is to get you and your gear into space.

Never mind my engineer, I think he got married in that suit. He feels badly that we're cleaning up after one of his own."

He was given a couple of hours to grab his stuff, make his calls. Anyone who knew him, knew the drill. When the flare went up, that was it. It didn't take long.

The Xenos were waiting for him at the spaceport.

Their ship was, well, ordinary. He didn't want to be rude but this looked like public transport. When the Xenos introduced themselves it didn't help.

"Thank you for aiding us. I am Unfortunate One and this is my colleague, Trapped Above. We will describe our world to you, that you may understand."

The facemask hid the creatures features, but he didn't detect any enthusiasm for his presence.

"We are diplomats from the planet Windig."

Elisha took a deep drink of the beer, kindly supplied by an apologetic Engineer. Fuck, this was a mess. He was stuck on the Xeno ship.

His gear took longer to load but was leaving on an Earth ship. They should arrive at roughly the same time. He needed the Xenos information, so here he was.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

They were a barrel of laughs, this lot.

Yes, their planet had been blown to shit, yes, they had just survived a civil war, yes they hated space even more than he did.

Still, cheer the fuck up. The gloomy lighting and silence were beginning to get to him and he had weeks to go.

Finally he just studied the maps. It took a while to understand a map that concentrated on soil type, stone composition, heat levels and magma events. For a Miner this was a dream that he was going to steal and use as soon as he got home. Once you got past the 'Here be Dragons' for everything above ground, this was all he needed.

Clearly what this planet needed was a highway. A new connection that could ignore existing, historical highways and byways. One that punched ahead and let the first aid crews in behind him, doing all the rescue and repair.

He showed his plan to Unfortunate One. It didn't go well. Once the shouting stopped, the Xeno explained that he was suggesting punching a hole through everything held sacred by his people. Churches, graveyards and worse.

"I'm sure it does. I don't care. Announce that this is a holy fucking festival or something. This is my path. Otherwise lots of your people die. I'm not here to knock shit over, but your moon fell down, remember? Blame that, not me."

The atmosphere got even more welcoming after that.

The endless trip finally arrived at the planet. A Rescue and Recovery station had been constructed on planet, ferrying the injured to the waiting hospital ships. Recovery teams dug out the unfortunate dead and cleared the infrastructure.

Small impacts were still making it through the satellite screen hastily put into orbit, but most of the danger had passed.

Elisha walked into the barely controlled chaos that was R&R. He carried his plans with him. In the long haul over here, he had developed a strategy that would access the largest number of inhabitants in the shortest time.

He watched the Xeno diplomats scurry away from the ship, presumably to complain. They hated his plans. Tough shit, they weren't his problem. Millions cut off from supplies and medical help was more important than some fucked up theology.

He recognised the Captain who had flown out his gear. Damned if he could remember his name though.

"Captain, hope you had a more pleasant trip than I had. Those Xenos are officially assholes."

"Ah, yes. I forgot to mention that. I hoped the beer might help."

"It did. For the first week. Did my gear arrive safely? Also, forgive me, I didn't get your name."

"I see our briefing materials are as good as always. I'm Captain Middleton, out of the RR Hazard Junky. Yes, everything is here, we were just waiting for you. Come on, I'll introduce you to the team."

In a prefab building nearby, the Coordination Center was marked by hastily scrawled signs. Staffers from any race that could handle the atmosphere and gravity were moving quickly in and out.

Elisha remembered that walk. The don't-look-like-your-running pace, designed by someone to prevent panic. Humanity sometimes had too much time on its hands. Seeing humans running really triggered the Xenos for some reason.

A short Xeno looked up at him. One of the feathery ones. A Glibb, or Gloob. Something like that. He'd check it out later. "Miner Elisha, welcome. I am the Coordinator. We have been waiting for you. I already have three complaints about you, one of which is from your own government."

Elisha smiled. "Let me guess, the church of whoever the fuck those Xeno diplomats are in, and a complaint from the Human Xeno Relations Committee?"

"Actually, two different churches, but yes. You were expecting this?"

"Anytime a human pisses off a Xeno diplomat, the Xeno Relations Committee issues a complaint, shows it to the offended party and then files it in the shredder. Standard operating procedure, I'm afraid."

The Coordinator filed that disturbing information away. She had made several complaints in the past and received reassuring words from the HXTC.

"I hope you have brought us a suitable plan. We have reached our limit without better access."

He nodded " Your not going to like it. Better get a very big box if you're keeping the complaints. Here.

He cast his plans to the screen. "The planet as seen by miners and mole people. This is where I need to go."

Elisha's plan involved him slaving another drill to his Hog and punching a dual tunnel in a twisting path around the major habitations. Secondly drills would breach the cities, allowing access. The least amount of tunnel, in the least amount of time for maximum effect.

"The provisional Windig government has approved. Quite a few signed it and asked for asylum. Please begin."

With over two thousand miles of tunnel to drill, he began his work. He planned for one hundred k per day, expected eighty and allowed for sixty. The RR Hazard Junky would ferry him and his gear over the areas that didn't need him.

His Hog was waiting. The blades were set for clearance not collection. The lasers would seal the wall and the cutting fields would obliterate the rock.

Finally behind the wheel again, Elisha pushed his machine. Chewing a path through limestone gave him speed, while the maps avoided anything too annoying. Behind him, the locals were making contact and the R&R teams flowed in.

Then the problems began. It started with a few potshots at the Hazard, then an explosion at the R&R Center. Nothing important, but Elisha smelled a change in the air. It wasn't unknown for people to start blaming the rescuers. Strangers, aliens, invaders. The locals needed someone to blame.

He began making a few quiet changes to his Hogs. Normally the laser heads were shielded from the cutting fields, preventing dust or particle ignition. He took a couple of hours to swap out a few parts and reprogram the laser gimbal's.

Just in case.

The final push to hit the one k, then off to the other side of the planet. The rescue teams were now backed by government militia, his Hogs ran unannounced and his maps were now classified. Still, the atmosphere had changed. The fanatics were back. Elisha was beginning to sympathize with the engineer that dropped a moon on them.

The enemy was waiting as he brought the Hogs to the surface. It was supposed to be a secret and the Hazard was supposed to be waiting. It wasn't and, well, it wasn't.

Missiles struck his Hog. Elisha cursed and grabbed the Comms " Get me backup, I'm under fire, on the surface. Where the fuck are you Hazard?"

His Comms just buzzed at him.

"Fuck."

Time for some old fashioned human fuck you. He punched in the program and pushed his machines down. They were quicker than they looked, and stronger. His Hog was rattling as more missiles struck. He guesstimated that his attackers were maximum one K out. He hit the seismic sensors. They showed launch points from three spots.

He assumed that these subterranean fuckers would follow him down. Fine. He had swapped out the bolts on the shielding panels with explosive ones. A quick command and they blew, falling away. Then he boosted the laser cutters, swinging the laser heads down to point straight ahead.

A friendly Engineer had added a few options, range wise, then he pulled the Hogs down ten meters and swung them around, pointing right back at the entrance. He turned off the cutting fields and waited.

The Hogs didn't have windows. It should be impossible to know which one was the lead and which was the slave. He was gambling that they didn't know which was which.

When the fanatics began descending, he sent the slave in a panicked run towards them, swerving about and firing it's lasers wildly. The attackers focused on it, sending blast after blast into it. At the last minute he powered it into the side of the tunnel.

Then he opened up. Lasers designed to melt rock had no problem with organics. The beams evaporated all of them, clearing the tunnel of anything that moved. Looked like he needed to buy someone a beer or nine.

Finally the Comms started pinging.

"Elisha, come in. Elisha report. Fuck. Come in Elisha. This is the Hazard Junky. Come in Elisha. Hostiles on the way."

"Hazard Junky, Elisha here. Yeah, about those hostiles…"

He and Captain Middleton flew straight back to the Rescue Centre, once they had recovered the Hogs. His slave drill was going to take a bit of work to repair. More beer required for the engineers.

The Captain desperately explained that someone had falsified the coordinates and sent him on a wild goose chase. Once he realised that he was beyond the range of the Hogs, he had double checked.

The Coordinator was waiting for them on the ground. All hell was breaking loose in the office, with people trying to track down the infiltrator.

"Welcome back, Miner Elisha. I am glad for your safe return. We failed you, I'm afraid."

"No worries, I had my Hog. I'm all good."

"A Human Ship is approaching. They wished to say that they are looking forward to seeing you again."

Crap. He knew exactly who that was.

" Did they give you a name?"

The Coordinator nodded." It is the RR Armstrong. They are known to you?"

"Well, it isn't the RR Armstrong, it's the ED Armstrong. It's a human Mil Tec ship. A heavy. I used to serve on it."

The Coordinator was confused." I'm sorry, this is a human warship? I have never heard of human warships. I didn't think you had any."

"Yes, I know. Everyone is allowed to think that. We do and one of them is on the way here. It's mostly a Marine ship, or used to be. That's how I ended up on it, anyway. Looks like Earth is putting some boots on the ground."

The first shuttle down had the newly appointed Human Ambassador to Windig. Elisha recognised the man, not the suit. A retired Admiral. For today anyway.

"Greetings, Coordinator, I have been authorised to support your efforts. The security of your people and mine has become a concern. We will be enforcing the newly established Windig security agreement, protecting the civilian population, apprehending war criminals, that sort of thing."

As he spoke, hundreds of troops were landing behind him. Full-body armoured Marine humans. Not a sight many Xenos got to see. Well, not more than once.

"I'm sorry Ambassador, I was unaware of such an agreement."

"Yes, well, we haven't told them about it yet. Consider yourself ahead of the news."

The final cleanup was regarded as a perfect demonstration of human compassion. No-one ever mentioned any attacks on the rescuers. The new highways eventually became a blessed event and gratitude from the rescued pushed the society a little closer to the greater galaxy.

The provisional government even rewrote a few lists of the dead to include the missing assholes that had attacked him.

Elisha was enjoying a well earned beer on the Hazard when he was approached by a woman in a dirty grey engineering uniform. Her tag was scuffed but he read it as Revel.

"Hi. Heard you were down below, clearing up the mess. How did it go?"

"Slightly better than you'd expect from that bunch of angry lunatics. We got there. The crews are busy putting the place back together.

Saw some fucked up shit though. If you never want to sleep again, go have a look at their Cathedral. You in the rescue crew?"

The woman looked at him for a long minute.

"No, I'm just passing through, visiting family. Nothing as exciting as your job. Want another beer? I'm buying."