"You don't talk much," Jason dropped to lighten the mood. They have been walking for a long time through the black burned tunnels. Pax was sure he allowed for the slow pace since she mentioned the pain.
Her helmet was still gathering the data, but she gave up trying to understand it after 40 minutes; the residue was going on deeper in the mine. For now, she allowed her mind to rest, which was hard with the aching body and Jason trying to entertain her.
"No, but you talk enough for both of us," Pax replied with a half voice. She hissed when making another step. It was the bruise on her side.
"Pax stop. Are you sure you are fine? The suits have a first aid protocol built in."
She just waved her hand in response, trying to change the topic.
"I'm fine, Jason." He wasn't convinced. "I was in the bombing on Iapetus. The impact threw me clear through the room. It's just bruised."
"Gods, you are a stubborn woman. Flying this fast across the system after such a thing. That can't be healthy."
"People are dead, okay? A lot of people. There is no place for self-pity here. I'm here on a job, find out what happened, and catch those who are responsible. Simple."
"And not make friends," he added.
"And not make friends." Her response was cold. Pax really didn't want any more friends; she had lost people before and wasn't ready at this point in her life for building bridges and being unnecessarily nice to others.
They came to a dead end. The explosion weakened the structure of the corridor, and the ceiling collapsed, blocking the way.
"Well, I guess that's it. I'm done with the scanning." She gave out a sigh.
Jason tried to look to see if there is any way to clear the passage, but the stone and metal were too heavy. He has been doing this every time, trying to find a solution.
"The corridor is completely blocked. Can't even see a small gap to the other side as we did in the one before."
"What now?" Pax leaned on the dirty metal wall, resting.
"Let me map this first." Every time he would load a virtual map and update the status of the tunnels they passed. After he finished, he kept the map on and turned towards her.
"There are service exits that will take you out of the corridors that lead to the mining sites. We passed one of them not long ago." He manipulated the keyboard, and another image appeared and layered the map she could see.
"Take us out where?"
"To the natural cave systems. There is a vast network of underground caves here, nobody uses them to avoid the possibility of prisoners sneaking away." Another image layered over showing a mapped terrain. "It will connect us to a similar service exit in the security section."
"A backup plan is always good." Pax moved slowly, following him down from where they came. "It's been more than half an hour; don't you need to report in?"
"I set up an automatic pulse that sends a message every 30 minutes. I wired it to my personal life status and support. While I'm alive, it will signal out an update and our current position."
"Clever. I could almost say I'm impressed." She heard an irritated noise in her ear. It made her smile for a second.
The service exit was a rounded rectangle hidden in a gap in the side of the wall. If it wasn't for the valve handle that made it visible, it would be hard to find. It seemed like the darkness after the explosion has swallowed all of the shapes, leaving just a mangled unrecognisable mess.
Jason struggled for a minute with it until it gave way, and the metal hatch swung open. After that, there was a small airlock chamber. It barely fit both of them. They closed the first hatch. The system inside still worked well. After a minute, a dim green light appeared; now they could open the second one.
Pax noticed the difference, it was subtle but it was there. Her mind tried to describe what it was. The claustrophobic darkness of a burnt-out metal corridor, where the forgotten dead lay in the corners. And this soft darkness that reminded her of a starless night, with something shimmering in the distance. To her, the difference was; one was a prison, in the other, she was just lost. You can't escape from the first, but you can find your way out from the second.
Her sensors detected something and she moved around to find the source and that shimmer persisted, it wasn't her imagination anymore.
"I'm detecting something, but not sure what." She could hear something on the speakers, but it was hard to find the source in the darkness. Suddenly, she was blinded by lights that started turning on one by one. Single spheres attached low by the walls, separated by only a distance.
Jason found a switch to light up the footpath, or what it looked like to be one. There was no pavement, or dedicated road to follow, just stones that were wide enough to fit two people side by side.
Hexagonal stone columns in black and grey grew on each side, some with copper sediment on them, some with a crystal inert that reflected the light. These structures surrounded the cave from every side she looked at; they created the floor, the walls, and even some of them hung in patterns on the ceiling.
And finally, she saw the source of the sound. A dark liquid filled a ravine between two sides of this cave. It moved sluggishly; it was water but not like anything she ever saw before, as there were crystal stars forming and dissolving within the liquid.
"It's a supersaturated salt solution. This is what happens when water mixes with a lot of salts and minerals. Normal water would freeze here," Jason noticed her looking down at the stream.
"How cold is it down here?" She asked, not sure how deep they exactly were, as it could have been one or two kilometres below ground.
"That's a good question. The suit is telling me it's -17.8 degrees Celsius."
This alien formation stretched in front of them, feeling very out of place. Pax thought of a different world that would have been better suited to house such a marvel of shapes. They moved forward though, step by step, hexagonal column after hexagonal column, in a slightly better mood.
Her curiosity relaxed her mind, switching from problem-solving to just taking in what she saw. The stone columns would occasionally reflect the light depending on how they looked at them. On the edges where the liquid touched the stone, there was a dirty crystalline residue, which never stayed long enough to grow.
The ravine came to a drop to create a low passage they had to face. It was blocked by a house-size porous stone that must have collapsed millennia ago.
Jason took his hand out to help her. "Come on. There is something beyond here that may even impress you." Reading from the noticeable excitement in his voice, she knew he must have been here before.
"Very funny," Pax said, grabbing his hand. She did it reluctantly, but the pain was exhausting and any help was welcomed at this point.
"I'm drop-dead serious."
"I'm not easy to impress." She replied as they moved down on the large stones till they reached a large flat stone platform, a gateway to a huge cavern. And what Pax saw completely took the breath away from her lungs.
"By all the gods," She whispered.
It wasn't just a cave; it was a labyrinth filled with crystals of all sizes. Some of them were the size of spaceships, while others immeasurably small. It all seemed as if taken out of a child's fairy tale book. The lights created a path they had to follow, like crumbs leading into a forest.
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The crystals shimmered and reflected the light, dancing around, and in the darkness, a fluorescent star map surrounded them. It was something she had never seen before, and the fatigue left her mind as she raced down the stone platforms to the bottom of the path to see everything closer. It was a magical spectacle. You could almost forget which way was up and which was down.
"The chemical processes that created this cave were truly..." Jason started when he finally caught up with her, but she interrupted him.
"Truly amazing. Yes, I know. Stop talking." And he did, although Pax was sure he was smiling under the helmet. Yes, you have done it. The inside of hers changed to a full natural view, no graphs, no sensor readings. Just what her eyes would normally see. And it was beautiful.
They moved deeper into the labyrinth guided only by the lanterns and curiosity. Pax couldn't contain hers and strode from the path more than once. The crystalline structures enticed her; it was so surreal, she wanted to touch them, to make sure it's all real. Jason waited, giving her space and time she needed. Only once he mentioned the road. His argument about air supply made her laugh; they still had 10 hours. She could quite possibly stay here this long though.
The central part of the cavern still had small streams of the supersaturated solution they followed earlier. The stone base was also different; the crystals were joined sometimes with a weird silvery structure that resembled wood or hair.
"What is this?" Pax asked. She touched one of those formations as tall as her. The hair crumbled and shining dust fell away.
"Amalgam," Jason answered, half paying attention.
"A what?" She had never heard of anything like that.
"Amalgam. It's when mercury reacts with aluminium. It's an interesting process." He made a circle and another, acting curiously enough to grab her attention.
"What are you doing?"
"Unlike you, I kept all of my sensors on. Just in case of any further seismic activity."
"And?"
"The data I'm seeing is fascinating." Pax quickly reactivated her own sensors; it took a few seconds before she could see what he saw.
"What am I looking at?" The sensors flooded her with information, which she didn't understand.
"In the past, these caves were mapped only to locate resources and mining points. Nobody in a million years would use the mining sensors to look for explosion residues. And there was an explosion here. Millions of years ago." Jason manipulated the data so it made sense to her, and the similar map they used in the bombing site appeared; it was an ancient residue, but it was there.
"It could have been a meteorite site," she noticed excitedly. "Do you think we could find the source here?"
"Based on the calibrations you have done, whatever caused this, it's quite close."
"You got my attention."
"This shouldn't be here," he added after a while.
"You said these caves were mapped; there could be something in the records?"
"Yes, almost all of these caves were mapped, especially this one. It's an accessible path. Nobody scanned it for this type of data. The primary objective is to scan for resources, and if there isn't anything worthwhile, then we move on."
"So this probably wasn't worthwhile then."
They followed the pattern that took them off the path, only to come face to face with a building-sized crystal that grew from the floor to the ceiling. The way around it was tricky, involving gentle movement not to damage anything they touched and avoiding the streams of liquid.
When they reached the other side where the volatile matter and ash contents were most distinctive, he stopped her abruptly.
"This is as close as we can get. I'm getting a radiation alert."
"What the hell. Where did that come from?"
"If there are radioactive elements here, it would explain how the crystal formations were able to form in these caves because of the heat it gave away."
Pax wasn't ready to give up; her curiosity was wide awake and wanted some answers. There was a clear space leading into the darkness beyond their lights before them; the crystals that grew here were bigger, but also the floor wasn't even like everywhere else. The amalgam grew plentiful here, almost like cancerous tissue. She took a step forward to touch them, hoping there would be more residue for the readings on the stone beneath.
As her hand touched it again, the hairs broke, and silver dust rose to create a shimmering cloud. But her hand went into the amalgam quite deep as she didn't expect it to be this deep and she broke something off while losing balance and her footing.
"Pax, what are you doing!" Jason almost shouted, alarmed. He immediately jumped to her aid. The leg hurt again. Bad idea.
"Wait..." As he was helping her up, he looked into the gaping hole she made in the amalgam. She broke off a piece of the crystal formation, and underneath it, there was something too familiar. "Help me with this." She must have sounded like a madwoman, but he didn't stop her as she cleared off the amalgam strands. It took her a few minutes to clear the growth and remove the remaining pieces of crystals.
"This couldn't have been made by nature," Jason said, looking at her discovery.
"No, no it couldn't," Pax answered, looking at a single red stone half-absorbed by other lighter minerals and crystals. Its edges were perfectly cut, its sides beautifully polished, and the face carvings. She didn't know what, maybe plants.
This moment of silence and awe lasted for a long time, and when she finally moved, her joints hurt.
"How old does this have to be?"
"60 or 70 million years, can't be sure without a detailed sample analysis." Jason took a couple of deep breaths, circled around in excitement. "I don't know what to think! We need to get it analysed."
"With all of this explosive material remnants, what could have happened here? Explosion? Natural disaster?"
"Your guess is as good as mine. This shouldn't even be here. Chances for the discovery of anything, not man-made this deep underground on an alien planet, are astronomically close to zero."
She agreed with pure euphoria, reaching out to touch the stone, but then her mind clicked in a wrong way, like it sometimes does when overthinking, and she stopped mid-way.
"Hold on." She turned around to him with an icy tone. "Is this some kind of elaborate plan you use to get to women? You bring them down here to this marvellous cave and show this piece of something, making a big hu-ha and working on their excitement?" Pax hoped for a gun. There was nothing at first, but after a moment, she heard a gritty breathing noise.
"Are you out of your mind?!" He was genuinely angry after that. "We just discovered a piece of something that may be the first-ever proof of civilization from another planet, and you think my penis is involved?"
Now she really hoped to have a gun, but only to shoot herself. It's always been a problem for her to interpret signals from men, whether they're genuine or fake; sometimes she panics in a very bad way, becoming very defensive.
"Well... I... I need to take a sample to confirm what this is." She felt that she should say something else, but the words seemed to jump like fish without water in her mouth, and nothing came out. He was probably expecting something different.
"Listen, detective, it's your find. Do whatever you want. I don't want in on any of the issues you are dealing with. Just make sure when you publish the paper on the first human contact with an ancient extinct alien civilization, you put me in the acknowledgments." He stopped talking for a second. "The way out is that way." He raised his hands like he wanted to tell her to back off and walked back to the path, leaving her alone. She switched off her microphone and communication channels and swore a lot for a while. On the belt of the suit, she found a laser cutting tool, and there was a big enough pocket with quarantine sealant material.
A white light blasted out of the device, and she began cutting. Whatever stone the relic was made of, it was extremely hard, and it took a long time to cut. Long enough for her brain to think about this panic moment that just happened. She was angrier at him than at herself because she wanted to be right. It would have been easier if she were right. Right now, she just looks like a stubborn idiot, and it burned her, but not enough to apologise.
Once the relic was cut and sealed, she packed it in the pocket and walked back. Jason was standing there, although Pax didn't expect him to wait. He could have just left her here to follow the lights by herself. The path seemed pretty straightforward through the crystal maze. When she caught up, he turned and gesticulated to her, knocking on his helmet.
Her communicator was still turned off. Once she did, the sound hit back at her suddenly.
"...got an automated signal from the surface. Some sort of emergency, I don't know what it is till we get out. Let's move. Now." The man's voice was dry and sounded like he didn't expect any resistance, and she didn't.
As they walked faster and faster, she felt like the space between them increased more and more. Their pace quickly turned into a run. Suddenly, another tremor hit, and they stopped violently, fighting to keep balance, but it didn't stop there, and more came. Pieces of crystal and rock started falling off the ceiling of the cave around them.
Jason's computer started beeping like crazy.
"This is not an earthquake," she turned to him when he shouted into the microphone. "It's coming from the surface. We are under attack. The reports I'm getting are all over the place."
"Run!" She shouted, full of panic, struggling to get back up. There was no time; the tremors were coming from above in an increasing pattern, resonating through the caves.
More and more debris was falling down. Large pieces of the cave started collapsing around them, lifting dust and crystalline powder, reducing their vision. The path flickered before them, sometimes disappearing completely.
As their lights cut through the thick particles, they saw the airlock, and it was open. A body was thrown half out of it. Shit, I need my gun. The lights greeted them with violent flickering. Twisted, exploded, and torn. Wires were everywhere. Red alarm lights haunted the surroundings.
"I need a break from this," Jason said quietly. She followed him through the hatch and the interrupted darkness inside. But she only managed to pass the first airlock door when something powerful grabbed Jason. She screamed his name in panic and jumped back.
A tall humanoid creature held him up while the man was trying to free himself. But it threw him on the floor when it saw her. It was fast, but Pax managed to dodge somehow, almost losing balance. She knew how to fight, and with a quick reflex, she kicked the creature, but it somehow reacted faster, grabbing her and slamming her against the wall. It hurt like hell, kicking the air out of her lungs. In the flickering red light, she noticed a broken, steaming pipe. Jason lay on the floor like he was unconscious. Damn it. With a fast jump, she got away from the hands of the creature and to the pipe. It didn't want to budge for a moment, and it was almost upon her. But physics were on her side, and once the pipe broke under the pressure, it swung out straight into its head with more than enough strength to smash its head and send it to the floor. It wasn't over. Pax shivered, seeing how it's getting up in the interrupted darkness.
From the shadow, suddenly came Jason, and with an impossible force, he slammed a large piece of metal, piercing through the creature's head, burying it deep.