Chase glanced down at his slate in his left hand, his right free in case he needed to arm himself. The flat, top-down sensor readout was detecting various geographical elements were now coming into its limited range as they moved further into the ruins of whatever this place had once been.

The city they found themselves in had endured some kind of devastation in its recent history, in his opinion about a century ago. He could not place the cause, but it had been significant. Whilst perhaps not enough to end all life on the planet, it was certainly made long-term residency no longer an option due to the devastation.

“It looks like it suffered some kind of bombardment,” Wokoma said, looking at her own slate, obviously getting similar readings to his. “It doesn’t look like anyone was throwing rocks, but certainly some kind of compressed energy weapon,” she added, pointing to a collection of high-rise buildings on the horizon, the middle of which slumped to one side, resting between the other two, having received what looked like a direct impact. Many of the buildings had been burned and had seen serious devastation; others were now just piles of rubble.

“What the hell happened here?” said Grace. “Other buildings had survived relatively intact, the same as the starport, and that was in decent shape.”

“It wasn’t an annihilation,” said Wokoma,

“But it wasn’t far off. It looks like a precision strike,” said Chase, turning to face Wokoma. “Take out your power plants, your food supplies, everything that keeps a society going, and do enough damage that anyone left would be so preoccupied with just trying to get the essentials that they wouldn’t be able to carry on.”

They came to a clearing where several buildings had been reduced to almost nothing. As they turned a corner, they found a familiar sight: another of Trafalgar’s shuttlecraft. It had suffered serious damage, having landed at a sharp angle, and much of its hull crumbled along the port side.

“My professional assessment as an engineer is that it is not salvageable,” said Dryden, chuckling at his own joke.

“I concur,” agreed Chase.

“But it confirms someone from the Trafalgar or their descendants were visiting this world,” said Grace.

“Or someone from this world stole a shuttle,” said Wokoma.

Grace looked dejected, and Wokoma grinned, obviously toying with her.

Beeping started and Chase looked down at his readout.

“Hang on,” he said, “I’m finding something else.” He examined the slate's readout. The map expanded into a three-dimensional view and raised the street level up. It was indicating something subterranean.

He walked over to a pile of rubble and started digging away at it; the pieces coming away until he picked up a large, flat square of metal.

“What have you got there?” asked Wokoma.

Chase stepped to one side to reveal he’d found an oval-shaped hole in the ground with a curved walkway just large enough for someone to walk comfortably down an entrance to an underground tunnel.

“I’ve been picking these up under the city. There seems to be a whole rabbit’s warren down there,” said Chase.

Wokoma now had her head buried in her slate, clearly detecting the same thing.

“Can you get a sense of how far down these things go?” she asked him.

“I’m only detecting top-level tunnels, but anything deeper than that seems to be blocked. These guys sure knew how to hide from sensors,” said Grace.

“This would be exactly what you’d need to survive orbital bombardment,” said Dryden. “It’s possible that there is someone still alive down there.”

“You’re not wrong,” agreed Chase. "Stay sharp," he cautioned, taking out his sidearm, motioning for the others to do the same.

“Are we heading down there?” asked Grace. “I’m not sure that’s the best idea, not until we have a better grasp on this place.”

Chase nodded and started walking back toward the ruined buildings, the others following behind him.

The city was quiet. Usually, there would at least be something akin to birdsong, but this place was so silent that Chase was a little unnerved by it. Whatever had happened here had been disastrous for the planet’s ecosystem.

The communicator on Chase’s uniform buzzed and he tapped it.

“Lt Cmdr Chase here.”

“I say again, Chase, do you read us?” It was Harding. The signal was very weak from Mary Rose, but he was just about able to make out her clipped British accent.

“We have landed on the planet and are proceeding to analyse the city. There is evidence that the Trafalgar crew or their descendants visited, and the world, faced some sort of calamity,” he reported. The sound of static hissed on the line.

“And where are you now?” Harding asked.

“We’ve put down in what we believe was a starport, and we have found a series of tunnels below the city. The fact this place was hidden, makes me feel it is too dangerous to go in with our current resources.” He looked at Wokoma and Grace, both of whom were not keen on the idea of rushing into dark, unlit, centuries-old tunnels either.

“Are you getting any radiation from them?” Harding replied. He looked over to Wokoma, who was running another scan on her slate. She shook her head.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“That’s a negative on radiation,” Chase replied into the communicator.

“Good,” said Harding. “Then I want you to go down there and see what you can find.”

Chase silently mouthed a swear word. He was not at all happy at the notion, but Harding was in charge of the mission and, like the military, he could not simply refuse an order.

“If that is how you want us to proceed,” Chase began to reply.

“It is,” Harding cut him off. “We’ll check in with you in an hour’s time. Mary Rose out.” She signed off.

Chase had not wished to show his lack of enthusiasm in front of the others. He thought about the best way to do this. What he didn’t want was for all of them to go down and meet a calamitous end. They would simply be another on the long list of explorers who went missing, never for anyone to be quite sure what happened.

“Wokoma, Dryden, keep watch. Dakota, you’re with me.” In some ways, it would have made more sense to bring Wokoma. She was more valuable. Grace did not seem overly enthusiastic, but she came with him. They walked back towards the pile of rubble where he had found the tunnel entrance.

The tunnel was high enough to stand in, a gradual slope heading down at a steep but still walkable angle. He slid the flashlight he had with his uniform into the epaulette on his right shoulder allowing him to keep his hands free. Grace, seeing this, did the same thing. They clicked the lights on.

He turned to Wokoma.

“I’ll signal you in thirty minutes. If you don’t hear from us, do not come in after,” he said firmly. It was an order, Wokoma nodding, not questioning it. He liked to think it was because his command instinctively bred loyalty, but if he was about to die horribly, he understood she didn’t want any part of it.

“Good luck, sir,” she said.

He gave a nod, and they headed into the darkness. The tunnels were pitch black. The levels evened out as they got further down.

The walls were made of some kind of rock and they had been smoothed out over the years. The footpath was even, and he didn’t need to worry about his footing. It was colder down here than it had been on the surface. The temperature was dropping, but not too rapidly, which reassured him. The silence was just as quiet as the surface had been and they could hear their own footsteps.

“You all right?” he asked Grace.

“Sure,” she replied nonchalantly.

“Well, when you’re living your dream. You always wanted to be an explorer. Right?”

“I always wanted to be paid,” Grace said defensively. “Last I checked, you hadn’t put me on payroll.”

“One thing at a time,” replied Chase.

“What?” asked Grace.

“We have to live through the rest of the day, and those odds are looking worse as the day goes on, but I might have a position for you.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” said Grace.

As soon as she had, the floor gave way. Chase’s footing started to go, and he realised that the floor itself had started to come down. The fall was a long one, at least nine metres.

Chase landed on his back and Grace come down about five meters behind him. His flashlight went out when he landed. He tapped it to turn on. Nothing happened.

He could make out the glow of the light on Grace’s jacket, but otherwise, it was pitch black. He picked the flashlight up and shook it. It was not keen to come back on. He hit the power button two or three times and slapped it. Amazingly, it reactivated.

“Yes!” he exclaimed, dashing over to Grace, who was standing up.

“I’m okay,” she said. “I just landed on my pride.”

Chase laughed.

“Glad to hear.”

“Fuck,” said Grace.

Chase turned back, panicked that she may have discovered an injury she hadn’t realised.

“My slate is cracked,” she explained.

“But it’s still working?”

“Yes, it’s still working.” She had unfolded it completely and was running a diagnostic. “Yeah, it’s all fine. It just looks horrible now.” She wasn’t wrong. There was a large crack diagonally across the centre of the screen and discolouration along the fault.

Chase pulled out his slate. Luckily, it was undamaged.

“Are you getting any signals?” Chase asked.

Grace tapped the screen.

“Yeah, it all seems fine. I’m getting it to map these tunnels. We’re about ten meters below the surface.”

Chase tapped his communicator.

“Wokoma, Dryden, are you hearing me?” he asked. The silence was the only thing he could punctuated only by his breathing. He tapped the communicator a second time. “Anyone hearing this?” he asked.

“We hear you,” was the reply from Wokoma. The signal was weak, but he could make it out through the distortion.

“That’s great,” he said. “We’ve had a bit of a cave-in. We’re now five meters below the surface and don’t have an obvious way back up. We’re going to keep pressing on, hoping we find another route to the surface.”

“Copy that,” said Wokoma.

“Then we’ll head north and see what we find,” Chase clarified. “Call me again on schedule, as discussed.”

“Will do,” said Wokoma.

Chase clicked off, and they pushed on further into the darkness.