Once the fighting died down, Laura dragged a middle-aged man who had been cowering in the staff room that teetered on the edge of the quarry’s pit. Seth knew at a glance it was the owner of the place; he had worked with him before in the past; he and his crew cut the path that led to the quarry, and installed the very trailer he was hiding in. Laura dragged him out by the hair and held her shotgun to his face to stop his thrashing, she tossed him into the mud on top of the corpse of the dogman that had been cleaved in two. Seth approached the man and laid him low with a kick as he tried to scramble away, and pinned him with his foot against his chest.

“Charles, why’d you do it?”

“Do what? They had me prisoner here, I swear!”

“That’s a lie, Charles, and you know it.” Seth pointed the tip of his blade to the man’s throat. “Now tell the truth before I have to hurt you, bastard.”

Charles grits his teeth as the cold blade presses into the flesh of his throat.

“Dammit! They offered to make me young again! How was I supposed to refuse!”

“Where are the slaves?”

“In the tunnels.”

“The tunnels?”

“Yes, dammit. They said if I built a tunnel from here into Porterville they’ll give me a potion that’ll make me young again, and help me move out of here! I swear.”

“Where are these tunnels?”

“They’re down below. You’ll find them.”

Seth glanced back towards Fen who leaned over the rusted railings of the catwalk, and down past the massive tubes of the pumps that made sure the water didn’t go above a certain point, he was able to spot a series of small openings near the bottom of the quarry where the caught rainwater leveled out.

“I see it,” Fen called back, and Seth turned his attention back to Charles, lying on the ground.

“See? I told you the truth...so, I’ll make sure not to do something like this again, if you let me go, okay?”

“Let you go?” Seth scoffed, “We lost four good men coming here, do you think we’ll just, ‘let you go?’”

“You chose to come up here!” Charles protested as he tried to skitter backward away.

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“And you chose to buy human beings as if they were livestock. You chose to betray humanity. What are they going to do with the tunnel?”

Seth stomped down and once more pinned the man under his foot.

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. Please... I promise I won’t do it again. “

“No. You won’t.”

Seth thrust his blade forward and pierced through the man’s chest, and into his heart. One of the core principles of the Four Coves was the absence of mercy for those who betrayed Earth. Was it brutal? Certainly, but it was a brutality that they deemed necessary in this time of war. Charles sputtered a bit, and even tried to pull the blade from his heart, but ultimately fell still.

“Regroup in the trailer,” Seth said after a bit of quiet disgust washed over him. “Now.”

“19,” Fen smirked as he strode past the man.

“20,” Seth responded as he stepped into the trailer. He moved his head to let a trapped moth escape into the rain without running into him.

Fen grimaced as the door fell shut behind them.

“As you heard the man out there say, tunnels are stretching out underneath here toward Porterville. There were only about 70 of the estimated 150 enemies here, which means nearly half of them are still alive, and probably in those tunnels. With that said, if you want to head back to the Cove, speak up. There’ll be no punishment, and you won’t be forced to go.”

After a moment had passed one of them spoke up.

“I... I want to go back.” The woman who had been shot in the stomach said as she raised her hand, “I’m still feeling weak.”

“Anyone else?”

A few glanced around the room; knicks and scars and lacerations bled onto the wooden floor as they were being treated with rolls of gauze and salves made of strange, aromatic herbs. Most of them raised their hands, leaving only about twenty left to scour the tunnels with Fen and Seth; mostly Efrans who were used to loss and injuries. Ernesto and Alfredo, of course, volunteered as well. At a glance from Seth, Laura raised her hand. Neither of them wanted their children to grow up without a parent. Paul, they figured, would be fine, but the twins — Katie and Andrew, were still struggling with the trauma that had been inflicted on them by the cult weeks prior.

“Before you leave, please load anything useful into one of the Uhauls. You can take it, and the two trucks back.” Seth said after some time had passed.

He pushed through the door stepped to the railings of the catwalk, and stared down into the quarry. He could see the entrance to the tunnel from here. He searched through one of the trucks and pulled out a couple of flashlights. He tossed one two Fen, Ernesto, and Alfredo.

“What’s this?”

The fox thing fumbled with the thing for a moment before looking into its lens. His finger pressed the button on the underside of the metallic tube and hissed in pain as a bright white beam blinded him momentarily.

“Yeah, don’t do that,” Seth said with a chuckle. “It’s called a flashlight. “

“Flashlight? Huh? It’ll be useful in combat.”

“It’s not a weapon, it’s to help get around in dark places.”

“Do you humans not possess the ability to see in the dark? How unfortunate.”

He said after Ernesto and Alfredo affixed their lights to the end of their rifles. Alfredo holstered Laura’s sawed off on his belt, stuffed his satchel with fistfuls of shotgun shells that were kept in the glove box, and filled the bandoleers that went over his chest and around his waist with magazines for easy access. Ernesto loaded up just the same; with small cardboard boxes of .357 rounds stacked neatly inside of his satchel, and M16 mags fit nice and snug in their slings in the bandoleer.

While the other humans stuffed their pockets full of ammo, the Efrans tightened their armor and wiped the mud off their weapons. When they were all ready, and the remainder of the potions and Unwinds had been divvied out among those who would remain and fight, they began to help load the cars. Weapons, Efran corpses; documents detailing further cult activities in the area hidden in a compartment in the owner’s desk. Mostly it was more bills of sale, and communications between the owner and some unknown figure embedded within the Icarian Corps about turning a blind eye toward his activities, and the activities of the cult across the valley entirely. Lawrence was in the corps for a bit, perhaps he’ll have some better understanding about whom it might be. If not him, then the General, who now spent most of his day fishing in the cove.

When everything was packed up into the U-haul — save for the generators currently running the pumps, the team heading back pulled away in it, and one of the tactics, and the team that was staying began to descend across the black iron catwalk toward the entrance to the tunnel.