Seafall, One Hundred and Five Kilometers Below
Lumiara, Survivor’s Refuge
4454.2.28 Interstellar
Janus and his team floated up into the heart of the Seafall base. The massive depression—or excavation—was lit by that purple lighting he’d seen when walking toward the base. It was inconsistent, produced by spotlights and light strips arranged around the rock and the irregular arrangements of structures, some of it flickering. The overall effect was like floating up into the body of one of the glowing drifters they’d seen in Fuller’s Rent, or maybe flying into one of the summer storm clouds on Krandermore, crisscrossed with heat lightning.
Janus wondered why the compartmentalists had gone so far to make Seafall visible if they were also trying to keep the local wildlife and the Apostate’s fallen kin away.
Fury swam up behind him and latched onto his back, causing him to dip briefly while the air bladders compensated for her weight. “Void damn it,” Janus said. “Not the time, girl.”
“What’s wrong?” Mick said, several shoulder lamps swinging in Janus’s direction.
“Fury just latched onto me like a limpet.”
It’s the light, the captain sent over their team channel. Hurts the eyes.
Janus looked over and saw the Apostate was keeping pace with them, but with none of his earlier speed and grace.
“We’d better get you both inside,” Janus said. “Mick, grab the captain.”
Don’t need help, the captain said, swatting at them with a webbed hand.
“Sorry, Captain,” Janus said. “We’re off the Seraphine, and you’re swimming blind. I’m in charge now.”
Mick got an arm around the Apostate, and the fish-man went limp, allowing himself to be guided back to the group.
Biomimetism, Janus realized, turning his eyes back to the base and its vivid, pulsing lights. Over the course of a thousand years, the local wildlife, which had already been used to using light in a variety of ways to survive, had made adaptions to the presence of a new predator, the post-humans of the Apostate’s faction. The time was short on an evolutionary scale, which probably meant that this had been an existing pattern, something developed to defeat another type of predator or, maybe, pure happenstance, but the ones with the pattern thrived while the others were eaten.
The compartmentalists had noticed the pattern and had used it, a backup for when their defense turrets failed, and Janus couldn’t help but admire them for it.
The team located the submarine docks, which were currently empty, and what looked like a separate entrance through a moonpool, like on the Seraphine. Janus designated it over the team comm, and the ten of them converged on it.
Callie found the access panel. She bypassed the main interface, activated the emergency access protocol, and got the outer hatch open.
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One step closer, Janus thought as he rose toward the surface.
They’d made it safely into Seafall.
***
Water ran off his domed helmet as Janus surfaced inside the Seafall dive room. The room was typical of Cult construction, with clean, aseptic walls painted in dull, light gray and steel blue tones. He rose out of the water like an eldritch sea creature, shedding salt water and seaweed as he clambered up onto the perforated steel plating, and he headed for the airlock control panel, making room for the other divers behind him.
It was a single point of access, one he would have fortified if he’d been in the compartmentalists position, possibly even disconnected. But that was with hindsight. Their base was inaccessible to most of the Cult and unknown to even those few captains who dared the inner sea. What need did they have for security when their turrets took care of the more dangerous intruders, and the lights they’d rigged around their habitat would dissuade even the most determined invaders that might be lurking in these depths?
That was what Janus hoped, at least. From a normal safety standpoint, it would make sense to leave this dive room as accessible as possible, a last resort for maintenance workers who were stuck outside for any number of reasons when working on something as complex as a facility over a hundred kilometers beneath the surface.
He pushed himself up onto the small step and hauled himself and Fury halfway out of the pool. The jungle dragon’s head popped out over his shoulder, and Fury clambered off and over him to stand on the metal flooring, shaking the water from her scales.
“You’re welcome,” Janus said wryly, getting to his feet as the rest of the team spread out throughout the chamber.
Mick came last, and Janus helped him haul the captain out of the water.
“Why haven’t they reacted yet?” Callie asked.
“There were several dive rooms,” Mick said. “Maybe they aren’t monitoring them all.”
“Maybe the base is empty,” Lira said.
“You think that’s likely?” Janus asked.
“Not likely, but possible,” Lira answered. “The compartmentalists built this place based on Donnika’s orders and their being the dominant voice in the Consensus. If I were Nikandros, the first thing I would have done is restrict their access to supplies.”
“Because he didn’t want a base down here?” Mick asked.
“Because even in an advanced direct democracy, people follow the money,” Lira said. “The day the compartmentalists lost the majority, they really lost it.”
“I remember that,” Janus said. It had been something of a celebration for the New Prometheans, at the time, a collapse of compartmentalist superiority by over fifty basis points in one afternoon.
Callie had gotten into the moonpool controls. The shutter slid shut, sealing them off from the cold water and the purple glow.
Valves opened, slowly bringing the pressure back down to a Standard atmosphere.
“Weapons and tools out,” Mick said.
Janus disengaged the magnetic locks keeping his pack secured to his back, and he opened it to get to his gear. He fastened his chem pistol and holster to his hip and hung four modular gas grenades from the left side of his torso. A pouch with chem round magazines went on his left hip, with a second, slimmer pouch of grenade payloads.
“We going lethal or non-lethal, boss?” Mick asked.
“We’re here to make friends,” Janus said. “Mick, I want you and me on non-lethals. Everyone else, regular rounds, but keep your weapons on safe unless I tell you otherwise.”
“You got it, Boss.”
The others inserted magazines, racked slides, and put their packs back on. Janus had a small moment of panic, seeing Callie with a pistol in her hands, but he also knew she was safer with it than without it. They were all going to have to pull their weight during this mission. Too much depended on their success.
He fastened the pack to his back, slapped a magazine of knockout rounds into his chem pistol, and waited for the dive room to stop cycling.
The pressure in the dive room dropped to a single atmosphere.
“Ready?” Callie asked.
“Ready,” Janus said, wishing he knew what was on the other side of the door. He’d wanted to bring Syn to get them through the facility’s security like she had in the mining rig, but he’d needed her to keep the Seraphine secure.
The choices are never easy, Janus thought, and he aimed his chem pistol as the dive room door slid to the side.
An empty hallway stretched beyond it.
Fury sniffed at the empty entrance. There was no motion, no alarm wail or flashing lights.
“Mick?”
The Hunter nodded and moved forward, carbine stock pushed into his shoulder, muzzle low but ready to take aim.
Janus followed him into the facility.