Maintenance Tunnels, The Carver Institute
Krandermore, Survivor’s Refuge
4453.3.4 Interstellar
Janus and Fury led the group through the maintenance tunnels, slowly but surely making their way toward the center of the Carver Institute, where dome admin and other centralized services would be located. That was where they’d find the pedestal, and that was where Red Donnika would be unless Janus missed his guess.
“How much farther?” Mick asked.
“We’re almost there,” Janus said. Like the waste processing facility’s control room had been, things in the city’s underbelly were well labeled, with RFID map links at most intersections to lead people to the nearest exit or hazmat station if they got lost. They hadn’t been so foolish as to provide complete maps on how to bypass dome security and travel the whole settlement underground—that would have been an open invitation to smuggling and criminal activity—but Janus was managing to navigate through the warren of trouble through a combination of common sense and a process of elimination.
“What should we expect?” Vincent, the leader of the Motragi rangers, asked.
Janus wrinkled his nose. Different domes handled things differently, but he could make an educated guess. “We’re following fresh water pipes. Most of the grey water and mineral-rich stuff has already branched off to hydroponics and aquaculture farms, so this should take us to the city’s main potable water reservoir. If the Carverites are anything like Primers, that will be directly under the city hub and able to be sealed off from the poorer sectors.”
“So they can cut them off if they don’t follow orders?” Mick asked.
“So no one sector can hold the others hostage,” Lira said. “What’s the use of having admin and security in the hub if one of the sectors can kill the dome?”
Mick shrugged. “Why is the hub better than a sector? Janus, I know I wasn’t a dome dweller, but help me out here.”
“I’m with Lira on this one, sadly,” Janus said. “Sectors usually look out for themselves—regardless of how long the residents have been part of the settlement. The hub is usually in contact and dependent on all the sectors, so they might be privileged, but they also know that if they upset all the sectors, they won’t last long.”
“Fair enough,” Mick said.
“Why not just have smaller, independent settlements?” Koni asked.
“There’s a formula for it,” Lira said. “Janus probably knows the specifics better than I do, but a colony has to hit certain numbers in terms of population, water storage, biomass, and redundancies to be self-sufficient.”
Janus nodded. “It also depends on available power. We have more solar and geothermal power on Irkalla, but coldsiders can trade with the sun-side clans to make up for the inefficiencies.”
“That doesn’t sound sustainable,” Mick pointed out.
Janus nodded. It wasn’t. In principle, organic matter, minerals, and air were moving from sun-side to coldside where they could no longer be used, and that meant that life on Krandermore should have been a finite thing—a few hundred thousand years, one million at the utmost—but all the studies showed that life on Krandermore had both been more sudden and longer than it should have. Was that because of the aberration zones, whose age hadn’t been determined, or was it something simpler, like the rockjaws that had inspired Dr. Jahangir to breed Triliths on Irkalla?
The floor of the maintenance tunnel leveled out, presumably because they’d reached the lowest level of the water system. According to Janus’s map, they were still one hundred meters above the Eastern Labs facility. They passed a toolroom and a hazmat locker, as well as a larger break room for Carverite engineers assigned to inspections and maintenance. The passage ended a few hundred meters past that with a metal door that simply said, “Reservoir.”
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Janus licked his lips and hesitated, his hand hovering near the control panel. “This was too easy, right? I mean, they should have come after us down a different passage.”
“We knew this was a trap from the start,” Vincent said. “This is one of the most important rooms in the dome, correct?”
“Can’t have life without it,” Janus said.
Vincent nodded and started swapping out the magazine on his bullpup assault rifle. “So, if it’s unlocked, this is definitely a trap.”
Void take me. He’s right. Janus swallowed and touched the control panel.
The door slid open.
“All right, new plan,” Janus said. “We turn around and—”
Fury squared her shoulders and hissed as the tunnels carried the faint sound of shouts and running boots to their ears.
“That’s all right, Emissary,” Vincent said with a grin. “If they want to stick their faces in the grinder, that’s their mistake. Forward or backward?”
Janus hesitated. He wasn’t a military leader, and both options seemed bad to him.
“Forward,” Mick said, his voice steady and sure. “We came here to free the city and face the Cult leader, right? If she’s going to be anywhere, she’ll be ahead and above.”
“Right,” Janus said, even though he was much less sure of the plan now. He’d known they needed to get to Red Donnika and the pedestal. Somehow, it hadn’t registered then that they wouldn’t get through without a fight.
“Frag out!” one of the rangers at the back of the group shouted, and Janus found himself rushing forward through the door with the others.
Crump! The grenade blast went off in the passage behind them, and once everyone was through, Janus popped the control panel open and sealed the door behind them.
“Will that hold?” Vincent asked.
“I just cross-wired the door motors,” Janus said. “It’s an easy fix, but if they don’t have an engineer or mechanic with them, they’ll have to cut through.”
“I think we have bigger problems,” Lira said, ducking down behind a supply crate.
Janus ducked down and looked to see what new problem they’d landed in.
The sandstone cavern that served as the city’s reservoir was truly massive. The space was well-lit, with light strips and projectors sweeping away most of the shadows. Four huge uncovered pools, each the size of a short city block, held thousands of cubic meters of water. Janus guessed the space was at least two hundred meters wide and maybe that far across. The ceiling rose at least thirty meters above them—almost nine stories—and Janus could see the thin, central elevator shaft that would take them up to the hub, just like he could see the catwalks and gantries that would allow any ambushers to rain fire on the team as soon as they moved forward.
At floor level, the cavern was a mess of suspended walkways, stacks of crates, and storage containers, some of which looked like they’d been converted into offices or homes. It looked like the reservoir was intended to serve as a backup habitat if one of the sectors collapsed. While admirable in its forethought, it meant that there were many places to hide, and there was no straight path to the elevator.
“What do we do?” Janus asked Vincent.
The veteran looked at Mick.
“Up the left side, you reckon?” Mick said. “More cover that way.”
“More places for them to ambush us.”
“We’re faster,” Mick said with a grin.
“Damned right, we are,” Vincent said. “Rangers, up front.”
Janus swallowed, and Fury head-bumped his knee. “It’s all right, girl. This is almost over.”
He jumped as someone pounded against the door behind him, likely with the butt stock of their rifle.
“Time to move,” Mick said.
The team moved forward, Mick and the rangers covering the room with precise sweeps of their rifles, Janus and the rest of them doing their best to do the same. Janus felt exposed and useless in the massive space with nothing but his chem pistol. He swapped out the stun capsules for a fast-acting nerve agent.
Ryler seemed unconcerned, unarmed, except for his staff.
“Hey, Ryler,” Mick said.
“What?”
“Wouldn’t you feel better with a rifle?”
“I’m not giving you my staff, Mick.”
Mick muttered something Janus couldn’t hear.
“Janus Invarian!” a voice boomed.
The team ducked into cover behind a stack of crates. Janus peered out and saw a lone coldsider standing on a catwalk between them and the elevator. It was the machine gunner from Brago’s team, and for a moment, Janus thought this was going to be easy.
“I’m not to interfere with you unless you attack me first!” the coldsider woman’s voice boomed as she hefted the machine gun and balanced it on her hip. “They told me I had to say that!”
Without further discussion, the coldsider unleashed a torrent of tracers and armor-piercing rounds that punched through the crates or went bouncing away like flaming elastic balls. One of the rangers cried out as a round punched through his cover and tore a gaping hole in his side.
“Crap, crap, crap!” Mick said, scrambling to the next stack of boxes.
The tracers followed him, and for a brief moment, Janus and the rest of them were free and clear.
“Move, move!” Vincent said, hauling one of his rangers up, and the two of them ran in a different direction, increasing the number of targets the coldsider had to choose from.
“Janus! What do I do?” Ryler asked, kneeling near the injured ranger.
Things snapped into focus. This is just a triage and processing task, Janus told himself, and that was something he knew how to do.