Countdown
55:20:10. McDougal snarled at the datacomp and paced the maintenance tunnel trying to think of anything else he could do. He moved the carat over the Ferret menu and pinged the Ferrets for data. He was rewarded with a video burst from the Ferret on the surface that included the outbound pass of the flying Ferret, which apparently made it through the TGate, as the last frame was greyed out.
The downside was that there was at least a company, if not more, of Goons in the camp, with more APCs coming. Now it was going to be a race between him shutting the gate down, and the Goons exploiting the open gate. He just hoped the patrol was locked and loaded on the other side.
Pinging the Ferrets, he got another relayed burst from the one on the surface, via the Ferret in the hole above the tunnel door. The scene had changed, with more Goons arriving. They now seemed to be concentrated around Building Six, trying to make entry. Apparently they knew it was a power generator, as he didn’t see any large breaching weapons out that might blow up the plant.
Cursing under his breath, he remembered another part of the mission brief, to never allow the fusion bottles to fall into enemy hands due to their advanced technology. He looked at the datacomp, but there still wasn’t any network connection, so he couldn’t access the generator’s self-destruct from the tunnel.
Since it was almost dark, McDougal decided to chance sending another flying Ferret through the TGate, in case anyone on the far side was actually monitoring it. He rummaged through the supply tunnel and found a pallet of Ferret reloads for his armor and carried a box into the maintenance tunnel. Hefting the packing case up on the bench, he quickly broke it down and extracted four more Ferrets.
Using his datacomp, he programmed the one currently sitting in the hole in the tunnel to flying mode and sent it on the same trajectory through the TGate as the first one. He picked up one of the four on the bench, found its code, carried it to the hole, then programmed it to act as a new relay and let it crawl off his hand into the hole.
Walking to the end of the tunnel, he stepped cautiously into the new small escape tunnel he’d commanded the Mechs to dig and paced it until he reached the back of Mech One. It looked like they were on track and on time, based on the distance completed, but he knew it wasn’t going to be fast enough.
Punching the datacomp, he looked at the Mech menu and thought, Where the hell is Mech Three? I’ve got One and Four here. Herbert had Five on the sewage plant, and Two was on the HVAC for Building Two? Or was it Three? Pulling up the camp grid, he overlaid last known positions of the Mechs and realized Mech Three was in Building Six!
Now, how the hell do I communicate with it? If I can get to it, I can… Destroy the fusion bottle and the generator, or at least wreck it, maybe. Scanning back through the Ferret data, he looked specifically at the EM portion of the logs and realized the network wasn’t even showing up, that meant the comms antenna was gone, and probably the repeater too. I wonder, can I chance another Ferret to go check the antenna farm? Nah, probably not a good idea. The Goons see a Ferret or see the EM pulses, they’ll know somebody’s alive. Probably not a good move on my part. What the hell else can I do?
McDougal walked down the maintenance tunnel to the ‘hooch tunnel’ as he now thought of it, sliding his hand along the rough texture of the tunnel wall until he felt the slight tingle and his hand slipped seemingly into nothing. Without taking the holo down, he stepped into the side tunnel and walked slowly back to the still.
Opening the hopper, he saw there were already fifteen shot sized globes collected in the hopper, and he pulled one out. Bouncing it in the palm of his hand, he thought about what the booze would be good for, and the only thing he could come up with was to get drunk.
Popping the globe in his mouth, he bit through the covering, not waiting for it to dissolve and felt the sharp taste of the freshly distilled alcohol hit his taste buds. He swallowed it quickly, and felt a warmth spreading through his system, Go easy you dumbass. You’re the sole survivor of the entire camp right now, as far as you know. Getting shitfaced right now isn’t the best idea you’ve ever had. Think!
Picking two more globes out of the hopper, he shoved them in the pocket of his skin suit and went back to the maintenance tunnel. Pulling up an inventory of materials on hand, by building, he got a comprehensive list of what was in Building One’s packing crates, and found spare parts, hoses, and rifle beads in the supply tunnel, but no additional weapons.
Accessing the ‘secret’ maintenance files on his datacomp for the still, he looked to see if there was anything he could use there. Since it was set up to make almost pure ethanol before the cutting and flavoring, McDougal immediately started looking for a way to make it into a bomb. If he could get the stoichiometric concentration to around 14:1, he could get a big bang according to the datacomp, but without the network and databases he couldn’t get a more detailed plan.
McDougal spent an hour or so tinkering in the maintenance tunnel with various hoses, metering valves and plumbing until he threw his hands up in frustration, Dammit! This shit looks easy on the net, when one has the net. Ain’t got the net, and I dunno if I’m going to blow myself up or set a trap if the Goons break in. Simple… I need simple…
Prowling through the supply tunnel again, he found a pallet of flour and four oxygen tanks. Laughing he thought, Now I’m getting somewhere! We used to do this as kids. I just need a way to disperse the flour. He carefully cracked the valves on each tank to ensure they had pressure, then loaded them on a skid and placed them evenly throughout the tunnel.
He went back to the maintenance tunnel and looked at the assortment of hoses, found four that had the correct connections, and pulled out four fan metering valves. Putting one on each hose, he went to the electronics locker and pulled out four Tic/Toc timers that would mate up to the hoses. The Tic/Tocs could be commanded remotely, and all McDougal needed was a way to trigger them.
Assembling the hoses into the configuration he wanted, he went to each oxygen bottle and connected the hoses, opened the valves and wanded each tank to ensure there were no leaks. Sticking the wand in his back pocket, he directed the skid back to the supply tunnel and picked up a pallet of flour.
Doing a quick count, he had fifty bags, so each oxygen cylinder got twelve bags. At twenty-two hundred pounds of pressure, the metering fan should cut through the bags fairly easily, and put up a nice dust cloud. Just to be sure, he stacked the bags so that the metering fan would cut through all of the bags, and for good measure went ahead and cut the top two bags open.
By the time he’d finished with all fifty bags, he was tired and sweating. Directing the skid back to the supply tunnel, he crossed back to the maintenance tunnel and keyed his datacomp. 50:15:34 popped up in the countdown window, and McDougal realized he was tired. Getting another data dump from the Ferret, he quickly scanned it and noted that the Goons seemed to be bedding down for the night. They had patrols out, and there was now some Goon noise on the EM band, but McDougal couldn’t decode the frequencies.
His stomach rumbled, and he pulled an emergency ration down, heated it and gobbled the food without caring what it was, or paying any attention to the taste. Finishing the ration, he stripped off the skin suit and deposited it in the receptacle in the fresher, then dialed the setting to relax/clean.
Ten minutes later, he staggered out, almost asleep, and numbly climbed into a clean skin suit. Flopping down in the conformal chair Herbert had ‘borrowed’ from the officer’s lounge, he was asleep in seconds.
***
The buzzing of the datacomp woke McDougal with a start and he flailed up out of the chair in a panic, before he realized it was his alarm going off. Slapping at the datacomp, he saw 42:02:56 in the countdown window. After he visited the fresher, he keyed the Ferrets and got a burst dump from each of them, and saw that the Goons were up and about also. They were sweeping each building with some kind of sensor and burning the remnants as they went.
There was more EM noise on the Goon frequencies and he wondered if he dared another airborne Ferret, finally deciding it might be worth it. Worst case, he doubted he was going to get many more chances to launch many more.
He had to scrabble on the bench to find another Ferret; he reminded himself to clean up the bench as soon as he got this one launched. Taking the datacomp, he walked to the tunnel entrance, programmed the one in the hole to fly through the TGate, set the replacement then let it walk into place.
Coming back into the maintenance tunnel, he methodically cleaned up the area, repackaging the tools, unused parts, and stacking the remaining Ferrets on the end of the bench for easy access. He ate another ration thinking, There isn’t enough time. They were burning Buildings Four and Five this morning. That means they could be here burning Building One tomorrow. What can I do? I’m a frikkin rat in a cage down here. I can’t talk to anybody, I can’t get out, all I can do is die… Seeing the two globes of hooch sitting on the bench, he reflexively grabbed one, bit it and drained it. Then picked up the second one and did the same thing. Fuck it, I’ll just get drunk and die that way.
He got up slowly and walked down the supply tunnel to the hooch tunnel, felt his way in, and opened the hopper. It was almost full, over forty globes sat there, and he took out one, savagely bit it, and slurped the contents. Banging the lid closed with all his strength, he sobbed and slid to the floor of the tunnel. He rested his head against the cool steel of the hopper and closed his eyes, Good deal my ass! You’re one of the special ones, they said. We can trust you. As long as you never take longer than 38 minutes with the still, nobody will ever know, they said. You get all the booze you want for free, they said. It’s all automated, all the materials and supplies are built into every camp loadout. It’s simple. We’ll give you a code to run, and the Mechs will build you a secret tunnel, they said. They’ll assemble the still too! Another secret code to run. Easy, peasy, they said. Now I’m gonna fucking die!
McDougal’s data pinged louder and louder before he finally acknowledged it. The alert was on the countdown, it had dropped to 20:34:40 and the scrolling text said, MATERIAL CHANGE. IGNEOUS ROCK TO SEDIMENTARY. CONFIRM? Y/N
He looked muzzily at the display before the words finally connected and he immediately punched Y. Scrambling up, he felt like his head was going to fall off, and his stomach was queasy, but he rushed down the tunnel to the new, smaller tunnel and through it to the back of the Mech One. In the glare of the lasers, he could see the change in the rock they were driving through, and he decided then and there to take them out of quiet mode to speed up the process even more.
A particularly bright flare of the laser reminded him he didn’t have any eye protection, and he retreated back down the tunnel quickly. He walked back to the maintenance tunnel and scrabbled through the first aid kit, found a stim and injected himself in the thigh with it. After the initial rush, he pulled up the Mech menu with a new energy and reprogrammed both units to maximum speed drilling with minimum clean up.
It was now or never, he figured. He keyed the Ferrets, got a burst from them, and jumped as the video started, there was a Goon not three feet from the Ferret, with a sensor of some type in hand, and McDougal could clearly see the golden colored nictitating eyelids as they flickered across the Goon’s eyes, the odd coloration that seemed to differentiate from Goon to Goon, and the ever-present dangling tongue.
He watched the Goon step back, waving some kind of wand, as if looking for something, then turn and say something over his shoulder to the Goon standing behind him. The uniform the Goon wore was some type of skin suit, with a hood maybe, that drooped at the back of the neck. He, or it, wore a belt with an oddly shaped pistol, and what appeared to be spare magazines along with two other pouches that had no purpose that McDougal could see.
Five minutes into the video, the Ferret was suddenly flipped on its side, skewing the video as something moved it. Craning his head McDougal watched as a line of Goons formed and seemed to march straight at the camera as two more APCs pulled up at the side of Building Six.
The Ferret was jostled a couple of more times, but not destroyed, and the last frames showed an empty area. McDougal looked at the time hack, and saw it was lunch time, so he launched the Ferret airborne for the gate, hoping it would make it through with the latest intelligence and maybe somebody, if he was lucky, could make heads or tails of it.
He killed the video display, and saw the countdown clock was now at 09:45:12.
