2041 Sanctuary (Dark Descent) (79 page)

Cora advanced again. Sarah hurled the Mayan plaque at her, but she ducked out of the way. Feeling in another pocket Sarah withdrew the orb and launched the leaden weight at Cora’s head. With cat-like reflexes Cora caught the artefact in her hand, grinning as she backed Sarah into a corner.

‘I’ve been waiting to get rid of you ever since you arrived,’ Cora said, ‘and your duplicity has granted me that opportunity. Riley will find it hard to take when he hears of your death, but he’ll get over it. Besides,’ she held up her weapon, ‘you left me no choice; I had to defend myself when you came at me with this axe. They’ll probably even give me a reward for preventing your escape, call me a hero.’

Sarah wiped a trickle of blood from her nose. ‘A twisted bitch is what you are.’

‘So they tell me.’ Cora prepared to strike before her eyes widened and the axe slid from her grasp. ‘What—’ She looked down at the orb still clutched in her other hand.

Sarah saw the artefact’s surface change texture and she put her hands over her ears as a high pitched noise sang out into the room.

Cora clutched at her stomach, the orb rolling from her hand as she convulsed. Dropping to her knees, froth seeped from the corner of her mouth and her eyes rolled up into her head. Toppling over, her body contorted before her back arched up once, twice and a third time to crack sickeningly, leaving her lifeless form twitching on the floor.

Sarah stared in shock at the scene, delighted to be alive but horrified by what she’d just witnessed. Reluctantly, but feeling compelled to do so, she picked up the orb in its cloth covering and stowed it back in her pocket.

A thumping sound accompanied by muffled voices drew her attention to the rear of the room where the nightshift had been locked in. The fight with Cora had awoken them.
Could anything else go wrong?
she wondered.

The door to the Control Centre opened and Trish and Jason entered wearing their stolen Deep Reach helmets.

‘Did you get it – the pendant?’ Trish said, before gasping at the gruesome sight of Cora’s dead body.

Sarah scooped up the Mayan tablet. ‘Yes, but we have to go – now!’

Jason tore his eyes away from the corpse. ‘What’s that noise?’

‘The nightshift is awake.’ Sarah joined Trish at the main console. ‘Is everything ready?’

Trish nodded. ‘Put the cards in the slots.’

Sarah withdrew the two multifunction cards and slid them into the apertures. Trish tapped away at the control panel, directing Jason to press some buttons on another computer.

‘Erm, guys,’ Sarah said, looking at a camera feed showing footage of the SED’s atrium, ‘you might need to hurry up.’ She watched as soldiers streamed in from all directions. The game was up.

Trish glanced at the image. ‘Hurry up Jason!’ Her fingers clicked faster on the keys.

‘I’m going as fast as I can, for Christ’s sake!’

Sarah saw an air-shuttle appear from beneath the ground at the far side of the shuttle bay below.

Trish stopped typing. ‘We’re ready.’

‘But the shuttle bay floor is still closed,’ Sarah said in dismay.

‘We didn’t know how to turn off the sirens, but don’t worry, it’ll open.’ Trish’s finger hovered over a red button. ‘But as soon as I press this we only have ninety seconds—’

A loud booming on the rear door interrupted her – the nightshift were trying to break free!

‘Ninety seconds,’ she continued, ‘to get down to the air-shuttle and secure ourselves in before it launches.’

‘What!’ Sarah’s face blanched.

Jason saw the live camera footage of soldiers rushing into the SED. ‘Press the damn button!’

‘Ready?!’ Trish asked.

‘Yes!’ Sarah and Jason said in unison.

The nightshift burst out of the backroom.

‘Go!’ Trish depressed the button.

‘Stop!’ someone shouted from behind, but Sarah, Trish and Jason were already out of the door, the seconds ticking away as the sirens and beacons in the shuttle bay came to life, the great star-shaped metal floor grinding back.

♦

Sarah’s heart felt like it was beating out of her chest as she followed Trish and Jason, who tore down the corridor ahead of her. Shouts from behind made her glance back. Twenty feet away two Control Station workers chased them down. Bursting through a door, Trish and Jason flew down some stairs, but Sarah halted at the top.

‘What are you doing?!’ Trish screamed at her, slowing down.

‘Keep going!’ Sarah stepped back behind the door.

Moments later the two men came steaming through and Sarah stuck out a leg, sending both of them tumbling down the stairs. Jumping down after them, Sarah bypassed the groaning bodies by vaulting over the handrail, and rushed to catch up to her friends who were now out of sight.

Corridors and doors flashed past as she counted down the seconds in her mind. She was in the shuttle bay. The platform was ahead. She could see Jason and Trish clambering into the air-shuttle.

Sarah reached the steps, climbed up them and ran along to the front of the vehicle to jump into a seat next to Trish. The back of her helmet clicked onto the headrest just as the safety frame rose up out of the floor to secure her in place. Her helmet’s visor lowered, its internal ice blue digital displays blazing to life.

‘Abort this launch immediately,’ a voice said through the shuttle bay’s speaker system. ‘You are in violation of SED procedures, stand down!’

‘Why can’t they abort the launch?’ Sarah noticed the shuttle bay floor had only reached half way.

Trish held up a circuit board. ‘Because I disabled it.’

Sarah smiled, but the joy was short-lived as she could see through the Command Centre’s windows that the soldiers had arrived. The air-shuttle shuddered and rose up into the air. Sirens continued to wail and beacons flashed as the track rose up from below, scraping against the floor as it continued to retract. Sparks showered down as the two mechanisms screeched against one another. With Sarah praying that the system wouldn’t fail, the shuttle moved to intercept the rails making, her realise Trish must have set the shuttle to launch from the top tier. The shuttle dropped down so it connected to the track beneath, which had now cleared the floor, its passengers in an upright position.

‘Sarah, this is Dresden Locke,’ a voice said through her helmet. ‘Stop this launch at once!’

Sarah looked up to see Locke standing in the Control Station and by his side, Riley.

The windshield of the air-shuttle glided into place as a countdown timer appeared on her visor.
T minus fifteen seconds,
she told herself.

‘Sarah,’ Riley’s voice said, ‘listen to me, the soldiers have just been authorised to shoot, please don’t do this, abort while you still can!’

Sarah didn’t respond as gunfire tore into the Control Station’s toughened windows. The transparent surfaces blurred into opacity as the bullets destroyed their integrity.

‘Ten seconds,’ Jason said.

The shuttle moved forwards to suspend them over the abyss.

The soldiers were now kicking and breaking the fractured glass with the butts of their rifles.

‘Five seconds!’ Jason said.

Sarah watched as the windows fell outwards into the shuttle bay and the countdown timer sank to three – two – bullets rained down around them – one.

‘Launch!’ Jason shouted and the air-shuttle plummeted into the Earth.

Chapter Fifty Seven

A massive explosion detonated above them as they fell, a fireball hunting them down the shaft like the flaming claws of a demonic beast. Sarah heard Trish scream while the air-shuttle spiralled downwards, the flames licking at its sides before they outran its Promethean grasp. Wondering what had caused such a catastrophic eruption, Sarah watched the vehicle’s main beams powering up to light the tunnel ahead.

Her head rattled against the headrest as their speed increased, before their track diverged from those around it. Rock walls flashed past, the track twisting and turning at dizzying angles, and Sarah’s visor displayed a message indicating rocket propulsion was imminent. She braced herself as the burn initiated, thrusting her back into the seat. Ten seconds passed followed by another rocket burn of the same duration. Roaring wind tore at the three friends as yet another rocket fired, propelling them forwards over four hundred miles an hour in the blink of an eye and sending the G-force dial lurching up. The track dipped and weaved, making Sarah close her eyes before a final explosion increased their velocity even further.

Hitting a straight piece of track the air-shuttle, currently inverted, angled upwards at twenty degrees, their acceleration still climbing. An alarm sounded inside Sarah’s helmet.

‘Warning!’ a computerised voice said. ‘Unrecognised launch protocols detected. Maximum track velocity exceeded. Deploying emergency brakes.’

Sarah cracked open an eye to see the same message flashing on her visor while the skin on her face rippled backwards under the increasing speed. A jolt ran through the vehicle as the brakes engaged. A high pitch screech slowed them for a few seconds before a loud bang followed by something large and heavy flying past their heads caused the shuttle to surge forwards again.

‘Malfunction! Emergency braking system failure. SED Control Station offline. Failsafe protocols unavailable. Manual activation required.’

At the end of Sarah’s armrest a panel opened and a joystick emerged. Sarah reached for it but a twist in the track, bringing them upright, forced her hand back down before another rocket fired powering them beyond six – and then seven – hundred miles an hour. A strange air pocket formed on the front of the shuttle’s nosecone before a sonic boom shattered the air around them, announcing they’d just broken the sound barrier.

Sarah’s vision faded to grey and narrowed. Her body felt like she’d gained a thousand pounds. The G-force dial on her visor crept up still further. The track dipped down and Sarah’s vision blacked out, her consciousness slipping. The rockets finally depleted, the shuttle slowed. Sarah’s vision returned and she managed to inch her fingers onto the joystick as they shot through the interior of Sanctuary Proper faster than a speeding bullet. Using all the effort she could muster, she pulled the stick back. Small rockets fired on the front of the shuttle impeding them further before the track entered another spiral. Gradually their speed dropped below three hundred miles an hour and a message appeared warning them of imminent track transition.

A transparent sheath shrouded the air-shuttle before the vehicle detached from its rails to continue its journey on a cushion of air through a translucent tunnel. With the journey far from over, Sarah realised this track went much further than the one she’d previously ridden.

They fell once more like a stone out of the sky, dropping towards the centre of the Earth. More twists and turns followed, jarring her to the core until their trajectory levelled out. With the near death experience leaving her shaken, Sarah concentrated on their surroundings, lit up by the shuttle’s inexorable advance. Ancient buildings loomed at the edges of perception, some merely large, others monumentally colossal, their ghostly forms cutting stark and unusual shapes as the shuttle passed them by, dressing them in moving shadows with its lights. These lost treasures had lain hidden for untold millennia, unbeknownst to humanity’s ancestors evolving on the surface’s shores. They were all untouched by man, their secrets held close and their tales lost to time’s distant and fickle past.

They slowed further before the tube in which they travelled sank beneath a torrent of water, a great river. Amazed by this transition, Sarah’s eyes were drawn to fantastical architecture and long submerged statues, their obscure and often disintegrating beauty exposed as they drifted past, an underwater world briefly glimpsed but one forever remembered.

Their travel slowed yet further, the tunnel emerging from calmer waters. An opening folded back on the shuttle’s outer skin and their speed dropped off to bring them cruising into a deserted manmade structure, an SED outpost and their journey’s end. Running alongside a platform, much like those in a train station, the air-shuttle glided to a stop.

A small click from near the back of Sarah’s head announced her helmet had released from the headrest and the frame securing her in place retracted into the vehicle’s floor. Sarah sat for a moment in an attempt to regain her composure and to keep down the contents of her stomach, a plan which, so far, seemed to be working. A nearby retching noise made her turn to see that Jason wasn’t adhering to such a strategy. He leaned over the side of the shuttle, ridding himself of his last meal. Trish sat silently next to her, slumped forwards in her seat.

‘Trish, you okay?’ Sarah nudged her friend with a hand.

She didn’t respond.

‘Trish?’ Sarah pulled her friend upright, sending her helmet clonking back against the headrest.

‘Huh?’ Trish’s eyes popped open. ‘Is it over?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I think I passed out. I thought we were going to come off the track.’

Sarah stood up, feeling giddy. ‘We nearly did, something went badly wrong.’

‘That’s a bloody understatement.’ Jason wiped the back of his sleeve across his mouth. ‘I nearly crapped my damn pants. In fact—’ He looked down at himself.

Trish and Sarah looked at him in dismayed disgust while he wriggled his hips about.

‘Nope, false alarm, I’m all clear.’

‘Perhaps we entered the wrong parameters,’ Trish said, to Sarah as they exited the shuttle.

‘But what was that explosion at the start?’ Sarah replied. ‘That definitely wasn’t normal.’

‘Err, yeah, about that,’ Jason said, ‘that was probably my fault.’

Sarah looked at him, puzzled.

‘What did you do?’ Trish asked in resignation.

‘Well, you know you told me you’d disabled the console so they couldn’t follow us?’

Trish looked wary. ‘Yes.’

‘Well I kinda – didn’t believe you.’

Trish’s eyes narrowed. ‘I see.’

‘So you did what?’ Sarah said.

‘So I attached a shaped charge to the launch platform and activated it as we fell.’