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“Just
use your scanner, Cadet,” Sharpe hissed.

“Oh
yes,” she mumbled quickly.

She
was flustered.

Really
flustered.

And
for some damn reason, she couldn't use the scanner. After several
mortified seconds of trying, she looked up at Sharpe and shrugged.
“Um. . . .”

“Give
it here,” Sharpe snatched it off her. Then he poked at the thing.
Slowly he turned it over and realised there was a long crack up one
side. “What have you done to this?”

Oh
damn, she really had broken it. God, she was the unluckiest girl in
the universe.

“Oh,
that, I fell over, and the scanner tumbled down the stairs. That's
how I found them—the stairs,” she added meekly.

Sharp
sighed.

“Sir,”
Blake said, proffering a hand to Sharpe for the scanner.

Sharp
handed it to him whilst shooting Nida a withering look.

“Let's
have a look here,” Blake muttered as he typed something quickly.
Then he pulled the operating chip out of the back, stared at it
with a frown, and shot her a quick glance. “It just fell down the
stairs? Are you sure? It looks like it's been landed on by a
cruiser.”

Nida
pressed her lips together to stop herself from saying something
stupid.

“I
think I can still . . . ,” Blake trailed off,
clear concentration crumpling his brow. Seconds later, he grinned.
“Alright, got it. Thanks, Cadet,” he nodded her way affably, then
headed off through the dark compound, Sharpe at his
side.

Sharpe
shot her another disdainful look, but didn't say anything as he
marched off.

Which
just left Nida alone. So much for the stairs winning her brownie
points. Now she would have to explain broken equipment to
Sharpe . . . again.

Damn,
everything she touched turned to dust.

With a
truly rattling sigh, Nida wandered back into the
compound.

She
intended to find a nice flat rock to sit on. Sharp would no doubt
shout at her for being lazy when he returned from the mystery
stairwell, but she was already in trouble, so Nida didn't really
care if she added another nail to her coffin, as old humans would
say.

Just
as she sat down, she saw the unwelcome sight of Sharpe marching up
to her.

She
jumped to her feet, stumbling awkwardly as she did.

“Cadet,” he spat, “you really screwed up that scanner. It's
given us messed up coordinates.”

Damn
it. “Sir,” she winced, “um, I'm sorry.”

“Don't
be sorry, yet,” he added ominously, “just come and help us find
those stairs.”

Nida
scurried forward, Sharpe striding along at her side.

Soon
they both reached Blake. He was standing there, frowning down at
the scanner. “I thought these things were meant to be tougher than
this,” he muttered as he hit the bottom of the scanner with the
base of his palm.

“Alright, find the stairs, and you better not be mistaken
about this,” Sharpe added under his breath.

Dread
coiled up her spine, and Nida grimaced into the darkness. It would
just be her luck if the stairwell had disappeared as quickly as it
had formed. Sharpe would kill her for wasting his and precious
Lieutenant Blake's time.

She
ran forward, twisting her head this way and that as she looked for
any sign of a familiar landform.

Just
as genuine worry sliced through her belly, she saw it.

A
familiar lip of shadow.

“There
it is,” she breathed through her monumental relief. “Just over
here,” she added in a far stronger tone.

She
led the two men forward to the dark opening of the
stairwell.

“What
the hell?” Blake peered down into it, checking his own scanner as
he did. “This was most definitely not on the
blueprints.”

“There's an energy reading too,” Nida remembered, bringing a
finger up as she pointed it out, almost as if she was an excited
child reciting some recently learned fact.

“What?” Blake snapped his head around. “I'm not picking up an
energy source.”

“Cadet
Nida is likely mistaken,” Sharpe insisted at once.

She
hadn't been mistaken about the stairwell, though, had she? She
wanted to point out. Instead, she bit her tongue and peered past
Blake at the dark shadow in the ground.

Her
stomach twisted as a kick of fear passed through her.

There
was something . . . not right about that
tunnel.

“Alright, let's go,” Blake waved them forward.

“Shouldn't we wait for the rest of your team?” Sharpe
asked.

Sharpe
was a commander, and Blake was a lieutenant, Sharpe very much
outranked the guy. And yet, like almost everyone else at the
Academy, Sharpe held this sense of awe for Blake that meant the
lieutenant was treated like a freaking admiral.

“We'll
just do an initial check.” Blake shrugged his shoulders. “The scans
suggest everything is fine.”

“Alright,” Sharpe agreed. “Cadet, go back to the compound,” he
added as he turned from her and headed down the first few
steps.

“Yes,
sir,” she managed easily.

Though
she'd found the stairs, she really didn't mind being told to head
back to the compound.

While
she was technically meant to be an explorer, she didn't want to
explore that dark shadow in the ground.

“Hold
on,” Blake put a hand out in a stopping motion.

A
spike of fear rushed through her as she worried whether he was
about to suggest she come along with the two of them
anyway.

He
didn't. Instead, he handed her his scanner. “It's getting pretty
dark out there, and considering yours is broken, you're going to
need something to see by,” he held it there until she took it from
him.

She
offered a stuttered thank you, then he nodded, gestured towards the
tunnel, and walked off with Sharpe at his side.

She
stood there for several seconds, watching the both of them descend
into the shadows. Though Sharpe turned on the light source in his
scanner, and the little device threw out powerful illumination, it
didn't feel as if it could do much to the darkness. It was so damn
cold and black down there.

Nida
gave a sudden shudder as they both walked out of sight.

Then
she realised how dark it was out here, and fumbled with Blake's own
scanner until she managed to get the light source
working.

Turning your scanner's light on was a basic lesson at the
Academy, and happened somewhere around the first day, and yet she
had to try hard to remember how to make the little device work
properly.

She
really was the worst cadet in 1000 years, she realised as she
slowly turned and made her way back to the compound.

She
didn't make it.

As she
walked along, once again she stared at the beautiful night sky
above. There was absolutely no light pollution on this planet, so
the stars cape had nothing to compete with, and shone with
astounding brilliance.

She
could even pick up the colourful swathes of constellations and gas
clouds. She took several steps as she stared above, and once again
tripped over something.

This
time she went flying, and she didn't hit the ground.

She
tumbled down an incline instead.

Her
body beat against something that felt suspiciously like steps, and
she rolled down and down until her back thumped hard against a cold
and unyielding floor.

She
lay there and gasped for several seconds, feeling pain ripping
through her body.

Yet
after she sucked in several calming breaths, she realised she was
still alive. With an enormous groan, she tried to sit up, and
promptly checked herself for broken bones as she did.

Everything seemed to be okay. Yes, she was in a great deal of
agony, but she couldn't find any puncture wounds, and seemed to be
able to move all of her muscles satisfactorily.

She
groaned again as she realised she'd let go of the
scanner.

In
fact, she couldn't see it any more.

Because she couldn't see anything. Wherever she was, it was
completely dark down here. There was barely enough light to make
out the shape of the stairs directly to her left.

Stairs.

Hold
on, seriously? Had she just found another set of random
steps?

Before
she could realise what a stupid coincidence that was, she began
crawling around on the floor, searching for the scanner.

Clearly, it had tumbled from her grip as she’d fallen, and
somehow it had turned off its light in the process.

That
or it was broken.

. . . .

Knowing her luck, it was most definitely broken.

Great.
She had just stuffed up Carson Blake's own personal
scanner.

Crawling around, she searched and searched, but she couldn't
find it.

She
sat back on her haunches, swearing as she did.

Then
she turned her head, angling to what she thought was the
stairs.

After
her fall, she’d lost her sense of orientation, and she realised
with a pang of fear, she didn't know which direction up
was.

So she
crawled until her fingers finally brushed against the reassuring
incline of a step.

She
began to pull herself up. Though she could stumble to her feet to
stand, knowing her luck, she would trip and fall back down on her
ass again.

With
every step she clambered up on her hands and knees, she realised
just how much her side hurt. It was hard to breathe, and with a
groan, she realised she'd probably bruised her ribs.

Fantastic.

She
was never going to be allowed to go on a mission ever again. She'd
broken two scanners and herself.

Sharpe
was going to go mental.

Or
maybe he wouldn't. Maybe she could pretend she accidentally lost
Blake’s scanner, and she could lie about the fact she'd fallen down
another set of stairs, pretending she'd bruised her ribs by
just . . . breathing too hard.

At
that completely stupid thought, she let out a little pitiful
laugh.

Then
she realised how damn dark it was down here, and a new flurry of
fear escaped over her back, chilling the skin as it
went.

Crawling faster, she finally reached the top of the
stairs.

But
she didn't reach the world outside.

The
beautiful stars cape did not sparkle down to greet her.

Instead the looming shape of a room did.

One
that was lit softly by a faint, blue glow.

Oh
dear.

The
fall had disoriented her, and somehow she’d climbed up the wrong
set of stairs.

Clearly, the tunnel she’d tumbled into had more than one set
of steps leading up.

Great.
Now she had to climb down again and head up the other set of
stairs, still in the dark, and still on her hands and
knees.

Before
she turned and headed back down, she slowly surveyed the
room.

There
weren't meant to be any energy sources on this planet, she
remembered, but whatever was making that blue glow clearly wasn't
natural.

She
narrowed her eyes and tried to figure out what it was.

Some
kind of statue.

She
could make out the shape of a body, carved out of stone, on the far
wall.

The
room was completely empty apart from that statue and several dark,
shadowy recesses that suggested other stairwells leading down into
more dark and treacherous tunnels.

She
gulped.

“Turn
around, head down the stairs, and get back to the group,” she said
aloud, flinching as the sound of her voice reverberated around the
empty room.

The
architecture down here was completely different to the compound
above ground, quite possibly because this room was not
ruined.

And
now that she could see the smooth walls and the delicate lines of
the statue, she appreciated what this planet must have once looked
like.

It was
a beautiful sight, mesmerising even.

Yes,
that's the right word, mesmerising.

Before
she could stop herself, she took several steps forward, and then
another, and then another. She ignored the pain stabbing through
her ribcage, and strode confidently towards that statue.

It was
as if the thing was reeling her in.

The
closer she got, the more astounded she was by its
beauty.

It was
the shape of some alien woman, dressed in a flowing gown, with
beautiful lines of hair tapering across her face and
shoulders.