Imperium: Contact

Chapter 7

Sergeant Andrew Williams peered over the cliff's edge he had been lying on for the past hour. It was the perfect location to re-con the shengyet camp from. It had a clear line of sight all the way to the camp. He sighted through the scope of his rifle, it only had a 5X magnification but that was enough. It had been enough to confirm that there was something very odd about this camp. The young man and his shengyet companion he'd seen earlier had retreated into the camp's main building.

Since then Andrew had not seen anyone emerge from any of the camp's structures. Nor had any shengyet returned to the camp and where were the fighters that had shot him down? The shengyet must have realized that something had happened to their two scouts. It was possible the reason for them not emerging, was fear that they might suffer a similar fate. That however, was contrary to everything Andrew knew about the species. He had fought against countless shengyet pirate and rebel groups and none of them could be described as cowardly. He supposed it was possible that these shengyet were afraid of further attack. If that were the case however, why had they attacked the freighter in the first place?

Well whatever it was that kept them hiding in their camp, Andrew had to find some way off this planet. That meant he needed some type of space craft and the only conceivable place of getting one was in there. Lowering his rifle and getting to his feet, he set off.

Roughly ten minutes later Andrew reached the camp's outer buildings. He switched off his rifle's safety mechanism and crept forward. The first building he came to was almost perfectly square with a flat roof. It was made of rusted hull plates, some still baring scorch marks or bullet holes. The door consisted of a particularly large plate that was propped against the building.

Andrew's body tensed, holding his rifle in his right hand, he used the left to push the door aside. He burst into the room beyond, to find it completely empty. There was nothing, absolutely nothing. Andrew checked the next building and the next one, they were all empty. This was getting stranger by the minute. He finally reached the large building in the center; the one he had seen the young man and the shengyet enter. Could they be the only ones in this whole camp?

As Andrew neared the building he saw a sliding hatch, part of the old cargo ship that made up most of this building. Pointing his rifle at it, he slid it open...nothing. It was empty, just like every other building. How could this be? He had seen two people enter it, where were they?

Then he saw it; a thin, long groove in the dusty floor. Andrew knelt down for a closer look, carefully he brushed some of the dust away. The groove he had spotted connected to three more to form a large rectangle. Andrew pulled out his knife and stabbed it into the groove nearest him. Part of the blade slid down and underneath the rectangle. He pushed down on the knife's handle and a rectangular metal plate popped up.

Andrew pushed it aside, it revealed a narrow staircase leading down and out of sight. Slinging the R6 rifle over his shoulder, Andrew activated the light source built into the knife's handle, then deactivated it again. The light would probably give him away to any potential guards. Slowly, he made his way down into the pitch darkness.

The staircase wound its way down for a full five minutes. Finally Andrew saw a faint flicker of light coming from just around another turn. Bringing up his rifle, he crept forward. The

stairs ended in a wide hallway that led to a large set of double doors at the far end. Light was spilling out underneath them and he could hear muted voices on the other side. Shengyet voices and by the sound of it, there was a heated argument going on in there.

As Andrew approached the doors, he noticed a thin wire grill in the wall to the left. Passing his hand over it, he could feel air flowing. This had to be some sort of air-duct. Andrew examined it more closely; it appeared to be made of thin aluminum wire. There were no alarms on it either; whoever was in charge of security down here had seriously slipped up. Using his knife, Andrew had the wire cut in a matter of seconds. If anyone took a closer look at the vent, they would know it had been tampered with but there was nothing he could do about it now.

The vent was narrow and Andrew had to push the rifle and his equipment pack in front of him. After a few meters the vent made a sharp right turn. The sounds of the conversation faded away. Up ahead he could see another wire grill, this one looking down. Quietly pushing his equipment past it, Andrew peered through the grill. Below him was a cavernous room. The doors he had passed must have had more stairs leading down, because he was now over fifty feet in the air.

Far below him Andrew could make out some of the shengyet fighters, resting on what appeared to be landing pads. Along the sides of this massive room, rings of metal walkways climbed up to the ceiling. One of these passed just below the air-duct a few meters back the way he had come.

Andrew grabbed hold of his equipment and started back. When he thought he'd gone far enough, Andrew pulled out his knife. Just like the wire grills, the duct itself was made of aluminum. It was substantially ticker though and took some work cutting through. Pulling the square sheet of metal he had just cut back into the duct, Andrew peered down. He wasn't exactly above the center of the walkway but it would do.

Dropping down his rifle and the pack, Andrew squeezed through the opening. Landing in a low crouch he surveyed his surroundings. What he had thought to be a room was actually an enormous vertical tunnel, presumably leading to the surface. This must be some type of subterranean docking bay. Below him he could see a large group of shengyet standing in between the landing pads.

They were in a rough semi-circle, all of them staring at a communications display. What looked like one of the largest shengyet stood a little closer to the display, apparently talking to someone. Andrew was too high up to make out who the shengyet was talking to but this conversation made a very handy distraction.

There were stairs connecting the walkways to one another. Creeping forward so as not to make the rusty metal beneath him creek, he made his way down. Once he got down there he'd need to somehow get his hands on one of those fighters. He'd also need to prevent the shengyet from giving chase once they figured out one of their ships was missing. There was undoubtedly some type of control mechanism for the landing bay doors leading to the surface. Where it was or even what it might look like he hadn't the faintest idea. Well, that could be easily remedied. He would simply use the fighter's weapons to blast open the doors, provided they weren't too thick.

Now that he thought about it, that might be a real problem. If he did manage to steal a ship he'd need a fast getaway and if that door was too thick... Andrew shifted his equipment pack into a more comfortable position. The pack! The pack with the three canisters of Tritium. If he could get his hands on some type of remote detonator, two of them should be able to handle

those doors, no matter how thick they might be. If he could also rig the third canister to blow up the landing pads down there, he'd have a pretty good escape plan.