Page 34 of My Alien Bughead
“Probably. It would have been abandoned because it got too close to the station’s infrastructure. The regulations are pretty strict about mining under our own asses.”
Light green vein sparkles in the wall when light hits it. “You abandon veins this rich?”
Lucía smirks. “This is nothing. Just scraps of what we normally mine, and that was before we found the new deposits.”
“FrenCorp was lucky to claim this place,” I muse, sliding my fingers over the raw crylonite. I’ve never actually seen crylonite before it’s processed and I’m surprised by its ethereal glow. “Where would such a shaft lead?”
“Nowhere, apparently.” Lucía is right. The tunnel ends abruptly a few hundred feet down from us, as if whoever had been drilling it just up and left. “Like I said, they probably got too close to the station and had to abandon this place. The other end would have led to a connecting vertical shaft, but…”
We shine our lights back to where we came from. A massive pile of rubble blocks the tunnel, likely leading all the way from here to where the train fell through the ceiling.
There’s no way we can dig ourselves out of here. We’re trapped.
Growing desperate, I scan the walls again and notice a small hole near the ceiling. “What’s that?”
Lucía frowns. “I’m not really a mining expert, but I’d say it’s probably a utility shaft. You know, for cables, ventilation, and such. Lift me up?”
I hoist her up so that she can peer into the hole.
“Yep, definitely a utility shaft. Horizontal, only about thirty feet long. There must be another tunnel behind this wall. Too bad the shaft is too narrow for us to climb through.” When I set her back on the ground, she looks around with uncertainty. “So, we’re trapped in this tunnel, we have no food or water, and it’s a little cool in here. On the upside, we can survive a few days without supplies, the cold isn’t going to kill us, and lots of people will be looking for us. They’ll find us and dig us out, right?”
She doesn’t sound too convinced and frankly, neither am I. I’ll be long dead before any kind of rescue gets here but how do I make sure Lucía will survive long enough? I doubt she’d want to eat my corpse, even if it would be the logical solution.
“Hmm,” she hums, her attention once again drawn to the crylonite vein. “They make weapons from this stuff, right? I know it’s not very reactive in this form but could we somehow use it to blow a hole in this wall? The other tunnel should be—”
“No. Absolutely not.” A full body shudder runs through me at the thought of blowing anything up while we’re trapped in this already highly unstable tunnel.
Lucía cocks an eyebrow. “No, it’s not possible, or no, it’s not safe?”
“It is possible,” I admit, not wanting to lie to her. “But we’re not doing it. Best case scenario, we’d just end up in another dead end tunnel. Worst? This entire tunnel comes crashing down around our heads. It’s not worth the risk. I think we should wait for rescue.”
“You don’t know if the other tunnel is a dead end. Perhaps it could lead us up. But fine, whatever. We’ll wait.”
Grumbling quiet curses, she paces the tunnel back and forth several times before huffing out in frustration then sitting down. “This is boring,” she complains. “I’m not good at sitting still and waiting.”
“Yeah.” With a sigh, I sit down next to her. “That makes two of us.”
The silence stretches on as we sit and contemplate our predicament but it’s not uncomfortable.
“You know,” Lucía starts, “I keep thinking about the saboteur and how what they’ve done doesn’t make any sense.”
Tucking my hands under my armpits to hide how badly they’re shaking, I do my best to focus. “What do you mean? What elsewas sabotaged?” Perhaps if I keep my brain active, I’ll be able to forget about my body’s growing discomfort.
“The furnaces were sabotaged. All four of them, apparently. Now the train. Why? If someone is coming to take control of the station, why destroy infrastructure?”
She has a good point. “I agree, that’s strange behavior for a corporate spy. Let’s go over what we know from the start. FrenCorp owns the mining rights to this asteroid belt. You’ve been mining for years with a steady yield. Recently, you find massive new veins, which means the value of this place will skyrocket.”
“Yes, hugely. Enough for another corporation to want to take us over despite any punishment the UGC will issue for a hostile takeover.” Lucía shrugs. “At least, that’s what Arnik said.”
A skull shattering headache swells into full bloom inside my head. Doing my best to ignore it, I focus on solving the mystery in front of us. It’s all I can do right now. “So, your current theory is that another corporation has heard about your discovery and has sent a spy to disable your defenses, allowing them easy access to the station once the time for invasion comes.”
“But we don’t have any defenses! There are maybe five pulse rifles on the entire station. Nothing else. We have no fancy defense satellites or systems, no blast gates or shields. There’s nothing here to disable. And damaging the mining infrastructure would go heavily against another corporation’s interests. So what the fuck is this person doing?
“They arrive at the station, probably hidden on that cargo hauler that brought supplies a few days ago. Seeing a completely defenseless mining site, with no real weapons or soldiers, and they just decide to fuck it up for the fun of it?”
Rubbing my pounding forehead, I desperately wish for the headache to go away even though I know it’s here to stay for however long I still have left to live. But in spite of the headache,I’m still able to make the connection Lucía missed. “They didn’t see a defenseless station, Lucía. They saw a cruiser in your dock and a whole crew of mercenaries that might be tempted to help you defend the station if offered the right reward. What I don’t understand is why they thought damaging your station would be the best way to get rid of us.”
“Because it is,” Lucía replies, suddenly picking up where my thoughts left off. “Don’t you get it? Arnik thinksyouare the saboteurs. He’s about to kick you off the station. Plus, most of our people are getting suspicious. They might not be trained warriors or have any weapons, but there are over three hundred people here. If they truly believe your crew is threatening their livelihood, they will stop at nothing to make sure you’re gone. They won’t hesitate to damage you or your ship if they have to.”
