Amanda was of the opinion that she might be able to do something if Asher would pull everyone back into Site A in the main cavern. With them spread out like this, people were going to die.
The light started to shake. Everyone looked up. Amanda realised that it was the ground shaking. The lights toppled over and smashed. Around the cavern similar things were happening as the dig personnel staggered around. Some of them were grabbing lights and other pieces of equipment trying to steady them.
There were explosions of rock all around the cavern. There were cries of pain as sharp fragments of flying rock hit people. It looked like the seams of metal in the stone had come to life. The organic, almost bone-like metal was pushing through the stone like the tips of claws. It was glowing with some kind of internal light.
This is it, Amanda thought, they’re waking up. We’re dead. She felt the same terror she’d felt in New York grab her. Then, as quickly as it had started, the shaking stopped. Amanda could hear the moaning and whimpering of frightened and, in some cases, wounded people in the main cave.
They were all looking to her now. She was desperately trying to hide her fear.
‘Mikey, Schmidt, stay here with Coyle. You do not help these people, even the wounded, you stick together and work the perimeter. Alan, you take Okobe and Safiya, check sites B and C. Daniels, you and Hank are with me.’
She ignored cries for help. She ignored Asher shouting at her as she headed for the tunnel, the Jackal held tight into her shoulder. As Amanda scanned left and right she noticed that the internal light from the metal was going out. It was as if it had become inert.
‘Where’s Kearney?’ she asked. Nobody had an answer.
Amanda swallowed hard. This wasn’t what she had expected. The lights had gone out in site E. Like site D it was a much smaller, irregularly shaped cavern worked smooth by water over its millennia of existence. The floor of the cavern was a series of rough, narrow trenches chipped out of the stone. As in the main cavern, it looked as though the segmented, bone-like Ceph tech had momentarily come to life and fused together, breaking through the rock. Also like the main cavern, the process seemed to have been interrupted. Unlike the main cavern there looked like there was something wrong with the visible protrusions of the Ceph tech. It looked sick somehow, or perhaps even dead.
Kearney’s corpse lay on the floor but she didn’t have time to check it yet. First they had to secure the site as best they could.
The beam from the flashlight attached to the barrel of her combat shotgun shook as she searched for the alien killer in the pitch darkness of the cavern, over a mile beneath the surface of the Earth.
They had found nothing. After the chaos and the panic things had calmed down enough for them to get light back on in Site E. After significant reassurances that it was as safe as it was going to get, a very angry Dr Asher had joined them. He assured Amanda that she would be held responsible for her incompetence in allowing the site to get damaged. He didn’t say anything about the corpse lying on the floor. Amanda had to stop Daniels from tearing into Asher.
‘So what do you think happened here, doctor?’ Amanda asked once Asher had finished admonishing her.
‘Isn’t it obvious? A Ceph bioform, probably a Stalker, came in and killed your man.’
‘Weird damn way to kill him,’ Hank said.
‘You do know what the word alien means, don’t you?’ Asher asked scathingly.
‘He was killed with what looks like a bladed weapon through the base of the skull and up into the brain…’
‘A Stalker bone spur…’
‘Maybe, but with a full investigative team here I might be able to find out more…’
‘What more do you need to know? You have a Stalker…’
‘Stalkers don’t kill like that,’ Daniels told him from his position, where he was watching one of the dark tunnels. Asher looked like he’d been slapped.
‘Keep your men under control!’ he spat, genuinely offended.
One day we need to examine the basis for your apparent superiority, Amanda thought.
‘He’s right, they slash, like with a sword,’ she told him.
‘You need to stop thinking so narrowly. This species isn’t like us, they adapt reactively between generations. Given time, and they don’t need that much, they develop the tools they need.’
‘So we could be dealing with something new here?’ Amanda asked.
‘Perhaps.’
‘Does it have anything to do with the Ceph-tech initiating?’ Hank asked. Asher looked angry that the bucktoothed southerner had dared speak to him.
‘Perhaps, or perhaps it was just reacting to the presence of a Ceph-bioform. Now as much fun as trying to teach monkeys algebra is, I have work to do.’ Asher turned to leave, motioning Safiya to join him.
‘What’s wrong with the Ceph tech in here, Asher?’ Amanda asked. She watched him swallow hard.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he finally said.
And that’s a fucking lie, Amanda thought, but that’s all I’m going to get out of you, isn’t it?
‘Okay doc, thank you, we’ll call if we think you can help any more,’ Amanda told the piggy-looking scientist. Asher opened his mouth to protest being dismissed by a subordinate, but Amanda had already moved on. ‘Mikey, get your people’s heads down, try and get as much sleep as you can because you’re on again at 1600 zulu,’ she said over the tac radio, pausing for an affirmative. ‘Alan, I want your people doing sweeps, leave the main cavern, it’s going to hit us where we’re lightest. Concentrate on sites B through D, I think it’s finished with E.’ Amanda glanced up at Asher, looking for a reaction. He looked angry at his dismissal but he turned and left Site E. Safiya followed him.
‘Poor kid,’ Daniels said looking down at Kearney. ‘He was a little shit but you could see something worthwhile in him trying to get out.’
I didn’t even get a chance to know him, Amanda thought. She couldn’t muster up much feeling. She’d seen young lives wasted before. It was clear that Daniels had liked the kid, however.
‘What do you think?’ Daniels asked looking away from Kearney’s body.
‘I don’t think it’s a Stalker,’ Amanda said. The British engineer was nodding in agreement.
‘You even think it’s Ceph?’ he asked.
‘Has to be,’ she said sounding not entirely sure.
‘The tech’s initiating for a reason.’ She pointed at the trenches full of inert Ceph tech fused with the rock. ‘No reason to do that unless it’s Ceph. If it isn’t because of this killer then we’ve got bigger problems.’
‘What, then?’ Hank asked.
‘I think it’s something higher up the squiddies’ evolutionary chain and that makes me nervous,’ she told the Georgian. He nodded and then looked troubled. ‘Spit it out.’
‘I don’t mean to offend you none…’
‘Something that’s almost always said before someone offends me.’
‘I’ve come to terms with how CELL left us in the shit in New York. That wasn’t you people’s call but I heard stories about you. Abandoning your post, deserting your people.’
Amanda glanced over at Daniels. He shrugged.
‘We told him to talk to you about it,’ the Brit told her.
‘Look, you seem cool and everything, but I just want to know who I’m working with.’
‘Fair enough. That’s exactly what I did in New York,’ she told him evenly. Hank just watched her, saying nothing. ‘I had family in New York. The whole place was crawling with Ceph, there was the virus and there were CELL units brutalising and executing refugees and people suffering from the virus. I left my people to go and try and get my family out. Same thing was to happen, I’d do it all over again.’