Rather than be caught out in the storm, he staggered his way to the silhouette of the shuttle lit up by the lightning flashes overhead, once inside he used its own subspace transceiver to contact the Copernicus in orbit.
“We’ve got a message, sir. It’s from the surface, pretty garbled though, the storm is interfering with our sensors, I’ll see if I can clear it up,” Strandzhar announced.
“Shunt main power to the sensors, give it everything you’ve got ensign.”
“Yes, sir.” Strandzhar worked the controls for several seconds, as he diverted power to the giant sensor boom.
“Much better; putting it onscreen now,” Strandzhar said with a hint of relief to his voice.
Corporal Jankov’s slightly flushed face appeared on the screen, “Jankov to Copernicus are you receiving, over.”
“Copernicus here, we are receiving you, we’ve had some difficulty due to the storm.” Akimbe replied.
The corporal looked visibly relieved that his arduous journey was not after all, for nought.
“Are you okay?” Akimbe asked, slightly concerned for the soldier.
“Yes captain, the storm has increased in its intensity, the winds are approaching gale force now, I have taken shelter in the shuttle until the storm abates.”
“I can see that, what about the science team?”
“They are okay and continuing to explore the interior of the facility, whatever the structure is made of renders communication all but impossible.”
“I know, it’s the same reason why our sensors cannot penetrate it, how are the guards?”
“They are all fine captain, the facility runs for hundreds of meters underground. The science team are trying to locate a control room of some kind, so they can get power back online.”
“Understood,” Akimbe nodded.
“With your permission captain, I would like to ride out the storm here, before re-joining the landing party.”
Akimbe chuckled, “of course corporal, Copernicus out.”
The message ended and Akimbe was at last able to rest back in his seat, relieved that his team were okay after all. His dark skinned fingers pyramided in thought. If the facility does extend that far underground, then this thing could be much bigger than we originally thought. The question still remained however, why build an enormous underground facility on this scale, and then just abandon it without a fight. It made no sense, hopefully the landing party could uncover the mystery surrounding this thing.
Kathryn and the rest of the science team climbed down onto a third floor, by now they were beginning to tire, and frustration was beginning to set in, they had been down here for hours.
“How many floors does this place have?” Broadhurst asked.
“The shaft ends just below this floor, so I guess this must be the last one,” Kalschacht replied matter of factly.
“Lets all just keep calm, and find this goddamned control room,” Kathryn cut in, their earlier assumptions had so far proved to be correct, as was the case in all of the others, this floor began with a security room also.
“It does make you wonder though,” Gomez said, “with all the security around this place, what were they protecting? What was this place really built for?”
“Somehow I don’t think it is bodies in the attic,” Pryor said remembering the grisly science labs.
“Anyway, that’s what we’re here to find out,” Mira cut in, in answer to Gomez’s question. Mira was normally the quietest of the whole team, typically keeping herself to herself, and only rarely mixing or joining in conversations. Though her work was first rate, which was why Kathryn had chosen her in the first place.
Their spirits rose as they explored this third floor, passing what appeared to be a rather spacious, yet spartan looking office, another storeroom, a huge briefing hall with enough seating inside to easily accommodate a hundred people. However it was the next two rooms that proved to be the most intriguing, these piqued the scientists curiosity immensely.
They were like nothing they had seen before, walls were lined with sophisticated looking consoles, work surfaces lined with yet more controls. ‘These were definitely control centres for something, but for what?’ Kathryn thought, the first of the two rooms was completely shut down, no monitor or terminal was functioning. So the team checked over the second room, again they found all the controls and monitors shut down.
How the hell where they supposed to get this place powered up again, the frustration at coming so close, and then not finding a way to activate this command centre was palpable. Kathryn could hear the curses and mutterings through tiny little speakers inside her helmet.
“Wait!” of all people, it was Mira who called out, “I think I’ve found something.”
“What?” everyone else asked in unison as they hurried over to her position.
She was stood at a smaller console, taking up one corner of the slightly rectangular room, there were a myriad of buttons, small displays and dials, all of which were defunct. That was, all except for a single tiny button, which flickered irregularly as though clinging on to some last vestiges of power remaining somewhere.
“It could be an activation switch,” Kalschacht said enthusiastically.
“Or it could be some sort of self destruct,” Pryor replied. “There’s no way to know for sure.”
“Well we’ve come this far, it would be a waste to go back without at least finding out what this place is built for, and all because we are scared to push a button?” Broadhurst said as he reached down and pressed the gently flashing control.
3. The beacon alights
As Matthew Broadhurst pressed that tiny flickering control a deep low hum began to reverberate throughout the installation, everyone heard it. A low-pitched thrumming noise that felt like it was pounding the insides of their skulls, almost as if an ancient and powerful relic was coming to life once again.
Kathryn began to get very worried, “What have you done!” She shouted over the increasing din and steady vibrations building through the floor. The pounding steadily grew in its intensity, ceiling lights began to gradually flicker as they awoke from their three hundred year slumber. Console lights blinked and came to life, the awakening of this ancient facility had begun.
“Oh god!” She shouted nervously into her helmet mic. as she saw lights begin to dance across gradually activating consoles, the lights above them flickered more fervently as power grew. Suddenly Kathryn was rather scared of what they had just awakened.
The thrumming noise now took on a kind of rhythmic, pulsating sound, as though something truly massive was slowly beginning to rotate deep within the heart of the facility, this was made all the more clear as they could feel the gentle vibrations in the ground, continually building all around them.
Broadhurst had definitely awakened something, something so unimaginably powerful, they could neither comprehend nor control.
Kalschacht desperately searched the displays, muttering Germanic curses as he looked for some way to shut the infernal thing down again. Everything was written in an alien language that none of them could understand. Wall mounted displays began showing data streams no one could decipher.
Ensign Strandzhar, sitting at the sensory officer’s station on the Copernicus orbiting far above studied his screen, oblivious to the usual noise of people shuffling past, and others working at consoles. Suddenly he almost jumped out of his seat, “Holy moly! Err… captain, I think you might want to take a look at this.”
Akimbe turned in his seat, towards the startled young ensign, “what is it?”