“I didn’t see your suits,” Logan said. “But I haven’t seen much of the mine above this level.”
Gunfire cracked around the tunnel.
Logan ducked, and pulled the girl down until only her head was above the water. Then he turned off the IR illuminators on his goggles, as did the others. The tunnel became a black abyss. Rifle rounds splashed into the water or tore chunks of rock from the walls, but none came close enough to hit them. The insurgents didn’t know where they were, they were just firing in the hope of hitting them by chance.
“Hold your fire,” Bairamov whispered. “And stay low.”
Logan backed along the tunnel, keeping his right hand against the wall so he wouldn’t lose his sense of direction in the darkness. The others followed, staying as low in the water as they could. Rifle rounds cracked through the air above them for a few seconds more, then stopped. With no-one shooting back, the insurgents would probably soon give up and move on.
“We have to find a way out of this level,” Bairamov said, keeping his voice low as it echoed from the hard tunnel walls.
“It’s a fucking maze, sir,” Desoto said. “There’s no way out.”
Logan stopped as his back pressed against a rock wall at the end of the tunnel. He turned the illuminators back on. The tunnel forked again, left and right. Left would take them back toward the main shaft. He turned to the right, and followed the tunnel that way.
“Do you actually know where you’re taking us, McCoy?” Bairamov said.
“Not really, sir.”
“There are exit ladders near all the working faces of the mine. I’ve no idea where we are, but if we can find them, we can get out.”
“How do you know that?”
“Some of us study location intel before a mission, McCoy. Don’t forget that in future.”
“I took a quick look, sir. I didn’t expect to end up fighting in the mine. Or without my suit.”
“You should expect to end up fighting everywhere. It’s what the Legion does whenever we stop marching.”
“I can’t go much further,” the girl said “I’m so cold. I can hardly move any more.”
Logan stood. His body shivered as he lifted his shoulders from the water. He grabbed the girl’s hand again, and almost dragged her behind him, pulling her along fast enough that she had no choice but to keep up. He stared into the shadows at the limit of the illumination from the goggles, looking for any sign of a way up.
The tunnel turned to the right up ahead, and something dark rose vertically beside the wall nearby. Logan moved on as fast as he could while pulling the girl behind him. Then his free hand closed on the side of a wooden ladder that rose up into the tunnel roof. Logan stopped beside it, and leaned close to the wall so he could look up the ladder. The shaft rose into a tunnel a level above, then continued on upwards.
“Ladder,” he said, then swung his rifle around to his side on its sling so he could easily grab the ladder.
“I can’t see,” the girl said.
“They could have put some lights down here,” Desoto said.
Bairamov stopped just behind the girl, and crouched with his rifle aimed back along the tunnel. “Cheaper for miners to bring lights down with them than to wire the whole place up. McCoy, let’s see what’s upstairs.”
Logan climbed a couple of rungs, then grabbed the girl’s hand and placed it on the rung by his knees. He moved higher, and she fumbled behind him for a moment before she found her footing and started to follow. As she climbed behind him into the blackness, Bairamov followed. Then Desoto, moving slow as he climbed with only one good arm. Logan slowed a little to help him keep up.
Then stopped as his head reached the floor of the next level of the mine. Water dripped from his boots and body armour, into the shaft below. The girl’s hand tapped the rung below him, then slapped against his boot. She stopped moving.
He looked left and right, but nothing showed either way. Then up. The ladder continued, and the higher they could go, the better. He climbed on, passing the tunnel as fast as he could. The wooden rungs creaked and the frame rattled against the wall, as he climbed.
The next level was the same, except for muffled yells in the distance. He moved on again. The faster they could get away from the searching insurgents, the better.
Then the ladder came to an end at the next level. Logan swung off the ladder to the dirty rock floor, then crouched and reached down to grab the girl’s hands as she climbed through from the lower level. He pulled her up, and she swung her ass onto the floor, then pulled her legs out. Her wet dress stuck to her hips and thighs as she clambered to her feet.
“Where now?” Bairamov said as he climbed out behind her.
Two directions. Left or right. One of them was correct.
But they didn’t have to decide. A light glowed in the tunnel to the left, and Logan turned off his illuminators. A long shape moved in the bright glow beside the wall that way. A rifle lit by the IR illuminators of the insurgents’ goggles.
He pushed the girl behind him, and raised his own rifle as the glow approached. Then nodded to Desoto to pass by and lead the way. Desoto grabbed the girl’s wrist, and pulled her along the tunnel, away from the approaching riflemen.
“I see three,” Bairamov whispered.
“Same here.”
“Shoot the bastards.”
Bairamov’s rifle cracked, and the glowing light on the wall jumped as one of the men slumped against the wall. Logan fired too, but his burst went wide, blowing rock splinters from the walls as the man he’d aimed at ducked below the line of fire.
Logan crouched lower as incoming rounds came his way. He and Bairamov could see the insurgents by the glow from their IR illuminators, but the insurgents would barely be able to see the Legionnaires.
But they rapidly wised up, and dropped to the floor. Their lights went off, leaving everyone firing into blackness.
“Let’s get out of here,” Bairamov said, and began to back along the tunnel, slapping a hand against the wall as he moved, to maintain his sense of direction in the darkness.
Logan pulled the last HE grenade from his belt, and tossed it back along the tunnel.
He followed Bairamov, crouching as low as he could, and firing bursts from his hip into the darkness as he moved.
Then the grenade exploded.
The insurgents yelled, and Logan and Bairamov backed away faster. The tunnel turned a corner behind them, then a faint glow illuminated their path. Desoto crouched a few metres ahead with the girl slumped on the floor beside him. The glow in front of them showed where the tunnel opened out through the cavern wall beyond.
“Sir,” Desoto said, “You need to see this.”
Bairamov crouched in the tunnel mouth, and took a step out into the glow. Logan peered around the corner beside him.
The tunnel ended at a rock ledge which continued around the wall of a deep, oval cavern, with only a wooden barrier to prevent them from falling. Water tapped as it dripped from the roof, onto the rock floor at least twenty metres below. Lights glowed on stands arranged around the floor near the the cavern walls, raised high and pointing inwards. They illuminated three rows of dark, humanoid shapes in the centre of the cavern.
Combat suits were lined up on the rocky floor down there. A couple of dozen, maybe more. A mob of men swarmed around them, checking the suits, and preparing them for use. One of the suits on the far side of the cavern was already moving, and men were climbing into others on that side.
And those weren’t Legion suits. They were heavy infantry, not the Legionnaires’ scout suits. And Bairamov and Desoto’s suits weren’t among them.
Logan recognized the ornate spikes on the helmets, and the eagle logo on the chest of the suits. He’d seen them in training, both in the vids the instructors showed them, and the early weeks of combat training in VR, before they were let loose in real combat suits.