“Sounds reasonable,” Bobbie Ray agreed. “Maybe we should get some orange coveralls. After all the media attention with the arrival of the Enterprise‑D, no one will think it’s unusual for workers to access old tunnels.”
“Fine,” Titus said, resuming control of the expedition. “Then you’ll be ready to go on the next free day?”
“Sure; should we tell Starsa?” Jayme asked.
“The last thing we need is her medical alert going off,” Titus protested. “This isn’t some joyride we’re going on. It’s serious. Both of you should make sure you really want to do this.”
Jayme nodded. “If you go, then I should go, too. I checked, and it is safer with three people.”
Bobbie Ray yawned, reclining back on the cushions of his bed. “I think you’re blowing this whole thing out of proportion. We saw those caves. Looks like an afternoon stroll to me.”
“Just you wait and see.” Titus tried to sound ominous, but Bobbie Ray ruined it by laughing.
Irritated, Titus left as the laughter continued to ring out behind him. He decided to take the transporter to the workout arena to blow off some steam. He couldn’t wait to get that big Rex down on histurf. Then they would see how tough he was.
By the time their next free day came along, the Enterprise‑D had finished its preliminary investigation on Earth. The analysis of the artifacts found at the dig site suggested they originated from the planet Devidia II in the Marrab sector.
It was barely dawn when Titus woke to the news that the Enterprise‑D was breaking orbit and was en route to Devidia II to investigate. He quickly called the others to get them moving. They needed to get past the upper tunnels and into new territory before the caverns were filled with secondary Starfleet investigators.
Bobbie Ray was like a limp rag, never eager to get up early, and being provocative undoubtedly because he knew how impatient Titus was to get down to the caves. “Yeah, yeah, just a few more minutes,” the Rex repeated, rolling over lazily.
Titus prodded him again, fresh from his own shower and ready to go. When Jayme poked her head around the door, also up and eager, Titus finally warned, “I’ll tell everyone you wimped out and we had to go without you.”
That did the trick, and within minutes the three cadets had transported into Chinatown. Jayme had taken the entire Quad on a tour of the city soon after the academic year began, so Titus had already gotten a glimpse of the riot of color and noise and smells offered by the historic district. The streets were narrow canyons–very different from other Earth cities he’d seen so far, with their open green parks and towering spires. They had to watch their step along the sidewalks to avoid the squatting Asians who were tending their ion‑grills, roasting a variety of real and exotic animal products right on the street.
Bobbie Ray kept stopping to toss credits at the vendors, picking up skewers of unidentifiable meat, while Jayme kept running into the makeshift booths to rifle through colored scarves and costumes. Titus was too busy trying to get his bearings with the map on his padd, but somehow in the past few hundred years, the street locations and names had inexplicably shifted.
“We’ll never find it!” he finally exclaimed, standing in the center of a five‑way intersection that shouldn’t have existed.
Bobbie Ray stuck a large fried insect in his mouth and briskly began crunching. The guy had a bottomless pit where his stomach should be.
“Close your mouth!” Jayme snapped, obviously disgusted by the sight of legs and feelers being randomly mashed around in the Rex’s mouth.
“Want one?” Bobbie Ray asked, offering her a plasteen container that was piled with the desiccated bodies of Terran grasshoppers.
“You know,” Jayme told him with a wicked glint in her eye, “you shouldn’t wear that color. Orange on orange makes you look like a big Zarcadian squash.”
“Will both of you pay attention?” Titus demanded. “We’re going to have to pick another access port. We’ll never find the one in here.”
“Oh, give me that!” Jayme snatched the padd from his hand, muttering under her breath about “tourists.”
With a few flicks of the screen, she overlaid a current map and zoomed in on their targeted access port.
“Here it is,” she said. “Right behind the Ho Ching Acupuncture and Telekinetic Healing Clinic.”
“Oh, what a relief,” Titus said sarcastically, taking back his padd.
“What would you do without us?” Bobbie Ray commented, grinning around the spindly legs of the grasshoppers.
* * *
Jayme was right–no one paid any attention to three orange‑clad workers opening the access port in the alleyway. Kids were running past, people were hanging clothes out overhead, and antigrav carts trundled by on both sides laden with warehouse goods or fresh produce.
Closing the access portal overhead, they stood in a rounded dirt‑floored chamber similar to the one shown on the media broadcasts where Data’s head was found. Titus felt a sinking feeling, wondering if all the caverns had been reconditioned by the workforces over the years.
“This way,” he ordered, keeping his worries to himself. At the rear of the chamber was a long ladder, leading down. Here the walls were rougher and the black pit was too deep to be illuminated by their handlights. Titus began to feel a little better. “Down we go!”
“Wait,” Jayme said, unslinging her pack. “We have to put these on.”
She held out the white jet‑boots issued by Starfleet.
Titus took one look and groaned. “We don’t need those!”
“I’m not going down without safety gear,” Jayme insisted. “And I’m not going to let you two go, either. This is supposed to be fun, not life‑threatening.” She glanced down into the shaft. “And those rungs look slimy.”
Bobbie Ray checked the two pairs she set out for them. “You brought my size!”
Jayme slipped her white boots on and tightened the straps. With a little puff of dust, she activated the jets and lifted a few inches off the ground. “Good for thirty hours use.”
Bobbie Ray buckled his boots on and was soon lifting himself up to the ceiling. “Maybe we should skip the ladder and go down this way.”
“Maybe you want to give up now and go back to the Quad!” Titus retorted. “What’s the use of exploring if you might as well be in a holodeck?”
Both of them hovered silently, staring down at him. After a few moments, Titus flung up his hands. “Have it your way, then! But we only use the boots in an emergency or I’m quitting right now.”
Jayme sank back down to the ground. “That’s why I brought them. For emergencies.”
Titus waited until Bobbie Ray also slowly floated down before jerking on his jet‑boots and tightening them in place. “Ithink if you can’t manage to hang on to a ladder, then you get what you deserve.”
Bobbie Ray laughed. “Then you go first, fearless leader.”
Titus had the satisfaction of hearing the Rex’s laughter abruptly end as they started down the ladder. For most humanoids, any sort of vertical drop offered a test of nerves. Especially when you couldn’t see the bottom.
The light at the opening at the top dwindled as they descended. He skipped several side tunnels that went in the direction of the Presidio and Starfleet Academy, choosing to go as deep as he could. The fracture widened at the bottom, becoming more rugged and raw. They climbed through a steeply inclined crack, into an underground canyon that stretched as far across as the Academy Assembly Hall. A stream had eroded the bottom into a gorge, and they had to edge along the wall, brushing their hands against the slippery, calcified coating on the rocks. Titus could imagine the tremendous force of earthquakes breaking open the crust around the San Andreas Fault, leaving behind this network of caverns and crushed rock.