Prologue
Charalis
'The Pit', Industrial Mining Complex 47G
Don't panic.
The words resounded through his head, the voice an eerily calm, collective instructor keeping him moving, keeping him alert.
Keeping him alive.
Only five minutes left!
The second voice, the screeching, tearing shriek of common sense that screamed the very base fact that he was never going to make it to the surface before the charges went off and entombed the place.
"Get back!"
A third voice, vocal. A real voice.
His voice.
It took Ambrose a short moment to register that it was him talking, shouting at Hendricks running a short distance ahead of him, warning him of the danger that he had seen and Hendricks had not.
Hendricks looked back over his shoulder at Ambrose, his wild eyes displaying confusion as he faltered briefly, but not enough to stop completely.
Not enough to escape the bug.
Ambrose watched in horror as the nightmare detached itself from the pipes across the ceiling, dropping down in a grotesquely elegant motion to land atop the bewildered Hendricks, smashing him face down to the ground.
His weapon skittered away down the corridor, for all the use it could have done him. There was a universal saying in the corps, that if a bug was close enough to touch, you were already dead.
Time seemed to slow, Ambrose's body moving as if through thick water, his reactions sluggish as he brought his carbine up and aimed for the long, elongated head of the creature pinning Hendricks to the floor.
"Too late, too late..."
The feverish whispers were spilling forth from his lips unbeckoned as he tightened his finger on the trigger, and as he watched the bug drag Hendricks's thrashing form into its deadly embrace, the voices were inclined to concur.
Too late.
Razor sharp claws the length of a man's forearm tore into Hendricks's chest, perforating the flak jacket he wore like tin foil and puncturing his internal organs with ease. Spatters of blood sprayed forth from his screaming mouth as he was shaken like a rag doll by the obsidian demon, before its jaws opened wide and he knew no more.
Ambrose roared in anger, despair and hopelessness as he finally found the pressure point on his rifle and unleashed a juddering hail of high calibre shells into the bug, forgetting combat doctrine and peppering its torso, head, arms, anywhere he could hit and cause the thing pain.
With an ear splitting screech, the creature shuddered and died, blasted apart by his onslaught, hot sprays of fiery acidic blood burning the corridor around it and the ravaged corpse of Hendricks still impaled on its claws.
Ambrose stood motionless and silent for a long moment, watching the shredded bug and the pathetic remains of his comrade merge together and melt away, sinking a hole in the rockcrete floor.
Then he remembered.
Only five minutes left!
He dropped his carbine and ran, the weapon spent and useless now. If he saw anymore of the things he'd have to take his chances, he didn't care about anything other than leaving this place now.
He passed through an archway at the end of the winding corridor and saw it.
The cargo train.
There it sat, motionless but evidently powered up, its three squat carriages hovering dully on their anti grav cushions, ready to head back the way it had come.
Back to the surface, his way out of this hellhole.
Ambrose threw the last ounces of his energy into the final stretch, sprinting for all he was worth across the wide expanse of the stock bay, almost throwing himself through the open hatch on the side of the lead carriage.
With no time to spare, he ran over to the command console and slammed his palm onto the ignition switch, the computer already mercifully set for the return journey to the surface.
The hatch slid shut behind him and the cargo train began to hum, lifting slightly higher off its anti grav cushions and moving towards the sloping incline that would take him to safety.
It was too slow, far too slow, he knew that and he was silently urging the damned machine to pick up the pace, to move the hell faster.
After a few moments it seemed to get the hint and sped up considerably, arching upwards along the repulsor tracks built into the cavern floor and heading for the surface. Inertial compensators kicked in to make sure Ambrose didn't topple over when the train suddenly tilted in direction.
His heart still pounding but his head beginning to clear a little, Michael Ambrose sank to his knees and wept, the plight of the last three days beginning to slough off him in tears, the one commodity he had always been too short of.
They were gone, all gone, and he had guiltily survived. Despite his best efforts, he had lost his squad, the men and women he was responsible for.
Part of him almost wished he could join them in blissful oblivion.
The voices returned, mocking and snickering as they revealed their little secret to him.
Be careful what you wish for, Mikey!
He barely had a moment to turn before the windscreen of the carriage exploded inwards and the giant bug pounced, the jaws of death reducing all to black.