"Salvage"

21. And Then There Were

Inside the tunnel, Mesphoria – in the year 2033

They had been climbing down for an hour, near to pausing for a few minutes, but then Rose had seen something. "Everyone, shine your lights this way," she guided with her own light, and with the eight lights they were able to confirm that she'd seen what she thought she saw. There were several small pieces, laid across a long stretch of the walkway not far ahead of them.

"We can't go all at once," Loria warned.

"I'll go," Roos volunteered.

"I'll help," Sam told him. "Rose?" he looked to her.

"Sure, alright."

"Be careful," Olis warned.

Sam and Rose were able to slip by among the pieces, to reach the end of the trail, the better to start passing what they gathered up to the rest of the team, who had called down the cage from the last point it had stopped and get everything safely inside.

"What do you suppose this part does?" Rose asked Sam as she picked up a heavy piece of metal.

"No idea," he told her. "But the Doctor and the others, they'll know, won't they?"

"I know they will," Rose nodded, passing the part to him, so he could pass it to Roos, and on to the others who would get it into the cage.

"You do?"

"Maybe not know in the sense that I know they… will… But I know that they can do it, and I believe in that," she clarified.

"Right, got it."

The last of the pieces had been locked up in the cage, and Eclin gave the call for it to be pulled back up to the surface. Once it was gone, there was a new air of accomplishment. "And now we can pause," he declared. With how cautious they were all meant to be, Sam and Rose couldn't hide they were nervous at the sight of the Mesphorite sitting on the walkway, legs dangling over the edge, but in the end they had to trust and do the same.

"Feels like we should be singing," Rose commented.

"Too bad I left my guitar back home," Sam chuckled.

"You play?" she asked. "I mean, obviously you do if you've got one."

"What's a… guitar?" Mersi asked, and the two humans had a laugh. "What?" she didn't understand.

"It's a musical instrument," Sam told her.

"And for that you had to laugh?" Mersi asked, sounding slightly wounded.

"I'm sorry," Sam told her. "I guess I'm not used to this, to people not knowing what a guitar is."

"I bet you could show him a hundred things he's never seen," Rose told the Mesphorite girl, looking back to Sam. Was that really necessary? He hadn't expected feeling so nervous around her, for this, but now here they were.

"I don't doubt it," Mersi agreed, looking back up the tunnel to the retreating cage. Sam could see Rose staring at him, signalling with her eyes, urging him to talk to Mersi again. It wasn't so easy.

"Hold on," Roos moved to stand again.

"What is it?" Olis asked while her youngest son moved behind Sam and Rose, and then they saw: there was one more piece they hadn't seen, wedged between the wall and the walkway.

"Should we call the cage back?" Mersi asked.

"Might as well. Or we could hang on to it until our next retrieval," Loria replied.

"We don't know when that might be," Olis looked to the cage. "It's nearly to the surface now. Let it go and it'll return to us. Roos, sit down, we've all earned a rest."

No sooner had she said this that Roos had gotten a hold of the wedged piece, only to slip and fall back to the walkway with a thud and a crack. He cried in surprise, and the others began to rise.

"Not all at once!" Olis' voice rose above the others.

"I'm closest," Rose got on her knees to crawl over to him. It only made her look that much smaller next to the Mesphorite. "Did you hurt…"

"My ankle, something broke," he took a breath, closing his eyes in frustration, the generator piece still in hand.

"We'll have to send you back up, son, I'm sorry," Olis told him.

"No, patch me, I'll be alright, you need me," Roos sat up.

"Not in this condition, I don't. You'll help the others on the surface, understand?"

"Yes," he relented, seeing the look on his mother's face.

It would be several minutes before the cage could get back down to them. While they waited, Rose listened to Mersi's instructions and 'patched' Roos' ankle, highly aware of being watched by the man's brother, sisters, and mother very intently the whole time. It had been a simple slip up, an accident that could have and could still happen to any of them, but knowing it could have been much worse, even the slightest hurt would leave them concerned. At the same time, there was no one they trusted more than each other, and in a situation like this, trust was all but necessary.

When the cage finally returned, they helped Roos climb not inside but on top of it, using it as more of a platform than a cage. He would hold to the cables as the pulleys pulled him back up, slower than they might with objects. They watched him be lifted away, one less in their team.

"Right, enough sitting around. We need to keep going," Olis told the others. "We walk."

They had walked, for no more than ten minutes, when Mersi had seen it.

"Everyone, stop," she called.

"Stop," Loria repeated, and they did.

"I know what that is," she pointed to the piece, stuck in the wall at an angle. "It couldn't have broken in half, then that means…"

With what there was left of it sticking out of the wall, they knew the majority of it was through the wall. Extracting this one could cost them something much bigger than an ankle.

TO BE CONTINUED (FRIDAY)