Thanks, MCJ.
26
Virgil landed Thunderbird 2 in the midst of rolling green pastures, startling a flock of grazing sheep. The animals bolted in all directions, bleating wildly. What happened next had them all but climbing trees.
Thunderbird 2, her engines shut down and protective field triggered, began to rumble. With the slightest of tremors, the giant craft began to raise herself, lifting clear of the rocky pasture on four telescoping legs. Parts of her, anyway. Left behind on the ground was the Bird's cargo-carrying midsection, looking for all the world like an immense green Quonset hut.
When her ponderous rise came to a booming halt, the pod door crashed open, forming a ramp to the ground. Then, from the red-lit shadows of the pod's interior, a huge machine emerged; the Mole.
With a deep-throated growl, the great drill thundered down the ramp on wide tractor treads. Mostly yellow in color, with bands of red, and a projecting, threaded 'drill bit' of super-hardened alloy, the Mole weighed in at over thirty tons, and was roughly the length of a passenger jet. She was beautiful, the way a draft horse is beautiful; hulking, strong, and designed for hard work.
At the bottom of the ramp, the Mole seemed to orient herself, engines gunning. Then she roared clear of Thunderbird 2 and headed for the smoking mountain. The surface traversal was dirt-bike jarring, but necessary. Distance crossed underground used five times as much power, and took twice as long.
The Mole plowed across a low stone wall. By rights, it should have ground the rocks to powder, but so well was the drill's weight distributed that a host of small creatures hiding in mortared chinks felt barely a tremor. A swift bump, a lunging, growling roar, and the behemoth was up and over.
Ten minutes later, the Mole reached its target, the point from which the shortest, most direct tunnel could be dug. Had the sheep not become distracted by grass (day after day, a constant surprise) they'd have seen something truly extraordinary. Their shepherd did.
Grinding to a halt, the Mole's trolley began to lift in the back, converting in minutes from vehicle to launch ramp. Motors hummed, hydraulic pistons hissed, only to be drowned out by the high-pitched scream of her giant drill. At about 45 degrees to the horizontal, the slanting trolley retracted its clamps, and the Mole plunged earthward.
In the small, 2-seat cockpit, Gordon Tracy gave up studying diagrams to hang in his seat straps and wait for collision.
"Brace," Virgil told him, switching control from trolley to drill. They slid down the ramp, gathering speed, and struck ground with a tremendous, jerking thud. They did not, however, stop. Tossing up great gouts of rock and dirt and shredded sod, the Mole speared her way down.
Like her little brother on the Moon, the Mole stabilized the tunnel behind her with a fast-setting 'glue', but there the technologies diverged. Back-fill was non-existent. Excess dirt was simply compressed into the tunnel walls, or vaporized, leaving behind a hard, smooth borehole big and stable enough to drive a truck through.
There were no forward windows, as the view wasn't much to speak of, (just liquified, greyish stone oozing sideways past the glass like soap at a carwash) and the ride was bumpy, rough and slow. From time to time the Mole encountered something harder than chalk; a layer of dolomite, say. The drill's pitch and speed changed. Revolutions per minute increased, turbines screamed and cockpit vibration became deeply unpleasant. Progress slowed to a crawl. Then, some two to three hundred yards later, they were back into chalk, and the world stopped shaking.
Gordon had never much liked the Mole, but far preferred it to Thunderbird 3. Rather like Virgil, space held no allure for him; that 'lack of air' business, mostly. John could keep it, and welcome.
Studying his instruments, Virgil called in,
"Mobile Command, from Mole. You set up, yet?"
Scott's voice, firm and confident, filled the cockpit.
"Up and running, Mole. We've got local security and reserve forces digging out topside, and Island Base says that 3's on her way with reinforcements. He sent this along, too."
A stream of data shot in through the comm system's carrier wave.
"New target area, a little off the old one. Divert course as soon as possible. Understood?"
"FAB, Mobile Command."
Virgil didn't comment on the course change. According to coordinates, their new target was a point above Jeff's UC offices, near the secret passage he'd had drilled to the mountain's south flank.
Jeff Tracy was a sharp, cautious executive, maintaining his European branch in what had seemed a secure and fashionable location. And, unexpectedly, the decision was paying off. If the Mole drilled a connection from office to secret passage, refugees and rescue crews would have two safe routes to follow, rather than one.
Virgil input the new course, felt the Mole shudder and groan as her drill bit changed conformation. Digging slightly deeper on one side than the other, the big machine began to turn.
"Mobile Command, time to danger zone now estimated at fifteen and three quarters minutes from... mark. Have local rescue gather at the opening, and I'll signal clear when it's safe to start down."
"FAB, Virge. You two watch your backs down there, and stay together."
Gordon nodded absently, only half attending to Scott's orders.The blueprints he was committing to memory displayed the UC's tunnel system, prior to collapse. As he'd learned on a sunken freighter, though, things could change in a hurry, and clinging blindly to a memorized map could get you killed. He'd have to think on his feet.
Once again, the drill changed speed and orientation, as the Mole began to climb. Gordon monitored scanners and available power, while Virgil kept a weather eye on their course.
"Open space comin' up," the teenager informed his older brother, after a bit. "Circular cross-section, about... 1.4 meter radius. Looks like father's escape shaft."
"Yeah. I see it. Wish there was a way to... Hold on a sec...,"
Switching to comm again, Virgil called,
"Mobile Command from Mole. You copy?"
"Mobile Command, Mole. Go ahead."
"Scott, could you broadcast a request for anyone with a cell phone to call whoever they know down here, and tell them how to reach the bolt hole? If they can get to... uh... Mr. Tracy's office, the way to the surface 'll be wide open."
"FAB, Mole. I'll get the word out, and have Civil Defense start down."
"Thanks," Virgil replied. "Keep me posted." Then, turning to his red-haired brother, "Get the gear together, Kiddo. It's just about show time."
Perhaps ten minutes after that, the Mole cut across the slanting escape shaft, then rumbled up through Jeff's office suite, connecting the two without revealing the secret entrance.
There were already people there, about fifty of them; shaken, disoriented, and covered in dust. Some were wounded, as well. Following directions phoned in from outside, they'd collected in the suite to wait for help. It wasn't long in coming.
First they'd felt a rumbling tremor. Then the floor cracked, spurting a head-high geyser of sand and lubricant. At that point, people began taking cover, backing further down the carpeted hall. Next the drill appeared, grinding solid rock like stale bread. Now the machine itself, seeming big as a freight train. On the way past, she tore through plate glass, fine art and Persian rugs, splintering the receptionist's desk and completely destroying a huge, salt-water aquarium. Big and noisy, reeking of lubricant, the Mole sliced through a far wall and came to a halt, leaving just her tail and rear access hatch exposed.
Gordon came through the hatch first, carrying lights, a plasma cutter and a medkit. He climbed down the ladder and bottom tread, dropped to the rubble-strewn floor, and got to work.
Virgil wasn't far behind. After shutting down the Mole, he began organizing refugees, getting those who were able to travel moving in the right direction. His size and commanding presence (Virgil wasn't quite as tall as John, but he was certainly solid) galvanized even high-ranking ministers to action.
"Straight on through, Folks," he ordered calmly. "You'll be met and escorted to safety by the local rescue teams. If you're in good shape, please help someone who isn't. Move as quickly as possible, and drop whatever you're carrying. Nothing in that brief case is worth your life."
Meanwhile, Gordon saw to the injured. Working fast, with hardly a pause for breath, he strapped up broken limbs and applied instant-sealing pressure bandages to open wounds, stabilizing people for transport as best he could. He was supposed to start with those who needed the least intervention, but a sudden cry...,
"Doctor! Por favor, por Dios, aqui!"
...stopped him cold. A man had stumbled in from down-passage, carrying what looked like an unconscious young woman. Gordon met him halfway, indicating with signs that the man (mid-thirties, dark hair and eyes, olive skin beneath a layer of grey dust) was to set her down.
She was a mess. At a glance, her left arm was crushed, and she'd sustained blunt trauma to the left side of her face, pelvis, rib cage and shoulder. She was losing blood from multiple injuries... breath shallow... pulse irregular and faint... pupils unresponsive.
His job lay elsewhere, with those strong enough to walk, but the wordless plea in the man's dark eyes wouldn't let him leave. So, Gordon cut through her blouse, cleaned a spot on her right side and applied the most potent experimental weapon in his arsenal; the trauma patch. There were only two of them, each about the size of a standard heating pad. Wrapped around a limb, or applied to torso, the patch connected to an artificial blood or saline source. Along with fluids, it's tiny ports released a swarm of medical nanobots, repairing damage, halting inflamation and preventing the onset of acute phase response. Or, so Hackenbacker claimed. They'd never actually field-tested one.
Keeping an eye on the medkit's glowing screen, he monitored the woman's vital signs while patching up the worst of her wounds. Halfway through, he did a startled double-take. Blood pressure had stopped falling. Somehow, her heart's faltering beat had begun to strengthen. Weak.., but not gone yet. Gordon worked on her for twenty full minutes, fighting death with high technology, while the man murmured her name and stroked her right hand.
Then, someone touched his shoulder. Looking up, he saw a short, round-faced woman in the uniform of Spanish Civil Defense. Virgil, dusty, bloodied and hoarse, stood by her side. The big pilot reached over and gave his brother's shoulder another tap.
"C'mon...," 'Kiddo' he'd been about to say, but thought better of it. There was nothing childish about Gordon, just then.
"Leave her to local rescue, Hotshot," Virgil told him. " We've got people trapped further in, running out of air. We've gotta go."
Gordon nodded once, and got to his feet. The man looked up, and stopped whispering long enough to clasp his hand, saying,
"Gracias, Doctor. Gracias para todo."
He wasn't a doctor, of course; just an ersatz field medic. But Gordon shook the man's hand anyway, and silently prayed for a miracle. Then, turning, he shouldered his gear and followed Virgil up the cracked hallway, to the first cave in. And silent, unseen, a shadow stalked close behind.