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Khamkamuk Rok
Sewer Network
"How you holdin' up, Chief?"
"I'd be...doing better...if you'd stop asking me that every two minutes," Rordant wheezed. This climb, this slow, agonizing crawl, even pausing every so often to rest on his good leg, was really starting to take it out of him. He'd been painstakingly inching his way down the rusted ladder, hand over hand, for the last twenty minutes, and he was already nearly spent. He had no idea what they were going to do once they reached bottom.
Drip
Clank
Drip
Creak
"How deep is this shaft?" he grunted.
"No idea," Gramel chirped happily up at him. "Can't see the bottom."
"Don't look down."
"Wasn't planning on it," Rordant growled irritably under his breath at the unnecessary comment from above him. All things considered, he was glad of the arrangement they'd chosen. Even if she'd been able to handle his weight, he didn't trust an Imperial to catch him. Taking out that shooter in the alley didn't make her trustworthy all of a sudden.
Plus, if the Vitheon decided to try shooting them like fish in a barrel, she provided a convenient shield for him and Gramel. Not that that scenario was likely at this point. When he glanced up, craning his aching neck muscles in the darkness, he realized, to his surprise, that he could no longer make out the dim red circle of daylight above them.
Drip
Creak
"No sign of Mardi either, Chief," Gramel's chipper voice had taken on a worried note. "Hope the poor fella's alright."
"We'll look for him," Gramel grunted, unwilling to spare additional breath he didn't have. His chest ached, lungs straining, a sharp shooting pain in the right part of his abdomen that had him wondering if he'd cracked a rib. Wouldn't surprise him at this point. There was silence for several long moments, save for the soft, dripping of water from some unseen place and the sound of shuffling bodies easing down the rusting ladder.
"...there ain't no grave...can hold my body down...There ain't no grave can hold my body down. When I hear that trumpet sound...I'm gonna rise right out of the ground. Ain't no grave can hold my body down..."
The words were sung so softly that for a few seconds Rordant wondered if he was imagining them.
"What are you doing?"
"Huh? Oh! Well it was gettin' mighty quiet around here. Thought we could do with a little music," Gramel replied cheerfully, oblivious to the Imperial's flat tone.
"Not being funny, you can't sing."
"Sure I can! I'm doing it right now!" Gramel chuckled. Rordant smirked. The merc was willing to bet money his brother in arms was getting a kick out of aggravating the Imperial. He only wished his own ears didn't have to suffer for their mutual amusement. She hadn't been lying. The boy's voice was more than a little off key.
"Be grateful he's not belting showtunes," he grunted. To his surprise, this earned a soft laugh from the woman above him.
"I can switch things up, if y'all like?" Gramel offered cheekily. "Sing a Sith opera? I know a few."
He most definitely did not.
"Do you now?"
Drip
Clank
Creak
Drip
"We getting any closer to the bottom, farm boy?" Rordant cut across the conversation to pull the three of them back on task. The three of them. He wondered where the hell Mardura was, if the man was even still alive. Maybe he'd fallen in his hurry to escape the soldiers. In that case, they had an unpleasant surprise waiting for them at the bottom of the ladder.
"Almost there, Chief! Twenty feet or so."
Rordant's arms almost gave out from relief then and there. Only sheer willpower kept his hands glued to the rusty metal rungs cutting into his palms. His shoulders ached, his hips and back ached, his leg had gone numb by this point and the other one was starting to head that way. He was suddenly dizzy, stars starting to swirl in his vision as his head felt like it was careening backwards into the blackness. Leaning forward, he rested his forehead against the cool metal, breathing harshly, in through his nose, out through his mouth.
"Almost there, Chief," Gramel voice was quiet and encouraging below him. "Not much further."
"Just...just give me a minute..." the words felt heavy, but slowly, the fog of dizziness was lifting from him. As his surroundings swam back into focus, the pain in his limbs seemed to intensify, causing him to grit his teeth. He could do this. He had to do this.
Drip
Creak
Just one hand over the other and his remaining leg to balance.
He ended up falling into Gramel a few feet from the bottom. Luckily, the man had firmly planted his feet on the ground by that point, so, when the merc sent the both of them tumbling, they didn't have far to fall.
"This is becomin' a habit, Chief," the youth joked, flicking water out of his face. Rordant didn't answer. Several inches of rancid standing water had pooled in the tunnel at the foot of the ladder, and some of it had gone up his nose when he'd gracelessly fallen on his ass. Coughing and sputtering, he swore under his breath, squeezing his eyes shut.
A soft splash alerted him to the arrival of the last member of their party. He didn't bother raising his head, choosing instead to wipe at the putrid water clinging to his face with the cleanest bit of his jacket his could find. Somehow, moving it around only made the smell worse, so he settled for dabbing, wincing at the way the water burned in cuts he hadn't realized he'd accumulated.
Drip
Drip
Splash
Drip
"No sign of your cyborg," the Imperial spoke quietly. A strobe of greenish light passed across his closed lids and he opened his eyes to observe her turning slowly in a circle, a field light in one outstretched hand cutting a ring in the darkness around them.
"What did you expect? That he'd have afternoon tea ready for you?" Rordant asked darkly.
The woman didn't answer him.
"Let me take a look at that leg, Chief," Gramel moved over to him, kneeling in the standing water that had thoroughly soaked into his pants and the hem of his jacket by this point. Caked on dirt had turned to sludge, and Rordant could feel more slippery mud coating the stone beneath his fingers. The youth let out a low, concerned whistle before gingerly propping the mercenary's leg up on his own knee. Rordant let out a hissing wheeze of pain, but it was more at the movement of his hip than anything. His leg remained concerningly numb.
Drip
Drip
"Don't you worry now," Gramel spoke cheerfully as he worked. "Yours truly always comes prepared. Reaching into his jacket, he suddenly paused, his fingers digging futilely in an internal pocket. "If I can just...where the blazes..." The smile on his face dropped, a look of dismay flickering across his features. Ripping off his jacket in one smooth movement, he began to root around in the pockets, turning the cloth inside out as he desperately searched.
"My medpac...I musta dropped it...or left it in my other jacket..." Gramel looked distressed, his shoulders slumping as he clutched the useless article of clothing in both hands.
"No use moaning about it," Rordant replied. "Here, help me rip mine up. We can try to make a splint at least."
Gramel quickly complied, and together, the two of them quickly reduced the outerwear to several long strips of moderately sturdy cloth. "Would help if we had something sturdy to brace the sides with," Rordant commented as they worked. Gramel hummed thoughtfully, his eyes flickering about the cavernous tunnel they'd landed in. With a ceiling twice the height of a man and a diameter five or six times as large, it was at least not claustrophobic.
Endless though.
He couldn't see far enough into the gloom to determine whether or where the network branched off, but, from his seated position, it appeared to continue on ad infinitum.
The Imperial woman still stood in the same spot they'd left her.
Her back faced the pair of them, her outstretched arm holding the field light unmoving as she appeared to stare at a fixed point in the distance.
"Uh..." Rordant felt a chill creep down the back of his neck, aided by the cool, murky water seeping into his clothing. Suddenly, the overbearing heat of Vitheon seemed worlds away.
Drip
Drip
Creak
Rordant's hand eased towards the knife he'd placed in his lap without conscious thought. Gramel wore a frown on his face as he rose to his feet and tentatively called, "Hey, you all right there, Imperial?"
There was something funny in the woman's expression when she glanced back, a flicker, gone so fast he more than half thought he imagined it. Her pale blue eyes seemed to glow under the eerie light of the lamp she held as she regarded them.
"I thought I saw something," she replied easily.
Gramel perked up. "What'd it look like?" he pressed.
The Imperial just shook her head. "A trick of the light, or some kind of vermin. I'll scout ahead," she looked down at Rordant, "and see if I can find something to help stabilize your leg."
"You sure that's safe?" Gramel looked uneasy, rocking back and forth, his boots making squelching noises in the mud. "Could be anythin' down here. You could get lost, and we wouldn't be able to find ya."
"I won't go far," the Imperial replied easily. Rordant met her eyes, holding her gaze for a few brief moments.
"Keep your comm on," he grunted. "You're not back in fifteen minutes, I'm sending Corrwile after you."
"Keep an eye out for Mardi while you're out there," Gramel piped up. He produced a second light while he spoke, not wanting to be left in the dark when the Imperial set out. "Now, Chief, let's see if we can't find a drier spot to set ya on while we're waitin'."
The Skeins
Climbing that maintenance ladder had been a bad idea. Mardura's heart thudded in his throat, making it difficult to breathe. The tunnels were different on this level...narrower, crooked rather than straight, and lined by intricate stonework reminiscent of the city streets above. Gargoyles loomed at him out of the darkness of empty passageways, but he passed them by, paying them no mind after the initial shock of discovering the first grotesque beast had worn off. His adrenaline had still been kicked into high gear at that point. He'd scarcely registered what he was doing when he'd, as he now realized, left the sewers behind.
All he could think of was the wave of soldiers, hot on their heels, that would surely follow them into the sewers.
He should have turned back.
He should have waited in the sewers.
Now he was lost.
"Idiot," he muttered to himself, slamming his fist against the stonework and wincing at the bruises the action left on his knuckles. "Would it have killed you to stick around a second longer? Now you're going to end up dying down here."
The thought sent a shiver through his spine, and the choking, panicky feeling of claustrophobia welled up inside him once more.
Mardura could count each individual thread of the cloak as it cast a shadow over the grate. And why had he thought that would be an impossible feat? That the clothing would simply pool into an indistinguishable aura of darkness, more wraith than fabric?
This was so much worse. So much more real.
The veil of death lay heavy on him, and he remained frozen, a rabbit waiting out a fox in its hole.
The cyborg drew in a shuddering breath and started coughing. The air was mustier in here, thick with ages of disuse. Uneven and cracked in places, the stone floor sent him stumbling more than once, desperately gripping onto the rocky walls as he navigated his way in the gloom. He had no lamp, but he didn't need one. His cybernetic eye cut through the darkness well enough. More light wouldn't have made him any less lost.
If only he had waited.
The imminent end promised at blaster point suddenly paled in comparison to the idea of wandering alone in the darkness until he eventually succumbed to hunger. Desperate enough to hunt the vermin that dwelled in the shadowy crevices of the rocks.
And yet, wasn't it strange that he hadn't encountered any?
He didn't think he'd so much as spotted an insect skittering across the thin coat of mud that had accumulated in large stretches of the tunnel floor over many centuries. It was uncomfortably empty, and that emptiness only amplified Mardura's sensation of utter aloneness. He didn't like it, in fact, he longed for something, even something moderately dangerous to break the noise of the dripping water and the sound of his boots sliding on mud and stone. If only because he kept expecting it, and the waiting for something to happen...was starting to get to him.
"These carvings, they're reminiscent of the Kraett'k Period, but they're almost rudimentary by comparison," Witwar's fascinated murmurings provided a soft, steady backdrop of noise, mingled with the sounds of their feet moving over the uneven terrain. The ruggedness of the tunnel floors had forced them to adjust their pace, though Sovann himself seemed to glide soundlessly and at his ease.
The old professor was papering over his misgivings and his reproach. Baara could hear it in his voice, could see it in the stiffness of his shoulders and the way he kept a few paces apart from the one they'd both come to consider a friend. Witwar wouldn't abandon Sovann over his brutality, not quite yet, at least, but the action had shaken him to his core. That kind of cold logic was...ironic, considering the circumstances.
The only one who did not seem thoroughly unnerved was Holberi. She watched the Vitheon Minister with a steely, thoughtful gaze as she trod silently along beside Baara. Dargla brought up the rear, muttering under his breath the entire way. Baara thought she caught a few snatches of what sounded like 'crazy alien bastard...file a complaint to the University..."
"These tunnels are old, Gannleo Witwar," Sovann replied patiently. He seemed withdrawn and weary. His eyes focused ahead, straying neither to the right nor to the left as he spoke. "As I have said."
"Yes, yes of course. Forgive me," Witwar glanced at him uncertainly before falling into silence, leaving the sounds of their feet to cover the uneasiness plaguing each of them.
"Well," Dargla drawled under his breath, "At least I can pad my thesis with this." The three of them had fallen several paces behind their elders, clustered together as they trudged through the bowels of the planet.
"No one wants to hear your war stories, Dargla," Holberi muttered without missing a beat.
"Why's that, Laren?" Dargla asked innocently.
The corner of Holberi's eye twitched.
"It might just be the most interesting thing to come out of this planet. Treason, inept local governments, this madman leading us to certain doom."
"Would you rather wait inside while they start shelling the building?" Baara snapped. "Or break down the doors? You smelled the smoke from the atrium, right? What do you think they'd do with you if they found you?"
"I'd rather wait for one of our own soldiers than follow this four armed freak into some caves. He just shot one of the other Mavakdol. You were there for that, yeah?"
"Are you worried about causing an interplanetary incident?" Holberi sneered.
"Shut it, Laren."
Baara ignored the sick, cold feeling churning in her gut at the thought of the smoking hole in the woman's corpse. "Kedma's never wanted any of us here."
"And Sovann does?"
Baara shot a sharp glance at Holberi, but she just scoffed and made a face as if to say "What? Isn't it true?"
"She might have a point, Baara."
"Well, he's outnumbered, so forgive me if I'm not that concerned...did you hear that?" Baara paused, turning halfway around as she strained her eyes to peer into the blackness that swallowed up the caves behind the little circle of light cast by their lamps. Ahead of them, the noise of Witwar's and Sovann's footsteps continued into the distance.
"There's something back there," she whispered, glancing back at the two students who'd remained behind. Both had tensed, faces pale in the artificial glow of the lamps. Casting her eyes around the tunnel quickly for a hiding spot, she took a step away from the others. "Turn your lamps off."
Darkness.
Baara fumbled in the sudden emptiness in which she found herself. Her palms grazed rock and she inched forward, crouching down as she tucked herself behind the outcropping of stalagmites rising like foliage from the cave floor. Her skin felt cold and clammy, her breath moist as it bounced off the rock wall inches from her face. The noise Dargla and Holberi were making was sure to bring whatever was coming down the tunnel right to them.
Footsteps.
Slow and deliberate.
She could no longer hear the soft patter of dripping water from some unseen place, which moments (or had it been minutes?) before had seemed permanently lodged as background noise in her brain. In fact, all the ambient noise of the cave, quiet though it had been, seemed to have disappeared when she wasn't paying attention.
Soft green light, like water filtering through algae on the surface of a pond, spilled into their branch of the cavern, pushing back the shadows. Baara blinked at the sudden brightness, willing her vision to clear as she lowered herself closer to the ground.
"Baara? Aarmas? Laren? What's going on back there? Are you alright?"
Baara felt her heart freeze.
The sound of feet moving back towards them spurred her into action.
Only a few meters from her hiding spot, the light had come to a stop, no doubt the stranger trekking through the caves had paused upon hearing the voice of Doctor Witwar. The woman's back was still to her. Across the tunnel, Dargla and Holberi met her gaze as they made to join her.
The woman turned, and Baara let out a short, sharp laugh.
"...What the hell are you doing here?"
AN: I'm imagining Johnny Cash's version of Gramel's song. Gramel is not much of a singer.
