Chapter 28: Deep down in the old mine

[February 2374 AD – POV Timotheus Mellark]

I had been invited to Rue's most recent check-up at the hospital, and Rue and her grandparents had insisted that I learn more details on her situation, specifically from a medical point of view. To my horror I had been told that something was wrong with her brain activity and that there was a likelihood for her to die from that before she reached adulthood. That information bothered me a lot; the little girl had become a part of my life, and I liked her very much, like my own sisters. Her special body features were not a real problem for me, but made me see her as cute and droll, reminding me of a pretty Half-Khajiit in the Elder Scroll games.

In the first days of February I was called into a meeting at the ranger headquarters. Police had asked for our help once again, and we were about to join a team with police and mining specialists to investigate the illegal site on the Evergreen Farm land in more detail. When we had first been in there a few weeks ago, we had found a lot of machinery and traces of illegal operations, and obviously a group of people had done something on the grounds of the Evergreen farm without permission. There had been hints that something was going on in deeper levels of the mine, too. A larger operation was now in preparation to investigate in more detail, and we were getting search dogs involved again, so that Rex and I were going to be part of the team.

The site had been closed off and guarded by police, and just a few days ago they had been able to find the men in the van who had wounded a police officer. Based on their statements they assumed that some people might actually be locked in on a lower level in the illegal mine, and it was going to be part of our job to find them, if they were still alive; the men in the van had been either unwilling or unable to provide more information, and it was very possible that anybody we might find had already died from hunger, thirst or asphyxiation; after all, the mine had been abandoned by the bad people since New Year's Day, although there was a possibility that some of them had been back meanwhile.

Today, a large scale search operation was planned, and a group of police officers, rangers, and miners met at the hidden entrance. We had Rex and three other search dogs, and we formed four search teams, with one dog and four humans each. Each team had some emergency supplies, a medical emergency pack, and multiple flashlights with them. The teams were encouraged to mark the areas they had visited with crayons on the walls, and in addition I had my tricorder on, trying to record some kind of map. In the team I was in, there was a police officer, another ranger, and a miner together with me, and we started down the aisle assigned to us, heading off from the big cavern with the machines in it.

Rex was keeping very close to us; for now at least there was no sign that his nose found a smell to follow. We had our share of dead ends and cave-ins, but eventually we managed to identify a way forward every time. After about one hour we came upon a staircase, and as there was only one flight visible above us, we looked up first. That floor had some living quarters, canned food and other supplies, and a small sanitary area, but nothing else, so that we got out again and followed the stairs down.

The staircase lead down a long way, and only occasionally there were doors out from it. Of course we checked each of those, but they all lead to abandoned areas and store rooms. Eventually, one more door opened up into an area which looked like it had been recently established and fortified. The wooden beams supporting part of the ceiling still had a fresh smell, and there were signs of recent activity. Well, 'recent' was a relative term, and the miner in my group explained that this could imply anything less than about one year. But anyway, that was good enough to warrant a closer examination.

The passage was not very wide and only barely allowed two people to walk side by side, but at least the ground was reasonably even and we could proceed quickly, although we kept our eyes open for any obstacles or traps. Eventually the passage ended in some kind of small hall, with several doors visible on the other side. Most of those doors were unlocked and only had storage rooms behind them, but one of the doors was locked and quite sturdy; it seemed to be one of those safety doors, which could be closed and locked in case of a big problem like a fire. Rules dictated that a key should be prominently displayed in a separate case not far from the door, but no such case was visible. While we started to search the storage rooms, Rex sniffed around the door and finally barked with some excitement. According to what I understood he smelled something living behind the door, and we intensified our effort to find the key. Finally we got lucky, and the police officer found a key box on a shelve; we got the key out, and it fit.

Once the heavy door was unlocked and opened, a cloud of foul and used air came out from the area behind it, so that we had to step aside for a few moments. A few moans were heard, and when I pointed my strong flashlight into the dark area, I saw a number of people down on the ground, plus a few more on what looked like cots. The air in the room behind the door was stale and most likely with a high CO2 content, but at least some of the people were still alive. With combined effort we managed to drag the people out of the room, so that they had fresh air at least. Well, fresh was an exaggeration, but at least not stale. In general, some ventilation in the mine system seemed to be operating still, except for that room behind the sturdy door, which had been almost completely air tight.

There was obviously no chance to get the people we had found, about a dozen of them, out of here any time soon, so that a decision was made that Rex and I would get out and call more help in, while the three others would do whatever they could; my ranger colleague was also a trained paramedic and was going to be in charge down here.

It took me about two hours to get back to the main hall; while going back I marked each crossing and branch with a special crayon color and sign so that finding the way back was going to be quick. I reported the situation to the officer in charge, and fortunately there were a couple of paramedics around who now picked up their huge backpacks to come with me. Another miner joined the team, and he was going to evaluate the passages and sections and see how we could best get the people out.

Another two hours later we managed to be back to where he had found the others, and the two paramedics who had come with me got to work after getting a quick introduction from the ranger, while I joined the miners to find the best way out for everybody. Going back the way we had come would be tedious; maneuvering a gurney through all of those passages and staircases would be difficult to almost impossible. One of the miners got an idea, though:

"Let's assume that the poor people were down here to do some kind of mining. Where did they mine and how did they get whatever they mined up to the surface?"

"Good question" the other miner replied. "Maybe one of them is well enough to tell us?"

We had one of the paramedics point us to a young man – all of the miners we had found seemed to be male – who was at least able to talk, and he pointed towards the room where we had found them. Some air exchange had happened by now, and we could go in there without risking asphyxiation, and deeper in the back we found another sturdy door, locked as well. Just before I tried to use the key we had found earlier, the miner next to me stopped me and pointed to a thin wire around the door; it seemed to be booby-trapped. We managed to defuse the trap, and once this was done, the key was able to unlock the door. We needed to pull it open with force, and we could enter a small passage which soon opened into a larger room with several side passages, probably for mining, and a shaft going up from the center. Most likely there was a station further up where ropes or maybe a small mining elevator could be operated, but there was no obvious way up from here, not even a set of emergency ladders built into the shaft walls.

I recalled that we had seen two or three shafts leading down from side rooms off the main hall, but had not checked them out as none of them had anything resembling a lift system installed. I got a special light with turquoise color filter out of my pack, set if right into the center of the shaft bottom and pointed it right up, explaining:

"I will rush up again, and hopefully I will see the light when looking down one of the shafts. When I do, we can maybe rig some winch from up there and pull everybody out."

They nodded, and I was off again, with Rex of course. It was kind of exhausting to walk that much deep in the mines, and a little bit scary as well, and hiking outdoors was sure much better, but we were helping people. Fortunately I had Rex at my side, and his company helped me a lot to not feel alone, lost, or at least scared in the dark underground passages. Once I was up, I quickly informed the others, and ten minutes later one of us had found the shaft where my light was visible far down. One ranger had a laser range meter, and we read that the distance was about two hundred meters. Shouting was not possible over the distance; once could hear something, but it was very distorted and nothing could be understood. However, via the shaft we now had at least wireless radio contact to the people down there.

Fortunately somebody had found an electrical winch with a long cable attached in a storage room, and we were able to rig a stable tripod over the shaft mound, which was only about two meters wide. One of the rangers brought a special harness in, one we used when an injured person had be rescued with ropes, and twenty minutes later a ranger was slowly going down the shaft with that harness; the winch was powered by one of our high capacity mobile batteries.

At this time we had a change of shift; other rangers and officers came in to take over, and Rex and I were released for the day, but asked to show up again on the next day. Just before I left I heard that one of the other teams had also found a few people, but those were all dead.

Deep in thoughts I drove to the farmhouse, where I was going to stay for the night. I had a few other rangers and officers following me, and I suggested that those who did not want to drive all the way home could stay in one of the guest rooms, assuming that the Jones agreed.

Mr. and Mrs. Jones were happy to get some company, and Rue and I helped to get two guestrooms prepared for the one ranger and one officer who wanted to stay here. The ranger's name was Ben, and he had been my partner during the final tests of our junior ranger time. Over dinner we told Rue and her grandparents about what we had achieved today, and they almost could not believe that people had actually been imprisoned and alive deep down in the mine. We had been quite lucky to find them alive, too. A few days later and the air would have run out, and they had been almost out of water and food as well.

Like I always did when I was here I slept with Rue in her bed, but this time our sleep was interrupted. I heard Rex barking outside, not only once, but repeatedly, and I knew well that he would not do this just for fun; there was a reason, and I'd better find out. I quickly pushed Rue off me, got into my pants and rushed out, and I was met by my ranger friend Ben, who was also only partially clothed. Rex was not far from the farmhouse, and he had a stranger cornered between two walls; the stranger had a knife, and he must have been able to cut Rex once or twice, as my growling dog seemed to be bleeding a little bit. Nonetheless the stranger did not dare to pass Rex to get out of his corner. That was strange – why would somebody come here, run around with a knife and hurt my dog? The police officer who stayed for the night was now also arriving outside, and she noticed that the stranger had a large backpack next to him. As the man refused to talk and also did not drop his knife, the officer got her handgun out and forced him to yield, and when he was on the ground, he got handcuffed. We searched the backpack and found a number of bottles filled with some clear fluid plus some accessories, and the officer recognized that:

"Will you look at that, do you know what that is?"

Ben and I shook our heads, and she explained:

"That is what used to be called 'Molotov cocktails'; you can use those bottles to start a fire."

A few minutes later everybody was up, except Rue, who really had a sound sleep, like many children did, and we deducted that the stranger had probably intended to set the farm or at least some farm buildings on fire. Without Rex being around and on guard, he might actually have succeeded. A connection to our raid in the old mine seemed to be likely. The officer got to her car and called for support, and the other officers who arrived later picked up the stranger for further questioning. Mrs. Jones and I examined Rex, and we were happy to find out that the cuts he had were not deep and did not require any treatment. Rex had saved the farm from being set on fire, and he was a hero now.

When we checked the time, it was about 03:00 in the morning, and there were still a few hours of nighttime left. However, with all of the excitement I was not feeling tired any longer, and while Rue was still in her bed, I went for a small walk around the farm in darkness. I was deep in my thoughts, but suddenly I noticed something odd – there was a vehicle parked behind the large barn we had used for the big birthday party last summer, and I knew that this vehicle was not part of the farm. Apparently somebody in that vehicle had seen me, too, and somebody stepped out. I could not see the person clearly in the darkness, and the half moon only indicated some vague shapes. I did see that person raising an arm, though, and holding something in their hands, and I heard a voice:

"Come over here, quickly, or I will shoot!"

Oh yes, maybe they had indeed a gun! Rather than obeying, I jumped behind a pale of hay, and I heard a shot going off, above my head. I had an advantage, though, as I knew the barn quite well from the past celebrations. I managed to get into the barn through a gap in the wall, pulling Rex in behind me, and I raced towards the back door. Nobody was waiting there, and I got out, running away to a small shed a few hundred meters away. The shed had an upper floor, accessible with a wooden ladder; I told Rex to hide, got up there and pulled the ladder up, so that nobody else would be able to easily follow me, while I could watch events outside through a gap in the roof.

Fortunately I had not skipped taking the tricorder with me in the belt bag, and I quickly got it out now. Fortunately I was able to reach Ben in the farmhouse; he and the police officer had heard the shot, and now they'd get out to my location as soon as possible; Mr. Jones would guide the way for them.

Meanwhile I could see two people in dark clothes searching the area around the barn, and they had obviously not realized that I had found shelter in the shed rather than the barn. Less than ten minutes later I saw three people arriving from behind the shed, and Ben called me on his moby to tell me that it was them. I dropped the ladder, and the police officer came up, now also seeing the two people outside.

All of us got down, and we decided to move in; the police officer was up front, and Ben and I to the sides and behind; Mr. Jones had also come, but stayed in the shed for now. The police officer had a hand gun, and Rex could help as well. We sneaked over to the barn, and when the two people were close enough, the police officer stood up and shouted:

"Freeze! Police! Hands up!"

One of them was apparently surprised and dropped his gun, but the other person turned around and quickly fired, but missed, as he had aimed improperly. The police officer also fired and did not miss, and Rex was now close to the other person. In the background, on the other side of the barn, we heard a vehicle being started, and we heard it racing off, away from the farm.

"Looks like we missed at least another person!"

"Don't worry, I have called that in, and colleagues have been blocking the access road since the earlier event."

We carefully checked if the area was safe, handcuffed the guy who had surrendered and provide first aid to the one who had been shot by the police officer. Quarter of an hour later an ambulance and a police cruiser arrived. The paramedics loaded the injured man plus a police officer into their vehicle, and the other officer told us that they got the vehicle and the driver. Soon the questioning would be started, and for now a police cruiser and two officers would stay on the farm for additional security.

We managed to get back to the farmhouse in time for breakfast, which Mrs. Jones had prepared. She and Rue were informed about what happened during the night. They very much liked the idea that some police would stay around the farm for some time, and Rue's grandmother said that she did not understand what those bad people wanted to do. They, the Jones, were not rich people, so what did they have in mind? The police officer who had breakfast with us replied:

"Lady, we do not know for sure yet, but it looks like they wanted to drive you off your land for some reason. We have not completed to evaluate the illegal mine, but maybe there is something down there which is valuable enough to spend the effort. They first tried to buy some land from you, and when this failed, they tried something else."

"But what is so valuable on our land?"

"We do not know yet, but we will find out for sure."

Mr. Jones added:

"I couldn't be sure in the dark, but one of the guys getting caught looked like one of my farm workers."

"Are you sure about that?"

"I need to see the face in daylight, of course, but I think that he's the one who had been patrolling the hill area on a regular basis for the last few months, too. I had already been wondering about his preference for being in that area so frequently."

[Author's Notes: Exciting events, right? I will get back to the mine soon.]