The Expanse - J.M. Dillard [62]
Finally, beneath him, Trip called out. “I think I got it.”
Archer peered down past his own feet. Trip was hurriedly clearing away the muddy blue deposits to uncover what looked like a release latch.
Cautiously, Tucker braced both legs and one arm in their holds, then used one hand to pull down on the latch. It held fast, rusted by disuse and corrosion. Slowly, Trip leaned back against the tunnel, and pushed his feet hard against the opposite wall, pinning himself firmly in place. With both hands freed, he grasped the latch with both fists and pulled, groaning with the effort.
Nothing. Archer was ready to crawl down and help—but Trip started moving upward until his feet were above the latch.
Then, in a swift, precarious move that made the Captain catch his breath, Trip stepped onto the latch, and pushed downward with his full weight.
Stop, Archer wanted to shout, you’ll fall ... But he knew, like Tucker, that it was time for desperate action.
Trip bent his knees again, pressing outward with both hands against either wall, forcing his weight down again, again.
At last, the latch let go a screech; Archer glanced quickly overhead.
The metal “ceiling” was beginning to open.
A minute later, the three of them were making their way along a blessedly horizontal catwalk. It terminated in front of another sealed maintenance hatch to another tunnel leading up to the surface; Archer gave his fatigued, near-trembling muscles a silent pep talk.
Hang on; not much farther to go.
Kessick didn’t even seem winded, as if this were easy work after the extreme toil in the mines. The Xindi reached the maintenance hatch and groped at the ceiling in the dimness, searching for the ratchet that surely was there. After several unsuccessful tries, his expression grew anxious.
“Looking for this?” Trip asked. Archer and the Xindi turned to see the engineer just as he picked up the ratchet, which had been propped against the wall. He tossed it to Archer, who quickly connected it to the opening mechanism and began ratcheting away.
Almost there now ...
The foreman reached out with thin, large-knuckled fingers—each crease, each cuticle, each crescent beneath his nails outlined in a darker shade of blue—and brushed away the top layer of grit from an aging monitor screen.
The display showed a schematic of the plasma ducts in the underground mines. The operation had long used plasma as a coolant; once it became superheated, it was released through the ducts until it at last cooled, only to be recycled. Since the mines were not operating at full capacity (a situation the foreman hoped the Enterprise crew would help correct), several of the ducts were currently sealed off.
The foreman had imagined that the Captain and his engineer, being such fit, healthy specimens, would make fine miners; now he was beginning to have his doubts.
He directed a finger at the glowing schematic. “Duct Thirteen. They’ve opened two emergency baffles.” It was an impressive effort, to say the least.
The head guard stood beside him. “They’re nearly to the surface.” The alien’s deeper-than-bass growl revealed a note of concern—not for the good of the operation, the foreman knew, but for his own head. If the foreman’s superiors heard that an entire starship crew had been lost, there would be hell to pay. The foreman would receive the brunt of it, but the head guard was next in line for punishment. “We should destroy their landing pod.”
“It’s too valuable,” the foreman snapped. He furrowed his worn brow. They were using the plasma ducts; why not give them plasma? Some nice, hot, heated-to-instantly-incinerating plasma ... He pointed to the monitor again. “How long would it take to redirect the plasma flow into that conduit.”
Beneath his rebreather, the guard smiled. “I’ll see to it.”
He strode off, leaving the foreman to watch his future fortune trying to make its way to the planet surface.
Chapter 14
Muscles aching,