Ch: 119 Into the tunnel

Sorry for the late chapter. Got sick again. The Sage chapter should be out tomorrow. After that, the DM chapter should be coming out the beginning of the week. 

Edited

Chapter 119

Into the tunnel

“Seth, send your drone into the hole. Let's see if we can at least get eyes on.” Lily ordered her drone operator.

“On it.” Seth replied. Freya watched as one of her feeds started moving towards the hole. The feed didn’t show a hole of course, so it seemed like Seth was deliberately crashing his drone. She watched it zoom right up to the ground and then the feed cut out.

“Pin…” Freya said, calling over Kruz’s private channel.

“I saw it.” Kruz replied back. “I’m talking with the Captain right now.”

“Aright.” Freya replied.

Looking over her squad make-up, she frowned. The only people who could possibly fit were her and the other two drone operators. Everyone else was wearing heavy armor. That left four in her squad who were capable of fitting inside the hole. Looking around, she checked the drone people’s weapons, and noted that no one besides her was carrying something that would be effective in tunnels this size. She did note that some of her heavy-armored people had some small enough firearms that could be used.

Looking behind her, she checked out the second squad, who were still putting up defenses around the hole. They were mostly in heavy armor, but there were two, including Monkeyboy, who were in medium armor. Only Monkeyboy looked like he had something he could use in the tunnels. His sidearm was a massive pistol. While she didn't know the name of his sidearm, she did know that it was a short-range ten gauge weapon. At least the one she had seen in the store had been ten gauge. She didn’t like weapons like that as they were both too short range for her, and not quite as accurate as she liked. The other medium-armored demo person would need to be armed better.

“Magic, Cap Thompson wants you to take a drone operator and take a peek. She wants more info.” Kruz told her over her private channel.

“Seth, with me.” Freya said over her squad channel. “Lose anything that won’t fit. Someone give him a weapon he can use in those tunnels. We’re going in for a quick peek. Everyone else, behind the defenses. Diamond, you’re in charge until I come back.”

She followed her own advice and started stripping off her vest and belt, but not before starting her drone in her cloud forge. She set it up to build a surveillance drone. It would take five minutes to build, but once it was done it would sit there for however long she liked. She looked away from her HUD when her cloud forge beeped, informing her that it was building her drone.

The first thing she dropped was all her medic supplies and most of her ammo. She wasn’t going to need it in the tunnels. Added to the pile were her backpack and her Irish Nester rifle. The backpack was too bulky and her Nester was too big to be any use inside the tunnels. She grabbed a few grenades and four medi pens from her vest and belt pouches. The medi pens went into her thigh pocket while she hung her grenades on her chest harness. It was the first time she had hung grenades on her chest. No one really did that anymore as it was too easy to lose them by accident even though they were designed to hang like that.

That left her with her Wingols 90/90 pistol, her Asy Minor rifle, and her combat knife. Picking up her weapons one by one, she checked each one. Her Asy Minor was a ten shot beam weapon. This meant that she needed at least her recharger and a few batteries. Slinging the short barrel weapon over her shoulder, she pulled out her pistol. It was a ten round ballistic weapon, which meant she needed some ammo rods. Finally she pulled out her combat knife. It was a simple basic Marine knife she had bought. The metal was black. Not painted black - the compound turned black on its own. Its edge was razor sharp. While it couldn’t penetrate through heavy armor directly, it could find the seams, if the user was good enough, and penetrate that way.

Seeing that she needed more than what she had on, she picked up her belt again and removed all but two pouches and the recharger. She stuffed the two belt pouches with six small ammo rods for her pistol, and still had room for two extra grenades. The recharger was already stocked with batteries, so she was fine for her rifle. It would have to be enough.

Looking up from arming herself she saw Seth and nearly laughed. He was trying to fit four pistols onto his body, plus the ammo for them. Shaking her head at the very Marine type of thing he was trying to do, she went over to help him. First, she stopped him from trying to put even more weapons on. Then she went over and removed all but two pistols and the ammo for them. The rest she dumped onto the ground where his stuff was stacked in a haphazard pile.

“Find yourself a knife, and you’re good to go.” Freya said when she was done.

“What kind of marine doesn’t have a knife?” Kruz asked on the squad channel as she walked up to Freya’s small group.

“This one.” Freya said pointing to the drone operator.

“I have one.” Seth replied, sounding a bit stressed. “It's in my backpack.”

“Well, get it.” Kruz said, shaking her head. “Magic, with me.”

Freya followed her boss as she wandered away from where most of the marines were standing. Her friend kept her back to the hole when she finally stopped and started speaking. “This op is being watched by pretty much everyone on the October. It’s also being beamed out so that the War College and whoever else wants to watch, can. Thompson wants you to drop in and scout the tunnel. I know you only have one drone you can use at a time, but your boy there has two. That should be enough to scout all the tunnels for a thousand feet. Take your time, and don’t get killed.”

As she talked, Freya was watching her face. Kruz, she saw, was very stressed out. It was a good plan, but a lot of things could go wrong, fast. Knowing her friend didn’t really care about her career that much, at least right now, she knew that Kruz was stressing about something else. Clasping her friend’s shoulder, she smiled.

“Who is your shiv, Pin?” Freya asked, still smiling. “You give the orders, and I find a way to do what I do best.”

“Just don’t get dead.” Kruz told her, snorting. Freya shook her head as the other woman turned around and left without any further comment.

She walked up to where Seth was standing. He was still about twenty feet or so away from the hole, looking worried. “I’ll go in first. Give me a slow count to ten then drop in behind me.” Freya said as she pulled her small rifle off her back. Seth, she saw, jumped as she came up behind him.

Freya dropped to her belly around ten feet away and crawled towards the hole. She stopped, and looked back at Seth when she reached the lip. She saw his face and sighed. “What?” She asked him.

“You gonna drop a grenade in, before you, you know, drop in?” He asked.

“And warn the Ketica I’m coming? No.” Freya replied, shaking her head.

“What if there are mines or other things like traps and stuff?” He asked her.

“I doubt they figured that strategy out yet, but fine.” Freya replied and pulled one of her grenades off her chest and primed it for four seconds.

“Fire in the hole.” She yelled and tossed it into the hole. She ducked her head, hiding it in her arms while she waited out the explosion. It was an HE grenade, and she was hoping if there were any traps, the blast wave would trip them off. Unfortunately there were no secondary explosions.

“Ding dong.” She said, mostly to herself, as she crept up to the rim of the hole. “You have visitors.”

She pulled herself up and into the hole head first. It was dark in the tunnel with a haze kicked up from the grenade. Her dark vision kicked in right away, and it did its best to correct for the dusty haze, but it still limited her sight. Looking around, she saw that she was at the end of a tunnel. It only went in one direction, which was good. Freya sent off her drone down the only path that she could see, which was the one in front of her.

The tunnel was small and claustrophobic. There was only enough room to crouch, and little else. While her shoulders didn’t touch the sides, it was close enough that if she moved to either side they would. It made her wonder if someone in medium armor would be safe here. She was worried they might not have enough room to turn around if they needed too. Especially in an emergency.

“Pin?” Freya asked over the radio, half dreading that she would be cut off from the outside.

“No comms blocks yet.” Kruz replied a second later. “I’m getting your feed, it’s clear and clean.”

Just as Kruz finished speaking, Freya’s external speakers picked up a thud. Turning around, she found Seth behind her. He had his pistol pointed right at her. She nodded slowly to him and reached up and pushed the barrel away from her face. He let her, but she noted his eyes seemed kind of wild.

“You okay there, Seth?” She asked slowly, concerned.

“Yeah, just wanting to kill something.” He told her. From the way he was acting she knew he was lying, but chose to ignore it.

“Just don’t kill me and we’ll be fine.” She told him, turning back around to face down the tunnel.

Her feed showed that the tunnel kept on going straight for about fifty feet before it started zig-zagging in slow but long curves, just like the last Ketica tunnel she’d been in. She found the ground odd. After roughly thirty feet, roughly the size of the blast wave of the grenade, there were odd little waves in the dirt of the tunnel floor. She had been looking for some kind of tracks, but looking at the waves in the dirt she wasn’t sure if she found them or not.

The walls of the tunnel were rough, and had stones here and there sticking out. The odd stone would make traveling through the tunnels a bit harder than the last tunnel, especially since it was so tight down here. She glanced over her shoulder and noted that while it was a tight fit of Seth, with both shoulders of his armor touching the walls, he still looked like he could turn around without too much hassle. At least if there weren’t any rocks sticking out of the tunnel walls in his way.

She nodded to him and settled back to watch the feed. She had no intention to follow the drone, at least not yet. At roughly five hundred feet, the slowly curving tunnels started to get tighter. The curving started to get sharper and shorter. At just under six hundred feet, the tunnel started getting bigger then the feed cut off. She got a lost signal symbol on her drone feed.

“Magic, we lost the feed.” Kruz told her over the squad channel. “Do you still have it or is it just us?”

“We lost it here too.” Freya asked, looking at Seth who was nodding his head.

“That last room looked like it was opening up a bit.” Kruz told her on the same channel. “Cap wants us to check it out. I’m sending some people down to help. Two groups of two.”

“Copy.” Freya replied as a feed started up. It was Seth launching one of his drones.

“Hold your drone just before the point my drone died.” She told him as she waited for the reinforcements. “We got people coming to help us. We need to move to give them room. I’ll take point. Keep me in sight, but don’t get any closer than twenty feet.”

“Understood.” He told her, looking a bit calmer now.

Freya laid down on her belly and crawled forward until she reached the first bend in the tunnel, then stopped. She looked back and saw that Seth was following her orders. The reinforcements hadn’t arrived yet so she took up a defensive position with her gun pointed around the soft curve in the tunnel. The waves in the dirt were harder than she expected and they were uncomfortable to lay on. Freya ignored her discomfort and kept her weapon trained on the unknown in front of her.

It took right about five minutes for her reinforcements to drop in. She was a bit annoyed at the delay, but she didn’t say anything. She was sure Kruz was up there kicking them in their butts to get them moving. She would be if she was in her boss's shoes. The big bad tunnel wasn’t that scary.

“Magic, stay back. Let the others go first.” Kruz said, as if she felt Freya thinking of her.

“Two things, Pin.” Freya replied. “This tunnel isn’t big enough to have people pass each other, and two, armor doesn’t mean anything down here. I got more perception and agility than they do. I’m the best woman for the job.”

“I can hear your ego from here, Shiv.” Kruz told her. The sarcastic tone in her voice was very strong.

“Ah, you say the nicest things. You’re gonna make me blush.” Freya replied, smiling to herself.

“See, this is why I hated you when we first met.” Kruz replied with a sardonic tone. Her tone changed to a more tender tone when she spoke again. “Be careful, Shiv. Bring both you and Monkey’s butt back in one piece.”

Looking back, she spotted Monkeyman just behind Seth. He must have seen her looking at him because he gave her a cheesy grin and a thumbs up. She returned the gesture before turning around to the tunnel before her. It was time to see where it led. Oddly enough, it excited her. She wanted to explore it, even though she knew there was a Ketica at the end of it. She knew she might die, but it just made things more exciting.

She stood up in a crouch and started forward once she saw that the others were ready. Her gun was at the ready position as she moved. It felt weird walking this way, but it was much faster than crawling. It was also nerve-racking. Her armor’s AC kicked on because she had started to sweat. It made her a bit too cold, but nothing too worrying.

Her people had two other drones out, besides the one Seth had sent. The first one stayed by the hole, by her order. She wanted to know that her exit was secure. An idea occurred to her. A frightening one at that. It had occurred to her that whatever had made the hole could simply make a new one and cut her and her squad off from their exit.

It was the only order she had given so far besides the standard ones of keeping their separation, and don’t lose sight of the person in front of you. The things that every boss she had in the marines kept repeating over and over to death. Oddly enough, now that she was in a leadership position, she found herself doing the same thing. People, she found and knew by training, needed to be reminded of the simple things because they often forgot. Even experienced people could forget the simplest things.

“Coming up on where the drone cut off.” She warned both her squad and the people on the command channel.

“Understood.” Kruz replied a second later. “No problems with comms so far.”

“No problems with comms so far, understood.” Freya repeated as she walked, hunched over, through the sharp bend. When she came out she found that she was in front of a slight incline that widened out into a fairly large-sized room. She got on her belly again and shuffled up the incline until she could see into the room.

The first thing she noticed was that the room was empty. There was no Ketica anywhere in sight. Nor was there anywhere for it to hide. The room was about twenty feet across and large enough that she could stand up without problems. The medium-armored people, she acknowledged, might have to crouch a bit, but not too much. She moved up to the threshold of the room to get a better look and saw that on the far side of the room were six other tunnels that were leading downwards like this tunnel was.

She was still looking around when she felt someone tap her foot. Looking back, she saw Seth tapping her foot. She could see his face, and saw that he was trying to say something, but she couldn’t hear him. She held up her hand and showed him one finger telling him to wait. She turned around and launched her drone. She captured a few pics from it before shuffling backwards. Seth did the same which gave her more room to shuffle backwards.

“...ear me now?” Seth’s voice asked on the radio.

“I read you.” Freya replied, then, ignoring him, she sent the captured pics to Kruz.

“Good to hear from you.” Kruz said a second later. “I sent the pics to the Captain. What do you think?”

“I say that room makes a perfect room to work out of. I can set up a relay so we can keep you in the loop, and work from there.” Freya told her boss.

“That’s what I was thinking.” Her friend replied. “Do it.”

“Yes, ma Pin. Anything for you, ma Pin.” Freya replied.

“Oh for Tom’s sake. Shut it.” Her boss said and clicked off a second later. Freya grinned. She knew she was being unprofessional, but she couldn’t help it.

“Ok people, the room beyond is going to be our workplace. Demo people, I want you to set up some good defenses once it’s secure.” Freya told her squad.

“Monkeyman.” Freya cried over the radio. “I need you to set up a shuffle comms. Have your guy stay just beyond the jamming and report everything to Pin. Make sure he knows to step through the jamming every now and again to see if we have something to pass back. Also, do everything you can to make sure he’s gonna be safe.”

“I can set up mines in front of him.” He replied, shaking his shoulders. “We left our auto turrets back in the warehouse. Too bulky for us to take down here. Best I can do.”

“Do what you can, and thanks.” She replied, and added a small smile to let him know how she was grateful he was there with her.

“No worries, ma shiv.” He told her with a cocky smile.

Freya turned around and looked at what her people were doing. The drone operators were digging foxholes in the wavy dirt, while the other demo person besides Monkeyman was setting up mines just inside the first hole to her left. Seeing him undefended, Freya quickly moved forward and sat down behind him. It didn’t take long for him to scatter the mines. They were simple ones with FFA capabilities so that if any marines accidently stepped into sensor range they wouldn’t go off.

Seeing him place a couple of mines on the ceiling gave her an idea. Looking up at the ceiling above her, she wondered just where they were in the city. She also wondered just how deep they were. She knew they couldn’t be that deep underground because the hole in the warehouse wasn’t that deep. She also hadn’t noticed the tunnel descending. Since this room was elevated, she rationed that they had to be very close to the surface.

Knowing she still had a job to do, she watched as the demo guy went from one tunnel to the next, all the while keeping him covered. Once he was done, she didn’t waste time and pulled her combat knife and stabbed the ceiling. The dirt was compacted and her knife didn’t penetrate all that far. Still, a bit of dirt fell from it to the ground.

She stabbed it a few more times, making the hole deeper. She kept the work up even though more and more dirt started to fall. The ceiling was too compacted to collapse on her, but every time she stabbed the ceiling she got more and more dirt falling on her. Finally her knife broke something, and when she pulled back a bit of light showed through. She had to wait for a small avalanche of dirt to stop falling, but once it was done she looked through the hole and found herself staring at the dark clouds above her.

“Sergeant Kruz, can you hear me?” Freya asked, sticking her head up against the hole in the ceiling. She didn’t get a response back. She waited a few more seconds for a response, but didn’t get one.

She used her knife to make a bigger hole. As she was doing that, Monkeyman crept up to her and tapped her on her shoulder. “Defenses are set, Magic. You want me to make that hole bigger?” He asked her. “That knife of your’s will take forever.”

“Yes, please.” She said, stepping back. “I left my trenching tool back with my stuff.”

He nodded and from his pocket pulled a breaching charge. It was a small wire full of explosives. It was the smallest breaching charge she had ever seen, and the wheel it was wound around was almost empty. Still, he made a small circle of the stuff and tied it off.

“Stand back.” He told her, holding out his hand motioning for her to move back.

“How loud is that thing?” She asked him. She looked behind her at the tunnels they hadn’t explored yet, a little worried.

“It’s quiet. We use this for stealth breaches.” He explained as he crouched down with her. “It also cost me a lot of credits. You’re buying the first round when we get back.”

“Fire in the hole.” He called out on the talk around channel. Seconds later, there was a soft thud and a mountain of dirt rained down from the hole she had dug a few minutes before.

She had to wait a few minutes until the falling dirt stopped and the haze cleared up. The hole was roughly the size of her head. She could see rain drops falling through it along with what little sunlight was shining through outside. Nodding to herself, she walked up to the hole and stuck her hand out. To her surprise, an armored hand reached over and grabbed it.

To her greater surprise the hand tried to pull her out. She was jerked forward towards the hole as the guy who had grabbed her was much stronger than she was. She was dragged upwards, pinning her arm in the hole as the armored hand pulled her up. The whole thing happened so fast she didn’t have time to say anything before her head was sticking out of the hole

“Stop!” She yelled over the platoon channel. “I’m fine!”

“Sorry, thought you needed help.” A female’s voice came over the radio.

“Magic, is that you?” Sergeant Kruz asked over the same channel.

“Yes.” She got out as the female marine let go of her arm. “The tunnel isn’t that deep, so I thought this would be a better way to communicate with you.”

“Yes, and it makes a better exit than that stupid hole.” Kruz told her. “We are going to collapse this end. Warn your guys.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Freya replied, conscious that they were on the platoon-wide channel.  She ducked back down and waved at the marine who had been her shuffle communications guy. He must have heard her conversation because he quickly left his post and made his way into the room.

Freya popped back up through the hole and spoke on the radio again. “We’re clear, ma’am.”

“Very well.” Kruz replied. Freya didn’t have time to duck her head again until she heard a muffled boom. She quickly ducked back down and found a cloud of dirt flowing out of the hole that they had come from only seconds before. It took a bit longer for it to clear up, but once it was done she directed the same guy who had been her communications before to stick his head up through the hole and be her communications again.

“Alright, we got us a better exit and comms.” Freya said over the radio to her squad. “Let's see where that Ketica is at.”