Chapter 11: Hades

David was sitting at the helm.

He was watching the pictures of the planet below scroll across his screens. He knew why it was called Hades. It was a weird planet. It had an axial tilt of about fifteen degrees. The equator was boiling hot, but Sarah said it was actually cooling.

It also had huge ice caps that she told him were, in fact, melting and making the sea less saline. It had active volcanoes caused by something hitting the planet hard and what life was on the planet was basic at best, but it had life.

The land in the better climatic areas was covered in lichens and ferns, and the sea was full of algae. It did have a barely breathable atmosphere even though it wasn’t as oxygen rich, as he would like. He decided it would be safer to wear his suit when he went down.

As he was watching, he got a ping. He brought up a screen in front of him and asked the ship to identify. Sarah’s deeper voice surrounded him. “The sensors have located a Transportation Ring on the surface.”

Kelli joined him, “So my people have been here. I’ve checked with Zara’s archives, and this planet isn’t in them. This sector was in Planet 1’s manifest. What’s that?”

She pointed to a huge pair of crater walls that now hosted the sea in their bellies. They determined that the craters had to be at least three hundred and fifty klicks across and nearly twice that long. The second crater had been created very soon after the first so that they linked in together.

It had also opened up a massive fault line that the scans indicate had shifted the lower portion of the continent to the extent it had split it off the main land mass. It had caused enough damage to create a new mountain range on the north side of the planet.

New volcanic islands were created even further south of the equator. The continental plate had pushed up against the next plate and had even shifted the icecap. The sea had shifted further inland and flooded a huge low-lying area along the fault. Several volcanoes appeared to have erupted as the result of the impact on the continental plate.

Sarah answered, “I’ve been scanning the craters, and there is an anomaly. I detect traces of Hyrodenzer.”

Kelli gasped, “They crashed the ship?”

Sarah replied, “Yes, I believe they are a result of at least two engines blowing up. It must have broken up on entry. There is a large section of hull that has hit south of the mountain on the east coast and that holds the Ring.”

“This atmosphere would have been thick enough, to damage the hull should one of the Keltrian ships hit it. Like your ship David, they aren’t designed for hitting the heavy atmosphere at speed.”

“So, do we go to the Ring or the wreck first?” David asked.

“I think we should check out how far they got with the setup and then the wreck,” Sarah offered. Kelli nodded, as she liked this idea as well.

“Can you link to the Ring, Sarah?” David now asked.

“Yes, I have its frequency, but I don’t know if it is charged. You could get stuck if there is no access to the surface. The crashing of the ship may have changed the lava flows, and it may not be able to charge anymore.”

“I believe the ship caused massive disruptions to this planet and has even caused continental shifts and ice melts. It has possibly altered the axial tilt, making it greater than it was before.”

“You will also need to be careful going down in your transporter. I think the other engines exploded in the lower stratosphere. The traces of Hyrodenzer I’m detecting are still causing huge ionisation storms when the volcanoes erupt. The good thing is that it stops the ash from staying up high and it’s increasing the ozone layer.”

“So I’m still better off taking the transporter. I can possibly take that laser cutter with me to get to the cavern. How deep do you think it is?” David asked Sarah.

“From the surface and straight down, it’s 200m. But it is close to the southern side of the mountain. There is a plateau you could land on,” Sarah said and zoomed in on the location she was talking about.

“That looks doable, how long until dark here, Sarah?” he asked.

“At least ten hours. This planet has about a twenty-eight hour day,” she informed him. David decided as long as he was in his suit it didn’t really matter. He had enough daylight to go down and get a start. He could even hover and look for a cave entrance.

“Okay girls let do this,” David said. He got up and blinked down to his transporter. He loved being able to blink. He had already loaded the gear he felt he might need for several days stay. He was grabbing the extra gear when Kelli popped in beside him making him frown. “No,” he said.

Kelli put her hands on her hips. David hauled her into his arms and kissed the crap out of her. He then released her, “No. If I determine it’s safe, you can join me but not until then, you have to look after my girls,” he said.

She pouted, and he grinned. “My love, in this instance it won’t work, and you won’t change my mind. No,” he finished firmly.

“Please take care, my love,” Kelli said and hugged him hard.

David caressed her cheek, “I have a lot to live for. You can bet I’ll do my best to come back to you and Sarah.”

She had blinked before he saw her tears, but he still knew. She loved him as much as he did her.

He didn’t like leaving them either.

David dropped the nose of the ship once he was down low enough to play in the atmosphere safely.

He cruised over to the mountain and did a circuit of the most accessible faces. He hovered over the plateau. It looked like a smaller peak had leant over and then snapped off.

He wondered if a piece of the downed ship had helped it or it was just a result of them shaking the shit out of the place when they exploded. The plateau wasn’t dead flat, but it was better than having to climb up from the ground level.

David checked his scans. They indicated the mountain should be stable enough for him to land. Once he was down, he unloaded his sledge that had similar technology to the lingers and it floated over the ground high enough to let him pull it along comfortably.

When he checked his readouts, he decided the air was better at this elevation, but it was safer to stay in his suit. He followed carefully around to the area he had decided might be an entrance. He was disappointed that the shadow he hoped was a cleft wasn’t wide enough for him to anything with.

David floated the sledge over to a flattish section and set up the machine that allowed him to get a picture of what was under him. He made some calculations on where he believed the cave was from him and calibrated the machine for the angle.

He waited patiently for the screen to load up a cross-section of what was there. He looked at it thoughtfully and then recalibrated again, as shifted the angle slightly. “Bingo,” he said.

David determined that he only had to cut in at least 12m, and down 5m. Then he should be able to access a side cavern that hopefully led to the one he wanted. The gravity here was slightly heavier than Earth’s. It made lugging the items that were designed for Mars a lot more unwieldy.

He decided on the drill and demolition charges. There was no way he was going to move that much rock with his magical skills. Darcy had shown him how to set them up, and while it might make it harder to get the inclination he wanted, he didn’t wish to be here for weeks.

Davide plotted the best places to put them and drilled the six holes to create a 3m high by 2m wide opening. The rock was bloody hard, and it took him several hours to drill the half meter deep holes. At least the spell on the drill bit stopped it going blunt or breaking on him.

He placed the charges and connected the frequency activated detonation caps. He packed up the gear and dragged the sledge back to the transporter. He decided he would rather be in it and in the air when he blew the first layer.

It was a bit more stuffing around, but he decided to play safe. His medallion had gotten warmish when he was putting in the chargers. It calmed down once he took off and circled around to the side so he could still see the area he planned to blow.

David hit the detonation button. He picked up the boom as the charges blew together, and rocks and dust spewed forth. Then just behind the first explosion was a second one. He was amazed as the side of the mountain blew out in a massive eruption.

“Shit, there must have been a pocket of gas behind where I blew,” he told girls on the ship.

“I think you got a bigger hole than you intended dad,” Sarah replied with a giggle.

The watched and waited for the worst of the dust to clear and the debris to stop moving down the side of the mountain. David poked the nose of the transport over where he had created his hole.

He could pick out where he had marked what was to be top of the hole, but the bottom was now 7m lower than he had planned. It had ripped out through the fault and blown out the side he had accessed, making a new slope to the bottom of the hole.

If anything, it was even easier to access now. David had a nice 10m long by 7m wide hole. He guessed it was about the 12m deep from the cave entrance that he required. He turned the lights on and shone them in.

Dust was still trickling out, but he picked out a smaller hole at the back of his cave with darkness behind. He wiggled the transporter to get the light to shine in the hole and grinned. “Hot damn, Sarah that is a flat Keltrian made wall in the back of the room,” David crowed.

He happily landed the transporter again. He reloaded the sledge with more practical caving type equipment, shovels, picks and ropes, buckets, an inflatable enviro-tent, and food and water. He carefully made his way back to the hole.

The secondary explosion had done a good job of leaving the floor curved but mostly debris free. He tugged in the sledge and turned his torch on as he got to the back of the hole. He could see where it blew into the room.

He must have been near the middle of the room to even breach the thick hard layer he perceived as the wall of the room. He could see the wall in places where the earth had been resting against it.

He had a feeling that the shielding on the room had tried to repulse the material during the explosion, but it hadn’t been entirely successfully. The rubble that blew in made him a nice slide that he could use to get into the room through the metre roundish hole.

He parked the sledge and went back to the hole. He pushed the loose rock into square up the base of the hole and then slid in. He shone the torch around. He was in a room about 3m high and 12m square. There was plenty of room for all of his gear.

He looked back at the hole and decided some magic would come in handy. His transmogrification spells were good enough for this job. He reshaped the doorway to 2.4m high, 1.2m wide and the depth of the wall. He then turned the rubble into a ramp the width of the doorway.

He directed his sledge into the room. It didn’t really like the angle of the ramp, but it coped. He set up his tripod lights and turned them on. He could now see the room better. It had smooth rock walls as if they had been cut by a laser. It was completely empty, so he knew it wasn’t the room.

He then walked around the walls and felt for the tickle or hot spot that Kelli said would indicate a doorway. He had worked along the back wall and found nothing. He headed down the wall to his right. After about three steps, he found it at about hip height and told the door to open.

He heard the crack as it broke free and it slid into the next space, and he found he was looking down a hallway, to his left. He walked through and then jumped in fright as the door shut behind him.

He placed his hand on the wall of the room he came from and sighed when he hit the spot that triggered the door, and it opened for him to his relief. Happy, he wandered down the hallway that was about 20m long and heard the door shut behind him again.

He found another door at this end, and it opened into the chamber he believed he was looking for. The roof was smothered in green and yellow crystals. The lighting was patchy indicating they hadn’t linked up well or that smaller patches no longer functioned.

Considering the shaking this place would have received, he was surprised the caverns were still here, and anything was functioning at all. He didn’t think it would matter much, as he wasn’t planning on being here any longer than he had to be.

He checked the Ring and found it was a 3m Ring. Four of the five lava pits still seemed to be working after a fashion. He checked his read out, and it indicated this room was sitting at about thirty degrees, hot enough to make you sweat. He found another three doorways led off this chamber.

He flipped an imaginary coin and took the one to the right of the one he had entered through. He decided that the room he entered was a general purpose living area. One end gave the indication of a food preparation corner.

Beside it and extending out into the larger area were six tables with bench-like chairs. He walked up to them and noticed that most of them were lower than the others. He thought about the height of where he had found the switches. “Hey Kelli, how big are the people from Planet 1?” David asked.

“Most of the people on Planet 1 are of the Pix race. They average around 1m to 1.2m, why?” she asked in return.

“Well, it looks like they had been here long enough to set up some home comforts. Want to come down and see?” he asked her.

“Please,” Kelli said hopefully.

David grinned, “I haven’t worked out how to set up the environmental systems so wear a suit, my love. The Ring should work well enough to get you here.”

“Yes dear,” she said agreeably.

David strolled around and exited through the back door. He followed a passage that sloped down and then twisted back north for about 25m before entering a new cavern. “Wow!” he said. He had entered into a massive cavern.

He decided it must be at least a 100m to the roof and probably that or possibly more across. It was hard to tell with the forest in his way. The Ring cavern had only been about 30m around.

Crystals smothered this ceiling a well, but they appeared in more dedicated strips. Several strips were bright, but more like a slightly overcast day. As he watched, the strip nearest him dimmed a little and the next brightened. He decided that they were simulating the day outside.

He also noted little tubes hung down between the crystals and water dripped down onto the plants. He could also hear running water and walked down an overgrown path. He found a zig-zagging waterway making its way down the centre of the earthen floor. A little bridge crossed over it to the path on the other side.

David decided it was pretty cool. He guessed they planned to seed the plants on the surface, but it looks like they didn’t get that far. He felt a bit sad that they hadn’t. The plants would probably make a huge difference to the environment and possibly even make a decent chunk of this planet liveable.

He walked back into the kitchen and turned right. He went down a long hallway and found more hallways leading off to small rooms. Some had multiple beds, others only one larger one. The beds looked like they were for kids. He was at least grateful that they liked tall ceilings.

He ended up in a room at the end. It was much bigger than the little rooms, and he guessed by the decorations that it was the person in charges room. It was very neat, and he didn’t detect any real personal items. It was as if it was waiting for its occupant like a new house.