Chapter 13

The next level was a long way down, six hundred and fifty meters. Forcing that door, I stepped inside, and when Amy was inside I used my ax and cut the cables. They were heavy cables, but when the force of my swing hit them they gave. The ceramasteel, which the ax and the Class V armor's outer shell were made of, would hold an almost impervious razor's edge. It was as hard as diamond yet flexible, possessing tremendous tensile strength and would snap back to original shape from violent forces.

We could get up and down without using the cables if we needed to, but I hoped that those above and below would be slowed down or better yet could not move at all.

Whatever alarm had been raised had not yet stirred them up on this level. We went back to moving with more care. There was nothing past the gentle curve in the tunnel, though, for several hundred meters. Then there was a round room and two more elevator shafts.

Both went down.

"What is this? Some Jules Verne novel? I mean how fucking far down does this go?" Amy said clearly frustrated.

"A long fucking way," I said frowning at the battlecomp's display of 18,532 meters.

"Shit."

"Turn back?" I asked.

"We can't. Nothing but angry Lizards."

"No cables though," I said.

We looked at each other, and then I pressed the button that looked more or less like any button to call an elevator. It lit up. When the elevator arrived it was empty. We looked inside and there was only one button.

"Hold this and let's check the other one," I said and pushed the button for the other elevator after forcing the doors open and getting the same reading. There was no light when I pushed the button.

"Not much choice really. We spend lots of time and energy climbing down something or ride in the elevator," Amy said.

"Yes my fearless leader. Where your cute ass goes I follow," I said.

"But I've been following you," she said stepping in.

"No wonder we are lost."

The trip down was really fast. The Lizards knew how to build an elevator. There was room for a hundred or more Lizards in the car.

The thing slowed and stopped. We were out of sight and used sneaks to peak around the corner. It was an empty tunnel.

This level was different, though. The walls were lighter in color and the light trail in the ceiling was dimmer. There were also no doors. We saw just plain passageway wall for a hundred meters, then an intersection letting us go either left or right.

At the intersection we looked, but straight or turning either way looked exactly the same.

"I'm still following you. Lead on, Private," Amy said teasing me.

"Aye Aye, Sir."

I picked right.

The tunnel ahead started to curve to the right and we went a while before coming to an opening. Inside was a cavern and it was big. We were looking down to the floor of it, about a hundred meters down from where we stood. The cavern itself was, at its furthest according to the battlecomp, four hundred twenty five meters across. It was domed and three hundred meters tall and covered with resin like everything else we had seen.

On the cavern floor was a crèche. A lift was on the floor currently. We could see five brood mothers and sections of eggs and little dragons. There were several thousand dragons down there and shit loads of eggs.

"Fuck me," Amy said.

"Exactly," I agreed.

We backed up.

"I'd rather not go through that without a platoon. I'd run out of slugs before we got to the other side," I said.

"Left?" Amy asked.

"Left it is," I said and trotted back.

We checked back towards the elevator, and there was no activity yet. They were coming though, I knew it. Being a little less cautious, we hurried along only to find another crèche.

"Son of a bitch," Amy said.

"One more try," I said turning around.

The last option took us further yet. We had found the dragon birthing level. Yet more dragons were in front of us.

"Don't say it," Amy said.

She knew I was going to say something about my luck. Or that was what I was going to say, anyhow. She could have thought something else I guess. I was not sure how I felt about somebody knowing me that well. It had been a long time.

"I won't. Can you make it to the half way point and jump to the other side?"

"I don't know. If the ceiling was higher I know I could."

"You can do it. We don't have any choice. At least make it most of the way across. I'll be a tic behind you. They will get surprised by you but mad at me."

"I love you," she said.

"I know. Go," I said.

She turned and jumped. I went right after her. Amy landed right in the middle of some very surprised dragons and quickly leaped away. I landed a little behind where she did. My ax swung wide, chopping two dragons in half, and I leaped away. Twisting mid-jump, I put a round in each brood mother's head before landing at the opening on the side, a hundred meters up. Amy bounced up two tics later and we quickly moved. I dropped a grenade set on proximity behind.

Another curved passage ahead of us took us to a 'T'. A quick sneak and when both directions looked the same, we went left. Another opening faced us, but smaller. Inside was a rough tunnel with some kind of conduits in it. There were many small ones and a few big ones with diameters of twenty centimeters or so. They also looked alien. The battlecomp said they were biological, but they pulsed with very high levels of the Lizard energy source's signature.

Thinking there would not be any dragons to wake up, we jumped down and went right. The tunnel was not much taller than us. We did not get far before the battlecomp informed us that my grenade had detonated, and showing a picture of some snailed up dragons in pursuit. Amy dropped a drone to alert us when they started into the tunnel after us. We moved as fast as Amy could, which was pretty good. She was consistently getting better in her armor. The tunnel went on for several klicks at a somewhat steep downgrade. There was no lighting in the tunnel.

The drone informed us that the dragons were in pursuit almost five minutes later. I was happy with a five minute head start. More would be better, but five gave us some wiggle room.

When we detected light ahead, we slowed down and moved quietly in case there was another welcoming party. What we saw, for the first time any human had ever seen, was how the Lizards produced power.

In a cavern that was large enough to almost defy my imagination was a hive. Or it looked like a hive. The battlecomp had the cavern ceiling at almost two klicks above and the floor a few hundred meters below us.

The conduit we had followed continued, supported by some kind of web-like support, to branch out to one of hundreds of what I guessed were collectors. They were ringing the massive hive in the middle. The collectors looked like typical lizard tech, vaguely biological looking and with rounded corners and curves. The battlecomp showed sky-high levels of power emanating around the rather lopsided boxes, each the size of a delivery truck. From each one thousands of connections went into the hive.

"Fucking figures," I muttered.

"I think you must be charmed. You just have the most amazing luck," Amy said, clearly excited.

If she kept on with the luck I was going to have to do something. Maybe a spanking would help. I don't like luck.

On the floor of the cavern were dragons. They looked like technicians and were unarmed. Exactly what they were doing was a mystery. They carted some kind of goo to small openings in the hive. One would tickle the inside with some kind of probe and a worm-looking thing would poke out and eat the stuff. Other dragons would scoop up the waste or end product from areas where it oozed out. That stuff got the battlecomp's attention.

The dragons would suck it up into some kind of vessel and load them onto a transport. The battlecomp indicated it had an energy signature the same as what the lizard's plasma rifles and crawlers emitted. Why it didn't explode or eat its way through the floor was another fucking mystery. I'm sure an egghead would give his right nut to know why.

I hate mysteries.

"Think there is any way we could destroy this? I've got a B4 left?" Amy asked.

"We might, but would we survive?"

"It's such a huge opportunity. I'm not sure how we could not at least try," she said clearly conflicted.

"I think that what we've seen and recorded might be even more useful," I was not conflicted. Sacrificing myself for the greater good ran against the grain.

"It was just a thought," she said.

"If they see us the party starts. If we stay here too long the party starts. I wonder. Do you think the thing would support our weight?"

"No idea."

"Me either. It could be as thin as paper."

"Can you jump over it? But stay close?"

"Probably. That might work," I said knowing what she was getting at.

"I raise hell and maybe even find out how tough it is. You jump over or on top of it and leave the B4 behind?"

"It needs to be set for timer only. If they find it or notice and move it before we are far enough away... ," I said leaving the obvious unsaid.

"Whatever we do, we need to do it soon," she said.

"Then let's do it."

"Okay. Don't go earning any medals," she said and leaped.

As she was about to land she fired off a round at the hive. It penetrated but it looked like it just didn't blow through. When she landed though, the dragons froze, clearly surprised. Amy started firing and I jumped.

Amy was careful not to hit the power collectors or the plasma storage. We didn't know what kind of reaction might result. She was targeting dragons. Once the initial surprise wore off, the dragons either ran or attacked. Most ran at first. Then some top dragon started to yell something and many stopped and turned back.

I lost track of her except for what the battlecomp reported as I landed on the hive unnoticed. When I set the B4, I jumped as gently as I could to clear the hive on my way down. It gave a little under my weight and I was unsure if trying to jump further would only collapse it under me.

"Set," I called as I jumped away.

I landed in the tunnel entrance and Amy then jumped away. So far we had heard no audible alarms but there was little doubt that some kind of alarm must have been raised. The battlecomp noticed, just a fraction of a second behind me, some snailed up dragons appear from a tunnel on the floor of the cavern. They did not know where we were and the confusion below made them easy shots. There was a couple of answering shots before I had them all down. Amy bounced up to me and I watched the cavern as she moved down the tunnel before I turned to follow.

Amy was moving as fast as she could in the confined space. I had a feeling our leisurely stroll through Lizard town was over. There was no way to tell how sentimental they were or how much dragons treasured their young. There also was no way we could have failed to anger them. We had done what nobody had done before even if it was mostly accidental. If we lived long enough for the B4 to detonate and then lived through the blast, the whole planet would be after us.