Three Square Meals Ch. 053

Trankara was a volcanic planet, with huge mountainous ranges, and broad lakes of molten lava. Alyssa was astounded anything could live in a such a hazardous environment, and she glanced over at Rachel and asked, "What's the atmosphere like down there? Is it breathable?"

Rachel shook her head, and said, "All those volcanic fumes are constantly pumping sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere. The Trankarans seem to be very adaptable to harsh environments, so they won't have any problem with it, but it's quite toxic for us."

"Over there," John said to Jade brusquely, pointing to a large raised mesa in one of the mountain ranges.

Even from here they could see the telltale signs of life amongst the jagged skyline of buildings atop the plateau. Bright orange lights dotted the hundreds of houses, administration buildings, and commercial sectors of the Trankaran capital city, the centre of power for their old government. Raised up atop it all was the Senate Building, and even from this distance they could make out the imposing nature of its design as it towered over the squat structures beneath it. The walls were hundreds of feet high with heavy supporting columns running from the base to the parapet, all worked out of the dark volcanic rock that made up the surface of Trankara.

The Radiant Palace, as it had been recently renamed, was a beacon of light above the gloomier buildings it overshadowed. It was festooned in strips of orange lighting, and the bright illumination they provided made the new name seem very appropriate indeed. As they drew closer to the mesa, they saw that the lower sections of a huge rocky promontory were riddled with cave entrances, where it jutted out over a lake of magma.

John pointed to the cave entrances and said to Jade, "Down there. Bring us in nice and slow. Senator Vamred's data said that those tunnels were once used for harvesting lava, but that operation was made redundant, and abandoned centuries ago. We should be able to make our way into the palace using those tunnels.

Alyssa frowned as she darted a surreptitious glance at John. She was disappointed that not only was he not asking any of them for advice about this mission, he wasn't even bothering to share the maps and schematics that the Trankaran Senator had supplied him with.

The Nymph carefully followed John's instructions, keeping close to the surface and drifting in slowly. Lava bubbled and churned beneath them, and the occasional spouting geyser of boiling hot magma prompted her to gain a little altitude, to keep well clear of danger. Her caution turned out to be well founded, as a rippling series of volcanic bursts, sent large plumes of superheated rock high up into the air along their flight path.

Travelling at a slow pace to avoid detection, their inbound flight seemed to take a torturously long time, and if she wasn't wearing a fully enclosed helmet, Alyssa might have been tempted to bite her nails out of worry. Fortunately, they managed to approach undetected, and Jade brought them in silently under the promontory, and touched down on a broad, flat jetty of volcanic rock, which had been built out from the base of the mesa.

John stood, and said, "Right, we're up. Let's go."

He strode out of the cockpit, and Irillith glanced at the other girls, then followed after him. Jade, Rachel, and Alyssa watched her leave, then gathered together for a quick hug.

"Stay safe you two," Jade told them with a smile, but they could both tell that she was worried.

Alyssa nodded and said, "I'll call you for an emergency evac if we get into trouble."

They parted, then walked out of the cockpit, and stepped into the grav-tube, floating down to the lower deck. Rachel was about to walk into the front loading area, when Alyssa placed her hand on her shoulder, holding her back for a moment.

*Keep an eye on Irillith,* she warned the brunette. *I'm concerned she might try something, but I'm not sure what.*

Rachel turned to look at her and said, *I'm not sure it was a good idea even bringing her. Why is John letting her carry that laser rifle of hers?*

Alyssa frowned and replied, *He thinks she's succumbed to the behaviour modification effects built into her DNA, but I don't believe that for one minute. Just be careful not to turn your back on her, and we'll have to hope for the best.*

Smiling at her bravely, Rachel said, *You can count on me. I'll watch your back and keep an eye on Irillith too.*

Alyssa couldn't help but smile back at Rachel's bold effort to reassure her, and she leaned forward to touch faceplates with the brunette. The sound of hydraulics drew their attention back to the room at the front of the gunship, and they walked out to join John and Irillith, who were waiting by the descending ramp.

As soon as it touched down on the jetty, John strolled out at a brisk pace, his Punisher railgun held at the shoulder as he scanned for targets. Once they were clear, Jade pulled up the loading ramp, and then the Raptor was away. She lifted off the ground quietly, then rapidly gained altitude, before disappearing out over the magma lake. John jogged across the flat jetty, watching warily for any Trankarans, and the girls moved quickly to keep abreast with him. They weaved through old, heavily corroded machinery, the sulphuric acid vapour from the magma lake having chewed through the metal over the many decades since this dock had been in use.

Fortunately this lower area was completely deserted, and they were able to enter the tunnels on the lowest level of the mesa without seeing a soul. The tunnel was broad, at least twenty metres wide at the entrance, and had a high arched ceiling that met in darkness several metres above their heads. Set into the basalt floor, were long rails that disappeared off into the gloom, and along those tracks were several loading carts, which had seized up and begun to corrode. The whole dock had a forlorn feeling of decay to it that was quite unsettling.

Irillith followed John into the darkened tunnels under the Trankaran city, and she glanced warily at the ceiling as they walked inside at a hurried pace. She had always disliked being underground, and the thought of the colossal weight of rock above their heads was more than a little disturbing. Her recent experiences with the Fulmanax had done nothing to change her dim opinion of subterranean expeditions, and she gritted her teeth as they delved deeper into the mountain.

Gripping her laser rifle tightly in her hands, she kept a vigilant watch ahead for any possible targets. She found it astonishing that John had allowed her to be armed, especially considering how contentious their relationship had become over the last few weeks. Still, this opened up all sorts of possibilities for her to end this nightmare, and her heart surged with hope.

Glancing to her side, she watched Alyssa striding along briskly, her deadly looking rifle held at her shoulder. Irillith knew full well that the blonde girl possessed imposing psychic abilities, so she was being extremely cautious with her thoughts, to avoid accidentally giving away her plans. She resolved herself to maintaining her facade of blind obedience, whilst keeping a wary eye out for any opportunities that might arise.

The small group made their way swiftly along the tunnels, switching to mag-view to follow the train tracks, when the light from the lava outside faded away. It was pitch black in there, but the metal girders set into the floor lit up like a beacon lighting their way, leading them deeper into the rock, and upwards on a gentle incline. It took about twenty minutes at a fast walk before they started to hear the sounds of movement coming from up ahead, and a slight flicker of light began to brighten the tunnel far away in the distance.

Mag-view wasn't picking up any armed or armoured figures in the tunnel ahead, so they continued at the same speed until the sounds began to get much clearer. Up ahead, the left side of the tunnel opened out, and pillars were spaced evenly along the left side of the passageway, casting shadows against the right wall from all the light pouring through the gaps. They jogged up to the first gap between the pillars, and John cautiously poked his head out to take a look.

His voice came over the voice comm in their helmet as he said, "We're at the lower forge level. Stick to the right wall, and we won't be spotted."

Following his own advice, he crossed to the right hand side, then began moving onwards at the same brisk walk as before. Irillith went next, with Rachel following, and Alyssa bringing up the rear. She poked her head out to take a quick peek before continuing after them, and she blinked in surprise at the view.

They were overlooking a huge forge area, that reminded her of the derelict steelworks back on Karron, which had previously built the digging machinery used to bore out the asteroid. Enormous machinery clanked and ground away, mixed in with the hiss of molten lava, which was being directed down channels through some strange kind of magma viaduct. There were dozens of Trankarans working away in the forge, and the entire area was a positive hive of industry.

John's impatient voice sounded in her helmet as he said, "Stop dawdling Alyssa. Keep up."

She had one last lingering look at the huge forge, then darted over to the right hand side of the tunnel, and sprinted to catch up with the others. She saw them huddled together behind another group of loading carts, so she crouched down next to Rachel, and had a look around to get her bearings. They were in some kind of disused loading area, with pitted, worn, and abandoned machinery lying dormant around the room beyond. To their left they could hear the distant sounds of the bustling forge coming from tunnels that led deeper into the mountain.

"Follow me, and keep right," John said curtly, smoothly mounting the platform, and moving quickly on ahead.

They followed his lead, and the tunnel leading out from the loading room began to head upwards at a sharp incline. It had been a few months since Irillith had done any hard physical exercise like walking up steep slopes as she now found herself doing, and her body was not in the peak of condition. She was winded by the time they eventually reached the top ten minutes later, and she sucked in deep breaths, while noting that her companions were unaffected by the gruelling climb.

John waved them to a halt, and the girls crouched down, covering the entrances to the room with their fire arcs. He glanced at his helmet HUD, and said, "We're directly under the palace now. According to the maps given to me by Senator Vamred, we just need to travel along a series of galleries, then there's tunnels that lead directly up into the Radiant Palace."

Alyssa pondered this for a moment, and asked, "Are there likely to be many guards?"

John turned to look at her, and there was a glimmer in his eyes as he replied, "I hope so. Now, let's move out."

Feeling a dark sense of foreboding, Alyssa nodded, and watched him dart across the room that the tunnel had opened out into. This room was well lit, with a bright glow coming from the next chamber ahead of them. She covered Irillith and Rachel as they glided out in John's wake, and she gasped when she caught up, as she looked out into the huge room beyond.

She was looking out into some kind of natural cavern, with pillar lined tunnels visible in the cliff wall opposite, at least one-hundred metres away. They were fairly close to the base of the canyon, with a twenty metre drop to the floor below, and what looked like a river of molten lava flowing along the length of the crevasse. She walked closer to the entrance of this vast room, and looking up, she could see dozens of bridges criss-crossing the canyon. Long shafts of natural light shone down from the surface, a good hundred metres above their heads. From all around them, coming from multiple levels, noisy sounds of clanking machinery could be heard.

The loud sound of heavy clomping boots rang out from their left, and it seemed that a Trankaran was climbing up the nearby ramp, heading towards the level they were on. The girls melted back into the darkness of the room, but John shouldered his rifle, and drew his sword silently as he pulled back out of sight. A Trankaran soldier was making steady progress up the ramp, and they could see his hulking form cast a shadow along the tunnel wall ahead of them, as he blocked the light from the canyon beyond. Finally reaching the top of the ramp, he entered the tunnel, and immediately turned left to continue along the pillar lined passageway that headed off into the distance.

John raised his sword back above his head, then rushed forward and brought it down in a whistling overhead chop. The Trankaran was caught completely by surprise, and the gleaming white Alyssium blade struck him dead centre on the back of his head, then cleaved down through his thick, granite-like skull. The enormous force of John's swing brought the blade down through the Trankaran's armoured torso, and he chopped him in half with a hideous grinding screech of metal.

The poor alien creature didn't even have a chance to react, and was killed instantly, collapsing to the floor in two separate armoured pieces with a dull clang. John sheathed his sword, and dragged the corpse back into the room, before taking a quick look back into the canyon. Miraculously, no one had heard the noisy execution of the Trankaran soldier, but with all the loud clanging coming from adjoining rooms, the other Rockmen in the area were none the wiser.

Confident that they still had the element of surprise, John unshouldered his Punisher railgun, and strode ahead, while hugging the right hand wall. Irillith followed after him immediately, but Rachel and Alyssa shared a nervous glance before they proceeded down the passageway. It ran in a straight line for over a hundred metres, before ending at set of sturdy double doors that were currently flung open. This seemed to be some kind of stairwell, but luckily there was no one using this particular section at the moment.

There was a window looking out onto the canyon, and Alyssa could see several Trankarans roaming along the passageway directly opposite them. John walked forward, to continue through another set of doors opposite the first they had just passed through, which would lead them into the next section of tunnel.

John paused when Alyssa asked cautiously, "What if we're seen going along these tunnels? There isn't a lot of cover along here, and one of them might spot us, and raise an alarm."

He turned and smiled at her as he said in a chilling voice, "Then we kill everyone we see."

Not feeling reassured in the slightest, Alyssa walked over to join him at the tunnel entrance. John left the relative protection of the room, and began to stroll along the passageway. His boldness seemed to be paying off, until two Trankarans appeared directly ahead of them in the next stairwell room along, and turned to walk down the passageway that John and the girls were now occupying. They halted, shocked expressions on their big broad features, as they spotted what appeared to be Terran interlopers in the capital city on their homeworld. One of them began to raise his rifle and...

"VrmPrrrkaow!" John shot him in the chest with a three round burst from his railgun.

The hyper-accelerated rounds smashed into the Trankarans armoured torso, punching huge holes through his armour. The eight-foot-tall Rockman teetered and then crashed to the floor, an expression of stunned disbelief on his face. His companion stared at his fallen friend in horror, then roared defiantly as he raised his own weapon. He was shot in the face by John a moment later, and his decapitated body toppled backwards to collapse on the basalt floor of the tunnel.

John sprinted down the passageway to the corpses, but the flash of movement was spotted by one of the Trankarans strolling along the corridor opposite. He turned his head to see what the glimmer of white was, and when he saw the slain guardsmen, he rushed into a nearby room and out of sight. John had just started hauling the bodies into the stairwell room that the Trankarans had emerged from, when a shrill ringing sound echoed around the cavern, seemingly coming from several directions at once. The girls ran up to join him, their faces showing their concern at triggering an alarm.

Dropping the mangled corpses he had been dragging, John smiled at the girls and said, "New orders ladies. Kill any Trankarans in our way."

A sudden rush of movement caught Alyssa's eye through the window in the room, and she saw what looked like a squad of soldiers running along one of the stone bridges that crossed the canyon.

"Incoming soldiers!" she warned him, pointing up at the bridge overhead.

John stepped over to the window, then took careful aim. "VrmPrrrkaow!" the Punisher railgun chattered, and the window was blown out in hundreds of shards of glass, as the twenty millimetre slugs then smashed into the rocky bridge. The structure trembled, and the guards paused to steady themselves, holding their arms out to keep their balance. He grinned, then flipped off the safety on the grenade launcher with his left thumb, and pressed the trigger button. There was a hollow sound as the 25mm high-explosive grenade left the underslung launcher, and a second later there was a loud explosion as it struck the Trankaran in the middle of the group. The blast sent the hulking soldiers flying, and they tumbled off the bridge, letting out deep rumbling screams as they fell the hundred metre drop into the river of lava below.

Irillith had stopped when they entered the room, and was staring in shock at the devastated corpses of the Trankaran soldiers that John had killed moments before. The first one had three huge, foot-wide holes blasted through his armoured breastplate, and the rounds had continued onwards, creating an enormous cracked cavity in the aliens rocky chest. She remembered the damage their old rifles had dealt to the Fulmanax warriors, and these brutal impact craters were ample evidence of the entirely new levels of destruction these upgraded railguns were capable of. Not for the first time, she was forced to re-evaluate just how viciously effective the Mael'nerak and his lethal band of warrior-women were.

"With me, Irillith," John ordered her curtly, snapping her from her dazed reverie.

Nodding, she trotted over to him, and they began to run along the next hundred metre long tunnel towards another stairwell. They paused and fired at Trankaran soldiers as soon as they appeared, killing them quickly with deadly accuracy as they progressed along the passage. John had stopped about half way along the latest tunnel, to take out a Trankaran soldier two levels above them, when a bulky Trankaran leaned out around the doorway ahead of them with his rifle at the ready. There was a strange searing hiss, and then a loud shriek as his rifle fired, sending a shotgun like spread of slugs directly at John. There was an odd whumping sound, and the slugs were harmlessly deflected by the magnetic field, bouncing back to hit the floor and walls.

Irillith raised her laser rifle to fire back, but the Trankaran had ducked behind the doorframe, and out of sight. She heard a sinister bubbling sound, and after a quick glance around, realised it was coming from where the slugs had hit the walls. The walls were pitted and scored where the molten contents of the round was eating through the rock, sending streams of burning liquid down to the ground. Not wanting to risk letting the soldier fire again, she aimed down the corridor, and waited patiently. The second he popped out from behind cover, she shot him in the face with a long burst of blue laser fire that neatly seared his rocky head from his body.