Chapter 7: Steel Trap Part 7

Despite the long walk ahead, Alix was glad to be leaving Ratlantis in a far different fashion than the way she’d arrived. 

She and Figaro had walked with the guards and two able-bodied elders to the northern city gate, with only a few growled threats from Raygun as they made their way from the temple. This time there was to be no rolling cage. They didn’t return Alix’s weapons or her smart tablet, but they returned her water flask fully filled, and her booze flask completely empty. 

“The farewell committee is here,” Figaro remarked as they stood before the gate of the northern tunnel. Behind them was the glowing city, and an enormous crowd of chattering civilians. The air filled with their squeaks and trills and shrieks. Figaro’s eyes were extended, scanning their faces as they called out to him and Alix. 

“Running another lingual analysis?” Alix asked.

“Yep. Hoping this can help fill in some blanks.”

“Good idea. If you master their language, you could come back as our ambassador!” Alix waved to the crowd with one hand and cheered right back at them. In her other hand, she held the sphere to her chest. 

“You crazy? You couldn’t pay me a trillion credits to come back! No more journeys to the center of the planet for me, no ma’am. You lot can pick out a human ambassador once I’ve uploaded my analysis to the station database.”

“Right. The station database.” Alix’s smile faltered at the reminder of the station. She was going to have to report this all to the suits upon her return. “Man, what will they think back on the station when we tell them about the Aexons?”

Figaro’s lenses twisted round to meet her eyes. “Who cares what they think, that’s what I think! So Deimos X is already colonized by a sentient species, that’s just what I call a whole lotta Not Our Problem.”

“True. Asteria Inc. will be mad about it, but at the end of the day they’ve got to abide by the regulations for this situation, right?”

“Of course, Boss. Now enough jibber-jabber, they’re opening up the gate.” 

Alix turned from the crowd to see that the guard Aexons were all pushing against the gate. It slowly opened to reveal a long, winding, uphill tunnel just barely lit by a bioluminescent trail on the ceiling. The elders and guards began to cross the gate. Raygun called out to Alix and Figaro, gesturing to them to follow. 

“Fun fact!” Figaro announced as Alix walked into the tunnel. 

“What?”

“My most recent lingual analysis allowed me to identify several vulgar adjectives from the Aexon language.”

Alix raised her eyebrows. “Is that so?”

“Yep.” Figaro said, then pointed at Raygun. “And that guy has called us all of them.”

***

It was a long climb to the top of the world.

Alix had had to hike up plenty of mountains over the course of her career thus far, but the northern tunnel presented a unique challenge. In the dim light, it was difficult to see where she was stepping. Combine that with the slippery, rocky terrain and Alix found herself frequently tripping, and had nearly dropped the sphere twice. The Aexons were perfectly adapted to the tunnel, traversing it on all fours with ease and getting fairly far ahead of Alix and Figaro. Only a handful of guards stayed behind to keep an eye on Alix, as well as the two elders whose aged bodies couldn’t keep up with those of the youths.

  The tunnel was also far more narrow than the one she and Figaro had been taken through before. The farther up they went, the closer the tunnel walls seemed to close in. A host of stalactites reached from the ceiling, hanging overhead like spears. 

“Did you hear that?” Alix whispered to Figaro after some time. She was certain she’d heard a skittering sound just to her right. “I think there’s something else in the tunnel with us.”

“Look up,” Figaro said simply. 

Alix did. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw a cluster of green-glowing insects crawling in circles on the ceiling. She reached toward them. “Oh my God. They’re beautiful! I don’t think we’ve cataloged that species at all. Should we grab one to take back to the station?”

“Sure, pluck one of the little suckers off the ceiling! They’re probably not poisonous.”

“Ah. Good point.” Alix retracted her hand. “We don’t need a repeat of Meliad II.”

“Right-O. Your inferior human eyes can’t detect them, but let me assure you, this tunnel is infested with every sort of creepy-crawly imaginable,” Figaro said. “These Aexons need to hire an exterminator.”

“Now, now, Figaro, insects constitute a vital trophic level within the ecosystem here.”

“They constitute a gross trophic level within all ecosystems anywhere. Gross as hell! I don’t like being stuck in a tunnel with them. I don’t trust them.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Figaro. I’m sure the insects down here are mostly harmless.”

Suddenly, there came a rumbling throughout the tunnel. All the Aexons went still, their heads tilted as they listened. Again the rumbling sounded, even louder this time, and the Aexons exchanged looks and hushed squeaks. 

“Uh, what’s going on?” Alix asked Figaro. 

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“Something’s coming,” he said, his voice tense. 

“What kind of something?”

“I don’t know, man! The guards just said something to each other about a beast! You’re the goddamn exobiologist, you tell me what sort of fanged monstrosity might be lurking down here!”

“Of all the large predator species we’ve cataloged, none of them are fossorial or adapted to living underground like this.” Alix put her hands on her hips and mused to herself. “Of course, we’ve really only cataloged a few thus far, and of those, I suppose we could be wr—”

The rumbling came closer, louder. The Aexon guards all withdrew their weapons, and looked around at the tunnel walls with narrowed eyes. Raygun held the raygun in two of his paws, slowly walking around the area, claw ready at the trigger. He paused right in front of Alix, waiting for the ‘beast’ to show itself. 

“Why don’t you tell him to hand that back to me?” Alix asked Figaro. “I’m the one who’s actually trained to use it properly.”

“Sure thing.” Figaro squeaked out Alix’s request to Raygun, who briefly turned his head their way to squeak something in response. Figaro looked back at Alix. “Yeah, he says ‘go fuck yourself’.”

The rumbling returned with such ferocity this time that the entire tunnel seemed to shake. Alix nearly fell to the ground, and fought to keep her hold on the sphere. The two elder Aexons scurried over to her and gripped her legs with their paws to steady themselves as the world trembled around them. After a moment, the rumbling stopped, and everything went quiet. 

“Maybe it’s gone?” Figaro chimed.

As soon as he’d spoken, the tunnel wall to their right burst open with a storm of flying rocks and debris, a cloud of dust choking the air as a deafening screech filled the tunnel. Alix and the Aexons were all thrown backward. Alix wrapped her body around the sphere to keep it from being damaged, coughing and sneezing from the influx of dust as the sickening screech sounded again. Alix looked up from where she lay on the ground to find that half the tunnel was now taken up by a green-glowing insect double her size. It was beetle-like in anatomy, with four compound eyes and pincers large enough to snap her in half. 

“JESUS CHRIST ON A CRACKER!” Figaro wailed, all eight limbs clinging to Alix’s hair. “WHAT IS THAT?”

Raygun trilled a mighty battle cry and began firing blast after blast at the monster as the other Aexon guards charged it with their spears and swords. The creature screeched and bucked, flinging Aexons away with a rapid flutter of its wings, snapping at them with its pincers. Raygun’s successful hits did seem to damage the creature, even putting a dent in one of its pincers. The unfortunate side-effect was the creature turning and setting its sights on Raygun, charging toward the Aexon, Alix, and Figaro with another rageful screech. 

Alix reached down and tore the raygun from Raygun’s grip. She fired four steady shots, one for each of the creature’s eyes. The creature stopped short and roared in outrage. There were bubbling pits where its eyes had been, and the very sight made Alix sick. She hated to kill an animal, even one trying to kill her, but she wouldn't trade the beast’s life for the Aexons’ lives. 

Alix quickly handed the weapon back to a stunned Raygun and pointed at the creature’s legs. “Aim for weak spots, not the exoskeleton!”

Raygun seemed to understand. He spared her a gruff nodd, then fired off at the legs. While he and the other guards kept the beast busy, Alix scooped up the two elder Aexons. With the elders held in one arm and the sphere in her other, Alix pressed herself to the wall. 

“I can’t believe this is how we’re going to die,” said Figaro, still clinging to Alix’s hair. 

“We’re not going to die! Just let me think . . .” Alix gritted her teeth and looked around, mind racing for an idea and coming up short. If only Survival 1101 had included a unit on giant monster bugs. Good old Professor Matson wouldn’t have balked at a situation like this. 

Anything can be a weapon if you’re smart.

There had to be something here Alix could use. Again her eyes swept across the scene, taking in the Aexon guards hopelessly trying to pierce the beast’s exoskeleton, Raygun struggling to hit the legs as they flailed and swatted at anything near, the beast lit by the blue glow from the ceiling as its tiny brethren continued to circle between the stalactites. 

The stalactites. 

“Hey!” Alix called out to Raygun as he stumbled backward from the beast. She met his eyes and pointed up at the ceiling. He glanced up, and his mouth pointed jaw dropped, her idea hitting him clear as day. Raygun called out a command to his fellow guard, resulting in them scrambling away from the beast. He then pointed the weapon upward and released a wild flurry of shots at the bases of the stalactites until they came raining down on the beast. Within moments, the beast was speared through with six stalactites. Its body jerked once, twice, and then it went still.  

The Aexons burst into a chatter, convening together to check each other for injuries. Raygun lowered his weapon, his chest heaving as he stared at the beast with blank shock. Alix herself felt as though her bones were jelly once her adrenaline came crashing back down. 

A soft squeak sounded near Alix. She looked down and realized she was still holding the elder Aexons in her arm. 

“They say thank you, and that you can put them down,” Figaro translated. He lowered himself from Alix’s hair back to her shoulder. “As for me, I say told you so!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Alix rolled her eyes at him and lowered the elders back to the ground. She walked closer to the felled beast, staring down at its glowing remains in wonder. “I’ve never seen a bioluminescent insectoid this big. You think we could lug him to the station somehow? The entomology division would have a field day dissecting this guy.”

“It’d take us a year just to drag him out of the tunnel!” Figaro replied. “I just want to get moving before another one shows up.”

“Fine, but I’m taking a sample.” Alix snapped off the tip of the creature’s wing casing and slipped it into her jumpsuit’s calf pocket, right next to the map Figaro stole. 

Farther ahead on the trail, one of the Aexons called something out to the rest of the group.

“What’d he say?” Alix asked Figaro. 

“She said everyone should keep their weapons drawn just in case anything’s lurking outside,” Figaro said. “Because the top of the world is just ahead.”

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