Andy McDermott - The Tomb Of Hercules

Nina ran along the catwalk-then screeched to a halt as she saw another man coming around the far end, crossing above the base of the rising conveyor belt. “Oh, crap!” The two men chasing them were now on the catwalk, the first raising his hands to seize Sophia as he rushed her. She brought up one arm in a seemingly futile attempt to block him.

The miner grabbed it-only for her to suddenly twist free and take hold of him. Before the startled man could react, she made a fast quarter-turn to her left to haul him closer, and with shocking force drove her right arm up directly beneath his elbow. There was a horrible crunch as his arm abruptly bent the wrong way at the joint.

His screech of agony was enough to halt the other two men on the catwalk in their tracks. Sophia released him, then grabbed the handrails like parallel bars to push herself up and slam both feet square into the squealing man’s chest. He flew backwards, colliding with the mine worker behind him and sending them both tumbling.

Nina gaped at her. “Eddie taught me that,” Sophia said by way of rapid explanation.

“He didn’t teach me that!”

Chase was faring less well than either of his pupils. The guy pinning his arms was strong, and he couldn’t break free. The pipe swung-as Chase bent forward , flipping his captor over his back. The pipe smashed against the man’s skull below the protection of his hard hat with a ringing crack.

Chase rolled and threw the limp miner to the ground. Frozen by the horrified realization of what he’d just done to his comrade, the second man had no time to respond as Chase tackled him to the ground and delivered three brutal punches that flattened his face into pulp.

Sophia shoved past Nina and grabbed a small fire extinguisher from a hook by a ladder. She advanced on the man ahead, brandishing the extinguisher like a club. He hesitated for a moment, then cautiously moved towards her.

“What are you doing?” wailed Nina. The man with the broken arm was still screaming, but the other guy was already getting his breath back, pulling himself up.

“Go! I can handle him,” Sophia replied, not taking her eyes off the miner as they closed on each other.

“But I can’t handle this guy!” Nina looked around in desperation. There was nothing she could use as a weapon, and the recovering miner was between her and the stairs. No way down…

Which meant her only escape route was up.

She scrambled up the ladder, the dusty rungs clanking beneath her feet. It led to a small inspection platform at the very top of the conveyor belt, overlooking the crusher-and there was a second ladder on the other side, going back down.

The ladder shook. The man was climbing after her. Fear rising, she quickened her ascent.

Chase got up, searching for the two women. “Oh, fuck,” he muttered, seeing Sophia facing off against one man near the far end of the catwalk as Nina scaled a ladder running up the support of the conveyor belt, a second man climbing after her.

Not good.

He spotted his gun lying under the metal framework supporting the processor, and ran for it.

Sophia was only a few feet from her adversary now. The man was watching her movements cautiously, trying to anticipate her next action. She gripped the extinguisher more tightly, waiting for the right moment.

Nina was almost at the top of the ladder. Its shaking increased, her pursuer getting closer.

Chase reached for his gun and snatched it up. Then he ran back into the open, aiming up at the man climbing the ladder-

A new noise echoed through the chamber, deep, fierce, booming. Twin plumes of greasy exhaust smoke spouted like devil horns from the drilling machine in the chamber’s center as its engine roared to life. With a crash of gears, it lurched forward on its tracks, moving frighteningly quickly…

Straight at Chase.

“Shit!” Spotlights between the clusters of drill heads burst into life, pinning him in their beams as the massive machine advanced. He fired a shot, blowing out one of the lights. But neither the driller nor its operator were affected. As if angered by his attack, the drills began to rotate, showering fragments of crushed rock in all directions. He turned and ran for the processor.

“Eddie!” Sophia shouted, her voice drowned out by the noise of the driller. The miner took advantage of her distraction to make his move-

Nina reached the top of the ladder, looking back down from the vertiginous platform to see Chase running away from the boring machine, Sophia grappling with the mine worker-and her own adversary still climbing after her.

She gripped the single railing and crossed the platform. The conveyor belt rumbled underneath her, the gaping maw of the crusher below its end. Her hand reached the hooped metal guardrail at the top of the second ladder…

And she saw another man below. He had emerged from one of the cabins, retrieving the MP-5 dropped by the man Chase had shot, taking aim-not at her, but at the processor, which Chase was about to run around!

“Eddie, get back!” she screamed.

Even over the racket of the driller, Chase heard his name and instantly assumed that whatever Nina was yelling, it was a warning. He threw himself back against the processor as bullets ripped past him. Another shooter on the catwalk. Pinning him down.

The driller rumbled around the processor behind him, turning on its treads like a tank with a shriek of grinding metal.

There wasn’t enough room for Chase to double back between the drills and the processor. And if he tried to go around the other side of the driller, he’d be exposing his back to the waiting gunman…

Sophia struggled with the man on the catwalk, each trying to wrest the fire extinguisher from the other. She lashed out to kick him in the crotch, but he jerked sideways, catching the blow on his thigh. He gave her a sneering smile for trying such an obvious attack-and she clapped her hand down on the extinguisher’s handle, blasting a jet of freezing carbon dioxide into his face.

The man gasped, only making matters worse as the choking vapor entered his throat. He let go of the extinguisher, and Sophia bashed its thick rounded end against his forehead with a dull clonk.

She jumped over him as he fell and ran around the corner of the catwalk-

And froze.

Fang stood in front of her, his MP-5 raised. “Lady Sophia!” he said. “Please, drop the extinguisher and come with me.”

With no choice, she tossed it over the railing onto the rising conveyor belt, where it was rapidly whisked away.

Nina saw Sophia surrender and swore before turning to descend the ladder. If she could get down to the next level, she might be able to distract the gunman so Chase could get out from where he was trapped-

A hand clamped around her right arm and yanked her back up as if she were a doll. The miner dragged her onto the platform and savagely twisted her arm behind her back, pinning her down against the metal grillwork floor as he pressed one knee into the base of her spine.

She flailed her free arm at him, but to no effect. The dirty surface of the conveyor belt rolled past beneath her. He pushed her arm up higher, pain ripping through her straining tendons. She cried out-

The machine rolled ever closer to Chase, its lowermost drill heads kicking up a blinding spray of mud and stones as they scraped along the chamber’s floor. He looked around the side of the processor, only to flinch back as a bullet smacked into the machine. Heart racing, he loosed another shot at the driller in the desperate hope that he might get lucky and hit some vital component, but it just sparked uselessly against spinning metal.

He had only seconds to choose between being shot, or crushed, or both-