Mark Anson - Below Mercury

The cutting ended in a wall of blackness that their lights could not penetrate. They had reached the main entrance, a huge opening in the rock, ten metres high and thirty metres wide. Matt stopped in front of it, and the others came to a halt behind him, reluctant to go forward through the open doorway into the darkness.

Matt looked from side to side. ‘Where are the doors?’ he said, his voice almost a whisper. ‘They should be lying here …’

Then, as his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the opening, Matt realised that the two huge sliding doors, each weighing many tonnes, were still there . The two halves were retracted into the rock walls on either side, the huge locking pins on each edge poised and waiting for the command to close again.

‘No, I don’t believe it,’ he whispered. He suddenly felt weak, staggered, and fell to his knees in the dust.

The explosion out in the fuel refinery hadn’t caused the main doors to fail at all. This had been a deliberate act, one that had killed everyone working in the mine. The doors hadn’t failed; they had been unlocked and commanded to open.

How many safety interlocks had been overridden to do this, Matt couldn’t imagine. It just didn’t seem possible; nothing in his wildest dreams had prepared him for the evidence he was seeing with his own eyes.

‘The stupid bastards! They opened the fucking doors !’ Matt yelled into his radio, his voice quivering with anger and disappointment.

Bergman came over and dragged Matt to his feet.

‘Come on, we need to find some air, quickly.’

‘But don’t you see?’ Matt pleaded, grabbing Bergman’s arm, ‘They opened the doors! The stupid fuckers opened the doors, and everyone in the mine died!’

‘Yes, we all see it!’ Bergman said sharply, throwing Matt’s hand off, ‘But we need air! Where’s the air, Matt?’ Bergman turned away and walked through the entrance.

Matt steadied himself, and after a moment followed the others. He shivered as he passed through the huge open doorway and into the mine. He felt a sudden fear of what might be in the darkness, waiting for them, and he kept close to the others.

They reached the centre of the hangar, and swung their helmet lights round the huge, empty space.

All around them, the floor was strewn with wreckage from the explosion. Doors and smaller airlocks, dimly seen on the walls, led off deeper into the mine. Up above, a maze of gantries, crane tracks and servicing decks could be made out, running round the interior. Some were hanging off the walls, where they had been ripped away by the gale of air.

‘Guys, we need air, and fast. Essential conversation only. Keep searching.’ Clare’s voice reminded them of their desperate need, and they spread out and began searching among the debris on the floor.

‘Captain, I’m on amber reserve,’ Wilson called, trying to sound as calm as he could.

‘Okay, Steve, you need to conserve your air. Stop your search, lie down, and stay calm. We’ll keep on searching.’ Clare tried not to show her mounting anxiety. Their situation, already grim, was deteriorating by the minute, and there was still no sign of any air.

Anger suddenly kicked in, and she kicked about in frustration in the sea of useless scraps of paper and bits and pieces, looking for anything that resembled an air cylinder or a suit backpack.

Inside her helmet, an amber LED lit up and started blinking, and the panic rose, constricting her lungs. Another few litres of air and it would start to blink red, and then it was just a countdown to the end.

She fought back tears of frustration and despair. Where the fuck was the air? It was as if someone had been there before them, and had removed anything that could have saved them.

In the distance, she saw Abrams stagger, go down, and lie immobile on the floor. Elliott was on his knees in the dust, close to where Wilson lay.

‘Steve,’ she said, slowly and carefully, ‘can you hear me? Move your arm if you can hear me.’

Wilson’s arm twitched slightly, then he raised a hand. She felt a surge of relief that she was not going to die alone, and then she spotted the air cylinder.

It was lying behind a fallen roof girder, and she only saw it because of the way she was facing; she had missed it on her first pass. She started towards it, trying not to hurry, but it was definitely an air cylinder, with the familiar black-and-white marking on its neck. She hauled the cylinder out of the dust, and turned it round to see the gauge, just as her helmet LED started to blink red.

The gauge read empty, and she saw her death. She tried the valve in case the gauge was faulty, but the valve was wide open; the cylinder was completely empty. She sagged at the knees, and muted her mike as she gave herself up to sobs of despair.

Not like this, she thought, not like this. Not in this empty hangar in a forgotten mine, millions of kilometres from the air and oceans of Earth, with no way of telling anyone what had happened.

There was no air. They were trapped in vacuum on an airless world, and they were going to die.

She felt a sick slide of fear at what would happen to her as the air ran out. It wouldn’t be quick; she would subside into panic, hyperventilation and convulsions, before death finally claimed her. She wondered if she would have the courage to end it all, before it got that far.

Matt was still moving; she could see him in her helmet lights, as she slumped over sideways in the dust. She would watch him, she thought; it would give her something to do while her life ebbed away.

Matt was crawling towards a large object near the outer doors. His helmet LED blinked red. He crawled some more, until he was in front of the huge armoured form of a mining robot. It lay sprawled where it had fallen, face down in the dust that covered the floor.

Matt pulled himself up to the body of the robot, and hauled himself up the armoured carapace until his face was over the maintenance panel on its back. Already, he could feel difficulty breathing. He was running out of oxygen, and his head was aching with the exertion; his temples throbbed with every pulse beat.

He wiped the dust off the status display, but it was dark; the robot’s power pack had shut down years ago.

‘Please, let there be something left,’ he whispered, and turned the main mode switch to the start position. It was hard to turn, and for a moment, he thought it had stuck fast in the cold, but then it slid into position. He found the restart button, popped the safety cover off with shaking fingers, and pressed it.

‘Come on boy, fire up,’ he breathed, as he released the button. He waited for several seconds, his head throbbing with pain. Nothing happened; there wasn’t enough left in the power pack for a restart. Matt closed his eyes, and slumped down besides the robot’s body in despair.

Unseen by Matt, a small LED glowed green, the first light in the darkness of the mine that was not their own, and a group of smaller LEDs blinked on.

Long moments passed as the robot lay motionless. Inside its body, the power pack was starting up; electrical power slowly rose and stabilised. The main status display came on as the primary cortex restarted and sought out its instructions.

A faint whine of motors came through its steel body, and the heavy bulk of the robot stirred in the dust. Matt pushed himself back and away, too weak to stand up, as the robot flexed its huge, ball-jointed arms. It planted them firmly on the ground, and heaved itself slowly onto its knees. It stood up, one leg at a time, dust streaming off its body, its armoured head swivelling round and downwards as it sought out its master. A ring of green LEDs came to life round each of its two video eyes.

‘Identify,’ Matt gasped, knowing that the robot could hear him on the suit radio channel.