Mark Anson - Below Mercury

Talk of survivors made them glance at the empty gun locker, and the scattered cartridge cases on the floor. If there were any mutineers left alive, they could be armed, and the mission team had no means of defending themselves.

It was after 22:00, and Clare ordered that they get something to eat and try to get a night’s rest, before going any further.

They set up their sleeping quarters on the first level of the accommodation block, above the galley level, and took six relatively undisturbed rooms off the main corridor to sleep in.

Although it went against their instincts to plunder the effects of the mine personnel, practicality won, and they swapped their bulky spacesuits for clothes that they raided from wardrobes in various rooms, until they each had a set that fitted them well enough. They were mostly the dark blue standard-issue mine overalls, with insulated jackets that they could put over the top, but Clare managed to find some jeans and a sheepskin-lined leather jacket that fitted her better.

To everyone’s surprise, Wilson and Bergman managed to cook a hot meal, using some pasta and containers of sauce that they found in the kitchen cupboards. The six of them sat down in the dishevelled galley and ate their first real meal, out of serving pans, by the red glow of the emergency lights. Afterwards, they sat and looked out over the spectacular view outside, and ate some of the chocolate bars from the emergency ration packs.

It seemed a feast, and when they were finished, the weariness descended. They hadn’t stopped moving since the crash, and it was nearly midnight on the same day they had fired the big nuclear engine on the space tug to brake them into an orbit round Mercury. It seemed an age ago, and in a different world.

As the adrenaline levels fell in their bloodstreams, the need for sleep became overpowering. Heads nodded.

Clare pushed back her chair, and stood up.

‘It’s time we all got back up to our rooms. I’ll take the first watch. Matt – are you up to the second? Steve’s beat.’ She inclined her head to where Wilson sat, eyes closed, head forward on his chest.

‘Sure.’ Matt nodded. He could have done with the extra sleep, but what the hell.

Clare led the way back upstairs to the living quarters, and set up a chair in the red-lit corridor outside the apartments, as the rest of them bedded down for the night. At Clare’s insistence, they kept all the doors open, in case they needed to be woken in a hurry.

It didn’t take long before they fell silent, and Clare was left alone. It was deathly quiet in the mine, and the loudest sound seemed to be the thump of the pulse in her ears.

In her imagination, the huge, empty mine began to crawl with unknown terrors, shapeless things that climbed slowly up the deep shafts, hungry for their blood. She could hear them, sliding stealthily over the rough-hewn floors of the mine workings, coming up the stairs to the living quarters.

She forced herself to calm down, to focus. The mine was deserted; it always had been. She couldn’t afford to lose it; none of them could.

She rubbed her knuckles into her eyes.

From the open doorway nearest her, she could just make out the faint sounds of Matt’s breathing.

A skull whispered at Clare’s ear, and she woke with a start, her silent scream of fear echoing around her mind.

Matt was standing over her, his hand on her arm. She was slumped in the seat, and her neck muscles ached.

‘Shit,’ she muttered, ‘what time is it?’

‘Nearly five a.m.’ He put his hand up to forestall Clare’s instinctive reaction. ‘Don’t worry, I slept right through the alarm as well. Nobody bad came to get us in the night. You go get some more sleep, I’ll finish the watch.’

Clare stood up, rubbing the stiff muscles at the side of her neck.

‘Don’t tell the others about this, okay? We can’t afford to get sloppy.’

‘It never happened,’ Matt said.

Clare went back to her room, and flung herself down on the bed. She closed her eyes, expecting sleep to come, but it didn’t; just a grey weariness in which every detail of the crash ran in front of her, again and again, and no matter what she did, the outcome was the same. The ship crashed into the dusty floor of the crater and exploded in silent flames, until, in her dreams, she just let go of the controls and watched the events unfold.

Matt woke everyone three hours later.

There was no heating for the showers in their bathrooms, and the water was icy cold, but none of them were prepared to go for another day without getting clean, and they were determined to make the best of their situation.

Matt puffed and shivered as he washed himself down, the cold water running over his skin. He reminded himself that the alternative could have been moist towels in the habitat modules, and he forced himself to stand under the spray of cold water, counting the seconds, until a full minute had gone by.

It could be worse – a lot worse, he thought, as he toweled himself down. He felt clean and refreshed, ready to tackle whatever the mine had to throw at them, as he went downstairs to the galley.

The search last night had found more dried ingredients, still fresh in their sealed packs, and a little later, all six of them sat down to an improvised breakfast of hot oatmeal and mugs of coffee.

Their spirits rose as they sipped the steaming liquid, and talk centred on whether the shuttlecraft could get them back up to the waiting space tug, and when they would be able to make contact with Earth. Clare let the talk flow; she didn’t voice her private concerns about what condition the shuttle would be in after nine years, or what the chances were of getting the transmitter to work.

Eventually, however, during a gap in the conversation, Clare knocked her mug on the table for attention.

‘Okay, guys, listen up. We’ve got a lot to do today, and the sooner we get going, the sooner we find out if we can get off this rock.’

She looked round the table.

‘We’ve already decided to split into three teams, so let’s review what each team needs, and make a plan. Team Radio – that’s Peter and Dr Elliott. Your primary mission is to modify one of the field radios, take it up to the transmitter arrays, and try to get a message through to Earth, or anyone else that can hear you. Your secondary mission is to realign the solar array to face the Sun, to give us some more power. You’ll need to take surface spacesuits, and some spare air cylinders.’

‘What about Bob Five?’ Elliott asked, ‘We might need him to turn the antenna and the solar arrays if they’re jammed.’

‘Good idea. Anyone else think they might need the robot for anything?’

Bergman looked at Matt, who just shrugged.

‘No takers? Okay, Team Radio gets the robot.

‘Second team – Team Silo. That’s Steve and myself. We go down a level, and out along the main return airway to the shuttle silos. Our mission is to locate Crew Shuttle Five, figure out if there’s any fuel left, and if it can be prepped for flight.’

‘We’ll divert as much power as we can to the silo systems, before we go,’ Bergman said.

‘Good. Now for yourself and Matt. You’re the Deep Team. Your primary mission is to get Team Radio to the service raise. Once they’re safely on their way, you’re to continue the search of the mine downwards, towards the last known location of the mine personnel, and report what you find.’

She paused.

‘Be careful. We don’t know what you’ll find down there, but if there are survivors of a mutiny, they could be hostile, and armed. If you find any evidence of life down there, don’t make contact; just get back to the rendezvous point, which will be the control centre.