Mark Anson - Below Mercury

Abrams couldn’t take it in for a moment, then realisation rushed up on him, drenching him with fear.

He wasn’t a reactor design expert, but he knew how they worked, and the main features of their operation, and the safety interlocks that prevented what was being done now.

The control rods were being withdrawn, one by one, while the reactor ran up to full power, in defiance of every safeguard he knew.

The voice of the master warning system started up, adding its terrifying words.

‘ Danger – uncontrolled reactor power increase. Danger – low feedwater supply. Danger – insufficient control rods in reactor. Danger—’

The warnings continued as Abrams tried in vain to shut down the command script, but nothing he did had any effect. The console was completely locked out. All the control rods were out now; this was never supposed to happen – it couldn’t happen! He pounded the screen in frustration.

The command script paused for a moment, and then in a new dawning of horror, Abrams saw a fresh series of commands start up. Having done its work on the reactor, the script turned to the airlock doors on the hangar levels.

‘Oh my God, no,’ he whispered.

The lights dimmed again, as the master warning system carried on: ‘ Danger – airlock control malfunction. Danger – mine integrity failure.’

Below them, back in the main hangar, the latches opened on the main doors to the mine. Just as it had happened nine years ago, the doors started to open, and a hurricane of escaping air burst out through the widening slit, racing out over the crater floor.

Elliott slithered away from the console, pushing himself backward across the floor, shaking his head in denial at what he had done.

Then, the final, terrible announcement, that the crew of the mine had heard all those years ago, and had looked up in fear, not understanding what it meant:

‘ Warning – mine robot startup sequence initiated. Danger – safety protocol malfunction.’

Elliott stood up, and staggered down the stairs to the lower deck, just as the full fury of the escaping air reached the control centre. Paper and rubbish whirled around him. He grabbed a handrail, and clung on, as the gale tried to tear him away.

Standing solid, barring the main doorway, Bob Five’s head swivelled round to look at Elliott. The ring of green LEDs round the robot’s eyes went out, and came on again, in a baleful red. The air roared round the robot, but it stood unperturbed, an immovable pillar against the gale.

The rush of air started to fade, as pressure in the command centre dropped. Elliott saw his chance, and ran across the lower deck to where he had left his helmet. Bob Five moved with terrifying speed to cut him off, catching up with Elliott just as he reached his helmet, lying on one of the consoles.

The robot’s pincer smashed down on the console, shattering the helmet to fragments.

Elliott looked up at the robot in disbelief, and tried to speak, but no sound came out; there was no air. He fell to his knees. His lungs laboured, trying to breathe, but there was nothing, and suddenly he felt deadly cold. The robot’s eyes glared down at Elliott, and it raised its arm one more time.

On the upper deck, Abrams saw the robot’s arm swing down on Elliott like an executioner’s axe, and the sudden spray of blood that erupted over the ceiling.

Abrams fell back in his seat. His legs had turned to water. He knew he should run, but he felt so weak. Black specks exploded in his vision. He had to warn the others, he had to tell them that the robots were coming for them, but it was too late, too late.

He slipped off the seat and onto the floor. He saw the robot mount the stairs and advance until it loomed over him, one pincer covered in blood. Abrams tried to crawl away, but anoxia had taken hold of him, and he could only manage a couple of metres before he fell onto his side.

In his last few moments, everything became very quiet and still. Abrams looked up, and saw the robot’s eyes, staring down at him as he lay there on the floor. The edges of his vision faded to black, closing inwards on him, until all that he could see were the twin red circles, boring into him, watching him die.

As consciousness failed, the eyes seemed to swoop after him, following him down into darkness as the robot’s arm lifted, and swung down one last time.

Clare was in the commander’s seat in the shuttlecraft, trying to raise Abrams on her comlink, when the main power in the mine came back on. Across the silo in the control room, she saw Wilson look around in surprise. He looked down at the console, then back up at Clare, concern written on his face.

‘Uh-oh,’ she said softly to herself.

Wilson’s voice came over her headset.

‘Captain, I think you’d better take a look at this.’

Clare sensed that something was terribly wrong. She tore off her headset and ran out of the cabin, along the docking corridor, and back round to the control room.

Wilson swivelled in his seat, and pointed at a display that had started up. They appeared to be showing warnings of some kind.

‘I don’t like the look of this,’ he said. ‘The reactor’s just started up, but the power levels are climbing out of control.’

Clare leaned closer, and her mouth fell open as she saw the warning messages.

‘I think we’d better try to get hold of—’

She didn’t get any further. Her words were lost behind a klaxon that blared out in the control room, followed by the strident warning: ‘ Danger – pressure loss. Danger – pressure loss.’

Trained to act instantly at the sound of such a warning, both of them dived for the emergency close button, which would slam the pressure doors shut and isolate the silo from the rest of the mine.

‘They’re not responding!’ Wilson yelled, above the rising roar of air in the passage outside. The security camera confirmed the truth; the pressure doors at the entrance to the silo complex remained stubbornly open, no matter how many times he hit the emergency button.

The full force of the escaping atmosphere reached them a moment later; a tornado of air tore round the silo complex, scattering debris and dust into the air. Clare and Wilson dived for cover, grabbing the heavy leg supports of the control console to stop themselves from being sucked out and into the passage.

Outside, in the rest of the mine, a huge river of air coursed up and out of the mine, swirling along the empty passages, emptying out into space through the opening hangar doors.

Suddenly, a sound like a crack of thunder exploded in the passage outside, and a long, low rumble shook the complex. On the security camera displays, the view of the open pressure doors vanished behind a grey curtain. The rush of air faded, and a dense cloud of grey dust erupted into the control room, covering Clare and Wilson where they sheltered under the console.

A faint pattering of falling debris faded, and Clare looked up in amazement. The mine had vented, but incredibly they were still alive; what had happened?

Wilson stood up and blew dust off the monitors, and whistled. ‘Shit. The passage collapsed, look.’ He pointed to where, a few moments before, a view of the main airway had stretched off into the distance. Now, all that remained was a vast pile of broken rock where the roof fall had been. The roof had collapsed completely, sealing the passage.

‘What’s the O2 partial pressure?’ Clare demanded as she stood up. It could already be too low to sustain them, and they could black out without warning.

‘Uhh, it’s just above the red line – point one six bar.’

Just enough to survive on, Clare thought. She tried to piece together what had happened, and crossed to the display that had been showing warnings before the mine breached. To her horror, she watched as the air pressure outside the silo continued to fall; in moments, there would be nothing left. The huge mine was emptying completely; every scrap of air exhausting through the open hangar doors, and the open pressure doors throughout the mine.