Fabienne Gschwind - The Fallen Heroine

Tartelette installed another radio station to keep us in contact with Thibault.

The mission was nerve-wracking. I will summarize it as we were just struggling through dark narrow corridors for most of the time. The fear of perishing here accompanied me - either by zombies, by a rock fall or by a nuclear bomb. Only when I gave myself Adalin did I feel better again.

I thought agaain of the order from the vice president or even from the king. The king had far-reaching powers, he could just point at us and have us locked up, or our families. In my history book I had read that there was a short period in Europe in the 20 and 21 century when not even presidents could lock someone up because everyone was protected by law. How nice it must have been to have lived then.

We struggled on and now waded along another underground stream.

But the speleologists were reliable and always described to us exactly the course of the passage. In two sections we had to take off all our combat gear to squeeze through crevices or tunnels half-filled with water. This was extremely dangerous and Tartelette was truly not amused. A crash course in cave crawling would have been helpful. Because we repeatedly lacked the technique to squeeze through narrow passages and so we lost an incredible amount of time. But at least no bigger reptiles would get through to us.

And we also had plenty of time. The deadline to bombard the whole region with nuclear bombs was lifted. The ministers had agreed not to bomb the whole region if animals were released. Instead, the satellites with the nuclear guns had been directed for a surgically precise intervention. Only exactly the cave system would be wiped out, along with hills and a few kilometers of forest around it.

Since nothing else was happening, radio contact was accordingly sparse until a new speleologist arrived at the command station who knew this cave particularly well. He had been flown in from Denmark. His name was Markus and he was very talkative.

"And when you come out of the passage now, you will find yourself in a five-meter-high, 20-meter-wide grotto. As you can see, the section of the cave where stalactites grow now begins. That's because earlier there was an impermeable layer of clay over the cave ceiling."

Tartelette opened her combat visor and a cloud of steam escaped from the opening, she looked at me and grimaced. I also opened my visor briefly to let the moisture out. The problem was that our special underwear had gotten wet when we were underwater without our gear. To keep us from going into hypothermia, the combat suit heated us up vigorously. This created so much steam that massive droplets settled on the combat visor despite the anti-fog protection.

"And if you look to the right, you'll see a column three meters high and 56 centimeters wide at the thickest point. That was formed when a stalagmite and a stalactite grew together a good 30 million years ago. Be careful not to touch it, though, because it's still growing."

"Let's do it," Tartelette said, climbing over a slippery rock.

"You'll find the entrance to the Bellafont Tunnel at the northeast end of the grotto just beyond the beautiful rock formation in the shape of a waterfall. The white crystals are not calcite, as one might think, but another modification of the crystal structure of calcium carbonate, namely aragonite."

"We're already in the tunnel," Emily said in a weak voice.

"Oh, yes, so the Bellafont Tunnel was discovered during the 2034 expedition. The sonar images I had taken ten years ago suggest that there is a truly majestic crevice running under the tunnel. Around 20 meters deep, 10 meters wide and 100 meters long, and, as you can judge from the sonar reflections, with an underground lake. Unfortunately, this grotto is completely closed off and we haven't been able to find a way in yet..."

"Freeze!" yelled Thibault into the microphone. Reflexively, we picked up our weapons and pressed against the tunnel walls.

"Wait."

We did not move and waited. Snatches of conversation drifted to us, but no one seemed to be talking directly into the microphone.

"Okay pay attention. One of the spycopters made it through the main entrance without being shot down it's in the chamber in front of you. There is a large heat source there. Hold on tight. This is a cage filled with repro rats."

"I have no idea what the terrorists wanted with so many rats or bats, but if they had emptied such a cage in a city, you would have to flat-bomb everything there!" cursed Tamara.

Rats were the horror. Even reprogrammed rats multiplied, and if a city was infested with them, there was virtually no way to save it anymore. Therefore, sewer systems were regularly treated with poison and with sewer killer units. If terrorists used something like that as a weapon, they could force any country to do anything. This simply could not be allowed to happen!

Thibault suddenly gasped for air:

"... oops! Shame, the spycopter activated something. I think the cage has been opened. Get your HAN grenades ready. You guys are about to get your asses kicked!"

Emily took action and loaded the grenade launcher. A black avalanche of rat burst into our corridor.

"No grenades, the ceiling is too thin!" suddenly screeched the cave-expert on the radio.

"Never mind, Emily shoot! I'd rather die in a plasma cloud than be mauled by Repro rats!" cursed Tamara rather emotionlessly.

That was probably the end of it. Either the plasma cloud or being killed by a collapsing cave ceiling or eaten up by rats.

It thundered so loudly that I was stunned.

I felt my remaining armor melting. Then, a strange feeling of free fall.

Then, a heavy thud.

Cold water seeping through the suit.

The beeping as the helmet reported all sorts of error messages. A kind of paste automatically enveloped my face. I gagged as liquid entered my lungs. I drowned. But it was not water that was entering my lungs!

My chest rose and fell spasmodically, but somehow I did not suffocate. I was getting oxygen!

Even though I was breathing water!

Soon it dawned on me what was going on. I had never been able to practice it until then: In case the visor broke and you got underwater, there was a liquid-breathing system hidden in the suit collar.

This involved spraying a fast-hardening gel over the mouth and nose and introducing the oxygen-saturated liquid.

The system was sophisticated and the half liter of fluid now in my lungs would provide enough oxygen for about an hour. The gel prevented me from unconsciously trying to cough it back up.

It was a strange feeling not to breathe, but to get air. Still, my chest moved up and down automatically to circulate the fluid, which absorbed carbon dioxide and provided oxygen. Then I oriented myself. My visor was cracked, but it showed the position of the others. Quickly, I had to help them.

But that was not necessary. Helping hands grabbed me and dragged me out from under the boulder and up to the surface.

It took us a full hour to lick our wounds and see what was left of the equipment.

Tamara just said: "We are so damn lucky today...we must have used up our entire year's allotment."

Emily's helmet was intact and she described the situation to Thibault as the rest of us were out of radio.

Otherwise, all the armor had melted, just like the manual said it would, in order to absorb the heat and protect us. Everyone bore burns, but not too severe ones, as the wet underwear and the fall into the cold water had saved us from worse. As weapons we still had two somewhat deformed machetes, both hatchets from Tartelette, a couple of grenades, a Pox9, an Ex10 and half-empty zappers.

The tunnel was now filled in and we would have to blast our way out with a few remaining grenades.

But our chatterbox cave explorer Markus did a great job explaining perfectly how, where and with what strength we should use the grenades. It was our great good fortune that this speleologist worked professionally as a tunnel engineer. He had been picked up straight from the new Norway-Denmark connection to assist us here.