CHAPTER TWELVE
Levering his battered arm into a makeshift sling, Soran clambered along the underside of the train, scouting for somewhere to hide. Squeezing into the connecting gap between his segment and the next, he keyed in a repair protocol to his suit's interface. A stream of rejuvenant gels bathed the shattered bone, knitting together the tears in his skin and welding the fragments as best it could. A complete medical examination and surgery would likely be required to regain full functionality, but partial use would return within the hour if he were allowed to rest.
He wondered if the crew were okay, confident they would expect the worst regarding his wellbeing. Not that the demise of a relative strange would have them particularly torn up, but more so that their plan would now be in complete disarray. Soran chuckled, imagining Ranna's panic at the thought of facing down Kaligan alone. The illusion of competency must have comforted the Captain and had done wonders for the boy's self-esteem.
As the train passed into the artificial atmosphere of the moon's mineral loading bay, a vast structure came into view: A monolithic stone archway framing the entrance to the moon's interior, blocked by a horde of Kahbohl. The odd aliens crowded around giant brass carts of Platinum and Bohlatite, shuffling forward in an uncoordinated mass, eager to deliver the haul to their Naval masters. Three-toed paws trailed streaks of red dust over the white tiles of the docking station, and a sea of bulbous black eyes stared at the massive vehicle with impatient glares, yearning to return to the depths.
Unknown to the galaxy until the Navy had stumbled upon a word in the later stages of planetary decay. The Kahbohl was a relatively peaceful race of miners that -- to save their race -- had made an eternal contract with the Navy. In exchange for evacuation from their dying home world, they would excavate the dead worlds of the galaxy for whatever resources remained and provide an unending supply of a unique mineral. Kahbohl were rock eaters, and their voracious appetite for sediment had caused the untimely demise of their home world. This ceaseless devouring congealed in their bodies into a substance aptly named Bohlatite, excreted as blunt shards through large pores covering their backs. How they didn't realize that their planet would eventually disappear if they kept eating it was beyond most. So preoccupied with chewing their way through the planet's fabric, the Kahbohl had never advanced their technology. Thus, they were stranded, doomed to perish as their planet's crust collapsed. Fortunately for them, Bohlatite was an invaluable resource to the Navy, having replaced older, more toxic materials to become the core ingredient of Shimmersene, the galaxy's premium fuel source and worth more than its weight in gold. Many viewed the Kahbohl as an oppressed race when the truth was far more benign. Content to spend their days consuming worlds and spreading their race through the sea of endless stars, the Navy's removal of their waste was a boon and freed them from the vicious predators birthed when Bohlatite remained unprocessed for too long.
Rangy, clawed fingers pulled leftover Bohlatite shards from their rotund bodies, carelessly flinging them onto the overflowing piles of glistening crimson. Naval officers poured from the train, and Soran retracted his body further into the recess. He risked a glance through the narrow opening. A man of towering stature exited from the front-most car. He marched through the parted sea of his subordinates, receiving a wave of salutes as he passed. His skin was dark with a blueish hue that radiated in the reflected light of a neighboring moon. The senior officers trailed behind him as he picked at random shards, assessing the quality of the spoils and reacting with an unimpressed brow furrow.
Another Captain? Soran thought, observing the golden anchor embroidered into his lithesome, ivory cape. Before recent events, encounters with high-ranking naval personnel had been rare; now, they seemed drawn to him by some unseen force. As the man continued his inspection, he spoke with the Kahbohl, who seemed uneasy, the barrel of the oversized rifle peering over his shoulder, a likely culprit for their apprehension.
"Hey, kid," a voice whispered from behind.
Soran turned to see the gleeful smiles of the Horizon crew. Ranna held up his wrist. A Holo-projection displayed a small map of their location.
"Lucky for you, we installed trackers into our suits after El here was wandering off damn near every mission," Ranna said, met with an embarrassed glance from El. The Captain offered Soran a hand, his face souring at the state of his bound arm.
"I can't believe you survived it. At the speed we were going, it's incredible," Stuttered El. She ran her fingers over his damaged limb, inspecting the preliminary healing. Even Tugg seemed surprised to see him standing there, patting at his body to make sure he hadn't returned as a vengeful apparition.
After a pained half-hour, El managed to set the majority of Soran's fractured bones, leaving behind a storm of purple clouds on his skin. Still aching from the ordeal but with his mobility mostly returned, he gave El a graceful thank you and slid his arm back into his suit.
"We need to hurry and get below the surface. Harrow isn't a Captain we want to tangle with." Ranna said, keeping one eye on the statuesque man. Harrow was not a name Soran recognized, but anyone bestowed the rank of Captain needed no introduction. Despite hardly knowing the man, Soran trusted Ranna's word. The Horizon Captain knew his fair share of unsavory characters and, unfortunately for Soran, was in the bad books with most of them. The four hunters departed the station, descending into a crater shaft to the platinum mines below.
The piercing stench of the Bohlatite rose from the depths. It smothered their suits in a thick mist, leaving behind a gooey sludge on its journey to the surface. The intensity of the billowing heat grew as they ventured closer to the moon's inner sanctum. Being at the rear and, thus, above the other hunters, Soran was taking great care to maintain his footing. The shaft walls had a low metallic content, making the Maglev boots nearly useless. Forced into what amounted to free climbing, the slightest slip would send the crew hurtling into the void below.
Amber light bathed the lower reaches, and Ranna noticed the beginnings of a curve. Their descent concluded at a narrow opening, followed by a sizable drop into a sandy pit below. Ranna took the lead, sliding down the wall with ease. He emerged into a confined cavern glistening with unharvested platinum. Soran and El managed to follow their Captain with a fair degree of grace, but, as usual, Tugg dove to the ground, a plume of crimson dust erupting in his wake. The cavern was of similar dimension to the Horizon, and upon examination, Soran could see only one other exit: a shadow-drenched tunnel winding into the black with no end in sight. Artificial in nature, likely excavated by the Kahbohl to facilitate mineral transfer.
"Descending further into a pitch-black abyss. Delightful," Sighed Ranna, switching on the shoulder-mounted torch of his suit. The beam penetrated a fair distance into the tunnel but was insufficient in gauging its true extent. The crew exchanged glances, and Soran sensed that Ranna was gathering a consensus. The Kahbohl were infamous for gnawing away at their target planet to the point of instability and, often, to the point of shattering. These events caused the extinction of multiple Kahbohl colonies and cost the Navy billions of credits in revenue. Before such a catastrophe, the government would step in, transporting the group to their next target. The Navy often pushed the boundaries on the quantity of material they could extract from a single site, Kahbohl life, and profit not measuring equal on the scales. Not knowing your nearest exit would be fatal in the event of a planetary collapse, so interconnected tunnels like this were typical wherever Kahbohl dug.
An ominous clap echoed from the craggy confines of the stone corridor. The entire crew was seized with fear, staring into the void as the encroaching patter steadily increased in pitch. As it drew closer, Soran recognized the rhythmic sound of footsteps, the footsteps of something big. Ranna extinguished his torch, and, with heightened stealth, the crew backtracked to the entrance shaft, each crunch of sandy gravel under their boots making them wince. They hadn't managed more than ten paces when a rosy glow penetrated the shroud of darkness. Ranna and Tugg drew their weapons. El grabbed Soran, shielding themselves behind Tugg's massive frame. The opportunity for escape had slipped through their fingers. Whatever lurked in the shadows had arrived, and it was hungry.
