Hellsky (Hunter-Killer #3)

Chapter 21 - Singing in the Void

They weren't exactly prisoners, but Ivy sure as the Everflowing didn't feel free.

The Scraegan takeover had been mercifully bloodless, and they hadn't even bothered disarming the human security force, though now with Scraegan warriors looming over every tent and gun emplacement she knew there wasn't a whole lot they would be able to do if their new hosts attacked.

She glanced back over her shoulder at the towering forms. The Alpha remained over on the Scraegan part of the plateau, along with several of the human expedition's senior technical staff. The painstaking process of outlining how they could work together to excavate the place was – thankfully – someone else's problem.

"How long you think we're gonna be stuck here?" Capicza muttered as they strapped into their harnesses.

"Long as it takes," she replied, thumping him gently on the shoulder with a clenched fist. "Don't worry, alright? Vannigan knows what he's doing. We'll be okay. We're all here to do a job – Scraegans too."

He nodded nervously. His fingers fumbled with the front fastening.

"Everflowing, let me do it," she laughed, reaching over and clipping the hooks into place. Giving them a quick tug to make sure they were secure, she placed a firm hand on the young man's shoulder. "You okay to do this?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good," he blurted, glancing back over his shoulder. "Once we're, y'know, inside, I'll be okay. I just don't like being around them."

"Don't think there's a soul swimming who'd argue with that." Clapping him on the shoulder in what she hoped was a reassuring manner, Ivy turned to the attending technician, making a twirling motion to the sky with her index finger. "We're good to go."

A moment later she was gliding over the empty void of space again, Capicza close behind and millions of gallons of magma far below. The narrow crevice in the rock had been widened out into a larger passage, braced with temporary titanium scaffolds and rigged with work lighting. There were more than a dozen engineers in there now, hollowing out the overgrown tangles of rock, excavating as much of the mysterious structure as they could with hand cutters.

All around the human teams, the constant low rumble of Scraegan digging could be both heard and felt. She only caught glimpses of them as they worked, their massive bodies twisting and coiling like massive drills, their great clawed fists and feet ripping through loose rock like paper. Some of the bulkier Scraegans bore armour plates with what looked like specialised digging hooks – with curved barbs that ripped through the stone of Rychter's subterranean world.

Ivy had to admit, the big beasts worked efficiently. Their scanners showed an intricate web of tunnels already expanding around the structure, marking out its limits.

Her boots thumped against the solid stone of the tunnel mouth and with practised ease she swung herself inside, unclipping her harness in the same motion and stepping away from the edge to make space for Capicza. He landed a second later, mirroring her dismount.

Up ahead she could hear the snarl of cutting torches, muffled voices barking orders and the clatter of breaking stonework. Whatever else was going on across Rychter's surface, down here the Scraegans needed them. The brutes couldn't get their huge bulks into the actual structure of the place – they were simply too large. That all backed up the theory (a fairly self-evident one in Ivy's view) that no long lost Scraegan ancestor had built the place.

"You good?" she asked once Capicza completed his dismount.

"Yeah, let's go." He made a chopping motion down the tunnel. "Let's just get this over with."