Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

Siroc

T he alarm shrieked through the walls, making me sit upright in bed, grasping for my spear, which was out of reach. My spikes automatically rose. My body tensed for a fight.

I jumped out of bed, dragged on my clothes, including a heavy armored vest, snatched up my spear and threw open the door just as Koloth's fist came up to pound on it. He lowered his hand and I joined him in the corridor.

"What is going on?" I demanded.

Koloth's jaw was tight. "I just received word that the primary mining drill, which had been shut down for the night, has malfunctioned. It rerouted itself and broke through a section that we had designated off limits because the rock behind is unstable."

My stomach dropped. A hard, unpleasant coiling in my gut made me grip my spear harder. "Casualties?"

Koloth and I ran in the direction of the tube system that would take us down, deep into the mountain where the mines were. "No one was hurt. The whole area was empty, thank Skrah ."

"What is the condition of the mine?"

There was much activity going on. Warriors dashed to battle stations, unsure if the alarm was indication of an attack. Worried residents leaned out of their doors, looking for answers. Red lights mingled with the bright ones in the passageways, adding to the sense of emergency.

"Readings have shown that there is a possibility of tunnel collapse," he replied. "The mine leader managed to shut down the drill and have it extracted from the new tunnel it drilled before it caused any catastrophic damage."

"Good. Who is down there now?"

"Just the mine leader, a male named Bratan," Koloth replied. "You know him. He has been at the post for eighteen standard galactic years."

"Yes. And he is highly competent." I kept my expression neutral to not alarm the humans and Mitrans looking around and appearing distressed. "You there," I said to a lead guard as I pulled aside him. "Stop the alarms and get the communications crew up to speed. This is just a mine malfunction. No one has been harmed. No one is attacking us. Tell the people to return to their rooms. We are all safe."

The guard nodded and broke off in another direction, heading toward the communications hub to carry out my orders.

Up ahead, there was a bank of ten tubes operated by highly compressed air that brought the mine workers to and from the mines. We entered an empty one. Soon, my communications people would be sending out word to everyone's data interfaces that everything was fine. I hoped to Skrah that it was.

Koloth entered the command for our lift to bring us down to the mining levels. Alone in the tube as it silently descended, I looked at him. "Jane?"

I didn't need to say any more. He nodded. "The guards stationed at her door report that she has not left her room."

I let out a breath of relief. It wasn't her. It definitely wasn't her. There was another explanation.

The lift stopped at the bottom. Koloth and I exited. We walked through the massive chasm filled with excavation equipment and refinery materials. The chamber had been worked like this for all centuries that Mitrans had built a home in this mountain. Over time, the work had gone from Mitrans hand-mining and -refining, to machines doing the work. We did not work around the clock. Workers down here maintained the equipment, programmed the work, did repairs and diagnostics. The machines were better at extracting ore and minerals, and detecting flaws and faults in the rock. Only one Mitran was down here now. Bratan had sent all those who had assisted in moving the drill, back to the Thrail. The mine leader stood at the primary mining interface, poring over data.

The usually spotless cavern was a disaster. The mines were usually organized, with turbines that removed dust and machinery that removed all rubble. But now, piles of rock littered the newly created tunnel, which should never have been drilled. There was dust everywhere, coating every surface and even Bratan's wide, brown horns.

The drill that had gone awry was plain to see. It was propped at a strange angle outside the tunnel it had made. The spiral, laser nodes that cut through the rock had bits of a strange substance stuck in them. The scene was chaotic, as if someone has hastily tried to drill a hole and abandoned it.

The tunnels groaned ominously.

I walked up to the mining leader, whose attention was on the wide, dust-coated screen before him. "Bratan, is it safe for any of us to be down here right now?"

He looked up in surprise. "Yes, Warlord." He took a moment to make a hasty bow and then went back to the screen. "I do not know what happened. Everything was shut down for the night. Look here." He pointed an agitated finger towards the data log. "Double checks. Triple checks—we did it all according to the guidelines, as we do every single night." Bratan ground his grizzled jaw.

I did not doubt his word. "Could it have been a power surge that restarted the machines?" I asked.

"No," he said in exasperation. "This has never happened before, and even if by some freak chance the machine turned on by itself, it was deliberately repositioned." He looked with hard eyes at the rubble-filled hole that went about twenty meters into the wall of the cavern. "We stopped the drill and backed it out, but it required us to go through thirty-two steps to take control over it. Mining drills are not sentient. They do not simply make their own decisions."

There was no argument there. Mining drills did not make decisions.

"Are all of your workers accounted for?" Koloth asked.

"Yes. Everyone logged out at the end of their shifts." He looked at me in surprise. "Warlord, I have worked with these Mitrans for over a decade. None of them would do this."

"Koloth is not saying they would." I held up a placating hand. "He's merely trying to make sure everything is accounted for."

"Of course, Warlord. I am as baffled as anyone else. I'm just relieved no one was injured, or worse."

I looked back at the drill, which still dripped with that iridescent silver substance. "What is that on the drill?" I asked. "It appears to be a liquid."

"We are not sure, Pal-Siroc," he said in a low voice, even though we were alone. "That section of the cavern has always been designated off-limits because of an instability or void in the rock, but this substance may have been what was causing it. We don't know what it is, but I have collected some and given it to my techs to analyze."

This was alarming. The miners could identify every single rock, mineral, and metal that came out of the mountain. That they had come across something that needed to be analyzed… "None of your scanning equipment was able to identify it?"

"No." The look Bratan gave me was all I needed to see. He was worried. More than worried. "I can tell you it's not radioactive or toxic. We confirmed that immediately. As for what it is, I can't say."

Koloth and I exchanged a look. "Let me know as soon as you find out anything," I said. "And in the meantime, no one is to come down here. Take the mining equipment off-line completely. There is no drilling or refining until we find out what happened here."

Bratan nodded. "This will interrupt our production schedule."

"Irrelevant." I scrolled through the log and sure enough, nothing was at all unusual. "I will not put my people in danger. Tell me, Bratan, could the logs have been altered?"

"What do you mean, Warlord?"

I gestured at the perfectly clean logs that showed no discrepancies. "If the drill was activated manually, the log should've shown that."

"Yes, and I don't have an explanation for that. There is no way to tamper with the logs—they were designed to be completely secure. If someone did it, they have technology far beyond ours."

The knot in my gut turned hard and twisted painfully. There was only one person in this Thrail that had technology far beyond ours, and she was supposedly tucked away in her chambers. "Thank you, Bratan. I expect regular updates."

"Yes, Warlord," he said, and returned to his diagnostics.

I spared another look at the disabled drill, then turned back to the tubes. "Let us return to the Thrail, Koloth."

We rode up in silence, but when we reached the top, I said, without looking at him, "I'm going to check in on Jane. I would like you to verify where Elnok was tonight."

"Right away," he said.

We parted ways and I strode through the corridors. The alarms had stopped and a peaceful quiet had settled back over the Thrail. There were still guards walking around, but without the intense urgency of before.

Just a mining malfunction. No one was harmed. No one was attacking us. Return to your rooms. We are all safe.

That's what I'd ordered my guards to tell the people of my Thrail, but I couldn't be sure of that. At Jane's door, both guards stood with spears in hand, alert and watchful.

"She did not come out?" I asked.

"No, Pal-Siroc," said Horvok.

"Not even when the alarms were ringing?"

He shook his head. "No. It's been silent in her room."

I nodded curtly with a foreboding feeling. "Step aside. I am going to check on her. I will be quick."

I didn't need to say that. It was more a check on myself. I was not going to stay. I was not to linger with Jane. Not now, when I had a very bad feeling of what I was going to find inside her room.

I opened her door and stepped inside. At first, I was relieved. The female lay in her bed, head on the pillow. Her short spiky hair was mussed from sleep.

I approached. "Lights on at twenty percent." It gave the room a warm light in which I could see her clearly. Closer up I saw smudges of dirt on her face. Her hair gray rather than yellow. The dust that had turned her hair this color smeared on the pillow.

"Jane," I said, and reached out to nudge her shoulder. She frowned, stretched and blinked up at me.

"Siroc? What are you doing here?" She pushed herself up onto one elbow and then groaned and dropped back down. "Oh. I hurt everywhere."

I pulled back the blanket and the evidence was everywhere. She was filthy. Feet blackened with the exact type of dirt from the mine. Her nightgown was ripped and smeared as well. "Jane, where were you?" I asked in a hard voice.

"What?" She grimaced and sat up, rubbing her arms. "What do you mean—?" Then she looked down and saw herself. "Oh my god. What happened?"

The shock and terror on her face told me what I needed to know. She had no idea what she'd done, but there was no question who had been in the mine tonight. "There was an incident in the mine," I said. "Someone turned on the drill and it broke through an unstable wall."

The color drained from her face. "No. Was anyone hurt?"

I softened just a little bit. "No. No workers were there. Everyone is fine, but what happened is a significant problem. I will ask you again. Where were you, Jane?"

"I was here . I think." She looked confused, but could not deny the evidence on her own body. "At least, I thought I was." A tremble went through her, and she hunched her shoulders. "I—I had a dream that I was squeezing through a tight space, trying to run away from someone who was chasing me." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "Oh, no. What if that wasn't a dream at all?"

Every part of me wanted to sit on the bed beside her, pull her into my arms, and comfort her, but I could not. I was the warlord, and there was no question in my mind that she had been the one to activate that drill.

I sighed and looked around the room. How could she have gotten out of here without going to the door? There were ways. Ventilation shafts were in every single room and corridor. There was one in the corner of her room and the grate covering it was slightly askew. This was how fresh air was circulated through the Thrail. It never crossed anyone's mind to actually enter them, until now.

"I suggest you bathe," I said. "Very thoroughly. I will talk with Urix in the morning."

Her eyes went dark with dread. "I did this, didn't I? Or rather, Siku did."

Siku . The name the entity called her.

"I'm afraid so." I gave into the urge to reach out, and ran my thumb over her smooth cheek. It was wet with tears that had streaked through the dust. "We have to get you free of this, Jane."

Or that cell would be the only recourse I had . But now, I wondered if even that could hold her. My beautiful, strong, powerful mate. My heart squeezed into a tight, painful knot. "I will not let anything happen to you. When I find out who is doing this…" I broke off with a hiss. I couldn't utter the words in front of her. Whoever was doing this would suffer in ways I couldn't even fathom until now. But suffer, they would.