The group gathers and hurriedly scans the paper under their flashlights. Dan picks up his M16 and checks out the two large corridors to the North and the South: Both are blocked by debris, but there are fissures just large enough to squeeze through. Armed with this information, the men decide to have a look at the second command center, pick up their guns and backpacks and turn to the southern corridor. Dan is the first to move through the narrow hole, followed by Jose. As Dan moves out of the fissure, he hears a tearing noise behind him. He turns around, convinced that Jose just tore his backpack on one of the edges and rusty points sticking from the rubble, when something lands on top of him.
For a second he wonders how an insect can grow so large, then he is on the floor, while an 150-pound centipede slices its mandibles across his chest armor. Jose just sees something drop on Dan and then, Dan is gone. In the ray of his headlamp, Jose can see four other huge monstrosities scuttling towards the light.
Dan is cut up a bit, but not out of the fight by a long shot. He jams the muzzle of his assault rifle into the centipede and pulls the trigger until it stops moving. Now, the rest of the group knows something's afoot. Dan screams "get back through the tunnel" while he scrambles to his feet. Jose does not understand or does not care: He pushes past Dan and rakes the whole corridor with his small Uzi. The creatures writhe under the deadly hail of bullets, and when Dan regains his composure, the two make short work of the centipedes. After they are done, the ground is littered with spent shell casings.
Soon after, the rest of the group comes through. The sudden attack has everyone on edge, and the explorers move very carefully through the decaying tunnels, listening for the sound of skittering and crawling, looking for the abominations nestling between the wires, tubes and ventilation shafts. Getting closer to command number two, Jose and Mal split and sneak ahead. They creep to the entrance and find a flooded hall, full of rusted computers and crawling centipedes, lighted by strange, glowing molds and lichens. Slowly, quietly, the scouts creep back to the others.
A short conference is called: The map designates an area called living quarters. Ben hopes to find valuable scav there - or at least some ammunition. After a short discussion, the others agree. Slowly and carefully the explorers make their way to this area of the vast underground complex. It takes them a long time to get there: Not only because they never let their guard down - Ben winces with every step. Finally, they reach the entry to the living quarters: a massive airlock, large enough for a van. The thick doors have rusted into place and lead into a spartan complex: No posters or other personal things grace the walls, only utilitarian signs pointing to the mess hall, the meeting room and other parts of this area. It seems to be drier in here, and the rot is not as manifest as in the other corridors and halls.
Again, Jose and Mal scout ahead. They find a map of the living quarters in a small showcase right after the airlock. They also hear sounds from the kitchen: The centipedes are present and active. The scouts are silent, but the rest of the group closes up, and the creatures hear them: A handful of large beasts stream into the main hall, only to be cut down by gunfire. But something is different this time: The large insects are covered by dozens of smaller bugs, which they shed like a living flood. While the big animals are easily shot with rifles and pistols, the many small creatures present unique difficulties: Jose finds out that not every problem goes away when you fire an Uzi at it. While the others run over and help Jose to trample the critters to bits, Ben's curiosity gets the better of him and he vanishes into a small tunnel leading to a room called generators. He sees the top of a spiral staircase, and just as he closes in to look down, something surges from the depth. Suddenly, the leader of the group is faced with three huge centipedes, ancient, hulking creatures of the lightless deep, each as long as two men, their armor crawling with their smaller spawn. Ben pulls up his ancient MP10 and fights for his life. He is lucky, and in the narrow tunnel even an amateur like him is able to hit the massed targets. The other explorers hear the continuous burst of gunfire. They reach the entrance just as Ben stumbles out of the tunnel, wildly spraying his last bullets behind him at the surging monstrosity. As the monster lunges out of the entrance, it is hit from all sides by all kinds of calibers. As it thrashes around in agony, its scything jaws miss Dan by inches. The explorers team up to crush the smaller animals under their boots, and then, the living quarters finally become quiet.
The group starts a systematic search of the moldy halls. The rooms are in a marginally better shape than the corridors, but the creatures of the underground had eight decades to work on the equipment, and most of it is cannot be salvaged. The generator room is no exception, although the large diesel generator looks usable. A patient mechanic might be able to get it running, if he had a few hours and a barrel of diesel - or something similar. Some tools lie around, and there is a workbench. Then, the explorers pay a visit to the office of the commander of the base. They force the door open and find Captain Polkinghorne in his posh leather chair, still in his blackened uniform, his skeletal hand still gripping the M1911 that ended his life. Books and magazines lie on the desk and on the floor of the smart office, a small cabinet holds a few bottles of expensive whiskey from the Long Ago: The room is quite distinct from the utilitarian hallways beyond and speaks of the importance of the captain. Those who are able to read eagerly start to thumb through the find. The good captain read a lot about autonomous fighting vehicles, so-called drones, and possible ways to make them more intelligent. One title reads "The rich man's suicide bomber? Drones on the sixth generation battlefield", another "From the trading floor to the killing box - Using high frequency trading programs as source for FNF grading and highly intelligent predictive (HIP) drones". There is a book about group psychology in closed settings, and a Playboy from February 1988. Finally, there is a journal, with most of its contents rotted away. Only the last pages remain, and it is a testament to the dissolution, despair and final madness of the man sitting in the leather chair, a chronicle of the last days on Wellspring Airfield, when the fever killed everyone in the facility. There are hints of mutiny and madness, and of a man keeping a valuable key with him, in death, somewhere in the fuel depots.
The explorers leave Polkinghorne to his eternal rest. They root through the other rooms, the sickbay, the bunks and the kitchen, and, finally, they find some loot worthy of the name: apart from some flight helmets, a fire retardant flight suit, filters for gas masks and two automatic pistols, they lay their hands on priceless electronic artifacts: A working Geiger counter and a set of night vision goggles - still functional and a great prize! After tossing a coin, Mal gets to wrap the goggles into his backpack. In the sickbay, Ben identifies some intact syringes filled with powerful healing drugs: The stuff might still work. But, much to their regret, the adventurers only find a a few dozen pistol rounds. Now, especially Dan is worried that they might run out of ammo while they are still in the underground and hounded by centipedes.
Ben feels that his strength is fading - for the last hours he has been operating on adrenaline alone, and he needs to rest badly. The others concur: They, too, have fought and spent long hours on edge. The group fortifies one of sleeping halls and spends 20 hours recuperating. While the men on watch think, that, somewhere in the darkness, the true inhabitants of the deep are scuttling around, the creatures keep their distance. As the second full day in the deep starts, Mal has a look on his watch: On the surface, it is early morning. He also realizes that food and water are running out: There was only an iron ration and a few canteens to begin with, but in another day they won't have anything to eat or drink.
People met:
- Captain Polkinghorne, commanding officer and suicide, via his last entries in a rotting notebook
People met their demise:
- 8 man-sized centipedes and three really large creatures
- Dan is slightly wounded, and Carlos recovered a bit during the long pause. Regrettably, Ben is still in bad shape.
New category: Man of the match
- Ben Spencer, following his destiny towards the generator room
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