Fatal Discovery

Chapter 5

Section Five

Martian Drill Site

1308 Hours

April 12th, 2167

Alyssa arrived at the drill site a little while later, still unsettled about what Fletcher said. She knew she was probably making a bigger deal out of this than she should, but that didn’t help her feelings any.

After entering the office section of the drill site, she found the computer lab, scanned her security card, and activated one of the five computers.

Just as she was beginning to give the computer a command, the lights dimmed and the red emergency warning lights though out the room began flashing. An alarm started somewhere down the hall and the computer began repeating, Warning! Tunnel integrity compromised, evacuate immediately!

Alyssa jumped to her feet and ran down the hallway. She reached the entrance to to the mining shaft and was stopped by a man that looked familiar.

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the building.”

“I have a level five security clearance, I tell you what to do, not the other way around. Have I met you before?”

“I’m Derek Hollister, we met on the turbo-lift back on the Excelsior.”

“Oh, thats right. What happened here? Is anyone down there?”

“It's nothing to worry about, the computer is just overreacting. And yes, Lieutenant Tom Nelson is in the pod.”

“Tom! What in the name of all things holy was Tom doing in the mining pod? He's a computer programmer, not a miner.”

“He said he needed to run some tests on the computer system and he had clearance to do so; I didn’t see anything wrong with him going. Why are you so worried about it, anyway?”

“Oh,” her face turned red, “no reason.”

There was another notification from the computer saying that the mining pod had returned to the surface and the doors opened.

“Tom!” Alyssa ran and hugged him.

Tom looked rather confused. “Alyssa?”

She jumped back and said, "Oh, I’m sorry. I just... I’m glad your okay."

Alyssa had finally admitted to her self that she liked Tom, but she kept forgetting that Tom already had a girl.

The man that had come up with Tom stepped out and said, “I think you should have a look at the mapping computer mister Hollister.”

The four of them moved across the room and Derek activated the mapping computer. The other miner, whose name tag identified him as Andrew Larson, entered several commands into a wall panel and the flashing lights stopped along with the computer’s warnings.

“What in the world? How did we not see this before?” Derek was pointing at something on the map.

“See what? What is it?” Alyssa looked closer at the screen.

“It’s some kind of hollow area several feet behind one of the main tunnel walls. It hasn’t showed up any of the scans we’ve made. I can’t understand it.”

* * *

Four hours later, Alyssa, Tom and Derek had been authorized to go down the tunnel and try to access the hidden cavern. Of corse Captain Fletcher had put up a fight when Alyssa had asked to go, but she had finally talked him into it.