Kilo-29 (Damned of the 2/19th, Book 15)

Part 9

Then there was a low, shuddering moan that filled the room, making the air tremble. Finally, a sputtering noise. Then the water sprayed down. Hot and clean, almost too hot to stand, and for a split second I worried about getting boiled alive, but the temperature didn't raise. I ground my dentures together and forced myself to stare at the placard of 568th on the door, willing away the flames and the pain and the screaming. I fumbled at my bare thigh for a second before remembering my pills were in the locker.

The spray cut off after about 90 seconds, and when something above us went "KLACK!" I looked up to see that about half the panels had withdrawn. The lights that suddenly came on dazzled my vision and I looked away, feeling the heat radiating from the lights.

Donaldson was wiping his hands down his body, scraping off the water, and after a second I followed suit, with Kay starting last. The heat stayed on till the count of sixty, drying us pretty well, then they shut off and the panels snapped back into the recess.

"Let's find out if I'm right." I mumbled, standing up and throwing the bar up.

The door slid aside easily, revealing a locker room. The lights came on, and only one failed in a shower of sparks.

"EGRESS TEAM REPORT TO COMMAND! EGRESS TEAM REPORT TO COMMAND!" the woman's soothing voice was amplified into godhood over the intercom.

"What about our gear?" Kay yelled, and I motioned at the locker doors behind us, not taking my eyes off the locker room. The lockers were set into the walls, only a few benches in the middle of the floor. The lights were recessed, behind old plexiglass, and the far door was another heavy security door with a keypad next to it in addition to the throw bar. On the walls were reminders to take a Geiger counter, chemical detection equipment, to monitor your radiation intake, and that desperate people were dangerous people. On the right was the logo for the 568th with the logo for 548th next to it and on the left was the Continuity of Government, Department of Defense, and US seals. I turned around and noted that the door to the decon chamber was offset maybe two or three feet from the door across from it, and that on either side of the door were placards forming checklists.

The room was a killing floor. No cover.

I moved toward the first locker, continually scanning the room.

"You gonna get dressed, Sergeant?" Kay asked me.

"In a minute." I told him, reaching out and flicking the lever up so I could open the locker. Inside were the old OD greens, socks, underwear, a softcap, a shaving kit, but no boots. On the inside of the door was a checklist again, and the outline of a man with points to check for ticks as well as signs of radiation poisoning, including a graphic description of the kind of deep radiation burn that doesn't show up for an hour or two. No key cards, no keys, no nothing beyond what someone would need if their uniform was ruined.

The other two were mostly dressed, pulling on their tops and battle rattle when I went over to the locker, set down my knife, and started to dress. The inside of the door had a warning: "SIREN WILL SOUND WHEN EXTERNAL EGRESS WILL BE OPENED! REMOVE ALL GEAR IN 30 SECONDS OR DOOR WILL CLOSE AND LOCK" on it. I pulled the door, feeling carefully, and noted there was a slight resistance to being opened. The door was spring loaded or had a hydraulic cylinder somewhere.

"ALL EGRESS TEAMS REPORT FOR DEBRIEFING!" The woman's soothing voice thundered.

"We better hurry before she has a stroke." Donaldson advised, and I chuckled at it.

"Eyes out." I warned them, pulling up my pants and bucking the belt real quick. The fact that there wasn't a second door leading to the motorpool told me that either the motorpool was still going, or the planners had separated it from the facility by multiple locks in case it was lost.

Or both.

"What's the plan, Sergeant Ant?" Kay asked me when I shrugged into my Kevlar vest and snapped my LBE closed.

"We find Command and Control, check the status boards, and see if we can open the facility up." I told him. "If we can't, then we explore, map, log, and take inventory for when the main drawdown team arrives."

"Wait, we might not be able to get out?"

"It depends on if the system is in lockdown or not." I told him. The "ICBM (TITAN)" part of the logo bothered me. I knew why the missile targeting and control sections of the later generation missile field facilities had been removed, advances in inertial mapping and targeting had made them obsolete, but that didn't mean this system wasn't armed to the teeth for what was known as "Tertiary Strike Capability", which was just fancy mil-speak for "knock the piss out of the area again" and "blow the ever living fuck out of targets that might not have been hit in the first 2-5 go arounds".

"I really don't want to starve to death." Kay said as I pulled my rucksack on. Both of the privates had my dufflebags on their backs and were carrying the M-16's I'd given them.

That made me laugh.

"No chance of that." I told him honestly. "We might be on short rations, one MRE a day, but I doubt it will come to that." I waved at the other security door. "Stop thinking of this as some kind of hole in the ground, kid. This was built to win a nuclear war."

He opened his mouth, and I won my mental bet with myself by what he said. "Nobody can win a nuclear war."

"Let's go, kid, and I'll show you what's down the blue rabbit's hole." I grinned at him.

"Never thought I'd be exploring a rabbit's hole." Donaldson grumbled and I chuckled. A bitching soldier is a happy soldier. It was when they grouped up in small groups, muttering to each other, each group sharing members at different times, that you seriously needed to watch out. A soldier complaining about the food, or digging a foxhole, or standing guard is just blowing off steam at the inconveniences of being a soldier. Ones that gathered in out of the way places and mumbled were getting dangerous.

God knew I'd gathered into a small group before.

...tell me who else works for the Soviets!...

...go away, LT, I killed you in the dark and snow...

The door had a simple keypad, and I flipped up the plastic cover and typed "5521" just out of curiosity. "ACCESSING" flashed three times, and I could feel the hydraulics kick in.

The door started raising with a scream, the door shuddering in its track. The wedge was six inches deep the leading edge stained black and crusted with a wide smear at the midway point.

"Get on the stick." I warned, dropping down onto my stomach to look through the doorway. There was thick blackish brown crust on the floor, a trail of it leading down the hallway, and spatters on the walls.

I tensed to wriggle under the door and stopped, something catching the corner of my eye. I turned my head and saw a small red light glowing steadily about eight inches up. Curious I dropped my NVG's down and turned them on.

A beam of white light sliced across the doorway.

"Oh shit." I said.

"What is it?" Kay asked.

"This level's boobytrapped." I warned. The door was over halway up and another pencil-thin white light shot across the doorway. "There's IR beams, don't go through the door until I tell you."

"Roger that, Sergeant." Donaldson said.

"Yes, Sergeant." Kincaid answered as I stood up. The fact they were using IR surprised me, since the beams were more than obvious with NVG's.

...NVG's weren't invented then, silly boy...

...you're right, Nancy...

I was starting to worry I'd have to figure out a way around the beams when the door finally locked into place and the lights winked out.

"Can we go through?" Kincaid asked.

"The IR beams cut out when the door opened, weird." Donaldson added.

"I think if the beam gets interrupted, the door drops down in free fall." I told them, stepping through the doorway and feeling very aware of what was probably between 2 and 5 tons of door above me. If it dropped it wouldn't just knock me down, I'd vanish in an explosion of gore.

I was back in the motorpool at Fort Hood, the master hydraulic cylinder of the crane exploding, the M1A1 tank engine sudden going into freefall as the boom swung, out of control, to the left. The shadow covered SPC Leventhal for a split second as the multi-ton box swooped down on him. I could hear Nancy screaming for both of them since Lev wasn't even aware of the heavy cargo container dropping on him like an avalanche, she made a sound of soul crushing loss, and then he was just... gone and there wasn't even a gap between the bottom of the container and the tarmac. Blood and worse spattered across my face, my glasses, and into my open mouth as the tank engine, still in the heavy metal box, slammed to the ground before I could take much more than a single step, and Nancy was screaming in denial at the Gods, at Fate, raw hatred and black loss as I stumbled, realizing it was too late to save him that I was too slow that I'd failed Nancy and that her hopes for happiness had just vanished like her husband under...

The pill rattled into my mouth and I began chewing it, refusing to close my eyes, staring at the hallway in front of me that I'd taken a half-dozen steps into while the scene had replayed before my eyes. My spine went cold as adrenaline coursed into my system, my body responding to the memory that had been so real I almost pawed the blood off my face and could still feel the hot Texas sun on my shoulders. I could hear Nancy sobbing in the back of my mind as I rattled another pill into my mouth and started chewing it to paste.

"Sergeant?" Kincaid asked.

"Don't touch him." Donaldson warned. "He's all right."

"I'm all right, Kincaid." I reassured him.

...don't say his name! Then he'll be real! Now he's going to get you killed...

...hush, Dana...

I shook my head and pulled off the NVG's when I was sure there were no IR beams in the hallway. The left hand wall had "568th STRAT MSL (ICBM TITAN)" on the left with "548th Strategic Missile Command (MILCOM)" on the right. Only two lights came on, making the corridor strangely dim, the air almost yellowish like before a storm. The floor was the ever present cream colored tile that had been buffed in the past. Despite the dust, it still dully gleamed and I noticed that the middle was scuffed, with black streaks here and there on the wax.

"Someone's been here." I told them, walking down the corridor. Twenty five paces they were both silent as we drew closer to the inset security door that read "BLUE RABBIT BURROW" for the first line "US ARMY MISSILE COMMAND" for the second line "DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE HARD SITE" for the third line and "SITE KILO-29" for the last line. On the right of the door was a throw bar in the upright position, above the bar a placard that read "AUTHORIZED MILITARY PERSONNEL ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT, HAVE IDENTIFICATION READY CIVILIANS ALLOWED ONLY WITH ESCORT LETHAL FORCE AUTHORIZED" silently warned anyone who came along.

I reached up to grab the bar. "Private Donaldson, you wear your NVG's, don't turn on the IR lamp, and warn me if you see any beams."

"Roger, Sergeant." Donaldson answered.

"Private Kincaid, if you see any movement you can't identify, give one verbal warning, fire one warning shot." I told him.

"Then what?" The kid sounded nervous. I couldn't blame him.

"Shoot to kill on my authority." I told him.

"Yes, Sergeant." He answered, and I nodded in approval at the steadiness in his voice.

...don't trust him, he's green, and will get you killed...

...we were all green once, Taggart....

I threw the bar down, dropping down into a crouch and waiting as the door began to clunk.

"WARNING! WARNING! ENTRYWAY ACCESS IN PROCESS! QUICK REACTION FORCE ALERT! WARNING! WARNING!" The woman tattled. The door kept clunking, and when I reached out two fingers the door was trembling. She repeated her message twice more and the door kept quivering until there was a loud thump. She repeated it again as the door began to slowly and smoothly rise, light from the other side spilling into the dimly lit corridor.

"Nothing yet, Sergeant." Donaldson told me as the door slid up the first foot. I crouched down lower, a chill running from the base of my skull and all the way down my spine. As the unknown woman repeated her warning the door slid up past my eyes and I could see the room beyond.

There were two rows of waist high barricades, each one having a clear field of fire from the others, even the ones in front not interfering with the field of fire from the barricade behind. The front row had 3 of the small steel barricades, the rear had four. The far wall had the logos I'd gotten so used to seeing, from the US seal to Department of Defense to the two different missile command units. There was a desk with an old-style monitor against the far wall, a red line arcing through the middle of the room on the floor with "DO NOT CROSS LINE UNLESS INSTRUCTED" on our side of the line. There were two doors to each side of the desk, and a door on the wall to our left, all of them had writing on it that my brain didn't bother to decode as my vision swept across the doors. The bars on all the doors were in the upright position, and none of them had keypads next to them. I could see four speakers, one on each wall to my right and left, one above each "inner" door on the far wall. The lights, recessed into the ceiling with plexiglass over them, were burning brightly, illuminating the whole room.

And the Claymore land mine pointed directly at the door, a wire in one of the blasting cap wells trailing toward us on our left.

"MOVE!" I bellowed, taking a step out and turning around.

Someone had glued a fork with the middle tines removed to the bottom of the doorway, which was rising toward another fork that had been glued to the wall. There was a single D-Cell battery above the fork on the wall, and I knew that when the four tines touched it would complete the circuit.

If I sliced through the wire with my knife I might have enough static electricity built up, between my wet hair and my uniform, that it would trigger the Claymore anyway. If I tried to bend the tines on either one I might still have enough static electricity to fire it. The wires were sloppily soldered to the battery, which was held by a clip that looked like someone had pried it out of a stereo, the clip glued to the wall. I could see the thick wad of cloudy glue whoever had set the trap had used to not only put the maimed forks in position, but also glue the battery and some spots of the wire to the wall. As well as glue the battery into the clip and plastic to make removing it difficult at best. It was crude, but it was functional and would be risky to disarm while the tines moved into position.

I did the only thing I could think of as Kincaid and Donaldson sprinted by me. Kincaid went left, Donaldson went right, both of them moving quickly to get out of the arc of the Claymore.

I threw the bar, which was in the upward position, back down.

"Second mine!" Kincaid yelled, his voice high and tight with fear as I turned and followed Donaldson, who had moved to the second row of barriers and ducked down. I passed the first barrier and ducked behind the barrier next to the wall.

"Eyes closed, mouth open!" I yelled, all the advice I had time for as I stuck my head around the barrier, glancing at the door. The door was still moving upwards. Surely enough time had passed between me throwing the switch and me cowering behind the barrier for it to have reversed.

As I watched the door shuddered and something clanked loud in the room, breaking the silence.

"Come on, baby, come on." I said softly as the door began to hiss. That much weight still had a lot of inertia, and the designers probably had tried to offset the pull of gravity in order to keep control of the door. Doors that used gravity to slow them ran the risk of the brakes failing and the door falling shut, the weight damaging the system. Still, it was slowing, but it was still rising, which made my heart leap into my throat as the tines of the forks slowly came closer and closer to one another.

"EGRESS TEAM REPORT TO DEBRIEFING!" the woman's soft voice blared from the speakers.

The door finally hissed to a stop, with a handspan to go, and then slowly reversed. All three of us breathed a sigh of relief as it slowly moved back down.

"EGRESS TEAM REPORT TO DEBRIEFING!" the woman blared. There was an audible click over the speakers. "WARNING! SHIFT CHANGE IN FIFTEEN MINUTES! WARNING! SHIFT CHANGE IN FIFTEEN MINUTES! WARNING! ALL SHIFT LEADERS PREPARE FOR SHIFT CHANGE!" she informed us. As the door slid into position, the six inch wedge vanishing, I moved over to Donaldson and the woman blared another warning: "PRIMARY ACCESS SEALED! QRF STAND DOWN AND REPORT TO SUPERVISORS! ALERT LEVEL GREEN!"

"Can you recover that?" I asked over the woman repeating the shift change message, pointing at the Claymore. Donaldson nodded, shrugging out of the dufflebag's straps as I moved over to where Kincaid was crouched down behind the barricade. The door near him read "PRIMARY MOTORPOOL ACCESS-SECONDARY" and I could see another set of forks glued to the door and the door frame, with a second Claymore behind the far left barricade of the leading row. I'd missed it, it was hidden from sight of the door we'd entered in. Kincaid was in the last row, trying to watch the doors behind him and the motorpool access door at the same time.

"You all right, Private?" I asked him over the sound of the woman repeating her message, crouching down next to him. He was shaking, his knuckles white where he held tight to the rifle I had handed him. Kincaid nodded in a tight spastic motion, still hunched down behind the barrier. "You did good, Private Kincaid, you got the fuck out of the way and didn't bother asking questions."

He looked at me, and I could see the fear in him. "I told you I'd do my best to get you through this alive, soldier. Glad to see you trust me." I smiled as I fumbled out my pill bottle and opened it. "Lord knows I was scared that goddamn mine was going to blow us into hamburger." I shook a pill into my mouth and put the bottle away, looking at him.

"You were scared?" He asked me while I glanced at Donaldson, who had his Leatherman out and was peering at the wire that led out of the well.

"Fuck yeah." I admitted. "Ever seen what a Claymore does to a man?" He shook his head. "It's not pretty." I watched as Donaldson clipped the wire then began unscrewing the well cap to get at the blasting cap. "Take a drink off your canteen, take a few deep breaths, you'll be fine, Private."

Donaldson pulled the well cap off, the blasting cap coming with it. He looked at it for a long moment then turned to me. "Someone glued it in place, Sergeant." He said, barely audible over the shift change warning.

"Recover the mine, leave the blasting cap by the barricade next to you." I told him. Donaldson nodded, moving over and gently setting the cap down as I walked toward the desk. "There's a second mine over here, disarm that one too, Donaldson."

"Yes, Sergeant."

The outer door on the left read "EMERGENCY MEDICAL", the inner door read "QRF STAGING", the inner door on the right read "PRIMARY ACCESS" and the outer door on the right read "DEBRIEFING AREA ECHO", with at least five paces between each door. I didn't see any boobytraps on the doors on this side, but that didn't mean the other side wasn't ready to turn us into shredded meat a second after we opened the doors. The ceiling was one of those hanging ceilings, there were two heavy duty security cameras above the desk, and the floor was covered in creme colored tile. I noted that there were a lot of scuffed paths in the wax, while behind the desk was unmarred. I stared at the cameras, noting that one had a red light underneath that was glowing sullenly, while the camera panned slowly back band forth. The other one had the same light, but was staring at the door we'd come through.

I stopped behind the desk and looked at the room. Kincaid was walking toward me, putting his canteen back into the pouch on his LBE, I could see Donaldson's legs where he was laying down disarming the other Claymore. Common rumor had it that if you were behind the Claymore when it went off you had a chance to live, but I hoped that Donaldson wouldn't be forced to find out if rumor control was right.

The monitor was black and dead, but I could make out ghost images where whatever the screen had been displaying had been burned into the screen.

"SYSTEM STATUS: HIBERNATION" was the first burnt in line. Beneath that was "AMBIENT TEMPERATURE", "FACILITY STATUS: SECURE", "ALERT STATUS: BLUE", "ACCESS PORT STATUS (1A): SECURE", "ACCESS PORT STATUS (1B): SECURE", "ACCESS PORT STATUS (2A): SECURE", and roughly fifteen other access port statuses.

Access port 4C had been listed as "UNSECURE-ALERT!" long enough that it had burned into the screen. At the bottom "SECTION 4CB1-4CC4 UNSECURED" was burnt in.

"Are you going to turn it on?" Kincaid asked.

"Not yet." I told him, looking over the desk. The woman repeated the shift change message, only telling us that 10 minutes were all that was left.

"Finished, Sergeant." Donaldson said. "Do you want me to carry them?"

"Give one to Kincaid." I answered, looking over the keyboard. Not much dust, but then a facility like this wasn't exactly known for high dust content. Just a thin layer that had taken God only knew how long to settle.

All of the keys were dusty.

I opened the top right drawer, seeing nothing but standard Skillcraft pens, a couple of the ever present green notebooks, and some old Specialist-5 rank insignia pins.

"Here, Kay." Donaldson said as I closed the drawer and opened the next one. Empty.

"What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?" Kincaid asked. Not hostile, when I glanced over he'd taken the mine and was staring at it.

"Leave nothing behind for the enemy." Donaldson told him, unbuttoning his top and shoving the Claymore between his brown T-shirt and BDU blouse, the LBE belt holding it in place. I closed the drawer and opened the bottom one. File folders, and when I flicked them open, one at a time, they were all empty.

"What's the plan, Sergeant Ant?" Donaldson asked.

"Not sure yet." I admitted. "We still don't know what this site's mission is, and I haven't found a map yet."

"Who mined the doors?" Kincaid asked.

"They did." Donaldson said, as if that answered all the questions.

I caught a wiff of something dead and rotting as I gently pulled the chair back and looked in the seat. Nothing.

"Smell that, Sergeant?" Donaldson asked, and I heard him take the weapon off of safe.

"Yup." I answered, standing behind the chair and pulling open the top middle drawer. Inside was a booklet that simply stated "KILO-29 M.E.T.L. - MILITARY ENTRY" sitting with a stamp I could read "K-29 ENTRY NCOIC". I pulled out the book and held it out. Kincaid grabbed it.

"What is that?" Kincaid asked, opening the book and flipping through it.

"Look for a map." I told him, moving over slightly and glancing around the room. Nothing. Yet.

"We don't know." Donaldson answered while I opened the first drawer. Empty. "But we smelled it right before we got attacked." I nodded and pulled open the second drawer. Empty.

"An animal of some kind. It must have gotten in through one of the ventilation shafts." I lied, pulling open the bottom drawer. This time the files had paper in them and I started spreading open the file folders with my fingers so I could get a look at the contents.

"But who set up the mines?" Kincaid repeated. The first one held nothing but blank log sheets, the type usually used by CQ to log anything that happened. The second through the tenth held more of the same.

"Maybe one of the previous teams." I answered. The next set held nothing but blank vehicle dispatches.

"Probably to kill any of the animals that got in." Donaldson answered before Kincaid could asked. I noticed the very slight emphasis on "animals" but doubted Kincaid did. Incident reports were next. All of the sheets were prior to the 1980's, but since I saw a set that listed the Privacy Act I knew that the facility had been refit after 1974.

"So not us, just animals?" Kincaid sounded doubtful.

...men are just a different type of animal, son...

...yes, Father...

"Yeah." Donaldson answered as I shut the steel drawer and went back to staring at the monitor.

"I doubt this thing is anything more than a dumb terminal." I said, looking at the top where "PROPERTY OF US ARMY" had been melted into the top. "Get back in case this thing is wired." I warned them.

When they'd moved a couple paces away I stood to the side and pressed the power button on the front, hoping that a charge wouldn't blow and take my arm with it.

"NO NETWORK CONNECTION" flashed at the top and I shook my head.

"Can you use it to open the doors?" Kincaid asked.

"No. This thing probably doesn't have much more than a skeleton operating system, if it has one at all." I told him, switching it off. "Without a network connection I doubt it has any use further than an expensive paperweight."

"What now, Sergeant?" Kincaid asked. Donaldson was looking at the doors. "Back out through the motor pool?"

"No, further in. I want to see if I can get command and control unlocked." I told him. I looked at the two of them. "Both of you have notebooks and pens?"

Donaldson shook his head but Kincaid nodded. "Get one from the drawer." I told Donaldson.

The woman reported that shift change was in 5 minutes.

"Donaldson, I want you with the NVG's on, warn me if there's any IR beams. Kincaid, I want to follow up the rear. Once we get past any security doors, throw the bar and close the door behind us." Both men nodded. "We'll head down primary access and see where it leads us to."

Donaldson finished tucking the green notebook in his pocket and buttoning up, putting the Skillcraft pen in the pen pocket. I'd seen Kincaid grab another notebook and two more pens.

"Have you figured out what this place is for, Sergeant?" Kincaid asked as we moved over to the security door marked "PRIMARY ACCESS".

"No. Not enough data." I told him, checking the door over. Nothing obvious except the bar.

"Why bars instead of something normal?" Kincaid asked as I wrapped my hand around the bar. I waved him to the other side of the door and he stepped back.

"The switch is heavy enough to withstand a 450 or greater Watt EMP pulse." I told him. "You use the bars to throw the switch because it's all brute force." The switch moved smoothly, no grinding or any other sign of damage. "They didn't take any chances on these sites." I finished as the bar locked home. I tried to visualize how the inside worked so that the bars opened the doors no matter what the positions if one bar was thrown, and the nearest I could figure out is some kind of geared system.

The door groaned and began shuddering up. Donaldson was crouched down looking, waiting for the wedge to rise and a gap to appear. I noted that like the others, there were thick rubber flaps to help seal the gap. Most sites could lose the external areas without the mission being affected. The rubber seals probably combined with the wedge to make the whole thing air tight. Most of the systems were designed to be completely sealed for over a year if necessary, with heavy duty ventilation systems designed to bring in air, decontaminate it by scrubbing out the particles and contaminates from God knew what, then move it into tanks for testing before mixing it in the primary atmospheric tanks.

"Clear so far. Looks like a hallway on the other side." Donaldson told us. "The lights haven't come on yet, and I can't see the far wall, looks like it curves and slowly drops down. I don't see any booby traps."

"Eyes sharp." I muttered, probably unnecessarily.

The smell of rotting meat got stronger, and I glanced up by the ceiling. I couldn't see any air vents, but the white tiles of the ceiling, with holes in them, could have hidden any vent systems above.

"No triggers yet." Donaldson said. I glanced back and the door was half up. "Lights on, some just blew out."

The smell was getting worse.

"What is that reek?" Kincaid asked, coughing.

"Not sure." I answered, digging in my top pocket and pulling out a pack of Marlboros. I lit one and tucked the pack away.

"Smoking's bad for your health, Sergeant." Kincaid warned me.

"Almost up." Donaldson said.

"Shut the fuck up, Kincaid." I looked around the room again. "Get through quick, I don't like this."

"Go now." Donaldson said, and I heard Kincaid moving. I turned around from the room and followed the two of them, throwing the bar as soon as I cross the threshold, watching the room as the door took about 15 seconds to close.

The smell was definitely coming from the room we'd just left.

When the door locked shut I turned around and looked at the corridor.

The corridor definitely curved to the left, and while it wasn't immediately obvious it did drop gently, the lines on the walls pulling the eyes straight so you didn't really notice it. It had a suspended ceiling, white tile on the floors and up to waist high on the walls, and steel plating on the walls. There were lights every ten feet or so, and I could see corridor intersections further down, along with doors on either side.

"LIVING AREAS" was in blue letters with a blue stripe. "MAINTENANCE" was in red with a red stripe. "ENVIRONMENTAL" had a brown stripe and finished off the listings on the left wall. "ADMINISTRATION" was in yellow with a yellow stripe. "OPERATIONS" was in white with a white stripe. "SUPPLY" was in orange with an orange stripe. "SUBSECTOR ACCESS" was green with a green stripe. "COMMUNICATIONS" was in black with a black stripe and finished off the right hand listing.

"YOU WILL ALL DIE HERE" was in blackish crust on the floor about twenty feet in front of us, surrounded by blackish splatters on the wall.