Xeno Xoo Lost Chapter 10: Denk’s Rescue

The cave-in wasn’t as bad as Geddy feared. The blaster fire had dislodged a chunk of the tunnel’s roof but it hadn’t collapsed completely. Though it did completely fill the tunnel, Denk’s light poked back at them through a tiny slit near the top of the rubble. Relief flooded his body.

“Ingo? Oz? Boy, am I glad to see you guys.” He saw past Oz and gasped. “Cap? Aw, man, you’ve gotta be comin’ out of your skin.”

“You have no idea.”

“Are you okay?” Ingo asked.

“My arm’s pinned. It hurt at first, but it doesn’t anymore.”

Geddy turned over his shoulder. “Voprot, we need the tools.”

“V!” Denk cried.

“Hi, Denk!” the lizard said, tugging at the rope behind him.

The problem with the narrow tunnel — other than its crushing narrow-ness — was that only one of them could actually work to extract Denk from the rock, and that was Ingo. Voprot loosed the bundle of tools and slid the pry bar up to Geddy, who passed it to Oz and finally Ingo.

The other problem was what to do with the rocks. Fortunately, the tunnel here was more earthen in nature, so Geddy, Oz, and Voprot used the shovels to widen the tunnel and make room for the debris. In so doing, Oz found she could squeeze in beside Ingo. Soon, they were both  pushing debris back with their feet. Geddy and Voprot did likewise. The way back would be slow until they got past it, but there was nowhere else to go with the stuff.

“Can you see what’s happening in the myre?” Geddy asked Denk.

“Not from here. I just heard a bunch of blaster fire. Ah, that smarts!”

Ingo had pried free a large rock covering Denk’s stubby lower left arm. His hand had turned a sickly gray and was crusted with blood. Oz angled her headlamp down and contorted herself to get a closer look.

“You’ve got two broken fingers.” Her head jerked over her shoulder. “Where’s that medkit?”

Voprot handed it up to Geddy, and Geddy to her. She wrapped Denk’s broken fingers in some kind of tape, then squirted foam inside to form a splint. After peppering him with questions and checking him over as best she could, she determined it was safe to move him. The rest of the rubble went pretty fast, and she and Ingo pulled Denk free.

Geddy patted his chest, sending puffs of dust into the cone of his light. “You’re gonna be okay, pal. I’ll bet you can still work the throttle, too.”

Denk managed a weary smile. “Thanks, Cap.”

“Here.” Geddy handed Denk his water flask, and he thirstily drank.

Beyond the rubble, the tunnel widened significantly, as though crypsids had entered it from all directions for centuries. One of the fans was crushed like a can, but the other appeared to be functional.

Geddy looked anxiously toward the faintly glowing blue walls of the myre, and Oz nodded. “Check it out. I’ll stay with him.”

Ingo had already crawled up to the edge. Keeping his belly as close to the ground as possible, Geddy came up beside him. It was still dark and dank, but just being able to move freely brought immense relief. He covered the last couple meters by pulling himself along on his elbows.

“Gatehouse, this is Deputy Boutmort. Do you read?” Ingo whispered. He heaved a sigh of relief. “Denk’s banged up, but he’s okay. Chief Dewhold’s alive. One of the fans is out. The canister’s at the bottom of the myre.”

Geddy reached the edge and peered over. The myre wasn’t as large as the wide-angled camera made it appear. Chief Dewhold lay with his back to the wall about ten meters under the ledge, clutching the canister in one hand and his blaster in the other.

“Voprot,” Geddy said over his shoulder. “Rope.”

“Chief,” asked Ingo in a stage whisper. “You okay?”

“Someone’s in the myre,” he whispered back, pointing toward the deep indentation where the corpulent queen was at the other end of the cavern. “Kill your lights.”

They turned off their headlamps. Across from them and a bit lower, the other tunnel yawned. Wire mesh hung down from the lip, and a trail of footsteps led away toward the queen. The Zelnads were here, no doubt about it. But the queen was nearly the size of the Junts’ dwelling. She couldn’t possibly fit through the tunnel.

“It’s the Zelnads, like I said. They’ve come for the queen. But how can they possibly get her out of here?”

Ingo shook his head. “She’s like ninety percent egg sac. The rest of her’s the size of a digger.”

The elites had been reduced to quivering piles of mush. Voices, too soft to hear, came from behind the queen’s hulking form. Her body gave a shudder, and a light appeared from behind it.

Two, then four lights appeared as the Zelnads lifted her long, small body free. Goop dripped off her. Little by little, they shuffled to the side then set her onto a stretcher. Obviously, she’d been sedated somehow.

Geddy slid the PDQ free of its holster. “Like shooting fish in a barrel.”

Ingo looked at it and frowned. “But you’ll kill the queen, too.”

“If they start breeding these things, Durandia’s screwed and so are other worlds like it. Besides, what do you care?”

He considered this a moment, biting his lip. “What if we spread the pheromone now?”

Geddy cocked his head. “Sorry, what?”

“If it works, the myre should be flooded with ‘sids in minutes. They can’t shoot ‘em all.”

“Good out-of-the-box thinking, but how do we, you know, live?”

He jutted his chin across the myre. “The other tunnel. We find the way out, we find your friend, too.”

They had some time, but not much. The Nads had to finish strapping the queen in, get her over to the ledge, and hoist her up. Geddy figured they had ten minutes, tops.

“And lemme guess — you don’t know if that tunnel goes a hundred meters or ten clicks. Or whether it’s crawling with crypsids.”

“Right.”

“You just think it goes to the surface.”

“Right.”

“Which is hot enough to bake a cake.”

“Yes.”

Oz, Denk, and Voprot slid up behind them. “What’re you guys talking about?” Oz asked, basically laying on top of him.

“We were just discussing our shitty options. The Nads are taking the queen as we speak. Ingo thinks we should spread the pheromone now and get across before a thousand crypsids explode from this very spot like demon diarrhea.”

“You got a better idea?” Oz asked.

— Just say you do not.

— Hang on, I’m thinking.

— I’m in your brain. There is very little activity.

“Why don’t we cross first, then have the gatehouse trigger everything remotely?”

“The transmitter’s crushed,” Denk said. “We have to do it manually.”

“Of course we do.”

“Is someone going to throw me a rope?” asked Dewhold.

Ingo grabbed the coil of rope and made some kind of double loop, then put his feet through them like stirrups. He handed the other end to Geddy. “Lower me down. I’ll send up the canister and help the Chief get across.”

Geddy glanced nervously at the Nads, who had closed half the distance to where they’d entered. He tossed the end to Voprot. “Here, hang on to this.”

“Okay.” Voprot wrapped the rope around his giant hand a few times and Geddy did likewise.

He gave Ingo a nod, and he started lowering him down, though Voprot was doing most of the work. A couple minutes later, the rope went slack, and Geddy peered over the edge. Ingo quickly tied the rope around the canister and gave it a tug so Geddy would bring it up.

“How are we getting across?” Denk asked.

“I’ll lower you and Oz down.”

“Then what, genius?” Oz asked.

— I was afraid she’d ask that.

“Voprot carry Geddy across,” said the lizard.

“Thanks, Scales, but I’d rather be crypsid shit. How does this thing work?”

“It’s all connected.”

“Let’s save the existential epiphanies for another time, Denk.”

“No, I mean the fans and the canister. Plug everything into the battery, set the canister upright, and press the red button.”

Geddy cocked his head. “That’s it?”

“Durandians like it simple.” Denk gave a wink.

“Works for me.” He held the double loop open. “Feet here, hand here. Hold tight.”

Across the way, Ingo and Dewhold had already climbed up the wire mesh and were waiting on the other side.

“He’s not such a bad guy, Ingo,” Geddy said.

Denk shrugged. “I never said he was.”

They lowered Denk down and brought the rope back up for Oz. She locked eyes with him. “You’re sure about this?”

“Not really.”

“Let Voprot carry you.”

“Oz, come on. Time’s a-wastin’”

“Promise me.”

He gave a hard roll of his eyes. “Promise.”

“Okay.”

They lowered her down and retrieved the rope. Geddy pivoted on his knees and connected the wires coming out of the battery to both fans and the canister. It seemed obvious enough that Voprot should lower him down first since he could almost certainly handle the drop. It was maybe twice as tall as he. But then Geddy realized to his horror that pushing the button would fall to Voprot.

Only one solution would do.

“As soon as I push this button, you jump down.”

“And Voprot carry you.”

“No,” he corrected, “you help lower me down and we both run across.”

“Okay.”

Geddy took a deep breath and pushed the button. To his everlasting relief, the fans kicked on and the top of the canister retracted. A watery mist, almost too faint to see, emerged from the top then was whipped into the tunnel by the fans. He and Voprot backed up nearly to the ledge, and he glanced over his shoulder just long enough to see Oz’s lithe silhouette scale the mesh like an alley cat.

“How long this take?” Voprot asked.

“I dunno. I suppose it depends on airflow and the … you know … laminar dynamics, so six or seven minutes, I’d reckon. I’m willing to wait it out if you are, if for no other reason than to make sure–”

“Something coming.”

“Let’s go.”

A sharp electric crack exploded next to Geddy’s ear. He jerked his head right just in time to find another bright yellow bolt streaking toward his face. Somehow, he ducked at the last second, and sharp rocks exploded against his shoulder.

The Nads had spotted them!

Something caressed his left cheek. A puff of air from the tunnel. Air that was being pushed by an ocean of snapping, skittering hellbugs.

“We go now!” Voprot uncoiled his electric whip with one practiced flick of his hand and snapped it at the ceiling.

It wrapped around a finger of rock, and he pulled it taut with one arm while yanking Geddy off the ground with the other, putting himself between volleys of blaster fire and Geddy. The shots riocheted off his ranse-scale doublet as he tucked Geddy under his arm like a newspaper and leapt from the ledge.

— You did promise he could carry you.

— Shut up.