The Quarry

[Rage Menelas]

[font=Lucida Sans Unicode]Ryan was about half-way to the building entrance when all hell broke loose! A squadron of Szearfetti ships, their sharp contours and arrowhead shapes making them unmistakable as such, dove on the installation. They laid down a deadly rain of plasma fire that instantly set much of the outer works of the building to flames. The quintet of gun-barrel colored fighters then swept up and disappeared into the mist. Ryan retreated back to his hillock, reaching its safety just in time to watch their return run. This time they fairly rubbled the entire building; the ceiling collapsed and all that remained was a smoking heap of debris. After one more pass—their coup de grace—they roared away and didn't return.

Ryan could scarcely believe it. In short order they had completely obliterated the structure. He doubted anything could have survived the devastating attack. He looked at the landing pad. They had not neglected the ship docked there either. It was utterly destroyed. All that remained was a single gnarled mass of smoking metal, (reminded him of a piece of modern sculpture he had seen back in Portland so many months ago... so many worlds ago...!).

He finally came out from his cover to advance on the ruin, wondering if Quang and his master had somehow survived. He decided to investigate the entrance. The ROK jar-head had not been long inside before the attack. Perhaps he was near the entrance and could be dug out fairly easily.

Ryan approached where the entrance had been, noticing that it was gone now, just rubble in its place. He wondered idly why they didn't have some type of shield to protect the place. Maybe they figured no-one would consider them worthy of attacking... or maybe Quang had done something to disable the shields, to allow for his entrance into the building... Ryan had no way of knowing but if the latter were the case it had to have been the most astonishing case of bad luck timing he had ever even heard of...

Now he was up to the ruins themselves. He started casting about for some way of dislodging some of the debris, some way of digging a hole to see into the building itself. At the spot where the entrance had been there was a long, relatively straight, piece of metal. He decided that, whatever it had been in its previous incarnation, it had been born again. Now it was his lever. He pulled it to him, then inserted the far end under a large square stone on the top of the heap. Shouldering the lever he strained upward until the stone tumbled over and away from the entrance. The exertion brought back the jackhammer in his head. He ignored it and picked out another stone to leverage off the pile, then another, and another... finally carving out a substantial hole in the wreckage. Now he could see down into what was left of the corridor.