BREAKING THE HATCH

Scene 47

Up at the hatch, the four pursuers hammered at the unyielding studs on the hatch door. “They must have welded these to block us,” Jaman gasped.

“Get plasma torches, then,” the woman Hound snapped at him. He raced off up through the excavation. She turned to her male partner and Bunjaian. “You two, use the crowbars under the edge of this thing. Hammer them into the crack. Shock it open.”

They worked at the hammering for a long time, until Bunjaian returned with three plasma torches in his arms. The two hammerers stopped, but the woman barked, “No! Keep working on it while he and I burn through it.” She took one of the torches, lit it, and applied the flame to a clear space near the edge of the hatch. Bunjaian, following her gesture, began with his torch to extend her burn the other way.

Smoke began to rise from the heated spots, and a thin layer started peeling back in wisps, revealing a resistant, white-hot underlayer and bringing a sharp acrid stench. The hammering continued at the edges. The smoke thickened.

“This is no ordinary metal,” Jaman coughed, fanning the air. “Why don’t we just use the muncher? Excavate around it?”

An hour later, using first the rockmuncher and then the plasma torches, they got down to the tunnel floor. The male Hound sniffed the air. He muttered to the woman.

“They split up,” she said. “The ones we want went down there. The others went up the other way, more recently. They weren’t as many. Let’s head down.” She strode out without waiting for an answer.

The three men followed. Bunjaian asked, “What if they come from behind us?” He looked back at the male Hound, who just grinned. His teeth were long.

 

Next scene.

Last Updated Monday, August 05 2024 @ 09:08 am  43 Hits   
Comments are closed