Subterrestrials/Nadie

Ambush
The current temperature was constantly being projected into Nadie Jaci's left eye. 6 C. The temperature had no changed since she had entered the network of corridors and chambers below the surface of Osiris IV. She pulled at the hood of her jacket and again thought about putting on gloves.

She turned another corner and stopped. The two Marine Corps privates under her command nearly ran her over. They all looked up and down the new corridor. They were far out of range for radio contact with the Elephant or any of the other search parties, but Private Latty had been feeding out a fiber that allowed them to keep in contact with the rest of the crew. The growing map of the underground base quickly updated to include the new corridor as it came into focus of their cameras.

Jaci placed her electromagnetic field sensor against the wall of the new corridor and then marked a small rectangle with her pen. She turned to Private Uranch and ordered, "Blast it."

Uranch stuck a thin strip of explosive to the wall then returned around the corner to join the others. He said, "Cover!" The detonation bounced some fragments of steel around the corner, but in a harmless way that was now routine, boring and expected by all to be fruitless.

Jaci returned to the rectangle that was now a hole, exposing the odd contents of the wall. Already the damaged circuits inside the wall and the jagged edges of the hole were shimmering with the nanoscopic repair substance that seemed to exist in every part of this underground complex. Jaci was able to record some week electromagnetic signals in the hole before it was healed over with a new solid layer of steel. In less than 5 minutes there was no remaining trace of the hole and most of the fragments of the wall that had been scattered around the corridor had already been cleaned up by roving swarms of nanoscopic scavengers. Jaci had yet to find a speck of dust in this spotlessly clean base.

Private Latty asked, "Which way now?"

Jaci looked at the growing map of the base and was about to announce her choice of which direction to continue their search when Private Uranch said, "I heard something."

Jaci turned and saw that Uranch had moved about thirty meters down the corridor and had his weapon pointed ahead of him. Jaci pulled her hood off of her head and listened. She heard nothing, but she ordered, "Pull back. Get back here, Uranch."

Latty turned and pointed the other direction along the corridor, "Now I heard something."

Jaci still had heard nothing except for the noises they were making themselves. "Pull back into the last corridor. Move!"

Latty was not happy about being under the command of a woman. He complained, "We spend all this time looking, finally find something and now we run away?"

They were almost back to the T-intersection of the two corridors when Uranch suddenly crouched and pointed his gun towards Latty and Jaci. Uranch screamed, "Down!"

While Jaci dove to the floor she saw a blur of motion behind Uranch. Latty was already on the floor, firing rounds past Uranch towards that blur. Jaci turned her head to see what Uranch was firing at behind her, but before she could see anything a heavy body landed on her, smacking her head against the floor. For a moment she thought about lifting her head but then her consciousness faded away.