Three Square Meals Ch. 045

"I borrowed the tech from the Maliri Fire Control System, then developed and upgraded a much smaller device that I integrated with the suit. I've added things like thermal imaging and Mag-view to the helmet GUI as well," she said proudly. "You can find all the menu items for those on the left hand side."

John cycled through the views, seeing her highlighted faintly in red when looking at her in the thermal imaging view, and then a bright blue when he switched to the Magnetic view.

"This will be so much more useful than having to stare through the scope," he noted, as he switched off the filter and his vision returned to normal.

He could hear the happiness in her voice when she said, "Great! I'm glad you like it!"

While Rachel and Alyssa experimented with the new functionality, John grabbed several magazines, and slotted a number of clips into his combat webbing. When he was done, he was carrying five hundred rounds in total, but the cleverly designed webbing meant that he didn't feel excessively encumbered. He finished off his loadout by grabbing a pouch of explosive grenades, and a couple of flash and smoke.

"Load up on plenty of ammo girls," he advised them as he stepped away from the weapon rack. "A nest of anything sounds ominous, and we don't want to run short."

They nodded obediently and gathered plenty of ammunition, while he walked out of the briefing room to wait for them in the bridge. Calara and Jade were waiting for them there, and he took off his helmet so he could speak to them face-to-face.

"We've arrived at the Beta-Capricornus system," Jade warned him. "The Maliri cruiser headed towards the fourth planet in the system, so I followed them in, and we're currently in a geo-stationary orbit."

John looked up at the holographic view of the small planet that hovered above them in the bridge. The tag next to the lush, verdant world read "Quanthos", and the single continent was covered in a swathe of sprawling forests. The one major exception was a ridge of mountains directly below them, where they currently orbited the planet.

"Any sign of the Maliri base?" John asked the two girls, but they shook their heads.

"I've tried scanning the surface, but I'm not picking up anything significant," Calara explained. "If they built the facility into that mountain range, or into the huge trees down there, like they did with the restaurant on Geniya Space Station, we wouldn't be able to detect it."

"They could have also built the research facility underground," Jade suggested.

Calara nodded and said, "If that's the case, we have no chance of scanning for it. That mountain range contains lots of metal deposits, so a metal base would be very difficult to spot, even if they constructed it out of metal. The walls of the facility might be made of crystal for all we know." She shrugged helplessly, frustrated at not being able to give him any more solid information.

John walked over to her, and leaned over to give the frowning Latina a kiss. "Let Alyssa know if you get even a sniff of trouble," he said to Calara.

She smiled in return and replied, "Don't worry, I'll let you know if anything changes up here. You be careful though, and look after them all."

"Yes, Ma'am," he said with a grin, before turning to the green-skinned Nymph who had walked over to join them, and waited patiently at his side. "Everything okay, Jade?"

She nodded eagerly, and replied, "I wish I was going inside the nest with you, but just let me know as soon as you need me to bring the Raptor down, and I'll pull you out of there!"

John smiled at her, then said, "Will do. You two stay safe up here, and watch our backs."

They looked serious and a bit worried as they promised him that they would. John pulled them both into a hug and said, "Everything will be fine. Don't worry, okay?"

Alyssa, Dana, and Rachel walked out of the briefing room, now fully equipped and ready for action. They strolled over to join them, and waved goodbye to Calara as they descended in the grav-tube, leaving her alone on the Bridge.

Jade darted ahead of them, and hit the button to open the double doors into the Hangar Bay. The glossy white Raptor gunship was shining brightly in the overhead lighting, and seemed almost eager to get moving, where it waited for them in the huge room. The Nymph jogged up the loading ramp into the Raptor, with John, Alyssa, Dana and Rachel following close behind.

When they caught up to her in the cockpit, Jade had already powered up the engines, and had begun opening the Hangar Bay doors. They sat in the chairs at the back of the cockpit, and watched quietly as she quickly and efficiently went through the last of her safety checks. Nodding with satisfaction, she took hold of the flightstick and then smoothly lifted them off the deck and then out of the yawning portal in the side of the Invictus. As she pivoted the Raptor, they saw the bright golden flash of the Maliri dropship, which was waiting patiently for them.

A chime on the Pilot's console alerted them that they were being hailed, and when Jade accepted the call, the viewscreen in the cockpit flickered to life. Irillith's golden armoured helmet filled the image and she said curtly, "Follow me down to the surface. The entrance to the Fulmanax nest is not easy to find."

She cut off the call before any of them had a chance to respond, and the golden Maliri ship rotated gracefully before it began to descend to the planet below. Irillith's ship was about half the size of their own, and it looked sleek, nimble and very agile, which proved to be the case, considering the effortless ease of its manoeuvres. Judging by the numerous weapon barrels jutting from the wings and hull, it seemed to be some kind of heavy fighter, but without an active scan, it was difficult to know more.

The flight down to the surface only took a couple of minutes, and Irillith's ship flew over the rocky mesa of the mountain range, before dipping down towards the edge of a rocky outcropping. At this altitude, they could see that the rocky shelf overhung a broad cavern entrance that disappeared into murky gloom. There was a small flat meadow area outside the entrance, before the edge of the mountainous area met the solid wall of green forests beyond. The Maliri ship swooped in and touched down lightly, its landing cushioned by the skilful use of retro-thrusters.

Jade brought them down beside the smaller ship, and when they landed, John and the girls rose to their feet.

"We'll be in touch as soon as we're ready to leave," John said to the Nymph, who stood and watched them anxiously. "Take off as soon as we're clear."

They left the cockpit as Jade returned to her seat, dropping down in the grav-tube, and striding through to the front loading area. Dana hit the button to lower the ramp, and they walked out onto the surface of Quanthos a few moments later. Alyssa let Jade know they were all out, and the Raptor rose off the floor, with the loading ramp closing rapidly as the gunship climbed upwards into the air.

The back of the Maliri ship had rotated upwards and Irillith stood nearby pressing buttons on some kind of device that was built into the vambrace of her armour. A six-foot-long hovering platform floated silently out of the back of the ship, with a large and complicated looking device securely attached to the top. It consisted of four cylindrical objects, each around two feet tall, with a larger column in the centre.

Dana walked over to join the Maliri woman as she carefully manoeuvred the hover-sled out of the back of the ship. "How does this sonic device work exactly?" she asked eagerly.

"Do not tamper with it!" Irillith said sharply. "If you upset the calibration, then the sonic waves won't be emitted at the correct frequency. We could send the Fulmanax into a furious rage, rather than making them flee!"

Dana backed away with her hands in the air, saying, "Okay, relax! I was just curious."

Irillith walked over to join John and the others, with the hover-sled floating obediently behind her. As she cleared the Maliri ship, it lifted straight up, the landing struts folding smoothly back into the gleaming golden hull. It raced away, and they watched it for a moment as it soared up into the heavens.

"We may proceed inside," Irillith said, un-shouldering a laser rifle that looked identical to the ones used by the Maliri guards back on Geniya Space Station.

*Alright, let's move in,* John said to Alyssa. *You and I take point, Dana and Rachel can cover our flanks.*

They began to walk cautiously into the darkened cavern entrance, and to John's surprise, it started to get a little brighter the further they went inside, when he had been expecting the exact opposite. There seemed to be some kind of luminescent fungus lining the base of the walls where they met the floor, which started to appear with more frequency the deeper they went. There was a slight incline to the broad tunnel, and once they had walked for a couple of hundred metres, the gradient of the slope began to increase.

John turned and asked Irillith dubiously, "The research facility was down here?"

She nodded and replied, "There are natural caves below us. The scientists were researching the properties of the fungi that grow down here, before they were forced to flee from the Fulmanax."

They continued onwards, and according to the atmospheric readings displayed in the helmet GUI, the moisture level in the air was increasing. A layer of mist covered the ground, growing thicker as they descended, and the unseen floor began to squelch with every footfall. Eventually the mist was up to calf height, which was high enough to obscure the luminous mushrooms, giving the mist an eerie glow.

*You take me to the most delightful places,* Alyssa said to him with amusement.

John smiled in his helmet, but kept a sharp eye ahead in case any threatening targets should appear. The tunnel began to curve gently to the left, and then passages began to appear on both sides, leading off into impenetrable darkness.

"Keep following the main tunnel," Irillith said, pre-empting his next question.

They followed the broad passageway down, the tunnel at least thirty metres wide and the ceiling a good twenty metres above them. John began to hear damp, squelching sounds coming from further ahead, and he warned Alyssa of potential danger. She instantly passed on the message to Dana and Rachel who began to move more warily, as they scanned their rear and flanks, looking for threats.

The tunnel levelled out and then opened up into a huge, high-ceilinged cavern. They were high up on a ledge that arced around both sides, before gently sloping down to the base of the cavern, and below them they could see huge fungi growing up from the cavern floor. The colossal fungi were at least thirty metres high, and provided a moist orange canopy that obscured the floor of the cavern from sight. The sounds of creatures moving below them intensified, and their group paused, and peered over the ledge trying to find out what was making all the noise.

Suddenly there was a loud thump, of something big colliding with some other equally solid object. John spotted movement on the fungi below, and one of them in the middle seemed to be trembling. There was another heavy thump, and the huge orange capped fungus shook violently from the impact. With a third bass rumble, the mighty fungus toppled over before crashing to the ground with a surprisingly quiet impact. The enormous mushroom bounced with a wet thump a couple of times, before coming to a rest. John jogged quickly up the ledge ahead of them to get a look at whatever had knocked down the fungus, but by the time he had drawn level with the gap, whatever it was had disappeared under the impenetrable canopy of fungus caps.

The rest of the girls walked briskly to catch up with him, the grav-sled following faithfully in their wake. Now that they had reached the break in the mushroom canopy, they could see bizarre, eight-feet-tall Fungoid creatures moving around below them. There were dozens down there, moving surprisingly rapidly on three stumpy legs. They had a spongy looking torso, which contained four beady eyes, a gaping fanged mouth, and two long arms that ended in sharp looking hooks. Their bodies were a pale white, but their heads were topped in bright red mushroom caps, covered in sickly yellow spots.

"Those are the Fulmanax," Irillith informed them. "Hideous, aren't they?" she added with disgust.

*Those hooks look nasty. We don't want them getting too close,* John thought to Alyssa, and she nodded when he glanced her way.

Ripping and tearing sounds began to drift up to them, drawing their attention back to the floor of the cavern. The Fulmanax were hacking the felled Fungus to pieces, carving it into smaller chunks with hefty blows from their robust arms. The sickle shaped claws seemed to be having no problems chopping up the sturdy trunk of the fungus, and they moved up the stalk, slicing it to ribbons. Some smaller, squat-looking four armed Fungoid creatures came stomping along to join them, and they stooped over to gather up the fungus chunks that were strewn over the floor.

"What the heck are they doing?" Dana asked curiously.

Rachel leaned over, straining to get a better look, and sounded fascinated as she said, "Maybe the big fungus is some kind of food? They look like they could be harvesting them. Those bigger Fulmanax are probably some kind of warrior caste, and the smaller ones might be a worker drone perhaps?"

Irillith had crossed her arms, and began to tap her fingers against her golden armour impatiently. "We've wasted enough time in this dreadful place, let's get a move on," she said in annoyance.

"Which way from here?" John asked her curtly, growing tired of her surly tone.

She pointed ahead of them to the ramp that dropped down below the fungus caps, and said, "We need to go down there to the cavern, work our way along for another hundred metres of so, and take another tunnel down to a bigger cavern below."

"Why can't we just activate the sonic device from here?" Dana asked her thoughtfully.

Irillith turned to face her, bristling with anger, and said, "Why must you bother me with these incessant questions? If you must know, it's because the rock in the caverns up here is too dense and will absorb the sound waves. We need to go to the lower level, below the strata of rock, and then I can set it to go off once we're clear."

"Alright, calm down Irillith," John said to her firmly. "It was a perfectly reasonable thing to ask."

Irillith whirled to face him, and by her body language looked about to snap at him, but she seemed to control herself and then said sweetly, "Please lead on, if you would be so kind."

John rolled his eyes behind the protective helmet, and he heard Alyssa's telepathic giggle. He walked over to the ramp and began to cautiously descend, with Alyssa striding briskly to catch up with him. Irillith came along next with the grav-sled, leaving Dana and Rachel to bring up the rear. Their group made steady progress downwards, drawing level with the giant orange mushroom caps, and then eventually moving below, so that they could finally clearly see the ground level of the cavern.

The fifteen Fulmanax warriors had hacked apart the stalk of the enormous mushroom, and were now merrily carving their way through the huge, umbrella-like cap. They seemed to be completely engrossed in their task, and had either not noticed John and the girls, or couldn't care less about their presence in the cavern. The smaller squat Fungoids that Rachel had guessed might be Fulmanax drones, scurried along with their odd, rolling gait. The stumpy creatures ignored the humanoids, and made a detour around them as they carried armfuls of mushroom chunks deeper into the cavern.

John led them cautiously across the cavern, sticking to the right hand wall, and the strange illumination from the glowing fungus. His acute hearing could detect the tinkling sound of running water from up ahead on his right, and he waved the others to a halt as he warily approached a broad tunnel on the side of the cavern, just as Irillith had described. After stepping inside and nearly slipping on the glistening floor, he listened intently for any worrying sounds. Not hearing anything alarming, he backed out, and then beckoned the rest of the group forward.

"The floor is wet, probably some kind of runoff for all the moisture in here. Watch your footing when we walk down there, it's very slippery," he said, warning them to caution.

Alyssa moved to his side, and they began to walk further down the tunnel, the occasional scuffing sounds and muffled curses announcing when someone had nearly slipped on the slick tunnel floor. It took nearly five painful minutes of carefully placed steps to safely reach the cavern below, and they all heaved sighs of relief when they arrived on firmer footing. As they took in their surroundings, there were gasps of surprise when they looked around at the astonishing sight in front of them.

This cavern area was huge, with long stone ridges rising up, and crisscrossing the vast underground cave. It was even damper in here, and water dripped from the ceiling in long rivulets, before pooling on the ground and running over the edge into trickling waterfalls down bottomless sinkholes. The entire area was shrouded in mist, with dense fog at knee height across the floor. Above them, long silvery veins of some kind of metal ran the entire length of the cavern ceiling, while long stalactites reached down like the multi-fanged maw of some terrifying predator. Dozens of the stalactites had grown so long, they had joined with stalagmites from the ground, forming broad, mighty pillars that gave the illusion that they were struggling to hold up the colossal weight of the rock above them.

There were a lot of Fulmanax in this area; they seemed to be mostly drones, but the taller and more menacing warriors could also be seen wandering around in groups. They were walking with a shambling but rapid shuffle of their three stumpy legs, as they hurried onward with whatever tasks Fungoids deemed important.

"We need to get over those rock bridges to the far side of the cavern," Irillith informed them in a hushed voice. "We have to set up the device over there."

John nodded, then led them carefully into the room, being extremely wary about placing a foot in the wrong place, and potentially tumbling down one of the holes in the floor. The Fulmanax seemed to be ignoring the rocky bridges, so he led them over to one of the wider ones, measuring three metres across in most places. The footing seemed reasonable, so he cautiously proceeded up the ten metre long slope until it levelled off. He studied the hundred metre long ridgeline, and it seemed to be consistently wide and flat enough across the entire length, for them to safely proceed.

"This looks good, come on up," he called down to them, and Alyssa followed after him immediately, with Irillith, Dana and Rachel moving close behind.

John waited for them to reach the top, and they began to walk steadily along the rocky bridge, darting cautious glances to the left and right at the strange alien inhabitants of this underground ecosystem. The Fulmanax seemed to be ignoring them completely, paying them no attention whatsoever.

"It seems odd the Fulmanax attacked the Maliri scientists," Rachel mused out loud. "They seem to be completely ignoring us."

Irillith snorted dismissively and said, "Don't be fooled by their seeming aloofness. They are dangerous and unstable creatures, prone to random acts of violence."

Rachel nodded in reply, and then walked silently, making good time as they crossed the bridge. Until that is, they were nearly three-quarters of the way across and John cursed in alarm.