Chapter Five

They'd probably been painted originally. As his eyes adjusted to the ever dimming light in the...whatever it was, he'd begun to notice markings, patterns of grey in the hall. Perhaps in proper light they'd be a couple different colors, but with the long fluorescent strips that ran along the ceiling fading away all colors became shades of grey.

And the sounds made it even worse. The steel creaked and groaned for no apparent reason. It was like the weight of the thing shifted with merely a breeze. But more disturbing by far was the low moaning that came from across the halls. Near and far the sounds of the injured inhabitants could be heard. Here and there a distant crash rang out, presumably as the least injured tried to dig out the rest.

The man in the room haunted him. He'd looked so scared. And he looked like any guy you'd see on the street, no armor, no scales or fur, just an ordinary guy. What would an ordinary guy be doing in a..thing, he really needed a better name for it, like this?

Another fork in the halls. How had Collin made this look so easy? Was there some unspoken objective she'd been moving towards? Maybe there was something in the lighting or the slope of the place that guided her. Whatever it was, he wasn't seeing it. There was, however, a sign on the wall directly in front of him. He couldn't read it, the markings were disjointed and had no apparent pattern.
"Drop another beacon here, we'll head right so make note of it."
"Aye sir"

Hamaf looked right, it was brighter than the way left. Light meant safety, not from the inhabitants, who would doubtless be ahead, but from the unknown. And as dangerous as these people were, better to face them in the light than to face whatever horrors and pitfalls might lurk in the shadows.

A soldier pulled out one of the small metal boxes that they used to mark their path. It had a small transmitter, broadcasting a looping message about two hundred meters out. It couldn't be a long message, but the important part was that the signal could be used to path additional forces in after them. Of almost equal importance was that they could be used to relay messages back to call for those forces if they were needed.
Provided the beacons weren't tampered with. And if that were to happen the loss of a relayed signal from the beacons he and Jor wore would make Collin back in the forward post aware of the problem at once.

They pressed on into the..complex? Fortress maybe, he'd heard of the ones in the north that had been dug deep into the rock. Except that this wasn't rock, it was steel, or something like steel. More like a fortress sized truck or boat than anything else. Perhaps, what was the word for a large boat? Ship, right; perhaps this place should be considered a ship.
"Men, I think this place is a ship."
"You mean like a boat?"
"Yes, but much, much bigger."
"I thought it was more of a fortress, it reminds me of the Stone garrisons; only bigger and on top of a city instead of under it."
"I thought that too, but wouldn't a fortress have better doors?"
"I guess, yea probably."
"So it's like a really, really big ship."
"Kind of makes sense, as much as any of this does."
"Then it's settled, we shall continue to explore this ship for the next five minutes and then return to Collin and the others."