You know what?

  Standing at the back of a dark cave at the bottom of a crevasse, with clouds of dust obscuring whatever little light might have penetrated the gloom, was not fun.

  Even less so when Explendian troopers were firing handheld plasma cannons at you.

  You’d think that destabilising the situation further by combining a graviton pulse with a dragon’s frosty breath and sending the resulting force into the already structurally questionable back wall would be a bad idea.

  And you’d be right. It was a terrible idea.

  Unfortunately, it was the only idea we had.

  Niva’s breath weapon had flash frozen the cavern wall. The resulting fragility of the stone, combined with the graviton beam messing with the fundamental forces in the rock, was too much. The wall exploded outwards, sending shards of rock and a whole lot more dust into our faces.

  Several of the stone chips hit me, and I felt blood on my cheek and would have several bruises, but nothing debilitating. I couldn’t see what we had done to the wall, but two things spurred me into action.

  Firstly, the Expledian fire had ceased. Maybe they were pausing to take stock of the situation or beating a hasty retreat, because, secondly, I could hear cracking from the walls all around me.

  It was slow at first. Once the initial explosion had died down, there was an eerie silence for all of two seconds before a singular crack radiated out from the wall into the stone above us. It was like the instant crackle of lightning, followed by a deep rumble from within the rock. Many more soon followed. The rumbling engulfed us from all sides.

  This cave was not going to survive for long. It was time to move.

  “Niva!” I shouted over the din. “Faithon! Baltrax!”

  I felt Niva by my side and groped for the others. Baltrax had risen to her feet, supported by Faithon. They were already moving towards the hole in the wall, the sight of which was beginning to emerge from behind the dust.

  I was about to follow when Niva pushed her head into my knees.

  Felix!

  The granit was lying on his side a few meters from me. I paused for the barest of seconds before running over to scoop him up.

  He was a great deal lighter than I had expected. And, even covered in dust, his fur was so soft. I’d never touched him before. Why would I? But he would have made a great cuddly toy. That was probably an inappropriate thought, especially at that moment, but you can’t help the errant things that run through your head, can you?

  “Wait!” he rasped, as I turned to follow the others.

  “What?” I said. Was he hurt? It’s not like I could give him first aid. We had to move. And we did, a hunk of rock fell from above and crashed into the floor a few paces from us.

  “My tablet,” he said between rapid breaths.

  “Really?”

  Despite everything that was going on, the little geek still wanted his maths toy.

  “Get it!”

  It was right by my foot, and he sounded so insistent that, despite more boulders falling from the ceiling, I reached down and grabbed it.

  Then I ran.

  Well, it was a fast stumble, at least. The ground was a soup of dust and irregular rocks, moving about under my feet as I made my way across them.

  As we went, with Niva sticking to my side, more rock fell, and the thundering from the walls increased. The Explendian soldiers collectively decided to renew their firing, so scorching plasma bolts were again screaming past my head.

  I instinctively ducked, falling to my knees. I almost dropped Felix, but wrapped him tight to my body and scrambled back to my feet. Rock exploded around me, battering my senses. Felix shouted, but his words were lost, half muffled by my chest and half silenced by the noise.

  The rate of fire intensified, the shouts destabilising the cavern further. It appeared they had given up on capturing us alive and just wanted to finish the job.

  Avoiding the blasts, we made it to the wall. There was a hole just big enough for us to walk through if I crouched. The floor of the tunnel had an even deeper base of loose rocks and sand, but I clambered over it as best I could. My feet slipped with every step, but to stop meant death, and I drew strength from feeling Niva beside me.

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  Like a conductor bringing the orchestra to a finale, I felt the roof fully collapse behind me. Just a few more steps. As my foot came down on a stone, it shifted, this time disappearing into an open void. My weight followed, and I found myself held up by nothing but air, falling into an open area behind the tunnel. As the world crashed behind me, I realised we had made it. That was my last thought as I twisted in the air and landed on my back. My vision flashed, an intense pain in my forehead, and then nothing.

  My own coughing fit woke me. I had no idea how long I had been out, but I was sitting up against a rock wall, my legs partially covered in debris. Niva was by my side, curled beside me.

  Ryan, she trilled as I stirred. She shot to her feet and put her face right up to mine. I got the inexplicable feeling she was going to lick me, but she didn’t. I was worried!

  “No need to worry, girl,” I said between coughs, the thick dust in the air making it difficult to breathe. “It takes more than a squad of marines and a natural disaster to hurt me. Are you ok?”

  Yes! Niva said back to me. I am unhurt. She paused, then added. I do not like the dark, but at least I am not alone now. Ryan is here.

  I reached out and stroked her head. “Yes, you aren’t getting rid of me that easily.”

  “Good, you’re awake,” Faithon said, hearing my side of the exchange. He was up with Baltrax and Felix. They were battered and bruised, but no worse off than me. They were looking at our surroundings, using Felix’s tablet as a light source. So it was a good job I managed to retrieve that, eh?

  We had made it. The tunnel where we found ourselves stretched into the darkness to the left and right. The passage we had entered through was totally collapsed. There was no way back out, but also no way through from the other side. We were safe from the soldiers for the time being. The debris from the cave-in had half-filled this tunnel too, but it was the other half which was important, as it contained our still-living, breathing bodies.

  The air was stale, but, since we hadn’t died, it was breathable, even if it was 90% dust. I coughed once more for good measure, brushed the remains of the passage from my legs and got to my feet.

  “Right, what’s the plan?” I asked, voice cheery. “I hope our escape hasn’t been in vain.”

  The tunnel was about three meters wide and a similar distance in height. It was slightly sloped, and Baltrax was looking upwards. I had no idea what she was looking at. Despite Felix’s light, I could only see 10 or so meters.

  “We’ve found a way out,” Faithon said. He had walked over to me and was looking me up and down. “It’ll be a long trek through a network of these tunnels, but he thinks we should be able to make it.”

  Felix squeaked an affirmative.

  “Are you alright?” He reached over and brushed the dust from me. It was difficult to tell in the dim light, but, huh, was Faithon worried about my well-being?

  “Never better,” I said, batting his hands away. “Are we off then?”

  As I started walking towards Baltrax, I caught Felix looking at me. He quickly lowered his gaze back to his tablet. I paused and patted myself down. I was ok, right? Everything seemed to be in order. I had a few cuts and bruises, and my head felt like I had just been standing in the centre of a rockfall, but otherwise I was ok.

  “Yes, time to move,” Baltrax said. “We don’t know the extent of the cave-in. The Explendians could cut through at any moment.”

  “Surely they’ll think we’re dead?” I said.

  “Let’s not take that chance,” Faithon replied. “Move out, captain’s orders.”

  “So what do we think made this?” I asked after walking for a few minutes. The tunnel had stayed the same width the whole time, and the floor was far too flat to be natural. “My bet is giant rock worm. They exist, right?”

  We had a huge walk ahead of us, and I just couldn’t bear to journey in silence.

  “They used to,” Baltrax answered, her voice distant. “But…”

  Baltrax trailed off, and it was silent for a time, then Felix piped up. “No subterranean creatures of sufficient size were detected in the planet survey.” He glanced at me again. He kept doing that. It was unnerving. “But Ryan could be right, these tunnels are old and date back far beyond the time of the… incident.” His gaze drifted to Baltrax, but she did not seem to pay any mind to his wording.

  All I took from that was, ‘Ryan was right.’ Yeah, I was.

  “So no rock worms now then?” I mean, it was a good thing that we weren’t going to run into a creature that could swallow all four of us in a single mouthful, but seeing one would have been cool.

  “No,” Felix said. “Sorry.”

  “Not your fault, Felix,” I said, trying to get a rise out of him for using that name, but he didn’t bite. Some people lose all sense of humour when trapped beneath hundreds of meters of earth and rock.

  We walked in silence for a few moments as I tried to think of something else to say to break the monotony.

  Suddenly, the tunnel opened up into a chamber, several times the height of the passage where we had just been. But the size wasn’t the thing that made us all stop in our tracks. Out of the gloom, shapes had appeared. Right in front of us was a wooden table. Just standing in the cave, with a couple of metal cases stacked on top. The oddity of seeing something so mundane in this place just didn't register in the moment.

  Niva nudged me and looked up into my eyes. I smell Baltrax.

  That made me laugh out loud.

  Niva had sent that thought just to me, so Faithon and Felix looked at me as if I were mad. Faithon relaxed after a moment and shushed me. He was all for walking in silence, it seemed.

  “Rude!” I whispered down to Niva. “It’s not like any of us have had a bath recently.” I paused for effect. “But you are right. Phewee!”

  No! Niva’s tone was insistent. And urgent. I smell other Baltrax. Many.

  ‘Other Baltrax. Many?’ What was Niva on about?

  “Niva–” I was about to ask when realisation hit. “Guys, we should–”

  “Put your hands up,” a deep voice interrupted. “That’s what you should do.”

  As if as one, about a dozen figures stepped out of the gloom. They ranged in height from about 5 to 5-and-a-half feet. I couldn’t see much in this light, but one thing that was noticeable was the silhouetted horns that were sticking out of their heads. That and the guns they were pointing at us.

  Baltrax had found her people, but if we weren’t careful, they would be the last thing we would ever see.