Sandfall

Dustin swore as he shovelled sand into the hole Rye had carved in the floor. They’d almost made it out when the next collapse had occurred - a wall of sand and twisted metal cascading towards them as they’d dived for cover in a cupboard. When the dust had settled, Rye had carved them a way through the wall into the next room along - but from where they ended up, it was piles of sand in every direction that could lead them closer to the surface.

With that in mind, they’d improvised shovels out of some of the bent metal debris and set to work, slowly clearing their way through the collapsed sections, digging sand away from under twisted metal and out from where it was blocking doorways in their path. This latest mound seemed to have endless sand coming in to refill it however; no matter how much Dustin dug it never seemed to get any smaller.

Stabbing his makeshift tool into the pile, he took a long pull on the water bottle Bleu passed to him. It was uncomfortably hot in the ruins now, the sand clearly having carried the heat of the day down with it as it cascaded into the building. He was a little worried about their air supplies too. Bleu could theoretically do without access to fresh air for a lot longer than he or Rye could, and they had their rebreathers - but there was a finite limit.

“Ya think we’ll be alright for oxygen bubbles?” Rye’s voice was less sure than usual; she too seemed to be worrying about the situation. Bleu set down her own shovel and frowned as she replied. “With the rebreathers we should be good for another few hours if we don’t find any more open spaces. If push comes to shove we can probably crack another couple of hours out of our water supply, but that’ll reduce how long we can work in this heat.”

The three stared at one another for a moment, then Dustin picked up his shovel back up, Rye leaning into her work as he did so. “Another open space, right.” The Rabyth said, tracing the map on her tablet. “Should be a toilet about another six feet in this direction. Think I can see where the sand’s flowing in from now Dusty, gimmie a sec to wedge something in to plug the hole…”

Six feet through sand and twisted metal took them over an hour, bodies drenched with sweat by the time Rye tugged the door open and they peered down into the tiled room below. The air was markedly cooler, and they didn’t hesitate to drop down inside; just the slight reduction in temperature alone made a huge difference to their mood. A quick check of the map Rye had on her tablet raised spirits still further. “We should be able to cut through to the next floor from here. Assuming there ain’t any more collapsed sections there, we’ll be almost out. God I hope so, I’m sick of burning holes only to find yet more fucking sand.” Rye ventured after they’d taken a moment to catch their breath and eat some of their dwindling supply of food.

Bleu slipped one arm around the bunny girl’s shoulders. “Let’s get this done, Rye. You ok to handle one more round of hole cutting, or do you need me and Dustin to take a turn?” For a moment, Rye leaned back into the medic’s arm before shaking her head and shifting forward as she replied. “I’ve got this. Gimmie a sec and I’ll get us through.” Standing, the Rabyth woman approached the corner of the room with a look of determination on her face and her laser cutter in hand.

More rooms, more dusty spaces, more shovelling sand. They progressed slowly, but each step forward was one closer to the surface until at last Rye kicked weakly against a burned-out circle of wall, dodging as a handful of grains of sand and thankfully the light of the late afternoon sun cascaded down into the hole in which they were currently crouched.

Struggling out through the gap Rye had created, the trio dropped onto their backs on the sand with relief - before immediately scrambling upright again. “Fucking overheated sand couldn’t even let us take two minutes off.” Rye grumbled, rubbing the backs of her elbows where the heat retained by the desert sand had almost scorched her fur. The others were in a similarly annoyed state; Bleu flaring her body out like a sheet to dissipate the increase in temperature from those parts of her that were uncovered.

“Really glad I opt for boots rather than just forming the shape of them and basically going barefoot on these missions. Now, which… way… back…” The doctor’s voice trailed off as she turned slowly, looking at the space they were now in. The collapse of the building had ripped through the clearing; debris and fallen trees were spread over a wide area and what had once been a ruin fully enclosed by the canopy was now open on two sides to the wide desert sands. It looked like it wasn’t just the one building that had collapsed either - Rye’s scans had originally indicated that there might be other structures they couldn’t reach, and those too seemed to have fallen in on themselves. The end result of the destruction was that they were now stood by a metal and stone island with quite a stretch of open sand and fallen trees to cross in order to reach the safety of the forest once more.

“Bubbles… you know those massive things you detected under the sand…” Rye’s voice was nervous as the bunny girl scrambled up onto one of the larger pieces of jagged metal that remained on the surface from the building they’d been exploring. Bleu and Dustin joined her quickly before the doctor replied. “Yes, Rye. They probably can’t get into this area still with all the damaged stone and such underground - or if they can get in they won’t be able to move very quickly, but that is a lot of open sand out there. Large predatory animals underground generally have some form of vibration based hunting method - which I’m afraid a collapsing building or cave would probably sound like a big dinner to…”

The three lovers turned slowly, each looking in a different direction. It was Dustin who saw it first - a hump of sand moving snakelike and with great speed towards their position. “Bleu…” he called, then louder “Bleu! Is that one of your sand-hunters?”

A quick glance told the medic all she needed to know. “Juvenile. It’s too big for the small fry, too small for the really big stuff out there… like that!” Her voice rose in fear as she pointed towards another much larger mound of moving debris. As the smaller of the two mounds reached the edge of the clearing, it breached the surface - a giant lizard-like creature looking halfway between a shark and a mudskipper, all fangs and wide smile. For a moment, Dustin thought it was going to launch itself across the sands towards them - and then the larger beast struck.

Vast jaws easily big enough to take a bite out of the shuttle rose from beneath the smaller predator, a momentary flash of fanged maw and ancient scales before the mouth retreated back under the sand - only the indentation where those titanic jaws had closed to give any indication that the smaller beast had been there at all. Dustin swallowed hard. “That… that larger one can’t get in here can it?”

Bleu gave a not-very convincing nod. “I’m pretty sure it can’t. Unless it decides to eat through the building which it shouldn’t - we’re not a big enough morsel to make it worth while. Those smaller ones though…” She scanned the ground around them, pointing to much smaller mounds shifting through the debris field. “There’s got to be a dozen or so that could cause us issues - and that’s just the ones we can actively see moving. If any of them have decided to become ambush hunters…”

At that point, Rye pulled out her tablet and began tapping it. “Got signal back. I think we call Sammie up and get an airlift outta here, right Dusty?” Dustin didn’t even bother voicing his reply. He gave a vague thumbs up in the Rabyth woman’s direction, and continued his monitoring of the vast expanse of desert surrounding them, while Bleu watched for closer threats.

It took Sammie one of the most nerve wracking fifteen minutes of Dustin’s life to get the shuttle airborne and into a position from where she could lower a rope ladder so they could scramble aboard. None of the group wanted her setting their only means of escape down anywhere it might lure in the attentions of one of the massive monsters; the risk of losing their transport off-world was just not worth it. Once they’d all made it aboard, Rye dragged her bag of recovered drives through to begin the process of scanning while Dustin dropped into the co-pilot’s seat.

“We’ve still got a live feed from that ground scanner we set up” Sammie commented, tapping the console in front of her to overlay the data coming in from the scanner with the shuttle’s own sensor suite. Almost immediately, large angry red dots appeared over the terrain below - differing sizes and movement patterns showing just how many things the collapsing buildings had not only stirred up but also allowed into the area around the ruins. Dustin let out a low whistle as he ran his eyes over the information.

“I am really glad I didn’t suggest we try and high tail it back to the safety of the trees.” He said at last. “We’d never have made it without something trying to take a bite out of us. More than one something, most likely.” Sammie nodded, steering the shuttle away in the direction of their campsite. “What’s the plan now captain?” She asked, glancing over at where Bleu had sagged over a chair, the slime woman’s form drooping as she basked in the air-conditioned cool of the shuttle.

Dustin tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Put us over the rock to be safe, then hover until Rye’s finished her data scanning. We’ll go back to Sola immediately after that, but since the three of us nearly got buried alive underground, I want whatever data we risked our lives to recover to be safely extracted rather than cooked when we go through the upper atmosphere.” That earned him a nod from the pilot, and a groaned request to make the already cool air in the shuttle even colder from his medic.