Tunnels deep

Rye dropped the spanner and swore, before kicking the misbehaving generator with one powerful leg. Nearby, the Uil’l technician who had brought her down to this level chuckled and leaned forward to strike the side of the same machine with a fist. “Percussive maintenance is a universal truth.” He said, his voice slow and precise as the whining noise coming from the unit settled into a low hum. “Not a permanent fix though.” He added, frowning at one of the dials.

The bunny girl bent and picked up her spanner, slotting it back into the toolbelt wrapped tight around her hips. “It’s not supposed to be. We only need this generator to run for what, two minutes? That’ll clear enough of the groundwater out for us to get in and check the inlet pipes. If they’re not blocked, it’s a pressure issue elsewhere in the system that’s causing the problems. Though when we get back to the engineering station I’m gonna be writing a long report about the issues with not maintaining your emergency equipment.”

Inclining his snouted head, the Uil’l gave a sigh. “You are right of course, chief engineer. But, those of us on repair and maintenance have always been considered secondary to research and new production specialists. I doubt we’ll get a budget increase even with a recommendation from one with as famous a list of inventions as you.”

That earned him a snort from Rye, the bunny girl waving her spanner in his direction. “Less sucking up, more helping me with that pressure hatch again. Water levels should be low enough by now.”

The reception she’d received on arriving on the Uil’l homeworld had somewhat bemused Rye. She was aware that she’d done some clever engineering on the Solar Ascent, between fixing the human ideas for compact jump drives and shields, but the way the Uil’l had welcomed her had been closer to the triumphs usually given to conquering heroes. It’d all been rather embarrassing; as a result, when they’d given her the list of problems she’d actually read it rather than started at the top. Then she’d read it again, frowned, and asked for the real list of issues rather than just university projects.

Rye was an engineer first and foremost; she’d looked at the revised list, frowned yet again, then insisted on doing this job first out of everything, much to the shock of the delegates assigned to welcome her. Water flow to several lower housing districts had been down. It wasn’t a major issue - not yet - but it meant restrictions on washing, gardening, and a fall-off in productivity as several of the hydraulic stations had needed to be taken offline to ensure adequate drinking water in the gaily lit underground tunnels.

The absence of urgency from the delegates about essentially an entire town struggling for water had irked her. They’d also had hands that were far too clean; the Uil’l were a mole-like people, but the long claws on the ones that had met her had been precise, unscratched and most importantly free of grease or engineering dust. Despite the long list of qualifications they’d added on the ends of each of their names when introducing themselves, they weren’t real engineers as far as the bunny girl was concerned.

Reg, on the other hand (a shortened form of his actual name, which involved a lot of snuffling sounds that put Rye in mind of a child dealing with a particularly bad cold) had glanced her up and down, grunted, and gestured to a map of the tunnels on the wall before stomping out saying that he thought the problem was in number eight shaft, and he hoped she didn’t expect special treatment because he had his in-laws over that evening for dinner so he’d be clocking off at the normal time regardless of any fancy visitors.

He also had a thick layer of grease and dirt ground into the beds of his talons; out of the entire planet she’d met so far, he seemed to be the only one that was an actual engineer. He also was right about location of the problem. She peered into the murky water on the far side of the pressure hatch and frowned. “No blockages, but limited inflow. It’s definitely this sector, but it’s nothing here. Must be further up the pipe.”

Rummaging in a pocket, she pulled out a tiny aquatic drone she’d been tinkering with, twisted it to activate it and tossed it into the water near where the pipe in question protruded from a wall. Wiping her hands on her dungarees, she pulled up her tablet and sat cross-legged on the tunnel floor as Reg re-secured the hatch leading down into the flooded sections. “Drone’s only got limited scanning capabilities, but it should be… hmmm…” she paused, frowning. “That shouldn’t be there.”

The Uil’l glanced over her shoulder and his face darkened. “No. It should not,” Reg agreed instantly. “That’s an issue above my pay grade. Any chance your fancy captain can escalate it?” He asked, pulling out his own tablet and bringing up a map of the tunnels. On Rye’s screen, the feed from the drone clearly showed a branching path where there should have only been a straight pipe. Someone had tapped into the water supply and was diverting a sizable amount of it somewhere else.

An hour later, Rye sent the combined data from her and Reg’s investigations on ahead to Dustin. He’d have just finished his date with Naera, she expected; the plant girl had been eager to investigate the local cuisine with him, and there was only so much the two of them could eat before they made themselves sick. That meant there was a strong chance he was in the area immediately under the massive landing pad that Sammie had brought Sola down onto earlier that day.

Shaking hands with Reg and promising to give him an update if she was able to get the Uil’l government to recognize the issue with Dustin’s help, the Rabyth turned and made for the nearest elevator. It’d be four floors and then a maglev train ride back to the landing pad zone; ten minutes potentially. The elevator hummed smoothly and efficiently as it rose, like every level change in the massive network of tunnels.

Stepping onto the maglev a couple of minutes later, Rye debated asking for a schematic for the lift propulsion when her mission was done. As the train got up to speed, she pulled out her tablet and made a note of it - there had to be some clever control software or unique hardware there. In particular, she wanted to find out how they were doing magnetic-assisted lift without the normal jerking sensation when the fields overlapped; her scanner could only tell her so much. Maybe if she…

The explosion rocked the tunnel. Ahead of her, the passageway began to sag. Rye grabbed onto the nearest railing; the carriage had been empty, not unusual based on her experience of the Uil’l transport network, but she really wished she had someone with her who knew what the contingency plan was for an emergency failure on the network.

The carriage safety systems cut in. A failure of the magnetic lift triggered spring-loaded skis to extend from all sides, wedging the vehicle into its tunnel with a shower of sparks as it slowed from the several hundred miles an hour it normally traveled at. Rye braced herself as it came to a stop, then punched the emergency communications button. Nothing.

Frowning, the bunny girl tapped her own communicator. Static filled the cabin for a minute. “Fuck.” With a grimace, she reached into her pockets and pulled out a backup communicator. Again, nothing but the hiss of a unconnected line.

Glancing up and down the tunnel to check she was alone, Rye sank to the floor and began spreading out her available equipment, taking a mental inventory. One communicator down might be failure, two a potential cascade issue, but three? That meant her comms were being blocked for some reason.

The Uil’l team punched through the tunnel wall two minutes later. Blacked out gear, no visible markings, they moved with the efficiency of people who had trained for this for a long time. Two set up cover in each direction down the tunnel, two moved to plant charges around the area they’d breached the transit network, while a group of three moved to check the door into the carriage. A door that was warped into the frame by the **** of the deceleration; they didn’t bother with trying it, breaching charges neatly blowing the hinges a second later.

The leader of the group stepped inside, sweeping his weapon across the carriage to find their target, then paused. Nothing. Wait - not nothing; there was a small toy sitting in the middle of the floor. Approaching cautiously, he prodded it with his tunnel-gun. It didn’t look like anything as it rocked back into place - just a broken radio. Turning back to his men, he opened his mouth to speak - and then Rye’s makeshift device activated.

Running as fast as she could down the tunnel, Rye grinned as the dim light of a fireball blossomed behind her. “That’s what ya get for bringing too many charges with ya when ya mine shit, idiots,” she panted as she ran. The nearest maintenance exit was still a minute’s jog away, but the main thing was whoever had been trying to accost her had just found out why it was never a good idea to attack a Rabyth who’d had time to improvise. Reg had shown her Uil’l remote mining charges and the standard detonation signals for using them when they’d needed to open a hole in a wall to adjust the maintenance pumps - it’d been child’s play to rig her backup communicator to sweep across a range of possible frequencies pulsing out the command to go bang. She doubted whoever had tried to capture her had even had time to realize what was happening, judging by the fireball now filling the collapsed end of the tunnel.