Saru warriors ran to get into place behind new barriers that they had worked on as a last minute change of plans. Alan wasn’t interested in loosing anymore Saru or equipment with careless actions. Some of the mini tanks were positioned to park in front of barricades to hopefully minimize damage.

“Drone group,” Alan said, “hold on firing off your rockets until the doors are completely open. Once they are completely open, then open up on the room. Understood?”

As per instructions the Saru dug trenches into the floor to help with cover and make it safer for the mini tanks to shoot over the top of them. It made Alan a little nervous to put them in between weapons fire on both sides, but it was the only real way he could think of to give them a legitimate chance to take out the Ustobo that had anti-vehicle weapons.

Him and Sara both also dug in towards the rear of the groups. The saber cats stayed out of the way for now. They were not the most effective in this environment. They were brought along for only one particular target that was likely a ways down yet.

Two more mini tanks were coming into the corridor to take up positions at the rear behind their designated barriers along the wall. A few Saru ran in and out of the area to grab last minute supplies before the encounter began.

Sara was at the control terminal where she had hacked the ventilation system. She was trying to rewire things to make sure the doors behind them would remain open.

The double door to the barracks made a thunderous cracking sound. The doors flew open, crashing and mangling themselves on impact in their casings.

Alan’s head whipped around just in time to see two large structures in the middle of the barracks room that looked very different from the pictures they had gotten. Both structures has a barrel with a green light that was quickly intensifying. Alan had just started to dive for cover when one of the hit the wall near where he was diving to.

The explosion flipped him over and knocked him onto his back. The mini tank that was right in front of him was pushed by the force of impact to the center of the room crashing into the one next to it.

Everything went black and there was a terrible ringing in Alan’s ears. He groaned. He felt something tugging on him. Where and why he wasn’t sure. He was starting to hear distant muffled noises. His vision began to have blurry light that grew and had fuzzy coloration to it. He tried to focus but couldn’t.

Someone was screaming his name. Something pulled away from him. The sounds got more distinct and closer. His eye sight picked up pace and got clearer. The sound of battle mixed with the ringing.

Sara’s face appeared over the top of him. “Alan! Can you hear me!”

Alan nodded slowly.

“Thank god!” she said. Her face disappeared again. “Hit that last turret! Forget the Ustobo until that turret is down! Saber cats get the wrecked tanks in the back out. We need rockets in here!”

Alan rolled to his side to get his bearings. Sara had dragged him near his dugout area. There was another mini tank that was in front of his dugout, cocked to the side in an attempt to get into the vacated position. It was a smoking wreck. The wall nearest him had been blown open deep exposing a very large and now damaged vertical pipe.

Sara was in his dugout, popping up and taking shots with her rifle. Though he was sore all over, he found his strength to get upright and take cover beside Sara. He found his rifle nearby and retrieved it. It seemed intact. He didn’t try using it yet.

Alan watched the mini tank get dragged out of the corridor. The moment it was clear a mini tank rounded the corner and fired off it’s rockets at the turret then pulled out of entrance to get cover. Another tank did the same manuver from the other side.

Alan could hear explosions happening in the barracks area.

“They got it! They got it!” an excited Saru yelled.

Sara popped up to confirm. She came back down and faced Alan. “You need to give the command to attack the Ustobo now. They need to know you’re alright!”

Alan understood and nodded. He cleared his throat and activated his comms, “Good job. Hold your positions and take out the Ustobo.”

“Alan’s alive! We win, we win!”

Alan mustered all the strength he could manage and got up above his cover with his rifle out. He fired off a couple of shots that missed before dropping down behind cover again.

The amount of red laser fire filling the corridor was nightmarish. Worse it was sprinkled with some green. The mini tanks kept rotating at the back door, firing off rockets and the occasional cannon blast before rotating out. An anti-vehicle projectile would explode on occasion. It was usually followed by a Saru claiming credit for the kill.

Sara and Alan took turns popping up to kill off what they could see. After a long drawn out shooting match, the weapons fire began to die down. The Ustobo started to make charges with bladed weapons. Most of them were shot down before they could even get close.

“They must have spent most of the energy rounds they had,” Alan said to Sara.

“94.3% probability that is correct,” she smiled back at him.

“How are we doing on our end?”

“I believe we are still good. I’ve had the saber cats charging magazines and running some to the surface to charge the extras in the mecha,” she smiled.

“Smart woman!” Alan let the back of his head rest against the barrier. “I should have built a charging sled that we could keep at the rear for that purpose.”

“Now is not the time to be designing mister!” she playfully slugged him in the shoulder. “We need to get this done with what we have left.”

The laser fire from inside the barracks all but ceased. Small fires and smoke filled the air. Some of it was drawn into the corridor and sucked into the vents.

Alan popped up and took a careful look. “Mop up and make sure the doors are secure.”

A dozen Saru got out of their hiding places and moved in four teams. Alan watched, waiting for the rest to join them. He moved closer to the dugouts of the other Saru. His heart was crushed when he realized they reason the others didn’t join in. Half of them were gone.

“Drone group, how many mini tank drones do we still have operational?” Alan asked.

“We only have nine left.”

Alan was lost for words.

“We’re sorry Alan. We weren’t expecting those turrets.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Sara walked up to him. “So what are you thinking at this point?”

Alan felt at a loss for answers. He walked back to his dugout and stared at the massive hole in the wall where the pipe was. He wanted to find a hole to hide himself in at that moment. To hide from the world and the carnage, and... facing the Saru families of the warriors he had lead to their deaths.

“Alan?!”

The chances of success was slim at best with what they had left.

Sara positioned herself between him and the wall and looked at him sternly through her helmet.

He didn’t see her, just the pipe. A hiding place buried deep in the earth with a hole in it big enough for him to climb into.

“Alan!”

The pipe! “I’m such an idiot! It was right there the whole time!”

Sara’s expression went from concerned to confused. She looked at the hole in the wall then back to him. “What are you talking about? What was right there the whole time?”

“The answer I needed. The best way to end all this is not to fight our way down to the bottom. The answer is the pipe, or rather what is at the bottom of it.”

“The water pump?”

“It isn’t just a ordinary water pump! It’s a mining supply pump. Typically they are used to pump a lot of water in a hurry for water blast mining. It’s normally only used for when you have a whole lot of water and you want to tear into a landscape in a hurry.”

“So you want to drill or... you want to flood the tunnels!?”

“You’re thinking too small. Pump the water up from the water table below, flood and saturate the ground in this little hive. Once the water table is an empty void and the ground above it has the extra weight, the whole thing collapses like a sinkhole crushing everything.”

Sara’s eyes got wide. “I... guess that’s one way to do it.”

“There is a conduit that runs down to the pump outside of that pipe. I need you to tap into it and turn the pump on full blast when it’s safe to do so.”

“Alan,” one of the Saru warriors yelled on the comms, “We are welding the doors yes!?”

“Yes!”

“Ustobo are peeking around the corner at the bottom of next corridor ramp. They’re hiding from us though.”

“That’s fine. Get the doors welded up. Anyone extra needs to get the wounded and dead out of here. Call for the next med sleds.” Alan moved over to the pipe to help Sara dig out around it to find the conduit. “Drone group, contact the Saru in the perimeter tunnels. Tell them to get out of there as fast as possible. All of those tunnels are about to collapse!”

“Alan, do we need to drag these tank drones out?” the saber cat leader asked.

“No. Leave them. Move what is left of the mini drone tanks into the barracks just in case the Ustobo decide to send something up to fight. Everyone else needs to get ready to evacuate.”

“We’re leaving? What about the mean Ungar?”

“Sara and I are working on that. Just help get the others back to the surface.”

Alan and Sara found the conduit and broke it open. Sara started to tie into the wiring to try and get access to the pump controls.

The ground began to rumble.

Sara looked up at Alan. “What’s that?!”

Alan motioned for her to hurry up.

“Alan, Alan, Alan!!! There is more turrets coming up from the ground!” the drone leader said.

“Damn it!” Alan muttered.

“The turrets are shooting the mecha! There’s eight more turrets. What do we do?”

Sara looked at Alan, “Those turrets will tear us apart before we can get to the mecha. Assuming there is any functional mecha when we get to them.”

Alan looked down in silence a moment. He looked back up at Sara. “This was a trap.”

“So what do we do?”

“The only thing we can. You got control of the pump?”

Sara finished up attaching the last couple of wires. There was a bit of a pause. “I do now.”

“Set a timer for five minutes then turn it on full throttle and tell it to keep it there for the next 48 hours.”

“It will take that long?”

“I doubt we’ll have 10, maybe 20 minutes.”

Alan got on the comms, “Drone group, put the tanks by the back door to the barracks. Everyone else evacuate to the vehicle bay. Artillery group... Take out the turrets.”

“But Alan, you might get buried in there if we do that!”

“And we’ll be shot to death by the turrets at the surface or by the fighting forces that are coming up from the bottom. Destroy those turrets, that’s an order.”

The Saru warriors came running out of the barracks and tried to gather up some more of the dead.

“Leave them! There isn’t time. Out! Out! Out!” Alan motioned them.

There was a loud banging noise against the massive door at the back of the barracks. The Saru didn’t need any other motivation.

“Alan, the pump is set. We have three more minutes before the pump kicks into overdrive.”

There was more rumbling of the ground above them. The Saru and saber cats were now at the ramp that lead up to the surface tunnel. Dust drifted down the ramp from above. The thundering was louder and continued for a few minutes.

Sara closed the door to the corridor leading to the barracks. She did what she could to mess up the controls to keep the doors from functioning.

The ground shook with an explosion from behind them. Alan heard rockets from the tanks fire off and the cannons discharge. Enemy laser fire sounded off in the mix. There was another explosion, different from the others. The combat ended with the sound of gushing water.

“Alan, all the drones are dead!”

“Are the turrets down yet?!”

“They’re not moving or shooting anymore, so we think so,” the artillery leader said.

Alan motioned to everyone around him. “Get to the surface now! Get as far as possible past the safe zone perimeter!”

There was a heavy thud against the corridor door. The Saru scrambled up the ramp. The medical sled that had gotten trapped there struggled up the incline with all the extra weight it wasn’t designed to carry.

Another heavy thud against the door. Water began to flow through all the door crevices. The ground shook for a brief moment, not from explosions but like an earthquake.

The Saru, Sara and Alan made it to the top where the mounded cave was. The shaped entrance of the artificial cave was mounded with dirt, more or less sealed off. Daylight shown through gaps in the ceiling. Alan directed them to the mound of dirt that was the closest thing they had to a ramp for one of the holes. Alan and Sara pushed and guided the medical sled up the steep and uneven incline.

There was another thunder against the door below followed by a bellowing roar and splashing water. The ground quaked again for a little bit longer this time. The group of Saru crested the mound and freely hovered it’s way down to the level ground.

The mecha had all been destroyed between the turrets and their own artillery fire. The warriors would have to make a run for it. There was a lot of ground to cover to get to the perimeter.

Sara and Alan slid down the outside of the mound and started to run after the Saru. The little Saru sprinted after the medical sled that was skimming the ground at full speed, gradually pulling away from them all.

Another roar followed by rapid green laser bolts that rained all around Sara and Alan. Alan turned, dropping to a knee as he raised his own rifle, firing off several shots at the Ungar that had emerged.

A saber cat leaped into the air and grappled with the Ungar’s weapon. The second saber cat jumped onto the back of the Ungar, attacking it with claws and teeth. After a short wrestling match the saber cat was able to rip the weapon free and ran off with it.

The Ungar in a full rage managed to get a grip on the other saber cat. With strength Alan couldn’t imagine, the Ungar tore the mechanical head from the saber cat and threw the decapitated body at Alan.

Alan dodged the machine and stood to his feet, the rifle leveled at the now unarmed Ungar. The ground trembled for a good thirty seconds before stopping. The Ungar was a little more steady on his multiple legs than Alan, who had to work at not falling to the ground.

The Ungar pulled a sword from it’s backside and started to charge at Alan.

Alan yelled at him using the Master’s language, saying, “Stand down! You are interfering in a project of the Master’s own design!”