Tunnels 06 - Terminal

more of these missiles followed, he realised it was fallout from the explosion, like a shower of miniature meteors. But the main barrage was over almost as soon as it began, and he was far enough away for it not to be a serious hazard.
    Even though there was no ‘up’ or ‘down’ in this place, Jiggs didn’t need his finely tuned sense of direction to tell him that the explosion had sent him in completely the wrong direction. He checked his position in relation to the Crystal Belt. If he was to have a hope of navigating his way back to the outer surface again, he needed to find the mouth of the second void, called Smoking Jean, which they’d used on their journey to the inner world. He tried to use his booster to adjust his flight path, but such was his velocity that even several minutes with the propulsion device at full thrust made little difference.
    But he had no option but to persevere if he ever wanted to get home again, so he kept using the blaster, all the time referencing his position against the still-glowing blast site.
    That was when he noticed something curious. A streak of green light appeared in the distance, then faded away. Jiggs was wondering if his eyesight was playing up again when, several seconds later, it was followed by a second streak, although this time it was yellow.
    ‘Flares?’ Jiggs wondered aloud.
    Of the team, only he, Sweeney and Drake had been carrying flares in those particular colours. The green flare was a signal to report to an emergency RV, while the yellow one meant that the sender needed help – in effect it was a distress flare. Sending both up at once made no sense at all.
    Jiggs frowned, briefly considering the possibility that something on the drifting corpse of the Limiter he’d killed had been set alight in the blast. But it was highly improbable that it would have been those precise colours. No. Jiggs quickly decided that it had to be either Drake or Sweeney, or one of the others. But who?
    And he knew the flares must have gone off because of theintense heat, so there was no point in sending a counter-signal. Whoever it was had to be in trouble.
    He didn’t think twice about what he must do.
    ‘We never leave anyone behind,’ Jiggs said, already setting himself on a new course to intercept where his team member – or perhaps members – were bound. There was enough propellant in the booster tanks for the detour, so that wasn’t a concern. His main worry was that he’d miss his speeding target, whose flight path would eventually take it into the huge suspended masses of water or even beyond them, into the Crystal Belt. But in the endless black canvas of this huge space, broken only by the flickering muted light, it was tantamount to looking for a needle in a haystack, at midnight.
    Taking out his light-intensifying monoscope, he put it on his head and adjusted it for the ambient light levels. Although Drake had tried his best to make him adopt one of his proprietary lenses, Jiggs had stuck firmly to his Soviet-made night scope. The electronics may have been primitive compared to Drake’s design, but it had seen him through two decades of active service, and he knew how to repair it in the field if it malfunctioned.
    But now all Jiggs was seeing through his monoscope was chunk after chunk of slow-moving rock that had been flung out by the explosion. Then finally he spotted something that looked more promising, and for a few seconds he continued to track it through his scope. It was further out than he’d expected, but nevertheless Jiggs angled his booster so he could home in on it, praying that it wasn’t just another hunk of itinerant rock.
    Jiggs finally steered himself onto a parallel trajectory, then closed the distance with blips from his thruster. As he madeout more through his monoscope, he was filled with hope when he saw what appeared to be one of the team from the Bergen and the booster rocket trailing behind on the end of a lanyard. With a final burst of speed, he was near enough to take hold of the drifting form. He seized the Bergen, which was still smouldering in places, then turned the body towards him.
    ‘My God! It’s you, Drake!’ he cried.
    But it wasn’t just Drake – there was someone else with him, although this second person was so badly hurt as to be almost unrecognisable.
    Jiggs concentrated on Drake to start with. Even from a cursory inspection, Jiggs could tell that he was in a very bad way. Patches of his fatigues had