The Sewer Breakout

Overview

The second half of the The Goodwin Contract: getting Peter Goodwin from the Aethel City Sewers to Storage B-342 across the boundary between the city and the federal side of Aethel Starport. The crew crouched in the dark with Goodwin, unconscious, strapped to Six’s back, and the starport lay just beyond a layered gauntlet of fencing, no man’s land, and defensive systems.

What Happened

• The signals. Rock Lavey intercepted security traffic. The crew were listed as persons of interest, true identities unknown. The only damning image was a blurry shot of Six in full body armor carrying a person out of the Firetemic Tower.
• The sensors and the plan. Shackleton Magellan’s handheld scanner found a dense network of vibration and noise sensors in the walls and earth. The crew chose to dig slowly beside a large sewer pipe, using the rush of waste to mask the work.
• The dig. Six set the vibro-axe to a low pulse and cut through tile, concrete, and packed earth. Shackleton fetched corrugated metal sheathing and old pipe pieces from further down the tunnel, material that looked left by someone who had used the passage before. The crew shored the ceiling with it.
• The drone. A small circular security drone rounded the corner and found Shackleton in the open. He ran the other way, drawing it off. Rock hurled a chunk of concrete at it as it passed; the hit rang and the drone ignored it. Shackleton fired the EMP, sent the drone into the sewage water, and blacked out his own electronics for several seconds.
• The squad. An Aethel Safety Bureau four-officer squad, armored and armed with sonic stunners and blaster rifles, ordered Shackleton to his knees. He knelt and set the smart rope snaking through the water. His warning: a very poisonous sewer snake lay between him and them. The squad halted, lights on the water. When the stunners failed to stop the rope, they destroyed it with blaster fire.
• The gas. Officers pushed a thin wire tube through the tunnel wall near Rock’s face and gas began to fill the excavation. Rock shoved the tube into the dirt and put on a surgical mask from his medical kit. Six kept digging.
• Shackleton’s route. He scattered debris and corrugated steel behind him, reached the Sewage Discharge Room, and chose the unmapped stone stairs over the maintenance ladder. They led up through a hidden floor panel into the Hidden Basement, past a fire exit whose alarm stayed silent, into an alley below street level. He lost his pursuit in the crowds near the Bamboo Union 103 Lodge.
• The wrong heading. Six hit a hard concrete barrier and realised he had dug parallel to the starport wall instead of toward the ship. He considered leaving Rock’s body behind to save time and decided against it because the DNA could be traced to the Albatross. He cut a circular plug from the cinder block, his axe battery died mid-cut, and he swapped in a fresh cell.
• The sub-level. Six popped the plug and caught it before it fell. Beyond it lay the Aethel Starport Sub-Level: eight federal soldiers in military-grade armor and two Dreadnought battle suits, watching a maintenance drill boring at the wall from the far side. Rock carried Goodwin to a support pylon as a guard glanced over, and the guard turned back. The two followed the conveyor belts to the storage sector and Storage B-342.

Participants

See frontmatter.

Outcome

Goodwin arrived intact at Storage B-342. The local news that evening credited four Aethel Safety Bureau officers with dismantling a Bamboo Union tunnel smuggling operation, with one officer’s knee injured, a story built on the crew’s tunnel and the hidden basement. The crew said nothing. Next: The Storage B-342 Handoff.