Amber exhaled a gasp of relief and let her carbine drop, thanking every deity on every planet she could think of. The six operatives of Tundra squad also lowered their weapons, exchanging confused looks before Vass Juntaar stepped forward, cocking his head quizzically to one side.

"Is that you, Garret?" he said, a faint smile crossing his sharp features. "You look like hell."

She raised an eyebrow. "Hello to you too."

Vass grinned and tapped the operative to his left on the shoulder, indicating Amber with a nod. The blond-haired girl stepped forward holding a medical kit in one hand.

"Sit down," she said, her voice soft and almost lyrical. "Let me have a look at you."

Amber obeyed, gratefully slumping into a sitting position against the wall as Tundra's medic examined her injuries. The girl started with her face, disinfecting a small wad of cotton and gently brushing away the final vestiges of blood and any tiny splinters of glass that still clung to her eyelid. The chemicals stung, but Amber forced herself not to move, only twitching under the treatment.

"You were very lucky," the medic said, shaking her head slowly. "You could easily have lost an eye."

"Tell me about it," Amber muttered.

Her hands were bloodied and scraped from her tumble during the cave-in, but most of her other injuries were invisible to the naked eye. The Blink body armour and tough, reinforced dry suit had protected her skin – if not her bones. When the medic reached the huge dent in the knee plate her brow furrowed.

"Your leg?" she questioned.

"Hurts like hell."

She nodded and gentle hands slipped around Amber's knee joint, probing the muscles. "How does that f-,"

The medic broke off when Amber let out an involuntary hiss of pain. She turned her eyes skyward, her whole body going rigid as agony burst through her leg and she ground her teeth together to contain a yell.

"Not good." The blond girl frowned. "And you've been walking on it all this time?"

"Running," Amber corrected through gritted teeth.

"How on Earth did you manage that?!"

"I took a lot of painkillers."

The girl looked at her aghast. "You're joking?"

Amber glared back, starting to lose her patience. "No I'm not joking. It was either pop a load of drugs to keep myself going or stay down there and die! Now, are you going to sit there and judge me or are you going to help?"

"Cath, what's the bottom line," Vass interjected, but he sounded casual, almost bored.

"Bottom line?" Cath looked at him. "The bottom line is that she should be in a hospital with an injury like this. Every step she takes on that knee is going to make it worse."

"Well I didn't bring a hospital, I brought you," the squad leader returned smoothly. "So do what you can."

The girl gave him a sour look but didn't argue the point. Instead she opened up her kit and set to work on the injured leg. She injected a muscle strengthener into one side of the knee to start with, and then unfolded the spindly skeletal structure of a temporary splint. Wrapping it around Amber's knee joint, she pressed a button and the lattice metal snapped tight around the limb, tiny drills burying into her muscle and bone to lock it into place.

Amber ground her teeth together against the agony, fighting to keep her leg still as the splint did its work. When it was completely welded to her the pain fell away and she let out a gasp of relief, slumping back against the wall. Cath stood up, still sporting an unhappy look when she addressed her commander.

"Okay, Vass, it's done," she said petulantly. "The splint will provide enough support to keep her walking and the injections will deaden the pain in a localised area, but she can't stay like that for long. We need to get her to a proper hospital."

"All in good time," Vass replied, apparently unconcerned. He looked at Amber. "Can you stand?"

"Let's find out." Bracing herself, Amber sucked in a deep breath and heaved herself up. Using the wall as support she managed to get to her feet and tentatively put weight on her injured leg. A faint pain radiated from her knee when she did so, but it was bearable. She took a few experimental steps on it then shrugged.

"I guess this is as good as I can hope for right now," she said. "I can get around."

"Good enough for me." Vass made a quick gesture and the other operatives of Tundra fanned out to take up defensive positions around the corridor. Then he turned to her smiling mischievously. Amber frowned.

"Why are you in such a good mood?" she asked.

"Why?" His grin broadened. "Because Darien is going to be so damn happy you're alive." He tapped his earpiece. "All teams this is Tundra Squad. I'd like to report some good news. Cancel the funeral, Operative Garret is alive and kicking. We just ran into each other outside the tertiary docking bay."

Amber didn't hear whatever reply he received, confirming that her own earpiece was useless, but she saw him nod, then his smile faded. For several infuriating seconds he stood there, privy to some conversation that she couldn't hear and she could feel the anticipation coiling in the base of her stomach. She needed to know what was happening. At last he looked to her and his expression had lost a lot of its levity.

"I've passed the news as far as I can," Vass said. "But Darien's out of contact right now. They're too deep in the city structure."

"At the Coring Well?"

"I guess so." He shrugged. "There's not much more I can tell them." Then he looked her up and down and cocked an inquisitive eyebrow. "So how about you tell us just what in the heck happened to you on your little adventure?"

After taking a moment to collect her thoughts, Amber launched into a recounting of her ordeal in the city depths, from falling in the collapse through to her frantic escape from the arthropod predator in the lower halls. She could see the operatives around her looking at each other with sceptical expressions, but Vass himself stayed totally impassive, just nodding along as she continued with her tale.

She described the monster in as much detail as she could, and described the alien corpses she had found in the deep. More unconvinced looks flashed her way but she ploughed on unheeding. When she reached the end of her tale, explaining the use of the alien mapper, at least then she'd been able to substantiate the claims by showing off the device itself. She saw Vass's impassive demeanour slip as the wily squad leader looked hungrily at the alien technology. Proof was a valuable thing.

"And that's when I found you guys," Amber said, shoving the mapper back into her backpack. "If Darien's down in the Coring Well, he's not alone. I only saw one of those things down there, but there might have been more. He can't stay there."

"I don't know what you want me to do." Vass shrugged. "They're off comms."

"Just let me borrow a radio," she replied, holding out a hand. "The others need to know what we're dealing with down here."

He frowned; looked at her for a moment. Then he tugged out his earpiece and placed it into her outstretched hand. Giving him a nod of thanks, she quickly shoved it into place. Moulded to the other operative's ear canal, it felt more uncomfortable than usual but Amber ignored the sensation and began her broadcast.

"This is Operative Garret to all Blink units. To anyone receiving me, if descending into the lower levels of the city, use extreme caution. There are live, hostile predators hunting down there – arthropods the size of a shuttle," she began. "They have a heavily armoured exoskeleton, but they are sensitive to intense light. If you encounter one use your glow nodes and concentrate carbine fire on their eyes."

"Amber?!" a familiar voice crackled back over the radio. "Space, it's good to hear your voice!"

"You too, Niamh," Amber returned, smiling. "It's good to be heard. Do you have any information on where Darien is right now?"

"Sorry, at the moment we're guessing. We lost them on comms about twenty minutes ago. If they've kept on course and haven't run into any trouble they'll be inside the Well by now. Other than that...there's not much we can do. Brannigan's still trying to find some kind of life signs tracker that'll give us real time information but so far, no joy."

"What about communications?"

"What about them?"

"A complex this size must have some kind of internal communication network – like a tannoy or something? We need to get a message to Darien somehow. They've got no idea what's waiting down there."

"We'll work it from our end," Niamh said. "You rolling with Tundra right now?"

"Looks that way."

"Then stay out of trouble. If we figure anything out, you'll hear it. Niamh out."

Amber exhaled a long breath. Hearing the welcome voice of Hammerhead's second in command already had her feeling more at ease. Then the earpiece buzzed with another incoming message, this time from the Manitta-Vanna.

"Go ahead," she said.

"Operative Garret, this is Lieutenant Tyndall," the coarse sound of the marine's voice ground over the comm. "First let me say we're all glad to know you're still with us. We lost you on comms and on your mono-rig."

"Everybody's making a fuss." Amber smirked. "But thanks."

"The rest of your team are right at the foundation of the city. We've lost communications but we are getting sporadic bursts of contact from the mono-rigs. They're still moving about but it's hard to piece together exactly where they are or what they're doing. We can say, however, that there's no sign of those predators you mentioned on any of the recent images."

"I don't suppose you've gotten any closer to figuring out what's causing the earthquakes?"

"All we know is that the source is in the Coring Well. Hopefully Darien and the others are on their way to finding out."

"Copy that, Lieutenant," she replied. "Thanks for the head's up."

"We'll keep working from our end and do what we can to help Operative O'Toole get some kind of internal comms working. Manitta-Vanna out."

Amber exhaled a long slow breath as the comm went silent. Reluctantly she pulled out Vass's earpiece and handed it back, unplugging herself from the network once again. Despite being surrounded by a full Blink squad she still felt isolated somehow. She looked expectantly to Tundra's squad leader. "So now what?"

He shrugged, wincing as he pushed his earpiece back in. "We carry on with our assignment."

"What?!"

"Amber, there's no point in any of us going down there after him, not if what you're saying's true," Vass declared. "Until they come back up to a level where we can make radio contact we stay on our original objective. Sending more operatives down into a black hole of communications achieves nothing except multiplying the problems. And with Darien off comms, the buck stops with me."

"Since when?" she snapped. "Niamh's got seniority."

"But I'm a squad leader," he shot back. "Rank trumps age, kid."

Amber glared at him, her fists clenching involuntarily. Despite his dismissive words, however, Vass's face remained calm and collected, as though he were just stating facts. He didn't seem to be taking any pleasure in his new found command status, just a matter-of-fact confidence.

"We're still checking the docking bays to find some way to open the exterior doors," he continued. "If this place is crawling with giant spiders like you say, then we could do with an easy way in and out." He nodded to her. "For now, just stick with us. Darien can look after himself – you should know that better than me."

Every fibre of Amber's body screamed that they should load up, lock stock and barrel and head down into the city to find their fellow operatives. The little rational spark in her brain, however, told her that Vass actually had a point. Throwing more people down into the deepest reaches of the city out of radio contact from the others would most likely only serve to compound their problems.

She met Vass's gaze. "Alright then, how about you show me one of those ships you found?"

"We haven't been able to get inside one yet."

"Well I haven't been with you all this time, have I?"

The other Tundra operatives didn't enjoy that last remark if their sharp looks were anything to go by, but she didn't care. Amber wasn't part of the best team for just her precision Blink capabilities. Her knowledge of space-flight and navigation was unrivalled. Five minutes on the bridge of a human shop of any design and she'd be able to fly it. Right now she fancied trying her luck with an alien design.

Vass, however, simply gave her his wolfish smile. "You've got some brass, Garret, I'll give you that."