"The nuclear reactor is going critical!" Carter shouted in a panic, large beads of sweat rolling down his forehead and dripping onto his helt visor.
Jason was instantly on high alert. He keyed his mic and spoke rapidly into the comms: "Austin, this is Jason. We are buried roughly 500 ters underground. Zero fatalities so far! We have a few injuries, but the dics are on it. Nothing critical!"
"I need an imdiate halt to all mining operations. I repeat, cease all surface mining imdiately! Sector B11 has suffered a massive crustal collapse, likely triggered by the heavy excavation. Do not risk operations in other sectors! Shut it all down!" Jason barked the order, repeating it for absolute clarity.
Austin was silent for a few seconds as the gravity of the situation hit him. "Okay, understood. Hold your position in the spacecraft. I'll imdiately reroute automated excavators from the other outposts to dig you out..."
"No!" Jason rejected the plan instantly, his voice urgent. "Our nuclear reactor is failing. Staying here is a death sentence. We have to find another way out..."
As he spoke, the satellite uplink degraded into heavy static, cutting in and out. He quickly condensed his ssage.
"We're going to push toward the known cave entrance in Sector B11! You can track our path from there! The primary cave entrance in Sector B11!"
"If you send a rescue team, send only automated drones! Under no circumstances are you to send human personnel! The reactor could blow at any second!"
The signal cut out completely. The debris had buried them too deep, and satellite teletry could not penetrate hundreds of ters of solid rock. Around them, loose gravel and boulders continued to rain down from the ceiling.
Unsure if orbital command had heard his final warning, Jason dropped the comms receiver.
He turned around abruptly. "Is the reactor really going to blow? Is there any way to patch it?"
A team of engineers scrambled into the cockpit and engineering bay to retrieve the raw teletry. A few minutes later, they erged, their faces ashen.
William, their lead engineer, offered no comforting smile. His brow was heavily furrowed as he delivered the grim news. "The primary condenser is shattered. The blunt force trauma ruptured the cooling lines, venting the liquid sodium coolant. Core temperatures are climbing steadily. A critical ltdown and subsequent thermal explosion are highly probable."
The blood drained from everyone's faces.
This was a heavy nuclear reactor; if it went critical, the resulting blast would be comparable to a small atomic bomb.
Even equipped with advanced power armor, surviving a point-blank atomic detonation was physically impossible. This ant the crew had to abandon the reinforced spacecraft and flee into the unknown subterranean abyss for cover!
They had to run as far and as fast as they could. Who knew what kind of alien horrors lurked in the pitch-black depths of this colossal cavern?!
But compared to being vaporized by a nuclear blast, venturing into the dark was their only option.
"Is there any chance of repairing it?" Jason asked quickly, seeing the sheer terror in the eyes of his crew.
William shook his head. "No. This is a fast-neutron breeder reactor, not a standard comrcial plant. It relies on liquid sodium for cooling. The condenser is busted, and the sodium has completely vented. Sodium is highly reactive; it combusts instantly upon contact with atmospheric moisture. The reactor... well, it's completely out of control. It's literally on fire. We have no way to manually insert the control rods and halt the fission reaction."
Panic rippled through the cabin. The nuclear reactor was on fire!
The other engineers looked at each other helplessly.
If they were safely aboard the mothership with a full engineering bay, this might be manageable. But down here, ard with nothing but a few wrenches, there was absolutely no way they could put out a sodium fire burning inside a nuclear core.
Jason's heart hamred against his ribs. It was an agonizing dilemma.
Evacuating the spacecraft right now was incredibly dangerous. Boulders and jagged rocks were still falling from the collapsed ceiling. A massive rock dropping from several hundred ters up could easily crush a person to death, power armor or not. If a helt visor cracked, the toxic hydrogen sulfide and carbon monoxide in the cavern air would kill them instantly.
But compared to a nuclear ltdown, it was a risk they had to take!
He opened his mouth to give the evacuation order when William spoke up again. "Don't panic just yet. The reactor casing was designed with extre contingencies in mind. The containnt vessel can withstand the burning sodium for a while; it won't detonate imdiately."
"An auxiliary water-cooling system has automatically engaged. The core will continue to boil the water in the secondary tank to bleed off heat. It will maintain its current temperature and won't go critical until that water is entirely evaporated! I guarantee it!"
Jason seized on the lifeline. "How much ti? How many hours do we have?"
He understood William's implication: the spacecraft was safe for now, but the clock was ticking.
"Eight hours. Ten hours at the absolute maximum before the reservoir boils dry..." William replied, his face deadly serious.
He knew perfectly well that eight hours wasn't nearly enough ti for a rescue team from orbital command to dig 500 ters down through highly unstable bedrock. No matter how many drones they mobilized, it was mathematically impossible. And what if their digging triggered another cave-in?
Hearing the tiline, Jason made a decisive call. "Then we hold our position here until the rockfall above us stabilizes. Once the debris stops falling, we evacuate the ship imdiately."
"Our objective is the primary cave entrance located over ten kiloters away from our original drop zone in Sector B11! Everyone, pack your gear. Grab weapons, ergency rations, high-intensity flashlights, everything..."
"Move! Prep for imdiate evacuation!"
Jason's commanding shout snapped them out of their terror. Moving in stunned silence, the crew scrambled to their quarters to gather essential supplies.
The power armor granted them imnse load-bearing capacity, aning they could carry practically anything useful without worrying about being weighed down.
The interior of the spacecraft was dead silent, save for the frantic sounds of rummaging and gear being locked into place.
Jason was the Leader of the Federation, and over the years, his unshakeable authority had beco deeply ingrained in their minds. Seeing him stand firm gave the terrified scientists and engineers a pillar of support.
Although they were terrified, this stability prevented a full-blown emotional breakdown. So had weak legs and sweaty palms, but they gritted their teeth and pushed through it.
Nobody argued against Jason's plan. After all, nobody wanted to stay strapped to a ticking nuclear bomb.
Ti ticked by. Gradually, the violent shower of rocks from the ceiling slowed to an intermittent trickle, then stopped entirely.
The crew was fully packed. Miraculously, three heavy tracked rovers, each the size of a passenger bus had survived the crash in the vehicle bay! These would be perfect for transporting the injured personnel and hauling the bulk of their ergency supplies.
Whether it was psychological or physical, everyone could feel the ambient temperature inside the spacecraft rapidly spiking.
The reactor was now venting steam at temperatures exceeding two to three hundred degrees Celsius. They couldn't wait any longer.
"Move out!" Jason ordered, taking the lead and stepping out of the airlock onto the cavern floor.
The ground was a thick, soft layer of organic soil, built up over millions of years and speckled with tiny, bioluminescent blue fungi. It yielded softly underfoot, feeling incredibly fertile.
Aside from a few biologists who noted it with passing interest, no one cared. They filed out of the spacecraft one by one, marching toward the yawning maw of a nearby tunnel.
Unbeknownst to the retreating crew, swarms of alien insects were massing in the shadows. Drawn by the imnse thermal bloom of the failing reactor, which was blasting a massive infrared signature for kiloters across the subterranean world, the creatures were rapidly converging on the crashed spacecraft...
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