...And Into The Fire

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

    Chapter 7

One thing I have to say about the media, it's great for
passing around miss-information. You give them half of a
fact and they will concoct a story that fits what they want
to hear. The fact that it may not be anything like reality
doesn't have anything to do with it.

This was something that was becoming very clear to me as I
sifted through the news feeds coming from outside the hall.
Apparently the Hammerheads had cut of the communication
lines right before the Council meeting had started, so know
one on the outside knew what they had done, only that
communications had been lost.

The Hall being closed twenty minutes later didn't help
anything. Most business that relied on the Hall closed, and
a few others tried to get new trade centers set up.

Then the folds started to collapses on themselves when they
where opened, and with Prid being as far as it was from the
next system, they where the only way off. Panic started,
some rioting, the usual response to something like that.

To top it all of, a couple hours later some information
leaked out, totally fabricated information I'm sure, that a
terrorist group had tried to take over the council and the
Marble Hall, and that the Hammerheads where fighting them
off.

Shutting the computer off, I leaned back in my chair a bit.
'The only people the Hammerheads are fighting are the ones
don't want then in charge' I though to myself.

It was a safe bet that they where feeding this to all the
other people that had been trapped in the Hall, where every
they had rounded them up at. I just wondered why they where
going to do with the few Council members who knew what had
happened.

Standing, I stretched out my arms wide, at the same time
bending forward, and stretching my tail as well. Most all
the chairs made on Prid where for people with smaller tails,
and they nearly all pinched a nerve in mine.

Sitting down on the edge of the desk, I tried to think of
what to do next. Slowly rubbing the side of my head (I had
spent three or so hours in front of the computer screen, my
head was hurting), I tried to think of what to do next.

What I really needed to find out was what had happened to
the others. All I knew is that the teleport curtain to Fox's
house was down, I didn't know anything about where he,
Rathal, or Rachel was at, or even if any of them where
alive.

I sighed, I didn't know where to go from here. I had all
these things I needed to know, and I had no idea what to
_do_ to achieve them. It wasn't like I could just waltz up
to a guard and ask them for what I wanted to know.

Then something blinked on. All the communications lines, the
phone and the data-wave, all of them where still locked down
(I check just minutes before), but with all the guards
moving around, they must have had some kind of way to
communicate with each other.

I grinned to myself. A plan was starting to form.

* * *

I slowly drifted awake as someone started to shake me on the
shoulder. Slowly opening my eyes I didn't see anything.
"What..." I started to say, when I felt a finger press
against my muzzle, and heard Marn whisper, "voices."

I nodded a bit, remember where I was. I guess I had fallen
asleep while Marn though over everything I had told him.

Below us, I could here voices grumbling and yelling. It
sounded like five or six different people. There was also a
kind of a mechanical sucking sound.

"how long?" I whispered.

"a couple hours." He replied. "from what i was able to see,
it looks like there checking the walls. they'll be up here
soon, so we had better go."

Looking around, it was then that I noticed, in the defused
light from the searchers below, that all of Marn's small
amount of things had been removed from the catwalk.

He slowly stood, being careful not to make a sound. Then
slowly headed down the catwalk. I followed him, doing my
best to be quite.

After going for about five minutes, and turning a few
corners. Marn reaching into his clothing, and pulled a flash
light out. Flipping it on he bent down and slowly worked his
claws into the metal.

He paused a second after he had his claws dug in, then
slowly, panting hard at the exertion, he pulled the metal
panel out of the wall.

Behind it was a tunnel, carved into the solid rock the Hall
was built in. I suddenly wondered how far under ground we
where. I knew the height of the shaft we had just been
wasn't a good measure, as it came out on top of a small
mountain.

I watched Marn crawl into the dirty tunnel, then look back
over his shoulder. "I hope you like crawling backwards.
There's no room to run around in here, and you have to pull
the panel back on."

I looked at him, then down at the panel, which had handles
welled to the back from some reason.

"Come on!" he hissed.

I nodded, glad that the tunnel was only a few inches above
floor level. Getting on my paws and knees, I slowly started
back into the tunnel, my feet and tail brushing against his
as he crawled forward. When I was almost totaly into the
tunnel, I reached over, and grabbed the handles of the
plate. Then moving back a bit more, I slowly yanked it back
on. I gave it ten or so hard yanks to make sure it was
tight.

Looking back over my shoulder, I saw how little room I had
in the tunnel. It was about three inches above my shoulders,
making it about two and a half feet tall, and maybe three
feet wide.

Slowly I worked my way backwards, until I was caught back up
with Marn, who had keep going while I had closed then panel.

"What is this." I asked, already feeling cramps forming,
adjusting myself so I was on my elbows instead of my paws.

"Some kind of service tunnel." He said, his voice a bit
faint. "I've found four of them. There cooler in here, so
there is airflow around the panel, each time I though I
found a way out, I was wrong."

I winched as I knocking my head against the top of the
tunnel. "Who made them?"

"I think they may have had something to do when the Hall was
built. I really don't know. The point is though that it's
hidden, and it bends and turns enough to keep as hidden from
any searchers."

I sighed. "I don't think, if there following my sent, they
probably will find it strange when it suddenly stops, a
little more checking and they will quickly find this
tunnel."

He chuckled a bit behind me. "Not really, before I went to
wake you, I sprayed a sent defuser around the last turn."
The turn was a four-way connection of ducts. "It will take
them a time to find out which way you went, and then to find
you."

I paused for a second, rubbing my upper arm. "Where are we
going?"

"To the center duct." he said.

I did a quick calculation. "That's four miles from the other
ducts. I hope we don't have to go the whole way in this
tunnel."

"Nope," he called back. "Just two miles."

I could feel all the blood running from my face. We had been
in the tunnel already, for what felt like half an hour, and
maybe had gone a hundred yards. Two miles was a long way to
go.

I winched as I hit my head again, 'I hope it's not _to_
far.' I though to myself.