Loud, angry yells from the hallway, though muffled by the closed door, still rudely wakened James Brennan. He only required seconds to recognize that he was in unfamiliar surroundings. He jumped out of his bed and silently approached the door, which resembled a watertight door from a ship, but much thinner, and taller, with a pointed top as opposed to rounded. When he’d gone to sleep the night before he hadn’t been wearing his Army Combat Uniform, but he was now, in addition to a Colt M9 handgun on his waist. He pulled the sidearm out, and released the safety as he leaned his head towards the port-hole style door to his room.
In the hall two men were yelling and throwing punches at each other. One was about a foot taller than the man he was beating on, and seemed far more worked up. James decided he’d better break things up before they got any more violent.
Holstering his sidearm, but keeping his hand on it, he pulled the door open and charged into the hallway.
“HEY! Break it up!” he bellowed.
The two fighters didn’t seem to hear him as the taller one slammed his opponent into the wall, lifting him off his feet.
“Break it up!” James ordered again, this time shoving both men, hard, away from one another.
The two men seemed stunned for a moment with the addition of another person, but the big man reacted quickly and charged towards James, head lowered like he was attempting a football tackle. James ducked around the tackle, a hard feat in the relatively narrow hallway, and then kicked his assailant, throwing him off balance. The man fell to the ground, as James pulled his side arm out again.
“Don’t move!” He ordered, and then glanced back at the other man. He had collapsed to the floor, and was holding his hand to his bleeding nose.”
“Of course!” The bigger man yelled, “Of course the military is behind this! Where am I?!”
“Actually, I’m just as lost as you are. I just woke up, and I’ve got no idea where we are.
“What?! Great, another useless idiot.”
“Why did you attack him?” James asked, gesturing to the smaller man.
The man shrugged before responding, calming down, “I figured he knew where we were. When he didn’t tell me, I decided to beat it out of him.”
“Right.” James turned to the crumpled man on the ground “Do you know where we are?”
“No!” he barked back.
Returning to the big man, who was now noticeably calmer, James asked “What’s your name?”
“Zach, Zach Walker. I’m a quarterback at my community college.” He stuck his hand out, now noticeably calmer than before. James holstered his sidearm, locked the clasp and shook the Zach’s hand.
“How about you?” James asked the other man.
“Ed Drake.” He seethed, a mix of despair and frustration in his eyes.
“And I’m James Brennan. Now that we all know each other, how about we figure out where we are?”
“Forget it. I’m going back to my bed, this is all just some dumb trip.” Ed mumbled, climbing to his unsteady feet and stumbling into one of the other bedrooms in the hallway.
“How about you Zach?”
“Sure, I’ve got a party to get to tonight, let’s get out of here.”
“Follow me then.”
James un-holstered his handgun once again, and pointed it at the ground. The hallway towards where Ed had gone ended in a solid wall some twenty feet distant, so they headed the other way. A few exposed pipes ran along the edges of the ceiling. James noticed that the carpet beneath their feet was heavily worn, and steel plating was visible in several spots. It appeared that the wall had been painted at one point, but that had worn off long ago.
A set of steep stairs, almost to the point of being a ladder, appeared to their left. James held up his hand to signal Zach to stop, but he didn’t get the message and bumped into James.
“Hey!” James whispered intensely, “This,” he put his hand up again, “means stop!”
“Well so-rry!”
“Keep it quiet.” I’m going up these steps for a minute, watch the hallway.”
James slowly climbed the ladder stairs and lifted his head barely above the floor of the next level up. He had to climb up onto the floor and poke his head out into the corridor, in order to see anything besides the alcove where the ladder came up. There was another ladder behind him, ascending to the next level.
Poking his head down the hallway, he didn’t see anything of interest, just more doors. The lighting wasn’t very good with dull lights spaced every twenty feet or so. From what he could see, this level looked better kept, though there wasn’t any carpet, and the walls were a dull metallic gray.
He stepped into the hallway to get a better look, but jumped back when more lights along the corridor lit up. He waited a moment but heard nothing and took another look down the corridor. Nothing was moving. Perhaps the lights were on motion sensors.
Deciding that he and Zach would come back up after they cleared the first floor, he went back down the ladder.
“What did you see?” Zach asked, again a little too loud for James’ desire to remain stealthy.
“Just another corridor. Let’s clear this level first.”
“Shouldn’t we go up?” Zach protested, maybe we’re underground.”
“We don’t know that. Let’s see if we can find a window or a level marker first.”
A few feet beyond the stairs they found another door in the side of the corridor. Zach looked in the window first.
“Hey! It’s some of my buddies!” Zach yelled as he turned the wheel on the door and lifted the latch.
“Hold it.” James said, but it was already too late. Zach was inside.
There were four sets of bunks in the room, arranged around the walls with an open area in the center of the room, but only two of the beds were occupied. The two sleeping men were both soon awake with Zach’s violent shaking.
“Jake! Tyler! Get up!”
The men were understandably disoriented, but Zach quickly explained everything they knew thus far, and within a minute or so, they were ready to move. Zach introduced Jake and Tyler as two of the biggest linemen from Zach’s football team. They were big men.
Now there were four, and James quickly figured out that the two new guys were as incapable of stealth as their quarterback.
The corridor ended with another one of the ship-style doors. Looking through, James only saw another corridor, with a similar door at the end. They opened the door and proceeded through. Again there were bedrooms lining the hallway, though these rooms were considerably nicer. Each had its own queen sized bed, along with other furniture. Some had occupants, others did not. They didn’t awaken anyone else, and quickly moved through to the end of the corridor. Again James checked through the porthole before opening the door. At first he saw nothing, only black. As his eyes adjusted though, he saw distant, small points of light.
“Looks like you were wrong about our being underground Zach. I see stars.”
James opened the door, and the four men moved insider. James was more cautious, and looked around to get a better picture of the room, while the three football players bolted straight for the window.
“Hey James,” Zach said, sounding in shock, “Come take a look.”
James moved over, and his jaw dropped. Of all they places he’d been considering, it hadn’t occurred to him that they would be in space.
“I didn’t get an A in geography,” Zach began, “But none of that land looks like earth.”
James came to the same conclusion. None of the continents on the planet below looked anything like the continents of earth.
Just then, James noticed movement out of the corner of his eyes. Turning towards his left, he saw a woman, also staring out the window in apparent shock because she seemed to not notice the four men who had joined her in the room.
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