The amount of falling rock increased. Simon's dive rig scraped against the chute. His heart hammered in his chest. The clinking of rocks bouncing off the shaft loudened, and the descending debris blotted out the magnesium flares in the chamber above like a swarm of locusts.

When Simon exited the shaft and entered the glowing chamber, Captain Edgars rushed in seconds later. No sooner did he clear the chute, that a downpour of rock poured into the shaft. The rubble fanned out in front of the exit and rose in a sloping pile. Large boulders crashed down on each other and filled the chute. A fine cloud of silt belched from the shaft, clouding the visibility at the mouth of the passageway. The earth stopped rumbling, but the smashing rock continued for a moment longer.

Simon pictured in his mind the shaft full of rock. His bowels knotted like a ball of snakes.

Digger surveyed the damage. He picked up a hunk of rock and examined it.

"Computer, magnify. Run analysis." When the computer identification confirmed his hunch, he grinned. "It's worse than it looks." He dropped the rock from his hand. "It's mostly the limestone layer. I can get us out, but it's going to take some time."

Captain Edgars nodded his approval.

"Good. Get at it, and we'll press onward." Edgars took-in the chamber. When he spotted the pocket of air trapped at the ceiling in the far corner, his eyes lit with excitement. "Lacey."

"Sir."

He pointed to her, then the ceiling. "Get your ass up there and report."

"My pleasure, sir." Lacey winked. She kicked into a ball of hunting frogs, and they scattered, even some of the plankton cut a path in front of her and her speargun. Two of the largest newts swam with her toward the air pocket.

"Okay, listen up. From here on out, I want everyone to monitor the video feeds. There are too many to view at once, but you can set them to cycle through the team. Keep alert. The more eyes we have on our surroundings the better."

The team acknowledged and Simon pulled up the video thread, setting it to rotate every ten seconds.

Lacey's voice broke over the radio. "Sir, switch to my feed. You're going to want to see this."

"What is it?" Captain Edgars asked.

Simon tapped his dive mask, switching to Lacey's video stream.

Lacey pointed her speargun at the great hall spread out before her, water-free and full of air judging by the frogs hopping past her and into a crack in the wall at the corner. Thousands of meter-wide ports covered the ceiling—just as many, the floor. "Looks like we've reached the first boobytrap."

[478 words / 2865 total]