-Natural Gases-

Walking slowly, Lin placed one foot in front of the other in careful precision. The vast plains of the very green planet of Muxaar were near impossible to navigate. Each time she would place a foot down, she would gradually increase her weight until she felt as if she could stand there. She had a fair amount of extra equipment that added almost fifty pounds to her person. Without this equipment though, her navigation would be impossible because she needed to detect sound levels under her feet. If it displayed a muffled result, then she was safe to try and cross. If she saw the result of small echoes, she knew the ground was hollow under the thin layer of shale and dirt.

Large caves ran under the vast open areas around Lin, stretches of flat green land that ran far beyond what she was able to see. The caves were caused by flowing lava as the crust of the planet was formed; nothing but small creatures called this young planet home, and most lived in the caves. The caves are massive in some places and Lin would fall right through the thin layer of shale. She had no way of telling how far she would fall, or if she would alert her target of her approach. Losing her target would negate the efforts of the past three years of her life, but she had had bigger losses.

Carefully, Lin ran her scanner over the ground. It was extended on a long pole that allowed her to walk upright while she watched a small screen on the handle of the instrument. She planned to scan the entire planet til she found who she was looking for. It was an entire operation bent on sabotaging this planet’s future and selling it to inhabitants of dying planets.  This was a particular crime that existed for as long as she could fathom, having had a chance to perform the act herself to save her home world gave her particular insight to how convoluted someone’s mind must be to think this is sane.

She followed the oddest path through the plain that her equipment continued to record for her. If she pulled the path up on the small screen, it looked like a small child had scribbled over a large paper with a pen. Lin had been at this for well over a week. She had calculated the contents of the indigenous plants before she started out. Luckily, the grass around her contained well enough nutrients to sustain her for a long time. Everyday around the same time, there was a short rain shower that Lin grabbed her water from; this was caused by the water vapor that came from cooling lava a few hundred miles away. This gave her means to search for as long as she needed. She had been sleeping on the ground, her hair was matted in some places, and she ate as she walked, but none of it bothered her.

On the twelfth day, she caught her first break, and detected an anomaly in the sound waves picked up in the hollow parts beneath her. She knew she had found her target, but how far away she was from them was unknown. She did not let her enthusiasm distract her from any of the careful measures she had to adhere, and she made her way slowly closer to the noise. The waves picked up in strength. Still, she was glad she had a digital way to track her path because she had to backtrack often.

After almost another week of hunting this operation down, Lin no longer required the equipment to hear the sound. She was flabbergasted that the procedure was this loud and she still had not laid eyes on it, or detected it from her scan of the surface from orbit. Still, she saw nothing around her in the expanse. She could feel the vibrations under her feet ,and eventually she started to notice remarkably small holes in the ground where the hollow cave passages were. She wanted to kneel and send a prayer to the suffering planet, but she knew the best thing she could do for it was to press on.

Lin had to stop her surface travel as the noise from the prospector’s equipment made it impossible for her equipment to work. Backtracking easily with her map, Lin found a place with no reading beneath her, and pulled out a long hunting knife. She proceeded to cut into the ground at a dramatic 30-degree angle. She cut a large circle out that included the thin shale underneath it. She stuck her head in, and was happy to see a metal shelf below her. She lowered herself and her equipment into the hole, and then replaced the divot she created. The slant of the cut kept the removed portion from falling into the cave with her.

She rounded the corner and noticed that she was locked into this small portion of the caves, in what appeared to be a storage closet of sorts. After looting a few supplies, she pulled out a silver bobby pin from her hair, whispered a few words to it, and carefully held the pin up to the lock. The pin wiggled to life and inserted itself into the lock, followed by an almost instant click. The bobby pin exited the lock and took a dive off it. Lin caught it in its solid form, and placed it back into her forming fuzzy dreadlocks. She removed the lock and escaped; she was careful to replace it before she hauled off her equipment down the hall.

Lin was impressed with how long she went before she encountered anyone. She kept her equipment on, and pointed it in front of her to detect the sound waves that were different from the machinery in the distance. She lucked out, and was able to surprise two workers before they had a chance to alert anyone to her presence. She set up a tripwire by taking some thin wire she found in the closet, tying it to her equipment, and placing it opposite her in the corridor. When they were exiting their tunnel, she pulled hard on the wire, her equipment swept under their feet, and they fell to the ground hard.

Before either of the workers could recover Lin pulled out a bit of dirt she had in her pocket, said a few words, and threw the dirt in the workers faces. They threw a few curses at her before they fell to the ground; one of them began to snore as both were now fast asleep. Lin clapped her hands together to get the remaining dirt off, and she worked on dragging the sedated bodies to a nearby dead end she had stumbled upon, before coming across the workers.

Lin continued her approach to the ever-growing groan of machinery. The sound haunted her; every time she would round a corner and saw another long stretch of tunnel, her stomach would sink. She could not imagine what it was that they were doing to make this amount of noise for her to not arrive at the source yet. The sick feeling in her stomach spread to a headache. She soon realized it was not the thought of what they were doing that was making her sick, as she came across two more workers; these two were wearing gas masks.

She came to the quick conclusion that there had to be noxious fumes around her. She used the dark to gain a small advantage over the two workers, and surprised them by simply throwing the enchanted dirt at them before they saw her. She removed one of their masks, and studied what level of filtration it provided. She replaced the mask firmly back on the sleeping worker, and hid these bodies behind large supply boxes stacked against the cave wall.

Sifting around in her clumpy hair some, she swiftly produced another silver bobby pin. Holding it close to her mouth, Lin whispered to the shiny object in her dirty hand. When she placed the pin back into her hair, there was a small swooshing sound as a barrier emitted from her head. A perfectly clear sphere encircled Lin’s head, pushing away toxins in the air around her. The bubble worked as a filtration device, exactly like the kind the workers wore. She dreaded to think of how long she had needed a mask; she was sure if she had been mortal, she would have passed out long ago.

Finally, she came across another locked door, this one significantly more complex than the previous door. It was sealed completely around the cracks and had no openings to the other side. Lin rolled her eyes at their attempt to keep the smog contained. It still seeped through the loose earth above them. Once again, she felt around for a pin and pulled out another, it too retained its shine despite the heavy levels of grime. She held the glimmering silver pin close to her face and after another soft message to it in a language that belonged trillions of light years away from them, on a planet that was no more. The bobby pin went to work. 

Just moments later, if maybe a little longer than the previous door, there was a series of large clicks and the tool remerged for a dive. Lin snatched it, and back in her hair it went. Lin had to use her body weight to open the door, it was so heavy and thick. Once she cracked the door, she was blasted by the noise level. This attracted the attention of a few more workers. Before she could complete the task, the workers had to be dealt with. 

While she was glad to be rid of the dirt stuffed into her pockets, material that she had slept with for several nights to give it soul to better hold the enchantment. She was nervous at losing her main defensive tool in this invasion. Lin knew she was fighting the rest of the way at this point. Beyond the door, she could not believe what she saw, despite the warning of the immense amount of noise she had heard the past few days. The sight stopped her dead, and anger slowly filled her.

Several large pipes erupted from the ground and shot out of the cave down one passage. Lin could see several compressors around the large cavern, but she was sure she heard more. The pipes shook violently as they pumped natural resources of some kind from deep within the planet, to some sort of storage facility off site. A few workers noticed her and began to approach, others ran from the room. The ones who chose to approach her gabbed large tools and wielded them like weapons.

Lin was never unprepared as she reached back to her hair. Lin then instructed her little agents, and they soared through the air, their small mass changing shape as they whistled to their targets. They cut the workers tools to shreds, immediately darted over to the series of pipes, and the little silver saws went to work on cutting through the massive pipes.

The workers screamed at her in a language she recognized as one her father had taught her. After a previous run in with an alien, and spending a fair amount of time figuring out how to communicate with one another, she decided it was time to update her language database. For her it was simply a matter of going home to her father. His telepathic ability to know everything and control minds like computers gave her the advantage of simply downloading information straight to her human brain.

She kicked one worker in the chin as he approached her. He hit the ground with a thud, and the others hesitated to attack her, until what appeared to be security showed up. Gas was spilling into the room at massive rates as the pipes were severed. Lin braced, as guns were pointed at her. Lin did not know what kind of gas was pouring into the room, so she quickly redirected her silver to fly across and cut the guards hands deeply so they’d drop the guns. She feared what would happen if one of them went off. 

She defended the room until there were no more comers. It was at this point Lin took a moment to pray to the planet. She got down on her hands and knees and asserted her thoughts into the ground around her. To her surprise, the planet was eager to commune with her. Lin felt the planet’s energy like an excited child’s. She was physically frozen by the effect on her, and she watched as the planet showed her the most amazing scene. Canyons were blown in its thin surface, and the massive caves opened back up for lava to flow into the once active canals again.

The connection was over as quickly as it had begun, and Lin immediately set to work by recalling her instruments. Pulling out a third bobby pin, she placed her most destructive spell into the small silver pieces. They zoomed off and positioned themselves perfectly to achieve the planet’s wishes. Lin then began to drag unconscious bodies out of the massive room. A few people saw what she was doing and helped her. She told them about the ones she had hidden, and told them that if they simply wipe the dirt off them completely, they will wake up and be able to escape themselves.

Lin retreated to her equipment and saw the workers she had hidden behind the crates wake up without a problem. She ran as fast as she could through the tunnels with the others. She retraced her footsteps, and eventually found the first two workers she encountered still sleeping. She wiped them clean and woke them up. Soon, they were all running from the impending explosions. They breached the surface just in time to see the bombs detonate, and earth fly hundreds of feet into the air.

The caves were blown wide open, and there was a deep rumbling beneath their feet as the ground started to collapse into the tunnel system. A nearby mountain top exploded, and the cap soared out of sight. Plumes of smoke exploded in bellows and engulfed the entire sky. Lava followed, flowing down the side of the mountain in the exact direction of the pipes. It was at this point air support from the company came to get their crew. Lin was able to hitch a ride because the workers vouched for her. They never enjoyed their job here, and were held against their will to work in the remote area.

LIN VI