Free Pilgrim by S.J. Bryant

to either side. Black screens were spaced every few
metres, completely blank.
    She kept climbing until she felt a cool
draft hit her face from the left side. She stopped and spun with
her gun drawn. Up to that point, the air in the ship had been
completely still, dead.
    The glowing ball only revealed so much and
past that there was more darkness. She took a step towards the side
of the ship, her gun raised. The breeze was gone but something had
caused it.
    She kept walking. She expected to come up
against the ship’s side at any moment. Instead, her foot went from
hard metal to soft dirt.
    “What the—” she said.
    The glowing ball illuminated dirt at her
feet and to either side the jagged edges of the ship’s forward
door. The door itself was lying in a crumpled heap mere metres from
Nova’s feet.
    Outside of the ship was a massive
underground cave, the size of a small moon. Somewhere in the
distance water was dripping, creating a constant percussive rhythm.
That was the only sound in the deep cave.
    She turned left and crept along the side of
the ship with a hand resting on the metal. It would be too easy to
get lost in a place like this. Twenty metres from the door, the
ship disappeared into a wall of solid rock. The stone was cold and
smooth under her hand.
    She unclipped the glowing ball from her hip
and held it up to the wall. The yellow light shone over the stones
and revealed not a random rock-face but a large carved mural.
Trees, animals and patterns were engraved into the rocks.
    The carvings continued on down the wall. The
biggest figure was a statue of a woman. She looked human and
towered twenty times taller than any real woman Nova had ever seen.
She was made to look as if she was sitting back into the wall. The
lifelike features made the hairs on Nova’s neck stand on end.
    “Cal, can you hear me?” Nova said.
    The only response she got was static; the
signal was too weak to get this far underground.
    “Dammit, Cal. What are you doing?” she said
under her breath. “Record log and send to Cal when signal
available.” The chip in her head began recording.
    “Some evidence of an ancient culture. It
looks like this planet was colonised before this ship got here. I’m
exploring the first chamber; there are many statues and carvings.
Possible indications of faith and religion.”
    She moved further into the cave and away
from the ship. The cavern was huge. Further in, it narrowed to a
single corridor.
    “There is no evidence of candles or torches.
The tunnels have been widened artificially. No sign of life.” She
kept her voice low but it echoed back to her in the narrow tunnel.
Her gun remained cocked and held out in front of her.
    “Possibility of hidden artefacts. I’m going
deeper into the caverns. At this stage, I have made no turns,
maintain mapping feature.”
    She pushed forward, keeping an eye on the
ground at her feet in case it should suddenly fall away. The rest
of her focus was on the tunnel in front of her. There was no
guarantee that the people who had once lived in these caves weren’t
still here.
    Further on, the tunnel split into two. The
left tunnel had a flower carved above it, the other had a
half-moon. She glanced down the tunnel with the half-moon. There
was a pile of random items stacked high. Pieces of clothing, bags,
spears and chunks of metal were all layered on top of each other to
create an imposing pile almost as high as her head. She decided to
ignore the stack for now; she could always raid it on her way
back.
    “I’m taking the left hand path; the flower
above it could be a rose or some other unidentified species.”
    The ground sloped downwards and the dripping
became louder. There was a chill in the air which made Nova’s skin
rise in bumps. She stopped for a moment and pulled on a thick
jacket from her bag, relishing in the warmth.
    Two hundred metres after the fork, after
many twists and turns, the tunnel opened into another chamber. Her
eyes opened wide.