Rene hefted the small breeching charge in his hand, feeling its weight and wondering for the hundredth time if he were doing the right thing. There was always the chance something would go wrong with the blast and if he mangled the end of his improvised derrick there was no chance of saving Solae and the others. He had debated using the plasma rifle for this, but he might need several shots to completely breach, which would mean pumping the excess energy into the chamber where the women sheltered, killing them as certainly as asphyxiation shortly would. The thought of Solae gasping for breath in a lightless hole was enough to overcome his moment of paralysis and he stripped the priming cord out of the charge and dropped it down the tube.

"Fire in the hole!" he yelled and then both he and Yarue leaned their full weight onto the tubing. Rene felt the crump of detonantion through the metal pipe like an electrical shock. Muddy water blasted from the end like a gyezer, and then, to Rene's incredible relief, the pipe sank another meter into the earth.

"I see it!" Rosaria shouted, excitement and hope in her voice as the end of the pipe came into view in the near darkness below.

"Is everyone ok?" Rene demanded the strain of suppressed worry evident in his voice.

"Yes we are all right," she replied a moment later before adding, "There is alot of water and mud comming in around where the pipe came through." Rene nodded although she couldn't see the expression. The blast had cracked the ceiling enough to allow the pipe to come through, but there was no realistic way to seal it completely. It wouldn't be a real problem though, not if the moved quickly enough.

"Ready?" Dasin asked, hefting the meter long package he had prepared. Rene nodded and the Syshin stepped to the pipe and thrust the object inside. It slid down into the darkness smoothly and he quickly added a pair of canisters about the size of a pressurized can of lubricant.

"Do you see them?" Rene demanded. It was possible they would bind or hang up on burrs in the side of the tubing, in which case they would have to blast them down with water. It wasn't going to make the job any easier if they had to half flood the small refuge to get the supplies down there.

"I have them," Rosaria reported. Rene let out an audible sigh of relief. Bundled in the emergency raft were three oxygen recyclers, three chemical lights and several feet of breeching mesh. Breeching mesh was designed to bring down sections of wall to provide an ingress point for an assault team. Ordinarily it would be deployed by a lancher that would sling it into place, but Rene had instructed Yasin to remove it from his weapons kit.

"Ok Rosaria, Bel'sian, I need you to do exactly as I say..."

It was a tense twenty minutes. Even with the oxygen problem solved by the activation of the air recyclers, Rene couldn't help but worry. Even at this late stage of the plan, if the hillside shifted or settled, the resulting force might snap the pipe making rescue all but impossible. Rene had a back up plan, but it was desperate and even he was more relived than he could express when Rosaria reported they were ready. In the chamber below the orphan girl and the exiled Kalderi had followed Rene's instructions, laying the blasting mesh over the ceiling and inflating the emergency raft Ten had provided. Rene suspected he had done so after hearing of their escapades on Panapontus, but whatever the reason he once again found himself grateful to the kingpin. Perhaps, if Solae were ever to take her new position as Duchess he could lure him into her service with the promise of a full pardon for his crimes. It was a shame to waste such a shrewd individual. The raft was designed to handle storm conditions at sea, enfolding the occupants with a 360 degree bubble of reinforced plastic weave that couldn't be capsized or submerged. Even the tough weather resistant fabric wouldn't have handled rock on its own however. This problem had been solved by pumping the raft full of vacuum sealant a carbon sealant meant to repair hull breeches in starships. The carbon slurry inside was precisely calibrated to from a tetrahedral lattice, that was both light and nearly as strong as steel it also had the benefit of expanding rapidly to fill a space and so had inflated the raft with little difficulty before hardening into what, in effect, was an armored capsule. 

"Ok we are inside and have sealed the entry," Bel'sian reported. Rene had been impressed with how calm the alien had been given the situation must have been even more a nightmare for her than it had been for Rosaria. She had followed his instructions without argument, haste or panic, for which Rene was very grateful. Rosaria had held it together also, an impressive testament to Alayla Thorne's conditioning, the girls natural reserves of courage or both. It was a minor miracle they had both avoided a panic which would have almost certainly been lethal. Of course, the next part wasn't exactly safe either.

"Ok," Rene replied, "you are going to hear the blast, and then mud and debris are going to bury you. It is part of the plan, just keep calm and we will do the rest. Is Solae secure?"

"Just like the last time you asked, yes," Rosaria replied, her voice betraying the edge of tension in the slightly barbed reply. Rene supposed he deserved that, objectively he was worried about all three of them, but only one of them was the woman he loved, and the woman whose safety he had been charged with protecting by the Empress herself. 

"Alright, detonating..." Rene thumbed the trigger. There was a crump and another blast of air and water from the pipe. Then the hillside slumped beneath them. Rene cursed as the ground gave way beneath him, sucking him waste deep into the earth. The armor on his legs saved him from serious injury as Yarue and Dasin, who had been standing back, shouted in alarm and raced forward, sezining him by the arms. Rene cursed himself for a fool for not anticipating what would happen when the void below was collapsed.

"Are you ok?" Rosaria's worried voice came through the comms.

"Yes, yes, its fine, little miscalculation out here," Rene responded as the Syshin pulled him free. Carefully he made his way over to the pipe and was relieved to see it hadn't been torqued by the miniature collapse. 

"Alright, we are going to start," Rene informed Rosaria. Yarue hauled the reaction mass hose over to the pipe and closed the connection with a wrench. Rene threw the switch and the hose pulsed to life pumping hundreds of litres a minute down into the void below. Rosaria had tied the raft to the end of the pipe with cargo ties and as the water pumped down it created a void beneath the improvised life pod. Dirt and mud fell into the void and natural buoyancy lifted the pod. At least that was the theory.

"I think its working," Rosaria said excitedly.

"The pod has ascended thirty five centimeters," Mia confirmed, apparently gleaning the information from the position of the transmittors. Rene and Yarue hauled up on the piping, lifting it upwards as water continued to pour down it at firehose pressure.

"Easy does it," Rene cautioned, "we have a long way to go yet."