After walking for a while, a massive problem presented itself: at the various forks in the tunnel, there were almost no paths leading up. They all led further down.
If this kept up, they would only plunge deeper and deeper, straight toward the planet's mantle!
No one knew just how vast this subterranean network was. They had hiked and crawled for two hours without seeing an end in sight.
They had found a few ascending tunnels, but most pointed in the completely wrong direction—some even led back toward the overheating nuclear reactor! The remaining upward routes were simply too narrow for a human wearing bulky powered armor to squeeze through.
What could they do? Stranded 500 meters below ground, they couldn't exactly dig their way to the surface!
This grim reality weighed heavily on the entire squad. They could only strictly ration their cooling agents, lengthen their strides, and pray they found a viable exit before their time ran out.
