Underground! WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG.
It all should have felt silly and pointless; there were obviously no enemies around, and Norm didn’t feel frightened. But he was starting to feel apprehensive. There were no sounds down here, except the ones coming from the people around him — very much including himself. The longer he was down here, the more his own breathing sounded weird in his ears, like the air itself was subtly warping the sounds. He wanted to hum, bark, curse, anything that would break the bleak silence now welling up around them. But he also didn’t dare. What if it didn’t work? And what if the others judged him, even if it did?
Madole’s matter-of-fact tone cut through his thoughts like a knife through fog; sharp, quick, but not banishing the haze for more than a moment. “If there’s something on the other side ready to eat our faces, it’s not showing up on the scanners.” She put away her gadgets, and drew her service revolver. “Time to kick in the door. Not literally, cadets,” she added. “It looks cool, but it’s bad for your balance.”