Altogether now ..........

Altogether now ..........
We are climbing Jesus ladder, ladder
We are climbing Jesus ladder, ladder
Wea are climbing Jesus ladder,ladder
children of the Lord  
 
Who:Idwal Everrett Enigmatic Engineer John Keats  Plotless PilotQuilibet Matyristic MagJack Febuggre Saucey SoldierAmber Keats Relieved Rogue
 
Where
Tunnels inside alien planetoid
 
SNIP
 

"Follow the yellow brick road!" quipped Keats
"WHAT are you on about?" Asked the rest
"Its the words from an ancient Terran folk song" said Keats  "Basically its saying lets just walk along and see where we get to next."
"A philosopher you ain't!" grumbled Jack as the party shouldered their gear and continued to trudge along the seemingly never ending gas vent.
 
END SNIP
 
The group had been walking along the barren exhaust duct for over an hour, with the bugs scuttling along behind like faithful hounds when the way was barred by a mound of debris that completely filled the entire tunnel space.  Everyone sat down, esch glad that there was an excuse not to continue walking.
"Great" said Jack as he took a pull from his waterbottle "Now what the hell do we do?"
Keats looked at the jumbled mass
"Hey Idwal! Your the mining guy. What do you suggest?"
Idwal sighed and climbed back onto his feet and went and scrambled up and along the debris. "Well it's not compacted, so theoretically it is removable. But the question is how much of it is there?  We could be digging for days."
An uneasy silence fell as the group began to think about being entombed for days with no food or water. Then Amber sat up
"Guys!"
The men turned to her
"The bugs!" she indicated where the two insectoids were busily using their forelegs to feel the tunnel walling.  Everyone want over to rake a closer look.
"I think there looking for something!" said Amber
And sure enough one of the bugs uttered a series of rapid clicks and its forelegs scrabbled faster.  The other bug scuttled over to join it. 
Within minutes that had stripped away the tunnel lining and uncovered a what to human eyes liiked like a door.
"Praise  the bugs and pass the laser!" said Keats
Amber waved the bugs to one side and Keats expertly cut through the points that appeared to secure the door.  Sure enough as the last fastening was sliced through the panel fell at their feet and a dimly lit space could be seen.  Jack pushed forwards and took a look.
"Its a maintenance tunnel! There are ladders going up!"
The group pushed its way in and soon all of them were climbing ladder after ladder as they went ever upwards.
As they rested on one of the platforms that occurred around every two hundred feet they looked down the dizzying shaft they had climbed.  Below they could hear the scrabbling of the bugs as they too laboriously climbed the ladders.
"Game little critters" observed Keats
"Only because they don't know any better" said Amber adding cuttingly  "and of course they do have tiny brains, smaller even than your average man, which is to say like nano brained!"