Burnt Ice (14 page)
‘Marko, you sorted?’
‘Yes, boss. Suggest that number
two is the better choice. Smaller, quicker. I’ll detach two survey drones with
it.’
‘Good. Jan, deploy the remaining
survey and astronomical drones. Start looking at everything. Take another of
the fast launchers — and two drones — and program it to survey the moon as
well. Might as well cover everything.’ the captain said.
Over the next few hours torrents
of data flowed in. It was analysed primarily by the AIs, with anything of
interest sent to the biological crew as well.
‘Initial results are in, crew,’
said Lotus. ‘The planet below was seriously damaged by the gamma ray burst.
From the debris still in deep orbit around the planet it seems that some of the
sentient inhabitants escaped before the rays hit. The local sun considerably
destabilised when another small star went through the system with a series of
very large solar flares. All life, down to microbial level, was effectively
extinguished on the surface. What remains in the deepest parts of the ocean is
another matter, but that doesn’t concern us. The planet will eventually recover
as a wild place of weather and elements, but otherwise it’s dead. Without
outside intervention that’s how it will remain. The Octopoid Library is
damaged. However, the core appears to be about seventy per cent intact. My
proxy has discovered considerable amounts of information there.’
‘Sounds good,’ said the captain.
‘The other artefact is a complete
unknown. I’m not familiar with its design or layout. In comparison with debris
left in orbit by the original inhabitants, and from what we can see from orbit,
the artefact is not from here anyway. It has a totally different design
structure. Captain, may I suggest that I concentrate on the data from the
Octopoid Library while you and your team examine the ship artefact?’
‘Good suggestion, Lotus.’
Basalt
was standing off by fifty
kilometres, so it was only a short hop in the ship’s larger lander across to
the 600-metre-long artefact.
Harry was in one of the skuas
flying down the far side of the artefact. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It looks like a
squashed reptilian skull with big chunks missing. Can’t see any engines, no
orienting thrusters, no obvious bridge, no big hatches. It doesn’t have the
feel of anything natural; looks more like it was purposefully grown. Still, I
see no obvious weapon systems either — which I suppose is a good thing. Found a
couple of small entry hatches this side.’
Jan, also in a skua, flew up the
nearside, slowly looking over the exterior for entry points and any immediate
threats.
‘Same on this side, Harry. Looks
like a misshapen tree. There are five possible entry points. Interesting. Look
like standard, human-style doorways complete with recognisable pictographs. My
inspection drone has tried entering one of the hatches but the entry controls
won’t work. What the hell would those symbols be doing on this thing? Possibly
the Gjomvik Corporations, captain?’
‘Like no Gjomvik craft I’ve seen.
Could be something grown by the Haulers’ Collective, maybe? Marko, whenever you’re
ready please. Sorry you have to do this, but we can see nothing through the
hull walls. Totally shielded, even to gravity sensors. Interesting.’
‘I hate it when you say “interesting”,
boss. Always ends up as hard work for me! It’s one of the few things that
scares us being around you, captain, when you say that word. Or when you’re
bored and want to look at something when we’ve all been told not to,’ Harry
said.
The captain bellowed with
laughter. ‘Yeah, well I’m bored sitting here and I’m interested in that thing
out there.’
‘Well, if you don’t make it and
we get home, just think of the bonus from the Games Board!’ Fritz said. ‘And
you’ve said yourself that you want to be a few centimetres taller and add
length to your cock!’
‘You’re a wanker, Fritz! I so
hate being tanked!’ Marko replied.
Marko was already wearing his
combat suit so he walked aft from the lander’s cockpit past the seating, then
around the central unit which housed the antigravity unit at the centre of the
craft, and into the rear equipment and cargo segment of the lander, leaving the
captain in the command seat. He opened the primary equipment airlock then
sealed himself into it, switching on the air pumps to reduce the interior to a
vacuum. He punched the oversized switch that opened the exterior main door,
then looked across at the dull bottle-green contorted side of the artefact
hanging in space a few hundred metres away. The Octopoid Library was in view to
its left and the turbulent cloud-covered atmosphere of the planet below made a
giant backdrop.
After staring at the artefact for
a few seconds he decided that Jan was right — it did look like a tree trunk but
one with great elongated holes in it. Shaking his head at what he was about to
do, Marko swung the line-firing unit out from the wall of the airlock, armed it
and then folded out its targeting screen. He uploaded the images of the entry
hatches that Jan had located, selected the nearest one and fired a line across
to it with the striking plate, gluing itself in seconds onto the outer hull
beside the hatch.
Jan, then Harry, appeared, moving
in closer, training the plasma cannons and the fat muzzles of the lasers on the
side of the alien ship. Marko turned to the side wall of the airlock and backed
up against the container that he had loaded into it earlier. He felt his suit
lock onto his heavy combat carrier. The HUD came alive in his faceplate and the
suit queried the mission parameters.
He scrolled down the list until ‘Hostile
environment, investigation, zero gravity’ came up, which he selected. The
carrier started to fold heavy layers of armour around the already considerable
protection that his base suit offered. It also folded down a larger helmet over
the existing one and snapped a bigger power plant with flight capability onto
his back. The heavy rotary weapon presented itself under his left forearm, with
the ammunition available and the amounts carried also displayed in his HUD. He
checked through the protocols and brought everything up to maximum power then
selected contact explosive darts as the ammunition of choice. As that was
happening the suit flooded his bloodstream with ICE, a very good piece of
combat enhancement, though it had a downside when flushed from the system. He
felt deeply calm but hyper-alert — the drugs would allow him to take in and
analyse huge amounts of data and react very quickly to any situation. Away from
the combat zone, however, he would take a full day to recover from it, which
usually meant sleep.
‘I’m good to go, boss.’
‘In your own time, Marko.’
He stepped to the edge of the
airlock, clipped onto the tether line and powered himself across to the
hatchway with a small burst of gas from his manoeuvring unit. Just before he
hit the side of the artefact towering above him, he fired another small burst
of gas to cancel his forward motion. When he touched the surface of the
artefact two of the drones were beside him, as was the monitor in her
hostile-environment suit, watching and recording. He rapped hard on the hatch
and waited for a few minutes. As he expected — nothing. He punched, then turned
the lock. It slowly opened and swung up, out of the way.
‘Interesting; that was either
spring-loaded, or there is still power in this wreck of a thing.’
He slowly entered behind one of
the drones, which had reconfigured itself for confined access area exploration,
its weapons facing forwards. The other combat drone, also reconfigured,
followed, placing comms relay units onto the walls whenever it detected a
weakness in their signals back to the lander.
Looking behind him, Marko noted
that the monitor stayed outside. She smiled and waved at Marko before he turned
a corner. The passage opened out into a squarish, four-metre-wide tube. To
Marko’s and the remote observers’ intense interest the walls ahead of them
started emitting light, showing details in soft pastel colours.
‘Boss, I know that you can see
all this as well as I can, but I’m not sure what some of this material is. Can
I take samples?’
‘Nope. Not this time, Marko. Let’s
just see what else we can find, eh?’
For the next few hours Marko and
the drones slowly examined the alien ship. It was unlike anything the crew had
ever seen. Even Lotus commented that she had nothing like it in her data banks.
It appeared organic in structure and nature; there wasn’t a straight line in
the entire ship. If there was tech it was all grown. Marko wondered if it
was
a ship, or something else.
Everything he examined he could
equate to components found in any Administration ship. The rooms that branched
off the wide, circular, interconnected corridors were empty. Everything was
clean — no dust, no rubbish, no apparent damage of any sort. Marko made his way
forwards, looking for a bridge deck, but finding only more interconnected
passageways with rooms leading off them, large and small. Nothing seemed to
make any sense. It was almost as if it was a huge empty storage facility. There
were no doors, no irised airlocks and no external viewing areas, either. Marko
kept checking his instruments for orientation. The drones’ inertial mapping
systems were constantly updating as well.
‘We have atmosphere in here. That
shouldn’t be possible — we haven’t been through airlocks or enclosures of any
kind. Showing one bar of pressure and appears to be breathable, as well.’
‘Stick with the protocols, Marko.’
‘What? Were you thinking that I
might be crazy enough to open my faceplate? That’s just nuts, Lotus. I’m going
to try something. As this thing seems to be reacting to us I think that I might
just lean against a wall and see what happens.’
With the drones either side of
him, watching his every movement, Marko walked into one of the smaller side
rooms and leant against the curved wall. He slowly bent his knees, then slid
his back down it.
‘Hey, this really is interesting.
A seat is forming under my bum! Even more interesting — gravity is increasing.
Think I’ll just wait and see what happens. The ambient temperature is now
starting to increase.’
Over the next fifteen minutes a
contoured seat, fully formed, and a small table grew out of the floor. Checking
his instruments, Marko relayed to his colleagues that the gravity was holding
at one Old Earth standard with the ambient temperature having also stabilised
at 22 degrees Celsius.
‘That is very intriguing, Marko.
So what are your considerations?’ asked Lotus.
‘Well, we can’t find any central
control. No manoeuvring thrusters or propulsion apparent — but it knows what I
am and what conditions I am comfortable in. Maybe a very advanced lifeboat or
barge?’
‘OK. We’ll send in recon drones.
Continue the survey.’ Lotus ordered.
Marko and his attendant drones
left the room to find that gravity fell away as they moved down the corridor.
‘Showing that we only have
another one hundred twenty metres before we hit the end of the artefact. Hey,
this is different! Looks like a hangar. And what’s that? Now, that looks more
like something we would build.’
Below him, parked in the centre
of a large, clear, flat space, was a smaller craft.
Marko called in the drone from
behind him and directed both drones to go over the craft. Of a very beautiful,
elegant and flowing design, it was totally different from the ship surrounding
it, but a bit smashed as well. What Marko considered to be the main drive
compartment was badly ripped up. It looked as if a huge set of talons had torn
into it. They recorded everything they could, according to protocols, then
moved on towards the end of the ship — the lead drone had found a part of the
hull that appeared to be missing. They all exited, to be picked up by the
lander.
On board the lander, with barely
enough room for Marko and the two drones in the airlock, they were flooded with
chemicals and then drying gases which had been developed to destroy any known
biological or micro-mechanical threats. The airlock then deployed many
tendril-like sniffers and samplers from its walls, which minutely examined the
exteriors of the drones and Marko’s suit before allowing them on board
Basalt.
After a shower and a meal, Marko took himself to bed and slept a solid ten
standard hours.
