Burnt Ice (16 page)

He walked back down to the
ablutions, rinsed his mouth and freshened up before making his way to the
bridge.

‘Hey, boss. So how are things?’

‘G’day, Marko. Hop into the
right-hand seat. You can do your engineering checks from here.’

He climbed in and automatically
checked through the displays of the entire ship’s status. He pulled up the fuel
displays of all the ancillary craft as well.

‘Considering what we’ve done, we’re
well within projected usage.’

As he was checking, the captain
handed him a handwritten note on rice paper. He read it quietly, folded it,
then ate it. He nodded.

‘Have you met our guests yet?’

‘Nope. Looking forward to it.’

‘Marko, I’m concerned that the
urchins are still in system. One and a bit years since initial encounter is
early in a time frame for them. The gas giant is currently one quarter around
the side of the star from us, but we have no idea if there are floaters in its
atmosphere or not. We know there is life there, but what type is the question.
I’m hoping that the astronomical drones will tell us one way or the other.
Double-check all the weapons systems and set everything for maximum hit.
Looking at the damage to Stephine’s craft, I’d say the one they tangled with
was a full adult. Also, talk with Lotus and pull up everything about the
urchins’ camouflage. Program it up to the astronomicals. Veg said that when
they were attacked, the gas giant was at the opposite state of orbit, so they
had no idea that the urchins were here. Seems the Gjomvik commander didn’t do her
homework. Oh, could you ask Jan for a pot of tea for me, please, and then to
give you a hand as I know that she really knows her stuff when it comes to
thumping things?’

‘Will do, boss. Anything found on
the moon? And what about the abandoned wreckage from whatever civilisation was
here?’

‘Yeah, plenty of stuff. Enough to
keep us very busy for years if we decided to stick around. The most interesting
info is what is coming from the library, so that’s what we’ll concentrate on.
When we get back I’m sure that the powers that be will send a large
investigative group to pick over this place in detail. You will be interested
to know, Marko, that not everything is dead on the planet. There are signs of
life in the oceans. Nothing technological that we can recognise, but remarkable
none the less.’

Marko and Jan spent the next few
hours checking through the weapons on board and then the ancillary craft. Jan
came up with the novel idea of deploying all the missiles and parking them in a
dispersal pattern around
Basalt.
They set the eight combat drones to
that task. They searched through everything that Lotus had on the urchin. Jan
also initiated a crash search of the library for additional information. Slowly
but surely, the feeling of an impending battle came upon them.

‘Crew.’ said Harry. ‘Lotus
confirms that the gas giant does have floaters. We can now be certain that
urchins are still in this system. Marko, we have located some files in the
Octopoid Library data. I have sent the additional patterns to the drones.
Captain, we are eighty per cent through the data catalogues. We are moving
through the library at a faster pace now that we know what we are looking at.
Fritz has also located additional tech from the Octopoid Library and is
evaluating it. We are, of course, restricted in taking the tech physically, but
he will have the information in two hours.’

~ * ~

Fritz
was a happy little man. Sitting astride his chariot, as he called it — a
compact, open cockpit surrounded by a small fusion motor, a powerful diagnostic
computer and a manoeuvring ring along which slid a pair of attitude thrusters
and every type of sensor he had knowledge of — he was as far inside the huge
library construct as his equipment would allow him without actually cutting his
way through it.

Using the octopoid language and
Lotus, he had gained further access to the data banks from the Octopoid
Library, and he was downloading information as fast as he could. He rapidly
became bored with the information that Lotus found the most compelling —
technology and weapons. Instead, he concentrated on all the aspects he could
find of culture, particularly music. He was further enthralled with the
mathematics and physics he found; also with the fact that one of the races
considered music to be the highest endeavour of any sentient being — almost
divine — and of how they had, thousands of years past, collected what they
considered the best.

Fritz couldn’t care less what
they looked like, what they ate, how they dressed or how they conducted
themselves, but he instantly loved their music. Using his knowledge of
Basalt’s
computers and their backup units, he started remotely shifting data around
so he could store that treasure. He also initiated a high-speed construction of
additional storage capacity to take as much as he could get.

‘Fritz? Why are the auto builders
creating hundreds of new data storage units?’ Harry asked through the comms
link.

‘Need ‘em.’

‘Good info?’

‘Very good info, Harry. Is there
a problem?’

‘No. If you need it, you’ve got
it. But I’ll clear it with the boss.’

Fritz smiled, gathering as much
music as he could, and every piece of physics and mathematics he could find, as
well.

Sirius, having become more than
slightly bored with Fritz moving from data unit to data unit and staying silent
for hours, moved out of the vault-like armoured construction, deciding to
capture as many images of the Octopoid Library, and the planet below them, as
possible. Focusing her cameras on the ocean below, she watched as huge storms
clawed their way through island chains and, as fancy took her, recorded what
appeared to be rafts of life breaking apart and then re-forming, then
dispersing to reappear on the next rotation of the planet in a different,
almost cohesive, pattern.

One such body of tiny crustacean-like
creatures built what appeared to be a huge lens, which seemed focused on
Basalt.
Being a Games Board monitor, she did not feel the need to share any of the
information with
Basalt’s
crew and simply stored it all in her hard
crystal memories. She watched further as the lens disintegrated after a few
moments, to be replaced by a type of pictograph. On the next rotation, the
pictographs rapidly changed shape, as if a communication was being attempted.
She dutifully recorded all the images, not aware that Lotus was gathering the
information from her through the compromised coupling that Fritz had replaced.

~ * ~

‘You
are Marko? I am pleased to meet you.’

Marko’s hand was enveloped in the
biggest hand he had ever seen as he looked up into the cheerful eyes of Veg. He
thought, Some people you just instantly like. This man I like. Don’t know if I
trust him at this stage, but I like him.

‘Hello, Veg. Likewise, mate. How
are the repairs to your craft coming along?’

‘Everything is on hold until we
are properly under way. I have a good knowledge of weapons, if it would be of
use to you?’

‘Pull up a pew. Here are the
schematics of our lasers and plasma guns. Do you know how we could use them
against an urchin? Knowing what we know about them, we think that use of these
weapons will just piss them off. If there is a big group of them, the
fragmentation missiles will be the only ones with any effect. To be blunt, we’re
heavily armed, but not heavily armed enough — if you know what I mean. Do have
a couple of launchers howling around as well, but we will have to decelerate
them to refuel very soon, so they’ll be available as well.’

‘Yeah, Marko. I’ve had a while to
think about this. We had the same problem. Urchins don’t mind having little
holes in them. They get holed all the time from high-speed cosmic dust. So, let
me see. Your tracking for the lasers and plasmas is fast, but not fast enough.
Here, have a look at this. I programmed this after your captain, Michael,
discussed the problem with me. Harry has started work on them in the machine
shop. Should be about an hour before the new mounts are ready. I estimate it
will take two hours after that to swap them out. Now, what we also need is a
lot of frozen oxygen in pellet form. About five hundred kilograms should do it.
I note that your fusion drives are water users. Can you spare a tonne and a
half or so of water? Yes? Good. Set up the conversions, if you would. Also,
turn the leftover hydrogen into pellets. Do you see what I’m planning, Marko?’

‘You want to set the suckers on
fire! Elegant solution. Locate them, get them in reasonably close. Then shoot
the oxygen and hydrogen pellets against their skin and set fire to them with
the lasers and plasmas. Like it. I’d better look at recalibrating the radars as
well. No good against the urchins — they absorb any radiation. At least we can
track the pellets. But how to fire them?’

‘Harry has a solution for that.
He has the auto mills making mortars, to lock on the outside of all the hulls.’

Marko watched the woman whom he
recognised as Stephine walking up to him.

‘So, this is Marko. Hello, I am
Stephine.’

She extended her hand, which he
shook a little too enthusiastically. Instantly he felt like a lunatic, grinning
idiot — a sixteen-year-old virgin. He was embarrassed but simply didn’t care.
He kept gazing at her, taking in her perfection. Stephine was much taller than
him, with a figure that would win any contest, anywhere in the Sphere. But he
thought her too perfect to be a naturally born person. To gain that sort of
perfection she had probably been tanked at least six, maybe seven times. He
knew that made her a very tough-minded individual, able to totally control
every aspect of her growth from the earliest stages. Then do it multiple times.
It was almost impossible to achieve really big changes in a couple of tankings.

‘We must get together soon,
Marko. I am fascinated by your work on developing and making the ACEs.’

‘Yes, yes. That would be really
great, Stephine. I’d really like that. Thanks, yes, any time. I would really
enjoy that very much.’

Jan joined Marko and they watched
the tall pair walk away.

‘Hell, Jan. Most of us could just
manage to go through the regrowing process and come out pretty much the same as
before we died. And even that takes huge willpower. Some of my mates didn’t
have that strength of will and came out of the process actually smaller, which
is really funny, especially if they have a hint of arrogance about them. And
she is beautiful, just beautiful, with extraordinary charm and grace as well!’

Jan gently kicked his shin before
he made a total fool of himself, then she smiled at him.

~ * ~

The
hours remorselessly ticked away as they got themselves steadily geared up. The
real problem was that Fritz and the Lotus proxy, deep inside the library with
the monitor, kept finding more and more things of interest. As it was an
engineering intelligence-gathering operation, Lotus called the shots.

Captain Michael Longbow was
becoming steadily more agitated. ‘Harry, what’s our status?’

‘The engineering drones are
fixing the last of the mortars to the combat units. The first lander is
finished. So is
Basalt
itself. The new mounts for the lasers and plasma
weapons are installed, tested and ready to go. The last of the oxygen and
hydrogen pellets have been manufactured by the fusion fuel feeders and are
being loaded into the mortars. I’ve built all the mortar rounds as canister
shots, loading them alternately. Each mortar has ten rounds, with controlled
firing on each canister. You’ll be able to fire them singly, a three-round
burst, or all at once. Actually, I hope these buggers turn up. I like this
setup, and really want to try it out.’

‘Good, and no, Harry. I would be
very, very happy not to have to try this out, thanks. Jan, can you move three
of the astro drones another five hundred kilometres closer to the star? We’ll
get a better definition of the day side of the gas giant. It’s not much, but
maybe a little better.’

‘Will do. What do you want to do
with the fast launchers?’