Burnt Ice (48 page)

‘Yeah. I see it, Veg.’

Jan slowed the craft to a walking
pace, rotated the four main turbine thrusters down under the lifter, then
sedately flew up over the wreck, which appeared like a huge whale’s back
lifting five metres above the moderate-sized waves. As directed by Veg, she
eased it up to where the ten-metre-wide cargo hatch was. Looking at it, Veg
decided not to waste time on pleasantries, and pulled down a pair of waldo
controls from inside his pod. He deployed the two sets of cutting and grasping
claws at the front of the lifter’s main body, stabbing them down into the
surface with a twisting motion. With a screech of tearing metal, the waldos
ripped the hatchway off and placed it to one side.

‘Move up so we can see inside,
Jan. Then land.’

The craft’s four main legs, which
each had five grasping talons, unfolded then gripped the slippery surface,
biting down through the hull plates and levelling the craft above the now open
airlock. Veg reached into the airlock and lodged the claws into its walls;
cutting lasers slashed away the anchoring beams, which allowed the whole
airlock to be lifted out and placed to one side with an audible crash. Marko
brought up one of the views of what the gravimetric, sonar, and radar sensors
were now showing them. He could see that the area where they believed the cryo
pods were was twenty or so metres further down in the damaged hull. As he
watched, Veg sliced away another segment of the craft, lifted it out and
allowed it to slide over the side into the water. Keeping an eye on proceedings,
Marko decided that it was a perfect time to fill the water tanks.

‘Veg, Jan, I’m going to fill the
tanks while we have the opportunity, and bring the main crackers online as
well. Any objections? No? OK.’

Looking across at his little
mate, Marko could see that Fritz was deep in thought, great amounts of
information scrolling rapidly down his screens.

‘You OK, Fritz, mate?’

‘Yeah, yeah, of course, of
course, of course. You want something, Marko?’

‘Nope.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right
then. Hey Veg, they are all dead.’

‘What! Who are all dead?’

‘The crew of this wreck. We’re
wasting our time trying to get to them as they are all dead and we really need
to recover the AI. That’s the most important thing.’

‘They are
technically
dead, Fritz, as they are frozen.’

‘Don’t piss with me, Veg! I am
telling you that they are all dead. They have been dead for years. Just get the
AI.’

‘Get me the proof, Fritz.’

‘Can’t, not yet. Only ninety-five
per cent certain.’

‘You’re only ninety-five per cent
certain?’

‘You deaf, all of a sudden?’

‘Calm down, Fritz. When you are
one hundred per cent certain, you tell me, all right?’

‘Yeah, will do. But we are still
wasting our time.’

Marko saw Veg shrug his huge
shoulders, then go back to ripping the wreck to pieces, as they tunnelled down
towards the cryo unit. The lifter grabbed debris, cutting it away then backing
out of the hole to push the severed parts over the side of the downed starship.
Progress was slow. Veg was complimenting the makers of the ship on how tough it
was and then grumbling more about having to work in the flooded area.

‘Jan, I see movement on the
seafloor around you!’ announced Stephine over the comms link.

‘What sort, Stephine?’

‘A series of movements under the
sand. Suggest you lift off until we can ascertain what it is.’

‘Wilco. Time to lift off, Veg.
Marko, lift and stow your hose.’

The machine was straightening up
out of the hole, with Marko emptying then reeling in the intake pipe, when
three very long, eel-like creatures exploded up over the side of the wreck.
Attacking the lifter, they bit onto its legs then swung their bodies up under
the craft, smashing hard against the belly with their tails. They then wrapped
their great lengths around the landing gear, which started to twist and
contort.

‘Fuck’s sake! I hate snakes of
every kind. Give me lift, Marko!’

‘I can get them!’ Glint said.

‘Nope. Stay right where you are,
Glint! Just watch.’

Jan applied full power to the
four thrusters as Marko hit the emergency lift antigravity, shooting the craft
straight up with the 35-metre-long creatures still clinging on, flinging themselves
around, trying to stab their tails into the hull. Stephine had to rapidly roll
and pull hard to one side to avoid a collision with the orange lifter and its three
unwelcome dark-green passengers, as it shot up into the early evening sky. She
pulled her craft into a tight orbit and wondered what species the eels were,
trying to work out how best she could help her friends.

Jan finally settled down,
allowing the lifter to descend once more, until it was fifty metres above the
sea surface. Then a four-metre-long, chisel-shaped head with too many teeth
loomed up beside the cockpit. It turned and looked at each of them with pearly
eyes. Looking directly at Fritz, it opened its mouth wide, attempting to bite
its way inside. Its gills flared from behind the head, looking vaguely like the
Jesus lizard frill that Glint had. Fritz screamed frantically, trying to climb
out of his pod without first disconnecting the harness. Teeth scraped against
the tough transparent shell of the cockpit, leaving deep scores just
centimetres from him.

Marko was in awe, his designer’s
mind analysing the musculature and the underlying skeletal structure, hoping
his personal visual recording systems were getting all the images. Glint took
over Fritz’s vacated station and straightened out his spine, preparing to shoot
the creature if it broke through. The eel stopped trying to bite its way in,
reared back, closed its mouth, flattened out its gills, then stabbed forwards,
in an attempt to punch its way through. It was intent on getting at Glint. Just
as the second blow was about to land, Veg reached up with one of the lifter’s
claws. Without fuss, he snipped through the eel’s metre-thick neck. As the head
fell away, purple blood sprayed over the canopy. The dying body of the eel went
berserk, thrashing about, pummelling the underside of the lifter and striking
the hull so hard they could hear the outer sheathing fracturing.

Instantly, the dead eel was
seized by the other two eels, which started to tear it apart and eat it. Jan,
watching over her shoulder, shuddered in disgust, then retracted the landing
gear to its folded position against the hull. Three legs moved quickly, the
folding mechanisms crunching the eels into large portions, most of which fell
back into the sea. The remaining landing leg hung loosely, its hydraulics
severed.

‘Damn!’ Veg exclaimed. ‘We have
damage. One big hull breach and landing gear banged up. Your water intake has
been torn away, Marko. This is an abort.
Rick,
we will need another
lifter please. This one is in need of a little love and attention.’

‘I give you a nice toy to play
with, Veg, and you break it. That, my friend, will cost you one of your better
Jardin emerald and gold rings. I have sent my finger measurement. Replacement
on the way. Hold where you are. No, cancel that. Climb to fifteen hundred
metres, where the air is a little more stable. Docking in forty-five minutes.’

Marko looked across at Fritz as
he sheepishly climbed back into his station.

‘Nasty bitey thing, wanted to eat
up your big fat head, Fritzy! Not much of a feed from your scrawny little body,
though. Surprised he didn’t go for Veg. Better meal there, eh?’

‘You are an arsehole, Marko! That
fucking thing came real close!’

Veg roared with laughter.

Jan quietly flew the craft in a
wide, climbing circle until they were fifteen hundred metres above the wreck,
then levelled out, slowly orbiting while the other Pincer-type lifter arrived.
Marko went aft, grabbed some drinks and sandwiches for everyone, then climbed
into his engineering suit container which activated around him. ‘I see that
half of one of the eel’s heads is jammed in one of the legs. Anyone object if I
go grab a piece?’

‘Nope, but I want some of the
teeth please, mate.’

‘No problems, Veg. Glint, I want
you to watch from the hatch. Keep an eye out for anything of interest.’

Marko and Glint walked aft into
the engine space of the lifter, then across to a maintenance hatch above the
leg of interest. After spending a few minutes deploying the AG unit then
attaching it to his suit, Marko tested the unit, then dropped out of the hatch
and flew over the leg structure until he found the severed part of the head.
Sensing movement above him, he saw that Glint had come out of the hatch to get
a better view.

‘Don’t you dare fall off, chap.
Stay where you are. Don’t bloody move!’

‘I’m fine. Sometimes you fuss so
unnecessarily.’

‘Yeah, but this thing may be
toxic for your biological self, Glint.’

‘I had not thought of that. I’ll
wait inside.’

Marko shook his head and smiled
as Glint climbed back up inside the hatch.

He addressed himself to the task
of examining the alien remains. He pulled sample bottles from one of his
pouches, opened out a sterilised pathology scalpel, and took separate samples
of tongue, skin, a scale, blood, a scraping of the saliva-like jellified
material and a segment of the one remaining, slowly glazing eye, then carefully
flew around the other side, taking what appeared to be nerve and brain samples.
Looking behind the head, he could not find any parts of the gills — the part he
was most interested in, as the creatures appeared to be relatively comfortable
out of the water.

Sealing everything away inside an
armoured pouch, he then shook out a large bag and, using the laser on his suit
arm, sliced away what remained of the top and bottom jaws with their
300-millimetre-long teeth and the pair of 500-millimetre-long sabre-shaped
incisors, and gently eased the pieces into the bag. He touched the auto seal on
the bag then covered it in a larger biohazard bag. He activated it, which
caused a flare across the entire surface of the bag, vaporising a few microns
of the bag’s surface in a 3000-degree-Celsius flash. He did the same with the
pouch contents, then finally the whole surface of his suit. After waiting for a
few moments to allow the suit to self-check, he flew back up into the hatch,
with Glint sealing it shut as soon as he was inside.

‘Good work, Marko!’ Veg said over
the comms link. ‘They are serious teeth! Now I just have to find tools capable
of carving them, eh? Get your stuff ready, mate. The other lifter will be here
in a few moments.’

‘On our way, Veg.’

‘Those teeth will make very nice
pistol grips. Thank you, Marko.’

‘Shit! If you want them too, Jan,
we had better go kill some more, eh?’

‘You people are gross!’

‘Yeah, yeah, but you love us,
Fritz.’

Moments later there was a loud
thump and shudder as the other lifter docked and the airlock doors opened. Marko
dragged his suit container across as the others arrived to do the same, then
walked back to grab the food container, presented to him by the little galley
drone.

Across in the undamaged lifter
they made their way forwards. Everything was slightly heavier in construction,
with more shielding across the cockpit canopy. They watched the damaged lifter
detach, slowly ascending towards
Rick.

‘I suppose I could have gained
those samples by asking Rick nicely.’

‘Nope. That machine will be
spotlessly cleansed before he will take it on board. Good call on your part. So
we have a beefed-up version Pincer this time. Same places, people. Let’s get
back to work.’