Burnt Ice (5 page)

‘Interesting discovery, people.
Base AI has determined that one of the pieces of mosaic we thought was art is
in fact a representation of a feature on the moon’s southern pole. Harry take
over and sort out what we need. We’re off to have a look up there tomorrow.’

They all groaned and the captain
just grinned.

‘Don’t worry should only take us
a few days. Our respective playmates will still be here when we get back.’

~ * ~

Marko
did not enjoy walking down to the landing field before dawn the next morning.
He had had plenty of affairs — one or two serious — but for the first time he
could see himself in a long-term relationship with someone special. Helena felt
the same. They even started to make a few tentative plans of how they could
support each other’s careers. Marko wanted to get deeper into the design
aspects of his trade and Helena was already a qualified pilot wanting to take
that further. They had also both been offered officer positions, if they wanted
them.

Marko gathered with the rest of
his section in the cool predawn, gazing up at the stars and Orbitals, wondering
what it would be like to be an ordinary Joe Citizen. Then he looked about him
and discounted the notion as too mundane.

Harry looked up from his wrist
display. ‘We have a couple of minutes to wait because of a launch hold. Orbital
control is rolling a couple of written-off pieces of hardware through the
atmosphere and splashing them down four hundred-odd clicks east of here. They’re
interested to see what survives to the seafloor. Bit daft, if you ask me. We
already know all that shit, but some higher-up made the decision, so let’s
enjoy the show.’

Marko turned to the east and
ramped up his specs, trying to work out where the hardware would re-enter. He
only had a few minutes to wait as the two sizeable pieces of equipment were
pinpointed and his glasses magnified them before his eyes. The software
operating the link between the glasses and his wrist unit filtered out the
atmospheric distortions, presenting his brain with crystal-clear imagery.

‘Interesting.’ said Marko. ‘Don’t
think that they are junk. Look more like three-hundred-tonne dropships of a new
type being deliberately tumbled. Stupid really, as the simulations would tell
them everything they need to know.’

‘Ours is not to wonder why,
Marko.’

‘Right you are, Harry.’

The rest of the section unfolded
their screens as his gear linked across, so they could see what Marko could
see.

As they watched, the ships
created a beautiful but deadly display of parts burning away in the fiery
colours of incinerated exotic metals, plastics and ceramics. The show went on
for almost twenty seconds as the hardware flew tumbling above the section and
silently disappeared below the horizon. They waited another twenty minutes
before the all clear was given, and then clambered aboard a small Orbital
lifter.

They were the only passengers for
the flight; the heavy equipment they had loaded the evening before had been
strapped to the deck plates behind them. Marko walked under the cabin anchor
points and lifted his pack up, pressing the deploy toggle as his colleagues did
the same. The clips swung up and self-locked, the pack unrolling itself to its
fullest extent. He picked up the other end and held it up against the ceiling
so the clips could lock themselves on. He sat in the hammock and pulled his
collapsible helmet out of its pocket, put it on and then checked all the
systems.

‘Morning, folks. This is Erica,
your local pilot. Everything squared away? Sound off when ready and we’ll lift.’

They all spoke their names and
then settled into the hammocks, which slowly folded themselves around each
person, placing them in an optimum acceleration position. Marko was still
fascinated by the way a beautiful, pliable, soft piece of fabric could go
ceramic-hard in seconds to protect its occupant from just about anything,
including hard vacuum and explosive damage — the pack even had a parachute
built into it.

As the pilot told the small ship
to lift and gave it the Orbital’s coordinates, the live feeds from all over the
ship came online. Marko picked up the feed from the co-pilot’s seat to view
proceedings. The flight crew was nestled in microships inside the main cockpit:
the seats almost totally enclosed each crew member. Marko had taken one apart
when he was a youth — they were really amazing pieces of technology. They could
keep the occupant alive even if they had sustained serious injuries, fly
considerable distances, enter atmosphere, and land the occupant safely. Built
into them was a whole range of micro equipment that would generate oxygen,
create water, carbohydrates, and even medical drugs, as long as the necessary
raw materials could be found and fed into them. Marko thought that it was nice
to know that the Administration still regarded flight crews as worth keeping
alive. And all those in the service who were not piloting had their hammocks,
which they considered much better than just the acceleration seats and
harnesses that the civvies had to put up with.

The craft climbed up through the
atmosphere on high-powered AG units, quickly accelerating until the
hydrogen-augmented ramjets kicked in and really booted it hard into orbit.

A couple of hours later they
docked with one of the smaller orbital vehicle servicing units and transferred
their equipment across to the skeletal, Type Zero atmosphere shuttle — which
had been allocated for the survey and investigation — after thanking Erica and
her crew for the lift.

Harry and the captain propelled
themselves into the cockpit to start their vehicle checks. The rest of them
stored their personal equipment and then hooked up their hammocks in the
communal sleeping area. Jan checked the contents of the refrigerators,
freezers, dried food lockers and fresh food stores. Fritz checked the
navigational equipment then sorted and helped Marko plug in and test all their
investigative and survey equipment. They then hard-suited before both EV-ed,
placed, then locked the deployable survey gear on the exterior of the craft.
Once back inside they went through the remainder of their individual
checklists.

Jan found that one of the medical
packs had expired, so she returned to the station, signed out a replacement,
and then swung by the dry canteen, grabbed extra ice cream and stocked up on
chocolate as well. Her return earned a round of smiles in appreciation. The
crew then sorted the last few check-offs while the water tanks were topped up.

‘Marko, we’re showing as good to
go. Seal, lock and disconnect us please.’

‘Bridge, we are sealed, locked
and disconnected. Comms umbilical remaining.’

‘Orbital, this is Longbow. We’re
ready to depart on flight plan LA1164. Request clearance and a tug please.’

‘LA1164, your flight plan is
acknowledged and you are cleared. Tug standing by.’

A touch of AG was created, so
anything loose on board was grounded, as the final umbilical automatically
disconnected. A small tug — a glorified reaction engine surrounded by
thrusters, a series of soft contact plates and a small one-person cockpit —
then pushed the spherical, twenty-metre-wide shuttle up and away from the
Orbital, sufficiently clear that free-flight protocols could be enabled. The
captain fired the engines and they started the journey across to the moon.
Officially, there was no hurry to get there, although every member wanted to burn
maximum fuel, get there and then back — pronto — so they could continue the fun
back at base. But they had two days’ flight time so they relaxed and dropped
into the eternal military pastime of waiting for something to happen.

~ * ~

Three

Almost
every service member had a hobby they could enjoy while waiting out the hours
between events. The Administration actively encouraged hobbies and ran numerous
competitions, devoting a few specialist channels on the Games Board broadcasts
to highlight achievements of Administration personnel.

In the small common room of the
ship Marko watched Jan place a medium-sized carved wooden chest on the table
which, when activated, folded out into a little work station with all the tools
in drawers. ‘What are you doing, Jan?’

‘Carving the handles of a pair of
long-range pistols. Pinched some of those interesting pictographs that we found
as the basis for the idea. So you’re a life-former, Marko? Not a lot of your
skill base around. Fact is I have only ever seen a few AV presentations about
your discipline and the ACEs. They say that you guys spend lifetimes
accumulating the knowledge to make them. Still controversial, though.’

Marko had been designing an
Artificially Created Entity for himself for years. He had realised that
designing a large cat-like creature would be useful to him and his fellow
section members. Eventually it would be a companion in his travels when he left
the service.

‘Yeah, it’s a tough business to
get into. I was born into it — my whole family unit makes its living from ACE
creation — so from a small child I was trained on creating life forms by some
of the very best in the business. On the whole we are supported, but Single
Lifers have tried to destroy some of our ACE creatures, because they reckon
they are aberrations and that it’s wrong to tinker with genetics and splices.
Anyway, those who hold those beliefs don’t want to change.’

Jan nodded in agreement, saying, ‘Single
Lifers are weird! Fancy seriously considering that you are only meant to have a
normal one hundred twenty years or so and then die completely — no hiving, no
re-lifing, not being uploaded into a chassis — just seeing out your days and
then dying forever! Stuff that!’

‘So, what base material are you
carving?’ Marko asked.

‘It’s altered Rusa antler.
Straight, no pith and very tough, with beautiful colouration.’

‘Antler? Would you mind if I
pinched some of your chips? Be interesting to run it through my machine to see
if I can create something better, maybe.’

Jan nodded. ‘Sure. So what are
you designing at the moment?’

‘Well, I’ve been working on a
companion. Going to take a long time to map it out. Have the midi, of course,
thanks to the boss. It’s a powerful computer, but after all, this is the hobby
part of the business so I don’t mind how long it takes.’

~ * ~

During
the flight, the crew took turns preparing the meals, caught up with sleep and
hobbies, but mainly chilled out, because the sub-AI computer on board was more
than capable of looking after everything. The captain took everyone through a
refresher on the handling of the shuttle, so if the brass ever looked at the
flight logs they would see that they had all been earning their pay.

The ship eventually swung in
behind the moon over the horizon from Cygnus 5 and, with the AG units ramped
up, hovered over the gravitational well, twenty-two kilometres above the
satellite’s desolate, gasless surface. The local star produced plenty of light,
augmented by the planetary system’s three gas giants reflecting sunlight down,
as well as the light plays created by the star fields above them.

The captain, sitting at the
commanders’ station back at base, watched the overlays on the screens, seeing
the topographic images sliding under the ones they had seen in the mosaics.

‘What have you got, Harry?’

‘Coming up on the main search
area. Yup, the overlays from the mosaics match the topography. This is the
primary search area.’

‘Right. Marko, deploy the survey
drones. Fire up the radar as well.’

‘Drones away. Once they’re in
position they will mimic everything you do with the shuttle, boss. Radar
online.’

‘OK, thanks. Fritz, anything?’

The little man, who was
surrounded by screens, said, ‘Overlaying the original survey results. Filtering
out the dust accumulation. Rates are based on historical build-ups. This moon
was still volcanically active six thousand, three hundred, twenty-five years
ago system time, and then there was that brown dwarf that dragged all the
cosmic dust through here 10976 ST. OK. Results are starting to come in. Space
port, maybe? See here, here, here. Landing fields — same geometry we use. Only
sensible. Structural ruins beside them. Logical. Dwellings there, maybe? Field
control buildings here? Different geometry. The drones are coming online. OK,
now see these?’