Burnt Ice (2 page)

They looked around. Everyone was
checking gear and heaving packs onto their backs. The loading ramp doors swung
open and the smell of the sea swept through the cabin, carrying with it the
planet’s unique odours.

As Marko’s section approached the
door ramp, their soft, skull-snug helmets automatically deployed a small visor
that shielded their eyes from the glare of the local star. The HUD initiated,
showing them where the rest of their section was and where each individual
should be. They walked across the warm, bronze-coloured tarmac looking out
across a horseshoe-shaped bay with pristine kilometres of sand. The breeze
rustled the foliage of the trees at the landing field. Marko recognised many of
the bio-altered colonist plants and trees, which humankind dragged around
wherever they went, interspersed among the native plant forms — huge types of
grass, all a similar greeny-bronze hue.

Captain Michael Longbow was
waiting for his section in the shade of the veranda of a landing field
building. He nodded down at them as each saluted and murmured a relaxed
greeting. The captain had already been on the planet for a few days.

‘OK, people, good to see you. Fun
flight, was it? You had the pleasure of being flown by one of the hot jocks of
the Administration, Flight Officer Demetre Garland. Threw you all over the sky,
eh? Had the same pleasure when I came down, but with my flight we had more
brass on board, so it was even more interesting. OK, so here are the info
packets.’

They tapped at the soft plates on
their left forearms and personal computer screens folded out, showing the
packets the captain had flashed across, containing information from the base AI
about what her team had found, mainly in the shallow seas around the islands.
There were also lists of services available to them — equipment, where the
messes were, meal times, base protocols and all the minutiae that went with a
large rest and recreation base.

Marko reached into his top pocket
and pulled out what appeared to be a pair of antique spectacles. Everyone told
him that wearing them made him look even more of a geek, but he did not mind.
He looked into the sky and, as the filters came online together with a spot of
magnification, he could see the huge Orbitals — processing factories — and the
Administration’s weapons barges and carriers. A spectacular sight, but not
unexpected, as this was an extraordinary planet. Its moon was liberally coated
in Helium 3, the perfect fusion fuel, and the quantity available was
staggering. Certainly it was a constant target for opportunistic privateers
wanting to snap up the odd shipment. There was a sizeable security detail
operating from the carriers high above the planet, with every conceivable piece
of military hardware available. He looked further down the island and could see
two more airfields busy with traffic.

The captain looked at his screen
then across to Harry, nodded, and said, ‘Interesting to consider that this one
operation supplies over forty per cent of all the Helium 3 used throughout our
worlds, to say nothing of the numerous small outposts scattered across the fifty
light years.’

‘Well, all I can add is ... hell
of a target, sir.’

‘You’re right there, Harry.’

‘Hey, this is amazing, guys,’
Fritz said. ‘Considering all we found inside fifty light years were some
mashed-up, tantalising ruins and small bits of busted tech, but no living
intelligent species that we could actually relate to. Looks really interesting,
boss.’

Fritz, of course, had been
reading through the latest files released to him a few moments earlier. He had
no curiosity about what was happening above him. He reckoned his section was
the only interesting one around, otherwise he wouldn’t stay with them. They
moved around a lot, so he rarely got too bored — although he was pissed off
that he was not allowed to post some of his more significant thoughts on
humanity and its future developments through even more radical bio-engineering
onto the public sites, or at least not allowed to have them attributed to him.

‘Just don’t discuss it with
anyone outside your section,’ said the captain. ‘OK, Fritz? I know you and you’ve
been working with the restricted data for weeks.’

‘OK, boss, whatever, but there is
some amazing stuff here and everyone has the right to know.’

‘It stays between us, sergeant.’

They stared at each other for
long seconds before Fritz shrugged and dropped his gaze. He knew that a shady
group within the Administration Intelligence Corps took a very serious interest
in everything he did, and he did not want to twist that particular tail again
any time soon.

The crew turned back to their screens
and watched a stream of ore barges making their way up to the nearest Lagrange
point for their initial jumps out of the system. Marko looked across to the
other side of the operation, slaved his glasses to the base telescope and
watched as empty barges flashed through their self-generated wormholes to then
power across and dock with the enormous ore processors, uplift their cargoes,
swap out crews as necessary and start the process all over again. He also
pulled up some of the stats on their location and learnt that, at any one time,
up to fifteen hundred military and military contractors would be on the ground
on this string of island resorts, resting up and enjoying a little R
& R, before returning to the job sites above.

‘OK, guys, I would like you to
digest what you have there and let’s have a discussion about it after lunch.
Square your kit away and I’ll see you then.’ The captain nodded to them, turned
and strode purposefully away.

‘The boss is in a bit of a hurry,
eh, Harry?’

‘Yeah, Marko. That officer —
Viche Angstrom — is here, so I reckon that’s where he’s headed. Not quite sure
what he sees in her — she’s a tough bitch. Always comes across as a real
hardarse.’

‘Yeah, but she’s as tall as him
so she would be great in the shower. Must have nice somethings otherwise he
wouldn’t be interested in her.’ Fritz grinned.

‘Careful, Fritzy. If you keep
speaking like that, I might have to teach you some more martial arts so we don’t
have to rescue you so often.’

‘Yes, Jan.’

Harry and Marko exchanged smiles,
knowing that although Jan had only been with them a few weeks, Fritz clearly
adored her and, even more interestingly, respected her.

‘Right, guys.’ said Harry. ‘You
heard the man. Go sort your crap out. I need to find the regimental quartermaster,
then the president of the mess committee, to introduce myself. See you at
lunch, maybe.’

‘OK, Harry. See you guys soon. I’m
told that they have a very good armourer here.’ Jan turned and walked away.

Fritz sighed.
‘Magnificent.
Still wondering why she’s with us, eh, Marko?’

‘Yeah, not sure, still figuring
that one out, Fritz. Was considering bedding her, but Harry told me to keep it
in my pants as she won’t be around for long. I pressed him for info but he just
tapped his nose.’

They walked up to the classically
designed, two-storey bio-engineered Senior Non-Commissioned Officer barracks,
located on a low rise above the beachfront with its sweeping curves and arches
based on open fungal plant forms, and signed in. After throwing their packs
into their allocated rooms, they had a quick look around, decided on a nice
cold beer to be followed by lunch and sat at a table overlooking the idyllic
beach dotted with service personnel. A good spot to go through the file
packets. On each side of the military accommodation and base there were many
similar buildings, all conforming to the surrounding terrain. After querying
his screen, Marko noted them as the civilian R & R resorts and
permanent accommodation for the standard human staff of the facilities.

The sea had a slightly more
purple tinge to it than either had seen before. Marko, being an avid diver,
checked his bioware then uploaded the details of the local ecology from the
base. He looked up any possible nasty fauna that his biosystem could not
handle. There were not a lot on land, but there were a lot in the water, some
even noted as edible. Intrigued, he checked the food available to them. Fish
and crustaceans were on the menu, which he thought was wonderful, as well as
all the real fresh fruit and vegetables grown here. He linked across to the
mess and perused the menus, seeing that they would all enjoy eating there,
except Fritz, who regarded food strictly as fuel. He flicked the menu across to
Harry and received back a grinning image seconds later.

‘Mate, they even have fresh beef
here! Anything new for you, Fritz?’

Fritz shrugged, saying, ‘Beef? As
long as I can get it between slices of bread, I don’t care. You know that,
Marko. I’m interested in the music — and there’s lots of it! Huge database — they
even have live bands. Good stuff as well. Might have to reconfigure our
databases so I can store more.’

‘Um, mate, don’t get caught
lifting that data, will you? You know how the boss feels about that.’

‘Hey, Marko. Don’t stress, man. I
shall have the base’s AI hacked by this time tomorrow, tops. Just watch.’

Marko mused that that, of course,
was one of the many scary things about Fritz. He’d do it — and probably in much
less time. Strange guy, but absolutely wizard at electronics and maths and so
far off the chart with esoteric physics that he could have conversations with
the top Administration boffins. And those outsiders listening in would only
understand one word in ten.

‘Great! There’s a group of
Ethiopians here! Time to take up a new language.’

‘Holy crap, Fritz. How does that
stuff all fit in your head?’ He paused. ‘It always fascinates me — Earth was
totalled such a long time ago yet there are still ethnic groups that cling onto
their identity.’

‘Takes all types, Marko, and
makes the Sphere a slightly more interesting place. Just as long as someone
keeps me intrigued I don’t care where the shit they came from.’

As they had a pleasant lunch of
fresh fish and salads, Marko watched a pair of native sea birds hovering high
overhead. After magnifying the images in his glasses, he recorded them so he
could study the wing structures in his own time.

Afterwards, they walked the few
hundred metres on bonded stone pathways through the exotic undergrowth, which
was the same bronze hue as the ground, on their way to join the captain and the
rest of the section in a small briefing theatre. Large multi-winged,
insect-like creatures darted around them, staying in the middle of the path
until Fritz swatted at one, which flashed across to an innocuous-looking
flax-like plant. A pod propelled up out of the plant and promptly enclosed the
small squealing creature, then snapped back down into the foliage.

Fritz yelped and jumped. ‘Shit!
Insects are not supposed to scream!’

‘Do it again, Fritz, swat another
insect — I want to record that!’

‘You’re as strange as this place,
Marko.’

Marko just laughed and gestured
Fritz ahead of him into the theatre where the rest of the section were
assembling, each sitting behind a transparent, vertical screen.

They were still settling in when
the captain began speaking. ‘Everyone sorted with the accommodation and such?
Good. Right, Fritz, your thoughts please?’

Images of alien pictographs
presented themselves on the screens as Fritz spoke.

‘Definitely a language of some
sort. Note that the dating puts an estimate of some fifteen thousand and fifty
standard years, given the makeup of the stone and the layers of marine growth
taken off them. So it would mean that they have been in existence for about
twelve thousand, three hundred, twenty-two of this planet’s years. Quite
advanced pictographs. Would say that this civilisation was mid-cycle.
Considering all the evidence, they look too perfect to have been made by
sentient creatures manipulating tools; rather they have been machined or
pulse-cut into the underlying stone. Looking at the planetary history, there’s
little or no tectonic activity and sea levels have been stable for the last
twenty thousand planet years. So, yeah, I’d say we are dealing with a fully
sentient aquatic species. Mining has been in full swing for years and nothing
has been seen, with the exception of a few small boats lost at sea — and who
would want to go on an ocean in a boat powered by wind? That’s just nuts! So I
reckon that whoever they were, they’re long gone.’