Frozen Soul, and other works: Chapter 161

(Unknown Structure, 2200 km East of Starborn, Star’s Reach)

Two Black Star assault shuttles flanked the Starlight Raven as we made our approach. The trees were too thick to get a good view of whatever was down there. Whatever structure the signal was coming from, it was old enough that an old growth forest had sprung up around it, completely hiding it from view. Fortunately for us, there was a clearing about a kilometer away from the signal’s location that we could use as a landing pad.

“Captain, sensors are detecting something under the clearing. Unknown material, but it has a density greater than lead. According to readings, it looks like a circle roughly the size of the clearing, but the entire thing is covered with soil and undergrowth.”

Looking from the sensors to a visual of the space, I considered Raven’s words. “Any sign of a structure underneath us?”

“Negative. The substance does appear to form a line through the forest heading to the northeast.”

“That would be directly towards the source of the signal, more or less. Soil covering this to a depth of almost a meter… too shallow for trees to grow, but the grass and shrubs have done well enough. Perhaps we found a landing pad, then? And that line is the road to the door?”

Raven considered that, and nodded, “Sensor readings would support that analysis. If these trees are similar to old-growth forests on Earth, then it would stand to reason that a great deal of time has passed since anyone came to check on this facility. Plenty of time for a landing pad that hadn’t been used to become covered in soil and grass. If that is the case, finding the structure itself, if there is one, may prove problematic.”

I shook my head. “We’ll follow the path first, and see if that leads us to the building, whatever it is. Make sure all teams suit up for full contamination protocols. The colony’s med center is not online yet, so we haven’t done the full tests to make sure there are no bacteria or other fun things in the atmosphere that we can’t handle. All teams should carry sensor equipment, as well. We want to be recording EVERYTHING, so the scientists in the fleet can go through it.”

“Should we be concerned with local fauna?”

Frowning, I looked at the scanners. There was too much life in this forest for us to get a good read on individual life forms beyond about ten meters into the trees, but anything dangerous or pest-like would have gotten some distance with the three vessels landing here. “Deploy the turret drones for defensive fire, just in case.” I sent a couple extra orders to the fleet, and then turned away from the cockpit, to start putting on my own armor.

Soon, all three teams were standing on the earth-covered ‘tarmac’. Looking at them, I said into the comm network, “All right, you all have seen the sensor readings. Looks like we found a landing pad, with a road leading straight towards the signal that brought us here. Here’s the play. Ravensclaw and Valkyrie will follow the trail, and investigate the facility, if we find it. Catspaw, we don’t know what kind of animals might be living on this planet, or how hostile they might be. You have a couple wilderness experts in your group, so you get to scout and do perimeter defense for the ships. Leave your hacker on board to help with the defense turrets.”

I couldn’t see his face, but I knew Xexzir wasn’t pleased. “That will be a tall order for five people to secure this much ground without knowing the terrain, or even what kind of fauna we might be looking for. Bias and preconceptions will be a big problem.”

I nodded to Catspaw Lead. “Right you are. So, keep it together, and play it safe. I’ve already sent word to the fleet. Vulcan from Spitfire and Aegis from Reliant are ready to drop if you get into trouble or need support, or if we call for additional boots in the facility. I’ve tasked Red Guardian Squadron to be ready for operations if we need air support.”

I paused, and then said, “This is not going to be easy. We’re going into the unknown, someplace that no ‘local’ or ‘Nomad’ has ever been. It is better to be too cautious than reckless in this situation. We don’t know what we’ll find, and we may lose contact depending on what the composition of the structure is. Everyone stay frosty, and concentrate on your jobs. Catspaw, we’ll stay in contact as long as we can. Ravensclaw! Valkyrie! Move out!”

Catspaw broke into two groups, one of two and one of three, with their sixth member going back onto their shuttle, probably to hook into the drone defenses in place. The two groups melted into the forest, starting on a sweep of the immediate area, just to get a better idea of what was nearby, and see if they could pick up any traces of local wildlife. Catspaw Two and Catspaw Five were both well versed in working out in the middle of nowhere. I had it on good authority that they ran land navigation and wilderness survival classes for Black Star employees and families whenever they were in a suitable location. They’d be all right, so I left them to it.

Taking the lead, I followed the path that Raven highlighted in my HUD as we headed away from the ‘landing pad’. You wouldn’t have been able to see it from orbit, but there was a definite line through the trees. Their canopies may have closed in over the trail, but there was a solid five-meter-wide stretch of ‘road’ that no trees could grow on. Things like that do not happen in nature. Nature hates perfect circles and perfectly straight lines. You will never see one unless some outside force has acted on it to make it straight, and there hasn’t been enough time to wear it away.

Once we got away from the ‘tarmac’, Viessa (known as Valkyrie Two), started running readings on the soil as we moved. “Master, there are some interesting readings here.” She shot the chemical analysis of the soil to the rest of us.

“Hmm. At least we’re not dealing with any unusual types of materials. No unknown elements in the soil. Looks to be… a mix of igneous and metamorphic rock. Except there’s a lot of glass in the mix, too. All common elements, but it looks like that, at some point, there used to be a volcano in the area. Would have had to have been millions of years ago for natural weathering to wear it down.”

Nerila, the Gauz explosives expert known as Valkyrie Four, shook her head. “No, not that long. You see these glass patterns in some of the chemical composition? Those aren’t your natural kind of glass. That’s what happens when you try and slag stone with high-energy cannons.” We turned to look at her, and she shrugged. “I may have had a couple chances to examine the results personally before I got collared.”

Raven spoke up then, “Captain, this revelation offers a potential hypothesis. If the facility we are tracking were built into a volcano, that would explain the presence of volcanic rock in the area. If the facility was then attacked…”

I nodded. “Putting a facility inside a mountain is a solid defense, unless someone decides to take the time to blast the mountain out from on top of you, a piece at a time. Enough ships with enough firepower and enough time? Yeah, that could work.”

Sona (AKA Ravensclaw Eight) shook her head. “Why in the hell would someone build a facility into a volcano? Don’t those things have a tendency to, you know, erupt and send molten material all over the place? I might have been just a grunt, but even I know that lava is bad for your health.”

I shook my head. “The volcano could have been dormant or dead. But more likely, if they had the technology, they built it into an active volcano, and were using it as a cheap, inexhaustible supply of energy. Geothermal power was used on Earth hundreds of years ago, in various forms, so whoever built this place should have the tech for at least basic geothermal power generation. That would provide an explanation for how a signal has been generated for all this time, long enough for a forest to grow up over the facility.”

Valkyrie Two spoke up, worry in her voice, “Master, the ‘road’ looks to angle downwards up ahead, but the level of the soil isn’t changing.”

I nodded. “More evidence that this place was designed to be subterranean. Well, we brought excavation equipment for a reason. Track the road until it either meets the structure or we lose it on sensors, and we’ll start digging there.”

Just over three hundred and seventy meters from where it began its decent (and almost six hundred meters from the landing pad), the ‘road’ stopped, exactly one hundred meters down from the surface, having followed a perfect fifteen degree down angle the entire time. There was absolutely no way that such a thing was natural, a fact that was only reinforced by the structure that appeared on our sensors.

Looking at the rest of the teams, I said, “All right, ladies, let’s break out the digging equipment. We’ve got a hundred meters of soil to get through in order to reach the facility. We didn’t bring enough equipment to create a lift, but we have the grav-belts which will allow us to get in and out of the hole easily enough. Remember, this is a fact-finding and exploration mission, not looting the place clean. If we can make sure this place is safe, then we’ll bring the experts in to start figuring out what this place was used for.”

Everyone started setting up the basic excavation equipment. It really wasn’t anything special, just a machine that took in the material it was told to, packed and condensed it, and extruded it at the ‘base’ of the system. At the very least, if we were going to create a permanent structure for a base camp, we’d have plenty of bricks ready to go to start out.

Predictably enough, the excavator couldn’t scratch the road, or the facility door, but it did do a good job of clearing a path for us. Catspaw still hadn’t found any signs of hostile fauna, but the sounds of our excavator had probably helped keep some of them away, temporarily. That wouldn’t last long. My audio sensors were detecting the sounds of insects, and insects meant birds and other things that ate them, and that meant predators large enough that they might think we could be food, and scavengers that might want to get into our supplies. The excavator’s work done, I ordered it packed up, and four turret drones set up around the hole, so we would have at least some deterrent for any beasties that might come calling.

Using the grav-belts, a leap of a hundred meters was no more jarring than stepping off a chair one was standing on to change a light bulb. At the bottom of the pit we’d dug, I found myself faced with a large door, made of some blue-silver material that our sensors could not analyze, being some unknown alloy or composite. Without getting a piece to analyze in the lab, knowing its true nature would likely be impossible. The door was large enough that one could drive a tank through it and have room to spare, but what interested me was that there was a control pad in what was clearly the frame of the great doorway, where the facility proper no doubt met the road that tunneled under the mountain that may once have been here. By a quirk of fate and physics, the control pad was undamaged, and there were lights on it! The system was still operational!

I waved Raven and our other techs forward, so they could try and make some sense of the controls. Looking to the rest of the teams, I said, “All right, people. This facility clearly still has at least limited power. That means we were probably right about a geothermal source. We may be able to get more information from this facility than we ever dreamed, but if the lights still work, that means the security systems probably still work. We don’t know what kind of facility this was, so we don’t know how lethal the security is. I want everyone to be on your toes.”

There was a beep and a whirring sound from behind me, and I turned to see the doors opening. Raven shook her head. “We didn’t tell the doors to open, Captain. I’d only just started interfacing with the systems when they opened on their own. I think we’re being invited in.”

I took a breath, and said, “Well, if we’re being invited in, then it would be rude to keep them waiting. Keep together, and watch out for traps. Security might be on a different system from the external door. Take no chances.”