Read Burnt Ice for Free Online Page A

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?’
     
    They could see an immediate
improvement on their screens as the survey drones, augmenting the radar and
detection gear, started to show the depth and gravitational mass of everything.
     
    ‘Jan, start feeding the base AI
everything we’re seeing please.’
     
    ‘OK. The relay satellite will be
over the horizon in sixty minutes so we are currently out of comms.’
     
    ‘OK, thanks. Tell me when you
have comms.’
     
    ‘Metals detected, ceramics — and
a dump!’ Fritz said. ‘Wow! Looks like they may have left some tech after all!
Nice. Looking deeper. Um, looks like this place was smacked really hard. I can’t
see a single structure that doesn’t have serious damage.’
     
    ‘Meteorites maybe, Fritz?’
     
    ‘No, not bloody likely, Marko.
Can you see any craters in the open areas?’
     
    ‘Play nice, Fritz. There’ll be
meteorite craters anyway — almost impossible for there not to be. Keep looking
at everything, people,’ the captain commanded. ‘I’ve broken the area into
quadrants and assigned you each one to overview. Let’s find something
worthwhile to report.’
     
    ~ * ~
     
    When
the communications satellite came over the horizon an hour later, Jan
announced: ‘Captain, base is seriously preoccupied. There’s something
unexpected happening down there. Base AI has put me on standby! That’s unusual considering
their power. Those Augmented Intelligences never put people on standby — at
least, it’s never happened to me.’
     
    ‘No doubt we will learn more soon
enough, Jan. OK, let’s get closer. Ten kilometres, Fritz?’
     
    ‘Yeah thanks, boss. Fact is, just
keep going down until I say hold. OK?’
     
    ‘Will do, Fritz.’ said Jan.
     
    As they descended, more detail
became apparent.
     
    ‘There is no small wreckage.
Everything’s been stripped clean. Bloody tidy bastards, these aliens. Even the
dump looks like it has been picked over. Plenty of metal bits and pieces but I
can’t see any intact tech — certainly not from our current database anyway. Are
we authorised to land and go EVA?’
     
    ‘Yes. Give me a spot and we’ll
put this down. Leave the survey drones at one kilometre.’
     
    ‘Captain, we may have a