SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2380
STRENUUS SYSTEM, NEBULA IC 434
EMPIRE OF SALUSIA "Tell me something about this planet we're going to,
Lieutenant," said the heavily muffled figure sitting in the jump seat
behind the pilot's station of the Salusian dropshuttle as it buffeted
its way through the upper atmosphere. "I'd never heard of it before I
was sent out here."
"No reason why you should've," Lt. Kearna Adaji, fourth officer
of Her Majesty's frigate Swiftsure, replied from the shuttle's helm.
"Xawin's a frozen rock. It's Class G, roughly the same size and gravity
as Salusia, with an atmosphere composed mostly of ethane and just enough
of it to support some rotten weather. Average surface temperature about
200 below, Fahrenheit. No indigenous life, no permanent settlements.
There's some mineral value down there, and we occasionally get wildcat
miners staking claims, but the climate usually discourages them quick
enough."
"So what we're here to investigate is unusual."
"Very much so, if the preliminary reports are accurate. I mean,
-something- must be pretty damn weird down there if Command saw fit to
pull us off sector patrol, reroute us to Zeltos to collect you, and haul
you out here. We don't often get emergency override tasking from the
Royal Reconnaissance Office."
The passenger nodded thoughtfully. "I don't suppose you can
tell me what was -in- those preliminary reports."
"No sir," the lieutenant replied. "My orders are very specific.
Recon wants you to go in cold. No pun intended."
The passenger chuckled, but otherwise didn't reply. Lt. Adaji
busied herself with vectoring to their designated landing point, bucking
some gusty winds as she did so. The shuttle's repulsorlifts whined in
protest as the blocky vehicle's hull tried to weathercock into the wind
and Adaji restrained it, settling it onto its skids facing away from the
anomaly. Her passenger, and the four ODSTs assigned by the Swiftsure's
captain to escort them in case of trouble, unbuckled and stepped to the
back of the shuttle, triple-checking their environment suits. Moments
later, Adaji joined them, sealing her own E-suit helmet, and punched in
the code to decompress the rear compartment and lower the ramp.
With the Standard-pressure atmosphere in the compartment vented,
Xawin's thin, frigid, unbreathable air rushed inward, driven by the
wind. The ODSTs cursed under their breath and dialed the environmental
conditioning systems in their armored E-suits to a warmer setting.
Adaji shivered and did likewise.
The passenger walked slowly down the ramp, his body language
evincing first surprise, then astonishment, then intrigue, as he took in
the sight Adaji's careful parking job had prepared the way for him to
see. After the first shock of the cold had passed them, the marines
moved out in formation after him, weapons at the ready in case there was
trouble - and then they halted behind him, staring in disbelief. Even
Adaji found herself pausing, and she, alone among them, already knew
what was there.
A few hundred yards away, a shape at once immediately familiar
and so out of place it momentarily defied recognition lay on the rocky,
snow-draped ground, tilted toward them at a slight angle, its leading
edge crushed into the face of a cliff. Behind it, stretching off into
the distance, was an enormous furrow it had carved out of the ground in
the course of reaching the point where it now rested, flanked by huge
banks of churned-up snow and weirdly serried ripples of friction-thawed,
now-refrozen permafrost.
"Is... is that what I think it is?" one of the ODSTs asked.
"If you think it's the saucer section from a Constitution-class
Federation starship, then... yes," the passenger replied.
"What's it doing here?" the ODST wondered.
For a few seconds, Detective Inspector Giol'bertis Grissom of
the Royal Salusian Mounted Police didn't reply. He took a couple more
steps forward, walking off the end of the ramp, and stood in the snow,
his bright green Mountie E-suit standing out in sharp contrast to the
ODSTs' black armor and the brilliant white snow.
Then, his face just visible through the bowl of his helmet, he
looked back over his shoulder at the marine who's spoken and said with a
faint smile,
"I suppose that's what I'm here to find out."