The Ruins of Arlandia

Chapter Thirteen: The Ice Planet



The next morning he awoke, and he did his usual routine of getting ready. He walked down to the dining room and had a small breakfast of cold cereal, an orange, and a cup of coffee. He was almost finished eating when Astra entered the room.

“Are you all right?” she asked with genuine concern. “What’s wrong?”

He looked up at her, and he replied sadly, “I died again.”

“Oh,” she said, a little surprised. “What happened?” She walked over to the food processor while he told his story. By the time he finished, she had her food and was sitting across from him.

“OK,” she said, looking sympathetically into his sad face. “I know exactly which mission you are talking about. You can’t take it personally. It’s not a reflection of your skill. Well, actually it is. It’s the introduction to combat training. See, they designed that mission so that it would be impossible to beat. In fact, when you go back into the simulator it will explain it to you, and it won’t let you try again. I know the people who wrote the software and the scenarios. They told me, after I took it, that they wanted the mission to scare me. They wanted me to realize upfront that space combat isn’t fun, it’s not easy, and that you will not always have a technological advantage. We, as Alerians, were always used to having the advantage, technologically speaking. It had a tendency to make pilots overconfident. Pilots die quickly with that attitude. So don’t feel bad. You were supposed to die.”

He looked at her skeptically.

“OK,” he answered, not entirely convinced. “I was upset about it last night, and I had a hard time sleeping.”

“I’m sure you were,” Astra said. “Under normal circumstances you would have had an instructor to explain it to you, but you didn’t.”

“All right, I’ll try not to let it bother me,” he said, visibly relieved. “I feel better.”

After they finished eating, they each went off and did their own thing again. Calvin went back to the simulator. The next group of missions went through the basics of space combat. He started with unarmed drones and learned how to use lasers and missiles, and how to maximize his shields. He learned that there was a way to rebalance them after they were damaged. Later in the afternoon he was fighting one on one with armed ships that shot back. The last mission he completed that day had him take on two opponents at once.

The next morning, Calvin and Astra were sitting in the dining room having breakfast.

“Have you made any progress?” Calvin asked, hoping for some good news.

“No, not really,” Astra said. “The only thing I’m relatively sure of is that this piece is some sort of power generator. And not just a regular power generator, it should produce an insane amount of power.”

“How much power?”

“OK, you probably won’t believe this,” she said. “But I checked it several times. This thing, if I’m right, can produce enough energy to power an entire planet.”

“Wow,” Calvin said. “That’s incredible. Really?”

“Yes,” she said. Then she briefly looked back at the door, as if she were fighting the urge to get up and go down to the science lab right that second. “You know, if we plugged it into the ship, we would never have to worry about power.” Then her eyes got bigger. “Oh, and our shields would be stronger, a lot stronger! I would just have to figure out how to plug it into the ship. I’m really excited about finding the next segment. So how is your training going?”

“Really well,” Calvin said. “The simulator is great. I’ve learned a lot. I feel a lot more comfortable in the pilot’s chair now.”

“That’s good,” Astra said. “I’m really glad you know how to pilot the ship.”

“Thanks. I hope I get more practice in a real ship.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll get that chance.”

“Good.”

Later that night, Calvin and Astra met on the bridge. Ion was already there, at his usual place at the main computer. They got there just in time to hear the alarm announce they’d arrived at their destination. Calvin yanked the hyperdrive lever, and the blue hyperspace cloud disappeared in an explosion of color. Way off in the distance was a small, white planet.

“There it is!” Astra said excitedly.

“Do you want to take us in, or should I?” Calvin asked.

“Go ahead, you can do it. You need the practice.” Astra smiled at him.

“Thanks.” Calvin smiled back. He pushed the throttle forward and put the ice planet in the middle of the front window.

“Warming up the sensors,” Astra said. “It’s not very big. I don’t even know if we should call it a planet.”

After a few moments, Astra said, “Scanning.” It didn’t take very long. “OK, here’s what we have. The temperature on the surface is minus three hundred degrees. The average wind speed is eighty miles per hour. The ice is mostly composed of frozen methane. The air is definitely not breathable.”

“We’ll have to suit up again, obviously.” Calvin said.

“I don’t see the second segment,” Astra said. “The sensors can’t locate it, but that could be because we’re still too far away.”

“How about radiation?”

Astra examined the computer screen. “There is no radiation. We shouldn’t have too much trouble finding it once we get closer.”

The planet slowly grew larger in the window. Calvin was amazed and ecstatic that he was getting to see another planet. Calvin could feel the excitement in the air. Astra was clearly feeling it too. She had a big smile on her face as she studied her computer screen.

Soon they were flying over the planet.

“I’ll put us in a nice high orbit, to make scanning the planet easier.”

“Good idea,” Astra agreed.

Calvin looked down at the planet below. It was beautiful—mostly white, but it had a tinge of blue on it. The search didn’t take very long.

“There it is!” Astra exclaimed. “I found it. Oh, this is interesting. The vault is located beneath the surface—two miles under the ice.”

“What are we going to do?” Calvin asked.

“I don’t know,” Astra admitted.

“What do you think?” Calvin asked, turning to Ion. “Can we drill through the ice? Do we have the equipment to do that?”

“We have a drill on board,” Ion said. “But I have a suggestion. Let me go down to the surface alone. The atmosphere won’t affect me. You can remain here safely until I’m finished.”

Calvin and Astra looked at each other.

“Is that safe for you?” Calvin asked. “It’s extremely cold down there. Can you survive in that?”

“Yes, I'm equipped with internal heaters that will keep me warm. I can also survive in the vacuum of space.”

“Oh, OK,” Calvin said. “You'll probably do it faster than us.”

“Yes, I won't require rest.” Ion stood. “I'll go and prepare the equipment.”

“Please keep us updated.”

“Yes, Sir.” Ion left the bridge.

They sat in silence for a moment, studying the planet below them.

“Anything on the long-range sensors?” Calvin asked. “See anything out there?”

Astra checked. “I don’t see anything. No ships within five light years.”

“Good. I would hate to be surprised by someone showing up unexpectedly.”

“Yeah, good point. Considering the cloak is still broken.”

“I thought Ion was supposed to fix it,” Calvin said.

“There was more damage than we thought,” Astra said. “Ion has one of the other robots fabricating new parts. I asked him how long the repairs were going to take. He didn’t want to give me an estimate.”

“This is terrible. I hope he can fix it soon. I feel naked without it.”

“Me too,” Astra said sadly. “If he can’t, we’ll just have to be careful.”

“Yeah, and keep a close eye on the long-range sensors.”

“I have an idea,” Astra said. “We could set up an alarm. Anytime the sensors detect a ship, we go to red alert.”

“I like that idea.”

“Other than the cloak, all the other systems look good, operating in the green.”

“That’s good,” Calvin said. “I’m going down to see if Ion needs help.”

“Ok, hurry back.” Astra smiled at him. “I’m going to set up the enemy-ship alarm. We can name it something better later,” she added when he gave her a funny look.

Calvin left the bridge, unable to suppress his smile. He found Ion in the shuttle bay, loading a large drill into the back of the shuttle.

“Need some help?” Calvin offered.

“Thank you Master Calvin, I’m finished,” Ion said. “I’m ready to go down to the surface and get to work.”

“Do you have communications?”

“Yes, my communications are built in.”

“Ok. We'll watch you on the sensors.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

Calvin headed back to the bridge.

“How is he?” Astra asked as Calvin was taking his seat.

“He’s fine. The shuttle is loaded, and he’s ready to launch.”

Astra turned on the main monitor so they could watch Ion’s progress. The bay doors opened.

“Did you pass all of the simulator levels?” Calvin asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes,” Astra answered. “One of my father’s rules is that everyone has to learn how to fly and navigate. Since most of our population is gone, we rely on our robots to do everything for us. My father wants us to be able to take care of ourselves, not become dependent on robots. So we all have to learn in the simulator.”

“Shuttle one, requesting clearance for takeoff,” Ion said.

“Permission granted, shuttle one.”

Ion was a perfect model of machine efficiency. The shuttle rose in the air and floated out the door in one fluid motion.

Astra kept the monitor centered on the shuttle. They watched as the shuttle flew down toward the planet. There were little noticeable effects as the shuttle entered the atmosphere.

“I’ve been having fun with the different scenarios,” Calvin said. “They were hard at first, because I wasn’t used to the controls.”

“It’s a lot of information all at once, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Calvin said. “It’s funny, because it was information overload, and a little boring at the same time.”

The shuttle descended toward the surface, which looked like a big, blank white emptiness. Ion immediately flew large circles above the area that contained the vault.

“It gets better,” Astra said. “The early missions are boring, but the later missions will have so much going on in them, you will long for the early days again.”

After completing a few circles, Ion selected a landing site three miles away. Astra had to adjust the camera’s view and zoom in to keep the shuttle in the middle of the screen. The video detail was amazingly clear.

As if reading his mind, or perhaps the expression on his face, Astra said, “I think you should keep going—try to finish.”

“You do?”

“Yes. The training will turn you into a very good pilot, and I have a feeling the skills you pick up from it will be highly needed on this mission.”

A large cloud of snow swirled up in the air around the shuttle as it gently set down on the ice. Astra turned on another monitor. This one showed a view of Ion inside the shuttle. “I’ve landed,” Ion reported. “And calculated the optimal location for drilling. I will start as soon as I get the drill set up.”

Calvin hit the communicator and said, “We’ll keep this channel open. Please be careful.”

“Thank you, Sir, I will.”

Ion went to the cargo hold in the back of the shuttle and unpacked the drill. Calvin was amazed at how fast he put it together. Ion opened the rear cargo door and moved the drill outside. Astra changed the view to outside the shuttle. Now they would have to rely on a camera on the Frost. Ion was small on the screen, but they could clearly see what he was doing.

First he walked around the machine, inspecting it from top to bottom. Then he turned it on, and he stepped back. A large cloud of white powder exploded into the air. It was hard to see from their angle, but they could clearly see the drill sink into the ground. Tiny pieces of ice shot through the air. Ion got behind the drill, and he guided it down into the ground. Within a few minutes he was moving.

“Oh, look what he’s doing,” Astra said. She manipulated the camera and zoomed in a little more. Calvin was shocked at how clear the picture was.

“He’s making it easy for us to get down to the lab, drilling at an angle and then making a flat spot.” A thought occurred to her. “We’ll still want ropes, though, I would think.”

“Yeah, if we start sliding, we won’t be able to stop.”

“We’re going to want to be able to stop,” Astra said. “It could be a long slide.” They continued to watch, fascinated. Ion continued to work, drilling deeper and deeper until he reached the front doors of the vault. It was remarkable; he never stopped.

When Ion reached the bottom, he contacted the Frost. There was a lot of static.

“Master Calvin, Mistress Astra, I have reached the bottom. I’m on my way back up.”

“Good job, Ion. We’ll meet you in the shuttle bay.”

“Are you ready to go for a walk on an ice planet?” Astra asked.

“I’m ready,” Calvin said. All the way down to the shuttle bay, Calvin felt the excitement surging through him. He was very excited. He’d been thinking about it for days, and now it was finally time.

When they walked into the shuttle bay, they found that most of the equipment they needed for the mission was already stacked in small cases. Astra was going to inventory the gear, but knowing Ion had set it out she trusted that it was all there. While they waited for Ion to return, Astra showed Calvin how to inspect his spacesuit. When they were done with the suits, they put them on the ship.

“Just out of curiosity,” Calvin said. “Are these suits going to keep us warm down there?”

“They should,” Astra answered. “But just in case, I added extra heating units to them. I trust the suits, but since it’s going to be minus three hundred degrees down there I want to be safe instead of sorry.”

“Good. I feel better.”

They didn’t have to wait long for Ion. The shuttle returned and landed gently in the middle of the shuttle bay. When he got out of the shuttle, he walked to Calvin and said, “Everything is ready, Sir. I placed a beacon on the ground near the tunnel entrance. It will guide you down.”

“Good, thank you.”

“I had to leave the drill at the bottom of the shaft,” Ion said. “Unfortunately it used much more power than I anticipated. The power cell was depleted. I will give you a new one for you to take down with you. But there is something else I would like you to take with you.”

Ion held out his hand. In it were two small silver objects, each about the size of an ink pen. Calvin and Astra both took one. Calvin examined his. “What is it?” he asked.

“It has a small tracker in it, just in case something happens. It will help me find you if the sensors can’t. It does some other things that you might find useful.”

“Then you are planning on staying on the Frost, right?” Calvin asked.

“Yes. I will stay and monitor you from the bridge.”

Astra looked at him with a question on her face.

“Someone has to stay up here, just in case. We’ll be OK.”

“OK,” Astra said, with hesitation in her voice. “I don’t really feel comfortable going without him.”

“We need more robots,” Calvin said.

“I know. We should have brought more with us, but everything happened so fast. We were lucky to get the ones that we did.”

“Do you want to take the one in the engine room, just in case?”

Astra thought it over. “Alpha Nine is performing critical maintenance on the hyperdrive engines. We can’t use them until he finishes.”

“Then we don’t have a choice,” Calvin said. “I don’t think it will be a problem. We’ll just run down there, pick it up, and come right back. Do you have the antigravity jacks?”

“Yes, they’re on board.”

“Do we have a way to heat the door handles?”

She looked at him with that questioning look again.

“If the doors down there are like the last ones, they will be coded to our DNA. We’ll have to put our bare hands on the door, and the door will be very cold.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Good thinking. I have something in my lab that will work for that.”

Astra ran back up to the lab while Calvin packed up some things in the shuttle. She was slightly out of breath when she got back to the hangar bay. After Ion gave Calvin the spare power core for the drill, he went up to the bridge.

“I’m ready,” she said. “You’re right. I’m sure everything will be OK.”

They boarded the shuttle when everything was loaded. There were two doors to the shuttle. One was a small personnel door near the front, and the other was a wide cargo door in the back. Calvin and Astra boarded the shuttle, and they sat in the pilot’s chairs. The cargo door closed with a loud hum. There was a hiss of air as the cabin pressurized and oxygen flowed.

“Do you want to fly?” Calvin asked.

Astra looked at him. She could see it on his face that he really wanted to fly.

“No, you can take the controls,” she said, smiling.

“Thanks!” he said, smiling uncontrollably.

Calvin started the engines and went through the preflight check, which included making sure all of the systems were on and that their status was green. They were. Calvin remotely opened the shuttle bay doors, and he put his hand on the flight controls. He gently lifted the shuttle into the air a few feet, and he pushed the throttle forward, moving them through the force field and out into space.

No matter how many times he experienced it, flying out into space always took his breath away and made his heart beat faster. Space opened out in front of them. The ice planet was below them. It was a beautiful sight. The planet was all white, with a tinge of blue. It looked very empty and blank. There were no identifiable marks on the surface at all.

“I’m picking up the beacon,” Astra said.

“OK, I see it. Wow, the computer already loaded into the nav system. The autopilot is asking if I want to let it take us down to it.”

“You don’t have to let the autopilot take over,” Astra said. “Just ignore it.”

“Good,” Calvin said. He was very happy to ignore the autopilot and fly the shuttle himself.

The shuttle descended into the atmosphere of the planet. There were a few small bumps, but because the atmosphere was so thin, it was nothing big. Calvin didn’t use the autopilot, but he did follow the course that the computer recommended. It was always tricky entering the atmosphere of a planet. If you went in too steep you would hit the atmosphere too hard. If you did that you could damage and even destroy your ship.

Once they were in the atmosphere, Calvin took them down to the site. All of the ship’s statuses were on the glass window in front of him, including his course and speed. There was a small triangle, which told him where he needed to go. He simply followed it down to the ground. Calvin felt more comfortable sitting in the pilot’s chair, more confident. The controls felt more familiar now.

Calvin stopped the shuttle a few feet above the ground, and he hovered in preparation for landing. Then he cut engine power. Unfortunately he wasn’t as close to the ground as he thought he was. The shuttle hit the ground with a hard bump. He looked over at Astra, and he was grateful that she didn’t say anything. Calvin looked up and took a deep breath. The entrance to the tunnel was visible directly in front of them.

It took them ten minutes to put on their suits. After they were dressed they checked each other to make sure everything was hooked up correctly, paying special attention to the heaters and oxygen. Calvin grabbed a pack and put it on Astra’s back. She did the same for him. Calvin walked to the backdoor and opened it. A purple force field covered the backdoor before it started opening. The door opened from the top to the bottom, laying down flat on the ground, providing a ramp for them to walk down.

The suits were bulky and forced them to walk slowly down the ramp and onto the ice. Once they were out, Astra closed the door using a set of controls on the arm of her suit. The two of them turned and faced each other. Calvin pulled a plastic wire out of a special pocket of his suit and connected it to Astra’s suit. Then he pulled out a little extra to give them some slack. If she slipped and fell he wanted to be able to stop her from sliding down out of control. They turned and walked across the ice toward the tunnel entrance. There was a thin layer of powder on the top of the ice that looked almost like snow, which crunched loudly with each step. They could see Ion’s footprints and slide tracks from the drill on the ground.

Calvin looked up into the sky. He wasn’t used to the suit, and when he leaned back the helmet was so heavy he almost lost his balance. The sun was shining in the sky, but it was very small. The light wasn’t very bright. The area around them was dimly lit. Their suits’ sensors detected the low light level and automatically turned on the lights that were in their helmets. The area immediately around them was lit up well enough to see. The suits were amazing, Calvin thought. They also detected how slippery the ground was, and small metal spikes protruded from the bottoms of their boots.

The white flat horizon that surrounded them was remarkable to Calvin. He had never seen anything like this place before. There was nothing to break the flatness that stretched off into what seemed like eternity. It was vast and empty.

Calvin led the way, with Astra close behind him. They approached the tunnel, which was basically a hole cut in the surface of the planet, right into the ice. They descended down a gentle slope. The hole was mostly round, with rough edges all around. It was very nice because it gave them a little something to hold on to if they needed it. Their gloves had rough edges on the fingers that gripped the ice very well.

The tunnel ceiling was only inches above Calvin’s head. For some strange reason he couldn’t explain, the small space made Calvin feel more secure.

The first descending slope was gentle and about forty feet long. At the bottom of that, the tunnel leveled out for about ten feet. The tunnel kept following that same sequence. It went down forty feet and then leveled for ten feet. It did that ten times. At the bottom of the tenth, the tunnel turned ninety degrees and began again. After the second ninety-degree turn, Calvin and Astra stopped for a rest. They had been walking for nearly two hours.

“Don’t sit down,” Astra warned, seeing that Calvin looked like he was starting to sit. “You don’t want to risk tearing your suit.”

“Thanks,” Calvin said. “You’re right.”

Calvin suddenly realized he was very thirsty. There was a small rubber drinking tube, next to his mouth inside the helmet. Calvin grabbed it with his mouth and took a nice long drink of water.

“How are you doing?” Astra asked him.

“I’m doing really well,” he said. “The suit is working great. It’s keeping me warm. By the way, how much oxygen do we have in here?”

“Oh, these suits have enough air for several days. I wouldn’t worry about that,” she said casually. “And the battery will last forever. We’re constantly recharging our batteries as we walk.”

“That’s nice,” Calvin said. He looked around, down the way they were going toward the vault and back the way they had come. “You know, I’m not usually affected by tight, confined spaces, but this could be the exception. I wasn’t feeling it at first, but it’s starting to get to me.”

“I know what you mean. I’m starting to feel it too.” Astra looked down at the computer on her wrist.

“Ion placed a beacon at the entrance to the vault,” she said. “It looks like we are almost halfway there.”

Suddenly they felt the ground shake a little. It was a mild tremor. Tiny ice particles fell from the ceiling all around them. Calvin felt his heart immediately start racing, and fear gripped his heart and chest like a vise.

“What was that?” he asked. “Don’t tell me that was an earthquake. This isn’t a good time or place for it.”

Astra looked around, and they both stood still, holding their breath. It was quiet, and nothing else happened. The shaking only lasted for a second. The radio in Calvin’s helmet turned on, and Ion’s voice filled his ears.

“Sir, are you OK? Your heart rate has increased.”

“I’m OK,” Calvin said, slightly embarrassed. “We just had a small earthquake down here.”

“Yes, sensors indicated a very minor shift in the ice. It doesn’t appear that you are in any danger.”

“I’m OK,” Calvin repeated. “It just caught me by surprise.”

“I think we should get moving again,” Astra suggested, suppressing a smile.

“Good idea. We just took a short break, Ion. We’re moving again.”

“Very good, Sir.”

Calvin led again. The suit was feeling heavier, and his legs were getting very tired, but he pressed on. He kept thinking about how fun the trip back up was going to be.

After two more hours of walking, they reached the end of the tunnel. At the bottom, they found that Ion had cleared out a large space. In the middle of the cleared space sat the drill. It had a large drill head on the front, and sitting behind that was a large square engine. Behind that there was a place for two people to sit, and a flat space behind that for cargo. Calvin smiled, relieved when he saw it, realizing that they wouldn’t have to walk all the way back up.

At the back, against a wall of ice, were two silver doors.