You know that feeling of waking up when you've been asleep, and everything feels calming, soothing - even peaceful? When the world seems harmonious, and life seems easy?

That was not the feeling I experienced when I regained consciousness.

The first sensation was that of acidic vomit in my mouth. As my eyelids slid open, the glare of electric lights dazzled me and I squeezed them shut again in agony. A moan escaped my parched throat and I rolled over sluggishly.

As I began to come to my senses fully, the faint hum of an engine reached my ears. The slight shocks of a jet's spoilers adapting to the wind currents were all too familiar to me. We were in motion, and flying high. The memory of being  surrounded by Frederiksen's men returned to me, and I sat up suddenly.

Where are Pete and Picard? I thought. My heart was racing. I reached for my weapon, but I was stripped of any form of offence. Damn it, I cursed silently.

I was sitting in the back compartment of an F-27 Whirlwind, the top-end range of IASA's large jets. There was one door, but it appeared to be sealed. I stood and tried to tinker with the controls. No luck. I was about to do a run up and kick the door, when there was a quiet hiss and it slid open.

"Commander Nicholas!" exlaimed a blue-eyed man with wavy, dirty blond hair and a small goatee. He was equipped with light weaponry and had the IASA Insignia on his vest. He held out his hand, and I took it.

"So I guess you're on my side then?" I enquired. The man grinned.

"Never been more on anyone's side. You're the man....the UK Commander. We all respected you," he guided me out into the main part of the jet. "The name's Sven. My compadre and I were on a little adventure when we saw you were in a spot of bother. So we dived in and picked you guys up. There was a lot of smoke, and we were under some seriously heavy fire - but we got you all out, don't worry."

My spirits soared.

"Pete and Picard?" I cried.

"Yes," Sven confirmed, opening the door into the spacious cockpit, in which Picard and Pete were already seated. Picard raised his hand in a gentle wave.

"Nice to have you back, Commander," he smiled.

"Nice to be back."

Sven gestured towards the pilot, who set the jet to autopilot, and rose to greet me.

"This is Ace, our pilot." He had straight, meticulously combed jet black hair and dark green eyes. His smile was slight and not without hesitation.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Commander," he said quietly.

"The pleasure's all mine - we owe you our lives."

Sven indicated the seat opposite him, but I refused.

"We have to go back." Ace shook his head.

"We still have jets on our tail," he said. "There's no way. Why the hell do you want to go back there?"

"We weren't alone," I revealed. "Three more members of our company are stranded there without any chance of escape. We NEED to go back, Ace." Sven looked unconvinced.

"If we u-turn and end up in a firefight with those jets, we'll be in serious trouble."

"But we CAN'T LEAVE THEM there!" I bellowed. Ace's eyes bore into my mind. I held out my hands to Picard and Pete in despair.

"We can go back." It was Ace. He spoke quickly and abruptly. "But don't expect it to be an easy ride. Take up gunning positions." Pete and Picard rose from their seats.

I turned back to Ace and Sven.

"We're ready."

@****@

Kruncher burst through two sets of doors. The first mercenary he saw he grabbed by the throat and slammed to the ground. Behind him, Sitfig fired a volley of pistol shots. Under Sitfig's arm, Flynn began to groan groggily. Kruncher heard it.

"He's back with us!" he roared. "Drop him behind those crates." He gestured to some high-piled wooden crates. The crackle of zorenine rounds hurt Kruncher's ears. He knelt behind an empty barrel, reloading his shotgun.

If these pellets were lethal, he thought, these guys would be having one hell of a time. He leapt up, fast-firing the gun into a trio of men who were hurled back, crumpling against the wall. He vaulted it and searched the room for stragglers.

"All clear." Just as he spoke this, a man leapt from behind a cloth with a dagger raised. Flynn, still dazed, saw this and rose up like a zombie, still moaning ominously. The man paused in surprise. Kruncher whirled around, smashing his nose in with the butt of his shotgun. Blood spurted from the man's face, and Kruncher shoved him backwards. He toppled over a crate out of sight. Kruncher clapped his hands together.

"A job well done, boys," he smirked.

Now he turned his attention to Flynn.

"How are we doing?" he asked with a hint of urgency. Sitfig shrugged.

"He's in fine shape, but look at those eyes..." Flynn's eyes were shockingly bloodshot. The flash grenade had clearly done some damage. "It appears he can still see though. Let me try and get him back some strength." Sitfig was just beginning to take some meds from his back pocket, when *WHAM*.

The wall exploded, red hot bricks hissing through the air. One slammed into Kruncher's side, knocking him down. He rolled over, and pulled himself to cover, clasping his injured abdomen.

"Damn it!" he bellowed. Through the crumbling stones, heavily armed men swarmed like beetles

"There's too many!" Sitfig cried in despair, frantically trying to revive Flynn. Bullets now whizzed through the air, chipping the stonework. Kruncher kept low, skirting the edge to flank them. But they saw him coming a mile off.

Kruncher crept round a corner, believing he was at their rear. In reality, they had flanked him, and two monstrous guards tackled him down. Kruncher howled like a great wolf patriarch in the midst of a violent struggle. The two guards began beating him bloody with their rifles and fists alike. Soon he gave up his struggle, barely conscious. One of them fired a quick shot and Sitfig, lifting him off his feet. Flynn struggled to sit up, but the largest of them just hoisted him up by the waste, and carried him through the breach.

Another took Sitfig, and two more dragged Kruncher with them down the corridor. His sight was obscured by the hot, thick blood streaming down his face, but as he was towed into the corridor, he made out a clear figure, feet apart and arms crossed, sneering maliciously. His hair was more savage and his face more gaunt. His beard was long and scraggly now and his eyes were dark as night. But, despite the stresses of the world on him, this man was the same man as ever. Wilder Frederiksen awaited them.

Links to other Parts: 

Part 1: Not Alone

Part 2: A Spy Unrealized

Part 3a: The Journey Part 1

Part 3b: The Journey Part 2

Part 4: Horizons

Part 5: Stranger Things

Part 6a: Frozen Part 1

Part 6b: Frozen Part 2

And now, Part 7a: Blackout, Part 1

***

The Not So Distant Future... 

The slow beep of the medbed was the only sign besides Johnson's breathing that the technician was still alive. "Concussion," Futureboy said. "Brain activity is low, but not indicative of coma. I'll get him down to sickbay and run more detailed tests once we're back at base, but he should be alright within a few hours. Some confusion for at least a day afterward, full recovery within a month." He turned to Spiridon and ran a scanner up and down the geologist. "You, by some miracle, escaped the same. Clean bill of health, though your blood sugar's starting to dip. Get something to eat." 

"No problem, Doc." As Spiridon headed up towards the forward section of the shuttle towards the tiny galley, Futureboy tapped the wall comm.

"Jay, Johnson's safe to move. Get us in the air and take us back to base."

"Understood". The shuttle's engines blazed as it rose into the air again. "ETA is 1 hour, 23 minutes." 

The comm beeped. "Doc, it's Hunter. Should we head back with you?" 

Futureboy paused, trying to decide, when a third voice cut in. "Hunter, Falconer. Remain on site. Study the wreck, and try to download her records—"

"Belay that!" Zam's voice over the line now. "Hunter, under no circumstances attempt to access the Ares Voyager's computer systems."

"Copy that, do not access the AV's computer systems."

"What was that about the AV's computers?" Spiridon asked from the doorway, a half-unwrapped ration bar in hand. "Because I already used them."

"Were you using the buggy's uplink?" Zam asked.

"No, I accessed them on the bridge."

"Did you use any connection from your own equipment?" 

"No. Manual only. Why does it matter?"

"Because if that's the case, you may have saved us a whole lot of time." 

***

"It's simple," Zam said, after explaining about his discovery of the virus. "All of our backups and the computers on the Ares Voyager 2 are infected, so we can't perform a clean install from any of them. But since Spitfire found the Ares Voyager 1, we have another option. Since the virus was only introduced into our systems recently, her computers should still be free of it, and they have enough processing power and storage to perform the restore."

"That should be simple enough," Krieger said. "We just need to have the search team check for records of Robert Garret. He was working for the project, so his records would be in their systems. If they're still there, then the virus isn't."

"But how do we keep them from being infected when we link to them for the restore?" Glast voiced via the comm.

"For that matter, how are you going to link with her at all?" Spiridon added. "Her comm antennae were completely wrecked."

"I think I have a way," Flynn spoke up. "Jay, you're bringing one of the jets back with you, right?"

"Right. Why?"

"Once you dock, we'll get to work cleaning its computers. Then we'll fit it with a laser telegraph."

"What good will that do?"

"Even with the slight delay from having to run the restore over that kind of distance, it should only take about an hour and a half to finish," Zam concluded.

"Yeah, but it will only work if we're on this side of the planet," Orion Wilson pointed out. "We're already halfway through this orbit. By the time the shuttle's back, we'll only have an hour left. Not long enough to have the jet ready to launch before our window's up."

"Then we can launch it as soon as it's moonrise again," Flynn suggested. "That also gives us enough time to clean the shuttle's computers, and a few more of the vehicles, like you wanted, Aubrey."

"Alright, let's do it," Falconer decided. "As soon as the shuttle's aboard, getting it and the jet restored and wired up will be top priority. Meanwhile, start prepping survival areas. I want unpowered CO2 scrubbers and survival suits at key points in the station, including the lounge, the MIC, reactor control, sickbay and the landing bay. Glast, your team is to make sure the AV's computers are clean, then return to base. We've got 5 hours, people. Let's make it happen.

***

"We'll need emergency generators set up for the fridge units in the labs and the kitchen," Babage said as he walked towards reactor control with Flynn. "And I think we should take steps to clean sickbay's computer systems and isolate it form the rest of the station in advance."

"Why? You don't think anything's going to happen in an hour of people just sitting around, do you?"

"No, but better to be prepared if something does. I can hear Doc now, how an hour's an eterntiy in the wrong situation."

"I agree with that, but we don't have any non-computer controlled generators on hand that are powerful enough to run even half the equipment in sickbay," Flynn explained. "If we get the second shuttle back in time, we can clean its systems and use its medbay as a makeshift sickbay. That would take care of two problems at once, since Aubrey wanted the landing bay set up as a shelter. We could even strike sickbay off the list. They stepped through the doors of reactor control. The loud hum of the tokamak and the hiss of cooling equipment forced the engineer to raise his voice. "I'm more worried about how long we'll be without power. We can shut down the reaction almost instantly, but the residual heat needs to be pulled away so we don't damage systems. So we'll actually have to take it offline about a half-hour before we go fully dark, run the cooling systems on stored power until we lose computer control. Then, once computers are back, we'll need to use battery power to get back up to operating temperature before we can restart. Really, we're looking at more like two hours before we'll be in the clear."

"Do we have enough battery power to run the station for an hour?"

"We should. But I'm still not entirely comfortable with that. Ideally, once computers are back we'd stay mostly dark until the reactor was back online. Bare essentials: Life support and internal comm only."

"We could have people run messages once support's back," Babage suggested.

"Not fast enough if there's a real emergency. No, internal comms are essential."

"Alright. But you'll be here, so nothing to worry about." The science officer noticed a worreid look on the engineer's face. "Won't you?"

"About that. Jay will be pilot on the jet, and he's a competent technician. But I'm planning on taking the buggy."

"Why?"

"Same thing that has me worried about the station has me worried about the AV: Not enough power. Stuck in the ice, powered down, she's running in hybrid mode; her batteries are being charged by her RTGs. But that long in suboptimal temperatures might have affected their capacity. Restoring the entire computer system of this station's going to use a lot of processing power. Cooling only goes so far on cutting down on that, and the batteries might not be up to the task. So to get around that, someone would have to reroute the output of all of her RTGs to the main computer."

"And that someone is you?"

"Bingo." Flynn climbed up to a control board and looked it over. The reaction was normal, temperatures in the expected range. So if he shut it down, but kept cooling running, it would take about 33 minutes to bring it to 'cold' standby. 

"Why didn't you mention this to Aubrey?"

"I want to see the footage from Spitfire's helmet cam first. If the batteries are still operating at half capacity, I won't be needed. If they're lower than that, well..." Flynn let the statment hang in the air for a while before turning away from the board. "Alright, it'll take three scrubbers for a room this size. We just put them in a triangle around the reactor, there, there, and—"

***

"There!" Orion Wilson said. "That's two down, ten to go." He glanced down the row of buggies. "Dustin, how's it going on the HCs?"

"I have the first two ready to be wiped," Dustin Brown called as he pushed himself out from under the graviton cushion of one hovercraft. "Pass me a restore kit?"

Orion handed him the clean install module. "You know, before you use that, you might want to..."

Dustin snatched the module and leapt up and onto the hovercraft's chassis. "It'll just take a second. Here goes!" He leaned into the controls and plugged in the module. The grav cloud suddenly faded and the vehicle plunged a foot to the deck. The startled technician fell backwards, only for Orion to catch him.

"I was trying to tell you to set it down, first," the mechanic chuckled, setting him down. "Remember that next time."

"Got it," Dustin said sheepishly. A thought occurred to him. "Does Aubrey want the sub wiped beforehand, too?"

Orion grimaced. "I hope not. Anytime we reset that thing, it runs through the whole audio spectrum, one ping at a time when it reboots. That, and it needs a different software version than these. Speaking of which..." He motioned for the install pack back. "Keep going down the line. When we're done with these, then we'll ask about the sub. Though why he'd want it, I don't know. It's not as if we can drop it from orbit.

@***@

"Orbital drop submarines?" Glast repeated, skeptical, as she pulled on her helmet. "And they actually thought this was a good idea?"

"Well, Europa doesn't have much of an atmosphere," Spiffy said, "so they didn't need to install a heat shield."

"It's also covered in over six miles of ice! Heatshield or not, if you try to just smash through ice that thick, you're what winds up getting smashed, into tiny pieces."

"They realized that about halfway through the design, too," Spiffy said. "So it was back to the drawing board. Now that we have better lasers, they want to do the same trick, but with guns blazing all the way down."

"So...in order to study the ocean, they'd expose a wide patch of it to the vacuum of space?" Glast rolled her eyes. "Some people have very stupid ideas."

"Don't I know it! Did I tell you how people still keep trying to toast bread with the peanut butter on it?" Spiffy noticed their location. "Okay, we're at the lock again. Are you sure about this, Tess?"

"Just make sure you're strapped in before you start." As Spiffy checked his harness, Glast tied a length of cord to a handle near the sub's bottom hatch and secured it to her own harness. "Ready?"

"Ready."

"Okay, set us down." The sub jolted as it contacted the hull. Then the back of the vehicle lurched, falling backwards. "Hold it here!" Glast flung open the hatch and dove into the water. The water was still rushing downstream, but the open airlock was pulling water in and upstream as the sub's rear section tilted into it, almost cancelling the pull from either direction. She swam down and into the airlock. "Now! Full power and blow the tanks!"

A cloud of bubbles surrounded the sub, and its propulsion ducts spat water furiously. It shot up and away, playing out the line rapidly. The moment the sub had cleared the airlock's edge, the outer door closed. Glast braced herself as the water drained away. The inner door opened and she dropped through, landing on her feet. She tugged on the cord, but didn't feel it give. "Spiffy, can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear, Tess! Good thinking with the comm cable."

"Thanks. Now, where's the nearest terminal?" She clicked her helmet light on and glanced around. Spying a screen nearby, she walked over and switched it on. The screen lit up immediately and she smiled. "This shouldn't take long." But when she tried to check personnel files, an message appeared: MEMORY ACCESS RESTRICTED. USER/PASSWORD? "Strange." She keyed in her user information and pressed enter. ACCESS DENIED: INSUFFICIENT INFORMATION. "What?"

"What is it?"

"There's a partial lockout in place. My password's not enough by itself. Hold on..." She pressed help. BIOMETRIC DATA REQUIRED. "Okay, really strange. It wants biometric information."

"Well, that's going to be difficult. Unless you don't mind getting frostbite."

"Maybe not. I'm not seeing any icicles, just dust. Should be warm enough. I just need to find a working hand scanner."

"Any around you?"

"No. Let's see..." Glast checked her memory for the layout of the ship. "Closest one should be in the armory." She compared the distance to the armory with the remaining slack on her line. "I'm going to have to unhook for a while. If I'm not back in half an hour, get Hunter." She unclipped the line before Spiffy could object, then started walking towards the armory. 

***

Note: Updating gradually, as chunks are written. 

To find the most recent part, use your browser's text search feature to find @***@

 Links to other Parts:

Part 1: Not Alone

Part 2: A Spy Unrealized

Part 3a: The Journey Part 1

Part 3b: The Journey Part 2

Part 4: Horizons

Part 5: Stranger Things

And now, Part 6.

The Not So Distant Future

"Spiridon, repeat, can you hear me?" Jackal boosted his signal strength to the maximum. Nothing. He changed channels. "Lizzle, we've got a problem down here. Spiridon just fell into a crevasse. He's not responding. Could be he's too deep, could be he's unconscious. Either way, the hole's too deep to fly out of. I need that shuttle down here soon, with a hovercraft and a tow hook." 

"Alright Jackal. Can you get an estimate on how deep it is?"

"Just a second." Jackal lifted off and flew over the chasm. The distance indicator dropped below its maximum range. "At least 500 meters. Maybe more. Could be too much for a tow rope." 

"I'll have them send a grav beam with the shuttle. Doc'll be on the shuttle too." 

"Thanks." The channel closed, and Jackal realized that he couldn't do anything until the shuttle got there. Well, almost nothing. He flew over the crevasse again, inverted his buggy, and fired 3 short, low level laser bursts through the hole. He waited. No response came.

***

Falconer waited for Lizzle to close the channel, then spoke. "Problem?"

"Spitfire fell through the ice. I need to send a shuttle with a Hovercraft and Doc to get them. Also a grav beam."

"Do it. Don't launch them yet though." Lizzle turned back to her console and made the necessary calls. Falconer turned towards Kestrel. "What would the ETA be for the shuttle to  fly directly down to Planum Boreum?"

"About 20 minutes to the outer atmosphere, but then they'll have to slow to around Mach 3 once they're in. It'll take them at least an hour to reach Jackal. Maybe more if the winds are bad. Those shuttles just aren't designed for atmospheric flight."

"Hmm. And what's the top atmospheric speed of the jet?"

"Last test showed over Mach 13. Why do you...oh. The jet could be there in under 20 minutes. Provided it was already in the atmosphere. I can fly her out of the shuttle's launch bay with no problem."

"Can you take Doc with you?"

"Yeah. And the grav beam too."

"Good. Get down to the shuttlebay." Falconer turned towards Lizzle. "Tell Orion to mount a grav beam on the jet and send it to the shuttlebay. And postpone the meeting until 1700." As Lizzle relayed the instructions, Falconer used his own comm to call Zam. "Zach, come up to my office. I'd like to know what it is that you found, before the meeting."

***

Spiridon blinked, then winced. His head was pounding. One moment, he'd been at the surface, and the next he was...where was he? The buggy was on a solid surface, but something just seemed...strange. Too much pressure. And he was moving, fast. He flipped on his lights. Bubbles streamed up past his canopy, seemingly at random. He was completely submerged. "What the heck?" He eased onto the throttle, but the buggy hit a bump and lifted off the ground. "Okay, that doesn't work." He checked his sensor logs. The initial fall had lasted about half a minute. He'd had to take time to shunt power from sensors to wings...too long, it seemed. He'd lost consciousness on impact. After that, his rate of descent hadn't been enough to trip the acceleration sensor. So he'd been in the water for at least 5 minutes. How deep was this? He opened the wings, and the buggy started to rise, catching the rising gas bubbles. There had to be a surface somewhere. He checked his speedometer: only a few MPH. Not very fast, but it would have to do. Suddenly, his canopy bumped into something. He pulled out his flashlight, then looked up again. A layer of ice, of unknown volume could be seen past the thin film of surface water. It was quite clear that this was not where he had come down. He watched the flow of the water, and then, slowly, turned his vehicle around. The wheels gave a small amount of thrust, and he began 'driving' back the way he had come, while wondering how there could be liquid water so close to the surface.

***

Ariel Johnson's voice filtered through the shuttle's comm system. "We'll be in the atmosphere in 1 minute," he said. "I'll be reentering with the launch bay facing into the wind, then going into full forward thrust, so make sure you're ready to punch it. I'll rendezvous with you in an hour."

"Got it," Kestrel said. 

"Just make sure you have the med bed ready," Futureboy added. "If Spitfire fell that far, he'll probably have a concussion." 

"Will do Doc." An alert sounded in the background. "Jay, 10 seconds to mark."

"Ready."

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1, mark!" The entire shuttle shook as it hit the atmosphere, and the roar of the thrusters filled the bay. The door yawned open, showing a red sky through a red hot glowing cloud. Kestrel pulled in the landing gear and cranked the throttle to maximum.

"Good luck," Johnson said, before his voice was obscured by the static of reentry. The jet screamed away from the shuttle, heating up before Kestrel turned on the shields. The relative silence inside the vehicle struck Future boy as strange. 

Kestrel turned around to speak to his passenger. "Well, Doc, how's the view?"

"Fine. But shouldn't there be a sonic boom?" 

"Not until I cut the shields. We need to get a better angle before I can turn them off without us roasting. Give me a few seconds..." The shields cut off, and the aircraft shook and rattled before the silence of hypersonic travel replaced the noise.

"How long until we're there?"

"Not long. 17 minutes. I'll have to turn the shields back on as we enter dust storms, but that should only cause minimal speed loss."

"Good." 

Kestrel set the craft on autopilot, then turned around again. "How bad could it be, Doc?"

"Fairly bad. Spitfire never has his grav cushion on maximum, and while that can help with driving or flying, it means that it doesn't stop him as fast. If he hit his head after a fall of half a kilometer, at the wrong angle he could have given himself a serious concussion. In any event, he could be discombobulated and might get lost.

"Come on Doc, Spitfire's not going to do anything stupid."

"Buggies tend to roll without a parking brake on. If he lost consciousness on a slope, he could be a long way from where he fell in."

"Well, we'll see." 

Futureboy looked out the window again. "I just hope he doesn't start seeing things."

***

The water seemed to be getting faster. Spiridon checked the speedometer, but if he had slowed, there wasn't enough difference to tell on 2 decimal places. "I must've gone too far," he thought. "If I fell in in rapids like these, the sensors would have recorded it." He came over a swell in the water, and his lights shone on something: 2 streams fed into the one he was in. A swirling maelstrom spun at their junction, before it spilled into the one he was approaching from. "Well, they definitely would have noticed the buggy getting spun around," he thought. "I must have passed it." He made a complete turn around, and drove back. Behind him, a single stream flowed, no whirlpool in sight.

***

By the time Jackal heard the sonic boom, the jet was already touching down on the ice. "About time you got here! And keep the hover-jets on! I don't know if the ice can take the full weight."

"We got here as fast as we could," Kestrel said. "Is that the hole that Spitfire fell down?"

"Yeah. He's been down there for over an hour. I still can't raise him, and his GPS locator is out of range."

Kestrel eyed the gap in the ice skeptically. "It's gonna be a tight squeeze to get the jet down there. What do you say, Doc. Would you rather stay up here and wait for the shuttle?"

"Not on your life. If he's injured, I have to determine if he can be moved, and if he can't, I'll have to treat him there."

"Okay then. Jackal, we're heading down. Keep a channel open."

"Got it. Good luck." The jet lifted up again, and started down the chasm, slowly.

***

The Control Center was still abuzz. "Jet has arrived on schedule," Lizzle reported. "Jackal is going to relay their communications to us as the descend." 

"Shuttle ETA?" Falconer asked.

"Still 45 minutes away, at earliest. Winds are worse than expected." 

"Relay the feed to the shuttle as well. And keep monitoring for a GPS contact." Falconer turned to the science station. "Is this sort of thing normal for that region?"

"I would expect this kind of hole in a region that experiences seasonal geysers," Babbage said, "but the only geysers that have been observed were confined to the southern polar region. Judging by the scans that Jackal sent us, this chasm is part of a series of cracks that run along the immediate area for a kilometer. It's very strange. The overall pattern makes it seem as if the ice in that entire area was melted, then refrozen. The only cause that I can think of would be periodic volcanic activity, but the farthest north that volcanoes have been found is Kasei Valles, but that's over 4,000 kilometers south of the northern polar region." 

"It's not impossible," Picard said. "The first team found evidence of increased volcanic activity."

"True, but look at this." Babbage brought up the scans. "Topographically, this is the pattern of the cracks. But viewed from the side..." He rotated the image, and what looked like a cracked pane of glass was replaced by a down-angled wedge of imperfections, cutting into the ice.

"I see," Picard said. "It looks like something melted through the ice traveling north, and the ice froze behind."

"Rapidly. To from these kinds of cracks, the refreezing would have had to be immediately after whatever melted through it passed."

"Pyroclastic flow? Or maybe a cometary impact. That could explain the refreezing."

"I'll  look into it. But no impacts like that have been observed before." Babbage turned back to his work.

A surprised shout sounded from the comm. "Scraped the wall," Kestrel reported. "Compensating." 

"Forget about the comet for now, Tom," Falconer said. "A lost pilot is more important than that."

***

The jet scraped the wall of the crevasse again, this time on the nose. "We're at -450 meters," Kestrel said, hurriedly steadying the craft.

The response was tinny, as if if the caller was far away. "Copy that, Solar Flare, -450. Anything new yet?"

"Nothing. We'll check in again at -500." Kestrel glanced over his shoulder at his passenger. "Anything on scanners, Doc?"

Futureboy adjusted the settings on his console, again. "A mass of metal, but it could just be all the iron embedded in the ice. Can't make out the exact composition; the iron's interfering with the scans."

"Let me know if it gets worse. I'm already flying half blind; no need to lose the other eye."

The altimeter beeped. "-500 meters, Jackal. Still nothing-"

The jet jolted down and forward, as if pulled by something. "What the-" Kestrel surged the hover thrusters, and the jet shot up, away from the pull. "What just happened?"

Jackal's frantic voice filtered through the speaker, static obscuring some words. "What--problem, Jay? Need--elp?"

"Negative, just go a little shaken up. Repeat, negative." Kestrel tried to look out over the edge of the canopy, but the jet's main body blocked his view. "Still can't see... Doc, I'm gonna put her on her nose. Hold tight, I might hit something." The jet pitched forward, and the lights finally shone on the source of the pull: a raging stream of water, rushing into a tunnel through the ice. "Wow." 

Futureboy looked over his shoulder, and his eyes widened. "Liquid water...a whole river!"

"Yeah, and Spiridon fell right into it." Kestrel upped the thrusters until they were in easy comm range again. "Jackal, we've got a problem. Finding Spitfire just got a lot more difficult."

***

Zam stepped into the MIC, then walked into Falconer's office. "Sorry I'm late."

"No problem. Sit down." Falconer waited for Zam to take a seat before continuing. "So, what are the details about this virus?"

"Basically, it spreads through a targeted system and rewrites one piece of code to initially make certain files inaccessible. Then, once we can't access it, it overwrites the files bit by bit. Finally, if anyone tries to forcibly access the files while it's erasing them, it infiltrates the terminal, disables the protocols that link the cooling systems to the CPU usage, and then over-clocks the CPU until it fragments, violently."

"Alright, but what information is it trying to erase?" 

"The only definite thing I've found so far is that it is erasing any reference to one person. Robert Garret; he was one of the building service workers. By the time Chris asked me to look into it, it had already affected the entire database. Nothing left. I believe the initial infection was through a search Krieger did over the tach-com. He checked for their personnel file, which alerted the virus. It took less than 5 minutes for it to wipe our records."

"Who'd want to remove all records on a janitor?"

"Don't know. However, he had a criminal record, which our computers didn't show either. It seems as if someone wanted to wipe his record, and then decided to wipe him from the face of the Earth."

"Any trace on the virus yet?"

"None. And we'll have to reload all the systems from the last save before the infection, then bring them back online one by one, once they're clean."

Falconer shook his head. "We can't do that now; not until we have Spiridon back."

Zam nodded. "Just telling you what has to be done. Is there anything else?"

"No. Thanks." Zam nodded and left. Falconer sighed. "Just one crisis after another..."

***

Spiridon stopped his buggy and deployed the wings. He checked the scans again. He'd travelled almost half a kilometer. He looked up. Nothing, except for solid ice. "Darn it!" Suddenly he felt himself rolling forward. The buggy had begun spinning end over end, pushed by the current. Still annoyed at the lack of progress with finding his way out, he adjusted the wings, a bit too much. The buggy shot down through the water. Before he could stop his descent, it was stopped for him: the sound of shattering ice was overshadowed by a metallic clang as the buggy hit something. Spiridon stepped on the grav brake. The buggy froze, back wheels suspended over whatever it had hit. Spiridon retracted the wings, and slowly brought the buggy to rest on the mysterious surface. "What is this?" The scans showed a familiar composition: titanium infused with carbon nanotube and coated in ablative ceramic. "A spacecraft!" A burst of sound crackled over his speaker. 

"Spitfire, this is Solar Flare. Do you read? Over?"

Spiridon pressed the response key. "Jay? Yes, I read you. I'm fine, just a little shaken. You're not going to believe what I just found. It's..." The section of hull that Spiridon's buggy sat on suddenly yawned open, drawing water, and the buggy, into the craft's interior. Spiridon only had time for a surprised "What?" before the doors sealed again, cutting off the transmission.

***

"Spitfire? Spitfire! Repeat last transmission! Spitfire, do you read?" Kestrel cycled through all the frequencies within reason, and a few that weren't, but their lucky break had dissolved into static. "Doc, can you get a bead on that last transmission?"

Futureboy checked the sensor logs. "I can get a rough estimate, within 30 meters."

"Good. Do it." Kestrel composed a brief text string, then fed it through the computer. "Please let this get through in one piece..." He hit the send button. With any luck, that small update would make it through in a readable form where a voice communique wouldn't.

"Got it! Bearing two-oh mark two-five, roughly 300 meters." Futureboy fed the information to Kestrel's HUD. An arrow appeared on screen, pointing the way.

"Alright. I sent a text to Jackal. I'll give it half a minute. If I don't get a response in that time, we'll head in anyways."

They'd counted 15 when the reply came back: "Proceed, mark path."

"No problem. Just fire up the laser, and..." Kestrel used a short burst to melt an arrow in the ice. "Alright! Spitfire, hang on, we're on our way." The jet continued down the narrow tunnel, neither occupant noticing the whirlpool beneath them fill with water as a metal door closed.

***

The Not So Distant Future

"Spiridon, repeat, can you hear me?" Jackal boosted his signal strength to the maximum. Nothing. He changed channels. "Lizzle, we've got a problem down here. Spiridon just fell into a crevasse. He's not responding. Could be he's too deep, could be he's unconscious. Either way, the hole's too deep to fly out of. I need that shuttle down here soon, with a hovercraft and a tow hook." 

"Alright Jackal. Can you get an estimate on how deep it is?"

"Just a second." Jackal lifted off and flew over the chasm. The distance indicator dropped below its maximum range. "At least 500 meters. Maybe more. Could be too much for a tow rope." 

"I'll have them send a grav beam with the shuttle. Doc'll be on the shuttle too." 

"Thanks." The channel closed, and Jackal realized that he couldn't do anything until the shuttle got there. Well, almost nothing. He flew over the crevasse again, inverted his buggy, and fired 3 short, low level laser bursts through the hole. He waited. No response came.

***

Falconer waited for Lizzle to close the channel, then spoke. "Problem?"

"Spitfire fell through the ice. I need to send a shuttle with a Hovercraft and Doc to get them. Also a grav beam."

"Do it. Don't launch them yet though." Lizzle turned back to her console and made the necessary calls. Falconer turned towards Kestrel. "What would the ETA be for the shuttle to  fly directly down to Planum Boreum?"

"About 20 minutes to the outer atmosphere, but then they'll have to slow to around Mach 3 once they're in. It'll take them at least an hour to reach Jackal. Maybe more if the winds are bad. Those shuttles just aren't designed for atmospheric flight."

"Hmm. And what's the top atmospheric speed of the jet?"

"Last test showed over Mach 13. Why do you...oh. The jet could be there in under 20 minutes. Provided it was already in the atmosphere. I can fly her out of the shuttle's launch bay with no problem."

"Can you take Doc with you?"

"Yeah. And the grav beam too."

"Good. Get down to the shuttlebay." Falconer turned towards Lizzle. "Tell Orion to mount a grav beam on the jet and send it to the shuttlebay. And postpone the meeting until 1700." As Lizzle relayed the instructions, Falconer used his own comm to call Zam. "Zach, come up to my office. I'd like to know what it is that you found, before the meeting."

***

Spiridon blinked, then winced. His head was pounding. One moment, he'd been at the surface, and the next he was...where was he? The buggy was on a solid surface, but something just seemed...strange. Too much pressure. And he was moving, fast. He flipped on his lights. Bubbles streamed up past his canopy, seemingly at random. He was completely submerged. "What the heck?" He eased onto the throttle, but the buggy hit a bump and lifted off the ground. "Okay, that doesn't work." He checked his sensor logs. The initial fall had lasted about half a minute. He'd had to take time to shunt power from sensors to wings...too long, it seemed. He'd lost consciousness on impact. After that, his rate of descent hadn't been enough to trip the acceleration sensor. So he'd been in the water for at least 5 minutes. How deep was this? He opened the wings, and the buggy started to rise, catching the rising gas bubbles. There had to be a surface somewhere. He checked his speedometer: only a few MPH. Not very fast, but it would have to do. Suddenly, his canopy bumped into something. He pulled out his flashlight, then looked up again. A layer of ice, of unknown volume could be seen past the thin film of surface water. It was quite clear that this was not where he had come down. He watched the flow of the water, and then, slowly, turned his vehicle around. The wheels gave a small amount of thrust, and he began 'driving' back the way he had come, while wondering how there could be liquid water so close to the surface.

***

Ariel Johnson's voice filtered through the shuttle's comm system. "We'll be in the atmosphere in 1 minute," he said. "I'll be reentering with the launch bay facing into the wind, then going into full forward thrust, so make sure you're ready to punch it. I'll rendezvous with you in an hour."

"Got it," Kestrel said. 

"Just make sure you have the med bed ready," Futureboy added. "If Spitfire fell that far, he'll probably have a concussion." 

"Will do Doc." An alert sounded in the background. "Jay, 10 seconds to mark."

"Ready."

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1, mark!" The entire shuttle shook as it hit the atmosphere, and the roar of the thrusters filled the bay. The door yawned open, showing a red sky through a red hot glowing cloud. Kestrel pulled in the landing gear and cranked the throttle to maximum.

"Good luck," Johnson said, before his voice was obscured by the static of reentry. The jet screamed away from the shuttle, heating up before Kestrel turned on the shields. The relative silence inside the vehicle struck Future boy as strange. 

Kestrel turned around to speak to his passenger. "Well, Doc, how's the view?"

"Fine. But shouldn't there be a sonic boom?" 

"Not until I cut the shields. We need get a better angle before I can turn them off without us roasting. Give me a few seconds..." The shields cut off, and the aircraft shook and rattled before the silence of hypersonic travel replaced the noise.

"How long until we're there?"

"Not long. 17 minutes. I'll have to turn the shields back on as enter dust storms, but that should only cause minimal speed loss."

"Good." Kestrel set the craft on autopilot, then turned around again. 

'How bad could it be, Doc?"

"Fairly bad. Spitfire never has his grav cushion on maximum, and while that can help with driving or flying, it means that it doesn't stop him as fast. If he hit his head after a fall of half a kilometer, at the wrong angle he could have given himself a serious concussion. In any event, he could be discombobulated and might get lost.

"Come on Doc, Spitfire's not going to do anything stupid."

"Buggies tend to roll without a parking brake on. If he lost consciousness on a slope, he could be a long way from where he fell in."

"Well, we'll see." Futureboy looked out the window again. "I just hope he doesn't start seeing things."

***

The water seemed to be getting faster. Spiridon checked the speedometer, but if he had slowed, there wasn't enough difference to tell on 2 decimal places. "I must've gone too far," he thought. "If I fell in in rapids like these, the sensors would have recorded it." He came over a swell in the water, and his lights shone on something: 2 streams fed into the one he was in. A swirling maelstrom spun at their junction, before it spilled into the one he was approaching from. "Well, they definitely would have noticed the buggy getting spun around," he thought. "I must have passed it." He made a complete turn around, and drove back. Behind him, a single stream flowed, no whirlpool in sight.

***

By the time Jackal heard the sonic boom, the jet was already touching down on the ice. "About time you got here! And keep the hover-jets on! I don't know if the ice can take the full weight."

"We got here as fast as we could," Kestrel said. "Is that the hole that Spitfire fell down?"

"Yeah. He's been down there for over an hour. I still can't raise him, and his GPS locator is out of range."

Kestrel eyed the gap in the ice skeptically. "It's gonna be a tight squeeze to get the jet down there. What do you say, Doc. Would you rather stay up here and wait for the shuttle?"

"Not on your life. If he's injured, I have to determine if he can be moved, and if he can't, I'll have to treat him there."

"Okay then. Jackal, we're heading down. Keep a channel open."

"Got it. Good luck." The jet lifted up again, and started down the chasm, slowly.

***

The Control Center was still abuzz. "Jet has arrived on schedule," Lizzle reported. "Jackal is going to relay their communications to us as the descend." 

"Shuttle ETA?" Falconer asked.

"Still 45 minutes away, at earliest. Winds are worse than expected." 

"Relay the feed to the shuttle as well. And keep monitoring for a GPS contact." Falconer turned to the science station. "Is this sort of thing normal for that region?"

"I would expect this kind of hole in a region that experiences seasonal geysers," Babbage said, "but the only geysers that have been observed were confined to the southern polar region. Judging by the scans that Jackal sent us, this chasm is part of a series of cracks that run along the immediate area for a kilometer. It's very strange. The overall pattern makes it seem as if the ice in that entire area was melted, then refrozen. The only cause that I can think of would be periodic volcanic activity, but the farthest north that volcanoes have been found is Kasei Valles, but that's over 4,000 kilometers south of the northern polar region." 

"It's not impossible," Picard said. "The first team found evidence of increased volcanic activity."

"True, but look at this." Babbage brought up the scans. "Topographically, this is the pattern of the cracks. But viewed from the side..." He rotated the image, and what looked like a cracked pane of glass was replaced by a down-angled wedge of imperfections, cutting into the ice.

"I see," Picard said. "It looks like something melted through the ice traveling north, and the ice froze behind."

"Rapidly. To from these kinds of cracks, the refreezing would have had to be immediately after whatever melted through it passed."

"Pyroclastic flow? Or maybe a cometary impact. That could explain the refreezing."

"I'll  look into it. But no impacts like that have been observed before." Babbage turned back to his work.

A surprised shout sounded from the comm. "Scraped the wall," Kestrel reported. "Compensating." 

"Forget about the comet for now, Tom," Falconer said. "A lost pilot is more important than that."

***

The jet scraped the wall of the crevasse again, this time on the nose. "We're at -450 meters," Kestrel said, hurriedly steadying the craft.

The response was tinny, as if if the caller was far away. "Copy that, Solar Flare, -450. Anything new yet?"

"Nothing. We'll check in again at -500." Kestrel glanced over his shoulder at his passenger. "Anything on scanners, Doc?"

Futureboy adjusted the settings on his console, again. "A mass of metal, but it could just be all the iron embedded in the ice. Can't make out the exact composition; the iron's interfering with the scans."

"Let me know if it gets worse. I'm already flying half blind; no need to lose the other eye."

The altimeter beeped. "-500 meters, Jackal. Still nothing-"

The jet jolted down and forward, as if pulled by something. "What the-" Kestrel surged the hover thrusters, and the jet shot up, away from the pull. "What just happened?"

Jackal's frantic voice filtered through the speaker, static obscuring some words. "What--problem, Jay? Need--elp?"

"Negative, just go a little shaken up. Repeat, negative." Kestrel tried to look out over the edge of the canopy, but the jet's main body blocked his view. "Still can't see... Doc, I'm gonna put her on her nose. Hold tight, I might hit something." The jet pitched forward, and the lights finally shone on the source of the pull: a raging stream of water, rushing into a tunnel through the ice. "Wow." 

Futureboy looked over his shoulder, and his eyes widened. "Liquid water...a whole river!"

"Yeah, and Spiridon fell right into it." Kestrel upped the thrusters until they were in easy comm range again. "Jackal, we've got a problem. Finding Spitfire just got a lot more difficult."

***

Zam stepped into the MIC, then walked into Falconer's office. "Sorry I'm late."

"No problem. Sit down." Falconer waited for Zam to take a seat before continuing. "So, what are the details about this virus?"

"Basically, it spreads through a targeted system and rewrites one piece of code to initially make certain files inaccessible. Then, once we can't access it, it overwrites the files bit by bit. Finally, if anyone tries to forcibly access the files while it's erasing them, it infiltrates the terminal, disables the protocols that link the cooling systems to the CPU usage, and then over-clocks the CPU until it fragments, violently."

"Alright, but what information is it trying to erase?" 

"The only definite thing I've found so far is that it is erasing any reference to one person. Robert Garret; he was one of the building service workers. By the time Chris asked me to look into it, it had already affected the entire database. Nothing left. I believe the initial infection was through a search Krieger did over the tach-com. He checked for their personnel file, which alerted the virus. It took less than 5 minutes for it to wipe our records."

"Who'd want to remove all records on a janitor?"

"Don't know. However, he had a criminal record, which our computers didn't show either. It seems as if someone wanted to wipe his record, and then decided to wipe him from the face of the Earth."

"Any trace on the virus yet?"

"None. And we'll have to reload all the systems from the last save before the infection, then bring them back online one by one, once they're clean."

Falconer shook his head. "We can't do that now; not until we have Spiridon back."

Zam nodded. "Just telling you what has to be done. Is there anything else?"

"No. Thanks." Zam nodded and left. Falconer sighed. "Just one crisis after another..."

***

Spiridon stopped his buggy and deployed the wings. He checked the scans again. He'd travelled almost half a kilometer. He looked up. Nothing, except for solid ice. "Darn it!" Suddenly he felt himself rolling forward. The buggy had begun spinning end over end, pushed by the current. Still annoyed at the lack of progress with finding his way out, he adjusted the wings, a bit too much. The buggy shot down through the water. Before he could stop his descent, it was stopped for him: the sound of shattering ice was overshadowed by a metallic clang as the buggy hit something. Spiridon stepped on the grav brake. The buggy froze, back wheels suspended over whatever it had hit. Spiridon retracted the wings, and slowly brought the buggy to rest on the mysterious surface. "What is this?" The scans showed a familiar composition: titanium infused with carbon nanotube and coated in ablative ceramic. "A spacecraft!" A burst of sound crackled over his speaker. 

"Spitfire, this is Solar Flare. Do you read? Over?"

Spiridon pressed the response key. "Jay? Yes, I read you. I'm fine, just a little shaken. You're not going to believe what I just found. It's..." The section of hull that Spiridon's buggy sat on suddenly yawned open, drawing water, and the buggy, into the craft's interior. Spiridon only had time for a surprised "What?" before the doors sealed again, cutting off the transmission.

***

"Spitfire? Spitfire! Repeat last transmission! Spitfire, do you read?" Kestrel cycled through all the frequencies within reason, and a few that weren't, but their lucky break had dissolved into static. "Doc, can you get a bead on that last transmission?"

Futureboy checked the sensor logs. "I can get a rough estimate, within 30 meters."

"Good. Do it." Kestrel composed a brief text string, then fed it through the computer. "Please let this get through in one piece..." He hit the send button. With any luck, that small update would make it through in a readable form where a voice communique wouldn't.

"Got it! Bearing two-oh mark two-five, roughly 300 meters." Futureboy fed the information to Kestrel's HUD. An arrow appeared on screen, pointing the way.

"Alright. I sent a text to Jackal. I'll give it half a minute. If I don't get a response in that time, we'll head in anyways."

***

"The comm screen in the MIC showed Kestrel's message: 'Brief contact, lost. Have bearing on last known. Proceed?' Falconer made a decision. "Lizzle, set a clock, 30 minutes. Then send this message: 'Proceed, mark path. If no contact in 30 minutes, resurface.' End message."

Lizzle set to work. Falconer turned to Babbage and Picard. "I need a workable full scale rescue plan within the next 30 minutes. Assume that only Jackal's buggy and the en route shuttle are available for it. If that's not feasible, I need to know." 

Lizzle turned around. "Message acknowledged."

"Start the clock." The countdown began, beeping at second intervals. Falconer watched as the first minute began disappearing. "And hope..."

***

"Mark path?" Futureboy read the message again. "How are we supposed to mark the path?"

"Simple," Kestrel said. He triggered the lasers and melted an arrow on the right side of the wall. 

"You sure that's safe?" Futureboy eyed the arrow skeptically. Cracks had formed around it from the lasers impact.

"I'll only make them if the tunnel forks. And it's just for 300 meters. We'll be fine. Besides, Spitfire's conscious, so if we just tell him to look for the arrows, he can find his way if we pass him. It's a piece of cake."

"Alright," Futureboy conceded. "But try using a lower level laser for the next arrow. It may be a piece of cake, but cake has a way of falling apart when it's only half-baked."

"Right, Doc. Right." Kestrel hadn't even glanced away from the controls. Futureboy sighed, then turned back to his own console. Just 281 meters to go, and this day would end on a good note. "If only this metal wasn't blocking long range scans. How would all of it have gotten here, anyway?"

***

The water surrounding Spiridon's buggy began to move. Thinking that the lock had opened again, he punched his comm's call button. "Jay, can you hear me? Jay, do you read?" Nothing. Glaring at the metal ceiling that had cut off his communication, he noticed the water's surface drawing closer. The chamber was draining! Soon, the water had reached the buggy's wheels. And second now, the lock would be empty, and he could get out and find the controls. Suddenly, and without warning, the bottom of the chamber fell open, dumping the remaining water and Spiridon down 4 meters, making the geologist's third fall of the day. With a flip of a switch, the headlights came on. A dark corridor extended to where another metal door stood, sealed. Spiridon glanced up again. The lock had closed, and there were no visible controls. So that option was out, unless he wanted to risk flooding the whole ship. "Jackal would love this," he muttered. "But of course, the rock guy falls into the archaeologist's dream." He turned on the vehicle's exterior mike. Relative silence, except for loud, long creaks from the ice surrounding the ship. Keeping his eyes open for anything that could give a clue as to where the ship had come from, he drove towards the door. Upon close inspection, he noticed that there was a pressure plate on the floor. Maybe if he drove over it...

The door slid open, half into the ceiling, half into the floor. Spiridon drove through, noting the second plate on this side. He turned the buggy, the lights revealing a bizarre surprise. "Oh my..."

***

Falconer looked over the plans. "Melt the entire surface ice with lasers?"

"The iron in the ice seems to be blocking sensors," Babbage explained. "It would be more like drilling, and would make shafts through which contact could be maintained. The complete melting would only be done if the shafts didn't work."

"An entire square klick, down to 500 meters? That would be half a cubic kilometer of ice vaporized. The entire fleet of buggies doesn't have enough power to do that."

"No, but if the shuttle feeds power to the buggy, it could work. Although it would still take a few hours."

"Next option?"

Picard spoke up. "Another option is that we just bore a hole large enough for the shuttle, and move it down. It's transmitter should be powerful enough to overcome any interference."

"That could work. Anything else?"

"There is one other possibility, but we would need to either bring the shuttle back or send a second one." Babbage handed Falconer a printout. "We've run some tests on the sub we have in storage, and it's sonar would do a better job of finding something underwater than either the jet's or a buggy's spectroscopes or radar. If we put the sub down their, it should be able to finish the search much faster."

Falconer paused, considering. "Do we still have the prototype jet in storage?" 

"Yes."

"What if we lifted the sonar from the sub and put it in the jet?"

Babbage shook his head. "Wouldn't work. The jet is not hydrodynamic enough to do that. It would flip over in the water and get stuck. We have to send the sub if we're going to use the sonar." 

"However, we would need the jet," Picard explained. "Assuming Jay hasn't returned, we would need the jet to lower the sub into the hole via grav-beam."

"Good. Set it up, and tell Hawkeye to be ready to fly in..." Falconer glanced at the clock. Still 25 minutes. "25." 

Babbage left to start preparations. Picard hung back. 

"Something wrong, Andre?"

"Just that we seem to be repeating the situation. If Jay's jet gets lost, then we've just increased the problem, and sending more vehicles risks even more losses. I know we can't melt all of that ice, but we should at least have them start melting some shafts so we can stay in contact." 

"Agreed. But wait until after the 30 minutes are up. We need to be sure that they're in trouble first, before we start blasting away."

"Got it." Picard left. Falconer was left alone in his office again. He sighed. The waiting was always the hardest part.

***

"Hunter!" Babbage shouted to be heard over the noise. "Hunter!" The sim-room quieted as the pilot settled his vehicle to the ground. "Something up, Tom?" Iain 'Hawkeye' Hunter asked.

"Not much," Babbage said. "You're on call, though."

"Not another buggy mission, is it?" 

"No. Rescue." Babbage outlined the role that Hunter would be playing. As he listened, the pilot's grin grew wider. "So the boss got lost in some caves, and I have to fly his rescuers in."

"Not lost yet. Jay still has...20 minutes to go before he's overdue."

"That's fine. All I care about is a chance to fly." 

"Good. Get the jet over to the workshop and have Flynn refit it with a grav beam. You'll fly in first, and then wait for the shuttle."

"Understood." Hunter flipped his jet's hover mode on, and directed the craft towards the elevator that led from the sim room to the workshop. Finally, a chance to fly the Martian skies...

***

Futureboy glanced at the timer. "17 minutes left. We should head back."

"Hold on," Kestrel said, peering intently over the nose. "We're almost on top of the last place he was."

"Jay, if we miss the check-in, they're going to send someone else in after us. And you just know that the only other pilot they'd trust to get in here is Hunter. Do you really want to have your competition being the one to pull your bacon out of the fire?"

Kestrel laughed. "We'll make it back, no problem. Now that I know this pathway, I can get us back out in half the time. And besides, it's not a competition. More like having a wingman who you rotate with."

"Even so, when it comes down to it, who'd be the better pilot?"

Kestrel grinned. "Who do you think?"

Futureboy shrugged. "To be honest, I can't say. In the past, you've flown the larger ships more than the jets. So has Hunter."

"That's why, once they get the training lasers working right on the jets, we're going to have a match." The look on Kestrel's face said that he was looking forward to it. "Loser has to drive a buggy for a week."

"You sound confident."

"Oh, I am. I've been practicing the Cobra, and..." The computer beeped. They were right over where Spiridon had disappeared for a second time. Jay was all business now. "Radio on, max-signal strength. Spitfire, do you copy? Spitfire, this is Solar Flare. Respond."

Futureboy scrolled down a list of scanner readouts, then paused and scrolled back up. "Jay, look at this!"

Kestrel peered over his shoulder at the readout. "You're sure that's right?"

"Positive. Titanium. The water here is shallower, for some reason. Something in it must be blocking sensors, but here, it's just thin enough so that the computer can tell."

"Mixed with something else, or pure?" 

"Almost pure. There's something on it that's not metal, and there seem to be tiny impurities running through it, but it seems too pure to be naturally occurring."

"What, you're saying that this is manmade?"

"No. But it definitely was made." Silence followed, as the two considered what this meant. Their thoughts were interrupted by the timer beeping 15 minutes. Time to head back. 

Kestrel melted a down arrow in the wall to the right, then turned the craft around for the return trip. "Do you think that Spitfire found this?"

"It seems so," Futureboy said. "It seems so..."

***

Spiridon blinked again, for the nth time in minutes. He had driven around his find several times, scanning it and viewing it, trying to wake himself up. Because what he had found couldn't be real. There was no way that these could have wound up inside a giant spacecraft locked in the ice. But there they were. The red text on the side, the golden-leafed half canopy, the red-dusted grey chassis. There, tumbled against the far wall, were a squadron of the original Mars Explorer buggies. A thought occurred to him, and in horror, fearing what he might find, he inched as close as possible, peering into the canopy of one of the derelict cars. But the gold film was all that met his gaze. That was almost as bad as knowing one way or the other, maybe worse. If they were empty, then that raised more questions. But if they weren't... He turned away, shuddering. It was then that he saw it. Emblazoned on the far wall, where he had entered the room, was a Mars Explorer Logo. Suddenly, he realized where he was. In his minds eye, the dust and disorder of the room disappeared, replaced by a well lit, normal scene, of buggies lined up, ready for deployment. This was the hangar bay of the Ares Voyager 1. He glanced over at the logo again, and noticed something new. The change to the familiar emblem snapped him back to the here and now. He aimed his headlights at the logo. Someone had drawn a ring of green around the planet Mars. The paint had dripped down the wall a bit before drying. Some streaks went almost to the floor. In fact, it if was only red, it would look just like... Spiridon shook his head. "Too grim, too grim." There was one good thing about this, though. He knew where he was, and he knew how to get help. "A spaceship's radio should be able to get through this." He turned the buggy around, heading aft, past the logo on the wall. The green ring, he observed, glowed slightly in the dark. Strange... As he continued back down the corridor, he turned slightly, just to make sure that the door had closed behind him.

***

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 Links to other Parts:

Part 1: Not Alone

Part 2: A Spy Unrealized

Part 3a: The Journey Part 1

Part 3b: The Journey Part 2

Part 4: Horizons

Part 5: Stranger Things

Part 6a: Frozen Part 1

And now, Part 6b.

***

Orion Wilson checked the linkage between the gravbeam and the jet for the second time. The jet was nestled safely in the rear cargo bay of one of the shuttles. Behind him, situated under the dorsal doors, the submarine sat submerged in it's transport tank. He glanced at his watch. Launch in ten minutes, and his work here was done.

A loud 'ping' echoed through the bay. Orion winced and covered his ears as the pinging repeated several times. "A little warning, next time!" he shouted at the tank. The sub's top hatch opened. 

"Sorry, Orion, did you say something? I couldn't hear." 

Orion scowled at the grinning Speffin Jay. "Very funny, Spiffy, but I installed the mikes on that sub, and I know what they can and can't pick up. Human voices fall into the former." He paused, puzzled. "You're piloting? Where's-"

"He's working on something else right now," Spiffy explained. "Maybe a redesign, but who knows. Anyway, I know how to steer this, and besides, I'm not alone. Glast's here too."

"Why?" Orion asked. "Do we really need to put 3 more people on the line?"

"It helps to have someone to analyze distorted messages," Glast shouted from inside. "Now that we know approximately where he is, I should be able to pick up any degraded comm signals and maybe clean them up a bit." 

"Fair enough," the technician said. 

A faint whine filled the bay as the engines started up. "Attention passengers, this is your pilot speaking," Hunter's voice said through the comm system. "I've just been informed that we're to leave ahead of schedule, and must ask that the bay be cleared of all nonessential personnel."

"Nonessential?" Orion glared at the nearest bay camera. "We'll see who's nonessential when you wipe out in a sand dune, Hawkeye!" 

"At least I have a vehicle to wipe out in," Hunter shot back. "And I think that an icicle would be more likely, given the circumstances. Thanks then, Orion. Unless you want to come along for the ride."

Orion considered making a rude gesture at the camera, but then decided that it wasn't worth the trouble. "I was just leaving," he said, and stormed out of the shuttle.

"All talk still," Spiffy muttered. "Someday, you two are going to have to have a match to prove that either the buggy or the jet is better." 

"Better start a betting pool, then, Spiffy," Hunter replied. The whine grew to a roar as the shuttle powered up fully. "And you probably should strap in. It's supposed to be a bumpy ride."

***

"Shuttle is away," Dustin Brown reported. "ETA is 1 hour and 15 minutes."

"Anything from the search party?" Falconer asked.

"Nothing yet."

"How much time on the clock?" 

"30 seconds."

The clock ran down the numbers quickly. At 5 five seconds, the comm came to life.

"Ares Base, this is Solar Flare. We have found an artificial object, repeat, artificial, embedded in the ice. Do you copy?"

"Solar Flare, Ares Base. We copy. Nature of object?"

"Made of titanium. It's located at the spot where Spiridon was when we lost contact. Opaque to scanners. Can't tell what's on other side. It's underwater, so we need some help. Is the sub mission-ready?"

"Solar Flare, Falconer. Sub is en route via shuttle. ETA is 1 hour, 15 minutes. Second jet also en route. Analysis of lost transmission?"

"Ares Base, Futureboy. Spitfire was conscious and coherent when we last heard from him. His transmission indicated that he'd found the object. There's a line running through it's surface, possibly a door. He may have fallen through." 

"Any clear way of opening it?"

"Nothing. Something in the water's making detailed scans impossible."

A brief crackle marred the communication as Jackal interjected. "Aubrey, if I went down their in my buggy, I could shed some light on its origins."

"How so?"

"I can tell if it's terrestrial or not. That at least gives us something to go on if we need to get inside of it."

Falconer deliberated briefly. "Alright. You can go down in your buggy. But have Jay keep the grav beam on you at all times."

"Copy that. Jackal out." 

The channel closed. Falconer sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Things were just getting stranger and stranger...

*** 

As Jackal watched Jay's jet rise out of the crevasse, a loud rumble filled the air. He looked up. Above them, the first shuttle was finally coming in for a landing. "Supercheese, Jackal. You took your time."

"Jackal, Supercheese. You try getting through wind storms and across half a planet in one of these clunkers, and then you can tell me that I took my time. What's the situation?"

"You're just in time. I'm heading down, and we need a new signal relay. You're the best candidate."

"I already know. No problem." Johnson opened a second channel to the jet. "Doc, I've got the med bed set up. If you want to double-check the settings..."

"Sure. Somebody else has to stay on the surface, and I think that I can be of the most help up here."

Jackal waited as Jay landed the jet, let Futureboy off, and took off again, ending in a hover over the buggy. "So, how's this gonna work?" Jackal asked.

"Simple. I lower you down with the grav beam, follow, and lead you to the object. Like walking a dog."

"Except no dog in its right mind would be anywhere near here."

"You sure about that, Jackal?" Kestrel laughed inwardly at his joke, then switched on the grav beam. Jackal's buggy was lifted into the air. "Alright then. Polar spelunking, take two." He deftly maneuvered the linked vehicles back into the chasm, down towards the river running below.

***

In Sickbay, Seb was sleeping. Or at least, he seemed to be. 

"Under house arrest, eh, Maize?"

"Lab arrest, and it's not bad. I have access to all my work, so I'm keeping busy."

"Good, good. So, can you tell me what's going on? Doc left a while ago, seemed to be in a hurry."

They've lost a buggy somewhere on the North Pole. It fell into a crevasse, and now they've found a large metal object about half a kilometer down."

"For someone under restrictions, they sure tell you a lot."

"Comm records are more or less public, if they're sent through regular channels."

"Espionage. That's not going to help you if they find out."

"Probably not. But I consider it more important to know what's going on then for them to know that I know, for now."

"Hmmm. Metal construct, you said? Do you think it's--"

"Probably. So once they realize what it is, it should be easy for them to get in."

"Did this happen the last time?"

"What do you think?"

"I'm guessing it did, but you're the only one who knows for certain. Who's missing?"

"Just Spitfire. So far, this would have happened regardless of your appearance."

"Hmm. What about..."

Maize heard the lab door open. "Later," he said, then turned his attention to his visitor. "So, you have questions for me, I presume."

The Security Chief nodded. "Flynn would have been here too, but he has work to do on the vehicles. And he's been reading over a set of old reactor diagrams again."

"He won't find anything wrong with them," Maize said.

"Alright then," Krieger said. He rolled a chair over and sat down. "Quite simply, you've raised a lot of questions. And since Seb's asleep right now, you're the easiest way to get answers."

"So am I being interrogated?"

"Not at all. You don't have to answer. But let's start simply. First, are you from the future?"

"Yes."

"Do you have knowledge of what's going to happen?"

"Yes."

"Alright then. What is the outcome of this incident on the surface?"

"Here's where we run into a grey area." Maize tapped his fingers together. "If I tell you what's going to happen, you will assume that it will. Consequently, there is a possibility that it will not happen that way. This leads to a change in the timeline, and thus, each time I give you the answer I lose more answers that could have been useful at a later time."

"I'm not going to go and tell everyone that Maize said that everything was going to be okay," Krieger said.

"I know. For now, it's safe to tell you. That way you can at least confirm what I've said is true. But you must promise not to tell anyone until after this incident has passed, and I would prefer that you didn't, even then. I have no wish to become the designated oracle."

"Alright. But before you tell me what's going to happen, one more question." Krieger paused to gather his thoughts. "You said that a change in the timeline would affect how accurate your foreknowledge is. What about Seb? Isn't he a change?"

"Yes," Maize said. "Seb's presence, however, will have the most effect on long-term knowledge. For the immediate term, probably a month at most, I should be able to predict with about 90% accuracy what will happen."

"Alright. So what's going to happen down there?"

"Well, you see, what the team has found, the metal object, is..."

***

"Careful," Jackal warned. His buggy was very close to the water. 

"Relax," Kestrel said. "We're almost to the object."

The buggy's headlights shone down into the water. It was obvious where the river-bottom suddenly dropped off for a meter. "Alright. Lower me down," Jackal said. 

Kestrel carefully changed the grav beam's length. The buggy dropped below the water, and the energy usage climbed rapidly. "Jackal, I can only keep the beam on you down there for a few minutes. Then I'll have to bring you up or drop you."

"Just a little lower. I've got a good read, but I want to set down on it."

"Alright..." The buggy sank down through the water until it came to rest on the metallic surface.

"It's titanium alright," Jackal said. "Coated in a ceramic and what seems to be an inlay of carbon nanotubes. Definitely Tier 3 tech. Composition is familiar. Seems to be standard spacecraft hull design..." Suddenly, the readings rapidly dropped in resolution. As Jackal tried to understand why, his buggy began to fall. "Jay! Pull me back out!"

Kestrel saw the energy usage drop to almost normal levels. He reeled in the beam. Below, Jackal's buggy dangled over a gaping hole that had opened as if to swallow him. As he watched, fascinated and shocked, the door sprang shut again, having missed the archaeologist. "I think we just found out where Spitfire is," Jackal said. Kestrel's response was to start steering them back to within comm range, so they could report what had just happened.

***

"Med bed looks to be in order. Good job, Johnson." Futureboy began mentally preparing himself for all scenarios. Worst case, emergency surgery to relieve brain swelling. Second worst, making sure that Spitfire stayed motionless for a long while. He loaded up a hypo with a sedative, then another with a local anesthetic in case of surgery. 

The wall comm in the medbay beeped. "Doc, you there? Base wants you to check in."

"Got it, Ariel. Patch me through." 

Lizzle started speaking almost immediately. "Futureboy, anything new?" 

"No. Still waiting for the next shuttle. Can we assume another hour?"

"Less. They're avoiding atmospheric reentry until they're above the site. That should shave 30 minutes from their time. ETA is half an hour."

"Still too long. He's been down there almost an hour and a half now. He didn't sound disoriented, but...I don't know. Maybe I should have gone back down anyways."

"Back down? Wait, are Jackal and Jay-"

"Yep. Jackal thought he could figure out whatever that thing down there is."

There was a pause on the other end as Lizzle relayed the news of the second cave dive. The link resumed just in time for Futureboy to hear the tailend of a minor expletive. "Futureboy, this is Falconer. Next time you hear from Jay and Jackal, you tell them to get back to the surface and stay there until the next shuttle arrives. No one else is to go down there until then."

"Got it. Anything else?"

"Nothing now. And I've been asked to tell you that your patient is fully recovered, but asleep."

"Excellent. I'll check on him again when we all get back."

"Alright Doc. You just keep thinking when, not if. Falconer out."

***

On the other end, Lizzle glanced at Falconer, puzzled. "What do you mean when, not if, Aubrey? They talked to Spitfire. He was awake and aware."

"I know, but with Jay trying to steer both a buggy and the jet back through that ice, we could wind up losing someone else. Wish I'd thought of that earlier."

"No use crying over spilled milk," Babbage said from the science station. "And I'm sure they'll be fine. If anyone can get a jet through an ice maze, it's Jay."

"I hope so. Meanwhile, anything new on that comet?"

"It wasn't a comet, that's for sure. It was too big to have gone unnoticed, taking into account partial burn-up. Similarly, it wasn't going fast enough for a normal impact from orbit. Finally, there is not enough iridium in the region to suggest such a big comet."

"So what then? A lava flow?"

"That doesn't explain the cooling." Babbage glared at his screen. "There's something familiar about it, but I don't know from where."

"Keep at it. Meantime, I seem to remember Flynn wanting me to talk to Maize about something. I'll be in the lab if you need me." Falconer walked out of the MIC. Now, to find out why the heck Flynn had had Maize confined to the lab.

***

Christian Krieger was just walking out of the door when Falconer rounded the corner. "Commander."

"Chief. So, Chris, you talked with Maize?"

"Yes. He's not telling much, but I can fill you in on the details if you swear to secrecy. Also, I have something to show you in the Security Center."

"Alright." As they walked to the security office, Krieger explained what Maize had told him. 

"Basically, our head of Research is a time traveller after all. Those rumors were probably the best cover possible, but now that Seb's shown up, he can't keep pretending. He's told me how this situation is going to end. However, I'm something of a control group. I'm not supposed to give that information to anyone else until after the crisis passes. Otherwise, we might mess up because we know too much and expect things to go a certain way."

"Can you at least tell me if we get our man back?"

"I'd rather not. You see, I want to be absolutely sure that he's not some con-artist before we start relying on his predictions. And from what he's said, if we start doing that, the future ones lose accuracy. Temporal dilution, he called it."

"Fair enough, but I need to know."

"Alright. We do get Spitfire back."

Falconer breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks. That's a relief."

"Welcome. Now, about what I've found. Or rather, what we've found."

They stepped into the office. Zam was working at the computer, still glasses-less. "Zach, anything new?" Krieger asked. 

"Nothing. But I have figured out a way to clean the systems. The problem is reinfection. Any of the vehicles on-board computers, or a transmission from Earth could carry the virus. I've set the tach-com's computer to filter out the virus and log the number of times it encounters it."

"Alright. But tell Aubrey what you found."

"The vector of initial infection was from software in waste-disposal. Someone switched an almost identical version of a counter with this one." Zam held up a digital counter, with computer connection wires running off of it. "I checked on the manufacturer already," he went on. "The company that makes this went out of business while we were in transit. All records were lost. As far as leads go, this is a dead end, but I've been able to wipe the virus from it while leaving it intact."

"It's great that you figured out how to get rid of the virus, Zach," Falconer said, "but I hear a catch. What is it?"

"In order to purge the systems," Zam explained, "We need to de-network the computers and restore them one by one. And we can't re-network them until after all of them are clean. Vehicles too. Although the ideal situation would be to have all the vehicles on station at the time, I know we have a schedule to keep. I can rig a comm unit between the vehicles and the station to filter the virus out of transmissions as well. However, to do that, I need a clean computer first."

"Alright. When do you want to do this?"

"As soon as possible," Zam said. "Tomorrow, if it'll work."

"We'll mention it at the staff meeting today. Good work." Falconer walked out. Krieger looked at the security cam outside the R&D lab. After a few minutes, there was still no Falconer. "Guess he's not going to talk to Maize," he said. "Good."

"Or," Zam interjected, "he could be going to sickbay."

"Joke's on him, then," Krieger smirked. "Doc gave Seb a sedative. By the time he wakes up, this crisis will have passed."

***

The static on the jet's radio broke suddenly. "-repeat, return to surface ASAP. Commander's orders. Again, Jay, this is Futureboy. If you can hear this, return to the surface ASAP."

Jackal responded and relayed their discovery. Futureboy was noticeably surprised. "It was obvious it was artificial, but a spacecraft? What's a spaceship doing buried in the ice?"

"Don't know. Can you patch me through to MIC? I want permission to go back down, maybe get inside the ship"

"No need. Orders were clear, no exceptions. Aubrey wants you, Jackal, and everyone else topside until further notice."

"But Doc, we don't know where in the ship Spitfire is. We're not sure how big the ship is, and it's better to start looking now."

"My hands are tied Jay. I'll relay what you found, but if that door just closes and opens without any jet accessible controls, there's no way we could get someone back from this side. And since Spitfire's didn't fly back out, I'm guessing there are no controls on the other side, either."

"Understood," Jay begrudgingly acknowledged. "Returning to surface. ETA 30 seconds." He cut the comm line.

"Jay." Jackal's voice now. Jay flipped open the channel to the buggy. 

"What is it, Jackal."

"I've been following the line of the ship since we left the airlock, and as far as I can see, this river follows it. Also, I've seen a few whirlpools disappear at various intervals. They seem to be malfunctioning locks. Assuming that they're all the same size, that ship has been taking on over 200 gallons of water each time a lock opens and closes."

"What's the point, Rob?"

"My point is that that water has to go somewhere. So either that water is being used for something, flushed out of the ship, or stored."

"So?"

"If it's being stored, then it should be sinking further into the ice. If I can get down near the edge of the ship, I can take measurements of different high water marks as I resurface, then estimate how long this ship's been here."

"Are you sure?"

"Completely. And running the calculations will give us something to do while waiting for the sub."

Jay grinned. "Well then, seems those orders weren't quite clear. Or rather, the grav beam is about to suffer an unexpected power loss." 

"Ready when you are."

"Cutting power in 3, 2, 1, 0." The grav beam holding the two craft together cut out, and the buggy splashed back down into the water. As Jackal carefully drove to the nearest edge, Jay reopened the channel to the surface. "Doc, we've had a slight malfunction with the grav beam. Stand by. We'll be back up soon."

"Grav beam malfunction?" Futureboy sounded skeptical. Jay thought. Maybe some fake static? No. Honesty was the best policy. Or at least, partial honesty. "The grav beam cut out and Jackal fell in."

"Cut out? Flynn checked over that unit personally. What happened?" 

"Power fluctuation. Probably happened because of the sudden changes in energy use back at that airlock."

"How far away is he now?"

"I'll have to move out of range to get him. Be right back."

"Alright. Don't take too long. Futureboy out."

Jay didn't answer. Keep up the illusion, he thought. The Doc had fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. Now, hopefully, Jackal would get some results, and no one would be the wiser.

***

Futureboy stood and started to walk out of the shuttle's bridge. Then he noticed the lit 'IN CONTACT' indicator on the the data feed between Jay's jet and the shuttle. "Strange..." He tried sending data. Maybe it was a glitch. The file seemed to go through. He turned the machine off, turned it on, and then tried to access the file via the jet's computers. It was slow, but the file was there. "Out of range, huh." He reached for the 'CALL' button, then paused. Jay must have his reasons for lying. Probably, Jackal's 'accidental' fall had been intentional. They were stalling for time, and they'd only do that if they had found something. Again, he reached for the button, but then decided against it. More fun to wait for them to get back and grill them when they least expected it. Futureboy smiled. This could be fun...

***

Spiridon had reached the bridge, though he had had to abandon his buggy in the process. He panned his flashlight's beam across the room. No one was there. The panoramic windows were closed off by emergency shieldplates. All of the chairs and stations, as well as the floor, were covered in a thin layer of long settled dust. Another mental flash took him to the long ago day where he had been given a tour of the place. "The Commander takes center chair, the helm and flight sensors are up front, and the comm/damage control station is here, at this screen," Flynn had said. 

"What about the support structure," Spiridon had asked. "Isn't it bad to have the most important structure on the ship up on this...outcropping? Wouldn't it get sheared off in a crash or reentry?" 

Flynn had laughed. "No, the structure is secure. If anything broke off, it would be..."

With dismay, Spiridon remembered the part of the ship most likely to be lost. "The antennae!" He ran to the comm station, as if by moving faster he might undo some damage that had already been done. The emergency batteries were still working, and the startup diagnostic ran. The first item on the list sank his plan: send/receive: offline. "Shoot! Okay, options, options." A few taps and the damage control board lit up. Hull breach in the forward section, where a shield plate had been prevented from closing. That could be an exit, but it opened into solid ice. Two airlocks opening intermittently, one upstream from the one he'd fallen into. Engineering was unlit, everything shut down. The emergency generators were working, but the batteries were recharging slowly, and most were stuck at 25% capacity. The crash and deep freezing combined with continued minor losses from the airlocks had not been kind to them. "Okay, what about signalling?" The main antennae had broken off, and the backups were in storage with ice preventing them from opening. That left...either the buggies comms (which he already knew were useless here) and the internal comm system. "Well, when life gives you lemons..." A quick system test told him all he needed to know. Half of the intercom speakers were out, and the only location that he could transmit from was the bridge. But the speakers in the airlocks checked out. Now, if he just had a way to tell when someone got close to the locks... He turned on the microphones in the locks. The rush of water greeted his ears. Now he had a way to listen, and a way to talk. But both would be drowned out whenever the lock opened. He needed to jam them shut on the outside. With a sigh, he started the long climb back down to where he had left his buggy. His stomach growled. "Looks like I'm going to miss lunch."

***

Falconer stood next to a medbed in Sickbay. Every minute or so, his eyes darted to the readouts. They had remained steady the entire time he had been there. He reached out his hand as if to wake the man on the bed, but then stopped and withdrew it. The medical staff had warned him to let Seb wake up naturally. He leaned against a wall, and waited some more. 

The readings hardly flickered, but slowly, the movement behind Seb's eyes slowed, then stopped. He opened them and glanced immediately at Falconer. 

"You've woken up early," Aubrey said.

Seb ignored the greeting. "I take it you're here to question me?"

Falconer nodded. "Maize has already said all he's going to say. Now I'm asking you: what happens next?"

Seb sat up and yawned. "If I tell you, will you mess things up?"

"What do you mean?" 

"If I tell you, and you take action using the assumption that what I tell you will happen will, you could throw off that prediction, along with any future ones. It's not some magical prophecy that is guaranteed to come true, no matter what happens."

Falconer nodded. "So, that's what Chris meant. But what if I don't act on what you tell me?"

Seb shook his head. "No, if Maize told Krieger, that's his business. Krieger isn't in a position to make the decision that would alter the chain of events. You are. And any new information I tell you will influence your decision." 

"So I have know way of knowing if you actually are telling the truth about where and when you're from?"

"Would having one of our 'predictions' confirmed really do that?" Seb argued. "We could be con men, playing an elaborate trick. Though knowing Maize, he'll have given Krieger specific figures which he can check later."

"And if the figures don't match?"

"Well then, Commander, you have every right to throw us in the brig. But for now, I'd like to get back to sleep." Seb rolled over and pulled the med bed's sheets up to his neck. The EEG monitor slowly settled into the pattern of the sleeping mind, and Falconer finally stood and left. With nothing new to work off of, there was no choice but to wait. And since Chris had given him a 'spoiler', as it were, by telling him Spitfire would be fine, he might now change things so that they didn't. The uncertainty of the future had returned, in a different form. Whether this was good or bad, he didn't know. An old story popped into his thoughts: "And the Zen master said, we'll see."

***

Water rolled off Jackal's buggy as he surfaced. Almost instantly, the jet's grav beam caught him and lifted him out of the river. "That took longer than I expected," Jay said. "What did you find out,"

"Just a bunch of numbers right now," Jackal replied. "I've got to run some calculations, but my rough estimate is that this thing has been here for under a decade."

"Under a decade? If something this big crashed here from orbit within the past 30 years, let alone a decade, we'd have seen it!"

"I know," Jackal said. "I can't explain it. Also, something about the size and shape of this thing is bugging me. It's seems almost familiar."

"Right, Jackal. A mystery spacecraft under the North Pole of Mars is familiar. Had any close encounters before?"

"Not alien, Jay. No, I think this thing is manmade."

"Well, whoever made it, they did a heck of a job hiding it."

"Not really," Jackal said, as they started back towards the chasm opening. "Anyone with any sense would know we'd check the ice caps when we arrived."

"So someone knew we were coming?"

"Someone," Jackal agreed. Then he remembered the strange, flying thing he and Spitfire had seen the other day. "Or something," he thought to himself.

***

The airlock proved more difficult to wedge open then expected. In the end, Spiridon simply blasted away at a portion of the inner door until it buckled. With the airtight seal broken, the door should remained closed, due to certain safety features built into it. A remote check via the microphone confirmed it: the flow of water had stopped. He climbed out of the buggy once more, then opened up the wall panel marked Airlock Sound System. He examined the wires carefully for damage, then ramped the volume to maximum and switched on the test-unit. A high pitched squeal erupted from the speaker. Even though it was behind the thick metal of the door, Spiridon still had to cover his ears. The sound progressed from a high shriek, to a soprano, on down through the scales to a bass rumble, then switched off. Satisfied that he could be heard, Spitfire drove back up the length of the ship. Now he would have to wait, listening to whatever the microphone picked up. Listening, alone, in a cold, dark room. Spiridon felt a cold shiver run down his spine. Maybe he would spare some battery power for the e-lights, after all.

***

"Contact with the jet restored," Lizzle reported as Falconer reentered the MIC. "Jay has Jackal's buggy in tow and will be clear of the chasm within 5 minutes."

"Good. Tell him to make a report from the shuttle as soon as possible." Falconer sat down as Lizzle relayed the order. He was still thinking about what might yet happen. A glance to his left confirmed that Krieger was now at the security station on the bridge, talking with Zam. It wasn't Krieger's shift. Did he know that something important was going to happen?

As if he knew what Falconer was thinking, Krieger looked up. "Aubrey, could I talk to you for a minute?"

Falconer stood and walked over to Krieger. The security chief had brought up a diagram on his screen. "Zam filled me in on our little problem," he said, "And I've worked out a plan to bring the systems back online, gradually. Environmental systems are the priority: we'll take all of them offline and reload them first, starting with atmospheric recycling. That should take maybe half an hour, less if we sever the connections between the rest of the computer system first."

"How do you plan on monitoring the life support systems if they're cut off," Falconer asked, mildly disappointed that Krieger hadn't wanted to talk about what Maize had told him. 

"Thought of that. We'll use the comm system and have one person watching the actual readouts and relaying the info." Krieger pointed back at the diagram. "After the E-systems, we'll take care of main memory storage,  then the comm systems, and finally the vehicles, which we'll clean one at a time so we can keep some operable. Last on the list is reactor control. We'll be running on batteries for a while, but after that, as long as the tach com filter works, we should be fine."

"How long?" Falconer asked.

"12 hours, give or take half."

"I don't know, it seems as if reinfection would be too easy."

"We could do a complete wipe if we had a clean computer with enough processing power and memory," Zam said, "But that would mean the base would be offline for the duration. The best time we probably could manage would still be an hour, too long without having to resort to rebreathers or oxy tanks."

"The AV?" Krieger suggested.

"Naw," Zam said. "I checked her systems on a hunch; flew over so as to avoid wireless contact. No good; she's been infected as long as the rest, sending station keeping info back and forth."

"One thing we know for sure, though, is that it doesn't make sense to try until everyone else is back," Krieger finished. "If we did it all before, we'd run the risk of reinfection when they returned." 

"Can the vehicles be cleaned in advance?" Falconer didn't like the idea of being without transportation for the duration."

"Yes, but we'd have to set up a different way of communicating. Wireless could reinfect them." Zam paused for a moment, considering the options. "The best way would be to use a laser telegraph. We could still receive their transmissions without running the risk of infecting them again, though." 

"Coordinate with Flynn and Orion. I want at least half of the vehicles in the launch bay cleaned in advance." Falconer noticed a worried look on Zam's face. "Problem?"

"You realize that any vehicles we clean will have to be stored powered down and unconnected to their charging cradles?" Zam asked.

"Yes, I do," Falconer said. "But all exploration missions are canceled until further notice. No one should be needing them, and they'll have enough of a charge in case of an emergency." He turned to Krieger. "Anything else?"

Both men shook their heads. Falconer returned to his seat, aware that Krieger was watching him, just as Falconer had watched him earlier. "The only two people with any idea that something is going to happen," Falconer thought, "and we can't discuss what that something is for fear of preventing it." 

***

In an extraordinary feat of aerial maneuvering, Kestrel brought the jet to land inside the shuttle's launch bay, exactly where it had been just hours before, nose pointed towards the doors, ready for launch. Futureboy was there to meet both pilot and passenger. 

"So," the doctor began. "What did you find?"

"Nothing, really," Kestrel said. "Just a system malfunction. 1 in a million, could have happened to anyone."

"Cut it, Jay. In case you forgot, your data uplink isn't linked in to the part of the comm system that you can turn off. I know you've been in range the whole time." 

"Alright," Jackal admitted, "you've figured us out. I ran a test to see how long it's been there. Can't have been more than 10 years, less maybe." He explained his method, with Futureboy nodding as he understood it. 

"So that makes two large vessels that appeared near Mars within the last few years. You'd think our satellite system would see something."

"With no geostationaries? That system's for research, not surveillance. The gaps between their orbits are big enough to fly a space station through, let alone a ship."

"Okay, Doc, now that you're in on our little secret, what are you going to do?" Kestrel shifted nervously."

"Do?" Futureboy queried. "The grav beam cut out, and Jackal took the time he was waiting to take some measurements. Nothing wrong with that."

A laugh spouted from the intercom. "Though Flynn might not like it when he finds nothing wrong with it," Ariel Johnson said. "And relax, I can keep a secret too."

"Since we seem to be in no danger of punishment," Jackal said, "I'd better report these findings to base." He walked out of the bay, headed for the main comm station in the control room.

"So, what do you think it is?" Futureboy asked.

"It looks like it was designed for space travel; the airlocks are circular." Jay scratched his chin. "The features are hard to make out through the ice, but the mapping suggests that it has, or had wings. My guess is a multi-purpose explorer." 

"Alien?"

"Hard to say. You could ask Jackal."

"Hate to interrupt your UFOlogy," Johnson said, "But the second shuttle's almost here. You should get up here to coordinate with them."

"And I guess I'll have to tell Iain that we don't need his jet after all," Jay said. "Too bad. He's been looking forward to flying it here."

"Well, at least with the sub, we should be able to fix this," Futureboy said. "And none too soon. Too many mysteries for one day."

"Don't even say it, Doc," Jay said. "There are probably more just waiting for an invitation."

***

With a few lights on, the bridge was slightly less frightening. Still, being alone down here was not where Spitfire had wanted to be spending his afternoon. He was hungry, the cold was starting to get to him, and thirst had started to gnaw at his throat. He supposed that there was plenty of water on the ship, but it would be difficult to get to it with the plumbing shut down to conserve power. Maybe if he hooked the buggy's systems into a pipe, he could get some flow. Or he could just go open one of the airlocks, and get all the water he needed. All the ice cold, freezing water… He shivered just thinking about it. That was probably a bad idea. Besides, there was still some time. Although he would probably be better off waiting inside his climate controlled buggy. If he just ran the controls for the mike and speaker through the wireless…

A loud, familiar ping emanated from the speaker. Spiridon turned the volume up to the maximum, and waited with bated breath. If it was what he thought it was… The ping repeated, louder this time. Again, louder still. Soon, it became necessary to turn back the volume. And still the ping grew louder. There was no mistaking it: it was the telltale sound of a sonar! And the only people nearby with a sonar were…

Spiridon didn't even bother finishing the thought. He pressed down the TALK button. "Mayday, mayday, mayday. Can you hear me? This is Spitfire. Mayday, mayday…"

***

Inside the sub, Glast noticed a spike in received sound that was out of sync with the pattern of the sonar. "Got something!" She pulled on her headphones, set the computer to filter out the sonar echo, and waited.

"Mayday, mayday, mayday. Again, this is Spitfire. Can you hear me?" The message was quiet, but getting louder. 

"Ahead slow, Spiffy." Glast concentrated on the volume of the message. Louder, louder still, louder…then, suddenly the message stopped changing in volume. It just repeated, loud and clear. "I think we're where we need to be, Spiff." Glast switched on the sub's mikes. "Spitfire, come in Spitfire. This is Glast. Do you read? Repeat, Spitfire, do you read?"

The answer was swift: "Glast, Spitfire. Read you loud and clear. You're right over the airlock I fell in through." 

"Great! According to the echo-map…" Glast glanced at the terrain map generated from the sonar data, "we should be able to rest across the opening, so we can pull you up. Open it up and let's get out of here!"

There was a brief pause on Spiridon's end. "That…might be difficult. This airlock's jammed open. It's the only way I could think of to make sure the water didn't mess up the sound. However…" another pause. "There should be another airlock back about 20 meters. I can meet you there…just one thing. Once the lock is open, how are you going to lift away from it?"

"That," Glast explained, "is where the jet comes in handy. Meet you at the lock in 10 minutes." Glast waited for Spiridon's acknowledgment before switching on the radio. "Jay, Glast. Bring her down, we're going to need some help."

***

"Contact confirmed!" Lizzle reported. "Kestrel is moving out of range to assist. They're going to try to pull Spitfire out through a closer airlock."

"We'll give them 10 minutes," Falconer decided. "After that, send Hunter down for recovery." He sat down again. "Now, we hope for the best."

***

10 minutes remaining

***

Kestrel maneuvered the jet rapidly through the passage. Behind him, Johnson was ready at the controls of the grav beam. "ETA to rendezvous with sub, 2 minutes. They're a lot closer than the lock we saw. Not sure why."

"Who cares why," Jay replied. "Less chance for something to go wrong the less distance we travel." A piece of ice broke off and splashed into the water as the jet grated against a wall. "Like that!"

***

Spitfire slid down the ladder to where his buggy was parked. He hit the deck a bit harder than he'd planned, but was otherwise fine. He clambered into the vehicle and sealed the canopy, did a quick pre-flight, then turned it around and sped back down the corridor. He almost missed the lock, but noticed in time to screech to a stop. He climbed out again, then found the lock controls. Now, to wait for the tell tale thump of a sub touching down…

***

The sub sped through the water, but the current was slowing its progress. "ETA, 2 minutes," Spiffy reported. "And have you figured out how we're going to pull free with Spitfire, before the lock closes?" 

"I've got an idea, but I need to brief Johnson on it." Glast spoke across the commlink between the sub and the jet. "Supercheese, here's what we need to do…"

***

8 minutes remaining: 

***

The jet and the sub converged on the lock at the same time. Despite some misgivings with the plan, Jay agreed to follow it. The sub touched down with a loud thud. Almost immediately, the lock yawned open. The sub settled down in the space, then activated it's shield. The flow of water stopped. Sensing the cessation of the pressure change, the inner doors opened. Spiridon could briefly be seen scrambling into his buggy. Glast triggered the sub's grav beam, and the buggy was lifted off the floor. 

***

7 minutes remaining:

"Okay Supercheese," Glast said. "Now, for the tricky part." She pulled the buggy as close to the sub as possible, then shunted power from the shield to the grav beam . The inner lock doors slammed shut, shaving an inch off the buggy's tires. The outer doors began closing as well, halted only by the sub's frame. Water began pouring in around them. Glast carefully brought the beam to a 95º angle from the emitter, holding the buggy slightly up and out of the lock. "Now, Supercheese, now!" The jet brought it's beam to bear, lifting the combined buggy and sub up and out. The doors kept closing, though, grating against the sub. Suddenly, the sub stopped. It was stuck.

***

6 minutes remaining:

***

"Not good, not good at all…" Glast ran through the options and picked one. "Supercheese, shift the beam to the buggy and get Spitfire into safe water!  Now!" The jet pulled the buggy away from the sub. Glast cut the beam power. The moment the buggy was clear, she powered up the shield. The sphere expanded out, forcing the doors back…and preventing the water that would allow the sub to propel itself away from filling the lock. Glast waited until Spitfire's buggy was safely released, then initiated the next step in the plan. "Okay, Supercheese, get ready to lock onto the sub and pull. When I drop the shields, grab us." Johnson acknowledge, and Glast cut the shield. The sub started to fall, then was lift up by the jet. It had almost cleared the lock, when the outer doors slammed shut on the sub's grav beam generator, holding it fast. The jet snapped back at the sudden resistance.

***

5 minutes remaining: 

***

"Darn it…not enough power to pull them loose," Johnson said.

"Take power from the grav cushion and give to the main jet," Kestrel said. "We should be able to pull them free then."

As the jet's main thruster kicked in, a metallic screech came from the connection between the generator and the sub. Rents began appearing in the metal. Abruptly, the generator tore off, completely severed. The jet shot up, sub in tow, directly for the ceiling. Kestrel killed the grav beam and diverted the power to the emergency thrusters. He managed to turn the jet out of its nose first collision, but the side of the canopy clipped the ice. Johnson's head violently hit his console. His head lolled back; he was unconscious. 

***

4 minutes remaing:

***

The first cannonball performed on Mars settled into residual waves. The sub surfaced, slowly. Glast called for a sound off. "Glast, here."

"PB&J, here."

"Spitfire, alive and well."

"Solar Flare, here." Kestrel noticed Johnson's silence. He turned around and saw his co-pilot's condition. Blood had begun to flow from Johnson's nose. "Glast, Johnson's hurt! I have to get him to Doc ASAP!" Without waiting for a reply, Kestrel sped back along the passage, leaving he sub and the buggy to make their much slower progress home. Spitfire drove his buggy onto the sub's back, and the strange piggy back processed along.

@***@

3 minutes remaining: 

***

"So," Spiridon began, "What have I missed?"

"Not much," Glast replied. "You singlehandedly halted all other operations. Congratulations."

"Not my fault," Spiridon replied, "and I've found something very interesting." He filled them in on his discovery of the AV1. 

"That's impossible!" Spiffy exclaimed. "We would have seen evidence of a crash!" 

"Not up here," Glast said. "The snow and wind would have covered it quickly. Though that still doesn't explain the refreezing."

"Seems that Occam's razor's broken," Spitfire commented. "The base didn't blow up by accident, the AV1 survived, and the old team might not be dead." He shivered thinking about what he'd seen. "I don't know what brought the ship here, but I went up and down almost half of it, and it was completely deserted." Silence followed, as the three explorers thought about what that might mean.

***

2 minutes remaining:

*** 

The wash from the jet's engines threw water into the air, where it quickly crystallized in the cold. Kestrel spared a second to glance back at Johnson. The technician was now slumped over his console, but was still visibly breathing. "Just hang in there, AJ," Kestrel said, turning forward. He saw the light at the end of the tunnel. This was going to be tricky… He cut the the throttle, switched all power he could afford to the grav cushion, pulled back on the controls, and threw the throttle to full. The jet's nose pulled up towards the Martian sky just as the thrust took effect. With a roar, it started lifting up and out of the chasm. 

*** 

1 minute remaining: 

***

"Hunter's ready to go, Aubrey. Just give the word." 

"They've still got 50 seconds, Doc." The commander's voice was filled with concern. Futureboy glanced at the digital readout next to the comm. It was still counting down. No sign yet.

"Hunter, go airborne and move closer to the pit. Be set to dive in."

"Copy that, Doc." The second jet lifted off and hovered towards the edge, nose angled down. 

"Still no contact." Futureboy glanced at the display again. Had time sped up? It now read half a minute. "Aubrey, I'm having Hunter start down at ten seconds."

"Understood Doc. Just hope you don't have to."

The clock ran down to 15. 14. 13. 12. 11. 10. Futureboy gave the go ahead. The jet nosed over the edge slightly, beginning a controlled descent.

"Hey, Doc, is it just me or is the wind getting louder?" 

Futureboy paused in his thoughts. Now that Hunter mentioned it, there was a growing rumble, like thunder, almost like… "Hunter! Get away from the edge! Pull up!"

The pilot had already realized what was happening, and had done a midair 180. He had just cleared the edge when Kestrel's jet soared out of the crevasse, angled down and engaged its landing legs. The excess momentum sent it spinning around by 200º, and past the nose of the shuttle to face the landing bay. Kestrel brought it in as quickly as possible. The moment he touched down, he began shouting over the comm. 

"Doc, this is Jay! Spitfire retrieved, on his way back. AJ's unconscious, needs a med bed immediately! Get down here!" Futureboy sprang from the console, racing for the landing bay. On the other end of the line, Falconer stood, both glad and worried. They'd done what they'd set out to do, and recovered their lost man…but at what cost to another?

***

To Be Continued.

 Author's Note: Well, after 10 months, the longest and least often updated part of the story is done. And now, we need to talk. As you've seen, these stories have been getting longer and longer, needing multiple pages to store. So, what do you think? Should installments be limited to 1 page? Or is this jumping between parts alright with you? Also, as always, other feedback is appreciated.

Addendum, 16th May, 2013: I have been stalled on this. That is about to change. Minor edits have been made to this installment, mostly grammatical corrections. Now I just need to build momentum on Part 7. Apologies for the wait.

Sincerely,

Picard