“What are you saying?” Miles asked. “Veil built reinforcements into the walls?”
“No,” Horatio said. “I believe some sort of vessel crashed here, and these caves formed in the aftermath.”
“That would have to be quiet a hefty impact,” Brinks said.
“Indeed,” Horatio commented. “My guess is the surrounding rock liquified into a magma sea upon impact. Air pockets would have formed the initial cave structures. Laser drills would have enlarged and expanded them during the years it operated as a precious gem mine.”
“So, you’re saying the refined metal you’re detecting in the wall is the wreckage of that ship?” Miles asked.
“Sort of,” Horatio said. “I wouldn’t call it a wreckage… most of the ship would have disintegrated upon impact, including any passengers. The particles would have spread throughout the molten rock, becoming encased in as it cooled. Forming what you see here.”
“Metal and bones,” Will said. “A few swirls in the wall of a cave. All that remains of whatever vessel crashed onto these plains.”
“The vessel was a starship,” Rhea said with absolute certainty.
They all looked at her.
Horatio nodded slowly. “That’s certainly possible. Though size doesn’t necessarily matter in impacts such as these. Speed however, definitely plays a factor.”
Will studied her. “How do you know it was a starship?”
She had a flashback then.
She stood on the dorsal hull of a massive starship. Streaks of orange flame cut through the air all along its edges, silhouetting the enormous vessel. She was wearing a jetpack. That familiar dome of pressurization surrounded her head and neck, providing her brain with the oxygen it needed.
There were others with her. Also wearing jetpacks, and with translucent domes around their heads. She couldn’t see their faces. Their bodies were tall and lithe, made of a shiny metal that reflected everything around it. Like Rhea, their heads and shoulders were covered in artificial skin and hair.
These others leaped off the hull one by one, jetting skyward, moving away from the starship.
Only her magnetized soles kept her secured to the surface. She deactivated the magnets and jumped at the same time, initiating her jetpack. She fought against the forces generated by the bow shock of reentry, emitting lateral thrust to counter them; she arose steadily, moving away from the hull, passing through a portion of the superheated plasma that enveloped the vessel.
When she had cleared the ship, she activated her air brakes to slow herself, and jetted sideways and downward to rejoin her companions, using her overhead map to guide her. She glanced over her shoulder at the starship.
The underside of the triangular vessel was red hot, with sections already molten. The starship hadn’t been designed for atmospheric reentry. It was pockmarked with blast holes—the ship had been shot down.
“Rhea?” Will asked.
She blinked, his voice bringing her back to the present moment. She felt a moment of anger at his interruption, but then realized he probably wasn’t responsible for ending the flashback. It was just a coincidence on his part.
She ignored him and continued forward with renewed purpose.
Jairlin immediately started walking again, in order to keep his team ahead of her.
Crystalline structures began to take shape in the walls. Stacked one atop the other, they protruded in octagonal rods, their tips flats.
“Emeralds,” Jairlin said.
“We’re in the old mines,” Horatio said. “These crystals would have formed after the impact, a consequence of the extreme temperature and pressure. I’m beginning to wonder if the entire Emerald Highlands were created by the crash.” The robot glanced at Rhea. “If that’s the case, it was probably a starship after all.”
The party continued forward, until the tunnel walls opened ahead.
“We’ve reached a chamber of some kind,” Jairlin announced. “Give us a moment to clear it.”
Rhea switched to his viewpoint. He indeed stood in a chamber. Well, a cavern really. Emeralds jutted out intermittently from the walls and floor. At the center lurked a black, cube-like structure whose top and bottom were encased in the rock of floor and ceiling. It was about the size of three standard Rust Town cargo containers, in terms of breadth.
Beyond the cube, she could see corridors branching off. The Black Hands would have fled down some, or all, of those tunnels. But she already knew she was going no further into the cave system: the cube was undoubtedly the ‘gift’ Veil had referred to.
“It’s clear,” Jairlin said.
She dismissed his viewpoint and entered with the others. They fanned out in front of the cube, and slowly approached.
Horatio was the first to reach it, and he rested a metal hand on its surface.
“It’s made of a strange alloy I’ve never seen before,” Horatio said. “I’m not completely sure how it was formed, but it would’ve had to have been virtually indestructible to survive the crash.”
“Well, it’s obviously a black box,” Miles said. “Get it? You know, the flight recorder.”
Everyone ignored him, lost in their own thoughts.
Rhea neared the object. As she got closer, she realized it wasn’t encased in the rock after all: there was a trench dug all along the outer edges, both on the floor and ceiling, as if someone had tried to remove the cube from the surrounding rock. They’d managed to excavate the rock, yes, but apparently the cube had been too dense to move.
“It’s emitting gravity waves,” Horatio said.
“What are you saying?” Miles asked.
“I believe the device is still powered,” Horatio replied. “And it’s emitting these waves to artificially increase its weight.”
“So that no one could relocate it?” Miles pressed.
“I don’t know,” Horatio admitted.
Rhea ran a hand across the black surface. There were minute scratches, often flowing outward, as if evidence of blast marks. It seemed obvious that Veil, and whatever Earth governments knew about the crash site, had tried to cut into the cube but failed. All they’d been able to do was scratch it.
Not far from her, Will fired his plasma pistol at the cube. Those around him stepped back nervously as a red circle formed over the impact zone. The circle
