Jump Point magazine Issue 01.01 (n°01), December 2012 | Page 21

She brought up some texts on Hades. Halfway through a paper on the
exobiology of the Hadesians, her screen pinged. Tonya was over to the
display like a shot.

buildings and streets led her to suspect that a battle took place here,
however many hundreds or thousands of years ago.
The crater closest to the Kherium was a perfect hole punched through
the middle of the city into the ground. Tonya stood at the edge, looking
for the easiest way down. The crate could float down, but she would
have to climb.

The scope gave a faint indication of Kherium below. She triple-checked
the settings before getting her hopes up. They seemed legit. She looked
out the front. A small city lay ahead, perched above an endless sea of
dead trees. It looked like an orbital laser or something similar had hit it,
excising massively deep craters from buildings and ground.

In a matter of minutes she secured a line with safeties for herself and
the crate. She stepped over the edge and slowly rappelled down the
sheer wall. The crate was making what should be a simple descent a
little more complicated. The anti-grav buffers meant that any kind of
force could cause the crate to drift away, so Tonya needed to keep a
hand on it at all times. To make matters worse, the wind started picking
up, flinging small rocks, branches, and debris through the air.

Tonya took a closer look. The craters went about six hundred feet into
the ground, revealing networks of underground tunnels. They looked like
some kind of transport system.
Tonya looked for a suitable landing spot with cover from overhead
flights. If she was still here when the prospectors showed up, spotting
her ship would be a dead giveaway and things would get complicated.

A shrill scream tore through the air. Tonya froze. She heard it again
and looked for the source. The screaming was just exposed supports
bending in the wind.

She strapped on her environment suit and respirator. She could check
the ship’s scanners through her MobiGlas but threw another handheld
scanner/mapper in with her mining gear just in case. Finally, she powered up her transport crate, hoping the anti-gravity buffers would be
more than enough to lug the Kherium back.

Suddenly, she realized the crate had slipped out of her grasp. It slowly
drifted further out over the crater, the swirling wind batting it around
like a toy. Tonya strained to reach it, but the crate floated just out of
reach. She kicked off the wall and swung through the churning air. Her
fingertips barely snagged the crate before she slammed back against
the wall of the crater.

Tonya stepped out onto the surface. The wind whipped around her,
furiously kicking up waves of dust. She pushed the crate in front of her
through the blasted forest. Gnarled branches clawed at her suit as she
passed. The city loomed overhead, black silhouettes against the greygreen clouds.

Her vision blurred and she couldn’t breathe from the impact. The HUD
went screwy. Finally she caught her breath. She took a moment or two
before continuing down.

Her curiosity got the better of her so Tonya decided to take a ramp up
to the city streets. She told herself the detour would be easier on the
crate’s battery. Smooth streets are easier for the anti-grav compensators to analyze than rough terrain.

The scanner from the Beacon couldn’t isolate the signature any more
clearly to determine depth, so she had to rely on her handheld. The
Kherium looked like it was situated between two tunnels.

Tonya moved through the barren streets in awe. She studied the
strange curvature of the architecture; each displayed an utterly alien
yet brilliant understanding of pressure and weight dispersal. This whole
place seemed at once natural and odd, intellectually fascinating and
emotionally draining.

Tonya secured the crate, climbed into the upper tunnel, and tied off
her ropes. She checked her suit’s integrity after the debris-storm.
The computer was a little fuzzy, but gave her an okay. She turned on a
flashlight and activated the external mics on her suit. The tunnel was a
perfectly carved tube that sloped into the darkness. A transport tube?
Tonya couldn’t see any kind of power or rail system to confirm her
theory. She started walking.

The Kherium signature was still weak but there. Tonya maneuvered the
crate around destroyed teardrop-shaped vehicles. Pit-marks in the

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