The rover wheeled across the featureless landscape leaving a pawl of diesel fumes and dust swirling in its wake. Its tracks, fresh and gratuitous in the pristine alien soil, recorded the rover’s journey from the module towards the great column of smoke that rose above the undisturbed horizon. For several kilometres, the lonely vehicle had trundled parallel to the deep groove left behind by the module, but the furrow’s path was not straight, instead, it had deviated from its natural path and turned sharply towards its eventual resting place at the foot of the spire. It was as if the module had been dragged towards the structure on purpose.
Inside the rover’s rocking cab, Konrad looked ahead and saw the smoke hanging heavily in the sky. Black plumes of swirling ash obscured the planet’s new blue sky and brought back memories of the previous dull and colourless atmosphere, while a line of fire, the smoke’s source, was splashed across the landscape, its bright orange glow smudging the rolling cloud. The ground in front of the rover was scorched and blackened and littered with countless pieces of metal. All traces of their previous angular designs had been erased either by their descent through the atmosphere, or by their impact with the ground.
As the rover crunched its way through the debris field, the carpet of junk thickened and concentrated, and amidst the flickering flames stood more imposing and titanic pieces of debris. Entire sections of the Odin’s lattice super-structure lay spread out like a decaying carcass, the framework twisted and distorted amongst the dust, while the cavernous remains of an engine bell lay amidst its metal throngs.
With a pneumatic sigh the rover halted. The thick wreckage now prevented any further progress into the mutilated remains of the Nazi spacecraft. Konrad and Mesler clambered from the idle rover and from a compartment in the vehicle’s hull they pulled out two torches and a case of rattling tools. Mesler kept the case for himself as he tossed one of the torches to Konrad, who instantly activated the device. Its beam shone like a sword in the smoke. The prisoner then followed the officer as he pointed his torch-beam into the forest of metal which encircled them like a shadowy haunted house.
‘What do these containers actually look like?’ Konrad asked as he stumbled over a piece of junk.
Mesler helped the prisoner up. ‘The containers we want, namely those which contain food rations, are yellow in colour and hexagonal in shape. If you see any other types just ignore them. I’m only interested in the food containers.’ He stooped to avoid a large tubular stanchion. ‘Remember, hexagonal in shape.’
Konrad looked back and saw the rover obscured in the distance by the lattice forest. A red revolving light on its hull acted as a beacon and from his point of view, the cramped cab was now a luxurious home from home. He turned back into the gloom and hurried after Mesler who had emerged from the initial wall to stop in a wide football-pitch sized clearing amongst the wreckage. A cathedral-sized battery stood on the far side. It was the larger brother of the ones which now powered the module, but unlike its scaled-down brethren, its spherical walls had cracked open. In the fissure the two men could see the battery’s tall conductive plates, while its acidic power source had poured out and turned the scorched soil into a foul quagmire; a quagmire across which the explorers had to cross.
Konrad stepped to the edge of this industrial swamp, snorted loudly and spat into the mud. The sputum hissed and fizzed as it made contact with the highly acidic soil. ‘Do we try and find another way around?’
Mesler looked across the acidic barrier and saw that several pipes lay in the mud, if used correctly could be used as stepping-stones to the far side of the clearing and to the sanctuary of the open battery.
‘No,’ the officer said confidently. ‘See the fuel-pipes submerged over there…’
Konrad nodded.
‘We’ll use them to cross over to the other side.’
But to achieve this, the pair had to make it to the first pipe and that would not be easy. A large gap existed between the quagmire’s shoreline and the bent and battered pipes. It was capable of being jumped over, but it still looked difficult nevertheless.
Konrad was the first to attempt the leap. He passed his torch to Mesler, prepared his run up and ran. At the edge of the shoreline he leapt, his spring worthy of any Olympic long-jumper and landed heavily on the nearest pipe. The impact winded the prisoner, but he managed to remain on the slippery curved metal and beckoned Mesler to follow. This, he succeeded in doing, perhaps with a little less grace than the more athletic prisoner, but with equally effective results.
Safe on the overturned pipe-work, the two men scurried across to a catwalk that lay near to the vast breached battery. The catwalk snaked out of sight beyond the structure. Konrad looked at the rickety platform and was filled with an understandable sense of trepidation. It appeared that only more fire, smoke and danger lay beyond. If Mesler felt the same he didn’t show it. The two men worked their way round the bulbous battery and disappeared into a drifting bank of smoke.
In the roiling cloud their sense of isolation grew even more acute. This sense of isolation was heightened even more by the groaning of the metal wreckage that surrounded them. It was as if the remains of the vessel were pleading for help from the two explorers, begging to be put out of its misery. At the end of the platform, which rocked dangerously under each of their steps, a large multi-storied cubic structure emerged from the curtain of smoke. The structure was one of the Odin’s vast storage containers. These skyscraper-sized structures would have originally been attached to the side of the vessel and their contents would have been the building blocks of the Nazi colony planned for the planet. This was obviously before the crash, before the horror. One side of the container remained relatively intact, but the opposite side appeared to have been sliced open with a giant knife. An entire forest of weed-like cables and ducting hung from the vast gash like torn flesh, while equipment such as motorised tractors, ploughs, silos and other pieces of farming equipment lay scattered across the buckled decks.
‘Such a waste,’ Mesler said wistfully, waving his hand across the metallic vista. ‘All the farming equipment the colonists were to use to transform this planet. All that will happen to it now is that it’ll rust away and be swallowed by the soil.’
Konrad refused to buy into the romantic vista being described by Mesler; instead, more practical matters dominated his thoughts. ‘Could the food containers be nearby?’ he asked. ‘Wouldn’t it have made sense to store the food close to the farm?’
‘Perhaps,’ Mesler replied. He turned and surveyed the endless debris field. ‘We could be out here for months and not stumble upon one container. But that’s my pessimistic side talking, my optimistic side, however, tells me we will be successful.’
Konrad looked out across the sea of wreckage and sided with the officer’s pessimistic side.
The two men pushed on. They walked between more of the titanic containers. Some like the agricultural themed containers stood like metallic tombstones, giant memorials to the Nazis’ hubris, while others were smashed beyond recognition like presents discarded by a spoilt child. Amongst the visual devastation an acrid smell hung. Burning rocket-fuel dominated, but alongside this, an earthy under-taste – the planet’s disturbed soil – drifted through the smoke. The fine alien dirt along with the smoke stained their faces and clothes, but the need to find the precious food drove the two men on. And as they trawled amongst the dirt and metal they saw the remains of the Odin’s crew who were unable to reach the safety of the command module. Some were miraculously intact, while other bodies were smashed or burnt beyond recognition.