“It has to be the American salvage team,” realized Nikolay. “It wasn’t a big explosion, so it might indicate they have just blown a door open.”
Brusilov glanced at his chief engineer. “Perhaps the door to the armory?”
Nikolay shrugged.
They continued on and after a few turns entered a corridor tainted with the residue of explosives in the air. Alert for danger, they silently moved forward and stopped at the entrance to the armory.
After hearing no sounds of anyone inside, Brusilov stepped nearer while the others guarded the corridor. When Brusilov’s eyes swept along the racks of weapons, his smile faded to dismay on seeing the packs of explosives distributed throughout the room. When he followed the yellow cables to the timer readout that had reached fourteen seconds, he rushed from the room shouting, “Explosives, RUN!”
CHAPTER 25
Cargo Salvage
WHILE SOME OF his men followed the bulldozer towing the cargo ship through the tunnel, Joe McNally led the others over to the airlock that led to the cargo bay. The constant delay of opening and closing the two airlock doors would drastically slow down the salvaging of the alien stores. He turned to his electrical wizard. “Kirby, do you think it’s possible to have both sets of doors open at the same time?”
Kirby, never one to shy away from a challenge, headed for the control panel. “If the aliens’ electrical system is based on the same principle as ours, then it should be simple enough to override the safety controls.”
“Okay good, see what you can do. The rest of you come with me.”
The five men passed through the airlock into the cargo bay and wandered over to the nearest stack of cargo containers.
The thousands of storage pods stacked in neat rows were all exactly the same size, seven-foot-seven-inch cube whose sides slotted into each other to form a strong rigid structure. Each was labeled with alien text and color-coded with a stripe along each surface and all pods of the same color were grouped together. Access to the contents was via double-doors fastened by a hexagon catch that turned to release the lock.
McNally opened the first one he came to, which was marked with a green stripe. Inside was a neatly folded bundle of some kind of tough plastic similar to Mylar.
“It’s a temporary shelter,” stated Jason Kendrick.
McNally turned to the man who had spoken. “How could you possibly know that?”
Kendrick pointed at the diagram fixed to the inside of the open door. “That was the clue.”
The men examined the small poster. Though the alien text was illegible, the image of a large oblong habitat with rounded edges, an arched roof and what seemed to be solar panels distributed across its surface was understood by all.
Larry Schaefer, the NASA technician assigned to appraise the alien artifacts and assign their salvage priority, pointed at the two labeled storage crate diagrams beside the habitat image.
“It seems three crates are needed to complete a single habitat. Apart from living accommodations, they probably include workshops, science labs and much more―in fact everything the alien crew needed to set up a temporary base until more permanent structures could be built.”
Thinking the design might be adaptable to use as their own temporary habitats on far-flung planets they might explore, Schaefer stepped back and ran his eyes over the symbols marking the nearby containers and pointed some out. “We’ll take these nine for starters.”
While the others moved on down the row, McNally turned to the waiting forklift drivers and pointed out the selected crates. The three forklifts moved towards the indicated crates and started lifting them free.
McNally rejoined his men, who had opened one of the yellow-striped containers.
Schaefer pulled out one of the smaller boxes formed from a rigid type of plastic that filled the internal space snugly. Inside were neatly folded pieces of linen. They opened a selection of the smaller boxes and found items that seemed to be general everyday wares the crew would need to cook, clothe and exist on a strange new world. Though it wasn’t the technology they looked for, Schaefer selected six at random to be salvaged and moved on.
McNally sprayed a red circle on the six selected crates and pointed them out to one of the forklift drivers before moving on.
Schaefer gazed at the rows of containers. It would take weeks to search through them all. They had a few hours, a day or two at the most if they were lucky.
As if reading his mind, McNally suggested they split up and each choose a different coloured crate to examine until they found what they searched for―advanced alien technology. Schaefer agreed and the men spread out.
“I think I found what we’re looking for,” called out Juan Quintero a few moments later.
McNally and Schaefer crossed to the open container marked with a black stripe where Quintero waited and looked into the smaller box he had opened. Set in a foam-type lining were pieces of machinery of various shapes that hinted they might fit together to make a single piece.
Inspired by the find, Schaefer selected another box that was heavier than he expected. He glanced at Quintero. “Give me a hand.”
They lifted out the box, laid it on the floor and opened it. Inside were rows of strange tubes dotted with chunky protrusions and what seemed to be a line of lights along the top.
Schaefer resealed the crate. “It’s definitely alien technology. We’ll concentrate our efforts on salvaging the black containers first and if we get time, a random selection of the rest.”
“I’ll go inform the forklift drivers.” As McNally headed across the room and felt the the increased movements of the iceberg that had him worried, he wondered how long they had before they were forced to evacuate.
After he had informed the drivers to start shifting the black storage pods, McNally crossed to the airlock and noticed both the cargo bay and hangar doors were open. Molten metal sparks sprayed from the portable welder Kirby was using to fix the doors in place.
“Good job, Kirby,” praised McNally, avoiding staring directly at the intense arc light.
Kirby stood from his crouch and pushed the dark welding visor over his head. “That’s the last one. I welded all the doors open so if any safety feature kicks in they won’t be able to close on us.”
“Good idea. With both doors open it’ll speed up the salvaging process.”
He glanced over at the two forklifts heading back from depositing their loads outside. Ricky Cassidy stood on the step plate of the lead one. Cassidy jumped off before the forklift drove through the airlock and joined McNally. “There are two high cube containers outside waiting to be filled.”
McNally nodded. “Did the cargo shuttle make it aboard the ship safely?”
“Yeah, the wind blew it about a bit, but other than that no problem. The others are just tidying up outside and then they’ll come and help.”
“We could have done with a few more forklifts. There are so many crates we’ll never salvage them all.”
“Now the two smaller spaceships are safely onboard the ship, everything else is a bonus,” said Cassidy.
“I know, but we’ll never get this opportunity again and to not be able to save everything, well…you know…”
“Yeah, I know.” Cassidy started heading towards the airlock. “But saving as much as we can is all we can do.” He entered the cargo bay.
As McNally walked over to the ice tunnel, he glanced at the remaining cargo shuttles. It was a shame they didn’t have time to save another one, but those with a higher pay grade than him thought they only needed one and with the time constraint thrust upon them it was thought any other alien technology they could salvage would prove just as important. He pulled out his radio and made his report to the command ship.