The sledge gently nudged against the iceberg. The berg wasn’t really big enough to be called a moon, but it had enough gravity to make the sledge ‘fall’ on it. Joe ‘thought’ a correction to the course. The sledge skidded away from the ice, back towards the ice peak ahead. One of the lispers flew over, took a bug from the sledge and placed it on the peak. Packed round with snow it would never be found. Not ever.
This peak was just high enough to poke up above the Saturn type rings. Rings that were almost white. But a white suffused with pink and yellow and orange and brown. Glittering as the particles spun and tossed like ripples on a sea. Here and there Joe could see through the ring and focus on stars down ‘below’.
The oceans of Earth have a horizon where the planet’s surface curves away from view. But this slowly undulating plain of ice didn’t bend. It went on forever, right round the planet and back again. The whole of Earth could sit on this ring system and barely be noticed. Joe knew what he was looking at. He just found it hard to believe such a huge area could really be this flat. Perhaps humans had evolved to look upon the curved Earth as flat. So they couldn’t truly accept something that actually was flat.
Here and there were moon size collections of icebergs, pulled together under their own gravity. But the enormous tidal demands of the planet would slowly force them apart. Maybe to re-form in another geological age.
“Navvs to Comms. Joe are you anywhere near finished?”
Joe remembered why he was here. “I think so. The last of the bugs have gone and it looks like the Sergeant is coming back.”
The Sergeant and his men had switched their suits to red. There were no E forces anywhere near and if anything went wrong they wanted to be found. “Yeth we’re done. Permithion to return to the thip.”
“Granted” said Navvs. “I’ll get the door open.”
Joe noticed all the lispers had gathered near the sledge. Perhaps even this bunch of toughies felt slightly lonely in this awful place.
The Sergeant counted his men “All here. Leth go.”
The group lifted up from the ring, trusting that the invisible Vengeance would soon appear. The higher they went the more the ring lost its solid surface look. From this height Joe could see it really was a collection of orbiting bits and pieces. A zone of particles barely a few hundred meters thick.
Then the sight they really wanted to see. The reassuring slit of light as the bow doors opened just in front. The Vengeance. Home. A place to curl up. Try and forget all the immensity beyond the hull.
“This is the Commander. Can the shore party be ready to land on Al Banduq in about thirty minutes? According to the bugs a ship is heading this way from Mirconium. I hope it is heading for Al Banduq and we can follow it in. I don’t think they can detect us, but just in case I’d rather be in the wake of one of their ships. I will arrange food to be brought to you in the hold.”
“A last cup of coffee for the condemned men.” joked Joe.
The Sergeant and his men looked at Joe and Joe shut up.
Once in the hold with the airlock shut they ate quickly and silently from cassettes plugged into their suits.
Then Joe took his helmet off and got both arms out of his suit. He didn’t like doing this bit. He opened a small box and took out what looked like white thread, just a couple of centimetres long. He leant his head back and dropped the thread on to his left eyeball.
“Stop blinking,” said Comms One on Joe’s intercom.
“Its not easy.” Said Joe as the thread started to wriggle down the side of his eyeball. “Ah that’s horrible.”
“Almost there” said Comms One in Joe’s ear. “That’s it. Can you look round a bit Joe?”
“Like this?”
“That’s fine. It’s all on screen here. It’s a good picture. I can see everything you can see. Does it hurt?”
“No. Not really. I can hardly feel it.”
“Good” said Comms “Were almost there.”
“This is the Commander. Can the shore party get suited up again please and go onto the loading bay.”
Joe and the Marines checked each other over and shuffled out, waiting for the doors to open.
“Ith that it?” asked one of the lispers
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