“You know, it’s like a blue beam, lets you lift things or hold them in place.”
“You have something like that on Earth?” Kestok said.
“No, it’s from movies and stuff like that.”
“Right. No, no tractor beams. Sounds like nonsense to me.” Kestok tapped the side of the console. “Nothing a good reliable electromagnet won’t solve.”
Michael removed one hand from the cable and blew into it. The cold from outside was chilling the metal, making his hands numb. “No, you see a tractor beam lets you pick up people, or asteroids, stuff like that?”
“Why would you need to? You can pick up people in a shuttle, and asteroids don’t really move.”
“Never mind,” Michael said. “We getting close?” The cables were still whining, slowly spooling themselves out. The distance was impressive, but they were nearing the end of their limits.
“I think we might need to lower the ship a little,” Kestok said. “Clive!”
“Hello!” Clive replied chirpily, his face forming from a nearby cloud of nanobots. “How can I help?”
“We need to lower the ship a little, the cable isn’t long enough.”
“How low do we need?” Clive said. The cloud forming the face peered down through the open shuttle bay doors, a motion that wasn’t strictly necessary. “Hmm, yeah I can do that.”
The ice below grew closer, as the ship descended. It was impressive, the huge vessel was being held up by rows upon rows of engines underneath, screaming blue fire blasting out across its hull. They made remarkably little noise. Michael had seen an air-show once, where a fighter jet had used its twisting nozzle engines to lift itself vertically. The noise had been nearly unbearable. He wouldn’t want to calculate the sheer force of thrust needed to keep the ship aloft. Not that he could anyway.
“Should we be just, hanging around in the atmosphere like this? Isn’t it going to use up a bunch of fuel running all these… thrusters, is that what they’re called?” Michael said. He watched the descent. The wash from the engines was now causing the snow to ripple away as it turned to water.
“The engines on this ship are reactionless. They just need to be fed power,” Kestok said.
Michael rubbed his forehead. “I did high-school science, a reactionless drive doesn’t make sense. You know what, don’t worry about it, crazy alien technology. Got it.”
“Nah, the vast majority of ships use your standard engines, they burn fuel, that makes thrust. Reactionless drives are rare things, relics from past civilisations. We don’t quite know how they work. Hell, I’ve seen two… no three, before this. But this ship, well it has hundreds. And I’ve never seen ones the size of the main drives.” Kestok nodded towards Michael. “You can let go now. This whole ship is just, outstanding. It would be worth millions, hundreds of millions even.”
“So, we hit the big time?” Michael said. He smiled, finally things were looking up. “Maybe we could sell it, once we’re done here? That should cover Aileena and Brekt’s fee handily and set the rest of us up for life.”
Skorra gasped. “You would sell the Sword?”
“Maybe, eventually. Don’t worry, we’ll help your people first, if we can.”
“Ok… magnets on,” Kestok said. “We could just, take off, you know. Blast into space and leave. Forget fighting some mythical beast?”
Skorra’s face was aghast. “We… we… trusted you with this! The crystal here is a backup for the tower! If anything went wrong—”
“We aren’t going to take off!” Michael shouted, barging into her shocked ranting. “We’ll go see this Vystuk—”
“Vystok.”
“Whatever, you named them. Look, if we’re right about what happened, there’s nothing to fight.” Michael’s shoulders slumped. “Look, we think an asteroid hit your planet. The dust it kicked up sent your world into an ice age. We can’t undo that. It’s done. You just need to wait it out.”
“An asteroid?” Skorra said.
“It’s a big chunk of rock from space. You’re lucky, one hit my world, millions of years ago, and killed nearly everything.”
“What about the Vystak? Where did they come from?”
“Maybe they were here all along. Look, we’ll check it out. We owe your people that much. Probably would have frozen or been snipped in two by an ice crab by now otherwise.”
Kestok drummed his fingers across the top of his console happily. “We’ve got a lock. It’s looking good. Step back you two, I’m going to start winching it up.”
The Seeker groaned. It had come to rest in the ice, rudely slammed into the ground by inconsiderate owners. Metal released built-up tension as the weight of the ship shifted off the ground. Around it, creatures of ice with snapping razor claws scuttled angrily. They clacked in the direction of the fleeing ship. It rose, slowly, into the air, the metal cables lifting the weight effortlessly. Snow slid down the side, dusting the angry creatures below.
At the end of each cable was a large metal orb. On one side was a flat metal pad, whilst the rest of the ball was covered with tiny holes. Small blasts of energy had rushed from these gaps, moving the pads into contact with the side of the ship automatically.
The ship was not being lifted evenly. Two of the cables had latched onto the struts that held the Seekers rear engines, their simple AI deciding it was the sturdiest part of the ship. This had caused the ship to tip forward slightly, its nose pointing towards the ground.
It was agonising going, Kestok wheeling it in slowly as if he was scared the Seeker was going to resist, thrashing around like a hooked fish. It didn’t, simply drifting slowly upwards, the universe’s heaviest balloon.
Once inside, Kestok pressed the button to shut the shuttle bay doors. The consoles were touchscreens, large rounded buttons covering otherwise black glass. The doors slid shut, metal sheets that had retracted inside the hull. The doors were split into sections, each independently operable. They could also be opened together, carving a long gash into the bottom of the Sword. Kestok lowered the Seeker onto the newly formed floor, releasing the magnets.
The ship looked considerably worse for wear. The front landing strut was broken, causing it to lean worryingly. Several gashes were cut into the outer hull, whilst the airlock door was dented. The crystalline creatures below had been eager to get in, taking out their frustrations on the stricken ship. Michael hadn’t spent long aboard, a few days really, but he felt sorry for it, an emotion he had felt when his first car had become wrapped around a lamppost one icy day.
“Ouch, well, she’s going to need some love, that’s for sure,” Kestok said, running his hand over the hull.
“Think you can fix it?” Michael asked. “I kind of like the old bird.”
“Oh yeah, jack it up with the winches, and I can straighten out the landing strut. Might need to bash the door back into shape, it’ll take some muscle but Meggok and Brekt can help with that. Scratches are just cosmetic, we can leave those for now.”
“Can I help?” Skorra asked. She smiled, revealing rows of sharp teeth. Her nose twitched as she did so.
“Of course, you can, kiddo,” Kestok said, smiling back at her. “So can Michael there, it’ll be good for both of you to learn.”
Aileena scanned the documents again, not quite believing what she was reading. Her eyes blinked in unison, and she scrolled down with a flick of her finger.
“Are you sure this is right?” Aileena said to the rainbow-coloured bird standing next to her. Mellok had dived into the ship’s databanks, learning what he could about the Merydians. He had come running over to Aileena, desperate to show her what he had found.
“I’ve found four or five entries like this. It’s right,” Mellok said. His feathers shook, vibrating with anger.